L was suffering from a strange twist in his stomach. There was a taste at the back of his mouth that sugar couldn't seem to chase away, not like usual, at least. His arm burned, too, right on his left bicep as though he were suffering from some kind of acid splash. But every time he checked, the skin looked smooth and flawless.
He sat crouched on the bench in the corner of the training room, as always, the Madolche crowded around him, Mewfeuille stretched out on top of his knees like a real cat. It still felt odd to him how ordinary this situation had become—what an oxymoron that was. But he watched the task force practicing ka summoning alongside the others, his two different worlds temporarily crossed over, and he wondered a bit at how natural it seemed. He couldn't say the same for the rest of the task force, though; Soichiro always flinched every time Mokuba's tiger materialized, and Aizawa sometimes looked nauseous at the sight of Red Eyes Black Dragon poking its head through a rip in space.
Matsuda seemed to be the only person in the group who was enjoying himself. He didn't seem to be doing much actual training, but every time L looked over at him, he was talking animatedly with his new ka, Miracle Flipper, a boy that looked like a miniature, young version of the Dark Magician, almost. None of the others had summoned yet, and L thought he had heard them complaining once that this seemed like a very strange sort of farce to distract them from the real issues; but then someone would always bring up Bakura's attack and they'd get quiet again. At the very least, Matsuda seemed to have given them some confidence that this wasn't just an elaborate trick.
The pain burned at L's arm again and he winced, rubbing his skin. Seto and Ishizu had been gone for a while testing their new theory about Kisara. Maybe he should go check on them.
"Ryuzaki-san," Yugi called, his voice echoing from the other side of the room. "You feeling all right? I want you and Matsuda-san to practice something."
L blinked as he looked up from his arm, glancing across the room. Matsuda was standing next to Yugi, with Miracle Flipper sitting on his shoulders like a child. A few others looked up at the call, including Light, who was sitting alone in a corner with a water bottle. Since his failure to summon that day, Yugi had counseled him to spend some time trying to meditate until he had figured out what was causing Light's blockage. At that moment, however, Light's phone buzzed, and the boy glanced back down at it, letting out a soft sigh as he moved to respond. Judging from his response, it was one of the many lady friends he had at college—he seemed to know a lot of those. L had been trying his best to take note of the people that Light interacted with, on the assumption that he could still be Kira, and he could have met the second Kira. But he met with so many people it was impossible to tell if any were slightly more important than the others…there had been that one girl that, according to Soichiro, had visited Light's home twice now. L wanted to look into that a little closer when he had the chance.
Oh, right, people were waiting for him to respond to them.
L carefully shifted Mewfeuille off his knees and onto the bench. It yawned irritably, but curled up again and went back to sleep. Cruffsant hopped back up onto the bench and let out a tiny bork sound before taking the spot that L had left, curled up on the warm patch beside Mewfeuille.
L shuffled across the room to reach Yugi.
"What do you need?"
"Matsuda-san is getting the hang of summoning easily, so I want to work on a combo," Yugi said. "Miracle Flipper's major special ability is to draw fire towards itself, diverting it from other allies. And your ka, Magician's Valkyria, has the ability to draw fire away from other Spellcasters."
"You want us to work on creating a lock," L said, his mind turning immediately, thinking about it in terms of the card game for a moment. "If Miracle Flipper draws attacks directed at everyone, and Sera draws attacks towards Spellcasters…"
"They'll create an infinite loop—anything Miracle Flipper attracts will be drawn to Valkyria, and anything drawn to Valkyria will go back to Miracle Flipper!" Matsuda said, looking excited about the idea. "We can keep basically all attacks away from everyone else. It's a perfect shield!"
That was actually one of the best ideas L had heard in a while. He nodded.
"That sounds like a good thing to practice," he said. "I'll call Seraphina back from her watch."
The magician girl had become very preoccupied with spending time up on the Mansion roof as of late. Many of the ka that were able to be summoned at this point were taking turns up top to keep watches, including Madeleine and the other Madolche, but Sera seemed to be taking the most shifts lately. L had barely seen her at all since Aoyama. He wondered if she was getting as paranoid as him.
L sent a flutter of consciousness up to her.
"Seraphina, could you please join us?"
His arm throbbed again, and he sucked in a breath, gripping it tightly. Yugi's eyes flickered.
"Are you all right?" Yugi said.
"Fine," L said. "Muscle spasm, I think."
Yugi blinked, looking unconvinced. He opened his mouth to speak, but then the air popped a little as Seraphina appeared. She dropped lightly to the balls of her feet, her hair fluttering around her.
Something is wrong, L thought, even before she stumbled.
She caught herself quickly, pressing the end of her staff into the ground to steady herself. But that wasn't like her to lose her balance. She looked a little…pale, too, he thought. Or was that just the lighting? Was he getting too worried again?
His arm throbbed once more, and he sucked in a breath. Seraphina also gasped slightly, and then L knew it wasn't a coincidence.
"What's wrong?" L said. "What happened?"
Yugi looked back and forth between them, as though he were ready to say something too, but the standoff couldn't be interrupted. L's eyes flickered to Seraphina's arm, the same one that L was feeling pain from. Usually, that part of her arm was bare; the top of her sleeveless outfit rested across her shoulder, with a baggy glove strapped to it that started just above the elbow. But the glove had been pulled all the way up to meet the off the shoulder strap, only on that side.
L reached for her arm and she shied back.
"I'm fine," she said. "It's nothing."
"Seraphina," L said. "I feel something too—what's wrong?"
"Is everything okay?" Matsuda said, sounding nervous. Miracle Flipper sat up straight on his shoulders, his peridot bright eyes suddenly sharp with worry as he stared at Seraphina.
Seraphina pressed her lips together, her eyes refusing to meet anyone's, instead darting in all directions to avoid finding a gaze.
"I'm fine," she said. "We don't have time to worry about me. Miki is here so I'm guessing we're practicing a magic lock, right? I can do that."
She stepped forward, and all at once, L felt the same spout of dizziness as she did, knowing she was about to lose her footing before she did.
Yugi caught her before she hit the ground, her staff clattering to the floor. She tried weakly to struggle free from his support, but Yugi's eyes were hard now, and he wasn't letting go. He carefully lowered her to the floor, and before she could stop him, eased the fabric away from her left arm.
L felt his stomach twist.
Seraphina's arm had a disgusting, sickeningly green patch on it, outlined in gray and white, and mottled with the rest of her skin. It looked like it was in the vague shape of a handprint at the center, but the green had spread like a fungus up and down from the middle point. At the very center, the skin appeared to have begun to dry out, looking gray and cracked.
Just like Tiramisu had looked before she vanished.
L had to sit down as a fresh wave of nausea washed over him—he wasn't sure it was from the sight of the sick skin, or from Seraphina's own sickness.
"When did this happen?" Yugi said, his voice shaking. "How long ago, Sera?"
Seraphina wouldn't look up, pressing her hand over the patch as though to hide it.
"…Aoyama," she said. "When that bitch with the scythe grabbed me. I didn't notice anything until a few days later."
"What is it?" Matsuda said, sounding horrified.
Miracle Flipper leaped from Matsuda's shoulders and scurried over to Seraphina, his face pale and drawn.
"Seraphina-sama," he cried. "It's not true, is it? You have—death magic? You're sick?"
Oh god, L thought. Sera was—
Sera was infected with death magic.
"How fast has it been spreading?" Yugi asked.
"It got this far just last night," Seraphina said, robotically, as though reporting on something that had nothing to do with her. "It was only a handprint yesterday."
Yugi swore. The incident was starting to pull attention to them, and others were wandering over, looking concerned.
"At that rate…" Yugi said, sounding actually nervous. "We could—we could lose you in a week."
His eyes flickered to L just as L looked up.
L knew what Yugi was thinking before it was said.
What happens to someone when their ka dies?
. . .
"What happens to someone when their ka dies?"
Bakura looked surprised to be assaulted with a question the moment he walked through the wall, momentarily taken aback.
"Why, Light-kun? Are you getting nervous about your own?" Bakura said, a smile spreading over his face.
Light rolled his eyes, but he didn't respond, sitting quietly with his arms folded.
"This one doesn't know," he said, jerking a finger at Ryuk. "So I want you to tell me."
Bakura flopped back onto the end of Light's bed, humming softly.
"Well, it really depends," he said.
"On what?"
"On when in a person's life their ka dies. Someone who's born with a dead ka will react differently than someone who's ka dies during their life."
"What happens during the second one," Light said.
"You're really curious today, Light-kun, is there something you want to tell me?"
Light scowled.
"Answer the question."
Bakura looked mock offended, pressing a hand to his heart as though he had just been insulted. But then he let his hand drop back to the bed, and he seemed to be considering it for a while.
"It depends again," he said. "On the strength of the soul the ka was attached to. A whole variety of things can happen, but…in my experience, most commonly, a human begins to lose their sense of moral compass. In severe cases, they can lose their memories or emotions, and start to become functionally brain dead. Oh, but it won't kill them. It will only make their soul wither, you see."
Light pressed his lips together, mulling this over.
In a week, L could be completely useless to the task force, he thought. Then I could kill everyone in the task force and all of the magicians, and deal with the brain dead L myself.
But if L knew he was on the road to become severely disabled, or if he assumed he would simple die when Valkyria did…he might buckle down harder on the case. This final week could be the most dangerous position Light had been in for a long time. And that wasn't even considering the fact that it was possible that the magicians could fend off his death magic if they sensed it coming, and he would have to make all of their deaths different enough to avoid it looking too suspicious, which would make things even harder for him.
God! There were too many of them now. Too many dangerous people who were going to try and stop him from carrying out his plans! Was this all his ambition had amounted to? All of that work and all of that damage control with the FBI agents and everything, and he was going to be undone by a group of magicians?
"You know," Bakura said, sounding lazy. "If you're trying to come up with a way to kill L by killing his ka, that's a little bit of a stretch…but did you know that when a Shinigami uses the Death Note, their death magic becomes far more potent than a human's usage does?"
Light's eyes snapped back to reality, staring at Bakura. He didn't look at Light, busy digging earwax out of his ear with a pinky and making Light's nose curl.
What was he saying? Light could try using the death magic on them but they'd likely throw it off with their shadow magic if he let them practice for too long…
A Shinigami.
Wait. A Shinigami's death magic was more potent than a human's. That meant…if he could get a Shinigami to take care of the magicians for him…
Ryuk wouldn't do it, not at all; he was just here for the laughs. But…
Rem will do it, he thought. If I frame it with Misa being in danger…
A smile grew over his face in spite of himself. He pulled his phone free of his pocket and dialed a number almost without looking at it. It only rang once before the enthusiastic voice on the other end picked up.
"Light-kun!" Misa squealed. "I'm so happy you called! Listen I was—"
"Hey, Misa," Light said, with the smoothest voice he could manage. "Would you like to go on a date tomorrow morning? I have something I'd like to talk about with you."
