A/N: I have WAY too much fun writing crazy people, and I shouldn't deprive myself of that in the future.


Chapter Twenty-Nine - Reality

Life a circle.
We live,
We die,
We give life,
We take life.
O
ur actions affect others,
And others affect our actions.
All of life is a circle.
We get what we give.


The mother and daughter laughed themselves silly as they sung along with the song playing on the radio. They came up with random lyrics and substituted the real ones with their own.

The girl which sat in the back seat was only nine-years old.

The woman driving the car was what some would call beautiful. She had long, chocolate brown hair and large blue eyes. Many had fallen head-over-heels for her, and she had pushed them all away. That is, all except one: the child's father.

The night was fated for disaster though.

They were driving on the highway on their way home. As they approached a turn-off into a country road the mother was unable to see anything coming their way.

So they were unaware of a car hurtling towards them.

It collided head on, catching the car squarely in the side. The impact sent the car flying, rolling …

The girl screamed, holding on for dear life, before she blacked out momentarily.

When she came to the world was different. It was all upside down. With quick, nimble fingers she clicked the button securing the seatbelt to the seat. She fell and managed to shift as to not land directly on her head.

A piercing pain rocketed through her body, and she looked down at her leg. There was a long gash there … and she could see something white through all the blood. That's not good …

The scent of burning plastic filled her nose, and as she gagged she came to a sickening conclusion. The car's on fire …

"Mommy?" the girl cried out as the steady roar of flames filled the air. A low buzzing filled her ear … and then made a coherent sound.

Tong! It was the sound of a church bell, far in the distance, and it continued.

It started to get unbearably hot in the tiny cramped space, and the girl started to panic. She climbed her way into the front seats where she saw her mother still buckled in.

"Fire …" she whispered, seeing the environment around her glow orange. "It's so hot … it … it hurts … make it stop." Looking over at her mother, she started shaking the woman's shoulder as she reached for the buckle, "Mommy … Mommy please wake up. We have to get out of here. It hurts," she pleaded, shaking her shoulder harder. "Please, wake up. You have to wake up! The fire, it's going to burn us! You need to wake up!" the girl's voice rose to a shout.

Deciding to take matters into her own hand, she climbed across her mother and saw that the door had been ripped off. What luck … she thought despite everything. Mentally shaking herself, she slowly dragged her mother from the burning wreckage. When she got as far as she possibly could, she collapsed, panting over her mother's limp form.

"Mommy, wake up … you need to wake up. I'm scared," the girl said, clutching at the woman's shirt, "Mommy?"

The world started to get dizzy, and she looked back at her still bleeding leg. I'm losing … too much blood …

"Mommy, get up! Mommy … Mommy? Mommy!"

Tong!

The blackness consumed her.


The child was in hysterics when she woke. She screamed about the red letters and numbers floating over everyone's head. They had assumed that it was just the trauma from the accident.

The child's mother was pronounced dead before they even got her into an ambulance.

The driver of the other car was never found.


My field of vision slowly expands. Damn … what the hell?

I blink a few times to rid them of the blurriness. Strange thing is I don't remember opening them; it's more like just coming into focus.

Auh … don't sleep like that – I pause in mid-thought when I finally take in my surroundings.

Oh shit.

I'm not dead … or am I going to spend the rest of eternity in the loony bin? I don't think they have padded yellow walls in the afterlife.

Or do they?

Well, I don't really care at this point. I'm pretty damn fucking sure that I'm alive, mainly due to the stiffness in all my joints.

Okay, so I'm in the Mental Ward. Just wonderful. Now what? Ow. I guess I should start with trying to move. I move my neck to the side, then the other. The vertebrae give a loud and satisfying 'popping' noise. With a small grin, I try moving my arms. Thanks to this jacket, I can't do much besides roll my shoulders. That feels good though.

Next are my legs. I have most of the movement capacity there. I draw my knees up to my chest, then move them back down and stretch them. Pop! Ah, that's better. There are padded manacles around my ankles to stop most of the excess movement that my legs could provide. Am I a violent patient?

Somehow, just the thought of that makes me laugh.

Heh … ha-ha. Heh-ha. Heh-heh-he. Ha-ha-ha.

Oh … am I slipping again? I have to say, it feels oddly good, being insane.

What fun.

Heh-heh-heh-heh …

Oh, am I laughing out loud? It seems I am, because now someone is coming inside my little padded room. A large stocky guy, in what my eyes look to be a nurse's outfit. Ha-ha-he. A male nurse. Pfft. He looks ridiculous! Somehow, this makes me laugh even harder. Oh, I forgot to mention, he's holding this big-ass needle.

He says something to me, but I can hardly make it out. I laugh even more. He stalks forward, preparing to inject me with whatever is in that needle. I really don't think that it's sugar-water.

"Kya-hah-hah-hah-ha!"


Next time that I'm awake again, I am still in this padded room.

I am starting to really hate the color yellow.

Anyway, I shake my head a few times to clear the drug-induced sleepiness. Is this how they treat mental-patients? Constantly injecting them and hiding them away in solitary confinement? I should do something about that in the future.

When I get out of here …

Speaking of which, how the hell am I going to get out of here? I don't really think that I'm still fully sane …

Heh … let me see. The other way to get out would be to escape. Hmm, is it worth a shot?

A smile twists at my lips. Maybe I should have another laugh attack? It wouldn't be that hard. I can feel the giggles trying to force themselves out. It wouldn't be hard at all.

Kyeh-heh-heh.

So … first matter of business. The manacles I'm wearing are a bit of a pain … and they're chafing. It hurts like a bitch. I bring my knees to my chest and examine them. They don't look too strong, more or less to restrict movement of someone who can't think straight. They don't actually look too hard to break. Just twist ankles in this direction … Ow … Snap! There we go. Manacles are broken.

Next thing: straitjacket. Now this is going to be more of a problem. You see, straitjackets were designed to pin your arms to your body. You're stronger when you're squeezing something to your body, not trying to get it away from it. It's just like a crocodile. If you hold its jaw down, it will be very hard for it to re-open its mouth, and yet when it bites down almost nothing can break its grip.

Breaking a straitjacket … normal mental patients would never think rationally about this … so they don't have to be too complicated, and due to the whole 'muscles' thing I just explained … they don't have to be that strong.

I twist around so that my back isn't against the wall anymore. I move my leg and try to hook it under my arm … almost there … got it! Okay, I got my foot there … this might hurt a bit. Push!

And …

Snap!

Oh wow … I actually did it. I look over my shoulder at the binds. Oh, I see, this isn't a heavy-duty straitjacket. It's more or less the sleeves are just pinned to the shirt. Keh-heh. Did they really think that this would keep me bound?

I make quick work of the other sleeve. Once both arms and legs are free I give some experimental stretching. Most of my joints hurt like hell and I feel a little weaker than I usually do.

I use the wall as support as I slowly get to my feet. When I straighten my back there's quite a few popping noises, and I smile at that. I then crack my knuckles, and then my toes. Oh, this feels much better than sitting in the fetal position all day long. Don't they let patients exercise?

Damn, I feel like I'm in a fucking prison.

Slowly, I make my way over to the other corner of the room. This is the corner that I saw the nurse come in through, the man-nurse. He was wearing one of the world's worst cosplaying outfits ever.

I look up at the corner in the roof. Sure enough, there's a nice camera there, protected by what I would assume is tempered plastic. As hard as steel … I won't be able to break that. If I tried I'd probably end up losing lots of blood and breaking a few bones in my hand, or hands.

Hmm … door. There is a door. You can vaguely see the space where the padding doesn't connect with the padding of the rest of the wall. It's not too tall, wide enough to get a kicking and screaming patient in here without too much trouble.

Most likely locked from the outside.

I wouldn't be able to get out through that door now, not without someone opening the door.

Hey, speak of the devil.

Their words bounce meaninglessly off my ears as I gaze at them. They start shouting at me now, and I frown. So noisy … I don't like it. I'd rather have the silence and solitude than these useless morons.

I look over at the corners in the room, rubbing one of the sores on my elbow with my other hand. They start shouting and pointing this time. I glace to where they are pointing. Oh, the manacles and the Straitjacket. They aren't too happy that I broke them, are they?

Well, you can't really expect me to sit still, can you?

I start chuckling lightly. Keh-heh-heh-heh. They don't realize that they can't keep me contained if I don't want to be contained. Idiots.

I laugh harder, and it escalates into full-blown hysterics. "Kya-ha-ha-ha!" Before I know it, they have me pinned to the floor. One of the staff stabs me with the needle and injects me with the clear liquid inside it.


Again, I wake up to a fucking padded room. I've had enough of this. Somebody get me a lawyer! I'm a detective dammit!

With a small groan, I realize that I'm in another flipping straitjacket. Except this one is the heavy-duty kind, the one that I can't break out of. I wonder … If I were to break myself out … I would need to fight, and to do that I would probably have to use my legs. They haven't replaced the manacles. Thank god.

"Keh-heh. Wow, you look really terrible, even worse than that one time you got drunk," a voice laughs at me, and I look around until I spot him. Sitting in a different corner, clawed hand draped over one knee, is Vile. Vile my Shinigami. I give small smile in return, and then look over at the camera.

"Hey!" I try to say, but it comes out more like a hoarse whisper. Damn … how long has it been since I last used my voice … besides laughing like a maniac. I try again, and then again before I can speak mostly normal.

"Hey, someone better get their ass down here and explain to me what the fuck is going on! I know you can hear me!" I shout at the camera. Vile starts laughing and I join in with a small chuckle. I have a feeling that we're going to be best friends for a while …

It doesn't take long before the padded door opens and a man in a white coat and a clipboard walks in. His hair is short, neat and tidy; a sand brown color. Square glasses pushed up the bridge of his nose, a white coat that made him look like either a scientist or a doctor. I think it's probably the latter. Or maybe he's a mad scientist?

He stops in front of me and kneels down so that he can 'speak at my level'. "Kurai?" he asks.

"Last time I checked, that was my name." The doctor gives me a frown and I return it with a cheeky grin.

"Yes … well … how are you doing? Do you need anything?"

"A nice hot shower, some decent food – I have no idea what crap you've been feeding me – space to actually move. I mean really, I don't need a fucking straitjacket," to make my point I try to move my arms.

He nods, "Do you know where you are, and what day it is?"

"No, how the hell would I know that? I'm in a freaking padded cell."

"You're in a Mental Facility just outside of Tokyo, and it's been a month and a half since you were admitted. It's November the 14th."

I stare at him incredulously. That much time has passed?

"You haven't spoken a word since then," he says, and I blink a few times more.

"You know … I was mute until I was four and a half," I say.

Hold up … November … Since I was admitted.

Why?

It all comes crashing down on me, combined with the chuckles of my Shinigami.

"I …" I start to say, only to stare down at the floor.

"You what?" the doctor asks politely.

"I attempted suicide …" I whisper, and he nods. I look back up at him, desperate now. "Tell me, are they alive?!" I shout, and he looks taken aback.

"Who do you mean?"

"R-Rue Ryuzaki, Kakushin Lee and Makoto Korin, are they alive?!" I struggle against my binds, but I am forced back by a nurse. The doctor flips a few pages and looks at the text on one.

"A Rue Ryuzaki has been visiting weekly … And a Makoto Korin and Kakushin Lee have been visiting often as well. You've also had family visitors: your Aunt, Uncle and cousin have also been visiting regularly."

I blink at the guy, "They've been … visiting …"

That means …

Light can't kill me when I'm in here.

If I die while he's in the room … that's really suspicious, so as long as I'm here he can't kill me and make me tell him L's name. I also can't write it down, even in my own blood. Reason? He wouldn't be able to see. For now, I'm safe.

A huge, broad grin breaks out across my face, and the doctor is a little taken aback. "That's really good news. Thanks Doc, I owe you one. Now about the food …"


"L, the institute just sent me an update on Niiro's status," Watari's voice filled the room as the screens in front of the detective changed to show the large gothic W.

"An update?" Light said, blinking in surprise. The other assembled Task Force members completely abandoned their work to come over and listen.

"Yes. It seems she's started talking."