Inuyasha Manga: 114 A Half-Youkai's Desire

Do we really need a whole chapter to tell us what a hanyou's desire is? I think it's pretty obvious from the way Jinenji was making eyes at Kagome. In fact, Inuyasha and Kagome are in a full-on relationship. A tumultuous, immature one, but a relationship nonetheless. Those hanyous can't seem to get enough of that girl, and all because she's not a racist piece of shit. Pretty low bar, but at least there's a bar at all...

So, if you need a bow that also treats you with a baseline level of respect no matter your lineage, get yourself a Kagome! Kagome: 2 out of 2 hanyous would recommend!

That's the level of binging that's bound to make little tummies upset! What kind of mother would let her kids eat an entire village when it'll just teach them an unhealthy attitude toward food! She should be ashamed!

I feel there's another point here I'm missing... Oh well.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, where Jinenji is still staring at the sleeping Kagome, a rock collides with the shack's wooden frame. Kagome groggily comes to as a voice shouts for Jinenji to get his butt outside. She and Jinenji's mother snap to their senses rather quickly when the voice claims knowledge that Jinenji is responsible for all the murders in the village, and calls him a damn dirty ape half-youkai while it's on a roll. They stare at the door with trepidation while Jinenji sweats in the back of the hut.

Kagome clings to Jinenji's mother's sleeve, and Jinenji's mother in turn grabs a hoe, glaring at the door the villagers are doubtless hiding behind. Jinenji whimpers to his mother, who assures him that it'll be fine. She instructs him to wait where he is as she heads toward the door, pulling aside the curtain only to be showered with a hail of rocks thrown by the villagers. They call Jinenji and his mother ingrates, encroaching on the village's kindness letting them live there for so long. Oh yes, you're sooooo generous. I suppose the constant abuse was part of how NICE you all have been too...

Kagome charges from the hut with a command to stop at once, in front of Jinenji's mother, whose head is bleeding from a rock to the face. She asks Jinenji's mother if she's alright, then begins to ask the villagers with their torches and pitchforks why they're such assholes, presumably. The head of the mob tells Kagome to get out of the way, questioning why she's siding with their hated enemies.

She tells them that if they would spend any time with Jinenji at all, they'd realize he was gentle, kind, and incapable of hurting anyone. We get a shot of him still cowering in the back of the hut to prove just how paralyzed he is right now to boot. Regardless, the ring leader tells his mob to ignore her, reminding them that she came into town with a youkai brat as well, and she's a friend to youkai.

Apparently it never occurred to them that the youkai might just be more friendly than people who throw around wild accusations without evidence, stone others based on those accusations, and burn other peoples' homes.

Because that's a thing now. Some of the members of the mob have thrown torches, and it's caught the roof on fire, much to Kagome's horror. Jinenji's mother just looks pissed. She runs at the bastards, hoe raised to swing, but before she can reach them, one of the men in the mob is torn straight in half, head and shoulders rolling away with the force of the blow.

Do you smell that? That's the smell of twenty-plus men collectively shitting their pants.

Everyone is speechless, watching the little wormy-critters shoving their faces into the dead man's guts. Jinenji's mother makes a halting statement about how they're eating the bowels of the corpse, before the giant mommy worm's tongue (or something like it) shoots like lightning from the forest of wriggling things over her mouth and into another man's stomach. Finally, the rest of the men in the mob start to scream and scatter. Jinenji has his ear to the wall in the hut, listening to the crunching noises outside.

What about the burning noises and smoke inside? The hut is still burning, right? Anyway, turns out that the mommy worm can talk, and she tells her babies to go on and get the rest of the fleeing men. The babies rustle toward them, and the villagers cringe, screaming. Kagome is still holding onto Jinenji's mother in front of the burning hut (so it IS still a thing), thinking she's got to do something somehow.

The next panel isn't exactly clear as to whether Kagome runs back into the hut in order to retrieve her bow and arrow, or if Jinenji has come out to find her retrieving them from against the outer wall. I'm banking on the former, since it makes sense for her to take her weapons with her inside in the evening to prevent them from being stolen or something. Still, I went back and checked to see if I could find her bow or arrows in any of the previous panels and I hadn't seen them at all, so...

Anyhow, Kagome tells Jinenji to stay by his mother's side, a command that makes him a bit sweaty. Or maybe that's just the inferno surrounding him. Not really sure.

The mommy worm sways before hitting the ground hard, and for a second Kagome thinks she got it. However, the mommy worm strains to regain her strength and whips her tail around at a shocked Kagome as she does so. The tail hits Kagome right upside her head and neck and she goes flying, much to Jinenji and his mother's horror. Kagome's head hits the ground first with a thud, and she is clearly taking a little snooze now. The mommy worm is upright again and calling Kagome a little bitch.

She pokes her approximate-tongue out again, intending to eat Kagome's bowels, but as the tongue darts out toward Kagome's stomach, Jinenji yells out for the mommy worm to stop. And that's not all.

Turns out he just needed the right motivation to choke a bitch.

Jinenji's mother is in complete shock, gaping at her normally passive son. I'm not sure how mommy worm was talking before, but now I'm REALLY perplexed, because she's managed to damn Jinenji while he's got a hand in her mouth and out the back of her head. I'll just go with it, I guess. Kagome opens her eyes to the battle happening right over her, and sits up to call out to Jinenji. He's sweating some more, urging her to escape, and telling her that she's the only one to have ever treated him like a normal person.

His mother looks on in sadness.

Meanwhile, the villagers are still hacking at the baby worms to no effect. One man even cleanly breaks a sword over one of the worm's heads. The men begin to panic over the broken sword, because neither it nor spears are working for them. What's more, one of them is beginning to be dragged off by the little buggers again, and all anyone can do is scream. The man reaches out to what's left of the mob, begging to be saved.

And, miraculously, the baby worms swarming over him are slashed to pieces by a "Soul Shattering Iron Claw". The saved man stares wide-eyed at the pieces of the baby worms scattering out in front of him. Inuyasha waits for neither thanks nor apologies when he asks them what the FUCK they think they're doing there. They just stammer out recognition and the odd statement that they're saved as if it happened to be by a force of nature rather than a person. Kagome is more than willing to acknowledge Inuyasha's arrival with his actual name, though. And a request.

Or two contradictory ones, anyway. And one from the least likely of all people. No wonder he's confused.

So, what did I think of this chapter overall? I like the mother motif running through this chapter. It's a theme through the whole arc, but in this chapter it really dominates the scene. You have the human mother who was always fighting for her son, letting him hang back behind her, and the youkai mother, who leads by example, but quickly encourages her numerous offspring to do it themselves. It's a stark contrast in how these two mothers parent, even if it seems there's a bit of a difference between learning to get food and learning to stand up for one's self. Maybe the two actions aren't so far apart on the spectrum after all, given they're both essential skills in being an independent, functional adult.

I was a little disappointed by the lack of attention to detail in this chapter, what with it being unclear if Kagome or Jinenji were inside or outside the hut for a few panels. It doesn't break the chapter, mind, but it does make it feel a bit rushed or as though there were panels missing. We never see Kagome move from Jinenji's mother's side, nor do we see Jinenji step outside the hut. A small indication of action would have made the whole scene a lot clearer, and it wouldn't have taken up much space or time.

As they say, the devil is in the details, but it really does make story and pacing flow a whole lot nicer when that little devil is happy.