Inuyasha Manga: 058 Tainted Ink

Tainted ink doesn't even begin to cover it, chapter. The ink only did the job of bringing the painter's drawings to life; everything after that is his own doing. But I mean, let's be honest, it IS a pretty tempting prospect isn't it? I'm a terrible artist, so I wouldn't be too thrilled if my drawings came to life, but if you're a good one, wouldn't you at least CONSIDER doing what it took to keep that drawing alive and produce others like it? Or if, say, RT were to come across a pen that brought her creations to life, wouldn't you be super thrilled?

... I'm imagining that world, and it isn't very nice.

Thanks for the reminder, Kagome. I'm sure Inuyasha would really appreciate you talking so casually about his weakness with this man he so hates if he were there.

Miroku says that all Inuyasha can do at his distance is decapitate the painter, and Kagome doesn't seem to like the sound of that, judging from her worried expression. Inuyasha, meanwhile, is trying to talk the painter into handing over the Shikon shard without a fuss. Too late, Inuyasha. The painter yells that Inuyasha is an idiot and an asshole for stepping right into one of his paintings. Said painting turns one of its heads and breathes a stream of fire at Inuyasha, surprising him.

Kagome screams out Inuyasha's name as he's blown backward in a ball of fire. The painter thinks the fires of Hell will burn even Inuyasha's BONES to ashes, but Inuyasha isn't quite ready to give up. His hand grips the scales on the back of the three-headed snake to steady himself and he groans as he crawls back up the snake's back.

So much for the flames of Hell, huh? He doesn't even look like he's in pain; just annoyed. Miroku and Kagome are both staring in shock at the fact that he's okay despite the fact he's burning. The painter stutters out a question about why Inuyasha won't die, and Inuyasha scoffs. He unsheathes Tessaiga in a grandiose arc, shouting that he has no intention of dying by some shitty human's hands.

Normally, people's intentions are completely ineffective against dying, but Inuyasha's will is so ironclad that death don't wanna mess with that shit.

The painter lifts an arm to shield his face in fear, backing away and pleading with Inuyasha to take anything but his life. He holds out the bamboo pipe with a shaking hand, urging Inuyasha to take it along with the Shikon fragment inside. Inuyasha stares, but hangs back as the painter says that without it, he can't control oni and is just a normal person. Looking disgusted, Inuyasha sums up the fact that this man who has killed so many and stolen entrails for his "art" is now begging for his life. I'm guessing Inuyasha is talking about those they found in the battlefield with their guts missing, because there's no way he could know about the others.

Tears streaming down his face, the painter tells Inuyasha that he's just a powerless lowly man who wouldn't have been able to do it without the jewel shard. Inuyasha looks like he reaches an epiphany as he listens. After a pause, Inuyasha puts away the Tessaiga, cursing. Miroku is amazed that Inuyasha won't kill the painter. Perhaps he let the painter realize that a tad too soon, though.

Inuyasha punches at the lower jaw of the snake head still chomping on his arm, which seems like it would be a bit counter-productive. Meanwhile, the painter is steering the creature low so he can jump off its neck and tumble to the ground. He does a faceplant in the dirt, and it's a good thing that the ground's boyfriend is way too preoccupied with fighting off those other two heads of the crashed snake to be jealous. Groaning, the painter raises his head, looking over his shoulder at the still fighting and cursing Inuyasha before limping away and leaving behind his basket of scrolls.

Finally having defeated the snakes heads, Inuyasha leaps after the painter, yelling at him to wait. Face bleeding, the painter huffs it along, holding up the bamboo pipe as though it's a precious relic. Inuyasha catches sight of ink bubbling up out of the top and shouts at the painter to let go of the dangerous thing. The painter shouts back that he won't let go because there's still something he has to do. It doesn't look like the Shikon fragment he's been using is willing to give him any more time, though.

You know something doesn't want you holding it when it cuts off the arm that's doing that offensive holding. But perhaps it just wanted to do a little holding of its own. The puddle of ink around the bamboo tube bubbles up again, making a beeline toward the painter and already beginning to close in around his feet. Inuyasha gapes at the scene, until he's brought out of his stupor by a plea.

What a way to go. Kagome and Miroku run up to where Inuyasha is staring at the puddle of ink and blood, all that's left of the painter. Miroku mutters that he was devoured by the ink, and Kagome asks why. Inuyasha says it was the blood of the painter that the ink wanted to absorb, having been made from peoples' guts.

A scrap of paper floats down near Kagome's foot and she picks it up to find that it was the practice sketch the painter had done of the princess. She realizes what his intention was, to draw the princess with that ink. Glaring down at the puddle, Miroku says that the painter was a damn fool to think that beautiful things could be drawn with such tainted ink. He said the chapter title! Good job, Miroku!

He's not in the mood to accept the honor, though, because he's too busy focusing on that tainted Shikon fragment that's so covered in evil it's much too dangerous to touch, despite how hard he worked to get it. However, as he's pondering this, Kagome kneels down and picks it right up out of the ink and blood slime, easy peasy. Miroku is shocked.

That's gotta be a punch to the gut right there.

Inuyasha whines a question about why Kagome is bothering to consult Miroku on the subject, and Kagome reminds Inuyasha that Miroku helped them out. Miroku, still looking floored, tells Kagome that she should keep it, much to both her and Inuyasha's own shock. She asks if he's sure while he thinks that he wasn't imagining it, and Kagome really just purified all that evil in the shard. She just holds the Shikon fragment in her fist with a slightly puzzled expression.

Shippou has reappeared, pissing and moaning that everyone seemed to have forgotten about him. Kagome pats him on the head and apologizes, asking if he was scared, but he doesn't seem quelled by her patronizing gesture and smile. She glances behind her where Inuyasha is complaining about Miroku burning incense and praying over where the painter perished, shouting that they don't have to do a memorial service for the dick. Miroku spouts some platitude about how people are neither good nor evil when they die, and there is only the mercy of the Buddha. Whatever bro.

Inuyasha lets out a bark of laughter, saying that this "mercy" thing is one of those concepts that he just doesn't get about humans. Miroku opens his eyes, looking a tad exasperated when he says Inuyasha's name. He's closed his eyes again by the next panel while he's explaining that if Inuyasha had intended to kill the painter, he would have done it, and the fact that he didn't do it is an example of mercy. Inuyasha looks shocked for a moment before scoffing at this notion and calling it lame.

Later on, Kagome asks if Miroku will be coming along with them, and Miroku confirms this, because it's so much more pleasant traveling with a beautiful woman than alone. Kagome glows at the sweet-talk as she walks her bike along, but Inuyasha scoffs at it from ahead.

"He LOOKS like a piece of shit, but deep down, he's not half bad!"

So, what did I think of this chapter overall? I mocked Miroku's talk about there being no good or evil after death, but I think that Miroku's character is a perfect medium for such a message, to be honest. This manga will do a lot by way of making the audience question what good and evil are, what makes one or the other, and whether it even matters in the end, questions which Miroku's morally gray character will continually embody in the coming chapters. He out-and-out SAYS that the orientation doesn't really matter here, because no matter what, the dead only have the mercy of higher powers left to them at that point.

The painter didn't really have much more than that in life, either, though. He was at the mercy of the ink, at the mercy of Inuyasha, at the mercy of his own desires. Only one of the three showed him any actual compassion, though, despite all the bad things that Inuyasha knew he had done, and even those he didn't. I hesitate to call the kindness Inuyasha showed the painter here "character development" because it's already WELL established that he will help others even if he whines about it later. Still, it is yet another example of how Inuyasha has a conscience that values lives, regardless of what has happened in those lives to bring them to the point of needing saving.

Just as this chapter is yet another example of how good RT is at making a reader feel for a character that's an objectively HORRIBLE person. The painter did terrible, awful things and I didn't like him at all, but I'm always somehow saddened by the fact that he had to die in such a horrible way. He had dimension and purpose with a past, which made him so much more real than a lot of the mustache-twirlers that are only too easy to produce in a "monster-of-the-week" comic like this, which makes Inuyasha's mercy toward him that much more understandable. The painter WASN'T just a blob of evil, and Inuyasha understood that LONG before Miroku explained it to him, because it was OBVIOUS.