Parallel world Manga Artist-Chapter 232: Goodnight

In the original Hunter x Hunter manga, many things had been cutting corners. Rough drafts published as final manuscripts, character line art deteriorating mid-serialization... none of this was news to Rei from his previous life.

However, the final farewell between Komugi and the Ant King, with over a dozen panels of pure black screens and nothing but text dialogue throughout, had left a deep impression on him back then.

His current ability allowed him to fill in the visuals corresponding to those dialogues. In fact, he had actually drawn the relevant pages, complete with fully rendered art.

But after staring at them for a long while, he ultimately felt that the pure black panels from his previous life carried more artistic depth.

Some things were more powerful when left unseen.

He scrapped the finished art and went with the black screens.

Yuma flipped the page with his finger and froze.

An entire page of solid black.

No art. No panels. No backgrounds. Just darkness... and text.

It was as if the manga had pulled him bodily into that underground bunker. He was there with Komugi and the Ant King, feeling their final farewell in real time. Feeling how they no longer had the strength to lift the Gungi pieces, so they played blind, calling out moves with nothing but their voices.

[6-5-1, Knight.]

[2-7-2, Blade, New.]

[Komugi... are you there?]

[Of course, I'm here. I'm not going anywhere. 4-5-1... Vice Admiral.]

[Checkmate...]

Yuma's fingers tightened on the page. His throat burned.

[Komugi, are you there?]

[Yes, of course I am! Lord Meruem, the loser goes first!]

[Komugi...]

[Yes, I hear you. What is it?]

[In the end... I still couldn't win a single game against you!]

Yuma yanked a fistful of tissues from the box and pressed them against his face. His nose was running. His eyes wouldn't stop.

Black-filled panels. Simple text. Nothing else.

There were no images, yet somehow Komugi's gentle, smiling face materialized in the darkness of his mind. The Ant King's expression of quiet contentment, free of regret, seemed to glow on the page that showed nothing at all.

If any other mangaka had done this, Yuma would have torn them apart for being lazy. Black screens? In a weekly serialization? That was the oldest shortcut in the book.

But Hunter x Hunter had been drawn beautifully from start to finish. Every chapter of the Chimera Ant arc had been polished to a standard that put most manga to shame. The fact that Shirogane chose this method here, at the most important moment of the entire arc...

It wasn't laziness.

It was trust.

Trust in the readers to imagine something more beautiful than any drawing could capture. Trust that the farewell between Meruem and Komugi belonged not on the page, but in the hearts of the people reading it.

Yuma wiped his eyes and kept reading.

[What are you saying? The match has only just begun.]

[Yeah! 1-5-1, Marshal!]

A new match began. Komugi responded immediately, her voice bright even through text alone.

But the Ant King asked again.

[Komugi, are you there?]

Yuma's chest tightened. He understood now. The Ant King wasn't asking about the game.

He was checking if she was still alive.

Each time he called her name, it was because he was terrified that the silence between moves meant she had already gone.

[Komugi, I'm a little tired. I want to sleep for a bit. Can you hold my hand like this?]

[Komugi? Komugi, are you there?]

'Please answer. Please.'

He was begging alongside Meruem now.

[I'm listening...]

[I'll wake up soon. Until then, can you stay by my side?]

The words blurred on the page. Yuma couldn't tell if it was tears or if his hands were shaking too much to hold the manga steady.

A series of black panels. Continuous dialogue between two people who had nothing left in the world except each other. Finally, the last words the Ant King spoke to Komugi:

[Komugi... can you say my name?]

The black panels ended.

What appeared before Yuma's eyes was a single, devastating illustration. Komugi, bathed in soft light as though the darkness itself had parted for her. A smile of pure contentment on her face, free of any regret. Blood trickling from her nose and mouth. And Meruem, the King of the Chimera Ants, lying in her arms with his eyes closed.

He looked like he was sleeping.

[Goodnight, Meruem... I'll be with you soon.]

Yuma sat motionless at his desk for a long time.

Yuma sat motionless for a long time after finishing the scene, his heart refusing to settle.

He knew this was a manga. He knew Komugi was fictional, and the Ant King was fictional.

But he still couldn't shake the ache in his chest.

And yet, beneath the sorrow, there was something else. A quiet warmth. Perhaps for the Ant King and Komugi, this truly was the best possible ending.

The main storyline of the Chimera Ant arc came to a close with the peaceful sleep of the Ant King and Komugi.

On the internet, the Hunter x Hunter fans who had been waiting anxiously for a week were, for the most part, just like Yuma. Unable to calm their emotions after reading.

"Is this really the end?"

"Ever since I finished reading, I've felt like I'm on the verge of tears. It's been twenty minutes and I still can't shake it."

"Those consecutive pages of black panels at the end were divine. I was completely immersed. I forgot I was reading a manga."

"Two people who can't see anything, walking toward death with only each other for company... This is the ending Shirogane-sensei gave us. I thought he'd changed his ways after One-Punch Man. I didn't expect him to just be slightly more restrained there. Hunter x Hunter is back to being devastating."

"This can't really be called depressing, right? It's heart-wrenching, yes. There's a sting in my chest. But at the same time, this ending feels strangely romantic. I honestly don't know how to describe what I'm feeling..."

"I cried for several minutes straight after reading it. But I have to say, the Chimera Ant arc is the single greatest story arc I've ever experienced in manga. Bar none."

"Me too. I might curse Shirogane-sensei from time to time, but that final panel made my ssckin crawl. It's the most powerful single image I've seen in my entire life of reading manga."

"'Goodnight, Meruem.' In my twenty years on this planet, I've never encountered anime dialogue that moved me this much."

"I keep rereading the last few pages. Every time I hit 'Komugi, can you say my name?' I lose it all over again."

"My roommate walked in on me crying at my desk and asked who died. I said 'an ant and a blind girl' and he looked at me like I was insane."

"I called my mom after reading this chapter. I don't even know why. I just needed to hear someone's voice."

"The thing that wrecks me is how simple Meruem's final wish was. He didn't ask for power. He just wanted to hear his own name spoken by the person who mattered most to him. That's it. That's all the King of the Chimera Ants wanted in the end."

"Has anyone else noticed that Komugi never once hesitated? When Meruem told her she'd die if she stayed, she just placed her next piece and smiled. She didn't need time to think. She'd already decided long before he asked."

"I've been reading manga for fifteen years. I've seen tragic endings, happy endings, open endings. But I've never read anything that made me feel this specific kind of sadness. It's the kind of sadness where you know two people found exactly what they were looking for, and you're crying because it was beautiful, not because it was unfair."

"Shirogane-sensei once said in an interview that the best stories make you feel something you can't name. I finally understand what he meant."

"The fact that the Ant King, born as the ultimate predator, spent his final moments not conquering, but sitting across a board game from a blind human girl and asking her to say his name, it's just..."

"The story of the Ant King and Komugi is really, sigh... The only pity is that the protagonist, Gon, had such a low presence in this arc."

"It was fine. He had his explosive moment when he killed Neferpitou. It's just, it makes me uncomfortable. Why could Gon suddenly go dark and kill Neferpitou like that? It feels a bit like a deus ex machina."

"Exactly. Gon is a genius, sure, but Neferpitou was one of only three Royal Guards among the Chimera Ants. Gon can use a Vow and Restriction to boost his power? Why couldn't Neferpitou? It can only be said that Shirogane-sensei wrote Neferpitou too strong early on and had no choice but to use a cheat-like plot device to resolve it."

"Honestly, I disagree. The whole point of the Vow and Restriction is that Gon traded his entire future for a single moment of power. Neferpitou didn't need to do that because she wasn't desperate. Gon was. That's not a plot hole."

"Including the Ant King too. There was no way to beat him in a normal fight. In this manga, the Ant King lost because he became more human. If he had stayed as cruel and emotionless as the day he was born, ten Neteros couldn't have tricked him. He was plot-killed by Shirogane-sensei, plain and simple."

"I see it differently. The Ant King didn't lose because the plot demanded it. He lost because he chose Komugi over victory. That's not a plot kill. That's a character completing his arc."

"Can we also acknowledge what Netero did? The man knew from the start he probably couldn't win. He went in with a nuclear bomb strapped to his chest as a backup plan. He fought the King with everything he had, knowing his real job was just to buy time and get close enough to detonate. That's not heroic in the traditional sense. It's horrifying. And the manga doesn't pretend otherwise."

"Plot-kill complaints don't matter in the end. The fact that the Chimera Ant arc's finale didn't fall flat is what counts. The ending for Komugi and the Ant King is the most perfect conclusion I could have imagined. Actually, no. It's beyond what I could have imagined."

"Same. Although I still think the Ant King's defeat could have been handled more gradually, this ending makes me forgive every flaw in the arc."

"The quiet moments hit harder than any fight scene. It's more intense than the entire Netero battle. And it's two people sitting in the dark playing a board game."

"The Chimera Ant arc is basically over now... so what's left for Hunter x Hunter to tell?"

"Probably just the wrap-up. Gon isn't dead yet, just severely injured and fading. Anyone can guess the next stretch will cover how to save Gon and what happens to the surviving Chimera Ants. The main storyline of the arc ends here."

"Sigh, I'm so reluctant to see it go. After these final wrap-up chapters, Hunter x Hunter goes on hiatus. The unresolved plot with Hisoka and the Phantom Troupe, the entanglement between Kurapika and Neon Nostrade, the future journey of Gon and Killua, Gon's father Ging... This manga still has too many threads left hanging. That damn Shirogane-sensei, how dare he pause updates next quarter."

"There's also the entire Dark Continent that's been foreshadowed since the beginning. And whatever Beyond Netero is planning. And the Zodiac Twelve. Shirogane-sensei has built a world that could sustain another decade of storytelling and he's taking a break. I'm going to lose my mind."

"Brothers, although the Chimera Ant arc hasn't technically finished according to Shirogane-sensei, for me, the arc essentially ends here. I'll follow the upcoming wrap-up chapters, but my expectations won't be as high."

"Me too. If Hunter x Hunter doesn't launch a new arc soon, I'll probably shift most of my attention to Shirogane-sensei's new work, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba."

"I hope Shirogane-sensei doesn't stay idle for too long and starts the new Hunter x Hunter arc soon. I don't have especially high expectations for Demon Slayer, honestly. I don't think it has a chance to surpass Hunter x Hunter. But I'll still support it... after all, once Hunter x Hunter stops updating, there's really nothing else on the market that comes close."

"Whatever Shirogane-sensei does next, he's already given us the Chimera Ant arc. Even if he never writes another chapter, this arc alone is enough to cement him as one of the greatest mangaka of our generation."

"Agreed. But if he actually retires after this, I'm flying to his house and dragging him back to the drawing desk myself."