Characters / Saiko No Sutoka

Main Characters

Sayaka Himura/Saiko-chan

Yandere Mode

^{Click here to see her in Normal Mode} 

The main antagonist of the game. An ostracized schoolgirl suffering from mental health issues, Akira is one of the very few people to treat her decently, thus causing Sayaka to fall in love with and become dangerously obsessed towards him.

---

• Abduction Is Love: Saiko kidnaps Akira because she is obsessed with him and kills Shinji out of jealousy.
• Abhorrent Admirer: In the opening, Saiko holds Akira hostage because of her obsession to him. She even kills off Shinji whom she caught her senpai talking to.
• Accidental Suicide: In the normal ending Saiko accidentally impales herself on sharp glass while Akira makes his escape. Afterward, she dies of blood loss while muttering "senpai".
• Ahoge: Saiko is sporting one.
• Apologetic Attacker: Yandere Saiko seems less intent on killing Akira and usually switches in after her Yangire state has harmed him too much in order to try and save him with an apology and some healing medicine. This is also serves as a tell, as a lack of apology by her is a sign that it's actually Yangire Saiko.
• Attention Whore:
  • If ignored for too long by either protagonist, she becomes murderous. This is even more pronounced with Akira.
  • If she manages to steal a key, ignoring her will result in her angrily following the player around while demanding that they look at her.
• Ax-Crazy: Her only apparent goal is to hunt you down and kill you, though unlike most examples of this, she bides her time to enjoy freaking you out just For the Evulz.
  • This is more prominent in Yangire Mode, where she is openly out for Akira's blood.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Despite her seemingly friendly demeanor and relatively normal appearance in Yandere Mode, Saiko is incredibly vengeful, taking sadistic glee in playing with her prey before killing them.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: While she's in yandere mode, she pretends being super helpful showing Shinji around the school looking for his friend. She's only doing it to lure him into a trap. Unlike Akira, she has NO desire to keep him alive, and is doing this because he played a major role in their break-up.
• Blood Is the New Black: Saiko considers the feeling of your blood on her hands to be 'beautiful'. She also has several blood splotches on herself prior to meeting the player character, but where they came from is unknown, though the blood splatters you can find around the school (and occasional corpse) imply where they came from.
• Captive Date: The intro shows Saiko holding Akira hostage and trying to induce Stockholm Syndrome in him on her own terms before she goes off to kill Shinji as he was the reason why Akira broke up with her.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: She kills off Shinji as he encouraged Akira to break up with her, feeling that Saiko was too possessive of his friend.
• Combat Sadomasochist: Even stepping on broken glass shards or the blood loss won't stop her from pursuing her senpai or putting him in harm's way.
• Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are: Like a deadly game of hide-and-seek, Saiko will search for the player throughout the school to increase dramatic tension via taunts and creepy giggling.
• Complexity Addiction: Saiko's plan in Yandere Mode seems to be this. Shinji shows up at school looking for him, Saiko doesn't want that, so what's her solution? Greet him when he arrives and walk him around the school pretending to help him, get him to turn on the power after it goes haywire, then trick him into going to the main office to trigger a smoke bomb trap when he opened the door. Following this, lure him to another room as he's dying from the gas to bait him into taking a drugged antidote, which causes him to pass out. She couldn't have possibly accounted for Senpai trying to escape the locker he's in and knocking it over, but the trap's presence makes it clear she intended to lure his friend up there at some point with no reason to just not let him die from that. She clearly has fun doing things her way.
• Creepy Child: A teenager who appears cute and childish on the surface, but is actually murderous and insane.
• Creepy Shadowed Undereyes: Saiko gains these when she Turns Red and will instantly kill you next time she catches you, though you'll only really notice this when she's in the middle of stabbing you to death.
• Curtains Match the Window: Saiko has red hair to go with her eyes. Yandere Mode makes her hair look more brown and her eyes look somewhat pink.
• Cute and Psycho: 'Yangire' (basically, this trope) is one of two moods that Saiko can enter. Here, her eyes glow red and she doesn't care as much about her crush on Akira, hunting him down to stab him. In Yangire Mode, she is constantly in this state.
• Cute Is Evil: Don't let her adorable appearance fool you. Saiko is a remorseless, vicious yandere.
• The Determinator: Saiko will stop at nothing to kill you. She practically follows you everywhere once she finds you.
  Saiko: "I will kill you."
  • One of the Steam cards imply that even death won't stop her from terrorizing Akira.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: While quite a few people might find it interesting to have a cute anime girl obsessed with you, the game flips the Yandere trope upside-down: said girl is actually an insane stalker who torments the player while out for his blood.
• Disproportionate Retribution: The motivating factor behind Saiko killing Shinji and kidnapping Akira, possibly with the intent to do the same to him? A casual conversation.
  • Her docile state is fond of this in gameplay. Turning your back on her results in her grabbing Akira from behind and holding her knife to their neck before she eventually begins choking them. Resisting this causes her to fall to the ground, where she complains that you're hurting her. She then switches to her violent state and tries to stab you.
• Drone of Dread: The 'music' that plays when Saiko is directly chasing after you.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: She sometimes gives an ecstatic sigh and does a Palm on Cheek Pose whenever the player notices her. The gasp sounds rather orgasmic.
• Entitled to Have You: Saiko feels entitled to have Akira and holds him hostage so he won't run away. She even kills Shinji who spoke to him just because she felt he was taking away the object of her affections. According to the dev, Shinji played a major part in the break-up.
• Establishing Character Moment: The alpha 1.9 version and all future updates (besides Yandere Mode) have an intro with Akira waking up tied to a chair and being greeted cheerfully by Saiko. She tells you it's night now and how she's been watching you sleep the whole time and assuring that she she would never hurt him. But then says "He" might if Akira doesn't behave, then that the thought of Senpai leaving her makes her feel "Him" start to come out and freezes up, before suddenly introducing herself to Senpai again with a wider smile and twitching a lot more, asking if they missed him. "He" quickly brings attention to the bloody knife Saiko is holding before threatening to use it to cut out Senpai's tongue, which Saiko considers playing with before they change their mind to go kill the boy Senpai talked to earlier, promising to bring his head back to him before leaving. This pretty much tells you how much danger you're in and how insane Saiko is.
• Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor: For all of her reassuring comments and remarks on how much she loves him, Saiko loves to sadistically troll Akira just to torment and trap him.
• Evil Laugh: Will oftentimes cackle after she either stabs the player, offers him tainted potions, or try to ride piggyback to nullify their ability to sprint.
• Evil Redhead: A psychopathic murderer with red hair, she is determined to keep Akira from running away.
• Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon: Saiko is this towards Shinji in Yandere Mode, pretending to help him look for his friend. She turns murderous even if he manages to foil her traps.
• False Reassurance: Saiko will use this to stymie the player's progress and make him drop his guard.
  • At times when he holes up in a room, she will "beg" him to let her in, saying she won't hurt him again. Even if he does comply, she will go back to her attempts at preventing his escape, eventually get angry and attempt to murder him again, or immediately attack him upon opening the door for her.
  • In either of her states, she can offer tainted health potions to the player if he's not at max health. While Yangire Saiko only offers poison, Yandere Saiko can give real medicine that has sleeping medicine mixed in. She then cackles at him if he takes the tainted potions.
  • In Yangire Mode, Saiko willingly lets him leave the school once he has the exit key. But the key within the locker is the wrong one and she lures him into a trap that leads to her throwing him from a window if she catches him. She has the actual exit key.
• Fan Disservice: Played with. Regular Saiko, even while covered in blood smears from who knows where, still looks attractive. Yangire Mode Saiko on the other hand is another story in that, while she's wearing what looks to be a bunny girl outfit, her arms and legs are covered in cuts and scrapes, she's got Glowing Eyes of Doom and has glowing red paint on her face that makes her look like a female Joker.
  • One of the Steam cards shows a ghoulish version of herself whose limbs are impaled with glass shards with the implication that she died of blood loss but is still haunting Akira even in his dreams.
• Faux Affably Evil: For all of her giggling, reassuring comments, and remarks on how much she loves Akira, Saiko is very much cruel and callous in her desire to keep him trapped and tormented.
  • It's more visible in Yangire mode, where she occasionally slips into her yandere state (trying to trick you into opening a door or accepting a tainted potion), only to revert back and mock you for your stupidity.
  • In Yandere mode, she pretends to help Shinji by walking him around the school, only to become murderous even if he foils her scheme.
• Forgetful Jones: Breaking line of sight with Saiko and walking will result in her immediately forgetting where the player was, even if she just saw them go around a corner.
• Freudian Excuse: Her yandere mannerisms stem from childhood abuse and neglect, according to the dev. Also, Shinji felt that she was too nerdy and clingy for Akira. Plus, she witnessed her father brutally murder someone for unknown reasons, something which scarred her mentally. As time went on, she experienced bouts of DID in her teens as a result of this traumatic incident.
• Genre Savvy: Yangire Saiko. She disposes of Akira's shoes before the mode starts so that he has no way to protect himself from broken glass, will break through windows if he tries to lock her out of a room so that she can get around the usual kiting strategy, will camp at the exit both inside AND outside of rooms, strangles him from behind quickly enough that he can't struggle to escape her hold, carries multiple knives for throwing, and worst of all already replaced the real exit key with a fake specifically for the purpose of luring Senpai into a trap on the off chance he does manage to actually evade her long enough to collect the password around the school.
• Giggling Villain: Saiko likes doing this while within sight of the player just to get under their skin.
  • Downplayed in Yandere Mode. She doesn't do it at all normally, and even after she Turns Red she does it a lot less than in the other modes. After all, she thinks you're going to take Akira away from her, and she can't allow that.
• Girl with Psycho Weapon: No pun intended, Saiko is a psychotic, knife-wielding yandere.
• Glowing Eyelights of Undeath: One of the Steam cards shows a demonic version of herself terrorizing Akira even in his dreams. Her eyes are glowing red.
• Gollum Made Me Do It: Subverted. Saiko tries to pin the blame for her violent actions on her other personality in the game's opening, though it doesn't stop her from continuing to brandish a knife at the target of her affection, choking him if he turns his back to her, assaulting him for a key, or keeping him locked up with her against his will.
  • Yandere Mode takes this a step further and shows that she's capable of plotting a murder even in her docile state.
• Good Is Not Nice: In her Yandere state, where she's less murderous, Saiko is still far from good, but at least she is not actively trying to kill her senpai. That being said, even when she isn't trying to kill him at that moment, she can still choke him out and drag him inside a classroom, potentially drug him with tainted medicine after her Yangire state wounds him, or flat-out insult him when taking keys from him.
• Green-Eyed Monster: The premise of the game's (short) plot is that Saiko feels envious of Akira talking to Shinji, kidnaps the former, lures the latter to his death when he comes looking for his friend, and then spends the rest of the night chasing her senpai around in an attempt to do him in as well. According to the dev, Saiko is doing this to both of them because Shinji played in the role of their break-up, and that senpai is no longer interested in her after they broke up.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Doing just about anything other than staying in the office at the start (Normal/Hard/Yangire), standing still while she's calm (Normal/Hard), or following her orders (Yandere) will result in her flying into a homicidal rage.
  • Shutting doors in her face causes her to threaten you regardless of what mode she's in. In alpha v.2.1, you can now lock yourself in a room, but she will kick the door down and forcefully barge in after pleading with you several times while in her docile state, thus eliminating that ability to evade Saiko.
  • She also doesn't like it when you push her to the ground or shake her off your back.
  • She doesn’t appreciate the player withholding keys from her or taking back keys she’s tried to steal. Notably, she will chase you down if she catches you with the exit key. If captured, she drags you to the office and decapitates you.
  • Failing the circuit breaker minigame or inputting the wrong exit code also tends to draw her ire.
  • Crouching next to Saiko causes her to believe you're looking up her skirt. If she is in Yandere state, she will immediately enter Yangire state. If she's in Yangire state, she instead breaks your neck.
  • In both Yandere and Yangire Mode, she immediately becomes murderous upon noticing you've stolen the key she has on her back, especially when she was knocked out momentarily by the brick (only during Yangire Mode).
  • In Yandere Mode, she becomes murderous once she finds out you deactivated the poison gas trap she set up in an attempt to lure Shinji by switching off the power.
  • She enters yangire state if Akira hands over her diary without the pages (which are scattered throughout the school) or with a few pages, tossing it aside as if it were garbage. She (incorrectly) assumes Akira deliberately ripped out the pages. The dev stated that it was Shinji who pasted the diary's pages on random locations throughout the school just to humiliate Saiko. On the flip side, she does go cuckoo if Akira doesn't hand over the diary.
• Hoist by Their Own Petard:
  • Saiko has two keys you need to escape in Yandere Mode, which would make escaping much more difficult if she came at you with the same aggression she brings in Yangire Mode. However, cooperating with her until the locker collapses in the office causes her to give both keys to the player with no fuss whatsoever. Assuming the player knows to cut the juice, this makes the difficulty only slightly greater than Hard Mode.
    • Fortunately, her attempts at doing so can be disabled by turning off the color puzzle, preventing her from interacting with the switch.
  • Saiko has a tendency to jump the player from behind and choke them. However, her ability to do so, excluding the Bad Ending, is dependent on there being a nearby door that she can either hold shut (pink text) or lock (red text). If she is not near a doorway or has kicked down a nearby door, she is unable to choke the player next to that door and will be rendered non-violent before eventually letting go.
  • Occasionally, Saiko will lean against a door the player is hiding behind either in an attempt to be creepy (Yangire) or to coax them out to spend time with her (Yandere). Opening the door while she's doing so causes her to be knocked to the ground stunned, though she will predictably get angry if she was in Yandere state.
• Hyde Plays Jekyll: After various updates, her Yangire mode is capable of pretending she's in her (somewhat friendlier) Yandere State, usually to try and get you to unlock a door keeping her out or to accept a potion she's tainted in some way. Once you do, she reverts right back (and her eyes start glowing again) while she happily mocks you for doing something that stupid. Considering she's perfectly capable of busting down any locked door or just catching you if she's close enough to offer a potion, she doesn't even need to do this and it's clearly her just fucking with you more.
  • The entire basis of Yandere Mode. She's not actually helping you there, she's just setting you up to get drugged... so she can cut your character's head off when the sun goes down.
• Hypocrite: Saiko is perfectly fine pushing Akira to the ground (or off of stairs) in her "nice" state, treating it as a game. Returning the favor causes her to complain about how she's being unfairly hurt before immediately becoming hostile and murderous. She also gets angry about having to walk over glass shards to get to the player, even though she's the one who broke the window in the first place.
• If I Can't Have You…: Being a yandere, Saiko holds Akira hostage so he won't escape. She even kills Shinji whom he talked to out of petty jealousy. According to the dev, she and Akira dated each other, but Shinji played a part in the break-up, believing that she was excessively clingy.
• I Have You Now, My Pretty: After she has captured Akira, Saiko kills Shinji whom he talked to earlier and makes it clear she has no intents of letting him leave.
• Important Haircut: An offscreen one, but sometime between Yandere Mode and the main game, she cut her hair short, signifying that she's no longer bothering with a Mask of Sanity.
• Impoverished Patrician: She was born into a wealthy family, but now lives in an apartment building with her foster mother, who is quite dismissive of her.
• Just Toying with Them: Saiko could easily run up and gut you without a word (in fact, when running at full speed she's faster than you can go at a full sprint), but instead will slowly approach while stating she's seen you. She'll also silently run up and hide behind you if your back is turned when she finds you, giggling and turning off the lights in classrooms you enter in an attempt to make you look behind yourself. She may corner you in a room but decide to shut the lights off and leave, only to stand outside the door and peering in at you; resuming the chase once you open the door. She may even leave you alone after directly looking into a locker you're hiding in and stating she knows you're in there. She will stop doing this if she's sufficiently angered, however.
  • Especially pops up in Yandere Mode. Since the player character is a friend looking for her senpai, Saiko just wants to kill you, which she does with a needlessly complex plan seemingly only for her amusement. Like with the above example, she'll just skip this and go straight to killing if you piss her off.
• Karma Houdini: While it may change in the full release, Saiko has seemingly killed at least one other student and kept Akira captive at school for half a day with no known repercussions or fear of reprisal. The protagonist is completely helpless to do anything to her beyond annoying her a bit, which is very ill-advised as it just makes her want to kill you faster. While it is possible to escape, the players see nothing past that point, making it possible that Saiko gets away with her crimes whether she kills you or not.
  • Given how the bad ending of Yandere Mode seems to be the canon one, it's possible the ending where senpai escapes is not his true fate.
  • If the Steam Cards are any indication, this is zigzagged. Saiko will apparently die, but return as a nightmarish version of herself that continues to haunt Akira.
• Keep Away: As of 2.1.3, Saiko now taunts Akira by dangling keys she takes from him in front of him or having him chase her around the school. Sometimes she will even lead him into a poison gas trap.
• Love Hungry: Tries to force Akira to love her and makes it clear she won't let him escape or take no for an answer.
• Love Makes You Crazy: Justified as she is a psychotic yandere who insanely pursues Akira's affection despite trying to kill him. According to the dev, Saiko and senpai dated each other, but that relationship eventually became sour because senpai's friend urged him to avoid her as he felt she was too clingy, driving her to stalk him for some time before holding him hostage while killing senpai's friend during the daytime when he comes over looking for his friend.
• Love Makes You Evil: Her display of obsessive admiration to Akira comes across as something that can only be thought of by a monster. She didn't take Akira's rejection lightly when he dumped her.
• Lust: The reason why Saiko fawns over her senpai despite being out for his blood.
• Mask of Sanity: She pretends to be a normal, innocent girl, when she's actually an Ax-Crazy psychopath in Yandere mode. The mask starts to slip if you deviate from the path she wants you to take, and it's completely off for the main game.
• Mad Love: Saiko insanely pursues the affection of Akira, who obviously finds her abhorrent.
• Madness Mantra: Whenever she goes into a frenzy, Saiko usually has a habit of repeating "I can't allow that," especially if the player deviates from what she wants to do.
• Mood-Swinger: Saiko interacts with "senpai" in three different manners. The one most common is when she's actively trying to kill you, which is her in Yangire state (designated by her eyes becoming a dull red and glowing). When she lands a hit, she'll revert to her Yandere state (her eyes have a noticeable sparkle to them), which is "somewhat" helpful in that she won't attack you (so long as you don't do anything that might piss her off) and will sometimes give you medicine to heal yourself with. Unfortunately, that medicine may or may not be drugged, though the medicine with a Red Cross is usually safe. The final one is Yangire Weakened state (bags under her eyes), where her patience has run out and she'll instantly kill you if she catches you.
• Murder Is the Best Solution: Murder is her preferred way to deal with problems.
• My God, What Have I Done?: In the Good ending, Saiko realizes how much pain she's caused him and voluntarily lets Akira escape. What happens to her afterword is unknown.
• Nightmare Fetishist: Saiko leaves a "flirtatious" message to the player if they check the ribbon in the office.

  "You're rather cute when you're dying."

• Not Good with Rejection: Saiko and Akira dated each other at some point in the past, but it went sour when Akira noted she had dissociative identity disorder. Plus, Shinji played a major role in the breakup, believing that Saiko is too clingy. Saiko didn't take this lightly and started stalking Akira to the point of kidnapping him so he won't escape her while having Shinji killed off when he came looking for his friend.
• Off with His Head!: In Yangire Mode, one of her kill animations is to saw off your head and tear it from your neck. This is also what happens in the bad end of Yandere Mode.
• Palm on Cheek Pose: Saiko will sometimes gasp and do this when she sees you nearby or you turn to look at her after she's been following you. She's also doing this for one of the achievements on Steam.
• Personal Space Invader: If Saiko catches the player while their back is turned, she will ride piggyback (with her knife at their throat), nullifying their ability to sprint while enabling her to keep direct tabs on what they're doing if the player doesn't find a way to shake her off. She can also just choke you out while she has you like this so she can drag you somewhere else.
• Playboy Bunny: Saiko in Yangire Mode has her dress like this. It's a case of Fan Disservice, however, since she's also wearing glowing face-paint that makes her look even more deranged, is covered in blood, and is constantly in her most dangerous state.
• Please, Don't Leave Me: She "promises" not to harm the player when she notices that he's about to escape from her. According to the dev, Saiko was abused when she was young and developed abandonment issues as she grew up.
• Poison Is Evil: While Saiko is willing to share medicine with Akira if she's in her docile state, sometimes it will be tainted with poison. This is most likely the result of her other more violent personality tampering with the bottles.
  • In Yandere Mode, Saiko tosses poisonous gas bombs in an effort to slow you down. She even wears a gas mask to shield herself from the fumes.
  • A future update will allow her to booby-trap the classrooms with gas bombs during Normal/Hard Mode. She won't be affected by the toxic fumes even though she should be wearing a gas mask, but Akira will start coughing if he activates the trap.
• Psycho Ex-Girlfriend: She doesn't take Akira's rejection lightly and makes it clear she will not let him go. The dev confirmed she and Akira used to date each other, but broke up because of her DID and that she was a Clingy Jealous Girl. After that, she started stalking Akira for several months before she kidnaps him.
• Psychopathic Womanchild: Saiko is a dangerous, possessive stalker. She may appear cute, but enjoys tormenting Akira and Shinji out of pure sadism. She even asks Akira to "not hide and play with her" at occasions.
• Punny Name: Saiko-chan sounds like “psycho-chan”, and she is indeed a psycho Yandere.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Saiko has these, which contrast heavily with the predominantly blue-tinted atmosphere. Thankfully, they're also a telltale sign of where she is. Yangire Mode has her eyes glowing red permanently and she is always in Yangire State.
• Red Is Violent: Saiko is heavily associated with red, having red hair, being covered in bloodstains, and her eyes glow red. The contrast is pushed further by the rest of the school being covered in dark blue ambiance.
• Rejection Affection: Even after being rejected, she continues to chase after Akira to the point of stalking and kidnapping him.
• Roaming Enemy: Type 2. Saiko at first looks for the player in multiple rooms, but once she encounters the player, she tends to wander after them with no set pattern.
• Rule of Three: In earlier builds, there were three stages of anger Saiko would go through before she stopped toying with you. Her angriest state was punctuated by three ellipsis. This has since been changed to a regular reaction she has when breaking down doors, though continuing to agitate her in her violent state will still prompt the original instant-kill variant.
• Sanity Has Advantages: Well, for one, she could probably have carried on a normal relationship with Akira if she were sane. In the context of the game, her lack of sanity causes her to toy with Akira when she could have just killed him after she drugged him, and her Yandere and Yangire moods have contradictory goals (Yandere wants to trap the player and doesn't like hurting him, Yangire wants to kill him), and will often counteract each other (i.e. after Yangire stabs the player, Yandere will give him medicine).
• Searching the Stalls: In 2.1.3, Saiko can now search the bathroom stalls for the player and will try to kill them if she catches them.
• Self-Proclaimed Love Interest: She proclaims Akira to be her Love Interest, but this animated short reveals that Akira is not interested in Saiko and actually felt disturbed at her stalking behavior, especially during one incident where she followed him to the restrooms.
• Sex Is Violence: Finds it rather funny to torment senpai and his friend, and will do an gasp that sounds rather orgasmic.
• Silly Walk: In Yandere Mode, Saiko walks by moving the arm and leg on the same side of her body at the same time as opposed to alternating, giving her a very odd march as she stalks around the school. In other modes, she has an unhinged way of running at the player with a knife, particularly Yangire.
• Slasher Smile: While she sports a Psychotic Smirk in yandere mode, Saiko sports a sadistic, Jokeresque-smile to boot in yangire mode.
• Split Personality: The alpha v1.9 update gives Saiko this. With a new intro revealing the two personalities, one that's obsessive and possessive but outwardly friendly and a "Him" personality that is more outright threatening (with a much bigger and more sadistic-looking smile to boot). The alpha 2.0 implemented this in gameplay, as various actions the player takes or doesn't take will influence which is in control. According to the dev, this stems from childhood abuse and neglect, and is the reason why Akira stopped dating her.
• Soft-Spoken Sadist: Saiko speaks in a hushed tone the entire game, save for when she's giggling or laughing.
• Stalker Shrine: This animated short reveals that ever since their Crash-Into Hello meeting, Saiko created a Stalker Shrine peppered with photos and drawings of Akira.
• Stalker with a Crush: According to the dev, Saiko has been stalking Akira for about three months.
• Stalking Is Funny if It Is Female After Male: Averted. She comes off as downright creepy due to her unhealthy obsession over Akira.
• Stalking is Love: Averted. Akira is repulsed by her obsession over him and must find a way to avoid her.
• Stop Poking Me!: Agitating Saiko with your actions will prompt increasing levels of frustration on her part. Initially, she'll say "Stop it!", which changes to "I am upset!", and finally "...", the latter of which leads to an instant kill.
• Sugary Malice: Saiko never drops her cheery mannerisms even as she does terrible things to keep the player from bolting away.
• Suspicious Videogame Generosity:
  • In Yangire Mode, if you have three of the four numbers needed for the keypad, you can take your time guessing the last number while Saiko sits on the desk behind you humming. After taking the key, she'll remain on the desk, telling you that you're free to go and remain in a passive state... because she has the real key, and you have a fake that won't work.
  • Yandere Mode takes place in broad daylight and involves a much calmer Saiko walking around with the player without a weapon, helpfully pointing out where to find clues and keys. Following her directions will lead to the player being drugged and locked in the infirmary. When they awaken, it is night and Saiko has her usual deranged appearance before executing the player... because you're not playing as her senpai, but his male friend. The same one that gets his head cut off in the other modes.
• Teens Are Monsters: Stalking, violence, and murder are all acceptable to Saiko, who is hellbent on keeping Akira locked up in the school forever and would kill him if he doesn't cooperate.
• They Look Just Like Everyone Else!: Yandere Mode has Saiko with long straight red hair, glasses, and a clean uniform (although still barefoot), acting very polite and helpful to the player. The bad end has her return back to her normal look right before she kills you.
• Too Kinky to Torture: According to the dev, Saiko is a masochist. As a result, stepping on glass doesn't bother her and is something she enjoys. The blood loss that would result from that also doesn't bother her, apparently. If the Steam cards are an indication, Saiko will eventually die of her wounds, but that won't stop her from tormenting Akira in his dreams as a ghoulish monster whose limbs have been impaled with glass shards.
• Troll: If Saiko successfully steals a key from you, she will follow you around and dangle it in front of you to mock you with it. Attempting to take it from her leads to her playing keep away with it before dropping it.
• Turns Red:
  • If you've caused her to run after you for a prolonged period of time, Saiko will eventually enter a permanent fatigued Yangire Mode, trading her speed for a One-Hit Kill.
  • In Yandere Mode, Saiko is unarmed and harmless. However, once she's sufficiently annoyed, she'll head to the Kitchen to grab a knife, a gas mask, and poison gas grenades.
• Vengeful Ghost: One of the Steam cards shows a ghoulish version of her terrorizing Akira even in death.
• Vocal Dissonance: Her voice barely ever escalates above a whisper throughout her attempts on the lives of others beyond bouts of crazed laughter.
• Villainous Crush: Saiko obsessively fawns over Akira even as she's out for his blood if he doesn't comply, who obviously finds her repulsive due to her murderous nature. According to the dev, Akira broke up with her after witnessing she had dissociative personality disorder and was too excessively clingy.
• Woman Scorned: A simple conversation between Akira and Shinji leads Saiko to kill the latter and do the same to the former if he's uncooperative about remaining captured.
• Yandere: Saiko has a massive crush on Akira, to the point of having a Stalker Shrine decorated with pictures she drew of him, and kidnapping him when he made it clear he was no longer interested. In-game, when her love towards Akira comes to the fore, she enters Yandere State, where she's less directly dangerous because she wants to trap Akira rather than killing him (and might give him medicine after her Yangire state hurts him), but is clingy and will try to stop Akira from solving her puzzles.
• You Have No Chance to Survive: She reaches this point after being agitated enough by the player. She enters Yangire mode and trades speed for a One-Hit Kill.

Akira Ishida

The main protagonist and sole playable character of the game. An ordinary high-school student who had a brief romance with the shunned Saiko, Akira soon finds out in the worst ways possible that associating himself with her is far, far more trouble than it is worth.

---

• Admiring the Abomination: Whether it's genuine affection on her part or not, he is capable of calming Saiko down from her murderous state by petting her on the head.
• Cooldown Hug: To calm Saiko in her Yangire state, Akira can pat her head to get her to return to her Yandere state. This has a small chance of being a fake-out, however.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: His bad endings in Normal or Hard modes, and all endings in the Yangire Mode are this. In Normal and Hard modes, he gets decapitated with his last sight being his body dying and Saiko's red eyes looking at him. In Yangire Mode, his bad endings include being "let go" by Saiko after she decapitates him and throws his head out the school window, being cut in half with Saiko and Elissu dancing with his upper and lower halves respectively, managing to escape only to be knifed in the back, decapitated and his head put on a stuffed animal as Saiko and Elissu have a tea party with him.
• Death by Woman Scorned: Saiko is out for his blood for having broke up with her in the past.
• Distressed Dude: Akira has been held hostage by Saiko, who is obsessed with him and won't let him leave.
• Hyperactive Metabolism: Regardless of whether he is stabbed, sliced up by glass, poisoned, kicked through a door hard enough to knock it off its hinges, or harmed in any of the other ways Saiko tries to impede him, he is able to recover from these injuries somewhat by simply drinking lemon tea.
• Jerkass: According to the dev, he won't be blameless, as he is intended to come across as a bit of a jerk in the full game.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Despite the above, however, it is shown that he’s a decent person at heart and deeply regrets leaving Saiko to bleed out.
• Last Chance Hit Point: As of 2.2, Saiko can invoke this on Akira if he hasn't annoyed her too much. Instead of going for the kill shot, she leaves him at one HP and leaves, with the warning she will kill him next time.
• Mistaken for Gay: Akira is on the receiving end of this from Saiko. According to habupain, he is heterosexual.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Nightmare Mode implies that he regrets seeing Saiko die of her wounds and wonders if he could have done anything to save her.
• No Guy Wants to Be Chased: Unsurprisingly, he's not too thrilled to find himself being chased by a girl who is out for his blood. This is because he broke up with her at some point in the past when he found out she has DID.
• Past Experience Nightmare: One of the Steam cards imply that he develops PTSD after he runs away from school, horrified at the sight of seeing his friend get killed by his Psycho Ex-Girlfriend, who chased him down for rejecting her advances. Even when she dies of her wounds, she continues to plague him in his mind.
• Plagued by Nightmares: One of the Steam cards of Saiko implies that she continues to haunt him in his mind even in death.
• Post-Robbery Trauma: If the Steam Cards are any indication, Saiko's spirit will continue to torment Akira even when she's long dead.
• Suicidal Pacifism: For whatever reason, Akira is unwilling to fight back against Saiko beyond the bare minimum.
• This Is Unforgivable!: He's never forgiven his father for abandoning his mother after impregnating her.
• Vocal Dissonance: Despite being a high school student, he sounds significantly older.
• You're Not My Type: After their breakup due to Saiko's clinginess and psychotic behavior, Akira isn't interested in her anymore as she kept on stalking him even when he told her to leave him alone.

Shinji Yamazaki

Akira's best friend, as well as being the one who urged him to break up with Saiko. Saiko didn't take it too well and kidnapped him.

---

• Death by Woman Scorned: Because he played a major role in her and Akira breaking up, Saiko beheads him.
• Distressed Dude: Saiko holds him hostage, strapped to a bed in the infirmary if she manages to trick him into going to the main office to trigger a gas bomb trap when he opened the door and take a drugged antidote, which knocked him out. Unlike Akira, Saiko kills him off, setting the events of Normal/Hard Mode.
• Failure Is the Only Option: As his endings reveal in the Yandere Mode, Shinji is always going to die. Going through with everything Saiko has him do ends up with him being decapitated. Even if he manages to escape, the new ending showcases him gloating about managing to leave...until Saiko manages to throw a vase on his head, instantly downing him and if it didn't kill him, he's definitely unable to move and thus easy pickings for Saiko.
• Hope Spot: His "good" ending. He manages to get the exit key, leaves the school while gloating about it. Saiko crashes it by literally crashing a vase atop his head, killing him.
• Hyperactive Metabolism: Regardless of whether he is stabbed, sliced up by glass, poisoned, kicked through a door, or harmed in any of the other ways Saiko tries to impede him, he is able to recover from these injuries somewhat by drinking lemon tea.
• Jerkass: Word of God is that he stole Saiko's diary and spread the pages around the school, apparently to bully her.
• No Guy Wants to Be Chased: As with Akira, Shinji isn't too thrilled to see a deranged female lunatic out for his blood.
• Suicidal Pacifism: For whatever reason, Shinji is unwilling to fight back against Saiko beyond the bare minimum.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: This animated short reveals that he unintentionally wondered if Saiko will do something as bad as attempted kidnapping and murder even if she's told to stop stalking Akira, but Akira dismisses that as a possibility. We all know what happens to him and Akira at the end when Saiko gets wind of it.
• Vocal Dissonance: Despite being a high school student, Shinji sounds significantly older.

Elissu

• Always Identical Twins: Extreme Yangire Mode introduces a second Saiko clone named Elissu. Elissu shares a similar appearance to Saiko, but has a different haircut and facepaint, as well as a more warbled version of the chase theme used by Saiko while in Yangire mode.
• Ax-Crazy: As with Saiko, Elissu is out for the player's blood, giggling and cackling as she chases him down.
• Big Bad Duumvirate: After she's summoned, Elissu works in tandem with Saiko to hunt down the player.
• For Doom the Bell Tolls: The demented, twisted version of Entry of the Gladiators (the song often associated with big top circuses) that's used by Yangire Saiko is reversed when Elissu is the one chasing.
• Genre Savvy: Elissu also counts for attacking the player from behind the very second they leave the office.
• Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: Breaking the photo in the office causes her to inexplicably show up, making Yangire mode Harder Than Hard with two Saikos running amok in the school. What her connection to Saiko is unknown, but it could change in future builds.
• Playboy Bunny: As with Saiko, it's a case of Fan Disservice.
• Shout-Out: She's named after Hatsune Elissu, a bug tester for the game who used Yangire Saiko as an avatar at the time of release.
• Vocal Dissonance: Her voice barely ever escalates above a whisper throughout her attempts on the lives of others beyond moments of crazed laughter.

---