Motoko Aoyama/Nakagami
One of the main characters in Project: Arashi, Motoko is the current heiress of the Shinmei-ryū style of swordsmanship. Continuing the late-game development started in the original Love Hina, she has matured even further into a graceful and multi-talented young woman, though she is no stranger to letting her hair down and enjoying life by the day.
- Badass Cape: Came with her Azumi costume.
- Evil Weapon: She wields the cursed sword Youto Hina after sealing it prior to the beginning of Kuro Arashi. She is the only one who can safely wield it, as any others would still be possessed by the demonic entity within the blade, and she herself is not affected by it.
- Heir to the Dojo: Supposedly, the heir of the school is not meant to be in a relationship, but no one seems bothered by hers with Seno.
- I Am Not Left-Handed: Her former Shinmei-ryū instructor thought it would be easy to defeat her when she was caught without her sword. She was wrong.
- Mindlink Mates: Shares a mild form of this with Seno, in that their soulbond allows them to sense where the other is in relation to them and their general emotional state. Motoko has become so accustomed to it that when Seno is completely removed from the timestream during the battle of Mages vs. Mars, she feels as though she's lost part of herself and is greatly stressed as a result.
- My Secret Pregnancy: Played straight and averted. She's only hiding it from Seno until after Mages vs. Mars, so that he won't be distracted in battle. She told him immediately afterward at the wrap party.
- Straight Man: For the earlier parts of the story, she found herself in this role opposite the more crazy remarks made by Seno. This has occurred less and less over time. Perhaps she realizes the futility.
- The Power of Love: Forevermore proving to Motoko that everything she'd thought all along about love and femininity was wrong, the strength of her love for Seno allowed her to use his sword to finally beat her sister.
- Violently Protective Girlfriend: Just look what she did to her sister after Tsuruko hurt Seno in a duel. And how she took out the droid that shot Seno in Mages vs. Mars.
- What Happened to the Bird? The author keeps forgetting that he had Tsuruko bequeath her pet crane, Shippu, to Motoko near the beginning of the story. Though, in fairness, Shippu didn't appear alongside Motoko in actual Love Hina all that often.
- Yamato Nadeshiko: Since mellowing out as the story progresses, Motoko has graduated to this from the Kid Samurai she used to be. She has always fit the visual aspects of this trope, but now possesses an attitude to match. Occasionally, she lapses from this, but usually those instances can be blamed on her husband. And, as ever, she presents a more literal interpretation of Silk Hiding Steel.
Nealla Ju
One of the elite Royal Guards of the Kingdom of MolMol, Nealla is Kaolla's personal bodyguard, often serving as the girl's double despite the fact that she is several years older than the princess. Her ability to mimic Kaolla is unusual in that, unless she is actively attempting to pass as Kaolla, she otherwise doesn't seem to look like her. No word on whether this is a magical ability or not.
- Body Double: Kaolla's personal bodyguard and decoy.
- Lady of Black Magic: Nealla's heroic ability, unique in the setting of Akamatsu-based works, is that she's more a Final Fantasy caster than she is an incantation caster, which puts her at a great advantage against those types of enemies, provided her MP holds up. She also has a small cross-section of status effect magic, including Silence, Confuse, and Bind.
- Little Miss Snarker: One of her favorite narrative roles.
- Person of Mass Destruction: Her Triple Cast ability allows her to, as its name suggests, cast any of her spells three times at once. This can be stacked with Mutsumi's ability that doubles offensive spells cast within her Mana Ward, meaning Nealla can fire off six spells at once. One of her known spells by the time this can be done is Ultima.
- Regenerating Mana: Her MP will recover on its own over time, but she still keeps a stock of ether-type items for emergency replenishment, and her unique ability, Manafont, lets her cast spells without mana cost or cast time for five minutes at the price of being a one-a-day thing.
- Straight Man: Her other narrative role, which is obviously done on purpose given how often she is the other one.
Sabashii Kokuei/Faizel Zu
A djinn who once served under Namusan Sapou, Sabashii has since seen the evil in the elder djinni's intentions and absconded from his service, changing his name, falsifying his past, and wandering from place to place ever since. Having a fondness for the Island Republic of MolMol, Sabashii has wandered back to that nation several times in his life, and has a knack for wandering into and through key junctures in history.
- Black-and-Gray Morality: Sabashii freely admits he's, at best, lawful neutral with some neutral evil tendencies and practices. But he's better off than the Big Bad Namusan Sapou, who's a pure Always Chaotic Evil Omnicidal Maniac.
- Black Magic: A little of this in both evil and benign forms are his basic magic set. His most deadly attack, the Black Ultima, is most definitively an evil magic simply by dint of what it does to whatever poor bastard gets caught in his way, but he's not a mainline caster in the Kuro crew.
- Gender Bender: His disguise to hide himself from the faculty at Mahora is to change himself into a high school girl, though it's implied by his phrasing that he was more worried about hiding from Evangeline.
- Kung-Fu Wizard: Best description of Sabashii's fighting style. He is primarily a hand-to-hand combatant, but he'll mix spells into his attack patterns and, if pushed too far, will just plain nuke a bastard.
- That Man Is Dead: During Kuro Arashi, Sabashii refuses to acknowledge his birth name. He seems to have gotten over this by the time of The Unsung War.
- Really 700 Years Old: Over three hundred, but who's counting?
- Unholy Nuke: Black Ultima.
Mitsune "Kitsune" Konno
The trickster fox of the crew, Kitsune has largely taken the sudden change in their lives' direction in remarkable stride. Though, in truth, she hasn't really changed all that much, discounting her new thief abilities. The fact that she hasn't used said abilities for nefarious purposes or personal gain speaks to the strength of her character.
- Dual Wielding: Part of her Heroic upgrade, her primary weapons are a pair of high-frequency daggers made by Kaolla.
- Instant Expert: Even Kitsune was impressed by how her agility and dexterity skyrocketed to allow her to easily dual-wield her new daggers and fight handily with them following the group's awakening.
Chao Lingshen
Unquestionably the most broken character in the entire continuity, Chao's role began first as nothing more and nothing less than what you see in canon Negima! Magister Negi Magi. Then, on a lark one day, the author decided to play around with the idea of what it'd be like if Chao's unspecified Bad Future was the Human-Covenant War, and things went ridiculous in a hurry. After slap-dashing together a workable history that fits into both Negima and Halo, this was adopted as official canon in Project: Arashi. Chao was born to rebels on the planet Mars after the collapse of the Magic World, sparking a war between the Martian mages and the Earth mages. This was covered up by staging the Rainforest and Interplanetary Wars. Her parents invented the Cassiopeia and sent her to the future to take revenge on the Earth in their stead. She was taken in by a shareholder family of Misriah Armory, where she gained her substantial technical knowledge. When the Covenant attacked Earth in 2552, she was nearly killed aboard the Orbital Defense Platform Athens and had to use the Cassiopeia to survive. She came back before the start of Negima and began her plot, dubbed Operation: VALID, to reveal magic to the world. At some point after Mages vs. Mars, she went back to the future to fight her own battles, and fell in with Evangeline and her band of magic-adept ODSTs, proceeding to put boot up alien backside. And at some point between Mages vs. Mars and going back to the future, she joined the Kuro crew.
- Alternate History: The brief prologue of The Timesnatcher confirmed that Chao traveling back in time and enacting her strategy created an entirely new continuity rather than changing the one she'd come from, and thereby locking her out of it forever.
Fridge Horror sets in when that makes one realize that all the characters shown in Future Perfect are still doomed in her original timeline, and the jury is out on whether or not her fervent belief that humanity would lose the war was just fatalism or a scientific observation. In short, all her actions are merely to ensure that this new timestream she's created will not suffer the same fate as the world she came from, further underscoring her Iron Woobie credentials. - And the Adventure Continues: What she does after the end of the Human-Covenant War.
- Attack Drone: Made even more dangerous for Negi when he fights her in Mages vs. Mars, due to the fact that her drones are miniaturized Spartan lasers. They usually reappear when she doesn't have time to be fancy or is up against a serious numbers disadvantage.
- Berserk Button: Her original seething hatred of the Halo franchise has toned down to just mild annoyance, but the two things that truly set her off are seeing humans (of any origin) in an existential crisis, or violations of Due to the Dead.
- Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: Chao despises actual body modifications, with the implication that this is her belief on the matter.
- Dimensional Traveler: Becomes this after the conclusion of the overall plot in Project: Arashi, using the Gateway Device that was introduced in Negima. The author hasn't yet added any real chapters to The Timesnatcher to show what she's done, other than an excerpt from what will be the Attack on Titan arc, it is canon
Word of God that she's visited an alternate version of herself in the PokéFiends universe, and has stepped into the Gundam universe as necessary to steal Humongous Mecha tech. - Electronic Eyes: Received optical implants that circumvent the need to wear a helmet for displaying a HUD. Minor subversion in that her eyes still look perfectly normal, even to close inspection, and even when she's displaying data for herself.
- Eye Scream: A lighter version, but when she underwent surgery to get her implants, there was an energy leakage in her right eye that forced the implant to have to be rewired and also permanently changed the color of that eye to red.
- Gadgeteer Genius: Chao is really, really good at taking Covenant technology and not only making it engineerable by human tech, but work better. Her resumé of gadgets includes active camouflage and gravity attachments that plug into any semi-powered armor, non-fusion-powered energy shields, portable and personal slipspace storage, her time machines, the basis of the entire UNSC smart AI program, anti-Covenant battle robots, the "Prototype" mobile suit (let's face it, that's what it is), the Pillar of Autumn's three-shot MAC, a hand in the Super-MAC program, miniaturized Spartan lasers, the actual Spartan laser, and an entirely-new UNSC vehicle the size of a Scorpion that computer simulations showed could easily kill a Scarab. It sadly hasn't gotten to engage any.
- Guardian of the Multiverse: Her Self-Imposed Challenge during the events of The Timesnatcher.
- Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: Despite working from a time period that gave rise to MJOLNIR Powered Assault Armor, Chao prefers to wear leather-esque powered armor and no helmet. Unusually for her, she gives no reason to address the reasons behind this preference, but it's clearly this trope.
- Heroic BSoD: After being placed in what will become Class 3-A, she has one of these when she realizes that the ancestors of the men who died to save her life were all in her class.
- Humans Are Special: It took seeing the will of the army of Determinators that were the Mahoran faction during Mages vs. Mars to realize it, but Chao became enamored with the idea that it was the human indomitable spirit, as much or more important than magic or technology, that would be vital to surviving the Human-Covenant War.
- Iron Woobie: Moreso during Future Perfect and Kuro Arashi than in Unsung. In FP, she is twelve years old and watches the brutal deaths of a squad of UNSC Marines, including two she had been friends with for most of her life, at the hands of the Covenant while trying to save her from them. She is forced to make a blind jump back in time to save her own life. After making her choice to break the Masquerade, she is savvy enough to realize that it will cause immense bloodshed, and is willing to go down in history as a murderer to save humanity's future. Over two years as she works this plan, she reveals nothing of her tragedy.
- Kill It with Fire: Her style of magical combat. Mixed with gratuitous punching of things.
- Late-Arrival Spoiler: It may come as a shock to those who read chapter three of The Unsung War that Chao is included as a member of the Kuro crew.
- Merged Reality / In Spite of a Nail: The world Chao left was the Halo universe exactly as depicted in the novels, where there is very little hope of defeating the Covenant and magic is a fairy tale. The world she returned to after her adventures in the past was different in minor but important ways: many of the bloodlines of famous mages were preserved due to Evangeline's meddling, Lord Hood is in on The Masquerade, and it can be argued that the protagonist squad themselves would not have been born in the original timeline.
- New Meat: Averted. Though the Liberation of Mahora marked her first combat drop as a Helljumper, Alysia privately mused that she has more combat experience than the rest of the squad put together, thanks to her fighting for years in the Unification War.
- Red Baron: Chao is frequently distinguished from her Alternate Self counterparts by using the designation "Timesnatcher" to refer to the original version of Chao who has gone through the entire plot of Project: Arashi and now goes around doing whatever it is she does. It's considered a Godzilla Threshold whenever another setting or game is threatened to have the Timesnatcher sicced on it.
- Robo Cam: Her optical implants give her the effect of this.
- Self-Made Orphan: It's not explicitly stated, but very heavily-implied that the man and woman killed in the Martian shanty in the first chapter of The Timesnatcher are Chao's own birth parents, and her mother died by her very own hand.
- Stable Time Loop: Chao, having traveled back in time from the year 2552, used the UNSC's smart AI program as the basis for Chachamaru. When she finally comes back to the future she left behind, it occurs to her that the UNSC had then used Chachamaru as the prototype for their smart AIs.
- Time Master: Her unique ability, powered by a complex manipulation system controlled by a UNSC smart AI during her time in the 21st century, and as of the time frame of The Unsung War, she states that she no longer uses the Cassiopeia to achieve her Time Travel effects.
- Took a Level in Badass: During the Mages vs. Mars event, Chao's use of Time Travel depended on the Cassiopeia installed in her armor, controlled by a smart AI. Once the unit was destroyed, she could no longer do the "Temporal Two-Step". She then revealed her secret magic potential, powered by tattooed spell sigils and locked to prevent use or detection. Once her sigils were destroyed, she was rendered unable to cast. Fast forward to The Unsung War, where it was shown early that she still has magic power and she specifically stated she no longer needs a Cassiopeia.
- Voice with an Internet Connection: Her battle armor comes with a built-in smart AI that controls the Attack Drones and handles all the mathematical calculations for proper usage of the Timey-Wimey Ball.
Shinobu Maehara
Domestic engineer extraordinaire, the beginning of the Heroes storyline and the gaining of new powers has given Shinobu the one thing she has always so desperately needed: some confidence. Being the one whose main purpose it is to keep your friends alive will have that affect. Beating a more experienced mage in a fight also helps.
- Aura Vision: Shinobu's unique ability, to sort of make up for being one of three potential team healers, is that she's the only one capable of seeing the auras of people, which allows her to spot the white aura of other Chosen Heroes. While it also likely functions as a generic Scan ability ala Final Fantasy VIII, it hasn't been used that way yet.
- Barrier Maiden: Protective magic shields on her allies to mitigate and, occasionally, completely negate damage is one of Shinobu's signature moves.
- Beware the Nice Ones: She begged and pleaded for Mei not to fight, but when push came to shove, she damn near killed the girl with a cast-iron stir-fry skillet traveling at full swing.
- Chef of Iron: Combine the tradition of a White Mage using a bludgeoning-type weapon with Shinobu as the Team Chef, and the result is her breaking skulls with a 14-inch cast-iron stir-fry skillet.
- Frying Pan of Doom: She uses cooking implements like maces, and swings them like baseball bats.
- White Magician Girl: Shinobu's heroic class, allowing her to serve as the primary healer and buffer for the team.
Evangeline Athanasia Katherine McDowell/Yukihime
An immortal high daylight walker, Evangeline was initially reluctant to join the Kuro crew when it was discovered that she possessed a Chosen aura, citing that she had no tolerance for children playing at heroes. She eventually came around, however, and took to her calling with great relish. Such to the fact that, over five hundred years after the Unification, she still serves a heroic calling as the commander of an ODST battalion and captain of the supercarrier UNSC Yamato, all of which she has done to preserve the bloodline of notable mage families and see to the survival of the human race. By the time of the Future Era, she rarely engages in personal combat herself, but given who and what she is, the bad guys probably consider that a good thing.
- Canon Welding: Including the use of the pseudonym that Evangeline used in UQ Holder! is this, taking advantage of the fact that UQ is canonically an alternate continuity from the "Good Ending" of Negima—which Project: Arashi largely follows—to bring aboard some utility pieces from UQ while discarding as much of the rest as possible.
- Character Development: Her sass towards her friends is nearly the only way that "Evangeline" from the early Mahora chapters of Kuro Arashi resembles "Colonel Yukihime" in The Unsung War, having gone from a petulant immortal brat only interested in her own desires to a well-respected combat commander looking to preserve not just humanity as a species, but magic as a culture as well.
- Doting Parent: Evangeline actually falls into this one. For seven and a half chapters she's the walking badass that everyone knows and loves. And then the second she realizes that one of the Spartans that just joined her motley crew is her adopted daughter, she does such a complete one-eighty of her personality that someone could get whiplash.
- Gamer Chick: Same as implied in the original Negima, but judging by a remark Chachamaru made during Mahorafest, she plays Halo as well.
- Her Story Repeats Itself: What prompted Evangeline to adopt Lucy from the ruins of her home on Jericho VII. As Chachamaru explains it, "she saw in that child a reflection of her own dark and troubled past, and maternal instinct compelled her to protect the child from having the same fate befall her."
- Mama Bear: Evangeline is not at all pleased at the fact that ONI sent her adopted daughter, Lucy-B091, on a suicide mission that she only survived due to having been raised by the fricken Dark Evangel, which left her mute for life. Previously, we had the notion that Evangeline's revenge against ONI was going to be carried out very professionally. Now? Not so much...
- Mission Control: Evangeline largely served this role in the Liberation of Mahora, directing the entire theater of combat from her ship rather than getting down in it herself.
- Refusal of the Call: Initially. But she comes around in a big way, to the point of essentially being the Big Good of the Future Era.
- Who Wants to Live Forever?: Averted in Project Arashi. Many of her friends and comrades of supernatural stock are still alive in the Future Era, and she created a magic recreation of Mahora in its prime that is occupied by near-perfect magical recreations of those who are not still alive. Further, in the five hundred years since the events of Kuro Arashi, she has had plenty to focus on with the looming war of survival against the Covenant.
Hiroyuki Murakami
A high school student and head of the Sojutsu club at Mahora, Hiroyuki is the cousin of Natsumi Murakami. Though he outwardly exhibits every negative personality trait of Japanese Delinquents, he manages to make up for it by being an earnestly well-meaning individual who is always out to make the lives of everyone around him better and brighter. But let's face it, he still manages to piss off practically everyone he meets. As a member of the Kuro crew, he wields his family's ancestral naginata, named Yuriko, as an instrument of pure force and power.
- Insane Troll Logic: How Hiroyuki's brain functions.
- The Lancer: Literally, since his weapon is of the lance variety. He can also be viewed as a foil to Supporting Protagonist Seno.
- Remember the New Guy?: Several of 3-A recognize him at a distance as Natsumi's cousin, and the character's name was chosen carefully to coincide with "Chiu Fan Hiro," one of the random bloggers on Chisame's weblog.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Called out by Motoko following the challenge at the kendo showcase during the first day of Mahorafest after he deliberately provoked Setsuna and then fought unfairly in a challenge match. Konoka, also, called him out on his behavior before the fight even started.
Seno Nakagami
The POV character of Kuro Arashi, Seno is a laid back pop culture enthusiast who happens to know his way around a sword. He was formally trained in Shinmei-ryū for several years during his youth, but tends to really make things up as he goes these days, and is almost pathologically-opposed to fighting fairly. His personality is ridiculously Westernized thanks to his mother being American and having spent his high school years there. His being sick and tired of the Will They or Won't They? dynamic of Keitaro and Naru kicked off the entire series.
- Ancestral Weapon: A full daisho, katana and wakizashi, handed down over many, many generations, dating from before the Warring States era of Japan.
- Attack! Attack! Attack!: Seno is a fully-offensive character. Whenever he's forced to defend, he tends to lose. Case in point in both duels against the Aoyama sisters. He stayed on the offensive against Takane, even without his weapons, and won in the end.
- Big Brother Instinct: Despite having just recently been made aware that Setsuna is his sister-in-law, Seno's strong feelings toward family make it a Foregone Conclusion that he could slip into Knight Templar Big Brother territory without much of a push.
- Combat Pragmatist: Invoked by Seno. He's said that the only reason he consistently beats Motoko in spars or duels is because he won't fight fairly, and that she'd wipe the floor with him in a fair fight. As demonstrated by their duel to the death, in which he fought not only fairly, but defensively.
- Contractual Genre Blindness: Conversed (with himself) in chapter 6, but played straight in several other situations.
- Empathic Weapon: For the first dozen or so chapters, Seno's sword was obviously magical in nature since it physically reacted to certain stimuli, to include cracking, weeping, glowing brilliantly, or outright breaking. He reveals midway through the prequel that his sword, and the wakizashi that completes his family's daisho, both house the souls of ancient and powerful warriors.
- Exposition Fairy: Conversed in chapter 9.
- Eyepatch of Power: Obligatory inclusion with the Masamune Date costume at Mages vs. Mars.
- Genre Savvy: One of the easiest ways to describe Seno.
- I Know Mortal Kombat: Seno has claimed that his skill at swordplay was self-taught using what he'd seen in anime and video games, and this was supported by his set of special skills at the time. Of course, it all turned out to be bad selective memory...
- In-Series Nickname: It took Seno twenty-two chapters to finally be pegged with the 'Dragon of Hinata' nickname he's been credited with in all related media. Too bad he hasn't done anything to get that nickname feared. Yet.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: Type 1. When Seno arrived at the Hinata, he clearly stated to everyone that his talent with the sword was entirely self-taught. The fact that he could only defeat Motoko in training spars by fighting dirty seemed to support that he had no formal education. After demonstrating the ability to manipulate ki, this was called into question, but it wasn't until he was shown irrefutable proof by Tsuruko that he accepted that he had been formally trained in Shinmei-ryū. He forgot about his training as a result of the trauma of being forcibly separated from Motoko when he was removed from the school as a child.
- Mindlink Mates: Has a mild form of this with Motoko because of their soul bond. They can't share thoughts, but they are aware of each others' location with more precision than GPS and can sense each others' emotional state.
- No Fourth Wall: Seno has gone here on occasion, but his attacks on the fourth wall are always relegated to one-off jokes and never actually affect the plot.
- Precision F-Strike: He has dropped several F-bombs throughout the stories, but they're typically well-aimed and one-off.
- Red String of Fate: Played straight with Motoko.
- Reincarnation Romance: Seno, with Motoko. Outright stated on a few occasions. At least one set of past lives for them had a Downer Ending as a direct result of being Star-Crossed Lovers. At least that time. Technically, they were this time as well, but Mutsumi was on hand with a Phoenix Down.
- Supporting Protagonist: He claims that it's still the story of Keitaro and Naru, but he's not really fooling anyone.
- Walking Techbane: Despite having full working mechanical knowledge of many types of firearms, put one in his hand and the odds are fifty/fifty it'll either spontaneously explode or just fall apart.
Masaru Nanjou
A junior high student at Mahora, Masaru specializes in what he refers to as "Conceptual Magic," as described below. The son of a wealthy CEO, Masaru does not want for money, and unlike most rich kids he possesses a strong sense of discipline and honor, and usually refuses to go outside the law or rules. Because of this, many times he's content to sit on the sidelines and watch the more wild members of the Kuro crew get themselves into trouble.
- Insufferable Genius: It may be just a facade, but he's damn good at appearing this way.
- Summon Magic: Masaru can literally create any item or person he's studied before, to include movable parts, if he has enough mana to generate and sustain the item.
Naru Narusegawa/Urashima
A major character in Project: Arashi, Naru has, thus far, leveled up the most amongst the Kuro crew, going from a bog-standard college student with one special ability to a wing-bearing, holy power-wielding warrior of God. Her outward personality hasn't changed a significant degree from what was established at the outset of the main story, save for a few scenes which have played up her new divinity. Her activities and the name she was referred to by in The Unsung War confirms that she eventually marries Keitaro, and has been what amounts to God's highest warrior for five hundred years, and will possibly maintain that role either until something manages to kill her, or Judgment Day comes.
- Angel Unaware: Her distrust in men and anger management issues caused her to lose her celestial power, ability, and even memory of such.
- The Atoner: She had to have done something terrible in order to get saddled with the Arbiter job, though whatever it was hasn't happened yet in Kuro Arashi, is never brought up in The Unsung War, and given her attitude in that appearance, her atonement has long since happened.
- Death Seeker: Her title, as she gives it in The Unsung War, is "Arbiter" (intentional parallel to the other one) and she states she's held this title since the events of Kuro Arashi, though the specifics haven't happened yet. The nature of this trope, that being that she technically is one, was lampshaded when she discussed it with Johnathan.
- Half-Human Hybrid: Human mother, celestial father.
- Laser Blade: Naru's primary weapons so far tend toward producing blades of pure energy from her hand, in a similar vein to that which Evangeline does. It's implied that Naru's are of holy power.
- Meteor Move: Her Megaton Punch has been upgraded to this, given her new ridiculous boost in speed and power.
- Power Gives You Wings: Or rather, the inverse; her wings gave her power. After her angelic power awakened, she took her place firmly as a frontline combatant of the Kuro crew and is significantly faster and more powerful than the one-trick-pony college wannabe that she started the series as.
- The Power of Friendship: Word-for-word stated as being the reason she didn't die in the line of her Arbiter duties being that she had the support and assistance of the rest of the Kuro crew during the Unification War.
- Shout-Out: Her significant power increase was inspired by seeing the same happen to Rinoa in Monty Oum's hands. This was taken to its logical conclusion at Mages vs. Mars, where her costume was, in fact, Rinoa.
- Sink or Swim Mentor: A throwaway line in The Unsung War shows that she pulled no punches when she was training Johnathan to fight the Covenant. It was mentioned that during one training session she completely severed one of his arms.
Mutsumi Otohime
Already mysterious enough in Love Hina, Mutsumi has shown in Project: Arashi that she is responsible for overseeing the safety of the entire world. Presumably this only applies to supernatural threats that pose an existential threat to the planet itself, as she doesn't even seem to take notice of things like The War on Terror, North Korea, et al that are merely threats against the human species. She is one of three such guardians, of which practically nothing about the other three has been told. The joking similarity to Final Fantasy's Aerith was taken to its logical conclusion, as she dresses similarly, wields a similar weapon, and even has used Great Gospel.
- The Face: She is the most public one of the individuals known as the Three Guardians. Almost no other information has been given about the other two, except that one is referred to as "The Captain", and the last apparently likes to dabble in magic societies.
- Mystical Waif: She is the Yochi no Kouken, or the World Guardian, whose job is to protect the planet from overtly-harmful forces. She can use the powers of the Lifestream to heal wounds, learn about any given person, or even bring back the dead (with some celestial assistance), and is the spiritual and technical 'leader' of the Chosen Heroes.
- White Magic: Of the 'gifted from the Lifestream' manner. She has a wider array of support-type magic and is an emergency healer.
Kaolla Su
The tech-head of the Kuro crew, not much has changed for Kaolla, except that her machines now generally do what they're supposed to do instead of combusting at the slightest provocation. The presence of Nealla as a balancing agent for her personality has greatly reduced the property damage that the Hinata receives, but she still flies off the handle and goes wild in battle. Somewhat-alarmingly, many of her recent creations have begun to resemble highly-futuristic alien technology.
- Identical Stranger: When Nealla is acting as her body double, the two are completely identical, down to attitude and mannerisms. Otherwise, Nealla generally tends to look more like Kaolla's adult form, but still distinct enough not to be easily mistaken.
- Magitek: Given the wide array of weapons and inventions she makes with otherwise unexplainable power sources, this is the advancement that her heroic ability has given her. So far, though, she mainly seems to stick to using her previously-established weapons, primarily the arm/leg micro-missile packs.
Haruka Urashima
Haruka still remains largely aloof to the goings-on of the tenants of the Hinata, though she now at least actively participates when they get into battles, and is unquestionably the most tactful of the crew. She also has more general knowledge of the magic societies than anyone save Lorenzo or Sabashii, given her wide adventuring in her youth with Seta.
- The Leader: She seems to more or less be the spokesperson of the Kuro crew, when a spokesperson with a modicum of class is required, rather than one likely to respond with random acts of violence or shenanigans.
- Status Effects: After a long period of being unsure exactly what to have Haruka do, especially given she's one of three (sometimes more) gun users, she was finally settled in as the team's debuffer, using a cross-section of status effects from across the Final Fantasy series, which the author feels to be the most full and complete list.
Keitaro Urashima
The alleged main character, Keitaro is as of yet still the eternal Butt-Monkey. Though the UST with Naru has been (forcefully, at swordpoint) resolved, he was still a Non-Action Guy in the one major engagement that the crew participated in before he left on his trip to America. For those keeping score, he hasn't been seen for ten full chapters and that isn't changing anytime soon.
- Power Copying: Said to be Keitaro's Heroic job class. Given that he's known, in the Love Hina manga, to learn attacks by suffering them and even lampshaded it to Motoko once, this was a Foregone Conclusion.
Nanao Yuzuki
The group's bard, Nanao is the lead vocalist and a guitarist for the small-time rock band Velvet Firefly in Mahora that specializes in covers. Unfortunately, being introduced very recently means that she hasn't had much screen time yet, but her introduction shows that she has a lovely singing voice.
- Captain Ersatz: A running gag between several of the creators in Project: Arashi is that Nanao is this to Nana Mizuki due to the similarity of their names and the fact that they're both singers. In the oft-discussed dream team for any Project: Arashi video game or anime, Nana Mizuki is the obvious choice to voice Nanao.
- Gamer Chick: Equal skill level as Seno in Halo, and prefers close-range weapons, primarily the gravity hammer.
- Musical Assassin: Nanao's Heroic class (Bard) lets her empower her allies and debilitate her foes, a power which extends by proxy to the rest of her band, and she herself is capable of projecting waves of pure sound from her guitar to stun an enemy. And her guitar has a hardened edge that allows her to use it as a bludgeoning weapon.
- The Power of Rock: Put on display at the climax of Mages vs. Mars, with her and her band performing the Dragonforce hit "Revolution Deathsquad" to great effect in empowering their allies and stymying the droids.
Chachamaru Karakuri
The pinnacle of Chao's robotics research programs, Chachamaru is the prototype for the human-replica combat androids intended to go toe-to-toe with large Covenant ground forces and defeat them in battle. Judging by what's become of Chachamaru in canon Negima! Magister Negi Magi, Chao's intentions have Gone Horribly Right. As an experiment, Chao left the learning and personality circuits alone in Chachamaru. Because of this, Chachamaru is more human than some actual people are. As part of a deal with Evangeline, Chao and Satomi provide continuous upgrades of both an aesthetic and combat nature to Chachamaru, resulting in her being significantly more combat-capable than the mass-production units. In the far distant future of The Unsung War, Chachamaru is the shipboard AI on Evangeline's ship, the UNSC Yamato. What has become of her body over 500 years is not yet known.
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Thoroughly averted. The fact that Chachamaru is still perfectly functional and sane after 500 years of operation is due to the magic used in conjunction with the UNSC systems and the fact that she gained a soul with Ala Alba. UNSC smart AIs still suffer rampancy because they have no means of reproducing this.
- Projected Man: While serving as the AI of the UNSC Yamato, Chachamaru interacts with the crew in the same way that any other smart AI under service of the USNC does. Her avatar typically is shown in a UNSC uniform, but occasionally—usually in private conferences with those from the past—she projects herself wearing a Mahora uniform. Those who don't know her wouldn't even know she's more than she appears to be.
- Servile Snarker: She's maintained this tendency from the modern to the future era, and doesn't hesitate to sass anyone who leaves themselves open for her to do so.
- Super Prototype: Chachamaru was the first of Chao's "human replicant" series of combat androids, and was loaded up with tons of bells and whistles that the mass-production units never received, such as the Swiss-Army Appendage, continuous appearance upgrades, and the correct combination of programming and magic to create her personality and, later, her soul.
Setsuna Sakurazaki (Aoyama)
An albino half-crow demon, and thus doubly cursed by her non-human family, Setsuna was taken in by the Shinmei-ryū and even adopted into the Aoyama clan. Her albinism and her non-human half have been a sore point with her for most of her life, but she's beginning to grow out of this due to the acceptance of her classmates and the influences of Motoko and Seno. As in Negima, her development somewhat mirrors that of Motoko, but she also has more of a deeply-buried playful streak from the outset, as proven when she can go from being respectful and solemn to Motoko and in the same breath turn and insult many of Seno's personality traits.
- Generation Xerox: Many of her interactions with Motoko and Seno mirror those of Motoko to Tsuruko, even down to using the archaic honorific aneue to refer to Motoko. Departing from the norm, she seems to look up more to Seno than Motoko, but that was lampshaded in a conversation between Seno and Motoko that it was due to him being the only strong (older) male figure in her life other than Eishun, who hadn't demonstrated any sort of ability at that point.
- Of course, the actual reason was due to the fact that Seno and Setsuna both had players while Motoko has until recently been an NPC.
- Sugar-and-Ice Personality: On top of the aspects of her personality seen in Negima, Setsuna is at once highly formal when speaking to Motoko, but far more relaxed when talking to Seno. She's begun softening her formality toward Motoko after becoming aware of how un-formal Motoko herself has become; Konoka hopes that this sticks.
- Transparent Closet: She fully accepts the fact that she is gay for Konoka, but still Cannot Spit It Out.
Kawakami Gensai
A resentful spirit clinging to the living world, Gensai is a relic of the Edo period. Having once been renowned as a hitokiri, an assassin, Gensai resisted the Westernization of Japan. His efforts amounted to little, and he was eventually imprisoned and then executed for his actions. His great anger at what he viewed as the 'prostitution of Japanese culture' resulted in his spirit remaining beyond death. He has since watched the development of Japanese history, growing progressively more hate-filled and angry as the years passed, before finally regaining sufficient spiritual strength in the modern era to begin his revenge.
- Body Snatcher: Gensai's modus operandi, able to possess living beings and act through them. Before his release, this was how he regained his power as well: He would bind his soul to a person and discreetly ride-along throughout their lives, siphoning away bits and pieces of their life force to restore his own power. He often usually arranged fatal accidents for these individuals as well once he was ready to move to his next host.
- The Dragon
- Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: Fully cementing that Gensai is an irredeemable asshat. Further underscored by the fact that he had nothing against Motoko at all, especially since she fit his ideal of a non-Westernized Japan. He raped her solely to take a shot at Seno, who is highly-Westernized, whose body he's been cohabiting with since the boy was born.
- Very Loosely Based on a True Story: After the famous manslayer of the same name who resisted the Westernization of Japan.
Namusan Sapou
The leader of the djinn, the first sentient race created by God to determine whether or not the Earth could support intelligent life. After fulfilling their appointed task of cultivating the Earth, the djinn were rewarded by God with a paradise to call all their own, that could only be entered by one very obscure location on Earth. This was insufficient for Namusan. Jealous with rage over the djinn spending centuries making Earth habitable, only for the fruits of their labors to be turned over to humans, God's chosen, Namusan led his people in rebellion against God. After centuries more of war, he was finally sealed beneath the desert of MolMol, there to remain until Judgment Day. All that time in the cooler has done nothing to change his attitude in any way.
- Animal Motifs: Turtles. Turtle-plate armor, turtle skin on his sword hilt, and snapping turtle heads for shoulder plates.
- Big Bad
- Immortality: The reason why the war went until he was sealed away, there to remain until Judgment Day, was because he literally could not be killed by any means Heaven had to throw at him. This is also why it took him all of thirty seconds to get back up after the proto-Kuro crew walloped him at Pararakelse Island.
- Rage Against the Heavens: He's still pissed and holds it against God that the djinni (his people) busted their asses to make Earth livable, only to have the Earth then given to humans, God's chosen creation. Apparently, the fact that his people were given their own personal paradise that couldn't be reached by humans or demons wasn't enough of a compensation for him.
- Satanic Archetype: Very much resembles this, being a formerly-exalted figure that rebelled against the will of God. However, it's implied that Namusan led his rebellion before Lucifer did, and mayhaps even gave the latter the idea that it was possible to fight against God's will.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: Had been sealed in crystal beneath the deserts of MolMol for an untold number of years before he was released by Gensai and promptly became the greatest threat in the story.
Yuuna Akashi
Stepping out of the background of Negima's numerous characters, Yuuna's character has been drastically-altered in Project: Arashi. In the early stages of Mahorafest, it was decided to add her to a background assembly of Halo fans who cosplay for a one-off scene due to her being a military buff in the second anime season. On a lark, it was decided to make her cosplay ODST rather than standard Marine, and give her a squad of Marines to fight with at Mages vs. Mars, this eventually evolving into Cleric Team. Interestingly, Yuuna and her squad were the first to step out of Project: Arashi in any significant manner, guest-starring in a Karin fanfiction that allowed a great deal of characterization and future plot developments to be tested before being put back into Project: Arashi.
- Adaptational Sexuality: With one of her characterization traits in Negima being a little too big an obsession with her father, this has been casually dumped into a black hole in favor of Yuuna being a lesbian in Project: Arashi.
- A Mother to Her Men: Said to be the reason why a bunch of university+ level people (including one with actual military experience) are willing to follow a 16-year old in combat.
- This was paid out in its fullest after Mages vs. Mars, when her entire fireteam stepped in between her and her father without hesitation when the latter stated his intent to erase her memory.
- Beta Couple: With Hotaru.
- Genki Girl: ...Often times she's just too hyperactive to make much strategy beyond "Put lots of bullets into them until they fall over."
- Guns Akimbo: Her primary combat style, even though she has an alarming tendency to lose one or the other in a battle.
- Instant Cosplay Surprise: The surprise part comes in with her ODST armor being completely functional.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: Forcibly-inflicted against her by Negi following her brief participation in the kidnapping of Konoka, due to the wishes of her father, and nearly a second time after Mages vs. Mars. The actions and words of the other members of Cleric Team and Hotaru convinced her father to let her be.
- Playing with Fire: Stated by Word of God to be her magic specialty, once she actually starts learning magic.
- Plucky Girl: Yuuna refuses to stand down from any perceived challenge, even, and especially, if she's grossly outclassed.
- Rousing Speech: She delivers one in the climax of the Mages vs. Mars event that completely reverses the defeatist attitude that the defenders had just moments ago.
- Sergeant Rock: She holds a rank equivalent to Master Gunnery Sergeant in Cleric Team, and leads the special forces team.
- The Strategist: As she's shown in both her sidestory and at Mages vs. Mars, she's a very good tactician at the small-unit tactical level, which befits her leading Cleric Team. See above, however...
- Weirdness Censor: She doesn't have one. Her response to seeing the summoned golems was basically, "Well, don't see that every day. Now how can I kill it with the contents of a travel bag?"
- Xanatos Speed Chess: Her plan against the droids for the final battle of Mages vs. Mars approaches this. She set her plan in motion, then when the droids responded, she picked the third of an unknown number of potential responses to that, then had new adjustments lined up for everything they did from that point on. One could almost see her making the Gendo pose.
Sean Hartley
An American exchange student attending college at Mahora University, Hartley is one of the thousands of students involved in Mahora's Military Enthusiasts Club. Also an avid gamer, he participates in the joint excursion run with the Electronic Gaming Club, which is a Halo cosplay group and competition airsoft club, known as Fireteam Charlie. For a brief time, he led the small squad that would soon become Cleric Team, before leadership would fall to Yuuna Akashi. Despite being replaced by a junior high student as leader, Hartley had no problem with this, as he didn't care for leadership much. He has since taken up the role of Yuuna's second-in-command, something he's far more comfortable with.
- Friendly Sniper: He's Cleric Team's best sniper, and their friendliest member.
- Number Two: Typically handles a lot of the more military affairs so that Yuuna can be Yuuna.
Hotaru Kobayashi
Originally your average junior high student, Hotaru got swept up into a larger world because she just happened to be going for a snack on a field trip at the wrong time. After playing a key role in thwarting the first attempt to kidnap Konoka at Kyoto, Hotaru started to get involved more in the antics of Class 3-A, mostly through the lens of hitting on Yuuna. During the Mages vs. Mars event, she inadvertently made a pactio with the gunslinger girl and was essentially unofficially adopted by Cleric Team on the spot.
- Animal Motif: Fireflies feature heavily in her symbolism, and her artifact grants her an endless swarm of semi-sentient fireflies that she can guide with her mind.
- Battle Couple: Has become this with Yuuna.
- The Heart: After the heartfelt speech she delivered to Yuuna's father to prevent a memory wipe, it's clear that she serves this purpose to Cleric Team, even if she's not technically a member of the group.
- Tagalong Kid: Doesn't have enough of an interest in Halo (that interest beginning and ending with Yuuna) to join Fireteam Charlie, but the fact that she's never far from Cleric Team means that she's considered one of them by association. Hartley at one point mused that she was one of them in all but name.
Itsuki Rakuso
An early assault prototype combat android from Chao, Itsuki is the thirteenth and final effort of making an overwhelmingly-powerful direct assault unit to engage the Covenant. After experimenting with several wild and varied forms, Chao made Itsuki a humanoid machine simply because it was the only one that didn't fail spectacularly. A bit of a subversion of the Robotic Psychopath and A.I. Is a Crapshoot tropes, Itsuki is unquestionably violent to the extreme and categorizes as 'evil' pretty easily, but shows no interest in killing humans, only the enemies he is directed at by Chao, and unfailingly follows her orders. Due to his programmed personality, he spends the majority of his scenes Chewing the Scenery in a hilarious manner and speaks so that he prefaces his sentences with English grammar conventions.
- Blade Below the Shoulder: His forearms contain plasma emitters that can be modulated to form either twin plasma swords identical in form and function to the Covenant's energy swords, or a pair of plasma whips ala Whiplash.
- Foreshadowing: From a chronological and in-universe standpoint, every time he mentions fire in reference to Chao is this, because at that point in the main story, nobody was aware of her magic ability.
- Large Ham: Pretty standard fare for any character created by Alex. Chao actually takes advantage of this, by creating a "droid supreme commander" role in Mages vs. Mars for Itsuki to fill, allowing him to act out his hamtastic tendencies and keep the enemy equal parts frustrated and overwhelmed.
- Meaningful Name / Fun with Acronyms: His given name stems from his official project designation, Intelligent Target Silencing Unit
- Metaphorgotten: Because of Chao and her Playing with Fire tendencies, Itsuki throws out a lot of fire metaphors when he's Chewing the Scenery, despite his abilities (being able to absorb electrical attacks and then release electrical bursts later) being more in line with Shock and Awe than anything else.
- Nonlethal Warfare: Like the rest of Chao's forces at Mages vs. Mars, Itsuki adjusted his weapons and abilities so as not to kill anyone. When facing off against proper mages, he revokes his non-lethality just so he can fight more capably against them. He creatively interpreted Chao's orders to remove Yuuna from the playing field to allow lethal force, even though she'd just (re-)learned about magic no more than ten minutes prior.
- Ridiculously Human Robot: Less so than Chachamaru, as Itsuki was designed purely for combat, and it just so happened that after twelve failures, the most humanoid frame was the one that actually succeeded. However, Itsuki also makes no attempt to disguise himself as human, with visible metal parts and a synthflesh covering that is half-assed at best.
- Robotic Psychopath: Like his spiritual ancestor, Itsuki disdainfully refers to all organic lifeforms, with the notable exception of his creator, Chao, as meatbags.
- Super Prototype: As the only success to come out of Chao's first robotics programs, many of the lessons learned from the ITSU program went into the successful creation of Chachamaru.
- Verbal Tic: Itsuki prefixes most of his dialogue with the appropriate English grammar conventions, just like HK-47. The reason he does this is because a random power hiccup occurred while Chao was programming his personality in one window, and playing Knights of the Old Republic in another. The two sets of programming were irrevocably intermingled.
Lorenzo Ruiz
A former CIA agent assigned by America's Arlington Magic Society to estimate the potential threat to the US of the Kuro crew, he infiltrated the Hinata as a gardener before he was eventually found out by the crew. After a tense discussion, he briefly joined the crew, providing long range fire support. However, he demonstrated stupidly-overpowered tactical skill as the commander of the "Fireteam Charlie" defenders at Mages vs. Mars, with his assigned defense point accounting for over fifty percent of the enemy casualties, alone. Because of this, he has found his true calling as leader of that force.
- Abnormal Ammo: Always seems to be using a unique ammunition type, ranging from the electrified chalk rounds he used in his spar against Mana, to sniper rounds imbued with magic spells that he can also channel ki through.
- Asskicking Leads to Leadership: Anyone who had any doubts of his ability as the commander of a large paramilitary force need only look as far as the valiant defense of the Viertel Am See area of Mahora during Mages vs. Mars.
- Bottomless Magazines: The Arlington Magic Society for which he works holds the monopoly on weaponized Hammerspace for use in storing ammunition for guns.
- Gun Kata: One of his signature styles, as the Arma Salto fighting style used by the AMS inspired the movie's version. His skill is such that he was able to fight local gunslinger legend, Mana Tatsumiya, to a draw.
- Mauve Shirt: Self-proclaimed to be this, no matter how much his creator thinks he's a Red Shirt.
- The Captain: Proof that he is a deadly opponent when in his comfort zone, Lorenzo commanded the defense against Chao's droid forces at the Viertel Am See plaza. Having personally orchestrated the strategy used there, his forces were responsible for the ludicrously-high kill count and only lost because Chao really threw the heavy end of the hammer at them in terms of forces.
- The Gunslinger: His primary skillset. He's a flexible one, at that, capable of getting into the thick of melee combat using Arma Salto even though he prefers to be a long-ranged sniper type with his specially-modified M14.
Stromric
A cherubic-class angel, Stromric is but one of, according to him, a multitude of the angelic host who live and walk among the people of Earth (and, presumably, other inhabited worlds in the cosmos) to keep tabs on things that are going on and to perform directives either from the Council of Angels or from The One Above All. His initial tasking was simply to monitor the mage societies in Japan, but after a certain incident in Kyoto, he became tasked as a guardian angel for Yuuna.
- Always Someone Better: Invokes this in regards to Yuuna. He actively strives to surpass and one-up every feat she achieves.
- Guardian Entity: To Yuuna. While he executes this duty faithfully and is often nearby whenever she's engaging in potentially life-threatening activity, he does bear a bit of a petulant grudge for costing him his (Earthly) job in Kyoto and thereafter being assigned as her guardian angel. He gets back at her by continually one-upping her.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He readily admits that the reason he constantly one-ups Yuuna is out of petty spite and that it's not particularly nice of him. However, his actions actually work to push Yuuna to improve herself, given her competitive spirit.
- Only One Name: As a full-blooded angel, Stromic only has his given name.
- Our Angels Are Different: Fully capable of the range of human emotions—notably including pettiness—and lacking the normal naming convention of angels, but otherwise Stromric does fall into the standard Christian categorization system.
- Sink or Swim Mentor: To Yuuna.
Alysia Fei
Squad leader, Alpha-Six-One
The leader of the protagonist squad of ODSTs, Alysia can trace her ancestry back to the legendary Ala Alba hero Ku Fei. A long-time veteran of the UNSC, she has seen battle against the Covenant on half a dozen worlds, first as a Marine and then as an Orbital Drop Shock Trooper. Despite the massacres she has seen, she has not lost her strong desire to stand in defense of those who cannot defend themselves. As the leader of 3/A-6, her main concern is the safety and well-being of those under her command; given the misfits she's been assigned, she's got her work cut out for her.
- Comes Great Responsibility: Alysia's beliefs regarding the supernatural powers and abilities possessed by herself and her comrades, as instilled by her grandfather to assuage her fear of the Covenant. The elder martial artist told her that it is the duty of the strong to protect the weak against predators, and she has lived by those words ever since.
- Cute Bruiser: Identical descendant of Ku Fei, and also personally trained by a magical recreation of the very same, Alysia is the most competent purely-physical character in The Unsung War. In the pseudo-sequel, The Timesnatcher, when a UNSC scientist favorably compares her against a Spartan by saying she doesn't just pummel her opponents to death, she simply smiles and chooses not to inform him that she typically does exactly that.
- Doomed Hometown: Born on Draco III, which was destroyed by Covenant forces.
- False Reassurance: In The Timesnatcher, Doctor Haverton comments that he thinks Alysia—an ODST—better than a Spartan because the lack of super-strength and powered armor means she has to engage tactically instead of just beating her foes to death. Since he apparently doesn't know her ancestor, she just smiles and lets him keep his delusion.
- Identical Descendant: She is the spitting image of Ku Fei, much to Chao's chagrin.
- Sergeant Rock: Her role and rank in The Unsung War.
- Officer and a Gentleman: As of The Timesnatcher, she's been promoted to commander of Alpha Company of the Mage Knights, but she still personally leads Three-Alpha-Six.
Johnathan Kasuga
Heavy weapons, Alpha-Six-Two
Something of a self-made success story, Johnathan grew up in the gangland territories of Old Los Angeles. Despite numerous attempts by the local gangs to recruit him, he refused to be a street thug. Unfortunately, his constant refusals prompted the gangs to perform a revenge killing against his family. After recovering, he took his father's old MA-series assault rifle and dispensed street justice upon all the gang members involved. Following this, he was picked up by the police and quietly handed over to the UNSC Marine Corps. He spent five years on the surface of Harvest attempting to secure the planet from Covenant invaders, and then was relieved and transferred to instructor status, only to again encounter the Covenant when they invaded his duty station on Draco III. Afterwards, he transferred to the ODSTs and was picked up by Evangeline.
- The Big Guy: Has been mistaken for a Spartan on numerous occasions.
- Let's Get Dangerous!: Generally, he's either in a good mood or, at worse, taking a situation at face value, but after defending Cheryl from a Covenant attack to interrupt her spell, he suddenly became deadly serious and started taking out the aliens in droves.
- Sole Survivor: Has happened to him twice, first at Harvest and then again at Draco III. Both times, he survived by killing every enemy in the immediate area and then hiding amongst the dead when enemy reinforcements arrived.
- Swiss-Army Weapon: His pactio artifact has at least two functions, a shield that can stop any attack and a high-explosive cannon that looks like the 90mm cannon of a Scorpion stripped down to its important bits.
Kelly-082
Spartan-II Supersoldier
One of the first generation of Spartan-II supersoldiers created by Doctor Halsey, Kelly is a member of the legendary Blue Team. From the early stages of the Human-Covenant War, she fought alongside the Master Chief through some of the deadliest campaigns in the war, all the way up until being separated from him during the Fall of Reach. She, along with the rest of Blue Team (sans Chief) wound up with Doctor Halsey at Onyx, stumbling their way into a slipspace portal located there that delivered them to the southern hemisphere of Terras Magicus in the Forerunner-created parallel universe. Of the original Spartans, she is the only known one with a genetic link to heroes of olden times, more specifically Asuna Kagurazaka.
- Actor Allusion: By Word of God, the entire reason that Kelly has an in-universe ancestry to Asuna is that she was initially voiced by the same actress who voiced Asuna in Halo Legends.
- Badass Boast: "To the UNSC, I am Spartan-087. To the Covenant, a demon. You who wish to harm my allies, know my name as Kelly Kagurazaka, descendant of the Imperial Princess of Twilight, Asuna Kagurazaka, known and feared as the Slayer of Worlds. I stand before you as gatekeeper, inheritor of all she left behind. I am Mage, and you who deem yourselves holy... Look upon my power and despair."
- BFS: After awakening to her heritage in the middle of a pitched battle against the Covenant, she got full and unfettered access to Asuna's Ensis Exorcizans legendary weapon, first using its tremendous size to defend herself from a gravity hammer before killing that chieftain, and then chopping a hunter to bits with it.
- The Reveal: The fastest of the Spartan-II class is also the descendant of the Third Imperial Princess of Twilight, with all powers and abilities to match.
- You Shall Not Pass!: At the end of the battle in the Mahora Academy courtyard, with more Covenant reinforcements coming, Kelly told the others to get inside and retake the building while she stood off against the reinforcements. Alone. Mission Control listed the enemy force as six Phantoms (each can carry 20+ troops), one-hundred-plus infantry already on the ground, and a squadron (12) of Banshees. Even for a SPARTAN-II with the same kind of power that Asuna had, those odds are...
Lucy-B091
Spartan-III Supersoldier
Orphaned daughter of mages outspoken against the ONI censorship of magic, Lucy was adopted by Evangeline A.K. McDowell upon finding her in the Battle of Jericho VII. She was raised as a combat mage, benefiting from the near-millennium of experience Evangeline offered, and later chose to join the Spartan-III program in order to infiltrate the ranks of ONI. Turned into a disposable shock troop, Lucy befriended fellow S-III Tom, and the two managed to survive repeatedly missions that should have been suicidal. Their presence at Onyx led directly to Lucy being reunited with her adoptive mother in time to partake of the Liberation of Mahora.
- Doomed Hometown: Her homeworld, Jericho VII, was destroyed by the Covenant. During the battle, she was found and rescued by Evangeline.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Before and since becoming a Spartan, Lucy adopted the surname of the woman who adopted her after her parents were killed. That surname is McDowell.
Chihiro Murakami
Covenant tech expert, Alpha-Six-Six
Descendant of Hero Hiroyuki Murakami and Ala Alba member Chisame Hasegawa, Chihiro shares his distant grandfather's personality and his distant grandmother's skill with technology. Fluent in all the Covenant languages and extremely capable with their technology, sought numerous opportunities to engage the Covenant. Participating in Sigma Octanus IV, he aided in the defense of Alpha Base and scored a solo kill against a Hunter, and was evacuated to Earth at the end of the battle, where he participated in the later First Battle of Earth. Following that, he was pulled into Three-Alpha-Six during their mage training to round out the squad.
- Boisterous Bruiser: He's as tall as Johnathan and shares the attitude of his ancestor Hiroyuki, and his favorite method of operation is stealing Covenant things and hitting them with them, often literally.
- Grand Theft Prototype: His response to the threat of a Scarab in their area of operations was to steal the thing.
- Portmanteau Couple Name: His name is built from Chisame and Hiroyuki.
- Shipper on Deck: Overtly ships Johnathan/Cheryl, and less overtly Akio/Cynthia.
- Taking You with Me: When the Scarab he stole was destroyed by an enemy one, his final act was to defiantly fire the main cannon at the other Scarab with all remaining power rather than escape the exploding heavy weapons platform.
Cynthia Rivale
Sniper, Alpha-Six-Four
The Human-Covenant War has been deeply ingrained in Cynthia's life from the very beginning. Born on an evacuation shuttle fleeing the destruction of Harvest, she spent most of her early life as a struggling refugee, before lying about her age in order to enlist in the UNSC to relieve the burden on her parents. Her quiet, deliberate nature and unshakable patience marked her as a standout for marksman training, and since putting the standard-issue UNSC sniper rifle in her hand, it's as if she was born wielding the weapon. After participating in several campaigns in the middle of the war, she served for a time as a sniper instructor on Reach. She soon tired of that, and transferred into the ODSTs in time to participate in the First Battle of Earth. Afterwards, she was reassigned by Evangeline to fill the role of sniper in Three-Alpha-Six.
- Cold Sniper: Befitting her nature, she's the sniper of 3/A-6 and is generally distant and aloof from her squadmates, though it's been implied that she takes exception to harming her comrades, as she instantly sniped out the brute chieftain that tried to shoot down one of the A-10 pilots.
- Doomed Hometown: Technically considered a native of Harvest, she was born as the planet was being burned by the Covenant.
- Improbable Aiming Skills: Chao gave her an upgrade to her helmet optics that lets her bounce bullets off of hard cover to strike targets she can't see, just the way she could in her previous life. Further, the magic hologram of Mana taught her how to use Arma Salto, though she has yet to use that skill.
- Reincarnation: Introducing the new and improved Mana Tatsumiya, complete with total skepticism and dry wit. Unlike most instances of this trope, where Mana was a Japanese half-demon, Cynthia is fully-human and Irish.
Akio Sakurazaki
Swordsman, rifleman, Alpha-Six-Three
A native of the planet Mars, Akio has been a troublemaker for most of his adult life. In his youth, he was raised as a future heir of the Shinmei-ryū, but the more he learned of his heritage, the more he came to despise it. He began acting out in his teenage years, finding a knack for cyber intrusions. In doing so, he ran afoul of ONI, who gave him a choice: the Marines or jail for a very long time. He opted for the former, and continued to act out during the entirety of his training period. He still completed, however, and in his first deployment to Jericho VII, he saw little action, but found himself in battle. He began to request deployment to areas of high activity, including the Battle of Sigma Octanus IV, where he survived the Broken Arrow scenario of Firebase Bravo. Following this, he was recalled to Earth, cross-trained into the ODSTs, and placed within what would become Three-Alpha-Six. When he learned that his placement was due to his genealogy, he was not amused.
- Absurdly Sharp Blade: Enough so that Yuunagi can penetrate both the shielding and the plates of brute power armor.
- I Just Want to Be Normal: Akio has known about the history of magic, his own family lineage, and his demon heritage his entire life. And up until spending some time getting his face kicked in by every big name that has used the Shinmei-ryū style, he absolutely hated it and wanted nothing to do with it. He eventually decided to take his frustrations out on the Covenant instead.
- Infinity +1 Sword: Yuunagi, handed down from Setsuna. It's specifically noted that originally, nothing about Yuunagi was special outside of the special forging techniques used to create it. However, after being wielded by Setsuna, it became a potent weapon that gained power from every successive wielder, until now, 500 years later, it's every bit as powerful as the legendary weapons wielded by the Kuro crew.
- Winged Humanoid: Now that he's mostly come to terms with his heritage, he openly uses his supernatural abilities in combat, notably not touching his battle rifle during the battle in the Mahora Academy courtyard.
- You Are What You Hate: Racist against non-human species, and demi-humans even moreso. But he, himself, is a demi-human.
Cheryl Sasaki
Pilot/medic/mage, Alpha-Six-Five
The youngest and newest member of Three-Alpha-Six, Cheryl traces her ancestry back to Ala Alba gymnast Makie Sasaki, and that heritage is very visible. Growing up in the Lunar cities, she became famous in the Sol System for her unceasing dedication to the morale and well-being of UNSC military forces, and herself joined up after completing high school. She chose to become a Pelican pilot, and completed the training in record time thanks to her undersold intelligence. Surviving two tours of duty aboard the UNSC Spirit of Fire at the battles of Harvest and Arcadia, she was chosen for cross-training into the ODSTs and there became a combat medic—yet another field that holds a high degree of intelligence as a prerequisite. Her sole combat deployment, however, was as part of the doomed 105th Drop Jet Platoon at Jericho VII, where she alone survived the decimation of her entire unit. Fearing catastrophic PTSD, incompetent medics subjected her to cryofreezing, where she remained for the next seventeen years, until Evangeline reassigned her to the unit that would become Three-Alpha-Six.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Upon witnessing the Scarab that Chihiro stole being destroyed by another, she screamed her anger at the Covenant forces and then completely obliterated them with an S-class lightning spell.
- Despair Event Horizon: The combined trauma of being the only survivor of the 105th Drop Jet Platoon from the massacre on Jericho VII, being put on ice instead of properly treated for PTSD, and then Chihiro's apparent death in the Scarab pushes her past the breaking point.
- Genius Ditz: A qualified pilot that graduated early as well as a militarily-licensed medical professional, Cheryl is a lot smarter than she appears. Her quick grasp of magic only underscores how intelligent she truly is. On the other hand, she occasionally has lapses of sense that draw strong similarities with her ancestor.
- The Heart: Without a doubt, Cheryl is the kindest character in the entire story, is the first to stand up for her fellows—as noted when one could practically hear her knees knocking together when she stood between Setsuna and Akio—and will be the one to defuse tension with kindness if Alysia doesn't do it with the chain of command.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: Cheryl has a tendency to space out a lot, but the fact that she has the technical qualifications of both a pilot and a combat medic, and frequently rattles off obscure trivia, indicates that she's very possibly the smartest of the protagonist squad.
- Person of Mass Destruction: After charging across the Despair Event Horizon, she empties the entire enemy opposition by dropping Thousand Thunderbolts, the highest-tier non-customized lightning spell, on their heads.
- Sole Survivor: She, alone, survived the massacre of the 105th Drop Jet Platoon at Jericho VII. Being the sole survivor of a massacre is something she shares with Johnathan, which played a major factor in developing their relationship.
Usze 'Taham
Sangheili special operations
A Special Warfare Group veteran, Usze has little patience for religious dogma nor pomp and ceremony. He is a warrior, a master swordsman, and he disdains anything that would prevent him from fulfilling his duty. When the Great Schism comes, he is quick to turn his back on the Covenant and take up arms with humanity. In doing so, he becomes among the first of the Sangheili to be exposed to the secret weapon of mankind: magic.
- The Cameo: Never explicitly stated, but the ODST-aligned Sangheili that appeared in the second chapter of The Timesnatcher threatening Chao with an energy sword was, by Word of God, Usze.
- Dual Wielding: Usze turns double-fisting plasma swords into an art form, as demonstrated when he massacred an entire defensive line of brutes in Mahora without touching his needle rifle.
- Fire-Forged Friends: Like many of his species, Usze has come to regard humans with respect, and because of this, and his own special talent with dual-wielding energy swords, he seeks out the best-known human swordsman, Akio, and the two become better comrades than otherwise would have occurred.
- Interspecies Friendship: Long before forming a friendly camaraderie with Olympia Vale, Usze forged one with Akio.
- Unnecessary Combat Roll: Or a worthwhile tactical choice to avoid an incoming gravity hammer blow and get into position to stab the brute chieftain in the back while it was overextended.
Sonje Hitzig
Originally From: Universe 845 - Attack on Titan
Born in the universe in which humans are a critically-endangered species thanks to the predations of giant humanoid abominations called "Titans", Sonje was resolved to spending her life causing as much damage to the Titans as she could before inevitably falling victim to their endless hunger. Her temper and vicious fighting style make her hard to keep up with, but her ability to analyze a situation and reign in her attitude make her that much harder for the Titans to kill. For the longest time, she only partnered with Eirik due to him being the only one that could keep up, but then one day after the breach of Wall Maria, a woman named Chao joined them, proving she had the combat experience to work with them. Their team quickly became second only to Levi's special operations squad, and on the day that the 57th expedition failed, Sonje bore witness to the full and unreserved power of The Timesnatcher. After helping recover the dead of the Scouting Legion, Sonje decided to accompany Chao to the universes beyond the one she was born in.
- Bilingual Bonus: Her surname means 'heated', referencing her affiliation with Chao and temper.
- The Knights Who Say "Squee!": A very successful member of the Scouting Legion in her own right, when Chao throws discretion to the wind and pulls out everything in her bag of tricks against the Titans, it's all Sonje can do but stand mouth agape at every new attack she sees Chao pull.
- Hot-Blooded: Though she is no screaming warrior, she is the more headstrong and quick to attack between herself and Eirik.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: Red to Eirik's Blue.
- Simple, yet Awesome: Sonje's preferred method of combating Titans is to trip them, generally using her own Maneuver Gear cables as tripwires, and then making fast deathblows while they're down. This has the double effect of keeping her close to the ground so even if she's knocked out of her movement, the landing doesn't do much harm.
- Throwing Your Sword Always Works: One of the ways she uses to trip Titans, by slinging her sword blades into their Achilles' tendons.
Eirik Kohn
Originally From: Universe 845 - Attack on Titan
Born in the Trost outlying city of Wall Rose, Eirik was raised in the Cult of the Walls, viewing the walls as gifts from an unspecified deity. After some unspecified event in his teenage years, Eirik abandoned this cult and joined the Scouting Legion, but his religious roots stayed with him, and he has spent most of his adult life questing after a supreme being or higher power to give his worship to. He has an aloof, highly-detached attitude when it comes to fighting Titans, considering them beneath his worth. Since being assigned in a squad with Sonje, he has served as a stabilizing force for the hot-blooded younger woman, and spends more than his share of time in combat being the bait that Titans chase after to get them to fall victim to her preferred killing style. When the truth of Chao's nature was first revealed, he believed her to be a sign sent to him by a watchful deity, and decided to follow her outside the world of Titans.
- Dissonant Serenity: When choosing to be left behind by the retreating Scouting Legion to stay with Sonje and Chao, that put him in the sights of half a dozen Titans, when suddenly Chao began unleashing magic attacks and moving through time from one point in the battlefield to the next. Even while observing all this and actively being bait for Sonje, he remained remarkably unflustered.
- Real Men Love Jesus: He left the Wall Cult after becoming disillusioned with it, and an unspecified event in his history. Since then, he has continued to believe in a higher power, at first believing he found it when Chao revealed her true nature, but then becoming a devout Christian upon traveling with her and Sonje to the Prime universe and meeting Naru.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: Blue to Sonje's Red.
- Religious Bruiser: Formerly a member of the Wall Cult, having left their ranks after an unspecified event in his past. He still ascribes to a higher power and acts accordingly.
Myu
Originally From: Prime Universe - Future Era
Created in the years following the Human-Covenant War (and the events of Halo 4), Myu is the culmination of all of Chao's research into humanoid combat androids and weapons technology development. And it shows. To date, it is implied that Myu was created by Chao as an acknowledgment that Chachamaru has gone off to live her own life with Ala Alba, and a tongue-in-cheek joke that she's not a good 'evil overlord' without a robotic minion. Myu is known to have a very innocent and curious personality, desiring to learn more about everything she encounters. For the time being, at least, it's because she was only recently created and it's in the nature of newly-made AI to try to absorb all the data they can.
- Badass Adorable: Look at her frame, and then reconcile that with her having enough on-board weaponry to demolish many first-world countries.
- Berserk Button: Under normal circumstances she likes to play with cats and observe the world around her. Exhibit a threat to Chao and she will end your life before you realize the gravity of your error.
- Canon Immigrant: Originally created several years back for the PokéFiends setting, after the Genre Shift into a more serious plot, Team Rocket decided that they would rather be beside the heroes than in front of them, and sent their prototype humanoid artificial intelligence to Seafoam as a gesture of good faith. Myu ended up in the hands of Chao, serving as a stand-in for the imported character's versions of Chachamaru and Itsuki. It was eventually just decided to recursively bring her fully into the Kuro canon fold.
- Friend to All Living Things: Especially cats. She gets along spectacularly well with the various Team Pets of the Kuro crew.
- Hyperspace Arsenal: She comes equipped with eleven specific weapon systems and four offensive augmentation systems. This is just as of the time being, as Chao is always coming up with new stuff for her.
- I Am Not a Gun: An odd variation in that she was designed as the pinnacle of Chao's robotic war weapon technology, but she was not designed just to be a weapon of war. Chao fully intended her to have her own desires, hopes, dreams, and hobbies. While having the magical and technological means to contest anyone who tells her no.
- I Just Want to Have Friends: The more commonly-accepted interpretation as to why Chao built Myu. With her ability to travel time and space at will, the friends she made at Mahora and in the Kuro crew won't always be around. Building an un-aging, nigh-unkillable moe gynoid will let her have companionship no matter where she goes.
- Kill Sat: One of her two most powerful weapons is an upgrade of Chachamaru's Kitty Kill Sat that can not only fire weaponized plasma, but up to 18 rods from God as well. Furthermore, she can wield it as a rifle.
- Literal-Minded
- Powers as Programs: Out of the mind-boggling list of weapons and equipment on her wiki page, she starts off with just two of the weakest weapons and the mana converter. The rest she receives over time as Chao develops them after going to other dimensions and then uploads the upgrades.
- Quizzical Tilt: She has a tendency to do this when she encounters something new that she doesn't understand immediately, or more often in response to something an enemy says that makes no sense. She picked up the expression from Chao, and it only serves to add to her adorable factor given that she usually pairs it with a lost expression.
- Razor Wings: Specifically intended as a key design feature of her (otherwise very fluffy) flight system, and explicitly inspired by Naru also having wings capable of stopping bullets and cutting someone to the bone (herself inspired by Gabriel from Legion).
- Replacement Goldfish: One interpretation is that Chao built Myu to replace Pheidippides, the one friend she had who was as immune to the sands of time as she was.
- Ridiculously Human Robot: Moreso than even Chachamaru. Whereas Chachamaru merely has a synthetic skin-like covering, Myu, like Terminators, has fully-alive organic flesh and blood over her frame.
- Small Girl, Big Gun: Being 5'3", she's already tiny to begin with and that makes even the scattershot look huge in comparison, but this is the most in play when she's using her Satellite Cannon in Demolition Gun mode.
- Shout-Out: Most of her weapons and programs are inspired by things Chao has encountered either in the Prime universe or in the various ones she visits, as follows.
- Halo: Her Hand Cannon pistol (her weakest weapon) draws a lot of its effects from various Covenant weaponry. It has an EMP effect with every hit like a plasma pistol, it can have tracked projectiles like a needler/plasma launcher, its tracked projectiles stick and explode like a plasma launcher, and an overcharged shot (this itself drawn from a plasma pistol) hits with the force of a Revenant mortar. Her other starting weapon is a stock scattershot presumably lifted from the UNSC Infinity after the Requiem conflict. Her slipspace grenades are scaled-down versions of the UNSC plan to use a slipspace engine to destroy a Covenant supercarrier.
- Star Wars: The shatter gun's concept is taken from the weapon of the same name from the Republic Commando Series of novels as a ridiculously-powerful, concealable weapon that practically ignores armor, and taken to the extreme by making it a rail weapon. The Gatling Gauss is inspired by (and resembles) the Z-6 rotary blaster cannon
and the quad Gauss cannon is a take on the reciprocating quad blaster. - Gundam Build Fighters: Her beam mantle is a direct import of Wing Gundam Fenice's defensive system, and the Radial Mana Integrator System is based on the Star Build Strike's Radial General Purpose System. Her most devastating weapon (unless you count telefragging) is also named after the Satellite Cannon, and she is able to wield it as an oversized beam cannon if she so chooses.
- RWBY: The Variable Remote Assault Blade System weapons are inspired by Penny's wire-operated swords. Chao, sheerly out of access to better tech, made Myu's wireless.
- Full Metal Panic!: The ability to wield her Satellite Cannon as an oversized rifle that she requires gravitic compensation to be able to wield without damaging herself is called 'Demolition Gun Mode' and functions very similarly to that of the ARX-8 Laevateinn.
- Terror Hero: A type 3, when using her Gatling Gauss or Quad-Cip. There is no point in having a rotary mechanism for a railgun weapon, and further the magnetic alignment makes it a very fragile weapon. The only purpose in its design is to evoke bowel-voiding terror in her foes when she uses it.
- There Is No Kill Like Overkill: The general result when she uses her Satellite Cannon for a full 18-round MAC barrage.
- Weaponized Teleportation: The effect of her slipspace grenades, inspired by Operation: UPPERCUT, instantly frags anything within five meters of where the grenade lands.
- Wings Do Nothing: Possessing a gravity manipulation system that provides her primary source of powered flight, Myu's hammerspace-concealable wings exist only because she likes them. And as another weapon.
Bridget Yolanna
Originally From: Prime Universe - Future Era
A human civilian who serves as the maidservant for the Lingshen family on Mars. Utterly devoted to the Lingshens and her duties, she performs the tasks of housekeeping, overseeing a small staff to assist her in that regard, and does whatever else is required of her. She is possessed of a severe outlook and treats every matter with the same gravity as though it were regarding life or death. Because of this, both Chao and her parents have the utmost confidence in her.
- Badass in a Nice Suit: Contrary to her normal housekeeping attire (pictured), she appeared at the New Legaspi spaceport to pick up Chao wearing a tailored suit...that Chao knew to be loaded to the gills with knives.
- Blade Enthusiast : Chao's internal commentary noted on the fact that Bridget carries more knives than a five-star restaurant. Surely, the idea was inspired by the Joker.
- The Comically Serious: Typically responds to jokes and sarcasm with serious answers.
- Emotionless Girl: Appears this way on the outside, reacting to nearly everything with Dull Surprise and the same flat tone.
- Insistent Terminology: Bridget always refers to everyone by using the title "Master", regardless of their gender, unless a person has specified a way in which they prefer to be addressed.
- Meido: Her primary role at the Lingshen residence, with an outfit to match. There are some hints that there's more to it than that, however...
- Not So Above It All: Given her usual utterly-stoic demeanor, her personal and spoken thoughts regarding Chao to be a true hero in every sense of the word might suggest a mild form of Hero Worship.
- Offscreen Teleportation: When Chao sped up to meet with her parents faster, Bridget, who had been walking with her, was not mentioned as having kept up to her pace. In the next few minutes, when Chao opened the doors, her mother stood up fast enough to knock the book she had been reading off the arm of her chair. Bridget was then inexplicably in place to catch the book before it hit the ground. This was intentional, and is a subtle implication that there's more to her than meets the eye.
- Omniglot: Fluently speaks English, Chinese, and Japanese, at the very least. Given the setting, her employers, and their history, it's likely that she knows even more than that.
