Kira's Dungeon

"You saw, then." L said bitterly. "When Kira declared his victory, he made sure to put my face on television, to prove to the world that L had been beaten, and to ensure that I would never be unknown again. He did not broadcast my name, but that is of little comfort."

Light was taken aback at the defeated tone in L's voice. Where had the detective's fire gone? Had Light -Kira- really been so cruel? He could see where Kira might have killed him, but to keep him locked up like this...

"You sound... sad." It was the best he could come up with, and he kicked himself for it as soon as it left his mouth.

L sighed. "I have not seen the outside in eight years. I didn't think that I would miss it, but..." The eyes looked away for a moment, then returned to focus on Light. "He tortures me, believing that I can tell him where my family is, or what their names are. They fight him, to this day, but I have nothing to say to him."

"I'm sorry." Light whispered. It was the only thing he could bring himself to say. He saw L shake his head through the small hole in the wall.

"It's not your fault. You're just someone who happens to have the same name as Kira. Maybe that will help you live longer." He started to say something else, but suddenly moved to push the brick back into the wall. Light turned to look out the tiny barred window in the cell door, where guards were walking past. They stopped at L's cell, unlocking it and dragging the detective out.

"Lord Kira wishes to speak to you." one snapped. Light wondered why L didn't fight back, but saw that the sleuth was shackled hand and foot. Kira knew how dangerous he was. They marched him away down the hall, and Light was left alone in silence to contemplate his situation. Was this what he would have become? Maybe, just maybe, L had been right after all.

He was so engrossed in his thoughts, he didn't notice the guards coming to his own door. They hurled the door open and grabbed him unceremoniously, dragging him out and down the hall in the same direction they had taken L.

"Where are we going?" he demanded. The guards didn't answer, throwing him into a room that was empty except for a basin of water, a single guard, and the man that Kira had called Mikami. Light stared at him for a moment, then asked sharply, "What do you want?"

Mikami stared at him evenly. "We're going to interrogate you, obviously. Lord Kira is... intrigued by the coincidence of your name, and wants to know if you are associated with anyone who may be our enemy."

"Kira doesn't want to be here himself?" Light said sarcastically, trying to provoke him. But Mikami remained calm.

"Kami-sama has a different interrogation to watch over, as he finds our other prisoner far more interesting than you." he said blandly.

Light flinched. L... The guard walked up behind him and kicked him in the back of the knee, forcing him to fall to his knees on the concrete floor in front of Mikami. Mikami stood up, walking over and asking quietly, "Is Light Yagami your real name?"

"Yes." Light growled.

"You are not using an alias of any kind?"

"You have Shinigami eyes!" Light snapped. "You know that it's my real name!"

Mikami froze for the briefest of moments, then motioned to the guard. He grabbed Light by the back of the head, and the teenager had just enough time to gasp in half a breath before his head was pushed underwater.

His mother had made both him and Sayu take swimming lessons when they were younger, but there was nothing that could prepare you for being nearly drowned. Light could feel his lungs burning with the effort of holding his breath, and just as he felt his head growing fuzzy from lack of air, he was pulled back up to cough and splutter helplessly.

"Where did you learn of Shinigami eyes?" Mikami demanded coldly.

Light stared at him uncertainly, cursing his stupidity. He couldn't just go around revealing everything that he knew. Especially in this challenge. It made him into a threat.

"L told me, while we were locked up." he bluffed desperately. Mikami stared at him for a moment, then gestured to the guard again. Light anticipated what was about to happen, and got a deeper breath this time, before his head was forced underwater again. Again they kept him under until he felt like blacking out, and then let him come up.

"What do you know about an organization known as Wammy's House?" Mikami asked.

"Nothing." Light answered honestly, genuinely confused this time.

Mikami frowned. "What about a boy named Near? We believe that he is the mastermind behind the rebellion against Lord Kira's rule." Light shook his head, still not knowing what Mikami was talking about, and the black-haired man snapped, "I don't believe you." And Light was forced underwater again.

Again and again they asked him about the mysterious house, and the boy named Near, and every time he told them that he knew nothing. Eventually, Mikami acquiesced that he wasn't going to tell them anything of use, and ordered him taken back to his cell. Light collapsed to his knees on the bare concrete thankfully, listening to the sound of the door locking behind him. He climbed onto the cot, still feeling slightly light-headed, and eventually fell asleep.

When he woke, he was sure it was morning again. It had been afternoon when he had been arrested, so logically he had slept through the night. He got up and fuzzily made his way over to the wall to tap at the loose brick. "L?"

There was no answer. Light called again, slightly louder, and began to push on the brick. It tumbled out into L's cell, and Light put his eye to the hole and looked around. The cell was empty. They hadn't brought L back. Light went over to sit on the cot, resting his head in his hands and thinking furiously. It... It couldn't be, could it? Kira couldn't have... Light shook his head. They needed L to tell them about Near and the house. They wouldn't have killed him. They couldn't.

xXx

Light was kept in prison for a week, fed at irregular intervals and tormented and interrogated almost as often. One day they stripped him naked and blasted him with scalding steam until his skin was raw and red. They beat him, repeatedly held him underwater, and broke at least two of his ribs. Every time he repeated what he had told them from the beginning. His name was Light Yagami, and he knew nothing about Near or this "Wammy's House".

After a week of torture, he wasn't sure how much more he could take. He couldn't even quit if he wanted to, because they had taken the necklace with the black stone that would get him. home. Again, he wondered if dying counted as failing the Trial.

"Light!"

Light looked up, puzzled. The black-haired boy from the coffee shop, Noir, was standing in the doorway, dressed in the uniform of one of Kira's guards. Aki stood just behind him, staring urgently down the hallway.

"What's going on?" Light asked, confusion mounting. Did these two work for Kira?

"Well, we heard you were here and decided to stop in for a visit..." Noir said, flashing him a grin. Aki elbowed him.

"We don't have a lot of time, incase you've forgotten, baka." she said.

Noir rolled his eyes. To Light, he said, "In short, we've infiltrated Kira's building. We work for Near; well, technically we work for Mello, but that's just details... but we're also your guides for this challenge. I, personally, am happy to be your guide. I was a vampire hunter in a past life." He said it proudly, but then looked back over his shoulder uneasily. "You need to get out of here, but you have to save your prize first. That's the first thing we have to tell you. You have to save your prize. Third door on the left upstairs. Key." He passed Light a worn metal key. "Nicked it from one of the other guards. They'll notice it's gone soon. Anyway, the second thing we have to tell you is..." He leaned in close, conspiratorially, and whispered, "Death is a door. Not for this challenge, but remember it for later." He stood back up, and stepped aside from the door. "Now, go. And don't get caught."

"I can't leave yet!" Light cried. "Kira took something from me, a necklace with a black stone. It's very important!"

Aki smiled faintly, tossing something that glinted over her shoulder. "You'd be surprised what they leave lying around. Now get out of here. We have to go."

Light caught the necklace, slipping it back around his neck and tucking it under his shirt. Noir and Aki turned and hurried away down the hall out of sight. Light smiled faintly. They had been far more helpful than Beyond Birthday and Naomi Misora, that was for sure.

He hurried up the hallway, looking for the stairs that led upward. After being freed from imprisonment by L, he had never had a reason to come back down here, so he didn't know it as well as the rest of the building. He finally found them in a corner, and dashed up them. Third door on the left, Noir had said. He pulled the key out of his pocket as he ran. Save your prize...? What the heck did that mean? But whatever it was, it was in here...

Light swallowed hard to suppress as gasp as he opened the door. Of course! His prize for the whole Trial, not just this challenge. That was what they had meant.

L was seated in a chair in the middle of the room, bound to it hand and foot. His head drooped, and he struggled to look up at Light as he registered the door opening.

Black eyes looked broken and defeated as L said weakly, "Now you have found a way to conjure illusions too, Kira? I still will not speak to you..." Before Light could respond, he muttered, "Or maybe I'm dreaming, or hallucinating again. I really can't tell anymore."

"No, L!" Light cried. "It's really me!" His heart broke as he really took in L, his L, tried to a chair like an animal. He hurried to kneel at L's side, beginning to work at the ropes. They weren't tied as tightly as he'd feared. Probably because L was too weak to fight.

L couldn't do anything but fall from the chair into Light's embrace. Light wrapped his arms around him, helping him back to his feet, and could feel how thin L had become.

"He's been starving you." he whispered in astonished horror.

L nodded, just a slight bob of his head. "He thinks that you were sent by Near, to somehow unbalance his empire from within. He doesn't believe me when I say you weren't."

"He didn't believe me either." Light said, pulling L's arm over his shoulders and wrapping an arm around his waist. "Can you walk? We have to get out of here." L nodded again, and they began to make their way back to the door. Light didn't know how they were supposed to get out of the building, but he was damn well going to try, for his sake and L's. But as they stepped over the threshold, L's presence disappeared from his side, and he found himself back in the featureless room. L was sitting on the edge of the small bed in his familiar crouch, and Light realized that he had completed the challenge.

"You're back." L said, looking up. "I didn't think it would be so short of a time."

"How long was I gone?!" Light asked, thinking of his week in confinement.

L tilted his head to one side, puzzled. "An hour, maybe two."

Light blinked. Apparently time was different in this room than in the challenges. He shook his head briefly, and walked over to sit next to L. "Well, do you remember anything?"

"I remember my childhood." L said, blinking. "My parents were killed by burglars when I was six, and then I was shuttled to different orphanages until the age of eight. I never stayed in one for very long. I was either too smart or strange or eccentric for them to handle. When I was eight, a man named Quillish Wammy took me to live with him. He founded an orphanage for gifted children called Wammy's House."

Light stiffened. So the mysterious house had been where L grew up? Maybe the others who lived there were the ones that the other L had called his family.

"I trained to be a detective." L said. He stared down at his feet. "Did I grow up to be a detective?"

Light nodded. "Yeah, you did. The best detective in the world."

"Really?" L asked. "I'm glad."

Light smiled back reassuringly, knowing that L wouldn't be quite so glad if he knew the turn that his last case had taken. He almost dreaded all of L's memories returning, knowing that the detective would likely hate him, once he finally knew the truth.

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Sorry it's been so long! This chapter was hard, and my friend was after my ass for a late submission to a story contest. Being a minion of evil is hard work!

Anyway, so concludes Light's first challenge! Good? Bad? Weird? I'll try to be faster with the next chapter this time. XD

Hugs!
Li