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 lower waist-length, which he 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, wireless, 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, but the scarf's edges got worn and ripped after going out a few missions with it.

His usual attire is that of a thick gray and orange oriental-styled coat that reaches down to his thighs with long kimono-like sleeves and a detachable hoodie over an light orange and autumn-camo combat shirt. His scarf is tied in a simple knot with the ends facing behind him and matching gray peaked hat with his family's emblem on the middle. For pants he wears a grey ballooning hakama with knee-high brown, steel-plated boots with the soles being lined with triangular, teethed plates that act like cleats. Protecting his forearm is a plated brass and hard-leather gauntlet while wrapped around his waist is a covering his thighs are haidate.

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.

Background
Akiba is the firstborn of a noble family in Zen, a mountain village at the far east, who also own a research facility for weapons and technology. 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 only two 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 only child of the dojo. 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, as well as discovering that his rival is actually a girl, and 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 helping 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.

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 for long and quickly 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 on his own journey back home, explaining that he planned on preparing a few surprises for the team, and urged them to continue on to Haven. This was when Scarlett decided that the group split up to two each, with the two duo's reuniting back at Haven. Summer decided to team up with him, and the two headed off to Akiba's hometown, Zen.

Personality
Akiba is the stoic, cool-headed and witty strategist of Team SSAN who became mute after a traumatic near-death experience back at his previous school, leaving him unable to speak despite his vocal cords being fine and uses his scroll, sign language, even body gestures to convey messages.

Known for being having a usually monotonous expression only rarely changing to emphasize an emotion. His stiff face is unfortunately a result of the depression caused by his parent's assassination, on top of nearly dying to the very assassin, and losing his ability to speak due to physical and mental trauma.

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.

Seperable Electromagnetic Great Oodachi-Gauss Rifle
Shizukyō is Akiba's second weapon. A 6 feet long, 30 lb, semi-automatic dust gauss sniper-rifle with a 4.5 feet long removable barrel. A slick silver barrel with a red housing and a golden dragon stylized onto the hilt. The design is that of a tanegashima rifle, albeit with the barrel being rectangular and open at the bottom, as it is used as space for the blade. The blade is located at the bottom of the barrel, which separates at the spine of the blade and folds apart to act as the bottom of the barrel.

The weapon doesn't fire like a conventional firearm but rather uses electromagnets lining the sides of the barrel which accelerates the ferromagnetic projectile through stages with the help of an onboard computer at the stock with controls on it to allow Akiba to control the timing of the magnets, the strength of the magnets, as well as control the rate of fire, which he can get to around 2 bullets per second while still having enough kick to fire the bullet 1000 yards, while at max power on the magnets the projectile can fly for over 2000 yards. Seperated however, the weapon without the barrel requires it to be at max power has a maximum effective range of 50 meters at most. The recoil of the gun is also determined by the strength, and can be rather fierce at full power. Also hidden in the stock and sitted beside the computer is a dust battery used to power the weapon.

Thanks to the weapon's long barrel length, the projectiles fire so fast with enough momentum that it can overpenetrate an exposed body and break through thick armor like those found on a Boarbatusk at full power. With this simple mechanism, it allows Akiba to add a function to load the weapon like a bolt-action rifle even when a bullet is already loaded in. The bullets primarily used are hollowed shells that can be filled with dust and are as large as a .50 cal. bullet. The shells are color-coded to differentiate each bullet's properties.

The magazines used by the weapon are large and can hold about 10 rounds each, and Akiba usually holds onto 3 extra magazines at a time.

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. Akiba 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 instantly creates a reactive rune that is activated by getting damaged within the very small time frame of 1 second and has a cooldown of 2 seconds. 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 let go, 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 1/6 cm in diameter and must be hit with a significant amount of force, if not it instead just breaks apart like shattered glass. The tails expand to as large as the shield within a second after the semblance's activation and grabs onto anything in front of it the next second aftewards. After releasing its hold on whatever its holding onto will the cooldown start.

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 as well as towards himself, making it very useful.

Later on as he gets more and more familiar with his semblance, Akiba gains control of the size of the glyph, as well as where it can be activated. The larger the size, the more powerful the reactive blast and the more larger the tails binding down a target. However for the latter, the increase in size also increases the time of both the tails expanding and the time the tails bind as well as the cooldown of the semblance by a few milliseconds. Before, to make it easier for him to activate the semblance at the perfect moment he brought up his free arm towards the attack then imagines holding a shield protecting his arm, but now he doesn't have to do so anymore making him more unpredictable and allowing more freedom in movement.

After the timeskip and with greater understanding of his semblance and his own strengths, the semblance changed drastically to now instead summon a small fox with nine large tails that dwarf the summon's size in comparison. The summoned fox is as small as a large parrot but the tails are easily a feet longer than Akiba as its base size but can grow or shrink depending on how large or how small the runes is.

This summon changes the effects of both his repel and bind. When binding, rather than the tails appearing from the rune, the rune now releases the summon to hold down its target and even pull them around, but the force exerted is depended on its size with the largest size comparable to Akiba's own strength. The rune also stays and the summon will pull whatever it binds towards the rune until it is destroyed by a certain amount of physical damage, which depends on how much aura and dust the user used, or until Akiba orders to release the binded. With repel, the summon is shot out and stays outside until Akiba commands it back inside another rune.

The summon's length of use is also dependent on either Akiba's aura and what is was summoned to do. If it was to bind then the summon will return to its rune but when used to repel the summon is released and the rune disappears so Akiba has to make a new one to unsummon the fox to regain the aura that is left. The fox, when released, is fully controlled by Akiba and can go as far as 25 meters away from him but if it goes any farther it will disappear. The repel and bind still function with dust, with the summon taking up elemental powers from the dust used for the rune.

Prowess
Akiba's fighting style is mainly close-quarters with high emphasis on shutting down a target through counterattacks, precise strikes, and a load of clever tricks. Akiba's approach at fighting his opponents is based on the teachings of his previous master, a Iaijutsu practitioner and head of his own dojo, alongside the hands-on experiences during his investigations with the detective. This and frequent bouts with other likely-skilled hunters and huntresses-in-training starting when he entered school has sharpened his senses exponentially and also helped in improving his own physique as well as his knowledge in battles.

Akiba is generally slow and patient at the start of a fight, but kicks up to a more aggressive fighting style as time goes on. As he gets more familiar with his opponent, like learning their habitual movements, fighting style, and so forth, he begins to make his own advances against them. He usually keeps close to his opponents but only attacks after his opponents make their move. However, this tactic is mostly applied on human targets.

Against Grimm however, he instead relies on his weapon's firepower and range. He fights the beast at a distance hidden behind something to keep himself hidden. When sniping, Akiba firstly scans his surroundings and take note anything he sees as useful, as well as decide on what dust round he'll use. He tries to find the most effective way to take out the Grimm, whether they be in packs or have tough armor. He rarely shoots to kill but if he does he tries to kill more than just one. Of course, there will be moments where he must face off with the Grimm at close quarters, so he is quite aggressive when such a senario transpires, cutting down the Grimm without a moment's notice and forcing him to resort to using all of them, some of them being used seldomly in spars against other human opponents unless he's gotten familiar with his opponent. A few prominent ones bei his impressive acrobatic skills and exceptional flexibility.

Despite Akiba's lack of knowledge on using his aura offensively due to not learning it back at home, he isn't afraid to use his its defensive properties to get him into a better position for a counterattack. Added that he frequently tries to bait his opponents to attack him. He favours grappling or striking them with his free hand or the butt of his weapon. You can call this a sort of parry-and-riposte method, and Akiba is willing to give it all in one strike if he sees the opportunity for it. He will usually use his weapon defensively at first until he feels comfortable enough with his opponent to resort to his using his weapon offensively.

However, if Akiba sees himself being at a disadvantage or is hurt badly enough to need to recuperate, he will switch up his approach to a more defensive style focusing more on his ability to strategize the battle and using his equipment and weapon more creatively. Though many see this as a cowardly tactic, in his multiple escapades as a junior detective this method has saved his life a hundred times over.

His weapon's main quirk are its dust-bullets and recoil. With dust, he can turn the tide of battle and give him a quick advantage like using fire dust to heat up the area around his opponent or just blowing them up, wind dust to blow away objects, ice dust to freeze an area or make slippery terrain, etc.. With recoil on the other hand, he can increase the power of his swings tremendously with only the ammunition being the only sacrifice, the only downside is recovering from certain swings, though this depends on how Akiba swung the weapon as well as the power he put with the shot.

Another. major trick up his sleeve is his semblance, which can turn the tide of battle to his side if used properly. Since his semblance can be activated by himself without the need for his opponents to hit it, he can bypass the semblance's weakness against bladed, or pointy weaponry, but only with precise timing and quick reflexes, which he has plenty of. This is necessary as a slip up will in turn leave him open to an attack. He can handle these hits pretty well though, again, thanks to the numerous duels he had back at home, and a bit from surviving death twice, it is still a free hit nonetheless and any hit is already an advantage towards the striker, or that's what Akiba believes.

He can use his semblance in a number of creative ways, like allowing him more maneuverability like dashing with wind dust, added strength by enhancing his weapon's dust shots by firing into it, using it to blast away his opponents and giving him more opportunities to attack, and even using it to trap himself in midair, giving him a free sniping spot. Of course overusing his semblance will leave him tired and without aura to defend himself with, as well as letting his opponents know the capabilities of his semblance. To prevent this he uses it sparingly and only when the time is right.

Not to mention he still has his grenades, which offers him a larger spread of dust with a lot more explosive power mixed in without the need to use his weapon's ammo. Like his semblance, he has a lot of inventive ways on using these grenades, from the main use of just lobbing it and watching it explode, to more creative tricks like striking it with his weapon so that the dust is spread across the blade, or fired at with a different kind of dust to create a mixed reaction.

Outside of fighting, Akiba is a wonderful strategist thanks to binge reading war-related stories, including history of battles his family had participated in, along with listening to the personal experiences from actual veterans and strategists like his grandfather. He is very cooperative and follows orders when not the one giving them, and will try to make us of other's skills and equipment as best as he could. He usually doesn't take a risky move unless he sees it as the best option but he tries to lessen the risk as much as he can before trying one. He is also well-versed in the art of cooking and had a job in a bakery before the attack on Vale. He has also learned to create his own weapon like many other huntsmen-in-training, but he was taught by the researchers and mechanics working in under his family's research facility. He also knows how to play a few musical instruments and loves the saxophone, trombone, and flute.

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."

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. However, he started seeing her now more as a sibling after a year together.
 * Previously, this was reversed before the Vol.3 re-reviews. It was Nymbus who had a crush on Akiba.