Tulip-Jin: Well, ladies and gents, we're in the home stretch! I'd just like to take this time to say a few words.
Yami Tulip-Jin: Hey-ya, frizzim spizzak!
TJ:(blinks) And what, dare I ask, was that?!
Yami TJ:(shrugs) You were taking too long.
TJ:(sighs)
Disclaimer: See just about every other chapter and get the general idea, okay ppl?
It was much, much later, once most of the traitors had been defeated, that I had the Shadow Game which would be carved into the walls of tombs and then left untouched for five thousand years.
However, I still felt some kinship for Septhroith, and only had him imprisoned. Even despite the sheer destruction and havoc that they - and my loyal forces as well - had wreaked, I tried not to kill the disloyal priests or soldiers. Many of them had been simply deceived. I was forced into drastic measures with the High Priest himself.
.
.
He simply refused to let me not kill him.
.
.
He had turned to Necromancy in his hunger for power and I found myself being attacked by the ghosts of all my siblings. Or at least, shadows that took their appearance. I would like to think I would have done the exact same thing in either case.
.
.
…The battle itself was rather…um…actually, I'd rather not think about it…
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When it was over, I sent the remains straight to the farthest depths of the Shadow Realm. He would never escape as long as he lived. Reincarnation, well, that was a different story.
Originally, I had planned to spare as many of the traitors as I could. This turned into a very small amount as other priests who were following Henshin's footsteps into Necromancy attacked their way to freedom.
The skies went black as they drew on more of their evil magical powers. Once they were free, all of them turned around and began attacking the palace again. It was madness! Some of them had even broken through the weakening trap spells in the vaults on their way out and I had to fight another Millennium Item, the necklace one this time. This second insurrection lasted almost a full year.
.
.
This was no longer any part of Henshin's intricate scheme. I checked with the source, or at least the closest thing to it.
I gave Septhroith a choice - help or be sent to the Shadow Realm then and there.
He wisely chose help.
Even though I had to watch my back constantly around him now, it was still almost like old times. Many of the Necromancers lost their souls to the Shadow Realm, and even those that didn't, I had executed after the fighting finally stopped.
It was all very public, and that should have worried me immensely, but you know what, I was too angry to care that the Shadow Realm was affecting me.
.
.
Necromancy deals with death. Anza, along with several other innocent bystanders, had been butchered in one warlock's hideous ritual.
Hotra was dead too - he took a full power flesh-decaying spell to the chest, and we had to put him out of his misery.
Jono sort of lost it from that and got himself killed less then two days later.
Even Hiskotonamekt was dead now. Everything I had ever relied on was dead or changed forever. It shouldn't have been such a surprise when I began actively seeking Shadow Games. I mentioned once before, Shadow Games bring out a person's absolute worst.
Septhroith, whenever he played, revealed his own dark ambitions. Me? I played to win. No cost was too high for me. Shadow Games were played for power and souls, and I always, always, always won.
.
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It had gotten pretty chaotic by my eighteenth year of life. The Shadow Realm had been drawn on so heavily and so often in the recent past that it had begun leaking into the normal world all on its own.
In a year, maybe less, the walls between dimensions would shatter entirely and the darkness of the Shadow Realm would flood through Egypt and go on to destroy the entire world.
And I didn't care. I was scaring even Septhroith these days, with the unbridled ferocity of the Games I fought and the Duels I played. You could hear people whispering everywhere, about how the Pharaoh was going insane and how I was going to end up killing them all.
Even the normally bright, cheerful energies of the Millennium Puzzle weren't nearly so bright or cheery anymore. I knew there was something wrong with me but I couldn't very well stop myself. It was like I needed something, something that wasn't there - or if it was, I couldn't find it. And without it, I'd keep playing Shadow Games until the heat death of the universe.
My powers were unparalleled, unequaled, unassailable, and ultimately worthless. What good was all my power if I lived the life of an empty shell? Sometimes I thought a stray breeze might blow me away. What was I supposed to do, kill myself?
'That wouldn't help. Egypt needs a leader.'
Yeah, and I sure was some leader, wasn't I? I kept hearing about a certain tomb raider that kept trying to rob Father's tomb. I had collected all seven Millennium Items by this time and Father's tomb was the only place safe to put them.
So of course they weren't actually in there, but since only I knew that they were safe. Bekareh was hunting for them, first to get the Millennium Ring back and then to steal all the other Items and make himself more powerful then me.
He still wanted to rule the world, and I was his number one obstacle. Father's tomb was probably the only one that hadn't been robbed by the stray necromancer-thief.
Still, I couldn't ignore this. If I let the Shadow Realm through, not only would the world be destroyed but it would be all my fault.
(("Yamakali! I'm telling Father what you did! This mess is all your fault!"))
(("But I didn't do anything!"))
Not that not doing anything had anything to do with it. No one had as intimate a relationship with the Shadow Realm as I did. It was a dimension of pure magic, and if you listened carefully you could hear it's low, insistent voice demanding release as clawed at the uncountable cracks in the walls. Or at least I could.
.
.
And if I stood back and let the world be destroyed, well, I'd be guilty of not helping. It was something Anza used to say when we were little…when she was Numari's slave. If I visited her and she was working, I had to help her out as much as I could.
Otherwise I was 'guilty of not helping'.
Anza always said it like that was a terrible thing to be guilty of. So for some reason, I wanted to be guilty of everything but not helping. That would be like spitting on my memory of Anza.
But what could I do, really? The Shadow Realm wasn't going to listen to anyone planning to stop it, let alone me; I wouldn't be able to get every shadow magic user before the break happened and besides, they only accelerated the problem.
It was going to happen if they played Shadow Games or not. Feeling incredibly frustrated, I decided pacing wasn't going to help and I looked outside instead. Even under the ever-blackening sky, people tried to live their lives as they always had.
.
.
They bought and sold things in the Marketplace, lived in their houses, farmed their land, and let their children play in the streets. I saw a small group of them playing closer to the palace walls then most.
A lot of people had decided the palace was haunted or worse, so it was avoided as much as possible. I squinted in order to see better. What were they doing?
Under the direction of one girl, the other boys and girls were piling up rocks. It didn't make any sense until they finished and the children moved to both sides. The pile went up to their waists, and was intricately constructed in a sort of roundish shape. The girl that had designed it stood in the middle and all the other children began throwing pebbles at the rock pile.
They threw as hard as they could, and yet the shape held! For the most part, at least. And whenever a piece of the shape got knocked out of place, the shape's creator grabbed it and stuck it back in. She even used some of the scattered pebbles to shore up the edges on occasion.
I was in the middle of turning away from the window, wondering where did children get their ideas, when something caught my attention.
I saw it out of the very corner of my eye, and it took me a few moments to relocate it. I stood there with my jaw hanging open in disbelief when I finally realized what I was really looking at.
The children's shape was nothing but a rough imitation, but it was without a doubt a Sennen Eye.
"That's it," I said to myself.
"That's what I need to do!"
