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The Kong Siblings
Kong Taoluo
- Voiced by: Kazuhiko Inoue
The main protagonist. An enforcer for the Qingyun Society who, a year ago, was betrayed and nearly killed by his best friend Liu Haojun. After returning to Shanghai, he learns of the debasement and murder of his beloved sister Ruili, and sets out to achieve revenge against Liu and his accomplices, no matter the cost.
- Always Someone Better: His real relationship with Liu. Despite all his training, Taoluo was ultimately just a decently talented Neija practitioner whom was practically nothing compared to the ultimate levels of talent Liu possessed. Ironically, Liu had far more destructive jealousy towards him, over something Taoluo had no control over.
- Anti-Hero: Despite being nominally the "hero", Taoluo is hardly what one would call heroic. He is a man single-mindedly pursuing the goals of revenge against his sisters killers with the hope that in the process he can bring her back to life, and is consequently immensely self-destructive, reckless and short-sighted. He also ends up getting a good number of innocent and good people killed as a result of his actions, including murdering Ran, an innocent member of the society who admired him, all because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. By the end of the story, Taoluo is shown as nothing more than a flawed man who brought about suffering through his own failings, and suffers because of it.
- Badass Normal: He lacks any cybernetic enhancements, a trait which in the setting is now so rare to be almost unheard of. It does, however, grant him the edge of being able to use internally powered Neija against opponents.
- Big Brother Instinct: Cherishes his littler sister Ruili more than anything else in the world. Too bad she wanted more than that.
- Blood from the Mouth: Frequently suffers this as his health worsens.
- Can't Catch Up: No matter how hard Taoluo tried, he found himself unable to close the gap between his and Haojun's skills. The only reason he even inherited the Neija school in the first place was due to a technicality of Haojun choosing to become a high-ranking member of the Qingyun Society and losing his meridians needed to use Nejia effectively as a result of cybernetic enhancements. Even after fully mastering Neija Kung Fu by the final chapter of the novel, he still proved to be no match for Haojun who had further widened the gap between them by utilizing a cyborg body capable of Nejia without any of its drawbacks.
- Cool Sword: A wo dao, which is basically a Chinese version of a katana.
- Dangerous Forbidden Technique: His signature "Lightning Palm" attack is essentially a One-Hit Kill on any cybernetic opponent, but the pressure it puts on the body is so immense that it ordinarily takes days of recovery to be able to safely use again. Taoluo's increasingly constant use of it over the story slowly ends up killing him.
- Determinator: Despite being worn down by injuries, fatigue and the severe internal damage sustained by his own technique over the course of days, Taoluo utterly refuses to yield until he's fulfilled his goal of killing Liu and restoring Ruili. Ends up deconstructed, however, as his drive causes him to just suffer more and more, and he ends achieving little beyond suffering more than he needed to.
- Died Happily Ever After: Befitting Kikokugai's status as a very dark take on Wuxia, Taoluo does indeed acquire his desired happy ending...in the form of being reduced to amnesiac fragment of his soul, now residing in his sisters mind.
- The Hero Dies: Expires of his wounds after fatally stabbing Liu in the chest.
- Hitman with a Heart: What he was prior to everything in his life going to hell.
- Kick the Dog: Hacks off Xie's leg after meeting him for the first time out of spite, despite it being made clear Xie only did Ruili's procedure on orders.
- Mutual Kill: With Liu. His last defensive maneuver against Haojun's final attack ends up impaling his best friend's synthetic heart and ultimately killing him. Unfortunately, Taoluo's best friend collided with him at supersonic speeds that ended up rupturing all of his vital organs and dealing a fatal blow.
- Oblivious to Love: His failure to realise his sister was legitimately in love with him screwed everyone over.
- Red Baron: Lightning Palm.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: The entire story of Kikokugai is at its core about Taoluo's self-destructive quest to get revenge for his sister.
- Your Days Are Numbered: While not initially, the more he uses his signature technique, the more it becomes apparent that Taoluo's living on borrowed time.
Kong Ruili
- Voiced by: Yukari Tamura
Taoluo's beloved sister, and Liu's wife. One year ago, she was violently gang-raped by Liu's subordinates before then having her soul placed by Xie Yida into five gynoids that were each given to one of her killers. Upon returning to Shanghai, Xie gives Taoluo a sixth, empty vessel which can have the fragments of her soul each placed in her. Restoring her to her original self is Taoluo's secondary goal.
- Advertised Extra: While she is extremely important to the story, the main vessel that accompanies Taoluo, which is used in all promotion of the game, has a surprisingly small role due to being a defenceless non-combatant, and spends most of the story largely mindless. Even after enough of her personality is restored to the point of being able to give more coherent thoughts, she is still relegated to the sidelines until the epilogue.
- Anime Chinese Girl: The main vessel sports this design.
- Back from the Dead: Resurrecting her via uniting her soul fragments is what Taoluo hopes to achieve. Despite some doubt to the possibility, it does genuinely seem to work as intended.
- Beneath the Mask: To her brother, Ruili was a sweet, kind-hearted girl who was he was one real emotional support. In reality, she was a cruel-hearted, immensely disturbed young woman twisted by his lustful obsession for her brother that left her so desperate she was okay with a plan that would see herself be gang-raped and essentially murdered because she saw it was better than living with her love forever unrequited.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: To everyone but her brother, she put on the image of a kind-hearted girl despite having little but disdain for all those around her.
- Body Horror: A genuinely horrific example with Petrushka, who is warped by Ng into a long-limbed monstrosity so to fight Taoluo. It puts up quite an effective fight against him, helped by him being unable to risk making a direct strike out of fear of losing Ruili herself.
- Brain Uploading: Into no less than five robotic bodies, which are then one by one installed back into singular one as the story progresses. Xie compares it multiple times to the idea of poring a bottle of water into five cups, then all of them back into a different container.
- Brother–Sister Incest: Her feelings towards Taoluo were not platonic, to say the least.
- Disposable Woman: Only not really.
- Elegant Gothic Lolita: Ng's vessel, Petrushka, has this design.
- Flat Character: Individually, none of Ruili's vessels possess much personality, due to being just a small part of her total mind, and thus only feel basic emotions like fear or pain. It's not until Taoluo's has three vessels inside of her does her original self begin to be restored.
- Living Emotional Crutch: She was this to both Taoluo and Liu, providing them a reason to keep living despite their lives as enforcers. Realising she never loved him drove Liu to snap.
- Neutral Female: Her purpose in life was to be Taoluo's sister and Liu's wife, nothing more. At one point, she even asks if her brother could teach her sword-fighting, but this was brushed off as just an attempt to get closer to him.
- Off with His Head!: Due to the personality of gynoid's being kept in their head, this is how Taoluo disposes of them so he can acquire parts of his sisters soul.
- Posthumous Character: Sort of. While Ruili is present in the present day storyline, she spends the majority of it fragmented into various pieces that leaves her essentially a shell. Her appearances in flashbacks are the only times she appears as her whole self until the epilogue.
- Rape as Drama: Her gang-rape at the hands of Liu's subordinates is a crucial event in the backstory. Subverted, as it was actually a staged event by her and Liu.
- Soul Jar: Five of them, each uploaded into a new sixth.
- Walking Spoiler: Needless to say, the revelations at the end regarding Ruili's character causes ones entire perception of the story to change.
- Yandere: For her own brother. Simply seeing hints of this in her is enough to make Taoluo suffer a Freak Out.
The Qingyun Society
Liu Haojun
- Voiced by: Show Hayami
Taoluo's former best friend, and Ruili's husband. After betraying the Kong siblings, he rose to become fu-zhaizhu of the Qingyun Society, and now appears to boast his own plans for the society.
- The Ace: His raw talent with Neija Kung Fu was so incredible that Taoluo couldn't hope to match him.
- Casual Danger Dialogue: Is able to praise Taoluo for fully mastering Neija during their final battle. Unfortunately for Taoluo, this pretty much shows just how wide the skill gap is between them.
- Evil Former Friend: To Taoluo. During their days in the Neija school of Kung Fu, they were shown to be very tight and had a very deep bond. Haojun's betrayal deeply wounded Taoluo to the point that he would abandon pretty much everything for the sake of revenge.
- Green-Eyed Monster: To his own best friend Taoluo. When he realizes that Ruili cannot return his love due to her incestuous feelings for her brother, let's just say he doesn't take it well.
- Mask of Sanity: Early chapters of "Kikokugai" show that he's a leader with a cool head and somehow remains eerily calm even as Taoluo is slaughtering his underlings. The penultimate chapter has him casually telling Bin that he's gone insane a long time ago during their duel.
- Red Baron: 'The "Demon-Eyed Adonis''.
- Royal Rapier: His weapon of choice during his final confrontation with Taoluo.
- Tragic Villain: Before the events of the novel, Liu was shown to be quite a decent and kindhearted man (at least, for someone who was part of the Shangai underworld). He truly considered Taoluo to be his best friend and brother, and he was a very loving and attentive husband to Ruili. Unfortunately, Ruili's inability to love him and return his affections are what drove him to insanity and down his dark path.
Ruili's Killers
Ng Wing Shing
- Voiced by: Hōchū Ōtsuka
Liu's right-hand man, and the president of Shanghai Cybernetics. Unlike his fellow members of the society, he is not a martial artist or even a fighter, but his skills as a deadly hacker make him no less dangerous.
Bin Weixun
- Voiced by: Keiji Fujiwara
An advisor to the Qingyun Society skilled in ranged weapons and assasination techniques. A man who is intensely loyal to the society, which makes him treat Liu with nothing but distrust.
- Dies Wide Open: His final fate against his duel with Haojun once Taoluo finds him in the former's mansion. He is very visibly shocked once he realizes that Haojun is still capable of Daitian Qigong and using its dreaded Lightning Palm.
- Flechette Storm: His favored method of attack. He likes to hurl knives, axes, and spinning crescents with deadly precision to assassinate his targets.
- The Star Scream: Tried to do this but ultimately. Confronted Haojun in his mansion in an attempt to kill him and name himself the fu-zhaizhu of the Qingyun Society.
Zhang Jiabao
Zhu Shaoyan
- Voiced by: Ai Orikasa
An enforcer for the society who fights with martial arts and duel whips. A notorious sadist who takes pleasure in sexually abusing women.
- Combat Tentacles: Employs two razor sharp whips during combat. During her fight with Taoluo, they prove to be more of a liability when Shaoyan realizes his lightning palm can be channeled through her whips and kill her.
- Psycho Lesbian: Enjoys raping women during her free time.
- Red Baron: 'The "Demon Empress''.
- Red Baron: 'The "Demon Empress''.
Other Members
The Yuen Brothers
- Voiced by: Yoshihisa Kawahara (Ka Ying), Kensuke Satou (Sheung Ying)
A pair of twins brothers named Ka Ying and Sheung Ying, formally conjoined twins who were given new life through cybernetic enhancement. They now act as enforcers for the Qingyun Society, and are determined to punish Taoluo for his betrayal.
Mikhail Stugrev
- Voiced by: Shoto Kashii
An undercover spy for the Russian Mafia who infiltrated the Qingyun Society under the name Feng Xian, who Taoluo ends up working with due to their mutual goal.
Ran Liwei
A low-ranking knowledge broker and peddler of the Qingyun Society who looks up to Taoluo.
- He Knows Too Much: Hence why Taoluo kills him.
- Knowledge Broker: His job as a member of the society. It's through him that Taoluo manages to acquire the military grade mecha needed for the attack on Shanghai Cybernetics.
- Mauve Shirt: Gets a bit of characterisation, but he ultimately is killed the same scene he debuts in.
- Nice Guy: Overall seems like a fairly decent, chill guy.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: Taoluo kills him mere minutes after he's introduced so to not have the Russian Mafia's plans leaked. His death demonstrates Taoluo's extreme ruthlessness in dedication to avenging and restoring Ruili, being willing to murder even people who look up to him as an idol.
Other Characters
Xie Yida
- Voiced by: Iemasa Kayumi
The genius scientist who developed the concepts of soul transference. Ostrasized and blacklisted from the scientific community due to the dangers caused by his research, he now lives in the lower parts of Shanghai as a black market surgeon. He was the one who transferred Ruili's soul, and provides Taoluo with the means to bring her back as well.
