I know it's taken me a bit longer than usual to put up this chapter, sorry :) But it is up now, and I hope it is enjoyed.

For a while this gave me awful trouble and I was thinking "Why did I ever start this story?", but then I did what usually helps me when I'm stuck like that. I erased the whole chapter, saved it, and closed out the page. I took a break, listened to some rap music (a genre that helps me forget about writing for a while and just chill), came back, and WHOO! Inspiration returned. (Plus I got some very, very nice reviews from you guys that made me all happy. Thanks so much to all the reviewers; I'll reply to you when the story is finished, so I can give responses of a decent length.)

Oh yeah, those tornados that touched down just a few towns away from where I live were a bit distracting. Tornados in freaking southern California? More than one? Pouring rain when it's almost June?! What the freaking heck is going on? I want my summer heat back!

Ahem. Anyway…


I can't even begin to tell you how…vexed…Wammy was following the jam jar incident. I suppose any normal person would have been, if they'd found their two genius children covered in red stains and surrounded by shattered glass, one of them unconscious. It didn't really help matters that the unconscious one just happened to be his first-boy and was now sporting an inch long bloody gash across his forehead, an injury that was actually on account of falling at a bad angle upon the stairs and wasn't to be blamed on me for shattering a glass jar over his head.

Really, it just looked messy. It wasn't all that bad.

"Now, Beyond thinks this a terrible over-reaction from everyone involved!" I said, calling over my shoulder as I sat on a stool facing the wall. I don't think Wammy really knew what else to do with me, considering he wanted to make sure L was cared for properly as soon as possible. "He's perfectly all right you know. He still has plenty of life left!" I huffed, folding my arms in irritation. "Beyond didn't kill him. Perhaps from now on L won't threaten to tell lies about Beyond. Perhaps he won't think he's so wonderfully spectacular, perhaps now he won't think he knows so very much. L is brilliant and all, but he doesn't know everything." I paused. "Are you listening?"

"Beyond Birthday," Wammy's voice was stern as it came to me. "Now is hardly the time to be giving me excuses and trying to insult L. You could have killed the boy!"

Again. Others simply didn't get it. I didn't kill him, because I couldn't kill him. His life wasn't ending yet, what about that was so hard to understand? Even if he had died, it wouldn't have really been my fault, because it would have meant his life had simply run out anyway. Ugh, foolish, foolish, foolish man!

One doctor's visit to the house later and L was lying in bed, quiet but awake, with three black stitches across his forehead. I thought it looked rather cool, and I really wished I could have watched the doctor stitch him up. Alas, my face was to remain stuffed in corner as I "contemplated my most heinous actions", as Wammy put it. I was kept under close supervision the entire time, which meant I had to stay in L's room to serve my sentence, since that was where Wammy was, hovering at L's bedside.

"You two," he began, sounding exasperated. "I've heard the story from both sides, mind you! I see what went on here well enough! This was a petty thing to fight over –" I thought it petty to scold over as well "- and I want the both of you to apologize to each other. Beyond you were far too violent, and L, you cannot tell me you didn't bait him into it. If you suspected there was foul play in the crow's death you are more than smart enough to have come to me quietly. Now just what was behind that?"

"I can't apologize Watari," said L, sipping at a vanilla milkshake the man had brought him. "I'm not sorry at all. The incident did get somewhat out of hand, but it proved to be an interesting experiment, as I suspected it would be."

In my corner I glared furiously at the wall. "Beyond has told you before he is not a bug under a microscope. Must he now remind you he isn't a lab rat in a cage? He does not like being examined and he does not like being experimented on!"

"Oh, well then I'll apologize if I insulted you Beyond-kun, that wasn't my intention. I simply wanted to see your reaction. You do have a wonderfully quick mind after all, and your acting is nearly perfect. Such violence as what you displayed however…I wasn't quite expecting it…"

I could just picture him staring up at the ceiling with his thumbnail between his teeth. That little brat. I heard Wammy sigh. "It's not at all kind to toy with people L. You shouldn't be doing such a thing."

"It's frustrating," said L. "Watari, Beyond-kun is not an easy individual to understand. He has eluded my comprehension. I simply can't quite get into his mind." His tone turned accusatory. "It's a very angering predicament."

I smirked, feeling terribly cocky to know that I'd frustrated L. Apparently Wammy wasn't finding any amusement in the situation. "Alright, that's enough from both of you. Beyond, come over here." I got to my feet, coming over to stand beside the bed. "Now, I want apologies to one another. At once. There is to be decent human behavior in this house."

The two of us simply looked at one another for several long moments, each of us waiting for the other to crack and say sorry first. Well, I'll have you know I did not "crack", I simply rose to the occasion. After all, I've always been one to rather enjoy the dramatic.

I flopped down to my knees, leaned upon the bed, and said as sweetly as I possibly could, "L, Beyond is so very sorry for pushing you down the stairs and breaking a jar over your head after you threatened to tell lies about him and pushed him. Beyond's actions were so very clearly wrong that it shames him to think of them." I grinned, and couldn't stop the slight sadistic tone that slipped into my voice. "After all, it was so very awful to see you bleeding like that. Beyond truly regrets it with his entire bloody heart."

I felt Wammy's hand on my shoulder. "That's quite enough from you."

I raised my eyebrows quickly in L's direction, a little "top that" challenge. L was silent a moment longer, before he sighed heavily and said, "Well I suppose I'm sorry for defending myself when I was threatened and for…'misinterpreting' a situation in which the culprit in any other circumstance would have been painfully obvious. I should have of course known that Beyond Birthday, the boy with the most innocent mind imaginable, couldn't possibly ever kill a bird, and poking said dead bird while giggling is certainly not to be taken as a sign of guilt."

Wammy gave us both steady glares, and I had to wonder if he'd really known what he was getting himself into when he put L and me in the same house together.

In the time between my eleventh birthday, which occurred mere days after the jam jar incident, and my fourteenth year, L and I went head-to-head. It was a tireless duel, but one kept undercover, lest Wammy discover its intensity and think he had to stop it somehow. It started about a week after L was finally up and about out of bed, just after school lessons had ended and I'd gone through the day with a smile plastered on my face as L handed in paper after paper just before me. I calmly marched my schoolbooks to my room, then went to his door and opened it just wide enough for me to slip inside and shut it behind me. He was sitting upon the bed when I came in, eating a bowl of vanilla ice cream piled with peaches and whipped cream, but he paused with the spoon hanging in his mouth as I entered.

"You know what Beyond would love to do?" I said, approaching him with a casual stroll. He blinked twice, slowly licking ice cream from his spoon handle as I went on. "Beyond would love to get inside your head and see how that wretched brain of yours functions." I cracked my neck, my eyes widening. "After all, you never fail to be quicker than him. It would be wonderful to know how you manage that."

I looked about the room, which wasn't really any different than mine except for it being a bit messier, with the occasional candy wrapper lying about. I went over to his closet, fully prepared to examine every last inch of the room. Just what was his secret? Where had he come from, what made him always better? The only way I could outdo this boy was if I knew him well, and that would have to start here. "So, you wear the same clothes every single day, but surely you have other –" I stopped the moment I opened the closet doors. White shirts and faded blue jeans. There was nothing else. I glanced back at him.

"I see no need for variety," he said. "But may I ask just what it is you're doing Beyond-kun?"

I pulled down one of the shirts and jeans, beginning to slip out of the clothes I was already wearing. "You can not possibly think that I'm just going to sit around this house quietly," I said. "Not after what you did."

"I don't consider my 'crime' that grave a matter Beyond-kun. I'm not the one who was being excessively violent."

I pulled on his clothes, so big on me that it felt as if I was being draped in curtains. "Answer something for Beyond, L. Would you have baited any child who Wammy brought here?"

"Not necessarily."

I walked over the bed to lean close to his face. "Then what makes Beyond different?"

He tapped the spoon against his lip. "I already told you that. I can't understand you, nor make sense of your mind. It frustrates me. I was simply investigating."

I chuckled softly, a low throaty sound. "Ah, so Beyond is one of your cases, is that it? You're trying to solve him?"

"Yes, and I believe it is much the same for you," he said. "I'm a case for you as well, and both of us are trying to solve each other. It's…lets see…like a puzzle. L and B's puzzle. We're trying to figure out how it can all work together, yes?"

My eyes narrowed. "Beyond supposes so."

"But, if you really want to know how I'm able to do better than you in classes," he held up the ice cream bowl close to my face. "It's sugar." I raised an eyebrow skeptically, and he went on. "I would suggest a cup of caffeinated coffee, with one sugar cube for every third of a cup of liquid. You should try it. Consuming refined sugar in concentrated amounts rather than natural sugar in jam should stimulate your mind better."

I left the room without another word. I'd never been a coffee drinker, but if that was really what helped him…

I regretted it. I really, really regretted it. L's suggested concoction stimulated my mind sure enough, but he had failed to tell me exactly what the effects of it would be. I could only say it was a good thing classes were over for the day, because I was in no shape to be learning anything. I couldn't sit still. My hands wouldn't stop moving, I was shaking unceasingly, and my words were all running together in an endless stream whenever I opened my mouth.

"You!" I found L in the common room, stacking lollipops into a pyramid, and stormed toward him. "You rotten little brat!"

"It isn't my fault you were ignorant about sugar-rushes," he said, not even giving me a glance. "I assumed you would have already known what large amounts of caffeine and sugar can do to your body if you aren't used to it. Besides, the action was justified. I never got you back for this cut you caused to my forehead."

I crouched down beside him and snatched a lollypop from the bottom of the pyramid. The entire thing collapsed beautifully right under his fingers, and he turned a very cold glare on me. "You aren't very likeable Beyond-kun."

"Well that makes two of us."

By the time I was twelve, the crows no longer came to the property to eat. It was only once in a while when a few lone birds would rest in the trees around the property, but they didn't stay long. Any that did linger about turned up dead, and it wasn't long before I had a little row of graves back in the trees beside the house, near the roots of the maple where I'd buried the first bird.

"You must have been a rather stupid crow," I said one day, patting down the dirt on a fresh grave. "Don't you get that this property is diseased? Or…something of the like?"

It was a rainy October day, just weeks away from L's thirteenth birthday. It was only for this brief amount of time between September and October that we were the same age. The trees were thick enough here that only little rain droplets were actually making their way through the leaves, so I was lingering outdoors. I didn't like being wet, but I enjoyed the smell of rain, that earthy scent it brought up out of the ground. I set down my shovel and closed my eyes as inhaled, my body relaxing.

A soft noise made me open them again. I couldn't be sure what it was…a step perhaps? A light weight on wet rotting leaves? And that…a whisper? A soft voice?

I got to my feet. Could it be L playing a trick on me? No, this would be too immature even for him. I pressed myself to the maple in front of me, peering back into the trees beyond it. The light was so dim and the foliage was thick, and though I had exceptional eyesight I couldn't see throughthings. But…was that something glittering I saw?

I made my way past the maple, trying to see what it was back there. And there was something, I was sure of it. The form was so faint, but it seemed as if something was standing there, upright and exceptionally tall.

There was a soft squawk, startling me a bit, and a crow suddenly hopped into view. Its beady black eyes were glittering, and I sighed heavily. Just a bird? Apparently so, and when I glanced back up the figure I had thought I'd seen was gone.

"You're an idiot, bird," I said. "You're going to end up dead if you stay here."

It flapped its wings, flying up to perch upon a limb above me, staring back into the darkness from where it had come. It squawked again, then multiple times, as if calling an alarm before it took flight once more and vanished up above the trees.

I'd been about to turn away, but something suddenly caught my eye. It was the same glittering I'd seen before, and this time I knew it couldn't be the crow. I made my way toward it and knelt down, brushing aside the leaves to find…a diamond.

A single, small, and finely-cut jewel. I picked it up curiously, looking it over as I rolled it upon my palm. I was beginning to get slightly uncomfortable, and this feeling…no, surely it was just the cold air. But it was as if I could feel something upon the back of my neck, like cold fingers sliding over my skin. Or something cold, wet, and thick…

I pocketed the gem and got to my feet, heading back to the house rather quickly. I felt that same chill on my back the whole time I went, right up until I closed the house's doors behind me.

Around my age one usually begins to question things, and I don't mean "Why is the sky blue" or "What makes the grass grow". These were more personal questions, wonderings about yourself and why you were this way or that way. For me, the questions were for my eyes. It was really hitting home now for me; no one else I'd ever known had eyes like mine. But could that possibly mean no one in history had had them?

I'd already looked through all the medical books available to me in the library, and I wasn't sure where else to turn. I would spend hours of my free time browsing through the shelves, trying to find something. But I wasn't even sure what to look for. What would these eyes of mine be called, how could they be classified? I had no name for them, I could only describe them.

It was about three in the afternoon, on a Friday, when I was to be found sitting in the library with piles of books around me, growing more and more frustrated by the minute. I couldn't find anything! Not one book mentioned any case like mine. This was no longer a simple want to me, a mere curiosity. It was a need. I had to know why I had these eyes. Perhaps this had been fueled by what L had said to me yesterday, when I'd come into his room to "borrow" some of his clothes again (I just kept them in my closet when I was done wearing them. He never got a thing back that I "borrowed".). He was collecting several files from upon his desk, and I heard him say as I took down the clothes, "I still cannot understand you, Beyond-kun. But perhaps that is to be blamed upon the fact that you don't seem to understand yourself."

It was the truth. I didn't understand myself. I didn't want him to be right about it, but he was. So my passion to study increased. I had to know. I couldn't go through my life unaware of the reasons for my own existence.

So there I was in the library, my left hand sticky with jam while my right flipped anxiously through dozens of books. Nothing, nothing, nothing! How could it be –

There was a thump, and my head jerked up from my reading. I'd left the library door open, but I hadn't noticed anyone come in. It sounded as if a book had fallen. I got to my feet, carefully maneuvering my way between the stacks of books, and peered into the first aisle. Ah, there. A rather large volume had managed to tumble from its shelf and lay open upon the floor, some of its pages being bent since it had fallen on them. I went over to collect it and hefted it up into my arms, looking at the page it had opened to. It seemed to be some kind of history book on the Aztecs, telling of the ritualistic human sacrifices they carried out. My eyes scanned quickly over the writing and then bloody illustration beside it, but then I paused. A particular passage had caught my eye.

"In some accounts it is said the Priestess Mihaloa presided over the sacrifice of eighty thousand, judging the prisoners as they were brought to her. She was rumored to have the eyes of a demon lord and with them she could see the death of the world, knew the true name of every being brought to her, and could count the feathers of an eagle when it flew over the distant mountains. Her death eventually came about at the hands of her own people, who put her death for blasphemy. She was found guilty of participating in an underground cult that refused to worship the Aztec gods but instead made their sacrifices to a being called Calikarcha, supposedly the demon lord who had granted Mihaloa her eyes."

It was unmistakable. The eyes Mihaloa was rumored to have were like my own. The description was too close for me to pass it off as nothing. So I wasn't the only one. There had been someone else.

But if this passage was true and the Priestess' eyes had been given to her by a demon lord, then that meant I had to have gotten my eyes the same way. But how? I'd never had contact with demons, and I'd had these eyes since before I could remember.

I marked the book's page, then took it with me back to my room after putting away the other books. Unfortunately, that small passage was the only mention of Mihaloa and such eyes as hers in the entire book, and I searched through it several times. I felt I had my answer, but what now? Where could I go from here?

I ceased to venture into the trees outside the house. Every time I did that feeling would return, that cold, thick, and wet touch. I eventually even avoided going outdoors at all, instead spending my time studying. Schoolwork, library books, L…everything. I watched, I read, and I learned. The house was my safe haven, protection from whatever it was that stalked these grounds. It was all my night-time fears of lurking monsters suddenly coming to life. I hadn't seen it, but I'd heard it and I'd witnessed what it could do. I was sure of it now; the birds weren't simply dying. Something was purposefully killing them.

Even when I turned thirteen, I still spent my nights locked in the library. In all the time I'd been in Wammy's House, I'd never spent a single night in my own room. I went to bed so late that I'd never been found out, though there were a few close calls when I would sometimes run into Wammy early in the morning when I was on my way from the library. But I'd get suspicious looks and nothing more.

It was nearly midnight one night when I finally gave up my studies and left my room to sleep for the night. But this night wasn't like the rest. I could tell, the moment I set foot on the cold tile outside my room, that something wasn't right. The chilling presence that had thus far kept only to the trees…it was suddenly close. It was within these walls, it was in the house.

I'd never had to face these things I was afraid of. In the back of my mind I'd acknowledged they weren't real, but now, in the darkness beneath the stairs, I could see it. The figure I'd glimpsed in the trees all those months ago, tall and upright, a soft glitter surrounding it. I could see its upper limb moving, an arm and a hand, and I could see the soft glow of a pipe, something red above its mouth catching the light to sparkle briefly before the embers dulled.

My breath caught. I couldn't see a name or a lifespan, so I knew immediately whatever it was that was waiting beneath those stairs wasn't human. I slowly put both hands over my mouth, encouraging myself to stay silent, and stepped away until I found my back pressed against a door. I fumbled for the knob and opened it, stepping back into the room. The lock upon the door was simple, but I turned it anyway, my hands trembling uncontrollably as I did.

"Beyond-kun?" a sleepy voice called to me, and I turned around. I was L's room I'd entered, and the boy was sitting up in bed, watching me as I kept my body weight pressed to the door. "It's rather late. What is it?"

"I was just going for a glass of water," I said quickly.

"Unfortunately you won't find any water in here."

I knew I couldn't go back outside this room. I just couldn't bring myself to do it. But what could I say to him now? He seemed to be waiting for me to go on, or to leave, but I just remained pressed against the door, listening for any approaching steps. There wasn't a sound, but that didn't mean the thing wasn't still out there.

L pushed back his blankets and got out of bed, hunching as he came toward me. That was his newest habit, curving his back as he walked and shortening his height by about three inches. I hid my hands behind my back as he approached, hoping he hadn't already noticed they were shaking.

"Unlock the door," he said, but instead I simply moved aside for him to do it himself. He opened the door and looked out into the hall, while I retreated to the bed and curled up among the pillows. Wretched, wretched fear! L looked back at me, and I knew immediately by his expression that he had seen nothing out of the ordinary outside the room.

I suddenly felt that same sick feeling I'd gotten when I was a child listening to my teacher say I had an overactive imagination. It was the feeling of being completely and utterly alone. Now I was the only one who could see this monster that was lurking in the halls, I was the only one who would be feeling this fear of it. I pinched my arm, trying to focus on that pain rather than on the fear and ill-feelings, hoping it would make my heart stop beating so fast. But only when L shut the door at last did I begin to calm.

"Will you be spending the night here Beyond-kun?" he asked.

"Yes," I mumbled my reply into the pillows. "Beyond's room is too cold."

"Ah. Then perhaps you could move over?"

I resituated myself so that was lying with my back against the headboard, and L crawled back under the covers, curling up into a fetal position and clamping his thumbnail between his teeth. It was refreshingly familiar, almost comforting, to see his name and lifespan. Not only that, but his room had no photographs on the walls, like the library did. It was calming to be able to feel the presence of only one other being in this room.

"What frightened you?" he asked softly. "I thought you were a bit too old to be scared of the dark."

"Beyond is not afraid of the dark," I said, and tugged at a bit of his hair in an attempt to release my frustration. "I already told you, Beyond's room was simply too cold."

"You'd already lied to me about being on your way to get a glass of water. I have a feeling that your newer excuse is a falsehood as well. Not only that, but you're still shaking. I'm not asking because I wish for a reason to make fun of you; I'd truly like to know what's going on in your mind."

In my mind…could that be all it was? My imagination? That voice I'd heard months ago in the trees and the figure waiting under the stairs; was it all an illusion? Could I have imagined it all? But it had seemed so real, and the feeling it gave me…it couldn't possibly be something I was imagining.

"I didn't come here to talk," I said. "Beyond just wants to sleep."

There were several long minutes of silence, during which time I was sure L had fallen asleep. I was straining to hear outside the room the whole while, but the house was so silent it was eerie. My mouth felt dry, and I was wishing terribly that I had strawberry jam right then. It was tempting to risk the halls and whatever it was lurking in them to go get a jar. I pressed my hands against my eyes angrily.

"I hate these eyes," I whispered. "Beyond doesn't want to see these wretched things."

"I'm sure many of us wish there were things we can't see, or haven't seen," said L softly, making me flinch in surprise. He sat up slightly, reaching over to the drawer upon his nightstand and withdrawing a red lollipop. He held it up to me. "It's strawberry flavor; perhaps it will help you stop shaking."

I took it slowly, already too embarrassed to manage a thank-you. The flavor wasn't as good as jam, obviously being only a fake strawberry taste, but the motion of licking it was comforting, reminding me of licking jam off my fingers.

"You know, I don't dislike you Beyond-kun," he said. "You're odd, and a very frustrating person at times, but I don't dislike you."

I pressed my face into his hair, letting the last of the chill that lingered over my body fade away. I certainly disliked him, and at times I completely hated him. But that didn't keep me from watching him, imitating his habits, mirroring his movements without even meaning to. It didn't keep me from listening to any advice he gave even though I hated to receive it, and it didn't stop me from idolizing him. I didn't want to become him, as I had supposedly been brought in this house to do. I didn't want to be his copy. I wanted to be better. Everything he was I would be that but more so. And I would surpass him even further than just outdoing him, for I had these demon's eyes that he could never have. I hated them, and I treasured them.

I suppose in that way these wretched eyes of mine…were something like L himself.


You can find information on Calikarcha the Shinigami on page 51 of How to Read. I chose him simply because I thought he had an Aztec-like look to him. The human sacrifice of 80,000 supposedly really took place in Aztec history, though the number is suspected to have been exaggerated.

That little scene where Beyond apologized to L…alright, I'll admit where I got the inspiration. Have you ever read Anne of Green Gables? If you have, or haven't, I was thinking of the scene where the very dramatic Anne falls to her knees to beg forgiveness from a nosey neighbor that she was rude to. I can't help but have this idea that B probably has a liking for the dramatic. I mean, sheesh, just look at all the trouble he went to with the murders in Another Note, as well as the "final murder". All very dramatic.

And the last scene, no, this story isn't going to be shonen-ai (tempting as it is). Basically you can take it this way or that way, whichever way you want.