Inuyasha Manga: 026 I Will Save You, But...

Oh good, there are stipulations to this rescue. There are ALWAYS stipulations! They could be as small as an apology and as big as a lifelong subscription to "Youkai Collections Magazine" to send young demons off on a retreat for youkai-ing and such (we'll get to THAT later), but it's always something. Kagome's in for it now.

Talk about a deal with the devil.

And you just came a-runnin' did you? How NOT uncaring you are of Kagome's well-being.

Inuyasha reiterates that wherever Kagome is, he'll find and save her. Souta is left speechless by this, because Kagome's description of Inuyasha was of someone violent, selfish and hard to get along with. The picture Inuyasha is showing Souta, however, makes him question if that's true. From what Souta sees, Inuyasha is nice and reliable.

It's all a ruse! A ruse I tell you! Well, at least that's probably what Kagome would tell him, but she is currently otherwise engaged.

Oh boy, a construction site? Not one of your better ideas, Kagome, what with you being barefoot and without the proper head protection and all.

According to Kagome, her pursuer is really slow, and she thinks that might be because the Noh mask is having trouble controlling all the pieces of its victims melded together as they are. She reasons that because of this, it might not be able to follow her up the stairs on the half-finished building's scaffolding, so she starts to clatter up them. The lump of human parts stops at the bottom of the stairs, cursing her for her faster and more agile form.

Should have just chosen ONE victim, huh?

Kagome climbs several floors before she looks over the edge and spots the Noh mask below. She thinks she's judged correctly that it won't follow her up, but just then the Noh mask stretches the face skin around it all the way up the building toward a sweating Kagome. It clamps on a plank of wood jutting out above her with its wooden teeth.

That was an EPIC pull-up.

Kagome must have tripped again, because she's on hands and knees, eyes squeezed shut when Inuyasha flies in from nowhere and cuts a blitch with his Sankon Tessou. Blitch is "blob" and "bitch" mashed together in unholy matrimony. Souta is also clamped tightly under Inuyasha's arm, with his eyes also screwed shut and hands over his hears. All he needs is a third hand for the complete set.

A big chunk of the blitch goes flying and Kagome looks around with a grin, happy Inuyasha is there. Souta leans over Inuyasha's arm, greeting his sister, and Inuyasha smiles about her still being in one piece. He lets Souta go so he can run over to Kagome, crying out of relief that she's safe. Kagome tells him that it's a-okay, because Inuyasha will save them. Souta agrees, but Inuyasha scoffs, claiming he's not UNWILLING to save them, but he wants something first.

What did I fucking say??

Kagome is seriously lost, asking what Inuyasha is talking about. Her memory problems rear their ugly heads once again. And yes, there are multiples. He's not amused that she seems to have forgotten about how she kicked him down the well, and asks how she can selfishly drive him away and then ask for his help. Kagome holds a hand up to her mouth and stutters, searching for words, and Inuyasha stares at her in disbelief. He must have thought she was playing around, but she really DID forget.

Kagome wonders aloud if she really hurt Inuyasha's feelings that much, but Inuyasha lunges to correct her, saying he's just angry. Anger is a FEELING, Inuyasha.

And it looks like Kagome's dismissal of that feeling is really getting to Inuyasha. He turns around, hunched over and raising a fist, more than suspecting that Kagome isn't at all sincere. Souta watches this with an open-mouthed stare, wondering if it's just him or if Inuyasha really IS simple-minded. I guess that is an accurate assessment of Inuyasha's self-absorbed insistence on his feelings taking precedent over the real danger that's going on right now.

The mask and its blog body are squishing around and huffing as it tries to pull itself back together, drawing Inuyasha's attention despite his consternation. The mask asks Inuyasha how he dares to slice its body in two, but Inuyasha prefers to talk instead about how creepy it is and ask it what kind of monster it is. Like he's making small talk at the water cooler. From behind him, Kagome tells Inuyasha that the mask is the true form of the monster, and there's a Shikon fragment in its forehead.

The mask itself says that it is the Adhering Mask, manufactured from the wood of a tree that was pierced with a fragment of the Shikon no Tama way back in the Feudal period. Wait... Wait a moment... That would have to mean that Inuyasha and Kagome DON'T manage to collect all of the shards in that time period, right? But (spoiler alert), I happen to know for a fact that they do collect all of the shards, and even bring this particular shard back to the Feudal era with them. It would have had to have existed at the same time as the jewel fragment in the tree in the Sengoku Jidai, and when the jewel was whole inside Kagome as well.

Which means that this particular shard is in two places at the same time, in a shard state and as part of a whole.

Is this extra puzzle piece going to cause paradox problems later on? (Spoiler alert) no. No it's not.

The mask complains that it has always wanted a body of its very own, but the human bodies it steals break really easily, so it wants the Shikon no Tama to create a perfect body for itself. Cool story, bro. Who asked you for this information again? I guess it just wanted Kagome to understand why it wanted those shards of the jewel she's grasping so tightly. For some reason. It demands that she give them to it again, but Kagome isn't looking too cooperative at the moment.

Neither is Inuyasha, who's cracking his knuckles and saying he's not sure how many bodies it consumed before now. He leaps at it as he yells that it's too damn fat, though. Don't fat-shame the monster, Inuyasha! It has enough body-image issues as it is! The mask stretches out its face and opens its wooden jaws, threatening to eat Inuyasha up too.

I don't know if you want to SEE it try. Last time it left a big bloody stain all over the park.

Kagome and Souta wonder if Inuyasha got the monster as Inuyasha stands between the two pieces of the body he halved, scoffing about how easy that was. One half of the body surprises him by wiggling upright, or a close approximation thereof. He lunges for it, shouting that it won't get away but...

Uh-oh, Inuyasha, looks like YOU'RE the one who won't be getting away.

So, what did I think of this chapter overall? Inuyasha's want of an apology was a pretty fun diversion, I have to say. He seems to be an emotionally demanding individual in that when he feels wronged, he isn't like to play stoic or let the person get away with it, because he assumes that when he's wronged, it's VERY deliberate on the part of the person doing the damage. He thought Kagome had been cruel to him on purpose (understandable given his past experiences with his brother ALONE), and was shocked to learn that she had been so cavalier in acting that way that she didn't even remember doing it. He even looked a bit hurt, presumably because he had worried so much about making her cry, and she hadn't spared the same amount of worry for him when she kicked him down the well. Kagome's fake apology just made him more angry and hurt.

Of course, he's still viewing the situation from the point of ignorance about what she was upset about to begin with, which just adds to the fuckery that is their weird relationship. She had a ton to be getting on with during that week she spent in her time, and her memory is already shit from what we've seen. Her schedule, schooling, and life in a modern era aren't things that Inuyasha can readily understand without some HEAVY explaining, so the obscure nature of the subject probably just made his assumptions that she was deliberately cruel all the more prominent. Kagome, on the other hand, was consumed with the pressure to succeed in her own environment, and forgot that Inuyasha may need an explanation as much as she needed adjustment to his environment as well.

TL;DR: Kagome and Inuyasha are both kind of assholes here, but for good reasons.

All of this, as I said, WAS a diversion though. The mask, just like two villains before it, waited patiently for their conversation to naturally pause before drawing attention to itself. Of course, in this instance, the conversation didn't take too terribly long, and the mask was busy trying to pull itself back together anyway, so I can KIND OF see where some of that time went there. Less understandable was how the mask exposits all over the place like someone asked for its backstory.

Blitch, no one cares.