Hold tight, because the Inuyasha chapter I'm covering today... addresses none of this. Enjoy.
Looking back at Goshinki's head sitting atop the mound of his own pulverized flesh, Inuyasha thinks he still hasn't killed enough. Yeah, well, sometimes I feel like I haven't had enough CAKE, and it turns out I'm dead fucking wrong, doesn't it? Comparing murder to cake aside, I think you ought to consider that your palette might be lying to you, my dude.
Inuyasha's eye twitches to his periphery, where he hears a sound. It's Kagome, approaching with hands held up, saying his name. He acknowledges her, yelling for her not to come near him. She recoils in shock as Inuyasha explains he doesn't know what he'll do in his current state. The MURDER state. Shippou says Inuyasha's name in concern as well, while Sango wonders aloud just what the hell happened to him. Miroku answers that Inuyasha's youki has gained some considerable strength, and Sango responds that it seems almost like he's become a TRUE youkai.
Kagome attempts to sooth Inuyasha by reminding him that there's no longer any enemies around, but Inuyasha just stares at her open-mouthed, sweating, and still red-eyed. Good of Kagome to be the sober one in this seriously bad trip.
The three bystanders lean forward to peer at him, Shippou expressing some tentative relief that he appears to be back to normal from atop Miroku's head. Meanwhile, Kagome kneels on the ground in front of Inuyasha and launches a hug onto him, thanking goodness for his normalcy. Inuyasha just lets out a sound of surprise, eyes wide at the embrace. When she pulls away, she asks what he'll do, and at first he's confused by the question. Then they both look over at the broken Tessaiga laying in shards on the ground some ways away. A sad reminder of how Goshinki bit it right in half a few minutes before.
At that moment, Inuyasha thought he might die, but he doesn't finish the recap of what happened after he felt he really didn't want to die. Recalling that his body felt very hot is as far as he's willing to go with it.
A word of thanks breaks through his thoughts, and Inuyasha turns the other way to see the pair of children whom he had inadvertently saved. The boy clarifies that he's thanking Inuyasha for avenging their parents, but Inuyasha can't help looking back at Goshinki's gross pile of remains. He says, "vengeance" wearing consternation on his face. Internally, he has to admit that this hadn't been his goal at all. He looks down at his reduced claws, knowing he just enjoyed the shit out of tearing up Goshinki. You can tell he feels pretty bad about it, even though he would have had to dispatch that shit-talking glutton eventually anyway. Letting the fucker live would have just meant he would go on to swallow the whole damn world like an asshole.
Rumbling storm clouds have appeared, and Shippou looks over his shoulder at them with apprehension. Inuyasha and Kagome look up at the sky as well when a loud crack sounds.
Wait a minute, this fucked-up failed alien experiment looks familiar...
Miroku uses his staff as a crutch to pull himself to his feet, asking if this isn't Toutousai's bull. You know, the old guy who made Tessaiga? Sango is confused that just the bull has appeared without an apparent rider. That's because a minuscule, less-than-apparent one jumps at Inuyasha from the bull's nose, calling his name. Barely a moment passes the greeting before little Myouga latches onto the tip of Inuyasha's nose and starts sucking the blood from it.
Inuyasha face-palms, Myouga squished flat by his palm, floating down into it when Inuyasha pulls his hand away. Kagome addresses him with some surprise as Miroku limps forward to ask if Myouga had run from their dangerous group over to Toutousai's crib. Myouga is, of course, very offended at the implication that he's a coward, complaining that it's very disrespectful. Inuyasha and Kagome come to the conclusion that he protests too much.
Myouga ignores the accusations at this point, unable to argue against them, choosing to ask Inuyasha if something happened to Tessaiga. Inuyasha asks in turn whether he's correct in assuming that's why he came back.
Myouga snaps that Inuyasha should go and collect all the pieces of Tessaiga instead of just staring at him waiting for a meaningful statement from his shady ass. Kagome clasps her hands in front of her, looking delighted that it seems Tessaiga can be fixed.
Some time later, long after Inuyasha has picked up the pieces of his broken sword and left the area, Goshinki's rotting pile of ground flesh still lays there like the unwanted entrails at a meat processing plant. Out of the eternally mist-shrouded distance comes a figure, running for the mound of Goshinki remains. No wait, TWO figures, and they also look familiar.
Anyway, this cute little girl cringes at realizing the ogre is in pieces, while the less cute little Jaken wonders out loud who did this. He's answered from behind that it was Inuyasha. Of course. Jaken looks back and addresses the approaching Sesshoumaru, not quite daring to ask for elaboration. All Sesshoumaru says is that Inuyasha didn't exactly escape this encounter uninjured himself. Then he reaches for one of Goshinki's horns.
... Ugh, me duele la cabeza...
Sesshoumaru is a champion of concentration, though, focusing entirely on how the ogre's teeth are covered in the smell of Tessaiga. He's vindicated in his original thought that the ogre's fangs bit the sword apart. He slings the big head over his furry shoulder like a weird sack and announces that they're leaving now. Jaken questions, indirectly, Sesshoumaru's choice to bring the head with them. Rin is running around in circles, screaming like Kevin McCallister.
Right now, though, Sesshoumaru can't abide all the screaming, and he tells the little girl whom he calls Rin to stop making such a racket. She immediately snaps to attention arms stiff by her side and back straight as she complies with a "yessir". Well shit, if this guy isn't dad of the year. Jaken glares at Rin despite how obedient she's proven herself to be, thinking she's a damn brat. He also thinks that she never shuts up, a funny thing, given that he recalls she couldn't speak before being revived with Tenseiga. Yes, rather odd.
He doesn't dwell on this strange thing that really OUGHT to be dwelt upon, though, because he's more interested in internally complaining about how Sesshoumaru has decided to cart this little girl around with them. Between adorable orphan girls and giant ogre heads, Jaken thinks it is high time the former is gotten rid of. I guess the latter hasn't been around long enough to truly annoy Jaken yet. As Jaken sighs for how irritating everything and everyone in his life is, Rin looks around at him and comments on how he's been sighing an awful lot. The sad thing is, I have been doing the same for a lot of the same reasons these past four years of my life. I can sympathize.
Not a hip admission, I'll warrant, but it has to be said.
We jump to Sesshoumaru's head, who has an entirely different set of concerns. He's able to discern pretty much everything that happened here due to the smells, but he can't quite wrap his brain around the fact that the smell of Inuyasha's blood seemed to change. It didn't smell like a hanyou's blood, but was closer to the smell of his own and their father's. Time to bust out the magnifying glass and deerstalker cap, I suppose.
Cut to our main gang gathered next to Inuyasha sitting cross-legged on the back of Toutousai's bull. Myouga bounces in Kagome's upturned palm as he states that humans can't go to Toutousai's place, so Inuyasha will have to go on alone. By the next panel, Inuyasha is already gone and the rest of them are seated around a campfire. Miroku asks Myouga why he didn't go with Inuyasha, and at first Myouga doesn't answer. He asks if Inuyasha really did transform, with a nervous expression.
Kagome confirms that this is indeed what happened, and asks in turn if this has anything to do with Tessaiga breaking. Sheepishly, Myouga says it does, and reiterates what they already know about Tessaiga, being a sword of protection left Inuyasha by his father. He further explains that in addition, it's meant to put a leash on Inuyasha's youkai blood (my pun is very much intended).
Both Kagome and Miroku make curious, surprised sounds, so Myouga elaborates that if Tessaiga is broken in a fight, it is likely he might die as a result, unless his instinct to live awakens his youkai blood. Meaning lengthened nails and fangs, angry youkai markings, and hyperrealistic blood-eyes like in a bad creepy pasta. Myouga says that once this youkai blood has been awakened once, it's not possible to put it back to bed again, because he's already had a taste of that sweet sugar high of tearing apart his enemy. Just bouncing off the walls until midnight. I feel a bit more justified in comparing to to cake when I say it like this, leave me alone.
So, what did I think of this chapter overall? I know in the last chapter I was willing to give this new transformation of Inuyasha's a tentative seal of approval for at least presenting a character challenge. However, there are some issues with the struggle and what it represents straight off the bat, ones that I think Inuyasha fans are duly familiar with.
The first is, of course, the fact that Inuyasha did not have Tessaiga for his whole life. He only recently came to possess it, which left both his practical and blood protection just utterly bare before the time Kagome pulled it out of the dais. I very much doubt that he NEVER, not even ONCE, came across a situation in which he might die in a fight before he could get his hands on that sword. Hanyou are supposed to be under constant suspicion at best, and getting a bunch of outright abuse from humans and youkai alike at worst. We can't be told this one second, and then the next be expected to believe that Inuyasha didn't get seriously fucked up in a fight in the years before Tessaiga was in his life the next.
And no, Inuyasha did not have Tessaiga all along in the black pearl within his eye. The black pearl opened a PORTAL to the border between life and afterlife, and THAT'S where Tessaiga was before Inuyasha got it. I know this is a common argument for how Tessaiga's protection could extend to Inuyasha even before it came into his possession, but it's not a very good one, in spite of it being possibly the best we've got. The best I can think of in alternative to it is that the sword seals Inuyasha's youkai blood regardless of his possession of it, just having to be whole as a stipulation. I hope I'm not exactly spoiling things when I hint that this will be proven dead wrong not too much later in the story though.
In addition to our mechanism not making much sense
I'm inclined to the complex interpretation. There's an element of the actual truth of how youkai function being obscured by a lack of understanding, and paring down the matter into simpler, more digestible bits for the sake of expediency. We do this all the time in real life as well, try to separate muddy, unclear subjects into their working parts, and miss the forest for the trees in the process. I also like the idea that these characters are just plain WRONG about how youkai are, because I've said before that I think it gives them an aspect of realism.
But the more I look at this transformation issue, the more I'm suspicious that it's the product of necessity, not having anywhere else to go. If you disagree, that's fine, but here's something to consider: Inuyasha was already recovering from grievous injuries before this battle, so why, after being nearly eviscerated by Goshinki and hung out to dry, did he not collapse back into a dying heap on the ground after being brought back to his senses? Seems all healed now, isn't that strange?
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