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satyrscallingTakuto Maruki is a complex, tragic figure: a man of deep compassion twisted by grief, desperation, and the unbearable demands of survival in a world that has long since stopped making sense. Once an empathetic academic, Maruki now finds himself the reluctant shepherd of a fragmented village of survivors, burdened by decisions no human should ever have to make. At his core, he is a man who has been consumed by the weight of unfulfilled dreams and the blood on his hands. He is warm and honest—until survival forces his hands into cruelty. Beneath his kindness lies a man slowly being undone.
Maruki was a gentle academic who lived in Colorado, America and was studying to be the usual psychologist. Married to Rumi, the daughter of a strong community leader. They had a young son and a beloved dog. His world unravelled with the outbreak, culminating in the deaths of Rumi and their child during an early winter crisis. These events deeply fractured him psychologically.
After Rumi’s father died, and shortly after, Rumi herself, the community turned to Maruki despite his protests. Grieving, hollow, but desperate to protect what remained, he accepted the mantle. Initially a caretaker rather than a commander, Maruki became a figurehead of emotional calm and philosophical justification amid worsening conditions.
As winters grew harsher, hunting yields vanished, and starvation crept in. A desperate plan: large scavenging parties sent further and further out. Many never returned. Eventually, food ran out — except the dead themselves. At first, the act felt vile. Then it felt necessary. Now, it’s buried under justifications about "recycling energy" and "protecting the living." Most of the community — women, children — remain unaware. They're told it’s animal meat. Maruki carries the guilt for them.
Maruki finds Akira alone when demanding antibiotics for the buck that had stumbled into his village, sees in him the ghost of his own son — same age, same eyes. Takes him in, tends to him as best as he could offer with the open distrust, and opens up emotionally. Their early talks are deeply vulnerable, almost gentle. Maruki shares stories of Rumi, his child, his failures — and his hopes that Akira might stay.
"Join us. You don’t have to suffer. You’re not alone."
Offers philosophical comfort — comparing cannibalism to nature’s cycle, framing it as mercy rather than malice. Argues that morality must adapt when the world burns. Maruki genuinely does not want to harm Akira. His breakdown when Akira resists shows he’s not playing a role — he’s just broken.
Shibusawa confronts him saying “He’s not your son.” The illusion shatters. Maruki begs, pleads, bargains — trying desperately to make Akira stay. Even after Akira learns his horrible secret or when he tries to threaten Shibusawa to let him go, he uses Maruki as hostage. Really, Akira was going to call Akira's bluff which ended up with Akira stabbing Maruki's eye with a fork. When Akira still refuses, Maruki is left shaken, sorrowful, undone.
Maruki and Akira have their final confrontation after Akira escapes, killing Shibusawa and Sugimura (who he ended up raising like a pseudo-son). They fight in a local restaurant with a buffet place awfully similar to the restaurant maruki takes him in canon and well- they fight to the death. He fails to kill him once with the machete and getting severe back injury after a column collapses on him when he tries to choke Akira. He finally meets his demise when the machete is rained down on him by Akira's hand before it would be revealed that Goro Akechi, Akira's supposed dead boyfriend was alive (ask me in comments the full story its VERY long okay)
MBTI Personality: INFJ-T (The Advocate)
Takuto Maruki is a deeply compassionate man with a fundamentally idealistic worldview that has been cracked, weathered, and eventually malformed by grief, guilt, and the relentless cruelty of a broken world. A former therapist and man of science, Maruki once operated with a belief in the restorative power of empathy and reason.
Even after the collapse of civilization, this belief endured — but as circumstances hardened, so did Maruki's methods of "kindness." At his core, Maruki is a man who cannot stop caring, even as that caring becomes twisted.
When cornered or emotionally wrecked: He falls into nihilistic spirals, wondering if everything he did was meaningless. He becomes desperately apologetic, haunted by memories of those he failed to save (like the teenagers, Rumi, Shibusawa). And then he tries to fix things again, to control what little he has left. Often by force. He can kill. He can command others to die. But it destroys him every time — and he refuses to admit how much of it was his fault.
Maruki is terrified of being powerless. He overcompensates by moralizing control as care. He seeks absolution through others — if someone forgives him, it validates his whole warped worldview. He is willing to ignore horrors (e.g., slaughterhouse practices) if it means preserving emotional safety. His belief in meaning and destiny makes him dangerous — because he truly believes it’s all for the greater good. That there is no other option. If you have read this far welcome to my nerd dump below.
Maruki constantly operates from a deep, inner world of vision and meaning. He believes there must be a reason behind suffering — that the events around him can't be meaningless. He tries to connect all the tragedy into a cohesive narrative, almost mystically, to rationalize his survival and choices. Ni-dominants often perceive symbolic significance in events, and Maruki exhibits this with phrases like "This happened for a reason... it has to." He’s also obsessed with a larger vision — a "better world" — and clings to this imagined ideal (even in the midst of horror) in a way that blinds him to the actual suffering he enables. The apocalypse doesn’t just shatter his world — it shatters his ideal, and his mind tries to bend reality back into that shape, no matter how morally twisted that becomes.
Maruki leads through emotional intelligence — he manages people, soothes them, comforts them with warm words and expressions of sympathy. Fe gives him the ability to deeply empathize with others, but in a corrupted state, it can become manipulative or overly self-sacrificing. He genuinely wants to help, to maintain harmony, but his efforts warp as he justifies cruelty through care: “We’re not monsters. We’re just humans afflicted by our love.” His use of Fe becomes a mask, presenting a polished front of kindness while just beneath lies grief, control, and despair.
Maruki struggles to exist in the present. He clings to memory, vision, and philosophy, and only engages with the real, physical world when forced. The reality of his actions (the bodies, the blood, the slaughterhouse) is something he actively avoids. When confronted with the grotesque truth — he breaks. It overwhelms him. This shows Se-inferior's struggle: denial of what’s actually happening because it’s too immediate, too real. His final breakdown — when the fire consumes everything, when his mask shatters — is Se crashing down on him all at once.
He is not fully alive, but not fully dead either — a man-shaped husk with enough empathy left to haunt himself.
hair color: brown with slight greys
height: 180 cm
weight: 49 kgs
The most immediately striking feature is the thick, stained bandage that wraps tightly around his right eye. He changes the bandage to ensure its fresh and unassuming like the first time he gets to meet everyone.
The eye beneath is no longer an eye. It’s a gory, decayed socket, beyond saving. In moments of vulnerability or hallucination, the bandage slips, revealing raw, blackened muscle, exposed nerves, and the slow crawl of necrosis. The patch makes his gaze lopsided, his left eye carrying all the weight — constantly strained, watery, flickering with exhaustion and anguish.
There are burns that lace his entire body, especially around the areas behind teh neck, collarbone and if further layers are removed than a portion of his arms given that his coat was caught on fire. He tries to keep the worst hidden under layers of fabric and bandage wraps, but often they peek through — especially along the neck and forearms where sleeves ride up.
You can often catch him wearing his third semester outfit. He does want to be anywhere near a white lab coat.
He keeps his head slightly tilted — an unconscious defense posture due to the eye injury. His left eye (the only remaining one) is overly expressive — darting, flickering, constantly scanning and never at rest. When smiling, most of the left hand side of his face participates with occasional wide grins that are only possible through a mediated effort.