[3]
Okay back to THIS moment.
Ashura is bestabbed and finally decides to replace attempted murder with signs of affection. He wipes Fai’s tears away, saying “You mustn’t shed tears for one such as I.” And now on this page he either whispers closely to Fai or kisses him on the forehead, but either way he passes on his intention that Fai should have been the one to kill Ashura and that would have removed his curse.
It’s framed as if Ashura was trying to do Fai a favour and this is boosted in the fact that it’s Ashura’s last living action. He has mere seconds left to live and he uses it to give Fai the affection that (he implies) his actions were always meant to embody.
Never mind the fact that just seconds ago he admitted that Fai wasn’t actually strong enough to pull this off. Even when Fai put his all into it, he still would have died.
Never mind the fact that Ashura was very definitely seconds away from murdering both Lava Lamp and Kurogane, and would have done so happily.
Never mind the fact that he murdered an entire world (or at least a portion of it) and spent his entire life deceiving everyone who thought well of him, luring them into trust and security only so he could slaughter them all later.
Never mind all that. This was all for Fai’s benefit, you see.
It’s that horrible twisted shadow of love that’s entirely selfish and doesn’t take into account any of the horrific suffering they cause on anyone else, least of all on the person they claim to love.
Fai is, clearly, distraught. He’s broken. Ashura has manipulated him and brainwashed him and turned him against his family and used every memory as a weapon against him and torn Fai’s entire life to pieces around him - but, oh, it was going to be a good thing. It was for Fai, you see.
Cue me screaming with contempt in the distance.
ON the plus side, it shows that neat example of all the best villains see themselves as the Good Guys of their own story.
And, for our benefit (and hopefully for Fai’s) the page ends with a panel that has no Ashura in it at all - just a message that looks forward to the future.
Ashura, with all his murder and lies and terrible manipulative anguish, could not free Fai from his curse. He tried his absolute best (almost killed everyone involved in the process) and still failed miserably. It was never going to happen, not in this scenario.
But Fai’s new family might be the ones to help him do it. Admitted by Ashura himself, in his final moment of candor, he sees that the love and strength of Fai’s new family has the potential to succeed where his violence failed.
And THIS is, perhaps, the only good thing Ashura has done. Even though Fai is overcome with grief right now he now has the seed to continue loving and trusting his family, with the potential hope that sticking with them will bring happiness in all the ways that Ashura did not.
AND THEN
(with a pause to warn about sudden gore)
HE SUDDENLY DIES.
And all I can say is THANK GOODNESS FOR THAT