Disclaimer: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh Gx.

This is the redone version of Without You. Don't worry, the only things that are being changed are the style of writing and a thinning of unnecessary facts. I combined parts of the first chapter and all sections of the prologue into one, convenient chapter.

Prologue: Disappearance

Of all the reasons Jaden Yuki would not graduate Duel Academy; they never dreamed it'd be this. Missing assignments, bad grades, tomfoolery and mayhem, or being recruited by the Pro Circuit were all more likely reasons than what had actually happened. It was true that fighting bad guys had always been Jaden's niche at Duel Academy, but he had always won. The entire academy knew he would return from the Dark World, that he would defeat and help that crazy duel spirit and take the dueling world by storm. He'd be back eating shrimp in the Red Dorm in a week, a month at most.

A year passed.

The ceremony was long over. Students murmured onto the cruise ships with their jackets limp on their shoulders. Everyone knew it: none of them should be graduating without him. As the student body gradually shifted towards mainland, the eyes lingered on one group gathered on the docks. The six students felt their gaze like led in their shoes.

"Where are they?" Alexis Rhodes muttered, scanning the graduation caps.

"I don't know," Syrus Trusdale replied softly. Silence had become a habit for him, grounded in his travels through the Dark World and cemented by the absence of his best friend. Alexis put a hand on his small shoulders like Zane had done for her. The group stood in vigilant silence.

Their last year at Duel Academy had been wasted on false hope and searches into the forest. Whatever lenience Jaden's friends and family had for the school evaporated the moment the students realized they would be leaving the island without him. After a year of looking elsewhere for their son, convinced that he had jumped ship and left the academy, Jaden's parents were finally coming to the island in person.

Hassleberry had prodded his older friends for information on Jaden's family, but the seniors came up with nothing—not even an address. Even Blair, Jaden's self-appointed fan-girl, hadn't known anything beyond a number in a phone book. It was a punch to the gut to realize that Jaden was a stranger outside of Duel Academy.

Without looking up, Syrus pointed across the docks. "They're here."

The group turned as one, spotting Crowler in a heartbeat. A man and woman in pressed, gray business suits flanked the professor, red in the face from anger or tears. As the trio passed, it became obvious tissues weren't needed. Crowler threw his students a plea for help as they began our stalk, eavesdropping on the small group.

"Yes, Mr. Yuki," Professor Crowler said, realizing he was on his own. He was practically tripping over his long trench coat. "We're terribly sorry, of course sir."

Mr. Yuki was a few inches taller than Crowler with short brown hair and aged lips. His eyes and build reeked of Jaden. Mrs. Yuki was a head shorter than her husband. Her auburn hair was pulled back into a neat bun, and her eyes held the shape and observance of her son. The colors of their suits were washed out against the shadow of Duel Academy's main building.

The seniors snuck in behind them, missing a huffy exchange of sentences, and crept in the hissing silence that followed the Yukis. If not for their physical differences, they would doubt that someone as bright and harmless as Jaden could be this couple's son.

Then again, he wasn't exactly harmless anymore.

The parents and teacher entered Chancellor Sheppard's office. The automatic doors closed behind them and locked for the meeting, allowing the spying students to press their faces against the door. It became apparent that they didn't need to once the Yukis started shouting; the graduates could've heard them from the grounds.

"Where the hell is our son, Sheppard?" Mr. Yuki hollered.

"Jaden has yet to return," Chancellor Sheppard replied. "During his third year, he and his friends were forced into another dimension—"

Fists slammed into the hardwood desk. "We give you a year, three hundred and sixty five days, to find our son and this is the best you can give us? Bullshit! Dimensional travel is nonsense; now tell us the goddamn truth!"

Sheppard's chair scraped as he stood. "Please, Mr. and Mrs. Yuki. I implore you, I am not lying."

A female voice cut in, even lower and stricter than her husband. She did not need to shout for her words to echo the building. "Sheppard, we are more than prepared to do everything in our power to shut down this school is you do not cooperate. If our understanding is correct, our son is not the only student that went missing last year. If you want to continue your business, I suggest you start talking."

Chazz leaned into Alexis' ear and scoffed, "What could they do?"

The Queen of Obelisk kept her mouth tight, rooted by the profound silence in the next room. Crowler broke it with an uneasy shriek. "Now madam, is this really necessary? We're telling the truth, no matter how bizarre this seems. We even have scientific proof of the existence of—"

"Waves on a chart," Mrs. Yuki interrupted coolly. "We've seen your so-called science before."

Alexis' heart picked up until she was sure Jaden's parents could hear it through the door. She heard Mr. Yuki moved forward in the room, softening his voice, and recognized some of Jaden in his tones. "Just tell us what happened. Whatever it is, we'll take care of the cost to find our son."

Chazz's warm pressure at Alexis' side turned cold. The snooty expression fell from his face as he turned to her in mutual surprise. Wealth was not something they expected from someone who lived happily in the equivalent of a tool shed. Shivers ran up Alexis' sides at the thought of money and influence coming against the academy without its hero to protect it. Her hands gripped the door.

Sheppard exhaled, clearly preparing for the worst. "Very well. Your son sacrificed himself to save us all from a monster called Yubel."

"Yubel does not exist!" the two parents hissed. Fear shook the sentence, but Jaden's father continued, "If you insist on feeding us lies, then we will be forced to shut this damned place down."

Alexis forced her way through the door and planted herself in front of the parents before they knew what was happening.

"You can't!" she shouted. "Jaden loved this school. He's saved it every year he's been here and sacrificed so much so that we could be happy. And I swear to God that I won't let his parents be the ones who take this school away from him!"

The group poured in around her, glaring down the stunned adults. The couple held each other as Alexis advanced, prodding at their apathy with her extended finger. "You don't have the right to close Duel Academy if you won't listen to the truth. Jaden did travel into another dimension with us, he did lose us to Yubel, and he did suffer more than anyone should have in that Dark World. What kind of parents are you to even consider destroying the school that he would die to protect?!"

A year's worth of sorrow fled her with the worlds. Alexis was hit by the possibility of her own last sentence and felt her knees shake. Jaden would not hesitate to give his life for this school. Just because he had promised not to sacrifice himself did not mean he was alive. Hands caught and steadied her, keeping her hazel glare sharp on their targets.

"Who are you?" Mrs. Yuki asked.

Chazz snapped next. He managed to look down his nose at the taller opponents, and spin the full strength of his snobbish spite into his words. "You would know if you took the time to talk to your son."

It was his hands supported their furious leader, and she realized that he wasn't seeing Jaden's parents at all. Chazz had grown up second-best to his family's companies. Out of all of them, he understood abandonment the most.

Alexis found the strength in her knees to stand.

The group's combined glares evaporated the anger on the Yukis' faces, allowing depression to well through. Mrs. Yuki's voice shook as she spoke. "We aren't on the best terms with our son. The last thing we said to him was that he wasn't good enough to be a duelist."

Alexis' mouth was hanging open too far to retort.

"We didn't mean it," Mrs. Yuki snapped. "We were fighting and it just came out."

"About what?" The six friends jumped at the sound of Syrus' voice.

"We wanted Jaden to take over the family business instead of continuing with his foolish dream of dueling," Mr. Yuki scoffed.

"And that is?" Syrus prompted.

The Yukis launched into their family-owned hospital business as if working long, meticulous hours were the perfect job for their bubbly, sleep-addict of a son. Alexis glowered when they finished, any pity she had for the couple gone. "It's strange we know Jaden better than his own parents."

"Besides, unless you haven't noticed, Jaden's not exactly bright," Chazz scoffed. Alexis felt the need to scold him, but stopped when she felt him stiffen. He struck in a nerve in the Yuki's as well, earning a hard sigh and jerk of the chin.

"On contraire," Mr. Yuki retorted. "Jaden is bright, but he chose to slack off when we told him he could not get by on dueling alone. Apparently, he tried to prove us wrong."

The students struggled to process that one. Jaden knew people, they could agree to that. He was a social butterfly that knew what to say, how to defuse tension, and how to charm villains into joining his cause. He knew each of them like a card in his deck, but had never even tried to pass a test or assignment in the Academy.

Alexis paused to look at Syrus, who was thinking along the same lines. Intelligence aside, the Yukis were trying to hedge the real issue.

Alexis spoke. "The last thing you say to your son is that he's not good enough, you do your best to disapprove of everything he's accomplished, all the lives he's saved, and refuse to believe he's missing become of Yubel. Save it—we already heard about the whole disaster!"

Jaden's parents turned on the Chancellor, who put his fingers to his chin. "I did some research. Osamu called me. He was worried about Jaden."

"Listen to us," Syrus began. Jaden's eyes traveled to meet every single one of theirs. "Jaden hasn't returned because he chose to save us from his childhood duel spirit, Yubel. He went through a lot when Yubel returned, and he thought he had lost us more than once. It hurt him badly. Yubel was the source of all his pain. When he finally faced her, something happened between them that we didn't see. Your son promised me he was not sacrificing himself, and I believe him. He'll come back. But we just don't know enough about Yubel."

"Yubel wouldn't hurt him," Mr. Yuki snapped. His head hung when he realized he confirmed he knew her. The fight leaked out of the couple, revealing a broken household at its finest. Mrs. Yuki rested her head on his shoulder and sighed. "She wouldn't let anyone hurt him. She'd hurt anyone who got close to Jaden."

Mrs. Yuki picked up when her husband's voice faltered. "Jaden was so young then, he didn't know what she was doing. Then she attacked Osamu, one of Jaden's close friends. Osamu was always an older brother to Jaden, and I can't imagine him doing anything to harm our son… but something happened."

They all remembered the story of a duel gone wrong, Yubel's wrath, and Jaden's comatose friend. His parents had a new angle to add to the story: the unending nightmares, screams in the night, fevers, and sleep deprivation. He was dazed and in physical pain—a last gift from Yubel they feared. Carla and John Yuki did all they could to aid their son, but all the medical knowledge in the world couldn't help him. The memory wipe was a last resort.

"He knew something was up when we took him in. Jaden had never been to our work before," Mrs. Yuki said. She and John had sunk into chairs at the Chancellor's desk, bending their heads away from their son's friends. "We told him we were going to give him a CAT scan."

She shook her head and put her face in her hands. Her fingers were as long and rough as her son's. John took her hand and looked towards the students, at an understanding. "Jaden was out for two days straight. The nightmares stopped. He never mentioned Yubel again."

The sounds of the weary graduates drowned out the conversation in the room. Footsteps of all the students Jaden had saved surrounded them, along with the price he had paid to get rid of nightmares. The room bowed their heads to the unwilling funeral march, and Carla sent her son off with a last plea.

"We tried to sway him off of the path of dueling to avoid triggering memories of Yubel, but he bristled at the very idea, which led to our argument before he departed for school. So don't think so badly of us, we just had our son's best interests in mind."

A/N: This is the edited version. Feel free to leave feedback if you think there is something I should change.