The CLAMP Project: Episode 10: RG Veda volume 9

I'd forgotten that one of the things that CLAMP does well are twist endings, where people aren't who you expected them to be all along. I also forgot about just how terrible a person Demon Ashura was, what with the blood-licking and the evil taunting in the first book. So I was pleasantly surprised reading volume 9 of RG Veda. For a while there, I was losing patience with the series, but everything is moving quickly here. It's sometimes possible for a strong ending to overcome a slow middle section. That's especially true in manga, where it can take months or even years to go from one volume to the next. 

Lady Kendappa is revealed to be not only the Sixth Star, but also Jikokuten, the fourth of Taishakuten's great generals. That's not really that surprising when I think about it: She's the only character who has had the slightest hint of ambiguity about her (aside from Kujaku, who is mostly a mystery, and demon Ashura, who vanished for most of the series), and so it makes sense that she'd be the one with the divided loyalties. She bursts onto the scene in magnificent armor covered in horns and spikes. Best of all, her harp transforms into a giant curved sword. It's a great great character design. Just look how well it works as cosplay. 

Kendappa refuses to join the rest of the Six Stars when they attack the castle, because her loyalty lies with the strongest warrior in the world: Taishakuten. She curses Sohma for being too weak to fight back, but does not kill her. Various others of the stars face off against Taishakuten's generals as Ashura goes straight after his mother.

Ashura attacks his mother, against Tenou's wishes. Tenou begs him for leniency, but Demon Ashura has taken over and Ashura can't be swayed. He runs the Shura sword clean through Shashi, resulting in a very CLAMP image of Ashura holding Shashi in his arms as she dies. It's a very familiar pose, one that we'll definitely see at least once more in another CLAMP series, but very striking.

Ashura and Shashi

At this point, we're probably supposed to feel badly that Ashura was willing to kill his own mother, if Tenou's crying is any indication, but she was so terrible that her death seems reasonable. With Shashi dead, Ashura can take the seal from her forehead and use it to completely awaken the Shura sword. This turns Ashura into a full-out demon and unlocks the passageway between Taishakuten's castle and Shura castle.

Ashura is swallowed up by mechanical looking tentacles that seem a lot like what Lord Ashura saw in his future in the flashback last volume. He emerges, older and now completely changed from the sweet child who was seen earlier in the series. He craves nothing but destruction and shows this by striking down Ryuu.

The rest of the Six Stars sense Ryuu's death, but they're busy in a fight of their own. Karura insists on facing off against Taishakuten alone, but she's too weak and is defeated. So our heroes end the book in a bad place: out of the six stars, one is still fighting for the enemy, one has turned into a demon, and two are dead, leaving just Yasha and Sohma. Yasha, of course, will be heartbroken to see that Ashura has turned evil, and Sohma is basically crippled because of her love for Kendappa. 

It's hard to see now how we'll get anything resembling a happy ending. We know that Ashura is going to kill Yasha, and now it seems pretty likely that nothing will happen to get away from that. The only possibility is in a really interesting exchange that happened between Taishakuten and Kujaku. Kujaku reveals that he, like Taishakuten, has a third eye in the middle of his forehead. This eye is a mark of having done something so terrible that even a demon wouldn't consider it. Kujaku also reveals that he's someone who "used to live here" - the former Lord Ashura reborn perhaps?

I'm impressed at how my attitude towards the series can change so quickly in a single volume. So much happened here that was actually surprising and interesting that I can almost start to forgive the meandering in the middle of the series. It could have been better if it were shorter, but I'm pretty convinced now that CLAMP is going to pull off a satisfying ending, if not a happy one.