And here I go. Time to move some dirt out of the way...
Naraku pulls the ol' "so what if I DID?" deflection, and Kikyou nocks an arrow and pulls back her bowstring in response. She retorts that he's 100 years too early to try and take her life before releasing that arrow, and I would like to point out that she's actually 50 years too LATE to be able to use that expression effectively, but Naraku's face is already kind of saying it? I mean, look at this:
He smiles at her and scoffs, calling her a charlatan. Naraku admits he thought she would just rely on Inuyasha's strength and they would waltz into the castle together. Kikyou turns up her glare, calling Naraku scum for eavesdropping on her damsel-in-distress moment with Inuyasha, and this returns Naraku to a frowny state. He insists his peeping was only to make sure she was dead, then swiftly changes the subject to whether she really thought he'd let her go safely home. The same big glowing jars that birthed Juuroumaru and Kageroumaru glug in the corner, and yet another monstrosity climbs out of one of them, brain exposed and dripping demonic amniotic fluid.
The zombie child from the womb jars extends a long slimy tongue to wrap around Kikyou's ankle, something she looks thoroughly unconcerned about. No doubt because it's not a moment later that the thing is blasted in half by the appearance of a subtle bubble around Kikyou, everything within the boundaries of it disintegrated.
Reminiscing about when Naraku's humble origins of the wild-thief Onigumo laying inert in his bandages on the cave floor, Kikyou says that plenty of Onigumo's delusions about her soaked into the earth. Naraku supposes that Kikyou put that earth into her body then, and she confirms this, stating that Onigumo's feelings protect her body, because he didn't wish for her death at all. He didn't exactly wish for her good health, either, so I'd wager there are still things he can do to REALLY hurt her.
Perhaps not, though, because Kikyou claims that one touch on the barrier of earth would cause Naraku to be overwhelmed with Onigumo's feelings and neutralize his youkai power. She grins, gloating that he can't kill her so long as his human heart remains and he's a hanyou. As Kikyou turns to flounce on out of there, Naraku contemplates his state as a hanyou, and how right Kikyou is, hers being the EXACT reason he's trying so hard to become a full youkai.
In the following panel, we see a series of village roofs while someone talks about what will stop festering, and their stock of gauze and bandages. Under one of those roofs, it's revealed to be Kagome, who proceeds to tell Sango, Miroku and a napping Shippou at her knee that she's headed back home now. Sango makes a noise of confusion as she takes the first-aid box into her lap, and Miroku asks if Kagome is going back to her country in the well again so soon. She puts on a false little smile and claims she just went back before to get some quick medicine. Sango suggests that perhaps Kagome should make up with Inuyasha before she goes, since it was a silly little fight they had, a reminder to Kagome about the less recent/important issues they had already been moaning over.
Later on, Miroku sits on the lip of the well while Sango looks down into it thoughtfully, stating the obvious fact that Kagome didn't look too terribly happy. Miroku agrees, though Sango still leans toward him with an expectant word, I guess trying to squeeze more juicy gossip out of him? If that's the case, she doesn't get much else, except a cryptic statement that it's not like he has NO idea what happened. Trying to halt the invasive conversation or baiting Sango with bullshit? Who knows.
Inuyasha emerges from the surrounding trees, looking WAAAAY too subdued. Miroku stands to greet him and Sango says his name, to which he responds with mild surprise. Miroku informs him that Kagome has gone back to her own world, but after a small pause, Inuyasha's response is decidedly LESS surprised. Expectations entirely met there, I imagine.
Miroku comes right out and speculates that Inuyasha met with Kikyou and that Kagome saw that very scene. I guess he wasn't as full of shit as I assumed before. Well-played, Miroku. As he asks with absolute confidence in his surmise if he's wrong, Sango lets out a noise of alarm. Inuyasha admits that Kagome saw, and Sango turns on her scandalized, scolding stance, haltingly calling Inuyasha shameless. Miroku, on the other hand, leans into Inuyasha's impassive face to examine it in disbelief.
In Tokyo, Kagome sits on her bed hanging her head dejectedly. She's going back over the agonizing moment after she had caught Inuyasha's attention, when Inuyasha wouldn't look away from her. She thought he might have been trying to say something to her, but she was too scared to hang tight and listen, so she ran off. Gripping the blanket below, she knows this is because she's convinced that Inuyasha had already made up his mind. With those all-too-familiar panels of Kikyou shooting Inuyasha and her burning on her pyre, Kagome recaps how Inuyasha and Kikyou were brought into hatred by Naraku's trap and Kikyou followed Inuyasha in death. Now Naraku is going after Kikyou yet again, after already having split them up once.
Kagome recalls Inuyasha embracing Kikyou, and him saying that he's the only one who can protect her from Naraku. She lays on her belly so she can transfer her grip to the pillow beneath her head now, thinking it's IMPOSSIBLE for her to get into Inuyasha's heart.
Back in Kagome's room, she's still pondering how she can't possibly compete with Kikyou's ultimate sacrifice way back when, abandoning her life for Inuyasha's sake. That might not be an entirely fair assessment of that situation, but the bottom line is, Kagome has already decided as well.
So, what did I think of this chapter overall? The rift between Inuyasha and Kagome is entirely different from what we've previously seen this time around. It's not a goofy misunderstanding. Neither Inuyasha nor Kagome are being, for the most part, overdramatic teenagers about this situation. Miroku laid it out very clearly when he observed that Inuyasha had a face like Buddha; calm, collected, and accepting of the way things are.
As it stands, Inuyasha can't be in a relationship with Kagome when he needs to stand with Kikyou against the enemy that murdered her fifty years ago. Making Kikyou a priority doesn't necessarily mean picking back up their budding romance, or else perhaps Inuyasha wouldn't look quite SO down about it. However, it might very well mean his death eventually, either in following after Kikyou when she inevitably has to abandon her imitation body (in much the same way Kagome characterizes Kikyou following after Inuyasha initially), or dying in an attempt to save her. Either way, he's committed to taking that leap if needed, and he can't allow himself to move on with Kagome in that case. He can't have his cake and eat it too.
Which is why I agree with Naraku here; Kikyou splitting off from the supportive Inuyasha to go to Naraku's castle alone is VERY interesting. Having a reliable ally against a mutual enemy is a valuable resource, and you would think Kikyou would be extra happy that Inuyasha has insisted on being that resource for her, since she's been pretty much clamoring for him to focus more on her ever since she was brought back from the dead. But she's decided she wants to go off on her own and confront Naraku, even when she has gotten to the point when Inuyasha would accompany her in a flash. It's almost as though she wants to hide the cave-earth-barrier from Inuyasha.
I get the impression that Kikyou is keeping her hand close her her breast because she doesn't actually trust Inuyasha. She's still stuck in her final moments of believing that Inuyasha betrayed her, after all. In a way, she's not exactly wrong. Neither one of them trusted or knew each other well enough in that horrible event for it to occur to either one of them that they were being manipulated by a third party, so in a manner of speaking, they both betrayed one another by jumping to those conclusions. In addition, while Inuyasha is willing to grow his trust in her and unite against their enemy, Kikyou CAN'T move past her shattered fledgling trust in that critical moment of her death. She still CAN'T trust Inuyasha, and if she can't trust Inuyasha, then she'll never include him in her moves against Naraku. Inuyasha is forever shut out.
How's THAT for being stuck between a rock and a barrier of earth?
... I'm sorry, I'll see myself out.
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