Surprises

"I thought we were in agreement."

"We are. I don't see a difference."

"There is quite a bit of difference, Raito-kun."

"He'll be dead in two days."

"We said comas."

"Dead is dead, Ryuuzaki. I don't see why we can't—"

"Continue Kira's work?"

Raito did not find the glint in L's eyes even mildly humorous. "No death row. Fine," he said, "So…this one's mine then?"

"As soon as you are ready." L shifted, clearly uncomfortable with how he had to sit with his pan-feet curled to one side. He could not sit in a lanky cross-legged way as Raito was. His hooves would not allow it. "Killing a coma patient who will die sleeping does not rob the person of time spent living. Even your death row friend may find a new way of thinking in the few days he has left."

Raito nodded. He was staring down at his unused Death Note. A blank page. Raito felt quite a bit like that page—empty and waiting. He wanted to be filled, filled with what he wasn't sure, but he felt the hunger to be more than an empty page. The page in the Death Note looked up at him, off-white and worn despite never being written on, and seemed to plead with him.

Write not, it said. Turn back. Nothing good can come of this.

"Ryuuzaki…I don't know if I can do this." Raito could feel the slow turn of L's head, the steady heat of black eyes on his face. "I just…I don't know," he said, unwilling to look away from the Death Note to meet L's stare.

"Someone on death row would ease you more?" L asked.

"It's not that."

"Human conscience then?"

"Hn. We're not supposed to be moralistic, right? We're not even…human…to have a human conscience."

"Ah, but we are doing this with the goal of reclaiming our humanity. Therefore, we should embrace all that is human." L's own human finger pointed to the sky as if lecturing, but his eyes looked to Raito sincerely and Raito found it easier to meet them. "If you need a moment to commune with your morals, Raito-kun, there is nothing hypocritical about that. After all, we chose imminent death coma patients for moralistic reasons. It is only the act of killing that we lend to our shinigami selves."

Raito almost laughed. "Shinigami can kill, but to be more human we choose to kill people who aren't really alive. It makes sense. Still…there's a part of me that does think it would be easier to kill a criminal."

The warmth from L's hand was startling when it touched Raito's shoulder. Raito had turned to face L finally but his attention had been somewhere less tangible. He jumped when L touched him with the intent to soothe.

As a friend would.

"Raito-kun, you cannot make up for the innocents you killed by killing criminals."

If Raito still had human lungs he would have lost his breath. L knew him better than seemed fair, and yet Raito found it as soothing as the dark-haired shinigami's hand.

"I have had years to consider this," L said, "These terminal coma patients were good people while alive, but in truth, they have been dead for some time now. This is the right course, Raito-kun. Trust me."

Not long ago the last thing Yagami Raito would have considered was that he could trust the elusive detective L for anything. Today, however, things had changed. "Ryuuzaki," he said, his mouth twitched up into half a smile, "Can I ask your opinion on something?"

One of the dark eyebrows above L's very L-like eyes rose and the hand L still had on Raito's shoulder twitched as if squeezing in reassurance. "Of course."

"Tell me," Raito said, "Should I start with my hands or this ugly thing on my face they tried to pass for a nose?"

A chuckle escaped L then, short but not awkward as Raito remembered the few laughs he had caught from the detective in life. It was sudden and genuine and had no time for L to ruin it by overanalyzing.

After that it was almost easy for Raito to return his attention to the screen in front of them. Now that he had made up his mind, the screen remained stationary on the image of a young woman, alone and very still in her hospital room as machines beeped and clicked and her life slowly ebbed away. This would not be a heart attack, Raito decided. He had experienced for himself the pain of that, and even if this woman would die in her sleep, he did want to take the chance she might feel something.

It was strange, seeing the woman's name floating above of her head with the number scheme he instinctively understood as a shinigami. The woman would die within the year. He was doing her a favor really. Who in the world would ever choose being a vegetable over a peaceful death?

With L's watchful eyes on his every move, Raito used his shinigami tool, a strange thing not quite like a pen, and began to write, keeping the woman's face in his mind and thinking not of the time he would gain but of a smooth pair of human hands. He understood why L had chosen them first.

He wrote, Shelly Gunderson, an American, dies peacefully in her sleep at 11:25am, one minute from now. And then he waited.

"I suppose I should warn you."

Raito turned to look at L abruptly. Forty-five seconds had already passed. "Warn me?" Raito said, "You have something to warn me of now?"

L shrugged. "There's nothing to be done about it really. Part of the process."

Five more seconds. "What is it?" Raito demanded.

"Oh, only that the transformation is…significantly painful."

Raito's eyes widened, but not because of L's words. Five seconds had come and gone. His eyes went wide with the onset of the pain L had just now confessed about. Raito had to admit, there could be no better way to describe the feeling than significantly painful.

Falling forward as if he would be sick, Raito clutched as much dry dirt as he could and clawed into the rock below. His breaths came slow and heavy. The pain originated from his hands but felt as if shocks of it were rippling through every part of him. It was constricting, like suffocating from inside his nerves. His initial transformation hadn't been like this. Raito wasn't sure he could stand much more of it.

And then it was over. He hadn't called out. He hadn't had time. It was over quickly though the intensity of it felt much longer than the truth.

Despite the pain, when Raito's eyes focused and his breathing stilled, he looked down and saw that the hands covered in dirt from his desperate clawing were flesh, not black talons. His hands were human.

As much as Raito was marveling over his success, raising his new hands up to the dim light to see every inch of them, he also looked with equal marvel at L.

The large smile on L's face seemed to stretch farther. "You see, Raito-kun," he said, "We may be free of this place in no time at all." He reached into his shroud and from within the folds pulled his Death Note as if from nothing. "Shall we try another?"

Raito flexed his fingers and grinned. "Hell yes."

-----

It was almost a rush. The pain—blinding but brief—and the results, perfect and real and right before their eyes the moment the person they had written in their notes was dead. There were countless terminal patients, catatonic, without the possibility of worthwhile life until their imminent death. It was easy. Soon, Raito began to feel as if he was doing a service. If he was any of these people, he would be praying for death. He almost felt more like an angel than a shinigami.

That thought made Raito's stomach tie up in angry knots. The last thing he wanted was to enjoy this. He could end up worse than he was on Earth, thinking he could better the world by becoming the next euthanasia freak. He certainly didn't want that.

So it was after he and L had each taken five lives that he asked if they could take a break.

"Of course, Raito-kun," L said, "It is rather exhausting. Shinigami do not need to sleep, but they can, and perhaps it would be best of we rested."

Raito was grateful. He was so pleased with what they had accomplished so far, he didn't mind if they waited a few hours before continuing. As of now he had his hands, arms, legs, feet, and what he referred to as his pelvis, which turned out to change both the back and front of that area, though not noticeably to anyone but Raito. A few of L's comments about that Raito almost took as barbs. L apparently found it amusing that one of the first things Raito wanted human again was his manhood.

L, adding to his hands, now also had his feet, arms, legs, and "pelvis" having taken Raito's lead, and since he took one more life before Raito called for a break he also had his hair. Raito barbed him a bit about that, but L assured his friend that it was in no way a superficial choice. He just hated the feel of hair so fair down his back. Raito didn't bother arguing.

"What do you do to pass the time here?" Raito asked. He was tired from the transformation but didn't feel like sleeping. He felt like running just to feel his legs and feet as his own again. It felt wonderful to stretch his arms. His limbs weren't so unnaturally long anymore. They were still covered in black leather bindings, but the fabric hung, having excess it didn't before.

L looked thoughtful a moment while considering Raito's question. "I always watched you, Raito-kun. Is there someone you would like to check on? Your family perhaps?"

Raito felt sick again. "I…don't know if I could. My mother and Sayu will know by now, won't they? They must know…that I was Kira. I don't think I could handle seeing their reactions. It's because of me…my Dad…" Raito shivered, and if he didn't know better he would think he was cold. Perhaps his new limbs were to blame.

Though Raito doubted they were the only reason.

It wasn't easy to miss the tremor that went through Raito, and L, out of what little tact he had, decided not to press the issue. "Anyone else, perhaps? Friends? Matsuda-san? He will do well for himself, I think. Though it wounded him greatly, having liked you as much as he did."

"No," Raito shook his head, his attention on some unseen point in the distance away from the screen and L's eyes. They were still sitting, more easily now with their human legs. "I don't want to see anyone. Besides, I don't really have friends anymore. Kira made sure of that. All I really had was you. Misa in a way. And Ryuuku I suppose. And he's…" Raito trailed off. He could kick himself.

Ryuuku.

"He killed me. He…killed me." Raito's human hands clenched so tight they were as white as the shinigami skin on his face.

"Ah, yes, Ryuuku. The start of it all, was he not?" L's voice was thoughtful but not taunting. Raito got the feeling the detective had avoided speaking of Ryuuku on purpose. "Do keep in mind, Raito-kun, that any thoughts of revenge would be entirely pointless. He is shinigami, remember."

Of course. And although Raito knew the one way to kill a shinigami, Ryuuku would never fall for it. Raito wondered if he even wanted that. Revenge. It seemed so foolish. Ryuuku told him from the start he was on no one's side but his own and that when the time came for Raito to die it would be Ryuuku writing his name in a Death Note. Ryuuku never lied. Really, Raito had nothing to be angry about.

And yet he still felt betrayed. Ryuuku had been a friend. Clearly, Raito wasn't very good at keeping friends. He reminded himself that he deserved everything that had happened to him right from the beginning. He made the choice to use the Death Note. The fault was his alone. Ryuuku simply dropped a book.

"Have you…seen him?" Raito asked, turning to face L again.

"Ryuuku?" As before, L took his time contemplating. It made Raito consider the benefits and fallbacks of being patient with the detective. Do it once and he thinks he can take his time on everything. "Hmm," L hummed, "I did see him. Right before your own arrival actually. I imagine he came back as soon as you died."

Raito didn't want to know; he had to know. "Did he say anything to you? Did you talk to him?"

"We may have exchanged a word or two."

"Meaning what?"

"Meaning we may have exchanged a word or two."

"Ryuuzaki!" Raito's patience was wearing thin, "What…what did you talk about? You can't keep something like this from me if you expect me to trust you."

L rose from the ground with ease he had yet to display, his new limbs moving with grace Raito would swear the man never had in life. "Did it cross Raito-kun's mind that perhaps you can trust me more for keeping this from you?"

"What?" Maybe the years had driven L madder than he already was. "Ryuuzaki, if you think you're protecting me from something…"

Light shifted in L's eyes as if to answer that that was exactly what he was doing.

"What is it then? What are you protecting me from?" Raito demanded. "What did Ryuuku say?"

L did his best to straighten, but his torso was still shinigami and his hunch prevented him from standing taller. "I will ask Raito-kun to remain calm," he said, which only intensified Raito's need to know what was going on. "It is nothing too terrible, only that…Ryuuku-san…he confessed to me that he had been planning for this outcome from the beginning."

This time Raito was certain he felt cold.

"He knew you would fail. He knew you would be punished this way. He knew, Raito, you would become what you are from the moment he dropped his Death Note."

Slowly, Raito rose to join L, though his new limbs felt numb and he hardly knew he was standing save being eye to eye with his friend. "He…said it was chance. He didn't know I was the one who would pick up the book. He couldn't have known."

Laughter, laughter Raito knew well though found chilling now, came from behind him and slightly above. He didn't have to look to know that the soft sound of someone landing behind him was not the arrival of any ordinary shinigami.

Raito turned and met a smile much like L's.

Ryuuku chuckled again. "I always knew you would make a fine shinigami."

tbc...

A/N: Sorry, I've been in Georgia with my sister's new baby all month for those of you patiently waiting for this and possibly for the next part in my Saiyuki fic. I am sorry for the delay, however, and will be back in the saddle from now on. Hope you're still with me.

Crim