Firstly, before I get into writing this, I want to send a shout-out to our dear, wonderful FlameSolaria99. As most of you probably know, Flame has a cancer tumour and was operated on yesterday. I know in my heart that she'll make it through a smooth recovery because she's a strong, amazing girl. But please, keep her in your thoughts and pray that everything turns out okay.

Stay strong, Flame. 3

I feel kind of shallow for posting a humor story at the moment considering the circumstances but I wrote this before hand and wanted to post something.

Oh, it was an awful morning. The dark rain clouds that lazed in the blacked-out sky above, the dreary drizzle of raindrops. The coldness, the lack of songbirds and lively insects chirping; today wasn't going to be a good day, he could already know that.

He'd forgotten his raincoat, he'd worn his nicer pair of shoes and that was his first mistake as the mud and grass that caked them definitely took away from their 'nice' factor. He'd been hauled out of bed before the sun, which failed to show its face anyway, by a phone call from Madoka reminding him about the 'appointment' he had no choice to attend. He'd burnt his toast, realized that his milk was out-of-date the hard way, and he'd tripped over his welcome mat on the way out.

And now, Kyouya found himself sitting in an anger management panel surrounded by several other people he didn't know, nor did he like.

It all started when Kyouya had expelled an outburst of rage that was far more dangerous than his usual tantrums. The previous week, he had walked into a McDonald's with one thing on his mind; he just wanted a gosh-darn cheeseburger, and the idiot had to give him the wrong order. To make matters worse, the kid at the counter had refused him a refund and thus, had unknowingly stepped into the war zone that was a moody Kyouya's wrath. The kid apparently had some pretty big family jewels because he had the hide to argue with Kyouya. They yelled at each other for some time until Kyouya finally pulled Leone out on him and told him to say his prayers.

The kid had pressed charges. So, instead of the other option of 5 months in a juvenile detention center, Kyouya was forced to attend a six week anger management course.

And that's how he wound up sitting in a circular formation among a group of other people who in Kyouya's opinion, looked like a bunch of crazies.

Like, for real though. Not the type of crazy Kyouya had grown accustomed to from his years of traveling with Gingka and those fruitloops he called friends. These people looked like they were ready to tie him up burn him at the stake.

He glanced around the room that he was imprisoned in. It was like a cleared classroom. A simple, rectangular room displaying navy carpet and ugly, cream walls lit with those too-bright lights that leave you with a headache. Four windows lined the right wall. In the arc of the anger management circle was a whiteboard.

Then, Kyouya looked to his comrades only to find that half of them were already staring him down. Instantly, he straightened up out of his hopelessly slumped position and took on a more dominating stance. To his right was an empty seat. After that, there was a boy seemingly around the same age as Kyouya himself who had ebony black hair and a face full of ugly scars. Not like Kyouya's nice, neat scars that practically screamed "I'm a badass,"( well, in Kyouya's mind, anyway). This guy looked liked he'd had some ingenious idea of sticking his whole head into a meat grinder.

After him, sat a skinny kid who had so many facial piercings that he appeared to have gotten himself into a punch on with a nail gun. And lost. His red hair and big, bright eyes immediately reminded Kyouya of Gingka, if Gingka were to cover his face in untasteful jewelry, of course. Kyouya hated him just for that.

Then came a man who looked younger than the walking magnet over there, but older than Kyouya. Automatically, Kyouya didn't like him. He sat there twitching, like he was about to explode at any minute. Kyouya merely dubbed him 'Twitch' and made a mental note to keep an eye out for him.

After Twitch, there sat a young woman who looked around the age of 19. She was of a unique appearance; waist length brunette hair, tattoos up the wazoo and a solid, muscular build. Her hateful glare on Kyouya was the most intense.

Then, to Kyouya's left sat the last of the small group; a man of about 40, by Kyouya's judgement. Surprisingly, he looked incredibly out of place sporting a suit, a clean shave and kind eyes.

Suddenly the doors slapped open, a bolt of lightning hit the ground and Kyouya was almost happy to see a familiar face walk into the room. Almost.

Ryuga stood in the doorway, the storm thundering outside behind him entitling him to an unintendedly dramatic entrance. He stomped through and practically threw himself down into the spare seat next to Kyouya. He nodded grumpily.

Kyouya lent over a little. "What're you in for?"

"Beats me. Remember how I put all those people in bandages when L-Drago was flying off the rails?"

"Yeah, how could I forget?" Indeed, how could he forget? Kyouya was one of those people.

"Well, apparently, that sort of stuff is illegal," he replied, uninterested. "What about you?"

"Threatened some kid at McDonald's with Leone."

Ryuga smirked. "Nice."

A woman walked in then and made her way to stand in front of the whiteboard with the notebook in her hands. "Hello guys, my name is Joanne. I'll be your mentor for the next six weeks and together, we're going to work out your anger problems so you can find inner happiness and peace."

That was all Ryuga needed to hear. He clapped his hands together and announced, "Well, I'm done, You lost me at 'hello', lady. I'll have you all know that it was definitely not a pleasure to meet you. I'm out." He got up and went to leave the room.

"What's your name young man?" Joanne questioned.

"None of your business, woman," he muttered back over his shoulder. Kyouya slipped in a sly, 'It's Ryuga', and she nodded in thanks.

"Ryuga, won't you stay?"

"I'd rather gouge my own eyes out, actually. Less painful."

Joanne frowned. "Well, have fun in juvy then."

He had only reached the doors when her comment made him stop in his tracks. Ryuga was okay with juvy, he didn't mind. There was enough punks for him to beat up in there to keep him from boredom for ages. He did mind, however, the knowledge that more anger management classes would be waiting for him on the inside and there would be no escape. Ryuga grit his teeth and growled but he turned back anyway.

"That's the spirit, Ryuga! It's good to see that you're willing to work out your anger problems."

"You're my anger problem at the moment!" he protested.

"Good, Ryuga. The first step to recovery is admitting that you have a problem. Let's all congratulate Ryuga."

Kyouya started clapping in false-enthusiasm. He found this amusing. The rest of the group simply uttered a chorus of dry 'Congratulations'.

Joanne's presence was sweet and calm. She was like an instant tranquilizer, and her kindness and good intentions were evident on her youthful face.

She made Ryuga and Kyouya sick.

In a voice so soothing it would make angels cry, she began speaking again once Ryuga had retaken his seat. "Okay, let's all introduce ourselves properly so that we can build strong, supportive relationships with each other. Why don't we start with you?" She gestured to the man in the business suit on Kyouya's left.

He stood up, wringing his hands in the hem of his shirt. "My name is Albert. Sometimes, I get so angry that I cry. My wife yells at me for it, which just makes me more mad." Aside from Ryuga and Kyoya, the group clapped and Albert sat back down, trying to fight back a tear.

Joanne continued around the circle. The female introduced herself as Donna. Twitch's name was in fact, Nate. Kyouya still preferred 'Twitch'. The kid that reminded Kyouya of Gingka with a magnetized face told the rest that his name was Ivor, and Kyouya was given a stern glare from Joanne when he asked Ivor how much his parents must have hated him for giving him a name like that. The guy with the scars simply called himself "Jay."

It was Ryuga's turn then. He shook his head and told them that he didn't need to introduce himself because they already knew his name, but he then promptly thumbed Kyouya's way and said, "This here, this is Yo-Yo."

"Hi, Yo-Yo," the group said in unison.

"My name is NOT Yo-Yo. It's Kyouya Tategami! I am a lone lion that lives in the wild. The king of the beasts, the strongest of the strong and-"

Ryuga made a false gesture of friendship and pat him on the back. "Yo-Yo, my friend, it's okay. Nobody's here to judge you, you can tell them your real name."

Yo-Yo pulled away as Joanne spoke up. "Ryuga is absolutely right, Yo-Yo. You're free to be yourself here."

Kyouya facepalmed so hard he almost broke his nose. "Kyouya! Do I have to sound it out for you people? Kyoooyyyyaaaaaaa. Kyouya!"

She nodded, and in the tone that only further infuriated Kyouya, she humored him. "Okay Kyouya, if that's what you'd prefer to be called."

Ryuga smirked, satisfied with his work while Kyouya groaned and clenched the bridge of his nose, clearly trying his hardest to refrain from ripping the entire room apart.

Joanne wasted no time getting started. She pulled out a whiteboard marker and wrote the word 'Anger' on the board. Then, she placed a large capital 'D' in front of it.

"I want you all to remember this motto. Think of it like a mantra that you can say over the over again in your head when you're feeling stressed out. Anger is one letter away from Danger."

The Leone wielder held his head in his hands. "I can't take it anymore."

"I know," Ryuga muttered. "I'm expecting her to pull out a banjo, make us all hold hands and force us into some sort of 'kumbaya' type chanting."

Without any notable cause, Albert all out broke down. "It's my wife! It's her, she's the reason I am the way I am! Do you know what she did last night? She yelled at me for coming home from work late. Then, I started crying and all she did was tell me to man up. I feel like she doesn't respect my feelings at all and it drives me insane!" He then proceeded to throw himself right onto Kyouya's shoulder and weep hysterically.

"Whoa man, get off me!"

"I-I just need a hug!"

"Well, hug your kids or something!"

"I can't!" Albert wailed. "They yell at me too!"

Joanne's face was creased with concern. "Good, this is good. We're making progress. Kyouya, comfort Albert."

Kyouya sighed. He rolled his eyes as he started patting Albert on the back. Each pat got harder, however, and soon, Kyouya was pretty much just punching the bumbling, sobbing mess in the back.

"Don't be so rough, Kyouya," Joanne said. "That's no way to support someone."

Any patience that Ryuga may have possessed wore thinner by the minute. "Joanne, look at him. He's like a baby, if I was this guy's wife, I'd be yelling at the fool too!"

"Ryuga! Do I have to remind you of the motto? Anger spells-"

"Danger! Right. And if you don't wrap this up quickly this whole room is going to be in danger."

"I'm going to choose to ignore that because I know you didn't mean it."

Ryuga pointed at her. "You keep telling yourself that, I'll have you know-"

She raised her voice just enough to speak over Ryuga. "Now, let's try to work out what occurs in your mind and body when you enter a state of rage so that we can establish a backup plan. Kyouya, what actually happens when you get angry?"

"I don't even know. It's like I go blind, I've got little control over myself and the only thing on my mind is victory. Then, I come back to my senses and there's usually a bunch of unconscious people, an explosion, or police..."

"Uh huh," she scribbled something down in her note pad and touched her pen to her chin. "So it seems that your motivation to win could be what causes some of your outbursts?"

He shrugged. "Could be."

She moved on to Ryuga. "Is it the same with you?"

"Not really. I just like destroying things. Like big rocks or people's spirits."

Joanne gave him a 'are you serious?' look, before asking, "Have you ever thought of channeling that into something productive? Like a sport?"

"A sport? Lady, are you all there? Like, up in here?" he twirled his finger around his temple. "Can't you understand that I have no anger problem? I enjoy being this way. It's not a problem."

"Surely, that can't be how you think. There must be some other reason for such hatred."

"Nope. That's all there is to it. And my name, for your information is Ryuga. I am the Dragon Emperor, so don't go calling me Shirley."

She shook her head a wrote something down. Ryuga didn't like that.

"What did you just write about me?" he demanded, getting out of his seat while the other inhabitants of the room flinched back.

Joanne held the notebook towards herself. "I'm sorry, but these are my personal observations. You can't see them."

"Damn your personal observations. I command you to give me that notebook!"

"No..."

"Then I'll just have to take it by force!" Ryuga grabbed the notebook and started pulling while Joanne kept her fingers wrapped around its binding like she was hanging on for dear life.

"GIMME IT!"

"NO!"

Albert started crying again. A very noticeable cluster of sweat drops formed on Ivor's forehead.

Twitch slapped his hands over his ears and started shaking his head. "Make it stop! Make it stop!

Jay just sat there smiling.

Kyouya lent forward in his seat, suddenly interested. "I guess this might not be so boring after all..." his attention was soon averted when Donna hissed his name.

"Hey, Yo-Yo."

"It's Kyouya."

"Whatever you want," she showed him a note of cash. "My money's on the big guy with the tiara. Wanna bet?"

He accepted with a rare smile. "Deal. I'm going with Joanne."

After much grunting and commanding from Ryuga's part, he finally managed to wrench the notebook from Joanna. "Heh, Ryuga one, Nosy Anger Management Mentor zero."

"Please don't read that," she begged, but she should have known better. Once Ryuga starts something, he's darn well going to finish it.

He read aloud as he eyes traced the paper.

"Ryuga Refusestogivehislastname: I'm starting to think there might not be much in the way of help for this guy. Is it possible that some people are just born to be bullies?"

"She's got you there, Ryuga," Kyouya muttered as he painstakingly got out his wallet to hand a note of cash to Donna.

Ryuga showed the notebook no mercy as he threw it on the ground viscously "Look here, lady. I don't have an anger problem. I just need people to stop being so stupid. Every day, every single day, I'm surrounded by idiot's and there's nothing I can do about it. Besides, anger is motivation. Anger is what gives me reason to get up in the afternoon and persevere with the sole desire of crushing people I don't like. You cannot get rid of anger, like me, it is indestructible! It is the cockroach of human emotion. You can not kill it!"

"Please, Ryuga! Use your inside voice!"

"I don't have an inside voice!"

She threw her hands up in defense. "Okay, okay. Calm down. I'm sorry to have upset you."

"No more note taking, have I made myself clear?"

"Yes, just sit down.'

With a determined grunt, he sat back down. Joanne wiped her brow and decided to move back to Kyouya.

"Kyouya?" She asked, regaining his attention. "Maybe you should look at your anger this way; imagine that you are on a bridge. On the other side of that bridge is a physical form of victory. It could be anything, it doesn't matter. Now, there's a big pile of rocks on that bridge, and that symbolizes your anger. How can you get to your victory if your anger is blocking the way?"

He blank in silence for a while before shouting,"What the hell does that even mean?"

"Just cooperate with me for one minute, Kyouya."

Kyouya folded his arms and pouted. "No."

She'd have better chances talking to a potted plant. Kyouya does not cooperate.

"Kyouya!"

Ryuga butt in then. "Heh, looks like you're getting a little angry yourself, Joanne." He said her name in that bitter, sarcastic tone of his.

The truth was that Joanne was getting a little mad. She'd been dealing with anger management patients for years but never before had she been confronted with the likes of Ryuga and Kyouya, and she realized that dealing with these two was going just about as well as trying to baptize a cat.

She couldn't have them know that, though.

She took a deep breath in and sighed. Thinking back to her training, she remembered what she'd learnt in her early years of psychology when she had first begun to study children. Ryuga and Kyouya weren't children, but she gave it to shot anyway. It was time to bring out the big guns; Reverse Psychology.

"Well, I suppose you boys just don't know the answer. That's okay, it's a hard question. I'll have somebody else answer it."

Ivor went to answer when Ryuga cut him off. "Shut your mouth, thing."

Kyouya raised his hand. "You could just blow the rocks up."

Ryuga had a guess. "You could threaten a bunch of people until they moved them for you."

She couldn't believe it worked. Also, she couldn't believe their answers. "Are threats and violence the only thing you two know?"

They shrugged. She took their synchronized shoulder raising as a 'yes'.

When Jay spoke, the whole room jumped at his sudden interest in the conversation. Joanne had been far too engrossed in Ryuga and Kyouya that she'd almost forgotten the others.

"You could... cut... it..." Jay suggested.

Silence and uncomfortable glances swept around the room.

"Dude," Kyouya remarked. "You are SO weird."

"Boys, you can't go about your life thinking that violence is the way to solving all your problems," continued Joanne before the boys exchanged a genuinely perplexed eyebrow raise.

"Is there any other way?" Kyouya questioned.

"I've never had any problems that I couldn't solve with violence," Ryuga added.

"Violence is very counterproductive. For example, in a situation involving your career, no amount of threats or explosions will help you. It's a very well known saying that you are in no position to shake hands when your fist is clenched."

"But," objected Kyouya. "You're in the perfect position to whack the guy on the head and take what you want from him."

Ryuga agreed. "Exactly. Why waste time making deals," his voice trailed off a little as he swayed an upturned palm in front of him like he was stating the most self explanatory thing in the world, "When you can simply force people to give you their money?"

The rest of the group nodded furiously.

Defeated for the moment, Joanne sighed. "Moving on, then. We need to work on identifying people who add fuel to the flame. The people in your life can have a much bigger impact on your reaction to stressful situations than you realize. Some people are good for your mood, and some only destroy any chance you have at recovery. We call these 'toxic' relationships and we need to notice them in order to fix them or eliminate them."

Joanne successfully found the toxic relationships of the others. Donna had daddy issues, Ivor's friends were a bad influence on him, Twitch had problems with authority, and the biggest surprise came when the group found out that Albert's problem was his wife.

Jay just seemed like he was in the wrong place. At the present time, I mean. Rather than anger management, Jay should have been in the psych ward wrapped in a straitjacket behind six inches of bullet proof glass.

Then, Joanne questioned Ryuga and Kyouya. They shrugged together again.

"Well, think boys. Who comes to mind when you imagine yourself in a stressful situation?"

Kyouya thought for a moment before he declared, "Well, Gingka is pretty toxic to my wellbeing."

Ryuga nodded. "Yes. We should eliminate him."

She rubbed her chin. "I see. Who is this Gingka?"

"Oh, he's awful, Joanne. Just awful. All he does is get in the way of any progress I'm trying to make." And Joanne actually thought that by 'progress', Ryuga meant solving his anger issues. He really meant world domination, or something casual like that.

Kyouya agreed. "I know, right? It's like you're having a good day, you're thinking no idiot's going to ruin it, then he shoves his flaming red head into your face and BAM! It's all over."

"It seems like this Gingka is one of these toxic people I'm talking about. Perhaps it would be helpful to stay away from him."

"It's not that simple Joanne," Kyouya whined with his hands out in an expression of genuine distress. "He... he follows you."

"And it doesn't matter if you're out in the mountains or in another country minding your own business. This guy will go out of his way to track us down. There's just no stopping him!"

Kyouya slumped back into his seat and folded his arms. "That Gingka and his constant habit of winning."

Ryuga mirrored Kyouya. "Always in the way. Always in the way..."

It was Albert's turn to comfort Kyouya as he touched his shoulder, and for once, Kyouya didn't explode into the fit of rage. "This Gingka sounds like a real class act," Albert sympathized.

"Seems like he's just hell bent on ruining people's day," Ivor commented, a look of real pity in his expressive eyes.

Ryuga and Kyouya agreed.

In the most innocent tone he'd ever used, Kyouya continued. "And the worst part is that he's almost always with a bunch of people who are just as sadistic as him."

"He even had this kid in a coat stalk me for months on end!"

Joanne gasped. "So, he gets people to gang up on you?"

They nodded.

"That's just sick!" Twitch yelled.

The whole room, including Ryuga and Kyouya jumped in fright when a loud knocking at the window echoed through. A flash of lightning concealed the window knocker's face momentarily, but when their vision cleared, Gingka's smiling face appeared as he threw his arm over his head in an exaggerated wave.

His muffled shouting could be heard as he yelled, "Hi Kyouya! Oh look, Ryuga's in there too. Hi Ryuga!"

"Get away from the window! We're here to pick Kyouya up and I want him to stay focused in there until he's done." Madoka was apparently there too.

"Who on Earth is that?" Joanne asked without looking away.

In a voice so deathly that the sound chilled the others to the bone, Ryuga replied, "It's him... It's Gingka."

The whole room gasped.

Albert clung to Kyouya's arm, petrified while Kyouya gripped his hair with a clawed hand. "Oh, will this nightmare never end?"

The doors burst open once again and who should strut through but Masamune. "Madoka, you must be crazy if you think I'm about to stand out there in the rain while Kyouya's in here all dry."

Yu marched in after Masamune with Tsubasa dragging along the ground, trying to hold him back. "If Masamoomoo gets to go in, then so do I."

Kyouya ripped himself away from Albert and shielded himself behind Ryuga as Benkei came crashing through. "Bu-Bu-Bu-Bull! How did anger management go, Kyouya pal? Are you all free of anger and happy now?"

Donna whispered to Twitch. "What's that Bu-Bu-Bu Bull thing supposed to mean?"

"Sounds like the gang's war cry to me," replied Twitch.

"Savages..."

Kenta poked his head in and his eyes lit up. He sicked himself onto Ryuga, hugging his leg adoringly. "Ryuga!"

Gingka was struggling at the door, being held in place by Madoka.

Joanne had just about enough. She jumped to her feet and pointed at the group. "ALL OF YOU STOP INTERRUPTING MY MEETING! Stop it, stop it, STOP IT!"

Everyone froze. Tsubasa slowly got to his feet, dusting himself off and Ryuga pushed Kenta off himself. Kenta hit the floor with a thud.

"WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE!?"

"This," Kyouya introduced with a hand wave. "Is the travelling circus."

Panting, she turned to Ryuga and Kyouya. "Look, I don't get paid enough to deal with people like this. Maybe you should both look into getting restraining orders or something, I can't help you. You're on your own."

Gingka braced himself against the door as she stormed through. She stopped, glared at him and pushed a vindictive finger right in his face. "And you! You should be ashamed of yourself."

"Huh?"

"Terrorizing those two innocent boys in there. What do you get out of it? If I had you and your band of goons on my tail each day, I would be a homicidal mess too!"

"Would be?" asked Masamune. "What do you mean by would be?"

Before Gingka could even answer, she continued out the door, leaving a bunch of confused bladers and angry individuals in her wake. They watched her staunch form walk off into the rain until they could see her no more. A car door slammed, and tires screeched on the pavement as she sped away.

After a long bout of silence, Yu spoke up. "Yeesh! What was her problem?"

"I don't know," Gingka uttered. '"But she's a bit short-tempered to be an anger management mentor, isn't she?"

And that's that. Ryuga and Kyouya were supposed to be slightly OOC, too. I tried to make it humorous but I haven't the slightest idea if I succeeded because I have an unusual sense of humour, to be honest with you.

As a side note, I was watching some episodes from the first season which I haven't watched in forever (because Kyouya is just that much more... fun to watch in Metal Fury) and I realized that Ryuga was absolutely insane. Like, really. The guy's still a bit reckless in the last two seasons and I wouldn't describe his character as mentally stable, but he was a lunatic in the first. But isn't that why we adore him? As they say, everyone loves a schizophrenic. (No, I don't know anyone who says that either.)

In the words of Tsubasa, "He's got a screw loose!". Anyone else think Tsubasa gets some of the best lines?

Anyway, that's where inspiration for this fic came from. :) I hope you enjoyed. I love you guys.

And get well soon, Flame. All the best, darling.