Tulip-Jin: Here's the next update. And frankly, I don't even _care_ if want to just read my fic and then not review it. I'm totally fine with it! Couldn't be happier!

Chibi Red Eyes Black Dragon: Rawr? Rawr rawr rawwwr? (TJ? Where's your Yami?)

TJ: Hiding at the bottom of the chapter to beat the living hoo-hah out of the people that don't review after they read. Why do you ask?

Chibi Red Eyes: Rawr rawwwr. (No reason.)

Disclaimer: Last chapter, and the one before that, and the one before that, and the other ones before those, will answer all your questions on this subject

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After that, my life took its darker turn. Although no one, especially myself, would have considered it that. For me, it was the best my life had ever gotten.

For starters, Jono and Hotra seemed to have decided I was their new best friend, and started pestering me about all sorts of things. They'd never seen the Court, or much else of anything.

So I ended up making a practice of sneaking them in to see it, hopefully without getting caught. That, and finally, Father was taking a more active interest in his son's lives, and more or less forced us all on mass hunting trips.

Curiously enough, when we were assigned slave-bodyguards, Jono and Hotra were mine. They managed to act respectful around Father and the 'real' guards but they almost started a blood feud with my half-brothers.

The mass trips always lasted a few days and every evening my brothers thought it was a great sport to set their slaves fighting and bet on it. Most of the slaves didn't put much effort into it, since getting injured meant getting beaten for slowness no matter what the reason, but Jono and Hotra practically begged me to let them fight.

We were all in late childhood by this point, and I'll be first to admit it, they were starting to show some real potential as soldiers. The Head of the Guard was always watching the fights, although you could never prove it, scooping out which slaves it would be worthwhile to free and train.

My brothers took this as a mark of personal achievement, to have a slave that was picked, so they began deliberately setting their strongest slaves against each other's weakest. It was perhaps the fourth hunting trip, on the first night, when I was finally forced to let Hotra and Jono fight.

Well, really I should be more specific - Jono and Hotra never actually gave me that much of a choice.

There had been a few fights already, and a brother that was more elder then most, Tekano, came up to me.

"Hey, freak! Hey Demon-spawn!" He said.

To me, he was loud enough to be heard back at the palace. It was certainly loud enough to draw everyone's attention. Except for Father's, of course.

"What is it Tekano," I said. I wasn't in the mood for him right now.

"I've noticed something - you never have your slaves fight. I guess they must be just weak as you are!"

Now, normally I would ignore something like that - it's not like it matters what other people think about me - but the strange phenomenon of friendship wouldn't let me stand by and see Jono and Hotra get bad-mouthed.

"You've only noticed it now, brother? Honestly, I would have thought you would have noticed faster then that. Apparently, it was an overestimation on my part," I said.

Sure, maybe it wasn't a great insult, but Tekano managed to figure out that I was calling him an idiot. There was a reason I never tried talking back before - Tekano especially was twice my size and weight, and he wasn't the most understanding of people. In front of everyone, he reached out, grabbed my arm, and twisted it into an very unnatural position.

Stupid me, I'd forgotten Tekano was a wrestler. It felt like he was going to rip my arm clear off, and for all I knew he was trying to. I must have cried out, because he started laughing at me while I vainly tried to free my arm before he broke it.

This was apparently too much for Jono and Hotra watch, since the next thing I knew my arm was free, Tekano was on the ground, and Jono and Hotra were in between us, fists at the ready.

"Hey, I don't care if you're Grand Emperor of the Nile, don't you touch him! Ya got that?" Jono yelled as they stood in the way.

Tekano got up, snarling a little. Out of all of us, he got away with not having slaves assigned to protect him because he was such a strong fighter. During the fights, he fought for himself. And he always won.

"So, the weakling's little slaves have to save him! That's funny!" Tekano laughed. "I'll take a little two-on-one right now, let's go!"

"You'd better watch your mouth, jerk," Hotra growled.

I wanted to stop them but it was a little obvious that nobody was going to listen to me. As the others crowded around to watch, I was kicked out of the way. Everyone was rooting loudly for Tekano, and betted on him as best as they could. It was hard when no one was willing to bet on the other side.

Holding my throbbing arm very gingerly - Tekano's grip had been so hard his fingerprints were still imprinted on my wrist - I climbed on top of a empty chariot to watch.

Tekano's method was to fight hard and fast, but unlike previous fights where he'd been outnumbered, he was facing a pair that both wanted to fight and was used to fighting as a team. Still, it even surprised me when Tekano was dropped unconscious on the dirt with a nose gushing blood - most likely broken - while Hotra and Jono seemed ready for more.

A riot was starting when the guards finally came to find out the problem. Apparently, we'd been too noisy for Father to eat dinner comfortably. In the confusion, Jono and Hotra rejoined me at our little corner of the camp. Hotra's left eye was swollen shut and Jono was limping.

"Well, you both look exceptionally pleased with yourselves," I commented.

"Yeah, we totally knocked the crown offa him!" Jono said.

"See, you should have let us fight before Yamakali, we were fine," Hotra said.

"Fine? You _bit_ a member of the Royal Family! I'll be very surprised if he doesn't try to get you executed for it," I said.

"No way, and besides, when everyone starting complaining about it, that Hiskoto-whats-his-name guy said it was 'the risk fighters had to take'," Jono protested.

"Well then, I suppose all we have worry about is getting 'accidentally' killed by a hunter tomorrow," I said, a bit more sarcastically then intended.

Internally, I was surprised that Hiskotonamekt had defended the fight. Our Head of the Guard must have taken a liking to them, but then again he was open-minded, a very odd trait nowadays.

Afterwards, it wasn't a matter of Jono and Hotra wanting to fight. Everyone else wanted their slaves to fight them but _they_ refused fights with anyone 'That wasn't gonna put their spines into it'.

After three more hunting trips of this, Father left for yet another war and Hiskotonamekt sent both of them off for training. Seth still wasn't back yet, Anza was working in the kitchens now, and that meant I had more time to look over the old scrolls.

Day by day, my magical abilities increased. I could even open the silver case with the strongest locking spell on it now, without any difficulty whatsoever. It was there I found the list - a list of magical items stored in the great vaults, the ones literally coated with trap spells.

Sometimes even priests were setting them off now, meaning no one had been able to go into the vaults for a while. Tired of just reading about them, I decided to investigate the vaults personally.

It was a moonless night when I made my way to the storerooms, past the only guard on duty in the entire area, down a winding series of corridors and up to the great ceremonial doors.

That was the first trap.

They could only be opened when it involved some radically important religious ceremony - the rest of the time they pretty much killed whatever touched them.

I took the concealed side door, and after the mandatory crouching, sliding, and jumping to get past the rest of the trap spells - and for the first time in my life being happy that I was so short - I entered the vaults.

They were a series of underground rooms, the walls covered with golden hieroglyphics that were barrier spells against those trying to dig their way in, and there were piles of gold devices and other strange wonders.

While a few pieces were clearly high-quality pieces of Egyptian craftsmanship, some of the others had a definite Greek workmanship to it. Some more others appeared to be southern in origin, but most of it all wasn't like anything I had ever seen before. The air was quietly humming with all the powerful magic as I looked around.

The torches lit themselves as I drew near, and when I had gone past they went out again. It was in the last storeroom I found the greatest treasures of all.

There were several of them - small little things that otherwise weren't that unusual amidst the gold in the room.

One was a small staff, almost a wand, topped off with a little ball and side protrusions.

One was just a ball, the size of a human eye.

There was a necklace also.

Nothing too odd, and nothing to warrant personal pillars - except for the disturbing auras they gave off, and that each one bore a Sennen Eye.

Even I knew that the Sennen Eye was a symbol of great power.

I found myself drawn to the last pillar. It actually held what might have been the most peculiar item of the lot - a box made out of gold. It wasn't decorated or marked in any way, save the Sennen Eye.

Curious, I took off the lid. Inside were strange pieces of gold. I took two of them out and looked at them more closely. The shapes didn't make much sense, until I tried putting them together.

After a little maneuvering, they joined together with a small 'click'.

"A puzzle?" I whispered - talking seemed forbidden in this place - and the pieces seemed to glow in my hands.

Quickly, I put them back in the box and picked it up. Slipping it out of sight under my robes, I left the vaults and managed to make it back without being detected.

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*Innocent pile of rocks sits next to Review Button*

*Evil cackle of laughter comes from rocks*