For the majority of the Shiboyugi LN series, Yuki is a morally dubious yet easily likeable protagonist, because, despite her disreputable career as an expert player of death games and her high body count, she is shown to have a capacity for altruism and kindness, and experiences regret and responsibility when faced with the deaths of other players she is close with. We come to understand that Yuki was not always this way in Volume 5; in Game 3 (Hormone Town), Yuki was a cold and unfeeling ruthless killer who didn't have any other thoughts about her identity as a player. This is also the game where Yuki met her mentor, Hakushi, and Hakushi's teaching turned Yuki into the kind of player and person that she was--for the majority of the story.

Fast forward to Volume 10, Ukai-sensei makes a bold yet admirable writing decision: tell most of the story of Jamboree Ship from Airi's point of view, thus revealing her ideology about the death games, and in doing so, gradually uncover Yuki's horrifying return, post injury, to her "origin:" a cold and unfelling ruthless killer who doesn't have any other thoughts. (It's rather poetic that, in order to take down Mikkai, Yuki'd have to stoop down to their level.) Indeed, what makes Yuki's face-heel turn compelling as a conclusion to her character arc is the juxtaposition between her dedication to the games and Airi's apathy and inability to find any kind of passion in her career as a player, despite her talent.

Obviously, since Shiboyugi is ending in one more volume, this means that Yuki won't be getting anything close to resembling a traditional redemption arc. She will probably go down as the villain, even if she's more respectable than someone like Busutake or Management itself. Hence, the kind of character development Yuki undergoes in Volume 10 serves to recontextualize our entire understanding of her during previous volumes, especially Volumes 5 and 6.

# Volume 5

It would not be entirely wrong to say that Yuki cared about Tamamo and didn't want her to die, but it's actually quite inaccurate:

>If Tamamo was bound to lose her life, then Yuki would want the girl *to disappear somewhere before then*. To die in a place far out of sight. To die in a way that would minimally impact Yuki's mental health.

What's the point here? It's that the author never said that Yuki cared about Tamamo. She simply was afraid that Tamamo would die. But more precisely, deep down, Yuki knew that Tamamo would die at some point in time, she just wanted her to die in a way that wouldn't affect her. That, in my opinion, shows the fundamentally inhuman way Yuki forms relationships with others she encounters. Because deep down, all of these relationships don't really matter to her, yet Yuki can't accept the part of her that knows this. 

So, when it comes to Yuki's grief and regret concerning the deaths of Tamamo, or Kinko, or other death game players she was "close" with, it doesn't come from a place of morality, or empathy, or the usual kind of aversion one might have when seeing others die, it comes from a place of "responsibility." (Ukai sensei actually uses this very word many times during Volume 2). It's a sense of responsibility that's borne from Yuki's constantly lying to herself due to her unwilling to accept her own emptiness. When I first [finished Volume 5](https://www.reddit.com/r/ShibouYuugi/comments/1rlcq2s/i_finished_volume_5_yuki_is_a_horrible_person_but/) several months ago, I thought that Yuki was on the brink of a genuine human relationship with Tamamo, only to throw it away at the inopportune moment, leading to a cruel tragedy in the Royal Palace game. In retrospect, I disagree with this interpretation. Over the course of the series, Yuki may be at her most human during Volume 5, but even her relationship with Tamamo is not close to being genuine.

Later in the story, during Volume 7, Yuki befriends Hitomi, Yayoi, and Akane outside of the games, three people who are undoubtedly more decent than most of the playerbase, but these friendships predictably don't last.

# Volume 6

The fun part about revisiting Volume 6 after reading Volume 10 is realizing how obviously Yuki's phantom was *right*: 

>"You are heartless... You fundamentally lack the heart to cherish and value all creation. You can't pay respect to anything, can't show it."  
"That's why you need rules. Unless you desperately drive in wedges, everything unravels apart... Because nothing is important, no one cherishes you."

Indeed, the very proposition that Yuki's phantom makes to her in Volume 6 is to return to being the player of Hormone Town: a ruthless killer that no longer experiences internal conflict. Yuki actually turns down this proposition quite easily, which might be a bit surprising, given that she ended up returning to Hormone Town Yuki in Volume 10 anyway. So, why does she not accept her phantom back then? Well, I pointed out [some time ago](https://www.reddit.com/r/ShibouYuugi/comments/1tyxtol/yukis_paradoxical_character_development_major/) that Yuki is still a pathological liar to herself, post Volume 6. But the very reason she insists on being such a liar to herself is for the sake of 99 games. Yuki is a person who is fundamentally inhuman, yet the very tragedy of her character is that she *can't accept* that she's this way, so this is what leads her to be so dishonest with herself. Both her very goal of inheriting Hakushi's goal of clearing 99 games, as well as her refusal to cede her messy feelings and emotional vulnerability to Phantom, are borne from Yuki's lying to herself.

The point that Phantom brings up about *rules* is especially important. Yuki's rules include those explicitly pointed out in her playstyle in the death games (such as collaborating with other players whenever possible, and killing the closest player whenever she is forced to kill), and more subtly, her commitment to keep promises she makes (this is what gets her involved in Red Queen gang business in Volume 7). Volume 9 is therefore the part of the story where Yuki's system of rules breaks, as predicted by Phantom. I don't know if it's true whether Yuki broke her own rules as a player by breaking away from the pack and helping Sana during Gimmickry Mansion (personally, it's a bit of a grey area, because Yuki was planning on separating from the group anyway), but regardless, Yuki's misplay during Gimmickry Mansion results in her being tortured and mutilated. So, I don't know if it's Yuki unknowingly breaking her own rules, or if it's Yuki realizing that *no matter how many rules she desperately puts up, things will unravel eventually*, that results in the downfall of her humanity in Volume 10.

# Rinrin and Hakushi

Yuki's character development in Volume 10 sheds some light on the characters of two of the other most prolific death game players in the series, and the two players who have mentored Yuki: Rinrin and Hakushi.

We've already known that Rinrin is the kind of person with nothing to live for outside of the games, and who wants to die a "glorious" death as a player. However, Rinrin might very well feel a sense of kinship with Yuki because Yuki might be the only other person she's found to be fundamentally inhuman in the same way that Rinrin is. It's also why Rinrin is so disdainful of Yuki's behavior in Volume 6 as to try and get her killed during Snow Room: Yuki refuses to embrace her own truth in her lack of humanity and hence refuses to see eye to eye with Rinrin.

As for Hakushi, the fact that she's the very catalyst for Yuki to become such a liar to herself (and hence such a "decent" person) for nine full volumes of Shiboyugi suggests that, despite Hakushi's long and violent career as a player, and despite her continuing to involve herself in the world of the games post retirement, she might very well be the only high clear count player in the story to be a genuine and decent person. This interpretation is also consistent with the fact that her and Rinrin do not get along with each other at all.

Anyway.

As a final comment, I'll say that I'd really enjoyed Fate/Stay Night (the Visual Novel) recently, and I cannot help but compare Yuki to >!Kirei Kotomine.!<

How Volume 10 recontextualizes Yuki's character arc in Volumes 5 and 6 (Spoilers ALL)