Akiba Tanegashima

"They look like ears, don't they?"

- Akiha, whenever someone looks at his dog-ear like hair

Akiha Tanegashima is the eldest son of the Tanegashima Weapons Developement and Science. He joined Beacon on a whim from his grandfather as training. He is a second year and the leader and stragetist of Team AYTM. Supposedly died on a mission by a serial killer and kept secret by Ozpin as protection, he then goes of on his own adventure to find the culprit.

Personality
Akiha is a shy, timid but disciplined and respectful introvert. He gets easily scared at strangers especially if the stranger in question is a female; he respects others notheless. His values are built on respect and trust, so when he does open up to others he treats them like family, which he loves deeply and would defend them without a moment's notice. He also helps others who are either being bullied or hurt, since he was bullied himself. Either it was due to his hairstyle or something else, fauna seem to fancy him. His families' believe that the fauna are food people blessed with good luck, longevity and loyalty ever since their victory during the war, so he thinks of them highly and consequently has more friends that are faunus than humans. His family is basically everyone he has become close to, and have a knack for revealing peoples true colors in just the first meeting. He lived with many different families, some of them fauna which includes his female best friend Toyotomi   Most of his family, including his grandfather, are somewhat if not fully eccentric in attitude.

Backstory
Akiha was born in a very wealthy family, with everything he wanted served to him on a silver platter. Due to this lifestyle, he became spoiled and very arrogant. On the first day of school, he was escorted by bodyguards. He soon became the bully of the school, hurting others and using his wealth to blackmail others, and especially on faunuses. This persisted until an incident happened during summer break at the age of 8. He along with his two sisters, Natsumi who was 6 at the time and Fuyuka who was 3 years old. During a party in the assembly hall of the resort, a man wearing a white tuxedo and matching white slacks an shoes approached his parents, his sisters were playing in a playground close by. The white-clad man then offered a handshake to his father, but as they shaked hands his father collapsed. Akiha froze when he saw that blood was coming out of his father's mouth. The man then grabbed his mother by the throat, she started coughing out blood as well before falling as well. Screams echoed around the room, including his two sisters, who were quickly taken away by the bodyguards. Two other bodyguards then charged at the white-clad man, but quickly fell. The man then walked up to Akiha, then placed his hands on his shoulders. A sudden shaking sensation filled him, but was stopped by a cops who were able to shoot him on the left shoulder. He survived, but the trauma caused amnesia, not only that his eyes suddenly started changing color, which baffled the doctors.

After being discharged from the hospital, he was moved to a new home while his two sisters stayed home, and given a fake name but believed it to be his real name. He stayed with his parent's friends, who runs an orphanage. His attitude drastically changed from rude and arrogant to shy and timid. During his middle school years he was bullied frequently, and when his grandfather, Natsumochi Oda, heard of this he quickly acted. When he first met his grandfather, he was scared stiff by him. He ordered Akiha to learn Ju jutsu and Judo, to protect him against attackers. When the bullies try to hurt him again, he instinctively did an over-the-shoulder throw, which would become part instinct for him

Appearance
Pre-death

Akiha has brown hair with brown streaks with his bangs covering his eyes. He has two large spikes resembling drooping dog ears and a ponytail that reaches his lower torso. His eyes change color depending on his emotions, but was originally red. The doctors don't know why but they believed it was connected to his semblance. He wears an modified orange-red Kikko jacket made of silk with a bullet-proof vest lining. The right side of the jacket's edge plate is a color gradient of the colors red to white starting from the bottom all the way to the top while the left plate is white. His jacket also has two slits, one on each side, so as to reach underneath his jacket. he also wears a white t-shirt underneath, and underneath that he would be a kevlar vest. He wears brown baggy pants with a red line going in the middle and red rubber shoes. Around his neck is his very long red scarf tied in a slip knot. He also wears customized closed back headphones on his head with an autumn style and coloring.

Post-death

He has longer brown hair, his bangs parting from his eyes and clumping on the middle and on the sides. His ponytail and the two large spikes on his hair also got longer, with his ponytail now reaching his lower waist. He now wears an amber kevlar Kikko jacket which is closed by 3 armored straps connected on the two edge plates, with the slits on his jacket's sides. He also added armor on his jacket such as sode (spaulders) which is made out of hardened sheets of leather, plate on his back, the bottom half of the jacket, even his collar, all colored in red and brown. To keep others from recognizing him by his color-changing eyes, he puts on black-irised contact lenses to cover them. He also replaced his baggy pants with slacks and his rubber shoes with suneates (japanese shin-guards). His didn't remove his scarf but ties it in a layered knot, with one end put inside his jacket. The right side of his headphones got damaged, so he simply took the right earpiece and made it into a single-sided headphone.