No progress

Ryou blinked in surprise as he was suddenly thrust back into control. He had been wondering what was going on, since normally his yami would have been sent to the Shadow Realm by now, and especially so since he had felt Atemu's magic some time ago. Wait a second; where was he?

I don't know. See if you can make some sense of this, yadonushi. Well, that was definitely Bakura. I would advise you not to look at the floor. His yami added as an afterthought.

What? Of course, since Bakura had mentioned it, Ryou now found his gaze drawn inexorably towards the ground. His stomach roiled, and he clapped both hands over his mouth, squeezing his eyes shut. What did you do yami? He wailed miserably, waiting for his body to settle down.

This is none of my doing Ryou. Bakura's voice sounded unhappy. I don't know what the Pharaoh thought he was doing, but he ended up sending all three of us to this place, and I don't even know how to begin trying to get us back.

He did? Ryou did a double-take, and went over what Bakura had said. The... three... of us?

Dark laughter echoed in his mind. Anzu's here, yadonushi. Now wake up and play nice with the idiot soldiers.

Ryou sighed, shoulders slumping as he opened his eyes again and glanced up at the man who was standing in front of him, clearly waiting for him to pay attention. He could hear Anzu's quick intake of breath from behind him, and glanced back to see if she was all right. "Ryou," She smiled relievedly, and latched on to his arm. "What's going on? What did Bakura do? Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," the hikari replied softly, feeling his face flush at the feel of her body pressed against his arm. "Bakura says Atemu sent us here somehow, and he doesn't know how to get back. Are you all right? He didn't hurt you? My yami doesn't normally pay much attention to things like that when he's distracted."

"I'm fine." A cheerful smile spread over Anzu's face. "He was really nice, getting me hidden behind him even." I did, didn't I? Bakura's startled voice interrupted Ryou's already scrambled thoughts. Strange... "I think that man wants to talk to you, though."

"Ah, yes!" Ryou flushed in embarrassment, hand going up to his hair in his typical nervous gesture. "I'm sorry," he apologized quickly, giving the man a short bow, "Did you want something?"

The man spouted a stream of gibberish, and Ryou blinked. "I'm sorry, sir, I don't understand," again the man said something, but this time Ryou just shook his head. Why couldn't Atemu have sent them some place where they at least understood the language? This was embarrassing!

Finally the stranger gave up, and barked something at the other men who surrounded him. One of them came up to Ryou, who shrunk away unthinkingly at the sight of the blood on the man's chain mail shirt. He didn't understand!

This time, however, the man didn't try to talk with him, simply gestured for him to follow and walked off. Anzu shifted her grip on him to his hand, and not knowing what else to do, Ryou followed. He shivered slightly as a group of men detached themselves from the main group to surround them, but Bakura wouldn't let them hurt him. His yami needed their body too, after all.

They passed through long tunnels, and Ryou's fear began to fade as they moved through the seemingly endless line of corridors. Finally they came out of the tunnel and stumbled onto a scene even more gruesome than the last one. Ryou's vision tunneled and he heard a snarl from Bakura a moment before he was thrown into his soul room once again. Sleep... Bakura told him softly, and Ryou didn't fight the command.