Usogui - Vol. 48 Ch. 523 - To The Future

[Veshv]

For what it's worth, the story has hammered in that no one ever won ownership of Kakerou through StL, and Leader has ultimately been lauded as a perfect being, an ubermensch as someone put it in the past. For Baku to come this far to ultimately lose, would kill the build-up personally. For me, the only way this match can end is "normally", with a trick, a reaction, and a Kariume.

In a sense, I guess I'm one of the people set up towards having my expectations twisted since the basis of my belief is that "Baku will not lose."

 

[catx3]

@fire
About his goal revolving around "saving Hal", that might be his smaller goal with this StL, but I think he might have a larger goal concerning Kakerou, because when Baku first became a member, he didn't meet Hal yet. So he became a member and participated in Kakerou gambles for his own reasons even before meeting Hal. (Well, assuming the bookstore meeting was really their first.) And he was already aiming for Karamete before knowing that Hal was the leader as well. (Also assuming that Baku didn't know he was Kakerou's heir yet)

About him being merely a compulsive gambler, I agree with @Solano that it doesn't really align with his character portrayal, as he often does good things through his gambles, which I'm thinking is intentional on his part. A lot of the "bad people" he's encountered were either killed by him or "saved" through something he did or said.

I'm expecting the author to reveal that his gambles and trying to obtain Kakerou have a greater objective behind them, as he has always been dropping big reveals like that throughout the series. Some ideas I have been thinking about (no spoilers, just speculation):

1. World Peace

Spoiler

Kind of an insane theory, but I was thinking about how Baku mentioned "world peace" being his motive for becoming Kakerou's leader way back in the first arc. I didn't really see the connection between the two at first, but if you remember Jonglyo's theory about "his world" and how "making a contract with everyone that threatens to kill anyone who kills, so that no one will kill each other ever", I wonder if it's possible to implement something like this with Kakerou? Like what if you had Kakerou set up an eternal "no violence" gamble with every person in the world? That would be achieve world peace in a way, although Kakerou would need to be literally the most influential organization in the world. Also people could still be violent to each other in non-physical ways, so it's kind of superficial. Another similar idea, Kakerou could have the leaders of all countries in an eternal "no wars" allowed gamble, threatening to assassinate them if they violate it. It's a bit more feasible, but still unrealistic for the power that Kakerou has.

Hmm, well regardless of how you go about it, Kakerou isn't nearly powerful enough to have that kind of influence on the world. So would Baku's ultimate goal be to make Kakerou become that powerful...? Or did he mean something else by "world peace"?

2. Revenge

Spoiler

There's a panel way back in the first arc, where Baku mades an "angry" face when hearing Kakerou mentioned (https://mangadex.org/chapter/204559/15). This sticks out a lot because I don't think he's ever shown this kind of emotion in the whole series so far. But what could he be angry about? Probably not his loss to Hal, because he was smiling as if everything went to plan at that moment. My guess is he has some sort of grudge against Kakerou, and wants to destroy it by becoming its leader, and forcefully disbanding it or mismanaging it or something.

One possible reason for this grudge could be related to someone important to him who died, like his family for example. It seems likely that Baku doesn't have any living family members, because if they were alive, one of Baku's enemies in his many gambles likely would've tried to take them as hostages in order to gain an advantage in a gamble, especially people like Caracal or Ranko during the tower arc. So maybe a previous Kakerou gamble was the result of their deaths, and that's why he wants to take revenge against Kakerou.

 

[BossCrab]

This certainly isn't the end of the game, I'm pretty sure the author and the characters are leaning far too hard into the "Baku bet on Leader's memory loss" as if that was Baku's only plan. I think that was definitely part of his plan, but the best plans are always multi-layered. We've been harping on the clock for so long now, and it's been so prevalent in this gamble, that the idea that Baku doesn't have an ace in the hole with the clock just doesn't add up. He definitely has one big trick left.

I think his short term goal, at least with Hal and his memory loss in this chapter, was to somehow put Hal in a situation where he was truly gambling. To feel that rush of the unknown, to gamble on his gut feeling that "I should drop it immediately, Baku won't turn around", without having his "perfect" mind and body to calculate everything immediately. To take away "Souichi" and leave only Hal means he has less time to think through what he's doing and have to gamble on a hunch. I think Baku had always wanted his friend Hal to feel the thrill and rush that he feels from gambling.

@catx3
These are good thoughs, although I think Baku's reaction in that panel was just more the author putting dramatic tension in since it was so early in the manga. Didn't it get revealed later on that he targeted Q-Taro specifically for his Kakerou membership (along with his property and Marco)? Like he was spying on him even when he was a Kakerou member, as if he knew he would lose his membership and was scouting out a target to get it back. And as for his family or connection, I think they are just gone; remember that Kyara said his first gamble against the politician, all Baku had to bet was his body and nothing else. He probably had no real family or home to go back to. It's an interesting theory, though, and things have definitely come back to be foreshadowing like that before.

I do think his goal is probably something that can only be done with Kakerou's influence and power, but what he wants I'm not sure. Honestly I wouldn't even mind if he was just a gambling savant searching for the peak of gambling; it wouldn't be too different from some of the other gambling mangas I've read and enjoyed.

 

[tripledraw]

@catx3 regarding your speculation on "world peace", I've suspected that Baku wanted our clever creep Kaji to become the next leader. I think he picked Kaji due to his honesty during the slot machine incident in chapter 1 and, based on his dream during his air poker death, is someone he considers a worthy gambler by now. Perhaps Marco is designed to be Kaji's attendant?

This could be combined with a "white knight" motive, i.e. his buddy Hal is being taken advantage of by (someone in) Kakerou - not unlike a greenland shark and the parasites covering its eyes. His ideal outcomes would then be: 1) Against his destiny, Hal lives a happy life; and 2) Kakerou is returned to a pure gambling organisation, no more meddling in crime, politics and world affairs.

Another possibility is as you said - pure revenge, and I agree that would likely has to do with Baku's past and perhaps involving his family that the readers don't know yet. I just feel the prince vs rival prince bee story is strongly tied to this. If Kiruma Tatsuki was the 3rd king bee, perhaps Baku is trying to reclaim his family's throne by defeating Souichi the 4th king.

Additional thought: does anyone else suspect that Judge and Sweeper Yakou are somewhere related to Protoporos? Richard Arata and the Republic of Huger are still a very much loose end.

 

[JacobWhorne]

That last page

 

[JacobWhorne]

What a last page