*In this story over a quarter century in the making we now find our heroine Ana Ishikawa 15 years removed from when she last graced the pages of a comic book. Ana is divorced from her husband, disgraced NYPD detective Peter DeNyse and now lives a peaceful, quiet existence raising their teenage daughter Hotaru.
Most importantly, her warrior days far behind her…
But that all changes when Dr. YOU (a character that will be named after one of our backers via a special pledge level) brings the terrifying news that Masahiro Arashi has escaped from a New York City Mental Institution. Her former antagonist, now suffering from dementia has regressed back to his younger more violent self and is vengefully obsessed with the one person responsible for his incarcerated existence… Ana Ishikawa!
Manhattan is once again gripped in fear as a series of gruesome copycat Shi Killings resurface – with the order of victims proving ever closer to Ana. A desperate Ana must now, alongside Dr. You, seek out and stop Arashi before he can fulfill his murderous destiny… a destiny whose road ends with her own daughter Hotaru.
As Doctor You and Ana get ever closer, he confesses to her of Arashi’s twisted and dangerous obsession with the young Ana’s secret warrior persona, SHI, the living embodiment of death.
Worse still, the maddened Arashi is convinced that everyone: nurses, orderlies, janitors and especially the man treating him is in love with the lithe mistress of the underworld (Yomi).
Ana is mortified that the doctor is fully aware that she is indeed a murderess and knows that if ever exposed would rightly be the end of her world. But You assures her secret is safe and even though his own life is in danger, he promises to take it (due to both professional and personal reasons) “to the grave.”
But the grave just might be waiting for them all. For Ana will realize that measured acumen only goes so far in protecting those you love and, once again, the lioness within Ana will resurface to take up her trusted naginata, transform the hunted into the hunter, and unsheathe… The Return of the Warrior. *Source: kickstarter.com