#i'm reading ch 342

[uozlulu]

Black Clover chapter 342 reaction and spoilers

The story of the five headed dragon and maiden explains why Ryuuya’s name has two dragons in it (each Ryuu).

Ichika tells Asta, “"It was said that the yoruyoku of the dragon seeped out turning the ocean black and stagnant, twisting space and time, and connecting it to hell,” which is interesting because 1) that’s basically what Yami’s dark magic can do and 2) it might explain how Yami ended up on the other side of the ocean in Clover Kingdom years later if perhaps some kind of warp or portal exists in the sea that turned black in the legend.

It’s interesting that it’s Sukehiro and Young Master Ryuudou because that only reinforces the parallel here between Asta and Yuno even though Yuno grew up not knowing he was of a higher class. It also fits in that Ryuuya has gone on to become shougun whereas we all know Asta will likely become Wizard King unless the ending to the series is a complete restructuring of Clover Kingdom’s class system and Wizard King evolves into a council or dissolves as a title entirely.

Ryuuya says, “I want this country to be a place where we can all live and laugh together no matter what our rank or yoryoku looks like,” and it makes me curious what went through Yami’s mind the first time Asta yammered about his dream in this context since Yami chose Asta at the xam because Asta was going to work hard and not give up despite being at a disadvantage mana-wise.

Some observations:

Everyone is present at a torii at night, which seems suspicious especially since it’s past midnight since that looks like a waning third quarter phase moon.

Ryuuya is alive but injured and holding Ichika in a way that makes it look like he picked her up, which fits with the fact she looks like she’s waking up or coming to. I’m inclined to believe this means that Ryuuya might have arrived part way through whatever happened, likely the noise drawing his attention.

Ichika goes on to tell Asta that Yami abandoned her and Ryuuya, which seems to suggest he did not attack them (at least after this particular visual in the chapter), though we don’t have proof of this yet.

I have a few theories on what happened.

I think the most likely one is that the clan or their dad was going to kill Ichika and Yami protected her. The reason she doesn’t remember how this began is she was drugged or knocked out for whatever reason. Ryuuya arrived part way through, tried to protect Ichika from those that wanted to harm her, and Yami finished everyone off.

Taking Yami’s expression when he looks at Ryuuya and Ichika into account, it’s also possible that he was possessed by something be it the dragon or the maiden and gutted the clan in some sort of culmination of the legend itself. Perhaps has the maiden (Yami) destroying the dragon (clan) especially since Yami and Vangeance tend to be depicted as a kind of yin and yang situation and yin tends to be associated with things like the new moon, the feminine, darkness, night, etc…

It’s also possible something took possession of Ichika who then threatened the clan, so when they went to take her out, Yami killed them all. This might not have happened at the beach but earlier or I’d think she’d be covered in blood too possibly

If we’re going the Itachi route here, which I don’t think we will, then I would think that there might be some kind of divine or devil influence happening here since the theme of this saga post-Eye of the Midnight Sun saga, appears to be devils and angels. If this is the case, this might also be how Yami ended up in Clover, although I’m inclined to believe he ended up in Clover due to a warp or portal established by the legend at the start of this chapter.

There are some other options but I’m inclined to side with Asta here. There’s something that started the incident and we don’t know what it is. I suspect whatever it was, it’ll make sense given what we already know of Yami. This is also why I’m inclined to think the motivation is going to be different than Itachi’s motivation because Yami doesn’t seem to have that kind of baggage you might expect if someone like say Ryuuya’s dad blackmailed him into the massacre. Although Yami also left immediately but at the same time in any of these scenarios he just might to escape a murder charge

I could of course be wrong especially since we’re missing Ryuuya’s and Yami’s sides of this story so we have very little information to go on here.