jester

okay, so while they’re very different characters with different personalities, yuri and yuya are actually very similar, in that they share the same core desire: to be loved. however, due to each of their upbringings, this ends up manifesting and developing in different ways.

yuya learns from his dad that love and attention come from making people smile and be happy. yusho is his own bundle of issues, but he teaches yuya that to be loved you have to make others happy and want to love you. everyone loves him, so yuya assumes that if he’s the same, everyone will love him too. thats his issue throughout the series, he has no idea how to exist outside his father.

yuri on the other hand, learns that hes unlovable. he doesnt know HOW to make people love him. leo akaba never ‘loved’ yuri, he just used him, but his attention was the closest he got, so he followed him. the farther he spirals into his sadism, the more he becomes convinced hes unlovable, to the point where he decides, if he cant be loved, he’ll just kill everyone else so its only him. then he’ll be the strongest. because at academia, only the strongest are ‘loved’.

first, id like to say while yuya and yuris duel had a LOT of homoerotic tension, i doubt yuri was actually romantically attracted to yuya, more,,, jealous and confused i think? the same way he feels towards asuka just,,,,,, more, like, much more (doesnt help that hes fruity as shit istg). yuri and yuyas battle was them sort of… abandoning their previous ideals of how to be ‘loved’.

okay, rewind.

lets talk about zarc.

zarc is the EPITOME of the yu-boys desire to be loved in general. he becomes what he becomes because he wants nothing other than to be loved by the audience and the people. he then decides the love of his dragons is more important, and changes for THEIR love instead.

and how do the yu-boys treat zarc?

yuya is, of course, how zarc was at the beginning: naive and only wanting to entertain. he doesnt like who zarc becomes, and resists him, because he still believes in his own version of love. yuri, on the other hand, no longer believes he is lovable (please note that at this point he associates love with strength rather than happiness like yuya), so, when zarc gives him a way to be stronger, of course, he takes it.

however, there is… one thing ive always thought was odd about that.

if they become one… zarc has the power, not yuri. yuri probably knows this, as hes seen berserk yuya and can tell its not quite him. so, then, what was he after? back to the theme of it all, the answer is, of course, love. well, uh, kind of. zarc is giving yuri the chance to be loved, to be understood. its… twisted as shit, but to yuri, ‘being one’ is a chance to finally be loved and have friends. “be loved” and “have friends” are very solidly in quotation marks, because being forced to share a body with someone and become a literal dragon demon thing is probably not actual friendship or love, but, like i said before, yuris got a twisted idea of what that actually is. ‘becoming one’, to yuri, is the best way to get the two (one) things he wants most: love and power.

okay, now flash forward a bit. yuya and yusho are at academia, they now know yuya is part of zarc. i dont know exactly what it is, but something about yushos reaction always… irked me. (this part isnt fact, more vibes and feelings i got from the time, but the way a show makes you feel is as important as its text if you ask me) just, the way he seemed like he would abandon yuya (again) almost immediately is well,,,, uncomfortable to say the least. but yuya is still TRYING, he still loves his dad and wants him back and wants him to love him again.

and then he sees his dad lose, and he realizes maybe he… isnt infallible. and if his dad can lose, maybe… his ideals aren’t perfect.

yuyas duel with yuri, i think, is the first duel he really duels to win. despite how the anime tries to frame it, its clear all yuya wants is vengeance. the reason yuya is able to stay happy and motivated throughout arc-v, no matter how much weight is on his shoulders and everything that’s happening, is because he believed in his father, but, when that belief is broken, he’s just a kid. a tired, sad, angry kid with the weight of the fucking world on his shoulders. he duels yuri, the opposite of his ideals, in one last vain hope of proving his father is still right, but i think, deep down, he knew that maybe it was over. and when he wins, he finally wins, hes tired and afraid and just a kid and i think that maybe for a second, just a quick second, he wonders if ‘becoming one’ is what he might want. he doesnt have the energy or naive belief to hold zarc off anymore, and thats when he loses and zarc wins.

lets get back to my point of the duel really being them ‘abandoning’ their ideals of love against each other. yuri GAINS an idealized version of love through the idea of becoming one, and yuya LOSES an idealized version of love after he loses his dad. and even though yuri lost, i think he affected yuya enough that his ideals sunk in a bit, just enough for zarc to slip in through the cracks.