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 rust-colored hair with red highlights and 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 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.

He wears a tight, long-sleeved, orange jacket with two yellow streaks, one diagonally going from the left side of his neck down to his right lower waist, and the other mirroring the left side until it stops and merges with the left streak in the middle of his torso.

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 with its points on his back. Around his waist is a large, golden buckled belt with his family emblem in the middle. 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 greaves.

Personality
Akiba is known for being shy and drowsy 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 may not show it but he can show care towards others, and doesn't mind helping them if asked.

He is quite the lazy bum but 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 foes who show no care for honor or those who endanger others.

After losing his parents he started caring more for life, but ironically cares less of his own. Whether its to sacrifice his reputation or his own life, he will do anything to protect the lives of others. Though his teammates always object at him doing such things, not even his own family can convince him to stop.

Background
Akiba is the firstborn of a noble family in Zen. 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.

Having a friend with him when going to the combat school helped in the betterment of his personality. Instead of being anti-social he is instead shy, while being more lax when beside his friends. He didn't treat others with hostility anymore 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 are very small.

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 is a semi-automatic sniper rifle katana that sports a sleek and modern design with an unique detachable rectangular barrel that is sharpened at its bottom. On the end of the barrel where it detaches from the body is a foldable handle for independent use as a sword, while detached its body is used as a pistol. The body's main handle can rotate from 0 to 45 degrees down and has a detachable scope that slides in a railing on the top of the body.
 * Kannagara (Separable High-Powered Dust Sniper Katana)

In 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 that, when fired, causes the dust inside each cartridge to condense into a small, very dense energy ball that can travel faster and is less affected by the wind. 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 mainly 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 is significantly less but still enough to 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 (which takes around 30 minutes to an hour), as well as making ammunition due its unique cartridge.

To increase Akiba's effectiveness against groups of enemies like the Grimm, he created special dust grenades. Capable of blasting an area clean of Grimm or anything unfortunately within its blast range, it is the second go-to gadget in his arsenal. Akiba is able to keep as much as six at maximum, three on each side of his belt. The types of Dust it can store is almost unlimited which include: As well as any combination of the given.
 * Dust Grenades
 * Red Dust
 * Blue Dust
 * Orange Dust
 * Yellow Dust
 * Green Dust

Physical and Mental Prowess
Akiba has a slim and quite flexible body capable of doing acrobatics. He was trained not to be a powerhouse but rather to counter his opponents instead using the the training he learned from his many teachers along with the experience he gained first-hand.

In his hometown, duels were a normal occurrence and Akiba has his fare share of fights against a wide variety of hunters and martial artists. Thanks to this and consistent training he is very adept in close quarters, one-on-one combat. Unlike most fighters, Akiba applies a more tactical approach in his battles, gaining information of his enemy during battle then using that against them. He is fond of using his Judo training, and mixes it up with his own unique sword style to make himself a more unpredictable foe. This training continues on even during his time in Beacon.

Intelligence-wise, he is considered as a great tactician. This may be due to most of his family being either generals or tacticians themselves who have either recorded their experiences or told to him first-hand, added that he is also a bookworm and loves listening to war stories. He takes account the wellbeings of everyone around him, and creates plans that uses the aspects of those people to achieve victory. He is a team-player who lets others finish the job. It does get difficult sometimes for him to juggle between protecting others and finishing the job. Even in detective work to treats it like a military operation.

Weapon Prowess
Akiba created the blueprint of his weapon to fit his needs perfectly. For melee, the blade of Kannagara is long and gives Akiba the much needed range he needs to hit his foes while keeping himself far enough to dodge them easily. The weapon's barrel is also the blade itself, with the muzzel being at the flat tip of the blade. The design allows him to use the weapon's recoil to his advantage.

He can increase every slash to 3 times the strength of his own, and the speed of it is tough to dodge forcing most of his opponents to block it. He is limited to the rounds in each magazine, so it was also designed to be loaded like a traditional bolt-action. This enables him to load in special dust rounds that are not stored in the magazine, and can be done while the magazine is attached to the weapon, but to load one the weapon's breech must be empty.

For far-range combat the sniper aspect was chosen due to its firepower and range. Akiba is very conservative and efficient when using the weapon's gun form. Due to the weapon's limited and unique ammo, Akiba has to make every shot count. This means he fires sparingly and usually takes his time to fire each shot to ensure a hit. The pistol form of the weapon (Body without blade) is used in close quarters. The barrel is larger than that with the barrel on, giving it more splash damage at the sacrifice of range and firepower.

Aspects of the 9-Tailed Fox
Is Akiba's semblance stemmed from his pent-up, inner emotions. The semblance can be activated by will or by experiencing an intense emotion or resolve. It has two variations that he can use:

Spirit-Body Mix
Akiba's ponytail is covered with a thick dark-red aura creating 1-9 aura tails (based on his current aura upon activation) that Akiba can command. The Aura can harden and can combine together, be used individually and gives him more maneuverability and strength, the semblance also pushes his body to its limits and causes him great discomfort and exhaustion (pain even) after prolonged and/or continuous use.

While activated, Akiba is in less control of his emotions and his primal instincts tend to take over if he loses even a moment of concentration. Because of this he uses this variant as a last resort or to quickly take out stronger foes.

During use the tails can be damaged and if cut can take away a great amount of aura depending on how much or how many were cut off, which only makes the variant more dangerouse to use.

Fox Familiar
Akiba can summon a fox made out of his aura. Like his Spirit-Body Mix, it has multiple tails depending on the amount of aura in it but unlike the first variant, it is not controlled by him directly but by his sub-consciousness. It can go as far as 20 meters away from Akiba and acts as his scout, or supports him in combat.

The familiar responds to Akiba's subconscious needs, which is both good and bad depending on the situation. Since it is essentially Akiba's soul in fox form, it acts and fights in a similar manner to himself, albeit in a feral kind of way and driven more by his instincts rather than direct thoughts, which may cause it to attack without warning.

Damaging or destroying the familiar will send Akiba pangs of pain that increases depending on the damage taken by his familiar. He is also weakened more due to the familiar being made of his own aura, which is lost if destroyed.

Weakness
Akiba is a little shorter than the average teenager and frail, but ironically isn't intimidated by opponents larger than himself. He lacks raw physical strength which is needed if you want to knockout an enemy quickly, forcing him to be weapon reliant and think his way out to win a battle. He shows difficulty fighting against agility-focused fighters (like a certain red reaper and ninja), dust-users like his leader, and those with a very sturdy defense and endurance like his friend, Azsfar. He may not be susceptible to surprise attacks, he can still be caught off guard and when he does he takes time to recuperate, making it easy for anyone to capitalize.

His greatest weakness is his bad aura control. Akiba isn't sure how much aura he has, but due to lack of training in it makes any amount of aura he has almost useless other than to shield or heal him. Though there are times he was able to use his aura to augment an attack, its usually by complete instinct and nothing else.

Another main weakness is that he is mute. He can't speak nor make a sound other than the sound of his breathe which is both a good and bad thing depending on the situation, but usually its the latter. He can't give out orders nor warn anyone of impending danger so he needs to find other ways of interact with others. To talk he uses a scroll or hand gestures.

What's worst is that other than basic knowledge from books or words-of-mouth, he is very inexperienced fighting against the Grimm. In fact, it was during his initiation that he first fought against one. He can be easily overpowered or outnumbered by them, forcing him to play back-up shooter, staying far away from the creatures of darkness as much as possible, and only engaging them close range if necessary/forced.

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.