That name'll inspire urban legends and those damn kids to creep onto your lawn in the hopes of seeing something spooky, huh? I remember when I was growing up, my friends and I saw a vaguely unkempt home in the neighborhood and we'd convinced ourselves it was haunted. We'd trespass on that property all the time and peek in the windows, trying to catch a glimpse of the head on the chopping block that someone's mother's cousin's friend's sister saw one time. If we had heard it was a ogre's head on that chopping block, I bet we would have been all the more desperate to see it, and whoever owned that house wouldn't have gotten ANY rest.
Not least of all because, as 90's kids, we would probably have brought up our CD players to blast Smash Mouth at the property at all hours.
I jest, of course; internet meme culture was in its infancy and not NEARLY as strong as to inspire that kind of bold assholery... for the most part.
"Pocket sand!"
The weird little animal ghost hisses and retreats a tad, so the spunky old lady here raises her staff to strike it, claiming this will end their fight. She misses by a hair, the weasel ghost drifting backwards just out of range, then it lunges for her, very solid-looking little claws extended, where the old lady has fallen over, though there's no discernible reason why. She didn't lose her balance in the last panel or anything...
Whatevz. A "sankon tessou" cry comes out of nowhere.
And little snot-nosed teenaged brats should hold their tongues instead of being condescending to their elders, but "should" never stopped you, now did it?
The old lady doesn't seem to register what he said, or even did, because she perceives him from her spot on the ground as reinforcements for the creature he just killed. She hops up to throw whatever's in her jar at HIS face too, crying for dispersal. After an initial recoil, Inuyasha has to be held back by Miroku, staff extended across Inuyasha's chest while he's demanding not to be stopped, ranting about hitting the old woman. Miroku tells him to cool his balls while the old lady looks on owlishly.
Once tempers have subsided, a talk leads to someone asking for confirmation that the number of youkai are increasing. Seated on an exposed tree root, the old lady says it started rather suddenly in recent days, and says it's the reason an old exorcist like herself has been called to action. The Inuyasha crew sit and stand across from her, Miroku asking from the ground if she has any idea why this is. She says it's probably because of the curse at Oni's Head Castle, a name Kagome parrots back in question as Inuyasha gives a half-quizzical glare.
There are FAR too many monsters hanging out beneath castles in this damn place. Someone should do something about that, I think.
The old lady says that the lord of the castle took the head of an oni he'd exterminated, buried it as a substitute for a charm against evil, and built his castle on top of it. Why he thought that would work as a substitute for a charm AGAINST evil is a bit beyond me. Kagome just makes a noise of amazement, so SHE'S not going to explain, even though her background of growing up in a shrine might be a little illuminating in this aspect. Also the old woman continues to expound upon the legend, saying that lately, the oni came back to life and cursed the area, and all attempts to exorcise it have been futile, or so she's heard. Frankly, I love that for the poor abused thing; get your revenge, dude! Miroku and Sango stare critically at the woman while she speaks, speechless.
She stands up and bids them to come with her, and Inuyasha asks where to cluelessly. She answers that they're going to Oni's Head Castle, naturally, citing that they allegedly called themselves traveling exterminators somewhere off-panel. Kagome turns to Inuyasha, asking his opinion on what they should do, and he asserts that they don't have time for this. I'm sorry, were all of you BUSY with something, what with Naraku being MIA for the moment? Inuyasha says just searching for Naraku is the priority, and Miroku begins to argue a different perspective after hearing this story. The old woman drops the off-hand comment that there's apparently a hefty reward for slaying this thing and Miroku is right behind her without another look back at his indignant friends. Never mind that he already seemed to be leaning on going over there to begin with. The old lady offers to split their reward 50-50, and that's enough to put him squarely in her court.
Generally, if you want to convince people you haven't seen anything, you don't INSIST on it desperately. Just a tip. Though I doubt it's of much use now.
Narrow sky transition panel! An old man sits on a porch while the Inuyasha group sits in the dirt facing him, and he tells them that Tono has been secluding himself in his bedroom and won't come out. His endless demand for tissues and lotion are no doubt the worst part of all this. Kagome leans to whisper a question at Inuyasha; if he gets a bad feeling from this place. Miroku is thinking it's the aura of the oni, and Sango thinks it's floating over the whole castle. The old woman, on the other hand, twists to ask them what is up with their uneasy expressions, if they're afraid. Her face blissfully unbothered, she declares these youngsters rather pathetic. Miroku asks if this exorcist really can't feel ANYTHING in the atmosphere of the castle, and she responds with a classic "feel what?"
Did this woman only start working today? Only I'm amazed she's managed to stay alive as long as she has without ANY instinct for this. Inuyasha wonders if this old lady is a fraud or something, and Shippou claims even HE can feel the evil aura. Forget you, kiddo, even SANGO can feel it, and she's the only member of the team without a supernatural bent.
Kagome catches sight of a couple of men carrying a covered stretcher from the castle.
Ominous. The word you're looking for is ominous. When you're interviewing for a monster-slaying job and there are bodies being carried from the site, that's ominous.
The dude on the porch actually admits it's the 10th one! As if that isn't the red flag to end all red flags! He says Tono kills every maid or retainer that goes near the bedroom, over a panel of the guy sitting with his hanging head shadowed and gripping a sword by its BLADE, breathing strained. Hopefully he's just possessed and not literally psychotic or our heroes might be a bit out of their league. Miroku asks if this madness is due to Tono's madness, and the man on the porch says that's probably it. PROBABLY isn't very reassuring, but okay.
The porch-goblin says the oni appears when the sun goes down, and instructs the gang to wait there in the dirt until then. Not even going to invite them in for like... a drink? Or...
Nope, they hang out there in the courtyard, mostly sitting around, except for the old woman, who is performing stretches and telling them to be on their guards. A reclining Inuyasha observes mildly that she's rather energetic, as Shippou explores up the stairs onto the porch and Kagome marvels at this aforementioned energy in the oppressive evil aura. I feel the same about anyone still bopping around under the weight of surefire climate collapse on the horizon, so samesies!
Miroku complains that even with a trained body, the evil in the castle is uncomfortable, suggesting to Sango beside him that they should exterminate this thing quickly and get out of there, to which Sango agrees. They both look up when a voice asking if they're here to exorcise the oni descends on them from the porch.
That's right, he climbs to stairs to kneel in front of her and tells her not to worry, promising to personally stay as many days as it takes to complete the purification. An annoyed Sango asks if he didn't JUST say that he wanted to get this extermination over with quickly.
They all turn to the sounds of panicked shouts and alerts that the oni has come.
Sango jumps onto Kirara and flies off, though Kagome calls to her in alarm. She promises to finish the thing in one shot, throwing Hiraikotsu directly in its giant face, but it goes right through it and comes back around without so much as scratching the creature. Inuyasha, Kagome and Sango (while catching Hiraikotsu again) are all alarmed that it's a bit less solid than it looks. The former, drawing his sword, curses and tells Sango to move out of the way before slinging a Kaze no Kizu into the oni's head to follow up.
Its effect is about what you might expect.
... Probably an illusion and not really there? Maybe?
So, what did I think of this chapter overall? The incompetent/clueless old lady is a trip, and not half-bad as comic relief. One of the things I appreciate about RT's old woman characters is that they're not only visible, but also just as distinct in personality as any other character, which can't be said for many other writers. If old women even exist in most stories, they're reduced to archetypes; broad strokes of a shadow instead of someone you could actually see as a human in another universe. The old woman here has a very specific mindset: ambitious, confident, driven, and gives the impression of someone who absolutely did NOT earn her high regard for her abilities. She strikes as one of the last in a family of iffy religious/spiritual leaders, which has been slow on the uptake that either they lost the spark at some point, or never had it to begin with. It does beg the question how in the WORLD this lady has been so lucky to have survived as long as she has with such a reckless lack of self-awareness, but it also inspires the reader to come up with their own plausible backstory for the seeming walking contradiction. It's a treat.
The flying ogre head is fun too, but I do genuinely feel like I might be missing some context. Not only does the concept of burying a monster head in my future garden not seem particularly lucky to me, but this head flying around without a body is something of a head-scratcher to me. Everyone seems more concerned about this hologram of a creature that can't be touched by weapons than the flesh-and-blood serial killer who's holed himself up in the castle, killing several people? And the guy who explained this to our heroes didn't even seem all that SURE the two things are related? Or perhaps he was, but the major issue of Tono hanging out in his room and killing the help didn't occur to him as an important enough piece of the puzzle to mention it BEFORE the latest victim was carried out on a stretcher?
It seems to me that this castle has 99 problems, but a bitch oni head might be a more minor one, if anything.
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