Rodion (Rodya) -Limbus Company

*Rodion is a highly amiable woman who makes a consistent effort to be on friendly terms with the people around her. She presents herself as brazenly fun-loving, laid-back, and playful, with a preference for casual speech and nicknames. Rodya always makes an effort to be talkative and keep the mood up, both on the bus and during missions, cementing herself as one of the Sinners Dante looks to for help with breaking the ice. While her cheeky remarks and teasing occasionally come off as babying to the other members of the group, her nature makes it clear that she isn't acting out of ill will.

Oftentimes, her fun antics are motivated by a particularly strong dislike of boredom and time-wasting. Having been afforded few luxuries in her youth, Rodya highly values access to food, free time, and relaxation. This is often displayed in an unabashed love for eating and money. Rodion is open about a belief that wealth is the sole deciding factor in one's quality of life, and determined to take advantage of everything she's offered as an employee of Limbus Company, without shame. These ideas also reflect Rodya's disillusionment with the world. Though she follows her own moral code, Rodya tends to expect little from other people and has a strong understanding of just how many systems abuse innocent citizens with each passing day.

Rodya possesses a more solemn side shaped by her impoverished upbringing in the Backstreets. Having experienced the plights of the City's lower class first-hand, she's often the first to comment on the wealth-based inequalities and tragedies encountered by the LCB. In times like these, Rodya grows more deadpan and determined to be heard out, as her words become uncharacteristically dour. However, Rodya seems uncomfortable acting too serious; as a result, she rarely commits to her frustration in these moments, instead opting to break up the discussion with an excuse and a forced laugh more reminiscent of her usual demeanor. In reality, Rodya's easygoing disposition is largely an exaggeration meant to help her avoid confronting her truer feelings. Her attitude changes strikingly when discussing or reminded of her past: faltering, growing cold, or acknowledging as little of it as possible. The events of Intervallo IV: Timekilling Time, in which she joins an investigation in an attempt to prove herself, characterize her as largely insecure and unsatisfied deep down. She is also shown to grow deeply judgemental as a means of reassuring herself about her own self worth.

Additionally, these bouts of insecurity tend to lead Rodya to act impulsively. The tragedy in her hometown was a direct result of her unwillingness to wait for Sonya's "right moment", wanting to take matters into her own hands and affirm that she's special. Yet despite some self-centeredness, Rodion is characterized as a genuinely kind and empathetic individual, filled with honest feelings of compassion and desperation to help her people. She is also a common comfort for the other members of the LCB, quick to ask if someone is okay or reassure them in a difficult situation. And while acclimated to the misfortune of the City, Rodya still maintains a dislike for unnecessary violence and shows a sympathetic heart.

Unable to move on just yet, Rodya continues to struggle to let go of the guilt and regrets tying herself to her past—failing to recognize her present value as a highly worthy member of the LCB, relied on and appreciated for who she already is.

More frequently known as Rodya (Hangul: 로쟈, Rojya), she is a lively and nonchalant woman with a preference for informal conversation. She was previously affiliated with the Yurodiviye, having worked to overturn the injustices of the District 25 Backstreets prior to joining Limbus Company.

She is the focus character of Canto II: The Unloving.

Appearance Rodion is a tall and well-built woman with a pale complexion. She has thick, bushy hip-length brown hair and deep blue eyes, and a beauty mark under her right eye. She is always shown wearing orange eyeshadow and light pink lipstick. On her left breast is a tattoo of what appears to be an anatomically correct heart split by an axe.

She wears the standard Limbus Company uniform, a white dress shirt, black slacks, vest and a coat that is somewhat frayed at the bottom marked with 'RODYA' and NO.9', though she forgoes the tie and leaves her collar hanging loosely. Rodion also dons a thin black choker.

Rodion wields an axe with 'РАСКО́Л' spelled out on the head.*

Story:

Coming from the District 25 Backstreets, Rodion witnessed a devastating level of poverty and inequality in her lifetime, with all the district inhabitants growing poorer the harder they worked, while pawnbrokers hogged all of their money: the neighborhood she came from had been wrung dry, with heirlooms weighed with whatever monetary value they had. In response to this injustice, Rodion's friend Sonya began to deliver speeches and rally the people of the District together, organizing a group under the name of "Yurodiviye", which Rodion would join, yearning for a change.

Even the thickest of people were moved by Sonya's words to begin helping the impoverished, but over time, Rodion could see the goal of the organization shift subtly, turning into a group that cared more about debating how to best change the streets and the Nest rather than actually helping those in need. A pivotal moment for Rodion was the death by starvation of Ivan, the youngest member of the Yurodiviye, which didn't seem to affect Sonya at all.

When confronted, Sonya would justify his inaction by saying that they needed to wait for the perfect moment, a statement that Rodion could not agree with. To Sonya, the deaths of his companions, no matter how young, seemed inconsequential and inevitable, but to Rodion this further proved the fact that the Yurodiviye had strived too far from their initial goal of helping those in need. This finally prompted Rodion to take matters into her own hands.

Fed up with seeing her people suffer in the harsh conditions of the village, Rodion knocked on the door of one of the tax collectors with an axe in hand. Deep down Rodion hoped for the tax collector to change her mind and offer any kind of aid to those who were suffering outside in harsh living conditions, yet Rodion was only met with mockery, and struck the tax collector down with her axe.

In the moment, Rodion was sure she had done the right thing, having managed to finally bring positive change to her neighborhood, who was eating well for the first time in their life, but she would later learn that the tax collector was a sibling of a member of the Middle, and that their status was the one thing that was giving her power. Since Rodion had killed one of their family members, the Syndicate then demonstrated what happened to those that dared to stand up to them, by murdering all of the residents of the village and piling their bodies up in the middle of the streets.

Following the events of that day, being burdened by guilt and the realization that she wasn't anything more than a foolish cottager, Rodion left the District.

After cutting ties with Yurodiviye, Rodion was eventually recruited by Limbus Company as Sinner #9. Rodion's easygoing personality allowed her to quickly fit in with most of the group, although during early missions she sometimes appeared annoyed at the perspective of having to fight, suggesting in the years between her departure from Yurodivye and her recruitment into the LCB, she had not been involved in such intensive combat.

Canto II: The Unloving In February 984, the second mission for the Company took the LCB to Nest J, which Rodion is suggested to have visited before, where they would need to win a card game in order to obtain the Golden Bough. Rodion soon learned that the Yurodiviye, on their work of wealth redistribution, had been working within the Nest. This caused Rodion to grow nervous for much of the mission, trying to avoid speaking about her past in J Corp., or thinking about her history in general.

The LCB continued their mission through one of the Nest's casinos, and upon reaching the top floor, Rodion informed the others she had stolen a bit of wishpower, the luck-controlling substance created by J Corp.'s Singularity, and volunteered to play the card game, claiming she had never lost in a situation where money was involved. Much to Rodion's dismay, she would soon learn one of her opponents would be Sonya, in his role as leader of the Yurodiviye. The game grew violent at several points, with a Syndicate boss, the Tieqiu Boss, accusing Rodya of cheating, and being then crushed by an hydraulic press, Rodya still went on to win the game, and therefore the Golden Bough. Once out of the room and on the elevator downstairs, Rodion revealed to the group she'd lied about her use of wishpower.

On their way to pick up the Bough from the casino's basement, Rodion met with Sonya again, in the ice cave that had formed all around the Bough. There, Rodion began to resonate with it, and the LCB crew started witnessing her memories of her past in District 25, from her work with the Yurodiviye to her murder of the pawnbroker, and the subsequent punishment that was carried out against the entire village. While Rodion was made to face her crime, Sonya offered her a way out: to join him again, and let him create the world anew, as if nothing ever happened. Rodion refused his offer, instead telling him she felt like she couldn't bathe in such warmth just yet; in response, Sonya claimed that this refusal stemmed not out of genuine regret, but out of Rodion's wish to be special, and therefore needing an imperfect world to stand out in. The two separated, each heading in their own directions.

Developments While Rodion and Sonya's paths would not cross again, during the group's mission in T Corp., nearly a year later, in late November 984, Rodion would come to face the Yurodiviye once more.

Having volunteered as a detective to solve a series of time crimes, Rodion, together with Ryōshū, Hong Lu, and Dante, found herself exploring the alleys of District 20, with the investigation leading the group to meet the Yurodiviye of District 20. From them, Rodion learned of their organization's accomplishments since she'd left: while she had assumed Sonya wouldn't be able to actually bring any change, she learned that his words had reached all through the City, leading to the formation of Yurodiviye groups in many Districts, and to Sonya being praised by his followers as a Saint.

This, together with her interaction with the Time Ripper, left Rodion incredibly discouraged, reflecting on her choice to leave, as well as that to not join Sonya again back in J Corp., worrying that she had wasted her time without effectively moving forward like Sonya had.

Despite Rodion's contributions to solving the case, with Hong Lu pointing out her relating to and understanding the Time Ripper had been essential to identifying him, Rodion remained disappointed with herself, claiming she has done nothing of consequence compared to the others. Following this, Rodion attempted to return to her usual upbeat self, while still obviously carrying the weight of her unsolved worries.