Okay, a little heads up: There's a MASSIVE reference to a scene from Relight 2, during the Wammy's House flashback, so you'd have to see it first to get the beginning of this chapter. Yes, I think that little girl with the pigtails who asks L what he's afraid of, that's Linda. I mean, who else, right?
Anyways, just trying to portray L's thought process is hard, and it's even harder to translate into English once I'm "in the zone". I really like portraying the relationship between L and Light though...and no, I don't mean "that" kind of relationship.
"What are you doing standing out there by yourself?"
Light watched L out alone in the rain, getting utterly drenched. He looked over at him and put a hand to his ear, not quite hearing what Light asked him.
"What are you doing standing out there by yourself?" he repeated, this time louder.
L repeated his responding gesture, this time smiling. Light rolled his eyes. He just came out in the pouring rain and walked up to him.
"What are you doing, Ryuzaki?" he asked.
"Oh, I'm not doing anything in particular," L replied without looking at him. "it's just that...I can hear the bell,"
"The...bell?" Light looked at him sideways.
"Yes. The sound of the bell is unusually loud today,"
Light wouldn't understand, but L knew that. He heard them, and that was all. As he stood out by the window, looking out at the city lights and cars driving this way and that, the sound of the bell rang back in his ears. Louder than ever today...
And Light, asking him why he was standing out in the rain alone.
Light; ever since he'd first met that boy, something about Light Yagami had always made L uneasy. He was a perfect student, someone who believed in justice and wanted to do the right thing...maybe Light seemed too perfect.
But there was always something a bit off about him. It made L nervous. Scared even.
"Can you tell me if there's something you're not good at, or maybe something you're scared of?"
Funny how that one question from one of the orphans at Wammy's House instantly came to mind. He remembered who had asked it too...she was that one girl, the top student in Wammy's after Matt, Mello and Near, but somewhat self-deprecating and timid. She asked him if he was afraid of anything.
And he was. He was afraid of monsters.
"There are many kinds of monsters in this world. Monsters who will not show themselves and who cause trouble. Monsters who abduct children; monsters who devour dreams; monsters who suck blood, and monsters who always tell lies,"
"Tell me, Light, from the moment you were born, has there ever been a time where you've actually told the truth?"
Light was a monster. A monster of the lying type.
"Lying monsters are a real nuisance. They are much more cunning than other monsters,"
And Light was certainly cunning. Cunning enough to convince L that maybe, just maybe, he was innocent. When all the evidence was stacked against him, he still managed to connive his way into seeming innocence. Sharp as a tack, that manipulative little bastard.
"They pose as humans, even though they have no understanding of the human heart. They eat, even though they've never experienced hunger. They study, even though they have no interest in academics. They seek friendship, even though they do not know how to love,"
Why couldn't they see it? Why did the Task Force, the police, the students at Toho University, and Chief Soichiro Yagami himself, see that Light wasn't quite right? That there was just something off about him? L couldn't be the only one. Or perhaps, he could be...
"If I were to encounter such a monster, I would likely be eaten by it. Because in truth, I am that monster,"
That was what scared him the most about Light. About Kira. It was that, in reality, Light was simply L depicted through a mirror, of sorts. The image was changed, distorted as L saw it, be it better or worse, but still, it was a reflection of himself.
Light was, simply put, L in a different light; or L was Light, in a darker light.
In low light. He was Lawliet - the darker, more cynical version of Light.
That was what scared L. The fact that he was so similar to this person. Did that mean he wasn't so different from Kira, then?
But then, what if Kira and Light were two separate entities? Two different people, just within the same person? Multiple personalities certainly wasn't unthinkable for Light.
Who's to say though, that he wasn't like Kira? How else could he plan out Kira's every move and predict his actions? It was the same thing he would do too.
"Kira is childish and hates to lose,"
Kira would've gotten by a lot easier had it not been for his pride. If he had simply ignored the broadcast, L wouldn't have gotten as far, if he'd be able to get anything of a lead at all on him. Neither one spoke about it, but they both knew it was a race, and the victory of the one would mean the execution of the other.
Still, it was a race L was determined to win.
At the moment where he knew he was at a dead end, he concluded that at this point, Kira would kill him at any moment. So he took all the research that he'd collected on the Kira case up till that day and sent it to someone who had formerly worked at Wammy's House.
But then he changed his mind.
"What is it Ryuzaki?" Watari had asked him as he stood in the doorway.
"Watari, I need to think over the investigation," L had said. "By now, I'm sure that Light is in fact Kira, but I'm also pretty sure he'll kill me here and now,"
There was a pause, as they both pondered the thought of them both dying. Could they really let Kira win?
"Are you saying that you're sure Kira will win?" Watari raised an eyebrow - he knew the answer, but let L say it anyway.
"No, I can't do that. I'm too childish and I hate to lose," he smiled.
"You have a plan?"
"Yes, as a matter of fact. It'll be risky, but I've already gotten Rem to divulge at least one key point; the rules in the back of the book are fake,"
From there, the two of them came to the conclusion that each would fake their own deaths, let L's successors enter the scene, and, eventually, have L, Near, and Mello organize the case so as to defeat Kira once and for all.
Except, things didn't work out quite like that.
Mello refused to work alongside Near; he hated him, out of spite maybe, and jealousy. Even if it meant avenging L's death, he absolutely wouldn't cooperate with that little bastard.
And, when Minori discovered that the both of them had left before she could reach them, it was time for plan B: call on the next person in line of succession.
Namely, Matt.
He bought two disposable cellular phones and sent them anonymously to Wammy's House, as Christmas presents for both Matt and the other Wammy's orphan he would bring along. L didn't expect Linda to want to join Matt, but after regarding her near-photographic memory, he figured she'd prove useful in the Kira case. He later bought two plane tickets, sent out fake ID's and gave out instructions for Matt the night before he and Linda were to leave for America.
His next move would be to have them monitor Kira's murder patterns for a while. They would determine the number of notebooks that were being used in the murders, and see if any new "Kira" surfaced over a period of time. First the risk of faking death, now the tedium of watching the killer.
And all while L thought about this, he could still hear the sound of that bell...
I know it's short, but I didn't have anything else for this chapter. Happy L's Birthday to all!
