Ryouko Kusakabe

"You could've been killed out there. Do you realize how lucky you are she became lost. exercise some restraint, okay. you're a valuable member of the AST, so start acting like it!"

- Ryouko to Origami.

Ryouko Kusakabe is a major supporting character in Date A Live series. She is the captain of the Japan Ground Self Defense Force and the Anti Spirit Team, who leads the young girls of the AST while being 27 herself in Tenguu City.

She was also the first antagonist and one of the main antagonists in Season 1 and a minor antagonist turned anti-hero/supporting protagonist in Season 2 after Deus.Ex.Machina Industries appears in ''Date A Live II. '' She is responsible for causing a great hatred among the first Spirits on the series. She also appears in the spin-off series Date AST Like as one of the two tritagonists alongside with Mana Takamiya.

She was voiced by Ao Takahashi in the Japanese dubbed version, and by Caitlin Glass in the English dubbed version.

Past
Ryouko first joined the AST when Kyouhei Kannazuki was still commander of the team. While disturbed by the unusual punishments he used to keep her and her fellow Wizards in line, she respected him due to his skills with the Realizer. After Kyouhei left the AST, Ryouko succeeded him as commander of the team.

Date A Live
Somewhere in the city, Yoshino is being chased and attacked by the AST, trying to loose them but is cornered by Ryouko and manages to momentarily knock her down. As Ryouko opens fire on her, Yoshino summons Zadkiel, causing the area around her to freeze as the AST open fire on her again but counters by freezing two members, leaving only Origami and Ryouko as the duo chase after Yoshino.

At the Camp Tenguu Military Base, Ryouko is being briefed by one of her superiors that a group from DEM are being deployed for her and her team to observe as to follow their techniques on how to deal with the Spirits. Later at her office, after letting out a fit, she is asked by one of her subordinates about the trip this weekend and after expressing her delight over the trip, she is unfortunately reported about the sudden rise in alert levels for them due to the frequent appearances of Spirits recently, thus resulting in their trip being cancelled, causing Ryouko's frustration toward the Spirits. However, Ryouko's subordinate instead suggests that she go to the local hot springs instead, citing it as their way of showing Ryouko their gratitude for her. Excited, Ryouko thanks her.

Meanwhile with the AST, Ryouko and her squad are taking the deployment train to the hot springs. Suddenly, a cave-in occurs in the tunnels which forces the train to stop due to an emergency shut down, forcing the group to go on foot instead.

A moment later, the AST are blocked in all of their possible routes, with Fraxinus being the cause. Ryouko orders Origami to take watch from above for any other routes they can take. Origami spots a side road that connects to the main road that they could take, and Ryouko immediately orders her group to march toward it. Ryouko and her squad find another dead end in the road that they were taking. Frustrated, she uses an explosive to clear the blockade, which Kotori takes notice of and orders her crew to take action to stop them by whatever means necessary. The crew then launches a missle toward the AST and, upon exploding, captures some of the group in traps.

The AST then face a ridiculous amount of traps being deployed at them by Fraxinus. Ryouko orders her troops to launch their suppression attack and to engage immediately. Having had enough of this, Ryouko retaliates on her own and destroys most of the traps. The Fraxinus crew then follows the command and has each of their traps simultaneously open fire on the AST, with some being captured but are quickly broken free by Ryouko. She then asks herself why this is all happening and remembers the amount of stress she has endured today and eventually snaps, ordering her troops to return fire with everything they have and to not stop, completely having lost her mind.

A while later, Ryouko happily announces that she now feels better after all that happened, standing on the wreckage of the incident as her troops tiredly comment about this. Meanwhile, Ryouko and her troops also finally reach the hot springs and as they are about to begin their relaxing time, the water of the hot springs freeze up, caused by Yoshino's reaction to what happened to Yoshinon.

Date A Live II
As Major Tsukamoto is about to adjurn their meeting, Ryouko barges in and complains about the large number of DEM transferees and demands to know why they, the DEM members, have the authority to break away from Ryouko's commands when deemed necessary. A mysterious woman answers that the amount of spacequakes in Tenguu City have gone up yet they have no amount of Spirits captured. Ryouko asks who she is and the woman introduces herself as Jessica Bailey, one of the new transferees from DEM to the AST.

Fraxinus immediately teleports Shido back. Miku eventually unleashes back her force field at the AST from their continuous attacks and suddenly disappears, which visibly angers Ryouko over another failure.

Origami goes to the changing room and coincidentally, Ryouko is in the room too. Ryouko lets out a sigh of tiredness and then speak about tomorrow's mission, pretending as if she never noticed Origami existence inside the room. She also adds that she might forget to lock the door of the second hangar, and leave Origami alone in the room after saying that it's up to her now.

Ryouko and her AST squad arrive at the DEM Japanese Headquarter and find a group Bandersnatch units engaged with a group of Kurumi's shadow clones.

She eventually joined Ratatoskr and aided help them in fighting DEM due to a difference in ideologies.

Physical Description
Ryouko is a young woman in her mid-20s. She has long, glossy black hair which is tied into a ponytail with some bangs left out into three separate parts. She also has a pair of black eyes.

She is often seen wearing her dark cyan military uniform with a hat on top of her head whenever she is at the JGSDF base and wears the AST's wiring suit during combat. In Rinne Utopia, Ryouko wears a red T-shirt underneath a white, long-sleeved shirt with unfastened collar.

Psychological Description
Ryouko, for the most part, is often childish and gets angry when annoyed. Despite this, she is dedicated to her position and prioritizes civilian safety during spacequake attacks, and was outraged by DEM wizards not following these same beliefs.

Over the years, Ryouko seems to have given up on killing the Spirits. Instead, she became more concerned with the safety of her teammates while being content with just minimizing the damage the Spirits caused. Because of this, she often butted heads with her teammate Origami, who would often recklessly put herself in danger to attempt to kill the Spirits. Despite this, however, Ryouko still saw Origami as a friend.

Cr-Unit Mordred
A pair of 50.5 cm magic cannons. A set of containment units that can store a large amount of weaponry. The standard combat wiring suit of the AST is usually worn around the AST base and underneath the CR-Unit when a user is in combat. The combat wiring suit is only used for an emergency or in combat, without a CR-unit, as it contains a basic Realizer unit on it. The C C C or cry Cry Cry is a large, Anti-Spirit Rifle.
 *  Blastalk
 * RootBox
 * Combat Wiring Suit
 * C C C (Cry Cry Cry)

When used against a human, this rifle was shown to have enough power to blast a large hole through that person's torso. Against a spirit, however, it can't pierce through their Astral Dresses. An Anti-Spirit laser blade.
 * No Pain

When deactivated, it merely consists of a handle and guard. It is normally stored inside of the combat wiring suit when not in use. When the user reaches for the sword, the combat wiring suit will move the handle into a position where it can be drawn greater ease. When active, a blade made of glowing blue energy (roughly a meter in length) is emitted from the handle. A Twin Blade Mode of a laser blade. An Anti-Spirit Gatling gun.
 * Murakumo
 * Auldist