K'

**K'** (K' (ケイ・ダッシュ), *Kei Dasshu*, pronounced as "**K Dash**"), sometimes known as "K Prime", is a character who debuted as the leader of the Hero Team in *The King of Fighters '99*. He stars as the reluctant hero in the NESTS saga of the series, often letting his partner Maxima handle any social necessities in his stead. To contrast the previous protagonist of the series, K' was made to be the "dark hero".

The origins of both K′ and Maxima can be found in the Psikyo arcade game *The Fallen Angels* (堕落天使, *Daraku Tenshi* in Japan). This obscure 1998 release stars an emaciated goth in tight leather pants named Cool, along with a brawny, cybernetically enhanced US Marine named Harry Ness. The man responsible for the design of both characters, Shin'ichi Morioka, migrated to SNK shortly after *The Fallen Angels* was released, and elements of Cool and Harry Ness' design were used in the creation of K′ and Maxima. The end result is that K′ looks nearly identical to Cool. His namesake was taken from a clone character in the light novel *Blue Knight Berserga Monogatari* (青の騎士ベルゼルガ物語), which is set in the same universe as the anime series *Armored Trooper Votoms*. During the early phases of development of *The King of Fighters '99*, K′'s introduction to the series was meant to remove popular characters Kyo Kusanagiand Iori Yagami from the roster, though this idea was later scrapped.

In a 2005 poll made by SNK-Playmore USA, he was voted as the fourth fan favorite character with a total of 338 votes.

## Personality

K' has a very serious personality but is very easy to enrage due to his more high-strung side. He is starting to treat Whip as a big sister and Kula as a little sister. He often calls Maxima names - like "stupid", "idiot", etc. - but he actually trusts his partner's reliability. He is hardly polite and is always gruff, even to those close to him. Because K' usually expresses his concerns in a "tough guy" manner, Maxima jokingly calls him dishonest or stiff. He sees Kyo as a rival and wants to prove he is better than him, not as only a clone.

In *KOF XIII*, several fighters often point out K's rather immature personality ("whiny", lazy, anti-social and constantly rude to others) in their pre-fight dialogues against him. It is also pointed out he feels trapped in his life and is also rather very lazy and hates involving himself in most things he finds trivial, making him not unlike Iori Yagami in terms of nihilistic mindset (and the two ironically very much hate each other and are prone to nasty dialogue between one another for little reason). He, of course, despite his disinterest to partake in the KOF tournaments, at times often boasts about his abilities to take on anyone anytime, anywhere, which is something not quite far off from his capabilities as he also finds engaging in tasks with expected results to be yet another chore.

## Powers

* **Pyrokinesis** - K' can control fire.
	+ **Create Fire** - K' can create fire out of nowhere.
	+ **Fire Projectile** - K' can throw fireballs.
	+ **Fire Attacks** - K' can add damage to his normal attacks with fire.
	+ **Explosion** - K' can create an explosion by touching his enemy.
* **Translocation** - K' can translocate himself.

## Fighting Style

K's fighting style is said to be "Pure Violence", but it has several similarities with Bruce Lee's Jeet Kune Do. He even uses some of his famous moves, such as the One inch punch and Flying Kicks. As a nod to hinting of said "violence", K's moves tend to show very brutal mannerisms due to his high-strung nature. This ranges from violent elbow strikes, enraged battle cries, and even resorting to throw his sunglasses at his foe and following up with a beatdown, no holds barred.

Most of his mannerisms are either somewhat lazy (due to his disinterest in fighting), even to dozing off in battle via his idle stance when a certain amount of time passes; some/most of his flames tend to come from his right hand due to his limitations, but K' can work around this handicap in combat regardless, and is regarded as one of the best fighters in the *KOF* universe (as well as a high/top tier character in terms of gameplay in more later installments of the series).

Despite his laziness, K' is shown to also be rather flexible (evidenced by his pre-*KOF XI* blowback attack, Second Shell, Minutes Spike, and Crow Bites Plus/classic jumping strong kick).

One of his DMs, known as Chain Drive, is most-likely based off of a battle scene from the 1998 film known as *Drive*. His HSDM/MAX2DM, Crimson Star Road, is named after an episode of the anime series *Legend of Galactic Heroes*.

## Music

* **KD-0079** - The King of Fighters '99, 2002
* **KD-0084** - The King of Fighters 2000
* **Big Pain** - The King of Fighters 2001
* **KD** - The King of Fighters 2003
* **KDD-0075** - The King of Fighters XI, XIII (when the music is set to "Type B", console version only)
* **KDD-0063** - The King of Fighters XIII
* **KD-SR** - The King of Fighters XIV
* **KD-0079+** - The King of Fighters 2002: Unlimited Match
* **Cool Drive** - Days of Memories

## TMNT X Pokemon

K' is one of the villains you will encounter throughout the game. He's one of the most difficult to beat but not impossible to defeat.

## Trivia

* K's yell following his debut - "Dora!" or "Ora!" - was made due to Sha-V's suggestion. He reasoned that these shouts are K's equivalent to Kyo's "Kurei!" or Iori's "Doushita!". Konny jokingly wonders if he's trying to say the word "dry" since the first draft of his yell was "Dorei!".
* His team's backstory for *KOF XI* features lyrics from Karl Busse, a nineteenth century lied from Germany. The particular song is Über den Bergen, transcribed in Japanese as "you in the mountain" (山のあなた, *Yama no anata*).
* In *Neo Geo Battle Coliseum*, at the character select screen, when selecting K' with R1+X, he wears red clothes, has blonde hair, and wields green flames, just like Ash Crimson.