Akiba Tanegashima

Akiba Tanegashima is the eldest son of the Tanegashima Family and a former student of Beacon Academy. He is part of Team SSAN and alludes to Oda Nobunaga.

Appearance
Akiba is a 5'6 tall with long rust-colored hair with red highlights, blood red eyes

that seemingly always look tired, and long eyelashes that make him look somewhat feminine. He has long front and side bangs while the back is thick and at shoulder-length, which he lazily ties together. Around his neck and covering a long horizontal scar on it is his trademark long red scarf that reaches down to his thighs, while on his head are his autumn themed closed headphones. At the start of his second year he ordered a new scarf, with this bearing the emblem of his family on both ends. He ties them the same way as his other but with the ends draped in front of him.

His usual attire is that of a thick gray and orange coat that reaches down to his thighs over a white polo and red vest. His scarf is tied in a slip-knot and stuffed inside his coat and a matching gray peaked hat with his family's emblem on the middle. For pants he wears a ballooning hakama with knee-high brown boots.

Whenever disguising as his alter ego Mr. Fox (which is usually for his detective work), he wears a smiling noh fox mask to cover his face and a closed orange trench coat. He combs his hair to a sweep back style and uses his original plain red scarf, sometimes he'll even remove his headphones to complete the disguise.

Personality
Akiba is a mute who's normally seen wearing a stoic expression. He's rather shy of others and often doesn't try to communicate because he sees it as a bother for them since he can't talk. His presence is also surprisingly weak, so weak in fact that he could be mistaken for a ghost at times. Yet despite him actively avoiding communication with others, he is actually quite friendly, kind and more conscious and quick to notice of others well-beings than what one may think.

He normally shows an easy-going and laid-back attitude who likes to take his time experiencing the things around him, a feeling he's been deprived of when he was in his previous school. Though this makes others look down at him for his slow-pace at things he is actually quite intelligent and sharp, even wise thanks to the many experiences and knowledge parted onto him at a young age. He can easily keep up with most of the intellectual students, added that he was a bookworm when he was younger. At times he may speak sage-like quotes based on his experiences to others when he sees a good opportunity to do it or whenever a quote pops in his mind at the time.

Akiba is usually someone who sits quietly in the background, and unconsciously does thanks to his experiences back at home. Before, he would hide constantly to alleviate his convoluted and strenuous school life which has literally turned into an instinct for him. When in crowded places he's very alert and constantly looks around him to check if he's noticed but when he finds a spot with little or no people alongside a good atmosphere he can go from stressful to fully relaxed in a second and vice versa depending on how bad the situation becomes.

In terms of his morality Akiba is very honorable and kind, to the point that he has to avoid things like challenges or doing chores as he is forced by his own honor to accept them no matter what, added that he is also taught to always be respectful to others from his grandfather.

Towards his opponents, Akiba is serious and fair to both in a spar or in actual life-or-death fights, but that doesn't mean he won't take more desperate measures to reassure the survivability of himself or others. Although he usually prioritizes the latter which often leads to him to risking his own life for others, even if its unnecessary. If he sees a possibility of preventing a battle with, or even befriending, his opponents then he will try to do so, even putting his life on the line for it.

Background
Akiba is the firstborn of a noble family in Zen, an large island to the east. From the beginning, Akiba was never the social type. he and his sister never got along, and was very anti-social due to being influenced at a young age from his eavesdropping on visitors and hearing them bad-mouth his family. Because of this, he showed little care for others, even his own sister and in fact hated her for getting most of his parents attention. That was until Fuyuko was born, his second and youngest sister. Her existence acted as a bridge between the two and this led to both of them finally getting along. He attitude hasn't improved towards other people though.

During a fateful outing in a resort one summer he lost his parents, and almost lost his, by an assassin and has since been traumatized in terms of both physically and mentally. During his time recovering/rehabilitating his sister, Tempera, supported him and would sing him lullabies every night to help him sleep peacefully. Yet despite all this, in the end he never got any better, but by the doctor's standards he was now as healthy physically-wise, so he was thus discharged from the hospital.

When he returned back home he was a shell of his former self and his family, at first, couldn't help him one bit. Not even his sisters, the people he has gotten close with the most besides his parents, could help him then. Fearing for his future his grandfather planned on having a friend's daughter, someone outside Akiba's family, come live at his manor before and when he enters the local combat school to hopefully soften him up again. Though he didn't care and simply ignored her at first, which was to be expected, he did slowly start to open up to her and after a month he became best friends with her which lasted throughout his time in school.

Seeing Akiba's improvements, his family also started to pitch in with his rehabilitation, with his two sisters being the ones who helped and influenced him the most. They both ended up becoming his strongest emotional support during this time. Tempera still sings him lullabies, as without it he would get nightmares of the tragedy, while Fuyuko tried to help him in any way she could.

Simultaneously when he started entering school, he had also started training in a dojo nearby by his grandfather's words, whose master is renowned locally for his swordsmanship and many have flocked there to learn the art. There he found an unlikely friend who happens to be the third youngest son of the dojo's master. The boy had a fire for competition that, one way or another, helped Akiba with his rehabilitation as the two quickly became friends despite their frequent challenges to each other. After hearing this, many of his other family member also started teaching him what they know from sewing to cooking to even engineering as his family owns a weapons research and development facility but ever since the incident went underground.

During his time in the combat school he made some new friends, finally opening up all thanks to his best friend. During his 2nd year in the combat school he was involved in a murder of a classmate. Remembering the tragedy of his parents, he tried to avenge her by attempting to apprehend the culprit. Do do so, he asked the detective who arrived at the scene, Douglas Moore, to let him get involved. He agreed and after helpng him to successfully capture the criminal, was asked to be taught under him which he agreed. As he helped out in these cases with the detective, he was exposed to things like killing and the like. These did have some effect on his personality but he didn't mind the work.

On one fateful night he met a hunter who was passing by the town. He was old, possibly around his 70s, yet when challenged defeated his opponents with the nimbleness of a man in his 20s. He was greatly inspired by the man and started a conversation with him. He found that he was a "Hunter of hunters" whose task is to take down hunters who have "strayed from the right path". A great responsibility, he was deeply moved by his stories and decided to learn as much from him as he could before he left, as his future line of work will most certainly lead him to fight against other hunters and having a few words of wisdom can help him in the long run.

Due to his hometown actually permitting townspeople and visitors to challenge each other just as long as a police officer or any government officer is present as the referee and a random witness, a normal day in Akiba's teenage life was very hectic as friends, classmates and even family members were allowed to challenge him, and challenge him they did. He usually got around 4 fights a day at least, which for him is quite intense as he would still need to come over to the dojo after school to train his swordsmanship, and that's not adding in the school's PE and sparring classes, not to mention that he can get challenged as he goes to school. These fights are also, more or less, for honor. And with how Akiba and his family upholds this its no wonder that he always accepts every request.

A week before graduating he was suddenly attacked by an assassin who claims to be have killed his parents. Akiba foolishly challenged the assassin despite carrying no weapon and with no help in a blind attempt of vengeance. He failed and almost died if it weren't for his teammates saving him. Though he was cut at the neck, it wasn't deep enough to kill him. He was able to fully recover but at the price of losing his ability to speak.

But he didn't let this defeat depress him but rather vowing to repay the man 10 times in the future. With this vow, he began to think of ways to get stronger as he waited for his injury to heal. His friend's frequently visit him, and when they do they mostly chat or play board games to pass the time. He recovered two days before graduation.

After the graduation he was sent into training with his grandfather, which was just a distraction so that he can enroll Akiba into Beacon. He found this out eventually and also found out that he was accepted.

His first years in Beacon was quite the experience, and has re-met many old faces while finding new ones too. He also saved a kidnapped girl from a group who planned on using her for ransom.

During the Vytal Festival on the fateful match of the Vytal Tournament, Akiba was with Summer in the floating stadium when the Grimm started attacking.

During this time, Akiba assisted in evacuation of the civilians along with Summer before boarding into an airship that led them down to Vale, where the town was being overrun by Grimm. They both decided to assist the police forces in defending the civilians from the Grimm.

Surviving the defense with Summer, he regrouped with his other teammates and classmates the following day. However, before returning to Beacon he sustained a rather nasty injury, a large laceration on his right arm, which prevented him from joining the fight and putting him on the hospital bed for a week.

With the fall of Beacon the group were planned to move to Haven Academy, but Akiba discussed that he'll be planning on going back home to investigate the video feed at the end of that fateful match in the Stadium, as well as recuperate and get some intel. His teamamtes surprisingly decided to follow him, along with his sister and her team.

Separable High-Powered Dust Sniper Katana
This is Akiba's former main weapon, a seperable Sniper-rifle/Katana. Was heavily damaged beyond repair with some of its parts salvaged to make a new replacement.

Dust-Powered Heavy Oodachi-Rifle
Akiba's second weapon after the destruction of the first, is a large Oodachi/rifle hybrid similar to his previous albeit larger. Used during his second year until destroyed during the battle of Beacon.

Seperable Wind Resonating Katana-Rifle
A weapon whose's blade resonates as it rushes through the air, Shizukyō is Akiba's third weapon. To lessen the mechanical disadvantages without losing too much utility, he opted for a more simplistic design.

The weapon is more or less a revision of his first weapon, a dust sniper rifle with a bladed barrel that can split apart into two other weapons. A slick silver barrel with a red housing with a golden dragon stylized onto the hilt. The design is that of a tanegashima rifle, albeit with the barrel having a blade inside it.

Firstly is the body, the firearm, which can function independently as a small bolt-action rifle with a collapsible, handle-like stock. The magazine housing is very close to the handle, with most of the bottom part being rounded and grooved so that it make's holding it easier when in combined form. Like his two previous weapons, the gun fires solely dust rounds, which are still rectangular, to allow Akiba to still have around the same amount of utility like his previous weapons had. A function he returned is the ability to load in a bullet via the ejection port. If a bullet is currently loaded, it simply switches it out and returns the previously loaded bullet to the magazine. The magazine can house six dust-bullets at a time, and he usually holds 3 extra magazines.

And now the barrel-blade, which is polished to give it a mirror-like finish and split into two parts. Firstly is an outer metal casing that's beveled at the one side, like a dull sabre split in half, that is spaced out an few centimeters apart. This functions as the outer casing and the barrel.

Secondly is the inner blade, the cutting blade that is sharpened to a fine edge that is inside the outer blade with a small margin of space between them. This blade is flat at the tip and is shaped like a tuning fork, seperated in the middle connected at the other end where it connects to the handle. The spacing allows the blade to freely resonate and not hit its outer casing.

On the right side of the handle is a safely trigger similar to that on a gun with three settings: safe, half, and full. The first setting pushes the inner blade all the way back, on the second the blade is pushed forward but now enough for the inner blade to show, and the last setting pushes the entire inner blade out and locking it in place. The handle of the sword can be folded in on itself so that it can connect to the gun and even flip down whilst combined as a second handle for better aiming if needed.

Dust Grenades
Grenades that are filled with dust. Their effectiveness is focused morely on utility if ever his semblance or his weapon are not enough. Keeps around 4 at a time. To identify what dust is contained in each, a colored band is wrapped around each to differentiate them.

Sly Fox
Akiba creates a rune that acts as a reactive shield that is activated by getting damaged. If hit, 9 fox tails will shoot out from inside the rune to either repel or bind the attacker to it by using its tails and if binded will keep hold until either Akiba wishes to remove it, his aura drops significantly, he moves 2 meters away from it, or if the trapped target destroys the rune, just as long as the maximum area of damage is more than an 1/2 cm in diameter and must be hit with a significant amount of force, if not it instead just breaks apart like shattered glass. This means the shield is ineffective against most bullets and bladed or piercing weapons.

The type of reaction is determined if its either a repel or a bind. With repel, dust is shot out in a condensed state, for instance fire dust is condensed into a fireball, while with bind is good for either trapping opponents or stunning them, like using lightning dust to shock an attacker. This reactive shield can also be activated by Akiba himself, and only he can cause its effects to fire out towards the direction of the rune rather than at its attacker, making it useful offensively as well.

Prowess
Akiba's primarily trained himself to handle human opponents rather than the Grimm, having experienced a very physically tiring school life of fighting people around his age on a regular basis when he was just starting out in his first year in his previous combat school. This inadvertently made him quite resilient and strong despite his stature. He hasn't trained much with his aura until recent, which was when he started going to Beacon, and his ability to use it is fairly average at best. He does make up for it by having lots of utility thanks to his equipment and semblance.

He enrolled in a local combat school for 4 years, and the school was heavily focused on combat training than anything else. On top of that he was also attending a dojo to train on his swordsmanship, as well as being taught a multitude of other things like engineering, weapon-crafting, firearm usage, and even cooking, both from teachers and family members with the aforementioned skills being the one's he primarily focused on seeing their usefulness in the future.

Akiba's primarily a close range fighter who counts on his skill and intellect rather than raw strength. He is very agile and reactive, capable to quickly dodge an incoming attack and instinctively strike back if possible. If his speed is not enough he can also use his wits and ingenuity give himself a better edge.

In a fight against humans, Akiba is more of a counter-attack oriented fighter who would wait for an opening or make one by using his wits to make his opponent's act. Having worked alongside a detective and actively been involving himself in his cases enabled him to trained on his sleuthing skills like perception, even gaining some insight on how a person may react in a given situation and this has even allowed him to sometimes predict one's next move by basing it out from experience. His perceptiveness allows him to be able to accurately scan his surroundings and identify minute details can go unnoticed by most people. In battle, his perception allows him to also see slight body movements, enabling him to somewhat predict his opponent's moves and get a better idea on how to approach them.

Though he is more geared in one-on-one, he can handle multiple opponents as long as he can think his way out of it by using the environment and his own utilities and skills. He can even take out an group of likely skilled opponents if given enough time, separating them and forcing them to fight him one by one as one example of what he could do. On the otherhand, Akiba can be easily overwhelmed with large numbers if his enemies come at him all together due to not having weapons that are capable of wave-clearing other than his dust bombs and maybe his semblance. Four people attacking him at the same time is enough to beat him with ease if he cannot escape. Right now, he can handle only 3 at most.

Though he primarily fights in melee combat, he is surprisingly accurate with his rifle. Fighting against Grimm he counts mostly on his firearm prowess to shoot them down. For him, he focuses on either a quick instant killshot or a shot that inhibits or incapacitates them if said killshot is not possible. He doesn't usually use the gun feature in ranged combat against humans though, but rather in melee to add in more diversity in his fighting style, which combines his swordsmanship with his firearm prowess and also his semblance. Up to his second year in Beacon, his ability to fight against Grimm have become fairly decent and is now capable of fighting them in melee combat, however he stays far away from any large and/or armoured Grimm without a team.

Speaking of the semblance, despite it being perceived to just counter any incoming attacks, Akiba has found a great multitude of uses for it. As he is capable of activating the semblance himself, he can use it to augment an attack or to fire out more powerful shots, use it offensively like blasting groups of people away or trapping them to defeat them with ease. He can even use it for mobility, using it to dash in incredible speeds or to keep him in midair to shoot down people from from above, just to point out a few. Although the semblance is useless against bladed weapons, it can still be activated manually and capture something or someone as the tails are quite tough and needs a considerable amount of damage to be destroyed, which means he can trap even bladed weapons with good timing and quick reflexes.

In terms of co-operating with others he can either be a team-player who assists his teammates as a support to achieve their collective goals or as a strategist who focuses on careful planning, creative thinking, and a little bit of trust from his teammates or cooperators to succeed. He is usually second-in-command in his team behind his leader since he's quite limited in terms of communicating so orders are usually circulated via scroll from him to his team leader or anyone in the vicinity if he can't reach her.

Etymology
Akiba (アキバ) is derived from Akibagahara (秋葉が原) meaning "autumn leaf field". The word Aki (秋) means autumn.

Tanegashima (種子島) is the name for an island that is part of the Ōsumi Islands. It also refers to the japanese matchlock of the same name. The matchlock's usual colors are maroon or red-orange, which is also where I based his colors off.

Kannagara (かんながら) has mutliple meanings but it can simply mean "The will of the gods or kami." or "Because of being a kami."

Furukizuna (古絆) is the combination of both furukizu (古傷) meaning "old wounds" and kizuna (絆) meaning "bonds".

Shizukyō is yet another combination of two kana: 静 (sei) meaning "static" from 静か (shizuka) meaning "quiet", and 響 (hibiki) meaning "echo". Combined it's "Quiet echo".

Trivia

 * Akiba's character is loosely based on the character Hakumen from the Blazblue series.
 * Akiba's first weapon, Kannagara, on the other hands is inspired from the Beam Bazooka used by Gundam Vitrue in the series Gundam 00. His second weapon on the other hand is referenced from Gundam Barbatos' Smoothbore Gun and Launcher Strike Gundam's Beam Cannon.
 * Akiba has never danced before.
 * Akiba smiles wryly when frightened.
 * He has a surprisingly high alcohol tolerance, and can drink almost anything without getting drunk. Prefers sake.
 * Akiba is somewhat infatuated with his partner, Nymbus Övliin.
 * Previously, this was reversed before the Vol.3 re-reviews. It was Nymbus who had a crush on Akiba.