Chapter 296

The Headless Demons is the 296th chapter of InuYasha manga.

Synopsis

 * Jaken is babysitting Rin along with Ah-Un, waiting for Lord Sesshōmaru to return from an errand. He thinks to himself that Sesshōmaru has always been a man of few words, but after Naraku escaped at Mt. Hakurei, he's been even more quiet. Meanwhile on a hilltop, Sesshōmaru senses that his Tenseiga is agitated and something strange must be going on.
 * Inuyasha and friends find yet another village where the people are being attacked by a headless demon. Inuyasha is about to track its whereabouts, but when they see all the destruction the headless demon has caused, their path becomes obvious. The headless demon appears. Inuyasha is about to slay it when a young otter-demon, Kanta (who is mistaken for a racoon-dog several times) tells them not to attack, because the headless demon is his father. Inuyasha says he doesn't see a resemblance between the two of them, and the young otter realizes that the headless demon isn't his father. Inuyasha then slays the headless demon.
 * Kanta tells his story to the group: A few days earlier, Kanta and his Pa were fishing in the river, when a pale child riding a demon horse appeared. He cut off the adult demon's head and it washed down stream. The child lazily gave up the chase, but Kanta swam down river and retrieved his father's head. The group deduces that the pale child must have been Hakudōshi, and that he's still trying to find a path to the borderland between this world and the afterlife. Inuyasha says it makes sense that Hakudōshi isn't slaying monks and priests anymore; unlike humans, demons don't die so easily.
 * Hakudōshi is looking into the souls of demon-heads, going through them one-by-one in order to find the borderland. He can still only see a mountainous land surrounded by bones and covered in white mist.
 * Inuyasha and group talk about the headless demons. Kanta explains that if he puts the head back on his father's shoulders, his dad might come back to life. Shippō assures Kanta that Inuyasha will help him save his father, telling the story about when Inuyasha helped him avenge his own father's death from the thunder brothers. This makes the half-demon blush.
 * The body of Kanta's father walks aimlessly through a town. Villagers attack him, but the otter runs away. Inuyasha catches the scent of Kanta's Pa, so he and the group rush to save him before it's too late. Sesshōmaru comes upon the headless body of Kanta's father, which has collapsed.

Trivia
In the anime, Kanta disguises himself as a young girl: His father told him if he ever got into trouble, some fool would always come to the rescue of a pretty maiden. Shippō, always getting crushes on human girls, falls for this trick. However, in the original manga, Kanta appears as an otter the whole time and doesn't have the power to transform like Shippō does.