Chapter Fifteen

"Interesting," Ryuk hissed.

"L?" said Light quietly. His eyes were heavily lidded, an almost smirk, near impossible to notice, curling about his mouth. In the soft light of my bedroom I could have sworn his irises shone red. "You can contact L?"

Quinn, who didn't appear pleased by having to resort to L for help, nodded curtly and crossed his arms. His eyes were on only me.

"Quinn?" I glanced at Sayu, whose pretty face bore her confusion. "Do you mean L the detective who's after Kira?" My brother nodded again.

Kira. Somehow I had become complacent again, ignoring the fact that Light was a cold-hearted killer with an alter-ego that rivalled BB in insanity. He kept it so well hidden it was almost easy to fool myself into thinking he was nothing but a boy with a questionable toy.

Only a similar toy was sitting just behind the partially painted canvas of Quinn's golden head bent over a guitar, feet from Kira, and if it was found it could tear the world apart.

Light wasn't there anymore. His very countenance had changed and this creature in Light's place was a thing of nightmares. Barely controlled, bloodlust was in its eyes, arrogance in its posture, hunger curling its fingers. My stomach turned.

"Quinn, take Misa and Sayu into the living room," I whispered in a voice I hadn't used since he'd found me in BB's room. Q shot me a that was just on this side of fearful.

"V . . ."

"Now."

He scrutinised me and whatever he found there had him taking Sayu by the hand and Misa above her elbow and dragging them from the room. Sayu gave no argument, used to Quinn and I's silent conversations by now. Misa protested.

"Mi-chan needs us!"

To her I said, "I'll be fine, Misa. I just need to talk to Light alone." With the final word I gestured surreptitiously to the Shinigami. Rem's eyes narrowed, Ryuk scowled and both left the room, Ryuk saying I owed him apples for this and Rem murmuring something about not wishing to leave me with the boy. The door closed.

Light's hand had not left my ankle throughout and his eyes latched possessively on mine. No, not Light. Kira.

"You have L's phone number," said Kira, its voice barely above a whisper. I wondered at its willingness to reveal itself in front of me.

"Yes," I replied, not seeing a point in lying.

Its eyes grew hungrier. It leant closer, its grip tightening. "You've been seeing him recently."

"Only twice. When –"

"–When I was talking to Misora Naomi and after the fire. Yes, I guessed that." It licked its lips and ran a finger up my calf. I shivered. "I assume he was worried about you then?"

"Why would he be worried about me?"

Its finger drew meaningless patterns, the fingernail scraping lightly. "He suspected me of being Kira," it said simply.

"Not the first time," I countered.

"Then why did he talk to you?"

"He . . . ah. Wanted to discuss a painting."

"A known recluse had his personal assistant pick you up and bring you to his unknown location simply to discuss a painting?" Kira smiled. "Come now, Minerva. You can do better than that."

A glare stole over my features. "Don't say my name, and how did you know Watari picked me up?"

"You would never have gone willingly to L's residence if he'd called and told you his address. That would also be a recipe for disaster should anyone be listening to the conversation. So you must've had no choice but to go and what easier way than have Watari collect you." Suddenly, its hand clamped on the outside of my thigh and it leaned much closer than I was comfortable with. "Wasn't it you who told me to call you Minerva?"

"That was when you weren't a raging psychopath," I spat. "Get out of here, Kira. Give Light his mind back."

"You think I'm an alternate personality?" It cocked its head to the side. "I assure you I am Light."

"No. Light may be intelligent beyond his own control and perhaps he was bored to the point of being willing to write in the Death Note, but you are Kira. You kill without remorse. You were born that day in the alleyway, weren't you? When I caught Light after Takuo's death. That was you I was talking to."

"Minerva." It frowned, all sense of mirth quickly disappearing. "It's me. I'm Light."

"No you're not!" I cried. Without warning, I sprung at it, ignoring the almost paralysing pain from my back and arm. We tumbled to the floor in a tangle of limbs and I wrestled until I was straddling its waist. Kira looked up at me, partially bewildered but mostly annoyed. Gritting my teeth in frustration, I threaded my fingers through Kira's hair and tugged it closer. This was the creature I hated. It held all of Light's innate sinfulness, all his deathly urges and had been allowed to manifest into something much too powerful. I realised Light was practically a child caught in the grips of a monster they'd created. Kira was an imaginary friend gone rogue to the extreme. A temptation quickly turned lethal. It made me pity Light more than ever.

"You are not Light," I repeated in a hiss. "You are the product of an insane world where honour is defined by getting as far as possible on your own without people knowing what you've done wrong. Everything about you is a lie. It's sick and corrupted and made of personal hatred and nothing about your cause is pure. Nothing." Rage was flooding my veins, poisonous and powerful. It made the pain from my back dwindle into a minor throb. "I am going to burn your Death Note someday, once I've figured out how to make you keep your memories. Then you can feel all the guilt and shame of a thousand lives stolen rest on your shoulders."

Kira blinked, once, twice, twisted its face into a sneer and threw me off. In a second our positions were reversed and I felt as though I might suffocate as all the weight of Light's body pressed into my chest.

"You speak too highly of yourself, Mi-chan." It caressed the nickname, turning it into a thorn in my heart. "You may think you have a hold over me but I will drop you in a second. Your life is nothing to me."

"Then how come you didn't kill me when I first learned of your homicidal habit?" I asked.

"Because I thought we could rule together. Now I see that's not possible."

"No, it's not. What a shame."

"Indeed," it murmured, reaching out and trailing a finger down my cheek. Its face softened. If I didn't know any better, I might have said Kira looked regretful.

Then, as the mass murderer started to lean towards me, the bedroom door was flung open, smashing into a large box of paints. Pale, long fingered hands grabbed Kira under the arms and dragged it bodily off me. A head of messy black hair haloed panda eyes and hollowed cheeks. L, my rescuer, was here.

"Let go of me," Kira commanded, sounding imperious and in control despite the fact that L had it in a half-nelson with a white-knuckled grip.

"You will not injure Valerie," said L, whose shoulders were trembling. I did not think it was out of fear.

"I never hurt her," Kira protested, doing a commendable impression of Light at his most shocked. L wrenched its arms back further, causing Kira to shout with pain. Beyond the two stood Quinn, holding back Misa and Sayu. The two girls were edging to race in and break up the fight. Quinn was emotionless.

"Watari!" I shouted. The elderly man appeared at Quinn's side and strode into the room, easily pulling Kira from L's grip. The murderer thrashed for a second then went limp. It caught sight of me, lying on the ground, staring up at it in awestruck horror. The red gleam left its eyes and Light returned, shoulders almost visibly buckling under the weight of what he'd just done. In a second he regained his dignity but the damage was done. He'd lost all control to the monster inside.

"Valerie," said L, coming to stand in front of me and holding out a hand. I reached up and allowed him to tug me to my feet. That's when I realised my mistake of allowing him to take my right hand. The burst of white-hot fire from my forearm had me shrieking, stumbling forwards into L's waiting arms.

"Mi-chan!" both Misa and Sayu cried at once.

Taking a deep breath, I spoke into L's chest. "Thank you for coming." My lips brushed his cotton shirt.

L was silent. As blackness overtook my vision I finally heard him whisper into my hair, breath ruffling the strands and warming my scalp.

"I'll always come."

The world burned around me in tune with the song in the air. Curtains, carpet, chairs, everything was aflame. The painstakingly stoked bookshelf was reduced to ash in a matter of minutes. The only things that survived the savagery of the fire were the bodies. One on a chair, the other on the floor. Each groaned and complained wordlessly.

Something was different this time, though. I knew those bloodied and dying people.

Soichiro, seated in the chair, jerked his head to the left spasmodically. Sachiko let out an ear-piercing scream.

I shrank back and stumbled into someone's legs.

In the seamless way the dreams distort reality, the fire died away and I was left staring at a pair of inhuman black eyes. A chuckle reverberated in the back of my mind, bypassing my ears. The eyes flickered red. The wide grin turned into a smirk.

A roar had me turning around and wildly taking the tall, sun soaked grasses on all sides as well as the bear running towards me. It was a massive male grizzly, over two metres long and its shoulder at chest level. It reared on its hind legs, I fumbled with the rifle in my hands and with a massive paw it swiped across my stomach. A spray of blood arced through the air, splattering the bear's fur. Gasping and holding my stomach to keep my intestines from falling out of the wound, I fell to my knees.

"V!" cried Quinn. He was sprinting in my direction. It was too late for him to notice Ryuk hovering above with his Death Note in hand.

"Kill him," said Light, who stood where the bear had been, smiling down at me. We were in the park and badly tuned bikes circled the tree line. Catcalls and jeers broke the silence of the night.

With a flourish Ryuk wrote in his notebook. Quickly, too quickly, Quinn gasped and fell face forward, clutching his chest. "NO!" I screamed. My attempt to rush to him was destroyed by L's arms around my waist.

"Don't go, Valerie," he whispered in my ear. "I will keep you safe."

Kira held out a hand. All trace of Light was gone. "Try to save me, Minerva. Join me and rule the world. Maybe there is hope for me yet." He bent down and pressed cold, lifeless lips to mine.

And through it all Quinn's guitar played.

I woke up screaming. Sayu rushed into the bedroom with Misa hot on her heels. She raced to my side and wrapped her arms around my shoulders, burying her face in my neck. "It's all right," she murmured, over and over again. It sounded like she was saying it more to herself than me. It seemed I wasn't the only one reaching their breaking point in amongst all this madness.

Frozen in my sitting position from when I had bolted upright, I saw the unfamiliar room I'd been placed in. No more 1920s American architecture. This room had cream painted walls, a large bronze mirror and a double bed with a duvet thicker than the ones we'd used in Canada during winter. Everything was sleek and modern and made for comfort in minimalist style. Misa stood by the chest of drawers beneath the mirror, watching us.

The voices had stopped talking and Quinn walked into the room, slamming the brown door behind him. His presence jolted me out of my statue state.

"Q!" I gasped, pushing aside Sayu with as gentle movements as I could allow. He came over and I bundled him up in my arms, holding him like we'd been apart from years. The vision of him collapsing from a heart attack invaded my mind's eye. I clutched him tighter.

He bunched up the back of my shirt in his hands and returned the hug. "What was your dream about?" he asked. Usually such a question was off limits but it had been a long time since any dream had caused me to act like this.

"You died," I whispered.

"Oh." Then, after a beat, "I don't want to be here."

He must hate this to resort to complaining, I thought. "I know. I don't want to be here either."

"We need to talk."

"Soon, okay? When we're alone."

He nodded, his hair tickling my ear. For a moment longer we held each other, not willing to let go. Then Misa coughed and the spell was broken. Quinn extricated himself from my grip and held out a hand. I took his help in standing up gladly and was pleased to see as the covers fell back that I was clothed in a tank top and my black pyjama pants.

Sayu rushed to my side, pushing past Misa, and assisted me to the door. With nothing else to do, Misa opened the door and ushered us through. I spared her a grateful smile that was fainter than I would have liked. The dregs of the dream weighed heavily in my mind.

Quinn and Sayu supported me down a short corridor, similarly styled in cream and brown. There wasn't any need for them to do so; I was strong enough to walk on my own. It was more for their comfort than my need, I realised. They must have seen me collapse too many times in so many months.

We emerged into a sitting area, with comfortable chairs, a view of the west of the city – could you see Light's house from here? – and a well stocked kitchen. There was the soft sound of fabric rubbing on fabric as Light and L shot to their feet from the couches upon our entrance.

"How do you feel?"

"Are you well, Valerie?"

The two shot each other looks of contempt that were barely veiled. Sayu and Misa, who stood at her shoulder, exchanged glances. Quinn's grip around my waist strengthened.

"Better now," I said. With a gentle touch to his forearm, Q got the message to relax. "Bad dreams, that's all."

"You should sit down," said Light while L bit his thumbnail. The habit still disgusted me.

I was lead to a comfortable two-seater facing the windows. As soon as I was seated Misa pounced on the cushion next to me, leaving Quinn and Sayu to take another sofa on which Quinn's guitar was lying. He picked it up and appeared to be fiddling with the tuning pegs. His and Sayu's intertwined hands under the guitar's body were obvious only from where I sat.

My attention from the two was drawn away by Misa suddenly running her hands through my hair, saying, "You should let me do your hair, Mi-chan. I bet I could make it look amazing!" It was only her words that alerted me to the awkward silence in the room. That's when the full situation hit me.

L and Light were in the same room and had been in each other's company for however long I'd been unconscious. Oh, this could not be good. Not good at all.

Not to mention Ryuk and Rem were nowhere to be seen. That did not bode well either.

"Light-kun has told me that you were offered a job at Daikoku Academy," said L when no one else spoke up.

Or you have been monitoring my activities, I thought ruefully. "Yes. The principal is going to tell me after the closing ceremony."

L bit his thumbnail harder and rubbed his ankle with a foot. The fidgeting had me on edge.

"I had Watari cancel the offer."

My jaw dropped. He . . . what? Did he really? My hands clenched on my lap as I tried to stop from lunging at him. As I struggled to gain command over my rage Quinn and Light burst out in angry protestations.

"Ryuzaki!"

"You bastard!"

"You had no right!"

"You can't screw with my sister again!"

Sayu jerked back from Quinn, horrified by his rage. He let his guitar fall to the floor and stood up, ready to advance on L. It had been years since I'd seen him this angry. Just over two, in fact. And at L again.

Light's hands were balled into fists and if he'd been any different he might have swung already. I could see the ferocity in his eyes, which I doubted anyone else could. For him to be so incensed on my behalf . . . I couldn't quite work out if it was because one of my few sources of income and sanity had just been stripped from me or because L had gone behind Light's back and disrupted Light's 'family' for a second time.

Still, the idea that Light might be enraged due to my misfortune was touching.

"She is in no state to work," L replied. This only set the flames burning hotter. As both Quinn and Light took a step towards the detective I thought I should speak up.

"Why didn't you wait for me?" I asked L, ignoring the others.

"You were asleep and there wasn't time to waste."

I frowned. "How long have I been asleep?"

"Two days."

That stumped me. My struggling to comprehend my continous stretches of prolonged unconsciousness of late gave Light the perfect opportunity to add his two cents.

"Ryuzaki, surely you agree that after the summer holidays Minerva would have been ready to work. She only needs a break."

"You don't understand, Light-kun."

Light gritted his teeth. "Then explain it to me."

L's eyes narrowed almost imperceptably. There was a large amount of tension between the two. The reason for Light's ill humour was obvious; L was the one trying to hunt down Kira, and if I flattered myself I could add that he was irritated by L and I's relationship. On L's side the reasoning was a little less clear; it was apparent me being so close to Light wasn't something he was pleased by, but then there was the question of Kira. Did he suspect Light? And if he did, then what did that hold for the three of us?

In the back of my mind a voice suggested that now might be the time to choose sides. I'd sat on the fence for too long. Light or L.

"Valerie will not be able to be a teacher while in her current state of mind. More stress will trigger harsher reactions until catatonia." He glanced at me then, as if to say 'You know it's true.'

Annoyed and more than a little put-out, I nodded sullenly, crossing my arms and allowing Misa access to my hair. She immediately began finger-combing through the thick, wavy strands.

"Why are you so certain, Ryuzaki?" Light asked.

"It does not matter."

"I think it does," Quinn spoke up. I stared at him, now openly confused. He had moved to be at Light's side in a show of solidarity against L. It hit me then that for all that Quinn didn't like Light, in my brother's mind he was the lesser of two evils. As a result, he would stand with Light.

Well. It seemed my side had been chosen for me.

This is Kira. Kira. You cannot be loyal to him.

No. I'm loyal to Light and I will destroy Kira before it can destroy any more of him.

I cut off the nagging voice in the back of my head, pledging myself to my decision and feeling strength rise within me as my resolve did. Light would not be defeated by the monster within him if I could help it.

L's eyes were obviously narrowed now. "Quinn, Light-kun does not need to know."

"Yes, he does," said Quinn. "Tell him how you let my sister get carved up with a knife, L. Tell Light-kun how she screamed and you didn't hear. Tell him how you didn't even bother to look for her so I was the one to find her, even though you promised to take care of us. Tell him how you lied. Tell him how you failed," Quinn snarled the word, his gaze animalistic with what I hoped wasn't bloodlust.

I once asked L what his greatest fear was. It had been after dinner, when BB was nowhere to be found and Quinn had closeted himself in the music room, hiding from Mello. Knowing he would be safe as Mello hadn't seemed very intent on tormenting my brother that day in an example of his changeable moods, I'd spent the time discussing the phobias that we'd learnt in the schoolroom that day. The conversation had naturally led to me revealing my personal terror was of fire. L had in return said he wished to never fail, because in his line of work it usually meant someone died and a monster went free. I'd told Quinn the next day under the willow tree during lunch.

L's eyes glanced over to me briefly, sparking the memory. A twisted pride welled in my chest at Quinn's easy metaphorical stabbing into the heart of a person. In some ways we really were similar.

Light was now gleeful, though only the slight upturn of the corner of his mouth betrayed it. He put his hands in his pocket in a blatant display of his ease as a contrast to L's discomfort. But L had been playing this game for longer.

Spinning on his naked heel, L strode over to the window and looked out, hunched as ever. His hands were in his pockets also.

Misa's fingers continued to card through my hair, french braiding one side, though I could sense her eyes on the proceedings. Sayu hugged a pillow to her chest, eyes wide.

"I failed once." His voice was quiet. He spoke to himself more than to us. In the window, through which the early spring sun could be seen touching rooftops and setting eastern windows ablaze, his reflection was little more than a vague idea. "I promised not to fail again." It was as good an apology as I would ever get and from the expression on Light's and Quinn's faces, they knew it too. It didn't mean they were any less angry.

Then L turned again and faced Light, expression hard and unrelenting. "What are you intentions towards Valerie, Light-kun?"

If Light was taken aback he didn't show it. "She is a good friend," he said. L raised an eyebrow and moved forwards. Quinn tensed and Sayu darted up to pull him away, having the common sense to not let the blonde get within punching range of the detective. My brother moved back reluctantly, scowling.

"What are you intentions, Light Yagami?"

I stilled, not quite sure what was happening between the two of them. Light took his hands from his pockets. L did the same. A staring contest ensued, one that the rest of us didn't even attempt to interrupt. It was as though a spell had been cast, freezing us all in morbid fascination. Even Quinn had lost his mask of ire to be replaced with curiosity.

"She is a good friend," Light repeated, and those words carried a world of meaning.

Silence filled the room. In the quiet Misa had me swap places so she could get to the other side of my hair and as I moved something brushed my arm. Twisting my head as much as Misa would allow, I caught sight of bony arms and white muscle. I swallowed nervously, otherwise suppressing my knee jerk response to yelp in shock.

A sharp intake of air alerted me to Quinn.

He was staring at something over my shoulder, eyes wide and breathing coming in gasps. His fingers twitched spasmodically.

He was staring at Rem.

TOWRTA: So this chapter didn't go how I planned. I'd meant for so much more to be achieved but then the scene between Kira and Minerva got extended and suddenly I'd hit my word count. At least you've got another cliffhanger now (they're becoming an addiction, I swear). And sorry for the lack of Sayu and Misa in this chapter. Quinn's character growth has taken over.

Alex (anon): So are you still an L girl at heart (considering the bashing Quinn's giving him)? He's going to have a major roll too now since I can't imagine he'll let V out of his sight any time soon. Oh the fun to be had!

Don't have time to write much - got a dinner to go to (sorry JaegarsWings for bypassing you! I wanted to get this chapter out quickly! Any grammar comments would be appreciated still.)

Next time: Rem makes a splash