A/N: Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge at the GX Writing Academy (link in profile), A52 – write a drabble between 201 and 300 words.


A Different Power Bond

At first, Ryou thinks it's strange that Power Bond is in his new deck. He's sure he didn't put it there. But he might have. He can't think why though. It doesn't really go with his new deck. But it can, he supposes.

Later, it connects. There's something different about the one Shou uses. Ryou watches him. His practice duels with Manjyoume and Edo. His official duels in the resurrected Kaiba Dome. It's not the same Power Bond he gave Shou all those years ago. He's positive.

And when he looks at the Power Bond in his own deck more closely, he realises that the one he'd given Shou had come back to him. Shou might be using the one that had lived with the Cyber Deck. Or maybe he'd drawn a new one from a card pack. Or Juudai had found it somewhere or other and sent it. Juudai sent them lots of cards like that. At least a third of the cards in Ryou's new deck were from Juudai. And he doesn't even know how Juudai guesses just what everyone needs.

Power Bond doesn't quite work with his new deck, but Ryou smiles and shuffles it back in and draws it again another day. Power Bond is a special place for the both of them, and it'll find its place in his new deck as well.

It'll mark another point in his evolution.