Akihiko Kiragi (Work in Progress)

Picture this. You're walking down the street, minding your own business, when all of a sudden, you're sent flying twenty feet into the air by a human shaped cannonball moving at ridiculous speeds through a crowded city street, possibly swinging an extremely sharp, supernaturally created katana and trying to kill some sort of unholy abomination of EVIL, and leaving a mile-wide wake of destruction, mayhem, and property damage in his wake. You ponder all of this while falling through the air, and just as you're about to come crashing down into the concrete, you make the stunning realization that this man-shaped, humanoid typhoon of absolute carnage, chaos, and calamity was STARK. FUCKING. NAKED.

CONGRATULATIONS! You've just had your first (and, if God is kind, last) encounter with Akihiko Kiragi. That's right. Akihiko Kiragi. The guy men want to do terrible things TO and women want to do terrible things WITH.

His dark, mahogany brown hair is always windswept and falls handsomely across his features, with a few stylish spikes sticking up here and there. His eyes, a dark hazel color, can, with a slight arch of an eyebrow and flash of his perfect smile, drop a woman's panties so fast there's a hole in the floor. His perfect facial features don't hurt, either, and neither does the air of confidence and sheer, unadulterated ALPHA MALE-NESS that Akihiko constantly radiates. All of which mean that, when Akihiko makes an entrance, everyone notices. Most mortals are knocked to the floor in reverence of his greatness.

This is, of course, assuming Akihiko is fully clothed. Which is, admittedly, not often. On those many, many, many, MANY occasions in which some or all of his clothing is missing, you may have the privilege of gazing upon the sheer perfection that is Akihiko's body. Though not overtly muscular, every muscle and tendon of Akihiko's body is finely cut and precisely detailed. He is the pinnacle of anatomical finery. His muscles are wrought from steel, shaped by the fires of life-or-death combat, and ultimately, there for your viewing pleasure. Much like his signature smile, the sight of Akihiko's body has been known to drive females into a city-destroying frenzy that has wiped entire civilizations of the face of the planet before he was able to calm the shark-like swarm of women.

The only thing marring this vision of perfection is a massive, jaw-shaped scar along the left side of his torso and its matching cousin on his back. Though, every woman likes a man with scars.

Though Akihiko's personality might lead one to think his would be the most absurd of all the Lieutenant's uniforms, it is in fact much the opposite. Akihiko prefers a simple, standard issue, sleeveless shihakusho, of the design used by the Shunko-practioners in the Onmitsukido. His Lieutenant's badge is worn around his waist on his right hip, opposite his zanpaktou.

Akihiko often wears his shihakusho open, like a jacket, revealing either his perfect 8-pack (Because six is too few and ten is too many for most women to adequately appreciate), or a skintight, black muscle shirt.

However, Akihiko's clothing often ends up burnt, torn, incinerated, or simply thrown to the four winds during the course of his usual daily activities. As such, his quarters in the First Division barracks are stocked with a massive supply of spare uniforms.

Ambitious. Courageous to a fault. Amorous. Headstrong. All of these words describe Akihiko, but if someone had to truly sum up his personality in one word, it would be bushido. Not sexy. Not daredevil. Not ridiculous. Bushido, the ancient code by which the samurai of old Japan live. A code of honor, frugality, self-sacrifice, and martial mastery. A code by which men became more than just men. They became symbols of what was right. Justice incarnate. A man who lived by the bushido code became a shield against injustice, a sword to slay monsters, and a shining beacon in a dark world. To follow bushido meant to have a thousand year legacy of honor and duty behind one. To have justice etched into the core of every fiber of one's being.

That is the code Akihiko lives by. The code of the defender. The guardian. The samurai. Bushido. He is a defender of the weak.

However, no one is that simple, and Akihiko is nothing if not complex. Though he tries his best to live wholly by the code of the samurai, that is an impossible task. Its hard for anyone to live up to any sort of code constantly, and even more so for Akihiko. For though Bushido is the skeleton of this man's personality, the guts take up more space.

Akihiko is, at his heart, a bad person. No, he isn't a murderous psychopath. No, he isn't a dark and brooding super assassin with no emotions. But he is not a white knight upon a white steed in shining armor.

To merely list his vices and weaknesses wouldn't do justice to the complexity of the man's character, but it is as good as any a place to start. Akihiko is lecherous. He's a bit of a drinker. He gambles. He enjoys a fight a good bit more than he likes to admit. He is ambitious, prideful, and boastful. He likes hard liquor and loose women. He's somewhat lazy. He procrastinates. He has no problem killing anyone, despite the preservation of life being a core tenet of Bushido. He speaks too much and thinks too little. He can be insensitive. He can be cruel and somewhat manipulative. If you were to only read this paragraph of the bio, you might think that he was a Grade-A cockbite.

But that's the thing. You can't just read one paragraph of anything about Akihiko. Despite all those flaws, Akihiko does try, truly try, to be a good man. He feels bad when he hurts someone's feelings. He regrets it when he enjoys a fight. He feels stupid and unthinking when he speaks out of turn. Whenever he lets one of his flaws slip through the cracks of the code, Akihiko genuinely feels bad about it, and he tries to make up for it. He will dwell on things he finds particularly glaring for days. Akihiko absolutely hates that side of his personality, but try as he might he just can't completely stop.

This is one of the reasons Akihiko holds the Bushido code (and the swordsman who taught it to him) in such high, almost religious, regard. For him, it is a way to not only honor his mentor, but also to move past his failings. In a way, the way of the samurai is Akihiko's salvation. It is how he can save himself from his past actions. His hope is to eventually become a true samurai and transcend his past mistakes.

As mentioned beforehand, Akihiko is ambitious and prideful. In a way, this is a good thing. The man absolutely radiates confidence the way dueling Captains radiate reiatsu. He is sure of himself and his abilities. Akihiko's ambition propels him to strive for excellence. It is the driving factor behind his rise in the ranks of the Gotei 13, and his attainment of the skills necessary to do so. Without his ambition, Akihiko would not be the soldier he is today.

But ambition is a double-edged sword. That same ambition also leads Akihiko to commit selfish acts to advance himself, or to seize opportunities and take chances that put his comrades at risk during battle. Power, glory, and personal achievement are all far more important to Akihiko than is allowed by the Bushido code. This is a man who wants to rise above all others. In a word, he wants to be King. He wants to be the best. Period. Not the best lieutenant, or swordsman, or anything like that. He wants to be THE BEST. The undisputed, heavyweight champion of everything. And he knows that desire conflicts more with the samurai way of life than anything else in his life.

A further conflict in Akihiko's character is the clash between his inner warrior and soldier. A samurai is a soldier. He fights when he must, but only then. He is a protector of the weak and the innocent. A soldier fights because he must. He takes no pleasure in it. He does it because it is a necessary duty. He does it because he is strong and the weak are not, and that someone must protect them. A soldier is, at his heart, a guardian.

Warriors, on the other hand, are in it purely for the thrill of combat. A warrior fights because he wants to, and for no other reason. He doesn't give a damn about protecting the weak, unless it gives him an opportunity for a good fight. A warrior will kill without thinking and revel in it. Warriors fight. They destroy. They kill for the sake of killing.

Akihiko wants to be a samurai. He wants to be able to truthfully say he only uses his sword in defense of the weak, or that he only fights when he must. But he doesn't. He enjoys battle. He enjoys the feeling of superiority that comes when he defeats an opponent. He keeps this a closely guarded secret, and it tears him to pieces on the inside.

Akihiko is man torn between two destinies. In one, he is a true samurai. In the other, he has given in to his selfish emotions (fallen to the Dark Side, one might say)and has become the King. Only time will tell which he ultimately chooses.

For most people, the supernatural is myth. Monsters are real only for children, and even then only for ages 8 and under. Werewolves, vampires, zombies, and other creepers in the night exist only in the realm of fiction and fantasy. People are the real monsters.

Or at least, that's the cynical, world-weary view of most people in the modern world. People are the monsters. Man is the most evil being. The only things that go bump in the night are rapists, robbers, and raiders. Supernatural phenomena can be explained away with a shrug and some stretching of the scientific method. There's no such thing as monsters...right?

WRONG!

Hate to break it to ya, kiddo, but monsters are very, very, very real. Humanity has deluded itself into thinking that its the biggest, baddest kid on the block. We've got guns, after all! Who dah fuck would fuck wit us?

Monsters! That's who. Hollows and ghosts and spirits, oh my! Big, bad, fanged monsters who love to rip out your heart and feast on your soul. They've got teeth! And claws! And can vomit acid on occasion! And fire blasts of lazorz from their eyes! And a bunch of other, mind-shatteringly horrific things. Left to their own devices, these creepy, undead spiritual abominations formed from the tormented souls of your loved ones would surely wipe out all of the human race.

So why haven't they yet?

People like the Kiragi clan of Japan, that's who. For 6 centuries, they have been the frontline of defense against supernatural predation for Japan.

Once heralded throughout all of the East as a clan of powerful demonhunters, the Kiragis are one of the few groups within the Living World who know the truth of life and death. Originating with a wandering swordsman in ancient Japan, the Kiragis are bound by a sacred pact with Soul Society: Defend the Living World and assist the Shinigami whenever necessary.

Throughout the centuries, the Kiragis have practiced a form of sealing magic that exorcised Hollows from the World of the Living, returning them to Hueco Mundo without destroying their souls or upsetting the Balance of Worlds. With their help, the Shinigami of Soul Society were able to police the World of the Living and protect it from the Hollows.

Over time, the Kiragis developed a hierarchical system of command for the family, with the strongest male Kiragi child assuming the position as head of the family after their predecessor's death. How did they determine the strongest male, you ask?

Combat to the death.

In the middle of the 20th century, a child was born to the Kiragi clan. Born to Konda, the lord of the Kiragi, and his wife Kotohiko on the night of Konda's death from the wounds sustained in his last battle, the child was named Akihiko, meaning Child of the Autumn Fire. Kotohiko gave birth to her son during an attack on the Kiragi estate by a group of Hollows determined to rid the world of their meddlesome presence. As the flaming mansion caved in around them, Konda held the Hollows off long enough for his brother, Umezawa, to lead Kotohiko and Akihiko to safety just outside the walls of the estate. Once cleared, he used the last of his strength to cast a massive spell, permanently banishing the Hollows from the World of the Living at the cost of his life.

The Kiragi clan suffered a terrible blow that night. They lost their leader and many brave warriors, as well as the ancestral family home. Though Umezawa was a skilled warrior in his own right, and a fair leader, he lacked the strength to bind the Kiragis together. The clan deteriorated and scattered. Weakened, they became easy prey for Hollows and other enemies. The clan had lost something more than its leader or its home. It had lost its hope.

This was the climate into which Akihiko was born. He grew up in the shadows of the Kiragi clan's former glory, under the guidance and tutelage of Umezawa and Kotohiko.

From the start, it was clear that Akihiko was a prodigy in the arts of exorcism. He eagerly learned all that his uncle Umezawa had to teach him, and he excelled in his studies. He exorcised his first Hollow at age 10, and never looked back. By the time he was beginning to notice girls, Akihiko had returned something to the Kiragi clan that had been lost for years: Hope.