[This world is wrong.

This is something that Akira knew, even before it ended. He knew that from the time that he tried to save a woman from a man who was going to hurt her, and she turned her testimony against him. But what's happened afterwards has solidified it more than ever.

He sees people fight over food and weapons and shelter, tearing each other apart for the barest scraps. He's seen faction leaders withhold lifesaving medicine not even to heal themselves, but just to make sure everyone has to go through them to get what they need. He's watched the weak abandoned to mobs of Affected in order to ensure that the strong will survive.

It's injustice that burns hot in his chest. But it's also made him more wary of people than ever before.

When the world ended, he was a few months into his probation and crushed by the weight of it all. Now, two months into the apocalypse, his heart is harder. Aside from the people he remembers from Before, people he has lingering affection for, he doesn't trust anyone.

Not even the person across from him, that's eyeing or even touched the box of supplies he was reaching out to grab. He thought this location was secure, but...

Akira is still fair. He doesn't fight with people when he can help it, and this is no exception.]

If I let you have it... [He can feel the weight at his hips, his dagger in its holster and his pistol tucked into his waistband. He won't fight if he doesn't have to, but that doesn't mean he can't.] ...can you offer me anything in return?

[When Akira was still just a normal high school student, when probation was the biggest problem in his life, there were people he had slowly started to let into his heart. It was a slow process, because he had trouble trusting even back then, but they still became more important than anything in the world to him.

For most of them, he still doesn't know their whereabouts. Doesn't even know if they're dead or alive. A few of them, he's been lucky enough to find out they're safe. But as for the rest...

It's cold today. His hunter's coat billows out behind him, and between his fingers he rolls an unsmoked cigarette. He can hear a beloved voice of the past telling him he's still too young to smoke, an unwelcome ghost at his shoulder. He hasn't decided yet if he'll listen to it or not.

Laws and love have both run out, at the end of everything.]

Ordinarily, I don't work with people when I hunt. [His eyes flick away from what he fidgets with, lighting on the person across from him.] But they tell me that you're good at what you do. If I can achieve what I'm hoping for, I don't mind working with you.

[Akira doesn't hunt for the sport of killing Affected, and he doesn't do it to obtain the most prime objects he could ever trade for.

There is only one goal he has, and he will do it. And when it's over, he will be a hunter no more.]

[Maybe this is the same person that's been on a long journey. Maybe this is a person that has re-entered the amplitheater over and over. Whatever you may have known him as before, in the end, Kurusu Akira will always end up on this path in any life.

In the towns that still have life, in the settlements that cling to any bit of hope, there are whispers. Rumors. They say there is a group that steals from the powerful factions and gives to the ones that are struggling. The wealthiest men left in this society that abuse their power are shamed and blacklisted among any remaining establishments, not even able to find a single person to barter with for a can of beans. That small group that moves in the shadows are spoken of with awe and disdain in equal turn. They are the ones that cause waves instead of minding their own business. They are the ones that instill hope in the downtrodden.

This group is known as "The Phantoms", and there is one young man that leads them.

For all of the talk that spreads about them, they aren't large. They certainly don't have the numbers to be called an organization, though some talk them up like they are. In reality, they are a group of mostly youths who have found solace in each other in the midst of a world that has fallen apart. To Akira, they are everything he holds dear. People that he knew before, and people in this new world that have taught him how to trust again.

This evening is not unlike every other, though the attack from one of the Affected isn't exactly commonplace. Exhausting, but lucky in the fact that it could've been a lot worse.

Maybe you are one of the Phantoms, or maybe you are simply someone caught in the crossfire that they saved. Either way, your injuries have been treated. The leader approaches you with a bowl in his hand.]

Here. [Akira's voice is soft as he hands it over. Stew. Meat isn't something that's easy to find all the time anymore, but it's a treat for days like today.] This'll help you replenish your strength.

[Whoever you are to him... it's safe now.]

(( hi hello, if none of these work feel free to toss anything that you fancy at me! for the entirety of this, i intend to have Akira lost in his role, only able to be woken up by one specific person... but if you'd like to play around with another besides what i've chosen, i'm open to everything for him except probably devotee. my permissions are here if you want to take a gander at them, but genuinely i'm up for just about anything. feel free to hit me up via Yamadori or PM if you'd like to hash anything out beforehand! ))