Or the approximation of a life, anyway. It's already been established that everything from her body to her existence in the current moment is a bit of an imitation, but adding that to the title wouldn't be as punchy. Besides, it's not like her walking around in imitation form didn't have an effect on the other characters, even if the effect on HER was a bit limited. Being unable to grow and change in a large capacity gives her character evolution very little wiggle room, but just like a good Superman story, the focus will generally be on the impact on the people AROUND her rather than herself.
What's with the perspective here? Either Inuyasha is TINY or Sesshoumaru very oddly large. Send it back!
Totally not what I should be focusing on in this scene, BTDubz. Inuyasha quietly says Kikyou's name, asserting internally that this CANNOT be happening. He thinks about what Kikyou said about Naraku not being able to kill her while Onigumo's heart that still yearns for her remains. The worst way in the world to find out that someone in your life made a BIG miscalculation.
Jaken has sidled up to the edge of the crevice in the rock and comments on how terrible the miasma is, and how there's no way that woman survived. Then he notices that Sesshoumaru has turned around and started strolling off, he cries out to his uncaring master and scrambles to join him. Inuyasha's shout for him to wait just a fucking minute actually gets Sesshoumaru's attention though, and he pauses to turn and stare at Inuyasha out of his periphery. Inuyasha asks if Sesshoumaru just stood there and watched Kikyou get murdered, a fair question, all things considered. Sesshoumaru shoots back his own question about what kind of connection Inuyasha had to that woman, but then adds that he's not particularly interested in the answer, because Sesshoumaru is basically a conglomeration of utterly superfluous actions and words nowadays. He then twists to give Inuyasha a more direct harsh glare and tells him that NARAKU was the one who killed this Kikyou person.
Sesshoumaru, allow me to raise a popular quote that is frequently attributed to Edmund Burke: "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men should do nothing" or something like that. Then again, Sesshoumaru has never claimed to be a good man, so maybe he wouldn't think much of this either way.
Still, fuck you very much, dude.
Sesshoumaru starts off again, tossing over his shoulder the advice that if Inuyasha has time to growl at HIM, then he has time to go after Naraku, Jaken agreeing whole-heartedly before they disappear into the fog that totes shouldn't exist anymore now that the holy ground is gone. Regardless, Inuyasha growls some more, grinding his teeth, trying to come up with some sort of thing to say to the memory of the woman he failed to protect.
The rest of the group, plus Kouga runs/rides in on Kirara, Miroku calling to Inuyasha. Kagome does the same as she dismounts Kirara, when he doesn't answer. He remains silent, staring over the side of the crack in the earth, standing next to the broken bow on the ground. Kagome recognizes it just like Inuyasha did, and has pretty much the same expression. She states firmly to the others that something has happened to Kikyou, getting a general response of bewilderment more than anything.
Is it insensitive of me to express some doubt? Because until I see the dissolve FX...
A narrow sky transition panel leads into a picture of the moon in the night sky, then a stream of smoke coming up from the ground in a sheltered spot nestled between two shorter cliffs. Kouga blurts out a surprised statement about Naraku just doing all this shit to kill one ordinary woman, almost looking defensive as he lists Naraku's seclusion in a mountain and controlling of a massive barrier in disbelief at the Inuyasha crew sitting around a campfire. Miroku answers that Kikyou is no ordinary woman, informing Kouga that Naraku was pretty scared of Kikyou's spiritual powers. Kagome adds that Naraku had a human heart, Onigumo's, that yearned for Kikyou and he REALLY wanted to get rid of that shit. Sango recalls the time that Naraku literally expelled that human heart into the world and they had to deal with that shit.
Miroku elaborates on this to Kouga, the whole Musou incident where the guy with Onigumo's memories (highly truncated, anyway), but that guy was reabsorbed into Naraku by the end of the whole debacle. Naraku had said it was too early for Musou to come out, as Miroku remembers. Kagome starts to comment on what Naraku is doing now, when Miroku intercepts this trailing thought, connecting it with the weird lumpy baby flesh creatures that he and Sango saw in Mt. Hakurei. Sango says Naraku made those things to spit out and and seal his human heart, adding a "probably" on the end there so she doesn't sound TOO much like she read the script.
Working off all this new information, Kouga concludes that after finishing off the frightening miko, Naraku is now able to do whatever he wants without recourse. Not that he wasn't already kind of doing that? Miroku and Sango just kind of glare at him over the fire, letting the "well, I GUESS" response hanging out in the subtext. Kouga turns, announcing that he's not going to let Naraku just get away with whatever, and that he's leaving now.
Before he can make good on this promise, Two-Tone and Mohawk jog up to him, panting, at last having caught up apparently. Kouga drawls a greeting, then grabs Kagome's hands in his, bidding her farewell and asking her to take care. Once she affirms his well wishes and asks of him the same, Kouga lingers awkwardly in that romantic pose for a moment. Kagome asks him what the deal is and he turns to look around, saying that the "Dog-Turd" isn't interfering with his declarations like usual.
Yeeeeaaaaah, did you notice KAGOME'S gloomy expression, Kouga?
Did you?
Shippou glares at his lap, internally cursing that Inuyasha for leaving Kagome on her own and gone looking for Kikyou. Disgusting, to continue to care about another lady even after she's presumably dead. How dare he.
Kagome is moping a bit, contemplating Inuyasha, in an emotionally fraught mental space. Meanwhile, Inuyasha is thinking on Kikyou as he rushes along on the barren rocks among charred trees. He sets down next to that miasma river, still glugging along, with what looks like a whole-ass horse skeleton sitting in the middle of it.
Oh, I guess it's a deer? It didn't have antlers in the previous panel, so you understand my confusion. Of course that's a small thing to gripe about during this ENVIRONMENTAL DISASTER, but given how frequent those are in the real world nowadays, I'm a little desensitized.
Inuyasha says Kikyou's name in clear frustration, whirls around and suggests to the surrounding polluted landscape that Kikyou is somewhere in it, and receives no answer whatsoever. He's running along the miasma river, reflected in it as he wonders WHY Kikyou tried to fight by herself, and why she couldn't have waited until he arrived. Not that it was even her INTENTION to fight, but Inuyasha is tripping balls if he thinks that Naraku himself would have waited until Inuyasha arrived to attack. Must be all the miasma fumes.
He recalls what that dick Sesshoumaru said about HIM being the one to fail at saving Kikyou, taking it entirely too much to heart and slowing to a dazed amble along the toxic river bank, looking upwards as though there's an epiphany there about what his responsibility in this situation is. He then drops to his knees and punching the ground, cursing. He's certain that if he had just run a bit faster...
A short distance from the smouldering remains of their campfire, and her friends sitting/laying around it in light slumber, Kagome is sitting up staring off into the distance, still thinking on Inuyasha. At long last, his form emerges from the morning fog, and she stands in anticipation, though looks pretty anxious at him appearance. Miroku and Sango open their eyes and look over too. It was a REALLY light slumber, apparently.
As Inuyasha comes up, he spots Kagome and calls her name in question, asking if she stayed awake this whole time waiting. He's hanging his head morosely. Kagome affirms this, not asking aloud if he didn't find Kikyou, because it's pretty obvious that he didn't. Inuyasha lowers his head even further, mumbling that he thought he could have at least found some remains. Kagome looks on Inuyasha with sorrow, saying his name, no doubt unable to think of anything else to say here.
Inuyasha looks up, pained expression barely controlled, and apologizes but also says he's okay now. LIAR. Kagome doesn't call him on it, acknowledges his statement even, though she thinks on the word he used and watches him pass her with the absolute knowledge that he doesn't LOOK "okay" at all.
Hooo boy, if that isn't a question EVERYONE wishes they knew the answer to.
So, what did I think of this chapter overall? Suprise! The cold-open actually had something of a point to make about the analysis here at the end! Part of Kikyou's role as a foil to Kagome is rooted in her past with Inuyasha and the big betrayal/misunderstanding they had at the VERY beginning of the story. Once they learned the truth about how they had been played against one another by Naraku, Kikyou's reaction was a shaky strategy based on her former experience protecting the Shikon no Tama and housing Onigumo in that cave; a very limited plan that counted on circumstances to be as static as she is.
Inuyasha's reaction was a bloom of guilt and shame at the two of them failing to trust and rely upon one another. He has declared in the past that he's dedicated to not making that mistake again, to protect her thoroughly and trust she knows what she's doing, but even that wasn't enough in this case. Her (alleged) death has the impact on him in this chapter it does because he now feels like he failed her twice over, with the compounding pain that goes with it.
This is why, even though I'm finding Sesshoumaru EVEN MORE insufferable at the beginning of the chapter than usual, I think his rhetorical question about Inuyasha's connection to Kikyou is so interesting. He's clearly gathered though Inuyasha's reaction here that it was an intimate, even romantic, type of connection, so it's understandable that he would discourage any elaboration on the subject. But BECAUSE he doesn't know the details of that connection, he can't possibly know how hard he was really hitting Inuyasha with that "it was you who failed to save her" line. I'm not saying that knowing the background of this having happened before would have discouraged Sesshoumaru from saying what he did, but I do think it's kind of fascinating how much psychic damage he did without even realizing it.
Almost as fascinating I find it that Kouga was noting INUYASHA'S expressions before he took off without noticing KAGOME'S at that moment. I've mentioned before how Inuyasha and Kouga's relationship has long evolved into a loop without Kagome even really in it anymore, but this is some more blatant evidence for that here, even if it's a very small slightly comedic statement. At this point we may as well acknowledge that Kouga has completely stopped seeing Kagome as a romantic prospect, and views her more as a button to push to get Inuyasha's attention.
And, at last, we get to Kagome. There isn't much in THIS chapter to go off of here regarding her feelings - she, like Miroku and Sango, seems to be on the gloomy side, but slid way further along the scale. But it's very obvious that there's a lot more going on behind how upset she is than meets the eye. Fifteen as she is, it's probably not a stretch for anyone to suppose there was just a little relief, maybe even slight happiness, at Kikyou being gone, since there's her young'un impulse to view the bond between Inuyasha and Kikyou as a threat. There's the same "duh" factor to more jealousy flaring up at Inuyasha going off to look for Kikyou and leaving her behind to fret. But if that were EVERYTHING, she wouldn't be looking like THAT. Though RT's same-face syndrome is one of the more notorious in the industry, she's also REALLY good at depicting nuanced and dynamic facial expressions. Kagome's feelings around Kikyou's (alleged) death are just as complex as Inuyasha's, because she ALSO has a bond with Kikyou. They share the same soul. It ain't nothing. But since this chapter is dealing more with the intricacies of Inuyasha's reaction, it's not shocking that RT didn't try to stuff it overfull with Kagome's contemplations too.
One emotional crisis at a time is probably a good rule to follow.
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