I think it's a little LATE for a prelude to anything there, especially carnage. We've already had some pretty disturbing injuries and deaths so far, so the war is WELL underway. Maybe it's more of an intermission? Releasing the reader to go get some popcorn, soda, kick back and mull over all that they've seen so far before the second half of the production? Not the best case scenario either, I have to admit. The last chapter already may as well not have existed, and if this one is also so throwaway as to behave more like a breather, then YT is two in a row for less-than-thrilling content.
Fingers crossed that's not what we're facing here.
Does this bird have Bette Davis eyes???
The fabulous bird is a variant that can speak, and flies into the castle window calling for Suzaku, and find him, or his silhouette, standing over the shattered remains of his demonic CCTV orb. With lashes like those, I'm going to err on the side of the feminine when I say that she utters an "oops" at the sight, but Suzaku greets her as "Murg" in a perfectly cordial way, his rage seeming to have disappeared. Murg giggles about how it appears his three fellows have failed him, and a little bit of his temper returns as he says shortly that that's enough. He asks Murg what she found out about Yusuke, and she reports that it's something interesting and useful, she thinks, telling him to peer into the human world.
They turn to what looks like an ENORMOUS oval screen with an ornate border. The castle surveillance was covered by a tiny orb, but on the human world they have a massive HD TV?? The image on it is fuzzy at first, but quickly solidifies into Keiko's, who Murg describes as Yusuke's classmate and dearest friend. Not if you judge by how he ditches her every chance he gets, lol.
Suzaku questions the term "friend" and if Keiko isn't more like a GIRLfriend, and Murg chuckles that his assessment is close enough. She characterizes the relationship as platonic, but most intimate. Only because both of them are a bit squirrelly about expression. Regardless of what labels one puts on it, Murg is certain that Keiko is Yusuke's Achilles' Heel.
Oof, that thing is as gaudy as his speech.
As the storm continues to rage outside the castle, Suzaku announces the overture, and Murg praises the sweet tune he plays. I doubt it sounds great, but lovely music has been produced from uglier instruments, I'm sure.
Keiko is indeed at school, and the hall where she walks is basically empty. Save Iwamoto, who questions why she's still here, as if HE has any business still being EMPLOYED at the place after the shit he's pulled. He tells her to go home and study for the upcoming exams, because she could make the regional top ten scorers. Keiko promises him that she'll leave after she's filed the papers she's holding for the student council newsletter.
Iwamoto states his approval, but demands one more thing of her - to STOP associating with Urameshi. Her sarcastic reply is aimed as his back while he's walking past, as well as a mocking face with her tongue sticking out. Deserves the finger all day every day too. Mind your fucking business, old man.
Unbeknownst to either of them, a creepy demon insect skitters along his shoulder and into his ear.
In the room marked Student Council, Keiko hums a tune, while wondering where her paperwork goes. To her surprise, the door slides open, and a shadowed Iwamoto glares into the room. She asks him if there was something else.
Hey man, maybe you should calm down.
But he doesn't calm down, and just becomes more agitated as a nervous Keiko watches his fist clenched at his side tremble at first, then rapidly start to shake violently. His fingers are curled so tightly that at last, blood spurts from between them. Keiko gapes in alarm, then has to cringe away when Iwamoto punches out the glass in one of the door's windows. She screams and runs out into the hallway, Iwamoto's deranged laughter following her in her flight. He holds out his bleeding fist, yelling at Keiko that students that don't listen to teachers deserve to suffer and DIE.
Soooooo, he's not that much different possessed by the demon insect?
Keiko runs out of the school, wondering what in the hell got into Iwamoto, having observed before she fled his glassy, unfocused eyes. She soon finds out that he's not the only one with this condition.
The guy on the left doesn't even appear to be drooling. Maybe he's just a weirdo. Regardless, YT leaves a little note under the above panel that he can't believe he drew this.
While Keiko stares in horror at the zombies blocking the school gate, Iwamoto comes stumbling out of the school behind her, grumbling her name in a long, drawn-out manner. He reaches out for her, and she yelps, veering off the run around the building instead. She had fragmented worries about the people acting all crazy back there, wondering what's going on.
Panting, Keiko comes across some foliage, and crouches beside it to at least be a LITTLE concealed, just before a pair of arms reach out of the bushes and seize her, one hand over her mouth to stop her screaming. Girl must be having a heart attack.
Lightening flashes at the castle of the only remaining Beast, Yusuke and the rest of the team running along. He encourages his teammates that there's only one guy left to defeat, and as Kuwabara shouts an affirmative, Yusuke adds that they should hurry, because it's important they get back to the city. A beep sounds from his pocket and Yusuke pulls out the communicator, answering with a petulant and impatient air. Botan identifies herself, saying she has news. BIG news.
Whatever's left of their minds, anyway.
Yusuke's face darkens as he urges them to get out of there, but as Botan is assuring him that they will and reminding him to get that whistle fast, Keiko exclaims in alarm at Iwamoto pushing aside their screen of foliage. He asks through his clenched teeth what Botan is doing out of uniform. Does he recognize her from when she's been in the school before? He swings at them, roaring that they're rule breakers, and Keiko launches herself at Botan to push her out of the way while warning her of the danger. Botan drops the communicator and Iwamoto stomps on it, shattering the thing. You'd think a spirit gadget like that might be less vulnerable to ordinary physical damage.
On the other end of the communicator, Yusuke yells at the fuzzy screen, demanding from a now cut-off Botan info on what just happened. When she doesn't answer, he growls to cover his panic, resuming his run with renewed gusto, yelling that time is running out and they gotta finish this. When our mysterious final villain sees this (presumably on his giant fucking screen because the orb is broken), he tells Murg that she was right, pointing out how Yusuke's composure has broken. Suzaku says he looks forward to his reaction to seeing Keiko's mutilated body, not to put too fine a point on his evil. But before that, Suzaku has to stall the party until he has Keiko in his clutches for this ultimate purpose. Smoke rises from a little pot on a strange candelabra with a shelf sitting right in the middle of it? I assume it has something to do with the "production model hominids" Suzaku mentions should do the trick.
Meanwhile, the boys skid to a stop outside the highest tower in the castle, announcing that this is the one that has the big boss's chamber at the very top. Yusuke and Kuwabara pause, however, when they see a silhouette emerging in a little doorway off to the side of the tower, jutting up from the structure below.
With the observation emerges that there's like a ZILLION of these guys and it'll take an eternity to fight their way through all of them, Kurama agrees that it'll at least take time they don't have, Hiei noting that these things don't feel pain or fear, like scarecrows. Or... perhaps robots, because at least those are presumably animate. Kuwabara complains about Suzaku being a real sicko, throwing this shit at them when they're trying to save Keiko. Do you expect him to NOT try his darnedest to make a failure of your efforts? He is, after all, the one who's trying to murder her.
Yusuke hollers that despite what Suzaku may think, he's prepared to finish off ALL the slime shields in their way with a volley of reiki fire. He begins to brace himself for the shot, but Kurama puts a hand on his shoulder and advises him not to expend his energy thus, because losing his cool and his strength like that would just be playing into Suzaku's hands. Yusuke insists there's no other way to get through, though, but Hiei suggests from behind him that perhaps there is. At this comment, Yusuke is taken-aback slightly, though he doesn't even see the exaggerated eyes on Hiei in this shot. They look like your typical alien eyes, and it's a little hilarious.
Hiei draws Yusuke's attention to a window up above his eyeline, and some distance about the door into the tower itself. Yusuke balks at the suggestion, saying they're not grasshoppers, and none of them could possibly jump that high. As another branch of lightening strikes, Hiei says that none of them could do it from THERE.
Next thing you know, we get an extreme closeup on Kuwabara's sweating, strained face.
Kuwabara is getting the short end of the stick AGAIN, I see.
As Kuwabara and Yusuke run straight for the tower, Kuwabara tells Yusuke he has one shot, and to make it count, which Yusuke says is the plan. With a whoop of encouragement, Yusuke leaps at the last moment, running straight up the backs of Kuwabara, Kurama, and at last, Hiei. He pushes off Hiei with a powerful jump, right for the gaping window. At first, it looks like he might fall just short of it, but...
Kurama and Hiei give their silent regards, a little sedate wave and a solemn nod respectively, and a grinning Kuwabara says they'll hold Yusuke to his promise. No doubt he's ALREADY hungry, with how much this excursion has taken out of him. After a thumbs-up, Yusuke runs down a hallway leading from the window, and emerges into a shocking scene: a weird dark stone room, with the giant ornate screen showing Keiko and Botan in tense conversation, while someone in a loose cowl-neck jumpsuit tied at the waist with a winding, floating cloth belt blowing into the grotesque flute in front of it.
Somehow, the flute-player is able to ask Yusuke if he likes the music with his lips still positioned over the flute. He suggests it's a fine funeral dirge for the girl Keiko, and admits that Yusuke got here a bit early, destroying his hopes to have everything ready before the boy arrived. Yusuke is preoccupied with the image of a sweating, terrified Keiko running from a threat, muttering how the castle's boss is a slimy scum-ball.
Listen, I know modern culture has often conflated eroticism and ultra-violence, but don't you think it's a little silly to suggest Yusuke would ENJOY watching Keiko die horribly? While calling for civility, no less.
But Yusuke isn't having any of it. He tells Suzaku that he's here for one thing and one thing ONLY: the whistle/flute. Yusuke says he MIGHT only beat Suzaku to a pulp if he hands it over, and Suzaku gets the only answer he can possibly get when he asks what happens if he says no.
So, what did I think of this chapter overall? Despite the dangerous context, it's great to see Botan and Keiko interacting and helping each other. The last time they came across one another, Keiko was a little cold, a little jealous, and the fact that she's not holding some sort of silly grudge is a good sign for YT's writing of these characters, because I've seen a few too many instances of crises losing their tension when the female characters in them nurse silly grievances instead of focusing on their immediate survival. I can't tell you how relieved I am to see this doesn't seem to be one of those instances.
There was an interesting contrast here between Yusuke's anxiety over the time that was being wasted and the team's solution for getting him into the final tower. Like a murder mystery happening in an active circus, there's a balance of tension and comedy here that's oddly pleasing. And it doesn't hurt that the idea for launching Yusuke into the tower window was pretty clever. The only thing I really have a problem with in its execution is the same problem I have with most of these plans - the TIME it takes to explain and execute strikes me as a little long, given how many "hominids" came out to block them. You'd think there would be plenty of room for the opposition to get in the way, but somehow didn't.
I don't have... ANYTHING to say about Suzaku. He's not remarkable in the slightest. His flute/whistle design is WAY more interesting than his, and even his little bird friend is somewhat more intriguing. Suzaku as a character seems lukewarm, not nearly as lively as Genbu or Byakko. I'm all set to be quite disappointed with the more humanoid Beasts. I wonder if there's something being said here on the human shape in demons...
Also, I REALLY hope this incident is what finally gets Iwamoto the sack. That guy needs fuck off forever.
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