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Reviewing this moment again and it's actually a lot darker on Inoue's part than I remembered.

She run's past child Nel's collapsed form to Ichigo's side shouting she'll heal him and Ichigo immediately tells her to go heal Nel first and she freezes, then whips around, and then hesitates.

She doesn't just hesitate, she starts to turn back toward Ichigo anyway and stops again. It takes her a LONG moment to concede and then go.

She hadn't even thought to heal Nel, and when told to doesn't want to heal Nel.

Inoue really is viciously jealous of Nel after Ichigo shows awe in her. To the point she clearly is at best apathetic about her being injured and disabled, at worst prefers her that way so she can't outshine her around Ichigo.

Also really interesting is how the sound effects of the battle aren't present or are very small when she's speaking to Ichigo, but dominating the panels when she isn't - very much showing how her focus has narrowed so completely she doesn't notice anything else.

Also: Ichigo is so unimpressed with her here:

Like. He had to TELL her to go heal the child.

The difference in the tension in his face between these two panels says the first one isn't entirely a wince of pain, but moreso him pulling a disgusted expression. The first panel he IS wincing of course because he's in pain and it's probably taking some effort to talk, but you can see the WTF?! on his face clear as day. In the second one he's watching her with an assessing kind of caution and a frown as she leaves. He definitely caught that hesitation and does not approve.

I think now this is the moment Ichigo reassessed her and decided to never rely on her again, not the betrayal in TLA.

From the beginning Ichigo has always been concerned about collateral damage, making sure battles stay away from bystanders or to drag it away from other people who are injured, making sure others get taken care of first.

Inoue just disregarded someone vulnerable in a way he never could.

Nel is his friend, unconscious and bloodied and a child and even being brutally beaten he never stopped thinking of her, but Inoue forgot her completely as soon as she hit the ground because all she was paying attention to was Ichigo.

TLA showed how shallow their connection was and how easily and completely she could and would distrust him on someone elses word, to the point he couldn't BEG her to listen to or believe him, but here is where she showed in a pretty irrevocable way that she was unreliable and couldn't be trusted to do the right thing or to be properly present and where she needs to be in battle.

There's also a really interesting parallel between Ichigo and Byakuya here in what seems to be simultaneous moments.

Byakuya has been badly injured and is waiting for Isane to heal Rukia and Hanatarou before he allows her to work on him, and she doesn't argue, just heals Rukia and Hanatarou and leaves Byakuya to last like he orders:

A sharp contrast to Inoue. Unlike her, Isane is a real healer in ability and personality.

Inoue, like every time Ichigo is around, pays no attention or care to anyone else but him, even when they are in dire need of her help, and when told to go help someone else or do another task always hesitates or argues or simply ignores it and keeps focused on him.

And every time Ichigo isn't impressed by it.

Inoue is never able to read or understand Ichigo, but because of her crush she's spent a lot of time studying his expressions and I think she understood his disgust at her here.

When she does run toward Nel it's more like she's running away from him and his judgement rather than rushing to help Nel.

I think she was ashamed of this moment, and both literally and figuratively ran away from it. She healed Nel as requested and then shoved the incident down to be forgotten, and so never grew from it, which is why she later wishes Nel hadn't been healed from her disability because she didn't like her hugging Ichigo (and had likely had her feelings of jealousy and inadequacy recently compounded by Nel taking that adult form to save her and everyone from Quilge), and why even in the final battle she gets underfoot trying to heal him instead of attempting to properly participate.

I do like this moment in Hueco Mundo because of how it's a showcase of how her healing isn't really altruistic, but is a direct action of her own selfish desires. Her power is born of her rejecting the ugly reality of her personal life, not from her wanting to help others. And that's shown time and again in how she uses her power. She never becomes a great healer or warrior, she just focuses on that one, self-serving desire to heal Ichigo.

Healing Ichigo is what she wants to do.

What's needed gets forgotten or ignored by her in favor of it every time if it doesn't directly involve Ichigo, but every time that isn't what Ichigo wants; and his expressing that never changes her thoughts or actions.

The battle against Sans at the end of the genocide route quite literally decides the fate of the world. Despite his apparent exhaustion from the fight, it seems quite odd that Sans would just fall asleep during it.

And even more so, that he would just so happen to wake up right in time to dodge the attack that follows.

Instead, it appears that Sans might have never actually fallen asleep at all, and that he was merely just pretending to have.

This is something that seems to even have been foreshadowed very early on in the game with Napstablook.

hey guys. so i promised to make more jester black mask art, made said art with the full design, never posted it and dipped. why? hell if i know. here, a remastered version of the shelved pieces i made 3 years ago

bonus: