Xiana: Hello! I'm back with another chapter of this odd but lovely creation of mine. I hope you will enjoy it as much as you seemed to enjoy the last chapter… (Smile) I didn't expect such a positive reaction to this story, really. I've replied to all your reviews and everything, so I hope you will continue to support me throughout.

Important Note: So, Death Note's going to be on Adult Swim, you know? This Saturday. Be there. We'll see just how bad the dub is. Together. It'll be sweet. Does this mean that it'll be more mainstream and we'll get more bad fanfiction in this section? Hmmm...

Disclaimer: I do not own a fishie, nor do I own Death Note. But which one is the real tragedy? Strangely enough, fish do not come up in this chapter at all.

Chapter 2: In Which Characters are Introduced and Topics are Gotten Off Of.

"All right, what we're going to do is tell our names, who killed us, and something interesting about ourselves. I'll start. My name is L."

"Yay!" everyone cheered.

"Raito killed me. Sort of. And something interesting about me is that, although I am very good at tennis, I was once a professional volleyball player."

"Really?" Raito asked interestedly. "You should have told me that! I was the Japanese national junior volleyball champ! We could have played sometime!"

"Are you only saying that because you want to see me shirtless?" L asked mournfully.

"No, I think he also wants to see you in short shorts," Raye explained astutely.

"N-no!" Raito exclaimed. "I was saying that completely innocently! Are you sure that you weren't thinking that about me?"

"Ahh, touché, Raito-kun. I really did miss you."

"Cough… cough…" Raye coughed. Immediately, everyone turned to him.

"What do you want? You trying to say you want to get back to introducing ourselves?" Raito snapped at the unfortunate FBI agent.

"N-no, I was just coughing…"

"A likely story," L sneered. "Well, get on with it, introduce yourself already!"

"I-I'm Raye… Raye Penber… I got killed by Raito… and I was… once voted 'Best FBI Agent.'"

"Really. That… is rather amazing, considering how badly you screwed up most of the time."

"I didn't do all that bad!"

"You let Yagami Raito learn your name, so he was also able to kill, or rather have you kill, the entire FBI team. So yes, you did pretty badly."

"Don't forget, Ryuuzaki, despite the fact that they're the most diabolically powerful agency in the world (or is that the CIA?), they're really quite stupid, especially compared to geniuses like us. Li'l Raye here probably is the best they have."

"Good point, Raito-kun. Next!"

"Eh, guess I'll go next. Name's Higuchi Kyosuke. I was also killed by Raito… I think."

"Yep, it was me," Raito confirmed.

"Good to know. Anyway, something interesting… uh… Well, at the age of 12, I was the winner of the Little Mr. Nagoya male beauty pageant."

"That is interesting! How come you never told me that before?" Raye said.

"…" For rather obvious reasons, no one else had anything to say.

"All right… I'm Watari. You can call me Wammy if you want, though."

"So, uh, how come your alias is Japanese if you're actually British?" Raito wondered.

"It's because Japan pwns all!" Matt shouted. Everyone else nodded in agreement.

Raito shrugged. "Fair enough."

"Anyway, I was also killed by this excellent fellow, Raito here, just the same as everyone else so far. And… my special strawberry shortcake has won many awards, but up until now, I've never revealed the secret ingredient."

"Is it drugs?" Mello asked.

"…No. Well, as L would tell you, there is a subtle hint of honey in the cake, which comes from honeybees, ground into a fine powder."

"Ewwwww…"

L was the only one not disgusted by this information. "What's in it doesn't affect how good it is."

"Amen," Matt agreed, lighting another cigarette.

"No, that's different. Bugs may be gross, but at least they're not deadly, like arsenic and tar and all that other junk in one of those things!" Matt's only response to Raito's argument was to blow a thin stream of smoke in his face. Then he continued playing Monster Dungeon XXVIII.

"Coughchokegaspwheeze…" Raito didn't have much tolerance for cigarette smoke, being a poster child for a drug-free America and all. Besides the whole Japanese thing. L pounded him on the back helpfully. "Ugh… thanks. Matt, I hate you, even though I never really met you and wouldn't have known your name had it not been for someone mentioning your name."

"Actually, no one has mentioned his name since you arrived here."

"…Oh… Well, anyway, many of you already know me… except for Matt, apparently… I'm Yagami Raito, and I was directly or indirectly responsible for everyone's deaths. Sorry."

"It's okay, Raito," everyone chorused in agreement.

"Yeah, I got killed by Ryuuk, or according to some, by a stupid guy named Matsuda…" L started laughing again. "Shut up! It wasn't even my fault! It was this guy's fault!" Raito pointed to Mikami.

"K-Kami-sama, I would never do anything to hurt you or kill you!" Mikami wailed.

"Shut up! You failed, which meant that Near was able to kill me!"

"Yeah, it was Near's fault!"

"Stupid Near…" Mello chimed in.

"So because I was the one who taught Near and motivated him to be an L, it is really my fault, meaning that I was the one to kill you," L reasoned.

"You know, I'm fine with that. You were my rival, at least."

"I'm glad, Raito-kun. It means that you were able to mature as a person."

"…How's it mean that?" Raye asked.

"Well, you see, it is one thing not to want to die at all, and another thing not to want to die because of a random person who was never as cool as your ex-rival, but it's different when you are already dead and can accept your death as having been inevitable, and can rationalize your death as having come not at the hands of said random person, but at the hands of your amazingly cool rival. Once is once, so since you indirectly killed me once, I was able to indirectly kill you once, as well."

"That is only fair. Thank you, Ryuuzaki." Raito hugged L again.

"Eh, so can we get away from your crazy logic and 'secret lust for each other' to focus on something more important? Something like getting more information about me, who many of you don't seem to know much about?" Takada interrupted the apparent love fest to shift all attention back to her. When she was sure that every eye was on her (Well, except for Matt, who doesn't count. She liked to believe that he was watching her too, that the glare of his goggles just made it look like he was focusing on his game.), she cleared her throat to begin.

"My name is Takada Kiyomi. I got killed by… well, I killed myself, but somebody probably wrote me in the Note." She paused expectantly.

"It was I!" Raito and Mikami claimed at the same time. Raito immediately hit Mikami on the head with an empty treasure chest.

"No, you idiot! I killed her; you failed at life!"

"K-Kami-samaaaaa… I'm sorry! I failed you!" Mikami began groveling immediately.

"Ah, so, didn't you, like, denounce me right before I died?" Raito questioned. "Why are you supporting me again?"

"Because that meanie kid Near was controlling me! I had no choice! Forgive me, Kami-sama! I was weak! The power of the Death Note was too much!"

"Ahem…" Takada cleared her throat. "Back to me now? Thanks, boys. It appears that my darling Raito was the one who killed me, and that this Kira poser over here messed up all his most devious plans because of me. It seems I have that effect on men…" She sidled up to Mello and wrapped an arm around him. "So… you forgive me for killing you?" she pouted, leaning into him and running her fingers over the place where his scar had been.

"Uh… um… yes, of course!" Mello was flustered.

Matt scoffed at Takada's "persuasive" tactics. "Well, that's just Mello. Now if you were able to get me, I'd concede that you have a point. But, well, Mello's always been a bit easy to manipulate, Raito was using you, and Mikami is a failure at life."

"You just want me to flirt with you, right?" Takada asked, disgusted.

"No, I'm just saying that I'm one of the least likely to participate in any conversation, and my mad gaming skillz and obsession with this particular series mean that I'm really not going to focus on anything you do."

"Well… well, I don't want to!" Takada yelled at him.

"Fair enough." Matt shrugged. "Then you don't have to."

"Er, Takada-san, you still have to tell us an important fact about yourself," Raye interjected shyly.

"Ah, yes, well, what to tell you…? Well, something that might interest one of you, at least…" She looked slyly at Raito. "I was asked to be a model several times in my life, but I always turned these offers down in favor of the much more intellectually stimulating position of reporter and anchorwoman."

"Hey," Raye whispered to Higuchi. "Is it just me, or does Miss Takada have a crush on Raito-san?"

"Raye…" a very distracted Higuchi replied, "I… I think that I'm in love…"

"Huh? With Takada-san?"

"Uh, yeah. She's kind of the only woman here…"

"I was just checking! You never know with this bunch…"

Meanwhile, Raito wasn't going to tolerate that kind of behavior from Takada. "Why would I care about that? Apparently, you still seem to think that you're competing with Misa. Well, she's not dead yet, so your only real romantic rival is Ryuuzaki here. And you're going to have to do a hell of a lot of work to convince me that you're smarter than him."

Takada was furious. L was flattered.

"Are you sure? That someone like you would be able to like someone like me in that way?" he asked almost shyly.

"Of course. We really have a lot in common, and we get along well. Although we sometimes fight, it's never verbal, only physical. We're well matched, so neither of us will be able to do much damage to the other, and even if we did, we're both dead, so we'll just heal right away. We are the world's two superpowers, if you will, so no one here would oppose us. Misa is the only one besides Takada who would raise a fuss about this, and she's still alive. I like you as a friend, and I could feel more than friendship for you. I think the same applies to you. Even when Misa shows up, there's only so much of eternity that you can spend with someone like that. But you're different, because you're funny, amusing, and just a little weird. If anyone that's going to wind up in this place could entertain me for all that time, it would be you. In conclusion, you once said that Misa was the perfect woman for me, but if such a thing were possible, I would say that you're the perfect man for me," Raito explained.

"Oh, all right then. In that case, I would be happy to be your boyfriend, Raito-kun." L leaned over and pecked Raito on the cheek.

Raito immediately blushed, even though he had recently kissed L himself before any such confession, and square on the lips, to boot. "I never said I wanted you to…"

"Don't be shy, Raito-kun. You said that you would rather be with me than Takada, and because she is both beautiful and determined, my conclusions must be that you consider me in a high regard, even though I am certainly not as attractive, and also that because she wouldn't give up, probably until you are 'taken' and no longer single, because you won't go out with her, and because I'm the only one you deign to have go out with you, you are not only stating your previously unmentioned love for me, but at the same time, asking me out. That's the only explanation that makes sense." L smiled. He loved when things made sense, and he did like Raito, at least as a friend. Raito was right: Takada was no good with him!

"But… eh, fine. I'll go out with you, Ryuuzaki, although where 'out' is in this dimension, I don't know." Raito approached L again slowly and carefully placed a hand on his shoulder, gently lifting L's face up with the other hand. Raito mustered up his courage, looked squarely into L's eyes, and kissed him. This kiss was nothing like those last two had been. This kiss was solid, meaningful, and above all, passionate. It moved from breathy, hesitant caress to pressing, eager feeling as their tongues clashed and intertwined, as gasped breaths became hushed moans.

Takada left when they toppled to the ground, Raito having overbalanced when subtly snaking a hand into the back pocket of L's jeans. Higuchi followed her, being madly in love with her as well as a bit homophobic. Everyone else found themselves quite unable to look away from the scene.

"It's… like a train wreck…" Raye murmured.

"Kami-sama… but he's… but he can't… be with a guy… that isn't me…" Mikami muttered, twitching occasionally.

Mello was watching almost curiously, and seemed to be taking mental notes on the behavior of his mentor and (im)mortal enemy, while Watari stood at a distance, making sure that things didn't get out of hand. (No, not literally.) After all, they had all eternity to build a healthy relationship before taking the final step of consummation. Matt had paid absolutely no attention to the exchange between the two as he was playing Monster Dungeon XXIX, the newest addition to his collection. Now he looked up, red hair blowing into his eyes with a sudden mild breeze. "Perhaps a certain narrator should see what Takada and Higuchi are doing…?"

Perhaps a certain Matt should refrain from breaking the fourth wall again unless he wants to be punished. The narrator would prefer to remain in this location and narrate the more yaoi-esque scene.

"Some people like the straight stuff more, though."

Said the boy who's been kissing Mello all this time.

"I was talking about the readers, actually. Those are pretty important too, yes?"

Suddenly, Matt's Game Boy disappeared, as did Monster Dungeon XXIX.

"Damn."

Xiana: Oh no, a cliffhanger! Many questions have yet to be answered! Among them: What are Higuchi and Takada doing? Are Raito and L really in love with each other? Will Matt ever get a new game? Why is Xiana Asuka bad at writing make-out scenes? And just how many audience members will Xiana Asuka lose by including such scenes? More to the point, how many will she gain? The answer to about three of these questions next time, on The Line! Which will be a longer chapter next time!

Reviews are lovely and fun to reply to.

Next: Introductions finish, a new (but canon) character appears, and Project DAMN! is fully explained.