Inuyasha Manga: 025 The Flesh-Eating Mask

See? How much better is the word "eating" here? What if it were the Flesh-GOBBLING Mask? Wouldn't it bring to mind a feast with a gobbling-bird at the center of it all? But flesh-eating... That's serious. That scares people because when they think "flesh-eating", they think a staph infection or necrosis, or some other gross, nasty shit.

I'm just saying point proven.

Yeah, I saw that true crime documentary too. They think it was a religious cult, but there's no physical evidence tying the missing teens to the Sunchild Headquarters.

Also, "Oyaji Hunting" is a THING??? What kind of fucked-up kids...

Oh, but the story isn't done yet, folks.

How the balls does this girl know so many details about this case? Is her mom or dad in the police department or something?

One of the other students she's telling this to, however, doesn't believe that last part. She says the guy had to have been drunk. I'll bet you he WISHES he was drunk. The storyteller still isn't done, saying that when the park was searched, the corpse of an unknown headless woman was found. The other girl is super skeptical, asking her storytelling friend if she's not making all this up. Kagome sits with a pensive look on her face, pencil eraser resting on her chin.

Later, she goes to the park, and indeed there are cones and police tape set up while the cops bustle around the scene. Kagome seems in a daze as she thinks that this doesn't feel right. Well, yeah, there was a horrible murder that took place here. When does that EVER feel right? Thinking about what that man from the scene said, it sounds like a youkai to her, but she's still not sure. I don't know HOW, because there aren't a whole lot of HUMAN murderers that can stretch out their faces and eat people, you know?

Kagome considers calling Inuyasha, but shakes some sense into her silly head violently. Sitting at her desk back at home, she reasons that she wouldn't be able to study with Inuyasha around, and she has that math test coming up, and we all know that's WAAAAY more important than the safety of others in the way of a youkai who may be rampaging through the city.

Kagome searches through her small line of school books on her desk for a specific study guide, but can't seem to find it. She freaks out about it being gone, and wonders where it went.

That was a spell for passing a math class, the very thing that Inuyasha was being yelled at about in the previous chapter no less. Inuyasha can't even stop fucking up Kagome's modern future when he's NOT hanging around in that time period.

Myouga asks why he would just take something of Kagome's and wonders what will happen if she needs it, but Inuyasha scoffs. He remembers being kicked down the well by Kagome and refuses to give a fuck about what happens to her as a result of his sticky fingers.

On Friday, Kagome is shocked to learn that her grandfather is in the hospital. Her mother is leaving the house to spend the night in the hospital with him due to his age, despite the fact that it's only a mild case of food poisoning. Great, what did the delusional fart put in his mouth THIS TIME? Or is Kagome's mom just that bad of a cook?

We never get any details on the conditions that led to this poisoning, though, because we cut to that night. Kagome is sitting at her desk, yet again, with Souta sitting across from her on her bed. Both are in their pajamas, with a Buyo-holding Souta asking if he can sleep in Kagome's room with her for the night. Kagome asks if Souta isn't a boy, which sounds like an awfully familiar asshole statement from her. Souta begins to protest, possibly about to say that she shouldn't use the stereotypes around his sex to be a fucking douchebag to him, but she turns back toward her desk, calling him a coward.

Souta asks if she didn't hear what happened at that park sheepishly, and Kagome recalls what the man said about the woman with the face like a Noh mask stretching it out. She says she did hear and asks what his point is about it. Souta reminds her of the woman they saw the other day, and Kagome's eyes widen as she thinks back on that strange encounter and mentally admits that that woman also had a face like a Noh mask. The man's description of the scene at the park goes through her head again and she stands up, wondering if the woman wasn't human after all.

Kagome's window creaks.

 

Mother fucker! I would say it's convenient that this happens right when Kagome and Souta are talking about the subject, but the home repair bills make this significantly LESS so.

That too. Those kids really got all Cronenberged up, didn't they?

The mask mumbles about wanting more, and a better body. Kagome notes with an open-mouthed stare that the mask contains a Shikon shard, judging by the glint from its forehead. It commands Kagome to give it the jewel, and Kagome gropes for the bottle of shards behind her on the desk. The mask opens that vertical maw with the wooden teeth threateningly.

It launches itself at her, demanding the jewel again, but Kagome picks up her desk chair to shield herself from the grip of its jaws. LIKE A BOSS. The mask bites off a big chunk of the chair while Kagome grabs the bottle of shards on her desk and trips as she turns to run. Souta is sitting frozen with fear by the door, most likely in a puddle of his own urine, and Kagome calls out his name. She picks him right up, with the cat clinging to his leg, while she runs out the door, asking him what he's doing just sitting there.

Kagome realizes that she has to call Inuyasha, so heads for the well, dragging Souta along by the hand and telling him to pull himself together and run. When he sees the hand she's pulling him with is covered in blood, he freaks out about how she's bleeding. Annoyed by this point, she insists it's just a cut and he shouldn't be crying about it. I'm on her side about this one because they have way more important things to worry about here.

Like that ball of human limbs crawling around behind them as they look around to see if it's still following. Yup. Souta squeaks in horror.

Oooh, safe by a hair! Kagome falls on her face, but shoots back onto her knees to look for Souta, who is hiding behind a statue or lamp of some sort, the other side of which the monster is pawing at. Knowing that the mask is after the fragments of the jewel she has, she gets to her feet to get as far from Souta as she can to keep him safe. The mask calls for her to wait, and Souta calls after her as well. She yells at him to go into the well in the shrine and call for Inuyasha instead.

Souta questions if he should do so by himself with an unsure look, and as she runs farther away, Kagome shouts that if Souta says there's a jewel fragment in it for him, Inuyasha will be right over. Souta runs into the shrine to that well that's connected to the Sengoku Jidai where Inuyasha is and peers down into it, mentally reciting the instructions Kagome gave to just jump in.

Souta pushes himself to his hands and knees, wearing dirt and a confused expression as he sees Buyo at the mouth of the well. It didn't work for him. He cries, wondering why, while the mask drags its mashed-together body after Kagome around a corner in the city. Kagome mentally begs Inuyasha to hurry as she huffs around another corner to avoid it.

Souta digs into the bottom of the well with his bare hands out of desperation, muttering to himself the whole time. Tears stream down his cheeks, and he yells out that his sister is going to die. A light shines behind him while he appears to be lifted into the air. Has he managed to convince the well to accept him as a time traveler as well??

Nope, nope, it's just that asshole he was looking for.

So, what did I think of this chapter overall? This was a fun one in a lot of ways. While the action in the last couple of chapters was stop-and-go, what with the drama of Inuyasha and Kagome's lives playing out in the middle, this one really amps it up. The way Kagome dodges and dives around the attacks of the mask is really breath-taking and the tension at these points is spot on. There's a part of you that isn't quite sure how they're going to get out of this, especially since Inuyasha is bratting it up in the Feudal Era.

He was quite quick to end the chapter with his appearance, though, which shows that he's not quite as uncaring about Kagome as he claimed earlier. He was being moody and sulking like the jerk teenager he is, and it's so very entertaining to watch. You would think that, being an adult close to thirty that I would have no patience for that shit, but it's actually rather hilarious to me in my advanced (relatively) age.

Kagome's treatment of her brother isn't so hilarious, but it is endearing to me as a reader. She's not perfect or the kindest person, and she does two things to prove that in this chapter; she blows off asking for Inuyasha's help early on even though she suspects there might be a murderous youkai on the loose, and she's snotty to her little brother, even in the midst of danger. This makes her relatable because she simply doesn't get away with her attitude. The youkai activity she suspected earlier comes around to bite her in the ass, and her brother is the one who ultimately linked what he and Kagome saw before and the old man's story, rightly scared by it in the end.

Speaking of Souta, he had all of my feels this chapter, especially at the end. I haven't personally had an older sister that was a jerk to me, but I have BEEN that jerk older sister, and Souta kind of reminds me of those things my younger sister used to complain about regarding me. Most of all, though, the scene where he's digging into the bottom of the well desperately, sobbing because he's afraid his sister is going to die is just too heart-wrenching.

Meanwhile, the monster has reached that final stage of evolution that is beyond horrific, which makes the stilted pacing of the last two chapters showing the stages of that evolution somewhat understandable. It started with a perfectly functioning body, but it was swaying and shambling, suggesting that bipedalism was a little difficult for it to control. Then it became even worse when the body it had got shattered and it had to drag itself around in search of another. It gathered several working ones, and combined those parts in order to craft a nightmare blob, with strangely coordinated limbs, but it's still a shambling mess.

Someone should have told the mask that more is sometimes less.