AN: Parvessa and Anei created this together for your enjoyment. Please tell us what you liked about it, so that we may do better next time.

Unwanted complications

Bakura gasped, and stumbled backward, wondering vaguely how he'd gotten himself into this. The last thing he remembered, the Pharaoh had been trying to banish him again, and now he was here in this huge stone... cave. Not only that but he wasn't alone. For the first time, the Pharaoh had banished Ryou along with him, and he certainly wasn't in the shadow realm.

He sighed, and shoved Ryou's hair away from his face. First things first: where was he, and what was there here that he could use? As he had already noted, he was inside a huge stone cavern, lit by torches in holders along the walls. The walls of the cavern were pretty natural, but the floor had obviously been smoothed. The real problem was that it sounded like there was a battle going on. A scream echoed down the tunnels, and Bakura nodded grimly. Yes, there was definitely a battle of some sort going on.

The muffled shriek from behind him made him spin around, silently cursing himself for his carelessness. If he had missed something like that before, he would have been dead. At the sight of the dancer that hung around the Pharaoh, however, his eyes widened against his will. What was she doing here? Surely the Pharaoh wouldn't have angered his hikari by banishing her along with him.

The girl cringed backwards away from him, and he remembered that he had dropped his pretence of being Ryou when the Pharaoh had confronted him. Well, he could either rectify that now, or he could actually allow Ryou to have his body back for a while. His eyes narrowed slightly as he considered, watching the cringing girl, before he decided that at this point his allowing Ryou to take control would put their body in danger.

"Come, girl," he ordered, reaching over to catch her wrist in one hand and grabbing a torch with the other.

Anzu yanked backward, almost pulling herself out of his grasp. "What are you doing?" her voice was breathy, and slightly frightened, but she was making a good attempt at acting normal. "Let go of me!"

It took more effort than he wanted to admit to prevent himself from snapping at her. The only thing that stopped him was the realization that the sounds he had heard earlier were getting closer, and arguing with her would only slow him down. "I want to get out of here before whatever's causing havoc out there decides to come in here." he finally said, trying for a mild tone.

After a few tense moments, as he kept glancing backwards, and she seemed to be wavering between her fear of him and her fear of the unknown, she relaxed, and allowed herself to be led further in to the cavern. He scanned the cavern as they went, knowing that the best way to keep them alive would be to find a hiding place. Eventually he spotted a dark hollow that looked promising, and headed purposefully toward that wall.

If he hadn't been looking for it, he would have walked right past the crevice. The long fracture ran right up the wall of the cavern, and was just large enough to shelter two people inside it. He steered Anzu into it first, and then slipped in behind her, dropping Ryou's backpack at his feet and settling himself into a comfortable position leaning against the stone. Warmth radiated from the body behind him, filling the small space. It was only now that he was finally warm, that he realized just how cold it was in this place.

Shouting echoed closer, and Bakura winced as a severed arm went flying past his hiding place to fall against the wall, blood splattering across the floor in its path. Anzu gasped behind him, and pressed closer to him, obviously feeling that it was safer with someone who she knew, even if he was trying to kill her best friend, than it was to be alone in the middle of a fight. Bakura turned slightly to wrap an arm around her waist, hoping she would have the self-control to keep quiet.

Twisted monsters had come into sight, and Bakura wondered absently what kind of Duel Monsters they were. They didn't look like anything he knew, certainly, except maybe some of the fiends. At any rate, they weren't using any type of magic that he could see. The mêlée was more like a brawl than the ordered skirmish that Duel Monsters waged, and the creatures that the monsters were battling looked, for the most part, like ordinary humans. Most of the damage to the fiendish monsters was being done by what was definitely a dwarf, though Bakura couldn't think what card it was. There really wasn't anything he could do without revealing what he was, though. It still seemed as if the best thing to do was to simply stay where he was and make sure Anzu stayed quiet.