Project Arashi/Characters

The Kuro Crew
Keitaro Urashima
 * Blue Magic: 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
 * Chosen One: Well, one of about twelve, anyway

Naru Narusegawa
 * Angel Unaware: Her distrust in men and anger management issues caused her to lose her celestial power, ability, and even memory of such
 * Half Human Hybrid: Human father, celestial mother
 * 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
 * The Messiah: Briefly appeared this way in chapter 5 when her full power first awakened
 * Meteor Move: Her Megaton Punch has been upgraded to this, given her new ridiculous boost in speed and power

Mitsune "Kitsune" Konno
 * 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

Shinobu Maehara
 * 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
 * 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

Motoko Aoyama
 * Badass Cape: Came with her Azumi costume
 * Hot Chick With a Sword: Too easy
 * I Am Not Left Handed: Her former Shinmeiryu instructor thought it would be easy to defeat her when she was caught without her sword. She was wrong
 * 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
 * Violently Protective Girlfriend: Just look what she did to her sister after Tsuruko hurt Seno in a duel

Kaolla Su
 * Identical Stranger: Visually, she and Nealla are completely identical. You can only tell the difference between them by attitude, and when Nealla consciously chooses not to use the same mannerisms as Kaolla

Haruka Urashima
 * Team Mom: She seems to more or less be the spokesperson of the Kuro crew, when a spokesperson with a modicrum of class is required, rather than one likely to respond with random acts of violence or shenanigans

Mutsumi Otohime
 * 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), keeps an Eldritch Abomination that looks and sounds disturbingly similar to Gravemind on a short leash, and is the spiritual and technical 'leader' of the Chosen Heroes
 * Power Trio: 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

Seno Nakakami
 * Ancestral Weapon: A full daisho, katana and wakizashi, handed down over many, many generations, dating from at least 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. It was then revealed in a bonus content chapter that his sword, and the wakizashi that completess 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...
 * Improbable Aiming Skills: In real life, Seno can't hit the broad side of a barn. Hence why he uses a sword. But in Halo, he's taken the time to study exactly where and how a sniper bullet will ricochet in just such a manner to be able to effectively bullet-bounce every major hiding location in every map in the game
 * 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: And we're not talking about the memory erasing spells. We're talking about the Type 1 here. Seno showed up at the Hinata out of the blue with Implausible Fencing Powers and a Rule of Cool Empathic Weapon, swearing up, down, left, and sideways that his Implausible Fencing Powers came from I Know Mortal Kombat. In reality, he'd been trained in the Shinmeiryu style from childhood, and apparently forgot not only that he'd been trained, but his soul mate/RedStringOfFate partner over the course of his older child and teenage years. Upon finding and reading a book detailing the history and origins of Shinmeiryu, his memory apparetnly jogs, allowing him to pick up a new class while earning another level in Badass. Why it wasn't jogged by being exposed to Shinmeiryu techniques for over a year is anyone's guess
 * No Fourth Wall: Seno has gone here on occasion
 * Painting the Fourth Wall: This is commonly the limit to where Seno will limit his fourth wall shenanigans. They are often lampshaded and occasionally joined in by essentially everyone else
 * Precision F Strike: He did spend four years in an American high school. With that knowledge, it's amazing that his speech isn't filled with Cluster F Bombs
 * Red String of Fate: Played straight with Seno and 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

Sabashii Kokuei
 * 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
 * Gender Bender: His disguise to hide himself from the faculty at Mahora and implied from Evangeline is to change himself into a high school girl
 * That Man Is Dead: During Kuro Arashi, Sabashii refuses to acknowledge his birth name.
 * Really Seven Hundred Years Old: Over three hundred, but who's counting?

Nealla Ju
 * Body Double: Kaolla's personal bodyguard and decoy
 * Little Miss Snarker: When she's not being the...
 * Straight Man

Masaru Nanjou
 * Ass Pull: 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
 * Insufferable Genius: It may be just a facade, but he's damn good at appearing this way

Nanao Yuzuki
 * Gamer Chick: Equal skill level as Seno in Halo, and prefers close-range weapons, primarily the gravity hammer
 * The Power of Rock: Presumed to be her Heroic class specialty, but she has not yet had the opportunity to demonstrate this

Lorenzo Ruiz
 * Bottomless Magazines: The Arlington Magic Society for which he works holds the monopoly on weaponized Hammerspace for use in storing ammunition for guns
 * Red Shirt: Self-proclaimed

Hiroyuki Murakami
 * Insane Troll Logic: How Hiroyuki's brain functions
 * 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

Ala Alba
Chachamaru Karakuri
 * 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
 * Transparent Closet: She fully accepts the fact that she is gay for Konoka, but still Cannot Spit It Out

Other Characters, Major
Kawakami Gensai
 * Complete Monster: Given what he did to Motoko in chapter four...
 * The Dragon
 * Very Loosely Based On a True Story: After the famous manslayer of the same name who resisted the Westernization of Japan

Namusan Sapou
 * Animal Motifs: Turtles. Turtle-plate armor, turtle skin on his sword hilt, and snapping turtle heads for shoulder plates
 * Big Bad
 * 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

Other Characters, Minor
Yuuna Akashi
 * Guns Akimbo: Her primary combat style
 * Instant Cosplay Surprise: The surprise part comes in with her ODST armor being completely functional
 * Plucky Girl: Yuuna refuses to stand down from any perceived challenge, even, and especially, if she's grossly outclassed
 * Sergeant Rock: She holds a rank equivalent to Master Gunnery Sergeant in Cleric Team, and leads the special forces team
 * 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?"

Itsuki Rakuso
 * 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
 * Meaningful Name / Fun With Acronyms: His given name stems from his official project designation, Intelligent Target Silencing Unit
 * 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

Sean Hartley
 * Cold Sniper: Averted. He's Cleric Team's best sniper, and their friendliest member

Characters from The Unsung War
Alysia Fei "Squad leader, Alpha-Six-One"


 * Identical Descendant: She is the spitting image of Ku Fei, much to Chao's chagrin

Johnathan Kasuga "Heavy weapons, Alpha-Six-Two"


 * 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
 * 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"


 * 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

Chao Lingshen "UNSC Shipbuilder, Fire Mage"


 * Berserk Button: Really, really hates the Halo franchise, for obvious reasons
 * 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
 * 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
 * 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
 * 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 A Is
 * 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 A Is still suffer rampancy because they have no means of reproducing this
 * Timey Wimey Ball: 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 AttackDrones and handles all the mathematical calculations for proper usage of the Timey Wimey Ball
 * Voice With an Internet Connection: Her battle armor comes with a built-in smart AI that controls the AttackDrones and handles all the mathematical calculations for proper usage of the Timey Wimey Ball

Lucy-B091 "Spartan-III Supersoldier"


 * 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"


 * 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
 * Gundamjack: His response to the threat of a Scarab in their area of operations was to steal the thing
 * 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 armor

Cynthia Rivale "Sniper, Alpha-Six-Four"


 * 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
 * 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"


 * 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 Shinmeiryu 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 Plus One 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. 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

Cheryl Sasaki "Pilot/medic, Alpha-Six-Five"


 * 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
 * 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

Usze 'Taham "Sangheili special operations"


 * 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
 * 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