Hey so I haven't dropped down dead or anything like that. For the past two weeks I have been EXTREMELY busy, spending more time away from home than at it, and therefore away from my laptop, and so have had very little time to write and by the time I got back to this (Thursday) something else came up -which I will get to in a mo- and so the quality of this chapter may have suffered slightly because I am not quite happy as to how the second half ended. But I thought that it was cruel to ask you guys to wait another couple of days since it was now complete, and I may come back and edit this chapter to a more satisfactory level.
As for what happened on Thursday, many things. If you don't live in England you may not know that that was results day for A levels (think NEWT's in Harry Potter except in more boring subjects), which I have been waiting on to find out if I am going to uni this year or should just give up and find an alternative life. But, good news, I GOT IN! Ahhhh! So I've now been busy sorting out accomodation, job, essential items etc. etc. and so have not had any time to write in the past few days either. But the good news is, while still busy this week with all of that, I will also have a ton of more time to write, so hopefully the next update will be both on time and much better.
On a related note, in three weeks I shall be reporting to you not from my house in the outskirts of London, but from L's hometown itself, Winchester! And shall do so until I finish uni, or get thrown out, whichever happens first.
Now, on to something that actually relates to this story. In answer to vitamist, yes I did know that Karabas isn't a real Russian name- I came across the name when I was looking for a name for B and then decided to incorporate this other idea I had about B. I didn't know what he looked like (heh, that would be weird) but I will be playing around with B's background, especially his relationship with his mother, a bit, hence the dodgy name. Not a major plot point, but I thought I would assure you that I didn't just type something random into Google and come up with the first thing that I found.
Thank you to vitamist, Fairwaters and AnnaTheEmporium for reviewing and thank you to Wizard-Party-Forever, Unhorned Unicorn and WiReDtHeWrOnGwAy for favouriting/following this story in the last two weeks. I appreciate the support through the glaring gap that came down this week.
Anyway, now onto what you came here to read: this week's chapter!
He stood behind a one-way mirror, watching as they brought the prisoner forward into the courtroom. Mr Wammy had insisted that he didn't need to be here and honestly, this was the first time L had ever stood to watch over a trial in his life. But this was different from all the other cases that he had worked on- this time it was personal. He glanced over the crowds that had formed to see the end to this particular trial. There were the bereaved, the families of the three victims brutally murdered, sat in the front row, then behind them a crowd of apprentice lawyers, witnesses who had either already stood or were to stand today (except for him) and the supporters for the defence. It was the biggest trial of the year, had been going on for months and this would be the conclusion. Finally, sat at the back in the quietest corner of the room were the two people that he had been looking for- Mitsu and Mr Wammy, both of whom had blank faces.
The police sat the prisoner down, chaining him to the chair. L studied him carefully, wanting to know that this wasn't all some kind of mistake, that he hadn't been duped like some of the others. But everything he saw made him more convinced of his conclusions, as much as they were rooted in his own personal feelings as much as cold logic. The prisoner shivered in his seat, almost as if he were cold, sporadically shaking his head, glancing around the room with wild red eyes.
He tried to set himself on fire… L found himself thinking staring through the glass at the shell of an old friend. If he hadn't grown up with him, if he hadn't been present for that first breakdown, for his running off a few months after A's death, he might never have recognised him. The once tastefully ruffled curls were an untidy matted mess, the gel and straightened locks having been roughly pulled out and not yet brushed. The make-up had been washed off to show a face far more pale and sunken than it had ever been- once handsome features hidden behind stark cheekbones and eyes heavy with bags that had never been there before. And those eyes… where once they had held warmth, there was nothing left but a wild energy, somewhere between crazy, fearful and desperate. L suspected he knew the cause, after all the number of people in the courtroom was overwhelming even for one who couldn't see names and lifespans, let alone being the one standing on trial on the wrong side of the law.
Mr Wammy had tried to caution him from speaking on this case. L had disagreed so vehemently the old man looked as if he might have gained whiplash. As machine-like as L could be when deeply involved in the hundreds of cases sent in to him a year, he was after all only human. He had emotions, even behind the wall he had constructed, but L allowed there to be holes. Some of them were just bigger than others.
The judge finally entered, making a note of all those present before glancing towards the glass that L stood behind. He sighed- he knew that for this to work he needed to be on the other side of the glass and so stood from his seat, grabbing the detested tie and wrapping it around his neck. The suit was one that had been worn before, on more occasions than most would think for the amazing L, but L rarely accompanied it with a tie, expect for times like this. Funerals, weddings and court-cases he mused- only one was a desirable place to be, if only for the drink.
No one noticed him entering, although there were a few complaints as he made his way forward through the throng of people to the area where witnesses still stood to give their verdict. The prisoner must have noticed him as he twisted round, eyes latching onto his own. L found himself thinking back to that dark moment, oil pooling around his feet, this man on the floor. "Kill me!" he had screamed. L shook the thought away and glanced over to where the first witness stood. Everyone had heard from the minor witnesses already and now it was time for the last three, starting off with the FBI Agent known as Naomi Misora.
"This court opens the case of one, Karabas Bretznev, also under the alias of Beyond Birthday, alleged serial killer of three victims- Charles Buford, columnist in Believe Bridesmaid, Elizabeth Tantler, schoolgirl, and Taylor Channing, Manager of the HSBC LA branch. Evidence given by the Defence indicates that the killer was not in his right mind. Evidence by the prosecution indicates that the subject in question is undoubtedly guilty. To continue the evidence given by the prosecution today are witnesses FBI Agent Misora and Mr Smith. Final evidence for the Defence to be given by Mr Rue." The prosecutor's eye twitched as he stood up.
"Your Honour, I must object. All witness evidence for the Defence was given three days ago," he stated over the mumblings of the crowd. L watched passively as Naomi turned, searching out for the one person she least expected to be there. Fortunately, she was looking for the man with bags under his eyes, unhealthy pale skin and drab clothing. Mitsu had stated that if he were going to give this evidence he was to sleep properly, eat properly and dress properly if it was the last thing she did.
"For all the assholes in the world, you need to look the part, despite the fact that I'm with you against convention."
"Being against convention won't help us make a case here," he had agreed and ran through it once more in his head. Although it didn't make much difference in his appearance, it was just enough to throw someone who didn't know him all that well off. He had also allowed Mitsu to cut his hair last night, letting it brush the nape of his neck rather than the tangled bush that was closer to his shoulder blades that he had been sporting lately because he couldn't be bothered to get it cut with how busy he had been. He decided to make it his mission to keep it at least close to this length now however- having Mitsu come near him with a pair of scissors was fifty-fifty that there might be a disaster.
The judge merely looked at the prosecutor until he sat down once again before continuing like there had been no interruption in his opening speech.
"I call to the stand Mr Joshua Smith." A small wiry old man who looked as if he spent an immense amount of time in the hot Californian sun made his way up to the witness stand, overlooking everybody nervously. One officer approached him with a bible that he placed his hand over. L watched him carefully as the officer spoke the words most of the world knew well.
"Do you swear to speak the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help me God?"
"I do," the man whimpered, eyes wide. The bible was removed and the prosecutor stood. The evidence from this man was only slightly irrelevant- he had been the man to discover the first murder through his job as a janitor in the office building that the writer, Charles Buford, had been working in. He gave his evidence in a rasping voice, intimidated by the flashing cameras, the demanding questions from both sides and the general atmosphere of the whole case. It might also have something to do with the fact that the prisoner was staring directly over his head, no doubt reading the name and lifespan there, dedicating it to memory. If people knew what he could do, very few would have been brave enough to take the witness stand L had once mused, and he knew that it was true. No one wanted a known serial killer to be able to track them down and shorten how long they had left to live.
Finally the man was done and the judge allowed him to go. He shoved his way past even L, still shaking slightly, but he stayed, settling in the back close to Mitsu. And then it was the turn of Naomi Misora, and the evidence she had to give, he knew, would make it very difficult for him to plead his case. After all, a crazy person was not supposed to pull off the act of a normal person- then again, L knew that his own behaviour was hardly considered normal outside of Wammy's House.
"I call to the stand Miss Naomi Misora, detective under the FBI." There was a slight murmuring to that, those behind L muttering about how this would be the damning evidence that would finally have the maniac locked away. Naomi didn't react, not when she walked up to the witness box, nor when she took the oath and sat back down as the questioning began. L could sense the unease in the room growing the longer her statement carried on. This was being aired live to thousands of homes, with millions of people watching and judging. But the problem was they only knew half the story. Even L didn't have all the pieces of B's descent into madness but he knew that something had to have happened. Overwhelming as he talent might be, B had never lost it as completely as he had now, never so much as hurt a fly if he could help it. Dead bodies were one thing, living ones quite another.
"And you say that the suspect in question managed to successfully fool you and any other authority figures you came upon that he was the detective L?" Misora seemed slightly insulted by the undertone of patronisation in the prosecutor's voice, as if he thought that it was obvious that this could all be explained because of Misora's mistakes. But they weren't mistakes that any other officer would have made. After all, nobody had met him before in such a way, nor had they seen Mr Wammy's true face and so therefore didn't know that he kept him around at all times, that Mitsu would sometimes pop in to see him when he was in the States, no matter where in the country she was. They were small things, but things that no one else other than an old intimate friend would know, such as B.
Sometimes being so secretive was a drawback, and this only highlighted that to the extreme.
"Yes, he did. It wasn't until he tried to kill his own persona that I realised that he was, in fact, the murderer," Naomi stated and the prosecutor nodded and began to move on.
"And there was nothing that may have made you suspect that he was more than he said?" Naomi glanced towards B who was staring so intently at her name and lifespan, she might have thought that he was trying to kill her with his eyes. She seemed uneasy with the change in appearance, obviously wary of the true face of the killer she had been tracking. Such an ordinary face if you didn't look at the eyes. L watched her too, knowing that she would only recognise him once on that stand and that tonight she would receive a visit from Quillish Wammy with a contract that swore her to secrecy. She would most likely question his decision to speak out here for the rest of her life.
"There were some odd habits that he had," she started hesitantly. "But I wasn't sure that they were his…" The prosecutor prompted her on with raised eyebrows. "He would practise laughing in the middle of the night and ate jam out of jars with his fingers. At the time they seemed like nothing more than odd quirks of a mad genius although in hindsight they were actually clues as to his real identity," she admitted, glancing towards her lap. Clearly she was frustrated with herself that she had failed to notice such a thing. The prosecutor nodded and allowed the defence lawyer to step forward. Like L, the defence lawyer knew that his client was both guilty and insane. He was not pleading for an innocence charge but merely insanity. Whether that would save him or not, was another matter.
The defence had little to say other than to question her thoughts into the state of Mr Bretznev's mind, whether she believed him stable and if she thought he was aware of what he was doing. L could have answered them all for her with the truth. No, no and yes. He was aware but he could not stop himself all the same. In those few moments between when Misora had left to get help and the police arriving, B had begged for him to finish him off before he could hurt anyone else, before what he labelled 'the monster' got out once again. B had moments of clarity but he needed help far more than A ever had.
Finally it was L's turn to move towards the stand.
"The court calls forward Mr Ryuzaki Rue, speaking for the detective L." There was a quiet uproar at that as the journalists in the room began to have a field day. The detective L had never spoken for anyone before, especially not in defence of those criminals he put down. Personally, L thought that there was a special place in hell reserved for journalists and he despised every one- his reasons were his own and it was none of their business why B could not die.
Taking a deep breath, L pushed his way to the front, to take the stand for the first and last time in his life.
L woke up in the early hours of the morning, for no other reason than he couldn't sleep. The nightmares had begun to re-surface, all now sporting a new face. Raito Yagami seemed to be in every one, face twisted in some inhuman way, lurking in the background at all times. In one he had been smirking in the darkness as he and Mitsu were thrown out of their house, in another strangling him, smiling all the while and laughing as L struggled to breathe. In this latest one, he had been dreaming about B's trial, except when he went to take the stand, he was right there in the front row, glancing down at his watch as if counting something down.
L didn't know what that meant but it frightened him in some way. There was not much left in the world that could frighten him but these nightmares were beginning to get a little too real to be nothing. Normally he dreamed about failing- failing B, failing Mitsu, failing the victims of those he hunted down in the name of justice. These were more personal somehow and he had to get to the bottom of it.
Deciding that he was not going to be getting any more sleep tonight, he slipped out of bed and padded through into the kitchen, nosing through the fridge to the punette of strawberries that he knew was there. He had helped Mitsu with the shopping only the day before, partly to get out of the building that left nothing to do other than stew on the fact that none of his memories seemed to be returning and partly because he enjoyed the new found freedom of being able to move around, even if it wasn't far. Mitsu had made him promise to rest if he felt tired- in fact he was fairly sure that the threat had been that she would be sending him back to the hospital if he did anything reckless like before again. Deciding that he would rather stay in the building than return to the detested hospital, he had agreed and so far, he was getting better a lot faster. True, he was sleeping more often than before (it seemed like a waste to sleep through five hours of daylight a day at times, but then Mitsu was right that he could make them up later- there wasn't much an amnesiac detective could really do in a case he couldn't remember other than rest, read and catch up on all the notes), but that only bothered him when the nightmares came and those only appeared at night.
It wasn't long before Mitsu appeared, yawning and squinting at him in the early morning light.
"You are aware it's five in the morning right?" she complained as she stretched and rubbed at one eye, almost simultaneously.
"Yes." She scowled at him and nicked a strawberry.
"This is far too early to be up," she muttered, stealing another one. "You're supposed to be resting." He paused a moment to play with the strawberry he was holding before eating it.
"I couldn't sleep," he said eventually, watching as she then stole a whole handful, leaving only three in the bottom of the bowl. Her face softened.
"The nightmares again?" she asked, although she didn't have to. He was fairly certain that she had her own fair share of them, but it wasn't as if she was going to tell him. Mitsu was as close lipped about some things as he was and he knew that, just as he tried to protect her, she tried to protect him from things as well. It was touching to know that at all times, there was someone who cared about him enough to just drop everything and come live in Japan the next day like it was easy to do.
There was another reason that they were both awake but neither of them was going to state it to the other when it was so obvious. Today was Monday, the day that B would be arriving. He remembered the dream of B's trial, remembered the atmosphere in that court room that day. He had calculated that there was only a fifteen percent chance that B would be cleared through the insanity route- the American courts were fickle things and he had seen many in the same spot as B, clearly severely ill, who were sent for the death sentence through a technicality. Mitsu needed no reminder of that day either- it was one that they had silently agreed never to speak about again, like so many of the others, including the night of A's death.
They spent the next few hours of the morning doing nothing. L entertained himself with a book while Mitsu started on a new sketch- he had never spoken about her tendency to start painting when she was nervous since it seemed to calm her down far better than he ever could, although he knew that she appreciated any comfort he was able to offer her when the chance came. Eventually, whatever painting she was working on seemed to frustrate her so much that she dropped the pencil and flopped down on the sofa next to L who had already given up trying to concentrate on the book in front of him, instead opting to watch Mitsu instead.
"He's gotten a lot better," she said quietly.
"I know," he murmured, unsure as to why they were talking so quietly. It was something that was instinctual, something that Mitsu probably understood better than he did, like those feelings he had had when he let Raito into the building. That was something he still could not quite process, no matter how many times he had gone back over and analysed it- and in the past few days he had had plenty of times to do so.
And now here they were, waiting for the one person that could make or break this case. He knew that B now had a clear grasp on what was real and what was not, but that was through Doctor Collins' notes. L had spoken to both her and B over the phone but B had only been there for the past year and he had not been in the States for nearly two- the last time he had seen B, he was under the care of a man called Dr Harrison, who B did not get on with at all. In fact, L had had to arrange to have him moved before he ripped the man's face off in another fit and the entire journey to the next hospital had been unpleasant at best. Before this case had come up, he had been planning a trip over to see B, to see the progress that he was making under Dr Collins, one of the few doctors that L had come across willing to get to know B past the 'psychopath' image that kept coming up, but that had chance had passed when Kira started killing off criminals.
"Did you tell him about what happened?" he asked. Mitsu, on the other hand, was one of B's regular visitors, sending him news of L whenever she could and handing over letters that L knew Dr Johnson would never let through. She took him other things as well, keepsakes and sweets that she knew he would like from her travels, although he imagined that again, Dr Johnson would not let him keep those in any vicinity to the other patients or himself- the man in L's opinion was as incompetent as Dr Harrison.
Mitsu paused before answering, thinking about it. "I don't think I ever told him about the coma and memory loss but I did explain what had happened to Dr Collins. She said that she would give him the news when she thought that he was up for it. Apparently he was a bit shocked that she was coming with him on this trip and he wasn't just being shipped off elsewhere." L smiled at that. After all this time, it would be unlikely if B hadn't developed some kind of expectation of being left behind. Even his own mother had left him alone in the world, disappearing one day while he was at school back when he was still living in Russia. No one else knew about that outside of their little trio, apart from perhaps My Wammy, although he was dead now.
There was also something else bothering him that he couldn't quiet put his finger on. In just over twenty four hours, Raito Yagami would not only be haunting his dreams, but his reality as well. There was still that strange pit where his memories of what had gone on between them in the nine months that L could no longer remember and he didn't know what to do with it. His notes all pointed to one thing: Raito was Kira and therefore he could not be trusted. The ensuing three months in which he had been in a coma had only increased that suspicion, despite the fact that it was painfully obvious that Raito was doing everything that he could to prove that he wasn't Kira.
"I've made the right decision haven't I?" L asked, changing the subject. Mitsu eyed him for a moment, trying to work out exactly his meaning, although at this point L didn't mind whatever way she took it. It wasn't often that he second guessed himself, but the glaring holes in his memory made it hard to be sure that he truly was making the correct decisions. Bringing B into another country was a big step for everyone involved and he had wondered in the past couple of days whether he was making the right choice, or if he should even be making that choice for him. Even though he hadn't ordered him to come here, Dr Johnson would have sent him anyway, and he wondered if perhaps coming to place with such a high population density would just make B's episodes worse. The more people he was in contact with, the worse he got, no matter whether it just gave him a headache or sent him spiralling down that dark tunnel he had found himself in three years before.
Mitsu placed one hand over his own gently, clinging on to it like when they had been reunited all those years ago in the Wammy's House medical room. She, like him, would never speak to anyone else of these moments. "You've done all you can. I think that you made the right decision with B as well as with Raito. It doesn't matter what the outcome of the session is because it will be one step closer to figuring this all out." He nodded and stared down at the last three strawberries, still sitting uneaten in the bowl from all those hours ago. Just like the three of them, no one wanted them enough to care about what happened to them so long as they disappeared.
"Thank you," he said, not looking up. Then he took in a deep breath and glanced at the clock. It was half past eleven, well past the time they should have left to pick up B and Dr Collins on time from the airport. "Although if we don't move, I don't think either of them will thank us." Mitsu followed his gaze and swore in three different languages.
"We'll never get there in time!" He raised an eyebrow and shook his head at her.
"You've been in the garage in the basement. You know there are plenty of ways to get there on time," he said, smiling as he snatched a set of keys from the table. Mitsu had a habit of leaving them in a bowl, all jumbled together and unless you were aware of which keys belonged to which vehicle, there was little chance of someone stealing anything of value or getting into a room they weren't supposed to be in. It wasn't the most secure of ways to keep keys, but it was good enough for a building with as much security as this one- it might also have had something to do with Mitsu shouting that if he got more security she would be moving out.
Right now however, her eyes lit up when she saw the keys he was holding.
"I've got shotgun," she said, bouncing to her feet, grinning like a schoolgirl and racing off for the elevator. It was almost fun to try and catch up with her, enough so that he was able for now to put the issue of Raito from his mind.
Before anyone gets at me about court proceedings and how they work, I'm going on what I know off the top of my head here as I had literally no time for research this week. Hopefully I've done nothing too offensive in court jargon etc. I'm just putting it out there before anyone starting ripping into me about it.
I'm sorry that the second half doesn't feel quiet the same way as the first. Or at least,t hat was how it felt to me when I was writing it, although I have been writing like crazy these past two days trying to finish this chapter, and something about it just felt off. Some parts felt good, others not, but we go back into plot related stuff in the next chapter, which will hopefully be much better and feel a lot less awkward to write.
Please leave a review of what you think, even if you agree that this chapter it sub-par to the others or not. Thank you!