Yuuta Maruyama

"Perfection. A word known to many as unachievable. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Isn't perfection the same? To a poor person, perfection might be considered as being wealthy. To the weak, being strong. So why is perfection unachievable?"

- Yuuta Maruyama

Yuuta Maruyama (丸山優太, Maruyama Yuuta) real name Yuuta Kunimitsu (国光優太, Kunimitsu Yuuta), better known within the Hyoho Niten Ichi-Ryu as Shadow Warrior (陰武士, Kagebushi), is a human with Shinigami powers. He is the adopted son of Syuusuke Maruyama as well as the brother of Hikari Maruyama. As the only son of the Maruyama Clan, Yuuta is expected to carry out whatever his teachers and parents say.

A student of the prestigious samurai school, where he is taught a variety of different skills, Yuuta not only learns how to fight, but how to live life well and to the fullest. He currently resides in the boy dorm of the Hyoho Niten Ichi-Ryu.

Appearance


Yuuta has a small build, his height being 145cm, only slightly taller than the 10th Division captain, Hitsugaya and a weight of 30kg, which allows him to do several sports well, an example being vaulting. Yuuta has an oval face shape with spotless skin, accompanied with his blood-red hair, which stands out quite a bit due to the contrast. His doe-eyes are usually seen to be filled with warmth and compassion. He has thin lips, which are always seen to be curved upwards. He has neatly combed hair, a portion going in between his eyes and some covering his ears.

Similarly to the other students in his school, Yuuta also wears the standard green coloured uniform, a thin black hood attached to the green blazer, in the event that it rains. Clad in an inner collared white shirt, Yuuta wears a green striped tie along with a pair of black jeans. Even during fights, Yuuta seldom wears the full samurai uniform, saying that it makes too much noise and is too heavy to carry around. While traveling from place to place, Yuuta wears bandages around his head and arms, holding an umbrella in his bandaged arm. Along with that, he ties his excess hair up when it is too long. Sported in a brown cloak, Yuuta also wears protected armour under, in case he gets bloodthristy.

Personality
Though seen as a typical rich snob, Yuuta is the complete opposite. His experiences in his life so far has taught him things far more than people could expect from a 14-year old. While he indeed was a rich snob, Yuuta changed for the better when encountered with a life or death situation. Not knowing the value of life before, Yuuta did as he pleased, changing things as he wanted and breaking rules. After the encounter, Yuuta valued life more than he ever did. A modest young boy after changing, Yuuta considered himself lucky after encountering Death and yet survived. What he values the most would be friendship, remembering the times he had with his best friend, before losing him to Death. Though he might appear carefree and without a worry, Yuuta is actually stressed by succeeding his father, knowing that there are far more enemies stronger than him that he has to defeat.

Yuuta lives in constant fear of losing another of his loved ones to Death, seeing both his parents and his friend killed mercilessly by the hands of the aforemented. Due to this fear, Yuuta feels himself trembling whenever he senses reiatsu around captain level or more. At war with his enemy due to the neverending teasing from his group, Yuuta tries to stand up for himself, fighting with him whenever he can, though he loses all the time. As such, many teachers have noticed his effort to win, some of them constantly hating him due to his lack of talent. Similarly to a stained glass window, he sparkle and shines when the sun is out, but in the dark, his true power is only revealed if there's light within him.

Childhood
Not much is known about Yuuta's childhood, except the fact that his whole family was slaughtered by Death. Yuuta was there to witness it, a day after he went home from school. He hid behind a rock and watched Death kill his parents, careful not to make any sound, and trying to hold his tears. Shortly after Death left, Yuuta rushed to his parents side, staring at the blood in shock. He stayed in the house for as long as he could, before hearing a knock on the door, three days after their death. Shocked to see the greatest samurai of all time...

Meeting with Syuusuke Maruyama
From the shock of meeting Syuusuke Maruyama, Yuuta fainted on the spot. By the time he woke up, he was in an unfamilar place, later known to be Syuusuke's house. Meeting the man he aspired to be and adored, Yuuta was in a complete state of joy. While being elated to meet him, Yuuta refused to be adopted by Syuusuke, no matter how much Yuuta adored him. After continuous times of asking him, Yuuta finally gave in to Syuusuke, with the latter being delighted.

Training in the Hyoho Niten Ichi-Ryu
In his first day in the Hyoho Niten Ichi-Ryu, he was treated indifferently, due to not going through the proper precudures of joining the school, and being admitted without having to go through tests. His classmates bullied him in all classes, except Zen meditation, where they couldn't do anything. In the midst of this, he formed a close bond with one of his female classmates, and enemies with a group which bullied him continuously. After a while, his classmates all started to accept him for his hardwork, except for that group. Right now, Yuuta is still trying to get that group's approval...

Equipment

 * Kuro Kumo (黒雲, Black Cloud): A dagger he found laying next to his parents, a weapon in which Death used to kill his family. It takes the appearance of a dark black dagger with a tinge of red at the tip of the sword. Without him knowing, Kuro Kumo actually holds dark power inside it which makes the wielder have the urge to kill. Crafted by a very skilled craftsmen, when tested, it is able to pierce through four humans without fail. Regarded as a dangerous sword, Syuusuke Maruyama has sealed it behind a painting in the Hyoho Niten Ichi-Ryu.

Powers & Abilities
High Spiritual Power: Yuuta only has the reiryoku equivalent to lieutenant. He has the ability to release all his reiryoku if needed. In school, he tries to supress his reiryoku as much as he can, but fails miserably, causing all the spiritually aware people to know of his lineage. He is training as much as he could to supress his reiryoku.

Expert Swordsmanship Specialist: Despite receiving training from the highly powerful teachers in his father's school, Yuuta cannot grasp the techniques of the sword. Most likely due to the bothering he gets from his classmates, Yuuta cannot concentrate in class, leading him to making a fool of himself and not learn anything in the process. Looked down on by highly praised swordsmen, Yuuta was felt even more shame and a slight bit of guilt for not being able to live up to his adopted father's name.

Expert Hakuda Combatant: Similarly to his swordplay, Yuuta cannot handle hakuda well. He has the basic ability of kicking and punching, however, never was proficient enough in it. Yuuta is in fact a tad bit better in hakuda than in his swordplay, due to the fact that the "leader" of the group of bullies isn't in his taijutsu class. Thankfully, he has received training from his sensei outside school hours, and has much more practice in taijutsu than in his swordplay.

Master Zen Meditation User: Unlike his taijutsu and swordplay, Yuuta is extremely skilled in the ways of Zen meditation. Through meditation, he was able to gain a lot of wisdom. It was also because of meditation that he is the person he is right now. He is the most skilled student in Zen in the Hyoho Niten Ichi-Ryu and the Zen teacher's favourite teacher.

Shunpo User: Not being trained in Shunpo, Yuuta is just a simple user of Shunpo. Shunpo gives him a great advantage when he has to train speed, which is something his friends call "cheating" but what Yuuta calls a "shortcut". His speed in Shunpo is not even half of Abarai Renji.

Zanpakutō
Senmon (泉門, Gates of Hades) is the name of Yuuta's Zanpakutō. It takes the form of an umbrella. The spirit of Senmon is a girl, not much older than Yuuta. She has the same hair colour as Yuuta, and is shown holding a red umbrella. She ties her hair up and has blue eyes.

Shikai: Not Yet Achieved

Bankai: Not Yet Achieved

Behind The Scenes
Yuuta Maruyama's appearance is a mix of the anime version of Regulus Black and Kamui from Gintama. Credit for the pictures go to the original artists.