Characters / Rebuild World Major Cast

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Akira | Alpha | Major Cast | Other Characters

Akira’s Teammates

Elena and Sara

Sara

Elena

Two veteran hunters and friends of Shizuka. Akira saves them from a gang he deemed a threat to his own life, which results in them becoming thankful to their mysterious savior.

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• Action Girl: Sara and Elena are both experienced and heavily-armed hunters once they get their equipment back, tearing their way through an army of monsters on their lonesome, albeit with the help of some very expensive ammo.
• Badass Normal: For the longest time, Elena went without an augmented suit because she's strong enough to carry and wield heavier weapons like grenade launchers through her own training. She admits that she's not on the level of cyborgs, nanite-enhanced humans like Sara, or those with augmented suits, but she can handle herself just as well as Sara in a firefight. But after the city is besieged with cannon insects, she purchases one in order to use even heavier ordinance.
• Big-Breast Pride: Elena is proud that her breasts are naturally large, teasingly prodding Sara over how her bust size is dependent on her nanite supply.
• The Big Girl: Sara has Super-Strength from her medical Nanomachines, and uses heavy weaponry.
• Big Sister Mentor:
  • Sara and Elena are more than happy to help and guide Akira because of how grateful they are to him for saving their lives. They give him their old, high-quality but seldom-used gear for a bargain price, coach him on the fundamentals of being a hunter like where to sell his relics for the highest profit, and are happy to work with him on assignments.
  • Sara's fondness for Akira makes her commit a near-fatal mistake when she decides to Hold the Line for him and some other hunters to escape a ruin crawling with monsters. While she would have backed out in time to get out unscathed normally, she was so fixated on showing off and being a good role model to him that she gets injured by a monster she normally would have fled from, forcing Akira to double back to rescue her.
• Brains and Brawn: Elena is The Leader, The Face, and a technician, while Sara has Super-Strength and heavy weapons.
• Breast Expansion: Inverted Trope mostly with Sara, her chest shrinks with her nanomachine supply which is used up by super strength and healing.
• Buxom Beauty Standard: Sara is curvaceous when she's topped up on nanites, to the point that her shirt struggles to contain her breasts, and Akira is very taken with them. She jokingly offers to show them to Akira as thanks for saving her life, much to Alpha's frustration. Elena is no slouch in the bust department either and her bust isn't nanite-dependent.
• Cool Big Sis: After learning that Akira saved their lives, Sara and Elena are quick to invoke I Owe You My Life, doting on him and taking a mentorly role to him along with Shizuka, offering him constant words of encouragement and good advice. They also sell him their old equipment at a good price and look forward to seeing him go places.
• Cyborg: Sara is a nanite-enhanced human, allowing her to perform feats of superhuman strength and agility so long as she has the nanite reserves to facilitate them. Her breasts have been replaced with nanite storage units, resulting in them looking huge when she's at maximum capacity and flat when she's running low.
• Didn't Think This Through: They come to realize this after they had sided with Katsuya against Akira in an argument, realizing that listening one-sidedly to Katsuya’s opinion was stupid.
• Embarrassing but Empowering Outfit: Downplayed. Elena's augmented suit is as form-fitting as any other and looks good on her, but what makes it embarrassing is how it's so breathable that wearing it feels almost the same as being naked. The way it hugs all her curves gets her looks and even Akira finds himself staring at her. She eventually gets used to it, but focusing it on how it looks on her tends to give her a Luminescent Blush.
• Everything Sensor: Elena specializes in reading and coordinating between these. She made her own out of parts from several.
• The Face: Elena is in charge of negotiating for her team, a very important job.
• Famed In-Story: They're both veteran hunters with enough clout for the corporate government to directly send them orders during emergencies. Drankam is also looking to recruit them because of Sara and Elena's skills and reputation.
• Giving Up on Logic: This is the two’s eventual reaction to the absurd lengths Akira is willing to go on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge due to his Berserk Button being pressed, only gritting their teeth.
• Healing Factor: Sara, as long as she has reserves of nanomachines.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: The two of them. It’s rare for them not to be in the same room, and the manga adaptation shows them sleeping in the same bed.
• I Owe You My Life: Both girls are grateful to Akira for saving them and repay what they see as an act of heroism with their constant support of him.
• The Leader: Whenever Akira teams up as part of The Squad, Elena is the leader.
• Locked Out of the Fight: For the Battle of the Slums, Inabe and especially Hikaru try to keep them out of it using their contract to guard Hikaru as a pretext, explicitly to keep Akira from getting revenge if anything should happen to the two. They talk their way out of it with the help of Shizuka. Shizuka tells Hikaru that if she has escorts, she may be expected to go out there herself, terrifying her. Shizuka later scolds Akira for making them think like this.
• Magic Pants: Averted, and then justified. The fact that Sara’s breasts serve as reservoirs for her nanomachines means that she goes through bras quickly, until she can get some old world ones that are advanced enough to handle it.
• Military Mashup Machine: They eventually get a tank gun for their car that deploys using Shrink Ray technology to grow, as an emergency measure.
• Ms. Fanservice: They're both attractive and buxom women who enjoy acting like The Tease.
• Must Make Amends: They’re horrified after siding against Akira in his argument with Katsuya makes him cold towards them and distance himself. Shizuka interceded to limit the damage, but they’re still left trying to get back to normal with Akira months later. All thanks to Alpha.
• Platonic Life-Partners: Sara and Elena's joking flirting with Akira indicates that they're not in a relationship with each other beyond good friends, but it's also clear that they're very close and long-time partners who won't go through with any major decisions without the consent of the other.
• Rescue Romance: Sara is enamored with the mysterious hunter who saved her and Elena's life from a gang. It gets to the point that she keeps dreaming up a Mysterious Past or backstory for said hunter who wouldn't even show their face to her afterward. Unbeknownst to her, Akira, the child hunter she bumps into at Cartridge Freak, is in fact the one who saved her, and he did it mainly to protect himself rather than her. After she realizes that he's the one saved her life, she instead takes an almost sisterly role to him, though she does jokingly offer to flash her boobs for him as thanks.
• The Scapegoat: For the high casualties Drankam forces take fighting the giant snake Kaiju. Even though they ignored the two’s orders not to get close to it and died because of that, the two take the blame and a pay cut for it, causing Shirakabe to lament not being able to recruit them into the gang because of their mistreatment.
• Secret Secret-Keeper: Come to realize that Akira can connect to the old world domain, thanks to Shizuka telling Sara, and it’s confirmed due to Akira shooting enemies outside of his device's scanning range in the undercity. They won't tell anyone further because They Would Cut You Up.
• The Smart Girl: Elena. She is an expert in sensors (and assembled her own from multiple other devices), as well as handling more mentally demanding tasks like leadership and negotiation.
• Stripperiffic: They eventually upgrade to Old World imitation hunter armor, provided by Hikaru.
• Super-Strength: Sara, due to her nanomachine augmentation.
• The Tease:
  • Sara is aware of Akira's fondness for her and teases him by leaning in close and offering to show him her breasts, only to laugh it off when he squirms and asks her to knock it off.
  • Elena gets in on it with pretending to try to kiss Akira during their R&R from a medevac mission.
• Those Two Guys: The two of them are always seen together as a team, whether it's fighting, hanging out, or shopping.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Sara is the Tomboy to Elena's Girly Girl. Sara is a nanite-enhanced human who is happy to laze about the house in nothing but a shirt and her underwear when she has guests over, while Elena is the information specialist who tries to clean herself up when meeting people over lunch.
• Unknown Rival: Neither Sara nor Elena know about Alpha's existence or how the AI considers them both a threat to her control over Akira's actions.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Elena does this to herself when she ponders the possibility of seducing Akira to have the benefits of someone who's probably connected to the Old World domain attached to her. She quickly waves off the idea and is mad at herself for even thinking it, as it would be a betrayal of the trust he's shown to her.
• Worf Had the Flu: Sara and Elena are easily subdued by hunters-turned-raiders after they lost most of their equipment and supplies on their previous mission, needing Akira to save their lives. But they're a force to be reckoned with once they're fully armed, obliterating an army of monsters on their lonesome.

Reina Lawrence

An impulsive heiress of a rich family. She first encounters Akira while on a mission to wipe out the Yatara Scorpions infesting a ruin, being a temporary part of Katsuya's squad.

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• A Day in the Limelight:
  • The old world automaton investigation arc.
  • The second Mihazono Ruins Incident starts one of these involving her personal nemesis Chloe.
• Adventurer Archaeologist: Downplayed, discovering stories of the old world is one of her main motivations for being a hunter. Hence her interest in Ghost Stories.
• Batman Gambit: When Chloe demands the white card MacGuffin from her, she plans to make Chloe prattle on and threaten her as much as possible, in order to let Olivia, who is lethally picky about the handling of those cards, deal with Chloe for her. Unfortunately, the cleanup duty ends up getting passed onto Akira...
• Break the Haughty: Her combat experiences dealing with Akira each tend to end up like this, reining in her pride to make her a more capable and realistic hunter.
• Brutal Honesty:
  • Akira criticizing her eagerness to confront fellow hunters with some of this, saying he'd never hire her help, serves as part of a Break the Haughty experience for her, that ultimately helps her grow. Even if him doing so does start a Mexican Standoff with Shiori and makes Akira feel regretful.
  • When negotiating with Akira at one point, she tells him all of her honest feelings, which include some animosity towards Akira over certain actions he took. This scares her bodyguards but makes Akira laugh and respect her honesty.
• Character Development: Starts as a bit of a Skilled, but Naive Royal Brat who thinks she’s invincible, then undergoes multiple Break the Haughty experiences and changes her outlook on hunting, as well as at least distancing herself from Katsuya, preferring to train with her bodyguards or Akira.
• The Clan: She’s the grand-daughter of Lawrence, a hunter who struck it big and made a MegaCorp for himself that reigns over multiple cities. His children and grandchildren jockey for positions within his company. But Reina in from an out-of-favor faction.
• Damsel in Distress: Yajima takes her hostage when she tries to see if he's alright. He then has Shiori attack Akira, using Reina's life as collateral.
• Declaration of Personal Independence: Her reaction to Mizuha threatening her to make her work under Katsuya.
• Dissension Remorse: Her introduction is about her having this after Akira gives her Brutal Honesty about her attitude towards fellow hunters.
• Everyone Can See It: Justified due to it being two people who know her well, Shiori and Kanae can see her feelings for Togami.
• Fatal Flaw: Pride. It gets beaten out of her in stages.
• Fire-Forged Friends: With Akira, despite their rough start. The same with Togami.
• Freudian Trio: Reina is the Ego to Shiori’s Superego, and Kanae’s Id, being less composed and more emotional than the stoic Shiori but not nearly as battle-hungry and self-serving as as Kanae.
• Friendly Sniper: Akira greatly respects her marksmanship in the undercity, and she eventually specializes in sniping, delivering a One Hit Poly Kill to try and impress Akira in the Lida Commercial Zone. She's also a compassionate girl to the point of being a Naïve Newcomer.
• Girlish Pigtails: Wears her hair like this both to emphasize her privileged upbringing as well as her femininity unlike the constructed front built by Sheryl.
• Guile Hero: Eventually proves herself as this, being more adept at intrigue and Battle of Wits, where unlike with hunting, she doesn’t need her servants to cover for her. This is after her Character Development gets past her earlier naivete.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: She perpetually struggles against this impulse.
• Heroic BSoD: She’s prone to mini ones when disappointed in herself.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: Over her failures as a hunter, and having to rely on others to protect her.
• Hidden Depths: Reina being a brilliant negotiator.
• Honesty Is the Best Policy: As an heiress of one of the most powerful corporations around, Reina is an expert negotiator who takes honesty seriously, earning the trust of others (even paranoiacs like Akira) by being transparent with them about her intentions and terms.
• Honor Before Reason: Her desire to get stronger on her own merits means that she doesn't get the best equipment she can buy with her money. Akira later calls her out on this, as fighting with only your pride like this will only get her killed in the end.
• Humble Hero: Eventually. To the point she’s even completely happy wearing maid armor simply due to it being the best protective gear she can get her hands on. This unnerves her showoff family rival Chloe.
• Interclass Friendship: Eventually with Akira, since Reina is from the rich inner wall, while Akira is from the slums.
• Mood-Swinger: She gets teased a bit for this (to which her reaction makes even Akira laugh.)
• My Greatest Failure: Confides to Akira that her not trying harder to rein in Katsuya makes her feel somewhat responsible for him getting himself killed.
• Naïve Newcomer: She's prideful and naïve when she first meets Akira, taking offense to insults toward her abilities and nearly getting into a firefight with Akira when his Brutal Honesty goes too far. She later settles down after seeing him in action and apologizes for her behavior. She also gets taken hostage when she tries to show compassion to Yajima, forcing Shiori to fight Akira. She learns her lesson over time, outgrowing this completely by the Second Mihozono Incident.
• New Meat: Despite everything she learns, she’s still this when teaming up with Akira later on, and has to be covered for.
• Ojou: She has the air of one, her father is wealthy enough to hire Shiori and Kanae as her personal bodyguards, and she's well-trained enough to take on dozens of Yatara Scorpions alongside Shiori.
• Passive-Aggressive Kombat: Her rival Chloe starts this with Reina whenever the two meet. Chloe always gets trounced.
• Princess in Rags: The corporate Nepotism equivalent of this. Reina has been banished from the upper districts since before entering the story. It turns out she was pressured into becoming a hunter largely due to her political faction within The Clan falling out of favor, and a risky but viable method for a faction to come back into favor with The Patriarch Lawrence, is to succeed as a hunter. She just happened to have an interest in it anyway.
• The Promise: Both as recompense for the unfair deal Shiori made Akira for Olivia’s white card, and to help prevent Akira from coming after her if he realizes she’s discovered that he’s an old world connector, Reina swears never to act against him.
• Protectorate: For Shiori. Eventually turns out to be for Kanae as well.
• Secret Test: She ends up giving one to Akira. Judging that Akira only gave up the white card MacGuffin because having it might expose him as an Old World connector, she tries to give it back to him, and judges by his reaction that he is indeed one, prompting her to change tack and keep it.
• Skilled, but Naive: Reina may be hot-headed, stubborn, and easily offended, but she's also a skilled hunter herself whose movements are described as almost "elegant" as she blasts her way through a horde of Yarata Scorpions.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Despite learning her lesson, when The Squad is ambushed by a Night of the Living Mooks, Reina still has to be protected by the more experienced members, just like Akira and Togami. The right attitude doesn’t make up for lack of experience.
• This Is Unforgivable!: Subverted. Reina declares this to Akira, that she wanted to tell him not to let his guard down enough to let her be able to take revenge for Katsuya’s death, but that she can’t because it’s after she had promised never to act against him. Regardless, she knows he’s too strong for her, and the admission earns Akira’s respect.
• Willfully Weak: Her desire to prove herself by refusing to take advantage of her family fortune to get better armor and equipment, in order to maintain her pride and reputation. Akira manages to persuade her away from this mentality.

Shiori

A veteran hunter and Reina's bodyguard. She considers her charge's safety to be her utmost priority, accompanying her everywhere, especially on dangerous hunter missions.

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• Absurdly Sharp Blade: Her main weapon is an Old World katana sharp enough to Clean Cut a Mini-Mecha.
• An Offer You Can't Refuse: The chaos of squads trying to answer a hunter’s distress signal, starting a cycle of them getting trapped themselves, and then sending out one of their own, after the Sarenthal Tower is breached, is largely the result of Shiori giving a coded distress call to Drankam Command threatening to use the power of Reina’s family to completely crush the gang if they don’t come rescue Reina from the building.
• Armor-Piercing Attack: Shiori’s sword made using old world technology is especially good at piercing armor, much better than CWH or anti-forcefield rounds.
• Chameleon Camouflage: Eventually a Mid-Season Upgrade sees her wear maid armor that allows for this.
• Conspicuous Consumption: The luxurious field rations she prepares for Reina, as well as making up the area to look like a restaurant.
• Consummate Professional: In addition to her Undying Loyalty to Reina, Shiori is impeccably polite and courteous until threatened. She never drops her formality even while making threats to others.
• Combination Attack: Sets up a powerful one of these with Akira, making use of both of their last ditch capabilities like a combined Limit Break. She actually pays him after, treating it as an official request.
• Death or Glory Attack: Her drug she can take to speed up her perception as a last-ditch measure. If she uses it, she collapses virtually unconscious soon after.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Shiori getting so pissed at Akira over his Brutal Honesty to Reina, while establishing Shiori's feelings about Reina, contradicts her later role constantly reining in Kanae's troublemaking. Although she might have learnt a lesson herself in the undercity.
• Fire-Forged Friends: With Akira, after a pretty rough start.
• Freudian Trio: Shiori is the stoic, composed Superego to Kanae’s Id, and Reina’s Ego. She is usually the one to rein both her sister and her charge in.
• Infinity -1 Sword: She keeps an inferior replica of an old world Laser Blade, like those that that need the safety shot off to trigger, to use in emergencies.
• Katanas Are Just Better: Her preferred weapon is an Old World katana, though she's equally capable in hand-to-hand combat.
• Mexican Standoff: Repeatedly ends up involved in these with Akira. It's clear that they help her see him as at first a Worthy Opponent, and eventual friend.
• Ninja Maid: She wears a maid outfit even while going into a nest of monsters and is a formidable hunter to boot. This is not entirely of her own volition, as it's apparently standard uniform for people working under Reina's father.
• Running Gag: Her being a Horrible Judge of Character with regard to Akira, constantly assuming he’s malicious. For instance, Shiori warning Togami that Akira is about to press them as hard as he can when negotiating the rewards for their joint mission, before she’s Instantly Proven Wrong when Akira offers his usual even split.
• Recruited from the Gutter: Her backstory, is that Reina’s family adopts orphans from the slums en masse to educate and brainwash in their facilities. Shiori was marked in their lowest category for being more loyal to Reina than to the company itself.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: She’s the blue oni to Kanae’s red.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Her reaction to seeing Akira and Katsuya facing off over a pickpocket they just met, is to take Reina and run. This results in Reina being isolated from both factions in Drankam, creating some issues later on.
• Sibling Team: She and her sister Kanae are Reina's personal bodyguards. But while Shiori is absolutely devoted to Reina, Kanae is simply in it for a good fight.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: Shiori being the girly girl to Kanae’s tomboy, cautious compared to her recklessness, and polite compared to her informality.
• Team Mom: For Reina, and trying to keep Kanae in line. Other than that, Shiori is generally the most responsible adult in the room.
• Undying Loyalty: She's absolutely devoted to Reina and will even pay 5 million aurum out of her own pocket if it means securing Reina's safety.

Kanae

Shiori's little sister and Reina's other bodyguard. While Shiori is loyal to Reina, Kanae is battle hungry and is only in it for a good fight.

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• Bare-Fisted Monk: Basically her fighting style, with Power Fists (and boots) to make it viable in a scifi setting.
• Beneath the Mask: Most of the time Kanae is a bubbly and teasing Genki Girl. But when she’s fighting a human or what seems like one, she shows an extremely cold side.
• Blood Knight: She loves a good fight and tries to provoke Reina into going into more dangerous areas so there will be more monsters to fight. Kanae's first response upon meeting Akira is to pick a fight with him, only to show disappointment when he explains that he doesn't want anything to do with her and walks away.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Eventually shifts into this, being serious about protecting Reina but still having an independent personality.
• Chameleon Camouflage: Eventually a Mid-Season Upgrade sees her wear maid armor that allows for this.
• Character Development: Her attitude towards Reina shifting as well as proving herself as a bodyguard (especially in comparison to her Evil Counterpart Pamela).
• Consummate Professional: Inverted. Shiori is irritated by Kanae's lack of professionalism, which includes egging Reina into entering increasingly dangerous situations, picking fights for the fun of it, and a general lack of decorum aside from referring to Reina as "Milady".
• Differently Powered Individual: Of the super instinct type, who can sense people from a distance.
• Doesn't Like Guns: Unlike Shiori who can use a gun just fine (as she does covering Akira’s back in the undercity), Kanae isn’t any good with them, so when Akira loans her one, it’s loaded with Homing Projectile bullets to make up for it.
• Everyone Has Standards: She, of all people, goes on a rant about how unsafe and reckless it is for Akira to push his suit past its Power Limiter safeties (like it always is under Alpha’s control), and relying on medicines to heal the constant injuries that creates.
• Freudian Trio: Kanae is the Id, Shiori the Supergo, and Reina the Ego.
• Friendship Favoritism: Complains multiple times to Akira about him favoring Shiori over her like this.
• Genki Girl: Excitable and talkative, at least when talking to or about Akira.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Subverted. When surrounded and cornered by dozens of Chloe’s servants, Kanae formulates a plan to threaten Chloe herself, forcing the servants to focus on her since they must prioritize protecting their master, meaning Kanae would sacrifice her life so that Reina and Shiori could get away. But this doesn’t happen because Reina’s Batman Gambit is to let Chloe threaten her and give her the MacGuffin she wants, to let Chloe dig her own grave.
• Hidden Depths: That she really does care for and worry about Reina, despite her usual flippancy.
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Has force-field shields on her arms to help her deal with bullets so she can fight close quarters.
• Ninja Maid: Like her sister, Kanae wears her maid uniform even while on the job as per the instructions of her employer.
• Opposing Combat Philosophies: While Akira generally dislikes melee combat and argues with her about that, he is especially irked by her being a scifi Bare-Fisted Monk.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Kanae becoming deadly serious when Shiori confronts Akira about the old world business card Olivia left him, knowing it could lead to a real fight against him.
• Power Fist: Her preferred weapon is a gauntlet that seems to have come off a powered suit. She uses it to deal heavy melee damage to her opponents.
• Psychic Radar: She is able to sense people she’s interested in whenever they enter her general proximity, including being able to spot Akira from outside of line of sight in the wasteland. This is because she's a Differently Powered Individual with super intuiton inherited from old world Transhuman experimentation.
• Recruited from the Gutter: Her backstory, is that Reina’s family adopts orphans from the slums en masse to educate and brainwash in their facilities, and Kanae was placed in their lowest category for being a non-conforming Blood Knight.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The red oni to Shiori’s blue.
• Sibling Team: She and her sister Shiori are Reina's personal bodyguards. But while Shiori is absolutely devoted to Reina, Kanae is simply in it for a good fight.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: Kanae being the tomboy to Shiori’s girly girl, reckless compared to her caution, and unrefined compared to her politeness.
• So Proud of You: During the Second Mihozono Incident, she says this about how Reina has grown and matured. She says Reina used to be a rotten brat.

Shirakabe

A skilled but selfish member of Drankam. He was put in charge of overseeing new recruits, much to his chagrin.

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• Alas, Poor Villain: After Akira kills Katsuya, Shirakabe is actually somber about the whole thing despite hating him. In part because his Gut Feeling told him Katsuya was too strong to die.
• Awesome Personnel Carrier: He has one due to being involved with the Drankam hunter group. It’s noted that due to its operating costs, it’s accepted he’d get a double share when he uses it with The Squad. He deploys his veteran friends out the back on their motorcycles in one battle.
• The Cavalry Arrives Late: Tends to arrive after Akira's messes like this.
• Designated Point Man: Prefers being in front, and is adept in close combat using his Powered Armor strength.
• Did You Just Have Sex?: Gets this reaction after being seduced by Carol in his APC during R&R and appearing later than he usually does, next to her.
• Embarrassing but Empowering Outfit: He tries to convince Irabe to get high quality armor from Shiori and Kanae’s company for Drankam, not caring even if it makes him look like a maid if it has better protection than his current armor. Irabe doesn’t accept. This is a Call-Back to a few different scenes.
• Fair-Weather Mentor: He clearly despises having to look after young hunters when he could be going out on more lucrative missions by himself or with other experienced hunters. He ditches Katsuya and his friends the first chance he gets and calls them dead weight regardless of their actual prowess.
• Foil: To Kibayashi. They're both respected hunters in positions of power in Drankam and the City Government respectively. Shirakabe hates having to look after the younger hunters in Drankam and ditches them the first chance he gets, while Kibayashi is thrilled when he believes he's found another Challenge Seeker and tries to mentor them by throwing them against exceedingly dangerous odds.
• The Force Is Strong with This One: Spends a lot of time navelgazing about his ability to judge this with Gut Feeling, regarding Akira and Katsuya mainly.
• Give Me a Reason: His ranting at Katsuya to keep him from responding to the distress call that'd get him killed involves him saying this, from all of his built up frustrations due to Katsuya pushing him around with 'majority vote'.
• Good-Guy Bar: Shirakabe hangs out at a bar/brothel in the slums Red Light District with his hunter friends in his free time, and repeatedly invites Akira there despite him being a minor, leading to a number of conversations always happening about someone young being brought there. Eventually the bartender just gives up.
• Gut Feeling: He lives and prides himself on his instincts. His instinct telling him Akira is weak causes him to have a mild crisis of confidence as a result; his instinct is telling him Akira’s power, but his mind is witnessing the results of him working with Alpha’s aid.
• Jerkass: He hates having to look after the younger members of Drankam and would much rather go with more experienced hunters and earn more money. He provokes Akira to try and get a rise out of him, only to feel satisfied when it's clear that Akira isn't big-headed.
• Jerkass Has a Point: While his condescension and distaste for young hunters is a sign of his Jerkass tendencies, he does make a point in that Drankam's push to support young hunters means sending them into combat zones they're not ready for. Even with the assistance of Sara and Elena, two very competent veterans, Katsuya loses most of his squad to the Overgrown Snake. Rather than acknowledge their own errors, everyone but Katsuya blames Sara and Elena for the deaths, showing a lack of self-reflection that prevents the survivors from growing from the experience. By comparison, Shirakabe's team only lost the indebted debtor hunters who were trying to save their own skin.
• Old Flame: With Carol. It’s left ambiguous just what type of relationship they had, what with her practicing The Oldest Profession.
• Powered Armor: He wears an expensive set that’s notable for being well suited to close quarters combat.
• Pragmatic Hero: Before his battle with the Spider Tank Kaiju, he actually tampered with the control units of the vehicles besides the ones he and his close friends used, to force the occupants to be diversions if need be; it didn’t prove necessary.
• Punched Across the Room: Is fond of doing this tactically, and he has the expensive Powered Armor necessary. He quickly and easily kicks dead enemies to clog up hallways, something Akira tries to copy but breaks his foot in the process.
• Sergeant Rock: Shows himself as this when teamed up with Elena and The Squad, handling discipline and leading a fire team when they split up, while Elena is overall leader.
• Sink or Swim Mentor: The training he puts Togami through, after Togami pays Shirakabe to train him, is nothing short of Training from Hell in the thick of the action.
• Teen Hater: From dealing with egotistical ones at Drankam. It takes a lot of work for Togami to earn his respect. Only Akira subverts this because unlike the other teens he worked with, Akira acts and carries himself like a professional hunter would not to mention Akira does not overestimate and be cocky about his skill and ability.
• Weak-Willed: It turns out, his Gut Feeling about both Akira being weak and Katsuya being strong, are the result of their Old World connector abilities having the side effect of subconsciously projecting their own feelings into the people around them.
• Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: Shirakabe expecting Airi and the other remaining pro-katsuya hardliners to attack Sheryl’s base during its siege, after they all disappeared at once. He takes part in its defense to fight them. Despite it being a Villain Team-Up, they never show up, with the plot thread left for later.

Togami

An up and coming young Drankam hunter who hates Katsuya, and is thus foisted on Shirakabe to increase his fame as a figurehead to counter Katsuya’s influence. Prideful in his own skills, he gets a harsh reality check riding into battle with Akira.

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• Accidental Pervert: Due to the delegation of tasks during a battle, Togami ends up riding a motorbike squeezed in-between Elena and Sara, earning him some condemning stares.
• A Day in the Limelight: The old world automaton investigation arc.
• Break the Haughty: After raging at Akira for looking down on him, his first battle with Akira is mostly spent hanging on for dear life while Alpha does her High-Speed Missile Dodge maneuvers with his car, getting saved by him, and then getting a "The Reason You Suck" Speech from Shirakabe (only partially aimed at him)
• Boisterous Weakling: In the beginning of the Kaiju hunt mission with Akira, eager to prove himself and not be looked down at as a child.
• Brick Joke: Him being thrown into APCs.
• Character Development: Similar to Reina’s, he becomes more of a Humble Hero and decides to learn from those around him instead of being abrasive.
• Child Soldiers: Just like Akira, being compared to him.
• Declaration of Personal Independence: Him refusing to work under Katsuya despite Mizuha threatening him.
• Exact Words: Shirakabe tells Akira to throw Togami back onto his APC if he gets sick of him. Akira does just so after rescuing him from having fallen off his car.
• Fire-Forged Friends: With Akira and Reina despite not getting along well with either at first.
• Humble Hero: Due to Character Development, becomes probably one of the most humble cast members.
• If You Ever Do Anything to Hurt Her...: When Reina invites Togami to take a bath with her after hearing that Akira and Sheryl do it, he looks to her bodyguards, who basically approve saying they’d only intervene in Reina's relationships if she was with someone bad, which Togami takes like this, and runs out of the room scared.
• I Just Want to Be Badass: Pretty much his motivation after his first battle alongside Akira
• The Load: What he’s considered by Shirakabe, and the role he plays in his first battle alongside Akira.
• New Meat: Essentially his role when teamed up with Akira, similar to Reina, continually getting scorned on by Shirakabe (though, he does admit to Togami’s personality changing for the better).
• Oblivious to Love: Can remain oblivious about Reina’s feelings for him despite the two maids directly advising her about it right next to him.
• Only Sane Man: Him reacting to the unstableness of the hunters around him, such as Akira casually "testing his new equipment" by blowing people's heads off in a Sniper Duel.
• Pride: Before it gets broken out of him by experience, he was very prideful.
• Propaganda Hero: An attempted case; the anti-Katsuya faction within Drankam want to make him a figurehead to compete with Katsuya image-wise. That’s why they wanted him to get credit for the Spider Tank bounty monster.
• Running Gag: Vehicle antics. Togami being thrown into APCs, and nearly ruining Akira’s vehicles in some way.
• Silent Treatment: Gets this from Akira during their first mission, but Akira warms up a bit after Togami learns his lesson from that battle.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Despite learning his lesson, when The Squad is ambushed by a Night of the Living Mooks, Togami still has to be protected by the more experienced members, just like Akira and Reina. The right attitude doesn’t make up for lack of experience.
• Took a Level in Kindness: After his Break the Haughty experience fighting alongside Akira.
• Training from Hell: What Shirakabe puts him through after Togami offers him 30,000,000 aurum to train him.
• Watch the Paint Job: Akira breaks from his Silent Treatment of Togami to warn him not to use an anti-tank rifle against Giant Spiders crawling on his car.

Carol

A hunter that Akira encounters in the Sarenthal Building in the Mihozono City Ruins. A flirtatious woman who works as a prostitute as a side job, she's interested in trading information as she is in bedding men.

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• Action Girl: She's an active and experienced hunter whom Akira trusts to at least serve as a guide to the Seranthal Building. While she prefers not to fight, she can handle herself perfectly fine even if she isn't as combat-oriented as other hunters, with even the standoffish Shirakabe vouching for her skills.
• Ambiguous Situation: Carol's Origins Episode leaves an important plot hook open in this regard. What stops Carol's My Skull Runneth Over headaches is a deal she makes with an A.I. whose words she couldn't make out. That A.I. could be following her in secret like happened to Katsuya, for all we know.
• Aren't You Going to Ravish Me?: Having seduced countless men, Carol tries to charm Akira when she initially sees him as a threat, but is shocked and offended when Akira displays zero romantic or sexual interest in her.
• Base on Wheels: Carol’s luxury camper is heavily armored and supplied, to serve as this for extended field operations. The reason she has it is to go on the run if anyone found out she was an old world connector. Akira, Carol, and Shirou use it when Akira has a 50 billion aurum bounty on his head.
• Bash Brothers: Has this dynamic with Akira after bailing him out from an ambush.
• Big Damn Heroes: When Akira is facing two powerful hacked monsters without the firepower to beat them during an ambush, Alpha fires his bike anti-material cannon at one, and Carol fires her laser cannon at the other, just in the nick of time.
• Bodyguarding a Badass: Hires Akira to guard her. The first time was out of pure necessity as she'd left her best combat gear at home (as well as them being in an impossible situation). The second time is due to clues of her Dark and Troubled Past catching up to her terrifying Carol. And an excuse to try and get in his pants.
• Catch a Falling Star: Catches Akira using his motorbike after he jumps off from his Colossus Climb of a mech.
• Character Development: Mostly regarding facing her fears after they’re revealed and explored, with her deciding to stand for something instead of running away. A major turning point is her telling Delores that she’s considering quitting her side job.
• Combination Attack: When she fights against an ambush on Akira’s motorcycle with him, she does a lot of this with Akira and Alpha (Alpha using the LEO rifle and AF anti-material cannon mounted on the bike).
• Commonality Connection: Both of them being Old World Connectors does a lot to bring Akira and Carol closer.
• Conspicuous Consumption: Her taking baths in nanomachine Healing Potion. She even gets an armed luxury camper for when she goes to ruins.
• Cool Big Sis: Her interactions with Sheryl are somewhat like this, teasing her and finding her adorable.
• Cyborg: In the same sense as Sara, having similar nanomachine strength enhancements, but also extensive plastic surgery.
• The Face: Helps Elena with negotiating when they team up, and also Akira more directly in one negotiation with a MegaCorp.
• Femme Fatale: She's the most actively flirtatious character in the story next to Alpha. The first thing she does when she meets Akira is to unzip her armor and try to seduce him. She continues to flirt with him even as he's trying to escort her to safety. Once they get away, she then subjects him to Marshmallow Hell. She even got her nanite enhancement specifically to enhance her bust in addition to her physical prowess.
• Grin of Audacity: Fighting alongside Akira sees this rubbing off on her.
• Hand Cannon: Her weapon, said to be equivalent to Akira’s anti-material rifle in firepower. When knowing she’s going into battle, she brings two. She can handle that kind of firepower due to having similar nanomachines to Sara.
• Has a Type: Strong hunters.
• Heroic BSoD: When Shirou accidentally exposes to Akira that she’s an Old World connector. She breaks down but feels better after telling Akira her origin story, and him not abandoning her.
• Hope Crusher: Her backstory reveals that the reason she likes making hunters drive themselves to ruin to pay her, is to feel like she’s not alone in her suffering from having lived on the edge of ruin for so long.
• I Love You Because I Can't Control You: It’s explicitly for this reason that her feelings for Akira grow. She was actually looking for someone whose lips couldn’t be loosened to be The Confidant for her.
• In Love with Your Carnage: She generally prefers strong hunters. Seeing what Akira can do in battle is a part of why she becomes fixated on seducing him (although she also finds him Endearingly Dorky).
• In-Series Nickname: Like Viola, Carol embraces the nickname "Bad Girl", and she tries to invite Sheryl to the club.
• Knowledge Broker: Her habit of working as a prostitute who has sex with other hunters is not only for hedonistic pleasure but to coax valuable secrets and information out of her customers, which she then sells to other hunters for a profit. This is why she's able to casually fork over 400 million aurum to Akira to enlist his services as a bodyguard around when they first meet.
• Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places: This is the real motivation for her side-job, to find someone who she can confide in who wouldn't spill their secrets no matter what, so she could feel safe with them.
• Lovable Rogue: Her archetype is this mixed with Femme Fatale.
• The Oldest Profession: Her "side job", but only with hunters to make them risk their lives to pay her. It seems to be more about domination than the money.
• Old Flame:
  • It’s suggested that sleeping with all the men of his unit is why Shirakabe’s squad broke up, and she sleeps with him for information.
  • During the Siege of the Slums, she meets one of her clients, a high level enemy hunter Delores, and they try to talk each other down as Friendly Enemies, but end up fighting due to each saying I Gave My Word. Delores, after being injured and losing, makes a Heroic Sacrifice to let Carol escape from the monsters that start attacking.
• Origins Episode: Hers is in web-novel chapter 271, appropriately named Carol’s Past.
• Percussive Therapy: Takes her frustrations out on some mechanical monsters after they interrupt her trying to dig out the secret behind Akira’s strength from Elena and Sara.
• Powered Armor: She has multiple augmented suits, one of which is a replica of old world armor similar to what Alpha sometimes wears. It is very conspicuous, but Akira is used to worse.
• Predatory Prostitute: Nuanced case. Her explicitly targeting hunters to get them to risk their lives to afford their next encounter with her. Carol's motivation for being a Hope Crusher is thoroughly explored in her Origins Episode.
• Pro Bono Barter: Her accepting information from clients as payment is often done partially this way, when her client can’t pay the full amount promised.
• Proud Beauty: Having seduced and bedded countless men for profit and gotten nanite enhancements to improve her looks, Carol has no doubts that she's a beautiful woman. But like Sheryl, this just makes it sting more when Akira is completely indifferent to her beyond her ability to help him.
• Really Gets Around: She works in a brothel in her spare time, sleeping with other hunters for extra cash. She also tries to coax information out of them for her to sell for even more money. She gets to work on the boys of Sheryl's gang, leading to some of them getting kicked out due to their desperation to pay her rising prices spurring them to crime.
• Roofhopping: She spends a portion of The Siege of the Slums hopping between roofs, being sent to the highest concentrations of enemy armor by Shirou's Mission Control to blow them up with her Wave-Motion Gun.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!:
  • This is how Carol was able to get equipment far exceeding her hunter rank. Wrapping a high ranked hunter as well as the seller around her little finger. She says she only went to those lengths out of fear for her life as non-hunters don’t interest her.
  • During the Siege of the Slums, she calls a city official she knows from her side job to get him to send in Captain Guthrie and the City Defence Squad to serve as The Cavalry for Akira and The Squad facing the gigantic monster at the end of the battle.
• Secret Identity: "Carol" is an identity she constructed after she abandon her original one out of fear. That's also why she had extensive plastic surgery.
• Sex Goddess: According to Xellos’ Inner Monologue, Carol has to be this given how difficult it is for cyborgs to receive sexual satisfaction, and her accomplishing it. There is actually an explanation for this. Since Carol is an Old World Connector, and it's revealed that old world connectors have unconscious telepathy with their surroundings (in part because most people in the east are low-sensitivity old world connectors). So it’s likely Carol is Mind Link Mates with her clients, letting them feel her pleasure in addition to their own.
• Shameless Fanservice Girl: When she hires Akira to be her bodyguard, she does all sorts of stuff like this in order to try to seduce him (to the point that when she has a visitor, it takes a lot of prompting to get her to put somewhat modest clothes on). And then there’s her habit of joining the private baths Akira and Sheryl have together.
• Shockingly Expensive Bill: Her charging a high-level hunter 10,000,000,000 aurum for a night with her.
• Stripperiffic: One of her augmented suits, based on an old-world design to both be revealing and provide protection. These are noted to be very expensive, but not rare in the far east frontlines.
• Super-Strength: Due to having similar nanomachine augmentation to Sara, but also an augmented suit.

• Wave-Motion Gun: She eventually gets a laser cannon equivalent to Akira’s AF anti-material Cannon.
• Yoko Oh No: She used to be part of a team of hunters, but all of the other members were men whom she slept with in exchange for money. The team broke up due to infighting over her. It's implied that Shirakabe was a part of this group.

Shirou

First appearing like a tourist who Akira encounters on his escort mission of an inter-city transport, Shirou is an Old World Domain connector who has spent much of his life being trained in secret Sakashita Heavy Industries facilities to maximize his ability. He has his own objective separate from them, however.

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• Brain/Computer Interface: Naturally, since he can connect to the old world domain. The difference with Akira, is his focus being on hacking instead of combat.
• Catchphrase: "See ya".
• Chameleon Camouflage: Good enough with this to slip past many hunters, using a cloak. Also gets a mech with it.
• Child Prodigy: Among the other Sakashita Old World connectors, he was by far the most skilled and talented, driven by his secret quest. This resulted in his luxurious treatment by the company.
• Differently Powered Individual: Old world connector, which includes better ability to process information. Unlike Akira, he actually has training in how to handle it. Hence, his hacking skill.
• Fish out of Water: As someone who’s spent much of his life locked away within government facilities.
• Gilded Cage: Where he lived before coming into the story, being sent on a transport to the city. The facility was apparently very luxurious with expensive Virtual Reality entertainment.
• Great Escape: He uses VR pornography to distract his cyborg hunter guards while he hijacked their physical bodies to escort him to his escape vehicle to get out of Sakashita captivity, leaving behind a programmed Augmented Reality version of himself as a decoy only they could see.
• Mission Control: Serves as this after teaming up with Akira, even sending images directly to Akira’s mind via Telepathy. He is also able to provide support to Sheryl’s Gang that seems to rival Alpha’s support.
• Mistaken for Spies: He mistakes Akira for being a spy from a rival company to Sakashita among the big five of the Corporate Government, mainly due to Alpha’s Indy Ploy to make him think so. This results in Shirou thinking that Sheryl’s Gang is also filled with agents of that company, making him press Erio extremely hard advising him as Mission Control, until that particular misunderstanding is cleared up.
• No Social Skills: Shows some signs of this, it makes sense due to him having spent much of his life in a facility on lock down.
• Playful Hacker: Able to easily hack several Mini-Mecha to fight on autopilot, as well as toy with a Sakashita official.
• Psychic Link: It’s standard practice for Old World Connector agents to form these to bypass communication disruptions and act as Mission Control. Alpha helps Akira set up a link to Shirou that lets him see through Akira's eyes.
• The Quest: The reason he escaped from Sakashita is a quest to save his old friend Haruka he knew through the Old World Domain, from her life as a Tyke Bomb at the Project Rebuild Institute.
• Superhuman Trafficking: Downplayed. He has a relatively cushy position being moved around like this in the beginning as an Old World connector, in part due to Sugadome rewarding his skills. It's hinted that less skilled Old World connectors don't have it so good.
• Telepathy: Can do this with other old world connectors.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: Is serious about avoiding human deaths when soliciting the help of others, at least when his persuers are just regular soldiers doing their jobs.
• Virtual Reality: Shirou is introduced ranting about the difference between this and real locations, sounding like a sheltered tourist. It’s actually because he’s spent his life interred by the government in a secret compound. Also uses this to distract some guards.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Somewhat, with his super-human bodyguard Halmers.
• What the Hell Are You?: Carol says this to him pretty much word for word when he checks a recording she sells him despite that being impossible since it didn’t have a digital transmitter.
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: His reaction to Yanigisawa tracking him down digitally while he’s on the lamb.

Akira’s Main Non-combat Allies

Shizuka

"Don't be so reckless when you don't need to be, okay? Alright, let's get back to business."

The manager of Cartridge Freak, a hunter's supply store. She meets Akira while he's trying to buy a replacement for his pistol and beatup rifle, taking a shine to the young hunter in the process.

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• Anger Born of Worry: As her affection for Akira grows, she becomes more and more irate with the dangerous situations he finds himself in and chides him for being too reckless. While he tries to downplay it as best he can to avoid angering her, she sees through him almost every time.
• Arms Dealer: As the manager of a hunter supply store, she specializes in selling weapons and ammunition to hunters looking to head into the wasteland. She knows her product inside-and-out, giving lengthy explanations on the history and specifications of the weapons she sells in a manner veering into Gun Porn. She also advises Akira to look for specialized equipment like information gathering devices elsewhere, since they're outside of her expertise.
• Big Sister Instinct: She's surprised by how attached she gets to Akira, a child hunter from the slums who came into her shop out of nowhere one day. Not only that, but she pities him enough to hand him some outdated protective gear and a rucksack at no charge. Over time, she finds herself worrying about his safety even though she'd long since resolved herself to learn that many of her customers won't be returning from the wastelands.
• The Confidant: For Akira, usually offering helpful advice and hugs alongside listening to his problems. Shizuka seems to be the person Akira trusts most.
• Buxom Beauty Standard: Akira can't help but notice how well-endowed she is.
• Cool Big Sis: Shizuka takes the role of a positive mentor figure in Akira's life. Unlike Alpha, who is manipulating him for her ends, Shizuka genuinely wishes the best for Akira, frets over him when she hears that he's done something dangerous, and does her best to make sure he's properly equipped to survive in the wastelands. Her opinion of him only grows after learning that he saved her friends Sara and Elena.
• Consummate Professional: Shizuka does her best to curry favor with her clientele, and that includes keeping secrets for them. When Akira asks her not to tell Sara and Elena that he's the one that saved them, she keeps her promise to not reveal his identity to them even though they're close friends of hers. That said, she clearly takes a shine to Akira and worries for him, nagging him for his more dangerous stunts and warning him not to go after strong monsters. Over time, she wonders if she's gotten too attached to Akira given how far she goes for him, and that she'd be in the red if not for the bucketloads of cash he brings to her store.
• Friendly Shopkeeper: Shizuka is the manager of Cartridge Freak, a hunter's supply store. While she could easily scam a naïve slum kid like Akira to make a quick buck, she instead goes over all of his options in detail to make sure he's making an informed purchase because of her innate kindness and her belief that good service will give her a loyal clientele. Because of this, Akira becomes a regular customer of hers and spends most of his money there even as he goes up in rank. Her kindness makes her one of the most important people in his life, to the point that he instantly shoots a gangster who tries to threaten her to blackmail him, risking a gang war in the process.
• The Gadfly: Enjoys teasing Akira, Elena and Sara. Trolling Elena by getting her a Future Spandex augmented suit and forcing her out in front of Akira is a highlight.
• Good Luck Charm: Akira is often concerned about his luck, and buys something to serve as this from her. There’s also the bullet he used as a paperweight for his message to Elena and Sara when he first encountered them, that Sara made into a necklace charm. Akira loses both of these, but considers any equipment he buys from the Cartridge Freak to be good luck in general.
• Gut Feeling: Shizuka puts a lot of faith in her intuition and correctly guesses that Akira is the one who saved Sara and Elena at the ruins, bluffing him into confessing.
• Head-Turning Beauty: She's pretty enough that many hunters stop by her shop just to talk to her rather than just to buy equipment. She's aware of her looks and dresses well to keep them coming, but she doesn't flaunt them the way the other girls in the story do.
• I Am Not Pretty: She demeans her own looks, but at least catches on that Akira is confused by her doing so.
• Karmic Jackpot: She earns Akira's trust by helping him pick out quality gear and even giving him some freebies on his first visit to her store. Because of this, he becomes a regular who buys nearly all of his equipment from her, earning her millions upon millions of aurum when he visits. Although their dinner date shows she hasn't been making that much money, likely from not taking a large cut.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Over time, Akira learns how much he worries her with his tendency to fall into one dangerous situation after another. So he tries his best to downplay the severity of his troubles to keep her from feeling distressed.
• Ms. Exposition: Shizuka knows her market inside and out, happily chattering away about the specifications of her wares.
• Nice Girl: She's a kind, compassionate woman who looks out for her customers, throwing in some free (if outdated and unsellable) gear for Akira after seeing how young he is. She is also the first person besides Alpha to worry about him, but does so without any strings attached, only hoping that he makes it back alive (and continues to be a regular at her store).
• Not So Above It All: Being made to blush by Akira when he stares into her eyes after offering her a box of old world underwear.
• Powered Armor: She actually wears a less conspicuous brand of augmented suit beneath her civilian clothing to help her lug around her heavy inventory. Akira is surprised to discover this, which Shizuka uses as a lesson to be wary of how things appear on the surface.
• Secret-Keeper: Shizuka promises to keep Akira's identity as the one who rescued Sara and Elena a secret. Even when they directly press her on it, she refuses to give up his name due to said promise, though she knows that Sara and Elena have an inkling of who it might be.
• Secret Secret-Keeper: She figures out Akira can connect to the old world domain and only tells Sara, keeping it a secret afterwards because They Would Cut You Up. Shizuka technically learned of this before Akira did, since Alpha took so long before explaining it.
• Team Mom: For Akira, Elena and Sara. She is particularly motherly when tensions develop between them.
• We Sell Everything: Subverted. Akira tries to purchase an information gathering device from her store, but she tells him that it's outside of her expertise and to go elsewhere. Luckily for him, he doesn't have to since Elena sells him her old unused one.
• What the Hell, Hero?: She gives Akira a scolding for becoming so well known for going on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge from his friends being threatened, that it drives city officials to interfere in said friend's lives out of fear of Akira's potential reprisal if they didn't.
• White-Collar Crime: Possibly. When Akira takes her, Elena and Sara out to an expensive dinner in custom tailored Coordinated Clothes designed by Celene to match Sheryl’s dress, to pay for the dress and her meal, she spreads the costs through her shops different accounts.
• Wrench Wench: She can perform custom modifications on vehicles and weapons alike if she gets paid enough to do it.

Sheryl

^{Click here to see her in the dress Akira gifts her} 

A young girl living in the same slums as Akira. She has spent her life relying on her social skills, gaining the favor of those with power around her, until the gang she's in attacks Akira. Having been shunned by everyone due to fear of becoming targets of Akira’s revenge, she has no choice but to come to him out of desperation. While it’s a rocky path, she slowly builds herself and the gang she's now leading up towards being something Akira can rely upon.

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• Adaptation Dye-Job: She has beige hair in the light novel illustrations, while colored pages of the manga give her pale pink hair.
• Ambiguous Situation:
  • Sheryl seems to overhear Akira accidentally talking out loud to Alpha, but it’s hinted that she’s actually overhearing their Telepathy. All that we know for sure, is Alpha talked to Sheryl in a White Void Room dream once telling her to Quit Your Whining for thinking Akira will abandon her. There are multiple possible explanations.
  • With the revelation that Old-World Connectors can broadcast their thoughts and can unwittingly brainwash others into aiding them, it's unclear how much of Sheryl's feelings for Akira are genuine and how much can be attributed Akira unconsciously brainwashing her into caring for him.
• Appeal to Force: The threat of Akira retaliating is key currency Sheryl spends to form and shape her gang. Thus, the more dreaded he becomes, the more political power that gives her, to the point she can eventually start to push around other gangs.
• Aren't You Going to Ravish Me?: Out of desperation, she offers her body to Akira in hopes of earning his cooperation and getting him to agree to be the new boss of Sebia’s gang. Instead, she's shocked when he doesn’t even see her as a woman, only as a potential combatant.
• Battle of Wits: This is basically Sheryl’s battlefield, negotiating with merchants, gang leaders, and the like. She manages to impress Katsuragi and Shijima, Viola not so much (at least at first).
• The Bait:
  • On her first day as gang boss, Akira doesn't go with her as her bodyguard, but instead stalks outside to Make an Example of Them when gang members went to try and kill her. This was so that she'd be safe while Akira is out hunting.
  • Viola tricking Sheryl into a trap to use her as bait, to trigger Akira's Berserk Button and lure him into going on a rampage against her targets.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: Her falling for Akira was due to him supporting her when everyone else in the slums ran away from her… out of fear of his retribution. With how survival-of-the-fittest the slum is, something like unconditional support without expectation of being paid for isn’t something common at all there. Of course, the two each have their own misunderstandings.
• Becoming the Mask: Initially, she uses the pretense of her Fake Relationship with Akira to give the impression that he's wrapped around her finger and would do anything for her as her romantic partner. While he does a poor job of keeping this act up, she falls for him for real thanks to his continual support for her, with her goals changing from simply surviving to helping Akira however she can.
• Beneath the Mask: In public, Sheryl is a cold, calculating Femme Fatale who commands her gang with poise and grace, using the threat of Akira to cow her rivals into submission. In private, she's a Nervous Wreck who is extremely insecure about her position, as it could all come crashing down on her should Akira ever decide to leave her. This is especially highlighted in the manga adaptation, where her queenly mask has her barking orders with cold efficiency or seething anger in her expressions. But behind closed doors she's often crying Tears of Fear, while her pining for Akira has her make faces that wouldn't be out of place on a Yandere at times (though she's not).
• Berserk Button: People disrespecting or trying to hurt Akira.
• Big Eater: Her reaction to high class restaurant food is the same as Akira, for the same reason (growing up in the slums). The first time she goes to a high society buffet party, she eats until full beforehand so as not to sully her reputation. The next party, she thinks she can handle it, cue Gilligan Cut of her piling up plates right in front of her business partner.
• Born Lucky: At least in Akira’s opinion, while he himself has bad luck, Sheryl must have good luck to have him around.
• Bridal Carry: She gets this multiple times from Akira to take her out of danger, but can’t help from being disappointed when they end. Played for Laughs at one point when Akira, after carrying her like this, puts her into Carol’s arms to escort her to safety, causing both women to do a Double Take and Carol telling him he’s bad with women.
• Cathartic Crying: Upon visiting Akira in the hospital after the Inner Ruins Assault, Sheryl does this into Akira's arms repeating that she doesn't want to die.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Subverted. Seeing Akira get along with Carol makes Sheryl physically cling to him even more, but that’s all. She just represses her pain and deals with it, to make sure not to drive away Akira.
• Commonality Connection: Their shared respect and admiration for Akira helps Sheryl get along with Carol, despite her blatant seduction attempts. Since the slums are filled with backstabbers and Fair-Weather Friend types (such as those who periodically quit the gang). Sheryl is able to recognize Carol's loyalty to Akira long before he himself starts to realize.
• The Confidant: Both played straight and subverted. Akira is absolutely terrified of how she can charm men into revealing their secrets to her.
  • Katsuya confides in Sheryl about his Survivor Guilt issues, and she uses that to earn his trust and milk him for information that Akira likes hearing, effectively becoming a Honey Trap for Katsuya, who falls in love with her.
  • When Akira is majorly upset from being pickpocketed, she consoles him like this in a surprisingly intimate moment by their standards.
• Damsel in Distress: The main one who Akira needs to rescue, more than once resulting in a Bridal Carry. When her shop is attacked, she runs away from the attackers just in time to avoid their planned Hostage Situation. She also helps to distract her guards at one point through the data terminal Akira gifts her.
• Death Glare: She occasionally gives these (or Killing Intent). Like when some gang members try to grab the bag of supplies Katsuragi gave her, or repeatedly to Viola due to all she’s put her and Akira through and her schemes to turn Akira against Sheryl.
• Dissonant Serenity: Her ability to smile calmly in extremely dangerous situations after falling for Akira is alarming to other people. Basically, she’s able to do that because Akira is there, and she’s resigned herself to sharing his fate.
• Dogged Nice Girl: For Akira. She comes to find that the best thing she can do to try and win his affection is to earn his respect through ingenuity and shrewdness bit by bit. Considering how much time and effort he dedicates for her, and his moderate reaction to all her touching even in public, despite his Sugar-and-Ice Personality, things aren’t too bad.
• Dude Magnet: It’s pointed out multiple times that Sheryl’s gang has several Hopeless Suitor Dogged Nice Guy boys such as Tiol hoping to be with her. And that’s not to mention Sheryl’s ability to Honey Trap hunters besides Akira.
• Embarrassing Nickname: Being lumped in with Viola and Carol as a "bad girl".
• The Face: What she lacks in combat ability she makes up for in her social skills and looks. Akira trusts her to handle relic selling negotiations because he knows she's good at talking to people. It also rarely takes her long to get men to reveal valuable information about themselves and their affiliations because they're too distracted by her charms to stop themselves from talking.
• Fake Relationship: As a pretext to support her gang, Akira becomes fake lovers with Sheryl, whose feelings are nonetheless very real. This leads to many characters debating whether they are lovers, which gradually shifts to debating which one is in charge. Their whole dynamic is muddied by the severe misunderstandings they each have, mutual fear, and Akira generally being a slowly Defrosting Ice King.
• Fatal Flaw: Overdependence on Akira, which Viola is able to use to manipulate her somewhat. Besides all the teasing she receives relating to it from her and Katsuragi.
• Foil: To Akira. Both of them are orphans in the slums trying to carve out a life of safety and security for themselves. But while Akira makes his living as a hunter with Alpha's guidance, Sheryl has nothing to rely on but Akira's word that he'll help her and her own bluffing skills. Akira is frequently overlooked due to his age and size, while Sheryl is explicitly noted to be beautiful for a girl her age, using her looks to get her way with men. Akira also demonstrates no interest in leadership and is in fact Alpha's Unwitting Pawn, while Sheryl is thrust into the position of leading Sebia's former gang and excels at it despite her lack of confidence.
• Gamer Chick: Akira is utterly shocked to find that she cleared a game he can barely start after he left it with her. She felt insulted by the game so easily killing her lifeline (Akira), so put her all into it, resulting in him clinging to her for a change (to watch her play). The terminal he gives her as a result also serves as a Chekhov's Gun.
• Guile Hero: As a team, Akira is the brawn, and Sheryl is the brains. She handles social and organizational skills to manage the gang. Desperate to earn value to pay back to Akira for all he does to help her, she helps him by selling his relics, and basically doing whatever small favors she can, even acting as a Honey Trap to help him.
• Head-Turning Beauty: She's so pretty that people mistake her for a girl from the inner city rather than the slums. Even the prideful Alpha admits that Sheryl is gorgeous (just not as gorgeous as Alpha herself). Katsuya instantly tries to get close to her when they first meet and she's used her beauty constantly as a way to distract men and manipulate them. The only guy shown to be almost totally immune to her charm is Akira, who is actually scared by her charms as a Trauma Button.
• Heroic BSoD:
  • When she first follows Akira, he is rough with her, giving her an Imagine Spot of him executing her, which makes her break out in tears until he takes her home and lets her cool down with a bath.
  • Her second BSOD, is after Akira nearly starts a gang war with Shijima, shooting his envoy. After that, she has a complete mental breakdown, and amidst her hugging Akira for virtually a whole day, she’s described as rebuilding her psyche around Akira, who offered comfort when she needed it most.
• Honey Trap: Fear of falling into one of these from her is one of the main reasons Akira is cold to her. Watching her charm other hunters into spilling their secrets just increases this fear of his. She even does this to Katsuya, making him fall for her.
• Imagine Spot: She’s prone to having these about Akira. They tend to be either really positive (like romanticizing him saving her), or negative (like him choking her to death during their bath). One of Sheryl’s more impactful ones is her imagining holding hands with Katsuya, before Akira sees the two and leaves her forever. Which is what shields her from Katsuya’s charms enough to scold Erio for liking him.
• Irony: She's a Dogged Nice Girl for Akira, but has several guys pining for her as a Dogged Nice Guy.
• It Meant Something to Me: Originally, her and Akira being a couple was merely a pretext for him supporting her leadership of her new gang. But by the time of her second Heroic BSoD, she falls for Akira for real, due to him being there for her, holding her, and offering words of comfort when the entire rest of the world seemed to be against her.
• It Was a Gift: Sheryl cherishes the apparel and accessories Akira gifts her. Even if the more expensive ones make her feel more indebted to him.
• Kill Him Already!: She asks Akira to kill Selba like this, more angry at him for trying to kill Akira than for taking her hostage a minute ago.
• Kindness Button: A bit like Shizuka is for Akira, it's receiving hugs from him.
• Living Emotional Crutch:
  • After her second Heroic BSoD, Akira is a rather unsubtle example for her, with her touching him to 'recharge' herself. It's noticed by those around her, usually in a teasing manner.
  • As Sheryl uses Katsuya in a Honey Trap, easing his Angst and doubts, Sheryl becomes this for him to a degree.
• Love Hurts: Being compared to and comparing herself with Akira's female hunter friends makes her feel helpless trying to win Akira's affection. But instead of becoming a Clingy Jealous Girl, it just makes her work harder to earn Akira's respect and trust.
• Mock Millionaire: She pulls off a decent job of faking a higher social standing and upbringing in her socializing to help her get deals and information.
• A Mother to Her Men: While at first it's stated she sees her gang as disposable (sharing Akira's worldview of most people being a Fair-Weather Friend), they are clearly her Morality Pets, with the concern she shows for Nasha, Tiol, and especially Erio.
• No-Sell: When meeting Katsuya, she notices that he seems to have some kind of subconscious ability to affect how women perceive him, which doesn’t work on her.
• No Sense of Personal Space: She’s like this with Akira after falling for him. Her composure training puts a stop to it, which gives Akira mixed feelings.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Several remarks comparing her to Viola, which frustrates Sheryl because she hates her.
• Now, Let Me Carry You: The Siege arc is her and the gang's chance to truly pay back Akira.
• Overly Long Hug: Gives plenty of these to Akira, after he gave her a Cooldown Hug. She does this the most when she's jealous of Carol.
• Phrase Catcher: The various "Not So Different" Remark comparisons of her with Viola, sometimes spoken and sometimes in people's thoughts, coming from Carol, Katsuragi, and Inabe. Spoken it serves the Double Meaning of teasing her and showing respect for her cunning.
• Properly Paranoid:Sheryl’s Imagine Spot of Akira cutting ties with her because she got close with Katsuya proves prophetic, after something just like that happens to Elena and Sara for real.
• Protectorate: It’s not alway's easy to see, and Akira might be loathe to admit it, but she’s this to him. Given that a Berserk Button of Akiras is his friends being threatened and forced into things like he was in his past, it’s somewhat of an open question if it’s merely to the same extent as his other friends. Akira repeatedly tasks Carol with protecting Sheryl, to both womens' frustration.
• Proud Beauty: She was supremely confident in her looks before meeting Akira. Him turning down her offer of her body, and Katsuragi saying that female hunters are even better looking than she is, given the revitalizing medicines they use on the regular to keep themselves in fighting form, are both hard on her self-esteem.
• Psychotic Smirk: Whenever she sees Akira being hostile to someone she’s angry at.
• Rage Breaking Point: After Viola's second attempt at alienating Akira from Sheryl, she invites Viola to her office, pointing a gun at her with shaking hands and screaming at her, before ultimately backing down since she’s too useful to the gang, emptying her clip into the door instead. Which actually foils Viola’s Deliberate Injury Gambit, impressing her.
• Skewed Priorities: Downplayed. She generally focuses on people disrespecting Akira more than she should. The web-novels describe her personality as both being twisted, and having twisted around Akira, so she sees someone disrespecting him as worse than trying to kill her. This twistedness also results in her odd way of viewing Carol.
• Start My Own: She eventually decides to start her own information network to compete directly with Viola so that she'll no longer be necessary.
• Stylish Protection Gear: The old world dress Akira gives her (pictured above) doubles as protection from bullets, like most old world clothing does.
• Supporting Leader: With the allies Akira makes often being directed towards her and her gang (to save Akira the trouble, and because he respects her abilities), Sheryl serves as a hub around which Akira's support network functions. She's even more of one once her gang Took a Level in Badass.
• Sweet Tooth: She puts a ton of sugar and milk in her coffee, raising eyebrows; those things aren’t usually available to those who live in the slums.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Her having to cooperate with Viola is this, frequently sending her a Death Glare, while Viola frequently laughs at her.
• This Is Unforgivable!:
  • How she sees Viola's Relationship Sabotage schemes, part of their long-term Battle of Wits.
  "I'll definitely win, just you see!"
  • Implied with Inabe’s actions surrounding the Inner Kuzusuhara Ruins Assault and what they put Akira through, as every time Akira talks to Inabe he begs him to talk to Sheryl on his behalf.
• Through His Stomach: The first time Akira speaks admiringly of Sheryl is when she makes a hot sandwich stand at the forward base and feeds him, although it was also for her ingenuity. Akira is particularly weak to good food.
• What You Are in the Dark: When Sheryl goes from Akira being unmoved watching her change while she fantasized about him undressing her, to Tiol blushing and being desperate to please her, she lets out a face she thinks would certainly make Akira hate her if he saw it when saying to herself "he’s so easy".
• When She Smiles: Sheryl is renown for her charming smile that makes men fall for her, and she’s frustrated it doesn’t seem to work on Akira. Akira himself is actually afraid of how beautiful her smile is due to his past trauma from being manipulated.

Katsuragi

A travelling merchant whom Akira encounters while fleeing from the same horde of monsters in the Kuzusuhara Ruins. Katsuragi dreams of joining the corporate government and becoming the owner of one of the five largest companies in the world.

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• Arms Dealer: Like Shizuka, Katsuragi trades in weapons to hunters, delivering all kinds of equipment including an immensely powerful Ragnarok cannon.
• Badass Driver: He drives his own armored trailer truck and is able to navigate the craggy and dangerous Kuzusuhara Ruins like a pro even with his foot firmly on the gas.
• Battle of Wits: One of the participants in these. He pulls one over on Akira, resulting in him giving away extremely expensive old world clothing Katsuragi hoped to get for cheap, making it ultimately backfire. There's also him tricking Revin.
• Big Fun: He's a portly fellow who is both friendly and optimistic about his chances at one day becoming a major CEO in the corporate government. He thanks Akira for coming to his aid and offers him a discount for his assistance without batting an eye.
• Gone Horribly Right: He takes advantage of Akira not being able to access Shizuka by bringing him equipment he thinks is out of Akira's price range, charging "the wasteland price", in the hopes of getting Akira under him in Indentured Servitude. When Akira buys it all without even haggling, Katsuragi collapses in a fit of laughter.
• Intrepid Merchant: He travels in an armored trailer, going between settlements and cities to sell weapons and supplies to hunters in hopes of joining the corporate government and becoming the owner of one of the largest companies one day. He has to memorize numerous trading routes and brave monsters along the way, impressing the normally disinterested Akira.
• Minored In Ass Kicking: He's no hunter, but he's still a Badass Driver who isn't afraid to man his trailer's machine gun to keep monsters at bay.
• Moving the Goalposts: When Akira sells Revin medicine he can’t pay for to help him escape during Revin’s rescue request, Katsuragi makes a contract with Revin to take over his debt from Akira. The deal basically makes it so that Revin can only go to ruins he’ll need to buy equipment from Katsuragi to be able to handle, and that he’s only able to sell relics to Katsuragi even though he under-pays for them. And repeat. Revin does say he likes that he’s not charging interest, at least, and all the equipment makes Revin quite formidable.
• No Hero Discount: Zigzagged. He offers Akira a discount on his wares as thanks for helping him fend off the horde of monsters following him and starts a regular business partnership where Akira sells most of his relics to him. But this apparent friendship doesn't stop Katsuragi from trying to make a quick buck by scamming Akira with undervalued appraisals of the relics so he can buy them cheap and sell them off for a profit. He also has no issues with making Akira sound more difficult and terrifying than he actually is to scare multiple hunters Akira just saved into accepting a business deal favorable to Katsuragi.
• The Team Benefactor: His deals providing equipment and lending (indebted) manpower to Sheryl's gang, as well as their association increasing Sheryl's influence.
• We Buy Anything: Subverted. When Akira visits a residential ruin and brings back the relics from a general store, Katsuragi refuses to take the women's undergarments, reasoning that he won't be able to find a buyer as clothing is outside of his expertise.

Kibayashi

A hunter working directly for Hunter HQ and the City Government. He has a keen eye for talent and loves to see hunters push themselves, offering Challenge Seekers like himself opportunities for wealth and glory at severe risk.

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• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Since he is both a city official and a hunter’s office official, he’s a half example. As far as being a hunter’s office official is concerned, he’s great at his job, able to handle hunters nobody else can. But as a city official, he’s an absolute menace with a blatant disregard for the public’s safety. He says to Akira:
  "If you have the patience, you can release your pent up frustration from having to flee using the firepower of the front lines, rampage so hard that you blow up the protective walls, drag not only the middle district but also the upper district into your recklessness, and ruin the people who made light of you."
• Challenge Seeker: Kibayashi loves to challenge himself when he's allowed into the field, but likes it even more when he meets others like him. Oftentimes he'll pull them aside to hand them dangerous missions with generous pay. The few hunters who accept will either meet the challenge and be rewarded or die gruesome deaths.
• Eccentric Mentor: He enjoys taking other thrill-seeking hunters like himself under his wing, giving them highly dangerous but rewarding missions to test their mettle. Most of these hunters don't make it back alive, but the few that do are generously rewarded.
• Foil: To Shirakabe. They're both respected hunters in positions of power in Drankam and the City Government respectively. Shirakabe hates having to look after the younger hunters in Drankam and ditches them the first chance he gets, while Kibayashi is thrilled when he believes he's found another Challenge Seeker and tries to mentor them by throwing them against exceedingly dangerous odds.
• Friend on the Force: Akira's friend in the Hunter’s Office.
• The Gadfly: Part of the reason he enjoys working with Akira so much is all of his irritated reactions.
• In Love with Your Carnage: He’s a platonic variant for Akira’s more risky maneuvers, hoping to watch recordings of them.
• Mad Bomber: He reveals his darker side as this around the Siege of the Slums. Kibayashi smuggled Antimatter rounds to Katsuragi in hopes of Akira using them to blow up the city wall, with the Nationalists jumping in on Akira’s side and a huge fight breaking out for him to watch, all for his own sick enjoyment. But Akira ends up using those bullets to save the wall from a giant monster instead
• Metaphorically True: This is the basis of his being Akira’s inside man after he must go on the run with a 50 billion bounty on his head, giving Akira supplies to prevent him going on raids to acquire it. With the excuse that it’s in the city’s best interest. Despite him telling Akira to get a Roaring Rampage of Revenge on the city itself with his front-line gear once he gets it.
• Morton's Fork: When it comes to trying to get exciting battle recording out of Akira, Kibayashi likes offering these. Although, considering it's due to his influence that he gets basically free ammo for these missions, you could see it as Akira paying him back for it.
  • Giving Akira the choice of either joining the undercity exploration team, or extermination team, was his idea.
  • Giving Akira the choice of either being stationed on the Kuzusuhara Ruins front line, or taking assignments from the Corporate Government... that conveniently take him right next to the front line.
• Mr. Exposition: His scenes half-consist of telling about the inner workings of the government, corperations, the plots of each, and the Hunter's Office.
• Reasonable Authority Figure:
  • When Akira is the only one to volunteer to answer an emergency request, Kibayashi decides that he likes his spunk and hands Akira a high-end bike to help him get there.
  • This is ultimately Played With because Kibayashi acts as the messenger for the cover-up of the week, and actually uses his role as this to gain favors, which is the sort of thing he's done for a long time with other powerful hunters. Kibayashi is often the source of Akira's troubles, most blatantly by forcing him on government assignments with a Morton's Fork throwing him into the thick of danger.
• Secret Test: Given to Akira and Hikaru by having Hikaru show up at Akira’s scheduled meeting instead of himself. This was both to test Akira’s ability to avoid being duped, and Hikaru’s ability to handle a temperamental hunter like she’s been hoping she would be entrusted to.
• Sink or Swim Mentor: His treatment of his subordinate Hikaru. He’s very excited that she invited Akira to the middle district, without considering how dangerous it would be if he picked a fight in a place where survival of the fittest doesn’t fly. Kibayashi can’t help but laugh at her Oh, Crap! panic that she’d take the blame and be kicked out if he did.
• Social Climber: It may seem like his schemes with Akira are purely for the thrills of watching him defy death, but he is also engineering things to make himself rise in influence, in part by making Akira seem more unreasonable than he is, so that Kibayashi can be seen as a miracle worker by 'talking him down'.
• So Proud of You: He has a twisted sort of pride in Hikaru for engineering risky situations for Akira all on her own, and considering that Kibayashi enjoys thrills from the risks of non-hunters as well, she’s also entertaining him by accidentally putting herself in danger.
• Stepping Out for a Quick Cup of Coffee: Often explains things to Akira like this when officially not allowed to, prefacing it with lines like "This is just my guess", or "I didn’t tell you this". At one point, he specifically gets a bug-free room in the Kaguma Building restaurant in order to be able to leak Classified Information to Akira but is disappointed when he says he doesn’t care to know.
• Thrill Seeker:
  • He lives vicariously through hunters like Akira, watching their combat recordings. His network of contacts among front line hunters results in him being somewhat influential.
  • As he at one point mentions, Kibayashi also takes an interest in non-hunters who risk everything, like Katsuragi making high risk trade runs to the front lines, or the situations Hikaru puts herself in out of misguided ambition.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Akira gives him a few of these over his actions mentioned under Mad Bomber.

Viola

A deceptive and devious information broker, who officially works at a relic appraisal company. She first appears bribing Colbert to help get control of Kadol’s debt bond from its owner, before returning much later to make a large impact with her manipulations. She is friends with Carol, who she likes to hire as her bodyguard.

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• Affably Evil: Viola’s ability to twist anything she does into sounding like she’s doing it to help.
• Appropriated Appellation: The understatement of her being called a ‘bad girl’ suits her just fine.
• Arch-Enemy: To Sheryl in a Battle of Wits.
• The Bait: She likes using this as a tactic:
  • Both Sheryl and Alna as bait to make Akira do her dirty work of crushing the biggest gangs, pressing Akira's Berserk Button twice over, which succeeds. At the cost of a bullet from Akira, which she survives.
  • Using Nasha as bait to try and split Sheryl from Akira. Which fails.
• Betrayal Insurance: When Akira threatens her due to her betraying and manipulating Sheryl and him, Viola mentions having a program that would put a bounty worth billions of aurum on the head of whoever kills her, just like the relic thief had. It may have been a bluff, either way, Akira didn’t care.
• Chekhov's Gunman: She first appears opportunistically conspiring with Colbert to buy Kadol’s debt bond, a good while before actually entering the plot proper.
• The Chessmaster: Her defining characteristic. Others catch on somewhat, but she’s known for giving offers too compelling to ignore…
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Her ability to get away with this is a testament to her shrewdness and cunning.
• The Corrupter: Carol’s Origins Episode reveals that Viola was a major influence encouraging Carol’s more dubious behaviors.
• Deal with the Devil: Her reputation is for offering these.
• Deliberate Injury Gambit:
  • As a failsafe for if something went wrong with her plan to manipulate Akira, she made plans to let him shoot her to sate his anger, then have Carol revive her.
  • Tries to pull this on Sheryl as well after Viola’s second failed attempt to split up her and Akira, but Sheryl backs down from nearly shooting Viola, impressing her by foiling that plan.
• Didn't See That Coming: The old world phones she bought from Akira and sold to Inabe actually being from Inabe's district. Alpha's Wild Goose Chase plan in Higaraka tricked her.
• Flaw Exploitation: Her MO for being The Chessmaster is finding other character’s Fatal Flaw and using it to manipulate them, in order to shape events.
• I Have My Ways: Mentions being able to make profits off of corpses, which earns her some confused looks (that seemed to be a one time deal, though).
• Human Traffickers: Carol outright says that Viola is in this business. As far as we see, it refers to dealing with hunters in Indentured Servitude (which is what she's doing in her introductory scene).
• In-Series Nickname: Bad girl.
• Karmic Butt-Monkey: Downplayed. As Laser-Guided Karma for getting off lightly for certain schemes, she repeatedly gets given An Offer You Can't Refuse in exchange for her information. Which she ends up finding a way to make work for her, like everything else.
• Knowledge Broker: Her profession (relic appraisal is her front). It serves as a potent means of manipulation, and has made her quite wealthy thanks to that.
• Manipulative Bitch: Lies and manipulations are her stock and trade.
• Metaphorically True: She notes when discussing the relationship between Akira and Sheryl, that even if the power dynamic or affection between the two is slanted in one direction, since ‘lovers’ is such a broad term, it can’t really be called lying for them to present themselves as such. It is about this time that Akira starts directly calling Sheryl his lover anyway.
• Open Mouth, Insert Foot: Subverted twice.
  • She nearly asks Akira about Shizuka after witnessing him calling her, but Shijima desperately interrupts her.
  • She has to desperately stop herself from mentioning Akira’s lady friends he hasn’t introduced her to, knowing now that Akira would just kill her if she went about it the wrong way.
• Playing Both Sides: Her information dealing often involves doing this, especially her bigger schemes.
• Relationship Sabotage: Engages in plots like this against Sheryl to get out of Akira's arrangement to kill Viola if Sheryl ever asks him to. Akira just reacts sympathetically to Sheryl each time, and the second time backfires making Akira angry at her, pretty much only keeping her alive because he left it up to Sheryl who sees Viola as Necessarily Evil. This lasts until Viola catches Akira in an I Gave My Word trap where he had promised to be lenient on her in exchange for free information in An Offer You Can't Refuse.
• Smug Smiler: Her eerie smile unnerves her negotiating partners, but Akira tends to make her sweat and such in spite of it.
• Stealth Mentor: For Sheryl, whom Viola has no qualms about trying to do in with schemes. It’s through competing with Viola as a rival that Sheryl learns.

• With Friends Like These...: A common feeling about her by her business partners.
• Xanatos Gambit: Generally her plans are like this, usually due to Playing Both Sides and sometimes due to Deliberate Injury Gambit as a backup. Even when she Didn't See That Coming from Akira having gotten his relics from Inabe's domain, she could make the excuse of backing Inabe from the get-go when she was really selling him out.

Inabe

A member of the city government in charge of investigating a section of the ruins, who comes into the story proper when he makes a deal to supply relics to Sheryl’s shop in exchange for a certain under-the-table purchase to boost his political fortunes.

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• Accidental Truth: The backroom deal Viola arranged was to inflate the value of the relics in his territory by secretly selling expensive relics to him so he could plant them, while she also sold info he was doing so to his competitor so he could be exposed. But Akira was a Spanner in the Works to Viola’s plan due to having actually gotten those relics in his territory.
• Aloof Ally: A generally cold and sarcastic ally of Sheryl and Akira's.
• Battle of Wits: His discussions and arguments often have shades of this.
• Commonality Connection: Him and Akira bond a little over their disliking Viola.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Willing to participate in a scam to get more investments. Considering the form of government he’s in, this doubles as being a Corrupt Politician.
• Corporate Warfare: His rivalry with Yanagisawa is a mix of business and political rivalry (given their governing system).
• Horrible Judge of Character: Zig-Zagged. It’s more that the details of his guesses are wildly off due to overthinking, his general impressions of people are pretty good.
• Manipulative Bastard: The story he tells the heartbroken Katsuya to recruit him, is mostly half-truths and false hope, as well as an offer of doing something (giving relics to Sheryl) that he was already in an agreement to do beforehand.
• No-Sell: Just like Sheryl, he’s able to recognize and resist Katsuya’s unconscious More than Mind Control.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: Some of his lengthy deductions about other people end up as this.
• The Team Benefactor: Hooking up Sheryl's gang with relics, as well as equipment, security, and fortifications from KIRYO's corporate sponsorship..

Hikaru

A subordinate of Kibayashi’s who gets assigned to be Akira’s agent, both as a test for her and for Akira. She sets him up with a job escorting a giant convoy for the Great Distribution. Thanks to her panicked realization that he has no idea how to conduct himself within a legal system, she treats Akira almost like her prisoner (or lover, take your pick).

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• Be Careful What You Wish For: Wishing to work with high level hunters gets her more than she bargained for…
• The Chew Toy: Her ultimately self-inflicted suffering serves to add some levity.
• Escort Mission: Not only does she give one to Akira, but she basically ends up in her own escorting him to keep him out of trouble.
• The Face: Acting as Akira’s agent helping with negotiations, and acting as his proxy.
• Gilded Cage: Basically, what she puts Akira in for the duration of his mission to guard the convoy.
• Gone Horribly Right: She wanted to get a boost to her career by working with a high level hunter... She succeeds, but at the cost of any sense of security.
• The Handler: Self-appointed one for Akira's convoy escort mission. Due to her reviewing his suit data, Akira has to make some excuses for Alpha's aid.
• Heroic BSoD: When Inabe tells her she has as long as it takes for Akira to get his ordered level 100 frontline equipment to talk him down from rampaging and destroying the city out of revenge for the city putting a bounty on him. She takes a bit to collect herself and leave his office.
• Last Place You Look: Hikaru hiding in her room from her assailants. She sets up a series of Decoy Hiding Places, while she actually spends most of Erde's search in the first place he checked.
• Lovable Coward: As an Only Sane Woman who got herself in over her head.
• Not What It Looks Like: Her shepherding Akira around the Great Distribution convoy’s compartments makes some onlookers misunderstand that she’s his lover. And then there’s her holding onto him for dear life when they visit the roof to watch the sunrise.
• Oh, Crap!: Realizing that she got Akira onto a mission dealing with the middle district, which has a legal system. And Akira’s never lived within a legal system. So she’s terrified constantly of being banished from there. Kibayashi can only laugh.
• Properly Paranoid:
  • Assigning Akira to an Extranormal Prison room designed to contain a Differently Powered Individual to keep him out of any conflicts that might get her in trouble, comes in handy when their room is being broken into, and the tough door holds out long enough for her to contact him for help.
  • Her direct paranoia about Akira seems to avert this at first. After she gives up that paranoia to get him level 100 hunter gear, she ends up scrambling to avoid losing her job from what he's likely to do with it.
• Quaking with Fear: Her reaction to hearing things way over her comfort zone, like someone being asked to murder an executive.
• Race Against the Clock: Because she arranged for Akira to get hunter level 100 equipment, she would be held responsible if he used that equipment against the city, which at that level of power, would be a catastrophe. Since Akira is still due to receive that equipment, and has the motive to rampage due to the bounty the city put on his head, Hikaru must reach a deal with him before that happens.
• Smooth-Talking Talent Agent: She's presented like this, excited for the status she'll get working with Akira, seeing him as a stepping stone in her career... Well, she's not wrong.
• The Team Benefactor: Using her authority in the city to get Akira and his friends high end equipment, often exceeding their hunter rank. As well as negotiating hunter contracts amongst the gangs.

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