Playground

The "Class Black," 10th Grade of Myōjō Academy is composed of 12 assassins disguised as students and one target: Haru Ichinose. Fully aware of being the prey, Ichinose vows to survive assassination attempts and graduate from the school alive. One of the assassins, Tokaku Azuma, has started building up feelings for Ichinose and switched side to become her protector. Together they have to face the onslaught from their classmates of 11 assassins.

As master assassin Usui Yuen looks into a series of assassinations made on the grand samurai clan, the Satsuma, he encounters Kurima Raizo, member and survivor of one of the attacks. Together, they discover the true nature of these murders is bigger than over stolen resources. As they get closer to the truth, will they come out alive to exact revenge?

Zwei traveled to a new city to start a new life. There he sees the girl of his dreams, Ein, for the very first time. Strangely, he spots her from 500 meters away, while she's crouched behind a military issue sniper rifle picking off mobsters. Soon Zwei's uncanny alertness comes to the attention of Ein's employers, and he's given a simple choice: train to become an assassin, or be marked as Ein's next target.

Ten years have passed since the end of Bakumatsu, an era of war that saw the uprising of citizens against the Tokugawa shogunate. The revolutionaries wanted to create a time of peace, and a thriving country free from oppression. The new age of Meiji has come, but peace has not yet been achieved. Swords are banned but people are still murdered in the streets. Orphans of war veterans are left with nowhere to go, while the government seems content to just line their pockets with money.

Mireille Bouquet is a professional assassin, and a very good one at that. But when she follows up an E-mail from a young Japanese girl named Kirika Yumura, inviting her to take "a pilgrimage to the past", her life becomes even more dangerous than it already is. Now, with a haunting melody invoking the memory of an event long past, Mireille and Kirika decide to work together to find the truth about a thousand-year-old organization that has controlled both of their lives since before they were born. And the only clue in their search, the only thing Kirika remembers about herself, becomes their working codename: a name designating an ancient fate, of two maidens who reign over death—Noir.