13,185
edits
Changes
no edit summary
Five years later, the Knights of Hanoi continued their search of [[Ai]]; but had many of their operations interrupted by the mysterious Duelist [[Yusaku Fujiki|Playmaker]], who defeated their agents, earning a name for himself. [[Spectre]], the Knights' second-in-command, informed [[Varis]] that a trace of Ai was detected and that [[SOL Technologies]] was in pursuit. Knowing that if SOL retrieved Ai, they would be able to restore Cyberse and ruin the Knights' efforts, forcing the Knights to act. Spectre informed Varis about Playmaker, who had interfered with them before. Varis wondered if Playmaker was a member of SOL, but dismissed the possibility as they would act more publicly. Spectre added that Playmaker erased every trace of his activity and eluded the Knights' searches, concluding that whoever he is he must be a skilled hacker. Varis became interested in Playmaker, but decided to leave him for now as Ai was their priority.<ref name="ep1" />
While SOL Technologies performed a city scan in order to search for Ai, the Knights of Hanoi decided to attack as the defenses of VRAINS would be left vulnerable at that point. Varis ordered his men to search for Ai, assaulting the digital world with their "Cracking Dragons" and ravaging the users in their way, deleting their accounts in the process. Ai's remnants in the form of an eye was swiftly cornered by the Knights until [[Yusaku Fujiki]] and [[Kal Kolter]] used the lowered defenses to create an alternative path for Ai, who used the newly made escape route, but ended up in Yusaku's [[Duel Disk]] as a result. Yusaku entered VRAINS using his persona Playmaker, saving the [[Celebrity Duelist]] [[Skye Zaizen|Blue Angel]] at the nick of time before she was deleted. Yusaku then confronted a Knight of Hanoi who told him that the AI they were looking for was on his Duel Disk and threatened to delete it if they did not cease their attack. Since Ai was bonded to Yusaku's Duel Disk, the Knights must defeat Playmaker in a Duel in order to obtain it. Varis, watching from afar, was amused at Playmaker while the Knights' agent accepted the challenge.<ref name="ep1" />
Ai estimated that Yusaku's current Deck was not enough to defeat the Knight's "Cracking Dragon". He caused a [[Data Storm]] and instructed Yusaku to ride the wind and enter a [[Speed Duel (VRAINS)|Speed Duel]].<ref name="ep1" /> Ai taught Yusaku the rules of Speed Duels. The Knight of Hanoi quickly Summoned his "Cracking Dragon", which he used for the remainder of the Duel, exploiting its abilities to avoid destruction and inflict effect damage, and further exacerbating his advantage through the [[Skill]] "Double Draw" which let him draw two cards during his Draw Phase. Ai realized they must have hacked the system as the Skill was not known to him. Although Yusaku fared decently against the Knight of Hanoi, his LP was on critical state so Ai instructed him to take a path where he was engulfed in a massive storm. Inside the tempest, Ai told Yusaku that his LP was low enough to use the Skill "Storm Access" to gain a powerful monster. Yusaku did so and was able to acquire "[[Decode Talker (anime)|Decode Talker]]" and Link Summon it. Through a combination of "[[Cyberse Wizard (anime)|Cyberse Wizard]]" and "Decode Talker", he was able to exploit the low DEF of "Cracking Dragon" and inflict [[piercing]] damage as a result of "Decode Talker" gaining ATK through its own effect, and due to [[Link Monster|being unable to be in Defense Position]], it bypassed the Knight's "[[Pulse Mines]]", defeating the Knight.<ref name="ep2">{{episode|Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS|2|ref}}</ref> Playmaker subsequently attempted to interrogate the Knight, who started a self-destruction mechanism in response before Ai suddenly deleted him from the system to protect himself and Playmaker.<ref name="ep3">{{episode|Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS|3|ref}}</ref>
