A/N: That last chapter was a little disconcerting, so here's something actually grounded in some sort of full reality.
CHAPTER ONE: Light Contemplates his Mental Health
"Wait, I think I'm getting this. So Nurse Misora is possibly dead, but you aren't sure because you can't remember if you killed her or not. It might have been a suicide attempt, but you have your doubts because you think that there's something off there, too."
Doctor Matsuda looked down at his desk, closing his eyes and sighing. His name stood upon a gold plaque with the appropriate letters trailing behind; on the wall, his degrees rested behind glass with light obscuring each university's name. Light sometimes watched those instead of the doctor, searching for a sign of forgery.
"That's the general idea."
Matsuda nodded and opened his eyes, blowing out a stream of air and running a hand through his hair. "You know, Light, most hallucinations aren't this complicated. I may have you make a timeline, or a flow chart. Just to help me keep track of everyone."
Light looked to the window on his left, noticing the change in seasons. He could have sworn it was winter last he looked, but… things had changed. Outside the cherry blossoms had begun to bud on the trees, bright petite suns risen against winter's night. The clouds wove themselves in and out of the sky; through them, Light could see patches of the blue sea that rested above them.
"Tell me, Light, is everyone here, everyone you've met in this hospital—are we all your enemies in this other world?" Matsuda asked with a cheerful smile, which belied the fact that he was asking about Light's vivid and rather morbid hallucinations."Do we all mysteriously disappear? Are we blanked out like Ms. Misora was?"
Light saw Matsuda then, imagining his double over the doctor's shoulder. The other Matsuda always seemed smaller, less professional, boyish and slow. Perhaps it was his hair: it was longer in that other world, and his eyes were a bit younger. Light tried to see that other world and explain his relationships, those terribly complicated relationships, with its residents.
"No, I don't know, I'm not sure. In the hallucination, you're an imbecile scarcely able to hold his job. You speak too much, almost get yourself killed, and endanger the world on a daily basis. I don't believe I am your enemy, or at least not your direct enemy, but I do consider you a hindrance to everything I hope to achieve."
"Really? You know, I've always wanted to be a policeman. I love cop shows."
Light's eyes narrowed. "Yes, you say things like that a lot over there. It gets old very fast. ...And you're more of a coffee boy, anyway."
Matsuda ignored Light's comment with an almost eye-roll and motioned for him to continue. "Anyone else? Just me and Misora?"
"No, L is there too."
"L?"
"… The janitor."
Light closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Because of course in this world, this real world, L would be nothing more than a janitor who had never finished high school.
Matsuda clapped his hands together. "Oh, you mean Larry!" he exclaimed, inappropriately delighted. "Larry is the great detective, then."
"Yes, and I'm not sure what I think of him. Sometimes I think we are friends, but… Sometimes I look at him and I know that he is the most evil man I have ever met, and that if I were a little more… I would kill him. I know that I would kill him."
Despite having therapy to sort out of his problems, there were certain problems Light often left unmentioned. Matsuda did not directly address these. Light did not often bring to light the fact that in that other world, he was accused every day of murder, and that sometimes Light believed that he himself could have done it. To mention this was to break the careful charade they played. Unfortunate, because Matsuda was confident that an unaddressed might-be-a-murderer alter-ego wasn't the best for Light's therapeutic progress. Pretending it away always cracked Matsuda's grin until he had trouble rebuilding it again.
"Light, I want you to picture this world. This world of detectives and serial killers. I want you to really look at it, and tell me, Light, does it make any sense? How can things like that possibly be real? I want you to look, really look, and see the flaws."
Light tapped his fingers against his knees and continued to stare at Matsuda, still seeing double. The doctor with the fool's shadow, the janitor with the genius's, the madman with the murderer's. Hairline fissures ran through the dream, cracks of lies and nonsense.
"If that were the real world, then God would have to be insane."
"You know Light, your test scores are off the charts."
Light blinked. "My what?"
"Your test scores. Your intelligence, your brain power. Everything skyrockets into outer space and all we pitiful earthlings can do is watch." Light stared awkwardly. "Yeah, I know I'm not good with the metaphors, don't remind me." Matsuda wasn't looking at Light; rather, he was looking at a series of papers on his desk. Light was left to infer they were scores from tests in high school, although he had no idea when they'd started talking about anything of the sort.
"Is that important?" Light asked.
Matsuda looked up, a half-smile on his face. "Yeah, it means that we can never have a real conversation. You and I both know it. You'll always dumb yourself down to me and I'll always bluff myself up to you. We can't really talk to each other; there's no shame in admitting that."
"Weren't we talking about God?" Light asked, looking around the office for the windows. The blinds were closed.
Matsuda straightened a bit in his seat, puzzled. "I think, sometimes, we're always talking about God." Matsuda paused as if waiting for Light to elaborate or explain, but continued when Light remained silent: "You know, some psychiatrists would try to bluff their way out of this. They'd look at their patients and mistake hallucinations for stupidity—well, not mistake, but more, substitute. Out of fear, I think. They'd see the world you've created, this fantastic, horrible, complicated world, and they'd say it's a turn for the worst."
Light looked around the office, noticing that some items had shifted from their previous position. The name plaque had moved to the left slightly, there were new papers on the desk, there was a plant in the back corner, the blinds were drawn. His chair had been a ghastly paisley thing that smelled like old thyme, but was now a dull, wheeled office chair.
"Isn't it?" Light asked as the realization dawned on him that it had happened again. He had left again, gone elsewhere, and yet…
"No, I don't think so. If you spent all that energy, all those thoughts, creating that world, then I know you can pull yourself out of it. We're talking about it, talking honestly. I think you believe me. I think that one day, you will walk out the doors of this asylum."
Light felt the room darkening; Matsuda's presence remained but his words drifted. He had gone somewhere else, there was nothing in between, time had passed and he hadn't even noticed.
"Light, it's the hardest thing in the world to decide whether your world is real or not. It's not a sign of insanity to doubt—everyone doubts. Descartes, after all the work and thought he put into this world, could only say that he, God, and math existed. Nothing else."
Light smiled, then, as the world returned little by little. "That's not something you should be telling a patient who hallucinates."
"Perhaps not, but Light, honestly, I don't know what to do with you." Matsuda sighed and held up his hands, shrugging his defeat.
"Why not? Am I that different?"
"Yes, you are that different. Most people hallucinate a purple dragon, or spiders, or subplots to their dreary lives, or an elephant on a table holding a teacup… but you created an entire world. Not just a world, but a very complicated, very different world from our own. You took people from this reality, twisted their personalities, and formed complex relationships with them. For you, that world has just as much reason to exist as this one, and yet I know that it doesn't."
Light almost felt like laughing. "That's also something you don't tell your patient."
"You're going to have to decide for yourself, Light. I can't pick the real world for you. I hope that you'll choose this one, but in the end you're going to have to make that decision yourself. Before you decide, though, I want you to remember what that other world is made of. Remember that a world ruled by a serial killer is not a place that can last, whether it's real or not. You won't be happy there."
"Is that all?"
Matsuda smiled. "Reality, Light, is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."
"Let's talk about your sister," Doctor Matsuda began. It seemed these moments of confused disorientation always began with Matsuda talking.
Light looked at the doctor, again noticing the changes in the room. His eyes widened and he realized—admitting one was getting better and that one world was realer than the other... it was not the same as being better.
The plant in the corner had been replaced without his notice, new silk flower petals gracing green plastic; somehow without his notice, the world had made its forged presence slightly more conspicuous. Except the intended idea was the opposite: the world wasn't forged, but was in fact the only true world... Odd, that it got faker day by day.
"What do you want to know about Sayu?" Light asked.
"Well, she seems very interesting." Matsuda shrugged, revealing the casual nature of his inquiry. "As far as you've told me, she's the only one who seems almost the same in this world as she is in the other one. She remains unchanged in your mind, and that's important. I think Sayu Yagami is the key, the fixed point that will help you merge back into the real world."
Despite everything, Light did like Matsuda (which was odd because in the other world he barely tolerated the man). Matsuda was interesting, and while he wasn't on par with Light, he could hold a decent conversation. It wasn't so much that his other-world personality was different or twisted inside Light's head—certain traits were oddly highlighted. His childishness, his sense of humor, his habit of saying the wrong pun at the wrong time were all brought into focus within Light's mind, exaggerated until nothing else of the man remained. It was part of what was wrong with that other world, he supposed: the outside characters were far too one-dimensional.
"I haven't seen my sister in years," Light said.
Matsuda's smile disappeared. "Light, you saw her just last week. She visited."
"Did she?" Light asked then, putting a hand against his eyes. He laughed, thinking of that other world and how the same problems plagued him there. It was always the memories, the doubt, the constant looking over his shoulder to prove himself, to prove he was worthy of living.
Yet, this world seemed more real. This world was filled with doctors and sisters and people who tried to help; this world was filled with light. Everything in that other place was suspicion and death: L was not a kind man, L was not a kind friend. Light and L could not talk, so they played games with each other instead. Hide and seek behind masks, find the liar, reach the finish line, threats and shadows of threats. If ever he were to decide on the merit of morality alone, then surely that world deserved to be destroyed.
"You don't remember, do you," Matsuda said, writing on a notepad; whatever it was would no doubt come back to haunt Light later. Patient degenerating. Reality forgotten. Lost time. Disoriented. Mad. "How much do you remember, Light?" His eyes are kind.
Light wondered, as he looked in the doctor's sad, earnest eyes, if anything had changed. "Time skips for me. I'm sure if I think hard enough, I'll remember my sister visiting, but it's as if I've forgotten things in between, like I wasn't really there—like I existed only partially. I think I was somewhere else entirely."
"Did you go to the other reality?" Matsuda asked.
Honesty, for Light, sounded desperately blunt. "I don't know."
The pen moves again. Such a brilliant boy, so much lost. Such a pity.
There was a moment of silence. Matsuda simply looked at him, a desperate pity growing in his eyes. It grew dimmer as he said calmly, "Let's talk about your sister."
"You are getting better. Don't doubt that, Light. We're making progress."
Light looked at him out of vague eyes. "I suppose so, though I don't see much of a difference."
"You talk more than you used to." Matsuda pointed out, using his pen for emphasis, "You talk to other people, not just me. You remember more, and you admit that one world is real and that another is false. That is amazing progress."
Light smiled the bitter smile he first learned under the tutelage of L, the great detective. "I'm surprised you haven't shoved drugs down my throat and put me in shock therapy."
Matsuda looked grave, as he always did when Light brought out this bitter side to his personality. Even Light in the asylum, the true Light, was still made of masks. There was no such thing as an honest Light; even when he tried, he always ended up lying through his teeth.
"I considered it, when you first came here," Matsuda said quietly, looking at his desk. "I don't think it would work. Perhaps short term. I don't know. Perhaps if I used shock therapy and gave you pills, you would be released and could go home. You'd see your family again, and everything would be back to normal. If you didn't believe, though, if you hadn't reached that conclusion yourself, it would never last. I know what that other world is made of. You'd assume it was some trick on L's part, some way to make you talk. You'd stop taking the drugs. Then all that work would be for nothing, and you'd be gone."
"I wonder why he hasn't thought of that," Light said, thinking of the detective in his head. "I'm sure he would have loved that idea." Utter annihilation. Mental, physical, and existential non-existence. L's justice ideal sounded more like Mu every time Light thought about it.
"Light, you need to convince yourself. That's what some psychiatrists don't understand. The patient has to believe it. Drugs aren't good enough; there has to be faith in the world around them—the real, steadfast world—and there has to be a way to tell the difference."
"Am I really improving?" (Of course there was no reason for Light to ask because he was not, and he knew he was not, and it was all a careful charade to disguise how far he was spiralling downwards...)
Matsuda smiled again, that strange doppelganger smile that reminded Light so much of that other Matsuda. He looked relieved and happy, and for a small moment, proud. That took Light aback. He had forgotten what pride looked like, in this white-walled world.
"Yes, Light, you're getting better."
"I don't understand it; I don't know why I… What was I talking about?" Light stopped and looked at Matsuda, his body hunched over and his eyes locked on the plaques above Matsuda's head. With horror, he realized the room had changed again; the lights had been replaced and were much brighter than they had been.
"How did I get here?" Light asked. He straightened his posture to look Matsuda in the eye and compose himself.
"Light, calm down," Matsuda said.
"I don't remember…" Light took a ragged breath, feeling himself come apart at the seams. "I don't remember what I was even talking about."
Not like this. He wouldn't fall apart like this. Not here, where there were others. But there was no stopping it. He was already laughing; his hands were running through his hair and the world spinning into darkness.
"Light, I need you to calm down,"
"Calm down? I wasn't even here, Matsuda! Don't you understand that?! That thing talking to you wasn't me. Can't you tell the difference?"
"Light—"
"Don't talk to me! Getting better, getting better all the time. How can I possibly be getting better? You're tracking someone else's progress, Doctor Matsuda. Tell me, is he doing well?" Light asked with a glint in his eye that felt so forgotten, yet so familiar. Something in Matsuda's expression twisted, deep in the skin, out of sight. But Light could sense it, see it in the blank reassurance of the psychiatrist's smile. He had the power to twist this man, tie him up and feel him writhe on the inside. This was from that other world, that other forgotten face—this was what it felt like to be Kira.
"You have to calm down!"
"Is this supposed to be convincing? You know, it's a pity that a world that seems much more realistic, so much more pleasant, has more holes and fallacies than the other." Light knew without looking that it was Kira's smile he wore. "Well then, tell me what I was doing, that I've been here the whole time."
"Light…"
"Let's play this liar's game, and we'll see if it makes any difference in the end."
In the hospital bed, Light stared at the ceiling; the lights were off and all the shadows come out to play. He imagined them whispering in his ear, descending. Perhaps they were; in this place, the shadows had wills of their own.
He closed his eyes but could still hear them—in his head, beside his ear. Everywhere and nowhere.
"Are you what I've forgotten?" he asked.
They didn't answer.
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