Author's Note: This was a plot bunny that wouldn't leave my head after I finished reading Silver Pard's crackfic "Adaptation", so if you haven't read that one, go ahead and read it first before reading this one. It's (vaguely) a continuation of sorts. That fic stayed in my head for the whole day until I gave up on it and wrote this down. And also, it's a crackfic. Like pure and unholy crack, so if you were looking for something sane, consider this a disclaimer.

I'll mark this as complete since I don't know when and if I'd get any crazy idea of things occurring in this alternate Death Note universe, but if anyone has plot bunnies and other related weird ideas digging in their backyard after they read this, I'm always open to reviews.

Watch the crack. You have been warned...

Update: No, nothing'd changed, just edited things a bit to be more readable.

Divide and Conquer

As much as he respected Yagami Soichirou, Aizawa was certain that faithfully following the dedicated inspector to the end of the world does not include being asked to walk up to L and say that the senior Yagami had very much insisted the young man take responsibility over his eldest son, err, daughter. That was why the moment the security camera showed L and Light walking in into the building from whoever knows where, he stood bolt upright and shouted that he was out to buy more coffee for the pantry. And sugar, he added as an afterthought while running out. Never mind that there was certainly someone in L's whole building that was tasked to do it, but he was not going to be in the room where a drama was certain to unfold. A disappointed Soichirou was now forced to look for someone else.

Mogi was in the midst of doing something else decidedly important for the investigation, and because of it his old superior just nodded to him to continue whatever he was doing when their eyes met, and he was spared from Soichiro's attention as the middle-aged man turned elsewhere.

The door to the room opened and Light and L walked in.

The man whom Soichiro's glance finally fell on was trying hard to avoid looking at Light's breasts, since the younger Yagami did not seem to have wrapped his head around the idea that being female meant it was probably a good idea to start getting a bra.

"Matsuda"

"Yes, Sir?" Matsuda turned to the elder Yagami, trying not to feel embarrassed from the reproaching glance. The elder Yagami cleared his throat.

"You need some cough drops, Sir?"

Mogi wisely decided in the current situation that it would be far more productive for him if he carried the files he was reading to the next room and work there. Light was calmly drinking his tea while L was making a pyramid of chocolates when he passed them on the way to the door, sitting side by side on the same couch without saying a word.

Mogi tried to forget that he had just seen L's hand casually draped on Light-chan's thigh; fingers visibly moving while his other hand helped another square of chocolate disappear inside his mouth without a trace. Mogi focused on the door ahead of him straight away. He came to the conclusion that maybe things would stay more normal if he didn't glance around at all when there were the two of them nearby.

Matsuda had only realized belatedly that his fellow investigators were nowhere to be seen. It was also most unfortunate that his head only started thinking when Soichiro was approaching him, when the right reaction then was to start running. He felt a fatherly hand had gotten hold of his shoulder and he spun around with a distinctly worrying feeling at the pit of his stomach.

"Would you please tell them that we have to work?"
"Eh?"
"And please tell L to—"

'-

Light and L turned around from the shriek that they thought was Misa's from the pitch, but turned out to be Matsuda's.

"EEEEEEEEEHHH? But, but, but, but..."
He gave a most awkward grin, sweat trickling his brow, when he realized that the two people on the couch had now turned their attention to him. A tired Soichiro was rubbing his temples with his hand. His voice had taken a different tone now.

"Matsuda..."

"Yes, Sir!" Yagami Soichiro was still staring at him, waiting. Matsuda felt like walking to his bed, pull his blankets higher over his head, curl into a ball and whimper, but right now he turned around anyway and moved his heavy feet one by one towards the couch. For the moment he felt they were encased in concrete.

"Uh, L?"

The black-haired genius looked up, but didn't even bother to say anything to him. It was a good thing that Matsuda was too nervous to register his surroundings. If he wasn't, he might've seen Light taking a hold of L's hand on her person and replaced it somewhere less inquisitive on the couch without taking her eyes off the tea.

"Uh, Yagami-san asked me to tell you to focus on the investigation"
L told him that there was no need of that because he never did stop the investigation. Matsuda felt relieved that it went smoothly and was eager to get back to his usual seat, or even to wait Misa-misa on a hectic day again. The only hindrance to that fine idea was Yagami-san, still standing a few paces away from him with the same sort of look. Matsuda found that L had begun to ignore him again.

"Uh, L..."
"There's...there's also something else that Yagami-san wanted to say..."
Matsuda was staring at the ground as he said it, his hands gripping one another and his face turning a fetching shade of scarlet.

"He, uh, wanted you to, uh, take responsibility for Light-chan"

There was the mildest sort of cough coming from the general direction of Light, who was staring at him with an eyebrow raised, the teacup replaced on the table but Matsuda wasn't seeing that. Not that he could look at a very pretty Light in the eye right now. He didn't see that L's face had hardly changed, but if he thought hard enough right then, it was still what could be expected of him too.

L waited until he scarfed down a slice of strawberry cheesecake before replying. He felt no that there was no extraordinary need to rush with his food and get an indigestion.

"Why?"

'-

Matsuda was spared the necessity of reacting any further—which he would be unable to since he was too shocked to speak. He didn't know how Yagami-san could cross the distance separating them so fast, but he could not thank his stars enough that he wasn't on the receiving end of the man's fist. It looked like it hurt. It sounded like it hurt really bad. His feet regained consciousness again from the sound of knuckles hitting cheek bone and he scrambled away as fast as he could.

"Why, you irresponsible lout!"

Light was watching all this unfold without changing her graceful sitting poise by even an inch. It was possibly a rather amused expression that flickered behind her eyes, Mogi thought as he and Aizawa quietly slipped back in, too curious about the ruckus to stay away. Mogi was carrying his files and Aizawa a grocery bag. Neither of them paid attention to what they had in their hands though.

L considered the possibility that Light had planned it all to the point of making him enemies with the older Yagami, and added four percent to Light's Kira score while dodging Yagami-san's next blow. Divide et impera might be a classic move, but he had to admit that it was nowhere near outdated. After he rolled away he thought over it again, noticing Mogi and Aizawa's entrance in to the room at the same time. He weighed it in and thought the added score of Light as Kira should probably be seven percent instead of four—as now nobody in the room was working at all. Previously, it was only the two of them who weren't working most of the time, though as he mused about it he realized that the team hadn't actually come up with anything really interesting on their own in the last week.

"Let's think over this clearly, shall we, Yagami-san?" he said, voice as flat as usual.
"What is there to think about? You have clearly demonstrated your intention of just walking away without a second thought about what you've done! I don't think you even care"

Light-ku—Light-chan added her opinion to the fray by saying that there was no need for her father to get violent, and that they can sit down and talk about this calmly. L felt slightly more optimistic of ending this misunderstanding, thinking that at least Yagami-san would listen to his so—daughter. But it was clear that the train of thought occurred due to a lack of practical knowledge about fathers. If anything, it only made Yagami-san look more determined to give him a painful hit, and L had to keep his mind back on dodging because that last punch was missing him too a little too close.

The elder Yagami said something about how he was a bastard undeserving of Light-chan's attention and that she didn't need to defend him. L quickly grasped the idea that the only reason Light interefered just then was to make it worse.

It was confirmed by the undoubtedly beatific smile Light had right now, even if the general emotion Light was trying to project was one of a concerned worry. And was that just his impression that she had now mastered the feat of looking too powerless to step in into the fight, giving her a perfectly viable reason not to assist him at all?

The momentary distraction afforded Soichirou's kick to hit him in the gut.

'-

Matsuda told Aizawa and Mogi what he had missed. Aizawa choked on his coffee and decided it was better for him if he just took a break for the whole day, his nerves deciding that he's had enough. Mogi thought that even if he was going to be the last person working in the room, he didn't mind, and went back to his work soon enough. Matsuda was torn between following his fight or flight instinct (leaning heavily towards flight), and that equally strong morbid curiosity egging the lizard part of his brain to stay.

He had a feeling that he was going to regret this later.

'-

It was worry that was impairing Yagami-san's judgement. It wasn't a hard conclusion to take for L, and the rest of the investigative team tried to stay out of the fighting pair's way. He wasn't worried about Yagami-san—he would tire far sooner than L would. On the other hand, he did think that it would be better if this problem was solved for sooner rather than later since it was undermining the cohesiveness of the team and the teamwork too, considering how Yagami-san was starting to say things that boils down to 'stay the hell away from my daughter'. Of course, there was also the other more worrying reason that there were certain activities he would no longer be able to indulge in if his teamwork with Light-chan suffers, and he far preferred that than to continue obsessive-compulsively thinking about everything Kira might be planning into the wee hours of the night—thinking about Kira's next movement does not supply him with the knowledge and certainty of where exactly Light-chan was and what she was doing in that moment in time. One probable cause of Yagami-san's concern crossed his mind, and he thought that if it was only that he could assuage it easily.

"If you're worried about Light-chan getting pregnant, it's an insubstantial risk. We're not careless enough to not use some means of contraception"

He could hear the whole room let out a mutual groan. Now, he had a distinct feeling at the back of his head that he just made a rather big faux pas. The more disastrous point about it is, he had no idea what it was or why and thus could not decide if the next sentence he had in mind was going to alleviate it or make it worse.

It was at times like these that he thought having Watari away for prolonged periods was a genuinely bad idea.

'-

Matsuda had his face in his hands, flustered, and hadn't even taken it out as he tried to remove whatever images his imagination managed to come up with just from listening to L's last sentence.

Mogi san left his seat and his work behind after considering that he was probably the last responsible person in the room, and that he might be the only person sane enough to be able to stop Yagami-san from trying to kill L.

Light was smiling into the cup of tea in her hands. She never thought that getting the spotlight away from Kira was going to be this easy.