Di[e]ce Chapter 42 (END) - Game Over

When the zombie army fails to stop Kazuki and his pieces, Kirito volunteered as the first piece from Haruki's sight to confront them. Naoto then stays back to take care of his double so that Kazuki and Shion can advance.

Later on, Gara appears before his ex-lover and attacks them.

But the one and only Queen on the board (who gets to choose which king she wants to be with) overpowers Gara...

And gives him a hair cut despite the latter's protest. The Queen is, afterall, the strongest piece.

With Karen as his opponent, Gara excitedly accepted the challenge.

Before they move on, Shion has a brief flashback of those lovely times memories of him and Gara when they were still young, fluffy, innocent and absolutely adorable. But since Kazuki is n times more important than his former gay parter, Shion shakes away his hesitation and leaves the place.

On the other side, both our Castles are busy smashing their keyboards in a cyber war. But Haruki's side was losing, as a result, his Castle goes to stop Shion from approaching his King with Kazuki.

Yuki then suggests that he goes out to fight as well but Haruki tells him that he needn't to be on the battle field and reminds Yuki that he promised Haruki that he'll be standing by his side till the very end. Yuki is lost at words for Haruki's bishi face is so close to his.

Haruki stabs Yuki, telling him that Yuki was allowed to join him so that Haruki can kill him since Yuki's double, Luka whom Haruki mistaken as Yuki until he had killed him, failed to evoke Kazuki's anger and hatred to kill Haruki. Haruki further explains that as the ending of di(e)ce has already been decided that Haruki will always be killed by Kazuki in every game and that it is Haruki's destiny to die.

As such, Yuki's death was necessary to make Kazuki to hate him even more. Haruki later adds that even though he never had the freedom to choose, he can never ever kill Kazuki even if he could.

Before he dies, Yuki cries and tells that Haruki's life is pitiful. Despite his action, Haruki looks genuine grieved by Yuki's death. Just then, Kazuki reaches their room and sees Yuki dead on the floor. While Kazuki goes to check on Yuki, Haruki laments that had Kazuki joins him in the first place, no one would have to die and goes on saying that everyone is probably dead and being eaten by those zombies by now.

Haruki continues to taunt Kazuki until the latter is angry enough to pick up Yuki's sword and chrage at him.

Oooooooh.
That blade is.....at the wrong place...or is that some optical illusion....?

Knowing that he can't harm Kazuki, Haruki let his guard as he pretends to stab Kazuki. Seizing that chance, Kauzki grabs Haruki's knife and stabs himself in attempt to change di(e)ce through changing its ending.

Here goes our emo scene
Haruki screams at Kazuki that Kazuki should be the one living instead of him.

Both of them appear to be copies of Akikage and his brother Sharyuu (紗流 - Akikage's little brother I have no idea what is his romaji name so that'll be what I calling him for now) when Kazuki tells Haruki 'Didn't I tell you before, I won't kill Haruki.' The scene then shows us a flashback of an incident that happened when they were still young.

Once upon a time On some random day, they were playing hide and seek with Haruki seeking and Kazuki hiding. A gang of armed bad guys then raided the house and found Haruki. When they questioned Haruki whether or not he's Kazuki, Haruki replied 'yes'. Haruki was then shot on the spot in Kazuki's place (the interrupters intended to change the game's ending by killing Kazuki first I guess).

It is told Akikage regretted killing his own twin and so he recreated both their clones to play di(e)ce again and again to revived the Sharyuu who-wished-to-stop-Akikage-but-couldn't-bring-himself-to-kill-Akikage. Akikage then programmed his own clone (Haruki in this game) to make sure his clone would surely die for his brother's clone (Kazuki). Hence, it was the right thing for Haruki to do when Kazuki is in danger during that incident.

Akikage never managed to restore Sharyuu from the previous di(e)ce games, but he was successful this time thanks to the Haruki's premature death which Akikage rewrote (by reviving Haruki and erasing Kazuki's memories of the incident). However, Kazuki was never freed from the fear of losing Haruki and the pain of death, and thus he learns to appreciate life in the end.

And it was Kazuki's character growth that allows him (Sharyuu's fragment) to connect with the past Sharyuu and restore him back.
(Bleh, I have no idea what am I typing. None at all. )


When Akikage and Sharyuu talk that without the 'limitation on you-can-only-live-once', the vast simulation system won't be able to run properly and will be corrupted.
(er whut? so these hot bishies and our ass-kicking Queen don't exist in real life??? Grrrr I feel so cheated!!!!!)


With Sharyuu (some sort of system in BOAD) restored, they rewind (uh, again?) everything to day of both Haruki and Kazuki's birthday.


While di(e)ce is completely abolished from the simulation, it is also confirmed that all they memories of di(e)ce were erased completely as Kazuki thought that he doesn't know Shion at all.
*I'm not too sure about that, BOAD isn't almighty afterall if Kazuki can remember the pain of losing Haruki before, why not Shion's death as well? While Kazuki might have some sort of deja vu on knowing Shion, it might be due to the encounter they met as kids that gives him that vibe. Though, we're not even revealed of the fates of other pieces even without di(e)ce... In this alternate version, Shion and Kazuki may not have met at all...*


And all is well. Damn. (It is also revealed that Ageha's gang is actually some sort of recovery system created to repair 'Sharyuu')

Final Thoughts:
Crazy train wreck is over, only some debris and smoke are at the scene of crime.

So everything and every characters we've been loving was a guinea pig in The Sims 3 some simulation called 'BOAD'?? Ouch. That was kinda hard to swallow. With the ending coming so abruptly, I can't help suspecting that it got the 'axe' (though I think it wasn't.)

It feels pretty hard to spit out my final thoughts with an wth ending like this. So these people were not real hence it's not important to show us more of their stories after everything was rewritten again. It certainly makes sense, but still, having my feelings and thoughts attached to these people being chopped off so abruptly made me feel hollow and speechless. And cheated as well.

That aside, Yuki being killed off was pretty shocking since I was expecting him to do something bombastic. I was so excited when he woke up and became so ass-kicking awesome... Ah well...

If I were to rate this manga, the score would be as below:
Story: 4/5
Original story, I'm a sucker for chess theme... But the ending is... =__=
Besides that, the back stories and relationship of the characters were really sweet and touching, especially the childhood stories of our Bishops!!
Art: 4.5/5
Bishies!! It's really gorgeous in its own style, right?

All in all, it was truly an enjoyable journey to follow Di(e)ce till its end, too bad that it's wth-ish ending was pretty rushed, otherwise, even with the direction it's heading I'd still be satisfied with it.

*This post may be re-edit. I was in a rush making this*