Glad that doesn't happen in the REAL world!
She's so delightful, she doesn't even have to go on at length about her attack. Kagura just scoffs and throws some air-blades at Inuyasha as he charges headlong into them. He swings his sword to deflect them, shouting back at Miroku to just go, and Miroku turns to do just that, stammering that he understands. Kagura also gets it, informing Inuyasha that it'll do no good for Miroku to run and save them, because by the time he gets there Kagome will be an empty shell. Dammit! AGAIN? I thought Urasue would have been the last one foolish enough to try that shit, but apparently Kagome is going to have to own another dipshit today.
Ain't nobody gonna steal that girl's soul, you hear? She will fuck your shit up.
Inuyasha seems less sure, groaning at the prospect of an empty Kagome again. He silently begs her to hang on until he can get to her.
No, seriously, the little girl in white looks down at the mirror in her hands listlessly, commenting flatly that the soul is overflowing from it. Still, Kanna reasons that at this point, Kagome shouldn't be able to move, so she steps toward Kagome, reaching out a hand to make the Shikon shard on the schoolgirl hers. Kagome twitches, brows drawing down in concentration and anger.
Kanna looks around at a transformed Kirara stepping into the scene. Shippou is on Kirara's back, shouting at her not to move, or else she can get chomped on by the giant sabre-cat. Kagome squints over at him in desperation, but can only discourage him silently from letting himself be reflected in the mirror and getting his soul sucked out.
But Kanna doesn't go that route. Instead, she turns to flee, much to Kagome's consternation. She keeps her arrow trained on the retreating youkai, though, even as frantic steps echo behind her and her name is called. Miroku bursts on the scene just in time to see Kanna fading into the darkness of the house, his jaw hanging open in alarm. Kagome and Shippou call out to Miroku, the former weakly, the latter with gusto. Miroku kneels at Sango's unconscious side, saying her name, then Kagome's in worry as she begins to lose the strength to hold herself up. He begins to put two and two together, identifying the child in white as the other youkai who is manipulating the villagers.
Then he realizes someone is missing. Looking around, he asks where Koharu is in a panic. The answer comes almost immediately when Koharu addresses him from a doorway to his right. He looks over at her and says her name in return, because that's all anyone can ever say in this manga. She stares at him a moment, wordlessly. Shippou jumps in front of Miroku to warn him that Koharu has also been under control of the girl in white.
As if in response, Koharu reveals what she has in her hand.
Koharu brings the sickle closer to the flesh on her neck, to which action Miroku lunges forward and demands she stop. She looks up at him with a sharp glare before slashing at his arm, splattering his blood. Shippou and Kagome watch in horror, the little fox unable to do anything but, yet again, call his name.
Miroku's reaction is swift, though. He smacks the sickle right out of her hand with his uninjured arm holding his staff. As soon as it clatters to the floor, he punches her right in the gut. Instead of vomiting all over him, she just... passes out right into his arms? What? Why...? Never mind. He's looking down at her with sustained wariness, as he should because Shippou informs him that Koharu's soul has been taken by the mirror. Miroku gives Shippou a quizzical look, wondering aloud about this mirror. Instead of explaining, Shippou says that Kagome had the same thing happen to her, while she continues to sweat and strain on the floor.
As Miroku and Shippou waffle about impotently, Inuyasha is facing his own struggles.
Kagura suggests that Inuyasha is unable to fight without Kagome hanging around, to which Inuyasha just twists his face to hide a silent curse. Since she controls all the wind in the vicinity, he's unable to find Kaze no Kizu, just like last time. BUT WAIT! It seems he judged too soon, because almost as soon as he's done thinking about this, Kaze no Kizu appears in front of him, much to his surprise. He wonders what's going on for her control of the wind to have weakened.
Without sparing a single thought toward the question "WHY", Inuyasha leaps to action, believing this is the time to take the opening. He tells Kagura to prepare to die, but Kagura throws him a sharp look, before the villagers on either side of the fight move in front of her in what looks like a daze. They no longer look angry, but just like shuffling old dudes. Inuyasha yells at them to move while Kagura draws another circle around herself with her fan, calling him a soft-hearted fool. He jumps out of the way of the bout of cyclones she's aimed at him, cursing her for using the villagers of a shield.
Kagura is pondering something Naraku said, which turned out to be true; Inuyasha had been aiming for the place where she had loosened her control of the wind, deliberately, of course. She comes back from deep thought to Inuyasha calling her all kinds of names, again for hiding behind the villagers. She urges him to just stop hesitating and cut her down already, along with her meat-shield.
So, what did I think of this chapter overall? It's really fun watching Kagome be a badass, because I remember one of the criticisms of her character back when this series was popular was that she was weak. Even taking into account that she took to using the bow unrealistically fast, she's being depicted here as struggling mightily to move. She's struggling to sit up, and drawing a bow, regardless of how strangely easy it seems to her the rest of the time, has to be much harder than that. I don't care what anyone says, that's awesome.
And as everyone already knows, I'm a bit more forgiving of Inuyasha's intelligence than everyone else seems to be. Granted, I mentioned that he skipped over the skepticism he should have employed when first going for Kagura's weak-spot, but I don't think it was necessarily out-and-out moronic. He's worried about getting to Kagome in order to help her, wants to wrap this up as quickly as he can, and he's been so on edge being unable to find the literal crack in Kagura's armor that his actions are in desperation more than cluelessness. And yet, even in desperation, he's still unwilling to go for the opening if it means hurting innocents. It's this heroic nobility that makes him so easily manipulated, and gives him a similar quality to the villagers here, which is interesting. They had to be robbed of their human souls in order to support Kagura's plot, and so Inuyasha would have to be in order to defeat her at the moment.
I don't much enjoy having direct access to Kagura's plan right off the bat here, since it takes away some of the mystery, but that's a minor thing.
And seriously, is anyone else a little weirded-out that Koharu and Kohaku have SO MUCH IN COMMON at this point? I'm having a difficult time determining if this is deliberate or not. If it is, there may be some point to be main about how much Miroku and Sango, in turn, have in common with one another, and how EVERYONE the main characters love are treated by Naraku. It could be making a statement of how patterned Naraku's approaches to using loved ones against enemies are.
Or, it could just be RT recycling plot elements, which is a bit of a disappointing notion, considering we're still only at the relative beginning of the series. Don't run out of ideas YET!
No comments:
Post a Comment