User blog comment:Leolab/Operation Zodiac: Now With Actual Assassination/@comment-4661256-20190211005957

This vote is going to be horrific, but at least I am making the effort.

Junichiro Tanizaki:  I feel like this guy could lose a fight to non-powered warriors. His combat experience and his charisma are both sorely lacking, and those two traits will be necessary to survive, whether he chooses to go about the violent or non-violent route. If he gets attacked, I don't see him having the skill set necessary to outlast some of his more powerful opponents. And, without exceptional charisma, he isn't going to be participating in any alliances where he isn't an unwitting pawn. Yes, he is unassuming and can blend in to the crowd, but with a bunch of serial killers and superpowered maniacs on the loose, maybe looking like an easily-killable NPC isn't your best bet.

Misuzu Kusakabe:  Like everyone else has said, her powers are way too flashy without giving her the necessary durability or skill to stand up to her fellow superpowered classmates. Her best-case scenario is to get arrested right off the bat for going berserk on someone; otherwise, she's going to end up with a blade in her back (or worse). Her combat skill doesn't mean much when she has no practical way to exercise it discretely in this scenario, so as far as I'm concerned she's a non-issue here.

 Signum:  Well, apparently everyone else thinks that she will lose really early. The thing that confuses me is that I didn't see anything that painted her as especially serial killer-y in her bio, so I am not convinced that she's going to go around using her powers to kill people. So long as she exclusively operates in self-defense, I see no reason why she shouldn't be a viable contender here. But, I'm sure I'm fundamentally misunderstanding something here, so I'll concur with the majority.

 Kazuma Yagami:  Yagami is powerful, but his powers are incredibly obvious and call attention to his person. Additionally, his personality will not win him any favors in this scenario, so I don't see him lasting as long as even what some of the other users have suggested below (though they're probably more likely to be interpreting things properly than me). He's arrogant, and he has a lot of power, and his combat experience and intelligence can feed that arrogance. I don't think he'll die, but I think he's going to end up getting arrested by the invincible police once he gets too big for his britches.

 Black Dandelion:  The zombie plant probably will not lose first, since it won't even be active without a corpse present on the campus. Now, the first death could be an NPC, but at any rate I feel that the flowers won't start "pollinating" (or whatever you call it) before at least a few individuals have been offed. Though I initially believed the Black Dandelion to pose a significant threat to the other competitors, I have come to believe that it will barely be a blip on their radar since there is a task force of unkillable police officers, who will be able to spring into action and contain the outbreak without worrying about taking damage themselves. Black Dandelion is cool in this scenario, and I wish there was a way for it to be a more serious threat, but until someone presents me with a way for this to be feasible, I must sadly conclude that it will bow out early on.

 Cole MacGrath:  I actually feel like Cole has a chance to make it (this far, at least) for a few reasons. One, he's not a student, he's staff, so he won't be in as intimate contact with the other combatants. Additionally, he is a good guy, so his flashy powers will only be invoked in self-defense. I can actually see him being something of a local hero to the NPCs, since they will be frightened in the midst of all this violence, and his good guy nature plus his relative authority status as a staff member actually make him a good person to be around. But he's too trusting, so any of the more diabolical characters will make short work of him. And, with his powers being so flashy, even though I don't think they'll get him arrested, they'll make him a big target to the other combatants, so he's unfortunately going to end up being killed sooner rather than later.

 Nana Hiiragi:  Since all of the participants will be tipped off as to the fact that there will be other opponents out to get them, they're going to be on edge. Nana Hiiragi might have some luck with some of the more trusting individuals (particularly Cole MacGrath), and she is skilled when it comes to assassinating targets, but she is ultimately a normal human teenager, and once she has outlasted all of her weaker competitors, she won't have much of a chance against the remaining powerhouses. I feel that the ones who are left, at this point, will be either too wary or too powerful (or both) for her to have a chance at taking them down. She might end up getting arrested, if an attempt fails, but considering who she'll be sharing the campus with at this point, it's probably more likely that she'll end up getting killed in self-defense.

 Tenkei Iwafune:  Since he's so laid-back, he likely won't really do much until the participants are whittled down, increasing the odds that someone runs into him. His powers are nice in that they block other magical abilities, and he is a skilled combatant and highly intelligent. I honestly think that he could pose a serious threat to almost anyone else in the fight. His "Damocles Down" ability would probably end up killing whoever forced him to trigger it in a fight (and I doubt that they would know enough about him to recognize that they must end his life before the blade connects to the ground, unless they have an ability that specifically enables them to determine this). So, a combination of an appropriate personality type for this scenario, and his excellent combat experience, lets him rank rather highly.

 Akiha Tohno:  The fact that her ability requires magical powers to detect means that she can blatantly kill most of her targets and get away with it. But at this point in the game, her remaining competitors are likely to have investigated her/caught her with magical perception or something along those lines. Even if that's not the case, her lack of real combat experience and genuine charisma mean that she's really only been buoyed by the sheer deadliness of her power. At this stage in the game, that power will have taken her as far as it can on its own—she won't be able to rely on it without any other claim to a decisive supplementary ability or skill, especially one that none of her other competitors also have.

 Antonia Antonovna Nikitina:  I am impressed by her skill-set. It's simple, and her combination of respectable combat experience and excellent stealth offsets her antagonistic personality, in my opinion. She has one weapon, and is very good at what she does with it (that is, killing). I can see her going undetected and racking up a significant body count. It's only her relative lack of experience against better-powered opponents that prevents her from getting farther.

 Liliana Guenther:  She has a lot of flashy powers, but also a lot of ways to overcome that handicap. Apparently she can create some sort of portal or enclosed space or something with the Guarden, so, if I am understanding this properly, it means she can teleport someone with her into a hidden area and proceed to beat the ever-loving pulp out of them. The fact that she is very charismatic will work wonders in helping her stay above suspicion, at least in the initial stages of the fight. But, the remaining characters are simply far too strong, even for her, so this is as far as she's going to make it.

Kabutomushi:  Kabutsomushi has both the skill-set and the mindset to win this scenario. Unfortunately, she's also way too powerful with physical strength, and I am honestly seeing this end with her getting arrested by the invincible police. There's no way that the final two combatants will be able to unleash all their power on one another without the cops intervening. So it boils down to who has the more subtle power, and who is more likely to be perceived as the aggressor in a confrontation, and Kabutomushi fits that bill perfectly.

Josephine March:  I think March will win for a few reasons. She has charisma and combat locked down, so she'll be able to play the peaceful game as long as necessary, while not being in any serious danger when it comes to violent encounters. She can magically detect things, and has weaponry to counter magical entities. And, I feel that her magical barrier ability is probably one of the most versatile abilities present in this fight. She can hold her own even against Kabutsomushi, certainly long enough for the campus-destroying fight to attract the attention of the police and put an end to it. March has an excellent combination of charisma, combat experience, intelligence, strength, and raw power, and I think that's what will catapult her to the top.