The Backstory of Akiba Kruziikrel

The Life of Akiba Kruziikrel

By Korvax

Based on the RWBY Tv Show

Glossary

Hello. If it isn't obvious by this paragraph, I'm the creator of this story. You can call me Korvax. This story, and those that will undoubtedly follow it, serve no purpose other than to show the world what's on my mind. I don't care if you like it, or if you don't. While I will appreciate all feedback good or bad, the only thing that will discourage me from continuing to write, would be death. The following items will be the correct pronunciations of some of the Names of people and places you will see in this story. Enjoy it, because lord knows I am.

The main character of this story is of course, Akiba. The following items will be the correct pronunciations of items he uses, and his name.

Akiba - is pronounced Ah * Kai * Bah

Kruziikrel - Is pronounced Crew * See * Krell (Fun fact, I'm an Elder Scrolls buff. Kruzikrel, is the name of a dragon in Skyrim, who you encounter in Solsthiem)

Mattaroc - Maw * Tar * Ock (Like the thing between your legs. But without the C)

Venomshaank - Venn * NOM * Shae * Ank

The other important characters of this story will have a similar style in the beginning of their ...stories. But, I will still put their names here. If you want their weapons. Wait for their stories. Or if you would rather meet them as they come. Do not read after this point. As they are essentially spoilers.

**SPOILERS AHEAD**

The little brother is the first character you meet in this book, and if it wasn't obvious. He will be seen throughout the majority of Akiba's life.

Raidyn - Rae * Den (Think Ray, like a sunray, and then Den, like a man's basement)

Last Name - See Akiba's.

The next character you meet will also be a constant over the next four years of Akiba's life at the defense school. She is the first person he lays eyes on during the initiation trial of bones.

Kelsi - Kell * See (The Kell of the House see's all. Destiny reference)

Unihari - Uni * Har * E (Uni, as in uniform. Har as in Hard and E)

And for the final character, someone you will not see till the near end of this story is the fourth member of Akiba's team. Also following the rule of first eye contact is your teammate, this is Raidyn's teammate.

Yves - Yeh * Vez (found this baby online, it means "Archer of God" A term that in the beginning of our story made sense in every irritation. Now, with Yves's confirmed weapon set, not so much. However, there will be a story)

Tetsuyi - Tit * Sue * Ye (There are no words to describe this name. None.)

**END SPOILERS**

(A/N: In advance I'm sorry for the bad transition between paragraphs. There is a page limit, as I'm sure none of you want to read 50 pages per character. As such, the beginning of nearly every paragraph will include a time jump. 😊 Sorry)

Do you know the definition of insanity? At one point in time I didn't either. It wasn't until my 18^th birthday that I finally began to understand insanity. You see, the real meaning of insanity is to try the same thing... Repeatedly, while expecting nothing to change.

Perhaps I should go back, and explain where I'm coming from. I was born on the continent of Sanus and lived under the harsh, survival based lifestyle of the kingdom of Vacuos. See, in Vacuos, you either survive in the desert, or you don't. There was no middle ground. You grow up fast and learn to defend yourself or the Grimm and the endless wastelands of the desert claim your life. For you to know the full story, I think you should understand all the players. Grimm, and the creatures associated with that title, are one of the groups of villains in this story.

You see, the Grimm are creatures of darkness, ranging from the pack hunting Beowolves, to the massive size of the Drakon, a large reptilian-like creature of myth, which was said to have the ability to create other Grimm, just by beating its wings.

When I was just five-years-old, the Grimm attacked my small-town village of Adra'kadia. What was only moments before, a peaceful serene day in the village markets, people going about their mornings. Merchants and other vendors voices clouding the air, to get people to buy their wares. All of it, all the peace, shattered with a single voice. The air turned cold as ice, as if death was moments away. The village was divided into 5 districts, like a compass, with the center home to the offices of law and order. The Southern district was the first to fall, screams echoing in the lazy air, howls of creatures from beyond. Our own town guard, The Ka'dian Svash, hurried down the twisting, tiny alleyways of the town, to get to the site. Sounds of battle could be heard for hours, and then suddenly there was nothing. It was as if the maidens had swallowed up the entire district, leaving nothing but dust behind. Unknown to us, as at the time of the first cries of battle, I grabbed my brother from his spot and ran full bore for the nearest shelter. To the East a fire had started in the slums and was slowly spreading towards the west, while to the north a cloud of malicious, darkness was spreading quickly towards the center, as the town began to collapse in on itself. Between the powers of the Grimm, and the defenders of the town, no one noticed me along with a couple of the survivors of the southern attack escape. We were not even twenty feet from the wreckage of the Southern gate when a low rumble was heard from the endless darkness of a nearby alleyway. Two eyes; then two-hundred. The rumbles slowly began to build, as the -rest of us began to back away in fear, some of our small party began to run back towards the town center; I never saw them again.

Only me and my brother, Raidyn got out alive, the rest of our party falling prey to whatever was in that alleyway, the town behind us burning under the sun. Being a five-year-old boy and trying to care for your three-year-old brother, after everything and everyone you've come to call family and home is dead and gone? Let's just say I was learning my first lesson of the wasteland. It wasn't a kind one.

We were three weeks down the road, east of the ruins of our home. I had just turned nine yesterday. We set up camp alongside the main road, under the shelter of a trio of ash. We ate a dinner of hard bread and cold meat, not a very cheerful birthday. During the night, a young wandering Beowolf attacked our campfire. I managed to grab a nearby rock and beat the beast into a puddle of shadows, as I was enjoying my victory; short lived, my brother screamed in pain. Rushing over I discovered during the tussle, he had been scratched over his left eye. My brother used to have red eyes, like a lake of fire. Now, his left eye was covered in blood and he was crying out in anguish. Let's be honest here. I had no idea what to do, my brothers crying, there's blood everywhere and I'm sitting down holding a rock and looking dumber than the puddle of black next to me. I panicked. When the shock of the experience died down, and my brother settled down, I tore a couple of pieces of my shirt off, taking one piece to form a bundle I tied the bundle around his eye with the other piece of my shirt and made a makeshift eyepatch for him. It was crude, but for the time being, with my at the time limited skills it was the best I could do.

We were in the middle of a sea of sand, everywhere you look all you could see was sand. The sun was a burning ball of hellfire in the sky; its mission was to burn the water out of our tiny frames, then crush us into the red-hot sands of what seemed like an endless hell frozen in time. I hadn't drunk a drop of water in 3 days, giving all that I had to my brother. The accident resulting in the loss of his eye was two years ago. But it seemed like just yesterday both of his bright red eyes were staring up at me, laughter in the edges of his smile as we played a game of toss in the bazaar of the town. We rarely smiled these days. The world had forced us to grow up fast, there was no room for joy or happiness. The last town we had visited had told us the next town over was forty miles east past the broken skull. We were running in circles. Two boys, one blind in the left and the other dehydrated; trying to desperately outrun time. A losing battle between the fires of heaven and the death awaiting beneath their feet. Seven days into the wandering, we ran completely out of water. At this point, my brother was practically carrying me, I was running on fumes. I couldn't speak, could barely breathe. Several times in the past couple of days he had begged me to take a drink of water. But he was smaller than me, and needed it more than I had, so I had refused to allow myself to take any. I don't remember blacking out, but when I woke up the first thing that I noticed was my ability to breathe without feeling like I was inhaling dust. I was inside of a cool, yet poorly lit cave, laying on a bed of soft furs and pelts. My surroundings were hard to see in the low light, but it looked like whoever had found me had been living here for quite some time. My first thought upon waking up was not for myself, the first thought that crossed my weakened mind was, where is my brother? Is he okay? Where are we? Are we dead? Several questions like that poured through my mind like a fountain of water, breaking out of the gate. Of those questions that I asked to myself, I found the answers. Looking back on my life, I wish that fourth question had been true. Death would be a greater respite than what life would later have in store for us.

The cave that we had lived in for the last 8 months was owned by a man named Arcaes. He was a huntsman, who found us both delirious and near death. He took us to a sheltered cove and nursed us back to health. Every night he would tell us stories of his adventures all over the world of Remnant. Fighting Grimm in Mantel, quelling riots in Mistral, hunting in the lush forests of Vale. Arcaes had been nearly everywhere. I think that if we hadn't met Arcaes, not only would we possibly be dead, but we would not be the huntsmen we are today.

Moving on throughout the important events in my life, I was twelve now and my little brother was ten. We lived in the capitol city, which was dominated by its Defense School Shade. Shade stood on the edge of a cliff overlooking Vacuo, much like a hawk on its branch, overlooking what it believes to be its kingdom. Over the years behind us, we had learned the law of the Wastes. Survive, do anything it takes to live. Or die weak and be remembered as nothing. However, survival always comes at a cost. Survival in the city wasn't easy. We resorted to stealing to get things that we needed to live with. Food, water, clothing. I got into trouble a lot but, better me taking the blame then my brother.

Four years later, we were just starting out at a lesser defense school. The first thing they had us do at this school was design, and help the smiths to create our weapons. Over the years I had discovered I could summon Beowolves through glyphs, which meant that I could create a cylindrical base and out of it would spawn a black wolf, with a red face and white eyes, and he would fight at my side until I send him back, to wherever he comes from, or knocked out. For my main weapons, I designed a Battle Saxe and a short wakizashi. The battle saxe was a katana that at the push of a button would turn into a large battle axe. The idea behind it was I could use the sword for short, lightning fast combat, and the battle axe with its extended reach for medium to long range combat, the wakizashi was a short sword that could be attached to the bottom of the Axe version of its twin to create a double sided longer and deadlier, weapon.

My brother's weapons were a little more... unique, But I'll let him tell you about them.

The next thing they had us do, was name our weapons. I remember my teacher saying, "a weapon without a name, is like a man without a soul." My Saxe was named Mattaroc, The Fire Lord. And there is a meaning behind that. In Remnant, there is the existence of a source of power called "dust" and not the bunny kind. Dust is an elemental type of material humans use for everything from electricity to fighting. The dust my weapon was powered by was a mix of red and black dusts, Or fire and death. The blade itself in sword mode, dripped fire from its blade and in axe mode, clouds of ice would come off the blade as if it were frozen. The wakizashi was named Venomshaank, and used green dust, which caused the blade when active to drip acid. The only other tools I had, were a set of throwing knives, which were broken into four parts and kept in key points of my armor, that is, around my right leg, down my left arm, around my waist, and in a box on my right shoulder. The final part of my tools for war, was my semblance. Every "huntsman" and "huntress", as we were called, has a semblance. It's an... ability that is unique to every human. Some have polarity, others speed. Mine is called Apocalypse Motive. Sounds ominous, doesn't it? It appears as a white glyph on a red background in my right eye, replacing my pupil and iris. The idea behind it, and what it does is renders all semblances around me mute. Really useful in a fight. Not so much for my teammates.

In this lesser school, which was named Arvael. We were taught the basics of fighting, how to guard ourselves from multiple enemies, how to use the environment to our advantage, and war tactics and lessons. We were also taught lessons that in my life on the street, I had never seen a reason for. Lessons like Mathematics, language, and science. Language was my favorite, by the time I finished my 5 years at Arvael, I could speak fluently in my home language of Arabic, and in the language of the people of Menagerie, which is a very weird language, like the old-world languages of Latin and Portuguese.

One of the hardest lessons I had to learn was teamwork. If my semblance didn't give it away, I don't work well in teams with others. Teammates, slow you down, when instead of focusing on the mission and the goal, you're stuck in the past worrying about the wellbeing of your fellow man. My old way of thinking was like that, I felt that if I had to wait, and slow down for others I would fall behind. I felt that was a weakness, friendship, comradeship, and worrying about others were all weakness's. In Shade academy, you're paired into a team of 4 huntsman, and you stay in that team for life. It was with this team that I found my greatest strength. But also, my greatest weakness.

The big day, after my fifth year at Arvael, me and my brother were approached by representatives for Shade, who expressed their interests in our skills as potential huntsmen, and invited us to Shade, to continue our studies. We accepted, and within the week we were at orientation. Shade's orientation was a little unorthodox. We started in the shadow of an oasis, overlooking a desolate, winding mazelike canyon of grand caliber. Our objective was to get from our end of the maze, to a temple in the middle and then to the end of the maze, we would be sent down into the maze via our own entrance, the first person we met eyes with, that is, stared at, would be our partner for the rest of our years at Shade.

Off at the launch pad they threw us into the air, with the expectation we'd find our own way down. The first guy on my left was unlucky. In his attempt to look cool in front of everyone else he slammed face first into an outstretching rock. Parts of his head still cling to that rock even today. As for my entrance, utilizing my specialization in glyphs, I attached a fire glyph to Mattaroc and activated it in midair, the result was much like a tornado. Except this one was on fire. The flames didn't hurt, although it was a little warmer then I would have preferred it to be. The tornado took me right down the ground floor of the maze, and upon coming out I found myself face to face with a Faunus. She was a young, but very pretty girl. She had curly brown hair that reached down to her knees, two very large, black bat-like wings were closed against her back, which even among the Faunus, is considered very rare. She was dressed in Black leather combat boots, light tan cargo pants and a sanded, white shirt with a mesh hood pulled low over her face. Over her mouth she wore a simple black bandana. But it was her eyes that struck me the most, she had crimson red iris's, a small part of me thought she was a vampire. Ironic, considering how close I was to the truth. She looked at me, but with the mask on it was hard to guess her thoughts. Then again, considering my usual facial attire, it was safe to say she couldn't guess mine either. Naturally, we introduced ourselves on the run towards the temple. Her name was Kelsi, she was a Faunus from the outskirts of Tael Va'drin, and had come to Shade to become a huntress, mainly so that she could run Mercenary jobs and provide an income for herself. Not that bad of a reason to be one though, some jobs paid very well. In any case, we continued our way to the temple, she flew overhead with her "Shatterbow" as she called it, which was a sniper rifle, that could transform into a shotgun. I ran on the ground and took out any grim on the field with my Battle axe and wakizashi.

The Temple of Bones, as the headmaster had called it before throwing us off a cliff like a bunch of ragdolls, or disobedient children (a story for another time), was relatively deserving of its name. Suffice to say, it was huge. The main entrance to this temple stood a grand four stories tall, two massive heavy oak wood and metal doors stood open, welcoming travelers into its dark maw, as if only to close behind them, never to be seen again. As we ventured inside the dark gateway, there was a light at the end of a long hall. The light itself was a strange glowing torch that gave away no smoke. surrounding this light were a grouping of pedestals, upon them sat obelisks, some were white, some gold, some black and some were even red and blue. I looked at Kelsi, and reached over to pick up a black obelisk. As we were about to leave, the temple rumbled. The air turned cold, as if winter had come, but that was surely impossible, because even in Vacuos, winter was merely less heat than normal, nothing like the winters of Mantle, which covered the landscape in mountains of snow, and without proper gear, would kill a man in seconds. No, this was more like the chill that you get down your back when someone's creeping up behind you, this chill had consciousness, sinister, twisted consciousness. Like a spider, lying in wait for a fly. Both of us looked at each other, and quickly ran out of the temple, as whatever it was that had killed the lights, began to move after us. Coming out onto daylight I had but a moment to catch my breath before Kelsi lifted me into the air, a large crusted white claw snapped where I had stood but moments ago. Had I still been there, my brother would have had twin older brothers. Kelsi dropped me off at a nearby outcropping of stones as the rest of the creature came into view. The thing was a large white and crusted black Crab-like entity. Its face was a mask of darkness from which two red balls of hatred glared out at us. Landing next to me Kelsi leveled her rifle and grunted, "That's a big fucking crab." She said as she cocked back her rifle, bringing it up and focusing it on the big boys less then appeasing face. "Don't have to tell me" I said pulling out my katana. Clicking a button, it began to expand, the blade hissed, individual parts of it snapping apart and extending into a backwards C shape. The hilt of the blade reached behind me four feet, curving at the end of the shaft in the form of a dragon's claw. I began twirling the massive axe around me in circles until it became a large black circle of frozen death. *Krakoom* A loud shattering noise expelled itself from Kelsi's rifle as she pulled the trigger, a red and yellow ball of fire slammed into the creature's face, tearing into its flesh with a scream. When the smoke cleared, the creatures looks had certainly improved. Half of its face was missing and pieces of its mouth were hanging down from its jaw, held together only by sinew and bits of bone. The creature screamed with the sound of a thousand out of tune trumpets and suddenly surged forward with impossible speed towards Kelsi, who had frozen with fear. Without a doubt in my mind, I activated a speed glyph from under my feet and shot myself across the canyon, the wind was roaring in my ears as I brought my axe up and swung it clean across the fuckers outstretched claw. My blade went into its crusted white appendage with a crunch, and as Mr. Ugly screamed, I tore it out of the crab taking his claw with me. Sliding to a stop at the bottom of the far cliff, looking up I saw a red orb of malice screaming towards me faster than any human. I raised my blade in poor defense, before the angry crab could reach me, there was a cry of war and a shroud of dust. When it cleared, a dark-haired man was standing on top of the clearly dead crustacean. In his hands was a pair of scythes connected by a chain. One of the blades was sunk deep into the crab's skull, the other was at ready in his spare hand. "Akiba" Said a voice above me. Looking up I saw my brother, Raidyn sitting upside down on a teleportation glyph. "Are you alright?" He said with obvious concern. "Yeah, just a couple of bruises. Nothing new." I said as I used my reverted katana to help myself up. While on the outside I put on a brave fade, on the inside it felt like I had broken several somethings. "So, did you and your teammate get an artifact yet?" I asked as he landed on the ground, next to his teammate who had sunken to the floor as the crab disintegrated to shadows and black goop. Raidyn passed a look with his stark twin and pulled out a black obelisk from under his cloak.

The Grand Hall of Shade was every bit deserving of its name. Shaped like a large swooping dome, at its center was a large green crystal. The crystal bathed the hall in an eerie green light, giving the appearance of a den of thieves. The headmaster of Shade was giving a speech, welcoming the new members of the academy, and assigning them to their various teams. "Akiba Kruziikrel, Raidyn Kruziikrel, Kelsi Unihari and Yves Tetsuyi. These four students chose the black obelisk, and so shall be united for the next four years. And so, they shall be known as Team ARYK, and will be led by Akiba Kruziikrel for the next four years."

(Authors Note: Now you're probably wondering, why did I use insanity as my opening? At nearly every turn of age, Akiba will go through something, or someone who will cause him to place his brother ahead of himself. Insanity is the theme, because he does the same thing every time, and instead of getting different results. it's the same. He always puts Raidyn ahead of his own self, and he always gets hurt because of it. In the desert, he nearly died of dehydration, at the campfire a Beowolf tries to kill him, in the city he gets into trouble for criminal activities. No matter what he does, he will always take the pain and the blame, for trying to protect his brother, that's Akiba's weakness. Every character has something that is defined as their weak point, how to get to them. His weakness is his brother, and later his teammates. He will always place others above himself. And eventually that will be his downfall)