Kagome grasps at the vines to prevent herself from slipping over the cliff, glaring at Kikyou's legs while she does so. Kikyou glares back, reminding Kagome that they are one in the same person, then telling her that it's better there's only one of them in this world. Kagome gapes wordlessly, undoubtedly still too shocked to ask Kikyou the obvious question:
He calls out Kagome's name again, jumping to her aid. Kikyou glares, with nothing to say for herself, apparently. Inuyasha lands on the cliff next to Kagome and grabs her wrist to pull her up out of the crack in the ground. While she clings to his Fire Rat coat, he asks if she's alright, wondering what in the world was happening here. Kagome tries to stutter out an answer as to what Kikyou was trying to do, but she doesn't quite get there. Both she and Inuyasha look toward Kikyou, both perplexed and scared, mouths hanging open.
Kikyou holds the Shikon fragment she took to her chest, claiming that all she did was steal it. Does she think this makes her look better? Inuyasha says Kikyou's name, clearly flummoxed. She elaborates that Kagome's life was in danger as long as she carried it, because Naraku was planning to dissolve her in the bubbling quagmire in the fissure behind them in order to get a hold of the Shikon shard. It is clear Kikyou isn't very practiced at lying.
Kagome mentally protests that it was KIKYOU that was trying to murder her face just moments ago, not Naraku. She's not so inclined to say this out loud, though, and remains silent, but obviously still distressed. Kikyou's Shinidamachuu surround her and carry her right out of there, to spare her the humiliation of trying to explain her precarious position any further. Inuyasha yells at Kikyou from below, asking where she's going, but she doesn't answer, drifting away with a blank look back at him. Both Kagome and Inuyasha watch her until she's out of sight.
When Inuyasha looks back down at Kagome, she's still sitting slumped with her face pointed at the vines below. He asks her what happened between her and Kikyou, and her response is an apology for Kikyou taking the jewel from her. Inuyasha barks that this is not an answer to his question again, this time reluctantly suggesting himself that Kikyou may have been after Kagome's life. Somehow, Kagome thinks this means she can't tell Inuyasha now, because it would be unbelievable that Kikyou could want to kill her. Except Inuyasha considers it within the realm of possibility, since he brought it up?
Eh, she's fifteen and stupid. Which is why she convinces herself that it would seem like she was making up the whole murder plot. She doesn't like it, but she keeps her mouth shut on the truth, and instead asks Inuyasha if he still loves Kikyou. Inuyasha is taken aback, sweatdropping, then questions what it is that she's TALKING about right now. In turn, she questions what he's upset about. He informs her that the entire reason he came rushing her way is because he remembered her and the danger she might be in, which seems to leave her a bit on the confused side, based on her slack jaw and the question mark in her speech bubble.
Inuyasha knows that if he hadn't thought about Kagome, he would have been a goner too, lost to Naraku's Kikyou illusion. Though he's not prepared to say this out loud, he DOES say something else a bit surprising to Kagome.
Miroku is in no mood for this show of affection, though. He has arrived on the other side of the fissure in tatters, carrying Sango's Hiraikotsu on his back with an unconscious Sango and Shippou draped over it. Looks like Shippou did indeed get his share of horror. Miroku asks Inuyasha and Kagome if they're finished being cute yet, and they look exasperated by the interruption. Sorry guys, you're not the only ones with issues.
Back at his castle, Naraku broods heavily next to a table where his broken puppet doll has been busted, fuming about it. He's concerned that he's unable to see what's goin on or where Kikyou is, when her unmistakable form appears on the other side the blinds screening the room. She walks in and right up to him silently, and they stare at each other a moment, until he says her name in disdain.
She tells him to remember that his little parlor tricks don't work on her, and that his warding spell that keeps away Inuyasha and friends was a simple break as well. Well, you know Naraku. He's nothing if not simple. She holds up the fragment of the jewel she picked off Kagome, then tosses it carelessly down next to him. Internally he's alarmed, but he doesn't let on.
Kikyou says she's leaving it with him, since he wanted it so badly and all. He picks it up, but his glare remains on Kikyou, unwavering. She smiles when she says that he seems to be the one who needs it the most, being not a youkai, but...
Whoops, never mind.
Naraku keeps right on glaring, and asks why she would hand him a Shikon fragment if that WERE the case, considering he's her hated enemy who sent her to her death 50 years before. She shouldn't be so willing to do him any favors. She smirks, confirming that he previous body and life were destroyed, yes, but her new borrowed body makes her feel more alive. She claims that since she's been dead, her soul has been free of both love and hate. Well, she's got to get in practice for lying in SOMEWHERE, and Naraku seems to buy it, wondering if she's saying that this is the reason she doesn't hate him. Oh, Naraku, gullible doesn't look good on you.
Kikyou turns to leave, ready to return to the temple his retainers had fetched her from, not planning to run or hide from him. She invites Naraku to send for her if he wants to see her, calling him Onigumo playfully before she slips out. He just sits there, speechless, and not five seconds after she leaves...
Kikyou's words about him being a hanyou pop back up in his mind, and he looks back down at the jewel, completely confused as to what she was thinking. Outside the castle, Kikyou mentally encourages him to collect all the Shikon shards he wants, because once he's got them all, she's planning to send him to hell, looking all business about it and everything.
Later and elsewhere, someone wants to make sure Myouga isn't trying to trick them. Backlit by an ENORMOUS rising moon, a bent-backed stranger sitting atop a cow asks if what's-his-name can really use Tessaiga effectively. Myouga tells this stranger that INUYASHA is the name, and a close-up reveals an old man with bulging eyes scratching his balding head. He correctly identifies "Inuyasha" as the stupid younger of the two sons who's wielding the fang/sword passed down from his father.
Myouga hums in thought, and admits that it was only ONCE that Inuyasha managed to bring down 100 youkai with a single swing of the sword, and since then, nothing. Except the danger zone, which Myouga complains about like he expects a situation requiring the slaying of 100 youkai at once to be a fucking picnic or something.
So, what did I think of this chapter overall? Well, I got what I wanted; a Kikyou who LIES to get herself out of uncomfortable spots. This wasn't quite what I had in mind, but I'll take it, if only because her motivations for doing so are a bit less speculative and more concrete now. She got caught doing something deplorable and attempted to lie her way out of her ex thinking she's terrible, and then she went up to Naraku and lied that she doesn't have feelings so that she can convince him to take the bait she's laid out. The murkier area comes in whether she knows that her lie didn't quite land with Inuyasha, versus how it struck a chord with Naraku.
Because Inuyasha WANTED to buy it, but he couldn't. He had Kagome's trauma there reminding him that if Kikyou wasn't actively trying to kill Kagome, she wasn't going to go out of her way to SAVE her. Inuyasha is now almost fully disillusioned (literally) to the fantasy that the Kikyou he knew is the Kikyou that exists now, nor the Kikyou that can ever exist again. He still feels he has a duty to her, as someone who let her down (indirect as it may have been), and that maybe he'll join her in death one day, but he's no longer under the impression that Kikyou is without fault in the current circumstances.
By contrast, Naraku DOESN'T want to buy Kikyou's bullshit. He knows something is up, but he can't figure out what. The fact that Kikyou knows he's a hanyou is all the more insulting to him, because he's still got very little information on how she's here in the now and not still dead. Kikyou let slip that she's in an imitation body, but that's hardly much to go on, so she certainly SEEMS to know more about him than he does about her. He's only taking the Shikon shard because he needs it and it's useful to him at the moment, but it's really eating at him that she knows his secret and that he's got no clue what she's planning to do with it.
He really shouldn't worry, considering she's just your basic sixteen-year-old girl green with envy at her twin's superior performance in all her attempted endeavors, leading to her letting said twin get beaten down and her ex-boyfriend seeing it, so she just said, "fuck it, I'm done with trying to be a goody-goody, I'm gonna be BAD now."
I'll say hi to her when I see her in Hot Topic.
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