Foilshipping

Foilshipping is the slash ship between Yuma Tsukumo and Vector/Rei Shingetsu from the Yu-Gi-Oh! fandom.

As Rei Shingetsu
Vector first makes his appearance in episode 70, as a Barian who possessed Dr. Faker in a Duel with Yuma and his friends. Though, his identity had not been revealed yet. The Barians are a group of beings from another world who want to destroy Astral World, the place with Yuma's partner Astral comes from.

He properly makes his debut in episode 76, where he has taken on a human form with the alias of "Rei Shingetsu" (Ray Shadows in the English dub version). On his way to school, he crashes into Yuma and becomes excited that he met the champion of the World Duel Carnival. Because both of them were late for school, Rei apologizes by taking him through various shortcuts to get to school as soon as possible, though these shortcuts were quite dangerous, to Yuma's annoyance and they still end up arriving to school late. Rei introduced himself to the class as a new transfer student.

That same day, a famous pro-Duelist known as Daisuke Katagiri (Devon Knox) came to school so that the students could try to Duel against him in a special lesson. Yuma is banned from attending the lesson (in the English dub version, he had forgotten to sign up for the class), so Rei tries to convince Daisuke to Duel him anyway. Though, Daisuke had been possessed by the Barians and defeated Rei easily, so Yuma Duels and defeats himm to free him from the Barian's control as Rei cheers for him.

Rei becomes very attached to Yuma and they soon become friends. Rei tries to walk to school with him, but is often left behind as Yuma would race his other friend to school. Though, he causes some trouble for Yuma, particularly with his other friends. He nominated Yuma as class president, which caused issues between Yuma and his other friend, who also wanted to be class president. Another time, Rei suggests that their friend group called the "Numbers Club" should have a mascot girl, and he nominates his female friend Kotori Mizuki (Tori Meadows) since Rei thinks she's his girlfriend, which instigates a fight among the group.

Despite the issues Rei causes him, Yuma still sees Rei as a treasured friend. In episode 87, a Barian known as Girag challenges Rei to a Duel. Because Rei is not good at Dueling, Yuma joins in to protect him, risking his life in the process. Rei is unable to fight back against Girag, so Yuma gets hurt by protecting them both. Seeing Yuma risking everything to help him, Rei gives him a powerful card he had been keeping secret -- a Barian card. Yuma is shocked by this as the Barians had been their enemy, but plays the card anyway as he trusts in Rei. They are able to defeat Girag thanks to this card.

Yuma confronts Rei about the Barian card he had, and Rei tells him that he is a Barian, but he is a member of the "Barian's Guardian" (Barian Cosmic Crime Unit), a group of law enforcement tasked with defeating evil Barians such as Girag. Yuma wants to tell Astral that there are good Barians on their side, but Rei tells Yuma he must keep this a secret from everyone else, and asks Yuma to be his subordinate to help his cause. With his new identity shared with Yuma, he talks more seriously whenever they're alone, planning on how they will stop the Barians.

As Vector
After befriending Yuma and gaining his trust, Vector continues on with the next parts of his plan. He lures Yuma away and appears in his Barian form, projecting an illusion of his Rei identity and taking him away to Barian World. Before "Rei" is taken away, he hands Yuma his Barian cards to help him defeat them. Horrified at the loss of his friend, Yuma tries to find a way to get to Barian World to save him.

He is soon able to find his way to Barian World alongside his friends, and Duels Vector to save Rei. Vector shows an illusion of an unconscious Rei, claiming that Rei would never wake up, so that he could taunt Yuma. Later in the Duel, Vector decides to reveal the truth, that Rei was just an alternate identity of Vector, and that he only pretended to be his friend in order to defeat Yuma here and take his Number cards. Yuma is saddened by this, and his friends, particularly Astral, begin to lose trust in Yuma as he kept Rei being a Barian a secret from them all.

Vector is a sadistic and cruel Barian who shows no regard for anyone's wellbeing other than his own. When Astral Duels Number 96, another recurring villain, Vector traps Yuma and triggers traps on Yuma whenever Astral deals damage to Number 96, endagering Yuma's life. He has no issues with betraying even his fellow Barians, and does so on several occassions, leading to their deaths.

Even though he had done many horrible things to Yuma as well as the other Barians, Yuma still tries to save him when he is aboout to die. Yuma claims that he believed in their former friendship and would still like for them to be friends. Vector uses this as an opportunity to take Yuma down with him, but Yuma says that he would be fine with that, as he did not want to abandon Vector. Shocked by this honesty, Vector releases Yuma and decides to save him, with Vector alone dying.

When Vector is revived, he seemingly no longer attends school with Yuma, but still joins their group when Astral World is in trouble. While he is no longer pretending to be the energetic Rei Shingetsu persona, he seems to be an ally to Yuma and his friends againm while maintaining his sardonic attitude.

Fanon
Foilshipping quickly became a popular pairing in the fandom, even before Vector's personality reveal, due to Rei's attachment to Yuma. It continued stronger after Vector was revealed to be Rei. Initially, Rei Shingetsu and Vector had different pairing names with Yuma. Rei/Yuma was "Positiveshipping" while Vector/Yuma was "Negativeshipping." Now, both pairings are subsumed under the pairing name "Foilshipping."

Foilshipping still continues to be a popular pairing in the Zexal fandom, with it having the third most fanfictions on AO3, under Sharkbaitshipping and Keyshipping.

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