"This is the way the world ends, this is the way the world ends, not with a bang, but with a silencer."
"It's raining today," Light said to himself, as he stepped out the front door and looked up at the gray sky beneath the fringe of his umbrella, and the rain coming down in sheets, "What a pain."
Still, there was no real helping it, even if his pants, socks, shoes, and probably even his jacket were about to be soaked through. It was the sort of day that made him wish that he knew how to drive, and, with that, owned a car.
Of course, he could always ride in with his father he supposed, but then Light often needed this time to think to himself and he thought his father understood that, or at least, understood part of it. Things had become strained between them in the past year, and Light didn't know whether it was the Kira case, Anna Jones, or something else entirely that was the cause.
Everything had become strained in this past year.
Narrowly avoiding stepping in a puddle, he frowned to himself, even as he passed giggling high school girls on their way to school, and he found himself once again reminiscing over this past year of his life, and, how little he remembered of it.
Well, that wasn't quite right, it wasn't that he didn't remember but rather that it was all disjointed and somewhat blurry, events just happening to happen, with no real reason behind them.
So, it wasn't the memories he was thinking about, rather, as Light caught his own reflection in shop windows and made his way through the heavy throng of pedestrians, he looked at his wide eyed, young, so terribly young, self-staring back, and wondered if he could possibly be staring at the face of Kira.
Or, putting it more succinctly, if Light Yagami, wasn't in fact, the Kira that they were all so desperately looking for.
The face in the window broke into a disbelieving, almost amused smile, Light shaking his head and shaking the thoughts off. What an absurd idea, Light Yagami, Kira. He'd remember something that important, and besides, Light would never…
Well, that was just it, Light thought as he turned yet another corner, on the street now that would lead him to the headquarters building, if you looked at it from a distance, if Light thought of himself as something other than Light Yagami, then it was entirely possible.
Best in his class, brightest student in all of Japan, an aspiring detective with a strong sense of righteousness and justice, one who had openly professed to believing criminal sentences were too lenient in those truly heinous cases, competitive perhaps even to a fault in some circumstances…
It was horrifyingly possible, if you put it like that, but all the same Light couldn't… He wouldn't believe that of himself.
Even if L himself apparently did.
With that thought he sighed, continued walking until he was on the steps to the tower itself, and just as he was about to step inside and shake off his umbrella there was the person he least wanted to see in the world.
"Light!"
Misa, even in the pouring rain, threw her arms around him, and god, she smelled like overpriced perfume from a department store and he could practically feel the lipstick clinging to his cheek as her lips moved against his skin.
"Oh, Misa," Light said his hands trying and failing to pry her away, "How have you been? Ryuzaki said you'd started work again."
She drew back and grinned at him, brown eyes seeming to almost sparkle even in the poor lighting the rain provided.
"Sorry, Light," Matsuda said underneath his own umbrella, "We uh, didn't see you here until…"
"It's fine," Light said, cutting him off, when really it was anything but fine.
If Light had any nerve, any courage at all, he'd stop stringing her along like this. He'd bluntly end it here and now making it abundantly clear that he would never be interested and never had once been interested.
(Except, why had he avoided it? True, he didn't seek Misa out, hated the idea of giving her encouragement, but he could have been far clearer, and it was dangerous to string this woman along but… But some part of him just couldn't let her go for reasons he couldn't even bring himself to understand.)
"Oh, Misa's so relieved to be back modeling, Light wouldn't believe it," Misa said before pouting and adding, "I still hate that I have to come here every day though. It'd be nice if Ryuzaki would just give up since he's not even getting anywhere."
"Well, I wouldn't say that," Light said with a strained, too strained, smile, "We're trying our best. It's not our fault that it's like looking for a needle in a haystack."
"Oh, Misa didn't mean to insult Light," Misa said, looking genuinely offended, "I've always believed in Light!"
"Oh, well, thank you Misa," Light said, "But there are plenty of others working on the case too. It's not just me."
"And Misa bets you're going to get a big break real soon," Misa said with an overexaggerated wink and equally overexaggerated smile, "She's certain of it."
"Well, that's very kind of you, Misa," Light offered, his own smile on the verge of breaking it was so strained and polite, "We could use one."
"Things will get better," Misa added, and then, patting him on the cheek, "And then you and I will go on dates again and we can bid this awful building goodbye!"
It was very difficult to avoid shuddering in that moment, as it is, Light simply said, somehow ground it out, "Well, remember, Misa, that I'm dating Anna…"
And she… She looked at him almost in pity then, or with a sly understanding, that Light too would understand the joke soon enough but for now it would forever be lost upon him. Misa smiled, kissed him on the cheek, and said, "Misa understands now, don't worry, I'm not insulted."
"Uh, Misa, we should really get…" Matsuda started only to be interrupted by Misa herself.
"Wait a minute, I barely get to see Light at all!" she chastised before turning back to Light, "I've got to go now, but just remember what I said Light, Misa's always cheering you on!"
And with that she was sliding underneath Matsuda's umbrella, the pair of them walking to Matsuda's car parked further down the street, Misa with her nose stuck in the air and Matsuda haplessly trailing behind. Something that should have been humorous but…
He was haunted, suddenly, by images of his date with her many months ago, of that ever-present sense of blackmail as he held her hand and humored her and a rage he couldn't ever have remembered feeling in his life, and he shuddered at the sight of her walking away.
But, standing here in the rain, alone, watching the car drive away, why had he put up with it? What information did she have that he had so desperately needed, was it just the threats to his family? Why not go to his father then? No, there was some unseen thread entangling him and Misa together… And Anna Jones as well.
And the more he thought about it, silently standing there, the more it seemed that thread was named Kira.
Even if, standing here right now, tired, wet, and so cold, he'd choose to be anything in the world but Kira.
He walked into the building wordlessly, deposited his umbrella in a stand, took off his shoes and felt the unpleasant squelch of his cold and soaking socks against the carpet. Then, making his way to his usual seat, across from Anna with L on her other side, her looking completely and utterly drained even as L went on as usual, he wondered if maybe he should try thinking about it from her pragmatic turn of thought.
Suppose, for whatever reason, Light Yagami was Kira, and he just didn't remember it right now. What then?
Turning to look at her, considering her tangled red hair, overgrown and still growing, the dark bags beneath her pale eyes, the utter look of boredom and exhaustion written on her pale features, he asked himself if he would turn himself in, in her place?
No.
What good would it do? It wouldn't free her, no, that wouldn't be good enough for L, they would both go down on that sinking ship. And besides, it wasn't as if the current Light, the Light he was right now, would learn from the entirely hypothetical past Light's crimes, because frankly, Light had no real idea what would drive him to become Kira when you got down to the heart of it.
What would turn a normal, ambitious, high-school student into the most terrible serial killer the world had ever seen?
Put like that, it was just as ridiculous as the thought of Anna Jones being Kira, there was nothing to move him towards that, nothing in the world, even if he'd been given the opportunity he never would have…
(And there, bubbling to the surface of his thoughts, unsummoned and unwanted, were memories of the crippling ennui as he stared out the window in high school, and thought about how worthless and rotten this world truly was.)
"Thinking deep thoughts?"
Light jerked, met Anna Jones raised eyebrows, and tried to jolt himself into a reasonable and sane state of mind. What was he even doing?
"Well, no, I was thinking how uncomfortable wet socks are," Light offered sheepishly.
"Oh, right, the rain," Anna said before her eyes narrowed, "Wait, you were seriously thinking about how you hate wet socks."
"It's not pleasant," Light groused, trying to will his feet into some dry and warm state, now there was a super power he could get behind…
"Light," Anna held up a hand, "That's almost worthy of 'I hate sand, because it's sandy'."
"What?"
Anna then straightened herself up, gave him a look, and quoted (she must be quoting one of her stupid American things that wasn't really American again), "I don't like sand. It's coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere. Not like here. Here everything is soft and smooth."
Light blinked, blinked again, found L actually shifting from his work to stare dumbly along with Light at the unpredictable Anna Jones.
"What the hell does that even mean?"
"It means, Light," Anna said, "That, 'I don't like wet socks. They're cold and wet and irritating and they get everywhere. Not like here. Here everything is warm and… not wet.' And that really, I never would have expected Light to be spending his day thinking about wet socks."
"And what do you think about?"
She motioned to herself, "I am not on par with the brilliant Light Yagami, I can think about whatever I want, I don't have standards."
"I don't always have standards," Light responded, trying and failing to keep the smile from his face, "Sometimes, I really am just an ordinary man thinking ordinary thoughts."
"Oh, well now you're practically quoting Henry Higgins," Anna said before quoting once again this time trying and failing to affect a British accent, "Well after all, Pickering, I'm an ordinary man, who desires nothing more than just an ordinary chance to live exactly as he likes and do precisely what he wants. An average man am I, of no eccentric whim, who likes to live his life free of strife, doing whatever he thinks is best for him."
Anna Jones stopped with a hand motion, cutting herself off, then explaining, "And here of course, Higgins goes off bemoaning the dangers of ever letting a woman ruin his bachelorhood. But that's all beside the point."
"You, Light," Anna waved a hand towards him, "Are anything besides ordinary."
Well, perhaps she had a point in that, but from her, it somehow didn't seem so terrible as it had only a half hour before.
"You know," Light said, "The deadline for university is coming back up… I think I might have to take the semester off."
Think, no, he knew. Already the deadline was hard approaching for him, and true he could attend a week and withdraw during that time period, or withdraw at any point during the semester but…
"The great Light Yagami, taking time off? What is the world coming to?"
"The end of times, clearly," L added to Anna's quip, only to be steadily ignored by both Light and Anna, and Light hoped that something in him burned for that.
"The great Light Yagami has never found himself in quite this kind of situation before," Light answered back, "And perhaps, school can wait another semester."
There must have been something in the way he said it, something in his self-deprecating smile, that caused her to laugh. Tilt her head back and laugh in a way that he'd so rarely seen her do and coveted every time he had ever seen it.
And watching her here and now, wishing to bask in this present moment, he couldn't help but think that… That he knew so very little about her.
And, eyes drifting over her shoulder to meet L's black gaze, he wondered what a man like L possibly thought he could know about her in Light's stead. There was some connection between them, between the unknowable past of Anna Jones and L's, something tucked neatly out of Light's sight.
No, more than that, something that couldn't possibly exist. Anna Jones, L had said it himself, she wasn't a real person, but then, she wasn't really anything beneath this façade either. He didn't know how he knew, but he did, that she was always a stranger in a strange land and that Anna Jones was the only thing that she really had. No one, not even L, not even Light for that matter, could know more than that.
More, they didn't act like it, rather, L acted like there was this unbreakable connection between them, but Anna Jones acted like she had no idea what the hell he was on about.
"Hey, Light, is there something on my face?"
"Hm, what, no, sorry," Light said, jerking his head away and blushing, not meaning to have stared that long.
So, what was it?
Where did L think he knew her from?
Succession, L kept bringing it up, or rather, had brought it up at that very strange time and brought Anna Jones up along with it, like the pair were supposed to be connected in some manner that Light just couldn't see. No, not that he couldn't see, that he couldn't believe.
First off, the idea that L, that this ridiculous position of anonymous detective, had successors was absurd.
But that Anna Jones, divine catspaw and jester, was somehow L's successor?
"Uh, Light? Why are you breaking into hysterical laughter?"
He covered his mouth, tried to stop it, even as everyone was staring, his father, Anna Jones, L, everyone he had admired and respected for so long looking at him like a lunatic. But how was he supposed to explain, why, why he was so very convinced, that if Anna Jones became L, if L was an idiot enough to make her L, then the game was over, with Kira the clear and undefeated winner.
And why this seemed so desperately funny to him.
There were many ways Anna could envision spending an idle afternoon, scrolling through profiles of all certified lawyers in Tokyo, then the greater Kanto region, was not one of them. Good god, she didn't think she was that racist, but all the faces were starting to blur together after the first hour or so.
And she was still going.
And this was after having gone through the policemen (who, honestly, they'd kind of gone through rather quickly), the then the judges (who at least were fewer in number), but now the lawyers, good god, the lawyers.
Well, ambulance chaser Kira probably was not, that screamed more of Higuchi… Although, if the person died, it would be hard to sue anyone over it, so that probably wasn't in the hypothetical Kira lawyer's best interest.
Well then, someone who took his job seriously, unfortunately, given Anna Jones battle against illiteracy, this was hard divined from the profiles (although she was miles better from not having been able to read anything at all, so she had to give herself some credit.)
Glancing up she caught the eye of Light, also morosely scrolling through pages (though his, at least, were of small time criminals), dark eyebrows raised at her glance. Morose, that was a good word for it, he'd been morose for a while, apparently the Kira case blues were contagious. That, or, trying to keep up with L's sleep cycle was also driving him into illness.
Which was entirely possible, as half the time she felt like crawling into a hole to die.
They both sighed, and forced their eyes to focus back on their own individual screens, just willing the day to end or some epiphany to be found. How did L do it? He was sitting over there, typing like a maniac, eating cheesecake again, and there was just nothing left inside of her.
Nothing at all.
The rest of the task force was diligently doing something at their own work stations, reviewing their own comrades in the police department if she remembered correctly, well, except for Matsuda, the poor bastard. He'd only just walked in with Misa hanging off his arm, staring out with the thousand-mile stare, stumbling off somewhere saying he needed a break and would be back in a little while.
She hardly blamed him, if Anna was on babysitting Misa duty she'd probably be feeling much the same way. And, given Light's barely suppressed shudder, he was feeling even more sympathy than that.
"Oh, heyo, look who we have here," she muttered to herself, because there, staring back at her with cold brown eyes behind vaguely trendy glasses and a purple suit, was none other than Teru Mikami.
Looks like he'd passed the bar exam, or Japanese Death Note's whatever version of the bar exam, five years even before he entered the picture in canon. He looked… Not too much younger, but young enough, still with the same vaguely Light-kike but if Light grew out his hair, hair… Practicing law though, as a junior partner (well, as far as she could tell from the kanji), in an office here in Tokyo.
She found her eyes lingering on him, on this blast from the… Well, not the past, the future would perhaps be more accurate.
And for an absurd moment, she found herself staring a little harder.
No, it was too obvious. There was no way, the universe didn't… But then, the universe did work like that, or at least, it did for Anna Jones. Everything conveniently or inconveniently worked against her, everything in Anna Jones' mockery of a life was too damn obvious for comfort.
She'd been treating this like a real case, like this was the real world, where Kira could and maybe should, be anyone. But in a story, in whatever grand play her bastard of a god directed… Well, if Anna was them, why, she'd choose Mikami.
Her eyes darted to Light, quickly, almost imperceptibly, then back to the screen.
No, there was no way, because at the end of things there was no way in hell Light would have chosen Mikami of all people. Light would choose anyone but Mikami, he'd choose someone he could catch, someone who'd make stupid mistakes really quickly and let L and Light close in. Maybe someone who'd do the Kira thing as necessary, but really, someone who looked out enough for their own gain that they'd mess up.
Well, if she was being honest, it was Rem who had chosen Higuchi (or as far as Anna remembered at any rate), but that was beside the point, choosing Mikami over Higuchi wouldn't help Light…
And it was at that moment that Anna Jones suffered two great epiphanies.
The first, was not so much an epiphany, as it was a vision of what must have been. There she was, an unseen spectator, watching Light, Ryuk, and Rem in a forest and Light switching notebooks between them. Light, always carefully considering, even now, Ryuk cackling madly, and Rem's wary and desperate eye as Misa's life hung in the balance.
And here, Light would have said, give this to someone who can be caught, and eventually Rem would take it to Higuchi.
But this wasn't… Light, even when Kira, was no longer the Kira of the original Death Note. Or rather, he was, almost but… But he had Anna Jones, a friend, an advisor, and maybe as much as neither of them would admit it there was a bond that tied them together. More than his need to save Misa's life and preserve his own, more than his need to dispose of L and for her or Misa to do it for him, and maybe more even than her outdated and mostly useless information… And he must have recognized that, even if it was only for a moment.
And more, he must have taken all the advice she had ever given him to heart, in that single damning moment.
He chose to pass the notebook into the custody of someone who believed in Kira, who would carry on his legacy as he intended, rather than someone who would kill corporate pawns for their own ends. Rather than choose the man who would be more easily caught he chose the man who would live to Light's ideals.
Better, to trust in his own instincts to regain the notebook, than to gamble with the lives of the innocent but forgotten people.
And so, maybe Light researched, or maybe Rem somehow found the right man through mere observation, but either way instead of reaching Higuchi the notebook came into the hands of Teru Mikami.
And, here she looked up to the entry way to the room, to what must be Matsuda's dark shadow stretching outside and onto the blue tiled floor, Teru Mikami would not hesitate for a single second to gain the Shinigami eyes.
Anna dove to the floor pulling Light down with her, even as Matsuda's shoe stepped into sight. Before even hitting the floor there were six shots, each in succession with not even a second between them, then the sound of reloading. (And, wasn't it funny? There were six members of the task force, or five, or was it six? Either way did he really must manage to get them all at once?!)
At the sound of footsteps, she forced herself to move out of her daze, to dart behind a couch, flinching at the sound of something sharp and fast whizzing far too close to her head. Peeking around a corner she caught sight of someone's… Mogi or Aizawa's… body lying sprawled on the floor, gun strapped to his hip.
(Although, Jesus, she thought to herself, what are you going to do with a gun? Do you even know how to turn off the safety?)
She glanced back over her other shoulder and caught sight of L and Light, both appearing to be in some kind of shock, still sitting there like idiots while Matsuda stalked closer. At another sound of Matsuda's footstep, like some dread death knell, Light cried out, "Matsuda!"
And in desperation, darted forward and tacked his knees, throwing him off balance and toppling Matsuda to the ground, trying to pin his arms down and wrestle the gun out of his hands. Matsuda, however, seemed entirely indifferent to Light, and instead, peering over Light's shoulder and shoving his face out of the way, shot with his pinned hand, and got L right in the shin.
Then, headbutting Light, rolling to his feet, even as L cried out and attempted to limp towards Anna and behind the couch, there was a great bang and then a bullet in L's head.
And for a moment L's eyes were perfectly empty, even as he stared at her, his momentum still moving him towards her and then…
Then L, just like that, was dead.
Glancing up from the blood, from L, she spared one final look for Light Yagami and the unadulterated horror and fear in his expression even as he rolled to his feet and tried once again to tackle Matsuda to the ground.
And everything, for that single moment, seemed to slow. Light moved towards Matsuda, Matsuda aimed the barrel of the gun at her head, and Anna Jones just stared back even as he swayed, like a reed in the wind, under the force of Light's weight.
And his bullet…
The bullet came.
Author's Note: And thus endeth part two of the story, said the author. I could have made this filler, but I didn't feel like it. Also, new in the world of "God of the Machine", "Where Kira Means Sparkle II: Electric Boogaloo" where I cannot be held responsible for my own titles, and where Anna falls into that strange alternate Death Note universe where Death Note never happens.
Thanks for reading and reviewing, reviews are much appreciated.
Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note