K'

K', pronounced as "K Dash" (, Kei Dasshu), and 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. He is the protagonist of the NESTS Saga (KOF 99-KOF 2001). To contrast the previous protagonist of the series, K' was made to be the "dark hero".

His official nickname is "He who surpasses K" (Kをえるもの, K wo Koeru mono).

Personality
K' has a very serious and arrogant personality but is very easy to enrage due to his more high-strung side, though 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. Also, if there is something K' hates above everything else it is to be compared with Kyo which often results of him being labeled the inferior kusanagi, and because of that K' started to have some sort of rivalry with Kyo. Believing that he is more than just a mere imitation of Kyo, K' is always looking for a way to escape his fate as the "second kusanagi flame".

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. Much of his dislike of trivial things is likely due to the trauma of often serving as one of NESTS's agents in regards to various shady assignments, as seen in his pre-battle dialogue against Daimon in XIII where he states "I have enough blood on my hands already".