Places in Between
I bring you my very first Death Note fanfiction. It will eventually end up being LxLight, but for now (alas) no yaoi to speak of. I debated for a long time whether to use the Japanese name 'Raito' or the English one 'Light'. In the end I decided on 'Light' because I figured that was what most people would be used to. ;
Death Note is not, and will never be, mine.
Chapter One: See Also; 'Kira'
He had thought dying would have hurt more. Blinding pain, even. Surprisingly, there had been no pain—just the blinding. White light completely encased him, shutting off eyes from wherever it was that he might have been. There was a low humming in his ears, just one more factor in his already great amount of confusion. Though there was no pain to speak of, his body felt uncomfortably numb, every pore of his skin tingling with a sensation words couldn't describe. Light had no idea where he was, or if he was even standing on solid ground.
Was this the place Ryuk had been talking about? The shingami had said there was no such thing as heaven and hell, but for all Light knew, he could have been lying. It wouldn't have been surprising. Light blinked rapidly in his senselessness, trying to find something other than white for his eyes to focus on. In a ditch effort he held his hand up in front of his face. At least, he attempted to hold up his hand. The moment he did, his body felt more weighted than it ever had in his life. It was if someone had tied heavy weights around his wrists and ankles.
Light was beginning to wonder if he'd float here forever, when the experience ended in a violent contrast to the way it had started. Before he even had a second to think about the actual falling his knees collided roughly with what felt like stone, or something of similar consistency. The newly deceased boy grumbled something to himself, rubbing his now aching backside. That had been something of an unpleasant tumble. The moment he landed on the mysterious floor all his senses had returned to him; sight and sound, taste and touch.
Despite the fact that his body had seemed to purge itself of all wounds, there was still the rusty taste of blood in his mouth. The first noise to reach his ears was the sound of manicured fingernails clacking across a computer keyboard. Shakily pulling himself up off the ground, Light tilted his head to the side, trying to find the source of the strange noise. The boy blinked rapidly, wondering if the scene before him was real or just some sort of illusion created by his mind.
It looked as though he were standing in an office lobby room. Granted, it was a very white lobby room, from the white desk that was directly across from him, or the white couch that was off to the side. The only thing in the room that wasn't that blanched color was the woman that was sitting behind the desk. Trim body was in a navy dress suit, chestnut hair wound up into a tight bun. A pair of cat eye glasses sat on the edge of her nose, steely grey eyes peering straight through the glass and remaining fixated on the computer screen. Her hands moved at death defying speed across the keys, and apparently, she had yet to realize Light had arrived. He waited for a few seconds, assuming that she would be the one to strike up the conversation as to where he was and why he was here. Light shrugged to himself, taking the initiative to say something as he cautiously approached the desk.
"Uh…" Obviously, saying 'something' didn't entail saying anything of actual worth. But at least it got her attention. Or he thought it did. The woman still didn't look away from the computer screen, but her fingers had paused momentarily when he had spoken.
"Name?" She asked in a rather bored tone, returning to her typing. This question seemed to throw Light off slightly. If this place was anything close to what he thought it was, then they would already know. Wouldn't they?
"Name?" The woman repeated, agitation in her voice th9is time as she tore her eyes away from the screen to look at him.
"Yagami Light." He said finally, the woman nodding to herself as she typed it in, jabbing the enter key with a cherry red fingernail.
"Ahh…here we go." She said. Light stood right at the desk, leaning forward slightly to see what she was looking. There was his picture, followed by lots and lots of text. From what he managed to catch a glimpse at, it documented every last detail about him. He swallowed hard, already sure that this meant something bad for him.
"Oh…impressive." The woman said under her breath, before looking up at him. "Well, everything seems in order, you can go on up." She typed something into the computer, a bright blue door appearing off to the side behind her desk. Up? Did this mean he had managed to get into heaven? Not wanting to waste another second he hurried off to the inviting door.
"Huh? What's this?" Light froze, fingers already curled around the handle. Maybe if he kept going he would be able to get away with it.
"Wh…what is it?" He asked in a shaky voice, grip tightening around the shining golden doorknob.
"There's a footnote…with a link." She responded, promptly clicking it. "Oh my." Defeated, Light made his way back to the desk, almost afraid to see what the link had led to. What he saw made him sick. It was his picture again, but instead of the name 'Yagami Light' beside it, there was only 'Kira'. He swallowed hard.
"Well isn't this interesting." The woman continued, reading through the second file. "This changes everything." Light swore under his breath at this.
"Murderers don't get into heaven." She said simply, lifting her head to look at him. "I just need to do a few quick calculations to determine which level of hell you get."
There were different levels? This was bad, very bad. Light shifted nervously, fingers drumming anxiously against the white desk. She disappeared momentarily behind her desk, finally returning and setting something that looked like an adding machine in front of him. She tapped in a few things and pulled the lever, a long sheet of paper extending from it.
"That's everything you did as Yagami Light," She explained, while tapping a few more keys on the strange machine. The lever was pulled again, the size of the paper that extended from the mechanism doubling. "And that's everything you did as Kira." She tore the paper at the end, trailing her finger down at the end.
"And the level of hell you've been sentenced to is…" Light held his breath, waiting for his verdict. He was going to be thrust down as far as Hell went, he was sure of it.
"Huh? Zero…?" She doubled checked, shaking her head and clicking her tongue disapprovingly.
The boy tilted his head to the side. Zero? What kind of sentence was that. Not to say that he was disappointed…just confused. The woman let out a long sigh, shaking her head.
"Great, just great." She pulled back the entire sheet of paper in a matter of seconds, dropping it and the odd adding machine back behind her desk. "Well, I suppose there's always purgatory…limbo…reincarnation…" By now, the woman had returned to the computer, hands moving at an inhuman pace across the keyboard. Did this mean there was still a chance of him getting into heaven? The blue door had been joined by a fiery red door. Looks like the woman hadn't been expecting a 'zero'.
"What does a zero mean?" Light asked, finally speaking up. He would take anything over Hell. Purgatory…Limbo…Reincarnation. All of them sounded better than an endless amount of pain and suffering.
"It means you're a lucky kid." The woman returned, aggravation obvious in her voice. "And I have to choose your--" She broke off mid sentence, a loud ringing coming from her pocket. The cell phone she withdrew was, not surprisingly, white, and she quickly answered it, shoving it against her ear.
"In Between offices, this is Rachel speaking, how may I help you?" The woman said in a falsely cheery tone. Light watched curiously, leaning forward slightly.
"Oh hi, Nancy." Rachel said happily, twirling a stray strand of hair idly around her finger. "No, Mark hasn't died yet…I've been checking his files though. He remarried. Honestly, you should just forget about him." Light raised a brow. He didn't even know that there were cell phones up here, or wherever he was. Looks like angels kept in touch. Or was this woman even an angel? He hadn't seen any wings or a halo. But if she wasn't an angel, then what?
"You already knew about the zero?" Rachel continued her conversation, as though Light weren't even there. Were they talking about him now? "Yes, I was thinking an eon in Limbo to look over his records more carefully. Then if we're still undecided, eight or so eons in Purgatory before going up." Somehow, despite the immense amount of time discussed, this made him feel relieved. There was still a chance that he wouldn't be faced with eternal suffering.
"What? His father wants to put in a word for him?" Light seemed to perk up. His father had gone to heaven…that was comforting. Not only that, but he wanted to speak up for him. "You know he can't do that, Nancy. Biased opinion and whatnot." Light's head dropped at this. He should have known better than to get his hopes up like that.
"Hmmm? Oh, of course. Sounds good. I'll tell him now then. And think about what I said. There are a lot of available men up there, I'm sure they're all better than Mark." Light did his best to wait patiently as the woman hung up her phone.
"Well kid, you're in luck." She said, looking up at him from behind the desk. "I was going to keep you floating around in Limbo for a while, but they've got something else in store for you."
At first, Light was extremely worried by this. But she had called him lucky, so how bad a punishment could it be? He stared at her, waiting for the rest of the news.
"You see, they've got this…err…how do I put it, 'mentor program' that they've been wanting to try out." Mentor program? That wasn't something he had been expecting. "Basically, you've been assigned an angel, whose job is to reeducate you, so to speak. After a set amount of time, your mentor decides what happens to you." Light shifted uneasily, not sure if he liked the idea.
"Speaking of mentors, yours should be arriving any moment." Her fingers skimmed across the keys, both the light blue and dark red door disappearing, a door with frosted glass taking their place. "Right through there." She pointed towards the newly appeared door. Light nodded a bit dumbly, heading towards the door. At least it wasn't incredibly ominous looking.
"Hey…" He paused for a moment, turning back to a moment. "Can I ask you something?" The woman looked up from the computer, fingers hovering over the keys. "Are you an angel?" He asked finally. His only response was a sharp laugh from the woman. She even had to stop and hold her side, she was laughing so hard. Light scowled at her response. A simple 'no' would have sufficed.
"Honey, please." Rachel said, laughter quietly. She had to wipe her eyes before she continued. "You've got your sentence, I've got mine." Light paused for a moment, then nodded. That was all the answer he needed before pulling open the frosted glass door and stepping inside. He could of swore he heard a soft 'good luck' as he stepped inside.
The room, thankfully, wasn't the same blinding color as the previous. He turned around, only to find that the door had already vanished. How cliché. There was a rustling of feathers behind him, and he assumed that it was his mentor. Light took a deep breath, preparing to turn around and face whoever it was that was going to be determining where he went.
"Light-kun, long time no see."
Light's eyes widened, the familiar voice reaching his ears. No. No, no, no. Of all the people that had ever died ever, he had the misfortune of being stuck with…with... Light turned around stiffly, almost afraid of who he was about to see. Disheveled black hair, sleep deprived eyes, bare feet…there was no mistaking this man. The only thing that threw him off were the additions of the halo that hovered inches above his head, and the pure white feathered wings that protruded from his back.
Hell would have been better than this.
"R-Ryuuzaki," Light managed to stutter out, taking a step back. The deceased detective frowned, letting his body drop to the ground; it had been floating only a few minutes before.
"Is that all the greeting I get? How rude of you, Light-kun."
And that, lovelies, is the end of chapter one. You like? You hate? Please review and let me know. It gives me the motivation to write more.
PS; I don't have a beta-er, but if anyone would be interested, please let me know.