Reze

In her everyday guise Reze looks like a slim young woman with purple hair cut to her shoulders and bright emerald eyes, quick to flush red. A choker hides the real reason for the accessory: a grenade pin set into her neck that triggers her change. Her outfits shift with the role she plays, from a loose bell-printed shirt and backpack to a cafe apron to a crisp sleeveless blouse tucked into high-waisted shorts with a ribbon tie, thigh-high stockings, and loafers. Under Makima's control she later wears the plain hunter's uniform and, tellingly, drops the choker that once concealed her pin.

Her Hybrid form takes the shape of an atomic bomb, modeled on the Fat Man weapon dropped on Nagasaki. Bomb fuses sheathe her arms like sleeves and run through a makeshift apron studded with dynamite, and as with other Hybrids her sharp, angular teeth stay bared.

At first Reze seems warm and a little shy, smitten with Denji almost the moment they meet, laughing at his jokes and leaning in close over coffee. She has a teasing streak too, needling him for forcing down a bitter drink and calling him a kid, while showing genuine sympathy that he never got to attend school. Toward her skinflint of a cafe boss she shows far less patience.

All of that turns out to be a performance built on brutal military conditioning that began when she was young, training so thorough that even her blushing was manufactured. Yet the act does not fully hold. Reze spares Denji despite her orders, and when the dust settles she races to make their promised meeting, ready to run off with him even though she misses her train in the end. She comes to share something real with him, bonding over their stunted childhoods, and for all her manipulation she takes no pleasure in killing, avoiding it unless the mission demands otherwise.

Reze is dangerous well before she transforms, strong enough to snap a grown assassin's arm, choke him out, and shear through Denji's wrist or tongue in a single motion, and fast enough to open his throat before he can react. Yanking the pin at her neck detonates her into her Hybrid form, and she can vary the trick by blowing off only her head and leaving the body behind as a remote-controlled decoy that doubles as a bomb.

The transformation makes her a walking munition. She hurls explosions powerful enough to level cars, buildings, and roadway, rides the blasts to fly and to supercharge her punches and kicks, and flicks sparks from her fingers as ranged shots that can kill an ordinary person outright. She can also convert pieces of her own body into delayed charges or reshape her limbs into torpedoes, regrowing whatever she spends without needing blood. Like other Hybrids she heals by drinking it and returns to life whenever someone draws out her pin, and she handles knives and unarmed combat expertly while speaking both Japanese and Russian. Her one clear vulnerability is water, which soaks away the spark her explosions depend on.