I'll be sure to post updates as they come, but for now, I'm just going to keep it going as best I can.
Yura is pissed off beyond belief, swinging her be-haired fingers up in Kagome's direction with a snarl. The hair bridge Kagome was crawling on sways and she hangs on for dear life. Inuyasha takes the moment not in Yura's sights to pull her sword out of his hand, groaning. He then takes the sword to her back, asking her what she's looking away from him for. The slash only makes her glare out of her periphery at him.
She turns back around to draw her hand up and slice him with multiple strands of hair, yelling at him to shut up. Inuyasha is cocky now, though, because he notes that while Yura was calm and collected when he drove a hole through her chest, she's really bothered now. He goes on to deduce that there must be something in the area that she doesn't want him or Kagome to find. Yura grimaces at him.
Kagome is still climbing her way up the hair bridge, grunting. She points at a particular skull with hair threaded through its mouth rather than the scalp, and shouts to Inuyasha that it's doing something peculiar. Inuyasha turns the word "skull" into a question as Yura curses. Yura pulls herself up and away, along with her sword, while Inuyasha demands that she stop running away from him. He's still bound with hair, though, so he's not able to follow. Probably hurting pretty bad too, what from all those stabs to his chest and back earlier.
Yura ignores his macho posturing and swings toward Kagome, who sees her approach with trepidation.
In order to stop herself from being shaken loose, Kagome grabs onto the skull she had pointed out earlier, whining that it feels creepy. Girl, you were just climbing on HAIR earlier, and you weren't perturbed by that?? Yura reassures Kagome that if she doesn't like the feel on the skull, it's alright for her to let it go. She won't think you're a wimp, or anything, Kagome, she swears. When Kagome doesn't let go at her prompting, Yura flings her sword at Kagome. It makes contact, and Yura thinks that she's gotten her, something Kagome thinks as well with a thought about her undoubtedly injured arm as she loses her grip and falls into a net of hair below.
Yura is confused and loops some hair around Kagome's arms to hold her up straight. With sword raised, Yura demands to know what Kagome is that she wasn't injured by the fine sword. After all, Inuyasha was hurt pretty bad by it multiple times. Kagome looks pretty flabbergasted by this fact herself, staring at her totally fine arm. She wasn't cut, and she wasn't burned, and realizes it must be the shirt Inuyasha lent to her as she remembers what he said about it being stronger than most armor.
Yura sticks her face up really close to Kagome's to examine her, saying that she doesn't look different than any regular human. She decides to try a new tactic in killing Kagome.
The hair nest completely collapses, taking both heroes with it. Inuyasha says it figures that she can't support it with both of her arms gone. Kagome shouts for Inuyasha to look out, but it's too late as Yura's sword plunges into Inuyasha's chest. Inuyasha and Kagome both crash into a bed of skulls, which must hurt A LOT, especially considering all those wounds. Kagome pushes herself up again to find Yura has landed atop her pile of skulls, sneering at Inuyasha and Kagome and telling them that their struggle is useless as her sword is held aloft by her strands.
Inuyasha curses, taken aback by the fact that her horrible condition hasn't diminished her power over the hair like he thought. But, Inuyasha, it HAS. Her nest is gone, isn't it? Still, Yura insists that she's immortal, and sends her sword careening toward Inuyasha once more. But suddenly, Yura is struck by a nasty feeling, if the lightning in the background of the panel is any indication.
Yura sends her sword after Kagome now, but it stops just short of cleaving her skull and the skull Kagome is working her arrow into cracks in half. Within is a comb, which cracks at the grip. Yura freezes and Inuyasha identifies the object with awe. Yes, Inuyasha, a comb. Wild.
Inuyasha and Kagome watch Yura's clothes and sheath fall to rest atop the mountain of skulls, a feature that will puzzle all future archaeologists. Was this some sort of reburial project gone wrong? A strange ritual? WHO KNOWS?
Inuyasha curses Yura, having finally figured out that the reason he couldn't hurt her was that she had transferred her soul into a comb. Kagome is more concerned with the wounds Inuyasha is sporting. She takes off the fire-rat robe that he gave her and holds it out to him, feeling guilty that she benefited from its powers when he suffered. Giving it back now isn't really going to help him, though. Inuyasha says his condition isn't really as important as the Shikon no Tama.
Kagome finds the drawstring bag among Yura's clothes, wondering how long finding ALL the pieces will take. She SHOULD be wondering if every shard is going to be so much trouble. From behind her, Kagome hears her name in addition to a request to leave. Kagome looks at Inuyasha with mild shock, and he asks her what she's staring at. She says it's the first time he's ever used her name, and he doesn't see what the big deal is. Kagome speculates that maybe he's warming up to her, to which hypothesis he scoffs. He tells her not to read too much into it, because he's not likely to become friends with a stupid girl like her.
Kagome smacks his back, reminding him that this stupid girl DID just save his life. He twitches with the contact.
That tiny creature hopping from the left side of the panel above is perched atop one of the skulls, some distance off. It says that the search for Inuyasha has been nothing short of awful. Don't be dramatic, dude.
So, what did I think of this chapter overall? I was struck with how fast things are happening, just one event after another, and how satisfying that is. I have said in previous chapters that the pacing of this manga is really good, but in this chapter especially, it's nearly perfect. Very rarely is the action broken up with dialogue or pointless words, but when it is, those words are at least short and to the point. There aren't several panels in a row insisting on explaining every tiny little movement to the audience. RT assumes that her audience is fully capable of parsing what is happening from the pictures.
How Kagome and Inuyasha interacted at the end of the chapter was a toss-up for me. On the one hand, it seemed like Kagome was saying that Inuyasha was becoming friendlier with her to lead the audience to that conclusion. If there's one thing I hate when reading a story, it's being told what to think about a character or their actions. On the other hand, given how they've interacted before, I can see this also as Kagome trying to lead INUYASHA into feeling more comfortable using her name. She wants to get along with him if she's going to be stuck working with him, and if she can suggest that his actions are more amicable toward her, then maybe he'll start to see it that way too and stop being so antagonistic.
At the very least, she wants to believe that he cares about her in some capacity, and is asking for some confirmation.
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