Ah yes, a familiar holy concept. Every fandom I've come across seems to have at least one of those structures of events that people tend to accept as the true body of facts of a work. Not a PHYSICAL building, but a castle in the clouds built of ideas that are the bones of what houses and encompasses the community of fanatics. It gets interesting when there's more than one or two, though, because there can be some conflict over which one is TRUER than the others. Like a bunch of warring religious denominations. But I guess that IS where the term originated, after all.
What's that? I'm talking about a DIFFERENT word altogether?
It's weird that this line is directed at the FEMALE visitors, because you'd think more women would just bum out the villagers who are so LONELY among a population of the same.
Anyway, the woman who is chatting about this to Kagome and Sango bows to them politely and wishes them a good night, and Kagome thanks her, plus the other woman that is holding a stack of what look to be boxes in her arms, loaded with little amenities perhaps? Towels, tiny shampoo and conditioner containers, those little mints they leave on the pillow?
After the hostesses have left, Kagome and Sango sit around the fire pit in the center of their hut, having a little girl's night. Kagome has drawn a hairbrush from her open backpack and is talking about how happy she is that they didn't have to sleep outdoors tonight. As she polishes Hiraikotsu, Sango seems less enthused by this, and a little MORE peeved that they're not searching for the community of oni-women like they were supposed to be doing. Silently, she's more irritated still by the fact that Miroku goes into nosebleed-mode so easily around here. It's a translator term that I'm totally here for.
Kagome leans over real close to conspiratorially ask if there's anything, ahem, GOING ON between her and Miroku. Sango makes a confused noise at first, then looks over at Kagome with an attempt at a blank, noncommittal expression to ask what she means. Kagome LITERALLY sparkles as she elaborates by reminding Sango that she and Miroku were alone for a while on Mt. Hakurei, and issues another question about if the two of them made any "special memories" back then, or something like that. I'm very glad to not get a peek inside Kagome's mind so I don't have to see exactly what cringe romance-novel shit she's thinking might have happened here.
Sango appears to consider the question, and immediately considers the time she was sprawled over the supposedly terminally poisoned Miroku, declaring that she wouldn't leave him behind and they'd die together. She flushes at the memory, thinking he should have figured it out after what she said, but it seems to her that there's been no change in his behavior at all since they left the mountain. With a flippant air, Sango continues to polish Hiraikotsu and assures Kagome that her relationship with Miroku isn't like that. But she drops the giant boomerang in shock when Kagome just comes right out and suggests she's actually in love with Miroku. Sango gets flustered and defensive, red-faced as she refuses to entertain the notion that she'd be into that lecherous playboy. She recounts how Miroku gives up too easily, is a delinquent, he lies whenever he feels like it, and so on. All the while, Kagome smiles and nods along with an encouraging if false phrase, actually thinking that ANYONE would notice how Sango really feels about the guy.
She's dabbing at her face with some kind of packaged disposable cloth or something (I hope she puts that trash back in her backpack and isn't littering all over the past...) when she says in a fake-offhand way that she thinks Miroku is actually in love with Sango. Immediately, Sango gets quiet and casts a surreptitious look at Kagome over her shoulder and asks in a JUST as fake-offhand way why she would think that. Kagome says she just has a bit of a feeling, you know, that Sango's a special woman to Miroku, that she's precious to him? Sango is leaning right up to Kagome in obvious interest now, stuttering out a hopeful request for confirmation. Kagome playfully looks over to where Kirara is mewling at the shoji screens in disrepair to ask if the cat thinks so too.
Sango goes up to Kirara and asks what's up with the meows, and sees through a tear in the screen Miroku outside with one of the village women. He's repeating what she must have told him about losing her husband in a war a while back as a question, as if that's not the oldest trick in the book to convincing people that you're interested in their lives. The woman hangs her head and utters a meek affirmative.
Kagome setting RECORDS over here for statements that age the worst the fastest, lol!
In the boys' cabin, Shippou is asking a lounging Inuyasha if it's really okay to let Miroku wander off like they did. Inuyasha lazily tells Shippou to let Miroku be, saying it's better than having to listen to Miroku's whiny sighs next to him all damn night. Too fucking true. Shippou hops on Inuyasha's side to yell at him that Sango will get angry, but Inuyasha just asks with disinterest why that would be, even though it's perfectly obvious how little he gives a shit. Shippou sweatdrops and suggests that Inuyasha really is a TOTAL moron, and Inuyasha goes from zero fucks to 100 lumps to the head in half a second, bolting upright to ask what that little bastard said to him.
They start to tussle when Shinosuke addresses them hesitantly, and Inuyasha pauses in hanging a wriggling Shippou by his tail to listen to him say he's going to sleep ahead of them, since he wants to get up early and keep looking for his fiancee some more. Shippou ineffectually beats on Inuyasha with tiny fists as Inuyasha just tells Shinosuke to do whatever he likes.
The night wears on, and Kagome lies awake, peeking into her periphery at where Sango lays on another bedroll just a short distance behind her in the dark room. She's still thinking on poor Sango and her poor situation.
You think? Do you think it might be futile to constantly try to police someone's excessive flirting/sleeping around? Think that might be a waste of energy???
She notices that Sango is moving around back there, and turns over to ask after her and find that she's sat up and is damn near fully clothed in her battle attire, adjusting her shoulder armor. Sango shushes her, while outside there's a procession of the village women holding torches and looking... strangely vacant. Sango and Kagome watch them pass through a crack between the door and its jamb, the latter asking quietly what she thinks the women could be doing. Sango doesn't offer an answer, just slips out of the shack and says she's going after them. Kagome calls for her to wait, suggesting they go get Inuyasha first, and then Miroku, who she's sure is nearby. Sango barks that she's fine and doesn't have time to look for those guys, rushing off all the faster, even as Kagome calls after her again.
Oh good, glad to know Inuyasha's nose works for the moment. Perhaps no one has to look for HIM after all.
He's wondering what the scent he's picking up even is, seeming a little confused as to if it's water or not. He leaves Shippou curled up on his bedroll and sticks his head out the hanging mat covering the doorway and concludes that the scent ISN'T water, but a living being, or rather, a whole lot of them. Meanwhile, Kagome is running up the lane toward him, calling his name and starting to tell him what Sango did. After a short conversation, Inuyasha seems to have been in the dark about the movement of the village women (so much for that nose working), and Kagome telling him that Sango went after them on her own.
All this chatter has woken Shinosuke, who sits up and makes an uncertain noise at them, as if unsure if he should be concerned. Inuyasha turns to tell him that he should go back to sleep before he leaves with Kagome and carries her through the forest on his back. She asks him about the smell of a "water being" that he's told her about, and he admits he doesn't really get it, and the scent just kind of popped up all of a sudden. He speculates that it was probably simultaneous with the movement of the village women.
Back at the boys' hut, Shinosuke has NOT gone back to sleep, still sitting up and anxious. Someone slides aside the mat hanging over the doorway, and he looks over in shock over the woman who walks in. Our beauty-marked girl either quietly or dispassionately says his name.
Is he too elated at finding her to realize she's not behaving quite right?
Elsewhere outside, Miroku is being led up a path by his lady villager companion, who tells him it's just a little farther to a nice quiet place where they can be alone. It is, unsurprisingly, the little temple on the edge of town that we've seen has a certain appetite. Miroku recognizes it as a little shrine when he first enters as the village woman slides the doors closed behind them. He sees the scroll on the wall and asks if it doesn't seem like the goddess Kannon herself might strike them down for getting a bit nasty in her temple, but he's not worried enough not to wrap his arms back around the woman and nuzzle her suggestively. She asks if he's joking, and he may as well be.
The painting on the scroll looks on ominously thanks to all the dramatic irony.
With a narrow transition panel with the rustling treetops showing that's become pretty common throughout this small arc, we switch locations yet again, this time to the rocks over the easy river in the valley. There, Sango is standing on the biggest overhanging rock, staring out over the water and puzzling over how there appears to be no one there. She hops between rocks, wondering where the many people she was following could just up and disappear. Right in the middle of this thought, a hand shoots out of the water below and grabs hold of her ankle.
This is why you never go off alone in a horror movie, kids.
Another tree-top transition panel later, and Inuyasha and Kagome come running up on the rock overhanging the river like Sango, Kagome calling for her. Inuyasha delivers the unfortunate news that this is where Sango's scent stops. Or, maybe on some of the smaller rocks across the river, but I suppose functionally it may as well be up on the big rock.
Back at the little temple, Miroku is about to get BUSY with the lady villager, laying on top of her and everything, and she calls him her dear priest. It's at this point he pauses, looking at this woman's vacant expression, a marbled ominous atmosphere hanging out in the background. He notices that there's a slight vapor issuing from her mouth, which he identifies as an evil energy, and wonders if it's something in her stomach. Then he swivels his head away from the lady, agonizing how it ALWAYS seems to be like this every time. I don't know dude, seems like you might have a "type" if you know what I mean.
The woman under him asks what the issue is, and Miroku looks back down at her to voice his concerns out loud that she's being controlled. He jumps up, staff in his fist, as he whirls around to what he's determined the real form of his enemy is. At least he's prepared for whoever he's trying to sleep with being a demonic weirdo these days. The sun in the scroll paining behind Kannon's head glows brightly in response to his accusation.
Good to know all that energy isn't going to go to waste.
He holds his defensive stance, asking this youkai exactly what kind it is. It doesn't really answer, just chuckles and demands Miroku's raw hide. Super entitled and pushy-like.
Meanwhile, a sopping Sango opens her eyes in a daze, while the village headwoman approaches with a torch and remarks on her being awake now. Sango rattles and pulls on the chains her wrists have been bound up in, anchored in what looks like a cave wall. She asks what this place is.
As per recent precedent, she doesn't actually get an answer.
Ooh, becoming assimilated by the feudal Borg. That should be new and FUN.
So, what did I think of this chapter overall? Goodness but the rapid switches between the different characters was jarring. I think it was overdone in this chapter, and I think RT could have found a way to rearrange things rather easily that would have cut down on the overabundance of transitions in this one. I counted NINE, averaging one per two pages, and that's just absurd. I know RT is capable of better planning than this, so it's just frustrating.
Otherwise, I did like the content - the transition panels themselves that show the silhouette of the treetops against a murky dark sky that I pointed out in the recap puts me in mind of a good spooky campfire story. The plot of this mini-arc fits that profile as well, with the characters drawn into the area through murky rumors and find themselves staying overnight in an unfolding situation that is turning out to be more dangerous than they initially expected. I very much appreciate whenever this story returns to its horror roots, because that is part of what drew me to it in the first place, so this campfire tale of a diversion is very welcome. It's unsettling, creepy, alarming, and I LOVE IT.
I think it's interesting that Sango has been put into the situation of being inducted into this sinister sisterhood the oni-women have going here. While this community is said to have been formed because the women in it have lost their families to war, it's not unheard-of to have these sorts of women-only communes formed as a sort of refuge for women from MEN fundamentally. War, after all, is often the pretext for abuses to be committed against occupied communities, and it is very commonly waged by men. Given how fed-up Sango is about Miroku and all his flirtations with other women, it's not at all hard to imagine that getting away from him and her uncomfortable feelings for him might be somewhat appealing. If she were given the choice, maybe persuaded a little, it might not come across as such a terrible idea to her to swear off male company altogether and join the nunnery, so to speak. It could have been a subtle temptation, the offer of a new life without the heartache or frustration of dealing with a crush like Miroku.
Of course, she's not being given the choice at all, they're just going to drag her kicking and screaming into the fold. Missed opportunity, in my opinion.
