I feel like the meanings of these names are getting a little less clever. The "Sui" part of this one is written with the kanji that means "drowsy", "sleep" or "die", according to the Inuyasha Companion over at Rumic World. Considering ALL the Shichinin-tai put their victims in the "long sleep", this isn't particularly descriptive. If it's a kanji that's used in a specifically medical/clinical context, that would be a different story. Sadly, fansites don't generally provide linguistic context for a term, so unfortunately, that's the closest I can get to squeezing this name into a somewhat functional pun. XD
I still haven't done one of these on Renkotsu, have I? Maybe one day I'll look it up to find it's the best pun of them all.
It could happen.
Corpses scattered in a burning village? Just another day ending in "y" in the Yashaverse. But the Inuyasha group gapes at the devastation as if it's the first time they've seen something so horrible, Miroku voicing how terrible this is. It's good to know they're not as jaded as I am. Kagome declares this has to be the work of the Shichinin-tai, as she feels a few Shikon shards nearby. Inuyasha agrees, citing his nose, and lunges father into the burning village. He stops dead when he sees the weird Shichinin-tank, it and its riders facing Suikotsu and a painfully familiar lady. Kagome utters Kikyou's name as she draws up behind him, as Inuyasha remains speechless.
Like she ran into him at the grocery store, what the...
While he, Sango and Shippou catch up to the other two on the scene, Miroku gapes at Kikyou's presence too. Renkotsu drawls about how these bastards they tried to kill so hard are still alive, appearing rather annoyed about it, which isn't unexpected, honestly. Ginkotsu gurgles at them by way of greeting, and an excited Jakotsu calls out to Inuyasha specifically, waving emphatically.
Renkotsu tells Jakotsu that he's perfect for the job of grabbing Suikotsu, Jakotsu protesting at the assignment with a whine. Suikotsu is mistaking this for talk of murdering him as Renkotsu announces he'll take on Inuyasha and company, crossing Ginkotsu's bumper toward Inuyasha, who identifies him with a snarl. Jakotsu grumbles that Renkotsu just wants to separate him and Inuyasha, asking Renkotsu directly if he's not sure he isn't ALSO into the dog-eared boy. Renkotsu warns Jakotsu not to talk too much shit, or he'll pull out his tongue.
Now THAT'S a threat.
Inuyasha rushes at Renkotsu with his hand at Tessaiga's hilt on his belt, announcing he's about to get revenge on this bastard for what happened at the temple. Renkotsu lifts a gourd-flask to his mouth and takes a pull, inviting Inuyasha to try.
You know what this situation needed? More fire.
Inuyasha snaps at Renkotsu that his flames aren't even hot, apparently in an attempt to make him self-conscious. Renkotsu retorts that they're not hot TO HIM, and proceeds to fling out his fingers to launch a volley of wires, that somehow form a perfect net over Inuyasha's group's heads. Just neatly domed and everything. They all stare up at the flaming wires in desperation, labeling it a net of fire without questioning HOW that's even possible. Inuyasha lunges forward again to sweep the wires aside with Tessaiga and a curse. Renkotsu pulls back his hand to whip the displaced wires behind him, criticizing Inuyasha's critical weakness of dragging a bunch of ordinary humans along with him.
They should have EXTRAORDINARY control over projectile wires in order to justify existence, according to him.
Meanwhile, Jakotsu is approaching Suikotsu and Kikyou with a rather un-intimidating pout. Suikotsu says he knows nothing about who they are, but has surmised that they came to get him. He asks in frustration why they would attack the village when they could have just killed HIM. Jakotsu sighs in annoyance, and asks Suikotsu in turn how long he's going to be talking nonsense, urging him to wake up and give his innocent persona a rest already. Warning that he otherwise WILL kill Suikotsu, Jakotsu lazily swings his sword to punctuate his point.
As the blade whips out at a recoiling Suikotsu, Kikyou shoves herself in front of him and tells him to stand back, arrow nocked in her bow. She shoots, plain and simple.
Renkotsu lecturing Inuyasha about HIS critical weakness over there, while Jakotsu continues to completely overlook the women in the area who could seriously fuck his shit up, lol.
Speaking of, Renkotsu turns to look, having caught the arrow skimming past Jakotsu out of the corner of his eye. He identifies Kikyou with a beady glare, then rounds to the back of Ginkotsu's turret to swivel its gun in her direction. It shoots, plain and simple.
Near misses, all around.
As Kikyou goes down, looking understandably freaked, Inuyasha calls out to her with panic from the other side of the wall of flames Renkotsu created for him. Renkotsu throws more fire at him and the rest of his group, warning him that his friends will die if his attention is diverted. Inuyasha holds Tessaiga up, I guess to act as a shield against the fire, while Miroku holds his his staff defensively, and Kagome recoils from the flames in the background. Shippou is on her shoulder, but he's just freaking out.
Suikotsu sits up from the spot to which he had been blown back, immediately shouting Kikyou's name when he sees her lying unconscious as debris rains around her. Kneeling beside her, he lifts her shoulders and tries to coax her awake, but his attention is diverted by a call of his own name. He turns to see a few of the young children he's adopted running toward him. He stutters a plea for them not to come over to him, looking over his shoulder yet again to find Jakotsu emerging from the surrounding fog of war. Jakotsu wordlessly swings his sword, sending a flash of steel at the approaching children. Tears rimming his eyes, Suikotsu pleads with him to stop, after which a splatter of blood fills a panel.
Back in the cage of flame, Kagome and Inuyasha gape at the scene, Kagome second-guessing if this guy really IS a part of the Shichinin-tai. The kids he took the lick from Jakotsu's sword for cry and yell out to Suikotsu, running into his arms as he remains in shocked silence a moment. He manages to stutter that he's okay, asking them if THEY'VE been injured, but he's trembling something fierce. Then a pulse goes through him and he tenses up, the Shikon fragment in his neck starting to glow. Kagome notes this with an alarmed expression, before calling out that the light from it has gone black. Inuyasha gives her a nervous look.
Uh-oh, you know the guy is going bad when his ponytail starts fleeing his head.
The kids look up at him with clear horror written on their faces, saying Suikotsu's name hesitantly in question. As if in response, he grabs and lifts the little boy by his neck. Inuyasha gapes all the wider at this action, Kagome shouting at him while also looking on in terror for the boy. As Suikotsu holds the groaning boy aloft and giggles about it, Miroku urges Inuyasha to go and help him, Sango confirming that they're okay here dealing with the fire without him. Inuyasha stammers his compliance then runs through the flames with his arm raised over his face and wondering what the actual HELL is going on here. It's not long before he snatches the boy by his back-basket and uses his other set of claws to swipe at a shadowed Suikotsu, who leaps backward deftly to avoid the blow. Much more athletic now that he's turned evil.
Inuyasha kneels on the ground, depositing the choking kid next to him, while asking this bastard who on earth he thinks he is.
And his eyebrows have gone the same way as his ponytail. This guy's hair has OPINIONS on his shitty transformation, apparently.
So, what did I think of this chapter overall? I'm going to continue to be annoyed by the Shichinin-tai's miraculous face-paint, probably increasingly so as time goes on, to be honest. The goal with making these demonic type tattoos showing up out of nowhere appears to be visual shorthand for their naked evil, but it comes across as so stupid when there appears to be no mechanism for its appearance at all. This example in particular is egregious, because Suikotsu's lack of paint/tattoos isn't a disguise - his doctor personality genuinely did not know that he's part of the Shichinin-tai, so this reveal just implies that Suikotsu's evil personality manifested his paint/tattoos out of nowhere with pure evil.
The whole point of having HUMAN villains at this point in the story should be that they can look and act completely normal, even when they're terrible at their core. That's what makes a human villain scary: not just having a perfectly disarming exterior as some youkai have in the story thus far, but actually BEING a human and yet getting an unnatural pleasure from hurting and killing other people. A member of a social species being so thoroughly ANTIsocial is hard to reconcile, making a human killer's motivations and basic function difficult to parse and ultimately unnerving.
But when RT gives her human villains a "youkai-look" or "transformation" every time they fully step into their villain role, it blunts the impact of that point. They LOOK like a youkai, a spirit creature the reader has been trained the whole story to consider INhuman. It allows the audience to conflate these human villains with the youkai and not view them in the context that makes them the biggest creeps that they COULD be.
Forgive my rant, but this is really bothering me. I wish RT had thought a little harder about it before she decided to automatically give them their paint/tattoos, because she has the skill to draw Suikotsu in such a way that he comes across as a fully HUMAN monster. But, if she HAD to do this, she could have at least thrown in a reason for it. A magic spell, heavy foundation to cover the marks up, SOMETHING other than this out-of-nowhere nonsense that ruins the whole effect of these men as antagonists.
Otherwise, I agree with Jakotsu; it is SUPER suspect that Renkotsu is trying so hard to keep him from sparring with Inuyasha. I would definitely be suspicious if I were in his position. Also... cool action? What was happening with Inuyasha's group and the fire was very unclear for the most part, and I think it might have been by design. How Renkotsu battles is very conveniently obscure, presumably so that RT doesn't really have to show too many details and lift the illusion that this guy's methods are rather untenable. But the action was moving fast enough that there wasn't much time to consider the trick being pulled here.
The only notable thing in the character/relationship category was that Inuyasha did not rush to Kikyou when she was bowled over by the cannon shot. He was visibly concerned, but he stayed firmly by Kagome's side until his friends told him he had to go rescue the boy. Don't know why KAGOME can't notice these things. It would save her a lot of angst in the future.
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