A loud knocking and Soichiro felt groggy and annoyed, Sachiko tucked up against him making a noise she typically reserved for when she was cranky at the children's antics. The room was dark, it must be late, and the knocking continued as he struggled to get up, finding his cane.
"Yes," he asked, not hiding the irritation in his voice as he opened the door, immediately regretful when he saw who it was. "What is it?"
"You should come," Roger Ruvie told him. "Both of you. It's not life or death, but you should come."
The sounds of the sheets being pushed back as he flipped on one of the lights, eyes watering as he made out Sachiko working her way to standing.
Clothing had been brought for all of them from his home and he was grateful they were both dressed in respectable nightclothes as he shuffled over to his robe. Not that he didn't think Near hadn't also searched his home but he personally had nothing to hide and he doubted his wife or daughter had anything of interest in all of this either. Sachiko followed his lead, Ruvie waiting in the hallway as they made themselves decent, hair smoothed down, slippers on as they went, her hand tangling with his.
"After you retired for the night, Sayu slipped out of her quarters," Ruvie told them in English as they walked and Soichiro recognized it as the way to Near, the worry becoming larger in him. "We waited to see what she was up to and she found Matsuda coming back from an empty recon mission."
"Did he –" he couldn't finish the words, Sachiko holding his hand tighter.
"She made some demands. Near decided to fulfill them."
Words were a lump in his throat, torn between anger and fear Sayu had done something unspeakable as they came up to the heavily barred door that lead to Near as he translated for his wife, Ruvie activating the security to open it.
"Aneki," he heard Light's startled voice say as they entered and on the largest of the screens he saw Sayu taking a seat in front of Light's cell, Matsuda beside her.
"Get her out of there." His voice was low, Near watching him from across the room half curled in a chair with a posture that was insultingly lazy. "She shouldn't be there."
"She is an adult –"
"She is traumatized. I don't know how much this will set her back –"
"She already knew far more than we realized." Near was trite, his words quick, nodding up at the screen.
Sachiko's hand was on his shoulder and he looked at her, helpless, unable to stop Sayu from learning the horrible truth. Instead, he drew his wife to him as they watched Light recover from his surprise, composing himself as he sat back down on the thin bed he was chained beside.
Even though her back was to him, he suspected his daughter was crying.
"Did someone tell you to come here?" Light asked her, keeping his voice gentle but she shook her head. His gaze drifted over to Matsuda, something that was hard to see in his eyes given the camera, but Soichiro would bet it was anger. "Why would you let her do this?"
Matsuda bowed his head.
"I asked him to come with me. Everyone has kept this from me. He's the only one who even told me anything close to the truth."
"Don't be hard on your officer," Near said, watching Soichiro as chairs were brought for both he and his wife to sit in. "She really did a number on him and I would bet between not sleeping and being emotionally attached, he gave in."
"Sayu," Light was saying, tense. "You shouldn't be involved in any of this."
His daughter appeared to wipe her face, Matsuda, to his credit, producing something that could be a napkin or handkerchief that she accepted, Sachiko pressed against his side as they sat.
"When I was taken, they kept me blindfolded at first but I eventually was told that the director was taken by them and killed by Kira," she said finally, her voice shaking, Light looking stricken for a moment before it flowed away. "I tried to fight them though there was little I could do. I cursed them, asking how many people they had killed. The man, the one who was in charge, swore to me he didn't do it. That he wouldn't kill off a bargaining chip or a way to get information like that."
"And you believed him?"
"He – he kept the others from ever touching me. He said that if I didn't die, if he got what he wanted, he would know I was very important to Kira." Her voice broke and Matsuda put a hand on her arm, whispering something to her that made her shake her head. "No, I'm alright. I didn't think about it. Dad came and he gave them that thing, that book, and that man kept his word. And the whole way home I made myself not think about why I would be traded or important for Kira."
Light's face was blank while she talked, carefully constructed to show nothing and Soichiro recognized it as the front Light put up when he was upset or troubled. It was the same look when he had been bullied and denied it when younger, when he felt upset recently over being unwanted at home, when he talked about being accused of being Kira when L was alive and this was all just starting as his never-ending nightmare.
"I didn't let myself think why, if that book was connected to Kira, why it would be allowed to be traded at all," Sayu added, her voice barely audible and Soichiro couldn't suppress a shudder.
Sachiko's breathing was quicker now. Sayu had spoken to her more and there was so little to offer either of them that wasn't hollow.
"You shouldn't take a madman's word for things. Sayu, you went through a lot," Light said, his voice carefully kept comforting. "I don't doubt he would say things to confuse you."
"When I got home and it was quiet, when I was alone even though I kept waiting for those men to come, I kept thinking about you. How different you'd been over the years."
"I was working a lot. I grew up."
"No. It was before that, when you graduated high school, when you disappeared and you and dad wouldn't say what actually happened. It was the Kira case. You guys, you made up something about a girl, about Misa, but you were cold when I saw you next."
Light frowned. "I was under a lot of stress. You're right, it wasn't over Misa but it had nothing to do with you. None of this has anything to do with you."
"That man –"
"Mello," Matsuda told her and she nodded.
"Mello, he said Kira killed the director because the director meant nothing and therefore had no ties to Kira and was expendable. And when I was back home, I kept thinking about how it was dad who came, about why I was taken at all –"
"To get what he wanted. To hold you hostage to make dad, in his position, trade for your life."
"Then why not keep the director alive?" she challenged. "Wouldn't that provide more stress? Weren't the men loyal to him, want him back alive? Wouldn't he be more valuable than me to get what Mello was really after?"
"Mello was sending a message that he was serious," Light told her without missing a single beat. "The NPA would be forced to concede that it was a true threat."
"Or Kira couldn't kill me. Even if it meant he lost something so important. The director should have always been greater leverage than me for the NPA, especially since I doubt dad made the choice alone. I should have been the one to die." Her voice was so soft, Light wincing when she said it as Soichiro felt his wife beside him bury her head against him. "I remember when Misa showed up the night I first met her. How weird it was you took her straight up to your room. You never even came to get the tea you asked mom to make."
"What does this have to do with anything?" Light asked annoyed and Soichiro knew he wanted to change the subject. "That was years ago."
"I listened at the door."
Light started slightly then sighed, stretched out one of his legs, the camera microphone just picking up the shifting chains. "I shouldn't be surprised."
"I remember her telling you she loved you. You saying that you didn't want to really date her. That part I could hear and I couldn't understand what was going on. And you, you said the things like Ryuk. I remember hearing 'Shingami' and thought it odd. At the time, I didn't get what it meant, thought I had misheard. It was hard to listen, as if half of the conversation was missing. "
Light watched her, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. "What do you think we were doing?"
"Later, while she was nice, I saw how possessive she was of you," Sayu continued, ignoring his question. "When we were all out, and that wasn't very often, I saw the looks she gave other women nearby. When she took me shopping, she told me proudly she would make sure you only had men in your life outside of family and her. I thought it weird that she called our parents like they were her own. I couldn't figure out why you were with her, but I felt, if she was what you wanted, then I should support you. Even if I didn't think you were happy.
"And I wanted to ask you for a long time – why haven't you married her?"
"What?" Light asked, surprised again.
"You were together for years, back when you were barely an adult. I thought it strange you lived together but never got married."
"What business is it of yours if we did or not?" Light snapped back, clearly uncomfortable.
"Mom didn't like it. I'm sure dad did even less. But you got away with it because you're you." The tone Sayu had reminded Soichiro of when she was little, pouting because she thought Light got more latitude than her. Though, in retrospect, she hadn't been entirely incorrect. "Do you love her?"
"Of course I do." Light stood, his chains shifting as he paced slightly. "What kind of question is that? And, because you're nosy, I was planning on becoming engaged to her."
"Really?" Sayu's tone was dry, disbelief, and Soichiro smiled despite himself knowing his daughter didn't believe this either. "Can I ask her that?"
"If you want. I don't know where she is."
"They told me they have her here, chained like you." Sayu let out a delicate sound, a mix between a sob and a sigh. "They think you two are Kira."
"You've met Misa, do you think she'd be able to be Kira?"
"By herself, no. But –" Sayu paused, Light turning his head to watch his sister. "If she was blindly in love with you…" Her voice fell off and disappeared as though the words could not be brought forth.
Light was tense, his unhappiness apparent and unhidden over Sayu's unspoken accusation.
"He wouldn't," Sachiko whispered to him, and Soichiro shook his head, stroking his wife's hair.
"He can't do anything right now. And he chose to save her before."
"Maybe, maybe it was because it would look bad if he didn't."
Soichiro swallowed, disliking that it was a similar thought he'd had himself as he watched their children.
"Why don't you ask me what you've come to ask me," Light finally said, staring at the wall.
"Would you tell me the truth?" Sayu shot back. "Or would you lie even though they have you chained?"
Light shifted his focus back to her, shaking his head. "I've been through this before and survived. Old paranoia from someone that keeps haunting me no matter how dead he is. I weathered it then, I'll weather it now."
Does he really believe there's a way out? That Near will tire of this or that we'll never eventually find his accomplice no matter how dead I am by that point? Surely, he can't think that.
"You've been arrested before?"
Light flinched, realizing his mistake but he simply took a breath, letting it out slowly. "Yes. It wasn't pleasant. Both Misa and I survived it then, we will survive it now."
Sayu turned to look at Matsuda who nodded, eyes still downcast. "If that's the case, can you not do what you did then to prove you're innocence?"
"No," Light bit out and Soichiro closed his eyes, hoping she didn't press but he knew his daughter.
"How did it happen?" she demanded, turning to Matsuda who shifted, seeming to search for words to say when Light, in his cruelty, answered her.
"They believed the Kira's killed at will, so L, the one running everything, sent dad out with me and Misa handcuffed in his back seat after keeping us imprisoned for three months –"
"Near! Stop this!" he cried out, trying to get up.
"Then, L had dad act like he was going to kill me and himself in front of her. Put a gun to my head," Light said, his look cold as Sayu let out a strangled noise, "and pulled the trigger."
Sayu stood, hands over her mouth. "I don't believe you."
"It's what happened. Ask Matsuda-san. He watched with the rest of them."
She turned and Matsuda nodded, helpless to do anything else. Soichiro was on his feet, his wife distressed.
"Stop this," he told Near who was sitting impassively, finger twirling around and around in his hair. "This is doing nothing for her."
"She will figure out the truth eventually."
"Then let it be from me."
Near pointed towards the main counter. "Help him with the microphone."
With no other options, he went towards it, knowing Near was hoping that Light would get upset enough to incriminate himself, to let something slide out about what he had been up to or that he had been Kira. That he would even tell Sayu any of this at all was a testament to his rage over his condition, but that didn't create guilt. It made it a poor decision and a reflection of his character, but it wasn't guilt as a chair was brought.
"Press this button to speak," a man told him as he watched his daughter pace, arms wrapped around herself, crying, and upset.
"Sayu," he said, seeing her stop, and look up.
"Did you do that to him?"
"Yes." It would be unwise to lie as he watched her face break, feeling Sachiko's hand on his shoulder, her face tight when he looked up at her. "At the time we thought they killed at will. There was forensic evidence linking Misa to the tapes the other Kira had sent to the TV station. I was confined in a different cell than Light, but he is telling the truth. We thought that if Misa was really guilty, she would kill me before I could pull the trigger. It was the only way to free him."
Sayu cried for a few minutes into her hands, Matsuda doing what he could for her. Light watched on and Soichiro wondered if his son was calculating how to get his sister to his side as he looked up at his wife.
"Sachiko," he started, her gaze falling to him, fury in her eyes, and he knew he had no excuse for agreeing to such a plan even as he tried to find one. "He was bound up, barely able to move. I thought – I believed him innocent. I hated it, but we didn't know what we do now."
She swallowed. "I wish you had told me and I didn't learn it with her."
He nodded, returning his focus to their children, unable to contemplate if his wife would ever forgive him and what he would do if she didn't.
"That book, the one that dad brought, you use that," Sayu said, her voice flat, Light's jaw clenched.
"We believe Kira uses something like that, yes." Light turned more towards her, watching. "If I was Kira, why would I let him hand over my notebook?"
"Because there was always more than one," Matsuda said, standing, and Sayu came closer to him, further from Light, and Soichiro was surprised by the relief he felt over that. "And even you struggled to kill your family. All we had were pieces, until recently."
"What happened recently?" She moved closer to Matsuda. "Was it why dad was injured?"
"Sayu," Soichiro said, seeing her look to where the speaker most likely was. "None of this is your fault. This is a terrible way to speak of this. I'll tell you everything but not like this."
"Why don't you tell her now?" Light chimed in, something like a smile that was icy as he too looked up slightly. "Why don't you tell her just what you did? Let us all hear it."
"Light!" Matsuda cried his patience ending. "You are tormenting your sister for your own amusement."
"What? I am merely telling her the truth. She wanted the truth, did she not, when she came in here? So, tell her the truth. Tell her what dad did, that he let her kidnapper go free because he couldn't finish what he started after he traded his life. And then, blamed it all on me. Tell her, father."
Sayu was openly crying again as her eyes fell back to Matsuda, the answer stuck in Soichiro's throat as Sachiko was turning away.
"You will take me to my daughter now," she told Near who nodded, signaling one of the men.
"Stay, talk to her," his wife told him, touching his face. "And later you can tell me this full story about why you did what you did."
"Forgive me, Sachiko," he whispered, doubting if she could before she left his side.
"Touta?" Sayu asked, shocking Soichiro with her informality. "Did he do that?"
"I made a deal with a Shinigami in order to see Mello's name," Soichiro told her to spare Matsuda. Sayu's face was a mess of grief as she made herself look up toward where he felt the speaker was in the cell block. "Half of my remaining life for that ability."
"And how much do you have left?"
"I don't know," he admitted, seeing her edge closer to despair.
"Did you kill him?"
"No," he said, voice hoarse as Matsuda moved closer, Sayu looking ready to collapse and Soichiro's stomach lurched at how unmoved Light looked at the mayhem he had caused. "I couldn't murder him. In the end, the deal I made gave us the information needed to finally put everything together."
The door to where Sayu was opened and he watched Sachiko enter, Sayu running to her mother. Whispered apologies, his wife holding her, Matsuda watching before he turned his attention back to Light.
"There was no reason to do that to her." Matsuda's voice was low, enraged, a state Soichiro rarely saw in him as Light took him in.
He wants to turn Sayu against me. That I'll lose her even if he is imprisoned just to hurt me more.
"I was unaware that you have become my sister's defender. Didn't my parents tell you that you were too old for her and in the wrong profession?"
"I care for her as a person, Light," Matsuda answered as Sayu slowly calmed in her mother's arms. "Kira has destroyed a good portion of her life, her family. Do you not care?"
"Don't presume to know what I do or do not care about," Light answered, the lowness of his voice causing a shiver in Soichiro. "Just because you're trying to take my spot doesn't make you part of our family. Don't think I haven't seen just how much you've sucked up to them. It doesn't surprise me that you'd be eager to throw me under the nearest train to worm your way in. Don't expect me to be quiet about your designs on my sister."
"Light." Sayu's voice was thick as she turned, watching her brother. Her hand was in her mother's as she walked closer to the cell, staring at her brother.
"Don't let them lead you down these false paths, Sayu. You don't know him as I do," Light told her.
Whatever words she wanted to say failed her as she was still, silent, not understanding.
"Why don't you go see your father?" Matsuda told her, not unkindly, Sachiko agreeing. "I know he would want to talk to you."
"We really don't know how much time he has left?"
"No," Sachiko told her, trying to have her go to the door. "Every day is a gift."
Soichiro's throat burned as he noticed Near had moved, coming to stand beside him, lining his little finger puppets up on the counter as he tilted his head back to watch the screen. He was small, close to Sayu's size but his face was hidden, hiding his true age as Near left one puppet separated from the rest.
"Do you love me?"
Light was startled by Sayu's question and then said, "Of course I do. Don't be silly."
"I love you, oniichan," she said, her grief coloring every word. "But I don't believe you."
Sachiko put her arm around their daughter, leading her out, Matsuda looked at Light until he knew the women were gone.
"That was cruel, what you did. Whatever you think you got out of it, remember that we have time to wait for you to tell us the truth, for once, Light."
"Just remember when you move into my place that my father will toss you away even easier than he did me."
"Please," Soichiro said as Matsuda was leaving and Near reached up and pushed a button, turning off the fed so he didn't have to watch his son anymore.
It had been a message to him more than it had been to Matsuda, Near watching him.
"I think this speaks for itself, his behavior. He will use anything to hurt you at this point, including turning your family against you if he can. Fortunately, I don't think they believe him but I suggest not letting him drive any more wedges that your secrecy has already allowed." Near sighed, staring at his little puppets. "Is there anything else I should know about during the investigation that L did?"
"No. As far as I know, they told you everything else." Soichiro felt tired, wanting to be back in bed beside his wife and fearing that she would forever hate him. "I had no idea that Sayu knew what she did, that she had questions."
"Or that those questions increased her response to her trauma," Near added and Soichiro knew he was frowning despite his face being hidden. "Did you notice changes in him?"
"I did but between my work and the stress of everything, I wrote it off, felt it was due to what we had been through."
His dreams kept replaying L's death in his mind, how Light had cried out. Was it all just an act? Was he glad that L died the way he did, afraid and in the arms of his killer?
"Mello put together that Kira had direct access to police information as the director's kidnapping was unknown at that time to the public. He reasoned that it wouldn't be far-fetched that Kira himself sat on the Task Force sworn to bring him in and took your daughter as ransom, wanting to know if Kira would kill her, at least for utilitarian reasons, or save her."
"And Light answered it in spades."
"Yes," Near said, knocking the lone doll down before collecting them. "Mello was giving her a warning even if she couldn't understand it at the time."
Near moved away from him as the door opened and he saw them enter, Sayu coming to him.
"Papa," she whispered, her arms around his neck as she sobbed and he held her, whispering that it wasn't her fault, that none of this was her doing.
~x~
Sayu's head was on his shoulder as she slept, emotionally exhausted as Sachiko arranged a blanket over him. His throat was raw from talking, reminding him of the early days in the hospital as he made himself look at his wife. It was sorrow and anger and many things he couldn't name and he didn't know if he regretted not telling her from the moment Light was suspected or that he ever allowed a way for her to know.
She stooped to readjust the coffee table that had been drug over earlier so he could put his feet up and he wanted to tell her she could stop, that she didn't have to stay.
"I'll go find something for you to eat," she whispered in his ear and he nodded. There were other ways to get what they needed but he didn't stop her, knowing she wanted time alone.
Instead, he stroked their daughter's hair as she put on her shoes before coming back over to him.
"Not leaving," she told him firmly. "I just – just –"
"I know."
Bending, she kissed him on the head, studying his face before pulling away and slipping out the door near silent. Even with her promise to come back, it felt like the world vanished with her and he tried to prepare himself for the very real fact that their marriage may not survive this regardless of the outcome of their experiment with the rules.
Sayu slept on, unaware, her deep breathing a welcome sight. He couldn't help but think of when he woke up to her beside him when they had stayed at the hotel in America, how upset she had been. It made even more sense if she was thinking about her brother being Kira, ideas of losing everything in her head.
That Light had done this –
He closed his eyes, tried to relax. Sachiko would either return or she wouldn't. They would find Light's conspirator eventually and he may die before he saw that. He may have been dead already even if Light hadn't set a plan into place given his health. Before the raid, he probably could have feasibly had another twenty years but he wasn't sure now what he had left. It could be days or months. The idea of dying suddenly in front of his family was haunting him more and more with each passing hour.
Holding his daughter, he thought of the one they had lost, still and cold by the time he had been allowed to pick her up. She hadn't appeared distressed. Sachiko had withdrawn. The idea of losing another too brilliant for both of them. Sayu had ended up being a surprise, Light being excited, not understanding or remembering what had come before. When Sayu arrived, alive and healthy and all the things any parent wished for, it had seemed to alleviate a part of the crushing guilt Sachiko had tucked up and hidden inside herself, even if she checked on Sayu much more often, fears of her slipping away and being lost forever.
He doesn't know what we went through. Would he even have paused in all this if he did?
The answers he thought were true were terrible and he shifted slightly, Sayu not rousing. She didn't understand fully why he had done all the things he had, but it was different than his wife. In her eyes, she didn't understand why they had ever cleared Misa, that perhaps Misa had done something over Light being the original instigator of all this mess. In the end, they would all blame something when it clearly rested on Light, no matter how young he had been when this had started. He had still been old enough to know better, to understand that killing was wrong.
Maybe he did, maybe he thought he was already damned and as it went along, everything got easier. No consequences, the illusion of a better world, he justified it to himself while he used everyone around him till he became Kira. That the power he wielded was more important than the people he claimed to be saving.
Exhaustion was creeping over him and he finally dozed off, waking when he heard the door click open. Sachiko was carrying things and he was surprised to see Aizawa with her to help with a tray.
"At least you stayed put," Aizawa murmured to him as he put what he had down on the small table.
It had been hours, he knew his wife had not just been off to find food.
As much as he didn't want to, he rubbed Sayu's shoulder. "Hey, you should eat."
Blinking, she raised her head, grumbling before nodding, taking in Aizawa and her mother as she got herself righted beside him on the small loveseat. She had ended up here when she had broken down and just wept and wept because he tore away whatever denial she had left.
"Still looking," Aizawa told him, patting his shoulder. "We'll find it."
He nodded as his officer left, Sachiko fusing over laying things out as Sayu got up to go use the bathroom. His wife came to him then and he stared up at her, unsure of what to say.
"I wish you had told me."
"I know. After everything – " he couldn't look away, trying to find the right words. "In my head, I wanted to be sure before I did and each time I felt we were close there was doubt. And I didn't want to do that to you, put you through this, and be that wrong."
"We aren't the first parents whose child has become a murderer," she told him, voice steady but filled with sorrow. "I don't understand why he did this other than it was just there. Watching the world be broken and thinking this was the way to fix it."
"I think that was his idea."
That his son may have also just liked the power, to have that much control, helped get them to here he didn't voice but he wouldn't be surprised if she didn't feel the same.
"You should stand," she told him, helping him get his stiff legs down from where he had them perched. "You've been sitting here too long."
He laughed softly, as she brought his cane and helped him up.