Work Text:
“Who the- fuck am I?”
His vision was splintered, fractured down the weak points by his fingers, digging into his face to hide it from the world. Kira could kill with just a face. Light didn’t know why he was hiding from a mirror. Surely he should gouge out his eyes, and maybe he was trying to, with how his fingertips curled into his eye sockets.
“Excellent question. I think we can find out tomorrow.”
“No. No, L, I’m not- no, I’m Kira.”
“It certainly seems so.”
“Ryuzaki, wh- what am I meant to do? Who…?”
“More good questions. Light-kun remains brilliantly useful.”
Through his fractured eyes, Light saw L crouched on the floor in front of him, poking at his laptop. Like it was more important than this. Like Kira meant nothing to him, negated by Light’s confession.
“L.”
“He should start by being quiet. I have work to do.”
Light nearly throttled him. Nearly, as in he tried, but L kicked him back without looking up, and Light was shaking too badly to really do much more than fall back to the floor. Everything was spinning anyway, L hardly mad it worse, but he wasn’t making anything better, and it wasn’t fair. Not when Light had just given him everything he’d been looking for, and felt like he’d torn out his own foundation to do so.
“I- I could kill you. Kira… must have a plan, fuck, this-“
“Is all part of his plan. Or it was. Light-kun may have outplayed him, or perhaps, Kira has outplayed us both.” L hunched a little lower over his laptop, frowned, then relaxed. “We will find out.”
“Was that my execution order?”
“Somewhat the opposite. I’ve passed on recent developments to Watari, who was the only person outside of the Taskforce with which I had shared my suspicions of you.”
“So… Watari knows that if- if Kira kills you, then it absolutely has to be me.”
Measure his breathing. Claw back some control, as Light’s nails scratched deep into the floors. He was humming with an energy he hadn’t known he could possess, much less feel so uncomfortable to have inside him. Like Kira was spreading through his body, searching for a way to take back control.
“As a welcome side effect.”
“But the main effect?”
“Is that no one is going to execute you.” L looked up, wide eyed and expressionless. “Congratulations, Light-kun. You’re officially no longer under suspicion.”
It was so- L. To say that, when Light had just confessed, because to him, the suspicion had been the whole point of the thing, the endless foraging for evidence. Guilty or innocent, it didn’t truly matter, because either one meant L’s stake was over. Their game had ended, and…
And Light didn’t know who’d won.
Certainly not him. This had always been L and Kira, he’d just been an accessory, to the detective, to mass-murder, to the deaths of thousand upon thousands of those who’d deserved it, a vessel for a god, or something worse, something that had once been him, until it had clawed itself out of his chest and left him to take the fall.
L could have won. He had Light, the true pawn in this, not poor Misa or innocent Ukita, but him, helpless and unknowing of who exactly was playing him, the demon in his head, or the one that existed constantly beside him, at his shoulder.
Or this could still be part of Kira’s plot. It was a nonsensical choice of L’s, if that really was his choice, to let Light go free, but it was impossible to say it wouldn’t serve Kira’s aims. For the first time, Light felt lost, unsure whether L knew exactly what he was doing, or if he’d just fallen straight into Kira’s most obvious trap, his trump card of revealing himself to both of them
“How do you know this isn’t Kira’s plan?”
“Easy.” Closing his laptop, L leaned forward, fingers tapping incessantly at the floorboards Light was trying to find some purchase on, when his world felt slanted. “I don’t. But I have very good reason to suspect it isn’t, because Kira, ultimately, knows nothing of people.”
“You’re going to use me against him?”
“Almost. Our profile, Light-kun, describes Kira as sheltered. Not just from the obvious negative consequences of setting up divine retribution available through the TV, but perhaps from all of human nature. Including Light Yagami’s, which I have been honoured witness to the true unpredictability of.”
Light wasn’t fond of this. But he was also still shaking, a little, on the floor, and L seemed just as confident as ever. It was hard not to believe he was the unstoppable force, between the two of them, and all that was left was to get Light to move.
“…So you know me better than Kira?”
“Yes.”
Light faltered, then recovered, summoning his courage and his hatred of being treated like anything less than a major player.
“You’re betting your life on that? On…”
“On Kira not anticipating that you would ever trust me.”
“And I- don’t- I’m not-“
“Going to die? No, I don’t think there’s much need for that.” L shifted, rocking back and forth, thumb in his mouth thoughtfully. “There can be safeguards. If Light-kun becomes Kira again, I can make sure I know, and trust that I have no compunctions about killing Kira. But Light-kun, by my professional analysis, is an innocent schoolboy.”
There were several issues with that. Not as many as Light might have expected, but he was mostly hung up on the innocent. He didn’t feel innocent. He felt like his hands had slathered countless, his eyes had chosen life and death, his tendons had wanted nothing more than to tighten their grip around L’s neck.
“Innocent, Ryuzaki? Me?”
“By personal analysis? Light-kun’s loss would be unworthy of what he offers the world. And me.”
L’s smile was terrifying. Light’s throat was tight, his heart unsteady. They were both unmoving from their unsteady positions, both on the floor, both wondering whose move was next.
“I don’t want to be Kira again.”
“Something, unfortunately, that Kira-san would say.”
“I’m serious.” Light’s gaze snapped off L abruptly, like the polarity had reversed, and it felt like he was spending his last breaths with every word. “I don’t… want it. Or- maybe I do, but… I don’t want to want it.”
That sounded stupid. Maybe he was nothing more than a schoolboy after all, whatever had made him brilliant to match L having been something of Kira’s, briefly borrowed.
“That would be perfectly normal.” L thumbed at the floor, like he’d find a hidden compartment, some fresh mystery, now Light was unravelled before him. “It’s a lot of power, and Light-kun would use it as well as Kira does.”
“Kira would use it to kill you.”
“A risk I am willing to take. Light-kun is in no more danger, and so, I would like to see how he acts unthreatened.”
“That’s the plan?” Light glanced up, searching, watching for L’s true intent, or some reflection of his now move in the detective’s eyes. “To watch me? Carry on profiling?”
“It has been for a while.”
“But… now we know. There’s no more Kira.”
“There is definitely still a Kira. But we can make this the last one, I imagine.”
“That’s stupid. Why would I keep working on this?” Light drummed his fingers against the floor, impatient, anxious, half-waiting for L to pull the rug and announce his execution. He had to seem more innocent than ever, now he was certain he was guilty. Or was that what Kira would want? “That would be playing into Kira’s hands, keeping me close to the case.”
“Light-kun has a remarkable lack of faith in me.”
“I do, actually, because this is Kira we’re dealing with-“
“And I have dealt with Light-kun remarkably well. Kira-san would just be… a slightly different version.”
L smiled, catlike and contented, and stretched his arms back over his head. It tugged on Light’s wrist, that tether back to the detective, that reminder that he would be allowed to hurt no more people.
“You haven’t dealt with me in the slightest, I nearly broke your arm.”
“And yet. My arm remains unbroken. Between the two of us, me and Light-kun can probably handle one murderer? Hm?”
L wasn’t giving up. Light was moving past aghast back onto familiar territory of exasperation, and once more, he was being forced to wrestle with the idea that L simply had a plan he wasn’t privy to, and he was getting no concessions whilst it played out.
“Fine. Fine. You’re the one getting murdered by him.”