Cousins: Kane Zaizen (Emma and Akira's only child/son.)
Eye Colour: Green
Hair: Similair to Blue Maiden's wavy hair, which is brown mainly from the top to the bottom, but it gets bluer more when it goes down, with purple highlights around it.
Friends: Taylor Hamilton (Theodore and Kiku's oldest child) and Hitoshi Hamilton (Their youngest child)
Link VRAINS Name: Playmaiden.
Deck: A combination of Code Talkers and Marincess (She makes it work.)
The reason of her name is because it is based on Ariel from The Little Mermaid because it reminds them of Aqua. She didn't get Link VRAINS account until she was 12 because they didn't want their child to get involved with the trouble like they did. She was gifted the Marincess and Code Talkers when she was 8 because Skye and Yusaku wanted to gift to them the thing that brought them together and so she could create bonds like they did. She called herself Playmaiden as a tribute to her parents.
Ai spoils her rotten and claims to be her favourite uncle, when in reality, it is Ryoken. The first duel she had in Link VRAINS was with Ai, who let her win, but not that he made it obvious.
Finally her personality, unlike her parents, she is actually a social butterfly and is able to befriend anyone, she is actually a morning person despite her dad being a night owl and her mom being a exhausted pigeon, she is super energetic, but from what she did get was her father's intelligence and her mother's kindness.
Decode Talker Extended debuts in this episode as the ace card against Kusanagi.
Kusanagi's Codebreakers are DARK Warriors (like Destiny HEROes), but they are made of computer viruses (which look like sludge in their design), and like Ai's Ignisters, look similar to Yusaku's cards, with a more anti-hero bent like Destiny HEROes.
This is Kusanagi's first, and only Duel in series. None of his Spell/Traps have been printed, so it will be a while until we get new Codebrakers, but since it is one of the physically printed Decks, Kusanagi will likely make it to Duel Links.
With Ai, and Roboppi's status as the antagonists of S3, the only allies from S1 that didn't turn against Yusaku are Naoki, Aoi, and Revolver, both of which also served as antagonistic roles (Aoi working for Akira in early S2, Revolver's status as the main villain in S1, and later role as a pseudo-antagonist in the end of S3). I guess if there was a S4, Takeru, and some sort of resurrected Flame would have backstabbed Yusaku. He is truly Peter Parker.
(Yamamoto (Frog), and Saito (Pigeon) technically are forced to be against Yusaku for the final Duels of S2, so they also add up to the count.)
(Emma & Akira started as non-villainous antagonists, so you can put them wherever you can like.)
*****
Taking this Duel as a break for final boss rush, Boss Rush part 1 had the following Duels:
**Revolver vs. Soulburner (immediately aborted)
**Aoi vs. Haru
**Lightning vs. Spectre
**Takeru vs. Windy
**Aoi vs. Bohman
**Yusaku vs. Shoichi Kusanagi
So 2 of Yusaku's gang, 2 of Lightning's gang, and Kusanagi lost. Kusanagi's loss is technically worse for Yusaku than Lightning, as he is now stuck with the lesser Knights of Hanoi, as Emma & Akira are in LINK VRAINS 2.0, and as we later find out, Roboppi.
You know I write too many fics where I stuff ai in outfits and not nearly enough where I stuff yusaku in outfits
I wanted to write this for bunny day day of but hehehe I got busy
While Yusaku wasn't the type to keep track of minor, unofficial holidays, he didn't expect Link VRAINS to celebrate those holidays either. Which was why Yusaku was surprised to find Playmaker's signature bodysuit had been replaced with a bunny suit version when he logged into VRAINS for the day.
The top was the usual black with green and a yellow jagged stripe that ran down Playmaker's chest, except now the top had a jagged deep sweetheart neckline which ended with the edge of the green pattern and stripe edges. Playmaker's collar now acted as a detached collar with his neck left exposed underneath it. His hands were exposed save for a short glove with a jagged cutout where a green patch normally would have been, and a strap around his wrist. Small yellow rectangles decorated his right glove. His usual gray belt was kept, however, he discovered a fluff ball affixed to its back, reminiscent of a rabbit's tail. Likewise, a weight was affixed on his head, revealed to be bunny ears— one ear flopped, and the other perked— when Playmaker reached up to touch them.
His legs were bare, adorned with only his calf's purple bands, the lower one being turned into the topline of heeled boots tall enough to convince Playmaker one wrong step would cause him to stumble and break his ankle.
"Oh Playmaker, they got you too, didn't they?"
Playmaker lifted his duel disk to see Ai had also been adorned with a bunny suit— a much simpler all black suit with a purple sheen and black floppy ears with a pink lining. Like Playmaker, a fluff ball bunny tail was affixed to the back of Ai's suit.
"Are you responsible?" Playmaker asked instead.
"Nope. While I can alter your avatar, I wouldn't do it. But, if you actually looked around, you would realize that everyone's avatar has been modified."
Playmaker looked down from the building he landed on when he logged in. As Ai had said, everyone was sporting at least bunny ears and tails, with some sporting the whole bunny suit depending on their avatar.
"Why would Link VRAINS force everyone to wear bunny outfits?"
"Today is bunny day," Ai said with a flourish. "I'm guessing SOL Technologies is trying to make Link VRAINS more fun by incorporating events."
Playmaker huffed. "It should have been opt in, I don't want to duel with this outfit."
"Oh? Is Playmaker suddenly self-conscious about how he looks?"
"Be quiet. This outfit is ridiculous."
"I think you look great, Playmaker! It really shows off how thin you are, and how sculpted Playmaker is!"
Playmaker's frown deepened. "I don't think that's the compliment you think it is."
Ai crossed his arms. "I'm just saying. I bet you would look just as good if you actually wore something like that."
"Be quiet, or I'll delete you."
"Yes sir!"
Playmaker backed from the edge of the building— thankful that it felt no different from his usual heel-less shoes— and jumped off the building to land on his D-board.
"I expected you to log out for the day," Ai chimed.
"There's no point. If I fly higher than normal, I can easily avoid being spotted."
From the height Playmaker traveled at, no one on the ground would recognize him, and when combined with Playmaker's ability to avoid other duelists, no one noticed Playmaker's presence.
At least, until a cartoonish pigeon sporting a camera nestled between bunny ears and carrying an upright cartoonish frog who sported the full bunny outfit began to follow Playmaker.
Playmaker groaned, he knew those two were the journalists who constantly followed him around. Even if they weren't faster than the D-boards, they seemed capable enough to follow Playmaker even as he tried his hardest to shake them off.
Ai faced Playmaker's trail as he kept an eye on them. "I don't think they're going to leave you alone until something happens."
"You would think they'd focus on covering Link VRAINS' event instead of following me around."
"It shouldn't be a surprise they're following you, Playmaker is popular! Plus you have an uncanny ability to attract trouble. 'Where Playmaker is, you'll find a scoop,' is what they're probably thinking."
Playmaker sighed. "Fine, whatever. I have more important things to do than worry about a couple of journalists following me."
"You should still be careful, though. The paparazzi is brutal."
"You watch too many soap operas."
Once Yusaku logs out of VRAINS, he's going to comb through every single server and delete everything he finds involving Playmaker. While such caution is typical, he's going to take extra care to get rid of any evidence of VRAINS' bunny day event.
Can’t pretend I’m not disappointed that Naoki starting as a random person in Yuusaku’s class who would inoffensively bother Yuusaku and later turned out to be over-exceptionally lucky when it came to dueling a Knight of Hanoi and they both bricked and he won by the seat of his pants and idolized/loved Playmaker, abruptly ended in favour of him just being an annoying dude who everyone in the show detests because he’s ~so obnoxious and random~ for no story-based reason.
Like they, for once, had a character who was heavier set, like Hayato, who was fun and a little interesting, who would get into Yuusaku’s head letting us understand him better. and like? he was handled well in the dub even? like there isn’t more jokes at his expense than in the original series and his jokes in the dub are actually funny and more relevant than “ha ha he is fat” it’s “dude did you dab what year is it” which is something that was in the ORIGINAL but not noted on until then.
I’m not saying he should have still been relevant in the show or Yuusaku should have befriended him, but they could have instead just written him out of the show like Hayato? he could have seen the new LINK VRAINS and been like “no thanks, I almost died” or just reduced him to cameos like in shots or watching Playmaker and friends? they didn’t have to reduce him back to the stereotype they use every single series just about
None of them. You pray that Kaikun and Miwa get there so that Kaikun can give his kizuna speech and re-open Aichi’s Psyqualia Zombied kokoro and the fight is cancelled.