PARADOX
This is a crazy, possible one-shot, crossover idea I thought up the other night after reading chapters 40-67 of Death Note and the recent chapters of Naruto. It stars L and Gaara, two seemingly dissimilar characters, with one very similar problem.
"Where am I?" The words passed through Gaara silently as he opened his eyes, and immediately squinted at the bright light that they took in. Once his eyes adjusted he absorbed his new surroundings, what he saw only made him more confused, and for the first time in a long time he felt fear in the very pit of his stomach. This wasn't Sunagakure.
It was some sort of city that much was clear. Huge buildings, smaller ones, and normal sized houses covered most of the area. They had no windows, and all were white in color. Far off down what he supposed could be called a road, appeared to be some wide, expanse of empty land, still white. What was even more disturbing were the inhabitants, people everywhere; some mindlessly wandering the white pastures in tattered, soiled, clothes, some pacing, and some had curled up in a fetal positions with their eyes frighteningly wide open. It was like some sort of post-apocalyptic nightmare.
What had happened? Was he hallucinating? Was this some sort of genjutsu? He pried his memory looking for some sort of answer, something to make sense of this very senseless predicament. He remembered the Akatsuki infiltration into his village; he had crushed the bastard's arm with his sand. "Wait a second…" His sand…something wasn't right. His heart began pounding in his chest when he realized a very annoying presence in the back of his mind was now in fact absent. "Did they take Shukaku?" He pulled a kunai out of the holster on his leg. There was only one way to be sure. Gaara had never been able to cut himself, ever. The Shukaku prevented such injuries from happening. The blade to his skin, and a quick movement of his wrist was all it took to confirm his greatest fear. A thin line of blood rose from the small cut. It stung like hell for such a small wound, but then again to one that has rarely ever been wounded, the smallest cut can be the most painful.
"It's gone…" His mind raced with this new onslaught of information. "But if Shukaku is gone then that must mean…" He stared at the cut, if a demon container loses its demon then that container ultimately… "Dead." He said out loud. He must be dead. The final moments of his encounter with the Akatsuki member came back to him. Explosives were mixed in with the sand that surrounded him, and then detonated by the enemy's jutsu…that was all he could remember. He must have been taken to the Akatsuki and they removed the demon he had housed since birth. A slight rustling to his left snapped him out of these revelations.
"You're new here huh?"
Gaara spun around to find someone staring up at him. This person, who ever he was seemed more perplexing then the snow colored habitation. "Yeah…" was all he managed.
The man couldn't be in more than his mid twenties; he sat hunched over in a white sweater and black baggy pants with his legs to his chest. Even more oddly, his feet were bare. His hair was a dark brown, almost black and chin length, which stood up in random messy spikes with a small tuft hanging down the middle of his face before curving off to the side of his nose. His wide eyes were as dark as his hair with deep purple bags underneath, giving Gaara the impression that he probably was either a fellow insomniac or a junkie, though Gaara suspected the latter. Even so information was needed and it didn't look like he was going to get it from any of the other "walking dead" around.
" Who are you? What is this place?"
"I go by L." The insomniac-junkie spoke in a friendly voice. "Put simply, Purgatory." He said it as if he were stating a common truth. "A place where souls from all different worlds are placed when they still have ties to their former lives. Some of them, however," He motioned to the herds of the depressed people, "are traumatized by their deaths and all they have lost so they wander around the grounds never accepting what has happened."
"Different worlds?" Something like this sounded almost crazy to him.
The huge eyes blinked staring up at him. "Of course, I can tell just by looking at you that you are from a different world than I. There are millions of worlds out there the universe is infinite. Who might you be by the way?"
"Gaara." He answered.
L's large eyes studied him. "Gaara huh? Hmm…one that loves only himself…any indication to your personality Gaara-san?"
This L guy was very observant in a creepy sort of way. Gaara wasn't sure if he was mocking him or not. Then again if anyone had looked up the name the same information could be found. "At one time." Was all he answered.
This statement only seemed to increase L's interest in making conversation. "At one time?"
Gaara turned to him, if he wanted to know so badly, he might as well make him regret it. "I used to be a demon carrier, a jinchuuriki, for the one-tail Shukaku. My father bound it to me at birth, and in doing so I killed my mother. I wasn't allowed to sleep because the Shukaku would take over and I would lose myself. This made me unstable and I ended up killing a lot of people without even giving it a second thought. My own father tried to assassinate me several times to be rid of his mistake." He scowled at the memory of his father's cold condescending stare. "I incapacitated them all. They thought I was a monster. My uncle, my guardian tried to kill me after spouting his lies about me being protected by the spirit of my mother; it wasn't until he was on his last breath that I learned the truth behind my existence. I was a tool. My village's secret weapon. I wasn't loved by anyone, they all feared me, so from that day up until about 3 years ago I fought for myself, and loved only myself, killing whoever threatened my existence made me feel alive." He glanced down at L; waiting for the usual look of terror most people gave him after hearing about such a past.
L, however, looked as though he hadn't even blinked, and for a moment Gaara thought he had gone comatose like some of the people he had seen just moments before.
L finally spoke, "I see…sounds tough, I don't know much of demons, except for what I've read in books, but I can already deduce that the reason you ended up here is closely tied to your unique trait, but before you go into that, well I'm sure you already know my next question."
Gaara stared at him. For him to be able to make that connection without knowing of his quarrel with the Akatsuki was nothing short of genius. Though just by looking at him, Gaara wouldn't have believed it possible for L to be that perceptive. "You want to know why I ended up here instead of somewhere more unpleasant?" Gaara offered.
"Correct! Someone who's killed what I assume must be a large amount of people, with no hesitation as you say, wouldn't end up here unless something substantial happened to make them change their outlook." L smiled. "So if you don't mind me asking Gaara-san, what exactly triggered your change?"
This L person was proving to be interesting after all. He had never really had a civilized conversation with anyone like this before. "I wanted to kill a man, Uchiha Sasuke, he was very similar to me, we had the same eyes, we both wanted to prove our existence, to let the world know we were truly strong. He was the first person able to break through Shukaku's ultimate defense and wound me; that alone made him worthy of death. I was about to kill him when his friends, Uzumaki Naruto, and a girl interfered. He kept saying if I hurt his friends then he'd stop me even if he had to kill me. We battled and he managed to best me. I expected him to finish me, but instead he told me that he and I were the same. He too was a demon carrier, his village shunned him, but he managed to get past that and make friends. It was love that made him strong, and after that I wanted to be more like him. I would prove to my village that I was human despite what I housed. I wouldn't be a being of fear, but someone they could grow to need, so I came to rule the village as their Kazekage.
L pulled a chocolate out of his pocket, "You've come quite a long way then I take it Gaara-san, Purgatory isn't for murderers and criminals, it's for those who have been leading decent lives, some have devoted themselves for others as you have, but someone happened to cause their untimely deaths, while they still have much left behind that needs tending to."
"Someone?" Gaara was perplexed. There were many other factors to lead to a person's early death besides another person.
L bit into the candy. "Wasn't another person the cause of your demise Gaara-san?"
The Akatsuki. It was because of them that he was here. "My village was invaded by an organization called the Akatsuki. They were after the demon I housed, I failed to hold them off and they extracted it, once they did that I died." Gaara looked down at his hand. He had done this before in his last moments of consciousness.
"I'm guessing from the look on your face you never accomplished what you set out to do Gaara-san, you weren't able to show them you weren't a monster, that you could have people that were important to you." L stated.
"What I set out to do…" His mind sifted through the statement. His final moments… "Did I come to be needed by anyone?" No. He hadn't. He would know if he had wouldn't he?
"You and I are the same in one way Gaara-san," L stood up still hunched over with his hands in his pockets. "Someone interfered and killed us before we could help those we devoted our lives to."
How was that? Weird? Off the wall? Blasphemous? A combination of all three? I hope L is in character, he was only in Death Note for a short time before he was killed off, so it's kind of hard for me to really understand his character completely beyond the fact that he's extremely observant and has a massive sweet tooth. At most this will probably become a 3 chapter fic, cuz there's really not that much I can do with it, unless you all plan on giving me any ideas? Whatever the case, please review and let me know where I stand on this one, since it's kind of an oddball. O.O;