Akiba Tanegashima

Akiba Tanegashima is the eldest son of the Tanegashima Family and a second year in Beacon. He is part of Team SSAN and alludes to Oda Nobunaga.

Appearance
Akiba is a 5'6 tall with long brown hair with red higlights and a blood red eyes. He has long bangs on front while on the back is flipped-up, with the rest of his hair tied in a ponytail that reaches his lower back. Around his neck is his trademark long red scarf while on his head are his autumn themed closed headphones.

He wears a tight orange and yellow, long-sleeved jacket. Attached to his shoulders are two four-layered shoulderguards attached with a cape that are extends down at one side to a point, making a sort of half triangle shape. Around his waist is a large, golden buckled belt. On the back of the belt is a harness for his weapon while running its sides are holsters for his grenades. For pants he wears a ballooning hakama reaching only to his shins thanks to his modified, armored boots.

Personality
Akiba is known for being lethargic and shy who hides in the background as Beacon's ghost student. He avoids interacting with people other than the teachers and his teammates, while seeing everybody else as hazy apparitions (figuratively). He frequently lazes around the dorm room and whenever he is ordered to do something he ignores it unless its from a teacher.

He may be quite the lazy bum but he has an intellect that rivals his leader's own. He can quite literally cram up one afternoon in a library a day before exams and still get high marks on almost all of the tests. He doesn't like doing any taxing activities like this but, when given little to no choice or if he simply chooses to, he can show a great deal of concentration and focus in dealing with the task at hand. He is also quite the straight-man when it comes to commenting jokes.

When Akiba gets serious however he shows a more cool and calculating side of himself. He is blunt, straight to the point and doesn't like waiting for an answer. He is also very thorough when it comes to doing even a simple task, taking into account every little detail he sees before being satisfied.

He has little care for trivial matters like faunus discrimination or racism, seeing it as "useless bias". He does greatly respect the faunus however, having lived with two faunus families in his manor. He treats them like any other and will defend them if needed. He also shows this level of respect towards his opponents in battle, choosing to fight fairly no matter what the outcome, though he may drop it against certain foes like the Grimm.

He can also show concern and even kindness towards others. He expresses this freely towards children or his two younger sisters, while hiding this from everyone else including his own teammates. He also knows how to cook and has a gluttonous appetite to match. He also knows mechanical and electronic engineering, and applies this when either repairing his or his team's weapon or making ammunition or grenades.

He doesn't really care about dying or getting hurt in general. In fact, he is willing to sacrifice himself in some way if its for the sake of his friends or family. This willingness may even go as far as actually giving his own life away for them. His friends do not like this though, and frequently remind him to not do it or else.

Background
Akiba is born in a noble family in a coastal town in Mistral. He lost his parents in a murder incident when he was very young and has since been traumatized. After going through multiple sessions of rehab, and with the help of his grandfather and his two younger sisters, he was able to recover but the trauma had lasting effects on his psyche and personality. He along with his sisters were then taken in by his grandfather.

When he returned to school he was a shell of his former self. Not only was he emotionless but also anti-social. These two traits caused him to graduate with no friends. Fearing for his future his grandfather planned on having a friend's daughter come live at his manor when Akiba enters the local combat school. Though he didn't care and simply ignored her at first, he slowly opened up and soon enough became best friends with her which lasted throughout his time in school.

His time in the combat school helped in the betterment of his personality. Instead of being anti-social he is now shy, and he becomes more lax when beside his friends. He started to branch out more towards strangers and also began to trust his friends more. He even showed that he can express other emotions besides the poker-face he always wear, albeit very small changes.

He also made some new friends as well, like Azsfar Al-Debraan and Copper Ventuo. During his 2nd year in the combat school he was involved in a murder of a classmate. With his family's murder in mind he tried to avenge her by asking the detective at the time, Douglas Moore. 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.

A week before graduating however he was 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.

He didn't care about this, and simply continued on to the graduation a few days after he was discharged. 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.

Weapon and Abilities
This is Akiba's main weapon. A sniper rifle based on his family's lost heirloom of the same name, the Kannagara sports a sleek and modern design with an unique detachable rectangular barrel that is sharpened at its bottom, covered only by two metal plates that combine in a V-shape on the bottom. On the end of the barrel where it detaches from the body is a foldable handle for independent use as a sword, while its body is used as a pistol. The body's main handle can rotate 0 to 45 degrees down and has a detachable scope.
 * Kannagara (Separable High-Powered Dust Sniper Katana)

It its normal form the weapon exemplifies a great deal of firepower and has a range of approximately 1000 yards. Its recoil is even strong enough to push him backwards. Due to the weapon's rectangular shape it cannot use conventional rounds but instead special rounds filled with dust. The size of the cartridges are comparable to that of a .50 cal, except shaped into a rectangle and filled with dust, with 5 being stored in a magazine clip at a time. He also has greater reach when in Sword form, which is the form he frequently uses in combat.

When split apart from its barrel into its pistol form, the weapon loses its range to around 200 meters as well as half of its firepower. The recoil though is significantly less but still enough be sprain his wrist if used incorrectly.

Although the weapon is formidable, so is the amount of maintenance needed to keep the weapon efficient. The most taxing of these is the cleaning of the barrel which is done every now and then to keep the barrel clear of any obstruction. As well as making more ammunition since its cartridges are handmade.

To increase Akiba's effectiveness against groups of enemies like the Grimm, he created special dust grenades.. Akiba is able to keep as much as six at maximum, three on each side of his belt. The types of Dust can use almost any kind of dust which include:
 * Dust Grenades
 * Red Dust
 * Blue Dust
 * Orange Dust
 * Yellow Dust
 * Green Dust

Physical Prowess
Akiba has a slim and quite flexible body capable of doing acrobatics. Though this makes him frail, he makes up for being quick on his feet and having good spacial awareness.

Akiba has a swordstyle that focuses on defense rather than offense. In close quarters he usually uses his weapon to block or redirect attacks. He then disarms or takes down the enemy with a well-timed sword strike or with a throw. When using the weapon offensively he often uses his weight to increase each slash with his weapon's sword form. Though this can be inhibited by his stance before performing a strike. A bad stature equals a bad slash, and its because of this he chooses the more defensive approach. He can hit hard without a weapon, but only with his legs. Arm strength is not one of his fortes.

Akiba is an ace when shooting from afar. Thanks to his spacial awareness to quickly pinpoint his targets, he can almost always hit his target (of course when given time). He is even capable of using the weapon up close alongside its sword form in needed. Akiba is very efficient when shooting. When shooting Grimm he always goes for either their joints or their heads. He may also attempt to hit multiple targets with one shot just to save up on ammo.

Weakness
Akiba is terribly frail and small. Unfortunately he isn't intimidated by larger opponents, which is in its own a weakness. He also lacks raw strength which is needed if you want to knockout an enemy quickly. What's worst is that he is bound by his honor, and as such makes him more likely to get injured in battle.

His greatest weakness though is his bad aura control. Due to not getting enough time to train on his aura he is incapable of using it other than to heal or shield himself. Though there are times he was able to use his aura to augment an attack, its by complete instinct and nothing else.

Another main weakness is that he is mute. He can't make a speak or make a sound other than breathing noises, which is both a good and bad thing depending on the situation. He can't give others orders nor warn anyone of danger so he needs to use his own way of interaction. To talk to others he uses a scroll.

Etymology
Akiba (アキバ) is derived from Akibagahara (秋葉が原) meaning "autumn leaf field". while 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 has mutliple meanings but it can simply mean "The will of the gods or kami." or "Because of being a kami."

Trivia

 * Akiba's character is loosely based on the character Hakumen from the Blazblue series.
 * Akiba's weapon on the other hands is inspired from the Beam Bazooka used by Gundam Vitrue in the series Gundam 00.
 * Akiba has never danced before.
 * Akiba smiles wryly when frightened.
 * This character is owned by Lux Capacitor.