Yuzuha Usagi

• Manga
• See also Yuzuha Usagi (OVA)
• See also Yuzuha Usagi (Netflix)

Yuzuha Usagi
Kanji	宇佐木 柚葉
Romaji	Usagi Yuzuha
Biological Information
Gender	Female
Hair color	Red
Age	18 (Chapter 5) 20 (Final Chapter) 26 (Retry)
Relatives	Shigenori Usagi† (Father) Ryohei Arisu (Husband) Daughter
Status	Alive
Professional Information
Occupation	Professional Climber Sports Trainer
Borderland citizenship	Player
Specialty	Spades
Former affiliation(s)	Beach
Former rank(s)	41st 50th 72nd
Debut
Chapter	Chapter 5

"I have heard... your voices..."
—Usagi in the manga Chapter 22

Yuzuha Usagi (宇佐木 柚葉, Usagi Yuzuha^?), later Yuzuha Arisu (有栖 柚葉, Arisu Yuzuha^?) in Alice in Borderland Retry, is the heroine of Alice in Borderland. She is a former member of the Beach and a skilled mountaineer, who specializes in Spades.

Appearance

Usagi is a young woman with short hair. But her hair got slightly shorter over time. Her bangs aren't symmetrical, the shorther ones reach her brows, while the middle part of it reaches between her eyes. She's well-toned, super athletic, and can climb easily. When we first see her, she wore a school uniform, and her underwear was sports-wear. At the beach she wore a tight bathing suit, with the accompany of a zipped jacket.

Personality

Usagi's a quick-thinker. She trusts her abilities, and doesn't try to help any stranger, if she knows she can't. She deeply cares for her close ones, and is very protective. She prefers working alone, she explains that when you get attached to someone, it's harder to survive. But that changed when she met Arisu. She also didn't want Arisu to say that it was just him that saved everyone during Five of Spades. Other than that, Usagi is very nice and polite. When she gets close to someone, she trusts them.

History

Usagi was troubled by social relationships since her childhood for not siding with the majority. When she attempted to please the 2 opposing groups of girls, she ended up being isolated by both sides. Usagi was physically capable when she was very young thanks to her mountaineer father and the 2 would climb together when he returned to Japan from overseas expedition. Usagi felt she could be liberated from the social affairs when she was enjoying her favorite sport and the view of nature from the mountaintop.

Her father decided he would challenge Mount Everest via an unexplored new route and without supplementary oxygen. His achievement unfortunately was widely regarded as a fraud and experts openly falsified the pictures he took during his expedition. Usagi's house was covered in hate graffiti. All these results of disapproval drove him to suicide. His last word was "I have never lied to the mountains". Grieving over her father's death and the invisible "social shadow" which claimed the only person comprehended her, Usagi saw the fireworks of the Borderland. Her immigration was special in that her body did not temporarily turn into a marionette.

Story

Arriving at Borderlands

On her First Day of Sojourn, Usagi completed the Four of Spades. While still kind-hearted, Usagi prefers to keep her distance from other people and lives alone. Because she used to camp in the wild when traveling for mountaineering, she has no trouble in catching and serving small animals which are living abundantly in the Borderland Tokyo.

Usagi showing her climbing skills

Five of Spades

Ryohei Arisu and Daikichi Karube first meet her during the Five of Spades. She ventures the arena alone, but when she has heard Karube's appeal to loudly report Horse Head's position for other players, Usagi cooperates, which surprises Shuntaro Chishiya who believes humans are selfish. Usagi demonstrated her climbing ability which allows her to travel vertically between the apartment corridors without accessing the more dangerous elevator or stairways. Near the end of the game, she catches up to Arisu to trigger the game clear switches which require 2 players to synchronize. In the manga, Usagi enters the lair before Horse Head, After the game ends, she introduces herself to Arisu but turns down his invitation to come along, warning him that some games would require betrayal between players.

Usagi helping Arisu

Looking for the Beach

Eventually, she manages to clear both the Three of Diamonds and Six of Clubs. In Chapter 13 we can see her killing a rabbit, after it fell into her trap. After Arisu sorrowfully survives the Seven of Hearts sacrificing Karube, Chota Segawa and Saori Shibuki, Usagi houses Arisu in her lonely camp. She gave him food and clean clothes. The next day, when he wanted to sleep outside, he got bitten by a mosquito. Completely careless of the sexual implication between man and woman, she allows Arisu to share a bed in her tent. Arisu is sleepless for self-control in such an embarrassing situation. Following Chishiya's vague clue which is passed down via Karube, the two are looking for the "Beach" in hope of learning the truth of the Borderland. As they close in on the location, Usagi teaches Arisu about surviving in the wild. She teaches him how to wield a knife and they picked daikon radishes together. She showed him boar tracks and how to hunt. The 2 begin to grow closer during this time.

One night, instead of just asking people about the Beach, her companion got an idea. he wanted to follow people with key-bracelets after the game end. After that they heard a strange sound around the corner, and found out that the Beach residents can use working cars. Eventually, in a couple of days they found the Beach.

The Beach

When they are greeted by the leader of the Beach, Boshiya, they begin to regret it but still decide to stay. She was pretty popular around the men here, probably beacuse of her beauty. The Hatter explained all of the rules to them and the "answer" to leaving this world. When Arisu is apprehended for attempting to steal the Beach's cards, Usagi runs to his rescue, only to be caught as well and nearly raped by Suguru Niragi but halted by the announcement of Witch-Hunt.

Ten of Hearts

Asahi Kujo and Usagi are falsely accused of being the "Witches" and Boshiya's murderers. The new leader Morizono Aguni instead orders his underlings to kill all Beach residents. The panicking crowd gives chance for Usagi and Asahi to escape, Usagi then knocks down a member of Aguni's sect for Arisu's whereabouts, believing he can solve the trick behind the Hearts game. When she has saved Arisu, Usagi affectionately embraces him.

Interval

During the Interval, Arisu confesses his determination to return to the original world with Usagi, but she hesitates, fearing she is unable to forgive the previous world and step forward like Arisu, her rejection deeply hurts him. Despite this, Usagi still accompanies Arisu to the King of Clubs arena with Hikari Kuina, Kodai Tatta, and Niragi.

King of Clubs

After the initial distribution of points, Kuina decides to pair with Niragi, leaving Usagi and Arisu together. To avoid awkwardness, Arisu requests to be paired with Kuina, leaving Usagi with Niragi. In an attempt to turn the table against the citizens' team, Usagi volunteers to bait one womanizing member of the opposing team but failure would mean instant death. She realizes her physical capability has significantly advanced because her life has been pushed to the edge of death. On the other hand, she wants to catch up with Arisu and be his support, this allows her to out-jump her chasing citizen across the big gap. Her arm is injured during the crash landing which she uses a triangular bandage to hold it in place. However, Tatta's death is too much for Arisu to handle, Usagi stays with Arisu who has declared abstention to the remaining games. Kuina parts ways in a sorrowful goodbye, and the 2 are now alone.

Fourth & Fifth Day of Exhibitions

In one day, Arisu spots the rainbow and is motivated to reach the end of the arc with Usagi, they instead arrive at the previous arena of the Seven of Spades and enjoy the hot spring there. Initially bathing separately, Usagi allows Arisu to get closer. They begin having sexual intercourse in the hot spring and continue in their camp.

Seventh Day of Sojourn

While Arisu is wandering outside and has not returned for some time, Usagi is worried and looks for him. Only finds that he is avoiding a gunfight with Niragi and Chishiya. The psychotic Niragi, who has failed to rape her 3 times, blames Usagi for influencing Arisu so the latter cannot be the same as him. Niragi shoots Usagi, but the already wounded Chishiya pushes her aside and take the shot instead. Usagi is so impressed because she and Arisu have been betrayed by him during the card burglary in the Beach. She quickly uses her triangular bandage to bind wounds of Chishiya, but his true injuries are the crushed organs which cannot be handled in the Borderland. After witnessing the crash of the King of Spades's blimp, declaration of Isao Shirabi's defeat, Usagi encourages Arisu to participate the last game in the vague hope of letting Chishiya and Niragi return to the original world for proper treatment.

Queen of Hearts

They head towards the Queen of Hearts' arena and meet their former allies before the entrance. Usagi and Arisu both win in a rock-paper-scissors to be the pioneers of the last game. They face the last citizen, Mira Kano. The game quickly goes south as Arisu is under the influence of the spiked tea from Mira. Usagi, who does not take a single sip due to her alertness, slits her own wrist with a knife to wake Arisu from his despair. Arisu clears the game in time and the two refuse permanent residence to return to the real world.

After Borderland

Usagi reunites with Arisu in the hospital without the memory of their time in the Borderland. She stops Arisu to return his changes from the vendor machine, then he asks if they have met before, she in turn asks if this is some sort of "new flirting technique." Initially feeling embarrassed, Arisu decides to go with the flow and ask her out for a date. The two develop a relationship in the following 2 years.

Eight years after their return from the Borderland (surviving the meteor disaster), the couple has already married and Usagi has changed her name to "Yuzuha Arisu." When Arisu is returning from a seminar in Shizuoka, Yuzuha is also entering labor and calls Arisu about her status. Without knowing Arisu being caught in a near-death accident, she is giving birth in the hospital. She and their newborn are the driving forces of Arisu to depart the Borderland for a second time.

Etymology

• The name Yuzuha means "grapefruit, pomelo, citrus fruit" (柚) (yuzu) and "leaf, plane, lobe, needle, blade, spear, counter for flat things, fragment, piece" (葉) (ha).
  • Her alias which means "rabbit" in Japanese refers the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland.
• Yuzuha's surname Usagi means "eaves, roof, house, heaven" (宇) (u), "help, aid" (佐) (sa) and "tree, wood" (木) (ki/gi).
  • Her married name Arisu means "exist" (有) (ari) and "nest, rookery, hive, cobweb, den" (栖) (su).

Trivia

• Usagi is one of three female characters with a Spades specialty, the other two being Akane Heiya and Hikari Kuina.
• Usagi is also tied with Arisu for having the highest numbers of mentioned games cleared.

See also

[v · e · ?] Games played by Usagi
Games played
Four of Spades	Five of Spades	Three of Diamonds	Six of Clubs	Ten of Hearts
King of Clubs	King of Spades	Queen of Hearts