User Profile

Character: Marufuji Ryou (known variously as the Kaiser or Hell Kaiser. If you want to piss him off, call him Haou's Shadow.)
Series/Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh GX
Original or Alternate: Original
Age: 20: Birthday: January 5
Gender: Male
Species: Human
Sexuality: Bisexual: Currently dating AU!Fujiwara Yusuke
Appearance: Ryou is tall and slender, with blue hair that is in three layers. His bangs are directly above his eyes, which are a lightish blue-green. As the Hell Kaiser, and the outfit he appears in Econtra wearing, he wears black pants with a red line going down each leg, a belt with an 'R' centered on the buckle, a black sweater or shirt, and a black trenchcoat with white trimmings. His hair comes down to the collar of his trenhcoat. He will generally dress in darker colors, more out of habit and acquired preference by now. His face is very expressive, especially when he's angry or upset about something, and he can, in the right circumstances, look very insane.

Personality: Arrogant, reserved, and implacable. Focused, driven, and determined. Those are the best words to describe Marufuji Ryou, as well as proud, unyielding, and loyal. He is a firm believer in being cruel to be kind, even when it comes to dealing with his younger brother Shou: perhaps even especially when it comes to Shou. If a cruel truth would be more beneficial to someone than a kind lie, he will go for the cruel truth every time, no matter what. During his Hell Kaiser phase, he lost all respect for himself and his dueling opponents, and for humanity in general, and the game of Duel Monsters itself. This led him to general victories in the game, but to emotional and moral failures, at least in the eyes of others. When he learned he was dying because of the shock collars involved in his dueling, he didn't even bother to seek medical attention, and developed a desire to make his inevitable death *mean something*. Overall, that search for meaning has permeated his entire life, though it has manifested in different ways, usually involving dueling. Also during his time as the Hell Kaiser, he showed absolutely no mercy towards anyone for anything if they were his dueling opponent or roused his anger somehow. During his 'normal' times, he can be merciless to anyone who harms his brother or those few friends he has acquired, in particular Juudai, Edo, Asuka, Fubuki, Johan, and Yusuke.

Abilities/Strengths: Marufuji Ryou is probably one of the greatest duelists of his world. He is a skilled tactician and strategist because of this. At the peak of his health, he had some physical fighting skills, enough to punch when necessary, though he seldom actually used those.

Notable Posssessions: He has technical ownership of the Cyber Tails deck, though he no longer plays it. He also is working on building a new Cyber deck, and has a duel disk. He owns a plushie of Fujiwara Yusuke with cat ears and tail and a Rubik's Cube as well, and an aventurine necklace given to him by Yusuke.

Weaknesses: Ryou has recovered for the most part from his physical weakness caused by all the shock collar duels he played, and his heart is recovering. Ryou can be arrogant and seldom listens to other people, unless it's absolutely necessary, and sometimes not even then. He is proud and forceful when the occasion calls for it. When he is right about something, it is impossible to get him to deviate from that, even when circumstances indicate that he should for some reason.

Also, he prefers very much not to refer to the month that he spent as the Haou's Shadow and referring to it can get him very, very angry.

History: Marufuji Ryou is two years older than his younger brother Shou. At the age of nine, he was already taking lessons from Sameshima at the Cyber Dojo, and frequently crushed his opponents in exhibition matches. It was after three years of training there that he earned the Cyber End Dragon card at the age of twelve, and became heir to Sameshima's Dojo and the Cyber Dragons. During that training, he learned to respect the cards and his opponents, and that became one of his defining characteristics.

After his training was done, he returned home, and shortly after learned that his brother Shou was also dueling, but without the respect that a true duelist should give their opponent. To teach Shou a lesson, he told him that he couldn't use Power Bond anymore until Shou had learned to properly respect his opponents.

At the age of fifteen, he started to attend Duel Academia, along with a childhood friend, Tenjoin Fubuki. Ryou was a powerful duelist from the very beginning, and was virtually never defeated, leading to him gaining the title of the Kaiser. During that first year, Fubuki vanished mysteriously, and after that, Ryou never let himself grow close to anyone else, with the exception of Fubuki's sister Asuka, who he promised to look after until Fubuki returned.

In his third and final year at the Academy, Fubuki did return, as Darkness, one of the Seven Stars who were after the Seven Keys that would unlock three powerful cards hidden under the Academy. Ryou was one of the guardians of those keys, though he lost his to the vampire Camula. Thanks to the actions of the first year Juudai, Ryou himself was saved from a fate worse than death, and so was the world, when Juudai defeated the leader of the Stars, Kagemaru.

Afterwards, Ryou graduated and went on to the Pro Leagues, intent on being as undefeated there as he in general was at school. But everything there was more intense and powerful than he had anticipated, and after a humiliating defeat by Edo Phoenix, he began to lose more and more duels. As the defeats piled up, he was approached by Saruyama, who led him into the underground dueling circuit, where shock collars were used on the duelists. Ryou didn't trust this at first, but before very long, he broke under the shocks, and was reborn in a new persona, having lost his respect and trust in the cards, himself, and humanity in general.

This new dark Ryou became known as the Hell Kaiser, and with his new attitude, rose back up through the ranks, winning duel after duel, but crushing his opponents without so much as a backwards glance. He had entered a new world of darkness, freely and by his own choice, to determine if this were the right path for himself. He also returned to the Cyber Dojo, but only to gain the Tails deck, the dark side to his already owned Heads deck, the Yin to the Heads Yang. Sameshima tried to persuade him it was forbidden, but Ryou insisted on dueling him to win it anyway. The duel was fantastic, and Sameshima tried his best to convince Ryou to respect others again, but to no avail. He lost and Ryou won the dark deck.

After Ryou claimd the deck, Sameshima gave him one of the medals used in the GX tournament and suggested very strongly that he join the tournament, secretly hoping that someone, such as Shou, Fubuki, or Juudai, could teach Ryou what he himself had apparently failed to teach properly. But while Ryou did join the tournament, and wound up defeating Darkness and Shou both, any lessons of respect were apparently ignored as well.

When he appeared again, Ryou had been summoned to the island because a powerful duelist was needed to generate the kind of duel energy needed to send the Rainbow Dragon to Johan, a student from one of the other dueling schools who was spending some time at Duel Academia and had become a good friend to Juudai, in one of the other worlds. He and Johan dueled, and Ryou enjoyed it to the hilt, but they generated was so intense that it blew up the computers being used.

Some time after that, it became known slowly that Ryou was having heart troubles, caused by his dueling with shock collars and an overabundance of electrical shocks. He refused to seek medical treatment for this, and focused instead on finding a purpose, a meaning for his impending death. He wound up traveling in one of the monster worlds with Edo Phoenix, the same person who had defeated him and thus started him on his road to the shadows some months earlier. The two of them had formed a partnership of sorts during Juudai's reign as the Haou, and frequently would kill Duel Monsters who discovered them or where they were living.

Before that, however, Ryou had another encounter with his brother. Shou had lost much of his faith in Juudai due to Juudai's acceptance of evil. Ryou rescued Ojama Yellow and Shou from Devil Dozer, and brought Shou to a campfire to watch over him until he recovered. When Shou was awake, they talked a little, and Ryou told him that what Juudai had done had left an even bigger hole in Shou than what Ryou himself had done. If Shou didn't give up on Ryou, then he also shouldn't give up on Juudai, no matter what. He didn't specifically say that in so many words, but the intent was there. He also returned Shou's Duel Disk that the other had thrown away in his anger about what had happened with Juudai, and left.

After Ryou and Edo learned that Juudai was the Haou, they went to take care of the problem. This was much more difficult than it might have seemed at first. They assisted O'Brian in raiding Juudai's castle, and after O'Brian saved Juudai and died, they tended to Juudai until Amon arrived, and Edo died attempting to save Echo, Amon's girlfriend, from Amon. Juudai was still suffering from pain and despair after he stopped being the Haou, and Ryou challenged him to a duel. This did not go over very well, as Ryou was not physically capable of it at the time, and Juudai was not psychologically capable either. They ended the duel without finishing, and Juudai fled. Ryou was being tended by Professor Chronos when Johan, now possessed by a strange creature known as Yubel that had a mysterious connection to Juudai, approached, and Ryou agreed to try to duel again against him.

This duel was extraordinarily intense, and virtually everything that Ryou had hoped for in his final duel: which it may well have been. He declared that he had been searching for meaning all this time, and he knows he will die soon, and he has no fear of defeat or pleasure of victory. He will live forever in the memories all of those watching this duel and in dueling history, even if his physical body dies.

Ryou also proves in this duel he has relearned respect for himself and everyone else, and shows it by using the card that symbolizes respect for himself and his brother: Power Bond. He intended for it to be a suicide finish, to bring both his own and Yubel's life points to zero in the same move, but before he could finish hit, his heart gave out.

Even as his strength failed for the last time, he told Juudai that this was the end of someone who dueled only for strength, and he wouldn't be surprised if they all laughed at him. Juudai apologized for having run away from his own power, and promised that he would shine even brighter and do even better than the Hell Kaiser, with that kind of example in front of him. Ryou told him that all the others who had died had probably hoped for the same thing. Telling Juudai that he wasn't a kid anymore, Ryou faded away into sparkles of light...

And found himself in Econtra.

Since then, he has somewhat made friends with one of his former roommates, Arwen Undomiel, with Fubuki's boyfriend Otogi Ryuuji, and some of the other people from his world or similiar, such as OU!Yami no Yuugi/Atem. Ryou still tends to keep to himself a lot of the time. He and the Cyber deck have had a parting of the ways, and Ryou has spent some time trying to discover and build a new deck for himself. He doesn't know yet who he will pass his old deck too.

Ryou was quite surprised by the arrival of Fujiwara Yusuke, someone he'd convinced himself was dead for over five years, only to find that instead he'd made a pact with Darkness and had spent those years traveling the twelve dimensions. He was even more surprised as the months passed, and he found himself more and more intrigued by Yusuke. When a spell to influence the residents to sing of their innermost feelings was cast, Ryou was infuriated as he found himself spouting love songs, and Fubuki teased him that maybe he had a crush on someone. Ryou still denied it, until Valentine's Day and love potion laced pies forced the realization on him that he did care a great deal for Yusuke. Eventually, the two of them realized this was a mutual attraction, and they have since been seeing one another.

Another new arrival changed Ryou's life even more: Yuuki Juudai, taken from when he was the Haou, and still a twisted and evil monarch. Ryou taunted him that he would change his ways one day, but refused to give details of how. This resulted in a duel between the two of them, which Ryou lost. Not wanting the Haou to have a chance to change the future that hadn't yet happened for him, Ryou lied about how he'd been defeated, and warned several people he thought might talk to the Haou about this, wanting the secret kept.

Unfortunately, unknown to Ryou, the evil duel spirit Yubel had possessed Saotome Rei, who was one of those who Ryou screened his warning post to. Yubel informed the Haou of Ryou's lie, and the Haou unleashed the most intense punishment he could upon the older duelist: he brainwashed Ryou into becoming his obedient servant.

Ryou's friends learned what happened to him, thanks to the combined efforts of Arwen and Otogi, and worked hard to find a way to free him, encouraged by the occasional sign that there was still a small part of his free will left. Eventually, thanks to a vision by Larka, they hit upon a solution. Mutou Yugi dueled Ryou using the cards of those who cared about him the most and who he cared about (Shou, Fubuki, Yusuke, Edo Phoenix, both OU and AU Asuka, OU!Atem, and Ryou's own Power Bond). The emotional ties to those cards and who they represented were able to shatter through the brainwashing and free Ryou once more.

After being freed, Ryou slept for some days to recover and since has been slowly rebuilding his life and his relationship with his friends and Yusuke. Oddly, or not so oddly, his dreams were haunted on a regular basis, resulting in not quite the rest he really needs. That turned out to be thanks to Leviathan, who had taken up residence within OU!Atem, and fed off of the nightmares and fear caused by those nightmares to grow stronger. Eventually Leviathan was driven out of Atem, and Ryou's rest returned to normal.

Life since then has been more or less normal for Ryou, as normal as it ever gets in Econtra. The arrival of a new Judai has raised the tension levels, as he misguidedherald has taken Ryou's brainwashing far more seriously than Ryou himself did (as Ryou has since forgiven hero_of_dark for it). This new Judai insists on his own form of justice, and the fact he abducted and tortured AU!Johan did not exactly please Ryou, though Johan's near total recovery from that has eased his personal anger some. He tends to be polite to AU!Judai, though, but if that will remain has yet to be seen.

One other new development has occurred with Ryou: he has learned that he has a duel spirit, one of the few cards he has kept from his original deck: Cyber Phoenix. Though he cannot truly see it yet, the connection between them grows stronger every day.

Housing: Paj-Dyo
Roommates: black_seaweed: AU!Fujiwara Yusuke, consideritmine: OU!Rouge the Bat

Disclaimer: [Yu-Gi-Oh GX/Marufuji Ryou] © [Kazuki Takahashi/Nihon Ad Systems].
All content is fictional and for entertainment purposes only, not for profit.

This is a role-playing journal for econtra_rpg by cynthia_harrell.

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