Sudden time-and-scene-jump ahoy, folks!

Panel 1: That long jutsu name is a reference back to the Ayakami clan’s first appearance in vol.3.

Panel 2: Let’s pour one out for this hapless, long-haired Ayakami ninja, folks! After a promising start exactly 100 pages ago in which he front-kicked Ninjette and hit her in the arm with a shuriken, the largely unseen fight has gone quite poorly for him ever since. The last time we saw the poor fella, in turn he was getting a shuriken in the eye as Ninjette battled the doomed Badass Sundress Waif 40 pages or so ago.

Gotta say that I really wish I’d allocated my pagecount better when completing this volume, as I’d love to have depicted the entire Ayakami battle without having to resort to timejumps in the action flow like this one. Oh, well.

Panel 3: “Gui Ji Chuan” is a reference to an obscure bit from way back in vol. 5, which in turn was a holdover concept from a failed Shang-Chi: Master of Kung Fu proposal I worked up for Marvel a decade or two ago.

Today’s Patreon update: As it’s a Wednesday, time for the $5+ Patron tiers to get their weekly dose of commissioned damsel-in-distress content, along the lines of the same material was eventually reworked into Empowered. (No idea what as to exactly that might be at this time, though; these commentaries are written much further out from posting than are my often last-minute Patreon updates.)

-Adam Warren