Archive of Our Own

Most people would assume that given the chance to do it all over and repent for his sins, Light Yagami would jump at the chance.

Most people would be wrong.

Then again, they most often were about Light Yagami, the man who’d managed to hold the world in the palm of his hand, as more than just the judge, jury and executioner- as God. 

His image, that mask which had melded to his face, was perfectly procured: a composite of normalcy and supremacy- he was the type to be just holding himself above the crowd by a head, simultaneously not signalling himself as important enough to suspect of anything. 

(At least, that's what he claimed to himself).

No one else could do it . 

To be sure, he was well aware of himself, his position, but he instead hid behind a mask of humility and mild pleasantries. 

(Sometimes he wondered if that was his hamartia. Perhaps sometimes he needed to let that porcelain face slip and show ‘real’ emotion). 

(Maybe that would convince L).

(It had been years since Light was certain he had felt anything at all).

The most he’d ever felt had been when he’d wielded the death note. Love, shame, pride, happiness- they were all an act, a mask- although it hadn’t taken him long to realise that this was not the case for most people. His sister’s coos over Hideki Ryuga were as real as any other emotion she displayed; plain, easy to use. His father wasn’t just keeping up appearances when he told the task force that they deserved to go home after a late night (even when Light knew they didn’t). His mother’s concern was genuine when she begged her husband to quit the Kira case. 

Every emotion he’d ever felt had been carefully calculated to draw out the exact reaction he’d needed, the perfect, polite thing to do.

He had first realised his abnormality when he was very small. He was 6 years old, only a few weeks into elementary school, and already smoothly fitting in with his classmates- saying exactly what needed to be said to make people follow. But that was the way of the world, surely. People only said things to get a response from others. 

Sitting at the lunch table with his tray, Light tried to ignore the whining of the boy behind him, sitting alone. Still; no matter how hard he tried it was getting harder to focus on whatever Yamamoto was saying now with that pathetic crybaby nattering on, complaining about the portion size and the way his mum’s was better and it wasn’t fair-

It was that phrase which had ticked the boy over the edge. It was fair. He knew what fairness, what justice was by now, his father had shown him as much, and it was repulsive that such a notion should even begin to be misconstrued by a moping wretch. Face neutral. He relaxed the absent smile he’d allowed to play on his face to draw his pretending to halt. His eyelids lowered, casting a shadow over his warm brown eyes. His mouth was a flat line, and his expression betrayed nothing whatsoever, nothing of what was on his mind.

This was neutral. This was the make-believe game’s end; he was tired of playing for now. Once the noise stopped, once the twitching stopped playing in his blood and nerves he was sure he’d have enough energy to flow back into it. No one would even notice what he’d done.

As if it were the most natural thing in the world, his friends noticed him stand smoothly, and in one fluid movement smash his lunch tray over the boy's head and then return back to his previous position, a warm and intrigued smile on his face like he had still just been listening to his friend’s chatter. Not many people elsewhere paid much kind to what had just gone on, but all three others at the table gawked at him in horror.

Light never once wondered whether it had been a mistake.

I’ll tell my dad it was an accident- no, better than that, I’ll tell him that he was threatening my friends, of course he’d believe it if I said that- more than that, he’d want to believe it. His son, carrying out justice just as he does.

When he quickly realised that even he couldn’t pretend that he hadn’t done what he’d done, he shifted gear to a new position.

“We all wanted to,” he shrugged, a small smile still gracing his lips. “I was just helping out.”

“No- no I didn’t-“ one girl, Aya- Tanaka - he vaguely recalled, stammered the sentence out. He nearly scoffed, but that certainly wouldn’t be proper. 

“That was mean.” Another said.

“He was annoying us all!” Light remarked. For some reason this didn’t help his cause. Yamamoto glanced up, and paused at the empty look in his eyes. 

“How are you so normal so fast?” He asked, and something flicked behind those eyes, something caused his gaze to narrow as if strings were cut, and lips to flit down similarly- then back up, as if nothing had happened. He laughed, and it was melodious and bright and hollow .

“I don’t know… but you’re one to talk about normal, aren’t you Yamamoto,”

He wasn’t sure what that meant, but Light had said it like a joke, so he laughed, and so did the rest of their friends, and the conversation did not go back to the poor boy silently crying behind them. He was silent now, and Light’s mind was blissfully quiet.

When his father had heard his reasoning (it seemed someone had informed a teacher of the incident) to his surprise, he grasped his arm and knelt down to face him, eye to eye. A brief moment of panic flashed over him. Did he already know that was a lie? How?! His father sighed, and then rested back on his heels slightly.

“I understand your reasoning, Light, but that is not the way you should have gone about things.”

“Why?” He asked, the question apparently taking Soichiro off guard as he looked a little oddly at his son, head tilted.

“Whatever do you mean? Have I not taught you well enough to know that lashing out is never the most appropriate path?” 

He liked talking to his father, his father never dumbed himself down. But the wording was strange. Lashing out implied that it had been done in a fit of rage, perhaps protecting someone impulsively, but his actions were far from that. He knew what he was doing. It was planned. It was calculated. It had a clear purpose and motivation. This was not a child ‘lashing out’. But… maybe it is best to make it seem like that is the case. I can just nod and agree and it will all go away, like always .

“Sorry, dad. I just…” look away a little, be embarrassed. Flush. Glance down then up, meet his eyes and look ashamed, regretful. Swear you’ll never do it again. Mean that you’ll never be caught. 

Later, Yamamoto’s words played on his mind. 

‘How are you so normal so fast’

Was… was he not meant to be? Was that switch supposed to be harder to find, harder to flick? No, it seemed more like he was meant to be so full of emotion that he simply couldn’t return to his prior state. Full of emotion , a phrase he’d read a hundred times before, and what ridiculousness it was. Emotions don’t fill you up. That phrase was just flowery language like feeling dead tired and falling in love - so why did he have the sneaking suspicion that emotions were in fact, supposed to fill you up. To make it harder to breathe, to move. 

Perhaps it was less that others were used to hesitating before they decided to flick the switch to be alright again, perhaps it was that they didn’t have one to begin with. Maybe feelings were a tide you had to ride out, rather than a pool to dip into. He could never know, but assuming that hypothesis was correct would make it easier to carry on with the flow of humanity now.

His humanity was kept in a little locked box in his chest, and the key had snapped inside the lock.

Like I mentioned, the phrase full of emotion has never applied to Light Yagami. At least not before Yellow Box. Everything else had just been a simmering, he had realised that day, even his rivalry with L had just been a rolling boil under the surface, a smooth hot liquid lapping at the edges of exposed nerves. His control was never lost.

But at Daikoku Wharf, in the Yellow Box warehouse, for the very first time emotions flooded him. Rage exploded like it was searing nerve endings away- laughter forcing itself out of him in like pressure being released from a can, squeezing the last drops of sanity from the corners of his eyes. For once, he dropped every last mask he had and screamed at the cold ceiling, he cackled, the ugly sound reverberating like a knell as he wheezed and choked. And when he was shot, he snivelled and screeched until his voice was frayed and grated and hoarse and he was reduced to a pitiful mess on the staircase, frantically huffing and begging for air, for his fluid-filled lungs to expand and contract just a little more , for his vision not to be filled with darkness that looked too much like sorrowful eyes.

And then he blinked awake. 

In a dream-like state, he took in what was the cause of the darkness in his vision, and it took him longer then he would have liked to admit to realise that what he was seeing was not shifting and greying like the edges of consciousness, but leathery and specked in cool light.

It was a notebook. He moved his hands (in one piece, smaller and smoother than he was used to) away from his face and nearly seized as if he was having another heart attack at the words Death Note carved into the cover. He placed a hand over his mouth, concealing a smile that felt as if it were going to split his skull in two. The urge to laugh burrowed itself into his skin, to his heart, but he bit it down like he had never had to before. He had won . There was, quite literally, nothing in his way.

Glancing around, he confirmed his suspicions. Some (fitting) purgatory aside, this appeared to be, for all intents and purposes, the moment he had first picked up the death note. He flicked through the instructions, careful not to draw attention to himself by frantically ripping through the cover to get to the sweet, glorious words inside. It was the same. If this was hell, or Mu, or whatever really lay for him after death, it didn’t matter to him. He got to relive the best years of his life as much as he wanted, apparently.

He did not even stop to pay note to the greasy residue of his past attempt at godchild until he had come home and ensured that his mother and sister were, in fact, out of the house.

It was only then, with the note laid out flat in front of him that he took it all in. Trembling ever so slightly, he carefully made his way over to the windows and his balcony door, and shut and locked them, drawing the blinds. He twisted the thumb turn lock on his door, dug his fingers into his chair- and threw it across the room.

It clattered against his wall with a sharp crash and thud. 

He shouted, snarled like a feral thing, teeth bared.

“That IDIOT!” His voice peaked like it had, what felt like barely 20 minutes ago. “Mikami! What the HELL did I tell you to do?! And you, YOU MATSUDA! What the hell was all that for!? Can’t you see?!” He raved at the wall and his hands and the smug lined paper of the notebook. His head flew back as he snapped his jaw, teeth clashing together with an unsettling sound. Spittle flew from the corners of his mouth as he seethed, seethed at the SPK and Near and the taskforce but MATSUDA most of all, MIKAMI more. “I thought you could see it…” he giggled, staring at his shaking hands, revelling in the way that they were clean and smooth and not torn to pieces by traitorous bullets. “I had such high hopes for you, Matsuda… I thought you understood the new world, understood that you had to die for it- but I suppose I was wrong about that.” His eyes flew open from how he had been letting them rest, the grin tearing across his face at lightning speed. “You killed me.” He whispered, smirk still tugging at his lips. He retrieved a pen from his desk. “You will pay for it. I am the God of this world! And I decide the punishment.”

In handwriting messier than he would have liked for his first name in this refreshed death note, the name Touta Matsuda found its place.

A giggle forced its way through Light’s lips. Then another. And another- until before he could stop it he was cackling again, laughing like if he ever stopped he would bawl, he would break.

Shit- he stopped in his tracks, realising he now had barely 15 seconds to decide when Matsuda would die, or else it would be now.

15 seconds to decide his plan…

No, he didn’t need that long. He knew exactly what to do. 

Touta Matsuda. Heart attack. 1:00pm, April 5th, 2007.

And there it was, set in stone. Mastuda would die in not even 6 months. That’s all. He would win. 

Now time to figure out the rest of the plan. Thankfully, he already had an idea of where this was going.

—--

Kurou Otoharada died of a heart attack just before his attempted attack on the pre-school. The police found him collapsed by the back entrance that he must have been planning to force open. His nose was a shattered and crumpled mess, dried blood crusted onto his clothes and hands where he must have tried to stop the bleeding. 

Cause of death was found to be a heart attack, and the broken nose was attributed to the way he hit the ground when he fell.

No one brought up the fact that he would have had to hit the ground, nose first, several times to do that much damage.

Another thing only noticed by a couple of the cops who first attended the scene were the markings in the dirt around Otoharada’s pool of blood, also dying the ground crimson. On one side of his head lay what could be construed as the kana キ (ki), and on the other, near where his seized hand lay when he was found, the kana ラ (ra). 

If these were thought to be anything at all, it was the dying delusions of a heavily drug-addled man.

The case was never reopened. It was just the fortunately timed death of a criminal. Because even when Kira arose, no police force would look back that far to criminals deaths, right?

Right?

—--

The decision to still kill Otoharada had been a conscious choice by Light.

For his plan to succeed the way he wanted it to, he still needed L to find him, to come face to face. What he didn’t need was the media- misa- finding him either, didn’t need Tokyo as the Kira capital of the world. 

All he needed was to leave enough clues for L to find him, but not enough for anyone else. It would have been difficult- impossible, even, did he not already know exactly what the detective was thinking, how he was working things out. All he needed to do what figure out which mistakes lead L to him, and eliminate any that were too great. Killing the FBI like that was unnecessary, for now. He had already figured out a way to link himself to Raye Penber and eliminate two birds with one stone without garnering the attention of anyone who didn’t know who Naomi Misora was already, which, of course, was everyone except B and L. 

Right, B. He was still alive, not yet penned into the Note with a handful of others already scheduled for their demise next April. Should he do something special with him? He knew the rules of the death note inside out by now, he very easily could. But… Kira wasn’t established enough yet. If he died randomly this could easily be yet another unlinked accident. (He had almost been a little miffed that no one had noticed his Kira stunt with Otoharada, but he was certain L would find it eventually).

So, B.

Technically, other than Otoharada, Kira hadn’t killed anyone yet. Sure, there were condemned names already, almost 2 dozen set to die in not even half a year, but as of now, 4 days following his resurgence back into the past, Kira had only claimed one victim. 

Already bound within the pages of the death note were the task force, including Ide and Ukita. Ide’s time of death was slightly different to the others, all part of Light’s plan, and as for Ukita… he’d almost been forgotten entirely. His name was tacked on at the end, an afterthought only dredged up by recalling the way that Aizawa had fretted and bemoaned leaving the task force initially, whining about how bad of a friend he must be to… who had it been? He’d thought, genuinely at a loss for the name of the member who Misa had killed. It had taken looking at the NPA’s personnel files through his Dad’s profile to recall the young officer’s name. He was 26 at this point, just barely older than Matsuda. Just barely older than L. 

Speaking of L… Back on topic. It struck him at once exactly how to deal with the problem of B and the problem of getting L’s attention specifically. While initially he postulated that it must have been the severity of his cleansing which had brought L’s focus to him, he knew now that he needed to grasp him by the throat and catch his sharp mind off guard now if he were to catch up to where he was meant to be with this far more airtight plan. 

And thus… B.

—--

“L,” Watari began, placing a tray of assorted sweets down on the floor besides where the younger man crouched with his computer. “I have news regarding B.”

His barely noticeable rocking paused, and a tense silence held for a moment. The hands which gripped his knees seemed somewhat sharper, tauter as he refused to acknowledge or turn to face Watari. 

“He has passed away in jail.”

L relaxed at that.

“Hardly surprising,” he mused, “still, a shame. How?”

“A heart attack,” he replied, although sounding somewhat unsure of himself. This caused L’s brow to furrow. “And.. it isn’t only him.”

“Hm?” He twisted his head around.

“Aiber and Wedy have as well. Also of heart attacks. As have the original Deneuve and Coil. And… most of your underworld contacts. Almost all of them, in fact.”

“But B first?” 

“Yes, B appears to have been the first death by quite some time, but the news has only reached me as of now.”

“That isn’t right…” L muttered, stating the obvious to everyone in the room. “Aiber… well, he wasn’t exactly at peak health, but Wedy? No, something about this is very wrong. And- all of my criminal connections, you said?”

“Close to. Only a few remain, and if you choose to inform them of the fact I doubt they will remain contacts for very long.”

“Hm.” L repeated, and stared into space for a particularly long time.

—--

The dawn of the new world was set to go off with a bang, mere minutes away. Light had just finished up writing the aforementioned names into the book early that morning, sweeping his pen with the last stroke of Birthday as a small laugh breathed out of him. 

It wasn’t as intense as it had been the first time, but it was still a sight to behold. 

Light glanced at his watch (not the same one as before, no, that would be a graduation present from his father, but still, this one was modified already to contain a sliver of paper), counting the seconds until Ryuk should be arriving.

Part of his insides squirmed at the thought of seeing that shinigami again. He had killed him . Just because him being in prison would be too boring. What a dickhead. Regardless of how it had played out last time, there was still a nagging worry in Light’s mind that someone who had already lived the events of one life would be too dull for Ryuk, and thus earn him an early execution. Or worse, he would also remember the past go around and kill him the moment he realised they were both looping this lifetime again. 

No, he needed to clear his mind. Best case scenario, Ryuk remembered nothing and found it highly interesting that he was repeating this life and let things play out exactly as planned. Worse… he was dead. He needed to put those thoughts out of his head. He was Light Yagami, Kira, and besides killing, manipulating was the thing he did best to people, and that extended to shinigami, for god’s sake; he’d got Rem kill herself! He closed his eyes, inhaled, and flicked the switch.

“It seems you’ve taken quite a liking to it,” a familiar voice boomed, and Light didn’t hold back from rolling his eyes at the clear attempt at intimidation from this loser of a death god.

“It’s nice to see you again, Ryuk,” Light smirked. “Well, it isn’t, but at least you were on schedule.”

“Wha-“ Ryuk began, looking utterly bewildered. “You- how do you know my name already? You haven’t had a death note before, have you?” He was rather indignant, frustrated at the idea that someone may have got to this specimen before him. For some reason, the human laughed- he actually barked a sharp laugh at the question.

“Yes and no,” he shrugged. “It's all been your doing though, don’t worry Ryuk.” Light waved a hand and beckoned him over to his desk, where the death note lay open.

“Look at all those names you’ve written in just five days… and you seem to have some sorta plan going? What’s the point in scheduling all these deaths months in advance- and these ones in the next few minutes! Why work so hard anyway?”

“I’m creating a new world, Ryuk, and any minute now you’ll understand.”

The shinigami huffed, and crossed his overly lanky arms.

“You still haven’t answered my question, Light-o.”

“Well…” Light began, already bemoaning the use of that ridiculous nickname. “It would be pretty hard to forget the name of the shinigami who killed me.”

Outside the rain still poured, but Light’s ears were just filled with the howling laughter of a shinigami. Ryuk threw his head back, hopping from foot to foot and holding his chest as he laughed, that familiar sound grating on Light’s nerves.

“I’m not gonna do anything to you, man, certainly not kill you for a while yet.” He got out between cackles.

Light rolled his eyes. Of course he would think that.

“No, I don’t mean that you’ve taken my soul already, or whatever. I mean that last time around, you killed me!”

Now that stopped the sound. The drip drip drip of rain leaking out the gutter was suddenly overwhelming. 

“Last time around?”

“Yeah.”

“So what, you’re from the future or something?”

“I mean, kind of. I’m from now, but I’ve lived all the way to 2013. I’ll keep you entertained for a good long while yet, Ryuk.” As Light explained his situation further, Ryuk grabbed his own notebook and fingered through the pages, scanning for something . There was something familiar about the name which he saw floating above this supposed time-traveller's head, and a nagging thought told him he’d find the answers inside the cover of his own death note.

“Wa- woah, you’re right!” He marvelled, tapping a bony claw to the name written at the top of a page that he hadn’t even recalled started yet. 夜神月. Moon Yagami, literally, but it matched the characters written above this human’s head. Odd. And this name was clearly written more than 40 seconds ago, especially seen as Ryuk hadn’t so much as levered the book out of its holster in decades. But the boy wasn’t dead. His name was written but he wasn’t dead and he knew the future and he had a plan and… well, this was all turning out to be very interesting indeed.

“I thought that might happen.” Light steeled, a strange satisfaction coming from seeing his own name in Ryuk’s awful handwriting, though none of that showed on his face. He allowed a small shrug.

“I know you probably won’t want to spoil yourself, so, there’s some apples on my desk if you want to keep yourself busy while I work.” He gestured to the basket his mother had given him after he presented his results, and watched in mild amusement as the shinigami’s eyes widened and his long fingers plucked one of the fruits out of the bowl and devoured it whole. 

After triple checking the contents of the first 7 pages he had filled, Light closed the notebook’s cover and pulled out his study planner.

“What’cha doing with that, Light-o?” Ryuk asked through noisy chomps.

“You can only control people’s actions for 23 days before death. That’s an issue for some of my plan.” He continued, “so I’m giving myself reminders for when to add the final few names. I have a form of shorthand only I know, so I can easily write down coded messages in here for myself in case I forget.” He had forgotten how boring it was to exposit to the death god constantly. He was an idiot, really. 

He began to write in the slot for March 13th, but it was slow and stilted. A bubble of frustration gleamed, and he huffed and switched his pen to his left hand. He breathed, and the annoyance that had been there previously melted away. 

“I’m ambidextrous,” Light began before Ryuk got the chance to ask another stupid question, “but technically I’m left handed. I normally write with my right- humans have weird feelings about left-handedness- but I just need to get the shorthand down ,”

“Heh. That’s stupid. Also, who asked.”

“Chances are I won’t need this reminder anyway. I have a photographic memory.” He determinedly ignored his comment.

“Well that’s alright then.” A beat. “This is boring , man, you’re working too hard!”

“Don’t you worry, in just a moment…” Light turned on his TV and computer. His eyes flicked between that and the clock, which had just recently turned 8:15PM.

The game begins.

—--

Soichiro leapt out of his chair at the news which Matsuda had delivered. 

“What?! All of them?”

Matsuda took a step back sheepishly, doubting himself. He looked at the file again.

“Y-yeah. Every suspect we have in holding right now just died of sudden heart attacks!”

“At the same time?!”

“Yeah! I mean, we think they’re heart attacks- they definitely looked like them, right?” He turned to face Aizawa, whose face was ashen grey. 

“Yeah. The suspect I was interrogating clutched his chest and died, just like that.”

At that moment, Ukita dashed into the room, looking frazzled. 

“What is it?” Soichiro asked, sinking back into his chair, already knowing deep down what was coming. 

“Chief! We’ve just got reports- over 600-“ he paused for breath, “over 600 criminals around Japan- I’ve been answering the calls- they’re all-“

“Dead?” Soichiro asked, in all futility.

Ukita’s nod solidified his theory.

“Heart attacks,” he specified, glancing around. Matsuda had gone a sickly sort of green or white, and his eyes were wider than dinner plates. 

“How-“ he gulped “how is that even possible?”

“It isn’t.” Aizawa stated roughly. That was the crux of it, the meat of the panic swirling in all of their guts. 

The room sat in stunned and awful silence for far longer than they even thought. Each time someone were to begin to speak, words would fail them and the oppressive atmosphere weighed over again like a shawl. 

By the time the clock tolled 8:46, Soichiro finally found the words to ask

“Have… have all the bodies been removed from the cells and interrogation rooms?”

“I… I don’t know.” Aizawa replied after almost a minute’s pause. “Probably? I called for help when my guy went down, but there were just so many…”

Suddenly, Soichiro's desk phone sprung into motion, almost rattling itself off the desk and its owner off his chair at the startling noise. He paled as he saw the number.

“It’s the director.” He muttered to the room, before moving to answer.

He stayed deathly silent, face only growing more and more unwell looking as the call continued, his hands moving to clutch the receiver together and then falling apart in a cycle. Finally he spoke.

“…of course. I’ll choose one of the others to assist. Thank you.”

Mogi looked up from the paperwork he had been stubbornly not ignoring to raise an eyebrow at the chief, who had sunk back further into his chair, massaging his temples. Mastuda looked as if he were about to explode, unable to stand still as he paced in a small circle. Aizawa stuck out his arm and stopped him in his tracks, breaking his stupor. Instead, he began to fidget with his fingernails, catching the edges of longer ones and picking them down to as short as he could. To his credit, Aizawa himself stayed stony still, fists clenched and shaking. The chief’s next words did nothing to ease the tension.

“It appears…” he stood up, and then back down as his legs and vision swayed. He grunted, banging on his chest, to which Mastuda let out a high pitched squeak. “It appears this is not a local problem.”

The implications rolled slowly over the occupants of the room like a tide. A churning, sloshing feeling in their chests, a sense of overwhelming wrong suffocating- drowning.

What counts as local..?

“Both director Takimura and deputy director Kitamura have been on the phone with the ICPO representatives. The US, France, Russia… all of them. It’s happened there too. Although-“ he coughed again. “From what we know as of now, no other member nations have had such… extensive…” words trailed off. How to even describe this? “None have had as many criminals killed.”

Matsuda clutched a hand over his mouth, but some of the sound escaped. Relenting finally, Aizawa slunk down into a chair, and held his head in his hands. 

“The ICPO has unanimously approved an emergency meeting before the end of the week- tomorrow, most likely. Although… I doubt any of us as police forces will be able to learn much. This…”

“We’re gonna need L, aren’t we chief.” Mogi said, finally making his presence known.

While Soichiro sighed, Matsuda looked around inquisitively. 

“He’s… he’s the best detective out there.” Aizawa said with a grunt and a pained expression on his face. “He hides behind his computer, sending orders.” With no small amount of malice. “But… he’s never left a case unsolved. And that’s more than any of us can say.” He begrudgingly amended. 

“Our trump card.” The chief nodded. “I’m sure, given even a case like this, he’ll have no trouble.”

None of them needed to say any more to know that he was bluffing. Regardless, it was a comforting notion. It rang hollow.

—--

L felt something akin to excitement. 

In less than a day, what was sure to be the Lind L Tailor murder- televised, would come to pass. While he had prepared in his own notes a passing mention of his disbelief for this tactic to work, it was all a farce. He had absolute certainty that Tailor would be murdered, would die of a heart attack on live television- his comment was just another jab at the killer’s immature nature, rile him up, patronise. Yes, whether it was when he broadcast the feature to Kanto or the next area on was the only question. The day, from 8pm onwards, was blocked out for all the Japan ‘shows’, the most likely time for the culprit to be home- a teenager or young adult most likely, given the childishness of the apparent aim to cleanse the world of criminals. Over a thousand of the worlds ‘evil’ were dead in barely a few days, and there were surely thousands more to come. Not if he could help it.

No, if his interference meant anything at all, this would be over before the death toll crept too high.

Watari was in France with the Interpol headquarters, but he was still in his bare room at Wammy’s, in England. He would be flying out to Japan soon enough, as soon as he could confirm where exactly he needed to be focusing his attention. Even if he somehow got no answer, L had predetermined that Kanto would be his best bet given its high population.

He did not get no answer.

He somehow got something worse, and utterly more confusing.

He got the body of Lind L Tailor, found hanging in his cell on the morning of his television debut.

He had used a torn strip of his clothing, neatly tied and braided to form a rope strong enough to hold his weight. He was dead alright, having taken every precaution to ensure his suicide was successful. The the rope had been attached to the ceiling so securely that fabric scissors were needed to take down the body, even as the guards charged with that felt queasy at the notion. The small stool granted to him was neatly tucked away by the side of his bed, just in case he were to try to reach for it after changing his mind.

But- there was something about it that rang alarm bells in L’s head. 

It was as if this perfect suicide was the steam on a mirror, a mirage. When L ordered an autopsy, the officials in charge looked down their noses at him (despite his track record) and took some convincing to even try.

It came as a surprise to everybody except L that the real cause of death was a heart attack, mere moments before asphyxiation would have taken him. L hypothesised that the attack may have taken hold just as he slipped his head inside of the noose, explaining why Tailor had appeared to have his head at a slightly strange angle for hanging- it was tilted backwards, neck jerked off-kilter. L studied the rigour mortis in his hands, and felt vindication from their clawing freeze-frame.

On a surface level, this had thrown off his plans to narrow down the suspects, but more than that, below the level, new ideas were brewing in L’s mind. 

How did the killer- Kira, as he had been dubbed- know about Tailor? Is he perhaps the son of one of the officials? No… they wouldn’t give away such an enormous clue as that, even they aren’t such idiots. 

Was it even a real suicide? If not, then what does that say about Kira’s abilities? Can he control victims before killing them of heart attacks? If so, what is the extent of his power? Does he even know?

And most importantly,

What am I to do now?

—--

Light did not, in principle, need to make prisoners write notes of any sort. 

He was more probably familiar with the limitations of the death note than he was with Sayu, and as such did not need to test the boundaries with that little game. 

But he was a petty man. 

And so when it came to the time where he had first been stretching his wings, so to speak, and ordering inmates to run amok and draw bloody pentagrams, he did decide to repeat that action. In fact, he had two more messages raring and ready to go, and he only wished that he could see the look on that freakish detective’s face when he decoded them. 

(He almost wanted to let the game go on a little further, just so he could reread them again in the café).

With a flourish of his pen, Light concluded the message and closed the notebook, tucking it safely away into the false bottom in his drawer. It was not rigged this time. Given that his desk hadn’t been a smouldering wreck, he felt it was safe to assume that even when the cameras were being installed, whoever had placed them there hadn’t thought to check there, and removing the circuit allowed the mechanism to be even more flush to the desk, and thus, undetectable. 

It was little details like that which gave him the most satisfaction to wipe away this time around.

Tomorrow, Raye Penber would begin his investigation on the Yagami family- Light specifically- and that was when he would drop his most obvious clue to L. There would be no mistaking for the great detective what the message was. But of course, not another soul other than Watari could possibly understand it.

Absently tapping the end of his pen on his desk, Light knew it was simply a matter of time.

—--

L had found the first three notes, sent in quick succession, relatively easy to figure out. Of course, the first had taken the longest to decipher, but after that, there was little trouble with the other two. 

L, do you know? Gods of death love apples.

A harmless, pointless message, wasting his time while the FBI investigated. It was a little infuriating, relying on average surveillance to catch Kira rather than being able to directly act, but in this case not even the entire police organisation acting as proxies would be able to do much good, and regardless, the police organisation themselves were the ones being interrogated so that was already out of the question. 

He had been prepared for the police not to trust him. They never did. Revere him, maybe, follow him, undoubtedly, but trust? That was something L had never bothered to secure. It was simple human nature, being unable to trust in someone whose face and name were completely unknown, and whose methods stray a little too often into that grey-zone of morality where the police tended to avoid. The antithesis was also accurate. For example, detective superintendent Soichiro Yagami seemed to be, from what L could tell through his laptop, one of the most upright and moral men in any police agency that he had ever come across. The man practically oozed respect and kindness, and was a beacon of righteousness within the department. He had a wife, a son and a daughter, both of whom were flourishing in education and whose lives were calm and prosperous. By all accounts, he was the ideal man to lead this investigation.

But he wasn’t leading it, really. L was. And L could not be Soichiro Yagami, even if he cared to be. Yagami may head up the taskforce, command the manpower, but any and all of the actual power was held by the ‘armchair detective’, as those in the FBI so kindly called him. It seemed as if Yagami was aware of this, and taking it with grace and decorum for the time being, which was a positive. It would be rather annoying if the service fought him this time, particularly with Kira’s likely links to their ranks.

His computer beeped, and L opened the next file. Another set of messages, both notes written in English. 

Upon reading the first one, his heart raised to his throat.

It couldn’t be? How?

‘I can sense it. My end is drawing near, and now I can only feel mellow. Kira is going to get me soon enough, I just know it. I don’t even stand A chance.’

Could it be a coincidence? Could the use of his successors’ names within one sentence be pure accident, an unintentional move on Kira’s part? In that respect, he could argue that Mello’s name was certainly not spelled with the ‘w’, but on the contrary perhaps that implied that there was a limit to Kira’s control, perhaps he couldn’t force people to write what they didn’t know, and thus the names were embedded in such a way? Or, equally possible, it was done as such so that only L and Watari could stand a chance to figure its message out. He noted how Watari has sent that particular letter to him directly, rather than redirecting it through the Japanese taskforce’s files. 

On the subject of which, this was also being leveraged by the murderer as his own form of test. L himself would never pass up an opportunity to do so. This was clearly some attempt to test the boundaries of Kira’s own control, L was sure, and the gloating came second to that. He refused to believe that Kira had otherworldly knowledge and was only using it to taunt him. (Well, he flat out refused to believe that first part entirely. Kira was a human, first and foremost). Still, how vain, having most of his little codes be born from a person’s dying terror of the so-called arbiter of justice.

By not broadcasting the results of his little experiment, it would confirm without a shadow of a doubt, given the event that these results were used in some way, that Kira’s information was coming from a high level of the NPA’s own data, accessed only by a small number. The initial 3 notes, for example, had been routed through the chief’s computer.

And the second of the newest notes- he had almost forgotten through his own stupor and contemplation.

‘ What am I to do now? Am I supposed to pretend I don’t know he’s coming for me? My life is coming to an end soon enough. My children won’t see their father again. You know, monsters live here, and Kira thinks that I am one of them. Save me, oh god, save me!’

Hm. Less overt this time. Scanning the first line proved fruitless, so he tried another method. 

Nothing came from doing the opposite, nor from attempting it backwards. It was when he read the first letter of each sentence that it fell into place.

‘ W..A…M..."

His mind filled in the blanks. Wammy’s. Yes. It was clear now that the previous note simply could not be a coincidence. The implications were staggering. What was the extent of Kira’s information? What was its source? The Lind L Tailor stunt was one thing, but there was still a chance that Tailor’s details had gotten out somehow logically, but what were the chances that a student, with a childish sense of justice, links to the high up police force, in the Kanto region of Japan, with knowledge of Wammy’s house, and his successors specifically, and foreknowledge of Lind L Tailor of all things existed all at once, as the same individual. The chances were infinitesimally minute. It surely hinted towards this being the work of an organisation before it pointed towards a ridiculously lucky and well-informed individual, but something in L’s gut told him to focus on the latter. 

He stayed there, laptop open, crouched on the floor with a thumb just resting on his lip.

Hours had passed, and it was dark out before he noticed Watari standing behind him, a sombre expression.

“L…” he began once he saw the younger man’s attention resurface. “I’m afraid it’s happened again.”

—--

“I am so sorry about your fiancée,” Halle Bell clasped Raye’s shoulder, giving him a sympathetic shake and smile as they stood in line for the plane home. None of them had found anything even remotely of note, unless Shuichi Aizawa and Hideki Ide’s hour long brunch one Thursday before work counted (already a joke between the two agents assigned to the pair separately). The Yagamis and Kitamuras were painfully average, and Raye had found himself completely bored to death in the first half, and too beside himself to care in the second.

Naomi had died of a sudden heart attack on December 18th at 7am. 

Raye had been the one to break the news to her parents, and he had never had a harder assignment in his near-decade in the service. 

Her mother’s screams joined his own when he closed his eyes at night.

He didn’t know why she had been targeted, and now he knew he would never find out. He could try to contact L through the system that had been in place to file their reports, but he highly doubted that that arrogant detective would even bother to check it now that the assignment was over. Especially given they had found nothing whatsoever.

“Thanks, Halle.” He gave a half smile back, face already unused to the motion. A frown felt as if it were carved into him, and breaking it was as painful as pulling teeth. “It… it’s all my fault. I can’t help but think- I was supposed to protect her, I’m the man after all, but I just… I brought her here, Halle, and now…”

“I’m so sorry. She could look out for herself so  well, I don’t think any of us even… I mean, how did Kira even-“

“I don’t know,” Raye gritted, “she wouldn’t have told him her name- anyone , I swear. She was so cautious. I- I didn’t even see the point half the time, god, I used to laugh when she told me to make a fake ID just in case, so it just- it’s not fair , y’know? It should’ve been me. I deserved to be killed by Kira way more than her. Her resolve was rock solid…”

“Hey, man, don’t beat yourself up about it now, I mean-“

He paused in his tracks, suitcase catching up to him and rolling into the back of his ankles. He didn’t flinch. Instead, he looked towards one of the many others whom Raye had no idea about, and spoke timidly.

“Knick…? Are you-?”

The man turned to face the pair at a better angle, and the agents’ hearts dropped to their stomachs. The man who Halle Bell knew to be Knick Staek was an awful shake of grey, looking at them with eyes bulging. He didn’t speak, just shook slightly as his eyes pleaded with perhaps them, perhaps himself. Dilated, tremoring pupils panned down to look at his chest, and to all of his camarades horrors, he raised his right arm and clutched at his chest in a slow, jerking motion. 

“…Knick, was it?” Raye found his voice again and frantically ran the few paces to the man, shaking him. “Knick?!” 

He was gasping and gagging now, clawing deeper at his skin as if he could dig the failing heart out. 

“Should I start CPR?” The younger man whispered. Raye shook his head

“There’s no point. I’m- fuck -” 

They made eye contact as a bolt of electric pain stabbed itself through his own chest. Horror dawned in Halle’s eyes, and before too long, nothing did at all.

—--

It took every fibre in Soichiro's body to not explode when L, perched on top of the armchair in this hotel room, informed them that he had entirely no leads in regards to the FBI deaths. All 12 had simultaneously died of heart attacks at roughly 12:27pm, in the airport set to return to the states. 

12 FBI agents, mind, that the NPA had not the slightest clue about. 

Which L had called in due to his lack of trust in this department, his department.

And now they were dead.

“Well, I say entirely none, there is something that I was reluctant to use until now.” He took a bite of the sugar cube which was hovering over his tea, a beverage which was fast becoming a thick paste. This seemed to annoy the detective, and so he had taken to eating the remaining cubes.

The scrap of the cube crumbled under his two-finger grip, and the grains scattered everywhere, like sand falling through fingers.

He didn’t bother to finish grinding the sugar between his teeth or brush the particles away before continuing in a nonchalant tone.

“Naomi Misora, an agent whom I worked with in the US, was killed by Kira during the time period of the FBI’s investigation. At first I just assumed it was Kira picking off my network- which he has been doing infuriatingly often,” he tutted, swallowed the sugar grains and continued. “But as it turns out she is the fiancée of one of the agents.”

“So.. what? You think Kira… did that on purpose?” Matsuda asked, sidestepping around the actual word of murder. Soichiro sighed internally. He should have insisted that Matsuda sit this one out, he was too feeling and sensitive for this sort of case. He recalled a case including dismemberment from a year prior, and how his subordinate had vomited at first glance of the crime scene photos. (Light, who had offered his assistance when their leads went dry, bore only mild interest at the sight. Of course, he confided in his father later that he had simply been too shocked to verbalise his disgust, but words were smooth and honey calm).

He knew that Matsuda would never relent. In the same way that Soichiro would hold himself forever responsible if something were to happen to the younger, he was aware that the opposite was also true. It was somewhere vaguely in his consciousness that Matsuda thought of him as some sort of father figure. Being over 20 years his elder, the chief also couldn’t deny a protectiveness over his team, and the one that he was mentoring specifically. And thus, trying to get rid of them was like trying to scrape limpets off a boat's hull with your bare hands: read; impossible. But that couldn’t stop him from cringing as Matsuda tried yet again to cushion himself from the reality of this case. He would be different though. He would face up to the truth here, and look on the entirety of the Kira investigation unblinkered, objective and just. Justice was everything, and he could not serve it while blinding himself to the atrocity of this monster’s actions.

( In some other universe, where he was forced to face the reality of his son’s depravity, he would do so with dignity. He would not avert his eyes, and pin down the beast within his sights).

(He would die with dignity too, each time).

“Yes, I do.” L replied, bringing the chief back to the room in front of him. “I am certain that this was a message from Kira. Moreover,” he continued, placing a finger on his lip and pulling on it, “I am… 10% certain that this means that our culprit is within the family that Penber was tailing at the time Misora was killed. To be honest, with the skill set of the Naomi Misora I know, I wouldn’t be surprised if she had figured something out about Kira before her… admittedly mediocre fiancé.” Of course, L had no way of knowing how right he would have been in another time.

“Only 10%?” Aizawa gritted.

“That’s 10% more than we had before!” Matsuda pleaded, looking to his friend with big eyes.

“He’s right.” nodded Mogi. 

“So, who was he investigating?” Soichiro pointedly ignored his team’s nattering for the time being, turning completely to face the detective. “We cannot ignore this lead, no matter the percentage.”

“At the time of Misora’s death… he was a few days into his investigation of Detective Superintendent Yagami and his family.” A ringing began in Soichiro’s ears. “Specifically, on the 18th when Misora was murdered, it was your son, Light Yagami. The order of investigation was first your daughter Sayu, then your son…” he continued, but the chief couldn’t hear it over the white noise clanging in his head. 

His family.

His pride and joy.

His son .

“How… how likely do you think it is that this message from Kira was delayed? Could it be that Kira was trying to cover their tracks by timing this death when they weren’t under surveillance?” He tried to keep a level head, but his patience was wearing out like the soles of his shoes.

“Hmm…” L pondered the question, though the hardness in his eyes betrayed how quickly he had come to the conclusion. “I’d say a 1% chance. Not very likely anyway, given Kira’s timeliness in his other messages. For instance, I originally planned a live broadcast to lure Kira out with a fake L, to determine his exact location, but on the morning of the day, he had been killed by Kira. This tells me that he enjoys dramatic irony very much, and has a very childish sense of one-upping those who try to catch him.”

“So he would end Misora during his investigation to show you that he could take out your allies even when being watched,” Matsuda grimaced.

“I just have one question,” Aizawa said, steadying his feet on the ground. “Why did you wait so long to tell us about this lead when Misora died on the 18th of December?”

That was… a fair point, given it was now the 5th of January.

L shrugged slightly, his white shirt rippling with the motion. Aizawa twitched.

“Telling you about Naomi would mean also detailing her significance, and that would include the FBI tails on the police and that would obviously make the entire effort redundant. I couldn’t have you knowing you were being investigated.”

“So you let us go in circles for weeks just in case one of us was Kira?! Even though you thought you'd found your suspects?!”

Their conversation continued and trailed around and around but Soichiro was no longer listening. 

His mind had clocked out about when L had said it was highly unlikely that Kira had deferred his message, and he had been spinning with vertigo ever since.

Because L saw possible that within his family might be the most despicable, evil mass murderer of the century- of history. Thousands- thousands were dead in mere weeks, criminals, yes, but regardless, human lives had been torn away without a plea for a second chance. L was right that Kira must be childish, for only a naïve, foolish person could believe that every last criminal was worthy of being put to death. Did he think he was protecting the world, their god judging from high heaven who deserved to be punished?

I have mentioned it before, but it is again pertinent to recall the incident regarding 6 year old Light and his lunch tray, as it flitted unwarranted into Soichiro Yagami’s mind at that moment. 

Soichiro himself had been having a rare afternoon off when he had decided to give Sachiko a break by collecting his children from school and nursery. The school had not contacted him about the incident prior to his arrival, but when he reached the gates he was greeted by a stern-faced staff member who politely confirmed that he was, in fact, Light Yagami’s father. Despite her expression, he still hoped that it was to congratulate Light for something positive. 

She led him into her office and informed him that Light had attacked a student in the canteen that day, and while the incident wasn’t too severe, it still warranted his knowledge. 

And Soichiro had been appalled, because of course he would be, his son, capable of such violence… but upon hearing the reasoning of his son, it became clear that this was all a 6 year old's misunderstanding. Light was protecting his friends the best way he thought how, and that happened to be hitting them with a tray. Now, of course he sternly explained that that was never acceptable, and Light understood. He even flushed a little and looked away, sending a pang through his father’s heart. Perhaps he was a little too harsh. He’s still a child, after all. So, from his kneeling position, he brought his son into a tight hug and patted him on the back, holding him as he promised never to do it again. His heartbeat felt as steady as ever (something which Soichiro couldn’t help but find amusing, as his own was still careening down from the pace it had rocketed to). 

They walked out of the building hand in hand, Light happily describing each new thing he had learnt with passion, and Soichiro didn’t notice the boy, still blotchy-faced, darting around a corner when Light appeared. He didn’t notice, also, the way that Light made eye contact with him before that had happened, and had felt his stomach turn with excitement as he cowered. 

He would never know how much Light enjoyed being feared.

As a responsible parent did, he informed his wife about what had happened, and her reaction was much the same. Neither could believe that their perfect son, who had stopped throwing tantrums by age 2 and a half, who had never lashed out at his baby sister, who stood up for his father’s ideals and justice, could possibly hurt another student like that. At least not for the reasons that you and I and Light know that he did. 

And the same was true for him being Kira. 

He could ponder and turn the idea over in his mind like a child turning over a log, but once the bugs came out, he dropped it like it burned and locked that thought away.

Light was not Kira, and that was the end of it. 

Naomi Misora was coincidental, and Light was not Kira.

Light was not Kira in the same way that he did not hit that boy with a lunch tray because he was crying.

—--

There was a monster in Sayu Yagami’s house.

It didn’t look much like a monster, despite what her imagination would conjure late at night. 

It hid itself away in one of the upstairs rooms, but sometimes it would emerge. That was when Sayu felt the most afraid, even as her mother patted her hair and laughed and asked what she was so nervous about. 

It ate with them too. It sat and watched TV. 

It wore his clothes. It even wore his skin. 

But its insides were too large for it, impossibly, and it would spill out- expressions better suited for a bigger face, an adult shape rather than the boy it cloaked itself in. The smile pulled a little too hard on the corner of its lips, as if expecting to spread further. Sometimes, out of the corner of her eye, Sayu would see those hands misjudge themselves, misjudge a handle or cabinet, and slip- 

And she let herself hope someone else would notice. 

And they wouldn’t. 

The walls of the Yagami household were not thin, but with her ear pressed to the wall, ignoring the chill seeping through the wood, she could hear muttering late at night. 

It had stolen his voice, too, and wore it down like gravel. 

In the right light, she could have sworn she could make out calluses between the index and middle fingers, and one sitting squarely on the top of the thumb. She tried not to remember how those fingers used to interlock with hers as he led her across the street, because now whenever she did, all she could feel were the course welts grating her to the bone. 

The worst part, however, of the monster, was that it was only the skin it had taken.

If you were to ask Sayu what she would find if she cut the thing in half, it would be a sincere answer to say absolutely nothing. It would be hollow in there, and everything that had once been him had been eaten up and rotted away. It would crumple, and the paper mask of its form would melt into the damp earth and rejoin the insects it had once crawled away from. There was no substance, no depth, no flame behind those warm brown eyes, nothing at all, an utter lack of light . 

It was a machine, and people would put their coin in and it would spit out the response. A Mechanical Turk. Its chess game was with the universe, and every word spoken was a pawn sacrificed against an unknown opponent who played blindfolded and unaware.

It was not a matter of checkers or chess. It was a matter of school and chess. Of dinner and chess. Of siblings and chess. 

To be placed alone with the monster was to be in hell, because it was nothing whatsoever. 

To be alone with it was to be entirely alone.

Sayu had taken to listening to the conversations it had with her mother, herself, and counting how many straight answers it gave. Every response came out vague, sidestepped, linked- never once did it ever say anything about him ; Sayu was beginning to wonder if the only part of his brain it had kept had been the intelligence.

Because it was intelligent.

And it knew it.

But it was not him . It had overcompensated. It was a doll, an automaton, a wind up boy who went to school and cram school and studied and never ever ever complained. As far as it was aware, that expression on the features it possessed was pleasant and warm, but the vacancy lurking beneath was startling. Maybe not to her mother, and maybe her father would have noticed if he were home enough to. But she did. She could see the moment he wasn’t there anymore, and she wanted to scream and break things and hit it because it had taken him away from her- withered up the soul in him and left her with plastic that sparkled like light on water’s surface. 

And so she became annoying. Sayu would poke and tease and beg and nag and squeal and barge and she would do it forever if it meant that anything would happen. She would gladly get a face full of insults in return for giving back the boy. But the monster wore his skin, and his eyes, and before there was nothing, there was pity, and that was almost more awful. What could a monster pity her for, unless it knew full well what it had stolen and knew it was never returning it? 

One afternoon, when she was feeling very brave, Sayu snuck into the room it had made its den.

Her first port of call was the desk drawer, and she struck gold immediately with a study journal. It was so like him that she almost laughed- a single journal, centred perfectly in an empty drawer. Could it be, maybe, maybe, that she had misjudged her overworked, perfectionist, soon-to-be collegian br-

No. She knew she wasn’t. 

The journal was written in code. Well, it wasn’t to a point, but before too long it was all in a strange slanted language that almost made sense, but not quite. There was plenty of space for him to plan his revision timetable there, the boxes were large and his writing was small, smaller than it should be for the amount he would have to do, if this were just prep for his exams.

It was at almost the exact moment that she noticed the date (march- April- more-) , months beyond his exams, that she also noticed the sound behind her. 

Slow, measured breaths. Sayu could feel the rage- something, finally - emanating from it in waves, an oppressive aura cloying her skin. Out of the very corner of her eye, so far of a stretch that her eyes strained and begged for her to just turn her head, she caught a glimpse of the monster.

Its eyes were sharply downturned, a stress pinch wearing grooves into the bridge of his nose. The heat of its fury almost seemed to melt the copper in his eyes, turning them molten red and amber with a glare that could have and should have sliced metal clean and murdered animals. Its mouth was a dim line, although the corners twitched downwards in disdain, revealing every so often sharp canines and gritted teeth. Its jaw was set. But… this was what she wanted, wasn’t it? To see something real on that face of his. This was the goal. So why did she feel like a hare between the jaws of a fox, staring into its eyes before it bit down on her neck. And why did she feel like turning around was the same as tightening her noose?

“What are you doing in here, Sayu?” It asked, turning his voice passive and curious, as if it didn’t already know what she had seen. She didn’t even know what she had seen. That seemed to be the signal that it was safe to face the monster, the horn stating that the horrors were back in Pandora’s box, stuffed tightly in a locked chest beneath a lost boy’s skin. 

She should scream. She should beat its chest until it caved in and the truth came pouring out. Instead, she lied.

“Oh, uh, nothing really- just looked for some paper! I think I left my notebook in here when you helped with my homework…”

( The homework which it hadn’t once complained through, even as she pushed her luck and forced it to answer each question in turn as she swung on the chair and whistled away. It was as if he had forgotten that only a few weeks ago, those were offences punishable by pulling the chair out from under her).

(She had already forgotten how it felt to fall).

They both knew it was a lie. She hoped it knew that she knew it was lying too. 

There was a monster in Sayu’s house.

And that wasn’t her brother.

—--

The 8th of January, 2007.

Light felt a shiver run down his spine as he stood by the front door, not yet entering the premises. He turned on his heel and faced Ryuk, who almost bumped into him. The shinigami startled back quickly. 

“What’s the hold up? I want apples…”

“Too bad. If things go the way they’re supposed to, you won’t be getting any apples inside for about a week.”

“What?!” Ryuk gawked, eyes and mouth going even wider than their natural state. “But don’t you know-”

“Yeah yeah, apples are like drugs or alcohol or whatever; you’re just gonna have to cut back- or do you want them cut off permanently with me in jail ?”

“Well why are you so worried now , smartiepants?”

“L’s placed wiretaps and cameras all around the house, particularly in my room. There aren’t any blind spots.”

“ None? ” Ryuk grumbled, but seemed to accept his fate. As he had become prone to do, in this reality, he found himself asking 

“I’m assuming this happened last time? How didja even figure that out?” Light rolled his eyes.

“You know how many security measures I have on my door alone. He might think he’s sneaky, but not even the world's greatest detective can hide 64 cameras in my room and not leave a trace.” He smirked.

“Well you’d better hope there aren’t any on the porch.” The shinigami chuckled, covering his mouth with a hand, and for the first time Light felt his stomach flip with the slightest twinge of… nervousness? Excitement? Of course, it was all types of thrilling to be back in the past, with perfect foreknowledge of the world, but boredom was quick to sink its teeth into the 23 year old,  dropped back into high school. It was incredibly frustrating to have to act as if he were just some teenager - and not even in the way it had been before, when his godliness was a mere fantasy- in the sense that people looked down on him, treated him like a child instead of a saviour, even just instead of a grown man with an apartment, fiancé and stable job. That all stood to reason of course, he really was just a 17 year old to them, and none of them suspected a thing, but that did nothing to ease the tedium when day in and day out, that stale news left an even bitterer taste in his mouth.

This world was rotten deep to its core, and if those stupid SPK and taskforce members in 2013 could come back with him and witness the root of his ideology, see how good of a job Kira had done at cleaning up the world, he knew he would have a much better shot at changing their feeble minds. 

He knew that L would never change.

(Light tried his best to avoid thinking about how much less time he would get with L. He tried even harder to believe the boredom after him would be different, somehow, this time round).

Today was not a boring day, though. He was going to have some of the most fun he’d had in years .

—--

Just to preface what I am about to detail, I think it is important to mention that as a general rule, Light Yagami felt close to 0 sexual attraction, and even beyond that, the romantic type was hard to come by. Whether his slim window of interest extended further towards men or women is  practically irrelevant, and any feeling that may have developed towards any particular friend had long since decayed, like such friend’s body. 

But wouldn’t it be so funny if this time around-

So yes, that was Light Yagami’s thought process, not so much a journey of self-discovery as it was the largest possible middle finger to the detective trying to carry out a Very Serious investigation.

—--

“I- I can't believe my son is looking at such magazines!” Soichiro stuttered, gripping onto the armrests of the chair L had provided.

“That… certainly explains some things.” L said, cocking his head forwards to take a closer look at the screens. “Still, it seems… contrived.”

“Does it? I… are you accusing my son of being Kira because he’s looking at these -“

“No, of course not. I’m simply suggesting that he might not be being entirely transparent with his actions. It seems clear enough, doesn’t it? He doesn’t want anyone to be in his room because he’s hiding that ? But I can’t help but wonder…”

The chief’s face was almost purple, but after L finished speaking he exhaled and then took another deep breath in. 

“This…” he gestured to the monitors, where Light, sitting casually on his bed with a magazine open, half-naked men overtly smouldering towards the camera from its pages, beamed out at them. “Does explain quite a lot. You were right about that… I can’t believe I never put it together before. He always spends so long on whatever hair and face routines-“

“Those are stereotypes, chief Yagami.” L interjected, and Soichiro blanched then turned red almost simultaneously.

“I didn’t-! I mean, it wasn’t-“

“Relax, I am well aware of what you meant. I have to agree. This level of secrecy certainly makes a lot more sense coming from a closeted teenager who was deathly afraid of his parents discovering his stash of magazines. Particularly if he believed either you or your wife would be unsupportive.”

“I would never! I love my son regardless. It’s just a… a bit of a shock.”

“Yes, I can tell.”

In their awkward silence, the speakers relayed Light hum thoughtfully, before rolling into his front and turning the page. He paused for a much longer period on the next model, a skinnier man than the others with mid-length raven hair and piercing dark eyes, somehow even darker than the hair. His change in interest was evident even through the screen, and L halted his thought process to pay attention to it. Could this be a clue? There was something nagging him about the man in the image, but nothing sprang to mind immediately, and for L, that generally meant that it was nothing of any importance. In a bit of an anti-climax, Light just folded down the corner and went on with his mindless flicking. His father tensed a little more at that, making strange guttural noises for a moment before leaning back in his chair, massaging his temples.

“I appreciate you only allowing myself and you to watch this footage, but it feels incredibly invasive especially given that he has done nothing suspicious whatsoever!” His voice rose, but glancing at the screen again tempered it. 

“I disagree. Besides, if Light really is Kira, this could easily be a plan to ward off any investigators with that exact line of reasoning. It would be foolish to stop surveillance of a suspect just because you feel uncomfortable. If you want you can have a break and I could bring in one of the others? Or I could just do it myself.”

Soichiro seemed to consider the idea of leaving the detective to watch his son, and shook his head after a moment. 

“No, I committed to this, and there isn’t any point if we stop watching… you’re right, Ryuuzaki.”

L hummed in acknowledgment. 

“Thank you.”

Glancing around the room for another family member to watch instead, he felt the pit grow in his stomach at seeing more and more cameras focusing solely on Light.

—--

So this was his genius plan. Remixing his previous plan of using explicit magazines, he substituted in gay explicit magazines, and mentally sat back and watched the fireworks. Light knew that there were 3 possible situations for how the monitoring was (had been?) carried out: option 1; it was only L there. In this scenario, the magazines would do little to nothing and the cameras would show naught. Option 2: the entire task force is watching. In that case, he could only imagine the chaos erupting right now; he could practically see Matsuda leaping out of his chair and Mogi and Aizawa’s faces glowing red. In option 3 it was only his father and L monitoring the cameras, in which case his father’s embarrassment still made the whole thing hilarious. It wasn’t that he wished for his dad to be so utterly flustered over the ordeal for malicious reasons, more that it was just so funny to feign deep interest in male models who resembled L. Turning down page corners of scrawny, black haired men, lingering over them, touching the pages- if L, the man who had scarcely looked in a mirror the months he was chained to Light, didn’t get it, he certainly hoped someone else would, if only to laugh as his father struggled to make eye contact with either of them for the next few weeks. 

He didn’t know his father’s options on gay people, but he was certain that his opinion of Kira was worse, hence… all that.

Criminals- the real, heinous ones, not just petty thieves or embezzlers- had been scheduled to die today weeks in advance, and that should eliminate him for anyone’s suspicion. Well, anyone but L’s. That was the goal. His breadcrumbs still lead to him, but like the LABB murders before him, they were intended to be clues impossible for anyone except the world’s greatest detective. While giving such doctored hints may lead L to some very strange conclusions about Kira’s ability, Light trusted that he was the prime suspect. For the first time since he had become Kira, he was glad for the fact. 

He yawned and closed the cover, sitting up in bed. He made a show of stretching and straightening his clothes up before very conspicuously looking around and slipping the magazine into an encyclopaedia set casing. He strolled over and unlocked his door. Light fought with a smirk as he caught a glimpse of one of the minuscule cameras, nestled by his doorframe. It barely looked like anything at all, but with hindsight(?) it’s nature was clear. Painstakingly making sure not to even glance in its exact direction, Light prepared himself to be called down for dinner. He wondered if, this time around, L would still send that fake message about the ICPO. Knowing himself, and his opponent better this time, Light knew not to rise to the trick on camera, or else face any tiny modicum of suspicion from anyone else.

He wanted to drive L crazy.

He wanted L to know that it was him, but have  nothing to pin him down with.

He wanted L to squirm and itch and scream inside him that Kira was Light Yagami but be utterly incapable of proving it.

Being so, so smart, but completely powerless. Being unable to share that brilliance with anyone .

It reminded him, a little, of what he had done to Misora last time. Her brain was maybe half of L’s, but having done some posthumous research on the suddenly suicidal woman he discovered enough proof that he had made the right choice in eliminating her. Not only had he found her involvement in the Los Angeles BB murder case, but also an old record for a leave of absence. It hadn’t taken long for him to dig up the reason for the break.

She had hesitated to kill a boy in a raid on a gang base, and that had led to the utter failure of her team.

Misora Massacre, they called her, but she spared the life of a teenage boy. Why? Why not kill him? What could be so hard about killing him? He was a criminal. Shooting him in the face now not only would have salvaged the mission, but also prevented him from perpetrating more crime inevitably as he grew. So why did Naomi Misora Massacre fail?

Would she have hesitated again, faced with another teenage boy steeped in blood, if the choice was him or them?

He could not allow that chance.

So he was glad that he had led those brains and brawn out and out and out and away from the NPA building, drowned those clever little thoughts with despair and watched as the anguish doused the flame in her and that desperate flicker behind her eyes grieved their stolen opportunity. 

No one ever heard her theories.

It would take months, Yotsuba , for that idea to ever resurface, that heart attacks weren’t the only method of death. 

If the loop repeated, and he got far too bored, Light considered letting Naomi go some time. Not this time though. Or the next. If this was his only chance at redemption (by which, of course, Kira only meant redemption of his New World) he was going to clutch it by the windpipe and throttle the life out of it, never ever let go. 

And so L would be like Naomi Misora: theories stuck rattling around a head far too clever for the people around them to ever understand, claustrophobic inside their own mind.

“Light, dinner!” Sayu yelled, stirring him from his musings. He had almost forgotten himself in his own mind, coming back to his body with a jolt.

“Coming!” He called back. He flexed his left hand, the cramp and stiffness of non-use settling in already. As well aware as he was that it was all for the greater good to have the deaths planned weeks in advance, particularly for this week, it was somewhat irritating not being able to write. It was cathartic, inscribing someone’s name into those pages. Knowing with each pen-stroke that another bit of scum was wiped away made him feel almost physically cleaner, like the grease and grime of this old world was being sanitised. Human stains he had long since scrubbed clean had sprung back like weeds, and like a diligent god should, he pruned them back again. He could do it faster this time too. It was like knowing the most effective way to clean a stubborn stain out of your carpet- he had fingered out all the kinks and the right steps- the right chemicals to bleach the mess- and now it was a matter of gathering and repeating the process. 

Careful not to let a hint of his swirling mind express itself, Light made his way downstairs and took his bowl, neither avoiding the TV nor staring at it. The perfectly neutral thing to do.

—--

“Does your son always just lie in bed and stare at the ceiling after school?” L asked, masking the real question ‘ is this normal? How well do you really know your son?’.  

Soichiro spluttered, clearly still recovering from the magazines. That was almost 10 minutes ago, L really didn’t see what the issue was. He staunchly did not look anywhere on L’s body when he turned to answer, seeming much more interested in the door handle or L’s chair’s armrest, which was certainly odd for the man who had been almost frustratingly determined to make eye contact. Like that was gonna happen . Regardless, the chief of the NPA responded after a moment or two.

“I suppose it must be. He’s sometimes still studying when I get home late at night, so I presume he prefers to do so after dinner.”

The lingering ‘or at least he did when I last saw him’ went unsaid.

“I see. Watari, are the Kitamura’s watching TV?” He kept up the facade of caring what the Kitamura family did, as if there were any point in surveilling Raye Penber’s other charge. 

L was still at a loss however, of how to convince them to only focus on not only the Yagami family specifically, but Light Yagami. His gut, his instincts, screamed at him that Kira was hiding within Light Yagami’s perfect husk, but there was nothing to convince the others the same. In their eyes, he was grasping at straws looking for a culprit when in reality, the true Kira was miles away, hiding in some normal family (yet somehow accessing Lind L Tailor and Naomi Misora and every FBI agent and Wammy’s-) but technically, that theory was just as valid as his own. How could the younger Yagami male know of this either? He had never left Japan, never shown an interest in it besides excelling at English in school, so there should have been no conceivable way that a gifted children’s orphanage in Winchester should even cross his radar. It wasn’t even like Quillsh Wammy was a known name, or said inventor had established an orphanage, in Japan. 

By all accounts, the knowledge Kira held was impossible for Light Yagami to know.

But still-

Something gnawed at him that the young man he watched over grainy monitors was more than that, more than the 17 year old his body claimed to be. There was something else behind his moves, his voice, his words, that strung themselves into a picture he couldn’t quite work out yet, like the pieces were blurred and the edges missing and the puzzle all white. He had nothing to work on but a criminal profile and a hunch, and all of the breadcrumbs feeding it led him here: to the boy who had now moved downstairs to the sofa to watch TV.

“Are your children close?” L probed, noting the way that Sayu scooted over ever so slightly to the edge of ether couch when Light settled into it. It could almost be seen as a kind gesture, did L not glance the momentary tense furrow that crossed the girl’s brow when she glimpsed her brother’s face. 

“When they were younger, yes, very close.” Soichiro sighed, sounding relieved to hear a question he could answer. “Of course, they’ve grown apart a bit now they’re older but Light always helps her with homework and he doesn’t complain as much as he used to when she puts on her shows.” A ghost of a smile danced over his face, an almost sentimental look settling after a moment. “I must say, I’ll be so relieved when this case is over. I think I’ll take some time off and spend it with my family. Maybe we’ll even go abroad. Light can speak quite a few languages, you know.” His tone was proud.

“Yes, I do. Japanese, English, French- and he’s learning Russian too, although that’s only in school…”

“Of course you know that better than me… how long have you been watching him anyway?”

“Not watching, just… researching.”

“Researching my son.”

“Researching all potential suspects of being Kira, yes.”

Sorichiro breathed heavily. L paid little attention to his clear show of disapproval, and focused intently on the screen. Was it possible that Sayu knew something, he had told her something (assuming that Light was, in fact, Kira and that Sayu had, in fact, shuffled away out of fear)? 

The younger girl was staunchly refusing to acknowledge her brother, but they both sat relaxedly, watching the news. This was good. If criminals who were broadcast now died, then it would give some credence to his theory. 

A murder appeared on screen.

On the Yagamis’ television, that was.

A much scarcer report now than there had been pre-Kira, but there were still some killers out there bold enough to either not care, or truly believe that they wouldn’t be caught and exterminated. In this case, the perpetrators had

been caught. Even without Kira’s input, they were well on their way to justice already.

22 year old Emi Saito had been missing since the 28th of November 2006, and had now been found murdered and assaulted in an abandoned urban site. The men who committed the crimes were identified quickly upon the discovery of her body, and were soon realised to be a biker gang who had been terrorising the nearby streets for weeks prior. Their leader, Takuo Shibuimaru, had just been displayed on TV, and L couldn’t help but feel some disdain for the news station portraying the case. 

It was bordering on irrational, but this case had had him on edge from its conception.

He was aware of why they shouldn’t attempt to restrict the media, but they likely weren’t aware of that. Even the taskforce, still composed of… well-enough trained detectives, had struggled with the concept that as of now, it was for the greater good that these criminals needed to be displayed, if only as a distraction, a dangling toy on a rope for a cat to bat at. But the news stations… if the people at Sakura TV, for example, were really the idiots they seemed to be, then surely they must have believed differently. Like the police, it was all too likely that they were under the impression  that taking down images of anyone would prevent them from aiding in Kira’s killings. Unless…

Unless the world was already so swayed as to think that Kira was justice, and the obstruction of such was a heinous sin. 

It was not the murder itself that had got his attention however, no, that was routine enough. It was Light’s reaction to it. At last, he had had a reaction to anything at all. L pressed his face up close to the TV, observing the widening of Light’s eyes and the way that his breathing had hitched. 

It was minute, but noticeable enough. 

“Does he know that woman?” Soichiro asked, even him picking up on the strangeness, and L fought a laugh despite himself at the irony.

“If he does, it isn’t in our records. That means they certainly weren’t close friends. We have mentions of Yamamoto and Kamoda, but no Saito.” Although, I suppose that makes sense if the magazines from before weren’t just a ploy. “Nor anyone matching her description. Watari!” He called “can you find some more information on this woman and her death, see if any of it links to… anything.”

“Of course.”

Why had Light reacted so oddly to a routine news report? Who was she, a friend, a lover, an acquaintance? What relevance did she have?

What L had failed to realise, is that he might have been looking at the wrong person whatsoever.

—--

Takuo Shibuimaru.

Light had forgotten all about Takuo Shibuimaru.

That horrible little man who he had killed outside of the convenience store. His first night with the note, fresh with youth and naivety, unbelieving in its power. He recalled the way his knees had shaken and buckled slightly at the sight of the truck smashing into the man on his bike; felt the wave of nausea all over again thinking about the crunch and mesh of bone and metal and glass and the screams of his friends. Light had never felt more sick after using the note, and scraping Takuo’s bloody form from his conscience was harder than scraping his mangled corpse off of the tarmac. It was a motivator in righteous intent, truth be told, if only to convince himself that demises like that were justified when they befell criminals. The wicked. The irreparable. 

Bile rose in his chest seeing the snivelling mugshot of the man who he had forgotten. Even with all his knowledge, Kira had failed to protect one woman. He hadn’t been out that late, searching for a test subject, this lifetime; he had gone home the usual way and written names pre-queued for months to come. And so, the memory that now infiltrated his mind had failed to be triggered, and his crime carried on like it had never had the chance to before.

And this was the same woman. It was almost two months down the line, and they had only just found her. What that awful gang of vermin had done to her when left uninterceded was beyond thought for the God of the New World. 

Realising he had let his guard slip, Light took the moment to yawn and fix his facade. He attempted to play off the widened eyes and slightly hanging jaw with this charade, but knew no doubt that even his father would see through the excuse that he just needed to yawn. It was all too clear that his change in demeanor was thanks to the news. He huffed internally. Why was it the news on now, not one of Sayu’s dramas like it was previously? It frustrated him how it was becoming apparent that while he knew the broad strokes, the details were still all too easy to change. 

This woman… Emi Saito. He would display his power as Kira and kill Takuo soon. Moreover- actually, this would be a great opportunity to play another game at L’s expense. Not only would he have the ironclad alibi of leaving the room and not watching any more TV, he also got to re-do one of his favourite tricks.

Light stood after he finished yawning and made his way over to the cupboard. 

He hadn’t been sure that he would’ve needed to do this, but he would show L. (He meant, he would avenge Saito..?).

Light’s fingers fumbled ever so slightly as he misjudged the distance to the barbecue flavoured potato chips.

—--

“Ryuuzaki, several criminals have died over the course of the evening,” Watari said, coming to replenish the pair’s table of refreshments. As he placed down two cups of tea, L queried him on that point.

“Any that have been broadcast after…” he glanced at the time in the corner of the monitor screen “8:00PM?” Light had been studying since at least 7:49pm, but Sayu hadn’t switched to some lazy drama until gone 8, so there was still a chance for those criminals to be noticed, even just in periphery. 

“A large number. A murderer and a career criminal have just been reported dead, and they were broadcast only a few minutes ago. As well that, around the world criminals continue to die at a steady rate.”

“Was one of those who died recently a man called Takuo Shibuimaru?” 

“L!” Soichiro thundered, severely fed up now. “Are you still insinuating that my son is Kira?! If that’s all the evidence that you have, then this is just nonsense! Of course Kira killed Shibuimaru, he killed every criminal on the news it seems!”

“I understand. But he did have a noticeable reaction to that man’s crimes in particular-“

“That poor woman’s body was found in the Daikoku construction site- that’s right next to his school, of course he reacted! Knowing that an awful crime was committed so close…”

“Then there’s also the matter of Naomi Misora. She died the day of Raye Penber’s surveillance on your son. Was it some kind of warning? A threat not to mess with him?”

“How on earth was my son supposed to not only know that an FBI agent was about to start to trail him, but also know the name and work history of his fiancé?! I’m sorry Ryuuzaki, I respect your skill set, but I simply cannot accept your train of thought here. In the real world, suspicions are based on evidence and hard proof, not nonsensical links that you’ve drawn out of thin air and doubts about the sincerity of my son’s sexuality!” He coughed a little after saying the last phrase. The chief sighed, and put his head in his hands. “I apologise for my outburst there, this is just getting to me, it seems like.”

“Of course,” L replied, voice neutral. “It’s only natural. I don’t mean to antagonise your son baselessly.”

“But you believe there is base for your suspicions.”

“I do. I apologise for the stress that may cause you.”

Watari paused decanting his tea tray, stood stock still for a moment, and then spoke.

“Chief Yagami, perhaps you should take a break now and get some rest. It’s rather late, after all.”

His bright eyes darted between the younger and older men, neither of which were breaking their gazes from the screens. The creases in Soichiro’s forehead were deep and etched, carving permanent worry lines into his skin, and his unkempt hair and stubble broke the illusion of serenity that had formed when he looked upon his son again. It was as if watching his family go about their daily lives brought peace in a time where that was a rarity. Perhaps part of Soichiro wished the cameras could stay, if only just so he could pretend to be part of the happy family he was supposed to be in. But every time the monitor buzzed louder or flickered, and each time a light would flick off and the camera switch to night-vision, a pang would strike his heart, as if Kira wasn’t needed for him to have a heart attack. 

It was common enough in old literature for someone to die of a broken heart, and at this point Soichiro Yagami was understanding why.

And Watari knew this. He may not have a family as such, no biological kin or wife to miss, but what he had built for himself in the absence was equal in worth to him. When the world had shut itself off from him, he had done what he always did best and created, and watched as his pride and joy grew- the orphanages, flourishing, housing hundreds- The Wammy’s House and the family he cherished and nurtured blossoming into generation after generation of adults who changed the world. His partner in all this, Roger, dutifully taking his place watching the young ones when he was off helping his ultimate success- his son. He would follow L to the ends of the earth, and to imagine some strange man bursting into his life and declaring that the boy he had raised was an unflinching, unfeeling mass murder was nothing short of inconceivable. 

And Watari knew this.

So as he patted the chief on the back and told him to at least get some rest here if he isn’t going to return home, he slipped into the armchair he had left behind and turned to the boy he loved as a son.

“I understand you have your reasons, L-“ he began, but the aforementioned detective cut him off with an artificially detached tone. 

“Are there any records?”

“No.” He answered, picking back up from their prior private conversation. “I ensured with Roger that all photographs were disposed of, and all digital and physical records from the legal proceedings have been wiped also. There should be no trace of their true names anywhere. We also took the measure of restricting them within the grounds.”

“…legal proceedings?”

“From adoptions. You do have to go through the legal process when adopting children, L, even if you’re an orphanage.” A smile tugged at his lips, and his eyes crinkled.

“I apologise, I’m not thinking quite clearly… this case has clouded my mind and my judgement…” he finally broke his stare from the screen to look at Watari, and the elder was struck with the impression that he was no longer looking at the cold man who had driven mild-mannered Soichiro Yagami to shout, but the boy who he had taken in one winter’s day.

“Have I done something wrong?” He asked in a small voice. His tone was level as ever, but Watari knew by now how else to read his emotions. 

“No. Not in terms of conducting the investigation at least. Perhaps in your handling of the… sensitive subject matter with your suspects’ families-“ he said pointedly, “but… I don’t doubt your instincts. I never have. It isn’t a habit that is likely to turn out well.” That coaxed a hint of a smile from L. 

“How should I go about presenting my case then, if my usual way garners such an… unpleasant reaction?”

“How long have you been concerned with police reactions over the truth?”

“Maybe since the beginning of this case. I told you Watari, I can’t think straight with Kira… it’s like he judges my every move and boxes me in. I can’t help but feel like he’s already inside of my head, and I can’t stand it. And… there’s just a nagging feeling that things aren’t going to work out so neatly this time. This case isn’t natural- but it must be, because that’s how the world works. At least, I thought it was. I worry that I can’t trust my own mind, my own senses here…”

He placed a strawberry in his mouth, but his face soured even as he savoured the sugar. There was something else on his mind, and Watari just held his gaze, patiently awaiting the addition he knew was coming. Oddly, L seemed reluctant to provide this detail. 

“What is it?” He asked, words not enough to fill the growing pit in his stomach. “What’s wrong?” In a softer voice, he added.

“I… I hear the bell. Not very loud, not very close. But… late at night, when it’s quiet, I can hear the bell. Maybe it’s real. Maybe it comes from a tower or a church somewhere across the city. But…”

“L…” Watari began, but the words slipped off his tongue. The boy he had raised as his own looked up at him, still crouched and hunched as he ever was, giving the impression of a very small child looking to their parent. He faced forward again, and slowly lilted over, resting the side of his head against Watari's side, allowing the older man to rest an arm over his shoulder.  

They remained there for a little while, and both were glad for no interruptions. The Yagami household was going to bed, and the taskforce did not request either of their attention. The quiet hum of electricity and muffled speaking in the adjacent ‘room’ of the hotel suite carried with it an unspoken dread for all parties. 

Both were glad for no interruptions, because it would have rather broken the impression of butler and detective to see the butler rubbing small circles onto the detective's shoulder with his thumb. 

Somewhere outside a clock tolled 1AM, and L Lawliet was thankful that there was no bell.

—--

Tsutomu Yukida was not a criminal. 

He was 14 years old.

He walked to school every day with his brother and their friends. He got average grades and was bad at hiding his whispering during class, even when he was so sure he had gotten away with it this time. He was generally annoyed by his parents’ existence.

He had slipped and fallen on his porch steps and died. 

That last one was rather unexpected, given the mild and ice-free spring coming on.

As is common in tragedies, it was his brother who discovered him. Well, less discovered and more watched in frozen horror as his little brother’s heel slipped off the front step and sent his body careening back, neck at just the wrong angle-

It was a freak accident, they said.

Instant death, they said.

There was nothing Kenta could have done. No, picking his body up had been quite alright, he was dead already. No, the doctors couldn’t do any more whether you screamed at them or not. No , Kenta, this was all a horrible, unavoidable accident that you could not help.

But guilt is not logical, nor does it follow on from grief in a sensical way. It ate at him, fraying his edges and roughing his exterior like he was covered in a million tiny shards of glass. The grief and the guilt festered together; ammonia and bleach; and the deadly compound they released leeched deep into his neurons and held him in place in the second stage of grief. His anger burned fiercer than any flame, but the poor wretched flicker had nowhere to go. At himself, certainly, but when all of his energy was gone, where did it turn?

His friends? 

They were the ones who always called them out at that time of morning, any other hour and Tsutomu would have placed his foot right or Kenta would have grabbed his shirt-

His parents?

It was his foot that had slipped, and he had been begging his parents for new shoes for weeks, it must be all the fault of the worn out grips on his school shoes, it was all their damn fault because if he hadn’t slipped Kenta wouldn’t have failed to catch him- and, oh, yes , that was right, their mother had shouted something right as they stepped foot outside the door- she distracted Tsutomu, she killed his baby brother-

The world would move on around them, but the pair of them would stay rooted to that doorstep in a pocket of time.

It was an amusing irony to what occurred last time.

You see, last time, Tsutomu Yukida survived.

At least, he did until the age of 19, when on the 16th of august 2012 he was exposed and subsequently executed by Kira for the murder of his parents, and attempted murder of his past classmates. 

It was one of the more notable cases of the year.

One of the few that ever made it to the news after ‘L’s ban on criminal broadcasts.

Of course, he was dead before the news ever left the internet.

In that time, Tsutomu Yukida remained rooted in place around his brother’s crash site. 

Kenta had not been the one who had swerved the car into the lamppost, that honour was reserved for their parents, but he had managed to land himself the badge of being the only casualty. And Tsutomu’s thoughts had been much the same- first the friends who had invited him out that day, then his parents who insisted on giving him a lift rather than letting the 18 year old drive himself. 

And he had snapped that summer in 2012. 

And now Kira acted swiftly and with omnipotent kindness to remove that weed at the root, amputate that limb before the infection could spread. And all it took was killing a 14 year old boy. 

—--

Akiko pushed open her bedroom door to find her husband swinging.

—--

Himura slipped into oncoming traffic.

—--

Christopher fell from his 3rd story flat.

—--

Anna swallowed too many pills.

—--

Light Yagami put down his pen.

All future criminals, obviously. They deserved their fates. Mass murderers, serial thieves, rapists; the scum of the new world. Those who had persisted causing havoc despite the threat of god. 

All accidents, obviously, also. Kira couldn't very well go about slaughtering ‘innocent’ folks in public, now could he? No, it was perfectly alright to do so behind closed doors, presuming guilt of a crime that has not yet and may never be committed. These people were evil, circumstances surely held no weight. Evil. They were rotten to the core, why, of course, and allowing them 5 years was too much like death row. Light did not believe in change, in rehabilitation or mental breaks. A criminal was a criminal was a criminal and the sooner their rot was removed the sooner all under his shadow could pursue their own happiness without those menaces lurking in wait. Amputated limbs. Weeds. A preventative measure. 

A measure God judged essential for the rapture of his new kingdom.

—--

Light managed to actually arrive 3 minutes early to the test this time. He knew the cameras had been removed a few days prior, and a serene calmness had trickled over him. Something that wasn’t quite nervousness, but wasn’t excitement either churned in the deepest pits of his stomach, and as he took his seat in the exam hall it intensified. He clenched and unclenched his fists, his thumb jutting in and out; a nervous tic he tended to suppress. 

Why was he feeling fear now? Why was he feeling now?

From his perspective, everything had played out exactly according to plan. Each date, each play of his adversary, each word repeated like actors on a stage, trapped in an eternal loop of their rise and stuttering burning fall. He was not an actor, though. He refused to play Icarus or the Roman fool, he would not fall to the same hamartia that doomed people who he once considered friends. They played their parts like clockwork, and when their involvement shook his foundations- the backdrop of the stage he had built- he would dispose of them. 

The stage was almost set.

Just a few more pieces to paint, lines to perfect. 

The start bell chimed its tune. A wave of- of nausea, real, honest-to-god nausea crashed over him, and the lead of his mechanical pencil snapped as he shuddered down on it too hard. It was far too early to look back now, especially seen as he had no reason to without that invigilator berating his one true equal’s sitting style. How desperately did he really want to see him? How much would he risk to look into that man’s bottomless tar-pit eyes for the first time in years? To be close again to that hair, that ghostly skin, those sharp angles, that mind again? Why did that backflipping gut anticipate just as much the sound of L’s rhythmic voice as the sight of him dead? 

( How bad were things going to be After Him?)

No. Stop spiralling. Stop thinking about him like that . It never ends well. Flip the switch. 

For some reason, even as the lightheadedness faded and he began to corral his emotions back into their pens, the twisting in the bottom of his stomach refused to cease. It was almost unbearable. Both in the sensation that meddled with his focus, and in the reminder that he was not entirely in control of the body he inhabited. 

There was a fundamental disconnect between Light and the body he owned, there had always been, but it was only exacerbated by the years he had spent apart from this form. Unfortunately, in all the significant ways, his body was still only 17. Everything physical still fit a teenager, no matter the man’s mind that lurked beneath. His brain was not done , not matured, neuron pathways incomplete no matter how he tried to use them: his emotions (where they pressed themselves through the cracks) were heightened, his anger quicker to flare, pettiness harder to handle. Light had years of practice, but despite that, he was used to another mode of self. And now the material and immaterial, the body and soul, were at war as he fought the churning, nauseating (butterflies) in his gut. 

His greatest success was within sight, the date of April 5th etched into both his calendar and his brain. He would show L, he would humiliate him more than anyone ever could. Light knew his mind almost as well as he knew his own and could not wait to watch the life drain-

“Student number 162, sit properly in your chair!”

Light’s eyes widened, and all at once the tumult stopped. 

It had worked. Everything had led up to this moment and it had worked. Ryuk chuckled, but under his breath Light heard his muttering.

“Oh I see. Nice one, Light-o. Very nice.”

Well. It hadn’t come back to bite him last time. Light swivelled his head to see the cause of the fuss. As expected, L stared back at him with eyes as wide as dinner plates. Light felt… nothing at the sight of them.

It was over.

—--

Everyone congratulated Light on turning 18. There were no words to express how he’d been 24 for months.

—--

The alleyway was dark and cold and Misa didn’t really know why she had thought it was a good idea to come down this way but it had seemed best at the time, okay? The last thing she wanted was to lead the man who seemed to be following her back to her house, so random turns had definitely appeared to be the better option! There was still a bit of a nip in the air, even in mid March, but the goosebumps remained even as she pulled her jacket and hat down further over her. 

It wasn’t as if they had done anything to disguise herself from her stalker, but it made her feel safer to pretend they did.

Pretend that this wasn’t the same man who she glimpsed every day in crowds and coffee shops and outside of her studio.

The wind picked up, and Misa gasped a little as her hand and cheek met cold brick. She hadn’t been looking where her feet moved her, too preoccupied with the shambling man, and had walked straight into a brick wall- a wall? A dead end. Her cheek stung with the small graze, palm still resting on the mortar, and a tiny cry escaped her throat. She was going to die here, wasn’t she. She hoped so. The alternative was worse. Fighting to keep her knees from buckling, Misa turned and with all her might projected her voice out.

Excuse me, she tried to say, who the fuck are you? she wanted to, but instead all that came out was

“Hello?”

What pitiful last words those would be. ‘Last words of murdered model Misa Amane,  she tried to talk to a crazy man, got herself killed, what an idiot!’

Misa liked to believe that appearances were deceiving, after all, she was much more than the dumb blonde she pretended to be for the cameras, but she couldn’t help but feel her mind go rampant with assumptions as the man before her came into view, crumpled off-white shirt, short greasy hair, something clutched in the grimy hands behind his back. 

“Misa-misa? Please- I love you more than anyone else in the world- I’m always watching you- I just wanna love you forever-!” His voice warbled although his breathing remained heavy. Oh god, Misa thought, oh no, no no-

“I’m sorry…” she began, already wincing at the wild look in his eyes. He had the audacity to look bewildered as she grimaced and attempted to placate him. This wasn’t her first time being asked out by a fan, and for once in her god-forsaken life, she begged it wouldn’t be the last. “I don’t know you… I really have to get home now, so if you don’t mind-“

—--

Amongst the sand of the shinigami realm, two figures huddled over one of the viewing portals. They stared through the eye-shaped hole in tandem horror. Rem had never taken the time to watch one of her victims die before. She was too detached from the whole process to really care what it looked like for a human being to die, but knife murder was certainly one way to familiarise herself with the process. Gelus, on the other hand, was intimately aware of what a human dying really meant, what it did to the world the little beings inhabited, what it did to the other humans who didn’t die but still acted as though their hearts had ceased too. It was part of why he was so poorly ranked. No good shinigami watches each victim. No good shinigami sits for so long by the peephole that their legs forget what shape they were even meant to be. 

No good shinigami should ever pull out their note and scramble for their pen at the sight of one human dying.

“Wait, stop it- what are you doing?!” She thundered, though Gelus didn’t stop his shivering breaths and the start of the scratchy letters. Another silly habit he had picked up from the humans, all that in and exhaling business. 

“Wait.” Rem said again, this time more serious. He paused. He looked at her, and then followed her gaze through the portal.

Misa’s stalker had stopped swinging the knife. He looked calm at once, a placency not seen before. 

“I’m sorry.” The pair heard his voice echo. “I shouldn’t have done that. I… I’ll go.” And with that strange little speech, he wandered off around a corner. 

“Gelus,” Rem began, a rare unsure waver in her voice. “Are their lifespans supposed to hold on zero?”

“Hm? Oh!” He exclaimed, because his superior’s observation had been right: the digits hovering above Misa’s head held steady at 00000. “Hmmm… not normally- and not when we do anything, I don’t think? I’ve never seen a primary lifespan stay like that before.”

“Not natural, and not us..?”

“Kira!” Gelus gasped at once, startling Rem enough to cause her to step back. “That human keeping Ryuk! He must have saved her! Oh how wonderful!”

“Gelus.” Rem said slowly, but he ignored her. He had already stashed his crumpled old note away, and was smiling warmly at the ground by Rem’s feet. 

In the human realm, Misa was running, desperate to put as much distance between herself and the man who had since disappeared as possible.

“I’m not sure how he knew, unless… does he like Misa too? Did he make the eye deal with Ryuk and decide to save her? Oh, how sweet- maybe we can visit and ask him to look out for her, that wouldn’t be breaking any rules, right Rem? If it’s Kira-“

“Gelus. ” Rem intoned again.

Below, Misa frantically looked around, nearing the edge of the alley and beginning of the street proper.

“Hmm… we can’t go down unless we drop our death notes, can we? And it might take a while to find him… do you think he’d give it back if I dropped it just to be safe-“

“ Gelus !” Rem shouted, emotion threatening to actually infect her tone. She pointed a bony finger at the portal, and could do nothing as they both watched the girl run into the road and be collided into by a speeding truck. 

There was nothing they could have done, of course. Killing the driver would accomplish nothing. The stalker was already dead, crumpled in a corner by the bins, where he was the second after he turned out of Misa’s sight, as instructed. They could not have interceded. 

It was a win-win scenario, as far as Kira was concerned.

—--

Light would never admit it, but he’d been browsing Kira articles on his computer when he stumbled across it. 

Gossip magazines were ridiculous, full of lewd imagery and meaningless celebrity nonsense, but tucked away in a corner was always the latest Kira scoop, fueled by the underbelly of polite society that required a more discreet method to keep up with the news. The main media of course would continue to report on the ‘despicable murders carried out by an unknown entity ’ but the headlines on columns like these read something more like ‘ Can Kira save us all? Crime rates plummet to 15%!’, and the satisfaction in seeing that again gave him a warm, gooey feeling inside.

(He had considered threatening- or even buying- out the media, as Misa had done, but so far Kira had never gone after the innocent before. Every aspect of Kira’s image and philosophy was inferred through his actions, and he couldn’t afford to ferment distrust this early on. Maybe in a year or two once there was no one who would think to check the contents of the email that just so happened to make NHN change their stance on Kira… that was, of course, assuming that they did not do that on their own already). 

But it was in scrolling the internet to find those articles that he stumbled across by far more interesting headlines, news that he really didn’t expect.

Misa Amane, dead at 20 after collision with truck.

He… he actually hadn’t killed her. 

Nor had he planned to, yet, at least. Light certainly didn’t want nor need her involved, but simply eliminating her had been out of the question for a long time, with two overzealous shinigami on her back who wouldn’t hesitate if her lifespan was cut short. While (based on Misa’s telephone game of Rem’s perception) Gelus hadn’t seemed like the type in particular to realise that it was Kira who had bumped her off and then go out of his way to enact revenge, he knew for a fact that Rem was. And the very last thing Light needed when he was so close to perfection was for Rem to spoil it like that. 

Light had kept her alive for that purpose, and just in case he needed a sacrificial lamb again.

(Mikami and Takada also lay in wait, observed and scrutinised, prepared for a moment that may never come).

Instead, Kira weaved a plot for the stalker to follow, a web down which for him to walk until he reached its end. It was simple, really, approaches the woman he has been following, but realised the error of his ways and walks away. Dies of a heart attack as soon as he is out of sight. He hadn’t really considered what that would do to Misa’s lifespan. He supposed, eyes widened and index finger hovering just over the left click of his mouse, that Gelus had given her his life last time around. Light… wasn’t actually sure what happened to lifespans that changed as a direct result of his actions. They surely didn't remain the same. It almost- almost - made him wish he had the eyes, just so he could test his hypothesis. 

The stalker had done as instructed, and Misa was still dead. It was his fault, but not directly. Neither Rem nor Gelus should get on his case. 

It was a win-win scenario. 

The early morning birds chirped outside. Light was suddenly made aware of the time, and resigned himself to pulling another all-nighter. Rather, he came to to the fact that he had already pulled one, and now had to face the consequences.

He hadn’t been sleeping well ever since he came back. All Light found himself able to do was lie awake at night for hours on end staring at the blackness of his ceiling, watching colourful spots dance in the absence of visual information. Ryuk would be quiet during these hours, napping himself, but every sound set his nerves on fire. 

There was something Light would never ever ever admit.

Loud noises made him jump. 

That was a new development, apparently. A car had backfired on his walk to school with his friends and he had jumped out of his skin, heart rate skyrocketing and then cruising down as Yamamoto placed a hand on his shoulder and cautiously asked if he was ok. It was humiliating . He was perfectly fine, it wasn’t like he had any gunshot wounds now. He was healthy. This body knew no pain. He hadn’t even really been shot. So why was his mind so weak ? Why did it fade into white haze when the sharp noise echoed through the streets? His classmates' sudden shouts in school set his teeth on edge. Sayu slamming the door downstairs made him tense. Matsuda had only shot him a couple times, in a past version. The hardware was clean. The software carried the bug. 

Why couldn’t he get over this?

Why couldn’t he control himself when bangs cut through the background tidal wave and sent shivers from his fingertips to his brain. 

How come his vision got fuzzy?

For the first time in years, sleep only brought nightmares with it.

Illuminated in a haze by blue and white, L would watch him in the almost-void. There was a hint of setting, like the scenery was washed in watercolour and then left out in the sun to fade, but simultaneously still dripping with water- bleeding, bleeding, bleeding… sometimes L would be standing, sometimes sitting, sometimes he would feel his breath on his neck but not be capable of turning to face the spectre, and the world would be silent around them. L’s face was a blur- all scruffy hair and jutting chin, surrounded by glangly limbs and baggy clothing that never seemed to fit the way it did in real life. ( The way it had in real life ). It is supposedly the nature of dreaming that details escape the sleeping mind, but this was not so much that L had no face than that it had been ripped away. Lit by the glow of laptop screens and monitors, the place where empty eyes should be sallowed, melted and shifted- and sometimes- sometimes- Dream-Light would shudder in horror as he saw his own eyes painted on the wrong body. When L just breathed lightly onto his skin, Light could feel the stare of eyes that saw nothing at all. 

And all at once a mouth would come into focus, readying itself to speak, and Light would always know what he was going to say ( haveyouevertoldthetruthdoyouhearthebellsrepentforyoursinsmyfirsteverfriendmetinsomeotherwaypartingwayssoonwatarieveryonetheshinigitllbelonelywontititllbelonelywontitloneyloneylonelyloneylonelylonelylonely) and as the mouth creaked open, instead splitting his skull was a 

BANG

And he would scream and scramble towards L who never seemed to get any closer, as if he were moving away at the same pace Light crawled. Something hot and viscous would pour over Light’s lip and out of his gut and the darkness they resided in suddenly felt overwhelmingly like concrete and water that his limbs refused to cooperate in as he numbly fumbled to push himself upright and all the while, L watched with eyes that weren’t there.

I have no mouth and I must scream.

Light would choke and sob and wail something unintelligible and wretch and keen for L to do something- to help him- and instead-

BANG

Light would wake up.

Like I said, the dream wouldn’t always be the same, but the premise liked to stick around. He was hesitant to believe that it was some shinigami curse, or some mild version of Mu, but whether it was magic or just the result of a sick mind, even Kira was not above wanting to avoid nightmares. Preferably ones where he woke up wailing the name of a man he should never have met. In all honesty, he counted himself lucky that the one time he had taken the risk and truly fell asleep during surveillance he hadn’t dreamt.

Maybe Mu wouldn’t be so bad, if the alternative was hellish nightmares.

So the early morning birds chirped. Light would fix himself a cup of coffee at a socially acceptable hour, take care of his skin and hair as if he hadn’t been up all night with sweaty palms gripping his hair from the roots, and apply concealer to the circles under his eyes. 

Until then, he would lie flat on his back with arms crossed, and take in the sounds of leaves rustling in the wind. He could hear each leaf when they hit the window, each pathetic thump as the wind blew them into that trajectory. 

It was a shame, really. 

A failed promise of new life, of springtime, torn down by the harshness of the outside world. Crashing into a barrier that it never knew existed, left to rot in a pile so far from the branches that cradled it. 

His mother kept plants inside.

He wondered if they knew how it felt to crash and rot.

—--

As much as he pretended not to see it, Matsuda was acutely aware of his shortcomings when it came to this investigation. He knew he didn’t offer much in terms of insight or great breakthroughs, wasn’t ruthlessly efficient with paperwork like Mogi, wasn’t well connected and headstrong like Aizawa, wasn’t deathly committed like the Chief or even confident and quick to take initiative like Ukita. He was… positive? If that counted as a plus during the Kira investigation. By all accounts, the job didn't suit him. He would probably be much better suited with a career in the media, or in some kind of role where he could always look on the bright side and see the good shine out of the world.

But this was what his father had wanted. An ex-police officer himself, he had helped him work his way into the force, advised him on who to talk to and what to say to move up the ranks to detective in the serial murders division in only a couple of years- and he was grateful, of course, but… but often it felt as if the only thing he could consistently contribute was delays. 

As L sent him out to collect Aizawa from his break for an ‘emergency meeting’ he didn’t have to try too hard to hear the sigh of relief from his colleagues back inside the hotel room. They had all had a very late night, some of them refusing sleep altogether, although Matsuda was not one of those. He had got sleepy at 9pm despite his best efforts and succumbed to resting his eyes by 9:30. When he had come too, it was to L prodding his side with one finger and requesting he go fetch Aizawa, as there was something important to discuss with the entire team. He had very quickly freshened up- tucked in his shirt, finger-combed his hair, and splashed his face with a little water, before stumbling out of the door and steadying himself on the wall of the hallway to catch his breath. 

His thoughts were hard to gather and crushed by his own incompetence. 

I bet there isn’t even any emergency, he just wants me out of there for a bit.

I’m sure they’re all much better now that I’m gone.

Perhaps fortunately, Matsuda was not one to take these comments and drown himself in them. Rather, his instinct was to surpass them, prove them all wrong by being himself, and the detective he needed to be. It was to his detriment, almost, how adamantly he felt the need to display his ability. He could do it. He could find Aizawa. (He could break into Yotsuba).

( He could shoot Light).

But that was not his current goal. Instead, he would simply succeed in fetching Aizawa from his break- and being a people person (read: nosier than he ought to be), Mastuda was confident in where he could find his colleague at this time on this day. He tried his best to seem nonchalant as he strolled at a faster than average pace down the busy streets towards a small restaurant, overlooking the bustling road.

He’d almost knocked someone over in his haste to climb the small staircase up to the seating area, and while profusely apologising to them, repeated the incident with another couple also descending the steps.

All this meant that he was flustered and high on adrenaline and the energy that had broken him out of his sleepiness when he approached the small table at which Aizawa and Ide sat with bowls of food. He couldn’t tell exactly what it was- some kind of ramen and broth probably- but the aroma was warm and homely and caused his stomach to growl without his permission. Matsuda’s hands came down a little harder on the table than he had meant with all the coordination of someone who had woken up less than 5 minutes ago and had spent the majority of that time sprinting based on muscle-memory, and almost slapped Aizawa’s bowl straight off the table.

Aizawa peered up at him through his eyebrows and slowly, purposefully slid the dish back into its proper spot without spilling any more. Matsuda grimaced in a way that he hoped looked more like a smile than anything else. Ide looked blankly between the two, chopsticks still raised halfway to his mouth, before slowly lowering his hand and fixing his bemused expression on Aizawa with a quirked eyebrow. 

“Don’t look at me!” He muttered, “like I have any idea what he’s doing here…”

Matsuda laughed nervously.

“Sorry about that! I just, uh, need Aizawa back.”

“What do you mean you need me back . I’m on my break .”

“Well- L- I mean- Ryuuzaki-“

“Of course.” Aizawa sighed, and Ide rested his face in his hands for a moment. He exhaled while moving them up to dig his palms into his eyes. 

“So Ryuuzaki is L, then. That’s not surprising.”

“Aizawa! You’re not supposed to have-“

“Matsuda. You're the one who-“

“Both of you, shut up. It’s really not that hard to figure out who Ryuuzaki is when L invites us all to a secret location and then Aizawa starts mentioning a whole new guy helping you out. And before you blow a blood vessel Matsuda, he’s not telling me anything confidential, just… how he had to remake his coffee because Watari put 15 sugars in it by accident.”

“ He thought it was Ryuuzaki’s.” Aizawa gritted through clenched teeth. “How that man can live on that diet is the biggest mystery here, I’ll give you that. What did he want, anyway?”

“He's kind of calling an emergency meeting for all of us, even Ukita’s back from HQ! I’m not sure what it was about since I kinda… fell asleep but he sent me to come get you so we could get ready as soon as possible!”

“Get ready for what?” Ide pondered. The thought caught Matsuda off guard, as if he had only just considered the wording of his superior’s orders. 

He shrugged.

“Days of busywork and he calls an urgent meeting as soon as you're on break, huh Aizawa?” Ide chuckled, pulling his friend’s bowl towards his side of the small table.

“Shut up…” Aizawa replied in equal mirth as he  stood and pulled on his coat. It was early April now- the 4th, to be exact- but the chill in the air was still present enough to require an extra layer. Inside though, the cafe’s air was cloying and humid, and despite this reluctance to leave his friend Aizawa found himself grateful to get out of the room and make his way outside, waving at Ide through the large glass window that looked out onto the street below.

He gave him a smile and a roll of the eyes, turning away. 

If he were to pick his last words to his closest friend, ‘shut up’ probably wouldn’t have been them. 

But he did not get that choice. 

Their book was written already, and there was less than a chapter to the end.

—--

Sayu’s classmates asked her what she thought of Kira. They didn’t talk about much else these days. 

As one friend sang their new God’s praises and the next smiled that he had killed the burglar who broke into their home, Sayu couldn’t find the words to tell them that she thought he’d already killed her brother.

(And another part of her just wanted to scream at them since when did theft necessitate death?)

—--

Sudoh didn’t go out for his 18th birthday. His friends hadn’t gone anywhere for a long time. One by one they had become adults and adulthood meant an adult criminal record- and that meant Kira . 

Sakota- the oldest and most brazen of his group- had turned 18 just days before Kira emerged, and despite some of their friends’ warnings had continued to pursue and torment some kid he had been targeting since middle school. Sudoh never knew his name, but he knew that he was found around Yamamoto and Yagami sometimes. He had stolen his phone, ran him off the road with his motorbike and flashed that knife that he always bragged about. None of them had thought much of it. All of them were much too occupied with watching the news, ogling about how this omniscient being was wiping out crime and war in days, how no one seemed to be there to stop him. It never even occurred to them what might happen. They were just teenagers. Nothing bad ever happened to them. Consequences were for adults and barely-18 surely didn't count. 

When Sakota failed to appear the next week they all assumed he was unwell. When he never came back at all they began to reconsider.

So Sudoh didn’t go out on his 18th, or any day after that. He refused to be Kira's next victim, and refused to worship him, but fear worked just as well.

—--

“I’ll put your name on the internet!” One kid shouted, barely out of her tweens. “For child abuse!”

“No you absolutely will not!” Her mother retorted with the same ferocity.

“Yeah I will. Then it’s Kira’s problem to find out if it’s true.”

“You would get me killed over a few cigarettes?”

“I’d do it for fun. Anyway, that’s saying that Kira would think it’s true. He’s always right.” She rolled her eyes, pulled out her phone and keyed in the start of the sentence into the forum. It wasn’t unusual to keep one of the sites open these days.

“Please,” she began, the hoarseness in her voice breaking through as she started to beg. “You’re going to kill your own mother because she confiscated a few cigarettes? ”

“No. I’m killing her because she never lets me do what I want. I’m so tired of you. You're Kira’s problem now.”

The girl shrugged, pressed send and walked into her room. Her mother sank onto the floor and wept.

—--

The FBI and CIA were struggling with the sudden drop in numbers lately. 

Among the many that were missing from duty were Halle Bullook and Anthony Carter. 

Stephen Loud was not on either of their rosters, but he was missing all the same.

—--

The leader of one of the most prevalent mafia syndicates ‘Rod Ross’- real name, Dwight Gordon- had died of a heart attack just days into Kira’s reign. It would not have been unusual had the only other victims not been one Kal Snydar and a simple workman who was only known by the others as ‘José’.

—--

Yotsuba’s stock had plummeted after their 8 top executives suddenly died of unrelated accidents. More accurately, 7 accidents and 1 heart attack.

Well, Higuchi just shouldn’t have taken those bribes, should he?

—--

Light’s alarm blared bright and early on the morning of the 5th of April, 2007, but he was already awake.

Light knew his mind too well to even try to sleep, so instead he spent each creeping hour checking, rechecking, trying not to vomit every time the seconds hand on his sparkling new watch ticked past the 12. 

His father had gifted it to him at the same time as last year. There had been no pleasure in gutting it and inserting the same compartment mechanism as last time, just pure mechanical instinct, following the steps bored into his mind. It was as if there was nothing at work at all behind his eyes. The moment he was alone, the moment he locked his door behind him he was reaching for the small screwdriver and the notebook, feeling that ever-present relief when his hand graced the cold leather. It was like a drug, addictive, euphoric, shocking his system every time he found himself holding the notebook again. Light coveted the book like nothing else. Like no one ever had. He needed it. 

(He needed it).

(He needed it or else it was all over. Or else he was vulnerable).

( Or else he was vulnerable to the consequences of his own actions).

Light had realised with a dawning flicker that he couldn’t recall putting the watch back together, but as he was in the process of closing the clasp he assumed he must have done.

It opened and closed perfectly, the needle sat poised and Light could almost hear it begging to pierce the soft skin of his fingertip and scratch names onto the paper.

He could remember it slightly, assembling the watch, but it was as if he were watching a film, distant, grainy, in a haze. It was the shock of the cold metal on his wrist that has resuscitated his consciousness, even if it wasn’t sudden. It was like a candle being lit- one moment there is darkness, the next- light. 

He had been drowning in his own head, thoughts boiling over and making a mess of themselves until white noise became a voice he didn’t want to hear whispering words he would never heed  again (at all?) and ( it’ll be lonely it’llbe lonely it’llbelonelyit’llbelonelyitllbelonelyitllbelonley I wish we could have met in some other way (sodoi) ) Light found himself moving on autopilot, or rather, didn’t find himself, just was ( my first ever friend) , taking parts out and putting new ones in.

Light tried not to think of his father’s face when he handed over the small rectangular box, wrapped in a small amount of tissue paper and a bow. He had put on his all-time-best performance that day, acting as shocked and gracious as he had been the first time. It was a surprise, a gift given when he opened his acceptance letter from To-oh. He had known (both times) that he would get in, as did his parents, so there was never any sort of worry that the watch would end up a consolation instead of a congratulation prize. Soichiro had been beaming , or well, he beamed after Light got the box open and began to thank him, clearly relieved that his son adored the present. He was so proud . It almost hurt. Soichiro Yagami was the proudest man in the world of his family and he had already died in 5 years time. He had died believing a lie. Believing in his pride and joy. His son. His little murderer .

Light had always had a positive relationship with his father. He was the one, after all, who nurtured his respect for justice and his understanding of the foulness of evil. The one who stood by him on every occasion until the pressures of becoming the detective superintendent of the NPA buried him in all-nighters and foregoing breaks. Light never blamed him for that. That was criminals’ faults. And he would get rid of them. It was a pleasant side effect of scourging the world of evil, and one Light certainly wasn’t opposed to. 

It wasn’t as if it was going to bring his father home any more this time than the last, but the sentiment had always been there.

In the early hours of April the 5th, 2007, Light Yagami reached for the death note again, and the snoozing Ryuk blinked awake.

Once again, that rush of ecstasy flooded his bloodstream and he was awake, awake and clutching his notebook. Perhaps, he wondered sometimes, that was why he could never give it up forever, even after Yotsuba when he had had a taste of his life from the outside and for a moment had disavowed Kira’s actions wholesale. There was no intrinsic draw further than trying it once, he wouldn’t say, no supernatural thrall burning itself into his cells. He just loved feeling. If this was how most people felt emotions there was no wonder they were always so far behind him- they had whole other worlds to devote themselves to in those moments, and they felt them all the time! It was a wonder anyone got anything done when they could be feeling happiness as raw as that all the time. Light knew, had known since 6 years old, that he did not feel the same way as others. That that little switch that presented itself wasn’t always there. But he could not simply switch off the joy that grabbing hold of the death note gave him. And if that was emotion for everyone else, then they were stronger than he was.

It was relief, it was sanctuary, it was wielding the power to destroy nations and choosing to heal them instead because he was a benevolent god and was only going to destroy their filth and pests. It was like releasing a cat to get rid of rodents: some people may not like cats, may hate the way that they look or act, may claim that they don’t love their owners (or anyone at all), but they still get the job done. If you just put up with the cat for a little while then your rat problem will go away, and even the most cat-hating human would prefer that to those dirty vermin living in their house. The rats surely didn’t like it, but that was inconsequential. 

“I think you’ve checked it about a million times now,” Ryuk groaned, stretching in all the wrong ways. 

“I’m just making sure.” Light responded levelly.

“You said that last time. It’s not like it’s magically gonna have changed!” 

Light sighed and put his effort into actively tuning the shinigami out. His right hand held up his head as he leaned, gripping into his hair. His left flicked through pages of the Death note, holding it in place while he scanned through line after line mechanically. Ryuk was right, but he was never about to say that aloud. The words weren’t going to change. Some had been harder than others to pen, but it was easier this time around. He had had time to think it through, mentally go through the steps and perhaps even grieve in advance. There had been nothing to do, 23 days prior, than to put pen to paper and solidify his victory. 

These… weren’t real people any more. He was the only real person in the world. The rest were broken records, advanced mannequins who always walked and talked and acted the same way. He had heard of philosophical zombies- the idea that other people who are physically indistinguishable from other beings do not have true consciousness, are just zombies going through the motions with nothing deeper powering them- and always found the concept interesting. The same with solipsism. It was comforting, in a strange way, to accept those beliefs wholesale and ignore the contrary. He was alone in the world and that was ok because other humans did not exist on the same level that he did. They were a mockery of what being alive really meant. (He purposely did not think about how this contradicted his other musings on their emotions). They were ok to kill because it didn’t even matter in the first place because they weren’t alive like him. Perhaps it wasn’t that they were zombies and he was human. Perhaps it was that he was god and they were only human. 

L had broken that illusion the first time they met by being so brilliantly alive that it had been a real pain to end him. He had shattered the grey tint that had coated Light’s world and brought colour flooding back to it again, like he was a child. He had been cruel to him, yes, but in that cruelty was such genius- such human intensity that was so familiar it sparked a wildfire in Light’s chest for the first time. If Light were truly a god amongst men, L was his equal. Near and Mello… well, they could try, but even wearing a mask of his mentor Near could never have captured what made L so tantalising. He was just another zombie, taking the story to its end.

But it hadn’t ended yet. It was supposed to, on those stairs as he choked out feeble breaths, but it hadn’t . Life had given him a second chance, and he was going to use it to its fullest extent until he forgot where Light Yagami ended and Kira began. The lines were blurring already, he just needed this push . And that was where today came in.

Because April the 5th, 2007, was the day of To-oh entrance ceremony. 

He had the same suit and tie ready to go, hanging on his wardrobe door, as before, like some sort of in-joke only he got. 

The entire plan hinged on today, and closing the notebook with a definitive thud, Light knew there was nothing else to do. He was ready to ascend. 

—--

The day prior L had taken the time to inform the taskforce of his plan. 

Despite his usual reservations in working with others directly, L had reluctantly found that he… trusted them. Each one. Even Matsuda with all his flounderings had earned the right to his plans. Specifically, chief Yagami deserved to know that his grand offensive move had not only entailed already paying his son a visit in person during his exam, but now was also going to include confronting him at his college entrance ceremony. 

He knew this was going to cause outrage- distrust- plain disgust. He had absolutely nothing in terms of solid evidence. No DNA, no timeline, not even an idea of the killing method. There was nothing linking Light to the case whatsoever other than the fact that he fit L’s profile of what this killer would look and act like: he was highly intelligent, measured, late teenage, and something in the way he spoke and looked back at him during the exam with the hint of a smirk ghosting his lips gave L the distinct impression that he was acutely aware of all of these things, and hiding something as large as being the world’s most prolific serial killer would not be an issue. If his other… secrets… were any indication, that is. 

He couldn’t help but feel frustrated at how insistent his team was that Light simply couldn’t be Kira. It wasn’t just that they refuted the claim based on his lack of evidence, it was the wholesale refusal that Light, as a person, was capable of murder. Anyone was capable of murder; it didn’t take the greatest detective of all time to point that out. It was obvious; surely the first rule of becoming a detective was that you could never rule anyone out without a reason- and ‘ he’s just a nice kid’ did not count. L knew he was a hypocrite. He was basing his suspicions on the strange, off-balanced feeling he got from Light (a boy he had had all of 3 seconds eye contact with total), meanwhile denying the task force's character judgement on the person they had known for years. He called it ‘outside perspective’. They called it lunacy.

But either way, L was that morning preparing to do the freshman address alongside Yagami- he didn’t have any forewarning of Light’s exam results, but everything he’d observed so far told him that they would be the only two on that stage. Of that, L was certain. He hadn’t prepared a speech, hadn’t dressed any differently, hadn’t fixed his hair or his skin, barely even had shoes (keeping the one pair of worn out old trainers that had fit him since he was a teenager, brought along in his luggage as the sole footwear option). But still, he felt assured that meeting Light in person, even as he was, would be enough to determine, at least for him personally, if Light was truly Kira. 

L didn’t feel the slip in his thoughts, imperceptible against the shifting sands of his usual mind. But something had locked, a door had been shut, a key turned with a click that cemented those sands in place. Nothing would ever shift again, not the way they used to.

—--

Light straightened his tie, squinting into the mirror until he was certain it was centred and even. He took a step back, running his hands loosely through his fringe, trying to unstick the strands plastered to his forehead with sweat.

—--

Before he left, L found himself making his own cup of tea. Usually he would ask Watari to but given he was out running errands (I.e: buying more sweet treats for his charge) he felt it was correct to do it himself. It was still early, just breaking 7am, but L felt a sickly energy burned into him, more so than his usual drone, and he tapped his fingers rhythmically as he waited for the kettle to boil. It wasn’t to a melody he knew, just sporadic tapping that must lead back to some tune he’d heard at some point, but it felt familiar, right , just like pouring himself a single cup of tea. 

He dropped the sugars in from a higher perch than usual, watching mutely as the splash cascaded over the edges and burned his hand.

He didn’t flinch.

—--

Light had saved himself plenty of time to sit and eat breakfast with his mum and Sayu, but still felt no appetite staring at his bowl.

This wasn’t particularly unusual, but rather than just apathy the thing blocking Light’s stomach was the almost giddy laughter burning in his throat. He disguised the few loose giggles as hiccoughs. Sayu said nothing to him, and for an instant Light wondered why she was so silent. She continued to make no comment even as he jostled her with his elbow in an attempt to stir up something . 

The look she gave him was so mournful he almost asked what had happened.

He never even considered that it was him.

—--

It took until the time that the last drop of tea passed his lips that L for a second questioned why . 

He didn’t normally have tea.

He never normally had it.

Watari would prepare a pot on special occasions, perhaps, but this wasn’t a daily ritual. 

He supposed he’d been drinking some when he met the task force so it was only logical that he was craving it now. He liked tea. He wanted to drink it this morning. He chose to. That was why. What a silly question… Why drink tea? Why that morning? What silly, silly questions. He did it all because he felt like it when realised the time. Tea was comforting, or so they say. He didn’t need comfort, though, he knew that this person he believed to be Kira would understand his game, and then they’d be away, the most interesting case L had ever taken, with the most interesting culprit.

His mind wandered away from the tea, but a small section stuck, like a loop in a computer program: why, why, why, repeating like broken code. The rest cooed, drawled that it was right, yet the deepest reserves churned and shouted that things were wrong, all wrong, and even so were drowned out by the clanging bells. They were louder than ever, more insistent today and growing more so each instant that passed. For some reason, it was soothing. The bells had only ever been a warning, a knell, but today they stoked a warmth growing in his mind, like a log onto a fire pit, a gentle orange hum that placated the wasps with its smoke. 

L was confident in his case, confident in this action, confident that everything was quite alright.

L was somehow less confident that he wanted to drink that tea.

—--

Light checked his bag one last time before heading out the door to catch his train.

Speech, check . Water bottle, check. Pens, check. Death Note, check . Jacket, check . Police issue pistol, check . Wallet, check. Cellphone, check .

—--

L didn’t bid the others farewell as he walked out the door, just exited, made his way down to where Watari now waited and took the back passenger seat expectantly.

Watari didn’t say a word, which was odd, just stared straight ahead and drove in silence, the hum of the engine harmonising with the hum in his mind.

—--

“Light Yagami? Your father is chief Soichiro Yagami of the NPA? Your respect for your father is matched only by your strong sense of justice. You’re planning on joining the police agency once you graduate and you’ve already got experience, seeing as you’ve helped them solve a number of cases in the past. Now you’re taking an interest in the Kira case. I’m impressed by your abilities and your sense of justice. If you promise not to tell anyone, I’ve got some important information concerning the Kira investigation that I’d like to share with you.”

L had had that little conversation starter planned for days, practiced repeatedly in his mind before he said it. What could he say, first impressions were everything, particularly where it came to intimidating (and flattering) a suspect. Light’s face remained blank, though a flicker of something ran past his eye before he peered at him through the corner of his eyes, expression almost… judging. He’d expected to be looked down upon, of course, but given everything heard, L hadn’t expected him to be this… overt about it all. There was such mocking conveyed in just a roll of the eyes that L almost wondered if he’d approached the wrong person. Light Yagami was supposed to be charming, charismatic, friendly, but this man was eyeing him up like he was about to swallow him whole (before or after sending him six feet under with that glare).

“What is it, Ryuga ?” Light asked with a tone dripping in honey. “Wait, wait, let me guess.” He cut L off, turning further to face him on his chair. 

“You wanted to tell me… that you’re L. ”

It was… almost uncanny how well he mirrored the way that L had been seconds away from saying those exact words. The same pause, the same hushed voice- he even cocked his head and widened his eyes the way he tended to when he awaited another’s reaction. But it didn’t look forced, no, practiced, natural, as if he had spent a lifetime doing it already.

(Or a lifetime watching it).

(A lifetime dreaming of it).

“Yes.” He replied after a moment’s pause. “I must say, I’m impressed.”

L’s hearing wasn’t bad , but he still doubted himself that Light had just whispered 

“ Maybe you were once. ”

Between his sentences.

“May I ask how you knew?” If this was some Kira power he was unaware of, it was better to nip it in the bud in a place where Light would struggle to take him out now . Some form of telepathy? Omniscience? That would certainly explain some things- namely, Lind L Tailor and the Wammy’s House notes- but L doubted that any human could simply possess that scale of power and knowledge and not act off in some way. It was human nature to struggle to contain what lay bursting beneath their skin. 

“Come on,” Light laughed, running a hand through copper hair. “Look at you. You’re some guy who never wears shoes and looks like that and knows everything about me. And I just know that you think I’m Kira, don’t you? Who else could you possibly be? You’ve got to be L, or else where did the real L find you?” 

He laughed and cut himself off as it peaked a little. There was something else to it than that, something which he knew Light was not going to let him in on, at least not here. L had the urge to ask him to leave here and now, and go… elsewhere, though where floated beneath his consciousness at the moment. 

“I suppose that makes sense.” Was all he could find it in himself to say, though a millions questions sparked, burned and died before reaching his tongue.

They didn’t speak throughout the rest of the ceremony, although Light looked towards him several times, jaw tightening and slackening as if he wanted to say more but ultimately decided against it. It was a little unnerving, to be perfectly honest. What was more so, was the larger proportions of the time where he just stared . It wasn’t as if he had turned sideways on his chair and rested his head in his hands, but there was still an angle left from when they had briefly spoken that Light had refused to close. Not noticeable, maybe, but present.

There was something so piercing about Light’s eyes, deep brown almost red in the light, with what may have been dark circles covered by makeup framing them like pits from whence they peered at him. That, again, was odd. From what he’d heard and seen before, Light had seemed incredibly well put together, rested, and all around focused on self care. He had slept through the night soundly for a full 8 hours, eaten well, taken care of his skin and hair, but the man beside him now displayed the signs of neglect. Just cover-up.

What on earth could have transpired in the short months since his surveillance ended?

Or, perhaps a better question, what had been brewing since then?

Light was staring at him again. He wasn’t hiding it now, head turned to face him. He pretended he didn’t notice, but stole glaces when he could. There was something softer about the look he was being given now, when Light didn’t think he saw- a crinkle in the corner of his eye, an upturn in the edges of his eyebrows. L knew well how to read facial expressions, even if he didn’t present them himself often. Despite this, he had no idea what this could mean. It wasn’t quite pity. It wasn’t any positive emotion either, except, maybe, relief? No, that didn’t fit quite right, it was too sad for that. Mournful almost fit, until he caught an eye twitch alone and suddenly that look seemed much more vicious- like a predator closing its jaws around cornered prey. The look was hungry . L had the oddest feeling that he was being savoured before being eaten alive. 

This did not line up with what he knew of Light Yagami.

If only because he was far too open about it.

—--

Light almost broke far too many times during the ceremony but it had all been worth it to see L again. To speak to him. To cut him off and watch those bright eyes sparkle with a brain-full of questions and deny himself any of them. Some people said L’s eyes were dead. Dull, someone had once told him, but they couldn’t see the fire that burned inside of them- the fire that had died hours before the man attached to them did. Regardless, he only let his own burning laughter slip once, and played it off fairly well, all things considered. 

He ran his hand through his hair again, cursing the way it stuck to his forehead. He had washed it… recently, but there had been far too many other pressing matters than haircare on his mind as of late, and it had all… fallen by the wayside. It was ok, though, once he was past the window of acting that he needed to do in the following weeks he could go back to how he was before. He would go back. Nothing whatsoever would be different.

Nothing.

Light followed L out to the street just outside the front entrance, a few paces behind. L had slipped his apparently only pair of crusty grey trainers back on, laces trailing behind and dirty. He wrinkled his nose. They stopped. A giddy feeling swooped in all at once and almost knocked Light clean off his feet from the light-headed joy of it. There was no car, no sleek black limousine parked waiting for its master. The slot was empty. The world moved unimpeded by the change in script and Light almost felt the world tilt on its axis. 

L seemed to feel it too, as he paused in his tracks. The sudden urge to hit him over the back of the head was overwhelming, but Light contained himself to simply sauntering up beside him.

“What’s the matter?” He asked, in the same tone he had once spoken to Naomi with. L didn’t say a word to him, didn’t even look in his direction, but the frozen question in his nemesis’ demeanour  was enough to send a new wave of giggles racking him. He let one rattle through his voice as he continued.

“Wammy not coming?”

The breath that L had been taking halted abruptly. Slowly, yet also all at once, the detective turned and faced his suspect head on.

And slowly, yet all at once, he knew he had lost.

——

The tarmac was rough beneath the thin soles of shoes that were not made to last this long but L had to keep walking. Light had hinted at answers and the hollowness in his bones had kept him strung along for long enough for the sunk cost fallacy to take effect so now he was stuck trailing behind his top suspect (… confessed criminal?). 

It surely seemed evident now that Light was Kira. All he needed was to get this information back to the task force and then they could do what they will with it. It made no logical sense that Light should know Watari’s true identity, both as Kira and as the 18 year old Japanese boy that he was, but the one common denominator here was that Kira had known, and now so did Light. His stomach had dropped the moment his mocking tone left his lips, somehow worse than before, inside the ceremony. L had been so sure, but of all the outcomes, this had not been one of them. It was, by all accounts, a bad move on Kira’s part. This was the first person he had exposed his identity to other than the task force so the moment he dropped dead Light’s own fate was surely sealed. But he didn’t seem the type to make such a careless mistake. Why risk bringing L on a whim to some random industrial estate when he could just go home, plan, play the game? 

Unless this wasn’t random. Unless the plan was already in motion. Unless Light was the white pieces in their chess game, and L had been looking the other way when the start clock went.

He wondered how long it had been ticking away at his precious time before he noticed. 

So what was Kira’s plan? What was his move in all this? He couldn’t have his name, it didn’t formally exist- he had named himself when arriving at Wammy’s House, there was no documentation to be dug up, no matter how hard Kira may try. That left the idea of his ESP-like powers extending to knowing things he shouldn’t, but he doubted that, somehow. It would explain a lot, but still… it didn’t sit right with L. Killing people without ever meeting them was one thing, knowing anything they desired was another. 

It was impossible but logical standards. 

But… after eliminating the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, was the truth.

And by his own standards Kira was impossible. Yet there he stood, strolling as if it were the most casual thing in the world, chatting every now and then about how this place was actually near his high school, how he walked by it almost every day. So he could not draw the line on the impossible. Then what? The field was open to the nonsensical, and the more he thought, the more he hoped that Light was just simply smarter than L , and he had missed something glaringly obvious. Kira was just a network of poisonings that acted after a time frame. He had inside informants everywhere. The drugs he used could effect their brains, their mental state, make people want to kill themselves or walk into traffic before dying of cardiac arrest.

This was the implausible, yet it felt a million miles away, drifting further and further. 

There was a cloud forming in L’s mind. A hovering despair that was drowning out thought. Not too close, not too much, but it drowned out the conscious realisation that he did not want to begin to walk in the first place, and the fact that half of his thoughts hadn’t been his own in hours.

——

It was already setting out to be a long day at headquarters, what with Ryuuzaki and Watari out all day. They liked to make themselves useful in the rare occasion when both were absent, but with Ryuuzaki following up this potential lead himself there wasn’t really much to do other than try to seem busier than they were.  Everyone was back at the hotel room they were currently set up in, as it appeared that L had really stopped feigning interest in other suspects or leads. To him, Light was Kira, and this was simply a matter of proof. No one dared tell the chief that of course. Aizawa could never voice the belief that perhaps he was right in front of his boss, he wasn’t crazy. He didn’t feel like giving him even more stress than usual.

Speaking of the chief, he exhaled heavily and massaged the bridge of his nose. His team glanced at him from their paperwork, and he moved his hand to push the loose strands of hair back. It was as if all at once every ounce of exhaustion had fallen onto his shoulders and all he wanted to do was rest . That much was clear to everyone in the room without many genius-detective skills needed.

“I’m sorry…” he began, sighing deeply again. “I think… I think I’m going to rest my eyes for a moment.” 

No one protested. He had pulled dozens of all-nighters in the past month, barely slept for more than a few hours at a time, pushed himself harder than anyone else. It was as if he were trying to mimic Ryuuzaki’s habits without the sugar and caffeine and failing miserably. 

“Go ahead, chief,” Matsuda murmured, making a point to pour over his folders more quietly. The others followed suit.

Soichiro Yagami closed his eyes and sank down into the armchair he had been working from. The pain behind his eyes built to a fever pitch before subsiding. 

——

“Welcome,” Light grinned, slightly lopsided, “to the Yellow Box warehouse. Daikoku Wharf’s finest abandoned lot.”

L didn’t remark that this site most certainly wasn’t abandoned, with the constant sound of drilling and blaring horns and heavy machinery echoing around the urban district. Light had pulled the lone door shut with a definitive thud which had drowned out some level of noise, but even still the large fan turned and turned and set a heart-beat pace to the whole ordeal. 

For some reason, L didn’t feel scared. There was a strange lethargy in his bones, like a deep-seated tiredness rendering his limbs leaden, useless accessories to his brain. It was the tiredness of coming home after a long day’s work and knowing there was nothing left to be done. Perhaps that should have been a terrifying thought- why did he accept so calmly the idea that all hope was lost? Fear would take adrenaline, would take energy, and L Lawliet’s reserves had been tapped while he slept, the great stores of it opened only to be found empty. He had been so ready to face his foe that morning, so what had happened? Why did he suddenly feel so… finished. Well, he could never truly know how he would feel facing certain defeat, he had never experienced it before, so it stood to reason that this was just how he felt.

(He did not notice how that thought entered into his mind unasked).

“If it’s all the same to you, I’d like those answers you promised.” L replied after a moment’s pause, taking small comfort in the way Light's smile dropped a few degrees. “I didn’t just follow you here for fun, no matter how exhilarating it may be to stand in a construction site with you.”

“You definitely didn’t just follow for fun, no, I guess you didn’t,” he replied. It was far too ominous a reply for L’s liking, though Light appeared to pick up on that.

“Don’t you worry your pretty little head about it.” He crooned, moving a hand to touch L’s chin for a moment. L was left altogether more confused than he had been moments ago.

The fan turned around and around, and L took note in the way that Light gritted his teeth at each rotation. What could this mean? That was a relatively common expression of annoyance, fear, anger, but how could a fan cause this? An uncommon brand of misophonia? Fan-related trauma? As everything seemed to with Light, the answers only became more implausible the more he thought. He didn’t like it- not being able to solve a case like this.

(Solve a person).

(Light Yagami was single-handedly the most fascinating person he had ever had the (dis)pleasure of meeting, and he was sure picking his brain would open up lots more interesting avenues. A true challenge, an adversary worthy of the a name just meaning killer . Not the killer of wherever or the this-thing killer and the killer who-liked-whatever, just killer . The one. In the same way that L was detective , Light was killer- Kira) .

It was a shame then, that the game had been over before it ever began. He was sure he would have liked playing with Light Yagami. 

“I should probably get this bit out of the way first,” Light said, rolling his eyes, “you’re right. I am Kira.”

“I know.”

“I know you know.” He retorted, and L was taken aback by the childishness. “But I’m not only Kira,” he said with practised ease, “I am also the god of this new world.”

“You’re an 18 year old with a murderous hobby, I wouldn't call that particularly god-like.”

“I’m not 18.” Light said indignantly before cutting himself off and closing his eyes for a brief moment, breathing deeply and ignoring the blank look being given to him. 

“Afraid of adulthood? That’s rather common, don’t worry. If you miss being 17-“

“I’m not 17 either.”

“I’m afraid you’ve lost me there then. Should I inform your father of your mental state-“

(If he was going down, he might as well go down fighting).

(And words were the only thing he felt capable of in that moment).

“Will you just shut up? God, you say I talk a lot. You were never this bad. I didn’t mess you up too much, did I?”

L… didn’t know what to make of that. All he could do was allow Light to continue and hope he explained 

He watched, rooted to the spot by some invisible weight as Light carefully pulled his leather satchel bag off his shoulder and flipped the top open, handling it carefully as if it may explode. Perhaps it would. Perhaps that was how Kira did it. L doubted that. Nevertheless, while he rifled through his things, Light paused, then moved that hand to reach into his pocket, removing it with a small cloth, like a napkin or handkerchief of some kind, wrapped around his index and thumb.

So what he’s about to touch must be incriminating then, L thought, and he plans to leave it somewhere where it could be found or- before that was interrupted by oh. Oh.

Because what Light produced from the bag, a thin layer of fabric blocking his skin from touching, was a gun. To be precise, it was a Nambu model 60, snub nose. The design of this model was based on the Smith and Wesson model 36, sometimes nicknamed the chief special, which L supposed was appropriate. This was because the Nambu model 60 was the typical model of firearm for the Japanese police, and therefore it seemed most likely that Light had…

“Hold this.” He said flatly while returning to sorting through his items with the other hand. His right was extending the grip of the gun to L, the barrel pinched in his forefingers- as if it were aiming at him and Light hadn’t a care in the world for it. He was deftly darting through the contents of his bag, flicking over papers and books and other various things faster than he had been before. He seemed more adept with his left than his right, and L wondered if he were left-handed. He had only seen him write with his right hand before, but this suggested otherwise. What a strange, petty thing to lie about.

If he were letting his guard drop here, what did that suggest for L? (He didn’t know why he saw this as a worse sign than the confession, but it somehow landed differently). It was like the notion that L had heard more than once that you should fear more an attacker without a mask, because they don’t plan on letting you go alive. So what did it mean now, that the metaphorical mask was coming off the other apparently-not-18 year old he faced. He was right: Light was Kira. so why didn’t he take the gun he was handed and execute him himself, or at least threaten him until he complied? He had a cellphone on him, why not click record and capture his confession? Why not call the task force now?

He did none of those things, instead just taking the gun and feeling the weight of it as he shifted it in his hands. His fingers found the grooves naturally, and he hovered one finger over the trigger, as if experimenting with it. 

“I’d be careful with that, it’s loaded.” Light said flippantly, finally landing on what he had been after. It had been seconds, but that had stretched on like an eternity between them as Light left his satchel on the cold, damp floor and held what, for all intents and purposes, was a black leather notebook, not particularly thick or bound in any special way, and although the cover was now facing away from L, he hadn’t caught a glimpse of anything other than a short title in white text. He hadn’t even been able to determine what language it was in before it was out of sight. Regardless, his main issue wasn’t whatever notebook Light had probably planned his speech in, it was the firearm resting at the end of his arm, comfortable, like it belonged there.

“I presume this is your father’s weapon?” He asked. 

“Yep, it’s his, alright.”

“Did you steal it? I wouldn’t have thought you’d go to such lengths just to give it to me. ” The question of why give it to me lay thinly veiled, and unsaid.

“No, I didn't steal it. He left it for me. Right there in his top dresser drawer.”

Why would a straight-laced, moralist police officer such as Soichiro Yagami not only take his gun home, but not make any effort to lock it away? Did he really leave it for his son- for Kira to take? Had he been the leak all along, simply originating his son’s phenomenal acting skills? Had he been wrong?

The gun weighed down his arm. He made no attempt to discard it. The thought never even crossed his mind.

“I think this might explain a few things. I wouldn’t touch it, if I were you. Not yet.” Light rotated the book in his hands so that the front cover was facing L, and he could see the words Death Note embossed in blinding white on the front. Before he had a second to gather his thoughts, Light had flicked to the first lined page, passing by pages of dark paper in the same font as the title. 

L’s stomach dropped as he took in the very first line, written in messier font than the rest, almost chicken-scratch.

Touta Matsuda. Heart attack. 1:00pm, April 5th, 2007.

——

Breaking the near silence that had fallen over the room in the last handful of minutes, Aizawa’s phone rang like a beacon in the night. His phone often rang at odd hours, but according to the caller ID this was coming from within the police headquarters.

Now that did sound alarm bells. Typically those phone calls were reserved for the chief’s cellphone if it were necessary, so this had to be something more personal. 

From the police station… to Aizawa. 

The others looked on expectantly as he picked up the call. 

His face whitened, until it was ashen grey. His entire body shook with immense force and the emotion painted on his face was a swirling blend of horror, fury and despair. 

“It’s Ide.” He began before stopping to gasp in a breath and promptly choking it back out again, mixed with a sob. “He’s just collapsed. Sudden heart attack. No pulse.” He hacked out, as if the words burned in his mouth. “Time of death around 12:57.”

“Kira…” Ukita breathed. His hand crumpled the paper he had been holding onto. Matsuda shrieked and placed his hands on his head, already pacing.

“Oh shit , Ide?! He wasn’t even- the chief, god, we have to tell him!” He fumbled with his words, but got his point across as his pacing led him to the armchair Soichiro had fallen asleep in. “Chief!” He shouted, to no avail. “Chief!” He tried again. “Chief? Come on, it’s about Ide! You need to-“ Matsuda continued to try to rouse him, but no amount of noise seemed to be helping. Must be a deep sleep, Matsuda thought, even as his colleagues stood deathly still around him, eyes fixed on their boss, he deserves it, all the work he’s been-

When Matsuda shook his shoulders, nothing happened. When he let go, his head flopped down with the weight and nearly slammed itself into the coffee table before he caught the shoulders again. 

“Chief?” He asked, more quietly this time. He moved a hand down the shoulder to the arm, then the wrist, the pulse. The lack thereof. 

He didn’t have time to scream, none of them did, before a seizing pain tore through his chest. In a blink of an eye his own legs gave out, numb and leaden, and nausea swam. It was a far worse pain than he had ever imagined, his chest constricted and shooting pains electrifying his lungs with each minute breath that he tried to take. His vision was spotty now, colours and static dancing before his eyes, obscuring the sight of his role model’s corpse and the dying forms of his co-workers- his friends- all suffering from the same horrific pain.

Because oh god, the pain was so unbearable. He just wanted it to end . Matsuda felt his jaw ache and chest scream, but he wasn’t screaming because he couldn’t breathe and he couldn’t breathe because there was a weight crushing his ribs and his limbs were tingling in a distant way and it was all so distant now but the only thing that held him here was the pain and the taste of blood in his mouth. 

He was far, far away, and it barely took a minute of agony before he was nowhere. 

——

Touta Matsuda. Heart attack. 1:00pm, April 5th, 2007.

Kanzo Mogi. Heart attack. 1:00pm, April 5th, 2007.

Shuichi Aizawa. Heart attack. 1:00pm, April 5th, 2007.

Hideki Ide. Heart attack. 12:56pm, April 5th, 2007.

Hirokazu Ukita. Heart attack. 1:00pm, April 5th, 2007.

Soichiro Yagami. Heart attack. Forgets his gun in his top dresser drawer the evening prior to his death. Does not notice that it is missing as he leaves for work the next morning. Dies painlessly in his sleep at 12:55pm, April 5th 2007.

There were no words left in L’s dry throat; drier than sandpaper. They were all drained away, evaporated the moment he saw those words written.

But how?  

Could it be?

He may as well voice the idea.

“So you write a name and cause of death, and it happens?”

Light seemed almost taken aback by his response, but reforged quickly.

“Yes. You need a face too, though I think you figured that out already. I’ve gotta say, though, I thought you’d react a lot stronger than this! Maybe it’s too early, I should have let things marinate a bit. Or-“ he cut himself off and laughed, flicking through pages for himself before stopping, apparently to reread something he’d already written. Then he laughed again. “No, no, I’m sorry, you can’t- “

“I suppose that makes it better.” L murmured. His voice carried with it a seething rage which chilled the air like a cold breeze. 

Light knew he wasn’t referring to what he had just begun to muse over. He turned back to the first page.

“ Dies painlessly . I suppose you think that makes it all better. That you didn’t allow your father to feel the heart attack that you killed him with. Does that make you a good person? Actually, allow me to rephrase: does it even make you a better one than if you hadn’t? Do you really kid yourself into thinking that?”

“You have no idea what the hell you’re talking about. This was necessary, not only to clear Kira’s path but to avoid singling me out- even you can admit it would have been stupid to let my father live. At least this way he didn’t suffer.”

“He did suffer. He has been suffering for months ever since you decided to become judge, jury and executioner knowing full well he would never rest until you were caught. What were his options? Catch his son and have to face the fact that the boy he loved so much was a mass murderer, or die trying?” Light twitched at the idea of the former, as if physically flinching from the reminder of just how much his father loved him (had loved him).

“Better than allowing them all to go on for years, suffering, experiencing pain, getting in the way of a brighter world. I just want peace , Ryuuzaki, L, a world in which people are safe.”

“Safe until you deem them guilty of a crime and swiftly bring the gallows down.”

“He was going to suffer so much worse,” Light said, almost a whisper, distress tugging at his voice. “It was going to be so much worse and he was going to be in so much pain. I ended it here.”

“He served his purpose, just like everyone else did for you, it seems. You forced him to leave the gun behind. You controlled his final actions, restricted his final thoughts- do you even realise how disgusting that is? I can’t even imagine the horror in that. Nothing but a pawn in your grotesque game of chess.”

Light laughed without humour, and L came to unnerving realisation that he could tell the difference between what of Light’s laughter was real and what was not, and that this was the first instance of the latter. 

“It’s ok.” Light smiled. “They're all gone now. It’s 1:03pm, there’s nothing you can do. Your whole support system; dead.”

The fan whirred around in dozens of more rotations while L stood there, rooted to the spot with a dead man’s gun itching in his hand. There was nothing more in the world he wanted to do than raise that trigger and rid the world of that vermin , but he just- he just couldn’t. It was then that an awful, terrible, writhing thought crept its way into his mind. He stared at the words again. Simple instructions. A few lines worth. How much more could be specified? How far in advance? Experimentally, L thought about stepping backwards, away towards the door. Immediately a part of him screamed no, no he needed to know what else was happening, what was going to come, why he needed that gun. Simultaneously, another part refused to leave because he didn’t know where Watari was but dealing with 6 corpses alone wasn’t a desirable thought. For all he enjoyed murder cases the best, dead bodies of his friends didn’t really do much for him- in fact, he preferred to ignore them wherever possible.

A pawn upon a board. L knew that he had made an awful mistake, a blunder costing him himself and half of his pieces, but there was a bright side, he hoped. It didn’t seem that Light knew . 

Knew their real names.

“My entire support system, yes, they are all dead, aren’t they.” He monotoned, for an instant feeling a semblance of the upper hand.

“…yes.” Light began, almost taken aback by L’s nonchalance at the idea. Then he paused, and squinted at the man opposite him. L had the unnerving impression that his soul was being studied. “You didn’t think I’d be stopped by code names did you? I know about them, Ryuga. It’s too late for them by now whatever you pretend not to know.”

He presented the book again.

——

That dickhead had left the door open again.

He did it just to be annoying- he was a much deeper sleeper than Matt was so the light didn’t irritate him as much. He could sleep through anything, Matt had always said. You could sleep through an apocalypse and be just fine .

Matt sighed and rolled over in bed, trying to force himself back to sleep. It was just past 4am, according to the alarm clock on his bedside table, and he had gotten all of 2 hours of sleep up until now. Mello had been lying there, fast asleep and snoring, for hours already, though his lack of snoring now was a little relief. As said before, Matt was a regrettably light sleeper. As such, if he just wanted to annoy him, Mello would leave the door to their shared room open just a touch and proceed to knock out. 

As such , Matt paid no mind to it, and gave up on finding sleep again in favour of closing the damn door. 

It wasn't until he got closer that he heard it.

Panicked whispers going on shouts, voices raising down the hall, footsteps coming closer. Matt pushed the door almost all the way- lights out had been hours ago- but curiosity killed the cat so he couldn’t help himself but keep watch even still. 

He caught whispers, floating to him like music on a breeze, although altogether less pleasant.

“ Near-" he heard, worry dripping from the single word he latched on to, “ help-"

“Kira-"

“Mello, are you hearing this shit?” Matt asked, not caring to keep his volume down. He got no response from his sleeping friend. 

“ You sure he’s-"

“Collapsed recently-"

Now Matt may not have been the top ranked student in the orphanage, but he also wasn't stupid. Those words in that order in this social context painted a frankly horrifying picture. 

So did the sudden jolt of footsteps pounding on the floorboards just outside the room, and the sight through the slim crack in the door of Roger and the matron running past their room with a limp white figure in their arms, a trail of children with their heads poking out their doors just as Matt was doing. something was awfully wrong, and the heartbeat in Matt’s ears compounded as some of the younger ones began to cry, building a fever pitch in his head.

There was a pressure mounting inside of his skull, a weight crushing the thoughts that needed to escape and put themselves together to see it clearly. He needed Mello. He always helped.

“Mello, come see this shit!” He called again. “Melloooooo-" he pulled himself back from the door, the sliver of light glinting on the case of his DS on the nightstand, and on some of the beads of Mello’s rosary around his neck, sticking out from the duvet. 

“Yo, Mells, wake the fuck up and help me snoop about Near.” He commanded, a sinking dread that he wanted to ignore combining with the altitude pressure in his ears like he was flying far away and going to be sick, shaking without knowing it. “Mells. Melloooo. Mello come on man-"

He pulled the covers away to try and shock his best friend awake, but still he refused to move. He stayed perfectly still, curled in a crescent in on himself, knees close up to his chest and one hand gripped in his hair, the other planted firmly on his rosary, halfway through clicking the beads in prayer. Matt had heard it many nights as he tried to sleep, the rhythmic clack clack clack . There was no sound now, no more footsteps or crying or clicking, but still Matt felt as if he could hear a sound like a kettle reaching its peak as he touched Mello’s shoulder. It was still awfully warm, but the residual heat leached into the cool air every second, and Matt didn’t dare come any closer. Mello’s form was frozen in time, in an instant god knows how long ago- ( how long had he been sharing a room with a corpse) ?  He took several steps backwards, and several more very hurried ones to the door.

He needed to get out right now.

(He needed to get away or he might understand what was happening) .

Before he made it and sprinted out and away and to wherever Roger had taken Near, he paused and turned back, just staring at the figure cloaked in shadow, sans the thin strip of sickly yellow glow. He couldn’t- he couldn’t leave him here- and in a few light steps was at Mello’s side again. He pressed the lower half of his face to the crown of his head, although whether he was kissing it or just feeling the closeness he had just abruptly lost (one last time) even he didn’t know. He did know that his eyes were blurry as two fingers reached around and found Mello’s eyelids, pulling them down from the distraught, wide-eyed, frenzied gaze they had been forever petrified into. His pupils were pinpricks staring at the white wall as if it were the most awful thing in the world, but to Matt now maybe it was, because it was the last thing his closest friend had ever seen. 

His friend, who was skinny and pallid and looked like a wax figure with how the pink had drained from his cheeks. ( He knew the stages of death and decomposition by now; in a few hours all his warmth would be gone and he would enter rigor mortis, and as the blood pooled at his side it would bruise and discolour. Eventually he would rot, and the insects and worms would enjoy his flesh like communion).

A heave forced itself up his chest and into his throat, and Matt was forced to pull away from his beautiful golden hair to wretch and choke, suddenly extremely aware of the deafening silence other than his thunderous heartbeat and the sound that had echoed all around when he exhaled into Mello’s hair. He wasn’t even aware of the wails that tore themselves out of his chest, a deep, guttural howl rending itself out of his lungs like a wounded animal. He hadn't felt this pain since… since the day that sent him here. And he still wasn’t feeling it now; all of that was so far away, locked in a box that shook with all the force of something trying to break its way out from the inside, rattling chains and locks and throwing themselves into the wood. 

Even as his heart refused to feel it, his legs sank out beneath him and he wrapped his arms over his friend as he kneeled next to his bed like a mourner at an open casket funeral, pressed his face back into his skin and sobbed violently, screamed and wretched. Matt was not religious, but Mello was, so he prayed to a God he wasn’t sure was listening. ( How could god be listening if he let Mello die)? This was no longer reality; this was an abominable nightmare and he was going to wake up and Mello would make fun of him for it. You dreamed about crying over me?  He would say, smirking and raising an eyebrow. He would pretend to be over it all, but be secretly crying in the night because someone cared enough to dream they’d cry for him. That’s stupid , he’d say, and Matt would agree because it was pretty stupid, wasn’t it? To hold his dead body close and whisper through cries that it was all going to be ok and they were going to be just fine, even as Roger threw the door open and looked on in abject horror. They were going to be just fine.

They were going to be just fine.

——

L raised the gun faster than he even realised was possible.

Without a second of hesitation his thumb clicked back the safety and he cocked his head to the side, gaging the perfect central shot. It would not be the cleanest way to execute someone, but that wasn’t the point. Light Yagami was a Russian doll of masks, and he would shatter all of them. And yet, even as his finger trembled around the trigger, the force needed to pull it escaped him.

L had never been so angry in his life, reading those words etched into paper. 

Nate River, heart attack, 4am GMT, April 5th, 2007.

Mihael Keehl, heart attack, 4am GMT, April 5th, 2007.

Quillsh Wammy, heart attack, 12:30pm JST, April 5th, 2007.

What had even been the point in specifying the time zone for his successors ( the children who were learning to be like him )? It seemed like it would have worked regardless. 

Ah, no. He thought, soberingly. 

It’s a taunt. Their lives are recompense for my misdeeds.

“Why.” Is all he could ask, barely forming the word right in a numb mouth that refused to move from stupor. “They're children.”

“They won’t always be.” Is all the monster had to say, with a shrug. “And I can’t have them growing up. It worked last time, you know, your little training program. Near, the new L, wearing a mask of your face.” He spat the words.

‘I can’t have them growing up’ was all L could hear. Little lives cauterised before they could even blink, before they had the chance to become who they were supposed to be. Like they meant nothing other than who they might have been. Like their lives deserved to be snuffed out just because they might become L, one day, forget who they are now or what else the future holds for those children , all Light- Kira- the monster- needed was their status in an orphanage for justification. 

But also, mixed in there, was something else that was eating at L. 

Last time.

He’d said that before. 

He was going to suffer.

It was going to be so much worse.

Too early.

You were never this bad.

I’m not 18.

I’m not 17 either.

Abandoned lot.

The lot wasn’t abandoned. L could help but want to scream that the lot wasn’t abandoned, an unshakable feeling like that was the most important of the facts he’d gathered.

But Light thought it was.

He claimed it was. But activity still bustled, had been for years.

L didn’t like the picture that was forming. Time travel was ridiculous. (Then again, so was a notebook that kills people). 

Light could be lying. He could be trying to make L believe that it was the notebook when it was really something else, but something in the way his finger resisted the trigger of the gun told him otherwise. 

All he wanted in that moment was to shoot Light Yagami. 

His hand was so steady, too steady, pointing the barrel of the pistol at Light, his arm poised and tensed ready for the recoil, but his finger refused to move.

It finally sunk in, hitting him in the stomach like a sack of bricks, the ultimate truth, the answer he had been avoiding. It was far too late for him already. He was not in control, hadn't been for god knows how long ( Light knows how long ), and as part of that he simply could not kill Light Yagami with the gun that same man had handed to him. He couldn’t leave, couldn't hurt him, couldn't touch the notebook inches from his face. There remained that tiny dissenting part that boomed through his subconscious that no, this was his choice but it was too late for those tricks. He let out a small gasp at the realisation, the betrayal of the one facet he thought he could rely on. If not his mind, his intellect, then what? I think therefore I am, and now his thoughts were not all his. Who was he then? Who had Kira made him? It was a latent virus, hidden in his cells, infecting  parts of him fraction by fraction until it became him. 

He had been replaced in his own skin by an actor who mimicked his will and his mind but refused to act on it. It was as if he could suddenly feel the hooks of the marionette that had been digging beneath his skin all day, attaching the strings that tugged at him as he dropped his sugar into his tea that morning, who had dragged him here. He was an actor in a play, hitting each mark in turn and moving onto the next scene, muscle memory guiding him and a script that he read when the string was pulled on his back at the audience’s amusement. 

I think therefore I am.

Who had Light Yagami made him into, then, in the end? 

Who had Light Yagami made himself?

There was no longer a question of if he were to die today, nor even much of a how. If Light had found Watari, Near, Mello… then whatever power he had extended far beyond the possible realm. Time travel. The thought laid heavy in his stomach, and tasted like blood. 

Light began quietly, and so was almost drowned out by the machinery outside. His voice had a soft, sing-song quality to it that was almost entrancing. 

“On November 28th, 2006, Light Yagami picked up a notebook that fell from the sky. It had rules written in the front, ones that said whoever’s name is written in it will die.”

That sounds like bullshit.

“He thought it was bullshit, of course, but he had to try it. It was certainly a joke, anyway, and writing names on paper didn’t exactly make someone a murderer even if it were real. So he wrote the name of a man on the news who was holding a kindergarten hostage- Kurou Otoharada. After 40 seconds, he died. And so Light tested it again. A man attacking a girl. It worked, again. Light was a hero . He was saving people . Then L came along, on TV, saying that his name was Lind L Tailor and that Kira was evil. And Light killed him. And then you… You showed me the trap I had fallen into. I was followed by the FBI but by staging a bus-jacking I got Raye Penber’s name and used him to take out the rest of the agents in Japan. Naomi Misora was almost a concern, but I took care of her in the end.”

This… wasn’t sounding right. Least of all because Lind L Tailor had never had a chance to be on that live broadcast, where L had, admittedly, planned to do exactly what Light was recounting as if it were fact. His curiosity, despite himself, was piqued.

“Then a strange man who called himself Hideki Ryuga did his speech alongside Light, and told him that he had some important information to share . Light wanted to know everything he could, of course, so he asked for the information. That man told him that he was L. Light didn’t know whether to trust the word of this stranger who never wore shoes and looked as if he hadn’t slept or seen the sun in months, but it became clear to him that this was the detective who had been hunting him.”

Light paused, and as L swallowed, about to open his mouth and speak, Light continued. 

“Then a second Kira appeared, and we joined forces to catch her. My father had a heart attack, but it was alright in the end. Misa Amane was the impostor, but I found her before you could and we began to work together. But she was sloppy, and got caught, and eventually I was imprisoned voluntarily all as part of a plan to clear my name. And it worked. And we worked together to catch a new Kira before I killed you.” Light’s lilting tone hardened at the end, steely and cold before returning mostly to normal, an edge of grit still lingering regardless. “And I became L. All of L. Before those stupid children got involved. It had been 5 years, you know? Five years unimpeded and suddenly I was faced with Near accusing me again. Mello killed my father- shot and caught up in an explosion. And in the end, they got me. I was shot right here, in the yellow box warehouse. My plan should have worked ” he murmured, “my plan will work this time, though. It already has.” Light purred the final words, stepping closer to L until he was circling him, his breath warm on the back of L’s neck. 

He came back around again, on the side which didn’t hold the gun, the gun that pointed at the empty air where Light had been. 

“Go on,” he whispered, almost right into L’s ear. “I’ll make it easy for you.” His sudden laugh was white hot and disturbingly off-kilter compared to the red of his composure. 

Light took a few steps backwards, until he was right in the firing line of the dead man’s gun. 

“Shoot.” He grinned. When nothing happened, he came closer still, until his forehead was pressing harshly into the muzzle of the gun, frigid metal creating a round circular indent in the centre of his forehead. The more L tried to just end him the less it seemed he could. The little energy he had left was slipping away, and a certain thought was burrowing itself into him like rot. 

“Well, since you’re having such trouble, I’ll make it even easier. Hold still a moment, won’t you?” He grabbed L’s arm by the elbow and pulled it down, then angled his forearm back up on its own, the gun now pointing up at him from an angle rather than just straight across. Then, slowly, as if he were savouring every second of the blank look on L’s face, he opened his mouth and moved towards it, letting the gun hover, barely a finger-twitch away from blowing his brains out and splattering them across the concrete floor, inside of his mouth. 

His jaw shook with barely concealed laughter as tears formed in his eyes, though L doubted they were anything other than tears of pure joy. His teeth wavered millimetres away from chattering against the barrel, his tongue ducked away to create more space for the weapon in his mouth, his eyes shining as if begging L to just try. 

Light was poised, ready to be put down like a sick dog, and L could not possibly have had an easier job doing so in any other situation. If this bullet could be his euthanasia, the world could be free of Kira and those he cared about would be avenged. He would be alone, of course, but that wouldn’t be too hard. He had been alone far too much already. L kept Light's gaze, but only returned his fire with a deep mourning, a burned out candle with wax dripping down the handle, overused, broken, toyed with. 

As if realising that what he had been searching for was not coming, Light’s smile faded and he pulled his mouth away from the gun. L just let his hand drop to his side, his arm exhausted. 

“So. Time travel, was it, then?” He asked, almost seeming to startle the other man. 

“Yes. From the moment I died to the moment I found the notebook again. 5 years back.”

“I must have made quite an impact, for you to tell me all this before I die.” He added the final phrase just to watch Light’s eyes widen, then narrow, the compose themselves as if he were in an internal war.

“You were certainly something. Not someone easily replaced.” He spoke the words so casually L might have been fooled into thinking they were just discussing the weather or something equally as inane.

“Talking about me in the past tense already I see. Just itching to get rid of me? How was it you killed me the first time around, then?”

“I tricked a shinigami into killing you herself. They don’t need all that work to find out a name, they just get them for free.”

“I see… so shinigami exist, as well?”

“Of course. There’s one right here, but you can’t see him unless you touch the notebook. Go ahead, I’ll let you turn the next page.”

He handed the book over to L’s free hand, and L was surprised at how normal it felt. He didn’t exactly know how a powerful magical object was supposed to feel, but like your standard, college notebook was not it at all. He was still grappling with a hundred things at once, the deaths of all those he was closest to, his own impending demise, the existence of time travel and killer notebooks, so maybe that was why he barely reacted past sucking in a firm breath when glancing up to see a large, towering, gangly figure laughing so hard it seemed it might collapse. 

“Oh man, this is good! I’m so glad I haven’t killed you already, Light-o, that boring bit really was worth it for all this!” His voice sounded like nails on a chalkboard, and his laugh was like someone trying to play cheese-graters as musical instruments; that is to say, wholly unpleasant. Its bulging yellow eyes met L’s, and through a new wave of laughter it waved and said “I’m Ryuk, nice to meet you before, y’know.”

“…I wish I could say the same, Ryuk. Has he been here long Light-o?” Light scoffed at the use of the nickname, but the shinigami just howled with more laughter. 

“Since a few days after I got the death note. He has to stick around until I die. Or just kill me himself if he gets bored, but I promise I won’t let that happen. I’ve got a whole world ahead of me.”

“A world where people live in fear of being executed by a mad man with a god complex. Kira is supposed to be justice, right? I don’t know about you, but murdering hundreds of people every day for even minor crimes doesn't feel like justice to me. It feels like a sad, egotistical child satiating his desire to be adored by conflating it with fear and using that brand as justice to legitimise his actions to the public.”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about. You have only just met me, you don’t know what I can-”

“And yet you went out of your way to tell me as much as you could. Maybe I did know you, in another life. Maybe you knew that. I’m sure either way, you know that there is no world in which I could be convinced that Kira is right, no matter what words you try to use. Kira is evil, and Light Yagami is pathetic. You want to know why you are so deplorable- no, wait, that’s not right. Not even deplorable, just sad .” 

Light stared intensely into L’s eyes, who met them with the same hollow defeat he had had since they got here, but with a new sharpness. 

“In two lifetimes, you've never killed me legitimately once. Not on your own, not properly. Couldn’t bear to get your hands dirty? Get a shinigami to do it the first time, and I assume use that information the second to plan out a whole day where you get to explain to me how incredible your evil plan is and then kill me? It’s honestly ridiculous how you see this as any kind of victory. You cheated .”

His words echoed around the metal walls. Light stood back in stunned silence for almost half a minute before something cut through. It was barely audible at first, a mumble obscured by the outside noise. The corners of Light’s mouth twitched, itching upwards as his giggling became clearly discernible like a crashing tidal wave, bearing down on L as his face split in two in a grin, his head reeling back and eyes squeezed in ecstatic joy. The sound tore through L’s mind like a fault line being split open. It managed to break through the barrier of information overload and nausea with a sickening crack and suddenly the fear that L had been holding at bay surged through him, his knees weak and fingers tingling and head spinning like he had been hit. 

He turned the page of the notebook just in time to hear Light say

“This is the best part, Lawliet . My absolute favourite.”

L Lawliet. 1:15pm, April 5th, 2007. Suicide.

L read and reread the first line a dozen times, as if it was about to change into something else entirely that meant he was going to live, that he wasn’t going to kill himself in-

“Two minutes to go!” Light cheered, his voice altogether different and swooping in arcs of pitch and tone, filled with excitement. 

So that was why he had the gun.

Oh god.

On the morning of the 5th of April, he will make himself a cup of tea before leaving to meet the person he believes to be Kira at the To-oh college entrance ceremony. He follows this person’s instructions and does nothing to harm him in any way, including following him to the Yellow Box warehouse and taking the gun he is handed. He does not try to shoot the suspect or damage anything he carries. Shoots himself in the head.

Oh god .

There was no saving him now. 

Nothing.

The door was closing, dimming. His mind suddenly full of enticing thoughts from foreign voices that hushed and coerced his senses. 

One minute. 

The gun was warm in his hand now, and the trigger was calling in a way he hadn’t noticed before. 

“You’ll be needing this,” Light said with a jolt, wrapping his hand in the cloth again to retrieve another item from his pocket. He almost dropped it as his fingers misjudged themselves, and L supposed it made sense now. It was a small piece of paper, not lined, with only a handful of sentences written on it in scrawling English script. It was unnervingly close to L’s own, and he was sure that was not a coincidence when he read it.

‘ I can’t do this. I can’t lose, not now. It’s too much, they’re all dead. The world will have to lose me instead. It’s better this way. Goodbye.

L.’

A suicide note. 

“This is really the best part. You’re not gonna go down in history as the great detective L, you’re not gonna be the man who tried to catch a killer and died trying- no- you’re the man who wanted to beat god, and when he realised that he couldn’t, took himself out to avoid the loss. Because hey, you still have that 100% track record if you take yourself out first? Right? The whole world will know you as the coward who gave up rather than be defeated. They’ll see you as the man you really are; a man who’s childish and hates losing.” His own words, from a time and place where he had no conceivable idea of what the future held, thrown back at him with vitriol. 

L clenched the paper in his fist, and met Light’s amber eyes once more. A small smile graced his lips. 

“Well then. You certainly are interesting, aren’t you, Light. It’s a shame, in another life… I wish we could have met in some other way…”

His words had a more visceral effect than he expected, and Light physically curled up on himself at the declaration. His look was halfway between disgust and fear. 

And sadness.

“At least you know that I knew it… I don’t really care what the rest of the world thinks once I’m gone. You really are Kira…” he looked down, then up through his eyelashes.  “Goodbye, Light.”

He sighed, and robotically, without another thought, raised the barrel to his temple. The pressure was almost relaxing for a moment.

Light's watch clicked gently over to 1:15pm.

The sound of the gunshot was muffled by the wind.