Ahhhh, it has been so long hasn't? Err, sorry. I could sit here and give you excuses but I doubt you want to hear them… not sure if any of you read this anyway… Oh well. I shall be having exams almost all month next month. This will be slow then too but after that up date will probable be almost regular.
I'm nerves about this chapter
Read and Review!
Purple
If you are always looking over your shoulder you will never go forward.
The walk back was a silent one. All of Ratio's charm and social grace seemed to have evaporated in the face of the dark mood and heavy air … well, to Raito that is. Sadness was none the wiser--completely oblivious to the burning brown eyes trying to put a hole in the back of his head.
Yes, Sadness surely took the cake. Spilling out deep meaningful (depressing and bone-chilling) words then walking off like he hadn't just dropped a bombshell. Raito rubbed the back of his head and sighed. This place was really starting to get to him. Never before was it HIM that wanted to make a relationship work. Quite frankly he was starting to worry about his own mental health. What teenage boy didn't want a girlfriend? Or any form of romantic interest? Now out of nowhere he finds himself attracted to a man, and on top of that, striving to make an already failed potential relationship work…
He was starting to think he really might have some serious problems…
Never mind that he was attracted to a male. He could come to terms with that. (He just hoped he wouldn't give his father a heart attack as well). The homosexual population was growing and his sister always did complain about wanting to have a gay friend. But L? L! When did that happen? He used to sneer at people who dressed like the detective did; at men with better posture, too. Weren't they supposed to have some sort of friendly rivalry? The man wasn't unattractive per say. (Actually he was becoming more and more attractive to Raito…) But, he'd never thought L would be his type…
Not that he'd thought about having love interest with men before.
…Oh, the irony. Women-magnet, neat freak, one night stand man and sex god wanted a lasting relationship with L.
The voice in the back of his head was laughing.
He wasn't sure why. Did that mean he was laughing at his own misery?
… Hummm, maybe seeing a doctor wasn't a bad idea after all…
He and L could see a doctor together! It was becoming quite clear the man had some serious issues of his own… err, look at that. He was already planning daytime activities with the man. He was hooked. Hook, line and sinker.
Raito jumped, startled by a particularly loud shout. He blinked and looked ahead. They were close enough now that the task force and personalities were only meters away. All the personalities were huddled around in a deformed circle. Yelling could be heard from where Raito stood. The task force was grouped a few feet away from the personalities, looking to be at a complete loss.
"It seems that we were not all that missed. Does it not, my dear Raito?" Sadness asked tilting his head to the side.
Raito looked at him before his eyes slid back to the blur of color with flailing arms. "So it seems," he answered, ignoring the rather intimate speech pattern of 'my dear'…
They walked quickly over to the task force. The first one to notice them was Matsuda.
"Raito! You're okay!" Matsuda yelled rather loudly, stumbling over to the brunet clumsily, tripping over his own feet, and catching the attention of the rest of the team (who seemed to be discussing what to do with the fighting mass in front of them.)
His father mimicked Matsuda's exclamation and rushed over to fuss over Raito, blabbering 1,000 words a minute and asking if it 'hurt' anywhere.
"Dad, Matsuda, I'm fine. Really. Sadness broke my fall-" he gave an apologetic look to said personality, who only offered him a small smile. "- Anyway, what's happening here?" Raito finished.
"We have no idea! One minute we were all concerned about you, the next Anger makes some comment about something; Love replies; Anger gets… well, angry; Happiness interferes; then Child-ness; then Logic and--"
"I think they get the point Touta," Aizawa interrupted before Matsuda could go on with his mumbling.
Matsuda blushed. "Uhhh, yeah. Next thing we know all of them are like--" he made a hand gesture towards the group. "-Well, like this. We have no idea what to do! If any of us try to interrupt they just ignore us and shout louder!" Matsuda finished off, voice filled with exasperation.
Raito turned to the mass of raging personalities. He leaned in a bit to hear what they were saying.
"- And this is all your fault! It was your idea in the first place!" Anger was yelling at Happiness.
"My fault!? MY FAULT!? It's always me, Love, Child-ness, Courage, or whoever else that you pin the blame on! It's never YOUR fault! Is it? Oh no, even though you are the most implosive and pig-headed out of all of us!" Happiness yelled (yes, yelled) right back.
"Please. Let's be reasonable. We don't have to fight. This--" Love tried to cut in with his soft voice but was soon was cut off himself by Anger.
"Oh no! Don't you try and come along and mend things here! You're the worst of them all! What?! It's not enough you are tying to ruin our lives, you're now going to try some peace-making bullshit on us too?! Fuck off! You have no right!" Love looked away, biting his lip.
"How dare you speak to him like that! I'm sick and tired of you putting the blame on him. What? Is it a crime to have feelings now?!" Happiness snarled back. Child-ness who was clinging to his leg nodded enthusiastically.
"This is his fault! If it weren't for him we probably would have solved the case already! We might have gotten away! Maybe lived a few more years! But noooooo! He had to go along and land us all in the shit-hole with his damn feeeelings." Anger spat his words like acid making Love shrink even more into himself.
"That's mean!" Child-ness cried indignantly.
"Don't you dare spit such nonsense! You know damn well that the case isn't going anywhere because of that lack of any evidence!" Happiness growled out.
Courage popped in between Happiness and Anger. "That is true, you know. No matter what credibility we may have with the authorities, if we go to the police and world government interpol and say: 'Hey, you know the Kira case? Well, I got no concrete evidence but I've studied this boy for long while now and even though he hasn't done anything remotely incriminating to the naked eye, I am currently 97.7% certain he is Kira! So, I have locked him up for 50 days then chained him to myself for the past…. Errr, I would say 16 and a half months... Completely violating his civil rights, human rights and privacy in hope of catching him doing something I could use to prove him guilty--as well as having him actually work on the case… which, come to think of it, doesn't sound too good when I say out loud to my superiors, now does it? Oh, and did I mention he's just too cute to be alive with that ass?' Well, the last part shouldn't be said out loud but I'm guessing after the 50 days thing they will pretty much have stopped listening so we could basically say what we wanted and all they would hear is white noise over their own indignant cries…" Courage mused out loud, trialing off as if thinking of said situation.
The other personalities stared at him. The team stared at him. Raito stared at him.
"…Did I fucking ask for your opinion on this?" Anger snapped.
Courage blinked at him. "Noooooo, but I gave it anyways! Plus, you two looked like you were ready to blow a vein or something. There is such tension in the air…" Courage had what Raito could only describe as a 'shit-eating grin' on his face. He twirled his hand on his wrist, gesturing at the 'air'.
Anger's face became as red as his shirt. His eyes were blazing. He really did look like he was going to blow. He looked like the devil… or Aizawa in his so-so moods.
"I'LL SHOW YOU WHAT BLOW UP IS!" And with that, Anger threw himself at Courage who laughed merrily and ran away, ducking whenever Anger tried to deal a blow to his head.
"It's just like you to deal with such a thing with violence," Reason (or Logic… it doesn't really matter…) sniffed out in his monotone.
That stopped Anger right in his tracks, giving Courage enough time to run off with all his limbs still attached to his body.
"What did you just say?" he hissed out so sinisterly Raito had to give a few steps back.
"You heard very well what I have just said." Logic (or Reason, though he didn't seem very reasonable at the moment…) dismissed. Both gray personalities crossed their arms simultaneously, looking down at Anger from over their noses.
"What the fuck are you insinuating!"
"This is exactly it. Not only do you act irrationally, you also use this constant, deplorable vocabulary."
"What fucking vocabulary?!"
"This! The constant swearing! It's a signal of lower intelligence you know. You do not have the ability to win arguments in a calm and well-spoken way so you just spit out these… these atrocities to cover up for your missing diction and argument."
"Oh, fuck no! If it might have escaped you, oh dear gardens of rationality, we all derive from the same person and therefore have the same IQ, vocabulary, and understanding! I do not use my so-called 'atrocious' vocabulary to cover up anything! It is not a sign of lower intelligence as it is in some cases, but a sign of emotion. The form in which I use to express my intense anger with specific words that fit where others would just diminish my point or make me sound like some sort of hocus-pocus IDIOT! It's called feeling! Try it some time!" Anger snarled like a rabid animal.
Both gray personalities snorted in synchrony. "Oh please. Emotions only cloud judgment. Feeling only derives you from your purpose. And your vocabulary only serves to diminish any sign of intelligence you claim to have. We much prefer to keep ourselves in the position we are in as the only creatures with a remote sense of understanding and moving judgment," Logic and Reason lectured monotonously at the same time.
"GRAAA!" With an infuriated cry Anger once again launched himself at Logic and Reason. Ratio was sure he'd never seen anyone with more intent to kill.
Happiness, Love, and Child-ness all threw themselves at Anger. Love and Happiness pinned down both arms and Child-ness hung onto the back of the boiling personality.
"NO! Don't give them the pleasure of ticking you off! It's just what they are aiming for!" Happiness gritted out as he struggled to keep Anger down.
"Let go of me! It's about God-damn time someone put them in their place!"
"May I give my opinion?" Courage suddenly asked.
"NO!" every single personality in the arguing group turned to shout at him. Courage leaned backwards slightly with the force of the screams, then pouted.
"You didn't have to be so rude. You hurt my feelings like that," Courage sniffed before crossing his arms then falling back to sit cross-legged on the floor. His cheeks puffed out like a chipmunk. "It's not like I was going to give it anyways." Any further grumbling was drowned out by the retake of the fight.
Raito blinked.
"Well… they have seriously been active, haven't they?" Sadness murmured from beside Raito.
"Oh Raito, you have to do something!" Matsuda cried.
Raito turned, wide-eyed, to Matsuda. What? Me!? Why ME!? I'm not going into that death trap!
Out loud he asked calmly, "Matsuda, what gives you the idea I will have any more success in breaking this up than any of you have had?"
"You're good with people Raito! They will listen to you! We tried already!" Lies! All lies! And was that a mocking glint in Matsuda's eye? Oh, no. Why did he even begin to think that this was even the slightest bit of a good time to get together! Raito was going to wring his neck!
Mogi gave his two cents. "Matsuda is right, Raito-san." Oh great! Mogi too?! Come on! Matsuda was never right!
"It is true son. You do have a way with people." Even you, father! You go to the ends of the earth to prove his innocence; rip to shreds anyone who dares to think your son is anything but the perfect Boy Scout, yet throw him to his death at the hands of a pack of angry and dysfunctional Ls!
Thanks a lot, dad.
He sighed. Why was it always the hot geniuses who went first? "Very well."
Raito gave a few steps forward before a particularly enraged scream coming from Anger made him jump. He turned to the team and Sadness. They were now about three meters away. Matsuda had the balls to give him the thumbs up.
Ration shook his head and counted to ten. Forget Kira. He'd be lucky if he wasn't convicted of murder now. He sure felt like it…
The voice in the back of his head was laughing maniacally.
When Raito got close enough yet still far away enough, he deemed, that he wouldn't have his head ripped off, he tried speaking up. "Uh, guys?"
No one even bated an eye in his direction.
"Hey! Oi! Guys! Over here!" He tried waving.
Nothing.
Oh, this was ridiculous! He was Raito-Damn-Yagami! He stopped traffic with a flip of his hair! "OI! GUYS!"
That got their attention.
"WHAT!" came a group-snarl (except from Logic and Reason. They don't 'snarl'. And Love, because he's… well, Love.)
Raito suddenly felt all his self-confidence leave him. He had seven pairs of very L-like eyes burning away at his skin. L always had that unnerving gaze. His eyes had always made Raito feel like a dissection project: Dead, sliced open and with nothing to hide.
Multiply that feeling by seven? (Even if it was multi-colored)
…
…
Yeah, Raito was feeling very small right now.
"Uh… so?… you know?…uh…" is this how Matsuda feels when he makes a blunder and the whole station/task force stairs blankly at him? Maybe he should cut the man some more slack?
Then again, Matsuda was the one to land him in this situation in the first place….
…Oh dear. They still were all looking at him. Now what? How long had he been lost in thought?! Errr, better say something…
"…" Raito opened his mouth but nothing came out. He could really feel his skin starting to burn. He resisted the temptation of biting his lip. He had to look somewhere, anywhere, with out those burning gazes. No such luck. All of them had the same look: intense; focused. Well, maybe not all of them. Courage looked more like a blank stair and Love had a softer look…
Soon they all noticed the teen wasn't going to do anything or say anything to keep their attention and they lost interest.
Unfortunately, that meant they all went back to arguing.
Raito once again had to resist an urge, this time to hang his head in defeat. A Yagami would never admit to such a thing. Ask anyone from his family. But Raito? Raito was the most stubborn of them all!
… Yet now he was thinking more along the lines of a well-thought-through and coordinated retreat.
He walked back to where the task force was standing by Sadness.
"That did not go too well now, did it?" Sadness asked softly.
"No. No it didn't. Not at all as I planed…" Sadness tried giving him a reassuring smile but it only made him feel depressed.
"Great. What we do now?" Aizawa huffed.
"Wait, I guess. There is really little we can do." Mogi said, eyes trailing over the bickering mass.
"Is there really nothing we can do?" Matsuda asked. "They still seem like they are going to hurt each other… really badly…"
"You need to learn to be patient and understand that in some cases there is nothing you can do. This is one of them. We tried Matsuda, but this is really a situation L can only solve himself," Soichiro said, eyes looking firmly ahead.
Like a good leader his father was, he directed the others with strong conviction and wise words.
Too bad he didn't do that before when he sent out his own son to be devoured alive…
"Your immaturity doesn't do Justice to your size," Logic and Reason were saying.
Apparently Anger had given up on tearing Logic and Reason to shreds and now he was picking a fight with his former captors. However Child-ness apparently managed to get caught up in an argument of his own with the twins.
"Dull, lifeless sags!" Child-ness huffed.
Which was beginning to look more like a playground fight by the minute.
Logic and Reason gave the child a dull look. "And? Is that all you have to say?"
Child-ness puffed out his cheeks. "NO! You're very mean, too! And evil!" Child-ness jumped up and down swinging his little fists around.
"Is that your best argument?" Both chorused.
"NO! I also think that the two of you have narcissistic personalities with overly inflated egos. You run a dictatorship over others because you are too afraid to lose control and don't trust anyone to help keep us alive. Neither of you are satisfied with the position you have so you try to impose your self-proclaimed authority on us. Moreover, because of your cold narrow points of views you tend to miss important emotional behavior in cases which have caused us problems in the past. Because of previous trauma you believe that the existence of any other personality is not only unnecessary but also harmful; which leads the two of you to try and shun us as much as possible. Yet you fail because the beauty of human nature is in the fact that we are such evolved creatures, we have the privilege of expanding from primal instincts and feeling something more. That scares you because that means loss of focus and that impulse decides. However, the worst part is that you know that any emotion will always be stronger than logic or reason. So you do your best to repress us and hope against hope that it all won't blow up in your faces…" Child-ness panted after his speech, then crossed his arms and tried glaring. The look was lost because his nose scrunched up cutely instead of causing intimidation.
Silence…
The other personality looked at each other. For a minute the fight was put on pause. The team members were all looking at the child with different levels of surprise, eyes wide.
They waited for the twins' reaction.
The gray personalities turned to each other, eyebrows lifted. "His strangely insightful rant is lost on his petite and innocent appearance, is it not?" one asked.
"Indeed," the other replied.
Thus, a disaster was avoided and the others resumed their own arguments once again.
Child-ness huffed and crossed his little arms, insulted. He never was taken seriously! Why did he even try? He puffed out his cheeks before going off to cling to Raito. If no one valued his opinion, well then fine! Their loss. He kicked the ground on the way over.
The boy attached himself to the teen. Tiny fists balled up in Raito's pants leg. Raito scratched the back of his head and awkwardly patted the boy's hair. Well, at least they got one of them to stop arguing…
But really. This boy was too much. No wonder the detective was so immature, if this was the result it had. Good thing he wasn't painfully cute.
…Errr.
"Please, please stop arguing. I think we have nothing else to say to each other. Don't you think this is enough-"Love was saying, a pleading tone clear in his voice.
"Oh don't you start with this again! What gives you the right to-"Anger started ranting but was cut off by Happiness.
"Stop it! What is your problem? All he has are good intentions-"
"Why do you always take his side? Why do you always speak in his favor!? Can't he speak for himself? Is that it?"
"It is not like you would listen to him anyway! What do you have against a little happiness once in--"
"A little happiness!? A LITTLE HAPPINESS!? I have nothing against 'a little happiness'; what I don't have is a death wish! A trait that you two clearly don't share with me! And, do tell, when was the last time that freak did anything that didn't end in heartbreak or disaster!? When!? Name one time when either of your attempts didn't end in misery," Anger shouted, eyes burning. Happiness snapped his jaws shut. Any attempts at interrupting died a painful death at the other's last comment. He turned his head away, unable to look the man in the face. Love shifted from side to side, standing closer to Happiness. His head was down and he kept rubbing at his hands. Slim fingers traced the scars that were there.
"That is exactly what I thought," Anger murmured softly. His eyes lost their burning intensity. He suddenly turned his own head away.
"We just were not meant to be happy," came the dull voice of Reason.
Happiness's head suddenly snapped up and with a speed none of the task force, or Raito, expected him to have suddenly had one of the dull personalities by his bland gray shirt. "Shut up! Every human has the right to be happy! Every human has the right to search for happiness."
Yellow eyes burned against gray before Logic went over and firmly grabbed Happiness's hands and pried them away from his partner's clothes. "Yes. That may be so, but it does not mean that they ever will find it. You fight for a lost cause. Emotions are unstable. A human will always strive to be happy yet will lose it easily to other emotions. You cannot be happy forever. You cannot be sad forever. You can not love forever, so why try?" Logic said coldly. Happiness snatched his hands away from the other's grip.
Love seemed like he wanted to interrupt; to say something. Anything. Yet he didn't. All he did was bite his lip and trace the scars on the back of his hand, looking back and forth between Happiness, Logic and Reason.
"And what? Logic and reason last forever? If this is another one of your superiority speeches, spare me. I am not in the mood," Happiness said bitterly (ironic).
"Come to terms with it. We, as a person, are not meant to be happy. This has been proven over and over again over the course of our life," The twines chorused as one monotone.
It suddenly became very, very quiet. None of the personalities were looking at one another. All of them seemed lost in thought. The argument had finally died away to be replaced by something much worse.
Deep longing.
They had completely forgetting that Raito or the team were present, who were all now feeling very unsure of what to do with themselves and the situation. Child-ness had at one point managed to climb up into Raito's arms and currently had his head buried in the teen's shoulder. The men glanced at one another, trying to find a way to break the thick, dark mood.
The silence stretched on.
Mogi cleared his throat loudly.
Seven heads turned in his direction. Multi-colored eyes widened (except for the grays' whose actually narrowed) when faced with the realization that they had an advance.
Well, Raito thought. This went from being uncomfortable to downright awful...
Happiness suddenly laughed. It was a high pitched and rather forced laugh; a nervous laugh.
Everyone stared at him.
He suddenly clapped his hands, making half of the task force jump (including Raito) at his sudden movement. His laughter became slightly higher. "Well then! That got… a bit out of hand didn't it?" The others just gave him a blank look.
He laughed again.
Happiness's hand then shot up and pointed in a random direction. "There!" The whole group looked at the direction he pointed, then back. "Let's go that way! Yes, yes we have lost enough time here chatting! Raito is back and everything is fine." He laughed. His other hand snatched Love's wrist and he began to drag the other in the direction he pointed. "Oh, this just will not do! No no! We've lost plenty of time, plenty of time! The others won't find themselves you know! No no they won't!"
The group watched him go, a confused-looking Love dragging behind him.
He had almost turned the corner when he noticed that there was no one following him.
Happiness turned and blinked. "Well, come one now! I can't move your legs for you! Come now!" And he disappeared around the corner of the building. Raito had a last glance at Love's disoriented face before it too disappeared around the corner.
…
…
"Well… that's one way to break the ice, ain't it?" Courage hummed. Clasping his hands behind his head he lazily followed after Happiness.
He then turned so that he was walking backwards, now facing the stupefied faces of personalities and humans alike. "You'd better follow or you'll get lost, or worse you'll lose them." With that he twirled on his heel and started walking forward again. He soon reached the same corner and disappeared around it.
Slowly the group started to follow, one by one. Aizawa hung back a bit before letting out a rather loud and exaggerated sigh. He rubbed his temples dramatically. "This place is soooo bad for my mental health…" he groaned before taking up the rear.
This was probably an even more awkward walk than the one he had with Sadness. Now everyone was present and the mass only made things weirder. The mood was a lot lighter than before, however, with Courage acting like the idiot he enjoyed playing and Matsuda being the idiot he actually was. The poor cop tried to lift their spirits with light-hearted small talk, but failed miserably when hardly anyone answered him (Mogi surprisingly was the one who took up most of Matsuda's failed attempts at conversation. Whether it was out of kindness, pity or friendship Raito wasn't sure). Then there were Happiness's failed attempts to take their minds off of the rather personal (not so much more 'inner') fight that just occurred.
None of it distracted Raito. Though Child-ness tugging on his hair to get his attention was starting to bother him…
Who knew he would wake up this morning and end up in a reality like this? Show him more than he bargained for? He gave up trying to figure out how much more surprise here was to come. L never seemed depressed; not really. There were times when he liked to make a show out of it, but Raito had always thought it was just that: a show. He was starting to feel like L was a better actor than he ever could hope to be. I mean, who manages to hide all of this behind a mask. One that he never really saw waver.
Then again, maybe he wasn't looking hard enough…
More than once had he caught the man staring into space. Of course, this was usually when the official work day was over. But there were times he'd seen L just stare blankly at his computer, eyes unseeing as he watched the data. Yet no mater how many times he tried to catch him daydreaming, it never worked. L would just wave it off and talk as if he had been paying attention all along.
He always imagined what L thought about at times like that. Was it his past? His future? People he knew? Something terrible that happened? Something terrible he thought was going to happen? (The man was incredibly paranoid). Maybe he was predicting something? Raito even came up with a silly joke with himself that the man could see the future and that was his state of complete transition. In the end Raito just gave up and chocked it up to him thinking too deeply about the case.
Guess he was wrong.
He was beginning to see a bit too much here. And this was starting to fiddle with his feelings. That had to be the worst part. If his little epiphany wasn't bad enough, now he was beginning to feel like his emotions ran deeper than a simple crush. He'd never had the urge before to comfort someone. He'd never had the need to see if they felt better, not for his own interest but their own. If it ever happened it was for his sister, and that wasn't often at all. It never was for his self-proclaimed friend. Never for any (and let him emphasize that ANY here) of his girlfriends.
But when he saw Love so disoriented in the middle of that argument… when he saw the pained expiration on Happiness's face or that hopeless look in Sadness's eyes...all of them an almost perfect odd-colored copy of the original. A piece of the original…
Raito felt something. Something powerful. Something that made him think of another person that was not himself. Something that made him want to, need to, help the other.
It made him care.
And it scared Raito more than anything.
"-ito? Raito? Raito, you should pay more attention to--"
Raito didn't catch the last of the sentence for he walked face-first into a glass wall of one of the buildings.
"-Where you are going…" Child-ness finished. Raito rubbed his nose and glared down at the boy in his arms. He only looked up at him innocently.
"I did try to warn you," he said cutely. Raito only rolled his eyes.
"I think I see one of the others we are looking for." Mogi's gruff voice cut through the air and everyone turned in the direction he was looking at, to find that indeed there was another personality shuffling about, near a corner of a building.
This personality was the strangest yet--if that was possible. He was constantly mumbling to himself and was sitting in L's crouch as he seemed to scan the area. His shirt, however, was a beautiful shade of purple. Raito wondered if there was a dress shirt he could get in that color...
Errr.
Never mind the nice shade of purple of shirt; the rest of the man seemed to scream more than just 'socially retarded' in big flashy lights. It screamed 'Hermit! With a pinch of insanity!'. His movements were jerky, making Raito think of a street dog that had been beaten too many times and was traumatized. His hair was up in a way that looked like he constantly pulled at it, making it stand up on end and his clothes rumpled so badly he looked like he had been crammed in a box for too long.
When he walked he didn't stand up. Instead he kept in his crouch. It would have been rather funny if it didn't just add to the thought that the man was completely off his rocker…
"OH! Lookie here! It's Paranoia! OI! OIIIIIIII! Paranoia! Over here!" Courage seemed to have materialized in the front of the group and now was hopping around waving his arms trying to get the other's attention.
The man's head shot up, eyes trailing over the group. He started to move over and the closer he got the better Raito could see his face. If anything, the bags under his eyes looked to be double the size of the original; his eyes looked a lot wider too. They were a lovely shade of dark purple (if purple eyes could be called lovely that is…), which strangely only made him look more psychotic. They were very wild. Different from Anger. Anger had the wild look of a hungry lion ready to snap his jaws at anything that dared bother him. Paranoia had the eyes of a rabbit with a broken leg that was surrounded by at hunters at open hunting session.
"What is this?" he hissed when he was within hearing range.
"Oh, well it's a funny story actually, you see--" Matsuda started to chirp happily when a hand appeared in front of his face making him stop short.
"That was a rhetorical question," he snapped at Matsuda. It was impressive that even though the man was practically sitting on the floor he still had an aura that made people feel smaller than him; a characteristic he shared with the original L.
Paranoia turned in the general direction of most of the personalities. "Can you see the grand scale of disaster this could amount to? They have to leave. Now. This will end right now."
"Its not that easy," Child-ness piped up.
"Where have they been? Have they seen any of the files? They haven't gone through the underground have they!? Where have you been!?" Paranoia started shouting, grabbing the front of Raito's father's shirt and looking possessed.
"They have not been anywhere in which they could cause real or lasting damage. We have made sure of that. Now calm yourself," Logic said dully.
Paranoia unclenched his hands from the front of Soichiro's shirt but then his eyes landed on Raito. "And the boy. What about the boy?" he asked, giving Raito a look as if trying to see through him.
"It is fine."
He continued to look at Raito. The teen shifted uncomfortably. He then tore his eyes way to gaze at Logic and Reason. "I do not believe you," he said finally.
"…yeah, well, you're Paranoia and you don't trust anyone anyway so…" Courage said, shrugging.
Paranoia's eyes narrowed. "Nothing good comes from trusting anyone." He sneered.
"Maybe. But sometimes don't you think you go a little teensy-weensy overboard?" Courage asked, bringing his hand in front of his face with his thumb and pointer finger millimeters apart to illustrate his point.
"Name a few. I have never gone overboard. I was all for protection. I value the only life I have," Paranoia replied, eyes wandering from Courage to Raito then stopping on Love, narrowing as if saying, 'you don't'. Love looked away and purple eyes made their way back to dark green.
Courage gave him a look of 'are you serious?' "Well, if you really want me to name a few…" Courage pointed one finger to the other, ticking one off. "We sleep only two hours every 46 hours because you are afraid that any longer and we will wake up dead tomorrow; only sleeping because no sleep will eventually lead to death anyway…"
"This job is very dangerous. You never know who will try to take your life. It is not at all 'overboard'."
"Very well. You have all the making of the food supervised, if not made by, Watari because you think someone will poison it otherwise."
"He sometimes has the ingredients tested just to make sure," Happiness commented off-handedly. Courage nodded his head.
"You can never be too cautious."
Courage lifted an eyebrow. "Yeah… sure. You have made us build between 25 to 100 bomb shelters capable of sustaining a nuclear war in 65 different countries 'just in case'."
"You know what they say. 'Better safe than sorry'."
Courage slapped his forehead. "You make us buy a new toothbrush every day. From the store. No such thing as storage."
"You cannot be too cautious," Paranoia repeated.
"You bug every telephone, house, neighbor's house, car, school and work place of all employees we've ever had to make sure there are no conspiracy theories against us."
"Again, a very real problem."
"Learning 27 different languages?"
"Trust no one, especially when you have no idea what they say. Translators? HA! Unreliable. All homo-sapiens should never be trusted."
Courage sighed. "Fine, yet you rely on Watari; hypocrite…" Courage muttered at the end but Raito heard it loud and clear. Courage suddenly thrust his hands out and wiggled his thumb and pointer finger in front of Paranoia's face.
"How about chemically burning off your finger-prints from your own fingertips?"
"Not to mention the whole soles for our feet," Raito heard Happiness whisper to Love from behind him.
Before Paranoia even opened his mouth to answer, Matsuda blurted out, "WHAT!?"
Paranoia turned to him. "But of course. What? Did you think I hold objects this way for fun?" Paranoia asked. Matsuda just stared with an expression of 'are you mad?'
"OH, no no no! It is quite hard to move objects like this, you know. Your fingers have no muscles. It makes it incredibly hard to move heavier objects. They are only tendons, bone, fat and flesh you know. You have to be very skilled," Paranoia said.
The team just looked blankly at him.
"…why?" Aizawa asked.
"With the technology today you can trace so much back with fingerprints! I will not take any chances!"
Silence.
"…so why didn't you do it to all your fingers?" Matsuda finally asked.
"It hurts like a bitch, that's why," Anger grumbled.
"You're telling me. We passed out when they did our feet," Happiness once again whispered to Love, who in turn shivered with unpleasant memories.
Paranoia ignored them. "I will not lose my identity completely," he said simply.
Silence once more.
"And I thought he couldn't get any stranger…" Aizawa sighed.
"Well then, that was… errr, yeah… we should be going now," Happiness suggested.
The group surged and started to move again. Paranoia whispered, "I've got my eye on you," as he passed Raito while he 'walked' in his strange crouch.
Raito blinked at his retreating back and his eyes met with those of Logic and Reason as they passed by. Yeah, join the club, he thought sourly, readjusting Child-ness in his arms.
They walked for a while but during the whole time Aizawa kept shooting Paranoia looks until finally he asked (though he was sure he would regret it later), "I'm afraid to ask… but why do you walk like that?"
Paranoia glanced up at him before stopping, effectively stopping Aizawa and the rest of the group as well.
However instead of giving him an answer, his leg suddenly zoomed out from underneath him and hit Aizawa behind his knees, which sent him flying before falling flat on his back, knocking all the air out of his lungs.
Matsuda let out a rather emasculating squeak at the sight and before any of them knew it Paranoia was hovering over Aizawa's prone form.
"Do you know how open to attack you are when you stand upright? This was only a demonstration of what could happen if I stood up straight. But you also leave your chest open to attack;" he poked Aizawa, "your stomach;" poke, "your neck;" poke, "there are just so many options to choose from!" poke poke poke poke poke poke.
"Stop poking me you freak!" Aizawa yelled as he tried to bat the prying sharp fingers from prodding at his body, meanwhile squirming on the floor.
It was a rather sad, humiliating and pitiful sight.
…
Yet absolutely hilarious at the same time.
"GET AWAY FROM ME!"
Poke poke poke. "See? Imagine if this was a knife or a bullet? Walking like this is very much safer." Poke poke poke.
"ARRRGH!"
Soichiro and Mogi seemed torn between helping their fallen friend or keeping in laughter. Matsuda, on the other hand, seemed to have made his decision and was doing a poor job of trying to keep his snickers quiet.
Raito covered his eyes and shook his head. How did these men become policemen again?
"I SWEAR TO GOD I'LL BREAK YOUR DAMN NECK! GET OFF OF ME! OFF! NOW!" Poke poke poke.
… These were the men meant to catch Kira?
"WHAT ARE YOU IDIOTS LOOKING AT?! PULL THIS MORON OFF ME!" Poke poke poke poke.
"Bwhahahahaha!" his father and the rest of his men (except Aizawa, of course) burst out laughing at the poor cop's misery.
"I HATE YOU ALL!" Poke poke poke.
…
…
…the world was doomed.
Child-ness was tensing in his arms, head turning from side to side as if looking for something. "Hey, Paranoia? Where's Fear?" the boy asked out of the blue.
Paranoia stopped prodding to look around. Raito could have sworn that his large pupils dilated to pin-pricks since if his already-wide eyes got any larger they would probably pop out of his head.
Aizawa sat up, now free from the questionably sane personality. He rubbed his head and dusted himself off, all the while looking like he was doing his best not to outright strangle the other with his bare hands.
Paranoia then shot up, surprising everyone after his little speech only moments ago. "Fear? Fear? Fear?!" he started calling out, swinging his head in every direction looking for a personality that wasn't there. He looked even more like a wild animal; scared and unaware of his surroundings.
Paranoia suddenly turned on his heels and sprinted off down the road before making a sharp right turn, leaving everyone behind.
"Paranoia, wait!" Child-ness cried, squirming out of Raito's arms. Hopping to the ground, he ran after the purple-eyed man.
"Oh great! Just, just great!" Anger snarled, following the little orange form.
Soon everyone was on the run after the runaway personality.
Raito groaned. He should have seen this coming…