Don't envy THEM in the slightest. Perpetually chasing around a guy who hasn't quite figured out personal hygiene so they can put him out of his stinky misery? And you just KNOW he put that stench in a BIGGER barrier rather than wash his ass for once, so it's going to be even WORSE when they finally catch up with him. They better treasure their olfactory senses while they have the chance, because they're probably going to have to stick a lit match up their noses in a bit.
It'll be a BIT, though.
Yeah, that's the guy who's going to get the worst of it, for sure.
Kagome heaves herself up on her hands and knees, dumbfounded at Sesshoumaru saving them, while Mukotsu is just confused as hell about what's going on all around. He THOUGHT that Inuyasha and Kouga's groups where the only enemies that the Shichinin-tai had, so he asks Sesshoumaru who he is. Sesshoumaru, in turn, asks what Mukotsu is, staring blankly down at him bleeding on the floor.
Not Sesshoumaru WANDERING in and out of situations like a hallucinating junkie, only asking questions when he's already sliced someone up! But, I'll tell you what, he's convincing me he's got that GOOD kush. Sesshoumaru, honey, sugar, please tell me what drugs you're on and where I can get them! PLEASE!
**Edit 1/4/2022: My husband has decided to make a contribution to this image of Sesshoumaru as a stoner - enjoy!
Mukotsu strains to sit up, calling Sesshoumaru a bastard for attacking him before he even knew who he was. He shouts that Sesshoumaru is taking him lightly as he pulls ANOTHER canister off his back and aims it, pulling off the cover for Sesshoumaru to take in the face. Kagome and Miroku gape through their agony, noting Sesshoumaru is getting doused in poison. But they forgot, he's got the "COOL" designation in the story. He'll be fine.
See? Not so much as a thread out of place.
A motion blur bisects Mukotsu's face, and Sesshoumaru holds up Tokijin in the aftermath of his slash. He tells Mukotsu that the poison of a mere human has no effect on him as the flesh dissolves off Mukotsu. The collapsing skeleton manages to express disbelief before it's silent again, so I guess the explanation wasn't COMPLETELY wasted on a dead man. The Shikon shard from Mukotsu's neck falls into the folds of his clothes.
Inuyasha rushes onto the scene, yelling Kagome's name. As typical as typical can be.
But who are we kidding? Sesshoumaru is WAY too high to care what it looks like.
Inuyasha sees Miroku and Sango all but unconscious while Kagome struggles to prop herself on an elbow, weakly calling his name, taking a minute to process this as he gapes. He says her name, looks at his brother glaring over his shoulder at him, then leaps between the two, calling Sesshoumaru a bastard. Inuyasha demands to know what he's doing there and what the FUCK he did to Kagome and the others. He looks like he's fixing to lose his fucking mind when Kagome pipes up from behind him, telling him he's mistaken. She says Sesshoumaru saved them, bewildering Inuyasha.
Sesshoumaru has to set the record straight, claiming it wasn't his INTENT to save anyone, and indicating that the pile of bones he reduced Mukotsu to was just interrupting their conversation. A conversation that literally did not exist, and WOULD not exist, had he not saved the people he wanted to converse with. Deep-fried logic coming from this one. Just the deepest.
Inuyasha DOES seem rather skeptical when he asks about this nonexistent "conversation".
Don't tell him anything, Inuyasha! At least not until he hooks you up with where he's stashing that good shit he's on.
As Inuyasha responds with confusion at first, Jakotsu is watching from behind a tree, at a distance. First he thinks of Inuyasha as a jerk for making him wait so long that he thought he wasn't coming, presumably what led him to go to find him instead. Then Jakotsu wonders who the snobbish jerk is, because like Mukotsu, he never heard of an enemy like one with the big fur. He also noticed the guy killed Mukotsu like an insect, which suggests that HE got to the scene much sooner than Inuyasha did. That's... weird.
Anyway, Jakotsu decides that he's lingered here long enough and slinks off before he's noticed. Meanwhile, Sesshoumaru is demanding that Inuyasha tell him where Naraku is. Damn son, don't you think Inuyasha would have nerfed him already if he knew where the fucker was? Nevertheless, Inuyasha explains that they heard Naraku's evil aura was heading in the direction of Ushitora the last time it was detected, and were attacked by those under his influence as they got into the area, so he concludes that Naraku is definitely nearby. I don't know if that's a FAIR conclusion, since he hasn't been able to CONFIRM the Shichinin-tai are in Naraku's employ, but a good summation at any case.
With a swish of fabric, Sesshoumaru turns to leave, nary a goodbye to offer. Inuyasha hesitantly calls to him, but Sesshoumaru just says that this is all he needed to know, fucking off again. Inuyasha sweatdrops as he watches Sesshoumaru disappear again, marveling that he's also after Naraku. His attention is grabbed by Shippou worrying over Miroku and Sango in the background, lamenting that they've all been poisoned. Inuyasha stares a moment, then goes to cradle Kagome and gently say her name. She assures him that she's okay and that Miroku and Sango protected her, albeit weakly.
Ah shit, should have picked that up when you had the chance!
But it IS concrete proof that Naraku is involved, at least. Inuyasha notes that it's a saimyoushou, and Kagome urges him to go after it, since Naraku has to be nearby if they're about. But Miroku and Sango are still slumped and unconscious, and Inuyasha declares that he's taking care of them and Kagome first, internally cursing himself for not being here sooner. The transformation has been quite dramatic from when Inuyasha would have at least been COMPLAINING that he couldn't go after a Shikon shard, let alone Naraku. Our boy is growing up.
Elsewhere, Jaken and Rin sit on a log or exposed tree-root, the latter kicking her feet over the edge. She comments on how late Sesshoumaru is - dad's not back from "work" by the time he usually is, apparently. Rin says she should have gone along with him, and Jaken calls her a fool. He tells her that Sesshoumaru went somewhere with a lot of poison floating around, and she would have been a goner had he brought her along with him. Rin lifts her hands up behind her head, complaining that she's boooooooooored though. This kid making my inner child jealous with how awesome and magical her life is right now, and she thinks she's BORED. The audacity.
Rin catches sight of something out of the corner of her eye, the movement of a figure in the trees, and realizes with shock that it's Kohaku. He lifts his hand to greet a saimyoushou HALF HIS SIZE, the one that snatched the Shikon fragment from Mukotsu's remains; it's offering him the glittering shard. Hand to her mouth to muffle any gasps that might escape, she wonders what he's doing in a place like this. Jaken notices her alarm, despite her efforts, and asks her what's wrong, to which she plays it cool and says it's nothing. He won't suspect a thing. She looks furtively back to where she saw Kohaku and finds the space empty again.
Ooof, any kid asking THAT kind of question should seriously consider ducking under someone ELSE'S wing. Super red-flag right there.
Cut to a staircase leading up to a temple gate. No narrow-sky transition panel required, imagine that. Beyond, on a porch, two figures sit discussing the subsequent deaths of Kyoukotsu and Mukotsu. The one that can be made out as Jakotsu confirms this.
The type who could probz do with some stimulants instead of depressants for a change. Better question, what type of person are YOU to be wearing monk robes and flames painted on your face?
Jakotsu scratches his cheek thoughtfully, saying that Sesshoumaru seemed kind of cold to him, but also handsome. Emotional inaccessibility - hot or not? Jakotsu soon comes to the conclusion that he prefers the naive types like Inuyasha though, while the guy he's talking to asks WHO even asked about his taste in men, clearly annoyed. Not really interested in going on a long sleepover tangent about which boys they want to kiss, this one.
That's okay, the fangirls have done that labor of love for them.
Jakotsu gets his serious on, leaning in and addressing his companion as "Renkotsu no Aniki", so very fitting for the monk getup. He expresses some suspicion about how little they've been told, asking who the hell this Naraku guy is who resurrected them and if Renkotsu has met him at all. Renkotsu deadpan says that only BIG brother has met Naraku, before explaining that their leader was given the Shikon shards by Naraku, enough for all of them to be brought back, and promised to let them keep the fragments if they killed everyone coming after him.
Looking put out, Jakotsu complains that two of them have already bitten the dust, claiming that there's only four of them left. Following a pause, Renkotsu tells him that seven minus two equals FIVE. Which of them does Jakotsu think so little of that he's forgetting him right now?? Renkotsu redirects the conversation yet again, asking for confirmation that Inuyasha's friends were dosed with Mukotsu's poison. Jakotsu says this is true, and adds that Mukotsu's poison lasts a while, during which those kids won't likely to be moving a lot.
The narrow-sky transition panel is back to briefly show how Inuyasha has lined up his ailing friends on the ground by a small waterfall and river. He kneels by Kagome's side while Shippou says they've ingested some non-specific anti-poison herbs but warning that he thinks it'll be dangerous if they don't rest for a bit. Inuyasha agrees, voicing the necessity that they find a safe place for them somewhere.
Back with Jakotsu and Renkotsu, the latter chuckles that this is interesting, because GINKOTSU is on his way towards Inuyasha's location at the moment, with the purpose of bringing him and the group to the temple.
So, what did I think of this chapter overall? I'm sarcastic about Sesshoumaru's sobriety in this one, but I really did appreciate his swooping in to get rid of the active threat in a somewhat ABSURD tone. The horror of the scene before, the greater horror of what could have been, is utterly DESTROYED by Sesshoumaru's comically nonchalant attitude. It's clear that he grasped the urgency of the situation, given that he struck Mukotsu before even attempting to start that "conversation" he wanted, but he also chose not to strike what he would assume to be a mortal blow just to attempt to satisfy his curiosity about what this person who smelled like a walking corpse was about. If Inuyasha can smell it, so can Sesshoumaru, and he's got a penchant for curiosity. Just seeing how his priorities shift in the moment according to his inquisitiveness is something that I find hilarious. Since the joke here isn't at Kagome's expense as the victim, it's a bit of a welcome break to the tension too.
Sesshoumaru's denial that he MEANT to help anyone is in a limbo of interpretations to me, though, due to the awkward, roundabout, and illogical way it was presented. He could have just said that he didn't save Kagome and the others out of the goodness of his heart, but so they could be alive to answer his questions, and that would have been a more straightforward sentiment, sweet and to the point. I'm curious if this is an issue of trying to produce a more direct translation, because if it is, I can just chalk it up to a refusal to sacrifice a word-for-word literal interpretation for a better ease of meaning. If it's NOT and the original Japanese comes across as awkward, however, I'm tempted to look at this sentence as that of a guy who is starting to recognize that his actions have been leaning more toward a compassionate bent lately, and is trying to on the fly make up excuses as to why it LOOKS like he's changing when he's really just the same.
Either way, funny scene, Sesshoumaru is an awkward stoner, change my mind.
Anyway, it's also very interesting how secretive Rin becomes when she spots Kohaku - not only is she not holding a grudge against him, she's worried about what her companions will do if they cross paths with him again, especially Sesshoumaru. It's likely because she took what Jaken said about how angry Sesshoumaru was to heart, and the implication that he's off to murder Naraku/anyone else involved because of it. All because of her, as she said before. Now, instead of being flattered that she's such an important person in Sesshoumaru's eyes, she has to be concerned about what the level of importance could result in for another kid whom she grew to really like over their short time together. Poor girl just cannot get a break; always having to deal with SOME shit in her orbit that she has no control over and yet is inextricably tangled in.
And finally, I'm excited we get to see the introduction of TWO more Shichinin-tai this chapter! A sardonic prick and what passes for a feudal cyborg are a fair replacement for the two lost so far in my view. Some additional ditzy dialog from Jakotsu certainly doesn't hurt, because in combination with his natural suspicion of a guy ordering his team around that only one of them has met makes for a pretty nuanced performance from him. We're starting off the new year RIGHT!
Happy 2022!
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