But, maybe that's just me.
We don't start out in the well with Kagome anyway, but right where we left off with Inuyasha and Kaede fending off a horde of village women turned into puppets.
To Kaede's eyes. the hair on the attacking girl's wrist and weapon is glinting, but Inuyasha says he doesn't see any hair. Well, except that on the girls' heads, of course, but that's a given. Inuyasha makes a swipe at the woman, but she's lifted out of his attack before it can hit and he's left clawing air, confused. He looks up to find her wriggling strangely in the space above him, and the rest of the woman lunge at him while he's distracted. Kaede yells at him to run.
Yura, sly as she is, says the only problem with his plan is that unlike regular puppet strings, her hair grows. She forms some sort of cat's cradle design in the strands attached to her fingers, and...
Yura pouts down at her hands, saying it feels like the flesh wasn't severed. Good point, Yura; what about the hair around his neck where the robe doesn't reach? Is his SKIN just that strong too? Inuyasha is panting and massaging his neck, admitting that he thought he was a goner. Kaede says that if he had been a regular human, he would have lost his head. I guess the hair isn't as effective at cutting demonic skin as it is human, or something. It's not really an explanation.
Inuyasha and Kaede look around and see the village men now advancing on them with weapons, and Inuyasha says that what they've been doing so far isn't getting them anywhere. You could have avoided wasting your time if you had just listened to Kaede earlier, you know. She's older and wiser than you and she has better aim.
Inuyasha hoists Kaede onto his back and carries her off rather than dick around with the villagers anymore. Kaede tries to warn Inuyasha about the surrounding hair, but it turns out it's snapping in two at contact with Inuyasha's robe. He asks her what she was saying, and she tells him to never mind.
After another whispering forest blank panel (getting a tad tired of those), Inuyasha is kneeling next to Kaede lying on the ground at the base of a tree. He asks her if she can see the hair, why she doesn't just tell him where it leads. Kaede tells him this is impossible, due to her condition and bad eyesight. That first one is fair, but the second one is crap. You saw the hair just fine before, Kaede. She begs Inuyasha to hurry and find Kagome, and he looks loathe to do so, but wonders if she can see the hair too.
Meanwhile, Kagome groans as her eyes flutter open in dingy darkness. She's lying on a bed of bones, which she sees as she sits up and looks around. She remembers being attacked by Yura, who threw her sword into the well after her, when she fell inside.
Kagome hears voices from above, one of which says they've already checked the well, and the other saying that he saw his sister fall inside. Kagome's grandfather points a flashlight into the well as he glares at his grandson, claiming that he had to be dreaming. Souta yells that it did actually happen, and is interrupted by Kagome shouting at them out of the bottom of the well.
Five hundred years in the past, Kaede lies motionless on the ground while Inuyasha digs a hole by sweeping the dirt between his legs and up over the side like a dog. Once he's satisfied with the hole he's created, he turns to Kaede and says that the least he can do for her is bury her here. Kaede opens her eye and informs Inuyasha that she's not dead yet, and Inuyasha amends his statement, saying that what he meant was that she can hide in the hole. After placing her in it and while he's dumping the dirt and leaves on top of her, he says he'll come back for her later, if he doesn't forget.
Have I ever talked about how much I LOVE RT's sense of humor? More often than not, she really knows how to tell a joke.
Anyway, Kaede warns him not to forget her, and Inuyasha is soon bounding through the forest once more. He's also whining about how he doesn't know what Kagome could be up to at a time like this.
Downstairs, Kagome's mother is talking to Grandpa, trailing off in the middle of talking about Kagome's impossible story. Grandpa remains silent while Souta continues to insist that it happened, the monster and Kagome being pulled in, at least. Grandpa thinks about how the legend of the bone-eating well that vanishes youkai remains has been passed down over the generations, and wonders if those remains disappear within the flow of time. He stands up suddenly, saying that he's not wasting any more time.
He goes out to the well, nails a piece of flimsy plywood over it, and sticks a bunch of paper charms all over the top. Yeah, that'll keep monsters from coming out. For suuuuuuuuuuuure. Once he's done, he goes back in and sits at the table with Kagome, who is blow-drying her hair. Is she not concerned about getting loose strands in her food? I would be. That shit's nasty. Grandpa has told her that the well is sealed now, and she parrots this information back at him as a question. Grandpa elaborates, saying that he used valuable ofuda charms to seal the opening with a powerful barrier. And nails. Don't forget the nails. He assures her that the well will never open again, but Kagome doesn't wear a relieved expression.
On the other side, Inuyasha is sniffing along the ground identifying her scent and her clothes lying abandoned in a pile beside the well. Still crouching, he grips the lip of the well and peers inside as he continues to sniff. He leaps inside, saying that she must have run away through the well. What's with everyone talking about Kagome "running away" inside a well? Typically, there's nowhere for people to GO in wells!
And does he NOT smell Yura there, or that Kagome was injured? Something doesn't smell right here...
So, what did I think about this chapter overall? Kaede and Inuyasha's banter is highly enjoyable. Even while injured, Kaede commands respect and dignity, and you can't help but admire how she orders Inuyasha around despite his being a major threat only a couple of chapters ago. He may have to be told a couple of times and has an attitude about it, but Inuyasha listens to her and acts according to the information she gives him. He was snide and rude, but he respected her wish for him not to kill the women and men of the village. He values her life enough to save and hide her, even if he's petulant about it and tries to make it seem like he doesn't care.
One thing that has become apparent about Inuyasha over the past two chapters is that he has trouble expressing himself is a way others can understand. At the beginning of the last chapter, Kagome misunderstood his meaning when he told her to take of her clothes, and at the end of this one, Inuyasha means to hide Kaede, but talks about burying her instead and she thinks she has to remind him that she's not dead. Yes, these are jokes, but they also serve the secondary purpose of driving home the idea that Inuyasha isn't a very good communicator. He often doesn't say what he means, not because he's trying to be mysterious or mislead anyone, but because he's genuinely lacking in social nuance. This will become more apparent as chapters pass.
What will also become more apparent is that Inuyasha is really very smart, which I've seen people deny in the past. He understood that it was strange for the village women to be attacking him even before Kaede told him that they were being manipulated, and he tried to use a perceived weakness of the puppeteer against her. Despite how his idea didn't work, it was a reasonable assumption to make, following the style of making solutions a bit double-edged that RT has showed so far. He even gives up the fight when the village men take up arms, realizing quickly that he's not going to win the way he's been fighting. He's adaptable and willing to change strategies when something isn't working.
Finally, Kagome reacted really realistically to her situation. She did what she needed to do in order to survive during her ordeal, but it's obvious how much she disconnected in order to cope by the time she comes back to what she knows. With one thing after another happening to her, she had no time to express her overwhelming emotions, but when she's finally grounded and back at home, she lets it all out. It was very well done because it allows Kagome some room to express those feelings associated with the trauma and really puts it into perspective AS trauma. It wasn't a fun little adventure to her, but a serious clusterfuck. If she didn't freak out at all, I'd be wondering what the hell is wrong with her, like some other characters I could mention...
Anyway, the only thing I'm wondering about is why Inuyasha can't just sniff Yura out. Does she not have a scent? Is her scent not really occurring to him while he's searching for Kagome, because she was too far away to smell before? But, even then, shouldn't her scent be on the hair? Seems a little inconsistent to have Inuyasha's nose not be as effective for this particular adventure, just to focus more on Kagome's sight.
Oh well.
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