The cord around Headhunter’s neck obviously references her grisly fate, but could the two ends leading off-panel indicate a branching narrative, perhaps a reality in which Headhunter won her duel with Zero and lived on to take her revenge? On this subject, the artist says, “It really doesn’t make any sense, I just wanted to draw them …”īy don’t think it’s possible to capture the essence of Headhunter’s fighting style -constant teleporting, knife charges, and firing deadly beams from every angle -in a still image, but Zeeboon comes pretty close with these dynamic poses.īefore her shockingly pretty face made her the darling of fan artists everywhere, this interpretation of Headhunter in mask and full garb represented what NULLs everywhere must have seemed like: a gaunt, faceless harbinger of death, unable to reasoned with or defeated by anyone but another Chronos user.īy of you who follow me on Twitter have already seen this one, but it must be re-iterated: this looks unbelievably awesome. For those fated to have their lives cut short, however, it instead links them to the source of their inexorable illustration of this concept is both beautifully composed and intriguing in its symbolism. The juxtaposition of an an elegant neon dress and black garters with her signature beret, oversized zip-up jumper and massive fuck-off carbine is perfect for a proud, no-nonsense femme fatale who would never embarrass herself by rocking out to EDM or admitting to liking anime.īy Eastern mythologies, there is a concept of the ‘red string of fate’, an invisible thread that connects every person from birth to their destined soulmate. Still, sometimes being an assassin requires a disguise, and I imagine this is the extent of what Headhunter was willing to put on to infiltrate her target’s fancy evening gala take or leave it, Al-Qasim. Someone who wears her decade-old combat fatigues and mask in public clearly doesn’t care much about fashion. Just like with Zero’s purported forehead wound and The Dragon’s prototypical facial burns, fans seem to have given Headhunter a prophetic neck scar, as if taunting her foes, “yeah, cut me right here…if you can, that is”.īy must confess that I’m not really into the whole “wedding dress” fetish that a lot of fans enjoy, but not even such formal wear could diminish Headhunter’s badass persona.
Even here, it seems she’s casually committing suicide just to fight the battle over again, having finally found a worthy opponent. It was Headhunter who revealed the full extent of what that power felt like: venting her anger through heinous atrocities only to reset time as if they never happened, or watching her opponent make the same blunder dozens of times, yet feeling her own willpower erode with each ‘do-over’. Her lackadaisical attitude towards death was something totally alien, and its implications re-contextualized much of the game’s earlier plot points. Zero’s precognition was established early on, but seldom treated as more than an in-universe lampshading of the rapid trial-and-error formula that dated back to 2009′s Tower of Heaven. Today we salute the warrior woman who never gave up the fight, even in the face of certain doom. Ultimately, as she predicted, only one of them could leave that bunker alive. “Maybe there’s a secret if you let her kill you enough times in a row?” “Maybe there’s a hidden dialogue branch where she tells you what’s inside the vault instead?” “Maybe you can spare her if you picked up some Chronos in the Slaughterhouse level?” So much of her story mirrored Zero’s own-a reluctant killer at the mercy of her own crippling addiction-that players exhausted every alternative to killing her as she crawled pitifully along the floor. This week is a tribute to Katana ZERO’s final boss, the enigmatic NULL remnant, Headhunter. (Banner art by now, we return to you to your regularly scheduled programming.
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