Inuyasha Manga: 087 Trap

Yeeeeaahhhh, you probably saw that coming because I'm pretty predictable with my use of memes. You know what's also pretty predictable? That most of the horrible things that happen to the main characters in this whole story are the result of a mastermind trap from one particular person. Bet you can't guess who!

Seriously, MOST of the chapters of this manga could be called "trap" after this point, and with around 500 chapters left, I'm not certain that the title doesn't come up again.

Something I don't think I've mentioned yet is how much I admire the watercolor on some of these pages. I wish I had half the control over a pen as RT appears to have, let alone how much control she has over a brush. And the colors here, with the red dominating Sango's side and the blues Kohaku's side, are simply masterfully placed. Really draws the eye across the page.

Okay, now that I've got that bit of cunnilingus out of the way... HOLY SHIT THIS IS HORRIFIC!! How did this manga come to have the reputation of being girly trash again?

Kohaku throws his blade at Sango and it barely misses the line of her jaw as she leans out of the way. She falls into a kneel on the ground, Kohaku pulls back the sickle by its chain, and it occurs to Sango that he doesn't recognize her for some reason. I would ask why she's coming to that conclusion, given he's not addressing her as a stranger, but then I wonder what other conclusion she could draw from his cold persistence in trying to kill her. He's not exactly acting like he knows and loves her either, so...

A couple of guards for the castle stutter and stammer at the exterminators, apparently not sure what to do, bewildered beyond coherence. I can't really blame them, but maybe they should try to restrain the boy? Fair idea, yeah?

Well, okay, looks like SOMEONE was born in the wrong century. If he just had access to HBO, maybe some people could have been spared the Colosseum treatment. 

But the two guards are further flabbergasted by how flippant the lord of the castle is being, which suggests that this isn't exactly normal for him, so what do I know? Meanwhile, Kohaku throws his sickle at Sango again, which she greets with a drawn and ready sword. The chain on the sickle wraps around Sango's blade as she backs up in a hurry, though Kohaku keeps a firm hold on the weighted end of the chain. He draws a sword as well, looking on in heartless malice while charging at Sango and bringing it down on her. Though with his own sickle AND Sango's sword guarding her from the blow, it was a tad useless. So, possessed!Kohaku is a super efficient killing machine, except when he isn't. Got it!

Sango shoves him back with the force of her blade on his, yelling at him to wake up. Being in close proximity to him reveals to her the tiny spider clinging to the back of his neck, silk extending from it. She follows the shimmer of the thread straight to, DUN DUN DUN, the lord of the castle! And he's not looking quite so mundane now.

And exactly ZERO people were surprised!

Sango, in a fit of rage, flings her sword o push Kohaku and his various weapons away from her, and makes a beeline straight for the lord, much to the further bewilderment of the guards. She curses him, calling him a youkai as she raises up her boomerang for a shot at him. He looks completely normal again when he says that she must have gone insane and orders his perpetually confused guards to kill her. They're ready to comply, though, pelting her with spears before she can release the boomerang on their lord's ass. She's propelled backward by the force of the assault, but another, more shocking blow comes from behind her that rattles her to her very core.

She turns to look behind her, which must be AGONY, by the way, and sees Kohaku trembling as he hunches over, collapsing onto his knees. His shaking fingers pull the mask from his face, and he looks back up at Sango with wide tearful eyes, stuttering at her. Sango has also fallen to her knees, haltingly saying his name as well, and surmising that he's back to normal. What a time to be conscious of your surroundings, amirite??? He lets out a wail and lunges forward, tears flying, to tend to his injured sister and make SOME amends, but unsurprisingly, the guards see this as another threat. Arrows fly, sticking into Kohaku's chest on the way, throwing him back much like the spears did Sango. She stares in horror.

The lord blandly asks why the Perpetually Confused Guards (TM) have stopped firing arrows to gape at the mortally wounded siblings; the guards should keep lobbing them with ammo because they've clearly gone insane, obvi.

WHY IS THERE ALWAYS A PAIR OF SIBLINGS THAT SHATTER MY HEART AND STOMP ON THE PIECES IN THESE THINGS???

I'm beginning to see a pattern in the things I enjoy, and it does NOT say good things about me.

The Perpetually Confused Guards throw a few more spears into Sango's back, and Douchebag Demon Lord (TM) snarks about how the siblings have made up and they'll live happily ever after. Hey, Dildo, I'M the only one around here allowed to make insensitive jokes about horrible things. Get yo ass up outta my job!

And, just as I make my demands, off comes his smirking head with one clean swipe.

Hey, it's the person from behind the curtain before! How goes it, PFBC?

The Perpetually Confused Guards stutter some about how the "young master" cut off their lord's head, so now the PFBC has been gendered. Hooray! They ask what the hell the young master is doing as he stands over the lord's headless body without any sign of remorse. He tells them to look closer, because whomever he just murdered is NOT the lord. After a moment, the head of the lord sprouts eight hairy legs and a spider's head with the lord's face as its back, creeping the Perpetually Confused Guards right the fuck out. Their stammering gets worse as they identify the thing as a youkai.

Wow, you don't say!

So, the young master stabs directly into the face of the lord, killing the youkai. He hangs his head as he gives a soliloquy about how he had noticed his father's appearance was odd lately, and how it seems he was possessed by a youkai all along. So now would you like to explain how it was so easy for you to just stab the fuck out of something that looked like your DAD? Not going to show one tiny iota of emotion? Some smidge? Not even going to question if your father was in pain or anything?

He even has more sympathy for these complete strangers lying sprawled in his garden, dead. The young master, now the only master, it seems, says that it's such a shame that this had to happen to them, and orders that they be buried. The Perpetually Confused Guards are for once not stuttering and agree to the task. Sheesh, you'd think he was looking for an excuse to murder his old man to gain complete control of the castle and the servants.

Headcanon.

That's where they point the Bat Signal anyway - the mountains.

Shippou asks Inuyasha if he plans on stealing whatever Shikon shards they have in the village upon arrival, and Inuyasha answers that OF COURSE he is. An exasperated Miroku hopes Inuyasha won't be exterminated in the process, and Kagome gives that possibility some serious thought based on the pro job they saw back at the village with the centipede. But that's not all she's giving thought to, also wanting to know why the Shikon no Tama exists in the first place. She imagines that Inuyasha is just as curious as she watches him giving the wilderness around them a determined stare.

A strange atmosphere swirls in the sky, Kagome and Miroku's eyes drawn to it right away. Kagome remains speechless while Miroku remarks that this wind feels a bit bad. As she gazes at the sky where a rumble starts to sound, Kagome thinks that something is coming, even a great number of somethings. Across the moon, a great cloud makes a rapid pace, and on closer inspection, it's a great horde of youkai, as Inuyasha remarks after Kagome lets out a little scream. She puts a hand over her mouth, nauseated by the huge amount of youki she's feeling come off the swarm, and says that it doesn't feel like regular old youki. Miroku agrees that it feels like something awful is about to happen, Inuyasha just staring speechlessly at the sky.

After a moment, Inuyasha comes to a realization that he shares: those youkai are out to kill a certain target. Miroku prompts the rest of the group to get after those bloodthirsty youkai, but he needn't have bothered, because they were already jumping into action without so much as a squeak.

Back at the castle, someone is talking about how Sango actually had a pretty cute face if you took a good look. Wow dude, thanks for the boner update on the topic of a dead girl. Some tact you have there. He's walking with another guy as he mutters about what a shame it is, and the other guy asks if he was the one who buried her. I guess, since he's the one who took a good enough look to determine she was a hottie.

Oh, no, wait! STILL a hottie! Oh, and also kind of a motherfucking badass, crawling out of her own grave like that.

She continues to drag herself out of the ground, grumbling that she won't just lie down and die. As she's shuffling and sliding along the ground, the young master meanders around some upright stones, only to see her and express some genuine surprise that she's still alive. So he has EMOTIONS. Good to know. Sango just glares up at him.

So, what did I think of this chapter overall? It evoked the same emotional reaction in me as the end of the last one did, but turned it up to eleven. Sango and Kohaku's actions, movements and expressions were so moving in a fundamental way. Their feelings in the situation were fluid in the sense that they were all understandably changing from moment to moment, flowing from reaction to reaction by each passing second, and yes, it was all THAT fast. RT's momentum was at its very best here, where her characters were going through a rollercoster ride of pain and emotion and it was ALL in real time, synced PERFECTLY and with minimal dialogue.

This is a masterpiece of balance between showing and telling, and if it doesn't move you, I don't know what the hell will.

That said, all the beauty I mentioned before gets a little undermined by the fact that the young master murders HIS father too, soberly and without any remorse. It's such a jarring contrast to what happened with the loving family before that I was shaken out of the story for a moment by it. Yes, I understand that the story has to move forward, and it really can't if we spend inordinate amounts of time watching this insignificant dude mourning HIS dead family too, but a LITTLE emotion might have made this alright. Or at least a confirmation on my headcanon.

Get on that, RT.