Kira Vasilyeva

*This article contains major spoilers for the plotline of Anchor.*

* Adult
* Child

*This page contains information about the Marionette featured in the Anchor series. For the Marionette featured in Spectrophobia, see Eva Volkov.*

**Kira Vasilyeva**, also known as the second **Marionette**, is a supporting character in *Anchor*. She also serves as the protagonist of the side story Spectrophobia. She is a mercenary, assassin, and member of The Resistance's Squad 6.

## Profile

### Overview

Kira is a shady individual residing somewhere in California. She displays sociopathic and sadistic tendencies, and has no interest in speaking to most of the resistance members. Despite this, Cyrus manages to be less popular than her. At some point, she fled Russia to the United States after Atlas had taken control and began offering contract killings under the name Marionette; her swift and stealthy methods of termination earned her a reputation in some criminal circles. She was approached by Mercury at some point before the events of *Anchor* and agreed to join The Resistance.

### Personality

Kira is reserved and unsociable to Squad 6, likely a product of conducting the entirety of her work solo for the past few years. She has stated that she finds arrogance insufferable, but she was unfortunately paired with Faultline for their first "mission." While she does not often show it, she harbors deep hatred of Atlas because the discrimination fostered by his reign reminds her of conditions in Russia. She expresses skepticism and condescension toward the efforts of The Resistance, though she takes her training extremely seriously regardless. Collaborating with her teammates, however, is her biggest weakness; she shows little patience for anyone at all as she refuses to trust anyone.

To retain a sense of freedom, she approaches the murder of her targets as a twisted form of art. Most would find some of her acts horrific, but she takes enjoyment out of finding every way to make the light die out of someone's eyes.

Kira has a fascination with themes and concepts of control, originating from the traumatic experiences of her past. While she has repressed those memories, what remains is an abrasive personality that is unwilling to trust others. She is often condescending to those who live in servitude and she sometimes manipulates others for her own gain, suggesting that she may desire to be the one who controls, after spending a life as the one who is controlled.

She seems to have an aversion to touch, either due to haphephobia or pure disgust.

### Abilities

Kira possesses above-average telekinetic powers that she can use on one object at a time. She can easily lift or move objects about the weight of a human body, which is what she chose to refine her abilities around: she knows how to mimic realistic human body language and can use her telekinesis to puppet corpses in a lifelike manner. Her puppets are capable of speech, but they must be in view for her to maintain the illusion convincingly. This expertise makes her particularly valuable in infiltration missions, e.g. by bypassing retinal scanners or fooling guards.

When focused on a single, smaller object (or part of the human body), Kira's powers are capable of applying a rather intense amount of force (e.g. the fate of Idiot in Chapter 35), earning her an A-Rank designation.

## Story

### Background

Kira was born in Russia after the advent of a 'new order' that dealt with superhumans by placing them in ruthless concentration camps. As soon as she turned five years old, government-affiliated scientist Dr. Singh and his armed entourage appeared at her home every month to conduct a simple gene awakening test.

### Events of Spectrophobia

When Kira was almost ten years old, she underwent an awakening event, her latent telekinetic abilities tearing her room apart. Knowing what happened to her father, she was briefly unable to accept this event and rationalized it as havoc wrought by a ghost. This explanation didn't hold up for long in her mind, and she was forced to realize that the next test would reveal her as awakened, causing her to begin dissociating in stressful scenarios.

Dr. Singh discovered that she had awakened during the next test, and swiftly abducted her to who knows where.

### Events of Anchor

Kira, known exclusively under her mercenary alias, is one of several superhumans comprising Squad 6. Much to her irritation, she is initially paired with Faultline for the trial run. Later, she's placed on a team with Uranaishi and Centimeter, though she expresses distaste for working with more people than she needs to. Conveniently, following the death of Ajax, she is paired with a traumatized Blackout and tasked with infiltrating Camp Pendleton and deactivating its security systems.

She fucking sucks at teamwork but that didn't stop her from obliterating Archangel.

### Family and Relationships

#### Mother

Kira had a strong relationship with her mother while she was growing up. This relationship was strained by how her mother kept the nature of the tests from her in an attempt to shield her from the realities of Russia, but Kira still viewed her mother as a protective figure and had nobody else to trust. Thus, being torn from her mother at such an early age was extremely difficult for Kira to deal with.

#### Father

Kira's father was taken by the government only a few months after Kira was born. Her mother attests that he was capable of "incredible things," though these abilities were also destructive. His powers were not described, but he was a pacifistic S-Rank (or, 5L under the Russian ranking system at the time). Kira's mother never saw him again after he was taken, and his fate is unknown.

#### Dr. Singh

Dr. Singh conducted Kira's monthly tests, and later became her supervisor at the Russian superhuman camp.

## Trivia

* Kira is one of multiple characters that originated in a roleplay set in the early *Anchor* universe, the others being Mercury, Delusion, Archangel, Melatonin, Fen, Ajax, Atlas, and Cyrus.
	+ The first iteration of Kira was a very flat and murderous character with no backstory besides a vague suggestion that her face may be scarred, thus explaining her need for a mask.
		- The basic concept of Kira goes back as far as 2018, originating as a masked assassin in a fantasy setting. This setting no longer exists, and Kira objectively sucked because she was not even named Kira, had a worse design, a worse personality, and was male.
* Her mask was partially inspired by Uboa from the game *Yume Nikki*, and the webseries character ENA.
* She apparently killed and dissected a Venator two years before *Anchor*. Kira chill the fuck out
* Kira's romantic preferences are completely irrelevant in her current state, but she is technically a lesbian. This is because everyone agreed that it just makes sense. Reactions from the audience include "yes please let her kiss girls omg yes," "if it makes sense for her to be romantically attracted to anybody I think it makes sense for it to be women although I can't explain my reasoning," and "don't make her straight." The Anchor fandom is a gay force to be reckoned with.