Wolverine: Soultaker #5

Issue Date: 
August 2005
Story Title: 
Soultaker: Chapter 5: Bloodlines
Staff: 

Akira Yoshida (writer), Shin Nagasawa (pencils), Guru Efx (colors), VC’s Rus Wooton (letters), James Taveras (production), Sean Ryan (assistant editor), Nick Lowe (editor), Mike Marts (consulting editor), Joe Quesada (editor-in-chief), Dan Buckley (publisher)
SPECIAL THANKS TO: C.B. Cebulski, Aki Yanagi & Mutsumi Masuda

Brief Description: 

Wolverine and Mana team-up, using both the Blade of Blood, Wolverine’s claws and Mana’s various magic tricks to finish off Ryuki’s demon army. Refusing to hand over the Blade to Ryuki as he wishes, they prepare to kill him as well. Unfortunately, Ryuki has a back-up plan: he has kidnapped both Yukio and Amiko! He suggests a simple trade: the Blade for their lives. Despites Mana’s warnings not to do it, Wolverine hands over the Blade to Ryuki. Though, upon touching it, the souls from within the Blade fly into Ryuki’s body and his strength increases enormously. He wants to kill Yukio and Amiko to get even stronger, but gets stopped by Mana. Wolverine gets his family into safety, and decides to use his final battle strategy: one golden set of claws! And anything golden is the one way to defeat Ryuki. Wolverine slices through the demon’s body, making it separate from Hana’s. A vortex opens and slurps all of the demon bodies, including Ryuki’s, back inside it. Mana finishes it by killing her sister. Afterwards, she thanks Wolverine, who gets hugged by Amiko and Yukio. When she touches the sword, Amiko can suddenly hear voices inside it. This is weird to Mana, as only direct descendants from the Shosei Order can hear those voices! Apparently, Amiko’s mother was part of the Order before her death. Amiko agrees to go into training with Mana. Later, she and Logan share a hug, with Amiko hoping that, one day, she’ll be the best there is at what she does.

Full Summary: 

Holding in one hand the Blade, and having snikt out the claws on the other, Wolverine, accompanied by Mana, watches at the many demons Ryuki has gathered around him, and is ready for battle. Wolverine jokes that this is going to be fun. Ryuki smirks that he is glad to see that Logan can follow orders, so now he orders him to hand him over the Blade of Blood to him, so a lot of blood spilling will be spared. Wolverine wants to joke some more, but Mana cuts in, with full confidence telling Ryuki that they’ll never allow the Blade to fall into his hands.

Ryuki goes back inside Hana’s body, and flies over to Mana. Hana sarcastically greets her sister, finding it lovely to see her again, and asks her to be a nice sister and just hand over the Blade to her. Mana slaps Ryuki in the face, shouting that he isn’t part of her blood, and will make him pay for taking over her sister’s body. She explains to Ryuki that she and Wolverine haven’t brought the Blade of Blood so that they could hand it over to him, but to use it to destroy him!

Wolverine jumps at a snake demon, ready to cut it. But the demon acts faster than Logan does, and slaps him away with its tail. Ryuki laughs, wanting to see how long it will take for him to take down Mana’s slave. Mana gets angry, and jumps at the snake demon, shouting that Wolverine is nobody’s slave and only serves himself, and that he won’t have to battle these demons alone.

Mana makes it to the snake demon’s long neck, and activates her necklace. Powerful energy suddenly comes out of it, which destroys part of the ground below them and one other demon. The Blade’s top changes into real blood, and Wolverine uses it to cut through the snake demon! After the demon has fallen down, Logan uses both the Blade and his claws to finish the job.

Unfortunately, a huge demon steps forward, and slams his fists towards both Logan and Mana! They can just in time jump into safety, but Logan has to ask Mana for any ideas. Mana concentrates, and fires some of her magic powers against Logan’s body, explaining that the magic will get him close, but Logan will have to do the rest. Logan thinks about it, but shortly understands the idea. The magic charges the Blade, which Logan uses to fly towards the demon’s head, and slice it into pieces!

Another demon steps forth and, this time, it’s a fire type. Mana warns Wolverine to get away: she’ll use her magic powers to freeze the demon, and Logan will have to strike it when it’s fully frozen. After some spectacular sights, the demon becomes frozen. Wolverine jumps to it, and kills it by slicing through the middle of it with the Blade.

Wolverine isn’t intimidated, and asks Ryuki if this is all he can do. Ryuki flies down, noticing that after all her years of sleeping haven’t slowed Mana down one bit. But Ryuki has one ace up his sleeve left. He teleports his army of gigantic falcons forth, and they have kidnapped both Amiko and Yukio!

Ryuki makes the birds drop them, and suggests a simple exchange: the Blade for Wolverine’s loved ones. Wolverine wants to do it, but Mana warns him not to, as the demons will only kill them anyway once they’ve got the Blade. Wolverine snikts his claws back in, apologizing to Mana, but that’s just a chance he’ll have to take. Ryuki threatens to send Wolverine back into the hell that spawned him for certain if he doesn’t hand him over the Blade now.

Logan does as told, and gives Ryuki the Blade. Upon touching it, the necessary souls from the Blade flow right into Ryuki’s body, who gets stronger from it. Ryuki uses the Blade’s power to throw Wolverine away from him. And, upon seeing the unconscious bodies of both Yukio and Amiko lying in front of him, he wonders about the possibility about adding two more souls into the Blade.

Ryuki goes for it, but Mana cuts in, stopping the blade with a smaller sword of her own. She won’t let any more blood spilled today, except his! They fight using both magic and sword skills, but Mana has the hardest time defending herself against her sister, especially now that she has Ryuki’s power for backup.

Yukio wakes up, and apologizes to Logan, but they were attacked in Shinjuku and simply weren’t strong enough. Wolverine doesn’t want to worry about that now, realizing they have bigger problems. Amiko wakes up as well, and Wolverine orders Yukio to get herself and Amiko away from here, as he’s got one more trick left. Mana apologizes to her sister, as it has to end this way. Ryuki is perplexed. SNIKT!

Wolverine has popped his claws out, and one set is now completely golden! Ryuki panics, as gold is the one thing that can beat him. Wolverine slices the demon with his golden set of claws, until he falls down. Logan wants to finish the job, but Mana wants the honor of ending her sister’s live. Logan understands, and lets her do it.

Hana begs for her life, understanding that her soul has to go back into the Blade, but Mana won’t risk another threat from her, and simply kills her. A vortex opens, and all the demons start to scream, and get sucked into it, including Ryuki!

Yukio and Amiko run towards Logan, and congratulate him for his triumph. They hug him, and watch at Mana. She watches her sister’s body, which dies. Mana thanks Logan for his help. Wolverine is just sad that it had to end this way, but Mana isn’t. Amiko picks up the Blade, and hears voices whispering from it! Mana freaks out, as only direct descendants from the Shosei Order can hear those voices! Mana wants Logan to tell her about Amiko’s mother.

(A few days later…)

Everyone, including Mana, sits at dinner table at Yukio’s place. Amiko complains about having to dressed up, but Logan explains it’s still Girl’s Day, so she better starts to like it. Or else, he jokes, they’ll make her sing, too. Yukio tells Amiko to best adapt to it, as soon she’ll be wearing kimono’s all the time. Logan asks Mana if she’s sure about this.

Mana explains that it appears that Amiko’s mother was of Shosei blood, and that she may have left the Order to pursue a more normal life, but that she wasn’t one of them. Logan wants to know if Mana can handle this. Mana can, for as long as both Logan and Amiko can. Mana mentions that she is the last of her line, and the chance to train a successor would be a great honor and pleasure to her. Yukio jokes that Mana says that now, as Amiko can be quite a handful.

Wolverine won’t force Amiko into doing this, and asks her opinion, telling her that she can always go back to Yukio if she’d rather want that. Amiko smiles that taking chances runs into the family and, besides, she hates Tokyo anyway. Besides, she adds, maybe she’ll be the best there is at what she does someday! She and Logan share a hug, with Logan saying that’s his girl talking.

Characters Involved: 

Wolverine

Yukio

Amiko

Mana Yanowa

Hana Yanowa

Ryuki (in and out of Hana’s body)

Ryuki’s demon army (all unnamed)

Story Notes: 

Finally, we learn a bit more about Amiko’s mother. When Logan first found Amiko, her mother had already been mortally wounded and, with her final breath only told Wolverine Amiko’s first name, and nothing more.

Issue Information: 

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