Disclaimer: In case any of you were confused by the lack of disclaimer in the last chapter, guess what? I don't own Death Note!! So sad. :(
I do, however, have L tied up in my bedroom… (Sigh), I'm such a liar...
Authors Note: My power was out for a week because of Ike!! How crappy is that? Hope you all made it through the hurricane in tact!
So, I think some of you may think I was rushing the romance in the last chapter, but just to let you know… no romance!! L knows he likes Naomi (he's smart like that), but lets not forget that Naomi is still in mourning, and she hasn't really begun to see L that way… yet. :)
I'm changing only a couple things in the story line (mostly dialogue), and I'll explain them at the end of the chapter… you may not even catch them!
Italics are thinking. Heavy M material for lots of cursing.
xxx
Chapter Seven: Something New
Light Yagami liked to think of himself as a calm and impenetrable force. He was collected, composed, and civil at all times. Flipping out when L had discovered Kira on national television had been a one time event, or so he had thought.
But standing there on the curb, watching L's car speed away, made Light want to scream in passionate frustration and anger.
Shoko Maki had hugged L.
'Son of a Bitch,' he thought, clenching his jaw as the car turned a sharp corner and drove out of sight.
'L and Shoko… friends? Like that? Damnit,' he snarled noisily, and from behind him Light heard Ryuk chuckle.
"You know," Ryuk said deviously, coming forward to stand next to Light, his leathery Death God wings flapping. "If you had the Shinigami eyes, you could have killed them already."
Lights eyes narrowed to slits and his lip curled in disgust. Take an enticing deal and forfeit half of his life? There was no way he'd ever do that, not even in the most extreme of circumstances. He'd have to reiterate that to Ryuk later, remind him that it was not an option, but for now he only clenched his jaw tighter and pivoted on the balls of his feet, walking with pounding and furious steps back to his home.
'What the hell is going on? I thought she said that she'd never met L? Now they're hugging?' Light snorted and his jaw popped with the force of his clenched teeth. What did this mean? That they were friends? That they were (as impossible as it seemed) lovers?
'This is complicating. And she looked surprised to see me, maybe even angry… damn,' Ryuk was laughing behind him, and Light wondered briefly if it would be a good idea to turn and take a swing at him. Probably not.
What could he do now? If L believed that he was Kira, there was no doubt in his mind that Shoko would have come to the same conclusion. Especially if L had told her that he was trying to blame her as Kira.
'Not good, not good, not good…'
She had all the information she'd needed to tie him to Raye Penber's death. The fact that her late fiancé was following him, that he lived so near to the Spaceland bus stop, that one of his ex-girlfriends had suddenly disappeared… They more than likely had enough to legitimately suspect him, and possibly bring him into custody… But L was more than likely waiting for more, waiting for a confession or a concrete clue. Something that could tie him, without a shadow of a doubt, as Kira.
'Damn, damn, damn…'
A light breeze blew strands of his brown hair into his face, and Light shoved them away in annoyance. His hands were then clenched into tight balls inside of his coats pockets, and his nails were digging into the skin there, leaving half moon indentations that were sure to start bleeding if he didn't let up.
In his mind ran thousands of rampaging thoughts, and through it all the image of Shoko, running full speed into L's arms, was replaying over and over again. The spilt second that he'd seen her face, overcome with happiness and relief. The way she had buried her head in his shoulder, and how gratified her tone was when she had said, "I thought you were dead,"
"Damn," he said out loud, and Ryuk laughed harder behind him, bone jewelry clanking as he heaved and gasped in amusement.
Fucking Shinigami. Fucking L. Fucking bitch Shoko Maki.
It was almost funny (except that it wasn't at all) that neither of those names were correct. L couldn't possibly be the detective's real name, and Light knew that Shoko was not correct either. The fact that she was still alive, able to hug his arch enemy, was proof enough that her name was an alias.
…
Light's thinking slowed down, as well as his angry steps. Shoko and L… together? Friends? Close enough that each would know the others real name?
Possible. Probable, even. If he couldn't get close enough to Ryuzaki to find out his real name, perhaps he could befriend Shoko Maki. Right now she more than likely suspected him as Kira, but if he could convince her otherwise… perhaps she would loose footing and expose L's real name. And alternatively, if L could be tricked somehow into telling him Shoko's actual name, he could hold her life ransom until L's identity was proven.
'Let your weaknesses become your strengths. Use what they'd like you to believe is their upper hand, against them. They're friends now? Well then, they know too much about one another, and one of them is bound to slip at some point. Shoko Maki is a women, she is weak and in mourning, if anyone is going to tell me L's real identity, it's her.'
Light smiled then, a thin smile that narrowed his eyes and made his face look calculating and devious and sinful.
'Shoko Maki… you are my tool, and I will use you until I have what I want.'
He came to the front of his house then and opened the gate, ignoring Ryuk's continuous hyuks.
'And then,' he thought, walking up the yard and to the front door, 'your dead.'
One way or another, she was dead.
Even if he didn't have her real name…
xxx
(04/18/2004)
Naomi looked at L, her head cocked to the side.
"You eat like a crazy person," she said plaintively, and the task force members also lifted their heads to look at the young detective.
The spoon, heaping with chocolate chiffon cake, stopped halfway on its journey to L's mouth, and the detective looked across the coffee table at Naomi Misora.
"…Are you implying that I am crazy, Maki-San?"
Naomi smirked and shrugged, looking back down at her files and ignoring both him and the rest of the task force.
L watched her for a moment, eyes narrowing just slightly as he tried to decide weather or not she was taunting him, before he shoveled the cake into his mouth with added vigor.
"Childish," Naomi muttered under her breath, her lips twitching, and this time L's eyes narrowed to thin slits.
"…Have you found anything of interest, Maki-San?" L asked through a mouth full of cake, almost as though he were pointing out the fact that she hadn't found a thing in the file she'd been staring at for the last half hour.
"I think the most information we'll get on this case is when we have Light Yagami here at headquarters, confessing himself as Kira," Naomi replied, not bothering to look up from her file, and both Matsuda and Ukita flinched as she said it, while L only stared for a moment before returning to his cake, his expression void.
Agent Ukita shifted uncomfortably in his seat, looking between both Shoko Maki and L, before he stood and said, "Going for a smoke, you coming Aizawa?"
Aizawa nodded, grumbling as he followed the shorter agent outside, and Matsuda looked uncomfortable sitting by himself with only L and Naomi for company, Mogi being at headquarters and chief still in the hospital recovering.
Outside the hotel, however, Ukita was lighting up and sighing, looking at Aizawa with raised eyebrows.
"Is it just me, or does she really hate the Chief's son?"
Aizawa scowled, "She's a fucking loony. Why the hell aren't we investigating her?"
Ukita inhaled and shook his head, blowing smoke out of his nose before he said, "No, she's not Kira, Aizawa. No way. She's just… angry. And who can blame her, really? The situations fucked up… and blaming Light is probably better than not knowing who to blame."
Aizawa looked at Ukita for a moment, eyebrows raised.
"…You like this woman? I mean, I know you guys talk but… she's like a black widow, you should probably watch your back. Plus, she called you a pervert."
Ukita chuckled and shook his head once more, blowing more smoke into the air and shifting on his feet, "I have some theories on that, all of which consist of her trying to let the task force know that she suspects Light without a shadow of a doubt. I really don't know what's going on but… I think she wants us all to know where she stands… And I think she wants us to know that she's going to be actively accusing Light Yagami… I don't think there's anything in her that wants to hide the obvious hate she has for him any more… "
There was a considerable pause as Aizawa processed the information that Ukita had just given him, and in that time a noteworthy part of the white paper that covered the nicotine on Ukita's cigarette disappeared.
"Look at you Kazu, you're becoming a detective…"
Ukita smirked at his friend and stamped out his cigarette, immediately extracting a new one and bringing it to his lips, letting it hang there without lighting it.
"Fuck you. I'm as observant as the next guy… besides, it's better to observing something with a nice ass."
He lit up, and Aizawa chuckled and shook his head.
"Okay, so you like this girl. You don't think she's Kira. What are you gonna do?"
Ukita coughed a little and blew smoke from his lungs in irritation.
"What do you mean 'what am I gonna do?' Nothing! Not a damn thing. Besides the fact that she's got the temper of… well… a female version of you, she's just lost a fiancé. She's not interested. And her and L… well…"
He trailed off, and Aizawa frowned.
"You notice that too, huh?" He asked, remembering the way he'd watched as L had kept trained and possibly concerned eyes on the woman as she had stormed out of the living room after their game of chess and whispered exchange of heated words:
Finally she stood from her chair, its legs creaking against the wood floor noisily, and walked off without saying a word, her shoulders taught and her spine stiff. Aizawa turned his head to watch her leave, his eyes questioning, before he looked at L, who was also watching her go with a thoughtful look on his face.
"Yeah… I noticed," Ukita said, scowling a little. "Besides the fact that they talk and fight and have some kind of weird understanding about one another… he makes her laugh. He's the only one in months who's been able to make her smile and look happy and… and it's… eerie."
There was silence after that, each of them thinking of the many times that the task force members had stopped what they were doing to watch the odd way the famous detective known as L interacted with the Kira suspect know as Shoko Maki. They would eat sweets together, and many times the agents would come to the hotel and there would be fresh baked cakes and cookies that seemed to have been homemade. When Matsuda had questioned a batch of half eaten brownies that were sitting on the stove previously, Shoko had said offhandedly that she had made them the night before.
There was no reason to make anything sweet unless you were making it for L.
And they fought and bickered and teased each other in their own way, Shoko sharp and witty, and L calm and expressionless, both taking the others personality in complete stride. They were so peculiarly matched, so entirely opposite, and yet… they fit. In some strange way, through all their differences, they fit together and worked together seamlessly. L made Shoko seem peaceful (or at least calmer than anyone else could make her), and Shoko make L seem more… human.
"We have to assume," Ukita said, breaking the long silence, "that they're telling each other things that they aren't telling us. That they are working as a unit. She's not on the task force, she's on L's force. And anything she does is because L told her it was appropriate to do so."
Aizawa looked reflective. "I never thought of it that way," he said, brows knit. If that theory were true, then it meant that L wanted Shoko to act this way with Light Yagami.
"Yeah, well, fuckin' A."
Aizawa rolled his eyes, and watched as Ukita stamped out his cigarette and pulled out another one, his third in the time span of twenty minutes.
"We need to go back… You're smoking like your trying to kill yourself, slow down. This seems excessive, even for you…"
Ukita paused a moment, his lighter suspended as he considered his friends words.
"I guess your right," he finally said, taking the unlit stick out of his mouth and placing it carefully back into its pack. "I just… I don't know… I just have a feeling…"
Aizawa raised a brow. "What kind of feeling?" He asked, following the short agent as he headed back into the hotel.
"A bad one."
xxx
Ten minutes later…
The light from the TV was hurting Naomi's eyes, and she wanted desperately to blink. But pulling her gaze from the screen, even for the millisecond it would take to open and close her lids, was a millisecond to long.
Kira…
"Surely one person is not enough to prove my identity, so I will take another sacrifice. The target is another commentator on the same network who always opposes my actions."
"Channel 24!" L barked, and the channel was changed in time to see a rotund TV anchor keel back in his chair, obviously dead.
"This… this is disgusting," Naomi whispered, her voice shaking as she clutched the back of L's chair.
"…Kira is directly manipulating the mind of the public. It may be troublesome if we don't stop the broadcast soon…"
L looked to Ukita as he said it, and immediately Matsuda was running towards the phone, requesting in panic the number for Sakura TV.
"Damn it! I'll go stop them myself!" Ukita exclaimed as he ran out of the hotel room.
"I'll go with you!" Naomi called after him, caught up in sudden anger and adrenaline, but a hand wrapping tightly over her wrist stopped her from following.
"Stay here," L said firmly, looking over his shoulder at her with large stern eyes. His voice had not raised, but it was solid and unyielding, his eyes were wide and serious, and Naomi knew that there was no questioning it. The door slammed shut behind Ukita, and Naomi nodded slowly at L, who understood by her facial expression that she meant to listen to him. He released her wrist then and turned his attention back to the TV. Back to Kira.
They all listened then, unmoving and dumbstruck, as the muffled voice droned on about the perfect world it was creating.
"The world can be full of no one but people of good conscience."
"Smug totalitarian fuck." Naomi snarled against the quiet in the room, and both Matsuda and Aizawa jumped as they heard her say it, her voice breaking the silence like the crashing of glass against stone floor.
The stillness drew over them once more, however, as the speech continued on. Minutes dragged on, and Naomi gripped the back of L's chair harder with every new word that she heard. Even when she felt pieces of wood splinter under her nails she could not loosen her grip.
"Take a moment and imagine a world where the policemen work together with me to eliminate all evil."
On a separate TV, one that L had ordered Watari to bring into the room, the voice of a female newscaster cut through the distorted echo of Kira.
"And we are now live at the front entrance of Sakura TV," she said, her voice full of rushed urgency.
"This just in, there is someone lying in front of Sakura TV stations front door."
The image on the screen, of just who it was laying in a limp heap in front of the glass double doors, was unmistakable…
Naomi could barely get the words "Oh God," out of her mouth before Agent Aizawa was screaming like a lunatic.
"UKITA! DAMN YOU KIRA!"
In an instant Naomi's heart broke all over again, just as it had with Raye, before it covered itself with another thick layer of solid concrete and stone. And when Aizawa turned to leave, saying with venom that he was going to where Ukita was, Naomi was already matching him stride for stride, rage coursing through her veins like a tidal wave.
"Stop!"
Even through the ringing of anger in her ears, Naomi (and Aizawa) stopped in their tracks.
L had raised his voice.
He'd practically yelled.
"Ryuzaki, are you telling me to stare at the TV and do nothing!"
L was standing now, facing them with serious eyes, and Naomi had to work hard not to look away.
"I'm telling you that there is nothing else we can do. I'm telling you both that if you go now you'll die. I'm telling you that if you don't sit down and calm down, we may miss crucial clues that Kira could be leaking to us. I want to stop this broadcast as much as you do, but if Ukita-San was killed by Kira, then anyone else who goes there will suffer the same fate."
In the background Kira's pre-recorded voice could be heard, and it swept over them briefly at the silence that followed L's heated statement. He'd been calm and rational, but something in his voice held an edge to it, and Naomi was almost frightened by it, by the fact that not only was he demanding that they stay at headquarters, but that he was angry.
"So our fake badges are useless after all? Did our names leak out somehow?!" Aizawa was yelling, and the anger in his voice made Naomi shake with her own. She wanted to get Ukita, she wanted to get his body off of that hard cement and back to headquarters. She wanted to rewind time, only minutes before to when Ukita had stormed out of the room. She wished he had stayed… she wished she had gone…
L was quiet a moment, and he looked over his shoulder to glance briefly at the television. Paramedics were retrieving Ukita's body, and Naomi saw a limp arm fall over the side of the stretcher.
Dead,
Dead,
Dead…
"Oh God," she moaned quietly, and she swayed and took a step back towards the door, her jaw clenching in determination as she felt the force of need push her get out of that room, away from the safety of it and to where Ukita was.
Where Kira was.
L confirmed the thought as he shared his opinion on the matter, his eyes trained on Naomi as he spoke, telling them that this seemed like a newly acquired power of Kira's. If there names had leaked, they would all be dead, but all Kira had needed was Ukita's face…
Naomi sucked in a deep breath. "He can kill who he sees… not just whose name and face he knows. All he's needs is to see them…" She said, and L nodded as she spoke.
"He's there right now," L said, his eyes never leaving hers, "if you go, and he sees you, you're dead."
Aizawa took a step closer to L, growling as he did so.
"If we know where Kira is now, shouldn't we go and arrest him?"
L's shoulders seemed to hunch even more than they normally did.
"Like I said, charging in there will get us killed. Please try to understand…" And at that, he turned his back on both Aizawa was Naomi and took his seat back into his chair, his long legs folding into his chest.
Aizawa's eye twitched, "Well I can't," he ground out, and Naomi's eyes widened as she watched him grab a hold of L's arm forcefully.
"Ukita died! Didn't you say you would risk your life to arrest Kira!?" Aizawa's voice steadily grew louder, and soon he was shouting at the top of his lungs. He shook L as he spoke, his fingers digging into his skin with enough pressure that there were sure to be bruises.
"Risking my life and throwing it away are two very different things," L said softly, and Naomi took a few tentative steps forward. His voice was so small… and the way his hands clutched at his legs… the way his body shook…
Aizawa released the detective quickly, stepping back as Naomi came to stand beside him, her brown eyes large and her expression a mix of fear and anger, sadness and confusion.
L breathed deeply before he spoke, looking more and more like a small scared child. "I feel the same way as you, but you must stay calm… It is too late for Ukita-San… but if Aizawa-San dies as well… If Maki-San dies…"
Naomi reached a slow shaking hand out to rest softly on L's shoulder.
"We're not going anywhere," she whispered, and she fought with every ounce of will power in her not to let tears spill from her eyes. Tears of anger for the injustice that was Kira. Tears for a murdered fiancé, a frightened detective, a hurt and pacing Aizawa, a fallen friend…
Ukita was dead… and there was nothing she could do…
"I'm not going anywhere."
And then a bus crashed through the Sakura stations front doors.
xxx
It was hours later, long after the chief had made if back to headquarters with Kira tapes in hand, that L walked the hallways of the hotel in mournful solitude.
He went barefoot, his hands shoved deeply into his pockets, and he kept his head down as he ran the nights events through his mind.
Two Kira's…
He hadn't shared his thoughts with the rest of the task force members, not yet- for he still needed to go over the tapes with a fine tooth comb, but he had run the idea briefly past Naomi. Briefly being the key word. He'd said to her in the moment they'd had alone together in the kitchen, "I believe this is the work of a second Kira, Maki-San." And she had stiffened and said, "So do I…"
Then task members had flooded into the room, and he'd been forced to keep his theories to himself, and soon after that Misora had excused herself and retreated to her room.
"So do I…"
Something inside of him stirred, and he recognized it as not only as being impressed, but as pride. He was proud that she had figured it out, that she had come to the same conclusion as himself. Her hate for Light Yagami did not blind her to the facts, and he wondered what had tipped her off. The senseless killings of the innocent? The varying powers that were used to murder people? The recklessness of advertising himself on television? All were clearly not Light's MO. They were not Kira's MO.
Which meant two Kira's.
For the first time in his life, L wanted to share his thoughts with someone else. He walked slowly down a flight of stairs and found that he wanted to bounce ideas off of her, to see what she thought of the situation. He wanted to know her opinion, and he wanted her to know his.
And he wanted to comfort her for the loss of Ukita.
So many people were dying, and blaming Kira only took L so far. He was going to have to shoulder some of the responsibility… For if he'd left them all out of it, none of them would be dead. Raye and the 12 agents, Yuri Ohno, Lind Taylor, the TV newscasters, and now Ukita. They were all his responsibility. And there was so much truth in that thought that it weighed heavily on L's conscious. He didn't like death in any form, most certainly not when the death was caused partially by him. And Ukita had been a good man, and a good detective.
But thank God, if there was such a being, that Naomi had not followed him to the Sakura TV station. The fear that he'd felt when she turned to leave not only once, but twice, had been insurmountable. If she had gone with Ukita, if she had died…
He'd have been out the door with Aizawa.
L's feet stopped, and he stared down the hall. Naomi's room was there, to the right, and he wondered if she would mind being bothered. He was thinking it over, trying to decide if talking to her was worth waking her up, when his cell phone rang in his pocket.
He extracted it, saw it was Watari, and answered it in the time span of a second, holding the device away from him as if it were contaminated.
"Yes?"
"Ryuzaki. I believe you should return to the hotel lobby. Mrs. Maki has just discovered the video tape of Raye Penber's death."
L's world froze for just a moment. Then he was moving quickly back down the hall and up a flight of stairs, saying into the mouth piece, "Yes, I understand Watari. Thank you."
He realized that in the short amount of time he'd been away from his floor of the hotel, Naomi must have left her own area and gone back upstairs. The trip back up the stairs and into the lobby only took a short time, but it was too late anyway. There on the television screen was Raye Penber, twitching in death by heart attack, and Naomi stood with her hand over her mouth and her eyes wide.
"What are you doing Misora-San?"
Naomi jumped, her eyes flying to him in alarm.
"I-I… I was going to watch the tapes from tonight… I wanted to study them more… I didn't know… I didn't know this was…"
Her voice hitched, and L crossed the room quickly, blocking the screen with his body and extracting the tape with force. He turned to her, his eyes concerned, and studied her face. She was pale, and her hand still covered her mouth. Her eyes were swimming, and she was looking past him, refusing to meet his gaze.
"…Naomi."
It got her attention, as it always did. Her eyes went to his, scared and upset, and then she was hurling herself into his arms, and L was holding her again, tightly, fiercely, as she sobbed into his chest.
"I'm sorry Naomi. I'm sorry for Raye and Ukita-San…"
Naomi shook her head against his chest, still crying like he had never seen or heard anyone do in his life. She was like a wounded animal, and he wondered if she had needed to do this for some time now.
"Th-this isn't… your… fault…" she said between each shuddering breath.
L only held her closer, tighter.
Then she said, "I'll kill Kira. I want… I want h-him…d-dead."
And L nodded, clutching her shoulders and pulling her back, catching her gaze.
"We're going to catch him, Naomi-San."
Naomi sniffed, pulling away from him and nodding, rubbing her eyes in an almost childlike fashion.
"I'm s-sorry," she stuttered, breathing deeply to get her emotions under control. But seeing Raye die like that, after just witnessing the death of Ukita, it had been too much. Seeing the man she loved collapse, clutching at his chest, his body going into spasms on the cold subway floor… it had been too much.
L shoved his hands into his pockets, taking a step back. "Do not be sorry, Naomi."
"I'm such an idiot," she said with venom, angry with herself now, for her moment of weakness.
L kept wide eyes on her. "Do not speak so poorly about yourself, especially when it's not true."
Naomi made a face. "It feels true. I feel stupid and used and… and, I don't know."
Her shoulders slumped a little, and L slouched even more. She was so unhappy.
And then he had an idea.
Reaching out he took her wrist, tugging her so that she would follow him.
"Come with me," he said, leading her across the room.
"What…?"
L didn't answer her, only led her into the kitchen and sat her at the table, going to the refrigerator and opening it.
"L… what are you doing?" Naomi asked, her voice even now shaky, and laced with confusion.
Still L didn't answer, and when he sat a plate of pre-made gourmet bakery desserts in front of her (purchased by Watari for L's eating enjoyment), Naomi looked up at him for explanation.
"… For you Naomi-San… to make you feel better," he realized too late that he not only felt, but sounded, very awkward.
There was a pause, Naomi only looking up at him with wide red rimmed eyes from crying. Then, suddenly her eyes were swimming again, and she'd laid her face into her palms and began bawling.
But when he saw her face, between her fingers, she was smiling through the tears, and there was something grateful about the way she cried.
And that, L felt, was much better than the lost look he'd seen on her face only minutes before. A look that he was going to make sure she never had again. Even if it meant killing Light Yagami, he refused to see that look on her face ever again, knowing the source and not being able to do anything about it.
And as Naomi calmed and they shared his sweets, L realized with a jolt that he hadn't minded giving up his very delicious plate of desserts to make her feel better. That sharing them with her made them taste better anyway.
Somehow that was even more frightening to the detective than Kira. He wondered what was happening to him, what was going on in his heart and mind that had him feeling this way, had him acting this way…
That had him wanting to kill Light Yagami, for ever making her cry…
xxx
Authors Note: Again, I hope none of you think this was too out of character. L is a hard man to write out. He's got too many damn layers. :P
I changed some parts in the scene where L and the task force are watching Kira hold the TV station hostage. He actually stands up when Naomi and Aizawa go to leave. I felt that was important, to show how serious he was about her not going. :)
This Light POV at the beginning of the chapter was originally in the last chapter; but I moved it and added it here. I figured Chapter Six was an L and Naomi moment, and I didn't want to spoil it with Light. From now on though, you'll actually be hearing a lot more from Kira. :(
Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed. I appreciate your feedback and all the kind words. You guys are great. Please review, and constructive criticism is wonderful, but no flames!
Thanks again!!