Angels Among Us (AAU) is an amateur manga that is available only online. It reads in authentic manga style, panels going from right to left and top to bottom. Originally published at deviantART.com by "Half-Elf", AAU is still available there. Three complete chapters are currently available, but the first two are undergoing extreme editing and will change drastically over the next few months. The completely edited final drafts will be available here.
AAU is, in essence, a "ninja manga", but it is unique in the way that the "ninja world" and the "everyday world" clash. The majority of AAU's characters are males who are active users of some form of ninjutsu. However, the main character is female, and so the story takes on another quality as the ninja world is viewed differently, from the perspective of one who is thrown into it, rather than one who takes part in it willingly.
Plot Summary
After the death of her older brother, Rin Kisagi, an orphaned teenager, is living alone in her childhood home. Between facing her brother's death and fearing the constant city raids of a secret organization called the Mantokage, life is tough. And things get a whole lot tougher when the Mantokage attack Rin's city, destroying her home and nearly taking her life. And when Rin is rescued by two young warriors, Ryo and Taro, she is pulled into the secret world of the ninja, and into a mystery that will unravel in a way that she never expected...
The World of AAU
AAU takes place in an alternate universe of modern day Japan, in which the cultural background is essentially the same, but everything from the laws, to the landscape, to the plants and creatures that live there may differ. In the everyday world, ninjutsu is a way of defense against threats that lurk in the shadows, but in the underground world of the ninja, the sword and the shuriken are a way of life.
The great ninja clans have struggles of their own, but there are two other opposite powers battling for control of one another in the world of the ninja: The Order of the Senshi ("Order of the Warrios")--a Brotherhood of warriors sworn to defend the "world outside"--and the Mantokage ("Shadow Cloak" or "Cloak of Shadow")--an organization striving to destroy the Order and all that they claim dear, for their own unknown purpose.
Those in the outside world know little or nothing of the struggles that go on below. But there are, as they say, "worlds within worlds', and when these two worlds clash, things tend to get messy quick.
Update Information
At the official site, AAU will be updated chapter by chapter unless special circumstances apply. Page by page updates are available here.