Episode 97

Kirara, Come Home! is the ninety-seventh episode of the InuYasha anime.

Synopsis

 * 1) Kirara wakes up in the middle of the night and leaves the group; Sango and the others begin to worry when she hasn't returned after a whole day.
 * 2) Shippō begins making accusations that Inuyasha and the others' poor treatment of Kirara has driven her away.
 * 3) It turns out that Myōga had taken Kirara with him to run an errand, and he told Shippō to inform the others of this, which he had forgotten to do; Shippō was, in fact, the one to blame.

Summary
The show starts with Kirara, Sango's normally small cat demon with two tails who can transform into a larger version of herself so she is able to destroy demons and carry full-grown people and children. Kirara is especially cute in her kitten form and ferociously powerful and protective in her transformation which tempts everyone to use her selfishly.

Someone or something zooms through the tall grass heading right for Inuyasha and his friend's temporary camp. Sleeping in her larger form, Kirara twitches her ears and wakes up. She sits and stares at the fire. The next morning, while Kagome is refilling her water bottle in a river, Sango emerges from the forest calling for Kirara. Sango asks if anyone's seen her, but no one has. Kagome asks what happened, and Sango replies by telling her Kirara has disappeared. Shippō thinks the cat went on a walk, but Sango knows it is unusual for Kirara to run off by herself. Miroku wonders if she ran away, and Inuyasha suspects she is in heat! Shippō retorts, "It's definitely a rebellion!" which makes Sango and Kagome's eyes go wide. Kagome scolds the men for worrying Sango instead of helping. Inuyasha says that nobody should be worried, and Kirara will come back soon. Sango says, "I hope so." Inuyasha repeats that no one should worry, that Kirara is not a kitten, unlike another baby he knows (he glares at Shippō). Shippō squirts water in Inuyasha's face, and after a few mean comments to each other Inuyasha chases Shippō around. Miroku invites Kagome and Sango to have some fish, but Kagome absentmindedly says, "Inuyasha" to herself while Sango walks back into the forest.

After a few hours Kirara has still not returned. Shippō and Inuyasha get into another argument, and Sango, who had been standing by a river, says, "I'm going to search for Kirara." Inuyasha stops her and says running off is not the way to do it. Kagome tries to make Inuyasha sniff Kirara's food dish, but Inuyasha insists he is familiar enough with Kirara's scent, and the group sets off in search for her.

Inuyasha gets down on all fours and sniffs the ground. After a few feet, he stops and says her scent vanished. Sango concludes, "That defeats the idea that she went on a walk." Miroku suggests that the group splits up and search for her, but Inuyasha responds that it is no use since her scent disappeared when they were looking for her earlier. Kagome refuses to leave the situation as it is, and Inuyasha asks Sango if she has any clues that could help. He wonders if Kirara got into a fight or met an acquaintance. Kagome tries to comfort Sango by telling her Kirara was hungry, or had some kind of duty to take care of, or maybe even found a patch of catnip growing somewhere near. But Sango blames herself. She says she never thought twice about dragging Kirara into a fight, and she would entice Kirara with food to run errands. Miroku tells Sango not to talk about herself like that, and Kagome insists that that is not why Kirara ran away.

Shippō suddenly yells, "I understand!" When the group demands to know why, he responds that he knows why Kirara isn't there. He starts by recalling that Inuyasha prodded Kirara into doing something. When the group does not quite understand, Shippō scolds, "Kirara isn't here because of all of you!"

Inuyasha hits Shippō over the head with Tessaiga's sheath while Sango and Kagome protest that they have not done anything that could have made Kirara run away. Shippō insists, "I think that's why! Put your hand over your heart and think well! Do you really not know the horrible reasons why Kirara ran off?"

Everyone but Inuyasha places their hands on their chests. Inuyasha remains confused about what Shippō's talking about. Shippō then tells Inuyasha that none of them saw what they each had done to Kirara, and he would tell the group right then and there of their mistakes.

Shippō chooses Inuyasha first. Shippō reveals that in order for Inuyasha to learn the Windscar, he practiced with Kirara. Inuyasha remains stumped, but then he thinks back to the time Shippō described. In the flashback, Inuyasha and the transformed Kirara stand on a hill in a meadow at night. Inuyasha unsheaths Tessaiga and points it at Kirara. The two separate winds form, and Inuyasha slices through them. Kirara yelps and flies backwards from the blow. Inuyasha hurried over to her to make sure she was alright. Inspecting her as she lay on the ground, Inuyasha noticed three small bald patches on the top of her head. Inuyasha and Kirara stand up, and Inuyasha assures himself that Kirara's hair was not falling out that badly, but when he pets her, more hair falls off. When Kirara looks at him Inuyasha replies, "It's fine, it's fine!" then laughs and says, "Let's go get some food!" Kirara follows Inuyasha down the hill, and then Shippō emerges from behind a tree, whispering, "I saw you, Inuyasha."

When Shippō ends his story, Inuyasha remains hunched over on all fours growling. Kagome asks, "Is that true?" and Sango responds, "So, that's why she was bald that time." Shippō says that Inuyasha's mistake was that he thought no one was watching, so he ran off with Kirara. Mirkou's eyes narrow and he says, "Is that so?" Sango blames Kirara's baldness on Inuyasha, and Inuyasha hollers at the group for blaming Kirara's absence entirely on him, insisting that Kirara probably can not even remember. Miroku responds, "There are worse things that could've happened," to which Shippō turns and says, "Miroku, didn't you forget something?" Everyone looks and Miroku, and he thinks back to his mistake.

In this flashback many young women play and wash clothes in a river. Miroku come upon them with the untransformed Kirara riding on his shoulder. He thinks for a minute and concludes happily, "Looks like this is where Kirara comes in." On Miroku's instructions, Kirara runs down to the village girls. They find the little cat adorable and wonder where she came from. Miroku then walks up, and Kirara gets free of a girl's arms and jumps back on Miroku's shoulder. Miroku declares, "This is my pet cat, Kirara." The girls surround him, and Miroku begins his usual flirting. In a second flashback when elderly women climb all over Miroku begging him to stay in the village, Miroku forces Kirara to transform and scare the women away. Shippō observed this in his statue form and says to himself, "I saw you, Miroku."

As the memory fades everyone blames Miroku. When Kagome scolds, "Sheesh, this really is a problem. Kirara is our friend, so just because you think it's convenient to use her doesn't mean you should," Shippō rhetorically asks Kagome, "Oh, and you didn't use her for your own convenience, you're saying?

In Kagome's flashback, while everyone eats crabs, Kagome paces around the hut wondering "what to do" about something. Later, while Shippō takes a bath he peered through the window and sees Kagome begging Kirara to take her down to the well in exchange for all kinds of fish and cat toys. Shippō declares, "I saw you, Kagome," as the flashback fades, then he asks, "What did you do that time?" The flashback resumes as Kagome jumps in the well as she asks Kirara to wait near the well until she returned. Back in her own time, Kagome's family was about to celebrate her Grandpa's birthday. She walks in just before they start eating and gives her Grandpa a tentacle from some demon. Kagome's mom asks if Kagome can stay for a while, but she remembers Kirara. However, her whole family insists she stays to eat at least. Then Kagome gets caught up reading, taking a bath, and even stays in her era overnight. Meanwhile, Kirara waits by the well.

The memory fades as Kagome looks at her fingers trying to avoid eye contact with the group. She remembers that she forgot her plans to return, and she even forgot the treats she promised Kirara. Sango, deeply disappointed in the group, walks away, and Shippō says angrily, "You guys don't know how to stop tormenting a yōkai. Especially Inuyasha!" Then Shippō talks on about how Inuyasha will hit him after he's done talking.

The group follows Sango and apologizes, but Sango says, "I'm no different than the rest of you." Sango explains she would roll on top of Kirara at night when they were sleeping and make her fly around the hills at night when frustrated. Kagome consoles Sango by stating that that was nothing serious, and she confesses she would force Kirara to transform so she could light a fire, mess with her paws throughout the day, pinch her nose while she was sleeping, and even dress her up just for the fun of it. Everyone is shocked, and Inuyasha says, "Compared to her, I'd say we're pretty innocent..."

The ground suddenly rumbles, and a flock of birds flies out of the trees. A village man appears running away from something zooming through the trees. A blast sends him flying, and he lands face first into the dirt. When he turns around, a huge monkey demon with one eye is towering over him. The demon reaches down to pick the man up so he can eat him, but then stops when Inuyasha says, "I come here thinking I'd find Kirara, and instead I find an ape yōkai and a middle-aged guy." The monkey demon turns around and smashes the tree Inuyasha was standing in. Inuyasha lands in front of the villager and tells him to run. The villagers scurries away, screaming, "It's another yōkai!" The group then runs up, and Sango asks if Inuyasha saw Kirara. He replies that he did not see her, but he smelled her scent. The monkey demon asks what they are talking about, and in front of him is a red piece of fabric. Everyone's eyes widen as they recognize the cloth as the scarf Kagome gave to Kirara. The monkey demon steps on the scarf and laughs. Shippō points out that there are also bones spread everywhere. Sango takes a step backwards too shocked to say anything. Everyone else looks at the bones in dread, and they are all thinking the same thing: Kirara has been eaten. The demon boast, "How can I remember who I ate?" after Shippō yells at him. The demon tells the group he will eat them too, and shoots some kind of blue light at the group, which blasts everyone out of the way. Inuyasha uses his Iron Reaver, Soul Stealer technique, but the monkey demon proves too fast and jumps out of the way and hides in the trees.

Sango and Shippō sit on the ground as the red scarf floats down next to her. Sango looks at it in sadness and thinks about the time she was given Kirara. Sango was a little girl, and her father held Kirara in his hands and told her the cat was Sango's responsibility now. Sango laughed and played with her new cat. She was then running in a meadow with Kirara a few paces in front of her. The cat transformed, and Sango stood and stared in wonder. She then flew around on Kirara, cuddled up with her, and lay in the grass with her.

The memory disappears, and Sango stands up hanging her head. Inuyasha unsheaths Tessaiga out, but before he has a chance to swing, Sango throws her hiraikotsu and chops the tops of the trees off. The monkey demon, who was jumping from tree to tree, loses his balance and crashes into the ground. The demon gets up and jumps for Sango, but she throws her hiraikotsu and the demon disintegrates. The boomerang lands a few feet away from Sango, but she leaves it where it is and walks away.

The next morning, Sango sits behind a tree holding Kirara's dish and crying. The group leaves her alone, and Kagome says it would have been better if they had treated Kirara more respectfully. Shippō starts crying, and Inuyasha turns around. He stops dead in his tracks, his eyes wide. His stuttering gets Miroku, Shippō, and Kagome's attention. There Kirara is, in her fighting form, looking at the group. Sango hears them say "Kirara," she gets up, and she and Kirara run to each other.

Kagome asks what happened, and the familiar voice of Myōga calls out, "Inuyasha-sama!" Miroku asks why Myōga is around, and he replies that Tōtōsai sent him here to deliver the sharpening stone for Inuyasha's Tessaiga. Kagome looks over and sees the sharpening stone, and doesn't understand how Myōga carried something that heavy. Myōga responds, "It's simple. I had Kirara carry it for me."

The show then goes back to what happened at the beginning, when everyone was sleeping. Kirara's ears twitch, she wakes up, and Myōga asks if she could do something for him. Shippō awakes at all the noise, and asks what was going on. Myōga tells Shippō to inform the group that he was borrowing Kirara, and Shippō says, "Sure, yeah." and falls back asleep. The scene shifts back to the present time. Kagome asks what happened with Kirara's scarf. It turns out that while Kirara was flying the scarf came undone and flew off and down into the monkey demon's forest. Kirara tries to fly after it, but Myōga tells to keep going. Kirara looks down at where the scarf fell, her eyes get puppy-like, and her ears droop.

As Myōga finishes up his story, Shippō tries to walk away from the group quietly, but Kagome catches him and says, "You knew all along?" Shippō tries to make up excuses, it was late, he was half asleep, but Inuyasha walks toward him, ready to pound him. Shippō yells, "Save me, Kagome!" Kagome snaps, "Inuyasha!" The expected "Sit!" command does not happen. Instead, after a pause, Kagome smiles and says, "Not too hard." Inuyasha chases after Shippō, who screams for Miroku or Sango to save him. Sango ignores him as she hugs Kirara while Miroku and Kagome calmly converse. The episode then ends with a freeze-frame of Sango hugging Kirara, Miroku and Kagome standing in the background, and Inuyasha chasing a terrified Shippō.