Sakuya Izayoi

**Sakuya Izayoi** (**十六夜 咲夜**, *Izayoi Sakuya*), also known by the name **PADIO** (**パディオ** Padio) from Standmaku Crusaders onwards, is the main antagonist of both Phantom Pain and Standmaku Crusaders.

Originally a lowly maid at the Scarlet Devil Mansion but nonetheless a woman with peerless ambition, Sakuya is a villain of little conscience, vast cunning, and an insatiable hunger for power.

She is the mother of Hatate Himekaidou, protagonist of Gold Experience, as well as a handful of other illegitimate offspring by way of the hijacked body of Reimu Hakurei, and through implanting of her immortal vampiric cells into unaware victims (as was the case with Hatate's birth). As the dominant antagonist of the series, her legacy persists throughout the story.

## Appearance

When she first meets Reimu Hakurei, is seen wearing typical maid's attire; a dark blue French maid's outfit with an apron, short sleeves and a green ribbon. She has silver hair worn in long braids on both sides of her face with green bows at the ends and a white maid's headband.

### Standmaku Crusaders

During Standmaku Crusaders wears a black formal shirt with white stripes and large white cuffs with black fingerless gloves, along with a black skirt with black thigh highs socks. Her hair shorter, no longer braided, and wearing a thin white lace headband. After reaching her physical peak after sucking Eirin's blood, She sports a deranged and homicidal look and mannerisms, having lost her cool touch. Her hair is now disheveled and mostly oriented upwards, while her lips are darker and seems like she is wearing black lipstick. This is her form during the latter half of PADIO's World story arc.

## Personality

She is consistently manipulative and violently domineering, and has repeatedly shown a lack of conscience and empathy, becoming even more pronounced after she becomes a vampire.

Her most recognizable characteristics are her boundless ambition and love of power. Abused by her master, Remilia Scarlet, and having lived in the most miserable living conditions, a young Sakuya set for herself the goal of becoming the richest, then the most powerful being on earth. To do so, she used anything or anyone that she could use to further her goals, disregarding any kind of morality that would serve to restrain the range of actions available to her. Using either manipulation and seduction, or plain violence, she constantly sought to become more and more powerful. She enjoys being in a position of power and has repeatedly stated how great it felt being in a dominating position. On the contrary, she never tolerated that someone could stand up to her or equal her in power, and was several times enraged and deeply disturbed at the thought. This was one of the reasons she was so keen on eliminating Kaguya and her friends, whom she considered the biggest threat to her ambitions of creating an army of Standmaku users whom she could control and use to subjugate the earth.

Throughout her life, PADIO surrounded herself with witless cronies and minions, who were attracted by her natural charisma and beauty. Not thinking much of them at first, she then selected those she deemed as particularly evil, claiming that an evil person wasn't bound by rules such as honor and thus were stronger mentally. This belief culminated in including the absorption of 36 souls of sinners, or as she claims particularly strong souls, to unlock a power greater than that of her Standmaku, THE WORLD. Naturally, she is an incredibly selfish person, only looking over her own interests.

### **Phantom Pain**

In *Phantom Pain*, Sakuya is ambitious, arrogant, and megalomaniacal, seemingly able to do anything to achieve her aims. Her natural ruthlessness is exposed very early when she swears on Remilia's grave to exploit the Hakurei family despite them being kind enough to adopt her. In order to place herself in a better position to replace Reimu Hakurei and obtain the family fortune, Sakuya used the most underhanded means to break him mentally.

She was already an immoral person by this stage in her life but then openly relinquishes his humanity in favor of becoming a vampire upon being cornered by Reimu. She trades his underhanded scheming persona for a more arrogant and dismissive personality that revels in evil.

### **Standmaku Crusaders**

Reappearing in *Standmaku Crusaders*, PADIO ultimately didn't change much since her burial at the bottom of the ocean. She doesn't appear much but instead regularly discusses various philosophies with Standmaku users she wishes to recruit and with his already loyal followers, particularly Ichirin Kumoi who serves as her main adviser.

True to her arrogant nature, PADIO enjoys the fact that she is wielding the most powerful Standmaku in her organization, being unconcerned by the heroes' effort to discover how her Standmaku's power works as she thinks it is meaningless. When Kaguya reveals herself to be able to move within the stopped time, PADIO is initially very distraught but recomposes herself quickly, devising other plans to get rid of Kaguya by exploiting her advantage. The full scale of her insanity is visible when, overjoyed to have completely fused with Reimu's body and being at full power, PADIO declares that she was experiencing "the greatest high" and drills her index finger into her skull. Her final speech exposes that she still is willing to use any way to win and despises any concept of honor or revenge, ultimately using a cheap trick to blind Kaguya momentarily.

### **Star Ocean**

In flashbacks placed before the events of Standmaku Crusaders, PADIO demonstrates a burgeoning ability to be genuinely nice to another person in numerous conversations with Junko. Intrigued by Junko, who let her be despite suspiciously hiding in a within the inner compound of her Shinto Shrine, PADIO healed her crooked foot, a kind gesture, and gave her the head of a Standmaku-creating arrow, which would grant Junko her own Standmaku, C-Snake. It is debatable how good a friend PADIO truly was, considering Junko's good-willed nature during her youth directly opposing her later evilness and zealotry. PADIO also seems to have built that friendship to further her ambitions, which questions how sincere it was. It is implied that she wanted to use Junko's Standmaku to create a perfect world for herself.