The Masakari by @Thorvald (El Thorvaldo)

My 43rd submission to DYOS X.ii. [link]

Hitherto, the Masakari had not appeared in the comic proper, only vaguely mentioned as Toyoda's "elite guard" in the wiki entry on his company. As @GenMarshall didn't catch the subtler cues in this scene, I should lay it out bare: Randy Johnson, the insidious Deputy Director of Intelligence, thinks that when he's taking on Toyoda he's squaring off against a pack of criminals. He grossly underestimates Toyoda's level of organization and the degree to which he is aware both of CIA operations, and Johnson's own vigilanteism. Contrary to the picture painted in the subsequent comic, this isn't a chance encounter: the operatives know exactly who they're dealing with and are playing dumb to obtain a confession. The agent was dead before he'd even entered the alley.

Understandably, CG interpreted the hit as the prelude to a crime wave, and in the original script for this comic, the detectives were accosted in an identical setup to the assassination. But as this and later comics illustrate, the Masakari are both more professional and better-informed than Johnson's CIA: whereas his increasing frustration, if not full-blown paranoia, makes his shadow war ever-more frenzied and unsecret, the Masakari conduct surgical strikes with near-perfect concealment and pin-point accuracy. That this assassination takes place in the capital is both a taunt and a threat in keeping with a theme of Toyoda's opponents biting off more than they can chew: You have no clue who or where we are, while we can hit you on your front doorstep. Tragically for Johnson, he doesn't get the message.

I may have mischaracterized Ayane in this. Not realizing Dead or Alive had a story, the first I read about her background was a year or two later in a wiki article while trying to figure out what the "darkness of Hajin Mon" meant. As such, her behaviour here is based on what I presumed to be a "younger", less socially-jaded individual. Within its own context it works, but people know how I'm a stickler for accuracy.

This is, undoubtedly, the darkest cartoon I have yet created. B-) There were a couple of frames where I had to add lighting, but overall I was content with what I could communicate through the shadows. Ironically, I did take the time to facepose each frame.

Ayane © Team Ninja.

[Originally submitted to DeviantArt January 2014.]