Akira Iwako

Out of costume there was nothing to notice about him. He stood at a middling height in ordinary street clothes, his brown hair falling in curls.

Trigger rewrote all of that. The drug swelled his frame and packed on muscle mass, drained his skin toward gray, and pushed jagged mineral growths out through his scalp, his shoulders, and his knuckles. His second dose, drawn from a newer formula, produced a version of that shape running larger and heavier still.

Sober, he came across as unremarkable and agreeable, fielding police questions without difficulty during his interrogation. That cooperation meant little: once released, he took the drug again at the first opportunity.

Under its influence he turned hostile toward everything within reach, smashing buildings and going after civilians, convinced that nothing could break or beat him. Some judgment survived, however. He recognized when Stendhal outmatched him and ran, and he was plainly capable of fear once death got close. He also belonged to the small group of criminals who actually retained Koichi Haimawari's chosen name, The Crawler.

Kuin Hachisuka handed him a loaded syringe at no charge. The dose amplified his Hardening and stripped away his restraint, and he tore through Naruhata as an Instant Villain until The Crawler and Knuckleduster intervened. Neither vigilante made progress at first, but Knuckleduster worked out the flaw: the fury that bulked him up also slowed him, and any break in his concentration softened the stone. They put him on the ground, and Knuckleduster beat him unconscious. His face had swollen so badly that identification was impossible, so the pair photographed him along with his blackened tongue, left him bound for the authorities, and moved on. Officers routed him to a hospital before custody.

Questioned afterward about his supplier, he could only describe a stranger who approached him and gave the drug away. With nothing more to extract, the police let him go, filing him as a victim rather than a genuine criminal. He walked until nightfall and found Kuin waiting in an alley with a vial of TR-D2C, a fresh cocktail her associates wanted tested. He shot it and went out on a second, more destructive rampage.

The Crawler and Pop Step responded. The sight of Koichi enraged him into a chase, so the vigilante drew him toward a parking lot to spare bystanders and stall for the police. Akira had gotten faster and stronger, and his punches cratered the pavement badly enough that Koichi's foot caught in a hole. The killing blow never landed: Stendhal caught it on his katana and drove him back. His stone hide turned the blades, but he understood he could not win, and he vanished into the alleys when Pop announced the police. Stendhal followed and put a knife through one of his eyes, the one part of him the Hardening never covered. Pain and terror broke his focus, the armor thinned, and more knives went in. Told that his weakness came from having no convictions, and that power without conviction earns death, he raised his arms against the sword and was cut apart. His body was left where it fell.