Crossfire

Crossfire (クロスファイア,) refers to three short stories by Kouta Hirano, who is best known as the author of Hellsing, where it appeared in the first three graphic novels. The stories focus on the fictional Vatican Section XIII, or the Iscariot Organisation.

Story
Crossfire follows Heinkel Wulf and Yumiko Takagi, a Catholic nun and an assassin who work for the Iscariot organization. They call themselves "earthly agents of divine punishment".

Across the three chapters, Heinkel and Yumie face a variety of opposition, including Islamic terrorists, communist revolutionaries, and finally, an obscure pagan cult. None of these pose any real threat to them.

Chapters

 * Crossfire: Chapter 1
 * Crossfire: Chapter 2
 * Crossfire: Chapter 3

Main Characters

 * Heinkel Wulf (ハインケル・ウーフー,)
 * The unofficial leader of the duo, Heinkel Wulf is often the lead attacker. Technically, Wulf is a nun, but she dresses in the manner of a priest, but acts neither like a woman nor a man. She can be calm and level-headed, although still a fanatical Catholic. Her main weapon is a modified .50 caliber Desert Eagle automatic pistol.


 * Yumie Takagi (高木 由美江,) / Yumiko Takagi (高木 由美子,)
 * Yumiko Takagi is Wulf's partner, although from first glance, it is hard to imagine this gentle, violence-hating Japanese girl would be part of a Catholic hunter organization. However, Yumiko has a split-personality. Her other personality, Yumie, is an ultra-violent katana-wielding killer whose devotion to the Catholic church approaches that of zealotry. As for the style of swordcraft Yumie practices, it is referred to as "Tōgen Battō Jai-Ryū (桃源抜刀ジャイ流)", a disciple which the sword is rapidly drawn from its scabbard, often at a speed too fast for opponents to react. But how Yumie learned this while being part of Yumiko is unknown.


 * The two personalities are easy to point out: Yumiko wears eyeglasses, while Yumie does not. Yumiko is also aware of Yumie's presence, but she would like to see Yumie "sleep" instead of waking her... because of the violence she can cause.

Side Characters

 * Enrico Maxwell
 * Alexander Anderson

Production
Starting off as a fun little side project, Crossfire was eventually cancelled after just 3 chapters. Because of the fact that the page count ended up too low, the rest of Crossfire was taken by a one-shot Hirano did for Comic Master. Hirano later in Volume 2 of the Hellsing manga, described Crossfire's art as "rough" and "crude".

Kouta Hirano's Comments
In a later interview included in the Hellsing Official Guide Book, Hirano had stated that Crossfire is a "connected, yet somehow unconnected world", talking about how Crossfire's setting was too different and then compares the characters in Crossfire, to the characters in Hellsing; like how Maxwell's face looks absolutely different in Crossfire.

Differences from Hellsing
Enrico Maxwell, the head of Iscariot, makes an appearance; however, he has glasses and his hair is not slicked back as it is in Hellsing. Hirano has said at the end of Volume 2 that he altered Maxwell's character design at the last minute so that he didn't resemble Integra too much. It is this reason why he wrote it out of canon.

Drama CD
Crossfire was intended to be animated as part of the Hellsing OVA series, but it never was. Eventually, Crossfire was released as a Drama CD released as an extra with Hellsing OVA VI's and OVA VII's Limited Edition. Every voice from Hellsing proper reprised their roles for this production. Even Alexander Anderson appears but in a younger appearance.