Mizuki Akabayashi

**Mizuki Akabayashi** was a high ranking member of the Awakusu Yazuka group and was frequently seen in their meetings on important matters in the light novel series, *Durarara*, and the *Wonderland* series. He was known as the "Red Demon" / "Red Devil" of the Awakusu and was a renowned street fighter. He was also known to use his intricately designed cane as a weapon when the situation requires it. He was usually partnered with his colleague and rival Shu Aozaki who is also known as the "Blue Demon" of the Awakusu. He was a member of the Dollars and his online screen name is "Gaki" which literally means *kid*. He was also a fan of Ruri Hijiribe.

## Appearance and Personality

### Appearance

Physically speaking, Akabayashi is tall (much like Aozaki) but more on the slim side with remarkable strength for someone his age, and has sharp eyes. His most distinguishing feature is the scar on his right eye. He is usually seen wearing a suit with a red undershirt (blue in the anime) and also wears colored designer sunglasses. He also carries an intricately carved, handcrafted, European-style cane which most people also find gaudy.

### Personality

In his younger days, Akabayashi was reckless, hot-headed, and completely ruthless. He was always eager to fight and would usually leave his opponents in a bloody mess. On the surface he seems to have mellowed with age and is much more relaxed and laidback. Many of his older acquaintances find this as a big shock and wonder what could have changed him so quickly. He has a soft spot for kids and has strong convictions against drug dealing. He is also adept at keeping up with pop culture and adapting to new technologies, unlike his partner Aozaki.

Akabayashi's sudden change in personality has also sparked some distrust among his colleagues, most notably Shiki. Shiki believes that Akabayashi is hiding something but he isn't sure what.

## Back Story

Before joining the Awakusu, Akabayashi was part of an unnamed yakuza group and acted as the bodyguard of its leader. He receives orders to extort "protection" money from an antique store and a grocery store owned by the Sonohara family. Akabayashi decides to hit the grocery store first and has a fateful encounter with Sayaka Sonohara, the mother of Anri Sonohara. Instead of caving into pressure like Akabayashi expected, Sayaka drew Saika and attacked him relentlessly. Akabayashi managed to defend himself for a short time before being quickly overwhelmed and losing his right eye in the process. He manages to overcome Saika's curse by ripping out his eye before the curse could spread from his wound to the rest of his body. After the incident, Akabayashi leaves the Sonoharas in peace but soon finds that he couldn't stop thinking about Sayaka. He realizes he has fallen in love with her and goes to confess. Unfortunately he gets shot down after she tells him that she was already married and had a family. The two of them remained on relatively friendly terms until tragedy struck when Sayaka took the life of her husband along with her own.

Initially, Akabayashi assumed it was due to her husband's abusive nature but, upon further investigation, Akabayashi finds that the reports of domestic abuse happened very suddenly and very recently. Sayaka's husband had, up until that point, had shown no signs of abusing Sayaka or their daughter, Anri, at all. Several drug tests also showed that there was an unknown drug, which was known to cause fits of insanity and rage, detected in Sayaka's husband's body. Akabayashi also learned that the drugs had come from the very organization that he worked for, effectively making his boss indirectly responsible for Sayaka's death. With this new information in mind, when Akabayashi and his boss were confronted with an assassin, Akabayashi abandoned his duty as a bodyguard and let the assassin kill his boss. Many of the members from his old yakuza group believe Akabayashi was the one who killed him and still seek revenge from time to time. After leaving his old yakuza group, Akabayashi eventually joined the Awakusu.

## Storyline History

### Wonderland Chaos

Akabayashi, Shiki, Kazamoto, and Celty all walk out after a business meeting when they notice Akane and a friend of hers looking up at the sky. The men ask what they are looking at and the girls respond that it's a huge dragon. Akabayashi and the men can't see it, but Celty can.

In "Akabayashi", Aya Otomo, Hecate, and Lucy all curse him to death. Akabayashi is walking home one night in the rain when he encounters a woman who looks like Sayaka on Mutsumata-rikkyo Overpass. Enticed by her uncanny resemblance of Sayaka, he takes her home with him. They make love and form a relationship. The couple see each other at time. Overtime, Akabayashi starts becoming ill. Shiki takes notice and sends him to the doctor. His symptoms get dismissed as the flu and he is given medication. One night, Anri sees him walking home with the woman who looks like her dead mother. Sensing that something isn't right, she follows them in secret. To her horror, Anri finds Akabayashi having sex with a rotting corpse that looks like her mom. Shiki, Celty, Anri, and the Awaku-su try to save the Red Demon from dying by putting protective charms around the apartment. He is instructed to ignore "Sayaka's" cries. Akabayashi does at first when the woman comes by his apartment. But her cries get to him. He breaks part of the protective charm and lets her in. Five days later, Shiki and the other men find Akabayashi dead in his apartment entwined with a female skeleton. His death is ruled undetermined and his case is still open.

When Chikako Nakata performs his autopsy, his death baffles her. Akabayashi was in his thirties to forties, but his heart just stopped and he had the organs of a ninety-year-old man. Plus, his toxicology came back negative three times with no traces of poison or drugs in his system. And she found purple bruising on his skin. Anri had to go and claim his body because she was listed as next of kin. The Awakusu hold his funeral in the season finale.

## Relationships

### Sayaka Sonohara

After suffering his first defeat at Sayaka's hands, Akabayashi soon found himself unable to think of anything else other than her. Although initially hostile, Akabayashi's obsession soon turned into admiration and then love. Even after Sayaka shot him down, the two remained on relatively friendly terms. Sayaka's suicide had a profound effect on Akabayashi to the point that he would eventually leave his boss for dead and allow his old yakuza group to fall apart when it was proven that they were indirectly responsible for the deaths of her and her husband. She also had a profound effect on his overall personality, going from being reckless and violent to a more relaxed and laidback persona.

### Anri Sonohara

*Main Article: Anri Sonohara*

Akabayashi treats Anri like his own daughter and is somewhat protective of her. He is frequently teased by his colleagues about how he took her in out of the blue and they make jokes about him being a pedophile (which he denies). Akabayashi's actions regarding Anri simply stem from lingering feelings he had towards Sayaka. He feels that Sayaka would want someone to take care of her daughter at least until she is old enough to support herself.

### Akane Awakusu

*Main Article: Akabayashi and Akane*

Akabayashi frequently visited Mikiya's home to play with Akane while she was young. However, as Akane grew older and entered the last years of primary school, her father requested he visit less to avoid Akane learning the truth about their organization. Despite Akabayashi showing up less, Akane shows the same excitement and trust upon seeing him again after several years of his absence.

### Shiki

*Main Article: Haruya Shiki*

Although the two of them share no personal grudge, Shiki has voiced his distrust of Akabayashi on several occasions. This is mostly due to Akabayashi's generally cryptic method of speaking and overly relaxed tone. Whenever there is some kind of disturbance that occurs within the Awakusu (or even Ikebukuro in general) that has no definite cause, Akabayashi is usually one of the people Shiki puts on his list of suspects.

### Shu Aozaki

*Main Article: Shu Aozaki*

Akabayashi and Aozaki have shared a very fierce rivalry since before Akabayashi joined the Awakusu. Aozaki has frequently voiced his desire to kill Akabayashi but never acts on them due to his loyalty to the Awakusu and its leader, Dougen. Aozaki's hatred seems to only stem from personal pride and not out of anything malicious, as he is willing to warn Akabayashi about old enemies seeking revenge. Akabayashi seems to bear no real hatred towards Aozaki although he is rather annoyed at Aozaki's complete inability to keep up with current events. Their rivalry seems destined never to be resolved as they are frequently paired up on missions and the closest they can get to fighting each other is by seeing who performs the best on each assignment.

## Source

* http://durarara.wikia.com/wiki/Mizuki\_Akabayashi