I'm going out of my way to avoid that as much as I can this month. In another example of the increasingly militant attitudes of fandom, someone really got under my skin in a discussion over a different interpretation of a shared interest the other day, and there was some falling out there. Talk about heart irritation. So, I'm skirting subjects that tend to give me a bit of discomfort for the time being, and being somewhat careful about what discussions I engage in on the internet. In the recent past, I've been particularly distressed in fandom spaces online, so I'm avoiding those like the plague - this one being the exception, of course. And in my personal relationships, I'm being extra careful to communicate clearly.
Any heartbreak that comes my way in the moment will have to seek ME out, and I'm not making it easy.
What a difference pausing to fight some monsters for a second will make.
He's of course addressing Miroku, Sango, and Shippou among the corpses of their fallen youkai enemies, the latter of which tells Inuyasha that Kagome was following the Shinidamachuu she saw through the trees. Just more evidence of Kikyou's presence on the little mountain, which Inuyasha acknowledges with some continued shock.
Meanwhile, Kagome is sitting on the bank of the pool, her back to it, with her chin propped in her hands, sighing in a moping funk. She recalls the way Kikyou looked over her shoulder and refused to thank her for her choice, and asks herself what's up with Kikyou's attitude. It's a good fucking question, though I don't agree that one of the reasons on the list is because it makes Kagome look like an idiot for saving Kikyou, as she asserts. Thinking on the shikigami telling her to choose to save Kikyou or not, she wonders why it seemed like they were testing her. She reluctantly speculates that it could be because of Inuyasha, and how Kikyou is "in the way" of her relationship with him. Kagome slumps at the supposition that they thought she WOULDN'T save Kikyou, because she can't think of any other reason they would act that way. She feels mocked in their assumption that she would be such a horrible person.
As she mulls all this over in her indignation, a bare foot steps into frame, and Kagome only seems to at that moment realize that someone was approaching.
Oh, she's not even greeting him. The mood must be DARK.
While Sango and Miroku hurry forward to ask Kagome if she's okay, Inuyasha is looking around and it's clear even without the thought bubble on Kikyou what's on his mind. Despite the overt concern of her other friends, Kagome deflates, thinking he didn't come to find her at all. Kagome asks irritably what Inuyasha is glancing around restlessly for, and looks over at her in guilty shock. She tells him that Kikyou is long gone, asking if he's going after her.
After a moment of being taken aback by Kagome's blunt reference to his heart on his sleeve, he sweatdrops as he asks if Kikyou was here in surprise. As if he wouldn't be able to smell her??? Kagome tosses her head and repeats that Kikyou is long gone, even after she told her that she could meet up with and talk to him.
I mean, he doesn't exactly LOOK happy, although that sigh suggests that he's at least RELIEVED.
While Sango looks on silently, perhaps not trusting herself to speak right now, Miroku asks Inuyasha what they should do. Inuyasha turns to make a noise of confusion at Miroku, then twists to look back at Kagome still sitting and looking dejected. After a moment of cautious silence, he asks if anything HAPPENED between her and Kikyou. Kagome keeps her eyes and head diverted from meeting his gaze, thinking on what Kikyou said before she left about how Inuyasha will be arriving soon for Kagome herself. Kagome is consumed with the certainty that Kikyou is absolutely wrong, that Inuyasha has been thinking of nothing BUT Kikyou since they started hearing the Hijiri-sama rumors. She recalls how hard she was working to save Kikyou in the pool, and it's only now that she's feeling a bit like a fool.
Inuyasha crouches in front of the sullen Kagome, getting unwisely close to her to ask what she's been sulking about this whole time. Her glare snaps up to him, Kagome almost looking enraged, and he cringes away from the expression.
Damn girl! Them's some STRONG words.
Even their friends are taken-aback, with Sango uttering her name in shock and Shippou peeking out from behind Miroku's shoulder to say how scary he finds her at the moment. Inuyasha holds a hand against his pounding chest for a speechless moment. Then he snaps too.
Before he can make good on this threat, Kagome sends him face-first into the dirt with a firm sit command.
GIRL.
As Kagome continues to brood in front of a flattened Inuyasha, Sango asks Miroku what HE thinks. He says that while he doesn't know the specifics of their current conflict, he supposes it's probably Inuyasha's fault. BOY. Shippou adds that Kagome said so herself, and it's really sad that we SEE Kagome yelling at and slamming Inuyasha into the ground, but somehow no one is willing to question if she might be overreacting a bit. More than a bit. Like, A LOT.
In a tree-top transition panel a speech bubble DOES question a suggestion to go apologize, but it's Inuyasha himself, crouching on the ground next to Miroku and asking why he should have to do that anyway. He probably doesn't even know WHAT he has to apologize for at this point. Miroku bypasses the question altogether in order to ask his own question: if Inuyasha is SURE he won't go after Kikyou. He glares, then hangs his head and says that he can't very well go look for her with Kagome in the mood she is. Sango is standing a short distance away, and poses a follow-up hypothetical about if Kagome had sent him off with a smile, would he have gone then. He just kind of stares at the ground, and it seems to dawn on him what the problem might be here.
Meanwhile, Kagome is resting her head on her arms crossed over her drawn-up knees, cursing herself for being horrible. She realizes that she worked herself up all by her lonesome and then took her frustration out on Inuyasha. She contemplates the possibility that he hates her now. Not likely that a malfunction like that would make him hate you - I still have them to this day and my husband manages to keep loving ME, lol.
What is this? Is he offering his hair for social grooming or something?
Kagome lifts her head, questioning what he wants. He asks if she's still angry. She looks off to the side and not-so-subtly asks if he isn't going after Kikyou. After a pause, Inuyasha tells her about his experience when he was alone at the foot of the mountain, fighting the youkai; he encountered Hijiri-sama, which he discovered was a human-shaped thing Kikyou was controlling like a puppet. He also mentions that he was told (not specifying by whom, though I think it might be interesting to Kagome how it was the same shikigami with which she was interacting) the real Kikyou was weakened by Naraku's miasma and running out of power.
Kagome seems a little surprised that he seemed to know all this as she was finding it out as well. Inuyasha asks her what Kikyou's condition was like, looking crestfallen, ready for some painful news.
Not so bad after all.
Another pause. Inuyasha asks if Kagome really did that purification for Kikyou, and Kagome simply answers in the affirmative. It wouldn't do to try and explain that she couldn't do otherwise, since that doesn't seem to be going so well for her in this instance. Inuyasha just says that he sees, and again they are left in awkward silence. Kagome thinks that the conversation seems to be revealing the truth where her own bad feelings were obscuring it - Inuyasha was worried. That much is at least understandable to her.
Kagome tells Inuyasha not to hold himself back on her account and encourages him to go after Kikyou. Inuyasha whips around to face her and firmly assert that he's not going. He says she shouldn't force herself to be okay with it either, then asks for confirmation that she said she saved Kikyou. Kagome says that she did, so Inuyasha says that it's alright, and he won't go after Kikyou. No need to check on her if Kagome says she's alright, after all.
With some hesitation, Kagome asks Inuyasha if he's sure, and he puts back on his irritated expression when he affirms he is, following up with a request that she take back what she said. Kagome makes a noise of confusion.
That blank stare says it all, doesn't it? She admits, in perfect innocence that she did indeed forget, and asks if she really did say it. Inuyasha claws at the air in frustration, asking if she has ANY idea how much that hurt his feelings. I do not see Kagome apologize for it, whether she remembers or not, but I DO see in the next panel that their friends are observing. Sango seems amazed that this was what Inuyasha was worried about, and Shippou callously calls him petty.
What is with this framing? I just...
Anyway, narrow sky transition panel, leading back to Miss Abi, standing in front of that cave in the cliff-side at which Naraku first met her. The voice from within questions a suggestion to kill Naraku, but Abi argues that no good will come from getting involved with the guy. I would argue additionally that no good HAS come from getting involved with him thus far, but far be it from Abi to admit to having fucked this one up big time. She says that they've had nothing but MORE interference, and gathering all that human blood to dilute the poison in the cave-mom's body is actually going WORSE than before. This must be the slowest-acting poison in the WORLD.
Cave-mom's eye peers out at Abi as she continues to complain that she, the great Princess Abi, has been dragged into a quarrel between lowly hanyou. How humiliating! After letting the whining wind down, Cave-mom suggests that Abi break into a certain castle she's noticed. It appears Abi has not been so observant, bopping around here and there trying to gather blood, and asks about the castle she is just now hearing about.
I don't know, you two have been fairly bad at drawing inferences from information so far...
So, what did I think of this chapter overall? As you can probably tell, I was NOT impressed with the way everyone was treating Inuyasha in this one. Kagome's pure emotional reaction was understandable - it was still SHITTY, and Inuyasha did not deserve it, but it was still UNDERSTANDABLE. I have had my fair share of embarrassing malfunctions in that vein, so it's not as though I can't imagine someone acting this way under these circumstances.
And she acknowledges that she was being horrible in that moment, that she was taking out her raw feelings on Inuyasha, which was wrong. That's why I'm so greatly disappointed that we never saw an actual APOLOGY from her. Not just for the "I hate you" line, but just the really harsh attitude she had towards him the moment he showed up. If she needed a moment to be alone and calm the fuck down, she should have said so, but not saying she's sorry for her words and behavior there was an additional jerk move.
Yes, even for something Kagome doesn't remember saying. Frankly, I thought Inuyasha showed some major vulnerability admitting right then and there that Kagome's words hurt him, so it should have given her even more of a reason to ask for forgiveness. To know that she could hurt a guy who doesn't scrape all that easily with an offhand angry thing she said and doesn't even mean is a lot of potential for unintended cruelty that she just kind of... ignores.
It's not any better that their friends all jump to the most uncharitable conclusions regarding Inuyasha's role in the whole fiasco, and assume that HE'S the one being petty and mean. I mean, guys, you SAW Kagome being the jerk here, how are you seriously twisting your brains in knots to make him the one at fault???
Whatever. At least Abi seems to have grown a little bit of a brain at the end of the chapter. Someone had to, I guess.
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