Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

I. Alea Iacta Est

Michelina stares into her scrying pool. The water is a deep, familiar blue, a color darker than the Earth’s sky but brighter than its oceans. It reflects the whole of the Universe.

Her Universe.

She sighs and leans over the edge, dragging her fingertips across the water’s surface, watching stars burble and dance away at her touch. She’s quite tired, really. Minding the Universe for millennia after millennia is a weary task.

<<What are you doing?>>

She lifts her head up in surprise at the voice. It isn’t easy to sneak up on her, and there’s only one person who can. Maybe two. 

“Gabe.” She pivots around, setting her bare feet on the marble floor. “You caught me resting.”

Gabe glides toward her. He’s wearing his original form, as he usually does. Michelina, though, is presently wearing the shape of a Pre-Raphaelite muse: flowing gossamer gown, wildflowers woven through her endlessly long hair. Inspiration on two long legs.

<<Isn’t this all a bit archaic?>> Gabe waves around at the palace. It’s made of glimmering marble columns and floats atop a bank of fluffy white clouds, a throwback to very ancient Greece.

“Excuse me for feeling Nostalgic.” Michelina waves her hand and the palace disappears. She’s sitting in an ordinary couch in an ordinary apartment, early 21st Century in style. The scrying pool is now a laptop computer, humming quietly beside her.

<<Well, this is just boring.>>

There really is no pleasing Gabe.

<<Why were you resting?>> 

“I was tired.”

He stares at her strangely.

“Yes, I only imagined I was tired. Happy?”

<<Not especially.>> Gabe shrugs. Feelings, even imagining that he has them, doesn’t come easily or naturally to him. As it should be.

“Why are you here?” Gabe usually only comes to see her if he has a message. What he does with the rest of his time is a mystery.

<<Lucas sent me.>>

Michelina frowns. “So he wants to gloat, then?”

Gabe shrugs again. <<He wants to meet with you.>>

So he does want to gloat.

Light Yagami is dead, his soul dissolved into the nothingness of Mu. She won the battle.

But Kira’s presence--his shadow--lives on, so really, she lost the war.

<<He has an offer.>>

Michelina takes in a sharp breath. “Already? The 21st Century has barely started.”

<<Well,>> Gabe shrugs once more. Sometimes it seems the only gesture he is capable of, that sometimes-infuriating tic of impartiality. <<You’ve gotten off to a bad start.>>

So I have.

“What is his offer?” The voice she’s using, usually so sweet, is stiff.

<<You’ll have to ask him. He’s waiting at the Tower.>>

“Yes. Yes, of course he is.”

She comes swiftly to her feet. The apartment dissolves around her and morphs into the Royal Library of Alexandria. It had been one of humanity’s greatest triumphs, once, a beacon of scholarly achievement during the Ptolemaic Dynasty. Now, it’s nothing but a memory in Pandæmonium.

“Von!” she calls, knowing that her voice will carry to wherever her comrade is working. 

“Michelina?” He appears before her at once, wearing his preferred form, that of a small, rumpled scholar, complete with an unkempt beard, natty cardigan, and frivolous eyeglasses.

She takes a deep breath, stands up taller, straighter. “I’m going to see Lucas. He has an offer.”

 Ah, so it’s that time again already? Very good, Miss.”

***

The Tower is neutral ground. It looks out over all of Pandæmonium. The prideful humans who built it called it the Tower of Bable, but now it, too, is just a memory, much like the Royal Library of Alexandria.

It has a truly horrific number of steps, though, so Michelina just flies, tearing through the fabric of Pandæmonium until she lands, light as stardust, on the upper-most platform.

<<Hello, Lucas.>> Like him, she wears her true form. A shape that would be incomprehensible to any human who glimpsed it. It is neither male nor female; it is both all colors and no colors at all.

In this state, they are both at their most vulnerable and most powerful. To appear as such is a gesture of trust, but a very uneasy trust.

<<Michelina. You look as beautiful as ever.>>

If she had a mouth, she would smirk.

<<Gabe says you have an offer?>>

<<I do.>>

<<And? Do not keep me waiting.>>

<<You are eager, I see.>> Now she thinks she hears a smirk in his voice. So he wanted to gloat, after all.

<<I am out of chances. You know that.>>

<<I do.>>

There’s sympathy in his tone now, but she pays it no mind. 

He isn’t known as the Father of Lies for nothing.

<<Why do you even offer?>> To say she’s suspicious is an understatement. <<You know that you have virtually won.>>

<<Pity?>> he says, simply.

She narrows her eyes, figuratively. <<Try again.>>

Now he laughs with subtle mirth. <<I do not want our games to end, Michelina. It’s only been fourteen billion years or so. Surely you have some fight in you yet?>>

She bristles all over. Damn, but she hates his arrogance. <<You bet I do, buster.>>

<< Buster ?>> He laughs again. <<You amuse me, Michelina. Why would I ever want us to part?>>

<<Why would I want to stick around just for your amusement?>>

He comes closer, until the dark glow of his form overlaps with hers -- both cold and hot all at once -- until its hard to tell where he begins and she ends.

<<Stick around for your own amusement then, Michelina.>>

***

Hours or eons later, they have struck a bargain. The rules are in place, the Champions have been chosen.

Now they must pluck them out of Mu.

Michelina and Lucas descend the Tower stairs together, walking as civilized humans do, though they are anything but. Over the years, though, they’ve picked up more than a few human-like habits. For better or for worse.

“How will you wake him?” Lucas asks. He’s wearing one of his oldest and most appealing forms: long hair like pale cornsilk, tousled by a non-existent wind, and skin like rich amber.  

“Gently, as with all others.”

“He’s a creature of logic and intellect. There’s always that to consider.”

“And yours is a creature of pride and power.” Michelina cringes a little, even as she says it. They’re souls , not creatures.

“So he is.” Lucas hums in the back of his throat, the sound edged with menace. “Perhaps I should go for something a little classic.” A pitchfork materializes in his left hand, its barbs wet with clotted blood. Curled horns, blacker than onyx, push through the skin on his forehead.

Michelina rolls her eyes. “You’re perverse." 

He laughs. To him, this is just another of their games.

Michelina tilts her head at him, as if quietly approving of his antics, though in truth she only draws strength from his careless mirth.

Bastard.

For her, this is much, much more than a game.

***

Chapter Text

Ex Nihilo

First there was nothing, and then --

Something.

As his sight slowly comes back to him, he braces himself for it to hurt. Bright colors pass through his field of vision, red, green, blue, then finally bright, searing yellow. He expects to flinch, to squint, but he doesn’t.

He isn’t sure, in fact, if he actually has eyes.

There is a pressure somewhere. Familiar. A noise, too, subtly pounding all around him.

Oh, that would be

His heart. How could he have forgotten his heart?

The pressure increases, moving in and out. The kiss of air to his lungs, the tissues and capillaries flush with the memory of what it’s like to breathe, to be alive.

<<L Lawliet.>>

He turns his head towards the voice. He thinks it’s his head, at least. And he thinks it’s a voice, though there is a note to it that sounds distinctly inhuman. If he thinks about that inhuman note too hard, he feels something akin to insanity bleed into his mind.

No, no. I’m not supposed to know this. Not supposed to be here.

“L Lawliet!” The voice is sharper now. Decidedly female.

The colors in his field of vision shimmer and dance, then finally converge and lengthen, pulling out in various directions until he can identify legs, arms, then at last a face.

“L Lawliet! Wake up!”

My, it’s a pushy voice, an odd mix of exasperation tinged with amusement.

“I’m awake.”

And suddenly, he is, crouched on the floor in his most comfortable position, though he has the sense that his body isn’t all here, yet. Still, he is awake and he is L.

“Phew, good.” The woman smiles broadly. She’s dressed in a lab coat, a clipboard pressed to her chest. The wrinkles around her eyes, paired with the frowsiness of her hair, suggest that she is comfortably middle-aged. She speaks in English with an American accent.

“Do I know you?” The very tip of L’s thumb slips into his mouth. Ah, so he does have a thumb, at least.

“Not personally, but I do know you. I’m Michelina.” She offers a hand, as if to shake his, or perhaps help him to his feet.

“No, thank you.” L stares at the woman, noting her concerned expression, then looks past her to his surroundings. They’re in a laboratory, of sorts, though many of the gadgets and equipment mounted to the walls are completely unfamiliar to him. The lighting is soft, even soothing, and there’s a quiet hum in the air.

It reminds him of engines.

“Am I in the afterlife?”

Because if there’s one thing L knows, it’s that he’s dead.

I’m dying. He did it, he really -- I’m dying!

I knew he

I’m

It’s the last thought L ever had, and given how much it terrifies him, it might as well have been the only thought he ever had.

“This isn’t the Afterlife. There is no Afterlife. Not for you, anyway.”

“Why not for me?” L wonders aloud. He wasn’t an infallible person, perhaps, but he does not think he was evil.

He was just too late.

“You’re a soul. Souls do not go to an Afterlife, they only go to Mu.”

“Mu,” L mutters.

Nothingness.

“Off the floor, now,” Michelina says, her voice suddenly stern. “You’re being a little slower to adjust than I expected.”

And with that, she yanks his hand away from his mouth and hauls him upright. She’s five-foot nothing, but seems to have the strength of a longshoreman.  

L gives a stunted cry, once again bracing himself for pain, the stiff pop of joints and the ache of long-dormant muscles. How long has he been dead? But once more he feels nothing, not even the solid floor beneath his feet.

“Ah, sorry about that,” Michelina says, seeming to notice. “Let me give you some more substance.”

She pats him up and down until he can feel the brisk, efficient movements of her hands. He looks down and sees his body, dressed in its regular uniform of jeans and a white, long-sleeved tee-shirt. His feet are bare, more clean than he remembers.

He’s overwhelmingly glad to see his body, which is curious, as he never thought of it much before, when he was alive. It was mostly a place for his brain to sit. He fed both body and brain their preferred fuel (sugar), and gave the former regular exercise, not out of vanity but because strength and agility were necessary in his line of work.

Though neither body or brain saved him, in the end.

“Ahh.” L stretches, delighting in the renewed sensation, then opens his eyes wide. That hum in the air, it must be engines. “This isn’t Mu,” he deduces, rather obviously.

“Nope.”

Michelina walks over to the far end of the laboratory-like room, her heels clicking along the floor at a business-like clip. She raises her hand and a wall slides out of the way, revealing a massive, round porthole.

“This is Pandæmonium.”

“Pandamonium,” L repeats, aware that his pronunciation doesn’t sound quite like hers.

“Have a look.”

He toddles over to her, stepping gingerly on his bare feet. It doesn’t hurt to walk, but it still feels novel, somehow. When he looks through the porthole, he expects to see outer space, a vast field of stars and pinwheeling constellations. Instead, he sees something he can’t rightly identify. Strange blobs of iridescent ichor, teaming and blooming like bacteria in a petri dish.

A vast field of...ooze.

It’s inelegant, but it’s the best he can do.

“I suppose in more technical terms, it’s the fabric of time and space, but for all intents and purposes, it’s the name of my world. Pandæmonium.”

“I see.” L feels calmer than he ought to. “And why am I here?”

She meets his eyes directly; they are an ordinary shade of blue, but for the first time he sees something utterly fathomless inside of them.

Michelina is no ordinary woman.

“You’ve been chosen as a Champion,” she says simply.

Champion?

“Wait. This is the fabric of time and space, you say?” He tips toward the porthole. He must have a closer look at this ‘ooze.’

“Oh no, you don’t.” She pivots him around sharply. “I should have known better than to give someone like you a glimpse of all that.”

“So you made a mistake?” He lifts his eyebrows. “I suppose that means you are not a God.”

“Ha,” she snorts, her expression hard and impatient. “Not hardly. I’m a glorified babysitter.”

He pouts a little. “Does that make me a child?”

Michelina’s face seems to soften. “No. As I said, you’re a Champion.”

“Then I am a Champion that loses.” Even he can feel how bitter his smile is. “You’d do better to choose someone else, Michelina-senpai.”

“You didn’t lose. And really, there’s no need for honorifics.”

He says nothing.

“Light Yagami won, but that doesn’t mean you lost.”

He stiffens all over, jaw clamping shut at the sound of Yagami’s name.

I’m dying. He did it, he really -- I’m dying!

I knew he

I’m

“Don’t be stupid, L. You played Tennis, did you not?”

Still, he doesn’t move a muscle.

“You ought to know that the player who wins the first set hasn’t necessarily won the whole match.”

This time L speaks, though he doesn’t have much to say as of yet. “Alright. I’m listening.”

She breathes out what sounds like a sigh of relief, then turns him around to face the porthole again.

“First, I’d like to introduce you to someone.”

His eyes widen at the sight before him.

“L, this is the Universe. Universe, meet L.”

***

No. NO. NOOO

I don’t wanna die!

Misa! Father!

I CAN’T

Anyone!

Ryu

The fire burns him inside and out, crackling so fiercely it nearly deafens his thoughts. It doesn’t burn his body, but his very soul. The pain --

NOOO!

It doesn’t end. It doesn’t end!

But then it does, just a little. Just enough for him to hear a low, evil cackle. The sound of it makes the flames dance higher, licking over the skin of his soul, devouring it.

“Some God of the New World. You burn just as hot and shit-stinking as any other soul.”

Ahhh! You lied, Ryuk! You said there would be nothing. No hell, no afterlife. Just nothing!

“You blubber too much.”

That voice again, hateful and merciless.  

“You think I’m evil? I’m JUSTICE, motherfucker!” And then the laugh, the insidious cackle.

It’s taunting me. Taunting me!

“Damn right I am. It’s just too fun, isn’t it?”

And then all at once, the flames are gone, and the pain with it. He’s gasping hard, his throat raw with unspent screams.

“What are you, what…?” He can barely speak, his heart is pounding between his ears so hard he fears his skull might burst open.

“Relax, I’m just fucking with you.”

It’s the same voice, but amiable now. Nearly friendly.

Reality gathers around him and takes shape. He can feel something solid beneath his sprawled out body. He’s no longer on fire but he can still smell burnt flesh, hear the roar of fire in the air.

“Get a hold of yourself, Light Yagami.”

A shadow looms over Light, featureless and black. He blinks his eyes hard and when he opens them again, he’s looking into the face of a man.

“Ah, there you are.”

“Where am I?” Light manages to croak.

The man smiles. His face looks ordinary enough, youthful and blandly handsome, but when he smiles, his teeth glint just a little too hard. Like a switchblade, flicking open in the firelight.

“Where do you think you are?”

“Hell.”

“Is that right? Interesting.”

Light tries to find words, but he hasn’t the air. No matter what he does, he can’t seem to catch his breath, but some time passes -- how much, he doesn’t know -- and his gasps finally die down to a low panting.

“This isn’t hell,” he determines.

The man lights a cigarette, bored. “No such place, kid.”

Light sits up, angry. “You tricked me. You made me think -- you...”

“Oh, you’re one to talk.” The man’s laugh is practically a guffaw. “Isn’t so fun when someone fucks with your head, is it?”

Fuming, Light comes to his feet easily enough. He’s naked, coated in a sickly sheen of sweat and filth, and yet the man looks effortlessly crisp and cool in his designer suit. It’s not far off from the kind Light himself used to favor, before --

Before.

“This isn’t hell, but I am dead.”

“Correct.” The man blows odorless smoke in his face.

Light waves it away fussily, just the same.

“Let me guess, you’re masquerading as Satan?”

The man shrugs, almost looks sheepish. “Caught me.”

“Who are you, then?” Light manages to make his tone less demanding, more civil. As far as he can tell, this is man is the only person around, and thus the only source of information available.

“Cut the act, kid. You can’t charm me , so don’t even try.”

Light’s temper flares up inside him, chasing any pretense out. “Just tell me who the fuck you are.”

“Ah, that’s more like it.” The man flashes his switchblade smile again. “Name’s Lucas, and I’m your liaison.”

“Liaison to what? Or whom?”

“To your next great adventure, of course.”

“Speak in specifics or don’t speak at all.”

Lucas tips back on his heels, appearing impressed. “So this is the real Light, is it? I like your directness, so I’ll return it in kind. You’ve been chosen as a Champion.”

Now it’s excitement and hunger that flares up inside Light, burning just as bright as his temper.

Champion?

Of course.

Of COURSE.

“And what does being a ‘Champion’ involve?”

Lucas jabs a thumb over his shoulder, pointing in the direction of a mansion that Light somehow didn’t notice until now.

“Let’s head up to my pad. I’ll give you the manual. And some clothes, too.”

***

The Universe is beautiful, but to call it beautiful seems a tragic understatement. It’s endless and endlessly complicated, glimmering with stars and supernovae and galaxy after galaxy. It’s also shaped like a cat, purring contentedly, tail twitching every so often. L thinks it must be dreaming.

“Why is it shaped like a cat?” L wonders aloud, his forehead pressed to the porthole.

“Oh, is that what you see?” Michelina sounds amused. “It’s hard to look at in three-dimensions, but I sometimes think of it as a cat, so perhaps that’s why you see it that way.”

L reaches out, trails his fingers against the glass. “I like you, Cat.”

Michelina touches L’s shoulder, a sad smile shining in her eyes. “She’s dying, L.”

“What?” L breathes. “No.” Utter sadness pours through him. His death and life are nothing, a brief spark that ignites for a second, forgotten even before its light fades. But the Universe -- no, it can’t die.

“I’m afraid so. And I had such high hopes, too.”

L straightens up. “I don’t understand. All the literature I’ve read on the matter indicates that our Universe is a young one, roughly 12-14 billion years old, and likely to continue for at least hundreds of billions of more years.”

“She is young. That’s a large part of why she’s so vulnerable.”

L wants to ask for hard data, for quantum trajectories and relative probabilities, but his intuition tells him that these are crude tools for discussing what Michelina likely understands on a much more sophisticated level. A level utterly beyond his comprehension. This is the only reason he can think of for why she’s speaking about the Universe as if it were a small child.

Glorified babysitter, indeed.

It’s rather rare for L to feel like the stupidest person in the room. It’s a revelation. He almost likes it.

“What is the purpose of the Universe?” His voice is rusty.

“The purpose of the Universe is purpose, and purpose only. To exist and progress.”

“Toward what?”

“I don’t know.”

He gives Michelina a shrewd look, and she blinks at him modestly. “Much as your kind can only speculate about your purpose, my kind can only speculate about the purpose of the Universe.”

“And what is the purpose of ‘my kind,’ do you know that?”

“Yes. You are a soul, and souls are the detritus of the Universe. You are of the Universe. She is the origin of your energy, and what you do with that energy determines her purpose.”

“Detritus of the Universe.” L ponders this. “So, souls are the dandruff that the Universe shakes off her back.”

Michelina blanches a little. “That’s a rather crass way to put it, but since it’s a metaphor you can grasp, I’ll allow it.”

“So if she’s dying, then it must be the fault of human souls. Dandruff gone astray.”

“Yes and no,” Michelina says, enigmatic. “The tide of souls must flow toward purpose and progress if a Universe is to thrive, but if that tide ebbs away from progress, into darkness, so goes the Universe with it.”

“When you say ‘progress,’ are you referring to evolution?”

“Well,” Michelina’s mouth puckers, and L is once again struck with how difficult this must be for her, explaining the unfathomable to a mere infant. “Darwin’s theory of evolution is but one type of progress, but continued biological evolution does not necessarily negate spiritual devolution . Under the right circumstances, a whole congregation of souls can be guided away from enlightenment, pushed toward fear.”

L understands at once. “Kira. Kira changed the world, just as Light intended.”

Michelina nods. “I’m afraid so.”

“So he was evil, after all.”

“Stop that.” Michelina swats at him with her clipboard. “Never use such pedestrian words again. There is no good or evil, there is only progress or lack of progress, and degrees in between.”

“Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that it was you who said the Universe is dying, and not ‘the Universe is no longer progressing.’”

Michelina’s face twists, looks chagrined. “ Touché .”

“If Kira’s actions have hastened the death of the Universe, then his actions were evil.”

“Fine, L. Call it evil if you must, but know that it was not evil for the reasons you think that is was.”

He stares at her in a way that prompts her to continue.

“I realize that by your human ideologies, murder is ‘evil,’ but it is not Kira’s murder of innocents and non-innocents that did harm; the harm came from how he altered humanity’s perception and robbed them of free will.”

She flicks out her hand, and the image in the porthole changes. The Universe is gone, and in its place is Earth. It looks darker than it does in schoolbooks and NASA pictures; less beautiful, somehow.

“That’s your world, L,” Michelina points. “And it’s in Shadow. Kira’s influence will drag humanity back to another Dark Age. The souls there now believe that anyone who commits even the most minor of crimes should be put to death, lest they become a greater threat in the future. The children and ancestors of criminals, even, will be killed in hopes to stamp out any genetic components. They will hunt down and snuff out anything that does not fulfill Kira’s vision of Justice, and they will not progress .”

Her voice cracks on the last words, and L looks at her sharply.

“Near may have killed Light, but he was too late to kill Kira,” she finishes.

L thinks it over. “Near killed Light?”

She nods. “Only with the help of other souls.”

“Mihael and Mail?”

Another nod.

L wants to be pleased with his protégés , but he’s chastened by the fact that they are likely dead. And that they still lost, just like him.

L slips the tip of his thumb into his mouth, gnaws on it lightly.

“If my world is doomed to Shadow, then what is it I’m meant to do?”

***

“Doomed? Are you sure?”

“Doomed, that’s right. Pretty much.” Lucas ignites another cigarette. Light fights the urge to bat it out of Lucas’ perfectly manicured hand.

As soon as Light walked across the threshold of the mansion, he had arrived on the other side in a fresh set of casual clothes, his body perfectly clean, as if he’d just had a long shower. Lucas had guided him into a home office roughly the size of a small movie theater, then sat him down to face a giant, wall-mounted computer screen. Then, he began to explain.  

“I don’t understand,” Light says, a dreaded lead ball forming in his stomach. “You mean even though I’m dead, the world just forgets me? Forgets Kira? Everything I worked so hard for just disappears?”

“Pretty much.” Lucas points his cigarette at computer screen. The image of Earth is crisp, high resolution, but there can be no mistaking that it looks darker than Light remembers. More rotten , somehow.

“Ungrateful,” Light hisses under his breath. “Ungrateful pigs.”

“Why are you blaming them?” Lucas’ voice is irritatingly casual. “It was you who screwed up.”

Light whirls on him. “How? How did I screw up, exactly?”

“Beats me, but if you hadn’t, the world wouldn't be rotting away, would it?”

Light grits his teeth, reluctant to admit that Lucas has a point. What did Light do wrong? Maybe he died too soon. Maybe choosing Mikami to be Kira was a mistake. Maybe that freak successor to L, Near, launched a wildly successful smear campaign in the wake of his death. Maybe  --

L…

L’s fault. L still won.

Fuck L!

“Don’t look so gloomy, kid. Like I said before, you’re a champion. That means you get a second chance.”

Light doesn’t yet dare to be hopeful, but he’s curious despite himself. “How, exactly?”

Lucas clicks the mouse on his desk, and the image of Earth is replaced by a second, nearly identical image of Earth. The only difference is that this one still looks bright, less tainted.

“We send you to world V 2.0.”

“What?” Light says, disbelievingly.

“Oh, come on, don’t be coy. You’re one of those eggheads, right? Surely you know about parallel worlds?”

“I know of them in theory and in theory only.”

“Well, they’re not a theory, they’re real. Remember those fixed lifespans that Shinigami can see, floating over everyone’s heads?”

Light is jolted by the mention of Shinigami. What role do they play in everything Lucas has told him? Shinigami can kill humans, but Light is wise enough to realize that Shinigami aren’t one-tenth as powerful and important as whatever Lucas is. Light’s own Shinigami hadn’t told him a thing about the Universe, he just ate apples and followed him around, looming like a portent reminder of the world’s ugliness.

“Of course I remember the lifespans,” Light snaps, frustrated by the growing realization that he knows so very little about anything.

“Those lifespans are assigned at random, arbitrarily, every time the Universe spits out a new soul. The lifespans are absolute, but there’s a work-around. Sometimes an unexpected event, an anomaly, takes place that shortens or lengthens a lifespan, and a replica of that soul shows up in a replica world to live out that new lifespan.”

“How can my soul have a replica? There’s only one me.” Light is rather offended, even a little repulsed, by the idea of some second or third version of Light Yagami, especially one who is living out the life that he , the first Light, deserves.

“There’s only one you,” Lucas agrees. “But to put it in familiar technical terms, your soul can multitask. Even while it’s here in Pandæmonium, talking to me, it’s out there in one, two, three, or more worlds, living out a different lifespan.”

“What happens when all my other lifespans run out?” Light asks dazedly.

“Well, that’s when you end up in Mu for good.”

Light shakes off the daze, all at once understanding. “You’re going to send me to a parallel world, and I’m going to live out a different Light Yagami lifespan.”

“Hey, good, you catch on fast. I guess you really are an egghead.”

***

“We chose this particular world because it is the one most closely aligned with the one you lived and died on. In this world, Light Yagami has the Death Note and is acting as Kira, and you are the great Detective L, investigating Kira.”

“Mm, you mean that’s not the reality in every world?” L finds it hard to imagine himself being anything but Detective L, doing anything other than investigating Kira. It is equally hard to imagine Light without the Death Note, not being Kira.

Michelina smiles vaguely. “I can neither confirm or deny that. I can only speak to you about your world, and world V 2.0.”

“Can you tell me about Death Notes? Why do they exist? Are they something that your people created?”

Her smile disappears, she looks offended. “ I certainly had nothing to do with them. All that I can tell you is that both Death Notes and Shinigami are one of the more insidious forms of temptation thought up by certain other colleagues of mine.”

Certain colleagues, is it?

L ponders whether or not Michelina has a soul. He hadn’t really thought about souls one way or the other in his first life, but now he supposes he must accept it. Humans have souls. No, they are souls. That’s how Michelina put it. Which means that there is an 88.9 percent change that she herself is not a soul.

“I’ve been wondering, why do you carry a clipboard? I don’t see you using it for anything.”

Michelina appraises him, rather approvingly, it seems. “My, you don’t miss much, do you, L? The clipboard is just a prop. I figured you would respond better to someone who looked official and scholarly.”

“That was a clever thing to figure, but what do you really look like?” He slips his thumb into his mouth, regards her with his most fascinated gaze.

Michelina tilts toward him, her smile making her suddenly pretty. Younger. “Now, now. You wouldn’t be able to handle what I really look like.”

“Yes, I could probably fall for you,” L states matter-of-factly. “But I will end this line of questioning. I can already see that you will tell me no more and no less than what is necessary.”

“Smart boy,” Michelina murmurs, but there’s a hint of rosiness to her cheeks. “Now is as good a time as any to go over the rules, Champion.”

L nods. “At your leisure.”

This time, she really does look at the clipboard.

“Rule One: The Champion L must never speak to guileless souls about anything that’s come up in the course of this conversation. To do so will result in immediate forfeit.”

“That makes sense.” And it does, though L knows he will find it difficult not to tell other humans that the Universe is an adorable, precious cat.

“Rule Two: The Champion L can only win if he can convince Light Yagami to willingly renounce the Kira ideology. He cannot win by having Light Yagami arrested, executed, assassinated, or tortured into submission. He must win within a certain period of time, but will never know how much time he has. When and if the Champion L wins, all of Light Yagami’s remaining lifespans will be recalled and his soul will enter Mu forever.”

L purses his lips together. This one will be difficult. With the knowledge he has now, it would quite easy to arrest Light Yagami and put an end to his murder spree, but to change Light Yagami? And within some nebulous time limit? It could be as long as ten years, if he’s lucky, but perhaps it’s only ten months, or even less.

L is a detective, not a miracle worker.

Still, he does love a challenge.

“Rule Three: The Champion L may call upon the entity known as Michelina for guidance on no more than three occasions. The entity known as Michelina can only advise and guide; she cannot intervene directly.”

To that, L has no comment. He considers it a boon to have Michelina’s assistance at all, even if he can only call on her three times.

“Rule Four: The Champion L will face obstacles and temptations designed to thwart him in his goals. He will also encounter guidance along the way, though it may not be immediately recognizable as such.”

Throwing in temptations doesn’t seem fair, but neither is it surprising. L sucks on the tip of his thumb again, suddenly craving sugar. Most things that tempt him are fairly simple and harmless.

“Rule Five: The Champion L will not lose his memories of the Death Note for any reason, but he will only see a Shinigami if he comes into contact with its Death Note.”

Michelina lowers her clipboard. “That’s all there is for the official rules.” She glances at a wristwatch L could swear she wasn’t wearing before. “We have a little more time. If you have questions, I suggest you ask them now. I’ll answer if I am able.”

L would like to ask her more questions about the Universe. Is it the only one of its kind? Are the others? What happens to a Universe after a dies? And what happens to it if it thrives?

But L knows that to ask about such things would only derail him from his task. He must change Light Yagami, make him renounce Kira. He will need all the help he can get.

“Is Light Yagami truly capable of renouncing Kira?” he finally asks. He doesn’t know what he’s looking for -- reassurance, perhaps, that this challenge isn’t a fool’s errand.

She smiles at him, tilting her head. “Souls are capable of anything. That is the whole point of free will.”

L drops to his familiar crouch, running his thumb lightly against the edge of his lower lip. He wants to believe Michelina. He wants to believe, but he isn’t entirely sure that he does.

And yet, in order to win, he must believe it. He must believe that all souls are capable of change. Even Light Yagami’s.

“Are all souls the same?”

Michelina crouches down next to him, impressively spry and limber for a woman of middle-age, though L has deduced by now that her body is a mere construction, and thus irrelevant.

“Yes and no. Souls are like people. They are people. All different and unique, yet possessing the same strengths and weaknesses, albeit to varying degrees.”

L lifts his head, gazing at her through wayward strands of blue-black hair. “If that is true, how is it that a single soul can throw an entire world into a Dark Age?”

Michelina appears unsurprised by his question. “Light Yagami had no special destiny, L. Any soul with a Death Note could have done what he did. The difference is, the others chose not to.”

“And it’s a simple as that.”

“Yes.” She sides scoots toward him, coming a little closer. “You must not regard Light as infallible. To do so would make you no better than one of his followers. You must believe that he is capable of change, and that you are the one who can inspire that change.”

“I take it that Michelina has not encountered many sociopaths in Pandamonium, otherwise she would be more familiar with their built-in deficiencies.”

Michelina erupts in laughter, hugging her knees to her chest. “You think there are no sociopathic types here? Oh, dear L. If you only knew the irony in your words.”

“I have said something funny?” Curiously, L has no urge to join her in laughing.

“No, no. You are correct, actually. Some souls are very stubborn -- even, perhaps, deficient. This does not change the fact that in order to win, you will have to operate under the hope that Light Yagami is not one of them.”

“That will be difficult. I am still holding a grudge over the fact that he killed me.”

“It’s called a ‘Challenge’ for a reason, L.” Michelina’s voice softens in sympathy. “Have faith in yourself.”

“I do not much doubt myself,” L says, though that is only a half-truth. He comes to his feet and stretches, tipping his head from side to side. “I just do not care for Light Yagami.”

“Yes, I realize that,” Michelina says, also standing. Her tone has cooled somewhat. “Before we part ways, I’d like to offer you some final advice, L.”

“Oh?”

She turns those fathomless eyes on him, and the ground seems to dissolve a little beneath L’s feet.

“Draw other worthy souls to you, they can give you strength. Use your intellect, but remember that it is not the only tool at your disposal. The judgment of the intellect is only part of the truth. And remember who your friends are, but remember that in this world, they may not be your friends.”

L puzzles over this. Her words almost sound like riddles.

“And one last thing. This time, a disclaimer.”

L lifts his eyebrows. A disclaimer?  

“At least one of the things I’ve told you today is a lie.”

***

“Hold on, kid. Hold it!”

Lucas hauls Light away from the office door, forcing him back into the room. Though he struggles to get loose, Lucas’ grip seems impossible to break, and Light is tossed into the chair as easily as a discarded shirt.

“You can’t just march out of here, all gung-ho to get started. I haven’t even gotten to the rules yet.” Lucas gives Light a disgruntled look and sits down at his computer.

Light snorts quietly to himself and wonders where Ryuk is. Ryuk, who watched him bleed out on those warehouse stairs, snivelling and terrified. He’s back in the Shinigami Realm, Light supposes, using up whatever was left of Light’s first lifespan.

“Ah here we go,” Lucas says. With a few keystrokes, a powerpoint presentation pops up on the oversized monitor “Please save all questions for the end.”.

RULES OF THE CHALLENGE.

The text is in a glittery, animated font, so bright and tacky that Light rolls his eyes. He strongly suspects that Lucas enjoys irritating Light, even in minute ways.

RULE ONE: THE CHAMPION LIGHT MUST NOT SPEAK TO GUILELESS SOULS ABOUT ANY KNOWLEDGE HE GAINED TODAY. TO DO SO WILL RESULT IN IMMEDIATE FORFEIT.

Light finds this request reasonable enough. Why would he share the secrets of the Universe with anyone else? It’s the sort of information that would be wise to keep to himself, much the way he kept the secrets of the Death Note to himself. Or mostly.

RULE TWO: THE CHAMPION LIGHT CAN ONLY WIN IF HE CONVINCES THE DETECTIVE L TO WILLINGLY EMBRACE AND PUBLICALLY SUPPORT KIRA’S IDEOLOGY OF JUSTICE. HE CANNOT WIN BY HAVING L MURDERED, ARRESTED, OR OTHERWISE INCAPACITATED. THE CHAMPION LIGHT MUST WIN WITHIN SEVEN YEARS, AND IF HE WINS WITHIN THAT TIME ALL OF DETECTIVE  L’S REMAINING LIFESPANS WILL BE RECALLED AND HIS SOUL WILL SPEND ETERNITY IN MU.

“Seven years.” Light speaks up, ignoring the fact that Lucas asked him to save all questions until the end of the presentation. “There were about seven years between the day I found the Death Note and the day I died. Is that why you chose that number?”

Lucas looks up from his keyboard. “What makes you think I chose the number? We have committees around here. Lots of red tape. Not too different from your world, actually.”

Light doesn’t believe Lucas for a second. There might be a committee of some kind, but he’s pretty sure Lucas is in charge of it. Ever since Lucas brought him to the mansion, he’s schooled Light with the indifference of a paid messenger, but Light hasn’t forgotten the man’s switchblade smile, nor his low, disturbing laugh. That laugh of unbridled power.

Remembering that sound, Light phrases his next question carefully.

“Is there any reason I can’t use the Death Note to transform world V 2.0 into a Utopia ruled by Kira’s justice? Try to finish what I started in the last world, in other words. Or is that prohibited?”

Tilting forward in his chair, Lucas regards Light through a veil of smoke, his eyes equally veiled. “It’s not prohibited, but it’s not the goal of the challenge so it doesn’t win you any extra credit, either.”

Light can live with that.

“Anyway,” Lucas sighs. “Quit interrupting the presentation, okay?”

RULE THREE: THE CHAMPION LIGHT MAY CALL UPON THE ENTITY KNOWN AS LUCAS FOR GUIDANCE AS NEEDED. THE ENTITY KNOWN AS LUCAS CAN ONLY ADVISE AND GUIDE, HE CANNOT DIRECTLY INTERVENE.

Ha . Light has no intention of asking for Lucas’ assistance if he can help it. Not because he’s above seeking out assistance -- indeed, during his first lifespan his collection of pawns were crucial, and even Ryuk proved helpful on rare occasion -- but because Lucas scares him.

Is that it? Does he scare me?

Light cannot remember truly fearing anyone when he was alive. Not the NPA, not the SPK, not the Shinigami. Even L, who Light rightly should have feared, only captured Light’s interest, firing up his competitive streak like no other person had before.

And yet something about Lucas sends off warning bells in the most base, primitive part of Light’s brain. Even the odorless smoke the older man blows in his direction makes goosebumps pop out on Light’s skin, dries up his mouth until it feels as if it’s lined with wool. He wants to run. Hide. He won’t do either, his pride won’t let him, but oh, how he wants to.

RULE FOUR: THE CHAMPION LIGHT WILL FACE OBSTACLES AND TEMPTATIONS ALONG THE WAY, BUT ALSO GUIDANCE, IF HE CAN MANAGE TO KEEP HIS EYES OPEN FOR IT.

Manage ? Even the Powerpoint presentation seems to be doing its best to taunt Light.

RULE FIVE: THE CHAMPION LIGHT WILL NOT EVER LOSE HIS MEMORIES OF THE DEATH NOTE, BUT HE WILL ONLY SEE A SHINIGAMI IF HE MANAGES TO TOUCH ITS DEATH NOTE.

Manages. Before he can stop himself, Light is slumping in his chair a little. He hasn’t even started the challenge, and he already feels fatigued.

No. Stop that. You have to do this again! They haven’t got the best of you yet. You can do this.

You’re the only one who can.

THAT’S IT FOR RULES, HAVE A NICE DAY. :)

The text of the final slide glimmers obnoxiously on the screen, surrounded by bouncing chibi versions of Lucas, all of them grinning madly and waving pitchforks.

“That’s it, kid. Any questions?”

Light sits in stoney silence. It would be smart to ask questions, he knows, but tendrils of fear are still crawling through his stomach. nibbling away at him.

Maybe later. The Rules, after all, explicitly state that he can call on Lucas any time.

“Excuse me,” a soft voice interrupts, along with a subtle knock against the office’s door frame.

Light watches as a slight young man, practically a boy, pads across the rich carpet, his feet bare, his head lowered just slightly. “I heard voices,” he says in a bland murmur. “Are you almost finished?”

The boy is one of the most peculiar creatures Light has ever seen. He’s paler than even Ryuzaki was, but his hair is a bright, flame red, hanging to his shoulders in messy waves. His face has little expression to it, but its features have a captivating, androgynous beauty that’s nonetheless tinged with spookiness -- the lips lush but slack, the eyes a milky violet, huge but blank.

“Gabe,” Lucas stands up from his desk, his ever-burning cigarette suddenly vanishing from his fingers. He appears rather pleased to see the man; clearly, they’re friends, of a sort. “Do you have a message?”

“Michelina wants you to know that she’s finished.”

“Ah.” Lucas takes in a deep breath. “Efficient as ever, I suppose.”

“Who’s Michelina?” Light asks. Lucas’ eyes dark out at him, whip-fast, and Light flinches.

“She works for me.”

For some reason, Gabe smiles faintly at this. Light notes the smile, but ponders it no further. He’s got too many other things to think about, now.

“Right, where were we?” Lucas pats down his suit. “Ah, questions. Got any?”

Light shakes his head. “Not right now, I guess.”

“Alrighty then!” Lucas comes toward Light in a single, energized leap. “Allow me to escort you to your second lifespan.” He offers out a hand.

Light stares at the man’s hand, fighting the urge to shrink away. “Will it --?” Hurt , he mentally supplies, though the question is too absurd for him to finish.

Lucas seems to guess at what Light means, anyway, and a broad smile cuts across his face. “You should have asked while I was still taking questions. Too late now, I’m afraid.”

Fine. Light can take a little pain. He can even take a lot of it. He claps his hand over the other man’s, squeezing his fingers firmly, and a tingling warmth immediately passes between their clasped palms. The sensation makes Light’s whole body jerk, but he hangs on, just the same.

Gabe takes a step closer, his milky eyes lit with curiosity. “I’ve never seen it done before.”

A rolling sphere of light builds between their hands, dark purple and bright white. Light stares at it, a little fascinated, a little afraid.

“One more thing.”

Light darts his head up to look at Lucas. The man is still smiling, but his eyes are tinged with the last thing Light would ever expect to see there: sympathy.

“At least one of the things I told you today is a lie.”

“ What ?”

Light’s outrage is swallowed up by the glowing sphere, which suddenly swells into a vortex, noiselessly blotting out all of his vision.

And with that, Pandæmonium disappears.

***

Chapter Text

Non Sum Qualis Eram

Michelina stares into her scrying pool. Archaic it may be, but she always feels closest to the Universe when she observes it through water, when she can drag her fingers over the surface and imagine that it’s a caress.

Sakura zensen.

She can remember the last time she was on Earth -- a version long ago and long forgotten -- and stood in a storm of cherry blossoms. She had been mesmerized by how the wind carried the petals so far, swirling them in eddies far above the treetops, ushering them to heights they would otherwise never achieve on their own.

Michelina touches the water, watches souls scatter and float off the Universe’s back.

It’s a sight that should lift her spirits. It always has before. Her role is the role of the Believer, and has been for eons. To turn Skeptic now -- it’s unthinkable. She can’t.

I must be the wind. Always the wind.

All those souls, so easily lost, so easily blown off course. So easily crushed, their delicate forms ground to pulp by the most innocuous things: a harsh word; a hard slap. If only they had the wind to save them.

The wind never tires, and Michelina mustn’t tire, either.

***

Sakura zensen.

Light Yagami extends his hand and catches a single, delicate petal on his fingertip. It sits there, perfectly balanced, until he expels the breath he’s holding.

No, come back.

Too late. The petal drifts away, lost in the shower of cherry blossoms, floating until it settles gently on the concrete. There it sits for a moment, trembling -- and then a clumsy freshman’s shoe smashes it flat.

He cries out somewhere, inside.

“Light-chan!”

The sound of his name brings Light back into himself. He’s surrounded by young people, all of them chatting energetically, outfitted rather formally in suits and modest dresses. Light sees one face he recognizes, then another.

To-Oh University? But why am I here?

He looks around at the familiar campus buildings, seized by a vivid sense of déjà vu. Only it’s not déjà vu, he’s actually been here before, in another lifespan. Cherry blossom petals swirl on the balmy spring wind, and all at once Light knows that this can only be April of 2007, the morning of the To-Oh University freshman welcoming ceremony.

April 5, 2007.

I want to tell you something important related to the Kira case.

I am L.

“Light-chan!”

A boy runs up to Light, nearly crashing into him. He’s panting hard from physical exertion, but smiles at Light as if they’re old friends, gripping his shoulder and leaning against him to catch his breath.

Light’s never seen him before in his life. Not in his old one, anyway.

Still, the boy looks like the sort that Light would have socialized with in that old life, when the situation called for it. A little taller than Light, the boy is well-groomed, his short black hair brushed back to show off fine, aristocratic features. His suit is a stylish one, and the spark in his eyes is intelligent, earnest. Yes, he is definitely the kind of person Light considers acceptable to be seen with. For Light, socializing is always a means to an end. Hell, he’s pretty certain it’s a means to an end for everyone , not just him . The difference is that Light can admit it, unlike other people. Even while they go around saying things that ought to make their motives blazingly obvious -- things like “I really need my friends” -- they still appear deliberately blind to the fact that friendship is, first and foremost, about getting their precious needs met, whatever those needs may be.

“Kumi escaped again this morning, so I missed my usual bus. Shit, what a nightmare. I’m not even sure if my tie’s knotted correctly. Is it?” The man stretches out his arms, presenting himself for inspection.

“Your tie’s fine.” Light’s relieved to hear that his voice sounds like his voice.

“Ah, good. How late am I? Everyone’s still outside, so I guess it hasn’t started yet.”

“Not too late. I was just about to give up on you, though,” Light says, a little unnerved at how easy it is to play the role of this stranger’s friend, and a more than a little annoyed that Lucas chose to send him back in medias res . Why couldn’t he have woken up in his bedroom, where he could piece the details of this new life together slowly, one piece at a time?

“Oh, jeez. Can you imagine if I really were late? Kiyomi would kill me!” The man mimes wiping sweat off his forehead and laughs.

Kiyomi? Kiyomi Takada?

Light is careful to keep his expression neutral. Takada, the icy pawn who fancied herself a queen, who Light sacrificed in that short time period leading up to his final battle. Yes, he knows who Takada is, but who is this man, the one who’s on such friendly terms with Light?

No, not Light. Light 2.

Referring to the Light Yagami who was living on world V 2.0 as Light 2 is the only way to make proper sense of things. Light can admit to himself that he’s both pleased and relieved that Light 2 was enough of an honor student to be accepted into To-Oh University, just as the real Light was. He expects that Light 2 is the freshman representative, as well, and pats the breast pocket of his jacket to check for his speech.

The pocket is empty. No crackle of paper, not even a pen.

It occurs to Light that his speech isn’t the only thing that’s missing.

Where the hell is Ryuk?

During their meeting at the mansion, Lucas had made it clear that Light 2 had come to own a Death Note, so the Shinigami should be around here, somewhere. Light grits his teeth together, walking toward the auditorium with his nameless friend even as he scans the sky for that winged creature with the unsettling grin. How very like Ryuk to disappear just when Light needs his help.

Maybe I have to touch the Death Note before I can see him? The Rules said something like that.

Light frowns inwardly at the thought of Ryuk floating along next to him, invisible to everyone, possibly shouting for apples at Light’s unresponsive back.

Outwardly, of course, he maintains a subtle smile on his lips, eyes reaching out to meet his friend’s every so often.

Now, if Light only knew his name.

I’m Kou Miyano. You’re Light Yagami, aren’t you? 

Why? So what if I am? 

Well it doesn’t matter to me if you are. Do you read Hikaru No Go? 

The memory wooshes through him, like a door’s been blown open somewhere. Light lurches at the waist and presses his palms against his thighs, his vision blurring at the edges.

“Light-chan!”

Light feels a warm arm encircle him, hears a voice low in his ear.

“Are you alright? Is it a flashback?”

Flashback?

Light wants to shrug the other man’s arm away, but for some reason he can’t rightly explain, the thought of losing that touch seems unbearable. He allows the warmth to seep through his jacket for a handful of seconds, then finally finds the strength to stand upright and take a step away, breaking the contact between them.

“Kou-chan.”

God, the words feel so familiar in his mouth, and yet thoroughly wrong. Light has never called anyone chan in his life and meant it.

Kou’s forehead is creased with concern. “What happened?”

“I have no idea,” Light says, his smile sheepish. “Felt dizzy for a minute. Maybe I had too much caffeine.”  

“You need to drink more water.”

Before Light can answer, a girl pulls free from the crowd and comes toward them, her gait light, hips swaying with confidence.

“Kou-chan!” She presses a kiss against Kou’s cheek and gives his ear an affectionate squeeze. “You’re sweaty. You didn’t miss the bus again, did you?”

“Kumi escaped.” Kou smiles and takes the girl’s hand in his own. “But I made it just in time.”

“What a relief for you.” The girl rolls her eyes playfully, then aims them at Light. “You’d think between me and Light you’d have learnt the value of punctuality by now.”

Light meets her gaze, and even though her hair is longer, her cheeks pinker, he recognizes Kiyomi Takada.

“No way, Kou’s got a chronic case of Five Minutes Behind,” Light says, grinning good-naturedly at the couple.

It’s truly astonishing how easily the words come to him. Even a natural-born actor like Light ought to be floundering his way through the conversation, given his lack of context, but it feels as if a type of psychic muscle memory is jumping in to intervene, just when he needs it.

Or maybe it’s just Light 2.

Is Light 2 still in me? Lucas said we’re the same soul, we just have different lifespans. So if I’m here, where is he?

Beneath his jacket, Light’s flesh crawls, as if desperate to escape Light 2’s clinging ghost.

“Let’s go,” Takada says, slapping Kou’s hip with a sheaf of papers. “I want you both to get seats up front. Kou, Mom and Dad want pictures. Did you bring your camera?”

Kou pats his jacket pocket. “Right here.”

They move toward the auditorium in a cluster. Light’s shoulder momentarily brushes Takada’s; he glances down at her stack of papers and notices the title, his mouth clenching.

Kiyomi Takada is freshman representative. Takada? Not me?

An icy nugget builds in the back of Light’s throat, like something swallowed wrong, and he fights the urge to ball his fists at his sides. In his old life, he and Takada had gone to different high schools, but had taken prep classes together at Gamou Prep Academy. Light came to know Takada well, and judged her as as well-spoken, intelligent, and refined, but ultimately just as easy to manipulate as Misa.

Kiyomi Takada is not smarter than Light Yagami. Not in this world or any other.

How, then, had she managed to out-score him on their entrance exams?

The question plagues him all the way to his seat at the front of the auditorium. He settles in beside Kou, dark thoughts itching at his brain so fiercely that he almost forgets -- L should be here, too.

Light cranes his neck and pivots in his seat, eyes scanning the crowd. He braces himself to lay eyes on his rival: pale and spook-eyed, perched along the edge of a chair like some kind of sugar-guzzling gargoyle.

Kou chatters next to him amiably, oblivious to Light’s distress. “I’m pretty sure this is the highlight of Kiyomi’s life so far, you know. She revised her speech over twenty times, if you can believe it.”

“I can believe it,” Light says.

There’s no sign of L, so he settles back into his seat, his shoulders still tensed.

“Don’t let her know I told you this, but she was positive you’d come in first.” Kou shakes his head, as if he, too, is surprised by Takada’s performance. Or perhaps Light’s lack of one.

“Our scores were close.” Because Light knows they must have been.

“A one-point difference? I’d say.” Kou grins vaguely and fiddles with his camera, trying out different settings.

A one-point difference.

Light’s brain, nimble as ever, leaps forward a few steps and arrives at the inevitable conclusion.

So I let Takada beat me, then. But why?

“Hey,” Kou says, tugging at the sleeve of Light’s jacket. “Smile!”

Light looks into the camera and, without even considering it, smiles a broad, genuine smile. He gazes into the lens, then beyond it, into Kou’s single, squinting eye. It tugs at him, the faint eyelashes, the quirk of Kou’s brow -- it’s like staring into the yawning center of the Universe.

The flash pops, and Light quickly looks away, his gut churning in alarm and confusion.

Oh, God. You were in love with him.

You were in love with your best friend.

***

Plop

L watches the sugar cube sink to the bottom of the tea cup, faint ripples spreading out on the amber liquid’s surface.

Plop

He adds another, then another. So many ripples.

Michelina?

He lifts his head, half-expecting to see the woman standing over him, tut-tutting and waving her clipboard. But there is no Michelina. There’s only him.

L assesses his surroundings and quickly determines that he’s in a hotel suite. He’s lived in enough of them to know them by smell alone, that undertone of bleach and flowery deodorizer. This hotel is both homey and modern, with tall ceilings, dark parquet floors, and more windows than one usually sees in a standard guest room. It’s clearly an older building that has been well-kept, the room decorated in a calming, monochrome palette. A single lamp blazes in the corner, and outside the windows it’s dark. Nighttime.

L is crouched in an armchair that’s been pulled up to the desk, his tea cup off to one side, his laptop off to the other. The surface of the desk is littered with sugary crumbs and crumpled wrappers. L snakes his hands through the mess until he finds an unopened toffee, which he peels open and pops into his mouth.

Perhaps I only dreamed that I was dead.

The candy in his mouth tastes real enough, the chocolate so sweet that it stings the roof of his mouth. After a few seconds the chocolate finally melts away, leaving the buttery toffee behind.

Yet given the palpable quality of my memories, there is a 92.8 chance that I wasn’t dreaming, that I’m actually in a parallel world, sent here to convince Kira that he’s wrong.

L is still weighing the probabilities of death versus dreaming when a soft knock sounds at the door. He stiffens at the sound, nearly choking on the toffee.

The knock comes again, followed by a voice. “Ryuzaki?”

L squints hard, searching his memory. He knows the voice from somewhere long ago.

Female, 27 years old, agent with the FBI.

He swivels his chair toward the door, speaking thickly around his mouthful of sugar. “Come in, Maki.”

The door opens slowly, showing one dark eye, then another. Then Naomi Misora, also known as Shoko Maki, crosses the threshold, clutching a file folder, a brown paper sack, and a cardboard tray of drinks. The odor of salt and grease hangs over her.

“I have a hard copy of the NPA’s report. Watari said you asked for it.” She extends the file folder to him and L takes it between his thumb and forefinger, deposits it next to the laptop.

“Also, I brought you some dinner. You can’t keep eating that sugary garbage.”

“Whatever’s in there--” L points at the paper sack “--smells no better for me than sugar.”

Maki sighs, leaving the sack and drinks on the chair next to the desk. “Probably not by much, but at least there’s some vegetables.”

“French fries?”

She nods.

“Fine. I will eat seven of them.”

“You know, potatoes don’t actually count as a vegetable.” Behind him, he hears her pace across the carpet and drop her body into the arm chair by the window.

“I believe I’ve told you, Maki: I have no need for a mother.”

The words sound a oddly foreign to L’s own ears. The tone of them, mostly: harsh, abrupt, and with no room for question.

Interesting. It would seem that in this lifespan, I am a little less patient.

He glances at the time and date on his computer screen. 4/4/2007. 7:27PM.

Naomi Misora, you should be dead.

“I know,” Maki says, her tone colorless, and for a split second L thinks she’s responding to his thoughts.

For several long minutes, L says nothing, lightly caressing his lip with the ball of his thumb. He feels no pressure to fill the air with meaningless conversation; he is quite sure that in this life he is just as prone to bouts of deep thinking as he was in the other.

He slides open a desk drawer, pushing aside various packaged goodies. Beneath them he finds a thick phone directory for the greater Los Angeles area, and a brochure informs him that he’s currently staying at the Chateau Marmont. He’s still in America, then, though by this time he should be in Tokyo, closing in on Kira and Light Yagami.

You’re behind schedule, old friend. Why?

His eyes glance at the computer again. 4/4/2007. The day before the To-Oh freshman welcoming ceremony. No, the day of. In Japan, it’s already April 5th.

And yet here I am, about to eat french fried potatoes with a dead woman. Oh well, I am a dead man, of sorts, so perhaps it makes sense.

L chuckles to himself quietly for a few breaths, then pulls himself together.

“Maki?”

“Yes?” Her voice is expectant. The voice of someone who wants very much to be of use.

Is that all you want from life, Maki? To be a wife? A mother? 

I -- It’s what Raye wants. And I want him, so… 

So your wants are subject to compromise, but his are not. 

No, it isn’t like that -- 

But it is. And the world doesn’t remember wives and mothers, Maki. It remembers heroes. 

L digs his chin into his right kneecap, shivering with the ghost of someone else’s memories. In his own lifespan, the conversation between himself and Maki had been much different.

“Shall we eat dinner?”

“Oh, yes. If you like.” She comes to her feet and fetches the bag of greasy food.

They sit cross-legged on the floor, burgers and fries spread out between them. Maki, in her wisdom, ordered L a triple-thick chocolate milkshake, and it’s this that makes up the bulk of his dinner. He eats the seven french-fries, as well, but not before dredging them through ice cream.

“That’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen,” Maki says from around her own straw.

L is relieved at her forwardness. It means that however impatient the first L was, she had no trouble speaking her mind around him.

The first L. What do I call you, old friend? Because I must admit that in my own mind, I’m the first L. I suppose that makes you L the Second. No disregard intended.

“What are we working on tonight? Kira, or Angel of Mercy?” Maki asks, swirling the ice around in her cup.

L cannot recall an “Angel of Mercy” case from his first lifespan, and despite his immediate curiosity, he doesn’t want to do anything that would call attention to his complete ignorance of the current facts surrounding the case. “Kira,” on the other hand, he might be able to bluff his way through. Maybe.

Perhaps just this once, it is better to be safe than sorry.

“Maki, you look tired.” And she does; her delicate eyelids are noticeably puffed, barely open at half-mast. “When did you last sleep?”

“I don’t know. Two days ago?”

L stares at her, his straw perched between his lips. “I would like to finish some research before we discuss any of our cases. This would be a good time for you to sleep for a few hours.”

Her eyes flutter a bit in surprise, but relief also quirks at the corners of her mouth. “Are you sure?”

“I wouldn’t suggest it if I weren’t.” L puts down his cup and nests their french fry boxes together as he speaks. “If you wake up by 3 AM, my cognition should be at peak levels.”

Maki pauses, then starts shoving their trash into the paper sack. “Alright. I’ll set an alarm.”

He helps her tidy up, then bids her a mild “goodnight” as she leaves his room and heads for her own, just across the hall.

Relieved to be alone with himself at last, L draws the curtains across the windows and heads for the bathroom, where he studies himself in the mirror. His reflection is little changed from how he remembers it. His hair is still black, forever unkempt, his skin still pale, duller than chalk. Standard white, long-sleeved tee-shirt, beat-up jeans, bare feet.

Hello, L the Second. Meet L the first.

He relieves himself, washes his hands, brushes his teeth, and plugs a small, travel-sized electric kettle into the wall.

He’ll need more tea. With lots of sugar.

***

Takada’s speech is a thing of dull, self-righteous beauty, not unlike Takada herself. Light hides a frown throughout its duration, glancing every so often at Kou.

Kou, who beams at her like a starry-eyed fool, snapping off photos at a rapid clip.

An ordinary sycophant. Charming.

But there can be no denying it: everytime Light meets eyes with Light 2’s best friend, his pulse speeds up every so slightly. His brain feels nothing special, his emotions are flat, but somewhere deep in the core of his very self, something leaps up at the sight of Kou.

Light considers the fluttering feeling from a distance, then calmly packs it away. Light 2 evidently had some kind of crush on Kou Miyano, and its effects are still hanging around, like background radiation.

But this Light, the real Light, doesn’t know a thing about Kou, other than the fact that he has questionable taste in women, and some kind of pet named Kumi. The real Light is also stridently heterosexual.

In theory, anyway. Light realizes that his libido is a bit below-average when compared to other men his age, perhaps in part because he dedicated himself to establishing Kira for so many of his peak years. He felt sexual desire but was wary of it, its ability to cloud judgment and take up precious brain cells. On those carefully selected occasions when he did succumb to arousal, it was usually with Misa, whose body was nearly always available, and one he took a numb sort of pleasure in. It made for a change from his hand and a box of tissues, at least.

Given that his sexual interest in Misa was so minimal, he is confident that his sexual interest in men is less than non-existent.

Light suspects that Light 2 may have held Kou Miyano in some kind of awe, or felt that he owed the other boy a debt. Feelings of intense gratitude can easily be twisted into infatuation, even love. Misa herself had been living proof of that.

Takada’s voice drones on, Kou’s camera snaps, and the crowd ripples with applause.

After the ceremony, they trundle off to a trendy cafe. Light orders his coffee to go and begs off, says he has to get home.

“Light-chan!” Takada frowns, her mock-hurt hiding what Light suspects is real annoyance. “You can’t leave already. Yuri’s on her way, and she thinks you’re cute, you know.”

“Kiyomi,” Kou warns, his voice lowering a notch. “Let him get home if he needs to.”

Light shifts his eyes toward Kou, vaguely appraising.

So you’re not afraid to stand up to her, then. That’s something, I guess.

“Oh, fine.” Takada waves Light away. “But you won’t get out of the next double date.”

“Maybe if you make it Arisu instead of Yuri,” Light teases, his grin wry.

They all laugh like they’re real, live friends. Light even waves over his shoulder as he leaves through the cafe door, coffee cup in hand.

He dumps the coffee into the first trash can he sees.

As soon as he’s a safe distance from the cafe, he opens his wallet and checks his various I.D. cards until he finds one with an address. It isn’t the same address where he and his family lived in his old life, but it’s not far from that neighborhood.

The trains are the same as before. No one looks at anyone, except to silently ward each other off. A couple argue at the back of the car, the woman streaming tears as her boyfriend whispers fierce words in her ear. A group of aspiring bosozoku sneer at everyone else, one of them casually carving graffiti into the fiberglass wall with a pen knife.

Rotten. The world’s still rotten.

The old man standing next to Light is reading a newspaper. Light peers over his shoulder, scanning the headlines for any mention of Kira. There’s nothing.

Eventually, Light gets off at the appropriate station and walks for eight minutes until he reaches the address listed on his I.D. The house is not terribly dissimilar to the one he grew up in, though Light can see at a glance that it’s larger, a few years newer. He palms the keys in his pocket. If he lives here, one of them should work.

He quietly slips through the garden gate and comes to the front door. He looks over his shoulder a few times before taking the doorknob in hand.

Before he can try out any of the keys, the door swings open, nearly dragging him across the threshold.

“Light! What are you lurking there for? You’ll give an old woman a heart attack.”

A tiny woman stands before Light, her expression so fierce she might as well be ten feet tall. Her bobbed hair is dyed a synthetic black, her complexion only just beginning to wrinkle and sag. More than anything else, it’s her ragged, scratchy voice that gives her age away.

“Baaba!” Light pulls in his vocal cords at the last minute, so that the word comes out as pleased rather than surprised.

In Light’s old life, his grandmother -- Soichiro’s mother -- had lived in Osaka, right next to her favorite pachinko parlor, and had rarely visited Tokyo, instead preferring that the family take the train out to see her. Light had always found her apartment vaguely oppressive, with its dim lighting and low ceilings, the television forever blasting some obnoxious variety show.

He can hear one of those variety shows playing in the background, now.

“I thought you were your mother, with Sayu,” Baaba explains, moving aside so that Light can step in.

“No, it’s just me.” Light slips out of his shoes and walks, sock-footed, into the foyer. The house has a modern, open plan, and Light can see all the way through the living room into the well-appointed kitchen. The floors are all sleek wood, no rugs in sight, though the furnishings are curiously sparse, as if the Yagamis haven’t yet purchased enough stuff to fill the whole house.

Maybe we haven’t lived here long.

“I didn’t expect you back so soon. Is the welcoming ceremony already over?”

Baaba follows Light into the kitchen, where he opens the fridge and, after moving aside several pill bottles that he assumes must be his grandmother’s, finally selects a bottle of green tea.

“Yeah, it was over a while ago. I was at the cafe with Kou and Takada, but I could tell they wanted to be alone. You know how couples are.”

While he speaks, Light stares at the kitchen cabinets, then finally opens the one above the right side of the sink, relieved to find it full of tea cups, mugs, and glasses.

“Ah, you should get yourself a girlfriend, Light. Maybe someone a few years older. She could take care of you.”

Light whirls around to see if his grandmother’s joking, but Baaba is nodding to herself, clearly pleased with the idea.

“I can take care of myself, Baaba. And if I can’t, I always have you, don’t I?” He gives her a wicked grin that sends color rushing to her cheeks.

“Devil child. Save that charm for the school girls.” Baaba plucks the tea from his grip and pours some into a glass, then hands it back to him. “I’m sure you have studies to get to. I’ll bring you up a snack in a few hours. Some of my anpan, maybe?”

Light beams at her; one of the only things he had liked about visiting Baaba was getting to dine on her delicious, homemade treats.

Even so, her presence is an inconvenience. Were he alone, Light could explore the whole house and determine how his family lives, but right now he has no choice but to escape upstairs.

The hallway is dim, the only light coming through a narrow window at the far end. A gallery of photographs parades across the wall, much as it did in his old home. He ignores them for the time being, instead inspecting each door until he finds one with a tiny scrap of paper peeking out from between the lowermost hinges.

Good. You’re just as cautious as I am.

The bedroom is large and tidy, with east-facing windows. Its furnishings and decor are unremarkable, except for the one thing that catches Light’s attention immediately: a huge poster on the wall over the bed, advertising some manga series he’s unfamiliar with.

Light Yagami doesn’t read manga, he reads real books.

Concerned by this discrepancy, Light checks out the bookcases. There are several of them, most of them holding textbooks, Japanese literary classics, most of Shakespeare's plays, a number of reference books, and other scholarly tomes that one would expect to find in an honor student’s room.

However, one of the bookcases is dedicated entirely to manga, the shelves nearly heaving with the stuff.

Holy shit. You’re practically an otaku, Light 2.

Light would laugh if he didn’t find the idea so very off-putting. So Light 2 wasn’t just a closet homo, he was a manga dork. The realization sends Light leaping to the mirror over the dresser, where he’s relieved to see that he still has the face and haircut of a proper honor student. He loosens his tie, unbuttons his shirt at the collar, and turns to his desk.

The desk is different than the one he used to have. There’s a bulletin board anchored behind his computer screen, pinned with notices, schedules, and a few photographs. He sits down and squints at the photos. One features a younger Light 2 and a younger Kou, dressed in some kind of cosplay, and makes Light cringe in embarrassment.

He forces his eyes away from the image. The right desk drawer has a key dangling from its lock, a deliberate lure. If Light 2 has the same instincts as the real Light, there should be a fake diary in this drawer, and a secret compartment hidden below. He slides the drawer open a few inches, revealing a plain, leather-bound diary. Smiling darkly, he pulls the fake diary out, sets it aside.

A few heart-pounding minutes later and he’s prised the secret compartment open with the ink reservoir from a pen. He lifts out the false bottom just far enough to peek underneath it.

There it is: his Death Note.

A warm flush sweeps through his body and his fingertips tingle with muted desire, aching to grip a pen and write name after name after name, to unleash the scrawl of justice and bleed out black ink. At last, he feels truly reunited with his soul.

He touches the Death Note.

“Light! Why are you ignoring me? Are you done yet?”

Light nearly yelps at the deep, bellowing voice next to his head. He ducks in his chair, wincing, and when he finally looks up, finds himself face to face with a Shinigami.

Except it’s not his Shinigami.

“Rem?” Light sputters, taking in the Shinigami’s one-eyed glower, the purplish lips, the nightmarish, skeletal body.

“Oh, so you’re not deaf, then.” Rem sounds neither pleased nor displeased. “But you’re acting even weirder than usual.”

Light sucks in a painful breath and continues to gawp at the creature. “What are you doing?” Where’s --”

He stops himself just in time.

Light doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know Rem like he knows Ryuk. He only knows that Rem disliked him quite a lot, but that she sacrificed her life to kill L, all for Misa’s sake. That alone makes Rem both unpredictable and untrustworthy.

“Where’s what?” Rem asks, her one yellow eye lit up with curiosity.

Light swallows, forces himself to speak with the casual haughtiness that usually colors his conversations with Shinigami. “Where’s my grandmother? You should be keeping watch.”

The Shinigami stares, unblinking, then finally shrugs a boney shoulder. “Fine. You never want to do anything fun.” She floats to the door and sticks her immaterial head into the hallway. “No one’s out here.”

“Good. I need to do something. Alert me if someone comes upstairs.”

Light’s body is still coursing with adrenaline, his hands shaking as he grips the Death Note to his chest. He has no choice but to accept that in this lifespan he has Rem’s Death Note, not Ryuk’s. Where is Ryuk? Does he even exist here? How did Light 2 come to pick up Rem’s Death Note in the first place?

They are questions that matter, but they don’t matter as much as the Death Note itself.

Light sets the notebook on the desk and flicks it open, shuffling through the pages, his adrenaline ramping up once more as he reads the names, counts them, then counts again.

Oh no, you idiot. What have you been doing? You fool!

There are less than two hundred names written down.

Light recognizes some of them as highly dangerous, big-name criminals that he brought down in his first life span, which suggests that Light 2 had at least tried to enforce justice on a global scale. What’s missing is sheer volume. By now there should be hundreds upon hundreds, if not thousands, of names listed in the Death Note. Light 2’s version of Kira is weak, watered-down.  

What were you thinking, Light 2? He who hesitates is lost. Don’t you know that?

Rem’s voice echoes from the hallway. “Are you writing down names again?”

Light thinks for a minute, chooses his words carefully. “I was considering it.”

“Whose name will you write?”

A long pause. “I don’t know. I haven’t decided, yet.”

Rem probably can’t hear the defeat in Light’s voice, but Light sure does. He tips forward and rests his forehead on the desk, forcing himself to breath slowly, to think. But even as he strains his brain to move, to do something, he feels fatigue squeeze at the back of his neck, slowly traveling down his spine.

Light doesn’t know how long he was dead. From his perspective, it was scarcely more than a day ago that he was in desperate pain, desperately afraid, watching Ryuk wield his pen. Then everything went black, only to be immediately replaced by Lucas and his pseudo-Hellfire.

Light’s fierce battle with Near and the SPK is barely behind him, his soul not even close to recovered from his humiliating defeat. How can he possibly muster up the strength and courage for a whole new challenge, in a whole new lifespan?

It would be so easy to give up.

No. Don’t even think that. You can’t.

L gave up. You’re not L. You’re better!

Light can still see L’s shadowy figure in the sheeting rain, gazing up at the stormclouds as if waiting for an army of seraphim to sweep in and intervene. And then that slump in his shoulders, the deadened look in his eyes.

I hear the bells.

Light wonders what L would say if he knew that Light heard bells, too, when death finally came for him.

Light suspects that L wouldn’t be surprised. L was never surprised. And that was one of the most galling things about him -- that he couldn’t be fooled. He couldn’t be convinced, coerced, or bought.

How am I meant to make someone like that understand that Kira’s way is just and right?

Clenching his fists in his lap, Light forces his head up. Forces himself to keep going, like he always has. He isn’t L. He won’t ever, ever quit.

Because that’s the difference between us. He gives up and I don’t. Not ever.

With that emboldened thought, Light fires up his computer. Before he can strategize his next move, he needs to gather as much information as he can about his new surroundings. Knowledge is power; power is everything.

And he who moves first always wins.

***

It takes L approximately 3 hours and 23 minutes to catch up on current global events. During that time he drinks three cups of tea, heavily laced with sugar, and gnaws his way through several ropes of red liquorice.

In many ways, this world appears to be an improvement over the one where he spent his first lifespan. In the year 2000, a number of elections had played out differently than they had in his reality, including the race for the United States presidency. A global campaign to combat climate change had been the result, with nearly every nation contributing some form of renewable energy plan. North America, with its vast plains, had invested in wind, while Japan, home to over 100 volcanos, had expanded in the geothermal sector.

9/11 still happened in New York City, but a long, drawn-out war in Iraq never followed. Instead, the United States drew in allies from the Middle East and focused on debilitating Al Qaeda from the inside.

As a result of these various factors, 2007 economies are moving along at a steady clip, and overall, crime rates are comparatively lower to what they were in L’s world.

Still, there are plenty of cases to solve, and L is eager to determine if L the Second was, like him, the world’s greatest detective.

He searches his hard drive for his folder of old, closed case files, breezes through the encryption, and opens the documents one at a time. Reading through each, L discovers that some make him warm up with contentment, quite like re-visiting old friends. L the Second solved each case in much the same way L did, though his counterpart seems to have had a flare for improvisation that L doesn’t quite recognize in himself.

L the Second was also nearly captured by criminal gangs on two separate occasions, in two different countries, and has eleven more ‘solved’ cases under his belt than L.

You know what this means, L the Second? It means that you are the world’s greatest detective, not I.

L’s lips quirk, nearly smile. It is a curious feeling to be surpassed by one’s own self.

Enough backstory and exposition. It’s time for L to catch up with the present. He twines another liquorice rope around his tongue, opens up the case file called KIRA, and starts reading. In this world and all others, L can read 750-800 words a minute with 99.8 percent comprehension.

This is...unexpected.

The amount of information in the file is minimal, enough to suggest that the Kira case is in its nascent stages; further, it appears to have been stalled for nearly three weeks.

Five reports from five different countries: The United States, the UK, Australia, South Korea, and Japan. The collected data shows a suspicious spike in the deaths of convicted and at-large criminals, most of them dead from a sudden heart attack despite being in otherwise perfectly good health. The pattern began in late November, but did not become clear to the authorities until mid-February, when the numbers reached a crescendo. Come early March, the ICPO convened to discuss the possibility of a serial killer on a vigilante streak, and it was at this conference where L the Second announced that he would help them investigate the case.

In his first lifespan, both the ICPO and L had been made aware of Kira in a matter of days. The death count had been so high, so sudden, that there had been no need to search for a pattern. Kira struck like cold, precise lightening, making his presence known not just to the legal authorities, but to the world at large. Know me , his actions said. Fear me. Remember.

But this Kira is different; so different that L finds himself intrigued by the evident contrast.

Diving further into the transcripts from the ICPO, L learns that the agents had attempted a loose profile on Kira, with most determining that he was a vigilante trying to cover his tracks, but became impatient. Sloppy.

L disagrees. These murders are the work of someone cautious, someone coasting deliberately under the radar, but only by a few inches. If this Kira wanted to cloak himself completely, he certainly could have, but instead he’s been teasing the authorities. Flirting. Like a woman winking at a man from the other side of a smoky room, leaving him to wonder if he only imagined it.

Light Yagami, what sort of person are you in this world?

Perhaps most unsettling of all, the ICPO files show that L the Second also tried to pinpoint Kira’s location by sending out a special broadcast as bait, with Lind L. Tailor standing in for L. The broadcast was aired at different times across the United States, the UK, Australia, South Korea, and Japan, but Kira refused to touch the cheese on the trap. Lind L. Tailor is still alive, waiting to fulfill his sentence on Death Row.

I’ll ask it again, Light Yagami. What sort of person are you?

Tucking his chin over his knee, L considers that he ought to first apply the question to himself; or, rather, to L the Second.

All that L knows so far is that L the Second was a first-rate detective, who for some reason encouraged Naomi Misora to leave her fiancé and job with the FBI, and invited her to join forces with L, instead.

In his original life, L had felt an affinity for Naomi, alias Shoko Maki. They first made contact in Los Angeles during the BB murders that stymied the LAPD, and while they did “partner up,” to an extent, L never revealed his true face to her. Still, they communicated frequently, and L came to admire her initiative and investigative skills. Perhaps it was because she was a woman, or perhaps it was simply because she was Naomi Misora, but Maki was able to fill some small but crucial gaps in L’s critical thinking. For that, he was always grateful.

During their last conversation together, Maki gave L an opening, making it clear that she could be lured away from marriage and into a career assisting L as he solved cases around the world.

L had ignored the lure. Watari was the only stalwart partner he needed. But L the second hadn’t just encouraged Maki to join him, he’d outright goaded her into it.

Spouting off about mothers and wives not being remembered, only heroes? I feel rather embarrassed for you, L the Second. What a childish thing to say.

To further flesh out his profile of L the Second, L pulls up his records from Wammy’s House, which reveal that both L’s have the same IQ and test scores, are fluent in the same languages, adept in the same styles of martial arts, and were orphaned at age five. L the Second, however, received numerous disciplinary notices during his time at the Institution, especially in his younger years.

L chews on his thumb at that. Sure, L was written up a few times -- he does like to make his own rules, after all -- but it was never a chronic issue.

Reaching for another liquorice rope, L discovers that the bag is empty. It is a quarter past two in the morning, time to move on to chocolate.

But first, L decides to have a shower. Over the course of the evening he’s caught wind of a sour smell whenever he lifts his arms, a sure sign that it’s been a few days since he bathed or changed clothes.

Slovenliness. Another trait we share, I suppose.

He comes to his feet and performs a few stretches, then slips into the bathroom. A quick check of the shower reveals that it’s already been stocked with shampoo and soap. L turns on the taps, adjusting them until the water is his preferred temperature -- extra hot, just this side of scalding. He stands in front of the mirror and rucks off his tee, throwing it over the towel rack, then turns back to his reflection and nearly screams.

What the

No!

He stares at himself, disbelieving.

The middle of his chest is tattooed with a large letter “L” -- an “L” in Cloister Black typeface.

That isn’t even the worst of it. Every inch of visible skin -- his chest, stomach, shoulders, and arms -- are adorned with scrawling black tattoos. Not even impressive, artistic tattoos, but arcane, childish scribbles. Stick-and-poke, the kind of DIY tattoos inscribed with a sewing needle and ink. Only the letter “L” is the work of a professional.

No no no

L fumbles with the button of his jeans, pushing them down past his knees. The ink patterns continue all the way down the front of his thighs and calves. The only parts of his skin that are un-marred are those that are not usually covered by clothes -- his ankles and feet, wrists and forearms, neck and face.

Pivoting around in front of the mirror, L discovers that the entire back of his body, from top to bottom, is also tattoo-free.

L curls his palms around the lip of the sink and leans in close to the glass, just now starting to steam up.

How could you do this to yourself?

As a detective, L has always gone to great pains to hide his identity. This meant removing and avoiding any noticeable physical characteristics, such as the two moles on the side of his neck that he had lasered off in his youth. Those moles are still gone, but L the Second has nonetheless destroyed any hope for physical anonymity. Tattoos can be lasered off, but not this many, not in any reasonable amount of time.

Jutting out his left arm, L tries to make sense of the patterns. Most of the tattoos are small, less than an inch or two, with some barely bigger than his thumbnail. They are mere black outlines, simple and iconic, and clearly the sketches of a deranged mind. A smiling face with spider legs crawls across his bicep, surrounded by a crescent moon, a tiny dagger, a ringed planet, an eye of horus.

L stares at the ringed planet until his vision blurs.

“The Saturn Murders,” he mutters. It was a case he solved in 2004.

L the Second commemorated his triumphs in ink, collecting them like a serial killer collects teeth or locks of hair.

L plunges himself into the shower, scrubbing and scrubbing until the small bar of hotel soap is no more than a sliver. It doesn’t do any good. When he wipes the steam off the mirror, it’s that alien body that still greets him.

That giant letter L in the middle of your chest. Did you think yourself a superhero?

He finds a toiletry case inside the vanity cabinet and rifles through it until he finds small bag that holds sewing needles, tattoo ink, a bottle of alcohol, some pencils, and other miscellany. One of the pencils still has a needle jammed into the eraser, held in place with string. L pinches the pencil between his thumb and forefinger and studies the needle; it’s tipped with a dried crust of blood and ink.

He would flush it down the toilet, if he could.

But he can’t even put it down next to the sink. A dark impulse spreads through him, blossoming from the center of his chest and radiating out through his limbs. He imagines himself tapping the needle into the tender flesh of his inner thigh, or against the hard, unforgiving ridge of his ribs. He can almost feel the exquisite sting, sharp metal piercing his skin again and again until his mind is free of everything except the crisp clarity that only pain can deliver.

L forces his hand open. The pencil clatters into the sink and the craving -- a craving that is decidedly not his own -- goes with it.

The trembling, however, remains.

***

Chapter Text

Adaequatio Intellectus Et R ei

Lucas sinks chest-deep into the jacuzzi, angling his body until the jets are blasting pressurized water between his shoulderblades. He lets out a blissful groan as the tension in his muscles is slowly pulverized away. The jumbo-sized monitors lining the wall all display Light Yagami from various angles, but Lucas barely pays them any notice. The kid’s been working at his computer for hours, and just watching him makes Lucas feel as if he’s been hit with a case of sympathetic neck cramps and eye strain.

He could take the shortcut, of course. Shed the human disguise and slip into his true form, which has no muscles or nerves, feels no pain. Not the physical kind, anyway. But over the eons Lucas has grown attached to having a real body, to the sensations of pain, pleasure, and everything in between. He enjoys his vices, too, and lights a not-quite-real cigarette between his soggy fingers. Near the edge of the jacuzzi, a tray holds a tumblr of Chivas Regal Scotch, neat.

“Why do you smoke those?”

Lucas didn’t even hear Gabe come into the room. He almost never hears Gabe; the messenger is quiet by nature, and rather than speak prefers to observe his surroundings through those large, milky eyes that he favors while in human form.

“It’s just a habit. A filthy one.” Lucas blows a smoke ring toward the ceiling.

Gabe sits cross-legged on the floor, tilting his head at the wall of monitors. “Has he started writing names yet?”

“Not yet. Too discombobulated, I guess. Seeing Rem instead of Ryuk really threw him for a loop.”

“He should be happy. Rem is one of my favorites.” Gabe’s voice is soft and flat, barely infused with emotion.

It was Gabe who helped Lucas create the Shinigami. They were Lucas’ idea, just another in a long line of creatures he’s dreamed up over his endless lifetime, along with Sirens, Shaitans, Succubi, and a whole host of others. Lucas is the one with the ideas, the imagination, but Gabe’s skill at sculpting pseudo-life from the fabric of time and space is unparalleled. As messenger, though, Gabe is officially a free agent, and shares his skills with Michelina, as well. Lucas can’t see fit to find it annoying. He likes his victories over her to be fair and square.

It’s that much more of a devastating blow when Lucas wins by playing clean.

“He looks…” Gabe pauses, as if searching for the right word. “Stressed.”

Lucas lets out a low chuckle, reaching for his glass of scotch. “He’s a soul in the midst of a pain-in-the-ass struggle. He ought to be stressed.”

Gabe looks over his shoulder. “Why does that make you laugh?”

“Laughing’s just another one of my filthy habits.”

It’s true. Lucas takes no genuine pleasure in seeing human souls struggle. Struggle is ugly, but it’s necessary. Without it, there would be no free will, no progress. And Light Yagami hasn’t struggled nearly enough.

“See that kid there?” Lucas points his cigarette unnecessarily; there’s only one ‘kid’ he could be referring to. “He had it too good in his first lifespan. Parents who thought the sun shined out of his ass, a brain that wouldn’t quit, and a life so free of struggle that by age 17 he was bored -- so bored that there was nothing left to inspire him but death.”

Gabe scoots closer to the edge of the jacuzzi, the rippling water mirrored in his violet eyes. “I don’t understand you sometimes, Lucas. You made the Shinigami and their notebooks. You set temptation in his path. Shouldn’t you be happy?” His tone isn’t accusatory, but genuinely perplexed.

Lucas sets down his scotch so hard that the tumbler cracks, amber liquid leaking down the sides. “Gabe, you ought to know by now that I’m never happy.” He laughs again, the sound hollow.

Gabe dips his slender arm into the water. “That’s not true. Sometimes I see you happy.”

Lucas finds Gabe’s hand, squeezes those fingers that he’s known forever and then some.

“These days, you’re the only one who does.”

***

Light is struggling. Hours of research have left him with few answers, more questions. Using the internet, he cross-checked each name in the Death Note and confirmed that they all belonged to known criminals. Murderers, mostly, though there were a fair share of serial rapists and human traffickers in the mix. By Kira’s standards, every last one of them deserved to die, but this only brings Light the smallest measure of comfort.

Kira has yet to exist in this world as an irrefutable fact. He remains an urban legend, a creature whispered and speculated about into the furthest corners of the internet, but his message has yet to hit the mark. Crime rates have lowered only slightly, and even then the drop is mostly limited to Japan.

The ICPO issued their first public statement on Kira only weeks ago, when they revealed that they were working with the renowned Detective L to determine whether or not Kira was a real threat, or simply a series of coincidental deaths. Days later, Lind L. Tailor appeared in a televised broadcast, posing as L.

Light easily finds clips of the broadcast online and watches them at least five times. It’s the same Lind L. Tailor he remembers, berating Kira in that self-righteous tone, daring to call him ‘evil,’ staring directly into the camera as if crying out for Kira to silence him.

But Kira doesn’t. Didn’t. Lind L. Tailor survived the broadcast.

And it’s this fact that Light struggles with most. Writing Lind L. Tailor’s name in the Death Note was, perhaps, the greatest mistake of Light’s life. Mindless rage had blinded him to L’s trap, and once Tailor was dead, L had all the information that would lead him directly to Kira, to Light.

Light glides his fingertips over the Death Note’s black cover, his mind pulled in more directions than someone as singular as himself cares for. One part of him is grateful that Light 2 was cautious enough to refrain from killing Lind L. Tailor on the spot; yet another part of him is annoyed that Light 2 would dare to do things differently than Light. Would dare to be better.

Perhaps the most discomforting possibility of all is that Light 2 is better. That he wasn’t just acting out of ordinary caution, but actually possessed the insight to sense L’s trap.

Light doesn’t contemplate this possibility to its fullest; he only pokes at it around the edges, aware that his ego isn’t ready to regard Light 2 as an equal, and also aware of how absurd this hesitation is. Light 2 is him. He’s the same soul, just one that’s been whittled into a new shape by a lifetime of different experiences -- experiences that Light can’t even begin to guess at, and doesn’t particularly want to.

He supposes that he at least owes Light 2 a measure of gratitude. Kira is at large (if not as large as he ought to be) and Light is not a suspect.

But it will be impossible to convince L to embrace Kira’s methods if Light never meets the detective face to face.

“Light,” Rem intones, her voice cutting through his thoughts like a fog horn. “You mother’s home with Sayu.”

“Alright,” Light says, reaching for the Death Note. Sayu is around 14 in this world, the age where she is most prone to knock on her brother’s door and beg for help with school work. It’s close to dinner time, too; he’s heard Baaba banging around in the kitchen for the last half hour. He might as well be preemptive and play the role of the helpful grandson.

With the Death Note secured in its secret compartment, Light changes out of his suit and into more casual clothes. When he shakes his cell phone free from his jacket, he’s surprised by several unread messages from Kou.

“Is everything OK?”

“You don’t have to talk about it. Just let me know if something’s up.”

“Light? Answer me, OK?”

Light bristles all over, strongly reminded of Misa and how she clung to him like a burr, inquiring about his state of mind on a minute-to-minute basis, as if nursing the hope that she could truly connect with him if they just communicated. She never realized that lies are just as easily communicated than the truth -- no, more easily.

For not the first time, Light wonders if his lack of desire to crawl inside another person’s skin, to explore the deepest and most complex whorls of their brain, is a shortcoming or an advantage. He gives the question roughly three seconds thought before determining that it’s an advantage. Always an advantage.

Close relationships, romantic or otherwise, are nothing more than psychic hijackings.

“I’m fine,” Light types back to Kou. “We can talk more tomorrow.”

He clicks his phone shut and drops it into his pocket, gives his bedroom the once-over to make sure everything’s in order, and, satisfied, steps into the hallway.

With the sun down the top floor is utterly dark, except for what little light makes its way up from the living room. Light gropes along the unfamiliar walls until he finds a switch, flicks it on. Yellowy light floods the narrow passage. The gallery of photographs he ignored earlier is larger than he first noticed, each picture professionally framed and fighting for dominance. An attractive young woman smiles out from the one in his direct line of vision, her long chestnut hair framing a heart-shaped face, her brown eyes sparkling with life. She’s holding a tennis racket and is wearing a sporty white skirt that leaves little to the imagination. Bright text parades down the right side, advising the viewer to Look as good on the court as you do off!

Light raises two fingers to his temple, scrunching his brow in confusion.

Why did my parents frame an advertisement for women’s tennis gear?

“Light, can you come down? I need your help.” His mother’s voice reaches him from somewhere far below.

“One minute,” he calls back, still absorbed in the photographs.

Almost all of them are print advertisements, most for women’s fashion and makeup, and all feature the same chestnut-haired woman. Light jerks with a start when he reaches a framed magazine cover that shows the woman with a naked infant tucked in her arms, half of the baby’s bare bottom exposed. The woman gazes down at the infant with a serene smile, endless patience glowing in her eyes.

"Sachi Yagami: Modeling, Marriage, and Now Motherhood!"

Light’s mouth falls open as he pulls in a sharp breath, eyes darting from one photo to the next, his brain racing to piece the pattern together.

My mother’s a model? MY Mother?

“Light!” His mother again, her tone sharp and no-nonsense. Not a tone that Light recalls ever hearing from her.

Even as he turns to answer her call, his eyes fall on an advertisement for a family-style restaurant, one that features not just ‘Sachi’ Yagami but also a very young Sayu and Light. Sayu is around three, and Sachi helps her with her chopsticks while a sly-looking Light reaches around his mother to steal a rice ball.

“On my way!” he says, his voice bright.

He looks over the rest of the photographs as quickly as he can, trying to absorb them with the same detachment he would reserve for case evidence. Still, he can’t deny the flush of relief he feels when he confirms that he’s only featured in a handful of the photographs. Light 2 might have been a child model in this life, but it appears to have been a short-lived career. His mother, on the other hand, was by all indications mildly famous, a fact that roughly clashes with the Sachiko Yagami that resides in Light’s memory.

He always thought of his mother as dependable, supportive, and largely inoffensive; an ideal woman, really, who was always ready to help but would never dare to interfere. All Freudian implications aside, if Light had been able to choose a partner for himself, he would have chosen someone like his mother over someone like Misa.

He looks at her picture again, and for the first time nearly recognizes her. Her nose and eyes are different -- plastic surgery, maybe? -- but there’s that soft smile, that delicate tilt of her head. Light remembers them both from whenever his mother had brought him up a snack, or asked to see his test scores, or collected his laundry. Even now those memories fill his chest with a curious warmth; not love, exactly. Appreciation, maybe.

“Light, please,” his mother calls, her voice frayed with fatigue.

Light can’t remember his mother ever asking for his help. He offered it frequently because he was a Good Son, but she never, ever asked.

What could make a woman like Sachiko Yagami call to him for help?

He pushes aside the dread that wafts around him like a curtain, puts a bounce into his step, and breezes down the stairs.

“Here I am, mother,” he lilts out, always the Good Son.

And then he lands in the living room and sees what’s waiting for him. The dread he’s been warding off collapses over him, leaving him stunned, knees shaking -- dread that’s not just a curtain but a whole damned house.

***

It’s odd. Now that L knows that the tattoos are there, it’s like he can feel them, hot fingerprints that press hard into his flesh, parading up his limbs, congregating into that single black brand in the middle of his chest.

He tugs the cuffs of his tee shirt down until they cover his palms. Even the simple act of moving his body feels horribly alien, because this isn’t his body. Not the one that he knows. And so L feels like an invader, a snatcher.

What right does he have to be here?

What do the tattoos mean, L? Did they hurt? 

They don’t mean much. They’re just memories, Mihael. So yes, of course they hurt. 

But not all memories hurt. Good memories don’t. 

Don’t they? 

I don’t think mine do. 

Even those ‘good’ memories are of things we can never experience again. Reminders that we can never go back. I can’t think of much that’s more painful than that. 

Oh…. 

The memory bobs to the surface like something loosed from the bottom of the ocean, and while L’s instinct is to push it away, he tries to relax, let it resonate through him.

A few deep breaths, and the dizziness of the duel memories leaves him. Still, he presses his fist to the middle of his chest, swears he feels the tattooed “L” searing through the fabric of his shirt.

His concerns that L the Second was trying to fashion himself into some kind of superhero are unfounded, he thinks. L the Second solved a number of noteworthy cases under the names Coil and Deneuve, and did not go out of his way to take credit for those triumphs. He did, however, make a record of them on his skin. The tattoos were for L the Second alone, to treasure or resent, and now L must share them, not fully understanding their significance.

I’m sorry, for what it’s worth.

The clock reads that it’s just after 3AM, and a soft knock at the door indicates that Maki’s awake and ready to work.

“Come in.”

“Hi.” Maki’s dressed in loose, comfortable clothes and appears to be freshly showered, her hair damp against her shoulders. She scuffs across the floor in her slippers, a laptop and binder in her arms.

“Do you feel more rested?”

She bundles herself into the chair by the window. “A bit, but sometimes a little sleep feels worse than none at all. Don’t worry, I drank some coffee.”

“I’m not worried.” He turns around in his chair so that he’s facing her, knees pulled up toward his chest. “I want to ask you about Kira.”

“Me?” Her features shimmer with surprise. “Ask me what?”

“You saw the ICPO’s profile.”

“Yes. Aspiring vigilante, possibly with several accomplices, given that the murders have occurred in different countries.”

“What are your thoughts on that profile?”

Maki lifts her damp hair off her neck, twisting it into a coil. “Are you testing my deductive skills again?”

“No, I’m asking for your opinion,” L says, perching forward slightly. “To begin with, what nationality do you think Kira is?”

“Japanese,” Maki says, no hesitation.

“Tell me why you think so.”

“Well, a few reasons.” She settles back into her chair, chewing on her bottom lip. “The victims were all criminals from first world countries. There are other parts of the world with much higher crime rates -- countries in parts of Africa and South America come to mind -- but we haven’t heard anything about any drug barons or war lords biting the dust.”

L smiles a little at her colorful phrasing. “Those countries aren’t known for their cooperation with ICPO.”

“True. But Kira is certainly from one of the five countries that have reported Kira-like homicides. I think if he -- or she -- were American, the homicides would be confined to the States. But someone Japanese would have regular access to South Korea’s new cycle, in addition to probably having at least some language fluency in English.”

“And thus the ability to follow the news cycles of English-speaking countries.”

“Yes.”

He bites delicately on his thumbnail, his gaze willing her to continue.

“But to be honest, I think it’s the fact that I’ve lived in America for nearly ten years that makes me pretty certain that Kira is Japanese.” She lifts her head up, the lamplight briefly flaring in her eyes. “The Japanese legal system has a 99 percent conviction rate. Our culture operates on the principle that you’re presumed guilty until proven guilty, and someone like Kira reflects that same mindset.”

“I agree. Unfortunately, I believe the NPA was unimpressed when I said that I could offer them proof that Kira was Japanese, and failed to deliver on that score.”

“Ah, well.” Maki jerks her shoulder in a shrug. “How crucial is their cooperation, really?” Evidently, she still carries an FBI Agent’s sense of privilege with her.

L gives her a wry smile. “Quite crucial. I carry no badge and have no authority beyond what my reputation provides.”

“I know that, I was just joking around. And also feeling guilty for a split second.”

“Why guilty?”

She twists her hands together in her lap and avoids his eyes. “Because I caught myself wishing that Kira had killed Lind L. Tailor. We’d be so much further along by now if he had.”

“Perhaps we would be,” L says, his voice dry. He reaches into the desk behind him and finds a bright red lollipop that looks absurdly like a clown’s nose, affixed to a stick. “But we’re not so behind as you might think. We both know that Kira is Japanese, we must simply find the evidence that proves what we already know to be true.”

“How?”

“For starters, we will move the base of our operations to Tokyo so that I can communicate with the NPA more directly.” He unwraps the lolly and sucks it between his lips, letting it rest on the cushion of his tongue.

“Sounds good to me. I could use a break from L.A. Too many memories.” She slumps over the edge of the chair and extends her arm toward him, palm upheld. “Give me a hit.”

“Pardon?” L’s mouth goes slack around the candy.

“Let me have a lick of that.” She twitches her fingers at him.

L slowly releases the lollipop from his mouth, his lips pressing together in a sticky line. Her request, which might be taken as provocative in another context, seems merely bossy, in the way of a pesky sister. Boundary-testing, perhaps, of the sort that arises after a few months of working together in close contact. He considers for a moment whether L the Second -- or any L, for that matter -- would ever share his candy with another person, especially after it’s already taken up residence on his own tongue.

He turns to the desk and finds a freshly-wrapped lolly, red as his own. “Here,” he says, depositing it into Maki’s hand. “Have as many hits as you like.”

She sighs, but unwraps the candy just the same. “I didn’t want a whole one. Just a taste.”

“A taste is never enough. Also, that would be unsanitary.”

“You forget that I’ve seen how you live.” Her words are slurry from the lolly. “Anyway, what about the Angel of Mercy? Are we holding off on that for now?”

“I see no reason why we cannot monitor that case from Japan.” The Angel of Mercy case, which L had the foresight to read up on while Maki was napping, involves a number of deaths in the Great Lakes region. All victims were severely ill, some terminally so, and died while hospitalized. The authorities believe that someone working in the medical field, a doctor or nurse, is likely responsible. The case is an intriguing one, but doesn’t have the weight that Kira’s does.

Even if he was ignorant to the terrible fate that will Kira inflict on the world, L would have chosen the Kira case over Angel of Mercy.

Is that true? Or do I just want to prove that I can beat Light Yagami this time?

L reminds himself that his goal isn’t to beat Light Yagami, it’s to enlighten him. Convince him. The thought nearly makes the candy go sour in his mouth.

“Maki-san, would you say that I am a convincing person?”  The question slips out of him, unbidden.

She scrutinizes his face, looking for clues as to what he’s after. “Convincing in what way?”

“Am I someone with a notable ability to persuade others into adopting my perspective.” He licks his lolly slowly, his toes curling around the edge of his chair.

“Yes, yes you are. Then again, it’s hard to argue with someone who gets the results that you do.”

“Quite right. What if I told you that Kira is also likely to be a very convincing person?”

She stops slumping in her chair and comes to attention. “What if you told me... like you told me just now? I guess I wouldn’t be surprised. It takes a lot of conviction to murder nearly two hundred people, even if they are all criminals of some kind.” She takes in a breath and stares into her lap, then casts her eyes back up to his. “That’s why you want to act now and go to Japan.”

“Yes. Murdering criminals is only a means to an end. Kira’s real goal is to purify the earth by eliminating anyone that he judges as ‘bad.’ If he isn’t stopped, and stopped soon, he will gain the public’s support. He will convince them. We cannot allow him to get that far.”

I can’t allow him.

Won’t.

L comes to his feet and walks to the nearest window, brushing the curtain aside so that he can gaze out into the night. He has a good view of the Sunset Strip, though at 4 in the morning the street is quiet, disturbed by nothing other than the shifting color of traffic lights. Though he can’t feel it physically, he’s nevertheless aware that the earth is spinning.

Time is peeling away, without regard for him or anyone else.

***

He did not anticipate this.

A 14 year old girl doesn’t weigh much, but motorized wheelchairs are heavy and bulky. And with its battery power dead, it’s no wonder that Sachiko Yagami can’t maneuver it down the hallway without her son’s help.

“There. Watch out for the table, now!”

Light steers the wheelchair past the kitchen, into a room decorated with girlish pinks and lavenders. The color scheme sits uncomfortably against the stark white and stainless steel medical equipment. There’s a poster of Hideki Ryuga on the wall, gazing out with eyes that are warm and chastely seductive.

“Alright,” Sachiko says, her voice now imbued with false cheerfulness. “Let’s get you into bed.”

“Noo-o.” Sayu’s mouth has difficulty finding the word. It comes out slowly and painfully, like it’s being hauled up from her throat with fishing line. She rolls her eyes toward Light, creaks her jaw open again. “Tell...me…”

My little sister can’t walk. She can barely speak. She has oxygen tubes in her nose. She’s looking at me.

Why is she looking at me?

He did not anticipate this.

“Well, go ahead and tell her, Light. How was the welcoming ceremony?” Sachiko lowers herself onto the end of the hospital bed, but her blank gaze reveals her disinterest in Light’s answer. Her hair and makeup are done to model perfection, but her eyes are tired and her mouth sags a little, the delicate skin crumpling at the corners.

“Oh.” Light forces himself to look at his sister’s face. Even though her mouth lists open strangely, as if she only has partial control of her facial muscles, there’s alertness glimmering in her eyes. “It was pretty standard, I guess. Takada gave a long, boring, and inspirational speech and Kou took about fifty pictures of her. We to a cafe after.”

“You...fun?”

“Yeah,” Light swallows. “I guess it was pretty fun.”

I mean, I have to say I had fun. I can still walk and talk and I don’t sleep in a hospital bed so obviously I had fun. I can’t say that I had anything other than the most fun ever.

Light helps his mother get Sayu into bed, a task more difficult than he expects. She weighs next to nothing, but her muscle control is haphazard, and her limbs slip out of his grasp so easily that he might as well be trying to hang on to wet noodles.

“Gee, Light. You look like you’ve never done this before.”

Rem’s voice claps like a thunderbolt from the corner. Light jerks his head up, sending a dampened glare toward the Shinigami’s single yellow eye even as he tucks a quilt around his sister’s shoulders.

“Baaba will bring you some dinner in a little while, sweetie,” their mother says, brushing a few strands of hair out of Sayu’s eyes. “Try to rest.”

Her smile is gentle and lilting, and it disappears as soon as they leave the room. “I swear that new physical therapist is doing more harm than good. Sayu was fighting back tears most the way home.”

Light says nothing, instead studying his mother’s quick, angry gait as she strides toward the kitchen and throws herself into one of the dining room chairs.

“Physical therapy isn’t easy,” Baaba says. She’s at the stove, stirring a pot of broth. “I remember that from when I broke my hip.”

“This isn’t the same as a broken hip.” Sachiko’s voice is resigned. As if she barely has the strength for disagreement.

Light measures the subtle tension between the two women, determines that it isn’t born of hostility but sheer fatigue and disappointment.

What happened to Sayu? Was there an accident?

She wasn’t born disabled, this much Light knows from those photographs upstairs. His medical knowledge leads him to speculate that his little sister has suffered some kind of traumatic brain injury, much like those caused by hypoxia. But she’s too young for a stroke, so perhaps the cause was a car crash, or a bicycle accident.

Somewhere in the distance of his mind, Light can only see the Sayu he remembers. Laughing and cheerful, swooning girlishly over her television idols. That flip of her hair when she flounced into his room, begging for help with quadratic equations. She was a simple enough girl, but her heart was decent. She deserves a life that’s decent.

The memory melts away, leaving Light with the realization that his mother and sister are drastically different in this world, different in a way that he has no power to change. Where, then, does that leave his father?

Please be the same. I need something to be the same.

“Light. Be a love and make me a drink, will you?” Sachiko has her head propped up in the palm of her hand as she leans into the table and watches the loud variety show playing on TV.

The request isn’t particularly polite or sweet, instead carrying with it the air of routine.

“Sure,” Light murmurs, approaching the kitchen cabinets with uncertainty.

“The booze is up here,” Rem says, pointing a skeletal finger at the small cabinet over the refrigerator.

Light frowns at the Shinigami, fully aware that she’s only being helpful in order to make a point.

She knows something about me is off. She’s noticed, even if my own family hasn’t.

“Her favorite drink is a gin and soda, with two thick lemon wedges.”

Light mixes the drink in silence, cuts the lemons with a knife held in nerveless fingers. In his last life he had waited on his mother before, of course, but never at her request, and never to serve alcohol. His father liked a beer with dinner sometimes, if his case load was light, but Sachiko never drank more than a few sips of sake on holidays.

But in the here and now, her daughter’s an invalid. Light decides that she’s probably earned one lousy drink.

“Here, mother.”

She takes the gin, barely sparing him a glance, and drinks one-forth of it in a single swallow. “Thanks, sweetie.”

“Hey, Light, if you’re going to dirty a knife then you can help me chop vegetables,” Baaba says, wiping her hands on a towel.

And so the next half hour goes, with Light helping Baaba prepare dinner while she and his mother trade uninspired observations about the variety show on TV.

“Oooh, I met that guy one, once,” Sachiko says at one point, the gin making her giggle. She’s pointing to a man on the television who looks like a washed-up 80s pop star. “Don’t tell Saichiro, but he tried to pinch my bottom.”

“Ahh, really?” Baaba drops her spoon and hurries to get a closer look, leaving Light alone at the stove.

My own mother didn’t even ask me about the freshman welcoming ceremony.

For the first time in his life, Light feels ignored.

***

He did not anticipate this.

Instead of waiting for his father to return from work, Light takes a bowl of soup to his room. His mother and grandmother don’t object; he’s a busy university student now, after all. Light leaves the soup on his dresser, untouched, and sits at the edge of his bed, staring at his knees.

“Not hungry, Light?” Rem says, sniffing at the soup. “Can I eat it?”

“Go ahead.”  

The Shinigami grips the spoon in her oversized fist, slurping broth with apparent relish. Light lifts his head just enough to watch her through his fringe, taking in the spiny appendages of her shoulders, the ghoulish white and blue hair.

Lucas said that guidance will be available to me, if I can manage to keep my eyes open.

“Rem.”

“What is it, Light?” She turns her head, soup dribbling down her chin.

“When did you know that I was different?”

Rem puts the bowl down, spoon clattering inside it. “Oh, that was easy. We were at that university of yours, and one minute you could see me, and the next you couldn’t.”

“How did you know I wasn’t just ignoring you?”

The creature gives him a leering grin. “I know how to push your buttons by now, but nothing I said this morning made you so much as blink. You weren’t in there, not until you touched the notebook.”

“And now I’m back.”

“That’s right.” She swoops closer, her single eye blazing. “But you’re not the same.”

He gives her a thin smile. “How so?”

“You studied those photographs in the hallway as if you’d never seen them before. You didn’t know how to take care of your sister. It seems as if you’ve lost your memory of some things, but not everything.”

A tendril of relief starts to fill Light’s chest. He keeps it at bay, too cautious to let himself acknowledge it just yet.

“I’m not the same. But you should know that I’m still me. Light Yagami.”

The Shinigami regards him for several long seconds. “Yes, I believe that.”

The slam of the front door travels from below, followed by Soichiro’s voice, announcing his arrival.

“That’s your father,” Rem says helpfully.

Light’s jaw stiffens. “I know that. Like I said, I still know who I am.”

Rem’s quiet for a moment, perhaps even appropriately abashed.

“Well. What do you remember about him?”

“He’s chief of the National Police Agency.”

“No.”

Light whirls at the creature, his expression blazing. “Then what? What ? Just tell me.”

Rem lifts up a boney palm, unconcerned. “He owns a private security company. ‘Protection One,’ it’s called.”

The tendril of relief withers a little, but doesn’t vanish completely. Running a private security company is something Light can imagine, at least. Something in the realm of reasonable possibilities.

“What about Sayu -- how did she get like that?”

“You don’t remember?”

Light curls his lip in contempt. “Would I ask if I did?”

“Ah.” The Shinigami floats toward the ceiling, spreading her arms wide, taking obvious and irritating pleasure in drawing out the suspense. “That’s an interesting story, Light.”

“Just spit it out.”

Rem’s body sinks to his level, the one eye seeming to glow brighter.

“Someone tried to kill her.”

Light hears his heart hammer, a single boom that rattles him down to his toes. “ What ?”

“That’s right.” Rem flaps her limbs in an ungainly way, as if mimicking the moves of a swimmer. “Tried to drown her, but you humans can’t go without oxygen for too long. It damages parts of your brain if you do.”

So it was hypoxia. A near-drowning. Who tries to drown a little girl?

“Who was it?” Light demands, wishing he could throttle answers out of Rem. “Did they go to prison? Were they punished? Who tried to kill her?”

“Oh.” Rem suddenly stops her antics and drifts upright, the glow in her eye going dead. “You don’t remember that part, either?”

The expression on Light’s face must be nightmarish. He can feel the blood roaring in his cheeks, the painful flare of nostrils and lips, teeth clenched so hard it feels like his jaw could snap. Even the God of Death seems to recoil, her skeletal hands curling uselessly against her chest.

“Tell me.”

“I don’t know, Light. If you’ve forgotten, maybe it’s for the be --”

“ Tell me !”

The Shinigami opens her mouth, and before the words are even out, Light feels the room whirl, his vision dissolving until it takes on a pure, clarifying white along the edges. The walls close in around him, tighter than a coffin, and he feels his knuckles burn and split as he pounds against his cage.

I can’t breath! Let me out -- I can’t  

“The person who tried to kill Sayu is the same person who tried to kill you.”

***

Chapter Text

In Somnis Veritas

For the few hours that L sleeps, he dreams of his mother.

He’s never dreamt of his mother before. He’s dreamt of wanting his mother, searching for her in an empty play-yard, the swings shuddering in the breeze while weeds tangle around his ankles, slowing him down. Dreams where he wanders a library as big as a castle, pulling books off the shelf one at a time, expecting to find her tucked between the pages like a paper doll. Dreams where he hears her in the distant peal of church bells.

But this dream is violent. Unforgettable. His mother collapses to the floor, blood spurting from a gaping wound in his skull, pooling toward him while she seeks him out with her eyes, one last pulse of light shining in them before they go black.

He wakes up with a start, tugging the sheets up to his neck, lungs crying out for air.

“Are you alright?”

It’s Watari, who’s laying out a spread of breakfast on the bedside table. Tea and french toast, a tower of freshly sliced California strawberries.

“Yes.” L rubs at his eyes, but the image of the pooling blood won’t go away. “I must have been dreaming.”

Behind his spectacles Watari’s expression is calm, unreadable. “It’s good that you’re up. In the interest of getting to Tokyo as soon as possible, I’ve chartered a private jet to leave at 6PM out of LAX.”

“What time is it now?”

“Just past 2PM.”

L nods, mostly to himself. “Thank you, Watari.”

The man better known as Quillsh Wammy slips out of the room, leaving L to his breakfast. His manner is a touch more distant and professional than that of the Watari L is familiar with, and L wonders at the implications of that -- not for long, though. He’s still thinking about his mother.  

He only has a few memories of her; even fewer of his father. They both worked for the CIA, his mother as a special agent, his father as a tech researcher, and entrusted L to Wammy’s House shortly after his birth. It was the height of the 1980s Cold War, a risky time for CIA operatives to start a family. They visited L when they could; sometimes together, but usually alone. He and his father built things out of legos and squinted at tiny creatures under a microscope. His mother always brought him a ribboned box, heavy with sweets.

By the age of four L was reading Grimm’s fairy tales to his mother. The book was too heavy for him to hold, so he propped it up against a table leg and read aloud in a soft but clear voice. Mid-way through the first tale, his mother’s arms came around his waist and locked just below his bellybutton, then she lifted him up from the rug and into her lap, her long hair tickling the side of his face.

L had shut the book and squirmed, confused by the physical contact. “What are you doing?” he asked.

“Holding you.” Her gray eyes were sad.

“No, thank you,” L said, slipping out of her lap. “I can’t read when you do that.”

The casual slings and arrows of a child , L thinks, popping a strawberry in his mouth. If he had known that moment would be one of the last memories of his mother, he might have deigned to be held a little longer. Both his parents were killed later that Spring, casualties of a terrorist attack in West Berlin.

L stares at his fingers, smeared faintly red with strawberry juice, and wonders what kind of person he’d be if he’d seen his parents die right before his very eyes.

Someone prone to nightmares, maybe.

He finishes his breakfast, showers, and begins the arduous task of packing up his messy hotel room. Mid-way through, Maki comes in to help him, ignoring his protests.

“I’m in a hurry to get to the airport. I’ve never flown on a private jet before.”

She’s dressed like a tourist: oversized Disneyland sweatshirt, jeans rolled up at the ankles, feet encased in dainty sneakers. In like, L slips a baggy hooded sweatshirt over his tee and dons a pair of designer sunglasses, the lens faintly tinted in yellow. Together they look like they could be college students, or perhaps brother and sister, with Watari standing in as the chaperone grandfather. All of them carry a set of fraudulent passports that mark them as Japanese citizens; even people who fly in on private jets have to go through customs.

“We should pick up some snacks before we leave,” L determines, while Watari is still busy rounding up their luggage and other essentials.

“Candy, you mean?”

L nods. “They try to feed you caviar and champagne on private jets.”

“Wow, what a burden,” Maki says, looking rather delighted at the idea of caviar. “But if it’s artificial flavors and colors you want, there’s a convenience store down the street. I passed it when I picked up our burgers last night.”

“Yes, please.”

Together they leave the Chateau Marmont, and the bright sunlight makes L blink so hard that he estimates he hasn’t set foot outdoors in a number of weeks. While they walk Maki chats on a bit about the places she wants to visit when they get to Japan, and L says little other than the occasional hmm . It isn’t that he dislikes conversing with Maki; rather, he’s wary of saying more than he needs to, lest he reveal he’s not the same L that Maki’s been working with these past months.

“Don’t worry,” Maki says, her tone suddenly somber. “I know we’re going to Tokyo to find Kira. There won’t be time to do anything else. I was just reminiscing.”

L glances at her out of the side of his eyes. “Carry on reminiscing, if you like.”

“No, I should stop. It’s a bad habit.”

At the convenience store, L loads up treats. Bright, fruity candy like skittles and starburst fuel quick calculations, anything coated in chocolate is ideal for slow, philosophical ponderings, and sticky toffees and caramels work best on frustrating logical tangles. He also buys several boxes of oreos, not because they do anything special but because he enjoys them. Maki, like some kind of puritan squirrel, chooses nuts and dried fruit.

“Do we need anything else?” she asks as they head up the hill to the hotel. “It’s a long flight.”

“On a luxury private jet, remember. We will be well provided for.”

“What about books?” Maki stops under a narrow awning, peering into the window of a shop. “I wouldn’t mind having something to read.”

L is just about to say no, that they won’t have time for recreational reading when there’s work to be done, but then he notices the name of the shop, spelled out on the window in a cloister black font:  Pandemonium Books .

Without thinking, he lifts his hand and touches the letter “P.”

Is this your way of offering me guidance, Michelina?

“Alright. Let’s see what books they have.”

The shop is narrow and tidy, books laddering all the way to the pressed-tin ceiling. A marmalade-colored cat snoozes in a basket on the front counter, and the proprietor is a disheveled man in crooked spectacles. Von , his nametag says.

“Welcome,” he says, his voice scratchy and disused. “Please let me know if I can help you with anything.”

Maki heads for the rear of the store, muttering something about poetry, but L is drawn to a table display near the front. Recommended For You! reads the nearby sign. The stacked books aren’t recent bestsellers, as L expects, but copies of Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment , and an anthology of writings by Carl Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist and philosopher. L is familiar with both books, having read them many years ago, and doubts how much guidance they can actually provide.

But very well, Michelina, since you’ve gone out of your way to be so obvious.

He scoops up a copy of each and takes them to the front counter.

***

L doesn’t get a chance to crack open the books until they’re in the air, bound for Tokyo. The private jet seats eighteen, but aside from a pair of flight attendants they are the only three aboard, ensuring relative privacy.

“I just can’t believe how posh it is,” Maki says, not for the first time. She’s already on her second glass of champagne, tipped back in her wide reclining chair with a blissful smile on her face.

L meets Watari’s eyes briefly. While the older man earned most of his fortune through years of hard work, L has never not had money. He suffers no guilt over this, instead pouring his family’s wealth into his detective work -- indeed, money being no object has been a large factor in his success. So he forgets, sometimes, that chartering private jets and living in fancy hotels is well beyond the means of most people.

“Would you care for an amuse-bouche?” The flight attendant appears from the galley, a tray full of tiny, colorful bowls in her arms.

“An amuse-bouche? What’s that?” Maki brings her chair upright, eyes wide.

“Tonight we have a seared scallop with red salt and lemon-infused olive oil, as well as a foie gras bonbon with bitter chocolate, pistachio, and rainier cherry.”

“Oh my god. Yes, I want it. I want it all.” Maki sweeps her package of dried fruit off the side table anchored next to her seat.

“I’ll try one of each, as well,” Watari pipes up.

L declines both. He doesn’t care for scallops, and the idea of pairing perfectly good chocolate and cherry with fattened goose liver makes his taste buds wince.

As his colleagues chat and work their way through the first course of decadent food, L props Crime and Punishment against his lifted knees, flipping through it slowly while prying oreos apart with his teeth. He licks the icing away first, then stacks the slightly soggy cookies into a tower on the table next to him. L remembers much of the novel’s plot and themes, but it’s been so long since he set eyes on the text itself that every line of prose feels new and fresh. Before the anti-hero protagonist Raskolnikov is even named, Dostoevsky describes him tall and exceptionally handsome, with beautiful dark eyes and auburn hair.

Reading those words sends an image of Light Yagami’s face floating to the front of L’s mind.

He rakes his teeth through a fresh circle of icing, a page from the novel held between his thumb and forefinger. L doesn’t give much thought to the physical appearance of others, but he does recognize the standards by which society measures beauty. Watari is “distinguished,” having been a well built and strapping man in his youth, and Maki is attractive, her features a little too sharp and inquisitive to qualify as “cute.” From a purely objective standpoint, L supposes that others would slot him into the “borderline ugly” category. He’s slim and ungainly, entirely too pale, and his eyes are a little too large, lending him the aura of a ghoul. None of this bothers L, though it has occurred to him more than once that he probably stands out more than he ought to.

Yes, all things considered, Light Yagami can only be described as exceptionally handsome. A cookie-cutter example of what most would find pleasing, with his exemplary proportions, dark amber eyes, and thick auburn hair -- but unlike Raskolnikov, he didn’t grow up in shameful, abject poverty.

Or...did he?

L has not yet had the time or privacy to conduct a thorough background check on the parallel reality’s version of the Yagami family, but it’s the first thing on his agenda for when they’re safely installed in Tokyo.

“Ryuzaki, don’t you want any real food? This foie gras is seriously divine.”

“Maki --”

“I know, I know. You don’t need a mother.”

The image of Light dissolves, replaced with that nightmare vision of L’s mother, blood leaking and pooling in her long hair.

“Right,” he whispers, putting Crime and Punishment aside. He gazes out the window, instead, chin tucked against his knees. The skies are mostly clear, and flying East means chasing a perpetual sunset, at least for a while. Banners of red and orange clouds part here and there, revealing the flat, glassy ocean miles below, and a contemplative mood settles over the detective as he trains his eyes on the distant horizon.

L finds it ironic that he’s been tasked to save the world, the whole universe, and yet has spent precious little time appreciating it. He’s visited most of the continents, more countries than he can remember, and yet the details of them blur together into a montage of no great significance. Knowing the habits and hearts of his fellow humans was only relevant if that knowledge helped him with his cases.

Really, he supposes that he’s an excellent scholar of humanity, but an exceptionally poor specimen.

L moves closer to the window, his cheek nearly kissing the plexiglass. The sun is outpacing them -- they’ll never catch up -- and the sky is bruised up in the deep lavender of dusk, with only more darkness to come. His toes dig into the leather upholstery of his chair, knees pressed so tight to his chest that air can barely find its way to his lungs.

I don’t want to die.

It’s a thought shared by all of humanity, but this is only the second time L can remember having it on such a conscious, visceral level. The first time, of course, was when he actually did die, his heart seizing in his chest like a stuck gear, pain radiating out in jagged waves until darkness collapsed around him. His life didn’t flash before his eyes, unwinding like a film-strip, and there was no inviting tunnel of white light. There was only the pain of his fissured heart and the demonic glare in Light Yagami’s eyes.

Unless he’s engaged in physical training, L’s pulse stays below 65 beats per minute, but witnessing Kira’s moment of triumph -- being the cause of Kira’s triumph -- had sent his heart racing toward 200. The organ locked inside his chest, the one he rarely gave a thought to, was all at once aflame with regret, each final surge of his arteries a cry of should have and if only.

L’s mother, blood leaking and pooling in her long hair. L the Second’s memory, spilling over into their shared, sleeping unconscious.

You said we can never go back, L the Second. But what if we can? What if I can?

The thought is almost too much to bear, perhaps even a temptation of the kind Michelina warned him about.

L lifts his head and sets his jaw, reminding himself that he wasn't sent here to get a second chance at life, or to work on becoming a better human specimen. He was sent to save the world, the whole universe.

Now is not the time to navigate the completely uncharted tundra of your heart, Lawliet.

Outside the airplane window, the first stars wink awake.

***

Maki snoozes in her reclining chair after dessert, drawn into slumber by champagne more than fatigue, while Watari busies himself with paperwork from Wammy’s House. L, meanwhile, sorts through all the hand-written notes L the Second made on the Kira case. They’re written in a code that only L knows, most of them frustrated theories on how Kira could possibly be one person, acting alone.

“ Supernatural??? ” L the Second wrote in one margin, the handwriting cramped and tiny, as if he had so much difficulty contemplating the possibility that his fingers had fought him on the matter. L can hardly fault him for his skepticism -- he once felt the same way.

And then another, curious scrawl at the end of the copious notes: “What happened with Genesis 22?”

Genesis 22. The reference is unfamiliar to L, other than pointing to the bible passage where God tests Abraham, ordering him to burn his son alive as sacrifice. But given the way that L the Second phrased the question, L thinks Genesis 22 might refer to a case, one that he never encountered in his own lifespan.

“You look like you’re thinking hard.” Only Maki’s eyes and a tuft of hair shows from beneath her blanket.

“I am often thinking hard.”

“You’re nibbling the tip of your thumb instead of candy, that’s how I can tell it’s serious.”

L tucks the notes back into their folder, giving her a faint smile. “Well observed, Maki-san,” he says, switching from English to Japanese. The flight attendants are up front, somewhere in the galley, but they could show up any time. Better to be safe.

Maki sits up a little straighter, blanket slipping to her shoulders. “What is it?”

“Genesis 22. Familiar?”

Now she drops her feet to the floor, fully awake. “You mean the murderer? The one who killed those kids in Japan?”

“I do.” Because really, who else could L the Second have been thinking about?

“What makes you ask about?”

“What do you know about it? I’d like your perspective on the case.” Better that than to admit his own ignorance.

“Oh, well,” she says, shaking her head slightly, as if to clear it of dust. “I guess that must have been, what, nearly five years ago? Let me see what I can remember.” She taps a finger against her lips, quiet for a moment. “His M.O. was abducting children, brother-and-sister pairs, and keeping them locked up for a few days. The bodies were always malnourished when they were found, and they had lacerations on their hands, as if trying to escape a tight, enclosed space. But they weren’t starved to death, they were drowned. The bodies were always left in front of a church, the phrase ‘Gen 22’ written on their foreheads in ash.”

How perfectly morbid. L wonders why the NPA never called him in to help track the culprit down.

“And Genesis 22 was the case that was a big scandal for the NPA, right?” Maki wonders aloud.

L simply tilts his head and stares at her, willing her to continue.

“The third pair of kidnap victims were rescued, and Genesis 22 killed at the scene. It was a good piece of police work, but the public was pretty outraged, if I recall. It was the Chief’s own kids who were saved. Everyone wanted to know why he was able to rescue his own flesh and blood, but had failed to save the other victims.”

L’s hand dives into his messenger bag for a package of skittles and rips it open at once, shaking one-fourth of its contents into his mouth. The fruit flavors explode on his tongue as he chews hard, propelling his neurons into overdrive.

The Chief's kids were kidnapped, nearly murdered. Brother and sister pairs.

The Chief's own kids. Rescued.

“Chief Soichiro Yagami?”

“Yeah, I think that was his name. He ended up resigning to keep the peace.” Maki lifts her arms up in a stretch, gazing at the ceiling. “Which is kind of a shame, since he was evidently good at his job.”

“Yes, he was,” Watari says, half-listening all along. “After leaving he started his own private security company, Protection One.”

“And yet it’s reasonable to believe that he still has contacts within the NPA.” L shakes another cluster of skittles into his mouth.

“Where are you going with this?” Maki asks, clearly intrigued.

“I will let you know what I get there,” L says, his voice calm even as a predatory thrill swells within him. “Right now I am simply interested in determining why Kira hasn’t struck since we began working with the NPA.”

“Well, they did make that public announcement that they were consulting with you.”

L taps his folder full of notes. “Yes, but Kira’s murders ceased two days before that announcement was made.”

“You think Kira is affiliated with the NPA? No -- you think the ex-Chief could be Kira?”

“To my mind he’s a suspect, and the most compelling one, at that,” L says, and it’s at least half-true. He knows Soichiro Yagami isn’t Kira, but he’s a convenient fit for the profile: a disgruntled ex-cop, resentful that the public has no appreciation for true justice, twisted by guilt that his own failures nearly led to his children’s murder.

What does that make you, Light Yagami? A survivor? A victim?

Perhaps both.

And yet you’re still Kira.

“His daughter,” Maki begins, swallowing thickly. “I heard she’s disabled. Brain damage, you know? She came this close to dying, but the older brother was able to revive her.”

And also, apparently, a hero.

L is unable to keep a frown from shadowing his features. “That fact does not clear the former Chief of suspicion. Quite the opposite.”

“Yeah, I know.” She clutches her blanket in her fists, face puckering together as if she’s just tasted something foul. “I just hate the idea of Kira being a cop.”

Which L takes to mean that the idea crossed her mind some time ago.

“David Stephen Middleton. Anthony Sully. Gennady Mikhasevich. Christopher Dorner. Mikhail Popkov.” With each name L pops a different colored skittle in his mouth. Red, orange, purple, red, red.

Maki’s eyes narrow slightly. “Let me guess. Those are all cops who became serial killers?”

“More or less. I could recite more but I gather it’s not necessary.”

“No, I get your point.” Still, Maki’s frown deepens.

L looks out the window so that she doesn’t see him fighting back a smile. He’s found it, a way to Light Yagami and Kira. Like a traitor, his heart is pounding its way past 65, edging toward 70. This world’s Kira isn’t just a harbinger of justice, he’s a victim. He’s seen first hand the destruction wrought by those who treat life as disposable, as a forum for their own twisted ideologies. He knows what it means to save a life, to hold that delicate thing in the palm of his hand.  

L can’t help but think that this makes Kira all the more dangerous.

So be it.

The needle on his heart tips past 75.

You’re not the only one who’s more dangerous.

***

His first night in Light 2’s world, Light doesn’t dream. He never dips into sleep long or deep enough to visit that somnolent playground. Instead, he lies half-awake, the darkness pressing in around him on all sides like a cage, like a crypt.

Someone tried to murder me. Not me -- Light 2. But still, someone tried to murder me.

He sees the whites of Ryuk’s jaundiced eyes, pupils glowing Shinigami-red, followed by the sharp, downward slash of his pen.

No, someone did murder me.

The darkness is everywhere, flooding his lungs like ice water.

Can’t breathe -- can’t breathe!

He sits upright with a gasp, clawing the blankets away. He fumbles his way out of bed and, following some instinct, snaps on a tiny desk lamp. It’s paltry light is just enough to keep the suffocating dark away.

“Interesting,” Rem says, her voice making Light flinch. “I wondered why you went to bed with the light off. You never do that.”

Light doesn’t reply.

Rem told him all that she knew about the Genesis 22 killings, and Light followed up with a detailed internet search. The murders were the work of a man named Tegoshi Umeda, who lost custody of his own children, a boy and a girl, following a nasty divorce. His ex-wife moved to the States with the kids, and Umeda, worried that his children would be ‘tainted’ without their father’s guidance,  turned to religion for solace. Instead of finding peace, Umeda became more and more convinced that his children could only be ‘saved’ if they were sacrificed to God, but since he couldn’t reach his own children, he stole others, instead.

First there was Haruhiro and Chisa Yano, targeted while walking home from an amusement park in Asakusa. Umeda posed as an auto-rickshaw driver offering free rides in the guise of getting the kids home quickly and safely. While driving them in the direction of their homes, Umeda plied the victims with drugged sweets, and once they were made compliant transferred them to a van, relocating to an abandoned Greek Orthodox church on the ragged fringe of Tokyo’s most desolate suburb.

In the basement of that church, the children were kept inside heavy wooden coffins without food for three days. After the third day, they were led, weak and still drugged, to the church sanctuary. It was there that Umeda drowned them in a shallow baptismal pool. Their small bodies were dumped in the garden of an Episcopalian church in Adachi, the phrase “Gen 22” scrawled on their foreheads in ash.

Umeda repeated the same process with Yoshio and Enko Sone, and then again with Light and Sayu Yagami.

By the time that Light and Sayu were abducted, though, the NPA had already determined that Umeda was working from a secret location, most likely a religious site, and had a short list of abandoned properties that included the Greek Orthodox church.

They arrived just a little too late.

Light settles back into bed, more relaxed now that the room isn’t pitch-black. Experiencing Light 2’s PTSD is a burden, but one that Light can understand, at least in the abstract. He knows what it’s like to be confined, to fear for his life, even -- but he endured all that as an adult, and Light 2 was barely thirteen.

Yet that’s another detail that nags at Light’s brain. Light 2 was intelligent, the son of a police officer, the sort of adolescent who should be able to spot a predator like Genesis 22 from a mile away. How on earth had he let himself be lured into Umeda’s trap? Even while picking away at the question, Light’s eyes flutter shut.

Just keep walking, Sayu. He snatches kids when they’re on their way home from amusement parks. He’ll probably look like a normal guy, just trying to be helpful.  

But my feet hurt, Onii-chan. Can’t we just go home?  

No! Don’t you want to help Dad? Don’t you want to stop other kids from getting murdered?  

Yes, but I’m scared.  

Don’t be. You’re with me, and I won’t let anything happen to you.  

Light sits straight up, nearly groaning in frustration at the unearthed memory. How can Light 2 be so impulsive? How can he be so stupidly, mindlessly heroic? He rakes his fingers through his hair and stares up at the ceiling as it it might provide an answer.

From the corner of his vision, he spots that colorful manga poster, pinned up over the bed. Double Down! is the title, the riotous art featuring two samurai-mecha hybrid superheros. Light glares at the image, certain it’s to blame for Light 2’s fantasy heroics.

Idiot otaku!

Light comes to his knees and rips the poster off the wall, the tearing sound so satisfying that it makes him grin. He crunches the thick, shiny paper between his hands, compressing it into a ball.

“What are you doing now, Light?” Rem comes over, eyeing him curiously.

“Getting rid of this bullshit.” He squeezes the ball harder; if he squeezes hard enough, maybe it will disappear.

“But Double Down! is your favorite. It’s Kou-chan’s favorite, too.”

Light sets his blazing eyes on the Shinigami. “Who cares? I’m a new Light Yagami, now. I don’t need manga, and I don’t need Kou Miyano.”

“So what do you need, then?” The Shinigami’s single eye fixes on Light, but the question doesn’t sound mocking.

“ Nothing !” With that, Light tosses the remains of the poster toward the trash bin. It bounces against the rim and rolls away, under the bed.

Rem gamely goes after it, depositing it into the trash where it lands with a rustle. “Are you going to throw the book away, too?”

“The Death Note? Don’t be absurd.”

“No, not that book.” Rem points her bony finger at Light’s bedside table. “The one in there. You usually read it before bed, but tonight you didn’t.”

Light starts to open the drawer, but pulls away instantly when he hears soft footsteps coming from the hallway, followed by a hesitant knock on the door. Light briefly considers pretending he’s asleep, but figures that it’s too late now. Whoever’s out there must have heard him talking to Rem.

“Come in.”

The door inches open, the dim light revealing Soichiro Yagami’s weary face. “Light? I thought I heard your television.”

“Oh, yeah. I just turned it off. Sorry if it disturbed you.”

Soichiro enters the room and sits on the end of Light’s bed, the mattress creaking with his weight. “I was awake, anyway. Checking on your sister.”

“Is she alright?”

Soichiro nods, yawning against the back of his hand. “Fine. Just thirsty.”

His father looks older in this world, more gray hairs threading through his temples, heavier creases around his eyes and mouth.

Does he know that Light 2 used himself as bait to go after Genesis 22? Does he know that it’s his own son’s fault that Sayu can’t walk and can barely speak?

“How was your first day of University? I meant to ask you at supper, but I guess you were up here studying.”

“Yeah. I can’t let Takada stay number one for long, can I?” Light manages to give his father a smile, but just barely.

“Ah,” Soichiro murmurs, reaching out to give his son’s foot a pat. “You don’t have to be the best to do your best, Light. Don’t forget that.”

What kind of advice is that ? Light wonders, recoiling inwardly at his father’s touch. It isn’t that it’s unpleasant -- mostly, it’s just alien and unfamiliar. Possibly in part because Light still thinks of his father as dead.

You drove your own father to his death!

Matsuda’s voice screams from the far reaches of Light’s memory, making him jump.

“How are the nightmares?” Soichiro asks, voice low and worried.

Light smiles too quickly. “Fine. I -- they’re nothing. Just dreams.”

“Mmm. I have them, too.” Soichiro reaches out as if to pat Light’s foot again, but pulls his hand in at the last second, standing up, instead. “Well, I don’t want to keep you up. I know you have classes in the morning.”

“Yes, I should probably try to sleep.” He takes in his father’s fatigued profile. “So should you.”

Saichiro nods, reaching for the doorknob. “Goodnight, son.”

Light watches his father’s retreating back, wondering if this time Soichiro will cheer for Kira instead of working against him. His father knows now what it’s like to almost lose everything you love to the evil schemes of a child-murdering psychopath. He knows what it is to be haunted by nightmares.

“You’re pale, Light.”

“Please be quiet, Rem.”

“Alright, but you really should read that book, you know.” She swoops down to meet him at eye level. “It might not matter to you now, but it mattered to the old Light.”

“Fine,” Light sighs, but his thoughts are still reaching out to Soichiro, to Sayu, traveling through the quiet house in search of their wounded spirits. For the first time he feels an invisible thread tying him to his family, a desire not just to avenge them, but to nurture. Protect. The emotions probably belong to Light 2, but Light accepts them just the same.

Don’t worry, Father. The real Kira has arrived, and I’ll turn this world into a place where monsters like Genesis 22 are struck dead in their tracks. It’s those monsters who will soon suffer nightmares, not decent people like you. So sleep well and dream of Kira’s Utopia.

***

The ‘book’ is actually an old issue of Weekly Shōnen Jump , thumbed through nearly to rags. It features a chapter of Double Down! , naturally, and even an unenthusiastic manga reader like Light can get the jist of the plot from a single sample. The series focuses on the adventures of twins Ichiro and Jiro, initially separated at birth. Reunited many years later, they discover they can access fantastical ancient powers that allow them to perform heroic feats. Naturally, they use their new skills to fight evil around the world.

In this particular chapter, they face off against a villain who stymies them by refusing to fight back, instead insisting that they should join forces.

“I don’t get it,” Light mutters. “It’s a stupid, predictable story. A child could write this.”

“Did you get to the villain’s speech? That’s the part you used to mutter aloud to yourself,” Rem says, gingerly flicking at the pages.

Though he isn’t happy about it, Light forces himself to read the passage.

“I’m not a tyrant, Jiro. After all , it’s the common tyrant who changes the world through force. A true hero changes the world by design, in shifts so subtle that they can only be recognized as inevitable, as breathtaking as nature itself!”

Light re-reads the passage again, feeling as if he’s missing something. He recites them aloud this time, too, though he isn’t exactly sure why.

“It’s the common tyrant who changes the world through force. A true hero changes the world by design, in shifts so subtle that they can only be recognized as inevitable, as breathtaking as nature itself.”  

As the last syllable leaves his mouth, something clicks into place. He clutches the magazine to his chest and falls back on the bed, laughing quietly.

Oh, Light 2, you hopeless otaku. I think I underestimated you.

 ("Two Lights" by Zenthisoror - do not edit or repost without permission)

***

Elsewhere, in the far and not-so-far reaches of Pandæmonium, both Michelina and Lucas watch as their champions streak toward each other like meteors, set for a collision course.

There will be oh-so many sparks.

Chapter Text

Lux Et Lex

Kou Miyano is serenading Kiyomi Takada, and Light can hardly stand it.

It isn’t just that Kou is a terrible singer -- though he definitely is -- it’s that Takada’s creeping blush and barely restrained giggle is so alarmingly removed from the icy, refined Takada that Light remembers. She’s really in love, God help her, and God help Light’s ears.

“Have mercy on us, Kou-chan!” he heckles playfully.

They’re all at a karaoke box near To-Oh, having trundled over together after their last seminar of the day. Takada invited several of her girlfriends along, intending them as not-so-subtle prospects for Light, and so he sits on a neon vinyl sofa with Yuri and Arisu sandwiched on either side, their collective breath warm and honeyed. .

“You’re next, Light-chan,” Kou says, pointing the microphone at him. “I want to hear you sing a Misa-Misa song.”

“Ooh, sing ‘Dolly Girl,’” Yuri urges, widening her eyes at Light.

“‘Dolly Girl!’ Dolly Girl!” Arisu chants and claps her hands together. She has a fuzzy neko headband nestled in her black curls, and has eaten nothing but candy all evening. Every time she unwraps another fruit gummy or chocolate wafer, Light thinks of L and his monstrous sweet tooth. L’s thin, ghostly fingers, forever trying to take what’s rightly Light’s, even from beyond the grave.

Where the hell are you, L?

Light has spent three days in this parallel world waiting for the detective to spring out of some corner. He’s kept Rem on a strict rotation of checking for hidden cameras, for strangers tailing him, but the Shinigami never finds anything of note to report. Still, Light keeps waiting for L to emerge directly out of the shadows with movements so fluid he could be part shadow himself. He waits to be overwhelmed by those gray eyes wider than a bush-baby’s and sharper than flint, but never tinged with malevolence or rage. Not even at that dying moment when L had all the answers but no air left to speak them aloud.

Light swears that, this time, he will make L feel so much rage that he’ll choke on it. Not just choke -- drown.

“‘Dolly Girl?’” Arisu’s smile is shy now, perhaps regretting her initial claps of enthusiasm.

“But I don’t know any Misa Amane songs,” Light protests with a laugh. He’s seen ‘Misa-Misa’ on enough billboards by now to know that she’s not just an up-and-coming model, but a genuine mega-icon with several pop albums and a number of feature films under her belt. He only hopes she doesn’t have a Death Note under her belt, too. Though Misa had at times been useful to him, many of Light’s most trying struggles only came to pass after the Second Kira emerged. Better there only be one Kira, the true Kira, this time around.

“Here, why don’t you girls pick out a song for me.” Light passes Yuri one of the thick song books. “I promise I’ll sing anything you want, except Misa Amane. And while you’re deciding I think I’ll go check out the vending machines.”

He smoothly peels himself off the sofa and the girls are on the book at once, cooing over the possibilities. Even Takada joins in, squeezing into Light’s former spot between them.

“Light?” Kou’s brows lift at him in an expectant way. “I’ll come with you.”

“Sure.” Light’s smile is amiable as he holds the door open. He would have rather gone off alone, but he has a best friend now, and supposes he must endure the whims of this person who feels he’s earned a claim on Light’s time. That claim is what separates Kou from the friends in Light’s last life, who weren’t friends so much as dazzled onlookers maintaining a respectful orbit around him, silently hoping for gravity to pull them in.

“Whew, it was getting hot in there.” Kou laughs and swipes at his brow.

“Don’t flatter yourself there, Miyano,” Light smirks. “You’re lucky Takada is willing to turn a deaf ear to that voice of yours.”

“I am, aren’t I?” Kou laughs again, unfazeable. Rem, who is following, joins in, though Light doesn’t know if she’s laughing at Kou or with him.

The vending machines have a good selection of coffee and cold drinks, and Rem taps at a few of the buttons. “Sometimes you get this Georgia Black, Light. But other times you like Ooi Ocha.”

Light stares right through her. The Shinigami has come to enjoy instructing Light on the most minute of things; very rarely is it helpful.

“What do you want?” Light asks Kou, reaching for his wallet. “My treat.”

“The milk tea,” Kou says, with barely a nod to Light’s generosity.

You were probably always buying him things, weren’t you, Light 2?

The machine dispenses a can of Georgia Black for Light, a bottle of milk tea for Kou. They open their drinks and lean against a window that looks out on the busy street below, adopting that easy, pressure-free silence of two people who’ve known each other for years -- that’s what it feels like to Light, anyway, who has never really known such a thing.

Kou tilts toward him, so close their shoulders brush. “You know you can tell me anything, right?”

Light recoils at the words; they’re too knowing, too close, too out of nowhere. They aren’t the sort of words that male friends swap with one another. “What, you think I’m keeping secrets from you?” Light laughs softly.

“Mm.” Kou purses his lips against his bottle of tea. “Probably. I feel like you usually are.”

Their shoulders are still barely brushing, but Light feels warmth unfurl in his stomach somewhere.

Keep it in your pants, Light 2.

Light straightens up, breaks the contact. “They aren’t secrets, really,” he says, then surprises himself by being honest instead of dodging: “There are things I’d just rather not talk about.”

Tell me, Light, from the moment you were born, has there ever been a point where you’ve actually told the truth?

The warmth in Light’s stomach goes cold, snuffed out in one quick pinch.

“I know. I understand.”

Kou sounds like he means it -- not just means it, but accepts it.

“Have you watched the news? They’re saying that Kira’s back.”

Light studies Kou’s faint reflection in the glass, and judges from Kou’s carefully level tone that they’ve discussed Kira before, but only in the most indirect ways. “Yes, I saw,” he says, voice quiet and equally level.

The other man twists the lid off his tea, then tightens it up again, his knuckles going white. “Good. I’m glad.”

“ Are you?” The words are sharper than Light intended. He tries to cover them up with a long drink of coffee.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Kou says, even though Light isn’t really looking at him. “I’d feel that way even if I didn’t know you and Sayu.”

Light definitely looks at him now, coffee still held to his lips. “I don’t see what it has to do with me or my sister.”

Kou whirls around, his eyes disbelieving. “Kira’s wiping out criminals, Light. Don’t tell me that doesn’t fill you with satisfaction of some kind. After what you’ve been through...” He trails off, shoulders drooping.

“It does satisfy me, I guess. But it still doesn’t change the past, does it?” Light shrugs, though he’s surprised even as the words slip out of him. But it’s true, isn’t it? A criminal’s crimes don’t die with him -- they endure. They linger and haunt, creeping in through nightmares.

All the more reason why criminals have to go -- fewer nightmares for everyone, if only in the long run.

“I --” Kou falters, his face tinged with guilt. “You’re right, of course it doesn’t change the past.”

“No, but hey, maybe it will change a few futures.” Light smiles faintly, looking out the window at the heavy stream of traffic below. “What makes you think Kira’s a person, though?”

“What else would he be?”

“Ah, I don’t know,” Light laughs carelessly. “Who actually has that kind of power, though? And if someone did, wouldn’t they show themselves, somehow?” He drops his elbows to the windowsill and deliberately softens his features, a ribbon-thin sigh of contemplation escaping his lungs. “Maybe Kira isn’t a person but a force of nature. Like a cataclysmic event, tipping the world back to balance again.”

“Do things like that really happen?”

“If the reports are true, they are happening.”

Kou drains the last of his tea. “I don’t know. I’ve talked about Kira with Kiyomi, and she definitely thinks there’s some intelligence orchestrating everything.”

“That’s humans for you.” Light smiles a little and shakes his head. “Our egos are so huge, we see human-like intellect behind the most basic, natural phenomenon. All those floods and typhoons out of mythology weren’t weather patterns but punishments dealt out by angry gods.”

Even Kou smiles at that. “Good point. Criminals dropping dead isn’t really the same as a flood, though.”

“No, but it could still be a natural phenomenon we don’t yet understand, just like we once didn’t understand flood patterns. It could even be a biological saltation -- a sudden, genetic mutation.”

“Still.” Kou’s brow wrinkles, troubled. “That’s even scarier, somehow.”

“Oh?”

“That humans have become so corrupt that even nature and our own biology have noticed. We’ll have no choice but to adapt if we want to survive.”

“Hmm,” Light muses, as if the thought is new to him. “I guess that’s true.”

Kou tosses his bottle into the recycling bin, where it lands with a clatter. “We should head back. The girls are probably getting impatient to hear you warble and croon while pouting into that microphone.” Kou’s old playful smile has returned, and Light grins back.

But as soon as his friend’s back is turned, he feels the grin twist into something darker, a rush of power enveloping his lungs and throttling up the column of his spine. It’s almost as good as writing in the Death Note, and his fingertips tingle, ache to grasp a pen.

“Why are you smiling like that, Light?” Rem peers down at Light, but something in his expression keeps her from swooping too close. “I’ve never seen you look like that before.”

His plan is working.

***

Even though his father is no longer affiliated with the NPA, Light had found it easy to hack into their databases. The skills he acquired while posing as “L” after the real L died have been invaluable, and computer hacking is but one of them.  

It only took him a few hours to find three perfect candidates. The first was a recently-sentenced arsonist who burned down his parents’ home with them still inside, intending to collect on their insurance. The second was a common street thug who bludgeoned a tourist couple with a tire-iron and robbed them of their money. The wife ended up dying of her injuries two days later.

The third name Light wrote in the Death Note was the most important. He was the 16-year old son of an extremely successful real estate tycoon with rumored yakuza connections. The young man was dating a 21-year old Australian native who was 7 months pregnant with his child, and one night beat her so severely that she fell into a coma. The fetus did not survive. Meanwhile, the tycoon’s son was being kept under house arrest while the NPA quietly conducted their investigation. The encrypted files Light found featured both a detailed list of the Australian woman’s injuries and a recent photograph of the young suspect. He looked like an ordinary teenager, not especially bright or handsome, just better-dressed than most.

Light had found it all too easy to picture the kid’s bland, pedestrian face while he carved the characters of his name into the Death Note.

As Light and Kou head back to their karaoke box, they pass a trio of middle-school girls coming out of the restrooms. All of them are talking about the tycoon’s dead son.

Kira? they whisper. Who is Kira?

What is Kira?

***

It’s after eleven when Light gets home. The house is dark except for a single bulb blazing in the kitchen, glaring like an accusation. His mother is in a stool pulled up to the counters, flipping through a stack of photo albums, but as soon as she hears Light shut the door behind him her head jerks up, her eyes twin hollows.

“Light, where were you?”

“Study group,” he lies, slipping out of his shoes.

As with most families, everyone in this house has a role to play, and the harmony of the house depends on everyone playing them well. Baaba takes care of the cooking and other household chores, Sachiko is essentially Sayu’s nurse, and Soichiro provides the financial support. This leaves Light with the vague and nebulous task of shoring everything up around the edges, infusing the atmosphere with a sense of normalcy even while the atmosphere resists him at every turn.

Tonight’s resistance, it seems, will come courtesy of his mother.

“Your father is working late and Baaba went to bed early with a cold.” She sniffs, and the sound is tinged with barely-suppressed resentment. “I’ve been here all alone.”

He steps into the kitchen and pours himself a glass of water. The sink is full of wet lemon rinds.

“Isn’t Sayu here?”

“Yes. That’s what I mean, I’ve been alone with her.” Sachiko’s back is rigid, her hands flipping through the photo album mechanically. Each page is plastered with her own modeling pictures.

Light would normally roll his eyes. The fallen ingenue getting drunk while poring over her glory days, could there be anything more cliche? It could be something that Lucas scripted up, given his fondness for banality, but after three days Light knows that his mother doesn’t work off a script. Her moods are so unpredictable that Light, a master of navigating social situations, is frequently set back on his heels. A smile and buoyant laugh might accompany a barrage of complaints, and she alternates between chastising Light for not helping her enough, and accusing him of babying her.

Keeping up with her makes him weary.

“I was thinking of throwing these away,” Sachiko says, surprising him yet again. “There doesn’t seem much point in keeping them around.”

“What about the photos in the upstairs hallway?”

“Those can go, too.” She nods with finality. “Maybe I’ll put up some pictures of cranes.” Here she pivots on her stool to look at him. “You like cranes, right?”

He pauses, then nods. “Sure, they’re nice.”

His mother turns her back again, her shoulders slumping just slightly. “Was I a bad mother, Light?”

For the first time, he hears the slur around her words.

“‘Was?’ You’re still a mom, last I checked.” He rounds the counter so that she can see his teasing smile.

Her brown eyes are flat and listless, immune to his charm. “You didn’t answer the question.”

“Of course you weren’t a bad mother.”

Not when you were my mother, anyway.

“That’s good.” She slaps the photo album shut, sending up a puff of air that blows her bangs back. “Since all I am is a wife and mother now, it’s good that I’m not a bad one.”

Any sympathy Light was on the verge of feeling boils away. “Well, since all I am is your son, it’s good that I’m not a bad one.”

Her eyes widen, but there’s still no spark there.

“If I were,” he continues, voice cool but not cold, “I might tell you to stop drinking in the dark, feeling sorry for yourself.”

The words hang between them like a rotten odor.

But she opens her mouth and a laugh spills out. “Light, oh -- you reminded me of your young self just now. Oh!” Her body tips in his direction, still sputtering out giggles. “So perfect, just the right amount of sanctimonious. I called you ‘my little officer.’ Do you remember?”

Light stares at her; the laughter is ten times more unnerving than the drinking and moping. “I remember,” he says, though he doesn’t.

“You need to teach me, Light.” Her arm weaves unevenly across the counter, reaching out for him. “Teach me how to be my old self.” Her eyes are gleaming now, not with tears but desperation. “How do you and your father do it? Why is it so hard for me?” Her shoulders tremble with some staggering emotion.

“Mother,” he mutters, uncomfortable. Repulsed.

The front door swings open, followed by the stamp of his father’s shoes.

“Soichiro!” his mother calls out, an odd smile on her face. “You’re late. Why are you always late?” Her words are charged with accusation.

His father falters, coat mid-way off. He’s set back on his heels, too.

“What’s this?” Soichiro hangs up his coat and comes toward them cautiously, arms held passive at his sides. “You’re both still awake?”

“I just got home from a study group.”

Sachiko rises from her stool and throws what’s left of her drink down the drain. “One of you take those out to the trash,” she says, pointing at the photo albums. “I don’t ever want to see them again.”

They both watch her disappear up the stairs.

Soichiro sighs. “I guess it was a rough night here.”

“Looks like it.”

Light’s father gathers up the photo albums and returns them to a shelf in the living room. “She doesn’t really want to throw these away,” he says, setting them down hard.

“I can’t keep up with what she wants.” It’s a statement of fact, not a complaint, but Light immediately wishes he’d kept the thought to himself.

“I’m sorry, Light. This is an important time in your life. This family is my responsibility, so please don’t worry about your mother too much.”

His father, at least, is still predictable, and for that Light is grateful.

There isn’t much more for them to say, so Light excuses himself and heads for his bedroom, both body and spirit drained by the ever-grim weather of the house. No wonder Baaba plays loud variety shows at all hours of the day -- they’re the only kind of of music and laughter that fills the air here, anymore.

“Are you alright, Light?” Rem asks, expressionless. Then again, her face is always expressionless, but for that single yellow eye.

Light unbuttons his shirt and drops it into the hamper. “There’s no need to ask questions when you don’t really care about the answers.”

The Shinigami considers this. “Okay, that’s fair.”

Light changes into pajama bottoms and lays down on his bed, trying to remember if his father looked as tired and stressed during the Kira case as he does now, in this world. Kira isn’t hanging over his head this time, but plenty of other things are.

How could you resign, Dad? The NPA needs cops like you now more than ever.  

I had to resign because I’m responsible, son. If I’d only been there a few minutes sooner, your  sister wouldn’t be in the hospital, fighting for her life.  

No, it’s because you were there that she’s alive at all. Don’t you know that?!  

I’m sorry, Light, but this is how it has to be. Someday, when you’re older, you’ll understand.  

The memory ripples through Light cleanly, without that overwhelming sense of overlap and intrusion, and Light can’t tell if it’s because Light 2’s memory is an extension of his own current thoughts, or if it’s a sign that he and Light 2 are starting to merge, somehow -- their experiences unique and separate but firmly inhabiting the same space.

The possibility makes Light want to claw through his own rib-cage and drag Light 2 out like a wriggling parasite. It doesn’t matter that Light 2 was here first -- the real Light is here now.

The real Light isn’t going anywhere.

He curls onto his side, half-burying his face in the clean scent of his pillowcase. The corners of the bedroom are pillars of shadow, and he holds his breath, waiting for a tall, sinuous figure to materialize from the dark.

Not just waiting -- wishing.

Light was built for a particular kind of struggle: call it mind games, call it intellectual chess, call it cat-and-mouse. All of them describe the schemes that L was an expert at cooking up and dishing out. Light is ready for that struggle -- he thirsts for it with every cell of his being -- and only L can deliver satiation.

Even being handcuffed to Ryuzaki would be preferable to staying in this house and its prison of trauma and heartache.

***

It goes much as it did before.

The four NPA officers line up in a hotel suite and talk to the computer monitor that hides L’s face and voice. Aizawa, Matsuda, Mogi, and Ide -- only Ukita is missing, having never become an officer in this world. Watari collects their mobiles and checks for weapons and other tech devices; Maki keeps watch on the hallway surveillance cameras.

L tells them what they need to know, no more and no less. He wants them for a special Kira Task Force, a secret from both the public and everyone in the NPA who isn’t Chief Takimura. They have less reason to fear this time -- Kira isn’t yet killing those who oppose him -- but it doesn’t mean that they’re eager. Far from it. Matsuda is the first to protest.

“Why should we try to stop Kira when it might put a target on our backs? He hasn’t killed anyone who didn’t deserve it.”

The four men rush in to argue with each other. Aizawa says something about how they can’t let some spook do their job for them. Mogi says that a murder is a murder, simple as that. Ide doesn’t like not knowing what Kira will do next.

L leans into the microphone, every muscle in his body wired tight. He wants to move past this part, has to pull back on his own reigns to keep from rushing ahead.

“Kira has already progressed. He has surpassed the NPA’s authority, killing a suspect who was not yet convicted. He will only progress further from here.”

The men don’t immediately disagree. They know they have a leak in their midst.

Yamato Mori, the 16-year old son from a family with suspected yakuza connections, died of a heart attack before the NPA could complete their investigation on him. A 22-year old woman was in limbo between life and death, and Mori suspected of inflicting the injuries that landed her in a coma and terminated her pregnancy. That Mori was murdered by Kira is not in doubt.

L flicks his eyes to the crime-scene photographs laid out on his desk. Three Kira murders since he landed in Tokyo; three encoded messages at each of the scenes.

If L didn’t know better, he would wonder if Kira sensed L’s arrival. If Kira was drawing L closer, like a planet casting its inexorable pull on the one pale moon that could breach the atmosphere and batter his surface.

Or maybe fate is real, after all. L is an orphan in this world, just as he was in the last. Light Yagami has the Death Note here, just as he had it there. Some souls seem bent toward the intoxicating chaos of self-destruction no matter what.

L decides that he will have to ask Michelina about fate when he next sees her.

But for now, he has to believe in free will. He has to believe that Light Yagami can change, that he can be the one to breathe that change into being.

Meanwhile, the men don’t immediately disagree, but they still hesitate.

“Why us?” Matsuda asks, his face just as unblemished and free of cynicism as L remembers.

“You have a history together.”

Mogi and Ide exchange a weighted look. Aizawa’s face wrinkles with a frown.

“You mean Genesis 22. We were all on the task force that took him down, along with the former Chief, Soichiro Yagami.”

“Yes. I’m very interested in former Chief Yagami.”

“You think he can help?” Matsuda’s voice is hopeful.

“In a manner of speaking.” L pauses, presses a thumb to his lips. “As of now he is my primary suspect.”

The men erupt again. Not Chief Yagami! Impossible. No way.

L doesn’t bother to soothe them. “There’s more I must tell you, but it would be best to do so face to face.”

Because once again, I’m putting my life on the line for Kira.

It goes much as it did before. L lopes into the suite in his bare feet and rumpled tee, jeans ragged around his ankles, and the officers look upon him with varying degrees of disbelief.

“I’m L, though it would be better if you called me Ryuzaki.”

“Is that your real name?” Aizawa, bristling with suspicion.

“No. And anyone who remains on the task force may adopt an alias for their own security, if they prefer.”

Matsuda’s eyes shimmer with worry. “Why would we need aliases?”

“I find them useful for a number of reasons, but in this case, I believe that Kira can only murder people if he knows their full name and their faces.” L walks over to one of the sofas and climbs onto it, assuming his usual posture. “Please sit, if you like. I’m going to.”

None of them do.

Mogi rubs at his temple. “If Kira is infiltrating the NPA, then he probably already knows our names and faces.”

“And if Kira is Chief Yagami, then he definitely does.” This from Ide, who frowns at the idea.

“Chief Yagami isn’t killing criminals!” Matsuda’s voice takes on a tone of pleading, and he looks to L in desperation. “You don’t know him, what’s he’s been through. He wouldn’t do that.”

“I’m afraid that your testimony isn’t enough to clear him. The quickest way to do so would be for me to question him at length.”

“He didn’t do it!”

L regards Matsuda calmly. “Bring him in for questioning so that I can share in your conviction.”

Matsuda draws up to his full height and goes silent. “If you’re going to question the Chief you should question his son, too.”

L tilts his head, crow-like. The Matsuda he remembers was always a firm believer in Light’s innocence. “And why should I do that?”

“Come on, Matsuda,” Aizawa murmurs, a verbal eye-roll.

“His son, Light Yagami. He was kidnapped by Genesis 22. The experience -- it messed him up. Even after his father resigned, Light would show up at the Headquarters and try to get involved in our investigations. He’d claim that he knew more than we did, would insist that if we knew what was best we’d let him help out.”

Aizawa raises a hand as if to wave Matsuda’s words away. “Light was only 14 or 15 at the time, and he hasn’t tried to meddle for a few years now. He’s an honor student at To-Oh University, I think.”

L pretends to chew the possibility over. “I would be interested in talking to Light Yagami, as well as his father. Ideally at the same time.”

“Are you going to show them your face?” At this, Mogi looks doubtful.

L’s only answer is to smile and unwrap a vividly purple lollipop.

***

Every day, Light spends at least an hour with his sister.

His first full day in the parallel world he did it at his mother’s request, but since then he’s gone without prompting -- without thinking, even, his feet carrying him toward that first-floor bedroom as if being propelled along by the sheer force of Light 2’s lingering will.

Sayu sleeps frequently, worn to exhaustion by both physical therapy and her online high school classes. Her hair is cut short for easy maintenance, making her eyes appear unnaturally large, and a diet of soft, easy-to-chew foods has left her thin, her limbs barely stapled to her body. She is able to breath on her own, but the near-drowning damaged her lungs enough so that she requires oxygen on most days.

Despite all this, she perks up whenever Light enters the room.

“Onii-chan,” she says, smiling at how the name comes out with minimal struggle.

They usually watch a crap TV program together, like the one Hideki Ryuga stars in, or Light reads to her from one of the many novels that line her shelves. She likes fantasy and science fiction best, and Light has read through half of Paprika , a novel whose themes Light finds uncomfortably familiar.

Light doesn’t think too hard about why Light 2 is so much closer to Sayu than he ever was. Maybe it’s because their mother was a famous model, and they only had each other to turn to. Maybe it’s because her brother is the only person in the family who treats her like she’s still a person and not a broken body. Maybe it’s because they were both kidnapped and nearly killed by a fanatical, ritualistic killer.

The latter was Light 2’s fault, technically, but any grudge Sayu might hold has been eclipsed by the worshipful glow beaming from her eyes.

The day after the karaoke party he’s reading to her again, his voice raised higher than usual to compete with the sound of Baaba’s variety program, echoing out in the living room. The volume is so loud that Light almost doesn’t hear it when his father knocks a fist against the door frame, interrupting.

“Light.” Soichiro swallows hard enough for Light to see it. “There are some people here to talk to us.”

“Who is it?” It’s after dinner on a Friday, and the Yagami house doesn’t really get unexpected guests.

“Just come out, please.”

Light carefully bookmarks his spot and puts the novel back on the shelf. “We’ll continue soon, Imouto,” he says, smiling at Sayu.

He feels his sister’s gaze follow him out of the bedroom.

Baaba is still washing up from dinner, and Sachiko stands anxiously near the dining room table, knotting her hands together. The television’s volume has been lowered to dull murmur.

“Hello, Yagami-kun.” Shuichi Aizawa raises a hand in greeting. “It’s been a long time. You look well.” Next to him, Kanzo Mogi nods stoically.

Light gives a brief bow. “Aizawa-san, Mogi-san. It’s good to see you again.”

“Aizawa and Mogi are here on some unofficial police business,” Soichiro explains, and Light notices that his father’s complexion is tinged with a dull pallor. “They’d like us to go with them.”

“Go with them where?”

“A secure location.” Aizawa’s smile doesn’t meet his eyes. “Just to talk for a few hours.”

“Don’t go, either of you,” Light’s mother butts in, her voice wavering. “You don’t have to go anywhere if it’s unofficial business.”

“It’s fine, Sachiko.” Soichiro rests a hand on his wife’s shoulder. “They’re old friends. Of course we’ll go with them.”

“Yes, of course.” Light flashes their guests an unworried smile, his eyes traveling to Aizawa’s belt buckle.

“What do you think’s happening now, Light?” Rem asks from somewhere behind him.

Only what I’ve been waiting for, Rem.

The shadows cleave open, inviting him inside.

***

After a short ride across town, they’re taken to the top level of a business hotel in Marunouchi. The hallways are so quiet that Light idly wonders if L booked every room on the floor.

Of course he did -- that’s just the sort of thing that L would do.

“Right here, please.” Aizawa stops at a suite’s double doors, knocks once, then waits. Light runs his eyes along the ceiling for security cameras, doesn’t see any but knows that they’re there, just the same.

Matsuda opens the door, his cheeks instantly colored by the sight of his former boss. “Chief! Good to see you -- I mean, sorry to drag you in. It’s just --”

“Nice to see you too, Matsuda.” Soichiro nods.

Light walks into the suite on rubbery limbs, his fingers twitching in anticipation. The room is airy and well-appointed with understated luxuries. The carpet, in particular, is thick and velvety, muffling their footsteps.

For the last few days, Light has put intense thought into the persona that he will present to L when they meet. When they encountered each other in the first world, the detective determined that Light was too perfect, so polished as to be inhuman, and it was this sheen of refinement that made him treat Light as a suspect until the very end.

But L won’t be expecting perfection this time around; it’s a key difference that Light knows he must use to his advantage.

“Now that we’re here you might as well know that we all work for the detective L,” Aizawa says, gesturing at himself, Mogi, Matsuda, and Ide. All four men sit down in a semi-circle of leather club chairs, leaving Light and his father to the sofa.

“I figured as much.” Soichiro cups his hand around his chin. “You’re all investigating Kira?”

“Yes!” Matsuda speaks too quickly, as usual. “But we’ve just gotten started, really, and --”

“Shh.” Mogi pokes the younger officer in the shoulder, cutting him off.

A door creaks open at the rear of the suite, and Light turns his head so hard that his neck cramps in protest.

A youngish woman enters the room, dressed in a masculine, tailored suit that somehow compliments her slim, athletic build. She flops into the remaining empty club chair, limbs loose, and runs a hand through her shoulder-length black hair. Her features are narrow and inquisitive, her lips painted with a slash of dark crimson.

“Hello, gentlemen.” She smiles at Light and his father, showing her teeth. “I’m L.”

“So the detective L is a woman?” Rem says from her perch by the wet bar, her tone somehow approving.

A throb of protest tightens Light’s ribcage. No. No, L is definitely not a woman. Even while forcefully pushing the idea away, Light remembers how L had always kept a cadre of successors waiting in the wings, should he die or become otherwise indisposed.

What if Ryuzaki isn’t L in this world? What if Ryuzaki is already dead, and this woman is the new L? No, no. Lucas said it would be L. It has to be L!

“I’m Soichiro Yagami,” Light’s father says, faltering just slightly. “Pardon my surprise. I had it in my head that detective L was a man.”

“Did you?” The lady L’s eyes sparkle with something a tad darker than mischief. “How interesting.” She turns her gaze to Light. “What about you, Yagami-kun? Were you also expecting a man?”

“I wasn’t expecting to meet L at all.”

“But here I am.” She claps her hands against her knees. “I’ve come to Tokyo to investigate Kira.”

“You want my help?” Soichiro guesses. “I’m happy to give it.” He lowers his head slightly, and Light both hears and feels him take in a deep breath. “I admit that it’s been difficult to watch this go on from the sidelines.”

The lady L laughs strangely. “You’re offering to help? Well, that makes things easier. Have you already been profiling Kira?”

Light listens carefully to the sound of her voice. There’s something strange about it. Something familiar.

“Not in any official capacity, but my experience tells me that Kira is a young, Japanese male. Possibly someone who wanted to become a police officer, but wasn’t qualified for training.”

The lady L doesn’t respond, but turns her eyes on Light again. “And you, Yagami-kun? What do you think of your father’s assessment?”

“Um.” Light pauses. It feels unnatural to inject nonsensical noises into his usually smooth diction. “My father was always very good at his job, so I think his assessment is probably worthwhile.”

She leans toward him. “Is that hesitation I hear? No need to hold back with me.”

Light doesn’t shy away from her dark eyes, and as the silence draws out between them a name floats into the back of his mind.

Misora. Naomi Misora.

Light drops his eyes into his lap, masking his dark smile.

“I won’t hold back with the real L. In fact, I’d prefer to speak with him instead of an imposter.”

Nearby, Matsuda lets out a thin gasp.

“You think I’m an imposter?” The lady L is smiling again, and it nearly looks genuine. “Is that sexism I hear? Or do you have some other basis for your wild conclusion?”

“I wouldn’t call the conclusion wild.” Light speaks quietly, eyes still affixed to his kneecaps. “You speak with a Kansai dialect, like someone who grew up in Osaka. L, whoever he or she is, didn’t grow up in Japan, so they would likely speak in standard Hyojungo. I suppose a famous detective could fake dialects, if they needed to, but I’m not sure why you’d do that now unless you were hoping that either I or my father would take notice.”

“Wow.” Lady L crosses her hands in her lap, the Kansai dialect gone, replaced with Shitamachi. “I’m pretty impressed. And also relieved I don’t have to talk like that anymore.”

“You mean you’re not the real L?” Soichiro blurts out, eyebrows darting up his forehead.

“I’m afraid not. But don’t worry, the real boss has been watching.” She smiles at Light. “I think he’s going to like you.”

Light smiles back. Inside, he’s gloating -- nearly insulted that L tried to trick him with such a paltry parlor trick.

“I can’t believe you noticed the dialect,” Matsuda says, eyes agog.

“Yes. Well done, Light-kun.”

The voice comes from directly behind him, brushing against Light’s cheek like cold cobwebs. Long fingers tap against leather, followed by a blur of movement that ends with the detective perched on the sofa arm, staring down at Light with gray eyes darker than sharkskin. Light tilts backward and lifts his chin. L is everything he remembered and then some. Shaggy black hair spilling down his neck, complexion a study in dull marble, shoulders hunched like a cat’s

“I’m L.”

Light tries to smile, but it dies on his lips.

***

Chapter Text

(interludium)

9 April 2007

Detroit, MI

Every other day of the week, Cody Callahan volunteers at a different nursing home. On Fridays it’s Maycrest Manor, an ugly, brick-and-shingle building from the 1970’s that’s located a stone’s throw from Mount Cross Cemetery -- as if the elderly needed more reminding that death was breathing down their neck.

Death is always breathing down their necks.

Cody wears the standard candy-striper uniform, a thin, pink-and-white smock that droops over his shoulders and ties at the waist. The fabric is cheap and rips easily, and it isn’t striped, as one might expect, but patterned in a faint gingham. Cody has worn striped smocks before, though, once even one that was a solid hot pink, like a wad of wet bubblegum. From Cleveland to Detroit, he’s volunteered at over twenty hospitals and nursing homes. He’s helped a lot of people, and he feels good about his work.

The work isn’t hard. He pours water, fetches magazines and newspapers, re-arranges blankets, empties bedpans. Mostly, he listens. In hospitals, the ill are lonely and restless; in nursing homes, the elderly are often reduced to giant, wrinkled babies, blinking dumbly and drooling from the corners of their mouths. Some of them, though, know exactly where they are and what awaits them.

Mr. DeMatteo is one of the livelier patients at Maycrest. He has bad hips, but can still get about with the aid of a walker. He has hearing aids in both ears, and wears his oddly full hair slicked back in a salt-and-pepper pompadour. Whenever Cody enters the room, Mr. DeMatteo calls him ‘sweets’ and asks if he has a boyfriend.

Mr. DeMatteo, like most people, believes that Cody is a girl.

Cody isn’t a girl, and doesn’t want to be one. He doesn’t particularly care about being a boy, either. Things go easier, though, if people believe he’s a girl. That’s what Tami always taught him.

“I like your hair, sweets. It looks real pretty.”

“Thank you, Mr. DeMatteo.” Cody doesn’t actually have hair, Tami started shaving it off when Cody was eight years old. He has a lot of wigs, though, and the one he’s been wearing to Maycrest hangs to his shoulders in loose, strawberry-blond curls that look a bit like ribbons on a birthday present.

Cody waters the plants that a well-meaning relative left on Mr. DeMatteo’s windowsill, feeling the old man’s eyes follow his every move.

“How are you feeling today?”

“Like shit.” Mr. DeMatteo coughs roughly into the hem of his blanket.

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Cody sets down the watering can and starts stacking a loose pile of newspapers. Mr. DeMatteo is in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, but still cognizant enough to know what looms ahead.

“Cherish your youth while you have it, because it’s all downhill from here.”

Cody eyes the wavering lifespan illuminated over Mr. DeMatteo’s head. He still has four years left. In that stretch of time he’ll begin to have difficulties eating and going to the bathroom on his own. Walking will become more difficult; eventually he’ll be bed bound. At that point, he’ll be more prone to infections and illness. Maybe it will be a blood clot that takes his life, or maybe it will be pneumonia. Or maybe it will be Cody.

“As soon as I feel my youth slipping away, I’ll probably just end things,” Cody says, pulling up a chair and looking straight into Mr. DeMatteo’s wet, red-rimmed eyes. Cody knows that by the time he leaves, the old man will have forgotten their conversation. He always forgets their conversations.

“Jesus, what a thing to say.” Mr. DeMatteo laughs drily. “I used to think the same thing when I was a kid like you, I guess.”

Cody is 22 years old, barely 5-foot-4 in stocking feet, and weighs roughly the same amount as a middle-schooler. Most people think he’s 16.

“Are you happy here?” Cody tugs at a strawberry curl and looks away -- another trick Tami taught him. To look vulnerable, a little afraid. It’s not the same thing as being cute, but it still works.

“Look around, sweets. This isn’t the Ritz-Carlton.”

“But do you feel like you’re suffering?”

Another dry laugh. “Sure. But I thought that when I was 40, too. Even when I was 20.”

Cody can relate. He can’t really remember a time when he wasn’t suffering, either, but things haven’t been so bad lately. Not since he started helping people.  

“Cody?” One of the CNAs pokes her head in the door. “Can I get your help in the lounge for a minute?”

“Of course.” Cody stands up and brushes off his smock. “See you later, Mr. DeMatteo.”

“Bye, sweets.” The old man’s gaze trails Cody all the way to the door.

The nursing home lounge is kept immaculately clean, but -- like the residents -- is starting to show its age. The furniture is all sickly pastels and heavy wood grain. An upright piano sits under the window, and a fish tank burbles in the corner. The remains of a large sheet cake and some cookies are spread out on one of the tables.

“It was Mrs. Kline’s birthday,” the CNA says, gesturing at the leftovers. “We’ll need to box these up and throw them away, I guess. Unless you want to take them home?”

Cody’s eaten the nursing home’s cookies before; they taste of sugar and chemicals and crumble like sawdust when bitten into. “My mom’s diabetic,” he explains. “But I wouldn’t mind eating them.”

The CNA looks doubtful. “You sure? They’re not very tasty.”

Cody starts consolidating the leftover cookies onto a single tray. “That’s okay. They’re better than nothing.” As he handles the sweets he feels the CNA watching him in a quiet, considering way.

They take the tray to the break room and find a big ziploc bag for the cookies. After stowing them away, Cody turns back to the CNA, his head cast downward.

“Um, do you think I could take the cake home, too?”

“Sure.”

“Oh, good.” Cody smiles and reaches for another bag.

“Wait.”

Cody turns his head, taking in the woman’s concerned expression. She walks to her locker and yanks it open, hand fishing through her purse until she finds her wallet.

“Here.” She passes Cody a crisp, twenty-dollar bill. “Buy yourself some real food. You’re still growing, you should be eating better.”

Cody feels a genuine blush creep across his face. He isn’t proud of being a grifter, but it’s all he knows -- all Tami taught him.

“Are you sure?”

“I insist.” The money shakes in her hand.

Once his two hour shift is up, Cody walks home with bags of cookies and cake tucked into his backpack, the twenty dollars squeezed into his wallet with the rest of his money.

As his shoes scuff across the cracked sidewalk, Cody wonders if Tami would be proud of him. Thinking about Tami is a hard habit to break; she was less a mother and more his master, training him in the art of deception from the time that he could walk. Not that Cody realized it at the time -- no, that inkling didn’t come until much later, when his mother started shaving his head, started calling him her ‘daughter,’ started asking around online for donations.

This is my beautiful baby girl, Cody. She’s been epileptic her whole life, and now she’s been diagnosed with leukemia. I am on disability and am unable to work, but I love my little girl to pieces! Anything you can spare will be appreciated. God bless!

Cody really can’t remember a time when he wasn’t suffering something.

“Hey, Cody. Can we buy some apples with that money?”

Cody’s eyes briefly glow red, then glance upward to meet the Shinigami’s. The creature’s shadow never fails to feel like comfort.

“Sure, Ryuk. What kind do you want?”

***

Chapter Text

Lupus Est Homo Homini

Light Yagami, Light Yagami. Who are you? Did you ever read Dostoyevsky? ‘It takes something more than intelligence to act intelligently.’ I’ve been wanting to discuss that with someone. I’ve been wanting to discuss that with you. Light Yagami. ‘When reason fails, the devil helps.’ Are you the devil? Are you going to damn me? How will we die this time, Kira? Are you here? Are you with me? Light Yagami...

In her original form, Michelina can partially sense the pinwheeling kaleidoscope of L’s thoughts, each neuron bursting with a different-colored aura. Yellow for hope, blue for doubt, a muddle of black and white for compassion. She both observes and listens from a replica of L’s hotel suite, viewing him on the same computer screen where he views Light Yagami.

“This is the first time I’ve watched them in a while.”

At the sound of Gabe’s voice, Michelina slips back into human form without thinking. She twirls the desk chair around to face him.

“Watched who?”

Gabe cups his palm against the back of his neck, looking her up and down with his faintly lavender eyes. “Do you know that you’re wearing L Lawliet’s shape?”

Michelina glances down at her bare feet, wiggles the long, pale fingers resting in her lap. “Oh, well, that happens sometimes, if I watch him for too long.”

Now he tilts his gaze off into some imaginary distance. “Anyway, I meant humans. It’s been a while.”

Michelina understands. Eons ago, she and the other arch-beings had watched human souls up close, tending to them like a wayward flock. Tempting, guiding, tempting -- a see-saw of meddling designed to test the limits of free will. To open the pathways to progress. The humans gave the arch-beings names and called them out, whether as curses or prayers, and their forms were memorialized on everything from canvas to cave walls. The universe grew, the number of souls swelled.

Lucas and Michelina hadn’t exactly applied for their respective jobs -- it was just how things ended up. Lucas was one type of shepherd, herding humanity toward a cliff to see if they’d be stupid enough to tumble off, and Michelina was another, armed with no more than silly, fragile faith.

After much time and much chaos, the arch-beings withdrew to Pandæmonium and observed from a distance, waiting to see how humanity progressed without them. It was a necessary fissure, if painful. By the fall of the Roman Empire, Lucas announced himself ‘tragically bored.’

Let’s have a challenge, Mick. Once a century, we can set the terms and battle it out like the olden days. Really throw ourselves into it and mess with their heads, you know? I miss it. Don’t you?

Michelina does not miss it.

At least, she doesn’t think that she does.

Maybe she’s just tired of losing to Lucas. The 20th century was particularly brutal, and the 21st isn’t shaping up to look much better.

Michelina concentrates, shifting her form into one more familiar: burnished curls to her shoulders; a face with features so smooth and strong they might have been carved into ivory. She keeps the clothes the same, though. The worn jeans and tee are just too comfortable.

“I don’t understand what you and Lucas see in them. They take two tiny steps forward, then twenty or more staggering leaps back.”

“Much to Lucas’ pleasure, I’m sure.”

“No. He’s good at not showing it, but I know he’s disappointed.”

Michelina gives him a sharp look. As the messenger, Gabe spends just as much time with Lucas as he does with her. Perhaps even more. “I guess you’d know better than I would.”

“Mm.” Gabe’s blank gaze is non-committal. “So what’s happening with your champion?”

“He’s just about to come face to face with Light Yagami.” Michelina turns back to the monitor, squinting at the detective’s hunched form. “He’s sent in Naomi Misora, who’s going to pretend to be L.”

“But Light Yagami will know that she’s not L.”

“Yes, of course, but L doesn’t realize that,” Michelina sighs. “He thinks he’s dealing with a brand new Light Yagami, not the one who murdered him with a weaponized Shinigami.”

Gabe hovers over her shoulder. “That seems like a big oversight for a famous detective. It hasn’t occurred to him yet that he might not be the only champion?”

“No,” she squeezes out from between her teeth.

“It hasn’t occurred to Light Yagami, either,” Gabe says, with an ill-practice giggle. “They share matching blind spots, don’t they?”

“That they do.”

Both of them watch as L unfolds himself from his chair and ambles toward the door, tugging on a length of his inky hair.

“Oh, they’re about to meet.” Gabe’s head hovers close to Michelina, his voice soft music in her ear. “What will happen?”

Michelina swallows.

She hopes to all the Gods she’s never met that her faith won’t fail her now.

***

Light Yagami, Light Yagami. Who are you? Are you going to damn me? How will we die this time, Kira? Are you here? Are you with me?

Thoughts blaze through L’s mind, so quick that they aren’t so much individual thoughts as a single pulse of doubt, intrigue, and calculation. Feet planted firmly on the wide arm of the sofa, L pitches forward and stares down at the boy who calls himself Kira, whose amber eyes are wide and waiting. Being so close to him -- breathing the same air as him, even -- makes something monstrous claw its way through L’s body, a primitive instinct to sink his talons into Kira and rip away every lie, one after the other.

Light Yagami -- have you ever even told the truth even once?

It isn’t entirely clear if this predatory impulse is purely his own, or if it’s exacerbated by the vigilant shadow of L the Second. Either way, L decides it doesn’t matter.

His pulse is well above 65 beats per minute.

“Light-kun, I’ve been waiting to meet you.”

There’s a flutter of surprise in Light’s eyes, but he doesn’t smile, only draws his head back for better assessment.

“Have you?”

“Yes.” L digs his fingertips into the sofa’s leather, then he smiles faintly, fighting to temper his aggression.

It wasn’t this Light Yagami who killed him. He knows he mustn’t forget that.

“You were the little boy in the Meiji galbo mini commercials. I love their galbo minis.” L trails his fingers across his mouth. “Especially the strawberry.”

“Oh.” Light looks away, toward the windows. “The modeling, you mean. I barely remember those days.”

“By that do you refer to your modeling days, or the days before you crossed paths with the murderer known as Genesis 22?”

“Wait, are you the real L this time?” Soichiro asks suddenly, in a way that makes it clear he is diverting L’s questions away from him son.

“I am.”

“What do we call you, then?” Soichiro directs to Maki, who sits in her chair with an small, inscrutable smile on her face.

“I’m Shoko Maki. I work with L.”

Works with L, not for . L notes the difference. Accepts it.

“You can call me Ryuzaki for now.” L shifts position so that he can address the others, as well. “You know the others. They have all agreed to work on the Kira Task Force I’ve put together.”

“I see.” Soichiro cups his knees and presses his lips together. “Are you looking for my assistance, as well? Or is there some other reason that you’ve brought me and my son in to see you?” A touch of defensiveness prickles the words.

L sucks lightly on the end of his thumb. “Your assistance is welcome. Particularly if it will clear up some questions I have about the Genesis 22 investigation you worked on before leaving the NPA.”

The question as directed at former Chief Yagami, but L keeps watch on Light. Always Light. He’s still looking out the window, radiating an aloofness that L finds both unfamiliar and intriguing. The Light Yagami he remembers was not withdrawn.

Soichiro sighs loudly. “Why must we revisit that painful ordeal? If you are the real L, then you’ve likely read all the old case files.”

“Yes, I have. But reading case files tells me little of how the experience played out between you, your team, and your children.”

Light’s head snaps away from the windows. “Why would you need to know that ? The case is solved and has been for years.” His cheeks color with hostility.

Hostility -- also intriguing.

L gazes up at the ceiling, ignoring Light’s question. “Yagami-san, when you arrived at the scene, you withdrew your service weapon and shot Tegoshi Umeda, the man better known as Genesis 22.”

“Yes.” Soichiro’s voice is leaden, and L hears a faint mutter of protest from Matsuda.

“What did it feel like to kill someone?”

The room erupts in shouting, both Matsuda and Aizawa leaping to their feet and lunging for L. Maki easily wrestles Matsuda away, but Aizawa gets right up in L’s face, eyes bulging.

“What kind of question is that? Are you some kind of sicko?”

L doesn’t flinch. “Are you angry because you’re offended? Or are you angry because you know that I’ve figured it out?”

Aizawa pulls back, anger popping away instantly, like a soap bubble. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Figured out what?”

“Chief Yagami didn’t kill Tegoshi Umeda. The man was already dead when he was shot.”

“ What ?”

This from Light, whose face is a pale mask of confusion as he looks back and forth between his father and Aizawa, then finally settles on L, questions racing his eyes.

Ah . So Light Yagami has partially repressed his memories of being kidnapped and nearly killed. An expected reaction, given his age and the violent details surrounding the episode. Either that, or the experience has shaped him into a master of playing the traumatized victim. L thinks the latter more plausible.

“Tegoshi Umeda was shot post-mortem,” he explains. “The medical examiner took note of this during the autopsy, but Aizawa --” L stares at the man “-- paid her to keep quiet.”

Soichiro presses a fist to his forehead. “How --”

“I got in touch with the M.E.,” Maki interrupts. “She has some lingering guilt about the payoff, so it wasn’t too hard to get her to talk. She even told me about Umeda’s real cause of death.”

The silence in the room is resounding. All the NPA officers, former and current, are staring into their laps or at the wall, anywhere but at each other. Only Light keeps his head up, face pinched and wary.

“Alright, then. I’ll tell you. Umeda was already dead when we got to the church sanctuary,” Soichiro says, voice scratchy with fatigue. “I saw what he’d done to Sayu and I shot him anyway. On impulse.”

“And afterward you told everyone that you killed Umeda -- stopped Genesis 22 -- to save face,” Maki guesses, no judgment in her tone.

“That was my idea.” Aizawa, gruff. “Blame me for that if you’re going to blame anyone.”

“Blame?” L blinks. “It doesn’t matter to me that you covered up Umeda’s real cause of death. I might be inclined to see it as a noble gesture, even. One intended to protect your colleague.”

“Why bring it up at all, then?” Light says, demand on his breath despite the fact that he speaks with even, quiet words.

“Because, Light-Kun --” L’s voice also lowers “-- Umeda died of a sudden heart attack. Just like all of Kira’s victims.”

L watches carefully for a reaction, but there’s none. Only the barely perceptible rise and fall of Light’s chest.

“But that happened almost five years ago.” Matsuda leans out of his chair so far he nearly topples to the carpet. “It can’t have been Kira!”

“What then, deus ex machina ? Coincidence is always too convenient. Particularly when it arrives right at the moment someone is about to die.”

“L -- Ryuzaki.” The former Chief's voice is tight. “Please just say whatever it is that you’re thinking.”

L tugs idly at the ragged cuff of his jeans. He doesn’t particularly relish the thought of what he’s about to say, but he says it anyway.

“There’s a five percent chance that you’re Kira, Yagami-san.”

No noise from the others. They already knew that their former Chief was L’s primary suspect, despite being ignorant of the specifics.

“I’m --” Soichiro begins, but his son beats him to it.

“No.” Light slaps his hand against the sofa arm, half-rising to meet L. “My father wouldn’t kill anyone. I know that he wouldn’t.”

L gags back a laugh.

Do you really care that I suspect your father, Light Yagami? Or is your heart going limp with relief right now?

That’s the tricky thing about liars, thinks L. Even when you know what they are, you still keep waiting for them to tell the truth. Keep harboring a hope that somewhere inside, they’re as human as you. Or as human as you think you are, anyway.

It’s a hope L will have to keep alive, somehow. The promise of shared humanity -- such a fragile thing, considering what humans can do. Have done.

You’ve given me an impossible task, Michelina. I’m unfit.

“It’s only natural that you would defend your father,” L says blandly. “In fact, everyone in this room is highly motivated to clear Yagami-san of all suspicion.”

“What, you included?”

“Yes. That’s why I am considering asking both you and your father to join the task force.”

“You tell me that I’m a suspect and then you want me to help you with your investigation?” Soichiro’s face is openly baffled.

L’s shoulders twitch in a shrug. “I believe you both have skills that will prove useful, and the proximity will make it easier to investigate you. And your son.”

“My son? You can’t possibly suspect him, as well!”

“There is a slight chance that he is Kira, as well as a slight chance that you’re working together as Kira. Rest assured, though, that the bulk of my suspicion falls on you.”  

“Why would that assure him?” Light’s arms cross tightly in his lap. “You’re insulting beyond belief.”

“Light,” Soichiro murmurs. “This is my fault. Ryuzaki is trying to find a murderer unlike any we’ve ever seen before. He has to start somewhere.”

“Stop trying to shoulder the blame for everything. You always do that.”

“It’s only right that I do, it’s my duty. But I know that both of us are innocent, and soon Ryuzaki will, too.”

“Who even cares what this ‘Ryuzaki’ thinks?”

L watches the exchange between father and son, swapping words as if they’re the only two people in the room, Light terse and Soichiro resigned. There is a history between them that goes beyond the mere paternal, one that L now realizes he was poorly prepared for. He’s gone too far, too soon, and the situation is threatening to veer out of his control. Already, he thinks that Light might hate him, a fact which causes him no personal distress but will surely be a massive obstacle when it comes time to challenge Light’s Kira-centric ideals.

Even more peculiar, L can’t decide if he prefers this new, brash Light to the one from his first life span. The fact that he’s even comparing the two is an unsettling reminder that he did, at one time, rather like Light Yagami. No, he liked the Light Yagami he constructed in his own head -- someone both blessed and crippled by his own intelligence, with the clear, unshakable ideals brought on by youth and inexperience. Someone who might, with L’s guidance, learn that justice isn’t about brutally dividing white from black, but traversing a labyrinth cast in ever-clouding layers of gray.

Someone who L might... what? Save?

What an arrogant man I am.

It isn’t until Matsuda calls out “Ryuzaki?” that L realizes he’s laughing out loud. Under his breath, but still -- it’s a strangled, bitter chuckle that even has Maki staring.

“My apologies. I was just thinking that things don’t seem to be going well.”

“I was wondering when you would notice,” Maki says drily. She turns on the others with a winning smile. “Ryuzaki lives for his work, so he forgets what real life is like. Yagami-san, Light-kun, I’m sure all this has been a shock to you, and for that I am sorry. Perhaps we ought to order up some room service and enjoy a good meal while we talk? The hotel has an excellent chef on staff.”

“Thank you for the offer,” Soichiro says, stiff but relenting. “My wife is expecting me, though, and I shouldn’t leave her alone all night.”

“Neither should I.” Light sits up at attention, but L hears an undertone of conflict in his tone. Pride -- my family is depending on me -- mixed with suppressed unhappiness -- I don’t always like being depended on .

“Yagami-san, can you get by without your son for a few hours?” L asks. “I’d like a chance to speak with him further.”

“About what?”

“About the Kira case. I was serious when I said that I believe you both have skills I can use, and I would like the opportunity to field Light-kun’s deductive skills.” He points to Maki, looking regal in her Lady L suit. “He did well when he pinpointed Maki’s dialect.”

The former Chief turns to his son. “It’s your decision, Light, but we’ll be able to manage at home without you.” He stands and faces his former colleagues from the NPA. “One of you will be here too, right?”

“I’ll be here,” Mogi says. “So will Matsuda.”

“And I can drive you back to Sachiko.” Aizawa stands up, thrusting his fists deep in his pockets. “I’ve got to get home to my family, myself.”

“Who said I wanted to stay?” Light drawls, bent over with his chin propped in his palm.

“That’s fine. I’ll drive you home with your father.”

A sigh, followed by a restless sweep of his hair. “No, that’s alright.” He turns his steely eyes on L. “Might as well get it over with.”

L smiles just enough to show a sliver of teeth.

***

Soichiro leaves L with the assurance that he will return the next day, his day off, but from the absent way he bundles his coat in his arms and fumbles with the door knob, L knows that the man is deeply shaken.

Truly, L takes no pleasure in using him in such a fashion, but when the fate of the Universe is at stake, something has to give. Soichiro isn’t the first person he’s fashioned into a pawn, and he won’t be the last.

As soon as his father and Aizawa are gone, Light’s shoulders seem to loosen, and his face arranges itself into a careful study of polite aloofness. There’s no smile or interest there, but no hostility, either.

“So, dinner?” Maki comes in from the adjoining room with a leather-bound menu in hand. “I’ve heard the roasted prawns are a must.”

She and Matsuda debate over prawns and wagyu beef while L sidles into Soichiro’s vacated spot on the sofa. With the sudden re-distribution of weight, Light bobs his slightly to the left, away from the detective.

“Are you going to field my deductive skills now? Or will I be allowed to eat first?” He speaks in the direction of the windows.

There is something raw to this Light, a sense of withheld emotion that keeps a constant frisson of exuberance flowing just beneath L’s skin. Is this the real Light Yagami? Is it another mask? Perhaps it is both, and more. His physical perfection is a stark contrast to his bitter demeanor; the carefully tucked-in shirt; the clean, tidy hands, fingernails gleaming like scales.

L wants to disturb that polished veneer, rub at it until the tarnish beneath bleeds through.

“You’re allowed to do whatever you like,” he says.

Light turns, the corners of his mouth curled with suspicion. “Can I leave?”

“You just had the opportunity to do so.”

“I see. So changing my mind is out.”

“Not at all. But you’re here now, so we might as well talk.”

“I suppose.” Light sighs. “What do you want to ask me?”

L runs one hand up and down his shin, knees tucked against his chest. “Did you just start at To-Oh University?”

“That’s a boring question to start with. I’m sure you already know that I have.” Light pushes his body back into the leather cushions, arms folded across his chest.

“I never went to University. I suppose I missed out on something by having skipped out on it.” L tilts his head at Maki, on the phone with room service. “Maki went somewhere prestigious, though.” Berkeley, in fact, though L won’t be sharing that fact.

“What, you thought you were too good for University, or something?”

L notes the hostility creeping back into Light’s tone. “Based on that statement I suspect you have a rather negative opinion of me so far.”

The feeling is mutual, believe me.

The younger man regards him with a barely contained sneer. “I don’t have any particular opinion of you, but you’ve created a difficult situation for my family. It’s skewing my perspective.”

“Understandable.”

L remembers the subdued tension between Light and his father, remembers Maki telling him that the daughter was left disabled. To what degree does that subdued tension extend to the whole family? L almost wishes he had installed surveillance cameras, after all.

“Okay!” Maki announces. “I’ve ordered a sashimi feast for us, plus three kinds of dessert for you, Ryuzaki. Baked apple cake, pomelo mousse, and rice tiramisu.”

“Maki --”

“I know, I know. You don’t need a mother.”

He smiles. “No, but thank you, just the same.”

When the food arrives they arrange the club chairs back around the table and spread out the feast. Watari emerges just long enough to take a portion for himself, then returns back to his surveillance duty. Maki eats with Mogi and Matsuda on either side of her, Matsuda chattering about his volleyball league, while Mogi silently passes her the wasabi and soy sauce. L determines that she could have either of them in her bed that very night, if she so wanted.

Light, on the other hand, sits at the far end of the table, barely touching his sweet prawn and tuna. He exchanges one or two pleasantries with Matsuda and Mogi, but otherwise broods silently, eyes still trained out the window to the glittering city below.

“Light-kun, do you want this?” L pokes his dish of rice tiramisu with a chopstick. “I can already tell it won’t be to my liking.”

“No, thank you.”

“Oh, try it!” Maki urges. “Otherwise I’ll have to eat it and I’m already stuffed.”

Light lifts his gaze, glances at L, and accepts the dish of tiramisu. He picks it up in a rough fist, spooning the dessert into his mouth and gulping it down with such haste that it’s certain he has no time to taste it. Then he sits the dish down, one fingernail tainted with a faint, creamy smear.

“There,” he announces, sliding the dish back to L. “I tried it.”

L closes his eyes.

I can’t believe it. Light Yagami is a...a brat.

“Apologize to Maki.” He thinks it’s L the Second’s voice that he hears. That voice that doesn’t allow the slightest room for question.

“Ryuzaki, it’s al --”

“I’m sorry, Maki.” Light says at once, solemn. “It wasn’t my intent to offend you.” Eyes flick back to L, unwritten challenge there. “The tiramisu was delicious. You really ought to have tried it.”

A ripple travels up L’s spine. Not dread or anger, but an uncoiling of interest. He’s just made a sharp turn in the labyrinth and bumped up against one of Light’s more subtle layers. A shift from bored to defiant to cunning -- just when L least expected it. The detective had forgotten what a splendid puzzle Light Yagami was, and has just been given a glimpse of what a complicated creature this new one is.

A coy, teasing Kira. So different from the Kira who was bold and boastful. Yes, L’s pulse is definitely above 65 bpm. Maybe it has been this whole time.

L picks up the nearly empty dish and runs his finger along the rim, scooping up the dredges of the dessert. Then he slides his finger into his mouth and sucks the custard off slowly, the slurping sound rude and obscene even to his own nearly-immune ears. “You’re right,” he determines, staring at the tip of his sticky finger. “It’s not so bad.”

Though it is quite bad.

Matsuda laughs over Maki’s groan. “Ryuzaki! Gross.”

Light doesn’t sigh, but L likes to think that he wants to.

***

The evening’s gone by like an out-of-body experience.

At some point, probably right around the time Ryuzaki revealed that Umeda died of a Kira-like heart attack, Light felt himself freeze. He looked to Rem for explanation, but her yellow eye revealed nothing.

It was an unpleasant surprise dropped onto the already uncomfortable experience of encountering an L that is strikingly like the one Light remembers, but for a few sweeping differences that he didn’t anticipate.

What’s familiar seems amplified, like the pulse of the detective’s ever-watchful, calculating brain -- Light imagines that it warms up every room that L enters. That’s how Light noticed him the first time, after all, when L sat behind him during the entrance exams. That faint trickle heat against the back of his neck.

But this is an L with more voltage. He may have his magnifying glass more firmly trained on Light’s father, for now, but Light senses that one wrong move will capture the detective’s full attention.

It doesn’t help that L looks at Light far more often than he does Soichiro. Or that L’s stare is a yawning trap waiting to clamp down on any tender purchase that Light might expose, intentionally or otherwise.

One set of instincts cautions him to keep still, the other screams that he must make the first move. Set the pace, force the atmosphere. So he does, lapsing into a show of bored irritation that isn’t really a show at all, but a close approximation of his real feelings -- minus, of course, the boredom.

He isn’t bored at all. And thank fuck for that.

But neither is he comfortable, and so he’s spent the evening battling the ebb and flow of adrenaline -- part giddy, part agitated.

It helps that L is completely unchanged in other ways. He still wears the same old rumpled clothes, ambling like a scarecrow one second, landing in an elegant, cat-like crouch the next. When L prepares to dig into not one but three huge desserts, Light almost smiles at the thought L’s impending tooth decay.

“Light-kun, do you want this?” L gives one of the desserts an overly-aggressive nudge with his chopstick. “I can already tell it won’t be to my liking.”

Light pauses. The detective is either trying to be nice, is pretending to try to be nice, or is simply waiting to see how Light will react. More likely, he’s doing some combination of the three.

“No, thank you.”

“Oh, try it! Otherwise I’ll have to eat it and I’m already stuffed.” Naomi Misora, who Light supposes he’ll have to call Maki, continues to be another unpleasant surprise, and he doesn’t relish that he will have to work his way around a former-FBI-agent-turned-pet.

Light glimpses L’s passive face, heat withheld for the moment, and snares the dessert before L can protest. Mouth open wide, he shovels in the sweet concoction, nearly gagging down on thick swallows of it. He doesn’t want to accomplish anything in particular, but it feels liberating to simply act and know that L will comb through it endlessly for meaning.

He wipes off his mouth and gives the detective his dish back. “There. I tried it.”

Rem laughs roughly, but Light barely hears it over L’s dark command, thundering from his mouth like someone who might believe he’s a god: “Apologize to Maki.”

If he didn’t know better, Light might have been shaken by the authority resonating in that voice. But the authority is a ruse -- there is no god other than Kira, and Kira is no one’s acolyte.

“I’m sorry, Maki. It wasn’t my intent to offend you.” Then he gives L a small, arch grin. “The tiramisu was delicious. You really ought to have tried it.”

L’s only response is to stick his fingers into the dessert dish and scoop up the remains, sucking them off his finger in the most offensive way possible. Light glimpses the plush of L’s tongue break contact with his fingertip, a glistening strand of saliva stretching between the two, then falling away. It sends a shudder right through him.

The single, childish action is a mirror, held up with the intent to blind Light with evidence of his own immaturity.

“You’re right,” L says. “It’s not so bad.”

“Ryuzaki! Gross,” Maki protests, and for the first time Light is nearly grateful for her presence.

“I dropped my spoon.” L lifts his eyebrows as if this is a reasonable explanation. “Since we’ve both finished dessert, Light-kun, let’s go to my room. There’s some photographs I would like to show you.”

Light’s disgust for the detective retreats. This is the moment he’s been waiting for, but he delays by poking chopsticks into his sashimi. “I was still working on this.”

“Bring the plate with you.”

The detective is already walking for the suite door, one hand shoved deep in his pocket, the other scrubbing through his mop of black hair.

Light doesn’t bring the plate.

They cross the hallway into a suite directly opposite the other. It’s identical in layout, with a large living area and office space. Extension cords trail everywhere, leading to servers and monitors, and Watari sits at one of the screens with a cup of tea in hand.

“We’ll be in my room for a while, Watari,” L says, and the older man nods.

He’ll be recording us , Light thinks. Watching to see if I do anything. Same old L, really. Same old Ryuzaki.

The bedroom is large, with its own small office area. A laptop sits open on the desk, surrounded by packages of sweets and chocolate bars. L’s clothes are mounded up on the bed, a hill of white cotton and worn denim, and the sight of them tugs at Light’s memory.

Trying to remember that stretch of time where he lost his memories of the Death Note is sometimes difficult, like trying to remember a dream before it collapses into sand through his fingers. But he does remember that L always kept his clothes in two piles: one clean, one dirty.

But how can you tell which is which, Ryuzaki?

If I can’t tell, then it doesn’t really matter, does it.

“I wondered why your clothes were so rumpled,” Light says, somehow unsettled by the fleeting memory. “Don’t you even know how to fold?”

“I do. It simply isn’t a good use of my time.” The detective settles into his desk chair, wiggling and stretching his toes before tucking his feet up. His mouth curls into a half-smile. “Is this your way of asking permission to fold my clothes for me?”

Tingles of déjà vu prickle at Light’s scalp. Did he and L have this same conversation, once? He thinks they must have, or something close to it.

“No. It’s my way of pointing out that you look slovenly.” He sits himself into a chair halfway between the windows and the desk.

“You seem to care a lot about appearances. Is that because your mother was a model for so long?”

Light lets out a short laugh. “Have you really explored Tokyo? I don’t even have a style. Go meet some onii-kei or gyaruo and you’ll see.”

L tilts his head, owl-like. “Did you enjoy modeling?”

“Not particularly. The agency just thought it was cute to have my mother pictured with her children.”

“I understand your mother was even somewhat famous.” L flips through a sheaf of papers, then holds up a print-out of ‘Sachi,’ modeling shampoo.

“She was. Why does it matter?”

“It doesn’t matter much.” The detective sets the papers aside. With thumb and forefinger he wrests some kind of sticky caramel from its packaging, then drops the whole thing into his mouth. “But it must be a unique experience to go from having a famous mother to being famous yourself.” The words are slurry with sugar.

“I was never a famous model.”

L’s teeth work at the caramel, his cheeks faintly bulging. “No.” He swallows. “You’re a famous victim.”

“That’s true, Light,” Rem says, from her spot near the bed. “But being almost-murdered is something else you’ve forgotten.”

“I have to wonder what impact that’s had on you.” L reaches for another caramel. “Do you ever have flashbacks or nightmares? Do you find it difficult to remember things?”

Light taps his fingers against the arms of his chair, his expression cloudy. Of course -- the detective is trying determine if Light 2 has any trauma, and from there he will discern whether that trauma increases or decreases the probability of Light being Kira.

“Remember what sort of things?” Light asks, his tone deliberately guarded.

“Do you ever lose time? Wake up somewhere not knowing how you arrived? Are the events of your days ever sketchy in detail?”

“No,” Light says flatly. “Are you trying to be my shrink? Because I don’t need one. I thought you wanted to test my deductive abilities.”

L pauses, a caramel held to his lips. Light swallows back a smile, pleased to have caught the detective flat-footed. Let him think that Light 2 is hiding a dark, tragic past -- all the better for L to develop a sliver of sympathy that Light can later choke him with.

“You’re right. I should do that.” L opens a folder and hands Light three photographs. “Tell me what you notice about these.”

The crime scene photos show Light exactly what he expects: Kira’s three most recent victims, dead from heart attacks, with nonsensical messages scrawled on the walls nearest their collapsed bodies.

“These messages look frivolous. Code?”

“Yes.”

Light pretends to study them for several long minutes, fanning them out in his lap and pressing his thumb into his chin. He feels L staring at him, the hot voltage of his thoughts silently cracking the air.

“This is weird. If it is what I think it is, there are a lot of repeated words. The only sentence I can put together doesn’t make much sense.”

“What’s the sentence?”

“I think it might be ‘there is no kira, there is only what is and what must be.’” He looks up at L sharply. “Are you sure you gave me all the photographs? There’s only three?”

Ha. Beat you, Ryuzaki.

“There are only those three.” L is quiet, thoughtful. “I came to the same sentence you did, but I disagree that it doesn’t make sense. It makes all too much sense, in fact.” L swivels his chair from side to side, chanting from the side of his mouth. “There is no Kira. There is only what is, and what must be.”

Light shrugs moodily. “What’s so significant about that?”

In truth, he’s desperate to hear the detective’s theories.

With a delicate pinch of his thumb and forefinger, L removes the photos from Light’s hands. “Why don’t you tell me, Light-kun? Consider it a measure of your deductive skills.”

Light’s fingers twitch in annoyance, though he knows he shouldn’t have expected L to be anything but difficult.

“Fine. I guess it seems to be a rejection of the idea that Kira is an individual person with a mission.”

“And?”

“Kira is borne out of necessity. He -- or it -- exists in direct proportion to humanity itself. Cause and effect, maybe.” He watches L unwrap another candy with tented fingers. “Sort of like how if you eat enough sugar, your tooth enamel will inevitably decay.”

L balances the candy on the top of his knee. “I don’t have a single cavity. Would Light-kun like proof?” He tugs at the corner of his mouth, cranking his jaws open wide.

Light is unsettled by the whiteness of teeth, the startling contrast of L’s pink tongue pressed against them. “I don’t care if you get cavities.”

“Oh. You appeared concerned.” L goes back to unwrapping the candy. “But I find your theory interesting. I am quite certain that Kira is a single person, and a man, at that. He has no interest in erecting himself into a god, as one might expect, but wants to establish himself as a force of nature. It’s a very dangerous notion, isn’t it?” The candy disappears into his mouth.

“I don’t know. Is it?”

“Of course. Gods can be reasoned with. They can be worshipped and prayed to.” L smiles, lips glistening. “Nature has no wants and desires. It cannot be appeased. It wrecks havoc and grants blessings with no logic whatsoever.”

Light smiles back. “That never stopped people from praying for rain.”

“Indeed.” The detective presses a thumb to his lips.

“Anyway, if you knew my father at all, you would know that it’s nuts to suspect him of being Kira. He’s always been dedicated to law and order, but concocting secret codes? Definitely not his forte.”

Something in L’s expression waves the comment away. “Do you believe in the supernatural, Light-kun?”

Light can practically feel his Shinigami’s eye blazing into the back of his head.

“No. Not when there’s no tangible proof available.”

“Interesting.”

“Why?”

“I was just thinking --” L pauses, gaze drifting toward the ceiling. “-- That when Genesis 22 dropped dead it must have felt like a miracle to you.”

Sayu thrashing. Weak, barely making a splash. Everything’s heavy, dark. Her foot scraping  against the dirty marble floor.  

      The walls are crawling with the eyes of angels.    

Someone, someone.  Her foot, where is it? I can’t hear anything, anymore.    

The memory wrenches through Light’s body like a cramp, seizing all his muscles. He bends over at the waist, clawing at his own knees. “Fuck you, Ryuzaki. There are no fucking miracles. Aren’t you smart enough to at least know that?”

L smiles. It isn’t a pleasant smile, but one that darkens his features, obscuring them in shadow.

“I do know it. If miracles existed, I would be in another line of work.” He leans forward, bringing the shadows with him. “Are you going to help me find Kira, Light-kun?”

Light doesn’t speak. It feels like L’s air is fighting to creep into his lungs.

“I already know that I won’t be able to do it without you.”

Light opens his mouth. He has to let a little bit of L in -- a drop of black, sickly-sweet virus to inoculate him against the rest.

“Fine, Ryuzaki. I’ll help you.”

***

Chapter Text

(interludium)

11 April 2007

Detroit, MI

Cody Callahan’s home these days is a 1993 Ford Tioga motorhome that he paid for in cash. The previous owner was an old fisherman who was finally upgrading to a new recreational vehicle, and while the interior is mostly neat and tidy, Cody occasionally catches a tangy odor wafting from the worn upholstery -- fish guts, he thinks. After two months of living in Tioga, he mostly doesn’t notice it.

Cody boondocks, most of the time, preferring to park on inconspicuous suburban streets -- the sort of neighborhoods filled with solid, Midwestern working-class people who mind their own business. Even so, he never stays in the same spot for more than one night. He has limitless electricity, thanks to the solar panels affixed to the roof, and every five days or so he drives to an RV park to flush out and refill the water tanks.

After living with Tami, who never so much as let him set a toe out of the house without her company, he likes having a house he can take with him.

The inside of the Tioga is outfitted with a television and video game consoles, plus a number of laptop computers that Cody refurbished himself. He usually parks somewhere with a strong wireless signal and a crackable network password. Tami may not have given him free reign in the outside world, but he’s been using the internet since before the internet was a household fixture. He’s adept in a number of coding languages and prefers Linux to Windows. His hacking skills are nothing to scoff at, but neither are they something he feels particularly competitive about. MMORPGs are his pastime of preference. When he’s in gaming mode, he can be anyone, anything. His past and his body have no meaning; only the pure clarity of his thoughts matter.

Tonight he isn’t gaming, just chatting online with one or two of his regular party members while skimming through websites that cover news in the Detroit and surrounding Great Lakes region.

“Pink Lady. Honeycrisp. Fuji. Lady Alice. Braeburn. Golden Delicious. Granny Smith. Gala. I don’t know, Cody. I can’t decide which apple is the best.”

Cody tips his head back over the edge of his loft bed, smiling at his Shinigami. “Have you ever had a grapple, Ryuk? It’s an apple that tastes like a grape.”

“Whhhhat?” Ryuk’s eyes roll around in his sockets. “That’s crazy. Does it really exist?”

“Yep. I read about them online.” Cody rolls back over onto his side and returns to his newsfeed. “They’re not naturally grape-flavored, though. They soak them in methyl anthranilate, an artificial flavoring.”

“Humans are weird. Why do you need grape-flavored apples? Apples are already delicious.”

“Don’t ask me.”

But the Shinigami’s words plague at Cody. He tries to picture what kind of person looked at an apple and decided to soak it in chemicals until it wasn’t an apple anymore. It was probably just an ordinary person, no one special.That’s the trouble with people, they don’t think about what they soak stuff in. They don’t care that they have the power to change something or someone down to its very core.

Take him, for example. Who would Cody be, if it weren’t for Tami? Tami turned him into a lot of different things -- a cancer patient, a girl -- and kept his age shaved down to fifteen or sixteen even as he marched into his twenties.

Can you spare any prayers to help my baby? God bless!

His earliest memories are of attending different church services, tucked up against Tami’s thick leg while they stood in line for banana bread and fruit punch. Tami was an outgoing woman with a smile for everyone. Her plump, pillowy body and sensible perm gave her the air of a late 30s widow, which was exactly what she pretended to be, even though she had never been married.

Tami radiated can-do spirit and a humble attitude; she’d get friendly with whoever stood nearby while Cody clung to the hem of her skirt. Eventually, Tami’s mark would notice the quiet little boy and ask about him.

This here’s my little Cody. He’s a shy one. We almost didn’t make it out to the sermon today because he had a seizure after breakfast. The doctors think it's epilepsy but they want to do more tests. So many tests! I pray he’ll be alright. He’s all I got left, now that Robert’s passed on. But things have a way of working out, right?

That’s all it took. Plant the seed of need, present it with grace and humility, and expect to be blessed.

She had other side gigs, of course. Scads of different identities, ones where she’d been a legal clerk, a bartender, a dog breeder, a hair stylist, a nurse. His given name is ‘Cody Callahan,’ but he has a number of legitimate documents that list his name as Cody Jenkins, Cody Watts, Cody Brown. Most of them indicate his sex as ‘female.’

Cody doesn’t think he’d be anyone special if it weren’t for Tami. But he does think he’d be normal.

A regular, apple-flavored apple.

While he’s contemplating that particular impossibility, a ping from his messenger pops up.

“U still there?”

It’s Cody’s friend, Daniel. His only friend, aside from Ryuk. They’ve been in the same raiding party for years.

“Yeah, just reading something.”

Cody returns to the newsfeed, skimming the headlines with no real expectations, his eyelids held at a calm half-mast until he sees something that dashes him over with ice water.

MAN CLAIMS ANGEL OF MERCY ENCOUNTER AT SPRINGWELLS AREA NURSING HOME

He bolts straight up, smacking his head on the roof of his loft. “Shit.” He massages the bruise, eyes racing over the digital text.

“What’s going on?” Ryuk floats up to ask.

“DeMatteo. He told one of the nurses that he was visited by the Angel of Mercy.”

Ryuk lets out a rumbly laugh. “Uh-oh. Do they know it’s you?”

“No, he never remembers my name. But it sounds like they’re going to do an investigation.” Cody’s fingers rub idle circles against his shaved scalp. He isn’t panicking -- not yet. But he has to pack up and leave Detroit. Right now, tonight.

“How far is it from Detroit to Chicago?” He asks Daniel.

“lol I don’t know. Google it, bitch.”

“Are we leaving, Cody?”

“Yeah.”

“Where to? Kalamazoo?” It had been Cody’s next planned stop.

“No, we need to go farther.” Chicago is a half-day’s drive, he thinks.

“Maybe I’ll visit you,” he types to Daniel.

“Really? Finally?” Cody can almost see eagerness vibrating through the text.

Daniel’s been wanting to meet Cody for a while, dropping hints about the stupid Sears Tower, Wrigley Field, and the Windy City’s famous hot dogs. Cody doesn’t even like hot dogs. But he does like Daniel.

“Yeah. Keep it between us, though.”

“You know I will.”

Cody smiles vaguely, then shuts the laptop down and crawls out of his loft. Ryuk is already sat in the passenger seat, buckled in tight, if unnecessarily. Cody slips on a sweatshirt and jams his feet into his shoes, then slides into the driver’s seat.

“I’ve never been to Chicago,” Ryuk says.

“Me, either.” Driving into Michigan was the first time Cody had ever left the state of Ohio.

“I’d rather go to New York City. They call it the Big Apple, you know.”

Cody twists the keys in the ignition, and the Tioga’s engine putters to life.

“Maybe we’ll go there next.” Cody smiles at the Shinigami. “What’s to stop us?”

Ryuk’s laugh is dark and knowing.

***

Cody is on the road for two hours before he decides he needs a break. The medication he takes gives him insomnia, but it also makes it hard for him to concentrate. He pulls into a campsite just off the Interstate, empties and refills the water tanks, and changes his clothes. The hooded sweatshirt is neon purple with a pattern of tiny skulls, and he yanks a knit beanie with little cat ears over his naked head. Ryuk watches as Cody applies gloss to his lips, leaning so close the tiny bathroom mirror that he could kiss it.

“Going somewhere?”

“There’s a trucker plaza on the other side of the overpass.” He unloops a necklace from a hook on the wall. It’s a plastic teddy bear that opens up like a locket, perfect for hiding things inside. He bought the necklace from a vending machine at a Walmart between Cleveland and Cuyahoga Falls, the chamber inside originally filled with stale candy pellets.

He tucks the teddy bear into his pocket and faces the Shinigami. “Keep a lookout for pigs? I’m gonna find a mark.”

“Sure.”

The night air is almost too cool for his thin sweatshirt. Cody jams his hands into his armpits and hugs his narrow chest, walking across the deserted overpass toward the bright lights of the plaza. It’s close to midnight, but the highway below still rumbles with 18-wheelers.

He spends an hour at the plaza diner, drinking coffee and picking at a stack of pancakes. The waitress frowns at him, worried, but calls him “hon” and keeps his coffee cup full. Two teenage girls outside keep flashing him glances through the window, their hair braided back to make them look even younger.

They’re lot lizards, like him, waiting for some fat, bearded trucker to pick them up for the night. Cody’s here by choice, though, and the girls have a pimp somewhere. Some slick loser who might be their boyfriend, uncle, or step-father. Cody flashes the girl with the shorter braids a smile. She looks away, cheeks flaming with shame. After a few minutes a security guard shows up, chasing them off.

The diner has a TV on the wall that’s turned to a cable news channel. Cody ignores it until the waitress starts clucking to one of the truckers.

“You see? There’s that story I was telling you about. They think someone called ‘Kira’ is killing criminals in Japan.”

“Oh?” The trucker wipes gravy away from his mouth. “Maybe they oughta give him a medal.”

Cody tilts his head up to the screen. He’s read about Kira on the internet. A murderer who can murder at a distance, with a weapon that nobody understands. Instinctively, he touches his pocket, relieved to feel the teddy bear still there.

The trucker pulls on his jacket and heads for the register, ticket clutched in hand. He passes Cody slowly, the heat of his eyes assessing Cody’s youthful looks and ambiguous gender, and tosses a crumpled gum wrapper onto the table. Cody quickly covers it up, cupping it into his hand.

“What do you think?” the waitress asks, refilling his coffee again. “Is it alright to kill people if they’re already murderers?”

Cody shrugs. “We put people on Death Row.”

“Sure, but sometimes it turns out they’re innocent.”

“I guess.” Cody smiles until she goes away. Talking to people makes him uneasy.

But he keeps thinking about their conversation, about the rough texture of notebook paper between his fingers. If Kira really wanted to be useful, if he really wanted to help people, then he shouldn’t murder criminals -- he should murder the people who create them.

No one is born a criminal.

Cody unfolds the gum wrapper the trucker dropped on his table. A license plate number is scribbled on the white paper inside.

Back in the Tioga, in a secret compartment built into the bed loft, Cody has thousands of dollars stashed away. Most of it’s Tami’s money -- she preferred to keep it in the basement freezer, hiding the wrapped stacks of bills under huge bags of frozen chicken -- but some of it he earned himself.

No one is born a criminal, and neither was Cody. But it’s what he is now, so he pays for his bill and walks through the field of parked semis, rumbling like sleeping giants, until he finds the one he’s looking for.

The inside of the cab smells vaguely of nail polish remover, an odor Cody recognizes as meth. The trucker, in a gruff, fatherly voice, tells Cody to call him “Jack,” and asks how old he is.

“Sixteen,” Cody murmurs, fiddling with the zipper of his hoodie. At the back of the cab is a bed that’s as narrow as a coffin.

“Wanna come keep me company?” Jack smiles lazily, patting the mattress.

Cody crawls in beside him, shivering as the man lightly fingers the zipper of his sweatshirt. He’s shivering because he’s cold, not because he’s afraid, but he knows that Jack will probably like it, either way

“It’s fifty if you blow me or I blow you. Double that for both.”

Even in the dim light, Cody can see the trucker’s pupils, bigger than dimes.

“Can I kiss you?”

Cody turns his face. “No.” He’s never kissed anyone. Never will.

Afterward, Jack lights up a cigarette and offers Cody a flask of something. He takes a swig and shudders, the whiskey lighting his chest with a trail of warm coals. He follows with another swallow, this one going down easier, then puts the flask aside so he can pull his clothes back on.

“I have a daughter about your age. She’s a sophomore. What about you?”

Cody’s fingers freeze at the button of his jeans. “I don’t go to school.” He never has. Tami always home-schooled him, though her curriculum went far beyond the usual.

“Oh.” Jack falters, seeming to realize his mistake. With nothing left to say, he reaches for his wallet, slipping Cody a twenty.

“I said fifty.”

“I know. I thought I could cover it.” He smiles, showing yellow teeth. “Really, I’m sorry.”

“Fuck you,” Cody says, his voice flat and without fire. He tosses the flask into Jack’s lap.

“Hey, don’t be like that.” Fingers reach for Cody’s hand, trying to tug him back into the bed. Cody manages to escape Jack’s grasp and hops onto the driver’s seat, zipping his sweatshirt shut.

“I really am sorry, I swear,” Jack pleads, though there’s a laugh around the edges. “What can I do to make it up to you?”

Cody’s hand slips a few inches into his pocket. The man before him is sprawled out on the mattress, his shirt unbuttoned, fly of his jeans still spread open. He has a daughter somewhere, a high school sophomore.

“How about I write up an IOU,” Cody says slowly, pulling the plastic teddy bear out of his pocket. He cracks the bear open and removes a scrap of paper, holding it up to the dim light.

Jack chuckles. “Sure, that sounds cute. Do it.”

Cody digs a pen out of his other pocket and carefully unrolls the scrap of paper, spreading it flat against his thigh. He looks at Jack, concentrating on the deep creases on either side of his mouth, the scraggly sideburns, the black hair, thinning at his temples. Then he starts to write.

“All done?” Jack asks when Cody puts the pen away.

“Yep.” He rolls the paper up and puts it back inside the bear.

“Are you supposed to give it to me? So I don’t forget that ‘I owe you’?”

Cody reaches for the door handle, giving the truck driver his first real smile of the night.

“Don’t worry, you won’t forget.”

***

On the other side of the overpass, Cody leans against the guard railing and counts stars.

On April 12, 2007, Jack Porter falls asleep at the wheel and rolls his semi into a ditch, dying of related injuries.

“So why’d you kill him, Cody?” Ryuk asks. He doesn’t seem to disapprove of Cody’s actions -- if anything, he seems exhilarated by the turn of events.

Lazily lifting his arm, Cody traces new patterns in the pinpricks of light, stitching them together with the tip of his finger. New patterns, new constellations. What’s to stop him?

“For his daughter,” Cody says. “For the girls with the braids.”  

Chapter Text

Pulvis Et Umbra Sumus

Just think of me as your shadow.

A part of Light -- a large part, in fact -- can’t believe he agreed to this.

He accepted Lucas’ challenge, mostly because he was never given any other choice than to accept it; returning to Mu wasn’t presented as an option, and Light would never have chosen that, anyway.

No, what he can’t believe he agreed to is spending nearly every waking moment with L. Again. No handcuffs this time, fortunately, but the bargain they struck still requires giving up nearly all of his privacy. The one sticking point Light refused to budge on was private visits with his sister: one hour, three times a week.

“What for?” L had asked, finger tracing his lower lip.

“It’s important to me.” Light took childish pleasure in refusing to explain further.

“You do realize that Kira would also insist on negotiating some ‘alone time,’ as well?”

“Any human would,” Light had griped. “Or is that concept too foreign for you to grasp?”

“Possibly. I never had a sister.”

This is the price of admission to L’s Kira investigation: Light agreeing to do all that he can to clear his own name in the process. His father, too, has made arrangement to spend the majority of his daylight hours with Maki, in addition to having common areas of the Yagami house wired for surveillance. Soichiro’s partner at Protection One agreed to take over the security company temporarily, and L used his own money to hire a full time nurse for Sayu.

Light knows he should be satisfied with the turn of events. Full-time access to L means that he can start the long, arduous process of convincing the detective to accept the ideology that Kira was built on. But turning L will be no easy task, if he can even be turned at all. Meanwhile, Light has to take care not to give L any further reason to suspect him.

So when he arrives at the hotel on Sunday night with his luggage, he leaves the Death Note locked up in his rigged drawer at home. He isn’t completely vulnerable, though: in the days leading up to his first meeting with L, Light prepared by cutting out several pages of the notebook, creating a tightly-packed stack of papers to keep in the hidden compartment of his watch. He doesn’t necessarily plan to use them any more than he needs to, but he’s still glad to have them there.

They agreed ahead of time that Light would have his own bedroom -- wired with video and audio surveillance, of course -- but he isn’t surprised when L leads him to the bedroom directly across from the detective’s.

Keep your enemies close.

“Watari was here before,” L explains, opening the door. “He’s moved into the extra bedroom in Maki’s suite, along with the rest of the surveillance equipment.”  

“Perfect. An old man and a shrew get to watch me take a shower.”

“If it helps, I doubt either of them are interested.” L opens the closet door and runs his hand through the hangers, clicking them together. “Look, lots of hangers for keep your clothes nice and rumple-free.” He gives Light a ghoulish smile.

“How novel. I had those at home, you know.” Light hefts up his suitcase and tosses it onto the bed. Rem sits cross-legged on the pillows, watching with seemingly mild interest.

Light has not had a private enough moment to ask her if she knows how Genesis 22 died, and he doesn’t know when he will. For now they communicate in stolen glances that mean virtually nothing.

“Are you going to help me unpack, or something?” Light unzips his suitcase and flips it open.

“I wouldn’t be good at that, as you might guess.” Even so, the detective makes no move to leave, instead settling into a crouch on the nearest chair.

Light deposits a stack of folded tee-shirts into the dresser. “You’re really going to sit here and watch me unpack? Can’t you do that while staring at a monitor, instead?”

“Does my presence bother you?” L’s eyes are wide -- purposefully so, Light thinks.

“No. I’ll just pretend you’re somewhere else. Far away.” Light shakes out a linen shirt and hangs it up.

“As I said, just think of me as your shadow.” The sentence is punctuated by the distinct crackle of a candy wrapper.

“Shadows don’t talk. Or eat candy.”

“Do you want to talk?” L smiles, showing purple-tinted teeth. “I can do that, or make an attempt. You’re quite surly with me, you know.”

“So?” Another shirt, another hanger.

“I suppose I can’t fault you for it. I’ve disrupted your life quite a lot.” There’s no regret in L’s tone.

Light doesn't answer, concentrating on unpacking his shoes. The best way to manipulate someone like L is to force the man to draw Light out of his tightly-sealed house, nail by nail, brick by brick. L has no respect for boundaries, after all. Over time, Light will allow L to think he’s torn down the house and is chipping poor, traumatized Light’s remaining armor away.

But L won’t stand a chance against that armor unless he gives up some of his own.

Light crouches on the floor, lining up his best pair of dress shoes, entirely focused on tuning L out. When a pair of cold fingers probe into the back of his neck, he’s so genuinely startled that he whirls around and bats the hand away with enough force to send L reeling back. The detective was so quiet, so in fact very like a shadow, that Light hadn’t even heard him approach.

“Don’t touch me!” Light shouts, the sound so loud, so from somewhere outside himself that he rolls against the closet door and wraps his arms around his chest defensively, heart thundering into his throat.

“Sorry.” L almost looks chastened.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Light’s voice is high-pitched, verging on frantic.

“I thought maybe --” L pauses. “I wondered how you would react to someone touching you when you didn’t expect it.”

“What the fuck? Why would you wonder that?” Light shoves himself to his feet. “Aizawa was right, you are a sicko.”

“Perhaps so,” L murmurs, slowly lowering himself back into his chair. “I won’t do that again, though.”

“I’m not your experiment, Ryuzaki. I’m a fucking person . Jesus.” Light shakes his head, the panic draining away to where he’s certain that Light 2’s more feral instincts have, for now, retreated.

“I realize that, believe it or not. It’s why I’d rather talk to you than watch you on a monitor. But you’re making things difficult.”

“No. You are.”

To that, L says nothing; silence slinks into the room, puddling around them. Light shrugs it away and returns to his suitcase. For the next handful of minutes he hangs up trousers and the rest of his shirts, nests tightly-rolled socks into a drawer next to his underwear, and carries his toiletry bag into the bathroom. He feels L studying his every movement throughout, eyes trained on him like a beacon, but the detective doesn’t lift a finger or utter a word. Light waits for the familiar prickles of annoyance. He picks up his history school book and sits on the bed to read, Rem lounging beside him in that sort of Shinigami-trance that seems to pass for sleeping.

A few pages into his studies, and Light’s already forgotten about the prickles of annoyance that never quite arrived. It’s not that he forgets that L is in the room with him; it’s that he forgets to think anything of it.

Time spools away. At some point, a soft, shifting noise makes Light lift his head from the book. L is faintly illuminated in his chair, nibbling on the edge of his thumb.

“I think you may be right, Light-kun,” He says quietly, offering a wan smile. “I will leave you alone, now.”

“Right about what?” Light scrubs the sleepiness out of his eyes with the back of his hand.

“Nevermind that.” The door cracks open, glare from the suite’s living area illuminating L’s knobbly figure.

“Ryuzaki?”

L turns his head back into the room. “What is it?”

“Are you really going to watch me all night on those monitors?”

A pause. “Yes. I rarely sleep during the nighttime hours.”

I remember.

Light closes his book and tosses it onto the nightstand. “Well, knock yourself out then, I guess.”

L leaves without a goodbye, the door shutting tight behind him.  

By the time Light finally rests his head on the pillow and closes his eyes, he doesn’t even notice that, for the first time since he slipped into Light 2’s life, he hasn’t left a lamp burning to cover up the night.

***

“Light. Are you awake?”

Light’s eyes struggle open, sleep sticking to them like cobwebs. “Mm?”

“Light.” One of the Shinigami’s bony fingers probe into the tender space between his ribs. “Don’t speak out loud. Just blink twice if you’re listening. I can see you in the dark.

Rolling onto his side toward Rem, Light draws up the blanket so that it partially shields his face. He finds it ridiculous that Rem wants him to ‘blink twice’ if he’s listening. What else would he be doing, if not listening?

Even so, he humors her and blinks twice.

“Because of your memory problems, you might not remember when you got the Death Note. But you didn’t have it when you were thirteen. You’ve had it since the end of November.”

Yeah, Rem, I know that. Light blinks twice hard.

The Shinigami continues on in her raspy monotone: “If Genesis 22 was really killed by a Death Note, then his name was probably written by a Shinigami.”

Again, Light wishes that he could speak aloud and inform Rem that she’s only telling him what he already knows. He’s long since concluded that a Shinigami must have sacrificed itself to interrupt the murders-in-progress. The question is: was it trying to save Light, or Sayu? And why? He can’t imagine under what circumstances a Shinigami would develop loving, protective feelings for an adolescent and a child.

“Anyway, it’s too bad you can’t tell that detective. Maybe he’d stop suspecting you, then.” The Shinigami’s tone betrays no concern. Light almost wonders if she’s mocking his current predicament, not realizing that this is exactly where he planned to end up.

Yes, right. This is just what he planned.

He turns his back to Rem and closes his eyes, hoping sleep will take him quickly, but whenever oblivion teases at him, he’s jolted awake by an image of the Death Note, its black cover nearly disguised by the bright green grass of the school yard. The Death Note, slipping into his hands so easily, like being reunited with a lost limb. For the first time, Light wonders why he was gifted with the Death Note in not one but two lifespans. Coincidence seems implausible, but that doesn’t necessarily imply destiny.

Why me?

It isn’t a question filled with torment, but genuine curiosity. Should he take it as his instinct compels him to? As a sign that out of everyone in this world and all others, he alone is equipped to use the Death Note in the most righteous way?

He doesn’t see any other way to interpret the circumstances. Moreover, he knows that he doesn’t want to.

Light will convince L -- he’s the only one who can. Light killed L; he can do anything he wants to him now.

With that thought, he finally drifts back to dreams.

***

L catches himself doing it again.

He’s at the bank of computer monitors, one eye trained on the night-vision image of Light Yagami’s sleeping form, the other skimming through Crime and Punishment. With his focus divided, his fingers drift to his chest and idly rub at his tee-shirt, right at the spot where the tattooed “L” is. There’s no particular itch or discomfort there, but he touches it just the same, returning to it again and again like some kind of talismen.

It’s still a shock to undress in the bathroom and see the inky stains marring his skin, that inescapable reminder that this isn’t his skin at all.

He brings his hand firmly back to the book, re-reading the same passage he’s gone over before:

“I’ve come to explain myself, I consider it my duty, so to speak. I want to make clear to you how the whole business, the whole misunderstanding arose. I’ve caused you a great deal of suffering, Rodion Romanovitch. I am not a monster. I understand what it must mean for a man who has been unfortunate, but who is proud, imperious and above all, impatient, to have to bear such treatment! I regard you in any case as a man of noble character and not without elements of magnanimity, though I don’t agree with all your convictions. I wanted to tell you this first, frankly and quite sincerely, for above all I don’t want to deceive you. When I made your acquaintance, I felt attracted by you. Perhaps you will laugh at my saying so. You have a right to. I know you disliked me from the first and indeed you’ve no reason to like me. You may think what you like, but I desire now to do all I can to efface that impression and to show that I am a man of heart and conscience.”

Even as he gathered evidence against Rodion Raskolnikov, the lawyer-detective Porfiry pushed for the other to confess. Even as the pursuit plummeted Porfiry into obsession and near-madness, he didn’t feed Raskolnikov to the flames when he had the chance. He didn’t want to see Raskolnikov crushed and imprisoned for his crimes, he wanted Raskolnikov to regain his humanity by divulging his guilt to a fellow human.

The whole scene is an uncomfortable echo of L’s first encounter with Light Yagami. Yes, L went to great lengths to find hard proof connecting Light to Kira, but what he wanted more than proof was Light’s acquiescence, for Light to kneel at L’s altar and unburden himself. Punishing Light was never the goal, and even if it were, Light was a creature so proud that, for him, conceding to L would likely be punishment enough.

Instead, it was L who ended up kneeling for Light.

This time, L wants to destroy Light. Even if he didn’t want to, it’s what he must do -- completing the challenge means that Light Yagami’s soul will never exist again. And just as before, the fulfillment of L’s goal requires that Light kneel at his altar. Confess.

The trouble is, the trouble is…

With the passage now fully committed to memory, L returns his eyes to the computer screen. Light Yagami is sleeping, curled on his side with his knees tucked toward his chest. He sleeps soundly, with no hint of insomnia or nightmares. This is not what L expected, given Light’s extreme reaction to being touched. His outburst wasn’t a product of anger, but an outpouring of fear and panic that was commensurate with post-traumatic stress. All of L’s finely-honed skills and senses tell him that Light’s outburst wasn’t fake, yet it seems odd that he would sleep soundly after a fright of such magnitude.

Perhaps his Shinigami is keeping him safe and warm.

L can’t see the creature, but he knows it must be there.

Putting Crime and Punishment aside, L retrieves his other book from Michelina, the collection of essays by Jung. The first time L read Jung was with the intent to learn more about the man’s theories on archetypes and the collective unconscious, both of which were relevant to a case L was working on at the time. Now he’s reading from cover to cover, underlining the passages that sound like they might be guidance. It feels peculiar to be seeking guidance at all; he’s quite accustomed to getting by on his own authority.

“We cannot change anything unless we accept it.”

“Where wisdom reigns, there is no conflict between thinking and feeling.”

L isn’t particularly moved. He could get the same profundity from fortune cookies.

No, the essays he’s most drawn to are the ones where Jung expands on his concept of the Shadow archetype, asserting that every human psyche carries within it a “shadow self,” a conglomeration of dark urges that the individual refuses to acknowledge and instead projects onto others. Whatever a person deems unacceptable and inferior is, in essence, their shadow -- the part of their own self that they reject and deny.

Jung’s therapeutic advice for confronting one's own shadow isn’t to drag it out into the light and forcibly purify it -- indeed, to do so would only be another form of repression. The Shadow cannot be cured or amputated, it can only be actualized. Like Dante or Theseus, one must journey into the deepest caverns of their own darkness in order to recognize their Shadow.

“Such a man knows that whatever is wrong in the world is in himself, and if he only learns to deal with his own Shadow he has done something real for the world. He has succeeded in shouldering at least an infinitesimal part of the gigantic, unsolved social problems of our day. These problems are mostly so difficult because they are poisoned by mutual projections. How can anyone see straight when he does not even see himself and the darkness he unconsciously carries with him into all dealings?”

Does L see his own darkness? He’s quite certain that it threads through every fiber of his being, but has he ever thought to look at those individual fibers?

A quiet knock sounds at the suite doors, interrupting L’s reverie. It’s Watari, who lets himself in with his own copy of the key card.

“I’ve just sent you some new reports from the Detroit PD."

“Thank you,” L says, shutting his book.

“Also, some new correspondence from Wammy’s. Two emails from Mello, one from Near.”

“Ah, good then,” L nods, not daring a more pronounced reaction. In the last few days it’s become apparent that L the Second took a personal interest in the lives of his potential successors, corresponding with them on a semi-regular basis. L had done very little of that, himself; so long as he was alive the role of “L” belonged to him, and whoever took over one day would have to shape it around their own skills and needs without the benefit of L’s guidance.

For the sake of keeping up appearances as L the Second, L will read the emails later. Maybe.

Watari ventures closer. “What have you been reading these days? Is it À la recherche du temps perdu again?”

The question gives L pause. He’s read a great many books, but he doesn’t typically re-read them. Certainly not for pleasure. À la recherche du temps perdu , better known as Remembrance of Thing Past (though more accurately translated as In Search of Lost Time ), is a seven volume behemoth by Marcel Proust that L never had the interest to tackle, dismissing it after a skim of the first book. The prose was beautiful but tedious, dwelling on the meaning of minutiae and memory. Seven volumes of navel-gazing.

Seven volumes which, judging by Watari’s tone, were amongst L the Second’s favorites.

“No, Dostoyevsky.” L raises the book. “And a little Jung.”

“ Crime and Punishment ? In the mood for something didactic, then.”

“Not precisely in the mood, but I keep reading it, just the same.” L returns his attention to the monitors, where Light still sleeps soundly. Watari lowers himself into the chair next to him, smelling faintly of coffee.

“While you know I trust your instincts on these matters, for the sake of argument: is this --” he flicks a bony finger at the computer screen “--the best course of action?”

A flutter of caution travels down L’s spine. The Watari L knew from his own lifespan did not typically question L’s methods, not even for the sake of argument. Their relationship was a business partnership: L was the product, the ‘world’s greatest detective,’ and Watari was the investor. There were moments of warmth between them, certainly, but from early on L made it abundantly clear that peak performance required free reign. At times he sought out Watari’s input, but L never gave it the same weight as he did his own instincts.

“It’s the course of action I’ve committed to. Whether it is the best or not is insignificant if I know that it will produce a result, one way or the other.”

“I see.” Watari’s tone doesn’t carry much challenge in it, but neither does ring with support. “People rarely have pleasantly neutral feelings for you, L. Naomi Misora may be the sole exception.”

L is uncertain as to what the older man is implying, but can’t risk asking him outright. “Is she?” he asks blandly.

Watari’s hand settles on L’s shoulder. “I’ve been watching you since you were a child. I saw how the others were either inexplicably drawn to you, or inexplicably repelled.”

The hand feels warm and foreign.

What are you doing?

Holding you.

L wants to squirm away, just as he did with his mother. But he’s meant to be L the Second now, so he endures the hand on his shoulder, just barely.

“Not much has changed since those days. Don’t expect Light Yagami to remain neutral for long.”

Watari’s hand wavers, and L takes the opportunity to slip out from under it. “He isn’t neutral now. ‘Repelled’ would perhaps not be a strong enough description for what Light Yagami is feeling.”

“And yet, there he is.” Watari’s glasses glow faintly with the light from the monitors. “Sleeping under your watch. Maybe something has drawn him, after all.”

“I doubt that it’s me.” L gives Watari a half-smile, wishing he could assure the man that there is no human on the planet who could draw Light Yagami into anything. Not the Light L knew, anyway.

This one, on the other hand -- L will simply have to wait and see.

“I’ve heard you say that before,” Watari says quietly. Then he rises out of his chair and heads for the door. “Goodnight, L. Call if you need anything.”

Even as he hears the door close, L stares at Watari’s empty chair, where the odor of coffee still lingers. In the brief time that he’s been living as L the Second, L has found Watari a little cold. It never occurred to him that the coldness was borne out of genuine concern and care.

L doesn’t know what to do with concern and care. He appreciates them in the abstract, perhaps, but beyond their potential use as a tool against another person, what do they offer in the real world?

And should he find out?

But we already decided, Lawliet. Now is not the time to navigate the completely uncharted tundra of your heart.

Yet it may in fact be the only time, and he doesn’t know how much time there is.

Brain heavy with less-navigable thoughts that he’s accustomed to, L heads for the bath in his bedroom -- if Light does anything suspicious for the next half hour, the recordings will show it. The bathroom has a large soaking tub, and L turns on the water as hot as he can stand, undressing with his back to the mirror to avoid looking at L the Second’s inked skin. Not usually one for such frivolities, he adds a few squirts of the hotel-provided bubble bath to the burbling water, hoping it generates enough foam to keep his body shielded from his own eyes.

“People rarely have pleasantly neutral feelings for you, L.”

L sinks into the steaming water until it meets with his chin. Watari had been describing L the Second, but his words could just as easily describe L the Present. Even when L never showed his face to people, it wasn’t uncommon for them to regard him with suspicion, resentment, or irritation. This never bothered L -- people tend to reveal interesting things when they’re unsettled, and nothing unsettles them more than a person who doesn’t seem quite real.

And then there are those few who were drawn to him precisely because he didn’t seem quite real. He had (and has) idiosyncrasies, quirks, and habits (some genuine, some more calculated), but together they didn’t amount to a whole, entire person. But to those who took an interest in him, he was a compelling lump of clay, a project they wanted to dig their fingers into, twisting and sculpting until L matched whatever vision they had drawn up in their imagination. Some mistook him for a hero, driven by noble ideals; others fancied him a trickster, slippery and dangerous.

Every once and awhile, L had even humored their projections. Because he was curious; because he was bored; because sometimes, even he wanted to get off.

But L was never interested in becoming a whole, entire person, he was only interested in being L. L, the role; L, the detective. L -- a letter empty of all signification, waiting to be filled with whatever would get him to where he needed to go. All of his interludes with other humans, sexual or otherwise, were designed to be easily discarded, flatly forgotten.

If L was inclined to be fair, he would give Light Yagami some credit; he, at least, stood for something. If Light were to venture down into the darkest caverns of his own psyche, he would find a shadow lurking there. L isn’t so sure he would find the same inside himself.

Or maybe your doubt is just a way to avoid the dark caverns altogether.

L sighs and reaches for a washcloth, his left arm dripping with suds that only half-disguise the sprinkling of small tattoos. The one in the tender inner fold of his elbow looks to be among the newest: a letter B with a jagged crack down the middle. Without knowing why, without fully knowing what he’s about to do, L touches the tattoo with the pad of his thumb, and it’s as if the crack opens up wide, loosening the secrets buried his head.

I know you’re going to cut me loose, just like the others. You’ll cut me loose and I won’t care, because I’ll already be in you. 

You’ll never be rid of me.  

An overly dramatic statement, considering that I haven’t even touched you. 

Because I touched you first, and I’ll touch you last. You’ll put me right here, see?   

Not as a reminder that you won, but as a memory of what you never lost.  

You’re a sad man, B. Are you really that afraid of being forgotten? We’re not as alike as you think. 

I’d much rather be forgotten than forget.  

The tattoo burns under his thumb like a coal pressed to skin. L lets out a stunted cry and splashes out of the tub, slipping over the porcelain lip and landing, limbs akimbo, on the bathmat. His heart hammers in his throat -- well over 100 bpm -- vision blurry with stars.

“No,” he groans. “Tell me you didn’t.”

But he can feel the ghost of B’s lips on his neck, fingers crawling like insects over his ribs and down his back.

L leans over the toilet and vomits up the last thing he ate: jelly beans, now a purplish mush.

It's too much -- too much. This is what soul-searching gets him: not the darkness of his own psyche, just the fractured shadow of L the Second.

He dresses before he’s properly dried off, clothes clinging to his skin uncomfortably. Better that than a memory of Beyond Birthday’s naked body, sliding against his own. In his own lifespan, L only met him a few times. Just enough for B to develop a murderous fascination with him. L had not found it flattering.

In the bedroom, he dumps open a duffle bag of L the Second’s personal effects. They are happily impersonal, at least; no saved letters and postcards, no sentimental locks of hair. Books, mostly -- atlases and reference manuals and, as expected, all seven volumes of À la recherche du temps perdu , written in their original French.

“Why were you so afraid of forgetting?” He mutters, holding the first volume in his hand. What did you forget that you couldn’t forgive yourself for?

He lowers the book, tapping it against his thigh, and a bookmark falls loose from the page, drifting to the floor.

No, not a bookmark -- a photograph of his mother. Smiling, sun in her hair instead of blood.

***

“What are you two being so loud about? It’s barely past seven in the morning.”

L and Misora -- Maki -- look up from their seats at the table, where they are bent over their breakfast. Both of them have a high color on their cheeks (even L), and Maki’s lips are still turned up at the corners. All at once, Light feels like an intruder.

For the first time in the week since he’s been alive, Light had woke up well-rested, even rising ten minutes before his alarm was set to go off. He took a quick shower, back turned to the cameras, towel-dried his hair, and put on a fresh set of school clothes. While straightening his cuffs and collar he heard Maki’s laughter ringing from the suite’s living area, followed by the roar and churn of a blender.

“Did we wake you? You don’t look like you just woke up,” Maki observes, lifting a delicate forkful of poached egg to her mouth.

“Did you sleep well, Light-kun?” L is poking a straw into what looks like a massive chocolate milkshake.  

“You should know.” Light pictures the detective hunched in front of the monitors, sucking on his thumb or a brick of chocolate while watching Light toss and turn under the covers.

Except Light is pretty certain he didn’t toss and turn. The hotel suite feels more like home than his actual home did -- that house of strained suffering, tainted with the phantom of Light 2. There are adult, working detectives here, and that’s what Light had been when he died, not a kid just starting off at University.

More than just a detective, Light had been “L.”

The memory emboldens him and he takes a seat directly across from the detective. “You eat ice cream for breakfast?”  

“Ah, that’s my trick for getting some actual nutrients into him. Chocolate protein shake with extra peanut butter and banana.” Maki points at the sticky blender in the tiny kitchenette area.

“I find it tolerable,” L says, sipping.

Light notices that they’re both wearing workout clothes, Maki in rolled-up joggers and a loose tank top, L wearing a black sweatshirt and gray jogging pants. “Did you go running, or something?”

“When we were in the states I taught Ryuzaki capoeira; he’s repaying me by training me in Silat.”

“Silat?” Light’s never heard of it. His own training is in karate and aikido.

“A fighting style from the Malay Peninsula. Brutal.” Maki lifts her arm to show a swelling bruise. “This was mostly my fault. Ryuzaki used my own momentum against me.”

“Mm.” Light pours himself a cup of coffee from the carafe, forcing disinterest. He remembers L’s surprising speed and strength; the man was like some kind of human panther, lounging around all day while never losing the ability to uncoil and strike like a predator.

Like Maki, he’s nursed an L-shaped bruise, a dark heel mark imprinted just below his ribs, aching every time he took a deep breath. Light was just a kid then, had never been in a real scrap, one without uniforms and rules and equipment. L was the first person to strike him and leave a bruise.

Light’s eyes skate toward the purple blemish on Maki’s arm, pain and nostalgia tugging at him like something physical, like hunger or thirst.

“If Light-kun is interested, I could train him, too.” L punctuates the comment with a loud slurp of shake. The sound invades Light’s ears, severing his longing so that it mercifully drops away.

“Did I say I was interested?” The rude, rhetorical question barely makes L and Maki pause in their eating. “While I’m here my only duty is to assist the Kira investigation and clear the Yagami name.”

L smiles, wiping chocolate smears from the corners of his mouth, then laughs quietly into his cupped palm.

“What?” There they are -- the prickles of annoyance Light’s been waiting for.

“I’ve seen you become frustrated when your father evokes the concept of ‘duty,’ and yet you evoke it quite often, yourself.”

Light hides a frown behind his coffee cup, then remembers he’s meant to be a petulant, sensitive teen. “So what? You’re calling me a hypocrite? I don’t care.”

“Hypocrisy is a very human trait.” L shrugs, gnawing lightly on the end of his straw. “Many would consider it a noble thing to have a strong sense of duty.”

“Ah,” Maki says, waving her fork. “Depends on what that duty is beholden to. Tyrants recruit followers in the name of ‘duty.’”

Light looks carefully between them, measuring the energy in the air. He feels vaguely toyed with and ganged-up on, though he senses that L and Maki aren’t acting with deliberation. It’s simply a side effect of having two incredibly sharp and perceptive minds crowding the same room.

No -- three . Three sharp and perceptive minds.

“Can we talk about Kira instead of wasting time?” He says, quiet but stern.

“Of course, Light-kun. Duty calls.” There’s a maddening, syrupy-slow wink in L’s voice that makes Light ball his hands into fists.

“Why don’t you take a look at these?” Maki passes Light a folder. “It’s for another case Ryuzaki’s been keeping an eye on.”

“Angel of Mercy?” Light reads the label.

“A string of mysterious deaths that originated in Cleveland, Ohio, with more recent ones suspected in Toledo, Ohio, and Detroit, Michigan.”

Light speed-reads the files, a collection of newspaper articles and official reports from various police departments. “They think the murderer is a woman, probably a nurse?” Light shakes his head. “It would be too difficult to get hired at that many hospitals in such a short period of time.”

“Correct.” L, still chewing on his straw.

“Maybe a volunteer? The vetting process probably isn’t rigorous.” Light points at one of the police reports. “Especially at nursing homes, which is what it looks like he was moving to.”

“‘He?’”

Light pauses. “I don’t know why I said ‘he’.” He really doesn’t. “It’s just as likely to be a ‘she’.”

“My instincts have also been telling me that the Angel is a ‘he,’ despite the lack of supporting evidence,” L says, finally depositing his mangled straw back into his empty glass. “What about the murder weapon?”

Light’s eyes return to the report. “Nothing unusual found in the vics’ systems. In almost all cases the cause of death was heart failure or a sudden advancement of disease.” He looks back up, a feverish heat traveling from his ears down to his neck. “The same murder weapon as Kira?”

“So you don’t think the Angel of Mercy is Kira?” Maki asks.

“No.” Light shuts the file. There’s someone else with a Death Note, then -- he ought to be grateful it’s not Misa, but she, at least, was someone he knew how to control and bring to heel.

“Neither do we,” L says, tracing a circular pattern on his knee. “The motives are as different as night and day, but they both appear to kill people the same way. Hijacking the body, somehow; bending it toward death.”

Put like that, even Light feels a tiny shiver breeze over his skin. He can’t tell if it’s dread or desire or some unholy mixture of both.

“That’s impossible,” he says flatly. “Like something out of fiction. Nobody can will another person into dying.”

“Contemporary culture would agree with you. But if you’d lived hundreds and hundreds of years ago, curses and witches and demons would be just as real to you as that cup of coffee.” L nods at the drink in Light’s hand.

Light puts the coffee down. “They didn’t have the advanced technologies or education that we have now.”

“And perhaps we don’t have the advanced technology or education to understand how Kira and the Angel kill. After all, many things that were once fiction are now our reality.” L reaches into his pocket and dangles a pair of tiny iPod headphones from his fingers. “The author Ray Bradbury described something similar to these in his novel Fahrenheit 451. Tiny seashells attached to thimble-sized radios, capable of producing an ocean of sound.”

While Light finds it odd to conceptualize the Death Note as something akin to modern technology, the comparison isn’t unthinkable. The device is incredibly user-friendly, designed so that anyone with basic literacy can use it. It even comes with an instruction manual, of sorts.

‘If such technology were available, then wouldn’t the world’s most powerful governments be behind it?” Light asks.

“Fair observation, Light-kun. It doesn’t appear as if that’s the case. And if it is, we’ll know soon enough.”

“How?”

L smiles and dips his head, strands of black hair shielding his eyes. “How will we know if we’ve uncovered a powerful government weapon? We’ll be assassinated, of course. That’s how these things work.”

“Wow, that’s a cheery thought.” Maki rolls her eyes and piles empty dishes onto the room-service tray. “I’m gonna get showered and changed before Matsuda and Aizawa show up with Yagami-san.”

“Ah, right. What time is your first class, Light-kun?”

“Nine o’clock. We should head for the train soon.”

L nods. “Allow me ten minutes.”

It was decided (by L) that ‘Rue Ryuzaki’ would be a late enrollment at To-Oh University, waylaid by a death in the family. Further, ‘Rue’ was to be presented as Light’s old friend from elementary school. They would travel to and from campus together, attending classes side-by-side. Light pinches at the cuff of his shirt, imagining Kou’s expression of disbelief at the sudden appearance of this ‘old friend.’

But, he reasons, it isn’t his problem to deal with. Let L tackle that.

“I’m ready.”

Light looks up at the sound of L’s voice, startled to see the detective dressed in what amounts to a real outfit: white button-down shirt and loose, clay-colored trousers. The shirt is untucked, but the garments are neat and ironed. L’s posture, even, isn’t as hunched as it usually is, as if the change of clothes injected him with some degree of civility.

“You could almost pass for human, Ryuzaki,” Light observes, with only a hint of a sneer.

“That’s the idea.”

L keeps up the act all the way to To-Oh, sitting across from Light on the train with his feet on the floor, his thumb nowhere near his mouth. He even pops the iPod headphones into his ears and bobs his head to a faintly raucous tune, tapping his long fingers against the strap of his messenger bag.

Light finds the sight of L masquerading as a real person more unsettling than his usual ghoulish demeanor. Back in his own world, Light had occasionally wondered if ‘Ryuzaki’ was a persona of sorts, but L seemed too strange and idiosyncratic to be anything other than exactly what he presented himself as. Still, Light had never doubted that it was a presentation of some kind.

“You’re staring at me, Light-kun,” L says in that low, rumbly voice of his, flashing a sliver of his spooky smile.

It’s all familiar enough to make Light almost smile back.

“Believe me, this disguise takes more effort than it looks.” L tugs at a headphone. “Especially with music this bad. Will you at least give me points for trying?”

Light turns his head, pressing his cheek against the train window. “No.”

He doesn’t speak again until they’re off the train and walking to campus, taking a shortcut through a wooded area that allows some measure of privacy.

“What you said before about Kira’s weapon -- you don’t really think it’s a new technology do you? Or something supernatural?”

Rem is following them, so quiet that Light doesn’t bother to check to see if she’s listening.

“What I think is that it ultimately doesn’t matter.” L shrugs his bag over his shoulder, turning his head far enough to meet Light’s eyes. “With every kind of murder, the weapon is always the same.”

“How do you figure?”

Something flashes in the distance of L’s eyes, flint striking stone. “Because the weapon is always intent.”

Light’s breath almost catches at the back of his throat, an idea forming with such quick certainty that he has no cause to question it.

This, slowly: “Do you think it’s possible for a murderer to have good intentions?”

“What a curious question,” L says, sounding not-very curious.

Of course it is, just as I intended.

Light stops in his tracks, leaning against a tree and deliberately clenching his jaw -- a subtle indication of internal struggle. “I’m going to tell you something, okay? I don’t even care if it makes you think less of me.”

L’s thumb creeps toward his mouth, head tilted in expectation. Good.

“When Genesis 22 dropped dead, I didn’t think it was a miracle. I thought it was me . I thought that somehow, my own desire to have the torment stop had strangled the air right out of his chest.” A quiver enters his voice and he shakes his head, fighting it back. “I know now that his death probably had nothing to do with me, but still, the intent was there.”

L remains quiet and watchful, the heat of his internal calculations bringing color to his pale cheeks.

“Does that alone make me a murderer?” Before the detective can open his mouth, Light continues: “Because even if it does, I don’t fucking care.”

And with that, he stalks off in the manner of a sulky teenager, satisfaction crackling through every bone and cell in his body, propelling him along like the best kind of fuel.

***

L is stunned for a moment. Light Yagami has caught him flat-footed, tilting in the wind. L had prepared himself for one-hundred or more denials, for long weeks of trying to chase Light through the labyrinth, all while risking pursuit of a mirage.

Light Yagami, did you just tell me something true?

L hesitates to accept this at face value, reluctant to deem Light’s actions a gift. But he can’t write it off as insignificant, either. Even if Light is playing up his past tragedies to gain L’s sympathy, to divert L’s suspicions, it’s still something that L can use.

There is very nearly nothing L can’t put to good use.

Whether Light realizes it or not, pretending to open up requires a kind of opening up, and the best masks and disguises are nothing more than distortions of the truth.

Further, Light is unaware that L already knows the truth: Light Yagami is Kira. L knew it just as certainly last time, but now he knows the means, understands the method. Yet all of L’s clarity and understand counts for nothing because he can only win one way and yet he must must win.

To convince Light will take an act of unconscionable bravery and strength: L will have to allow himself to be seen , possibly for the first time. Light cannot be bullied or forced into confession, and even if that were allowed in the rules, Light’s pride would never allow it. He needs to come to accept L as an equal -- or, at the very least, a human -- which means that L must play at being human.

Play , because L is only a scientist and scholar of humanity.

The detective sinks to his familiar crouch, forgetting, for the moment, that Light has run off somewhere without him, escaping surveillance. L’s fingers rake through the soil, gathering up pebbles and tufts of grass.

The trouble is...

L has nothing to show Light. He has no clue how to be seen -- what is there to reveal, other than his role?

His fingers rip up another pinch of greenery.

But perhaps he can introduce Light to the shadow L now carries with him: the L he would have been, if he’d suffered nightmares and regrets and broken hearts and all the things L the Second had suffered in L’s stead.

A real, complicated L to reach out to this new, imperfect Kira.

Could it work?

The trouble is…

If Light were to confess, to be convinced, L would want to keep him. He doesn’t know why, or what for, he just knows that he would.

It’s a prize too great to let go.

Chapter Text

Historia Vitae Magistra

Gabe is bringing Gelus back to life again. He’s lost track of how many times the Shinigami has destroyed itself, stitching and stuffing collapsing into a pale drift of moon dust. Twenty times? Two-hundred? There’s no real reason to count.

“Hey, it’s the Old Man’s pet,” Sidoh observes to no one, his comically round head tilting to follow Gabe’s progression up the barren hillside

“Hello.” No matter what form Gabe’s in, the Shinigami will always see him as another Shinigami. He crouches over the spot where Gelus dissolved and scoops his remains into a small pouch.

“Who was it this time?” Sidoh clicks his tongue against his pointy teeth, hovering nearby.

“A beautiful young woman in peril.”

“Again?” The Shinigami laughs weezily.

Gabe scans the crags and boulders but finds no sign of Gelus’ Death Note, which means that another Shinigami has probably stolen it, maybe even Sidoh. Gabe brushes his hands off. Nothing can be done now; this is the way Lucas designed things.

“Bye, Sidoh.”

Gabe heads for Lucas’ cave, passing right through the hooked chains and piles of skulls until he crosses the threshold to the lower levels of the compound, where his workshop is waiting.

For someone with Gabe’s skills, it only takes a few spools of time and space to craft Gelus back into his old self -- a collection of off-colored bones sutured together like a parody of a rag doll.

“Why do you keep doing this?” Gabe asks the dead-eyed creature. If there were a way to prevent the Shinigami from ripping himself apart, over and over again, Gabe might have applied it, but if there is one constant in the universe, it is this: anything with any kind of sentience needs at least a smidge of free will.

Gabe is focusing on Gelus’ eye -- the most important part -- when he feels Lucas in the workshop, his presence casting a pointedly golden warmth against the bare nape of Gabe’s neck.

“What are you doing?” He asks. There’s no need to turn around and confirm Lucas’ presence. Gabe can hear soft scratching noises, charcoal on paper.

“Sketching you while you work.”

He still doesn’t turn, but that doesn’t matter. Gabe can see Lucas anyway, sat in an appropriately throne-like chair with his long legs crossed, the sketchbook tilted open in his lap. “Why?”

“Because I felt like it. I like watching you work.”

“I’m just about done.” Gabe rolls the eyeball between his deft fingers, squeezing all the sweet and sour of the universe into it. After a few more minutes it starts to glow with knowledge, with wanting.

That wanting -- to be truly free to choose, there must be a chance that the choice will result in death, that everything will be lost, blown to dust.

Shinigamis usually choose life over love. Or maybe it’s not so much choosing life as it is not choosing death. They’re more simple, at least, than the sirens had been. So many had come to Gabe with their drowned sailors, seaweed draping their bloated bodies like death shrouds. They came to him, eyes crusted with salt, and pleaded for another choice, another chance.

In the end, Gabe had turned most of them to sea foam, not dust. It seemed like a kinder sort of recall.

Gabe gently pushes the eye into one of Gelus’ empty sockets, wishing he understood free will better. He’s been trying to understand. But he thinks it would be easier if the Shinigami were like puppets, utterly beholden to the strings clasped in Lucas’ hands. The Shinigami can be tugged at and nudged, yes, but never completely under control -- not so long as free will is the covenant of the universe.

“Bring it here,” Lucas says, putting his sketchbook aside.

“Him,” is Gabe’s quiet correction. He wishes the Shinigami were puppets, but he also wishes that Lucas didn’t treat them like puppets. It’s a contradiction in thinking that Gabe knows doesn’t make sense, but there it is.

“Sure, right,” Lucas indulges, lifting Gelus from Gabe’s grasp. He runs a finger down the creature’s back, bringing Gelus to life with a creaky, full-body shudder, then sends it toddling off back for the Shinigami realm. None of the other Shinigami will remember that he was ever anything but alive.

“He’s just going to do it again.” Gabe picks up Lucas’ sketchbook, smoothes his fingers over the crisp paper. Lucas has drawn him all wrong -- he has watchful eyes and a faint smile of concentration stretched across his features.

“Oh, well. Can’t be helped.” Lucas shrugs.

Gabe tucks the sketchbook under his arm. “If he has free will, why doesn’t he use it the right way?”

Lucas gently pries the book from Gabe’s arm. “What would be the right way?” He asks, that glint in his eye like he’s asking a regular question instead of laying a riddle at Gabe’s feet.

Gabe pays it no mind, he’s never been one for riddles. “The right way would be to not fall in love with a human and to not save its life.”

“But that’s the most fascinating thing about free will.” Lucas returns to the sketchbook, a soft piece of charcoal appearing in his hand. “Humans -- and other creatures -- are always forgetting that they have it.”

Lucas makes a few more broad strokes on the paper, then leans in, sketching the finer details. “They want to believe in destiny, they want to believe that choice never matters.” He finishes with a flourish, then angles the book upwards so that Gabe can see the finished product.

“Cody Callahan,” Gabe says, recognizing the fine-boned face, the delicate, hesitant features. “The criminal.”

“That’s how he insists on seeing himself.” Lucas sighs like he thinks it’s a pity, though Gabe knows how miserly Lucas can be when it comes to things like pity. “Still. At least he doesn’t insist on seeing himself as a god.” At that he lets out a snort of laughter, tinged with smoke.

Gabe ignores him, carefully loosening the sketchbook from Lucas’ hand. “Why did you draw me like this?” He flips the page over to his portrait.

“Like what?”

“Like a human.” Gabe points to the paper, then drifts his fingers up to his eyes, tracing the ridges of his sockets and sharp cheekbones. “None of this is who I really am.”

“I know that, but it’s how I see you.” Lucas voice is matter-of-fact, because here, his vision is all that matters.

Gabe gives the sketchbook back to him. “So you insist on seeing what you want to see, too.”

A beat of silence. “I do.”

“Why?”

“You ask why too damn much,” Lucas growls, and the sound fills the air and wraps around Gabe like something dark and warm. “But it’s because of this.”

And then he’s reaching -- reaching . Up and in and through, so far that Gabe thinks he might actually tear everything away and clamp down on the heart that isn’t there.

Except that isn’t what it’s called. It’s called kissing and sex and fucking and those are just words. Words never say much, not really. What it really feels like is the end of Pandæmonium and the beginning, and then the end all over again. Gabe hates it, he thinks, because he doesn’t ever want to go without it.

That’s what it is, really. The wanting .

***

For the next three days, L investigates Light Yagami. It’s got nothing to do with Kira and everything to do with the Japanese male born at Tokyo Takanawa Hospital on February 28, 1989, weighing 7.1 pounds and measuring 21 inches. Light Yagami, the much-lauded honor student who nevertheless was two points shy of a perfect score on the To-Oh University entrance exam.

On the first day, Light and “Rue Ryuzaki” sit in adjacent chairs at one of the lecture hall’s built-in tables. The girl in front of them turns around to say hello, her sleek black hair cut at a blunt angle that grazes the clean line of her jaw.

“Who’s your friend, Light-chan?” She asks, the question sharp through her smile.

Light-chan . L notes the honorific, files it away.

“Rue Ryuzaki,” Light says, easy and light. “We went to the same elementary school.” He shifts enough to acknowledge L’s presence. “This is Kiyomi Takada. She’s our freshman representative.”

Takada’s face scrunches delicately, rife with false modesty. “Only just barely.” She leans in conspiratorially. “Light-chan missed my exam score by a single point.”

“Takada-san had a perfect score?” L thrusts his hands into his pockets to keep from sticking a thumb or finger in his mouth.

“Ah, no.” A flash of red in her cheeks. “Also missed by a single point.”

“Oh.” L’s gaze roves around the room, taking in the other students with their calculators and heavy text books. He finds it odd that at their age, they’re still trying to solve the sort of problems that come in books. “I took the entrance exam a few days after the rest of you. All of my answers were correct.”

L isn’t sure if he imagines it, but he thinks he hears a quiet huff leak from Light’s lungs. It might even be a laugh.

“What?” Takada’s voice is flat with disbelief.

“In that case, maybe you should be the freshman representative, Ryuzaki.” Light says, with a type of innocence that is anything but, though it’s a very good approximation.

L gives Takada’s pale, desperately impassive face a wan smile. “Takada-san seems more suited to it than I.”

She gives him a smiling nod of thanks and turns back to her books, her shoulders so stiff that there’s no doubt she’s holding back a tremor.

The class is calculus. L is bored throughout, the equations both terribly simple and terribly unimportant. Light takes dutiful notes in crisp, perfect handwriting, but there’s an air of showmanship to it. Other students erase, scribble frantically, and erase again, while Light’s notes are something to frame and hang on the wall.

L regards his own empty notebook, then writes something in it.

What positive value for k would make the following into the equations of a pair of parallel lines on the same coordinate axes?   y = kx - 2 and ky = 9x - 7

L slides the notebook toward Light until he notices it, makes a grinding noise with his teeth, and writes down an answer.

The answer is 3. Was that supposed to be hard? Stop interrupting me.

L taps the paper with his fingers, smiling a little. He feels less bored, now.

That was one of the two questions you missed on the entrance exam. How interesting that you found it easy this time around.

He slides the notebook back to Light, who lifts his arm long enough to sweep it closer, his calculus notes essentially abandoned.

You looked up my exam scores? How invasive and creepy and unsurprising.

L writes back with a scribble of uneven characters. His handwriting is not neat, just like the rest of him.

Of course I did. You are a suspect in one of my primary cases. Why did you miss that question? Was it intentional?

Light’s reply is pristine and tidy.

None of your fucking business.

Light’s profanity might be attributed to the shame of having made such a simple error on the exam, but L reads something different there. If Light were truly embarrassed by his mistake, he could make up an excuse for it, like the distraction of hunger or pain from a headache. Instead, Light is telling L to butt out, and people usually only do that when they have something to hide and they want the secret dragged out of them.

Light goes back to his dutiful note-taking, and L notices that when Light writes, he tents the fingers of his non-dominant hand against the notebook paper, as if to keep it from blowing away in a strong wind. His head tilts down at a hard angle, hair drifting forward to cover his ears and fall into his eyes, and L wonders if this is what Light looks like when he writes in the Death Note, composed and inscrutable, like something carved out of ice. L hopes that isn’t the case, hopes that when Light kills people with a pen his face shows something other than a mask.

***

On the second day, Light has no classes. He wants to visit his sister, instead, a provision L originally agreed to with false reluctance, curious to see how Light behaves in his home environment.The Yagami’s home in this world is large but not quite luxurious. The furnishings and decor are practical, arranged by hands with better things to think about, and a riotous variety show plays on the television at top volume. Light’s grandmother -- Soichiro’s mother -- cracks nuts at the kitchen counter and swills green tea from a bottle.

After brief introductions, Light’s grandmother narrows her already-narrow eyes and looks L up and down.

“So skinny! Are you really a detective? You don’t look like one.”

“Baaba,” Light chides, though L doesn’t miss the way a smirk plays at the corners of his mouth.

“I left my deerstalker at home,” L says, which earns him a blank look from ‘Baaba.’

Light pulls L aside to explain, yet again, that L isn’t allowed to meet Sayu. “Stay here and crouch around, or something. I’m not letting my sister get dragged into this.”

L studies Light’s face, the way his eyebrows are drawn tightly together, tension knitted into the muscles of his forehead. “Fine,” he nods. “But I need to be able to hear you, at least, so please turn down this television noise.”

Light obliges and disappears down a short hallway, leaving the door open enough so that L can just make out their voices. Well, not Sayu’s -- he only hears Light. Sayu either doesn’t speak, or speaks too softly. After a moment, Light’s voice takes on the cadence of recitation, and L recognizes the book he’s reading from.

Harry Potter . How charming. How utterly, spankingly normal.

L doesn’t buy it for a second. He runs his fingers through a sticky residue left on the dining room table. Gin, from the smell of it. The surveillance tapes he’s seen reveal that Sachiko is the one with the drinking habit. Most of the footage shows her prowling back and forth from kitchen to living room, refilling a glass with clear liquid and lemons.

While Light’s grandmother and the hired nurse discuss the finer details of Sayu’s rehab schedule, L slips upstairs, making quick study of the gallery in the hallway. Light really was the perfect child model, his adorable, precious features a striking contrast to his otherwise solemn demeanor. His bedroom is an amplification of that solemness, everything tidy and shipshape, a landscape of cool, monochromatic colors. L slides open a nightstand drawer and finds a package of tissues and a porno magazine that has obviously never been opened. Snooping around further, he discovers that the trash can is stuffed with the shiny remnants of what looks to be a poster, the images bright and cartoony.

That gives him pause. Light Yagami doesn’t seem the sort to be interested by cartoons. But he is, apparently, a fact verified when L looks through Light’s books and finds shelves and shelves of manga. It’s all exclusively Shounen , stories about sports and robots and battles

L spots a key dangling from a desk drawer and ignores it. The whole setup screams trap . But there’s a photo on the corkboard that catches his eye, a shot of Light and a dark-haired boy, both of them costumed and posing like anime heroes.

Kou Miyano? L wonders. He’s heard Light mention the name to Soichiro, seen the name in Light’s background check, but until now L had assumed it belonged to a study buddy or tennis partner. The idea of Light Yagami with a close childhood friend is unseemingly, peculiar no matter what angle L studies it from. And yet so is the idea of Light taking three hours out of his week to read Harry Potter to his sister.

L doesn’t bother with the other parts of the house; he doesn’t imagine that any of them will open new passages to Light.

“Did you snoop around the house?” Light asks when he finishes with Sayu. Mistrust and suspicion cloud his eyes. L figures the Shinigami snitched on him.

L tilts forward on his heels, making the dining room chair squeak.

“Snoop around where, Light-kun?” And then: “What makes you ask?”

Light looks away. “Nevermind.” He tugs his sleeves down over his wrists, as if plagued by a chill. “Let’s get out of here.”

It’s the sort of thing one says about a prison or a graveyard or an abandoned mine shaft, not their family home.

***

On the third day, L meets Kou Miyano during World History lecture. The young man sits on Light’s left side and offers L a wave in greeting, his smile seemingly genuine, eyes lit with faint curiosity. L feels Light’s attention shift away, toward the professor or Miyano or somewhere that’s simply not L, and knows that there will be no exchange of secret notes today.

Once the lecture is over, Miyano is all animated greetings, leaping out of his seat and bounding over to L in a manner that reminds the detective of a friendly dog.

“You’re Ryuzaki? Kiyomi told me about you. Light-chan’s friend from elementary school, right?”

“Yes, Light-chan’s friend,” L says, and can practically feel Light fighting off a bristle of irritation.

With no more classes for the day, they walk to a cafe near the campus. Light and Miyano fall into step next to each other, not noticing when L drifts a few steps behind. He studies the young men, how they cut the same kind of figure; Miyano’s a tiny bit taller, Light broader through the shoulders, and they both favor conservative clothing in subdued colors. They volley bits of conversation back and forth, Light playing the smirking cynic to Miyano’s unabashed enthusiasm. It’s clearly a familiar script for them both.

“Ryuzaki,” Miyano says, pivoting to acknowledge L. “You like donuts, right? Light-chan thinks they’re too sweet.”

“No such thing.”

“Tell me about it!” Miyano’s laugh is pleasant and easy, the sort of laugh that erupts over anything.

Aside from being best friends with a murderer, maybe Kou Miyano is an alright sort. Maybe he’s a prop, an accessory like that heavy, fancy watch Light wears everywhere. Maybe Miyano’s a mirror, bouncing back the image that Light cultivates.

The cafe specializes in coffee and, no surprise, donuts. Kiyomi Takada and two other girls have secured a round booth near the back, already sipping creamy lattes from oversized mugs. The two girls are introduced as Arisu Ito and Yuri Kachida, and from the way their eyes go limpid and fluttery at Light’s arrival, L judges them as devoted members of the Light Yagami fan club.

“Ryuzaki, Kiyomi-chan told me you made a perfect score on the entrance exam. You must be a genius, eh?” Miyano asks after they all slide into the booth.

Takada tugs lightly at her boyfriend’s sleeve, looking as if she would prefer he change the subject.

“I’m simply very good at tests,” L demures, because he knows it’s unseemly to boast in polite company, even if the boast is an actual fact.

“And not good at much else,” Light adds cheerfully, and anyone listening would hear no genuine insult there, just the harmless, playful ribbing that bubbles up between long-time friends. Instead of joining in, L gives him a wounded look, shifting as if in embarrassment. Even so, Light’s laugh is slow to die in his throat.

“Your sense of humor can be so cutting, Light-chan.” Takada is mock-chastising Light, but there’s a velvet undertone to her words, an appraising gleam in her eye.

“It’s merely my failed attempt at being roguish,” Light says, with a self-deprecation that manages to come of as charming, sending Yuri and Arisu into a fit of warm, suppressed giggles.

There you are , L thinks, because this is at least a little more like the Light he remembers, arrogance smoothed over with the high-gloss lacquer of social grace.

“I want donuts.” Miyano looks around for a waitperson.

“You always want donuts,” Light says, and it’s the sort of thing L can imagine Light saying to him , except if Light said it to L, the words would be edged with disgust and criticism, not fluffed up with fondness.

“It’s merely my failed attempt at being healthy,” Miyano jokes, and he and Light smile at each other in some wry, secret way. Takada tugs on her boyfriend’s sleeve again, shoring him up against her.

What is this? L wonders. Miyano has turned to his girlfriend, asking if she’s hungry, but Light is looking down at his own folded hands, his features soft with dreamy distraction.

“Light-chan.” L says it under his breath, but Light’s head jerks up hard, the dreaminess wiped away like steam off a mirror.

“I want donuts, too,” Yuri pipes up in a chirpy voice. “Come look at the display case with me, Light-kun?”

“Sure.” They clamber out of the booth and make their way up to the front of the cafe, Yuri chattering at Light’s shoulder, Arisu darting after both of them.

“You’ve known Light-chan a long time, I guess?” Miyano asks once they’re out of earshot, pulling his tie loose.

“We knew each other when we were both younger, but I’ve lived several place since then.” L reaches for a sugar packet, fiddling it between his fingers. “I’ve only recently come back to Tokyo.”

“So that means you knew Light before --”

“Kou-chan,” Takada cautions, resting her hand on top of his.

L leans forward, spinning the sugar packet on the table top. “Before Genesis 22? Yes.” It’s not even a lie, really.

Miyano lets out a sigh, stretching his arm across the back of the booth. “Sometimes I wonder what he must have been like, back then.”

L lifts his eyebrows. “You believe he must have been different?”

Miyano shrugs. “No way for me to know, is there? But I know he has trouble with it, sometimes. He pretends like he doesn’t, but I’ve seen how it haunts him.”

“Kou,” Takada scolds gently. “You shouldn’t gossip.”

Miyano widens his eyes. “It isn’t gossip, I just worry. I want everything to work out alright for him. He’s the cleverest person I know --” he gives Takada’s hand a quick squeeze “--next to you, of course.”

“Of course,” Takada echoes, though it’s plain from her face that she doesn’t quite believe him.

Before speaking further, L checks to ensure that Light and the girls are still up front, assessing the racks of colorful, iced donuts.

“The Light I knew was a perfect son, a perfect student,” He says, finally ripping the packet of sugar open. “He wasn’t troubled by anything in this world, except, perhaps, the ease with which perfection came to him.” L wets his finger against his tongue and dips it into the sugar. “I think he was a little bored.” He licks the sugar from his finger. “And maybe lonely. Perfection often is.”

Miyano’s brow wrinkles in puzzlement. “How old are you again, Ryuzaki?”

“Nineteen.”

“You sound so wise.” He smiles. “It reminds me of Light.” His arm jostles Takada’s. “Doesn’t it remind you of Light?”

She isn’t looking anywhere in particular. “Maybe a little.”

Later, when L and Light are walking to the train station, they cut through the same quiet, wooded area they passed through a few days before.

“Kiyomi Takada is in love with you,” L says, interrupting the faint patter of their footfalls.

“What?” Light’s smile is mean and disbelieving. “What the hell gave you that idea?”

“She did. The way she looked at you, and didn’t look. Among other tells.”

“Great.” Light waves a dismissive hand. “As if Arisu and Yuri weren’t enough.”

“Oh, those two don’t love you. They’re infatuated with what you look like, what you represent, but they don’t actually see who you are.”

“And Takada does?”

They’ve stopped for some reason, Light pressing his back to a cherry tree. It’s still shedding a few errant blossoms and one of them lands in his hair, clinging there like stardust. L drops into a crouch a few feet away, gazing up through the criss-crossing tree branches. The fragrant spring air is pleasant, here in the shade.

“Takada thinks she sees who you are, but what she really sees is herself. You represent many of the things she would like to be.”

“You sound pretty certain, considering you only just met her,” Light remarks, but it’s less scathing than usual.

L lifts his palm. “I’m the world’s greatest detective.”

“She’s dating Kou. She shouldn’t be interested in me.”

“She’s dating Kou because of you, Light-chan.” L is surprised this isn’t obvious to someone as clever as Light.

Light frowns, tilting his head down. “Don’t call me that.”

“Why did you purposefully make mistakes on the entrance exam?” L slips into interrogation mode as easily as he would a white tee-shirt, but out here, in the light-dappled woods, it feels more like an ordinary conversation. “Were you being generous toward Takada? Playing the White Knight?”

“God, no,” Light says with a scoffing sound. “I just knew --” he falters. “I knew it meant a lot to her, being number one.”

“So you were being generous.”

“No!" Light’s eyes narrow in frustration. “I just don’t care that much about being number one. Might as well let whoever does care come out on top, that’s all.”

L presses a finger to his lips, watching Light talk himself in circles. Does Light even realize that he feels an attraction to Kou Miyano? Or that Takada senses that attraction and has claimed Miyano for her own, content with having the object of Light’s heart if not the heart itself? L quickly weighs the pros and cons of confronting Light with the entire stunning picture, but judges that Light would rather be blind, for now.

“I see. Non-direct generosity, then.”

“Call it that if you must. Your view of things is always right, isn’t it?” Light’s tone goes sour.

“No.” L stares into the dirt, his right hand wrapped around his left arm, thumb pressing the inner fold of his elbow. It’s all a ruse, but it’s funny how much it doesn’t feel like one, as if in pretending to carry L the Second’s regrets, he’s now inherited them in full. “I’ve committed errors and made mistakes, many of them in the name of generosity.”

Light’s pause is very long. “Like what?”

L unfolds his body, standing at his full height for a beat before shifting into a more comfortable slouch. “I keep my black marks hidden, Light-chan,” he says, his voice darker than he intends. “Especially from people like Kira.”

“Like Kira ?” Light is angry now, dropping his messenger back to the dirt and taking a staggering step forward. “You’re holding it against me, aren’t you?” He lets out a short, barking laugh. “What I told you about wanting to kill Genesis 22 -- I knew that you’d take that and file it away to use against me.”

“I didn’t do that at all.” L stands his ground but doesn’t close the gap between them. He’s observed how Light sees threats everywhere, shielding himself with playful sarcasm or ferocious sneers. L won’t be drawn in, not this time. “I don’t and won’t judge your desire to kill the man who tried to murder you,” he says tiredly. “Most in your position would do the same thing. It’s called self-defense.”

“So in your preeminent opinion, if someone kills in self-defense, it’s not murder?” Light’s tone has cooled, but his color is still high, a reddish hue creeping down the sides of his neck.

L shrugs loosely. “That’s for the legal system to decide. But if you’re interested in my opinion, it would depend on the details of the case.”

“I’m not giving you any details!”

That frantic, cornered look is flaring to life on Light’s face again, and if it’s a mask it’s such an interesting one, and if it’s not a mask then L supposes he’s a bad person for making Light look cornered so often. Though L isn’t of the opinion that making a murderer bite down on his own rising terror is necessarily a bad thing to do, it’s just that in this case, it does L’s cause no good.

“I’m not asking.” L forces himself to say it gently, but not so gently that Light would notice. As it is, the words come out perfectly neutral. Light has forgotten -- or doesn’t realize -- that L has already familiarized himself with all the details of the Genesis 22 case.

Familiar on paper, familiar in fact. Which is to say that L has no idea what it must have felt like for Light to be held hostage for three days, shut inside a wooden coffin with only a few air holes and scant amounts of water. L’s suffered more difficult situations, himself, even by the time he was age 13, but L was trained to endure difficult situations. Difficult situations are his bread and butter, or -- for a more apt metaphor -- his cake and ice cream.

“Fine,” Light says, then quickly: “Good.” He sighs a little and heaves up his messenger bag, apparently content to end the conversation there.

L watches him smooth down his trousers unnecessarily, wondering if Light has ever shared the details of his experience to anyone other than the police. Psychotherapy is relatively uncommon in Japan, talk-therapy even less so, and yes, it’s entirely possible that Light has carried his nightmare alone, hiding it like an injured animal hides a limp.

“I’m not asking,” L repeats. “That doesn’t mean I’m not listening.”

Light takes a step backwards, shadows from the tree branches casting his eyes in partial darkness. L sees a swallow knot in Light’s throat just before he turns on his heel, walking away without further comment.

Neither of them speak during the train ride back to the hotel.

***

For the three days that L investigates Light Yagami, Japanese male born on February 28, 1989, L also investigates L Lawliet the Second, born on October 31, 1982. His parents are Patricia Lawson and Yvan Guilliet. Yvan is old, old money, an exotic mix of Russian, French, and Japanese; Patricia is an American mutt who grows up everywhere, a military brat. They meet while working for the CIA, and -- perhaps unwisely -- marry and have one child. Lawliet is the surname they give their son, a poetic portmanteau of their own, and his first name is only a letter -- because how can you target someone who doesn’t even have a proper name?

Ask Kira .

Instead of installing L the Second at Wammy’s House for safekeeping, they keep their son with them, first living in Langley, Virginia, then London, then Paris. Only a few months before L’s fifth birthday, Patricia is shot and killed in the bedroom of their apartment in La Marias. A few blocks away, near the Place des Vosges, Yvan is stuffed into the back of a black car. Two weeks later, his body turns up in the Seine.

When L the Second arrives at Wammy’s, he doesn’t say a word for almost six months. Then, when he finally does speak, it’s to request a bedtime story from Quillsh himself. The man obliges this request night after night, until the time comes when Quillsh tells L the Second that he must learn to read in bed by himself, alone. So L the Second reads alone, but he doesn’t do it happily. He doesn’t like to be alone.

Life goes on like this for years: L the Second working, training, and learning alone, but never quite happily.

All of this is a story that L pieces together from charts, training notes, old case files, and email correspondence. He doesn’t know how much of it is true and how much of it is an imaginary construction of his own design. Either way, it gives him a narrative to cling to, a sense of the labyrinth that L the Second walked through, before L slipped in to take over.

L the Second hand picks his potential successors. A, then B. B never quite forgives L for choosing him second, and A doesn’t at all forgive L for choosing her first.

After that, he’s not so alone.

The first tattoo he gives himself is an accident, of sorts. A’s knife catches him during a training session, a sharp line on his shoulder, like the line that connects the upside-down “V’ of an “A.” She keeps coming at him with the knife, gets dragged away by the Sensei for a sedative. In that moment, L the Second is sure he’ll never see her again -- not her crooked teeth or her freckles or her wild, wild red hair. Later, in the library, he uncorks a bottle of calligraphy ink and massages it into the wound; Roger catches him, writes up a report, but doesn’t force L the Second to wash the cut clean.

L the Second likes to get under people’s skin -- almost as much as he likes letting them under his.

By the time the next round of successors emerges, L the Second is busy being the world’s greatest detective. Still, he drops by Wammy’s House every year or so, observing from a distance but never directly engaging in the training and lessons, and during his travels he picks up an uneven correspondence with Near, Matt, and Mello.

Mello sends L the Second long lists of secrets he’s collected from Wammy House children, staff, and even the nearest villagers -- secrets he’s collected by blackmail or subterfuge or other methods, enough dirt to fund an information broker for years. None of it’s particular useful to L the Second, but that doesn’t matter. Mello is showing the detective what he can do.

Near also shows the detective what he can do, writing his emails in increasingly difficult codes. The first ones don’t pose much of a challenge, but in time they require several days of trial-and-error, and most of L the Second’s concentration.

Matt, unburdened by the need to compete with anything other than pixels, sends his latest video game scores, along with MP3s of his favorite remixes.

In the end it’s Mello who connects their fellow email senpai to the bedraggled, moon-pale man who sometimes shows up at Wammy’s House, shaking rain out of his inky hair and asking Roger for butterscotch biscuits in a low, rusty voice. Mello doesn’t make the connection because he’s the brightest or most talented, but because he’s the sneakiest, the most impudent. He lockpicks the guest room door, then hides under the bed, slotting himself into a space that looks too small to be bothered with. Sometimes it’s good to be too small to be bothered with.

He catches L the Second changing out of his rain-soaked clothes. All the answers Mello needs are right there, branded on the detective’s chest.

“Well done,” L the Second says ( or so L imagines ). “Can you get me a clean towel?”

All of this is a story, the end result of a three-day investigation, and L is sure there are holes and discrepancies and romantic indulgences, but he needs a story to show to Light Yagami, and this is the one he’s knitted together.

One of the hazards of an investigation is stumbling across another mystery, lurking where you least expect it. L’s seasoned enough to expect that stumble by now, so he isn’t surprised when he finds a file buried deep in L the Second’s hard drive, a file so small that it would usually escape notice, only it’s been locked down with so many layers of encryption that L knows it must be something of significance.

Opening the file takes over an hour, draining so much of L’s concentration that he has to remind himself to look at the security monitors every so often to check on Light, who’s been sleeping for over five hours with no signs of disturbance. The surface of the desk is littered with donut crumbs; L purchased four of them at the cafe, and now he wishes he’d bought more. A donut, glossy with icing, would help him power through the last layer of encryption.

Even thinking about donuts must help, because the file suddenly opens, filling the screen of his laptop. It’s a single text document labeled with a most unfortunate title: “unsolved.” The rest of the text is a short list of dates and locations. 22 June 1994 - Aberdeen. 7 October 1997 - Dallas. The list spans the last fourteen years and nine different countries, and L can detect no pattern between them.

At the bottom of the list is the most curious thing of all. Two words typed in succession three times, like a spell or a chant. Maybe a curse.

The Woodsman

The Woodsman

THE WOODSMAN

***

Light is woken up by a dream he doesn’t remember, though the feeling of it still sticks to him, warm sweat trickling down the back of his neck and dampening his hair. It isn’t as uncomfortable as the ache in his groin, which is horrible and heavy and makes him want to roll over and mindlessly thrust his hips against the mattress. He’s eighteen and hasn’t jerked off since he started sleeping at the hotel; it’s no wonder that his hormones are crying out for release.

He faced a similar problem when he’d been chained to L, but had kept everything discrete and well-managed by sticking to a daily schedule of quick, efficient shower masturbation. L had always unchained him for bathroom breaks, though the door was kept open while the detective sat right outside, skimming his laptop. The roar of the water and the opaque shower curtain offered enough privacy for Light to do his business unnoticed, and even if L guessed at what Light was doing, that was better than the alternative.There was simply no way that Light was going to leave L with dirty, crusty sheets to change.

But now he’s being watched by cameras, and there’s no way to hide his bathroom activities. The shower in this hotel doesn’t even have an opaque curtain, just a sliding door made of barely-frosted glass.

Light hears a strange noise, realizes it’s his own staggering breath. He’s so hard and so needy and right now it feels completely unfair to have a body, to have this biological drive to stick his cock into something and rut like an animal. It’s a horrible reminder that he isn’t really a god, just a teenager with a god’s weapon.

He groans and sits up, raking damp hair off his forehead. Rem is gazing out the hotel window, but looks over when she hears Light move about.

“Oh, you’re awake. I was just thinking that you might want to know that the detective is asleep at his desk.”

Light stands up and, with his back turned to Rem, adjusts himself beneath his pajamas, pinning down his erection with the waistband of his boxer briefs. He walks carefully -- painfully, almost -- into the suite’s living area, ready to turn on his heel if he sees L with his eyes open. But Rem was telling the truth; the detective is slumped over in his roller-back chair, his white face made whiter by the ambient glow of the computer monitors.

Good. Light makes a beeline for his bathroom, shutting the door and locking it behind him. He turns the water on as hot as he can possibly stand, hoping that it might help to steam up the camera lens, then eases himself into the shower, facing the corner where the tiled walls meet.

Hot water pounds into the crook of his neck and shoulder. This should be fast, this should be easy. Light palms his erection in a firm, no-nonsense grip and gives it a few rough tugs, teeth gritted against his lower lip. The camera will only catch his back side, but there’s no position that will hide the quick motions of his right arm. His body is flagrantly, willfully human, and this is the only way to put it to rights. He bites harder into his lip, closing his eyes, and spreads his legs a little wider, planting his feet into the shower floor.

This should be fast, this should be easy. Somehow it isn’t. The few minutes it usually takes for him to finish pass and he’s only left harder than ever, orgasm frustratingly out of reach.

He tries to do what any other human would do and pretends that his hand belongs to someone else. Misa, with her slick black nail polish and tight little mouth. Yes, that should do it. I’m going to fuck your mouth, Misa, he thinks, thrusting into his hand. The filth of his own thoughts amp up his arousal, tingles of pleasure pooling into his abdomen. Images float into his mind without his even trying, and Misa transforms into Maki, with her sharp, knowing features and plush red lips, then Maki bleeds away and reshapes into Kou. Kou? Whatever, why not. Light will worry about the implications later. Right now he’s breathing hard and splashing water everywhere and wants nothing more than to explode. Kou is bent over, his ass in the air. Kou is begging Light to fuck him, mewling on all fours like a cat, only his voice sounds nothing like Kou’s, it’s too low and it’s too gravelly and for some reason Light flips his body around and rolls his head into the corner of the shower, putting his body on full display for the camera.

It should be shameful, and it is, but the shame of it makes his thighs and abdomen tremble, wipes out all reason with a surge of pleasure so powerful that his vision goes white at the edges. He comes into his hand with a chest-rattling groan, water dripping down his face and into his open mouth.

No. No!

He whirls around, nearly losing his balance, and curls into himself. What was he doing? What has he done ? With still-shaky hands, he reaches for the shampoo, busying himself with the comforts of a normal, hygienic routine. Sudsing up his hair, he imagines L watching the footage later, laughing at Light’s disgusting lack of control. He scrubs at his scalp harder, as if it might wash his actions away.

It’s all Light 2’s fault. Has to be.

He soaps up his body with a washcloth, unable to bear the intimacy of his own hand for even the most utilitarian of tasks. This is all Light 2’s fault. No, L’s fault. It’s anyone’s fault but Light Yagami’s.

By the time he dries off, his whole body is beet-red, white patches on his cheekbones like a second, more-spooked pair of eyes. He puts on khakis and a sweater that’s heavy with the scent of fabric softener, brushes his teeth until it feels like he’s worn the bristles away.

Out in the suite, L is still sleeping, head rolled into the socket of his shoulder in a way that looks painful. Light quietly rounds the desk and stares at the monitors, wondering for one wild moment what would happen if he just started yanking the cords loose. He doesn’t think that L will wake up. Light remembers this from before, how L would work non-stop for days at a time then suddenly collapse, like an appliance that had run out of batteries.

Light takes another step forward, arm outstretched, one eye watching L for any signs of movement. It’s then that Light notices the notebook cradled in L’s lap. The page is covered in a single phrase, scribbled over and over again in L’s messy writing.

The Woodsman. The Woodman. The Woodsman. The Woodsman.

It’s the ravings of a madman, only interrupted by a curious sketch in the bottom, right-hand corner. A human face, utterly absent of features, like an unfinished portrait.

Light’s outstretched arm doesn’t reach for the cords, it reaches for the notebook, instead. His fingertips brush against paper -- he very nearly has it. Then, like a sprung trap, L’s hand clamps down hard on his wrist, grinding the bones together.

“What --” he says, coming to life like a booted-up robot “-- are you doing?”

Light jerks his hand away with such force that it sends him staggering a few steps back. “Sneaking up on you,” he says.

“I am not easy to sneak up on.” Even though his grip had been fierce, L’s voice is still bleary with sleep, and he looks Light over with heavy-lidded eyes. “But I think you just did better than most.”

It makes Light uncomfortable -- seeing L washed in plush dreams instead of sharp, watchful edges.

“What’s the Woodsman?” He asks, because he knows that it will probably bring L’s edges back to the surface.

L glances into his lap, shuts the notebook with a slap. “It’s the name of a case.”

“And you scribbled it down like a crazy person because…?”

L’s smile looks forced. “It’s the name of the only case I’ve never solved.”

“Oh.” Light can’t help but smile, L’s failure almost making him forget his mortifying shower display. “And here I thought you were the world’s greatest detective.”

“I told you earlier that I’ve made mistakes.” L stands up from his chair and heads for the kitchenette area, running pale fingers through his already tousled hair. “I need something to eat.” He roots around a grocery sack until he finds a package of melon bread.

Light persists. “Why haven’t you solved the case?”

“Because some cases are more stubborn than others.” L puts the melon bread to his nose, sniffing it. “Perhaps some are even unsolvable.”

“I’m surprised to hear you admit that,” Light says, and he is.

L unwraps the bread and nibbles at the edge of it. “I wouldn’t call that an admission. It’s merely acknowledging reality. Delusions are dangerous comforts.” He grins mid-bite. “Though they seem to have worked in Kiyomi Takada’s favor.”

It’s bait, and Light ignores it. As soon as L revealed the nature of Takada’s feelings for Light, he knew that L was probably circling around the possibility that Light, in turn, had feelings for Kou. A soap opera of orchestral proportions. Light dislikes the idea of L picking up on Light 2’s proclivities, but realizes that it may be inevitable, that it may even work to Light’s advantage, if he’s careful.

What Light did in the shower cannot be called ‘careful.’

“What if you can’t solve the Kira case?” Light asks, turning the conversation back to matters he feels more in control of. “What will you do then?”

“You say that as if I haven’t already wondered myself.” L sinks back down into his chair with the remains of his melon bread. “Right now my only suspects are very loosely connected to the case. I’m fully aware of the fact that I’m feeling my way through the dark.”

There is something rhythmic and comforting to the cadence of L’s words.They sound like candor, like something that might even be the truth. Light cautions himself not to let the comfort seep over and on to him. He needs to stay sharp; he needs to keep all his edges.

“Also,” L adds, “Solving it might well cost me my life.” He finishes the thought by ripping off another chunk of melon bread.

“Doesn’t that scare you?”

L studies him, still chewing. “Should it?”

“ Yes ,” Light says emphatically, wrapping himself in the cloak of Light 2’s terror and fears. “It should scare everyone.”

“Death?”

“What else?”

“Oh.” L swallows and shake his head, as if in pity. “There are things other than death that can cost you your life, Light-chan.”

Irritation warms Light’s chest, and it’s strange how familiar it is, only a few degrees away from welcome. “Do you know how fucking obnoxious you are, with your mysterious, wise Senpai-act?” He puts extra heat into his words, for himself just as must as for L. “Cut the crap and talk to me straight, Ryuzaki.”

L shrugs. “This is how I always talk.”

“I don’t believe you.” As he says it, Light realizes he means it. He’s itching to do something dramatic, to tip over the desk or punch L in the face or toss him out a window. He wants to push L to the ground and throttle him, hands closing around the white column of his throat and squeezing until L’s eyes roll back in his head. How dare you , he wants to shout. How dare you think you can hide anything from a god! His fists shake at his side. I can’t breathe! Let me out --

“Light-chan.”

The voice is very close to Light’s ear. His eyes flutter open, then widen in shock when he discovers that L is right next to him, the scent of melon on his breath.

“I’m not going to touch you,” L says quickly. “Has this ever happened to you before?”

“Has what happened?” Light’s voice sounds tinny, detached.

“I think you went into a dissociative fugue.”

“What?” Light laughs, but it does nothing to disguise his worry, his raw fear. “No, I didn’t.”

It feels like there are knuckles pounding against his ribs from the inside.

“Nothing happened. I’m fine.” But he takes a step forward, his head drooping enough for his hair to brush L’s shoulder. “Could you just…”

Unbelievably, L’s hand drifts to Light’s shoulder, the touch so tentative it barely registers.

“You’re still here, Light.”

“I don’t know.” He really doesn’t. His head feels like it’s stuffed with feathers. Maybe he never really woke up. Maybe he’s still stuck in Mu, and this is all just the dream of a dead man.

A knock at the door cuts through the atmosphere, ripping everything back to reality.

“Ryuzaki?” It’s Maki.

L turns toward the sound, his arm falling away, but not before his hand gently ruffles Light’s shoulder, like it’s saying atta boy or hang in there. Light wants to scream in horror and disgust. He wants the hand to not go away.

“Come in,” L says, dropping back into his chair.

She pokes her head into the suite, her face more pale than usual. “I just got a call. It’s R --” she trips over herself, noticing Light. “It’s my ex fiance. He wants to speak with you.”

“About?”

She steps across the threshold, a troubled look in her eyes. “There’s something happening back in the states. Something big.”

“Ah.” L glances at Light, everything back to normal. “Time to go to work, then.”

Chapter Text

Tu Fui Ego Eris

When L puts in a call to Raye Penbar, the pale grays and blues of dawn are creeping across the sky, filling the hotel suite with a low, mellow luminescence.

Maki, Ide, Mogi and Watari join them in the suite -- Aizawa, Matsuda, and Soichiro won’t be in for another few hours -- and Light is stricken at how different the room feels when it’s filled with people other than him and L. There’s an undercurrent of high, bustling energy that makes it seem like the quiet, pre-dawn hours never existed at all. Mogi and Ide are scrambling for coffee, while Watari makes adjustments to L’s microphone. Maki is the only one, other than Light, lingering in L’s background, a bone-white cup of tea in hand.

Light assesses her from the corner of his eyes, wondering how she ended up as one of L’s partners. L doesn’t show his face to anyone. Why did he show it to her? Perhaps it was a gesture of pity, even magnanimous goodwill. L has probably figured out a way to use her, somehow, and with her good looks and quick brain she makes for a better public face for L than Watari, anyway.

“Who’s your ex-fiance?” Light asks Maki, faking idle curiosity. L is too busy fiddling with the computers to watch him closely.

“He’s an agent for the FBI, like I was.” She crosses her arms loosely over her torso, eyes fixed on L.

“Huh,” Light grins like the clueless teen he’s pretending to be. “Why’d he end things with you? You seem really smart -- attractive, too.”

“You think guys are always the ones to end these things?” Her mouth twitches in amusement. “That’s cute.” She smirks into her cup of tea, then takes a tight little sip. “Anyway, I’m horribly flawed in other ways. I won’t, for instance, shelve my entire identity so that a man can find his.”

“And yet you’re working for a man now,” Light observes.

“Ryuzaki already knows exactly who he is.” Her tone is level, but Light still detects faint admiration there.

“But don’t you --”

L swivels in his chair. “Light, stop pestering Maki-san.”

The scolding makes Light feel strangely buoyant. He’s come to enjoy playing the brat and pushing L’s buttons, just as he enjoyed ribbing “Rue Ryuzaki” in front of his friends at the cafe. He likes it when L snaps back at him, tries to put him in his place. It’s a reminder that Light still has some control, minor as it may be. The old L, the one he’d known in his first life, never snapped back -- but Light was playing a different part for that L, someone polite and darling, innocent from top to bottom.

“You’re still here, Light.”

Of course Light is still here -- what’s a ‘dissociative fugue,’ anyway? Something L made up, probably.

And L, he’s holding the tiny mic in one hand and stacking caramel cubes with the other -- perfectly business-like behavior, for him.

“Is this L?” Penbar asks in good but imperfect Japanese, his voice clear over the speakers.

“That is correct, Agent P.” L says into the mic. “Shoko Maki is here with me, along with other members of the task force.”

“I’m sorry to contact you while it’s so early over there. I’m currently at our field office in Detroit -- have been for the past few weeks, actually.”

“Ah. Is this to do with the Angel of Mercy, then?” L lays out his caramels in a line then starts stacking them all over again.

“Well, we’re still compiling the data, but it looks as if the Angel has adopted a new M.O. There have been some more suspicious heart attack deaths, but the victims aren’t hospital and nursing home patients this time.”

“Are they criminals? If so, it may be the work of Kira, not the Angel.”

“No, not criminals. But they are all related to criminals.”

“Related? As in literal family members?”

“Yes, in some cases.” There’s some rustling over the line. “I’m sending you the first report. There’s been a big trial going on in Detroit this month, it’s been a big feature in the news media. A thirteen-year-old boy named Luca Hart is being tried as an adult for the murder of his nine-year-old neighbor...”

Penbar continues on, detailing how young Luca Hart called 911 immediately after stabbing his victim and begged the 911 operator to send the cops to arrest him, claiming that he didn’t want to live anymore, that his life was nothing but pure hell. The more Penbar describes, the more Light’s stomach churns with rising nausea. Thirteen-year-olds killing nine-year-olds? What a horror show this world is.

“Was Luca Hart from an abusive home?” L asks, tapping at his keyboard.

“He was, and this is where things get complicated. Luca called Child Protective Services himself two years ago, when he was just eleven, and reported that his father and step-mother were abusing him. CPS conducted an investigation and found ample evidence of neglect and physical abuse, but they never filed a petition to the courts to have Luca removed from the home.”

“Why not?” L’s words echo Light’s thoughts.

“CPS and the Department of Human Services are overrun with cases like Luca’s, they’re claiming they just hadn’t gotten to it.”

“After two whole years?” Maki says, her tone one of disbelief and alarm.

“I know.” Penbar sounds just as unsettled as she does. “And now all the CPS workers involved are dead of a heart attack, too, along with Luca’s father and step-mother.”

“Like someone inflicted revenge on Luca’s behalf.” L unwraps one of his caramels and pokes it into his mouth. “Is Luca a suspect?”

“He’s currently under constant surveillance in a juvenile facility, so no. Plus, there are other people unrelated to Luca who have died, all of them somehow connected to a young criminal, whether accused or convicted.”

“This is all highly interesting.” L’s voice is a shade or two more animated than it usually is, which make it pretty damn animated, by L standards. That, paired with the way the detective has gone back to fidgeting with his caramel cubes, makes Light want to yank L’s roller-back chair out from under him. Innocent people are dying and L might as well be doing jumping-jacks over it. A decent, humane detective (like Maki, Light begrudgingly admits) would at least pretend to be horrified.

“I’ll confess we’re completely stumped over here.” Penbar’s voice is strained with fatigue. “If there’s anything you can do to help, I think I can secure you the FBI’s full cooperation.”

“Thank you, Agent P. I will look over your reports with my task force and get back to you in the next day or two.” L disengages the call without a proper goodbye, dropping the mic back to the desk and sweeping his remaining caramel cubes into a drawer. “Watari, please prepare the other suite for a meeting of the entire task force. We will gather as soon as the others arrive.”

It takes a modest amount of control for Light not to leap in and take over L’s preparations. Now that the task force has a case that doesn’t directly involve him, the muscle memory of his years of work with the NPA has kicked in. Light is the one who should be directing things, the one leading the charge, not this oddity who conducts everything from the cozy confines of a roller-back chair.

His desire to helm the ship only intensifies once the meeting is underway. Watari has brought out a large white board for the occasion, and on it L has sketched two comical stick figures with wings, one sporting a halo and the other a pair of horns. Detective work at its finest.

“Who’s that?” Matsuda asks, taking a seat between Aizawa and Soichiro. All three of them have been updated on the new murders in Detroit.

L circles both of the stick figures, then joins them together with a black, looping line. “An Angel of Mercy, and an Angel of Death, both operating in the Great Lakes region of the United States, both using the same weapon as Kira.”

Ide looks up from his cup of coffee. “So there are two ‘Angel’ killers now?”

“Or --” L taps the marker against his chin. “There is only one Angel, and all of the murders are intended as mercy.”

“How?” Soichiro wonders aloud. “Killing sick and dying people is one thing -- I don’t agree with it, but it’s not difficult to see how it might be construed as an act of mercy. How are the deaths of that Hart boy’s parents the same thing?”

L takes a seat at the remaining club chair. “A good question. Tell me your theories.” He gestures to the task force members as if they’re his pupils.

Ide and Matsuda mutter to each other while Maki rests her chin in her palm, looking thoughtful.

“It’s mercy for Luca Hart,” Light says, rolling a pen between his thumb and forefinger. “The Angel is still trying to save people, but this time it’s young criminals.”

“He sees the criminals as victims,” Maki adds. “They aren’t to blame for their own crimes, other people are. And those are the people he kills.”

“Yes.” L casts an appraising eye on them both. “He --or she -- embodies the inverse of Kira’s savior complex.”

Light grips the pen harder to keep his face from betraying anything. Savior complex -- as if wanting to rid the world of criminals is a type of derangement. Light knows that it isn’t. Every story written into the backbone of humankind is about justice for the innocent: the purifying catastrophe of floods, lightning, and plagues. Kira is that catastrophe.

“Maki, you were a hospital volunteer when you were younger, weren’t you?” L asks.

If she’s surprised that L knows that particular detail of her background, she doesn’t show it. “Yeah, when I was fifteen. I thought I wanted to be a doctor, back then.”

“Most of the other volunteers were young, too?”

“Yeah, teenagers and a few older retirees.”

L presses his thumb to his lower lip. “I surmise that the Angel is a person between the ages of fifteen and twenty who has worked as a hospital volunteer.  As a serial killer they are more likely to be male, but their actions reveal a protectiveness that might be stereotypically ascribed to females. Most significantly, the Angel sees him or herself as a criminal.”

“He is a criminal. He’s a serial killer,” Soichiro says, and Light is thankful that someone else stated the obvious before he had to.

“Yes, we’ve established that.” L fingers through a few documents laid out on the table in front of him. “But the Angel has seen himself as a criminal for some time now, and he blames others for making him what he is. Abusive parents and negligent adults who never intervened.”

“I don’t get it.” Matsuda scratches his temple, his eyes wide with bafflement. “Not everyone with an abusive or negligent parents becomes a criminal, and really, isn’t a criminal the only person responsible for their own crimes?”

Light hides a smile, extending his silent gratitude to Matsuda, now. “Ryuzaki is only explaining the Angel’s personal philosophy, Matsuda. I doubt he agrees with it.”

L’s reply is loose and detached. Unimpressed. “Light-kun isn’t party to what I agree or disagree with, but he’s correct that I was merely explaining the Angel’s psychological outlook.”

“So what do we do now?” Maki’s arms are folded across her torso, face wearing a pensive frown. “And is it me, or do we have a clearer profile on the Angel than we do Kira?”

“We do,” L concedes. “But the Angel is operating in the Detroit area, and Kira is here.”

Kira is here. The words ring with such certainty, such faith, that Light has to fight back a shiver.

“So how can we --”

Watari interrupts them with a not-so-subtle throat clearing. For the duration of the meeting he’s been at the desk, spectacles trained on the computers. “Ryuzaki, pardon the interruption.”

“What is it, Watari?” L wraps his arms around his knees, as if bracing himself for something.

“A message from Takimura. A man about to go to trial for vehicular manslaughter died of a heart attack early this morning.”

“Ah. Thank you, Watari.” But L’s gaze is on Light, watching for a reaction. Fortunately, Light’s already arranged his face into a facade of mild concern.

“Kira?” Soichiro bursts out. “But then that’s proof it wasn’t me or Light. We’ve been under your surveillance for days.”

L closes his eyes and lifts his palm. “Watari, what was the time of death?”

“Estimated at 4:15 AM.”

“I’m sorry, but that doesn’t clear either of you,” L says, casting his gaze on Soichiro, then Light. “There are no surveillance cameras in your bedroom, Yagami-san. And since I was asleep at that time, I haven’t yet seen the footage in Light’s room.”

“Well look at it, then.” Soichiro’s face flames with the heat of his insistence. “You were sleeping, weren’t you, Light?”

“Yes,” Light says, then instantly realizes his mistake. He wasn’t sleeping at 4:15, he was in the shower, and while the footage won’t implicate him as Kira, he still doesn’t want L to see any of it . “I mean, I think I was sleeping. I woke up pretty early and had a shower, and then I went into the suite and accidentally woke up Ryuzaki. Right, Ryuzaki?”

The detective’s eyes flicker to Light’s, shining with renewed curiosity.

Shit. Light holds in a breath and commands himself not to look away. Breaking eye contact is practically an admission of guilt. And to think -- he’d been so careful to write out Kira killings well in advance, stretching the 23-day rule to its capacity. Thanks to one moment of hormonal weakness, the murder that might clear both him and his father of suspicion will lead L directly to that shower footage. L will see everything -- not just Light’s nude body, but a moment of genuine, absolute nakedness. Shame is already pooling into Light’s belly, making his whole body go heavy.

Who cares? Helpfully, his brain is already re-routing his neurons toward more soothing conclusions. Even if he does see, what can he say about it without coming across as a total deviant? But does L care if he comes across as a deviant? Probably not. You can just call him a pervert. That should at least make him back off.

“I’ll look into it later, Yagami-san,” L promises, and Light bites back a sigh even as his father’s face droops in relief.

The meeting wraps up with a few more logistics. Moge and Aizawa volunteer to go to the NPA offices for more info on the latest Kira murder, and Maki recruits Ide, Matsuda, and Soichiro for Angel research. Watari is tasked with an errand that involves apple strudel and black forest cake. Apparently, L’s sweet tooth is German today.

L and Light go to Light’s late morning chemistry lab at To-Oh, and even though it’s chemistry, the perfect place for everything to converge, react, and explode, not much happens.

Light is too busy travelling the vortex of his own mind, pouring out all the various elements and studying them, one at a time. The Angel is wrong, so wrong as to be pitiful, and Light only hopes that he doesn’t try to do what Misa did, and reach out to Kira. Luca Hart is broken, and neither prison or dead parents will put him back together again. Death is the only thing that can save Luca now, and his death is the only justice available to the nine-year-old he stabbed to death.

And L. L feels like an ever-present pothole for Light to avoid falling in.

“Light-kun,” L says, looking owlish behind his goggles. “Your flame’s gone out.”

“What? Oh.” Light puts down the beaker he was handling and re-ignites the bunsen burner. “Thanks.”

“You seem preoccupied.” L tugs at the rubber gloves that are too small for his hands.

“I’m not going to tell you everything that’s on my mind every second of the day, Ryuzaki,” Light says, stirring his solution of sodium thiosulfate with brisk efficiency.

“That’s understandable.” L puts his hand on Light’s wrist. “Careful, you’ll over do it.”

Light shrugs him away. “If it’s understandable then why say things like ‘you seem preoccupied?’ Are you just looking for an excuse to be nosy?”

L brushes his hair out of his goggles. “I don’t need an excuse to be curious about you.” He pauses, then lifts up a beaker to study its contents. “Most people are a mixture of fairly simple components, and easy to see through.” The detective doesn’t bother to spell out the rest, and Light doesn’t need him to.

That’s right. That’s what you’ve been working toward. Make him curious. Make him dismantle the paper house, one piece at a time.

Maybe the shower footage won’t be the end of the world, after all.

***

L works until the evening hours reviewing the Kira and Angel cases, debating whether to split the task force and commit to both investigations at once. On one hand, he committed to the Kira investigation first, and while he often drops cases when they no longer hold his interest, any outsider would wonder at his motives for doing so now, particularly on the heels of a new Kira murder. On the other hand, L already knows who Kira is. The Angel is entirely new to him, and the opportunity to catch a Death Note-wielding murderer on an even playing field is greatly tempting.

Michelina did warn L that he would face temptations.

To clear his mind, L slices himself a large wedge of black forest cake, studded with fresh cherries. He balances the plate on his knee while crouched in his roller-back chair, reviewing the surveillance footage from the last 24 hours. The live cameras show Light’s current location as his bedroom desk, where he works on calculus equations. Again, L wonders why he bothers; Light could doubtless pass all the exams without ever cracking his books.

L is watching the old footage on fast-forward, so he almost doesn’t notice when Light starts thrashing in his sleep at just before four in the morning. When Light rolls out of bed and stands up, L slows the footage down to normal speed. It takes some feed-shuffling for L to chart Light’s path out into the suite’s living area, where he stares at a sleeping L for a few moments before heading into his private bathroom.

A bathroom break at four in the morning, right around the time of another Kira murder? Perhaps it’s only coincidence, but L finds it noteworthy that Light did not retreat to the bathroom until he confirmed that L was asleep. Further curious is the manner in which Light carefully shut and locked the outer bedroom door, in addition to the inner bathroom door. Caution layered on top of caution.

It takes L a few minutes to sort through the bathroom camera footage, slowing down the sequence when Light walks into the camera’s range and sheds his pajamas. Just a shower, then. L returns his eyes to the live cam, where Light is still tending to his calculus, then back to early-morning Light, who steps under the pounding water and tilts his face into it, like a man desperate to slake an immense thirst. Once thoroughly drenched, he faces the corner where the tiled walls meet, hunching slightly to protect his privacy. Instead of reaching for shampoo or soap, he keeps his body perfectly immobile, lean muscles drawn taut from neck to heel -- everything still except for the quick, instantly-recognizable ministrations of his right hand.

L sighs and sucks a cherry into his mouth. All this effort and secrecy just for a wank? It would be more discreet to stay under the covers in bed, rolled over onto his side. But being a teenage male is terrible in this regard, true, and it makes sense that someone with Light Yagami’s rigid personality would be uptight -- perhaps even ashamed -- about such things.

Except in this world, Light has seemed less rigid, more raw and edgy and unpredictable. He even appears to have some semblance of a sexuality, if the hints of Light’s attraction to Kou Miyano are any indication. The Light Yagami that murdered L appeared unencumbered and uninterested in such things, except perhaps in those situations where sex and romance could be shaped into a weapon, leash, or prison.

Mashing the cherry against the roof of his mouth, L tries to decide if the footage is making him bored or amused, possibly even vaguely aroused in some kind of sympathetic reaction. The viewing experience isn’t very explicit or erotic, but he hasn’t had any kind of release since inhabiting L the Second’s body, which still feels too alien and uncanny to be claimed for such purposes.

L puts his hand on the mouse, ready to click the footage away, knowing it will end the way such solo sessions tend to, when Light abruptly turns around and exposes his whole body to the camera.

L freezes, still palming the mouse even as the forefinger of his other hand drifts its way into his mouth. There’s no way what he’s seeing is an accident. Light’s face is purposefully angled toward the lens, eyes closed, water cascading down his chest and abdomen, his free hand slapped against the tile wall for support. He isn’t just jerking off, but tending to his erection with slow, deliberate strokes, rocking his hips like he’s actually fucking someone, actually wants to make them feel the same powerful, gripping pleasure that he does.

A leaden feeling settles in L’s lower abdomen, a sudden sheen of sweat glazing his brow. He’s never really seen the appeal of pornography, it’s all too staged and too sterile, but what’s playing out on the computer screen before him is decidedly different. Light knows that the camera is in the bathroom. Light knows that L will see the footage. It could all be an attempt to distract L -- a coy, sideways seduction -- except that when Light first entered the bathroom he clearly did not want to be seen. Why the sudden change in approach?

Then Light shudders with orgasm, his body tipping back against the shower wall while his mouth falls open in a silent groan, and it’s unexpectedly beautiful -- beautiful being a vocabulary word that L deploys once a year, at most.

L rewinds the footage and watches again.

Light Yagami is beautiful. L always knew this as a fact, but it was like looking at a painting made by an artist whose techniques he admired but was completely unmoved by. Now, though, L doesn’t just see Light’s beauty, he feels it, like a symphony resonating through his ears and churning his blood backwards to re-visit his heart. Light is most beautiful in those moments where he lets himself go, where he is utterly vulnerable and human, and for the first time L adamantly believes that if he could touch Light through the camera he would feel flesh and blood, not marble.

L is also aware of a faint stirring in his groin, but barely notices. It’s his brain that feels flush and thick and throbbing.

Beauty, soft as it is, is a dangerous weapon, and L is almost envious that Light embodies it so effortlessly. L has strange appeal, as he’s been told, but he does not have beauty -- what he has is an immunity to it. Or did.

With some reluctance, L finally turns the footage off. He ought to delete it, but he doesn’t. On the live feed Light is still studying, oblivious, but L’s mind is racing with the impulse to march into the bedroom and push the younger man onto the bed and say Show me. Show me everything you’re hiding behind your perfect and terrible beauty.

If only Light wasn’t Kira. If only his sense of duty hadn’t warped his conscience into black and white treachery. If only.

L methodically shovels the rest of the cake into his mouth, barely tasting it. With each bite, though, he feels his heart rate drop a little, his mind forcibly sweeping away the blue-tinged image of Light, hair glittering with water droplets, body as perfectly proportioned as a DaVinci sketch.

On the live feed, Light shifts in his chair, stretches, then rakes his hands through his hair, and even this is distressingly beautiful. L swallows the last of his cake and considers going for more. When it comes to indulgence, sugar is always safest.

“Ryuzaki!” Light calls out from his bedroom. “I’m going to bed now.”

Good , L thinks. Turn off the lights and leave my mind.

And it works. The night-vision setting only shows Light as a murky bundle of blankets, making it much easier for L to remember all the reasons why he can’t and won’t think of Light as a prospect for casual sex. First and foremost is the high likelihood that Light, beautiful though he may be, is not a very memorable shag. Beautiful people often aren’t, simply because they don’t have to be. Second is the fact that L is not L the Second, and he knows that burying his cock in someone won’t imbue him with fantastical, mysterious insight into their soul. It’s a delusion that far too many humans are fond of -- that fanciful notion that spilling part of yourself into them, or having someone spilled into you, is an exchange of something deeper than body fluids. It isn’t. That rosy, extravagant narrative is the stuff of lovesick poets and paperback romance, an ideology packed into every crevice of consumerist society, all of it a lie to cover up the greater truth: no one actually wants what they desire.

Once someone gets what they want, desire is smeared out of existence, like a bug crushed on a windscreen. Desire is what people really want, but it disappears as soon as it's exposed to the harsh, shriveling light of reality. L experiences something similar when he pours all of his heart and passion and energy into solving a case, dedicating himself like a man in rigorous pursuit of a lover. There always comes a moment near the end, when the solution is nearly at hand, where L finds himself desperately and irrationally hoping the solution will never arrive. Because once it does, his heart and passion have nowhere to go, no new circuits to travel.

All of which explains his rather flagrant promiscuity when it comes to taking cases.

So there it is: even if Light is made of flesh and blood, L will avoid reaching out to verify it, literally or figuratively -- will avoid it unless doing so offers an advantage too pivotal to ignore.

With that matter tackled, L gets back to his work, or tries to. His cognition levels have suffered, puttering along at 60 percent, and his self-control has weakened to the point where he keeps checking the feed to see what Light’s doing.

What Light’s doing is not sleeping. He tosses and turns, hammering his pillow like he’s trying to shake rocks loose, then finally turns on the table-side light and lays flat on his back, eyes trained on the ceiling.

L’s cognition levels have suffered, yes. Surely that’s why he finds himself walking to Light’s bedroom.

“Trouble sleeping, Light?” He asks through the crack in the door, choosing not to use honorifics this time.

“What, you noticed? That’s creepy.”

The insult is mild enough that L gives himself permission to ease the door open and poke his head in. “Do you need something?”

A pause. “I guess I wouldn’t mind talking.”

L takes a seat at the desk chair and Light rolls over onto his side, blankets loosely puddled around his hips. “You’re not going to be weird, are you?” He asks, brow narrowing.

L is startled by the question, so flat and and yet non-accusatory in its delivery. L has no inkling as to what “be weird” means, especially since L suspects that he is weird in ways that he may not even be fully aware of. One glancing possibility is that this is Light’s way of cutting L off at the pass, preventing him from bringing up the shower footage -- not that L had planned to do so.

“‘ Weird .’” L rolls the word around in his mouth, bringing his knees up to his chest. L says, bringing his knees up to his chest. “That could mean anything.”

“You can’t just sit there and watch me while eating candy,” Light clarifies. “Like you did the first night I arrived.”

“I don’t have any candy, and I just ate a large portion of cake.”

Light turns up his nose. “Don’t you ever get sick of sweets?”

“It should be clear by now that I don’t.” He presses Light with an even, shrewd look. “Aren’t there things you never get sick of?”

The phone rings from somewhere out in the suite, saving Light from having to answer.

“Who’s calling? Isn’t it almost midnight?” Light sits upright, his expression alert. “Watari?”

“He’d use the intercom.” L lifts his ear to the air. It’s the phone in his bedroom ringing, he’s sure.

“Excuse me a moment.”

He’s halfway to his bedroom when the phone stops for a few seconds, then starts ringing again. L catches it on the third ring.

“Hello?”

For a moment, there’s nothing but the buzz of poor reception.

“Hello?” He repeats.

“Hello, L.”

It’s a woman’s voice, and even though L can’t place it, all the tiny hairs on his arms are standing up at full attention.

“It’s been a while. Did you miss me?” The voice has a slight accent -- Irish.

“Aura,” L says, though he’s really thinking Aoife , because that’s her real name and L hasn’t heard her voice in almost five years.

“Who else?” She laughs, and out of the corner of his eye L sees Light standing in the doorway, openly eavesdropping. L doesn’t bother to wave him away.

“How did you get this number?”

“You aren’t that hard to find, L. Not for me.” She doesn’t sound smug, just a little maudlin, like she wishes L were harder to find.

“Alright. To what do I owe the pleasure, then?”

B is dead and A is alive, a reversal of fortune that L discovered in his investigation, but still hadn’t quite accepted as reality. Not until now.

“There’s things happening in the states. Bizarre murders. You’ll have heard about them, of course.”

According to L the Second’s notes, Aura disappeared three years ago; he had theorized that she had thrown in her talents with either one of the world power governments or some shady corner of the criminal underworld.

“I have heard of them,” L says. “Forgive me if I don’t divulge more details than that.”

“Same old L,” she laughs, and L wants to laugh with her for the sheer irony of it. “Territorial as ever.”

“I suppose you didn’t call me to offer your assistance.”

“Not at all. Just keeping you on your toes, as ever.”

In L’s first life, A had tried to tell him about B. About what B was capable of. L hadn’t listened -- it was none of his concern. L the Second had done more than listen; he’d found out first hand.

“Tell me something, though,” she says, voice lowering to nearly a whisper. “Are you still looking for the Woodsman?”

The ground beneath L’s feet is cracking, drifting in different directions like he’s standing on an ice floe. The ice is L, and L the Second is the cold, black water lurking beneath. In the distance of his mind he sees Aura tackle him to the ground, laughing so hard her crooked teeth show, and Aura is the blade that cuts and the hand that soothes, clutching a St. Brigid cross. I’m not God, I’m just His child , she says. Let me keep being His child. And L puts an arm around her skinny shoulder and says I’m sorry. I can’t.

No, not L. L the Second. L has never put his arm around Aura.

L struggles to find his footing, phone so tight in his hands it might as well be welded there. “What do you know about the Woodsman?”

Her laughter is breathy. “Nothing. I was just thinking about those days, you know? Quillsh brought you to Wammy’s and it was the only thing you would say. ‘The Woodsman.’ Like something from a fairy tale.”

Odd tingles travel up L’s limbs, like his whole body has pins and needles from decreased blood flow. “Why would you be thinking about those days?”

She doesn’t answer his question, saying, instead: “Still have my mark on your arm?”

“Yes.”

“Good, L.” He hears her swallow something -- tea, probably -- and it leaves traces of heat in her voice. “There will be more.”

The line clicks twice, then goes dead.

L keeps the phone pressed to his ear for longer than necessary, then finally lowers it, the air tight around him, like he’s been vacuum-sealed inside the room.

“Who the hell was that?” Light asks, so bratty and brash, like a slap upside L’s head.

L is all at once profoundly grateful to have him there.

***

L is being strange. L is always strange, but this time it’s different. First he came to check in on Light, and Light had braced himself for L to dole out sly hints about what he’d seen on the camera footage, for L to smugly lord over him with innuendo until Light had no choice to confess. Instead, L had only looked at Light as if he wished he didn’t have to, hands fiddling distractedly with the hem of his shirt.

L never looks distracted. Maybe he knew the phone call was coming -- it makes his voice go tense and guarded, a soft creature retreating into its shell, and everything he says into the receiver has nothing to do with Light or Kira. There’s just some kind of name, Aura, and then another: The Woodsman.

“Who’s Aura?” Light repeats. “Was that a woman?”

“Yes.” L’s voice is a dead fuse, the phone receiver still clutched in his hand.

“What did she want?” He pauses “Are you alright?” It feels odd to be the one asking.

“I suppose that I’m not.” L puts the phone back delicately, as if it might explode in his hand. “I wasn’t expecting to hear from her.”

“Who is she? A girlfriend, or something?”

L releases a sigh, the stiffness finally leaving his shoulders. “No. Just someone I used to know.” He walks to the bed and reclines on his mountain of clothing, settling in as if it’s some kind of nest. His head is somewhere else, Light can see that, and even if this ‘Aura’ isn’t a girlfriend, it’s impossible to regard L as having people he used to know , as being someone with an actual past.

“Did you check the footage yet, Ryuzaki?” Light asks. Because what better time to take advantage of L’s distraction than now?

“Yes.” L confirms mechanically. “I will inform your Father that you didn’t murder anyone early this morning, at least not as far as I can tell.”

That’s it. No cunning lines about Light’s lack of impulse control, no double-entendres, no masculine camaraderie. Light should be relieved.

“You were talking to her about that Woodsman case, weren’t you?” Light glances at the desk chair and the bed, then opts for the latter, sitting cross-legged and leaning against the foot-board, careful to avoid L’s nest. “Who is the Woodsman?”

L locks his hands together and clasps them against his abdomen. “Did your parents ever read you European fairy tales, like the Grimm Brothers, or Charles Perrault?”

“Just Japanese ones. I think.”.

“Even so, you’ve probably heard of Little Red-Riding Hood , yes?”

“Sure.”

“That was the story I always liked to hear the most.” L half closes his eyes, sinking a little deeper into his clothes-nest.

“Who read to you? Don’t tell me it was your parents.” Light’s mouth pinches together in doubt.

L raises his brows. “I’m an orphan, but I still had parents, once. Is that surprising for some reason?”

“Yes,” Light says flatly. “You seem like someone who hatched fully formed from a giant ostrich egg.”

“That’s an insensitive thing to say.” L rolls his eyes in Light’s direction. “Your sense of humor can be so cutting, Light-chan.”

Light brushes the comment aside. “There’s a ‘Woodsman’ in Little Red Riding Hood , isn’t there?”

“In some versions. The older ones have Red getting devoured by the wolf, and that’s where the story ends. Later version have Red being saved by someone, usually a Woodsman and his axe.” L’s voice drops lower as he speaks, as if his own words might lure him into sleep. “I used to make my mother read it again and again, even though it scared me. Especially the part with the Woodsman.”

.“Why would that part scare you? She’s getting saved, isn’t she?”

(The Woodsman by Zenthisoror - do not edit or repost without permission)

“Yes,” L says slowly. “By an axe . The wolf isn’t scary; he does what wolves do and devours, but the Woodsman is chopping Red out with an axe. He’s the hero, but one slip of the blade and he’ll cut her in half.” L’s hands wrap around and hug his waist, like he’s warding off a chill. “I used to imagine Red tucked inside that warm, cozy wolf’s body, then cringing away from the blade when it starts breaking her world apart.”

Light rubs at one eye, fighting back disbelief. Of course L had been an odd child; what other kind would he be? “You thought she was better off inside the wolf?”

“Yes. One might even say that, based on Red’s rather foolish behavior, she was actually praying to get eaten.”

“That’s crazy, Ryuzaki. Who actually wants to be eaten by the wolf?”

L squeezes his left arm, his thumb digging into the inside of his elbow. Light’s seen him do the same thing before, enough times to wonder if L has some kind of injury there.

“More people than you’d think,” L says, his voice a provoking mixture of bitterness and longing.

Something moves in Light’s peripheral vision and he turns his head just far enough to see Rem, who’s been even more quiet and grim than usual, so much so that Light keeps forgetting she’s with him. The Shinigami is watching L with what could very well be keen attentiveness, and Light narrows his eyes at her just enough to catch her attention.

“I was just thinking that you’re both much more interesting when it’s just the two of you,” the Shinigami explains in her flat monotone. “You’re both very good at hiding things, but you become less skillful at it when you’re together.”

Instead of taking offense to Rem’s words, Light uses them to shake himself back to reality. Why is L being so open with him? Is it, to borrow from L’s precious fairy tales, a trail of breadcrumbs designed to lead Light into a sweet, candy-colored house?

L always had a kind of openness to him, though -- or he appeared to, at least. He spoke with a frank baldness that wasn’t rude, exactly, but suggested either a lack of social graces or a complete disinterest in them. He just never told stories about his childhood, he never shared anything of himself beyond what was immediately relevant to the case -- which reminds Light that the ‘Woodsman’ is a case, too. Supposedly.

“What does the Red Riding Hood story have to do with the Woodsman case, though?”

“Nothing, really.” L has sunk so deep into his laundry by now that he’s practically camouflaged, save for his shock of black hair. “It’s just an explanation for why I call him that.”

“Him who ?”

L’s eyes flutter open a bit. “Oh. The man who murdered my mother.”

Light wants to haul L up out of his nest and shake him back to attention. “Your mother was murdered? That ’s the case you’ve never been able to solve?”

“Mm.” L nods. “So was my father, but that didn’t happen right in front of me, so it’s had a less profound effect in some ways.”

“Jesus, Ryuzaki,” Light breathes out. “Is this -- are you telling me the truth?”

“Yes.” L’s eyes snap to life, more alert, and he hoists himself out the laundry, pivoting his torso toward Light. “It’s my job to speak of such things with matter-of-factness, even if they impact me on a personal level.”

But there’s a crack in L’s voice -- undetectable to L’s own ears, probably, but it’s a thin, narrow whistle high enough for Light to pry himself into. Light can get in through the cracks. Light can always get in anywhere.

“It’s -- you shouldn’t do that, Ryuzaki.” Light stares at his own feet, increasing his flow of air until his breathing is just a smidge more labored than usual. “Don’t pretend to be unaffected. It’s so obvious that you are.”

“Is it?” L’s voice is laced with curiosity.

“Yes! You saw your mother’s murder . How could you possibly be unaffected!” Light allows his voice to swell with frustration. “You’d have to be some kind of robot not to be.”

“Light, calm down.”

There it is -- concerned L. Cornered L. That’s the L that Light wants.

“I am calm,” Light says fiercely. “I just don’t understand why you are, too.”

“Just because a person appears outwardly calm doesn’t mean that they are calm through and through.”

“You can’t even find your own mother’s murderer.” Light’s voice is flat, a blade turned sideways.

“Stop it.” The words are still maddeningly calm, but the hidden crack in L’s voice shakes and widens.

“I’m pretty sure that makes you the worst detective in the world.”

The blade comes down hard, bang-on for a shattering strike, and L winces -- yes, winces -- a sight that fills Light with such triumph he can barely hold back a grin.

“You raise a fair point, Light-chan,” L says, and he sounds defeated, so defeated that Light wants to clap his hands and let out a cheer. “It seems that it isn’t just your sense of humor that’s cutting.” L’s eyes are shiny and wounded, but it’s an old wound, blurry around the edges with exhaustion. “But you can’t berate me any more than I’ve already berated myself.”

“It’s alright, Ryuzaki,” Light says, squeezing the edge out of his voice. Because this is where he turns things -- wound and then soothe, rinse and repeat. “I guess I was harsh, but the fact that you can seem so unmoved about something is just unfathomable to me. More than just unfathomable, it’s offensive , somehow.”

“Because it’s a mode you have trouble embodying, yourself,” L says, and it isn’t a guess but more of a direct observation.

It’s also exactly what Light hoped L would say.

“Yeah.” Light presses his lips together and glances away. “I guess I’m not always the best on hiding things.”

“Why should you be?” L shifts slightly, and half of his laundry goes tumbling to the floor. “But then again, why should everyone be like you?” He touches the inside of his elbow again, circling his thumb into the fabric of his tee-shirt. “People should hide or reveal however much they’re inclined to.”

“Rue,” Light starts, and it feels funny, almost affectionate, to be using L’s fake first name.

“Yes, Light?”

Here it is, and he must be careful, so careful. Thread the needle with angel hairs so fine they’ll never been seen. He takes the kind of deep, shuddering breath that a school girl might suck in, right before a confession.

“Do you ever blame yourself?”

L nods slowly, a sheaf of thick, black hair falling into his eyes. “For forgetting. I saw the Woodsman’s face, I just can’t remember anything about it.”

Light wraps his arms around himself and bends over, as if he’s trying to stop himself from shaking. “Me too,” he breathes.

A slight turn, and L’s eyes are peering at him through that fall of dark hair. “You blame yourself?”

“Yeah.” Light nods stiffly. “My dad was the chief of the NPA. He would talk about Genesis 22 over dinner, sometimes. Nothing graphic, but enough for me to know the basic details of the case.”

L is quiet, waiting for Light to continue, and somehow the gap between them has closed, and L’s boney knee is almost touching Light’s foot.

“My dad’s a cop. I’ve always wanted to be a cop. There should have been alarm bells going off in my head when Umeda came by on his auto-rickshaw, but Sayu was tired and Umeda was skinny and shriveled, practically an old man.” Light wills himself to meet L’s gaze, which is pensive and unwavering. “I thought I’d be safe. I’d never in my whole life not been safe.”

And it’s all an act, it’s all a perfect, exquisite disguise -- so well-crafted that it almost feels like some version of the truth, the performance so immersive that Light’s curled hands are shaking in his lap and there’s a stinging sensation deep, deep at the back of his sinuses.

A loose hand wraps around his own.

“It’s not your fault.”

No, no. Light has the simultaneous urge to slap L’s hand away and hold it tighter. The air feels fractured, like an axe is cleaving its way in, and Light 2 is the one inside and Light 2 is going to crawl out and slip to the floor like a raw, mewling newborn. Light sucks in his stomach as hard as he can and breathes in tight through his teeth.

Say something, L , Light thinks frantically, the stinging sensation traveling from his sinuses up to his eyes. Say something so I remember who I am and that I hate you.

But L doesn’t say a word and just presses his fingers into Light’s palm. They feel good and cool, like stones from some deep, icy river.

This is okay. It’s okay. Light can’t speak, either, locked out by Light 2’s weakness, by his sniffles and his barely fought-back tears. It’s okay because Light probably can’t fake this part, anyway, but L will believe it. He’ll have no choice -- it’s too real and Light is trying so desperately to hold everything in but L is just sitting there, quiet, ready to let it all slough off into the palm of his hand. This is okay. It will all work, it’s all part of the plan.

Then Light says a single word without meaning to. “ Sayu .” And it’s all over then, he’s crying and this is terrible, terrible. Guilt and shame, crushing in like a black, ponderous shadow -- how can anyone stand it? What good does it ever do?

“That’s not your fault, either,” L says, and his voice is ragged and soft enough to sop up some of the hurt.

Light’s brain clicks off. He’s all body, all pain, and none of it feels like his own, pouring through his whole being with shattering clarity. He grips L’s hand hard and presses it to his chest, he needs it there to keep himself together.

It’s okay , a tiny voice chatters somewhere in the background, like a balloon skimming the clouds, trying to make its way back to the ground.

It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay.

***

Light wakes up in L’s bed.

It isn’t the first time. Back when he’d been handcuffed he’d regularly slept in L’s bed, except L himself wasn’t asleep but usually sat several feet away, skimming through his laptop.

Light forces his head off the pillow, which protests with a scream so shrill he might as well have spent all night drowning it in whiskey. The bathroom light is on, illuminating the room enough for Light to see L laid out on the bed beside him, still fully dressed and on top of the covers, his arms crosses loosely over his chest like a mummy’s. The air smells like L, sweet and slightly dusty, and it clings to Light like a sheen of cobwebs, impossible to wipe off.

He staggers out of the bed and walks, weak-kneed, through the suite to his own room. He feels like some part of his psyche -- his entire soul, maybe -- has been dragged across hot, jagged rocks, leaving every inch of him wounded, open for infection.

Is this really what it will take? Must he sacrifice the most precious parts of his identity to win?

You did it before , he reminds himself. It was worth it then. It’s worth it now.

Things were more certain, before. He’d chosen Kira’s path of his own free will; nothing had been foisted upon him.

La plus belle des ruses du diable est de vous persuader qu’il n’existe pas.

It’s a quote he remembers from Charles Baudelaire: ‘The devil’s finest trick is to persuade you that he doesn’t exist.’ Maybe the same can be said for Hell -- Hell’s greatest trick is to persuade people it doesn’t exist.

Because there is no doubt that this is Light’s own personal Hell. Being burned alive by Lucas’ hellfire is nothing compared to being stuck in an impossible challenge that requires him to shed all the core essentials of his identity, casting them off one by one like worthless pearls. What point in there is winning if the person who wins at the end is no longer him?

Lucas, I need your guidance , he thinks, because he can’t say it aloud.

He sits on the edge of his neatly made bed, waiting and waiting until he’s nearly choking on strained, strange giggles. Maybe there is no Lucas. This is just Hell, and Lucas was one of its tricks, its fun little torments.

LUCAS!

A squeaking sound rends the air, like a cork being forced from a bottle, and the roll of pressure that follows it throws Light back onto the bed like he weighs no more than a scrap of cloth.

“Jesus, who the hell would call at this hour!” Lucas groans, tightening the belt of his robe. “There I am, lounging in bed watching the stock-exchange, when some pansy-ass little soul starts crying for me.” He marches from one end of the room to the other, odorless smoking wafting from the tip of his cigar, and Light is so relieved he feels like he might faint, stars zooming around the edges of his vision and warping the walls of the room.

“Oh.” Lucas pauses and pivots on his heel. “It’s you. ” He leans in, feasting Light with his switchblade grin. “Wow, kid. You look like shit.”

Light scrabbles to roll onto his knees. “Lucas, you’re real?”

“More or less.” He takes a seat at the desk chair and crosses his legs. “What, did you start to worry I was a figment of your imagination? Well, you wouldn’t be the first. Having a crisis of faith, are you?”

Light looks the man up and down. He seems solid enough. “Are you sure I’m not in Hell?”

Lucas rolls his eyes. “Oh, not this again. Yes, I’m sure you’re not in Hell. For the last time, there is no Hell.”

“But the cameras --” Light glances at the corner where the wall meets the ceiling. “-- Is L just going to see me talking to myself?”

“Nah.” Lucas waves a hand. “I bring the fringes of Pandæmonium with me, wherever I go. He’ll just see a jump on the film, like a technical glitch.”

“Your Highness.” Rem wanders into the room and makes a deep curtsey. “I thought I heard your voice. It’s a pleasure to see you here”

“What?” Light’s mouth falls open. “No way. You’re the Shinigami King?”

“Sure. Among other things.” He flicks invisible ash onto the carpet. “How ya doing, Rem?”

“Pretty good. A little bored, maybe.”

“Ah, now don’t you do anything rash, my lady.” Lucas reaches out to take the Shinigami’s bony hand. “We can’t have this one’s life cut short, no matter how bored you get. Alright?”

“As you wish, Your Highness,” Rem rumbles, her ghoulish face seeming to blush at Lucas’ attention.

Light feels ten times better than he did just minutes ago. Lucas had previously been an unknown, wild card factor, but Shinigami -- Shinigami are what Light knows . If Lucas is affiliated with them, then he has to be real.

“So what’s up?” Lucas turns his attention back to Light. “You called me, as I recall. Was it just to get a reminder of my existence?”

“That’s part of it, but --” Light shakes his head. “This is all a bit harder than I expected.”

Lucas smirks. “Are you serious? Because I’ve been watching, you know. You’ve just been going to classes and circling L like a rusty helicopter. Not exactly hard labor.”

“It’s not that, it’s Light 2.” Light grits his teeth once, then continues. “He’s got all these traumas and issues, and I thought I could use them break down L’s defenses, but having to actually experience them? It’s unbearable.”

“So what? You’re doing great.”

Light frowns. “But I hate it. I don’t know how long I can keep it up.”

“Ah, geez.” Lucas looks up at the ceiling and sighs. “I guess you called me in for a pep talk.” His cigarette disappears and he puts a big hand on either knee, bending over in the chair toward Light. “You gotta start embracing the stronger side of your soul.”

“Light 2 isn’t stronger than me.”

“In some ways, he is. Now you’re tenacious, no doubt, but ‘Light 2,’ as you call him, isn’t afraid to be afraid. That’s one of the greatest strengths a human can have.”

Light frowns, unwilling to admit that Lucas words have a ring of philosophical truth.

“Being afraid sucks,” Lucas continues. “But the more you feel it, the more you realize it doesn’t break you, the stronger you get. I mean, come on, you ought to know that. You were Kira! Not to mention that this is all psychology-101.”

Light digs into his biceps with his fingers, trying to remember if being Kira had made him afraid. Had it? The power of the Death Note had been a kind of buffer, but yes, he supposes there was something terrifying about being Kira. That constant feeling of the noose, brushing against his neck. And what had he done about it? Adapted. Grown stronger.

“Alight, but what about me? What about Kira? I feel like that part of me is slipping away.”

“Yeah, funny how that happens when you don’t have hordes of worshippers,” Lucas laughs. “Look, you don’t have to complete the challenge, if you don’t want to. You can be Kira and try to change the world, same as you did before.”

There’s something comforting in having that option available, even if Light knows it would probably be foolish to take it. “What happens if I do that? Forget the challenge?”

“Your time will run out and you’ll go back to Mu. Or maybe you’ll get yourself killed first, like you did in the other world.” Lucas shrugs. “But if you win the challenge you can keep on living as you please, at least until this lifespan runs out.”

Light’s shoulders droop in resignation. He knows which outcome he wants.

“When we talked in Pandemonium you said that at least one of the things you told me was a lie.”

Lucas lights up a new cigarette, cool, blue smoke haloing his features. “I sure did.”

Light lifts his chin, forcing himself to look at the man without flinching in fear. “Why do that? Why throw one or more lies into our conversation, and then alert me to it, after the fact?”

“Consider it a lesson,” Lucas says, coming to his feet. “And man, I hate to get preachy, but think of it like this: it’s a reminder that people can lie to you at any moment and there’s nothing you can do about it. Sometimes people don’t even know that they’re lying. And yeah, there’s nothing you can do about that, either,”

“What’s the point of teaching me that?” Light says, vaguely annoyed. “Is it so I don’t drop my guard around anyone?”

Like L.

“Sure, of course.” Lucas blows more smoke and it swirls around him, draping him like a cloak. “Either that or it’s meant to teach you to just let go and have trust. Take your pick.”

“Hey, where are you going?” The other man’s form is starting to disappear into the smoke.

“I’m not so good with the pep talks. That’s enough for tonight, yeah? I gotta get back to my stocks…” Lucas’ voice is fading, like bad reception from a radio. “ Hasta la vista .”

Light is left right back where he started, alone.

Alone, but that’s okay. He’s always been alone. Kira needs no company, but if his weapon against L, Light 2, needs company, Kira will make sure that he has it. Light 2 isn’t him, Light 2 is his leashed but well-trained and well-fed pet, and Light has the mental fortitude to bounce back from the occasional, unsettling overlap.

That’s why later, when L gathers the group together again in the morning and announces that he wants to split the investigative task force and take half of them to America to capture the Angel, Light lets Light 2 out of his cage and doesn’t yank him back. He pouts and looks sullenly out the window, ears tipped with the hot blush of jealousy, and yes, Light feels it too, but that’s okay. It’s okay.

“Light-kun. I’d like for you to come with us to the States. If you’re agreeable, I should be able to make arrangements with To-Oh for you to continue --”

“That’s fine, Ryuzaki.” Light turns away from the windows and offers L the tiniest of smiles. “I want to come with you.”

A silent look passes between them, stretching across the table until Light’s hand feels like it’s full of cool, comforting stones, fished up from the deepest, blackest part of a river.

Chapter Text

(interludium)

16 April 2007

Chicago, IL

Cody Callahan is meeting his friend for the very first time. His only friend, really, because even though Ryuk is good company, Ryuk will also probably kill Cody, one day. Cody only hopes that when his final moments come, they will come as an act of mercy.

He’s put Daniel off for four days, using illness as an excuse for the delay. But saying he was ill wasn’t really a lie -- Cody’s been gripped in a kind of fever dream, tucked into his bed loft with a blanket draped over his head, scrolling through various new sites on his laptop with one hand, writing in the Death Note with the other. There are an astonishing number of juvenile criminals in the United States, and a fair number of them appear to have been born with the sort of twisted psyche that allows them to commit murder without a single morsel of regret. Cody leaves those ones alone. The prison system already has them, and if that doesn’t kill them, then perhaps Kira will.

But most young criminals are raised in the trash heap of humanity, with drug-dealing, absent, or abusive parents. Some had even reached out to other authorities for help and had been turned away. One such boy, Jason, only ten years old, had shot his abusive father in the head to stop the parent from beating his six year old sister. It should have been a clear case of self-defense, but prosecutors found Jason guilty and sent him into state custody to rot until age twenty-one. Cody had followed up and found the jury and prosecutors guilty, in turn. Pictures of the prosecutors were easy enough to find, but the jury members were harder. Only three of them spoke openly to the press, but hours of careful internet searching had rewarded Cody with photographs for two of them.

He sentenced them all to death by heart attack. Each time he wrote down a name, it was like writing down Tami’s, again and again.

Even when he’s not writing in the Death Note, Cody dreams of writing in the Death Note. Even when he’s not dreaming, he feels the dark allure of the notebook calling out to him like something warm and nourishing. Cody’s been starving for so long, and he never even knew it.

“R U avoiding our meeting?” Daniel finally asked, following the question with a frowny-face.

“No, sorry. I’ve been sick. Really sick ,” Cody typed back. “But I’m getting better. Where should we meet?”

Cody checks his Tioga out of the RV park and drives the 28 miles into downtown Chicago, where he parks at a marshalling yard that has zero amenities. It’s just a place where truckers and tourists drop off their rigs before heading out for a few nights in the big city. The train ride to North Chicago is long, the car wobbling between tightly packed buildings like a rat traversing through the narrowest path between two brick walls.

Cody arrives at the meeting spot almost a full half-hour early. The cafe is clean and bright, the furnishings unchanged for probably the last fifty years. It has a pleasantly retro feel, and most of the clientele are retro, too, old men with huge pastrami sandwiches and dishes of pickles. A few hip, ironic young people lounge at the long counter over plates of french fries, but none of them bear the name “Daniel.” Cody requests a booth near the back and orders a coffee, black.

He fidgets while he waits, touching his pocket every so often to check that the plastic teddy bear is there. Every time the front door opens a little bell chimes and Cody darts his head up, looking for his friend. He doesn’t have any idea what Daniel looks like, only knows that he’s twenty years old and a level 84 Hunter.

And then the bell chimes and Daniel walks in, and even without the Shinigami eyes Cody is certain he would have recognized him. He looks both older and younger than twenty -- older because he’s a giant at well over six-feet tall, younger because his face is smiling and untroubled, eyes wide with pent-up laughter.

Cody lifts one hand in a tentative wave and the giant strides over, dressed in jeans and a hooded sweatshirt, a uniform nearly identical to Cody’s, just several sizes larger. He has the handsome, rugged jawline of a movie star, nose and eyebrows heavier than average, but well-suited to his face.

“Cody?” Daniel smiles down at him.

“Yeah, hi,” Cody blurts out. “Have a seat.”

Daniel slides into the booth. “Am I late?”

“No, I was early.” Cody stares into his coffee and stirs the black liquid. He doesn’t know what to say. His throat feels stopped up, his head swirling with bad omens. Maybe he shouldn’t have agreed to meet Daniel.

“Are you feeling any better?” The concern in Daniel’s voice is so genuine that it makes Cody want to cringe. “The chicken soup they serve here is supposed to be a cure-all for everything.”

“Thanks,” Cody says slowly. “Maybe I’ll try some.” He takes in a deep breath, wills himself to be brave, and looks up to meet Daniel’s gaze. His eyes are so dark that they’re more black than brown. “This is a lot harder than typing.”

Daniel smiles, showing bright white teeth. “It’s okay. I’m nervous, too.”

“You don’t look it.”

“No, really?” Daniel rubs the back of his neck. “I’m sweating, believe me.”

Even so, Daniel picks up the burden of the conversational thread with minimal effort, describing his job as a mechanic for a motorcycle shop, his grandmother, a Tarascan Indian from Michoacán, and his passion for playing guitar. “When I’m not raiding, anyway,” he adds with a grin. “What about you? What do you do offline?”

Cody can’t tell him the truth, so he shrugs and pours himself a second cup of coffee. “I don’t really do anything offline. Until recently, I spent a lot of time helping out my mom.”

“Oh, that’s right.” Daniel has heard about Tami before; she was always Cody’s excuse for why he couldn’t visit Chicago, why Daniel couldn’t visit Cuyahoga Falls. “Well, I’m glad she finally let you move out. That’s so incredible that you just live on the road, doing whatever you want.”

“Yeah, actually --” Cody stirs his black coffee needlessly “-- she didn’t let me move out, she passed away almost two months ago.”

“Cody.” Ryuk, who’s been mindlessly spinning on one of the diner-style counter stools this whole time, suddenly fixes Cody with one of his wide, ghoulish grins. “What are you going to tell him?”

“Shit, I’m sorry.” Daniel swallows visibly, but if anything his face hardens, rather than softening with sympathy. “What happened?”

‘Complications from diabetes.” Cody has to raise his voice louder than his usual half-whisper. At the front of the restaurant, one of the customers is practically shouting for a refill on his coca-cola. He’s disheveled and possibly homeless, his skin tanned to the color of old boots.

“That’s rough. My grandma has diabetes.”

Their food arrives -- a plain toasted bagel for Daniel, chicken soup for Cody. He spoons it up with gusto; it’s easier to eat than to talk, but Daniel keeps looking at him from across the formica table, his eyebrows pinched with curiosity.

“You look just how I pictured,” he announces, and Cody almost spits out his mouthful of broth.

“You’ve only ever seen me as a white-haired, big-breasted mage,” he manages, dropping his spoon into the bowl.

Daniel laughs. “That’s not what I meant. You look sharp, like you’re always thinking a dozen things at once, but you seem like you know how to blend in and disappear. I knew you’d be like that.”

“It’s easy to disappear when you’re short.”

“I wouldn’t know.” Daniel takes a massive, crunching bite of his bagel.

Up front, the disheveled man is still hollering for more coca-cola. The text over his head reads Hector Young: 4-16-07.

Has anyone ever died from going without coca-cola? Cody chews on a mouthful of noodles and notices that the man sitting two stools down from Hector Young is turning red in the face, struggling to read his newspaper with shaking hands. “Keep it down, you piece of trash,” the man mutters, patting the side of his leather jacket.

“I want my fucking free refill!” Hector bellows in the man’s direction. “I might be trash but I paid for my soda and I want more!” The waitress shakes her head and ducks back into the kitchen, presumably to hunt down a manager.

“Must be a junkie.” Daniel chews up the last of his bagel.

Cody isn’t watching Hector the junkie, he’s watching the man in the leather jacket. Sean Flowers. He’ll be alive for another thirty-two years. Flowers grits his teeth together and pats the side of his jacket again.

“Daniel.” Cody slips out of the booth, light as a cat, and tugs at the sleeve of Daniel’s sweatshirt. “Follow me. We’re getting out of here. Now.”

“Now?” Daniel drops his balled-up napkin into his lap. “What about the bill?”

“Forget it.” Cody’s eyes zip around the restaurant and find the exit sign near the back. “Just keep up.”

They run on squeaky-soled sneakers, skidding across the linoleum and bursting through the emergency exit just before the first gunshot cracks through the air.

“Holy shit!” Daniel ducks and presses his back to the alley wall. “What the fuck just happened?”

Cody crouches next to the dumpster. At some point he must have removed his plastic teddy bear because it’s now gripped in his hand, nearly cracking from the strength of his grip. “Someone just shot the junkie,” he says, his thin chest straining for breath.

“Fuck.” Daniel hops to his feet, and now it’s Cody’s arm that gets grabbed. “Let’s book it before the cops show up.”

Cody barely has time to nod, racing through one alley after another, trying to keep up with Daniel’s towering figure. They don’t stop until they reach a tiny park stuffed with pigeons, the birds erupting into the air in one giant huff as they pound across the paving stones and come to a halt.

“Okay.” Daniel leans over a bench, his eyes squinting around at their surroundings. “I think that’s good. We can stop.”

There are sirens in the distance, getting closer.

Cody looks at Daniel from the other side of the bench, his heart still hammering in his throat.

“Okay, then.” Daniel straightens up and sucks in a huge breath, then lets it out with a half-laugh. “Tell me something, will you?”

“Alright.”

“How’d a scrawny, white boy, gaming addict like you know that shit was about to go down?” Daniel’s voice isn’t accusatory, but interested. Maybe even admiring.

For the first time since he woke up, Cody feels himself smile.

Chapter Text

Nisi Paria Non Pugnant

There’s always more than one version of a fairy tale, just as surely as there is more than one version of the same dream -- an echo resounding through a bottomless canyon. In one fairy tale, the orphan boy is orphaned before his parents are even dead, sent to live in an English manor house where the doors open in response to secret code and puzzles, and games of hide-and-seek are as serious as real-life subterfuge. By age eight the boy is unbeatable. Untouchable.

Maybe that’s another reason for the tattoos , L thinks, watching thin rivulets of rain water snake down the car’s windshield. A reminder that you can always be beaten, can never remain completely untouched.

Less than two weeks in Tokyo, and L is already returning to the States. This time, he will bring a murderer with him.

“What do you think’s happening in there?” Maki asks, nodding at the Yagami’s house. Soichiro, Aizawa, and Light are inside, breaking the news to the rest of the Yagami family.

“Sachiko Yagami is likely trying to guilt her son into staying behind like his father. The word ‘duty’ will be a big feature of the conversation, whether it gets uttered or not.”

“Hmm.” Maki taps her fingers against the steering wheel of the Rolls Royce -- she’d wanted a chance to drive it before they left, and had, so far, declared the experience ‘sublime’.

“Is that a note of skepticism?” L stops drawing curlicues on the fogged-up glass.

“You have to ask?” Maki says lightly. “Some detective you are. But yeah, if we’re going after this Angel, bringing Yagami Junior and Matsuda sounds like it’ll result in more work than reward.”

“I assure you that any objection you have is one I’ve probably thought of.”

“Prove it. Tell me the downsides.”

The corners of L’s mouth quirks. He’s gotten more used to Maki’s challenges, has even adjusted to the occasional doubt lobbed over by Quillsh. His past preference for working alone had kept him neither unbeatable or untouchable, and he hasn’t forgotten Michelina’s advice: draw worthy people to his side.

“Matsuda is naive, psychologically weak, and of only average intelligence.” L pauses, remembering all the various scraps Matsuda had to be bailed out of. “Also: unpredictable and impulsive.”

“And he talks too much. Specifically to me.”

“Yes. He fancies you a bit.”

“Yeah,” she growls without real malice. “Another big downside.”

“I don’t think --” L says, drawing a letter M on the glass, “-- that your discomfort about Matsuda’s crush should override my reasons for choosing him.”

“And what were those, exactly?”

“His loyalty is unwavering, yet he isn’t afraid to voice an opposing view when he has one. It’s a rare combination to encounter.” L stops scribbling on the windows and chews on his thumb’s cuticle. “He doesn’t stand out, and when he does, he comes across as blazingly ordinary.”

Maki snorts back a laugh. “He is ordinary.”

“Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing,” L says. “Especially since the rest of our group will be fairly extraordinary. Also, Matsuda’s English is passable. Not as good as Light’s, but better than anyone else in the NPA group.”

“Light’s a little snot.” Maki’s declaration is flat and certain.

“I thought I was meant to be the one listing the downsides?”

“Consider that one a freebie.”

L slips out of his sneakers and brings his socked feet up to the buttery leather upholstery. “Light is immature and far too fond of provocation, but he has more to offer than Matsuda. You do see that, at least?”

“He’s a smart kid.” Maki frowns and gnaws at her bottom lip. “Too smart, maybe.” Her eyes meet L’s. “I don’t think he’s trustworthy, and neither do you. You still think he could be Kira, right?”

“The percentage of his likelihood has lowered, but a very small percentage remains,” L admits. “All the more reason to keep an eye on him.”

“There’s such a thing as keeping your enemies too close.”

L closes his eyes, nods. “It’s a lesson I’m well acquainted with.”

Three murders in two different worlds; the first version motivated by anger and rejection, the second version motivated by anger and love -- an echo resounding through a bottomless canyon. It never mattered if L ignored B or embraced him; Beyond was a wolf, devouring like wolves do. Maybe Wammy’s House had found him too late. He was nearly ten when Quillsh discovered him in a boys’ home in rural Wyoming, armed with off-the-chart IQ scores and a recipe for homemade explosives that got him expelled from school. Nearly ten and already untameable.

“I’m not sure if Yagami Junior is just a kid who’s been screwed up by life, or if there really is something dangerous to him.” She tugs on a length of hair, her habit for deep thinking. “I can’t tell if he’s like Beyond, but if he is --” Her eyes swing back to L’s “-- you’ll need to be careful.”

“I need to be careful regardless. We both do. It’s what this lifestyle demands.”

“Yeah, but I’m more worried about you than me.”

L slits his eyes and judges by Maki’s expression that she’s serious.

“Maki, I have no need for a mother.”

She delivers a light slap to his arm. “Cut that out. You know why I mother you? Because you think you don’t want it or need it.” Her voice rises a half-octave. “Almost every man I’ve ever known has cast me in the role of his mother, deliberately or otherwise. You’re the first one who didn’t do that.”

“So you’ve cast yourself in the role, instead?” L searches her face, their eyes meeting briefly before she looks away. “Maki, I hope that you will always tell me exactly how you feel and never hold back. Just know that I’m likely to carry on as I intended, anyway.”

“I know that you will,” she says, voice tired around the edges. “That’s what sucks. Anyway --” her profile shifts slightly, revealing a wistful smile “--I’m probably more worried about myself. If anything happens to you, all of this ends.” She lifts her palm and unfolds it, staring at its clean, unmarred surface. “No more working with the world’s greatest detective. No more Rolls Royces. No more chartered flights over the Pacific. No more L.”

“There will always be an L, and there will always a place for you, if you want it.”

“Does that make me an unofficial Wammy’s Kid?” Her voice is lighter, as if she finds the notion pleasing.

L finds an untouched patch of foggy glass and sketches a house with a steep roof and six chimneys. “Not everyone thrives at Wammy’s.  A didn’t.”

“What happened to her?” Maki follows the question with a deep breath. “Am I allowed to ask?”

“I don’t know what happened to her. I only know that she left.” L closes his eyes briefly.

It’s getting easier. It isn’t about concentration or focus, it’s about letting go. Allowing the skin of his mind to split apart so that all of L the Second’s memories rise up to the surface, a collection of hazy photographs for L to sort through.

“She lived at an orphanage in Galway for the first five years of her life. The nuns had trouble with her -- she was so precocious, always challenging their readings of the scripture. But despite that she still wanted to be a nun, herself.”

And just like that, L can see her: Aoife, head bowed at the foot of his bed, red curls shining with firelight. She recites from the Book of Ruth in Irish. L isn’t yet five, two years younger than Aoife, and doesn’t understand a single word, but he likes the lilting rhythm of her voice. I know it’s not the same as being read to , she says when she’s finished, but maybe it’s better than nothing.

“Seriously, she wanted to be a nun?”

“Well, perhaps want is the wrong word. She was sure it was her calling.” L’s version of A was the same way, one of the only people at Wammy’s who regularly visited the chapel. “All of the things that made her a gift to Wammy’s -- her fierceness, her intellect, her ambition -- were the things she disliked most about herself.”

“Is that what Wammy’s is? A place that takes gifted children and tells them what to do with those gifts?” Maki’s words are troubled. “Maybe I don’t want to be an unofficial Wammy’s Kid, after all.”

L stares at the house he’s drawn on the glass; its foundation is already melting at the corners. “Wammy’s House is different things to different people, so it depends on which version you prefer. Some might see it as a collection of gifted, eccentric children too unusual to thrive anywhere else; others might see it as a grand laboratory where children are bred to be agents for justice. A spy’s finishing school. Before she left, A called it an ‘unwholesome environment.’”

“What did Beyond call it?” Maki asks, just like L knew she would.

“His playground.”

Maki doesn’t ask what Wammy’s House is to L, and for that he’s grateful. Spinning out L the Second’s story to Light is one thing, but he’d rather not lie to Maki if he can avoid it. Because the truth is that Wammy’s House was and is everything to L -- he’s never known anything different. Wammy’s House was the machine that molded him, polishing every part until it operated with ruthless efficiency, and the place he returned to when he needed reboots and upgrades.

But to L the Second, Wammy’s House had been an actual home.

“You know, it sounds pretty fucked up to me, but do I really have room to talk?” Maki shrugs heavily. “Every institution indoctrinates in some fashion. The adults at the public school I went to only ever talked about jobs -- get good grades, get a good job, make some money. I think A would have called it ‘unwholesome,’ too.”

L takes a moment to appreciate how fair-minded Maki is, how capable she is of seeing matters from a variety of perspectives. For this reason above all, he knows that he must always take her concerns seriously.

No matter how you might otherwise wish it, Lawliet, you’re not unbeatable and you’re not untouchable.

“Looks like Aizawa wants us to come inside,” Maki remarks. Sure enough, Aizawa’s head is poked over the Yagami’s front gate, his hand waving in the direction of the house.

“I suppose we’ll oblige him.” L slips his sneakers back on and ducks out into the chilly spring rainfall.

Inside, the entire Yagami clan has gathered in the living room -- even Sayu, who’s propped up carefully on the sofa and taking in the scene with wide, curious eyes. After a quick, discrete scan, L judges that it’s her left side of her body that has the most mobility. Light sits next to her, his face erased of all emotion.

“Hello,” L says experimentally. Sachiko is sat in one of the stiff wing chairs, Soichiro standing behind her at the ready, like a reliable butler. Only the grandmother seems uninterested in what’s going on, pulled up to the dining room table with a paperback book and a bowl of shelled peanuts.

“Are you Ryuzaki?” Sachiko asks, her tone sharp, bordering on accusatory.

“I am, and this is Maki. A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Yagami-san.” L makes a little bow that’s anything but authentic, as evidenced by Light’s barely hidden smirk.

“Call me Sachi.”

“Alright, Sachi,” L says, amiably enough. Such informalities are rare for the Japanese, but he recalls that Sachiko’s nickname during her modeling days had been ‘Sachi’ -- cute, bubbly, and peppy, just like her. Or the ‘her’ she had once been.

Sachiko sips something from a delicate china cup, and by the way she presses her lips together after swallowing, it surely holds more than just tea. “My husband tells me that you speak for this detective L. Is that right?”

“Inasmuch as detective L allows me to.” “With one glimpse, L sees Light’s smirk deepen, his arms crossing loosely around his torso.

“I’d like to know what this detective wants with my son. He’s only just started at University, and now he’s been recruited to work on some murder case in America?” Sachiko shakes her head in disbelief. “He’s an honor student. He doesn’t have time to be running around catching murderers.”

“L has arranged for Light-kun to takes his exams over email, and with his intellectual aptitude, missing the lectures should do him no harm.” As he speaks, L helps himself to a seat on one of the sofas, crossing his legs at the ankle instead of settling into a crouch. “L believes that Light-kun’s abilities will be an asset to the investigation in American, just as his father’s skills will be useful to the half of the task force that remains here in Japan.”

“I know it’s unorthodox, my dear,” Soichiro says soothingly, hand hovering over his wife’s shoulder but not quite touching it. “But if Light wants to work for the NPA one day, this experience will only do him good.”

“Why should he work for the NPA?” Sachiko barks suddenly, nearly tipping over her drink. “They’ve never done anything good for us!”

“That’s an unfair assessment,” Soichiro murmurs, while Aizawa shifts around and looks like he, too, wouldn’t mind a belt of booze.

“I’m going to America, Mother.” Light looks at her through lazy, half-lidded eyes. “I know it, Father knows it, and Ryuzaki knows it. We’re only enduring this little conference for your benefit, so you can feel as if you’ve had a say in the matter.”

“Ooh,” the grandmother chortles with interest, looking up from her book, while Soichiro makes a scolding noise at his son.

“He’s right,” Sachiko says, glaring at her husband. “You’re just placating me again, aren’t you?”

“Darling --”

“Stop.” She raises her hand and turns her face away. “If you’re going to make huge changes to our lives without consulting me, at least own up to them.” She sets her teacup down on a side table and leans forward, squeezing her knees, looking at her son directly. “If this is really what you want, Light, then I won’t try to stop you.”

Light breaks away from his mother’s gaze and looks at Sayu, instead. “What do you think? Should I go?”

It’s a tiny, quiet moment, and yet one that strikes L as noteworthy: Light Yagami asking for someone’s advice, and appearing to genuinely want it.

Sayu’s lips quirk into something that might be a smile. “I would,” she says, the words careful and deliberate.

Light pivots back to his parents. “That’s good enough for me.”

Sachiko brushes off the front of her slacks vigorously, as if she’s just tended to some unpleasant business -- which, in a way, L supposes she has. “I have one condition, though. You stay here tonight and have a nice farewell supper with your family, just the five of us. I’ll make shogayaki, your favorite.”

With that, she floats up from her chair and heads to the kitchen, presumably to begin shogayaki preparations. Soichiro slumps in visible relief and Aizawa’s expression of caged desperation finally eases away. L uncrosses his legs, prepared to return to the safety of the Rolls Royce, but before he can stand he catches Sayu looking at him, her gaze fixed and probing.

“Are you...?” she asks, then makes a letter ‘L’ with her left thumb and forefinger.

He brings his finger to his lips in a silent shh . Sayu grins and manages a nod.

“Ryuzaki,” Light interrupts, his voice as non-intrusive as L’s ever heard it. “Will you come upstairs with me? I want to give you a few things to take back to the hotel.”

“Of course.”

Light’s bedroom is quiet and dark, the air stale with a low, closed-up odor. L presses his spine to the door frame while Light peels back the curtain and stands at the window, looking down at the wet streets below. “Sorry about that,” he says, voice ironed flat. “Her life is hard, I guess, but it doesn’t help that she refuses to see it any other way.” He lifts his chin, and the muted luster of the late afternoon turns his complexion milky, his lips and eyelashes striking in profile.

L turns his head and breathes out a silent, amused sigh. Either he’s become far too attentive of Light’s treacherous good looks, or Light has become quite the expert at arranging himself into one fetching tableau after another. Both options are equally ridiculous.

After a second of consideration, L decides against rejecting Light’s unnecessary apology -- to do so would probably be regarded as an insult. “You wanted to give me some things to bring to the hotel?”

“Oh.” Light lets the curtain fall back, reaching over to turn the desk lamp on. “Not really. I wanted to talk about Kou, actually.”

“What about him?”

“Making my mother accept that I’m going to America was the easy part. Kou’s going to have a million questions, and I can’t exactly tell him that I’m helping the great Detective L catch a murderer.”

L tents his fingers together in front of his lips, pacing the length of the room slowly. “May I sit?” He asks, and takes the chair in front of the desk as soon as Light nods. “What kind of reason for your departure would Miyano-kun be most likely to accept? Something related to education?”

Light nods. “That would probably be best.”

“How about --” L flicks the key dangling from the top drawer of Light’s desk and senses the other man hold back a flinch. “-- An invitation to do summer field research for the University of Maryland? They have one of the best Criminology programs in the States.”

“That might work, except it’s not summer.”

“The University of Maryland wants you to attend a six-week English-language intensive first.”

“But my English is already fine.” A frown clouds Light’s face.

L lifts a finger. “Ah, but the University requires it of everyone, no way around it.”

Light runs a restless hand through his hair. “What if it only takes us a few weeks to catch the Angel? How will I explain it when I return to Japan early?”

“You missed your sister, or the pull of family duty was just too hard to ignore.” L hugs his knees and gives Light a pointed stare. “Someone as clever as you will come up with an explanation.”

“Right.” Light releases a scoffing breath. “Anyway, what about you? You’ll disappear from To-Oh at the same time as I will.”

L shrugs easily. “Perhaps I was also invited to do summer research in America.”

Sitting on the end of his bed, Light crosses his legs and leans back onto his palms, his tie pulled loose around his neck. “Don’t you think that’s going to look a little bit funny?” His smile is thin and somehow knowing.

“Will it?” L says around the ball of his thumb. “But we’re such good friends from elementary school.”

“Don’t play dumb. If we both just happen to leave for America at the same time, Kou might get some weird ideas.”

“Will he?” says L, definitely playing dumb and quite enjoying it.

“Ryuzaki,” Light hisses through his teeth.

“Light- chan. ” L swivels the chair around in a slow circle. “What exactly is the concern, here?”

“Forget it.” Light sits back up and folds his arms into his lap. “Apparently you’re too dense about these matters for them to ever cross your mind.”

L slaps his hand against the desk, stopping the chair’s rotation. “I’m not dense, but your friend Kou Miyano may be. I am doubtful that he will have any ‘weird ideas.’” L tilts his head slightly, widening his eyes. “He hasn’t even picked up on the fact that his best friend is attracted to him, has he?”

Light’s mouth falls open, his eyes blinking erratically as he fishes for some kind of response. He looks very human and not particularly beautiful -- a reassuring sight, in L’s opinion.

“What’s that?” Light finally manages, the words mangled with disbelief and indignation. “Are you talking about me ? I’m not attracted to Kou. He’s a guy!”

L hides a sigh behind his palm. A part of him hopes that this is an act, because if it’s not, then Light is frighteningly naive. “Attraction can occur between any one, regardless of age, ethnicity, gender, socio-economic background, and so on.”

“I know that, obviously. I meant that I, personally, am not attracted to guys.”

“Maybe you’re not, as a general rule, but if so then Kou Miyano must be the exception to that rule -- at least based on what I’ve observed.”

“What you’ve observed?” Light lets out a huff of disgust. “Never mind, I don’t want to hear about what you’ve ‘observed.’ Whatever you think you saw, you’re wrong, okay?”

L thinks it over, does some quick calculations. “There is a six percent chance I’m wrong, if it makes you feel better.”

A thin laugh dances out of Light’s throat, and it seems to set him back to his smooth, unruffled self. “If you say so, Ryuzaki. I’m so sure your vast amounts of experience with sex and dating make you an absolute expert on the matter.”

L manages not to roll his eyes, returning to the comforting swivel of the office chair. “If that’s your way of probing for information about my romantic history, it’s far too transparent to dignify an answer.”

“Gross, Ryuzaki.” L stands up and brushes himself off vigorously, in almost the exact same manner as his mother. “Even hearing you say the words ‘romantic history’ is more than my ears can handle.”

“So you’re as immature as you appear, then.” L’s tone is light, even carefree, but a strange sensation is roiling through his chest, part-irritation, part-giddiness. It’s all at once both foreign and familiar -- familiar to the part of him housing L the Second’s soul and memories, perhaps. Both he and Light are wielding words like their tongues are tipped with needles, simultaneously trying to draw blood and sneak a taste of something forbidden.

Is this flirting? L wonders, because he’s never done such a thing before, has never had to. His previous conquests -- which amount to barely more than five fingers’ worth -- always came to him first, willing and waiting.

He draws into himself, going silent as he charts out different variables in his mind-- who started it, how, and when. And why.

“Calling someone immature has always struck me as a particularly immature thing to do,” Light says, pulling a few books down from his shelf and tossing them into a duffle bag.

“ Touché ,” L murmurs, and that single word shuts the conversation down with such finality that Light looks at him over his shoulder, his expression wary. “Can I assume that we’ve settled on the story you’ll tell your friends?”

“Sure.” Light reaches for more books, his movements now fluid and relaxed. “Hey, when we get to America can we buy a baseball jersey somewhere? Kou’s crazy about baseball.”

L squints at Light’s back. Do you even hear yourself, Light Yagami ?

“That will be easy enough to procure.” L slips out of the chair and shifts on the balls of his feet. “Can I leave you to your packing, then?”

“Almost done.” Light carefully folds in a few items of clothing and a pair of athletic shoes, then hands the bag over to L. “Thanks. Ah, before you go --” he glances up at the ceiling “-- are there cameras in here?”

L gives him a long look. “No. They’re only installed downstairs.”

“And you’re really okay with me staying here tonight?”

“Consider this a one-time extension of my trust.” L slings the duffle over his shoulder and wonders if he’s just given Kira permission to go on a killing spree tonight. L doesn’t think Light will be so foolish as to try and pack the Death Note off to America, so yes, Light will probably try to write names while he still can.

“I’ll see you back at the hotel tomorrow,” he says, swinging open the door and exiting without a goodbye.

As he descends the stairs, L swallows back rising bile and takes its taste as a reminder of the long struggle that lies before him. Each step will take him deeper into the darkest heart of the labyrinth -- an echo resounding through a bottomless canyon.

***

Light watches the Rolls Royce back out into the rain-soaked street and glide away.

“He was telling the truth,” Rem rumbles behind him. “There are no cameras installed on this level of the house.”

“Good.” The word comes out as a whisper, not because he’s trying to be quiet but because the whole core of his body is still reverberating with L’s words, L’s maddening, heady presence. The room feels infected with the detective’s sly, knowing fingerprints -- fingers that dared to touch the drawer where the Death Note hides, waiting for Light.

To think that Light had taken such care to drop hints that he was harboring sweet, wistful feelings for Kou, only to discover that L had glimpsed the hints well before Light had sprinkled them at his feet. Just as L had worked out the nature of Takada’s feelings, so had he worked out those of Light 2’s.

Light balls the hem of the curtain into his fist, fighting to come back into himself. He takes no pleasure in playing the role of the sexually-confused, sexually-frustrated teenager, but it’s another piece of armor for L to latch on to, to believe he’s knocked away. The more L comes to see Light as vulnerable, the more L will open himself to manipulation and coercion. Light can withstand the loss of dignity so long as he wins it all back in the end -- and he will. Of course he will.

He needs the Death Note. It’s been too long since he’s scratched ink into its rough-edged but pristine pages. A few careful maneuvers of the hidden drawer compartment and it’s back in his hands, a reunion that tips the world upright and make the floor go solid beneath his feet.

“Are you going to write in it, Light?” Rem says from somewhere behind Light’s shoulder.

“I want to.” And oh, how he does. “I could schedule them for days, even weeks from now, so long as it’s within twenty-three days.”

“Yeah, I guess it’s not a very smart idea to carry the Death Note on you when that detective’s around.”

“That’s right.” Light turns around in his chair and faces the Shinigami. “I’m going to have to lend the notebook back to you, Rem. For safe-keeping.”

Rem’s one eye squints down at him. “You won’t need it?”

Light taps the face of his watch. “I have enough to get me by for a while.” He cracks the notebook open and runs his fingers over the smooth pages. He’s never before noticed how the paper isn’t a stark white but a rich cream, luminescent as a pearl.

Luca Hart.

That’s the name he wants to write the most, though he knows that he mustn’t.

Working mostly from memory, he writes down twelve other names instead, all of them convicted or accused criminals, but otherwise completely unconnected. Some are guilty of the gravest crimes -- rape, human trafficking, and murder -- a few are professional swindlers, extortionists, or drug-dealers. All will die of heart attacks at random times on random days, like unlucky villagers falling victim to a fierce plague.

Kira is the wrath of nature. Kira is the catastrophe. Kira is the god that guides the cleansing hand.

Light’s face heats up as he writes, his heartbeat filling his ears with such a cacophony that he barely hears his mother calling him down for supper.

“Light, your mother wants you."

He shuts the notebook abruptly, wiping a barely-there sheen of sweat off his forehead. “Okay,” he gasps, straightening his tie. “This is it, then.” It’s difficult, somehow, but he manages to pass the Death Note into Rem’s over-sized, skeletal hand. “Just for safe-keeping.”

Rem ducks her head, her purple lips slack. “How did you know it was possible to lend the Death Note out?”

“I just did.” Light supposes that it would be safe to tell the Shinigami that he’s already owned a Death Note in another life, but it would also take time that he doesn’t have. Not just now, anyway. “Will you stay at the house, Rem?” he asks. “And come if I summon you? Or if anything happens, especially to Sayu?”

“I don’t know.” The Shinigami shifts with disinterest. “That sounds pretty boring. But I do like those variety shows your grandmother watches. It’s fun to see the stupid things humans will do just to get on television.”

“I’m pretty sure Baaba watches them for the exact same reason.”

Rem’s eye rolls around in her head thoughtfully, and after a few seconds she finally nods. “I’ll stay, but mostly because the Shinigami King seems to favor you.”

Right. Thanks for that, Lucas.

Light thanks Rem and heads downstairs for a supper that’s a fairly festive affair, at least compared what he’s seen of this Yagami family’s usual suppers. Sachiko sticks to white wine instead of hard gin, and even Sayu gets rolled up to the dining room table, fed tiny, soft spoonfuls by L’s hired nurse. The shogayaki is tender and toothsome, served with garlic green beans and matcha ice cream for dessert.

“This is perfect, Mom,” Light says, and Sachiko beams over her wine glass.

“Shogayaki was the only thing I craved when I was pregnant with you. That must be why you like it so much.” She scoops more green beans onto his plate. “Here, have seconds. You’re still growing, after all.”

After ice cream, Light clears the table and helps Baaba wash the dishes, refills his mother’s wine glass, and brings Soichiro his book of sudoku puzzles.

“I was thinking of going to Kou’s for a few hours,” he announces to his parents once they’re settled in on the couch. “Do you need me for anything else?”

“Oh, I suppose not,” Sachiko says, pouting a little. “Will you be out late?”

“Not very late.” He gives her his best good-boy smile. “Just long enough to say goodbye.”

Light finds his bicycle in the shed behind the house and peddles the two miles to Kou’s house, and it’s only when he’s leaning the bike against the Miyano’s garden gate the he realizes that he somehow made it the whole way without once looking up directions.

Muscle memory , he thinks, punching the doorbell.

Soft footsteps approach, the door opening a crack to reveal a single, dark brown eye. “Light-chan!” Kou steps forward, surprise etched on his face. “I didn’t know you were coming over.”

“Sorry.” Light ducks his head and offers a sheepish smile. “I probably should have called.”

Kou shakes his head and grins. “No need. You just haven’t dropped over unannounced in a while.”

Behind Kou, the house is dark except for the dim, flickering light of the television. “Is Kiyomi with you?”

“No, she’s at home studying.” He steps aside and waves Light inside. “Dad’s watching baseball. We can go upstairs, though.”

Kou’s room is almost the exact opposite of Light’s, every surface covered with papers, manga magazines, and empty bottles of milk tea. Clothes are draped onto the bed and poking out of drawers, and Light hears something crunch underfoot as he treads across the rug.

“Oops, sorry.” Kou picks up a broken CD case. “At least it was empty.”

They sit in slouchy bean-bag chairs pulled up to Kou’s super-sized TV. On-screen a video game is paused, frozen on the image of a cartoony green dinosaur in orange boots.

“Yes, you caught me playing Super Smash Brothers Melee instead of reading my history notes.” Kou squeezes one of the controllers and gives Light a knowing smile. “Want to see if you can finally beat me?”

Light picks up the spare controller, tests the weight of it in his hand. “Sure.”

They start playing in earnest, and despite the fact that he can’t remember ever playing the game before, by the third match Light’s Fox McCloud comes just shy of wiping Kou’s Yoshi off the screen.

Muscle memory.

“Ugh!” Kou groans, tossing his controller aside. “No more. You’re on the very cusp of kicking my ass, and I can’t have that happen. You’re already better than me at everything else.”

“Ha.” Light smiles and sinks back into his bean-bag chair. “I’ll let you keep your pride this time, I guess.”

“You’re a generous one.” Kou rolls off his chair and onto his knees. “Hey, want anything to drink from downstairs?”

“No, thanks.” Light tries to sit upright, but it’s nearly impossible, given the bean-bag’s thick embrace. “Actually, there’s something I need to tell you.”

Kou looks up at Light’s sudden change in tone. “Is something wrong? Is it Sayu?”

“No, she’s doing well, actually.”

“Oh. I’m glad to hear it, then.”  Kou powers down his gamecube and sits cross-legged on the rug, facing Light with an open and expectant expression.

“I’m leaving Japan for a while, as it turns out.” Light gives him a quick smile. “The criminology program at the University of Maryland has invited me to come out for summer field research.”

“Maryland?” The English word rolls around in Kou’s mouth. “Isn’t that in America?”

Light nods. “Yeah. And they want me to leave soon, mostly so that I can take part in a six-week course on English first.”

“Soon?” Bafflement is starting to cloud the corners of Kou’s eyes. “How soon?”

“Tomorrow afternoon.”

“Tomorrow?” Kou echos, fingers digging into his kneecaps. “That soon, really? Wow…” The last word trails into a pause, then finally lapses into silence. Outside, it’s started to rain again. Light can hear the wooshing sound of cars mowing through puddles.

“Yeah, it took me by surprise, too, but it’s a great opportunity. I don’t see how I can pass it up.”

“Of course you can’t pass it up.” Kou’s smile blinks back on. “What an offer! I’m really happy for you. You deserve it -- you’re the cleverest person I know, after all.”

Light tries to muster a blush for Kou’s gushing compliments. “After Kiyomi, you mean.”

“No.” Kou shakes his head solemnly, then drops his chin and stares at his knees. “Not after Kiyomi.”

Light’s response catches in his throat. Kou so rarely looks solemn; it’s an odd fit, making his features sharper, more watchful.

“Light, did you let Kiyomi beat you on the entrance exam?”

“Why do you ask?” Light folds his hands together to keep them from tingling with a sensation he can neither identify nor trust.

“Because in all the years I’ve known you, I can’t remember you getting anything less than a perfect score on an exam.” A smile wavers across Kou’s lips. “It’s okay if you did, even if I don’t understand why.”

Light sighs. “It’s not because I like her, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“No. I’m not worried about that. I’m more worried about me.”

Light squints at his friend, but no amount of hard study will make sense of Kou’s jumpy, conflicted expression.

“You’re going to leave us all behind, one day. I always knew that.” Kou releases a dry, wheezy laugh. “I guess I didn’t think it would be so soon.”

Light tosses an empty bottle of milk tea at Kou’s head, deliberately missing by more than a foot. “What are you talking about? I’m not leaving you behind.”

Kou shakes his head. “Of course you are. How could you not? You’re brilliant, and I’m not much more than ordinary.” He raises up a hand to ward off Light’s protests. “And I’m not saying that to be maudlin. It’s just the way things are.”

Light tips forward, the bean-bag squeaking under his weight. “You’re not ordinary. I don’t even like ordinary people. You know that by now.”

“Yeah.” Kou chuckles a little. “I don’t know what makes me the exception, but I’ll take it.”

Kou nervously bounces his knees up and down and Light wants to put a palm on each one and still them. The only light in the room comes from the television and the streetlights outside, and rain stipples the windows in a muted rhythm. Kou’s dark hair has fallen into his eyes, shadowing his features to such a degree that they might as well belong to someone else. Someone a shade or two paler, with a mouth that probably tastes like chocolate and sugared cherries. Fingers reach out to touch the smooth jawline, tracing it with something close to reverence, and it takes a half-second for Light to register that they belong to him.

“Light?”

Light stops the words with his mouth. The voice is all wrong, too high and too innocent, but the lips and tongue taste like milky tea, just sweet enough for Light to close his eyes and feel the room wrap him up in cobwebs.

“ Mmph .” Kou’s hands press flat against Light’s chest, gently pushing him away. “What are you doing?”

Tucking a strand of loose hair behind Kou’s ear, Light locks his eyes on his friend’s and smiles -- the same smile he always used on Misa, cool and withholding.

It’s a bone , Light thinks. Just throwing a bone for Light 2. It’s okay.

“I’m leaving tomorrow,” Light whispers. “I don’t want to leave you behind.”

“I don’t know if I --” Kou falters and lets out a shuddering breath as Light snakes his hand under Kou’s shirt, fingers skipping over thin ribs. “I didn’t know you were…”

“I’m not,” Light says sternly. “But just this once --” He captures Kou’s lips in another kiss, sliding in his tongue until a groan of pleasure hums at the back of Kou’s throat.

Very slowly, Light presses Kou back onto the rug, fitting their bodies together so that his thigh is tucked between Kou’s legs while he kisses him long and slow, hands clamped down on Kou’s wrists like he’s keeping him hostage. The bulge of Kou’s erection is hard against Light’s leg, and Light moves his hips in deep, grinding circles, drawing quicker, heavier breaths out of the other boy’s lungs. They kiss and kiss, rain slapping at the windows, and it takes what seems like precious little time for Kou to gasp and buck his body upward, whimpering in orgasm while Light smiles against his lips.

“Oh, God,” Kou whispers, and Light smiles again.

“See?” Light brushes hair off Kou’s forehead. “You’re not ordinary at all.” He eases off his friend’s trembling body and rolls onto his knees, buttoning up the top three buttons of his shirt.

Kou remains flat on his back, hands clasped against the center of his chest. “Do you really have to go?” With his eyes turned heavenward, he almost looks like he’s praying.

Light lowers his head. “Yeah, I do.”

“I wish you didn’t.” Kou’s voice is flat and distant, the voice of a man struggling under the weight of enchantment.

Light comes to his feet and looms over his best friend, his smile both generous and haughty.

“I know,” he says.

When Light bikes home it’s through a dense, driving rain, water stinging at his eyes and running down the collar of his jacket. Instead of ducking the gale he tilts his face straight into it, laughing until water fills his mouth and spills over his lips. He peddles faster and faster. In the end, he’ll leave everyone behind.

***

When Light returns to the hotel in Marunouchi just before noon the next day, the rain has finally cleared, leaving behind deep puddles for the birds to bathe in.

“Hi, Ryuzaki,” Light practically sings out. He feels ten feet tall and utterly weightless.

L looks up from his bank of monitors, where he appears to be explaining something complicated to Moge and Aizawa. “Oh, you’re here, Light-kun. I need to brief the team members staying behind. Please entertain yourself for a while.”

Entertain myself? Light feels instantly reduced to a toddler. “Where’re Maki and Matsuda?”

“Running a few last minute errands, I believe.” L peers around Moge’s back, the circles under his eyes somehow darker than Light remembers. “Our new team members arrived late last night and are resting in the other suite. Go introduce yourself, if you like.”

“What new team members?”

“Various associates of mine,” L says blandly. “One will be remaining here with Watari, the other two will be coming with us to the States.”

“Oh.” Light fiddles with the zipper of his jacket, a sinking feeling circulating through his limbs, bringing him firmly back to the ground. “Well, I suppose I ought to go say hi, then.”

When he opens the door to the other suite, Light hears a racket of whoops, English curse words, and explosions. Inside, the television is bright and blaring with a video game, a teenage boy the source of the whoops and swearing.

“Fuck! That was my last life, you fuckers!” He shouts from the sofa, waving the controller around like it’s a weapon. GAME OVER flashes on the screen in giant red letters, and the boy glances over his shoulder toward the sound of Light’s footsteps.

“Hello,” Light says in English, slipping out of his jacket and folding it over his arms.

“Ninja Gaiden Black,” the boy explains in Japanese, throwing the controller onto the floor in disgust. “Have you ever played it? It’s a fucking beast. Ninja Bitch, more like.”

Light shakes his head. The boy has red hair and looks to be a year or two younger than Light, though his face already has the sort of casual hardness to it that one typically sees in someone older.

“I’m Matt,” the boys says. Next to him, something shifts on the sofa and Light realizes that it’s another person -- a second boy, curled up on his side with his stockinged feet practically draped in Matt’s lap. He wears a hooded sweatshirt in a panda design, the hood complete with little black and pink ears.

“Light Yagami.” Light keeps his eyes on the panda boy, who has wayward golden hair poking out from the edges of his hood, his face flushed and sleepy. A box of chocolate milk is held to his lips, and he removes it just long enough to tug on Matt’s arm, who leans forward so that the boy can whisper in his ear.

“Mello says hello, and also that you can call him Mello,” Matt explains, playfully tugging the boy’s hood down over his eyes.

“Mello?” Light smiles and fights to keep himself from staring. Mello is one of L’s would-be successors, the very one who kidnapped Sayu and was killed by Takada using a fragment of Light’s Death Note. Mihael Kheel.

“Don’t ask me,” Matt shrugs. “There’s a reason I went with ‘Matt.’” Mello tugs at his sleeve again, and they exchange whispers from ear to ear with a fluidity so intimate and natural that it makes Light vaguely uncomfortable.

“Are you the two coming to America with us?” Light pulls up one of the club chairs and takes a seat.

“That’s us.” Matt smirks and drapes his arm over the back of the sofa, while Mello returns to sipping his chocolate milk, looking at Light through half-lidded blue eyes. He looks younger than Sayu -- maybe twelve, at most.

“Won’t you be missing school?”

Mello smiles around his straw and Matt lets out a gruff laugh. “This is school, for us. An extended field trip, you might say.”

“I see.” Light gives them his most patient smile. “Do you often take field trips with Ryuzaki?”

Mello draws Matt close and whispers in his ear.

“Mello says if you want to know about Ryuzaki, you should ask Ryuzaki himself.”

Light taps his fingers against the arm of his chair. “I don’t think I was asking about Ryuzaki.” A brittle edge creeps into his voice and smile. “The whispering has an interesting effect, by the way. It creates an aura of exclusion that prompts both defensiveness and a desire to be allowed inside the private circle. Is that what you intended?”

“It’s at least a part of what they intend.” The quiet voice is followed by a pale-haired boy swimming in over-sized clothes. “Those of us who’ve watched it for years are used to it.”

Mello’s eyes narrow under his hood and he sucks his straw until the milk box makes a dry, puttering sound.

“Hello,” Light says, his tone and posture the epitome of good grace. If Mihael Kheel was in Tokyo at L’s behest, then it only made sense that Nate River would be present, too.

Nate fucking River. Light had only been a few letters short before Matsuda fired.

“Near,” the boy mutters, lowering himself to the floor and tugging on a lock of his hair. “I already know who you are, Light Yagami.”

“Oh?” Light wonders if L has spoken of him, and if so, what he possibly could have said.

“When you were thirteen years old you survived attempted murder at the hands of Genesis 22, one of Japan’s most notorious child killers.” Near looks up through a fringe of curls. “You must be an extraordinarily lucky person, Light Yagami. Do you feel that your experience has given you special insight into the way a killer’s mind works?”

“That’s a pretty personal question.”

“You may answer impersonally, if you like.” Near’s face is less expressive than L’s, even.

“How can I say, one way or the other? A person can’t just separate himself from his own experiences.” Light glances at Mello and Matt, who both appear keenly interested in his answer. “But whatever it taught me, it’s not really the sort of thing you can learn at school, no matter how ‘special’ that school might be.”

“Preach the truth,” Matt says, listlessly pumping his fist. “I was kidnapped once. It sucked.”

Near seems to frown at the older boy, though it’s hard to tell. “That was part of a drill.”

“Exactly.” Matt spreads his legs and stretches. “And since I knew it was a drill it wasn’t the same as being kidnapped for real.”

Mello leans toward Matt, bird-like, and drops another whisper in his ear.

“Mello wants to know how you’re killing all those criminals, Kira.”

Light doesn’t bother to hide his scowl; anyone innocent would be indignant at the comparison. “I’m not Kira. What did Ryuzaki tell you?”

“Nothing,” Near says quietly. “But you just did. You’ve just confirmed that you’re one of his suspects.”

Light shakes his head in disbelief, mentally punching himself for falling into such an obvious trap. “Genesis 22 died of a sudden heart attack before he could kill me. Beyond that, there’s nothing that connects me to Kira.”

“I see.” Near fishes a toy car out of his pocket and starts guiding it over the circular patterns on the rug. “You may not be Kira, then -- but if you are, I’ll find out.”

Mello’s empty box of chocolate milk whizzes in a high arc, snatched in mid-air by Matt’s deft hand before it can complete its trajectory and collide with Near’s head. “Mello,” Matt says. Or perhaps it’s the English imperative: mellow . Near, to his credit, appears utterly unfazed by the attempted assault.

Light’s hatred for L is abruptly re-ignited, though with only the dimmest of fires, weak kindling at best. Even so, how dare L saddle Light with these squabbling, conniving children? Then, like a devil summoned by the beacon Light’s annoyance, L lopes into the suite in his bare feet, a purple lollipop clicking between his teeth. Both Near and Matt go respectfully silent at his entrance, but it’s Mello who transforms the most, suddenly yanking back his hood and sitting up ramrod straight, his blue eyes alert and shining.

“Please don’t stop your conversation on account of me,” L says, pulling up a chair next to Light’s and crouching into it. The gesture makes Light feel a tiny bit better, as if by sheer proximity L’s just staked him out as an equal.

“Pretty sure the conversation was already over.” Matt locks his hands together and cracks his knuckles, then leans into Mello’s frantic sleeve-tugging for another series of whispers. “Mello wants to thank you again for allowing him this opportunity, Ryuzaki.”

“Us,” Near corrects, flicking the wheels of his car.

“Still practicing self-restraint, I see,” L says to Mello, the lollipop bulging from the pocket of his cheek.

Light turns to L and dips in for a mock stage-whisper. “So, is that what all the whispering is about?”

L nods. “Someone once recommended that Mello work on taming his mouth, so he now speaks through Matt, who censors as necessary.”

“Seems like good advice,” Light says. Then, clutching the arm of L’s chair, he dares to lean in closer to the detective. “I’m surprised you didn’t recommend that for me,” he whispers, breath ruffling L’s hair enough so that it brushes Light’s cheek.

L doesn’t flinch, pull away, or otherwise react to Light’s invasion of his space, but even a non-reaction is enough to send a heady sensation of power through every last one of Light’s nerves, and he turns to look at the others with what he knows must be an expression of deep satisfaction.

L’s on my side, he thinks at them. Or he will be, soon enough.

Only Mello’s eyes seem to narrow at Light, and now that Mello is sitting up straight with his feet on the ground, Light realizes that he’s older that he first assumed -- fourteen or fifteen, perhaps.

“Matt, Mello, Light -- we will be leaving for the airport in two hours, so please be ready by then. Near, I would like to confer with you in private before our departure.” L continues to rattle off itineraries and instructions until Maki and Matsuda show up with lunch and other essentials. Soon enough, the suite is filled with both halves of the task force, and Light has no choice but to make nice chit-chat with his father and Aizawa while silently urging that the hours fly by.

Occasionally, even time does Light’s bidding.

***

After the last forty-eight hours, L is craving some alone time more than the packets of Meiji galbo minis tucked into his messenger bag. His solitude-seeking heart is fatigued from briefing both the home and the away team for the coming investigations. Watari and Near will work with Soichiro, Aizawa, Moge, and Ide to gather as much information about the Japanese Kira killings as they can, while the under-thirty set will scour state-side for the Angel.

It was L the Second’s idea to call in the Wammy recruits. That’s the only explanation L has for why he woke up three days ago and called Roger with the proposal -- a perhaps once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the potential successors to track down a weapon that none of them have seen or heard of before. In the Angel case, calling in Matt and Mello was also a practical measure. Mello will stand in for L in phone conferences while ‘Ryuzaki,’ Maki, and Light conduct the investigation. Matt will provide all technical support, and Matsuda will play errand-boy.

It’s four hours into their flight before the private jet’s cabin goes sleepy and silent. Matsuda started snoring soon after take-off, egged on by a pair of sleeping pills Maki fed him to calm his nerves. Maki stayed awake for the six course meal before nodding off over her wine glass, while Mello and Matt snuck off to the very back of the plane to play their hand-held gaming devices and sip from the flask of whiskey Matt keeps stashed in his left boot. Even Light, who neither drank nor popped pills, has at last reclined his chair and draped himself with a blanket.

L opens his messenger bag and finds a packet of strawberry galbos and L the Second’s copy of À la recherche du temps perdu , volume one. The pages are so worn and soft that they almost feel like delicate fabric, and when laid open the book immediately parts to the section that must be L the Second’s favorite, if the faint underlines are any indication.

‘The thirst for something other than what we have...to bring something new, even if it is worse, some emotion, some sorrow, when our sensibility, which happiness has silenced like an idle harp, wants to resonate under some hand, even a rough one, and even if it might be broken by it.’

The passage is overly wrought and melodramatic, betraying a desire for self-destruction that L finds himself at odds with, and yet he reads it three more times, recording the rhythm of the words on the underbelly of his mind.

“What are you reading?”

L looks up from the pages to find Light up and turned toward him, blanket puddled in his lap.

“More fairy tales?”

“No, Swann’s Way. It’s the first volume of Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust. Have you read it?”

“I know of it.” Light inclines his head for a look at the pages, his hair briefly flaring bright auburn in the glow of the overhead reading light. “Is that French?”

L nods. “It’s an old favorite.”

“I can tell. You’ve practically read it to rags.”

“Do you want to borrow it?” L closes the book and offers it out.

Light hesitates. “I can’t read French,” he says, as if admitting a deeply shameful deficiency. “How many languages do you know?”

“Quite a few,” is L’s vague reply. For once, he’s not in the mood to provoke Light’s sense of inferiority. The dim cabin light, paired with the subtle white noise of the jet’s engines, have massaged him into a easy, slackened state.

“Very kind of you not to brag,” Light remarks with a touch of irony. “Too exhausted to bother?”

“Too contemplative.” L opens his packet of galbos and pops one of the small, pink biscuits into his mouth.

“About what?”

The Woodsman. Beyond. Your Death Note. The Universe. You.

L chews slowly and swallows. “Tell me, Light. What happens when a person becomes happy?”

“Huh?” Wrinkles of confusion scrunch Light’s brow. “Is this a riddle? A ‘how is a raven like a writing desk’ sort of thing?”

“Not at all.” L tucks the book between his knees and runs a finger down its spine. “I’m being quite literal. What do you think happens when a person becomes happy? Both physically and in spirit.”

Light absorbs the question by tugging his blanket midway up his chest and looking skyward. “To gain anything we have longed for is to discover how vain and empty it is. Humans are always living in expectation of better things, but at the same time we often repent and long to have the past back again.”

“No.” L rolls another galbo around his mouth. “I want to know what you think, Light Yagami. You’ve just quoted Schopenhauer.”

“Good catch,” Light says, seeming unbothered. “But why? Why does it matter what I think?”

Because your answer may give me indication of how this version of you really sees the world, Light Yagami, L thinks. Provided you are willing or even capable of showing me that much.

“Because it matters what you think,” is all that L says, and it’s validation enough to make Light’s half-close in concentration, taking the matter seriously at last. “And it’s the subject of the passage I was just reading.” L taps the book.

“Read it to me?”

L departs with his packet of candy for the handful of seconds it takes him to translate the passage aloud for Light, then tucks the book back between his knees.

“So happiness is like an idle harp, waiting to resonate under someone’s hand. Even a rough one,” Light muses, and L feels himself being faintly appraised. “Seems like a more poetic version of Schopenhauer.”

“You’re not wrong, but I’m still waiting for your answer.”

Light takes in a deep breath, and the longer it goes on the more his face hardens.

“Then, I think anyone who achieves through-and-through happiness is probably a monster,” he finally exhales. “Because embodying that kind of happiness requires enough selfishness to completely disregard the unhappiness of others.”

L feathers his finger to his lips. “Interesting answer.”

“Why? What’s wrong with it?”

“Nothing.” He rotates his head and meets Light’s eyes. “I agree with you.”

Light’s mouth twitches. “Oh.”

“To discover happiness is to discover how far you’ve fallen.” L is surprised at how much he enjoys the flavor of the words tumbling over his tongue, overly wrought and melodramatic as they might be.

“That sounds poetic, too,” Light sighs, the sound as wistful as it is frustrated. “I really didn’t take you for the poetic sort.”

Neither did I.

“It surfaces from time to time,” L says, with no wryness whatsoever.

“Ryuzaki.”

L rotates his head again and finds that Light’s face is nearer to his than it was before.

“You stink like strawberries. Are those galbo minis you’re eating?”

In answer, L offers the half-empty packet. Light fishes one out and pops into his mouth.

“You’ll always think of me when you eat these, now.” Light’s voice is muddled with sugar and certainty.

“Because you were in the Meiji commercial? I suppose you are right.”

L also supposes that the candy will remind him of Light for more reasons than just that. The silence that has fallen between them is as good as a pair of handcuffs and a length of chain, but L can no longer tell which of them was first to lock steel around flesh. It’s Light’s hand that’s been extended, time after time, whether waiting for a slap or more tender acknowledgment, while L turned over each gesture for signs of hidden traps. Yes, looking for traps even while fighting to ignore the sensation of smooth stones slipping between their palms, like a secret waiting to be told.

“Rue?”

Light’s voice is earnest with barely-dared-for hope. He’s a murderer and he’s just a man, but which of the two versions is the one daring to hope?

And do you even care, anymore, Lawliet?

“Can I have some more?”

The outstretched hand, palm up, each finger curled up to show those pristine fingernails, like scales begging to be rubbed away, revealing the tarnish beneath.

“No, that’s enough,” L says, hoarding the packet of candy to his chest even though he knows this is all about much more than just candy.

Scales waiting to be dropped, maybe devoured.

Not that , L thinks, but he can’t help but add a not yet.

Chapter Text

(interludium)

17 April 2007

Chicago, IL

“Do you trust me?”

It’s a trick question Cody knows all too well, always followed by an unpleasant revelation. It was one of Tami’s favorite things to say to him, the illusion of choice when one was not available. She said it when she held the clippers to his scalp and shaved him bald for the first time, then again when he was ten and the old man who owned the sporting good’s store was waiting for him in his bedroom. “We have all the power ,” she assured Cody. “You’ll see.” She hadn’t been wrong -- it was just five minutes, enough time for dozens of photographs. Some of the money was used to buy Cody a new computer, the rest stacked in the freezer under the boxes of frozen pizza and chicken wings.

Before she died, Tami had cheated hundreds of people out of hundreds of thousands of dollars, and Cody was the best tool in her kit. “I was beautiful for a few years ,” she told him once. “ Better to be fat and ugly. No one notices a woman like that.”

“Do you trust me?”

Daniel isn’t smiling, at least. Tami always smiled. He looks worried, instead, soft mouth set into a hard line.

“No,” Cody says.

“I thought you’d say that.” Daniel puts his big feet on the coffee table and lets out a sigh.

They’re in the house where he lives with his grandmother. It’s a shit-hole house in a shit-hole neighborhood on Chicago’s West side, but Cody doesn’t mind. There are some family photographs on the wall, at least; pictures of Daniel in a soccer uniform, and a framed high school diploma. Daniel’s spent the entire morning detailing his history: he’s never met his father, and his mother died of liver cirrhosis when he was five; his grandmother works as a hotel maid at a posh, downtown hotel; he’s the first person in his family to graduate high school; he was raised Roman Catholic but is mostly agnostic. The only thing Cody has shared -- is able to share -- is that he was home-schooled, and has lived in too many rural Ohio and Pennsylvania towns to count.

“I’m sorry.” Cody pokes a finger through a hole in his jeans, ripping it further. “I should probably leave.”

“Why?”

Except for all the personal history, they’ve been having a good time. The night before, Daniel’s grandmother made bean stew and fried plantains, then went to bed early so they’d have the living room to themselves. They stayed up late playing video games and watching Boondock Saints , then walked to an all-night convenience store to buy rum and cherry soda.

“You’re a nice person,” Cody says. “And I’m not.” The hole in his jeans is big enough to expose his entire kneecap, now.

“Nice? What the fuck are you talking about?” Daniel knocks the sofa cushion against him. “The only ‘nice’ person I know is my Grandma.” He goes quiet for a moment. “Is this about that junkie that got capped?”

“No.” Because it isn’t. Not really.

Daniel stands up, looking down at Cody from his towering height. “Get up. I wanna show you something.”

They leave the house and walk through Daniel’s neighborhood, passing scrappy lawns enclosed by bent chain-link fencing, most of them filled with either little kids or small, barking dogs. They walk until they reach a Catholic church with an attached cemetery, hill after hill of crosses and crumbling angels. Ryuk flies to the tallest monument and roosts there like a vulture.

“Why are we here?” Cody calls after Daniel, nearly stumbling in an effort to keep up with his much longer stride.

“Just a little further.”

They end up at a row of rather plain headstones, newer and more modest in design. Laline Siena Chapa 1965-1992 reads the nearest one, and next to Laline lies Manuel Montega Chapa 1984-2006.

“That’s my mom and brother,” Daniel says without sentiment, though he does take off his beanie and bow his head just slightly, his thick black hair tousled by a mild breeze.

Cody tugs at the end of his sleeves, fingers blindly searching for an imperfect seam he can work at and unravel. Sharing family history is one thing, but actually throwing open the gates to the graveyard and parading the dead -- it’s too much. He glances backward at Ryuk’s winged silhouette, wishing the Shinigami would swoop down and whisk him away.

“My brother was a loser,” Daniel continues, either unaware of Cody’s discomfort or not bothered by it. “Ran with gangs, dealt drugs, robbed our own neighbors -- even stole from Grandma. When he was finally arrested I was glad, but he cut a deal with the cops and became a C.I. --” he finally glances back at Cody “--you know what that is?”

“Confidential informant. A snitch.”

Daniel nods. “That’s right. Gave him the best of both worlds, he got to fuck with the police and his friends, but he still came around for Sunday dinner and talked Grandma out of half her paycheck. Stole my best bike, too -- a Suzuki Hayabusa.”

Cody doesn’t know what this is. Does Daniel want his sympathy? His understanding? His life?

“So one day I see him rolling around town with his barrio posse, and they’re all looking at Manny like he’s wearing a gold crown or some shit. King snitch, and they don’t even see it.” Daniel crunches the beanie between his fingers, shoving it into his back pocket. “All it took was one phone call to his buddy Juan.”

“What phone call?” Cody’s intrigued now, despite himself, despite the trepidation burning at the back of his throat.

“I called Juan from a pay phone and told him ‘Chapa’s a snitch for the pigs’ That’s all it took. It shouldn’t have been so easy, but it was.”

“They killed your brother?”

Daniel turns, his face twisted into something bitter, a bad taste in his mouth, a bad taste in the air. “Yeah. Drive-by.” His dark eyes rake Cody up and down. “How’d you guess? I knew that you would.”

“We’re standing at his grave. It wasn’t hard.”

“You’re not shocked.” It isn’t a question, and Daniel takes a step toward him. “I knew you’d be like that, too.”

Something trembles at the edge of Cody’s guts, vibrating like a bell through every bone in his body. He stuffs his hand in his pocket, feeling for the plastic teddy bear. “You don’t really know anything about me,” he mumbles.

“I know I’m not a 'nice' person.” Daniel crosses his arms over his chest. “So whatever you are, I am, too.”

Cody doesn’t know how to answer, so he laughs, instead. It sounds more like a fit of wheezing.

A hand drops to the top of Cody’s head, massaging his hat into his bald scalp. “You should have a name and a lifespan right here, like a gravestone, but there’s nothing.”

Each of Cody’s limbs are lashed to the spot, Daniel’s words rattling through his head like an incomprehensible formula despite the clear, precise diction.

“You’re like me, aren’t you? Grandma likes to say I’m a prophet, but I always figured I was cursed. But if I’m not the only one…” He trails off, eyes so wide and shiny they might have swallowed a whole planet named ‘hope.’

Cody stops clutching the teddy bear, removes his hand from his pocket. “I don’t understand. You have a notebook, too?”

“Notebook?” Daniel’s voice is genuinely clueless, and Ryuk has appeared behind him, floating like a bad omen.

“What’s with this guy, Cody?” The Shinigami asks, scratching the side of his head.

“You can see people’s names and lifespans, floating over their heads?”

“Yes, but not yours.”

Cody can see Daniel’s, though; it looks just like any other human’s.

Ryuk glides closer, sniffing the side of Daniel’s face. “I’ve heard about people born with Shinigami eyes. It’s supposed to be a fairy tale, though.”

“How?” Cody asks, a question for both of them.

“I don’t know,” Ryuk says, then chuckles a little. “Gukku likes to joke that it must mean a Shinigami dropped his eyes somewhere on earth.”

“You tell me.” Daniel looks hard at the spot where Cody’s lifespan should be. “You can see them too, right? That’s how you knew the Junkie was about to die? You saw it before I did, even.”

“Yes,” Cody finally admits, voice scarcely louder than a whisper. “But I haven’t always been able to.”

Daniel bites his lip in confusion. “No? When did it start?”

Cody looks at Ryuk, who’s ever-present grin is wider than usual. Sharper. “I’m not really sure that I can say.”

Ryuk only laughs harder, his wings flapping with mirth. “Do what you want, Cody. I’ve never met a human with Shinigami eyes, but there’s a first time for everything.”

Daniel shifts from foot to foot, valiantly trying to be patient and waiting, and whether he’s a prophet or he’s cursed, Cody knows they’re not as alike as Daniel thinks. But he’s more like Cody than anyone Cody has ever met -- though he’s not met many -- and except for Ryuk, Daniel’s the only one that Cody can truly call ‘friend.’

“Do you trust me?” It’s the first time that Cody has said those words to anyone, anywhere.

“Yes,” Daniel says at once. Cody hopes he won’t later regret it.

Cody pulls the bear from his pocket by its string, cracking open the secret compartment. He unspools a long piece of the notebook and the wind catches it to wave it merrily, like a party streamer.

He extends his hand to Daniel, and Daniel reaches back.

Chapter Text

Cod Ad Cor Loquitur

The first argument is over who’s going to drive.

The private jet from LAX touches down at the Detroit-area private airfield just before noon, where a sleek black van is waiting for them, courtesy of a limousine service. The back of the van has plush captain chairs facing each other, divided by a polished burlwood table with a full bar stowed beneath, and boasts a top-notch stereo system, flat-screen television, and DVD player. When Light asks L how he managed to procure such a vehicle, the detective only shrugs and says “the usual channels.”

Every once and awhile, Light is forced to both admire and resent L’s god-like ability to have whatever he wants, whenever he needs it.

“Brilliant,” Matt says approvingly, crouching down to check out the van’s chrome-work. “Can I drive us into Motor City?”

Maki look at him from over the top of her sunglasses. “Are you even old enough?”

“Passport says I’m eighteen.”

They all have aliases and fake passports naming them as United States citizens. That’s another god-like thing about L -- he doesn’t mind breaking whatever law he wants, whenever he needs to. Same old L.

“Sure, but can you actually drive?”

“I can’t,” Matsuda interrupts, his eyebrows jumping nervously. “Well, a little, but Aizawa always says…” he trails off when he realizes that no one’s really listening, too busy dragging their luggage to the vehicle. Mello has already climbed into the driver’s seat and is playing with the seat adjustment controls and tilting the rear-view mirror to inspect his face.

“Mello thinks he can drive,” Matt says to Light in a low voice. “What about you?”

Light nods. “My father taught me.” He turns to L, who’s helping Matsuda stow their luggage into the van’s rear. “And you, Ryuzaki? Can you actually drive, or do you just have others do the driving for you?”

“Of course I can drive.” L carefully places two shipping boxes side by side and reaches for a third one. “I simply prefer to be a passenger.”

“Okay, show of hands -- how many of you actually have experience driving on the right side of the road?” Maki asks, and only she and L put their hands up. “Settled. I’ll drive us to the field office.”

“I drive on the right side of the road in Grand Theft Auto ,” Matt protests, smacking his hands together. He’s already pulled on a pair of fingerless leather gloves. “Can’t be that hard, yeah?”

“Not very,” L says, passing one of several duffle bags over to Matsuda. “But as Agent P is waiting for us, we’d best not delay.

They’ve all more or less switched over to conversing in English, now, and Light finds it discombobulating to hear L speaking in his native tongue, his voice somehow even lower and raspier than usual, softened only by a faint British accent. Matt’s accent is stronger than L’s, and Maki is the biggest surprise, her voice one hundred percent that of an all-American film star. It has some kind of dazzling effect on Matsuda, if the way he keeps sneaking glances at her is any indication.

Maki ends up driving, with L in the passenger seat beside her. The front part of the van is separated from the back by a windowed partition, and both Matsuda and Light snag the captain chairs immediately behind it, leaving the very rear ones to Mello and Matt, the latter of whom immediately starts rummaging through the bar’s slim mini-fridge.

“Oi, have a look.” He waves a box of chocolate milk at Mello, gently lobbing it into the other boy’s lap. “Watari must’ve got them to kit the bar out.” Matt cracks a bottle of orange juice for himself and settles in next to Mello.

They keep the automatic shades up so they can take in the sights as Maki drives them into the city. The partition’s window is in the lowered position, and because Light’s chair is directly backed up to Maki’s he has a somewhat decent view of L, who has one finger curled into the corner of his mouth as he quietly recites directions to Maki, leading them to a highway.

It isn’t long before the highway widens and traffic thickens; several cars pass the van at mind-boggling speeds, one of the drivers leaning on his horn so long that Maki utters a string of curses and waves her middle finger.

“I knew I should’ve driven,” Matt announces. In utter disregard for safety, both he and Mello have unfastened their seat belts so that they can get their faces as close as possible to the windows.

“Look at that!” Mello points wildly, having temporarily abandoned his mute act. “Must be the slums.”

Light cranes his head in the direction of Mello’s finger. Just off the highway is a swath of buildings that appear utterly abandoned and uninhabitable, their roofs partially caved in, every visible brick surface covered in graffiti. Weeds and overgrown trees riot out of any patch of ground not sealed over in asphalt.

“Looks a little like some of the dead suburbs of Tokyo,” Matsuda says to Light in Japanese, wincing just a bit. “Except more dangerous.”

“Detroit is the most impoverished major city in the United States.” Light is nothing if not up on his research.

“Wicked.”

“Cool.”

“Fucking brilliant.”

These one-or-two word descriptors go back and forth between Matt and Mello for some time, until the van reaches a more civilized section of the city and the abandoned houses are replaced by parks, shopping centers, and more massive parking lots than Light has ever seen in his life. The city skyline is looming closer now, too, somehow looking less impressive than Light expected.

“Matt, please start preparing the recording equipment,” L calls from the front seat.

“On it!” Matt dives for the over-stuffed backpack behind his seat.

The FBI field office is housed in a sand-colored high rise on the edge of downtown. They find a secluded parking garage spot for the van and wait the ten or so minutes it takes for Matt to finish his set up. L is the only one who will be bugged, the tiny mic imbedded in a silicone patch with adhesive backing. He reaches rather awkwardly under his shirt to apply it to his chest, turning his back as if to ensure that Light and the others won’t get a glimpse of his bare skin. It’s a curious gesture for someone as un-self-conscious as L, but before Light has time to ponder it further, L is calling for he and Maki to follow him into the office building.

Back at LAX they had changed into professional clothing. Light’s suit is the same one he wore to the Freshman ceremony at To-Oh, and Maki’s is the one she donned for her L cosplay. Even L is dressed in a suit, an expensive, well-tailored one that L nonetheless wears like a cat stuffed into an unwelcome collar, his shoulders tense and posture stiff.

“Light,” L says as they make their way to the front entrance, a massive American flag whipping overhead. “Maki will take lead, but please speak up at will. I am going to withhold myself from the conversation somewhat, so behave as if you outrank me.”

“But don’t I anyway?” Light smiles, though the tease falls on deaf ears. L is fully operational, his stride now smooth and confident as they enter the building and pass through security.

Raye Penber is waiting for them near the elevators, cutting a pleasantly handsome figure that stands up taller when Maki approaches. She gives him a brief, clinical hug, then gestures to L and Light.

“These are Detective L’s other two associates, Light Hakanai and Rue Ryuzaki.”

Light outstretches his hand for a hearty, all-American handshake while L offers a brief nod of his head.

“You’re both Japanese?” Penber asks once they’re inside the elevator.

“I am,” Light says, mindful of his inescapable accent.

“Only a quarter.” L’s British accent is stronger than usual, perhaps to make his nationality clear without actually having to verbalize it.

“Ah, same here.” Penber smiles, and Maki flicks the name badge clipped to his lapel.

“Names, P. You’re supposed to be keeping your name a secret.”

“Right, well --” Penber adjusts his suit jacket and leads them out of the elevator. “-- try telling that to the heads of building security.”

His office is cramped and disorganized, though it has a good view of downtown and a shimmering strip of water that Light supposes must be Lake Erie. After offering coffee and being declined, Penber sits at his desk and lets out an audible sigh.

“There have been more murders since L called you,” Light guesses.

“Yes, several.” Penber presents them with photocopied files. “More people connected to teenaged or child criminals. Parents, in several cases, but also other relatives and authority figures, like teachers and social workers. Some legal workers, as well.”

“This is upsetting,” Maki says after reading one of the reports over, her voice deliberately leeched of all emotion. “Not just that these people had to die, but these kids…” she holds up a sheaf of paper. “This one shot his father because he was abusing both him and his little sister, and now he’s locked up for at least the next ten years.”

“And that’s where he’ll stay,” Light remarks. “The Angel’s actions offer no real solace to the young criminals, so I wonder what he hopes to achieve beyond punishing the people he feels are responsible.”

Penber tilts back in his chair and reaches for his mug of coffee, drinking deeply. Light has noticed that his eyes are fatigued, his suit just wrinkled enough to suggest that he may have worn it through the night. The Angel case is taking a toll on the FBI Agent.

“Actually, something interesting happened yesterday. The governor issued emergency funds to the Department of Human Services so that CPS can hire all new staff and revamp their training program.”

“Because of Luca Hart?” Maki asks.

“That’s right. The new director of the CPS has pledged to restructure the program from top to bottom, so that children like Luca aren’t left in crisis again.”

“Yes, that is interesting.” L is sat with his feet flat on the floor like a normal person, though he still caresses his lip with his thumb at Penber’s words. “One might then argue that the Angel has made some positive impact on society.  At least here in Detroit.”

“Well, you know what they say,” Penber drawls, tugging on the end of his tie. “Words are cheap. It’s too soon to say if the CPS will improve thanks to these new measures, or if they’re just trying to cover their own asses. No one else wants to die of a heart attack in their sleep.”

L nods, hair falling into his eyes. “Terrorism isn’t typically the best way to change the world.”

At that, Light tenses just slightly, though he more or less agrees with L’s assessment. Terrorism isn’t an effective way to change the world because it rarely reflects the will of the people. Kira is different, though -- he’s the god that all good people will learn to pray to, protecting them from the world’s chaos and ugliness. The Angel only makes the world uglier and more chaotic, pointing his finger away from those who are truly responsible.

“P,” Maki begins, clearly her throat delicately. “L prefers to keep most his theories private until he’s completed his investigation, but we’re going to need clearance to visit all the hospitals and nursing homes where the Angel of Mercy might have struck.”

Penber assesses her with a look that is a touch more than strictly professional. “I can get you that, but I’m not sure what you think you’ll find that the police and FBI didn’t.”

“They were looking for a doctor or nurse, someone killing people through medical means,” she explains, not unkindly. “L is looking for something different.”

Penber swallows and sighs, managing to look even wearier in the process. “Yeah, our inability to identify the murder weapon has been the greatest obstacle so far.”

The meeting continues with more speculation and theories, none of them even close to accurate given that no one in the room but Light knows a thing about Death Notes. Maki does mention L’s thoughts about “unknown technologies,” but it goes no further than that. Penber eventually leaves them with a list of contacts at the hospitals and nursing homes where the Angel is thought to have struck during the first killing spree, and a promise that he’ll secure the assistance of the necessary law enforcement authorities.

Maki flips through the ledger of notes. “Looks like we’ll have to start back in Cleveland, then work our way West.”

Penber nods. “I’ll put in a call in to the station and tell them to expect you in the next few days.”

“Tomorrow,” Light corrects. “L will want us to go there tomorrow.” L remains immobile next to him, but breathes in loudly enough for Light to take it as a sign of approval.

“Really?” Penber’s thick eyebrows puzzle together over his dark blue eyes. “Didn’t you guys just spend the last whole day on a plane? You’ve got to be exhausted.”

Maki smiles at her former fiancé. “L doesn’t exactly keep normal business hours.”

“I guess next time I won’t worry I’m calling him too early in the morning, then.”

When they get up to leave, Penber calls for Maki to sit back down, a roil of emotions tugging at his face. “Just a minute in private,” he pleads to L and Light, as if they have some say in how she spends her time, and who with.

“That’s up to Maki,” L says, aloof.

Maki gives them a quick nod and steps back into Penber’s office, shutting the door behind her.

L and Light wander down the hallway until they find a vending machine that brews coffee and other hot drinks. L pulls a wad of U.S. bills and coins from his pocket and pokes them into the slot.

“What do you want to drink, Light-kun?”

Light looks up in surprise at L’s offer. “Oh. Coffee, I guess. Black.” L pushes a button and the machine spits out a paper cup and starts chugging out dark, steamy liquid. “Do you think they’re still in love?”

“At least one of them is.” L fishes a sugar packet out of a basket and rips it open, tossing the whole thing into his mouth like a shot of liquor. “But timing is everything, and for Maki, the time isn’t now.”

The cup of coffee is warm in Light’s hand, the first taste bitter and faintly synthetic. “You know her that well, do you?”

“Pretty well.”

The second taste is more bitter still, but by then Maki is exiting Penber’s office in a tight, hurried stride. Penber follows, eyes trained to the ground, obviously regretting whatever words they exchanged in private.

After an exchange of cordial goodbyes with Penber, they cross the building’s plaza while weighted down with two thick file folders of documents that Light knows L will scarcely touch. Paperwork isn’t part of his usual procedures, except for the documents that mark them all as approved FBI consultants. Back in the van they find Matsuda and Mello napping, Mello with his hood pulled over his eyes, and Matsuda snoring lightly into the awkward pillow of his own shoulder. Matt gives them a thumbs up from under his huge headphones. “Sending backup sound files to Watari,” he announces to L. “They should be on the server within the hour.”

“Very good.” L passes the file folders off to Matsuda, who organizes them in with the rest of their boxes and luggage.

“That was awkward,” Maki says, rubbing her eyes from her perch in the driver’s seat. “Well, for me, anyway.” She gives Light and L a tired smile. “You two did great.” That she includes Light in her praise is a sign that she’s surely exhausted, Light thinks.

“Maki, you should get some rest. It’s a three hour drive to Cleveland and you appear too tired to see straight.” L removes his suit jacket and hangs it over the back of the front passenger seat. “I can drive from here.”

“Wait, we’re really going to Cleveland? Tonight?” Maki groans, drooping over the steering wheel.

“Yes. Light was correct when he surmised that I would want to be there first thing in the morning.”

At that, Light hides a tight, triumphant smile.

Maki clicks her tongue against the roof of her mouth. “If I pay you a million dollars, will you consider driving to the nearest hotel and checking us in so that I can have a shower?”

‘I already have a million dollars, and then some.”

“But I’m dying . Germs are killing me right now as we speak.”

“They will only strengthen your immune system.”

Light watches the exchange with a vague sense of uneasiness that he defiantly ignores, even though the edges of his stomach flutter in a way that doesn’t cease until L finally insists they press on toward Cleveland.

“You can have my seat,” Light offers to Maki. “I’ll sit up front and help with navigation.”

She nods heavily and slides out of the driver’s seat, L climbing over the armrest and into her spot like a spry, loping monkey. Light leaves Maki to his own previous chair and takes the one L abandoned, hanging his own suit jacket over the detective’s.

“The GPS is in my bag.” L nods in the direction of the messenger bag near Light’s feet. “I’ve already programmed in the most optimal routes.”

Light takes out the device, moving aside several packets of sweets to do so, and powers it up, studying the map while L steers the van out of the parking garage. It’s nearing the end of the work day and traffic clogs the main thoroughfares, but L seems to possess some instinct for taking side-streets and slipping past the worst of it.

“Have you been to Detroit before? You seem to know your way around.”

“A few times.” L steers primarily with his left hand, the right draped loosely over the armrest. “Most American city streets are laid out in a straightforward grid, and with the lake and river to the East it isn’t difficult to maintain a South-bound course.” L points a finger out Light’s window. “That’s Canada, by the way.”

The finger points to a network of bridges leading to land on the other side of the river. “Really? Huh,” Light remarks with interest. Coming from an island like Japan, the notion of being able to cross a river and land in a whole new country is a rather unfathomable one.

It takes almost thirty minutes and two assists from the GPS, but in time they’ve worked their way out of the city limits and are bound for Ohio on a rather sparsely traveled two-lane highway. L explains that he dislikes the busy interstate system, with its highway patrol cars and hordes of long-haul truckers. By now the quiet of the van’s rear passenger area is noticeable, and when Light looks through the opening in the partition he sees that everyone is napping except for Matt, who is listening to music on his headphones and reading a comic book. Light finds the switch on the dashboard that raises the dark-tinted partition window and pushes it.

“Everyone’s sleeping,” He explains in response to L’s curious glance. “Now we can talk without disturbing them.”

“You want to talk about the Angel,” L guesses.

“What you said to P -- you don’t really think the Angel is a benefit to society, do you?”

“Why do you ask?” L hoists one leg up so that he’s somehow sitting in half a crouch, even while his right foot remains on the gas pedal. It looks dangerous, but since his driving ability appears to not suffer, Light keeps the observation to himself.

“Because I don’t see how anyone can justifiably think that what the Angel is doing is good.”

“Light.” The single word sounds as if it should be delivered with impatience, but it isn’t. “Are you inquiring about my personal feelings, or my philosophical ones? Because those are frequently two different things.”

“Both, I guess.”

“Very well, then.” A smile tugs at the corners of L’s lips, but he keeps his eyes trained on the road. “I don’t think that what the Angel is doing is good. No one thinks that an epidemic is good, either, but from a purely objective vantage point, it often results in a healthier population, as well as generating advances in science and medicine.”

“Epidemic? Like a force of nature, you mean? Because we already determined that’s exactly how Kira seems himself.” Light fights to keep a note of triumph from entering his voice.

“Just because I can understand where Kira and the Angel are coming from doesn’t mean that I approve of their actions. It’s my job to figure out where they’re coming from. But in blind pursuit of their own logic, they ignore alternate viewpoints.” L’s fingers skip up the arc of the steering wheel, then down again. “They want to change the world through force and intimidation, the coarsest tools available to man. There are other paths to change -- activism, even violent revolution, which at least represents the will of the many rather than the will of the few."

“So are you claiming to dislike their aesthetic ?” Light marvels.

“That’s one way to put it, I suppose, but there’s the legal angle to consider, too. Like Kira, the Angel is passing judgment on other humans without the authority to do so. The United States’ legal system is imperfect, since it’s an institution created by imperfect humans, but it’s a system that is backed by the majority of the population. When someone breaks the law, which represents the covenant between society and its institutions, then law dictates that they have to be stopped.”

“Because what they’re doing is wrong, or because what they’re doing exposes some ‘flaw’ in the covenant?”

“Both or either. It matters as little as my own approval or disapproval.”

The first strains of frustration make Light tighten his fingers into his thighs. What is it about L and his tendency to never speak in clear absolutes? Right is right and wrong is wrong, any middle ground staked out by those who would dodge responsibility and inflict ills while pretending not to -- cowards and hypocrites, like L.

“You break the law quite a bit yourself,” he points out in a needling way.

L’s smile emerges fully at that, though it darkens his face rather than lighting it up. “Yes. And that’s the paradox, isn’t it? Institutions are bound to their own rules, so they can’t very well break them in pursuit of someone like the Angel. That’s when they turn to people like me.

Do you even realize, L, that you’re no different than Kira? Just a weaker, less-committed version. Obsolete. Soon it will be Kira that the Institutions of Justice turn to -- they’ll have no choice.

“So are you a detective or a mercenary?” he drawls, waiting for what he’s certain will be a non-answer.

“Both or either.”

“You’re so impossible.” Light sighs in disgust and turns his face to the window. The sun has dropped lower, casting long shadows over the fields and farm houses. “Maybe if someone tortured and tried to kill you you’d stop wading around in the grey area of privilege and pick a side, for once.”

L goes silent for a moment, allowing the quiet hum of the wheels to reverberate through the vehicle. “I’ve been tortured and I’ve come close to being killed,” he finally says. “But the circumstances were quite different from yours.” His tone has softened considerably, too, and it suffuses Light with a wave of deep satisfaction. The guise of Light 2’s delicacy and traumas have served as his strongest weapon, yet again.

That, and something else, perhaps.

Ever since the shower incident, L has avoided looking at Light too directly; he’s also avoided appearing as if he’s avoiding anything in the first place. It’s an extremely subtle difference, one that Light was only sure of when they sat side by side in the dark of the plane’s cabin, talking about the perils of happiness and sharing candy from the same package.

“Can I have some more ?” Light had asked, only aware of the innuendo the moment it slipped out from his lips. His hand was held upright, awaiting more sweets, but L stared at it as if it were Light offering something, instead. The detective’s eyes went glassy for a moment, lips slackened with some unidentifiable emotion just before resolve stiffened his features and he snatched the candy away.

Light knows that L isn’t Misa or Takada or even Kou. He won’t do the convenient thing and fall in love with Light, transforming Light’s task into a matter of simple seduction. And yet that moment on the plane whispered at the possibility of temptation. L is too arrogant to fall in love with a god, but with his hypnotic talk of the Woodsman, with his poetic ruminations on the dangers of happiness, he just might be fucked up enough to fall for someone he believes to be as fragile and broken as he is.

With a heavy sigh that hints at fatigue, Light loosens his tie and undoes the first few buttons of his shirt, a move so ridiculously contrived that he’s half-filled with disgust for himself. He knows that he’s considered attractive, and he knows exactly which poses and gestures that women, at least, tend to regard as fetching. He leans his head back into the seat’s head rest, pushing his chest and throat out slightly.

“Light-kun?” Japanese, this time.

Light makes a show of fluttering his eyes open. “What?”

“I’m hungry. Will you get the chocolate toffees from my bag?” L’s eyes are glued to the road, oblivious to Light’s physical presence.

This time, Light’s sigh is genuine. “Sure, Ryuzaki.”

After an hour or so, noises and voices indicate that the passengers in the back are awake. The partition window slides down and Matt pokes his face in, headphones sat awkwardly on his head. “Mello says that he’s hungry, Ryuzaki. The rest of us are, too.”

Light’s own stomach has begun to grumble for food, too, so L pulls the van into the parking lot of a roadside diner called “The Breakfast King.” The parking lot lights are blinking and erratic, the windows of the restaurant cloudy with grease. Inside, a waitress leads them to a big, circular booth upholstered in cracked orange vinyl and gives them plastic-covered menus.  

“Pancakes and bacon,’ Maki announces, slapping the menu shut with barely a glance. “No question.”

They all order some version of breakfast: omelettes for Light and Matsuda; bacon, eggs, and pancakes for Mello, Maki, and Matt; a giant, strawberry topped waffle for L. The fare isn’t particularly healthy, but it is hot and tasty, the first real meal any of them have eaten since their international flight. The food revives everyone enough to loudly voice their desire to get to a hotel, the sooner the better.

“Mello says that he wants to check the internet,” Matt shares with them. “I’m on the same page.”

Mello nods sleepily into his glass of chocolate milk.

“Seriously, Rue.” Maki swirls her fork through one last puddle of syrup. “How far are we from Cleveland? Forty miles? Let’s just find a motor lodge and settle in for the night. Some of us need sleep, even if you don’t.”

“Sleep is important for good health,” Light agrees, a comment that make Matt snicker for no good reason that he can see.

“Very well,” L says, wiping smears of whipped cream into a napkin. “I know when I’m outnumbered.”

They find a small, one-story motel a few blocks from the diner, the outdoor sign announcing it as the “Riverside Road-Lodge,” with “free color TV.”

“Color TV!” Matt laughs. “What a fucking epic treat.”

“I love these kind of places.” Maki hops out of her seat and slides open the rear doors. “Very Route 66, even if Route 66 is nowhere near here.”

“Very Norman Bates,” Matsuda says quietly, watching her enter the front office and talk to the paunchy, middle-aged desk clerk.

She comes back with four room keys, the old-fashioned kind that actually go into a key-hole, rather than pass cards. “Only four vacancies. Who’s bunking up together?”

“Me and Mello will take one.”

Maki tosses Matt a key. “Matuda and... Ryuzaki?” she says uncertainly.

“Light and I will room together.” L’s voice is clear and decisive, though Maki is rather slow to hand the key over.

He’s not going to let me out of his sight. The thought is accompanied by relief rather than annoyance.

The room is plain but clean, with two double beds, the aforementioned “color TV,” and paintings of ducks on the walls. Light places the smaller of his two suitcases on one of the beds and unpacks everything he’ll need for the night: a tee shirt and pajama bottoms, a change of underwear, and a small bag of toiletries. L leave his own bag parked by the door, unpacking his laptop, instead.

“Are you going to stay up all night?” Light asks, pressing the bundle of clean clothes to his chest. The laptop’s light casts L’s pale features in a blueish glow, and while it would be very like L to bask in its ambience until dawn, Light is hoping for something different, he just isn’t sure what -- something more along the lines of their previous nighttime conversations, woven through with secrecy and revelations.

“It would be beneficial for me to sleep for a few hours.” L speaks without looking up from the screen. “I’ve been told that that sleep is important for good health.” At that, a wry smile seizes his mouth for one beat, then drops away.

‘You should take a shower, too.” Light orbits close enough to give an audible sniff. “You stink like sweat and strawberries.” In truth, he isn’t close enough to smell a thing, but he imagines that L probably smells of overripe fruit and the sharp tang of sweat. Dirty things, dying things.

“That’s the second time you’ve told me that I stink of strawberries.” The words are slightly muffled by L’s thumb, worming into his mouth. “Tell me, Light.” He glances up, holds Light’s gaze. “Is there a reason you’re always smelling me?”

“Is there a reason you always stink?” Light counters, the words more playful than hostile.

L’s big eyes flash with wariness, then finally retreat back to his computer. “You can use the bathroom first.”

The bathroom is small, but the hot water is plentiful. Light lets it pound into his back and neck, as if hoping that it will wipe away the vague sense of defeat he’s done his resolute best to ignore. The detective is just too good at tossing back every piece of bait Light lays at his feet, except perhaps those that cause Light the deepest feelings of powerlessness and degradation. He massages soap into his chest, recalling how it felt to clutch L’s cold hand there while his mind was flooded and finally overwhelmed with Light 2’s guilt and loneliness.

A nightmare, he decides. Feign one of Light 2’s nightmares in the middle of the night. You can crawl into his bed. Better yet, pretend to weep silently until he crawls into yours.

The L that Light knew would prefer to act, rather than be acted upon. He was a creature who struck first, always. Light just has to play upon the weaknesses that are most likely to goad this L into action.

After brushing his teeth, towel-drying his hair, and making a deliberate decision to wear only his tee-shirt and boxer briefs to bed -- it’s too warm for pajama pants, he decides -- Light exits the bathroom and finds L in the exact same position he was left in, crouched on the bed in front of his laptop. All that’s changed is his outfit, the suit replaced by his usual uniform of long-sleeved tee-shirt and jeans.

“All yours,” Light says.

“Thank you.” L doesn’t look up.

Light peels back the comforter and sheets and climbs into the too-soft bed, reaching over to click off the nearest bedside lamp as he does so. The pillow cradles his head, buffering out the sound of L’s breathing, and after a few moments Light realises that he really is tired -- his eyelids so heavy that he fears he’ll drop into a deep sleep before he can put his plan into action.

“Ryuzaki,” he blurts out, eyes flinging open.

“Yes?”

“Can you sit next to me on the bed for a little while?”

It’s an utterly innocent question, no innuendo at all, and not one that Light planned on.

L’s bed creaks. “What’s wrong?” The words are laced with the tiniest thread of concern. A thread for Light to pull on. He can pull on anything.

“Nothing, I just can’t sleep.”

Light turns his head to one side, watching as the detective pushes his laptop aside and crosses the narrow span of carpet between their beds.

“Here,” L says, positioning himself upright against the headboard and looping his right arm around Light’s shoulders, so that Light’s head is nestled against his bony ribs. It’s a gesture with no underlying hesitation or tension, the movements of an adult with a much younger child, and one part of Light is blushingly humiliated, the other part soothed. Just as he expected, L smells fruity and sweaty, dead and decaying.

Fragile and broken , he reminds himself. Fragile and broken is what he wants.

“Is this weird?” Light can’t help but ask when he pictures how they must look, two grown men practically cuddling in a cheap motel bed.

“Depends on who you ask.” L’s voice is a quiet rumble that travels through his chest and directly into Light’s ear. “My closest childhood friend and I used to sit like this, sometimes. We didn’t think it peculiar. Of course, she tried to stab me more than once, and we didn’t think that particularly odd, either.”  

“Which friend?”

“An Irish girl. She was two years older than I, like a big sister.”

“Is she the same person who called you in the middle of the night?”

“Yes.”

L’s hand is immobile against Light’s bicep, neutral as mannequin’s. Sleep is weighing down on Light, turning his thoughts loose and nonsensical, and he imagines himself much younger, growing up without parents or a past, in an orphanage halfway around the world. Would he and L regard each other as brothers, snapping at each other’s throats one minute, then sitting like this to read from a book of fairy tales the next?

The notion isn’t displeasing, but it isn’t what Light wants. He wants L to be more than a mannequin, to finally give Light some unmistakable sign that he would welcome Light’s hands and mouth all over him. It would make things so easy -- Light would push him back into the pillows just as he pushed Kou to the rug, each kiss a spell designed to bind the detective to Light’s will and whims.

We could leave everything behind , he thinks dazedly, only dimly aware that he’s accidentally caught a bunched-up bit of L’s shirt between his lips, his tongue pressed to the cotton the same way it would press to skin.

L doesn’t seem to notice, and his breath is so deep and even that Light thinks he might be asleep, and before Light can wonder at what that means, he’s asleep, too.

***

Once L is certain that Light is sleeping, he carefully moves out from under Light’s head and rearranges blankets over the younger man’s shoulders. L’s limbs feel light and nerveless, and he knows that he’s at the very edge of a precipice, brought here by both Light and his own dangerous, seemingly bottomless curiosity. He can’t go on like this for much longer -- either he plunges himself into darkness, as he did with B, or he backs away and returns to a slower and steadier trek through the labyrinth.  

Thoughts of the challenge no longer dictate his every movement. Instead of considering the fate of the Universe, he’s taken a turn for the selfish. He wants to stop Light, yes, but he also wants to save him, to claim him for himself. It’s all a delusion, just as every desire is, and what L wants most of all is to cover his eyes and drive the whole matter from his mind, once and for all.

He steps outside, instead. The motel sign is buzzing, and all the rooms are dark except for Matt and Mello’s.

A series of coded knocks grant him entrance, and L enters to find Matt stretching out on the bed, laptop in lap, while Mello scribbles in a notebook next to him, their socked feet tangled together at the ankles.

“Hey,” Matt says, lifting his eyebrows. “Sooo…”

Mello tips toward Matt and whispers in his ear.

“Yeah, we were listening to the audio feed. Does he usually ask you to get into bed with him?”

“Not usually.” L shuffles over to the room’s single armchair and settles into it. “He can be…” -- he fishes for the right word -- “needy, at times.”

Another whisper to Matt. “Yeah, Mello noticed.”

“Mello, just speak to me directly.”

“Okay.” Mello drops his notebook into his lap. “I don’t like him. He’s uptight and also sort of swotty and snobbish.” The boy lifts his chin, blue eyes glinting. “I don’t like how he talks to you.”

“He’s alright,” Matt shrugs, and Mello jabs him once in the ribs before flopping against Matt’s larger frame.

“Sometime he is,” L agrees, earning a wounded look from Mello. “Light knows that I tend to record everything that I can, but he doesn’t know that I have the both of you listening in.”

“What should we be listening for?” Mello’s pen is poised over his book again, his expression very serious.

“I’m really not sure.” L cracks the knuckles of his left hand, one after another. “But you have a skill for spotting patterns, Mello, ones that may be difficult for me to glimpse while I’m in the thick of them.”

“Have you spotted the pattern where he fancies you, then?” Mello asks with a deep eyeroll.

L studies Mello’s feet, massaging themselves so carelessly into Matt’s larger ones, and is struck by the irony of the young man’s observational skills extending to others, but not necessarily to himself -- as is so often the case, really. Mello is still too young, maybe, to notice how Matt never looks at him with anything other than an expression of singular, focused patience. Mello doesn’t see Matt waiting for him.

“Honestly,” Mello continues. “He’s always sneaking glances at you, and going out of his way to grab the seat nearest you, and he’s got this possessiveness.” Mello’s eyes widen into saucers as he speaks. “As if he and you have this special, secret bond that no one else can understand. So yes, he fancies the pants off you.”

“‘Fancies’?” L echoes, more than a little amused. “I’m not sure it’s so simple as that.”

Matt murmurs a quiet dissent, his eyes closed as he reclines against the headboard.

“I’ll find the patterns behind that pattern, then.” Mello clutches his pen with so much determination it might as well be a weapon.

“What about you?” Matt’s eyes are slitted open, green as a cat’s. “Do you fancy him back?”

A smile toys at L’s lips. “Again. it’s not so simple as that.”

“Why not? Either you fancy someone or you don’t,” Matt huffs.

“Yagami isn’t an ordinary ‘someone,’ you div.” Mello jabs Matt again, who grunts once at the assault, then grins. “He might be Kira.”

“Might be a murderer, you say? Never stopped him before.” Matt looks directly at L, making it clear who he means when he says ‘him.’

“Shut up, Matt,” Mello’s hands ball into fists. “You cock-knob. Don’t talk that way about --”

“Mello,” L interrupts.

“See?” Matt stretches out his hand. “He doesn’t mind, do you ‘Ryuzaki.’?”

L closes his eyes briefly. “I’m sure that I’ll live.” Matt’s view of reality is, at times, refreshly blunt and free of complication, making it a useful compliment to Mello’s gift for ripping back layers and spotting secrets, nestled in the dirt like gritty pearls.

A bit more idle chit-chat, and L bids the boys goodnight, leaving their room feeling rather better than he did before. The kids are a touch bratty (possibly less so than Light, which is telling), but they’re both sharp as a pair of brass tacks, armed with their own unique set of talents. L enjoys their company enough to wonder why he never sought it out in his own lifespan.

Beneath the buzz of the motel sign, L can make out the faint sound of rippling water nearby. The Riverside Road-Lodge -- of course, that must mean there’s a river. He rounds the far end of the building, past an ice maker and a row of vending machines, to where the ground slopes down toward a thick stand of trees. The grass is cold and faintly dewy beneath his bare feet, the occasional pebble biting into his heel, making him wince.

The river isn’t a real river at all, but a shallow stream for rain and agricultural run off. Something about the hard reality of it, budging up against his more hopeful expectations, makes L remember that the Mello and Matt that he knew are dead, that he never even knew them well enough to compare them to the pair he knows now, mostly through L the Second’s memories.

Might they have lived, if L had been more attentive, more concerned with their fates? Maybe, maybe not. Love is never enough to save anyone.

Love is never enough to save anyone.

That’s what L the Second had told A when he was eight and she was ten. She was explaining her faith, her reasons for being a believer after L very logically laid out all the numerous examples of the Old Testament God’s vitriol and sadism. So He got hacked off at humans, she had shrugged. Wouldn’t you? L had stubbornly pressed his own agenda, pointing out that a perfect and omnipotent God should be above pretty temper tantrums. At this A had only smiled, as if in affection for a misbehaving pet. He got over it , she said. He sent us His son to show that He loves us.

A fairy tale, the most dangerous one of all. Love is never enough to save anyone , he had told her, expecting the words to sting and cut deep. She just shrugged them away. No, but love never hurts.

Years later, L had the pleasure of throwing those words back in her face the first time she discovered L and B together inside the third-floor storage room. B was twelve to L’s thirteen, but he had been the one to kiss L first. It hurt, like everything else B did, his teeth and fingers stinging hard, cutting deep. They may have hurt A most of all, who stared at the both of them as if she’d just walked in on a murder scene.

In retrospect, ‘murder scene’ wasn’t far off -- literally.

A and B. It feels peculiar to think of them so often when he spent so little time thinking of them before. L supposes they’re a part of his history now, even if that history is one he inherited through death rather than life. Two sets of experiences -- one would assume it would only make him cleverer, sharper. He’s not sure that’s the case.

L crouches down at the edge of the stream and turns his eyes skyward. The city is far enough away that the light pollution is minimal, revealing a vast landscape of stars that include the constellations Antlia, Ursa Major, and Hydra.

“Hello, cat,” L murmurs.

He’s had Light in his sights for nearly two weeks, but has failed to do anything productive in all that time. Hesitation should be a stranger to him, and yet hesitation rules him more as the days go on. If he were in a more petty mood he might blame it on an inner conflict of the soul (souls?), but he knows better than that. In the van, he and Light had a discussion that provided L with the perfect opportunity to argue the flaws of both Kira and the Angel, and yet L had only offered up weak, half-baked answers -- wallowing in the shades of grey, as Light called it, and rightly so.

L hesitates out of fear, not just of making a wrong move and losing the whole universe, but in fear of losing himself. Light is like the Hydra, possessing over one hundred gnashing viper heads -- some of them are cruel and cunning, others brilliant and composed, the rest of them mewling children dancing for attention. And then there are those sides of Light that are fearful and grasping, the most human of them all, the ones that make L forget that he’s dealing with a viper in the first place.

L chuckles to himself a little, mostly at the image of Light as a many-headed snake. The stuff his imagination has been conjuring up lately is mad, truly, but it’s a madness he can’t seem to let go of, and he isn’t even sure that he wants to.

But he will never reach Light if he insists on seeing him as a viper. One can never save what they cannot love -- Porfiry knew that, and so he chose to see Raskolnikov as a fellow human. L’s read the book enough times by now to know the message by rote, but he’s a slow learner, it would seem. Too stubborn to lower himself and embrace his own humanity.

Not so above it all anymore, are you, kitten? Memories of B, whispering in his ear.

He holds out his hands, pale, knobbly branches undeniably his own, but rather more blood-stained than those of his first life. If the stream’s water wasn’t running so low in it’s grassy hollow, he might dip to his wrists just to prove that he’s well beyond being scrubbed clean.

“L?”

He thinks it’s the universe at first, and blinks up at the stars in surprise, but then the voice comes again, out of memories and into the present.

“Ryuzaki?”

He looks over his shoulder and sees Light staggering down the hill, the glow of the motel’s neon at his back. He’s put on pajama bottoms and a sweatshirt, his hair still mussed with sleep.

“What are you doing out here?”

L withdraws his hands, tucking them between his chest and his folded knees. “Listening to the river and star-gazing.”

“River?” Light frowns, pushing a tree branch out of the way. “That’s hardly more than a stream.”

“I know, but the longer I’ve sat here, the more it’s seemed like a river.”

Light kneels on the grass next to him. “Don’t delude yourself, Rue.”

I already have . But maybe a delusion is safe if you know it’s just that -- or maybe telling himself that is just another delusion itself. One delusion begetting another, what could be more comforting than that? A whole nest of them to dive into.

“Aren’t you cold? You don’t have socks on, even.”

“I’m fine,” he says, even as Light inches closer, so that their sleeves are nearly touching.

This time, L doesn’t remain still or retreat, but presses his arm directly to Light’s.

***

Light thought this what was he waiting for, what he wanted, but now that L’s arm is touching his he can’t think straight, and it’s like the piddly stream really is a river, pounding white noise through his brain.

Don’t be an idiot. He’s been more firmly crushed up against strangers in an elevator. It’s just an arm, it’s just L. How many times had their limbs tangled up when they’d been handcuffed together? More times than he can count, and it had only left him exasperated and wishing desperately for freedom.

“You can move away if you prefer,” L finally says. “But since you seem to like sitting close to me when we’re alone, I thought I would oblige.”

This is it -- it would be so easy. Light just needs to cup his hand to L’s thigh, stroke his fingers inwards and upwards…

He doesn’t move, his breath somehow arrested in his throat, every muscle shocked into cement.

“That’s fine, sit where you want.” The words are heavy, tumbling like boulders from Light’s mouth. If L notices he doesn’t show it, his eyes still scanning the sky. There’s just enough moonlight to roughly sketch out the detective’s features, the slope of his nose and the hard curve of his mouth. He isn’t quite so ugly as Light always thought him -- unusual, yes, but not ugly.

“Sometimes it’s nice to look at the stars and feel really, truly insignificant.” The curved mouth bends into a hard, nearly-defiant smile.

This L is weird. Weird, yes, and his weirdness is catching, like wading into an invisible net. As a general rule, Light detests weird and unusual things, and yet here he is, being reeled in by the thick, heavy coils of L’s web.

He wants it to stop. He wants to get back his upper hand.

“Is this your idea of a romantic moment, Rue?” He asks, lacing his voice with more sarcasm than necessary.

L doesn’t exactly bite back, only shakes his head and breathes out the tiniest of laughs. “If you were more experienced in the ways of romance, you wouldn’t have to ask.”

“Oh, as if you even --”

“Stop, Light.” His tone is firm, but not quite stern. “I’m not going to be drawn into your games. Not right now.”

“You like games,” Light counters, and L’s pause is enough to prod him with brief fizzle of triumph.

“If I play your games it’s because I have a weakness for never turning down a challenge. But it isn’t the games that I like --” L says, then draws in breath.

No , Light thinks. No, don’t say it.

“I like you.”

Stop.

But the detective barrels on, unthwarted. “When I first met you, I felt attracted by you. Perhaps you will laugh at my saying so. I certainly wouldn’t blame you. I know you disliked me from the start and I suppose you’ve no reason to like me now. You may think what you like, but all I want is to put aside the disguises and show you that I’m not completely lacking a heart and conscience.” L takes Light’s hand in his own and lifts it up, his thumb running under each finger tip, sending a shiver straight down Light’s spine. Then he gives Light a small smile and presses the briefest of kisses to his middle knuckle.

                (art by sybilius - do not repost or edit without permission)

Light only stares, dimly aware that his heartbeat is thudding up the column of his neck, like it might burst from his ears or blow off the top of his head. Is L actually confessing to him?

“As for what kind of man you are,” L finishes, dropping Light’s hand. “I guess that depends on what you show me.”

If it were sexual, that would be one thing, but it isn’t quite that -- it’s real and it’s blazingly simple and sincere, like having his feet washed clean and toweled off by L’s pale, clever hands.

Light-kun is the first friend I’ve ever had.

Light realizes now that the first L had lied, his words a farce for the other detectives in the room, a trick designed to measure Light’s reaction. But out herehere’s no one to listen in except the trees and the starry sky, and L isn’t even waiting for Light’s reaction, just standing up to brush off his jeans and head back to the motel.

“You coming?” L asks over his shoulder.

Who cares if it’s real? Even if it is, all the better. This is what Light needs, an L who’s drawn to him and won’t deny it.

But these thoughts, soothing balm that they are, do nothing to inject Light with the purpose and power he requires.

He forces himself to his feet, half-jogging to catch up with L and slap him on the shoulder, like they’ve just finished off a particularly invigorating tennis match.

“Was that our first date, then? I mean, you did hold my hand.”

Because this isn’t serious, okay? This is just fun. This is just wickedness. Just a game.

“No. You told me that you weren’t attracted to men.”

“Yeah, but do you really count as a man?”

L shoves his hands into his pockets, eyebrows lifted in exasperation or amusement, possibly both. “You never stop.”

“You don’t want me to.”

“I think you mean you don’t want to.” L unlocks the door to their room and flicks on the nearest lamp.

The banter fades as they crawl into bed and, with no discussion whatsoever, resume their previous positions: L propped up slightly in his full set of clothes, Light under the covers with his head nestled into the unsubstantial cushion of L’s arm.

“Rue?”

“What is it?” L’s voice is ragged with sleepiness.

“Did you mean it?”

This isn’t serious. It’s okay.

Light hates the hope in his voice, so raw and exposed, like having his skin cut open and peeled back to the bone. This always happens as soon as they’re alone in the dark, Light 2 rising up between them, like some affection-starved incubus. He’s a fragile, broken thing, but he’s the thing that L wants most.

“Yes. Go to sleep.”

So he does.

***

Once more, Michelina can’t help but hold the breath she doesn’t have.

This is a turning point, and she knows it. L has moved slower than she would prefer (human souls, what tentative and temperamental things they are), but at last he inches closer, narrowing the gap between himself and his shadow. One cannot save what one cannot love. And no, love alone doesn’t save anything, but it never hurts.

Except, of course, that it does. It hurts terribly, leaving wounds that will fester and spread if not tended to properly, and scars, like pale yet vivid ghosts. That’s what L Lawliet is thinking as he regards the slumbering man next to him, wondering if he’ll end up as the devil’s plaything.

“Stop that,” she chides him. “You’ve never even met the devil I have.”

“Thinking of me?”

Lucas, of course -- he takes a single thought as open invitation.

“Only in generalities.” In her distraction, her domain has crumbled to pieces, a landscape of rubble floating through the fringes of Pandæmonium. A pulse of concentration rearranges everything back into a plain, functional office, Lucas stands at the threshold in his horned, mocking form, red scales gleaming like the hellfire that doesn’t exist.

“You take too much delight in your own mythology,” she says drily.

“Maybe you don’t take enough delight in yours . ” He neatly cleans his fangs with a black, curled claw.

“I’m not him any more than I’m Michelina.” She sits at her desk, peering over it like a school principal addressing the class prankster. “Why are you here, Lucas?”

“You were entertaining fond thoughts of me, so I thought you might want to chat.” He conjures a plush, throne-shaped armchair and takes a seat, crossing his cloven hooves together. “Your champion is hanging in there, I must say. The two facets of his soul have merged together well.”

She can’t help but indulge in a small smile of satisfaction. “Yes, as I had hoped.”

He snaps his fingers together, releasing a smokey chuckle. “That’s why you chose this particular world, isn’t it? A clinical, logic-driven L Lawliet merging with his more emotionally intelligent twin -- meanwhile, the Yagami kid’s still trying to wrestle with his second half. Ha, I should have known you’d have a greater agenda.”

“I suppose you’ll accuse me of cheating?”

“Nah.” He grins too broadly, drawing blood that he doesn’t even notice. “That would be like stooping to your level.”

“You do cheat. What else would you call Shinigami, or all the others that came before them?”

“Fun little distractions?” He sighs, managing to look more serious. “Come on, Mick. Humanity doesn’t progress if they don’t have struggle -- you already know that.”

She crosses her arms against her unsubstantial chest. “There’s struggle aplenty without your meddling. And now there are those other anomalies --”

“Hey! I had nothing to do with those. Me and Gabe swore up and down in front of all of you, in our true forms , no less!” He protests until steam wafts from his nostrils, but it’s the hint of worry reflected in his black eyes that makes Michelina think he might just be telling the truth. “How many, so far?”

“In this world? Three. That’s two more than any of the others.”

He shrugs. “Could be a quirk. The Universe is creeping toward its death-throes. Weird things are bound to happen.”

She shakes her head, clicking her tongue. “So quick to write the Universe off. We don’t even know what our fate will be, if she dies. Have you no sense of self-preservation?”

“A little. That’s why I keep giving you a chance to catch up.”

“You’re sentimental.”

“Also true.” His claws scrape gently along the wooden arms of his pretend throne.

She swivels in her chair, turning her back to him. “You’re sentimentality has given me more chances than you realize.”

“Oh, really?” She hears him stand up, his heavy footfalls crossing the carpet, and all at once he’s standing before her, towering like a monolith. “What are you up to, Mick?”

She knows that it’s petty, she knows that it’s an utterly, foolishly human thing to do, but she can’t help but gloat, shedding her current form for the one she knows will hurt him most.

“ Michael. ”

Chapter Text

Qui Totum Vult Tutum Perdit

Thierry Morrello didn’t think he’d be getting a second chance, and while one hasn’t been offered under the most ideal of circumstances, he knows he’d be a fool to pass it up.

“Do you mind if I smoke?” He asks his new -- well, he supposes handler is the only word that fits, though in this case, she who handles calls the shots.

“I do mind,” says the woman who claims to be named  Aura. “I’m trying to quit.” Her hands tighten around the steering wheel. “There’s some nicotine gum in my purse. Fetch me a piece, too.”

He grabs her purse from the back seat and rummages through it for the capsule packet, popping out a piece of gum for each of them.

“Cheers,” she says around a mouthful of the stuff, chewing with fervor. “We’ve got to think of a name for you, you know.”

He sidelongs a glance at her, taking in the wavy red hair, bobbed to her shoulders, the pale skin faintly freckled -- she could be an advertisement for Irish Spring soap. She wears a narrow plaid skirt and a navy blue sweater set, bookish and unintrusive, and except for that gum-chomping, her manner is lazily calm. Either she’s too inexperienced to be cautious, or she’s been around long enough to play poker with the big boys, despite looking to be in her early twenties.

“I used to go by John. John Wallace.”

“Forget that. Forget anything you used to do, used to go by.” She runs her fingers over the curve of the steering wheel. Her nails are painted palest pink, like the inside of a shell. “You were born in France, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Frank, then. Frank’s a good name.”

Frank, Theirry thinks, accepting the new identity with no more than an internal shrug. He burned through worse names in his twelve years as an information broker -- twelve years that made him sloppy, over-confident enough to smuggle government intel, a choice that ended him up in a less-than-homey government black site. After three months of solitary confinement, no end in sight, they sent a woman in a white coat to offer him a deal.

“I’ll pass it on to Director Kent.” Aura shakes her hair back, finally slowing down her chewing streak. “Confirm navigation?”

Frank glances down at the GPS for the tracker, assessing the blue dot. “Still traveling East-bound Highway 6.” He doesn’t know who they’re tailing, exactly, and he doesn’t know if he has the authority to ask. “Would be faster to take the Interstate.”

“Our subject wouldn’t do that. He’s rarely fast and easy, he’s slow and deliberate, like a boulder rolling relentlessly uphill.”

Frank lifts an eyebrow. “Sounds like you know the bloke.”

“Once upon a time.”

Frank was the one to plant the tracking device on the van while Aura talked to the limo company owner, posing as a bachlorette looking for a party bus. They’ve been following its GPS signal ever since, all the way to the FBI’s field office in Detroit, and now East-bound through Ohio, probably to Cleveland.

“Are you going to kill him?” Frank asks, because if there’s gonna be a bloodbath, he wants to bring an umbrella and a raincoat.

“Me?” She laughs. “I don’t kill anyone -- that’s your job. But not this time. We’re just watching and waiting.”

“He’s got something to do with Project Topaz, then?”

She tilts her head toward him. “You ask a lot of questions. What did Director Kent tell you about Project Topaz?”

“Nothing much that I understood,” he admits. “Something about an ekpyrotic model of quantum physics and fluctuations in the universe’s vacuum energy. Is the guy we’re following a scientist?”

“Well,” her voice goes dry. “He does like to experiment, but no. He’s a detective. Not one technically working for us, but he’ll end up helping out, just the same. He just won’t know it.”

“Help with what, a secret government science experiment?”

“Director Kent is a highly educated woman. To discuss the nature of the project in anything other that scientific terms would cause her a great deal of discomfort.” Aura smiles, showing charmingly crooked teeth. “Are you religious, Frank?”

“Lapsed Catholic.” Though when he lands in a scrape he still makes the sign of the cross, a habit too fixed to break.

“Aye,” she nods. “I run into you lot quite a bit. Tell me, if I held a knife to your throat would you be able to stop yourself from praying to God?”

Frank swallows and scratches the bottom of his chin. So Aura rolls with the big boys, then; he quickly bins his half-cooked notion to spring for escape when the chance presented itself.

“Probably not.”

“I figured as much.”

“I suppose that makes me a hypocrite,” he says with ease, accepting it. “Faith is a battle between heart and head, and what the head knows these day make the heart seem pretty naive, by comparison.”

He waits with suspended breath to see how deep his offense hits.

“It makes you human,” she says, no trace of resentment. She bows her head slightly and the early evening sun turns her hair to rippling fire. “I struggle at times, myself. That’s why Project Topaz is so important, it will finally bridge the cognitive gap between heart and head.”

That sounds like a bit of a dodge, if he’s ever heard one. “If I’m asking too many questions, just say so.” He means it. He’ll do whatever job he needs to, whether he knows the reason behind it or not. Anything to not return to that black site.

“There’s really only one thing you need to know,” she says after a moment’s pause, and he notices a pendant glittering at her throat, a woven, silver “X” instead of a cross. “Push aside the science and the jargon, and Project Topaz has a fundamentally simple goal.”

“What’s that?”

She reaches up to finger the pendant, her smile soft and nearly lovely, touched with the patience of a saint.

“To prove the existence of God.”

***

Sixteen hours later

Southwest General Hospital is located in Middleburg Heights, Ohio, a distant suburb of Cleveland. The director who runs the volunteer office is a former nurse named Susan Clarke, her demeanor disgruntled enough to suggest that she had hoped to be director of a more important hospital program by now. L steers Light in her direction, and sure enough, she softens considerably in the face of his youth and attractiveness.

“Turnover is high,” she explains, her voice gravelly with years of smoking despite working in health care. “A lot of teens show up thinking they’re going to help deliver babies or watch doctors save lives, but they end up passing out water and magazines. Makes them bored after a week or two.”

“We’d like to request a list of all volunteers who worked between February 19th and February 27th,” Light says in polite, fastidious English.

“Now?” Susan delivers a sad, longing glance at her breakfast burrito, going cold on the edge of desk.

“Yes, please.” Maki’s smile is business-like, but leaves no room for argument. For good measure, she flashes her temporary FBI-consultant badge.

“Alright.” Susan pulls up a file on her computer, and within less than ten minutes presents them with a list of names, contact information, and scanned-in, State-issued identification cards. Being that it’s a rather small hospital, L isn’t particularly surprised to see that the list is short, only eight names long.

He stretches the records back toward her, and she drops her burrito back to its paper plate with a sigh. “Please circle the names of the volunteers who stopped showing up shortly after February 27th.” He says it rather less politely than Light or Maki would have.

She returns the list with two circled names: Jenna Blanchard and Cody Brown.

“Both are female,” Maki murmurs, studying their blurry ID photographs.

“Do you remember anything about either of these girls?” Light asks.

“Nope.”

“Are you sure?”

She chews around a mouthful of burrito thoughtfully, and the food seems to make her more cooperative. “The both requested geriatrics. Might want to head up there and ask the CNAs on staff.”

They do just that. In the elevator, Light stands close enough to L for their pinkies to graze each other, then jerks away with such force that he nearly collides with an orderly. L has noticed Light hiding a certain jumpiness ever since they woke up, sleeping apart but still in the same bed, sheets warmed by their shared body heat. He has noticed, but has yet to comment.

‘Liminality’ is the word used to describe the disoriented middle stages of a ritual, that threshold-crossing space between beginning and end, where everything turns slippery and formless -- identity, beliefs, the very nature of being.

L and Light are in that disoriented middle, banked on either side by firmer but more dangerous ground.

***

Up on the fourth floor’s geriatrics ward, none of the staff seem to remember Jenna or Cody any better than Susan Clark did. Only one woman, a CNA young enough to be a volunteer herself, remembers that Jenna was “super sweet, a peppy cheerleader type, you know?”

Back at the van, Matt quickly digs up the info they need. “Jenna Blanchard lives with her parents and is a junior in high school. Social security number and driver’s license are legit, but Cody Brown’s are fake. Quality fakes , ” he emphasizes.

L studies the record sheet that Susan gave them. Cody Brown is listed as DOB 1/21/91, 112 lbs, 5’4” inches, and an organ and tissue donor. The picture is small and poorly detailed, but displays a face with large eyes and thin features, a rather curly crop of gingery hair hanging past slight shoulders.

“This is the Angel.” He knows it, just as clearly as he knew ( knows ) that Light was ( is ) Kira.

“A girl? I thought you profiled the Angel as male,” Maki says, peering over his shoulder.

“I’m not entirely sure this is a girl.” He hands the papers over to Mello.

“Mm.” Mello shakes his head vigorously, his hood falling back so that his blond hair tumbles out. “Can’t tell, but that’s definitely a wig.”

“Let’s press on,” L says to Maki, who has driving duty this morning.

The next hospital they check is in Cleveland proper; the volunteer office has no record of a Cody Brown on file, largely because the computer system was wiped out over a month ago.

Hacker or coincidence? L makes a note of it.

They talk to all the volunteers they can find, easily spotted by their bright pink smocks. Only one remembers meeting another volunteer named Cody. “Quiet and strange,” is the assessment. “Spent a lot of time talking to patients.”

“Patients that are probably dead now,” Maki mutters on their way back to the van.

The third and final Cleveland hospital has a ‘Cody Jackson’ in their records. The scanned I.D. card is different, another fake, but the photograph is the same.

“How can a teenager have two different aliases?” Matsuda wonders, looking through the records they’ve collected.

“Because he was a criminal before he was a killer,” Maki says. “Now we know what kind.”

“And he may not be a teenager,” Light offers. “Just young-looking.”

L settles into one of the captain chairs and unwraps his afternoon snack, an over-sized, chocolate-chip muffin. “The Angel’s real name is ‘Cody,’ I expect, or else it’s a preferred alias, and they have been involved in identity theft for some time.” He bites off a chunk of muffin -- more like cake, really -- and chews thoughtfully. “The Angel probably acquired this skill through a family member, perhaps even a parent. It would be helpful to know their origin story.” He swallows. “Matt?”

“Yeah?”

“The addresses on the fake IDs -- what have you found?”

“They’re not residences. One’s for a pharmacy in Brecksville, a suburb South of here. The other’s for a computer shop in Garfield Heights.”

“A computer hacker with poor health,” Mello determines, not bothering to whisper through Matt first.

L gifts him with a slight nod of approval. “I don’t believe that the Angel is a native to Cleveland, but from somewhere else in Ohio, most likely to the South or East. Still, we can only follow the path before us.”

“That’s a hospital in Sandusky, next,” Maki says. “About an hour or so West of here.”

L finishes the last of his muffin, depositing the wrapper into the communal rubbish-bag, already overflowing with Mello’s boxes of choclate milk. “We’ll go first thing in the morning. For now, I’d like to find a hotel room where we can spend the rest of the day researching the identity theft cases in this region.”

The Angel case is heading for that disoriented middle. They have a probable first name and a wisp of a face, they have a tentative trail to follow. They have Kira, who L expects is waiting for a last name, for that moment where he can clip the Angel’s wings and kick him back to hell.

***

The ‘“hotel’ turns out to be a return to the Riverside Road-Lodge, since it’s halfway between Cleveland and Sandusky. L likes the out-of-the-way anonymity of it, likes the memory of Light he has there, stumbling down the grassy hill with features softened by sleep, his hair messy, his clothes rumpled and mis-matching. And then the look on his face when L made his confession: a mixture of confusion, fear, surprise, and hope -- all of it too complex to be feigned in its entirety.

They end up in the same room as before: the linens freshly changed, the bathroom smelling of bleach, the duck paintings still surveying over everything. L gets straight to work, but Light jumps from one task to another with no real focus, first skimming through the Angel case files, then moving on to more physical activities. He irons some of his shirts, brushes his teeth, and walks to the window several times, looking outside as if expecting a guest.

‘Light, your pacing is a distraction.”

Your distraction is a distraction . L imagines that the harsh light of day rendered last night’s events into the stuff of surreal dreams. L’s confession has rubbed Light raw and ragged, and he no longer knows how to speak, how to be , in L’s presence. Such is the disorientation of the in-between.

“Sorry,” Light says from his spot at the window, the quiet in his voice confirming that his thoughts are somewhere else entirely.

L makes the decision to bring Light back to earth, whether he likes it or not. “Here’s a question for you: who do you suppose is the demographic most likely to be victimized by identity theft in the state of Ohio?”

“I don’t know.” Light’s face is half hidden by the curtain he holds aloft in his hand. “The elderly?”

“Correct, especially those living in assisted living facilities, or ‘nursing homes,’ as they are sometimes colloquially referred to.”

Light finally drops the curtain away. “So the Angel might have stolen the social security numbers of the ill and elderly before he started mercy-killing them?”

“It would be a matter worth further research.” L tips his head back and strokes his lower lip, contemplating who to assign the task to. “For Matsuda, perhaps.”

Light angles his eyes back to the window. “Maki’s coming to our room.” He reaches for the doorknob, whipping the door open before Maki can knock.

“Hey,” she says, slowly lowering her fist, her head craning around Light to seek out L. “Matsuda and the boys are going to walk to a pizza joint a few blocks down. Are you guys hungry?”

“Not very,” Light says, while L merely shrugs. He never really gets hungry or full, as he nearly always has some sugary morsel in his mouth.

“I was thinking of going back to the diner down the road,” she says, tucking her hands into the pockets of her leather jacket. The late afternoon has been cool, with intermittent rain showers. “I’m not sure I can stomach more grease and they actually had some decent-looking salads on the menu.”

Because he doesn’t want Maki to eat alone, L nods and reaches for his shoes. “Sounds fine.” Light laces on his sneakers, too, albeit with a distinct note of non-enthusiasm.

They walk the three or so blocks down to the diner, where the waitress, recognizing them, seats them in the same circular booth as before. Light orders a small bowl of chicken soup and Maki a ceasar salad, while L finally settles on a chocolate malt, which is presented before him in a fancy, scalloped parfait glass and served with mounds of whipped cream. Maki lets out an audible sigh at the sight of it, but refrains from commenting.

“So what’s your impression of the States so far, Light?” Maki asks instead, mindful of discussing the Angel and Kira cases in public.

Light blows delicately on his spoonful of soup. “I wouldn’t say that I have one. I’m here to get field experience on an investigation, after all.”

“Of course.” Maki forks up a piece of lettuce and scrutinizes it. “But isn’t it unavoidable to have an impression of some kind? This is your first time out of Japan, isn’t it?”

Light puts down his spoon in a resigned sort of way, as if the conversation is a great burden. “It’s very big,” he says with bland politeness. “We drove three hours yesterday and yet didn’t make it but half-way across a single state.”

“Mm, yes. It is big.” She crunches into her forkful of salad, looking a touch defeated.

“Not much of an impression, Light-kun,” L observes, unimpressed. “You knew America was big before you even set foot here, didn’t you?”

Light has no reply other than to listlessly stir his soup. “Excuse me,” he says after a moment, pushing the bowl aside and wiping his fingers off on a napkin. “I’m going to the men’s room.”

Maki lifts her eyes as he stands, following his retreat to the back of the restaurant. As soon as he’s gone, she puts down her fork and turns to L. “You know what I wonder, Rue?”

“No, Maki. Tell me.” The diner is playing old country music, the bluesy chords a melancholy contrast to the fluorescent lights and vividly orange vinyl seating. L idly taps his straw against his glass in rhythm to the tune.

“Why Yagami Junior resents me.”

L stops fiddling with his straw and sticks it back into the ice cream. “‘Resents?’ That’s an interesting choice of word.”

“It’s the only word that seems to fit.” She’s gone back to scrutinizing her lettuce, as if it might provide her with some answers. “I thought was just had issues with women, at first, but now I think it’s specific to me.”

L sips up some of his chocolate malt, rolling the ice cream around on his tongue, then swallowing. It’s true that Light seems to avoid talking to Maki if he can help it, but then the only person he seems interested in speaking with at all is L, and even then only sometimes, if today’s aura of distance surrounding Light is any indication.

The times when Light seems to resent him, too, are rather abundant.

“Do you want me to have words with him?”

“No.” Her mouth smiles with bitterness. “I want him to respect me, I guess. Which is stupid. Why do I care about some sulky teenager’s respect? Especially a teenager who might be a murderer.”

L nearly coughs on his malt, his own carelessness slapping him in the face all at once. He’s just let Light off his leash to go into the men’s room alone.

Last night, he left Light alone in the motel room for nearly an hour.

He’s been so focused on himself -- his ever-shrinking head space, more and more dominated by Light -- that he’s neglected to guard everyone else. Light could still be carrying scraps of the Death Note with him, saving them not just for the Angel but for anyone else who stands in his way.

There was a reason he used a chain, the first time.

He starts to slide out of the booth, but Light is already heading back from the men’s room, his face wrinkling with befuddlement at the intensity of L’s stare.

L waits forty seconds. One country song finishes and bleeds into another.

“Maki --” He digs through his pockets and throws several twenties on the table “-- this should cover the food. I need a moment alone with Light.”

“Rue --” she stares at the money. “This is eighty dollars.”

“Leave a good tip and keep the change.” He pinches the corner of Light’s sleeve and steers him toward the exit.

“Let go, Ryuzaki. What’s your problem?” Light complains, trying to wrest himself from L’s grip as they shuffle out the front door of the diner.

“I feel like going for a walk.” L tramples through a parking lot puddle, not even caring if he soaks the ankles of his jeans, and doesn’t loosen his grip on Light’s sleeve until they’re a good twenty feet or so down the sidewalk.

“Gee, thanks for the invitation ,” Light gripes. “Why are you being so intense, all of a sudden?”

L slides a glance at him, slowing his pace just slightly. “What were you doing in the men’s room?”

Light’s mouth drops open a half inch. “Taking a piss. What else would I be doing?”

“One wonders. The way that you left the table was strange. Unexpected.”

L hears Light draw in a breath through his teeth. “Oh, have you just now decided that you miss having cameras on me at all times?”

“The realization causes me some discomfort, yes. There is still a chance, however slim, that you are Kira, Light. Whether you are aware of it or not.”

“Ryuzaki!” Light clutches the back of L’s tee shirt and he swats him away, not wanting Light to get a glimpse of his skin. “You’re not making any sense.”

“No, Light,” he says, backing himself against a fence and catching Light’s forearm, holding it in a firm but careful grip. “The fact remains that you haven’t yet been fully cleared of suspicion. I’m sorry if that insults you.”

In a way, he really is sorry. Light is Kira, but Light is also Light.

Perhaps it’s just the shadows from a fast-sinking sun, but something seems to wavers in Light’s eyes, a flicker of tentative trust, tugged away as if by a rough breeze. “You said you liked me.” He swallows and presses his lips together, then opens them again. “How can you like me and still think I’m a murderer?”

“Light.” Light, Light, Light -- he imagines how B would say the name, first time teasing, second time mocking, third time with a caress so sharp it leaves scars. “In my time I have done more than just ‘like’ murderers.”

Light blinks, lowering lip twitching. “What is that supposed to mean?” He slips his arm from L’s slackening fingers. “I don’t get you. You say you like me when we’re alone, but when we’re not, you’re act different, like I’m someone you’ve been hired to babysit.” He smoothes down the arm of his jacket as if to wipe away L’s touch.

L tilts his head, rather baffled by this revelation. “You think that’s how I treat you?” He could say much about how Light treats him , not to mention Maki, but that can wait. For now, he’ll hear Light out.

“Not think, know. ” He tries to glare at L, but it’s diluted with a good dose of hurt. “Just now in the restaurant you were an asshole, which apparently comes so naturally to you that you didn’t even notice.”

Struggling to pinpoint what Light’s even referring to, L tugs at his bottom lip and longs for the rest of his chocolate malt. Dogs are barking in the distance, cars puttering down the street on their way to nowhere in particular.

“See? You don’t even remember. You embarrassed me in front of Maki and then you dragged me away like a little kid.” As he speaks, Light’s neck and cheeks turn a very subtle shade of red. “So you didn’t mean what you said last night. That’s fine -- I didn’t think that you really did. I just think you’re kind of a shit for saying it in the first place.”

“I did mean it.” I meant it as much as I needed to.

Light shakes his head. “No. And even if you did, it was a mistake.”

He turns away and makes a slow retreat up the sidewalk, toward the motel. L keeps a few feet behind him, studying the back of Light’s head and trying to puzzle out the thoughts that lie inside it. L supposes that it’s entirely possible that he adopts a different attitude toward Light when in the presence of others -- Maki, in particular. Maki is his partner in a way that no one else will ever be, the one who kicks over the delusions he clings to, exposing the nest of crawling insects beneath.

It’s also entirely possible that Light is being childish and over-sensitive. It wouldn’t be the first time.

Light refuses to acknowledge L until they’re back at the door to their motel room, where he’s forced to wait while L fishes through his pockets for the key.

“Light,” he says, opening the door wide. “What you said about me treating you differently around the others may be true, but I wasn’t aware of it. Now that I am, I’ll take care to not do it again.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Light shucks off his shoes and lines them up next to the dresser.

“It does.”

Light has no response to that, instead hovering over his open suitcase and folding his jacket on top of the neat piles of clothing. L remains slouched near the door, bracing himself for whatever Light will do next.

“Can you get me my own motel room?” Light finally says into his suitcase. “Maybe they have an extra vacancy tonight.”

“Why?”

“I feel like being alone.”

L massages his chin with his forefinger, taking inventory of Light’s stiff posture and deliberately withheld gaze. If there’s one thing he knows of this Light, it’s that he doesn’t particularly like being alone.

“I’m sorry. I can’t do that.”

‘Why not?” Light knocks his suitcase off the stand, but it’s a gesture without fire, his clothes landing in a sluggish, scattered pile as the suitcase comes tumbling after. “I told you that it was a mistake, didn’t I?”

“Light, it wasn’t. I do like you.” And L does -- or as much as he can. He likes Light for trying to do right, even if it gets packaged in the most wrong way possible. L has never tried to do right, not really, not without failing horribly. And in that regard, are they really so very different?  

And yes, his confession was calculated, but that’s always the way of confessions. No one confesses without harboring the hope that it will pay off somehow, some way.

“You’re not listening to me,” Light insists, and he’s facing L now, his hands halfway curled into fists. “I mean that liking me is a mistake.”

L takes a few steps forward, drawn in by a new scent on the air -- desperation, verging on fear. Light’s throat is bobbing with the effort of swallowed emotion and it’s enough to make L’s own airways narrow in sympathy.

“Don’t.” Light throws up his palm, swallows again. “There’s something I haven’t told you.”

Surprise roots L to the spot. This is the payoff he had hoped for -- Light finally approaching L as the one confidant he can trust, the one he can hand his masks to, one after the next, until there’s nothing left but whatever tattered, twisted soul lies beneath.

Show me everything you’re hiding beneath your perfect and terrible beauty

“I told you that it was my fault that we were caught by Genesis 22, but the truth is that I talked Sayu into helping me go after him.” Light sinks to his knees, turns the suitcase upright again. “I was studying my father’s case notes, I thought if I had Sayu’s help, we could get a look at the killer’s face, maybe even discover the location of the murder site.” He starts re-folding his shifts with perfect, mechanical movements, like a salesman in a clothing boutique. “I thought we could help.”

Whatever confession L was expecting, he’s already forgot it by now. His first instinct is to get nearer to Light, so he crouches on the carpet next to him and folds a sweater, badly.

“I was only thirteen, but that’s no excuse. I wanted to be a hero.” Light clutches a rolled pair of socks, squeezing it. “Sayu almost died because of me, and now she’ll never be the same.” The last sentence comes out with a strained hiccup of grief, despite the otherwise desperate neutrality of his tone, and he scoops up the rest of his clothes and dumps them into the suitcase, pounding them down flat with his palms.

“Light.”

Pound pound. Like he’s stuffing memories and emotions back into the dark cave where they belong.

“Stop that.” L slides the suitcase away. He remembers how Light had halfway confessed to this back in Tokyo, leaving out the most crucial part -- the full degree of his own responsibility. “Are you looking for condemnation? You won’t get it from me. I was thirteen once, too. I would have done the same thing.” And won. Because by that age, L had already solved a large number of high-profile cases.

Light rolls back on his hindquarters, hugging his knees to his chest. “She’s my sister . And she doesn’t even hate me for it.” He chokes out a bitter laugh.

“Because you’re her brother. Hating you doesn’t change history.”

Fists balled in front of his face, Light looks at the wall. “What are you going to do now?”

“Should I be doing something?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. Berate me? Tell me what a fuck up I am?” He throws it out like a challenge.

“From what I know of you and your family, I imagine you were driven by a strong sense of duty. You were over-confident, but believed that you were acting in accordance with the ideals your father instilled in you.” To your detriment, perhaps, he doesn’t add, because it’s not what Light needs to hear right now.

“Are you going to tell my father?” he asks, voice muffled by his fingers. “How are you going to see me, now?”

‘As for what kind of man you are...I guess that depends on what you show me.’

Yes, that’s what this really is. A test of last night’s confession. Shaking the beams and the foundation of it.

“I won’t tell your father. As for how to see you…” L feathers his fingers through Light’s hair, pushing it off his forehead and forcing his gaze away from the wall. “You’re a perfectly beautiful failure.”

Light flinches and bats L’s hand away. “That’s a horrible thing to say.”

“It’s not. I included the word ‘beautiful.’”

“You called me a failure. ”

“You called yourself one, first. I’m admiring you for having the strength to say it out loud.”

Light stares at him through slitted, wary eyes, his lips parting slightly for words that fail to arrive. L cuts through the silence before he can misunderstand any further.

“Failure isn’t a bad thing. It usually means that you tried to do something brilliant, even if you didn’t succeed.” L glances up at the ceiling, wishing that it provided a landscape more inspiring than dingy, popcorn plaster. “If someone never fails, then they never grow.”

Yes, I hear you in there, old friend, L thinks, L the Second with him, as always. The first time I failed, I died. Perhaps I ought to have failed sooner, like you did…

“That sounds like something failures say to make themselves feel better,” Light says, his face and voice soured by skepticism.

“People who never fail are really just people who never admit to their mistakes.” L, tired of crouching on the floor, climbs onto the bed and reclines on his back, fingers toying with the ends of his own hair. “Those are some of the most dangerous people of all.”

They become irredeemable, like the Light I knew. But you...

Light rattles forth with a scoffing laugh, plopping onto the bed opposite. “Are you telling me that you, the great detective L, have actually failed at something?”

“Are you telling me that you’ve already forgotten how you mocked me for having never found my mother’s killer?” L says mildly, rolling his head in Light’s direction. “That’s a failure, and one of many.”

“No, I suppose I didn’t forget.” Light lays on his stomach, one arm dangling off the edge of the bed, fingers nearly touching the carpet that separates them. “How else have you failed?”

L sighs, even though he isn’t particularly surprised. “Is this really what you need to hear to make yourself feel better?”

“Yes.” But his voice is soft, undemanding.

L hesitates for just a second. Even if he was prepared to do this, to show every inch of his ugly self in order to capture Light’s trust, preparing is not the same as doing. And Mello and Matt will be listening, if not now then later, and they will surely wonder if their mentor has lost his mind. Then again, he’s lost his mind before. What else is new?

“When I was thirteen I fell in love with a demon. He borrowed my soul more than once and always gave it back dirtier than before.” L swallows, bunches his hair over his eyes. “That sounds like a metaphor, but it’s really the simplest way to explain.”

“A demon. Be serious.”

“That’s what A thought he was, but even if you remove the religious undertones, he was no ordinary human.” L flicks hair aside and looks at Light, glimpsing rapt interest in his eyes.

“You fell in love with a guy.” A muscle in Light’s cheek jumps, the effort of holding back a smile.

“ That’s the bit you’ve latched onto?” L squints at him in disbelief. “Not merely a ‘guy,’ a murderer.”

Light is definitely smiling, his hand swinging back and forth like a pendulum, fingertips brushing the carpet. “So you failed by having really fucked up taste in men. Sorry, it’s just sort of funny.” Light swings his arm out now, fingers touching the end of L’s bed. “Is your taste in men still fucked up?”

Very.

L looks at Light’s fingers, the immaculate nails, so much tarnish lurking beneath. “Probably,” he says.  

“That makes sense. You’re afraid of being happy, so falling for a ‘demon’ is one way to ensure you’ll never be happy again.” He inches across the bed, the whole of his hand on L’s side, now.

Before L can think what to do with this offering, a flurry of pounding fists rattles the door, followed by a loud bellow: “Oi! Get dressed you sloppy whores, we’re going to the cinema!”

More shuffling and voices, and Light rolls over onto his side, head jerking up in annoyance.

“Matt,” L predicts. “Drunk, I expect.”

“Well, I didn’t think it was Matsuda out there,” Light grumbles, the interruption clearly unwelcome.

It turns out to be all four of the M’s, who are giggling in a tight, conspiratorial semi-circle when Light opens the door.

“Hello! We’ve been eating rubbish pizza and buying up flavored vodkas,” Matt sings out. He’s wearing his West Ham United hoodie, two bottles slung from the front pockets. “What have you lot been up to?”

L comes up to the door, peering at his illustrious team. All of them have drops of rain water shining in their hair and their cheeks are tinted pink by booze, though none blaze red like Matt’s do. Maki gives L a sheepish smile and a little shrug, as if to say Well, you were the one who ditched me at the diner with eighty dollars .

“We were working,” Light says smoothly. “What was it you said about the cinema?”

“There’s a shoddy little theater down the way,” Mello says, pointing directly up rather than in any navigable direction. “They’re doing a Steve McQueen marathon this week.”

“That’s right, and tonight’s Bullitt , best car chase ever filmed.” Matt mimes gripping a steering wheel and does an all-too-realistic imitation of screeching tires, prompting Mello to slap a hand over his mouth.

“Sorry,” Mello says to L, struggling to be solemn. “I’ll go to my room and work hard, if you think that I should.”

“How’d you manage the vodka?” L asks instead, reasoning that Matt and Mello have probably gone a bit stir crazy, spending most of their day in the van or a motel room.

“Matsuda bought it!” Matt declares proudly, throwing an arm around the older man trying to desperately shrink away from L’s gaze.

Well, that’s one way to get in with the ‘cool kids,’ L thinks.

“We got flavors," Matt adds.

“So you’ve said.”

“You coming with us or what?” Matt peers between L and Light’s shoulders. “No laptops out. I don’t see much work happening.”

L looks at Light, who gives him a shrug, then back at Matt. “Alright.”

“We got everyone flavors,” Matt says as they head toward the town’s small business district. “Peach for Maki, as she’s such a peach of a lady, chocolate-marshmallow for Mello, and pineapple for Matsuda.” He removes a bottle from each of his pockets. “Didn’t forget you, either,” he says, handing L one of the pints. “Strawberry, of course.”

“Thank you,” L says, already knowing that he won’t enjoy it.

“Wasabi for you.” Matt tosses the second bottle to Light, who catches it with deft ease.

“Wasabi vodka ?” Light blurts, staring at the liquor. Everyone laughs a little.

“Fits, doesn’t it?” Mello says, gamely enduring Matt’s weight, who’s leaning on him like a crutch.

“Because I’m Japanese? Yes, how original.”

“That and you’re a bit spicy, yeah?” Matt breaks free from Mello and lunges toward Light dramatically, snapping his teeth right in front of Light’s startled face. “No worries, I like ‘em like that.”

Light makes a quick retreat to L’s side. “What am I supposed to do with this?” he asks when they’ve lagged far enough behind the others to not be overheard.

“You can abandon it on a bench somewhere. They won’t allow us into the theater with liquor, anyway.”

“But isn’t it a gift?” Light wonders, and L is both faintly amused and a little touched that Light would concern himself with such etiquette, especially for a gift he doesn’t even want.  

("Vodka" by Zenthisoror - do not edit or repost without permission)

They pass a house with a large urn of tulips near the end of the driveway, and L takes both vodka bottles and buries them in the budding flowers. “There,” he says. “We’ll pick them up on the way back to the motel.”

“Clever,” Light nods, then falls in step next to L, standing close enough for their sleeves to swish together. “On our way to the movies…” he muses. “Maybe this is our first date, then.”

“You’ve spent a great deal of time imagining our theoretical first date, you realize.” But L is smiling and he can’t even hide it.

“You’re the one who’s going to hold my hand in the dark like an old pervert,” Light says slyly, his voice low even though the others are several meters ahead, laughing loudly at something Matt’s just said.

There Light goes again, retreating into the games that make him feel safe and secure; games that are armor he slips back into when he feels most exposed. He rejects all possibilities except for the ones he can forge and shape with his own words: You will do this . You will do that. You will.

B had done the same thing, reading L’s thoughts directly from his head as if staring into tea leaves, and even when he read the leaves wrong, his interpretation was so fixed, so certain, that it became its own reality --one that even L had trouble denying. But with B it wasn’t a game and it wasn’t armor, it was more like spellwork.

“You’re wrong, Light,” L says, grazing his fingers down the length of Light’s wrist. “I’m going to hold it now.”

Their fingers lock together, loosely at first, then tighter.

Spellwork .

***

Light feels more certain, more triumphant, than he has since arriving to this world. Why hadn’t he tried this the first time? Instead of defeating L, he could have befriended him, transformed him into a comrade. The first L would have been more of a challenge, maybe -- he’d been stubborn, harder to bend. He didn’t need people, except maybe Watari, and he certainly didn’t need Light, he only needed Light to be Kira. But this L needs Light, needs him in ways that L himself doesn’t yet realize.

Light so looks forward to enlightening him.

When they returned from the movie theater, L really did spend the rest of the night working, his laptop warming up the whole bed while Light slept soundly at his side, and when Light finally wakes at sunrise he discovers L nodding off against the headboard, his lips slack and his breath heavy.

Light spends countless minutes studying the angles of his face. L’s chin is sharp, his cheeks a little gaunt, the circles beneath his eyes not yet erased by his brief nap. Who is the so-called extraordinary man that L once fell in love with? Light wants a name and a face, the two things he needs to exorcise the man out of existence, to show L that no human is more extraordinary than Light.

I’ve almost made you mine, Light thinks. Soon enough, ‘L’ will stand for ‘Light’s.’

There’s something heavy blooming in his chest, like a rush of warm water, and yes, he wants to kiss L, but so what? That’s just his weaker half crying out , but the stronger half won’t kiss L now, not when he’s sleeping. No, Light won’t steal a kiss unless it’s one that robs L of all the murky, confused ideals he still clings to.

That nonsense about failure, for example. It only makes sense someone as flawed as L would justify his mistakes with philosophical loopholes like that, but Light knows better. He’ll teach L to be better, too.

“Are you watching me sleep?” L mutters, his eyes still closed. “I sense a wolf, sniffing me out.”

“Sorry, you’re not what I have in mind for breakfast,” L says, smiling and pushing the covers aside.

This has been easy -- too easy, maybe. He has to be careful. The L he knew before had an infuriating knack for working out Light’s plans as soon as he put them into effect, turning the tables on Light with ruthless efficiency. This L doesn’t turn tables, he spins webs, flinging out strings and cobbling together puppets. Mello, Matt, Maki, Matsuda… Light won’t dance for L like they do. He has his own webs to spin, and so far, L’s stumbled into every single one of them.

***

They end up getting breakfast on the short drive to Sandusky, picking up bagels and coffee from a bakery (and a donut, for L), all of them eating hungrily except for Matt, whose complexion exemplifies the phrase ‘green around the gills.’

It turns out that the volunteer office at the hospital in Sandusky has had its records wiped, too. L gives the woman in charge a recommendation for a better encryption system, and then they spend an hour talking to all the volunteers they can find. One of them, a retiree with long, greying braids, recognizes Cody’s photograph.

“I spoke to her once,” the woman says, squinting at the picture. “She never came back after. I wondered if I scared her off, somehow.”

“What happened?” Light asks, L leaning in around him for the woman’s response.

“My daughter has cancer,” the woman says, her face plainly resigned to the fact. “This girl, Cody, she looked sickly, too. Very thin and pale, and her hair -- I thought it might be a wig. One day I asked her if she was feeling well, if she needed anything. She seemed reluctant to speak, at first, but then told me that she was fine, that it was her mother who was sick.”

“Her mother? Did she give a name?”

The woman shakes her head. “No. I don’t think she was very comfortable talking to me. I never saw her again.”

“And you’re sure she was a ‘she’?” Maki throws in.

Pressing her lips together, the woman looks away, then back. “Until I spoke to her, yes. But now that you mention it, there was something...what’s the word they use now?”

“Androgynous?” Light supplies.

“Yes. So, I really couldn’t say, one way or the other.”

Back in the van, L takes off his polished wingtips and wiggles his bare toes into the buttery leather upholstery, a sight that causes Light to feel both a vague sense of repulsion and reluctant fondness. L is so gross.

“If the Angel has a history of illness, it would explain why they were drawn to other ill people as their first victims, wouldn’t it?” Matsuda asks.

“Mm,” L murmurs in agreement. “The Angel isn’t half so careful as Kira. He works on the basis of his own whims, living and acting where the moment takes him. He’s someone who doesn't believe he’ll live a long life, maybe.”

Light crosses his legs together neatly, satisfied with L’s assessment.

This time, Kira fully expects to live a long life.

***

They leave Sandusky with Maki at the wheel, Matt curled into the front passenger seat out of concern for his unsettled stomach. It’s Mello who first brings the signs for a place called Cedar Point to everyone’s attention. “It’s an amusement park that opened in 1870,” he announces carefully. "And also the second-oldest United States amusement park still in operation. It holds the world’s record for most rides, seventy-two, and is located on the Lake Erie peninsula.”

“Very informative,” L says, lifting an eyebrow.

Mello is wearing his panda-hooded shirt again -- deliberately, Light’s sure -- and his eyes are wide and shimmering with hope. From the front seat Light hears Matt not-so-delicately clear his throat, an obvious conspirator.

“Light, what time is it?” L asks heavily.

Light checks his watch. “Just after eleven.”

L curls his finger into the corner of his mouth and is quiet for several long seconds, ignoring the hard look that Light sends him. There is no good reason to stop at an amusement park. The Angel is still out there, and to stop and partake in childish whimsy seems extraordinarily irresponsible in the face of such crimes.

“They’re famous for their sprinkle-covered caramel apples, too.” Mello crosses his arms in front of his chest, struggling and failing to keep his smirk from fully emerging.

“Maki, follow the exits to Cedar Point. We’re having lunch there.”

“We are?” Maki and Matsuda say in unison.

“No more diversions after this.” L shakes an admonishing finger at Mello, though he’s clearly only half-serious.

“Is this really the best use of our daylight hours?” Light asks, meeting Mello’s now-narrowed eyes with a calm, concerned smile.

“From an investigative standpoint, no, it absolutely is not,” L admits easily. “But as no one in this van has ever been to the second-oldest amusement park in the U.S., it may prove an enriching experience.”

“I don’t mind,” Matsuda pipes up. “Wait until I tell Ide!”

“Enriching how?” Because this is the part of L that Light can’t quite grasp, this L who idles next to riverbanks and stares up at the stars, taking pleasure in how small they make him feel, this L who sees value in enriching experiences and would qualify a caramel apple as such.

And yet it’s only this L who would ever let Light so close.

“Enriching in the same way manga is, perhaps,” L says, leaning closer, but only enough so that Light would notice, every hair on his arms standing at attention. “And other mindless diversions,” he adds, grey eyes meeting Light’s.

Light fights back Light 2’s significant shiver. L’s voice should be illegal. It’s too knowing, too invasive, too right. It’s enough to make Light swallow back any further protest, his face trained to the van windows because he can feel blood heating his neck and cheeks despite there being no good reason for it.

Yes, this is Light 2’s doing. These sensations, whether provoked by Kou or by L, are foreign to Light, invaders from a different country. He lived with Misa, who was centerfold-beautiful -- and even he could acknowledge her beauty, despite never being particularly moved by it -- but she was incapable of rousing a blush from him. Light does not blush. Light is not beholden to anyone; L is the one who will be beholden to him.

Something has to happen, soon. Something that will bind L to him without fail, three lengths of chain this time -- one for head and heart each, the final one reserved for flesh.  

Light feels something kick his shoe -- it’s Mello, who’s sitting on the floor of the van with his legs outstretched, his dirty combat boot knocking against Light’s foot once more before retreating.

“Alright there?” he asks, his expression more knowing than Light would prefer.

“Fine.” Light’s smile is patient. “Ryuzaki’s right. Recreation can have an invigorating effect when approached with moderation.”

Mello’s lip curls, disdain naked on his face. “You talk like a bloody textbook.”

And I liked you better when you didn’t talk at all, Light thinks, a smile still pasted to his face.

L, the bastard, says nothing in Light’s defense. Even after Light’s carefully orchestrated maneuvers last night -- accusation followed by revelation (nothing makes L come closer then the chance to gobble up a squalid little morsel of Light 2’s past) -- L still hesitates to take his place at Light’s side.

But then, like magic: “Some might enjoy the way Light speaks.”

Mello locks eyes with his mentor, some silent conversation crackling between them until Mello drops his eyes, an enigmatic half-smile wisping across his features.

“Thanks,” Light says under his breath, even though L doesn’t deserve it, not really.

Cedar Point is indeed an impressively massive amusement park, banked by a marina on one side, and a stretch of sandy beach on the other. Roller coasters of dizzying heights reach for the sky, alongside a ferris wheel and other deadly-looking contraptions that Light doesn’t recognize. Maki, Light, Matsuda, and L are all still wearing suits, but before heading into the park they leave their jackets in the van and change into comfortable shoes.

“This is a pretty big production just for lunch,” Maki remarks, lacing up a pair of converse that oddly compliment her pinstriped trousers.

“You look wicked,” Matt says, sucking up, probably. His color has mostly returned to normal, though his voice is still a little listless. “Like a Japanese, lady Doctor Who.”

“I’m an American and I have no idea what that means,” Maki says. “But thanks.”

Despite her reservations, Maki turns out to be an adrenaline junkie and immediately joins up with Mello to head for something called the “Raptor,” a monstrosity of a roller coaster that involves dangling from seats instead of sitting in a car. Matsuda and L are more interested in food and line up at the one of the stalls near the Raptor, while Light, neither hungry nor craving adrenaline, sits at a table littered with split popcorn. Matt brushes the kernels aside with his fist and takes a seat across from him. A babysitter, Light’s sure, though at least L was subtle about the assignment.

“Not hungry?” Light asks, though he isn’t particularly interested in Matt’s answer.

“Fuck no,” Matt groans, cradling his head in his hands. “You know what I could do with, though?”

“No, what?”

Matt pushes back his goggle-like sunglasses and rubs at his eyes. “Another sodding espresso.”

Light considers for a moment. “Same here, actually.”

“Get in,” Matt says, looking pleased as he pushes his sunglasses back down. “Let’s go find us some of that.”

That’s how they end up wandering through the park looking for a coffee stand. Tilting his head at Matt, Light once again tries to assess his age and determines that he must be older than Mello. He looks sixteen, at least, nearly as tall as Light and with the attitude of someone casually and cheerfully hard-bitten.

“How old are you, anyway?” He finally asks, dodging a couple pushing twins in a double-seated stroller. The park only recently opened for the season, and the crowds are thick, taking advantage of the balmy temperatures and clear skies.

“Fourteen,” Matt says, tucking a cigarette between his lips and lighting a match.

“Kind of young for cigarettes and a hangover.” Light keeps his tone non-accusatory, just in case, but Matt only laughs.

“I was born in Brixton, yeah? That’s like being born in a pub with a pint in one hand and a fag in the other.” He takes a drag off his cigarette and points the lit end at a cart with an espresso machine. “That’ll do.”

‘Brixton’ has little meaning for Light, so he only shrugs and takes his place in line next to Matt. “What about Mello? Thirteen?”

“Fourteen. A few months older than I am, in fact.”

“My sister’s fourteen.”

Matt lifts an eyebrow. “Yeah, I know. Read the Genesis 22 case files, didn’t I?”

“Right, I guess you would have.”

Matt is tolerable, Light decides. Rough around the edges, yes, but he more or less seems to mind his own business, and that makes all the difference. As a gesture of gratitude, Light even pays for both of their espressos.

“Cheers,” Matt says, raising his paper cup and chugging the hot liquid back. “Ah, much better.”

“Agreed.” Though the espresso is pretty bad.

They make their way back through the flow of foot traffic, keeping a steady pace until a brightly colored awning, flipping in the wind, catches Light’s eye. “Wait,” he says to Matt, stepping off the main path. “This must be the place that sells those famous caramel apples.”

Matt stares at him for a moment, then stubs his cigarette out on a lamppost and tosses the butt into the nearest garbage bin. “Well, have at it then,” he says, his grin so plain and good-natured that Light reflexively smiles back.

He buys two caramel apples, one with sprinkles and one without, and has them packaged up in cellophane and a brown paper bag. Even so, the scent of them -- sweet, early autumn -- rises warm through the wrappings.

Back at the Raptor, Maki and Mello have just gotten off the ride, still breathless and messy-haired, and L lifts up a bag of pink and blue fluff, sending a wave of cloying scent in Light’s direction, stronger than apples or caramel.

“Matsuda bought me a pillow of candy floss.”

“What will you do with it? You barely sleep,” Maki wonders.

“I might enjoy sleep more if it involves a pillow of candy floss,” L determines, eyes latching onto the bag Light’s hands. “What have you got there?”

Light tilts away from him. “I’ll show you later.” Maybe he will, maybe he won’t. It was a bit senseless to have bought caramel apples in the first place --  L is perfectly capable of buying his own junk food.

The rest of their stroll through the park is pleasant enough, even if Maki and Mello are the only ones drawn in by the hair-raising rides. Matsuda and Matt join in for a few of the more tame ones, but Light and L demure until they circle back around to the park’s entrance and spot a booth for the park’s sky ride, an elevated, slow-moving gondola that spans the entire length of the park.

“Can we go on that before we leave?” Mello asks, pointing. The cars are small, sized for two adults.

“I think I’ll sit this one out,” Maki says, loping to a bench. “Too slow for my tastes.”

Light turns his head to hide a smirk, guessing that she probably doesn’t want to be alone with puppy-eyed Matsuda while suspended one-hundred feet above the ground, no escape in sight.

“Light.” L swings his bag of candy floss so that it gently bats Light in the arm. “Care to ride with me?”

Light refuses to look at either Matt or Mello. “Sure,” he says.

One-hundred feet in the air with no escape in sight. The line for the ride is short, and the cars, swinging ever-so-slightly in the breeze, glide noiselessly above the chattering, meandering crowds.

“What is this really about?” Light asks L. They’re seated across each other in the narrow confines of the booth, their knees unavoidably touching. “I don’t believe that you were really so desperate for candy floss that it required a trip to an amusement park."

L lazily reaches out his arm, fingers skimming over thin air. “Making up for lost time.”

“Whose? Your own? Mello’s?” A prickle crawls up Light’s back, irrational and unwelcome.

“Does it matter?” L digs out a wisp of candy floss and pops it into his mouth. “One can also do something just for the pleasure of it. Or aren’t you having any fun?”

“I’m not not having fun.”

“That’s good, for starters.”

Light stares out at the expanse of the park, taking in the riot of colors -- the flags, the banners, the people in their slogan-heavy tee-shirts and souvenir drink cups. Even from high in the air, everyone looks so happy, a sure sign that they’re not happy at all.

“Amusement parks are weird,” he says.

“In what way?”

“Not the parks themselves, the people who build them. The people who come here.” He rests his elbow against the edge of the metal car, propping his chin in his palm. “It’s a fake paradise.”

L rolls more candy floss into a ball. “Where and when has there ever been a real paradise? True happiness is selfish, you told me yourself."

“They don’t realize their paradise is fake, that’s the difference.”

Slowly tucking the ball of candy into his mouth, L points over Light’s shoulder. “What about that? Is that fake paradise?”

Light looks to where he’s pointing. It’s the car behind them, swinging more than it should because Mello is planted in Matt’s lap, from the looks of it. They’re kissing roughly, Mello’s hands clawing at Matt’s hair. Light quickly averts his gaze, but that only means looking back at L, who’s slowly licking his sticky fingers.

Yes, is what he thinks, but “I don’t know” is what he says. Uncertainty and inexperience, let it draw L in.

L smiles, bits of pink clinging to the corners of his mouth.

“Maybe this, then, is our real first date.”

The prickles crawling up Light’s back go runny, relaxing into a ripple of almost-pleasant uncertainty. L has stolen Light’s line, but that’s okay -- that’s good, even. That’s what Light wants, his own words echoing from L’s mouth.

He laughs under his breath, daring to place his palms on L’s bony knees, to lean closer into that sugar-perfumed breath. “You know, it’s really obvious you want to kiss me. You wouldn’t have pointed out Mello and Matt, otherwise.”

“That’s a convenient conclusion for you to draw.” L is too damn calm, it only makes the muscle at the center of Light’s chest kick harder. L even has the nerve to half-roll his eyes. “You’ve moved on from trying to predict dates and hand-holding to predicting kisses. If you want to be kissed, just ask.”

L grits his teeth and tries not to show it. Make a move, damn you. That’s what you do isn’t it?

“Everything I’ve predicted has come true, hasn’t it?” Light points out. “So, when are you going to get it over with?”

“‘Get it over with’? You make the prospect rather un-enticing, when you put it like that.” L shakes his hair out of his eyes, tucking the fat bag of candy floss to one side. “Like eating vegetables.”

“Nice evasion.”

“Perhaps I am waiting for you to admit that it’s you who wants to kiss me.”

Light gives him a sharp smile. “You’ll be waiting a long time, then.”

“Will I?” L shifts in the slim confines of his seat. “Fine, then.” His face is suddenly, brutally close, all chalky skin and a blur of black eyes. “I’ll kiss you when you can bring yourself to ask for it.” His fingers, wet and sticky, press to Light’s throat, as if feeling for a pulse, a tender spot to tear apart. “And make me believe that you want it.”

Frustration throbs through Light’s clenched jaw. He wants to lift L up and toss him over the edge of the car, watch his body break like a bundle of sticks on the ground below.

He’s also half hard and wants to know what those sugared, sticky fingers would feel like, wrapped around his cock, stroking him to fullness.

No, no, no. It can’t go this way. L has to be the one begging for Light.

But maybe we could just --

No.

Light jerks his head away, forcing out a long, slow breath. “I don’t want anything, Ryuzaki.” His voice is shakey and stupid, despite all his efforts. “ You’re the one who said you liked me.”

“Yes.” L is looking away, toward the lake. The ride has almost come to an end, the car jumping slightly as it dips lower, swinging toward the loading platform.

“The trouble is, I’m 95 percent certain that you don’t return the sentiment.”

The words are dispassionate and matter of fact, making Light blink. He roots around for an answer, for some scrap of sweetness to set the air right, but none comes before the attendant has opened the door and ushered them out, back into the revels of fake paradise.

***

Light may not like me.

It’s the thought that’s clung to L all day, nibbling away at his brain. When crossing through the disorienting in-between, some facts become all too illuminated.

Is he possessive? Yes. Does he want L’s attention? Most definitely. Is L’s approval important to him? Sometimes, sometimes not. Does he like L?

Maybe not.

The possibility does not cause L any significant pain, but it does make him wonder. It would be one thing if Light was completely unable to forge real connections with other humans, but from what L has witnessed, that isn’t the case. He is quite certain that Light’s affection for his sister, guilt-laden as it may be, is genuine. More significantly, Light very likely harbors unrequited love for his best friend, Kou Miyano, and love that demands no return is the most painful and purposeful of all.

“Ryuzaki?” Light’s hair is askew, his eyes glazed with uncertainty. They’ve checked into luxury suites in the historic Book Cadillac Hotel in downtown Detroit, and the Renaissance-inspired decor and lighting casts Light in shades of finely wrought gold.

“Yes, Light.” L’s voice is rough with fatigue. He’ll need real sleep tonight, not just a nap. As it is he can barely maintain his crouched position on the 1200-thread-count bedding, laptop displaying an update from Near -- no new leads in the Kira case.

“I’m going to take a shower.”

“That’s fine. Keep the door slightly ajar, please.”

Light hesitates, a protest perched on his lips, perhaps, but he forces a nod and begins gathering things from his suitcase. He’s been more biddable than usual ever since L openly theorized that their budding friendship was one-sided, which is of course why L openly theorized it in the first place. To see how Light would react, whether with defiance or denial. Instead, Light hasn’t given much of a reaction at all, except to retreat to a type of puppyish confusion.

Light tends to sleep with a similar uncertainty on his face, a detail which L noticed after they returned from Bullitt and he stayed up late to exchange messages with Mello. Light’s features never quite fully relax, his eyes flicking back and forth between shut lids, breath leaking out from his lips almost reluctantly, as if dragged by a pair of grasping fingers.

‘I know I said that he fancies you, but now I’m not sure. There’s more to it than that. There’s something I can’t see yet.’

‘I told you it wasn’t that simple,’ L had written back, then gave Mello the password that would provide him access to all the surveillance footage from the hotel in Japan. There’s something that L can’t see yet, either, and if Maki is the partner L trusts to kick over the rock of his delusions, then Mello is the one he tasks with identifying the true nature of that rock.

He wants you to fancy him, I think. But why?

L hears the water start up. Light has left the door open by six or so inches, and the bathroom’s lighting is moody and low, not the stark fluorescence of the Riverside Road-Lodge. Light’s naked form flits past the opening, so fast L might have imagined it, then the sound of the water pressure changes as Light ducks beneath the downpour.

Slinking off the bed, L pulls Light’s suit jacket off the chair it’s draped over, fingers probing into every pocket and finding nothing but lint. He pats the lining and seams, feeling for anything unusual, then applies the same rigorous search methods to Light’s suitcase and duffle bag, careful to keep the contents exactly as he finds them. He finds nothing suspect, but then, he didn’t really expect to. Light is Kira and Kira is rarely careless.

Why would Light play ( pursue , even) pseudo-romantic games with L if he does not like him? Boredom, maybe. Clever minds need near-constant stimulation, especially when cut off from their usual avenues of release, like writing in murderous notebooks. There’s also sexuality to consider: experimentation with Kou would threaten their friendship, taint the perfection of Light’s unrequited love, but L is a safe target. He’s dirty and depraved and used up, all things that Light might sense in spite of L’s best efforts to hide them.

Or perhaps Light simply wants to kill him. Snuggle in close enough to slip through the cracks and steal L’s full name, seal the deed with smudged kisses and ink.

L rolls back on his heels and stands up. Light is a killer. Light is also a frightened boy who wants to do right. Cleanse the world of evil -- only a child would shoulder that task, believe it even possible. No matter how he turns the two fragments together, L can’t quite get them to join. He hoists Light’s backpack off the desk and a paper bag tumbles from the opening, landing with a distinctly heavy sound. He immediately squeezes it, something round and firm inside, and peels the paper apart.

Two cellophane-wrapped caramel apples, one with sprinkles, one without. He takes the sprinkled one out and holds it up to the light, assessing its weight and shimmer. The sound of the shower cuts off abruptly, but L makes no move to return the apple to its hiding place.

“What are you doing?” Light asks, coming out of the bathroom with a huge towel swathed around his hips, a smaller one covering his head. “Going through my things?”

“I could smell the caramel.” L sinks onto the bed, twirling the apple between his fingers. “You bought this?”

“For you,” Light says stiffly, reaching up to massage the towel into his hair. “But then I wasn’t sure if you’d want it.”

“It’s an apple covered in caramel and sprinkles. What’s not to want?”

Light’s voice comes muffled from beneath the towel. “At first I thought you’d read too much into it, and then I thought you’d read too little.” The towel drops to his shoulders and he flicks damp hair out of his eyes. “I just saw them and knew that you’d want one. That’s all.”

“Thank you.”

“I didn’t even give it to you yet,” Light growls, padding close enough for L to see the sheen of water on his lean but well-formed chest. “You stole it like a greedy pig.”

L smiles, half-amused, half...something else. He’s grown used to Light’s brattiness, but this has the bite of true aggression, confirmed when Light snatches the apple from his hand so fast that his fingers burn. Then Light’s eyelashes flutter, as if startled by his own actions, and his glare softens.

“I don’t know if I like you, Ryuzaki,” he says into the apple. “I don’t not like you. I just --” his eyes fall away from the candied fruit, finally meeting L’s. “Does it really matter?” The uncertainty L hears in Light’s voice is everything he would expect from a bored, sexually curious teenager -- killer or otherwise.

“No,” L says. It doesn’t matter. Must Light ‘like’ L to be lured away from Kira? It would certainly help, but it doesn’t have to happen just now. L has to believe there is time, because time is what he desperately needs.

Light comes up to the bed and sets the apple on the bedside table, then climbs over L in one neat, lithe movement, straddling L’s hips with the towel still circling his waist, bunching up high at the thighs. Faint droplets of water shake down on L’s face, and he can feel the warm moisture from Light’s skin seep into his trousers.

“This is unexpected,” L says, noticing that Light’s eye are shut tightly, as if he can’t quite bear to watch what he’s doing, or see L sprawled out beneath him.

“You saw me in the shower, didn’t you?”

“Just now?” L crosses his arms behind his neck, as if they’re having an ordinary conversation and he isn’t eye to eye with Light’s bare navel and the faint trail of hair that leads down from it, disappearing beneath the towel.

“No! At the hotel, on the surveillance cameras.” Light has opened his eyes but just barely, as if squinting against the weight of his own shame.

“Oh, that. Yes, I did.”

“Did you like it?” Light turns his head and holds his breath, waiting for an answer."

“In a way, I suppose?” L says, the words curling into a question because really, he doesn’t know what this is turning into. What was a leeringly playful and almost innocent courtship, of sorts, has suddenly launched into something decidedly seedy. It’s a transition he wouldn’t usually object to, but this is Light, who was almost murdered; Light, who looks anxious while he sleeps, who reads Harry Potter to his sister and sometimes seems as innocent as Mello -- who, it turns out, isn’t so innocent, after all. “I imagine that you’re well aware of your own physical appeal, Light. I didn’t do anything while watching the footage, if that’s what concerns you.”

“Why not?” Light tucks his thumbs into the towel, tugging the damp fabric a little lower. “Didn’t you want to?” A strained laugh huffs from between his lips.

L tugs hard at the back of his own hair, but it does nothing to stop the rush of blood to his groin. Light feels him swell and shifts slightly, enough to apply significant pressure, his knees digging into the side of L’s ribs. “See? You want me.” He laughs again and looms over L’s face, eyes glimmering like he’s just won a prize.

It’s so clueless and silly. Sex isn’t a prize. Sex is cheap and easy. The fact that Light thinks he’s wrested loose something valuable is evidence of his profound inexperience.

Strangely, it makes L find him all the more endearing.

“I’ll do it for you now.” Light reaches to open the towel. “You’ll like that, won’t you?”

“Don’t, Light.” L catches him by the wrist. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”

“I do, too. You saw .”

“Yes, I’m well aware that you know how to wank off.” L squeezes his wrist harder to show that he’s serious. “I mean you don’t know what door you’re trying to kick down, or what’s waiting behind it, and that’s why I have to stop you.”

“Why?” Light is pouting and beautiful and petulant, squeezing himself through the towel with the one hand L isn’t gripping, and it’s hard for L not to groan because wouldn’t he like to watch Light stroke his cock from a mere foot away? Yes, he definitely would.

“Because I’m older than you. Because your parents have entrusted me with your well-being.” Neither of these are things that L would necessarily concern himself with, normally, but he has a challenge to win, and must maintain the moral high ground even if it only gives him an extra inch or two.

“You’re a coward.”

“Certainly, if that’s what it takes. I’m a coward.” Even though Light is the one who looks scared, the pupils of his brown eyes blown wide, all the confirmation L needs to know that he’s in the right. He shifts and worms out from beneath Light, squeezing his palm to soften the blow. “Just ask for a kiss, next time. I think I can manage that much.”

“I don’t want to fucking kiss you,” Light retorts, ruthlessly straightening his towel.

“Believe it or not, this is respect, not rejection,” L murmurs softly, loosening his tie, the end of which is a little sodden and crumpled. Courtliness doesn’t suit him, and he knows it.

“Fuck you."

Light is cross-legged on the bed, his face dipped toward his knees, hair damp and sticking to his cheeks. L bends over and presses a kiss to the crown of Light’s head, squeezing his shoulder until Light flinches. Still, he doesn’t pull away, so there’s that.

“Not yet,” L says, then stands up and pulls out his phone, which has been vibrating in the pocket of his trousers. A welcome interruption, in this case. It’s a text message from Mello -- only Quillsh, the successors, and Maki have L’s number.

‘Stop what you’re doing,’ it reads. ‘Can you come to our room for a few minutes?’

L glances at Light, who’s still sitting in a wet, dejected heap, but has otherwise resumed towel-drying his hair.

‘Yes, if you send Matt to watch Light,’ L texts back.

Scarcely two minutes pass before Matt arrives as requested, wearing over-sized pajama bottoms and Mello’s too-tight band tee-shirt for the Damned.

“Hullo,” he says, eyes snapping from Light’s toweled figure to L’s water-spotted clothing. “Mello’s looking for you, mate.”

“Understood.” L gives Matt a quick, grateful smile, then slips out of the room.

Light probably doesn’t want to see his face right now, anyway.

***

How dare he How dare he How dare he

Light scrubs at his hair until concern that he might actually scrub some of it off finally stills his frantic hands. He ought to have wrapped the towel around L’s next instead, pulling both ends tight.

“Alright then?” Matt is sitting at the desk chair, twiddling an unlit cigarette between his fingers.

“Fine,” Light grunts, wishing he could be alone. L can’t even give him privacy, he shouldn’t be surprised that the bastard withholds everything else, as well. Light has offered L as many opportunities as he can bear; he’s goaded and taunted and it’s left him with nothing, only a sense of humiliation so crushing that he can barely think straight.

No. This isn’t over. There’s a way to turn this around, has to be. There always is.  

L has been stubborn, yes, but not cruel. If anything, he’s been more kind and tender than Light thought him capable of. He can still feel the burn of that kiss against the top of his head, tingling like a phantom.

‘This is respect, not rejection …’

Light had taken it for an elegant, slithering lie, but what if it wasn’t? L is low and grubby, with his sticky fingers and his coarse voice; Light is clean, shining with virtue.

‘I am a man of heart and conscience…’

L had delivered those words like a declaration, like a promise. L doesn’t want to drag Light down to his level, because L’s a dirty demon-fucker and Light’s a god and of course this is how it should be. This is good, this is okay. Light will make sure it’s okay.

Light has had the power to lift L up, all along, and that’s what L wants , to be dragged out of the muck, to finally be granted permission to bask in Light.

***

“L,” Mello says, so serious that he forgets to use the Ryuzaki alias. Though they checked in only a few hours ago, he and Matt’s room is already strewn with clothes, computer accessories, and snack wrappers, the row of empty chocolate milk containers on the desk a sure sign that Mello’s been on some kind of tear.

Moving one of Matt’s cigarette-stinking jumpers aside, L perches on the end of the bed and regards his protégé with a tilt of his head. “I apologize for this unpleasant task. I don’t relish the idea of you listening in on these moments, but I’m quite beyond embarrassment, if that’s what concerns you.”

“What? No.” Mello’s hair ruffles with the force of his shaking head. “The pattern you told me to look for, I think I finally see it.”

L’s thumb skates against his lower lip. “Continue.”

“I think Yagami wants you to do more than just fancy him. When I study the recordings you’ve made here, then look at all your interactions back in Tokyo -- he walked into that hotel ready to get under your skin, and he hasn’t stopped trying ever since.”

L feels as if he’s just dunked his feet into the iciest part of a deep river, an unpleasant knowledge lapping at his ankles.

“Continue.”

“There’s a pattern to your interactions together. He does something childish to provoke you, and it works. You get hacked off, frustrated, and he immediately withdraws and seems contrite. He closes himself off, you probe for him to open up and he spills out a story, usually something sad from his own past. He unburdens himself.” Mello lifts his eyes, cool blue. “Sometimes, you unburden yourself, too.”

The icy water is up to L’s knees now, rising higher with each utterance. He starts to smile, hard and broken.

Mello picks up a box of chocolate milk and shakes it, frowning to discover it empty. “He’s tried to pull you away from Maki. I think he’ll try to pull you away from me, too. He’s not as concerned with Matt or Matsuda.” He shakes the chocolate milk again, teeth clenched. “You’ll say I’m being dramatic, but I don’t care. He wants to control every inch of you.”

The cold enveloping L’s chest is so intense he goes numb to it, his pulse dropping to below 65 beats per minute. In his head he hears disjointed fragments, clicking together at last. A spell, undone .

“You’re not being dramatic, Mello. Thank you. You’ve just helped me immensely."

“Have I?” Mello doesn’t look as pleased as he normally would. He shifts in his chair, pushes his bottom lip out. “Who is he, anyway? Is he Kira? Who is he, L?”

L can’t answer. He’s still smiling, but it tastes like cracked glass.

There is no sweetness that will wash this away, there is nothing that will bring back the precious delusion that’s just been whisked from his hands. It would have been better to never touch it at all, to have never longed in the first place. Someday, he’ll learn to take his own advice. Until then...

Here we are again, my murderer.

Chapter Text

Rerum Cognoscere Causas

The rooftop of the Book Cadillac hotel provides an unfettered view of the Book Tower, a skyscraper built in a dramatic Italian Renaissance style and resembling a tall, teetering cake with a green copper crown. Like many of the older buildings in downtown Detroit, it’s stood abandoned for these last years, only a single light shining in its top-most stairwell, piercing the dark sky not with hope but something closer to clinging desperation.

It’s a bittersweet sight for Michelina. In time, nearly everything decays and flickers away. Humans often want too much, too soon, but she can’t help but admire the sheer scope of their imaginations. Sometimes, she wonders if their truest desire is to live in the realm of imagination itself. What a thing of solace it must be, to believe yourself capable of imagining paradise into being.

“You shouldn’t blame yourself,” she says, sensing the turmoil of L Lawliet’s thoughts.

“You’re right.” His hands are stuffed into his pockets, hair and tie ruffled by the brisk wind. “But I may as well concede that I’ve been out-played.”

“Is that what you think?” She asks, though she already knows the answer. Still, it’s her job to walk him through this. That’s why she’s been called in the first place.

“He was on the offense from the start. He didn’t wait to see who he was dealing with, he just dealt .

Her heels grate against the roof’s asphalt as she steps closer to L’s side. “You’ve just pointed out a potential error. He didn’t wait to see who he was dealing with, and that just may give you the advantage.”

L looks at her with heavy-lidded eyes, more sleep-deprived than usual. “You mean to say that he doesn’t yet realize that I’m the same L he killed in another life? Or that we’re both champions in this contest?”

“I’m not allowed to say either way, but you’re the detective here -- would his behavior suggest ignorance?”

“Perhaps.” L crouches down and idly shuffles his fingers through his hair. “I never quite tried to become a god, but we’re both the type to assume ourselves the center of all things.”

“A trait you share with a good number of other humans,” Michelina says lightly.

L traces random patterns against the asphalt, studying them as if trying to draw meaningful constellations from a riot of stars.

“At some point he must have sensed L the Second’s impulse to save others, probably when I shared our -- my -- guilt over mother’s murder. Since then he’s tried to seduce me into seducing him, saving him.” He looks up at her with questioning eyes. “He has another aspect of his soul in there too, doesn’t he? A ‘Light the Second.’”

Michelina nods steadily. “And what are your thoughts on ‘Light the Second?’”

“For what I know of him I feel pity.” He drapes his forearm over his knees, pressing his chin into his sleeve. “He gave me hope that I might be able to to reach a more flawed, human version of Light. But Kira has turned that Light into a tool. He’s deliberately flaunted what he sees as Light the Second’s weaknesses, casting himself as a victim whenever possible.”

She waits a moment, knowing he won’t like what she says next. “And isn’t the Light Yagami you knew a victim, too?”

Sure enough, his eyes are sharp and wary, demanding further explanation.

“He didn’t ask for the Death Note to come to him,” she clarifies.

“The Death Note didn’t force him to write in its pages, did it?”

“Lawliet.” The name comes out gentle but chiding. “Imagine that the book had landed in your grasp, first. What would you have done? Would you be able to resist its call so easily?”

To his credit, he gives the question serious contemplation. She sees the vague shape of his thoughts, his memories skipping back to his first lifespan, when he encountered the first case to ever truly stump him. Kira . To not find Kira would have driven L mad. He put his own life on the line and gambled with the lives of others; he held other humans against their will, turning to torture for answers.

Finally, he has a reply: “If I had somehow been given the Death Note instead ofLight, I would have tested it to see if it worked, and then I would have tested it again, to see how.”

She presses her lips together, neither a frown nor a smile. “It won’t surprise you to learn that Light Yagami did much the same thing.”

“But he didn’t stop there.”

“No.”

“As for me, I don’t believe I would have used it to kill criminals already behind bars, or to erase crime from the world as a whole.” He spreads out his fingers and stares at them, imagining himself holding a pen. “But even then...I suppose there’s no way to know. I would have sacrificed anyone to find Kira, to understand how he killed. Would I do it all over again, now? I don’t know.” He lets out a gruff, pained laugh. “This challenge comes with a terrible catch, you know. For either of us to convince the other, we’d lose a potential ally in the process. Win with one hand, lose with the other.”

Michelina imbues her voice with just a trace of the authority that all arch-beings possess. “These are the choices that humans have faced since their earliest beginnings. Protect what belongs to you, or protect what belongs to everyone.”

Realization ripples over his features. “Is that what truly motivates Kira? Protecting what he believes belongs to everyone -- justice? Righteousness? Possibly even compassion?”

“You already know the answer to that.”

He nods once. “There’s a fine line between protection and imprisonment. Too much and you end up with social blackmail, with free will held hostage. Or progress , as you call it.” The words are laced with a skepticism that he doesn’t bother hiding. He no longer has unquestionable trust in her authority, and for that she can’t really blame him.

That’s the trouble with you, Mick. You always think your perspective is the right perspective -- the only perspective.

Bull-headed. That’s what Lucas always called her.

Pushing those unwelcome thoughts out of her mind, she kneels next to L. “And what will you do, Lawliet? Will you protect what belongs to you? Or will you protect what belongs to everyone?”

He gives her the tiniest of smiles. “I’ve never been one for false dilemmas. So, I could always do both.”

“I’d like to see you try. More than that, I’d like to see you succeed,” she says, and she means it.

He leans over and lets out a dry, flat laugh. “I feel like Woodsman, you know. The one from the fairy tale. Do I just kill the wolf, or do I cut it’s contented hostage out?” He coughs into a cupped hand.  

“Mm.” She gazes skyward. “I know the feeling.”

“Is that so?” It’s more an observation than a question, and she feels the weight of his dark eyes, more alert now. “What do you get out of this challenge, Michelina? I didn’t notice it the first time we met, but now I sense it more clearly -- there’s something personal at stake for you.”

“Ah, yes.” She releases a little sigh, though she’s known all along he was bound to catch on. Planned on it, even. “The challenge wasn’t my idea, but when it was proposed to me, I accepted immediately.” The look she gives him is level, unafraid. “I needed a detective, and I got one.”

His eyebrows crawl up his forehead. “To solve what case?”

“You’ll know it when you see it.”

“You’re using me.” He sounds more intrigued than offended.

“And Light Yagami, albeit indirectly.”

“Using Light Yagami through me, you mean.” And now there’s a trace of bitterness. “You have too much confidence that I can bend him to my will.”

“Bend?” She gives him a smile that he can’t bring himself to look at. “Coercion is a reckless path to change. Light Yagami clings to his ideals, yes, but he’s also reshaped them when he’s had to. He was an upstanding, model citizen until he became a murderer. To cope with the self-inflicted violation of his previously held ideals, he transformed himself into a would-be god who judged criminals. He’s a master at rationalizing all of his wrongs into rights.”

L runs a finger between his lips, turning her words over in his mind. “And now he’s decided that he’s a force of nature. A force of nature doesn’t need followers, it doesn’t need to explain itself to anyone -- except me, I suppose. Circumstances being what they are.”

“Is that your plan? To find a way to make him explain himself?”

“No.” He stands up and takes a step back. “That sounds too much like rhetoric, like argument. Arguments don’t convince half so well as experiences do.” His head tilts down  in her direction. “You know, if you’re going to use me, Michelina, I’d like to request compensation.”

There’s something moody in both his voice and posture that accentuates how these two L’s have come together. His words are far less disaffected than they might have been, once upon a time, and his slouched stance isn’t so much weary as wary, ready to dodge, to attack, if need be.

“I thought as much.” She stands up, brushing invisible dust off her skirt. “What would you like to know?”

“All the specifics of what Light Yagami did between the time of my death and his own.”

It’s a fair request, so she nods. Where to begin, though? Misa Amane? Hitoshi Demegawa? Kiyomi Takada? Teru Mikami?

She outstretches her hand to him, instead.

“Here. I’ll be easier if I just show you.”

To her it’s a touch that lasts half a second, but to him it no doubt feels much longer. The rise and fall of Light Yagami and Kira, the weight of which leaves L staggering. He clutches her hand hard, then lets go just as quickly, eyes wide and breath shuddering.

“Mihael,” he wheezes, bending over at the waist. “Mail, even Kiyomi Takada -- so many dead or exploited to preserve Kira’s standing. I’m not sure that Light wanted to protect justice and righteousness as much as he wanted to protect himself.”

There’s less anger in L’s words that she expects. One cannot save what one cannot love -- even now he clings to it, like a talisman, like a fairytale for dark nights.

“Are you sorry you asked?” She says, after giving him a moment to absorb what he’s just learned.

“No.” He straightens up and swallows. “This will help, I think.” He pats his chest erratically. “Good. For a moment I couldn’t remember if I took the bug off before I called on you.”

“It wouldn’t have recorded me, anyway.”

“No?” He looks her over. “I don’t know how I feel about that. It makes me wonder if you exist at all or if I’ve just gone mad.”

Without necessarily meaning to, she feels her form loosen and shift, the practical scientist fuzzing out, slowly replaced by something a little more ethereal, a little more from the pages of mythology. “Those who’ve glimpsed into the beyond often wonder if they’ve gone mad, Lawliet.”

His face stiffens into a mask of astonishment, eyes showing the barest hint of pain.

“Yes, they do.” His voice drops to nearly a whisper. “B could see you?”

She smiles. “Not me, specifically. But as you’ve known all along, he could see what no human ought to be able to.”

And it’s B in his mind, now, sketched in greys and reds, a series of faces that won’t stay still -- a shambling monster in one frame, a laughing child in the next, a mirror-image of L himself in the last.

“Like his knack for knowing when people were going to die. How did he come by that? I’m sure he never had a Death Note.” L drops his head, thumb pressed to his mouth. “He wasn’t some kind of Shinigami, was he?”

“Those are all good questions, Lawliet.” Her voice hardens, deliberately so. “I’d like to know the answers to them, myself.”

He looks up, agape. “That’s it? That’s what you need a detective for? But Beyond is dead.”

She bites her tongue, keeps the truth back.

“There are others like him in this world.”

“I see.” He returns his thumb to his mouth, trouble rushing into his mind like a fog. “If they see the world like B did, then in time they’ll likely commit some tremendous, bloody act that will be hard to miss.”

Still, he keeps stumbling through the fog, and though Michelina partly hates to leave him with more questions than he started with, he’s a detective. Finding answer to questions is what he does.

So before he can notice her slipping away, she’s gone.

***

L’s been gone long enough to make Light wonder what the hell he could be doing with Mello, and why it has to happen in private. Really, Light doesn’t understand what purpose Mello serves to the investigation at all; Matt, at least, is apparently a technological whiz, but Light has yet to discover what Mello’s skill-set is in this world, other than roping everyone into wasting time on movies and amusement parks.

It’s not like they need to have anyone kidnapped. And Mello hadn’t even been particularly good at that, either, considering how he’d ended up.

While Light turns his back to change into sweats and a tee-shirt, Matt helps himself to the remote and turns the television over to a basketball game, as if the two of them are just two friends hanging out. Light supposes that this masquerade is more tolerable than Matt lording over him like a jailer.

“You play anything, Yagami?” Matt asks, eyes never leaving the screen.

Light stops himself a split-second before saying ‘tennis’ -- Light 2 never took it up. “Aikido. No team sports, though. What about you?”

“Boxing. Could’ve trained in martial arts, but it was too complicated for my liking.” He slams his fist into his palm and grins. “I’d rather just hit something.”

Light manages a thin smile. “Boxing and hacking, then. What does Mello train in?”

“What doesn’t he train in, is more like it.” He tilts back in his chair, shaking his red hair out of his eyes. “Sussing out other people’s secrets, though -- you might say that’s his speciality.”

“Interrogation?”

“Well, sure, but it’s not so much that, really. It’s more that he has little difficulty seeing what other people believe they are safely hiding.” His smile goes wistful and sentimental. “He was the one who figured out L’s identity.”

“Really?” Light lifts his eyebrows in approval, fighting back the unease tumbling through his stomach. Matt might be overstating Mello’s skills because he’s got strong feelings for him, or this Mello might be as much of a threat as the one Light first knew. “You mean no one at your school realized who L was?”

“No. L’s more like a job or a role than an individual, right? We only knew that someone who used to attend Wammy’s had earned it.”

Light manages to stretch his smirk into a smile. I know that L is a role. I’ve played that role.

Before Light can try to coax more info out of Matt, the door to the room swings open and L shuffles in listlessly, a defeated air hanging about him. He studies the carpet for a moment, one hand stuffed into his pocket, then plucks the remote out of Matt’s hand turns the television off.

“You can head back to your room, Matt. Thank you.” The words are weak and whisper-thin.

“No problem.” He leaves in a hurry, perhaps sensing something foreboding in L’s behavior.

Light certainly senses it -- not anger but something uglier, filling the room like scent of a passing thunderstorm.

L kicks off his shoes and removes his tie, tossing the latter into the corner and not bothering to see where it lands. His hair is even messier than usual, hiding his eyes like a smudge of charcoal.

“I need to sleep,” he says, the words almost a slur as he peels back the blankets on the far side of the king-size bed and crawls in.

“You’re still fully dressed, Ryuzaki.”

“S’alright.” His voice comes out muffled from under the sheets. He looks more like someone hiding than someone trying to sleep.

Light kneels on the mattress next to him and tries to pull the blankets away, but L is holding fast. “What are you doing? You’re being odd.”

“I just want to rest.”

“What’s wrong?” Light tugs the blanket low enough to reveal L’s mop of hair, one single, squinting eye.

“Kira’s killed more people, Light, and I’m tired. I haven’t slept more than two or three hours since we left Japan.”

Light lets L pull the blankets away from his grasp. “Kira? Is that what you and Mello were talking about?”

“Among other things. But yes, three more dead, and I expect that P will report fresh kills from the Angel, come morning.”

Propping himself up on a pillow, Light regards L’s dark mood, wonders what to do with it. The L he knew had never seemed particularly affected when Kira struck -- if anything, it only seemed to embolden him to take riskier moves, to up the stakes.

“I keep coming back to this weapon they both have, this power that allows them to kill others on a whim,” L says, apparently not quite ready for sleep even though his words hold the haziness of approaching dreams. “But it goes beyond the realm of my experience, of which I have a lot.”

“I know.” Light’s hand hesitates, nearly settles on the spot where he thinks L’s shoulder is. “But we’re right on the Angel’s trail. When we find him, we’ll find all those answers that are out of reach.”

It’s a lie -- Light won’t let L learn what a Death Note is this time, not if he can prevent it. But it’s a lie that L needs if he’s going to trust in Light.

“Mm,” L gives a vague murmur. “That’s very optimistic of you. We will find the Angel, yes, but what will we find when we find him?”

“Is that a riddle?”

“No.” L pushes the blankets down to his chest, though he looks more at the ceiling than he does at Light. “It’s possible that both the Angel and Kira are not ordinary humans, and we need to prepare for that.”

Light isn’t sure if he’ll like L’s answer -- the look in his eyes is too hollow, too close to hopelessness -- but he asks, anyway: “Not ordinary how?”

A swallow travels down L’s throat. “Have you ever met someone extraordinary? Someone who was unfathomable to you?”

“No.” He hasn’t. He won’t. Even so, Light thinks he knows where this is going. “Is this about your old boyfriend? The one you called a ‘demon’?”

L’s chuckle is dry. “‘Boyfriend’ is not what I would call him, but ‘demon’ isn’t right, either.” He rolls over onto his side, toward Light, face half-pushed into the pillow. It’s enough of an invitation for Light to drape an arm over L’s back. Even through the thick blanket he feels skinny. “I knew him first as B, and he joined us when I was eleven,” L continues, speaking mostly into the space between his pillow and Light’s neck. “He had a different back story for every person he talked to. He told one girl that he grew up in a traveling circus and was the son of trapeze artists, which sounds preposterous, but he had enough acrobatic skill for it to seem possible. To me, he spun a tale about growing up in a log cabin deep in the forest with a grandfather who died when he was six, leaving him to trap and hunt his own food, chop his own firewood, and befriend the wolves and coyotes.”

“Like a fairy story,” Light observes. No wonder L was fooled. “So he just was an extraordinary liar, then?”

“One would think, but he didn’t really comprehend the lie in these personas. To B, the fantasy was rich enough to be real, maybe. At any rate, most decided he was a tremendous actor, one who never broke character.”

“And what did you decide?”

“That he wasn’t normal. I found him out in the garden one morning -- it was foggy, I remember -- and he was sitting in the middle of a clover patch, calm and waiting for me, it seemed.” L sucks in a breath, holds it a beat before continuing. “‘You’re not like us,’ I said to him, and an expression of utter hope broke over his features, as if he’d been waiting his whole life for someone to state the obvious, not that that he was ‘troubled,’ or ‘disturbed,’ or any of those words thrown around in a clinical setting, but that he was something fundamentally different from the rest of us.”

Light presses his hand more firmly into L’s back, closing the gap between them so that his chin is nearly resting on the top of L’s head. His frown is so deep that he can feel it aching across his face. Can this L really be so fragile, so easily fooled? Or was this B really some creature to contend with?

“But what was it about him that was so different?” he finally asks. “You’re taking forever to get to the point, Rue.”

“He had a third eye. That’s what he called it, anyway. He could see shadows and spirits, sometimes, and he could see when people were going to die.”

“He could see what?” Light echoes, his voice tinny.

“He could see when people were going to die,” L repeats. “And their real names, too -- even at an institution where no one used their real name. He was able to prove both skills to me many times over, but even so, I don’t know if I ever really, truly believed him. Largely because there was no way to explain these abilities…”

L keeps talking, but the words come through Light’s ears as if from underwater, distorted and drowned out by dump of adrenaline into Light’s bloodstream. Questions scramble in tight circles through his brain, pressing painfully against the back of his eyelids. Did this ‘B’ person have a Death Note? Does L already know about Shinigami eyes? Where is B now? And what did he do ?

Be careful , a little warning noise whispers. Be careful now.

If L finds evidence to prove that Light is Kira, then the challenge won’t even matter.

“None of these things sound remotely possible, Ryuzaki,” Light finally says, and even he can’t help but be impressed at how natural his own voice sounds.

“I know that. Believe me, I’m quite aware.” L’s fists press into Light’s chest a little, trapped between their bodies. “I told you that he was unfathomable, didn’t I?”

“If he was so unfathomable and fascinating, then where is he now? Maybe he could help out with the case.” Light shapes the suggestion as if he’s serious.

“He’s dead, and as such, of little use to us.”

“Oh.”

L sounds rather on neutral on the subject of B’s death, but Light isn’t fooled. B, whoever he was, is one of the many ghosts clinging to L like a poisonous fungus, along with his mother and the Woodsman and who knows what else. Still, far better for B to be dead than alive with Shinigami eyes.

“Sorry for your loss, if you consider it one,” Light says quickly, voice more gruff than he intended. “Do you?”

L shifts -- uneasily, it seems. “I do, though I know that I probably shouldn’t. He was bad for me, but I wasn’t exactly good for him, either. But his absence is a loss for the mystery he leaves behind, more than the absence itself.”

“I’m sorry, then,” Light repeats, though he isn’t. Not particularly. Everyone apologizes about dead loved ones, though; it’s the polite thing to do.

L sighs and tilts back far enough to look into Light’s face, and his eyes are less empty now, warmed by curiosity. “You know, I can’t say that I expected you to want to be this close to me after what happened earlier.”

Shame threatens to uncoil through all of Light’s limbs, heavy and toxic. That wasn’t really him that climbed half-naked on top of L and tried to provoke the other man into touching him, or watching Light touch himself. Light doesn’t resort to such tactics. Light deserves respect -- even L has come to see that.

“Forget about that,” he says to L’s dark-circled eyes.

L doesn’t blink. “Forgotten.”

Light smiles, feeling better even though L’s gaze is cast up at him in a searching way, his teeth gnawing on his lower lip thoughtfully.

“What?”

“Nothing. I was just thinking that you’re rather unfathomable, too. That’s probably part of why I can envision you as Kira.”

Light’s hand stiffens into a fist against L’s back. “You can actually envision me as a murderer? This again?”

L purses his lips and blows upward, his fringe of dark hair fanning up his forehead. “Not quite that. It’s more that I can envision you as something more than you are. The man who tried to murder you died at your feet. How many people can say that?”

“I was just lucky.” Light shuts his eyes as if in silent thanks.

L called me unfathomable.

This can maybe be the beginning, then, if Light wants it to be. If he’s careful -- so, so careful. L isn’t like the others. He doesn’t believe that he wants the guidance of god or an authority figure, he has no desire for the trappings of prayer and higher powers. He wants a mystery he cannot solve, and Light can give him that mystery, and then, when L is ready for answers, Light can give him those, too.

“I don’t know anyone with that kind of luck,” L says, smiling a little. “Maybe some of it will rub off on the rest of us.”

“I guess you could use it,” Light says slowly, because L’s smile never seems to completely fill his eyes, and he’s only just now noticed.

Light wonders what B looked like. Not just B, but L’s mother, too. She was probably beautiful. Dead mothers are never anything but beautiful. Dead boyfriends are probably never anything but beautiful, too.

“What’s that look about?” L pokes him in the middle of his chest, a ripple of mirth in his words. His skin is only a few shades darker than the white sheets, and probably as cool to the touch as it looks.

This is a contorted, fairy tale world, so people with dead mothers and dead boyfriends are probably doomed to be beautiful, too.

“Kiss me,” Light says in a breath, the words bleeding together.

L’s eyebrows quirk together, questions scribbled over his features. “What are --”

Light crushes his mouth to L’s, hand cupping one of his narrow shoulder blades and hauling him closer, the kiss turning deeper and fiercer as he does so. L’s mouth is surprisingly warm, tasting of whatever last sweet thing he ate, and Light kisses him as if chasing that sugared flavor down. He kisses L like he’s kissed Misa and Kou, except harder, every sweep of his tongue and pressure from his lips designed to render L dazed and breathless.

He doesn’t have to think about why he’s doing this. No one can make him think about that right now, not even L, with his questions and interruptions.

“Mm.” L makes a muffled noise that might be pleasure, his hands pressed flat against Light’s chest, and Light breaks away with a slight gasp.

L’s eyes are closed, his mouth slightly open. He licks his bottom lip and swallows, as if rolling Light’s taste around on his palate. “That was…” he swallows again. “Enthusiastic. Yes, I think that’s the word. Like being overwhelmed by a stunning orchestra.”

Light flinches. Frowns. “You’re actually composing an assessment?”

“No, though you did catch me off guard.” L slits his eyes open, cat-like. “That also felt like domination -- which I’m not opposed to, mind -- though there are more nuanced ways to evoke that sensation.”

“Stop with the fucking critique, Ryuzaki. I asked you to kiss me and you started to ask questions. That was just my way of stopping you.”

“I see.” L’s cool fingers brush Light’s hair away from his neck. “I suppose I’d best give in to your request, then.”

His grey eyes come closer, blurring out to black dots, and a lightning-pulse of instinct almost makes Light jerk away. He stiffens, instead, hand clutching the back of L’s shirt while L’s lips brush against the corner of his mouth in a light, feathering sensation.

It’s tender, almost. Careful. L can’t hurt him. Light relaxes, his hand loosening from the back of L’s shirt, and at last he closes his eyes, taking measure of every movement and sensation.

He’s always been the one to do the kissing -- always -- and if his own kissing is like an orchestra, then L’s is like a faint tinkle of piano keys, lips passing almost lazily over every curve of Light’s mouth while his fingers play with the ends of Light’s hair. When L’s tongue runs along the edge of Light’s bottom lip, the chords intensify and expand, warming his lower body and drawing every muscle taut. L’s thigh slides between his legs at the same moment their tongues meet, their hip bones knocking together, and after a few minutes Light can’t tell if the groaning and panting is coming from him, from L, or a little of both. It hardly matters because it feels like L’s mouth and tongue are everywhere, pouring into Light, teeth catching on his ear, his lips, and L’s presence is all at once the only thing Light can comprehend, or wants to.

You killed him. This is the man you killed.

Light let’s out a strangled noise -- a yelp, practically -- and breaks away, weakly struggling to untangle himself from L.

“Are you alright?” L’s eyes are glassy, his cheeks nearly flushed to a healthy hue. “I’ll stop. That was too much, sorry --”

A roil of nausea lurches through Light’s stomach, and he gasps against the back of his hand, squeezing his eyes shut against the thick, choking sensation lodged in his throat.

The man you

“Light?”

“I’m okay,” he says, though he’s shaking and L knows that he surely isn’t ok. He forces something like a smile, anyway. “That was intense.”

“Yes, well.” L touches his hand, uncertain. “It’s probably -- yes, enough.”

Enough. Too much. Light turns inward to batten down the uncertainty that’s suddenly swarming out of deep, hidden part of his psyche. Too many bold moves at once, that’s all. He has to be careful.

He thinks he can still taste L in his mouth, like something tangy and too sweet, and L himself is still too dirty and too broken, he’ll drown Light with all of his

(You killed him)

poisons. L had warned Light, even. Lucas had warned Light, too, told him he’d face obstacles and temptations. But Light doesn’t give into temptations, and obstacles are just problems waiting to be turned to his advantage.

He turns to look hard at L -- proof of his own convictions -- but the other man’s eyes are are already drifting shut, his fingers slack around Light’s wrist, sleep’s arrival close enough to weigh down his breath.

***

It’s so easy to romanticize the things that can kill us.

L considers that there are very few aching, lonesome songs about cancer or heart disease, but hundreds upon hundreds about empty bottles of whiskey, and hundreds more about ice, the white horse, the needle in the hay. Even in nature, some of the most deadly things are also the most lovely, whether it’s the speckled blue skin of a poisonous dart frog, the delicate, near-translucent tentacles of a box jellyfish, or the heavy, trembling heads of oleander blossoms.

It’s so easy to forget that death isn’t pretty, even when it comes in the guise of a teenage boy with bottomless brown eyes and amber-smooth skin.

At Maycrest Manor, delusions about the beauty of death come to die. The nursing home smells like disinfectant and deodorizer, one layered on top of the other; it might disguise the creeping smell of decay, but it doesn’t fully drive it out. The residents themselves, too, look as if they’d be more at home in the grave than a hospital bed. Some are bloated and bluish, already part corpse, others wasted away to near skeletons.

For a moment, L grasps the true motive behind the Angel’s mercy. It lasts until he sees a man in a wheelchair playing a hand-held video game similar to the one the one Matt and Mello favor, his thumbs mashing the buttons with as much enthusiasm as someone sixty years his junior.

Maybe there’s always something to live for. For a little while.

“This place is depressing,” Death murmurs in L’s ear.

L gives Light no reply. They’ve already shown Cody’s picture to most of the workers on staff, many of whom remember glimpsing Cody, but no more. Sam DeMatteo, the man who claimed to have been visited by the Angel of Mercy, died in his sleep nearly a week ago. Heart failure.

“Their records are much worse than any of the hospitals,” Maki says, shuffling through some papers. “No idea what days Cody was here, or for how long.”

“Mm,” L murmurs distractedly. They’ve circled most of the building, and someone’s been following them the whole way. Every time L turns his head to get a good look at her, she has her face buried in a clipboard, pretending to be busy.

When they’ve come around to the reception area, L pivots around fast enough to catch her off-guard, her paperwork forgotten at her side.

“We’re about the leave now,” he says, and her brown eyes widen. She’s thirty-ish and built sturdy, wearing the cheerfully-patterned scrubs of a nurse or CNA. “So if you have something to share, now’s the time.”

“Hello,” Maki smoothly intervenes. “I don’t believe we had a chance to speak with you. I’m Shoko Maki, an investigator working with the FBI.”

“I’m Janet,” the woman says. “Janet Faber. I’m a CNA.” She looks anxiously over her shoulder, then at the reception desk.

“Would you like to step outside with us?” Light asks, and Janet nods, visibly relieved.

They end up under a budding maple tree next to the parking lot, Janet lighting a cigarette between long fingers.

“I thought about talking to the cops when they came around last week, asking about Mr. DeMatteo,” she admits, exhaling a jerky stream of smoke. “But before I could make up my mind they were gone.”

“You wanted to talk to them about Cody Jackson?” Maki asks.

“Yeah. And I’m pretty sure she was born male, by the way, but she was dressed like a girl so that’s how I keep thinking of her, though I never asked about pronouns.” She directs the words to Maki, who she appears to be most comfortable with. “We don’t get a lot of volunteers here, but we sure do need them. Cody only showed up a few times, but I showed her the ropes.”

“The Angel of Mercy case was already in the news, by then,” Maki points out. “Did you suspect Cody at all?”

Janet shakes her head. “That was just something hospitals had to worry about, as far as we knew. I noticed Cody because she seemed like she was in a bad place.” She gives a nervous smile, running a hand through her short crop of hair. “I grew up in the foster system, and it was rough. You get a sense for others in the same boat. There was an air of neglect about Cody, so I tried to be friendly. She was standoffish at first, but there were a few times she opened up.”

“Did she share anything of significance?”

“She mentioned being a caretaker for her diabetic mother, once. She seemed a little malnourished, too. Always hungry. I was worried about her. The last day she was here I gave her twenty bucks, but it seemed like such a pointless gesture.” Janet chews on her lip and flicks ash of her cigarette. “I know it was an invasive thing to do, but since our shifts ended at the same time, I followed her home.”

L perks up immediately, and feels Light, beside him, do the same.

“Cody Jackson has a residence here?” L asks before Maki can.

“It was an RV, actually. Parked way over on the other side of the cemetery, on Longworth Street. But it hasn’t been there since, I checked.”

“Do you remember the make or model?”

“Yeah.” Janet fishes through the pockets of her scrubs, accidentally dropping her pack of cigarettes along with a small notebook. She picks both back up and tears out several sheets of paper. “Later, when it seemed important, I wrote down what I remembered seeing. There was just something weird, I guess, about a teenager disappearing into a random RV after claiming to live with her ill mother.” She coughs once, then mutters, as an afterthought: “I keep notes on a lot of people.”

L bites down on his thumb. Whether she knows it or not, Janet has the natural instincts of a detective. He suspects she’d be more suited to cop than nurse’s aid.

“Sorry there’s no license number,” Janet says, handing over the tiny sheets. “I did notice that the plates were from Ohio, though.”

“Ford Tioga, older model, cream and blue paint job,” Maki reads aloud. “What’s this part here about ‘C. Falls’?”

“Cuyahoga Falls. Cody always put on a hoodie when she changed out of her smock, but one time, before she pulled on the hoodie, I saw her wearing a tee-shirt with ‘Cuyahoga Falls’ printed on the back.”

“Cuyahoga -- isn’t that the river that became so famously polluted that it caught fire in the 1960s?” Maki asks, wrinkling her nose.

“Yes,” L says. “It’s also a town southeast of Cleveland.”

“It might have been a novelty shirt,” Janet says, shrugging. “But given the Ohio plates, maybe not?”

“Thank you, Janet. You’ve been very helpful,” Maki says. “Is there anything else you think we should know?”

Janet stubs her cigarette out on the bottom of her shoe, tossing the butt into a trash can. “Not right now.” She squirts at Maki in the bright sunlight. “Is Cody really the Angel?”

“I’m afraid we can’t reveal any details of the investigation.”

Janet takes a deep breath, but gives a stiff nod of her head. “It’s just a shame, that’s all. She didn’t seem like a bad person at all.”

No , L thinks, glimpsing Light’s blurred profile from the corner of his eye. Bad people rarely do.

But L is a far cry from good as gold, too, which is why he smiles and asks Light to sit up in the front seat of the van while L drives them to the FBI field office. It’s such a little thing, being singled out from the others, but from the way Light grins (‘I knew you would choose me,’ it says), it’s clear the little things mean a lot.

When Light died, he was accustomed to having followers, to being worshipped. He had multiple disciples working in his name, none of whom ever rose up to challenge their god, even though they easily could have. Both Misa and Mikami had the freedom to write Light’s name in their notebooks at any time, and L finds it astonishing that Light never once worried that such a betrayal would come to pass.

What’s even more astonishing is that such a betrayal never did come to pass.

Light must have been remarkably adept at attracting or identifying followers who would never long for a position higher than proxy, or, in the case of Misa, wife. Mikami and Takada were two top-quality specimens who mirrored both the high expectations of Japanese society, as well as Light’s own ideals about crime and justice. They were in a position to betray Light, but their own ideals and background wouldn’t allow it, just as Misa’s own fantasies of belonging to Light wouldn’t allow for betrayal within her.

Except for the Shinigami who killed him, Light has never really known betrayal at all.

That’s what L is counting on, anyway.

L and Light go to see Raye Penber alone, together, and none of the others comment because L has already told them, through email, to expect a new leadership formation. The L’s first, the M’s. second. Matt and Mello will know the purpose behind his actions, and Maki is clever enough to guess. Matsuda won’t question it, either.

“What are you thinking about?” L asks Light in the elevator of the field office building. It’s one of his many default questions to prevent others from noticing when he himself has fallen into a pattern of deep, distracting thoughts.

“You didn’t bring in Maki,” Light points out.

L shrugs. “Being around P makes her nervous. May as well avoid that.” Which is bullshit; L knows that Maki can deal with Penber just fine, but the hint of a smile that touches Light’s lips is his prize for the lie. Another person’s perceived weakness is Light’s strength, and these little things mean a lot.

Out of the elevator and L allows Light to move a step-and-a-half ahead of him, and the strong angle of his shoulders, the tidy clip of his walk -- L can’t help but admire both, even while recognizing that they are probably traits of the Light who killed him.

The neck is a particularly vulnerable part of the human body. There isn’t much protection there, and it houses the windpipe and several main arteries. Light Yagami’s neck is just as elegantly built as the rest of him, but L can’t look at the back of it without being intensely aware of all the different ways he could inflict damage there. It’s not that he plans to hurt Light; it isn’t even that he wants to. But when L is face to face with someone he knows is capable of killing him, it’s his job to know how to kill them first, in as many ways available to him.

Light might have risen up high in the NPA, but L’s still pretty certain that he only knows how to kill with a pen.

B would laugh at how easily L can smile at Light while thinking of death. Laugh at how easily he pushes open the door to Penber’s office for Light, letting him take the seat nearest the agent’s desk. B would laugh and A would shake her head and touch the St. Brigid’s cross at her neck.

L spares a moment to miss A, to wish that he had time to track her down and talk to her. If anyone might have some insight into the mystery of B’s abilities, it would be her, the person who had been most disturbed by them.

While L sits in his chair rather uselessly, aching for his oldest friend, Light updates Penber on their findings from Mayfair Manor, and the agent responds by looking truly hopeful for the first time since they’ve met.

“Cuyahoga Falls? Not a place we’ve investigated yet, but at this point any lead’s a good one.” He picks up his phone and orders the person on the other end to compile a list of all Ford Tioga’s registered in the state of Ohio.

“Meanwhile,” he continues, once he’s hung up. “A new development on the Angel.” He tilts his computer monitor toward them. “Posts are popping up on different social forums. Kids and teens are ratting out their abusive parents, teachers, and other adults, pleading with the Angel to dish out heart attacks.”

“Can you get these shut down?” Light asks, squinting at the screen.

“Not at this stage. Protocol.”

“Well.” Light crosses his legs and tilts thoughtfully in his chair. “We can speak to L about the matter. He’s good at finding solutions to these things.”

L supposes that Light’s words are intended as a sort of subtle compliment, but Light’s eating it up for himself, too. He was L once, after all, and the ‘solution’ he speaks of is very likely the same one L would choose -- hack into any website with heavy pro-Angel traffic, either to disable or monitor.

“Very good,” Penber says, looking approvingly at Light. “What about Cuyahoga Falls? I can put a call into their Chief, grab my partner, and meet up with you down there at --” he looks at his watch “-- two p.m.? It’s a three hour drive on the tollway.”

L and Light briefly meet eyes.

“Sounds good,” Light says, giving Penber a brisk, take-charge nod.

Light’s body language indicates that he’s buzzing with energy when they step out of Penber’s office, and no wonder. If the Cuyahoga Falls lead holds, Kira might have the Angel’s full name by the end of the day.

“Hey,” Light jerks his head toward the fire exit. “Let’s take the stairs.”

L has an idea what this is about, but he doesn’t comment, only follows Light through the swinging door and down into the iron-and-concrete stairwell. They’re three stories up from the ground floor when Light grabs L by the shoulders and scuffles their bodies into a corner of the landing.

“No one’s here,” Light says, eyes darker than usual as he stares at L’s lips, and L wonders if he knows how much he sounds like a predator. Probably not. Light is so good at drawing a clear line between himself and the predators of the world, so good at keeping his hands clean. Just deny that dirt was ever there in the first place.

Light starts with a quick kiss to L’s lips, then pulls away to assess, as if conducting an experiment. He smiles at whatever thoughts fill his head, then lunges forward to kiss L again.

The contact is more nuanced than last night’s, though Light keeps his hands gripped on L’s upper arms, effectively trapping him against the wall. His lips are warm and searching, tongue making a slow navigation of L’s mouth, and it all feels good enough to make L whimper, though in part because he knows that it will serve as a caress for Light’s ego.

It’s a moment like this that makes L truly grateful for L the Second’s experiences in going undercover. He’d done it himself on occasion, but rarely in a way that required him to go deep and utterly forget himself. But he does what he can to forget himself now, repurposes himself as the tool Light wants him to be. Kissing him isn’t so bad, at least. L just pretends he’s kissing the Light he might have fallen for, the one who fucks up and makes mistakes and doesn’t deny it.

You’re hopeless, Lawliet. Now that your delusion is dead and out of reach you dress it up as the romance you never had.

Even so, just thinking about that Light makes L return the kiss in earnest, his weight struggling against Light’s hands which, of course, only respond by squeezing his arms harder. He doesn’t like it when L takes control; last night, it even seemed to make him afraid. Afraid of being exposed as an ordinary human, L suspects -- someone capable of stupidly coming in his sweatpants from a little fully-clothed grinding.

L goes a little limp at the thought, turning his head away from Light’s mouth so that he can wheeze out a laugh.

“What’s so funny?” Light asks, releasing one of L’s arms so that he can stroke his fingers along the side of L’s jaw. Again with those silky moves of a predator.

“Nothing. Just thinking about how not less than fifteen hours ago you insisted that you didn’t want to ‘fucking kiss me,’ and now, here I am, being dragged into a dark staircase for just that -- to say nothing of last night.”

He’s risking Light’s temper, but that’s fine. L knows how to play this game. The occasional resistance will likely make Light all the more thrilled when L gives in, each inch regarded as a mile’s worth of victory

Light gives him a patient, indulgent smile. “I changed my mind.”

Of course he did. L supposes that Light has conjured a very rational and righteous justification for why Kira needs to kiss L, because that’s how Light works. And at some point Light is going to decide that it’s necessary and righteous for Kira to fuck L, and when that moment comes L will have to navigate that tangle just right, too.

Light thinks he’s winning L over, thinks he’s winning the challenge. L will let him continue to think that he’s winning. That he’s gaining the disciple he could never have before, not a blind, unquestioning follower but a true partner, of sorts -- an L that’s been tamed and trained to work by Light’s side. It’s an advantage, an opening, and one that L takes a gamble on because he knows first hand how well it works.

It worked on L the Second, anyway. Beyond, luring him in bit by bit, leading L to believe that he was the only one who could domesticate a wild wolf. Everyone wants to feel as if they’ve been chosen for something special -- people like L and Light, most of all.

Everyone wants to feel unfathomable .

L tugs at the end of Light’s tie with his free hand, flicks his eyes downward. “Why would you change your mind?” he asks, letting his expression say the rest. A mix of I don’t deserve you , and I’m fucked up, in case you haven’t noticed , along with a dash of suspicion, What’s the catch, here?

“Don’t worry about it,” Light reassures him. “It’s just kissing.”

Kira works in mysterious ways, after all. Kira is used to winning, and not even losing (losing badly, at that), has done much to shake his confidence.

Which is just as well, L thinks, allowing Light tip his head so far back that it clunks into the concrete wall hard, their mouths melting together messily one last time before they have to venture out into the blazing daylight and leave behind this dark stairwell that smells vaguely of sewer.

L already knows that he will have to let Kira win again -- know that when this is all over, L Lawliet will be a believer.  

Chapter Text

Hodie Mihi, Cras Tibi

Cody and Daniel are discussing what names to write down next when the network reality show that’s playing in the background cuts out, interrupted by a special broadcast.

He’s been in Chicago for over a week now, and even though Daniel’s been great, and his grandmother more than welcoming, Cody still doesn’t feel entirely at ease. Except for Tami and Ryuk, Cody isn’t really used to being around anyone, isn’t accustomed to having a friend. He misses the independence of being on the road in his Tioga, of being alone with his notebook and Ryuk’s rotten-sweet apple smell. He jumps a little every time Daniel opens his mouth with a new idea for how they can use the notebook to make the world better.

“Here’s a good one,” he says, looking up from his laptop, a handful of cheese popcorn in his hand. “One of the South Side gang leaders. He uses little kids as drug mules because if they get caught, they only get juvie.” Daniel smiles at Cody with his white teeth that make Cody feel so awkward about his dingy yellow ones.

Ryuk pokes his head down from the top bunk bed, his grin wide and ghoulish. “Maybe you guys should watch the TV.”

Cody leans forward in the beanbag chair while Daniel reaches for the remote, turning up the volume.

According to new reports from the FBI, they’ve found a possible suspect in the Angel of Mercy deaths that have swept across the Great Lakes area this Spring. The person in question is a caucasian male between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five, who may go by the alias ‘Cody Jackson,’ ‘Cody Brown,’ or ‘Cody Jenkins.’

A photograph flashes on the screen and Cody flinches -- more at the sight of Tami, though, than anything else. They’d taken the picture at a K-Mart photo studio so that Tami would have something to post on the blog where she wrote about all their trials and tribulations, then waited for the donations to roll in.

The suspect is thought to have volunteered at the hospitals where a number of Angel of Mercy deaths were reported, and, in an especially curious twist, is said to have convincingly passed himself off as a fifteen year old girl.

“Shit,” Daniel breathes, and even though Cody hasn’t uttered a word, he turns to him and lays a reassuring hand on Cody’s shoulder. “Look, don’t worry. That picture doesn’t even look like you.”

The suspect’s last known place of residence is in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, where he lived with his mother, a woman who called herself Tami Jenkins. According to residents of Cuyahoga Falls, Tami presented herself as the mother of a cancer-stricken daughter in order to collect both money and special favors.

Cody smiles a little at that. At least the world will know, now, what Tami was really like. Soon enough they’ll even start to understand what Cody is, and who made him that way.

The video switches over to one of the stupid old cows from Tami’s church, who looks as if she’s put on lipstick for the first time in her life now that she’s finally on camera.

“She seemed like a real sweet lady,” the cow enthuses. “Her daughter, too. Real sweet, maybe a little slow.”

“It’s okay, man. We’ll come up with a plan…and don’t worry about my grandma, she never watches the TV. Well, nothing but Spanish soap operas, anyway...”

Daniel is still talking, his thick eyebrows furrowed with worry, but Cody feels calm, almost relieved. He knew this day would come. He’s a bad person, and bad people are usually caught, sooner or later. He just thought it would be later.

“I wonder how they found out so much about me,” he wonders aloud. He figured that the FBI would look into the hospital volunteers, eventually, but he didn’t think they’d track him back to Cuyahoga Falls. He’d been careful not to use any identification that would connect him to that place.

“Maybe the FBI is working with L.”

“L?”

Daniel turns toward him, the blue light of the television highlighting the sharp angles of his face. “I read about him on this forum. He’s like a crime-solving mastermind, but his identity’s a complete secret. Supposedly there’s no case he can’t solve.” His face collapses slightly as he realizes his mistake. “I mean, there’s no way he can solve this one, though. Whoever heard of murder by heart attack?”

The TV switches over to a commercial for fabric softener. Daniel mutes it, and the silence that falls over them is too stark, like harsh sunlight.

“Even if he is helping the FBI, it doesn’t matter. If he comes for me, I’ll be able to see his name, and so will you,” Cody says finally, and Daniel nods resolutely.

Overhead, though, Ryuk lets out a small laugh that makes Cody’s heart stutter.

Forty-eight hours earlier

Light never focused on field work during his time with the NPA. He sat back under the banner of “L,” sending out footsoldiers and commandos like a general overseeing a vast battlefield, carefully combing through the intel and evidence that others brought back to him. He would have likely pursued field work more vigorously if he hadn’t had the second job of maintaining Kira’s influence. If the Death Note had never come to him at all, then the thrill of hands-on police work would have proven too tantalizing to pass up, would have been necessary, even, as the only immediate, direct way to engage with the fight for justice.

With the Death Note more or less out of his hands for the time being, Light distracts himself from its absence by taking pleasure in the slow burn of the investigation, clues rearranging themselves like cards in a deck. They drive South-East, away from Detroit, and L’s fingers rearrange themselves around the steering wheel of the van, loose and only half-attentive. His fingernails are too long, sharp enough to leave scratch-marks. He should do something about that.

“What?” L asks, catching Light’s lingering eyes.

“Nothing.” Light looks away, but not so quickly that L will miss the unsavory smile on his face. All thoughts inspired by L are unsavory and somehow unavoidable, like ducking through a dark tangle of forest that leaves one covered in spider webs and the dull odor of mushrooms, and yet the forest outside the van’s window is beginning to thin out, giving way to dirt roads and country houses. Then come the traffic lights, the intersections crowned by fast food restaurants and convenience stores.

The town of Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio could be home to a murderer like the Angel, not because there is anything particularly foreboding about the place, but because Light knows that murderers come from everywhere, and there is no place on this earth untainted by their presence. As a town it’s small but not tiny by U.S. standards. With fewer than fifty-thousand residents, it’s a hilly, wooded burgh located on the fringes of Cuyahoga Valley National Park, the only park of such repute in the state of Ohio, and a huge draw for fishing and hiking enthusiasts.

The Cuyahoga Falls police station doesn’t just welcome them, but appears downright excited to have both the FBI and L’s representatives show up for their investigation.

“We rarely get the FBI down here, let alone folks who work for the ‘Big L,’” the Chief says when he introduces them to the highest-ranking officers in the department, all of them gathered in a large conference room with shiny, 1970s-style wood panelling on the walls.

The Big L , Light thinks with a smirk, wondering how such euphemisms sit with L himself. L certainly isn’t required to tag along after FBI agents, masquerading as one of his own lackies. As far as Light knows, the first L had rarely done that, preferring to stay hidden behind his computer screen while dictating events through Watari. Even so, this world’s L probably gets an egotistical thrill when people talk enthusiastically about him, unaware that the man himself is right under their nose.

(Not unlike the thrill you got when people talked about Kira in your presence)

Light winces a little against what he imagines is a burgeoning headache. He needs to take better care of himself, drink more water.

“Thanks, folks,” Penber says in a home-down way, his partner, Leo Krause, following in much the same fashion. L, Light, and Maki stand off to one side of the Agents, skipping over introductions, per L’s own request. L holds a digital video camera in one hand, a half-eaten sprinkled donut in the other.

The CFPD already examined the evidence Penber sent them nearly four hours ago, and has since compiled a slapdash follow-up report that begins with a full-color, high resolution studio photograph of what looks, on first glance, to be a mother and daughter. Light notes that the mother is gracelessly overweight and appears to be sliding into the middlest part of middle age, her hair a wild nest of unkempt, graying curls, her wire-rimmed glasses far too small for her ruddy face. She clasps a slender, awkward teen to her ample chest, the teen’s smile so toothy and forced as to suggest an internal scream of desperation. The complexion is infant-smooth and, minus a few small blemishes, quite peachy in tone. These details, combined with the  polka-dot knit cap perched on the teen’s bare head and the huge, nearly bulbous blue eyes (further magnified by a pair of thick-lensed glasses), results in a fairly androgynous appearance. There is no mistaking, however, that it’s the same person featured in Cody Jackson and Cody Brown’s fake I.D.s.

“This is a photograph provided by one of the local radio stations,” one of the Sergeants explains, pacing in front of the beamed image. “In December they held an on-air fundraiser for their tri-annual ‘Community Cares’ feature, which focuses on helping out a local family in need. Tami and Cody Jenkins were the family profiled, and they claimed to be seeking out donations so that Tami could take daughter Cody, a cancer patient, to Disney World for New Years. The radio station was able to raise almost fifteen hundred dollars for them.”

The Sergeant presents the rest of what the department has scraped together. Tami and Cody Jenkins arrived in town seven or eight months ago, immediately establishing themselves in one of the more ‘clannish’ churches in town. One of the department’s lower ranking officers was a member of that same church, and helped direct the department to the radio broadcast.

Light watches Penber and Krause scratch down notes while L and Maki remain fairly motionless on either side of him. He feels the beat of their minds -- L’s especially. Knows that L is adding to the tapestry of his growing Angel profile, stitching in mother-and-child con artists completely absent of pride or honor, who hide behind poverty, religion, and illness in order to cheat decent people who don’t know any better.

It makes Light sick.

Clicking the projector off, the Sergeant faces Penber and Krause, a nervous smile twitching on her face. “The Jenkins family was renting a house down on Lookout Avenue. We have the landlord, Hank Landry, waiting for you in an interview room.”

Hank Landry is a rail-thin man in his sixties, with sickly yellow teeth and brittle, straw-like hair. Penber brings him a paper cup of water while Maki shoots him a lukewarm smile.

“You didn’t have Tami Jenkins fill out a housing application? Or run a credit check?” She taps her pen against a legal pad.

“Nope, there wasn’t a need for it.” Landry takes a drink of water and swishes it between his cheeks. “She had the first six months rent in cash.”

“And you didn’t find that suspicious?”

He shrugs his scrawny shoulders. “Not really. Wasn’t none of my business, either way.”

“Did you ever speak with the daughter, Cody Jenkins?”

“No, but saw ‘em at the grocery store once,” he says, scratching a design into the side of his styrofoam cup. “Figured the daughter was a retard, because of how she didn’t speak and by the way the mom treated her. You know, guiding her this way and that, like you would a six year old.”

Maki makes a subdued noise that might be irritation. “And Tami? When was the last time you saw her?”

He tips his head back. “Two months, I reckon? She came by with another bundle of cash, about five months worth, said that she and Cody were gonna do some traveling, but that they’d be back at the end of summer.”

“How did she seem?” It’s L this time, his face pale and expressionless. “Excited? Anticipatory?”

Landry pulls loose a wedge of styrofoam and holds it in quaking fingers. “Same as she always did. Chipper, I s’pose. She’s a busybody type.”

Penber shakes his black hair out of his eyes. “We’d like to search the property and would appreciate your cooperation in the matter, Mr. Landry.”

“Sure. Alright.” Landry blinks at them, his nod jittery.

Maki labels Landry a ‘speed freak’ a short while later, when they’re en route to the house on Lookout Avenue. “And a slum lord, too. No wonder he took the cash without question.”

Lookout Avenue backs up to a steep, weed-choked ravine that flattens out into a noisy, thumping train yard. The one-story house is a perfect square, its phlegm-colored paint peeling at the corners, the single tree out front just beginning to bud out in blossoms.

Landry unlocks the front door with a jailer’s heavy ring of keys, and Penber and Krause enter first, followed by the Chief and one of his Sergeants. Light starts to step forward, but L tugs him back by the sleeve, fingers rougher than winter branches..

“Five month’s rent paid in advance.” L squints at the house. “Do you think the Angel truly planned to return, or was he simply delaying what would be found here?”

Maki is the first to answer. “He paid for the RV in cash, which seems like the actions of someone ready to flee and never look back.”

“If that’s true, he didn’t get very far,” Light notes. “Detroit is only a little over three hours away. Maybe he was afraid to leave the house alone for too long.”

“And what about Tami Jenkins? She gave the cash to Landry, so where is she now?” Maki frowns, fiddling with the buttons of her blazer. “Could be a hint waiting for us inside.”

An odd smile snakes its way over L’s features. “Yes. I think there will be something in this house that will be useful to us. Something that the Angel was unable to hide, but wanted to keep others from seeing for as long as possible.”

Light enters the house with his breath held, as if preparing himself for a rancid stench, but when he does finally inhale the air is stuffy, the only odor on it dust. The front door enters directly onto a living room crowded with plain, functional furnishings, most of them in varying shades of brown. Mail has piled up on the floor beneath the door slot, almost all of it advertisements addressed to “Current Resident.” Penber points out the lack of personal mail to his partner, citing it as confirmation that ‘Tami Jenkins’ has no real identity or credit history.

“How common is this?” Light asks in undertone to L. “U.S. Citizens slipping under the radar and hiding their identities?”

“No numbers off the top of my head,” L says. “It was easier in the pre-digital age, but given that the Angel has already demonstrated hacking skills, it’s possible he knows how to navigate TOR and the dark web in search of convincing fake IDs and identities to steal. Such acts are easier to get away with if you don’t use your stolen identity for monetary purchases.”

“Hence paying for everything in cash and living a humble existence,” Maki says, lifting a well-read knitting guidebook from the coffee table. Beneath the table sits a large basket filled with different colors and weights of yarn. “And making crafts. My mom’s a knitter. Where are the needles? The unfinished scarves and sweaters?” She pokes the yarn basket with the toe of her shoe.

Light runs his gloved fingers over the edges of a framed poster of purple flowers, captioned with boldface that makes his lips twitch in a dark smile -- With God All Things are Possible. Three hand-painted woodcuts have been mounted above it, spelling out Faith, Hope, and Charity in scrolling letters. While lifting the poster slightly away from the wall and searching out the frame’s underside, his fingers catch on something that turns out to be a neon-yellow price tag sticker, which he holds up to the others.

“What’s ‘Goodwill’?”

Maki looks up from the couch cushion she’s upturned. “A non-profit organization. They accept donations and sell them for cheap in their shops.” She tucks the cushion back in with the others and comes close enough to inspect the pricetag. “Ninety-nine cents, huh? A bargain.” She squints at the woodcuts, a frown gnawing at the corners of her mouth.

“What is it?” Light prompts.

“‘Faith,’ ‘Hope,’ and ‘Charity’ are described in Corinthians, but I’ve always thought of them as a Catholic affectation. Tami and Cody Jenkins went to a Baptist church.”

Light stares at the woodcuts, taking in the curlicue leaves and flowers painted on them. “Maybe Tami just thought they were cute and uplifting. Like the poster. Or maybe there’s a discrepancy here. Or here,” he says, pointing to the 64-inch LCD television barely fits on its console, the shelf space below overflowing with DVDs.

“Yeah, that’s a pricey piece of equipment for someone who decorates with ninety-nine cent Goodwill castoffs.” Maki says.

“Mr. Landry,” L directs at the landlord, who stands nervously by the front door, keeping well out of everyone’s way. “You say the house came with the furnishings. Does that include the television?”

“Nope, no electronics,” Landry says, shaking his head. “Tenants provide those.”

“That’s a brand new blu-ray DVD player,” L points out, still discretely filming everything with his camera.

Light touches a finger to his chin, his eyes swiftly combing over the whole of the room. Despite the domestic touches -- slippers next to the easy chair, a pair of reading glasses on a bookshelf -- the more he looks, the more the whole space feels like a carefully arranged set piece.

“The most telling details are out in the open,” Light says in an undertone to L, who gives a noncommittal nod. “We should move on to other rooms.”

While the Agents and Officers continue to ransack every single drawer and shelf in the living room, Light glides by them and into the kitchen, where he opens the refrigerator. It’s very clean, and while the contents are minimal, what contents there are seem significant -- cartons of fruit punch and chocolate milk, cups of pudding and applesauce.

He shuts the refrigerator and moves to the cabinets, his eyes briefly catching on a yellow stool that’s been budged up against a narrow door. A pantry, maybe. Or stairs leading to a basement.

( Don’t look behind the door )

L and Maki enter the kitchen and check the refrigerator, just as Light did. The cabinets hold a similar arrangement of junky, child-like fare: fruity cereal with marshmallows; macaroni and cheese in dinosaur shapes; pre-packaged strawberry cupcakes; goldfish crackers.

“Looks like they were on the Ryuzaki diet,” Maki remarks, coming up behind Light.

“No, I only eat cupcakes that come from a real bakery,” L says, though Light thinks he catches a flicker of longing in his eye when he shuts the cabinet door.

The house’s bedrooms also project an aura of having been arranged with care and deliberance, the smaller of the two crammed with furniture yet curiously devoid of personality, at least on a first glance. The twin bed is covered in a quilt that’s patterned with colorful, marching animals, two giraffes, two penguins, two elephants, and so on, all of them tottering toward Noah’s Ark. Propped up on the pillow are a fuzzy-haired babydoll and some kind of toy robot. The walls are bare, more or less, but riddled with holes and pieces of tape, suggesting they used to have more decoration.

“It’s like a little kid’s room,” Maki says, looking over the sparse display of books on the desk. The carpet beneath the desk has heavy indentations from where computer equipment used to sit.

L picks up a copy of Oliver Twist . “This is beginning to feel didactic. The Angel wants someone to walk through this house and see the life he was made to live.” His white fingers stroke the book’s spine. “Made into a criminal while still a child, made to change his gender identity and age, made to do things he felt he had no choice in.”

Though Light accepts L’s observation, the Angel’s logic -- or lack thererof -- is maddening to him. If Cody didn’t like participating in criminal activities, then he should have done something about it.

“He could have left his sad story on a note instead of re-decorating,” Light observes drily.

L puts Oliver Twist back on the desk. “Spoken like someone who has always known the value of their own voice, and never doubted that it would be heard.” The words are followed by a frustratingly enigmatic smile.

Light frowns at him. “I’m going to check out the other bedroom.”

It’s in this bedroom where Light finds the hard evidence of Tami Jenkins’ fraudulent activities. Most of it is on immediate display: a dozen or so fake IDs on the dresser next to several physician’s prescription pads; bottle after bottle of pills for almost every ailment under the sun; an external computer hard drive that probably contains more of the sordid specifics.

Light sighs and looks around the room again. Generically feminine. Lots of crime and mystery novels in strategic piles. But what became of the actual Tami Jenkins? What became of her remains? For there is no doubt in Light’s mind that upon finding the Death Note, the Angel made sure to write Tami’s name down first.

Perhaps Cody was somehow clever enough to have instructed that Tami die in a way that would ensure her body would never be found. Just like Light did with Misora.

“Find anything?” Misora -- Maki asks as she enters the bedroom, lifting her eyebrows at Light.

He points at the dresser. “External hard drive and a few other things here.”

Moving aside to give her room, Light brushes past L as he wanders in.

“Light --” L starts, his fingers grazing Light’s wrist.

“I’ll tell P to come in and have a look at what we found,” Light says, cutting him off and slipping into the hallway.

( Don’t look behind the door )

There’s a room they missed. That door in the kitchen -- maybe it’s just a pantry or a laundry room, but someone ought to check, just to be sure. Light will be the one to do it.

His shoes are quiet on the sun-dappled linoleum, though the door itself creaks ominously when pulled, opening onto an abrupt staircase. Light peers down into the dark for a moment, clammy air nipping at his ankles, but when he yanks the cord dangling overhead, the basement remains stubbornly dim. There’s enough light from the kitchen to guide him down the stairs safely, yet he hesitates.

( Don’t go down there alone )

Light snorts softly to himself. He’s in a house full of law enforcement officers, most of them armed. This is probably the safest place to be in all of Ohio.

The stairs are just as creaky as the door, ending at a low-ceilinged basement that Light estimates runs beneath just over half the house. Two small, square windows, mostly shadowed by weeds, let in the only light, revealing a landscape of what Light imagines are typical ‘basement things,’ at least in the States. Wash machine, furnace, utility sink. At the far end of the room there’s a massive freezer, the kind that opens from the top.

Light takes careful steps toward the freezer, somehow unnerved by the sheer size of it. White, dented and scraped on one side, humming more audibly than one would expect. Why would two people need a freezer so large? Thinking about the possible reasons makes breathing difficult, makes thinking difficult. He needs air, he’s got to let some air in. He reaches for the freezer handle.

(Don’t open that. Not yet)

His fingers pause against the metal, and the solid and ordinary feel of it clears his thoughts a little. So many things in the house have been staged, even the stool in front of the basement door, practically mocking anyone who might pass by -- nope, nothing to see here. The freezer might just be another set piece for the Angel’s life story.

He thinks of his own room back home, back in his first life, when he still lived in his parents’ home. The specially-selected honor student books filling his library; the cartography tools and the chess set; the crease-free bedding and special hangers used for hanging up ties. Items once significant that ceased being anything other than parts of a Light Yagami costume when he found the Death Note and became Kira.

The dozen or so black pens. The special desk drawer, rigged to ignite.

Light’s hand falls away from the freezer handle and fishes a penlight out of his suit jacket. Training the beam at the freezer’s seams and hinges, he circles the behemoth, his throat going dry when he finds a telltale length of wire dangling from the back. It leads to something large covered in a pile of dirty tarps. Light lifts the edge of one, raising it just high enough to glimpse the heavy blue cans marked ‘flammable.’ He sucks in a breath and drops the tarp.

(See?)

“Munchausen by proxy,” L says from around a vividly pink lollipop. “Typically seen as a form of abuse in which a caregiver falsely claims that their charge is suffering a health problem. In most cases the caregiver is looking for attention, but in the case of Tami and Cody, it appears that it was a method for conning others.”

“But how do we know that Cody didn’t willingly collaborate with Tami in these cons?” Matsuda asks. “Up until the point where he killed her and stuffed her in a freezer, I mean.”  He gives Light an incredulous look. “It’s lucky you spotted that trap before opening it.”

“Yes,” Light says. It figures Matsuda would regard solid police word as ‘luck.’ L had come down the stairs just after Light discovered the kerosene, and the CFPD Chief wasted no time radioing in their two-person bomb squad to disarm the freezer. Inside, beneath bags of frozen chicken fingers and popsicles, lay the body of Tami Jenkins, real name unknown -- for now.

“We don’t know.” L sucks the lolly into his cheek. “But I don’t think that willingness matters. Based on what was found in the house, Tami used Cody from a young age, both amplifying and inventing medical issues in order to deceive people into offering them financial support. The Angel believes he was raised to be a criminal, and that’s the story he wants us to see.”

The task force is gathered in the Cuyahoga Falls Inn’s most deluxe suite, which isn’t much larger than a regular-sized hotel room. Several pizza boxes are balanced on any surface they’ll fit, most of the food picked over except for a few slices of all-veggie and a scattering of leftover crusts.

“Story?” Matsuda gestures at the laptop that Mello and Matt are looming over, watching L’s recorded footage from the house. “Is that what this is? Does he want others to feel sorry for him?”

“Possibly, though that may not be the primary goal,” Light says, feeling the weight of L’s eyes on him. “The Angel has never been able to speak for himself or assert his own identity. That’s what this is. An assertion.”

Too bad, then, that the identity the Angel was so bent on embodying was that of criminal. A criminal who actively tries to punish the system of justice, whether it’s killing off jury members or setting traps to kill cops. Taking a drink of soda and wincing against the sweetness, Light briefly meditates on how Kira brings the stories of criminals to an abrupt conclusion, no matter how compelling their backstory is. That’s the only just and righteous way to put the Death Note to use.

( How do you know? You never even tried any other methods )

Another sip of soda, another wince.

“But what if I do feel sorry for him?” Matsuda asks, his cheeks pinker than usual, perhaps owing to the three or four beers he downed with his pizza. “Those pictures and recordings you found on the hard drive, especially --” he hiccups softly into the back of his hand. “It makes me sick. Who could do that to their own child? Put them in the same room with someone who, who lusts for...” he trails off, turns faintly green. Matt and Mello regard him with flat curiosity, younger than Matsuda but immeasurably less naive.

( For now, at least. This isn’t the Matsuda who shot you, but someday it might be )

“The photographs were likely taken for blackmail purposes,” L says, though he rips the lolly from his mouth with a vigor that suggests it’s developed a bad taste. “Most of the men in them were people with much to lose, if their predilections came to light.”

“Does that honestly make it any better?” Matsuda’s voice cracks.

“No.” L hesitates, then slips the candy back into his mouth. “Matsuda, you can feel sorry for the Angel and still acknowledge that he’s a murderer.”

Matsuda’s face turns red now, and his fingers dig into his kneecaps. “I don’t like it.”

Maki sighs and rolls off the bed to her feet. “Come on,” she stretches out a hand to Matsuda. “Let’s go check out the waterfalls behind the hotel. I wouldn’t mind a walk and the path is lit up at night, so why not?”

Matsuda looks away, ducking his head. “I’m okay, really.”

“Yeah, well it’s too hot in here and stinks of garlic. Let’s go.” She grips him carefully by the shoulder and guides him to the door.

The room feels much larger without Matsuda’s emotions clouding it.

“When should we follow up on the Ford Tioga?” Matt asks L. “I tracked down three online leads, adverts all from around two months ago.”

From his owl-like crouch at the head of the bed, L wastes no time in answering. “First thing in the morning, please. The Angel may have left the house as some kind of display or effigy for the authorities, but the RV is something he intended to keep secret, and it may serve as the key to tracking him down.”

“What about the fingerprints and DNA found in the house on Lookout Avenue?” Mello pulls away from the laptop and turns his sharp blue eyes on L.  “How long does it take the FBI’s forensics unit to sort that out?”

“Anywhere from twenty-four to seventy-two hours.”

“I guess we have no choice but to wait, then.” Mello nibbles on his pinky and leans into Matt’s back. “I hate waiting.”

They raid L’s stash of sweets, Matt helping Mello dig around for the chocolate that L seems to be only occasionally in the mood for. Then it’s time for a re-watch of the footage while L takes a shower, and Light is grateful when they choose to focus on that instead of making forced small talk. The last thing he needs is a reminder that L is still using his teenage whiz-kids as babysitters.

“I’m surprised you’re still awake,” L says once he’s finally out of the bathroom and Matt and Mello have left for their own room across the hallway. “It’s been a long day.”

“That it has,” Light says, trailing his fingers against the rain-smeared window. It doesn’t open, but he can still hear the faint rumble of the river’s falls a few stories below. The stairwell of Detroit’s FBI Field Office seems very far away, in terms of both time and geography.

“Did you find Matsuda’s distress off-putting?” L is near-drowning in pajama pants too big for him, a hooded sweatshirt zipped all the way up to his throat.

The question surprises Light until he remembers that L believes this is the first time he’s worked with Matsuda. “No,” he answers, moving away from the windows. “It’s understandable that he would feel conflicted, given the details of the case.”

“Oh?” L shakes out a pillow and sets it in the middle of his bed. “Are you conflicted?”

Light looks up from the collection of empty soda bottles and beer cans he’s tidying on the television stand. “No,” he smiles. “Why would I be?” The need to play an emotionally-fraught and surly teenager has come to an end. It’s time for Light to peel back the costume, to show more of himself.

“So you’re comfortably able to both feel empathy for the Angel and yet condemn him for what he does. That’s good.” L drags his laptop to the bed and perches on the pillow like some kind of rangy, watchful bird, his damp hair clinging to the sharp planes of his jaw.

“Are you surprised?” Light gives him an indulgent smile, lowering himself onto the edge of his own bed. “You didn’t think you were the only one capable of holding two seemingly paradoxical viewpoints at once, did you?”

“Not at all.” L’s marble skin is awash with the bluish hue of the laptop screen. “But I do wonder if by ‘empathy’ you’re referring to the more literal definition of the word -- the ability to adopt another person’s point of view -- or if you’re employing its colloquial usage, a term to denote compassion or pity.”

Light neatly crosses his wrists together in his lap. “Being able to adopt a criminal’s point of view and determine how they perceive their own actions is crucial for someone working in law enforcement. I’d better have that kind of empathy, if I want to work for the NPA in the future,” Light says.  “But an excess of compassion and pity can get in the way of good police work.”

L is cocking his head like he does when he thinks he has the philosophical high ground. “A confident statement for someone with so little law enforcement experience.”

“It’s not a statement that requires any special experience,” Light responds with a shrug. “The Angel may have been raised in a criminal environment, but he didn’t need to become a criminal, himself. I might have compassion if he was completely robbed of his free will and never had any other options, but that’s not the case here.”

“Then following that logic, unless someone has been forcibly mind-controlled from birth, they always have ‘options.’” L waves a hand, unimpressed.

Light crosses his arms together more tightly. “A lot of criminals feel justified in what they do. That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be held accountable.”

“Mmm.” L’s smile is strange, even as he appears to nod in agreement. Not triumphant, exactly, but something close to that. He shuts his laptop and leans over, tucking it under the bed. “Tell me…” he begins, his voice temporarily muffled, then he pops back upright and sits on the edge of the mattress, almost directly across from Light. “Do you think you would be so driven to capture criminals if you weren’t victimized by one?” His eyes are wide for the answer.

A memory that isn’t his own flinches over Light -- the sting of a needle, the never-ending darkness, the smell of mold and mortar -- long enough to nearly chill him before he shakes it off.

“I wanted to capture criminals before that,” he says flatly. “Genesis was the first criminal I tried to capture, remember?”

( That wasn’t you, though. That was -- )

“And the Woodsman was the criminal who victimized me, and in turn was also the first criminal I tried to capture.” L says absently, as if he’s merely thinking aloud.

“That you haven’t captured yet,” Light remarks, though he keeps his tone civil. He doesn’t want to argue with L. Mostly, he doesn’t want L to argue with him. Light wants to move past that, wants to get L on the same page, but the only page L is looking at is the one where they’re both victims . Even so, Light can’t regret all the effort he made to get L to see him as a traumatized victim, not when it’s worked so well to get them moving in the same direction. “Anyway,” he continues. “Our experiences only made us stronger, more equipped to do this kind of work.”

‘Yes,” L says blandly, returning to his pillow-perch and unearthing another lolly from the pocket of his hoodie. Lemon-yellow, this time. “What better way to come to terms with being a helpless victim than to convince yourself that the experience has left you with a special advantage and insight into catching criminals.”

“That might describe your career,” Light says, giving a half-roll of his eyes. “It won’t describe mine.”

L slowly dislodges the lolly from his mouth. “I was quoting B. That’s what he liked to say about me -- that I was frantically running away from being victim by trying to avenge my mother’s death and chase after the Woodsman.”

Light relaxes. L wants to talk about himself, then. That’s good. It’s not just a crack for Light to squeeze through, it’s practically an open door. Light sidles onto L’s bed and sits across from him, cross-legged and still dressed in his dress shirt and suit trousers. That’s okay, though; the hotel room has an iron.  

“Let me try that.” He pries at the the lollipop stick between L’s lips.

“I didn’t think you liked sweets,” L says, though he opens his mouth far enough for the candy to slip out.

“I make an exception for citrus flavors.”

L frowns at Light, palm open and waiting for the lolly’s return. “Maki asked for a taste of my candy, once. I made her get her own. I’m surprised that you’re not more worried about germs.”

Light rolls the lollipop between his cheek and tongue and gives L a faint glare. “Don’t be an idiot. I’ve already had your germs in my mouth today.”

“That was your doing, not mine.” But there’s a flicker of a smile at the corner of his lips.

“Anyway.” Light leans back on his palms. “Does it really matter what B said about you? You shouldn’t be concerned about it.”

“I’m not concerned.” L pushes hair from his eyes and trails his fingers against his lips. The wind and rain has picked up to where it’s lashing at the windows now, the occasional crack of thunder rumbling in the distance. “But when someone who can predict death tells you something about yourself, it seems wise to ponder it a little. Even if what he said was insignificant, it remains a fact that the only criminal I’ve been unable to capture is the one who I’m unable to have empathy for.”

“Isn’t empathy a tall order if it involve the person who killed your own mother?”

“It is a tall order.” L shrugs restlessly. “But a lack of empathy may be a type of willful blindness.”

Light steels his expression by sucking fiercely on the lolly first, half-certain that L is trying to bait him even though he looks far too distracted for it, his gaze trained on the windows, his fingers still tugging at his lower lip. “And too much empathy can cost a person their own principals, even their life,” Light says, the words certain but not overly forceful. “Empathy is something that’s earned through positive actions. Give out too much of it and you end up humanizing monsters -- which is exactly what they want, of course.”

Now L looks at him, eyes sharply curious under his fringe of damp, clean hair. “We are the monsters, Light. Humans. Every time there’s something dangerous, lurking in the dark, it ends up being one of us.”

“But there are people who never act that way, who would never dream of hurting anyone,” Light protests, his voice rising. Apparently, they won’t be able to keep things civil, after all.

“Maybe they’ve just never had to.”

The way L says it is so flat, so stubbornly empty , that Light makes no move to check his scowl. He thrusts the lollipop back at L, who takes the stick between his thumb and forefinger.

“Your version of empathy, by the way, sounds a lot like expecting others to meet the same high standards you set for yourself,” L adds with a maddening casualness. “Empathy is supposed to be about others, not about you.” He regards the lollipop for a second or two before jamming it into his mouth.

So L was trying to bait him, after all. Light feels disgust and a distinct lack of surprise, even as his fingernails dig into the bedspread. L probably just can’t stop himself from taking the opportunity when it presents itself.

“Are you judging me?” Light lets a pout slip into his voice. L just isn’t ready to be on the same page yet. Until he is, Light will have to resort to other ways of getting under his skin.

“It was you who said you wanted to kill Genesis, in that moment when he was drowning your sister.” L says, sounding suddenly far away. “You know better than most that decent people can be pushed to hurt others, under the right circumstances.”

True anger starts to trickle through Light, dampening the back of his neck with sweat. “If I’d had the means to stop him, I would have. And I wouldn’t have let his sad history slow me down. Hurting someone in self-defense isn’t the same as hurting someone for pleasure, and you know it.”

L only gives him that thousand-yard stare, his hair starting to dry now in a wayward muss. They’re sitting knee-to-knee and it’s funny how in these moments where L is most wrong, Light finds himself most wanting to kiss him. Once he would have wanted to punch him, but now -- well, both are injuries, of a sort, one just works its damage over a slow, insidious duration of time.

“You’re right.” L’s voice is a rasp, barely audible beneath the noise of the storm outside. “Hurting someone for pleasure is more pleasurable.”

Light’s lip twitches. “God, why do you say things like that?”

( You sound a lot more appalled than you feel, you know )

“To see how you’ll react. I am still investigating you, after all. Plus, it makes for interesting conversation.”

“Then stop investigating me.”

“I can’t. It’s what I do. Always.”

That’s a lie, Light thinks. Because he’s seen how not everyone is worth L’s attention. L would spend more time pondering what flavor of sweet to eat than he would on the inner-workings of Matsuda’s head, for example.

“Fine. But why bother when you’ve already decided that I’m unfathomable ?” Light openly smirks. “Really, Ryuzaki. Aside from the events of my past, I’m pretty ordinary.” He bows his head and takes a moment to imagine what Ryuk might have said from behind his shoulder, if he were here to witness this. He’d laugh, Ryuk. Light’s certain of it.

“You wear a lot of things well, but false modesty isn’t one of them.” L is suddenly near enough for Light to feel and smell his lemon-scented breath, but Light can’t rightly recall which one of them moved close first, their crossed legs practically overlapping in the middle of the mattress.

“I think you’re going to be deeply let down if I ever draw the conclusion that you’re an ordinary person, Light Yagami.” The words cling to the air like a spell.

Light meets L’s dark, bottomless eyes and smiles. “No, you’ll be the one who’s let down.” Because you want a mystery you can never solve.

A crack of thunder reverberates through the room and someone lunges for the other --

( Not someone. You .)

And the lemon lolly ends up in Light’s mouth for a jarring second or two before he wrests it loose and tosses it aside, his hands clamping down on the sleeves of L’s hoodie and gathering the fabric tight in his hands so that he can haul L closer, chest to chest as they kiss frantically, an uneven mish-mash of lips and teeth and tongue. L’s legs are looped around Light’s hips, squeezing hard, his hands clawing mindlessly down Light’s back, and one growl from deep in L’s throat makes blood fill Light’s skull with the loud thumping of his own heart. He cautions himself to slow down, take his time. No one can make Light Yagami act like some kind of animal. No one.

As testament to this inner declaration, he gentles his touch and ends the kiss with a soft peck to L’s lips.

“Good,” L says breathily, his eyes wild as he tries to pull away. “We can’t do this.”

“I agree. There’s no need to rush.” Light cups his hand to the side of L’s face, the way he might have once done to placate Misa. The thought of L as a stand-in for Misa is absurd, and yet Light can’t honestly say that he wishes she were here instead.

L lets out a sigh that turns into a thin laugh. “That’s not what I meant. I’m no prude. Far from it. Which is precisely why this shouldn’t happen.” He scoots away, up to the head of the bed.

“I’m no prude, either. Or a virgin,” Light announces. “I’m a consenting adult.” And older than you think.

L drops his head and curls his body into the pillows, and Light is struck by the white skin of L’s throat and hands, the white clothes that swallow him up against the white bedding. He’s like an iceberg -- one-forth of him above water, the rest hidden by the murkiest parts of the ocean, and Light idly wonders why he’s always comparing L to nature. Because L is uncivilized, that’s why.

“It’s not just that. Sex always ends up as a weapon, no matter how I might otherwise intend it.” L’s gaze flicks onto Light’s. “You’ll get hurt.”

Light lets out a long breath. There’s something almost charming about how L cautions Light against him, how he insists on the enormity of his own threat. Though it is true that L can be dangerous. The way he thinks is dangerous, and it needs to be managed, but his thinking is no threat to Light.

But from the way L struggles to keep his gaze turned away, Light is positive that he isn’t going to seriously turn this opportunity down. Not that Light was really planning on sex with L tonight, but now the word is in the air, effectively putting the possibility on the table, and L wouldn’t be trying to talk himself out of it if a part of him wasn’t interested. He’s putting on a show of good morals and measured judgment because he has to, because he thinks it’s what Light needs or expects. L doesn’t understand that Light already knows just how wrong and twisted L is, that he’s going to be the one to show him how to untwist, how to be right. Light is going to win, but to do so he has to maintain his confidence that L actually wants to change, wants to be a better person. And hasn’t this L already shown signs of it? He’s never handcuffed Light to his own person and he hasn’t kept Light locked in a cell. And even if he does believe that Light is Kira, he doesn’t badger Light with percentages every hour of the day.   

This L doesn’t speak of percentages at all.

“I don’t believe that you’ll hurt me,” Light says, barely above a whisper, and L lifts his head, a faint frown curving his lips.

“Alright. Let’s fuck, then.”

Light blinks at the coarse words, but L’s already crawling toward him, pulling Light on top of his whip-thin, bony body, knowing by now that Light will want him beneath. As it should be. They kiss long and slow until Light’s lips feel stung, swollen, and L rocks his pelvis upward, as if to say get on with it . Light rests an experimental hand on L’s sharp hipbone, still kissing him as his fingers slide under the waistband of L’s pajama pants.

( You really did kill him, you know )

Sweat blurs Light’s vision and his breathing picks up, though not with arousal, not really. Just touch him like you’d touch yourself, he thinks. Do what you’d do to Misa. You didn’t have any particular attraction to her body parts, but you knew how to pleasure them well enough to where she’d keep quiet for a while. His thoughts are fierce but somehow not fast enough, and he covers up his hesitation by pressing a string of well-timed kisses down L’s neck.

He can get this right. It’s just seduction -- he can do that. He’s always been able to do that, if the prize was great enough. If the prize was Kira. And yet when he finally sucks in a deep breath and dives his fingers down the front of L’s pajamas, Light discovers that L is scarcely hard at all, warm and soft and innocuous in his hand.

He’s so surprised -- so very nearly insulted -- that any previous trepidation vanishes out of existence. Giving L’s cock a few urgent tugs, Light recaptures his mouth, sucking on his lower lip and teasing their tongues together with finesse and concentration. L kisses Light back, but there’s not so much as a twitch from the rest of him.

“What’s wrong?” Light murmurs the words against L’s neck to disguise any notes of frustration.

“Mm, what’s that?” L sounds dazed. No. Tired?

( Bored )

“You’re not…” Light squeezes him in demonstration.

Drawing his head back into the pillow, L regards Light with a slightly-furrowed brow. “Neither are you.” He nudges his thigh against Light’s groin.

Light brushes L’s observation away. “What am I -- how’s this?” His strokes turn slow but more deliberate, and even though he isn’t really looking at L very closely, it all at once soaks into Light that this L’s actual flesh in his hands. A bolt of electricity seems to snap through him just as another roll of thunder and lightning makes the bedside lamp flicker.

L catches Light’s chin between his thumb and knuckle, tilting his face back slightly. “You’re not all here, Light.” His voice comes out soft. “Why should I be?”

“I am, too,” Light hisses at once, jerking his face away from L’s touch. A hot flush races over his skin, igniting rage that L would dare to voice displeasure when he’s barely moving, just lying there in complete disregard for Light’s efforts. And Light hasn’t even done this with a man before. Not like L has. L -- who’s stuffed his cock into someone he remembers as a demon, but actually lays bored in the presence of Light.

“You’re not even looking at me.”

“I don’t want to.” Disgusted, Light yanks his hand out of L’s pajamas and sits up to his knees, still straddling L’s legs. “Fine.” He glares down at L, who is slack-mouthed and staring, his cheeks slightly colored, a minor detail that nonetheless cools Light’s anger a shade or two. “I’m looking.”

“If you’re not doing this for the pleasure of it, then what other reason could you possibly have?” L says it as if he’s simply wondering aloud, his fingers rubbing idly at his forehead. “You don’t have to take me to bed to get me on your side. I’m already there, whether you know it or not.”

“No, you aren’t.” Light pins L’s shoulders to the bed -- unnecessary, since it’s obvious L’s not going anywhere, but it feels good just the same. “You start arguments. You imply that I’m Kira. You’re frequently horrible.”

L lets out a wheeze that might be a laugh. “A moment ago you said I wouldn’t hurt you.”

“And you won’t. You might be awful, but you can’t hurt me.”

L’s eyes widen and glitter strangely.  “Light, don’t you like it a little, when I’m awful to you?”

The words are followed with a soft, somehow insidious pause, L’s adam’s apple bobbing in the column of his throat.

“I know I like it when you’re awful to me.” The top note of L’s voice is lilting, almost sweet, like honey glazed over glass.

Light’s head rings. He’s positive it’s the most obscene thing anyone’s ever said to him, somehow, and yet it’s these words -- not L’s lips or body against his -- that stirs his blood and makes his cock jerk to life.

So this is what L meant, then. Sex as a weapon. But if this is how it’s going to be, it’s only fair that Light fight back. He doesn’t want to be awful, but what choice does he have?  

Fuck you anyway, L.

Light kisses him with bruising pressure, teeth nipping against lips as he pushes his hipbones into L’s, ribs and shoulders jutting up against his like some harsh, formidable landscape. L has an erection now, finally , and Light palms it through the fabric of his pajama pants while struggling for the zipper of his sweatshirt, dragging it down and feeling the subtle heat of L’s flesh against his fingers. Breathing heavily, head still ringing with noise, Light draws away from the kiss, preparing himself for the sickly white and no-doubt unsettling sight of L’s bare chest.

It’s the nipples that he notices first, small and so faintly pink they nearly blend in with the rest of L’s skin, and perhaps Light only stares at them for so long because he doesn’t quite comprehend the rest of what he sees. Finally, though, something shifts into place. Ink. Black ink, everywhere.

“What did you do to yourself?” He spits out, and L goes very still, his fingers still digging into Light’s upper arms.

“They’re tattoos,” L says flatly, as if minorly annoyed by the question.

“But you, you don’t --” Light falters. Here it is, undeniable visual evidence that this L is a completely different person than the one he knew before. That L would have never covered his skin with crude symbols, permanent ones, no less. “Why?” He’s rolled away from L for now, and the other man half-sits up, leaning back on his elbows.

“So I don’t forget.”

The words are so low Light almost doesn’t hear them.

“Forget what?” He watches as L pulls the sweatshirt off completely, showing more ink down his shoulders and along his ribs, a single letter “L” in the middle of his chest. A thin, looping line starts on L’s hip and disappears into the waistband of his pajama pants, and despite himself Light wonders where it ends.

L trails a thumb beneath his collarbone, where there’s a tattoo of a tiny dagger, a single drop of blood falling from it’s tip, like a tear. “There’s one for every case I’ve solved.”

“So they’re trophies?” Light upper light curls slightly.

“I’m not surprised you’d call them that,” L’s gaze is level. “And who knows, maybe they are, in a way. But I started doing them on impulse. There was no plan to it.”

“You gave these to yourself?” Light is unapologetically baffled. “How?”

L slips off the bed and disappears into the bathroom, returning with a toiletry case that he sets on the nightstand and opens, removing what looks like a zippered school-supply bag. He dumps the contents out onto the sheets: two bottles of ink, a plastic case of sewing needles, alcohol, pencils. L sits back onto the bed and picks one of the pencils up, showing Light the needle stuck into the eraser end. “With this. It’s called stick-and-poke.”

“It’s called disgusting.” Light pushes L’s hand away, but L seems unconcerned, tucking the supplies back into his bag and zipping it shut.

“You’re entitled to your opinion,” L says rustily, and he looks more tired than usual, the circles under his eyes more shadowed. “But with all the bad things I’ve done, I don’t want to forget the good, either.”

Light shrinks against the headboard, unsettled by L. Unsettled by his own curiosity.

Who are you, L?

(You wanted to see beneath the surface, didn’t you?)

“Why so much fear of forgetting?” he finally asks. “You don’t have a brain tumor, do you? Or early-onset dementia?” His laughter is weak.

“Not that I know of.” L puts the bag of supplies back in the toiletry case. “But I don’t expect to be L forever. At some point I will go too far, get too dirty, and it will be time for me to stop. Before I end up in the position of doing more bad than good.”

Light keeps tugging on the edge of the bedspread. For some reason, he’s still sort of hard. “What all this about getting too ‘dirty?’ You’re already dirty. That’s why the authorities need you in the first place -- they can’t break their own rules. You’ve said as much yourself.”

“This may surprise you, but there are lines even I won’t cross,” L says dryly, leaning back onto his elbows again.

The way his muscles move under the ink-stained skin is horrible. Fascinating. It makes Light think of ink soaking into paper, names unfurling, one after the other.

“But given enough time,” L continues, “You either compromise your own values or you become obsolete. And then someone replaces you.”

Light curls his lip again, hiding it with a half-smile. Only someone inherently weak would think something like that. You compromise nothing if you learn how to adapt and evolve, L.

“So.” Light sits up from the headboard, leans forward enough to touch one of the tattoos on L’s shoulder. He expects it to feel remarkable, somehow, but it’s just ordinary skin, cool to the touch. “All these scribbles are a reminder of your values ?” Mocking disbelief colors his voice.

The tattoo is a crescent moon. Tsuki .

“They’re ugly, by the way.” Light’s voice is softer than he intended. “They suit you.”

L ignores the comment but turns on Light with his huge, dark eyes. “Where should I put Kira’s scribble, Light? Do you want to pick the spot?”

You’re so ugly. Only someone truly understanding would ever want you.

It’s the last thought Light has before he pulls L to him.

He forgets about performance, he forgets about trying. Why should he have to try? He’s Light Yagami, he’s Kira. And L is just a man he killed, once, but he’s alive now and once they both have their clothes off the difference between his naked body and Light’s is so striking it ought to be sketched out on a mural. L is skinny and scared and inked up, his cock thicker than Light expected and curved up just slightly in a way that Light can’t stop staring at. Light is fit and healthy, skin like mellow gold, and he knows he really does look like a God, sent down to have his way with some poor, wayward, millionaire gutter rat.

L practically climbs into Light’s lap, only to spit into Light’s palm -- gross, of course he does -- then lowering it to their erections, pressed tip to tip. Light manages to palm both of them together, stroking in a tight grip that makes L moan and curl into his shoulder. When Light looks down he can see how L’s hollowed abdomen is drawn tight, muscles quivering more with each jerk of Light’s hand, and he smiles hard at the thought of making L orgasm, again and again, until he’s empty and gasping and has nothing left. It doesn’t matter that it isn’t really possible -- it’s the thought that counts, and it’s a thought that makes Light tug faster, harder, until L’s clawing at his arms and hissing in his ear.

“Slow down or we’ll both come.” His black hair gets caught in Light’s open, panting mouth. “We were going to fuck, remember?”

It’s barely a question, and he twists off the edge of the bed, obscenely lithe, and rummages around in the toiletry case for condoms and a bottle of lube, tossing them all-too casually between Light’s legs.

Light touches the lube with tented, hesitant fingers. It seems like something perverts would keep around, and his expression must reveal his distaste because L grabs it from him and gets to business, opening the condom packet and rolling it down Light’s length, then squeezing glop everywhere.

L gives him one last kiss before lying down onto his back, teething hard on Light’s bottom lip and spilling words into his mouth: “don’t be afraid to leave a mark.”

And then Light’s pushing into L and it isn’t easy, it’s the work of careful half-inches, so tight and snug that the pressure might hurt if it weren’t so smotheringly intense, punching Light’s vision out with white-hot stars. If it causes L pain, too, he doesn’t show it, though Light can feel the slight tremble of thighs against his hips. Light takes it slow not out of consideration but because he has to , and several minutes of heavy, labored breathing pass before he can move with more ease, the grip of L’s ass around his cock completely unlike anything he’s ever felt before. He sits back on his knees far enough so that he can watch himself move in-and-out, mesmerized by what bodies can do, by what they can feel.

“Oh god, fuck .” A litany of Japanese curses fall from his lips and L chuckles at that a little, then rocks his pelvis up in response, meeting Light’s thrusts with such enthusiasm that he lets out some curses of his own.

That’s right, Light thinks dimly. You can’t be trusted with your own body, your own brilliant mind. You’ll never make the perfect use of it that I will. He spreads himself over L’s torso, buries his face against the crook of his shoulder and bites hard, his hands skating almost gently down L’s ribcage. L is hard and bony all over but his skin surprisingly soft, like something bruiseable that needs to be covered by armor. And his lungs are rising and falling inside his chest like an animal, and there’s blood migrating under his skin and Light just wants to be inside him though he doesn’t really know why. Not when it’s supposed to be the other way around and L’s supposed to be the one begging, whimpering for Light’s touch like Misa did, like Kou. L’s supposed to want Light inside him, and surely he does, but even as Light is biting into L’s shoulder and tasting blood, actual blood, it doesn’t seem like nearly enough.

L gasps once, mutters ‘good,’ and tightens his hold on Light’s hips, practically forcing Light into him.

Light wonders if he’s all here. His breath is loud and he’s groaning in a way that he doesn’t even recognize, and it feels like all his senses are about to shatter, dissolve like sugar in a rush of hot water. There’s a monstrous orgasm building up through his balls and belly, so monstrous it might as well be an actual monster. When he comes maybe it’s Light 2 that will burst out of him, stamping this Light out of existence once and for all. Who else but Light 2 could be feeling this way?

(Not now. This is all you.)

Some emotion he can’t name prickles at the back of Light’s throat.

Light is on such a power trip right now.

L would probably find it sad and boring if it didn’t involve the intimate handling of his own body, but Light’s cock is a good one and his face is beautiful even when it’s glazed with a sheen of sweat.

The dual experience took a few minutes to get used to -- one part of him has never done this with a man (not on the receiving end, anyway), and the other, L the Second, is used to it, and already knows just how position his hips and legs for maximum contact.

He didn’t expect that they’d end up fucking tonight, but they’re probably not fucking the way that Light envisioned -- with L tenderly melting under his touch, calling his name -- so that suits L just fine.

You don’t get to pretend with me, anymore. Not when we’re like this. L smiles when he feels Light push into him with hesitation, unsure of something for once in his damn life.

L has a crystal-clear memory of what it was like to be in Light’s position, both literally and figuratively. Right about now Light is probably thinking about how this fucking will ‘fix’ L, making him clean and right for Kira. L had thought as much when B lured him into the same trap, tantalizing him with the possibility that B could be tamed, normalized somehow, through sex and passion.

(You’re going to feel let down if I’m not a monster, Lawli. So just cling to that belief as long as you like. And who knows, maybe it’ll turn out that you’re right? If you keep insisting I’m a monster then I just might have to do the polite thing and oblige you.)

It’s a good thing he remembers B’s words so well. It makes seducing Light that much easier -- which isn’t so much a seduction as an endless game of letting Light think he has the upper hand, that he’s the one in control, then undermining that control in small but significant ways.

But there are consequences to this game. For B, what started as an act became an obsession, or maybe it was never completely an act in the first place. For B, the line between fantasy and reality wasn’t just thin, it was irrelevant.

Lines can get so very thin for people like B, L, and Light.

Light makes himself into God and thinks he is the only person who can get his hands dirty and stay clean. It’s just a hair away from what L does, it’s just a line that’s paper thin. And L knows he’s probably drawn to line-crossers like B and Light because a part of him wants to cross, too.

How terrifying that the only thing that will prevent him from crossing is himself, a known liar and traitor.

“Oh god, fuck .”

A drop of sweat falls from Light’s brow and lands on L’s cheek. L almost laughs at the unhinged, raw quality of Light’s usually pitch-perfect voice, but it’s a turn on, too, because L likes the look of Light better without all the pretty masks. Pleasure is gathering in his own lower belly, and despite the dull burn he wants more of Light, wants to see the last mask fall away, desperate enough to lift his hips off the bed and meet Light’s rhythm directly.

It isn’t until Light bites into his shoulder, though -- breathing and snuffling like some kind of rabid beast -- that L knows for sure he’ll be able to finish. He slips his hand between their bodies and manages maybe a half-dozen ragged strokes before his whole body goes flush and taut. He comes with a whine while tugging hard on the back of Light’s hair, and Light follows a minute or so after, moaning incoherently against L’s neck as his entire body stiffens, then relaxes.

A span of time passes -- only seconds, probably -- in which Light feels very heavy and alive on top of L, all harsh breath and cooling sweat. When he finally rolls over, there’s a smear of blood just below his lower lip, and a sticky glaze of semen on his chest. He looks like someone whose heart nearly crawled out his own throat.

L settles back on the pillow and stares up at the ceiling, gingerly touching the bite marks at the crook of his shoulder. He’ll have to clean it soon, but the pain actually feels good, no mystery to it at all.

(Who d’you really think is worse, Lawli? The wolf, or the one who wants to tame the wolf for his own use?)

L hadn’t known the answer to B’s question then, but now he does: they deserve each other.

The cafe across the street from the hotel is kind of nice, Frank decides. There’s a lot of fishing memorabilia on the walls: colorful poles and lures, and lots of photographs of the Cuyahoga river, sparkling under the late summer sun. He checks it all out while waiting for the barista to finish his cappuccino, and once he has his to-go cup in hand he carries it to one of the tables out front, opening up a copy The Wall Street Journal that he has no intention of reading.

He and the girl named Aura have been following the black van all over Ohio and Michigan for the last few days. Frank doesn’t really know what they’re supposed to be looking for, but he’s gathered that the black van and its inhabitants are supposed to lead Aura to something she needs for Project Topaz.

Frank’s curious, but he’s not here to ask questions. He’s here to do as he’s told, and taking Aura’s orders is easy enough.

The guys in the van are another story entirely. Some of them move like cops -- the lady, especially, and weirdly, the Japanese kid, too. The blond kid and the ginger seem more like hired roadies, moving equipment around, stuffing their faces with junk food. The pale, skinny guy seems to do the least amount of work, so Frank figures he’s probably the one in charge.

He’s probably the one Aura talks about, too. The one she calls ‘a boulder, rolling relentlessly uphill.’

The more Frank watches him from a distance, the more he can see it: the dark hollows under his eyes, the jumpy reflexes in his shoulders. This is a guy who doesn’t know how to quit, let alone when.

Slim. That’s the name Frank gives him.

He sips his drink and hides most of his face behind the newspaper while the ginger kid parks the van under the hotel’s front canopy. The other Japanese guy, the one who smiles too much, is hanging on to an overloaded luggage cart while the blonde kid throws open the van’s rear doors.

When Frank asked Aura why they didn’t just bug the van, too, she’d insisted it wasn’t necessary, but from the way she clutched that pendant around her neck Frank guessed that she was a little afraid, too. Of what, though, he really couldn’t say. Aura’s not the sort of woman who scares easily, he knows that much already.

But Slim and Co. hardly seem like the bad guys, here, running around helping the police and whatnot. Frank’s pieced together that they’re after that Angel of Death spook, and as far as he’s concerned, the sooner they succeed, the better. Frank’s dad died of a heart attack when he was just in his late forties, so he’s always regarded that organ as no better than a ticking time bomb in his chest, anyway. The idea of someone having a weapon that can actually trigger cardiac arrest? Unthinkable. Find the bastard and chain him to a boulder at the bottom of the sea.

“Aiber?”

Frank scratches the back of his neck and takes another swallow of coffee. He should cut back on the caffeine, maybe.

“Aiber?”

He looks up at the sound of the voice this time, a shudder of surprise running through him when he sees Slim, standing across the street in front of the hotel’s flagpole. The man looks more fatigued than ever, but now that he can see him directly, Frank realizes that Slim is actually pretty young, early or mid-twenties, and that he’s looking at Frank as if he knows him.

“Aiber,” he says again, and Frank realizes that it must be a name, though one he doesn’t recognize. Best to play dumb, he decides, and gives Slim a tip of his coffee cup before folding up his paper and heading back inside the cafe.

Aura is at a booth near the far back, looking at her laptop. Frank slides in across from her and taps the top of the screen. “Your buddy Slim is on to us.”

“What?” She frowns at him, like she thinks he’s playing a prank.

“Slim saw me drinking my coffee out front. He thinks I’m someone named Aiber.”

“Aiber? Who’s Aiber?” Her frown deepens, making a crease appear between her eyes. “He shouldn’t know who you are.”

“He doesn’t know who I am. That’s what I’m saying. He thinks I’m someone else.”

“Fucking hell.” Aura slams the laptop shut, reaches for that damned pendant around her neck again.

“Aura. How dangerous is he?”

She blinks at the sound of her name. “Very. And now you know why. He’s the best at what he does.” She lets out a high, tinkle of a laugh that doesn’t sound happy at all.

Frank grabs for her hand. “Let’s go, then. Before he follows me in here.”

They duck under a display of rowing oars and head for the back exit, neither of them daring to look behind.