August 28, 2014

Preview: Shuriken to Pleats [Chapter 2]

Facing a couple of ninjas while holding down the man’s head, Mikage thinks that for her to encounter ninjas in active duty, her intelligence report she attained is actually too little. She wonders who hired those guys, who this man is and why they are after him. She thinks that it can be somewhat concluded that they consider her as an enemy so.. Mikage tells the man to quickly run for he’s a hindrance. The man ran off as told. Mikage quickly uses her luggage to block the ninjas’ attacks. They were going to attack again when they stop, nod to each other and retreat. Mikage is puzzled Then, she turns around to see the man lying on the floor. She asks if he was hit. She checks on him to see if he is wounded. Thinking that she wasn’t able to protect someone again, the trembling man holds up a calling card. He tells her that he is only being drugged. He asks her to bring him to this clinic. At an old fashioned house, Mikage looks at the man sleeping in bed. She mentally tells Rod that even if she immediately acted to help him [/the man], this time around, she was able to protect properly. Holding a wallet, Mikage tells the sleeping man that she used his money to pay for the taxi. She informs him that she’ll be leaving it here.
Putting the thick wallet on the table, Mikage thinks that this man is rich so could those guys be robbers. She finds it pitiful if it is true, that the ninjas are robbers. She is surprised when the man grabs her arm and asks if she is a ninja. While telling him to let go, Mikage thinks as if she would tell him ‘yes’ that ninja exists. He immediately grabs her shoulder which caused him to rip off the IV connected to him. The man tells her that he requires her services. While Mikage was startled, the man tells her that there is someone who wants to seize his life and that person even used ninjas which she saw for herself. He says that he wants to live so he needs her. Mikage wonders why those guys retreat at that time if they are after his life. She tells herself no, that is just her excessive doubtful speculation. She tells him that even if she sympathizes with him, but he better not have such any anticipation towards her. “I will use this life in the service of only one man. *sad smile* So, I’m saying, I will forever only serve that person.. Can you understand my Japanese..” The man thinks over what she said. After a light bulb moment, he apologizes to Mikage for he didn’t imagine that she is already married and just now, his brain is swirling around.
Mikage darkly says that he obviously knew yet he is joking around with her. The man says that he thought that he finally found an unemployed ninja so it turns out that she is a ninja who is groomed overseas. He asks if she is accompanying her sight-seeing tourist master. Mikage doesn’t find that funny that she quickly kicked the man away. Taking her luggage, she says that it is a very huge mistake for the man she saved to actually joke about her master. A doctor arrives and asks the man if he is okay. He says yes, but compared to him, that girl.. The doctor goes out the door and tries to call for Mikage but she is no longer around. He is worried about her going out alone at night. Going back in, the doctor tells the man that she is already gone and she’s quite a fast kid. He then scolds the man saying that he’s okay when he cannot stand up straight. The man insists that he is fine. It turns out that Mikage is standing sideways on the wall near the ceiling. She is relived that what she did didn’t injure the man. And, she leaves the place. While walking, she mentally asks Rod that even if he employed her for life, what she should do afterwards?
She notices a couple of high school girls had passed her by. She recalls the time when Rod asked her if she won’t go to school when she obviously likes to study. She told him that she doesn’t like it but everything she studies is for her duty in order to live. She said that it is enough since she only needs to study training and the things that he taught her. Rod sighed and said that basically a child, having this ‘in order to survive’ way of thinking about school, doesn’t exist but then, there are things that she’ll learn in school that he won’t be able to teach her. He told her that when youngsters gather in a place, a chemical change will happen. Whether good or bad, even silly to the point of being ridiculous, there is no harm in it. The most important thing is there is no dangerous duty. Mikage gloomily says that he’s saying that there are still so many, many things that she doesn’t know in the world, right. After a pause, he told her that there are all sorts of stimulants in school. He says that if she thinks that even if it is like that, she still wants to be a masked ninja, then it is okay for her to maintain that situation. And that is what he wants to tell her. She informed him that in principle, he is telling her to be a rouge ninja [missing/ runaway-ninja]. He just lamely agreed. End flashback.
Mikage thinks that Rod always thought of her happiness and among which is ‘school’ but for her, happiness is protecting her kind master. She thinks that it was enough for her but she wonders if it isn’t because of what her master said. Anyway, for things to reach this point, even if she were to do things in accordance to his anticipation, the master whom she wanted to be happy is gone. She decides to stop being depressed since it will make her master sad. Holding a piece of paper, she decides to go to the place where she’ll live while in Japan, and then, take her time to make a decision. She starts running on the roofs toward her destination. The place is in some quiet outskirts apartment building under the name of the president[/her father]. Her other luggage are already brought there. She recalled the president giving her a key and told her to use it upon arriving in Japan. Holding the key, she mentally thanks him for letting her use it. Then, she notices some smoke up ahead. Standing in front of the house, she finds the place lent to her burning. Then, she notices a smoke signal used by ninjas, ‘This country is our territory, get lost.” She realizes that it is those two ninjas she encountered earlier.
Just as she takes a step toward the burning building, the man holding his IV stopped her and says that place is on fire, does she want to die. Seeing a taxi behind the man, Mikage asks if he chased after her. She tells him that in that blaze are the things that were delivered earlier, the stuff that her master gave her while he’s living. Notebook, textbook, pencil, special Japan made cute eraser. Then, she hits the man away and exclaims that in the end, she has to go in. The man exclaims what, just for an eraser. She is going to use her luggage to break in the window when the window above breaks due to the heat of the fire. While Mikage looks up towards it, the man pushes her to safety. She tells him that she can dodge that on her own. She is surprised to see his forehead bleeding. He tells her that it is kindness [/favor] for saving him. She tells him that she didn’t do anything that would be considered a favor for it is only out of habit from her training that she saved him but then, unlike this action, it is full of courage. Wiping his bleeding forehead with a handkerchief, she tells him that even if it is a futile, meaningless, unnecessary action, she still thanks him for saving her and it is she who was received a favor by him. Taking the handkerchief, he smiles and says is that so. Looking dark, he tells her then, can she sincerely listen to a few words he’ll say.
Comment: Hehe, it would be nice if the man actually saved her due to ulterior motive because if it isn’t, I would really question his wisdom on hiring a ninja who couldn’t protect herself from falling debris. And, would you hire a ninja who’ll kick a sick person then get worried about it later on? ^^; And, it is just because he poked fun of her beloved master. Or actually, a ninja who can easily be tracked down by a civilian? Oh well, maybe he is desperate like better something than nothing. Maybe, her father already knew that she is a failure as a ninja that he easily let her go. =P You know, cannot control her emotions. Ah, it seems like Mikage is VK’s Zero who is tied to the past. I guess she’ll go master-this and that for a long time and maybe, even more flashbacks. She is also overly serious and emo. ^^; In a way, I guess Rod might be the ‘love rival’ of whoever Mikage will meet later on as love interest. The way Mikage hit the man with her luggage, it makes me think that the man is some sort of comedy like Hanabusa. ^^; Anyway, it seems that he is intelligent enough to take advantage of Mikage’s kindness to get her to owe him. Somewhat like, ‘I saved your life and since you said that it isn’t a returned favor, your life now belongs to me/you owe me now/you also have to save me from my enemy.’ And, there is a high possibility that she’ll take the bait. It seems that the type of scenes that I would poke fun on in VK are already appearing here. ^^; Scans by allwink

Quote of the day:
We are made to persist. That's how we find out who we are. ~ Tobias Wolff

16 comments:

  1. Thanks for the summary. I'm confused because I don't know if he is good or bad, and I don't know if he is gonna be the main character. I want to see more chapters and read your summaries

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    1. Thanks for reading, karina ^-^

      Hehe..well, time will tell if he is.

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  2. Ahhh yessss a new series of hino-sensei~
    Thank you very much for the new chapter ^_^
    Hmmm I hope it would be a complex story with a deep plot and many loveable characters... I just noticed, in the past series of hino-sensei there are always fantasyparts like vampire, a master-servant-curse, magicbeings and a alternative world, so maybe this series will have some to?(I don't think ninjas are so fantasy-like ift you unterstand what I mean)
    So Mikage is the VKs zero, so we need a bright character to counter it like a male VKs yuki? Noo please, not a wishy-washy character again, someone like hanabusa would do :P

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    1. Thanks for reading ^-^

      True..it seems like she likes fantasy-type of series.

      Maybe..^^

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  3. Thanks for the summary Kat ^_^

    So far this series is still full of mysteries, I would want to continue reading it to find out more about it.

    So far a Hanabusa like character isn't so bad. I guess we have a VK zero character already. We need someone to break the ice!

    I wonder if the man here will be the main male lead or are their more coming up?? It's still a mystery...

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    1. Thanks for reading, avismonte080 ^-^

      Hehe, is that so.

      True, a Hanabusa-like character would be interesting.

      That is still unknown..and we don't know his name yet.

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    2. I love hanabusa so much since I read the light novel with his deceased love, I sobbed so much after reading it T_T, he seems to be destined to fail in his love life, remeber VKs yori-chan? The bf of yuki? In the epilogue he seemed to like her, but she stayed human and died of old age with grandchildren left behind

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    3. Hehe..light novel by a different author? Or is it the mangaka, too?

      I see..sounds like Hana to Akuma. ^^

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    4. I remember it was a collaboration between the mangaka and author, hino-sensei drawed a few cute pictures and so on for it, the light novels are about side stories to give the characters more depth like the said hanabusa's deceased love died before the actuall story of VK, or zero's past with his brother and that part was an explanation to a photo which I think showed up in VK?

      The story is about a girl from the day-class who was in love with kaname, she sneaked in to give him her valentines choclate, they meet somewhere else and kaname realized something about her. After the chance meeting, the girl starts to meet up with the night-class, but hanabusa doesn't treat her nice, after a few strange incidents, she and hanabusa grew closer. But it turns out she is a D-class vampire, in the summerbreak she got into an accident and a passing-by pureblood turned her into an vampire. Kaname realized this after their first encounter and used her as a guinea pig to test a medicine out which should stop or slow down the degeneration of D-class vampires into an E-class. Hanabusa didn't like this matter, but he had closed her into his heart and wanted to save her. But the medicine only fastened the degeneration and brought her sealed memories of the accident back. Realizing this she asked him to kill her, as she wants to stay human in her last seconds and she wants to die in his arms. Hanabusa agreed heartbrocken and as she turned into dust, it started to rain, washing her remaining ashes away. At the end there was a phrase of him which was so bitter-sweet and touching, in which he described that he can't even keep some remains of her and I think there was a scene with washing his tears in the rain away?
      I read the story 4 years ago, so I don't remember it so well

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    5. Thanks for the mini-summary ^^ That was nice.

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  4. kat the weak rich guy is the main guy he was drawn in hino's new card with mikage. in fact he is silver hair or dirty blonde colour hair.

    and thanks for the summery oh i already ship these two ^_^

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    1. Oh..is that so, sephora. Going for the older guy again, huh... Lol, Kaname technically is 'old'.

      Thanks for the info and thanks for reading ^-^

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  5. uwaaah~~ thank u so much for the preview kat~!! >w<
    if only i could hug u right now~ hehe (gomen for my weird personality ^^")
    i just can't wait for the next chapters of matsuri-sama's latest manga~
    i have been reading her previous works since i was 12 and i just couldn't get enough *.*
    (tho VK's ending was bittersweet for me TwT)
    anyways~ thank u again~
    *bows*

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    1. Thanks for reading, Yuki ^-^

      Hehe, is that so ^^

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  6. Hey Kat, thanks for picking up this manga! I was really interested after I read the first chapter and I was interested to see how it progresses. If the story stays strong, I daresay I'll be reading your summaries religiously for this, as well as Skip Beat :D

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    1. Thanks for reading, Daneille ^-^

      True..I'm going with this cautiously especially after VK though I like ninjas ^^

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