A beautiful, but deadly, Kurohime had been robbed of her powerful abilities as a witch-gunslinger (a term used to describe sorceresses who can summon powerful witch-beasts by firing bullets through witch-guns) and found a young man named Zero who is the only one able to break the curse put upon her by the Gods. Sadly, she must go back in time to save Zero from a horrible fate.

Highlights
At the start of this volume, Kurohime and another Witch friend of hers named Yuka discuss the prophecy that was given to them in the last volume. Kurohime must decide whether Zero or his brother Ray should live. Ray was never mentioned when Kurohime was first traveling with Zero before she went back in time. After deciding to save both, Kurohime joins in a quick-draw fight against a man named Jack. Another key plot point is that a Death Angel inside of Ray causes him to be unable to be healed through normal magical means, which causes a heightened sense of anger in Ray that leads him to join up with Jack. The end involves one of the best instances of temporal paradoxes that I've seen in quite some time.

The second part of this volume is called Kurohime Gaiden: Witch-Gunslinger Aohime and it follows a soldier named Dan (Japanese for Bullet), who is workingfor a mechanically advanced nation, as well as a girl named Aohime, that he finds during a mission.  During an attack by the nation employing Dan, the rest of the men in his squad (named Bullet Blades) are killed and Aohime is found and taken to Dan's base as he is healed and she is studied. After escaping from his nation with Aohime, there is a touching moment where Dan and Aohime grow closer to each other as a family after she imprinted on Dan. This was a serious, touching story that not only gives a very touching moral, but is well worth the rest of the volume.

Overall
I didn't know what I was getting into when I picked up this volume of Kurohime. I had never heard of the series before, but I am happy to be surprised that I've found a series that I have not looked into. As I said, I love this series. The aforementioned potential temporal paradox was a surprising part. The gunfights with magic bullets were great. I do wish the main story was longer, but the Gaiden was a nice addition, and I really cared for the characters. It was enjoyable to see the classic gunslinger motif used with magic, mainly because those are usually two differing genres that are hard to put together, with other examples in fiction usually keeping this as a gimmick limited to one side character. This was definitely a great chance to see the main character use this type of weapon on a regular basis.

ComicsOnline gives Kurohime 4.5 out of 5 witch-beast bullets.