Shadow Skill manga ending spoilers - what the heck?

Jan 3, 2017 7:17 AM

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May 2016

Can anyone who has finished the Shadow Skill manga help me make sense of what happens at the end when Gau beats Elle? Elle seems to just be enjoying herself, not really going for the kill on Gau or anything (makes sense since he is her adopted brother and she probably wants him to beat her to some extent anyway), then Gau finishes the fight by inflicting an extremely lethal seeming wound on her where it looks like he splits her torso nearly in half with huge amounts of blood spraying out?! I thought it might just be an overly exaggerated visual effect, but I extracted and ran some of the text through a translator and the mage girl says something to the effect the wound is unsurviveable even with healing magic (albeit she survives anyway). Then Gau seemed to act very out of character just throwing a cloak on top of the still standing Elle and stoically walking away without seeing if she will live or die, I get it's part of his "growing into a man" but he was crying not much earlier when Elle wasn't even near death, just collapsed and talking weakly after a fight (but still able to stand up and walk around a few pages later) and now he can almost kill her himself? It's also implied she dies with one of the characters saying the mage girl took good care of her "body" but then of course she shows up again seeming perfectly fine and not even crippled or something.

The closest thing I can think of to an explanation is that Gau knew she would survive due to her Elle-ness (eg. how she had a guy's whole fist shoved through the center of her chest before, then ripped herself off it and killed the guy and walked around afterward acting only moderately injured) which is supported by their dialogue when they meet up again acting like it was no big deal with Elle saying roughly "But I won't fall of course" and Gau replying "It (she?) is unbeatable after all. I probably couldn't do it" (there is a line about one of them being a "training fighter" in between but I'm sure if it's Gau referring to Elle's training or Elle calling Gau a novice) but why hurt her that badly in the first place when she didn't seem to be going nearly as rough on him? Was it kind of a ploy for him to look badass and ruthless in front of Scarface, were they faking her death or something?

The wound in question -