The Longing Of Shiina Ryo:Bonus Disc Red Orchestra Afterword

I’d like to greet you, dear readers.

My pen name is Cyul, and this is the first time I appear on the scene under this pseudonym.

It’s a honour to be able to have such a debut, working on amazing characters and beautiful setting. I still think that I’m unable to fully comprehend this great trio of protagonists, despite Ryuno’s words, but I hope that this work will be able to appease your thirst while you’re waiting for the third novel.

Speaking of which, this spin-off is something like a link between second novel and the third, foreshadowing some events in coming book. It would shed a light on Shin-tsu’s first meeting with Death Drive and partially tell you how relationships between Kouma Yon with Shin-tsu and Shiina Ryo were rebuilt, giving some new details about our characters.

And still, I believe that there are still more questions than answers.

What is this Underworld case?

Did Shi-tsu lie about his parents?

What was the painful memory which was mentioned by Kouma?

And so on.

By the way, did you notice the lack of Shiina Ryo’s appearances in this work? It was unintentional, because the original idea was to mix Shiina, Shin-tsu and Death Drive’s points of views in a beautiful piece of work.

It was a good initiative but I had only one problem.

Shiina Ryo’s true colors weren’t revealed.

I had no issue with centralizing the story on Kouma since I felt that I was similar to that derivative being. It was a pain to write down Shin-tsu’s parts but I had a help from original source. However, Shiina Ryo’s mind was a complete mystery to me.

And that was why I had chosen approach similar to the one showed in Baccano! only with telling the story from first person. And that was the reason why last chapter was bigger than first three.

Let me stop talking about details before I start ranting.

As I said before, this work is my first, and I am glad that I was able to collaborate with Ryuno. His advices were very helpful for me, and some of his words found their way to the spin-off due to my nature. I’m similar to Kouma, remember?

But I digress.

This year is memorable for me, being the time of my ‘first little victories’. And first finished work is one of the most important for me. It’s the sign that I’m able to finish something without dropping it half-way.

And so, let’s finish my little masterpiece on the major note.

I hope we will meet again.

Cyul. The 29th of July, 2012.