Not a pleasant little reminiscence, I'll wager. Suikotsu probably has a major deficiency of good memories to look back on. Makes me thankful that I've been taking large hits of nostalgia off the Sims 1 soundtrack while I work during the day, boosted by my tinkering around on FreeSO intermittently over the past few weeks. They dig up a lot of fond memories I have of when having a PC was novel and my parents limited my time on the Sims so they could have a turn to check email and look up various odds and ends. It's a good thing too, because controlling those little people and all their little dramas on the screen became a tad consumptive of my young time, and far too easily. Not to mention, when I got bored or angry with the tiny digital things, they would often find themselves dying in a fire...
Gracious, at least MY frustrations were just taken out on simulated humans. Otherwise I might have just as somber a view of my memories at Suikotsu is bound to.
Well... this is awkward.
But Suikotsu seems to be taking it in stride. He expresses relief that he's reverted back to his good self at last, prevented before this moment by the black light that wouldn't let him come out. This black light got a little pushy, huh? Kikyou asks for confirmation that she's speaking to the DOCTOR Suikotsu, and not the other guy, while observing that his reversion would be due to her purifying arrow clearing the pollution from the Shikon shard in his neck. It DOES look like she hit pretty close to the fragment itself by the view we're given of it glowing just beneath the skin and the arrow sticking out just beneath it. She's a crack shot at this.
Kikyou wonders what she should do with this guy, and if it would be better to kill him, when Suikotsu himself pleads haltingly with her to take the Shikon shard in his neck so he can return to bones. With some initial surprise, Kikyou asks him in disbelief if he's REALLY choosing death, and he responds that he's finally remembered that he died once before. Suikotsu recounts the time when he was alive before as a time when his other self of the Shichinin-tai killed a ton of folks too, and he couldn't do a thing about it. He says he couldn't bear it if the same thing happens again, which must mean that he's currently experiencing some pretty hardcore inability to bear things, because, well... It would explain why he's so ready to end it right here, though.
Sesshoumaru and Rin just kind of look on, the former in the mildest interest one can muster, as Suikotsu asks Kikyou again to take the Shikon fragment out of his neck and save his soul. She looks gravely at him, as though she wants to tell him she can't guarantee ANY saving is going to happen, or maybe that's just my own projection. Either way, she says his name in confirmation and reaches out a trembling fist toward his neck. There's a "grip" sound effect that indicates she's grasping something I can't see, but perhaps it's just to indicate that she's clenching her fist, I'm not entirely sure.
Then a jagged flash of movement comes at them from off panel.
Ugh, he's BACK...
Jakotsu pulls back his blades, holding out a hand to catch the Shikon fragment that somehow was pulled all the way over to him with it at a pretty incredible distance. Kinda makes the trick of Renkotsu catching Ginkotsu's shard in an explosion look like another of those impossible abilities they have, like their magical face paint and super-duper strength. Jakotsu is smirking at Kikyou, telling her that he'll take the fragment as a souvenir. What's it a souvenir of? That time you pissed your pants and fled from one of those lady creatures you hate so much? I don't feel like THAT would be an occasion I'd personally like to remember, bro, but you do you.
Of course without the Shikon shard sustaining him, Suikotsu rapidly collapses to dust and bones like the others, something that freaks out Rin and Kikyou watches with a small amount of horror. That can't bode well for what her eventual exit is going to look like, after all. Jakotsu fucks off into the mist again, tossing back a casual farewell, and Kikyou refocuses on him to confirm that his is indeed fading into the sacred grounds where she can't follow. Suikotsu's skeletal hand draws her eye again, and she expresses some pity for the poor Suikotsu.
No doubt the doctor one. Not the other one. He sucked, I think we can all agree.
Rin timidly approaches Kikyou to thank the kind miko for saving her, and Kikyou accepts this gratitude, asking if Rin is injured and stating she must have been scared. While she says she was, Rin also casts around for a way to describe this person, clearly quite conflicted on what his nature really was. Then she notices that Sesshoumaru has turned around and is walking off, having finally become too bored (or uncomfortable in proximity to the barrier, but SHHHHH, that's a secret) to keep hanging out, and she immediately trots off to join him with a hurried goodbye to Kikyou over her shoulder. Kikyou shuffles back to her horse, acknowledging that she's got to get out of there before her dead soul battery is dead and she won't be able to move anymore.
We change scene with a shot of the steep mountainside peppered with foliage and mist. Do you think the sky is starting to get worried that it's got some competition for transition panels now? Miroku and Sango hike up the rocky path around the side, Sango stating that there's nothing here, and Miroku agreeing that, as usual for this area, he's not sensed any evil. Sango expresses a little doubt that Naraku is here after all, and Miroku suggests that all they can really do is continue to climb. He admits that he acutely feels the absence of Inuyasha since they split from him and Kagome. Sango agrees that Inuyasha's good nose is rather handy, Miroku adding that Inuyasha's energetic nature would let him run around all night long looking for Naraku if you left him to it. Awww, you guys are so NICE to him when he's not around, lol.
In the round border of her mirror, Kanna is showing Kohaku this scene of Miroku and Sango climbing the mountain, the two of them standing in the pillared hall of the oh-so-valuable Hakushin-Shounin.
She look familiar, buddy? He doesn't say, but he DOES hope that she turns back without noticing their hideout, because, inexplicably, he doesn't want to fight her. Actually, scratch that, with that massive thing on her back to swing at me, I also wouldn't want to fight her, no odd feeling of connection required.
We get a couple black and gray transition panels, and that sky must really be threatened now. Kouga's name is called a couple of times over them, and he groans as he opens his eyes. Mohawk, Two-Tone, Kagome and Shippou are gathered around him, the former two's eyes welling up with tears of relief as they shout to him again, and the latter observing that he's awake now.
Must have been the most still he's ever been in his LIFE.
Mohawk reminds him that he got caught up in the explosion of Ginkotsu he caused, and Kouga groggily affirms that he remembers. Kagome hovers over him, asking if he's okay, and he's hesitant to answer at first, trailing in describing how he's feeling. Then he snarls in a burst of anger that somehow, he's REALLY pissed off. He bares his teeth in frustration as he brings his arms up to sniff, demanding to know why his whole body stinks of dog. Well it's certainly not because you and Inuyasha shared a single night of passion, disappointing as that is to the fangirls. Mohawk and Two-Tone exchange exasperated glances.
Hands clasped in supplication, Kagome informs Kouga that Inuyasha carried him all the way here. Kouga is in horrified disbelief at this, Two-Tone clarifying Kagome had asked this of Inuyasha. Sitting up at lightning speed to hit both his followers over the head in quick succession, he asked in a fury why they ALLOWED this to happen, and though his head is bowed with deference, Two-Tone answers that they were also injured, for starters. Kagome turns at a voice at the mouth of the cave scoffing and expressing the opinion it would have been better to leave behind the idiot Kouga, not for the first time, it might be noted. Inuyasha has shown up, SOPPING WET, and adding that he wasn't exactly expecting gratitude from the start, though.
Kagome holds a hand to her mouth, asking what happened that soaked Inuyasha so thoroughly, and he barks back that it's obvious he had to take a bath to get that disgusting wolf smell off him.
It's ridiculously easy to piss both of you off, so forgive me if I'm not taking all this incessant moaning about how bad either of you smells seriously.
Inuyasha turns back to the mouth of the cave from whence he came, inviting Kagome to get the hell out of there with him. She makes a questioning noise, and Inuyasha begins to argue that they brought him to a safe place, and it's no concern of his at this point if Kouga lives or dies, when his nose twitches in alarm. Kagome joins him at the cave entrance, also somewhat alarmed, to look out at the roaring river beyond and the odd atmosphere that seems to have formed in the background. She feels the presence of a Shikon shard, and tells Inuyasha that the Shichinin-tai are close. Inuyasha agrees, thinking that he's smelling the "gun-powder" guy nearby.
A rumble reverberates through the rocks around them, and a shocked Kagome identifies it as an explosion, the Shippou on her shoulder leaning out and assessing that it happened more downstream. A whirlpool in the river appears, and Inuyasha sees this as the stream's flow being held back. Then a trickle of fire comes along to replace it.
Inuyasha and Kagome look up, finding alarmingly that there is a familiar silhouette atop the rocky outcrop opposite their cave with the fire river between them. Inuyasha identifies this silhouette as Renkotsu with a growl - nice to know that he remembers the guy's name. No doubt it would be clumsy to continually refer to him as "gun powder guy". Kouga grunts about that bastard still being alive from inside the cave, clearly trying to push himself up, probably into a standing position.
I feel like he's about to make an argument as to why they should stay IN the hole. I'm not the only one, right?
So, what did I think of this chapter overall? Suikotsu's last confession didn't really inspire much sympathy in me. Yes, he had a limited memory up until the end, and limited ability to override his other personality with the corrupted Shikon shard getting in his way, but his own admission that he could do little even in his previous life when the Shikon fragment had NO influence over him caught my attention as important. If proximity to the purifying barrier, use of the powers of the jewel are not a factor, and Suikotsu was STILL not able to overpower his alternate self, I have to conclude that there is something ELSE getting in his way at the end of it all. He managed to gain enough influence to save the children of the village, but didn't quite put up enough effort for the older villagers. That says something that I don't necessarily think is flattering to the character. Then again, there's not a lot flattering about the character that is kind of a mockery of a misconception of multiple personalities, though, so...
But this confession also didn't strike me as being much ABOUT Suikotsu, either. It is obvious since Kikyou approaches the barrier and is inhibited by it, all the way to when Sesshoumaru observes that she too is technically dead, that she shares more in common with Suikotsu than it's easy to admit. She expresses discomfort and shock at the notion that Suikotsu chooses death, hesitates when reaching out to complete his request. It's clearly causing her to reflect on the nature of her own existence, especially his comment about how he couldn't bear it if he continued to allow his alternate self hurt people by clinging to his pseudo-life. Though she doesn't vocalize or even think it, I have to imagine her wondering if she also is hurting people by her continued unnatural existence, if her use of souls to power her body is harmful to those souls, and if she is really doing more good than she is just grasping at a second chance at a life she has no control over anyway.
There's not much to say about Kohaku being hesitant to fight Sango if she makes it up to Naraku's hiding place, except that Kanna seems to be showing him this in an attempt to get him to DO something about it before they get too close. With all Kohaku's hesitance to act when he is confronted with an enemy of Naraku, it really is a wonder that Naraku has kept him around so long. Naraku WARNED Kohaku that his memory would end up being his end through a full-on demonstration, but I think the real danger here is his particular memory that stands alone of Sango's face that causes him hesitation in the face of action. And I don't mean danger for Kohaku, but danger for NARAKU, who refuses to relegate Koahku to mere collateral and stop using him in active roles.
And finally, Kouga and Inuyasha pissing and moaning about how the other smells bad is a pretty nice little intermission before another serious battle, a funny little palate cleanser that is very welcome. This arc can get a little relentless in how much is going on at one time, so anything light-hearted that breaks up the tension is a relief at this point. You know I love that action, but I'm kind of getting exhausted by the constant danger everyone is in, not gonna lie.
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