Gachiakuta Characters

A tribesman from the Sphere's slums who scavenges discarded goods and despises the wastefulness of the class above him. Convicted of murdering his adoptive father on no evidence beyond his birth, he is thrown into the Pit and swears vengeance on his accusers, the elite and the neighbours who cheered. His Vital Instrument is a pair of gloves from the Watchman series left to him by the man he is accused of killing.

The masked Cleaner who saves Rudo from Trash Beasts on his first night in the Ground and then tests him rather than explaining anything. He leads Team Akuta and treats recruitment as a series of provocations, which is roughly how he was recruited himself. His true name is absurdly long; the short version was a gift from the man who rescued him from a slave market.

A hard-working Cleaner and skilled combatant from a noble family in the Kamuitari District with generations of ties to the Hell Guard. He was trained to follow his siblings into that organisation and was beaten badly enough by another trainee that he sat in a well waiting to die. Enjin and Riyo found him there, which is why he is a Cleaner instead.

An energetic, blunt member of the Cleaners whose cheerfulness sits oddly alongside a past as a hitman. She wields a pair of scissors and is entirely unbothered by things that terrify newcomers, which makes her a useful and unnerving guide. She was present when Zanka was recruited.

The shy younger sister of the Cleaners' artisan and the member of Team Akuta who keeps everyone else alive. Her Vital Instrument takes the form of a black power cord and heals rather than harms, a rarity in a cast built around weapons. Her reticence is not timidity in the field.

The receptionist at Cleaner headquarters, whose glasses let her assess a Giver's true capacity at a glance — the gatekeeping mechanism for the entire organisation. What she sees in Rudo visibly unsettles her. In combat the same ability detects incoming attacks and slows her perception of time.

The charismatic and physically imposing boss of the Cleaners, whose Vital Instrument appears to grant a form of foresight. He is absent for much of Rudo's early induction, which is why Rudo's questions about returning to the Sphere go unanswered. Team Front operates directly under him.

Rudo's carefree adoptive father, a Sphereite who took him in after his biological father was thrown into the Pit and who gave him the gloves that ease the affliction in his hands. He taught Rudo that objects have souls, which turns out to be literal rather than sentimental. His murder is the event the entire story proceeds from.

The Lady of Penta, a traumatised young woman who claims to have seen people cross the border between the Sphere and the Ground — the one thing Rudo most needs to know. She is imprisoned before he can act on it and joins the group after being freed. Her Vital Instrument is among the Watchman series.

The cold, near-expressionless boss of the Raiders, the group that preys on the Ground's settlements. His Vital Instrument is a coat of the Watchman series that lets him take on the traits of anything he consumes, making him a genuinely unpredictable opponent. He rarely raises his voice and is more frightening for it.

A masochistic Raider obsessed with fighting opponents stronger than himself, which makes him reckless in a way that is difficult to plan against. He wears ten rings that become claws loaded with a variety of neurotoxins. His enthusiasm for pain, his own included, is the point of the character.

Zanka's fierce elder sister, the eldest child of the Nijiku family and commander of the Hell Guard's Red Horns Squad One. She fights Givers professionally and wields guns rather than a Vital Instrument, which changes the calculus of any confrontation with her. Her brother Goka serves as her second-in-command.