Part two of the promised longer chapter. Come on, what do I pay you people for? Review!
Maybe you're all just a wee bit shy. Well, thanks for all the favourites and alerts anyway. ;)

Once again, Light chose to ignore his current company. Wresting between the hope of getting out of this place and the insufferable urge to drop to the floor and give in, he certainly wasn't in the mood for Ryuk's twisted sense of humour.

Suddenly, L cut across the silence.

"Plan number two, it seems, it our only option." It was wearier than his usual calmly tired voice; normally one of reason but now sounding as though it was a great effort to speak, though whether this was due to his similarly painful experience of spending time in the Shinigami World or to his distaste for 'plan number two', Light could not reasonably tell. He expected only the worst.

"Plan number two? What's that?"

"Argue."

Light nodded matter-of-factly.

"Right. Okay then."

Now sensing sharp pains in both elbows that he suspected he was going to find even more unpleasant in a few seconds, Light focused on the pattern of his feet. Right foot, left foot, right foot, left. Over and over again.

"It feels like we've been walking for years."

"Time is different here Light, remember?" interjected Ryuk, still upside down and moving to float just in front of him. The clearly highly amused Shinigami lengthened the 'i' sound in his name in such a way that, combined with the view of the cracked earth and abysmal deep before him, Light felt like he was the one who was the wrong way up, about to drop from the face of this place into eternity.

Struggling to keep upright, he decided to focus himself on more pressing matters.

"You really think this is going to work?" Light asked, directing a concerned look towards L, who evidently wasn't so interested in what should happen if they failed, since he kept walking straight ahead without so much as a glance at his former friend and colleague.

"I think there is a chance, yes."

"A chance?" Light winced, spikes now beginning to rupture from his upper arms too. "What kind of chance?"

"At the present moment I'm estimating roughly 17 percent."

For a split second, Light began to roll his eyes. The giving of an estimated percentage was something so laughably typical of L that it temporarily distracted him from what he had actually said.

"What?!"

"Yagami-kun, consider the alternative; that I hadn't come to the Shinigami World, risking my own future in the process, and hadn't explained to you in a matter of minutes what I have spent years attempting to understand; so guaranteeing your fate to remain, irreversibly, a Death God."

Light was silenced at that. Although his tone had been far from malicious, it was plain that there was to be no argument with L's plan of action, so from then on Light kept quiet.

Inwardly, however, Light enjoyed a satisfying realisation that he had taken so much information clearly on board in such a short amount of time. If L had also given him credit for this, he certainly did not say as much.

They walked on.