Not the center, surely. Our youkai in the group haven't been obliterated yet, and we're not NEARLY close enough to the climax of this arc for our protagonists to be in the middle of the damn thing. I have to assume it's more the power center or a pump that gets all that juice to the main body of the barrier. It might be fitting that this mechanism is more OUTSIDE the actual barrier around the mountain if that's the case, considering... Well, I guess that's still not quite set in stone yet. Never mind, forget I said anything. ;)
What, you mean two WEEKS ago, when Shintarou's father died, or just now? Are you going to accuse him of planting the flowers too, you loon?
Bankotsu says he doesn't know about attacking the island - he was just told to wait here. Noticing with alarm that there's a familiar glow from Bankotsu's massive blade, Kagome warns Inuyasha to watch out for the halberd, counting two Shikon shards in there. Inuyasha grinds his teeth at Bankotsu at the news, as Banktosu explains that it's because of their skirmish the other day in which it got cut, and he used the Shikon fragments to patch it all up. Taking credit for a little girl's idea is not exactly the kind of low I'd expect from this guy, but then again, he does seem pretty Bro-y...
Yanking his sword into the air and rushing forward, Bankotsu quickly invites Inuyasha to get to fighting already. Inuyasha announces that he's SURE he'll turn Bankotsu into mincemeat today, and swings down Tessaiga in an ATTEMPT at Kaze no Kizu.
Ooh, that's REAL embarrassing.
Inuyasha utters a questioning noise, his friends looking on in worry as Sango verbalizes Inuyasha's shame, that his signature attack isn't coming out. Grinning, Bankotsu resumes his initial lunge for Inuyasha, saying he now understands why he was told to fight here. Inuyasha has to hold up Tessaiga as a guard against the ringing blow Bankotsu brings down on him. It reverberates through him, causing him to groan, and he quickly retreats backward with a curse.
Sango asks why Kaze no Kizu didn't appear, strangely not picking up on the very atmosphere that is also bothering her demonic feline companion. Cradling the lethargic Shippou, Miroku says that Tessaiga's youkai energy is being purified by Hijiri Island, Kagome responding to this with disbelief. Miroku adds that even if Bankotsu is an evil zombie, he's still human at his base (debatable, but I'm less liable to take this matter to court these days, given recent blatant displays of corruption), and the effect of the island's purifying energy is slight compared to that on Inuyasha and his youkai heritage.
Bankotsu has been listening to this explanation as he launches more attacks on Inuyasha, saying it certainly seems the way Miroku has described it. He tells Inuyasha that his resistance is WAY weaker than it was when they'd clashed the other day. He swings at Inuyasha in defensive stance again, advising him to just hurry up and die already, because even Bankotsu, human as he allegedly is, wants to get the hell off this disgusting island ASAP.
Shintarou suddenly breaks away from Kagome, running for the shrine as she calls out to him, shouting for Hakushin-Shounin and begging him to save them/lend his power to Inuyasha.
ALERT! The mummified man-baby has escaped the cradle!
And don't bother telling me I'll be cursed, because whatever. I'm already cursed by living in the United States right now. Eat me, lol.
As Kagome catches up to the boy, still calling to him, he blurts in horror that Hakushin-Shounin has disappeared. Kagome is in disbelief while Shintarou points to where he insisted the mummy was enshrined before. Wondering what's going on, she begins to ponder what Naraku's objective was in attacking the island. Then she runs back out of the shrine, telling Miroku standing outside that Hakushin-Shounin's remains have gone missing, and suggests the possibility of Naraku having stolen it. Again, this news produces surprise in Miroku too, but when he looks around him at the flower-carpeted ground, the main question on HIS mind is WHO put up the barrier here.
Meanwhile, Inuyasha is still locked in combat with Bankotsu, dodging a blow from the giant halberd in time for it to carve into the ground he was standing before. From the air, Inuyasha swings Tessaiga at Bankotsu, because the thing is still SHARP at least. Bankotsu glares, then...
Your reaction time leaves something to be desired, Inuyasha.
Inuyasha slams into the ground and skids through the flowers, a trail of blood arcing through the air after him. Miroku and Sango gape, the latter yelling his name in alarm. Inuyasha staggers to his feet, sleeve soaked in blood, cursing, and almost immediately has to lunge out of the way of another attack from Bankotsu, who inexplicably announces himself as he swings. Grunting in the effort, Inuyasha barely avoids this one, blood still flying. Must have hit an artery or something, SHIT.
Miroku pleads with Inuyasha silently to hold out just a while longer while he runs to an open space and spears the flowered ground with his staff. Pulling out a sheaf of his paper charms, he thinks the heart of the barrier has to be SOMEWHERE around here.
... Give me a moment.
Gracious, the awkward humor of this comic...
Anyway, Miroku tosses the paper charms on the breeze, thinking as he watches them float out from him that they should react with the center of the barrier erected here, Shippou's youki transferred over to them and all. So, is it canon now that youki is just static electricity apparently, lol! Just as Miroku predicted, a couple of the paper charms that drifted to his left crackle and spit over a dome appearing on the ground among the flowers. He cries in triumph that they go purified over there, and yanks his staff out of the ground to thrust it onto this little mini-dome instead. It crackles some more, a shape appearing beneath it.
I don't know what it is, but it looks like it could cut a bitch.
The little dome explodes, Miroku recoiling from the blast, the flowers being blown away. They disappear pretty much everywhere, something Sango notes with amazement while Kirara looks far more alert and perky at her side. A pulse runs through Inuyasha, and a tendril of breeze wraps around Tessaiga's blade. He knows immediately that the barrier has been broken and Kaze no Kizu has returned.
Shintarou trots up to the small crater in the ground where the above artifact still lay, Kagome following him over as Miroku kneels to examine it. The boy says after a moment of confused hesitation that this is the "dokko" that was installed in the shrine, having been Hakushin-Shounin's tool to concentrate his power in life. Kinda like a ceremonial knife in some other religious traditions. Kagome and Miroku gape, the former thinking Hakushin-Shounin lent his power to Naraku in disbelief. Yeah, it's becoming more and more undeniable, huh? You'd think if his power were really so "pure" and "holy" it might go away after being used for corrupt purposes, but...
Inuyasha is facing off against Bankotsu once again, appearing a lot more sturdy than before. Bankotsu laughs at him and asks if he thinks he's been saved.
Because this is just about feeling better, and has NOTHING to do with getting that all-important Kaze no Kizu to work.
So, what did I think of this chapter overall? The fact that Tessaiga could transform but not produce Kaze no Kizu, and Kirara/Shippou were made ill by the barrier on the island but not outright obliterated, was an interesting facet of this that I've never really considered before. It suggests the barrier on Hijiri Island is not just an extension of the one around the mountain, but specifically set up to act as a challenge ground for the largely youkai/hanyou enemies the Shichinin-tai would come up against, to give the Shichinin-tai a specific edge. Otherwise, the Shichinin-tai could just go behind the main barrier to retreat, as they did at first.
Whether this is a recent development that Naraku had set up after the first scuffle between his mercenaries and Inuyasha's group + allies isn't entirely clear. The implication IS that it was set up two weeks before when Naraku first attacked the shrine, given that his puppet had the smell of those flowers when confronting Inuyasha, and presumably they would have had to have a LITTLE time to bloom. Still, since they disappeared so fast after the barrier produced by the dokko was destroyed, there's no telling if they didn't appear just as fast when the barrier was set up. But if we can go with the former assumption that this was all set up two weeks before, that at least gives us a timeline regarding how long it's been since Naraku disappeared and how long it took everyone to find him.
Which... isn't long? For all the effort this must have taken Naraku, how he HAD to have had all this aligned when he needed and the amount of time he would have needed to put his pieces exactly where they had to be when he pulled the disappearing act, it did NOT give him much of a buffer until he everyone knew where he was. Thinking on how he needed to persuade Hakushin-Shounin to be an ally, grab him from the shrine, set up the dokko on the island so it would produce a barrier just mild enough to frustrate his youkai enemies, resurrect the Shichinin-tai, etc., he would have had to start work on all this... gracious, AGES before it all came to fruition. Possibly about the time when he spawned Goshinki? Maybe SOONER? I don't know if I buy that he had THAT much time.
I mean, the dude was ALREADY busy surveilling Inuyasha and company and giving birth to all manner of atrocities. How many hours are in his personal day? 70???
No comments:
Post a Comment