Well that's not particularly noteworthy. If you're USING the blade, there's a good chance it's going to be red every once in a while. Apparently, the opposite applies to the shoulder kind, though. I didn't do a damn thing, and one day last week, my back was wracked with red hot searing pain for no reason. No crazy acrobatics, no overreach, not even a small bend in an uncomfortable direction. I went to the doctor today and he referred me to a specialist to figure out what's wrong, but I think it's just me getting old and my limbs being rickety as a result.
If only redness were a sign I was doing something right. Instead, it's a sign I have a gigantic knot in my muscle that I've been rubbing too aggressively to ease some of the tension.
Shiori says the thing has been handed down her family line for generations, to each keeper of the Hyakki Bats barrier. According to this family history, it pulls energy from the keeper to create a strong barrier. It's also said that the energy of all the keepers, including that of her grandfather and father (featured in sharing a panel in contemplative silence), is stored in the blood pearl. Shiori concludes that she thinks this is why Inuyasha could strengthen the youki of his sword if he cuts it. Inuyasha gives her a serious look as he considers her solution.
Toutousai needs to make Myouga a mini-sword, with how eager this little bastard is to cut shit.
Shiori is alarmed by a sudden surge of energy from the jewel cradled in her hands, cringing back. Inuyasha's entourage all leans in to gape at the blood pearl, Kagome gasping and Miroku translating for us laymen that this means an evil aura has overtaken the jewel. Shiori's mom snatches it away from her daughter, ordering her to let it go for her safety, but she drops it into the sand herself a moment later with a cry of pain. Shiori observes with dismay that her mother's hands have nasty burn marks on the palms. Mom herself stares at them wordlessly.
Another pulse of energy, and the blood pearl is surrounded by a sphere of light. Kagome trails in a statement about the jewel's state, letting Miroku finish with an exclamation of disbelief that it's put up a barrier all by itself. Auto-barrier. Convenient. Hand on Tessaiga, preparing to draw it again, Inuyasha assumes that this is the jewel telling him it won't be cut so easily.
That's getting into the good ol' "try-fail cycle" spirit!
The jewel remains unscratched in the end, while Inuyasha has been flung back quite the distance on his backside, cursing. Kagome kneels next to him, asking if he's okay - wounded pride doesn't count as an actual injury, I hope Inuyasha remembers. Shiori and her mother sit huddled on the sand nearby too, staring at the blood pearl as a voice emanates from it, telling Shiori it won't let her get away. She recognizes it as her grandfather's voice, who apparently won't stop terrorizing his family members, even in death.
Dude, don't you have someplace to be? You're going to miss your flight to Hell if you keep fucking around.
Taigokumaru's ghost projection thing descends on the mother and daughter, screaming that it'll haunt them right to death (a hilarious literal line courtesy of the translator's note on this version, thanks a bunch), and Inuyasha lunges forward, screaming at the old fart who just won't fuck off already. I'm guessing there's not much he can do to the apparition though, because Taigokumaru continues to rush at Shiori, suggesting she come to Hell with the rest of their family.
Oof, denied. To be fair, I don't think she would have come with you even if you were offering her a trip to Disneyland.
Shiori and her mom stare in awe at the twinkling barrier protecting them, and Shiori is surprised to feel a warm gloved hand descend upon her head. The old block checking in on the chip, no doubt. Taigokumaru curses the mother and daughter, and it's at this moment when Inuyasha realize the old dude's youkai power has weakened a bit; he reckons this is his chance. He runs back at Taigokumaru and yells at him to stop all his useless struggling.
With a final flash of light, as Tessaiga finishes slicing through Taigokumaru, the blood pearl snaps in half. Kagome gasps while Shippou states the obvious fact that the jewel was cut. Gotta shoehorn a line from him in there somewhere to continue to justify his presence, I guess.
Taigokumaru's eye disintegrates into thin air, indicating at last that he is forever REALLY gone. Inuyasha himself feels comfortable saying that this time it's actually over, anyway. He's still alarmed by a pulse in Tessaiga hanging over the remains of the blood pearl.
*PHALLIC IMAGERY INTENSIFIES*
The peanut gallery is at it again in the next panel; Kagome says Tessaiga absorbed the blood pearl's youkai power, and Miroku suggests this means the sword has gotten stronger. You know - chapter filler.
Shiori is kneeling next to the broken jewel, staring at it, when Inuyasha approaches after putting Tessaiga away. He says her name gently, and Shiori takes a moment of speechless contemplation of the blood pearl's halves before she looks up and thanks him. He offers his thanks as well, reminding her that she must have weakened her grandfather's youki to help him as well. Shiori looks down again and admits that wasn't something she did. It was someone with a gentle hand who embraced her and her mother. Mom interjects to say that it was Tsukuyomaru's hand, or rather, Shiori's father's hand, and Shiori agrees. Both of them take on solemn expressions.
Inuyasha is the one who's speechless now, but Kagome steps up beside him to say Shiori's father was wise, doing what he could to free his daughter. She smiles at Inuyasha, knowing that he too worked to save Shiori, even going so far as to speculate that he forgot entirely about making Tessaiga stronger in the process. She thinks that must be why Shiori's father lent his power to Inuyasha in the end.
Later, Inuyasha and company are all sitting atop Hachi's flying elongated balloon form with the constipated face. Remember Hachi? Yeah, me neither. There's no explanation as to why he's giving them a ride, whether they called him somehow or he was in the area and offered a ride. He just... appeared out of nowhere, I suppose. While they hang out up in the sky on their big yellow feudal bus, Miroku says that the mother-daughter duo will probably still face many hardships ahead. Inuyasha scoffs and tells Miroku not to worry needlessly, since a hanyou won't get hung up on the inevitable hardship.
If a grumpy dude who can empathize deeply with a struggling child is the worst Shiori can grow up to emulate, I think she's in good shape, personally. Hopefully her aim isn't as bad, though.
So, what did I think of this chapter overall? A very intense and heartwarming finale, helping to further characterize Inuyasha as essentially empathetic, regardless of how dismissive he may like to make himself seem. I appreciate the fact that RT set up a quest to "strengthen Tessaiga" that instead ended up more so giving Inuyasha better depth and strength as a character. I complained at the beginning of the arc that RT's talent for giving even her minor characters dimension ended up overshadowing her more simplified mains at this point, but now that the arc has come to a close, I think I have to give RT a little more credit. It seems this problem didn't escape her, and she gave us an ending to the arc that gave Inuyasha a new facet to his personality in a much more profound way than the a mere upgrade of a sword could have suggested at the start. Though I'm still a bit peeved at the abrupt introduction of Tessaiga's absorption of youki, RT managed to use it as a tool to give Inuyasha himself more depth, so I'll begrudgingly hand it to her.
It definitely helps that Shiori also continues to be compelling; she took to her new-found agency like a duck to water. Her quick, smart decision to offer the blood pearl up to Inuyasha as a win-win solidification of her freedom and power-up for Tessaiga was great to see. Not only was it the final rejection of the control her grandfather wanted over her and the rest of his family, but it gave us a little more insight into how this thing actually worked, which is not normally something RT bothers with. I guess it was because it offered a last bit of drama with Taigokumaru's phantom appearing from his residual energy in the jewel to affirm its authority and control one more time, but I also greatly enjoyed just getting a little background on this one-off artifact that seems to have rules and reasons for why it behaves the way it does. The logic allows for both Taigokumaru and Tsukuyomaru to come back in a believable way that doesn't throw me out of the story, and raises some last-minute tension and final closure for Shiori and her mom. Amazing how NOT neglecting these details wraps up the arc rather nicely, isn't it?
My only complaints are the usual ones. It was PAINFULLY obvious that RT had no idea what to do with the rest of the Inuyasha group while all this was going down, so they all just stand around reacting to the action like the spokes of an awkward fifth wheel. Hachi appearing out of nowhere at the end when he had NOTHING to do with this particular adventure grated on my nerves too. At least it wasn't as egregious as how Inuyasha and Kagome magically and without explanation popped back into the world of the living from the boundary between there and the afterlife at the end of Sesshoumaru's first appearance, though.
And speak of the devil...
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