Nightshroud

Nightshroud, known in Japan as Darkness 「ダークネス, Dākunesu」, is an evil spirit in Yu-Gi-Oh! GX. He has the ability to possess people, and is the one responsible for the Abandoned Dorm incident. He briefly appears as a minor villain in the first season, and later returns as the main antagonist in the fourth season and final foe in the GX series.

Character design


Nightshroud's character design was overseen by Kenichi Hara. Nightshroud wears a tight-fitting overcoat with raised shoulders and waistline and gold and green trimmings.

His dark dragon mask, similar to that worn by his signature monster "Red-Eyes Darkness Dragon", is completely black with the exception of blue eye-pieces and a red stone in the center of the forehead. In this incarnation, the bangs closest to his face are positioned in front of the mask.

Immediately before Yusuke's fall, Nightshroud's true form is glimpsed as an immaterial spirit, with a body swathed in black smoke. He has two long, gangly arms ending in claws, and no legs. His head is the same shape as the mask his hosts wear. Following Yusuke's defeat, he appears again before Jaden. This time he takes his true body, which is a cloaked being resembling a Grim Reaper. He wears grey and red robes with gold trim, and has a dragon-shaped skull, again in the same shape as his mask. In this form he does not use a Duel Disk - instead, he grows five wings, each serving as one Monster Card Zone and one Spell and Trap Card Zone apiece. His cards materialize directly into his hands - his deck is unseen.

Character overview
Nightshroud is introduced as the first of the Shadow Riders to challenge Jaden (Nightshroud showed a desire to gain the Sacred Beasts, but it wasn't explained why), and the owner of the other half of the Shadow Charm pendant in Jaden's possession. Nightshroud sets a Shadow Game in which the loser would have his soul sealed in a card. When defeated, Nightshroud's soul which represented by the mask is sealed away, and Atticus, who had been the dark personality's vessel, is freed.

During the Genex tournament, Atticus uses Nightshroud's Deck in hopes of convincing his friend, Zane, that the dark path taken by a duelist is a terrible course. As a result, Nightshroud's influence that lay dormant within his cards is once again able to take control of Atticus, only to be permanently banished following his defeat.

However he makes a subsequent return in the fourth year after Jaden challenges Atticus to a rematch to discover Nightshroud's secrets. Atticus also has nightmares about the day he became Nightshroud's host, which reveal he was not the first or only person to take up Nightshroud's soul. Adding to the mystery, while visiting the arena underneath the Abandoned Dorm, Atticus is attacked by Yusuke Fujiwara, knocking him unconscious in the process. After he recovers, Jaden visits Atticus in the nurse's office and Atticus comes up with the idea of having Jaden duel Nightshoud (despite the obvious dangers) in order to uncover the entity's origins, which he does (Jaden wins again so Atticus stays free from Nightshroud); turns out, Yusuke had learned about the entity before the incident at the Abandoned Dorm, heading to the Dorm's subterranean duel arena in order to perform a ritual to free it and gain its power. However, Atticus, Yusuke's friend, followed him and interrupted the ritual, which fatally injured Yusuke and forced the boy to make Atticus its host in vengeance. Atticus resisted Nightshroud's influence from then on, until he was forced to embrace it and become its host in order to survive the Dorm's events.

Nightshroud later appears to Atticus during the siege at Duel Academy, still in Fujiwara's body. He reveals himself as the mastermind behind the Trueman attacks and thus the main antagonist of the season thus far. Here, too, his true intentions and motivations are revealed. Nightshroud, his true form being the Void or Nothingness itself, identifies consciousness with pain. In every person there is insecurity and inner turmoil - hopes and dreams failing before fear and guilt, creating "darkness". Nightshroud wants all humans to be taken into the World of Darkness where they will ultimately give up on their own lives, becoming a single entity sharing all joy and all suffering. Nightshroud claims his actions are justified in that, with no more individuality, humanity's suffering will finally end.

Nightshroud is then challenged to a three-way duel with Jaden and Jesse. Though he defeats Jesse, Jaden summons Rainbow Neos to force Nightshroud from Fujiwara's body. However, no longer needing a vessel, Nightshroud emerges in his true form to battle Jaden in a duel with the entire world on the line. He also reveals the true nature of his plan: using the darkness of the duelists brought into his world, Nighrshroud was able to create an artificial eclipse seen the world over. This eclipse was then used to pull people into nothingness, robbing them of their individuality to satisfy Nightshroud's dream. This left Jaden, Pharaoh the cat, and the immaterial Lyman Banner as the last life on Earth.

In the Japanese version, Darkness uses the word ware (我) to refer to himself and waga (我が) as a possessive pronoun, a very polite and business-like way of doing so.

Deck
Nightshroud, while possessing Atticus, plays a "Red-Eyes B. Dragon"-based Dragon Deck. It focuses on quickly summoning "Red-Eyes Darkness Dragon" and strengthening it by placing a large number of Dragon-Type monsters in his graveyard.

Nightshroud uses a Clear Deck while being Yusuke Fujiwara. Clear monsters have the distinction of having no true Attribute, and the deck centers around varying effects depending on the Attributes of the opponent with the field spell "Clear World". The deck itself is a reflection of his beliefs - individuality brings suffering while nullification relieves it.

Once in his true form, Nightshroud duels with a Darkness Deck, focusing on the Field Spell Card "Darkness", representing himself, and a long chain of Trap Cards supported by it, with each Trap activating the next one in the chain.