Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note. I do own this fanfiction's plot, Fuyu and Juliet Daine.
Chapter 3 - Tick. Tick. Kira. Tick. Tick.
Black and white stripy socks moved backwards and forwards in the air. The Death Note was lying peacefully on the bed, quenched with the death filled ink Misa fed it. The witch hat laid discarded on the blue carpeted floor, it was merely a prop to Amane, its only sentimental value had belonged to the other girl.
"When do you think Mikami-kun will come?"
"Soon, Misa-san, soon."
The room was decorated with various anime posters, white paint could be barely seen against the yellow walls, but if you squinted slightly the image of a crescent moon could be seen, but fresh pumpkin coloured paint was slashed over it in an ugly cross - the moon had made Misa feel uncomfortable, it reminded her of the original host of this body. On the window sill there was a row of dying herbs, sparkling from the water Misa regularly poured out. But no matter what any living plant she tended to it was close to dying in a few days. Amane rolled onto her back, staring at the bedroom's cracked ceiling.
How long had it been since Juliet Daine became Misa Amane?
A year?
Twenty?
Long enough for Mikami to create her Light and it was all down to Gelus and Rem. Misa looked in the latter's direction, silently admiring Teru's handiwork. The Shinigami still had her wings, Misa begged the Kira-supporter to make them. Rem just wasn't Rem without the skeletal angel wings but the rest of the Death God was now human. Silver hair that curled inwards at the bottom scraped the woman's chin. Misa would have to guess at Rem's age for she looked very young even with the silver hair, thirty something? Maybe. A pair of luminous eyes looked questionably down at the second Kira, to Rem it looked as if Misa had gone back into one of her dream worlds about Light again.
Thirteen years ago...
Feathers. All she could see were the fluffy white feathers, it was a world of whiteness.
A world without Light.
A strangled sob escaped the idol's mouth at the thought, her damnation had been for Light, was she to be punished for loving him? Was love a crime?"I'll find a way to bring you out of the darkness! I'll stop the nothingness!"
"Light! Light-kun!" She screamed for him, the echoes causing the place to scream with and for her. Misa curled up in a ball, tears dripping down her face. She was alone, no Light, no Ryuk... not even Rem was here to protect her. Amane was stuck, made to live in this place forever with no one to speak to. This type of nothingness was her Hell...
"Someone! Anyone!"
"Are you alright?" Misa's cries stopped and she looked around for the owner of the voice, there was nothing, not even a Shinigami.
"Misa-san!"
"Rem..?" She could see neither of the speakers but a small piece of joy and hope danced in her heart at the sound of the female Shinigami. Rem would save her...
"Misa-san, Gelus and I have come to take you away from this place. There will be only a few minutes for you to acquire a Host but there'll be one nearby."
Misa stood up, looking wildly around while wiping away her shed tears, she had no clue as to what Rem was talking about but if there was some way to leave this place then she would take it.
"What do you mean by Host? Are you coming with me Re-"
A soft song rose up from underneath the feathers under Amane's feet, it was in English, slow and mournful, most likely performed for funerals. The singer was female and quite young, barely past adolescence, as the song continued the feathers began to fall away, revealing a blinding red light.
"Good luck, Misa-san."
Tentacles ripped themselves from the red glow, reaching out for the murderess, she backed away but in the small moment of a second the living ropes wrapped themselves around her, dragging her into the light.
"You're coming with me, right?!" Silence. Misa could guess at what the elder woman was thinking, Rem would be left here or forced to go somewhere else. Misa would not allow it! Rem had helped her when she was Kira two, the least she could do was repay her.
The feathers vanished.
"Sleep now dear soul,
find your way,
in the sea.
No need to cry,
in the sea you will return,
reborn into memory-less rest.
Hmm.. hmm..."
Tears fell from the thirteen year-old's eyes and onto the mirror she was staring into, the black mourning dress she was wearing was covered in dried mud and dripping with rain water. A large witch hat hung lopsidedly on her head and was close to falling down over her eyes if she didn't push it back every three minutes. The teenager was a small, pale, skinny thing who would look more comfortable with her nose in a book rather than a mirror.
Misa stood behind the girl, her image hidden by the large hat that reminded Misa of the old tales of witches and spirits that her mother would tell her. Was the child a witch? The song must have been the reason why the feather-world broke apart, hearing it had been no coincidence.
The child must be the Host Rem was talking about. Amane had only seen ghost's possess people on television and video games, basically you had to hug them, not letting them escape your deathly embrace, Misa opened her arms wide...
Juliet placed the mirror down, pulling the hat down over her face. It had been no use, even though she used the 'special' song, her mother still did not come, not a single ghost heard her plea. What good - she thought with the anger of a disappointed child - what good are my powers if I can not even summon my own dead mother? She is barely in her grave yet her spirit is not roaming, why will she not see her own daughter?
Then a pair of transparent arms wrapped themselves around her small frame.
Present time...
The mirror was now cracked in several different places, distorting Misa's upset face. She should have waited for someone prettier, how could Light love her with this face? A finger-nail shaped scar - that made Amane cringe whenever she saw it - rested on her chin, freckles covered her cheeks, forehead and neck. To the vain model it meant the end of the world to her and any possible chance of becoming Light's girlfriend again.
"Oohh! What am I going to do!? Wahh!" Misa dropped the mirror onto the bed and buried her face into her hands, crying dramatically. Rem moved forward, hand outstretched as she offered words of comfort.
"You look very pretty when you smile, Misa-san."
"Really?" She looked up and immediately stopped crying, once again picking up the mirror and examining the reflected image, she smiled and although it was forced and her eyes red raw she did look sweet and doll-like. Slowly the smile stopped being forced and became genuine. "Thank you Rem! Now I know for certain Light will like Misa! Even if it is just a little bit."
Misa's legs continued their dance in the air as she hummed cheerfully, opening the Death Note once again, nibbling on the ballpoint pen she began to think about the death she had brought upon these criminals, but she had also dealt life to her enemy, thinking back on it she began to find it quite strange, Misa had never been clever enough to channel spirits like Ju- the other girl but bring someone back to life? No way, but it was true for Misa. She had awakened L from his slumber of death, the reason for this was because she had listened to Rem but could a Shinigami enable life?
"Rem..."
"What is it, Misa-san?"
"How did I bring that sugar weirdo back? I'm not a real witch, I know you had something to do with it but its been bothering me for aaaages. Jeez! It shouldn't be this hard to understand!"
Rem chuckled and sat down on the bed, stroking the multicoloured quilt with her human fingers.
"Julie-"
"The other girl."
"Very well. The other girl was an actual witch, their kind have begun to grow in numbers now that non-human races have been accepted by you humans. Most of her power was destroyed in the switch but a Shinigami can tap into that power quite easily."
"Oh!" Amane still did not understand but she could ask Rem again later, right now she had to follow Kira's orders, Light's orders. She had absolutely no time to worry about details, soon Misa would be reunited with her love and they would rule the world.
Forever.
OOOOOOO
Crack!
The chocolate disappeared into Mello's mouth, never to be seen again by its other delicious tasting companions until the blonde's teeth sunk into them. Matt looked up from his DS, pressing the pause button, the long fingers which pushed down the button were not made of skin, metal poked out of the smoker's gloves, masquerading as the human appendages. Matt lightly placed the portable console down onto the plastic table they were sitting at, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it - even robots had bad habits, though Matt felt neither the smoke inside his metal lungs or the sweet taste of nicotine in his system.
"Do you stick chocolate in the freezer just so you can make that weird cracking noise?"
Mello ignored his friend, taking another loud sounding bite into the bar. All that mattered right now was the chocolate. But Matt was obviously in teasing mode for he got up from his chair and moved to Mello's side, patting the other's stomach.
"You're going to get fat with all that chocolate." Both knew it would never happen but Matt wanted a break from seeing the Game Over screen on his latest game, angering the chocolate-addict was just too fun to say no to. "Fatty!"
"Shut up, Matt…"
"You won't be able to fit in the car so-" The bar of chocolate was stuffed into the robot's mouth, muffling the rest of his sentence. He chewed on it for a moment, silent until it was gone.
"I'll still love you anyway, chocci." The gamer leaned down to kiss Mello's cheek and moved back quickly when the entrance door opened.
"Matt-kun, Mello-kun, there's been another Kira murder." L's voice drifted from the doorway and the two turned around, their thinking expressions on but then Mello jumped from his seat, a word of exclamation and a curse exploding from his mouth.
Light stepped back, not realising he had moved slightly behind L, Mello looked as if he would like to rip the robot's head off and use it as a bookend.
"Mello!" L wrapped his arms around the furious Mello, holding him back. Matt moved his DS out of harms way and helped the detective.
"Mello-san, calm down. Nothing will be sorted if you over react, please do not act rashly yet again." Near stepped into the room, looking in Light's direction. Near was holding a box full of jigsaw pieces.
"Light Yagami," He announced calmly and sat down in front of the robot, opening the box and pulling the same-coloured pieces out, placing them on the floor. Nothing seemed to affect him, not even the first Kira standing in front of him or the blonde bull screaming out obscene language.
"Near." Light knelt down in front of him, not looking in L's direction, his second chance was gone, stolen by Kira. This was karma, wasn't it?
"Am I right in assuming you are still Kira?"
L's grip around his successor slackened, he should have known, the robot had seemed familiar to him, why shouldn't he? 547- Light Yagami was Kira, the person who had ended L's life, but why had he followed him? There was no doubt in the fact that Light remembered everything, had he been planning on killing L again? Was the meeting of his successors the only reason L was not dead yet again?
Well, He thought with a sigh. At least the case was solved quick-
"No!" Light stood up quickly, now looking directly into L's panda eyes, fist balled up in frustration. "I'm not Kira! Not now! Not ever again… I want to - no, I need to help you."
"As if! You're just here to find out our names and kill us!" Mello pulled himself away from Matt and L, his finger pointed accusingly at Light. "We should shut him down right now-!"
"What gives you the right to decide my innocence? What single piece of proof do you have that shows I am still Kira?" Yagami crossed his arms, glaring back at Mello. "You're not as innocent as you try to show yourself, you kidnapped people just so you could get your own way! You wouldn't have cared if Sayu had lived or-"
"I did what I had to do!" The two began to bicker, in some ways it was better than Mello's earlier ideas of going in fists flying, but on the other hand… who wants to hear people shouting about the past? So Matt resolved the argument, by short circuiting Light's hardware. Matt, still casually smoking, pulled out one of the many live wires from the main computer, taking a few moments to speak to L.
"I need you to catch him when he's knocked out." Before anyone was given the chance to wonder why Matt was getting closer with the dangerous object, the gamer hooked his arm around Light's shoulders, pulling him towards the other and stuck the wire into the charge hole.
Currents of electricity rushed into Yagami's system, quickly becoming too much for the outdated hardware, he fell almost immediately. If it wasn't for Matt holding him up he would have fallen to the ground. L joined the red haired boy, looping an arm around his shoulders. Light looked as if he was dead, the chocolate eyes were still opened, glazed and unmoving - he looked exactly the same as when L had seen him in Mikami's house.
"Great! Are we going to destroy his hardware?" Mello followed the two who were now walking away towards another room, Matt shook his head and L had some idea of what Matt was planning to do.
"We're going to search his memory banks for anything concerning Kira."
"Right! If he is Kira we can find out more on what he's planning and who's helping him."
Two hours later….
Be-boop….
What was that weird noise..?
Be-boop.. be-boop….
Where was Light..? He couldn't see anything at all, he had been blindfolded.
Game over. Try again.
Matt, it was Matt playing a video game nearby.
"Where..?" The blindfold was pulled away and Light blinked at the sudden bright lights coming from the game console in Matt's hands, tinny music came from the DS. Light tried to move his arms but he was handcuffed to the bed.
"I'm not Kira."
"I know you're not. We're just making certain there's nothing we may need to know." Matt set his game aside and sat down into the chair next to Light, examining the dull grey walls instead of turning to face Yagami. There had been nothing in the robot's memories except for the 'pre-rebirth' images, most of the time the robot had been placed in shut down mode except for when Mikami added new data to him. There had been a video that interested Matt but it had only a slight mentioning of something that might concern the Kira case. Whatever the 'glitch program' was, Light certainly did not have any video knowledge of it inside his hardware.
"You've worried L loads, he acts as if you're just a suspect but he's not even eating any sweets." Still Matt did not turn to look at the other, but he knew the other was confused, who wouldn't be after what he had just said? A small cheeky smile appeared on his face.
"Spending my hours saving Princess's on my DS doesn't mean I have absolutely no clue on emotions!"
1000 years ago...
"Hyuk. Hyuk." The young man playing games on the falling apart couch froze, not daring to turn around and face the person who had spoken.
"I know you can see me."
Matt nervously pulled the goggles over his eyes, pretending he didn't hear the demonic sounding voice. He stood up, intending on leaving, and suddenly looked down when a piece of paper fell to the floor. He wasn't wearing any shoes and there were holes in his socks, his little toe was touching the paper. It was an ordinary sheet of white paper, nothing wrong with it at all but Matt felt strange, there was something evil hidden in between those lines. A long gloved hand reached out to pick it up, waving it in front of the boy's face.
"This is how you can see me." The over powering smell of apples, both rotten and fresh hit Matt's nostrils and made him want to gag, he placed a hand over his mouth and nose. Slowly he turned around, still keeping his hand over his mouth. Matt screamed, the sound muffled by the hand. Ragged wings hung over the slouching creature, fangs glittered from the shadows and the thing continued to laugh in its strange way.
"Stop it!" The sound grated on Matt's ears and he moved his hand away to cover both of his ears, "What do you want with me? Are you a game demon!?"
"I am a Shinigami, my name is Ryuk. I'm merely here to warn you of what will happen in the future."
"What? What do you mean?"
"Hyuk. If you really want to know you're going to have to get out you robot-making kit, boy. Oh and a few apples too."