Stats

Birthday

His birthday is on July 14th. He uses it as an excuse to just, lie around and space out.

Personality

He's reserved, self-aware and shy, but there are times where he just snaps and absolutely destroys someone. Whether it's physically, verbally or mentally is completely up to the person he snaps at.

Quote

"... They're just nightmares, and they end eventually."

"I am Akumuri, pleased to be of acquaintance."

About

In the distant, rain-soaked village of Hikkoshibasho, where a cloud hung constant over bamboo houses and the sound of rushing creek water filled the air, it wasn’t uncommon for people to be born with uncanny abilities. The natural spring there was said to be enchanted, gifting residents with its mysterious power. Some could influence emotion. Some could make flowers grow. Some could make small illusions. No villager was particularly intimidating with their powers, and all seemed to use them for good.

Even in such an extraordinary place, where magic was mundane, the birth of twins was a rarity indeed. And yet, one damp spring morning, a young mother gave birth to a pair of beautiful babies with pale skin and black hair. A girl and a boy. Yumehara and Akumuri. For the first few years of their life, it wasn’t clear what their ability would be. But Shiana- the proud mother of these children- noticed an odd pattern in her sleep. Each night, whenever she slept near only one of the kids, she would either be blessed with brilliant, vivid dreams of joy and peace, then she’d be afflicted with a gruesome nightmare, the worst possible visions her head could conjure up.

Shiana began to suspect her childrens’ gifts had something to do with it. So she and her husband, Hachiro, planned an experiment. For the next week, she would sleep with Yumehara by her side, and then Hachiro would sleep in their son’s room. No surprise, Hachiro was cursed with awful, bloody nightmares, and Shiana slept soundly with a smile on her face. They realized Akumuri was a bringer of nightmares, Yumehara a bringer of dreams. It was perhaps even less surprising when the village heard this tale and demanded Akumuri be cast out. Evil. Nightmare. Cruel words that would ring in the boy’s head long into his growing years.

His parents, agreeing that it would be best for Akumuri to leave the village, where he couldn’t bring terrible dreams to them, banished him. They threatened him, should he ever return, bad things would await him. What Shiana and Hachiro did not expect? Yumehara wanted so desperately to give her brother a chance to prove himself. She believed in him when no one else did. Even if his powers frightened her. Even if there was a darkness to him that the little girl couldn’t explain.

Akumuri tried to convince his sister to stay behind and live a life of comfort, but she refused. The twins took up shelter in the forest, creating a special wooden hut that would serve as their hideout. For years, they learned to survive together. Yumehara learned to trust her brother, and Akumuri learned to believe in himself. In secret, she returned to the village; she’d bring him gifts and things he needed to survive from their parents, who would have severely punished Yumehara if they knew she was continuing contact with Akumuri.

Peace cannot last forever. The pair eventually happened upon another child with a unique power and a painful past, from a city several miles beyond the forest. Their name was Shikahana, and their gift was the ability to understand the language of animals. It was a gift that lent itself well to their life in the forest.

They met the siblings and took an instant shine to Akumuri. Yumehara was put at ease by this. Surely if someone who was perceptive enough to see the good and bad in others trusted her brother, she could as well.

Over their years of bonding, Akumuri and Shikahana grew very close. The little sibling he could have with him always. One day, they were playing a game of extreme tag near the seaside cliffs just beyond the bamboo forest. Chasing, laughing, happy to simply be free from the confines of what waited from the people who banished them and cast them out. Yumehara had gone to visit the general store in the village to gather some new supplies.

When Akumuri was chasing the other, in an attempt to avoid his tag, they made a run for the cliffs, intending to make a sharp turn right on the edge. Instead, as their foot came down on the razor ledge of the rocky cliffside, Akumuri moved a bit too quickly and pushed them just a step closer to the ledge. The overhanging rock gave way, crumbling under Shikahana’s step. Akumuri lunged to grab them, earning sharp gashes across his cheeks from the craggy broken rock. It was too late. Their piercing scream echoed through the hidden valley as their body disappeared in the misty ravine below.

Akumuri knelt on that ledge with his arms wrapped tightly around his abdomen, breath shuddering while his torso was wracked with gasping sobs. For a long time, he couldn’t move, fearing too deeply that he’d been responsible for the death of the one person who never doubted him.

When Yumehara heard the ear-splitting wail of her friend, she had dropped everything to rush to the cliffside. When she saw her brother kneeling on the edge of the cliff- his sobs now hushed into a numb silence- panic and hysteria overtook her. She demanded to know where Shikahana had gone. Akumuri could not answer.

“What did you do?”

Those words rang in Akumuri’s head for the rest of his life.

They would soon discover Shikahana’s wounded body at the base of the cliff. So damaged that- even though they’d miraculously survived with relatively few broken bones- their recovery would be a long process, the feel of freefall a constant reminder. In their nightmares. Nightmares brought about by a friend. Akumuri had to watch the friend he so loved sleep fitfully from afar. Yumehara never allowed him to get close to them again. She no longer brought him supplies or came to visit. Akumuri was entirely alone. Desperate, unable to find a single reason he should stay and believing both Shikahana and Yumehara would be better off without him, Akumuri ran away.

Yumehara did not like that, unbeknownst to him, thinking him a coward. A monster.

Furious at her sibling for leaving behind a mess he’d made- a friend he’d hurt- she vowed to hunt him down. And hunt him down she did. In a violent outburst, she attacked her brother with the ferocity of someone who only felt deep and personal hatred. Every doubt, every second thought, had been confirmed. And Akumuri couldn’t find it in himself to disagree.

He did not fight back when Yumehara unleashed violent attack after violent attack. She spent several days torturing him, seeing to it that he was far too broken to run away a second time. Yumehara hurt him in every way she knew he feared. She even used her magic on him.

Akumuri spent several days in brutal conditions. Eventually, he just couldn’t take it any longer, and when Yumehara was satisfied with her work for the day, Akumuri made his escape. He traveled until he found shelter on an uncivilized island, a place where he could live without inflicting nightmares on people. A place of isolation. It isn’t the life he wanted, but Akumuri knew from the start he’d never get a life like that. Being alone? It was for the best.

By HappyAccidents on FR