December 22, 2007 - 4:36 PM - Yagami Household

Why?!

She'd cried, an uncontrolled emotional outburst, and the probability that she knew what I was shot up to 99%. I'd had the figure at around 90%-95% beforehand. She was asking me why I had killed her boyfriend, Jae Song. Anger. Loss. Despair. She was like an animal. I watched her as she left to retrieve her documents and quickly appraised her retreating form. I suppose she could be considered attractive. The knot of muscles on her lower leg was a telltale sign of exercise. This was a person who ran several miles every day. Her arms had also been firm, and having seen her carry Sayu out of the car, I had a pretty good measurement of her overall physique.

Unless she was specially trained to fight, I definitely had the upper hand. There was, of course, the probability that she was exactly who she claimed to be, that she had no ulterior motive for seeking out my family and, by extension, me.

1%.

Was this 1% worth accommodating for? Mary Oldsman represented a risk to me. A risk to Kira. Kira was too important to be allowed to face such a risk. Still, it was hard not to consider

My eyes flicker over toward Sayu.

Sayu stares at me.

A pity. Mary was a decent member of society. Law-abiding, smart, productive. Did these traits make it worth risking Kira? Perhaps. I wasn't exactly sure what she wanted. Even if she suspected me to be Kira, how much did she really know about Kira? About the Death Note? Was she related to L? How did she get her information?

That Mary Oldsman could have connections to other parties that could know was a prospect I could not ignore. I had time. Three days to get the truth from her. It would be an interesting challenge, something I haven't really had much encounter with since L's death. The easiest way to test whether or not she knew of the Death Note..

Reaching into my shirt pocket for a pen, I couldn't help but smile. I glance at Sayu again. She's still staring at me in the same way. It was hard to believe this woman to be my sister, hard to imagine what she had been before she'd resigned herself to becoming a living, breathing leech.

I watched her as I carefully wrote onto the small scrap of paper that I kept inside my watch.

6:00 PM, December 24, 2007 - Mary Oldsman has a heart attack after revealing all her secrets.

I hear the toilet flush from upstairs, water sloshing down the pipes with several loud rattles and a squelch.

"Sayu." I say against the noise of plumbing.

Sayu stirs.

Interesting.

Ryuk floats from out of the ceiling, his wide, indiscernible smile ever-plastered on his face. "Yo." He greets me.

I don't reply, and Ryuk cackles. Like a prankster trying to hide a secret or a joke. Questions raced to the tip of my tongue and stayed there, unspoken. I couldn't. Not in this setting.

I hear Mary come down the stairs, the creak of the steps alerting me of her impending arrival. I was definitely going to stay for as long as I needed to get the truth from her. Whatever secrets she had, she wasn't going to be hiding them for long. There were many ways to go about it. Most of them were interesting. All of them had high probabilities of giving me what I wanted.

I felt a sudden urge to see Mary's reaction upon reading her own name, her own death. I probably didn't even have to do it on a real sheet from the Death Note. Her reactions could range from outrage at a badly played joke to, well, anything. If she really did know about the Death Note, about me, reading such a paper could cause her to do some very… interesting things. I couldn't wait. Tomorrow. I would send her the note tomorrow. A harmless little joke.

Mary re-enters the living room, and a folder drops into my lap. "Here. Take a look."

I narrow my eyes at her lack of grace as she set her briefcase on her lap and retrieve a pen. She tosses the pen on top of the folder.

Whatever. I pick up the envelope and begin to read.

JapanNeuro was printed on the top. In English. Almost certainly a fake organization. I had to suppress an urge to laugh.

"I don't think-"

And then there was pain. Knives in my eyes. Fire in my throat. Sand Grit. I choke. I cough. I scream and fall forward.

Can't see.

…

Can't breathe.

I knew it..

Mary

I take the knife and rush forward. A pot cover clatters loudly from the kitchen and Yagami Sachi rushes in. "What's wrong? What's happening?!" Light flails about screaming like a wounded, rabid animal. A hand grips my ankles and a pair of watery red eyes glared up at me.

I hear Yagami Sachi's voice: "Light? What's wrong?!"

I kick away the hand and stamp down on the wrist, and Yagami Sachi screams. "What are you doing?!"

Light buckles and chokes. I loved it. I loved watching him retch. He tries to roll away, and I bring my foot and weight down on his skull before he could get very far. Light struggles and I kick his head a second time. The pathetic coughing and crying stops. Small rivulets of dark, brackish color trickle from that beautiful crown, and Yagami Light is still.

"Mrs. Yagami. Don't move!" I hold my knife to Light's throat. "If you call for any help, I will kill him immediately."

The poor woman gawks at me, her eyes fixating on the knife that I held so close to her son's neck as she considered her options. If she made any move to threaten my ability to achieve my goal, even a single movement toward me, I would sink the knife into Light's neck. "One move and I kill him."

Yagami Sachi nods. I stare at her carefully. I wasn't sure what to do next. I'd pretty much achieved my objective. I could kill him right now. It would be easy.

Too easy. I want to see him beg. I want to make him understand. I want to make him suffer. Yagami Light obviously didn't know who he was messing with when he wrote that name in his little notebook. On that note, there was something I was curious to try.

"Sit down Mrs. Yagami. And if you make me feel even a shadow of threat, I will put this knife through your son's eyeball. Do I make myself clear?"

Seeming to have gotten over her shock very quickly, Yagami Sachi's countenance smoothed. "Yes. I understand." The woman slowly sat herself down on the couch across the table from where I stood. "What is it you want, Ms. Mary?"

I give the little old lady a small grin. Dragging Light's limp form to the couch, I set him down next to his unresponsive sister. The blood running down Light's head stained the cushion a brackish color.

"Sayu. I'm about to kill your brother." I hold the knife to Light's throat, drawing a small trickle of blood as I break the skin under his larynx. "Beg me not to do it, and I will let him live."

Although her head hadn't moved, the girl's pupils were swivelled toward me. She was looking at me. Staring intently into my eyes. Very creepy. I stared back, keeping Yagami Sachi in my peripheral in case she tried anything.

"I'm counting to three, Sayu. Then I'm putting this knife through your brother's throat. One!"

Sayu's eyebrows go up. Her eyes seem to widen just a little. My grin grew manic. I could feel it stretching my face.

"Two!"

Sayu stirs. Her mouth twitched open with a ghastly look.

"THREE!"

I raise the knife high above my head in an exaggerated motion, and a loud, banshee-like scream issued from my side. A hand grabs me with unexpected, rabid strength, stopping the lethal descent.

"DON'T TOUCH HIM!" The voice screeched with ear-splitting pitch. "DON'T TOUCH HIM! LET HIM GO!"

Both the girl's hands were wound tightly around my wrist, the one holding the knife. It wasn't long, however, before her grip loosened, and the unnatural strength with which she'd held me quickly vanished, smothered by two years of muscular atrophy. I shoved her off with a quick jerk, and she falls, crumpling onto the floor. She redoubles her efforts and immediately leaps back up at me, this time only managing to reach my midriff.

So weak. Yagami Sachi stares unmoving.

"You think you can stop me, little girl?" I say with more than a little glee. I'd done it. I've done what all the psychiatrists and doctors couldn't do. I must be some sort of genius.

"Don't touch him." Sayu whimpers with her torn vocal chords, her voice now barely a rasp. "Please. I beg you. Don't kill him. I love him. He's my brother. My only brother. Please. Light is a good person. Don't kill him. Don't kill him"

I almost felt pity as the girl repeated her words to me, begging me with all her heart for my mercy.

Yagami Sachi takes the pause as an opportunity to speak. "Please, Ms. Mary. If this is an experiment to cure my daughter, it has gone far enough." The woman makes the declaration with a forced injection of firmness in her voice. "I want this to stop now, and I want you to explain yourself. I'm very close to making this a lawsuit against you and your company. Don't think I won't do it."

I let my attention switch languidly from the crying girl at my hips to the scared and now slightly angry woman sitting across from me, the mother of the monster whose head I held under my right arm. I laughed.

"Oh I don't care about the lawsuit or my company. I'm about to achieve what I came here to do, and here's a hint: it wasn't to help your mentally disabled, deadbeat daughter."

The serious look melted from Yagami Sachi's face, replaced by a slightly more imploring one. Sayu continues to cry. "Please." The girl repeats again almost inaudibly with her weak, croaky voice. "Please."

"What is it you want, Ms. Mary? Who do you work for? Do you have some sort of personal grudge against my son?"

"Yup. I'm going to kill your son for what he did to me." I press the knife back to the throat of Jae Song's killer. "Your son is Kira, and he killed my lover for doing nothing more than writing an article denouncing him. It wasn't even a Japanese article. It was written for a goddamned American magazine. Since when does your son read the Times as a goddamned Japanese man living in goddamned Japan?! Tell me, Mrs. Yagami."

I can see the woman already preparing to reason with me. She was going to tell me that her son wasn't Kira, that Yagami Light was a good boy, that he had so and so credentials and that he's done so and so for the good of the world or some such nonsense. She was going to tell me that I was mistaken and console me for my grief. Before Yagami Sachi could utter a word, I snatch Light's wrist and tear off his watch.

"I can prove it." I said as I fondle the watch frantically, looking for the secret compartment that I know is there. I hear Yagami Sachi begin to say exactly what I had expected her to say, That her son wasn't Kira. That he was good. Blabbity blah. I ignore her.

"My brother can't be Kira." Sayu sniffs quietly from below. "Don't hurt him. Please."

A click sounds and I pull open a small tray from the expensive-looking timepiece. Sitting in the tray was a scrap of paper, a piece torn from the Death Note. I pluck it up in triumph, letting Kira fall from my grip. His body slides off the couch and makes a thump next to where Sayu was kneeling below me. The daughter continues to grovel. The mother, however, has her eyes riveted on the thing I held between my fingers.

I stare at the scrap of paper as it unfolds and my heart jumps to my throat.

6:00 PM, December 24, 2007 - Mary Oldsman has a heart attack after revealing all her secrets.

It read. I almost choke as I read and reread the words, as I realize fully just how prepared Yagami Light had been; just how close I could've been to failing. Two days. I have two days to live.

I set the paper on the table in front of me and slide it a short distance, just far enough for Yagami Sachi to pick it up and see what it was.

"He's killed me." I blink disbelievingly, staring at the massive black figure standing behind Yagami Sachi. "He's already killed me…"

All eyes and teeth, it stared back at me with the widest, most terrifying leer I'd ever seen. My heart made another flop. "You're-"

"Ryuk my lady." The thing bowed with mock chivalry. "I'm Ryuk, and you have me seriously intrigued. I'd love to know how you discovered Light's identity, and I'd be super grateful if you could tell me before you die. Who knows? I might be able to do something for you in exchange?"

Paper in hand, Yagami Sachi turns around and screams.