Akira Kazue

Akira Kazue(一恵 彰, Kazue Akira) is a kunoichi of Konoha and a member of Team 7. Her dream is to one day defeat her first sensei, Maito Gai, in a taijutsu fight.

Background
Akira is born a mere eight months before the Kyuubi Attack, and becomes an orphan at birth. Her mother, Kazue Ume, dies in childbirth, while her father, Kazue Junon, is a civilian doctor who is killed some months earlier when an Iwa infiltrator chooses to commit suicide by blowing himself up rather than be captured. She grows up in Konoha's sole orphanage, under the care of the stern but matronly Madame Shigemi, and for the most part keeps to herself, preferring to read or watch shinobi fight at the training grounds.

On her seventh birthday, she runs into Maito Gai while attempting to copy some of the taijutsu techniques she has seen, and he fixes some of her stances before being called away for a mission. When he returns later in the day and sees her still practicing despite being exhausted, he decides to test her dedication by offering to train her - on the condition that she attends the Academy the following year. Akira agrees, and soon becomes enamored with achieving the strength and grace of a true taijutsu master. A young Rock Lee, who catches her training by herself one day, makes fun of her for wanting to learn taijutsu over ninjutsu, to which Akira replies with a challenge - when they are both genin, they will spar, Lee with his ninjutsu, and Akira with taijutsu alone, and they will see who is stronger.

Four years later, having not exchanged more than passing words and reminders of their upcoming battle since, Akira overhears Lee practicing - and failing to perform - the basic ninjutsu that every Academy student learns. She confronts him, and discovers that because of his disability, Lee will never be able to perform ninjutsu, and thus their much awaited battle is no longer a possibility. Undaunted, she decides that if Lee cannot fight her with ninjutsu or genjutsu, he will simply have to do so with taijutsu. In order to make the fight a fair one, she offers to help him improve his taijutsu technique and resolves to postpone their match until they are on an equal level.

The next day, Yamanaka Ino, also having overheard their conversation, asks Akira to give her some tips on taijutsu so that she can impress "Sasuke-kun" with her abilities, to which Akira scathingly replies that she will not help Ino unless the other girl wishes to improve for her own sake. After being rejected by Sasuke yet again and watching Akira defeat him in a class spar, Ino again approaches her, having thought on Akira's words and realized that more than likely, Sasuke will never return her affections and that she has been suppressing her own potential by always thinking of him before herself. Akira, though doubtful of Ino's resolve, agrees to train with her, and the two eventually strike up a tentative friendship.

When the end of their last year at the Academy rolls around, Akira graduates at the top of the class, much to the frustration of Sasuke and Akira's own bemused happiness. To their mutual dismay, Akira and Sasuke are placed on the same genin team, along with the class idiot, Uzumaki Naruto.

Personality
Akira is generally a very straightforward person, with an open, cheerful, and laid back personality. She likes to approach problems head on and get to the solution by the simplest, most logical route, a trait which is both a help and a hindrance in her career and personal life. She appreciates the simple things in life, and does her best to maintain an optimistic, calm and mature attitude no matter the circumstances, though occasionally her dry wit and penchant for mischief get the better of her.

She is also very curious, and especially enjoys learning about the ninja arts, history and philosophy. The latter interest tends to make her a little whimsical at times, particularly when it comes to the existence of fate or a higher power - a topic that she enjoys debating with Neji, despite the other refusing to change his own opinion on the matter. While she often becomes irritated when others complain about work or complicate a situation needlessly, she generally keeps her opinions her to herself and tries to keep the peace between her hot-tempered team mates. While her teammates like to argue and fight, Akira prefers to simply go about life without conflict or drama.

As a child, Akira is quite isolated from others her age because of her love for reading, and because of this becomes a bit insecure about not having any friends. For the most part, she hides this insecurity behind a mask of confidence and good cheer, but at times it comes out and makes her act shy and bashful. After she is put on Team 7 and forms friendships with Naruto and Sasuke and a teacher-student bond with Kakashi, she becomes fearful of having them ripped away again, causing her to become viciously over-protective if someone threatens or hurts them. In such cases, Akira's protective instincts tend to spark bloodlust and override her inhibitions about killing, though her actions come back to haunt her once she regains her senses.

During missions, Akira is generally very calm and professional, following the orders of her superior(s) without question or hesitation. However, her blind faith in authority figures is not always a good thing.

Appearance
Akira is quite tall and lanky for a girl, with a somewhat boyish face, high cheekbones and nose, and long, bony fingers. Her hair is, thanks to her mother's genes, a dark purple color, and tends to stick out in every direction if cut short. To avoid it falling in her eyes during a fight, she grows it out and keeps it in a short ponytail - even when off duty, as she is convinced that her hair makes her sneeze. Her eyes are grey like her father's, and during her first mission outside of Konoha, she receives a cut on her cheek which, when left to heal, leaves a faint scar.

As an academy student, Akira wears dark grey tracksuit pants and plain V-neck t-shirts in various shades of orange, blue and grey, with a white and black tracksuit jacket over the top, and a pair of orange and black goggles holding her fringe back. When she graduates, she keeps this style, only exchanging the goggles for her hitai-ate, worn like a headband.

After being promoted to chunin following the exams and the events of the Sound-Sand Invasion, she opts to wear the standard chunin vest over a grey 3/4 sleeve t-shirt and her usual grey pants. Later, while working part-time in the hospital, she wears a white doctor's coat over the top with the sleeves rolled up.

After one particular mission where a pick-pocket accidentally steals the key to her apartment instead of the key Team 7 were supposed to be delivering and they have to chase him around the town to retrieve it, Akira takes to wearing her key around her neck on a chain, tucking it into her shirt when fighting.

When she is promoted to ANBU at 15, she receives the standard tattoo on her right shoulder, and wears the ANBU uniform while on duty. Her mask is a crane - a red, black and white water bird. The pattern on it resembles said bird to some extent, with a red triangle extending from the center of the forehead to the tip of the beak. On each side there are two thinner red lines that start on the lower diagonals and curve over the cheeks, stopping about a centimetre away from the beak.

Ninjutsu
Despite being merely average at performing ninjutsu during her Academy years, Akira's competitive nature and love for learning drive her to perfect the three basic jutsu (Henge, Kawarimi, & Bunshin) to the point of being able to perform each of them with just one seal by the time she makes chunin. As such, she would be considered strong in ninjutsu for her age group, despite not using or knowing any Nature Transformation techniques until some time after the Chunin Exams. Even then, she prefers to use simple, basic techniques that do not use too much chakra, since she doesn't have a lot to spare.

While practicing chakra control before the mission to Wave Country, she accidentally discovers a technique where, by holding a target in place with the pulling force of the Tree Walking technique and heel palming it with the other hand using the pushing force of the Water Walking technique, she can smash a hole straight through the target. Disgusted by the thought of the gore it would cause, Akira resolves never to use it on a human target, but is forced to go back on her word only days later when she uses it to kill one of the Demon Brothers.

After a number of other incidents where she resorts to using it to defend herself and her teammates, Akira resigns herself to continuing to use the technique. Eventually, she combines it with an adapted Katon technique which encompasses her attacking hand in a white hot flame, vaporizing the target's blood before it can touch her skin. She calls it 'Katon: Black Death' for the way the fire blackens the flesh inside the wound, damaging it beyond the skill of any medic-nin to repair.

Taijutsu
Thanks to a combination of Gai's tutalge and her own determination to one day defeat him in battle, Akira's taijutsu technique is considerably more advanced than that of her peers. Though she is quite tall for a girl, she practices her skills often enough to have developed a certain amount of grace within her chosen style.

Initially, she focuses mainly on her speed, as it enables her to defeat her classmates with ease. However, as she begins to face stronger opponents during Part 2, Akira realizes that in order to become a true master of taijutsu, she must improve all aspects of her style, especially her physical strength.

Her style is a mix-mash of a number of other styles, including -but not limited to- the Academy Little Forest Style, the Hyuga Gentle Fist Style, and Gai's own Springtime Gale Style, using aspects of each to create a style that suits Akira's physique and level of ability. At the end of Part 2, Lee jokingly calls it the Graceful Crane Style after observing a clumsy crane chick and its more elegant mother, comparing Akira as a child to the chick and noting that her technique has come a long way since the day they met. Much to his surprise, the name sticks.

The thusly-named Graceful Crane Style does in fact resemble the movements of the bird it is named after, emphasizing continuous, fluid movement to evade the enemies attacks and redirection where evasion is not possible.

The user's standard position is with the feet in a front stance and one arm in upper block constantly, though which arm it is can - and should - be switched throughout a fight, depending on which foot is in front. The other hand rests in a fist against the hip bone and can be used for rapid jabs, punches, choke holds and knife-hands to the throat, or even Akira's signature ninjutsu technique, Fire Release: Black Death.

However, the majority of attacks are kicks - jumping, stationary, spinning, and combination techniques - as this allows Akira to make good used of her flexibility and longer legs.

Her favourite technique, however, is a throw, and one that she can't use very often, as it requires her opponent to be lighter than herself, or else she risks injury. In it, Akira somersaults over the head of her opponent while using the Tree Walking technique to stick to their shoulders. She lands in a crouch behind their back, slides one foot back to knock her opponent's feet out from other them, and then uses her body weight and momentum to fling them head over heels - usually into a wall or a tree.

The first time she uses it is during the Preliminaries of the third part of the Chunin Exams, when she fights against Lee in their much awaited taijutsu-only battle. Afterwards, she has to be taken to hospital for back and shoulder injuries, and is advised not to use it on anyone who is more than two-thirds of her weight.

Genjutsu
While Akira lacks the imagination and chakra control necessary to create complex genjutsu, she is proficient in the use of simple illusion techniques, and is especially fond of applying them while in the midst of a taijutsu battle, reasoning that her somewhat clumsy techniques are less likely to be noticed and cancelled if the target is too busy fending off her physical attacks.

Some of her techniques include: Illusion Technique: One Step Illusion Technique: Tunnel Vision Illusion Technique: Notice-Me-Not Illusion Technique: Sleeping Forest (and Illusion Technique: Sleeping Forest Trap) Illusion Technique: Chokehold

Arguably her favorite technique is the One Step, which, as the name implies, causes the target to see the user one step to the left or right of where they actually are, making their attacks more likely to miss.

Of all her genjutsu techniques, Illusion Technique: Sleeping Forest Trap is the only fatal one. It is an adaptation of her other technique, Illusion Technique: Sleeping Forest, which creates illusionary falling leaves that hypnotize the target - or targets - and cause them to fall into a deep sleep. However it is also the easiest to catch, as the effects are not very subtle and an experienced ninja would have plenty of time to recognize it and cancel it. As such, it is best used for civilian riot control. In the fatal variation, Sleeping Forest Trap, the illusionary 'leaves' are actually a cover for proximity sensitive explosive tags, which, of course, would hit the target regardless of whether the genjutsu is still in place.

Kenjutsu
Although she has never previously used a sword in combat, after being recruited into ANBU at the age of fifteen Akira is required to learn kenjutsu technique, just like all other members of the organization. She trains under her second cousin, Yuugao Uzuki, with input from Yuugao's own teacher (and lover), Hayate Gekko, and with their help eventually incorporates kenjutsu into her original taijutsu style with an acceptable degree of proficiency, though she avoids using it unless she has no other choice.

At some point during her training, Akira confesses to Yuugao that she does not feel she is a suitable candidate for ANBU, as the sight of blood still makes her nauseous, which is part of the reason she is not as enthusiastic about learning kenjutsu as she is about most ninja arts. She feels that bloodshed is unnecessarily messy, preferring to kill with a blow to the temple or a snapped neck where possible. Yuugao assures her that she too once felt the same way, but overcame it with time - a comment which inadvertently causes Akira to develop a deep fear of loosing her humanity.

Iryo-Ninjutsu
While learning taijutsu as a child, Akira obtained a numerous injuries which required a visit to the hospital to fix. After one such visit, Akira's nurse informs her that she is putting too much pressure on her young body and that she should not be training to this level without a trained medic-nin on hand. Unwilling to put such a limit on her training, Akira proposes a compromise - if Akira can achieve an acceptable level of competency in medical techniques before the end of the school term, the nurse will not inform Gai about her injuries.

Naturally, being a long-time taijutsu user himself, Gai is already well aware that he has been pushing Akira too hard, and secretly adjusts her training program to focus more on speed than physical strength. When Akira announces her intention to learn medical ninjutsu, Gai immediately approves, commenting that if he had the ability he would happily have joined her.

Over the course of the next few years, Akira does improve her medical technique by a small amount, though it is never her first priority and eventually she reaches a point where her control is simply not good enough to attempt any more advanced techniques. She is, however, competent enough to heal the majority of her teammates' scrapes and bruises throughout their numerous misadventures.

Fuinjutsu
Because she is an orphan, Akira does not have access to a lot of funds. As such, through time and effort, she learns how to write out her own explosive tags, sealing scrolls and training weights. However, due to a lack of instructional material in the public library, her knowledge of fuinjutsu ends there.

Part I
Plot in progress.

Part II
Plot in progress.

Quotes
"Stop worrying so much, silly! Sometimes things don't have to be complicated."

"What the- you know, aren't you supposed to be dead?"

"Just my luck... not even the self-destruct is working."

"Who cares about pretty? I'm going for noticeable!"

"...And when I die, I want to be remembered as a good person, not just a good soldier."

... And one scene from the Academy, a little while after Akira and Ino become friends:

INO: Maybe he doesn't hate me! AKIRA: Who, Shikamaru? INO: What? No! Sasuke-kun! AKIRA: Bah! You're still hung up on that pretty boy? INO: Hey! Don't call him that! AKIRA: Sorry. You're prettier than him. INO: AKIRA!!

Trivia
As a child, Akira helps an elderly lady by the name of Motoko run a dango stall in the food market in exchange for pocket money and stories about the 'good old days.' When she is late for training one day and cites this as the reason, her teammates think she's lying like Kakashi does, much to Akira's bemusement.

When Gai first accepts Akira as his student, he tries to gift her with a green spandex outfit like his own. Panicked, Akira claims that the color green reminds her of a mysterious "traumatic experience" from her past and refuses to wear it. To her relief, Gai believes her, and even in later years she never gets round to telling him the truth.

Part of the reason that Akira is not enamored with Sasuke like the majority of the other girls in her class is that she had once harbored a crush on Sasuke's older brother, Itachi, and was devastated when he disappeared after the Uchiha Massacre, believing him dead.

When Naruto returns from his trip with Jiraya one day later than expected, Akira greets him at the gate and tells him that he's late, pretending to be serious. He answers with Kakashi's signature excuse, "I got lost on the road of life," to which Akira replies, "Did you find yourself?"

Her mother's maiden name was Uzuki, meaning that Akira is related to ANBU member Uzuki Yuugao, though neither of them are aware of this fact until Akira herself is recruited into ANBU.

Reference
A shout-out to these sites for giving me the tools to create some awesome pictures. =)

Rinmaru Games' Mega Anime Avatar Creator: http://www.rinmarugames.com/game/?game_id=421

Chibi Maker: http://www.dolldivine.com/chibi-maker.php

Anonymus D.'s Anime Character Maker 2.2: http://www.muchgames.com/games/anime-character-maker-3