Great. Yet another mansion sitting empty, inaccessible to regular people. Don't get enough of that in real life, clearly. Sure, my own search for a home and property of my own is bringing into sharper focus just how barely affordable abandoned homes of fairly MODEST size are to me, an extremely lucky person who was barely able to scrimp and save her way into a decent down payment. I can't even imagine how ridiculously impossible it would be to resettle a "castle" and its land by someone other than someone who's extremely wealthy and prestigious right off the bat.
Of course, even a bourgeois prince or warlord might find THIS particular property rather impossible to claim, what with the poison permeating every square inch of it. Unless they're used to Chernobyl-like conditions.
Maybe this dude could be a taker. After he's done with his intended child-murder, granted.
While Rin lies there unconscious, Kohaku twists to stare dead-eyed at Sesshoumaru, sickle still raised and... Shikon shard glowing? I thought Kagome was the only one who could see that kind of thing? Anyway, Kohaku's sickle-hand and arm tremble a little as the douchey voice in his head tells him to kill the girl again, then he stands up and faces Sesshoumaru instead in a defensive stance. Sesshoumaru lets out a humorless chuckle and lifts a freakishly large hand to display freakishly large claws, laying down some hard sarcasm about Kohaku opposing him. I would pay the big bucks to see him roast RT on how she apparently forgot how to draw in this panel.
Unable to respond in his puppet-state, Kohaku just kind of creeps forward, guarding his face with his raised sickle-hand. Then his name is yelled off-panel.
Kohaku is knocked back into the grass, Sesshoumaru looking on with a displeased frown on his face. Kagome rushes forward to check on the little girl lying on the ground, cradling her to examine her closely. After a moment, she calls it - little Rin is okay, she's just fainted. Inuyasha sighs with the relief that they made it in time. He then turns to Sesshoumaru to tell him to lay off Kohaku, given that Kagome confirmed his brat is fine. Sesshoumaru pauses before stating that Inuyasha is wasting his time protecting Kohaku, because the kid seems to want to be caught in some freakish claws no matter what.
Sesshoumaru glares past Inuyasha to indicate his point; Kohaku has stood up with his sickle raised yet again. Inuyasha gapes at the Sango's little brother, scooting forward once more with his dead-eyed stare. With an inner groan, Inuyasha realizes this must be part of Naraku's suggestion, for Kohaku to provoke Sesshoumaru and make him kill him.
Kohaku throws the sickle, because Inuyasha's basic impulse to deck the kid completely overrode the practical matter of disarming him entirely. Did it just not occur to him to take the damn thing away, or is there something in the Inuyasha constitution that guarantees the "right to bear sickles" or something?
Inuyasha pulls Tessaiga to knock the Kohaku's sickle off course with a frustrated curse.
Oooh, look at Cujo over here. So scary.
And with a sense of humor so DRY. Sesshoumaru looks over his shoulder to quip that he didn't know Inuyasha liked him well enough to divert Kohaku's weapon. Dude, put some moisturizer on that shit, it's PARCHED. In no mood for jokes of any kind, Inuyasha asks what the balls his brother is talking about, warning him he'll get shredded if he doesn't let go of the kid. Sesshoumaru just squeezes all the harder on Kohaku's neck, despite Kagome's insistent protest from the ground.
Sesshoumaru, of course, isn't listening. He's wearing a harsh glare as he regards Kohaku in front of him, a sour kind of expression.
Oh, I'm sorry, is Kohaku ruining your fun by not being in terrified agony? Is this just not AMUSING for you anymore????
Ass.
Sesshoumaru drops Kohaku, prompting an open-mouthed astonished stare from Inuyasha. Clearly, he was expecting to have to cut off the OTHER arm to get Kohaku free of Sesshoumaru's blood-thirsty grasp. In Kagome's arms, Rin's eyes flutter open and she utters a little groan. The virtual stranger who's holding her says that she's awake, but Rin doesn't even seem to notice. She catches sight of Sesshoumaru immediately and is immediately bubbly at his presence. I'm not even kidding either, there's what looks like soda carbonation floating around her head while she says his name.
But then she sees Kohaku sitting on the ground in front of Sesshoumaru, and saddens right up, saying Kohaku's name in a subdued, depressed kind of way. Kohaku swiftly hops up and books it out of there, running toward the treeline. Sesshoumaru just stands there, watching him flee, while Inuyasha notes how he's not going after Kohaku.
A gust of wind directs Inuyasha's attention upward, where Kagura has swept up Kohaku on her giant feather. Not dangling him over the side, so you can already see how much more favor Kohaku has with her I guess. Although, to be fair, Kohaku is a bit too big for dangling. Following in the recent pattern, Inuyasha says Kagura's name just in acknowledgement.
Kagome hums at Sesshoumaru before timidly thanking him for "forgiving" Kohaku. Sesshoumaru grouses that the kid was TRYING to die by his hand, and Inuyasha gives him a bit of a sarcastic comment about how he noticed. Sesshoumaru regards them out of his periphery, stating that he just didn't want to play into Naraku's expectations of him. But we know what was REALLY in his head.
Anyway, as Kagura's feather props both her and Kohaku's crouching forms in the air, Kagura remembers Naraku's orders to take the Shikon fragment from Kohaku's corpse. Apparently, that was the part of his plan he was ultra sure would go just the way he imagined, even though it depended on a dog youkai who spontaneously decided to take care of a tiny human child murdering ANOTHER less-tiny human child. Seems like a stretch to me, but I've also read through this whole story three times before this, sooooo...
Kagura side-eyes Kohaku, for the first time sizing him up as MORE than the obedient slave she thought he was. He didn't kill the hostage, and wasn't killed by Sesshoumaru, accomplishing neither of the tasks Naraku assigned him. Kagura tells Kohaku that he won't live long if he continues to defy Naraku like this, to which Kohaku responds with a silent blank stare. Of course, Kagura realizes that she could give herself the same advice. They fly off into the distance.
Back on the ground, we're briefly back with our main protagonists. Acknowledging that Kohaku is gone again, Sango is offered apologies by Kagome, who says she and Inuyasha couldn't stop him. Sango assures her that it can't be helped and gazes at the sky, thinking it's enough that he's safe. And that's it; a narrow band of three panels catching Sango up on her missing brother's status. Missing but alive. Cool.
In the stark light of day, Naraku's castle sits atop its retaining wall, quiet.
I mean, Inuyasha already kicked in the door, no sense in Naraku locking it again on his way out.
Kikyou reckons this means he's thrown away his whole castle, and hidden himself elsewhere. Seems like a reasonable conclusion to draw, while staring around at the collection of silent abandoned buildings. But something does strike her as strange - whenever Naraku hid himself in the past, she was able to sense the barrier wherever he happened to set up shop. In this case, she can't sense anything, his barrier is gone, and it's like he's disappeared from the face of the Earth.
No necessarily. There are PLENTY of things that happen in this story for no good reason at all. Count yourself lucky that this isn't one of them.
So, what did I think of this chapter overall? As has become quite common in this manga, the end of this arc seems to be a little rushed, with very little time dedicated to exploring the characters' reactions and the emotional aftermath of what happened. Not only did Rin spend the scantest expression on her new friend/would-be murderer as he fled the scene, calling into question whether she really even REMEBERED Kohaku trying to slice her before she passed out, but she didn't even seem to notice the actual strangers who had appeared except when she was leaving. No trace of the curiosity from her about who the hell these people are, or what their relationship is with Sesshoumaru. It's strange, because just prior she was bombarding Kohaku with questions like she was a reporter at a press conference. What happened?
And the three panels spent just glossing over Sango's response to Kohaku disappearing again was... disappointing. It was so lacking in depth, even though I think Sango's gaze into the distance in the last panel was attempting to put some sorrow into the mix. It succeeded in a VERY minor way, but more than anything it drew attention to how quickly this was being wrapped up, and how Sango really deserved at least a little bit more time dedicated to developing those emotions on her. Probably a page would have done it better.
Otherwise, I did feel Sesshoumaru's suspicion that he was being had was well-communicated. Considering he just wasted a bunch of time at Naraku's castle in the thick of one of his traps, recognizing when he's walking into another one is the least he could manage. And his snotty, contrarian position of refusing to do what Naraku expects because Naraku isn't the boss of him is exactly the kind of thing I would expect of him. Kind of ironic, come to think of it.
But while I'M not really surprised by Sesshoumaru's behavior, it makes sense that Naraku might have thought he would behave otherwise. As I mentioned before, it's implied that in the space of Inuyasha's trip to Shiori's village to graft some barrier-busting abilities onto Tessaiga, Naraku had taken a break spying on him to spy on Sesshoumaru instead. It wasn't really enough time to get any REAL intelligence on how prone Sesshoumaru is to just walk the fuck away from a fight if he's bored or annoyed with the circumstances. You'd think he would have at least a little on an idea from when he and Sesshoumaru first "worked together", but who knows what the saimyoushou were able to communicate about that incident, which by its singular nature does not a pattern make.
Still, it is pretty weird that it never occurred to Naraku that Sesshoumaru might refuse to kill a child. Again, it's not like the guy didn't adopt one whom Naraku didn't JUST kidnap to spur a reaction from Sesshoumaru. Whatevz.
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