Takeru

• Also known as

The Witchblade: Takeru manga was first published in 2006 in Japan by Akita Shoten in Champion Red. It was written by Kobayashi Yasuko and illustrated by by Sumita Kazasa. The next year, Top Cow published a 12-issue series in English called "Witchblade Takeru Manga" with the same Japanese writer and artist helming the creative team. This series does not seem to fit in with the rest of the Witchblade continuity, though it is connected to the larger Witchblade and Top Cow Universes. Events in this series seem to be set before the events in the Witchblade anime, but also do not seem to be directly connected. Takeru is a young girl raised by nuns in a Buddhist temple. Takeru has been having dreams in which a strange gauntlet wraps around her and then she has to pull a sword out of her stomach. Takeru has been warned by a nun she calls "Grandma" not to go snooping in the storage shed, but when she comes home and the place is trashed, she goes in there to find a demon choking Grandma. She sees a gauntlet in the shed, reaches towards it, and it wraps itself around her. Suddenly possessed by the Witchblade, Takeru wants bloodshed, and just as in her dream, she reaches into her belly to pull out a sword with which she slays the demons. Takeru seems to have an urge to feed on human blood while possessed by the Witchblade.