A/N: Richard Wright died today. He was the pianist/keyboardist for Pink Floyd, if you did not know. One of the most inspirational men and one of the most inspirational bands. Though I be he's jamming it out with Syd Barrett now.
Musical Influence: This chapter's being written while listening to a Floyd sesh. Currently, I'm listening to "Brain Damage."
Also, apologies in advance for a shitty chapter.
Disclaimer: Naht.
It was the rattling of his own stomach during the break of sunlight that turned Light Yagami from his once-been peaceful slumber. An unintentional internal instinct of some sort was telling him that something had gone amiss. Something was not as planned.
That feeling alone made him sit up from his bed and slip on a pair of slippers. He stifled a yawn to himself and crawled out of his bedroom; it had been deemed fit that he was in need of a glass of milk.
As it had been since the day he had hit the age of thirteen, the long hallway and stairwell was completely silent. The immaculate halls were lifeless and black as though the shadows had formed a protective barrier from the rising sun. Light's elongated shadow was but a mouse in a mural to the numerous before him.
He descended the stairs in utter silence, not a single noise to be heard by the human ear. As he feet touched the bottom step, however, he had begun to hear voices that he was positive did not belong within the confines of his mind.
It was a lowered hiss of a man late in their prime, sounding almost like the cat whom swallowed the cheese grater. The most prominent tone concealed within the voice was the indisputable rage the owner felt. Soichiro Yagami was angry, huddled in the kitchen and barking in a hushed voice into the telephone.
Light could not think for a moment. One thought that passed through his mind was whether or not he should laugh at the ridiculous predicament had put himself into. That thought only became more fueled when his father's dark, squinted eyes rose to meet his in a look of utter astonishment.
"L-, Light, my boy.." The man's voice lost all anger, and his face took on a more regrettable hue. He lowered his eyes to the floor before he stood from his seat and shuffled over to his son. Large, calloused hands rested on the shoulders of the teenage boy whom he was proud to call his son.
Light's eyebrows, in a well-nestled habit of his subconscious, rose a millimeter in length. His eyes tightened ever-so-slightly at the corners, and he crossed his arms over his chest as though he were preparing himself.
"What is it, father?" The teen-turned-killer put on his most innocent, curious tone. Honey brown eyes shimmered with concern; the action, as planned, causing his father to turn his face away from the boy.
"Ryuuzaki is gone."
The case seemed to be that, no matter how long you tried to will it from your mind, one could never fully be relieved from the feeling of pain.
Such a case was becoming prevalent to L, who had awoken from his slumber to the feeling of wire cutting into the skin of his arms and pulling the limbs in such a way that both shoulders had now become dislocated.
He let out a whimper from the initial pain and shock of his predicament; though it hit him moments later that, in fact, he was not dreaming.
Beyond Birthday had, yet again, managed to capture the elusive detective.
The man found that the only utterances that seemed to froth forth were silent, berating curses of which found it fit to rain down upon it's teller. His customary position had been breached, so it made it near impossible to think to full reasonable capacity.
He could not, for the life of himself, remember what he had done to slip. Each move he had made, especially since his conclusions he had come to in England, had been properly executed to avoid such an even from happening- much like it was now.
Was that it? Had he been too cautious? In the paranoid assumptions he had not, indeed, thought of B planning on aforementioned assumptions. Such a quandary..
In trained silence, the detective made a sad attempt to sit in a more comfortable position. It had, however, backfired; he had not planned on the pain becoming worse and worse with each inevitable shift and wiggle. He bit down on his lip to keep from crying out loud.
A shiver crawled down his spine quick like a bolt. It was at that precise moment that he realized how much colder it seemed to be versus the time of year. Then he looked down upon his form and realized the attire he wore consisted of nothing more than a simple cloth tired around his nether-regions like a diaper.
"What in the.."
He could not even utter the sentence before a low, breathy chuckle was heard from the opposite side of the room. L attempted to careen his head over his shoulder to no avail.
"Don't think to hard about it, Lawli." The voice, so sick and sweet with the ever-underlying tone of malice, crawled into his eardrums and reverberated in the respective places. "You might hurt yourself."
Out of the shadows crawled the man: gangly, thin, and awkward in all of the wrong places. The pale ivory of a face was mired with sticky, pink smudges that fell in globs from his cheeks and onto a black shirt. Bony, bloodied fingers moved through the air to hide a broad grin.
The entire figure before L made the man's stomach turn.
"What do you want, B?"
More of the cracking, hoarse laughter that sounded more like a horse calling out it's final neighs. L blinked at the tone, fighting to keep control of his emotions.
"To pick up where we left off, of course. I told you I wanted to play this game with you, Lawliet, and I fully plan on doing so. Maybe next time, when I'm 'it,' you should hide better. Tsk, tsk." He waved a jam-stained finger in a chiding manner, stepping closer to the detective as he did so. L instinctively recoiled into himself.
"Bu, But I got away the last time, Beyond." L tried to reason, gulping in the slightest. He noticed the way B's smile turned maniacal at the noise. "I hadn't the chance to catch you again, either."
"Correction, my pet." He held up an objecting finger and bared his teeth, resembling a small wolf. "When I escaped from the asylum, that was meant to be your turn. But, as you can see, you gave up your right when you ignored me and chased after your precious 'Kira.'" The doppelgaenger gave a rather bored shrug and moved to sit on L's waist.
"I bet you're wondering how I caught you, my dear." The saccharine in his voice returned at full force, and he dug an elongated nail into L's chest and trailed down; cutting open flesh at the sheer force of the touch.
"Well, my Lord, there was a Judas amongst you."
"Beg pardon?"
The smile had been erased from the similar face before L could even wince at the words he had chosen. He had forgotten the man's abhorrence to repetition, and was sure that he would feel the repurcussions later onward.
"Lawliet, my Lord," the detective attempted to ignore the jeering tone in which the man spoke as he felt his ears being pulled in a rough manner. "Must I clean out those pretty ears, as well? Where's the value in that? Should I just cut out the problem?"
L's saliva seemed to halt in its tracks, wanting to bare witness to the events that were lying on the tongue. It was painful to swallow.
"N, No, Beyond. That's quite all right." L swallowed down bile as he felt sharp canines clamp onto the uppermost portion of his left earlobe and, before he could even scream, felt a small chunk of the cartilage be torn off.
"Don't fuck with me." The whisper was almost gone unheard from the cries that left L's throat; the man's body had gone into panic mode, and he was more so in the mood to keep himself from relapsing into a childhood panic attack.
Beyond could only sit up and stare at the magnificent sight before him: a whimpering, hyperventilating detective writhing before his form, bathed in the warm rays of the morning sun.
Oh, the irony.
"Settle down, Lawli." The tone was more of a command than scarce words of comfort, but L latched onto the words like wildfire. Large, gray eyes peered upwards, attempting to mask the obvious fear within. He heard the muffled chuckles as the man swallowed the little bit of flesh he had bitten off.
"Good, you're calm." the man stood and smiled the warmest smile L had been recipient of in ages. "Now, I'm just going to make a phone call. Would you like to partake?"
"And who're we calling?" Much to his relief, his voice had returned to the monosyllabic tone his had grown accustomed to. Beyond winked.
"I believe his name is 'Light Yagami.'"
Whether or not the surprising speed in which each member of the investigation had gathered into the headquarters was astonishing or not was irrelevant. Each man (and woman, for Misa had stubbornly stated she wanted to partake in this fiasco) was running around in a shell-shocked state to search for evidence and the like to which they could piece together the strange and perplexing disappearance of the mighty detective.
Light, however, felt more rage than shock. If this was, as it was turning out to be, a kidnapping, then that meant that someone else was now in possession of the detective's life. The mere fact that some imbecilic fool had bested him in his own game was beyond comprehension.
Honestly..
The teenage held his head in his hands as he leaned onto his knees from his position on the couch. To any of the occupants of the room, it seemed as though he was saddened over the fact of losing his best and dearest friend, Ryuuzaki.
What they did not know would not hurt them, Light presumed.
As he sat up, though, he felt a vibration in his pocket. With a surprised blink, he fingered the phone and stared at the Caller ID. He then let out a small gasp.
"Everyone, hold it! Ryuuzaki's calling me!"
Every head, all of a sudden, snapped in attention. Wide, unblinking eyes gaped at him with open mouths. Each man reminded the boy of a drowning fish. He bit back the thought and flipped open the phone.
"Ryuuzaki, if you think it's funny to run away, then.."
"You're wrong, my friend." That voice, Light gawked, sounded much like the detective's. The only difference the brilliant young mind could decipher was the crazed undertone the man carried.
"Who is this?"
There was a long pause in which Light could here two voices conversing with each other; though, Light realized, the secunda of the conversation was being gagged. "You can call me Rue, I guess. I'm an old associate of Lawli's."
"Lawli?" Was that some sort of twisted term of endearment for the detective? Or was it code for the man's real name? Light had no time to think, though. "What're you doing with L?"
"Playing a game." The terse and obscure responses he were receiving were beginning to get on his nerves. He quietly mouthed for a GPS tracker on the call, to which his father nodded.
"Oh, and if you track this call, L will be dead before you even find a location." The tone had become childish and cheerful, as if this "Rue" had just told him that he learned how to tie his own shoelaces. The teen growled and killed off the trace.
"What do you want?"
A chuckle was his immediate response, the pure grating of the sound enough to momentarily shut off the teen's thought processes. It was such a sickening tone. He then heard a slight whimper from somewhere else in the room; the owner of the voice, Light was going to guess, had been L.
"I do not like repeating myself, brat. If you do such a thing again, poor Lawli will have to pay." As much as the thought should elate the teen, it did not. He blamed it on the fact that it was not he who had the detective at his mercy.
"Okay, so.. a game? What kind of game."
"You are smart. I guess I can see why you grew so fond of him, Lawli." Light didn't miss the condescending voice on the other end. He fought back the urge to snap. "Any how, I digress. Have you ever played 'Hide-and-go-seek'?"
"Of course."
"Grand, then!" An immature giggle cracked through the other line, causing the boy to wince. "I can skip the rules. There is a twist though: You have a certain deadline.."
"What is it?!" Light found his patience with this lunatic running thin, he gritted his teeth and somehow knew that he might've looked, then, like a caged sort of animal. The thought just fueled his righteous anger furhter.
"Calm your horses there, cowboy! As I was saying.." The disembodied voice cleared its throat through the airways. "There is a deadline in which you must find me. If you do not, I fear for the consequences.
"Anyways, I guess I should get on with telling you, seeing as Lawli's looking kind of lonely.." Light heard a muffled shout, and knew that the detective would much rather stall on the inevitable.
"Please, Rue, just tell me. Stop beating around the bush."
"Okay!" The voice was a happy, sweet chirp. The man, Light assumed, would have clapped had he not been holding a phone in his hand. "Okay, then, I shall tell you.
"You have thiteen days to find L. If you do not succeed in doing so, I am sad to say that his life shall run no more."
And before the shocked junior detective could even inhale again, the line went dead.
A/N: Oh noes! What is this madness?! That's so insane! WHAT IS THIS?!
I don't know. Ha-ha. Someone kill me.