She will watch his world burn.
Enfer
| The thought had crossed my mind, that in order to save this world from Hell, I might have to become the Devil |
X
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Her mother tries to guilt trip her once in her life. It doesn't work. Nao watches with a blank face as her mother leaves the room. She remains seated next to her father on the couch.
"Otou-san." He looks up from the book, surprised – because Nao never uses such a formal approach, she actually uses the English word 'Dad' when referring to him. "What just happened?" She doesn't understand.
"Ah. Your mother tried to make you feel guilty."
"Uh…" She stares at the television for a second and then turns back to him. "What's that?" And why did her mother suddenly leave the room afterwards like she was horrified with herself.
Her father pushes a bookmark between pages, smiles and reaches to pull her close to him. He always has that calm and cool exterior, the one she's always known and will always know him by.
"Well…" Her father is the one who teaches her life lessons. No one should be surprised she turned out the way she did with such an odd coach. "To be guilty of something means that you've done something that society or the people around you consider bad." She nods her head.
"But I haven't done anything bad." He pats her head, ruffles her hair.
"I know that." He smiles fondly. "Guilt comes in many forms. Some people will try to make you feel guilt so they can manipulate you, so they can make you do things you don't want to do." Uh, that sounds horrible. "When people feel guilty, they are weak, easy to push around."
"Do you ever feel it? Guilt?" He chuckles.
"No and you won't either." She blinks. "You and I are special, Nao. Do you know what that means?" She shakes her head. "It means that every action we do has a purpose, that everything we do has meaning behind it." He smiles. "We don't feel regret; we don't feel the guilt. And while it makes people around us angry that they can't manipulate us, we don't care."
"Like when Izumi-Sensei says that I daydream too much and that should pay attention to the lessons and I say that I don't care?" She tilts her head to the side. "Or when she says that she'll call my parents and I don't care either?" He nods, pats her head once more.
"Sure, like that." Maybe not exactly like that, Nao will realize as she grows up, but even back then as a child, she understands that the things most people cared about, she didn't. "And your mother is upset because she realized that she tried to do exactly what her own parents did to her."
Later, when her mother brushes her hair and kisses her forehead, Nao understands what guilt truly is. It really does make people weak. Her mother never tries it again.
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"Yeah, they had to sedate her." Nao holds up her phone, sends a look towards Matsuda who is slouched over one of the chairs in the waiting room. "No, they don't know what could've caused it yet." She nods her head. "Yes, she's been asking for you – you should be here." She hears a rustle. "Okay, I'll tell him."
"Matsu." She says to the tired, worried detective. "Go home. Light is on his way and I'll wait for him." The fluorescent light is harsh on her eyes and that industrial chemical smell is everywhere around them.
"Nao-chan… I don't know what happened, she just collapsed." Matsuda feels too much. She knew it the first time she saw him and she knows it now.
"I know, but they've done everything in their power to help her. Now, we wait." The true problem is that whenever Misa wakes up, she's frantic and tries to remove the IV's in her arms. That why they've had to sedate her. "Go home. Get some rest, I'll look out for her." His smile is weak.
"Nao-chan, you and Misa-Misa are close. It's a good thing she has nice friends like you." Is she? Nao supposes she does feel some type of kinship towards the blonde. The both of them were thrown in the middle of the Kira case because of men who couldn't care less about them.
Matsuda squeezes her hand, doesn't bother straightening his wrinkled suit and sends a small smile her way. Nao calmly watches him disappear through the white swinging doors.
"Won't Higuchi worry if you don't hang around him?" It's good that it's the middle of the night and the emergency room is empty. Nao crosses her arms over her chest and stares at the air next to her. No, not at the air.
"We have a deal." Nao sits on one of the white chairs. "I only check up on him to make sure criminals die, besides that, he is free to do as he pleases." The voice is flat, bored even, but Nao isn't stupid enough to miss it. The Shinigami is worried about Misa.
"He thinks you're suspicious, that you somehow figured out that he is Kira." There's a pause. "But he's stupid enough to believe that he can seduce you with power and rally you to his side." Well, that certainly explains it.
"Ah." Nao is calm because the situation hasn't completely sunk in yet. There's a book, a notebook, it's black and the cover has silver letters on it. When you touch it, you can see the Shinigami that comes with it. "Misa will probably lose her eyesight, but everything else will be fine." It looks like she's talking to herself, she's sure. But there isn't anyone around anyways.
"Thank you." It's the first time the voice isn't totally devoid of emotions. Nao figures that if someone can seduce a mythical creature, it's Misa. That she has enough charisma to pull it off.
"So, Misa really was the Second Kira." And the detective had been right. "And Light really was Kira." Nao doesn't expect any type of confirmation. But just to say it out loud, to know it's the truth – L had been right all along. "But not anymore. Is this why Higuchi has the notebook?" The Shinigami hesitates, she can see it in the yellow eyes that stare back at her.
She needs to try a different approach.
"You care about Misa." She doesn't wait for an answer. "But that notebook, it destroys people and I'm guessing the only reason she got wrapped up in this is because of Light and her love for him."
"Misa gave up her ownership of the notebook, so I erased her memories." And it's probably the same things for Light too. "It would have been better if Misa never had the notebook. If she never touches it again, she'll never regain her memories of it."
And Nao realizes that even a Shinigami can feel guilt, that this unholy creature is somehow more human than her.
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"Deushi-san." She smiles.
"Please call me Nao. We're friends now, aren't we?" And the man smirks as he slides into the chair opposite from her. She's picked this place because she has fond memories of it. Her father and her have brunch here often.
"Nao-chan, then." He complies so easily. She isn't surprised to find that there is no Shinigami with him today. No, the creature is still in the hospital, watching over Misa. "How is your friend?" She thinks for a second.
"She's fine. Well, as fine as one can be considering her situation. Her boyfriend is with her." Because the Light who isn't Kira is the kind of boy who cares, that is human. Nao fully understands that the Light that she's been around the last few months is the one untainted by the notebook.
She takes a sip of her coffee.
"Higuchi-kun, we didn't get to talk much last time." His smirk is overconfident. The Shinigami is right, he wants to seduce her with power, thinks that she will fall for it. "I was surprised."
"Yes, but you already knew, didn't you?" Maybe this man isn't as stupid as he appears. "The moment I saw you, I knew you were smart, Nao-chan, too smart not to know."
"Will you kill me, Higuchi-kun?" He laughs, it's sick and twisted.
"I'd much rather keep you by my side, Nao-chan." She holds her cup of coffee in front of her face.
"I supposed a king would need a queen." And she's just so good at playing that role. He laughs again, obviously pleased with her words. Her eyes sparkle. Maybe she really is gifted at chess, maybe she's just played the game wrong before.
The queen makes a move, this time it's on her own and she removes another pawn.
Check.
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"Senpai." It's just her and L in the Task Force's main room. The screen that usually showcases Misa Amane doing inane things is black. Soichiro Yagami is off trying to console poor Matsuda who is still shaken. Watari never bothers them when their alone. Light is glued to Misa's side even if he hates it, because it's the right thing to do.
"Yes, Nao-san?" She has the oddest sense of déjà-vu or maybe it's just the fact that she's spent so many of her afternoons here, with him, alone, lying on the couch that she has claimed as hers.
"For someone like you, who has devoted his life to solving cases after cases, the worst feeling in the world would be to finally find a problem that he couldn't solve." She hears the chair slide on the floor and the next moment she looks up, black eyes stare back at her.
"Yes, that would indeed be the worst feeling in the world." She figured as much. Someone as narcissistic as him, who's spent his whole life trying to find the truth – he'd rather die than not be able to catch Kira. She smiles at him.
"What would happen, if the Kira killings stopped suddenly? If there were no more deaths and Kira disappeared?" But she already knows. The case would be put in the back burner; people would assume that Kira was dead or had just thrown in the towel. Life would return to the way it was before.
He's silent.
"You'd have to give up, wouldn't you? And in the back of your mind, you'd know you'd failed, that there was a case out there that you couldn't solve. That even the Great Detective L couldn't catch Kira. Would you be able to live with yourself, knowing that a killer whose murdered thousands still roamed the streets because of you?"
"Have I become that easy to read, Nao-san?" She can't even explain it, that look on his face. It's almost nostalgic, although she can't really see how. They've never had this conversation before. But maybe, just maybe, there was someone who once said those exact words, who realized the same thing as her.
Not solving a case would destroy him, but not quickly. It would be gradual, a slow gentle slope. It would eat at his insides and keep him up in the dead of the night, until one day even he would doubt his abilities. He'd solve other cases and people would still reach out for him – but it would never be the same.
"Eru." She spells out the letter like one would read kanji. And she doesn't hate him, not really. He doesn't care about the lives he destroys for his nonexistent war against criminals, but he's just a man. He has weaknesses. If you remove his purpose, what would he become?
She reaches out to touch his face. His cheek is cold against the warmth of her hand.
"You did it, you know?" He doesn't move away from her touch. "You made me care. Not about Kira, not about this case. Not even about the people that make up your Task Force." She smiles softly.
"Do you remember what you said to me? When you confessed about the fact that you'd never let me go if you somehow survived this case? Do you remember your exact words?" He blinks at her. For once, his thumb isn't in his mouth.
"Yes, I do." She smiles. "If Kira is brought to justice, if I somehow survive this, then I don't plan on letting Nao-san go." Yes, she remembers the words clearly. And then he'd done everything he could to try and break her, to bother her, to make it so she couldn't think of anything else than him.
"But what happens? What happens when Kira is never brought to justice?" His hand covers hers. She's not surprised by the strength of it, knows that he might not look like it, but he's actually strong physically. His hold is bruising and Nao knows that she's somehow found a way to anger him, that she's managed to do exactly what she wanted to.
She lives in a world where notebooks can give heart attacks to people. She lives in a world where Shinigami's exist. She lives in a world where there is a girl in the hospital who lost her sight because she fell in love. She lives in a world where the boy she used to baby sit wants to become a God.
And, in an alternate dimension, she isn't part of this. She is just a chemistry student who is passive and who never found a cellphone lying on the ground. In this other world, Kira and L battle it out without her in the middle. But that world doesn't exist, not anymore.
Because Nao cares now. And when she does, the world burns.
a/n: Here is a dramatic reenactment of what happened while I was writing this chapter;
'Oh, I don't want L to die - but I still hates his guts. But I don't want Light to die either. Oh and Misa just lost her eyesight, so she's pretty much out of the game... what do I do? But, but wait a minute, if Nao finds the Death Note and destroys it before Misa and Light can touch it again, that means Light would never become Kira again, thus not dying. And if the Kira killings stopped, L would never be able to solve his case! Wah, I'm a genius. But wait, how am I going to make that happen, it seems farfetched a little'.
Wait a minute, I'm writing a fanfiction about a magical notebook that kills people and Shinigamis - it doesn't have to make sense.
And this happened. Nao has stepped up her game and of course she wouldn't feel guilty, I'm not even sure she has a conscience. And that would certain piss of L, even destroy him on some level - gosh, that's just perfect.
I hope you enjoyed. I mean, fifteen reviews for one chapter? What is happening? Thank you so much for all of your feedback and I'm sorry to leave you on another cliffhanger. Three chapters in three days? What? I'm on a roll. And this story is almost complete! Thank you for reading, drop a review!