It's not FAIR! It's UNJUST!

...but he can't save Kagome himself, and it's not fair for her to be killed for his mistakes, either. So he bows, as low as he can, EVEN THOUGH THIS IS STUPID AND UNFAIR AND RIDICULOUS.

"I'm sorry. Please help me."

Yeah, Inuyasha already started collecting his stuff to go off to rescue Kagome.

Before he finished his sentence, really. 

"You coming?"

What's with this guy?

But yeah, he's coming.

Elsewhere, Kagome is regaining consciousness. 

She doesn't feel like she's regaining consciousness very well. She supposes she shouldn't be surprised by the splitting pain in her head, but she's dizzy, too, and her eyes don't seem like they're focusing right. Blinking doesn't help, although the blurriness fades a little as she stares at the objects around her for longer.

Where is she?

She is in a castle on a storm-torn mountaintop! More specifically, she's in a kitchen, lying on a wooden slab, where she was dropped. There's an absolutely gigantic meat cleaver leaned against it, bigger than she is, and various pots and barrels filled with... bones? That's the visible one, human bones - and the corpses of various animals are strung up from the ceiling. Manten is stirring an enormous bubbling pot over a fire.

That seems... bad.

Are there... exits. Doors. Windows. Anywhere one might plausibly sneak out of if they were being quiet and a demon maybe possibly hadn't noticed them being awake yet.

There's a door! She'd have to get past Manten to get to it, though, it's on the far side of the cauldron.

Welllllll that doesn't look very doable. Even if she does make it to the door, he'll notice her on the way out, and then catch her afterwards. On the other hand, her other options are... continuing to pretend to be unconscious and hoping for a better opening, or diplomacy? Both of which also sound pretty doomed.

He hasn't killed her yet, so... does he want her alive? That suggests one set of upsetting possible motivations. The cauldron kind of suggests a different set. The venn diagram suggests something like "boiled alive for either magical or culinary reasons", which - yeah, pass.

Inuyasha will come if she buys enough time. Unless he's still trapped, in which case he might take a long time about it. An amount of time that is kind of incompatible with stalling. Augh.

This would be easier to think about if her head didn't hurt so much.

...maybe she will pretend to be unconscious a while longer. It is distantly possible that he might leave the room for something, and leave her with a clearer path out. Or that Inuyasha might come. Or that she might learn something else useful. Maybe.

At some point, alas, she will twitch, and when she does Manten will raise his head. "Ah, she wakes."

Stupid head injury.

"What do you want with me?"

"Why, to boil you," he politely explains. "'Tis said that new hair thrives on the flesh of a lovely maiden, and so I mean to boil you down and rub you on my head."

"I don't think that's a thing," says Kagome, who doesn't really know whether that's a thing, given all the magic stuff she's seen. "Have you considered..... wearing a wig."

"Of course it is!" Manten hisses. (He's being careful to keep volume down.) "And what good would that do? No one would be fooled by a wig." He can imagine the shock and horror - beautiful women, swooning over his luscious locks, and then a slight tug of the wind and they come off -

"They would if it was a good wig. People do it all the time."

Why yes, she is still totally out of plans besides doomed diplomacy and stalling for time.

Manten... considers. "I can take your hair for a wig and boil you for a salve," he concludes.

"Or! Or! You could take my hair, and we could call it even, and you could let me go, and then nobody I know will have to avenge my death by murdering you. How's that?"

"Shhh! Quieter, please. If my brother Hiten hears, you will be eaten."

Hiten slams the door open, destroying it in the process! "Manten! I didn't realize you were back!"

He's skinner, taller, prettier, and more charismatic than Manten. There's also a female demon standing next to him, whose shoulder he's cradling possessively; she has slit pupils and is wearing a snake and not much else.

"Huh, that's your little brother?" she says. "Not much resemblance, is there."

Right, brothers. She has to do doomed diplomacy with two demons. She almost felt like she was getting somewhere, but now she feels pretty doomed again. 

The other one looks... less monstrous, but hard to get a read on. She doesn't know what he wants yet, besides the jewel shards. And eating people. And women who are wearing nothing but snakes, apparently, though he's already got one of those. She's not seeing any immediately obvious deals, here.

And Manten, nervous and blushing -

"E-elder br-brother, I -"

And, with cheerful curiosity, "What? Is this a girl?"

"Th-this is my prey. She -"

"Fear not, little brother! I shall not claim her. This one is all yours." He grins at the demon-girl. "For I have made a much better catch."

"Heh," she says, leaning in.

"Tell me, Manten. Have you found the other shards of the jewel?"

Confusion. "Uh... did..."

... And then horror dawns on Manten's face. "I, uh... did find them - but, you see, brother -"

Hiten's smile becomes chilling. "What do you mean, 'but', brother? Surely you did not LET THIS HUMAN FEMALE BLIND YOU TO THE JEWELS!"

He waves his arm in a dramatic gesture backwards... through the demon-girl's head.

"YOU DIDN'T LET THEM GET AWAY?"

(She slumps to the ground.)