Akame, a shinobi from the Himura clan, is unaware of her dual blood heritage. Her childhood was consumed by tragedy; her mother was killed by a vampire, leaving her with scars that would mark her soul forever. Raised by a family unaware of her secret, the girl grew up with deep wounds, not knowing that the blood of a Shinigami and an Oni coursed through her veins. But fate would not let the shadows remain hidden forever. She must find her path between darkness and light and ultimately decide: to save the world or sink into the abyss of her inner shadows?

Blood Blind: Punishers

Ranmaru let out a raspy, tired chuckle:

- "After all, strawberries are a tasty fruit."

Akame bit her lower lip, squeezing her legs together and curling up. She wondered when the endless torment of her life would end. The classroom door opened, and the arrival of other students saved Akame from the disdainful comments of the siblings. She glanced at the wall clock. There were still a couple of minutes before the teacher arrived when the door burst open, revealing Kito in the doorway. His short white hair was tousled from the wind, and his eyes still bore the puffiness of sleep.

A jam-smeared toast was clenched between his teeth. He had his black dojo uniform on backward. Kito rushed to the seat next to Akame in the first row, his fox ears perked up with anxiety. He tossed his books onto the small desk and looked at Akame with a pout as he corrected his uniform. While adjusting his clothes, he continued munching on his toast, mumbling indistinctly. Akame fiddled with her pen:

- "Kito, it's rude to talk with your mouth full!"

Kito swallowed the last bite of his toast with effort and grumbled:

- "Nee-sama (Big Sis)! Couldn't you have waited so we could've come together?"

Akame gave her little brother a bright smile:

- "Next time, I'll try to wait longer."

Kito's fox ears disappeared, and his white hair turned black. He was the only half-fox in the village.

Akame placed her hand under the long black hair that covered the left side of her face, touching the cursed scars that had destroyed her life in three short months. In those three months of hell, all her dreams had crumbled into dust, replaced by an endless, exhausting struggle. She could never forget. All she saw was darkness and the flickering light of a candle, beneath which yellow eyes glowed ominously. The memory of that predatory gaze made her skin crawl. She lowered her head.

The old scars on her body throbbed with pain. The entrance of the teacher pulled her out of her nightmare. She wiped the sweat beads from her forehead. She stood up with the others, a bit dazed, to bow to Master Akari, then slumped back onto her hard wooden chair, half-alive. Master Akari, from the Yukimura tribe, gently pushed back his loose blue hair and placed his books on the light wooden desk:

- "Good morning, my beautiful students."

The students replied with groans and lethargy. Akame had pulled herself out of her nightmare's grasp. She gripped her pen tightly in her sweaty hand and replied to Akari with determination. The blue-haired teacher from the Yukimura tribe smiled brightly at Akame and said with satisfaction:

- "I see you're all very lively today."

Akame felt the sharp, threatening gazes of her classmates piercing her back. Ranmaru's stare, in particular, felt like a drill boring into her. She swallowed hard. While she might have been lacking in many areas, she excelled in theory and strategy, unmatched by anyone. She couldn't afford to falter here and become a useless nobody. She swallowed again and dug her own grave:

- "Yes, sensei. We're ready for the test you mentioned."

Chapter.5