[It's kind of complicated on Shun's end too, because that's actually something they don't really have in Duel Monsters, and it seems odd that closeness to a unit would come up that often. Of course there's a feeling of it between most players and their monsters regardless, but it feels a little different to what's being stated here.]

I don't think we have anything like that in Duel Monsters. Obviously people have bonds with their monsters, but we don't have a name for it. And an ace doesn't have to be your strongest monster. I'd consider Rise Falcon my ace, and it has the lowest Rank of all my Falcon monsters.

[His actual strongest monster has a good few Ranks on that one...not that he's had a reason to pull it out in a duel in a very long time.]

With a name like "avatar", I figured it had something to do with representing the player anyway. A soulmate is close enough.