Sandbox / Slow Damage - Maya

Slow Damage Character Index
Main Characters (Towa, Takuma Murase) | Supporting Characters (The Takasato-gumi, Maya)

Note: If the name of the character's voice actor is enclosed in quotation marks (e.g. "Name of voice actor"), it means that the name is only a pseudonym, and the voice actor's true identity remains undisclosed.

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Maya

Voiced by: "Mika Amasaki"

"Grant their wishes and their hearts will flow to you... like an hourglass."

Towa's biological mother, and one of Ryuujirou Takasato's mistresses, as well as his favorite one. She died some years ago when Towa was still in middle school. Despite being the one who raised him, Towa barely remembers anything about her, let alone her face or her name.

Warning: Whilst mentioned in passing in the first three routes, her role becomes far more essential to the plot in the final route and everything about her is linked to the mystery of Towa's past. As such, be warned before reading further that all spoilers in her folder are unmarked.

Note to editors: Due to Maya's original page being cleaned up and cut for not reaching the requirements for a Character Specific Page. This sandbox will be kept for archival purposes.

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A-F

• Abusive Parents: Maya would often have her son serve her customers, all of whom would brutally hurt or rape Towa. All the while, Maya would attempt to comfort Towa by saying "It's okay", with the words becoming a Trauma Button for him. In the Golden Ending, Towa reads his mother's diary and finds out that she genuinely loved Towa, albeit in a very twisted way.
• Alas, Poor Villain: Played with. Towa is overcome with emotion after reading his mother's diary and realizing that while she did love him (or at least she believed she did), she still felt helpless against the darkness inside her. That being said, he nevertheless lives on with the resolve that he is not nor will ever be a copy of his mother, and all her atrocities are still not forgotten or even close to forgiven.
• Aloof Dark-Haired Girl: One of Maya's striking features is, like her son, having Raven Hair, Ivory Skin. She's also a Machiavellian psychopath who — by her own admission — was incapable of feeling genuine affection.
• Ambition Is Evil: According to Sakaki, Maya was highly ambitious, and was relentless and merciless alike when it came to achieving her goals. All the crimes Maya had directly or indirectly committed showed how far she was willing to go to attain power and influence from within the Takasato-gumi to turn Shinkoumi into her playground.
• Asshole Victim: Downplayed. Sakaki is the only one who mourns Maya's death, and the only reason her death greatly affected the rest of the Takasato-gumi was because of both the amount of authority she had over them and the profits she raked in for them using her business. Putting that aside, there's no one else who feels sorrow for her demise. While Towa is initially horrified when he remembers that he's directly responsible for her death, the memory doesn't haunt him in the long run, and he doesn't necessarily regret the fact that Maya is dead and gone, given everything that she had done to him.
• Ax-Crazy: No sane person would have done anything that Maya did with a clear and unbothered conscience. However, it's hinted that she was mentally ill, as the last entry in her diary had her ruefully admitting that there's a dark side lurking inside of her that she couldn't get rid of, suggesting that she may have suffered from an extreme form of psychosis.
• The Bad Guy Wins: Zigzagged. Even in death, Maya gets exactly what she wanted in Fujieda's Madness ending, where Towa's mind breaks and her influence takes over, causing him to become another version of her. What the player is certain of is that Towa now has Fujieda under his thrall, but what his presence spells for Shinkoumi is left ambiguous. It's also worth pointing out that after he becomes insane, besides pushing Sakaki to his death, all he did before Fujieda finds him again was loiter in his mother's mansion, with no indications of him having any interest in ruling over Shinkoumi like Maya did.
• The Baroness: In terms of looks and her ability to charm and beguile the people around her, Maya very much fits the Sextop archetype. The Rosa Klebb archetype kicks in when it comes to the influence and authority she wielded over Shinkoumi.
• Beauty Is Bad: Many characters in-universe have commented on how breathtakingly beautiful Maya was. However, beneath her enchanting looks was one wicked woman with more blood on her hands than every other character in the story combined.
• Became Their Own Antithesis: The epilogue in the Golden Ending reveals that Maya used to work at a nightclub even at a young age, which strongly suggests that she grew up in a difficult environment where she and other people as destitute as her had to sell their bodies in order to survive. Once she grew into an adult and was able to charm her way in a position of power, she decided to create that very same environment where children are forced into a similar situation, and worse, against their will.
• Beneath the Mask: Maya never expressed any remorse for all the evil she had wrought even in her dying moments. Even then, the final entry in her diary had her lamenting that in the end, even with everyone's lives in the palm of her hands, she was never able to forge a genuine connection with anyone, not even her own son, especially since she believed herself to be incapable of expressing love in a healthy and normal way.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: In public, she was described by many to be a quiet woman. In truth, however, she was a top-grade schemer who would callously ruin and take lives in her quest for power.
• Card-Carrying Villain: Played with. On one hand, she undoubtedly reveled in the fact that she could easily manipulate everyone and showed no remorse for any of her heinous actions, even in her final moments. On the other, her last confession in her diary implied that she felt dissatisfaction in the fact that even though her wicked wiles allowed her to get everything she asked for, there was nothing or no one that could sate her loneliness.
• The Chessmaster: Ryuujirou may have been the leader of the Takasato-gumi, but it was because of Maya's machinations that the organization was able to keep a vice grip on Shinkoumi for so long. It was also her death that led to the internal conflict within the Takasato-gumi.
• Control Freak: Whether Maya truly loved Towa or not, Towa states that Maya treated him like he was her property, a canvas for her to paint and mold however she liked. The moment Towa started to defy her, Maya reacted extremely poorly. Maya is also described as someone who wouldn't be satisfied until she got her way. If something didn't conform to her standards, she would immediately have that something, or someone, disposed of. Her last recording even had her speak disdainfully of Towa and Mei's attempt to flee.
  Maya: After she corrupted your soul, you turned against me. [...] That girl made you think you could ever be free of me. What a pitiful child...
• The Corrupter: Her business allowed her clients to fulfill their basest and most corrupt desires. However, even outsiders got dragged into her clients' affairs, and they in turn ended up developing their own twisted urges, with Ikuina and Asakura being such examples of this.
• Disowned Parent: Although Towa lost all his memories of Maya after accidentally pushing her down to her death, he nevertheless decides to (albeit subconsciously) cut all ties with her. Even though he got his current name from a phrase that's meant to deride his promiscuity, he still highly prefers it over his legal name, where even the mere mention of it is enough to make him suffer a Freak Out. After he remembers everything about Maya, he reluctantly has to acknowledge that they're related by blood, but he still refuses to regard her as his mother. In Fujieda's drama CD, he expresses that he isn't all too keen on the idea of taking on even his legal surname, showing that he still prefers to distance himself from any hint of a connection to her.
• Dissonant Serenity: Towa remembers Maya allowing her own son to be tortured and violated and not being disturbed by it whatsoever. And the sound of her voice when she talked about how Mei deserved to die for "leading her son astray" is eerily calm yet palpably barbed with baleful loathing.
• The Dreaded: Given that she's the very source of all the trauma that Towa underwent, the very memory of her or even just a hint of a memory is the only thing that can make Towa completely lose his cool and be overwhelmed with unbridled panic and anger, even long after she had already died.
• Dreary Half-Lidded Eyes: Her eyes are always half closed giving her a seductive look and to emphasize her as a remorseless schemer.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: In Maya's eyes, everything she did was normal and right. She even thought that Mei was a demon because the younger girl was kind to Towa and motivated him to escape his hellish life in Euphoria, with Maya commenting on how Towa had fallen victim to Mei's "toxic influence". Though in her diary, she wistfully admitted that a life of immorality and deceit was the only life she ever knew, and she was unable to comprehend the connection between how she treated her son and why she failed to form a loving bond with him.
• Evil Is Petty: Besides all the murders she had committed directly or otherwise to fuel her ambitions, Maya was also quick to resort to the same method the moment anyone personally slighted or defied her. She had Mei killed simply because Mei tried to help Towa escape, and Towa became next on Maya's hit-list the very instant he finally confronted her.
• Evil Matriarch: She is Towa's abusive mother who willingly made her son a Sex Slave at her mansion and intended him to replace her once she dies. She also manipulated the Takasato-gumi into doing her biding.
• Fantasy-Forbidding Mother: It's hinted that she didn't want to give Towa too much freedom by letting him indulge in a hobby that he personally liked, or in other words, something that had nothing to do with what Maya herself wanted for Towa. During a trip to an art exhibition, Towa was interested in a certain painting that Maya expressed her dislike for, but promised to buy for him nevertheless. But after purchasing the painting, she decided to give it to someone else instead at the last moment.
• Faux Affably Evil: Anyone who was ever tempted by her, or at the very least just blindsided by whatever façade she would put up, might end up being on her hit-list if they're met with the misfortune of being in her way. But even when she was tricking someone without the intention of killing them, her intentions always remained sinister, with no single exception.
• Femme Fatale: Maya was attractive and charismatic as much as she was deadly and cunning. She's the sole female villain of Slow Damage, and her strongest weapon was her ability to read and manipulate people, no matter who they were. This, combined with her extremely fair appearance, was more than enough for her to hold a great deal of authority within a yakuza syndicate that rules over a Wretched Hive.
• Fisher Queen: Zigzagged. Maya's business ventures were undoubtedly vile to the core, but they were also what made Shinkoumi thrive financially for years, as the city's splendor gradually fell into decline after her death. Even then, it's also partly because of her that Shinkoumi was anything but safe to live in, as anyone who was unlucky enough to either be deemed a valuable "product" for her business, cross the Takasato-gumi in some way, or decide to get a bit too curious about the mysterious crimes going on in the city was already as good as dead.
• Flower Motifs: Red roses, which are also said in the artbook to be her favorite flower. Her red-and-black kimono is embroidered with rose patterns, and her red pocket watch is engraved with the symbol of a rose on it surrounded by a wreath of thorns. Red roses are known for their beauty, but they are also known for having thorns on their stems, which makes the flower befitting of Maya's very nature: a face of delicate beauty concealing a manipulative and deadly charm.
• Four Is Death: In the complete version of the Croquis (which can be found in the main menu), Maya is the only character in the fourth page. The number 4 is recognized as an unlucky number in Japan because it has the same pronunciation as the word used for "death", hence the numbered placement of her info in the codex represents not only the fact that she's already deceased but also her very presence served as a great source of misfortune not only to Towa but to many of the other characters.
• Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: Her exact motives behind her actions are never revealed, though The Stinger hints that her childhood was anything but a stellar one, and her last entry in her diary hints that deep down, she felt that she was Trapped in Villainy as she was incapable of feeling or expressing genuine love. Not that any of it did anything to absolve her in her son's eyes, however, since her final confession doesn't come even close to making up for the many times she had brought harm to Towa. Fujieda's After Story drama CD even has Towa remark that he no longer likes the color red as it reminds him too much of the past, cementing that even though he has finally found closure with his past and has resolved his trauma, it doesn't necessarily mean that he has forgiven Maya, and the narrative itself never once portrays him in a negative light for choosing to resent her.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Maya went from an impoverished nightclub worker to The Baroness of Shinkoumi who owned a business empire that involved children being captured and sold into sexual slavery.

G-M

• Given Name Reveal: Her real name is Yuma Sakuragi.
• A God Am I: Maya was strongly hinted to be a narcissist with an extremely warped sense of megalomania, what with her desire to control Shinkoumi and everyone in it, her penchant for control and manipulation, and the way her business could be likened to a cult. The lyrics for the opening theme even hint at the trope, with the very final line being: "I want Satan in purgatory to envy me." What's interesting about the line is that Satan is supposed to rule over Hell, implying that Maya saw herself as someone more divine than the actual rulers of Heaven and Hell themselves. Even one of the background tracks named "Resolve", which plays during the climax where both Towa and Fujieda are confronted by Sakaki, is accompanied by an Ominous Pipe Organ, giving off the impression that the three are having a clash inside Maya's mansion, or rather, her "church".
• Go Out with a Smile: When Towa remembers the moment he pushed Maya down the stairs, one of the images that plays most often in his mind is the smile that Maya wore on her face as she fell down. Although it's ambiguous whether she was really smiling, or Towa's trauma was just messing with his memories of how the event really played out.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Her long list of crimes have left quite the impact in Shinkoumi and greatly affected the lives of half the cast in one way or another, whether or not they were aware of it.
• Hate Sink: She is the most hated character in the game where no one besides her minions have anything nice to say about her.
• The Heavy: To put simply, almost the entirety of the plot would never have happened if it were not for Maya.
• The Hedonist: It's unclear if she herself behaved this way, but her business undoubtedly operated on this trope, allowing anyone to finally make their most perverse and deviant fantasies come to life. It's even why the name of her mansion is "Euphoria", as the word refers to the most extreme form of joy.
• Her Own Worst Enemy: The Grand Finale showed that Maya was aware that there was something wrong with her, as she couldn't feel love and found herself more inclined to doing evil. It's never confirmed how much of her evil is something she was innately born with (nature) or a result of the harsh environment she grew up in (nurture). Either way, feeling that a life of evil is the only life she could ever hope to know, she didn't seek a solution to her problem and doubled down on her sinister urges, committing one wrongdoing after another. But in the end, even though she never regretted anything that she had done, it's hinted she wasn't completely satisfied with her life either, as her last entry in her diary had her reflect on how she's still broken and alone to the bitter end.
• Indirect Serial Killer: Several of the mysterious and unsolved deaths that occurred in Shinkoumi had something to do with her. Even if she didn't kill those people herself, the fact that she ordered for their deaths nonetheless made her just as responsible. And though it's only hinted at, the little detail about her diary recording every crime she had ever done suggests that she had personally gotten her hands dirty in the past, which would then make her zigzag between being this trope and a direct Serial Killer.
• It's All About Me: Maya strongly hinted that she possessed a delusional sense of grandeur. She wouldn't hesitate to take lives and treat other people like tools to further her own agenda, she saw Towa as less of her son with his own agency and more of an extension of her that she opted to "mold" so that Towa would follow her ways to the letter, which would allow her legacy to continue. Since she had no sense of compassion, she never stopped to think for a second how she was doing more harm than good to her son, let alone how she could be doing any wrong. Even when she thought that she did all that she could for him, in the end, it was more about her than it was him. At most, she had a morsel of self-awareness to admit right before she died (even if only to herself) that her selfishness and immorality kept her isolated from everyone else.
• Karma Houdini: In the legal sense, at least. The manner in which Maya died was anything but painless, and could even be seen as a fitting end. But due to the Takasato-gumi keeping all of her crimes under wraps, none of said crimes will ever be known to the public let alone be recorded in history. And in the Golden Ending, her mansion ends up getting destroyed by a sinkhole, ensuring that there's no remaining evidence of what she had done. Though the fact remains that no one but a select few even know of her means that it's only a matter of time until there's no one left to remember her, nor would there be anything left of her for anyone else to do so, which would be the ultimate insult to a narcissist like Maya.
• Karmic Death: While matricide is generally seen as a terrible crime, Maya was a mother no child should ever have, and every single physical and mental scar that Towa carries can be traced back to her abuse, no matter the kind of abuse she inflicted on him. Therefore, Towa is nothing but in the right when he pushed his mother down the stairs. Even though it was accidental and done in self-defense, she nevertheless died at the hands of her son, who she had greatly and horribly abused.
• Kimono Is Traditional: Every time Maya shows up in Towa's memories, she was always in her signature red-and-black kimono, which enhanced her outward image as a Yamato Nadeshiko.
• Lack of Empathy: Maya felt no compassion and is mostly focused on herself. As confirmed in the last words she wrote in her diary, she believed that she cannot feel love for anyone, and was not even sure if she truly loved her son despite believing she did the best she could.
• Lady Macbeth: One of the extra segments showed that in time, the Takasato-gumi became more ruthless than it already was, with several deaths suddenly occuring in the city, with each victim having some kind of conflict with the Takasato-gumi. The investigator who attempted to look further into the matter (before they were eventually caught and killed) noticed how the murder spree started happening after Maya entered the picture.
• Lonely at the Top: Thanks to her manipulative tendencies and her callous psychopathy, Maya had everyone in Shinkoumi wrapped around her finger, and she was able to get anything she wanted by emulating the right words and actions. Deep down, however, some part of her was aware that this also caused her to feel isolated from everyone around her in a way that while she was liked by everyone, she was never loved by anyone— which she felt an emotion akin to mourning for.
• Long Hair Is Feminine: Towa's memories of her always featured her with her hair tied up, but a picture of her shows that when let loose, her hair extended all the way down to her chest.
• Loving a Shadow: Even with her admission that she can't feel love, she believed that she did care for her son. However, Towa said that she treated him more like a doll for her to mold and toy with and less like a son to nurture and cherish, ultimately loving him more as a property than as family. His analogy isn't without reason, as she desired for her son to grow up that he would just be like her and even raised him in an environment that deprived him of any agency or a sense of safety. And she wouldn't have that any other way— to the point that she quickly tried to kill him as soon as he started defying her, or in other words, demonstrated a free will that didn't follow her way of life.
• The Man Behind the Man: Plenty of the unsolved murders in Shinkoumi, all of which involved people who either defied the Takasato-gumi or tried to investigate those same murders have something to do with her. Given that she was Ryuujirou's mistress, she wielded a great deal of authority in the Takasato-gumi to the extent that the organization began to splinter after her death.
• Manipulative Bitch: Towa's ability to persuade the people around him was thanks to his mother's teachings. Sakaki also described Maya as someone who knew how to play everyone like a fiddle with every move she would make and every word she would say.
• Maternally Challenged: Her psychopathic and sadistic nature caused her to raise Towa in a hellish and torturous environment, yet as far as she knew, she was doing what she thought was best for Towa. Even in the last days of her life, as she reflected upon everything, she still couldn't realize what she did wrong with the way she took care of Towa.
• The Mistress: She was one to the leader of the Takasato-gumi, and was also his favorite.
• More Deadly Than the Male: With only her cunning, her ability to persuade, and her ruthlessness as her weapons, she had managed to accumulate a far higher body count than any of the other characters in Slow Damage.
• Murder Is the Best Solution: What Maya cannot subjugate, she will immediately seek to eliminate. More often than not, Maya dealt with anyone who was as an obstacle to her plans or even was just plainly a nuisance by having them offed, no matter who they may be.
• My Beloved Smother: When Maya was still breathing, Towa's life was completely in the palm of her hands. If Towa disobeyed Maya, he was subjected to terrible pain and torture. If he obeyed her, he would still be subjected to terrible pain and torture. He had no sense of true freedom, and Maya was quick to squash any of Towa's chances to be independent of her.
• Mysterious Backer: Part of the reason why Shinkoumi flourished for the longest time was the wealth that Maya amassed from her business, since most of Euphoria's clients included people who were either rich or of a high status (or both). Hasegawa also mentioned that the clients who got to partake in Euphoria's "special services" tended to the extremely wealthy and influential dignitaries, such as politicians, celebrities, foreigners and the like. When she died, so did Euphoria as a business, which slowly but gradually resulted in Shinkoumi's decline as a luxurious metropolis.
• Mysterious Past: Not much is known about Maya's past, but it's revealed in the epilogue that she used to work at a nightclub in her younger years. The candy shop owner also mentions that Maya looked half-starved at the time, which hints at the possible reason for Maya becoming ruthlessly ambitious in her adult years. Besides that, however, neither the player nor Towa knows anything else about her history.

N-Z

• Never My Fault: While it's never specified when exactly she said the quote below, what is clear is that she held both Towa and Mei at fault for her demise. Towa for pushing her down the stairs even though it was only done in self-defense since she was trying to murder him. And Mei for, in Maya's belief, turning Towa against her, since he finally stood up to Maya after he learned that she had Mei killed. In short, Maya's death can be traced to her own actions, but she decided to shift the blame to the people who were wronged by said actions.
  It's not scary. It's not scary at all. But it's your fault. It's your fault that I died.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Maya ended up sealing her own fate both when she assigned Mei as Towa's playmate and when she ordered for Mei's death later on. Once Towa found out about the latter and consequently rebelled against his mother, it led to the fight that ended in her death via a Staircase Tumble.
• Nightmare Fetishist: She recorded every crime she had committed in her diary the same way anyone would commemorate their greatest achievements in writing, and the parts that described what she allowed some of her clients to do to Towa are phrased in a tone that's both curious and clinical.
• Non-Action Big Bad: She was more of a schemer than anything else, and thus would have others do the dirty work for her. The one time she engaged in a physical confrontation, it ended in a fatal Staircase Tumble.
• Offing the Offspring: Attempted, although it backfired on her big-time. On top of the fact that Maya allowed her son to be subjected to all kinds of torture, the instant Towa finally summoned the will to tell Maya that he's done following her orders, she reacted by grabbing a knife and chasing him with every intention of slashing and stabbing at her own son until he was dead.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Maya is only her stage name, but everyone calls her by that alias, even by those who know of her real name.
• Orcus on His Throne: Especially after she won the favor and affection of the Takasato-gumi's leader, it's all but implied that she's the one who gave orders and plans for the others to follow.
• Out of Focus: She is barely mentioned, if at all, in Rei and Madarame's routes. While she is brought up a bit more often in Taku's route, it's only in Fujieda's route that her (posthumous) presence plays a significant role.
• Posthumous Character: She had passed away some time prior to the start of the game.
• Predecessor Villain: The narrative establishes early on that Towa, who ticks some of the marks for a Byronic Hero, is far from a stable individual. While the visual novel does drop hints throughout the story that Maya is the reason that Towa is both scarred on the inside and the outside, it isn't until the very last route that this is confirmed to the player, with all the gory details of the what, how and why shown.
• Psychopathic Womanchild: For all her capability in manipulating any kind of person she comes across, her complete inability to realize what she had done wrong or that her treatment of her son is also why she can never form a bond with him proves that she carried the mental capacity of a child. This is also exemplified in how she told her son about how toying with people is a fun game that she wants to teach her son how to play, and her Control Freak tendencies as well as the way she would react to anything that wasn't to her liking can be compared to the behavior of a wicked and Spoiled Brat.
• Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: While she personally never molested her son with her own hands, letting countless others do so to him make her as equally guilty as them. In fact, her business essentially operated on this trope, as everyone who was held captive in Euphoria had no choice but to serve as Sex Slaves to her clients, all of whom have sadistic urges and/or disturbing and obscene fetishes.
• Raven Hair, Ivory Skin: Her character design featured her with black hair and light apricot skin.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: Most of her outfit consists of reds and blacks and she is by far the mots despicable villain in Slow Damage
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Her eye color is a bright crimson, which reflected her bewitching yet devilish nature.
• Satanic Archetype: She has red as her Color Motif, believed herself to be a god (or close to one) to the point that she condemned anyone who opposed her as a demon and frequently corrupts her patrons by letting them perform disgusting actions on innoccent people.
• Sleeping Their Way to the Top: Maya gained plenty of influence over the Takasato-gumi, and by extension, over Shinkoumi, after attracting the attention of the organization's leader and becoming his mistress.
• Social Climber: The only thing that's certain about Maya's relationship with the Takasato-gumi's founder was that she was his favorite mistress. However, that alone was enough for her to earn a life where she had both lavish comfort and a level of high authority over the organization and, by extension, over the city of Shinkoumi itself— with the latter being an opportunity that she dared not squander to pursue her goals.
• The Sociopath: She is outright called one by the narration. Maya was cruel to the core, utterly manipulative, extremely cold-blooded and cunning, and willing to use everyone and employ anything to achieve her ends. But her capability of committing all kinds of cruel and evil deeds while acting under the façade of a quiet, gentle and soft-spoken lady would make her qualify more as a psychopath than a sociopath.
• Soft-Spoken Sadist: Maya would speak at a slow and gentle pace, but her words were almost always layered with poison. It was completely her idea to run a club where people who possess the worst kind of depravities can finally get to fulfill their perverted desires on innocent and unfortunate victims. Worse yet, Maya even allowed for her own son to serve her clientele, who would then molest and mutilate him however they pleased. All the while, she encouraged her son to participate using the same assuring tone a mother would use for her child when they get to take part in an exciting event for the very first time.
• Troubled Abuser: Maya's diary revealed that she did love Towa, albeit she believed that the way she treated him was the only way she could express her love as a mother. But even then, Maya still forced her son into a life of physical torture, emotional and mental abuse and sexual slavery. This fact has no one denying that what she did to Towa was nothing short of appalling and monstrous, and is also why Towa — even after gaining a better understanding of his mother — won't be forgiving her any time soon.
• The Unfettered: Whatever other crimes she recorded in her diary is never expounded on, but what remains clear in what's shown and told to the player is that she stopped at nothing to get what she wanted. If many had to die to benefit her goals, then so be it.
• The Vamp: Played with. Putting aside the fact that she was the mistress of the Takasato-gumi's leader, Sakaki denies that Maya was the type of person who would just sleep with anybody to get what she wanted. That being said, she still made good use of her looks and her charm to control the Takasato-gumi from the shadows and deceive the people around her. A throwaway line from Toono in Taku's route also hints that Maya knew her way around seducing men and placing them under her spell, which would eventually be confirmed by the way Towa behaves in Fujieda's Madness ending.
• Vanity Is Feminine: She carried herself in a perfectly feminine manner, from her looks to her speech mannerism. While the player is left to guess if she liked to admire her appearance in a mirror, she was undeniably vain in the sense that she was both ambitious and self-centered, completely lacking in the ability to feel compassion or love for anyone else.
• Villain Has a Point: Deconstructed. As diabolical as she was, everything she had taught her son about persuasion and negotiation does end up coming in handy for Towa plenty of times throughout the visual novel, especially in the decisive moments when he has to help his love interest confront their inner demons once and for all. That being said, Towa laments that this was all Maya had taught him while he was growing up, and she never gave him anything that would let him have a semblance of an innocent childhood.
  Towa: She only ever taught me how to manipulate people. While other moms read picture books, she read me psychology books.
• Villainous Breakdown: When her son defied her orders for the first time, her immediate response was to fly in a rage and attack him with a knife.
• Virtue Is Weakness: Tying in perfectly with her sociopathy, Maya didn't see the point in showing altruistic kindness or consideration towards others, as demonstrated in the words she shared with Sasaki.
  Sakaki: [quoting Maya] Hesitation is arrogance. You can never truly know how another person feels. You're not them. Even if you're family, you can never fully understand them. So trying to show compassion is the height of arrogance and hypocrisy. No point wondering about something you can never know.
• Voice of the Legion: Invoked when Sakaki plays recordings of her through a loudspeaker, causing her voice to reverberate across the room when Towa is forced to listen to clips of both his time with her and her final message to him. It helps enhance how Maya's presence is felt throughout the entire route even though she never physically shows up even in a single flashback, and the echoic effect also gives off the impression of Maya being less of a human and more of a demon that continues to haunt Towa even after she's long dead.
• Would Hurt a Child: Her business took place in a mansion named Euphoria, which looked like a standard high-class club at first glance, but was actually a seedy establishment where her most privileged clients can enact their deepest and darkest desires on her captives. Many of said captives were children, with one of them being her son. She also had no qualms about having a child killed if she felt that it benefited her, and she even attempted to murder her own flesh and blood when he stood up to her for the first time.
• Yamato Nadeshiko: Her kimono, the way she ties up her hair and her soft voice all help make her look like the perfect image of the trope. In reality, however, she is anything but one, as it's no more than a disguise at best to fool others and have them lower their guard around her.

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