I think the thing is at death's door, and I'm at my wit's end. You should have seen me screaming and wailing at it earlier. I imagine it looked a bit like this:
It looks like Toutousai was just busting Inuyasha's balls, because he's peering at the pieces of Tessaiga with critical DRY eyes, stating that his skill is great enough to fix the sword in three days and nights. Not great enough to make it a bit less shatterable in the first place, though. The only thing Toutousai needs that he doesn't have is a filler. Inuyasha repeats the word as a question while Toutousai chooses a big pair of iron tongs, clanging the ends together. He tells Inuyasha to open his mouth, and Inuyasha yawns wide naively, even asking if this is how Toutousai meant for him to do so.
I swear, Inuyasha can be such a cinnamon roll sometimes.
Inuyasha bops Toutousai over the head with his fist, demanding to know what the fuck he's doing. Toutousai is undaunted by the big lump growing on his skull as he tells Inuyasha to calm his shit, because his fang will grow back in a mere half-day. That's convenient. Wouldn't want our handsome protagonist to wander around through the rest of the story missing a tooth.
Meanwhile, another handsome, this time antagonist - or is it more of an ambivatist? - is enduring more screams from a tiny baby girl. This time, they're angry, because Rin insists that she's going somewhere with Sesshoumaru and Jaken. Jaken yells back at her that she's a dumb brat who will die of asphyxiation if she follows them into a place with a poisonous atmosphere. Rin takes on a more deferential tone when she looks up at Sesshoumaru, who still carries Goshinki's head by a horn, by the way, and asks if he'll come back for her. Sesshoumaru doesn't answer, just tells Jaken that they're going on their errand after a long pause. As he and Jaken head off, Rin clutches the reins of the two-headed dragon creature, calling to them to come back for her.
The bastards he's referring to are of course Sesshoumaru and Jaken, the former of which starts identifying their gracious host as Kaijinbou, a swordsmith who wouldn't stop making evil blades, so Toutousai refused to be his master anymore and tossed him out on his ass. Note that Sesshoumaru, conspicuously, does not say who he is, as was requested. Rude. Kaijinbou focuses in on Toutousai's name, though, which still makes him sick even though he hasn't heard it in a while.
Sesshoumaru drops Goshinki's head on the floor, Kaijinbou looking a little shocked at this, and asks he thinks he can make a sword out of the fangs of this ogre. Kaijinbou crawls next to the head to inspect its mouth, but when he leans away, he's unimpressed. He says a good sword could never be made out of such "dead" fangs. Are fangs ever ALIVE? I'm pretty sure they're always pretty dead...
Wordlessly, Sesshoumaru draws Tenseiga from the sheath at his side, and Jaken looks around at him in question. He seems a little confused by the fact that Sesshoumaru is using the sword that brings shit back to life, for some reason. He must not have been following the conversation. While he's catching up, Sesshoumaru sees a couple of little imp-creatures glaring at him from on top of Goshinki's head, what he calls pall-bearers of the next world.
But a moment later, Kaijinbou's eyes alight at a new crackle of energy coming from Goshinki's head. He reexamines it, running his hand along the nose, amazed that it seems so much different from earlier. Not as different as it would be if the newly living face you're caressing caught your arm in its teeth.
Come to think of it, that's a really disturbing concept, being a head brought back to life. Imagine if Goshinki was conscious and TALKING. A glutton like him might be devastated at the separation from his stomach. Imagine him waking up, unable to move, unable to feed, with this stranger poking at his face and he without the power to do anything about it. Just imagine what that would be LIKE.
Freaked out yet?
Sesshoumaru is willing to communicate one, solitary fact to Kaijinbou: the now living fangs of the ogre head before him broke Tessaiga, forged by that asshole Toutousai who expelled him from his magic sword school. Kaijinbou doesn't appear to be paying much attention, muttering about how these teeth are really something else, and how they'll make a super dope sword. I'm really excited to see this thing now!
Meanwhile and elsewhere, Kagome is kneeling by a stream, dunking a water bottle she brought with her from the future to fill it up while Shippou supervises. Seriously, he's got his little arms crossed and has this straight-backed demeanor of a tight-ass manager, it's kind of hilarious. Kagome says that Tessaiga should be done by the following day, trailing her sentence on a "but", which Shippou finishes by griping about how the timing sucks. Why?
Miroku explains that hanyou like Inuyasha lose their youkai powers once a month and take on a human appearance, further stating that this information is a critical secret to maintaining Inuyasha's relative safety from enemies who might want to take advantage of the time of weakness. Inuyasha eyes him with disdain, asking if it isn't a bit strange that the number of people who KNOW this secret is gradually increasing. Kagome, having returned from the water's edge, assures him that this is actually a-okay, because it means his friends are increasing as well, but Inuyasha pouts in response. It seems that "you got a whole bunch of buddies who might get hurt in an ambush during these times" isn't exactly a satisfying answer to him.
Later on, while Inuyasha sits on his own, he examines his regular nails and thinks about his anxiety around having his human form. Not having fangs or claws makes keeps him awake waiting for the morning to come. His name is called and he turns to see Kagome walking up with two pop-tab soda cans, offering one to him, and all he can think is that he may not even be able to protect the life of a single solitary girl.
But you HAVE, kiddo. TWICE. Don't you remember?
Kagome sits next to him in the grass and asks if it wouldn't be better at this *ahem* delicate time to not be so far away from everyone else. Inuyasha scoffs at the suggestion, and tells her to quit yapping at him, because sometimes he's got things to think about. She DOES stop talking, but she peers at him pointedly until he becomes unnerved and asks her what she's looking at. With a somewhat sad look, she asks him if he still wants to become a full youkai after all that business with Goshinki.
He thinks back to the incident with a perspective he doesn't appear to have considered yet - that he might have then become a full youkai for a while. Head hanging, Kagome admits that she was really scared at the time, and Inuyasha twitches, like a switch is flipped and he's suddenly in a rage. He screams in disbelief at her comment, reminding her that if he hadn't transformed, Goshinki would have devoured all of them. Shit boy, cooooooooool it.
Luckily, Kagome doesn't get peeved in return, and starts to explain that's not what she meant at all. She tells him that no matter how horrific his face had seemed, that wasn't what worried her. As he wonders if his face was really THAT terrifying, Kagome elaborates that her fears were about how it had seemed his heart had gone somewhere far away. He's the one staring now.
I don't know, I tend to not want people who yell in my face like fucking lunatics to remember me, but those people also aren't likely to rip me apart on sight, so...
Back in Florida, it looks like Jaken has gone back to Kaijinbou's alone, calling for him through the curtain over the doorway to his shack. Jaken reminds him that he said the sword would be ready by the third day, and peeks around the curtain to ask how the thing turned out. Bad idea, let me tell you.
So, what do I think of this chapter overall? I know a lot of people don't like Jaken, but I'm very amused by him - gives me a heavy Grumpy the dwarf vibe, I've gotta say - so I was actually quite upset by that last page when I first read this. It was just such a horrible death for a comic-relief character, which mildly traumatized me. Also, I think I was a bit freaked by the LACK of gore, if that makes any sense. Like you would very much expect to see organs and junk flying out of him, but the fact that you don't is almost surreal in a creepy way here. I don't know if I can describe it, but it still gives me the shivers.
But it's not the only thing on this page in particular that was shiver-worthy. Kaijinbou appears to have been affected in much the same way that Inuyasha was very recently - overcome by an uncanny bloodlust. I don't think this is a direct parallel to Inuyasha's situation, though, seeing as how it's very unlikely Kaijinbou is a hanyou for the reason that he wouldn't be able to handle his own home or Toutousai's mountain once a month alone. But, it is rather chilling to think that Goshinki's essence as a character is tied so thoroughly to what one might call a hedonistic mindset. He IS that pleasure of killing, in the respect that even PARTS of him have the potential to instill this self-destructive joy in murder.
Not that Kaijinbou wasn't already primed, what with being practiced in creating a bit of evil destructive tools in his day, if Sesshoumaru's short history is anything to go off of. Still, it must take a pretty powerful drug to produce that kind of high in a guy who's already used to the hard stuff. I mean, Toutousai told him to get lost over it, so he must have been on some nasty shit. Lucky Inuyasha wasn't handling Goshinki like a weapon, else he may never have been able to come down from his own high.
Speaking of which, what an odd experience it must be for that kid to go from one extreme to the other in just a couple of days time. No wonder he's on edge. Though he's been known to get a bit offensive in his defensive from time to time, yelling at Kagome like that was by far the worst we've seen of this impulse because he's on more of an emotional roller coaster than we've ever seen. Given the high of feeling like he could murder the whole world and it would be the greatest thing ever, it's understandable that his human form would look even weaker than it does normally, thereby intensifying those normal feelings of anxiety during this time.
It was nice that Kagome appeared to see his lashing out for what it was; just emotions running especially high at the worst possible moment. She was compassionate with him, which is the best time to be, if she has to choose. Of course, Kagome isn't in the habit of expressing fear with overcompensation of bravado, though, so it was inevitable that her habit of butting heads with Inuyasha wouldn't have manifested here. What's interesting is that she's less afraid of being horribly killed if Inuyasha doesn't remember who she is in a fit, and more about being forgotten by him to begin with. It seems like a strange thing to focus on when death might be on the table in such a scenario, but all the close-calls with death in this world have been avoided thanks to Inuyasha. Because he remembers her, has this relationship with her, she feels safe and like she can make it out alive. But the moment Inuyasha stops being Inuyasha, whether by freak accident or by a wish on a tainted jewel, all of that security is as gone as Inuyasha himself.
Lastly, Rin's pleading with Sesshoumaru to come back for her was sad, because at this stage, there is not a lot to suggest that he would come back at all. It's possible that this is the very first time since she was revived that she was asked to stay by herself. Being left alone can be frightening for any child, but for a kid who probably still has memories of fending for herself after her family was killed, it must be a life she's DESPERATE to avoid going back into. Sorry to say that Sesshoumaru doesn't give much indication that he will come back, either, aside from leaving her with the two-headed dragon. He might not be too terribly committed to bringing her up yet, something he must have realized would be a necessity if she continued to follow him around. While this had me grumbling about irresponsible little pricks bringing life (back) into the world with their magic swords only to consider abandoning it, I do have to admit it's not a light responsibility. Plenty of young men grapple with the concept of fatherhood, so I don't see why Sesshoumaru would be much different than them.
As for Jaken, he's just a crotchety old man who wants those kids to get off his DAMN LAWN! Or is that me? I don't know.
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