I initially misread this title as "Death of MORYOUMARU", which just goes to show how ready my brain is for these two identities to be reconciled. I stopped counting how many times I had to check to make sure I was using a "G" instead of an "M" in the previous chapters, and I wouldn't be surprised to learn I switched the latter for the former a few times without realizing. The names are just SO similar in pronunciation and romanized spelling that I forget who's supposed to be who. Oh well, at least this particular problem will soon be a thing of the past, if I can count on the "G" to be well and truly dead.
* - read HEAVY sarcasm into this word.
Kagura looks silently on as the kids sputter in horror and shock, calling out to their idol. Goryoumaru groans, stumbling back, and opens up his youkai arm to shoot the light youkai at Hakudoushi, only to find that it bounces straight off the little asshole's barrier. He seems GENUINELY shocked that his attack didn't land, and to add insult to injury (quite literally), Hakusdoushi drawls that it's a rather BORING one. This kid could kill with his shitty attitude alone.
Inuyasha's sense of smell is SHARP today, because he looks around from the cave's macabre contents from the OTHER SIDE OF THE MOUNTAIN.
They're already racing through the woods in the next panel, Inuyasha carrying Kagome on his back and the rest of the group riding Kirara. Kagome asks if this scent he's picking up comes from Goryoumaru's temple, and Inuyasha affirms as much, clearly not overly communicative in his hurry.
At the temple, Hakudoushi hovers in the air above a kneeling, DYING, Goryoumaru. He groans, but he's surely trying to stay conscious as long as possible. Impressive, considering the wound he just got in his NECK. Hakudoushi laughs at him, promising to return that exact boring attack back to Goryoumaru. A bubble swells out of the side of Hakudoushi's barrier, shining at a horrified Goryoumaru, but at that moment Inuyasha and group soar over the temple wall and Inuyasha himself yells out at Hakudoushi. How far away could they have POSSIBLY been??
Hakudoushi glares over his shoulder at the intruders, grumbling about these bastards still hanging around. The bubble that was aimed at Goryoumaru now protrudes toward Inuyasha.
Not that he looks like he's going to last much longer anyway. He's slumped over on the ground, blood soaked down his front as the children he'd recruited gather around him, crying out to him in distress. Hakudoushi looks back down at him and scoffs, swinging that naginata at him again. A splatter of blood, shocked and horrified looks from Inuyasha and company, a surprised gape from Kagura, and Goryoumaru's head rolling off later, it's clear that the dude is gone. Kagome is in disbelief over this, but hers isn't the only stunned reaction to the compounding circumstances.
Kagome draws attention to Kanna, and Sango identifies the infant as belonging to Naraku with equal shock. Hakudoushi steps up to Kanna's side, telling Kagura that he's leaving Inuyasha's group to her, to which command she gives a glower. The barrier reappears around Hakudoushi, encompasses Kanna and Shnooky as well, and lifts them up and out of there swiftly. Inuyasha declares that they won't get away, drawing Tessaiga while he lunges in their direction and releasing a Kaze no Kizu.
Then why kill him?
Who could forget such trauma?
Inuyasha makes a sound of confusion and Kagura just stares up at her hated fellow offspring. Once the barrier bubble disappears into the distance, Inuyasha turns to Kagura and demands to know just what the FUCK is going on. She snaps at him that he should be able to tell by looking - until this very moment, Naraku hid his heart in the temple. Inuyasha repeats the principle word in disbelief, Miroku asking if this means the baby is this so-called "heart". Sango murmurs behind Miroku about how this is just the same as another time, and when Miroku turns to hum in question at her, she recalls the time Princess Abi attacked a human castle with her "birds".
Kagome asks Kagura why she's telling them this, and Inuyasha bluntly adds on a question about how she's still alive after being shot through the chest directly with one of the blasts from Goryoumaru's youkai arm. Kagura barks that she doesn't know, but mentions the fact that her heart is still in the possession of her jerk of a spawn point. Starting to pick up on the extent of her lack of connection with Naraku and his underlings, Miroku asks her if this means she attacked the temple to try and find Naraku's heart.
Kagura glowers at him in clear distrust, and after a pause refuses to answer with anything but a vague verbal shrug. She seems to realize that her standing around chatting with a supposed enemy is probably a bad look, so she turns and pulls a feather from her hair, saying she's going after Hakudoushi and Kanna, and bidding the Inuyasha group not to get in her way. Indeed, they watch her shoot up into the sky and disappear, Miroku muttering the observation that Kagura intends to betray Naraku. Nooooo, you don't say. You truly are the SMART one, aren't you?
Kagome recalls how Hakudoushi said Goryoumaru didn't know anything and wonders about the implication that Goryoumaru was just being used. His headless body is currently surrounded by the horde of children he'd recruited for youkai-slaying, which the whole Inuyasha party appears to notice with a grave frown at once.
Miroku advises the little child soldiers that they should leave the temple ASAP. The morose children begin to give a half-hearted protest, but Inuyasha tells them they'll do as Miroku says if they value their lives, pointing out that the youkai have started to gather again because they too seem to have noticed that Goryoumaru is gone. Kagome adds that even if that weren't the case, the youki surrounding the temple would attract them anyway, though she keeps to herself that it's the Rakan statues radiating the energy. Some of those very statues sit just at the tree line, several of them basically right next to the grave and the incense wafting off the lit stick atop it.
Meanwhile...
Kagura silently approaches a sphere in the distance that I assume is Hakudoushi's barrier, and some jagged barren mountains. She seems to express some surprise since the former, but perhaps it's more for THIS sight:
Kagura spies the white form of Kanna in the open mouth of the oni, carrying Shnooky, who in turn grasps the fuyouheki.
So, what did I think of this chapter overall? I love how Kagura didn't even bother to PRETEND to fight Inuyasha and company at this point. She's locked into following that baby to the ends of the earth, and has thrown out even the thinnest of covers. All she has to do here is resist the urge to get Naraku dead as soon as possible, and she is absolutely failing. Sad as it is to admit, Sesshoumaru was right, and she really should take his advice and assumed that Naraku was soon to be onto her traitorous behavior, if not already so. Of course, I can't really complain if her recklessness leads to interesting results.
I do think it's weird that the last chapter was spent investigating the strange origin of these creepy temple statues, and are then introduced to a massive creepy statue at the end of this one. The statues depict different things, and there's no way they could have been created in the same way, but I find their proximity suspicious, even if I don't recall there being any concrete connection between them. We'll see if there is, since the weeds of this part have been impenetrable for me up until this point. In the past, I just went around them and scratched my head with a shrug, assuming there was just subtext in there I didn't get. Maybe there still is, but THIS TIME, I have a comment section, so feel free to enlighten me!
As for Goryoumaru, I don't really have a eulogy for him. He was a weird, problematic dude, but I do feel bad for the kids who to some degree relied on him for safety and shelter. I still think you were a fundamentally bad dude, but RIP I guess.
