Grand Marshal Akiko 14

**Grand Marshal Akiko 14**, or simply **Akiko**, is a member of the Syndicate and a suspect in the Crime To End All Crimes.

She can always be found in the Desolation Cell nearby Henry Division during the investigation.

## Biography

Akiko was born an orphan in AD 991 in Mihai Day, Romania under the sign of New Night. She was drafted into the Army of New Night as Damned Harmony's forces pushed across Eastern Europe.

She was leading guerrilla operations by the young age of 13, due to her skills in both hand-to-hand and weapons-based combat. She fled to the Syndicate once the Great Betrayal happened. New Night had given her a home and a purpose. She had no intention of forsaking her god.

At some point in the Islands' long histories, she became the Grand Marshal. Her responsibility is to recruit, train and lead her Marshals in any military activity the Syndicate performs. The Marshals are tasked with keeping law and order over the Syndicate and the Citizens, quelling uprisings, conducting arrests, cracking down on illegal activities, investigating missing persons, and rounding up Citizens for the Slaughter Ritual at the end of an Island. They are a defence force against demonic invasions, tasked with subduing and killing any who come to the Island.

## Personality

Akiko has a strong sense of comradery and a strong in-group/out-group mentality.

Those in the out-group, she treats with undisguised contempt. However, to those in her in-group, it is implied that she shows a friendly and affectionate side. All of her Marshal Guards hold more loyalty to her than to the Syndicate, each speaking extremely highly of her--not just in her professionalism and achievements, but her personality, too. They appear to worship her and, in turn, she gives them the respect and loyalty no other Syndicate member would ever have afforded them. None of the Marshal Guards imply that Akiko dominates them with fear, and their affections appear genuinely cultivated.

Akiko keeps pet goldfish, becoming embarrassed on revealing this information. Showing emotional vulnerability appears to make her nervous, even for animals, though it is clear that she cannot help but feel quite passionately for the things she finds important in life.

## Relationships

**Lady Love Dies:** Akiko is extremely hostile to Love Dies, finding the investigator's mere existence to be a challenge to her authority. She frequently calls Love Dies 'something unspeakable in [her] native language' (Romanian), a '*nenorocito*'. She emptily threatens to kill her and takes easy offence to near anything she says, reacting defensively and minimising her role of investigator. It is likely that Akiko was involved in Love Dies' arrest on Island Sequence 13 after she was deceived by the God Damned Harmony. This likely contributes to her hostile feelings towards the investigator. Over the course of the investigation, if Love Dies spends enough time with Akiko, she will begin to show a softer side to her otherwise hard personality, considering the investigator something akin to a friend.

**Henry Division***:*Henry may be the only person that Akiko speaks to in harsher tones than Love Dies, addressing him derogatorily as a labagiu'. She insists that he is responsible for the council murders, urging Love Dies to allow her to execute him and be done with it.

**Doctor Doom Jazz:** Doctor Doom Jazz pines for Akiko, and they appear to be involved in a somewhat lopsided sexual relationship. Akiko gives little indication that she holds true feelings for Doom Jazz, her true affections lying with her Marshals.

**Captain Voth:** Captain Voth, a Marshal, is the most recent in a long line of affairs that Akiko has had with her Marshal Guards. She is plainly smitten with him, hiding him in the barracks after switching him out with a Civilian during her attempt to frame Henry for the Council Murders.

**K. HX:** K. HX made a necklace for Akiko that happened to break a month prior to the events of Paradise Killer. Love Dies can find this necklace, still broken, in K.HX's workshop. Akiko seems to hold some sentimental value for this necklace, but remarks that it is important to 'let things go', a sentiment she deeply struggles with.

## *Paradise Killer*

Akiko is one of the suspects Lady Love Dies can question during *Paradise Killer.* She distrusts the investigator and is unwilling to cooperate, going so far as to deny Love Dies access to certain key records such as her phone calls. She wrote the official file on the of events that Judge questions the veracity of, and takes her frustration at this out on Love Dies.

The official records state that Henry was taken from his cell during the Slaughter Ritual at the end of the Island. Rather than being led to the Opulent Ziggurat with his fellow Citizens, he was instead led to the ritual stone. The blood is said to pool in the recesses of the stone and will stop Henry's demonically tainted liquid from touching the Island. Akiko claims to have been disarmed by a psyched up, demonically possessed Henry while she was taking him from his cell, who wrestled a knife out of her grasp and then went on to murder the entire Council.

Her alibi can be broken by Witness to the End, who claims to have received a phone call from her minutes before the murder. He expresses surprise that he cannot hear the usual sounds of despair and the wailing ocean at the Desolation Cell, and Love Dies can use his phone to verify that she was in fact at the Council Building at the time of the call.

Akiko's motive for being involved with the Crime To End All Crimes is due to her loyalty and affection for her Marshal Guards. Marshal Guards do not move onto the next island with the Syndicate. They are not immortal. They have a status barely above Citizen. Akiko has watched thousands of them sweat, bleed and cry with her, only for them to blink out of existence without a moment's remembrance. As a soldier, Akiko believes that only those who have seen the battlefield and fought alongside her could ever understand, and her true connections can only be forged on the front lines. She falls in love. They die. She grieves. Her heart does not harden. She falls in love again.

Akiko has tried to stop this cycle of torment by petitioning the Council to allow her Marshal Guards to become immortal. The Council have unanimously denied her requests, fearful and suspicious of the power she would wield by commanding an immortal army loyal only to her. Akiko has also made moves to expand the Marshals' power and responsibilities, co-operating with Carmelina Silence to kill Grace Bloodlines so that even exorcisms would come under the Marshals' remit.

## Gallery

Akiko Sprite - AngryAkiko Sprite - BreakdownAkiko Sprite - HappyAkiko Sprite - PressureAkiko Sprite - NeutralAkiko Sprite - ThreatenedAkiko Sprite - ShockedAkiko - Dialogue Background