Aichi finds himself back in PSY when Ren makes an appearance. What does he want? And why is Aichi back in PSY?

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Seems Aichi hasn’t shown up at the shop since the tournament, probably still upset about Kai who also hasn’t returned since then.

As Aichi wanders around the streets alone he stops and rests in a building and suddenly PSY appears with its own hallway. The girls inside wonder if they should tell him that he’s one of the people they’re looking for, but for now they’re going with the flow. Rekka and Kourin come to greet Aichi and try to cheer him up by telling him he was strong. Ren then appears and tells him to be stronger to get Kai to notice.

The girls wonder why Ren is here. Who then tells Aichi that he has the power, which is why he always wins. And he tells Aichi he can grow stronger still and hands him a Shadow Paladin deck. A deck that focuses on sacrificing to strengthen its cards, opposite of Royal Paladin.

Aichi takes the deck, drawn by its power. Kourin’s not convinced that he’s stronger, so he challenges Aichi. Suiko comes to watch and she says that if he is stronger, that suits them well too.

Kourin will use a Royal Paladin deck to show him to power of it. Aichi senses the cards with his power and smirks.

Kourin goes first, rides Lake Maiden, Lien and moves Brugal back. She uses Lien to discard and draw.

Aichi rides Blaster Javelin and because Fullbau is in soul, Javelin gets 8k power. Fullbau’s ability activates, if ride Javelin then can search for Blaster Dark. Javelin deals one damage and that ends the turn. 0-1.

Kourin rides Beast King, Garmall, it’s skill activates, by discarding a Royal Paladin, she can superior call Snowgal, and she calls Gallatin. Garmall attacks with a critical trigger and Gallatin also deals 1 damage. 3-1.

Aichi rides Blaster Dark with a new summoning phrase. If Javelin is in soul, Dark gains 1k power. Counterblast also activates, at the cost of 2 retire opponents rearguard. He then calls Skull Witch, Nemain, counterblast again, at the cost of 1 discard and draw. He then calls 3 others. Only Nemain is guarded. 3-3.

Kourin rides Fang of Light Garmall, ability activates, discards one Royal Paladin to call Snowgal or Brugal. With Garmall’s ability it’s power goes to 13k thanks to the Snowgals and Brugals. Aichi say this is weak and he will win. Kourin then calls Knight of Conviction, Bors. Brugal is guarded, Garmall gets a critical trigger dealing 2 damage and Bors is guarded with. 5-3.

Aichi declares final turn, rides Phantom Blaster Dragon and calls out 2 more to fill his field. He uses Dragon’s ability, at the cost of two, retire 3 Shadow Paladin rearguard to boosts its power by 10k and add one damage. He then calls three more to take their place. Dark Knight, Rugos attacks first and deals 1 damage. Blaster Dragon attacks, Kourin guards with 2 Alabaster Owls and Marron. But Aichi draws a critical trigger which he gives the ability to his rear guard Blaster Dark and with his attack, the game is won.

He now sees the power in this deck and leaves his old Royal Paladins scattered on the ground.

Thoughts:

And Aichi completes his dark transformation with his very own dark deck and he is now more powerful. Although the way I view it the deck’s still very similar to Royal Paladin in the sense that you still need rear guard presence to power up your strongest cards. One needs them on the field and the other needs to sacrifice, in which case if you hear it this way, the sacrificing one sounds weaker as there’re less monsters on the field to attack with. If you ask me, I’d prefer Gancelot’s counterblast to Phantom Dragon’s. Field advantage is better to have rather than put them into risky attacks. But that could just be the way I play. I knew Aichi would win this time, but I was really hoping for Kourin to win, oh well.

I did quite like this episode, Aichi going badass/evil is definitely a plus, an extra plot that’s welcome in TCG animes as Raven pointed out. But with going evil comes a lot of questions. Firstly a question that arose this episode, why did Ren give him a Shadow Paladin deck? Why does he want him to become more powerful? I was thinking maybe he wants Aichi to seek more power, and the only place to find it of course would be with Ren, so he’s perhaps trying to recruit him into AL4? In which case I think Kai will return to Q4 and then defeat AL4 to show Aichi the proper way to fight.

Then there’s still the question of why Ultra-rare is here. What do they want by gathering Ren and Aichi and Psyqualia people? I’ve made my thoughts clear on them so I won’t say more, but I am quite looking forward to find out.

I wonder what Kai’s doing next episode, can’t really tell from the preview but looks like more ‘underground’ duelling. And speaking of Kai, what is his purpose in all this? Is it really to drag Aichi out of his darkness? I mean, I do think that, but if so, why couldn’t he have dragged Ren out as well? Also, why is he so strong? We’ve seen no trace of him using Psyqualia, but we know he can see it or at least sense it, and he’s on par with those with Psyqualia, so is it raw talent? Or is there some other power involved? Or can he actually use Psyqualia but subtly and controlled?

Hmmm, still got some minor questions like what’ll happen to Aichi’s old deck, throw it away? And is he gonna take the national by storm now? But I’m sure a lot more will happen before the nationals, this plot isn’t going anywhere for a while.