Perfection, Light thought as he lay awake staring at the ceiling, is a funny thing. To be perfect is to excel at everything, but part of it is also to fit in. And a truly perfect creature would never fit in. There is no perfection, merely perfect actors. Still, he wrinkled his nose; I came pretty damn close for a while there. How many tests in school did I ace, how many times did I excel outside of school? L twitched in his sleep, unconsciously curling in on himself and drawing his thumb up to his lips in a lying down parody of his usual crouch. Every single one that came my way. I even overcame L, my greatest challenge. How is it that I have become…

Ruined.

Thanks, Otousan, for deciding that one small perceived difference has changed your entire perception of me. Up until this, you knew me my entire life. You were there, and when you weren't, it was your own fault for working the way you did. You even saw the loneliness, Otousan, I know you did. I know where I got my brilliance from, and even if you're not as clever with it as I, I saw you seeing things missing in me! Was it so painful to find out that what I was missing was a man?

Or were you just waiting for me to slip up.

What if Sayu dated a woman?

Would it even matter? Is it only satisfying to watch me fall because you know how high I was?

If you knew what kept us together, and what would be capable of tearing us apart, would you still demand our separation? This world has known the best of me and the worst of me; why do they criticize the best and worship the worst?

Have I done the right thing?

With every movement Rem made, new wrinkles and cracks formed. Misa's ridiculous idea to cover her invisible friend in liquid latex not only toed the line of several rules, but it was also extremely humiliating and uncomfortable. Rem hadn't even put up a token of resistance, knowing where it would end and choosing to preserve her dignity instead of her skin. Of course, she hadn't anticipated that the only available paint would be gold- "Sorry, it is from a photo shoot I was gonna do"- and her dignity was the first casualty in the war against tacky body decorations.

"Wooow." Misa walked completely around her in fascinated curiosity. A bit of Rem perked up. Perhaps a new beginning was all their relationship had needed from the beginning? She had never shown such interest, or awe before. "You're really ugly." Oh. But then Misa bestowed upon Rem the trademarked Misa smile, and finished with, "Don't worry, Misa doesn't care about such things! I still appreciate you, Kira-sama!" She pulled the ouiji board closer. "It'll be less weird now. What were you telling me?" Rem began to move the marker across the board.

At 5:59, Light woke the detective up, so L wouldn't have to be jarred awake by the alarm clock.

"Good morning." L's eyes snapped open before he relaxed and smiled up at Light.

"Good morning. Things have changed, haven't they?"

"How so?"

"Well, you're the one waking me up now. I used to stay up all night while you slept, doing cases, and now I sleep more than you." He stretched like a cat, and as he yawned, exposing his pink mouth, Light stared with interest. L looked like he needed to be kissed . Yes, the yawn was a subconscious plea, otherwise it wouldn't look so alluring. L freed Light's hands and rapped the wrist lightly. "Bad Kira!" Light jerked, surprised. Could L read minds? "All those cases I should be doing…" L looked mournfully at Light's bare toes before releasing his feet. His eyes snapped back up to meet Light's, full of fire. "I'm going to start splitting my cases with you. We will need to compromise somehow, and since you insist on ridiculous amounts of sleep, you'll need to help me during the day."

"Of course, L, but I spend most of my day working for you anyways."

"I was referring to the next case. And the next. And the next. The future." The future? It was a nice, if not a distant thought, and Light smiled a little wider than the sentence warranted to show L that he understood what he was really offering.

"I would be honored to." I would be honored to… mocked a voice in Light's head. He quickly erased all traces of expression from his face while he prepared to argue with it.

What do you want?

I want you to stop acting like his sniveling follower and be what you can become.

This is what I can become. This is everything I would have wanted if I had never found the Note.

But you did find it. And now you can be so much more. You know it. And I know you know it because I know it and you and I are not so different. Remember, I am you uncorrupted by him.

I am you uncorrupted by the Note.

Power changes people, obviously. Only a fool would assume otherwise. Just as only a fool would assume all change is for the worse. What would you do with power?

I am not you.

No, the difference is, what you would do with power, I have already done.

"Light-kun, do not engage Kira." He turned his head, startled. Hadn't he been careful to clear his face? "Light-kun's mask is never that good around me." Was it possible to love a face and want to punch the smug smile off of it at the same time?

Do it. Leave now. We both know he's the real enemy. We can still-

"You're right. Let's go."

Fool.

"Perhaps Light-kun should take a walk."

"Yeah, maybe I should."

"I'll come with you."

"No, I need to walk on my own."

"You do realize I'll have to watch you on the cameras. Kira-"

"Yes, yes." Light somewhat rudely waved L off. Even if L chose to watch him on the cameras, Light had had access to all those same cameras. He knew exactly where the blind spots were and he could be exactly as alone as he chose. He walked outside, passing by Mogi on his way up to work. Yes, he was walking ever so slightly slower than Mogi which meant that the motion sensing camera would follow the other man for the two seconds or so that it could only watch one, and give him the time window he needed to slip under the stationary one. Edging by the wall so he could better avoid the high cameras, he casually reached down and caught a falling leaf just as it covered the low camera and he pressed it against the lens, as if it had fallen and stuck by way of dew and bad fortune, rather than scheming.

Light felt the familiar and strangely missed feeling of getting away with something, with executing a flawless plan. No longer did he play for life and death stakes, indeed, a walk without supervision was hardly any great plan, but he was winning, and winning against a man he knew to be his equal, so it was more than enough. He had adopted a jaunty walk he had almost gotten out of practice with- conveying perfect confidence without drawing excessive attention- and made it nearly an entire block before he nearly walked into a young lady. A young lady of increasingly good looks, with bright eyes, and a pink sweater. A pink sweater that was obscuring his vision as her slender arms wrapped themselves around him.

"Oniichan!"

"Sayu? How did you get here?"

"I came to visit Oniichan at work! It is good you came out though, that building looked hard to sneak into." Light smiled down at her. Leave it to his carefree little sister to believe that it would be possible to simply 'sneak into' L's incredibly well guarded, impenetrable fortress. Clearly they were related, considering how undaunted Light had been by his equally well-defended mind.

"Come, let's talk over there. It's a little quieter and if Otousan came out, he wouldn't see us right away."

"All right!" They walked into a somewhat secluded niche on the wall that led into an alley, but afforded them privacy both from the pedestrians on the sidewalk and the sleeping homeless man by the dumpster, though he seemed more absorbed by his nearly catatonic state of drunkenness than by whatever Sayu might have had to say to her brother. Light looked down at Sayu from where she had wrapped herself around him again and begun to cry.

"Sayu, is everything okay? Nothing happened, right?" She rubbed at her face, succeeding only in smearing the tears around and making her face even redder.

"N-no, its just….Otousan came and s-said that we could never talk to oniichan agaihaihain…."

"Well, we're talking now, so don't cry, alright?"

"S-sorry…I came so that I could comfort you!" She held up her bag from where it had been wedged between them and stepped back slightly, still taking heavy breaths interspersed with the occasional lingering sob. "I brought you some of Sonoko-kun's dumplings because I'm no good at making them. I think I smushed them a little when I hugged you." She frowned, completely forgetting to mourn Light's absence over the tragedy of mildly damaged dumplings. Light picked one up and put it in his mouth, purposefully licking his fingers, so she could giggle and forget even that distress as she wrapped his fingers and playfully admonished him "Wait until you get a plate or something! Honestly, living with all those men…" She tutted and put her fists on her hips in a mock attitude of their mother, looking down her nose to continue talking about etiquette and basic hygiene, but Light ignored her words to check on her well-being.

Although she was only teasing, the motherly attitude fit her. It clicked with some part of her, and Light was faced with the simultaneously expected and surprising realization that his little sister was turning into a woman while he played out his mind games with L and his power games with his father. He supposed she would be dating soon- could even be dating already, although Light wasn't sure how to even deal with that situation. The perfect big brother would already know if she was in a relationship, and probably warn any boys involved against hurting her, but…would that be crossing a line? Would it be presumptuous to step in like that when he had hardly been part of her life for…the better part of a year now? "…I mean I though gay men were supposed to have more class, although you were honestly so meticulous I don't think it was possible for you to get any more nitpicky than you already are." Light snapped back to attention.

He had been slightly on edge, waiting for the topic to be brought up. Yes, there had been a reason why he had been effectively removed from contact with his home and family, and that reason was…well, to begin with, it was not something to joke about so casually.

"Sayu, I-"

"Speaking of which, how is your Panda-chan?"

"Ryuuzaki is fine."

"He must be, with his boyfriend living with him." She waggled her eyebrows at him playfully. He ground his teeth behind the smile he gave her. "Seriously, I can't believe you disobeyed Otousan like that. You guys are lucky he disowned you instead of…I dunno, exploding or something. Moving in with him was the last thing we all expected after he put down his rules." It's not funny. He felt a twinge as she poked fun at the sensitive subject. She grinned. He glared. Seemingly oblivious, she continued. "Don't worry, he'll get over it. He's just shocked that perfect, perfect Light would come out of left field with being GAY of all things!" Stop it. You're crossing a line. Stop it. It was strange to register that last 'stop it' as not his own. "Well, of course he had to freak out, but I told him, I said just because Oniichan takes it now-hacgh…eh…" Kira's eyes trailed up his arm, admiring the slender grace of the limb and taking in the girl it was choking almost as an afterthought.

"Quiet."

"Hech…ah…" A thin trail of drool escaped from her mouth, which he looked at in disgust, before tightening his hand to reduce even the increasingly quiet choking noises she made.

"See now, isn't that better." He supported most of her weight with the hand on her neck and her legs twitched and jerked spastically. As the movements slowed down, and a blood vessel popped in her eye, he leaned in close to her and whispered into her ear, "Rejoice, for you have furthered my world." With her last bit of energy, she turned wet eyes towards him, silent pleas replacing the verbal ones she no longer had the air to continue. Her begging- supplication, you must begin to see it as supplication- had no effect on him and he leaned in one more time. "You are sister to a God. I am Kira." This was his favorite moment. The moment of gleaming realization, followed by the understanding that the knowledge came only with an incontrovertible loss. She fell unconscious. He checked the watch on his wrist awkwardly and mentally wrote down a note resolving to wear two watches for situations such as these as his dying sister went limp in his arms.

Suddenly, a flash of white, blue and black appeared, knocking her from his arms.

"L?" He asked, turning to see, but blonde and black stepped in his way. The first thing he focused on was a gun.

Speeding towards his face.

An explosion of sound which he only had time to register was a sick thunk instead of a shot before everything faded. And that blonde bastard was grinning. As he fell down and his eyes slipped closed, he caught a glimpse of Sayu stirring.