AN: (Hi! I'm alive! I've gotten some interest in this story from how much I yammer on about it on Youtube, so I decided to post it here. Think of this as HameFura, but with Yu-Gi-Oh characters. Also, the main character isn't dumb. Also, no harem. Also, it's a lot more angsty. So it's not really like HameFura at all :/. Anyway, hope you enjoy The Pharaoh's Foresight!)
Episode 1, Part 1: Realization
"Once upon a time, a phrase that had once filled me with rapture! But it doesn't guarantee a happily ever after!"
- Pas De Deux
"NO! No, no, no, no!"
"My prince, your father says you must at least see her before you render judgment," the fearful servant admonished.
Five-year-old Atem, however, could not be dissuaded. "No! I don't want to meet some brainless girl! I want to go outside!"
"Not until you meet the lady your father has arranged for you," the older of the two servants said.
"No no no no no no no!" Atem shouted, shoving the servant away with an elbow to the stomach and kicking in an attempt to get his just-laced sandals off.
"My prince, this is really quite enough! Waiting in that room is your future queen - should you so desire it - and you're kicking and wailing like an infant! What will your father think!?"
Atem pouted and folded his arms, refusing to be moved.
"What is all this noise!?"
"Father!" Atem cried. The time had come to be proper.
"Lord Pharaoh!" The first servant cringed in fear. "We - I was just…"
Aknamkanon gave the servant a stern look.
"Atem, come here," Father said.
Atem climbed off the chair he was sitting in and ran into Father's arms. "Father, I want to go out into the garden to play but the servant won't let me!"
Father looked stern. "Atem, you can play in the yard after you've met Lady Isis. She's a very bright girl, and I think you'd get along well with her."
As contrary as Atem was, he knew better than to refuse his father directly. He frowned. "...Okay."
Isis turned out to be a blue-eyed young girl a few years older than Atem, her hair veiled and a golden choker around her neck. She introduced herself quietly and, when prompted, elaborated about all the books she had read of politics and history, how she could play the lyre and dance and sing.
Atem was bored throughout, constantly gauging for the moment he could leave the meeting and go outside like he wanted. He had no interest in how many laws this girl knew or how many instruments she could play. Finally, one of her attendants stood.
"Lord Atem doesn't seem very interested in listening to Lady Isis's words."
Father looked irritated at the interruption. "He will learn to understand the importance of what is happening here as he grows, no doubt," he said.
The attendant looked miffed. "Perhaps, and perhaps by then I shall have found someone else to promise my Lady Isis to."
A gasp resounded through the hall at the attendant's blasphemous words. However, instead of punishing her, Father only sighed.
"Please don't speak rashly, good maid; Atem is but a child, he will learn."
However, Atem, furious, shouted, "Stop! How dare you say that to me, the Crown Prince of Kemet!" He stood up and stamped his foot. "Father, why don't you punish her!?"
At Atem's voice, Isis shrank back in terror, and the attendant's eyes narrowed.
"Atem! Sit down at once!" Father shouted.
Atem, however, continued to rail and shout at the attendant for her obvious blasphemy of his father and himself, as the Court members shook their heads and cringed.
"I believe we've seen enough," the attendant said curtly. "If you will-"
A sharp noise sounded through the throne room, causing everyone to freeze. Slowly, Atem's eyes were drawn upward to a pillar near the back of the throne room.
Clinging to it was a figure in a black hood. With a flash of silver, a knife emerged from the figure's cloak.
Atem couldn't move, somehow sensing that the figure was looking at him specifically, especially as the black void under the hood turned to face him. Everything seemed to move slowly, noise was muted, and even though he knew Father was right beside him, it was as if he was alone.
The stranger lifted the knife, drew his arm back, sprang…
Time sped up again. The hooded figure seemed to fly across the throne room. Before Atem could even blink, he was upon him, knife slicing off a chunk of his bangs and leaving a thin seam of crimson across his forehead. Atem cried out and stumbled back, slipping off the elevated dais Father's throne sat on and slamming headfirst into one of the stone steps on the way down.
For Atem, it was as if his memories had been dropped on the ground and shattered like a puzzle, and, furthermore, as if a door had been flung open in his head, mixing the right pieces with new ones that didn't fit together anywhere.
He lay in an almost in-between state, not quite awake but not quite sleeping. He was barely aware of servants screaming, of Isis crying, of Father ordering guards to pursue the assassin. Instead, he watched, transfixed, as fragmented visions flooded his mind.
A baby crying in a stark-white room as an exhausted woman hooked up to instruments he didn't recognize, held him in her arms. She was not his mother, the First Queen. Mother, he'd been told, had the same hair as his, red and gold and all over the place, and his eyes, purple like amethyst, like the lotuses that bloomed on the banks of the Nile. This woman's hair was dark as night, her eyes gray. The man next to her, similarly, was clearly not his father. The only face he recognized was one that looked remarkably like Siamun Muran, the Grand Vizier.
"Yugi…"
Next, running around and playing with a dark-haired girl. Growing up with her.
"Wow, Yugi! When did you get so good at this stuff?"
Going to some kind of academy with her. Being cuffed and kicked and pushed around while there.
"Little runt!"
"Get your head out of your games and be a man!"
Burying himself in games he didn't recognize but still loved on some instinctive level.
What are these… images?
Pictures of a commoner's life, one he should not care about, and yet… All of them had one thing in common.
A faceless image of a boy in strange clothes, red-haired like him.
Who are you?! He screamed without a sound at the face. What do you want?!
But no one answered his pleas.
"Hey, Yugi, I wanted to show you this!" That girl again…
She showed him a case with a picture on it, of people dressed in outfits he recognized as familiar Kemetian clothing. A brunette girl and a brunette boy in the front, each holding onto two sides of a magician's staff, and a group of people behind, two girls on one side and and two boys on the other.
One of the girls was clearly Isis. The other had white hair and blue eyes. The two boys, he didn't recognize - a boy in ragged clothes with silver hair, and a brunette noble.
In the back, however, was an ominous figure in a dark cape, grinning sadistically and reaching out possessively for the girl and boy in the front row.
That wasn't, however, what made Atem freeze in shock.
The menacing figure was Atem himself.
The figure was a young man, but it was undoubtedly his lotus-purple eyes looking out at him disdainfully, his gold-streaked hair blowing in a nonexistent wind. The winged crown he had always admired from afar, holding onto the promise that when the time came for him to rule, he would wear it as a symbol of his leadership, rested on the figure's brow, not doing anything to hide - in fact accentuating - the massive scars on his face - a knife wound stretching across his forehead and a ragged white gash just above his eye, one spike of it reaching all the way to his temple and another down and permanently discoloring one eyelid.
"I don't know, Anzu. Dating sims aren't really my thing."
"Would you give it a shot, though? For me?"
"...Okay, I'll try it out."
Looking out the window late at night, and, in the distance, seeing a strange glow in the sky.
"Huh? What… is that?"
Then an earth-shattering sound and a flash of light, the sensation of fire on his skin.
…It hurts… what… happened…?
An explosion.
There… there was an explosion at the factory on the edge of town… My house was close enough… that it caught fire on the spot… I… was home by myself… playing that game… I got trapped in the house…
And died at the age of sixteen!?
No… No… it couldn't be true! This was just a dream, right?! He had to wake up!
Come on… Come… on… This is just a dream… just a…. Bad dream…! Wake up, Atem, Wake up! WAKE UP!
Then, just as suddenly as the images had come swarming in, they settled down into an almost comprehensible picture.
But they did not leave. They tarried, forming another picture in his mind, another set of memories, an unwelcome set, those belonging to that commoner boy, who, suddenly, didn't seem so alien anymore.
…That was… me… That was me.
But… how? Why?
Before he could even ponder that question, he slipped into blissful unconsciousness.
::::::::::::::::::::
Atem awoke slowly. First he felt warm blankets wrapped around him and a duck-feather pillow under his head. He opened his eyes to see his room, dark except for the moon shining through the window.
The next thing he was aware of was a splitting, unbearable pain in his head, which made him groan and clutch his temples, shifting slightly in bed.
Immediately, Berenike, the head maidservant, was by his side, holding an oil lamp. "Lord Atem," she sighed in relief.
Atem instinctively shielded his eyes, even the dim, flickering flame sending off little fireworks of agony popping in his head and a series of images flying through his brain: explosion, fire, burning, roaring heat-
"Oh! Sorry, my prince," Berenike yelped, pulling the lamp away.
Atem, meanwhile, had reached up and felt bandages and a poultice swathing the crown of his head. He had been undressed, he dimly noted, and was now wearing his sleeping tunic and nothing else. "Berenike…what… what happened?"
Berenike looked surprised for a moment. "Oh, ah - do you remember? The assassin? You fell, my prince, knocked yourself out cold on the steps."
Atem squeezed his eyes shut. "Then… I wasn't dreaming…" he whispered. "I…those images…" His head seemed simply too full of memories, with too many things to process at once. He couldn't think right. Everything seemed so complicated and wrong…
Berenike frowned. "It's understandable, having your thoughts jumbled up a bit after the fall you took. Sh, don't try to get up yet. Just rest." She stood up, retrieving the lamp.
"W-Wait!" Atem stammered, grabbing her hand. "Please… don't leave…" He didn't want to be alone, not after he had looked into the void underneath an assassin's hood, not after he'd had a lifetime's worth of memories shoved into his mind.
"I have to go, my prince. I need to report to everyone that you're awake," Berenike replied.
Then a thought managed to get through the mixed up shards of memory.
Father!
"Berenike, where is Father?! The assassin - what happened with him?!"
"Your father is fine, my prince," Berenike said, again looking surprised, before smiling. "If you want, I can tell him you want to see him."
"Yes! Thank you!" Atem cried, almost without thinking. Berenike put her hand to her mouth in shock, before nodding.
Almost as soon as Berenike left, her familiar presence took away any peace of mind Atem had felt.
He had been attacked by an assassin hired against the crown. He'd been stabbed. His head had just been flooded with unfamiliar memories.
He remembered living another life, with a different family, different friends.
He remembered dying.
Worst of all was what he remembered of that story his past self had borrowed from his friend. What had it been called? A 'dating sim'? Was it like a romance tale like those the maid Nailah was so fond of reading?
Atem slid out of bed, wobbling over to a small heap of scrolls he had thrown against the wall during tutoring because - by the gods, he couldn't even remember or bring himself to care why anymore.
He picked up a blank one, a reed pen, and a jar of ink and brought them back to bed with him. Then, he sat down and began to write.
Kingdom In The Sand. That was what the story had been called. He wrote it in large script down the side, almost instinctively slipping into writing in that strange script he had seen in the disjointed new memories.
He could read it. But he was certain no one else could.
He didn't feel ready to share what had happened with another person just yet.
He then began to write every detail he could retrieve from the memories now floating around in his mind.
'Kingdom In The Sand is a romance. The main character, a magic prodigy, is sent to live at the palace. The player's decisions determine which lover they end up with, in addition to whether they achieve a happy ending or not. There are six lovers - three men and three women, and there are no less than twelve different endings: a good outcome and a bad outcome for each possible lover.'
He found his hand moving almost entirely of its own accord as he sketched the image of a girl's face, then a boy's.
'There are two options for the main character - Mana, the girl, or Maahad, the boy. Choosing Mana will set you on the path where you can romance the male lovers, with the female lovers serving as rivals, and choosing Maahad allows you to pursue the girls while being opposed by the boys. Otherwise, their backstories are the same. They're both prodigies who are sent to live at the palace to be instructed in magic.'
Atem wrote Mana and Maahad's names above each of his sketches.
'Whichever main character is not chosen becomes a possible lover in that particular path. For instance, if one chooses Maahad, Mana becomes a romanceable character.'
Atem moved lower on the scroll and continued writing.
'On Maahad's path, the possible lovers are Mana, a priestess named Isis, and a slave girl named Kisara.'
Atem carefully sketched what he remembered of each girl's face. 'Mana was born to a wealthy friend of the Pharaoh, but since his death has been raised as a commoner. Isis originally was presented to the Pharaoh as a potential bride, but her family withdrew from the union. Isis, however, remained behind and became a priestess out of guilt for her family's actions. Kisara was cast out from her village as a witch and handed over to slavers, only to escape with the help of an unknown village boy. She was brought to the palace because of her powerful ka, which the Court determined had to be studied. Maahad, in her route, saves her from this experimentation, causing her to fall in love with him.'
"Huh," Atem whispered to himself. "Wasn't the girl presented to me as a bride named Isis?" It wasn't an uncommon name - not exactly. But it seemed suspiciously timely.
'In those routes, a priest in training named Seth and a thief named Bakura serve as rivals: Kisara consented to marry Seth because Kisara thought he was the one who had saved her from being enslaved as a child, but their relationship was loveless. Following Kisara's route will lead to the revelation that it was Maahad who saved her back then, too, not Seth, and cause her to transfer her affections to Maahad. Seth, given the right choices are made, will accept that his relationship with Kisara was not an affectionate one and had trapped them both, with the result being Kisara marrying Maahad instead. The Bad Ending has Kisara feel obligated to marry Seth despite having lost her feelings for him. On Isis's route, Bakura, a petty thief, is saved from execution by Isis intervening in his trial, causing him to become obsessed with and subsequently kidnap her. In the good ending, Maahad saves her from this fate, and they are wed, with Bakura being imprisoned for his crime. However, in the bad ending, Maahad cannot reach her in time, and Bakura escapes into the desert with her. '
He turned to Mana's side of the scroll, making categories for the possible lovers in her route.
"Yugi never played Mana's path, so I must go off what I remember of what his friend Anzu told him. On her path, instead of being rivals, Seth and Bakura serve as romantic interests alongside Maahad, with Isis and Kisara serving as rivals. Seth's story is roughly the same as Kisara's if Maahad is the main character - he is engaged to her, but doesn't love her quite the same way any longer. He also feels guilty because he wooed her in the first place by claiming to be the boy who saved her from slavers as a child. In the good end, their relationship breaks off amicably just as in Maahad's timeline, albeit Kisara still thinks Seth is the boy who saved her. In the bad end, Kisara finds out about Seth lying and loses control of the Blue-Eyes White Dragon, killing Seth and the ruling Pharaoh, and is subsequently imprisoned. In Bakura's route, Isis is the one infatuated with Bakura. Mana encounters him in town where he saves her from another band of thieves. The good ending is Bakura resolving to change, being properly pardoned by a council vote, and being wed to Mana, with Isis amicably letting the marriage go forward to see Bakura happy. The bad ending, however, has Bakura being arrested and executed, with Mana being forced to take a vow of celibacy for fraternizing with a thief.'
He turned to near the bottom of the scroll.
'There's one more rival, and he's in both paths, and in every route. He's unique in that he's not a rival because he's interested in one of the possible lovers…' He picked up another scroll, having run out of room- 'But because he's interested in you, the player character. This rival is a wicked Pharaoh, selfish and bratty - so bratty, in fact, that his old father was driven to death by his cruelty - who becomes obsessed with the main character and goes out of his way to break up any relationship the player tries to start. He encourages Bakura to kidnap Isis and withholds permission for Maahad to go after her, causing him to get there too late. He leads Kisara to think Maahad is seeing a girl from the Great City, causing her to go back to Seth and marry him instead. He 'lets slip' to Kisara that Seth is not the village boy who freed her, prompting her to go mad. He personally arrests and orders Bakura executed. And he personally sets either Maahad or Mana - again, depending on which character the player did not choose - to be murdered in order to get them out of the way, permanently crippling Mana in the Bad End of her route and killing her by accident in the Bad End of Maahad's route. All this so the main character can belong to him alone. He by far is the most hated out of the rivals, even more unsympathetic than Bakura, and he meets a terrible fate in every route. In most of the good endings, he ends up exiled to roam the streets as a beggar. In Bakura's good ending and Mana's bad ending, he ends up going mad and being locked in his own dungeon. In all of the other Bad Ends and two of the Good Ends - Seth's and Isis's, I think - he is killed, either executed after a trial or murdered in retaliation for his actions. And his name is…'
Atem had barely paid attention to what he was writing, simply letting Yugi's memories take over. Now, he stared down in horror at the name he had just jotted down and the likeness he had just sketched.
The figure wearing his winged crown on the cover of the game.
"PHARAOH ATEM!?" he screamed, his voice echoing off the walls.
A healer came running in. "By the gods, my Prince, what are you screaming about!? Are you alright!?"
Atem, staring down at the scroll in his hand, written with a script only he could somehow read, shook in terror, not even hearing her, as all of his possible fates flashed through his mind.
Executed before a crowd of cheering people.
Eaten alive by a screaming, sobbing Kisara's rampaging ka.
Stoned in the middle of the square, Maahad, maddened by the grief of losing Mana, casting the binding spell to hold him in place as rocks mangled his body long after it was cold. Thrown out to beg, in rags, for food and work until he starved.
Stabbed to death by an enraged Seth.
Strangled by Isis for arranging for Bakura to kidnap her and nearly having Maahad killed.
Chained up, screaming and howling like an animal, even biting and scratching anyone who got near, in his own dungeon.
All scenes he had witnessed or had described to him in his memories, all the more personal by the fact that he knew they were going to happen to him. That nameless, menacing figure that would be killed, exiled, or imprisoned, even worse, on the day he came of age…
That's me… I'm the villain.
I'm the villain.
This isn't just Kemet, this is the Kemet from Kingdom In The Sand! And I'M the wicked Pharaoh Atem!
"My prince, what's wrong?" the healer repeated, shaking him firmly. "And what's all this?" She held up the scrolls he had written on.
"Don't touch those!" he screamed instinctively, causing the healer to shrink back in fear.
Almost immediately he felt guilty.
Not just her… all of the servants… they're scared of me… does that mean…I'm becoming the villain already?
No! He couldn't let that happen! He didn't want to die, and he wanted to be a villain even less!
Forcing himself to take a shaky breath, he continued, in a softer tone, "I.. I need those. For a game I'm playing. C-Can you put them in my puzzle box for me?"
The healer tilted her head in confusion, before nodding and taking the lovingly carved wooden box out from under his bed and putting the scrolls inside.
The box had once belonged to Mother, the late First Queen, and, as its name suggested, it had once come with a puzzle, a large, free-standing wooden block puzzle that Atem had spent much of his infanthood putting together and then knocking over, delighting in it falling apart each time.
One by one, the pieces had all been lost, and Atem had started using the box to hold odds and ends he had collected. The scrolls would be safe there.
The sound of a door opening made both prince and healer look up.
Father stood in the doorway.
"Atem!" he said in relief. He was by Atem's bedside in a moment. "My son, are you alright?"
"Y-Yes-" Atem began, only for it to come out more like a squeak. Then he simply nodded instead.
"Thank the gods…" Father breathed.
Atem grabbed Father's robe sleeve as he pulled back. "Wait! Father! What happened? The assassin, was he caught? Was anyone hurt?"
"Please, Atem, don't move. Save your strength." Father closed his eyes, looking worn. "The assassin was driven back by the guards, but he escaped over the palace wall. No, he didn't hurt anyone else. You've been asleep for a day and a night, my son. How much do you remember?"
Everything! Atem wanted to blurt out even though part of him knew Father meant how much he remembered of the attack.
"I remember the assassin attacking me with his knife… and I remember falling and hitting my head. That's all."
"I suppose that's to be expected," the healer cut in. "You struck your head awfully hard on the steps. You'll definitely have a scar!"
"I will?" Atem asked. He hadn't really gotten the chance to look. Then he remembered something, and a chill rode up his spine.
The future me had a scar, too.
Did that mean he was already too late?
Atem shook off such thoughts. "Isis. Where is she?"
"Her attendant wanted to bring her back to her home at once, after your… outburst earlier. Then the assassin attack."
"Oh."
"Why are you asking, my prince? Have you changed your mind about being betrothed to her?"
Atem shook his head. "I just want to talk to her."
"I don't know if we can allow that, my prince."
"Why not?"
The healer sighed. "To start, you've only just recovered from the attack. In addition, Isis's attendants may not let you in to see her, after today."
"So she's still here?"
"They are waiting out the night in an empty chamber in the palace until we catch the intruder from earlier - although Isis wants to stay."
"Stay?"
"Stay and be sworn to the crown as penance for her attendant's behavior," Father said, looking downcast. "As in the right as she may think herself, she has directly defied the crown, and young Isis may feel she is to blame for it."
Atem squeezed fistfuls of his sheets in anxiety.
Just like Isis's backstory in Kingdom In The Sand. The plot is already set in motion. Is there really nothing I can do?
"I don't like the idea any more than you, my son, but we can't force Lady Isis to leave if she wants to stay." Father put his arms around him. "I'm just glad that you're safe, Atem. Do not worry about Lady Isis. You are not Pharaoh yet."
But I will be. A wicked, doomed one, if I don't do something.
Father smiled at him as he left with the healer.
"The bandages will have to be changed out every day for at least one turn of the moon, sire," the healer said as the door closed. "Otherwise, I assume he will be back to his old self in a few days."
"Thank you, a thousand times."
"It's only a job."
Atem was left alone, looking at the scarred face of his future self he had sketched. At each of the other sketched faces, which seemed to radiate melancholy.
Of the horror that awaited not only himself, but them if time went unaltered.
I cannot let this happen. I must find a way to change my future. To fight my doom!