Akito Ashimine

* Manga
* Anime

**Akito Ashimine** (安次峰 あきと, *Ashimine Akito*) is a scissor tsugumomo and sworn sibling of Arumi Ashimine and Hifumi. He and his sister Arumi joined the tsukumogami paradise Mayoiga after having spent decades being abused by cruel owners, and dedicated themselves to the organization in order to live free from humans.

## Appearance

Akito has the appearance of a young man with a short white and has sharp purple eyes.

When under disguise he usually sports a standard school uniform, but his real attire consists of blue robes.

## History

Akito, Arumi Ashimine and Hifumi belonged to a residence where they all manifested as tsukumogami at once and the three swore to each other as siblings. Before revealing their true names, his sister Hifumi requested to the master of the house that he treat the three of them as a set of siblings and as people which he accepted. While a pair of scissors is not a real weapon, Akito proved to be a prodigy warrior and was entrusted by his owner to act as a reliable bodyguard, defeating bandits or even exterminating aberrations that might pop up. His sister, the die tsugumomo Hifumi, was the most valued of the three by their master due to her ability to manipulate fate and luck, but over time their owner became enchanted by her amazing power and was overcome by greed, leading other people towards bankrupt and disease for his own benefit. Exploiting and abusing her power, Hifumi's power and health steadily deterioriated tremendously. When Akito are Arumi found out about their master's abuse, they informed the local villagers the truth about their master's fortune and, people filled with rage who lost their families and belongings, amassed a large crowd to attack his residence. Without Akito and Arumi around, their owner was swiftly beaten to death, but their hate extended towards his tsukumogami as well, and before they could notice, Hifumi had been targeted and killed by the villagers as well. Naturally, they attempted to kill Akito and Arumi as well, but the similarly grieving and enraged siblings showed no mercy, and slaughtered the horde.

Following the incident, the two left the village and begun searching for an owner, since tsugumomo need to receive spirit power from their owner in order to survive. However, the two only found themselves in similar situations and escaping every time. After abandoning their 14th owner, the two came across the red bowl of Mayoiga that granted entrance to the pocket-dimension. Once inside they were greeted by the flaming arrows of Mayoiga's gatekeeper Yasuki Yatsukawa. Arumi was able use her powers to predict his shots, helping Akito avoid his attacks, but their fight was interrupted by Mimane Miyou, who excitedly and curiously approached the newcomers. After this, they were introduced to Tanmen and the other members of Mayoiga. Tanmen apologized on Yasuki's behalf and briefly explained to them about Mayoiga. While not all the secrets of Mayoiga were revealed to them immediately, the two started living in the paradise, where they were able to experience the joy of living on their own without the oppression of owners to the point of calling Mayoiga their second birthplace.

    After a couple of years, Tanmen revealed to them the truth about Mayoiga's creation. He told them how 1000 years the house tsugumomo Miurahi gathered a group of tsukumogami to murder a God of the Land and steal her Stone Shard, implanting the shard onto himself and manifesting the dimension of Mayoiga were tsugumomo would be able to live without receiving spirit power from a human. However, he also revealed to them the secret operation they've been preparing. After 1000 years active, the stone shard that allows Mayoiga to exist has lost the majority of its power, so for the tsugumomo paradise to continue existing, they must find a weakened God of the Land and take his life in order to obtain a new shard. While initially conflicted over the idea of making the gods their enemies, motivated by the idea of not wanting to lose anyone close to him again, Akito agreed to take part in the operation. In order to find a sufficiently weakened God of the Land, Arumi used her predicting ability once a month searching for "the future they desire". However, almost 30 years passed without any result until she saw a black mass on the mountains. Thinking it could be a clue, a squad consisting of Akito, Arumi, Mimane, Chikage, Yasuki and Shinsou ventured into the mountains to investigate. The mass turned out to be a hostile black obi tsukumogami, and attacked them on sight, but the group was able to capture her after a combined effort using Mimane's powers. The obi was taken back to Mayoiga and sealed in the basement for a couple of years until it recovered. She revealed herself as Azami but gave little more information of herself, however, she had the information Mayoiga was desperately needing, about the weakest god of the land. Following her instructions, Akito, Yasuki, Mimane and Arumi infiltrated in Kamioka and proceeded to form aberrations through manipulating from the shadows. The aberrations would throw the curse in disarray, forcing the local god to use her power to purify it and weakening in the process.

## Plot

### Counselling Office Club Arc

Akito, along with the other members of his group, was responsible for handing over the shoes amasogi to Mana Manaka, resulting in her eventual Possession and battle against Kazuya and Kiriha. When she was convinced to destroy the amasogi, Akito interfered and managed to make the amasogi react to possess her instead, forcing Kazuya to destroy it himself.

### Reversal Arc

Following the promptly eradication of the aberration, his group began scouting for potential hosts that could form an amasogi, with Akito being in charge of supervising their activities. When Mimane found Isuzu Iriha and explained her amasogi to him, he labeled it as "interesting" and allowed her to enter into her Dream World to prevent her from destroying it.

### Mayoiga Revolt Arc

As the energetic Mimane would grow more impatient out of boredom, Akito reluctantly agreed to take her to some arcade games in order to make up for her. However, once there they were misfortunate enough to come across Kazuya Kagami, the local exorcist of Kamioka that they were trying to avoid up until now, with the carefree Mimane going as far as agreeing to play some games with him, much to Akito's stress. However, upon being noticed by Azami making contact with Kazuya, her anger caused a leak of curse to appear, which immediately formed an amasogi from Hiroki Hirohashi. The amasogi formed from an arcade game trapped Kazuya, Kiriha, Akito and Mimane in a game world based on a tournament fighting game. Under the promise from Hiroki of being granted a request if they win against his team, the group is forced to fight against him in a series of battles in order to have him destroy the arcade game amasogi himself.

Akito fought against an obese fighter that had previously defeated Kiriha. As he wanted to keep his real identity as a tsukumogami hidden from the local exorcist, he fought barehanded instead of using his scissor blades, but he still won the match rather easily. His second match was against a violent swordsman, who gave him more trouble without a weapon, and the battle ended in a draw after both knocked each other out. After the incident was over, Kiriha easily figured out Mimane's identity as a mirror tsugumomo but he managed to trick them by posing as her owner instead. After they left, he scolded Mimane for carelessness as the two had just become unwilling acquaintances with their enemies.

Some days later, he, along with his sister Arumi, found himself trapped once again in a dimension formed by an amasogi with Kazuya and Kiriha.

When Kokuyou was attacked by assassins from Mayoiga, Akito and Mimane were called by Kazuya in an effort to get their help in protecting Kukuri from her would-be assassins. After having observed Kukuri's current state and seeing this as an opportunity, Akito and Yasuki considered joining hands with the radicals of Mayoiga to take Kukuri's life instead, taking advantage of the trust they built with the group. However, they were greatly discouraged to attempt such thing when Mimane claimed to have "reads" Kukuri's real state with her power and concluding that even eight of them would insufficient to defeat her. With this in mind, he agreed to Kazuya's request and assisted them in the fight with Mayoiga's assassins.

When they attacked, Akito moved to an isolated location to fight against Genbu, with whom he heavily disagreed with since Akito believed that the God of the Land was not weakened enough, trying to convince Genbu to leave and return to Mayoiga instead. His partner refused, and the two engaged in combat as a result. Despite being quite powerful and well-prepared for the fight, in the end Akito came out victorious and killed Genbu. However, once the fight was over, thanks to Mimane Akito managed to figure out that Genbu's group was meant to be a distraction to keep Akito and local exorcist busy while a second group would attack the God of the Land. He quickly rushes towards the Shrine in order to stop them, however, he didn't get in time as Mayoiga's group attacked Kukuri only to be swiftly slaughtered by the water deity. Akito and Mimane stayed in the shrine during the aftermath to confirm that none of the tsukumogami from Mayoiga had survived, as he was worried that the information would be leaked to the local deities. The two then returned only to be greeted by a panicking Arumi, who claims there's trouble in Mayoiga.

Using Azami's curse transfer, the group returned immediately to their home and found a rampaging pottery wheel tsugumomo who has lost his mind and caused chaos inside Mayoiga, destroying 20 of Mayoiga's people in the process. Through a combined effort of the group and Azami's assistance, Akito was able to kill him after finding his real body among mud dolls. After the conflict was over, Akito and Yasuki reunited with Tanmen, who explained that a group of radicals from Mayoiga who were desperately insisting on taking down the God of the Land now revolted all at once, since Mayoiga's support was falling apart and wouldn't withstand more than one or two more months.

Shortly after when Miurahi was reawakened by Tanmen, Akito participated in the definitive operation to support him in the battle against the God of the Land. When Mayoiga's ship was confronted by Komiya's God of the Land Honoka, Akito was one of the few selected tsukumogami who formed the assassination team that sneaked by towards Kamioka to confront Kukuri and her group, observing the battle between Miurahi and Kukuri. However, following Azami's betrayal and revival of Kanaka Kagami using Miurahi's shard, Akito found himself unable to do anything as his group was easily dispatched by the revived exorcist. He attempted to use Arumi's divination to predict different courses of action, but was discouraged to even attempt to fight her after seeing that every choice would lead to his crushing defeat, remaining hidden the area merely observing her fight with the local gods.

## Abilities

    **Expert Combatant**: Despite not being a tsukumogami originated from a real weapon, Akito has been a prodigy warrior since his birth and his fighting ability has always been his most useful trait for his owners. He can manifest a pair of metal blades that he dual wields like a swordsman, showcasing a brilliant ability for swordplay that makes him a combatant comparable to a high-level exorcist. He's agile and exceedingly fast, with his strikes being fast enough to go unnoticed to the naked eye, and he's exceptionally skilled at exploiting openings and aiming on his opponents weakest spots. He's considered one of Mayoiga's strongest warriors, as he was part of the elite group sent to take the God of the Land of Kamioka's head. After joining Mayoiga he's been training with Chikage, helping him polish his talents to a greater degree, though he admits that he could never beat her in a duel so far. He's also quite skilled at martial arts, being perfectly capable of fighting barehanded even against armed enemies.

**Separation**: One of Akito's personal abilities as a tsugumomo. Akito is capable of performing this technique to separate matter, in the same way scissors are used to separate what they cut. It seemingly works on just about anything, from flesh and bones to even fire and explosions, making it a very versatile ability that is very effective in both offensive and defensive strategy. Like all personal abilities, however, it drains a considerable amount of spiritual power and stamina, so there's a limit over how much he can use it.

## Etymology

* The name **Akito** is written in hiragana (あきと), which has no special meaning. However, when written in kanji (章斗 or 章人), it could possibly mean:
	+ 章斗 - "chapter" (章) (**aki**) and "Dipper" (斗) (**to**).
	+ 章人 - "chapter" (章) (**aki**) and "person" (人) (**to**).
* Akito's surname **Ashimine** means "peace, quiet" (安) (**a**), "next" (次) (**ji**/**shi**) and "peak, ridge" (峰) (**mine**).