Rei

> Today was career day. We invested in a lot, so you would know who I am and what I can do. You work with me now. You have shit, you give it to me, that's your job. Now I know that is a **mighty big, nasty pill** to swallow, but swallow it you most certainly **motherfucking** will! You ruled the roost. You... built something. You thought you were safe, I get it... but the word is out. You are **not safe.** Not even **fucking** close. In fact, you are **fucked,** more fucked if you don't do what I want. And what I want is some of your shit. And if that's too much, you can make, find, or steal more, and it'll even out sooner or later. This is one of your ways of life now. The more you fight back, the harder it will be. So, if someone... knocks on your door... you fucking let us in, we own that door! You try to fucking stop us... we will fucking **knock that fucker down.** You understand?
>
> Rei to Shane's group about one of their new ways of life

**Rei** is a former antagonist and a main character in *Kantai Collection EX -another side-* also the protagonist in her prequel story *Kantai Collection: The Book of Rei*.

She was the leader of the Remnants of the Abyss, who used her authority and resources to secure leverage in other organizations and gather tribute in exchange for security and partnership in military affairs. After seeing how the world had changed, Rei and the renegades chose to integrate with the Naval Military. She has also developed a close bond with light cruiser Mutsuki. After saving her during a massive blizzard, Rei was allowed to take on a role in the community under supervision.

## Personality

Rei is shown to be a charismatic, cocky, manipulative, brutal, and ferocious Abyssal girl with a sarcastic, inappropriate sense of humor. Rei is a brilliant strategist and a strong, effective leader, having kept hundreds of her people alive and is worshipped by many and feared by others. When she was leader of the Abyssal renegades, she was shown to have had complete control over her vast group and was questioned by no one. Rei appeared to care about the well-being of her people as shown when she personally killed the Naval Base's resident bully Kale Messina as punishment for the slaughter of many of her brethren at the hands of Shane Marcus and his comrades during the Abyssal war. Rei believes that she can save the people around her and was willing to do whatever it takes to ensure their survival.

Rei was also an extremely ruthless leader, willing to do whatever it took to keep her people safe by extorting multiple organizations, threatening them with death if they did not meet her demands. She also has no respect to those she views as being completely evil and cowardly as she brutally slaughtered the former corrupt admiral after the latter attempted to convince her to kill Shane and his friends, claiming he had no guts to do it himself, which disgusts her.

On the other hand, Rei has great respect for those she views as strong, both physically and emotionally, and those who show bravery. This is shown when she immediately took a liking towards Shane for his leadership skills. She even explains to the corrupt admiral that although Shane distrusts her guts, Shane is putting his distrust aside and make ends meet with Rei so that she does not harm anyone else in the Naval Base, and admires and respects that.

Despite her brutal nature, Rei is not completely heartless, as she can be very reasonable for the sake of practicality, like when she spared Kisaragi's life to keep relations steady with Shane, despite the fact that she accidentally killed some of her people. She has also demonstrated care and love of babies as shown by her reaction to meeting the late private Josh Winter's daughter and cradling her kindly. Also, she is adamantly against killing women and children. Rei is a girl of her word and does not lie or breaks a promise, and she is always open and true to who she is and never tries to hide it.

Having spent so much time in the Naval Base, Rei has adopted a friendlier personality, even helping Kisaragi's sister Mutsuki with math problems. While interacting with the young girl, Rei's advice appears to be completely genuine and not manipulative and she even gives a fond smile at Mutsuki's take on the situation. This was further proven during a blizzard, when Rei willingly risked her own life to chase after Mutsuki, who herself began chasing Natalie's dog after it ran off, desperately calling out to her, and used her own winter clothes to keep Mutsuki warm. Nonetheless, Rei still retained her rather crude and straight-forward sense of humor, joking about the "love triangle" between Nicholas, Natalie and Max, and poking fun at Nicholas not being the father of Natalie's child, sarcastically referring to him as "*Father, not the father*".

Stemming from her early years since she was born in the human world, she has a pedantic nature to her, reveling in helping others explore their thoughts, feelings, and ideas. She displays profound moments of wisdom when counseling people, keenly perceptive of abstractions that others may have missed.