He probably wouldn't like me pointing out that I'm actually reading this manga from RIGHT TO LEFT this time around as was originally intended. His attitude won't ruin it for me, though, I promise.
He looks behind him where Shippou is leaning over the side of their boat and groaning, asking if he doesn't think there's something wrong with a youkai getting seasick. Looking elsewhere, Kagome sees a figure moving along a nearby cliff, identifying it as a person with some bewilderment. Yes, Kagome, there are other people here. Surprise. A shadowy figure is crawling along behind this person, who appears to be running away. The shadowy figure stretches out its neck and pushes the first figure, a screaming young woman clutching a fistful of flowers, off the side of the cliff with its face.
Kagome gasps in alarm while Myouga alerts Inuyasha that it's a youkai up there. That was kind of obvi, dude.
The shadowy figure on the cliff gazes down at them for a moment and then shifts backward, disappearing. Inuyasha glares up at it, wondering what the hell it was while still holding onto the young woman he caught. She stutters about what a close call that was and begins to thank Inuyasha, but then catches sight of his ears. The young woman freaks the fuck out about this and smacks him across the face, demanding that the vile youkai let her go. Inuyasha falls into the river from the blow, taking the girl with him, with Kagome and Shippou looking on in surprise.
Later, Inuyasha is wringing out his big bell sleeves, muttering about what a fucking joke this all is, while Kagome bandages their new acquaintance's wrist and asks her if she lives on the mountain. The young woman is salty, refusing to answer, and Shippou comments on her lack of manners despite talking to the people who saved her. She yells at him to shut up, because she identifies him as a youkai too, causing Shippou to flinch away. The young woman says that she hates youkai.
Changing the subject, Kagome sheepishly asks what the thing that pushed her over the cliff was. The young woman says that they're spider-heads that settled on the mountain the previous spring, possessing corpse heads and attacking people ever since. She tells Kagome that many people have been eaten by these creatures at this point. Kagome hums, thinking that she didn't sense a Shikon fragment from the spider-head before.
She turns to Inuyasha and asks if they should help out, but Inuyasha is already stepping back into the boat, scoffing about what a joke this is again. He tells Kagome they're leaving, because he wants to get out of the mountain area by nightfall. Kagome questions why, saying they can't leave without stopping in a place with youkai troubling it. Inuyasha informs her that he hasn't been killing off youkai to help people who are bothered by them, and Kagome acknowledges that this is true, but she still thinks he would normally have at least checked things out.
Kagome looks back over her shoulder to see the young woman starting to climb the side of the cliff. She says she's going home, though Kagome offers to take her there due to the danger. She turns down the offer, because she doesn't want help from any youkai. But the vine she's tugging on snaps and she tumbles down again, right in front of a staring Kagome and Inuyasha.
An old man in monk's robes meets them, calling the young woman Nazuna and asking who she's brought there. Nazuna elbows Inuyasha in the side of his head while jumping from his back to return the greeting from whom she calls Oshou-sama. He asks if she was attacked by spider-heads, and she begins telling her tale of picking flowers for the graves, but veers off into asking forgiveness for letting wicked youkai break into the temple like she did as she bows deferentially.
Shippou is irritated with how insulting Nazuna is still being while the monk peers at the youkai questioningly. Inuyasha assures him that they will be leaving presently, but the monk asks them to stay the night instead, prompting a horrified protest from Nazuna. He just tells her to prepare a meal for their guests, and after a moment of being taken aback, Nazuna turns to do as she's told, casting an angry suspicious glance over her shoulder.
The monk asks the guests to forgive Nazuna her rudeness, because her father was killed by spider-heads. He's been taking care of her since then, but her hatred and dread for youkai is pretty strong. Changing the subject, the monk tells Inuyasha's group that he's managed to erect a modest barrier around the temple that the spider-heads shouldn't be able to enter. However, he's wondering if something about Inuyasha is just in his imagination or not.
Looks like they're still allowed to stay, despite Inuyasha's threats, because the next we see them, they're sitting in a room in the temple after nightfall eating that meal Nazuna presumably made. It's at this time that Kagome chooses to bring up the fact that she's observed Inuyasha acting pretty strange today. She thinks it's weird that he got so angry over a monk assuming him an ordinary human. Resting on the rim of one of their rice bowls, Myouga agrees with Kagome and tells Inuyasha he should act a bit more dignified. After all, he's a magnificent hanyou for being born of the union between a human mother and a great youkai father. Shippou thinks that a "magnificent hanyou" is still worth shit, which earns him a well-deserved lump on the head and a command to shut his trap.
Inuyasha scoffs, but on the inside, he's worried. He wonders if the small-time monk of the temple has managed to see right through him. Kagome gains his attention by leaning toward him and peering at him closely.
As Inuyasha grinds Shippou into the floor boards, Kagome asks if she's wrong, and Inuyasha exasperatedly confirms this. When Inuyasha gets up and walks toward the door, Kagome pauses in lifting the abused Shippou off the floor to ask where Inuyasha's going. He informs her that he's going to sleep by himself, and begins to warn her to stop nosing into his business when his attention is grabbed by a mass of something in the upper corner of the room next to him.
Meanwhile, Nazuna runs through the temple among the quickly formed webs and wriggling human-headed-spiders. She's completely dumbfounded as to how they got in when the monk's barrier should have kept them out. Nazuna figures the barrier must have been broken. She bursts into a nearby room and is appalled at the sight of the monk lying on the floor where human-headed-spiders have looped their silk around his his frail limbs, crawling all over and around him.
Back in Inuyasha's group's room, he stands protectively in between Kagome and the fast-acting human-headed-spiders, which have already covered the room in their silk and wriggling bodies. He looks over his shoulder to tell Kagome and Shippou to run ahead, cutting off Kagome's protests with a promise that he'll manage something if he's by himself. He puts his hand on Tessaiga while the human-headed-spiders leap at him, unsheathing it and shouting at Kagome to just get out of there.
She reluctantly says that she understands as she and Shippou book it out the door. Looking back, she notices with some alarm that the sword Inuyasha is hacking at the invading spiders with isn't transformed like it usually does in these situations. It's just in its default junk-state, and that's allowing the wave of spiders to overtake him.
So, Kagome and Shippou head back to help him with yells of fright as he disappears beneath the spiders. Kagome calls Inuyasha's name while Shippou throws a swirl of foxfire at them. It drives the spiders far enough away that Kagome can drag Inuyasha out of their mound of silk by his arm, begging him to hang in there.
They flee, huffing until they reach a relatively safe area next to a tree and Kagome determines that they're not being followed. Inuyasha, still covered in silk, curses, drawing a curious look from Kagome. She asks what's happening to him and he tells her to shut up for what seems like the umpteenth time during this chapter. Shippou whaps him on the head for his attitude, because Kagome is just worried about Inuyasha. Inuyasha isn't paying attention, because he's telling his companions to just worry about themselves while he pulls the spider silk from his head. Kagome is floored by what she sees beneath it.
So, what did I think of this chapter overall? It was great in building all the little details to support the big reveal and cliffhanger at the end. Inuyasha's heightened irritability in the situation is presented very well. The paranoia surrounding this event that only HE sees coming at nightfall is palpable; his wanting to get out of the mountainous area by nightfall when he never cared where they were before, his threatening of a seemingly harmless old guy that he would only have scoffed at before, his wondering whether he was "found out" by that monk even hours later are all supportive of his anticipation of something bad happening, but Kagome and the audience not knowing what. She and we know there's something going on, though, because something's just really off about Inuyasha's normally blustery personality.
I also never get tired of how actually competent Kagome is. Even when Inuyasha tells her to get out of there, she hangs back when she sees Tessaiga isn't transforming and helps to DRAG Inuyasha out of danger. So many people see her as a typical damsel in distress most of the time, but I have to disagree - she does her fair share of rescuing as well, and she doesn't shy away from danger in order to at least TRY helping out her friends.
Which is why Inuyasha's closing line about them expecting to be saved like always just tickles me. Whatever bro, THEY just saved YOU! He doesn't even SEE the irony there, and it's hilarious.
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