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L Lawliet was cheating at the game.
Alright, allow us to backtrack. L Lawliet was human. But being the world’s number one detective came with a hidden cost — and like any good detective, L searched for the truth, which is incidentally what led him to his situation in the first place. So, long story short, all you need to know is that he was human once.
He still had enough empathy to impart a warning to his proteges, “And there are many types of monsters in this world,” he murmured, “Be very afraid. If you ever encounter one, come to me, at least I’ll make it fast.” …And then it suddenly made sense to the Wammy kids why L could talk to them through a computer that wasn’t plugged in.
Light Yagami finds this out the hard way. He wakes up in his room in a cold sweat, feeling like a squirming animal which is a complete 180 from the godliness he was experiencing. He thinks he sees an eyeball on the ceiling, and it’s the same one that showed up in his dream. What was that color? Bright blue… No, just black, like tbe void. But there was a flash of red, similar to eyes when the flash is turned on, glowing like the aftereffect of staring at the blue too long. Light did not expect to wake up thinking about eyes.
Unwillingly, he flashes back to his first encounter with L Lawliet, The Detective, like a shitty television stuck on replay.
-
Lind L Tailor dies from a heart attack, and the television changes channels without skipping a beat.(Light can’t recreate the frequency, he’s tried)
“Oh Kira, how sweet of you to show yourself. Won’t you have some manners and tell me your name? ”
“Light Yagami,” the eponymous boy sputters to an audience of 1. He panics. For the first time in his life, he clasps his hands to his mouth cartoonishly, almost knocking himself off his chair. But it’s not as if the Detective could hear his confession through the screen. Still, it can’t be helped that Light would reply.
“…Haha, of course not. Regardless, it’s nice to meet you informally. I hope it stays that way, for both our sakes… The last and first time someone went against me, I ate them. Are you going to be my next meal, Kira? ”
“Yes—“
“Just kidding. I don’t want you to die, but I’ll admit you’ll taste delicious either way. Do you really think you are justice? Do you truly think justice exists? You would consider yourself a god?”
Kira doesn’t respond. He has a blistering headache, and his heart seems to be beating at thrice the speed.
“ Are you in the Kanto region of Japan? ”
The headache reaches a breaking point. “—Yes. No. I did. Yes.”
“I know you are. This isn’t a global broadcast, you see. I know your first kill as well, which was how I was able to pinpoint it down. Please be more careful next time, you might as well be shining a bright flashing light at your home address. Do you understand? ”
“No! I don’t understand!” He cries. None of this makes sense.
“I’ll see you later,” the distorted voice (Light cannot for the life of him figure out what modulator he’s using) casually ends. A second later, it turns back on, “Also, your milk’s expired.”
Light slumps over his seat like a husk and does not check the fridge—until he does through reddened sight, in which he first gets the idea that he’s not the only one who’s dealing with supernatural powers. But he’s gone too far to back out now, and the expiry numbers start shifting in front of his very eyes until they cover the entire bottle til he thinks ‘L was wrong, this milk isn’t expiring at all.’ And he chugs it down in one go.
-
The second Light leaves his house, he whispers (why whisper? There’s no one there) to Ryuk, “I’ll give you two apples if you scout my room for cameras again.”
“Two! You must be desperate!”
The shinigami laughs, and Light imagines an absurd scenario where he joins in on the laughing until he’s so dizzy he’s bent over and keeled on that empty street, not even bones in sight, leading both everywhere and nowhere. The street signs just say: ES MENTIRAS, and faintly the ‘brunette’ thinks ‘That’s Latin, isn’t it’ and then-
As if his entire day beforehand had been naught but a dream, he finds himself mid-speech on the To-Oh university stage. He fumbles. The disheveled black haired man next to him is giving him a curious look.
Three entities find themselves starving — Something interesting is about to happen.
Looking back, the boy would wish he was just a normal straight A student — In an oxymoronic way — just a standard prodigy. Then he wouldn’t have- Wouldn’t have become- Has always been - Is in the process of being-
“Mr. Yagami, are you alright?” The dean or whoever asks (unimportant, Light doesn’t even remember the color of his eyes, if there were any at all, unlike the unkempt stranger who calls himself Hideki Ryuuga and seems to have more than enough eyes to make up for the entire crowd) him and Light wishes the room was dark.
”Turn off the spotlight, please.” He mouths the words. It’s too exhausting to do more than that. Nobody hears him.
But L Lawliet was cheating at the game. He’s reminded of why he still loves sweet tasting treats to this day. It’s the only thing that’s close to sating the bitter taste of hunger. So he feeds, licking his lips to dampen the metallic taste of his ‘tongue’ (he’s fully convinced it’s been replaced with wires. His eyes are security cameras, after all) until he can gain satisfaction no more.
He’s cheating, but he doesn’t want to be. So he does not Know if Light Yagami is Kira. He knows, however, that Light is scared.
Light snaps out of it, “That’s… that’s all…” he finishes lamely.
‘The security cameras are too loud, and they muffled the sound of the cheering,’ he thinks to himself, ‘Of course they clapped out of politeness, even if I messed it up at the end.’ Collapsing back into his seat, he finds that he can’t discern a single face in the audience at all.
Ryuuga does his speech, and nobody claps either. L is used to the silence, and he hasn’t been on the receiving end of being seen in years, so he’s not going to start now. He smiles to a sea of eyes, all about to be his.
Meanwhile, Ryuk, lest he be forgotten, is giving the biggest round of applause he has ever given in his whole afterlife. It rings across the theater, and the clattering of his jewelry reverberates throughout the halls.
‘Now,’ L thinks, ‘to talk to Light, who’s weakened by the crowd—‘
‘Oh?’ He hums, electricity whirring through his veins.
L had not Seen who Kira was, no. That would have been too easy. Stalking Light was just because of his 80% suspicion level (which in hindsight, would’ve been right. And L has all the hindsight) and because he’d make a good meal anyway, with all the performance he puts on.
But this new information… all but confirms it. He was 99% sure from the start that Kira was just an unlucky person with a Leitner, but not an avatar. They would never flaunt their powers so carelessly, especially the End’s lot, who have no need for a ritual.
One who is becoming, however…
The Detective watches as his victim stands up from the seats and sleepwalks towards a door-that-was-not-there. Laughs as he Knows that nobody in the room of hundreds even noticed he was gone.
Light’s ready acceptance of the supernatural somehow didn’t extend to the fact that his eyes could, at all times, be lying to him. Until now. So he shuts them tight, and waits until he gets to wake up. He knows that wherever he’ll end up is bound to be better.
‘It’s fitting that he became a different type of monster than the Eye,’ L is thinking, ‘After all, justice is blind. And his sense of justice is madness.’ L takes a lollipop out of his pocket, which ‘looks’ like an eyeball. He shoves it into his mouth, remorseless.
Light Yagami is becoming, becomes, became. To have your 'who' torn bloody from your 'what', to relinquish humanity, to achieve godhood. All it has to do is to wake up.
Two can play at the game L is cheating in.