Inuyasha Manga: 308 The Pool

Oh, it's been FOREVER since I've been swimming. There aren't any pools nearby where I live anymore, but that might change with a 24-hour fitness place being installed right up the road. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they have treadmills with fun game screens and a pool, but I might only be able to rely on the former - it's a pretty small building that they're utilizing for a gym, so my guess is that there won't really be room for a big concrete pit with water in it. 

But even if it does have one, there's really no telling if a membership to access this place is going to be super expensive yet. They usually are in my neighborhood. Last fitness center we looked into was $70 per month. 

It's okay, there's always the beach a few miles away.

Well, this is awkward.

Inuyasha wonders at the figure on horseback in front of him, asking silently if this is Kikyou, but he daren't do so out loud, it seems. He sweatdrops, noting that he's not picking up Kikyou's scent off this person, but this doesn't mean that he's completely convinced it's not her. At last, he speaks, demanding that the figure show him their face. Said figure does not react at first, presumably staring at him from under the gauze covering their features. 

Meanwhile, the rest of the group is still moving up the hillside on and beside Kirara (the latter in Miroku's case. 

*Wincing at the familiar obsessive thinking*

Miroku looks up to find another horde of youkai descending on their position and calls to Sango to alert her. Dammit, Inuyasha, you had ONE JOB. As the swarm comes down on them, Miroku throws his paper charms to neutralize them, blowing a few apart. Sango has in the meantime deposited Kagome and Shippou at the roots of a large tree and is telling them to hang tight while she and Miroku take care of this. Kagome agrees, so Sango turns and immediately throws Hiraikotsu and it smashes a particularly large snake-dragon thing. 

While Kagome sits at the ready, an arrow nocked in her bow, Shippou stutters that he's there with her, his tiny arms outstretched to guard against oncoming youkai many times his size. She humors him, but she looks more amused than anything at his attempts to be brave. It's nice, because this is the first genuine amusement we seem to have gotten out of her in a long minute, but it's about to be shattered again. Shippou's eyes bulge in horror when he sees a glow through the trees and draws Kagome's attention to it in a panic. She aims her bow, but hesitates in firing. 

No trouble identifying what those are. Kagome gets up and runs off for them, calling out to her companions what she's seeing. Miroku shouts her name in protest, but Kagome insists she's going after them, though Miroku yells for her to wait and says she's being reckless. Suddenly, the forest seems to warp around her before she disappears, alarming little Shippou with the fact. Miroku suggests hesitantly that this was a barrier she vanished behind. Neither of them try to follow.

Meanwhile, Inuyasha is still standing before the figure on horseback, getting impatient for an answer to whether or not this person is Kikyou, and says so, bluntly. One of the little children flanking her speaks up, explaining that the miasma she fell into weakened her significantly, and her body won't return to its original form, which is a really weird way of saying that she can't heal. The other child adds that she's lost her voice. They tell him that only Kikyou's soul can fight, but as Inuyasha gapes, they also say that she's about drained of power at this point.

It's not really clear if Inuyasha is quite processing this information as it's being given to him. He's still stuck on the image he saw of Kikyou's snapped bow on the edge of the cliff, and the revelation that she didn't ACTUALLY die at that time. At last, he shouts her name, demanding confirmation that it really is her. 

OH SHIT!

Kikyou's face emerges from the hood as it falls, and Inuyasha screams her name, running to the bundle of robes and broken arrows into which she collapses on the ground. He kneels next to where her body SHOULD be, but finds to his astonishment (and likely relief), that there is no body underneath the fabric on which he places his palm. He spies a little flat human-shaped piece of paper on the ground next to a cloth fold and picks it up, unable to take anything from it except the resemblance to a person. 

He looks up at a voice from the sky grousing about not being able to figure out this Kikyou person.

It's my giiiiiiiiirl!

Inuyasha asks this "bitch" (according to the translation, anyway) what's going on, and she responds that SHE'S also curious as to what's happening here, and seems annoyed that she was sent here on a fool's errand. Inuyasha is still very much stuck on the miraculous fact that Kikyou is apparently ALIVE, and is now seeking confirmation of this from Kagura. She scoffs that this is what Naraku thinks, explaining that the arrow which pierced Hakudoushi's barrier a couple of chapters ago had soil from Onigumo's cave on the arrowhead. Inuyasha gapes at the revelation that THIS was the smell he couldn't quite place when he examined the arrow before. 

Kagura further explains that the soil on which Onigumo lay was suffused with Naraku's thoughts for Kikyou (before Naraku even existed - impressive), and she heard SOMEWHERE that the soil opposes Naraku and protects Kikyou. She's pretty certain that Kikyou is the only one who can use the soil, which again I'm sure she heard from some vague source. Inuyasha is still staring up at her with astonishment, all he can really think being that Kikyou is alive somewhere. 

As she shoots back up into the sky, Kagura says that it looks like they BOTH got jerked around by a fake either way, and bids him a casual farewell. She's pretty amused, though, thinking that Naraku's biggest threat being alive makes the whole situation pretty interesting. It's certainly one way to admit that you're easily amused. Inuyasha remains standing there in his general shock, observing in the haze of alarm that the two children have also vanished along with the body of the Kikyou/Hijiri double. 

Doing a little bouldering there, Kagome?

She's still tailing the Shinidamachuu, and they even pause to hover over the ground to wait for her as she makes it to the top of the slope she was climbing. It gives her the pretty clear impression that they're INVITING her farther along, and she's visibly nervous about this. It doesn't stop her from pushing on, and reaching the waterfall that the group had observed from down at the bottom of the small mountain. She looks into the pool at the bottom and gets a bit of a shock.

I would ask if she's drowning, but pottery doesn't generally need to breathe air, so I guess that's not a factor here. But Kagome observes Kikyou with shock and concern, kneeling down to take a closer look and wondering if Kikyou is still alive after all. A voice behind her responds to her anxious/maybe a little hopeful thought that Kikyou's life is starting to run out. Kagome looks around with a start at the two placid child figures that had only just disappeared from in front of Inuyasha in the previous scene. They are here to inform her that the miasma that Kikyou took a swim in at Mt. Hakurei is continuing to spread through her. 

Looks like these weirdo kids have some 'splaining to do...

So, what did I think of this chapter overall? Kikyou is pretty lucky that Inuyasha's group, and specifically Kagome, subtly switched their objective to meeting her alias instead of continuing to look for the bird's nest like they were discussing before. It seems like she was very close to being discovered by Kagura there for a second, and if Inuyasha and crew hadn't been there, she might not have been able to throw Kagura off the track long enough to give them more time to find her. 

Then again, it looks like Kagura has fully removed her heart from supporting Naraku at this point, freely blabbing to Inuyasha about what precisely was on that arrow and what it means for Naraku if used. How she obtained this information is another question altogether, given what an adversarial relationship she has with Naraku. It's unlikely he would be straight-up TELLING her anything about the particulars of her missions. Either it's misinformation he's WILLING to feed indirectly to Inuyasha and company through Kagura, or she just eavesdropped carefully to get it. 

Either way, it's clear that FINDING Kikyou alive is not making things easier for Inuyasha or Kagome, emotion-wise. Inuyasha appeared to be struggling to process the fact for the entire chapter, and lagged several steps behind all the bad news Kikyou's little child minions gave him to cling desperately to the one bright spot in it all - Kikyou is alive. Meanwhile, Kagome is the only one Kikyou has admitted behind a barrier to behold her real body, neither illusion or double, and it's almost immediately sprung on her that Kikyou needs her help. 

It's reiterated over and over that Kikyou's situation is dire, but I still have my doubts. Again, she seems more powerful than ever, and able to maintain these Shikigami to speak for her while she remains submerged in water. By appearances alone, she certainly doesn't LOOK damaged in any way, shape, or form. This combined with the incredible luck it would take for Inuyasha's group to be looking for Hijiri here as Kagura is attacking, as I discussed above, leaves me extremely skeptical.

It's almost as if the situation isn't so desperate that she can't still play games with her only source of help, coming up with elaborate methods by which she can ask for help without ACTUALLY having to ask for help. Sketch as hell, if you ask me.