You mean the one that got burned out when the Shichinin-tai came to get him a few chapters ago? Is there anything LEFT of the thing to act as a setting? Probably not the best place to take Rin if he wants her to continue thinking he's probably a fine and dandy guy. Even if it looks okay and not at all fire-damaged, somehow, there are going to be a fair amount of people there who remember him being a total nutjob when he left. If he wants a "Cheers" sort of vibe, it'll have to be in the negative sense.
Because everybody definitely knows his name, but they're NOT so glad he came.
Rin is probably the only child at any time who could have benefited from all that "never talk to/listen to strangers" messaging that was flying around in the '90's when I was growing up. Everyone I knew just rolled their eyes at it, but at least this girl would have been the better for hearing it a few times. Just a tad too late for her, sadly.
Suikotsu informs Rin that he has a lot of other children about her age at his place who don't have relatives like here. Rin hums, still looking a bit wary, then asks about his village doctor status. He doesn't really elaborate on this for her, and instead tells her that she can see it now, the collection of buildings that make up his village below. I'm surprised that he seems a little shy about outright lying to Rin about his village doctor status NOT being revoked recently, since it's not like that should matter much in the long run.
Elsewhere, Kikyou is viewing the misty Mt. Hakurei from a nearby distant cliff, but she's apparently close ENOUGH to the village to perceive the aura of a Shikon fragment moving toward it. She seems a bit concerned about the feeling of this aura, but we get a narrow sky transition panel again before Kiykou can really give away more details. Sneaky sneaky RT doesn't want us learning too early what's going on behind the normal Suikotsu face. Except it's not so sneaky, because just from her abrupt cut to and from Kikyou, that draws up even more suspicions that things aren't what they seem.
As if there's weren't plenty of them to begin with.
At the medical hut where Suikotsu had been collecting the babies...
The girl sitting on the grass says Suikotsu's name in question, drawing a couple more familiar little faces from the hut door beyond, who look out at the former doctor warily. Suikotsu says he's sorry, specifically for being away. Not the whole "Mr. Hyde" transformation immediately preceding his leaving. The kids find themselves asking in caution if this guy is really the Suikotsu they knew. They're certainly not running to him in glee at his return. Suikotsu asks them what's happened, dumb to the tense atmosphere he's created as dumb can be.
A distance away, Jakotsu is crouching in the tall grass, SUPER annoyed with what he sees as a hopeless situation. He thinks Suikotsu has returned to being a fucking nice guy, and that he was right to wait for him here in case that happened. He moves to pull his sword from his back, preparing to "wake him" through those violent means so expected of his mercenary band. He pauses with a hum, though, when he sees a dark shape emerging over the crest of the hill, a group of village men with torches (no pitchforks, unfortunately), led by the old man who had come by before to tell of how he himself had vouched for the poor doctor when everyone was afraid he was a zombie.
No doubt he regrets his generosity at this point.
They mumble among themselves that they THOUGHT it had been Suikotsu they saw approaching the village, that he's come back, implying they had a lookout or two posted on the chance the dude would show back up. Suikotsu himself remains silent until they get closer, then ask what's with this whole group of them marching up there like that. The old man at the front pleads with Suikotsu to leave the village, citing him as the reason the Shichinin-tai attacked the settlement in the first place, and his face's demonic qualities at the time. Rin looks up at Suikotsu with a worried expression, and Suikotsu scoffs, before a spurt of blood arcs across the next panel.
Oh no, you don't say, he's still a piece of shit, how could we have ever seen this coming?
Rin watches the man collapse with another arc of blood with something like blank disbelief, while Jakotsu blinks in surprise from the tall grass and the other children recoil in horror. Smiling easy, Suikotsu labels the villagers as ungrateful for all the good care his doctor counterpart gave them. Yeah, they should totally turn the other way when you tromp back into town to kill some kids because someone who looks like you mended their sprained ankles and nursed them through colds one time. Sure, sounds fair.
The rest of the village men shriek with fear and turn to run, to which Suikotsu responds with a mild request for them to wait up. He holds up his not!Wolverine claws and runs after them, more blood flying off-panel. Rin is also recoiling now, at last coming to the realization that this guy IS the same psycho who attacked her and Jaken on the bridge.
So freaked out she turned into a Peanuts character.
With the villagers lying in a bloody dead heap on the ground, Jakotsu finally approaches the nonchalant Suikotsu asking what happened with him. Viscera dripping from his off-brand claws and face, he greets Jakotsu with mild surprise, asking if he was here all along. Jakotsu claims that Suikotsu wouldn't kill so much as a bug when he was wearing his nice-guy mien, so he has to know which Suikotsu the one in front of him is. Suikotsu launches into a bit of a monologue, saying at first he doesn't really know, but he feels better than ever, smiling. He tries to explain that half his head was always blank before, and he was always worried about when he might turn into someone else, but he feels different now, declaring he is himself. Must have jarred himself into the opposite of an existential crisis in the fall from the bridge if you ask me.
Jakotsu admits he really doesn't get it, but he DOES want to know if this means Suikotsu won't turn into the nice version of himself, even when they get near the barrier. Suikotsu puts out a tentative yes, reasoning that even here at the base of the mountain, the doctor hasn't come out, so he thinks he's fine now. Not likely a mental illness like this one can just go away like that on a whim, but okay.
One of the village orphans says Suikotsu's name in a whimper, but the older boy at their head says this guy isn't Suikotsu, though the face is the same. Suikotsu glares over at the kids wordlessly a moment, Rin staring at the inevitable disaster helplessly while she dangles from Jakotsu's fist, the only thing she can do being to cry for them to run away. Suikotsu raises the off-brand claws again, offering a going-away present for them? It's a weird line that doesn't really go with his next one that he'll send them to hell along with their elders, thrusting the claws at them in a punch-like manner. The kids recoil once more as a group, but their chances of running are slim.
Until a burst of pain wracks Suikotsu.
Proof above that it certainly wasn't Sesshoumaru; HE'S still on his way over, finally picking back up the scent of zombies from the base of Mt. Hakurei. Note Jaken, barely clinging to Sesshoumaru's furry accessory, because he's feeling VERY unwell at the moment - he mumbles and stutters that though it might just be his imagination, the barrier around the mountain appears to have gotten a lot stronger, more intense. Sesshoumaru doesn't respond to this, but there's a crackle of energy up near his face, and it seems to indicate that in fact, Jaken DOESN'T just have an overactive imagination. At least not in this case.
On the ground again, the group of village orphans continue to cringe from Suikotsu, who seems a bit STUCK - he's standing there with his off-brand claws raised, leaning into a swing that just WON'T follow through for him, and stuttering a curse. Jakotsu flatly asks him if he's going to kill these kids or not, and Suikotsu yells at him to shut it, no doubt a little embarrassed that his "I'm fine now" statement turned out to be pretty inaccurate so fast. A Saimyoushou buzzes onto the scene, and after a moment of looking up at it, Jakotsu turns to Suikotsu with a serious expression, warning him that Sesshoumaru is on his way. Excited, Rin asks for confirmation, but we don't stay long enough to see if Jakotsu bothers to answer her.
Because after a narrow sky transition featuring the crescent moon (real subtle there), we're back with Sesshoumaru and Jaken. Now that they're on solid ground, Jaken is on his own two feet, and frantically trying to reason with Sesshoumaru to wait; he says this is a trap, that the zombie dudes are using Rin as a lure to bring Sesshoumaru to the barrier. He's about to describe what will happen if Sesshoumaru goes any farther, but Sesshoumaru keeps on ignoring him, lifting off into the sky again without heed for the final desperate call from the the servant he's leaving behind.
It doesn't necessarily mean THAT, but there's a much more obvious conclusion you could draw for him dropping you off on the ground before continuing on.
Suikotsu and Jakotsu have climbed a little onto the base of Mt. Hakurei, Jakotsu pausing to look back and predict that that bastard Sesshoumaru won't be coming at all, by the logic that this area of the mountain would be too intense for him. Suikotsu is now the one dangling Rin by her sash, a little ways ahead of Jakotsu when he pauses in their climb and tells Jakotsu it doesn't seem like he's correct in that assessment. Sesshoumaru is emerging from the fog IN FRONT of them, even farther on the path than they are.
What, like your moves are so difficult to figure out, Jakotsu? You literally miscounted your own companions a little while ago, for fuck's sake.
Sesshoumaru lunges for them wordlessly, Tokijin drawn with a swish, and a LOT more crackles of energy surrounding him. Jakotsu swings his sword at the incoming enemy, wondering in alarm if the barrier doesn't actually affect this guy, since Sesshoumaru doesn't react at all to that energy trying to fry him out of existence. Sesshoumaru swats away the line of connected blades trying to curl around him again, striking a defensive stance as Jakotsu's weapon is deflected.
Yeah, maybe a fraction of a second, dude. My CAT has drawn more blood on me than that.
So, what did I think of this chapter overall? Another whiplash-inducing one, unfortunately. There were a lot of very short abrupt changes in scene that I think could have been reduced by a little rearranging. The only one of these I really agree needed to be where it was and as short as it turned out to be was the one with Kikyou. It helps to set up her entrance into the conflict later on, but it doesn't dwell long enough to make it super obvious.
The chapter doesn't dwell very long on Suikotsu's perceived unification of identity either, but I'm not sure it's a good thing in this case. He barely has time to get really cocky about his supposed freedom from his goody-two-shoes other half before it's proven the doctor isn't as gone as he'd hoped. The false line of thinking was so brief that it didn't have the opportunity to turn into a downfall for him, which is the kind of purpose a turn-around like that should serve. As it stands, he just wasn't able to kill those kids like he wanted. Less a "downfall", more a mild inconvenience. Anticlimactic, honestly.
Sesshoumaru manages to make me laugh again in this one, in a much more subtle way than usual. We get TWO characters who assume at first that Sesshoumaru's silence on the affect the barrier is having on him means it just DOESN'T affect him at all. Jaken will no doubt continue to think this; I suspect that Sesshoumaru dropped him off long before the destination for this reason, in addition to not having Jaken underfoot and complaining about how much the barrier hurts the whole fight, and Jaken's own safety of course. Sesshoumaru clearly doesn't want anyone to really know that he's vulnerable in any manner, for practical reasons as well as prideful. A guy like him who isn't as friendly as his brother (and that's saying something) can't really afford to show a lot of weakness even to allies.
I assume the only reason he's doing so in front of Rin here is because it's necessary and her tiny child status isn't liable to lend her any credibility if an enemy is looking to interview a close ally for vulnerabilities. As for Jakotsu and Suikotsu, Sesshoumaru is probz planning on them being too dead to say anything soon anyway.
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