"You have much to be worried about, Light Yagami. Considering you are the prime Kira suspect after all."

'Relax. I'm not Kira. So I don't need to panic over that. It's Teru I need to worry about...they aren't suspecting him at all. Or at least, they aren't going to tell me that for a while.' Light thinks to himself, though his lips thin into a frown at the obvious jab. Never did Light ever expect L to be so...childish. The thought of the worlds best detective behaving like a petulant child is just asinine in Light's opinion. 'As bizarre as he may seem, I can't let my guard down around him. Even if father is here to see.'

"Hm? I think introductions are in order. But I guess not on my end at least, since you've clearly been stalking me with cameras." Light slightly tilted his head to the right, innocent doe-like eyes darkened with distrust. "Correct?" The teen didn't even bother looking at his father, he could practically feel the shock radiating off of his dad in waves. Light did not go against authority, he was smarter than that and clearly knew that this stranger was more than an unimportant person. Which clearly shows how little his father really knows him.

"I suppose so, Kira, you may call me Ryuzaki for now." Ryuzaki kept a stubborn stare at Light, wide owlish eyes looking Light from up to down and scrutinizing every detail as if he was storing away information constantly in his mind. Light's lips tightened while he forced himself not to openly scowl at Ryuzaki.

"You of all people should know I'm not Kira, Great detective L." Light said, voice dipped in ice and dripping coldness, Ryuzaki did not react just as Light did not to the earlier jab. However Soichiro did not like the growing animosity between the two. The tension thickened like fog by the second. Tense. Silent. "I admired you when I was younger." Speaking as if he's lost in thought, Light tears his gaze from Ryuzaki's and looks behind him, with his thoughts focusing his attention rather than his sight. "I hoped we would meet one day. I suppose there was a catch with that hope."

L studied Light, almost sulking when he figured with Soichiro being here he wouldn't be able to get a rise out of Light. Getting under somebody's skin can trip them up, which is exactly what L intended to do. Yet Light's been different from what he expected. In fact, Ryuzaki expected a cocky serial killer who's planned five steps ahead.

Instead here is a studious teenager, brighter than most of his age group but still a teenager nonetheless. Biting his lip, L kept on thinking. It doesn't make sense, Light's got the ability and capabilities to plot out mass murders. They needed to figure out what the ability to kill without being present was though, and how he did it. L is certain that Light's Kira.

He couldn't exactly rule out the possibility of another person being in the picture of Kira. A team could easily cover just as much ground, if not, even more killings. Though it was obvious. Who else was there that Light trusted outside of his immediate family?

The man named Mikami. Light's secret lover and now fiance.

L grimaced, Light noticed and almost smirked since he assumed he won that round of nonverbal battle, but the teenager did not know how those two words settled bitterly on L's tongue like coffee without sugar. It held no appeal to him, other than be an annoyance.

Pulling out a rounded cherry lollipop with the wrapper still on it from his pockets, L stuck it in his mouth in an attempt to wipe away the bitterness with sweet sugar. "Perhaps we might have met under...different circumstances in another world." Crumpling the crinkling plastic into a ball, he shoved both his hands into his baggy jean pockets, lollipop in his mouth, suspicion pouring into his eyes with dark rings permanently etched onto his pale skin.

"You're religious?" Light asked, voice neutrally polite in an innocent question. He wouldn't try to argue much with Ryuzaki since Light is still on the inside of the holding cell. Shinigami completely ignored, or as ignored as a god of death can be.

"Not particularly, no, I do not believe in gods or higher celestial beings." L's eyes side-glanced to Soichiro, who had been temporarily forgotten, knowing that what he's about to say next will earn the older policeman's ire. "What I believe in is justice. I'll pursue after criminals who defy justice. Kira is not justice, Kira is not a god, but Kira is you."

"Ryuzaki!" Soichiro snapped, "Suspected to be. That doesn't mean he is. I do not appreciate you accusing him without giving him any evidence-"

"As L my word is more than enough evidence, Mr. Yagami." Ryuzaki gave him a hardened stare that lasted for more than a few seconds. "I have the power to do whatever I please. But what I want is to bring Kira to justice with actual justice instead of murders."

Soichiro instantly clamped his mouth shut, brows pinched together with stress and displeasure at L flaunting his title around. Though the raven-haired man felt no shame in putting Soichiro down like that.

"Now that pleasantries have been exchanged, it's time to get back to important matters."

The groaning, creaking from metal doors sliding open echoed in the hall of other cells before clanking with a thud once it fully opened. The faintest hint of a smile hidden behind a lollipop could be seen from Ryuzaki. He wished an odd wish, perhaps they could've met under different and more pleasant situation rather than this one. Even through their brief exchanges of words, excitement and adrenaline began pumping into his veins because finally...there is a challenger who can handle L's childish tendencies and need to always win. He can feel it. Light had an ego just as he, their pride kept them thriving but their intelligence made them grow bored when the amount of challengers in their lives became rarer and rarer. "We'll be having a long interrogation and if you are deemed innocent enough, we may have a position open for you to help clear your name."

A cat and mouse game. Suspected killer and childish detective. A game twisted up by fate, the prizes are life or death. One where the winner lives and conquers the world with justice and the loser dies, then, becomes only an enemy taken down.

Light knows he won't fail Mikami.

Ryuzaki knows he won't fail justice.

And Fate is a trickster who knows how to twist up the game in the name of boredom. "Just to make things interesting", a shinigami by the name of Ryuk would say if anybody would listen.