Hi hi, ya'll. ^_^ I'm gonna write this now, so that Mirai has a lovely surprise when she wakes up. *laughs* Now, we all know that positive feedback can encourage the author, right? And that this author craves any form of feedback, whether good or bad. ^_^ So, don't forget to review.

The Adventures of Sakuma Ryuuichi

by Eike

Chapter 2

Ryuuichi, loved watching Shuuichi sing. The young star was so vibrant, so beautiful, so shiny! He was the shiniest person he'd ever seen. Well, once he'd seen a person covered in aluminum foil, and that had been pretty shiny, but Shuuichi was shinier. Because his songs were so good, and he sang with such emotion, and...

"Ryuuichi... can you do me a favor?"

Ryuuichi turned to face K. "What is it, na no da?"

K shouldered his gun and sighed. "I don't know how to put this, but... " K seemed really uncomfortable about whatever he was going to say. Ryuuichi looked up at him with wide eyes. It must be really really important.

"Can you please leave?"

Eh? Ryuuichi's eyes watered. "W-why would you want me gone, na no da?" He chewed on his lower lip, upped the "water" factor of his eyes, and chibi-fied himself just a bit. Nobody could resist him like this.

"Ryuuichi, I know you aren't really crying. I need you to leave because you're scaring Shuuichi. He can't sing anymore. Also, your various body parts are giving off a strange stench."

Ryuuichi started crying for real now. "I scare Shuuichi? B-b-but I love Shuuichi! I want to sing with him and have lots of fun and we're gonna be famous and..."

The gun was now pointed at his forehead. "Leave, now."

Ryuuichi sniffled and nodded, crawling out of the studio. One of his fingers fell off, but that was easily re-attached. His feelings where another matter.

He continued to crawl through the halls, not really in the mood to get back onto his feet. Besides, there were less chances that some body part would fall off if he didn't move wildly...

Ryuuichi stopped and looked back. One of his feet had come off while he had been crawling. He sighed and turned back, wondering what he had done to deserve this. He was really a nice person, he never did anything to hurt anybody! He was loved, he was famous, he had Kumagorou... so why was he being punished?

"Ah, Ryuu-chan. There you are."

Ryuuichi looked up at Noriko. She smiled down at him, immediately erasing any thoughts of ... what had he been thinking of? He shrugged and turned his full attention to her.

"Touma wants to talk to you, Ryuu-chan. Something about curing your... uh... 'ailment.' "

Ailment? What was Touma talking about? He wasn't sick. Well, not that he knew of. Oh god, what if he had one of those diseases that you couldn't find out about unless you took lots and lots of tests (Ryuu-chan was SURE they would be the hard ones with questions he couldn't answer), or you were about to die and all of a sudden you noticed that you had a headache for three days straight and it wasn't just because you were next to the speakers for too long, OR the ones where they asked you to draw pictures and no matter what you did you got it wrong.

But what if it was a different type of ailment? Ryuuichi's eyes lit up. "You mean, Touma found a way to fix Kumagorou's colors?"

Noriko was developing a twitch in her eye. Maybe SHE had an ailment, and needed to see a doctor. Oh no, what if she had that 'ongoing-twitch-that-never-goes-away' disease? Ryuuichi's eyes started tearing up again. "Noriko, I DON'T WANT YOU TO DIE!" Ryuuichi jumped up and latched his arms around her neck, openly sobbing into her chest. It just wasn't fair! Why did all his best friends have to die? Well, not that he knew anybody that had died yet, but it still wasn't fair!

"NO! I'm not dying! Touma is talking about THIS!" Noriko yelled. She then proceeded to rip off one of the arms clinging to her.

Ryuuichi blinked for a moment. "That's an ailment? But, it doesn't hurt."

Noriko's twitch was getting worse! She really was going to die!

"Ryuuichi, go see Touma, NOW, before I rip MORE body parts from you. And it won't be pretty!"

Ryuuichi nodded and quickly ran from the room. He had to go back and get his arm from her, bowing sheepishly. She kicked him away from her after that, and he stumbled forward towards Touma's office.

Touma was sitting at his desk, as expected, with a laptop in front of him. He looked up when the door opened, a sad Ryuuichi slinking in.

"Ryuuichi, I've found the cure."

Ryuuichi immediately lit up. "You mean, Noriko doesn't have to die? That's so great!"

That twitch disease must be contagious, because now Touma had it too! Ryuuichi hoped that Touma would tell him the antidote quickly, so he wouldn't ever catch it.

"No, Ryuuichi. This is about you, and the fact that you seem to have turned into a zombie."

A zombie? What was that? But he couldn't ask Touma, Touma would think he wasn't as smart as he let on, which wasn't true, he was REALLY smart, everybody called him a genius.

Wait, he knew what zombies were! They were those things that the Cyclopes made to protect themselves when they weren't all powered up and junk(1). But then, why...

"But Touma, zombies are cool, na no da!"

Touma let out a sigh and brought a hand to his head. "Ryuuichi, it's only cool in Anime. But, this is scaring all of the workers around here, and nobody can get any work done. You would be the cause of NG Studios losing money. Would you want that?"

The scary glint in Touma's eyes warned Ryuuichi that he desperately needed to answer this correctly.

"I like NG Studios, na no da! I'll get fixed! ... But, can you find out how to make Kumagorou squeaky clean again?"

"Ryuuichi, please just shut up for a moment and listen. To be cured of a zombie, we need to get the help of a priest. Now, the only priest I know I can trust is Eiri-san's father. So, you'll have to go all the way to Kyoto and beg him to exorcise you, understood?"

Ryuuichi nodded. "But I don't know where they live."

Another sigh. Ryuuichi wondered if sighs were signs of a deadly disease too. "I'll have Eiri-san take you there. Mika is too busy right now. Besides, it'll get him away from that kid for a while..."

That kid? What kid? Hmm... Oh!

"You mean Shuuichi? I want Shuuichi to come along! I love Shuuichi! Shuuichi is much fun, na no da!" Ryuuichi started hopping up and down excitedly. He was going to go on a trip with Shuuichi! Admittedly, that mean old grump was going to come along too, but he could deal with that. Shuuichi, Shuuichi!

Touma had leapt up from his chair, slamming is hands onto the desk. "Ryuuichi, stop jumping before..."

Ryuuichi's hand went flying, landing right on Touma's face. His excitement faded immediately, replaced by a feeling of dread. Touma was not going to be happy, he wasn't going to be happy, he would KILL him, he might even do something awful like kill Kumagorou! Or change his color to an awful shade of orange!

His hand slammed into his face. Ryuuichi fell backwards, landing with a thunk on the floor. Why was Touma always so mean to him? Couldn't he have given the hand back nicely? Now he had to pick up all his fingers and put them all back together and that would be so HARD when he had only one hand. Ryuuichi sniffled.

"Alright, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Go fix yourself up and get packed for you trip to Kyoto."

Ryuuichi sniffled again and got to work. It was hard, because he couldn't really remember which part went where. It took him several tries to realize that the thickest finger went on the innermost joint, and the smallest one on the outermost. And he still wasn't sure if he had the other three right.

Ryuuichi looked up and saw that Touma had left the office. He slowly headed out too, wondering what the best way was going to be to convince Shuuichi to come along.

-tsuzuku-

(1) I'm using the "3x3 Eyes" zombies here. ^_^ Ryuuichi is not one of those zombies though. ^_^

Okay, no Tatsuha after all. *shrug* He'll get there soon. And no, Ryuuichi doesn't really say that many "na no da"s. I just over exaggerated them. ^_^ And Akari, so what if it's just a tad icky? At least it's not one of those over-used plot devices! I haven't seen a single zombie-Gravi fic yet! (and if I see one in the near future, somebody is going to be in lots of trouble.) ^_^ Don't forget feedback.