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“Get away!” the child screamed as he gripped his mother's arm and pulled her toward him.
She let out a gasp and small cry of surprise, “Hayato!”
That man, Yoshikage Kira, stared intensely at him and though he couldn’t figure out his expression it sent a chill through his body; but Hayato wouldn’t back down this time. He was sure of what he saw. The towering, dark, skeletal figure that hung just behind Kira had never looked so clear...or terrifying.
When Kira took a step toward them and perhaps tried to say something, Hayato leaped in front of his mother, pointed and cried,
“Stay back! You hear me, I’m onto you, Yoshikage Kira! I’m not going to let you or that demon hurt my mom!”
“Hayato!” his mother shrieked, horrified at what he’d said.
But while Shinobu began to reprimand her child, Kira was at a stand still. When Hayato had pointed, it wasn’t at his face or chest. No. Hayato didn’t seem to really point at Kira at all, but at something just behind his shoulder…
The two fell silent as Kira let out a short laugh and remarked with a smile,
“You must be very tired if you’re seeing something like a demon, we should really get you off to bed Hayato.”
Shinobu sighed softly and smiled best she could.
“Of course, that’s it. Come on, honey,” she took hold of her child's wrist and pulled him toward the stairs, “Time for bed.”
Hayato wouldn’t take his glare off Kira but he wasn’t going to protest either, at least they were getting some distance between them.
Once the woman and child were well out of sight, Kira deflated. He curled his arms tightly around his ribs, trying to control his breathing and get a sense of what had happened. That was fast. Had it even happened? It didn’t seem possible. Then again…
Kira let out a heavy sigh and his thoughts began to unravel as heavy, familiar palms pressed into the back of his neck.
---
“Please, you have to listen to me, that man is evil!” Hayato pleaded, grabbing the covers away from his mother as she tried to tuck him into bed.
Shinobu let out a hard, aggravated sigh and sunk her face in her hands.
“What has gotten into you, Hayato? Kira is a good man.”
She let her hands drop to the mattress and made a final plead for some sort of reason.
“I thought you liked him, you’ve been so talkative since he moved in.”
“But you're not listening,” he whined, “It was so clear...Why didn’t you see it?”
“See what?”
“The de-”
Hayato quickly cut his words as a strip of bright light from the hall seeped into the room and a moment later was replaced by him. Shinobu went to his side almost instantly. With a gentle hand on her hip he whispered to her, though it wasn’t hard for Hayato to hear.
“I’d just like to have a talk with him, if that's alright. You should go on to bed, I’ll only be a minute.”
As a response Shinobu only nodded and placed a kiss on his cheek.
“Mom!” Hayato almost screamed.
She wasn’t really going to leave him alone, was she?
“Good night, Hayato.” she called back in a sing-song voice, shutting the door.
Hayato tightly curled his fingers around a fistful of sheets and suddenly felt a great pressure behind his eyes. He was all alone...No. He was alone with that man, Yoshikage Kira. Hayato had practically forgotten him until he was kneeling in front of his bed. His hand outstretched and only inches away from him. Hayato scrambled backward and smacked Kira’s hand away.
“Get away from me!”
“Hayato,” Kira reached for him again and succeeded for a moment before Hayato's arms writhed out of his grasp.
“Stay away!”
“Hayato!”
“DON’T TOUCH ME!”
Kira finally got a tight grip on the child’s shoulders and shook him as rage ripped through his teeth.
“WOULD YOU JUST SHUT UP YOU STUPID BRAT!”
Hayato squeezed his eyes shut, a few panicked tears rolled down his cheeks. All at once the only thing he could think about was how much bigger and stronger Kira was. Yoshikage Kira could kill him right now and it probably wouldn’t be hard at all. And with that demon? He could probably make it look like an accident.
“Just-”
Kira’s grip loosened slightly as he ironed the temper out of his voice, “Just be quiet, alright? I’m not going to hurt you.”
Slowly, Hayato pried his eyes open. The intense stare and dim lamp light casting strange shadows over the man's face weren’t making it very easy to believe him. But Hayato was more concerned with the figure just behind him. Its skeletal head lingering over his right shoulder.
“Hayato,” Kira began softly, “You’re not looking at me...Can-can you see her?”
“...H-her…?”
As the word shakily escaped him it- no, she- starting moving, and changing. The image got clearer as she lowered herself down and slid an elbow onto the mattress. The bones and smoke were all but gone by the time she had relaxed into the new position, her chin daintily resting atop her crossed wrists. To be honest, it wasn’t what Hayato would have expected it’s full form to be.
“...S-she’s...pink?”
Her eyes widened in surprise for a moment but quickly narrowed, the ends of her thin mouth curling upward. She smiled at Hayato in a way you’d only ever see on the face of someone who’d just told a particularly juicy secret. Or on a particularly sly cat.
“You can see her.” Kira breathed the words more than he said them. He perched himself on the edge of the bed and lightly stroked the demon's head.
“You can see my Killer Queen.”
“I-is that her name? Killer Queen?”
Kira nodded. Hayato blinked several times, hoping that maybe if he did they’d go away. That he could blink this into some strange dream to wake up from. But the image only got clearer as the water got out of his eyes.
He didn’t feel like crying anymore, but there was a tightness in his chest that wasn’t letting up.
“So-so you do have a demon?!”
Kira laughed.
“No, not a demon. Killer Queen is my Stand.”
“Stand?”
“Yes, it's...a special power of sorts. A projection of one's fighting spirit. At least that's how my father explained it.”
Kira trailed off slightly after that, chattering more to himself than anything else.
“I knew there were others...but a child? ...I suppose you could be born with one, that's not too outlandish…”
“Um…” Hayato twisted the edge of his blanket in his shaking hands, “M-mr. Kira?”
Mumble Mumble Mumble
“Mr. Kira?”
Still nothing. Hayato took a deep breathe and quickly nudged the man's arm,
“Mr. Kira,”
He started, suddenly remembering where he was.
“Oh, sorry. I guess none of this makes very much sense, does it?”
Hayato shook his head.
“Well,” Kira sighed, taking a glance at the clock, “It’s too late right now for a proper explanation, you need to get some rest. How about I walk you to school tomorrow? And we can talk about it then, deal?”
He thought for a moment and finally mumbled, “...Okay...deal.”
Hayato was going to hold out his hand to make him shake on it or pinky swear. Something to hold Kira to his word. But he was quickly distracted by the demon that was suddenly very, very close to him. Killer Queen’s bright red eyes were maybe three inches from his. He went stiff when she outstretched a single finger to pull a misplaced strand of hair back to the side where it belonged, and she spoke.
Her lips didn’t move. But there was nothing else the voice could have belonged to. It was like radio static, but way too clear, with a strange almost click at the ends of her words,
“You can stop shaking. Killer Queen won’t hurt you, Kawajiri Hayato.”
She disappeared. Evaporating into deep purple wisps around Kira.
For a bit, Kira looked almost as shocked as Hayato, though he quickly dissolved into soft laughter.
“Well, that’s certainly something.”
“What?”
Kira gave him a smile and lightly ruffled his hair.
“Killer Queen doesn’t usually like other people.”
Hayato thought he almost liked it better when Kira yelled at him.
It was quiet for a minute. Hayato stared down at his lap wondering when Kira would take his hand off his head.
“I’m sorry I yelled at you, Hayato.” Kira spoke almost in a whisper as he moved his hand from the child's head to his shoulder, “You're not a brat...You were just confused and scared...It’s very brave of you to want to protect your mother like that...You’re a good kid…”
Kira gave his shoulder a small squeeze but Hayato barely registered it. He noticed even less when Kira told him good night with a kiss to his temple. Really, he only noticed anything had changed at all when he was completely alone in his dark room.
Slowly, Hayato let himself fall back onto his bed and pulled his blanket up to his chin. Why were his eyelids so heavy? How did he feel so tired? After that? The last thing he’d wanted to do a few minutes ago was sleep. He was so sure that, that man, Yoshikage Kira, was evil. That he and that strange smokey demon- Stand?- were out to do nothing but hurt him and his mother. He still wasn’t completely convinced they weren’t. But if that was true…
Why did he feel so comfortable?