The Three Kings: Strike

Disclaimer (1): Yu-gi-oh! Duel Monsters is owned by Kazuki Takahashi, Studio Gallop, Nihon Ad Studios, and TV Tokyo. Harry Potter is owned by J. K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Publishing, Arthur A. Levine Books, and Warner Bros. Please support the official releases.

Disclaimer (2): Travis & Emery Music is located at 17 Cecil Ct, London, UK. Watkin's Books is located at 19-21 Cecil Ct, London, UK.

Warning: Mentions of gore, non-consensual body modification, rape, child abuse, potential homelessness, past minor character death, bombings, home invasion, and unintentional misgendering of a closeted character.

Chapter 7: Intersection

After Solomon leaves him for dead in the cage, Mokuba is hauled up and thrown into a cell with Matthew, who hasn't stopped muttering the spell for the Shield of Azriel since the moment they were captured. The Spellcaster doesn't even react when Mokuba is literally tossed inside and he doesn't expect him to. Matthew is far too into his prayer to notice the world around him.

Mokuba plays dead on the ground, hoping that the wizards will make a comment. He's rewarded for his silence when the huge redheaded monster behind him says, "Why aren't the Cuffs working on him? Can't they make him stop?"

Mokuba pushes himself up on trembling arms and turns his head just enough to see- but not enough to see… he doesn't want to think about it- the dainty witch beside him shake her head, "Spellcasters… They're in a league all their own. They've managed to prevent him from doing much else, but no one can even touch him."

He can see why. Matthew sits cross legged in the middle of the cell, his eyes closed and his head bowed. Tendrils of golden light steam off of his body, blurring him from sight. The Spellcaster mutters darkly under his breath in a language that Mokuba doesn't know - he'd guess some ancient druidic language, given Matthew's past cycles.

It's odd, he thinks to himself around the pain. I don't doubt he's telling the truth, but it's hard to think that he was Morgause, back during the reign of King Arthur.

The doors clang shut and the wizards outside seal it shut with the wave of their wands. Mokuba waits for them to round the counter before he lets himself fall to the ground again, trying not look back at the cause of his agony.

My leg. Oh god, my leg.

Matthew was chanting the Shield of Azrael, calling upon the Angel of Death himself to protect the minds and souls of all those that had been captured. Whatever mindreading abilities the wizards showed them only the terrible angel made up entirely of mouths and wings and the death rattles of all living beings as their lives came to an end If the wizards stayed too long, Azrael would claim them for himself, as Mokuba's original captor had learned.

He shudders at the memory, remembering the feeling of Matthew's magic fueling the great creature as it reached forwards in Mokuba's mind and stolen the wizard's life from him with a single swipe of his screaming hands.

But the Shield could only protect against mental or spiritual attacks, not physical. And with Mokuba as their guinea pig, his captors had taken to experimenting on whether his own pain could convince him to tell them what they wanted to know out of his own volition.

Matthew Jacques had kept chanting. And Mokuba's left leg had been removed at the knee.

At least they cauterized it, he thinks as he tries to flex a foot that's no longer there. I didn't bleed out. I didn't break. I told them nothing.

He tells himself this as he starts to cry. It hurts. It hurts so much.

"I don't want to die. Please, god, I don't want to die," he whispers into the floor. "Someone… someone help me…" He curls up onto a ball and weeps. "Anyone… please... Seto..."

Seto, god, he hopes Seto's still alive. Mokuba wants to think that he'd just know if his brother was dead, but it doesn't work like that. He lets out a horrible, wrenching scream and-

"Hello?" A voice calls out, "Oh, god, are you okay? Hello?!"

There are more voices, more people calling out and Mokuba barely recognizes any, but he responds anyways, shouting out his name in hopes that someone he knows can comfort him.

"Mokuba? Mokuba, is that you?" And it's-

"Weevil?"

"Yes! Yes, it's me!"

"Mokuba?" Calls out a different voice and it's Maria from school. She'd just gotten married and her husband must be so, so worried about her, her little boy must be crying for her mother.

Maria is talking again, "Hey, hey, Mokuba. Are you okay? Did they hurt you?"

Yes, he wants to say, but he doesn't because he doesn't want to scare her. He doesn't want to scare himself. So instead, he says, "Been… been better. A-are you…?"

Maria doesn't answer, but Weevil does, "Fuckers took her. Mokuba, her clothes are all torn up-"

"Weevil, don't- I don't want to talk about-"

"Maria, fuck, shit, are you alright?!" Mokuba crawls towards the wall where her voice is coming from. Behind him, Matthew continues to chant.

"I've… been better, too," she whispers, sounding ancient and tired. He wants to kill them all.

He makes it to the wall, propping himself up against it, breathing heavily. He's so exhausted. He just wants to fall asleep and never wake up.

There's some clanging coming from the direction of the cell block doors, but he toons it out. Instead, Mokuba focuses on getting Weevil to describe how he and the other two kids had escaped the first time. Maybe, just maybe, they could use that information to their advantage.

But in the process, Mokuba learns about the brief moment that Weevil had with Bakura before he became Bakura.

Logically, he knows about the existence of Ryou Andrews. Bakura says that he doesn't mind talking about the boy he once was, but he always does so in this stiff, off-putting manner that makes you want to drop the subject because you can literally taste the anxiety radiating off of the Thief King's skin.

So to hear Weevil speak about how Ryou Andrews had been this haunted, stick-thin boy who'd been so broken by the wizarding world he'd been forced to live in is… astounding. Horrific, awful, and utterly sickening, but astounding nonetheless.

Mokuba allows himself to close his eyes, mind flitting in and out of consciousness as listens to Weevil speaking and the soft chanting of Matthew in the background. He thinks that he actually dozes off at one point, because he dreams of a past cycle from the early days of the Roman Empire.

He'd been named Manius back then, alone in his cycle for the first time in centuries, and he'd been young and willful and too stupid to realize what the consequences of his actions might be.

I did this. I helped create wizards.

He's never told Seto, never told anyone, and is determined to keep it that way. But how could he have known that warning his cousins of the true dangers that might befall him in the newly conquered province of Aegyptus? How could he have known that Ignotus and his brothers would twist what he'd told them and use it to force magic out of the soul and into the blood and flesh and bone of man?

Manius can't deny it, though. It was his words that inspired the Peverells to create three new divine weapons that would help Rome carve out a magical dynasty that, in a thousand years, would reshape the world with war and death and slaughter.

Mokuba wakes up with a start, unsure of what it is that causes him to jolt. He tries to stand, but forgets all too late, that he's missing his left leg. Pain jolts up his spine, making him cry out in shock, as he puts pressure on the burnt stump. The black, pus-filled scabs crack and start to bleed.

"Shit, fuck, oh god-" he swears, frantically trying to apply pressure to the wound to stop the red from flowing. I should have just told them what they wanted to know. Seto would understand, if I did. Bakura wouldn't blamed me. Atem-

Atem.

Mokuba doesn't know how he knows that Doctor Mutuo is dead, but he does. He suspects that it has something to do with Solomon knowing about the Lady Pharaoh. And if the old man really is his grandfather from all those years ago, then there's a high probability that he'd be related to Atem's modern-day incarnation. And if he remembered his cousin's name, then that meant that she was alive again.

At the cost of Doctor Mutuo's life. It seems so stupid now, to think I liked her and I never told her because the Doctor have barely known Mokuba, hardly see him outside of class and a single meeting where he'd learned of her knowledge of mages. But she'd always been kind to him, always smiled when she saw him, and she'd been so pretty and so smart and so utterly out of his league, that he couldn't have helped but fallen hard. And now she was dead.

He can't even hate Atem for that, because god only knows how badly San Francisco needed it's Pharaoh, how badly he missed his cousin.

Mokuba just wants out, just wants to go home. He wants his mom, who's been dead since he was nine years old, crushed to death with his father in a crash of screeching metal and flashing headlights.

He's twenty years old. He shouldn't be here, crying and dying and missing a limb. He should be at school, studying and going to parties and kissing anyone who wanted to kiss him. He wants to get drunk again, actually smoke a joint, maybe even lose his virginity. He just wants to be normal.

But he can't. Because Monthu cycles. He remembers. And he's so goddamn fucking angry about it.

Then, something impossible happens. A figure approaches the door. It's Solomon Mutuo. And he has keys.

The driver makes a right-hand turn on to the M4 and goes into what, back home, would have been the opposing lane of traffic. Mai tries not to have a heart attack.

"Christ," she whispers under her breath anyways. From behind the wheel, Catherine, one of the Jackal's British contacts, laughs at her.

"Americans," Catherine says with mirth in her voice, making eye contact with Strings in the rear view mirror. He signs something and it causes Catherine to snort, the scars on the left side of her face stretching and contracting in a way that looks a little painful.

"What?" Seto questions, who'd silently called shotgun and glared at anyone who might challenge him.

"Strings learned to drive at twelve. In the desert. He's wondering how you'd react to him behind the wheel," Catherine explains. Except-

The bottom drops out of Mai's stomach and dread fills her lungs. Catherine Arkana is lying.

About what, she doesn't exactly know, but somewhere in those few sentences, Catherine hadn't told the truth. It's terrifying. She wants to signal Seto in some way, but doesn't know if she can without being noticed.

So Mai waits and rejoins the conversation, trying to rationalize it all.

Catherine chats away in the driver's seat, telling them about how she'd come into contact with the Jackals years ago. Her fiance had been a stage magician, using his mage craft to perform tricks in Madrid, teleporting her around the stage and leaving his audiences to wonder how he did it.

"The Department had come for him in the past, but he was always able to escape. We'd thought that he'd be safe in Madrid, most mages were at the time. Until… well, until the wizards decided that we weren't allowed to be safe anywhere anymore."

It's around that time that Mai realizes that Catherine left arm is a prosthetic.

"My fiance was killed trying to protect me. Cassie got me and the others out, but it was too late for him," Catherine says stoically. "I moved back home afterwards, and I've been keeping an eye out for wizarding activity here ever since."

Mai gets a text from Raf, who's in Philadelphia under Seto's orders to break into the Archives again with Vivian Wong, just after they pass through Chiswick. He's just gotten off the phone with Alister, who's taking care of Haley while the two of them are overseas. Raf sends her a picture that his boyfriend had sent her, and Mai tries to keep the tears out of her eyes when she sees Alister and Haley smoothing their faces together to fit in the screen, tongues out and eyes wide.

I love you, baby, she thinks, softly and desperately. I love you so much.

Mai tries not to think about Valon, her husband and Haley's father, a man who'd been dead for years. She tries so, so hard not to think about the last time she'd seen him, he'd been dressed in his army uniform, standing in the doorway of their crappy shoebox of an apartment, kissing her softly before heading to the airport.

I should have gone with him, she thinks. I should have taken the day off work, but we needed to make rent that month and Haley- Haley was too young to understand why her daddy was going away…

Valon died in a car bombing in Iraq the day that the Department came for her. Rafael and Alister, her childhood friends, helped her fend them off, helped her grab Haley and run west with nothing but the clothes on their backs, rent unpaid and breakfast still on the table.

She didn't dare call her parents for six months, terrified that something would happen if she did. So there Mai had been, standing at a payphone on a dusty street in Holbrook, Arizona, her baby strapped to her back and Alister's hand clutching her's like a lifeline, when her mother told her about Valon.

Her memories came flooding back and she hasn't been the same since.

Haley doesn't remember her father. She knows that Joey isn't her dad, but when Mai asked her about Valon, Haley looked at her blankly, saying nothing at all. Mai thinks about the photo that she and Valon had taken on prom night, all those years ago, how she'd hadn't had the opportunity to take it with her when they fled Austin.

She doesn't want to be a ghost to her daughter, someone that Alister brings up once in a blue moon only to have Haley stare silently at him, Mai's face only a blurry memory. She's not going to die here.

"Leo's turned his wizard hunting satellite on London a couple of days ago and discovered what looks to be a forked street that's not on the maps," Cassie explains, pulling Mai from her thoughts. "Our spies think that the entrance to the street is a pub hidden beneath the Mist." She passes Seto a grainy photograph of a pair of shops. "It's between Travis & Emery Music and Watkin's Books, just off Charing Cross Road."

"The Leaky Cauldron..." Mai murmurs after Seto passes the photo back to her. It looked tiny and grubby looking, not like her Nomad at all.

"Strings is going to make it so we can pass through the pub undetected," Catherine nods towards the boy sitting next to Mai. "Once we get in, though, it's all up to you guys to get the goblins talking to us."

"That shouldn't be too much of a problem," Serenity says from where she's seated on the other side of Strings.

"Okay, good. Because frankly, just getting us onto the street is going to be the hard part."

They leave the car in a lot about five minutes away from Charing Cross Road and walk the rest of the way. Mai takes Serenity's elbow, letting her walk along beside her with her cane moving back and forth. The entrance to The Leaky Cauldron looks exactly like it does in the picture Catherine gave them: small, rundown, and vaguely blurry, in the way that all things hidden behind a forced Mist shield seemed to be. Strings touches the walls softly with the tips of his fingers, a sad look in his eyes.

As he signs rapidly, Catherine translates, "'Whatever spell they have to hide this place from non-magic's, it's wrong. It hurts just looking at it.'" She places a hand on his shoulder, speaking directly to the boy, "I know. But we're here to do a job. Come on."

Strings nods solemnly and twists his hands in a sharp motion. Mai suddenly feels like she's standing in the middle of a warm, summer sun shower, the water flowing over her skin until she suddenly couldn't see it anymore. When she looks up, she has to squint and blink her eyes rapidly before the blurry shapes of her comrades came into her view.

Catherine is translating for Strings again, "'We can see each other, but they can't see us. It should keep us hidden for a while.'"

Seto nods, "Alright. Let's get going."

The inside of the pub as damp and dark as it's entrance suggests. There was an old man behind the bar, bald and wrinkled, pouring glasses of sherry for a couple of women in tall pointed witch hats. A tiny man in a bright green top hat sat at a table, giggling into a newspaper. In a corner, a man covered in thick hair who had to have been half giant was drinking ale from what looked to be a wooden bucket. When he laughed, it was so loud that it seemed to echo around the entire room.

Mai has never felt so cold in her entire life. Witches. Wizards. All of them. We're completely surrounded. If Strings' protections didn't hold up, then they'd all be dead.

It doesn't take too long to find out how to access the wizarding street. Two men with thick German accents come down the stairs and asked loudly what the passcode was.

"Three up, two across," the barman said without looking up from the counter he was scrubbing with a rag so dirty that Mai thinks it would give a health inspector an aneurysm. Their group silently follows the pair of men out into a small, walled courtyard that contained nothing more than a dustbin and a couple of weeds.

"Ooops! Oh… sorry, sorry!" A voice from behind and Mai has to yank Serenity out of the way before the young girl that barrels into the courtyard knocks into her.

The girl is young, eleven or twelve years old, with long black hair and dark brown eyes, her facial features showing Japanese accessory. She's wearing a yellow velvet dress that would look to be right out of a Renaissance fair if it weren't covered in soot. Mai's blood turns to ice when the girl pulls out a wand.

"Sorry," she says again and marches towards the wall, tapping a brick that is three up and two across from the dustbin with her wand. She seems out of breath. "I have to… before my father notices I'm gone…"

The brick she touched wriggled and a small hole appeared in the middle, steadily growing larger and larger until it formed an archway that lead onto a cobblestone street that twisted and turned out of sight.

The girl waited until the hole was large enough before jumping through and racing up the street.

Mai looks at Seto, who raises an eyebrow and shrugs. They start moving right after the two German men pass through the arch and walk out into what Mai would describe as a strip mall from the 1600s.

"Winkelgasse," the man on the right says before pointing towards a shop labeled 'Apothecary', heading towards the door.

"We're looking for a place called Gringotts," Seto says. "It's a bank, and it should be-"

"That massive white building right over there?" Mai interrupts, pointing towards the far side of the street, where the building that caught her attention towers over the rest of the shops.

Seto blinks, "Well… yes. That one."

The five of them weave through the crowd towards the bank. As they walk up the stairs towards the bronze doors, Mai spots a goblin guarding the door. Before she can say anything, Seto approaches him and, still invisible, kneels down in front of him.

What Seto says to the guard isn't anything that Mai can understand, but it causes him to jolt at his station and then smirk widely with a mouth full of pointed teeth. The two of them speak softly to each other for several minutes before Seto rises and comes back.

"We can go in. Srags recommends that we wait until someone else opens the doors, so that we don't arise suspicion," he says.

To Mai's utter surprise, it's the little girl from the courtyard that opens the gates, barging up the stairs and into the bank. The five of them slip in behind her, just before the doors close, and Seto sends what Mai assumes is a 'Thank you' in a language she can't understand.

The girl ignores the queue entirely, pushing through squawking witches and wizards until she reaches the front desk.

"Is Nurnok in?" The girl practically shouts at the goblin behind the counter, "I'm Amane. Amane Andrews. She took me down to my vault a few days ago."

"Ms. Andrews, if you would please rejoin the line-"

"You don't understand, my dad knows I'm here! I need to talk to her about-"

"Amane."

Mai turns and sees a man in the entrance way, covered in soot and looking utterly livid. He stalks forwards and the girl looks terrified, practically crawling onto the front desk to get away from the man she assumes is her father-

Seto is tense beside her, shaking, his face pale with… fear? Anger? She can't tell. But she knows just enough about Seto Kaiba's childhood to know that this situation is intimately familiar to him.

The girl is dragged towards the doors, kicking and screaming, while everyone else looks at their feet and does nothing. Mai knows logically that this girl is a witch, that she's everything that Mai stands against, except…

Except, this is a child, one that's scared witless of her father, and Mai can't help but act.

Mai Valentine is a mage with several powers. She has the ability to transform into a harpy, her arms turning to feathers and her feet sporting talons nearly four inches long. On top of that, she has the ability to tell if someone is lying (and she still hasn't forgotten about Catherine's lie earlier today, she's just buying her time). But finally, Mai can manipulate the wavelength of her voice, using it to do anything from silently whistling at a dog to shattering glass. She knows enough that low-frequency sounds can cause inexplicable fear in some humans.

She does this now, projecting the waves towards the ears of the girl's father at a wavelength so low that Andrews stops in the middle of the floor, the blood visibly draining from his face. The girl uses this opportunity to bolt, her wand sending out red sparks that catch on her father's sleeve, setting it ablaze. She leaps over the front desk and behind one of the doors while Srags the guard goblin comes in from the outside and helps Andrews put out the flames.

"Get away from me, you filthy creature!" Andrews sneers, pointing his wand threateningly at Srags. Srags raises his hands in surrender, backing away slowly. There's a smirk on the goblin's face. "Where is my daughter?"

"We seem to have lost track of her," Srags shrugs. "If you would please wait here, we can-"

"I want her here now!"

"We will send someone to find her, I promise. Now, if you please, you are making a scene, sir. Come with me and we will sort this all out."

As Andrews is carted off, a second goblin slides up to Seto, murmuring under his voice, "This way, please."

They follow the goblin behind the front desk and into the hallways beyond. Once the main foyer is out of sight, the goblin turns to them and asks in English, "If you do not mind, could you drop the Disillusionment charm- or whatever your equivalent is. It's making our staff uncomfortable to hide you."

Seto nods towards Strings and Mai experiences the strange warm rain feeling again as she and the others come back into view.

Seto says something again in the language that Mai can't understand, but the goblin stops him, "Please, sir. I appreciate that you are trying to speak Gobbledegook- most wizard would not even try, but…" the goblin chuckles, "...you're not very good."

Thankfully, Seto handles this well enough, "I only started learning it a few days ago."

"A few days…?" The goblin raises his eyebrows, but says nothing else about it. Instead he asks if they will follow him.

The goblin leads them down a series of hallways, ones that have a slight downhill slant, before finally ending at a plain wooden door. Their guide knocks twice and a voice calls, "Who is it?"

"Kuirmet. We have guests."

"Send them in."

Inside there is a single wooden desk, as plain as the door, behind which a small beardless goblin sits in a chair.

"Do our guests have names?" The goblin asks.

"I am Seto Kaiba, once Pharaoh Seth, successor to the Lady Pharaoh," Seto says. "With me is Mai Valentine, Serenity Wheeler, Catherine Arkana, and Strings… I don't actually know your name." He looks towards the boy.

Strings signs quickly and Catherine translates, "'I've abandoned my former name. Strings is what I am called now.'"

"So Strings it is," the goblin behind the desk smiles before focusing on Seto. "The great Pharaoh Seth, born again. It is an honour. You may remember my ancestor, Lurtet"

"Lurtet…?" Seto frowns, before his eyes widen in surprise. "You mean-"

"King Lurtet the Goldsinger, yes," the goblin says as she smiles. "I am Queen Nurnok the Last. Now… Shall we speak, young Pharaoh, one royal to another?"

Seth nods soberly, "I would expect nothing less."

Amane doesn't get to speak to Nurnok. What she does do is hurtle herself towards the hallway that leads towards the rickety carts that take people down to the vaults. She leaps into one, pressing the palm of her hand into her mouth, trying to quiet her breathing.

What the hell am I doing? She thinks, tears in her eyes. When I go home… I can't. I can't, he'll kill me, if I do.

Her mother will be worried sick and there's no telling that her father won't kill her if he can't find Amane. She can't think. She can't breathe.

I should never have come here. She must have been mad, thinking that she could just sneak away for a few hours and that her father wouldn't notice. But Nurnok's words have been haunting her and all Amane can dream about is a shadowy figure, tall and stunningly beautiful, smiling down at her, thanking her being her closest friend.

The Daughter of Avalon, Amane thinks, remembering the warm embrace and the sense of calm that flowed over her. The Secret Keeper. It has to be her.

Nurnok knew something and Amane had to talk to her again, hoping that she'd be able to shed some light on what she'd meant. Except-

"What are you doing?"

Amane leaps up, wand stretching outwards as she points it towards… "You're…"

"Honey? Where did you go? There's a goblin looking for a little girl. Have you seen anyone?" A woman's voice calls out and Amane eye's widen.

"Hide me!" She whispers, "Please."

Blaise Zabini rolls his eyes, but still shouts out, "No, mother. There's no one here."

He turns back to her, looking judgemental, "You're Amane Andrews."

"So?" Amane frowns, hands on her hips.

"We're engaged."

"We were engaged," she corrects him.

He shrugs, "Nothing official yet. Don't get ahead of yourself."

"You telling me that your mother is going to keep pushing for us to marry after what my brother did?" Amane sneers.

Zabini snorts, "Who knows? She's never been picky about her own husbands, why should she be picky about my future wife."

"You're gross," Aname snaps, but then crumples a little. "Still… Thanks for not telling anyone I'm here."

"Why are you hiding, anyways?" Zabini asks.

Amane swallows hard, "I ran away from home."

"Why?"

"Pretty sure my dad will kill me if I go back…" It's not an answer to his question, but it's the only one she's willing to give.

Zabini's eyes widen before his shoulders sag just a little, "I'm… Oh. Um…"

"It's fine. I'll just… maybe hide here for a while," she says awkwardly.

"Hide? Here?" Zabini frowns, looking around at the slimy walls of the cave. "Until what? The semester starts?"

"Maybe," Amane crosses her arms over her chest. "What's it to you?"

"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."

"You're stupid."

"No. Sorry. That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard," Zabini rolls his eyes. He glances back towards where his mother is before focusing on Amane again. "Look…"

"What?" She snaps.

"Just… You could… stay with us… for a while," Zabini stares at the ground, rubbing the back of his neck.

Aname blinks, her arms falling to her side, "Are… Are you serious?"

"I mean, I'd have to ask my mother-"

"Ask your mother what?"

Amane looks over Zabini's shoulder and sees his mother, beautiful and dark, standing there. She's raising an elegant eyebrow.

"She's hiding from her father," Zabini says quickly. "She says he'll kill her if he finds her."

Mrs. Zabini regards Amane with her piercing eyes for a whole minute before sighing, "Fine."

"Wha- Really?" Amane's heart pounds in her chest.

"You can stay, but I can't keep you hidden for long," Mrs. Zabini tells her, her expression going soft. "It's the least I can do for my future daughter-in-law."

"Former future daughter-in-law…" Amane mutters under her breath, low enough that no one can hear, but still, it doesn't matter. Because she's safe, just for now.

She steals a glance at Blaise Zabini out of the corner of her eye. He's looking back at her. Amane offers him a weak smile.

He gives her one back.

Hello again!

I'd like to thank those who reviewed for the last chapter: Tz342, Moonfirekitsune, anita15, BalaaSweetSlaughter, Dana Sto Helit, dragomira, Rita Mu, , and green lilah. You guys are awesome!

I also had a few guest reviews that I'd like to answer.

So to the anonymous guest who commented:

Was rereading the series again when I realised something.
Shimon was Atem's granduncle, that is to say he was the uncle of the twins Akhenaden and Akhenamkhanen, and thus brother of their Pharaoh father.
He had a daughter named Monifa, who was Monthu's mother.
Monthu was Seth's half brother.
Seth was the illegitimate son of Akhenaden and a noblewoman.
If the circumstances now and then are the same then Monthu and Seth were half brothers sharing a same mother.
Their mother was Monifa.
Monifa was Akhenaden's uncle's(Shimon) daughter.
Monifa and Akhenaden were cousins.
Akhenaden fucked his cousin.
[Self insert the famous painting The Scream]
(Maybe I shouldn't be overreacting, since incest was pretty common in Ancient Egypt, but Seth's parents...Cousins?!)

Yes, the Ancient Egyptian Royal Family Tree is chalk-full of incestuous relationship, as this is what happened in real life (I think that I read somewhere that Ramses the Great was married to most of his sisters and a couple of his daughters at one point). This is because the Ancient Egyptians held the belief that the women in Pharaoh's family were divine and for them to marry anyone who wasn't of a similar standing was considered unworthy of them. This becomes a huge problem in the Ancient Egypt arc when Atem takes on a pair of lovers, both of whom are not royalty and one is as common as dirt.

Also, Atem is a result of two generations of brother-sister incest. Pharaoh Shabaka married his sister, Urbi, and they had Aknamkanon and his sister, Mukarramma, wed. Aknamkanon and Mukarramma had Atem together.

And to Yoru no Katana, you left several reviews, which is so freaking awesome. I tried to contact you via what I believe is an old account of yours, but there wasn't any response. So I'm going to answer your reviews here.

Up first is:

*Checked yesterday* 6 chapters.
*Checked today* 7 chapters.
*Unholy screaming*
Kisara has a warship.
*Yet more unholy screaming*
The mages will be moving out tomorrow.
*Ultimate unholy screaming*
Chapter ends after Sekhmet blesses Reiko.
*Unholy wailing* WHY?! WHY END NOW?!
*Unholy god-invoking cursing ritual* O Great Kali, Destroyer of All; I beseech of you, may AlcatrazOutpatient meet a torturous demise should he/she not update in three months.
P.S. It is good. Real good. Reread both series thrice while waiting for you to update. But the emotions when I found out you updated...
Unholy screaming indeed.

I'm really glad that you're enjoying the Three Kings Series so far!

Cassie has a warship? Cassie is a person who comes from two very different families, ones that should never really intersect but have in order to create her. We'll get more information about her mother and their warship in the next chapter, as well as during the rest of Strike.

The mages moving out soon? Well, in this chapter we're starting to see one half of the operation, specifically the ones heading off to London. And Nurnok is back, so that's always a plus!

Sekhmet blessing Reiko? Reiko is just a simple assassin. She all this girl wants to do is tear down a centuries old organization and take her revenge on those who hurt her and the ones she loves. She did not sign up for the rest of this bullshit.

I Google Translated the French sentence Kisara said.
"Name of God, you are not even Jewish."
Still rolling on the floor.
Now I really wanna meet Almeida.

Okay, I was trying to "Oh my god, you're not even Jewish," but I guess my French is still not up to par.

Are we going to meet Almeida? Actually, yes. In the next chapter!

Now I'm not going to answer your final review publicly, as the result would contain possible spoilers, but if you want to come off anon and PM me, I'd be more than happy to talk with you about it.

Until then,

AlcatrazOutpatient