Astral

Astral is a mysterious entity in Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL, and one of the main protagonists, along with Yuma Tsukumo. Some people refer to him as the Dueling Ghost or The Original. It is said that Astral is from a parallel universe. He is a clear-minded fellow with a cool personality and a Dueling genius. He often clashes and fights with his partner, and later became a friend of Yuma.

It is said that his memories are scattered in the form of the 100 "Numbers", and so far 10 numbers have been collected. Furthermore, these "Numbers" are Special Xyz Monsters that cannot be destroyed with cards in this world. When 2 or more "Numbers" confront in a Duel, they will fight each other to consume one another. When their owners are defeated in a Duel, the cards are absorbed into Astral.

Personality
His personality is rather ambiguous, he is very intelligent and level-headed when it comes to Duels and even in disastrous situations (often caused by Yuma's mistakes) he does not seem to lose his cool and can think of a strategy. Outside this he is, arguably because of his memory loss and sudden arrival to another world, curious to the point of naivety, for matters as simple as eating, going to the bathroom, or believing that TV shows are real. His naivety would go to such extent so as to ask Yuma why "he needs to be alone" when Yuma's in the bathroom, to which he replies by saying that he would "die" otherwise, a thing that Astral took literally. However, this is more likely because Astral doesn't know anything about Yuma's world. When he "discovers" things, he has an habit of saying "observation number one, two, three" and then speak the result of his analysis, the fact that he can successfully continue the counting throughout the series, implies he has great memory.

He has also ambiguous thoughts regarding Yuma Tsukumo; for the most part he thinks of him and his Dueling skills as unrefined and unskilled (a fact that annoys Yuma). However, when Yuma uses an unthinkable but effective strategy, such as in his Duel with Ryoga Kamishiro, his thoughts change to think of Yuma as an interesting Duelist. Astral even learns to use Yuma's lack of skill and obedience, as seen in Yuma's Duel with Mr. K when he tells Yuma what to do the opposite of what he should do so that Yuma disobeys him and makes the correct moves.

Astral has a fear of cats, which he defended by claiming that he hadn't done any observations about them. This is evident when Yuma duels Cathy, even mistakenly believing her to have one of the Numbers in her Deck. After episode 14, he developed a strong fear towards Kaito Tenjo, so he always tries to tell Yuma to run from Kaito instead of fighting him, to the point of telling Yuma to forget his friends. He first denied this, but admitted it in episode 17.

Later during the Duel with Jin, Astral overcame his fear and decided to actually fight. After he and Yuma thought about their previous duels, stating they came too far to lose now, Yuma called Astral his friend, restoring his fighting spirit.

Astral doesn't smile much, but he smiled for Yuma recognizing him as his comrade and smiled often at Yuma throughout episode 19 and even cheered him on with his friends and family when he was trying to do his 20-stack challenge.

Anime
A new legend began when Astral appeared before Yuma Tsukumo and Ryoga Kamishiro. He comes from a different dimension and somehow he ended up in Yuma's dimension. He lost his memories but all he remembers is that he was looking for a talented Duelist. In episode 2 it is revealed that only Yuma can see Astral, which makes everyone believe he is a ghost. At the end of Episode 8, it is mentioned of Astral's birth, and that he may have had a mother. And also he was given the mission to protect the world, possibly meaning he was created solely for this task. In episode 10, Astral surmises from within The Emperor's Key that it might have been made intentional by someone to scatter his memories.

As Astral absorbs the power of the "Numbers", bits and pieces of his memories start to return, most of them incomplete. Upon absorbing "Number 83: Galaxy Queen", he sees a vision of his birth. Recently, when he absorbed "Number 61: Volcasaurus" and "Number 19: Freezerdon", he had a small glimpse of the fate of his world, which was apparently destroyed by some sort of disaster. Possibly, he is the sole survivor of his planet, and whatever destroyed it may have caused him to lose his memories.

Dr. Faker stated that a messenger from the Astral world would appear together with the Numbers, obviously referring to Astral.

During the Duel with Kaito Tenjo, he found very suspicious that someone besides him and Yuma are looking for the Numbers. He also was surprised that Kaito's Dueling skills were even superior than his, when he was sure Yuma lost and he would die, Kaito cancelled the Duel. He was left shocked at what happened next to Yuma whose pride was severly hurt and even questioned about his Kattobing spirit.

Later during climaxes in the Duel with Jin, Astral overcame his fear and decided to actually fight. After he and Yuma thought about their previous duels, stating they came too far to lose now, Yuma called Astral his friend, and The Emperor's Key started to shine. It resulted in granting him and Yuma a new power, the "Chaos Number", "Number C39: Utopia Ray" as well as making Astral appear and Yuma's friends able to see him for a moment. Using it, they defeat Jin and take the 2 Numbers cards he was using.

Yuma's friends who were freed in the process, all went to thank Astral instead of Yuma, running right past him, still unable to see him, and thus were shouting at nothing, and Astral didn't pay much attention to it, keeping his cool.

During the next episode, Astral assists Yuma in trying to locate The Emperor's Key after discovering it missing. He learns much about the origin of the Key and Yuma's father, who had a vision of the Astral World being attacked and the sound of people screaming. A strange figure, much like Astral, gave him the key. Astral is much kinder to Yuma, smiling warmly at him and encouraging him to tackle the high jump he attempted at the start of the series.

After safely recovering "Number 96: Black Mist" from a stranger, Bronk and Yuma start to fight. When Bronk knocks off The Emperor's Key from Yuma, a Black Ooze comes out of Yuma's Deck Case which grabs Yuma and starts taking control of Astral. Before Astral gets completely taken over, he tells Yuma to give "Utopia" to Bronk. Afterwards he gets completely possessed and changes from white to pitch-black. Number 96 (In Astral's body) tries to take "Utopia" from Bronk, but The Emperor's Key protected him. Bronk then challenged Number 96 to a duel for the Number. Number 96 accepts and takes control of Yuma's movements to duel. In his first turn, he Xyz Summons Number 96: Black Mist and starts inflicting huge damage to Bronk. Bronk however Summons "Utopia" and tries to make a counterattack, but fails in doing so and "Utopia" is destroyed. Yuma then pretends to be under Number 96's control and tells him to destroy Clockwork Explosive while explaining its effect. Number 96 listens to Yuma and destroys Clockwork Explosive. This however was a trick as it allowed Bronk to summon "Clockwork Shikigami" as well as resurrect "Utopia" to win. Bronk then throws the Emperor's Key back to Yuma and Astral is freed from its control. Astral then absorbs Number 96 again, while Bronk returns "Utopia" to Yuma and they both apologize to each other.

When Kaito manages to steal the Emperor's Key, Astral was trapped inside it. The key activated some security system and the set "Numbers" became cards again, and some voice told Astral to obtain the ZEXAL power. Kaito tries figure out the Eperor's Key and manages to make a portal inside the Emperor's Key using a mysterious rock inside Orbital 7. When Kaito manages to go inside the Emperor's Key, he finds Astral. Kaito and Astral had a small talk and the two Engaged in a duel. Astral is able to make a duel disk of its own as shown in this duel. In this duel, Astral uses Yuma's deck to duel Kaito. Astral tries to go defense as he uses Gogogo monsters but has easily countered by Kaito's Reverse Buster. As Reverse Buster increased its attack making it 2000, Astral is scared as it may be the start of summoning Kaito's Galaxy-Eyes. Astral summoned Gogogo Giant and using its effect, summon Gogogo Golem back. He tries to Xyz Summon but he is aware of Kaito's Facedown card and chooses to use Double Defender. Kaito then used its facedown Photon Hurricane to return its Spell Cards to its hand. Kaito then tributed Reverse Buster to summon Photon Leo and returned Astral's hand back to the deck and draws the same number of cards. Then he equips "Leo" with Photon Spear and inflicted Piercing damage to Astral when Kaito attacked and destroyed "Giant". During the duel, Astral is shrouded with fear towards Kaito.

Astral manages to fight back with "Number C39: Utopia Ray" and reduce Kaito's life to 1300, but Kaito takes the upper hand again and reduces Astral's life to 400. Yuma manages to recover the Emperor's Key, which takes him to "The Door" again, the Door opens again and tells Yuma to use the ZEXAL power, but repeats Yuma's previous warning. Yuma convinces Astral to not give up, and crosses the door, landing in the dimension inside the Key. Astral and Yuma receive the ZEXAL power, fusing themselves in the process. Using this new power, Astral and Yuma created a card that allowed "Utopia Ray" to defeat "Galaxy-Eyes". Kaito, in a pinch for the first time, managed to end the duel in a draw and escaped again.

Manga
Tori Meadows considered that he is a ghost. Right when Yuma is about to give up hope against Shark, Astral appears and says to Yuma "Stand up and win!".

Abilities
Astral is a Duelist of another universe, and has only been seen alongside Yuma. Others besides Yuma cannot see or hear him, which often leads to others think Yuma is talking alone. Yuma cannot touch him physically, yet, he is shown to be able to hold Duel Monster cards, but it is unknown if its only the Numbers or any cards. However, even with his loss of memory it has been shown that Astral is indeed a very skilled Duelist, a fact he himself recognizes despite his amnesia, and further demonstrated in how he has advised Yuma on his play, only for him to play the opposite of what Astral dictates and end with rather disastrous results.

He shares his information on the "Numbers" with Yuma. He is capable of somehow manipulating the "Numbers" cards, this is seen in two ways, one is that without Astral present Yuma is unable to play any "Numbers" for they do not appear on his Extra Deck, and the second is that he can instantly pull a "Numbers" card out of a defeated opponent without direct contact, although it is unknown if this is also linked to a rather psychokinetic ability. He can take all "Numbers" a defeated opponent has in their Deck, ones they have, but are not in their Deck, are not taken, as shown when defeating Jin, as Jin used 2 "Numbers" which were taken and Jin's third was still left with him, kept in a box outside of his deck. He also has some sort of control over how Numbers behave in battle or can gain access to new Number cards at certain times. For example; after Yuma refuses to sacrifice him during the battle against Jin, Astral received a jolt of power from The Emperor's Key and was able to provide Yuma with a new Numbers card. This also made him visible to the others only during Yuma's duel against Jin, but only visible enough for Yuma's friends to believe Astral is real.

He's also capable of flight as he is always seen floating, and seems to not rely on things such as food to live, however he needs his current partner to have "Numbers" and will start dying if those "Numbers" are taken away as seen in episode 6 or when Yuma is losing life points in a duel with an opponent that has a Number.

In episode 23, it has also been shown that Astral is able to make a Duel Disk appear around his arm, coming from the blue aura around him. It was shown multiple times that Astral is able to talk with Yuma telepathically.

In episode 24, after the demonic door opened for Yuma, he and Astral gained the Xyz Change ZeXal which causes Yuma and Astral to merge their souls (similar to Yugi and Yami Yugi) or (Yubel and Jaden Yuki) but leaving Yuma with most of the body's control. With this, Yuma/Astral wears a white spandex suit with red armor plating, his right eye becomes golden like Astral's left one, his hair turns gold and he gains a golden aura. Also, in this state, they earned the card "ZW - Unicorn Spear" through an ability called Shining Draw.

Deck
Astral uses Yuma's Deck, but Yuma uses his Deck with an offensive strategy, while Astral uses a more defensive strategy using "Gogogo" monsters.

Trivia

 * Astral's relation with Yuma mirrors Yugi Muto and Yami Yugi's relation in many ways. Like the first series protagonist, Astral is a spiritual being Summoned forth from an ancient artifact that only his partner can see and a quest to regain his lost memories. In contrast, the two do not get along very well, and Astral cannot use Yuma's body, instead, he just floats near Yuma. Though their relationship improves throughout the series, and Astral learns to combine himself with Yuma.
 * Astral's name possibly comes from the term astral projection, the ability to send one's soul to a location somewhere away from the body, similar to Astral's spirit-like form.
 * Astral bears a resemblance to the spiritual entity on the card "Astral Barrier".
 * Astral's observations stopped after their Duel with Kaito which left him quiet and depressed. However, after their Duel with Jin, which restored his and Yuma's confidence, his observations returned.
 * Astral's eyes have a similar color scheme to Dartz's eyes while possessed by the Orichalcos Stone. The left eye has a yellow/gold hue, and the right bears a blueish eye.
 * Astral may be a parody of Sai from the "Hikaru no Go" manga series. They are both referred to as "ghost"s or "spirit"s and help a first weak but potentially powerful protagonist in their respective games (Go or Yu-gi-oh!).