Takuto Maruki

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|-|Maruki=
|-|Metaverse Outfit=
|-|Azathoth=
|-|Adam Kadmon=
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==Summary==
This profile contains major spoilers for Persona 5 Royal.
Takuto Maruki is the Councillor Confidant of Ren Amamiya in Persona 5 Royal, having been hired as a Student Counselor by Shujin Academy as part of a PR move in the wake of the fall of Suguru Kamoshida.
After completing his research on Cognitive Psience and reawakening his passion for helping others with the help of Ren, he fully awakens his Persona on the Day of Reckoning. He then moves on to hijack Mementos after the fall of Yaldabaoth, creates his own Palace and rewrites reality with his perception of an ideal world; hoping to grant the wishes of all of mankind to create an eternal utopia.
==Powers and Stats==
Tier: , higher with Willpower | , higher when fused with Adam Kadmon
Key: Azathoth | Adam Kadmon
Name: Takuto Maruki
Origin: Persona 5 Royal
Gender: Male
Age: Early 30s
Classification: Cognitive Psience Researcher, School Counselor, Councillor Arcana, Persona-User, Palace Ruler
Powers and Abilities:
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|-|Maruki=
|-|Adam Kadmon=
All previous powers to a far greater extent. Absorption, Energy Manipulation and Light Manipulation (Adam Kadmon can redirect all of its energy into pure offense for a full-power attack, as well as channel the primordial light that gave birth to existence). As the source and destination of all existence, Adam Kadmon should posses the abilities, resistances, and affinites of entities such as Philemon, Nyarlathotep (Megami Tensei), and YHVH (Shin Megami Tensei).
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Attack Potency: Outerverse level (His Persona, Azathoth, is stated to be the master of Nyarlathotep's Faceless God avatar. Inherited Yaldabaoth's role as the God of Control and became the new Administrator of the Collective Unconscious, being vastly amplified by the collective wishes of the masses as a result, while being on an entirely different level compared to his predecessor according to Morgana. Summoned, and is superior to, an amplified Hastur who was capable of battling against both Joker and Crow at the start of the Third Semester, as well as bring them down to their knees with a special attack), higher with Willpower | Outerverse level (An evolved version of Azathoth, who far surpasses its previous self in power and represents the completed form of Maruki's resolve, being capable of easily shrugging off all of the Phantom Thieves' attacks, and standing unaffected even by its user's own defeat), far higher when merged (By fusing with Maruki and obtaining complete sentience, Adam Kadmon became able to tap into his full power and nature as the source of all existence from which the Tree of Life and its Four Worlds arose, and the destination to which they return to, as well as the archetypal personification of the unbound potential of humanity's soul, with him being the perfected form which it should strive towards, which has been previously described by Philemon as being a state of wholeness that exceeds both himself and Nyarlathotep)
Speed: Immeasurable Reactions and Combat Speed (Comparable to Phantom Thieves) | Immeasurable Reactions and Combat Speed (Comparable to Phantom Thieves)
Lifting Strength: Immeasurable (Can withstand blows from the Phantom Thieves, who even prior to the True End-Game, are capable of knocking back Yaldabaoth), higher with Willpower | Immeasurable, far higher with Willpower, higher when merged
Striking Strength: Outerverse level, higher with Willpower | Outerverse level, far higher when fused with Adam Kadmon
Durability: Outerverse level (Maruki easily took attacks from the True End-Game Phantom Thieves, and is vastly superior to Yaldabaoth), higher with willpower (All Persona-users can enhance their durability through being empowered by their strength of will) | Outerverse level (Remains physically unchanged), higher for Adam Kadmon (Implied to be superior to his own user, as he remains largely unaffected by Maruki's own defeat, and is described as a separate entity who "lends [him] strength." Further amplified by fusing with Maruki, which causes Adam Kadmon to enter a state impervious to any and all attacks from the Phantom Thieves, receiving only negligible damage even when dropping all his defenses in order to use his full power)
Stamina: Extremely High physical stamina. Maruki kept Azathoth manifested permanently since the defeat of Yaldabaoth, possibly even earlier, all the while single-handedly sustaining the revived Mementos and performing various tasks with Azathoth's tentacles. At the same time, he kept up with the combined forces of all the Phantom Thieves in a prolonged battle, only becoming exhausted after having been defeated three times in succession and losing the ability to use his Persona after his Palace had begun to collapse.
Range: Extended Melee Range with his Sceptre, Outerversal with Magic and Azathoth, Outerversal with Actualization | Extended Melee Range with Sceptre, Tens of Metres with Adam Kadmon's melee attacks, Outerversal with Magic and Actualization.
Standard Equipment: His Outfit and Sceptre
Intelligence: Extraordinary Genius. Through his own personal research, even without any financial backers or notable resources, Maruki came to understand Cognitive Psience on a scale far surpassing even the known genius Wakaba Isshiki; intimately comprehending the deeper functions of the Collective Unconscious as well as the mechanics and uses of Cognition.
Weaknesses: None notable | Maruki is significantly more vulnerable than Adam Kadmon. This weakness is mitigated by Maruki fusing with Adam. However, should they sacrifice their special defenses in favor of an all-out offense, Adam Kadmon's head becomes a weak point, which is where Maruki resides.
Notable Attacks/Techniques:
Persona Summoning: The ability to summon and utilize Personas. Personas can move and attack independently of their users, allowing for concurrent attacks to be performed. They are summoned and controlled through thought and instinct, and most attacks manifest just as quickly, though Personas do not need to be summoned in order to use their skills. Each Persona has a unique set of statistics and elemental affinities, which also typically apply to their user while the Persona is equipped. Maruki's initial Persona is Azathoth, and his Ultimate Persona is Adam Kadmon.
Persona Skills: Personas are all able to use certain skills and spells related to the mythology of the figure they are based on. Persona-users and their Personas can use skills and spells independently of each other. These skills range from amplified physical attacks, highly-malleable elemental attacks, status buffs and debuffs, ailment infliction, passive defenses and more. Due to Personas being so deeply ingrained in the psyche of their users, these skills and spells can be activated and manipulated with barely a thought.
Almighty Attacks: The highest class of spells in the Megami Tensei franchise, consisting largely of powerful non-elemental attacks that have the special property of completely bypassing any resistances or immunities that a target may possess, be them innate or magically enforced, with the latter of which including anything from reflective barriers to items that distort the very laws of the universe in order to protect the user from all forms of damage, and they are likewise unable to blocked, dodged, drained or generally avoided.
*Megidolaon: Maruki taps into the pale light of divinity, which reigns absolute over the concept of destruction, and unleashes a wave of energy that deals immense damage to all foes, engulfing those without appropriate resistance into the "complete annihilation beyond death."
Buffs and Debuffs: A set of skills that, as the name implies, allows the caster to greatly amplify their own physical attributes and reduce that of their foes, thus allowing one to stand up to much stronger opponents by closing or even reversing the gap in power between them. Outside of gameplay limitations, they can be stacked indefinitely, and sufficient usages of buffs allow the caster to survive attacks that would otherwise obliterate them with only minor injuries and amplify their speed to the point of completely outspeeding opponents that could previously predict all of their movements, while debuffs have a directly proportional effect on the enemy's statistics.
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|-|Azathoth=
Main Body:
*Memory Blow: Light Physical damage to all foes. Inflicts Forget.
*Megidolaon: Severe Almighty damage to all foes.
*Nuclear Crush: Launches and compresses spheres of power that burst outward and erupt in blasts from the ground, becoming a wide-area explosion of heavy Nuclear damage.
*Raining Seeds: Creates a rain of phantasmal projectiles that explode on impact. Heavy Physical damage to all foes multiple times.
*Evil Smile: Inflicts Fear on all foes that see his smile.
*Eternal Radiance: Creates a set of giant eyes that fire beams of blinding light in every direction. Heavy Bless damage to all foes. Inflicts Dizzy.
*Piercing Strike: Dozens of tentacles phase underground and move underneath the opponent, before viciously striking upwards like spears, each tendril dealing Medium Almighty damage.
*Tyrant Stance: Prepare for Tyrant Chaos and multiplies the power of the next attack by 2.5x.
*Tyrant Chaos: Gathers energy before firing an expanding beam that grows to destroy everything in front of Maruki. Severe Almighty damage to all foes.
Tentacle of Protection:
*Shield Tendril: Greatly reduces all damage done to Maruki or Azathoth. At full strength, it reduces the power of the strongest of the Phantom Thieves' attacks to less than a scratch (represented in-game as reducing all damage to 1s and 2s, where the Thieves usually deal damage well into the hundreds). It can be weakened by eliminating the Tentacles of Healing and Assistance, or disabled entirely by eliminating the Tentacle of Protection.
Tentacle of Healing:
*Energy Stream: Recovers Maruki's HP.
Tentacle of Assistance:
*Tarukaja: Increases Attack of one ally.
*Tarunda: Decreases Attack of one foe.
*Rakunda: Decreases Defense of one foe.
*Amplify Force: Multiplies the power of the next attack by 2.5x.
*Shapeless Guard: Increases Defense of all allies.
|-|Adam Kadmon=
By Itself:
*Origin Light: A sphere of energy compresses and fires downward, producing a shockwave of heavy Almighty damage.
*Grand Palm: Crushes one enemy with immense energy. Colossal Almighty damage to one foe.
*Revitalize Soul: Adam Kadmon releases a draining aura that bypasses resistances to absorb a great amount of HP from all foes.
Fused with Maruki:
*Attack Position: Focuses all of his energy into the next strike, at the cost of losing the effects of Adam Kadmon's damage reduction.
*Full Force: Colossal Almighty damage to all foes after entering with Attack Position.
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Unique Persona Abilities: Unlike other Persona-users, Maruki can freely change the affinities of Azathoth/Adam Kadmon's tentacles. Additionally, Maruki tends to surround himself and the battlefield with tentacles, even being able to hide them underground or in other solid surfaces by exploiting a Persona's natural intangibility to attack from unexpected places with Piercing Strike. While the tentacles do not appear in the battle against Adam Kadmon, Maruki can still use them, as they appear from underground to protect him as he fuses with Adam Kadmon.
Shadow Summoning: Maruki can easily summon and control any Shadows that reside in his Palace or New Mementos, which constantly replenish from the Collective Unconscious, to support him or others in battle - as he did on several occasions. The list of Shadows he can summon are listed w:c:megamitensei:Maruki's Palace#Enemies here.
Actualization: The signature ability of Maruki's Persona, Azathoth, which is the power to manifest the thoughts, beliefs and desires of people (Himself included) into reality, altering its very fabric in various different ways as a result, with even his first accidental usage of it having erased the memories of his girlfriend (At the time in the hospital, under a catatonic state due to the brutal deaths of her parents) and retroactively made it so she was simply visiting for a routine check-up of a minor disease. After ascending to take Yaldabaoth's place as the Administrator of the Collective Unconscious, Maruki's control over cognition was vastly augmented, as he became able to access Mementos, a plane connected linked to the minds of all sentient beings, which allows him to rewrite the universe itself on a far more advanced scale, altering and tapping into the cognition of all humanity.
While he prefers not to use brute force, as shown with Lavenza's struggles to exist, anything that was not originally part of the world he created will be instantly erased from existence due to lacking the acknowledgment of the masses, and thus lacking the concepts necessary to exist in his reality. In combat, Maruki also enforces laws to prevent certain types of abilities from being used, such as preventing the use of magic, physical attacks, healing, defending, items and support skills, etc. or even reducing damage done to himself.
==Notable Matchups==
Victories:
Losses:
Inconclusive:
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