Inuyasha Manga: 144 Wind User

So, Inuyasha isn't the only one cutting wind all over the place, huh? Suppose I shouldn't be surprised. This party hasn't exactly been a classy affair, not that I really expected one to a begin with. I mean, how classy can a zombie crawl event get, with people all bloodied and grabby on the living? But when the dudebros started beating the shit out of one another, it was only a matter of time before it started to get SMELLY too.

Prepare for more fart jokes ahead. I had to.

Kagura starts out the chapter with a slash downward with her closed fan, and a lone crescent of air hacks through the middle of a dead wolf. Kouga stares in shock.

Yikes, is that the actual color of the page? Not the translator goofing off? Either way, that is a PAINFUL shade of yellow, and it was a bad idea.

The incoming whoosh, of course, is an arrow Kagome fired. It zooms just past Kagura's face, singing her hair on the way. Still standing with her bow raised, stutters at Kagura not to move, promising that the next arrow will hit her through two garishly red-colored speech bubbles. Who keeps making these horrible color decisions??

Kouga haltingly considers Kagome, but Kagura is much more dismissive. She questions if the FIRST arrow wasn't supposed to hit her, with a rather unimpressed glare. Kagome gulps in response. Smiling, Kagura flips open her fan once more and encourages Kagome to shoot again, taking good aim this time. Kouga stammers at her to run, but Kagura is already waving her fan and declaring her "Dance of the Wind Blades" attack in deadpan. The crescent blades approaching Kagome are no less threatening for it, though, and she cringes as they get closer.

Before they reach their destination, they're dispersed with a couple of whacks. Kagura, Kouga and Kagome all look at the source of this dispersal with varying degrees and flavors of surprise. The former of a more unhappy kind, and the latter more relieved. Kouga seems to be somewhere in the middle here.

Well, they are made of WIND.

Kagura talks about Inuyasha being alive like she's just engaging in casual conversation, and turns to "Mister Wolf" Kouga to inform him that he has failed to finish Inuyasha off. Inuyasha scoffs at the notion that he would drop dead from the wimpy Kouga's "tap". Well, you can't really blame them for thinking so, when you were showing serious signs of internal hemorrhaging and fatal injury. Don't be mad, bro.

Shippou hops over to Kagome, who deduces that he was the one who retrieved Tessaiga and got it to Inuyasha. He doesn't need to confirm this outright, choosing instead to inform Kagome of an unfortunate thing he noticed - Kouga broke Inuyasha's right arm. Indeed, Inuyasha's bruised right hand hangs limply by his side, but he's still facing Kagura with Tessaiga's blunt side resting on his left shoulder. Kagura asks him if he REALLY thinks he can fight her properly in that condition. He responds with the one thing he's willing to say for sure; he's not going to show her mercy. He says he doesn't like how he was framed for killing all the youkai wolves and having Kouga set on him as a result. Kouga himself glares over at Inuyasha, still leaning injured on the ground without the ability to stand. HE won't be of any help, it seems.

Most of all, Inuyasha cites the scent coming from her body as a primary part of his grudge. She just smiles at him lazily when he leaps at her, shouting that she smells the same as Naraku, his sword raised above his head. Kagome makes a confused noise, and Kouga tries out the villain's name in his head, pissed but having gained the wisdom to question these things.

Kagura maintains amiability, congratulating Inuyasha for his good nose.

Man... she is so fucking cool. I know I shouldn't admire her, what with her being a bad guy and all, but I kind of want her autograph.

When their matched force pushes them apart, Kagura scoffs at Inuyasha like it was no big thing. Resting Tessaiga on his shoulder again, his assessment of the previous blow isn't favorable. Apparently she can knock back the sword with the slightest of wind pressure. Not surprising, honestly. Women generally have to have a lot more control over their "wind" in polite society and parties such as this. We have to go the "silent but deadly" route.

... What?

Wind resulting from the attack blowing his bangs back, Shippou frets that Inuyasha can't even use HALF his normal strength in his condition. I wonder how he came up with this calculation. Scouter? Kagome adds that this all seems to be going according to Kagura's plan too. But, silently, Kagome can't help but wonder what it means that Kagura has the same smell as Naraku. Well, children's flatulence DOES tend to smell similar to their parents', so you may draw your own conclusions from that.

... What?

Kagura raises her fan above her head, scoffing that she's a wind-user, and that she's in control of all the wind around the castle. She said the title! And just when you thought she couldn't get any smoother. She draws a wide circle in front of her with the half-closed fan, calling the resulting start to a swirling whirlwind "Dance of the Dragon-Snakes". Inuyasha only has a moment to gape in shock.

Kagome runs from the crater she and Shippou had been sheltering themselves in, Shippou shouting her name to call her back. She ignores him, grabbing the half-incapacitated Kouga by the elbow to try and drag him out of the line of battle. Inuyasha casts a sharp look over at her for her actions, clearly perturbed by how worried she seems to be over this guy who was instrumental in his current disadvantage. I see another petty argument ahead...

Kagome doesn't notice, pulling Kouga down the slope back into the crater with her and Shippou. Kouga asks her if she's sure about this. After all, he tried to murder Inuyasha not a few minutes ago. She snaps that he shouldn't take her for a fool, because she knows Inuyasha was aware of Kouga's deceived state at the time, and couldn't fight him seriously because of it. She also asserts that Inuyasha isn't the small-minded type who would get mad at her for saving someone who can't move. At the same time, Inuyasha stands fuming and flushed at the statement. He may not be able to reconcile Kagome's confident assessment of his character with his exact OPPOSITE reaction before. Especially when she responds to Shippou's timid question of whether she really means that with such an emphatic positive.

Kagura attracts his attention once more when she says what a waste of time Kagome's actions are, because she sees him as beyond help now. The fake Shikon fragment is still embedded in his arm, and its poison is being spread through his body from that shining point. Kagura says that when the miasma reaches his heart, it'll be all over. Kouga is already sweating, unfocused gazed set on the arm laid out in front of his grounded chin, which has a dark stain spreading from the scar where he placed the shard.

Kagome settles next to him and bids him to wait just a little longer, promising to pluck it out of his arm right now. When her fingers get too close, though, they burn, and the tips sizzle. She yanks her hand back and cradles it against her chest, thinking that the miasma is too strong and it's no good.

Call me crazy, but I think only ONE of you is having any kind of fun here. Reminds me of the times my cousin would sit on me and fart when we were kids.

That's not just a fart joke, by the way, it genuinely does.

Kagome and Shippou watch Inuyasha dodge and weave in disbelief, Shippou wondering out loud if Inuyasha is EVER going to use the Kaze no Kizu. Inuyasha himself views Kagura through a whirlwind and groans. Where the air normally collides with the youki and creates the "scar" between them, allowing Tessaiga to cut through and deliver its premier attack, isn't showing up here. As he examines Kagura and the area around her, he can't find it at all.

She launches another volley of crescent wind blades at him again, threatening to cut him up, but he keeps avoiding them with another groan. At the same time, he considers her claim that all the wind in the castle is under her control. If that's true, Inuyasha reasons that this means they are all encompassed in Kagura's formation of youki.

Gee, Inuyasha, I know the situation seems hopeless, but do you really want to go the Kevorkian route? I don't know if it's QUITE time to put you out of your misery.

So, what did I think of this chapter overall? The introduction of Kagura's identical smell to Naraku is a really good way of introducing her origins, though we're not going to be fully aware of them for another few chapters. It's a great way to drop the hint, because it's using Inuyasha's dog-like qualities in a detective-like way. As I said above, children have a similar smell to their biological parents, so it's only a small step from there to conclude what is going on, even if the question of "how" is still a bit on the shady side. I don't think I was alone in realizing at this moment that Naraku had reproduced, but the fact that this still had me scratching my head when I first reading, having even more questions with my conclusions, was something of an ingenious move.

And I am delighted at how Inuyasha's clever side has returned. How battle-savvy he is and cool, analytical, he is in a fight is not only reflective of his lineage (Sesshoumaru being a closer model to how their father operated in this state, though), but also of his personal experience. He would simply be dead by now if he didn't have a good head on his shoulders and a fair amount of cunning at his disposal, given how little he's tolerated by either humans or youkai. His hypothesis here is a reasonable one, and it makes sense with how the wind would ACT as Kagura's youki, not actually being the proper air it would collide with.

However, it still seemed a little too easy for him to reach this explanation on reason alone. Inuyasha is, after all, not so much ABOVE the gritty emotions of fighting as his brother. Inuyasha isn't Sesshoumaru, and this seemed like a more SESSHOUMARU type of deduction. Here's where Kagome's arrow in the beginning of the chapter might have been a good setup; it might have helped Inuyasha to visualize why Kaze no Kizu wasn't materializing after the fact. If he had sensed it before, but then it stubbornly refused to show up later, it might have been a catalyst for the realization that he was INSIDE Kagura's youki the whole time.

But since he was passed out at the time...