I've been playing entirely too much The Sims 3 these past couple of weeks, and it doesn't take a genius neurologist to figure out why, so we'll just skip the armchair psychology. Instead, I'll drop one of my unpopular opinions about the game here: I'm quite fond of the World Adventures expansion pack. That's right, fight me. I think it's charming and breaks up some of the doldrums of regular gameplay in the same town over several generations. I won't ignore the frankly gross undertones of archaeological destruction in tomb-raiding, or the glitch-tastic problems it can cause, but all-in-all it DOES give my sims the ability to travel and interact with what passes for a different culture in a dinky life simulation game.
My normally mild enjoyment of the content of this pack has been tested over the past weekend, though, because I made the mistake of accepting an adventure in which the ultimate goal is to get your sim cursed by a mummy. It turns out that those suckers aren't always consistent in showing up, and when they do, the chance must be EXTREMELY low for them to give a sim the mummy's curse after beating the shit out of them and disappearing FOREVER. I tried five different tombs and seven different mummies, but nary a curse was caught.
That little virtual person had some Kagome-level moxy in her for sure, so I had to abandon the frustrating exercise entirely. Tsubaki might consider the same.
Just right-click on that "get cursed" adventure in the opportunities panel and get on with your life, Tsubaki. Seriously.
No, she's totally committed to this curse. Smirking, she says the curse continues, a fact that Sango appears all too aware of, with Kagome still collapsed in her lap. She stares speechlessly at Tsubaki, and Miroku glares. Kagome just lays there, the Shikon shards pulsing dark and evil in her neck. Sango turns her attention back to her and frets over her lack of recovery, questioning if she shouldn't be getting better since the shikigami was destroyed. Two possibilities - either Miroku was making bullshit assumptions and is full of it, or the shikigami isn't really dead. Its body, still hanging around Tsubaki's shoulders, is still giving off vague stirs of power, after all.
Tsubaki says with absolute certainty that Kagome will die, as will the rest of them, as the scaled pattern appears over her her right eye once more.
With that half-baked expression up there, he wasn't prepared for much of anything, let alone a gaggle of freaks popping out of Tsubaki's face like it was a reverse-Kazaana-clown-car.
I'm sorry, I really shouldn't have written that as a simile. Tsubaki's face clearly IS a reverse-Kazaana-clown-car.
Miroku strikes a defensive pose with his staff held out in front of him, remarking upon Tsubaki bringing more youkai to the party as though he were commenting on the weather. Inuyasha yells that they are impudent while he strikes one down with his claws. I guess he's taking that threat that Kagome dies if he draws Tessaiga VERY seriously. Sango orders the still transformed Kirara to stay beside Kagome while she runs to partake in battle, swinging Hiraikotsu through a drove of disposable red shirts youkai.
Meanwhile, Tsubaki has finally learned to FOCUS, and takes this moment while all of Kagome's friends are distracted by the horde she's unleashed upon them to smirk deliberately in Kagome's direction, where Kirara stands protectively over her. It looks like Miroku has a horrible epiphany as he stabs through a youkai with his staff; he hears the sound of rapid slithering through the grass. Miroku immediately identifies it as the shikigami, but is in disbelief. The snake's headless body is darting over the ground, a transformation happening on the stump where its fanged jaws used to be.
Jeebs over here like there's no gun in the men in black arsenal that can keep him down.
Inuyasha sees this while slicing through some pile of flesh midair, dumbfounded at first, then cursing about how the youkai were decoys. There is no WAY he could have reached that conclusion sooner, trust me. Tsubaki mocks him for realizing this too late, as her snake lunges over the final leg of its journey toward the seemingly incapacitated Kagome. I say "seemingly" because while Tsubaki is commanding her jerk snake to bit off Kagome's head before bringing the Shikon fragments back, and Inuyasha yells Kagome's name in his belated and ultimately too slow way in her direction, Kagome opens her eyes and recalls a little uncertainly that someone is trying to kill her.
What looks like a desperate swing of the only nearby stick-approximate weapon is apparently just what the doctor ordered.
Hey, look on the bright side. Now your eyeshadow can match!
Miroku and Inuyasha stare aghast at the Tsubaki, the latter in amazement that Kagome knocked back the shikigami. As Tsubaki topples over from the snake's redirected attack, she herself is flabbergasted that Kagome did a curse-counterstrike just like Kikyou did. And in the process won the distinct honor of saying the title of the chapter. At least she got something out of this utter failure of a curse attempt. When Tsubaki hits the floor, the Shikon no Tama rolls out of her grimy grip, now pristine in its glow; now purified, to her unending horror.
Miroku and Sango gape some more, remarking that the fragments have popped out of Kagome's neck of their own accord. Tsubaki grunts, snatching back up the Shikon no Tama, but acknowledging silently that the curse is broken now. A couple of her helper-youkai with strips of flesh hanging off them and exposed ribs and organs showing, whether from the earlier short battle with Inuyasha and company or for maximum creepy effect I don't know, fly over and lift her into the air much like Kikyou's shinidamachuu. That's a... weird parallel.
I'm the only one with the luxury to notice stuff like that, though, because all that really concerns Miroku at the moment is that Tsubaki is escaping, and he makes a fuss. At long last, Inuyasha curses as he pulls Tessaiga, yelling at that bitch Tsubaki to hold it while he unleashes an effortless Kaze no Kizu in her direction. I gotta admit, I'm grateful to the lackluster rush of the previous arc for the sole reason that if Inuyasha hadn't gotten the upgrade in it, this arc would have been a LOT longer. The temple is destroyed in the blast, and Inuyasha glares out over its collapsed roof to find Tsubaki nowhere in sight anymore. He pisses and moans that she got away. He seems to be back to normal at least.
In some remote secret castle somewhere, Naraku sits silently a moment as he watches the mirror little Kanna holds in her lap, before flatly stating that Tsubaki is useless. I headcanon that Kanna is holding back with all her might some sarcastic comment about how he's an excellent judge of character and power. I know I'm projecting, but she's a figurative blank slate, it's just too easy. Naraku explains away his poor choice of ally as an overestimation of how hard she'd work given her level of desire for the Shikon no Tama. Kagura lets out a small scoff on the other side of a sheer screen dividing the room, knowing Naraku had no intention of handing over the jewel regardless of results, a fact that probably didn't escape Tsubaki either, if we're being fair.
And that's about as fair as I'm willing to be to Tsubaki.
Tsubaki's shinidamachuu-adjacent youkai presumably manage to get a fair distance away from Inuyasha's crew before collapsing on the ground and falling apart, dissolving into the ground. Tsubaki comments that she must have overused them, then blames her opponents for all the youkai she brought (lent her by Naraku no doubt) being dead. Still trying to have her cake and eat it too I see. She observes the jewel still in her hand, however, looking pretty pleased that she can manage eternal youth and beauty without linking to a youkai now. The scale pattern over her right eye deepens and spreads again in that moment, a sensation that surprises her, because her eye gets really wide in addition to her exclamation point/question mark bubble.
... Or maybe her eye was just trying to accommodate the massive wasp.
Tsubaki gapes after the saimyoushou flying away with the Shikon no Tama, identifying it as Naraku's bug. Sprawled on the ground, she curses in a rather pathetic tantrum, and Kikyou watches from a convenient perch of rock outcrop nearby. She sure is conveniently in the right place to see the meltdown of an old enemy, considering this place the youkai dropped Tsubaki seems kind of random. She's not there to make good on her promise to kill Tsubaki for targeting Inuyasha, though. Instead she just observes the whole plot is over and Tsubaki lost, affirming that Tsubaki could never beat Kagome if unable to beat her as she turns away.
And I mean, I don't know what Tsubaki expected. She couldn't even approach the low-energy Kikyou in the past, so how she thought she could stand up to someone who put in a bit of EFFORT is beyond me.
Anyway, in the wake of this exhausting curse-mess, Sango comments that Kagome is rather worn out. They cross a creek on a low little bridge in a procession, Miroku leading Kagome riding piggyback on Inuyasha, and Sango atop Kirara bringing up the rear. Sango leans forward to examine Kagome's back and wonders out loud if she's gone to sleep. Maybe she COULD rest a bit if you would keep it the FUCK down, girl. Miroku answers that it's not surprising Kagome would be so exhausted, since she's been fighting the curse this whole time.
Then Inuyasha decides to make a random self-deprecating comment.
Is this in reference to anything that happened in the prior incident? Or is it just bullshit teenage insecurity manifesting at a strange moment? Who the fuck knows, since the chapter is done.
So, what did I think of this chapter overall? It really seemed to strengthen the parallels between Kagome and Kikyou, rather than create a divergence in how the two handled an issue like Tsubaki like I had thought would happen. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, especially if RT wants to draw out a conflict in which Kagome continues to try to establish herself as a distinct individual, but Tsubaki's line about Kagome performing an identical counterstrike does kind of undercut how seriously we're meant to take her independence from Kikyou. There's also Kikyou's reassertion that Tsubaki can't beat Kagome if she can't beat her adds to this by the implication that Kagome is basically Kikyou, but MORE. In the end, both of these things end up reinforcing the default assumption most everyone familiar with Kikyou (but not with Kagome) makes upon meeting Kagome - Kikyou's reincarnation, therefore Kikyou at the core. Tsubaki's close-and-good-enough attitude should have been challenged more, in a way that made her realize she wasn't satisfied cursing a Kikyou in looks alone, and wanted to go after the real thing... But that's just one reader's opinion, and I can't help but feel I might be missing a little bit of context in the grand scheme, cultural or otherwise. No idea what it could be, but that's what I have potential commenters for.
*Ahem*
An opinion I feel a bit more confident in, though, is that I would really have liked if Tsubaki's run-away move with the jewel had been somewhat intentional. She implied at the beginning of the arc that she didn't entirely believe that Naraku was willing to hand her the Shikon no Tama as payment for her curse on his most dangerous enemy after all. It would have been cool if she had planned a feigned failure in attempt to take flight with the jewel, because it would have given her some cunning. Obviously, Naraku's insurance policy of planting a saimyoushou in her to retrieve the Shikon no Tama would have worked just as well with this, and could even have been incorporated into a retreat to find the true Kikyou to actual revenge too. Tsubaki would be developed just a smidge more in the process, which certainly would have made her more bearable to read. As it stands, she was nothing but boring throughout her whole appearance. Probably why RT never bothered to bring her back, since she could have, given Tsubaki was left defeated but very much alive.
And I still have no clue what Inuyasha was on about in his apology for proximity to Kagome at the end of the chapter above. It's just out of place and perplexing. Perhaps he's blaming himself because he thinks Kagome was the target of the curse because of him and the attempt on HIS life earlier? Which is ludicrous for how obviously Kagome was being cursed for her resemblance and ties to Kikyou. But it's the only possibility I can see.
I don't exactly have the time to work out another hypothesis either, because the power company is shutting off service to my building shortly in order to fix an electrical box falling apart outside, so I'm running out of time to get my interweb shit done before I don't have access for a time. Later, friends!!
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