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Arslan Senki Chapter 128 (Part 1)
We've finally reached it. The Worst Coronation Ceremony in the World. As I'd hoped would be the case, it's a split chapter, with the first half sticking with Team Arslan before the second half moves to Ecbatana to focus on Team Hilmes.
The chapter opens with the gang sitting around a campfire.
An owl... Do Team Zahhak have someone watching them? Are we going to see that someone report back to the Master soon about how Prince Arslan now has Rukhnabad? Yeah sometimes an owl is just an owl but this really has Team Zahhak vibes.
Arslan trying to ask Don Ricardo to hand Rukhnabad to him, realising he doesn't speak Parsian, and then... managing to speak some fragmented Lusitanian? 👌 I love that he's been learning this and is willing to try instead of just asking Estelle to translate.
Who wouldn't immediately hand over the sword that saved your life upon seeing this face, amirite?
(Obviously, it worked. Totally disarmed, Don Ricardo gives Arslan the sword.)
Anyway now we have RUKHNABAD PLOT TWIST, because Arslan can't draw the sword. And while he's all 'welp, looks like I don't have the right to wield it!' Gieve is absolutely fucking enraged by the fact that Hilmes could draw the sword and yet Arslan can't. Gieve = not the greatest fan of Kaykhusraw's judgement, lmao.
The next section is interesting. After things are briefly disrupted by the tremors of an earthquake that soon dies down, discussion continues, and despite Arslan's recognition that his bloodline gives him no right to the throne, he's not backing down.
This panel... The fact that the (harmless) earthquake started up right when Gieve was trashtalking Kaykhusraw, lmao. Feels like the Hero King's spirit was putting Gieve in his place, ahaha.
The fact that he says this while looking down at Rukhnabad... I think this panel is conveying not only that he's not prepared to give it (and Pars) up to anyone else even if they can wield it and he can't, but also that the sword's function as a (protective) object of importance to Pars is more important than having it in his possession.
Is it possible that he will try and return the sword to Kaykhusraw's mausoleum instead? Sure, Zahhak is out already but maybe it will quell the earthquakes. This would set up nicely for a scene that is the inverse of Hilmes taking Rukhnabad from the sarcophagus, where Arslan instead tries to replace it and in the process of doing so proves himself worthy of wielding it.
And if Team Arslan try to place it in the sarcophagus itself (assuming they can still access it after the big earthquake back then?) they'll see the absence of Kaykhusraw's body and understand it has become a vessel for Zahhak.
(I feel like I want that realisation saved for Hilmes, though. He's seen Kaykhusraw's remains before, and I want him to see them again and realise what he's done... Sure, multiple parties can come to the same conclusion but I feel like that would be a great one off moment of 'oh FUCK')
That's the first half of the chapter. You know what, I'm going to split my post into two parts, so stay tuned for the next one.
You know, we never actually saw Hilmes draw Rukhnabad in Fuujin Ranbu. Not when he took it from Kaykhusraw's sarcophagus, and not when he stole it back from Bodin in Maryam in the last episode. And this dialogue from Episode 1 concerning his ability to wield the sword is original to the anime.
So (years after the anime was left unfinished) here is my theory: Hilmes would have found himself unable to draw Rukhnabad, and that would have been fucking HILARIOUS. He gets to some kind of final confrontation and the thing just won't come out of its scabbard for him? Kaykhusraw says no? The gods of Pars (the Master refers to Rukhnabad as 'a gift from the gods' in this scene) have seen what he did to his country and they don't like it?
Funny how in the manga we've currently got Arslan incapable of drawing the sword, yet in the anime maybe it would have been Hilmes! Shame we'll never know what their plans were. Though given how obsessed Hilmes is with his bloodline and right to the throne, there's no way he wouldn't have tried to draw it as soon as it was in his hands. The fact that he never does so (it even looks like he's about to in Maryam and then he just... doesn't!) feels weird and something about all this seems deliberate. Honestly, a moment where he tries and fails would have been funny enough that maybe I would have forgiven the dubious grasp of how Hilmes would act when holding an object that could prove his legitimacy. Maybe.