cyphomandra

Ash is running through the streets towards Dino’s hotel while ineffective minions (Yut-Lung’s) with zodiac code-names shoot at him from cars. Yut-Lung and Blanca fail to bond. Dino’s men spot Ash as well. Meanwhile, Sing, Lao and Alex are trying to find a way out of the sewer. Yut-Lung decides to head out to get closer to the action, and Blanca tries – and fails – to warn him off doing so in a way that really does come across as deliberate reverse psychology, although this is never confirmed. Ash reaches the Museum of Natural History and ducks inside.

Bones, Kong and Eiji are in a very small tunnel, and hear noises. Yut Lung, outside the museum, starts sending in teams of men despite the museum’s lighting being cut off. Ash starts sending them back out again with various and usually fatal injuries. Blanca states that all of this is a distraction, meant to buy Eiji time. Yut-Lung, impatient, ignores Blanca’s advice and sends all his men in. There are a lot of really nice panels of armed gangsters sneaking between skeletons, mummies and glass display boxes that remind me of my sister and I playing hide-and-seek in the local museum as children (okay, without the weapons or the body count), and one of the gangsters even has a moment to admire the T. rex skeleton before Ash cuts his throat. More fighting, with a lot of brief glimpses of Ash (who is holding a knife between his teeth much of the time, but is doing so by the handle and there’s no blood licking, viz Arthur earlier), and then a shot of Cain and his gang, who are somewhere close-by.

In the sewers. Sing’s group and Eiji’s group catch up with each other, although they’re all being shot at by some of Yut-Lung’s men. Things are falling apart for Yut-Lung at the museum. Sing, Eiji and the others get captured (Yut-Lung’s orders are not to kill them), but Lao distracts them and gives Sing a chance to get away. Yut-Lung learns about Eiji’s capture and calms down a lot. Ash is running out of steam, but then Cain’s guys show up, shooting, and Ash grabs Yut-Lung, holding him hostage with his own plait wrapped around his neck, and Cain’s men backing him up. Unfortunately just as things are going well Yut-Lung’s guys show up with their hostages. Ash orders Cain and his gang away, then goes to the Hall of Ocean Life to negotiate an exchange with Blanca. Possibly he just really likes the giant whale they have there, but there’s also a very handy staircase that gives Ash a good position of vantage. Blanca takes Eiji in, chatting to him along the way in a disturbing I hope your arm’s recovered from my shooting it sort of way.

Ash and Blanca agree to a deal – Yut-Lung for Eiji, Alex, Kong and Bones (Sing’s guys have been taken elsewhere) and they manage a swap as well as a failed murder attempt on each other. Ash and the others make for Cain’s hideout, the Rats’ nest. Dino shows up at the museum and chatises Yut-Lung, who says he’ll leave Ash to Dino and then makes a lot of brooding noises and hints at plans once Dino leaves.

In Cain’s hideout. Bodies (sleeping ones) everywhere. Ash gets up, gets warned not to get to close to Eiji by Cain, and then goes out and chats to Eiji on the roof-top, telling him about Blanca. And then they look down to see a wiped-out Sing stagger to the building and collapse. He even gets his own pov recovery panel, and when he comes around he is desperate to get back to Chinatown and rescue his guys so that they won’t end up being killed for him. Ash tells him to calm down and rest, and then says that he’ll help Sing. Ash and Cain discuss the situation, and then we cut to Yut-Lung shooting one of Sing’s guys, and then confronting Lao, revealing in the process that Lao is Sing’s older half-brother and cousin; Yut-Lung plans to use this connection, threatening to kill Sing in order to get Lao to do what he wants.

Back at Cain’s place Eiji has made congee (oh man, the breakfast scenes in this manga make me so hungry, unhelped by the fact that I have yet to find a source of good congee in my current town and am currently looking thoughtfully at recipes) for everyone and Ash has got a computer (his one? hidden earlier?) which he’s using to work out where Yut-Lung will be holding Sing’s gang. Blanca tries to get out of his contract, pleading the injury to his arm Ash gave him at the museum, but Yut-Lung won’t let him go. Sing works out with Ash’s help where Yut-Lung will have stashed everyone, and Cain sends out a couple of his guys to eat noodles and photograph everyone going into the building to confirm Sing’s hunch (this happens in like seven wordless panels and I cannot think of another medium that could convey that much information so neatly). Sing says that they could sneak in using a passage Nadia (Shorter’s sister) has access to, and that’s what they go for – Nadia and Ash catch up, a little (he kisses her on the cheek after she says she thought of him as a brother, presumably as an apology for Shorter, although he just tells her that one day he’ll tell her what happened) and lets them in. They break in past some rather inattentive guards and get out with Sing’s people and surprisingly little damage, something Ash also comments on. And then we cut back to Yut-Lung and Dino, watching them on cameras, and a new character called Colonel Foxx whom Dino is hiring to catch Ash for him.

Ash, in preppy clothes, heads back to his exclusive apartment and almost shoots Max, who’s been waiting for him. They catch up, and then Max asks for a favour, although we don’t see what it is. Ash goes back to Cain’s, where Sing thanks him and asks if Shorter ended up a zombie like Hua-Lung, and Ash says he killed him before that happened. Sing, watching Lao (who’s been beaten up by Yut-Lung’s guys and is semi-conscious at best), says he can’t go up against Ash, and doesn’t know what to do.

Max, the other reporter guy (Steve) are watching a gay bar, planning on going after the owner, Frog, who used to have access to the photos of Golzine’s clients and blackmail some of them to make money. Ash and Max go into the bar as a couple (apparently Max’s idea, although he’s very unhappy about it), and the evil Foxx guy offers to buy Ash a drink. He refuses. Frog comes in and Ash IDs him, and then Ash and Max follow him up to his office and get the photographs off him (he is somewhat alarmed to see Ash). Ash gets more than a little trigger-happy talking about his past and Frog’s role in it, and Max has to stop him from shooting the guy. They leave him alive, but then Foxx walks in…

Ash and Max hand over the photos to the other guy. Ash apologises to Max for losing control, and then tells them to use the pictures of him to get Dino – after all, he’s supposed to be dead, and doesn’t need his privacy or dignity protected. Max, in a really nice moment, sets fire to the folder with all of Ash’s photos in it and tells him that even though he can’t forget it, it’s nothing for him to be ashamed of. The last panel is looking at Ash, past the burning photographs, and his gaze is not so much on the photographs themselves but something inside.

I like Max a lot, and I think his relationship with Ash is very nicely done – it’s probably Ash’s most functional relationship after his one with Eiji, but it has some differences; Max is from the same army unit as Ash’s brother Griff, but the connection Ash keeps emphasising is the fake “Dad” and “Son” relationship, rather than a brother one, and it may well be a way of getting some more distance between them. Both of them using the terms, tho', and it's a nicely believable combination of sarcasm and actual connection; Max talks about what he would expect from a son of his as well, in a sideways approach to the sort of “normal” that Ash left a long time ago. But they also talk like equals, when they’re discussing the plot events or tactics, and although Max is sometimes surprised by Ash, he doesn’t reject him. The moment at the end of this volume, where Max is addressing Ash’s past as directly as he can – first he tells him to forgot it, and then he says that that’s stupid, if Ash could forget it he would have done so long ago – he’s doing this after seeing Ash nearly kill Frog, and start talking about his past. It's not the same as Eiji's unconditional acceptance, but it's still a form of acknowledgment that Ash hasn't gotten from anyone else.