Hey guys! Sorry about the wait for the release of this chapter!
I know it must have been hard because of how close the case is to closing!
But I promise that I have been trying to finish it for ages now, and it just hasn't happened until now.

I hope you enjoy it!

Disclaimer: Death Note belongs to Tsugimi Ohba & Takeshi Obata.


Chapter 14 - The Parhelion

Night had fallen, and there was stars in the sky, as well as the moon which was half-full and currently had a icy-blue eyed, black-haired, pale-skinned woman staring at it on the roof of the building L had gotten built for them. As her code name, and something that she had always had an odd fascination with, the moon always seemed to draw her attention and calm her before she would depart for a big mission. The natural satellite appeared to have some sort of feeling of a desire to be more, from her perspective, and some people didn't even realise how important it was.

Often, she felt that way, because she was always undercover and her true identity was only currently known to one person in the world; Taiyou. The rest of her team-mates and comrades had no idea if the blue eyes and black hair was her own, and for all they knew, she might be 35 years old. In the Sora Ops, an agent's true identities were only released by Taiyou to the five top agents when they died (usually Tsuki, Kumo, Hoshi, Ame and Arashi, if the positions were filled) and to any lower level agent who placed a request for it, such as someone who had worked very closely with them, and no one was allowed anyone else's identity to know as long as the agents lived.

Taiyou felt that it was a good way for the agents who had passed to give the rest of the team-mates something to think about, someone to honour in their thoughts, someone to have a moment's silence for, someone to bow their heads for, and not just someone with a codename, and a mask. It gave them back their human identity and their personality, which was forcefully taken from them by accepting and doing their job as an agent of the Sora Operatives.

Everyone doing this kind of job became a hardened veteran - especially someone like Tsuki who had been doing it before she had even been alive for a decade - so much so that there wasn't much they hadn't seen or heard about in their line of work. But no matter if someone had only been with the Sora Ops for barely a month, or ten years, they were still given a moment silence in honour of their sacrifice to help make the world a better place, and to help justice prevail.

It was hard work, but as Tsuki continued to look at the distant craters and shadows that currently made up the moon, of which she could only see half, it seemed like her previous exhaustion and lack of motivation, as well as fear had been erased. There was one person, the most unlikely of characters who she could thank for that, and at the moment, said person was crouching on his usual seat next only a few stories below her, stuffing his face with cake, even though she'd banned him from it only a few hours earlier.

She had no idea how L had done it, but he managed to get her through what could have been the straw that broke the seemingly emotionless camel's back. This had taken her by surprise a little, but not as much as it normally would have, just because she had felt the signs coming on from very early in the case and the longer it had dragged on, the more prominent these signs had become.

As she gradually got closer and closer to the point where she'd snap, which had only happened once before in her life, L had been there. Even with just a look after she knew he'd noticed her hands twitching in anger, she had seen in his eyes that he cared about her and even more importantly valued her professional input and talent.

L had done such simple things for her, and without even realising it – she doubted even he knew it – he was able to take her mind off everything. She almost blushed at the memory of what had happened between them at the door when she had arrived at the complex which was only a little while ago. Amongst normal people who were close and had a good, strong bond, something like that wouldn't be so surprising. But amongst two socially retarded people who had forgotten how to feel? Not so common.

But now, as she felt that everything was hopefully coming to a close (only if this place they would be checking out shortly was the real Aka Sora hideout) and it seemed to be the calm before the storm. If all went well, and they discovered evidence of Aka Sora being in this traditional Japanese buildings on the block of land, then they would gather the remaining agents and anyone else they were closely affiliated with that could help them, and capture or kill anyone they could or had to.

Also, she still hadn't completely erased her fear of Eclipse and of his seemingly endless intellect that always managed to match and almost outwit her own. It was hard for her to admit that someone might actually be able to match her, since she had surpassed even Taiyou, who was once known as 'Ghost' because of his insane skill, many years ago.

She felt in the heart she had tried to forget she had, that this mission would turn out with bloodshed, even though she wasn't sure that the Aka Sora were occupying those buildings, but Tsuki had a hunch that they were there, even though it might have just been her wishful thinking. It would be a close call if they were and she hoped that with only her and Ame, that they would be up to the task.

Ame had become an amazing agent with a lot of potential in his short time with the Sora Ops, but he still had a bit too much of a human side, to put it in the simplest way possible. He still had faith that there might be some valid reason that someone stole thousands of dollars or justification for why someone had killed someone else. Over the course of this case though, she had seen that naivety fade away from his eyes, and she was glad and unhappy about it at the same time.

It meant that he was just becoming closer to being as jaded, desensitised and dehumanised as she was. She knew that Kumo had seen it as well, and they both knew that he would make a good agent to replace Tsuki when she eventually left, but it was the fact that they had to stand by and watch yet another person, yet another comrade become just like them. Watch them lose whatever feelings they used to have, whatever happiness and joy they used to feel.

The biggest problem would be that if the Aka Sora were there, Ame would have to step up to the plate, leave his emotions and questions behind and just...destroy them. Unfortunately, Taiyou had given them the orders to kill any Aka Sora on sight, no matter how low they were on the food chain and she hoped that he wouldn't disobey orders because of what they had heard from Hetoshi and the other two men.

It didn't seem like there would be many of them that were fully dedicated to the organisation, going off what they had seen so far of them, but there was no guarantee that they would jump at the chance to get out of there, maybe out of fear of Eclipse or maybe some of them really might have believed that masked man's words and want revenge on the Sora Ops for their 'failure' and whatever other bullshit Eclipse spun them.

If there was one thing that Tsuki found most impressive about Eclipse, it was his ability to spin said bullshit in a way that allowed him to gain a large following. Whether it was by subtle threats and fear that he kept them in line, the fact is, is that they were still obeying his orders and doing exactly as he said.

Hetoshi was a perfect example. When he started his business, all he had wanted to do was create ceremonial, traditional and replica weapons for people who would pay the right price, not to manufacture weapons for criminal groups who threatened him with the death of his wife, and eventually did kill her all so he would stay under their control.

Tsuki continued to think for quite some time until she heard light footsteps behind her. She didn't bother to turn around to look at who it was, because she could already identify them by their significantly obvious scent, which was sugar, sugar and more sugar with a subtle hint of coffee. Therefore, it was L and as he stood next to her and followed her gaze towards the moon, she knew that he was able to read what was going on in her head.

"Are you worried?" he asked so quietly that she wouldn't have heard it if she was standing even half a metre further away from him.

"In a way, yes. I know that there will much bloodshed if they are hiding there, and I don't particularly feel like killing people who may be controlled by Eclipse's words or are so scared of him that they just obey his every word. But, in a way, no since I know that if we do find them, then that will be the end of it and I won't have to worry about them killing more people." she responded in a voice that spoke volumes and he could feel the hesitation in her.

"Let's hope that we find them then." he said simply and his own voice sounded similar to her's before he remembered why he came up here. "Ah, by the way. Kumo said that he will be going with you and I will control everything back here. Taiyou has approved it as well since we have just seen a bit of movement on the grounds and he wants a stronger force there." L explained nonchalantly, trying to hide his slight worry about her since now the suspicion level of the area had increased near ten-fold.

He wanted so much to trust in her abilities and her intelligence, but feelings tended not to listen to rational thought, and just do whatever they wanted and right now, even though he did think that she would be okay, he still couldn't prevent the part of him that he had lost long ago, and only just regained recently, from caring about her, liking her and being terribly fearful for her safety and survival.

The young woman, who was so old in her heart and mind, nodded in response to his news, then sighed long and slow and turned to look at him finally, after they'd just been staring at the moon for a few minutes. Her expression was surprisingly open, something that had been happening more often as of late and he had become increasingly infatuated with her because of this as well. She trusted him enough to let him in even a little bit, and to him, that was all he could ask for from someone like her.

So he moved closer to her hesitantly, expecting her to move away, but instead she shifted slightly towards him and even though they weren't facing each other, they stood close enough so that they could feel each other's body heat radiating off one another, but just far away so that they weren't touching, as if they were afraid that if they did make contact, that then they would have to face all these weird feelings that they had been having, and that would just be too much at the moment.

Tsuki knew that it would be time for them to depart for the mission soon, so she gave him a shadow of a smile before she turned away from him and walked towards the door and he followed suit. A minute later, they were back downstairs, and both Ame and Kumo were arming themselves and Tsuki began to do the same.

She had already been dressed for a while, in her black cargo pants with about 8 pockets in them, and she stuffed everything she could into them and put on her three different holsters, one on her right thigh, holding several kunai, her calf/shin holster that held the special kunai she had been holding onto for a long time on her right leg as well, and her waist holsters, which held two guns, neither of which she had ever used.

Her mesh undershirt was covered by her plain black, long-sleeved shirt made of the lightest and most breathable material possible that had a face mask attached to it and then her tailor-made armoured vest sat on top, and she had more weapons stashed away in that as well as the many hanging off her utility belt. She had decided to take her wakizashi as well, and she fixed that so the hilt was in perfect reach of her right hand if she just reached back and unsheathed it from the scabbard containing it on her back.

Finally, she put on her black, hooded cloak and her earpiece and finished it off with her Sora Ops mask with the camera in it over her face, covering up what was still visible and immediately, she felt ready for battle. Her blue eyes became cold, bottomless pits and L couldn't deny that he was a little scared by the change. Not exactly scared of her, in essence, but scared of the emotionless being she could become at the drop of a hat.

All three agents were ready to go with their cameras and radio contact functioning perfectly. Taiyou, L and Watari were seated in front of three computers, one showing a live satellite feed of the area they were heading to, and the two others showing the feeds from the cameras in the masks. Taiyou stood up and walked to stand in front of his agents, who were lined up and waiting to be dismissed, surprisingly, Tsuki was as well, for the most part.

"Ame, Kumo, do the best you can. I have utmost faith in the both of you and I want to listen to every word that Tsuki says. We are as prepared as we can be, and I just want to be careful and make sure that you do everything you can to take these bastards down. And if either of you find Eclipse...run. Leave him to Tsuki." the middle-aged man said with a commanding voice that never failed to grab attention from anyone who could hear it. He turned to the woman standing a little away from the two other agents and merely nodded his head, as if that was telling her everything that she needed to know.

She nodded back and within another moment, they were gone...

The three agents were silent in the car ride over, and it felt very odd to Tsuki that Kumo was out in the field, since it had been about a year since he was out with her last time. But this just meant that this mission was all the more dangerous.

Chances were, that if it came down to this battle for life and death between the Sora Operatives and the Aka Sora, then the more man-power the better, but since they were only trying to use this as a reconnaissance mission, three would be more than enough. In fact, Tsuki would usually do this sort of mission alone, but again the possibility that this could turn into a huge shit-fight meant that having Ame and Kumo there was simply the only way to go.

The tension in the air was almost suffocatingly thick and the only sounds any of them were concentrating on was L's directions to the correct area which they had decided to leave the car and go on foot from. Not one of them, either in the car or at the current headquarters was paying attention to the time since it would seem like 5 minutes was 5 hours anyway, and the only thing that had to be taken notice of was what time the mission officially begun, and ended just for all the reports that would have to be done on this mission.

Eventually, they came to the point where they would be continuing on foot, and what was also their eventual rendezvous point. They were several blocks away from where there infiltration point was and Tsuki narrated what hey were doing, as Taiyou, Watari and L watched with each set of eyes glued to the screen, and their stomachs in their throats.

Firstly, they broke through the first fence and went through the grounds and then the second, third and fourth, running past houses, and various other buildings. It was a slow process until they spied the large shed that was standing just in front of a large fence, and all six of them could see the shapes of the traditional buildings in the background.

Ame was in front, Tsuki in the middle and Kumo behind, and Ame felt the wind of something flying straight past his head, and then something much larger fly past just as quickly, and both men just saw Tsuki catch someone who was patrolling on the roof of the first building and they both saw the mask on his face and shook their heads, being a bit stunned at her speed, but not too surprised since she was very much 'in the zone' at the moment and tended to be almost superhuman when she got like this.

It was only a second later back in the building that L quickly saw a black flash across the roof that he realised that there actually was someone standing there, and Tsuki had seen them before anyone else, even them, who were watching a live feed with a birds eye view.

Now it was Tsuki's time to shine, and both Kumo and Ame followed her over the fence, and they sat and looked around very carefully for anyone, Kumo using his infra-red camera to spot anyone else on the roofs, and he saw that there was a large tower in the centre on the block and there were three people watching different directions.

Tsuki followed Kumo's gaze and spotted them as well and she signalled for Ame to get up into the tower and take them out with just hand signs, which he could only just see because of the light from the moon. He carefully went off over the rooftops and Kumo covered him whilst Tsuki went to search down on the ground with insane caution.

Instead of dropping straight down, she decided to just hang off the edge of the roof and look into any open doors. Luckily the second one she peeked into was open just enough for her to see that it was a weapons storage room. There were tonnes and tonnes of all different kinds of weapons, exactly the ones that Hetoshi had told them that Eclipse had told him to make.

There were various kinds of swords hanging up on the walls, as well as other long range weapons such as kusarigama and there was rack after rack of shuriken and the customised kunai. It seemed to be a very small training room as well, since there was targets on the back walls, but they didn't seem very worn, suggesting that they may have a larger training room somewhere else.

She pulled herself back up onto the roof only to hear Ame whisper quietly that he was ready to climb up the tower and for Kumo and Tsuki to watch him carefully since there was three people in the watch tower and he had to make sure that none of them were alive long enough to cry out or warn someone of an enemy presence. Kumo and Tsuki watched from a distance and saw the man pull himself up the structure with ease and without being noticed before he reached the top a minute or two later.

He threw a senbon straight into the spinal cord of the guy facing away from him and quickly zipped around to the other side to grab him before his fall made a sound. The other two didn't notice, and Ame slowly pulled himself up and landed silently on the standing platform of the tower and used another senbon to take out the second guy, who unfortunately dropped whatever was in his hand, making a sound and drawing the attention of the third guy.

Ame cursed in a whisper and stood in shock as he went to draw his weapon, but stopped halfway and fell forwards straight onto him and he saw the kunai buried into the back of his neck and looked to where he last saw Tsuki and she had already stopped paying attention to what he was doing now and was already checking the next building, which was much larger than the one housing the weapons seeming like it was merely a shed next to a warehouse in size difference.

Her earlier question was answered and she discovered that this was the training room. There was three people in there, two were sparring with hand-to-hand combat and the other throwing kunai at a target. She flung a kunai each at the sparring pair, and the man practising with kunai heard them fall, and saw the small woman wearing a black mask that had a white crescent moon on the forehead before a third kunai hit him straight in the jugular and he dropped like a tonne of bricks and bled out for a few seconds on the floor before he finally passed.

With a quick glance, Tsuki made sure that there was no one around and dropped down to land on the ground and walk into the large room and look around a bit for the camera footage then proceeded to leap back onto the rooftop after disposing of the bodies and continue her search and listened to Ame now that he was in a position where he could speak and he told them what he saw from up the tower.

"I can see a total of seven buildings. Tsuki, you are on the second largest one, and Kumo is still back at the fence. I can only see a small amount of light coming from three of the buildings, the one Tsuki is on, the smaller one next to that, and the largest one at the top of the hill. I think that we should try and check the largest one, but chances are that it's the main room and there might be heaps of people in it. It's up to you, Tsuki." he spoke very quietly, and everyone heard a small groan and then Tsuki's voice was heard.

"We don't really have much of a choice. Ame, you check out anything you can. Try the dark buildings for starters. Kumo, move forward and back me up from a distance. I'm going to check out the largest building by myself." she ordered and Kumo began to move forward whilst Ame got down from the watch tower and started carefully checking out the other four buildings.

Tsuki silently clambered around the roof of the largest building which was up much higher than the others, trying to see what way would be the best to sneak a peek in from and she nearly smirked in triumph when she hung down from the back of the building and saw a tiny window used for air just a few feet below her.

She thought about it for a moment and then sat on the edge of the roof, facing the front of the building, and using just her upper body strength, pushed herself out far enough so the backs of her knees were touching the edge of the roof and gradually fell back, using her calves and knees to keep her grip as she bent her back so much so that she was making a 'C' shape with her body and ended up staring straight into the window.

The experienced agent knew that she had to be extremely careful to not be spotted, even though the window was so tiny, and as she looked inside, everything was revealed. There was at least 10 people, dressed fully in black with masks on, each standing motionless against one part of the wall, surrounding the inside of the room.

Also, there was another two standing in the middle of the room with a civilian looking around in fear and then, suddenly the door was opened and someone walked in which made Tsuki freeze up in complete and total shock and she heard a few gasps of shock from back at the building.

It was Eclipse.

He was a man of average height, with a slim but extremely toned build and wearing black clothing, and she could see his numerous weaponry hanging off him from his holsters and belt etc. His mask covered his face, and she could barely see a bit of messy brown hair from behind it, and he walked straight past everyone and sat down at a large seat at the top of the stairs at the back of the room, near where she was peeping through the window.

It seemed that this civilian had just been 'recruited', or forced to, more or less, to join the Aka Sora and everyone dressed in black bowed to Eclipse respectfully and the civilian glanced around in fear and confusion. From where Tsuki was, she could only see the back of the chair she presumed Eclipse had taken a seat in and waited for something to happen.

"So...you have decided to join us. That is wonderful news. We will send you to start training and work right away. It seems our weapons deliverers have disappeared as well as our supplier, and we presume that the Sora Ops have them captive, so I may put you into the position of our new weapons deliverer. For the moment, go to our training facility and one of my men, Kiiro will be waiting for you." said the man only known as Eclipse and Tsuki nearly fell off the roof because of how stunned she currently was.

She didn't even hear the tiny whispers of Ame, Kumo, Taiyou and L in the background as she dangled from the roof by her legs and everything else was drowned out for a moment as her mind swirled like a maelstrom.

A few minutes later, one of the men that was standing with the civilian earlier came running in the door calling Eclipse's name and he took a few breaths before finally collection himself enough to speak and tell everyone that there wasn't anyone in the training room, but there was a puddle of blood on the floor. Tsuki snapped out of it, and her temper rose up to the stars themselves.

"Ame, Kumo. Get out of here, now." she uttered quietly, and heard them question her, but she knew that they wouldn't hesitate to listen to her going by the tone in her voice.

The kunai that she had never used before was suddenly in her hand and a split second later, flying across the room, through the tiny window to land just about where Eclipse's head would be in the back of the chair and within another split second, she was sprinting across the rooftops, seeing Ame leaping across them ahead of her, and watching as Kumo climbed over the fence in the distance.

Tsuki began to serpentine across the rooftops, knowing that in a moment's time, she would be feeling kunai fly past her and she heard the whizzing sounds barely a second later. Instead of slowing down to climb over the fence, like Ame did, she simply leapt from the last rooftop over the fence onto the small shed on the other side, then jumped down to hit the ground, and they were all together now, running to the car.

As long as they got there before anyone caught up with them enough to see them, they were safe. So it was a race for time as the three agents sprinted through backyards, hopped more fences and didn't stop until they reached the car which was unlocked by Kumo when they were a few metres away. They jumped in and drove off, heading back to current headquarters, hoping that Eclipse didn't have people hiding in the surrounding area, waiting for something like this to happen so they would be immediately ready to pursue.

Luckily, it seemed he didn't, and they got back into the underground car park safely and went straight up into the building and to the floor that everyone was waiting for them on. Watari was waiting for them with a first aid kit, ready to tend to any wounds, L was just busting to see if Tsuki was okay, and Taiyou was waiting to congratulate, and scold a little.

"Well done, though I probably wouldn't have thrown a kunai at the chair Tsuki, at least we have let them know not to underestimate us any more. Now, we'll just start planning our next move..." Taiyou spoke but trailed off when Tsuki didn't even stop to speak to any one and just walked up the stairs to her bedroom after ripping off her mask and giving to Kumo as she strolled past.

They all looked at each other in confusion, but knew that Tsuki was more than likely just really pissed off and wanted to be left alone, so they left her be, not knowing what was really troubling her would end up being the most shocking moment of all in the duration of this case...


So there we have it! I'm sure your minds are just reeling with thoughts about what's going to happen next!
Please be patient for the next chapter. I'll do my best to have it asap!

Til next time :D