Akira Sohma

In the flashbacks seen through Ren's memory, Akira reads as a delicate, good-looking youth with a fragile grace. His skin is pale as porcelain, his gaze a soft grey, and his silvery white hair falls to about shoulder length. His usual dress is a white kimono layered under a pale grey haori, finished off with a long necklace.

Those who knew him described a man of rare gentleness, yet one shadowed by sorrow. The people around him saw only the head of the household and never the isolation he carried, until Ren alone understood his dread of dying unloved and won his heart.

His devotion to Akito was sincere, but his guidance went badly astray. By insisting over and over that she was God and owed endless love, he planted the twisted certainty that later drove her cruelty. He indulged the girl without ever teaching her right from wrong, and for all his tenderness he failed to be the parent she needed.

According to Kureno, physicians warned that Akira's time was short. Sickness kept him quiet and withdrawn, largely cut off from other people, until a maid named Ren broke through and became his companion, and the two eventually wed. When she carried his child, Ren demanded the baby be brought up as a son and threatened to end the pregnancy otherwise; fearing she meant it, Akira gave in.

He cherished the daughter Ren could barely bear to look at, and once asked his wife why she would not even hold her, only to hear that Ren valued herself above the child. When his illness finally claimed him, Akito was the only one at his side. He spent his last moments assuring the little girl that she was special and loved, though his final words mourned that he and Ren had never made peace. Ren reached him too late and turned on Akito, screaming that she, not the daughter she branded worthless, should have been there. That loss and cruelty are seen as seeds of the person Akito became.