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Sakuya Izayoi is a character from the Touhou Project series.
Sakuya is the Chief Maid of the Scarlet Devil Mansion. Despite being the leader of the fairy maids at the Scarlet Devil Mansion, Sakuya usually has to do all of the work herself because the fairy maids are completely useless. Uses knives and time manipulation to fight and do maid tasks. Sakuya's origin is shrouded in mystery, although it is implied that she may not be human and "Sakuya Izayoi" is not her real name (it was only given to her by Remilia).
In the AWA fics, Sakuya is set to debut in a future AWA storyline.
In the XP4 fics, Sakuya debuted in the XP4 Heroes of the Multiverse - Kickoff!.
Appearance[]
Sakuya first appeared in the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil. In this game, she was seen with bright red eyes, silver hair worn in long braids on both sides of her face with green bows at the ends, and a white maid headband. She wears a white and dark blue French maid's outfit with an apron, short sleeves, and a green ribbon. She is also seen carrying three knives and the phrase "Red Magic" appears to be embroidered on her left sleeve.
In Perfect Cherry Blossom, when choosing a character, Sakuya appears to have grey eyes, blue long sleeves, and a red scarf. She also has red shoes and two knives, one blue and one red. However, her appearance in-game shows her having blue eyes. She's wearing this clothing because it was winter during the events of the game.
Her appearances in Immaterial and Missing Power, Imperishable Night, and Scarlet Weather Rhapsody are very similar. Sakuya is seen with grey eyes and wearing short sleeves once again. She appears to the have a thin black ribbon on the maid outfit. However in Imperishable Night she holds a knife and a stopwatch, whereas in Scarlet Weather Rhapsody, she has three knives and a plate with cups and a teapot on it. The colour of her eyes changes with each work.
In Phantasmagoria of Flower View, she has dark blue eyes and long sleeves. The Roman numerals for 1 through 12 line the bottom of her apron.
Personality[]
Sakuya tends to be a little spacy, but it's unknown if its just an act. Her behaviour is that of an easy-going person and, although her personality can be seen as perfectly elegant, she possesses a little deviation that she is extra cautious about: inability to eat hot foods. From the dictionary, elegance means "refined, graceful". Refined means "cultured in manners and taste, as well as appearance" and Graceful means "sensible, sophisticated, neat, and without filth". She uses humble speech to her mistress Remilia Scarlet and friend Patchouli Knowledge, and uses less formal speech to other people.
As for her age, ZUN directly stated that "she plays the role of a human maid about 10 to 20 years old" and "perhaps she is a character in her early teens, and in Perfect Memento in Strict Sense, according to Hieda no Akyuu, "she claims to be in her late teens", but acts with the mannerisms of someone and the level of her ability seems like that of a human that's been living for more than a hundred years. According to a quote from Remilia Scarlet and Sakuya's ending in Imperishable Night (Good Ending #3), Sakuya has been working at the Scarlet Devil Mansion for so long, Remilia doesn't feel it fitting to call her human. With a comment like that, it seems safe enough to assume she has been at the Scarlet Devil Mansion for an extremely long time.
XP4 Fanfics[]
Sakuya is a member of the Heroes Coalitions as a Solo Hero. She also attends the Vanguard Academy as a student.
XP4 Heroes of the Multiverse - Kickoff![]
In Chapter 11, Sakuya, alongside Alice Margatroid, Marisa Kirisame, Meiling Hong, Patchouli Knowledge, Reimu Hakurei and Remilia Scarlet, are seen gathered in the Hakurei Shrine of Gensokyou when Blu the Honor, Darius Greg, Gino Samuels, Helmsley D. Heyman, Kenny MacIntosh, Rudy Tucker and Yukari Yakumo made their arrival. Everyone then had a conversation about the Emotionless and the current state of Gensokyou, and is present when Yukari declared that they must leave Gensokyou to pursue the culprit behind their current problems.
In Chapter 12, Sakuya, alongside Alice Margatroid, Blu the Honor, Darius Greg, Gino Samuels, Helmsley D. Heyman, Kenny MacIntosh, Marisa Kirisame, Meiling Hong, Patchouli Knowledge, Reimu Hakurei, Remilia Scarlet, Rudy Tucker and Yukari Yakumo, remained gathered in the Hakurei Shrine of Gensokyou when Yukari left via gap and later came back along with Aya Shameimaru, Kanako Yasaka, Nitori Kawashiro, Rutee Katrea, Sanae Kochiya, Stahn Aileron, Suwako Moriya and Youmu Konpaku. Later on, they witnessed Gino creating a Dreadnought-sized starship where everyone got on board as they start their journey.
In Chapter 17, Sakuya is present inside the GS Hustle Fleet where Gino Samuels explained about the gigantic spaceship and later witnessed the arrival of Flandre Scarlet via mirror-portal machine.
Abilities[]
Manipulating Time and Space[]
Sakuya has the ability to manipulate time, where she's able to control the flow of time, such as speeding up time, slowing it down, erasing it, and stopping time altogether. She can also compress the flow of time to make both past and future to exist at the same time, making the same object from different timelines be in many places simultaneously. The extent of her ability lets her not only control the time of the place in which she is, but influence the flow of time of a person, a specific object, or even a small area if she desires, such as stopping the time of an object and thus affecting the space, making it stand still on thin air or creating time suspension fields where everything inside them will be affected by her ability. She can also accelerate or decelerate the movement of objects from slowed down speed to incredibly high speed, to even reaching the speed of light, making it move at tremendous speed. However, as it is difficult to reverse events that have already occurred, and since she is not able to return broken things to how they were originally even if she reversed time, in actuality, it is not possible for her to reverse time. However, she is able to do things to the extent of moving things back to where they were originally. She has shown the ability to erase time of an object from a respective timeline; such as erasing bullets of the present and then the future, making them non-existent.
She is also able to manipulate space, and can narrow or lengthen it: she made the Scarlet Devil Mansion, which was originally spacious, even more abundantly spacious, and furthermore just like this, she cleans alone. ZUN also said that "Manipulation of Time" is synonymous with "Manipulation of Space" (as it's well-known space and time are related as a 4-dimensional Lorentzian space within a pseudo-Riemannian manifold). By manipulating space and time, Sakuya is able to create parallel universes to some extent, allowing her to make another Sakuya appear in front of her, which will perform a different action to that of the original, and thus creating a time paradox.
According to Perfect Memento in Strict Sense, the power to control time is a power that a human can possibly have, but isn't acquired just from just training. In the games, using this ability, she scatters an infinite quantity of knives. To disclose the secret of this trick, she stops time and assiduously collects the knives.
Hieda no Akyuu believes Sakuya has managed to live so long while still looking like a teenager by manipulating time. It's true that Sakuya can increase the speed at which something ages, such as making bamboo flowers bloom instantly in Marisa's A ending of Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, even though this would normally take 60 years. It seems safe enough to assume she can decelerate aging for a specific object, too.
Despite the seemingly reality bending effects of her time manipulation, by Sakuya's own usage her ability to stop time is actually her moving at extremely high speeds with no mass and that she lacks the ability to stop someone else's time.
Trivia[]
- The characters for Izayoi literally mean "Sixteenth night" (the night just after that of the full moon), and Sakuya "Flowering night."
- Sakuya Izayoi is apparently not her real name (along with Ran), according to Perfect Memento in Strict Sense, but is only a name given to her by Remilia. Her real name is unknown.
- She is the fifth maid character to appear in the series. The other maid characters are Ruukoto, Mugetsu, Yumeko, and Alice. She also bears a strong resemblance to Yumeko, since both are blade-throwing maids who serve demon-like masters. On a related note, Mugetsu is not truly a maid since she was just cosplaying. Although not many know it, Alice became Mima's maid in Mystic Square.
- According to Sakuya, if she happens to run out of knives, she can freeze time and pick up the ones she threw previously.
- According to ZUN, "Manipulation of Time" is synonymous to "Manipulation of Space." She takes advantage of this fact in several ways, from enlarging the space inside Scarlet Devil Mansion, to probably storing an immense amount of knives around. Maybe it's general relativity?
- Sakuya can also use her powers to accelerate time, such as making bamboo flowers bloom instantly, even though this would normally take 60 years to grow.
Gallery[]
