One of these days, if I can carve out enough time, I intend to go through a closet that has been accumulating junk pretty much since we moved into this house. There are vinyl figures, old clothes that are no longer worn, gifts that we never ended up using, and knick-knacks whose origins we don't even really remember. It's frustrating how, no matter how mindful I am about my consumption levels, I always seem to accumulate a ton of junk in the course of regular life. It doesn't help that I have a slight tendency to hold on to items I think MAYBE might be useful one day. You know, if I am in a very specific situation or want to do a specific kind of project. It's wholly irrational, since there's barely enough time to clean these days, let alone take on new little crafts with pieces of garbage I hold onto in the hope they'll be creatively satisfying.
If the pile of junk grows high enough, I might even have to worry about something similar to this.
Won't look NEARLY as cool as that, though.
Chuckling, Hakudoushi asks why Inuyasha and company down below are so shocked, since they know that he made Mouryoumaru from various youkai parts. He says adding parts for flying was pretty trivial. Mouryoumaru's branching tentacle limb still embedded in the ground where it punched in front of him, Inuyasha asks who Hakudoushi thinks is so shocked. The tentacle limb whips up and around, jabbing at Inuyasha, who asserts that Mouryoumaru just flew to dodge, and there's no way he can stand up to Kongousouha.
Without finding some way to prevent him dodging again, you're kinda just wasting your energy, aren't you?
Kouga's underlings are amazed regardless because of how that tentacle limb was blown away, but Kouga points out that it was JUST the arm that was destroyed with a scoff. Miroku and Sango look up, the former questioning if the main body escaped. Indeed, it still hovers up in the air, if not a bit higher. In a rage, Inuyasha demands the bastard get his ass back down there, as if he'll descend to die at the deployment of a firm tone.
A clump of spheres starts growing out from behind Mouryoumaru, then plummet to the ground. Miroku identifies it as haku in disbelief, both he and Inuyasha gaping up at the spectacle. The spheres splat over the ground along with strips of discarded flesh, and Miroku warns Inuyasha to be careful of all the pieces of arm that were embedded in the haku, Inuyasha scoffing that this is just a waste of time. As the tentacle limb reforms around the haku and jabs toward him, he declares he'll blow it away every time.
Cool. Still only targeting one part of it. And Inuyasha still thinks the OTHER guys are the suckers too. At least until THIS happens:
Let's face it, he really should have figured this would happen. Yet he expresses disbelief when looking at the tentacle digits sticking out of the wound in his arm. Kouga's underlings shout that smashing the arm won't work, looking up at the shredded flesh regrouping around the balls of haku midair. Once it coalesces enough, it launches at Kouga this time, who leaps out of the way handily. But he does note bitterly that the target is still his Shikon fragments, judging by the aim of the tentacles for his ankles, presumably.
Inuyasha is alarmed by this statement, as though he JUST remembered the Shikon shards were still being hunted by Hakudoushi and Mouryoumaru's boss. He's not really shining intellectually today, is he? As he's shrugging off the remaining strips of tentacle draped over his back, he's even MORE alarmed that these haku-enabled tentacles are snaking along the ground toward Kagome now. He calls her name and lunges forward to save her.
His fingers sink into the flesh, and Kouga's underlings observe this, telling him entirely too late that he mustn't touch Mouryoumaru's skin, a trap he won't get out of if he gets caught. Inuyasha's ALREADY got Mouryoumaru's flesh knitting over his hand, and barks at the underlings to speak up sooner next time. Kagome gapes over at him in horror, watching him yank his hand back with a curse.
Got no time when you're dodging slime.
Sango reiterates what the underlings have already discovered: the body of Mouryoumaru hardens and softens depending on if it's attacking or defending. As the pieces of flesh coalesce in the air again, Miroku rips the sealing beads off his right hand and declares he can at least reduce the amount that's available for the assault. Way to take some responsibility for controlling the amount of creepy wandering tentacles, Miroku! Maybe one day you'll realize you can do that with your own hands too.
Hakudoushi pouts and swears a little at Mouryoumaru's flesh being sucked into the Kazaana, but he sends out the EXACT countermeasure to this that you presume he would. The Saimyoushou come buzzing in from behind Mouryoumaru (or perhaps from inside him, since they appear out of nowhere otherwise), and Shippou performs a similar appearing act on Miroku's shoulder, warning him that their venom poses a risk while Sango identifies the insects with distress. As if Miroku's not already echoing Hakudoushi's curse and wrapping his hand back in the beads.
Inuyasha acknowledges that the clouds of flesh hovering around are BARELY lessened, but he still figures it's a little better at least. Still, he's uneasy, no doubt because Kouga is still leaping here and there with Kagome in his arms, trying to outrun the attacks of the tentacles. Kagome says SHE needs to do something about the remaining flesh around them, telling Kouga to put her down. He responds with disbelief at the request, and Inuyasha is no less floored by it, gaping in her direction while she explains that the repeated physical attacks against this youkai aren't doing the trick. Kouga asks if she means her arrows can work instead, and she affirms this.
So Kouga does one final leap out of the way, sets her down like she asked, and she nocks an arrow quickly.
Mouryoumaru and Hakudoushi are still up in the air, carefree as can be, no doubt.
More likely to just get scattered around again.
So, what did I think of this chapter overall? Mouryoumaru LOOKS cool, but by no means was this chapter engaging. The characters act like the soft flesh that absorbs turning hard to attack is somehow NOVEL, but we've seen this ALL before. Naraku has been pulling this exact thing for AGES now, and it's a little disingenuous to present it as some new set of powers no one's ever seen before. Even detaching parts of his limbs and attacking independently from his main body is very much familiar ground by now.
This is probably the most blatant indication I've seen YET that RT ran out of ideas and is doing some heavy recycling. It wouldn't have to be a terrible thing - after all, Hakudoushi is an offspring of Naraku, and since Hakudoushi is familiar at least with his own form and function, it would make sense that he would model his creation after that particular example. But there's no attempt at that simple explanation and instead the chapter is trying to convince us that it's a brand new thing that is completely shocking.
Just a strange direction to take, honestly.
No comments:
Post a Comment