And definitely DON'T pay any attention to the fact that only minutes after you've mentioned needing a toaster near your smart device, it started advertising toasters to you nonstop. That's not suspicious AT ALL.
Kagura doesn't try to defend her oversized show of force, just stands in front of it, silently, letting it speak for itself. Inside the hut behind Inuyasha and company, Sango and Kohaku kneel at the door, Kohaku holding his sickle and chain in a defensive pose, mumbling that they're surrounded. Sango squats between him and the door, holding his shoulder to keep him from bolting into Kagura's view. She tells him that it's okay, and not to go outside, thinking she can't let him fall into Naraku's hands again.
Back beyond that door, Kagura flips open her fan again, scoffing that she's actually glad she bumped into Inuyasha and his friends here, because she can kill all of them while she's running Naraku's petty errands. Two birds, one stone, as they say. Kagura's particular interest is taking Inuyasha's head, putting on a determined face to claim it as her own. With a wave of her fan, she sends a couple of crescent blades at him, and he grabs Kagome around the middle like she's a rag doll to leap out of the way of them. If I were Kagome, I would scamper off several yards whenever an asshole slinging youkai powers around showed up to avoid getting tossed around.
Kagura directs her horde to drag Kohaku out of the hut and it moves to comply, but the door is smashed out from the inside by a wide projectile; the Hiraikotsu tears through those fuckers like tissue paper. BLOODY tissue paper.
Kagome understandably tells Inuyasha to put her down, to which request Inuyasha responds with disbelief. Apparently it's just inconceivable that a woman WOULDN'T want to be slung around like a potato sack.
No, I don't have an issue with being picked up or carried, why do you ask?
Kagome yells at Inuyasha that he can't very well fight when one of his arms is occupied lugging her around. Kagura appears to hear this, and ENCOURAGES him to do whatever he likes - if he likes keeping Kagome under an arm, she could send them to their deaths together in one fell swoop. Inuyasha utters an expletive with a worried glance around, before dragging Kagome up the stairs to the hut, instructing Miroku not to let any youkai even a step closer. Miroku gives an affirmative as he bashes some youkai with his staff. It's all up to him and Sango now, the sad sacks.
Inuyasha barges through the doors, that I thought were ripped apart by Hiraikotsu a moment ago but I GUESS I was wrong, and comes across Kohaku still hanging out like Sango told him. For lack of anywhere safe to deposit Kagome under the circumstances, Inuyasha informs Kohaku that he's leaving Kagome here. Dude, you realize she has LEGS right? Kohaku stutters his understanding and promises to protect Kagome with his life. Kagome sits next to him and says his name in awe. Inuyasha sweatdrops, clearly still not 100% comfortable with Kohaku, but deciding there's no choice but to trust the kid for now. As he rushes back out the door, he looks back over his shoulder to threaten to waste Kohaku if anything happens to Kagome.
Once Inuyasha has disappeared, Kohaku asks if that guy is angry with him, an assessment Kagome protests. She knows that Inuyasha suspects Kohaku might still be under Naraku's control, but looking at his innocent stare at her, she's unconvinced. Inuyasha also thinks about Kohaku's expression while he's clawing through a random youkai in the yard. He can't figure it out - Kohaku definitely doesn't look like someone trying to manipulate and trick. Inuyasha appears to still have major doubts, though.
Meanwhile, Kagura swings her fan again, firing off another crescent wind blade, and tells Inuyasha to draw his sword now that he's finally got both his hands free.
Not that he's any more effective as a free agent. Inuyasha groans at the deep trench his heavy sword left in the ground, Kagura having easily moved out of the way before he could slice through her too. Kagura mockingly asks him what's wrong, because his swing has slowed quite a bit. Inuyasha doesn't answer but curses in his head about how Tessaiga is still too heavy to handle well.
Things aren't going very smoothly for anyone else either. Sango's Hiraikotsu rips through several youkai, but when it comes back, she notes with a groan that there's still more encircling her. The barely impacted horde collectively declares their intention to destroy the hut, lunging down toward it. Miroku gapes up at them and braces himself in front of the building, holding up his staff cross-wise in a defensive stance. The youkai dissolve upon its aura, but Miroku barely keeps his footing, also groaning under the endless onslaught.
Inuyasha catches sight of Miroku's struggle over his shoulder and yells his name, which REALLY offends Kagura. She demands that he stop looking away, launching another blade at him. He deflects it with the flat of his blade, hunching behind it like a shield rather than a sword.
All the above effort means dick.
Kagome gets up and they try to flee, but are faced with an offshoot of the main horde, telling them they won't get away. Kohaku responds by throwing his sickle in their faces, tearing through them. Kagome cringes behind him, her sudden accessory entirely useless. She and Kohaku keep running, pursued by a stream of youkai who are determined not to let them escape. These ones are stopped from a different blow, though I'm not sure from where. It didn't look like Hiraikotsu, though it is returning to Sango's hand as she looks in alarm at the section of the army of youkai flanking her from her right. No one else is close enough to have produced it.
Could it have been one of Kagura's wind blades?
Sango shouts at the youkai pressing upon her to get out of the way, as Kohaku and Kagome recede into the nearby forest, Kagome looking over her shoulder in concern at Sango. Miroku stares at them, thinking that this couldn't be. He's coming to a conclusion as Kagura tells Inuyasha that she's not letting HIM get away, because they haven't settled their differences yet. Miroku shouts to Inuyasha not to be fooled - he explains when Inuyasha asks what his deal is that while Kagura and her army SHOULD have been focused on their stated objective of Kohaku, they only really pursued him in the beginning and are now keeping them pinned down in endless battle. Hovering atop Kirara, where the horde have laid off long enough for her to contemplate Miroku's good sense. And for Inuyasha to realize a bit late that Kohaku lead Kagome away. How considerate of them.
So, what did I think of this chapter overall? It's not clear who fired the final shot on the youkai pursuing Kagome and Kohaku. I'd like to think it was Kagura, because it would make sense that she would want to stop them if they were getting too close to ACTUALLY spoiling the plan, but it's hard to say. Yes, it did look like one of the wind blades, but no one mentioned that Kagura was nerfing her own dudes, so who's to say? The scene could have either used an extra line in there regarding who killed the wave of youkai, OR an extra panel to clarify. I wouldn't have been picky.
And it's extremely disappointing how utterly helpless Kagome is made out to be in this chapter. To the point that a bow literally just appears in between panels, magically, and she doesn't get a chance to use it; the Chekhov's Gun that never went off. I guess it was an accessory that RT suddenly remembered Kagome needed, but its presence only served to remind the audience that Kagome has been an unleashed badass in the past, and is being made into a weakling here for the sake of plot.
If she uses the bow in the next chapter, it'll only serve to make Kagome's utter damseling in this one all the more glaring. And for what? To solidify Naraku's role as an evil mastermind in his plan to isolate and kill a character he should be MORE than aware can hold her own? Yeah, I get it, she's not going to absolutely detonate Kohaku like she did Naraku, but just because she wouldn't kill the boy doesn't mean she should be a doormat either.
At least let the poor girl WALK on her own. Cripes.
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