Disclaimer: I do not own any rights to Death Note; not anime, nor manga, nor movies, nor novels. I own none of it. Though I have bought every sort of Death Note related book, DVD, and paraphernalia that I've come across. Only regretted it once and that was the book Death Note: L Change the World written by "M." Seriously, I've read better fan fics! Wait...did I just demean myself...?

AN: Sorry for the inexcusably long wait. My life is chaotic as ever and free time just has a way of slipping though my fingers or otherwise disappearing on me. If only for the reason of preventing any further delays, I'm going to skip the excuses and get right to the writing. Enjoy.

My Fallen Angel

Part II: Ghosts of a Detective's Past

Chapter II

First Haunting: The Ouija Board

After I had forced my ragged breathing down to a somewhat normal rhythm, I stood. A quick glance around me showed that the Inoichinigami was indeed gone; vanished into thin air along with her procession of cherry blossoms.

Guess I'm on my own then, I though bitterly.

Not that I had a good starting point beneath my ghostly feet or had any clear idea of where to go from here. Her words were less than helpful, as not much of anything the strange creature had said made sense.

After contemplating my situation for a good twenty minutes from L's cold front steps, I gave up. Instead of painstakingly trying to make the puzzle pieces of insanity fit into the normal logic of the universe, I decided to "just go with it." I mean there wasn't really much else I could do, right?

At first I though of just waiting on by the front door until L came home from school and start my investigation there, but uncertainty turns even someone like me into a highly impatient individual.

I sighed. Well, there can't be that many schools around here for kids his age and I doubt it's more than a few blocks from here. But even for a registered genius like me, that information alone would not be enough to locate the young L's school. And actually, knowing L, he probably goes to some ritzy private school. ...Do private schools in England have buses?

My slightly red-tinged eyes glanced up to the house L had emerged from about 45 minutes ago. There are probably some documents in there from his school. From those I could figure out exactly where to go.

Cautiously I approached the door, almost reaching it before my feet stopped moving. What am I going to do? Knock? If no one but L could see me, it stood to reason that they wouldn't be able to hear me either. In fact, knocking may not even be possible. What if my hand just goes through the door like with the bus? Suddenly my thoughts froze midstream. I wonder...

Slowly, as if expecting some sort of immediate and possibly painful repercussions, I extended my transparent left hand out towards the door. At the last moment I hesitated, but then, realizing how stupid such trepidation was at this point, pushed my fingers up to and then through the wooden door.

It looked a lot weirder than it felt. In fact, the only odd sensation I was getting as I moved my arm through the solid object was a slight tingling sensation akin to what one feels after their foot falls asleep where the door material was meshing with my arm.

Suddenly, remembering all the Sci-Fi Sayu and I used to watch—namely the American show, "Fringe"—in which people ended up stuck in walls, I quickly propelled the rest of my body through the shut door.

Once through, I took a moment to look back at the solid substance I'd just walked through and ponder the bizarreness of it all; but only for a second. I had more important things to worry about. More important than phasing through a door? Yeah well, it sounded even weirder at the time—believe me.

Directing my nervous gaze around me, the first thing I noticed was how disorganized and messy everything was. Wrappers and various other trash was strewn about the floor, there was a layer of dust and dirt covering most, if not all, of the exposed surfaces in the dimly lit house, and the whole area smelt of cigarette smoke and alcohol mixed with a musty mold-like sent.

Despite the fact that I was apparently "dead," as the Inoichinigami had said, I was still ironically required to breath and thus was submitted to this horrible attack on my olfactory system.

This was nothing like what I had expected L's childhood environment to be like. In fact, this "home" didn't seem compatible for supporting anyone living in it, let alone a growing child.

I proceeded cautiously from the entrance way into the living room, trying to avoid stepping on the various items forming the cluttered mess throughout the walkway. I eventually gave up this endeavor however, because it seemed that even if I ran into something, I'd just pass harmlessly though it, not to mention that the task of avoiding all the trash was impossible. Once I'd reached the living room I discovered that it was even worse than the entrance way; now joining the scattered rubbish was a collection of numerous discarded alcoholic beverage containers, ranging from beer, to whiskey, to almost empty wine bottles. However, this mess was nothing compared to the horror and disgust I felt as my crimson tinged eyes fell upon the house's only current living occupant.

L's mother was laying sprawled out on the weathered couch a dazed expression covering her features, gray eyes half-lidded, staring emotionlessly at the ceiling. At first I was under the impression that she was dead, but the quick rise and fall of her chest coupled with the almost empty syringe laying discarded on the cushion next to her quickly led me to the correct conclusion.

She's high?

Still unable to make myself believe that this was indeed what L's life had been like 18 years ago, I backed out of the room until once again felt that odd tingeing sensation on my back, signaling that I had reached a solid object. Though this time, the experience felt different. The tingling was stronger, and, whereas I had gone straight though the door without any opposition, I now felt as though I were moving though a very viscus liquid. Turning away from the disturbing sight before me to the object my back was slowly passing through, revealed that it was the side of a staircase leading up to the second floor.

Something inside me told me that L's room was up there. I suppose saying it was a sixth sense at this point would just be too cliché, so I'll just attribute it to my past knowledge of the usual location of children's rooms in houses. However, I can't deny that I felt sort of an electric charge as I approached the base of the stairs.

Not quite sure whether I'd end up walking up the stairs or through them, I placed my right foot on the bottom step. I was pleased to find that my foot did not sink through the wooden boards and I was able to continue upwards. Though, at the same time, I was disappointed to find that there didn't seem to be any logic in the selective nature of my body's intangibility.

I would eventually get used to such occurrences...but not just yet, and certainly not in time for me to discover that for some odd reason, my hand reacted to L's door as though it were completely solid. Bewildered by this current turn of events but not at so much of a loss that I couldn't recall how to operate a door nob, I entered the young detective's room.

The immediate impression I got from L's room was that it was icy cold but that it smelt a hell of a lot better than the rest of the house. I quickly became aware that both conditions could be blamed on the wide open western facing window allowing the chilly autumn wind to blow in. The next thing that was brought to my attention was that the room was uncannily clean. But the lack of mess wasn't from any sort of neatness—a trait which I doubted L possessed—but from the absence of any sort of objects to make a mess with.

The room was so barren and empty that I was beginning to think that perhaps it was just an empty guest room. Then I saw the familiar baggy jeans and white T-shirts hanging out of the drawers of a nearby dresser.

I slowly made my way over to the haphazardly put away items of clothing and hesitantly reached out for the nearest long sleeved white T-shirt with my left hand—I didn't like using my deformed right hand more than I had to and, as it always seemed to be covered in the stomach churning continually flowing blood, and I thought it best to keep it away from any item that could possible be stained. Oddly enough, like the door to this room, my left hand did not phase through the cloth.

Huh, maybe it's for the same reason L can see me. Perhaps the only things I can touch are L and the objects closely associated with him...

Before I had even had time to consider my actions, I lifted the white cloth I was holding up to my face and inhaled deeply. The familiar scent had an over powering effect on me, leaving no doubt in my mind that this was where L lived.

Somewhat embarrassed by my sentimental actions, I quickly shoved the shirt back into the drawer with all its wrinkled clones and, remembering why I'd entered the house in the first place, began to search for some sort of record that would reveal what school he went to and its location. Unfortunately, as I stated earlier, besides the telltale clothing, I could find nothing that signified that this space was lived in—even the closet was basically empty except for a few spare blankets and other bedding. On a hunch, or perhaps a last ditch effort, I glanced under the small disheveled bed, trying not to think of the last time I'd seen L in one, as he'd been dead. It was as if I'd suddenly hit the jackpot. It seemed that L had stuffed everything from books to food underneath his bed frame. It was as if he was trying to conceal it from anyone snooping around because the entire stash was hidden by a ring of pillows and blankets stuffed around the base of the bed.

Deciding to try and discover the reasons behind this odd horde later, I began searching for anything pertaining to his school. What I found left me dumbstruck.

All L's graded school papers seemed to imply that L, the World's Greatest Detective, the only person intelligent enough to out smart me, was barely passing! After the shock of seeing such poor grades on L's paper's had passed, curiosity got the better of me, and I glanced at the hastily scrawled name at the top left corner of the page I was holding.

The name that I had been searching for all my life; desperate to obtain so that I could end the sleuth's very existence, was now presented to me in the most absurd way it could have been. And even now that I had it, the desire to kill L had disappeared, almost as if it had never been mine to begin with—only belonging to Kira.

"L Lawliet..." I whispered quietly. "So your name really was L?" I felt a deep sadness grip me as the thoughts of the L I knew drifted into my mind. How could I have been so stupid! How could I have let this happen, have let L die?

Refusing to let thetears welling in my eyes to overflow, I set aside the signed history test graded at a 72 and began looking through the stack of papers for anything marked with the address or name of L's school.

After only a few more moments of looking I happened upon an envelope containing L's shotty report card. The return address on the envelope told me everything I needed to know...well, except exactly how to get there , but I was fairly certain that Japan's top student could figure something so trivial out.

Street address stored permanently away in my photographic memory, I left L's house and began to make my way towards Winchester Elementary.

~My Fallen Angel~

As it turned out, finding Winchester Elementary...was not nearly as easy as I'd first thought. I spent a good two hours walking around neighborhood after neighborhood before finally arriving at something that could be referred to as a main street. This small roadway happened to have a city bus stop on it. Thankfully, the stop had a vague map which described its route. From this I was able to correctly identify the location of L's elementary school, however, I was not looking forward to finding my way back...

After I'd finally figured out exactly where the school was located, it took me an additional twenty minutes to reach it. And by the time I was standing on the front steps, I heard the sheer sound of the lunch bell echo across the campus, unleashing an insane amount of running shouting little children from the confinement of their various class rooms. It was only at this point, as I saw the vast amount of kids running wildly around the school grounds, that I realized how impossible of a task I'd set up for myself.

How the hell am I supposed to find L among all these kids?

Disheartened, but my no means ready to give up and try to find my way back to the future detective's house, I began the thankless task of meandering among the bobbing mass of students, hopping to catch a glimpse of the spiky unruly hair I'd become so familiar with.

Suddenly, I began to experience the same sort of electric sensation I'd felt in L's room, only this time it was much fainter. Deciding it was in my best interest to follow this "L-sense," as I was now calling it, I began playing a sort of "hot and cold" game with it.

Miraculously, the technique worked. After a short time I came upon a more deserted section of an outdoor picnic area where I saw the seven year old L sitting alone at one of the tables. The young boy was picking though the most horribly put together packed lunch I'd ever seen. It consisted of several packets of salt, two moldy pieces of bread, something that looked like it used to be some form of leafy vegetable, a can of Dr. Pepper, and two packages of honey.

L made a sort of disappointed sigh that sounded something like the mew of a sick kitten. He then pulled both of he knees towards his chest pulling the honey packets and the can of soda towards him as well.

It was all I could do to just stand there in a pose very reminiscent to how I must have looked when I first saw him this morning. Now that I'd found him, what was I supposed to do? Just go up to him and say, "hi?" My current disfigured form of existence aside, the last time I'd seen him, he'd been dying in my arms because of my horrendous actions. Even though he didn't remember what I did—as it hadn't happened yet—and he didn't even know who I was, how could I face him after everything that had transpired between us?

The sounds of approaching footsteps and scathing laughter pulled me back to this warped reality. A group of five sneering children were unmistakably approaching L's table. Sensing that things were about to get ugly I moved closer, but kept out of L's direct line of sight for the time being.

The leader of the group of what was undoubtedly grade school bullies smacked his pudgy fist down on the metal surface of the table, his actions causing L to jump.

"Hey Lawliet." He glanced down at the pile of inedible food L had shoved to the edge of the table. "Looks like your mom still doesn't know how pack a lunch to save her life. I mean sheesh," scoffed the seven year old, holding up the baggy of unidentifiable green mush, "how stupid do you have to be to think this junk is food?"

"I guess we know where he got his tiny brain from," pipped up a brunette with pig tails who was standing slightly behind the blond ringleader.

Her comment sent the group into sickening guffaws that started my blood boiling. Why was it, that no matter where you went in life, you inevitably found some stupid jerk with an inferiority complex that he dealt with by picking on others, accompanied by a group of mindless followers who were either too scared or too dense to stand up to him?

"Maybe you should just eat that crap and keel over," added a tall kid with glasses. "You would sure save everyone, including yourself, a lot of trouble."

More grating laughter. Right now I really wished that I wasn't a "ghost" so I could give these little brats the what for. Unfortunately...it didn't seem like that was happening any time soon.

L did his best to hide his grimace. "Hello, Andrew, Missy, Ryan, Danny, Gracie... What do you want today," L mumbled to his hands which were clasped tightly around his knees.

"What was that?" sneered a black haired boy, leaning as though to try and catch L's quiet words. "You know if you talked clearer, people might actually understand what you're saying. Not that we'd want to."

I swear, if I heard any more of their despicable giggles, I was going to strangle them; ghost or not.

"Come on guys," pleaded the last of the five bullies; a pretty looking blond girl who was obviously no stranger to the popularity game, "Miss Evan's said we had to be nice to L." She put on a staged pout. "Andrew, you said we were going to give him a chance. That's why I brought this game after all."

"Heh, you're right Missy. Show him what we brought," replied the group's leader, apparently called Andrew.

For someone like me, who's worn dozens of different masks and prided myself in my ability to charm anyone into doing exactly what I wanted them to, I could tell that this girl, merely an amateur at the manipulating game, had no intention of playing nice. She was just as involved and amused by this bullying as the other four.

L didn't seemed convinced either, as he had more tightly pulled his knees towards his chest.

The grinning Missy then produced a large rectangular box from her bag, out of which she pulled something I never would have guessed such a prissy looking girl would have: an Ouija Board. Then again, Misa was into more occult things than a goth and she was probably the most cutesy girl I've ever met.

L eyed the sinister looking item nervously as Missy placed it before him and the five children gathered eagerly around it, the bespectacled and black-haired boy each placing a hand on L's shoulders to keep him from running.

As soon as their hands touched the white haired fabric of his shoulders, L started to almost panic and tried to pull away. When the movement wasn't successful, he just curled in on himself and stated shaking.

Seeing L like this, so scared and so helpless, left me completely frozen. The terrible memories of L as he'd turned away from me, so broken, flooded my consciousness. L shouldn't look like that!

While I was struggling to keep from losing it and doing something stupid, the group of trouble makers had finally managed to get L to put his hand over the slider. And when I say "managed," I mean they were holding his hand to the device under theirs. The only child who wasn't touching the object—which served as a central piece in countless horror films—was the other girl in their gang, who, by default, must've been called Gracie. She was holding a pen and note pad, her job obviously being to write down whatever the "spirits" said.

"Okay, Lawliet, ready to get started?" asked the sneering Andrew.

"Come on," crooned Missy in mock friendliness, "this is gonna be fun."

L's face made it blatantly apparent that he was having anything but fun as the slider started to move under his hands."

"Oh, my gosh!" exclaimed Gracie. "You guys actually got one!"

"Go on, ask it what it want's, Lawliet," prodded the black-haired boy, both with his words and the hand on L's shoulder.

Squeezing his eyes shut, L obeyed in a humiliated voice. "Wh-what do you want...?"

The board moved to a single letter: L.

"L!" screeched Missy, her shock so fake it was worthy of appearing in a B-rated horror film.

"Oh yeah?" Andrew asked bemusedly. "Well what are you gonna do to the little runt once you get him, eh?"

The board again started to move, the children all reading the proscribed words out loud despite it being Gracie's allotted job to do so.

'I-Space'

"I"

'A-M-Space'

"Am."

'G-O-I-N-G-Space'

"Going."

'T-O-Space'

"I am going to," the children's voices were rising in excitement.

'K-I-L-L'

"Kill!" they practically screamed.

At this point I'd had it with their twisted joke. Closing the distance between myself and the huddled group in a faster time than I thought was humanly possible, I leaned over the boy I was now determined to protect and placed my hand over the sliding indicator. My transparent fingers slid through the other children's as if they weren't there, but settled solidly on L's pale ones. The boy jumped and stared up at me with terror filled eyes as I stopped the cursor from reaching the intended letter: L. But I didn't have time to worry about that. These kid's had got their foolish wish of summoning a vengeful ghost, and I wasn't about to disappoint.

The bullies' eyes widened as the cursor began to move against their will, spelling out a message they had never intended it to. No longer reading out loud, their bulging eyes followed every twitch of the indicator.

'A-N-Y-O-N-E-Space-W-H-O-Space-H-U-R-T-S-Space-L'

Missy screamed and released the cursor, jumping away from the now terrifying board. Following her lead, the three boys let go as well. Every single one of them backed several feet away.

Now that L's wispy fingers were no longer being held in place, he pulled his hands away from the occult item and tried to recoil away from me. His moves were so desperate though that he only managed to trip over his book bag and land wide-eyed at my feet.

Perhaps I should have stopped there, but I was seething with rage, and, on the more logical side of things, I wanted to make it clear that this incident was not L's doing. I hate to admit this, as it shows a glaring view in my character, but scaring little children half to death is pretty fun (L is not to be included in that statement).

Seeing as I was still able to manipulate the cursor, I used this to my full advantage—It seems as if Ouija Boards are really accessible for the spirits of the dead to use.

'A-L-L-Space-O-F-Space-Y-O-U-Space-W-I-L-L-Space-D-I-E-Space-D-I-E-Space-D-I-E'

I was only on my second repeat of 'D-I-E' when all five of them ran away screaming across the playground.

A slightly twisted smirk on my lips and feeling quite satisfied with my performance, I turned towards L. What I saw immediately caused my face to fall. The messy-haired boy was shaking so hard he looked like he was about to fall apart, and his eyes were larger and shining with more fear than I thought to be humanly possible, his body frozen in place by it.

On instinct I made the mistake of moving a step closer to him. My actions causing the young boy to scream something that sounded like, "No!" and throw his book bag at me. The heavy bag hit my chest with a resounding "thwack!" and actually hurt quite a bit.

I stumbled back from the blow that I had been expecting to go right though me, then, as L had done earlier, tripped over the culprit bag and fell first on the pick-nick table and then through it.

"Wh-who are you?" he yelled in a panic. "What are you? What do you want with me?"

Noticing that L had been staring at my deformed right hand when he'd screamed, "What are you?" I quickly hid the red dripping thing behind my transparent back (not really sure how much good that did).

"I-I'm," I answered stuttering. I wasn't sure what to tell him. But whatever I did, I needed desperately for him to learn to trust me. Trust me? Ha! What a joke. After what I was going to do to this poor child, how could I ever have the gall to ask him to trust me. Still, what else was I supposed to do? "My name is..." Wait...is it okay to give him my name? On the off chance he does learn to trust me, what if he completely does so in the future? If I can't change it...change myself becoming Kira...he'll die that much more easily...

Impatience was beginning to creep up along side the terror on the boy's features.

Deciding I didn't have much more time to think about it, I took an easy out and stole something else from the detective I'd murdered. "My name is Ryuzaki and I...I'm here to protect you. I was sent for."

Suddenly, most if not all of the fear and uncertainty in his eyes vanished, the emotions being replaced by...was that hope?

"A-are you an angel?" He questioned slowly, as if it were too good to be true. I was surprised to find that back when he was younger—and speaking in English—he had a fairly strong English accent.

"N-no, not exactly." In reality, he couldn't be farther from the truth.

His face dampened slightly. "Well, then what are you?"

"I'm a...a Shinigami." I'm not sure why I said it, but the words just seemed to fit. Besides, what were the chances that he already knew Japanese as a second grader?

He looked puzzled. "Is that close to a guardian angel?" he asked after a good deal of thought.

His words were so fragile, as if his very last hopes hung on my answer. I couldn't disappoint him, I couldn't reveal all that I really was. "I guess you could say that."

His face brightened like a rising sun.

"I mean, kinda. We're...sort of fallen angels. We have to help someone down here on Earth for our sins to be forgiven. You needed help, so the Inoichinigami sent me. She told me I had to save you, and that is exactly what I intend to do."

Well at least I wasn't completely lying... Fudging the truth came almost too naturally to me. However, as good of a word twister I was, I never expected L to throw his tiny arms around me, silent tears streaming down his cheeks.

"Thank you," he whispered in such an honest, true, and completely trusting way that my broken heart somehow managed to shatter a little more.

I reached up with my left arm, wrapping it around the poor child, but I kept the blood stained right hand firmly behind me. I would hide it, and the horrible truth from him as long as I could. He didn't need to know. It was him, not me who needed saving; I was already too far gone for something like that.

~My Fallen Angel~

I hope you all enjoyed this addition. I really, really struggled getting the first part out on paper—seriously, I rewrote it more times than I can count—but I hope you are all quite pleased with the results. Be it yea or nae, I love to hear from you.

Sorry again for putting you through all these long waits, but such is my crazy life.

-Asiera

PS: On the off chance that this happens again, I have some amazing Death Note recommendations that you might find enjoyable to read in the mean time that could use your support: Quench the Flame by Senshi'sBard (ongoing fic), Love Games by PapertownsL (ongoing fic), Furious Angels I: Nameless Here Forevermore by Genius Detective L (ongoing fic), Asylum and Silence by Bahari (ongoing series), Friend or Foe and Friend or Flame by Spotofpaint, and Caveat Emptor by Tierfal.