OK, I’m picking up reading Inuyasha again from where I left off. Thanks to Ear-Tweak for the scans.

Chapter 419

The weird youkai Mouryoumaru is planning to devour the attached, twin youkai Kinka and Ginka (who have been fighting all their life with neither able to gain an advantage). Inuyasha battles Mouryoumaru with the Tessaiga’s Kongousouha attack but fails. Mouryoumaru grabs Kinka and Ginka who use their powers to fry Mouryoumaru, causing him to release Ginka. Despite Inuyasha’s warning, Ginka use the moment to attack Kinka and stab him with his weapon. Mouryoumaru then uses part of his body to stab Ginka. Inuyasha battles Mouryoumaru and then attempts to rescue the twins from his grasp.

Chapter 420

Mouryoumaru grabs Ginka again and Ginka’s body separates from Kinka’s. Mouryoumaru pulls Ginka into his body to consume him and absorb his power for his armor. Inuyasha is irritated, and Kinka reveals that had he been the one to be released, he would have done the same to Ginka as Ginka had done to him. Kinka is angry with Mouryoumaru for getting between the twins and wanted to devour them. He launches an attack, but it fails without his twin as backup. Inuyasha gets involved again to save Kinka and attacks Mouryoumaru without success.

Chapter 421

Inuyasha continues to battle Mouryoumaru without success. Kinka increases his attacks and seems to cause Mouryoumaru pain. This irritates Mouryoumaru who stabs Kinka. He then completely absorbs Ginka, meaning Ginka has now died. Before he can work on consuming Kinka, Inuyasha attacks again. Now that Mouryoumaru armor has been strengthened by the consumption of Ginka, Tessaiga should no longer be a problem to him. The wounded Kinka, being defended by Inuyasha, asks if Inuyasha will kill Mouryoumaru. After hearing Inuyasha’s determination, he decides that rather than be consumed by Mouryoumaru he will do something else — he wills himself to be absorbed by Tessaiga, thus giving Inuyasha’s youkai sword his flame powers. With this new power, Inuyasha attacks and Ginka’s lightning powers react within Mouryoumaru, damaging him and dropping the barrier that surrounds the baby known as Naraku’s Heart.

Chapter 422

Mouryoumaru realizes that he really needed to consume Kinka since Ginka’s powers resonates with Kinka’s and thus when Inuyasha uses Kinka’s power, it causes Ginka’s power to work against him. Inuyasha presses his attack on Mouryoumaru and manages to get through the armor to reveal the baby, Naraku’s Heart. Naraku’s Heart unleashes a massive amount of shouki, which allows Mouryoumaru to escape. Inuyasha is annoyed by this turn of events.

The group discusses events that have transpired. Miroku recalls Naraku sending the youkai Nikosen, who’s power was absorbed by Tessaiga, solving a problem Inuyasha had with the sword’s recent upgraded abilities. Naraku then would have had Mouryoumaru consume both Ginka and Kinka, then have Mouryoumaru and Inuyasha defeat each other. Naraku hadn’t counted on Kinka’s power going into Tessaiga, which meant that Inuyasha came close to killing Naraku’s Heart, thus killing Naraku. Inuyasha is troubled by the way Tessaiga obtained Kinka’s power, since it was a gift and not earned in battle.

Meanwhile, some humans in a village are discussing seeing someone go into the mountain. That someone turned out to be Sesshoumaru-sama. He observes the body of an oni, one he’d recently slain. Other oni/youkai emerge, enraged at what Sesshoumaru had done and prepare to attack.

Thoughts

This wraps up the somewhat tedious latest battle between Inuyasha and Mouryoumaru. I now remember why I stopped reading to begin with — Takahashi-sensei’s “lather, rince, repeat” formula for the series. The group has battled Mouryoumaru many times. Since he has Naraku’s Heart within him, he’s replaced the actual Naraku as the main villain they fight (with Naraku pulling the strings behind the scene). Inuyasha gaining new powers for Tessaiga is old because we’ve been there and done that repeatedly. Soon, Inuyasha will master the new power and will then face a new opponent who can overcome the new power.

Sesshoumaru-sama’s arrival is more interesting to me, though thus far, there’s not much to say there.