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vrainsrewatch · 5 years

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episode 8 thoughts

i was gonna watch later, since i’ve got other things to do, but i burnt the shit out of my hands making hot chocolate like an idiot so i watched an episode first LOL.

this episode starts out with that really strong fairy tale scenery i absolutely adore, with yusaku and ai trying their hardest to get blue angel to wake up.

i seriously could talk about the imagery in this scene for days lmao. i love the sleeping beauty aesthetic, but i also really love the colors. LV goes through so many different color palettes through the series, but i love the purples and blues of this area here. i’m not sure if the intention was to make blue angel seem like she was meant to be there, while in contrast playmaker stands out due to his hair, but i seriously replayed this section twice because it looked so nice.

i have a lot to say about this episode, and it will also be my most screenshot heavy post so far lol, so once again, buckle up!

this episode starts to really build up yusaku as a character - his sense of justice, his core values, etc etc. on top of that, it takes its time to flesh out akira, and to show his worse qualities, which we’ll get into in a minute.

first, though, is one of my favorite awkward exchanges in the series lmao:

i’m surprised he even caught onto what akira was getting at, tbh with y’all. vrains started out ship teasing yusaku/aoi really hard these episodes, but drop it almost completely up until the minimal tease we get in s3, which i find really funny. i was always really invested in them becoming friends, though, so while i’m happy we had that happen in s3, i would’ve really liked to see it happen earlier. not this early, though - yusaku’s nowhere near ready for that.

I HAD TOTALLY FORGOTTEN VYRA WAS HERE. yugioh hair makes it known that she’s going to be an important character, but i had really completely forgotten she was working as one of aoi’s doctors during this part lmao. i love this so much, actually.

moving onto everyone talking shit about blue angel on forums and stuff. this kinda shit:

would be really awful to deal with. it’s very real, though - cancel culture, anyone? but seriously, this is so brutal. on top of that, does this imply that she’s never really lost before? she is the number 2 charisma duelist in LV, so i wouldn’t be terribly surprised if that meant that she hadn’t really lost since starting to make it big as an idol. once again showing off how good of a duelist aoi actually is, even if the show makes her lose a lot. tbf, her loss/win ratio isn’t that bad looking at the other main girls - 5 wins, 5 losses on screen, and considering the kind of opponents she faced (soulburner, bohman, ai), that’s seriously not bad.

next up we get the chess pieces again, and boy howdy, does this conversation make me seethe.

i understand it’s partially a cultural difference thing, but i can’t help but get angry about it LOL.

i didn’t remember how often the chess pieces were actually utilized in these first few episodes, either. i guess i can understand why people were irritated they were just dropped, but i don’t really see them as a plot point, more like... just a kind of weird way to run a company? just show your faces and have normal meetings like everyone else, y’all don’t have to be so extra.

the akira/emma meeting is nice because it shows you more of emma’s character, but it also gives you more of akira’s stupider (and ruthless) side.

you don’t see him like this very often, but honestly, when you think about all the unsavory jobs he was doing to keep him and aoi afloat way back when, it kind of makes sense. even if he was originally a gentle person, you don’t last doing... any of the jobs he’s done, being that way. even a higher up in a company like SOL tech would have to be a bit harsher to get to that point imo. i don’t see a lot of people talk about this side of akira’s character tbh which makes me kind of sad.

also, seriously, he’s an idiot. how did he arrive at this conclusion? when he saw that it was aoi who was baiting him into the duel? no matter what direction i approach this from, i can’t understand how he ended up on that conclusion lol.

also, the worst father ever award goes to....

seriously! i hate that man so much lmao. to say that directly to your own child, on top of everything else...

it’s a nice look into revolver, too, though you wouldn’t know it at first glance. his reply says everything, though. he fully accepts his role in his father’s life and has an incredibly toxic attachment to him, and wants his approval more than anything. we never see him get physically abused by kogami or anything of the sort, but you can’t deny the mental anguish he must’ve been going through in order to keep on his father’s good side.

i know a lot of people like to say that revolver is kind of not a great guy, seeing the tower of hanoi arc, and how he probably should’ve went to jail etc etc but really, he was manipulated hard core. and extremely suicidal. i could really talk a lot about this all day, but i’ll cut myself off and instead say how much i love how vrains sets up revolver as a character. this, combined with “i’ll fulfill your wishes, father” from episode 3 gives you his motivations nice and clearly, but this specific scene also gives a bit of a hint as to where his character arc goes and what he has to work through. just thinking about this makes me so excited to get to 116 again lmao.

anyways, though. another excellent exchange comes up. seriously, lmao, ai being like “waaaah that’s illegal !!!!” and kusanagi’s just very casual

makes me laugh every time i see it. they are criminals, even if what they’re doing is for the greater good. they’re not exactly innocent here lmao.

then there’s the talk about the virus infecting her, and it’s a nice way to bring up how that works before the another arc comes up in.. a couple of episodes, right? tbh it’s the arc i remember the least about, so i’m looking forward to rewatching it.

actually though, the idea of viruses in LV being able to infect someone’s body is so, so interesting. i really, really wish they had done more with the whole LV/rl merge idea, but guess i’ll just have to write more fanfic instead lol.

i mentioned at the beginning of this post we get into yusaku as a character more here, and this is one of the lines that really made him interesting to me originally:

he has such a strong sense of justice, but what sets him apart from other ygo protags is that he is not defined by it. he’s not the classic, stereotypical do-gooder who gets caught up in something and has to make it right, his justice is more so that he is not okay with seeing other people hurt because of what happened to him. his justice is driven by his trauma, almost entirely.

revolver even brings it up this episode:

where he talks about how some rando wouldn’t have done them any good because it wouldn’t have been public enough. yusaku doesn’t really care about the little people, not in the same way, say, yugi would. it’s not that he wants them to be hurt or see them get hurt or anything, it’s just that unless it effects him directly, it’s not on his radar. but once he gets involved, he feels fully responsible.

while he didn’t plant the hanoi virus into her, he probably knows it was to intentionally draw him out thanks to ai (and the fact that he beats them up all the time). he feels fully responsible for what happened to her, and he’s prepared to do what is needed to make it right again.

i really like yusaku for this. i find those kinds of characters really interesting, and yusaku is no exception.

we get the whole emma/blue angel/yusaku scene, which is pretty sick tbh looking at it again - just shoot a church straight up from the ground for dramatic effect! - and i’ll bring up more of akira’s ruthlessness here.

seriously, this is not a line from someone who is just angry about his sister. and it’s also him being fuckin DUMB. playmaker willingly lets himself get caught into your trap, and he tells akira straight up what he has to do to save his sister - no sugar coating it, no trying to make it cryptic or difficult despite being caught in that hand and in that trap. he’s incredibly honest, and akira still does this lmao.

then it’s probably the wildest turn of events in all of vrains:

where’s that post that’s like, “remember when playmaker gets caught in a gothic looking church while he’s getting tormented by a giant demon hand controlled by his classmate’s brother and then his rival who he hasn’t met yet shows up in a lightning bolt to save him”? bc really LMAO what the fuck. it was so hype watching it the first time, and it’s still awesome watching it back.

and why is this never really??? brought up again later???? and when he leaves in that datastorm to go prepare to fight playmaker LMAO i know it’s supposed to look cool but the animation is so dorky, i love it.

more on yusaku, though. before playmaker goes to fight revolver, who he’s been gearing towards for awhile now, we get this exchange:

to which playmaker responds with “i don’t hate you. i only hate the knights of hanoi”. which is another really good moment for his early characterization and very, very consistent with his backstory that we find out in about 12 episodes.

everyone who wasn’t involved in the LI in any way just... exists to him. they’re completely neutral. if something happens to them because of him, he feels directly responsible, because he feels like he got them tangled up in a mess that nobody should be in. i mentioned that briefly earlier, but this really drives that point home.

he doesn’t even hate akira for torturing him mere minutes ago. because he’s been through worse. because akira was doing what he thought was right by his sister, no matter how stupid he was being.

and even more so than that, he’s not seeing this as fighting for akira. he feels responsible for blue angel, but also, here’s his chance to fight revolver. it’s a two birds one stone situation here for him.

anyways, i’m gonna stop myself there lol this is really long OOPS. gotta take care of a few things, and then onto the first rev vs playmaker duel!

#vrains #episode 8

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skittymon · 7 years

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Who wants a character analysis of Aoi Zaizen after two character eps????

Okay, so obviously there are two sides to Aoi - her real life introverted self and her vrains extrovert self, and lets take a look at both.

First I’ll start with Aoi Zaizen and talk about Blue Angel a little later.

It’s not hard to tell that she wants her brother approval and to make him happy. This might be because he’s the only person that she believes to truly love her. She got mad at Noaki for mentioning to Yusaku that her brother works at SoL

To her most likely, Noaki just ruined Aoi opportunity to become real friends Yusaku because he might not have known about her brother (he did, but with an old duel disk she probably thought other wise). Look at what she says to Yusaku when they meet the next day:

People don’t talk to her to be her friend, they want to use her. She doesn’t have any real friends - this could be because of her introverted personality or maybe she got that personality because of all this shit. The only person who will appreciate her for herself is her brother. Which is why she tries so damn hard to please him.

So Aoi Zaizen doesn’t have anyone and if people do notice her or talk to her it’s most likely to exploit her.

Now let’s go onto Blue Angel.

First let’s talk about her design.

I made a post before the series aired on how Blue Angel’s design (mainly hair color) looks an awful lot like Akira’s.

This episode showed us her earlier design of when she was young

and that hair design is exactly like Blue Angel’s.

It’s a common thing for women in Japan to cut their hair as of sign of change, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Aoi cut it when Akira got his job at SoL or when Aoi went to High School.

But as Blue Angel she’s keeping that hair style (along with Akira’s color probably wanting to be his actual sister), meaning she’s not growing up. Which is probably why Akira says this:

Cause let’s face it, despite how cute and awesome Blue Angel might be, her motives for being an idol/charismatic duelist aren’t pure. Unlike Go who’s an entertainer to please the kids at the orphanage and make money, she’s doing it for attention.

She talks to the audience more than Go, and even more than Yuya at times. Look at the face she makes when the crowd starts cheering for her:

She’s soaking it up. She’s getting the attention that she can’t get as Aoi or from her brother. And it’s most likely shallow because how much of Blue Angel’s personality is really Aoi?

Blue Angel was made by Aoi to get attention she can’t get Aoi, to live her dream as Akira’s ‘real’ sister, and represents the part of Aoi that doesn’t want to grow up/ be the person before the accident.

She her heart was apparently opened cause of Hanoi’s card and she’s kinda fucked atm I can’t wait to see how Aoi deals with stuff and where her character will go from here.

#vrains #yugioh vrains #aoi zaizen #Blue Angel #yugioh #skitty rambles

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shidoukanae · 7 years

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Guardian Angel

Summary:

Somewhere down the road, the past repeats itself and Blue Angel finds herself yet again in the path of Cracking Dragon. This time, however, Playmaker is unable to save her and, as a result, she finds her VRAINS account quickly deleted.

(A character-study on Aoi Zaizen and Blue Angel. Background study on the Zaizens as a family.)

Relationships: Akira Zaizen & Aoi Zaizen, Aoi ZaizenxYusaku Fujiki, Angelmakershipping

AO3 notes: Link

Late. He’s too late.

Cracking Dragon stands over her, its gaping maw wide open. Playmaker rushes towards her, fingers outstretched, and it is as if they are replaying their first meeting over again. He reaches forward, ready to grab at her waist and drag her away, but the monster is faster. Fire rushes past sharp teeth, raining down upon her avatar. Flames catch on her feet. They spiral up and around her, hungry and malevolent.

Playmaker pauses before her, his gaze watching as her VR form is slowly disintegrated. “If only I had been a second earlier,” he laments, thoughtful, “I’m sorry, Blue Angel.”

“It’s fine,” she tells him. “I’ll find you again. Even if my account is deleted, we’ll still know it’s each other. Just...don’t get fooled by any fakes in the meantime, okay?”

The man offers a subtle smile. “I won’t,” his smile wavers as the flames sweep up to her neck. In the back of her mind, she wonders if it must’ve been traumatizing for him to witness such a thing. Seeing her avatar burning to a crisp wouldn’t be a very pleasant sight.

Of course, such damage would not be made permanent to her real life counterpart. Heights were the only enemy to the human body in the VRAINS. It was only if someone decided to jump off a virtual skyscraper that damage to the real world self was to be feared.

Fire sweeps past her eyes and Playmaker disappears from view.

When Aoi awakes, her mind is hazy. Smoke fills her brain, clouding her thoughts until all she can do is rub at her eyes and yawn spectacularly. It feels as if she’d just been awoken from a dream and yet the sweat that glistens on her skin suggests otherwise. She still feels the flames devouring her, feels the way the heat bristled through her, scorching embers swarming her body like flies. Though the sensation had been real (the VRAINS had an unfortunate consequence of making everything seem real) she knew it was only the imagination of her mind.

At first, she is numb. Aoi is unable to perpetuate any explanation for what has just occurred. Playmaker’s concerned gaze is very much a cornerstone of her memories, of the way he’d rushed to, yet again, to save her from a risky outcome. Sadly, this time, it seemed like she wouldn’t have a favor to repay him with.

Aoi activates her Duel Disk and tries to log in. As she expects, a window appears before her with the request for the creation of a new account. Aoi stares at it, pondering the message like one might ponder life, before she slowly, slowly removes the device from her arm.

She throws it as hard as she can against the wall.

However, unlike what she expects, the device bounces off her wall and falls to the floor, unhurt. It doesn’t shatter, doesn’t break, and she’s left staring at it without comprehension as it remains fully in one piece.

Huh. SOL Tech really knew what they were doing when they designed those things.

Aoi draws her legs up to her chin, staring at the item she had just tossed away. It looks back at her, curious, and she wonders how it can bother to exist right now under her seething disapproval.

“Dammit,” she says. “Stupid, idiot, how could I…?”

She turns on the TV. Playmaker, her partner, her friend, (her might-be-someone-more) declares a duel against their oppressor. The rogue Knight of Hanoi sneers and raises his Duel Disk, agreeing to the initiation of a battle. Aoi watches him with interest, watches the way he scans the battlefield, scans his hand, and then surfs on his hoverboard with the intention of avoiding any stray buildings that come his way. He is intent on the battle, almost too intent, and she feels as if he has somehow become distracted.

“I’m fine,” she says to the TV version of him, reassuring the man. “Don’t worry about me - I’m perfectly safe.”

Playmaker can’t hear her, of course, but she continues to whisper to the TV regardless. The man is hesitant, gaze flicking to his disk and back, and she almost worries he won’t have enough concentration to win the battle in her place.

However, much to her surprise, the battle is quick and swift. Despite Playmaker’s concerning state of being, the Knight of Hanoi is defeated in a short amount of time and, later, is taken into custody by SOL Technology.

Aoi heaves a relieved sigh and watches as the TV turns to focus on Blue Angel’s disappearance. She pays attention for about half a minute before she cuts the news short.

She doesn’t want to hear this. Not now.

The girl slinks out of her bed and walks to her disk. There, she bends down to retrieve it and slips it over her wrist. She slides her sleeve over that and walks to the entrance of her room. She exits and presses her hand against the wall to her immediate right, moving her arm up and down until she hits a sweet spot of plastic.

Aoi presses down.

Light flickers and then shines in a long empty hallway. She pauses, squinting at the end to search for black shoes and, when she sees there is none, she slips outside. Her feet slide against wooden planks and she walks until she meets up with a window. Her gaze is dragged outside it, cast upon an endless stretch of black linen coddled with dapples of silver and white. It is a cloudless night, a night to look up and up forever and ever until she can see the outer reaches of the galaxy. It is forever far-reaching, stretching out for an eternity until, inevitably, it hits some alien world.

Would her fans worry, she wonders, now that Blue Angel’s account has been taken from her real life counterpart? Would they even recognize her if she tried to reconstruct her avatar, to reclaim the throne she’d lost? Does she even care enough to retry her career all over again, to restart those hard hours of building up a good reputation?

Yes. She does. Dueling is the world to her. If not for her cards, she would have nothing to take her mind off the world. If not for her Duel Disk and her fans and her talent in card games then it would be inevitable her suffering would have long since sent her spiraling. As Blue Angel, she could always be who she wished she was. As Blue Angel she was loved, a star, a celebrity. She was pretty, talented, a graceful duelist and not another student in a long list of others. She could smile and act cutesy, to entertain without fear for the disgust that would trail in her family name. Blue Angel, though more a mask than a person, was who Aoi thought she could never be. That beautiful face, the beaming smiles and carefree waves...well, it was somehow hard to believe that she and Blue Angel were one and the same.

Aoi holds her hands out together and pretends to summon her whip.

Her whip. Her most prized possession. A strange item of data particles, an item only she herself could conjure. She’d used it to save Playmaker, to return the favor he’d done for her by saving her account when they’d met. Her whip was a memento of her greatest obsession - one of the few items she bothered to feel anything for, her greatest prize in the VR world.

And now, it was gone.

Blue Angel was gone.

She was gone.

The gravity of Aoi’s situation suddenly falls down upon her. She crumples to the ground, hands bunching up her skirt. She tells herself that she’s fine, that she’s okay and all is well but, before she can stop herself, she’s sniffling and rubbing at her eyes, tears pouring down until ultimately Aoi’s a sobbing mess.

She can’t stand it. Blue Angel is her and she is Blue Angel. With the superstar idol gone, with her persona deleted from the VRAINS, Aoi feels like she has suddenly been parted with one of her most important things. She cries and cries, rubbing at her eyes and endlessly hating herself for losing it over a virtual avatar.

“Aoi...Aoi, what’s wrong?”

Her brother’s voice makes her pause and look up. A small whimper the only response she can give to him, cheeks glistening. There’s no way she can explain to him about how Blue Angel’s disappearance is so impactful that it would force her to such a state. Instead, she only watches as her brother kneels before her, sweeping her into a hug. She presses herself against his chest, bawling and acting like a little child. She hates crying. She hates revealing the weakness of her heart to others, to let them see that cold-hearted Aoi is actually a messy storm inside. But, for her brother, perhaps, she doesn’t mind letting him see that awful part of her.

“Do you...” Akira Zaizen searches for words, “want to tell me about it?”

She shakes her head, unable to speak.

He nods, chin pressed onto the top of her head. Briefly, she remembers a moment, a time, a piece of the past, in which they had been in the same positions as children. What had she been crying about at...at that time? That she’d been bullied, that she’d been...been tossed aside as she was every time before that? She can’t remember; it was too far ago. All that mattered to her now is that her brother was home, was here, and that Blue Angel, her counterpart (and perhaps the most beloved part of her), was gone.

They sit in the hallway for a long time. Her brother is quiet, thoughtful, but doesn’t say anything as she whimpers and sobs. Then, a noise. A gentle hum, a loving song, a soft melody that eases away her worries. Her brother sings a lullaby, low in tone and probably out of sync with the actual thing, but she finds herself comforted by its tune. Her sniffling stops and she finds her tears drying on her cheeks and eyelashes. Under the spell of her brother she finds her eyes drooping, her heart-rate slowing, and she grants herself permission to fall unconscious in his presence.

~~~

When Aoi awakes it is by the sound of her alarm clock. Rainforest noises - her favorite thing to wake up to - pour into her ears and allow her to awaken. She is numb, unsure, uncertain. She feels...mundane, common. Should she be...isn’t she...? But, no, as Blue Angel she’s popular, she’s great, spectacular but she…but Blue Angel...

But Blue Angel doesn’t exist anymore.

She drags herself out of bed and looks at the duel disk beside her bed. Odd, she’d thought she’d still been wearing it when her brother had appeared before her, but perhaps not . A thrum of panic goes through her. What if he’d seen the disk? What if he’d noticed it? It’d been dark when she’d fallen asleep so maybe, just maybe (and quite possibly) he hadn’t seen it while moving her into her bed (because how else she could have gotten there without her remembering? Teleportation?). Yes, she thought, that was it. There was no way he could’ve seen it when carrying her into her room.

Aoi moves to a mirror. Her uniform is wrinkled; she hadn’t bothered to change before she’d had her meltdown. Her hair was a mess and there might’ve been the beginnings of circles under her eyes. Nothing a bit of make-up wouldn’t fix, honestly, if it hadn’t already done so for her many times before.

She fixes a few things here and there and then re-examines herself. Good. She won’t be called out by a teacher on a messy uniform or her evident lack of sleep like a certain student does. The her in the mirror stares back, plain and dull and nothing cutesy at all like Blue Angel. She doesn’t have the blue hair or the purple eyes that her brother has. She doesn’t have the cutesy poses or the adoring smiles or the high-pitched voice that rings out high and clear. Rather, she was someone who frowned upon on a constant basis, a caricature of a boyish girl who was drab and mundane and (quite possibly) a nobody.

Aoi’s gaze flicks over each and every part of her that wasn’t, and could never be, Blue Angel’s. She looks over her hair, her chest, her pale lips, her eyes and over the uniform that mocks her as ‘just another girl’.

She finds her lips trembling.

It’s not fair, she thinks.

Regardless, she bends down to pick up her briefcase from beside the mirror, slipping in her phone and notebooks to prepare for the day. At the bottom, nestled in-between a selection of pencils, erasers and pens, sat two heart-shaped earrings touched by wings.

Aoi snaps her briefcase shut.

She leaves without a second glance behind her.

~~~~

School is the worst place for her to be right now. Yet, here she is, contained among white walls and peers who seem to chatter on endlessly about the one thing she doesn’t want to hear right now.

“What happened to Blue Angel?” someone muses and Aoi nearly flinches. “I mean, she’s definitely okay, right?”

Yes, she was. Thanks for the concern. Really not needed right now.

“I hope she returns soon. All these copycats are making me sick.”

Huh. Figures. She’d suspected just as much would happen in her stead, much like how Playmaker had had his share of imitators long ago.

“What if she never comes back?” a green-haired boy asks, glancing over at a boy with pink-streaked hair in worried exasperation.

I want to but-

“She can’t,” the blue-haired boy - Yusaku Fujiki - responds, head lifting from his sleepy posture. “Her account was likely deleted in the aftermath of the last terrorist attack. Even if she wanted to - unless her account is given back to her - she’s unable to return to Link VRAINS without restarting all over again. Even then, how can we tell her apart from the rest of the crowd? If she restarts her account, chooses a new avatar, she won’t necessarily be the same-looking Blue Angel anyone recognizes. She’ll either be just another copycat or someone else. Not to mention, but her deck won’t be the same either if she restarts. She’ll be building it from scratch again.”

Aoi rests her head on the desk, her arms forming a barrier between her mouth and the air of the classroom. I’ve already thought about restarting my account, she thinks. But it’s not worth it. I know I promised Playmaker otherwise but...but without Blue Angel I…I’m not...I can’t be...

“Even so, SOL said they were working on a solution didn’t they? A way to restore her account?”

She perks up.

“I...suppose,” Yusaku props his chin on his hands, letting loose a yawn that he makes no attempt to stifle. “There was something about that on the news, wasn’t there?”

“Woah, wait a second. You actually watch the news?”

Aoi tunes out of the conver sation, opening up her tablet to preview the web. Her fingers barely make it through the first search result before her teacher barks for their attention. The man is a strict instructor whose methodology of teaching roots itself deeply in the idea that all technology is evil. She sighs and tucks away her device before he can confiscate it, laying it over the ear-rings that sit at the very bottom. With one last longing glance at it, she closes her briefcase and then peers at the whiteboard her teacher has started scribbling upon.

Later, she promises.

~~~

Later, as it turns out, is at the end of school. After a rigorous onslaught of classes that kept her from touching her tablet (All due to various circumstances. A group project here, a test there, etc.), she is finally allowed to glance through it on her walk back home. However, the light of the sun makes it hard to read, glaring off the screen of her tablet and making the glass layer hurt her eyes. Disdained but unwilling to pause anywhere until she gets home, she continues on, her cold stare warding off any passer-byers from attending to her. She knows the inhabitants of Den City are friendly but, sometimes, the mere extent they would go to for some stranger leaves her baffled.

Still, she arrives at her house, enters, and notices yet again a lack of black-polished shoes. Her shoulders slump in disappointment. Her brother comes home once in a blue moon, she knows understands, but the infrequency at which he returns leaves her hoping every day.

Aoi takes up a spot on her couch and flicks through the tablet. Immediately, she heads to the site of her best interest: The Link VRAINS Network Channel. Notorious for its updates on the world of the VRAINS, Aoi figures it’s her best option for finding out any information on her account’s restoration.

There. The first article, the one that takes the place of most importance. An article with a picture of her persona winking on the cover.

“Blue Angel’s Coming Back?” she reads the title of the piece and then slides the page past some ads on duel disks and card packs.

It read:

Yesterday, after a freak accident with a rogue Knight of Hanoi, Blue Angel’s account was terminated. That is, to say, deleted. SOL Technology, the sponsor to Blue Angel and the company that has appointed her its poster girl, has told news reporters that it is currently working on the restoration of her account. This has caused some backlash with Link VRAINS members who’ve previously had to restart from scratch due to similar circumstances. However, SOL Technology admits they are only giving special privileges to Blue Angel due to her crucial sponsorship with their company. When questioned whether the company knew about Blue Angel’s true identity or not, Akira Zaizen, head of SOL security, suggested that all member’s privacy is kept intact and that Blue Angel is identified solely by the ID of her duel disk and nothing else.

Blue Angel’s account is expected to be restored by the late afternoon. The company implores Blue Angel to try logging into her account at 6 P.M. to attend to her match scheduled later today on time.

Aoi finishes the last lines of the article with a relieved sigh. She checks the time and finds that the clock reads as 5:05 p.m. Plenty of time to check her account.

She removes herself from the couch and enters her room, picking up her duel disk and sliding it over her wrist with shaking hands. The girl shivers at the touch of cold metal, almost surprised by how chilly it feels and then checks to see if she is logged in. Her account name shows on a hologram screen and Aoi giggles with a kind of glee that eludes her carefully-polished self. She stands on the floor of her room, arms extended outward as she spins in a circle.

“Into the Vrains!” she shouts.

Instantly, a room of blue surrounds her. Particles of blue and white twirl around her consciousness, pressing up against her until her real-world self merges with that of her avatar. Brown hair elongates to blue, her brown eyes burn into purple and she can feel her long sleeves replaced by air and purple wristbands. Her leggings extend up, her shoes move up her feet like sneakers and white wings unfold from her side.

A portal opens up before her and through it she goes, landing in midair. Wind brushes past her face and she laughs at such a sensation, arms spread out as the VRAINS system registers her presence and softens her fall to the ground.

Instantly, there are people all around her. Left and right are the forms of many VRAINS avatars, of animals and dolls and news reporters vying for her attention until there is nothing but a sea of fans flocking around her. She waves at them, giggles, and then answers their questions with polite words.

“How do you feel about coming back to Link VRAINS?” a pigeon inquires, camera hovering closer to her face.

“Great!” Blue Angel says, winking at the glass screen plastered behind such a device. “I’m so glad to have my account back! I didn’t want to live without it!”

“When did you learn that SOL was restoring your account?”

“Not too long ago,” she says to a frog. “Maybe about ten minutes ago?”

There’s a murmur of doubt about that comment but the crowd around her cries for more attention and so she entertains them. They ask more questions - some of which she can’t answer, the others of which are no-brainers - and then, inevitably, they trickle away. When she has but a few handful of people pressing for answers (and a whole flock of fans who fawn over her in a rather disturbing manner), she takes her leave.

She uses the elegance of her VRAINS self (her enhanced-beyond-human capabilities) and hops onto a nearby rooftop. She jumps from building to building, people following her until they can’t catch up and she laughs at that. When she’s certain there is no one else following her, no drones or news reporters or duelists, she flicks her fingers and opens up a portal. Blue Angel steps through it and greets the group gathered on the other side.

“Hiya!” she says, jumping to meet them.

They all look at her, not at all surprised at her entrance. Playmaker pushes himself off the wall to greet her, nodding.

“You made it back,” the man says.

“I did.” She meets his gaze and winks at him. “Did you miss me?”

“Well, there were too many copycats to my liking,” the man responds cryptically. He is, as usual, unaffected by her antics. “The original’s much better, in my personal opinion.”

“We thought you might never come back,” Revolver responds almost snidely. “But, I guess, you’re persistent.” There’s a hint of reassurance in the man’s voice that contradicts his haughty words.

Go acknowledges her with a grin. He pats her back with a hearty laugh. The sheer force sends her moving forward a few steps. “Glad to have you back.”

“Glad to be back,” she spins around in a circle and does an impromptu curtsy for them all.

She looks up at Playmaker. He nods again, satisfied, and then points to a hologram screen he has broadcasted.

Her scheduled match.

Right.

She dips her head and waves to him, opening up yet another portal. Blue Angel looks back. “Guess I’ll be going then?”

“That’d be good. Your match’s about to begin.” Playmaker responds.

Revolver and Go wave her off and she disappears through the portal and onto a stage. Her opponent - a boy - grimaces as she arrives, disappointment flickering in his eyes. She leers at such an expression. Blue Angel won’t be leaving so soon, contrary to his hopes.

They raise their duel disks.

“Duel!” they shout.

~~~~~

A sigh.

A suited man leans back on his chair, taking a sip from a mug of stale coffee. Before him, on a hologram screen, stands his sister. She is in a duel, her Trickster deck working its magic, and there is elation evident on her features. Her opponent crumbles before her, lost and helpless and the match is easily won before a word can be said about it. The man’s gaze watches her without traces of emotion, lips set into a frown. He won’t show emotion, won’t show the relief he feels or the pride he wants to show for the girl who stands up yet again.

His gaze remains over her figure, over the way she carries herself in a way so unlike the Aoi Zaizen he knew.

This is my gift to you, he thinks, his lips forming the beginning of a smile. Aoi, so long as you exist, I will be your guardian angel. Never forget that, even if you are to never know of it.

He turns the screen off and leaves his chair to stride down a long and narrow hallway.

Akira Zaizen has a report to make.

#vrains #yugioh vrains #aoi zaizen #blue angel #akira zaizen #playmaker #yusaku fujiki #go #revolver #a character study on the zaizens before we actually knew about the zaizens in episode 6 and 7 #so its more a hypothetical character study honestly #from what we knew beforehand

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shidoukanae · 7 years

Text

Dull and Charming (VRAINS speculative fic)

Note: This fanfic was written BEFORE Vrains aired so everything here was merely speculation before the show began (although some aspects turned out to be eerily accurate despite me merely headcanoning random shit). Specifically, this was written before we learned that Akira was Aoi’s brother which was like two weeks before the show aired (if I remember correctly, April and the first week of May are all a blur tbh) and is also the reason I refer to Akira as her “father”. Summary:

In which Aoi’s path crosses with that of both Yusaku Fujiki’s and Playmaker’s and the creepy little pets that accompany them both. (speculative fic)

Relationships: slight but not really Aoi ZaizenxYusaku Fujiki, Angelmakershipping

AO3 version for further notes: Link

If there’s one thing thing Aoi Zaizen knows, it’s how to keep her head down.

Of course, there’s no other option. She can’t act the same in the real world as she does in the VRAINS world. The real world is a cruel place to people like her, people who are dull and flat - side characters to someone else’s story. No one expects anything from her, no one wants more than the money her family produces. She is not anyone important, no, not here, but rather a showpiece, a prisoner to the family inheritance.

“Keep your calm,” her father had always told her. “You are the heiress to this business. You must not act in a way unbefitting for our image.”

So, as it is, she acts dull. She is dull. Here, she can’t be anything more than a girl who holds a fortune, a centerpiece to a wealthy family and yet a student who is considered nothing more than a futile existence. When her family calls upon her (as they always do), she’ll act as her father expects her to - a polite and respectable woman who is always eager to oblige the image of those who meet her.

It’s here Aoi hates. She hates the real world. She hates her role, her family, her wealth. The only time she is not dull and boring is when her connection to wealth is made evident. Wannabe charmers and tactless delinquents have been after her for her money. Nothing she can’t handle, of course, but she trembles in disgust at the very thought of them. She, in their eyes, is an object of desire, a claim to escape from poverty and thus a figure of dollar bills and not someone who should be appreciated for her true self.

However, Aoi has a savior. Blue Angel. Her counterpart, her performing persona in which she is allowed to be free. As a Charisma Duelist, she isn’t limited by her family or the people she is forced to meet in her everyday life. Rather, she is someone famous, someone popular, someone who is not dull. She’s a star, an idol, a Duelist who can catch eyes and charm everyone with her cheerful gaze. As Blue Angel, Aoi is someone her real self can never become. She’s adored, beloved, and no one can take that from her. Not even her father.

But, even so, her existence as the Blue Angel must never be known. Her father has made that very evident by his disgust towards her alternate self.

“A disgrace,” he’d always say, enjoying a cup of coffee with frowning lips as the TV recalled one of Blue Angel’s - her - latest battles. “Such a disgrace. Blue Angel is nothing more than a circus clown. I can’t imagine her real self would be much better. She’s probably just some buffoon girl who fancies herself a star.”

At those times, Aoi wants to scream. To yell and shout and toss away her stupid, stupid facade of dullness and laugh with hysteria because he’s talking about his own daughter and he doesn’t even know it. The mere idea makes her want to keel over, to burst into fits of giggling so unlike her real world self because her father hates the very thing he’s taken from her, the very thing she is never meant to represent, to taste or to spread. Freedom.

But, oh boy will he never know. No, never . She will never, ever relinquish her title to him. As Blue Angel, she’s free. As Blue Angel, she’s a rebel, an idol, someone who can never, ever be forced into performing like little doll Aoi.

Regardless, that doesn’t change her situation. In the real world, she’s dull. An ordinary human, someone not worth acknowledgement outside of those who seek her family’s wealth.

And, yet, she’s stumbled upon something (some one ) interesting. She can’t escape it, this chatter that echoes down the hallways, inside the classrooms, inside her mind. Playmaker. The star of the show, the mysterious hacker with aims that the media wants to know. She’d met him recently, in the VRAINS world. It had been an accidental brush, a mission that had somehow coincided with the virtual duel she’d enacted on behalf of her online audience. He had waltzed in with the notion of ignoring her (just like in real life. She hated being ignored but she hated being acknowledged by those unworthy to her), with playing hero as a hack-gone-wrong had nearly corrupted her avatar. The corruption had been scary, she had felt her identity leaching from her, but Aoi admits she was thankful for his quick thinking. His so-called legendary skills had proved worthy when the virus was driven back and her avatar, her life, her freedom had remained intact. But was was ever more intriguing than the legendary hacker’s appearance himself was his little pet.

Playmaker’s little creature was interesting, a black humanoid silhouette lined with purple. Orange eyes that were somehow lifeless yet living had bored into her, a hidden threat in its hovering presence. There was something...off about the creature, not just in the fact that things like that just didn’t exist in the VRAINS space (all creatures were kept solely on Duel Fields - a monster like this one shouldn’t be outside such a thing) but because it had its attention focused upon her. It seemed to see past her, past Blue Angel and into the heart of Aoi Zaizen.

And, that scares her. Her real world identity could never be uncovered, must never be uncovered. Such an upset in the balance of her life, such a tragic discovery would land her in great harm. What would her audience think when they saw that their idol, the illustrious Blue Angel with witty charm and grace, was actually a dull and bland high school girl with rich connections? Would they look down upon her then, like the rest of the world who knew her? Would they trod upon her with upturned noses, their adoration for her persona a facade in the face of her true identity? She doesn’t know, she doesn’t want to know, but Playmaker’s creature seemed to have an apt for making her question her own safety.

~~~

She��s at school after the incident. She’s back to Plain Jane, another cast member in a list of more valuable actors. Playmaker’s little exploit has already produced a scandal with speculation about how Blue Angel and Playmaker are together. Partners in crime, so to speak, as if the hacker and idol are partners in some elaborate conspiracy theory. Aoi laughs inside at that. She doesn’t know Playmaker much less his true identity; the news media is jumping to conclusions yet again.

Class starts and, regardless, her peers are ready to embrace a discussion.

“I heard that the Blue Angel and Playmaker could be dating,” a girl says, swooning over the idea. She clasps her hands together. “Did you see the way Playmaker rescued her? He jumped so high just to rescue her! You can’t tell me that’s not romantic!”

Aoi begs to differ. It’s not romantic, it’s stupid. Playmaker was just trying to play hero. Her fingers tap on the surface of her desk. It’s irritating enough that she’s been connected to someone she barely knows but to go so far as to say they’re an item...she’s almost disgusted by how much one little incident can perpetuate so many falsities so quickly.

A boy waves his hand. “Can’t be. Playmaker doesn’t seem like the type,” Aoi likes this boy already, “I bet he was just trying to show off and play hero or something.” Aoi really likes this boy.

“You don’t know that!” the girl says, huffing.

“You don’t anything either,” the other shoots back and Aoi finds herself almost smiling. “How about you, Yusaku, what do you think?”

Aoi’s gaze flits to the boy in the corner of their class. Yusaku Fujiki. Same class, same year, same boring and rather dull personality. He is as quiet as she is, a casual observer who prefers to isolate himself from the rabble much like Aoi does. She realizes there is something unusual about him, something quite not right, like he’s hiding himself from the rest of the world. Then again, so is Aoi. As a daughter of someone rich and as the real life counterpart to Blue Angel, she can’t act without raising suspicion.

The boy with the cotton-candy-colored hair gives them all a baffled look at having been addressed. “I…,” he begins, words cautious, “I don’t think Playmaker has any relation to the Blue Angel. This is the first time they’ve been seen with each other, right? We can’t leap to conclusions just yet…”

Ah, finally. Someone logical.

The girl and boy nod. “Damn,” the female student sighs. “I wanted it to be super romantic!”

There’s a scowl from everyone in the class and the girl promptly finds herself booted from the topic. Their teacher, luckily, decides he’s had enough and begins class. Aoi, having her fun taken from her, turns her head to the board.

Another class, another day, another dull girl in a dull world.

~~~

She’s scheduled for a live conference that very evening.

The media presses into the virtual auditorium, pixel cameras glittering with light that she knows is being translated to real-world TV news. The avatars of the news people flicker and flutter, the sheer number of those in attendance causing the servers to lag and bumble.

“Welcome, welcome,” Blue Angel says, smiling. She waves her hands to her audience and the crowd eats it right out of her hands, muttering and cheering and shouting. “As you all know, yesterday was an...interesting occasion. The legendary Playmaker bequeathed me with his appearance and, it seems, has caused you all to begin rumors about our... relationship.”

“Do you know Playmaker in real life?” a man asks, microphone straight to his mouth.

“No, I do not.”

Another bites. “Are you in any way in a romantic situation with Playmaker?”

She frowns at the eagerness in the news man’s voice. “No,” she sighs, her cheerful charade crumbling. Her patient smile wears thin and she gives them all a frosty glare. “Whatever you may assume about me and Playmaker is false. His appearance at the dueling stadium - much less his little rescue - has nothing to do with me.”

A calm voice surges through the air right after hers ends. “Did Playmaker have anything unusual with him?”

She snaps her head to the right to search for the voice. However, try as she might, she cannot find the source of such an inquiry. Blue Angel settles for an answer instead. “Such a weird question,” she murmurs and the cameras inevitably pick up her words, “but, no. I have seen nothing out of the ordinary. Just a boy playing hero.”

She remembers too late the humanoid creature with the soul-staring eyes. The press clamors for more questions, more answers, and she is forced to respond to their eager words. She searches for the voice again, for the man who asked her such a thing, but finds that she cannot detect any other presence in her midst. Had the inquirer logged off? It had been such a strange inquisition, one that would not have been made by a newsman without some hidden intent.

Whatever. She has nothing to hide. It doesn’t concern her so she won’t both with it any further.

~~~

Yusaku has been acting weird lately.

Aoi takes notice of it when the boy’s calm posture suddenly, one day, becomes fidgety and uncertain, his gaze flitting past anything and everything. He seems to be searching all the corners of the classroom, of the school and of the faces that inhabit his peers. She’s caught his gaze more than once and it’s honestly bugging her. If he hadn’t been inspecting the faces of his other classmates she might have suspected that he was suspicious of her. There was something in his light green eyes, something wild and rather desperate that made her uncomfortable. It was as if something was wrong with Yusaku, a certain kind of distraught that made her more paranoid than anything. And, though she wishes to prod her classmate for nosy answers, she doesn’t want to bring attention to herself. That is the last thing she wants, the last thing her father wants.

Still, that doesn’t mean she wants to uncover the cause of his distress. It is better to occupy her mind with what Yusaku is thinking of than to suspect he knows something that can lead to her ruin.

So, Aoi makes a point to track him down after class ends, wandering after him in a way that keeps her from out of his view and yet invisible in the eyes of her classmates. Yusaku is sharp, a keen master of concealment, and sometimes it is hard for Aoi to remember that he is a daily presence in her life. Still, even if he’s a main character and she, a side character (but aren’t they both side characters? They’re both dull and invisible, members of a society that adores the obedient), there is no reason for his strange actions.

Regardless, she can’t shrug off something rather...malevolent about him. Something that makes her skin crawl with a special type of frightful loathing. There’s something not quite right about him, something rather strange and odd. It’s like he’s detached, isolated inside a shell that nearly hides his presence among the crowd.

He pulls into an abandoned hallway and Aoi realizes too late that there is nothing in that hallway to hide behind. Yusaku’s head is moving side to side, eyes straying, and she’s sure it won’t be long before he notices her behind him. Aoi can’t retreat into back into the hallway of students - they’re too packed and loud and she doesn’t want to lose Yusaku while waiting for him to pass the hall - so she ducks into the nearest room - a storage space full of boxes and books.

There’s a clatter of noise, a loud thump that sends a jolt of pain down Aoi’s shoulder. She hisses, wincing at such recklessness. She hopes her uniform hasn’t torn. Her father won’t let her hear the end of it if it has even the slightest of tears.

The door locks into place and Aoi sighs in the midst of darkness, welcoming the pitch black that filters over her. Darkness is oddly comforting, a kind of blanket that tucks away her worries at being seen, at being scolded and scowled at because she’s not perfect and she should be perfect.

She waits a few seconds, waits to see if anyone had heard her crash, and then she props open the door.

...Or, she tries to. However, the door is locked shut, a solid barrier of steel that stands between her and the outside world.

Instantly, the darkness suffocates her. Anxiety halts her breath, her eyes widening and her hands shaking as she pushes against the door. It doesn’t give. Frightened, she rams into it, her shoulder against the metal surface. A sting of cold spikes through her and she winces, resorting to kicking it with her feet. The door barely budges, mocking her with the faint light that filters in from little slits.

“Anybody?” she asks, voice a quiet cold. It would be bad if anyone finds her inside a locked room. She can already imagine the rumors that would start if such a thing occurred. Her father would undoubtedly rage at her, furious that his precious doll would have produced such an unfitting image of herself. “Is anybody there?”

A paper moves. She freezes, glancing around. “Hello?” she asks, hating the terrified tone in her voice.

“Hi!”

Aoi nearly screams. The sound of something brushing against cardboard comes from her right and she whips her head in the direction of the sound. “Who’s there?” She inwardly scolds herself for how cliche she’s sounding, wondering if she has landed, somehow, in a virtual reality horror movie set.

“A friend, friend!” the person replies, voice oddly high-pitched and rather cutesy.

“Are you a student?”

“A student, student?” the voice inquires, seemingly mocking. “What’s a student? Is that what those are?”

“Those?”

“The humans with black and blue and white skin!” Something about the word human sends a shiver down her spine. “The slaves to the system.”

Aoi watches the darkness warily. “You have a strange way of talking.”

“I talk weird?” the person ponders that. “I’m still learning.”

“Are you a transfer student? How’d you get in here?”

“I came here! I was exploring and then I was stuck inside. But now you’re here! Who’re you?”

“I prefer not to tell my name to those I don’t know,” she says, carefully. If the person beside her is a transfer student than it is unlikely they will remember her as soon as she escapes. She’s dull for a reason, dull to the point of invisibility.

“Oh, that’s sad,” they say. “I like new people.”

Footsteps. Aoi perks at the sound, pressing her ear to the door.

“What’cha doing?”

“Shh!” she hushes the person with desperation, trying to listen to what she had heard seconds earlier.

“Sorry,” the voice whimpers and she hears some papers being shuffled.

The footsteps become louder, more prevalent. They’re heading her way!

She pounds on the door, insistent. “Help! Is anyone out there?”

The footsteps stop and Aoi’s breath catches. Then, they run, becoming more and more distant as Aoi calls for help. Surely, whoever was out there must have heard her right? Or had they not? They had stopped, surely they knew but...the hallway grew quiet and she pulled her knees to her chest.

“Great, just great,” she mutters. “Of course I get stuck in here. Stupid me, following Yusaku like that.”

“Yusaku?” the voice inquires and then they begin to chant with a kind of adoration. “Yusaku, Yusaku, Yusaku, Yusaku! I like Yusaku!”

Great, now she’s stuck with someone who’s crazy in love with Yusaku. She rests her chin in between her legs, blinking at the darkness.

“Do you know Yusaku?” the voice asks her.

“Yes, barely.”

“Do you know Playmaker?”

“Of course, who doesn’t,” she pauses, “why the questions though?”

“I like Yusaku. I like Playmaker too. I like them both!”

Ah, great. A fanatic. Like she hasn’t had enough of those in her alternate life. Still, a bit of curiosity forces her to ask: “Do you know Blue Angel?”

“Blue Angel? She’s...blue,” the voice seems to ponder on how to produce an efficient answer. “I don’t know if she’s someone good for Playmaker. He says he doesn’t know her despite what all the news says.”

“You know Playmaker?” Suddenly, her interest in this other occupant increases by tenfold.

“Know him? I know him! Playmaker is friend!”

“Do you know who he is?”

“Yes, yes! Playmaker is-!”

The door opens. Aoi nearly startles, falling back in surprise. In the light of the doorway stands Yusaku Fujiki, panting with sweat down his cheeks.

“I...found you!” he says, eyes striking past Aoi and over to someone behind her. Then, his gaze turns to her’s, befuddled and wide-eyed with a kind of horror. “Aoi,” he breathes, “what are you doing here?”

Her face turns a angry scarlet, blood rushing to her cheeks in a manner half between embarrassment and shame. She straightens out her skirts, pulling herself out of what might seem like a scandalous position, and turns to face the other occupant of the room behind her.

A black humanoid being with orange eyes glances back at her, a strange apparition of creepy proportions with purple lines running down its body. Its head is in the shape of a misshapen teardrop, its fingers like that of a frog’s and with shoulders a bit too emphasized for her liking. It’s not at all human, not at all a transfer student like she thought, and she wonders how this thing could be sitting in front of her like it was a real existence. She stares at it with a kind of fright, scuttling backwards as it tilts its head in her direction.

“Why do you stare?” it asks in the same voice of her prison-mate. “Isn’t it impolite to stare?”

“What-?” she turns to Yusaku with wide eyes and a gaping mouth halfway between screaming and shouting, “What is that!?”

“I am not a that,” the thing mutters.

“He,” Yusaku hesitates, looking side to side, “is a newly developed program that I’m helping to beta-test. SOL Technology gave him to me in order to see whether or not he could function well in society. His name is Ai.”

“Well, obviously he’s not doing his job well,” she mutters, glaring at the offending thing.

It looks back at her. Orange eyes bore into hers and Aoi thinks she’s gone through this experience before. Playmaker’s companion, his little pet , resembled something akin to the creature before her just…smaller. She supposed it was possible for both Yusaku and Playmaker to have different models of the same program – Playmaker was a hacker easily known for his exploits so it’d be no wonder to her if he made a VR replica of the program (for god-knows-what-reason) – but the sheer coincidence in itself makes her nurture tiny seeds of suspicion.

“Blue Angel!” the program says suddenly. The human-sized creature makes a chittering noise that forces Aoi to press herself up against a wall in sheer horror at the name. “Blue Angel, Blue AngelBlueAngelBlueAngel BlueAngel…!” She stares at the thing with shivers wracking down her body. How did it…!?

Yusaku looks between the both of them and frowns. Her gaze flits to his and she shakes her head desperately. “I...I don’t know what he’s talking about!”

“Blue Angel!” it says and then turns to Yusaku, pointing at him. “Playmaker! Blue Angel, Playmaker!”

Yusaku’s cheeks flush a slight pink seemingly unbefitting of himself. Is he embarrassed at having his little toy go out of control or is he thinking other thoughts that might associate her to Blue Angel? She supposes she doesn’t want to know either way. The creature claps its hands in a kind of maniac glee, acting as if it was almost a child.

The boy, chasing away the color on his cheeks, gives a sigh and offers her a hand. “He didn’t do anything to hurt you, did he?”

“No,” she refuses his hand and gets to her feet. Bad mistake. A arrow of pain shoots through her shoulder and she grimaces, gritting her teeth in frustration.

“Blue Angel is hurt,” the creature observes and she gives it a glare. It seems to avoid both meanings of her look, pondering: “What should I do if someone is hurt?”

“Help them,” Yusaku says to it and then turns his gaze back to her. “Is there anything I can do for you, Aoi?”

“Is my uniform torn?” she asks, turning around. The action makes her wince but she’s more concerned with her attire than with her aching shoulder.

He gives her a confused stare. “No, why?”

“No particular reason. Thanks.”

He seems unsure but doesn’t press farther. “You’re…welcome, I guess?” he places his hands in his pockets. “What were you doing in here, anyways?”

She remembers her little spying game and immediately goes quiet, unwilling to admit her guilt.

Yusaku shakes his head and then smiles at her. “Forget it. It’s none of my business. Do you need anything? A ride or some ice for that shoulder?”

“I’m fine, thank you,” she says, unable to keep the cold chill from crawling into her voice. “I’ll be okay on my own.”

“You sure?” he inquires but when she doesn’t offer a response he sighs and beckons to his program. Ai immediately gets up and waltzes over to him, giggling. Yusaku pats it on the head like he might a child and it coos with appreciation. “Alright, before you go though. Can I ask for a favor?”

A little alarm rings in her head, a warning that echoes of her father’s voice. Favors are never good. Favors can cause scandals, can show people that you’re willing to put up with them and to be wheedled endlessly so that they can extract all that they can out of you. People are greedy and, while that may be Aoi just being cynical, she’s well-aware of the fact that boot-lickers have existed around her for as she’s been alive. As long as she’s tied up to her father, to her family, to their wealth, she will never be considered anything other than a living doll for someone else’s pleasure.

“Go…on,” she struggles with the words, uncertain.

He claps his hands together and bows forward, his arms over his head. “Please don’t tell anyone that you saw Ai today. He’s supposed to be a secret and the public isn’t supposed to know about his existence,” Yusaku pleads, an expression Aoi never thought she’d see on his face.

“Alright,” there’s a whoosh of relief from Aoi. It’s a reasonable request and not at all what she had been suspecting from him. “However, I want a favor from you too. To even the deal. If you must.”

He gives her a surprised look that makes her suspect he hadn’t thought she’d inquire anything of him in return. “Please don’t tell anyone that you saw me in here,” she says. “I’ll agree not to mention your little friend’s existence if we all pretend that we didn’t all meet up here. Sound good?”

Yusaku gives her a calm smile that speaks little of his earlier confusion. “I can deal with that. Thank you, Aoi, I promise I won’t tell your secret if you won’t tell mine.”

“Friends!” Ai shouts, startling them both. “Playmaker, Blue Angel! Friends!”

They both stare at him, at each other, and then give nervous laughs.

“Your program doesn’t seem to know what he’s talking about, does he? I don’t look anything like the Blue Angel,” Aoi gives a slight giggle as if amused by the “random” connection to her alternate persona.

“And I don’t look anything like Playmaker,” he agrees with a glare at Ai. His creature deflates in a sulky sort of manner. “Come on, Ai, let’s go.”

“Go?” it perks up. “Go home?”

“Home,” Yusaku agrees and then begins to exit. He looks back at Aoi, smiles, and then waves goodbye. She reciprocates the response and watches as he leaves. Pulling herself together, she straightens up and then abandons the storage closet. With a deep intake of breath to calm herself (and the crazy thoughts in her mind), she makes her way down to the school parking lot.

She wonders how furious her father will be if he ever found out that she had made a deal with a stranger behind his back. Then again, she supposes it doesn’t matter. Her father won’t know, and so long as his father doesn’t know then her father won’t care. She may be his dull and boring little doll but she’s still Blue Angel. And, Blue Angel knows exactly how to rebel.

She’s a trickster, after all.

#vrains #yugioh vrains #aoi zaizen #yusaku fujiki #blue angel #playmaker #angelmakershipping #speculative fic #i love how i just called the mysterious lifeforms Ai to make a pun on AI and #it's actually CANON!???#i gave it that name bc i was lazy and joking #but nooo thats what they actually call it #oh and Aoi likes to repay her debts in show so that's a thing #and she also rebels against Akira #granted i wasn't completely right about her but geez #i was actually expecting to be completely 100% wrong about everything I wrote for her

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