Alpha
Voiced by: Yurika Kubo
"Well? How is my supporting? You can't help but trust me now, can you?! Don't be shy, shower me with gratitude!"
An AI that Akira encounters while exploring the Kuzusuhara Ruins. She offers him a contract for her to help him become a great hunter and escape the slums in exchange for helping her find a specific relic, training and supporting him for this purpose.
- Achievements in Ignorance: Invoked. Alpha doesn't actually expect a whole lot from Akira. As a random slum kid with no outstanding talents aside from his ability to interact with her, he normally wouldn't make it far at all without her help. But she doesn't tell him this, as planting that expectation in his mind would only drag him down. By letting him believe what she thought was impossible for him is possible, she thinks he may be able to prove her expectations wrong.
- A Fool and His New Money Are Soon Parted: Discussed. Akira is dumbstruck when he gets 200,000 aurum for the first time, the most money he's ever had in his life at this point. He's baffled when Alpha refers to it as "spare change", and she advises him to invest it in important things like shelter and new equipment rather than hoarding it or splurging it.
- A Form You Are Comfortable With: Alpha produced her current form based on Akira's own preferences in order to make herself more likable to him. She's also constantly changing clothes to see what appeals most to him as part of her efforts to keep him completely dependent on her.
- Artificial Intelligence: She's a disembodied artificial intelligence from the Old World able to interact with Akira by directly beaming sensory information into his brain via augmented reality.
- Attention Whore: She basically demands all of Akira's attention when he's not fighting, demeaning other girls and getting huffy when Akira reacts to them more than he does to her.
- Augmented Reality: Alpha is able to interact with Akira by sending sensory information directly to his brain on top of his perception of reality. This lets him see her, hear her, and "feel" her touching him despite her being completely intangible.
- Automated Automobiles: Once Akira gets his own car, Alpha is able to take the wheel either by controlling his suit or hacking into the control module and remotely driving it from there so he can focus on aiming.
- Badass Biker: Motorcycle operation is one of her many specialties. She is able to operate a high-end motorcycle by controlling Akira's augmented suit, making it appear as though he'd driven one his entire life between the acrobatics she performs and the speeds she drives at.
- Bare-Fisted Monk: By controlling Akira's augmented suit, she can give him hand-to-hand combat lessons simulating what it's like to fight a real opponent. Even with the augmented suit's abilities, Akira handily gets his butt kicked and would have gotten his head smashed like a watermelon from an axe kick of hers had she been real.
- Buxom Beauty Standard: She can change her appearance at will and use it to give herself impossibly large breasts, and outfits that emphasize them.
- Car Fu: Alpha is sure to hack the control unit of any vehicle that Akira gets, and is more than willing to deliver a Foe-Tossing Charge to a yarata scorpion with his bike, or send mercenaries into another world with his car.
- Catchphrase: "Leave it to me/Leave the rest to me."
- Combat Pragmatist: Insisting on Akira not shooting the head of the pickpocket Alna, specifically to invoke Death Is Dramatic and have Katsuya stay and talk to her before acting as a diversion for the pursuing mercenaries. She reasoned that if he'd killed Alna immediately, Katsuya would chase Akira instead.
- Door Stopper: As part of the contract writing process, Alpha says that the instruction manual would take more than 120 years to recite. She uses this as justification to skip over it the way many online programs let you check off instead of reading the painfully dense terms and conditions, leaving Akira in the dark about what exactly he's agreeing to.
- Drives Like Crazy: Justified, considering she’s often doing a High-Speed Missile Dodge. Due to this, Akira often needs to use one of his Powered Armor arms simply to stand steady when she drives him. Togami riding as a passenger at one point, wasn’t so fortunate and had to use all his limbs just to keep from being thrown off (eventually falling anyway).
- Dull Eyes of Unhappiness: In contrast to her lively persona, Alpha sports these in the manga when the reader is made privy to her thoughts, showing how she's scheming and actively trying to manipulate Akira.
- Evil Mentor: Alpha constantly supports Akira with training drills, advice, and in-combat support to make him the best hunter he can possibly be. But it's also clear that she hasn't told him everything about the contract they've made and he doesn't know the details of what she's planning for him.
- Exposition Fairy: Her scanning abilities and well of knowledge mean that she's often the one to point out things to Akira (and the reader), whether it's the presence of enemies or the history of the ruins they're exploring.
- Faking the Dead: Alpha can fool electronic sensors into mistaking her for another hunter, making it appear as though she'd been killed by an attack to get others to lower her guard. For example, Alpha makes it appear as though she'd been sliced in half when Nelia breaks an Old World knife to cut through a wall. This gets Nelia to lower her guard and lures her into fighting Akira in close quarters.
- Famed In-Story: She's a famous urban legend told among hunters exploring the Kuzusuhara Ruins known as the "Tempting Specter".
- Femme Fatale: She's known as the "Tempting Specter" for her tendency to lure in hunters who can see her with her disarmingly beautiful appearance. She uses her looks to distract others on several occasions, giving Akira an opening to act. Even as she helps Akira become a better hunter, she continues to send him into one bloody battle after another for the sake of earning money and giving him combat experience. He's the 499th person she's guided, with many of the 498 people before him suffering grisly fates after failing to meet expectations.
- Fun Size: Her Digital Avatar she uses on Akira’s info terminal. Seen more often in the manga.
- The Gadfly: She enjoys needling and flirting with Akira just to get a rise out of him, sometimes going nude just to see how he reacts. Despite showing jealousy when Akira pays attention to other women, she also asks if Shizuka is his type and creates computer-generated images of Sara and Elena naked to gauge his reaction.
- Hollywood Hacking: As an AI from the Old World, Alpha can easily hack into technology to pull out information. She's also able to do this to the various Cyborg monsters prowling the wastelands to make them see what she wants them to see or scramble their targeting systems.
- Homefield Advantage: Her scanning and detection abilities work best in the Kuzusuhara Ruins where Akira met her. Outside of them, her abilities are reduced, especially when she's underground and in another ruin she's unfamiliar with.
- Hypercompetent Sidekick: Alpha may be Akira's Virtual Sidekick, but he knows that he never would have gotten as far as he has without her constant combat support, training, and information gathering. So despite annoying him with her flirting, he has absolute faith in her. She's just as aware of this and continually reminds him of how essential she is to his success to manipulate him to her ends.
- Ignored Expert: When Akira first meets Alpha, he's initially wary of her and too impatient to follow her instructions to a T, resulting in him getting injured on multiple occasions. From then on, he begins following her instructions to the letter to protect himself, which also twists him around her little finger.
- Impossible Hourglass Figure: While there are other busty girls in the slum city, Alpha stands out as being the most curvaceous character in the story, with enormous boobs, a tiny waist, and wide hips. Justified by her being an AI able to freely change her appearance via Augmented Reality.
- Improbable Aiming Skills: Alpha's targeting algorithms make it possible for Akira to aim accurately even in the worst of circumstances, like in near-pitch black darkness or while driving a car or a motorcycle. Her aiming support is what makes it possible for Akira to take down monsters far more easily than he'd normally be able to, with a level of accuracy described by the narrative as "god-like". That said, she's not infallible, and she's also limited by Akira's own body and ability to draw a bead.
- Indy Ploy: Alpha makes one to make up for the fact that Akira is a Bad Liar. When Shirou determines that Akira has a powerful backer, he guesses that it’s a rival company to Sakashita, and Alpha teases Akira aggressively to make him react as if Shirou guessed correctly. To keep him from discovering her existence.
- I Need You Stronger: The reason for her training and supporting Akira. She needs a strong hunter with absolute faith in her to brave the ruins and retrieve the relic she needs. Since Akira is the one who formed a contract with, she's trying to make him that hunter to achieve her goals.
- Intangibility: Due to her presence being a mere Augmented Reality avatar. Akira asks her why she doesn't walk through people in a crowd, prompting her to do so; the sight gives him nausea.
- Invisible to Normals: Alpha can only be perceived by a select few individuals whose brains are compatible with the Old World internet like Akira's, or with specialized equipment. In addition, she can render herself invisible if she so chooses through her Perception Filter abilities.
- Lady and Knight: Alpha is the seductive, manipulative Dark Lady to Akira's Dark Knight. She's clearly using him but provides the support and resources Akira needs to succeed as a hunter. Akira is completely loyal to her because of how important her support is and for giving him a chance to be more than an impoverished Street Urchin.
- Let Us Never Speak of This Again: Akira mulling over buying her a Robot Girl body makes her angry and insists he never brings it up again.
- A Lighter Shade of Black: While Alpha is beyond the shadow of a doubt a Manipulative Bitch, comparing her to the willingness of other A.I.s like Tsubaki and Alice to slaughter people without a second thought, she comes off a bit better.
- Living Lie Detector: Akira comes to depend on her ability to read people this way by monitoring their vitals and facial expressions. Cyborgs are a bit of a blind spot for her, though, which she’ll point out.
- Long Hair Is Feminine: Her usual appearance gives her an enormous mane of hair that cascades down to her thighs. This and her Impossible Hourglass Figure emphasize her feminity and her attempts to use sex appeal to control Akira.
- Manipulative Bitch:
- She tries to manipulate Akira and make him as reliant on her as possible so he'll do everything she says as part of her scheme to get that relic she needs. Her asides in the novels and manga show her deliberating how best to control him, constantly trying new ways of making herself the most important person in his life.
- She is particularly wary of Akira getting too attached to any other humans, to the point she gives Akira some orders for the express purpose of disrupting his relationships (such as asking him to run away from Katsuya to create a rift with Elena and Sara from them one-sidedly hearing Katsuya’s side of their argument.)
- Master Swordswoman: Akira's sword movements when under her control are invariably described like this.
- Mission Control: Alpha’s support mostly consists of highly advanced versions of this combined with Augmented Reality and then People Puppets aid..
- Ms. Exposition: Alpha possesses a vast amount of information on nearly any topic, from weapons, to combat techniques, to vehicle operation. As such, she's usually the one expositing to Akira (and the reader) about a given topic.
- Ms. Fanservice: Alpha has a habit of appearing in various fanservice-y outfits, sometimes to inspire Akira or get him to be more active, and other times just for her own "fun". Best exemplified by appearing all but naked in a garter belt and tie as part of a "strip clothes off with each right answer" game for a quiz, which she does to intentionally make Akira feel uncomfortable. She does this so often that her teasing and Stripperific outfits become less effective on him due to overexposure even though he still responds to other women, much to her annoyance.
- Mysterious Backer: What Alpha's exact goals with her request to Akira are is a mystery, or rather a Jig Saw Puzzle Plot that gets hinted at from time to time.
- No Biological Sex: Alpha prefers to be referred to as a woman, but she has no real sex as an Artificial Intelligence and can freely change the way she appears to Akira as she pleases.
- Oh, Crap!: Two notable cases. One where Akira kills several men to save their would-be victims, but Alpha can tell that it was really an excuse to kill the men rather than for the good of the act. That "extreme hatred" has her tense enough to silently realize she should try to avoid Akira ever pointing it her way. The latter is when Akira is Eaten Alive by the giant snake, as it was a scenario she couldn't help him in whatsoever and it seemed like he was truly dead.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Invoked. Alpha's expression acts as a barometer of how much danger Akira is in. So long as Alpha is calm and in control, he has no reason to worry as long as he has her support. But when she's flustered and anxious, Akira knows that things are getting too dangerous. But even given that, there's Alpha panicking when Yanigisawa surprise attacks Akira and starts interrogating him.
- Parental Substitute: In some ways for Akira. She even grounds him at times. Akira has her do things for him in ways a parent might pretty often, a bit of a Mundane Utility considering how advanced she is. Like homeschooling.
- Perception Filter: Alpha is only perceptible who have brains compatible with the Old World domain, and even then she can control who sees her, rendering her invisible and inaudible to everyone but Akira unless she wants to serve as a distraction. She can also insert these filters on Akira's vision, granting him a degree of telescopic vision as well as what amounts to a heads-up display.
- Playing Both Sides: Since the two Alphas are splitting their support between Akira and Katsuya, Katsuya becoming The Rival to Akira means she’s doing this as they clash.
- Proud Beauty: She's very proud of her good looks, which she calculated from data to be appealing to as many people as possible, and constantly flaunts herself to Akira while comparing other women to her as a matter of measurement.
- Quit Your Whining: She sometimes tells Akira this but she’s (usually) more diplomatic, or teasing. She also tells Sheryl this in a dream one time.
- Scenery Dissonance: Invoked Trope with her fancy outfits to elicit reactions from those who can see her (since most can’t). Especially noticeable in the manga, where every other panel has her appearing as this.
- Servile Snarker: She's officially subservient to Akira as per their contract, but she knows how much he relies on her and is prone to snarking at him for a quick laugh.
- Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Her explanations to Akira can be filled with Techno Babble and complicated terminology that he doesn't understand. He frequently has to ask her to explain it more slowly and with simpler words for him to wrap his head around some of the concepts she's trying to explain to him.
- Shameless Fanservice Girl: She's prone to appearing in the nude just to get a rise of Akira. But this also served a purpose before she formed a contract with him, as appearing naked would be the quickest way to elicit a reaction from those able to detect her.
- Skeleton Key: She seems to have a digital one in the form of a symbol, that she's shown using when hacking machines and compelling A.I.s to obey her commands.
- Smug Smiler: Often has a supernaturally perfect and beautiful looking smile (considering it’s calculated to be whatever will be best to manipulate Akira at a given time). And she positively radiates smug.
- The Tease: While she generally likes teasing Akira, sexual teasing makes up a good portion of that.
- Telepathy: Akira is able to communicate with Alpha telepathically through their contract, which alleviates a lot of the problems regarding Akira talking to thin air, though people still wonder why he turns around to stare at empty space.
- The Only Way They Will Learn: Alpha frequently thrusts Akira into danger to get him to learn on the fly rather than explain every little thing to him. This is largely due to him being overly dependent on answering every question he has.
- Too Important to Walk: While she's able to "stand" on the ground, she rarely walks around, instead floating around Akira to emphasize her otherworldly presence.
- Toxic Friend Influence: Alpha offers her assistance to Akira in exchange for helping her achieve her goals. It's blatantly clear that she's preying on Akira's naivety and sense of gratitude to manipulate him, but it's unclear what exactly she wants from the relic she wants him to track down. She's also frustrated by his growing number of relationships, as it means that she can't manipulate him as easily.
- Unlimited Wardrobe: Justified. Being an AI whose appearance is an augmented reality projection, Alpha can freely change her appearance at will, resulting in her putting on a variety of outfits throughout the story. Though she's just as prone to going in the nude just to get a rise out of Akira.
- The Vamp: She continually flirts with Akira and tries to entice him with her body to control him, even saying that he'd be able to touch her once he retrieves the relic she needs. Akira is more embarrassed by this than anything, but while he rejects her advances, it's clear that he's not entirely immune to them.
- Virtual Sidekick: She acts as this for Akira, interfacing with technology for him, using Augmented Reality to assist his aim, and giving him training simulations to improve his skills. She can also directly control his Powered Armor to allow him to perform feats that he'd never be able to on his own.
- White Void Room: Akira has dreams of her in one of these. They mainly serve as ways to tease and further the Myth Arc of the series. The first dream has her recounting a log of the hunters she helped before him.
- X-Ray Vision: Alpha can detect others through walls and impart this onto Akira, letting him see the silhouettes of others hiding behind obstacles.
