#it really is probably just my period and my apartment being a mess thats screwing with me

[ibrithir-was-here]

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[chryso0]

Theories about new Chapter;

Obviously we all have a lot of questions about the latest chapter and what this all means for the boys. This particular panel threw a lot of people off and for very obvious reasons as its going to change the course of the story quite a lot. 

This post is gonna be more focused on Akihito (sorry Asami 🥺), and what happened with him. We are gonna be asking. The WHO, the HOW, the WHY and the RESOLUTION

And we're gonna get to all of that in what will probably be a long post. These are just my personal theories, but this is probably the most cohesive and most convincing theory crafting for what’s to come after that very dramatic episode. 

We are gonna start off with the WHO;

SUDOH AND SAKAZAKI. Period. 

I know everyone has different theories about who is responsible for why Akihito is like this. But I think I'm gonna take the most obvious answer - its fuckin Sudoh. 

I am also inclined to believe chernobog is dead and not involved. It is rare for Sensei to kill people off so unequivocal. The fact that she killed off Yuri and Aaron (#1 and #2) - with no possibly way to return. Sorry I just think they’re organization is just dead. And even if some other faction of chernobog some how came together and regrouped. why in the hell would they work with Sudoh- AGAIN? after he screwed them over, and got all their leaders killed. 

Now there are other villains and suspicious characters, for which we don’t know there involvement. Maxim!? Alex?! Asami’s father?!!?

BUT I don’t think they’re directly involved in what happened to Akihito -and I say directly because they could have been secretly pulling all the strings. or purposely turning a blind eye. Or are otherwise working against Asami in other ways.

But to me I think its pretty clear cut that Sudoh is directly behind Akihito’s brainwashing and there are a ton of pretty explicit clues to that in that very last panel of the chapter where Akihito brandishes the knife. 

Now when that panel came out on the internet- I saw a lot of people saying crazy theories like. It’s not Akihito it’s Sudoh after facial reconstruction. Which is just- no! thats just to crazy. No!

BUT I do think the image is MEANT to invoke Sudoh. I don’t think its a coincidence that Akihito looks like Sudoh.

The way Akihito hair is just a little bit to straight! That evil look in his eyes. His face parallels with this panel below- half the face in darkness. His hair covering one eye, that looks out darkly.

But to me the most blatant and obvious connection, is the very knife Akihito wields. 

The black switch blade. It’s Sudoh’s signature weapon. He’s toting it here in the below images, when he visits Akihito’s dream right before Chernobog attacked the apartment, but he was also using it when he had Akihito captured in the warehouse.

In this other panel of Akihito’s dream, we see the exact same knife but we also see a pretty EXACT parallel to what's happened in the latest chapter. The knife. in the bedroom. cutting a defenseless Asami’s throat. (its like a game of clue)

It’s even a little eerie, in hindsight, that in this panel we coincidentally never see Sudoh face, only his hand. Almost like it could be anyone doing that- Even you Akihito!

But it made me think that Sensei really was doing some foreshadowing and really nothing is a coincidence with her.

Which now leads me to the question of HOW:

Something thats really bothered me about this newest chapter, and something I keep returning to is this- Akihito’s personality, this entire time has been built upon the fact that he is a journalist and truth seeker. 

So what throws me about this particular new direction - is even if Akihito’s memories are gone. Is that part of his personality really gonna go away? I just can’t believe that. Even when he was alone and out of touch - like when he was in the temple- he still couldn’t help but seek information and seek the truth. and even in the face with fear, he usually still seeks answers.

Obviously he might have been tortured for months, and it’s more then possible he did fight, but eventually they snuffed that out of him. And while this is totally possible - I don’t believe that sensei would go THAT dark.

So I'm more inclined to believe that they starve off his curiosity by feeding him lies, half truths, and maybe some partial memories of his life. 

Now imagine this. Tell Akihito basically everything about his life. At the very least, he seems to know they are ‘supposed to be’ lovers given his theatrics before he wields the knife. So tell him that his feelings for Asami where real. But then use all his insecurities about his relationship that we know  know where always there, and that haven’t magically disappeared after their ‘honeymoon’ period on the island. And use half truths and some lies to turn Asami in to the villain. 

When people were using that crazy theory about Sudoh getting facial reconstruction- all I could remember was this exact panel from volume 8. This panel is when Sudoh has Akihito kidnapped in the warehouse. Akihito is thinks about his relationship with Asami, and his fears and insecurities, he say  

“Will I turn out like Sudo?”

It’s not Sudoh magically turning into Akihito. It’s Akihito becoming more like Sudoh. And he’s already shown that he has had that fear. 

Now why does Sudoh hate Asami- The story is obviously a bit more complicated then how Sudoh probably sees himself. But Sudohs feels like he’s been abandoned. That he did everything that Asami ever wanted. That he crossed all the lines. But because he went too far,  and got mixed up with chernobog everything completely collapsed and Asami didn’t ever reward his loyalty with anything meaningful. 

Is it even that hard to convince Akihito that the SAME thing happened to him. Especially if his memories are messed up and he doesn’t have the full picture (hahaha photography puns). It would be pretty easy to convince him that Asami abandoned him to whatever horrible fate that befell him at the hands of Sudoh and Sakazaki.

Something that keeps running in my mind, is the very timely moment Akihito awakes in the hospital after his coma. It’s such a sad use of tragic timing. He is waking up at the same time that Asami is being safely evacuated and rescued by Alex on orders by Maxim. It’s like they’ve just missed each other. 

But I think you can see how it could easily be twisted and made to look as if Asami was leaving behind a comatosed Akihito. Abandoning Akihito when he was at his most vulnerable state. It could easily be twisted into Asami getting whisked away by his men, to some undisclosed location where he's getting top notch care and he never planned on taking Akihito with him. 

Then right when Akihito’s wake. its like they’ve just missed each other, and if Asami had just brought him along then he wouldn’t have fallen in to Sakazaki and Sudoh’s clutches.

And after everything Akihito had just been though. All the lines he had crossed. Shotting at Sudoh, his willingness to KILL for Asami. The lengths he would go to protect Asami. Literally TAKING THE FALL damage for Asami. and using his own body. Just for all those things to be manipulated and twisted into-  Asami never cared about you, you were just his play thing and he left you behind to rot- then yeah. hell yeah thats a Revenge Arch in the making!

Obviously the truth is being distorted, manipulated and twisted in some way by his captors. He doesn’t remember Asami’s confession, or how Asami used his own body to take bullets for him. Or all the other things that Asami has done, or the promises they made to each other on the island

This whole thing reminded me that during the naked truth arc Akihito had no assurances that Asami would rescuing him. He was constantly doubting himself thinking Asami wouldn’t go that far for him. And yet. we also know that some part of him was still holding out hope while he was in Hong Kong, thinking maybe Asami is coming.

Maybe at first he doesn’t believe everything. he fights it, as we know he is a fighter. But the naked truth arc kidnapping was Maybe a month of separation. We are talking about a whole half a year of no rescue, of no word from Asami. of enduring whatever hardships Sudoh and Sakazaki likely did to him. After a while, he might have given up hope entirely and believed that Asami had really left him. 

and y’know we all know Akihito has a bit of Stockholm syndrome. its not that much of a stretch to think after a while he started to agree with his captors and sympathize with them.

I can see that when somehow when word finally reaches that Asami is back and he’s looking for Akihito- I can see that being such salt in the wounds for him. Like he comes now? after all this time, to come in and pretend to be the knight and shining armor. It drives him even more into doing this.

NOW here comes the WHY: 

Well it seems pretty self explanatory why Sudoh would do this. 

I’v said this in other post but I'll say it again. To me what happen to Akihito wasn’t just about one thing- I think a lot of people want to make what happen to Akihito about Asami. That the goal was to assassinate Asami, that he was the intended target, and theres some wider underworld thing happening. When to me- this was very much a personal attack on both of them. 

and when I mean personal I mean personal. it’s not about who’s in charge of the underworld, or someone trying to usurp Asami. this was an attack on them. on their relation. this was an attack meant to hurt both of them in the worst way possible.

hell I dont even think Sudoh did this because he reasonably believed that Akihito could assassinate Asami- BUT y’know it was probably worth a try. And I’m guessing Akihito was eager to do it.

resolution:

I don’t have a real solution- I have no idea what's gonna happen next chapter. But I do have some theories. I think it would be real interesting to have Akihito use his photography and his journalist instincts, that seeking the truth personality of his to find out what really happened and to figure out what the truth is. 

We’ve gotten a lot of volumes recently that revolve around Asami’s world and what's going on in the underworld. So Idk it would be kinda nice to have Akihito getting back to his roots in some ways. 

BUT I’m also like we’re finally kinda getting all these Asami POV (which is nice) and we’ve just learned a bit about Asami’s past so it makes me think that the focus of the next volume is gonna be on Asami more then Akihito. 

But I think whatever the solution is it has to be Akihito getting/finding out the real truth, and probably getting all his memories back. And maybe Asami is the one thats going to give him that, or maybe Akihito has to do it himself and become the focus of his own investigation. 

Thanks for reading if you’ve read this far ❤️❤️ I think to much about finder obviously 😭 this was literally sitting in my drafts for weeks cause I was struggling with how to convey all of this.