A/N: Look at me! Adding and updating stories left and right. What's wrong with me, you may wonder? Especially with a paper due tomorrow and two midterms next Wednesday. I think I'm developing Cronic Schoolwork Procrastination.

This story involves a THREESOME, that is, a woman with TWO MEN, which means there will be some male/male action, though not a whole lot. Atemu and Bakura kind-of-sort-of hate eachother, after all.

I don't own YuGiOh!

Book One: The Disease

Egypt: 3,000 Years Ago

It had started to sink in on her fortieth birthday, celebrated under good Pharaoh Tutankhamen's reign. There had been gifts and dancers, just like usual, and many common people one by one wishing her longevity and health like they always did. She had smiled and greeted them as per usual, until one man, an old grandfather, made a comment about her appearance.

"Good Nuru, why, you haven't aged a day since I first laid eyes on you not fifteen years ago."

It had been meant as a compliment, and she had taken it as one, brushing off the strange drop in her stomach at his words. It wasn't until much later, sitting with the Pharaoh and his priests as usual and left to her own thoughts, had she mulled over that comment again in her mind. Nuru had traced paths down her face, and studied her reflection in one of her gold arm bands, looking, looking. But she could find no wrinkles. No sagging skin.

She looked just the same as she had fifteen years ago.

When poor Tutankhamen passed to the next life and Pharaoh Horemheb became ruler and she was still there, sitting where she had for over thirty-five years at the feet of the Pharaoh, people became curious. At first. Why wasn't good Nuru aging? Is it, perhaps, a gift from the gods? Or is it some sort of punishment for not following her first Pharaoh into the afterlife?

Horemheb had reigned for thirty years when that curiousity turned into something more malicious.

Nuru could see the suspicion in Horemheb's eyes as she sat at his feet, day after day. She had watched him grow from a young boy into a hardened man and had loved him like a son all the while. But even she was worried. Even she had no answers for him when he remarked on her longevity.

"How long has it been, Nuru, since you were born unto this world?"

Nuru felt only helpless, and a little scared. It was a fearsome number in her mind. "It has been s-seventy years, my pharaoh."

Horemheb would narrow his eyes but say nothing in return. He didn't understand it any better than she, but she had taken a large part in raising him, and perhaps that was why he never pushed the subject. Yet the common people were fearful of her. They would not approach the king with her at his feet. The priests were wary of her in a dangerous way, always purposely leaving her out of conversation and overriding her presence even when she wanted to speak. Horemheb quietly allowed her presence in any case, despite the cold words Nuru knew his vizier, Ramses, was whispering to him about her.

But then he died, some ten years later. And Ramses came to power. His reign was short-lived, but barely had he settled on the thrown when she was thrown out of the palace with accusations of sorcery and feeding off the life forces of the Pharaohs to remain unchanging. Nuru had been forced to seek refuge in the Temple of Amun-Ra, which despite being large and filled with priests during the day, at night it was cold, and deathly quiet. She could only eat the food given directly to her by kinder priests and pitying commoners, as it was much like a sin to steal the offerings many brought to the temple. That was only a small part of the populace, however – like Ramses, nearly all the Egyptians believed her to be a sorceress, feeding off the lives of others to fuel her own. Many times people came to temple to punish her, with rocks or whips. Some had brought her poisoned food, but because she only nibbled on the offerings in order to make them last, she endured violent sickness but not death.

When one man had tried to force himself on her, mumbling about goddesses and eternal life Nuru knew she had to disappear from the people's eye. Nuru hid deeper in the temple, in a room hardly large enough to sit in where hardly any people went. It was dark and cool, and the hieroglyphs on the walls told her of old, old records even before she had been born. No one found her hiding place, and Nuru contented herself with listening to the hum of people going in and out of the temple during the day.

She slept for what felt like days on end, but didn't really feel tired. She woke only once in a while, feeling as though she was supposed to eat, or drink, but she didn't and to her growing sadness and confusion never felt the worse for it. But after a long while, the temple became emptier than usual. Even during the day. She couldn't hear as well the chatter of priests or the high pitch of a child's voice. After long hours of contemplation curiousity drove her from her hiding place – and though it was broad daylight, there was no one in the open concept temple. There was no one outside, either.

No matter which direction she looked – towards the Nile, where fisherman were supposed to be labouring, or towards beautiful Memphis, which seemed now no better than a ghostly palace and downtrodden homes, there was no one.

It alarmed her, and terrified her.

Her immediate concern became the Shadow Monsters, their likeness carved into great tablets which lined the innermost walls of the palace. She kept a terse, nervous watch over them and wished, oh she wished she knew where the Millennium Items had gone. Where the people had gone. How could they leave the Monsters here, unguarded? Any man might come up to the palace and take control of them!

Often during the days and night she would step outside of the palace and look towards the city, half-expecting it to be bustling and lively once again. There was never a change.

Nuru painted many hieroglyphs. She wrote songs and cleaned every room in the palace, with special care to the Pharaoh's chambers. She tried to look happy, and ignore the seriousness of the situation, though who she put on such a face for she didn't know. But worst of all she dreamed things, memories she didn't want to recall of a past long before this strange long life. She prayed to the Gods, twice a day at the very least, and wished desperately to die. Long nights were spent in the Pharaoh's chambers, rearranged according to her memories during Atemu's life. She soft tiger and leopard furs were one of her few comforts, and even though his presence from the room was long gone, she could still imagine him there. And sometimes, when she was particularly depressed, the other would come as well.

Yet they were both long dead. How she so wished to join them.

And then, one day, while she was praying in the Temple of Amun-Ra, she heard someone else walk up the steps behind her.

Nuru whipped about, hardly daring to believe her ears; and yet, there he was – a man, clad in Egyptian linen but obviously not of Egyptian descent. He froze on the last step when their eyes met. She leapt up quickly, her heart thrumming hastily in her chest as hope, hope she hadn't felt in so long coiled through her chest.

The man looked incredibly shocked by finding another person in the temple. She rushed forwards quickly and grasped his hands, bowing and pressing them to her brow. "Oh, thank you, Ra has finally answered my prayers!"

"Girl, who are you?" the man asked in clear confusion. His Egyptian sounded rough to her ears, but she listened to it eagerly. Another being was here, another voice! It could only mean one thing – "A young woman should not be alone, traipsing through this dead city."

"But you've come back!" Nuru said joyously, eyes wet. She kissed his hands gratefully and looked up at him, beaming. "I've been so lonely, ever since Pharaoh Ramses put me in this place, but now finally-,"

"Ramses?" the man pulled back suddenly, eyeing her with wariness. "Have you an illness, girl? It has been nigh a hundred years since the dynasty of Pharaoh Ramses I."

Nuru froze. Something which had been tightening in her chest clenched, and shattered. Her throat felt dry. She stepped back from the man slowly, looking away from his face and to the marble floors. They were worn and dull.

"A hundred years," she repeated in a whisper. "A hundred years."

As if he was just next to her, Nuru heard Horemheb's voice again in her mind.

"How long has it been, Nuru, since you were born unto this world?"

Nuru's arms curled about her stomach, and she shuddered. The man was calling to her, concerned, but she could not hear.

One hundred and seventy years.