join Hound, and by Kuro-Neko to act as a go-between for Kagura and the were-cats, although he turns down both of them. When he was about five years old, Taba had a pet kitten but was forced by his mother to abandon it at a nearby shrine. The kitten later turns out be Maya. Yoichi is the only surviving member of Kagura Co. ver. 4, other than Yuka, at the end of Part 2. He resurfaces three years later as a salaryman at a company that supplies Shin-Nihon Avionics and Zinguzi with third-party manifolds. At that time, he has a scar on his left ear from a bullet. Also known as Black Cat, KN is the informal leader of the were-cats trying to establish a safe place for them. He is always working in the shadows, wearing a trench coat and hat. He first appears on the CIA's radar as a "ghost spy" in the 1960s for his tendency to disappear quickly. He is connected to the defecting Russian spies Yuri Rastvorov and Viktor Belenko, and works to get his hands on a submarine and a nuclear warhead. He convinced Hiroyuki Kagura of the original Kagura Company to join forces with him against the Japanese government, and tries to do the same with Yoichi Taba. Eventually, though, his comrades turn against him because his plans are too slow and hard to understand, and he is forced to leave Ayagane City for a while. He returns later with about 20 young female were-cats trained in electronic espionage and "encourages" Taba to run for his life away from Hound. KN also likes to relax watching Trigun episodes on TV. A female were-cat, Maya looks like a young school girl in human form. Abandoned by Taba as a kitten, she was caught in a crossfire between Kuro-Neko and Kagura Co. ver. 3. Already miserable and near starving to death, she then took a couple of crossbow bolts from Rika Kikushima. KN told her to stand up for herself, and that is when she made the transition to were-cat. From that point, she became one of KN is assistants, turning into a spy against Kagura Co. ver. 4. But, she is still bonded to Taba, and becomes friends with most of the Kagura staff. She is capable of transferring over telephone lines, taking over computers and infiltrating guarded mansions. Generally she doesn't speak in