| 1 | [[center:[[AC:''Characters/NineHoursNinePersonsNineDoors'' || ''Characters/VirtuesLastReward'' || '''''Zero Time Dilemma''''']]]] |
| 2 | |
| 3 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 4 | |
| 5 | !Participants |
| 6 | The nine participants that have been trapped in the facility. They have been split into teams of three, with each trio locked in a different wing of the facility. Naturally, nobody is what they seem; spoilers ahoy. Administrivia/YouHaveBeenWarned. '''All spoilers, including those pertaining to ''VisualNovel/NineHoursNinePersonsNineDoors'' and ''VisualNovel/VirtuesLastReward'', will be unmarked.''' |
| 7 | |
| 8 | !!Team C |
| 9 | The team of Carlos, Junpei and Akane. Junpei and Akane have a history that Carlos is not privy to, and he has to deal with their difficult personalities - Junpei being TheUnfettered, willing to sacrifice everyone in the facility, and Akane wishing to save everyone in the facility... even at the cost of their own lives. |
| 10 | |
| 11 | [[folder:Carlos]] |
| 12 | !!Carlos (Participant 1) |
| 13 | !!!Voiced by: Creator/TomokazuSugita (Japanese), Andrew Bowen (English) |
| 14 | [[quoteright:263:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/carlosztd.png]] |
| 15 | The leader of Team C. A level-headed and honourable firefighter with a "serious reason" for taking part in the Decision Game. |
| 16 | ---- |
| 17 | * AmbiguouslyGay: At one point Carlos states he'd like to know more about Junpei, to which Junpei asks if Carlos is ''interested'' in him. Instead of shooting the idea down because he's not interested in men, Carlos declines because he has "no time for a love life." Furthermore, Carlos doesn't show any romantic or physical attraction to women. |
| 18 | * AnArmAndALeg: If he concludes that Akane killed Junpei, she cuts off his left arm with a chainsaw before Carlos kills her. |
| 19 | * AudienceSurrogate: For newcomers to the series, he is an outsider to Akane and Junpei's relationship. |
| 20 | * CelibateHero: He is currently uninterested in romance due to having to look after his sister. |
| 21 | * CoolBigBro: To his beloved younger sister. He saved her in a fire that burned their house, and has been looking after her ever since; he's participating in the Dcom experiment to get the money for her medical care. |
| 22 | * DarkAndTroubledPast: His parents died in a fire that Carlos was too inexperienced to save them from. His sister would have also died if not for their esper abilities manifesting. |
| 23 | * DeathByIrony: Before coming to Dcom, he was a firefighter. In one of the paths, he's killed by Akane using a fire extinguisher to smack him into a bloody pulp when she sees Junpei having been killed by Carlos. |
| 24 | * DrivenToSuicide: Should the player decide in the Q-End 1 route that Junpei's killer is himself. |
| 25 | * {{Eagleland}}: During his speech of how he became a firefighter, there is a glaring United States flag right behind him, making him a Type 1. |
| 26 | * TheEveryman: The participants are Zero's family (D team), people directly involved in the snail incident (Q team and Akane) and people who have previously faced Free The Soul (Junpei and Akane). Carlos is just a firefighter trying to help his sister. |
| 27 | * FiremenAreHot: He's a firefighter and a Ken doll-esque {{Hunk}}. |
| 28 | * HealthcareMotivation: He signed up for the experiment in the first place because he wanted to use the reward money to pay for his sister's medical care. |
| 29 | * HeroicSacrifice: If C-Team gets trapped in a room full of carbon dioxide with only one gas mask, he and Junpei do not hesitate to give the mask to Akane. |
| 30 | * HotBlooded: Described as "a hot-blooded man with a strong sense of justice". |
| 31 | * {{Hunk}}: He's a handsome man with chiseled features, a toned physique and a crisp fashion sense. This creates a visual contrast between him and the darkly-clothed PrettyBoy Junpei. |
| 32 | * TheKirk: Has to be the decision maker between Junpei's "screw everyone else, save us" and Akane's "save everyone". |
| 33 | * LeaveTheTwoLovebirdsAlone: He sees Junpei's proposal to Akane coming and silently walks away. |
| 34 | * LetsYouAndHimFight: In the Power Room, he is forced to play the AB game with Junpei. |
| 35 | * MikeNelsonDestroyerOfWorlds: In the C-Ending, Carlos' lack of experience with [=SHiFTing=] and desire to keep to his promise of saving Junpei and Akane in another timeline causes him to wait for the transporter to recharge, which means 10 months of waiting that he could've potentially used to have stopped Zero's plan. Both Junpei and Akane [[WhatTheHellHero call him out for this]] '''[[WhatTheHellHero hard]]''', and Carlos' inaction indirectly proves responsible for ruining the timeline completely, setting it en route to the events of ''VisualNovel/VirtuesLastReward''. To be fair to him though, he wasn't really properly told about how Zero's plan to kill six billion people was a thing and how it could've been disrupted during those ten months; had he have known, he certainly wouldn't have simply waited for the transporter to recharge given he would've been aware of the consequences of wasting time. |
| 36 | * MyGodWhatHaveIDone: He has this reaction if he decides to kill himself with the axe if he thinks he killed Junpei. |
| 37 | * PlayerCharacter: You do the puzzle solving and the decisions for C-Team by controlling him. |
| 38 | * RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil: Invoked and exploited. He pretends to try to rape Akane so he can communicate his plan to sabotage the drug injections and provoke Junpei into beating him up, distracting Zero. Unfortunately, Zero sees through it. |
| 39 | * RealMenWearPink: Proudly states his goal to save his sister. He also literally wears a light pink jacket. |
| 40 | * SheepInSheepsClothing: Unlike the other newcomers to the series, he's exactly the kind of man he presents himself as - an ordinary firefighter trying to pay for his sister's medical bills. |
| 41 | * ShipperOnDeck: He's this for Akane and Junpei. |
| 42 | * ThirdWheel: To Akane and Junpei. They're ChildhoodFriends in the middle of what could most politely be called a lover's quarrel while he's a stranger just trying to keep a level-head and get out alive. |
| 43 | * ToBeLawfulOrGood: Pre-game, Carlos refused to report Sigma's [[CassandraTruth 'insanity']] because that might get the project halted, and he has personal reasons to ensure its completion. |
| 44 | * TookALevelInBadass: Carlos starts the game as an ordinary firefighter, but due to a chain of events after playing an Ambidex game, Carlos's power to SHIFT awakens. And he uses it to great effect, much more than any other character in the game. |
| 45 | * WhatTheHellHero: In the ending that leads to ''VisualNovel/VirtuesLastReward'', it never occurred to Carlos to put a stop to Zero's plans when he used the transport back in time before he got into the game, which Junpei and Akane call him out on. To be fair to Carlos, he does point out that the events of the Decision Game are what lead to him meeting Junpei and Akane and developing his SHIFT ability in the first place; also, though unsaid in the game proper, his freeing Junpei and Akane from the shelter in this timeline allows Junpei and Akane to take part in the events of ''VisualNovel/VirtuesLastReward''. |
| 46 | [[/folder]] |
| 47 | |
| 48 | [[folder:Junpei]] |
| 49 | !!Junpei Tenmyouji (Participant 5) |
| 50 | !!!Voiced by: Creator/TatsuhisaSuzuki (Japanese), Evan Smith (English) |
| 51 | [[quoteright:289:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/junpeiztd.png]] |
| 52 | The protagonist of ''VisualNovel/NineHoursNinePersonsNineDoors'' and a childhood friend of Akane. Intelligent but cynical, he currently works as a detective. |
| 53 | ---- |
| 54 | * AllThereInTheManual: This incarnation of Junpei has a jacket that's only seen in the official artwork of the game, such as Junpei's character art and the game's cover art. It was omitted from the in-game model for technical reasons, but remnants of its model can be seen in-game in the timeline where he was dismembered, where his upper body parts feature a jacket. |
| 55 | * AmbiguouslyBi: Obviously has feelings for Akane, and flirts with/might also have feelings for Carlos. |
| 56 | * AlwaysSaveTheGirl: A very dark example. His goal is to save Akane, and he will not hesitate to betray or kill anyone if it lets her escape. This also motivates Junpei to have Akane wear the oxygen mask in the fire extinguisher trap, and to have Akane be the one to survive the gatling-gun trap and remember six X-passes. |
| 57 | * AudienceSurrogate: Arguably even more of one here than in ''999''. Even when taking his experiences into account, Junpei is still the most normal person in this game, and as such, all of his reactions to things that take place in game are generally in line with that of a normal person. He doesn't trust in the other teams because he doesn't want to risk dying, he celebrates pretty hard after narrowly avoiding death, etc. |
| 58 | * BlackComedy: His remark that if they're lucky, Gab will turn into a hotdog. |
| 59 | * BreakTheCutie: Happened to him offscreen between games. His time as a detective exposed him to the worst of humanity and turned him into the man he is today. |
| 60 | * BroodingBoyGentleGirl: The Brooding Boy to Akane's Gentle Girl. |
| 61 | * CallBack: He's participant number 5; in ''999'', his bracelet number was also 5. |
| 62 | * CanNotSpitItOut: During the "Anthropic Principle" fragment, he is unable or unwilling to express his feelings for Akane, even when faced with almost certain death due to a ridiculously lethal decision game in the Rec Room. |
| 63 | * CynicismCatalyst: Working as a detective alongside Seven has shattered his faith in humanity in the year between ''999'' and ''ZTD''. |
| 64 | * DarkerAndEdgier: He's much moodier here than in ''999''. |
| 65 | * EarnYourHappyEnding: The history ''ZTD'' shapes and concludes results in Junpei and Akane finally getting together. One file unlocked after finishing the game, which details them getting prepared for a future wedding, even has Junpei joking that there is another history out there where he becomes a grumpy old man who spent his whole life searching for Akane; essentially his role in ''VLR''. |
| 66 | * EpicFail: Proposes to Akane in the epilogue, and puts the ring on the wrong hand (although she does accept). |
| 67 | * EveryoneHasStandards: He's fine with killing other people given [[DeadlyGame the circumstances]], but balks at killing alternate versions of himself and Akane. |
| 68 | * {{Foil}}: To Akane. He's a bluntly honest nihilist who lives in the moment; she's a secretive optimist whose entire life revolves around theoretical physics and planning for future events. |
| 69 | * HellBentForLeather: He wears a leather jacket in his official artwork, although for technical reasons he doesn't have it in the actual game. It shows up in one timeline where he was dismembered while wearing it. |
| 70 | * HeroicSacrifice: If C-Team gets trapped in a room full of carbon dioxide with only one gas mask, he and Carlos do not hesitate to give the mask to Akane. |
| 71 | * HeroOfAnotherStory: Of ''VisualNovel/NineHoursNinePersonsNineDoors''. |
| 72 | * INeedAFreakingDrink: If he survives a booby trap in the Rec Room with a 1 in 216 (0.46%) chance of survival, he runs off to get smashed. |
| 73 | * InferioritySuperiorityComplex: He's abrasive and dismissive of everyone, but is perpetually unhappy and knows it. |
| 74 | * JustJokingJustification: Tries to play off several of his crueler ideas as this, not that anyone is fooled. |
| 75 | * KnightInSourArmor: He spent a year looking for Akane following the events of ''999'', and has turned cynical as a result. He reveals in the Decontamination Room that his detective work has shattered his faith in humanity. |
| 76 | * LaserGuidedAmnesia: In addition to the amnesia everyone gets every 90 minutes, Akane inflicts this on him in the ''VLR'' timeline, explaining why he claims to have never seen her again as a 67-year old man. |
| 77 | * LateArrivalSpoiler: The game assumes you've already played the past two entries, so Junpei's full name is given right away: Junpei Tenmyouji, spoiling that Junpei and Tenmyouji are the same person. |
| 78 | * LetsYouAndHimFight: In the Power Room, he is forced to play the AB game with Carlos. |
| 79 | * LivingEmotionalCrutch: To Akane. His influence doesn't make her more ''good'', exactly, but it makes her more human. Away from him, she barely thinks of anything but her work as shown in the Apocalypse ending. |
| 80 | * LovableNerd: A trait he lost while searching for Akane. It comes back to make fun of him when he awkwardly proposes to Akane... and puts the ring on the wrong hand. |
| 81 | * MeaningfulName: According to WordOfGod, his full name is read as 'eclipse'. And indeed, he endures great corruption and despair, but eventually returns to the 'light' through his love of Akane, or Quark depending on the timeline. |
| 82 | * MurderIsTheBestSolution: The one trait to show how much jaded Junpei has become and how much he cares for Akane, is to quickly suggest the death of others when his team’s, or just Akane’s, lives are on the line and the solution is simply to have another team, or someone else, bite the dust instead; Junpei will voice his opinion about just having others killed instead; Carlos and Akane will always protest against it. |
| 83 | * OfficialCouple: With Akane in the [=CQD2=] ending. Not only do they enter a love relationship, but apparently are going to get married according to the written epilogue. |
| 84 | * PassiveAggressiveKombat: Takes advantage of Carlos being LockedOutOfTheLoop to shoot some very pointed remarks at Akane about her actions as the first Zero. |
| 85 | * ProperlyParanoid: He insists that the other teams cannot be trusted...and is murdered by Mira in the Q1&2 ending timeline. |
| 86 | * RedOniBlueOni: The Blue to Akane's Red. He's pessimistic, cynical, sarcastic, and is willing to screw over the other teams just to escape with Akane. She's optimistic, idealistic, friendly, and is definitely against screwing over the others. This makes them argue pretty often. |
| 87 | * RefusedByTheCall: In the C1 ending, he offers to help Akane prepare for the AB project, but she refuses and wipes his memory of the Decision Game. |
| 88 | * SeenItAll: During Zero's opening monologue, Junpei's expression rarely changes from a sardonic smile. This is because the previous Zero put him through so much shit that he wrapped right back around to being unsurprised by it all. |
| 89 | * SkewedPriorities: He is less concerned about the secret conspiracy of psychics than the fact that his love interest is keeping him in the dark about it, and what that could mean about their relationship. After the latter problem is resolved, he chills out considerably. |
| 90 | * TheSpock: The most likely to screw over the other participants to save himself and Akane. |
| 91 | * StarCrossedLovers: With Akane in the C1 ending. |
| 92 | * SweetTooth: Flavor text [[note]]pun not intended[[/note]] establishes that he has one. |
| 93 | * TimeShiftedActor: As an old man in ''Virtue's Last Reward'', he was voiced by Dave B. Mitchell and Rokurō Naya. As a young adult here, he's voiced by Evan Smith and Tatsuhisa Suzuki. |
| 94 | * TookALevelInCynic: In ''999'', he was often the one lifting other characters' spirits and encouraging them to keep going. Here, his world view has deteriorated to the point where he's often dragging down everyone's spirits with his pessimism instead. |
| 95 | * TookALevelInJerkass: A far cry from the NiceGuy he was once was in ''999'' as he is much more bitter due to his detective work exposing him to the worst sides of humanity. As such, he'll screw over anyone else in order to save Akane. |
| 96 | * {{Tsundere}}: He cares dearly for Akane, yet snarks at her whenever he can. |
| 97 | * UndyingLoyalty: To Akane. He's willing to kill three people in the AB game to get Akane out of the Decision Game. |
| 98 | * TheUnfettered: Will save Akane's life... at ''any'' cost. And that means murder. Not just the other teams, but Carlos as well in the Ambidex fragment, depending on your choice. On a slightly more positive note, that "any cost" also includes [[HeroicSacrifice himself if necessary]]. |
| 99 | * UsedToBeASweetKid: But is now [[DeadpanSnarker the complete opposite]], which is a point of constant stress that saddens Akane. |
| 100 | * VitriolicCouple: Occasionally slips into this with Akane; at one point, he claims that she is too fat to fit into an air vent, and she responds that he could fit if they cut off his arm. |
| 101 | * WhatTheHellHero: In the pre-game booklet, he corners Akane after several days at [=Dcom=] and demands to know what she's planning. She admits there is something, but refuses to tell him. |
| 102 | * WorldHalfFull: Evolves into this after the 'Rec Room' fragment in which he narrowly survives death. He's still pessimistic as hell, but he doesn't let it sour his ''entire'' perspective on everything. |
| 103 | [[/folder]] |
| 104 | |
| 105 | [[folder:Akane]] |
| 106 | !!Akane Kurashiki (Participant 6) |
| 107 | !!!Voiced by: Creator/MiyukiSawashiro (Japanese), Rena Strober (English) |
| 108 | [[quoteright:188:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/akaneztd.png]] |
| 109 | The heroine of ''VisualNovel/NineHoursNinePersonsNineDoors''. She presents herself as demure but actually possesses a shrewd cunning. |
| 110 | ---- |
| 111 | * AmbiguouslyChristian: Some of her lines (such as "Only God decides who lives and who dies!") imply that she's a theist, and she also consistently refers to God in the singular, making her likely to be part of a monotheistic religion. |
| 112 | * BerserkButton: Do not fuck with Junpei. There are two timelines where Junpei ends up dead. In both of them, Akane assumes Carlos killed him, and proceeds to attack him in retaliation, either swinging a chainsaw at him or bashing his head in with a fire extinguisher. |
| 113 | * BreakTheCutie: Akane completely breaks down if Junpei dies, usually followed by a RoaringRampageOfRevenge. |
| 114 | * BroodingBoyGentleGirl: The Gentle Girl to Junpei's Brooding Boy. |
| 115 | * CallBack: She's participant number 6; in ''999'', her bracelet number was also 6 (though it was later revealed to be 0). |
| 116 | * CanNotSpitItOut: Her informant (a future version of Akane) came from [[VisualNovel/VirtuesLastReward a future]] in which Junpei rejected Akane upon learning about everything she'd done. Akane is therefore reluctant to be honest with Junpei about anything, including her feelings for him. |
| 117 | * ChainsawGood: The opening animation has her swing a chainsaw over her head. She attacks Carlos with it if she thinks he murdered Junpei in the Q2 ending timeline. |
| 118 | * CharacterDevelopment: A very interesting case, as in this game, she's a lot closer to the ditzy portrayal she had pre-reveal in ''VisualNovel/NineHoursNinePersonsNineDoors'' than the manipulative mastermind she became post-reveal in ''999'' and in ''VisualNovel/VirtuesLastReward'', to the point that Junpei spends a lot of the time questioning her motivations and even wonders aloud whether she has any connections to ''ZTD'''s Zero. Later on, when she exhibits no qualms about using the ability to SHIFT in order to engineer a better timeline (and even rigs a room to blow in order to trigger a SHIFT on one occasion), you know that she's still the girl who became Zero in ''999'', but she turns out to be much more of a paragon than ''VLR'' would have you believe, and even gets back together with Junpei in the OmegaEnding. Her ''VLR'' characterization does solidify in the timeline that leads to the Radical-6 breakout, however, as she triggers Junpei's LaserGuidedAmnesia and vows to save humanity [[WellIntentionedExtremist by whatever means necessary]]. |
| 119 | * CombatPragmatist: Before ambushing Carlos, Akane switches off the lights to even the odds. |
| 120 | * DeliberateValuesDissonance: Being an experienced esper and [=SHIFTer=], she remains calm in situations that would be fatal to non-[=SHIFTers=]. |
| 121 | * DeusExitMachina: Akane knows a solution that Junpei and Carlos don't? You can be sure that she will collapse moments later, forcing the player to figure it out for themselves. |
| 122 | * DissonantSerenity: During the Power Room's last cutscene, when she believes she's figured out a plan to outwit Zero, she is ''smiling'' as the bomb counts down. Though the plan itself is dangerous, that concerns her less than the hope that they'll finally be able to escape. |
| 123 | -->'''Junpei:''' But this is absolutely nuts! Even if we do manage to do this, the us who are from whatever history we switch with will end up-\ |
| 124 | '''Akane:''' Do you plan on dying here, then? |
| 125 | * DramaticIrony: Junpei's complete character change stresses Akane many times that she wishes he was the same person he was a year ago. When she injects him with the amnesiac drug in the timeline that leads to ''VisualNovel/VirtuesLastReward'', the roles are reversed. |
| 126 | * EarnYourHappyEnding: The history ''ZTD'' shapes and concludes results in Junpei and Akane finally getting together. One file unlocked after finishing the game, which details them getting prepared for a future wedding, even has Junpei joking that there is another history out there where he becomes a grumpy old man who spent his whole life searching for Akane; essentially his role in ''VLR''. Akane even pinches Junpei on the cheek to make sure he isn’t dreaming. |
| 127 | * EccentricMentor: She gleefully, spontaneously destabilizes a nuclear reactor to test Carlos's newfound [=SHIFTing=] abilities. |
| 128 | * ExBigBad: She was the main antagonist of ''999'' and will be one of the main orchestrators of the Ambidex Game in ''VLR'', but here she has no hand in instigating the plot. |
| 129 | * ExpositoryHairstyleChange: She's shifted to a sidetail similar to her appearance in ''VLR''. |
| 130 | * {{Hypocrite}}: Akane scornfully criticizes [[BigBad Delta]]'s god complex, prompting him to remind her that she killed an alternate version of C-Team only hours ago. |
| 131 | * IDidWhatIHadToDo: In C-End 1, this is what she says right after wiping Junpei's memory so she can begin the AB project. |
| 132 | * InsecureLoveInterest: She believes that Junpei's newfound disillusionment is caused by her actions in the first game. She's not wrong, but there are also bigger reasons behind it that have nothing to do with her. |
| 133 | * KarmaHoudiniWarranty: Despite masterminding a DeadlyGame, committing several murders, and creating an ExpendableAlternateUniverse or two in which all of her friends got killed in the [[VisualNovel/NineHoursNinePersonsNineDoors first game]], she escaped unscathed. However, this time around she has no control over the game and promptly gets put through the wringer. [[TheManyDeathsOfYou Repeatedly]]. Even in the routes she survives, she usually winds up traumatized by Junpei's death or forced into a timeline in which she'll have to devote herself to creating the events of ''VLR'' and in which she knows Junpei will grow to resent and [[ShipSinking reject her]]. |
| 134 | * LoveMakesYouDumb: After they discover Junpei's corpse in one timeline, she assumes beyond all reason that Carlos must somehow be responsible (as opposed to the psychopath holding all of them prisoner) and channels her grief into blind, murderous rage. For what little it's worth, [[VisualNovel/NineHoursNinePersonsNineDoors this is not the first time her love for Junpei has caused her to make a suicidally stupid decision]], and they were the only ones in a sealed ward that no one else had access to (or so they believed at the time). |
| 135 | * TheMcCoy: She's the one who is trying to save everyone, no matter how inconvenient that is in the situation. |
| 136 | * AMillionIsAStatistic: She can- abstractly- consider and accept the possibility of people dying around her, but actually ''experiencing'' their deaths horrifies her as shown in the fireplace scene in the Rec Room. She feels more comfortable with distant and/or immediate deaths, like those inflicted by SHIFT-ing and the reactor explosion. |
| 137 | * MoralMyopia: Akane is courteous to everyone, which disguises the huge distinction she sees between her loved ones being killed and killing ''other people'''s loved ones, often for no more reason than their being born in the wrong timeline. |
| 138 | * MsExposition: She explains the Monty Hall problem, the dice roll odds and the multiverse theory to her teammates. |
| 139 | * OfficialCouple: With Junpei in the [=CQD2=] ending. Not only do they enter a love relationship, but apparently are going to get married according to the written epilogue. |
| 140 | * PragmaticHero: She hasn't ruled out the possibility of a peaceful solution to the Decision Game; therefore, her attitude is gentle and idealistic. But if the circumstances do warrant it, she can get violent, bomb the whole facility, sacrifice various alternates' lives, render the love of her life amnesiac, etc. And she is entirely unashamed of it. |
| 141 | -->"I will do anything to achieve my goals. That's just the kind of person I am." |
| 142 | * ProperTightsWithASkirt: Her tights are a mix of grey and dark red, and her dress is beige. |
| 143 | * RedOniBlueOni: The Red to Junpei's Blue. He's pessimistic, cynical, sarcastic, and is willing to screw over the other teams just to escape with Akane. She's optimistic, idealistic, friendly, and is definitely against screwing over the others. This makes them argue pretty often. |
| 144 | * RoaringRampageOfRevenge: If she believes Carlos has killed Junpei, she will respond ''very violently''. |
| 145 | * SecretKeeper: She doesn't tell Carlos anything about espers (or their relevance to her Nonary Game) until he actually becomes one late into the story. |
| 146 | * SoleSurvivor: In the D-End 2 timeline, as the rest of her team were gassed to death in the Control Room. |
| 147 | * StarCrossedLovers: With Junpei in C-End 1. They can't be together because Akane believes that she needs to work on the AB project alone (well, with Sigma, but she doesn't reveal this). Her motive to do this is unclear, because Junpei volunteered to help with the project. |
| 148 | * SugarAndIcePersonality: The bonus prologue booklet contrasts Akane's stern guidance of her employees with the vulnerability she shows around Junpei. |
| 149 | * ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill: If Akane sees Carlos Betray Junpei in the AB Game, she will bash him with a fire extinguisher. ''Eighteen times''. |
| 150 | * UsedToBeMoreSocial: Inverted. She was actually quite lonely as a child, something Carlos finds difficult to believe. |
| 151 | * ViolentlyProtectiveGirlfriend: She's willing to ''kill'' if Junpei is harmed. |
| 152 | * VitriolicCouple: Occasionally slips into this with Junpei; at one point, he claims that she is too fat to fit into an air vent, and she responds that he could fit if they cut off his arm. |
| 153 | * YamatoNadeshiko: Described on the English website as an "ideal Japanese woman" who [[SilkHidingSteel hides dark secrets]]. |
| 154 | * YouDontLookLikeYou: The change of artstyle made the fanbase debate it was even her, before her name was revealed. |
| 155 | [[/folder]] |
| 156 | |
| 157 | !!Team Q |
| 158 | Q is trapped in a truly terrifying scenario, caught between the volatile Eric and the cold Mira. |
| 159 | |
| 160 | [[folder:Q]] |
| 161 | !!Sean (Participant 4) |
| 162 | !!!Voiced by: Creator/AkiToyosaki (Japanese), Jonquil Goode (English) |
| 163 | [[quoteright:235:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/qztd.png]] |
| 164 | The leader of Team Q. An intelligent and curious child who has lost all of his memories. |
| 165 | ---- |
| 166 | * AmnesiacHero: Token amnesiac this time around, though this one's a main character. Turns out he doesn't have any memories at all; he came into existence just before the Decision Game began. |
| 167 | * AnimalMotifs: His helmet resembles a pig head, particularly around the snout. |
| 168 | * AudienceSurrogate: He's supposed to be a "being that's mostly similar to the player". |
| 169 | * BewareTheNiceOnes: Even though he's a nice boy, he's still perfectly willing to kill someone with a crossbow. |
| 170 | * ChildProdigy: He's a child (well, child-based robot), but shows a shocking amount of knowledge regardless. The original Sean was also mentioned by Zero to have read advanced books and often shared this knowledge with him in exchange for new books every day until he died. |
| 171 | * AChildShallLeadThem: He heads Team Q. Subverted; he isn't actually the leader. It's played straight in spirit, as the designated leader is physically incapable of voting as far as anyone knows, and Mira and Eric tend to leave decisions to him. |
| 172 | * ColourCodedForYourConvenience: Endings related specifically to Sean, rather than the real Q, are yellow on the flowchart rather than green. |
| 173 | * EarnYourHappyEnding: Despite being a robot, it's implied Eric takes him in anyway in the GoldenEnding, which is good for him... [[HairTriggerTemper in theory]]. |
| 174 | * IronicName: His real name, Sean, can mean 'God is gracious'. The irony of it comes from the fact this Sean is a robot copy of an ill boy named Sean whom perished after his surgeon died in an accident before he could have a critical operation, tragically cutting his life short at the age of ten. |
| 175 | * TheManyDeathsOfYou: Twice he is held at gunpoint by Eric, who demands information from him; if he responds incorrectly, Eric has several unique responses to each wrong answer he can give before shooting him dead. |
| 176 | * MeaningfulName: "Q" is a motif that's popped up in both prior games, though the significance here isn't exactly clear. Then you find out Q is actually a completely different character who's been BehindTheBlack the whole time, and the kid described here is actually named Sean. |
| 177 | * NiceGuy: He's described as a kind-hearted young boy, despite his amnesia. |
| 178 | * NoNameGiven: Apart from the manual and the files, Q is never referred to by name in spoken dialogue. Like Sigma in ''VLR'', this is a clue that the player and the characters know him by two different names. However, once the reveal of whom Q ''really'' is comes around, the characters begin to refer to him as Sean. |
| 179 | * NoOneGetsLeftBehind: If he pushes the yellow button, he refuses to leave with his teammates and abandon Gab and Delta. |
| 180 | * NotAMask: Both he and his teammates attempt to remove his mask and fail; it isn't until later on that it becomes clear that the "mask" ''is'' his head and that there's no human head inside it. |
| 181 | * NumerologicalMotif: 9, of course. His robotic designation is Sean 729, which is 9x9x9, and when he's first revealed to be a robot, he's shown to have eight spare bodies, giving him a total of nine. |
| 182 | * PlayerCharacter: You can make decisions for Q-Team as him, as well as investigating puzzle rooms. |
| 183 | * RecurringElement: |
| 184 | ** Just like Clover in ''999'', the child of the group is given the number "4". |
| 185 | ** Just like Seven and K, he is an amnesiac, and since the game leads the player to believe that he is Q, that would make him very much like K in that he is an amnesiac with a single letter name whose "face" is obscured by a helmet they can't remove. |
| 186 | * RoboticReveal: He is a quantum computer whose "brain" is housed in the facility. |
| 187 | * RobotKid: His body and mind are patterned after a deceased 10-year-old boy. |
| 188 | * SuperStrength: Because he is a highly durable robot, he has no trouble lifting up heavy objects like the Force Quit box Sigma couldn't budge. He can also break through walls. |
| 189 | * TakeAThirdOption: If he ends up in a MexicanStandoff with his teammates, he can shoot one or the other... or put down his weapon. Subverted since it gets him killed; shooting Eric is the correct choice. Double subverted since there is one more person you can shoot, [[BigBad Delta]]; although the player should not be aware that they're there when they first see the scene, you can replay the fragment later. |
| 190 | [[/folder]] |
| 191 | |
| 192 | [[folder:Eric]] |
| 193 | !!Eric (Participant 2) |
| 194 | !!!Voiced by: Creator/AkiraIshida (Japanese), Creator/KeithSilverstein (English) |
| 195 | [[quoteright:252:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ericztd.png]] |
| 196 | Mira's boyfriend. An ordinary ice-cream salesman whose tendency to panic when surprised or stressed makes him unsuited for the psychological stresses of a death game. |
| 197 | ---- |
| 198 | * AbusiveParents: After his mother died, his father turned into an abusive alcoholic, regularly beating him and his brother Chris. His father eventually murdered Chris and forced Eric to dump his dead body in a lake. |
| 199 | * AxCrazy: Not naturally, but quickly slips into this after the death game takes its toll on him. |
| 200 | * BadassNormal: He doesn't have [=SHIFTing=] powers, isn't an almighty robot nor is a serial killer, but he gets pretty dangerous when he gets the shotgun from the Pod Room. |
| 201 | * BerserkButton: Do not fuck with Mira. As Q learns the hard way in one timeline, this is a very good way to bring out his [[AxCrazy unstable side]]. |
| 202 | * BigBrotherBully: Though not related by blood, he behaves this way towards Q. |
| 203 | * BreakTheHaughty: Seeing Mira's body having signs of strangulation causes his [[TraumaButton trigger]], in which he remembers his abusive dad strangling his younger brother Chris to death before being forced to dump his body in a lake, and he breaks down in tears. |
| 204 | * CoolBigBro: To his brother Chris, before he died. |
| 205 | * DarkAndTroubledPast: His mother was murdered (by his eventual girlfriend Mira, unbeknownst to him), his father became an abusive drunk who murdered his beloved younger brother, and he was forced to dump said brother's body in a lake. He hasn't had it easy. |
| 206 | * DeathByIrony: After shooting the arrows on the portraits at Zero's study, Eric will comment he hopes it doesn't become a reality. More ironic is the fact he will get shot down by an arrow even if you choose Mira. |
| 207 | * EmpoweredBadassNormal: At the end of the game, the other characters temporarily grant him and Mira the ability to SHIFT. |
| 208 | * HairTriggerTemper: When the pressure mounts, he is very quick to throw around accusations and threaten others. |
| 209 | * HeroicSacrifice: If Q attempts to shoot Mira during a MexicanStandoff, he jumps in the way and takes the arrow for her. |
| 210 | * HiddenDepths: Per WordOfGod, his hobby is cosplaying. |
| 211 | * HorribleJudgeOfCharacter: He believes Mira to be the perfect angel even in timelines where she's murdering him, she does get better later on, but still, plus she's the serial killer known as The Heart Ripper. |
| 212 | * {{Hypocrite}}: He can come off as this in the Decontamination Room. He berates Q for pressing the button to kill the other teams, even though he was just about to do that himself. |
| 213 | * ItRunsInTheFamily: His father became a psychotic monster the second his mother died. Sure enough, if he doesn't have Mira to keep him steady, he goes insane. |
| 214 | * {{Jerkass}}: He tends to be rather unpleasant towards the other team members, sans Mira, whenever things starts to go south. He's especially this towards Q, who he suspects to be the mastermind. |
| 215 | * JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Despite being a jerk, he is the one to call out Q on self-serving decisions (albeit ones that he suggested three seconds ago), he is capable of bonding with Q in his more lucid moments, and most of his hostility comes from understandable panic at the situation. |
| 216 | * LaserGuidedKarma: If he kills Q with a grenade launcher in their MexicanStandoff, he escapes with Mira... only for her to murder him three days later. Additionally, the player can invoke this in a meta-sense by replaying the section and killing Eric; doing so nets Mira's ending and critical revelations regarding her character. |
| 217 | * TheLoad: Hands down the most useless participant (except Delta, who is pretending to be disabled); he contributes nothing and immediately goes psychotically insane in any timeline where Mira is killed. Even Mira is helpful for solving puzzles and explaining game concepts when she is not murdering everyone. All Eric does is complain and fail to understand what everyone is talking about when he is not murdering everyone. The only time he's useful is when someone needs to wield a giant mallet and Mira is missing. And it turns out Q is stronger than him. |
| 218 | * LoveMakesYouDumb: Completely trusts Mira despite her minimal efforts to hide her sociopathic tendencies. One of his X-Passes is even "FOOL". |
| 219 | * {{Muggle}}: The only member of the group who is not a timeline-jumping psychic, a robot, or a serial killer. |
| 220 | * MurderSuicide: If Q fails to deduce Zero's true identity, Eric kills him, Diana, and Sigma before turning the gun on himself. If Q succeeds, Eric does a PsychicAssistedSuicide version of this, killing Q, Sigma, and himself. |
| 221 | * PsychicAssistedSuicide: In the timeline where Q discovers Zero's true identity, this is how Zero takes him out. |
| 222 | * RightForTheWrongReasons: Turns out he was right in suspecting Q, though not for the reasons he had. |
| 223 | * RoaringRampageOfRevenge: Goes on one if Mira gets killed, threatening multiple people with a shotgun. |
| 224 | * SanitySlippage: If he doesn't have Mira around during the Decision Game, he will start losing it ''badly''. |
| 225 | * SelfServingMemory: If Q presses the yellow button to kill both of the other teams and secure their own escape, Eric claims that he told him not to push it despite trying to push it himself only a moment ago. |
| 226 | * ShotgunsAreJustBetter: He gets his hands on one in two timelines, and uses it to threaten both the other participants and Zero. |
| 227 | * StepfordSmiler: A mix of Types A and C. He got it from his parents. |
| 228 | * SurvivorsGuilt: It's very likely he feels this because of his younger brother's death. |
| 229 | * ThrowTheDogABone: For all the crap Eric goes through, he gets exactly what he wanted all along: Mira herself for real. Eric forgives her, convinces her to turn herself in, asks for her hand in marriage, she accepts and they marry while she is already convicted. This seems to have made Mira actually care for Eric beyond his physical heart. |
| 230 | * TraumaButton: Strangulation. His father strangled his brother to death and forced him to dump the body in a lake, and when he finds Mira strangled to death, ''he loses it''. |
| 231 | * UglyGuyHotWife: With Mira. While Eric isn't ugly, his exceedingly plain appearance is only further emphasized when opposite his bombshell girlfriend. |
| 232 | * TheWatson: Through a combination of being the least-well informed character in the cast, as well as threatening to kill people if they can't explain what's going on to him in a satisfactory manner. |
| 233 | * WouldHurtAChild: Shown threatening and choking out Sean. During the MexicanStandoff decision, Eric has no qualms with killing Sean anyway if the player decides to input 'no one' on who to kill. |
| 234 | * {{Yandere}}: ''Extremely'' devoted to Mira, calling her his "angel". |
| 235 | [[/folder]] |
| 236 | |
| 237 | [[folder:Mira]] |
| 238 | !!Mira (Participant 8) |
| 239 | !!!Voiced by: Creator/MaayaSakamoto (Japanese), Creator/RachelKimsey (English) |
| 240 | [[quoteright:243:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/miraztd.png]] |
| 241 | The girlfriend of Eric. Bold and attractive, she comes across as cold or unfeeling, which she shrugs off as simple insensitivity. |
| 242 | ---- |
| 243 | * TheAtoner: After the events of the GoldenEnding, she turns herself in to atone for her crimes as a SerialKiller. Sean eventually breaks her out of jail, and she makes for the transporter to prevent her younger self from committing her first murder. |
| 244 | * AxCrazy: Turns out she's not as stable as she appears to be, unlike Eric who easily goes insane and violent when threatened by the death game. The first sign of her instability is her decision to ''cut out Eric's heart from his dead body'', and she's also stated that this is not the first time she had done so. |
| 245 | * BadassNormal: She may not be a [=SHIFTer=] like the other cast members, but she is still a SerialKiller and can rack up an impressive body count throughout the multiple timelines. |
| 246 | * BrutalHonesty: Extremely blunt in her words and actions. |
| 247 | * ConditionedToAcceptHorror: Her IceQueen attitude combined with this makes her look at anything creepy with no interest. Not even being bathed in the blood of her boyfriend's ''ripped heart'' and ''holding it'' freaks her out... but rather makes her very curious. |
| 248 | * DiesWideOpen: Mira's corpse is found like this in the Pod Room, having been strangled by Zero in one of the endings. |
| 249 | * DissonantSerenity: To the point of being utterly unfazed while covered in blood. |
| 250 | * TheDragon: She is Zero II’s main helper and muscle in the Decision Game. |
| 251 | * EasilyForgiven: Eric forgives Mira for all she has done and the crimes she committed, eventually asking her hand in marriage and going through the ceremony after he convinced her to turn herself in to the authorities; it does seem to pay off, as Mira seems to have started to care for Eric as much as her twisted self can, and she ponders about how to redeem herself. |
| 252 | * EmpoweredBadassNormal: At the end of the game, the other characters temporarily grant her and Eric the ability to SHIFT. |
| 253 | * EvilCounterpart: To Lotus and Alice, to a certain extent. Both are women with revealing clothing and exotic looks who prefer logic over emotion, and don't hesitate to speak their minds. They even have the same bracelet number. However, while Lotus and Alice have softer sides to them, Mira is a SerialKiller who doesn't understand emotions. |
| 254 | * FemmeFatale: After committing several murders, Mira realized that she experienced more joy when a victim forgave her as they died. Hence, she grooms Eric to be her next victim specifically because he loves her (although Mira does not reciprocate his feelings). |
| 255 | * IceQueen: Is said to be apathetic and lacking in emotions, according to her profile. |
| 256 | * InterplayOfSexAndViolence: Some of her comments while literally touching Eric's heart are disturbing. She actually ''moans'' at one point. |
| 257 | * IrrationalHatred: Downplayed. She conflates the actual, fleshy concealment of people's hearts with metaphorical concealment of their emotions, and considers their 'deception' of others "unfair". |
| 258 | * KarmaHoudini: Subverted in the GoldenEnding. She seems to get no comeuppance despite being a SerialKiller, but the files that are unlocked post-game reveal she turned herself in and went to jail. |
| 259 | * LackOfEmpathy: While cutting up Eric's corpse for his heart, should Sean shoot him dead, she confesses to Sean that she seems to have trouble understanding human emotions and the concept of 'love'. |
| 260 | * LaserGuidedKarma: To Phi in regards to knowing her team blew up the door that took Mira's team down on the other side - also knowing they were there - and made her act in revenge by injecting Radical-6 into Phi, causing her to become PatientZero to the epidemic in the ''VisualNovel/VirtuesLastReward'' timeline. |
| 261 | * LiteralMinded: When her mother told her that people's hearts hold their emotions, Mira thought she meant ''biological'' hearts. |
| 262 | * MsFanservice: She competes against Lotus and Alice for the biggest rack of the series, and sports a nice pair of long legs. Easily the most fanservice-y of this game's cast. |
| 263 | * OffscreenKarma: Mira turns herself in after being convinced by Eric’s pleas, starts caring for Eric (as much as a sociopath can at least) to the point of marrying him while in jail, and starts wondering if she can do anything to redeem herself; all of this happens offscreen, detailed in the files gotten upon finishing the game. |
| 264 | * PetTheDog: She's shown to be considerate towards Sean, unlike Eric, who doesn't bother to hide his distrust and contempt towards him. |
| 265 | * RecurringElement: Yet another older woman with revealing clothing and exotic looks. And just like Lotus, she's given the number "8" as well. After being revealed to be the Heart Ripper, she also fits the pattern of a dangerous murderer placed in the game to threaten the participants, along with Ace and Dio. |
| 266 | * SerialKiller: She is the Heart Ripper, a killer who gouges her victims' hearts out in order to learn about human emotion. |
| 267 | * TheSocialDarwinist: Why she questions Sean's shocked reaction to her murdering Eric. |
| 268 | * TheSociopath: She admits that she never truly understood human emotions, eventually driving her to become a SerialKiller. |
| 269 | * SpellMyNameWithAnS: "Mila" on the official Japanese website and "Mira" in the English version. |
| 270 | * TokenEvilTeammate: She is an unhinged serial killer, and was deliberately put in the game to kill people and escalate the danger. |
| 271 | * UglyGuyHotWife: With Eric. While Eric isn't ugly, his exceedingly plain appearance is only further emphasized when opposite his bombshell girlfriend. |
| 272 | * UnexpectedVirgin: Mira is by far the most seductive member of the cast, wears an outfit that leaves very little to the imagination and is very attractive to boot. Yet one of her X-Passes reveals that she is still a virgin. This is because her psychopathy made her unable to ever love anyone. Mira was driven to kill whoever was foolish or unlucky enough to fall for her charms. |
| 273 | * UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: |
| 274 | ** Mira is the indirect cause of ''literally everything that has gone wrong within the series up to this point''. To wit, she murdered Eric's mother when she was a little girl. As a result, Akane's father was falsely arrested, convicted, and executed. Akane's mother committed suicide shortly afterwards. Akane's father was trying to take a cab, but due to his arrest the cab took a surgeon instead. The cab got into an accident, killing the driver, the surgeon, and the child the surgeon was going to operate on (the original Sean). Due to Akane's parents' deaths, she was placed in position to be abducted by Ace and forced to play the Nonary Game, resulting in the events of ''VisualNovel/NineHoursNinePersonsNineDoors''. Akane would go on to learn about the plan to unleash Radical-6 and take part in the Decision Game, which would lead to Delta and Phi being born in a certain timeline. The two were sent back in time to 1904, and a grown Delta would found the cult Free The Soul and orchestrate the Decision Game. This would eventually lead to ''VisualNovel/VirtuesLastReward''. All of this happened because Mira decided to murder an innocent woman that one day. |
| 275 | ** She also plays a critical role during the Manufacturing fragment of D-Team. D-Team decides to blow up a part of their ward in order to escape. However, Zero places Q-Team on the other side, meaning Mira and the others would die should the bomb go off. Having learned this, Sigma attempts to disarm the explosive, but fails and it takes the lives of Eric and Q. A barely conscious Mira then takes her own revenge on Phi, injecting her with Radical-6 before dying shortly afterward. Due to this, Phi becomes the patient zero for the Radical-6 outbreak that leads to the deaths of six billion people, a nuclear apocalypse and the events of ''Virtue's Last Reward''. None of the second game's events would have happened had Mira not injected Phi with the virus. |
| 276 | * WildCard: She doesn't receive the drugs that the other participants do when the time limit is hit. This is by design, as Zero wants her to kill off other members to trigger reactions from them. |
| 277 | * WouldHurtAChild: While Mira is normally encouraging of Q, she has no problem with killing him in the Radical-6 path, and guns him down in the MexicanStandoff should he try to off her. |
| 278 | [[/folder]] |
| 279 | |
| 280 | !!Team D |
| 281 | Diana, Sigma and Phi work together in most circumstances, but Diana is unaware of Phi and Sigma's real identities, or what they really know. |
| 282 | |
| 283 | [[folder:Diana]] |
| 284 | !!Diana (Participant 7) |
| 285 | !!!Voiced by: Creator/MamikoNoto (Japanese), Creator/EdenRiegel (English) |
| 286 | [[quoteright:295:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/dianaztd.png]] |
| 287 | The leader of Team D. An optimistic team player who works as a nurse and tries to see the good in everyone. |
| 288 | ---- |
| 289 | * AlwaysSaveTheGirl: In D-END: 1, Diana refuses to abandon Phi in the shelter despite knowing that Phi is infected with Radical-6. This leads directly into ''VisualNovel/VirtuesLastReward'', in which the Radical-6 pandemic has killed 6 billion people. |
| 290 | * AmbiguousSituation: The fragment called "Q" ends with her alone with Zero/Delta, who has just murdered all of the other survivors except for her. |
| 291 | * AudienceSurrogate: For newcomers to the series, she is an outsider to Sigma and Phi's relationship. |
| 292 | * BreakTheCutie: In the Trash Disposal Room, she is forced to play a form of RussianRoulette with Sigma and Phi's lives hanging in the balance. She's torn up by it before you can even make a decision. |
| 293 | * CallForward: |
| 294 | ** Diana's official artwork's pose bears a strong resemblance to one of Luna's concept sketches. Considering Diana was the basis of Luna, this might not be a coincidence. |
| 295 | ** Her participant number is 7. Luna's product ID contains the number 16, whose digital root is 7. |
| 296 | * DeathSeeker: In the timeline where she and Sigma are trapped in the facility for the rest of their lives, Diana breaks down and demands Sigma kill her. |
| 297 | * DomesticAbuse: Diana was married before, but her husband became abusive and she left him. However, he began hounding her and eventually even showed up at her work place. She finally joined the Dcom experiment just to get away from him. |
| 298 | * DrivenToSuicide: Should Sigma die if Diana risks firing the gun to save Phi from being burned to death in the incinerator, Diana will take her own life out of despair with the same gun she had used earlier. |
| 299 | * DrowningMySorrows: In the timeline where she and Sigma are trapped in the facility together for the rest of their lives, Diana turns to drinking at one point in order to cope. |
| 300 | * EarlyBirdCameo: Appears in ''VisualNovel/VirtuesLastReward'' as the woman who sent a message from the Mars Test Site sadly claiming she was responsible for the deaths of six billion inhabitants of Earth (about 75% of the population). Her name was first indirectly revealed long before the release of ''Zero Time Dilemma'' by [[WordOfGod Uchikoshi in an answer to a fan question for VLR]][[note]] the original question was asking what the 'DM' in Luna's product ID meant[[/note]]. |
| 301 | * {{Expy}}: Of Luna, but this is done as a much more meaningful way since Sigma based Luna's creation on Diana (Luna's a "Diana Model" type). |
| 302 | * ExtremeDoormat: She tried to leave her abusive husband many times, but always came back out of pity for him. She joined the experiment in part because it would force her to overcome her Stockholm syndrome. |
| 303 | * IChooseToStay: The ending where she kills the other teams with acid has her turn tail and run back into the shelter, despite having reached the elevator. It's implied that she was trying to avoid having to process the knowledge that her actions caused the deaths of other people. |
| 304 | * IconicItem: The caged blue bird necklace that eventually was given to Luna. |
| 305 | * INeedAFreakingDrink: In D-END: 2, after being trapped in the facility for the rest of her days, she needs a drink so badly she is willing to lick some spilled booze ''off the floor'', although she laughs and claims [[JustJokingJustification she was just kidding]] when Sigma yells her not to do it. |
| 306 | * KilledOffscreen: Mercifully, we're not required to watch Diana, Sigma, their infant children, and Gab die slowly of starvation in one timeline. |
| 307 | * TheLostLenore: Becomes (and has been) this to Sigma 3 years following D-END: 1, the timeline that leads into ''VisualNovel/VirtuesLastReward''. |
| 308 | * LukeYouAreMyFather: Zero/Delta and Phi are her and Sigma's twin children, separated at birth by time travel. |
| 309 | * MeaningfulName: Diana is the Roman goddess of the moon, sharing a thematic similarity with her doppelganger Luna. The actual goddess was also known as a goddess of childbirth, fitting as Diana does indeed become pregnant with fraternal twins (aka Phi and Delta) in one ending. |
| 310 | * TheMedic: She's a nurse, much like Luna. |
| 311 | * NiceGirl: To the point where she claims "it's a fault" of hers. It turns out it's a "fault" because it meant that she kept feeling sorry for her abusive husband if he begged hard enough, prompting her to join Dcom to get away from him for good. Also, in the timeline when Phi gets injected with Radical-6, Diana refuses to kill Phi and burn her remains even after Phi herself ''specifically asks her to'', indirectly leading to 6 billion deaths in that timeline and the events to ''VLR''. |
| 312 | * NonStandardCharacterDesign: A downplayed example. Diana's irises and pupils are more detailed and have stronger contrasts compared to the rest of the cast. |
| 313 | * NoOneGetsLeftBehind: DeconstructedTrope. Her refusal to abandon a grievously wounded Sigma and a Radical-6 infected Phi results in the Radical-6 pandemic killing 6 billion people. |
| 314 | * OfficialCouple: With Sigma in both [=D-ENDs=] and the [=CQD2=] end. |
| 315 | * OneHeadShorter: Although taller than Phi, she's still much smaller than Sigma. This is most clearly visible in D-END: 2, when he embraces her. |
| 316 | * OlderThanTheyLook: Not an extreme example, but Diana could pass for a teenager. She's actually old enough to be a fully-trained nurse with an ex-husband. |
| 317 | * PlayerCharacter: You do the puzzle solving and the decisions for D-Team by controlling her. |
| 318 | * ProperTightsWithASkirt: She wears bright red tights to match her sweater. They're under a long, beige skirt. |
| 319 | * RussianRoulette: The most critical decision in the Trash Disposal Room has Sigma restrained to a chair while Diana is forced to play with three live bullets and Phi's life in the balance. |
| 320 | * SupernaturallyYoungParent: Courtesy of accumulated experiences, memories and feelings brought by [=SHIFTing=]; in the timeline in which ''ZTD'' ends in, Diana hasn’t actually given birth, yet thanks to [=SHIFTing=] she remembers the experience of childbirth and has full motherly love towards the 20 year-old Phi. |
| 321 | * TimeTravelRomance: Due to Sigma's MentalTimeTravel, when she first meets him, he's already fallen in love with her during the 3 years they spent living together on the Moon. Likewise, when Sigma first meets her, she already knows him from their time at Dcom and playing the Decision Game. |
| 322 | * TookALevelInBadass: It's Diana who ultimately figures out, and explains to those still alive, that all three wards are actually different sections of the same ward, and that the bracelets have been keeping all three groups awake and asleep at different times. |
| 323 | * WhatHappenedToTheMouse: The files unlocked at the end of the game reveal what everyone else has been up to, but D-Team's fate remains unclear. |
| 324 | * WistfulAmnesia: Of a sort. Diana's latent connection to the morphogenetic field makes her feel like she knows Sigma from somewhere — through her alternate self, who was married to him. |
| 325 | [[/folder]] |
| 326 | |
| 327 | [[folder:Sigma]] |
| 328 | !!Sigma Klim (Participant 9) |
| 329 | !!!Voiced by: Creator/DaisukeOno (Japanese), Creator/MatthewMercer (English) |
| 330 | [[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sigmaztd_1.png]] |
| 331 | The protagonist of ''VisualNovel/VirtuesLastReward''. A 22-year old college student whose body is currently inhabited by the consciousness of an old man. |
| 332 | ---- |
| 333 | |
| 334 | * AboveTheInfluence: Zigzagged. He refuses to sleep with Diana when she is clearly intoxicated, but does kiss her. |
| 335 | * AnArmAndALeg: If ''VisualNovel/VirtuesLastReward'' is anything to go by, he's not getting out of this mess in one piece... If D-Team bombs their way out of the shelter, Sigma is wounded trying to disarm it and prevent it from accidentally killing Q-Team in the process. |
| 336 | * BabiesEverAfter: In the timeline where he and Diana stay in the shelter, they both become a couple and have twins named Phi and Delta. |
| 337 | * TheBigGuy: Although he is certainly very intelligent, he is also the most muscular of the participants and he is easily a head taller than his teammates Diana and Phi. |
| 338 | * CassandraTruth: He tried to warn everyone about the Radical-6 outbreak. Naturally, nobody listened. |
| 339 | * ChivalrousPervert: We get two examples in the Trash Disposal Room: |
| 340 | ** He tells Diana "Why not try it [referring to a gas mask-looking thing] on? You might look good", to which Diana replies "If you think complimenting everything a woman wears is okay, you're very wrong, sir". |
| 341 | ** He asks Diana to take her clothes off, although it's much less for perverted reasons and more because Phi refuses to try escaping the incinerator through the dust chute because she [[BlatantLies insists her chest would get caught in it]] and he needed to prove a point relating to it. |
| 342 | * {{Determinator}}: Carries over from the previous game. |
| 343 | ** If he is stuck in the facility with Diana, he manages to keep himself, his wife, their unborn twins, and their pet dog alive for just under a year on ever-dwindling food supplies. |
| 344 | ** If the main page's entry on ArtisticLicenseBiology is to be believed, he lasted for ''45 years'' under conditions of isolation that would have driven most people insane in a few months and emerged no worse for wear then when he started. |
| 345 | * DissonantSerenity: Sigma remains relatively calm when confined in the facility for years because he'd been in a similar situation before (albeit by his own will) when planning the lunar Ambidex Game. |
| 346 | * EyeScream: If ''VisualNovel/VirtuesLastReward'' is anything to go by, he's not getting out of this mess in one piece... If D-Team bombs their way out of the shelter, Sigma is wounded trying to disarm it and prevent it from accidentally killing Q-Team in the process. |
| 347 | * HeroOfAnotherStory: Of ''VisualNovel/VirtuesLastReward'', although he has quite a bit of protagonism that Junpei lacks. |
| 348 | * HonorBeforeReason: Pre-game, he loudly proclaimed that he was a time traveler and that the apocalypse was coming to the other subjects. They, of course, just wrote him off as insane. |
| 349 | * HugeGuyTinyGirl: As stated above, he's quite a bit taller than the two other members of D team. This is most clearly visible in D-END: 2, when he embraces Diana. |
| 350 | * IJustWantToBeLoved: One of his reasons for inventing the first sentient A.I. ever was because he wanted to feel as if his "wife" were alive again. He admits this was unfair to Luna. |
| 351 | * KilledOffscreen: Mercifully, we're not required to watch Diana, Sigma, their infant children, and Gab die slowly of starvation in one timeline. |
| 352 | * LastNameBasis: With Junpei; he calls him by his last name, Tenmyouji, due to having known him by that name during the previous game. |
| 353 | * LateArrivalSpoiler: Sigma being a 67-year old man in the body of a 22-year old and a time-traveler is revealed in his first scene with D-Team. |
| 354 | * LikeASonToMe: In one route, he reveals that he saw Luna from [=VLR=] as a daughter. |
| 355 | * LukeYouAreMyFather: Zero/Delta and Phi are his and Diana's twin children, separated at birth by time travel. |
| 356 | * OfficialCouple: With Diana in both [=D-ends=] and the [=CQD2=] end. |
| 357 | * OlderAndWiser: Although his perversion and ''cat''astrophic cat puns occasionally flare up, he is much more mature and focused in this game than he was in ''VLR''. |
| 358 | * OlderThanTheyLook: This is a 67-year old personality in a 22 year old body. |
| 359 | * RussianRoulette: The most critical decision in the Trash Disposal Room has him restrained to a chair while Diana is forced to play with three live bullets and Phi's life in the balance. |
| 360 | * SecretlySelfish: He claims to have never felt unconditional love until the birth of Phi and Delta. While he's had other 'children', they were created partly to fulfill Akane's plan. |
| 361 | * SenselessSacrifice: How he loses his arms and eye. He tries to defuse a bomb that will kill Q-Team, but is blown up in the process. A couple minutes later, you find out the bomb killed them all anyway. |
| 362 | * SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong: His and Phi's goal is to prevent the outbreak of Radical-6 that is destined to occur during the Decision Game. |
| 363 | * SugarAndIcePersonality: Before the Game forces him to work with Diana, he ignores her as a way of dealing with his conflicted feelings towards her. |
| 364 | * ThemeNaming: His name is Sigma, his son is Delta, and his daughter is Phi, invoking the Greek alphabet. |
| 365 | * TimeTravelRomance: Due to his MentalTimeTravel, when he met Diana for the first time 5 months after D-END: 1, she already knew him from their time at DCOM and playing the Decision Game. Likewise when she first meets him, he's already fallen in love with her during their 3 years living on the Moon together. |
| 366 | * WellIntentionedExtremist: One of the most determined to achieve his goals no matter the cost since this ''is'' the one and only shot at completing a decades-long plan. |
| 367 | * WhatHappenedToTheMouse: The files unlocked at the end of the game reveal what everyone else has been up to, but D-Team's fate remains unclear. |
| 368 | [[/folder]] |
| 369 | |
| 370 | [[folder:Phi]] |
| 371 | !!Phi (Participant 3) |
| 372 | !!!Voiced by: Creator/ChiakiOmigawa (Japanese), Creator/KarenStrassman (English) |
| 373 | [[quoteright:245:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/phiztd.png]] |
| 374 | The heroine of ''VisualNovel/VirtuesLastReward''. Phi is an enigmatic ally of Sigma, and claims she is there to save the world. |
| 375 | ---- |
| 376 | * ActionGirl: Phi delivers a violent flying kick to Zero as he threatens the other characters with a shotgun. What makes it even more impressive is that he could predict she would do so with his Mind Hacking, but was still unable to respond to her attack. |
| 377 | * ACupAngst: Now claims to be a D-Cup. When Sigma snarks that she's supposedly gone up a full size since the last game, Phi says that it's been 45 years since then, so it's only natural for them to have grown... ignoring the fact that the last game was 45 years in the ''future'' and that her body is still about the same age as it was then, if not slightly younger. |
| 378 | * AndNowForSomeoneCompletelyDifferent: You can control her in the Trash Disposal Room, where she is locked in an incinerator and must solve some puzzles on her side. |
| 379 | * CainAndAbel: The Abel to Zero/Delta's Cain. |
| 380 | * ComplainingAboutRescuesTheyDontLike: She's not happy when Diana saves her life by pulling the trigger in the trash disposal room, even if the bullet is a blank. |
| 381 | * DeadGuyJunior: Phi managed to be named after ''herself'', due to a StableTimeLoop. |
| 382 | * DyeHard: She's a natural redhead, but she dislikes the color, so she dyed it. This is a tad ironic considering who her mother is. |
| 383 | * DyingDeclarationOfLove: Her final words before being burned to death are "I love you" to Diana. She's probably already figured out that she's her mother. |
| 384 | * HeroicBastard: Sigma and Diana weren't married when she was born. |
| 385 | * HeroicSacrifice: Demands that Diana kill her and burn her remains if she gets infected with Radical-6. Diana refuses. |
| 386 | * KidFromTheFuture: She was sent back in time to 1904 as an infant by Diana and Sigma, her parents. The German researchers who recieved her when she came out of the transporter then put her back in and sent her forwards to 2008, where she eventually came to be in the AB and Decision Games. |
| 387 | * KillItWithFire: If Diana refuses to pull the trigger in the Trash Disposal Room, this is how she goes out. |
| 388 | * LukeYouAreMyFather: She is revealed to be Diana and Sigma's daughter. If the two end up trapped in the facility together, they give birth to her and her brother Delta and send them back in time through a transporter to live out normal lives. |
| 389 | * MosesInTheBulrushes: She and her twin brother Delta were sent back in time by their parents Diana and Sigma so they wouldn't starve to death with them. German researchers sent her through time again to 2008. |
| 390 | * MysticalWhiteHair: She has white hair and, like Sigma, has demonstrated psychic abilities. Turns out she has naturally red hair, but she dyes it white out of embarrassment over her hair color. Her eyebrows are red, though, and her dyed hair still has a slight tint of red if you look close enough. And as it turns out, this is {{Foreshadowing}} that she is Diana's daughter. |
| 391 | * MyOwnGrampa: Probably the only adoptive example of this trope you'll find. Since the transporter only makes copies of whatever gets put into it, and leaves the originals where (and when) they are, that means there was a second Phi left behind in 1904 when she was put in the transporter a second time. A file unlocked after learning her history says that the Phi left behind took TheSlowPath to 2008 and got a job at the research facility where 2008!Phi came out of the transporter. Since Phi mentions being raised by a pair of researchers, that means her adoptive mother is herself. |
| 392 | * OutOfFocus: Between the execution vote, the incinerator room and being murdered by Mira, Phi is written out of the narrative very early on in most of the timelines. As a result, she has the least screen time out of all main characters. What makes this jarring is that she was the prequel's deuteragonist, yet doesn't play a major role in this game until the very end. |
| 393 | * PatientZero: For Radical-6, in the ''VLR'' timeline. Mira injects her with the disease as revenge for accidentally blowing her team up with a bomb. |
| 394 | * PrecisionFStrike: She gets to drop exactly one f-bomb in the game, after learning Zero's motives. |
| 395 | -->'''Phi:''' AAAAAAAAAAAAARGH! FUCK YOU, YOU GODDAMN OLD MAN! |
| 396 | * PromotedToPlayable: She was an NPC in ''Virtue's Last Reward'', and is briefly playable during one segment here. |
| 397 | * SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong: Her and Sigma's goal is to prevent the outbreak of Radical-6 that is destined to occur during the Decision Game. |
| 398 | * ShutUpHannibal: After Zero gives his MotiveRant in the timeline where no teams are executed, Phi tells him to shut up and kicks him in the face. |
| 399 | * StableTimeLoop: Her existence depends on the actions she takes during the Decision Game. Also, she's named after herself. |
| 400 | * ThemeNaming: Her name is Phi, her father is Sigma, and her brother is Delta, invoking the Greek alphabet. |
| 401 | * VitriolicBestBuds: One-sided with Sigma; she enjoys making old man jokes at his expense. |
| 402 | * WhatHappenedToTheMouse: The files unlocked at the end of the game reveal what everyone else has been up to, but D-Team's fate remains unclear. |
| 403 | [[/folder]] |
| 404 | |
| 405 | |
| 406 | !Others |
| 407 | [[folder:Zero II (SPOILERS)]] |
| 408 | !!Zero II/Q/Brother/Delta |
| 409 | !!!Voiced by: Creator/FumihikoTachiki (Japanese), Creator/DCDouglas (English) |
| 410 | [[quoteright:252:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/zeroii.png]] |
| 411 | [[caption-width-right:252:[[labelnote:Click to see him unmasked (Spoilers)]]https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/delta_1.png[[/labelnote]]]] |
| 412 | |
| 413 | The masked mastermind of the DeadlyGame, whose true identity is unknown. He wears a PlagueDoctor outfit and loves to give lectures on [[ButterflyOfDoom the butterfly effect]] and the [[LifeIsntFair unfairness of life]]. He abducted the participants of the game on Dcom and has locked them in a building for his game. |
| 414 | |
| 415 | He is actually Delta, Sigma and Diana’s KidFromTheFuture and Phi's twin brother, the true Q, and Brother, leader of Free The Soul, who formed the cult and released the Radical-6 virus to kill a religious fanatic who would have otherwise wiped out all humanity. His goal is to use the SHIFT powers of the participants to [[WellIntentionedExtremist create a timeline where he doesn’t have to unleash Radical-6 and the fanatic is caught instead]]. |
| 416 | ---- |
| 417 | * AmbiguousSituation: The GoldenEnding. Did Carlos take him up on his offer to blast him? |
| 418 | * AnimalMotifs: Birds. Not only because of his PlagueDoctor mask, but because his mother's memento is a music box shaped like a bird cage. |
| 419 | * AntagonisticOffspring: His true identity is Delta, the son of Diana and Sigma and twin brother of Phi in a timeline where they were trapped in the facility. |
| 420 | * AntiVillain: Just like the previous Zeros, but with a twist- he really is a huge asshole, unlike Zero Sr. and Zero I who were simply unsympathetic to the situation the participants find themselves in because of fate and the necessary setup to solve their dilemmas. Delta, on the other hand, is actively cruel and positions himself more as a villain than the other two once his scheme has been revealed, and there are many hints that he's doing so because he's become a DeathSeeker. |
| 421 | * BastardBastard: His parents, Sigma and Diana, weren't married and he's not exacly a moral person. |
| 422 | * BehindTheBlack: He was with Q-Team all along. The game just never showed him to you. |
| 423 | * BigBad: He's the one who kidnapped the 9 participants and is forcing them to play a death game. As Brother, the leader of Free the Soul, he is one for the entire series, as the heroes are trying to stop him from unleashing the Radical-6 virus. |
| 424 | * BlindPeopleWearSunglasses: Delta wears sunglasses, but he's only pretending to be blind. The sunglasses are mostly there to hide his bizarre purple eyes. |
| 425 | * ButterflyOfDoom: He has a butterfly on his left shoulder. |
| 426 | * CainAndAbel: The Cain to Phi's Abel. |
| 427 | * CastingGag: Creator/DCDouglas unleashing a deadly virus upon humanity? [[VideoGame/ResidentEvil5 Never seen that before]]. |
| 428 | * CatchPhrase: "Life is simply unfair, don't you think?" |
| 429 | * TheChessmaster: He forces the players into the Decision Game as "the lives of them, himself, and mankind" depend on it. His plan involves carefully framing the actions of nine people over the course of multiple timelines to achieve his, by his own admission, complex goals, which involves getting all of them out alive by the end and in the process, ensuring his existence, averting the need to release Radical-6, and galvanizing the players into pursuing the terrorist who seeks to destroy all of humanity. |
| 430 | * CynicismCatalyst: The death of Original Sean. It's obvious that finding out the chain of events that caused Sean to die left its mark on him. Finding out about the upcoming apocalypses made him into the TheUnfettered WellIntentionedExtremist he is in ''Virtue's Last Reward'' and ''Zero Time Dilemma''. |
| 431 | * TheDogWasTheMastermind: Interesting example where this trope applies more for the characters than the player, who is completely unaware that Delta is even present prior to TheReveal. Also, he’s that baby shown in one of the endings. |
| 432 | * EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas: In the [=Q-END=] 2, Zero "mind-hacks" Eric into killing Sean and Sigma, before forcing him to commit suicide. Diana, however, is spared. Subverted in the other endings, where he has no problem in killing her alongside the rest of D-Team. |
| 433 | * EvilCounterpart: To Zero I/Akane (well, evil-er). Like Akane, Zero II is using his powers to enact a ridiculously complicated plan to create a StableTimeLoop that ensures his own survival. Unlike Akane, however, he does nothing to minimize casualties and seems to take sadistic pleasure in the suffering of his participants. |
| 434 | * EvilCripple: Playing With. He's evil, but he's only pretending to be disabled. When he gets up from the wheelchair he reveals himself to be the BigBad. He is also pretending to be blind, mute and deaf. |
| 435 | * EvilOldFolks: The dude is 124 years old. |
| 436 | * EvilSoundsDeep: With help of a voice modulator. |
| 437 | * GoodAllAlong: Played with. Ultimately, his Decision Game leads to an alternate history, where all participants are alive, Radical-6 is not released, and a squad of [=SHIFTers=] will prevent the nuclear extinction of humanity. Notably, none of the cast agrees, and many of them note that despite his noble intentions, Delta is extremely cruel. |
| 438 | * HeWasRightThereAllAlong: He had entered the Dcom experiment as an old man named Q who couldn't see, speak, hear or walk. He was the real leader of Q Team but the decisions fell to Sean out of pure circumstance. Only an astute player will notice the strange shadows in certain angles trying to hide Q's existence from them but not the actual team members. |
| 439 | * HiddenVillain: Like the other Zeros, he hides his true identity behind a mask. His presence as the tenth player is acknowledged by the other characters, yet we don't even get to know he was there until very late into the plot due to the game's interface. |
| 440 | * HeroicSacrifice: The heroic part is debatable, but still. He can't SHIFT, so in all the timelines where he dies, including those where he dies by execution or acid, he does sacrifice his only life to achieve his goal, which is to face 6 billion people. |
| 441 | * IGaveMyWord: If you win that coin flip, he's not bluffing when he says he'll release everyone. |
| 442 | * IHaveManyNames: Zero II, just Zero, Q, Brother and Delta. |
| 443 | * IntergenerationalFriendship: Had one with the original Sean. The snail incident he often quotes ended up resulting in the boy's death. |
| 444 | * {{Irony}}: He firmly believes that LifeIsntFair. The last thing he does in-game is to make it a little bit more fair by giving Carlos the opportunity to kill him. |
| 445 | * KarmaHoudini: In the GoldenEnding, he destroys the evidence of his plans and points out that he has not killed anyone in the current timeline, meaning the police will never prosecute him. [[SubvertedTrope That said]], he offers to let Carlos kill him in order to achieve some measure of justice. |
| 446 | * KickTheDog: |
| 447 | ** Delta kills everyone except Diana in Q-end 2, reasoning he has no further use for that timeline. |
| 448 | ** He also has a literal example near the endgame, where he kills Gab. He did have a reason for it: the shelter is set to detonate in minutes, and the players are about to have to SHIFT themselves into the GoldenEnding timeline and doom alternate versions of themselves to die in the explosion. They can't bring Gab with them, so Delta kills Gab to ensure that the cast isn't "abandoning" him and therefore has no reason to stay behind in the shelter. |
| 449 | * KnightTemplar: Considering that Delta is the BigBad of the entire franchise, he doesn't see why what he's doing might be wrong and ultimately considers himself a WellIntentionedExtremist in the long run. One of whom also lacks proof for anything he does, considering his motive of stopping a fanatic is [[UnreliableExpositor unreliable]]. |
| 450 | * LackOfEmpathy: More so when he doesn't give a damn he has to watch his family members die in many gruesome ways or driving his mother crazy to keep a StableTimeLoop for himself. Interestingly, he does note that even if he believes he has a IDidWhatIHadToDo perspective on the events of the game, the torture he's put the other members of the cast through does not justify his actions, and thus he places his life in their hands. |
| 451 | * LeanAndMean: Despite his advanced age, he appears quite fit, and seems to have inherited his father's height. |
| 452 | * LegacyCharacter: The second character to take the identity of Zero in the series' chronology. |
| 453 | * LesserOfTwoEvils: He considers Radical-6 to be this, the alternative being the complete annihilation of humanity in a nuclear war. |
| 454 | * LifeIsntFair: His CatchPhrase. “Life is simply unfair, don’t you think?” |
| 455 | * LivingProp: This is his disguise throughout the Decision Game, simply appearing as a wheelchair-bound, blind, mute, deaf old man. Q-Team almost never acknowledges his presence since as far as they're aware he can't hear or respond to them. |
| 456 | * LukeYouAreMyFather: He is revealed to be Diana and Sigma's son. If the two end up trapped in the facility together, they give birth to him and his sister Phi and send them back in time through a transporter to live out normal lives. |
| 457 | * MeaningfulName: His real name is Delta, the fourth letter in the Greek alphabet, which is also his participant number (as Sean isn't the real Q). Delta is also used in mathematics and science to denote change of any changeable quantity, which relates very well with his ForWantOfANail story, in which one tiny thing resulted in the deaths of six people and potentially, all of mankind. |
| 458 | * MotiveDecay: Discussed; while his overall goals are for the sake of preserving humanity and ensuring his own birth, he admits to several of his actions against the Decision Game's participants stemming from a more personally "complex" point of perspective which he opts not to divulge. Context from ''VLR'' only potentially elucidates on what those motives may be, as the game introduces him as a person who grew misanthropic from both the experience of losing his brother, as well as experiencing the avarice of humans through mind hacking. This makes it a potentially deconstructed trope, as his schemes would be just as informed by the preservation of humanity and himself, as it is taking out his disdain on people who play god. |
| 459 | * MotiveRant: Once the protagonists either deduce or remember his identity, he appears to explain why he created the Decision Game. |
| 460 | * MythologyGag: ''VLR'' opens with Zero III, and it turns out the other Zero in that game is simply called "Zero Sr." One whole game later, and we finally meet Zero II. |
| 461 | * MosesInTheBulrushes: He and his twin sister Phi were sent back in time by their parents Diana and Sigma so they wouldn't starve to death with them. |
| 462 | * NobleDemon: He's a huge prick, but his goals are to create the alternate timeline in which he was born and to stop the extremist. Furthermore, in the timeline where neither of these things happen, he still is pulling the strings towards this future, as by sending Dio on a mission to "stop" the AB Project, he was in fact ensuring its success--which was necessary to get Sigma into the Decision Game in the first place. |
| 463 | * NominalHero: His actions do lead to the participants deciding to defeat the [[OmnicidalManiac religious extremist]] and to his and Phi's birth, which are two of his stated goals, but he's a colossal asshole who genuinely enjoys tormenting the heroes to sate his own curiosity about the effects of ForWantOfANail. |
| 464 | * ObfuscatingDisability: He is the deaf, mute, blind old man in the wheelchair that Q-Team mostly ignores. It's all an act. |
| 465 | * PetTheDog: |
| 466 | ** He grew to know a boy in a hospital whose life was cut short due to a string of [[ArcWords "unfair"]] events, and creates a copy of him to make sure his dreams would live on as part of his plan. |
| 467 | ** Despite him killing Gab in one timeline, it turns out the airvent the heroes send Gab down just leads into a room where Gab has a rug to sleep on. |
| 468 | * PlagueDoctor: Zero's new motif. It's certainly appropriate given the presence of Radical-6. |
| 469 | * PleaseKillMeIfItSatisfiesYou: In the GoldenEnding, he gives Carlos a handgun and offers to let him shoot him. The game cuts to the credits before we get an answer. |
| 470 | * PsychicPowers: His "Mind Hack" ability allows him to [[{{Telepathy}} read other peoples minds]] and [[MindManipulation influence their actions]]. |
| 471 | * PurpleIsPowerful: This Zero's design is heavily associated with the color purple. Delta also wears a purple shirt and has a purplish skin tone (oddly absent on the [=3DS=] version) and purple eyes. |
| 472 | * RememberTheNewGuy: When Delta is introduced to Q-Team at the end of one of their timelines, the game explains that there [[BehindTheBlack was always an old man in a wheelchair hanging around in Ward Q]], but that he was deaf and blind and almost comatose so nobody ever paid attention to him. |
| 473 | * RetGone: One of his motivations for the Decision Game is to prevent this from happening to him and Phi. |
| 474 | * SecretIdentityVocalShift: His mask has a voice modulator to disguise his true identity. |
| 475 | * SinisterShades: Wears them as Delta. They are connected to the facility's security cameras, allowing him to see what's going on in the facility at all times. |
| 476 | * StableTimeLoop: Like Akane in ''VisualNovel/NineHoursNinePersonsNineDoors'', his existence depends on him creating the Decision Game. |
| 477 | * TechnicolorEyes: His eyes have pitch-black sclera and purple irises. |
| 478 | * ThemeNaming: His name is Delta, his father is Sigma, and his sister is Phi, invoking the Greek alphabet. |
| 479 | * ThrowingOffTheDisability: Throughout the Decision Game, he disguised himself as a wheelchair-bound, deaf, mute, blind old man. When Sean deduces his true identity, he drops this pretense. |
| 480 | * TheUnfettered: Possibly the most unfettered person in the series. Zero is so dedicated to his plan that he will willingly go down several timelines that he knows will result in his death, even though he has no way of transferring his consciousness or travel back in time. |
| 481 | * TheUnfought: A notable aversion. Unlike the first Zero, who escapes from the group before she can be confronted, or Zero Sr., who is only present in his game through recordings, he confronts all the participants unmasked in the ending. |
| 482 | * UnreliableExpositor: |
| 483 | ** He claims a religious fanatic who'll cause humanity's extinction exists, yet he doesn't know his name despite being able to Mind Hack anyone at will. Also, the 'Fanatic Bio R vs. Radical-6' scenario in the Biolab mirrors his plan to wipe out the terrorist by releasing Radical-6 -- however, "Fanatic Bio R" is an anagram for "Fabrication", so... |
| 484 | ** Delta claims Mira killed Junpei, but Junpei's body parts were part of the Pantry's puzzle, which points to him rather than Mira. |
| 485 | ** Delta claims Mira was exempt from the drug injections, but Q-Team's execution starts out with Mira asleep, and then genuinely panicked about the bomb collar. Also, if her memories are not erased it means she willingly went back into the Decontamination Room knowing Team C or D pushed the button to kill everyone else. And lastly, Mira mentions in the True End she also had to use one of the Transporter's cards to block the bracelet injection. |
| 486 | * WalkingSpoiler: Being called [[BigBad Zero]], this is a given. |
| 487 | * WellIntentionedExtremist: His goal is to close the StableTimeLoop that resulted in his birth and stop a religious extremist from destroying all of mankind in a nuclear war by traumatizing nine people until they unlock their superpowers and creating several timelines where other people die. |
| 488 | * YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: Kills everyone except Diana in Q-2 ending, because "he has no more use for this timeline". |
| 489 | * YouMonster: Sean of all people says this when Delta shows he shot Gab, something even Delta notices and is surprised about. |
| 490 | [[/folder]] |
| 491 | |
| 492 | [[folder:Gab]] |
| 493 | !!Gab |
| 494 | [[quoteright:341:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/fc16d478_8f97_449c_8c6b_0c067f12eea0.png]] |
| 495 | |
| 496 | An elderly dog present at the facility. He is small enough to fit through the air vents, allowing all three teams to pass notes to each other. |
| 497 | ---- |
| 498 | * AndYourLittleDogToo: Zero kills Gab in the CQD-2 timeline for no apparent reason. The heroes immediately call him a monster for it. |
| 499 | * CanineCompanion: His ability to travel through air vents lets him interact with all three teams. |
| 500 | * RidiculouslyCuteCritter: Gab is an old dog, but his fluffy appearance and friendly demeanor are designed to make him look adorable. |
| 501 | * StealthPun: The Payoff ending, where the game never takes place at all, makes the entire series a ShaggyDogStory. In the Everyone Survives ending, Zero will ShootTheShaggyDog. |
| 502 | * TeamPet: He's a small dog that all of the heroes adore. |
| 503 | [[/folder]] |
| 504 | |
| 505 | [[folder:Eric's Family]] |
| 506 | |
| 507 | Eric's family from childhood, consisting of his parents and his younger brother, Chris. |
| 508 | ---- |
| 509 | * AbusiveParents: After Eric's mom died, his dad became an abusive alcoholic towards him and Chris, to the point of strangling Chris to death and making Eric dump his body into a lake. |
| 510 | * AlcoholicParent: Eric's father, after his mother died. |
| 511 | * OffingTheOffspring: Eric's father murdered Chris in a drunken rage. |
| 512 | * PassionateSportsGirl: Eric's mother is a jogger whose hobby cost her her life. |
| 513 | * TooGoodForThisSinfulEarth: Eric's mom forgives a young Mira for killing her and only asks her not to kill anyone else. |
| 514 | * WalkingSpoiler: They are the reason why Eric is the way he is today. |
| 515 | [[/folder]] |
| 516 | |
| 517 | [[folder:Maria]] |
| 518 | |
| 519 | Carlos' younger sister. Reverie Syndrome has left her comatose. |
| 520 | ---- |
| 521 | * AndIMustScream: She's been trapped in one long lucid dream for years, her thoughts too scattered to even take control of her body. |
| 522 | * MissedTheCall: She only comes out of her coma once its cause, Radical-6, has been stopped by other, less fragile espers. Though of course, there's a lot of other dangers facing the world, as [=SOIS=] and Crash Keys can attest to. |
| 523 | * PowerIncontinence: She's one of many latent espers whose powers were awakened by the oncoming apocalypse(s). Unfortunately, the field's vastness overwhelmed her so much that she couldn't stay conscious or focus on anything. This state is called "Reverie Syndrome". |
| 524 | * ThePowerOfLove: Her mind manages to stop jumping around for long enough to mentally encourage Carlos while he's fighting off a robot. |
| 525 | [[/folder]] |
| 526 | |
| 527 | [[folder:The Religious Fanatic]] |
| 528 | |
| 529 | An [[UnknownCharacter unidentified individual]] who influenced Zero into becoming what they are today. If Radical-6 doesn't take them out, they will initiate a nuclear war that will wipe out all of humanity. |
| 530 | ---- |
| 531 | * AmbiguousSituation: Whether this person even exists is up for debate. Delta is the only one who acknowledges their presence, and given that he is a ManipulativeBastard of the highest order, it could have been just a lie designed to make the main characters (and the player) see him as a WellIntentionedExtremist. Regardless, the game ends on a very ambiguous note and leaves the validity of Delta's actions up for the player's own interpretation. |
| 532 | * EvilerThanThou: In the grand tradition of Zero not being the most evil character in the game, this person is trying to kill all of humanity. Compare Zero, who is only killing 6 billion people to save the other 2 billion. |
| 533 | * GreaterScopeVillain: One of Delta's main motivations for releasing Radical-6 was to bump this person off before they could destroy humanity. If there's ever another sequel, it's likely that this individual will become the BigBad. |
| 534 | * NukeEm: Intends to destroy the human race with nuclear war. |
| 535 | * OmnicidalManiac: Will kill all of humanity in a nuclear war if they are not stopped. |
| 536 | * UnknownCharacter: Nothing is known about them, not even their gender. |
| 537 | * WalkingSpoiler: This person turns out to be the GreaterScopeVillain behind the entire ''VisualNovel/ZeroEscape'' series, and Delta’s true motivations are tied to them. |
| 538 | [[/folder]] |
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FollowingContext Characters / ZeroTimeDilemma
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