Disclaimer was forgotten before, so here it is: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh! GX.
…
"Jaden, daddy'll be home in about an hour." The little boy stood on the kitchen floor, smelling of milk and mud.
"Jaden, how many times have I told you not to play in the park after it rains? Now look, you're all muddy…" the little boy gave his mother an inquisitive look that receded to a flat stare, neither menacing nor welcoming, but carefully, studiously neutral.
"Don't give me that look, young man! You need to keep clean! Come now, let's give you a bath before Daddy gets home…" the little boy lets himself be pulled along, smelling of milk and mud and metal.
Daddy's home an hour later, and it's raining. Water streaks the windows that are the glassy walls to the outside, and little Jaden looks at the wet shadows and wonders why they're whispering. He's tried talking back, really, but it's like he's missing something…
"Hey, how's my little boy?" Daddy is there, a giant, hugging little Jaden but not thinking about Jaden. His mouth moves and words come out without feeling, a man who lives for his wife and his work and ignores the unfortunate blip in his lifestyle, the little boy that somehow came from them both.
Jaden looks at daddy, eyes conveying emotions that would never reach the man before him, emotions that could not be expressed in thousands upon thousands of words….
"Good, good." Ryan Yuki was a cold man. A loving, cold, relentless man. "Daddy brought you a present, he did."
A present; something special, abnormal. "What?" Jaden asks, in a whisper-thin voice.
"I'll give it to you when you're older, okay? But you can see it now! It's a key." Hooked key, spiky tines, sharp stem. It strikes a chord in Jaden, and he moves to grasp it, to embrace it… it's important, though he doesn't know why. "No, no! You can't touch it, you could cut yourself!" Jaden withdraws reluctantly, feeling disappointed and lost. He needs the key, he knows that, though….
"It's dinnertime, okay, kiddo?" and Jaden is lost again, following daddy wordlessly out to where dinner waits, where he'll eat little, and not tell them again about the whispering shadows, about the weird whispers people say-but-don't-say….
And the family will always be fine, won't it? Because mommy and daddy love each other, and Jaden will just be there, growing up, growing up…
…
It's midnight, and Jaden's had a nightmare. It's dark and cold, and little shadows are screaming, somewhere, without sound.
Jaden walks to mommy and daddy's room, where the lights are on, and the filth can't reach him, acid, can't touch him, corrode him, like it does in his dreams…
"He talked to me today, Mara. Has he ever talked before?"
"I don't think so. Such a relief, I thought he was retarded."
"I still think he is. Little brat, where did we go wrong?"
"I think that it's just his particular brand of growing up. He'll be absolutely awful when he's a teenager…"
"Mara, I accepted a new job. I'll be away for a couple of months."
"What? Ryan, I can't take care of this house alone! That little freak takes up most of my time, running around disobeying everything I tell him to do-"
"Mara, he's your son!"
"Yours too! When was the last time you called him by name, huh? Do you even know what his name is?"
"Of course I-"
"Don't! You haven't been there at his last three birthday parties, only for his first! Ryan, I'm sick of this! Everyone else at the preschool, they say, Look there's Mara, did you hear her husband's not home again? Jeez she must be a real witch if he's not home all the time, feel sorry for that husband of hers-"
"Reputation, reputation, reputation! That's all that matters to you, isn't it? That's all!"
"And your stupid job is all that matters to you! You don't care about this house! You don't care about me!"
"Mara, of course I care about you! Please, let's not fight, you are the most important thing in my life. My job doesn't compare to you."
"Ryan, I'm so sick of this! I'm tired of dealing with Jaden, tired of everyone else!"
Jaden doesn't understand half the words said, but he understands that they're angry at him, so he turns around and walks away. Hugging his plush purple squirrel (that was his first and last birthday gift from his mother), he tries to sleep. He is unsuccessful.
The shadows whisper again, and, comforted by their murmur, falls asleep.
…
Jaden's six. He's gotten better at playing the game; he'll talk to people who talk to him, and seem carefree and sweet. Daddy comes home again, first time in two years; it's two days after Jaden's birthday.
"Hello." Jaden looks up, daddy's there, smiling-not-smiling. His hands are behind his back.
"Daddy!" the game goes on goes on…
"How you doing? It's your birthday, you know what?" keep playing- goes on goes on-
"What daddy, what?" he really is curious now.
"I got you a present!" Another one? Jaden had never seen the key again, but the shadows told him that it was in the house. He still looked for it, when Mommy wasn't home.
"Yay! What is it?" Was it the key at last? His hopes are crushed; his father's shadow tells him that it's not.
"Here it is!" Daddy produces a box from nowhere, ebony and ironwood, etched with spiky shapes.
"A box?" It radiates power.
"Don't look disappointed now, okay? It's full of cards. Special cards. There's supposed to be a spell on the box that has the cards reflect the user's nature…" the box and the key. Both important, now he has one.
"Wow! That's special!" he's not joking or lying. He's excited, the box really is special…
"Those are your special cards, okay?" Yes. Yes they are.
"Yeah!" the man and the boy smile at each other, the man mentally already gone, the boy uncaring of the man.
…
Jaden flips through the cards. They are strange, crooked images that he half-recognizes.
Hello, Jaden.
Jaden jumps and looks around. Behind him sits a woman, brown skin, wings and dichromatic hair, glowing eyes of two colors. "Who are you?"
I am Yubel. Your friend.
"Wait!" Jaden gasps. He grabs one of the cards and holds it up. "This is you!" she smiled.
Yes.
"But… how are you a card and a person?"
I'm not exactly what you would call a person, Jaden. I'm a spirit.
"A ghost?"
No. Not quite. Ghosts are the memory-souls of the newly dead. I'm a complete soul, altered a little, and bound to that piece of paper in your hands.
"Memory-souls?" Jaden asks, thrilled and exhilarated and confused by the words and terms she uses. She grins, fangs showing under purple lips the likes of which he has never seen before.
Three parts to the soul; the memory, the nature, or the heart, and the core. The memory is all of the memories, accumulated, that form emotions. Nature, or heart, is the instincts common, from the imprints of memory that form on the complete soul. Two people that fall in love again and again and again, each reincarnation, no matter what. She smiled. Your prince charming will bring that out in you.
"Prince charming? But I'm a boy…" and boys weren't supposed to love other boys, isn't that what Mommy and Daddy said? But something wrenched in his chest when she said that, and told him that it was very all right to love a boy, and if it was possible, to find him and love him now.
Yubel laughed. It was a soft, lilting laugh. Oh, Jaden. You'll see. The core soul is the initial soul, created with power and bound to other souls… I was bound to your soul, from the start. I'll be your friend, Jaden, okay? Always with you…
Jaden smiled. Yubel was going to be a friend, and something told him that he could trust Yubel to the ends of the Earth. "Sure!"
She smiled, suddenly predatory. How about I start by helping you structure your deck?
He nodded, and spread out the cards. Yubel leaned over him, pointing things out.
"How many cards should I put in, Bell?" he didn't know where he had gotten the nickname, but he liked it and she didn't complain.
Fifty-two, Jaden. It's a special number.
"These cards?" he held up a handful of monsters. They were a handful that had whispered to him like the shadows. They were friendly, and he liked them.
Yes. Those ones are perfect.
"Great! Thanks, Bell! You're the best friend ever!" he was glad Yubel was with him. She was the nicest person he had ever met.
Yes. I won't be like any other friend you've had, Jaden. I'll love you forever, never let you go. Alright? You're always my precious Jaden.
"Yeah! And you're always my best friend, Bell!" he needed to tell her that; she needed to know how much he loved her.
Of course.
Neither of them saw Mara watching Jaden with something akin to horror in her blue eyes. She ran from the door in a patter of slippers.
…
Jaden walked into kindergarten, six, happy. His cards were in his pocket.
On the way to class, someone tripped him and they all fell out, scattering like feathers off a frightened bird.
"Whoa, hey, look at this! Some kid thinks he's a duelist!" it was a first grader, seven. He picked up one of Jaden's cards, and Jaden saw with his heart in his mouth that it was Jehu. Something in Jaden rebelled, and he stood up with a sharp shriek.
"Give that back!" he lunged, but the first grader sidestepped.
"Duel me for it."
Jaden growled savagely. "Sure."
Gathering up his cards, he got ready.
"My name's Alpha, by the way."
The duel began, with Alpha's first; he summoned Lightning Cobra in defense position. Yubel materialized behind Jaden for tips, should Jaden need them.
Jaden drew. "I summon Raya the Lightning Spirit in attack position. Raya's effect: I add Darkshock Raya to my hand! Uh, I set two cards and attack Lightning Cobra. It's destroyed."
Alpha muttered a curse and drew; promptly summoning Lightning Tiger. He tried to use Hammer Shot, but it was destroyed by a chain and happened to allow Jaden to summon Pyraeus the Flame Spirit. Alpha spat at Jaden.
Jaden's turn, and he fused Pyraeus and Raya to summon Burning Lightning God. He ended the duel quickly, recovering his precious Jehu.
Alpha didn't come to school the next day; it wasn't until a week later that it was discovered that Alpha had gone home, fallen ill, and died two days later.
Neither was the incident isolated; Jaden dueled eleven others, and they all fell ill and died.
Mara watched with growing hatred, fear, and anger.
…
The dinner bell rang, and Jaden stopped. "I'll finish telling you later." He said softly to Johann. Jaden was keenly aware that this was the first time he had told someone about the shadows, about Yubel, about his side of the story. He stood and walked away, wondering why he had just turned to someone and told them everything. Some stranger, someone he barely knew.
Heart-soul, Jaden. He was someone you trusted in another life, even if you don't remember him. You can trust him; his heart-soul is probably jerking him around too.
"Alright." Jaden murmured.
Johann sat where Jaden had left him, thinking. Was everything Jaden had told him true? If so… what had happened to Jaden's mother, Mara? Where was she? What was she doing, and why hadn't she been at the funeral?
…
Chapter four was a little late- I just started school, so updates might lag a little.
If you have any questions, shoot; some of the things covered here will come back, others will not.