Chapter 68

Sanji becomes the fourth member of the Straw Hat Pirates.

The Fourth Person

Mission 53

As Yor and Matthew clean up after killing almost all of the assassins, the Assassin Leader speaks up, astonished that she killed them all, and calls her a heartless woman. Yor is nonchalant and proposes that the remaining assassins walk away, but the leader says it is out of the question, stating that they have been paid in advance. He adds that there is no way to walk away on the boat and that Matthew has no intention of letting them leave alive.

The leader prolongs a conversation with Matthew long enough to allow a Swordsman to attack Yor and Matthew from behind. Yor and Matthew duck the slash, and before Matthew can shoot back, he is struck in the chest by the sword sheath and knocked back to a wall, leaving him unconscious. Yor fights the Swordsman on her own, but when they clash, Yor's grip strength weakens, and her weapon flies down to the lower deck. The Swordsman goes for a swing, which Yor manages to block with her foot.

As the Swordsman tells Yor to give up, her feet start to feel heavy again. She thinks back to an earlier conversation with Matthew, who tells her that in the event that she dies or is seriously wounded, Loid will be informed that she was "forced to take an emergency transfer." Yor remarks that she is a heartless woman to disappear from Loid and Anya without saying a word.

The Swordsman slashes at Yor, slicing off some of her hair. This worries Yor, who frets about returning to her family with a different hairstyle, but she quickly refocuses on the fight. Sensing Yor's hesitance, the Swordsman tells her to withdraw if she fears death. Yor refuses, as she will not let them lay a hand on Olka or the others. The Assassin Leader tries making a business proposition for Yor, offering a share of the bounty if she steps aside, pointing out that they kill to support themselves.

Yor turns down the offer, saying she is not like them, then thinks about her reason for becoming an assassin. Struggling to find the answer, Yor asks herself why she is doing this job. Before she can think any further, the Swordsman swings at her face. Yor dodges him, but her heel steps into a small gap and stumbles, allowing the Swordsman to strike her with his sheath and knock her to a wall.

The Swordsman points his sword at Yor, who is in a daze, and her thoughts are in disarray. She then sees Yuri flashing before her eyes and remembers how he received a job offer from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and got his first paycheck. Yor acknowledges that Yuri has grown into a fine man and does not need her support anymore, and decides to end her assassin job here. However, when the Assassin Leader heads off to finish Olka and the others, Yor suddenly tears off her earring and throws it at him, stopping him in his tracks. Yor questions why she was protecting Olka and recalls the woman's desire to live a quiet life. Yor then comes to a realization and remembers why she became and stayed as an assassin: the desire to protect Yuri's carefree life.

Yor believes that the world is soiled with needless tragedies and requires thorough cleaning to prevent it. She reaffirms this belief now that she has her new family in the Forgers. Reinvigorated, Yor grips the Swordsman's blade and breaks it. She then moves to the Swordsman, who is surprised by this and slashes her chest. Yor is unfazed by this and tells herself that she does not need to be at peace or care if she has to bloody her hands. She believes that if she dies or has to leave the Forgers, Loid will understand, reminiscing the night he expressed his admiration for her dedication to her work. Yor lands a powerful strike on the Swordsman and declares that she will not give up this fight.

Cupid

An arrow from the bow of Cupid, chubby little God of Love, will make anyone give in to passion and desire.

Cupid, as he was called by the Romans, is the son of Venus and Mars, or Aphrodite and Ares as they were known by the Greeks. He is the God of love and desire, flying about on feathery wings, shooting passion-tipped arrows at all the creatures of the earth. When struck with one of his arrows, man and beast alike fall in love with the next thing they see. Without Cupid's steady aim, there would be no love in this world, which is precisely what happened when Cupid fell in love himself.

Psyche was a mortal of astounding beauty, which made Venus venomously jealous. Venus ordered Cupid to sting her with an arrow, then arranged for Psyche to fall in love with a spider. Invisible, Cupid reluctantly went to Psyche as she slept, yet, she woke suddenly and saw right through Cupid's invisibility. Surprised, Cupid cut himself on his own arrow and fell immediately in love with Psyche.

Furious, Venus would not let Cupid marry Psyche, so Cupid stopped shooting arrows, people stopped falling in love and stopped worshipping Venus. Panicked, the Goddess of beauty relented and Cupid went back to work. Psyche was whisked to a secret location. Cupid visited her only at night so she could not see who he was. Fearing him to be a terrible monster, Psyche waited for Cupid to fall asleep and lit a lantern. Surprised at what she found, she accidentally scraped one of Cupid's arrows and fell in love with him.

Venus was displeased and forbade Psyche to see her son, forcing her to complete a series of impossible challenges that Psyche overcame only with mystical help. Finally, Cupid begged Jupiter (Zeus) to intervene. Casually, he declared Psyche and Cupid could be together. Thus, Cupid fed Psyche the drink of ambrosia that made her immortal and the God of love got to live happily ever after.

Renegade Commander

Jim Raynor was a former soldier of the Terran Confederacy, who abandoned the sector-wide conflict of the Guild Wars to turn to banditry alongside his comrade Tychus Findlay. However, soon he began to see the dark path he was following, and after Tychus was captured it turned a new leaf, becoming marshal on Mar Sara. Years later, the alien zerg invaded the world. Despite bravely fighting the alien aggressors and saving many lives, he was arrested by Confederate forces on the pretext of destroying zerg-infested Confederate property at Backwater Station. When he was subsequently liberated by Arcturus Mengsk's Sons of Korhal, an anti-Confederate revolutionary group, Raynor chose to fight alongside them.

Mengsk’s hunger for power and his growing lack of scruples soon began to trouble Raynor. Eventually Mengsk’s betrayal of his own lieutenant Sarah Kerrigan and his ruthless manipulation of the zerg to attack Confederacy-held worlds showed Raynor that Mengsk was no better than the oppressors he sought to overthrow. Raynor led a revolt within the ranks of the Sons of Korhal and seized Mengsk’s personal flagship, the Hyperion, and a small fleet of ships, forming Raynor's Raiders. While attempting to rescue Kerrigan from the zerg planet Char, Raynor was forced to fight against the now zerg infested Kerrigan, but allied with the protoss forces there and gained the respect of the valiant Executor Tassadar. Raynor’s frank honesty enabled him to forge a bond between Tassadar and the dark templar Zeratul.

Raynor and his troops went on to fight alongside the protoss in several campaigns and played a key role in battling the United Earth Directorate incursion that followed. A twist of fate found Raynor temporarily allied with Arcturus Mengsk and the Queen of Blades, the being reforged from Sarah Kerrigan by the zerg Overmind. Although these two tyrants fought against a common foe, it was only a matter of time until their tenuous alliance collapsed. In the end Kerrigan was the one who turned against her erstwhile allies and struck the first blow, and many of Jim Raynor’s comrades died to her treachery, including his protoss ally Fenix.

Raynor escaped the massacre and vowed vengeance. Even so, against the full strength of the zerg Swarm and the vast psionic powers of the Queen of Blades, his chances seemed slender at best, and his retaliatory attempts failed. Eventually, exhausted and disillusioned, Raynor returned to terran space to lead a resistance movement against the spreading power of Arcturus Mengsk’s Terran Dominion. Over the years this fight hasn’t gone well. Arcturus Mengsk has used his greatest weapons – oratory, the media, and propaganda – to marginalize Raynor’s efforts. Raynor’s Raiders remained public enemy number one to the powerful Terran Dominion. Mengsk sees Raynor’s continuing existence as a challenge to his authority. However, Mengsk is also wary of creating a martyr by having Raynor assassinated, and so he has taken steps to keep Raynor and his followers constantly hunted and harried, denying them any chance to gain a respite and build their strength.

After years of losing skirmishes against the Dominion, Raynor fell into a depression until the return of Tychus Findlay, who came with an offer of funding from a science group named the Moebius Foundation if the Raiders helped find pieces of an artifact. However, not long after the zerg returned to invade Dominion space, and Raynor used his forces to help civilians against the zerg, rally forces and strike against the Dominion, and gather the artifacts as he could. During his war, Raynor received a prophecy from Zeratul showing that a fallen xel'naga, progenitor race of the universe, was returning, and Kerrigan was the key to stopping them. He also discovered the Arcturus's son, Valerian Mengsk, was behind the Moebius Foundation, and wanted Raynor to help him use the artifact to save Kerrigan. Raynor agreed, and the two's forces attacked her core hive on Char, purifying her and reverting her to human.

Raynor escaped with Kerrigan to the nation of the Umojan Protectorate, but they were followed by Mengsk. During the raid Raynor was captured by Nova Terra and imprisoned, but months later was freed by a now reinfested Kerrigan who once again lead the zerg. Raynor was first appalled she returned to the Swarm, but soon saw she was not the same murderess, and helped her attack Mengsk on Korhal and kill Arcturus once and for all. Raynor then helped install Valerian as the new emperor of the Dominion, and aided in establishing a new fairer rule for the nation.

A year later the xel'naga from Zeratul's prophecy, Amon, returned, leading terran thralls and protoss/zerg hybrids on an attack on Korhal. Raynor rallied a defense of the planet, but was only victorious when aided by the protoss under Artanis. When Amon was pushed back into his home dimension, Raynor, Artanis and Kerrigan assaulted the realm, finally slaying the alien. In the aftermath of the battle, Raynor was never seen again, with the only sign of his departure being a marshal's badge left on the counter of a Mar Sara bar.

Texas

The episode starts up at Goo Lagoon where SpongeBob, Patrick, and Sandy are playing in the sand. Sandy makes some sand in the shape of Texas, which is soon destroyed by the goo tide. A despondent Sandy walks off sadly, while SpongeBob tries to cheer her up and offers to play with her, but Sandy explains that she is just feeling a little homesick. SpongeBob and Patrick then blindfold her and take her to her treedome, which only adds to Sandy's depression. She begins crying, and runs off.

Both SpongeBob and Patrick are confused until they hear Sandy singing a song from on top of her treedome about how much she misses Texas, which made everyone else suffer from her song and cry. They decide to cheer up Sandy by throwing a Texas-themed party for her at the Krusty Krab. They go to Sandy's house to ask her to come to the Krusty Krab with them, but she tells them that she is leaving Bikini Bottom to move back to Texas. SpongeBob is shocked by this, and tries to convince her to go to the Krusty Krab, but fails. Sandy gets into a bus out of Bikini Bottom and leaves. Patrick insults Texas by calling it dumb, asking what is so great about it.

Suddenly, the bus comes back and Sandy returns, then angrily berates Patrick for badmouthing her hometown. Patrick then asks if he can say that people from Texas are dumb, which angers her even further. This gives SpongeBob an idea to lure Sandy to the Krusty Krab. He and Patrick continue insulting Texas, and an enraged Sandy begins chasing them. They intend to lead Sandy to her surprise party at the Krusty Krab. Patrick continuously insults Texas, thinking Sandy is too slow to catch up to them, only to soon realize that she is very fast and catching up to them.

Sandy lassos Patrick and pulls him to her, and a nuclear explosion is shown in the background as he disappears. SpongeBob, still hoping to reach the Krusty Krab, begins screaming as he runs as fast as he can. Sandy's lasso reaches SpongeBob the instant he reaches the door of the Krusty Krab, and she attempts to pull him to her as he holds the door with his pinkie finger. Eventually, this causes the entire front of the building to be torn off, revealing the party inside. Then everyone says, "Howdy, y'all!"

Sandy realizes how much her underwater friends care about her, and that Bikini Bottom has become her true home, and decides to stay. The crowd is happy about this and starts cheering (with an exception of Squidward). Suddenly, Patrick once again insults Texas and as the episode ends with the shown off-screen cutting back to Bikini Atoll, Sandy gets angry once again, and Patrick asks if he should start running again.

Buggy's Crew Adventure Chronicles

Vol. 23: "Suspicious Parts"

バギー一味冒険記vol.23「不審なパーツ」

Oda Eiichiro

A manga by our staff member Ejiri-san will be in Akamaru Jump which goes on sale the 14th. Good work on those manuscripts.

14日売りの赤マルジャンプにスタッフの江尻さんの漫画が載る。原稿おつかれっ