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Title: Trust No One
Series: Shaman King #16
Author: Hiroyuki Takei
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Manga
Pages: 200
Format: Digital Copy

Synopsis:

Ren has an encounter with Hao and Hao invites him to join his team. Ren attacks Hao, who easily stops it and destroys the very weapon that Ren was using, all without visible means or even an oversoul. The encounter leaves Ren very shaken.

Yoh seeks out Lyserg and lets him know that he holds no hard feelings against Lyserg for joining the X-Laws. Apparently Lyserg broke curfew to see Yoh and the other X-Laws catch him. Marco deals harshly with Lyserg and prepares to pit himself against Yoh, until the Iron Maiden intervenes, telling the X-Laws that Yoh is not a minion of Hao's. She invites Yoh to join the X-Laws and he refuses. This sets off Marco and Yoh has to threaten him just to leave.

We are introduced to one new team, who we don't even see fight, as they finished their match so quickly. Then things get interesting as one of Hao's group is set to fight and it includes Hao himself. Opposing them is one of the X-Law splinter groups, X-III. Hao sends his minions off and X-III attacks him with their 3 angels. Hao kills one of them immediately. X-III was sacrificial lambs, meant to find out about Hao so the future X-Law teams could exploit that knowledge and defeat Hao. Hao toys with the remaining X-III and kills them too, revealing nothing but how incredibly powerful he is. After winning the fight, Hao then resurrects the souls of the fallen X-III and feeds them to his oversoul of Fire. Hao is evil.

Yoh reveals to his team mates that Hao is an Asakura and that this fight has been going on for a 1000 years. One of the Patch Officiants is also a descendant of Hao and he has vowed to stop Hao. He get some secret video and is seen by 2 other Patch officiants. Yoh reveals a bombshell that Yoh isn't just an ancestor but is actually his twin brother. Yoh's father revealed this all to him and now Yoh is telling his team mates so they won't be blindsided later on in the Shaman Fight.

It turns out that Yoh was born with a twin, who Hao chose to reincarnate in. Yoh's grandparents tried to stop this from happening, but with no success. Now it is up to Yoh to stop Hao, impossible as that may seem.

My Thoughts:

Well, I did NOT see that bombshell about Hao coming, not one tiny bit. Thinking about it though, I'm not sure it actually changes anything. Hao is still an evil son of a gun bent on world domination and it is up to Yoh to stop him. The fights that Hao were in with the X-III's really show just how evil he is. His soul is rotten to the core.

There was a lot of talking going on in this volume and not much fighting. Even the previous volume had more fighting. I'm here for the fighting so I'm hoping things ramp up next volume, or I'm going to be very disappointed.

★★★☆½ ( )

Wow. The series has finally gotten serious and have ratcheted things up a notch. Seems we're finally getting most of our questions answered (just to end up with more questions). ( )