It's like the very OPPOSITE of Las Vegas in here.
Inuyasha is peeved by the fact that he can't just kill the youkai outright since it's possessed the kid, deeming this "hitoukon" a pretty annoying youkai. We all have our little tricks for survival, don't we? Inuyasha perceives something coming up behind him and looks over his shoulder to call out Kohaku for following him, citing his untrickable nose. Unless the plot demands it be fooled, of course.
Kohaku pauses in a nearby tree, and Sango looks down to also identify her little brother from her perch on Kirara. Inuyasha shouts his assumption that he's on the pursuit under Naraku's orders, questioning if this mere annoyance of a youkai is really THAT special. Kohaku glares, keeping his negative answer silent, as well as his explanation that he NEEDS to save Daichi and return him to his father's side.
He tosses the weighted end of his chain at Daichi's flying form with a grunt, and it sails past a surprised Inuyasha and wraps around the child's ankle. Sango thinks on Kohaku with some disbelief, but that's AS she's already reaching under one of her shoulder compartments. She's still got a job to do after all, and she IS a professional. She tosses what looks like some kind of power into Daichi's face.
Kohaku watches with alarm as Daichi begins to fall, but Sango barks at Inuyasha to take care of him. Inuyasha catches the poor kid by the ankle carelessly, asking Sango what should be done about the escaping hitoukon. Sango catches its fleeing movement out of her periphery and curses, wheeling Kirara around and shouting that she's going after it. At least Inuyasha is holding Daichi in a more comfortable cradled postion, but he complains about being left behind to babysit. I SHUDDER to think about him trying to actually care for a kid, lol.
Inuyasha turns at the call of his name, and sees Shippou mounted on Kagome's shoulder while she runs to him, as usual, and Miroku has lifted Daichi's dad onto his back to carry him along too. Wasn't his ARM hurt? Why does he need a ride? Apparently, Miroku is none too pleased about how HEAVY he is too. Is this mountain peasant too FAT for you, Miroku?
Once Daichi's dad is sitting on the ground and Daichi has been deposited into his lap, the others loiter around them as father asks his son to hang in there. Daichi eventually opens his eyes and after a confused pause, identifies his dad's face looking down on him.
In the nearby trees, it appears Kohaku has been sitting and listening. At the very least, he looks back over his shoulder before he jumps to the next branch, offering a silent apology to the father and son duo he got mixed up in all this. He's not willing to just let the hitoukon go, and apparently he doesn't trust his sister to take care of it either, despite the massive head start she got on him in pursuing it.
In a field of waving tall grass and sparse trees, a wild boar steps up on a rock, its left eye surrounded in that now familiar hitoukon scarring. Its beady eyes narrow right before A sickle soars through the air and straight into the boar's affected eye. Kohaku is, of course, on the other end. Wow, was it really that easy this WHOLE time?? As Kohaku looks on the writhing hitoukon pinned under the point of his sickle in the boar's cheek, he wonders at the apparent fact that his sister DIDN'T catch it before him.
A voice says that since the hitoukon are weak to anti-youkai poisons, it'll wither away soon.
Sango asks Kohaku why he's not leaving, and whether he was trying to save the father and son. He remains silent, overtly cautious, though Sango concludes that he's a nice kid after all. Redemption from committing and supporting mass murders is just a small good deed away, it seems. Sango clings to this small bit of evidence that her brother hasn't lost his human heart, despite his working under Naraku.
Meanwhile, Kohaku is thinking that he REALLY can't afford for anyone to realize that his memory has returned, including (maybe ESPECIALLY), his sister. He has to continue to pretend he's being controlled in order to proceed with his ultimate goal of slaying Naraku, so when Sango takes a step toward him, starting to extend a hand, he tells her firmly to stay back. At last, he SPEAKS. Sango halts, sweating as she withdraws her hand to her chest again.
When Sango calls out to him, appearing to lunge in his direction to stop him leaving, perhaps, he snaps at her not to follow him and tosses his sickle at her. She blocks the attack with Hiraikotsu, calling after him to come back as he runs into the surrounding forest. He does not, and she kneels in the grass in devastation.
Later, when the rest of the group catches up to her and she's asked by Kagome about why she let Kohaku get away, she murmurs that she doesn't know how she'd handle Kohaku even if she restrained him, hanging her head. She voices her continued understanding that Kohaku's heart is still controlled by Naraku. It's not as though Sango hasn't tried that before, after all.
Kagome argues that Kohaku was trying to save Daichi and his father, and Sango agrees, but she's still very wary about taking her initial thoughts about Kohaku returning to normal at face value. You know what they say:
Kohaku is still convinced he has to finish off Naraku with his own hand. He recalls what Kagura told him about the youki crystal providing a clue to the location of Naraku's heart, the color of it vanishing whenever one gets close, but he notes that this hasn't happened ONCE since he got the damn thing, including now when he takes it out to examine it as he's running. Hope he's at least keeping ONE eye on the road, because even walking through the woods can be a hazard when you're not watching where you're going. Ask me how I know.
The kid can't help but impatiently wonder where in the WORLD Naraku's heart is.
Cut to the prison building on the jagged mountainside, where a number of youkai are slithering through the grate keeping Goryoumaru in his cell.
So, what did I think of this chapter overall? Kohaku's not much better at this spy thing than Kagura it seems. His explanation and the way he lashed out at Sango with the demand not to follow him just SCREAMED that he is absolutely conscious now. He was doing well for a little while, keeping his speaking to a minimum and not doing anything overtly indicating sentience, but there at the end he kind of lost it. There's a possibility that all his flashbacks shook his resolve JUST enough to try to communicate his consciousness to his sister while he doubled down on his role. He acknowledges that he can't go back to Sango, can't return to how things were, but there's no doubt still a part of him that longs to reach out for those human connections again. After all, why else would he have agreed to stay the night with the father and son in the first place?
It's very much like how Sango herself reflexively reaches for any kernel of Kohaku's humanity, as her rational mind rejects that he can be free of Naraku. To me, it's really obvious from Kohaku's behavior and little speech that he's back to himself again, and Sango herself admits that she too thought he was behaving fairly normal at first. But she doesn't offer any evidence that he's actually not, because her skepticism has nothing to do with evidence and everything to do with the fact that she couldn't stand to find out that he's still under Naraku's thrall again. Who can really blame her, when she's had her hopes crushed over and over? It's clear she's trying to protect her feelings and sanity from another shock, just as Kohaku is trying to spare himself the heartache of a fantasy that he'll be able to return to his sister's side.
Tragedy though it is, there is some wisdom in their resistance to their fondest hopes and wishes. You can never go back home, at least not as you remember it, and everyone to some extent understands this fundamental truth of life. When eventually their reunion CAN happen, an entirely new reality will have to be built, an entirely new relationship. Going back to the way things were is an absolute impossibility, so at least they're right about THAT part.
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