Peace has returned thanks to Playmaker's efforts. However, LINK VRAINS still suffers heavy damage due to Hanoi’s plan. Thus, SOL Technologies rebuilds it into NEW LINK VRAINS. The newly rebuilt Dueling platform has brought a lot of excitement to many. However, in NEW LINK VRAINS, Playmaker is a wanted man, and has a bounty on his head...
This episode contains the following tropes:
- Blow You Away: Invoked by Ai, who activates a Data Storm to blow away Blood Shepherd, endangering him and forcing his Duel Disk's AI to log him out.
- Crapsack World: By the time Ai returns to the Cyberse World, it is nothing but a wasteland, with no inhabitants in sight other than Linkuriboh.
- A Day in the Limelight: Naoki Shima/Brave Max gets another moment in the spotlight; the first half of the episode focuses on him exploring NEW LINK VRAINS and what it has to offer.
- Deliberate Injury Gambit: The mysterious duelist leaves himself open on the first turn so Playmaker will attack him directly, thereby fulfilling the conditions for his Skill. A fairly risky gamble, since Playmaker could have won in a single turn had he drawn the right cards.
- Delinquents: A pair of penguin delinquents harass a group of netizens and Blood Shepherd into giving up their seats for the pair.
- I Owe You My Life: Because of Playmaker's actions back during the Tower of Hanoi incident, Ghost Girl refuses to get involved in the Playmaker bounty hunt.
- Mugging the Monster: The penguin delinquents attempt to bully Blood Shepherd, since they have illegal programs that let them harm other players. Blood Shepherd, being a bounty hunter, legally possesses the ability to terminate other players and does so to the blue penguin.
- Saying Too Much: Ghost Girl warns Brave Max not to openly admit that he is best friends with Playmaker due to Playmaker being a bounty target in NEW LINK VRAINS.
- Screw the Rules, I Have Supernatural Powers!: The penguin delinquents modded themselves with illegal programs to get around the violence ban in LINK VRAINS. It doesn't end well for the blue penguin, however, which gets him terminated by Blood Shepherd.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: After Blood Shepherd terminates the blue penguin delinquent, the purple penguin delinquent bails immediately, not wanting to face the same fate as his partner did.
- Supernatural Sensitivity: Both Ai and Playmaker get a weird feeling from the soul thief's monsters, which they quickly realize is because they are Cyberse Monsters.
- Time Skip: Three months have passed since Playmaker ended the threat of the Tower of Hanoi.
- Ungrateful Bastard: As Ghost Girl lampshades, Playmaker's reward for stopping the Tower of Hanoi and saving the entire network is to have a bounty slapped on him.
- "Wanted!" Poster: Since the opening of NEW LINK VRAINS, Playmaker is a wanted man, with a bounty on his head worth ₽500,000.
- Wham Shot: The unknown Duelist activating a Link Spell Card, an unheard of Spell Card variant which, like Link Monsters, has its own Link Arrows to allow for the Summoning of Monsters from the Extra Deck to Main Monster Zones the Link Spell points to. Even before that, the unknown Duelist summons forth Cyberse Monsters that Ai, one of their creators, doesn't recognize.
- Yank the Dog's Chain:
- Just when you thought things were getting much better for Jin after he is informed that the Lost Incident/Hanoi Project has been brought to a closure, an unknown yellow figure sucks his soul away and escapes into LINK VRAINS.
- Then there's Ai, who finally gets to return home after five years of living on the run... only to find the Cyberse World destroyed and everyone gone except for Linkuriboh.
- Your Soul Is Mine!: The unknown figure in yellow approaches Jin, sucks away his consciousness, and flees into NEW LINK VRAINS.
