Inuyasha Manga: 162 The Blood's Smell

Only a real connoisseur would be able to tell the difference between a sweaty 1953 penny and a sweaty 2007 penny. Sesshoumaru must be so proud of his discerning snout. That's why he's using this tremendous skill for tracking down murderers, and diagnosing serious disease, and... Oh, no, wait, all he's doing is stalking his little brother to figure out why his "inferior" blood has the same smell as him and their father.

It's called genetics, you goof.

Go figure, Sesshoumaru WAS as busy as he's been insisting this whole time... delivering confirmation notices for various registration services. Inuyasha has successfully created his account on Reddit. Congratz.

Kagome grabs him by the sleeve and warns him not to do what Sesshoumaru says, but Inuyasha barks at her to get back. Toutousai peeks around his opposite shoulder and asks if Inuyasha thinks he can win. Inuyasha scoffs and characterizes Sesshoumaru as a guy who's not really interested in the full and enthusiastic consent of his opponents. Sesshoumaru confirms this and repeats his demand that Inuyasha come at him, holding up Toukijin at the ready, and then beginning to lean a charge behind it. If Inuyasha won't take the gracious offer of first strike, then Sesshoumaru will just have to take it instead. How nice of him to extend the paltry illusion of choice here. Totally haven't seen THAT before.

Inuyasha rips Tessaiga from its sheath once more, quipping that Sesshoumaru shouldn't regret digging his own grave. At the same time, though, Inuyasha casts a strained glance at Tessaiga's giant blade, internally complaining about how heavy it is.

The cutting force strikes again, riddling Inuyasha with a thousand little cuts and streams of blood fly out from him as braces behind Tessaiga like it's a shield. Kagome shouts that she KNEW Inuyasha would be able to do little but defend, and Shippou points out that Inuyasha even lost that cutting force battle between the two swords. Quite the difference to his clash with that clown Kaijinbou. Toutousai is not cavalier about THIS match, at least, whining that this is seriously bad.

Miroku asks Toutousai if Inuyasha has no chance, and Toutousai states the obvious fact that Inuyasha can't swing Tessaiga. It DOES speak for itself. Toutousai dwells on how the problem is compounded by the inherently dangerous Toukijin just HAD to end up in the hands of the even MORE dangerous Sesshoumaru, of all people. Meh, I'm less impressed by that part. Toukijin could do better.

While Inuyasha stands panting and dripping blood from his million paper cuts. Sesshoumaru stands back and observes him quietly a moment. The smell of Inuyasha's blood is just a hanyou's right now, but Sesshoumaru recalls the change he smelled in the aftermath of that battle with Goshinki. Note that Sesshoumaru seems to use Goshinki's name here, which he should NOT KNOW.

... Whoopsie-daisy!

Anyhow, Sesshoumaru decides he has to find out for himself what that means. Meanwhile, Inuyasha is certain that if he can't end this all in one swing, he's done for. Sesshoumaru mocks him by asking if he's changed his fighting style up, since he's usually always swinging Tessaiga around like a weirdo. Inuyasha falls for it, growling and hoisting Tessaiga onto his shoulder to run at Sesshoumaru, telling him to shut up.

Sesshoumaru holds off the swing without so much as a grimace, and Inuyasha, of course, ends up on the receiving end of another series of baby cuts. Sesshoumaru blithely states that Tessaiga seems to have gotten a bit heavier, to which Inuyasha spits that it's not just a BIT. Reasoning that Tessaiga at its current weight is too much for Inuyasha to handle, Sesshoumaru implies that his next action is HELPFUL rather than a total dick move.

Yup. TOTALLY doing him a great favor there.

Kagome shouts Inuyasha's name as Miroku gives us the after-action report of how Tessaiga just went flying. I guess if Inuyasha could barely lift the thing, it IS kind of impressive that Sesshoumaru could just flip it away like it was nothing. Shippou says that this is like an adult beating  up on a helpless child, something that he would have some experience with, so his empathy with Inuyasha must be hella uncomfortable right now.

For some reason, Inuyasha goes spinning off into the grass too? I'm not picking up on the physics of this, but no time to dwell. Tessaiga has reverted back to its rusty form and is stuck into the ground at its tip. Inuyasha sits up on his haunches and draws the back of his hand across his bloodied face, cursing. Myouga appears bouncing on his shoulder, urging him to hurry and go retrieve Tessaiga. Inuyasha gives Tessaiga, not TOO far away to reclaim, a brief critical look, and then launches onto his feet and runs toward Sesshoumaru again instead, declaring that he doesn't need the sword. Myouga is shocked, but I don't know why. Dude, have you MET this kid?

Sesshoumaru stands wordlessly with Toukijin's tip raised, waiting for Inuyasha to come at him, just like he wanted. Kagome yells at Inuyasha not to do this, Shippou panicking at Inuyasha's apparent decision to fight Sesshoumaru unarmed from her shoulder. Myouga begs Inuyasha not to act so desperate, but Inuyasha says a heavy sword like that won't help him win the fight at all. This must be the most leisurely jog in the direction of an enemy in the history of ever.

So leisurely that Sesshoumaru has only JUST pointed Toukijin at Inuyasha, accusing him of not knowing his own limits.

Talk about death by a thousand cuts. This poor kiddo is getting SHREDDED.

After landing on all fours a ways away, Inuyasha glares up at Sesshoumaru, thinking he's SUCH a bastard. This, of course, we already knew. Sesshoumaru judges him as merely a hanyou, which I guess means that he's dropped all curiosity about that little change in the smell of Inuyasha's blood he just HAD to investigate earlier. Just an anomaly, no need to continue looking for answers. Yet another course of action simply abandoned by our lord of perpetual laziness, Sesshoumaru!

He raises Toukijin cross-wise and runs for Inuyasha this time, requesting that he die now. Polite. Miroku, Sango and Kagome stand around gaping because they're the best friends EVER guys. At least the former manages to yell at Inuyasha to run away. Inuyasha, however, remains crouched on the ground, head bowed, among the grass blowing in the wind. It's not for fatigue, or weakness, or even a protest of police brutality, though. Sesshoumaru senses something else there, something surprising, and he actually EXPRESSES this on his FACE for once.

Woah, this must be something incredible.

Meh. Seen it.

Kagome worries that Inuyasha is going to transform again, and Toutousai steps forward with puffed-out cheeks to suggest that all Inuyasha's friends flee with him. Before a curious Miroku or Sango can so much as ask a question, Toutousai launches a trail of fire right at Sesshoumaru, who recoils from the edge of the blast. He says Toutousai's name with disdain, glaring at the flames.

Once the fire has subsided, we find that Jaken has rejoined Sesshoumaru and is praising him for being as strong as ever, presumably because he managed to not get possessed by the Toukijin he's holding. Good job not being as weak as Kaijinbou, Sesshoumaru! I'm sure that's praise he can totally feel good about. Sesshoumaru is staring off into the distance when Jaken asks why he didn't bother to pursue them after tracking them all this way. At the risk of feeling endless deja vu: dude, have you MET this kid?

Sesshoumaru remains silent, and Jaken calls to him tentatively, but something tells me that he'll never get an answer to that question.

Yeah, Sesshoumaru's going to take that shit to his GRAVE.

So, what did I think of this chapter overall? I usually don't have complaints about pacing in this manga, because RT tends to have a really good grasp on flow and timing of events. Unfortunately, that grasp seemed to have loosened a little in this chapter. That page-long interlude where everyone has to get in a comment about how Inuyasha isn't bothering to grab Tessaiga made his run at Sesshoumaru seem to take a LOT longer than it should have. It's not a HUGE extension of time to be annoyed by, I know, but RT has set such a high bar for the flow of her action that I notice even the slightest unnatural pause at this point.

It also seemed like a really SHORT action scene for what it was trying to accomplish. Inuyasha's first transformation was prompted by life-and-death desperation, but he was certainly not at that point in this instance. He was separated from Tessaiga, yes, and he was getting pretty banged up, but it wasn't to the extent it was during the fight with Goshinki, when he had been rendered completely inert and was freaking out about possibly dying. I realize Myouga said that his youkai blood wouldn't ever be settled back to the level it was before the first transformation, but it still shouldn't be at the level of hair-trigger like this yet. There should be degrees of worsening, as was implied before.

All that aside, I did enjoy the bulk of the chapter in a way that was probably not intended. I mentioned in the previous analysis that the tension was kind of gone since Sesshoumaru took up Toukijin, justified by him yet AGAIN deciding to abandon his original intentions, but some humor was added in its stead. I was so tickled by the stereotypical sibling fighting that any chance I had of taking this battle seriously went out the window upon reading the banter. The uppity older sibling teasing of Sesshoumaru when he was asking Inuyasha if he's changed his fighting style, Inuyasha's bratty younger sibling griping when he corrects Sesshoumaru about Tessaiga's weight... it's such genuine BICKERING, and it's hilarious.

Goodness, these two are going to be BEST FRIENDS when they grow up.