Disclaimer: I own nothing involved in this story unless I invented it myself. This is written for fun, not for profit. All forms of feedback eagerly accepted. Concrit is loved the most, but everything is welcome.
Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh GX
Title: Above and Beyond
Characters: Ryou, Shou
Word Count: 500||Status: One-shot
Genre: Family||Rated: G
Written For: Yu-Gi-Oh GX Flash Bingo, #023, awe; Diversity Writing Challenge, A65, fic centered on one character's view of another; One Sibling Boot Camp, #36, watch
Summary: Ryou watches his brother's defeat of the Psycho Style Duelist and comes to a conclusion.


That deck could do that? It had that combo hidden in it? Technically the deck he used hadn't. He'd never used the 'Roid monsters like Shou did. But he'd gone over every possible combination of effects that were available to the Cyber style, and he'd thought he'd worked them all out. He'd thought he'd exhausted everything.

What he hadn't thought about was what Shou clearly had: merging their two types together. Going above and beyond what he'd lived with for so much of his life, and finding something even better waiting beyond it.

Shou had done something that he couldn't have. That he wouldn't have.

Ryou, Hell Kaiser, the terror of the underground circuit, the one who had killed countless people during their months in Dark World, slowly began to smile.

"He's surpassed me," he murmured. Shou truly had. It would probably take a while for it all to sink in, but it had happened. Shou had done what neither of them had ever genuinely believed that they could.

If someone had asked him a year earlier, six months earlier, what Shou's destiny in dueling was, Ryou would've honestly admitted that his little brother made a much better respect duelist than he ever had. The concepts imbedded themselves into Shou's very soul, blood, and bones, to the point he'd refused to duel at all in Dark World, because it wouldn't be respectful to his opponents.

Ryou had never even thought about it. He'd never even cared about it. He'd done what he felt needed doing and respect wasn't a part of his life anymore, not like it had been. Not like it lived in Shou.

I think… he'll be better at running the dojo than I would be. He would have to discuss this with Principal Samejima – or Master Samejima in this context – but once his teacher knew what had happened here tonight he would agree.

But what would he do? There weren't that many who dedicated themselves to a mixture of things the way that he did. He couldn't have a school of his own. That wasn't really that much of an issue with him, but he had yet to figure out his ultimate goal now that he knew…

Now that he knew he could do more. Now that he could see there were potentials that he'd never even dreamed of, and it was Shou who had shown it all to him.

Shou and the Cyber Style deck, both sides of it, had shown it all to him. The Cyberdark deck was much more vocal than the Cyber deck itself, and it had made its choice clear: it wanted to be with Shou. Which meant he needed a new deck. A new deck that could do what Shou had shown him he could do, and what he wanted to do.

It was time for him to move on, but not in the way he'd thought before all of this.

And it was Shou who had shown him the way.

The End

Note: Thank you for reading and I hope that you enjoyed the story. Please let me know what you thought of it if at all possible.