Takashima Zakuro

Zakuro, on the Kita High rooftop

*"The sky is full of anxious words..."*

- Takashima Zakuro, Down the Rabbit Hole II

Takashima Zakuro (高島 ざくろ) is the protagonist of the Looking-glass Insects chapter. A severely bullied girl. Her suicide is the main catalyst for the events of the story.

## Appearance

Zakuro has long, black hair that reaches her mid-back, and dark blue eyes. She has a petite figure.

She usually wears the girls Kita High uniform, without any additional accessories. Her casual outfit is a frilly white sleeveless dress.

She considers herself to be plain, but she is actually said to be quite beautiful, to the point that one of the reasons Megu and Satoko bully her is because their boyfriends find her attractive.

## Personality

Zakuro has a rather straight-forward and serious personality most of the time, being put-off when she sees Takuji smoking during their first meeting and thinking he might be a lowlife because of it. She tends to be on the shy and reserved side and has trouble approaching people properly. She also places a lot of emphasis on politeness, scolding Kimika whenever she's rude to Tomosane.

She can also be playful however, evidenced by how she teases Kimika often throughout Kimika's end in Looking-Glass Insects.

Zakuro likes to draw manga, and has a sketchbook full of drawings. She also gets into reading through her interactions with Yuki.

She usually tends to be a passive person who quietly endures her abuse, like in the true route of Looking-Glass Insects. However, she has the capacity to be courageous and fight under the right circumstances, as shown during the Kimika End of Insects, where she successfully stands up for herself and protects Kimika and as a result, manages to achieve her wonderful everyday.

## Plot

Zakuro is a bullied girl who's isolated from the rest of her class, with the closest person she has to a friend being Tachibana Kimika, who she has a rather hot and cold relationship with. Her bullying briefly lessened in intensity after an incident where she ended up falling off the roof because one of the bullies tossed out the phone strap Kimika had made for her. But soon after, the bullying starts to get worse again.

During this time, she meets Mamiya Takuji while she's skipping class on the roof, and the longer she talks to him, the more smitten she becomes with him, comparing him to Roxanne in Cyrano de Bergerac, someone who was handsome and intelligent, but what she doesn't realize is that the personality inhibiting Takuji's body during the times she talks to him on the roof, is that of Minakami Yuki. When she meets the real Takuji in his underground base, she's disgusted by him and thinks of him as pitiful and pathetic.

Eventually, the bullying escalates more and more, having her skirt cut and being forced to dance in front of the entire class with it cut up, having her clothes stolen, Kimika being forced to masturbate at a restaurant while she's filmed, and more. One day, it all leads to the worst possible outcome, when Kimika is unable to fight off the bullies, and Zakuro is drugged and forced to masturbate in the middle of the street, at the karaoke, and eventually, she is raped.

The rape is the final trigger to break her, her sanity completely falling apart, the fact that she found scrawling's on Takuji's wall in his underground base essentially calling non-virginal women whores reinforces her self hatred even more.

Being completely driven to the brink and hallucinating, she meets up with two girls from online called Tsukikawa Usami and Mizuo Ayumi who've gone through similar experiences as her, claiming to be reincarnated angel warriors. They all come to the conclusion that they need to perform a ritual named Spiral Matai to save the world and gain new bodies, the ritual involving jumping from the top of an apartment building. In her desperation and despair, Zakuro agrees to this.

On July 12th, as she heads to the apartment building in Suginomiya alongside Usami and Ayumi, but on her way, she spots Takuji, who is actually Yuki. After promising to protect her, and kissing Yuki, she leaves.

Right as they're about to jump off the building, Usami and Ayumi come to their senses, and try to stop Zakuro, but Zakuro, already too far gone, drags them along with her and jumps, resulting in their deaths.

### Kimika Ending

In Kimika's End, due to Zakuro's developing relationship with Kimika, she gains the courage to stand up to Megu and Satoko and save Kimika, running away with her.

Over the next few days, Kimika and Zakuro carry various weapons to defend themselves from Megu and Satoko, and have a mysterious encounter with another side of Takuji, one with a completely different personality than the one on the rooftop and the one in the underground base, this personality is Tomosane.

Eventually, Zakuro and Kimika are cornered by all the bullies, but Tomosane comes to their defense and beats the bullies up so badly they don't dare to mess with Zakuro and Kimika again.

A few days later, Zakuro has one final conversation with Tomosane on the roof, after which, his personality vanishes and is replaced by a new Yuki who doesn't seem to remember Zakuro at all. We can assume this is what happens when Takuji's original plan succeeds, with Tomosane destroying Takuji and himself, resulting in the birth of a new Yuki who would maintain the harmony and fulfill her role as the Harmonizer.

At the end of summer, Ayana tells Zakuro that the choice she has made is the correct one, and Zakuro is finally able to achieve a life of happiness, a wonderful everyday with Kimika, who is now her lover.

### Down the Rabbit Hole I

The Zakuro in the Down the Rabbit Hole I is very different from the regular Zakuro in every other chapter, she seems to know a lot more than the regular Zakuro as well. Meeting Yuki for the first time on the roof of the Suginomiya apartment building she jumped from after Zakuro throws a rabbit doll of the roof, she comes off as very mysterious and vague. The next day, she follows her home, and makes a deal with Yuki to let her live with her in exchange for being her maid.

Eventually, Kagami and Tsukasa start living with them as well.

During Zakuro's route, she has the exact same date with Yuki that she did in the real world when Yuki was in Tomosane's body, with one exception, the End Sky ride. A mysterious ride they get on that takes Yuki and Zakuro through various empty locations most people used everyday, eventually leading to a hospital room titled "the Final Abode", and when the ride ends, they arrive at "the End Sky".

The next day, all the people in the world suddenly disappear, except for Zakuro. As Yuki and Zakuro lie down on the school rooftop, talking, a train with stuffed bears as conductors arrives, and they get on the Galactic Railroad that takes them to the vast reaches of the universe.

At the very end, Zakuro reveals to Yuki that her body had fallen on Yuki when she jumped off the apartment building, and this entire world was a hallucination within Yuki's head. Upon being told this, Yuki finally leaves the dream world.

It is unclear whether the Zakuro throughout this chapter was merely in Yuki's head, or if she was a separate existence.

## Relationships

### Tachibana Kimika

Zakuro had a complicated relationship with Kimika, although Kimika protected Zakuro constantly, she also acted resentful towards her. Her reason for this is revealed in her ending in It's my Own Invention, Zakuro never treated her like an actual equal or individual, never getting annoyed or mad at her, always shining down nothing but kindness towards her while sharing in her bullying, this hurt Kimika more than anything else.

These circumstances change in the Kimika Ending of Looking-Glass Insects however. After Zakuro saves Kimika and stands up to Megu and Satoko, they truly start forming a relationship between equals. Standing up against their bullies together, and officially becoming a couple at the very end.

### Mamiya Takuji

Zakuro and Takuji were two people very similar to each other, bullied and isolated from everyone else, and both getting sexually assaulted by those bullies at one point. When Takuji meets her for the first time, his immediate reaction is hostility, but after he warms up to her, he develops feelings for her powered mainly by lust.

On the other hand, Zakuro has feelings for the Yuki personality within Takuji, but is disgusted by Takuji's real personality.

Zakuro's suicide and the messages left behind on her desk are the final trigger that makes Takuji break mentally.

### Minakami Yuki

Zakuro meets Yuki for the first time when she encounters her on the rooftop while they are both skipping class. The two bond over books and plays, and Yuki lets her borrow multiple books, including Cyrano de Bergerac.

Although Zakuro saw these interactions as something precious due to her crush on Yuki (who she thinks is Takuji), Yuki doesn't seem to remember her during their first few meetings at all. Eventually, they have a date at an amusement park.

A while after the date, Yuki's final meeting with Zakuro is when she approaches her on the street and suddenly kisses her right before her suicide, and Yuki is left confused by her actions and words before she leaves with Ayumi and Usami.

Later on in the day, Yuki happens to pass by the building where Zakuro, Ayumi and Usami were planning to jump from. Depending on the chapter, either Yuki gets hit by Zakuro's body as she jumps and ends up in a coma within a dream world where she starts living with Zakuro, Kagami and Tsukasa, or she switches into the Mamiya Takuji personality, who witnesses the suicide.

Inside the dream world when Yuki gets hit by Zakuro's body, they have a date that is the exact re-enactment of Yuki's date with Zakuro in Takuji's body in the real world, and Zakuro seems to be aware of this fact, and of everything that's going on.

### Yuuki Tomosane

Zakuro only truly becomes acquainted with Tomosane in the Kimika End of Looking-Glass Insects. Tomosane, Zakuro and Kimika form a sort of friendship and even eat lunch together, despite getting off to a rocky start. When Zakuro and Kimika are cornered by the bullies, Tomosane comes to their defense and saves them.

### Otonashi Ayana

Ayana remains a mysterious, all knowing figure to Zakuro. Appearing during both endings of Insects to tell her whether her choice was right or wrong.

### Megu & Satoko

Megu and Satoko are Zakuro's bullies, who push her to the brink of despair and cause her suicide. They are often represented as black cats tearing the pomegranate (pomegranate being called Zakuro in Japanese) apart.

## Trivia

* Zakuro in Down the Rabbit Hole I is one of the most mysterious characters in the story, alongside Ayana, as her appearance, actions and knowledge in the chapter remain entirely unexplained.
* She is the character involved in the most h-scenes in the story.