((WOWIE, I did not mean to let this story go un-updated for so long. My bad! This chapter had been sitting in my document manager for so long now, I actually started it before Christmas time last year but never did anything with it! Gosh, I suck. I finally closed it off and decided to just post it now, whether I liked it or not, so I can try to force myself to get back into the mood to update this. It's also super short in comparison to my other chapters, but I couldn't force myself to write anything more so you'll have to make do for now. I'm writing another chapter as we speak so hopefully I'm not as much of a jerk as I was with this update.
My BB is a little rusty, so let me know if I get anything about his personality wrong! I also got a few questions asking whether BB was going to be a romantic interest for Ruri in this story. I'll leave it up to you guys: right now I have a whole bunch of people voting for Ruri/L and Ruri/Light, so let me know whether you'd prefer them or Ruri/BB. I'm basing the ending of this story off of what you guys want!
Enjoy the chapter!))
If Ruri had ever expected the day to meet somebody as insane as the man before her, she wouldn't have expected something like this. She would have expected chaos, insanity. She would have expected the man to try to kill her, or, hell, to torture her. She was terrified at the thought of meeting somebody like that.
This man was not like that.
No. As Ruri sat on her bed's edge, staring into the eyes of the man crouching onto a wooden chair he had dragged in from the dining room, she couldn't help but realize that he acted... almost harmless.
The second she had spotted his red eyes nearly glowing in the dark, she had broken down and openly sobbed, falling to the ground in absolute fear of what was to come. And then... then he crouched down and apologized. It was as if he felt actual remorse for scaring her so badly, and even though she searched his eyes for any evidence of truth or lie, she couldn't find anything. His body language was nearly the same as L's, but she could not read it. She could not read his eyes.
So he shushed her, even half-heartedly patting her on the head in an effort to relax her. Once her tears had subsided and all that was left was her confusion and slight terror, he'd crowded her into her bedroom once more. Standing there in the dark, with the man before her holding a blue flashlight, he glanced around the room for a split second before he jumped up and exclaimed, 'ah!', then ran out of the room, taking the light with him. Taking what little comfort she currently held with him. He returned a moment later, dragging a wooden chair behind him. He was grinning. It was terrifying.
He placed the chair in front of her, then crouched onto it like L would have. After a moment of staring at her, Ruri silently sat at the edge of her bed, watching him as closely as she could in the dark. His flashlight was pointed at the ground.
There, now we're all caught up. It's been nearly six minutes, if Ruri counted correctly, and neither of them had spoken a single word to each other. Finally, Ruri opened her mouth to speak, her scared voice croaking in fear.
"W-who...?" Was all she could manage.
He blinked once, as if shocked she would even consider asking such a question. He smiled once again, although his smile was much less maniacal as the last one had been. It looked almost... pleasant. She didn't understand it. She didn't understand him.
"You know who I am," he responded in an almost polite voice. Ruri brought her feet up to cross them in front of herself. He followed the movement with his eyes, before returning them to hers. She looked him over once again, perhaps for the thousandth time that night.
His charcoal black hair was just as messy as L's, although she noticed that his was longer. While L's hair just barely reached his shoulders, this man's hair reached just past his shoulder blades. His skin was pale, perhaps even more so than L's, if that was even possible. While his clothing was all the same as L's as well, although much dirtier, considering they were covered in dirt, mud, and dark splotches that she prayed to whatever God was listening that it was not blood, she was not staring at his clothing.
His eyes widened a fraction, and his grin grew to be the same crazy smile as before, when he realized what she must have been looking at. He tilted his head to the right, lifting one hand to raise his hair that fell over his face, as he grinned at her happily.
"Looking at these?" He whispered. Ruri gulped, letting out a shuddered breath. All across the right side of pale face and continuing down his neck before eventually being hidden behind his dirty white shirt, were a display of pink and red burn scars, spreading across his features with almost delicate-like designs. As if they had been painted on by an artist. It was both beautiful and hideous.
He dropped his hand, turning back to face her. His hair fell in front of his right side again, hiding the majority of the scars, although a few stretched just over the tip of his nose and the edge of his lips.
"I did that. To myself," he spoke, quickly adding the other half of his statement as if she needed clarification for what he meant. He's silent for only a second before adding, "Although it was a friend that made me do it..."
At the sight of Ruri's eyes widening slightly, his own eyes focused on hers again, leaning forward in his seat until the point where he was practically falling off of the edge and onto the bed. His eyes were largely wide, and he spoke in amazed wonder.
"So you do know what happened..? I thought it was impossible, for you to be here... to exist.." He spoke in a hushed whisper, and although his face was mere inches from hers, Ruri could hardly make out the sound of his words. It took her a moment to realize what he had said, and it took her a second longer to realize he was waiting for her to respond. She narrowed her eyes in confusion, tilting her head off to one side, trying to get away from him. L had gotten uncomfortably close to her before, obviously, and she had gotten used to that, but he was leaning in with his knees resting on either side of her legs, his face a mere few inches from hers that she could feel his breath ghosting over her features. She was vaguely aware of her face warming uncomfortably.
"I- y-yes..?" She asked, uncertain. She didn't know what he wanted her to say, and she was afraid to say anything other than what he wanted to hear, so she decided to stick with the simple answer.
He opened his mouth to speak again, before he suddenly went stiff. His mouth was still open slightly, his eyes still as wide as ever, before he looked behind her silently. The action made a cold shudder fall down her spine, as she imagined what could possibly be there, what could possibly make someone like him stop in his tracks.
Then he sighed, letting his eyelids droop down to their regular width before he stood from his position, one leg at a time. He winced slightly, just barely visible for Ruri to see, when standing on his right leg, and Ruri realized that his scars must still hurt him, even if just the slightest bit. Pity briefly flashed through her mind, but she shut it away quickly. This man broke into her home and practically locked her into her bedroom with him. He doesn't get any pity.
She turned in her seat at the edge of her apartment bed, staring to see what he was doing. He walked silently over to the window beside her bed, right above her nightstand. He pulled back the thin white sheet that she had haphazardly thrown over the window as a makeshift curtain, peeking behind the sheet slightly. He stares for a moment, and before Ruri could question what he was looking at or what it is that has him riled up, he turns, dropping the sheet back down into its' original spot.
"Well, it seems as though we..." he turns, staring into her eyes. "Are out of time."
She blinks slowly, comprehending what he meant.
"Seems my old pal is here for you..." he mutters, placing a thumb to his lips in the old fashioned 'L's copycat' kind of way. Then he's silent for only a second before he grins at Ruri. It was an empty smile with no ill intentions behind it, but it frightened her nonetheless. "We should be going now!"
He begins walking toward her bedroom door, and that was when she finally saw what he was talking about. There were several cop cars outside the apartment complex, along with one sleek, black car in the center which she recognized as L's. Then her mind finally catches up with her, and she starts in surprise.
"Wait- 'we'? What do you mean we should be going?"
And it was at that moment she realized how close he had gotten. Now within arm's grasp, he reaches out and places his hands on her shoulders. His fingers were cold.
"We have to be going. I have things I need to get done, and I need you for them... well," he tilts his head to the side curiously, something Ruri felt like a dog or a cat would do. "Most of them, anyway."
She narrows her eyes, anger and slight apprehension running wild.
"What makes you think-" she's cut off as he leans over, placing his shoulders near her stomach, and grasping the back of her knees with one arm. In one swift motion, he straightens himself out and she finds herself lifted over his shoulder like a sack of potatos. She lets out an embarrassing sound- somewhere between a shocked gasp and a pained squeal- as he turns around quickly.
"Sorry, I'm not asking."
As he began moving through her darkened home swiftly, Ruri froze with a startled realization.
"Wait! Stop! I have to-" she began struggling, hesitant to tell him why she needed him to stop, but determined to get him to put her down. As she struggled, placing her hands against his shoulder and back in an effort to hit him hard enough to perhaps drop her, he held her tighter, in an almost painful grip.
"Have to what?" He ground out, although his voice was muffled as he moved farther from her bedroom.
And as he opened her front door and prepared to run out, Ruri stared helplessly at her old purple bag, filled with her notes about this world's future. She could just barely see it as the man below her rushed out of her apartment, running down the hall at full speed, startling many of the people in the hallways who had come out in a panic when hearing the several police sirens. They were deafeningly loud now, and Ruri couldn't help but wonder how she hadn't heard them from her room. Apparently this place had better walls than she originally assumed.
Suddenly her stomach collides with his shoulder painfully as he stops suddenly, pausing and tensing below her. Though Ruri couldn't see what it was that made him stop, she had a good guess.
"Let the girl go and raise your hands above your head!" A hard, angry voice yelled from the front of the hallway. Ruri could hear several guns clicking as their safeties were turned off and pointed at the duo in the hall. She could see several people screaming and retreating back into their rooms at the sight of the guns, and Ruri began shaking.
Soichiro and his men were pointing guns at her.
Her antics had caused her to be run after and chased down by police and other law enforcement enough that she had gotten used to it, but not once had she had several loaded guns trained at her.
Her panic and terror were soon replaced by confusion as the man's shoulders began shaking slightly. He was laughing at them. He obviously knew they wouldn't shoot at him with Ruri in his hands. And so, as he turned and jumped into the nearest apartment, Ruri had only a split second to turn her head and stare down at the hallway full of armed policemen.
Her eyes connected with the light, chocolate brown eyes she recognized as Light Yagami's father. He seemed almost shocked about the criminal's humor in this entire situation, which, honestly, she couldn't blame him for. She also understood absolutely nothing that was going on.
Her view of her only hope of getting out of this mess in one piece was cut off abruptly as Beyond ran through some stranger's apartment. She could hear a woman screaming at the sight of the bloodied stranger carrying a young girl over his shoulder while running through her apartment, but Ruri's mind was still spinning too much from trying to make sense of everything happening right now for her to really care.
She definitely began to care when Beyond jumped out a window.