Chapter 18: Oncoming Threats

Juliana's group slowly approached the ruined village of Kuruelna and looked around with watchful eyes. There was a strange, eerie aura surrounding and going through the entire ruins that Juliana had only barely sensed years ago that was now almost overwhelming now that she was more skilled. She took a deep breath and dismounted her horse. "We should split up and continue on foot from here. The horses seemed too spooked to move on."

The two guards nodded and jumped off their own horses and walked in different directions. Juliana walked straight forward into the city with a hand on her Millennium Sphere. She looked around and walked over to a piece of wall that contained a hieroglyphic symbol on it. She knelt down and put her hand to the ground, gently moving the sand away. There she found a small trap door with a small latch, which she pulled open and walked down into a poorly lit room. She recognized part of it as the area Bakura had taken her to after they had ran from some villagers.

"It would seem I have a visitor..." she heard Bakura's voice echo.

She slowly walked forward and appraoched a large room held with enormous pillars covered in Egyptian writting. In the center of the room was what appeared to be a large tomb of some sort. On the face of the tomb were seven indentions for every one of the seven Millennium Items. She began to approach it, but stopped feeling a radiation of dark energy flowing from it. "The...Millennium Chamber...?"

"Some people call it that..." Bakura walked out from the shadows and toward Juliana with a smirk on his face. He stopped a few feet from her and slightly bowed. "And what do I owe this honor...Princess? Priestess? Milady?"

"Priestess Juliana to you, Bakura." Her Millennium Sphere then faded from view.

"Ah...Priestess Juliana. Amusing that the one closest to the Pharaoh began as a small thief." He chuckled.

"I'm no thief, Bakura. That's your honor."

"You helped me steal from this very village once, remember? And from the rumors I heard, you were arrested for stealing in the market and brought in for trial. I knew one day I would see you again..." He slowly walked around Juliana and stopped in front of her, still smirking.

She stayed perfectly still, concentrating on what she had to do. There was a dark energy emitting from Bakura and she could sense his Diabound somewhere in the room. She had to play her cards right if she were to leave this room in one piece. "That was some stunt you played in the palace..."

Bakura laughed. "Impressive, no? The only match for my great Diabound is an Egyptian God...and soon even that won't matter..."

Juliana looked at him carefully. "What do you mean...?"

"Once I'm rid of your fellow priests my ka will be even stronger. The the ba of your precious Pharaoh will be weaker due to his lack of support. What say we start with you?" Diabound's snake shot out of the shadows from Juliana's side and aimed to swallow her whole.

She quickly jumped up and landed on the snake's head where she found somewhere to grip and held on tightly. The snake wiggled fiercely, trying to shake her off and slamed itself into a wall. Juliana lost her grip then and fell to the ground. She slowly stood and found Bakura standing in front of her with a dagger in his hand. She glared at him. "You won't win, Bakura..."

"You underestimate me, my lady. Picking off your friends one by one will be simple..." He smirked and lunged forward to stab her.

Juliana quickly closed her eyes and leaned back, suddenly disappearing into the wall. She fell out of the shadow of a tree in the desert and landed on her back. She quickly looked around at the darkness covered desert and stood. "What...happened...?" Holding out her hands she closed her eyes and slowly turned in a circle, stopping in a certain direction. "Palace is over there...hope nothing's happened." She began running in the direction she was facing.

After a good hour of running through the desert, she saw the lights of the palace's fires. "Almost there-OOF," Juliana said as she tripped and fell. She looked back and saw something black in the sand. She carefully lifted the object out of the ground, revealing it to be a box. She tipped it over to empty out the sand and noticed something fall out. She looked down. "Hm..? A necklace? Amulet of some kind?"

A strange black aura began to emit from the amulet and she dropped it to the ground. Soon the aura pulsated up and a figure formed in the darkness. As the darkness faded the figure came into view. He was a tall, well built man in a beige colored shirt with black pants. He had purpleish-black hair and piercing green eyes. "Why hello..." he said smirking at Juliana.

"Eyes of emerald..." she gasped and quickly stood up. "It's you! You were the one was controlling Sethos!"

"Influenced. Not controlled. Everything Sethos did he did with his own free will...I just gave him a push. Heh.."

'Matt said weapons and magic couldn't defeat this man...and I don't have time to figure out what he meant by heart. I have to get back to the palace and warn the Pharaoh.' She took one step back and glared at the man. "Who are you?"

"People call me Senshi...and if my memory serves me right, you're the little orphan priestess."

'I have a name and a visual. Now I know what to tell the Pharaoh...' Juliana turned and began running when Senshi grabbed her arm and pulled her back, lifting her up by the neck. "Let me go!"

"Let's see what kind of nightmares reside within your mind..." Senshi looked up at her and into her eyes with an alluring stare.

All at once dark images filled Juliana's mind and she screamed in pain. Terrible memories and unspoken thoughts began to play out in her mind. Images like her parent's deaths, the day she had hacked away at the corpses of Heishin's men, and more clearly the day Heishin had filled her mind with darkness and forced her to attack the palace. Only in this image, it wasn't just Vash she was fighting. Here she fought many people, all wearing strange clothing with all kinds of weapons. None of these people she recognized but with each attack she felt terror and pain. One resembled Naru, but wasn't quite Naru. Another barely resembled Vash but with black hair and carried a long thin sword. She saw a girl with strange wolf ears and a tail, as well as another girl with large black bird-like wings. There was a split second when she saw a figure with a glowing amulet on when everything went dark. "GET OUT OF MY HEAD!" she cried. There was suddenly a bright flash of light and she could feel Senshi's hold release. She fell to the ground but quickly stood and ran toward the palace.

He watched her and smirked to himself. "Interesting..." A gust of wind blew and he disappeared.

Juliana ran through the city and through the palace gates where she leaned against a wall to catch her breath. Her body shook all over and sweat dripped from her face. She looked down at her hands, thinking she felt blood but found her hands clean. "The Nightmare Shadow...Matt wasn't kidding..." She quickly looked up hearing running and saw Vash approaching her.

"Juliana! Where have you been!" he said as he reached her.

"...I was having dinner with the kingdom across the Nile...it was a splendid meal-"

"Quit the joking, you gotta get into the palace right away."

"Why? What's happened?"

"It's Runihura...he's murdered Priestess Illana and Priest Vazu and Naru's badly injured..."

All at once everything Juliana felt was washed away and she stared at Vash with her eyes wide. "Naru? Where is she!"

"In her room but she's unconscious and- JULIANA!"

As soon as she knew the location she began running into the palace with Vash running behind her. All she could think about was making sure Naru was alright. If anything happened to her, she wouldn't know what to do. She ran passed one hallway and looked down it, seeing that most of the walls were covered in blood. She ran into Naru's room and stopped. Naru lay in her bed, covered in bloodstained bandages and bruises. "Naru..." She slowly walked over to her bedside and dropped to her knees, gripping Naru's hand. "How did this happen...?"

Vash sighed in the door way. "I'm not sure...after I left you I heard screaming toward the back entrance and ran to see what it was. When I arrived Vazu and Illana were already dead and Runihura was slashing at Naru. I couldn't get through, Naru had put up a barrier. By the time I got in, Runihura was gone and Naru was unconscious..."

"Oh Naru...I'm so sorry...I should have went with you..." She bowed her head and began praying in Egyptian. She heard Vash leave the room and gripped Naru's hand tightly.

"How...could you..." Naru whispered.

Juliana quickly looked up. "Naru?"

Naru slowly sat up and Juliana stood. Naru slowly opened her eyes and glared at Juliana. Her eyes had completely turned black. "How could you do that to me!"

"Naru...I'm sorry...but, what's wrong with you...?"

She jumped at Juliana and tackled her to the ground. "You killed my parents and now you're here to kill mine! I won't let you! Too many times have you taken my life from me!"

"What! No, Naru! Runihura killed your parents!"

"LIAR!" She punched her in the face and jumped back. "You think you're so special, but you're not! You're not the only one that's led a difficult life!" A large ball of light energy appeared in her hands and she aimed it at Juliana.

Juliana shielded her eyes from the light, but felt her body getting weaker. "Naru, please stop! You know I can't fall asleep!"

"Good! It'll give me and the rest of the kingdom a reason to get rid of you...!"

"I'm sorry, Naru...I can't let you do this...you'll thank me later." She summoned up all her strength and jumped at Naru, putting her hand on her head. "UNLOCK!" The Millennium Sphere around her neck flashed and Naru's eyes went blank as she dropped to the floor. Juliana fell to her hands and knees breathing heavily. "Vash!"

Vash ran into the room and stared at Naru and Juliana. "What happened in here?"

"Tell the Pharaoh...to gather the priests..." She slowly stood. "We need to put a barrier around the palace. There's a character on the loose that can get inside our minds."

"Right." He ran out.

When Naru awoke she didn't remember attacking me at all...the only thing she really remembered were her parents lying dead on the ground. The image seemed to be branded into her mind...of course I knew how that felt. I had never seen her so broken. The next day we held a memorial service in Illana and Vazu's honor, which was ghostly silent most of the time. In the palace there was no time for play...no time for sadness either. Bakura was still a threat to the city, and I didn't dare tell them of Senshi. They suspected Runihura wouldn't attack anytime soon with the security put around the palace. But Naru...she locked herself in her room and rarely came out. Chira and I went to visit a few times, but she never said a word...

Juliana walked around the palace library with a pile of books in her hand. She walked over to a shelf and placed a book on it, then looked over and saw Naru. "Oh, hello Naru. Feeling better?"

"A bit...thank you for checking on me..." said Naru. Her face was still sad and she had one hand in a pouch attacked to her waist.

"Of course. That's what friends are for, right? If you want to talk I'm almost done putting these books away." She turned back to the bookshelf and continued putting the books away. She had almost placed the last one when she heard Naru gasp and quickly looked at her. "Naru?"

She only stood and stared at Juliana with wide eyes. In the hand that was in the pouch was now a small empty vial that dripped a strange blue-colored liquid. When Juliana turned to face her she took a step back.

"Naru? Are you ok? What's wrong?"

"I..." Her eyes began to water and she dropped the vial running to Juliana and hugging her tightly. "I'm sorry, Juliana..." She said crying.

"Shhh...it's ok..." She hugged her back.

"Runihura was right...we are a lot alike...you and me..."

"Yeah...now more than ever..."

Our friendship was never stronger...and will remain that way for the rest of our lives...