Akane Nishino

"Wait for me Minoru."

- Akane

Akane Nishino (西野にしの アカネ) is a former classmate of Minoru Kageno in his previous life. Following the fall of Japan to Magical Beasts, she became a "Knight" in the human settlement of Messiah. After being 'kidnapped' by Beta, she is inducted into Shadow Garden as No. 712.

Appearance
During her attendance at Sakurazaka Senior High, Akane was noted to be a beautiful teenage girl with black hair and eyes. She donned her family's school uniform consisted of a standard white school blazer coat, light blue shirt, a blue skirt and tie, and black tights. Akane wears three hair clips, one being a star hairclip on the right side of her bangs and two hair clips on the left side of her bangs.

Following her "Awakening", her eyes changed from black to red. In addition, when she became the "Original Knight", her hair changed from black to blonde. She still donned her high school uniform which had been used as a standard uniform for the Messiah's Knights.

Personality
"When I'm with you, I start thinking about the past... It's weird, right?"

- Akane to Minoru

Akane appeared to have presented herself as a proper, well-mannered young lady but that was just a front. In truth, she was a scared, troubled girl traumatized by her kidnapping and its subsequent scandal. She masked her true self in an attempt for others not to hate her, to get along with them and to avoid being hated as a reminder of her kidnapping. This is most notable with her classmate Minoru, someone she hated for misnaming her name repeatedly and looking past her until her second kidnapping. After being saved by Minoru, he began to call her name and looked at her properly. After finding out that he saved her, she realized that he was like her, and their relationship began to reconcile. She held an immense fondness over him even after his death and after finding out he was still alive after the latter's reincarnation.

After causing the destruction of Arcadia, Akane masked her true personality once more. She was unable to bear the immense guilt and developed suicidal tendencies, yearning to end her own life as penance. The incident also made her value human life and will do everything in her power to protect others from harm, even from her own allies.

Powers & Abilities
Born as an ordinary human with no magic whatsoever, Akane gained abilities through human experimentation, becoming a superhuman referred to as an "Original Knight". In fact, she is noted to be powerful even compared to her peers and could potentially be the strongest Knight on Earth. However, her abilities are still far inferior compared to those of the member of Shadow Garden, struggling against Magical Beasts that Shadow and Beta claimed were "small fry".

Acting
Prior to the fall Japan, she was an up-and-coming actress until she was involved in a scandal. After recovering from the trauma of said scandal, she resumed her acting career until the invasion of magical beasts.

Physical Prowess
As a Knight, Akane boasts strength superior to an ordinary human. However, her strength is abnormal compared the Messiah's Knights as her blood contained magical beasts.

Swordsmanship
Akane wields a katana she infused with her magic and is proficient with it. Her magic infused blade is capable of cutting down dozens of magical beasts in a single strike. In the manga, she was able to cut through a bullet.

Magic
Originally Akane was born as a normal human with no innate magic. During the fall of Japan, she was experimented by her brother after being injected with the blood of Magical Beasts, Due to this, she "Awakened" her power after becoming a Knight. Akane's magic is strong enough to blow other knights away on its own. When using her magic, her magical power is a golden light. That she can shoot balls of energy from all around her that pierce right through a person. However, her magic skills are still far inferior to members of Shadow Garden and even Crimson Order members. At worst, it could be possibly worse than to even regular inhabitants of the Other World.

Standard Equipment:

 * Katana: Akane's main weapon. She is able to infuse magic with her katana to enhance the blade. In the manga, she has also shown to be proficient enough to cut through a bullet.
 * Hatchet: In the manga, Akane used a Hatchet in an instance as the Original Knight. This was during the destruction of Arcadia where her magical prowess went out of control and had caused her to go berserk.
 * School Uniform: Standard equipment distributed to the Messiah's Knights as a means to distinguish them from their inhabitants. Once used to indicate a student's occupation and overall offers no noticeable protection whatsoever.

Awakening of the Original Knight
Akane is the infamous original knight after being injected with the blood of magical beasts by her brother. In this state, she manipulates her magic power into a golden light energy ball that can pierce right through a person. She initially had no control over this form, only being able to in her First Knight state.

After being brought to the other world, Akane began training to learn to control the "Original Knight's" power.

Weaknesses
Despite being revered as possibly the strongest Knight by her peers, she struggled against hordes of Magical beasts during a stampede. One of the biggest flaws within Akane is her magical prowess. Due to how latent magic was until the invasion, she alongside other Knights of Earth have limited magic capabilities as they used them primarily to imbue their weapons against magical beasts. Her biggest shortcoming was that she had no control of her magic when she enters her Original Knight state. This is primarily due to injection of the blood from entities such as magical beasts and the Brute's thus, she would overflow in magic and go berserk. This was until she was saved by Shadow and brought to the Other World by Beta it was when she was able to gain control her Original Knight state. Even after injected of the Brute's blood however, Akane would no longer be considered as strong as before due to the discrepancy between Earth's Knights and the Other Worlds.

Trivia

 * The name Akane means "deep red, dye from the Rubia plant" (茜).
 * This is also evident to Akane's red eyes.
 * Akane's surname Nishino (西野) means "west," (西) (Nishi) and "field, wilderness" (野) (no).
 * The name Nishimura (西村) one of the mispronounced names that Minoru had addressed Akane means "west" (西) (Nishi) and "town, village" (村) (mura).
 * Akane's story parallels to Aurora's; both became monsters against their will and desired death for the destruction they caused.
 * In the anime, Akane's eyes are red instead of black. Whether this is an oversight by Nexus is unclear.
 * Akane (after being experimented) and Claire have a similar facial feature, that is black hair and red eyes. Because Nexus overlooked the fact that Akane's eyes were black before being experimented, there was a wild and unbased speculations that Claire is Akane's reincarnation, although in fact, that was not the case at all (and Akane was still alive at that time).
 * Both Claire and Akane have a similar obsession with Cid/Minoru.
 * Both were saved by him.
 * To this day, it is partly unknown what happened to Akane's parents, according to how she told her story to Minoru, they died when the Magical Beasts invaded Earth.
 * In the anime, it was shown that when he attempted to carry out his "Confession Rejection" plan by performing a fake confession to his partner, Alexia Midgar, who is one of the most popular girls at the Midgar Royal Spellsword Academy, he thought of Akane Nishino. Akane was the most popular girl in his previous life when he was still Minoru Kageno.
 * According to Akane while The First Knight Mode vs The Black Knight in Manga Chapter 54, Minoru is her biggest inspiration to become someone strong to save the weak and can help many people in need. In short, she wants to become a Hero, just like him who had saved her from kidnapping before Minoru's death. And it explains why Akane decided to partake in the First Knight Creation Project in the first place; to save people from despair.
 * Akane is Minoru's low-key stalker and she developed crush and love-interest on him. On top of that, those feelings of hers was still growing.
 * Akane, who was scared of the eyes of people staring at her in distance, also known as stalker, ironically becomes Minoru's stalker after he saved her from her second kidnapping. She openly admits to Minoru (Cid) that she had spent a long time watching him, before and after her kidnapping, and a long time more before his death. As a result, Minoru being shuddered and questioned her being a stalker. And in Manga Chapter 51, as Minoru spotted a dried blood on his uniform's left wrist, the same spot where he beated up some thugs in his past life, he was surprised and asked inwardly why Akane kept his old uniform as a something precious to her (although in Light Novel, he brushed that thought off as if it is just his imagination).
 * Although it is uncertain that this info could be considered as canon or not, in the anime director's commentary of Season 1 Episode 1, there's a illustration of Akane after 3 years of Minoru's death, showing that she is blushing, smiling in positively "suspicious" way, and drooling a little while rubbing herself with Minoru's uniform as an act of remembering his scent and imprinting her scent on it, indicating that she is low-key loving him in stalkerish way. It is likely a way she calms herself and satisfies her immense love and yearning of Minoru.