Author's Notes:

R-chan: lol, that's why I use the English names. " Same with me.

Bickazer: AHAHA! "Chazz it up" is soooo lame. But why is Chazz counting by multiples of ten in the Japanese version? ". The YGO writer's really need to work on their lines…lol. I'll make sure to check out the episodes there. Sorry about shortening the dialogue, I don't like dragging out useless conversations. . Thanks for the awesome review!

The New Shinigami Hikari: Wooooot! Thanks. ".

Battygirl: Yayyy! You reviewed again! .

Kath-chan: Awww, thanks for adding me to your favorites, love. And yes, I'll be updating often. .

Ranma Higurashi: Ah yes, they do. .

Jordan: Since this chapter was written was written while you were at my house, I luff j00. . And I love my mom more than you do. So HAH. .

WARNINGS: It's gonna get pretty angsty soon! …Because I love my angst something hardcore. And also we're gonna be getting some JadenxChazz, and maybe even the ZanexChazz soon.

It had been decided, through a duel, that Jaden was going to be Duel Academy's representative in the school-wide duel against North Face.

"Aren't you worried, Jaden?" Syrus asked, as Jaden shuffled through his deck. "You're going to be facing up against the BEST student, in all of Northface Academy!"

"Should I be worried? I'm kinda hungry, though." Jaden said, scratching the back of his head, leaning into the pillows onto his bed, looking at the cards fanned out around in an intricate pattern.

"Jaden, I can't believe you're not worried!" Syrus complained, flopping back onto the carpeting, looking up at the triple bunk-beds in their room. Chumley was snoring away in his bed, doing his best impression of a steam engine at full-throttle.

Jaden shrugged a little bit, and snacked on some chips he had stashed under the corner of his mattress so that Chumley wouldn't get them. He crunched them, reveling in the feeling of his arteries clogging and the grease laying a thick track down his throat.

"I can't wait until we get to see who it is that I'm dueling!" Jaden exclaimed, pretty much dancing on his bed with a wild giggle, leaning down into the pillows, kicking his feet a little bit in the air. "I bet that it's gonna be some amazing duelist – and I'm gonna kick their butt!"

Chazz, meanwhile, was hardly talking to his friends.

He had his followers at the school, those people that worshipped him, and wanted to be like him. But he didn't care about them. Instead, he turned to the one friend that he had always had, the one friend that couldn't talk back to him.

His hands ghosted over the shell of his little friend, running over the bottle that he had in his pocket, smirking a bit. He was sitting up on one of the high walls, stretched out. The chilly air was snapping against his skin like a whip, cold and brutal.

He loved it.

It refreshed him, and left his body surprisingly numb. It was cold and harsh, and best of all, it was real. The air at Duel Academy had always been warm, even when it snowed. The stars were so much more brilliant here, as though some careless jeweler had spilled all of his diamonds onto the inky, velvet blackness of the sky.

He held his hand up in the air, hoping that he would be able to catch a star. He narrowed his eyes, and when he looked just right, squinting his eyes, he could swipe, and it seemed like he could almost grab them.

He dropped a pill into his mouth, and reveled in the bitterness of it dissolving on his tongue. As time passed, his vision went blurry, and the sharp pain in his head dulled, leaving his senses partially dead. His hand was now lying along his side, limp. He lowered his eyes, blackness clouding his vision.

"Is this all I ever will be?" He asked himself softly. "A junkie, whose only friend is a pill bottle? And a weak one at that…"

If only his brothers could see him now, if only they could see how he was lying out in the wind, his coat slipping open over his black turtle-neck. His bones stood out like white knife-slashes where they were visible, as though some great artist had taken his palette knife and carved away any fat that might have been there.

By this point, he looked like a china doll that had had the breath of knife forced into it's nostrils. A demonic little doll, with dead in mind, and a duel disk in hand.

"I'm going to take down everyone with me when I fall." Chazz whispered to himself as he slipped off to a restless sleep alone, dead to the world.