Author's Note: At long last, here is chapter 7! Deepest apologies for the wait, but I was being held captive by plot bunnies and was only recently able to escape…for now. *Cue dramatic music and lightning flashes*

Shadows of Anarchy

Ryou winced at the volume of Molly's sudden yell and quickly backed away from the bathtub, hands raised in the universal gesture of surrender. There was undoubtedly a very confused look on his face, and he blinked in honest confusion as he said, "Yes, I am a guy…please calm down, there's no need for violence!" He yelped as he ducked to avoid the thrown bar of soap and scurried back even further to get out of throwing range and by proxy closer to the door.

Hopefully if he left the room Molly would have had time to calm down from whatever it was that upset her so much that she was even now looking around for something else to throw that she could reach without rising out of the tub. He had no idea what was so surprising that the blonde wizard-in-training had felt the need to state the obvious by blurting out his gender. He thought back over all their interactions, and couldn't find any instance that he had told Molly that he was woman or anything other than a man.

It was, he accepted as he quickly ducked out the bathroom door and regretfully left his jacket behind, entirely possible that Molly had mistaken him for a girl at their first meeting. It certainly wouldn't be the first time that that had happened, as his friends had told him numerous times that he came across as rather feminine, and his jacket would have hid his chest and the fact that he didn't have breasts. Thankfully that misunderstanding hadn't been happening as often ever since he had turned 18, and truthfully Molly was the first one to do it in awhile – or at least the first one that he knew about.

Maybe he should think about cutting his hair? It certainly didn't help him keep from getting mistaken for a girl…No, he decided, resigned to the inevitable, doing that probably wouldn't help anything aside from making his head feel lighter.

The former holder of the Millennium Ring quietly walked down one of the many torch-lit hallways in the Mausoleum, dark eyes scanning every corner and shadow, just in case another duel monster decided to surprise him. He was still reeling mentally from seeing Diabound, because while he did sometimes use the white monster's card in duels, he had never once actually summoned the creature in a Shadow Game. That had been the Thief King's territory, and he made it a point to stay well away from that area.

What surprised him was that the pale monster hadn't actually done anything, just hovered there and watched him and Molly. And he had no idea what had happened to the creature after the wand explosion, but he knew for sure that he hadn't seen Diabound since then, although in the Shadow Realm that didn't really mean anything.

His suspicion about the monster having something to do with his and Molly's abrupt change in scenery was all but confirmed, though now he had to figure how to get himself and the apprentice wizard back to their own world. That was going to be a lot tougher than figuring out how they'd been transported to the Shadow Realm in the first place, let alone dropped into the Mausoleum of the Emperor.

The whitette paused for a moment to idly look at some hieroglyphs on the wall beside him, still pondering over the few answers he had and the many questions that remained unanswered. The least of which was the obvious question of why had he and Molly been saved from that strange fireball in the first place – not that he wasn't grateful – and what the Shadow Realm had to do with it. He let out a sigh, resigned to the fact that he apparently hadn't left the Shadow Games as far behind him as he had thought he had when Bakura had left, and then continued walking down the corridor. And come to think of it, why had Molly's wand exploded in the first place? He had a partial theory about that, but until Molly calmed down from the gender-confusion of earlier enough to talk to him he had no way to confirm it.

Yes, there was definitely an abundance of questions and a shortage of answers, though given the choice between a mystery and getting barbequed by a fireball; Ryou would pick the first option without thinking twice about it. He abruptly stopped walking, jolted out of his thoughts by the discovery that he was not in any hallway that he recognized. He groaned under his breath when he realized that he'd been so caught up in his musings he must have wandered deeper into the building, and he sighed as he looked around hopelessly and tried to figure out which way he should go to get back to the main entrance.

It just wasn't his day…

Molly was sure that her face was a bright enough red to put a tomato to shame as she sank down into the tub of cold water (and where did the cold water come from, anyway? Weren't they in a desert or something?...) and tried to calm down. Her heart was beating a mile a minute as she leaned back against the edge of the tub and tried to remember if Bakura had ever told that she – he, dang it! – was a girl, but after several minutes she had to admit defeat. As far as she could remember, Bakura had never once said what gender he was, she had just assumed because of his name.

The apprentice wizard abruptly froze as she remembered Harry once mentioning that the Japanese said their last names first…and suddenly Bakura's introduction took on a whole new light. She groaned, smacking the back of her head lightly on the rim of the large bathtub, feeling like a gigantic idiot as her blush brightened enough that she was sure it even showed through her explosion-reddened skin.

After what she guessed was around a half-hour later, the water had changed from cold to lukewarm, so she guessed that it was time for her to get out before she risked hypothermia in addition to her new lobster-red complexion. Hauling herself out of the sunken tubs, her eyes landed on Bakura's (she was definitely going to have trouble thinking of Bakura as a 'he') discarded jacket, and she suddenly had a whole new well of embarrassment to draw from.

She privately promised herself that she was never, ever telling Harry about this, let alone her parents – she'd spontaneously combust from blushing if she even thought about bringing it up!

Shuddering at the sudden change in temperature from the bathtub to the air, goosebumps rising along her arms and legs, Molly hurriedly located a large towel (and when did that get there?) and patted herself dry, trying to be as gentle as possible so as not to aggravate her reddened skin. Considering practically every inch – and she did mean every – was bright red, that definitely wasn't an easy task. She was dreading the days that she was likely to spend peeling, and wouldn't that be a fun experience?

The apprentice wizard sighed, gathered her courage, and quickly got dressed (her clothes were starting to smell though, and that just raised the question of what she and Bakura would going to do about laundry), wincing when the fabric brushed against her over-sensitized skin. Yeah, this was not going to be a pleasant time in her life, it was almost as bad as that time she had gotten the full brunt of a slime golem explosion (after her teacher had finished laughing his butt off, and Harry delighted in reminding her that he had told her to back up more). She figured the two times were about even, because while she might not smell like a thousand cow butts, her skin was so sensitive that even the slightest brush stung like crazy.

Molly carefully laid the damp towel out on the floor as an impromptu bathmat to soak up the water that had flowed off of her, not wanting to risk slipping on a puddle and adding a bruised tailbone to her problems. It had happened before, and she wasn't keen on experiencing it now. She grimaced whenever her shirt lay too heavily on a particularly sensitive patch of skin, and if she hadn't still been so embarrassed over the gender mix-up with Bakura she might actually have considered walking around naked for awhile.

She exited the bathroom, not sure how to turn off the lights in the room and just deciding to let whatever magic ran the place sort it out.

The blonde emerged into the hall outside the bathroom and frowned, looking both ways as she tried to remember which way she had to go to get back to the lounge where she and Bakura had pretty much set up camp. Honestly though, she had been concentrating too much on how badly her sunburn-red skin had hurt to really pay attention to the route they had taken, and she was seriously regretting that now. She groaned quietly as she finally just picked a direction and started walking, figuring that she was bound to either find the lounge or Bakura if she wandered around – she just hoped that she didn't run into that 'Diabound' creature again.

This time making sure to make note of which hallways she turned down, using the symbols on the walls to help her remember the way back to the bathroom if she got too lost, she decided that exploring would do her some good. Especially since if she was curious about something the sting of her sensitive skin kind of faded to the back of her mind, though Harry had told her that that was both a blessing and a curse, even if she didn't get what he meant by that.

As she explored, she noted a lot of repetition in terms of the symbols that appeared on the walls, except for some minor differences, and with just her luck they would turn out to be directions. She sighed in frustration as she turned left down another corridor and kept an eye on the wall carvings as she walked: they were easily recognizable as hieroglyphs; she knew that much from sneaking glimpses of the Discovery channel. Unfortunately for her, Discovery had never told her what those symbols meant. She was both hoping that they were directions and dreading that at the same time, and she really didn't know which she wanted to be true more.

Unconsciously reaching out to run her hand along the wall as she made her way down the hallway, she abruptly jerked her hand back when something that felt a lot like a static shock zapped her. Gently rubbing her hand to try and ease some of the sting, she cringed when she saw several symbols begin to glow.

Well, Molly thought, that couldn't be good…

Author's Note: And there you have it! Ryou's lost and Molly just triggered some sort of defense system/booby trap/weird glowy thing! And to those who asked to see what's happening with Harry and gang in the real world, I've decided to do an interlude for the next chapter. I'm not sure how good it'll be, but I'll give it a shot!