A/N: Written for

GX bingo, the non-flash version, #142 - Elemental Hero Neos
Diversity Writing Challenge, b69 - write a post-canon fic

Impromptu Parents

Somewhere along the line, they became impromptu parents.

It wasn't that Juudai needed new parents, specifically. He was an adult in his own right after all, though he still had two more years to go before he was legal in Japan. But they were his advisors, his helpers, his protectors – and, sometimes, they'd be scolding him as well.

Yubel was more comfortable in that role. She'd known him as a child, and perhaps she still saw him as a child on occasion but to Neos, Juudai was far too old for simple scoldings. King in another dimension, in another life. Master of the gentle darkness, saviour of this world thrice over. Instead, he'd be the one to listen to the less meaningful prattle that seemed a necessity for humans and smile patiently and add his own commentary while Yubel stood back and watched carefully – always carefully – for stirring shadows that would flip a switch and force them to move to the front row and protect Juudai. Sometimes too fast for Juudai to be able to call on them himself.

Though it wasn't as though Juudai was incapable of fighting on his own. Against other humans, in any case. And he could handle a sword if he got his hands on one again. Memories of a past Neos had not been a part of, but Yubel had and Yubel remembered.

The mother who stayed home to watch the child, and the father who worked to secure the future. Or something like. Though it was only in this world that he'd gained the name of Neos. Before, he was just the manifestation of darkness, called by the herald when in need but otherwise left to struggle eternally against the light.

Now, he knew it wasn't necessary to stand on the edge of that battle and push against the wall of light. Darkness and light needed no sentient beings to push them. Not in that place where nothing else existed. The battles between the two were here, on earth and in the other inhabited worlds. With people like Juudai who were permanent heralds. Against people like Saiou who were temporary vessels for it. Like Darkness who was a force in and of itself and had left an empty world in its wake before he was defeated.

And outside of that, they wandered around in search for people that needed their help, and lived their own lives.

In this life, that meant duelling. And even their roles in his deck showed that. Neos was summoned at least once a day: the cool nice parent the kid showed off, while Yubel was saved for special cases that deserved her ire – or, more rarely, to prove that monsters with zero attack points could be powerful too. Or just because Yubel wanted a bit of exercise, and it was always nice when that happened because it meant they'd been able to avoid some interdimensional trouble for a few solid weeks and they rarely ever did.

And, sometimes, that was just Juudai's perchance for finding trouble, and he'd receive a scolding from Yubel for that afterwards while Neos looked on, formulating his own long-winded, softer, speech, and seeing if between the two of them, they could convince Juudai to think before he acted next time like any pair of parents would.

Of course, their success at the moment was rather limited in that area, but the three of them were still there and still happy and free, and that was all that really mattered in the end.