Here's the brand new chapter of The Detective And The Moon!
I really hope you guys like it :D
We're learning a little bit about the past in this chapter!
Disclaimer: Death Note belongs to Tsugimi Ohba & Takeshi Obata, but the OC's are mine!
Chapter 6 – The Past (Part I)
It had been a month since the Aka Sora had made a move. Tsuki was laying down on the couch, with a blanket over her lower half, and her pet, a 4 year old male green tree python appropriately named Hisuiro curled up half in front of her with his head resting on her shoulder.
She had been going through hours and hours of news footage, looking for any sign of the slightest movement by the Aka Sora. So far, she had found nothing and her patience, which was already nearly non-existent, was running very thin.
L had disappeared from the seat next to hers quite a while ago, giving her time to quickly go home and pick her snake – who had been alone for a couple of days -, and she was alerted by his presence coming back into the room by the customary scuffing sound of his footsteps, heavy breath and also a fresh, clean smell, signalling he'd just showered.
"Found anything?" he asked casually, but stopped dead in his tracks after seeing a strange, bright green...thing on Tsuki's shoulder. He noticed the green thing travel down her slim, toned body, not thinking about where his eyes were wondering too, and curled up in a spiral underneath the blanket. He swiftly deduced that it was a snake the moment that it's head rose to get a better look at him.
"Easy, Hisuiro...he's alright." Tsuki cooed with a shocking amount of affection to the python and lifted a hand up to gently stroke the top of it's head to calm it. Hisuiro seemed to check him out for another moment and deem him okay since his mistress said so before resting on Tsuki's shoulder again.
"No, I haven't found anything. They haven't made a move in a whole month." she said with a mostly blank tone, only a small hint of anger escaping her. At the moment, for lack of anything else to do, she had sent Ame and Kumo home to get some rest since Ame still wasn't entirely used to the erratic and unpredictable schedules and Kumo had barely slept at all.
Over the last month, they had stopped security breaches and information leaks by having Kumo and the rest of his team staying up around the clock in shifts, making sure no one hacked into their system and they had only made any files about the Aka Sora case on Kumo and L's computers.
There was nothing they could do until the Aka Sora made a move, and Tsuki hated that. She hated that they were able to have some level of control over their investigation. They had gotten nothing, gotten nowhere, in a whole god damn month.
Hoshi's autopsy hadn't told them anything either. The same murder weapon had been used as the one that killed Superintendent Kotone Fuyuko, suggesting that it may have been the same person that killed them both. Tsuki knew that most of the time amongst specialists, that it wasn't uncommon for them to have customised weapons made. But there was also the thought that the Aka Sora wanted them to believe that.
Everything was all up in the air. They couldn't make any conclusions at all. Also, Takumi had been placed under arrest and was currently in the nearest prison, since he was only a decoy, of sorts. He didn't know anything and he couldn't lead them to anything with the limited role he played, and Tsuki had made damn sure of that fact before letting him leave their headquarters, let alone her sight.
At the moment, he was only being held at Taiyou's request, but Tsuki had gotten the idea to release him, and have him trailed if nothing had come up after a while, and it seemed that time was going to come. She didn't have much choice at this point.
Taiyou had already given her permission to have him released a few days ago, also seeing that they may not have any other chance, she had just hoped that something would pop up so that she didn't have to resort to using that trump card.
She had also briefly discussed the idea with L, as well as Ame and Kumo, but now that she was actually going to go through with it, she may as well ask his opinion since the other two had completely supported her, trusting in her judgement and ability.
"Ryuzaki, do you recall how I told you about my idea to release Takumi and have him trailed?" she inquired, as the TV continued to make nothing more than white noise to them in the background.
"I do. And I believe we may be thinking along the same lines. Please tell Taiyou to have him released." he replied, and gave her the answer she was looking for.
"It seems we no longer have a choice in the matter. We have been waiting for much too long for a lead and patience has worn very thin. I'll inform Taiyou tomorrow morning first thing, and I'll get Ame to trail him...Hopefully, the Aka Sora will contact him and we'll start getting some results." she said professionally with an air of confidence that she didn't really feel and turned her head to look at the time on the clock sitting on the small table next to the couch. No wonder she was feeling tired. It was nearly 1AM and she hadn't had a wink of sleep in 5 days.
"I'm going to go rest now. I'll be up at 7AM." she informed for the sake of it, and carefully got up, making sure that Hisuiro was wrapped around her, so that he wouldn't fall.
"I will wake you if we find anything. And please make sure that your snake is put in it's enclosure before you sleep." he answered with his voice slightly wavering over the thought of the snake roaming around without Tsuki there to calm him.
"Scared of snake...Ryuzaki?" the pale-skinned woman teased, as she walked past his chair, hissing the 's' sound to exaggerate as much as possible.
The smallest shiver went down his spine, and she thoroughly enjoyed seeing him in such a unnerved state, but was too exhausted to continue, as well as being too confused as to why she even started in the first place. It was quite unlike her to act that way towards someone, especially someone she hadn't known for very long.
Instead, she walked into the other room where the en suite was located. She almost chuckled seeing Hisuiro's enclosure in the corner of the room, seeing the mental image of the number one detective in the world's spine shivering over her snake possibly being out and about while she slept.
All he would do is find the warmest, darkest place and stay there, which would probably be under the bed, or in it. She gently placed him back in his terrarium, even though he seemed more than content to stay with her, shut the glass sliding door and got changed into her simple night dress made out of a beautifully soft material, that was black with light blue pinstripes, and a bit of lace here and there.
Lazily, she got under the covers, laid on her side and eventually fell asleep.
"Dear, did you bring the paper work?" the graceful, elegant woman asked the charming man whose arm was wrapped around hers.
"Yes. It's right here." the man replied holding up a large A4 sized envelope and smiling affectionately at the woman before his eyes trailed to their child. "Hey, Aoi. Come back here please. The nice lady from the bank will give you a pretty stamp if you behave." he continued looking towards a young girl, wearing a blue jacket that was currently wandering away from her mother and father.
"Yes, Dad." the girl drawled and stood next to her father, who reached down and held her hand with his free one, putting the envelope under his arm. A few minutes later, they were at the front of the line, and one of the staff called them up to her window.
She smiled politely at them, and almost grinned at the young girl's face, noting how much she looked like a perfect mix of her beautiful mother and handsome father, knowing that she would grow up to be stunning. It didn't take long for them to sort out what they needed to, and as promised, the young girl nicknamed Aoi was given a nice stamp by the woman serving them.
The girl giggled happily, looking at the green stamp on the back of her hand. Her gaze turned towards a man standing in the line behind her, and she noticed that he looked very angry, but at the same time seemed very scared. He was shaking a bit, and was also incredibly fidgety. Said man looked at her and swiftly turned away from her curious but piercing eyes.
Her father thanked the woman, and all three of them began to walk away before hearing loud yelling from just next to them.
"Everyone, get on the ground. Now! Keep your hands where I can see them!" yelled the man that was standing behind them in the line as loud as he could pulled a handgun out from his jacket.
Suddenly, there was a raucous of screams, whimpers and other assorted sounds of fear and shock. The girl's stomach dropped and adrenalin, the likes of which she had never felt before, went coursing through her veins at 100 miles an hour.
Things became slightly blurred as her father and mother both dropped to the ground, pulling her down with them and covering their child's body with their own instinctively. She looked around to see the man telling the lady behind the counter to empty the safe and pack the money in a bag, not forgetting to include that if she pulled any funny business, he would kill her.
The woman was terrified and did exactly as he said, cautiously stalking over to the small safe on the wall behind her and starting to put the money in a large bag. Within a few moments, the safe was completely empty, and the woman came back over to the counter.
She slowly lifted the bag up onto the counter and from where the young girl was laying on the ground, she could just see the woman move her arm behind the bag so that the robber couldn't see and it seemed like she had done something because a quick look of relief passed behind her eyes before disappearing again, too quickly for the man to notice.
Unfortunately, she didn't expect to get a bullet in her only a moment after she had put the bag down, and no one else had expected it either. The girl looked to her father, scared out of her mind. She had only just started going to school and already in her short life time, she had seen someone get shot and killed right before her eyes.
"Why did you kill her! She did exactly as you asked!" her father spoke up, sounding truly horrified.
The man turned to look at him, with a beyond furious expression, and spared not a second to even have a second thought to shoot him, and then his wife. The girl's eyes couldn't be any wider when she got a small splatter of blood on her forehead, and on the back of her hand, next to the stamp that she had been so happy to get only minutes ago.
Her ears were ringing, and tears were welling up and stinging her eyes but she was broken out of her trance by the man, who now pointed his gun at her. She stared defiantly straight into his eyes, even though she was more terrified than she could have ever imagined.
But then out of nowhere a kunai was buried in his chest, undoubtedly piercing his heart and killing him within a few short moments. An unfamiliar man, wearing all black clothes, with weapons attached all over him and a black mask with a white symbol of a sun on it appeared from the darkness.
He seemed scary at first, but he looked at her with relief that was barely there in his eyes. A moment later, he used his radio to talk to whoever was on the other end.
"It's done."
After that, it was mostly a blur until roughly 15 minutes later when the masked man came up to her as she was given a drink of water by a paramedic. Once he got close enough to her so that he was sure she knew he was there, he spoke.
"I'm sorry for not getting there in time to save your parents. I'm afraid I was not informed of the situation quick enough. That man was severely addicted to drugs and he had tried to rob the bank to get money to buy them. He is dead now." he said, and even though his deep voice was unwavering and true, he did seem truly sorry.
She didn't look up at him, even as he sat down next to her in the back seat of the police car. It wasn't that she was trying to ignore him. He had saved her life. But she was just completely in shock and didn't really feel like doing much of anything at the moment.
"It seems that you don't have any other family to stay with. I'd like to ask you something, and you don't have to answer me now. I'm creating organisation called the Sora Operatives. They will be secret agents of sorts, trained to stop terrible crimes like this from happening. I do not want you to think that I'm using your current state as a chance to recruit you, but you seem like a brave young girl and you would be well suited to the job. Would you like to train and join the Sora Ops, so that maybe you can save another child from going through the same tragedy you have?"
At the sound of his question, she lifted her head up a little, in thought, and then completely to look at him and reveal bright icy blue eyes that held fear, but also...conviction. It was true, she had no family to stay with, nor did she have any friends. She had only been going to school for a year and had only turned 6 a few months ago.
Even though she was still in shock, she knew what had happened to her parents. They had been mercilessly murdered in cold blood by that man. And this man in front of her was offering her the chance to make sure that never happened to anyone else. That no one else would be sitting outside a bank, in the back of a police car, still with the blood of their parents splattered on their jacket.
It would be a chance for redemption for being powerless to stop that drug-addicted man from killing the nice staff lady and the two people she had loved so much, the only people that she had in this world. It seemed that she had no other choice, or she would be placed in an orphanage or be put up for adoption.
She did not bother speaking, knowing that she wouldn't be able to make any words without breaking down, but merely focused her eyes on the two holes in his mask that revealed his own and nodded once before looking back down at her feet.
The man in the mask was glad to see such strong will in such a small child who had seen things that no person should ever have to see in their lifetimes.
"In the Sora Ops, we have code names and our real names or faces aren't revealed to anyone aside our team, so you must keep this a secret. You may call me Taiyou, as in the sun. And you shall now be known as Tsuki, like the moon. Just make sure that you want this, because once you start training, you will not be able to leave." the man now known as Taiyou stood up and took two steps before turning his head so she could just see the side of his profile.
"I will contact you soon...Tsuki." he said simply, before walking off into the distance.
"Tsuki...I'm coming to pick you up from the police station." Taiyou's voice sounded through the phone, unrevealing as usual. She did not reply, as she was just too tired and upset to care at the moment. She had been sitting in the police station since 11.30AM this morning and she'd had enough.
They had been trying to ask her questions about what happened, but she had refused to answer, not because she was trying to be difficult, or because it was a cry for attention and sympathy. It was a simply case of her not wanting to re-live the days events while she told them to a police officer who would only take notes about what she said, thank her, then leave.
It wouldn't bring back her parents.
All off them had been incredibly kind and nice to her, asking her if she wanted a drink or something to eat, even though they knew she would decline, and they had even brought in one of the dogs that they had been training to try and cheer her up a little, yet it had failed miserably. She wasn't interested in dogs at the moment, let alone anything.
Soon enough, a tall, well-built man dressed in a smart business suit walked through the station and over to her. If she didn't already figure out from his size, build and eye colour, which she had memorised before, that it was Taiyou, she honestly wouldn't have known it was him.
He looked to be in his early 30's and he smiled politely, but it was more or less just for show. She got up, leaving the warm blanket that one of the police men had given her after she had started tearing her blood stained jacket to pieces, casual as can be, all of half an hour ago.
She still could smell the blood on her, but got up and followed Taiyou out, ignoring the pitiful and sympathetic stares of the officers. As if they should pity her. She had decided many hours ago when Taiyou had asked her to be a Sora Ops member that she would close off her heart and no longer feel anything.
Instead, she would concentrate on her training, and let nothing distract her from that purpose. She would become an agent trained and sent out to prevent needless deaths of innocent people, and she would catch those who still got away with their crimes. And she would do it all with flawless, cold, calculating precision.
This would be her way to atone for not being strong enough or brave enough to save her beloved parents. In silence, they drove back to where she was going to be living for the next little while. Eventually, after an unknown period of time, they arrived out the front of a small, two bedroom house. She got out of the car, and Taiyou opened the boot, getting out the bags of her things he had packed when he had gone to her old house, which would be sold and the money would be given to Tsuki.
They walked inside after he unlocked the front door, and he showed her to her room, put her things down and left her be. He had every intention to help her get through this if she really needed it, but to be an agent, she would need to become impenetrably strong physically, mentally, emotionally and psychologically.
He heard her walking around the room and taking things out of her bags and a few minutes later, he heard the shower turn on and off after a while. He made a quick dinner of tonjiru and rice for them both and it was ready by the time she came out of her room, dried and dressed.
Taiyou gestured for her to sit down at the small table and to eat. She thanked him silently with a small nod and ravenously ate, suddenly realising how hungry she was now that she could smell food. As they ate, Taiyou thought it would be a good enough time to talk about her training while he had her there in front of him.
"When would you like to start your training? You may take as long as you need to grieve for your loss." he asked, summoning as much softness to his voice as he could, which wasn't much.
She abruptly looked up at him with bits of rice around her mouth and one on the tip of her nose. Her blue eyes noticed something akin to amusement quickly pass behind his eyes and disappear just as swiftly. When she realised what he had said, her eyes become shockingly cold for a child her age.
"As soon as possible." she answered with a mature but clipped tone and continued eating.
"Well, rest for tonight and we shall start tomorrow morning. I have taken off the next three months for the sole purpose of using that time to train you. After that, I will be taking missions again and my hours will be very unpredictable, so you will have to keep up your training yourself. There is a local dojo down the road that you can go to when I'm not here as well. I will make sure that there is always plenty of food in the house and there is a TV you may also use." he took a mouthful of rice and then soup, but watched as Tsuki had stopped eating altogether.
It seemed that the gravity of the situation was finally setting in, the shock finally wearing off.
Then, as if she was casually taking a sip of water, she slid her arm along the table and sent her bowls and glass flying across the room to smash on the hardwood floor. Taiyou had not been expecting that kind of outburst, but showed no outward signs of surprise aside a fractional twitch of his eyebrow. There wasn't much left of the food, but he would still have a decent cleaning job to do before he got some sleep.
He resisted the urge to sigh, or tell her off and make her clean it up herself and just continued to eat in silence, even as she sat still in her chair, shaking slightly and sulked. For the moment, she would allow herself this.
This would be her life now. Rice and soup, sleep, train, rice and soup, sleep, train. There was no going back now, and even as she went back to her room and got into bed, she knew that the life she had taken for granted, the one where she would grow up with her parents beside her, go to school, get a job, move out, find a husband and maybe have children, was long gone.
Only six years old, and she had seen horrors most 70 year olds had never seen. 3 innocent people killed before her eyes, the latter two her own parents, and the fourth was the man who committed said crimes. She couldn't be more glad that Taiyou had killed him on the spot.
In fact, she wouldn't have even cared if she was killed as well, as long as he died for his atrocities. But, she didn't die. Her life was saved and she had been given another chance at life. A chance to redeem herself. A chance to save lives. A chance to atone.
She would become strong, and formidable, so that she could save those who couldn't defend themselves and take down those that could and used their strength for the wrong purposes and goals. She didn't know how long that would take, but she would make damn sure that it happens as quickly as possible, so she could start working right away.
Completely exhausted from the day, her thoughts began to slow down, as well as her breathing, heart-rate and all her other bodily functions, in preparation for sleep. Soon enough, her eyes shut and she eventually fell asleep, her sorrow continuing to linger, even in her dreams.
Even though she was still so young, in her heart, she was already old.
Tsuki's instincts woke her the moment someone opened the door to the bedroom. She did not feel or sense any danger yet, but there was no such thing as being off guard in her books. Also, no one she knew was stupid enough to sneak into her room while she was sleeping, unless they wanted a kunai between the eyes.
So she laid there, pretending to still be asleep until whoever was trying to wake her up came closer. Her sense of smell picked up on sugar, lots of it, and coffee, which meant it could only be one person. L.
As soon as she felt his body heat radiating near enough to her, he stuck his arm out as if was going to shake her gently, but said arm was grabbed harshly and he was flipped over onto his back on the bed with Tsuki on top of him, holding a kunai at his neck within a split second.
His dark eyes were wide with imminent shock, until another sense kicked in. Something that was very rare, nigh unheard of, with this man, young and filled with sugar he may be. His eyes stayed wide, if not got wider, when he realised that even though Tsuki was holding a kunai at his throat, and could have killed him before he would have even figured out what had happened, she was also sat what could be considered quite intimately on his crotch.
Luckily enough, his body did not react because he was sure that if it did, she wouldn't have spared a second thought to jam the kunai into his jugular, then leave him there to bleed. She noticed the confusion in his eyes and narrowed her own blue orbs before getting off him, and putting the weapon back into her leg holster, which she had removed and placed under her pillow before she slept, like always.
She got off the bed, noticing the time on the clock sitting on the bedside table, guessing that he actually had come in here to wake her up. It would probably be a good idea to warn him against waking her up like that again though. He was just lucky that she was already half-awake and hadn't just decided to aim a few shuriken at the doorway the moment she heard it open.
"Don't do that... Sneaking up on me, especially while I'm sleeping is one of the most stupid things you can do. Same with Ame or Kumo." she informed tonelessly and swiftly pulled her cloth mask over her head, covering the bottom half of her face, not wanting to have it revealed for any longer.
The dark haired man managed to pull himself together after a moment and sit up, but the sensation of cold, sharp metal to his neck, and a warm body on his was still lingering, as well as the image of Tsuki, with her long black hair hanging over her pale shoulders, and shockingly icy blue eyes staring into his own, was burnt into his memory.
"Also, you are very loud. You wouldn't even have a chance of sneaking up on a rookie Sora Ops agent." she continued to speak as she grabbed some clothes out of a small overnight bag she had brought along when they had last changed hotels.
Slipping into the bathroom to get changed, she heard Ryuzaki's reply from the other side of the door.
"I'm not exactly trained in stealth, as you are. But I'm sure I could defend myself, despite my appearance." he said casually, with almost a whimsical tone.
Within 30 seconds she was dressed, and she opened the door and walked out to see him inspecting her leg holster. She snatched it off him, and put one foot up on the bed so she could fasten it to her leg, which he watched with idle interest and certainly not getting past her observant eyes.
She lifted her leg back down and walked over to the enclosure in the corner of the room, checking to see how her python was doing. He was sitting curled up on his favourite tree branch as per usual but lifted his head up when he noticed her there. The reptile absolutely adored her, and to think, that when she first got him as a baby, he tried snapping her whenever he got the chance.
An almost tiny smile came across her face, and she mentally shook it off before standing back up to her full-height and walking towards the door, only stopping to turn and look at L, who was still sitting on the corner of the bed, looking a little unnerved.
"Coming?" she asked blankly, not revealing her curiosity as to why he was unnerved.
"Ah..yes." he snapped out of it to answer her and stroll over to cut her off and walk out the door just when she was about to do the same.
Tsuki simply rolled her eyes in her mind, knowing that his almost non-existent social skills were not kicking in, and followed him out the bedroom door, to whatever monotonous work would be waiting for them today.
There we have it! :D
I really hope you guys enjoyed it, and please review and let me know what you think!
Also, L is really hard to write and keep in character, so please tell me how I'm going with that :)
By the way, Hisuiro means 'jade green' :)
Til next time!