Akiha Tohno

Akiha Tohno (遠野 秋葉) is the younger sister of Shiki and the head of the prestigious Tohno family and a student of the elite Asagami Private Girls Academy.

Background
Born into the prestigious Tohno family in 1983, Akiha lived a sheltered childhood under the strict supervision of her father Makihisa Tohno and was seldom allowed to go outside the mansion to play. She was also subconsciously afraid of her brother SHIKI, despite the fact that he never did anything wrong, because she felt that he was different and something was wrong with him. When Shiki Nanaya was adopted into the family, she initially disliked him because he had the same name as her brother. One day while she quietly waited for her tutor to arrive, Shiki took her hand, inviting her to play with him and SHIKI and Hisui, the other children at the mansion. Thanks to Shiki she was able to experience at least some semblance of the joys of childhood. Unfortunately, not soon afterward Shiki was near fatally wounded in an accident and was sent by Makihisa to live with the Arimas, relatives from another branch of the family. Akiha tried to visit Shiki at the Arima house several times early on, but pressure from her father and other relatives, in addition to Shiki's constant visits to the hospital, prevented their meeting. Contact was made all but impossible when Akiha was placed in a boarding school and she was forced to live on the campus. Akiha also states that she sent Shiki many letters, but because he was ordered by Makihisa to never speak to Akiha again, he never replied.

Some time later, Akiha and Hisui learned that Makihisa raped Kohaku daily in order to maintain his demon blood. Akiha decided to free Kohaku from Makihisa and live as a normal maid. Upon the death of Makihisa, Akiha, now 16 years old, became the head of the Tohno household and, ignoring protests from the remaining relatives, called Shiki back to live at the family mansion with her.

Personality
Akiha is very protective of her brother. She is always intent on knowing what he does with his day, and is extremely suspicious of what he does at night. She gets incredibly jealous when he is around other girls. The constant supervision by his little sister sometimes bears hard on Shiki, but she only watches over him because she worries so much about him. Despite her general peevishness, she really is a sweet girl at heart.

Her father remarked in his journal that Akiha's Tohno blood was of the weaker sort and she could live as a normal human if she wished it. But that changed when Shiki's life was threatened in the "accident" from eight years earlier. She was outside playing with Shiki, her adopted brother, and her real brother, also named SHIKI. But the Tohno blood was much stronger in her real brother and he inverted to his non-human form. In this uncontrollable state, he lost control of himself and attempted to attack Akiha. Shiki jumped in the way to protect her and took the full force of the attack. Shiki died protecting Akiha, but Akiha used powers granted to her by her non-human blood to give him half of her life, allowing him to survive. After the incident, her true brother SHIKI was locked away so that he could never again hurt someone and Akiha severed all ties with him and has since said that Shiki, her adopted brother, is the only person she will ever call her brother. Due to this accident, she needs twice the amount of heat of an average person because she is supporting both her own life and Shiki's. To make up for her increased demand, she must absorb heat from others. She can take this heat in through various means, even by simply absorbing their body heat through contact, but the most efficient method is by drinking fresh blood (as seen when she sucks Kohaku's blood in a scene from the game). Because of the strain on her body this causes, she often experiences attacks of intense pain that can last from a few minutes to several hours. But Akiha bears them bravely, knowing that it is all for the sake of her beloved brother.

Though she tries to conceal it, Akiha called her brother back because she truly loves him and wanted to be near him no matter how much it might alienate her from the rest of the family. She is incredibly shy about her feelings, even acting in complete contradiction to them on occasion. But to her, Shiki is the most important person in the world.

She is very self-conscious about her flat chest and it later causes lots of running gags in later sequels like Kagetsu Tohya.

Appearance
Akiha has long black hair (that turns red in her Crimson Red Vermillion form) decorated with a white hairband. During school she wears the standard Asagami uniform, even when she later transfers to Shiki's school. Her casual clothes consists on a white shirt with a red ribbon on the necktie and a long red skirt.

Arcueid's route
Because the events of Arcueid (and Ciel) keep Shiki away from the Tohno mansion, Akiha is merely a supporting character. Nearly the end of the route, she reveals to Shiki that he was adopted.

In the anime, based on that route, Akiha has a secondary role and she remains as Shiki's stoic yet caring sister, who wants to keep the awful truths about their past to Shiki. She scolds him over everything, from his manners to coming back home at late hours. However, Kohaku (who is very close to Akiha) reveals to Shiki that despite her stoic demeanor, Akiha is pleased by Shiki's return. Like Arcueid, she dislikes Ciel, realizing that she is not human. After Shiki, who went to the amusement park with Arcueid, Ciel, Satsuki and Akiha; she and Ciel have a discussion after Ciel remarks that Akiha is not human. When Shiki returns home, Akiha collapses shortly after a conversation with him. He later witnesses as Akiha is taking blood from Kohaku's breast. After Arcueid tells Shiki that Roa reincarnates in the bodies of families with inhuman characteristics, Shiki misunderstands it and believes that Akiha might be Roa. Akiha's hair turns red, after that. Despite Akiha's efforts in hiding the truth from Shiki, thanks to intervention from Kohaku and Hisui, Shiki discovers about SHIKI and the truths from his childhood.

In the manga, she has the same protective role towards Shiki than in the anime. However, there is one slight difference in the way Shiki remembers his past: After he recalls how there was another boy in his childhood and how he had killed him, SHIKI appears and attacks him. Shiki is saved by Akiha and Kohaku and the two siblings have a confrontation about Shiki. After Akiha tells him that she does not ackwnowledge him as her brother anymore and that Shiki is her brother now, an enraged SHIKI tries to attack her but she is protected by Ciel. She explains to Akiha that her true brother is Roa's current incarnation, much to Akiha's shock who had no idea about it. After those events, Akiha remains as a supportive character.

Ciel's route
Similar to Arcueid's route, she plays a supportive route and does not seem to like Ciel.

Akiha's route
Shiki returns to the Tohno house after years. He fondly remembers the times he spent with his sister Akiha. He also feels guilty because of the strict upbringing she received after he had to left the Tohno house. Unfortunately for Shiki, his reunion with Akiha is not exactly as he had hoped it to be. She is cold and distant to him, immediately demanding that he adopt a lifestyle befitting of the eldest son of the Tohno family. Akiha scolds Shiki over everything, which causes him to believe that she might bear a significant grudge over his absence the last eight years. When Shiki goes to school, he realizes that his classmate Satsuki is gone. Later it is revealed that she was turned into a vampire by SHIKI.

When Shiki, who had just crossed ways with Satsuki, returns home he is scolded by Akiha but she later treats his wounds. The next day, Shiki decides to confront the vampire Satsuki after he promises to Akiha that he would come back home safe. Satsuki tries to turn him into a vampire to be with her forever, and it that moment Shiki realizes his feelings for Akiha and their promise. Motivated by it, he kills Satsuki, although regretfully. When he returns home, he notices that Akiha was waiting for him the whole time and chastises him for returning wounded.

Akiha decides to spend more time with Shiki by joining into the same school at him. Like Arcueid, she does not like Ciel. It is revealed through the route that Akiha often struggles to maintain control over her Tohno blood and resisting her Inversion Impulse, which she has difficulty with due to her also maintaining Shiki's life, to the point she also had to drink Kohaku’s blood. When Ciel vanishes, Akiha reveals to Shiki that she always knew that Ciel was different and she was unnafected by her hypnosis. Due to the recent killings in the city recently, Shiki believes that Akiha might be the vampire who did it and goes to the Tohno house. When he arrives, he sees Akiha unconscious and that SHIKI is there. He tells him that he went to take Akiha "back with him" and reveals to Shiki all the truths of their childhood. However, Akiha regains consciousness and protects Shiki. The two have a confrontation about Shiki, only for Akiha to say in his face that Shiki is her brother now and that she does not consider SHIKI as her brother anymore. SHIKI is angered of this revelation and aims to kill him, but Akiha protects Shiki and takes the attack. This causes Shiki to have a homicidal impulse and cut SHIKI’s lines.

After that, Akiha and Shiki talk in her room, where she tells him that in fact, Shiki was adopted after SHIKI killed him and due to it, their minds are connected and he took a part of his life (she also tells him that she believes that one of the causes of their connection might be related to the fact Shiki and SHIKI used to be best friends when younger). Then, she starts having spasms and her hair turns red. Akiha confesses to Shiki that she was aware from the begginning that he is not her real brother, but she felt that it was the only way for her to be with him. However, Shiki reassures her that he loves her as a sister and a woman and they kiss and have sex together. After this, SHIKI is filled with jealousy and reveals to Shiki that Akiha has been maintaining his life since he died eight years ago. Akiha is later kidnapped by SHIKI.

Later, when Shiki comes to the abandoned room in order to confront SHIKI and save Akiha, he discovers that SHIKI turned her into a mindless, blood sucking creature. Both fight and Shiki manages to debilitate him. However, at the last moment, Shiki hesitates to kill him so SHIKI uses the last of his energy to return to the abandoned house and see Akiha. Surprisingly, Akiha, now a mindless monster, kills SHIKI by ripping his heart off and runs away. He is left with the choice to kill her and save her from her suffering or to let her live in her current state.

In Akiha's Normal Ending, Shiki decides to allow her to live on as the demon that she currently is (because Shiki cannot bring himself to kill her). This results in Akiha's Normal Ending, where Shiki maintains Akiha at the abandoned room and tries to contain her blood lust by himself, by routinely letting her painfully bite him and suck his blood out of the wound, all the while hoping that someday she will find herself again.

If Shiki decides to kill her to end her suffering (which she requested for him to do if she ever became like this) it gives no special ending and is considered a bad end.

In Akiha's True Ending, he decides to kill himself instead (so that she will regain the life energy she gave Shiki when he died eight years ago, and then will be restored to her full strength so she can more easily resist her Tohno blood impulses and restore her mind). With this, Akiha's True Ending is obtained, in which Akiha regains her sanity and when she wakes up, she realizes what Shiki did. Akiha is able to live a normal life and returns to her old school. One day, she goes to the place where he died and sees Shiki's Nanatsu Yoru knife. Despite the fact that Shiki should be dead, Akiha touches the knife and senses deep inside her that there still seems to be a faint heartbeat that is not her own. She recognizes this as a sign that Shiki is still somehow alive somewhere, and that as long as she feels it, she has hope, and declares that she will faithfully await his return.

In Kagetsu Tohya, a 'sequel' scenario to Akiha's True Ending can be unlocked where at the end of the scenario, Akiha receives a letter from Ciel that reveals that Shiki did infact survive.

Hisui's route
It is revealed that she always knew that Kohaku was planning her revenge on the Tohno family, but felt that since her family has wronged Kohaku to an incredible degree she ought to be at least given a chance.

In Hisui's True Ending, she dies while protecting Kohaku with her body from SHIKI. Despite Kohaku expected for Akiha to sacrifice herself and was rather willing to let it happen just for the sake of her revenge, her death causes a great impact on Kohaku, as she was her close friend. Before commiting suicide, Kohaku realizes she keeps bringing tea to Akiha's room, even after she has died.

In Hisui's Good Ending, she is only injured in her arm by SHIKI and she is later treated and survives.

Kohaku's route
Akiha successfully tracks down and kills SHIKI before Shiki even starts having dreams visions of him, and is happy that she was able to protect Shiki from having to face all the pains from their past. However, due to SHIKI's ability of immortality and the nature of Akiha's powers, SHIKI is able to give Akiha one final curse before he dies. He transfers the burden of his madness caused by the inversion impulse of his Tohno blood over to her when Akiha absorbs his energy to kill him. After this, Akiha begins to slowly succumb to the Tohno blood, despite her originally being quite capable of controlling it. She synchronizes with Kohaku in an attempt to suppress this, but it is not enough, since she now has SHIKI's bloodlust itself. Even though she does not kill them, she begins hunting for victims on the streets at night in SHIKI's place because she cannot control herself.

This madness also affects her mentality, and she soon becomes single mindedly obsessed with Shiki, to the point where she threatens to take back the life she gave him if he does not declare that he loves her. Shiki admits that he came back to the Tohno Mansion to be with her again, but he also came back to fulfill a promise he made to Kohaku, who is the one he truly is in love with (at least in this route). He only loves her as a sister, and Akiha has deteriorated to the point where she decides if she cannot have him, she will not let anyone else have him.

In Kohaku's True Ending, Shiki synchronizes with Kohaku to gain strength, and engages Akiha in a climatic battle. But just as he is about to kill her, he finds himself unable to, since no matter what, she is still his sister (if he kills her, it is considered a Bad Ending and Kohaku also dies). Shiki's display of love for Akiha, combined with Kohaku saying she forgives the Tohno family, is able to move her enough that she regains control over herself. She recovers and is able to live a normal life, albeit still having to deal with the desire to drink blood, which she quenches by drinking blood packs ordinarily used for transfusions.

Kagetsu Tohya
She remains as a supportive character, but she is the protagonist of the side story A Story for the Evening, which is the continuation of Akiha's True Ending in Tsukihime. Tsukasa Shijyou, a classmate of Akiha, placed a curse on her due to an urban legend, but is afraid she'll find out, and attempts to kill Akiha by knocking her off two stories from the roof. Akiha survives due to her super-human abilities and Tsukasa comes in the night to kill her with a knife, but Akiha yet again survives and knocks out Tsukasa. After resolving the mystery, Akiha receives a letter from Ciel, that informs that she saved Shiki from death and that he would return by the end of the year.

Carnival Phantasm
Akiha has a number of roles in Carnival Phantasm as one of the heroines of Tsukihime. Her tsundere personality is comically exaggerated and she is very conscious about her flat chest, becoming very violent if someone (Shiki) points it out. If she is angered, she becomes Vermillion Akiha (with Shiki as her usual target). In the Phantasmoon segment, she apears as the main villain, an evil youkai.

Abilities
The Caging Hair (檻髪) is the ability of Akiha; it is a cursed field of plundering that is effective in the range of her field of vision. Being a half-demon, she can "plunder" the heat (lifeforce) from a living creature she can see, but the maximum output relies on time (on how long she keeps plundering heat). At the same time is it a double-edged sword as she can plunder someones entire concept with it as well. The ability of interfering with the outside world is rare, even within the Tohno family. On the other hand is she also able to share her own lifeforce with others and can so animate a dead animal/human or non-living object and use it as a servant.

Akiha can start up the plundering once she has confirmed her target, and people who have a spiritual perception will see it as red strands (her hair's true shade) wrapping around the target and charring. In addition to becoming red, her long hair can extend and become a menacing weapon. She is able to control its movements and use it to absorb heat directly from anything it comes into contact with. The drawing out of the heat produces a powerful burning sensation on the surface of the object, causing some viewers of her abilities to believe that she was simply setting things on fire. It does not actually burn the target, as it doesn't affect the target's clothes and stops burning as soon as Akiha stops plundering lifeforce from the target. At its maximum, the red strands cover the target as well as the entire area the target is in, making it impossible to escape - hence the name, caging hair. The hair, in this form, is incredibly fast and can strike an object as quickly as Akiha can look at it, but Akiha herself cannot see them, as she has no special mystic eyes. It is an absolute offensive ability against a normal person who doesn't have any spiritual defense, but it won't be any more of a hindrance than a large spider web to someone with a spiritual status on a whole different league such as Arcueid Brunestud, or a Heroic Spirit. Although, with support, she could use it as shackles to restrain beings of that level.

The power of a Crimson Red Vermillion can be seen through the Arc-Drives of Akiha and Kouma Kishima in Melty Blood. Kouma is closer to the state of Crimson Red Vermillion than Akiha, but she is fundamentally superior in terms of functioning in the state of Crimson Red Vermillion. Normal individuals lose their sanity while progressing towards the status of Crimson Red Vermillion, but Akiha has managed to still have enough reserve to hold onto her sanity due to her superior quality as a Half Blood. Absorbing Roa's soul after killing SHIKI in Kohaku's route increases her power and gives her better control over her Tohno blood, allowing her to hide her red hair color. It is initially hard to control, causing her to go on her obsessive rampage over Shiki, but she gains control over it afterward. Its strength weakened upon transferring to her, so she is only made more strong-willed and honest from its influence.