NiCO

Unreleased

NiCO (spelled Nico normally) is a MIST scientist and Pencak Silat fighter debuting for Dead or Alive 6.

A master of tech and weaponry, NiCO is an intelligent and somewhat immodest scientist who fights with electro-shock gloves. She was recruited by Victor Donovan to helm the latest project for M.I.S.T., and had enough fighting prowess to be a threat to the ninjas, although she had her own personal reasons for undergoing the project.

The Sixth Tournament
TBA

Appearance
Owing to her status as one of MIST's top researchers, her primary attire depicts her with a white overcoat and top, as well as an ID card on her left breast. She also wears blue shorts and has a blue shirt underneath her white top, as well as white socks and arm braces. She also wears white thigh high boots with blue trim on the heels. She also wears blue-colored electro-gloves that cover all except for her fingers and thumb, which she uses in battle. She also has teal-colored hair, making her one of only three female fighters to share an unusual hair color (the others being Ayane and Honoka, having purple and salmon pink-colored hair, respectively). Unlike the other female fighters exempting Marie Rose, she is not physically well endowed, having a more modest bust size. She also wears teal-framed glasses.

Like most of the other fighters, her hairstyle will change if she is the victim of a break blow. In her case, her glasses are removed and she loses her hair pin, making her bangs fully cover her left eye.

Personality
As befitting of a scientist, she loves to do experiments, and is also shown to be asocial and somewhat arrogant, as evidenced by her stating to Christie that she has no reason to explain herself to the latter when she attempted to question her motives for doing MIST's experiment. She seems to show very little emotion, remaining composed and very calm in various situations seen thus far. The only instance where she demonstrated any emotion was when Helena called her out on trying to revive Maria, where she ends up stammering in shock, anger, and sadness and even attacked Helena with her lightning gloves when the latter tried to restrain her before fleeing. She is also somewhat snarky, as she can be heard saying "Too bad." when she successfully holds an opponent's attack.

Although working for MIST, she has absolutely no loyalty to the organization, and only saw them as a means to an end regarding her experiments. Her motive for working for them in reviving Raidou was because of her prior status as an orphan: She never knew her mother due to the latter abruptly abandoning her, and her father died while she was still young, which ultimately crushed her enough that she desired to find a way to revive the latter.

She has some reservations, as when observing the security monitors, she briefly expresses disgust upon seeing a lab technician lusting after a cloning vat's inhabitant.

Etymology and Concept
NiCO's name is likely an allusion to NiCO3, or Nickel Carbonate, which is used in electronics and electrochemical processes such as electroplating. Her teal hair color is also the same color as certain NiCO3 reactions such as precipitation in a solution.

Dead or Alive 6 producer and director Yohei Shimbori stated in an interview that NiCO was supposed to have Russian nationality instead of a Finnish one, but they changed it halfway trough the development of Dead or Alive 6. NiCO's Japanese voice actor Sumire Uesaka was originally chosen for her language skills in Russian, who sadly didn't end up being used according to Shimbori. NiCO was also cited to have been created primarily for the Japanese and Asian market (while Diego, the only other new character in the game, was created primarily for the Western market), and similar to Honoka and Marie Rose had largely been inspired by anime/light novel tropes (in NiCO's case, her cool "chuuni" atmosphere).

Kokoro
She encountered Kokoro at some point before, and was responsible for providing her with a photo depicting Kokoro and Helena as children near Fame Douglas. She also sympathized to a certain extent with Kokoro's sadness over Miyako's abrupt departure, as her own mom also left without saying goodbye, although this resulted in Kokoro fighting her in anger over NiCO "pretending to know how [Kokoro] felt."

Raidou
NiCO was the one responsible for restoring Raidou back to life as a cyborg henchman of Donovan. She also implied that his restoration merely acted as a prototype.

Christie
She had some acquaintance to Christie, as she freely admitted that Raidou's revival was the prototype stage for a new experiment of reviving people. However, she also was somewhat cold to her, as she made clear that she was under no obligation to state what her personal motives for partaking in her experiment to revive Raidou were to Christie when the latter requested to know that information, and only divulged such after fighting Christie twice.

Lisa Hamilton
NiCO and Lisa encountered each other, with Lisa being shocked to learn that NiCO was a member of MIST when the latter implied that she was her replacement. After NiCO was defeated by her predecessor, Lisa then advised her to leave Donovan as soon as she can, as he is not a trustworthy individual, although NiCO refused and appears to be already aware who he is.

Victor Donovan
Although Donovan is her boss at MIST, NiCO appears to have always been despise of him from beginning, not just being an individual who should not be trusted. Donovan is the one who brought Raidou’s corpse to her to be use for the evil ninja’s resurrection as an undead cyber ninja under his order.

Miyako
Miyako was the one directly responsible for providing NiCO with a job as head researcher at MIST. As such she had some respect for her, and implied when encountering Kokoro that meeting her in person as well as supplying her with the photo of Fame with Kokoro and Helena was her way of repaying her debt to Miyako.

Dead or Alive series

 * Dead or Alive 6

Fighting quotes

 * Dead or Alive 6

Trivia

 * One of NiCO’s intro quotes appears to be a reference to a signature catchphrase from titular protagonist of Kamen Rider Build: Sento Kiryu/Takumi Katsuragi, as noticeably heard in her Japanese voice set.
 * NiCO occupation, personality, and gesture poses have some similarities to Luna. Coincidentally, both also managed to beat out Ayane as the youngest female character in the series (NiCO being the youngest female fighter).
 * NiCO is the first Finnish fighter in the series.
 * Her outfit's colors also resemble that of the Finnish flag.
 * NiCO's hair clip is the skeletal formula for Benzene, a colorless, flammable, and sweet smelling carcinogen.
 * NiCO's name is likely an allusion to NiCO3, or Nickel Carbonate, which is used in electronics and electro-chemical processes such as electroplating. Her teal hair color is also the same color as certain NiCO3reactions such as precipitation in a solution.
 * NiCO often poses her index, middle finger, and thumb perpendicular to one another in her intros or victories. This orthogonal finger arrangement, known as the Right-Hand Rule, is used throughout physics, especially when dealing with electrical currents, electromagnetic fields, and cross-products.
 * NiCO is the second flat-chested female fighter in the series after Marie Rose. Coincidentally, both characters also originated within countries belonging to the Scandinavian region of Europe (Marie Rose and NiCO belonging to Sweden and Finland, respectively).
 * Both of them, look similar to one another in terms of facial features and body type as well.
 * Despite her small chest, however, her pre-order oppai mouse pad features her breasts prominently on the oppai portion.
 * On a similar note, she is technically the first female fighter to have an unusual hair color who is not Japanese.
 * NiCO is the second fighter to employ electricity into her attacks, after Raidou. Unlike Raidou, however, her electric abilities are the result using gadgets.
 * She has beat out Ayane as the youngest female fighter in the series, as well as beat out Luna as the youngest female playable character overall. As such, she is also the second-youngest character in the series (with only Eliot being younger than her).
 * NiCO is currently the only character to break the fourth wall, as one of her taunts explicitly references her opponent's health gauge.
 * Her commenting on the opponent's health gauge may have been a reference to the live action movie adaptation DOA: Dead or Alive, which had the fighters life meters being displayed as an important part of the plot.
 * Although NiCO herself does not appear in Dead or Alive Xtreme Venus Vacation, her likeness is used as a promotional life-sized pop furniture for the Owner Room.