Disclaimer: Really? Do I have to do this? I no more own Death Note than Obama owns it, regardless of the possible name similarities between Obama and Obata.
Chapter 2 of The World Shifted, spin-off of Sector L-5, Demon Hunter, which seriously needs a new summary.
It was dinnertime at Wammy's House, and the children were all looking around nervously. Every one of them seemed rather afraid of something. Rather understandable, given the loud obscenities that had been screamed from the vicinity of the top floor, where Matt, Mello and Near habitually were. The students feared for themselves. They knew that a Mello in a bad mood, while not quite as bad now as he had been about four years ago, was still something to be feared.
Plus there was a strange man sitting at the staff table, eating sugar and glancing towards the door every so often. But really, no one cared about that in the face of a pissed off Mello.
The yells echoing throughout Wammy's had ceased about five minutes ago, and every single one of the students was afraid of what that could mean.
Then the doors to the dining hall opened violently, and Mello stalked in, sitting down violently on one of the benches. Everyone tried to scoot away slightly, unnoticeably. They failed, and Mello glared at them.
Matt and Near followed shortly after Mello, pulling an auburn-haired boy in his late teens after then. The students of Wammy's did a collective double-take. Matt, Mello and Near never associated with anyone but the three of them! Well, there was that one kid. The one who had gotten Mello to calm down and made it safe to be in the same room as Mello.
Linda gasped, recognizing the boy. "That's the guy! The one who..." She trailed off, darting her gaze up to the staff table. It was one of the secret rules of Wammy's House that the staff didn't know a thing about how Wammy's actually worked, and it was just quiet enough in the hall that someone sitting at the staff table would be able to hear what her next words would have been. And that would have told anyone employed at Wammy's too much about how little they really knew about Wammy's.
Linda had no need to complete her sentence, though. The rest of the kids figured out who the other kid must have been from her sentence. After all, Mello had come to her one day, asking her to copy a picture three times. A picture that held four figures in it. She was the only orphan at Wammy's who had ever seen the teen that had managed to calm the Trio down.
The kids were filled with awe as they turned as one to stare at Light Yagami as he was dragged into the dining hall by Matt and Near.
L looked at the girl with pigtails in her hair in confusion. He knew that the Kira case file had not been leaked to Wammy's, so how had she recognized Light as his suspect? That would be the only possible way any of his heirs should know Light, even if at least his three best heirs seemed to have known Light from before the Kira case.
Then again, there was a chance that Matt had brought Light to Wammy's at some point. Though surely he would have been informed of something like that.
And then L was stunned when, as one, the children all slipped out of their seats and swarmed around Light, awe and something like reverence filling their faces as they touched him, seemingly trying to make sure he was real.
"It's you." "You're my hero!" "Are you really human?" "Thank you so much." "I can't believe it. I never thought you'd deign to come here." "Are you a saint?" "Are you insane?"
Such comments filled L's ears as he watched his heirs, every single one of the ones under third place, surround the man who L was certain had, at some point, been the most prolific serial killer in the history of the world, all but falling to the ground and worshipping the ground he walked on.
Somehow, L didn't think that the pigtailed girl had gotten ahold of the Kira case file anymore.
Matt sighed, tapping his foot impatiently on the floor. He had known as soon as he'd gotten the call from Light saying that he was in Winchester with L that something like this was going to happen. The little brats all worshipped the ground that Light walked on, because he was the one who had taught Mello to control the emotions that being forced to live in such a crowded place as Wammy's was causing. That had indirectly led to Wammy's being made a hell of a lot safer for the younger children, and therefore Light was regarded as the savior of Wammy's, even if no one but Matt, Mello or Near had ever actually met him.
But damn it got tiring, being constantly surrounded by frickin' fan-worship.
After about half a minute of pawing and awed comments, Near decided Light had suffered enough at the hands of the heirs of L.
"I think that is enough," he said quietly, injecting his voice with the subtle warning that every orphan at Wammy's knew. "If we do not calm down, one of the employees may realize something, and that is not something any of you want on your record."
And, just like that, the orphans scooted away from the three standing in the middle of the dining hall and into seats. Because they knew what would happen if they were to break one of Wammy's secret rules.
Matt rolled his eyes. "D'you have to scare the shit out of them, every freaking time, Near?"
Near smiled slightly. "Of course."
Mello glared at the trio. "Oi! Sit! Eat. Food. Good."
Light rolled his eyes as he sat down. "I know you're not a caveman, Mel, so stop talking like one."
Mello scoffed. "I was trying to speak in a way you would understand."
Light play-glared at him and chucked a roll, bouncing it off of Mello's forehead. "Yeah right. You just want to cover up the fact that-"
"OKAY!" Matt said loudly. "There's nothing to see here. Look away, nothing interesting here, nope, no sir, just boring eating of food!"
"..." Light, Mello and Near stared at him for a moment, speechless.
"Dang," Light said after a while. "I think you got your goggles on a little tight there, they seem to be cutting off the circulation to your brain."
"Nah, I'm just acting my age." Matt dismissed as conversation slowly began to start up again. L kept on watching the four of them too closely.
Mello scoffed. "Which one?"
Some random kid frowned in confusion.
Light chuckled and answered her unspoken question. "Inside joke."
Near sighed and hit Light over the head. "Please don't explain our jokes to outsiders, Light."
Light pouted. "Come on! You three have these kids terrified! I'm just trying to show them that not everyone is going to yell at them or ignore them if they ask a question!"
Matt rolled his eyes. "So?"
Light glared. "I would feel no qualms, at all, about cutting you off from-"
"Fine!" Matt yelled quickly, not wanting to be deprived of the chance to eat food Light had made, which he knew was what Light was threatening. "Say whatever you want, but for the love of god, don't cut off the food!" Matt grabbed onto the front of Light's shirt and began shaking him. "If you have any mercy in you, you won't cut off the food!"
Everyone stared at Matt as his voice began to reach the higher registers as he rapidly became hysterical. Light shoved Matt away from him.
"Geez, I was just joking. Odin, no need to freak out."
Matt ceased his hysteria to look at Light seriously. "Light, trust me, threaten the food, and you might as well be threatening my life."
Mello snorted. "Light's cooking isn't that good, dipshit."
"Says the one who locked himself in a closet with a bar of chocolate Light made," Near observed. "The noises you made were both disturbing and mind-scarring, Mello. I commend you."
Mello flushed slightly. He hadn't meant to, but damn. Light's chocolate was divine. No one, once they tried that chocolate, would blame him one bit for going a little... over board.
"Like you haven't done worse things with some poor toy!" Mello shot back, referring to the incident where Near had gone just a little too long without drinking blood and subsequently molested an unlucky lower level member of the Court. Not one of Near's finest moments.
Light sighed, turning mournful eyes on Matt. "Do you ever feel like we are surrounded by sexual deviants, Matt?"
Matt nodded. "Can't say I mind too much though. They do make good entertainment."
Light nodded in agreement. "Very true, Matt, very true."
Mello and Near realized that they were being discussed and simultaneously turned to glare at Light and Matt. Light laughed.
"Well, I do believe that we have made them upset, Lord Matt," Light said, affecting the manner of a lady of the British Court around the turn of the seventeenth century.
"I believe you may be right, Lady Light," Matt teased.
Light fell out of character to glare at Matt. "One time! And you people never let it go!"
"You made a very fetching cross-dresser, Light," Matt assured him.
L decided at that point that it might be helpful for his sanity if he were to regain control of his suspect, so he stood up and walked over to right behind his suspect.
"Light-kun," L said commandingly.
Light yelped in shock, not having heard L's approach, and fell off of his seat. Matt cracked up laughing.
"Dude, Light, you got schooled! What were you telling me the other day about paying attention?"
Light picked himself up off the floor to glare at Matt. "Well, most of them don't tend to weigh less than 60 kilograms! Plus, they alway, always, leave some sort of an obvious sign that they're there."
"Light-kun!" L tried again. Light and his heirs went right on ignoring him.
Matt scoffed. "Yeah right! Obvious? Only you, Light, only you. For every one else, the ones who don't happen to have a sixth sense, it's damn near impossible to know when they're around."
Light shook his head slowly. "No, as a matter of fact, it is obvious."
Mello snorted. "Only to you Light. The rest of us, lowly mortals that we are, have nearly no way of knowing when they're nearby."
"Light-kun!" L yelled.
Light turned around and looked at L crossly. "Well you don't have to yell. What is it?"
L sighed. Why was it Light could get the better of him in such small moments? It just wasn't fair. "Light-kun."
"You've said that already," Matt pointed out.
"Apparently having an intellect higher than 200 is coming to mean less and less, if fools and assholes like this one can make their way into such august ranks," Mello sighed in faux-sadness, before glaring at L. "That reminds me." Mello stood up, and after a long pause to build up suspense, punched L hard enough that the older man flew backwards a few feet. "That's for being an insensitive asshole who locked my honorary brother in a cell that brought back traumatic memories for him."
Light shot Matt an icy glare. Matt grinned unrepentantly.
"Hey, I only said I wouldn't be punching him. Never said anything about the fact that all three of us planned to put him through the wringer," Matt explained with a shrug.
Light slapped a hand to his forehead. "Letter of the law, much? God, sometimes I swear you three are idiots rather than geniuses."
"Some things need intelligence. For everything else, there's idiocy," Near said calmly while he watched L pick himself up from the floor.
The entire hall turned to stare at Near.
"Did he just... make a reference to something that is feasibly possible for the average everyday person to understand?" Light asked softly, wide-eyed.
Matt nodded slowly. "I know... I'm scared too."
"IT'S A SIGN OF THE APOCALYPSE!" Mello yelled spastically. "EVERYONE, RUN FOR THE BUNKERS!"
Near turned to the other two (and L, who was now standing behind Light) and pointed at Mello. "He-she there has just proven my point."
Mello froze, eyes narrowing in anger as he turned to stare at Near. "What did you just call me?" he asked dangerously.
"I called you a he-she. You look far too feminine to not be at the very least a hermaphrodite," Near responded calmly.
Light and Matt winced, able to predict Mello's reaction. Those two really got on each other's nerves too much. And yet they were best friends. Matt and Light were slightly confused by it too, but dealt with the fights as best they could.
"WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU! I AM NOT A GODDAMNED GIRL!" Mello ranted, continuing on in this vein for quite sometime. After a few seconds, everyone kind of tuned the spazzing blond out. Blow-ups like this one were too frequent for them to actually pay attention to anymore.
"Light-kun, I do believe you owe me an explanation. For example, would you care to tell me how you already know my heirs?" L said quietly, not wanting to draw attention to his words.
Light flipped a hand at L. "Yeah, sure, whatever. Just a moment." Light turned to the rest of the inhabitants of the room. "At ease, my loyal subjects, I shall be leaving momentarily, along with the rest of my entourage."
Mello hit Light on the head. "Shut the hell up, Light! For the last goddamned time, we are not your entourage!"
Light smirked at Mello as the four teens stood up and headed for the door. "Ah, but you are too much fun to tease. I know you're not my entourage, but that sort of a comment gets you riled up far too easily."
"LIght-kun, aren't you trying to lower your percentage?" L asked.
Light shook his head. "Nah, not right now. I quite frankly don't give a crap at the moment. I act too damn much for me to keep acting right now. Now... where was that one really secure room?" Light mused to himself as he set off down the hallway.
Matt sighed. "You mean the one where you explained the aftermath of the Accident to us?" Light nodded. "It's that way." Matt pointed down the hallway... in the direction opposite to the one Light was heading in. Light performed an about-face.
"Right, knew that, I was just testing you."
"Riiiiiiiiight..." Mello said skeptically.
L was left to wonder when, exactly, the world had been turned upside down from the one he knew so well.