Disclaimer! All fictional entities featured/ mentioned in this segment belong to Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata; except Erin Blogger, who I made up for the purpose of this fan fiction. Any other unfamiliar names may be either others original characters or allusions to real-life people, as referred to by the trademark abbreviation. The quote preceding this chapter is not mine, either. It's from Kahlil Gibran.
Believe me, I didn't have an easy time writing this. Nor will I have an easy time for the final chapters. I'll admit, the nail file thing was an asspull. I couldn't see any other way for Erin to get out, any other practical way.
On the plus side, Ryuk will be making an appearance, soon.
25. Traitor
…
"What is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst?"
-Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet, 1923
…
I don't know how long I was out of it. Not that it mattered, except for that it was too long. When I finally came to, I was alone, no longer in the elevator but on my bed in my room. I woke up to the sound of thunder rattling the windows, angrier and more relentless than I had ever heard thunder before in my life.
The back of my head throbbed almost as much as my eyes did, as I managed to get on my knees. I felt like I'd just rolled headfirst off of a merry-go-round.
Sweet Jesus of Nazareth…what happened, last night?
I didn't dare move any more until the room quit spinning and settled back into focus. I found my hat and glasses placed neatly on the bedside table: the first thing that struck me as a little odd, since I couldn't remember ever taking off either. Once I re-accessorized and had shaken the wobbles out of my legs, I got up and stumbled for the door. For a while there, I couldn't even remember what'd happened before waking up.
Until I got my hand on the knob and started to jiggle it. It didn't budge a mite.
Mounting panic rattled me out of my stupor, the more I stood there fooling with the knob. "Hey," I called out feebly to no one in particular, mostly to fend off the sounds of rain and thunder and isolation that gnawed at my insides. "Who's the joker that locked me in here?"
The sucky thing about most of the rooms in headquarters was that the doors were designed so that they could be locked on the outside. But only on the outside. That way, L could go in and out wherever, whenever he felt like, and still lock you in if he felt like it. You couldn't keep him out, but he could sure as hell keep you in.
My hands ripped away from the knob and began knocking on the door, harder and faster with every second that passed without a response. To the practical rhythm of my own irregular heartbeat. "Hey! Okay, the joke's over. Whoever locked the door, unlock it, please."
Knock. Knock. Knock.
"I'm se—I'm serious! Someone let me out!"
Knock! Knock! Knock!
"Asshole! Whoever locked it, unlock it now!"
KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!
That's when a little voice—the only company I had—hissed to me, L locked you in here, dumbass. Don't you remember? He knocked you out, then he must've dumped you in here so you couldn't stop him from getting everyone killed.
What? NO!
My memory struck me with the force of a jet plane crashing down, almost knocking me clean off my feet. Now I was switching back and forth between pounding on the door and yanking on the knob, between barking and whimpering like a dog begging to go outside. "Ryuzaki, where are you? Where the hell are you? Get back here!"
But L was nowhere to be heard from, needless to say. No one was. I could've woken up too late, for all I knew. For all I knew, I was probably the only soul left in the whole goddamn building. The only soul still living, breathing, fighting.
"Come on! L-lemme out! Lemme outta here! Someone, lemme outta here! Ryuzaki! M—Mr. Yagami! M-M-Matsuda! ANYONE!"
KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!
"LEMME OUT, YOU STUPID BASTARDS! YOU'RE ALL MAKING A MISTAKE; PLEASE, LEMME OUT!"
I cut it out. Banging on the door, I mean, having lost all the sensation in my swollen hands. Before I knew it, I'd collapsed on my knees, forehead pressed against the door as fat, angry tears rolled effortlessly down my cheeks, burning them raw. My jaw must've clenched so tightly, I was almost afraid it'd never loosen again. Suddenly, it felt as though I was caught in a vise, all the air squeezing out of me as my voice shrunk to little more than a cracked whisper.
"Please…someone…let me out…please…"
That's when I remembered the laptop on the table. Watari!
I kind of started to get this sinking feeling that no one would be coming to my rescue, pulling me a little further under with every irretrievable second that ticked by. But I struggled back onto my feet and dove for the device anyhow, hoping strictly for the sake of hoping. Like fighting an undertow before drowning out at sea.
"Watari! Watari, pick up! Please pick up!" I was shouting for him before I even got around to logging on, like I always did.
But even when I did log on, Watari didn't reply, like he always did. Not sooner, not later, not ever. His little "W" didn't even blink on the screen. Just stark black. The drumming of rain against the windows substituted for Watari's warm, grandfatherly voice.
"W—Watari? Where are you, old man?" I demanded, leaning in as close to the dead screen as possible. "Pick up!"
…
I face-palmed. "Aw, Watari, not you, too! Pick up! Please!"
…
"Pick UP, goddamn it!"
…
He's not picking up. He'snotpickingup, he'snotpickingup, he'snotpickingup—
"AAAAUUGH!"
With a frustrated roar, I smacked the damn thing off the table, letting it tumble to the floor with a thud almost as noisy as the thunder rattling the walls. I know: a pretty dumb thing to do in a time like this, but…he wasn't picking up.
Why wasn't Watari answering?
I thumped my face on the table and shielded it with my arms, crying even harder than I'd been fifteen seconds before—as though that were even possible.
I'm…I'm too late, aren't I? Rem got 'em. She sent them all to Gonersville. It's over—
Shut up! It's NOT over; don't you DARE say it is! If no one's gonna let you out…then get the hell out, yourself.
My inner voice had never been more right…or I just had never been more delusional. I couldn't give up, yet. Who knew? Maybe they hadn't even left, yet! I still had a chance! I needed a chance! I deserved a chance! Just one...
…
Naturally, my first order of business would be to get the hell out of my room. And unfortunately, by the way things looked for me, I would have to break myself out. My knowledge of Hollywood-brand escapes—and its relevancy, for that matter—would be put to the test.
First, I thought about climbing out the stupid window, maybe sidle along the outside walls of the building, like in those spy movies. But that idea struck out, right away. I couldn't even bring myself to open the window. All I had to do was look outside, at the rain and lightning and how far below me the ground was…if there was even a ground. The storm kind of obscured everything from plain view. And bam! My stomach leapt up my throat.
Yeah. That's not gonna work. I was never known for a terrific sense of balance, under any circumstance. I wanted to stop the team from killing themselves, but I couldn't do that if I killed myself, in the process. I was crazy, but not that crazy.
…Now that I was thinking about it, no one was crazy enough to climb out a window to escape. The spies that did that in the movies? I bet they were really only six inches from the ground when they were doing it on the set, and the producers used fancy special effects to make it look like they were doing it at six thousand feet from the ground. It took me until that very moment to realize that. Movies: Jesus Christ, they can ruin you.
Next, I peered up towards the ceiling to see if there was an air vent I could maybe crawl into. No dice there; I did find a vent up on the ceiling, but it was way too small, a practical mouse-hole. A little kid could probably get through, like Misa, for instance, but not a chunky monkey like me. I'd probably get my head stuck in there, before anything else. How productive that would be. So that idea struck out, too. I didn't bother with that, either.
Then I looked at the damn door itself, the only barrier between me and the rest of the building. If I could somehow bypass it, I'd have it made. But how? I started to ransack my own room, in hopes of finding something that could help me out: maybe a pen or a bobby pin or a—
"Eureka!" I shouted to no one, the adrenaline rush making me woozy as I lifted up a nail file to the light like it was a precious treasure. In a way, it was, too. The place that I'd found it?
In the make-up bag Misa had given me. She'd wanted me to get into the habit of prettying myself whenever the opportunity arose, including my stupid nails.
Never had I felt more grateful before in my life to have a nail file, regardless. I was kissing it and everything, I was that ecstatic, tears welling up in my eyes. "Yes! Mwah! Thank you! Thank you, Misa!" I was so happy that I'd actually forgotten for a minute that Misa was the Second Kira and all. But she was still my friend, so what would it matter even if I had kept that in mind?
If I even had a mind left…
Suddenly, the lights flickered above me. What was that? Just a normal power surge brought about by the weather? Or something more sinister...?
Either way, I didn't take it as a good sign.
Get cracking, dumbass. The clock is ticking.
Before long, I was staring down the door like a cowboy at high noon, the nail file grasped in my clammy, trembling fist like a trusty .45-caliber pistol. Wiping the sweat and tears out of my eyes, I struck first (naturally), collecting all the resolve I still had to get to work on prying the knob off the door. I'd even twist out the damn screws from the hinges, if I had to, my respect for people's property tossed by the wayside. The way I felt then, I was prepared to dismantle the whole goddamn door from top to bottom and back again.
…
About twenty-five minutes later—twenty-five minutes too long—I was storming down the hallway with the nail file raised over my head like a spear, sweating and panting and howling with the weather outside in a kind of awful duet while I kept calling out for the others.
"Ryuzaki! Watari! GUYS! Where the hell are you?"
My voice echoed across every hallway I charged down, the only reply I got. The longer that went on, the louder I got, the faster I ran until I found it a blue-eyed miracle I didn't trip and slit my crazy throat with the file, along the way. I must've stumbled at least fifty times on the way down and I ran all the way, taking the stairs and all, having no trust or patience for a slow-ass elevator ride. I could hardly see straight, anymore, so juiced on my runner's high that it felt as though I was running on thin air, on fire from the waist down and neck up.
The farther down I traveled, the more I stopped to barge into rooms where I thought the gang could be. I was on my way to the monitor room when I came into this one empty room, the only noteworthy object inside being this pile of white sand or dust or something like that, scattered across the linoleum.
Wait, sand?
What the hell was sand doing in the middle of the floor? Did the guys go to the beach or something and dump out their shoes in here? Though, this didn't look like any beach sand I'd ever seen. Curiosity momentarily forcing my insanity into the backburner—ADD, I swear to God—I slunk over to check it out, dropping to my knees in both examination, and exhaustion.
What I found partly buried in the sand, however, flared me right back up. Dusting a little aside with a shaking hand, I thought I could see a pair of hoop earrings gleaming under the dim fluorescent lighting. I'd never seen earrings like those on any of the ears on the team, not even Misa's or Wedy's.
…
Hey. Didn't Rem wear earrings like these?
I never saw actual ears on the shinigami, but I could remember how she had earrings dangling underneath all that tentacle-hair. Even shinigami liked to be a little fashionable, huh?
Hold on. Were…these Rem's, then? What were they—?
…
Holy shit.
Somewhere else in the middle of all that sand and dust, I picked up some kind of black, brittle, charred material, rubbing it in my fingers. Funny, how it felt like the remains of a…
…burnt notebook.
Once I put two and two together, I almost had an aneurysm. My whole body jolted, and I toppled straight down on my ass, scooting away like I'd just touched something evil. And in a way, I had. The only good explanation as to what I was looking at would have to be that I was looking at Rem.
Rem's remains. Rem's corpse.
Outside of the silver screen, I'd never seen a dead person before in my life, much less a dead shinigami. Even on the screen, I'd get kind of queasy about seeing anything related to death, no matter how glamorous they would try to make it look.
Now, here in real life…I didn't simply feel queasy. The whole system went numb. When I said that I didn't want any more people to die, goddamn it, I'd meant it. I just hadn't counted on the possibility of shinigami becoming casualties in this fucked-up PS head game of Light's and L's.
(What an awful thing to call the whole mess, but I don't know what else to call it, except a game.)
Somehow getting back the nerve to inch forward, I dropped back on my knees and shook my head, quivering with every quiet sob that crawled from my throat. "Rem, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I—I thought shinigami couldn't die, Rem. What h-happened? Wh-who did this to you?" I asked, like she could have answered me.
A power box on the wall hung open, one of its wires crudely severed, as though with a blade, or claw. No sparks flew from either end at this point, but maybe earlier...
I wondered if Rem had done that, before she...
It felt as though something heavy had been placed on my shoulders, the feeling that I could've somehow prevented this. How exactly, I wasn't sure, but that didn't keep me from feeling the way I did, like I could've stopped it.
If L hadn't knocked me out and all.
But what happened to Rem? What could've possibly happened that…killed her, for lack of a better term? You couldn't hurt a shinigami. Could you?
I had to wonder: did this have something to do with Light's stupid plan, too? I mean, naturally. Anything and everything that'd happened that day would all have to be Light's doing, somehow; guy thought too far ahead for his own good. He'd set old Rem up to wipe out the task force when they decided to go after Misa—
Rem's notebook was destroyed along with her, provided that the black stuff really did used to be her notebook. The one I'd warned L about, or at least tried to, that jackass.
Hold on.
Was Rem's fate connected to her saving Misa, in some way? Did…something happen to shinigami if they used their notebooks to save people? Maybe that would've been why Rem hadn't killed us all off right away? I bet Light had had that in mind, too, the—
…murderer.
But…if shinigami turned to dust and sand by saving someone's life, then wouldn't finding her remains like I had mean…?
All of my organs dropped to the floor, while the world began to crumble and burn around me.
It's already happened. She got them. I'm too late.
I'd have to give Rem a proper burial once this was all over, however, whenever, if ever that would be. But for that moment, I struggled to get my footing back so I could hightail it to the monitor room. In a way, I didn't want to go; I was scared near shitless of what—or who—I would find there. But where else did I have to go? I couldn't turn back now. Instinct had highjacked control of my mind, having beaten, sacked and stuffed reason in the trunk a long time ago.
No one was there when I made it to the monitor room. Nobody. Not even our two sad brainiac clowns. My eyes darted back and forth across the room in search for a sign of life, my breath bouncing across the vast, sterile space until it almost sounded like a big, formless monster was here with me, lurking in the shadows over my head in ambush.
I did find something, over by the wall with all the monitors. Some of them were on, actually, giving me—and whoever had been in here—a view of the hallway just outside.
Judging by the tea set sitting on the goddamn desk, L must've been here.
The cup was still full. Untouched.
Something's wrong something's wrong something's wrong wrong wrong—
That's when I got a closer look at the camera view of the hallway, and saw something that stopped the earth's rotation dead in its tracks. Somebody was laying face-down on the cold linoleum floor, by the elevator. Not moving, not breathing.
An old man in a suit.
He looked like Watari.
No.
No no no no NO—
The trek out there felt like twenty miles, like I were caught up in the middle of an awful slasher flick that I couldn't tune out of, no matter how tightly I squinted my eyes. That body outside…it had to be a prop. Just a prop. It had to be. The real Watari would come waltzing out of that elevator any minute, with or without Misa, but smiling, moving, breathing, living—
The nail file slipped from my grasp and clinked to the floor, forgotten.
Prop or otherwise, Watari's body up close was an image that branded itself to my memory, never to leave it, like an ugly burn. When I knelt over him, I…wasn't sure if I could touch him, should touch him. I was afraid to. But I did, in the end. After all, Watari would've done the same for me.
His arm felt like a dull, useless piece of meat in my hands as I felt it for some kind of pulse. I was no doctor like he was, but anyone, even a jerk like me could find a pulse on someone if they were looking for it.
There was none. Not even a flicker.
Watari's arm trembled in my hands—or my hands trembled around Watari's arm—as I placed it back in almost the same position as I'd found it, as gingerly as possible. When I reached over to feel his neck—goddamn it, I would find a pulse somewhere—I saw his face. I will never forget that face. Rigid and grey with the lack of life, Watari peered at me through dull wide eyes, his mouth hanging agape in a kind of eternal shock. As though forever wondering what the hell he did to deserve death by a fucking notebook.
Why, Rem? Why Watari, too?
I took off my hat and clutched it to my chest, my cheeks now numb to the sting of tears trickling down them. Of all the things I should've told him that buzzed in my ears like raging hornets, one thing stung me in particular. Our last exchange. I didn't know that that would be our last exchange.
…
"Stop screwing with me, old man! This is an emergency! Tell me where he is, NOW! Please?"
"I'm sorry, Miss Crocker. Whatever it is you need to tell Ryuzaki, you can tell me, and I will give him the—"
Click!
…
Closing my eyes, I guided my hand over his face to do him the favor of shutting them for him. I just couldn't bear seeing him wonder anymore, why he had to die. Oh, Watari. I never meant to treat you like that. But I did, anyway. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry for all the times I called you "Grampa" and "old man." I'm sorry for how you were always so patient with me, and I didn't return the favor. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry…
But it didn't matter how many times I said it. Watari was gone. He couldn't hear me, no matter how much I wanted him to. He was gone. Nothing I could do would change that. He was gone.
I wouldn't have been the least bit surprised if the whole goddamn hemisphere heard me scream.
…
Misa was nowhere to be found with Watari. She must've toddled off somewhere to meet with Light. Maybe give him her notebook, what with everyone else having been—I couldn't even say it. Well, it didn't help at all that I couldn't find anyone else, dead or alive. Not even L.
I told you this was gonna happen! I told you, I told you, Itoldyou, Itoldyou! Why? Why didn't you listen to me?
A question that would never get an answer. Or maybe the question was, why had I ever expected that asshole to listen to me? He never listened to anybody, much less to me. If only he could see where his listening skills had gotten him and Watari…wherever the hell he was now.
Only one option left. I didn't want to do it, but someone had to.
I found the couple out in the lobby, by the entrance, like they were waiting in ambush for something, or someone. I had to prop myself up along the walls for support. Peering out from the safety of the corner, I saw Light stooped over a black book with a pen. He was scribbling something down. A name.
God, I would never get over how seemingly easy it was to kill someone for those two, in mind and method. I didn't know who they were, anymore.
Misa hovered over him, her face blanching in what looked like…horror? "Light? Why are…why are you writing your dad's name?"
He's doing WHAT?
Just hearing that almost gave me a heart attack.
"It's to help build the new world," Light replied with a calm conviction that shook me more than any of L's antics ever could. Like he wasn't in the middle of killing his own father, the man who probably taught him just about everything he knew about justice. For all that was worth.
I saw Misa's face start to crumble. No matter how devoted she was to him, I guess even she couldn't believe that he would stoop this low. How could this be the same guy who'd avenged her parents when he was about to kill his own father in cold blood? "B-but Light," she whimpered, "h-he's your father! Why?"
Yeah, Light. Why? Why for everything?
"Oh, would you be quiet?" he snapped. "No matter how important they are, you have to be able to sacrifice them. Don't tell me you've forgotten that too. There's no turning back now, Misa."
As he went back to write more Misa's face sewed itself back together, her lips drawing into a small, stiffly obedient line. Like she were just…going to leave it at that. God forbid she defy her "god," for love or money.
Or was it because she'd done something similar a long time ago?
That made something in me that hadn't already snapped, snap. Enough was enough. Tearing myself off of the wall, I charged straight for the two of them, mostly for Light, howling out his name at the top of my lungs like a wasted college quarterback, not once thinking how this could very well be the last thing I'd ever do.
"Exchange-Student Reporter Tackles Kira!" What a way to greet a killer. Definitely not a stunt you'll find in any movie except a cheesy comedy (or biting satire). But that wasn't the point, not at all. Hell, I didn't really know I had him in a half-nelson, in a way, or even who was in that half-nelson: my friend Light, or that monster Kira. The longer I looked at them both, him and Misa, the more it felt as if they were each two distinct people occupying the same space as one. Like those crappy optical illusions of the worst kind.
All I knew of in that moment was how close he was so I could sob in his ear, "Where is he? Where's Ryuzaki, you sick sonofabitch? WHERE IS EVERYONE?"
I couldn't see much of his face, since I was behind him and everything, but I could hear him choke ever-so-slightly, "Elin! What's gotten into you? What are you talking about?" That killed me, how he said that, like he was as innocent as innocent could be and honestly had no clue at all why I was on top of him, locking him in a half-nelson. He reached up to try to pry me off.
"Don't pull that pigeon shit with me, Yagami! You know goddamn well what I'm talking about! You killed him! You killed him, didn't you? You killed Watari, YOU KILLED ALL OF THEM!"
I was losing my grip on him, partly because I felt sick, but mostly because Misa picked that moment to peel me off of him herself, shrieking, "Back off! Get your dirty hands off him!" And get me off she did, with unsettling ease. I had about four inches and at least fifty pounds on her, and she could still kick my ass.
Screw modeling. Misa should've been a pro wrestler or a club bouncer. No wonder Light didn't get me off himself. Why waste the effort when you've got a rabidly devoted girlfriend with boundless energy to do it for you?
Most of it is a blur to me. I remember mindless cursing—a lot of it from me, naturally—and crying—again, a lot of that from me. Scalp-clawing, hair-pulling, and a ton of shoving and smacking and tumbling around until my face had gone almost numb with endorphins and the world seemed to be spiraling out of control before my very eyes: the way it had since the day had begun, only more literal. I think I lost my glasses somewhere along the way, too.
In the end, Misa had me pinned underneath her by the wrists, straddling me around the waist as she batted my hat out of my face, almost playfully, and stared down at me through flashing, feral eyes. The pigtails on her head looked to me like horns.
What she said next turned every drop of blood in my veins to slush.
"E…rin…Blog…ger."
SHIT! How could I have forgotten about the stupid Eyes?
"Misa. No…"
Without a mite's hesitation, Misa tossed her head to holler at Light, "Her name's not Elin Crocker, Light! It's Erin Blogger! E-R-I-N-B-L-O-G-G-E-R!" She even spelled it, for Christ's sake. There could only be one reason for that.
They were going to write my name down. My two friends…killing me with a notebook. Brother, what a hot one! The hottest one I'd ever heard of since the whole case had started, maybe in my whole life.
Misa's crucifix necklace seemed to swing back and forth over me like a pendulum ax, her face blooming into a deep shade of red, almost as red as the blood she'd shed for all of these months with her boyfriend. All in the name of a better world?
My ears, my mind, started to buzz like the snow on a TV with no reception.
Why, Misa? Why, Light? I thought we were friends…
Why were they acting as though we were enemies? Like we'd never had any kind of bond…?
Was it because we really hadn't?
No. I can't let things end here. I CAN'T!
I don't know how, but I somehow used my weight to roll Misa off of me, send her tumbling by a foot or two away to my right. Scrambling back onto my feet, I tipped my hat over my eyes and charged for Light, who had gotten back on his own feet and had the notebook perched in his hand again, writing more down.
With a kind of raw strength I didn't know I had, I punched him.
Countless times throughout my life, I'd felt like punching someone (who hasn't felt that way at least once?). But never before had I ever acted on the urge. Definitely not as seriously as I did, then. I didn't even realize I was doing it, for Christ's sake! Not until I heard the sound of bone colliding with bone, followed up by a sharp pain that shot up through my knuckles and into my chest.
I didn't smack him in the jaw. I sort of got him on the side of his crazy head, instead, just above his ear. I couldn't even hit him hard enough to knock him to the ground; just enough to get him to loosen his grip on the notebook so I could rip it out of his hands while he busied himself with the recoil.
I only had enough time before Misa jumped me to flip frantically through the pages of the evil notebook to squint at what Light had written down. Maybe it was because he was in a pinch, but his usually small, neat, within-the-lines penmanship had gotten bigger, shakier, erratic.
Erin Blogge—
Three or four lines above that:
Soichiro Yagami, Heart Attack. Brings back the Death Note, hands it to a—
The instant I read those words, my vision began to fail, and not just because I still hadn't retrieved my glasses. I put up as much of a struggle as I could but I guess it wasn't enough, since Misa forced me on my knees, pinning my arms behind my back with one hand while the other pressed down on the top of my head. Presenting me to Light as a human sacrifice in his honor.
Another sacrifice. Another senseless sacrifice.
"It's no use. Once someone's name has been written down…they'll die, no matter what," Misa said when she saw me trying to writhe towards the notebook, her voice thick with a sort of unreal malice. Forty seconds wouldn't have been enough time to steal back the notebook, never mind get to a bathroom and tear it to shreds.
So…that was it, then? I was going to die right here, in a strange lobby on a stormy day, in a foreign country thousands of miles away from my family, having accomplished nothing and surrounded by friends who'd done me in with a goddamn notebook. What a way to go!
I squirmed under Misa's tourniquet grip, bawling my eyes out like the wimp I was after all. Mom. Dad. Farley. L. Watari. Matsuda. Everyone. I…I didn't even get to tell you good-bye. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.
As far as Misa would allow I thrust my head up, squinted at him and started to hiss through tears and gritted teeth: "Why, guys? What the hell, I—I thought we were friends!"
I didn't bother to call them out on their being Kira. By that point, I knew that they knew that I knew.
Misa had no comment for that. Having since picked it back up and dusted himself off, Light finished up the entries on his hand and closed the notebook with a kind of eerie judge-like resolve I'd never seen on him before, as one hand reached up to touch the spot on his head where I'd smacked him. "I'm sorry," he said softly, staring down at me with a detached look. "I swear I didn't want it to come to this."
"So why'd you do it, Light?" I thrashed back and forth, prompting Misa to hold on to me tighter. My chest hurt so much, but I had no way of knowing whether that was the onset of a heart attack. "I trusted you! We all trusted you! Your own father threw himself in jail for your sake, you bastard! Y-you and Misa manipulated a shinigami who cared about her into killing an old man and a guy who called you two his first friends! Why? What did Rem ever do to you? What did any of them do to you? What did L ever do to you?"
Fuck, now I was dropping the aliases. Though I wasn't sure how much that mattered by that point. Since L was…
Something was sucking the oxygen out of the room, the way helium leaks out of a balloon. How could any of this be real?
To my last question Misa hissed back, "You're joking, right? Oh, I don't know. What did he do? Besides the bondage and the torture and the lack of privacy and being an overall creep?" Her voice seemed to drip with a poison and vindictiveness you'd have never thought existed in her if you didn't know her. Was it there for Light's sake? Or was it something she'd kept bottled up for so long up until this point, like a liter of soda that'd been shaken too much for too long?
"O-okay, that came out wrong. But didja hafta kill him over it? You coulda just sued him in court for a couple million in damages."
"Yeah right. What would you know? Did you seriously believe we were friends? And I'm supposed to be the dumb one."
"But...but you said that we were. I heard you, you even danced around in a circle..."
Light's thin lips curled into a frown. Like he couldn't believe that a nobody like me would even dare to question him. Had he already left this world? I guess it wasn't good enough for him to stay in. "Defending a man who kidnapped you…how sad. I don't doubt he'd have disposed of you sooner if he didn't think you'd be useful to him if he kept you alive."
"Like what you just did to your dad and teammates? What you're doing to me?"
"Yes, well, banter aside, you have to understand, Erin, that I had to do it." He'd settled for using my real name now.
"Why?"
I kept asking why. I'm still asking why. But I wouldn't get an answer, not any answer that I would've liked. Every second, every heartbeat slipped by like sand pouring through my fingers never to return.
"Because…he was in the way. He was in the way of the formation of the new world. They were all in the way. I gave them many chances to yield, but they wouldn't heed my warnings." He paused to smile at me, like a black-clad preacher giving a Sunday sermon, but his smile wasn't nearly as serene as he might've meant it to be.
No. This had spiraled far beyond that. Light was the mighty god being preached about, standing before us in all his blinding bloodied glory. I was just a puny ant under his loafer that he'd found in him to notice just before squashing me.
"That's all we're trying to do, Erin. Please understand. All we want is a peaceful world where kind, just people live without fear or struggle. But in order to make that happen, we have to make sacrifices."
"Sacrifices?"
"Yes. We must eliminate the evil in the current world that stands in the way of our goal. Our world has no room for those who obstruct its creation. We can agree that most have a right to live and pursue happiness. But what about those who encroach on others' rights in their own pursuits? Harming, deceiving, killing...are these pests worth keeping around? We don't think so. No. We know so."
So…L was evil? That's what he was driving at? Because he was in the way? Did that make the task force evil? Did that make his father evil? Did that make me evil? And this world was so bad that he and Misa would just tear it all down and build a new one in its place? Jesus Christ, it killed me to listen to him talk like that, all gentle and patient on the surface but waiting the whole time for me to keel the hell over. I couldn't tell you.
"Do you understand now?" he asked me, like my opinion mattered at all. "I wish your tears could be out of joy, for the new world that's on the horizon. I'm sorry that you won't be here to enjoy it with us. Or my father, for that matter. It's a pity. For what it's worth, we really did consider you our friend, and I'm grateful for how you tried to stick up for us in your way...even if you were sorely misguided."
…
You know, it struck me as a bit funny that all of this time had passed already, and I still hadn't caught hide nor hair of Misa's shinigami, that "Ryuk" character. I'd touched the notebook—or Death Note, as Light called it, so wouldn't that mean I could see them by now? Maybe he was hiding or something?
Not that I dwelled too much on that. I had no time to, and Misa did have me pinned. Since he asked, I told him exactly what I thought, although reason was pretty much kaput by this point. What more did I have left to lose? Light had already killed everyone. I wouldn't get to see my family or friends again. Would they ever even know I was dead? They'd have to go on living in that "new world" Light was spieling about, whatever that could be.
Thrusting my head back up again as high as Misa would let me, my voice barely came out higher than a hiccupping snarl. "No, Light. I don't understand. Not one mite. You talk about creating some kind of peaceful utopia where everyone's happy and good and without fear and crap, but you use death and terror to make it happen? Maybe I'm just too stupid, but I don't see how that could work. And nothing you can say could ever make me see it. People are afraid of you, Light. They've quit doing crime because they're trying to save their asses. That's not a utopia. Th-that's the polar opposite of a utopia."
(I was never known for my eloquence, even with my arsenal of movie lines.)
"Don't you understand? Y-you've turned into the same monsters you say you're fighting. Both of you Misa, wh-what would your parents think if they saw you'd gone down the same road as their killer, offing someone else's mom or dad or brother or sister o-or kid? Th-those people have families, too!"
It's incredible, how easy it is to forget that even bad people have loved ones.
"For Christ's sake Light, you handed your notebook to someone you knew was gonna use it for no good just so you could have someone else take the rap for you! Then you wanna turn around and say you care about innocent people? God...how you can stand to even look your mirror in the eye every morning while you spray that smelly gunk in your hair?"
"Shut up!" barked Misa, her purple fingernails scraping across my scalp like claws as she gripped my hair in her fist and forced me all the way down until I practically had my face pressed against the cold floor, like she were trying to crush me for my blasphemy. I could almost hear my spine cracking, the farther I sank. "Don't you dare fucking compare me to that bastard! You're wrong! We're different. I swear, we're different! We kill for the greater good, not for our gross addictions. The ones we kill...they gave up the right to live the minute they chose to do evil. So maybe everyone is scared of us! But if that's what it takes, then let them be scared! Maybe they all deserve it!"
She spat, "And Light's hair smells wonderful. You just have no taste."
This couldn't be Misa. No way. The Misa I knew was not an angry girl; she wouldn't hurt me like this. She'd almost never cursed the whole time we'd known each other, unlike me. She'd scold me about cursing. Her profanity was like a long needle piercing one eardrum and exiting my head through the other.
"Misa, please! You must know on some level that what you're doing is wrong. We worked together to catch Kira. Y-you led the charge on Higuchi, remember? I heard you call Light out on writing his dad's name," I half-pleaded, half-snarled. "How d'you expla—"
"I said shut up!"
Whack!
I felt her dig her foot into my back, still throbbing from that kick. She was wearing those black leather boots with the spikes on the bottom, and I could almost feel them piercing tiny holes, like a falcon digging its talons into a rabbit's spine.
"Higuchi was a dog. He tarnished Kira's name and abused his powers for his own selfish gains. He had to be punished, just like all the other rotten people like him."
Misa, maybe you rationalized it as something else, and I was and still am no shrink by any means, but I think you did have something that compelled you to kill. As much as I hate to compare a person to a hard drug, yours was standing right in front of us. Or at least, he might've played enabler for you. Almost like you for him.
Speaking of unquenchable rage, boy, did Light hit the ceiling then! Well, not out loud. The way Light's smile contorted into a hateful scowl, I thought he was going to rip my head off with his bare hands or something. Like they were both going to tear me limb from sorry limb.
But he quickly regained his composure. After all I was already set to die. He held out his hand like he was offering me a blessing I didn't want. "Hn. That's too bad. But, if that's what you think, so be it. I guess there's nothing more to say...except farewell, Erin Blogger. Don't be afraid; for you, I grant an easy passing. May you rest in peace, despite you."
He nodded to Misa, who promptly took her foot off me. Sans the thunder rolling outside, the lobby, the whole world fell into a suffocating silence as the three of us waited for me to die, then presumably for Mr. Yagami to come in to hand over the other notebook and die next. Some were more eager about it than others, needless to say. I don't know how long we all stood there like that. For too long, that's for damn sure.
After maybe a minute, my sore eyes popped open. "H-hey. A...am I dead?" I asked lamely, not knowing what else to say or what being dead was supposed to be like. Wasn't my life supposed to flash before my eyes or something? "I wouldn't know." I liked suspense as much as the next guy, but…
Light glanced down at his watch. For some reason, I could see his composure begin to crumble again. Except this time, he was having a harder time getting it back. "What's going on?" he muttered. "It's been forty seconds. More than forty seconds. Why haven't you…?"
Light's eyes widened to a circumference I'd never seen them grow to before as they darted towards the notebook tucked under his arm, now in his fists, like he wanted to crush it.
"The notebook…"
What about the notebook?
His knuckles quivered with a rage steadily boiling over. "It's fake."
His furious gaze shifted from the notebook to Misa. "You betrayed me!" he roared at her. Man, if looks could kill...he wouldn't even need the notebook.
I couldn't see her face from my place on the floor, but in spite of everything, it hurt to hear her reply, like Light had just slapped her hard across the face. "What? No! Th-that's not true! Why would Misa ever turn on you like that? Misa—I don't care what you are or what you do, Light. B-because I…I'll always love you. I always have." Her grip started to ease up on me as she tried to defend herself. By the sound of things, she seemed just as bowled over as he was.
What happened to "Misa would never think of betraying friends?" She'd never turn on Light, but she could throw the rest of us under the bus without batting a pretty eyelash? Lost and unable to piece together what the hell was going on, the inside of my skull roared like a subway station at rush hour.
"No. Misa never betrayed you, Light."
Th-that...it can't be…!
I turned my head to face the direction I'd come in.
L?