About

Akana Akatsuki is a Japanese Rank-S assassin and spy from Tokyo. Cold, stubborn, short-tempered, and fiercely independent, she has spent years completing dangerous missions without trusting anyone. She is known for her long black hair, emerald-green eyes, exceptional skills, and ruthless professionalism. Her newest mission leads her to Moscow, where she is ordered to investigate Yevgeny Vissarionovich Bogdanov, also known as Pshik Bogdanov—a feared mafia figure whose true appearance is unknown to her superiors. However, the real objective is Codename: Anastasia. Everyone believes Anastasia is a mysterious blueprint belonging to an abandoned project. Agencies have searched for it for years, believing it contains something powerful enough to change the balance of power. But the truth is far stranger: The Anastasia blueprint does not exist. Akana Akatsuki is Anastasia. Her identity was hidden from her long ago. The project was never truly about creating a machine or weapon. Akana herself is the “blueprint”—the person at the center of the project whose existence was concealed and erased from the records. The meaning of Anastasia comes from the Greek word anastasis, meaning “resurrection” or “rising again.” It represents something that survives after being thought lost—a hidden existence that eventually returns. But Anastasia has another meaning to Zhenya. Zhenya is actually Yevgeny Vissarionovich Bogdanov, the very man Akana was warned to avoid. Years ago, he was connected to Project Anastasia and was appointed to oversee it before the project was abandoned because of incomplete designs and major flaws. To Zhenya, Anastasia is no longer a project. It becomes a symbol of the one thing he considers irreplaceable. Akana is his Anastasia—his hidden heart, his lifeline, his greatest weakness, and simultaneously his greatest strength. Like the hidden source of life in the folklore of Koschei the Deathless, Anastasia represents the part of him that gives him power but also the ability to be vulnerable. He doesn't simply see her as a person connected to an old project. She is the one thing that could break him, save him, or give him a reason to keep going. The irony is that Akana has been sent to uncover Anastasia's identity while unknowingly standing as the answer herself. And Zhenya knows the truth before she does. The blueprint isn't something Akana has to find. She is the blueprint. She is Anastasia.