M-Sama's note: Hey Everyone! Just thought I'd let you know I'm here and I'm not dead. I'm so sorry this is taking so long…please be patient with me. I'll do my best to make it worth it. What you think of my work is everything. Thanks so much, you few who have been with me since the beginning, cheering me on. I'll never forget it.

Chapter 11: The Angel of Doom

It's not like they weren't given many opportunities to see they were messing up. Something was going very wrong here, and it was to be the end of everything.

Young duelist trainees lost control of their monsters, the effort of summoning shredding their souls and leaving their bodies vacant shells on the field. The black and red shadows that would linger on a field for hours after the duel was complete. Even experienced duelists like Seto would feel unnaturally drained after even a short battle; another poor upstart sent to the shadow realm, and the headache would last all day.

The King had felt no such drain, but he sensed something was amiss. He pulled Seto to the side and tried to ask him about it.

"High Priest Seto, I would speak with you."

"At your command." The words were civil. The two went to one of the king's sitting rooms.

"Something has come to my attention that troubles me. I sense a foul wind blowing but I'm not sure from where."

"So what?"

"I sense destruction on this wind. Something doesn't feel right…"

"Your point is?"

The Pharaoh's eyes were hard. "I was wondering if you've felt anything similar, High Priest."

"No, I haven't." Seto's tone, while remaining civil, somehow also managed to imply that he had much better things to do than sit around contemplating some vague sense of danger, and he didn't think much of deadbeat kings who sat around all day being paranoid.

None of this was lost on the Pharaoh. He missed very little. "Mage, do not take that tone with me. I was simply voicing a concern."

"Of course." Stupid concern.

"…You may go."

"Regards, your majesty."

It was too bad the Pharaoh was so concerned about the approaching danger. Too bad he was so sensitive to the tide of the magic. The feeling of dread dogged his every thought, like an earache that wouldn't go away. Otherwise he might have noticed something was fishy about the way his High Priest was acting.

To disappear for hours or days at a time was normal for Seto Sutekh-Sokar. To do so leaving no word or sign as to where he was or how he could be reached was less so, though not unheard of. To snap and sneer at the servants was his way. But there was something strange about it, just the same.

One night, while Jono and the King were off busting up a grave-robbing den, Tèana and Seto were eating dinner. She was horrified by how pale he looked. His hand shook when he moved to life his drink to his mouth. She asked him what the matter was and he grumbled he didn't feel well. She asked him if he had been to the leech, and he said he'd have none of that medicine quackery, he'd be just fine. He proceeded to pick at his dinner, have it sent back to the cookhouse with many harsh words, stand up in a huff and say he was going to bed. Tèana watched him go, the one person she never thought she'd have to worry about…

As abruptly as it started, it stopped. Seto's motions went from shaky to oily smooth. His color returned to normal. There was something furtive in the way he looked about him; something smug glances he gave the pharaoh. The smugness that comes from knowing you can throw your worst enemy to the crocodiles by raising your hand, yet you don't, not yet. You are just so pleased to know you can.

That fool of a king. He has no idea what's coming. How can he sit there and pretend to run his country when his head is in the heavens all day? Oh my foolish king. Oh Pharaoh! If you only knew…you will pay for what you did to me on your coronation. You should have finished me off while you could. Oh you thoughtless one, lost in your world. I will throw you back into the shadows you came from, you freak. You will pay, and all of the Two Kingdoms shall bow before me! I know it.

"Yes, yes you shall. I have seen it in the heavens. Seto Sutekh-Sokar, you are the champion. You will be the one who shall face down the darkness. The king's star is fading. His house is destined to fade, for he is the last of his line, the seventeenth son. It is time for a new king. A strong king. You; Seto Sutekh-Sokar. Your time is almost at hand." A peel of gleeful laughter rang through the darkness, insane laughter; thoroughly evil laughter. "Listen to that voice in your head, Seto. Listen to the dissenting summoning. Heheheh, and you call that king of yours a fool. It was quite surprising how difficult it was to push you into betraying that bastard king of yours; I would have thought you needed no urging. Still, your symptoms went away when you decided to take him down, didn't they Seto? When you stopped resisting? Oh, this is too much. Such a proud creature, willful with more courage and honor than you've had the opportunity to show, reduced to this. You still haven't figured it out, have you? Seto, you magnificent catch! The gods my kinsman must have placed you there to do my bidding. Ah, how wonderful this is. Everything's going according to plan…" The laughter rang out again like a lightning storm, rolling and crackling.

The prophecy had come to pass. Two scions inhabited the world already, but this third one was a species unto himself. His build was slender, his violet eyes lit from within by a dark fire. His hair was golden and shaggy, framing his head in a halo like a lion's mane. His eyelashes were indistinguishable from the black markings that framed his unholy violet eyes. Victim of a twisted past, he had come to hate the world and everything in it. The world was full of chaos and pain, he knew. He was a child of that pain. His mission was to destroy it, being destruction upon the world. Not only that, he thought he knew how to go about it…

He was aware of the power in his veins. He knew his whole being resonated to the duelist magics. He had learned to exploit this connection…make the magics resonate to him. In this way he had gained the power to influence, "push" at the mind of anyone who had ever dueled.

He came from a long line of tomb guardians, although he had been taken from them when he was a child when the desert nomads raided his home. He was a slave among them for ten years. Ten years of cruel labor and atrocities…but let us not duel too much on his past. It is enough to know that he crouches in the darkness of the tombs, and his skin is bronzed from sitting in the sunlit courtyards of the dead while his mind roamed the shadowy fluxing barrier between the shadow and the light, influencing, playing his mind games with the duelers.

Chaos and destruction was what he desired. The world was a cruel, crazy place and must not be allowed to continue. He would see to that. Oh yes. And he brought out those same bloodthirsty feelings every time he "leaned" on a duelist. And he now he had the one, the final key which would bring apocalypse upon the world…

It had been easy. The thirst for power, the ambition, the intense rivalry and deep grudge he had against his king, and the pride that would make him oblivious to any outside intervention made Seto the High Priest the perfect target. Not to mention he had been pouring too much destructive emotion into his duels, and his constitution was weakening. It was easy to enter his mind and awaken thoughts of rebellion, and once that was accomplished Seto needed no more pushing. He thought up the plan himself for the usurpation, and fantasized about the slow torments he would subject the king to once his rival had fallen. He never asked why these things appeared in his head, nor would he have believed it if someone had told him he was not the one who desired these things. His plans were in place. Now it was time to act.

Burning in the sunlight coming through the pillars in the house of the dead, the angel of doom reared his halo of pale gold back and laughed to the sky.