Special Abilities Private High School
Kuroi
"It'll be alright, Asagi-sensei and I will take care of everything. As long as the girl I like commands me, of course."
A cheerful, talkative first year student of Special Abilities Private High School, and part of the close-range battle course. His power is a very sharp form of Intuition, the ability to discern people's thoughts and intentions through cues like sweat, smell, body language, voice, etc. Additionally, he is an expert at hypnosis and manipulation of the human mind, making Mind Rape part of his arsenal. He is as crazy as he is dangerous, and won't let anyone or anything get between him and Mashiro.
- Ax-Crazy: And how, his powers bored him of humanity, and used to kill out of habits until meeting Mashiro.
- Animal Motifs: Associated with crows.
- Berserk Button: Anything related to Mashiro, really. Kuroi didn't hesitate in threatening Asagi when the latter asked one too many questions, or forcing a girl to commit suicide when she asked if Mashiro was his girlfriend.
- Big Damn Heroes: Comes out of nowhere to save Mashiro just as she is about to be killed by an insane classmate
- Combat Sadomasochist: He reacted with uncanny glee when Yanagi stabbed one of his eyes out, and was a certified sadist from chapter one.
- Deuteragonist: With Mashiro.
- Dark and Troubled Past: His powers nearly drove him insane, and it's been hinted he even worked as a hitman in the past.
- Empty Shell: His powers left him like this. He got everything he wanted simply by manipulating people, but had no friends and lived isolated from everyone inside his apartment, unable to not sense their negative emotions or thoughts. Before meeting Mashiro, he lived merely by habit.
- Eyepatch After Time Skip: After a 3 week timeskip following the mission in France, Kuroi is now wearing an eye-patch after what happened to his eye.
- Eye Scream: He loses his left eye to Yanagi's blade. Not that it bothered him, anyway.
- Faux Affably Evil: Kuroi is an Ax-Crazy sadist, and he only acts polite to get what he wants or is around Mashiro. And even then, he has a hard time concealing his insanity.
- Four-Temperament Ensemble: Sanguine.
- Friendless Background: Mostly because of his powers. He became paranoid of other people, unable to not sense their bad intentions.
- Hearing Voices: He can't suppress his powers, meaning he 'hears' and 'feels' others around him 24/7, with the only blank being Mashiro. When the voices end up stopping after he loses an eye to Yanagi, Kuroi goes into complete ecstasy over things finally going silent.
- Instant Expert: Thanks to self-hypnosis, he can become an expert at whatever he's committed to memory, for example martial arts.
- In the Hood: His signature outfit, he's never seen without a hoodie.
- Hot-Blooded: He's very impulsive and will drop everything he's doing if he thinks Mashiro needs him.
- Keet: Kuroi is cheerful! And outgoing! And he always smiles! Or at least, he LOOKS like this. He's actually very aloof and detached to the point of being nearly emotionless, and only acts like that when he's around Mashiro or when he's manipulating someone.
- Leeroy Jenkins: He doesn't care that an helicopter is seconds away from destroying him, he'll still run to Mashiro's side to help her.
- Madden Into Misanthropy: It's not that Kuroi can't sympathize, it's that he sympathizes so much to the point he knows everything about the people he interacts with. It destroyed his feelings as he started viewing people as pointless nuisances, and kills out of habit. It's only when he saw Mashiro that he can grasp what being human means.
- Major Injury Underreaction: "As it turns, I've lost an eye". The worst is that when he does react it's in joy.
- Meaningful Name: Kuroi sounds like the japanese word for "Black". Which is also used to describe something wicked.
- Mind Rape: Kuroi's special ability is an extremely powerful form of hypnosis, enough to let him bend minds over themselves, force people to do things as extreme as killing themselves, or simply destroy minds entirely. Simpler tricks like hallucinations are also part of what Kuroi can pull off.
- Motor Mouth: He slips into this when Mashiro confronts him about his identity or when trying to put a facade. And he's also very talkative by nature.
- Oh, Crap!: When he tried his power on Jean, only to see there was no mind to manipulate anymore.
- Parental Abandonment: Neither of his parents or any family figures in Kuroi's flashbacks. Not even when he's in kindergarten.
- Pet the Dog: If there's any glimpse of his former self or a reasonable being anymore, it's in the fact that he doesn't try to antagonize Mashiro and even looks out for her. Albeit in his own way.
- Power Perversion Potential: Kuroi used his hypnotism to get whatever he wanted, be it money, gambling, or sex, to the point he grew bored of it.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: The Red to Mashiro's Blue, both literally and figuratively.
- Serial Killer: For a while killing was his only interaction with the open world.
- Sociopathic Hero: Kuroi is very cheerful about stabbing people to death, cutting them until they're bound to die from blood loss, and downright torturing someone by slowly disfiguring them. Mashiro is understandably disturbed. He's also completely unfazed by whatever carnage he's witnessing... unless it's Mashiro who's responsible for it, in which case he's downright ecstatic.
- Slasher Smile: Often flashes this. Run when he does.
- Stalker with a Crush: Kuroi is completely obsessed with Mashiro, because she's the only person in the world that he can't read, and she's the reason he enrolled in the Special Abilities Private High School.
- Super-Senses: While Kuroi can (and will) manipulate minds at will, at its core his power is an exceptionally sharp intuition he possessed since he was a small child - so sharp in fact that he was able to 'read' people from anything they did (body language, tone of voice, sweating, etc.). In the story proper, it is so sharp it allows Kuroi to correctly pinpoint landmines, because that feels like a place where someone would set a trap.
- The Unfettered: One thing that makes Kuroi so dangerous to others is that he has next to no concept of self-restraint when it concerns people that irritate him, and can do things such as Mind Rape or Psychic-Assisted Suicide at the drop of a hat.
- Villain Protagonist: His world begins and ends with Mashiro. Anyone and everything else can burn for all he cares. He also happens to be one of the two main protagonists.
- What Is This Feeling?: Due to his intuition and mind-bending powers, Kuroi grew up an unfeeling, sadistic opportunist. Being with Mashiro, however, allows him to at least try to pass for an ordinary individual. Until his sadism and obsession with Mashiro show at least. When fighting Yanagi his intuition power starts failing because he was too angry at the senior who tried to kill Mashiro.
- Yandere: Do not show interest in Mashiro. Do not hurt Mashiro. Hell, don't even be someone that Mashiro likes because Kuroi, then, will give you a slow, painful death.
Mashiro
"I do not want anyone else to die! We're all going home, to Japan! Every one of us, do you understand!?"
A first year student from Special Abilities Private High School, Mashiro is a demure young girl with a strong sense of duty, and part of the close-range battle course along with Kuroi. Mashiro's power is basically Super-Strength, and it proves quite useful in the battlefield. Her powers and how far can they go makes a plot point of the story, as she slowly starts to uncover what her superiors are really up to, and what it really means to be a Super-Soldier.
- Anger Born of Worry: Towards Kuroi, when he does or says something reckless. Kuroi, being Kuroi, does this a lot.
- Bad Powers, Good People: Mashiro's Super-Strength is terrifying to behold in a combat situation, as one loose strike can turn any man into a fine paste along her fist; a bowling accident demonstrates that not consciously holding her strength back can destroy not only a lane, but the entire wall surrounding it in one shot. Her Superpowered Evil Side doesn't exactly help this given its homicidal intents towards anything in its path. Outside of combat, however, she's the sweetest person of the cast hands down and refuses to try to intentionally hurt anyone.
- The Berserker: Under extreme duress, such as when heavily injured, Mashiro becomes a rampaging, nigh-unstoppable juggernaut unable to tell friend from foe.
- Beware the Nice Ones: She has inhuman physical strength and while she doesn't like it, she was trained to kill and will do her job. Then there is her mysterious and terrifying berserker craze.
- Black Eyes of Crazy: When she goes berserk, her sclera turn black.
- Blue Is Heroic: Her main color.
- Break the Cutie: Oh, and how. Mashiro is a nice girl with nothing but good intentions, but she's often pushed to her limits.
- Colour-Coded Emotions: Played with. Kuroi comments on how despite choosing a sad color (Blue), Mashiro isn't terribly shy or depressed as her choice of color suggests. Or rather, she does a good job hiding her Dark and Troubled Past.
- Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: Often associated with blue, in relation to her calm behavior. However, beware her Red Eyes, Take Warning...
- Cute Bruiser: Like the other students, she wields a katana, but has no trouble using her strength when the former is not an option.
- Cute Clumsy Girl: Outside of the battlefield, Mashiro is just a normal girl of her age. That is, until her powers get in the way.
- The Cutie: Unfortunately for Mashiro, she's The Cutie trapped in a Crapsack World.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Every student seems to have one, but a glimpse of hers made even Yanagi afraid. Part of it was eventually revealed that she suffered from an inferiority complex due to living in the shadow of her much more talented older brother. However, she was eventually accepted into the Special Abilities High School only to six months later find out that her brother committed suicide due to Mashiro's parents sudden Parental Favoritism towards her, but not before destroying her room and scribbling his hate everywhere.
- Does Not Know His Own Strength: She nearly destroys an entire lane while playing bowling, she's so focused on trying to shoot straight that she forgets to keep her strength in check. She has a brief freak out when she is fending off soldiers with her bare hands because her fists go right through them and ends up with teeths jammed in her fists.
- Four-Temperament Ensemble: Melancholic.
- Good Is Not Soft: Mashiro is the only character with compassion towards everyone, but she is still a soldier with super strength who will kill her enemies in rather brutal fashion, although she prefers crippling them if possible.
- Healing Factor: Implied to have this. She recovers pretty quickly from otherwise life-threatening wounds.
- The Hero: By virtue of being the only one who tries saving people in need.
- I Am a Monster: Slowly growing into this. After the incident with her disfigured arm, Mashiro's super strength is getting out of control, and she becomes more and more scared of what she's capable of doing, to the point of avoiding people at all times because she's scared of hurting them or... doing something worse to them.
- Innocent Blue Eyes: She's portrayed with blue eyes in some promotional material, symbolizing her status as The Hero and her benevolence.
- Laughing Mad: How to know that Mashiro is about to beat every inch of your life? Well...
- Meaningful Name: Mashiro sounds like the japanese word for "White". It's also used to describe an innocent person.
- Mirror Character: At first, Kuroi and Mashiro seem as different as black and white. However, the more the story progresses, the more they show how alike they start to become: Mashiro's powers are getting stronger than she can handle, she becomes scared of herself and her own powers as they start to hinder her daily life, to the point she becomes afraid of interacting with other people and avoids them at all costs. This happens in the same way that Kuroi was unable to have a normal life because of how strong his power was, and started to avoid people because of it. It's also hinted that her family died some time before the story's events, and has been alone since then, in also a similar manner to Kuroi. By now the only difference between them is that Mashiro has remained benevolent despite all, and doesn't enjoy killing like Kuroi does.
- As of the recent chapters, even Kuroi himself has noted that he and Mashiro are starting to swap roles, with the latter slowly losing her humanity to her growing powers and the former's starting to fade away.
- Morality Chain: To Kuroi. She is the only person that can rein him in and keep him from attacking those around him, due to her being the only one that makes him feel human.
- Muscles Are Meaningless: She looks like an average school girl, but beware, because she can throw a punch.
- Moe: Still manages to pull this off even in a dark setting.
- Nice Girl: The only nice character in the lead.
- Proper Tights with a Skirt: Her usual outfit, and also school uniform.
- Oblivious to Love: Despite Kuroi telling her that he likes her and not being exactly subtle about his obsession with her, she doesn't seem to register it or even react to it.
- Recent chapters suggest that she is indeed aware that Kuroi has feelings for her. After he saves her from a couple of businessmen that were molesting her, he holds her hand and embraces her while comforting her. Mashiro holds his hand so hard he starts bleeding. Now, just how much she knows about to what extent his obsession for her goes is left in the air.
- One-Woman Army: The first time she goes berserk in the midst of an operation gone horribly wrong, Mashiro turns what's left of the enemy into a fine red mess where her teammates had struggled with even small groups of foes. To the point that she jumps onto an attack chopper and splatters the pilots with her bare hands through solid steel while suffering severe bullet wounds.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: The Blue to Kuroi's Red.
- Rock Beats Laser: When it's thrown with the power of a cannonball it sure does, she can go through most modern weaponry with her fists and any blunt object around.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: She has red eyes, and she's very dangerous.
- Slasher Smile: When she goes berserk, she'll smile and giggle maniacally before destroying everything around her.
- Super-Strength: Her strength is way above the usual special ability student, being able to blow a sniper's head off simply by throwing a rock at them, and that's without her going berserk. During her rampage in South America, she tore several soldiers to pieces and demolished two helicopter gunships with her bare hands.
Asagi
"Huh? Building? Sniper? What are you talking about?"
A second year student of Special Abilities Private High School, and part of the Reconnaissance course. His power is an incredibly enhanced memory, to the point he can store vast and highly accurate amounts of information, allowing him to correctly assess and calculate the different outcomes of a situation. However, as a side effect, his brain ages at a faster rate than normal, and he's already developing dementia and amnesia, he has but a few years left to live.
- Beware the Silly Ones: His dementia makes him blurt silly stuff at times and lose track of what is happening, but he can be quite creepy and ruthless when he wants to.
- Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Due to his powers drawback resulting in dementia, he can be somewhat of an airhead at times. It is sometimes Played for Drama when it contrasts his lucid self who is depressed over it.
- Case in point, when his strategy for placating a crazed and unstoppable Jean through peace rather than violence involves stripping naked, he completely brushes off other's reactions by thinking nothing abnormal about it due to solely dedicating his mind on his plan.
- Forgetful Jones: Asagi tends to forget things at a moment's notice and sometimes at the worst of moments. Made further ironic that his given power is greatly enhanced memory. Justified though given his dementia, and deconstructed due to the same forgetfulness having caused him to develop a form of misanthropy over how everyone else takes both their lives and memories for granted.
- Four-Temperament Ensemble: Phlegmatic.
- Lack of Empathy: Isn't fazed when people die left and right, mostly because his dementia stops him from setting it in, but also because his own short life makes him resent people who threw their own away.
- Meaningful Name: Asagi sounds like the japanese word for "Yellow". A color that is associated with intelligence.
- Mr. Exposition: Inevitably falls into this, being the character that is most knowledgeable about pretty much anything going on, he's always in charge of explaining the situation, with the only handicap of not being able to hand out important information when it's most needed.
- Non-Action Guy: He is a Scanner type and has poor short term memory issues, when he gets the drop on Seiji he needed a note to remember why he was pressing his pen on the boy's neck.
- Not Distracted by the Sexy: Even when he wants to, he is incredibly detached when he goes to a soapland to vent. Justified since his dementia partially killed his sex drive.
- Only Friend: He grows to be a confidant of-sorts to Kuroi, and the latter is only seen talking or scheming with Asagi when he wants to get something done. Certainly the closest thing Kuroi has to a friend.
- Photographic Memory: His power is a form of super memory. He can even remember subconscious details he picked up which gave him a better foresight than most scanners. He is also a Forgetful Jones because the memories are there but he still blanks out of conversation due to the side effects damaging his brain.
- Super-Intelligence: He fills the Super Learning and Advanced Reasoning bills almost to a T, with the twist that his aging brain makes focusing a bit difficult, and he's very forgetful as a result.
- The Smart Guy: Asagi often fills the role of the brains of the group, whenever he isn't forgetting things left and right due to dementia. He is aware of the more shady dealings the school has in mind but he either forgets or doesn't care enough.
- Your Days Are Numbered: Asagi has only three years left at best due to his power prematurely aging his brain, to the point of suffering from dementia by the time of the story.
- You See, I'm Dying: Explains to Mashiro and a brothel girl that he'll die soon because of his unnaturally aging brain. He doesn't do this to garner sympathy, he simply states facts.
Mizukaki
- The Big Guy: Serves as this to the group.
- Boisterous Weakling: The average strength of someone with telekinetic powers is to crush an apple from five meters away in ten seconds. Mizukaki, despite constantly bragging about how awesome his powers are, needs three minutes to get an apple to roll over from near point blank range. Later on, his true power is revealed to be Super-Toughness.
- Butt-Monkey: First his dick gets blown off by a sniper and then he gets ragdolled during the Paris mission. On the upside Amusing Injuries are probably preferable over all the mangling the other characters receive.
- Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Even with his Mind over Matter powers being severely underwhelming, he's still the most physically imposing of the cast. A sucker punch from him (albeit while wearing knuckle dusters) is enough to knock out others in one hit. Then it turns out that it wasn't his true power...
- Groin Attack: He had his dick shot by a sniper in South America, surprisingly Played for Laughs.
- Irony: For all the misfortune and slapstick injuries he suffers over the course of the story, Mizukaki's true power wasn't Mind over Matter, but actually Super-Toughness.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Abrasive and a bit egotistical despite his lacking powers, he's still brave enough to follow his friends into danger, no matter his comical reactions.
- Power Misidentification: Mizukaki's true power was, ironically, a form of tactile telekinesis that formed a layer-thin barrier around his body, protecting him from harm. He makes full use of it in the climax of the story's last arc.
Usuki
The Decoy Protagonist of the first chapters. His unceremonious death sets the tone for the rest of the series.- Boom, Headshot!: How he goes out.
- Mind over Matter: His signature ability. Like other telekinetics, it doesn't save him.
- Posthumous Character: Even after his death, his face is still used for the sake of exposition.
- Standardized Leader:
Botan
Usuki's girlfriend, she takes pride in her manicure.- An Arm and a Leg: Loses her hand to a sniper, which leads to...
- Artificial Limbs: Her hands gets replaced by an artificial, prosthetic one. Later on, it's upgraded using the same material as the Psy-Res metal, allowing it to stretch and contract like it's made of rubber and extending the range of her sword attacks through the blood coursing through it.
- Broken Bird: It's clear that the whole experience of having to see friends and loved ones die left and right on top of losing her left hand has left her a broken mess.
- Covert Pervert: For someone dating Usuki she can make rather lewd comments.
- Meaningful Name: Botan sounds like "Button", which may refer to the manga's first cover, where her shirt is half unbuttoned, showing her cleavage.
- Put on a Bus: She is the only survivor of the South American mission who fell out of focus, justified since she was severely injured.
Yanagi
- Ax-Crazy: He starts attacking his own team because it's fun.
- Driven to Suicide: He slits his own throat after Kuroi, Momoka, and Akane defeat him.
- Ear Ache: Kuroi cuts his ear off during their fight.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Kikyo and him are as close as sibling, telling that she is the only woman he treats nicely. Later, he organizes a terrorist attack on the school because the Shirotae Project promised to treat Kikyo if he did so.
- Mask of Sanity: He introduced himself as a collected, laid-back upperclassman. It's only when the action starts that he shows his sadistic nature and tries to kill Momoka when she points out his depravity.
- Odd Friendship: He, a sadist and killer, ends up becoming a sort of friend to the self-proclaimed sexfiend Kikyo.
- Power Copying: Subverted. He tries to claim he can copy other people's abilities and even seems to reproduce an Anti-Magic ability that someone else had. In reality, he can use hypnosis just like Kuroi, but uses it to fake copying. This allows him to control other people to either prevent or force them to use abilities.
- Sadist: He just in general likes to torture people, both off and on the battlefield. Interestingly, he only likes doing it if the target is unwilling. When Kikyo tried to approach him to satisfy her sexual urges, he flat out refused her on the spot.
- Serial Killer: He kills women in his spare time and a bonus chapter has Kikyo calling him to get rid of a body.
- Start of Darkness: Apparently, his mother dying when he was young changed him for the worst.
- Team Killer: Tries to kill his own teammates for pointing out how bloodthirsty he is.
Seiji
- Cast from Calories: His scanning power works like that.
- Non-Action Guy: Downplayed like any scanner type, he can fight but nothing out of human's reach.
- The Smart Guy: Of the Akane and Momoka trio.
Momoka
A new student who, with her two friends, knocked out the whole school save for the main trio during orientation class. Her power is to make air bombs with varying degree of power.- Action Girl: She is more aggressive than Mashiro or other female students introduced so far.
- Badass Boast: She tells Yanagi the only reason she didn't kill him or anyone during the orientation day was because she didn't feel like it.
- Having a Blast: Her power is mostly focused on creating air bombs that generate some pretty powerful shockwaves.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: She is really rude, but cares about her friends and doesn't take pleasure in excessive violence and depravity.
- Non-Lethal Warfare: Her bombs are strong enough to knock people out, but not to kill. Asagi tells Akane that the reason they didn't kill her and Momoka after their little show is because she is their best assets for crowd control protests. He also warns her it's not a good thing since the students they are interested in are also the one they experiment on the most.
- Sir Swears-a-Lot: She trash talks a lot.
- True Companions: With Seiji and Akane, Rokusho exploits this knowing as long as one of them is threatened the others will fall in line.
- You Killed My Father: She and Akane suspect Kikyo of killing their parents. The truth is that Yanagi hypnotized Kikyo to kill them to prevent them from exposing the Shirotae Project.
Rokusho
"I am the new Principal, Rokusho. There's no need to remember my name. We'll never meet again, anyway."
The new principal of the Special Abilities Private High School. She's merciless in her schemes to get the most out of the students, and has no regard for their well-being or safety, considering all of them disposable at best.
- Affably Evil: She doesn't care at all about any of the student's well-being, however, when she meets Mashiro, she's polite and properly introduces herself while reassuring her that the people that returned alive from the South American mission are fine, and even playfully jokes about her healing ability. Kuroi, however, isn't bought by this.
- Artificial Limbs: She lost her right leg some time before the story's events, and shows it to Momoka.
- Corrupt Bureaucrat: She drugs the students to incite their special abilities without their knowledge, doesn't care about following safety standards, and throws them all out without fearing any consequences, and she certainly gets away with it.
- Crusading Widow: She wants to get to the bottom of the Shirotae Project because she knows this conspiracy is responsible for killing her husband for investigating them.
- Incoming Ham: Her first introduction has her basically kicking down the door to the principal's office and loudly declaring that she is taking over.
- Manipulative Bitch: How she get super powered kids with a lot of issues in line, she makes sure Mashiro is assigned in a different team before Kuroi knows about it, meaning he'll have to care about the other team, and taking Seiji into a different room to prevent Momoka and Akane from simply killing her.
- Slasher Smile: Can give Kuroi a run for his money.
- The Baroness: Gives the look by being dressed in a military uniform and walking with a cane.
Others
Tokiwa Mashiyoshi
- Accidental Aiming Skills: He didn't even know he shot Kikyo in the head and he was surprised that he is that good with a pistol.
- An Arm and a Leg: When Yanagi attacks Tokiwa for shooting Kikyo in the head, he nearly drops his Caucasian-targeting virus. Mashiro moves to use her psy-res blade to catch it - which causes it to accidentally eat Tokiwa's left arm in the process due to a drastic panic causing her to severely overdo it. He's not bothered by it for long once Mashiro starts going nuts from the blade fusing with her body after the feeling of eating flesh and poison transferred back to her simultaneously, instead sporting a psychotic grin as he watches.
- Beware the Silly Ones: When Tokiwa is introduced, he appears as a somewhat nervous, humble and a bit silly person. But as more stuff happens, he is increasingly revealed to not only be alarmingly calm with all the violence around him, and his silliness becomes increasingly disturbing. It all comes to a head when he effortlessly injects Jean with an experimental drug that causes him to go berserk, and later when Kikyo tries to attack him from behind, he casually shoots her in the head without even looking.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Might look like your usual salaryman but he is actually a cold Mad Scientist who is overjoyed at the prospect of selling his virus that targets races.
- For Science!: He encourages someone trying to attack or disarm him while he's holding his Depopulation Bomb if only to see the effects incase he just so happened to drop it.
- Four Eyes, Zero Soul: He looks goofy at first but like Kuroi it's because he is a sociopath unfazed by the horror he brings.
- Mad Scientist: He took part in the program to weaponize the children with psychic abilities, found out how he could use it on people of different races, and also invented virus that could clean every Caucasians in Europe in a matter of months.
- Oh, Crap!: The one time so far that he's legitimately dropped his Smug Snake attitude in surprise, was after Mashiro accidentally ate his arm with her psy-res blade. Even he lost control of himself briefly at that.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Calls the R.A.I.D a bunch of cosplayers who refuses to adapt to modern time where kids can be used as weapons and terrorists hide in many forms.
- The Sociopath: And unlike the kids, there is no special ability that made him lose his empathy or special training that broke him, he was likely born this way.
