In reply to @ash-callenreese ‘s post.
@ash-callenreese I should be the one thanking you for wording your thoughts in such a beautiful way.
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I didn’t reblog my original post since it was already getting too long, so I made a separate post instead, because I think your analysis should be seen by a lot more of us.
When I had finished the manga, I had spent hours pondering about Ash’s fate and thinking why he did what he did at the end, about why he made that choice to simply slip away. And my thoughts were pretty much the same as yours, but you articulated it better than I could’ve ever done :
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It was Ash’s choice at the end. He had always known that violence would be a part of his life, that’s exactly why he himself confessed to Blanca that he’d rather not have any further contact with Eiji. I’m not here to debate the logistics of the scenario where, if either of them had deliberately reached out to each other post canon, and how they might have had survived it, because those are just speculations.
Instead, it was Ash’s choice to keep Eiji out of harm’s way in the only way he knew how : by cutting off all ties.
When Lao’s attack happened, I felt that Ash got the final proof of exactly what kind of misfortune might occur if he had been together with Eiji till then. That incident cemented his doubts further : that his decision to let Eiji go for good had been right. No sooner than he had even thought about going after Eiji, than his life had thrown him the hurdle right at his face. Was it fair to either of them? Of course not. But it was what happened.
Ash’s final choice was to accept death on his own terms. He was a man who valued his freedom more than his life. And I don’t think he’d have wanted to die a nameless death, rotting away in someone’s captivity (the Govt / the mafia /or some other Golzine wannabe, we know there were more than one to fill up his shoes).
So, in the end, it was how you put it : his death was his final sacrifice to keep Eiji safe. Not a shock-value for the audience, not a glorification of love, but a realistic choice that he deemed was best : to let go of everything on his own terms.
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