Seven.
When Light came to again, the pills had worn off and the pain was everywhere. His fingers and toes, knee and jaw were the worst, but his whole body ached from the static position. Hunger burned in his stomach, his throat was parched, his bladder felt like a watermelon.
It was pitch black; he might as well have been buried alive. The thought made him cringe with panic. His mouth and throat were full of congealed blood, and he coughed and spat. The echoes of the sounds told him that he was still in a large, bare room. He must not have been moved.
As much as his body hurt, as thirsty and hungry as he was, the most pressing thing right now was the need to relieve himself. No matter how humiliated he had been he still couldn't face the indignity of pissing himself. He doubted that he could do it, even at gunpoint; a prospect that, during the current circumstances, didn't seem too far-fetched. It'd be just the kind of thing that Mello would get a sick kick out of, he thought.
Suddenly, a small flame sparked beside him. Mello's face was illuminated mere inches from his own. Light jerked back in surprise and swore out loud, "What the fuck are you doing? Why is it so dark?"
"It's dark because it's night. And because I don't want to run down the battery on my bike. What's the problem, Light? Are you afraid of the dark?"
Light shook his head, annoyed, but stopped as his dehydration headache reminded him it was not a good idea.
"Didn't you bring any candles or anything?"
"I didn't know it was going to get so romantic," Mello said, a heavy note of sarcasm marring his silky voice.
Light didn't care about the dark; he needed to go, and he needed Mello to let him. But he hesitated, knowing that giving Mello such and obvious opportunity to torture him further would hardly go unused. Still, he had no option but to try. He forced a polite, submissive diplomacy and said, "May I please use the bathroom?"
Mello laughed. "Look around you! There's no fucking bathroom. If you need to go for a piss, say so."
Light gritted his teeth, hating the way Mello was so determined to drag him down to his level. "I need to go for a piss. May I, please?"
"And if I say no?"
"Well, I guess it's going to start to stink here soon. And you won't want to use me as a chair again, that's for sure."
Mello walked around Light's back and a warm light spread in the room as he lit a lantern and carried around to the front, putting it down on the floor.
"Well. We couldn't have that, I suppose. Alright."
Mello disappeared from view behind Light, and the hood was pulled back over his head. The strap around his legs loosened and something hard pressed into his back.
"Before you ask, yes, that is a gun. Don't try anything stupid. On your feet."
Light shifted his weight forward, feeling his feet and his knee screaming in protest. For a terrifying moment, he thought he would be unable to stand, but then he managed to grit his teeth and power through the pain. Mello held a firm grip on the cuffs and shoved him forward. Grunting with pain, Light took a few halting steps.
"You're going to have to free at least one of my hands..."
Mello chuckled. "Not bloody likely. You really have to stop treating me like an idiot. Besides, I don't think you could use your fingers to grip anything, not even the smallest thing..."
Mello pushed him forward further, then pulled him to a stop. Light cringed as a gloved hand snaked around his body to pull down the zip of his trousers.
"Hey..." This was beyond awkward. Light hated the way shame could still be such a big issue when he was so hurt and in such danger. But it ran to the bone.
"Oh come off it," Mello said. "I'm wearing gloves."
And Light bit down and tried to send his mind far away as Mello stuck his hand into his trousers. He prayed that Mello wouldn't do anything to embarrass him further, and for once, it seemed his prayers were answered.
It took forever until he could relax enough for relief to come, but when it did, it was great enough to make him sigh. Mello waited until he was done, then shoved him back and zipped him up, less than gentle, and turned him around to walk him back to his chair. It was now or never.
He remembered what the room looked like, and had kept the orientation in his mind since leaving the chair. Ignoring the pain in his feet and knee, and the fact that he could not see where he was going, Light launched himself forward. He could feel the anticipatory tingle of a bullet between his shoulder blades but there was no shot fired. The worst thing was that Mello didn't call out, didn't threaten him or order him to stop. He made not a sound, but Light could hear his running footsteps behind him, and he was fast.
The breakaway attempt didn't last long. His handcuffed arms and the blindfold slowed him down enough for Mello to easily catch up. He was tackled to the ground, rolled over on his back, and the hood ripped off his head. Straddling him and pinning him down, Mello looked at him with an unreadable expression on his face.
"Was
that clever, do you think?"
"Probably not," Light
said, "but you can't blame me for trying."
"I suppose not. And you can't blame me for punishing your failure."
He pushed Light down hard, so that he could not keep his back off his broken fingers. The pain welled up like a tide of boiling water, and Light's twisting to get away from the pain only made Mello push down harder.
"Will you try to escape again?" Mello said.
Light cried and tried to choke out a reassurance that he wouldn't, but Mello must not have heard him. "Will you try this again?" he shouted down at Light.
"No! No!" Light cried out, and Mello simply slapped him across the face a few times, then pulled him roughly to his feet. He shoved Light over to the chair, and pushed him down. Fastening the strap around his legs again, he tightened it a bit extra. Light couldn't help but feel that he had got off easy.
"Right," Mello said. "Now you will tell me who has the note. And no more lies. Do you understand?"
Light shook his head with furious hopelessness. Mello gave him another slap, and Light wanted to scream all the obscenities he knew at him, but he knew it would only make it worse. Then, just as he was about to do it anyway, he saw something at the edge of the circle of light from the lantern. A white, grinning, demonic face.
"Ryuuk!"
Mello's head whipped around to follow Light's eyes. He could not see Ryuuk, of course, and turned back to glare at Light. Light ignored him and shouted, "Ryuuk! You have to help me! You have to get me out of here!"
Ryuuk came into the light, eyeing Mello closely. "So, this is the guy who had Sidoh running errands," Ryuuk chuckled. "Is he really that scary?"
Mello stared at the air in front of him, through Ryuuk, and said, "Shinigami?"
Ryuuk sniffed Mello, rather like someone trying to decide whether his shirt is good for another day or needs washing. "Sidoh loved chocolate," he said. "Said it was better than apples."
Light couldn't believe his ears. Why wasn't Ryuuk untying him?
"Ryuuk!
Get me out of here, I'll get you a whole damned orchard! Just do
something!"
"Shinigami!" Mello said in a
commanding voice, "I can't see you, but I would very much like
to speak with you!" He pulled the outer wrapper off his
chocolate bar and held the paper up in the air before him. "If
you're there, please take this paper and hold it where I can see it!"
"Ryuuk, don't listen to him! Untie me!" Light shouted as Ryuuk, grinning from ear to ear, plucked the chocolate wrapper out of Mello's hand. Mello's eyes widened as the paper hovered in the air before him.
"Thank you. Ryuuk, is it? If you would please move the paper vertically for a yes, and horizontally for a no. Do you know who I am?"
His voice was steady and clear, without a single hint of worry. Like Ryuuk was nothing more than a new underling to command. And Ryuuk, laughed and lifted the paper high above Mello's head, only to drop in back down. "This guy is entertaining!" he told Light, who could only growl in frustration.
"Good!" Mello said. "Now. My name was recently written on a piece of paper from one of the Death Notes. Yet, as you can see, I'm not dead. The person who wrote it first misspelled it a number of times. I'm guessing that is the reason it did not work, am I correct?"
Ryuuk chuckled and jerked the chocolate wrapper up and down. Mello nodded.
"Each time you write someone's name in the notebook, do you have to spell it correctly the first time?"
Ryuuk waved the paper back and forth in front of Mello's face, and Light kept shouting at him to stop.
"Is there a time-out between spelling the name wrong and spelling it right?" Mello asked. Ryuuk moved the paper back and forth and Light's stomach turned. Mello's line of questioning might lead him to a very dangerous discovery. If Takada had indeed spelled his name wrong four times, it meant that Mello was now immune. He could not be killed with a Death Note. And he was about to find out.
"Ryuuk! What are you doing?" Light shouted. "Why are you helping him?"
Ryuuk grinned at him in the flickering glow of the lantern. "I don't think it will be very much fun, following you around anymore, Light Yagami. I think Mello will prove... much more interesting."
Light screamed with rage until Mello walked over and stuffed the hood that had been over Light's head into his mouth. Light's nose was stuffed with caked blood, and he tried desperately to draw breath, but he couldn't get much of it.
"So, there is no timeout... and still, she didn't kill me even when she managed to write my name correctly... so, how many chances to you get to spell it right?"
Ryuuk moved his hand closer and further from Mello's face four times, and Light was starting to see black spots. He was suffocating. As from a great distance, he heard Mello say, "So does that only apply to one and the same writer? Can someone else still kill me with the Death Note?"
Light thrashed violently, only depleting his oxygen further. After all he had been through. After everything, this was how he would die? Accidentally killed... it was not fair!
Just as Light could feel his vision go black, Mello took a few long strides over to him and yanked the cloth out of his mouth. Air rushed back into his lungs, and he sucked it in, savouring every breath.
"Hear that, 'Raito'?" Mello gloated, "Apparently, I can't be killed by a Death Note. Is that true?"
Light could see Mello's hand, poised with the balled-up hood, ready to shove it back in. He nodded, still panting. "Yeah... it's true... but don't... I can't breathe... through my nose..."
Light was in fact not sure if it applied to every Death Note or only the one from which the page Takada had written Mello's name on had come. It mattered little, because that note was the only one at his disposal anyway.
"Oops."
Mello sounded utterly unrepentant. "So, that brings us back to
my original question. Who has the other note?"
"He is
talking about that lawyer?" Ryuuk said.
Light ignored Ryuuk. Mello couldn't hear him anyway, and he could wave his piece of paper around all he liked and never tell him anything but yes or no. Then Mello did one of his scary 180 moodswings again and came over all gentle.
"Come on, Light..." His voice so soft and warm now, "what happened to helping me? You did promise..."
He smoothed back Light's hair and Light could hear Ryuuk chuckle. Did Mello want to embarrass him in front of an audience now, was that what this was about? Mello leaned down and looked into his eyes.
"Are you hurting? Do you want more painkillers?"
Of course Light wanted more painkillers. But he knew what the price would be.
Despite his lack of answer, Mello went behind his back and returned with the water bottle and the pills. Once again, he sat down astride Light's legs. He didn't weigh much, but it was enough to remind Light of his wounded knee. Amongst other things.
"Go on," Mello said, holding up a pill, "take it. You know you'll feel much better."
Suspicious and unnerved by the sudden kindness, Light stretched his neck and took the pill from Mello's hand. He got a sup of water to wash it down with, and then asked,
"What are they?"
"Well, I will tell you that they are awfully addictive. Luckily, I've got quite a stash."
So that was his plan. Get Light hooked and use his addiction as leverage. Light could tell himself that he would refuse any more of them, but he knew that was not true. They took the pain away. And without food and with so little water, Light was starting to get weak. He'd take the pill just for the water. He cursed his weakness, thinking back on generations of historic Japanese heroes who had gone to their deaths fearlessly for what they believed in. And here he was, giving up so easy, letting this... this gaijin tell him what to do. It was unacceptable. But Mello's personality was as dualistic as his face; one side ragged, violent and broken—the other honey-smooth and beautiful. And it was this side that had Light fighting so hard not to just give in to him.
"Light... this doesn't have to be so bad, you know," Mello said, cupping his face gently. "Now I know I can't be killed by a Death Note, and that is great news for you! It means that I might not have to kill you. Just tell me the name of the current holder of the note. Let me worry about the rest. Okay?"
"I... if I do... will you promise... promise not to..."
"Not to kill you?" Mello's tone of voice was like he was speaking to a small child, and it made Light feel very young. Very much in over his head. Mello leaned forward and whispered in his ear, "I promise."
The painkillers were starting to work a little but Light was also beginning to shiver. He felt hot and cold. All the stress on his body, and the lack of food, was making him ill.
"No..."
he said, "to let me go..."
"Aww... we'll see. But
you have to give me something to work with here, Light. Give me the
note. Then I promise to hear you out."
Light's eyes felt very heavy. Unreality was beginning to invade reality. He felt trapped in a nightmare, this was no longer real. Shivering and disoriented, he looked up at the face of his kidnapper. Half beauty, half pain. He must know. He must understand.
"I'm...
I don't feel well..."
"You don't look well. Tell me the
name, and then you can lie down for a while. Rest, get some sleep.
Doesn't that sound good?"
It did. It sounded so good. What name was it he wanted? Oh yeah, Mikami's. Surely, there was some reason Light shouldn't tell him, but he really wanted to sleep now. Ryuuk was gone, Misa was gone, and he just wanted to close his eyes, just for a minute.
"He's called..." Light slurred.
"Yeah?"
"Teru... Mikami..."
"Thank you."
Mello let go of his chin, and Light was vaguely aware that he got up and moved off before he succumbed to unconsciousness again.
