PART FOUR

"Your…hands."

"Quite human, wouldn't you say."

Raito almost didn't believe it. There were parts of him that still resembled his humanity, and he had at first dismissed L's normal fingers and palm because of it. But L was not indicating his hands simply to show off what he had managed to hang onto. He was showing Raito possibility.

He was giving Raito hope.

"You can trade years from the people you write in the Death Note for…the appearance of being human?" Raito breathed the words, his gruffer voice halting on several of them in the effort to speak.

L's head tilted once more and his smile, forever stretched wide, twitched with the semblance of something real. "More than that. I believe, judging from my first experiment, that the transformation is not merely cosmetic." L's eyes, another part of him so utterly him, widened in their fervor. "Names, those stolen years, can be traded for humanity itself, Raito-kun. Piece by piece. My eyes were my own already. But my hands, these were granted from just one life taken."

The swell in Raito's chest that had begun to grow and spread like gentle threads within him sunk again into the bit of his hollow stomach. "You…" It was a harsher truth than L's countenance. "You…killed? You? You took a life with the Death Note for hands? The great L, Ryuuzaki, the best detective ever known who wielded justice like a sword took lives as easily as—"

"As you did?" L finished.

Raito did not hesitate in making his response. He had always been at terms with his decisions and state of being. Even believing now that he had been in the wrong does not change that he can look at what he was and accept it. "Yes," he said, "You're…you're you. You would never stoop to Kira's level."

"Ah, but you speak of the L, the Ryuuzaki you knew in life. The human being. I am shinigami now. Mortal rules no longer apply." As if to emphasize this, L shifted on his clawed feet with their Pan-like curves and pawed at the ground. "Justice? It is my nature to use the Death Note, Raito-kun, as it is yours. Justice is not the same for us as it once was."

Raito's mouth closed as quickly as it had opened in protest. L's logic was perfectly sound as always; Raito was the one unwilling to see things clearly. Shinigami did not murder as humans do. Taking lives was their nature. But as much as Raito tried to convince himself of that, the idea of L joining him as a killer was startling.

Looking up abruptly as a thought occurred to him, Raito narrowed his newly glowing red eyes on L's hands and moved that gaze slowly up to the former detective's face.

"Only your hands…" he said, mostly to himself. Then he straightened, his shoulders pushed back as far he could manage with his newly curved form, and said, "If you figured all this out before, why only your hands? It's been years, Ryuuzaki. You should be entirely human by now."

"You forget what I have already told you."

The space between Raito's eyes crinkled, since he no longer had a full nose to scrunch in concern, as he waited for the rest of L's explanation. The recluse always was one for dramatic pauses, like an elementary school teacher hoping her student would discover the answer for themselves.

"You, Raito-kun," L said, "I was waiting for you. I didn't want to disappoint you by having nothing to offer, but I didn't want to be that far ahead of you, either. It really would have been no fun at all if I saw the end to this before your arrival."

Again, Raito was stunned. All this for him. From L. His…enemy? But then L had been telling him for some time now that he considered him a friend. Raito's entire world was spinning on a new axis. He was a shinigami, dead, and meant to spend eternity, or at least one hundred years, with his arch rival. Now, that rival practically calls him brother and wants to bring him in on a plan to regain their humanity.

The only question left is how much Raito is going to trust L and whether or not he wants what is being offered. To use the Death Note again after what it did to him. It is because of the Death Note that he is now what he has become, why his father died prematurely, why he lost the one friend he might have had.

Might have had and yet still can.

Against all better judgment, Raito's subconscious, even the most conscious part of him to be honest wanted to cling to this promise for something more, especially through L. He had been shocked to know he was L's first friend, but isn't it also fair to say L was his? He was always sizing the rest of the world up and finding it unworthy. Only L can compare to him. Only L can give the kind of companionship he has always sought.

And he wants that. Even if he again became a killer. Even if Kira would be a part of his life until he died…again.

"What next?" he said, looking at L resolutely.

The clown-smile on L's face twitched, though what it wanted its true expression to be was not entirely clear. "How quickly do you want to be free? How easily can you kill? Next, Raito-kun, is to begin our transformations. But that requires the use of these." L tapped one of his perfect, human fingers against Raito's Death Note. "Are you willing?"

Raito had already decided on the answer. He wondered if he would curse the choices he had made until the end of time. At least with this, even if he would be returning to those mistakes, he was being active. Only in action can something be achieved.

L's black eyes were pools like that unfathomable darkness Raito had passed along with the blinding light, and yet he trusted the darkness in L. He cherished it because it was the only darkness likened to his own.

"Yes," he said, "I am willing."

-----

Raito walked alongside L through the barren landscape. Miles in every direction stretched around them. Occasionally they could see other shinigami lying down in sleep, watching portals down into the human world, and gambling for what Raito considered nothing but bits of bone. What did they do with their winnings, he wondered. He never wanted to be what they had become. He marveled at how L seemed immune to the pull of sedentary living.

But then he remembered L was not. For the past several years L had been like some of these shingami, simply watching Raito from a portal and waiting for the end of the story to unfold.

As they walked they remained a good distance away from the shingami they could see. If they strayed too close it was inevitable that one of them would recognize the great Kira and comment. Raito did not want to hear mockery or praise. He just wanted to be free of this punishment, though he doubted he deserved what L was offering. He followed for the company and because he believed he owed this to the other man.

Man. They weren't men. They weren't anything really. Even to call themselves shinigami seemed as foreign and wrong as to call them heroes. He knew, even today, that some of the people in the human world below thought of Kira as a hero. A savior.

It made Raito's stomach flip. Misa could call him a hero if she wanted, Raito didn't care. He cared as much for her opinion as he did the opinion of these taunting shinigami.

And then Raito tripped in his step. Misa.

"Ryuuzaki."

"Mm?"

"When Misa dies she'll come here too won't she?"

L stopped, a few paces ahead of Raito now, and slowly turned on his strange feet. His face was expressionless save the smile that would never fade. "You would assume as much, but you are more special a case than you may think."

"What do you mean?"

Shaking his shoulders in something like a shudder, L considered this and the shroud of white over his frame trembled around him. "Misa loved you. In her own way. She loved Kira for avenging her parents' death. It is her motivations that absolve her. You, however, were seeking to better the world so that you could rule it. Playing God is not looked on kindly by…gods."

It didn't quite make sense. "Then Mellow? He isn't here either?"

Raito knew that smile couldn't be anything but a smile; he had known Ryuuku's long enough to understand that. And yet the curve changed anyway and Raito knew there was a hesitation in L's following words that almost sounded sad, and his smile betrayed it.

Perhaps L saw something of himself in Mellow and Near after all.

"Mellow," L said, looking at the ground in front of Raito's feet, "Mellow chose Hell."

Raito gaped as L turned from him and began walking the path they had been heading. L said it with finality but there was emotion there that surprised Raito. L may not have thought of Mellow as a friend, but the chocolate bar fiend was not the non-entity everyone else seemed to be in L's life.

Memories of when Watari died rose to Raito's mind. L had been calm but clearly affected. Raito was probably the only one who noticed the subtle nuances that gave L's true feelings away.

Raito almost didn't want to ask. "And what about—"

"Your no longer faithful lackey?"

Raito supposed he deserved that. He nodded. He had to summon his wings and hover to keep up with L's Pan-feet.

"He is still alive," L said, "In prison and likely to be executed. He will be given a choice, I think, though I do not know what his decision will be. If it bothers you then we should be swift. It is possible we could be human before his sentence is carried out."

"And what then? What happens to humans in the shinigami world?"

Raito nearly bumped into L's back when the other shinigami stopped. L did not turn to face Raito but did not appear startled when Raito moved to hover in front of him. Raito was surprised at his own comfort with using his wings since they had frightened him so much when they first appeared. It was freeing in a way, but he used them now out of ease and necessity.

Of course, though L had been brought to a sudden stop by Raito's question, he had an answer for everything. Naturally the great detective had already thought of this.

"Yes, I have been wondering that. My conclusions are inconclusive." Without another word, L stepped past Raito and continued walking.

Raito flew up beside him. "Inconclusive? You don't know what's going to happen?"

"I have theories."

"Theories? These are our lives!"

"Theories are better than guesses. It is likely we will experience one of several outcomes. We will become human and be sent immediately into reincarnation. We will become human and start over with the choice between this world and Heaven, or in your case you will simply be transformed back into a shinigami without any say."

Raito's eyes flashed and he bared fangs he wasn't used to yet as he prepared to speak, but was cut off as L spoke on.

"We will be human and therefore vulnerable to the shinigami here. Or…we will be human but capable of staying where we are and choosing our own destiny. Clearly I am hoping for the latter."

Raito couldn't believe this. He was tempted to retract his belief that L was still a genius. "Hoping? You don't know what will happen and the outcome you are hoping for isn't even tangible? Able to choose our own destiny? If we're human but stuck here, where can we go? What can we do?"

"It is possible we could use the portal to return to the human world and therefore come back to life, as it were."

"Ryuuzaki—"

"But if not, if we are stranded, there are places beyond this barren wasteland that may prove of interest to us."

Such a possibility had not occurred to Raito. Something in this world, a world of death, of shinigami, not made of empty, dead land? "Where?" he asked, and he tried not to notice that the way he hovered on black wings was very much like Ryuuku used to hover alongside him. "Have you seen these places?"

L looked around with a swoop of his neck that looked anything but natural. "Mm, not personally. The other shinigami have stories. None have been there themselves, but they assure me there is another land connected to their world."

"A land of what?"

L did not response.

Knowing L as Raito did, he recognized that silence was one of L's ways of saying he didn't have an answer. "You don't know. We could be doing this for nothing. We could end up worse than we are."

As before, L stopped abruptly. Since Raito had been beside him it was easier this time for Raito to stop as well. L looked at Raito and unexpectedly a pink tongue darted out to swipe at a small portion of L's large lips. "Years, Raito-kun," he said, "I have gone years now without my tea, or chocolate, or a piece of cake. This may seem frivolous to you, but I am certain you can think of your own equivalent. Can you honestly say existing as we are in a world like this is not already the worst we can come to?"

Raito thought he would get sick of feeling like a fool. L always managed to do that to him, in life and now. Raito would not miss sweets or food really. He would miss other things, like wind on human skin as he walked, the sound of his sister humming, his mother's smile, the assurance of a future, any future.

L was right. Crazy perhaps in a strangely logical way, but right.

Without waiting for a response, L continued a few more steps and finally crumpled into a heap in front of an unoccupied portal. It sat on the ground like a television, showing the human world according to its watching shinigami's desires.

When L looked back at Raito and gestured with his human hand for Raito to join him, Raito did so with confidence. He sat and the two stared forward at the apparent screen. Raito was mesmerized and he did not know how to answer at first when L's voice drifted to him.

"So," L said, "Who shall be the first sacrifice?"

tbc...

A/N: You're lucky I had that long train ride. :-) Sorry for the delay, and for those crossover fans waiting for more in "What Happened..." I plan to have a new part up before Xmas. Thanks for sticking with me. I'm glad you all are enjoying my play with the Death Note boys. There's more to come. At least two more parts, maybe three, and it will be open for many one shots. Hehe. Have a Happy Holidays if this story isn't updated by then and be safe.

Crim