A/N: Urgh. I'm updating late again. This time it's two in the morning. Hah, well, at least I finished finals today. Now I don't have to worry about getting up super early! Woot!

Okay, this is gonna be a good chappie! I got very excited towards the end! :D

Blargh, I'm gonna cut it here tonight (THIS MORNING) you guys. I am so uploading this and crawling in bed.

The Art of Drowning

Unsettling Revelations

When Light finally returned to the car, his father didn't ask why his bloodied fingers were covered in dirt. Soichirou didn't mention the odd way that Light would continuously shoot glances at an empty backseat. He didn't even question why Light's suit jacket looked a little squarer than normal in one place where an inner pocket would be.

No, he just took one look at Light's pleading face, and decided that maybe some things were better left unsaid.

What he did say, however, was that they needed to hurry if Light was going to make the plane, and that Light should probably stop at one of the gift shops in the airport and pick up a bottle of pain reliever and a tube antiseptic cream for his fingers.

Light nodded, and Soichirou could detect the subtle relaxation of his son's tensed shoulders.

Some things really were better left unsaid.

"Now boarding flight 211 Tokyo to London at Gate C 34. Now boarding flight 211 Tokyo to London at Gate C 34."

As much as Light loathed it, he was still dressed in his funeral suit. Granted, it was torn in one place, and there were grass stains and a few unnoticeable blood stains on the knees, but he did look half way presentable. It was just slightly disconcerting to think that if he really were dead, then he'd be wearing this suit while he rotted six feet under.

Light got in line, glancing once more at his ticket just to make sure it was still there. Surprisingly, Light had gotten through security with no problems whatsoever. Considering the week he'd had, he was shocked that he hadn't been detained. However, the man had only glanced at his passport and new ID before shipping Yamaguchi Tsuki through without a problem.

Light grimaced at the similarities between his old and new name. He would have hoped that his father would have found something a little less connected to Yagami Raito, but he supposed it would be easier to remember answering to Tsuki than something else. He'd only have to remember not to automatically correct people when they pronounced his kanji wrong. Of course, he probably wouldn't have much trouble in England. He'd be signing his name in English anyway.

Light dutifully handed over his ticket to the smiling woman before entering the narrowed hallway that connected the airport to the plane. He suppressed a shudder, already knowing that the next few hours were going to be hell.

Light quickly found his seat, shoving the duffle bag his father had provided him with into the overhead. He was thankful to have the window seat at least. It was a welcome distraction.

He strapped his seat belt on and settled back into the seat, closing his eyes. He was so tired. Maybe he'd sleep through the plane ride. Then he wouldn't notice exactly how small it was on the inside. Just as he was about to drift off to sleep, the annoying sound of the captain addressing his passengers stirred him from his rest.

Light made a valiant effort to ignore the grating voice of the captain, keeping his eyes closed in hopes of dosing off. He heard a familiar chuckle, and he opened his eyes long enough to glare at the shinigami that was floating up and down the aisles.

It was strange having the annoying shinigami hanging around him once again. If he could have avoided it, he would have, but he couldn't leave the Death Note buried in the woods. The chance that someone would have happened upon it was slim, but Light wasn't in the mood to take chances.

He'd have to find a better place to hide it, because he definitely didn't need to have the blasted thing on his person. It was bad enough that it was shoved in his bag, where he would surely see it every time he opened the duffle. He didn't need to subject himself to the temptation, so he'd have to find an alternative once he reached England.

Actually, he was surprised to find that the little demon inside of him hadn't reared it's ugly head when he'd regained the notebook, but Light wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. He'd deal with that part of him when it came up, but at the moment he had other, more pressing matters to attend to.

"Does this plane have any apples?" asked Ryuk, for perhaps the third time in less than ten minutes.

And of all the pressing issues he had at hand, apples was certainly not one of them.

Light shook his head slightly, glaring at the twisted, hand-standing shinigami. Every time a stewardess walked through the invisible specter, they would inevitably shiver.

He hadn't had much time to tell Ryuk exactly what was going on, but when he'd informed the shinigami that they were on the way to England because everyone in Japan thought he was dead and someone really had tried to physically murder him, the shinigami laughed uproariously, commenting that Light was such an entertaining human.

Light was glad. He didn't want to think of the consequences when he ceased to be entertaining.

Light stared absently out at the early morning clouds. A bright array of pinks and oranges reflected off the clouds from the sun rise, and Light consciously made himself relax his tensed muscles. He would have to find a hotel to stay in for a few days once he reached London. Light had been pleasantly surprised to find an exceptionally large sum of money stashed away by his father in his duffle bag when he had been buying pain relievers and antiseptic ointment.

Light didn't want to think about where his father had gotten all that money. He hoped that his father hadn't dipped into his retirement, but nonetheless Light was thankful. There was more than enough to allow him a few days in a hotel, and he felt like he needed a few days to come to grips with recent happenings before he started planning where to go from there.

It had all just happened so fast.

One month ago he was an oblivious college student chained to an annoying detective with insomnia, frustrated to the gills because said detective was doing everything in his power to prove that Light was a serial killer.

Now, however, Light knew he had been a serial killer. He knew the true identity of that annoying detective. His father had initiated an elaborate plan to fake Light's death while some anonymous psycho fucker wanted him dead for real. He was on a plane, bound for England, to search for a family he hadn't even known existed, with only a few names and addresses and a crazed shinigami to keep him company.

He was dead to everyone, except his father, and Light probably would never see the man again. He was completely on his own. He would have to start out a new life in England, and more than likely he'd never see Lawli again either.

Never see him again . . . .

It was that realization, more than anything, that made the gravity of the situation come crashing down over his head. He really was alone. He wasn't just taking a vacation, no, he was dead. He was dead, and he could never go back to Japan.

The unknown stretched out before him, and it was all he could do to stop himself from hyperventilating. He had no direction whatsoever - not a goal, not a dream, not a clue. He would never see his parents or his sister again. He'd never even see bloody Misa, which could be a plus, but . . .

He'd never see Lawli again.

Light didn't know why this thought hurt so much. Wasn't that the reason he had been willing to sacrifice his life? Because he didn't want Kira to get to Lawli?

So why did the realization that he'd never see Lawli again make him feel like he'd had a hole ripped through his chest?

When Light had been willing to sacrifice his own life to save Lawli's, he had been more than glad to do it. Light would have been dead, and Lawli would have been saved from the threat of Kira, should the demon ever gain control again. This had made death such an easy option, but now that Light wasn't dead, he found that living without his friend in his life was harder than the thought of death ever was.

And so here he was, an emotional, directionless basket case. What was he going to do? Could he really just ring the doorbell of people he had never known before and claim to be some long lost relative? What had his father been thinking when he'd shipped him off to England anyway? Of course, that's where his father had gotten him from, but couldn't he have been sent somewhere else? England had never been a pleasant place for him, what with his biological parents having been mur -

His parents!

Why hadn't he realized that sooner? That psycho fucker had something to do with his parents, and whoever that psycho fucker was, he had asked his father to kill Light because he . . . knew too much? Knew what? What could he have -

Lawli.

It had to have something to do with Lawli. Light hadn't discovered anything else of greater importance than the identity of the detective who was investigating him under the suspicion that Yagami Light was Kira, but how the hell had psycho fucker figured that out when even Lawli hadn't known was anyone's guess. Then again, psycho fucker had known where he was for the past two weeks. Was it possible that psycho fucker had cameras in the building? This whole situation could be a lot bigger than Light initially thought, and it was a very unsettling notion.

But what did any of this have to do with his biological parents? According to Soichirou, the psycho fucker, for some reason unknown, had placed him in Yagami Soichirou's care, getting him out of England and a good few thousands miles away. Why? It was something to do with his biological parents, but it was connected to Lawli too, and he couldn't find any connection whatsoever between them except for himself.

So this led him to the question of just who exactly was this psycho fucker? And what was so special about Light that the psycho fucker felt the need to orchestrate his life and death?

Maybe that was what he could do? Maybe he could find out who this psycho fucker was. Maybe his relatives would have some information, and then Light could go from there. He could find out all the answers to his questions, and maybe the Death Note could be used just one more ti -

No!

He wasn't going to go there. If he really felt the need to murder someone, there were other options than opening himself back up to the darkness within him when he knew how susceptible he was. One name would easily lead to another, and he would fall down that slippery slope until he was back to being his own special brand of psycho fucker.

He would cross that bridge when and if he came to it. For all he knew, his family might not even know who psycho fucker was or why he would be after Light's head.

So it was a long shot, but it was better than any other thing else he could come up with at the second, and it gave him a goal either way. Light wanted answers, and he'd be damned if he didn't find them. Maybe his father sending him back to England was more of a blessing in disguise than a curse after all.

He reached into his pocket, folding out the paper that listed his relatives' names and addresses.

Yumi Thomas

Gregory Layfield

Roger Ruvie

That was all the information he had, and Light would have to visit them all before planning his next step.

Light glanced at his wristwatch. He had only been on the plane for an hour. He heard Ryuk muttering about apples a few seats back, but ignored the shinigami.

He sighed.

It was going to be a long trip.

L sighed.

It was going to be a long day.

Although he had given the team the week off, every single one of them had come in the following day to assist L with the case he had taken over from the police, who were more than happy to hand it over. Apparently body snatching, while not common, wasn't too uncommon either, but the bodies were rarely, if ever, recovered

The only team member who hadn't come in that morning was Yagami-san. No one had informed him yet, and L was loathe to be the one to do so. So, in a fit of selfish vindication over the hug from the previous day, L had volunteered Matsuda for the job of telling the police chief in person.

"B-but, Ryuuzaki! I can't tell the chief that his son's body was stolen! He'd kill me!" exclaimed Matsuda, wide-eyed.

L merely stared at him, his face deadpanned. Matsuda gulped, looking away nervously, before reluctantly agreeing to visit the chief after lunch. L silently congratulated himself as Matsuda shuffled out the door before turning back to his work.

There wasn't much to go on. The statement from the police officer who had happened upon the pair of grave robbers wasn't very helpful at all. The police officer claimed that it was too dark to rightfully make out the men's features, but he did remember that one of the grave robbers was wearing what appeared to be a suit. Strange outfit to be robbing graves in, that was for sure, and it was something that L would have to think further on.

The police had gathered evidence from the crime scene, but it wasn't much. The shovel and the ladder hadn't yielded any distinguishable fingerprints, and it was assumed that the criminals had used gloves. It was also assumed that the two men had to be relatively young and able because there wasn't evidence of the body being dragged anywhere. L postulated that the men must have carried the body.

The origin of the ladder and the shovel hadn't helped either. Both had been traced back to large manufacturers that shipped the products nationwide. It would have been a different story if the tools had been from somewhere a bit more uncommon.

Unfortunately, the police had only been able to recover one of the men's footprints, and it was deduced that one of the criminals wore a size eleven in boots. L had commandeered a team of analysts from the police station to figure out the name brand, where they sold the boot, and its manufacturer, much like he had for the shovel and ladder, in hopes of gleaning a general profile for the type of man he was looking for, but the results hadn't surfaced yet.

All in all, L was faced with a distressingly dead end. He wouldn't be able to find the criminals by what he had, unless the boot analysis revealed a finger pointing miracle, so he had the team researching lists of known or convicted men associated in human trafficking with a concentration in body snatching who work primarily in and around the city.

L would have Mogi call a few in for interrogation at the police station. At this point, that was really all L could do with what he had, and it frustrated him to no end.

After the other detectives left for lunch along with Matsuda, L slunk away to the kitchen. If there was one thing that L liked about Watari, it was the man's ability to always have the refrigerator stocked with strawberry swirled cheesecake.

Instead of taking merely a piece, L took the whole cake out and grabbed a fork before returning to his laptop. He felt like he needed the extra boost. This whole ordeal, what with Raito's body missing with no leads and the unknown Kira still out there and having murdered L's only friend, had stressed him to the point where he was averaging three cakes a day since Raito's death. This was he second so far, and it was only noon.

L really was stuck for the time being until he got a lead on either of his cases. He couldn't really do anything about the Kira case until the killings started again. Well, they had started with Raito's death, but killing Raito had more than likely been a way for Kira of discarding a pawn who wasn't useful to him anymore, rather than starting up his crusade once again.

L took viciously bit into his cake, upset that anyone could ever look at Raito like that.

Raito hadn't been a pawn. He'd been the most important players on the board, and the thought of Raito being murdered by Kira made L's blood boil. It didn't help matters that some sick criminal had stolen Raito's body. It was like the younger man couldn't get a break. Even in death, Raito was still being used.

L frowned, taking another bite of cheesecake, before almost choking when the gruesome form of Rem floated right through the wall.

"Rem!" exclaimed L, surprised to see the specter now of all times.

The shinigami merely granted him a look, obviously not understanding why her presence was being met with such an enthusiastic response from the usually unemotional detective.

"Yes, human?" asked Rem inquisitively.

"Where have you been?" asked L, his mind whirling.

"I may be bound to the Death Note in your possession, but I am able to freely wander for short periods," answered Rem.

L quirked his head. So the shinigami had been . . .wandering? Somehow, that didn't seem to fit with what he had observed from the shinigami before, but if there was one thing that L knew from countless hours questioning the shinigami, it was that she wouldn't give up anything she didn't want him to know.

"Where is the other human?" asked Rem, glancing around.

L assumed she meant Raito. After all, Raito had hardly left L's company once the shinigami had been introduced into the investigation. Truthfully, Raito had barely left L's company in months.

"I must admit that I am surprised. As a shinigami, I would assume that you would be aware when someone has died," replied L haltingly, curious to the other's reaction.

This statement seemed to shock the shinigami, if L was correctly interpreting Rem's facial expressions. Of course, considering the death god was not human, L might have been completely off.

"Yagami Raito is dead?" questioned Rem hesitantly.

By the inflection in her voice, L knew he had been correct in his speculation. The shinigami was surprised.

"Yes," answered L simply, dutifully ignoring the sharp pain he felt at such a confirmation.

The shinigami remained silent, until finally, "How did he die?"

"He died of a heart attack," answered L, scrutinizing the shinigami's response.

The death god's eyes widened. "You are sure that he is dead?"

"Yes, quite," nodded L.

And L was alarmed to see a horrible, twisted grin split the features of the shinigami, before the thing gave a breathy chuckle, murmuring about someone finally getting bored under her breath.

"I take it you find joy in Raito's death?" growled L, although not wholly surprised that a god of death would find such a thing amusing, he was still angry that anyone could be happy about his friend's death.

"I find no pleasure in Yagami Raito's death, but I find unbelievably pleasure in Kira's."

L froze. "Wh-What did you say?"

The shinigami regarded him cooly. "Kira's death brings me great joy, and now that Yagami Raito is dead, Kira is no more."

That was the last thing L heard before his mind with mercifully blank, and the state of catatonia found him once again.

EDITED: 7-4-09

A/N: Okay, short and sweet you guys, SAY SOMETHING! (and I freaking loved writing this chapter! XDDD)

GOOD NIGHT PEOPLES! FLUFFY PILLOWS, SOFT WARM BED, HERE I COME!!!!!!