Futatsu no Tsuki Series

Part Two

Kawari ni Kira

Chapter one:

Staring up at the twilight sky, B grinned. His black hair hidden beneath a baseball cap and his eyes narrowed with enjoyment, he smirked at the vast, starless sky above him.

It was unexpected. This chance to breathe, to feel the cool air against his flesh. After the shinigami had attacked him – he'd fallen, blacked out completely. Dead.

Yet the shinigami king, on some capricious whim, decided to bring him back to life. The reason the king had given was because Rem had killed B without using the death note, but B suspected the king simply thought it'd be amusing.

B listened to the laughter of the shinigami throwing rocks into the ocean on his left, and wondered if all shinigami cared only about amusement. Then he recalled the shinigami who'd killed him.

'That shinigami was too serious...' B rubbed the scar on his chest from when Rem had forced her clawed arm through him. '….I'm lucky the shinigami king decided I was more entertaining alive.'

"Hey! I want apples!"

"...shinigami, check the bag." B mumbled, pointing to the cloth shopping bag beside the metal fence. He watched as Ryuk dug through the bag and discovered a five pound bag of apples. The shinigami's excitement at finding the apples made B laugh. Somehow the shinigami reminded him of himself – whenever he wasn't obsessing over L.

B grinned and took out some malted chocolate balls from his pocket. Approximately nine in total, he popped them one by one into his mouth, savoring each. Jam would be too messy and too much of a giveaway to L, so he settled for other sugared treats.

'I wonder what L's next move will be...'

0

With his legs pulled closely to his chest and his back pressed against a corner of the room, L slept. After nearly a week of relentless investigation and search, his body's natural need for sleep finally overcame his willpower.

- 'Yue.' L looked about in his dream, the walls of the room bright and wobbly. Surreal. Yet he accepted them quietly with that strange familiarity found in even the strangest of dreams. The room was furnished with so many things that it should feel cramped, but didn't. Every time he didn't focus on an item in the room the whole space seemed wider.

L stood up and made his way to the mahogany dresser on his left. It had a glossy finish to it, and no knobs or handles. He barely wondered how he'd open the drawers when one slid open on its own. Inside it was all the usual things one would find in a dresser drawer – shirts, pants, underwear, some loose change; plus others not so usual – pens, books, a toy train and some bells. There were also apples, deep deep red apples. Blood red.

"Yue." L mumbled, continuing to look through the items in the drawer – it seemed as expansive as the room. A thimble and some needles, a ripped up map and some bones. He stared at the bones numbly, then picked up the map. It seemed to briefly become an overlarge puzzle before he laid it out on the floor. It then became a bunch of crumbled and ripped pieces of paper.

He picked up one – it was shiny and silver, like the foil paper usually wrapped around chocolate bars. L dropped it back to the ground and then blinked – the floor had briefly changed to soil then back to wood. He shrugged.

Leaving the map, he continued down the room, noticing for the first time a door on the far end. A door the hue of caramel.

"Yue." L hurried towards the door, his surroundings getting creepier with each step. Bones and cobwebs, then fingers and limbs sprawled before and around him on his path. Getting bloodier and bloodier, until it all became gray and he found himself in a cemetery.

He froze, then backed away. Sliding quickly back into the intensely bright but bloodied room. Falling backwards onto the floor, he continued to stare ahead, unable to speak. His hands groped all around on the floor, as though searching for a weapon, charm or amulet.

His stomach clenched tightly as one hand touched a notebook and the other a doll – not a normal doll, but one with a giant nail hammered into it. A wara ningyo.

"B." L growled, gripped both objects tighter. His hatred warped the room, making it nothing more than a swirl of memories cascading backwards in time. Each one vivid...and painful. He shut his eyes against the memories, forced them from his senses until only darkness remained around him. -

L jolted awake, the hatred from the dream making his heart thump. It was all too vivid, his dream too painful. And without the nepenthe of forgetfulness. Awake, L realized that the room had been his at the orphanage that Watari had found him in. Just excessively large.

"Watari..." The detective sighed and glanced towards the clock on the wall to his right. Six-thirty in the morning. He'd slept three hours. "I should get back to investigating."

0

Her long black hair hanging limp below her shoulders, Sayu pulled her pillow against her stomach. Her eyes stared at the mattress without really focusing on it. Three weeks had passed since her father's and brothers' funerals. Three days since her mother's – her mother had been unable to cope with losing her sons and husband and had committed suicide after sending Sayu to an aunt's.

A knock on the door dragged Sayu's attention away from her mattress.

"Yagami-chan, it's time for you to take a shower. Breakfast will be ready soon."

"Yes, ma'am." Sayu replied, her voice hiding all emotion. Night had passed by excruciatingly slow and her insomnia just made it worse. It'd been a week since she managed a restful sleep. It hurt. Everything was so painful: waking up, sleeping, eating. It took too much effort, reminded her too much of what had happened.

Her family was dead. And her aunt...her aunt had decided to send her to an orphanage.

Sayu shook away her thoughts and exhaled, getting up from her bed slowly. She gazed around her room for a minute, taking in everything again. A sleek metal desk designed to take up little room was beside her door, and a bright red wardrobe lay against the adjacent wall. It was spartan, but nice. More than what she had at her aunt's. There she had had only a bed.

"So much for relatives..." Sayu mumbled. The next moment her eyes filled with tears, her stomach clenching tightly. Unable to stop herself, she fell to her knees and sobbed. It was all too much. Too much. Her family had been there, and happy, but now...she was the only survivor. Alone. Not one of her relatives wanted to risk taking her in.

They all knew that Kira had had something to do with her brothers' and father's deaths, so not one of her aunts or uncles would risk bringing her into their homes.

"Damn it. Damn it." She sobbed, trembling. "I hate you, Kira, I hate you. Why my family? Why?"

She pulled her knees tightly against her chest, unable to do anything but cry silently, cursing Kira and her family for leaving her alone.

Another knock cut through her thoughts, and she listened for the orphanage's woman supervisor voice. Yet instead of a command or reprimand, the door opened. She glared toward the door, her eyes the only part of her face visible above her knees.

"Uh...sorry about the interruption, but breakfast is ready..." A boy around her age peeked into her room from the partially opened door. "And, uh, Maria-san wanted me to get you."

The boy stepped into the room after mentioning the supervisor's name, quickly blushing when he realized that Sayu was still in her pajamas. That didn't make him leave however. Instead he fussed with the goggles he wore over his red hair.

"You're new here, right? I'm sorry...uh..." The boy stammered, unable to decide whether to leave or approach Sayu. "I only got here last night – there was an incident at the orphanage I was at and...well...some people I knew died, and...I thought..."

Sayu lifted her head to get a better view of the boy, noticing for the first time how fidgety he was. His eyes also seemed shadowed like hers from lack of sleep.

"...Kira killed my family." Sayu blurted, her intent to scare the boy away. However the boy's response surprised her.

"I know...Kira was the one who killed all those people at Wammy's House...that's why I'm here instead. All the surviving orphans were sent to other orphanages..." The boy knelt down on the hardwood floor, and Sayu became conscious of what he wore – blue jeans and a red-striped white shirt. "I'm Matt. And you...?"

"Sa..."

"Wait, don't give me your real name. Kira needs a person's name to kill, so think up a nickname or something." Matt interrupted Sayu, causing her to flinch and stare at him questioningly. "...'Matt' isn't my real name...I never tell anyone my real name...you shouldn't either."

"..." Sayu paused, thinking over the boy's words. It made sense to not use her real name. Her family had died because of Kira. "...um, I don't know what...could you come up with a nickname for me?"

Matt studied Sayu carefully, drinking in her dark hair and the way she remained huddled into a ball.

"How about Risu? Or Squirrel in English? You're cute like one..." Matt suddenly blushed, revealing that his last sentence had slipped out before he could stop himself.

For the first time since her family's death, Sayu smiled.

"I think Risu will suit me." The gong of the clock striking the end of breakfast pulled both of their attention to the clock. "Whoa...I should get ready...I'm supposed to take some test today."

"Test? Oh, yeah, the test. They give that test to all the new kids. It decides where they put you..."

"...like which class I'm in at school or something?"

"Well, sort of...but..." Matt's voice trailed off, his eyes getting a distant look. He shrugged it off and turned back to Sayu. "Risu-chan, you should get ready. I'll wait in the hall. Good luck on the test."

"Um...yeah." Sayu watched as Matt left the room and shut the door, it took a while for her to realize how much better she felt after talking to him. 'Maybe things aren't too too bad.'

0

"So?" Another boy with shoulder-length blond hair stopped Matt as he entered the dining room. "Did you get any information from the girl?"

"...Kira killed her family."

"We know that already!" Mello huffed, crossing his arms and gritting his teeth in his irritation. "Did you get any other information? Anything at all?"

"Leave her alone, Mello. She just lost her family." Matt grumbled, avoiding the older orphan's eyes.

Mello snapped and pushed Matt against the wall, his voice a growl.

"Did you forget that Kira killed nearly everyone older than us at Wammy's House?"

"No. But...doesn't that prove that Kira has to be a fellow orphan from there? One that left before we arrived?"

"Yes, but Kira killed her family, her brothers, not just her father who was an officer and apparently part of L's investigation team." Mello glared at Matt, his light hue eyes livid. "There has to be some sort of clue or connection to her family..."

"Maybe we should ask Maria-san about Risu-chan's family..."

" 'Risu-chan'? That can't be her real name..." Mello lowered Matt to the floor, his fists still clenched around the red-head's shirt. He listened to Matt mumble about telling the girl to use a nickname. "You didn't even get her real name?! We need that to investigate anything about her family – and since everyone connected to the incident refuses to tell us anything we need that girl to tell us!" Mello let go of Matt and pulled at his own hair in frustration. "What good are you?!"

"C'mon, she was crying and I don't want to just use a cute girl like that...or endanger her."

Mello blinked, then lifted his head so that he could see Matt's face.

"Cute? You think she's..." Mello slapped his forehead and groaned. "You like her? You only just met her and you have a crush on her? Oi!"

"...so what?" Matt turned crimson, and bolstered himself up. "If you want to snoop into Risu-chan's business, do it yourself."

"..." Mello studied Matt quietly for a second, then clicked his tongue. "Fine. We'll wait until after she takes the test today. If she makes it pass the cutoff point, I'll approach her and ask her my questions directly."

"Mello..."

"I'm not going to ignore her or give up questioning her. Even if you do like her." Mello crossed his arms and glared at Matt, his fists clenched. "I'm not going to dismiss her like Near did."

0

A breakfast tray beside him on the floor, Near snugly fitted a puzzle piece into the jigsaw puzzle in front of him.

'The present Kira is a different one than the first. Their M.O.'s are vastly different. Plus present Kira has to be the one who killed the adults at Wammy's – so he has to be a former occupant there. One of the older orphans.' Near placed another piece into its place in the puzzle. 'If only L would contact Wammy's House...Roger's replacement has already been determined and has started searching for a new location for the place.'

Near stared at the puzzle, twirling a strand of his white hair between his fingers.

'Since there's been no news of L's death, I must assume he's still alive. And tracking Kira...unless...' Near paused, then frowned. He hadn't wanted to think the thought that had popped into his head the night before. 'Present Kira has to be someone who knows about Wammy's House and who could find out the real names of the people there...that means, even if it's just a slim possibility, that L himself is a suspect.'

Near turned away from the puzzle, and to his breakfast tray. Silently, he picked up a glass of orange juice, his right knee pulled against his chest, the other folded beneath him.

'The longer L goes without contacting Wammy's House, the stronger that possibility becomes...' Near laid his head on his knee and sulked, that idea more depressing than the slaughter at the orphanage or the possibility of L's death. He dropped the glass of orange juice, and watched as it smashed apart on the floor.