You think that's why Goryoumaru sits in the dark all the time? Because people describe his arm as "grotesque"? It would certainly bother me, and I don't think it's the nicest thing for our heroes to be so hung up on the appearance of a limb. Maybe instead of getting in a twist over whether or not someone's a youkai, or if he's got a funky arm, they should be focusing on the other VERY suspicious things floating around the temple. Like the silently screaming monks between the spikey crystals. The child-army this guy has accrued. The similarity of his name to another they've heard very recently.
I'm just saying, the arm? Not the most problematic thing about him by a MILE.
The horde of youkai charge at the group below out of the sky, and Goryoumaru's arm flowers open at several points, producing the same kind of bubbling light that the kids' pots did. Inuyasha's gang stares, Kagome gasping and Miroku giving voice to the observation that this is identical to what they've seen so far. It shoots forward to meet the attacking youkai, shredding them all, except Kagura hanging out in the back of the line, making a confused noise.
I have SOME idea of what he is...
Did I say that Goryoumaru's light-emitting laser arm shredded ALL the youkai? My bad, there are still quite a few left, so many in fact that Kagome claims that their numbers haven't decreased AT ALL, hugging a cowering Shippou to her tightly. Miroku asserts that there are too many of them, and Inuyasha curses that it looks like he'll have to be the one to take care of them, holding out Tessaiga, with a tendril of wind wrapping around the blade. The children stare in awe of him as he lets loose a Kaze no Kizu and disintegrates the horde. Kagura recognizes the move from her perch, again, just out of range.
Goryoumaru's child soldiers gape in wonder at the youkai bits raining down from the sky, and someone also observes that the remainder of the horde is retreating. Goryoumaru himself takes a long silent look at Inuyasha in the wake of his swing of Tessaiga, then calls him a bastard, asking why he's killing youkai if he's a youkai himself. With the exact same "logic" he's been using aimed right back at him, Inuyasha complains that that's HIS line.
Before this exchange of suspicions can escalate, Miroku steps forward, asking for a confirmation that Goryoumaru is indeed who they're talking to and whether he's a youkai himself, as might be deduced from the arm. The child soldiers rush to surround their leader and shout at the strangers in his defense that he's a HUMAN and a great gyouja, thank you very much. Goryoumaru explains that while his arm is a youkai's, but it moves to HIS will, as they saw. He further elaborates that the youkai it belonged to tried to possess and eat him, but he used his Buddhist powers to twist and enslave it. Seems... fundamentally counter to the peaceful nature of Buddhism, but what the fuck do I know? Goryoumaru says that his real arm was eaten by the youkai, but he's satisfied with how well the new arm does at exterminating disgusting youkai. I feel SO BAD for Shippou and Kirara right now, having to listen to this.
Inuyasha lectures Goryoumaru on handing the pots to a bunch of children so they could go around killing youkai at random, which is an entirely fair criticism even if Inuyasha isn't TOTALLY innocent of killing random youkai himself. He also accuses Goryoumaru of suggesting to those same kids that they should kill Gakusanjin. Goryoumaru repeats the name of the victim in question, as though he hasn't heard the name before. Miroku tells him that Gakusanjin was a youkai mountain that did not wish to fight, but continue sleeping as a mountain. He adds that Gakusanjin was only awake in the first place because his sleep was disturbed by a hanyou burglar, and he had been trying to pursue the thief. Miroku saves the name Naraku for last, looking rather critically at Goryoumaru, no doubt for a sign of recognition.
Again, Goryoumaru repeats the new name, but shows no overt signs he has heard it before. Miroku comes to the point that he would like to know the reasons the innocent Gakusanjin was killed, so Goryoumaru turns to the three kids who did the deed for their defense. How... how did he know it was them specifically? There's a ton of little brats running around. How did he AUTOMATICALLY know which ones killed Gakusanjin?
The three mutter that they have no way of knowing which youkai are good or bad. As if they haven't been speaking this entire time like they're convinced ALL youkai are bad. Kagome mulls over this denial of responsibility and the implication that it's unrelated to Naraku, and that Gakusanjin's murder was just a coincidence. She seems unconvinced. As she should be.
The children wail about the returned youkai, but Goryoumaru tells them not to panic, saying it's likely the youkai will just sit and watch from a distance. How does he figure? He doesn't say, but he does tell Inuyasha that he and his group would likely be attacked on every side and ripped apart if they leave the temple now. Goryoumaru turns on his heel to take his leave, saying he'll allow them to stay on the temple grounds until the next morning. How magnanimous. And possibly convenient for him.
Inuyasha yells at Goryoumaru's back that they're not finished talking, but Miroku suggests to him that they should just accept the offer. No point in further antagonizing a host who has graciously overlooked the fact that they basically just INVADED his home. Kagome says that she thought Moryoumaru would force them to leave, and Shippou ponders aloud if he's actually a good guy. "Good" is a relative term. Sango stands in the back of the group, silent.
When they're all sitting together on a set of stairs, in council over whether Goryoumaru's story is true or not, Miroku reminds them that he deliberately brought up Gakusanjin's and Naraku's names, but couldn't read their host's expression in response. Inuyasha scoffs that of COURSE he couldn't, asserting that Goryoumaru couldn't put on an act if he didn't have a good poker face.
Their attention is drawn off-panel by someone addressing them. It's a couple of the kids, looking sullen, who tell them all to come with them and eat, because Moryoumaru said that they should have some food. Inuyasha and Kagome stare for a moment in mild surprise.
Kagome asks the children why THEY'RE here doing all this, and where their parents are. Take a wild guess, girl. The kids state matter-of-factly that they don't have parents, one of them saying their mom and dad were eaten by a youkai. Kagome asks if EVERYONE here has a story like this, and another of the kids snaps in a temper that they would have died in a gutter if Goryoumaru hadn't picked them up. It's the stated reason why they help Goryoumaru, to pay him back, in addition to exterminating the horrible youkai.
Sango turns to address Miroku, who says he doesn't think the children are lying, but his sentence trails, like there's still a few missing pieces. Inuyasha is, much like Kagome was earlier, questioning if this REALLY doesn't have anything to do with Naraku.
Kagura is out there among them, thinking that there's definitely something fishy about this temple. Ha, just wait until you learn about the guy who lives here. She observes that there's an incredible evil aura coming from the temple itself, which makes me wonder if MIROKU clocked that. She also notices something else around the temple, the groups of creepy monk carvings with their agonized expressions. Kagura recalls hesitantly that these are called "rakanzou", though they don't look much like lucky charms to her. I guess there's something in the meaning of the word that suggests that, but there's no explanation.
It's also clear to Kagura that the youkai aren't trying to enter the temple, despite there being no barrier around it. All of these strange elements give her the impression that this is an opportunity to look for clues to the whereabouts of Shnooky, one that she shouldn't pass up. Kagura is less likely to question the connection between Gakusanjin's murder and Naraku without a contrary narrative in her head, I see. She pops open her fan and holds it out from her body, before swiping it through the air in front of her, promising to make an army of all the youkai outside the grounds. Her wind blades slash through them.
Inside the temple, Inuyasha's crew and the children all look around in alarm, Goryoumaru doing the same in his seclusion. The kids stutter about the youkai they presume are outside, asking each other what they'll do, since they still don't have their goryou pots to defend themselves. Inuyasha jumps to his feet, hand ready to draw Tessaiga at his side, and tells them all to stand back. He and the rest of the group run outside to defend the temple.
So, what did I think of this chapter overall? RT has done a pretty good job of constructing a suspicious situation while keeping the level of plausible deniability high. Goryoumaru seems to have a believable answer to every question Inuyasha and company asks, or at least someone else to BLAME for their complaints, but they can never quite set the weird vibes aside. Mostly this is because every response from Goryoumaru brings up MORE suspicions; his almost TOO rigid poker face, the fact that he seemed to know immediately which team of children killed Gakusanjin, his correct "assumption" that the youkai wouldn't attack them and just hang out to watch them. All extremely odd things that deserved further examination, but it's entirely possible that they flew just under the radar for our protagonists, grazing close enough to it that they can't quite articulate why they're causing uneasiness.
I'm a little disappointed that Sango doesn't have MORE to say on this arrangement Goryoumaru has with these orphaned children. She touched on the fact that these kids appeared to be mostly untrained in the previous chapter, but hearing from them the specific reason they're here in this chapter didn't cause her to revisit and amplify her initial criticism. She and Kohaku grew up within a village that made their specialty out of this skilled profession, and she knows better than anyone what the risks there are even in a purely professional context. The fact that an adult seems to have groomed a whole brood of children without families to go around killing youkai not out of service to surrounding communities, but the sense that they OWE him and general vengeance is a whole GARDEN of red flags. These kids are liable to be hurt and killed in pursuit of this man's ends, even if everything ELSE about him is on the up-and-up. It's really disturbing.
Also, that comment from Kagura about the evil aura coming DIRECTLY from the temple has me questioning why Miroku didn't have anything to say about this. He's the main energy-sensor in the group, so there's no doubt he picked up on it, but he's being pretty tight-lipped. There probably wasn't a lot of ROOM for the group to discuss Sango's and Miroku's individual concerns in this one, so I'm not too worried about it, but I hope I see them talking at least a little more about these things in the next couple of chapters. They would seem to be the most OVERT of the issues regarding the temple and its inmates.
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