15. SURVIVAL
Morning creeps in like a slithering serpent through grass. The dismal world ironically comes alive with the sound of bells tolling, and Ryuzaki knows as well as Light that the time to act is drawing near.
A guard comes to collect Light. Ryuzaki stands waiting before the door, with his hood obscuring his face. The guard doesn't bother searching the premise or asking him to remove the hood. The guard's seen how Light's built, and nobody but Ryuzaki is built like him, and Ryuzaki is dead to everyone else. Had the guard asked him to remove his hood, Ryuzaki would've used a witty retort anyway. But he swallows it down as he follows the escort to the undercroft below the arena.
There he waits and listens to the rumbling of feet above the ceiling and dripping water somewhere in the darkness. Together the rumbling and dripping form a rhythm that almost sounds serene. As if the world is closing in on him and preparing him for the imminent fight ahead. The calm before the storm.
Did L fight his battles with violence? Ryuzaki wonders. Did he take what was his with a knife in his hand? According to Light, no. But Ryuzaki can't shake the comparisons. They share the same face, the same voice, the same mannerisms, yet his mind is his own. At least, he believes. Can someone arise from the dead and still hold onto the person he once was? Or does death play a magical role? Does it slowly consume parts of the soul and dispense the rest and form a new being fogged by the memories of the person who came before?
Ryuzaki closes his eyes and massages his temples. This isn't the time or place to be worrying about such mindless dribble. He may very well die in a few short minutes. Though Light's selfish plea continues to bog his mind. It's as if they truly were friends at some point…
But no friend would put another friend in danger. No friend would risk killing the other friend to save his own ass. Light is not a friend.
And yet, what is the definition of friend? Someone you trust? You converse with regularly? You love? Can friendships last beyond death? Ryuzaki shakes the thought from his mind as the gate opens.
He steps out into the arena, feeling the sand between his toes. The hooting from the audience sharpens his senses. The aroma of blood and shit lingers in the air. He scrunches his toes, finding some distraction in the sand as he waits for his opponent.
The rival gates open, and Kinddara emerges from the black tunnel to a roaring crowd of onlookers. She's dress in bone armor that has been painted red to match her nickname. Her arms rise up, seemingly absorbing the energy from her audience to use for the impending fight. Ryuzaki pulls his hood over his face more as the Queen of Blood makes her way to the center of the arena. Her maw extends, grinning.
"So, here we are, Light Yagami." Kinddara leans forward. "You sounded so confident last night when you challenged me. And now you choose to obscure your face from view?"
Ryuzaki dips his chin. He bites back a retort and considers what Light would say in this situation. "With all do respect, Your Grace, if you have a right to wear that armor, I have a right to wear this hood."
The queen's jaw moves slightly, and a painful silence wedges between them for a few short seconds. "Very well. I thought you had pride, but I suppose if you're going to lose at least you'll be remembered as nothing more than the coward with a big mouth. I'll be sure to hang your corpse from my windowsill so that everyone will know never to test me."
Ryuzaki holds back a smirk. A part of him wants to reveal himself but not only would that cause mass hysteria, he would also put Light at risk of failure. Light promised to inform him when he had found Kinddara's throne and had some way of destroying it. Light hadn't given him the full details, so Ryuzaki can only assume that's because the other man doesn't trust him enough and not because he doesn't have a plan.
"May we give them a good fight, my queen," he says.
The sound of a gong thunders through the amphitheater, symbolizing the beginning of the match.
Ryuzaki reaches for the knife tucked away in his sleeve. He has an ounce of a second before a massive weight slams into him and knocks him into the ground.
The lock won't open. It's Light's third attempt, and the makeshift lockpick he had designed fails to work.
By the third try, the lockpick breaks.
"Fuck," he hisses under his breath. Had he taken some time in his past life to learn about lockpicking instead of reading about it at a passing glance, this may have worked in his favor.
Plan B.
He picks up the celebratory pitcher of beer and heads for the window. A bar separates anyone from squeezing through, but beer can be as slippery as water, and Light has always been thin in proportion to his height. He strips off his long coat and stands naked.
He dumps the beer over his head and shudders at its cold touch. The alcohol does its duty, somewhat, but Light can see there are still problem areas—dry places he needs to attend to if he wishes to escape. Using what remains of the lockpick, he cuts along his right forearm, letting the blood flow and drip to the floor.
Blood has never been something Light enjoys seeing. In the past, he remembers practically drowning in it when Matsuda shot him in a blind rage. The bullets felt like a flurry of knives jabbing him again and again. The smell of gunpowder and metal polluted his senses, and turned his mind into a fog. And as the blood poured from his wounds, pain wrapped around him and the realization that death would come sunk in.
But this time is different. No matter how much his arm stings or how much blood drips to the floor, Light's mind doesn't stray from the objective. He smears fresh blood along any dry areas on his body, coating parts of himself in a thin blanket of red. When it seems like enough has been used, he collects his clothes from the floor and makes his way to the window, sliding one leg through the gap between the wall and the bar. He slips his other leg through next, which needs more prying than the first around his thigh. But both successfully wedge through the barrier, and the rest of Light's sleeked body goes with it. He hangs off the side of the tower, evening his breath as he begins to climb, searching for any small niche or protruding stone to use as leverage. When he can't find one, he thrusts the lockpick piece into the mortar. Never, for any reason, do his eyes wander down. Even if the fall doesn't kill him, he'd rather save himself both the pain and the disappointment.
Light has rock climbed before but not without the proper equipment. He had done it in his youth with his father—one of the few memories he holds dear of Soichiro Yagami. As a birthday gift, his father took him away from the city and into the woods, far from anyone. It seemed as if the civilized world they knew had dissolved, and the two of them remained left as the earth's last survivors. His father taught him how to build a tent and a fire, fish, and even shoot a gun. Though Light was always wary of firearms, even at a young age.
"Light," his father said with a warm smile, "there's nothing to fear. You should respect the gun's power, not be scared of it."
Light stood back, staring at the weapon in his father's hand. His scrawny legs trembled. "B-but Mom said you shouldn't teach me about guns until I'm older."
"That's true. But what if something happened to me? Law enforcement isn't a safe environment. Every day I work, I wonder if I'll be able to make it home to your mother's cooking and to you and Sayu." He places his unarmed hand down on Light's shoulder. "You'd be the man of the house. You'd be our family's protector. Their shield. You wouldn't want anything to happen to your mother and sister, would you?"
Light shook his head vehemently.
"I'm only saying this because I don't want you to have to go through what I go through. I want you to find something you're passionate about and that's safe. This right here." He lifts the gun in his hand. "This is the last thing I want you to ever put between your fingers. But if you do, I want to make sure that you know how to use it properly. Does that make sense?"
"Yes sir."
He patted his son's head and offered the gun to him.
Light accepted it in shaking hands.
"Here." His father gingerly took Light's hands in his to steady the weapon. "Take a deep breath."
Light obeyed.
"Now squeeze the trigger as you exhale."
His father helped him. The bang made his body jump. The impact ricocheted through his arms and chest. Across the way, a tree truck had acquired a small hole.
"Good, Light," he father said. "Now this next one is yours alone."
His hands released his son's, and Light already yearned for their return. He felt incompetent without his father's support. The gun grew heavier the longer he hesitated. His nerves built strength. He didn't want to shoot, but he also didn't want to be a disappointment.
"Remember to breathe," his father reassured.
Light inhaled until his chest became tight from some much oxygen and his lungs pressed against his ribcage. His pointer and middle fingers slid over the trigger. He relaxed his shoulders and exhaled all the tension as his fingers squeezed the trigger.
Light shook his hands and an aching sensation encompassed his wrists as he searched for where the bullet had landed. He couldn't find an extra hole in the tree his father had helped him shoot at.
"It's all right," his father said. "It'll get easier."
Light ran his hand across the gun. "Dad," he said, steadying his voice. "Have you ever shot someone?"
His father's expression hardened for a brief moment. Enough to help answer Light's question.
"Have you ever…killed anyone?"
His father kneeled down again. "Let's not think about that today." He pulled the weapon out of his son's tiny hands and placed it back into its holder. "Come on, let's go fishing."
They left the shooting ground behind. That would be the first and last time Light had ever shot a firearm.
Light reaches the highest window and breathes a sigh of relief. The alcohol and blood smeared across his body have grown sticky and hard. Light imagines falling into a warm bath and cleansing himself.
He hoists himself up and through the window. Unlike his window, Kinddara's has no bars or other barriers. Why would she? The Queen of Blood has no need to live in fear. When he comes to standing, Light shrugs his attire over his shoulders and buttons it.
Immediately, he sees the throne isn't here.
He clicks his tongue and searches the room for his Death Note but finds nothing.
A knock comes at the door.
Light tenses, prepared to face any contingency.
The door creaks open.
Ryuzaki barely blocks the first blow with his conjured scythe, abandoning the knife all together. His back hits the dirt and sinks into the granite. Kinddara has him pinned down. Her entire weight looms over him.
Miraculously, his hood stays on, obscuring his identity. Light had given him an estimation of how long it would take to find her throne. But Ryuzaki hadn't expected to be pinned so early.
Kinddara had pushed him down with the help of a great axe in her hand. Her bone armor glimmers and seems to move like shadows around her skeletal being, adding on to her already fearsome appearance.
"What's this?" she says. "You pulled out a trump card on me?" She leans more weight on him, and the axe's blade begins to sink into Ryuzaki's right shoulder, drawing blood.
He struggles underneath her, gritting his teeth. With his single arm and upper body subdued by her, Ryuzaki can think of only one alternative…
He swings his lower body slightly to the side to gain momentum and kicks Kinddara in her maw. Bones crack beneath the sole of his foot, and he knows it was a powerful counterstrike.
True enough. The kick is all he needs to wiggle out from under her and revert to standing.
Kinddara snaps her jaw back into place. A few fangs are missing. "Impressive. I didn't take you for a fighter, Light Yagami. But you must've been holding back before." She stands up and rolls her shoulders back. "Good. You have my full attention now."
The kick may have granted him freedom, but it doesn't seem to have helped him in the battle. Ryuzaki takes a step back, creating space between himself and the queen. He doesn't need to kill her. He just needs to survive. If only he somehow knew where Light was currently. His grip tightens around the scythe's hilt. The thrill of fighting wavers inside him. His body starts to shake. Why, though? He's died before. He knows what death brings. He'll regenerate shortly. But why is his body betraying him?
No, it's not Kinddara who's making him feel this way.
Meanwhile, the queen readies herself, and her armor seems to grow in size. Black shadows accompany her, standing taller that Kinddara herself. Their forms wave to Ryuzaki, and he realizes they are a pair of flapping wings. Kinddara stalks toward him.
The hooting voices from the audience fade.
The arena goes dark.
There's nobody else but him and Kinddara.
Don't die tomorrow, that selfish voice echoes.
If there's any courage left in him, it departs. Somewhere, beyond his field of vision, the bells toll and someone laughs.