Why do we build the wall? Why the wall keeps out the enemy, so we build the wall to keep us free! At least that's what I'm told by Hades. I don't think they built the wall out of FLESH, though, which is a rather soft, vulnerable substance that's notoriously BAD at keeping one's enemies out. But walls made of flesh are actually great at keeping certain things IN, whether that's to keep them nice and secure, or maybe even trapped. Perhaps an enemy too, if your flesh can incorporate a completely separate body.
Anyway, all my meandering musings about flesh walls is making me feel creepy. Enjoy this weird Inuyasha chapter!
Inuyasha is feeling a little creeped out too, but in a different way. He notes that the texture of the ground is different, or rather, the texture of the whole cave. Veins are beginning to form on every bulging, pulsing surface, and some of said surface is crawling over Bankotsu's inert half-torso. Inuyasha is real quick in identifying it as like a "wall of flesh", and saying the chapter title in record time! Unfortunately, his only confetti is whatever dust is left shaking down all around him and turning into stomach acid or something.
I have to imagine that this is like getting slobbered on by several separate Gene Simmons tongues.
*Shudder**Retch*
As the tentacles bear him ever upwards, squishing in on him from all sides, he croaks a curse about how he can't move, adding internally that he's on the express train up toward a pinprick of light. Elsewhere in the mountain, Kouga is leading a charge inside another cave, following the pulsing that he observes has gotten louder. No chance that could just be because he's IN the mountain now or anything. He calls to Kagome to hurry along behind him, Shippou still riding the transformed Kirara bringing up the rear.
Suddenly, Kouga twists to look down at his legs, which are sinking into the rapidly transforming substance of the cave. Kagome shouts to him in concern, because he's already waist-deep in the gross shit by the time we see him again in the next panel. He struggles against it like a quicksand, cursing and asking haltingly what this garbage is.
But by the time she gets close enough, Kouga has already been swallowed up. Fast-acting. When her hand lands on the place where he disappeared into the floor, saying Kouga's name with alarm, she notes in confusion that it's not rock. Kagome sits up and looks above her at the rock that has been transformed, veins popping out everywhere, slowly coming to the conclusion about what the ENTIRE inside of this hole is.
I'm going to refrain from making the obvious lewd joke here. There would simply be NO excuse for it.
As she stands, gaping and in mild shock, Shippou suggests that they're also going to be eaten, clinging to her blouse in fear. She admits she doesn't know, but says they're already inside anyway, so she starts to pull Kirara farther along into the cave with the stated intention of them going after Kouga. Shippou is NOT down with this making a noise of disbelief before he scrambles up to her shoulder instead, eyes watery while he asks where Kouga was supposed to have gone. Kagome says she cane feel him, or rather the Shikon shards in his legs. She can sense them moving through these walls of flesh, DIRECTLY toward the polluted jewel she's felt since they were outside the mountain.
After a few steps, Kagome pauses at a sizzle sounding under her shoe. She hears the same noise when a drop of something falls from the ceiling and burns into her sleeve. With renewed alarm, she identifies the substance as acid, glancing around nervously at all the slimy film forming on the flesh around her. A drop of it falls onto Shippou's tail and he yelps in pain, and Kagome cries that it's dissolving while the sprinkle from the ceiling increases. Kirara acts quickly, seizing the back of Kagome's sailor blouse once again as she tries to encase Shippou in the protection of her arms.
Best kitty.
Kagome twists to call up to Kirara, but she hangs her head again in a suppressed cough, learning that the noxious air going into her lungs is painful. Kirara's paws sizzle as well when they touch down to push to a higher speed. Next thing they know, Kirara is bursting out of the cave into a wider chamber in the big fleshy mountain, Shippou crying out in relief that they got away from the digestive tract. Kagome agrees weakly, throat probz still sore from the miasma swirling around in there.
Kirara sets down on a relatively level lump sticking out from the wall, one that apparently isn't secreting acid. Kagome thanks Kirara and looks around, trying to identify where they are. Shippou calls for her to look up where he is, at ceiling filled with what looks like a load of fleshy popcorn, slowly dripping out of a clear malleable amniotic sack. Gross.
Shippou guesses that they're youkai, but Kagome says that this doesn't quite seem the right category to put them in. From the other side of the fleshy barrier, they hear someone commenting on their voices, correctly identifying them as Kagome and Shippou. Kagome makes another confused sound, watching the tip of something poke through the fleshy popcorn barrier of hell.
Well, the gang's ALMOST back together again.
Kagome's happiness at reunion is short-lived, as she immediately wonders where Inuyasha is, since she can't see him up there with her other friends. She asks them if Inuyasha isn't with them, and Sango responds with a confused sound. There's no time to clarify the situation - a sudden shudder shakes all of them. Kagome clings to Kirara's neck, Miroku and Sango jostled off the edge of their perch in the lumps of popcorn baby flesh. Kirara is fast to fly out and catch them, both landing sprawled on the back of the giant cat. Kagome is supported by Shippou, who strains to keep her aloft in giant balloon form, stuttering that he has her. She acknowledges this in a similar halting manner, too shocked to be overly grateful at the moment, I'll warrant.
She sees something over the side of Shippou's round form, alarmed to regard a wriggling mass of tentacles rising from the dark depths of the mountain, which she vocalizes in disbelief. It shoots up past her and Miroku and Sango in a HUGE hurry, giving Kagome a good view of its tightly wound limbs as it rushes ever higher.
He really passed out, didn't he? You think it's the G's those tentacles are pulling or the fact that he's lost probably a third of his blood?
Either way, his eyes flutter open at the sound of Kagome screaming his name, then a voice that mocks his paralysis and being trapped inside the speaker's body. Inuyasha looks around to where he hears his antagonist, and no one will be even a LITTLE shocked to find out who it is.
Shouldn't you be happy? You've been trying to get to the guy for the last several chapters.
So, what did I think of this chapter overall? It escalated things really quickly, but in a very satisfying way. I always love it when this series returns to the horror elements that were more prevalent in the beginning, and we get a lot of really creepy moments in this one. Between Inuyasha and Kouga getting trapped in flesh-prisons, Kagome, Shippou, and Kirara almost getting dissolved by acid, or the general body horror in which they are all caught up in, the chapter pretty consistently made my skin crawl. Reminds a little of the more unnerving content of the "Mystery Flesh Pit" website: https://www.mysteryfleshpitnationalpark.com/ .
But the detailed mapping and thought-out design of speculative biology is missing in this chapter, of course. There isn't a lot of indication HOW the "landscapes" of Naraku's flesh mountain work as a body, and even less indication of what purpose the tentacle appendages serve on the INSIDE of it. Being a shapeshifter, I can imagine that Naraku has some control of the location of his organs and such, but there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it. Just one more example of how RT neglects her world-building in very conspicuous ways.
At least Inuyasha and company aren't PAYING for this dangerous and deadly exploration of a massive body nobody (even the author) has any understanding of. If Naraku were TRULY evil, he'd be selling tickets to his victims like the capitalists interests of The Mystery Flesh Pit. XD
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