Black Clover’s Sister Lily Rejects Asta For an Unexpectedly Brutal Reason

While meant to conclude a longstanding plot line that began in chapter 1, the real reason why Sister Lily rejects Asta when she does it is because of the massive twist that transpires soon afterward in a later chapter of Black Clover.

Since the very beginning, Asta has been obsessed with Sister Lily, consistently asking her to marry him even though her profession prohibits marriage. The magicless boy’s obsession with Sister Lily is always on reader’s minds, especially when Black Clover shows Noelle or Mimosa fawning over him because, even if Asta ends up having romantic feelings for one of them, his heart will always belong to Sister Lily. Regardless of whether readers are on team Noelle or team Mimosa, neither of them are contenders so long as Sister Lily is still in the game (even if she doesn’t want to be). But if anything should befall Sister Lily, solely relying on random events such as these would be a mistake. Black Clover would need to reintroduce her into the story beforehand to experience the full effect. Luckily, this happens in a recent chapter.

Related: Black Clover Proves its Harshest Critics Wrong With One Big Twist

After Asta got rejected by Sister Lily in Black Clover’s last chapter, Asta is suddenly confronted and threatened by the villain Lucius Zogratis. Then in chapter 334 by mangaka Yūki Tabata, Lucius uses Soul Magic to transform Sister Lily’s soul, so she becomes blessed with sacred powers that consist of purified devil energy. Upon her transformation, Sister Lily is undoubtedly brainwashed, pleading for Asta to die for the sake of world peace.

For readers to truly experience the true capabilities of such a dastardly act, mangaka Yūki Tabata had to not only reintroduce Sister Lily into the main story but create a scenario where readers could get emotionally reinvested in her character. And what better way than to drudge up one of the worst romances in manga ever? But Tabata expertly crafted the scene in question to deliver more than what readers were hoping for, which was for Asta to finally put to rest his persistent nagging of Sister Lily to give up on her ideals. There ends up being more emotional weight in her brainwashing because, earlier, Sister Lily said something that she couldn’t bring herself to utter before because she didn’t truly believe it: that he’ll be able to become the Wizard King. In many ways, these words of supporting encouragement are probably just as important to Asta as hearing them from his fellow mages. She was not only his first love but was also like family to him. Her words have even more weight since readers now know that she isn’t just saying this to be nice. She truly believes them and wouldn’t have said them otherwise. But now, just after proposing to her for the last time and hearing her agree that he can become the Wizard King for the first time, Black Clover shows Lucius has brainwashed Sister Lily into wanting him to die only a few chapters later.

When causing tragic events to befall major characters, many mangaka rely on older moments that involved them 100s of chapters ago to make readers care that something is happening to them. In the case of Black Clover, mangaka Yūki Tabata didn’t just bring about the end of a ridiculous era of inappropriate love, but masterfully snuck in a chillingly powerful scene with a certain character so when tragedy later befell her, it struck readers just that more profoundly.

Black Clover‘s latest chapter is available now on Viz Media!