APPLICATIONS | 2012; 01

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THIS APPLICATIONS POST IS CLOSED. Please direct your attention to the new one here!

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Akira Inugami | Wolf Guy - Part 2

[not_so_big_and_bad]

Character Notes:
History:
Akira Inugami was born to a pure-blood werewolf mother, and a human father. In his youth, his father hid Akira and his mother away from the world at large, using his family's wealth and influence to provide for them and keep them safe. They moved around many times, always to more and more remote locales, the last of which was in the wilds of Alaska, when Akira was around six or seven years old. It was a well-isolated area, right next to a Timber Wolf sanctuary. Akira's mother was his entire world, and he left her side very rarely. The only friends he had were the wolves that roamed around their cabin. For a time, they were very happy.

One day, while Akira was out, humans he didn't recognize came. Humans in unmarked suits and attack vehicles, with a great cache of high-powered weapons. They destroyed Akira's home, setting it ablaze, then murdered his father and took his mother away. Akira never knew why. The men told him nothing but that he was a "useless half-breed" and filled him with bullet holes, leaving him for dead in the snowy tundra. He woke up just after they left, his regeneration kicking in for the first time and saving his life, much to his own surprise.

After being stranded in the Alaskan wilds for several months and living with the wolves, his extended family finally found him. They took him back to Japan, where his Aunt took responsibility for him. She was shocked several years later, when he changed right in front of her, transforming in front of the full moon. Still, he was family, so she kept his secret. He bounced around from school to school for the next few years, never finding his place in any town he went to. His travels were extensive, but no place offered peace.

At around age 15, Akira arrived at a brand new school. Hakutoku Academy. One of those troubled schools, that tries to pretend like everything is perfectly fine on the inside. The kind of place that just sweeps problems away, rather than deal with them head-on. Where the good kids desperately hope the bad ones don't notice them, as they just try to make it through the year. In other words, one of the many examples of poor school leadership that currently plague Japan. Full of adults who don't want to accept responsibility for anything. When Akira arrived, he immediately asserted himself, making fools of the local thugs, and an enemy of their leader, Dou Haguro. He also met Akiko Aoshika, his teacher, who turned out to be a woman he'd accidentally saved on the previous night. Several other people also entered his life. Kimura, the class president and honor student. Ryuuko, Haguro's crazed, violent girlfriend. Chiba, Haguro's second-in-command, and the only one amongst his ilk with a sense of honor.

The two had an immediate, unspoken connection, though Akira tried to deny it and play things off. He even went as far as to deny ever seeing her before. Later, she surprise-visited Akira, right on the night of the full moon. Caught in a moment of emotional instability, Akira lost control of his ability, exposing her to his transformed state. He barely managed to convince her it was a special mask he was wearing, and changed the subject by bringing up her invasion of his privacy. It was enough of a tirade to chase her away. Unfortunately, she was chased right into the path of a rapist. Oddly enough, he was stopped in the act by a runaway lion, who had escaped the nearby zoo. Half-mad and enraged, it butchered the man, and Akira arrived in time to stop it from doing the same to Aoshika. In a one-sided battle, Akira was finally forced to kill the beast by quickly snapping its neck.

Meanwhile, the escalation between Akira and Haguro's gang continued. The first major crux of it came when Haguro assigned one of his men to break up a school assembly. With WEAPONS. Already enraged over Akira crippling his brother, the lackey was all too happy to do so. The resulting frakas killed 82 people and destroyed the school gymnasium. The only reason it wasn't worse was due to Akira's intervention and subsequent killing of the perpetrator. Akira blamed himself for the incident, realizing that his own flippant behavior toward Haguro's crew exacerbated their already violent natures.

After the afore-mentioned school shooting, Akira had really had enough of Haguro. Conflicted and angry, he confronted him, only to be cut short by assassins after Haguro's life. He stayed out of sight, watching the battle from above, only stepping in when he lost patience. Akira transformed, taking out the last assassins and then turning his sights on Haguro. He showed Dou what he really was, transforming in front of him and terrorizing him to the point of insanity. Humiliating him into know just how weak he was, compared to Akira. Then, with a final taunt, he left Haguro and the entire town, choosing to settle elsewhere.

While walking around his new home range, he met Chiba by chance. He had left Haguro and school, choosing to live a different life than one in Haguro's service. For former enemies, the two had more in common than Akira had thought. They talked over lunch, with Chiba telling him of the changes that had occurred since he left school. Of course, Haguro didn't like this one bit, seeing as Chiba was a former su. He captured and tortured Chiba near to death out of sheer anger and jealousy. He left Chiba in front of the hospital Akira was at, beaten, raped, and missing his tongue. Frustrated by further guilt, Akira gave Chiba his blood to help him survive. Little did he know that it did save his life, but it also turned Chiba into a revenge-fueled monster. A human with super-human ability and a raging bloodlust. A monster thirsting for revenge on the one who brutalized him. After a confrontation that left a trail of collateral damage, Haguro barely managed to kill the transformed, monstrous Chiba. This only solidified his focus on destroying Akira, now convinced that it was his destiny to kill monsters, and that Akira was a threat to the superiority of mankind. To draw him back and into a final showdown, he kidnapped Aoshika, who had just realized her feelings for Akira, and had her raped on camera. He used the video to force Akira to come after him, putting him through a horrible gauntlet, and using Akira's weakness on the New Moon to his advantage.

Powerless, yet determined, Akira fought his way through dogs, traps, explosives, and crazed gunmen at Haguro's compound. He freed Aoshika, and the two of them made their way out, only for Haguro to confront them. Thus began the final duel of the two. After a series of trading strikes, Haguro had gained the upper hand. The combination of the New Moon, Akira's heavy blood-loss, and the fatigue of his muscles was too great a disadvantage. Haguro began to take his time, slicing off bits of Akira with his sword, deciding to kill him by inches. He cut off his left arm, and the fingers on his remaining hand, crippled his leg, and drove his sword through Akira's chest.

Just when all seemed lost, Akiko's desperation triggered something inside of Akira, forcing a transformation. He rose, driving Haguro into a fit of fear at seeing the boy he thought dead rise yet again, and in his monstrous state. Akira merely marched forward as Haguro came to him, embracing him and allowing the sword to pierce his own chest. Thus Haguro fell, having finally come to terms with his own fear and jealousy of Akira, his soul metaphorically dragged to Hell by all the lives he had destroyed.

Akira's power finally fizzled as he fell into Akiko's arms, with the cops and medics arriving just in time. They took the two away to separate hospital areas. Akiko, aching to see Akira again, begged his Aunt to be allowed to visit. She ended up flying her all the way to Alaska, to wait in the place Akira's memories were strongest. The wolf sanctuary. Akira, on the other hand, woke up in a completely alien facility. No mere hospital, but a high security research facility. His struggle was only just beginning.