For a regular sex pest, it's probably VERY difficult to recall all the women one has victimized over the years, huh?
Inuyasha yells at Nushi-sama about going berserk this late in the game achieving nothing for him, punching his giant fish face and sending him reeling. I'm not SURE what he means by "this late", but it's probably a reference to how these complaints against Shima are basically last minute. The great catfish flops on the ground, churning up soil, it's cheek all swollen. Nushi-sama wails a curse, trembling and sweating all over. Inuyasha pulls out Tessaiga, promising that if Nushi-sama wants to get serious, that's a challenge he's well prepared to meet.
Shima's mother and father stare with caution at the fish-creature that appears to have calmed down for the moment, Shima herself asking if they think this also means he's given up on her. Shippou hops up on Inuyasha's shoulder, saying it didn't take long for Nushi-sama to lose steam, as Inuyasha puts away Tessaiga, and with exasperation says it would be ugly to kill the guy when he's like this. He's serving NOTHING but pathetic sauce right now.
Kagome sidles up to Inuyasha and mumbles to him from behind her hand, informing him that it's getting pretty serious between their two friends off to the side. Inuyasha expresses confusion about them still arguing, as if he and Kagome aren't being petty to each other every five seconds. No room to talk, these two.
Miroku is still standing a distance from Sango, but he's put a tentative foot forward, clearly wanting to get closer to the woman he's addressing. She on the other hand is standing in defeated, moody silence, only speaking after Miroku asks if she won't even listen to him. It's not like she's going to be talking over him or anything. Sango looks off to the side, admitting she's not sure if she knows anymore. Inuyasha opens his FAT TRAP from the sidelines, yapping to Sango about how this behavior is NOT new from Miroku, Kagome snapping his name in rebuke. When he asks her what she's complaining about with a defiant glare, she elaborates her frustration that he just doesn't get that Sango doesn't feel good about Miroku's old girlfriend turning up. Oh, I think Inuyasha understands that VERY well, and his argument is that maybe it should have occurred to her as a likelihood at least EVENTUALLY.
What he clearly doesn't get is that it won't feel good no matter how prepared she might have or have not been for the probability.
Shima comes to stand next to Miroku and pleads with him and Sango to stop fighting, Miroku saying her name in mild surprise. She tells Sango that this is all her fault, and asks her not to blame Miroku, but while Miroku remains in silent discomfort, Sango whips around to turn away from them both.
While Inuyasha looks annoyed and bored, Kagome asks Miroku if he's not going to go after Sango. Girl, she told him not to follow her. Pretty much the only thing he can do RIGHT at the moment is to honor that request. Also, Miroku says what Sango is basically implying with her surface-level uncertain answer, that she won't listen to anything he tells her at this point. Not that he's even TRIED to tell her anything yet, that I've seen.
He also expresses his sadness that Sango clearly doesn't trust him all that much. What, she doesn't trust him NOT to have fucked a girl that says he fucked her? How craaaaaazy. Kagome appears a little confused by his statement, and Shippou says with wide eyes that it seems like Miroku's suggesting he's been falsely accused of this alleged tryst. Sounds like your friends ALSO don't automatically find it unbelievable either, my guy. What does that tell you?
Their overly dramatic conversation is cut off by a distressed call, and they turn toward it to find that Shima is now being flown away on a magic cloud manifested by Nushi-sama. She's reaching out to her parents, crying out for them to save her, but they are powerless to stop the abduction of their daughter by the youkai, who claims that he's changed his mind and he still loves her. I've seen no evidence he loves her AT ALL, but okay.
Miroku curses and lunges in Shima's direction.
Inuyasha has joined Miroku in pursuing the kidnapper and his victim, swearing as he regretfully says that he should have finished Nushi-sama off after all. Miroku just says that they MUST save her. No doubt he (rightfully) feels responsible for this whole damn situation.
Narrow sky transition to Sango, who sits beside the lake, sighing. She casts a glance over her shoulder, sullen over the fact that Miroku isn't even following her. Which she told him to not do. Ugh, TEENAGERS. As she wonders what she's going to do now, she sees Nushi-sama's cloud pass over her head, and adopts a concerned expression at the screaming Shima being pulled along on it. Nushi-sama is still talking about making her his wife no matter what, so Sango starts to jump to her feet in preparation to intervene. But when Shima cries that she already told Nushi-sama about how she already joined with Miroku, Sango's expression sours. Sango, stop being fucking petty and save that girl!
Nushi-sama MAGNANIMOUSLY says he'll forgive Shima for something that happened in the past before they hit the water and he transforms into his giant catfish form, the helpless girl being pulled along in his wake. He looks around at a spiraling disturbance in the water approaching him just before it hits him and he's knocked silly by the object causing it. While he's stunned, the fading Shima's wrist is grabbed and pulled toward the surface.
It's at this point that Miroku and the rest of the group arrive on the ground, looking up at the girls. He calls Sango's name, who looks down at him as Shima calls back to him. Sango returns to staring straight ahead without responding, thinking that he didn't actually come for HER in the first place. I have a question: WHO CARES??
Nushi-sama's big fish face pops out of the water below to spit a massive jet of water up at Kirara and passengers passing overhead, hitting the sabertoothed feline directly in the stomach. Sango cries out in alarm, and then a thin tendril wraps around her ankle while she's caught off guard.
For someone who is so insistent that he LOVES his intended victim, Nushi-sama sure did just grab a completely different one without much thought.
How did he hear something Nushi-sama said underwater?
On Sango's way down, she yells at Kirara to take Shima to a safe place. Inuyasha and Miroku are rushing forward again, the latter complaining that Sango is being so reckless as the former curses once more. Sango throws her Hiraikotsu at her assailant, but he calls her a stupid fool, spitting another water jet to knock the weapon off course. Already, Shima is on the ground with Kagome kneeling over her, who voices this fact with dismay.
At last, Sango hits the water in an explosion of bubbles, groaning internally. She's not exactly able to open her mouth at the moment. Nushi-sama is perfectly capable of talking underwater though, and chuckles that she's a wench, threatening to drag her down into the bottom of the lake and make her his mistress. I guess I should be thankful to him for demonstrating that Sango could ALWAYS be worse off than if she gets together with Miroku, lol. She looks pretty disturbed by this suggestion too.
A group of paper charms shoot through the water in much the same way they have shot through the air in this comic, which was already a pretty weird depiction of conveyance. Or, maybe they weren't in the water, because the next panel shows an enraged Miroku stabbing his staff down on the charms sticking to Nushi-sama's head, which is ABOVE the water line here. Not sure when he surfaced, but quite convenient for Miroku in any case. The crackling energy sent through him with the attack reverts Nushi-sama back to his more compact form and he falls back into the water with a trailing groan. He's not allowed to languish in the lake for long, though.
Whatevz. Nushi-sama apologizes, because he wasn't aware that Sango was ANOTHER of Miroku's women. He's only willing to back off girls if a man expresses ownership over them. Cool. Miroky pushes Nushi-sama aside as he splashes toward Sango, asking if she's okay. She remains moodily silent and swims off, Miroku paddling after her whining for her attention. On the shore, Inuyasha is trembling with frustration that there was NOTHING for him to do AT ALL. He probably wouldn't have been satisfied by defeating that little Spongebob character guy anyway.
After a transition panel, confusion is expressed, and Shima is shown hanging her head as she sits on the bank in front of the Inuyasha gang, apologizing for lying. Kagome leans toward her in deep interest over how Shima's claim she had hooked up with Miroku was a lie. Shima raises her hands together as if in prayer for forgiveness, admitting it was in fact a lie, because she REALLY didn't want to marry the catfish. You can't blame her; Miroku being the sole alternative would be the ONLY way you'd get me to lie about sleeping with him. In any other context it would be a MORTIFYING thing to say.
Eyes closed in dignified stoicism, Miroku says that Shima made quick use of her wit. Sango is still incensed, though, saying that if it were a lie, MIROKU should have been cable of telling the truth of the matter to her and their friends. She trails the question as to why he DIDN'T do this, and Miroku says he too her kindness for granted and assumed she would understand without him having to tell her.
After a short pause, Sango says she forgives him, and admits that she was pretty happy about how he saved her.
Miroku holds her hands, asking if she can forgive him, and she says only if he can forgive her. Touching. Inuyasha questions the voracity of these vows while Kagome says that Sango is kind, and Shippou asserts that she MAY be kinder even than Kagome. Yeah, well, as long as she's careful not to become a doormat.
Cut to when the group is on the move again, and Shippou suggests from Kagome's shoulder at the back of the group that it WOULD have been better for Miroku to deny the allegations at the very beginning. He FURTHER questions whether it just took a little while for Miroku to remember that he didn't actually do what he was being accused of.
So, what did I think of this chapter overall? As probably must have been obvious, I didn't enjoy it very much, and after having read through it again more carefully than before, I'm starting to understand why I didn't bother to remember it the previous three times I read this part. It's not just that this isn't really the kind of content that I value, not being a romance plot type of person. More than that, this little arc could have spoken with substance on the situation it brought up, about how few options girls and women have historically been afforded and how their autonomy and ability to say no are denied them. It could even have given these young women an opportunity to seek support from each other, and allowed Sango to demonstrate how Shima shouldn't need her father OR Miroku to get Nushi to fuck off. At the very least, it could have made it more clear that the whole issue with Nushi's grasping entitlement was not a violation of some other guy's ownership, but of Shima herself.
But no, instead what we got was a reaffirmation of male possession of female bodies, and that being the only thing that Nushi was really willing to respect. Furthermore, we have Sango admitting that it made her happy to be "saved" in that manner, with Miroku expressing his ownership over her. It's a pretty vivid picture, and not in the best way.
I'm mainly thinking back to when Miroku and Sango had their little talk about their future, Miroku's admission that he couldn't really love her as a woman, seeing her mainly as a comrade in arms. I feel like this chapter adds a new, nasty dimension to what he said, because now there's an implication that in order to see Sango as a proper woman, she has to be in a comparatively helpless context so he can assert an heroic impulse and a sense of possession over her. His declaration that she was HIS woman was only possible when she was in the position to be stolen away, because his concern for her turning away from her of her own will wasn't really all that potent - he wouldn't have assumed she was still "his" after she said this wouldn't work out and stormed off if the concern was serious to him.
I realize that I'm thinking WAY too hard about the implications of this goofy little romantic affirmation scene, but that's only because RT thought far too LITTLE about it. She just kind of regurgitated old romantic tropes, no doubt because she was being pressured by her editors and publisher to push out more of these kinds of relationship development scenes, due to their popularity with the mainly teenage audience. There may not be a ton of room to plan with a serialization like this, but any writer should be prepared to question WHY they're writing things a certain way, or making certain content decisions. All of this was a decision, even if it was a decision to just lazily repackage old tropes that are best retired or transformed.
Most of all, though, I'm just sad for Sango. She could be such a cool character in her own right, and IS in a lot of ways, but she's not allowed to stand on her own. Ultimately, despite being the only team member who doesn't rely on innate magical powers, despite being a competent and confident professional, despite her strength and compassion, her character STILL revolves around the men in her life, and that's just SUCH a waste.
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