Disclaimer: I own nothing involved in this story unless I invented it myself. This is written for fun, not for profit. All forms of feedback eagerly accepted. Concrit is loved the most, but everything is welcome.
Fandoms: Yu-Gi-Oh GX
Title: Never Apart
Romance: Yubel x Juudai/Juudai x Yubel
Word Count: chapter 1: 1,581||story: 1,581
Genre: Drama, Romance||Rated: PG-13
Challenge: Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, section I10: a multichap with exactly 8 chapters; Written for the One Pairing Boot Camp, #40, actor; Written for the Pairing Diversity Boot Camp, #8, stolen
Notes: This takes place some years post-canon.
Summary: Someone wants to separate Juudai and Yubel. Someone did not get the message that this is a very bad idea.

"Hello, Your Highness!" Shou looked impeccable in Kuragari's royal guard uniform. He snapped a salute, eyes bright and happy, and Juudai found himself nodding back as he always had.

Something was not right here. Shou didn't wear that uniform, not black and silver trim, not with a sword hung by his side. Shou wore red… or yellow...sometimes blue. Sometimes he did wear black, but not like this.

But Juudai could not remember why. It was not right. It wasn't right at all and he couldn't put his finger on why and he didn't like it at all.

For all that he wanted to ask what was going on, his lips would not form the words. Instead he made small talk with this guard who bore a friend's face, a face that would not be born for thousands of years to come, and the words he said and heard did not sink at all into his mind, no matter how hard he tried to hold onto them.

Then he was moving along, through corridors of a castle that should not exist anymore. He remembered in far too much detail how it fell, the screams and horrors of those caught within, the power of the Light unleashed, and nothing he could do to stop it…

Yubel! Yubel! The name cried in the darkest pits of his mind and he didn't know if it was his voice or not, or when he'd called if it was. But it didn't matter. He wasn't answered anyway.

Where was Yubel? Shouldn't they always be together now? He'd done something to ensure that, but he couldn't remember.

He couldn't remember a lot of things, he realized. He knew who he was. He knew bits and pieces of scattered thoughts, but nothing that could or would clump together into a coherent whole, a picture that would make sense and give him something to look at and understand.

As if his attempt to remember the castle falling triggered it, the walls around him collapsed, transforming in one moment from a place of beauty and life and memory, a world that he'd lived in and loved in and ached when his efforts failed and it died around him. What rose in its stead made no more sense than anything else had.

For it was Duel Academia. There was no struggle to remember that, it came as clear and strong as knowing the castle and its surroundings had. As he could've found his way there without effort, he could trace the paths here as well.

He stared at the Obelisk Blue boy's dorm; he'd visited it only once or twice, mostly in third year when he'd dropped in on Johan a few times. Mostly Johan had come to see him more than anything, though. Juudai wasn't comfortable there. He never had been and now he knew why: it reminded him of that place, the glorious castle of his first life.

But he stood here now and out of it came two people, nearly as alike as peas in a pod. One was Johan; he could never mistake him for anyone else. The other, also human, but with a jewel glittering in the center of the forehead, an ornament that no one else he remembered had ever borne, mirrored Johan's features.

They spoke in unison, their voices weaving and winding around one another, and Juudai knew he should've been able to tell them apart, but try as he might, two voices now were one.

"You need to wake up, Juudai. You need to wake up and get out of here."

He wasn't going to argue they were right; none of this made sense, so didn't he need to get back to where things did?

"I don't know how." It was the truth. And he didn't like it. He should've been able to do almost anything that he wanted, and waking up should've been the least of his problems. But he just didn't know how anymore.

Again they spoke. "Wake up, Juudai. You're in danger. They're going to take us apart."

Under normal circumstances, that would've woken him up, possibly with a scream stuffed behind his lips. But regardless of what he wanted, regardless of the cold hand of fear that gripped his spine and twisted his guts and tore through his heart, he couldn't do anything but stare at them. He couldn't even ask who 'they' were.

He tried to reach out to them. He wanted to touch, to feel skin against his own, warm skin that came from someone else, and they reached for him and he could feel nothing, their hands brushing through his, and he took a shuddering step forward, only for everything around him to vanish.

The view did not fall into darkness. No, that would've been far too kind.

The light was there instead, mad laughter that tore into his ears and shredded against his skin, a wind of pain that ripped at parts of himself he'd never known could hurt until that was all they did do and he wept tears of dark fire, crashing onto his knees from the agony of it all.

Silly little nothing. Did you think you could truly defeat us? We are eternal.

All around him images danced: Saiou, Yubel, Johan, Manjoume, Asuka, Misawa, an endless parade of faces of those he cared about. Others hung in the background, little more than shadows, but he knew if he saw them, he would recognize them as well. Their names hung in the back of his mind, the names of people who had called him prince and king and master and looked to him for protection and leadership and he'd failed them, failed horribly, and there wasn't anything that he could do, he could not stop them, could not stop it, the Light was everywhere and it bound him and he screamed until his throat screamed back and he could do nothing.

Yes, little nothing. That's it. Despair. Even if you think you've won, we will always return. Life and death in a cycle, do you not remember?

He didn't want to. He didn't want to think about this at all and he shook his head and he could feel his knees press into the nothing beneath him and he whispered words that were names and he didn't remember anymore if they were the names of the living or the dead.

"Haou-sama." Mocking tones wrapped around his title and Juudai lifted his head to stare into a pair of glowing scarlet eyes.

"G-Guardian Baou." Juudai knew full well that this wasn't possible. It couldn't be; he'd killed Baou himself, even when weak and still covering from a fever, still teetering on the edge of being able to use or not use Fusion. But here the other stood before him, and he was not alone.

Behind Guardian Baou stood the other Death Duelists, Chaos Sorcerer and Skull Bishop, Skilled White Mage and Skilled Black Magician. Where before he'd seen only obedience to his will and whims in their eyes, now he saw contempt and hatred.

"This is the Haou? The one who presumed to think he could rule an entire world?" Disbelief coated Chaos Sorcerer's words. "He's little more than a child. I would sooner trust a child to be able to rule than him."

Juudai tried to get to his feet, old memories of days long past scorching through his mind. He could feel armor settling around him, and his voice spoke, though without asking permission of his mind.

"I am Haou." Drained of all emotion, but without weariness, only a deadly determination, he raised one hand and gestured toward Chaos Sorcerer. Energy sprang forward, circling his former subordinate, and dragging him down to his knees. He said nothing more, but gazed at them all as he had on the day he'd first acknowledged who the master was.

And now fear filled their eyes as Chaos Sorcerer's hands pawed and clawed at his throat, straining for a single breath that Haou's attack did not allow him.

"I am Haou. I will always be Haou. I will always be your master." The words came unbidden and no matter how much Juudai tried to pull back, to stop this, to do something, nothing at all happened save the band of energy tightening further around Chaos Sorcerer's throat. "None of you are irreplaceable."

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" Tears of pain filled Chaos Sorcerer's eyes, and Juudai could not find the slightest shred of compassion in his heart no matter how hard he searched. "Haou-sama, please, forgive me!"

And yet it tightened still, far more so than he would've thought possible. It was as if no matter how much the magician struggled and suffered, he could not die.

He was not being allowed to die.

And it was Juudai – Haou – who kept him from that, who tortured him with a heart of stone and a will of iron. No matter how much he begged, no matter the fear and terror written across all their faces…

And not just theirs. He could see them all now. Everyone. Shou. O'Brien. Jim. Freed. Hane Kuriboh. Manjoume. Asuka. Kenzan. Fubuki-san. The Kaiser. Edo. Saiou. Rei. Principal Samejima. Tome-san. Mizuchi. Fujiwara. Yuugi-san. Whether they'd been there in Dark World or not, it didn't matter. They all stared at him with fear and hatred in their eyes and he could not stop himself.

And he did not want to.

And he began to scream.

To Be Continued