Rio Kastle

Rio Kastle, known as Rio Kamishiro (, Kamishiro Rio) in the Japanese version, is one of the main characters, appearing in the Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL anime. She is the younger twin sister of Shark. Rio is later revealed to be Merag (メラグ, Meragu), a member of the Seven Barian Emperors, who became determined to follow her brother no matter what happened to them and sided with the Barian World. She was absorbed by Vector after losing a Duel to him.

Appearance
Rio has dark pink eyes and like her brother, she has pale skin and dark blue hair with light blue bangs. Rio also wears a ring on her right little finger, which was previously owned by her brother. Rio's appearance attracts many initial admirers, including Bronk.

Her attire includes a white jacket over a light purple shirt (her skirt is also longer, covering her legs in the dub), black stockings, white skirt and shoes. The left coattail of her jacket has a conch-like ornament hanging down. At school, she wears the standard uniform, with hers being green due to her status as a second year student (in the dub, her skirt is lengthened). She wears longer stockings than most female students. Her casual outfit is composed of a blue-white striped sleeveless T-shirt, a blue upper knee length skirt and white high-heeled sandals.

As the Barian Merag, her skin is a white color and her hair is longer with more volume and pure dark blue instead of dual-coloured. She wears a white dress with blue and gold pieces, with large white shoulder pauldrons and gloves, with a blue midriff and a miniaturized version of Nasch's Barian Emblem on her chest. She still has her pink eyes. She also has red marks on each side of her cheeks, a jeweled diadem with a gold net over the back of her hair that is adorned with green and red jewels that also has a green teardrop jewel hanging over her face.

Merag's outfit in her past life was that of a princess. She wore a long hood on her head, white heeled sandals, a white dress and three gold rings on her legs. She also wore this outfit when she was possessed by Abyss.

Personality
Despite her appearance and previously spending a large amount of time in hospital, she is a confident and adamant person, getting annoyed when things do not go her way. This is usually shown when conversing with her brother. Her confident personality assists in her interests which allows her to conquer sports such as soccer, baseball, basketball and boxing with ease. Despite all of this, Rio also shows somewhat of a childish side as well, shown by her fear of cats (this showing she has ailurophobia) and calling Shark a "meanie" when he teasingly refused to help remove one from her sight. Rio tends to be annoyed when people refer to her as "Shark's sister" instead of calling her by name as indicated by Yuma due to her snapping at him when he continually calls her as such, and especially does not like it when someone insults her brother. This is further seen many times during her Duel against Lotus as she got mad at her for making a rude remark about Shark.

Despite being occasionally irritated with Yuma for not addressing her properly as "Rio", his personality and playful antics makes her let it slide given that she is thankful to him for helping her brother and being his friend. It is also revealed that she goes very far on things and acts strong because she feels she has to or people may use her as a shield against her brother. She later shows admiration towards Yuma and Alito as she commented they have amazing Dueling spirit.

She takes great pride in her abilities and effort as she has no problem in showing them when people underestimate her as she believes women are not to be viewed as "pretty decorations".

Rio also has a empathetic quality to her personality as well. This is demonstrated when she finds Bronk injured on the way to school, and shows genuine concern to him and helps treat his injuries.

She has undying loyalty to her brother, going along with his decision to assault Earth after regaining their Barian identities, despite her own wishes.

Abilities
As a Barian, Rio possesses the ability to sense other Barians. This is shown when Girag arrived on Earth, which caused her great pain and she foretold that "they" were coming to take "the most important thing".

When Mizar arrived later, Rio went into a trance-like state and again said that someone was coming to destroy "the most important thing" and then describing a dragon of ill omen that would destroy everything. She once more senses the presence of the Barians, and reports that they are attacking Yuma.

During those moments, Rio enters some sort of trance while a mysterious red or green aura appears around her.

After boarding the Different Dimension Airship, Rio was able to see Astral. She expressed surprise that she could then still do so after leaving the airship.

Like other Barians, Rio possesses the ability to Barian Battlemorph.

Etymology
Her Barian name is derived from Delta Ursae Majoris, also known as Megrez.

Past life
Known as Merag, she was once the ruler of the United Lands of the Poseidon Ocean alongside her brother, Nasch. One day, the kingdom was attacked by Vector, who led a fleet of ships and several "Gorgonic Guardians" to lay waste to it and loot it. After Nasch led the kingdoms forces to defeat the Gorgonic Guardians with mirror shields, Vector performed a blood sacrifice to the ocean god, Abyss, turning the battle back into his favor. Merag rode up to Abyss and was grabbed. She offered herself as a sacrifice, plunging into the ocean depths to revive another god. This action was due to Don Thousand hypnotizing her. As she owned a card called "Number 94: Crystal Zero", Thousand influenced her death to aide in his own revival.

An unknown number of years later, Don Thousand reincarnated both her and her brother as two of the Seven Barian Emperors, as their souls were each connected to a Legendary "Number" card, which had sealed Thousand's power. The two became the leaders of the Seven Barian Emperors. Vector had also been reborn as a Barian Emperor and often clashed with Nasch's leadership. After Nasch had annoyed him enough to score 100,000,000 points on his self-made point system, Vector took Merag hostage. When Nasch intervened, Vector used "Great Sword of the Heavens" to freeze Nasch's body and force both of them to jump off a cliff. Vector believed them dead, while Dumon believed they had vanished and assumed leadership of the group from them in the interim. The two were rescued by Abyss, who informed them that he would send them to Earth, where their souls would find new bodies to inhabit. The process would eliminate their memories though until they reunited with Abyss again. Their souls were transferred to the bodies of Reginald and Rio Kastle, who had recently died in a car accident.

Current life
At another time, Rio and Reginald visited a theme park where the former offered the latter one of two rings which they both could wear. Reginald initially refused to wear his ring, causing Rio to throw them on the ground and walk away in anger.

Rio once Dueled Quattro who was operating under the orders of Vetrix. He played the Spell Card, "Flaming Hell Blessing", which set the surrounding area on fire. She was critically injured in the blaze, though Quattro carried her to safety, his face being scarred in the process. After this, Reginald began wearing both of the rings from their childhood to remind himself of her.

In order to help his sister, Reginald entered the National Duel Circuit and made it to the final match against Quattro. In the break room, Quattro set his Deck up to fall on the floor, causing Reginald to see some of its contents. This caused him to be disqualified.

Barian Invasion
Even after the World Duel Carnival, Rio was still in the hospital, albeit with only bandages covering her eyes. Rio felt Girag's arrival from the Barian World, which caused her pain. Because of this, Reginald (who by now often used "Shark" as a nickname) arrived later along with Yuma and Tori after him being called by the hospital as well as sensing Rio's pain. During that time Rio blurted out that someone is coming to take the most important thing, which worried Yuma as he had heard something similar before.

Shark visited Rio at hospital again and gave her one of the rings from their childhood. She was later abducted by Art Stanley, who was following Girag's orders and was imprisoned in a cage within Art's comic book. Art approached Shark and informed him of this, causing them to Duel. When Shark attempted to use "Zeus Breath", Art claimed that the comic world be destroyed if he lost - with Rio still inside it.Yuma and Ray went to Art's comic writing room and managed to find several pages detailing how the Duel would go, as well as the result, which resulted in the death of both siblings. However, Shark called out to her and their bond managed to shatter her imprisonment, making her appear on top of a tower on the "Comic Field" Field Spell Card. When her bandages are blown off of her face, she insulted Shark's Dueling skills. After the Duel, she collapsed and was carried away by Shark.

After her recovery, Rio was able to return to Heartland Academy. On her first day back, she intended to go with her brother, but he ran ahead without her. When she found him, she called him a jerk and told the gathered students he could never do anything without her. She ate lunch on the roof with her brother, Yuma and his friends. She spoke with Yuma, realizing he's the one who beat her brother earlier but believed him to be Kite. When she found out who he really is, she recalled his catchphrase and then mispronounced it and became annoyed when Yuma referred to her as "Shark's sister". Their lunch was interrupted by a group of students representing various clubs, including Yata-Garasu. They wanted Rio to become their manager.

She agreed to visit each club, but would only join if they defeated her in the club's activity. By herself, Rio defeated the school's soccer team and various other clubs, chiding them for asking her to manage them when they can't play. She said that she had to be strong, as she didn't want anyone to use her weakness to get to her brother. She was then approached by members of the Floral Design Club, who invited her to join them. When Rio and her friends arrived, they were introduced to Lotus Hanazoe, the club's leader. The entire club had been hypnotized by Girag and Lotus put everyone to sleep. However, Yuma and Rio were both able to resist (and unbeknownst to either of them, Ray as well). Though Lotus intended to Duel Yuma, Rio stepped in and challenged her instead. Despite Lotus' use of a "CXyz", Rio countered her moves and defeated her with "Ice Beast Zerofyne". Yuma then nearly called her "Shark's sister" again, but accidentally called her "Shark's brother" instead. Though initially annoyed, she eventually laughed and told Yuma that she had heard that her brother had changed a lot when she was in the hospital. However, he went back to the way he was because of Yuma (in the dub, Yuma called Rio an "ice queen", initially upsetting her, but she forgave him because she had a sense of humor). As the group walked home, Rio saw a cat and hid behind her brother, frightened.

Rio participated in the "Friendship Games" held by Yuma and his friends, where she ended up on a team with Bronk. They would be defeated by her brother and Yuma during the Volleyball Duel, but they defeated Tori and Cathy in the Wrestling Duel. Afterwards, she complimented the two on their plays. Some time later, Rio went shopping at the mall with her brother. There, she sensed Mizar's arrival on Earth and commented about a horrifying dragon. Knowing it had to do with the Barians, they hurried to where Yuma was Dueling inside a Sphere Field generated by a Barian Sphere Cube. Rio watched the rest of the Duel, which Kite eventually took over for Yuma. She looked on in horror when her brother attempted to save Yuma from his fall and ended up falling down the cliff himself. She visited her brother in the hospital while he was recovering. One morning while talking to Tori at school, Rio sensed that Yuma was in danger, therefore she, Tori and Shark rushed to aide Yuma and Ray at the Heartland Pier where they entered a Battle Royal. After they managed to defeat several Duelists, Girag intervened, forcing all of the brainwashed students to attack Yuma, however Alito intercepted, using a combination of "Lightning Clinch" and "Brain Reboot" to defeat the remaining Duelists. Rio watched Yuma's Duel against Alito afterward.

Later at school, Shark was asked by Bronk to Duel him, who was trying to gain his blessings to date Rio but Shark declined since he was no match for him. He also added that Bronk was not even at Yuma's level, causing Bronk to jump to the conclusion that Rio was with Yuma. Flip and Caswell overheard this and spread a rumor around the school. Oblivious to the misunderstanding, an angry Rio challenged Shark to a Duel. During the Duel, Shark was able to counter every strategy Rio played and voiced little faith in Rio's confidence as a Duelist. While Shark was proud that Rio was able to gain courage, he proclaimed that she still has a long way to go if she wanted to beat him and defeated Rio with his "Shark Caesar". Afterwards, Shark learned the rumor from Rio and cleared up the misunderstanding, clarifying that he was not the one spreading the rumor. Bronk then asked to Duel her one day and began to ask something in regards to what would happen if he won, but trailed off. Rio said she'd look forward to it. Upon finding out that Caswell and Flip had spread the rumor, Rio chased them down out of anger.

During Heartland Academy's Fun Fair, Shark observed the play Rio was acting in and displayed irritation watching her with Yata-Garasu. When Bronk came to him, Shark was shocked by his cosplay as "Gogogo Golem" and grew annoyed that he was calling Shark "brother." Shark's irritation prompted Rio to throw her shoe at Shark and tell him to be quiet. After hearing about the Different Dimension Airship giving Yuma, Shark and Kite access to the Barian World, Rio forced Shark to let her join them, surprising Yuma. During the trip, an array of monsters begin assaulting the ship. Seeing this, Rio and the others went to the exterior, using their ace monsters to battle with them. After this, the ship was sucked into a portal, transporting the group to "Sargasso the D.D. Battlefield" where she and Bronk supported Shark during his Duel with Dumon. Rio and the others returned to Earth after Vector's defeat.

Legendary Number War
When Vector awakened Don Thousand, Rio was able to sense it. She, Yuma, Tori and Shark were brought into the Different Dimension Airship by Astral, who showed them a message from Kazuma Tsukumo to gather the seven Legendary "Numbers". On the way to the first location, they crashed into Dumon, who was also headed to the same location they were, teleporting them all to a jungle. Rio and Tori were then separated from the rest of the group, having run into snakes at a temple, which were later fended off by Yuma and Shark. She later watched Yuma's Duel against Mach.

Rio later accompanied her friends to Number 65's Ruins, where she was trapped in a cage and watched Astral's Duel against Number 96: Dark Mist. After the Duel, Rio and the others were able to escape the collapsing ruins with the help of Kite Tenjo. Rio also came to Spartan City in search for Number 54's Ruins. Before that, she and Tori came back from shopping, which annoyed Yuma and Shark. She was also present for Yuma's and Dextra's Tag Team Duel against Alito and Nistro. When the group arrived at the bottom of the mountain leading to Number 46's Ruins, Rio chose to stay behind along with Tori because she claimed that "girls don't climb mountains".

Later, Rio saw a vision of herself falling off a cliff and being chased by Vector. She was contacted by Abyss, who possessed her and forced her to jump off the airship and into the ocean. When Shark arrived to save her, Abyss began a Duel with him, during which he showed Shark visions of their past lives. Eventually, Abyss released Rio, causing her to fall a great distance as Abyss insisted that Shark would lose his sister in this life just like in his past one due to the weakness in his heart. Rio was caught by Yuma, which allowed Shark to contact "Number 94: Crystal Zero" and use it to defeat "Number 73: Abyss Splash". The group was transported out of the ruins and back to the airship after this, but Rio remained unconscious. Rio was returned to the hospital to recover. When Shark visited her one day, she had another premonition and told Shark that a great darkness was surrounding Yuma and that a great tragedy would soon happen.

Rio's room in the hospital was broken into by Kurage, who infected her with jellyfish poison in order to lure out Shark. However after Shark and Quattro were able to defeat Kurage in a Duel, both siblings were cured. After his defeat, Kurage revealed Shark's and Rio's deaths on the day of the car accident to the former.

While Shark was visiting Rio, Dumon appeared once again with the mission of making him remember more of his past. When this occurred, Rio became a spirit who watched over everything that happened in her brother's past life making her eventually regain her memories as well. Soon afterward, when Dumon transported Rio and Shark to the Barian World, Rio started to cry after hearing Dumon say that she had to sever the bond she made with Yuma, and she also learned that she was one of the missing Barian Emperors, Merag, while her brother was Nasch. They spoke later, with Shark insisting that Rio call him "Nasch". Both of them blamed their actions in their past lives for setting in motion the events of the present. Rio asked if he could really fight Yuma and his friends, and Nasch vowed to do so "for the sake of the Barian World", throwing away the pendant that contained the picture of his family in the process. Later, the other Barians called for an emergency meeting between themselves, with Vector arriving to discover to his horror that Nasch and Merag had returned. Dumon explained that they had ended up Earth and Nasch confirmed his intent to lead the Barians again, proving his loyalty by suggesting Vector could kill him should he sense any hint of betrayal. Vector suggested they attack now, with Yuma and Astral gone, but Nasch replied that he knew that they would be back. He granted the other Barian Emperors new powers, then agreed to Vector's plan.

Barian Emperor Onslaught
After Mr. Heartland was defeated, the Seven Barian Emperors arrived together on Earth in front of Yuma. Together, they commenced Barian Battlemorph. Yuma was rendered unable to Duel when the Emperor's Key reacted with Nasch's Barian Emblem. Roku and Kaze arrived and pelted the Emperors with smoke bombs, allowing Yuma's group to escape. The Emperors gave chase, with Merag being confronted by Bronk, who insisted she would always be Rio to him. Merag unveiled her "Number 10X" monster, "Number 103: Ragna Zero" and later commenced a Barian's Chaos Draw alongside the others.

She used "Rank-Up-Magic The Seventh One" to evolve her "Ragna Zero" into "Number C103: Ragna Infinity" to defeat Bronk. She acknowledged the feelings he had sent to her during the Duel, but claimed they were nothing but a nuisance now. Despite this, her eyes filled with tears after he was sent to the Barian World. After Nasch's victory over Quattro, the Emperors regrouped and Nasch ordered them to split up and pursue the remaining "Number" holders - Yuma, Astral, Kite, Trey and Quinton.

Merag traveled with Dumon and they were soon alerted to a Duel's start when they saw "Number 9: Dyson Sphere" in the sky. They quickly headed to that location to find Mizar Dueling Trey and Quinton. Mizar told them he was fine and that they should move on and pursue Yuma and Kite. Trey and Quinton used the power of their bracelets' crests to generate a Sphere Field, trapping the three Barians there. Mizar still told them not to interfere. After the brothers managed to seal "The Seventh One" by equipping Mizar's "Number 107: Galaxy-Eyes Tachyon Dragon" to "Number C6: Chronomaly Chaos Atlandis", Dumon commented that "The Seventh One" should be unstoppable, with Merag adding they had indeed found its one weakness. He was shocked when they managed to reduce Mizar's Life Points to only 1 with "Chaos Atlandis". Mizar finally manged to recover "Tachyon Dragon" and Summon "Neo Tachyon" to defeat them. The Sphere Field faded and Mizar told Dumon and Merag that he was heading to the moon to find Kite, after hearing of the legend the latter had gone to investigate.

When Dumon and Merag arrived in the Barian World, they were greeted by Vector. He informed them he intended to unite the power of the Seven Emperors. Dumon responded that the seven were already united, but Vector corrected him, saying he would absorb all of their powers for himself. Vector revealed that he had revived Don Thousand and that the Seven Emperors were simply his pawns to begin with. Dumon pointed out that that applied to Vector too, but Vector claimed that with Thousand's power, he was a god himself. Dumon suggested Merag flee to inform the others, but Vector clarified that Alito and Girag were working for him. The three Dueled in a Battle Royal style, though Merag and Dumon combined "Number 103: Ragna Zero" and "Number 102: Star Seraph Sentry" to destroy "Number 96: Dark Mist". However, Vector Summoned "Number 43: Soul Marionetter" and equipped "Dark Mist" to it before recovering his Life Points using the Continuous Spell "Don Thousand's Throne", which drew its power from Nasch, who is held captive within a Sphere Field, which in turn increased the monster's ATK and deals damage to Merag. Vector revealed his "point" system and the fact that he had killed Nasch and Merag previously. Merag, enraged by Vector's words, used "The Seventh One" to bring out "Number C103: Ragna Infinity".

Though she failed to defeat Vector using this card, her combo of "Ragna Infinity" and "Distortion Crystal" mitigated the effects of "Don Thousand's Throne". She and Dumon's combos nearly defeated Vector, but Dumon eventually chose to sacrifice himself to increase the power of "Ragna Infinity" with "Saint Shield". As he faded away, he reverted to his human form and thanked Merag and Nasch for being his friend in both of his lives. His soul was absorbed into Merag and she proceeded to assault Vector again. She believed she had won, but when the dust cleared, Vector was laughing. Afterwards, Vector used "Don Thousand's Thorne" in order to summon "Number C43: Chaos Marionetter". Vector then used the effect of "Chaos Marionetter" to reduce Merag's Life Points to 0. After her defeat, Merag reverted to her human form and she said farewell to Nasch, calling him "Reginald", telling him to live stronger and that she wished she could spend more time with him. Merag faded away and both her and Dumon's souls were absorbed by Vector.

Merag's soul appeared with Dumon's, Girag's and Alito's when Vector full absorbed their powers during his Duel against Nasch. During Nasch's Duel with Yuma, Merag's soul appeared to support Nasch alongside those of the other Emperors after Nasch overlaid their "Chaos Over-Hundred Numbers" to create "CXyz Barian, the King of Wishes".

Reginald Kastle
Shark and Rio are twins and share a strong bond ever since they were children, symbolized by matching rings that Rio obtained.

Following Rio's Duel with Quattro, in which she was critically injured and wound up in a hospital bed wrapped in bandages, Shark Dueled in the National Duel Circuit for her sake but pressure escalated to such an extent that he peeped at his opponent's Deck before the final match, an action that caused him to be disqualified and banned as a result. During the time Rio was in the hospital to recover from her injuries, Shark often visited her.

Despite their bond, Shark has a typical tenuous "brother-sister" relationship with Rio, irritating one another and having normal siblings squabbles. If these squabbles escalate, they settle them through a Duel and have done so a total of one hundred times.

When Shark rejoined the Seven Barian Emperors as Nasch, she joined him despite her friendship with Yuma beforehand.

Bronk Stone
Bronk is one of Yuma's friends, and as a result is also an acquaintance of Rio. However, Bronk has a crush on Rio, which he developed when he saw her return to Heartland Academy. This infatuation developed further when Rio helped him with an injury on the way to school. From that point on, he had been trying to develop a relationship with her, and actually asked Shark for his permission to ask her out. However, Shark refused and this actually led to a clash of the siblings. From this point on, Bronk has made no significant moves toward and they remained friends. However he later started calling Shark "big brother", pretending he was his brother-in-law.

When Rio came to accept her Barian self as Merag, she had no problems Dueling and trying to defeat Bronk when he confronted her. He tried to snap her back to her former self, but she has accepted her fate as a Barian, "in both body and spirit". After Merag defeated Bronk, she was shown to shed tears, implying she also cared for Bronk as a friend, and felt uncomfortable betraying Yuma and his friends.

Tori Meadows
Rio and Tori talk on friendly terms and are shown to be kind to each other. Once Rio was out of the hospital, on her first day of school she ate lunch with Tori and her friends. Tori looks up to Rio, even asking her to teach her Dueling one day. She also tagged along with Tori when they attempted to travel to the Barian World and both cheered on their friends in their Duels.

Yuma Tsukumo
Rio is seen to be bothered by Yuma occasionally, such as when he calls her "Shark's sister" (in the dub, he calls her by her first name). Still she seems to be relatively kind and friendly to him and is grateful for his actions with Shark, returning him to his original disposition (in the dub, Rio likes Yuma for his sense of humor). Rio seems to care for Yuma in a way, as she was distraught, just like her brother, upon knowing that Yuma would become their enemy and having to betray him and his friends after learning about their Barian past and regaining their Barian forms. Through her experiences with Yuma, just like her brother, she also formed a strong bond with him.

Dumon
Despite being on opposing sides originally, Dumon and Rio have not had any particularly negative qualms towards each other. Dumon felt that if Rio really was Merag, along with her brother being Nasch, he couldn't hold a grudge against them because their memories were being suppressed. During her near comatose state after encountering Abyss, Rio did not see any reason to oppose or contradict Dumon when he tried to convince the two that they were Barians, as any evidence would show that he was helping them.

After accepting that she was a Barian, the two seemed to develop a closer relationship as allies, as they would mourn for each other when needed. Dumon would later aid her in a Duel against Vector, where they would cooperate without question, and show signs of camaraderie. Despite ranking slightly higher than her in terms of leadership roles, Dumon helped Merag in the most viable of ways, despite his help being one-sided. When he threw everything he had at Vector and failed to defeat him, he made a valiant effort to ensure that Merag would be victorious since he wouldn't, showing how much he trusts her.

Past Deck
Though no cards in her past Deck were shown in-Duel, a flashback showed a few of them outside of one. Shark helped Rio construct this Deck when they were both children.

Barian Invasion
Rio plays an Ice Deck featuring WATER Winged Beast-Type monsters. Rio is also shown to be able to shift strategies easily, utilizing burn cards such as "Blizzard Falcon" and "Diamond Dust".

Legendary Number War
While under the control of Abyss, Rio uses a "Gorgonic" Deck focused on ATK reduction.

Barian Emperor Onslaught
As Merag, she gains access to both her "Number 10X" monster, "Number 103: Ragna Zero" and its evolved form, as well as "Rank-Up-Magic The Seventh One" to Rank-Up "Ragna Zero" from the Graveyard and the Extra Deck in addition to form the field by means of the Barian's Chaos Draw.

V Jump Magazine
A Decklist based around Rio's Deck was published in the December, 2013 issue of V Jump magazine.