Apathy

The Deep Soul Scarring Damage

.

"I met L last week."

"You met who."

Light's voice scorches as he speaks, even in this low whisper. It burns up his throat and brings pain he's not expected to feel, pain he has never felt before.

Was this betrayal? Was this what it felt like?

He wouldn't know, he'd never gotten close enough to another to feel such a thing before.

It seems light years away now, when in fact it was mere minutes ago that they were discussing the FBI's continued existence. Hariel had just made so much sense, regarding Kira's godhood and his refusal to deviate from his set standards.

That, and it confused L.

He could see now, it had been a pressure move. Risky, on L's part, to put the lives of those FBI agents on the line, to march them before Kira's firing line, hopeful that they'd get a glimpse of him, even with the high probability that they'd be shot.

But it had failed.

Hariel's short rant, for what else could it have been if not a rant, had cured him of the need to kill those FBI agents. That had brought with it a stint of self doubt.

Was he losing himself, getting lost in this power, this grandness that was Kira and his mission? At what point had he stopped being Light and just solely become Kira?

The realization had been deeply unsettling, and even now, it still lingers, a haunting thought sat in the back of his mind and a constant reminder of his almost Icarian fall from grace. He was not Kira, not completely anyway.

He was also Yagami Light, best student in all of Japan, and Hariel Potter's only friend.

There are some nights, in which he lies away, staring up at the ceiling and wondering just how things would have turned out without Hariel around to talk to. The sheer amount of pressure that would have sat upon his shoulders, that would have been present had he no one to confined in.

Had Hariel not been there to talk with, there's a large probability that arielhe would have killed those FBI agents. Light is honest, if only ever with himself.

He knows without Hariel Raye Penber and however many other agents there were, they all would have died beneath his pen, one way or another. Knowing his luck, L would have found a way to trace it all back to him too. Yes, this was certainly for the best.

Now L had no leads, and the agent following him would have seen nothing other than the almost-perfect student façade.

Just Yagami Light, who was good friends with the visiting foreigner, Hariel Potter.

There is no innocent bodies that lay within the trail of his conquest, there will be no hollowed victory here. To the general populous, Kira would be perfection, the god of a new world.

To himself, Hariel and Ryuk, Kira was nothing more than a stagename, a puppetshow that could be packed away at a moment's notice.

It wasn't his life.

For a moment, the water had closed in, had come together over his head and Light had been left gasping for breath, for air that wasn't there.

But then Hariel head reached in, had pulled him back to the surface and Light would not let himself slip again. Never again. He trusts Hariel.

Which is why it is so hard to hear those words come from her mouth.

.

She's sat on his bed again, having previously been flicking through one of Sayu's useless music magazines with an exceedingly dethatched sense of interest. Now she had straightened under his gaze, head up ever so slightly that she was almost baring her neck to him, green eyes wide and confused.

Of course she doesn't understand, of course she doesn't get it.

But L approaching Hariel, it hits a little too close to home for him to feel comfortable with. Even if L's not closing in on his identify as Kira, and has in fact seen Hariel for what she really is.

Light doesn't like the implications of either one.

"When."

"Christmas Eve." So not even a day had passed since she saw him and then L.

He doesn't understand why she didn't tell him sooner, and when Light asks this question, the goddess in his room just stares back in confusion. She doesn't understand why he wants to be informed that his greatest rival has been in the area, that he has made contact with her.

Light feels his fingers curl into fists, feels himself almost trembling with rage, but he can't stop himself.

"Did you get his name?"

It takes a lot to talk evenly, even more so when he sees the uncomprehending, lost look on her face.

Right now, Light has no patience to deal with Hariel's inability to connect with her emotions, she's made too little progress on that front for him to really care to break this to her gently.

But, if he can get L's name, he can look up records, though he highly doubts there will be any to find. That would be an idiotic move for the detective, and Light does not believe this will yield any results whatsoever.

Still, it is best to cover all of his bases.

Only, Hariel looks at him with sad eyes, a genuine frown on her face.

"No, I won't… This is your fight, Light, one side of the coin or the other. I won't, I can't step into it again."

She shakes her head, and for a second, Light sees the scars. He sees the damage -the deep, soul scarring damage- that Hariel's own battle has cost her.

Worse, she didn't choose that life. She was thrown into it.

He, L and Hariel's nameless adversary, they had all picked this. They had all strove to shape society into their own image.

The woman opposite him would have just been content with a family and friends. The boring life Light had all but detested.

They're so very different in this respect, and if Light were in a better frame of mind, he would have enjoyed pondering over this.

Instead, he focuses on keeping the rage from seeping into his voice.

"Get out." And she goes.

.

Once Light has managed to remind himself of the fact Hariel had never actually agreed to take his side, that he shouldn't have gotten his expectations up -that he shouldn't have got close, should not have opened up no matter how fascinating she had been- he realises he has no way to really contact Hariel again.

She doesn't respond to the texts he sends, and for a moment -it was much longer than a moment, but Light would never admit it, ever- he sincerely believes that she will never come back. But then he remembers he is the only person she truly knows in this world, both he and Ryuk, and he comforts himself with the knowledge that she will return.

Eventually.

She would come back.

Hariel wouldn't just leave him, he might not understand her, but he knows she won't abandon him. Sitting in his room, post Death Note session, he toys with Turais that rests a little below the joining of his collarbones, a solid, comforting weight.

And he reminds himself that Hariel will come back.

.

As always, he proves to be right here too, for three days after their fight, he spots her on the way home from school, which has started up once again.

She's stood at the mouth of his street, looking towards his house with a clearly hesitant expression on her face, and a longing in her eyes.

She misses him, Light realises, and it's in that moment he knows with deep sated certainty that Hariel considers him a friend too. Friends are suppose to have fights, is that not right?

For surely if Hariel was the exact same as he was, then he would never be able to put up with her. Light knows himself well enough to admit he could never get along with himself. It is a good thing that there is only one of him.

Since coming to this conclusion years ago, Light had wondered if really the other people weren't the problem, if he was the problem. Surely if he never truly got along with anyone, than it was instead he who was the outlier?

Even now, with Hariel the only person that he would consider a friend, that still makes her an outlier. The only one of the masses.

But, it also means that he is not as fault as he had once thought.

A secret relief he would never admit to out loud.

The Master of Death certainly doesn't look as good as she probably should, with thick fake smudges sitting beneath the curve of her green eyes, and the freckle-like stars far more apparent when he considers that pallor of her skin.

"Hariel?"

The stark hope present in her eyes takes Light back a bit, even more so when she sucks in a breath and glances up at him. Hariel, she doesn't get nervous, not like this.

"Light?"

"I'm not happy, but I know you don't want to get too involved with this," Light murmurs, "so can we ignore that and go back to how we were?"

The 'I miss it' hangs heavy in the air, weighty and unsaid. From Hariel's uncommonly expressive face, she's in the same boat.

Swallowing she nods, reaching out to take hold of his arm as usual before jerkily halting the motion halfway through. Light meets her though, before she can lower her hand, and curls it into the crook his arm as usual.

And it's almost like things are back to normal.

"Hehe, there's cameras all over Light's house now. Isn't that entertaining?"

Entertaining isn't exactly the word Light would use, but he is thankful that Ryuk took the opportunity to tell Hariel about this problem.

It's been a day since he discovered his room, the entire house actually, had been bugged. Light doesn't know exactly why it's happening, but he can take a guess.

He's not exactly hubris enough to imagine L isn't suspicious of him. He is, after all, known to be incredibly smart. Just for that alone, the detective would be watching him. It makes sense, no matter how much it grates.

Now that Hariel is informed though, there won't be any supernatural occurrences to worry about on her end. Though evidentially she can't quite help looking like the invisible strands of the universe are dancing across her skin. The glow just doesn't leave.

Turais feels warm around his neck, and Light adjusts the leather cord that rests beneath his shirt out of habit.

.

He lets the both of them into the house, noting that the front door is locked and indicating that no one is home.

It's an oddity, usually his mother would be getting the evening meal ready by now. It was the same yesterday when he first noticed the cameras, and for a moment, Light wonders if L has managed to manipulate things so that his mother isn't present.

Frowning, Light makes his way up the stairs, well aware of Hariel's presence at his back.

He wonders how much of her the cameras manage to capture, if they can even record the unearthly quality that bleeds out from every inch of her skin, that hides in the tight curls of fire red hair. He wonders if the universe reflects in her captured image the same way it does in person.

He knows that the lens will capture each unnaturally graceful movement, each physical outlier that makes it even more glaringly obvious that Hariel Potter is not entirely human, but instead something more, something greater.

How L hadn't looked at her and seen something beyond what any other person possesses, Light doesn't know.

Or maybe the detective did, maybe he saw it but was unable to recognise it for what it was.

After all, Light didn't know himself until Ryuk gave her a title. The Master of Death. Such an imposing appellation.

What the others on the investigation team see, Light's curious about that too.

Would they be like he and L, or would they be another handful from the clueless masses?

Regardless, he is a young adult, leading an equally attractive young adult up to his room. He's already got a pretty good idea of what both L and his father are expecting to happen, which will probably be two very different things.

And as he's already taken care of Kira's daily serving of justice, Light's going to be giving them something a little different to chew on.


"So this is the mysterious Hariel Potter," L muses, teeth digging into the pliable curve of his nail. Sugar granules lingered on the pad of his thumb, and L dipped his tongue upon the surface, gathering the whole lot up.

Beside him, Matsuda and Chief Yagami sat, each just as fixated upon the girl. While he knows Chief Yagami was once introduced to the woman, had sat down to dinner at the same table, L has the distinct impression that the man didn't come to the correct conclusion about his son's new friend.

Hariel Potter doesn't fit.

She doesn't fit into this case, has no business being here. She is distracting his most likely suspect. Out of all the people the FBI had investigated, Yagami Light has the greatest chance of being Kira. The sheer amount of intellect the boy displays is more than enough to ping on L's radar, but the fact the boy has moulded himself into a perfect life, a show and dance of the perfect student, it rings warning bells.

Yet, Hariel Potter had come along and ruined it all.

She had not been what he had expected, when they had met that cold night on Christmas Eve. She had spoken to him without allowing his physical appearance to infringe on their conversation, suggesting that she was used to out of the norm characters. She hadn't balked at the amount he was eating, and had been pleasant enough.

Certainly, she is not easily unsettled.

But that is obvious by the skin upon her left hand.

'I must not tell lies', carved in silver scars upon the back of her hand, glittering a inch or so beneath her knuckles. That is not something that anyone with a healthy mind state would etch into their skin.

Potter gives no signs to show a past psychotic break, which means that perhaps the scars have not been self inflicted. There is nothing regarding the odd scarring within her records, and nor does she rub obnoxiously at the markings. Old wounds, old wounds with no lead.

How irritating.

Looking back on the screen, L raises a sole eyebrow when the young male lays himself alongside Hariel Potter, pillowing his head upon her outstretched arm.

The female pauses too, looking over at her companion with a curious tilt to her lips. L ignores the Chief beside him, instead turning the sensitivity of the microphones up.

"Are you still undecided upon your stance regarding Kira?"

Light asks, and L can barely believe the two are about to touch upon the topic.

Does Yagami know about the cameras? It would seem so, but at the same time, why toe so dangerously close to the line when he doesn't have to?

"I'm already decided, I'm not taking sides," Hariel Potter murmurs, eyes unseeing as they stare up at the ceiling, almost directly at a camera.

L would swear she knows of their presence, only she never once gives the indication, never once acknowledges their existence.

No, her eyes take on the sheen of a woman who's seen too much, a thousand yard stare that such a youth has no place in wearing. It doesn't fit.

"Society will slowly conform to the new regulations in the same way the English did to the Romans, in the same way that the Germans quickly folded to the Nazi regime. Society as a whole, it's rules and what is considered acceptable, it's all subjective. Whoever wins between Kira and L, that will be the one the world comes to accept as natural, as normal, and for as long as their regime continues, that is the way the world will work. Years ago, men used to be able to murder another for an insult upon honour. Now, any kind of murder at all is frowned upon. I think that those who murder with cold blood should be kept away from the masses, but if killing them is the right idea, I don't have the moral ground to stand upon and preach such a thing. By killing off the criminals, Kira is becoming what he despises. And unless Kira can successfully keep himself mentally separate from the persona the public and news have created, he will eventually fail."

Silence reigns in the room, both rooms, for a moment, and L watches the inert girl stare up at the ceiling a bit longer before her eyes drop to the younger Yagami.

"I doubt I will ever truly care for justice like you do, Light. That drive and feeling died with the murderer of my parents." Ah, that was right, Potter was an orphan.

Evidentially, that has resulted in her opinion upon death and murder becoming something more remiss of an unclean pond filled to the brim with murky water. Whatever is truly at the bottom, it is hidden away from all those looking at the surface.

For a moment, the young Yagami rolls over to stare at his companion, blinking slowly before he gives a small smile and then presses a soft kiss to Potter's temple, drawing a surprised breath from Chief Yagami.

"You have a very objective view on this world, Hariel."

"Sometimes when you've been in the thick of things, it's easier to get out the eye of the storm and simply watch the next one from the outside."

.

Well… he needs to do some more research on Hariel Potter it seems.


Ardour

.

It's funny, in the interlinking food chain of victim-criminal-Kira, Light has always known where he stood.

He was at the top of the food chain, the apex predator, the tertiary carnivore. He hunted others, he was the silent predator in the night that never failed a hunt.

He was not the prey.

Perhaps that it is why it comes as such a shock.

Perhaps that is why he stands so still, brain failing him for the first time in years, faced with this mugger and his rust coated pocketknife.

It's funny, how everything becomes so clear, and yet so muted at the same time.

He sees everything about his assailant in crystal clarity, every sharp angle and low curve. The small scar that rests above an untamed eyebrow, the lank, unwashed hair, the rough stubble that surrounds a scowling mouth. The look in his narcotized brown eyes. It's still failing to compute, to really register what's happening.

He, Yagami Light, Kira, is being threatened?

On paper, it seems utterly ridiculous.

He is Kira, top of the pecking order, he is the one petty thugs such as this fear, scuttling away from his light like retched cockroaches surfacing from the damp darkness.

Yet, stood here, facing down this manic with a knife whom is clearly as high as a kite, Light is painfully aware of his own mortality.

The Death Note shan't save him here; he does not know his attacker's name, nor would he even have enough time to take the book out, let alone write a name down upon its pages and wait the required forty seconds.

It's just him in this alleyway.

Just Light and his wits, pitted up against a man several cards short of a deck and wielding a knife.

"Look, are you after money? You can have my wallet," Light tries for a disarming, terrified smile, but his acting skills seem to be falling apart, cracking at the surface and leaving him floundering.

It's been so long since he was last unsure of what to do, that he's actually forgotten how to deal with such a situation.

Light reaches for his pocket, to draw out his wallet and hopefully get this psychopath away from him, and in that moment, two things happen.

Hariel appears at the mouth of the alley, and Light feels relief sweep through him with the force of a hurricane.

Not a microsecond later, the sensation of metal forcibly being plunged between his ribs follows.

.

Harry's breath is non-existent, in the same way that Light's is torn from him with those stabs.

Three, three stabs of a blade into the chest of her only friend.

She barely registers spelling Light into a conditional stasis, but she does recall the way her barely leashed magic snaps free to tear at the offender. It roars with fury she has long thought herself incapable of feeling, rocketing forwards and slamming into the attacker -Light's attacker, the man who was trying to kill Light, Light her only friend- and it sends the man flying.

One lamppost from the street he's thrown out onto catches him, coiling around him in a blasé intimidation of a snake.

Harry doesn't care.

He's caught, and now she can focus on the fact her only friend is hurt, would be dead had she not decided to come and pester him.

Uncaring of the screams of the public, or the camera phones that captured her every movement, Harry shoots to Light's side, pressing her hand to his cheek when panicked eyes met her's.

Harry apperates them to safety.

.


Right so a bit of a bonus in this chapter, I've decided to write a little side story that in no way actually fits in, but I wanted to write it anyway, so here we are. Part one of Ardour.

I am seriously considering pairing Light and Hariel together, but even if I don't, I still don't know if this story is going to end well for the two of them or not. I don't know if it's going to be Light ruling the world, or an older Hariel looking back on bittersweet memories.

Tsume

xxx