Shizu didn't know just what it was that Ryan had against Master Agito, why he was glaring at him so fiercely when Master had first come into the room, but Ryan had seemed to settle down as she kept feeding him. He didn't seem nearly as obstinate or sarcastic as Master Agito had once said he was; he seemed happy to have her with him, although, that might just have been since she was the one taking care of him.

Ryan seemed fairly pleasant. It didn't make sense that Master Agito would be so at odds with him. They had the same goals, after all. They were all fighting against Chronos, fighting to try and keep the world free from the horrors that those awful people were trying to unleash on it.

Still, both Master Agito and Ryan seemed determined to hate one another… though perhaps "hate" was too strong a word for it. The two of them seemed to have a great deal of problems dealing with one another, but Shizu was sure that they would work out whatever issues they had in their own time. They had to, if they were going to be able to fight Chronos with all the force available to them.

There were times when she wondered just how and why Ryan and Master Agito had started to have so many problems with each other. More often, she wondered what she could do to help them learn to get along again. But Master Agito didn't take her questions about his relationship with Ryan very well, and so she had learned not to ask about those matters.

Still, perhaps there was something that she could do to help them come to some kind of accord. It was really best that they did—the three of them were the only ones who had any real chance of defeating Chronos. Even the military forces Master Agito was recruiting to his side did not have as much of a chance against a Zoanoid as a Guyver, to say nothing of the Zoalords. Of course, she would never tell Master Agito she thought this.

Looking back at Ryan, Shizu found that he had stopped glaring and closed his eyes. That was good, since at least he wasn't making any more efforts to antagonize Master Agito. Looking over her shoulder, Shizu found that Master Agito had just left. The click of the door made his leaving sound so final, but Shizu knew that she could easily find him again.

Right now, though, it was Ryan who needed to be taken care of. She didn't really know what it was that had made him so light and completely unable to move, but he did have a healthy appetite. Some food, and most likely sleep as well, would make him feel more like himself in no time. At least, that was what Shizu was hoping. She didn't like to think about the possibility that Ryan would never be able to move again.

"I'll be back in a few minutes," Shizu said, reaching over to take the bowl from the nightstand. "Why don't you try to get some rest?"

"I think I'll try that."

Watching as Ryan closed his eyes, relaxing almost imperceptibly as he sank into the pillows she had propped him up against, Shizu sighed softly. Maybe she could ask Mrs. Crouger to take a look at him. After all, Mrs. Crouger was a doctor; she was also Ryan's mother and would want to know what had happened to him in any case. Looking back at Ryan's slumbering form a last time, Shizu left to find Mrs. Crouger.

XxXxX

Norma Crouger had always liked to think that she was an adaptable and open-minded person, but learning what her son had gone through – what he had become now – had been just a little bit much for her to deal with all at once. There were times she wished she had been gradually let in on these little, and sometimes not so little, secrets her son was keeping; then there were times she wished he had never told her at all.

But then, it wasn't really like she had been given much of a choice at the time—it was either come with Agito Makashima and find out just what her son had gotten himself into when he found that thing in the cave – that Guyver – or risk their lives staying in a place where they were too well-known to hide. She had decided to leave, not even having the time to call the hospital where she worked and tell them that she was going. Of course, that had been one of the precautions Agito had insisted upon: the fewer people who knew where she was, the fewer Chronos would be able to hunt down and interrogate or process to get at the information that they had.

The idea of processing had both intrigued and disgusted her in equal measures. That it was forced on people was a disgusting and immoral situation, but the process itself was fascinating. The fact that someone – or several someones, owing to the size of the organization that had developed the system – had developed a method of awakening dormant gene-sequences was truly astounding.

No one on Earth – at least as far as she had known – had ever developed anything comparable to that. She often wondered just when they had first developed it, or what methods they had used. But after hearing what kind of use the people – in the loosest sense of the term, of course – at Chronos had put it to, she could only conclude that, no matter how fascinated she might be with the theories, anything having to do with making these Zoanoids needed to be stopped.

Ryan was participating in this war, whether she liked it or not, and that meant that he would need her support in what he was doing. Any campaign of this kind of magnitude needed people who were willing to work behind the scenes and help sustain those fighting on the front lines; that was one of the things she'd learned from her Marine father.

When Shizu – someone she was starting to realize was disturbingly infatuated with Agito Makashima, but to each their own – came into the room looking worried and obviously searching for her, she turned to face the younger girl.

"Is there something I can help you with, Shizu?"

"Mrs. Crouger, Ryan seems to be… I think he's sick. He can't seem to move, and he seems to be… thinner than he was before."

"What?" Shocked, she turned her full attention to the younger girl.

"I don't really know what to do for him," Shizu confessed, looking back towards the room Ryan slept in. "Please, I need your help."

"Of course I'll help you," Norma said. "He's my son; I know him better than anyone here."

That said, she hurried after Shizu as they made their way into the room where Ryan was staying. Looking in, Norma found that Ryan was indeed asleep—either that, or he was just lying there with his eyes closed the way he sometimes did. There was really only one way to find out if he was really sleeping or if he just wanted some quiet at the moment.

Well, there were really two ways; the second one just wasn't very nice.

Stepping up to the bed, Norma found that Ryan had ducked his head under the covers, and he only did that was when he was faking sleep. Sometimes when he did that he just stared at something, and others he just didn't feel the need to close his eyes. Or he just forgot to—she'd never managed to get a coherent explanation out of him about his not-sleeping habits.

"I know you're awake under there, Ryan," she said gently. "Are you not feeling well?"

"Actually, I feel like shit," he said, not lifting his head from beneath the covers he'd piled on himself. "Even with all the stew I had. Thanks for that, by the way," he added, turning his attention to Shizu. "I can't seem to get enough food in me."

"That sounds serious," she said, trying to project calm even when she was starting to feel pretty unnerved herself.

Ryan's cheeks were slightly sunken, but she'd seen him eating just the same as anyone else in the house. She knew he was more likely than anyone else to ask for seconds, and yet the only medical reason that he would have those sunken cheeks was in fact a mild form of starvation. It was confusing, and more worrisome than she wanted to show. It was her son's health at risk, after all; she wouldn't be much of a mother if she didn't worry about that.

"How are you doing, otherwise?" she asked.

"I'm settling in pretty good," he said, smiling in that carefree way he had. "I think I might even be getting used to Agito, hard as that might be to imagine."

She laughed right along with Ryan. Anyone who had spent any length of time in the same room with her son and Agito Makashima couldn't help but see that they got along like oil and water. Or worse, but those times were rare; mostly they seemed to operate under a sort of strained truce. It wasn't the best of situations, especially for the war they were participating in, but Ryan and Agito seemed far too similar in temperament to give ground easily, even when it was probably for the best.