BLACK TORCH

Jiro Azuma's not your usual high schooler. When the animal whisperer and ninja expert finds an injured black cat on death's door, his weird world gets even weirder. The cat, it turns out, is a mononoke, and Jiro has awakened him from a very long nap.

Jiro awakens in a hospital room, confused and in pain. Thanks to having fused with Rago, he is now under the surveillance of the Bureau of Espionage, an undercover agency responsible for finding and destroying mononoke deemed dangerous to the public.

Jiro is confined within an incognito van, and the tension could be cut with a katana. Jiro's escort is the no-nonsense, mononoke-despising Ichika Kishimojin. As if things weren't stressful enough, the three suddenly realize they're under attack.

Jiro has been pitted against the newest recruit, Reiji Kirihara, and it turns out Shiba has orchestrated the whole thing. With Reiji's sword skills, and Jiro's hand-to-hand combat, the duel is more than a test. Each challenger's fist has a tale to tell.

In a subterranean hold, a monolith towers over Jiro and Reiji. As it happens, the strange stone is what imprisoned Rago during his extended sleep. When the attention shifts to a mononoke who calls himself Koga, his lust for power becomes clear.

Jiro, Ichika and Reiji have been handed a new trial, this time from a "friendly" mononoke known as Fuyo. Fuyo has created a realm of illusion to train the team's ability in combating the dark arts. The test? The three must break through and return alive.

Mononoke have just committed mass murder, and it's beginning to look more like a strategic string of kills than all-you-can-eat human meat. Lingering at the scene is an ominous blanket of fog, but that doesn't slow down Team Black Torch.