vengeance
Light pulled out the Death Note as they walked, his fingers brushing lightly, almost reverently over the black cover. There was a slight upward curve to his lips. 'Say, there may be over six Death Notes already circulating in the human world, but this Death Note will work while I'm here, right?'
'Yeah,' Ryuk confirmed. He cackled lowly. 'You got some people ya wanna kill, Light?'
Light seemed to ignore the Shinigami's question, instead turning his attention to the figure of Lawliet walking beside him. 'L-kun?' he queried.
Lawliet turned his dark eyes from the creeping mists, meeting Light's gaze. 'Yes, Kira-kun?'
'If I killed Near, would you be upset?' Light's eyes glowed a demonic crimson, but aside from that his expression was mild, almost angelic: all innocent, childlike curiosity.
Lawliet stared at him. 'You won't kill him, Kira-kun,' he said bluntly. 'Not until you rub his failure in his face.'
Light's eyes glowed ominously but his lips curved into a smile. 'You know me too well.'
Lawliet looked away and shrugged, outlined against the darkness in a pale, spectral antumbra. 'It's what I would do, if I were in your place.' He looked up, as if there were something hovering above them in the gloom; maybe a ghost of a moon, except that there wasn't even that. 'But to answer your question…'
Lawliet tilted his head, his dark, hollowed eyes once again fixing themselves on Light's face. 'Would you be upset, Kira-kun, if you were in my place and I killed Near?'
Light looked up at that same shadowy absence of a celestial body that Lawliet had been gazing at moments before. 'I would be disappointed,' he said, after a moment.
He looked back over at Lawliet and smiled indulgently. 'So I guess it's lucky for you that I hate to disappoint.'