Okay, that SOUNDS impressive, but really, what's he got in there anyway? Some Buddha statues? Altar tables? Unconscious hostages and the corpses of the monks he murdered to take the place over? Lame. I think I've got him beat with my recent purchase from the antique mall:
Yeah, that's right, I got me a dress form. I'm gonna make so many corsets and coats with this baby. At the very least, it looks way better than monk corpses as decoration.
Although the minimalist look he's got going in this room is fairly pleasing, I have to admit.
Renkotsu says he was sorry to have heard Kagome was attacked with poison, insincerely, while Kagome realizes she can't speak. She was doing so okay before, so I don't know what changed in such a short amount of time... Renkotsu engages in a little victim blaming when he chastises her for moving so much after her poisoning, because it's made all of them pretty weak. He indicates the snoozing Sango and Miroku on the other side of a nervously sweating Kagome, saying they won't wake up for a bit. Then he sets a small incense burner already issuing a slow stream of smoke on the floor next to her, encouraging her to sleep as well.
As the smoke wafts over her, Kagome has the stilted thought that she has to get away from here, and Renkotsu pauses in the doorway to look over his shoulder in a sinister manner. He silently tells her not to worry, because he doesn't plan to kill her RIGHT away. How comforting. He wants Inuyasha to be somewhat communicative when he gets to the temple, after all, and Renkotsu anticipates he won't be if Kagome is already dead by the time he arrives. No doubt a little bit of humanity he's had to interpret many a time back in his more active killing days.
How does that follow? Does he imagine Inuyasha just exists for the moment when he can watch his friends be carried off to presumable safety? Just pops in and out of life for this tiny purpose?
Ginkotsu launches those saw blades again, yelling at Inuyasha to just die in peace already, but Inuyasha scoffs, saying GINKOTSU is the one who should resign himself to death, since he's fully able to fight now. I feel like it took him longer to say so than it would have for the blades to get to him, but he manages to talk all he likes AND leap straight up out of the way of the blades. He has Tessaiga slung over his head, a few tendrils of wind spiraling around the blade. Ginkotsu shouts that this is futile, firing the gun on his back up at Inuyasha, just as Inuyasha lets loose a Kaze no Kizu.
Ginkotsu is literally falling into the ground here, the rocks and soil around him caving in over his metal head. Inuyasha lands on the lip of the fissure, commenting with annoyance about how the distracting bastard fell in there, and puts away Tessaiga. He's in too much of a hurry to consider how suspiciously EASY his victory in this battle was, leaping off in the direction where Kagome and the others were flown away due to pure worry.
As he darts through the forest, he picks up a scent that alarms him; another scent of corpse and grave soil, making him wonder if there's another Shichinin-tai member ahead. But he perceives that this scent is a bit different, of a human burnt. Inuyasha halts once he's run up the stairs, finding Renkotsu with a shovel there, covering a crispy body with dirt in the garden. Renkotsu looks over his shoulder at him as he comes onto the scene and asks if he would be Inuyasha, because he's been waiting for an Inuyasha. THIS is what catches Inuyasha's suspicion, and he questions what Renkotsu means with a glare.
A short trip down the porch with birds flitting across it...
Inuyasha leans closer to where Kagome is sleeping, Shippou snuggled into her shoulder and passed out too, breathing a sigh of relief that she's safe.
Renkotsu suggests that Inuyasha is being chased, which wouldn't be a difficult deduction if he DIDN'T have inside information, but Inuyasha is still a bit on edge. He dangles a trailing invitation for Renkotsu to introduce himself, again glaring over his shoulder, but Renkotsu just asserts that he's a priest at this temple. Sweatdropping, Inuyasha wonders if he can trust this dude. Not that it would matter if he couldn't, of course.
Damn, it's ACTUALLY a likely story.
Renkotsu reveals that the people he was burying when Inuyasha arrived were also roasted by a zombie too. I've heard that the best lies have a grain of truth to them, but this is ridiculous. He also reveals that he had heard Inuyasha and friends were being chased by the shichinin-tai, but his uncanny ability to imply the truth without completely giving it away is interrupted by Inuyasha, who wants to set the record straight - they're not BEING chased, but GIVING chase.
Yeah, tell that to your inert unconscious buddies, dude.
Renkotsu leapfrogs right over this declaration to ask Inuyasha if he knows and can tell why the Shichinin-tai have been resurrected in the first place. When Inuyasha asks him what he's going to DO with this information, he makes up some bullshit about wanting to pacify they because he's a priest, blah, blah, blah. Inuyasha tells him he'd better not even THINK of doing any such thing, as it's not something a priest can handle. However, Inuyasha IS tentatively convinced that this guy isn't one of the Shichinin-tai. Seems the mild-mannered priest garbage was a success, as it tends to be. Just ask Miroku. Inuyasha also claims that he smells like a regular human, which must just be his nose going on the fritz for plot purposes again.
Hey! You know who we haven't seen in a while? The guy small enough to ride in on a crow!
Where the fuck have YOU been, Myouga?
He wonders aloud what Inuyasha is up to this far north, as if he just now realized Inuyasha wasn't hanging out with him on his bird. The rumble from below grows stronger, and a few rocks are shaken from rest, rolling down into the crevice.
See? If you hadn't ghosted the story until this moment, you'd know what this is about. And probably would nope right off for an indefinite period anyway, so...
Back at the temple, Renkotsu is asking Inuyasha for some confirmation that this Naraku person resurrected the Shichinin-tai. He asks what Naraku is like while he's seated next to a still-kneeling Inuyasha, whose answer I expected to be expounding upon his enemy's douchebaggery. Instead, he simply says Naraku is kinda like a youkai, and when Renkotsu probes for a more precise meaning, Inuyasha explains that Naraku is not COMPLETELY a youkai. He goes on to say Naraku has fucking hid himself away at the moment, speculating that he's probably endlessly recombining his disparate body parts and storing up his power, using the Shichinin-tai as a shield in all likelihood. Renkotsu gives him a somewhat sharp look at this hypothesis.
A massive crash sounds toward the front of the temple, to which Inuyasha looks over Renkotsu's shoulder as he turns. Ginkotsu is at the bottom of the stairs, looking at his handiwork blowing off the whole roof off the building with his huge shoulder gun - it sits askew between the ground and the wall. Inuyasha rushes out, cursing that bastard Ginkotsu for catching up, as Renkotsu makes an alarmed noise. Inuyasha yells over his shoulder for the "priest" to stay back if he values his life. Renkotsu just stares sullenly in silence after him.
Internally, Renkotsu wishes the jerk Ginkotsu had come just a little later. He kneels next to Kagome, thinking that he at least understands that this Naraku character is not to be trusted. Renkotsu pulls the small bottle of Shikon shards from beneath Kagome's collar while she still lay there, out cold.
So, what did I think of this chapter overall? Renkotsu's ruse is decently layered and clever, given how secure he's made his position. Even if he were to accidentally give himself away in the process, even if Inuyasha had cottoned onto the fact that he's one of the bad guys, there's literally nothing he could do about it. Shippou and Kirara are unconscious now too, so there's no one to take everyone to safety. Inuyasha is well and truly alone, so having the knowledge that Kagome and the others are essentially hostages would have done him no good anyway.
It's also very understandable why Renkotsu would WANT to have a neutral chat with Inuyasha in the first place. He didn't let it on in the conversation he had with Jakotsu, but he's also rather suspicious of this mysterious benefactor they have, allowing them to roam the living world again, killing all Naraku's enemies. With how shrouded in secret Naraku seems to be, it makes sense that the Shichinin-tai would be a bit wary, considering they were killed by the very armies that hired them the first time. Cautiousness is definitely prudent here, and Renkotsu taking advantage of being a stranger to Inuyasha to milk him for information is a slick move.
Not so smart is some abrupt shifts in the chapter, most painful being the one to Myouga for a couple of pages. It's like RT realized she completely forgot about him, but needs him for the part coming up, so she shoved him in there on feeble pretenses so she could have HIM witness Ginkotsu coming back up from the trench. More awkward things HAVE happened in this story, but it was a little glaring. The more minor issues I had was the disregard of Kagome having a voice in the previous chapter but suddenly not in this one, and Renkotsu's face paint magically emerging once Inuyasha is out of view. I've already gone over why Kagome doesn't NEED to be rendered unable to speak before, so this is completely unnecessary in the grand scheme. And since Renkotsu isn't a youkai, but supposed to be human, it makes LITERALLY no sense for his makeup to function like Sesshoumaru's markings. It's baffling at best, and annoying at worst.
Inevitable as mistakes like these are in a serialized story, it still ruffles my continuity feathers a bit, I'm sorry to say.
No comments:
Post a Comment