Can't be any more disgusting than Ginormous Food. *gag*
Pun intended.
Meanwhile, as night lays heavy on the remote house on the cliff, Inuyasha continues to grunt and twist in his thorny bounds, cursing and bleeding. Good job doing exactly what the Peach Dick wants, dude. He yells in pain as the thorns dig deeper and his blood drips onto the floor. Seriously, that fire-rat robe has become inexplicably useless, hasn't it? It worked fine for Kagome when she and Inuyasha faced Yura, but now it's just failing at the most basic level.
Hey, fire-rat robe:
Back at the box garden, the Peach Man leans over it, contemplating who he should swallow. He complains that they're all just skinny, bad-tasting men though, so I guess he was pondering the question for no reason. The Peach Man scoops a handful of miniature people out of the garden, all their limbs askew, and pauses in surprise when he opens his fist to take a look at what he caught.
The Peach Man flicks away the skinny men he was complaining about earlier, mentioning that he doesn't remember capturing such a tasty-looking thing as Kagome, because he's not exactly the sharpest tack in the box, he doesn't really connect this fact with Inuyasha's comments in the last chapter. Instead, he doesn't look the gift horse in the mouth, and declares it an awfully good day, having gotten a rare hanyou to eat as well.
I wouldn't make such a judgment JUST yet, Peachy.
Kagome translates "hanyou" in the obvious way, asking the Peach Man frantically if he's really met Inuyasha. The Peach Man brings his fist with the mini girl in it closer to his face and stares at her, asking if she's friends with the hanyou. Kagome dismisses his question, posing her own about whether or not Inuyasha is okay, and promising not to forgive the Peach Man if he did anything to Inuyasha. This panel also reveals that Miroku and Shippou managed to sneakily cling to the Peach Man's sleeve so he didn't notice them. Kagome didn't think to do that instead?? Why did she go straight for the Peach Man's damn PALM??
Shippou is in awe at Kagome's attitude toward such a big opponent, heart pounding. Miroku admits that she IS rather fearless, but he doesn't appear to be nearly as impressed. The Peach Man chuckles, calling Kagome a lively one, and claims that eating her while she's so small would be a waste, so SQUEEZES her until she passes out. Passing out being really the only issue caused by this. Spoiler alert.
The agape Shippou and Miroku call out Kagome's name, but the Peach Man doesn't seem to hear this. Or, at least that's the implication, because on the next page we return to Inuyasha bleeding out in the column of thorny vines he's been caught within. He's slumped, looking exhausted, as he thinks that he's lost too much blood and his vision is getting blurry. The Peach Man leans into the room, noting that Inuyasha is still alive. As he slopes into Inuyasha's view, he drops a bundle of clothes on the floor, which Inuyasha sees and identifies quite clearly despite his blurry vision.
Inuyasha gapes at the clothes while they sit on the floor without Kagome inside them, and his heart pounds as he tries to silently deny what that means. The Peach Man sits his ass down on another of his massive jars, asking Inuyasha what the deal with his horrified face is. Inuyasha demands to know what the Peach Man did to Kagome, and while he takes a sip from a gourd-flask, probably full of antacids, he tells Inuyasha not to worry because he'll see Kagome again REAL soon. Inside his stomach, of course. Inuyasha's eyes widen, asking in disbelief if the Peach Man has eaten Kagome.
Or not. Inuyasha lunges toward the Peach Man, shouting he won't forgive him, though rather ineffectively because he's still restrained by the vines. They creak against Inuyasha's efforts, and Miroku and Shippou stare when they pop out of Kagome's discarded clothes, Shippou saying Inuyasha's name in horror. I think 90% of Shippou's lines in this arc are going to be people's names.
The Peach Man chuckles, telling Inuyasha that it's no use because he'll never get through those vines. Miroku's preoccupation with this scene is that it appears Inuyasha has become inexplicably human. Shippou informs Miroku that Inuyasha really HAS become human, though doesn't explain how or why. Regardless, Miroku shakes off his initial shock, and rips the beads off his hand, muttering that he doesn't know how much power he has at his much reduced size. Still, he points that Kazaana up and starts to suck.
Inuyasha groans as he stands from the debris, in which the Peach Man is buried. His legs are sticking out of the tangle of vines and ceiling, Inuyasha clambering over it to get to him. Inuyasha asks Kagome to hold on, intending to slice open the Peach Man to get her out of there. Before he can do that, though, he hears his name called somewhere within the rubble. Inuyasha's eyes widen when he sees those calling to him are a mini Miroku and Shippou.
Down a flight of stairs, Kagome's shoes lay on the floor discarded among some human bones, because the Peach Man is a filthy piece of shit who never cleans up around this place.
Kagome's gaze slips from one of the weasels scraping a knife against a whetstone to the crackling fire in the hearth, and concludes tentatively that she's in a kitchen. Then she sees a basket piled high with skulls in the corner and frets that she'll end up like that too, shivering. Kagome shouts that this has to be a joke and moves to get the hell out of dodge before that can happen, but a couple animal servants block the door, knives in hand. She stops short, miffed at their interference, before all of their attention is drawn back toward the door, behind which a tapping is growing louder.
Kagome stands again, now that Inuyasha is looking so deliberately away. Speechless at first, she approaches him and asks about those bloodstains he's covered in. Inuyasha scoffs at her, saying it's only a scratch, removing his fire-rat robe in the midst of posturing. He throws it over his shoulder at her, and she catches it with a confused expression. Inuyasha tells Kagome to put the thing on, though it may weird her out with all the blood soaked into it.
So, what did I think of this chapter overall? Miroku and Shippou made a BIG mistake not waiting until Inuyasha already sliced open the Peach Man before telling him Kagome was elsewhere. But it's the kind of mistake that illustrates why these characters are so easy to read as realistic people. The last time Miroku and Shippou saw Kagome, she'd been deposited in a tub in the kitchen, in line to be butchered for a meal, so they had no way of knowing how much time they had to get Inuyasha down to save her. Details like these, where urgency is emphasized by indicating that the characters DON'T know that their fellows are okay, and have no WAY of knowing, are very important to keeping characters believable and understandable.
Another masterfully conducted scene was that moment when Inuyasha and Kagome see each other again. Yes, there is a second of awkwardness because of her nudity, but it's not overplayed or drawn out. It's only a second, and then Inuyasha expresses genuine relief that she's alive, and turns back on his tough-guy attitude (perhaps amped a little to cover up the moment of weirdness they both experienced). They're in a perilous situation and they ACT like it, not lingering on embarrassment where there are much more important things to worry about.
And it's unbelievable that I should have to give out kudos for something so simple as that, but... well too many authors overdo the sexual tension joke, and it ends up more irritating than funny because they've forgotten that essential "timing" part of comedy.
This chapter irritates me in a different way; by forgetting that the fire-rat robe is supposed to be separate from Inuyasha and have demonic powers even when he doesn't. Inconsistencies... ugh.
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