Hello! I hope you have a good day. When Agni dies in chapter 127, he insists that he had been happy. He seems at peace. I think it's uncharacteristic of Agni to be so easily accepting of his own death because, based off of what we have seen of him, he exists to serve Prince Soma and by dying he would be leaving him unprotected from further attacks. I would have expected him to be more disturbed. It feels kinda off that he's so complacent...what d'you think?
【tw: Agni’s Death and heartbreak】
Indeed, Agni did seem pretty at peace when he died. People who died in absolute peace usually show signs of having their mouth and eyes shut. People who did not die in peace sadly often have open eyes and mouths, which are very hard to close without a few “tweaks” from a professional. Though Agni’s lips were not closed, his shut eyes do indicate a pretty high level of peace.
You are right to say that Agni does basically live for the sake of protecting his prince, and that Soma is vulnerable without him. And yet I would argue that it makes sense that Agni died in relative peace as long as we consider what he knew.
The meaning of Agni’s death
We first need to look at how Agni was found, namely with as many as SEVEN daggers in his back. This grotesque display tells us that the final goal of the culprit(s) was neither Agni’s or Soma’s death. Instead, this is a power move, or even a declaration of war to O!Ciel and Sebastian. Allow me to expand.
Firstly, an assassin who simply wants their target dead would not bring this many disposable weapons on them. A practical assassin would choose just one or a few trustworthy weapons that are effective and protect a certain level of anonymity.
Unlike Sebastian who uses cutlery as disposable shuriken, this assassin chose to use daggers as hand-held weapons. If we look at Agni’s corpse, we can tell that it must have been relatively easy for the assassin to just retract their weapon if they wanted to. Why take one dagger to stab, then another, and another, and another, if you can just stab-stab-stab with the same weapon? A normal assassin would only bring maybe one extra dagger or something else as a backup should their first weapon be lost during mission, not seven.
If the assassin’s final goal was Agni’s death they could have simply slit his throat. In Agni’s current position he’s defenseless, after all. Instead the assassin never went for Agni’s vitals and instead decided to leave such a violent spectacle. Why? Because they only wanted to use Agni’s corpse as a macabre message board:
“I could take out this highly skilled fighter and make as many stabs as I wanted. Fear me.”
Secondly but more importantly, had the culprit(s) also needed Soma dead, then the wooden door would have done NOTHING to protect Soma from these crazy culprits. Agni was blocking the door with his life not to keep the assassins out, but to keep his master IN. This action is the answer to why Agni could die at relative peace, because he knew that the assassin(s) wouldn’t need to kill Soma anymore if his own death alone was sufficient.
We know that Agni figured out that the culprits wouldn’t need Soma dead because he’d be helpful in being living witness of whatever it is R!Ciel purposely showed his face for. If he hadn’t figured that out, Agni wouldn’t have gone out of his way to give Soma the picture of the twins; it was to prevent his master from mistaking O!Ciel to be the attacker.
The strategy that R!Ciel and his partner planned really was going for a phenomenal win-win situation. Let us now look at the two patterns in which they could have secured victory.
The smaller the support system O!Ciel would have, the better of course. Because R!Ciel has good reason to believe the Midfords will on be his side (or at least not have very good ground not to be), his only other real concern is Soma and his butler with God’s right hand. Of course we have no confirmation (yet) what exactly R!Ciel aimed to achieve by showing Soma his face (while his partner was disguised), but I have a pretty good hunch that it was to cause a rift between Soma and O!Ciel.
The panel wherein we see Soma immediately reflex-punch O!Ciel upon witnessing his face confirms that he has seen R!Ciel’s face, and that the antagonistic reaction is most probably the desired result.
In pattern 1 wherein only Soma survives there is a big chance antagonism towards O!Ciel will manifest and remain because R!Ciel has made sure to traumatise Soma thoroughly. He could actively try to fight our protagonists, or rat them out to the police. Even if Soma does not actively turn on O!Ciel, then in the very least he would be less likely to remain his ally. Alternatively, even if Soma would wish to remain O!Ciel’s ally...what’s a pampered human boy gonna do? (They couldn’t know God’s right hand would pass onto Soma.)
Pattern 2 - spare neither
The second pattern is wherein the assassin kills both of them, but even here the main focus would still be Agni. Obviously killing Soma off is a lot easier as he is just a normal human, but if they let Agni live then surely he would have chased them down to the edge of Hell to avenge his prince. The only way to make sure that they wouldn’t have a God’s right hand chasing them to eternity and beyond was to first kill Agni while his master still lived.
The moment Agni is dead Soma’s death really would be inconsequential to our assassins, and Agni knew. As explained above, the assassins would probably have liked Soma alive to become O!Ciel’s obstacle, but obviously if Soma were to launch a counterattack they wouldn’t have hesitated to also just finish him. That is why Agni made sure to keep Soma inside the room so he can’t retaliate. The assassin had already demonstrated their ability to take on even God’s right hand, so f*cking what if they also managed to kill a normal human?
In a nutshell: Agni knew that he was dead meat anyway, but at least if he could make sure Soma wouldn’t retaliate, he would survive.
Naturally the assassins couldn’t be sure that Soma wouldn’t commit suicide or something, but as explained above, that doesn’t matter to them because Soma’s antagonism or witness-account isn’t their main goal. If Soma had committed suicide or just became irresponsive after this attack, then the violent etching of “who stole the candy from my tummy?” alone would have sufficed to scare O!Ciel and Sebas.
As for Agni however, we also can’t be sure whether he was sure Prince Soma wouldn’t commit suicide afterwards. Even if there is the slightest chance however, Agni would want to make sure his master would live out his days. So the picture of the twins he shoved into Soma’s hand serves two purposes:
communicate that the attacker is not O!Ciel to prevent the rift between O!Ciel and Soma,
give Soma reason to live on for at least O!Ciel’s sake, and maybe even to go help him out somehow.
The main goal of the assassins was not Agni or Soma’s death, but to use Agni’s violent death as a power move/declaration of war.
Agni understood why R!Ciel purposely showed Soma his face and reasoned Soma’s death couldn’t be the assassin’s goal. So his priority became to secure Soma behind a door to make sure he wouldn’t take on an impossible opponent Agni himself couldn’t even take on.
Agni has consistently considered Sebastian a trustworthy friend, and probably reasoned that as long as Soma and O!Ciel would remain friends, O!Ciel would keep also Soma protected through Sebastian. Because Agni trusts Sebastian and his skills, he knew that even with himself gone his prince would be safe.
As such, it is fair to say that Agni really was able to pass on in relative peace because he knows he’s made sure he prevented the rift between his master and his safety-card.
In conclusion, chapters 127 and 128 are mostly non-verbal, and yet they arguably communicate more messages than the entire arc together. I would say that all of this actually makes Agni’s death all the more sad and beautiful... I kinda hate Yana for taking away Agni from us...but I ADORE her for writing SUCH an intricate plan ≽▽≼
Well everyone, I hope this helps... (´；_；`)ｳｯ… now...allow me a moment to mourn Agni...
