He might be better off without those. Burned head to foot, paralyzed in a cave, while some chick he thristed after hardcore sat right next to him and he couldn't even make a move? Not to mention how he trolled around stealing and murdering all day every day before that. Hell, I feel like I would be better off not knowing the shitbird that guy was for his whole existence. He should look at this as a second chance, start over, and find a hobby to channel his weird aggression into. Basket-weaving, or pottery, calligraphy.
Something solitary that keeps his psychotic hands away from everyone else.
Oh shit, is this going to be THAT kind of chapter?
Kagura hears her name called off-panel, and does not seem at all pleased at the address. No surprise, because Naraku has appeared out of the surrounding darkness, to mockingly refer to her desire to go out. I bristle, because my entirely over-quarantined ass feels personally attacked right now. Kagura forces a smile, repeating a promise she's made before; she won't try to run away again. After a doubtful pause, Naraku tells her to follow a man calling himself Musou, a man he identifies as her younger brother. She considers this new incarnation with a little curiosity. While she's still in chains, I assume.
One narrow sky transition panel later, a corpse falls to the ground, eyes wide and blank.
The AUDACITY of someone to die fighting. Who the hell did he think he WAS, anyway, wanting to LIVE?
Musou tucks his victim's sword into the belt he also pilfered off the dead man, mumbling now that he has his clothes on again, in preparation for more hijinks, no doubt. But he sees a couple of familiar hell-wasps floating nearby, staring as he recalls that a swarm of them merged to become his new arm when Inuyasha blew off the old one. They turn and flutter a little distance, one of them glancing back at him, as though over its nonexistent shoulder. Musou interprets this as encouragement to follow them, which is probz a good bet.
Meanwhile, Kagome rides her bike, Sango rides Kirara, and Miroku runs, all presumably behind Inuyasha, whom the former asks to wait up for them. Miroku asks what Inuyasha is so worked up about, and Inuyasha barks that he can smell Musou. Smelling the guy who almost carried away your current girlfriend because he mistook her for your ex-girlfriend will probably get you a little worked up. Granted, one can only guess, since that's a situation literally ONE guy has ever experienced.
Kagome looks shocked at this news, and Shippou appears at her shoulder, asking Inuyasha what he's talking about. Her refers back to when Musou and Inuyasha fought, and Musou was blown to bits by Kaze no Kizu, so Shippou's conclusion is the guy shouldn't be alive. Inuyasha knows that Musou was definitely destroyed by that blast, and yet there's a big "but" on the end of that thought. Something he's not interested in communicating any more NOW than he was at the end of the previous chapter, it seems.
And he doesn't have a moment to say anything anyway, because an unnatural gust of wind greets the surprised group in the next panel.
Oh good, chains did NOT suit her at all.
Inuyasha asks that bitch if she came there to interfere with them again as she stands, and she says plainly that she didn't show up to fight today, asking for confirmation that they're searching for Musou. Kagome and Inuyasha gape at her, Kagome making an alarmed noise, while Inuyasha processes the information that Musou is in fact still alive. As if sniffing him out didn't already give him that.
Kagura says that Musou is heading for the cave where Onigumo stayed while Kikyou cared for his crispy ass, and Inuyasha grits his teeth and looks to kind of recoil, whether from disgust at recollection of the Onigumo story, at the prospect of going back there, or both and then some, I'm not sure. With that, Kagura pops back open her fan, says that this concludes her report, and bids them farewell, turning to leave.
Kagome lunges forward a bit, asking Kagura to wait. She haltingly referred back to "that time", trailing a question about whether Naraku knows Inuyasha's secret of becoming human at the beginning of every month. Because she's aware Kagura sure does, having seen Inuyasha without his ears and with black hair not too long ago.
Inuyasha, dude, WHAT is that face you've got right now?
The moment he realized he was a cartoon. This is going straight onto my discord server, I fucking swear.
Kagura ascends into the sky on her giant feather, and Kagome stares up at her, thinking about how she hasn't told Naraku Inuyasha's big secret yet. I don't know why she has any reason to believe Kagura was telling the truth when she implied such, other than reading the script, of course. On the other hand, Inuyasha voices a suspicion that Kagura is planning something. After a pause, Miroku says that it seemed to him Kagura was running away when they recently fought her for the Shikon shards. Sango piggybacks off of this statement to suggest that Kagura doesn't appear very obedient to Naraku. These kids are drawing ALL the right conclusions - guess they passed that script around quite a bit.
Inuyasha points out, rightly, that none of this (at best) speculation makes her an ally. Kagome is still staring at the sky, thinking that while Kagura keeps Inuyasha's secret, it means they don't have to worry about being attacked on the first day of every month.
Up in the air, Kagura contemplates a topic beyond her understanding: Naraku. She recalls his creepy ass telling her to report to Inuyasha Musou's location, and then to just hang back and watch. She thinks it's as though Naraku wants to observe Musou's attitude and reactions, then it occurs to her Musou isn't like her - Naraku doesn't control him.
Outside of the narrow opening in the hillside that was Onigumo's cave, a Saimyoushou hovers. Musou is just inside, wearing a critical look as he makes a trailing assessment of the place.
He flops down on his back, muttering that it was like this, then reaches over to the grassy area next to the patch of dirt on which he's reclined. It was there, at a spot within his reach, that he remembers Kikyou leaning over him. He sneers about how she always had a placid expression, then recalls once more that he wanted her, even if he had to sell his soul to youkai.
Musou sits back up rapidly, and we get a close-up view of half his face, with a wide, bulging eye as he affirms he is. WHAT he is, he doesn't say, but I'm assuming he's realized he's a totally irredeemable asshat. From the mouth of the cave, someone asks who he is, while he sweats from his unstated epiphany about who he is. In the next panel, it's shown to be Kaede, leaning into the cave to ask what the hell this weirdo is doing here. She even asks if he's human, to which he doesn't respond, just scoffs and calls her a wrinkly old bat. That's QUEEN wrinkly old bat to you, dipshit.
Musou stands to stoop toward the mouth of the cave, telling granny Kaede that she's got some bad luck. He speculates that if she had been 50 years younger...
Inuyasha appears to be nearby in the village, if the roof over his shoulder in the background is any indication. He's shouting in disbelief at someone over the information that Kaede went to the cave. One of the village women tells Miroku that Kaede said she felt some kind of unusual evil, looking rather concerned. Inuyasha whirls around and curses, and as he starts off in the direction of the cave, Kagome appears on his tail to suggest they hurry.
But Inuyasha tells her to stay there. She starts to protest, and he cuts her off with the rather sensible point that it's dangerous, since Musou thinks she's Kikyou. Miroku runs up beside Inuyasha, giving Sango a similar order to stay behind with Kagome. Sango has no complaints, agreeing immediately and holding a comforting arm out in front of Kagome. Inuyasha invites Miroku wholeheartedly along, and in his mind urges Kaede to stay alive.
Back outside the cave, Kaede has fired a couple of arrows at Musou, which stick out of him as he walks toward her in the tall grass, looking totally unbothered by this. As Kaede draws another arrow, Musou even asks her with an easy smile what she's doing. She draws the new arrow against the backdrop of a marbled atmosphere, stating that he really must be an evil spirit. Really shouldn't have taken more than one of those arrows to confirm that, but okay, Kaede. Musou says he's not so great as that, and lunges at her to swing his sword down on her, declaring that he's just a garden-variety villain.
By way of sound effect, there's a crack, a whizz, and the tip of Musou's sword snaps off to embed itself in the dirt below. Inuyasha has struck a defensive stance in front of Kaede, claw raised toward Musou while he tells Kaede behind him to get back. She says his name in a dazed sort of way, having fallen back in the shuffle.
So, what did I think of this chapter overall? It was interesting watching Musou slowly regain some of his identity as Onigumo - the scene in the cave was strangely intimate. It gave us something of a sympathetic view of the guy in a way that I don't think I've seen often. The way he moves in the cave, the way he lays down in that spot, feeling his way around the area, there's something about how he expresses himself in that space that does what his dialog doesn't. It gives us the impression of this "regular" guy, someone who isn't particularly special just getting eaten up by his unfulfilled desires. The line toward the end about just being a villain was a great reinforcement of that, driving the point home instead of making it for him. But as interesting as it is getting to know the weird intricacies of this sociopath is, and the dissonance that comes with sympathizing with someone who would clearly not be able to do so with another character, that was really the only enjoyable part of this chapter.
Mostly I was just frustrated with the fact that all the characters were jumping to these conclusions that were largely unsupported. Inuyasha just had this vague feeling that Musou was still out there, and everyone just kind of brings themselves around to implicitly believing Kagura, despite a lack of evidence she's telling the truth. The fact that these conclusions are CORRECT just kind of makes the whole thing more frustrating. Characters being right without the proper support for their viewpoints is frustrating, because it doesn't feel like that viewpoint is earned so much as instilled by a lazy writer. It just looks like RT didn't want to come up with valid reasons for Inuyasha and company to believe these things, but didn't want to maintain their skepticism about Kagura, or their ignorance about Musou either. The latter is especially irritating, because this chapter would have come across as more believable if Inuyasha had thought Musou was dead, and then was thrown into confusion and worry over picking up his scent again. I don't know why he couldn't be surprised by Musou still being alive; it really doesn't make any sense.
Something else that doesn't make sense? The timeline here. It seems like Tessaiga shouldn't have blown Musou away so far, and seeing as how this is the very next chapter after it happened, it can't have been more than a day, but it feels longer because Miroku and Shippou are speaking about Musou as though he's already old news. I think RT might have managed with this tone if she had put a couple more chapters between this one and the last, making it seem more like Musou was really gone, but for some reason she decided against that. Also, the lack of communication about Inuyasha's feeling that Musou is alive, and Kagome's for that matter, is a bit frustrating. There was this tense atmosphere at the end of the last chapter, a feeling of wariness and an unsettled sensation that could have been explored more between the characters. Instead, we get Miroku and Shippou displaying this strange certainty on Musou's death that just doesn't fit with the tone of this or the previous chapter.
Honestly, it seems like RT was cutting a lot of corners in places that I thought it might have been easy to draw out this story line, which probably would have lent to the serial nature of the plot. I'm not sure why she's rushing past all of the proper development of the main group's trust of Kagura, and then drawing out Miroku and Shippou's dismissal of Inuyasha's senses, but it's kind of giving me a headache. Hopefully the next chapter won't play games like this.
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