Imnt-Akhet

EN

IT

📖 STORY

Second day in Rimigliano (Tuscany).

Yesterday Martina finally joined the group. Between a football match, lunch at the beach bar, Marco trying to teach Atem Lontano Dal Tuo Sole on the guitar and an afternoon swim, the two of them kept catching each other's eyes. Atem notices Martina looking at him. Martina notices him doing exactly the same. Neither of them says anything about it.

Today feels a little different. Martina is on the phone with her brother Bernardo. Their father, Giuliano, has told him that she finally broke up with her boyfriend, but neither of them knew the relationship had become abusive, and that Martina had been hiding it from the family.

Bernardo is relieved that it's over, but he's also angry with his sister for staying in a situation like that for so long.

Martina knows she made mistakes. She's glad it's over, but everything is still fresh and the call leaves her a bit shaken.

Atem doesn't know any of this. He only knows that the cheerful girl he met the day before suddenly seems quieter than usual. Even from across the beach, while talking with Anzu, Giulia and Serena, he keeps finding himself looking at her, trying to understand what's wrong. And Martina notices.

🎧 NEVERENDER

While working on this illustration, I kept coming back to Neverender by Rampa, Justice & Tame Impala.

First of all, it was the atmosphere of the track that felt right for this scene, and for Martina herself. There's something calm and reflective about it, but also restless, as if the past and the present were quietly overlapping.

"I'll be going over what I could have done, had I known at the time…" "Because I remember… The hardest are the times I don't forget."

What struck me was the feeling behind those lines: looking back at a chapter of your life, wondering if things could have gone differently and realising that some experiences stay with you longer than you'd like.

To me, that became the emotional thread running through this illustration, which is why Neverender ended up becoming its soundtrack.

🌅🎵 IMNT-AKHET OST

I've also put together a Spotify playlist for Imnt-Akhet. Most of the tracks are connected to specific scenes, characters or moments in the story, and many of these illustrations are drawn with those songs playing in the background. Some close ups ;)

He thought he had the upper hand!

Atem: "So… someone still has to show me her amazing lioness skills." Martina: "Ah, right. True. Though I’m not sure you still deserve it…" Atem: "What do you mean I don’t deserve it?!" Martina: "Ahah, dork! I’m just messing with you!" Atem: "We’ll see who gets the last laugh, dork."

*I chose not to remake it in English, as I wanted to keep the original mood. **I know the scene reads quite fast — I had to find a balance between the pacing of the frames and the readability of the dialogue, so this was the best compromise for now.

I used “dork” on purpose for the translation of scemo. In Italian it sounds affectionate, playful, and lightly diminishing in exactly the way Martina treats Atem.

She does not put him on a pedestal. She doesn’t approach him with reverence, fear, or idealized distance — and that matters a lot. One of the things that makes Martina so important to him is precisely that she treats him like a person before anything else, at her same level. Not like a king. Not like a myth. Not like someone untouchable. Everyone else, in different ways, still carries some version of that distance with him — Yugi included, even if in a very different and loving form. Martina doesn’t. Her attachment to Atem doesn’t come from reverence, but from direct emotional recognition, from parity, from an almost instinctive sense of communion. And Atem is deeply drawn to that.

-------

It’s been a while since I posted anything here, but this project is not abandoned at all. Over the past few months I started several illustrations, but I left many of them unfinished or suspended for a while. Sometimes I sketch something quickly, and I keep it in that raw state instead of fully rendering it. That also happened with this GIF: it’s not meant to be a polished final piece, as it is my first attempt at making one.

I also know that, for anyone following this blog, the overall shape of the story may still be a bit unclear. At the beginning, my idea was to post more visual material first before giving it a proper structure. In the following posts, I’d like to put together a small conceptual guide / map with the key points of the story, just to make the project easier to follow.

In the meantime, I had to slow down a lot because I’ve started a hieroglyphs course. This is actually part of the project: I want to become more grounded when it comes to Atem, his language, and the historical side of his character. I want to be able to write at least the basics properly, and to build his Egyptian speech in a way that feels as believable as possible. Through Coptic-based reconstructions and other material, I’m also trying to note reconstructed readings whenever I can. The goal is to make the story richer, more coherent, and historically alive. In my version of the story, this eventually leads him toward Egyptology: the most meaningful contribution he can give to the world is helping clarify what is still obscure, distorted, or incomplete in the study of ancient Egypt.

EN

ITA

Monte di Pasta Garden, Massa, early November 2025.

Martina is sitting on a bench, Atem is standing in front of her. They’re waiting for Chiara, Martina’s best friend, for an aperitivo. It’s the first time Chiara is going to meet Atem. She’s late, though, so the waiting turns into casual time: Martina scrolls through Instagram, Atem looks around while rolling a cigarette (a bad habit he’s picked up about three months earlier).

Suddenly, Martina gets a message. It’s Noor, a university classmate — the same person who keeps Martina updated on the Arab world, something she deeply cares about and has been interested in long before Atem arrived.

This beat's gonna get stuck in your head.

A new track, just released. Not Egyptian, but already gaining attention. Martina doesn’t hesitate and puts her headphones on.

And there it is — Martina’s expression changes. When she makes that face, Atem already knows what’s going through her blonde head. Arabic, sensual beats... that’s all it takes for Martina. Her mind immediately projects Atem into a seductive imaginary, in every possible sense.

بدي أنا شو بدي؟ Baddi ana? Sho baddi? What do I want? What do I want? أنا غيرك ما بدي Ana gheyrak ma baddi I don’t want anyone but you شو مهضومة يا حبي Sho mahdoumeh ya 7obi What’s wrong, my love? يا عمري خليك حدي Ya 3omri khallik 7adde My life, stay close to me

Martina can’t take her eyes off him. It’s not the first time this happens — Ana Enta by Mohamed Ramadan was the first, and since then she hasn’t stopped.

Oh, Martina… here you go again with Arabic music.

To Atem, that association always feels strange. The language Martina is listening to is not his, and the Egypt he gets connected to is not the one he lived in.

Martina then stands up, kisses him on the cheek, and finally tells him — in his own language, in Middle Egyptian no less:

𓇋𓅱𓌸𓂋𓀀𓍿𓅱 ỉw mry ṯw I love you

Grazie mille, non sai quanto mi renda felice questo commento, soprattutto da un connazionale :)

Ti ringrazio ancora, continuerò a pubblicare perché questa storia ormai è diventata il mio chiodo fisso da marzo, e mi gratifica tantissimo, oltre che posso manifestare la mia passione per l'Egittologia al massimo!

ENG

ITA (ORIG.)

After deciding to settle permanently in Italy, Atem has to do something he has never done before: build a normal life.

He has nothing usable in the modern world: no formal education, no registered identity. With Seto’s help, he manages to obtain forged documents — but that is not enough. To pay rent and maintain his independence, Atem is forced to accept menial work. This is how his job career at McDonald’s begins, the only place where no one is really interested in the details of your résumé and no specific qualifications are required. He discovers the weight of long shifts and the narrow margin he has each month just to get by, the complete opposite of his former life as a pharaoh. It is a necessary passage, not a fall: a time in which he observes, learns how this world works, and above all decides what his purpose in the modern world is.

Seeing Martina go to university every day makes him reflect. He understands that the only way to give meaning to his existence is to study. Political science would have been the most obvious choice for him: power, structures, administration — a language he knows better than any other. But Atem does not want to return to ruling, neither directly nor symbolically.

His “mission” now is very different: he represents the only direct connection to antiquity, and therefore his task is to bring to humanity the knowledge of his time — the real one. His duty is to preserve, understand, and intervene in Egyptological knowledge, and to give the world notions that no person born in the year 2000 could ever access. That is why he chooses to enroll in Cultural Heritage at the University of Pisa, following the curriculum in Egyptology and the Ancient Near East, which hosts the oldest Egyptology chair worldwide, with a program unique within the Italian academic landscape and recognized internationally.

Atem naturally speaks Ancient Egyptian; he can read both hieroglyphs and hieratic. He has lived the life of the Bronze Age firsthand. The New Kingdom is his “home”, and he knows it better than anyone else in the world. It could only be his destiny.

However, there are also aspects of his world that he does not know. Even for him, concepts such as the Naqada Culture, the Predynastic Period, the Old and Middle Kingdoms, or figures like Ramesses II, Psammetichus I, or the Ptolemies are unfamiliar. Studying becomes a way to fill in what he was never able to know, and to rediscover himself directly. His academic path also includes the Greek, Roman, and medieval worlds, as well as prehistory — because an archaeologist never works in isolation, and the past is never compartmentalized.

Living in Lunigiana, Atem begins to take an interest in the territory around him. He wants to understand the land he now lives in, one of the oldest inhabited regions in Italy. Thus, in his second year (in 2027), while preparing for his elective course in Prehistoric Archaeology, he comes into contact with the Statue Stele of Lunigiana and the Copper Age cults at the Museum of Statue Stele in Pontremoli.

And this is where this scene takes place.

Atem is genuinely involved because, for the first time, a university exam touches something sacred for him: solar cults — not from his own time, but from the Copper Age — outside Egypt and outside his personal history.

Anthropomorphic figures carved five thousand years ago, bearing clear symbolic, cosmic, and — in some cases — solar references, created by populations that had no writing systems, no kingdoms, no pharaohs. And yet, they had already developed a complex form of sacrality, rooted in the body, in stone, and in the cycle of the sun, very similar to that of the New Kingdom.

Martina’s remark about Atenism is meant precisely to provoke him, because it is evident that next to the Statue Stele he feels at ease, almost legitimized.

The chronological detail emerges: 3rd millennium BC. Those statues precede Atem’s birth by almost two thousand years. The remark works on two levels: it reminds him that structured cultures already existed outside Egypt, and at the same time confronts Atem with something that is older even than himself.

ITA

ENG

P.S.: the original version is in Italian. To make it easier, I’ve already placed the English translations inside the bubbles.

This scene takes place about a week after Atem and Martina first got to know each other.

Atem and Anzu have been traveling across Italy for six months — a long sabbatical meant to help Atem truly understand the modern world.

While camping near the sea, they accidentally meet a group of locals spending the end of summer together.

Luca, the owner of the house, invites them to stay for a few days.

After about a week, Martina arrives.

She’s just gone through a breakup — but the moment she sees Atem, something clicks.

He notices her too, though he pretends not to care.

Their first exchanges are pure tension: he avoids her, she keeps teasing him, and every time he looks away… he ends up looking again.

Atem realizes that Martina is nothing like anyone he’s ever met: bold, alive, unfiltered.

He finds her impossible to ignore — and that’s exactly what makes him want her more.

But giving in would mean destroying everything he knows: Anzu, Yugi, Japan, the life he has just begun to rebuild.

So he fights it. He fights her.

But Martina is persistent. And little by little, Atem begins to lose that battle.

Then comes the first night in the kitchen.

He goes down to smoke, to calm his thoughts about her.

But she’s there — and she doesn’t want to leave him alone.

What happens next is the breaking point: a mix of instinct and anger.

Atem crosses a line, and Martina runs away.

That night, he finally realizes that his denial is turning into something darker: not control, but fear.

The next night, the thought of Martina doesn’t leave him.

When everyone’s asleep, he finds an excuse to go downstairs again — “just for a smoke.”

He’s actually hoping to see her again, alone.

But she’s not in the kitchen.

Having heard him leave (their rooms are across from each other), she quietly follows him downstairs and joins him.

They go to her room. They talk. They get closer.

It’s late, the air is heavy, and the conversation drifts dangerously close to everything unspoken.

That’s why they decide to go out to the beach — where no one can see or hear them.

That’s where this scene happens.

On the dark sand of Rimigliano Beach, they walk and tease each other — half joking, half confessing without words.

When Atem asks if she can cook, he’s already imagining a shared life, a future.

This is the first night he doesn’t run away.

He still doesn’t know how to end what he has with Anzu, or how to explain it to Yugi.

#Phashonista - Son of Aten, ruler of the drip.

This close-up actually comes from an older drawing I made for Farewell — a Revo project I had paused for a while, so it never saw the light (you’ll get to see the real one in the future). The original drawing (Atem and Anzu in historically accurate ancient Egyptian clothes) took me two months of research and it’s still unfinished. One day, while staring at it for the thousandth time, I decided to sketch modern Atem on top of Pharaoh Atem — just for fun. PS: Atem looks a bit different here from how I draw him lately — his features weren’t as Egyptian-like yet, but I didn’t want to alter the original piece.

Funny trivia: last year I was looking for original music from Luxor/Thebes and accidentally came across a Cercle DJ set by Adriatique, a Swiss melodic techno duo I didn’t know at all — they performed an incredible live show right in front of Hatshepsut’s temple (like one of Atem’s dynastic grandmothers — lol —). It instantly reminded me of Atem and Anzu walking above Deir el-Bahari in my Farewell doujinshi — still unpublished — during that conversation about what Atem would have done if he had survived.(I’ll publish that doujin someday — it’s one of my most intense works.)That was the spark that eventually gave life to modern Atem. Martina came a few months later — but she’s absolutely the “daughter” of that same cosmic trip.

You can clearly see it — Atem was always stylish, commenting on Yugi’s look and, as Pharaoh, obviously decked out in jewelry and details.

Also, Kazuki Takahashi once said about himself that he was “a designer more than a mangaka” (it’s in Duel Art).

When you find out the Lunigiana statue stele are 2000 years older than you, and suddenly your 3300 feels like twenty again.

A little teaser from the first panel of the next illustration —

Atem’s visiting the Pontremoli museum to get a better grasp on his next exam.

Yes, history is studying history. 😄

What if the Pharaoh was given another life — in his own body, with his own free will?

Atem is still a Pharaoh, but this time he’s also the guy who has to pay rent and work at McDonald’s to survive!

Martina: "Surprise!" Atem: "Why do you have my uniform on?" Martina: "Now we match for real!"

  Everything started with two simple questions:

In which country would Atem feel the closest to Ancient Egyptian's lifestyle in today's world?

What if Atem was given a second life — and the chance to choose for himself?

Atem had spent 3,300 years trapped inside the Puzzle until the day Yugi awakened him. He stayed with him for two years, trying to remember who he truly was.

Once he recovered all his memories, he was supposed to die again. But not this time.

Maat took pity on him for sacrificing his life to save his kingdom — and for enduring centuries of silence inside the Puzzle.

Instead of letting him die, she restored his original body — the one that had once been mummified in the Valley of the Kings — and allowed him to finish the rest of his natural life.

To the world, that body is known as Tutankhamun.

To him, it’s simply himself.

Now he’s alive again: twenty years old, made of flesh, memory, and instinct. He remembers everything — his family, his city, his throne. He’s still a Pharaoh at heart: proud, disciplined, haunted by what he once was.

But he must live as a man in a world that doesn’t know his name. There’s no record of him, no documents, no past he can prove.

He has to start from zero: forge papers, find work, pay rent, and learn how to exist without being worshipped.

At first, he lives with Yugi in Japan.

Months later, he and Anzu finally give in to the feelings that had always been there — even Yugi encourages them.

But neither love nor friendship can quiet the ache inside him. He wants to see the new world that came after his.

Japan feels too far from Egypt, too different for him to belong.

And modern Egypt itself has changed so much — it feels distant from the gods and the beliefs that once shaped him.

He begins to wonder what came after his own civilization: Greece, Rome, all the cultures that carried a spark of his world.

Among them, Italy feels the closest — warm, emotional, rooted in both beauty and chaos.

So Atem and Anzu spend several months traveling through Italy, backpacking across regions, living simply in a tent, searching for something that still feels alive.

Italy feels right.

The language comes almost naturally — sharp, direct, human.

He starts speaking it every day (that’s why the dialogue balloons will stay in Italian, with English translations below).

For the first time since he was born, he’s not a ruler but a foreigner trying to belong.

Then something truly unpredictable happens.

When they reach Tuscany, everything changes.

On Rimigliano's beach, they meet a group of locals who invite them to stay for a few days.

A few days later, one of their friends joins them too: Martina — a strikingly beautiful Tuscan girl who immediately falls for Atem.

And Atem falls for her too, though he won’t admit it at first!

Martina is modern, confident, a fashion lover who knows exactly what she wants and laughs too loud — yet her heart is warm, and she understands Atem’s mind far too well.

The more they talk, the more they realize how similar they are — almost frighteningly so.

Atem is intrigued — and terrified.

He’s still with Anzu, yet Martina makes him talk without meaning to. She treats him like a person, not a Pharaoh, not a legend.

Through her, he learns that being human isn’t just about breathing — it’s about wanting, choosing, failing, laughing.

This story is about Atem learning to live for himself.

Martina draws out everything he’s always hidden: his temper, curiosity, humor, desire — his real self.

She pulls the Pharaoh into the present.

He still speaks about his past — his father Akhenaten, his sister Meritaten, his worship of Aten, his turbulent childhood.

He knows what he was, but now he must balance it with what he is. He can’t pretend the Pharaoh never existed, but he can decide how to live with him.

Physically, his 3,300-year-old body has to endure the struggles of modern life.

Emotionally, he’s rediscovering instincts he was never allowed to feel. He’s a young man again, and the modern world is both temptation and confusion.

Atem’s second life is about that — the space between history and humanity.