Author's Note: I own neither Death Note, Batman, DC Comics, or Marvel Comics. Death Note is the property of Tsugumi Ohba, Takeshi Obata, and Viz Media. Batman is the property of Bob Kane and DC Comics, though Bill Finger co-created the Dark Knight.

If there's anything I can do to improve this story, please let me know and I'll do what I can. Thanks!

BATMAN

DEATH NOTE

THE LIGHT IN THE ABYSS

CHAPTER I:

MASTER OF PUPPETS

And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.

-Genesis 1:3

We must remember that Satan has his miracles, too.

-John Calvin

That which does not kill us makes us stronger.
-Friedrich Nietzsche

"Therefore, you, Light Yagami, are, and always have been, Kira!" Near exclaimed, pointing an accusatory finger at his foe.

For most of the people in the Yellow Box warehouse, the current scene was equal to that of saving the world before it was utterly destroyed. Strange then how the world went on as it normally did, unfazed by their drama and their suspense. Outside, the sun was beginning to set, casting tranquil waves of dark peach across and over the building. The cicadas creaked, flying hither and thither, from one leaf to another as they always did. A few seagulls flew overhead, one squawking commands to his flock. Light shot through the confines of the windows of the warehouse reflected onto the dust floating in the air. Earth did not stir.

On the human dimension, the tension had erupted into revelatory disillusionment. In that dilapidated warehouse, the worst mass murderer in modern history had been caught. The truth had been revealed: the mask was ripped off, and the curtain was torn off the hinges. A team of Japanese detectives dressed in formal ties and suits stared at their ex- comrade and traitor with various reactions. Ide and his radish head stared gravely disappointed at his former ally; there was anger in that stare, but prior suspicions had dulled it. He was almost ashamed of himself for being glad that Soichiro Yagami wasn't alive to witness this disgrace. Then he thought of how much Soichiro had sacrificed for his son, and Ide found himself praying to a silent and uninvolved god that he had never truly believed in. If Soichiro could be spared the knowledge of his son's treachery, Ide would pray to whatever and whoever would listen.

Matsuda, on the other hand, gaped stiffly in irate bewilderment, as if he was the punchline of some cruel and sadistic joke. With what scarce, clear logic he had left not completely overrun by his fury and shock, he knew that he would probably not be able to control himself for much longer. His best friend , his goddamn brother in arms had been making a fool of him this entire time, laughing at him behind his back. And Matsuda had been stupid enough to fall for it the entire time. He wasn't sure who he hated more right now: Light for orchestrating this twisted farce, or himself for once believing every word of it.

Mogi, the hulk of the group, stood squat and thick, tall as a mountain, bulky of a mountain. The giant was assured of his power and brute strength, and this logic prevented him from breaking his former leader's neck. He was nonetheless assured by his mastery of karate, judo, and amateur wrestling that he could do so. Growing up, Mogi had become the target of an insult that implied (if not outright stated) that the Japanese were both small upstairs as well as downstairs. Years of work later, the last guy who had mocked him for his accent ended up having to be spoon fed corn mash for two weeks.

Aizawa, the goateed messenger of the tragic truth, stared at Light with a mixture of disgust, disbelief, and hostility: the pain was less severe compared to the others because he had been the first to suspect that the enemy was within his team. Still, in that his anger had until then been repressed into controlled, disciplined rationality, it now looked as if it would take less than normal time to infuriate him beyond reason and sensibility. Aizawa had been in Rwanda before, working as a United Nations peace-keeper: he had known bitter rage then, rage at seeing the most terrible things in the world happen right before your eyes mixed with the knowledge that you can't do a thing about it. He could do something about this though, and he definitely would do something about this. Even if this included death.

Another group stared at a man they couldn't help but regard as the Devil, and while they were all from different lands, their sense of justice and proficient indignation united them. Halle Lidner, an attractive blond Caucasian woman with amber eyes, stood like something both beautiful and grim, her gaze burning like a black sun. She was young, but she was wise enough to be aware of her own impressionability: she knew that Kira, her first big case, would most likely darken the structure of her future.

Stephen Gevanni, a slightly older Italian with light skin and dark hair, stood rigid, ready to waste the group's depraved enemy. Gevanni had worked an international soldier of SHIELD during the Third Balkan War back in the nineties, and not even the efforts of gods fashioned in the form of men could completely repel the senseless barbarism that Gevanni was unfortunate enough to witness. He knew what people could do, and he knew what people were capable of. This kind of situation did not shock him in the least.

The second in command of the SPK, Anthony Rester, was also the oldest member of his group. He deliberately stood only a few feet from his team leader, intending to protect him at all costs; Rester knew that his foes were brilliant and that they would know that if they attacked the head, the body would probably fall. Thankfully, (or so I hope, he thought uncertainly) Rester had survived more than thirty years of leaping into fire headfirst and of putting his neck on the line, and he had learned how to better his odds during such times of danger. His gray blue eyes bore hard into those of his targets, not out of irate malice, but out of gritty experience. He had known evil during his life: he had known it as a boy, studying the sadists that tormented the student body (although they did not torment him, , at least not after he dislocated Ben Hammet's shoulder); he had known it during the Salvadorian Civil War, he, a young, naïve bodyguard, his mind reeling with the knowledge that the heroes had been the villains the entire time, that the defenders of democracy and the foes of communism would willingly slaughter hundreds over their own; and he had known it while he investigated corporate crime on Wall Street and abroad, coming to the horrific conclusion that the criminals didn't regret a thing. Somewhere in his fifties, Rester's hair was grayer than it had to be (he never did take it easier, like he had repeatedly promised his ex-wife), and his stomach carried a few pounds he didn't need (a consequence stemming from frequent dinners of beer and pizza on assignments). Still, he was undoubtedly the most experienced and skilled detective of his team, and even if his boss never mentioned it aloud, Rester knew that he was proficiently appreciated.

L's last, direct prodigy, Near, sat on his hands and knees, as was his custom. Though still only a child, his wisdom and intellect superseded most people's, including all in the room but his nefarious opponent. The bangs from his curly snow white hair did little to hide the grim triumph in his eyes, and his voice, though still small and tender in it's pitch, exhibited an uncanny amount of enmity, victory, and disgust. Though his body was clothed in a loose shirt and baggy pants, everyone could nonetheless tell from the bulging veins in his arms and neck that the usually calm and cool boy was now very tense and quite aggressive. The child genius had spent over two years hunting the world's most notorious mass murderer, two long, painful, infuriating years of dead ends, of close calls, of his enemy destroying everything and anything he could get his hands on, taunting him all the while. The reward for all of his efforts and pains now lied before him, and nothing nor no one could take it away from him. Nothing. No one.

Teru Mikami, Kira's personal executioner, stood only a few feet away from his lord and master. Only minutes before he had stormed into the Yellow Box and, with frantic speed and monstrous energy, wrote everyone's name down into his Death Note. His eyes had been scorching then, burning red with both wrath and glee, as he set about his work; the eyes may have originally belonged to a death god, but as Teru's sordid murder record had shown all, the evil eyes suited him just fine. Kira was his liege, but everyone knew that Teru was the man responsible for making mankind fear Kira even more than they ever had before: wherever he walked, necks were snapped, guns were shot, and lives were snuffed as quickly and easily as if they were candles. Teru's misanthropy was that great, and Near knew that, if left to his own devices, the psychopath would end up choking the life out of the world. No wonder then that the rest of the SPK referred to him derisively as "the Angel of Death".

Not that Teru's delusions of divine glory would help him now. The Death Note that Teru had used only minutes before was a fake, planted by Gevanni in his gym locker after weeks of following Kira's proxy and establishing his modus operandi. Teru had been tricked, and he knew it: he flexed his strong, veined hands angrily and regularly, occasionally glancing over at his master, as if awaiting a command that would get the two of them out of this. No such command was given, and while the atmosphere was tense with resentment and hatred, the KTU and SPK detectives were at least relieved in their belief that no amount of trickery nor cunning could save Mikami or his dark god. However, Teru's appearance precluded them from feeling entirely self-assured or thoroughly confident. Simply put, he was one scary lunatic. He was of average weight (though physical conditioning gave him a good fifteen pounds of extra muscle) and of average height, but his midnight black suit and slacks, his jagged, shoulder length raven hair and his flaring nostrils all gave him the illusion of looming, of being taller and bigger than he actually was. He used these traits to intimidate everyone around him, despite his capture. Mikami was going to spend the rest of his life in prison but considering all the fresh meat he was going to be able to mutilate, flay, and shank, Near wasn't quite sure whether this was a curse or a blessing.

Someone stood in the middle of room, surrounded by enemies, flanked by the men he had once called his allies and even his friends. He looked more than normal; he was beautiful. His hair was a silky brown, his eyes were a variant of somber mocha, and a conservative suit and tie completed his unremarkably handsome appearance. This man was Kira, and while Near considered himself at least a skeptical agnostic, he knew now beyond a shadow of a doubt that not only did the Devil exist, but that he walked among man.

The wolf in sheep's clothing, stripped of his mask, stood revealed to all but did not look as if he had been played. Instead, he moved his gaze from one of the room to the other, sober, focused, methodical. No one here except for Teru was very spiritual or superstitious, no one there believed in angels or demons or bogeymen, but there was something there that they could not deny, something that burned in the back of their heads like so many wasps set loose upon the damned. Here in this Yellow Box, in this warehouse, in this room, an Old Testament god stared at his foes, eyes alight with a cold, malevolent fire, the room growing colder and colder with him in it. Hell was a cold and dark place, and the King of Hell was a cold and dark man.

Light Yagami stared at his enemies, looking bored. "You still talking?" he asked Near.

The detectives of the KTU and SPK chose not to reply. Lying, manipulating, and plotting came as naturally to Light Yagami as swimming did to a fish. It now remained to see if he had anything worthwhile to say or if he was just clutching at straws. They would not let the snake twist his way out of justice again.

Light sighed, and looked elsewhere, his gaze indirect and wistful, as if ruminating upon some nostalgic moment, as if he and the warehouse shared some fond memory. "All in all, it was a pretty good ride. Can't say that I regret anything. In less than thirty years, I've done more than Napoleon Bonaparte and Genghis Khan combined. Had a lot of adventures. Made a lot of friends. Killed even more people. In a way, I'm kind of relieved that the music's finally over." Light's faraway look hardened, and he tossed an irritated glance at Near. "But in another way altogether, I'm bloody annoyed as hell that you're all taking up my video game time!"

"Rester, I want this scum arrested," Near said. This was a waste of his time.

"My pleasure," Rester growled. The large man began to advance on Light, arms raised threateningly.

"Not so fast," Light said, holding up a palm. "I've got a proposition in mind for you, for all of you. You send me up the river without speaking my piece, and I take all of Kira's secrets to the grave. You'll never be able to put this all to rest if you begrudge me this one last gesture, Near. I promise you that I can and will continue Kira's reign, even from behind bars, even if I'm six feet under."

Rester stopped, looked back at Near with cautious, uncertain eyes. Doubt tugged at Near's heart, but he did an impressive job at keeping a straight face.

"You're making this worse than it has to be, Yagami," Near said coldly.

"Exactly how many Death Notes are out there, Near?" Light asked, a subtle and cruel smile playing around his lips. "You know of at least two, but can you know with absolute certainty that there are only two in existence? Are you completely sure that I don't have more than two of them? Or how about my proxies? What, do you really think that Teru here is my only disciple? Doesn't it strike you as more likely that I've, oh, gee, I don't know, maybe built an entire underground network of Kira proxies ready to receive my commands, all waiting for the chance to continue my work long after I become worm meat? And exactly how many of them are out there? Ten? Twenty five? A hundred? All I would need to do is find some angry, intelligent kid in Johannesburg or Pyongyang to get the job done. And all these answers, Near, these vital, crucial, and utterly paramount answers, they can be yours. For a price, that is."

Near glowered but thought nonetheless. It wouldn't hurt to hear the sociopath out, would it? No mortal man could connive his way out of this situation, not even a brilliantly dangerous monster like Kira. All the same, Near didn't like the fact that he would be giving time to Yagami to potentially work on an escape stratagem.

Still, Kira proxies? Near thought. The last thing I need is a new Kira to deal with, and knowing Yagami, he probably found someone just as smart as him, if not more so, if that's even possible. And more than one proxy? Combined, they could take over just about whatever they wanted...

"Near, you can't listen to this bastard!" an almost hysterical voice exclaimed, cutting through Near's reverie. Near glanced towards the direction of the voice. Matsuda had been the shouter of the objection, as judging from his red face and heaving shoulders. The man looked like he was trying to force a supernova to explode in the center of his stomach. "He's evil incarnate! He's worse than Hitler! Don't let him trick you the same way he tricked L!"

"Ah yes, L," Light said, grinning, not with good nature, at Matsuda. "Exactly my next point, Matsuda. Exactly how much time I did spend alone with Ryuzaki, Near? And, really, how much time would two geniuses like us need to see eye to eye, let alone form a fellowship?" Light took a hit and blew out smoke, his eyes giving the impression that he was considering something of great weight. "But I'm getting ahead of myself. Near, you know that Ryuzaki was one of the smartest men around. How long do you think it would take him before he reached the same conclusions about mankind as I did?"

"You shut the hell up!" Matsuda yelled. The man was becoming hysterical, and everyone but Light, Teru, and Near fidgeted uncomfortably. How much longer could they contain the situation before it blew up in their faces?

"Nothing more pathetic than a man who runs away from the truth," Light said, turning his gaze back to

Near. "But you and I, we're men that refuse to hide from the truth, aren't we, Near? I know you, Near. I knew you the moment after I read your files. Because, as clichéd as it may sound, we're not that different. Oh, sure, you may see me as a deranged serial killer with delusions of grandeur, and I may see you as something that should have been choked to death the day it was born, but surely you must agree that we're both men of wisdom. We both know the score, and we've both seen the writing on the wall. Are you really going to stand there and tell me that you never considered the thought that there were two Kira's, and that Ryuzaki was the second one?"

"THAT'S A LIE!' Matsuda screamed. "THAT'S A DAMNED LIE!"

"You're treading on some pretty thin ice, Light!" Aizawa added. He sounded far more controlled than Matsuda but didn't feel it. "Insulting the dead before we send you up the river isn't a good way to prevent us from beating the hell out of you!"

"Well, in that case, I haven't much to lose, do I, Shuichi?" Light retorted. "Yeah, you've got me dead to rights. Yeah, I'll be spending the rest of my life in the pen." He tapped the side of his head. "But so long as I have this little WMD on me, you've really got nothing on me, do you? And don't tell me that you've never suspected Ryuzaki, either. I've seen the way you guys have looked at him before, especially after he tried to suspend my habeas corpus rights the first time he put me behind the eight ball. Didn't those little. You know as well as I do that Ryuzaki would break any rule in the book to insure justice. Are you really going to stand there and tell me that he never once thought that Kira equals justice? That he would go behind your back to aid me?"

He turned to look at Matsuda with a look of mild and pleasant surprise. "And you thought of it too, Touta?" He asked. "Honestly, I'm impressed. And here I thought you were the stupid one."

"S-screw this!" Matsuda snapped, clicking the safety of his pistol. "He's trying to screw us all over again! Well, not this time! If he's evil enough and smart enough to have killed Ryuzaki, then we can't take any chances with him!

"Touta, please settle yourself down," Light said with no intention of settling him down. "This is the same excessively emotional refusals of the truth that has prolonged the suffering of man for eons. Well allow me tell you the truth: I am God, Ryuzaki betrayed you, and if you don't let me have my say, I'll inevitably bring Hell down on your heads. You see, If I'm going down, I'm going to take you all with me. Oh, you might not be the ones riding the lightning in the near future, but c'mon, can you really convince yourselves that I haven't prepared myself for this exact same scenario? I've prepared myself for all of them: for incarceration, for trial, for execution. Really, at this point, you've got nothing to lose."

The smug grin fell somewhere between a unamused frown and a violent snarl. "But refuse me this, and I'll make sure you lose everything", he hissed.

"Talk," Mogi said, staring directly at Light, trying his best not to show just how crap-his-pants terrified he was at the moment.

"M-Mogi! Don't tell me that you buy this crap!" Matsuda practically screeched.

Mogi gave Matsuda a guilty, helpless look. "I'm sorry, Matsuda," he said, "but L's methods weren't always ethical, you know. And couldn't they have acted as Kira together, especially when they were chained together?"

"'Chained together'?" Teru repeated, giving Light an odd look.

"Nothing happened," Light said curtly.

"I can't believe what I'm hearing!" Matsuda shouted at Mogi. He turned his frantic eyes back to Near. "Near, you need to finish the work that L began and lock up this demented freak!"

"Heretic, I do not care how many firearms are aimed at me," Teru said in a chilled, hushed tone. Matsuda turned to make some sort of smart reply but stopped short after taking a closer look at the visage and demeanor of Kira's Grim Reaper. His eyes, though no longer glowing with a light that could best be described as darkly cosmic, still exhibited something harsh and cruel, the fearlessness of a fanatic. "But if you insult the Kira one more time, I'll insure that you regret it and in spades. Are you really willing to gamble that I won't tear out your larynx before your comrades cut me down?"

Matsuda, who believed the Butthole Surfers when they said that it was better to regret something you did rather than regret something you did not do, promptly shut his mouth. Something told him that he would regret being mutilated more than he would shutting up.

"I think we should hear him out, boss" Gevanni said to Near. "He may be one evil bastard, but he's one brilliant evil bastard. He tells us something good, we may be free of this Kira stuff once and for all. What's he gonna do, walk out of a room filled with pointed magnums? Besides, its not like he knows where we hid the other book."

"Gevanni!" Near snapped.

Gevanni appeared to start shrugging his shoulders, but fell short of it when he realized that it would upset his aim. "Does it really even matter, Boss? We've got this one in the bag. Besides, he may be one sick, evil little turd, but he's a brilliant turd all the same. It can't hurt to hear him out; we might even get to learn something useful from him."

"'The Devil can cite scripture for his purpose'," Rester said, glowering.

"Maybe so, but I think Dante would have made in an exception with Yagami-" Lidner began.

"Shakespeare," Teru interrupted.

"Whatever!" Lidner snapped at Teru. She turned her gaze to Near. "But Gevanni still has a point. We don't know what sentence Yagami is going to get. He could get the chair. He could get life. Or some bureau could try to steal him from us so that they can use him. You know what extent Washington or Beijing would go to to acquire this douche? I say we take our chances, not great chances by the way, and learn what we can."

"You honestly think some central governments would go to the trouble of trying to control this freak?" Ide asked skeptically.

"Why not?" Mogi replied. "Russia and America picked up Nazi scientists after the war. The West tried using the Mujahideen to weaken the U.S.S.R. They even had that 'Dark Avengers' unit in New York, the one filled with Norman Osborn and the rest of those killers!"

"I'm flattered," Light intoned.

'Near, it's your call," Aizawa said, feeling a little guilty for passing the burden onto a kid yet attempting to negate that guilt with the knowledge that Near was an intellectual behemoth. "If you want us to cuff him, we'll do it. If you want us to listen, we'll do that too. But please make your decision fast," he added, tightening his voice so that the sheer, raw panic wouldn't show, thin streams of sweat trickling down his brows, "because I don't know how much longer I can hold this guy. I truly do not."

Near thought as rapidly yet clearly as he could. Really, what could Yagami do with just a few minutes. Talk them to death?

Knowing him though... Near considered.

No. No, Light Yagami was a man, an extraordinarily dangerous man and a sordid excuse for a man, but a man nonetheless. There was no such thing as the Devil, and Yagami, as maliciously evil as he was, certainly wasn't the Morning Star.

How will it look if you refuse him this? Near thought. You'll look like a coward, especially after everything L did to stop this monster. How will I lead my team then? For better or for worse, I can't let my mentor down and seem weak.

"You get five minutes, Yagami," Near said at last. He hardened his eyes: he didn't want Light to think that this was a get out of jail free card. "I suggest that you use them wisely."

Light shrugged, grinning in a sort of Gee willikers , what on Earth could I possibly do? sort of way before he reached inside his suit. Immediately, the rest of the pistols were pulled out and pointed at him, the individual sounds accumulating into one loud click. Light's grin fell, replaced by an annoyed frown. "Wow, it's too much for me to have one last smoke before you send me to Gitmo then?"

There was a shared hesitation, each detective staring uncertainly at one another. Eventually, they all glanced at Near with a collective What now? look. Near thought for a moment, intentionally leaving his face blank, then nodded grimly. Light, in turn, grinned as if about to feast upon a delicious, bloody steak, and pulled a thick joint from inside his suit. Ordinarily, the sight of Light possessing dope would have thrown his colleagues for a loop, but this was very much not an ordinary situation, and all were in agreement that the fate of man superseded Light smoking some pineapple express. He brought out a lighter from his jeans' pocket, lit it, took a hit, and then exhaled, smoke trailing from his mouth like dragon breath, his face a contented, relaxed departure from the horror they dreaded was fast approaching.

Light placed his thumb under his chin, the musings of an assured philosopher; his countenance suggested that he had a frighteningly large surplus of material he could draw from but that he had the confidence needed to know exactly what to say.

"Consider this," he began. He walked a few steps, the smoke trailing his gait, thin wisps in a still and silent room. Just those few steps gave the impression that he wasn't a frantic criminal desperately attempting to avoid capture, but a man in complete control of his surroundings. "Consider how much I'm worth. Someone like me, anyway. I'm the greatest mind on the planet. My body, my perfect, fit, and adept container of my brain, is the zenith of evolution. Wouldn't you agree? I mean, how else was I able to make it so far? How else did I go from being some bored, bourgeoisie intellectual to this, Kira, master and conqueror of Earth? I've done more in my twenties than anyone has ever done over the period of their whole lives, greater than the Ramses and the Bonaparte's and the Alexanders that came before me."

'So how much would I be worth?" He said. He began to gesticulate as he paced. "Fifteen million? Twenty five? Fifty? Something like that, I'll bet. Just think of all the people that could make use of me: S.H.I.E.L.D., F.B.I., Hydra, maybe even Latveria." Light paused, considered. "Not that I would work with any of those bent pigs or fanatical pissants, you understand. If anything, they would be honored and privileged to work for me. And I, being the just and forgiving deity that I am, would be happy to overlook their past 'moral lapses', so long as they contribute to my rule of course. I'm not running a charity here, you know."

"Eventually, I began to think about just what course of action I was to take if you irritating insects ever caught up with me," Light said. The shadow behind him, projected onto the screen, a juggernaut demon, seemed to stand up straighter and prouder (That shouldn't be possible Near noted feeling his heart begin to tug painfully) "I began to think about who I could trust and who I could control in a worst case scenario. About who could best serve my interests. About what I could do to insure your collective demise. About who could help guarantee that Kira's legacy will never end."

"Is there a point to all this, Yagami?" Near snapped.

"The point?" Light asked. This time his mouth had contorted itself a monstrous smirk, eyes burning with a reserve of power reserved for the black hearted and the soulless. Kira had taken off his mask and shown his true face. "The point is that you never had any chance of winning this. Oh, also, just incidentally, you're all surrounded by ninjas."

A loud kashunk was heard, and everyone but Light turned to see the source of the disruptive noise. Lidner gasped, Ide turned white, and Mogi uttered a choked, "No!", but the scene remained the same: the front end of a katana sword sticking out the center of Matsuda's chest. Blood tricked out of his mouth, a stupefied, wide "o", and his eyes bulged with excruciating terror as they turned about to see his attacker. The expression on his face said more than any words that his tongue could produce: This is most certainly the worst case scenario, and we're all most certainly screwed.

He was right.

Amidst the agony, Matsuda somehow noted with only faint surprise that his attacker was indeed a ninja. The scene struck him as surreal and abstract, made murky and intangible by the fact that he had never once considered the idea that his death would be caused by one. Most people didn't die by ninjas, and they were rare nowadays of course, assassins employed largely by the wealthy and the powerful. Yet all the same, there stood a man dressed vastly in black with a red cloth belt, his face masked but for his eyes. It was this man, this ninja that held the hilt of the sword, and with same strange sense of delirium, that same dreamy sense of watching art house films he couldn't understand in the classy theater with his dates, Matsuda realized that the man's glaring eyes looked like brown chestnuts.

"Yagami, you mother-" Matsuda began.

The ninja interrupted Matsuda by slashing his blade upwards, slicing through the flesh like a hot knife through butter, striking horizontally through the neck. Matsuda's severed head fell to the ground, eyes wide, mouth agape, his last moments of life an utter disillusionment. The head rolled a few inches towards Light, and he kicked it like he would a soccer ball. Perhaps due to unholy miracle, the head flew and struck Mogi in his.

"BOOM, BITCHES!" Light roared, arms spread out in triumph.

From the beams of the warehouse the ninjas fell, silent, quick, precise, a directed whirlwind of glinting steel and ebony cloth. For a moment, it didn't look to the detectives like there was a number of armed individuals leaping from the ceiling with murderous intent; it looked more like the inception of some amoral natural disaster, getting ready to sweep them all away. A romantic and glorious past opened before their eyes, and the heat of the moment held them still like the eyes of a tiger.

Then an arrow fired by a ninja and his bow exited through the back of Ide's left eye and all bets were considered off.

The detectives began firing, a similarly destructive wave of bullets erupting from the barrels of their firearms. The air became leaden with the smell of dull gunpowder, and the dark of the room lighted up briefly and precipitously with each frantic pull of the triggers.

"I should've known!" Rester roared, firing his pistol as quickly as he could. It didn't do him much good: Rester was an excellent marksman, but the ninjas were running inhumanely fast, moving in and out of the shadows so quickly that it was becoming difficult to distinguish one from the other. Finally, he pointed the barrel at Light's smirking face: the god in the form of man responded by crossing his arms and slightly widening his grin, as if the great deity was amused by the display of such a primitive tool. "If we go down, I'll be bringing you with me, you twisted son of a-"

Rester's tirade against Light was cut short abruptly short: a ninja, hooded, emotionless, serene, bashed the right side of Rester's face in with an enormous kanabō. In the past, Light may have been moderately repelled by such grotesque savage. But now, the sight of a spiked club colliding into another man's face, the tearing of his flesh, the dislodging of his eye, the severance of his tongue, with all the ultra-violence confronting him, Light could only see the rising of a delicious soufflé.

Gevanni, his neck lopped off from the rest of his body via a kusarigama chain-sickle. Mogi, the top of his head crushed in by an iron nun-chuck. Lidner, her heart penetrated by the stabbing of a naginata, gorgeous face crumpled into an expression of utter agony as she coughed blood onto the head of the unfazed ninja.

"Yagami! Call them off!" An irate voice barked from behind Light. The prideful deity glanced over his shoulder with a controlled, subtle look of mild vexation. Aizawa, his face red and perspiring, his nostrils flaring, his eyes burning maliciously with black fire, held Teru captive: the last remaining KTU detective tightly held an arm around Mikami's shoulder, and the other arm pressed a .45 ACP into the side of his forehead. A small fire of indignation began to flicker within the cold confines of Teru's icy demeanor. It was the look of a priest of royalty incensed that such an inferior infidel would dare accost him in such an egregious manner. "Call them off, or I blow the freak's brains out! See if I won't, Light!"

"This is a grave transgression that you're committing, blasphemer," Teru said, face composed like granite. "Beg for mercy at the feet of the Kira, and perhaps He will be forgiving enough to grant you a painless death."

"You shut your mouth!" Aizawa roared into Teru's ear. Teru cringed at the outburst but then quickly reacquired his usual sneer of disdain. Aizawa turned back to Light: "Do what I say, Light! Now!"

"Aizawa, please, you're only making this harder for yourself," Light said. The look of irritation subsided and was replaced by a grin so infuriatingly smug that Aizawa began to tremble involuntarily. "There's no need to panic. I mean, you're dealing with a just and merciful deity here! Stand down now, and I'll let you OD on vicodin."

"Screw you, Light, you friggin' sadist!" Aizawa shouted. "You're not getting out of this one! Not again! Not this time! I don't care how it goes down, but-"

An agonizing shard of pain quickly flared inside Aizawa's stomach and cut his outburst short. Had not Aizawa not been distracted by the excruciating distraction, he would have probably recognized that not only had Mikami struck his stomach into his stomach, but he had yanked his gun from his holster less than a second afterwards. Likewise, the stunned detective was too busy gasping for air to notice the foot crashing into his right cheekbone: Aizawa had, in fact, been an ardent mixed martial arts fan, and had not white stars been brilliantly exploding right before his very eyes, he would have been able to clarify for all that Mikami had just executed a tae kwon do tornado kick.

The ninjas were thorough and intrepid in their response to this kick: two of the warriors threw a total of eight kunai knives in rapid succession at Aizawa, and all eight of the knives struck him before he hit the ground. Aizawa roared something that was a hybrid of distraught rage and helpless shock, but whether or not the roar was released right after the kick or the knives was uncertain. What was more apparent was that, impressively, he continued to breathe and to live, albeit hoarsely, his breath racked with involuntary convolutions. A refreshing end to the ambiguity occurred merely seconds later, and the last thing that Aizawa saw with his head lying on the ground was a ninja swooping down upon him, landing on his haunches, driving his katana through his forehead.

All things considered, it wasn't the worst way to go out,

During this time, Near had watched the systematic execution of his teammates with horrified, fascinated eyes, horrified in that they had all been brutally murdered and he was next, fascinated in that something this unlikely, this improbable, this bloody fantastic was actually happening to him. In his short life, Near had done more than most people: he had solved crimes that burdened entire countries, he had thrown some of the world's most powerful criminals into prison, and he had made his fair share of enemies worldwide. Never though, never, did he think that his end would come at the hand of a mythical class of warrior, a frequent, perhaps overused, trope of movies, television, and video games. The astronomical odds mesmerized him, if nothing else.

Akin to Sherlock Holmes finding out that Moriarty hired Vikings, I suppose Near thought.

Near felt something cold, hard, and metallic press into the side of his head. He turned around, and with a dazed lack of surprise, saw Teru Mikami pressing Aizawa's pistol into his head. "They say not to suffer the little children, for they are the Kingdom of Heaven," he said, calmly enough. "But they also say that to spare the rod is to spoil the child. Please do not force me to use the rod, child. I've used the rod before, and I don't like what I become when I do."

"Oh, but I do," Light said to Near. "I can't tell you how lucky I was to find Teru, Near. As you well know, genius lawyers aren't easy to come by. But genius lawyers trained by the Israeli Army who know how to hide personal information from the likes of you? I think they've got a name for that back in England. What do they call it, Near? 'A diamond in the rough'?"

Near felt dazed, disoriented. Too much was happening too fast, and his brain, advanced as it was, struggled to comprehend the horrible magnitude of the situation. He placed a hand on his forehead, hoping to cool it down. No dice: the hand was too sweaty, too warm. "The Israeli Army...?" he began.

"It wasn't easy to get them to take in a foreigner, that I can assure you," Teru said. To Near it didn't sound like the man was bragging, just that he was telling the truth. But as you can already tell, I have skills, the sort of skills that four star generals with deep pockets pay gladly for. But that's another story for another time, I suppose."

"Only there won't be a next time for you, you little atheist turd, because we're going to crucify your little white ass," Light added. Now that was gloating; despite Near's position, he could feel his lips curl into an indignant snarl. "What a pity. Personally, my favorite part is how he left the army: mountains of body bags behind him."

"The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a morally ambiguous battle," Teru concurred.

"But enough politics," Light said. "Granted, I pulled enough strings here, but I'd like you two to meet the woman who, shall we say, 'facilitated' my inevitable victory." He gestured with his hands towards a corner of the room. "Take a bow, why don't you? Call it generosity if you will, but this is your win as well."

"And a considerable victory it was, Mr. Yagami," said a feminine voice. All three men looked towards the direction of the voice, in the south east wing of the warehouse. There wasn't much there: a few crates, a dolly here and there, and an extended steel walkway that led upwards to a battered, unkempt office. Still, one thing could be seen: a curvy, fit, and sultry outline, one that appeared to be quite at ease with the results of bloody mayhem surrounding her. "I hope you appreciate just how unusual this conquest was for you. The League of Assassins does not often perform such... favors."

The woman moved forward, her appearance becoming clearer and clearer as she did so. After a few steps, she stood before them in her full, unadulterated, illimitable exquisiteness.

Skin the color of milk chocolate. Long, luxuriant, silky hair like cinnamon and mocha. Pouting, full, red lips. Her amber eyes stared at the three men humorlessly, but her sobriety didn't detract from her beauty in the least. She could have been weeping for joy or crying tears of rage: the beauty, so pliable, would have remained the same.

And that body Light thought. Oh God, that body. And I've seen women before, as many women as I've wanted. But this one, this one is something special. Like a sculpture that Michaelangelo dreamed of or a painting Blake never got around to. Light felt as if he could swoon with such thoughts, then redoubled his efforts to maintain his stance. Under any other occasion, he would have to have this woman, perhaps make her his queen, but now was not the time. Besides, she had her lover to think of, the lover that Kira was going to mop the floor with. Perhaps, after the bloody business was concluded, he would be able to come to an arrangement with her. It was not necessary, however. He wanted her, but he didn't need her. Kira needed no one; it was the world that needed Kira.

Near was not at an age to appreciate women nor was he the type of person to appreciate physical beauty (the only women who really in interested him were Mary Shelly and J.K. Rowling). However, this woman was different: this woman was a queen, an amazon, a goddess, with all the allurement befitting of such ranks. Despite logically fearing for his own life, he was utterly awed by the only thing he had ever considered divine, even if she was an ally of his enemy. Ludicrously yet somehow convincingly, Near's mind suggested the possibility that the real tragedy here wasn't his imminent death but the fact that he would never know the touch of such a godly woman.

Teru momentarily closed his eyes, indulging himself with a brief, however necessary (and it was necessary) image of himself loving this woman, a whirl of passion, laughter, and sublime joy. Imagining the pleasure and the bliss inherent in such a union, he almost found himself moaning. But then he opened his eyes, and he rid himself of the transgressive euphoria he so desired. Teru had loved women in his time, but each and every one of them had disappointed him, sickening him with their mediocrity, poisoning him with their apathetic contentment, dizzying him their acceptance of their heretical and corrupt world. They were all alike, these women and these men, these barbarians, the same filth that compelled him to shower for hours, hoping to wash off all the sweat and the sex and the murder. Women looked better than their male counterparts, true, but did not Lilith supersede Adam in appearance? Did not Delilah, oh so fair, betray Samson? And did not the Christ reject Magdalene, the whore and the sow? No, this woman looked to be heavenly, but she was undoubtedly as debauched as the rest of them. If Kira, in his infinite wisdom, deigned to associate the woman with a covenant, then so be it. He would not and could not question the word of his master. But he would not let himself forget the Original Sin anytime soon.

"So is everything to your satisfaction, Mr. Yagami?" Talia al Ghul asked.

Light thought. "I notice you didn't use the man-bats," he said at last.

Talia's face indicated suppressed irritation, but she dismissed Light's complaint with a wave of her hand. "The man-bats were not needed for this assassination," she said. She gave the maimed cadavers an unpleasant look, as if employing her ninjas for the like of them was an egregious waste of her time. "This... this was all too easy."

Light stared blankly at Talia, and after a few moments she fidgeted uncomfortably. Talia didn't many men (she only feared, in her way, two men, both similar to one another yet both so utterly antithetical), but then again Light Yagami wasn't most men. She didn't know much about him, but then she knew enough. Knew how impossibly brilliant he was. Knew that he could have any one he wanted in the palm of his hands with only a few words. Knew just how depraved and sadistic he could be when he wanted to. Talia had the sense that she was watching a man without a face ponder which mask to put on next, and she wasn't sure if she wanted to know how Light's brain worked, what triggers and connections were made inside that haunted mind of his. It unnerved her, and the juxtaposition of this man with the masked man that she loved made her feel faintly ill.

No She thought. No, they're not alike. They're not alike at all.

Teru stirred, scratched his neck. He looked uncomfortable. And if the brutally insane bodyguard was uncertain of what his boss was going to do, then...

Light's face brightened unexpectedly. "It's just as well," he remarked. "We can't afford to shed temperance until we clash with you-know-who, not that I want him to, you understand, only that I expect him to." Light tilted his head a little in the direction of Talia, and gave her a conspiring smile: Talia felt her legs involuntarily tighten. "Say, Talia, speaking of men who are willing to beat the ever-loving crap out of your baby daddy, just how is your dear old dad doing nowadays? Ra's still with that Greenpeace thing of his?"

Talia felt something hot and bitter rise up in her throat. It was something that extensive training had taught her to master and control, so much so that she rarely suffered it nowadays. Still, she immediately recognized that sour tang flooding her mind: it was rage, and it was strong. Moving towards the shadows, she clenched a concealed hand.

"Father is fine, Mr. Yagami," Talia said, trying to sound like she didn't want to water-board him. "The reason that he is not here is because he has been... preoccupied. I control the League of Assassins in his stead, as you can see."

"As I can see," Light murmured, his eyes slightly vacant. He lifted his eyes from her ass, and the old, implying grin returned again. "And how about Lex, Talia? Heard from Dr. Evil recently? He was the one who told me how to contact you, after all. As it turns out, he hates you almost as much as he hates the glory boy. Such an angry man, Talia, such a bitter man! Really, they only cloud your judgment. Makes you harbor unnecessary grudges." The smile became wider, the glint in his eyes sharper. "Still, how else can a man react? Especially when an arrogant whore tanks his presidency?" He shrugged his shoulders. "Live and learn, I suppose."

Before Talia could reply (And she was glad that she was prevented from doing so: what she had to say to Yagami would have made even her beloved gasp, and she was not entirely sure that her ninjas could intercept Mikami before he snapped her neck with his knee), Light pointed at the ninja closest to Near. The only details one could make about this ninja up close were that he was black and that his eyes showed disdain for the entire situation.

"You there, Tonto," Light said. "I want you and Kato there," he pointed to the ninja closest to "Tonto", "to interrogate the little snot. Find out where his orphanage is so I can burn it to the ground. Then I want you and the rest of the Peanut Gallery to hunt any and all of the survivors. I'll leave the nature of the executions to your judgment, but I do advise creativity and-"

"I won't tell you a thing," Near said, voice devoid of fear and cold as ice. Talia and Light turned to look with mildly intrigued looks on their faces. "I don't care what you do to me. I'll never sell out my comrades, least of all my mentor, so you might as well kill me now, you demented psychopath."

Teru started for a moment at the insult but then held his peace. This boy really isn't afraid of Death he thought with some wonder. Although, I suppose it only makes sense. Kira, He who is Most Merciful and Just, he told me of how he worked with a man who was the Devil himself, how he gave him a chance for redemption, how the ungrateful infidel refused to stop trying to destroy Man, how God had no choice but to vanquish the HERETIC! The voice of Teru's thoughts increased suddenly and greatly at this last word, but he held his breath in tightly, doing a proficient job of disguising his tension. I don't think I've been excited in all a while. It must be because of this boy. Quite the little workout he gave me. Very much like his master. Blasphemers, no doubt, but there's skill there too. Nothing, not even death, will stop a similar child from seeing his vengeance through to the end. Teru's eyes widened slightly enough that it didn't attract any attention. He knew that he had struck upon something paramount. So if Death isn't what he fears...

Light took a hit, inhaled, exhaled, surveyed the situation with a detached expression. He glanced back at Talia. "So should I put this out in his eyes, or should the kid grow up with no lead in his pencil?" he asked.

Talia looked as if she were about to reply but then widened her eyes ever so slightly and curled her nose, as if in disgust. As Light turned to look at what he expected to be the object of her gaze of detestation, he began to wonder if Teru could hold off the ninjas after he, say, stabbed Talia in her neck with his pencil and then made his escape. No one could look at him that Kira, nosiree Bob. No one could stare at Kira the way he looked at the humans.

Light's train of thought came to an abrupt halt when he realized that Talia was staring not at him but at Teru and Near. And, truth be told, if he didn't want Teru to keep obeying him, he would have widened his eyes and curled his nose too.

Teru had fallen to his knees, facing Near. As strange as this act was, Teru's proceeding action was even more so, as well as disturbing. With one hand pressing the gun into the side of Near's head, Teru used his other hand to cradle the back of the head with a rigid claw. With the lunatic boring holes into him with his coldly gleeful eyes, Near found himself less certain than ever about being anywhere close to the psychopath.

"Little man," Teru said, "do you believe in Hell?"

"I believe in the spirit of man," Near replied, glowering. In truth, he had had a difficult time concealing his disgust in the brief yet utterly horrible belief that the lunatic was about to kiss him. It was going to be difficult to reason with this man, let alone fool him into releasing him: the dossiers said that Mikami basically regarded life as absurd and that it could only make sense if you forced it to. Very challenging to deal with such impractical idealists. Still, he sounded as brave and steady as he could. "I believe that man doesn't need to worship false deities in order to function. I believe-"

"I did not ask if you believe in God, little man," Teru interrupted. He narrowed his eyes: Near could see something hiding behind those iron-clad eyes, something patient, something plotting, but ultimately something that wouldn't hesitate to crack his skull open. Teru was deluded yet still brilliant. Near couldn't let himself forget that. "What I asked was whether or not you believe in Hell. I'd dig my thumbs into your eyes for your wretched insolence, but I'm actually curious to hear your answer. Still, I wouldn't push my luck, if I were you."

"Fine then, I don't" Near said, confidently enough. "I don't believe in Hell."

"Why not?" Teru asked.

"Because I find the idea ludicrous," Near answered. "A burning pit where the damned are tortured by demons and devils? A realm ruled by a monster, as every bit as flamboyantly evil as Darth Vader or Sauron? The idea is ridiculous and luidcrous."

"Then you've completely missed the point," Teru said.

"How's that?" Near asked.

"Because you're in Hell right now, child" Teru said. "And not just because the lord Kira has seen fit to end your little blasphemous life either and with what I pray will be in an excrutiating manner. No, little man, life is Hell for all, the young and the old, the white and the black, the stupid and the wise. Those who deny the existence of Hell merely haven't understood the punchline. Well, take this bit of wisdom, free of charge and on the house. You know Hell? That terrible underworld realm of burning torture and cruel demons? It's not underground. No. It's within you. It's within man. Hell is within man. Heaven resides within man too, but people always prefer the Inferno, don't they? The last two thirds of the Divine Comedy never really seem to affect others like the sight of Greek monstrosities and the scent of burning flesh does. But, all the same, man makes civilization based on what's within him, what's in his heart. That's where everything comes from, you know. And, as you can clearly see, especially with all the blood and the gore surrounding you, mind you, life is Hell."

Near scoffed. "That's just melodramatic hyperbole," he said. "Life's not that callous nor is it that mysterious. It simply is. Everything can be explained with logic."

At first, Near thought that he had gone too far. Fire the color of factory smog leaped up in Mikami's eyes but then died so quickly that it could have been subliminal. Near was reminded of the Ralph Steadman drawing Ryuzaki had once shown him and thought that Teru looked more than a bit like them: crude, rough, angry enough to be declared not legally insane, but off-the-record crazy.

The eyes drilled into him for an uncomfortably long time, blank and wondering but undoubtedly hostile. "You're still young," Teru replied at last, his voice as flat as a blood and oil slicked highway. It sounded like he was talking to himself as much as he was talking to Near. "You're still naïve. You haven't understood the joke yet. Haven't figured out that there is a joke. You think that the world makes sense. Well, it doesn't. The world doesn't make sense. The world is always falling apart, yet it never ends. Things just go on and on and on, forever and ever. Therein lies the joke: we could have had Heaven this entire time, if not for the fact that the Babylonians and the Philistines prefer Hell. What happens in Hell? Agony. Agony, pure and simple. What happens in life? Agony: War. Plague. Indifference to all of the sex and to all of the murder. And we expect it all; we expect to see the bodies splatter when they hit the ground, tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. What else can Pandemonium's denizens expect? In that sense, as you are an insidious atheist, I would think that Death tempts you. Death, the refuge from the maelstrom. After all, if, as you believe, neither Heaven nor Hell reside within or without man, well, Death would become your last, great escape, wouldn't it?"

"What are you trying to say?" Near asked. His mouth felt dry, and it was becoming more and more difficult to swallow without the sensation of lead pushing down his neck.

"What I'm saying is that if you don't tell us the location of that bastard orphanage and the names of all the people in it, I will inflict you with the most excruciating agony conceivable and in as many ways as I can imagine," Teru said. "I'll break all of your toes and fingers before I saw through your hands and feet. Stick skewers through your ribs. Use bolt cutters to tear off your nose. Rub glass into your eyes. Cut off your ears with a steak knife. Whip your back with barbed wire. Shatter your jaw with a sledge hammer. Pour gasoline all over you, set you on fire, and then put the fire out before it kills you."

Teru's eyes went into reaper mode then, two orbs burning brilliantly, luminous and fiery like galaxies colliding into one another. Near felt something wet grow near his crotch as Teru roughly pressed to his forehead with a snarl. "AND THEN I'LL LET YOU LIVE AS LONG AS I CAN, RIVER!"

"Oh... oh god..." Near whispered, his eyes as wide as they could possibly be, his voice little more than a quiver. He knew then that all the adults had been wrong. Monsters didn't live in the closet. Monsters didn't hide under the bed. Monsters didn't even lurk in the basement. But monsters undoubtedly existed, and as Mikami proved, monsters were men.

"Now you call upon Him", Teru noted, eyes cooling back down to what could best be considered human. He curled his nose in disgust, as if he had just realized that he had been touching a cockroach all this time, and shoved the boy away from him. Near landed on his hands and knees painfully but did not cry out. With his face turned away from everyone and with his abundant hair covering the sides of it, no one could see tears of shame silently stream their ways down his clenched eyes.

"I take it you want the other option then," Teru said. "Right: a lobotomy. You've chosen well, child."

Teru walked away with the kind of expression that suggested that he didn't just threaten to torture a child and approached his god.

"Been reading Faulkner again, Teru?" Light asked. He passed the joint to Teru.

Teru took a hit, the smoke billowing around his granite face like sulfuric tendrils. "I find that his nihilistic prose indicates the tragically necessary deaths of cultural epochs," he said. He took another, briefer hit before passing it back. "And also discourages me from choking other with tourniquets."

"I'm sure," Light said. He called over to the ninja who grabbed Near's nape: "Make sure he reveals the name of everyone in that accursed orphanage! I want to nip this in the bud before the day is through!"

"Wait! No!" Near cried out, eyes widened in alarm. "You've got to answer me! You've got to answer my last question! You've already won! What the hell do you have to lose at this point?"

Light rolled his eyes around a little, as if in thought. He didn't seem terribly hurried. Then he took another hit from his jay. "Talk," he said, steam billowing from his mouth.

"You had ninjas here this entire time," Near said. "You could have killed us all anytime you wanted. So why the charade? Why the theatrics? Why did you draw it out so long? Why did you tell us all those things?"

Light arched an eyebrow and smiled; Near involuntarily felt a shudder pass through his body.

Near had never believed in the Devil up until now.

"Why, that's quite simple, Near," Light grinned. "I wanted to piss on L's grave one last time."

Near opened his mouth as if to reply but shut it without saying a word. He looked crestfallen but not surprised in the least. He hung his head down, his hair hiding his face; after a few seconds of silence, the ninja grabbed his nape again and dragged him to the north west side of the warehouse, as dark as the rest of the building. The other ninja followed them silently; neither ninja appeared to be thrilled with the task at hand. Eventually, the darkness of the outer rim swallowed them whole.

Out of sight, out of mind Light thought and grinned.

"Oh, I do so love a happy ending," Light noted wryly. He turned to look at Talia. "Is the van ready yet?"

"Almost," Talia said. Her expression was now of mild disgust mixed with slight respect, disgust in that Kira had plotted the execution of a child, respect in that he had the skills to pull all of this off. "It is outside, undergoing inspection as we speak. I need to speak with my soldiers and inform them of the next mission before we leave though."

"As you will," Light said. Talia walked away, doing her best not to look behind her as Lot's wife did in those stories her father had once told her as a little girl. She was aware that she would not turn into a pillar of salt, but staring at Kira longer than was necessary was surely ill-advised for one's health. She walked away about twenty feet and began to confer with the rest of her ninjas.

"Incredible," said a raucous, guttural voice, the cawing of a crow, the grinding of a handsaw against iron and steel. "You truly are the most interesting human I've ever met, Light Yagami. I knew that I made the right move when I decided not to write your name down. I don't think I've been entertained this much in a long, long time."

Light looked up towards the ceiling and grinned in foreknowledge of who his visitor was. In the darkness of the rafters, the figure of the reaper appeared more sinister and more predatory than they actually were (though this knowledge didn't exactly ease Light's sense of dread, spoiling his ecstasy like flies spoiling a delicious steak). Encased by thick streams of inky shadow, a lanky, winged form with gleeful, shining white eyes leered at the scene below, as jubilantly knowing as the eye sockets of a skull.

The figure crouched more towards the thin light afforded by the windows, making his appearance all the more conspicuous. Something at least seven feet tall, anthropomorphic, a grotesque amalgamation of feathers, deathly pale skin, and large raven-like wings. However, as the figure became easier to see, the eyes cooled down into the more actual set of crimson pupils set against dark yellow irises like rotting green olives, at best the eyes of a cruel, bored child pulling the wings off of a fly, at their worst the rapaciously hungry eyes of a gluttonous beast.

"Come now, Ryuk," Light smirked. "Was there any doubt as to my utterly decimating my enemies?"

"You could say that," Ryuk chuckled. He stepped off the rafter and beat his wings slowly, carrying himself softly down to the floor. He landed down on his haunches but then straightened himself out, and at this level Light could tell that Ryuk wasn't so much seven feet tall as he was seven feet five inches tall, at least two heads higher than him. Staring into that alarmingly grotesque of the mammoth god of the dead would have scared most people, but then Light Yagami wasn't most people. True, Light was somewhat intimidated by the reaper, but it was more like the kind of intimidation that a gun owner would show for his piece, slight, thin, as if the gun owner knew that the gun could kill people but doubted that it would ever blow his brains out. For the most part, Light stared at Ryuk like they were equals, less out of mutual respect and more out of the knowledge that the shinigami could snuff Light any time he wished. Then again, Light continually reminded Ryuk that he could convince him to write his name down, and in such a way that involved choking and sex jelly. That, more or less, gave them the unique relationship of neither fearing nor trusting one another, a bromance built on the foundation of boredom and murder. "For a moment there, I did think that you were gonna let your pride screw you over. I figured, you couldn't keep this up forever. Somewhere along the line, you'd trip up. But look at all this here! Blood! Gore! Ninjas! Actual, authentic, real life ninjas! Just when I think that there's no direction for you to go but down, you strap on a rocket and go zooming off into the stratosphere! For the first time in my life, I think I may actually be proud of you!"

Light adjusted his suit and tie, not looking particularly concerned with his attire while he did it. "Well, we Yagami's do pride ourselves on innovation," he said. He glanced over at Teru: "Speaking of death gods and their jobs, Teru, did you happen to, ah, 'take care' of Misa like I asked you to?"

Teru's face fell: he had begun to grin in a small but victorious kind of way, but now his mouth had fallen into a frown that even more melancholy than usual, if that was possible (somehow, it was). "I... I did as you commanded, my liege," Teru said, keeping his eyes elsewhere (Even when confirming that he carried out my orders, he's modest Light noted with some pride). "It's just... well, I... are you absolutely sure that it was right for me to...?" his voice trailed off. Somewhere in the more illogical, unconscious areas of his mind, voicing actions became the same as actually performing them.

"Teru, Teru, even in the midst of all this necessary bloodshed, you still somehow manage to remain empathic," Light said. He slid a brotherly arm around Teru: the shoulders were tight and stiff but did not resist. "I know that I chose you wisely, now. But yes, Teru, Misa's death was necessary. After all, she never would have made it this far. It would have been cruel and capricious for me to drag her along with us, especially considering where we're going and who we're going to meet. Besides, for souls like us, a painless death is something that's rarer than it should be." He fell silent and thought for a moment. "Uh, you did give her a painless death, didn't you, Teru?"

"I wrote the cause of death as a cranial hemorrhage as per your instructions, my lord," Teru said. "She died minutes after she finished watching her favorite film. The Little Mermaid was her favorite movie, wasn't it, Almighty?"

"It was indeed," Light said, patting Teru's shoulder before he let go. "A pity that she couldn't have lasted this long. I loved her (In my own way), and she was... unusually resourceful. But life goes on, doesn't it?" Light glanced at Ryuk once more. "Speaking of comrades, I trust that I can still rely on you, Ryuk. There's work a plenty to be done, and I'm sure that your talents will come in great use once we hit the states."

"You can rely on me until you bore me, Light," Ryuk said. There was something dangerously presumptuous in the reaper's voice that Light disliked but did not object to out loud; he retained his confident demeanor all the same, not wanting to look weak in front of his ardent subject. "Same rules as before, guy. I'm not on your side, and I'm not on his. I'm just here for the ride. You keep me entertained and you can take over all of outer space for all I care." Something very minute yet not insignificant gleamed in his olive eyes. "You start to bore me like that crappy Godard film you forced me to watch, and I'll give you the shaft. I almost came close to killing you this time, you know. If you had lost to Near, I would've snuffed you in a heartbeat. It's only the fact that you're going to go after the original American Bad-Ass that I'm letting you live."

"Ryuk, if you think I will stand here and allow you to insult Kira, He Who Bears The Sephirot-", Teru began.

"Forget it, Teru," Light said, waving a dismissive hand and began to move towards the door. "I still have use for our impetuous friend here," he gave Ryuk a cold glance over his shoulders, "I'll continue to grant the heathen levity. So long as he doesn't forget who's working for who here, that is."

"Me? Work for you?" Ryuk laughed. "Ha! That'll be the day!"

"Ryuk, if I were you I would bear in mind that every dog has his day and-" Light began.

"Who are you talking to?" Talia asked. Teru and Light whirled around, startled. She had been standing behind them, for how long neither of them knew.

"Um..." Teru began, not really sure what to say.

"Just the past, Talia," Light said, making the save. He walked away a little and surveyed the building with a pleased, nostalgic look. "Just the past."

"Freak," Talia said under her breath, beginning to walk away from the two.

"What was that, Talia?" Light asked. He walked briskly and caught up with her, Ryuk and Teru in tow. His voice, a even level of cheerfulness, could not suppress a tinge of rancor. He turned his head slightly to get a better look at Talia; she told herself that it must have been her imagination that made her see, however briefly, his eyes narrow into slits. It wasn't the slits that unnerved her though. It was the similarity of Yagami's slitted eyes and the slitted eyes of her beloved. Against her will, the right eyes of the monster brought fully to mind the image of her son's father, a man with the form of a demon. His true form, anyway. "Don't think I heard you there."

"I said that the vehicle is ready", Talia lied. She did her best to keep the indignation out of her voice. It was a disgrace that the daughter of the Demon's Head should chauffeur a psychopath about, especially one that now seemed to confer with invisible, imaginary confidants. Still, given time, the House of al Ghul could become the enemy of the House of Yagami. "A military grade caravan, as you requested. From there, it should take forty minutes to reach Kojima Forest. After that, it will take four hours to fly to the outskirts of the city. But I'm afraid that you will be on your own at that point. The League would not wage war with the city's protector. Not now, anyway."

"Yes, well, as they put it in that country, 'it is what it is', isn't it?" Light asked. All four individuals walked until they reached the front doors of the warehouse. Two ninjas waited there, each one holding a handle. When they saw that their mistress was ready to leave, each grabbed a handle and pulled in the opposite direction, allowing the last dying rays of the sun to fall onto them. The ninjas fooled behind the four as they walked outside. "Your assistance would be well received, Talia, but I'm not surprised that you're not inclined to tackle your boy-toy again. No matter: we have all we need to face him now. And all we need to bring him to our side."

In front of the group lied the entrance yard to the warehouse, a microscosmic warehouse every bit as ashen and barren as the Yellow Box itself. Here and there lied a few mementos of the warehouse's past glory years, beaten and worn with age. Stacks of moldy packing crates; a wooden spool with a sparse amount of coil; the burned out carcass of an disused car, like the steel skeleton of a dinosaur; a thin, bending, steel wire fence touched here and there with a half assed amount of barbed wire. In the center of the yard rested an enormous dark green camouflaged military caravan. Two ninjas stood guarding it, arms folded, neither distinguishable from the rest, composed, disciplined, and patient.

"Do you honestly think he will accept?" Talia asked.

"Do you honestly think he won't?" Light asked back.

"He's not a man who follows," Talia said. "He's a man who leads. It comes naturally to him, I suppose. For him, it has nothing to do with pride and everything to do with morality. That's why so many weaker, disillusioned men and women hold faith in him, however archaic his values may be."

"And that's why Kira is here," Light replied. "Soon our mutual friend will be reborn. With my help, he'll be enhanced, remade, improved, ready to fight this new era of greed and depravity."

"And what will happen when he refuses your methods as he has refused similar methods in the past?" Talia asked.

Light gave Talia a look, and that look told everything he had intended for a possible refusal. For the second time that day, a cold, frigid chill ran up and down her spine like the sensation of ice water being thrown upon her. In her time, she had earned the ire of psychotic clowns, disfigured ex-D.A.'s, and psychopathic, bandaged surgeons, but with the exception of that necessary fear of death, she had never really seen any of them as any one who could overthrow the House of al Ghul, let alone the House of the Bat.

This man though... this seemingly ordinary, regular, handsome young man devoid of superpowers or fantastic origins or cosmic allies... this man could.

"Pray that it doesn't come to that," Light said.

Silently, Light, Teru, and all the ninjas sans for one climbed into the back hatch of the caravan and sat down on two benches set diagonally apart, facing one another. Talia climbed into the passenger seat, and the largest ninja of them all sat down in the driver's seat. Ryuk perched himself noiselessly on the top of the caravan.

Light took the last hit of his joint and tossed it outside the hatch. A few moments passed, and he began to look impatient.

Light began: "How long will it take for them to get the little squirt to-"

A scream comprised of absolute agony and unmitigated despair wailed through the courtyard from the warehouse, the soft winds doing nothing to soften the horror behind the outcry. One of the ninjas visibly shuddered; another shook his head, as if disappointing that the League had lowered its dignity via this unsightly torture.

"Never mind," Light commented, stretching out his legs, arms resting behind his back.

Teru took his seat among the ninjas on the row opposite Light's. "To Gotham, my lord?"

"To Gotham," Light confirmed. "I've got a kingdom to rule, after all."

"And a dark knight to collect."