[hider=The Red Messenger]
[b]Name:[/b] Akarui Yasumura

[b]Age:[/b] 43

[b]Race:[/b] Sylve

[b]Appearance:[/b] [img]https://i.pinimg.com/564x/8e/3d/d3/8e3dd346256f6335f3c151823eba49a8.jpg[/img]
Akarui is astonishingly beautiful with many feminine facial features that give the illusion of defenselessness.  He has a lean, muscled frame that contains surprising strength and stands slightly taller than most other Sylve.  Dark brown eyes stare unflinchingly back at any challenger, and can often make most warriors hesitate.  Akarui’s most recognizable feature is his striking dyed hair that hangs down to his waist.  He styles it often into braids or adorns it with jewelry for official occasions in order to make it stand out even more.  Golden jewels are a favorite of Akarui and he often wears a few around his wrist or on his ears.  When on a mission Akarui prefers to travel light wearing no armor and only dark clothing.  He has a favored black cloak that covers his body down to his ankles as well as provides minor magical resistances.  In order to not make noise Akarui wears soft leather boots that make no unnecessary sounds.

[b]Personality:[/b]  Akarui is no longer the joyful kid his sister had known him as, but he also wasn’t the empty shell that rose through the ranks of the Reapers to serve at his brother’s side.  The Red Messenger no longer finds joy in the death he brings, but also doesn’t hesitate to eliminate a target.  It is simply his job, and as such he tries to stay away from death when he is not on a mission.  Once again Akarui has filled his life with music and art, and he enjoys sharing these gifts with others.  The only problem is at this point most commoners and nobles see him as being on par with the reaper himself.  Thus Akarui is forced to stay within the ranks of the reapers for company.  This has caused the Red Messenger to preemptively distance himself from others even though he would likely enjoy their company.  His two closest companions are Seiryu and Tsukihana, meaning they are the only two who see Akarui at his most vulnerable.  They often get the “privilege” of hearing his original music and often receive gifts from the aspiring artist.  They get to experience the person closest to what Akarui was like before Suzune left the Scar.

[b]Bio:[/b] Akarui never knew his parents as they died before his first birthday, but he never felt like he was missing something growing up.  His older brother Seiryu acted as the de facto father figure of the now orphaned trio.  Seiryu was nearly as strict with his younger brother as he was with the Reapers he commanded.  Even though this strictness made a young Akarui feel confined by Seiryu sometimes, he always understood the intention behind it.  Of course, anytime Seiryu was too mean to him he had a shelter to fall back to… Suzune.  His sister was only a few years older than Akarui, but she was basically a mother for her baby brother.  She was the counterforce to Seiryu’s overbearing demeanor that Akarui relied on to lessen the impact of a vicious scolding.  Akarui spent his childhood following his older siblings around being the best pest he could be.

As he entered his teenage years he began to clash with Seiryu more and more.  They would constantly fight even about the tiniest things that neither of them truly cared about.  The core of this argument was that Akarui didn’t want to follow their family tradition and join the Reapers.  The strictness of his childhood had pushed the boy away from military service, and Seiryu wasn’t having any of it.  Akarui had already shown a natural aptitude for wind magic and the Reaper in Seiryu couldn’t let an asset like this waste their talent somewhere else.  At one point Akarui even threatened to leave the Scar and that was just too much for his older brother to handle.  When Suzune returned that night she found their home to be a mess with the two brothers screaming in the middle of the entrance.  Seiryu was blocking the front door while Akarui was busy throwing the family’s collection of shoes at the now stationary target.  Suzune broke up the fight and sat the brothers down to have a “group therapy” session.  Akarui let out all the frustration he had been feeling and while Seiryu had not been nearly as forthcoming he got some important points out.  Suzune was the one who came up with the compromise that was settled on.  Akarui got to do what he wanted until he was twenty, but he could not leave the Scar.  At twenty if Akarui had managed to make a living he was happy with he would get his wish, but if he was lost and struggling he would have to join Seiryu for a time.  Even if Seiryu was not happy with this compromise Akarui was overjoyed.  He spent the next few years jumping from hobby to hobby, from musician to artist to fisherman.  He loved the freedom he had and made the most out of this time he had.  On his nineteenth birthday, he played a song for all his friends and gifted Suzune with a portrait of herself that he had made.  He knew she was going on an important mission soon and wanted to give her a gift so she wouldn’t forget her “favorite” brother.  For the first week, she was gone he spent his time planning a small concert for her return, and he spent the second week secretly worrying about her.  By the third week she was gone Akarui was constantly hounding Seiryu for information.  It was sometime during the fourth week gone that a battered reaper squad returned from the surface bearing a message for their commander.  That night Akarui learned of his sister’s decision, and he felt like he had been stabbed in the back.  It wasn’t that she had left the Scar or the Reapers, it was the fact she left him.  He had no final words he could think of because he thought he would have plenty more words to hear from his sister.  Instead, all he had was the official resignation she wrote to Seiryu.  A few nights later Akarui was planning to leave the Scar and find Suzune.  While he was finishing his packing he could hear his door open and knew he had been discovered.  After a tense stand-off between the two brothers, Akarui broke down and cried in front of Seiryu.  He cried that he missed, hated, and loved Suzune all at once.  That he needed to ask her why she left them, but never wanted to see her again.  He couldn’t help but feel she was running away from him as much as she was running from the Scar.  It was everything he was feeling, and Seiryu stood there and listened.  Fortunately, that was all Akarui needed as he poured his heart out to the man Akarui considered to be his father.  At some point later that night silence filled their home as a shattered Akarui finally couldn’t cry anymore.

Akarui spent the remainder of the year a shell of himself, merely doing the bare minimum to survive.  He stopped playing music and didn’t even glance at his paintbrush.  On his twentieth birthday, Akarui went with Seiryu to the reaper headquarters to begin his training.  Once his training began one thing became apparent, Seiryu had been right about his brother’s potential.  Using wind magic to manipulate his movement was almost second nature to Akarui, and the fighting style he used utilized this to the extreme.  Opting to focus nearly everything on attack Akarui used quick and wild blows to try and quickly finish his opponents.  He relied on his magically enhanced agility to dodge any blows if his enemies somehow survived his lightning-quick first strikes.  Seiryu quickly saw a good use for his younger brother in their organization and began sending him out on his early missions.

The young Reaper was tasked with hunting down rebellious elements in the Scar that threatened the reign of the Shogun.  Akarui’s effectiveness and brutality were apparent and many stories began to spread of a reaper massacring anyone who spoke out against the Shogun or the state.  For years Akarui stomped plots and foiled assassinations with severe brutality, and he enjoyed his job.  He enjoyed the praise he got from his brother and he enjoyed the sense of accomplishment he achieved from completing a kill order.  Even though he was incredibly successful, Seiryu had never given him a mission that lead him outside the Scar.  Akarui hunted in the depths of the scar for many years before being recalled for a new task.

With nearly every noble house having access to a group of elite assassins, it was important to navigate politics carefully.  For this, the Shogun used certain Reapers to be his “messengers” to the nobility.  These messages could range from a marriage proposal to execution orders, and these Reapers were tasked with delivering and executing these orders.  Discretion was of the highest order and being caught meant severe repercussions for both the Reaper and their family.  Akarui was nominated for the role of a messenger by Seiryu, and these jobs would be an extreme challenge.  These challenges would force Akarui to mature and finally take control of his emotions.  For the first time, Akarui nearly died and decided he could no longer hold what Suzune did against her.  She found something out there that called to her, and Akrui regretted not having done the same.  The second time he nearly died Akarui decided he wanted to go outside the Scar before he died.  He needed true freedom before he spent eternity buried in his homeland.  The third time he had a brush with death Akarui wished he could experience life outside of the Reapers.  He wanted to pick up his instruments and paintbrush and forget his worries.  The fourth time Akarui dodged his doom he realized he was getting really tired of almost dying, and he could probably be doing his job a bit better.

Nine years later Akarui is the longest-serving messenger in Reaper history and has become a myth amongst the inhabitants of the Scar.  A red messenger that can appear anywhere at any time.  The sight of the messenger is the sight of death itself to any enemy of the Shogun, and nobles no longer feel safe in their homes.  The job that truly sparked these myths was an execution of a plotting noble.  When the servant arrived to wake up their master, all they could find was a handwritten will on his bedside table.  There was no sign of a struggle or a body, and no one had seen a thing.  All that was found was a single long red hair laying on the floor.

In his personal life, Akarui has once again taken up the old hobbies that once filled him with joy.  While he is rusty he still remembers the basics and even has begun a new portrait piece.  It is a painting of Suzune, but all he has as a reference are 25-year-old memories.  Akarui also has recently had an audience assigned to him for his songs, even though she keeps telling him his job is to teach her things while they are on missions.  Akarui had spent the last two and half decades letting himself live in darkness and it had consumed him for a time.  Now all he wants to do was find happiness again and enjoy life as he once had.  Life as a messenger amongst the Reapers is too short to waste, and Akarui doesn’t want to waste any more of his.

[b]Equipment:[/b]
Dākuejji:  An incredibly thin single-edge sword that Akarui uses as his primary tool for assassinations.  The black blade has some sort of magic forged into it in order to prevent breaking on impact.  There is nearly no weight since the blade is so thin, so Akarui can use it incredibly fast as well as accurately.  While his strikes won’t bear much force behind them, little force is needed to slice a throat.

Kaiteki:  A long black cloak that has minor magical resistance woven into it.  After finding the cloak in a hideout of a dissident group Akarui took the cloak as his own.  There are no noticeable markings on the cloak and it doesn’t even seem to be made of fine materials.

Reaper Scythe:  While the scythe is an afterthought for Akarui there are times he finds a decent use for it.  A favorite tactic of his is to summon the weapon while in the middle of a strike with his sword.  This allows him to make a surprise attack in the hope to finish off his opponent in an instant.

[b]Abilities:[/b]
Wind Gift:  Akarui is a natural at using his gift to manipulate and enhance his movements in a fight.  To opponents, it can even feel like gravity doesn’t apply the same rules to the Reaper as it applies to everyone else.

Master Swordsman/Assassin:  While these may seem different skills in other hands, they are one and the same for Akarui.  Every fight is a race to deal a fatal blow in the quickest way possible, and every other factor is secondary.  A master of striking vital points with blinding speed Akarui hopes to finish most fights before his target has had a chance to draw their weapon.  Blocking is a waste of a possible killing strike, so Akarui relies on his wind magic and blinding speed to dodge any strikes that hinder his attack.  Stealth is also a tool that Akarui uses for he does not care about honor, only completing the job alive.

[/hider]