disclaimer: Emerald Twin Blade does not own Yu-Gi-Oh! GX or any of the characters, cards, settings, etc. that appear in this fic that you recognize from the show. All she owns is the plot. The general idea for this fic. Ta-da!

Emerald's News & Nonsense:

Yay! I finished! LOL! I actually finished writing this chapter at 1:27 AM. O.o; Yes, it was technically a Sunday morning, but I'll go ahead and say that I finished it a day before I said I would. XD! It was so much fun writing this chapter... It came out longer than I intended it to be. O.o; Yup, that's the truth, y'know?

What's funny is that a lot of what happens toward the middle of the fic wasn't intended to be there, but I just wound up writing it. XD! It just kinda needed to be there, though. It made it seem more medical. XD! yeah... I'm a charlatan. XP! ... I think that's the word for it. XDD!

Okay, still no Johan in this chapter... For sure Frag.#05, though. I didn't think he'd show up in this one... but there's a tiny bit of allusion in the very last line. ;P

Oh, yeah, just in case! Here's a quick key...

"This is regular speech"

"This is Duel Monster speech"

This is for thoughts

And this is for onopatopoeia (sound effects)!

Okay, and there may be some confusion over this, but when there are Duel Monster spirits around ONLY people who can see them or just around each other, they switch to regular speech.

OKAY, I'M DONE! XD

: Fragment No.04 : Trapped

After everyone had run into the scene at Johan's dorm room, it didn't take them very long to pick up the ill brunette and take him directly to the infirmary again. The one thing on all of their minds was "how did this happen?" When they had all entered the Obelisk Boys Dorm, they heard Sho shout for Judai and ran off, only to find the brunette passed out on the floor and a sobbing Marufuji boy inside of Anderson Johan's old dorm.

It wasn't until they had put Yuki Judai onto the bed he had been in the previous day that Tenjoin Asuka turned on him and asked what happened. The urgency in her voice and the worry on everyone's face was evident and Sho was still having a hard time calming himself down enough to answer coherently.

"I… I don't… kn-know! I was… ju-just trying to go back to my dorm when… I heard a s-sound coming from Johan's room." He stuttered, explaining as well as he could without crying harder at the memory, "Wh-when I opened the door…A-Aniki was… was…"

His gray eyes went wide and his pupils grew smaller for a moment as his tears began to stream down his face faster. Asuka took a step toward him with her face softened as she reached out a hand of sympathy to pat him comfortingly. The second her fingers touched Sho's shoulder, he jerked back out of her reach. Shutting his eyes tightly and lowering his head in shame, he shouted in an attempt to keep his voice stable.

"ANIKI WAS HAVING A SEIZURE!!" Having finally gotten the words out, everyone in the room stared at him in disbelief. He caught their expressions and felt his heart clench at the idea of them not believing him, "It's true!! And that's all that I saw! H-he was just lying there twitching a lot… a-and jumping…"

Ayukawa Emi looked away from the small blunette and then to the motionless teenager lying on the bed of clean, white sheets, "Do any of you know what might have caused this? Or when it started? When did he start acting strange?"

Asuka, Sho, and Manjoume Jun all looked at each other before Manjoume approached the school nurse and said, "He started acting weird after Johan left. He completely ignored us for almost a week and just came back out yesterday morning."

"Hmm…" she thought for a moment before looking to Sho, who had managed to calm down significantly, "Can you tell me when he last ate?"

The small Obelisk student tilted his head to the side a bit, willing his red cheeks to go back to normal as he answered, "Well… I went to check the Slifer cafeteria yesterday around the usual time he goes for lunch and dinner, and both times, I didn't see him there. This morning, I took a wild guess and went to check again for breakfast, but he wasn't there either." He shrugged, "I guessed that he was still asleep, but judging on how he fell asleep in class this morning, I'm not so sure anymore."

She nodded, picking up her right hand and rubbing her index finger and thumb over her chin in thought, "Then we can infer that he hasn't eaten for a while, which is normal for someone to do when they lose something or someone close to them… and we can rule out him taking any drugs or toxins, because—"

"Well, no…" Asuka piped, "Remember last week when everybody was getting their flu shots and everything?"

Ayukawa-sensei shook her head, "Judai has been getting the usual shots every year he's been here, so it couldn't have done something to him now."

Sho scurried up to her, looking up into her face with severe anxiety on his own, "One of those other nurses who came accidentally gave him insulin for type 1 diabetes because they thought he was somebody else!"

The copper-haired woman stared at him in surprise for a few seconds, the clues they had come up with piecing together. Her eyes looked to the unconscious patient as she asked just one more question.

"What signs of him being unwell have you all seen?"

"He's been really tired and weak… He could hardly keep himself up after class." Sho explained.

"He was also being really moody and didn't seem to care about a lot. The bastard… I thought he was just PMSing." Manjoume said, folding his arms.

"Only girls PMS, Manjoume-kun…" Asuka pointed out.

"… what's your point?"

The blonde rolled her eyes before looking back to the nurse and adding in her own two cents, "During class, he was staring off into space and likely daydreaming… but in the middle of that, he just fell asleep. Another thing that happened after class was that he had a headache and seemed a little confused about stuff… but these last two just made me think about his head injury from yesterday."

"Should we have… said something sooner?" Sho asked, taking a few steps back.

"Fatigue, weakness, moodiness, apathy, daydreaming, sleep, headache, confusion… and then the seizure he had earlier. These are the signs and symptoms we have, and then from what we already figured out…" Her gaze at Judai softened from her thoughtful one, her voice dripping with sympathy, "Judai has a type of hypoglycemia."

"Hypogly-what-eeya?" Manjoume asked, raising an eyebrow in question and tilting his head back.

"Hypoglycemia… It's most common cause is insulin for type 1 diabetes, and since he doesn't need it, I think his anti-bodies must have attacked it as a foreign substance…" she replied, sighing in relief, "I don't think it'll be so hard to make him better since he doesn't actually have the disease… So he should be better once I give him something to clear it out."

Everyone sighed in relief, and the teacher in the room who had been completely silent this entire time finally spoke aloud.

"Well, then, I suppose I can excuse his absences from the last week due to this problem he was having… but I expect to see him back in class by Tuesday!"

With that said, Professor Chronos exited the infirmary. The three students, however, didn't move. They just stood there and watched as the nurse walked over to a cabinet and looked for the tube of medicine that contained what would make their friend feel better.

-------[Yu-Gi-Oh! GX]-------

Several hours had passed since Ayukawa-sensei gave Judai the medicine, and after sampling his blood, he seemed as good as new. Completely healthy, as usual. However, the problem was that he still had not woken up. The Obelisk trio looked to the nurse as she walked back to her chair from putting some items away, questions on the tip of their tongues. Asuka sat on a wooden stool in a corner, her hands in her lap as she asked.

"… If he's okay, why won't he wake up?"

The woman made an unsure look, leaning back in her rolling chair and folding her arms in thought, "I don't know… He should be awake by now…"

"Y-you don't think there's another problem inside of him, do you?" Sho piped in fear from his spot sitting at the foot of his best friend's bed.

"Don't get excited, Sho…" Manjoume snapped, his eyes closed as he continued, "She said that nothing was wrong with him anymore. He's either just sleeping it off or messing with us just for the fun of it."

Opening his eyes and pushing off of the wall he'd been leaning back against, the black-haired rich boy approached the side of Judai's bed and picked him up by the collar, glaring at him, "Wake the Hell up, Judai!! You're fine!"

Judai, although being held up by the front of his shirt, still did not wake up. His head hung back, showing that he was still quite asleep.

"MANJOUME-KUN!!" Asuka and Ayukawa-sensei shouted, the blonde actually getting up out of her seat and running behind him to yank him back, away from the brunette.

The Slifer Red student fell backward onto the bed, his black shirt ruffled a bit from the other teen grabbing him. His stomach was slightly exposed, showing just how skinny he currently was. His side of his head fell against the bottom of the pillow, his brown and orange hair spread out over the white pillow cover and over his face. His eyelids were shut lightly, his eyes not showing any movement behind them. His mouth, however, was slightly ajar from the short fall.

"Manjoume!! How could you do something like that!? He's obviously still not well!!" Asuka scolded, holding her arms straight to her sides to stop herself from slapping him.

"He still not awake, even after that! Is Aniki dead??" Sho asked, beginning to cry again as he picked up the faded Slifer Red jacket they had taken off of the boy to give him the shot he needed, hugging it close to him and burying his reddening face into it.

"No, he's not dead… But maybe there was something I overlooked…" the nurse said, walking to a storage closet in the room and pulling out a large machine on wheels.

She pushed the machine to the left side of the bed and took the wires, sticking the suction cup-like ends to different spots on the Slifer's forehead. After this was done, she turned on the machine and saw strange waves that were moving up and down simultaneously. The students stared at this; what was going on now?

"Hmm… His brain waves are all the same…" She looked to Manjoume and made an uncertain look, "Umm… I don't have anything in this room that can help check for this, but… would you consider doing that again?"

Asuka and Sho made incredulous looks at her, "What?!"

The black-haired Obelisk pulled his hands together and popped his knuckles, nodding with a bit of an evil chuckle, "I'll do whatever y'want me to…"

Approaching the other side of the bed, he grabbed the collar of Judai's black T-shirt again and shouted right in his face, "WAKE UP, YOU SLIFER SLACKER!!"

The two other students winced at the sound, looking away. Why did Ayukawa-sensei let him do that?

The nurse, however, just stared right at the machine that monitored the unconscious boy's brain waves. The whole time that Manjoume had retried waking the brunette up, nothing had changed on the monitor. The waves were still moving normally.

"… slap him." She said clearly.

"WHAT?!" the other two stood up when they heard this.

"Gladly!" Manjoume pulled back his right palm and was about to swing it forward, when Sho reached out and grabbed his wrist, stopping him, "Hey, she told me to! Let me do it!!"

"Ayukawa-sensei, what are you trying to do?!" Asuka questioned, running up to her and demanding an answer.

Ayukawa-sensei looked to the blonde and explained, "We need to see what level he's at on the Glasgow Coma Scale. Since he didn't respond to Manjoume-kun's voice or his roughness, he may be in a strong coma… but if he doesn't respond to painful stimuli, then he's got the lowest score on the scale and is possibly in a deep coma."

Asuka and Sho froze in shock, the surprise making Sho's hands go limp enough to let Manjoume pull his wrist out of his grasp and flat-out punch the unconscious Slifer in the cheek.

As Judai fell back down onto the bed, he made no sound. He didn't twitch or move on his own, and his eyes did not open. All he did was lie on his right side, exposing his rapidly reddening left cheek and one of his closed eyes.

The three Obelisk students were astonished; he still didn't respond, and not even his brain waves told them that he noticed what just happened to him. The nurse frowned, turning away from the monitor and facing them.

"He's stuck in a deep coma… He won't wake up for a long time."

Sho stepped forward from beside the rough, black-haired Obelisk, "E-exactly, how long is 'a long time?'"

"It could be anywhere between a few days to a few years…"

"Years?!"

"Judai…"

Manjoume Jun blinked out of his surprise upon hearing a voice.

"Judai… please wake up…"

"What the Hell? Does anybody else hear tha—" he began, turning around to face his unconscious friend.

He yelped, jumping back into Sho and causing the two of them to fall onto the floor.

"Hey!! What was that for?!" the small blunette squeaked, shoving the taller boy off of him.

"There! Y-Yubel!!" Manjoume stuttered, eyes wide as he pointed to the side of the bed that Ayukawa-sensei was standing on.

Since he was the only one who could see Duel Monster spirits, of course the others couldn't see him. The Fiend-type monster sat at Judai's bedside and was lightly shaking his shoulder, a sad look in his two different colored eyes. He turned to look at Manjoume, who just gasped and backed up a bit more.

"Do not be afraid… I won't hurt you…" Yubel said in a mournful voice, crystal clear tears falling from those strange eyes of his.

The other people in the room had gotten slightly frightened at the mention of the one that had transported their entire school to another dimension at one time. The black-haired Obelisk got up to his feet cautiously and told everyone to calm down before speaking with the spirit.

"Why are you here? If you've fused with Judai, shouldn't you be in the same condition as he is?"

"I'm still me even though we are one… but I still feel the same pain as he does." Came his reply.

Manjoume was taken aback by this, "Pain? What're you talking about? He's not feeling any pain… The monitor over there would've shown us if he was."

Yubel glared at him, standing up from his spot on the bed, "Simple human technology does not always work on those who aren't completely human. His mind is so full of pain and suffering right now… that not even I can reach him…"

"A-are you serious?"

"Manjoume-kun, what is he saying?" Ayukawa-sensei asked, a hard look on her face, "Does he know something that we don't?"

"Is Aniki really in pain?" Sho added, getting worried.

"You are all close friends to him, right? It's funny how you can't bring him back… and even funnier that you don't know how to."

"Are you calling us stupid?! You can't even reach him yourself, so you're in the same boat as we are!!" Manjoume snapped.

It was then that Ojama Yellow appeared at his shoulder, squeaking in slight fear, "I don't think it's such a good idea to get mad at him like that, Manjoume-aniki!"

"And you shut up! Go do something productive, like find Winged Kuriboh or somethi—" he stopped himself, going quiet for two seconds before shouting, "THAT'S IT! Go find Winged Kuriboh! It's gotta know something!"

"Great idea! I'll start the search!" With that said, Ojama Yellow vanished.

"Winged Kuriboh… Let's see what it can come up with." Yubel mumbled, disappearing, as well.

-------[Yu-Gi-Oh! GX]-------

Ojama Yellow reappeared inside of Judai's dorm room, looking around, "Hey, Winged Kuriboh! We've got trouble!! Are you here??"

"Kuri, kuri?" the little ball of fluff became visible, flying up to the bright-colored Duel monster.

"Oh, it's just terrible!" he began, his voice getting even higher and squeakier than normal, "Judai's fallen into a deep sleep and they say he won't wake up for weeks, even years! And then Yubel said that there was something wrong inside of his head, so Manjoume-aniki sent me to get you in case you have any ideas!"

"Kuri! Kuri, kuri!" Winged Kuriboh exclaimed, flying over to the window and disappearing.

"Hey! Wait for me!!"

-------[Yu-Gi-Oh! GX]-------

Manjoume growled, his hands stuffed into his pockets as he stared down at the floor. His eyes darted over to the window for a moment before he turned around to face it and roared.

"Where are they?! How hard can it be to find a hairball with wings?!"

"I found him, Manjoume-aniki!!" called Ojama Yellow as he appeared again, Winged Kuriboh beside him.

"Great! Do you have any idea as to how we can bring Judai back?" the black-haired Obelisk asked the weak Duel Monster floating beside his own monster spirit.

"Kuri… Kuri!" Winged Kuriboh flew over to Judai's side, poking at his Deck Box until several Neo Spacian spirits emerged from it.

"Winged Kuriboh… we already know." Said Aqua Dolphin, looking to the unconscious Slifer teen.

"We've been talking it over until now; we think Neos should go in and look for him." Flare Scarab informed, "He's the most powerful one of us, and he's just as close to Judai as you and Yubel are, so…"

"Kuri, kuri!" the small ball of fur nodded, looking to the big, silver Elemental Hero, "Kuri!"

Elemental Hero Neos nodded as he walked closer to Judai, placing a hand over his forehead, "I'll bring him back… or at least find out how to."

Manjoume Jun chose that time to mumble a "be careful," but he didn't receive a reply when Neos disappeared into Judai's mind.

-------[Yu-Gi-Oh! GX]-------

Pure, undying darkness… Absolutely no light. It was a semi-wide, vertical tunnel where nothing could stand still and everything just fell. The circular walls seemed to be made of some sort of earth, with stems and roots sticking out of it. Perhaps this could be a comparison… to his limited mind which contained lines and strings that had held together hopes and dreams, his thoughts and feelings. None of them were present… hence the emptiness of this setting.

Chocolate brown eyes that once held a bright shine of innocence were half-open, staring down into the never ending pit that he seemed to be falling through slowly. His body was limp and he didn't seem to be able to move. Though his eyes were open, he could not see.

Suddenly, the thing that kept him from falling quickly and easily down this hole became visible. Yubel was holding onto him, flapping his wings hastily in an attempt to get his spirit-bonded to stop falling. His discolored hands were wrapped tightly around the other's wrists, two colored eyes shut tightly as he tried with all his might to help.

"Judai! Please, wake up!!" he called, still flapping his wings frantically.

It was then that Neos appeared inside of the tunnel, floating from the power of Neo Space. Looking down, he saw Yubel's demonic wings and the bright red jacket Judai always wore, even through the black darkness. Allowing himself to fall downward, he added his flying ability to it so that he could go down faster. Once he got to the same level as the other two, he spoke to the other Duel Monster spirit.

"Yubel! What's going on? Why is Judai's mind like this?"

Yubel grunted, opening his glowing gold eye with a bit of trouble as he continued to work, "Even though his health is back to normal… Judai's still… Aagh!!"

His grip tightened around Judai's wrists, but they began to fall faster again. The Fiend's eyes fell shut as he tried even harder, shouting to the other, "I CAN USE SOME HELP HERE!!"

Neos got the idea and flew around to Judai's left side, taking a hold of his forearms and trying to stop their descent. Even with the strength of Neos, they couldn't completely stop falling, but they were able to slow down by about two miles an hour more than Yubel could alone.

"… what's pulling him down so quickly?" he mumbled, pure blue eyes narrowing down at the endless pit.

"It's his feelings! Judai can't wake up until he realizes them!!" Yubel replied, yelling over the sound of wind rushing passed their ears, "It's dark here because he doesn't know what he feels! And he'll fall down continually until he finally sees everything clearly!"

"Are you saying that we can't help?!"

"YES, I AM!!" the oddly-colored creature shouted back.

"Well, what does he need to realize??"

"I can't tell you!"

Neos made a surprised look, but it was hard to tell since he didn't have any facial features besides his eyes, "What do you mean you can't tell me?! That's why I came in here! To either help or find out why!"

They began to fall faster, like they had before. The two grunted and screamed as they were pulled down by some power greater than gravity.

"You're not really helping, Neos!! You and everybody else are just going to have to figure it out on your own! If you can't, then you're all bakas!!" Yubel yelled as loud as he could, picking up a leg with some difficulty and effectively kicking Neos in the stomach.

The Elemental Hero gasped, letting go of Judai's falling body and floating in mid-air again. He stared down as Yubel and the Slifer teen became tiny specks in his vision. He mumbled a curse before disappearing.

-------[Yu-Gi-Oh! GX]-------

The infirmary was silent as everyone just stared at the unconscious brunette, just waiting for something to happen. The funny thing was that only Manjoume would know if anything happened, though, since he was the only one who could actually see the spirits.

The other Neo Spacians had gone back into their cards, so that left Winged Kuriboh and Ojama Yellow to just sit off to a corner and converse about the present situation. Asuka, however, had left the room to go get the principal and bring him to see what happened.

"Urrgh… aah…" grunted a familiar voice.

Manjoume stood up straight from his leaning against the window, his eyes going wide at the strange state the Elemental Hero had returned in, "Neos! What happened?"

Neo Spacians Aqua Dolphin and Flare Scarab reappeared and held onto Neos's weak and scratched-up form.

The silver Duel Monster replied, "It was harder to get out than I thought it'd be… but Judai is falling into depression, and I mean that literally."

"What do you mean?" the blue Neo Spacian asked, hoping for a little more detail.

"His mind is a giant black hole… He's just falling and Yubel is doing his best to at least slow him down." He answered, wincing a bit when he tried to stand up straight on his own, "He also said that… Judai needs to realize his true feelings… only then will he awaken."

"What does he need to realize? What is it that he can't see?" Manjoume took a step forward, showing his impatience.

"… when I asked him, Yubel wouldn't tell me. All he did was kick me out."

"No! Now, how are we supposed to wake him up?"

When Asuka entered the room again, she tilted her head to the side a bit, "Maybe he needs to wake up on his own? He needs to realize something, right? That means that we can't help him, even though I really wish we could…"

The principal entered the room after the young blonde, his arms folding as he looked at the poor Slifer boy's condition, "I heard most of the story from Tenjoin-kun on the way here… Tell me what Neos told you, Manjoume-kun."

Manjoume merely watched as the Neo Spacians disappeared along with Neos before he looked to the elder and explained, "Neos says that Judai will only wake up when he realizes his true feelings. That's all he told me, Samejima-kocho, and I don't understand it! How can Judai, of all people, not know how he feels? He's always excited and happy and a complete baka! What's there not to know?!"

Samejima-kocho didn't say anything, he just made a thoughtful look for a moment, and then the light of epiphany came to his eyes. He turned around and began to exit the room again. Ayukawa-sensei looked over to him and called out.

"Where are you going?"

The man stopped for a moment, replying before continuing his speedy walk out of the infirmary, "… I'm going to make a call."

Emerald's Notes & Nonsense:

Yaay! I finished the 4th Fragment! (insert awesome FTW music here)

Can you believe I wrote all of this at once? When I started writing it, I didn't stop until it was finished!! 8D

Okay, so... what'd y'all think? What'd y'like? What'd y'not like? And you can't say that you didn't like this chapter because Johan didn't show up in it! He'll pop up in the next chapter for sure, if you didn't get the hint I left in Samejima-kocho's last line. XD

Yeah... It's 1:15 AM, so... --WAIT A MINUTE, I uploaded this chapter at 1:27 AM, how come my computer & cell phone clock say that it's 1:15 AM? O.o

DID DAYLIGHTS SAVINGS TIME JUST START/END?!

Please review and not only tell me what you thought of the chapter, but answer this question, because I don't know. X_x

... now I'm going to bed. I'm hearing really weird sounds coming from outside (I'm in the living room on the laptop) and I wanna go to my room where I feel safe.

G'night!