JWHEOFJEOR THIS IS SO SAD

JWHEOFJEOR THIS IS SO SAD

I just woke up to see this, now I'm sobbing here.......

Misdirection

Doing some rereading to get back into the swing of things, and the chapter I happened to start with immediately gave me some very interesting, juicy pieces

From Volume 8, chapter 38, "The Method Called Me"

This sequence of panels caught my attention immediately because initially my first reaction was to go "Lily you FUCKING liar" (understandable lel)

But then Mahiru's portion happened on the next page and I realized that Lily never actually said what question Tsubaki asked him. Mahiru merely assumes he knows what it was, and through him, we readers are ALSO certain that the question Lily was asked was, of course, the same one posed to him and Kuro.

And then immediately after this, while Misono is wracking his brain about how it should have been impossible for Tsubaki to make the journey from between the Alicein grounds and the hotel in such a short period of time, Tetsu interrupts his thoughts to ask Tsubaki "Do you know what happened to Hugh?"

And, well

Tsubaki misleads him. Never does he actually SAY that that is Hugh, as other characters later realize when the trick is revealed. A trick which is very similar, in practice, to the one Belkia used to get Hugh away from them in the first place. I'm going to place the whole next page, both because I find the effects given to the page, what with its smoke and obscuring scribbles (the attention here is flawless btw. Reading back over this scene it's riddled with such clear visual clues that the whole conversation is cluttered and obscured with tricks befitting Tsubaki's animal form, a kitsune, and that we the readers should have been more wary)

The other reason I'm sharing the whole page is because L M A O Strike is the funniest person on earth y'all, they must have been giggling and heehee'ing SO MUCH when putting this scene together. I would not have the patience to hold off on revealing the joke for as long as they did god bless. The joke, of course, being that Hugh and Tetsu's relationship is one built entirely on lies.

The way Tsubaki directs the conversation is also pretty masterful, as every doubt Misono raises is quickly dealt with, reassuring the readers that every seeming mystery we're being presented with has an adequate explanation at hand. Tsubaki himself being an illusion as well is just icing on the cake.

My god though, this panel of the fox obscuring Misono's vision is just mEAN knowing what we do now.

Anyway, back to what I said before, about how Tsubaki uses words in a similar way to how a magician misleads an audience to perform a vanishing act. If you've ever seen someone perform sleight of hand or seen a stage show, you'll know immediately what I'm talking about. Magicians make use of misdirection and lies of omission, of making you focus elsewhere or not telling you the whole truth, in order to perform their tricks. When an audience is hyped up with excitement and eager to watch the magician perform, they will easily follow commands, hoping to catch the moment of the "trick," or else follow along with how the magician is moving without meaning to. In a similar fashion, Tsubaki leads the conversation, not allowing the other characters to think too deeply about things in a situation that is already extremely high tension, given that he has hold of Lawless's Item.

Which brings me to the final page, and something that if not an outright lie, potentially paints a sobering picture of how Tsubaki's views himself

If the only "person" who can create a Servamp is Germaine, and Tsubaki intends to revive him, then either Germaine will not be brought back as a Servamp, or...

Tsubaki doesn't see himself as a "person".

This view of his seems to be further reinforced with how he speaks in volume 15, chapter 87, "If you are going to leave me behind"

When he speaks of Servamps and their distance limit, he predicates his words with "To the instruments in this world, to the systems" and speaks of how he believes the distance limit is a prayer to never be apart again. Earlier in the chapter, he also claims that he believes his purpose for existing, the reason he was created, is to make Kuro "complete."

He wasn't born for himself, but for the sake of another.

Doesn't that just... Sound too sad?