Don't know where that little grotto/cave is that Sango is chained up in, but I can't decide if she's better off in THERE or going back above where someone WILL punch her in the gut. Man, did Sango get a raw deal in this arc. Being restrained and forced to eat nasty amphibian eggs, then inevitably being forced to cough them up with a violent blow to the stomach? I've had some bad days, but I don't know if any of them can compare to THAT garbage.
It's a good thing she's a tough girl. She's going to need to be, unfortunately.
"Just that I'd like to slurp it up. Is that weird?"
The salamander explains that a hanyou skin is much better than a regular human's, estimating it to worth five or even ten men's. Is it just like, more nutritious, or...? It casually plans, to Inuyasha's FACE, to eat him and finish up its resurrection right quick. Inuyasha scoffs that he doesn't know what the salamander means by all that nonsense, but he doesn't want to be made to laugh by the "threat" that the big amphibian is going to eat him, drawing Tessaiga. Mid-leap at the salamander, the village women shoot up out of the water and hover in front of it as a human shield.
Or, at least they did for a moment. Then they full-on launch straight at Inuyasha and collide with him, and they're not the only ones.
Kagome was still standing on that big rock, by the way. As the stone breaks up beneath her feet, she loses her balance, and either her or Shippou flying off her shoulder shriek. Inuyasha calls out to Kagome in concern, because he doesn't have anything more pressing to worry about than if Kagome scrapes her knees or something.
A pair of unknown hands catch Kagome by her shoulders before she falls entirely, which she seems alarmed by, and it's revealed in the next panel to be Miroku, shouting about how the salamander has shown its true form. That was... an entirely superfluous mini-mystery, but cool, I guess. Kagome says Miroku's name like she's surprised he's there, perhaps assuming he was BUSY with something else, considering the last time she saw him.
Miroku yells at Inuyasha to try and route the women over to him, and Inuyasha complies, throwing out an arm so the women clinging to his front to stop him are flung in Miroku's direction. With a cursory plea for forgiveness toward one of the zombified women traveling toward him, he starts throwing hands, quickly punching each of the ladies in the stomach. They in turn cough into their hands, then pass out on the rock below, a wriggling salamander infant trailing from their unconscious mouths. Miroku couldn't be bothered to catch THEM, I see. Shippou recoils in horror at the salamander he saw come up from one woman's stomach.
Inuyasha comes to the same conclusion as Miroku, which is that these salamander infants were the ones controlling the women of the community all along. The parent salamander laughs that these women were weak at heart.
How weak of them to be affected by petty things like the deaths of loved-ones! What rubes!
The salamander cites this as the reason they sought to soothe their aching hearts and the hanging scroll in the Temple of Kannon. Kagome muses on how she could have SWORN one of those flying scrolls just flew past her a minute ago, not having been IN the temple herself to recognize it more clearly. Miroku fills her in on how the salamander monster in front of them had been sealed inside the scroll she saw, and she makes a noncommittal noise, because she's still missing a few dots to connect for this to be an "ah-ha" kind of moment.
Inuyasha asks the salamander why it decided to come out NOW, and it chuckles that while it doesn't know exactly what happened while it was sealed away, but it did pick up that a great source of evil arose and gave it a little baby boost. Kagome speculates that this might be Naraku's influence, which is a fair conclusion to draw given his more pervasive miasmic form of evil.
Miroku looks around at a couple of women from the water moving toward him, Kagome and Shippou - oh yeah, there are women to knock around. Inuyasha assures him that he'll take care of the big salamander guy, and Miroku agrees that he'll in turn "take care of" the women. Big yikes.
There must have been a line here where Miroku asked for Sango to jump in on this action too that the scanlator forgot to include, because in the next panel, Shippou is asking Miroku what he's talking about from Kagome's arms, telling him Sango isn't here. As Miroku grapples with another possessed woman, pushing aside a her blunt staff, Kagome asks him if he didn't even NOTICE Sango wasn't there. He makes a questioning noise of his own in response and, jabbing the woman in front of him in the stimach with her own staff, asks what Sango is off doing then. Kagome gives him a worried, pleading look, telling him that Sango disappeared when she went off after the women alone, after they spied him two-timing her with one of the village women. He sweatdrops and looks highly uncomfortable with this information.
Kirara bounds over by Miroku's foot, meowing up and him in small kitten form. Kagome says Kirara's name in surprise while Shippou remarks on the drenched fur of the cat.
Meanwhile, Inuyasha raises Tessaiga above his head and invites the giant salamander to go. It just reiterates its intention to eat the hanyou.
The salamander parts rain down in an anticlimactic gore shower into the water. I hope the community isn't depending on that as a drinking source...
Kagome looks a little shocked for some reason, while Shippou shouts that Inuyasha got the thing with a delighted air. But Miroku and Kagome turn to see that they've still got zombie salamander women shambling towards them. Kagome questions how the village women are still being controlled now that the main youkai's been defeated. Clearly this isn't a "head vampire" type deal. Miroku states that it looks like they'll have to remove the salamander infants from the women's stomachs one by one. Should be easy, what with them just walking up to get punched in the guts like that.
But Miroku's not planning on doing this involved work himself. He immediately turns to a perplexed Inuyasha, barely asking for confirmation that he's aware how to get the salamanders out of these women's stomachs before he announces he's leaving the rest to him so he can leap on the transformed Kirara's back, thinking of Sango. Watch, he comes back and Inuyasha's performing complicated surgery on the women. I don't know if that would be funny or tragic.
Did Shippou NOT point out to you that Kirara was wet?
Something comes hurtling at them through the water from below and Kirara has to dodge to avoid it. Miroku sees down on the bed of the lake/river, there's a dark figure with a familiar ponytail and outline floating near what looks like a cave with... an raised grate at the entrance? Did... did they NEED to put a gate blocking the way into an underwater cave? Who was going to wander down there and waltz in, except fish???
Anyway, just in case you hadn't guessed it was Hiraikotsu that had come at Miroku and Kirara in the water, we see it bursting from and arcing over the water in the air above. Sango has risen from the water herself and catches it without any fanfare. And last but not least, Miroku and Kirara burst from the lake/river as well, the former shouting Sango's name.
Honestly, I'm a little in disbelief as well. The idea of Sango being FORCED to do anything by those weird village waifs is a bit of a stretch.
Kirara bounds forward while Miroku announces he's coming to save Sango right now. By punching her in the gut. *Ahem* Sango throws Hiraikotsu again and it SHATTERS a rock nearby when Kirara leaps to the side again to avoid it. Meanwhile, Sango jumps out of the water and onto a rock outcrop next to her, tapping it in what looks like a very deliberate manner with her fist. Once Kirara gets close enough, Miroku leaps off and runs toward Sango, shouting her name some more. Before he can reach her, Hiraikotsu hits like lightning between them and bounces back up to be caught by Sango, Miroku thrown backward in surprise. He has to duck when Sango swings the giant boomerang at his head, while it at last dawns on him that getting rid of her belly-salamander won't be as easy as it was with the village women. Yeah, no shit, Sherlock.
He shifts mental tracks, knowing he has to get closer to her. Somehow there's a bit of distance between them again, and she's running to swing dispassionately at him again, though they were JUST right next to one another. Miroku aims and throws his staff like a javelin at her.
Whoopsie Daisy!
Miroku announces that he's got her now, and runs at her with his right fist already balled up and ready to go. But Sango makes a slashing motion, or at least a slashing sound effect that the close-up of her empty expression doesn't really show the accompanying motion for, and there's blood spatter over the panel following it.
Cut to Inuyasha standing among a smattering of unconscious women laying around on the rocky bank, having already performed the dark deed Miroku requested comfortably OFF-panel, while Kagome stabs a salamander-infant with one of her arrows. Awkward-sauce. He's looked around in surprise at the sudden scent of blood he's smelling, Kagome responding in question, but neither of them seeming to move very quickly to see why or how this is the case.
No surprise that it's Miroku, whose blood splatters on the rock next to his feet and he grips his arm tightly where Sango had cut it a moment ago with the sword she rarely uses. He sighs at her, and tells Kirara not to worry when the saber-toothed feline's head swivels toward him and his injury. He insists Kirara should leave Sango to him, that he'll "deal" with her.
I feel weird hoping homegirl throttles his stupid ass, considering she's possessed, but this is the position RT put me in.
So, what did I think of this chapter overall? I do think there's an interesting implication in the scene where Miroku has to be informed that Sango isn't actually there and is missing. I checked in my official Viz version of this chapter (took a bit of digging around in a closet, lol), and it does appear that Miroku said that he AND Sango would take care of the village women in there. Regardless of which version of this chapter is more accurate to the original Japanese, the sense of Miroku taking Sango for granted and just kind of expecting she's around and available to help out whenever. Since she confessed her feelings for him so brazenly back at Mt. Hakurei, he can't really claim to be ignorant of that aspect of their relationship either, so there's also a HINT of exploitation of that as well - like she'll be a pliable resource for him no matter what he says or does because she likes him.
So it might very well be a valuable lesson for this character to remind him just who the hell he's dealing with, honestly. Sango's the only member of this team without magical powers and kicks SERIOUS ass, to the point where they've all come to depend on her, Miroku especially. There's a little justice in Miroku learning how difficult things would be for him if Sango didn't like him as much as she does, and give her the respect she deserves for only being annoyed with him when he's on one of his flirt-binges. All the same, I'm not sure the upcoming resolution of this conflict really addresses Miroku's tendency to take Sango for granted, but we'll see, I suppose. I don't remember the end of this arc all that well, to be honest, it's been a while since I last read it.
Also, can I just say, I liked this arc better when it was called the Oni's Head Castle arc? Similar angry sealed youkai that was given extra power by Naraku passing by, similar Sango jealousy side-plot, and thankfully lacking in our heroes having to punch women to exorcise them of youkai influence. The way RT just kind of quietly skipped over how she had Inuyasha gut-punch a bunch of ladies proves just how proud she is of this poor recycle job. I'm not going to get over how she could have done something interesting with the setting of a secluded community for women escaping and healing from the horrors of war being taken advantage of by a youkai, but THIS is what she wrote instead. Big cringe YIKES.
No comments:
Post a Comment