The amount of money Naraku must lose over the course of the series betting on his own competent but inexplicably failing schemes must be staggering.
With an air of nonchalance, possessed!Mushin comments on Miroku still being awake. Miroku is looking beyond disturbed when he asks possessed!Mushin who exactly he is, and possessed!Mushin mockingly answers that he's the very same Mushin who raised him. Following this, the silky tendrils sneak out of possessed!Mushin's mouth to wiggle at Miroku, who now understands that Mushin is being controlled, though he's not sure by whom yet.
He scoots as best he can away from the advancing possessed!Mushin, while possessed!Mushin chuckles evilly, telling Miroku that he's not able to move anymore with the medicine making his body go numb. Miroku groans, and possessed!Mushin lunges at him, yelling that Miroku needs to go to heaven.
"You wouldn't get to go to hell, after all, because that place is for me and my bros!"
Miroku manages to roll out of the way of another blow that sticks in the door behind him. The weight of Miroku and possessed!Mushin pushes it right out of its frame so it falls backward onto the porch and on top of Miroku's tanuki friend, who happens to be carrying around Miroku's staff. Miroku holds out his hand and demands the staff (though weakly), when the tanuki asks what's going on.
The tanuki, though he's much shorter than Miroku, is somehow giving him a piggyback ride across the grass. Miroku urges him to escape by himself, but the tanuki refuses. His words of loyalty are cut off by Miroku's direction to take a look at the grounds, which have been overtaken by a crowd of destructive youkai. They're crawling over roofs and bells where they've punched holes most surfaces. Because they're rude.
Panting, Miroku says that if the tanuki is with him, he'll also be killed. All bravery from before dissolved, the tanuki agrees, eyes popping. Miroku's insistence to escape, as well as his statement that he'll hold off the youkai until the medicine wears off and he'll be able to move more freely echoes in the tanuki's head as he's floating in his rod-like form in the sky. He knows that even though Miroku said that, it's still too much to handle for just him, and realizes that Inuyasha must be fetched.
Not a moment after he comes to this conclusion, he notices a shadow gaining on him from the corner of his eyes. It gets close enough to become distinguishable as a massive cloud of Saimyoushou, which quickly closes the gap between them and the tanuki, proceeding to sting the ever-loving shit out of him. He screams, on a downward trajectory.
Inuyasha, meanwhile, damns Miroku for there being no trace of him. Because it's totally MIROKU'S fault that Inuyasha is conveniently unable to pick up his scent or something.
Hey wait. Is Sango sitting on Kagome's oversized backpack on the back of that bike? How the fuck is that supposed to work? Even if Kagome was strong enough to pedal around all that weight, it's not evenly distributed! That bike should be flipping at the back wheel! Unless Shippou is WAY heavier than he looks, which doesn't seem likely by how often he hangs out on people's shoulders.
Do ANY of these manga artists understand how physics works?
Whatevz. Kagome admits that though they traveled together, she didn't know much or anything about Miroku. Shippou has tears in his eyes when he asks forlornly if they'll never meet again. Inuyasha gripes that whatever happened, Miroku didn't feel like relying on them at all. He attracts all their concerned looks, and Kagome's protests that Naraku might be laying a trap for them, so they can't just leave Miroku.
Temper boiling, he asks Kagome where they should look then. Without missing a beat, she points up at the sky behind Inuyasha, saying they should start over there. Inuyasha is perplexed, as a screaming wiggly something passes over the moon. The tanuki yells for help on his way down, and Kagome identifies him as Miroku's friend with shock. Shippou has hopped up on her shoulder, vigor renewed at the overdue lead.
The tanuki pops back into his regular form with a screech of pain, tiny paws failing to shield his head from more stings. This is where Sango and Inuyasha realize that these are the Saimyoushou that Naraku keeps, apparently, and the Saimyoushou themselves hover in place a moment before trying to buzz right off. Inuyasha scoffs at them, hand on Tessaiga.
With spelling errors to boot. I don't think the tanuki is wont to be too offended by Kagome's mispronunciation of Miroku's name, though, considering all the work she apparently did patching up those stings. Inuyasha repeats that Miroku's Kazaana was cut in disbelief and the tanuki confirms that this is what Mushin said before he went loopy trying to murder Miroku. The tanuki tells Inuyasha that Mushin warned Miroku about opening the Kazaana at this stage, widening it through the wound, and shortening his lifespan as a result. Inuyasha looks very disturbed by this information, as does Sango.
She turns at a buzzing sound, and notices that there are Saimyoushou following them. Sango alerts Inuyasha to this, though she notes they don't look like they're going to attack them. Inuyasha grumbles that they're keeping a guard on the travelers, but does nothing to try and stop them.
At the temple, youkai crawl this way and that, asking each other where Miroku is and expressing a desire to tear him apart. One of the creatures, an eyeball situated on the tip of a slug-like thing, fittingly enough, says it can't see him. Another reasons that it must mean Miroku has put up a barrier. They insist on continuing the search, because he must be nearby, scuttling around and over the grassy crater Miroku said was his father's grave.
A couple of giant mantises are lurking at the lip of the crater, one of which declares Miroku's head its own because he killed its dear sister. The other one is a bit more honest in its motivations when it says it just wants to nom on Miroku's liver. Miroku considers these relatives of the mantis that cut his Kazaana a moment, and chastises himself for not knowing it was a trap from the start. He wonders if he's going to die "in a place like this", which I assume is a reference to his father's grave being a rather ironic place for him to be killed as well.
An incoming Inuyasha is crouching on the tanuki's transformed head as he descends, thinking he's not going to let that loser Miroku die so easily. YEAH, call him names! THAT will convince everyone, including yourself, that you don't feel ANY feelings of friendship for him! The tanuki shouts that the temple below them is the one when a burst of light emits from outside the building.
Inuyasha draws Tessaiga, instructing the tanuki to go straight through the mob of youkai. After a moment of uncertainty, the tanuki complies, and Inuyasha starts slicing and dicing, telling his victims he doesn't have time to fuck around with them. Sango has hopped on a transformed Kirara with her boomerang raised, suggesting that Inuyasha leave the small-fry to her. Inuyasha says her name in near amazement while she throws the Hiraikotsu, implying that it's no biggie because they're many, but weak. Inuyasha goes ahead and charges her with taking care of the mob.
Meanwhile one of the mantis siblings is stoked because it can see Miroku, telling the others that the barrier has fallen. The other one chuckles at Miroku's complete visibility. The youkai begin to advance on Miroku menacingly, slowly at first until someone shouts to tear him apart. They lunge, with Miroku asking himself if this is the end. However, Miroku is surprised when the youkai are ripped apart right in front of his face. Seriously, they must have been only centimeters from his nose right there.
So, what did I think of this chapter overall? Let it be known that Miroku has proven beyond any shadow of a doubt that he can be just as badass as the rest of the group. Not that I had doubts, per se, but we didn't get to see the full extent of how far he could go in a tight situation until just now. Though he wasn't swinging at the youkai, it was clear that he was under some severe physiological distress trying to function enough not to get murdered while under the influence of a narcotic. That is an enormous sense of will he has, even if this is maybe hinting a TAD that Miroku has a slight resistance to drugs like that and suggesting a history of recreational use.
Ahem.
On the other side of this, we have Inuyasha, who is trying and failing to keep calm at the mounting anxiety of not knowing where Miroku is or what's happened to him. The way RT drew his face in some of these panels was so acute in the frustration and worry that he was feeling, and it really sold me on those feelings. Inuyasha's dialogue played no small part either, one line really popping out at me: "That guy didn't want to rely on us at all." He's actually upset that Miroku would take off without telling them what was going on, assuming that they couldn't help him fix whatever it was. That's profound, because Inuyasha often acts the same way, but it shows he's coming around to realize that he and the rest of his companions can derive support from each other. He's starting to GET it, and not only that, but he WANTS that to be part of their relationship with each other. He WANTS to be depended on and WANTS to depend on others.
The little technical issues with the chapter didn't escape me though, despite all this phenomenal character development. The biggest one for me was the panel where Inuyasha is scoffing at the retreating Saimyoushou while acting like he's going to draw Tessaiga... and then not doing it. Again, I understand why he didn't bother; it would be a monumental task trying to take down a whole cloud of wasps two or three at a time, and he didn't have any kind of time for that with Miroku in as much trouble as he is. Besides, it's a somewhat clever hint for him to realize what a pain taking down all those insects would be right NOW, because he's going to get a small taste of something that will allow him to make much quicker work of them in the future.
However, his hand shouldn't have been on the sword. I've come to expect that whenever Inuyasha has his hand on Tessaiga, he's going to draw it and treat us all to an awesome image of him dismembering some cocky bastard. Either that, or we're given a thought-bubble explaining why he's going to ignore his reflex to draw it at the time. Giving us neither feels kind of jarring at this point, so I think that was a bit of a mistake.
As well as the little fact that the Saimyoushou basically PUSHED the tanuki right into Inuyasha and crew's vicinity. They were apparently smart enough to try and prevent the tanuki from getting help for Miroku by injuring and distracting him, but NOT smart enough to realize that they should probably avoid going in the direction of Inuyasha and the help the tanuki was seeking in the first place.
Real competent henchmen you have there, Naraku. Nice.
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