DS
Disclaimer: Shoutout to Flip a Coin and xxxyuniexxx! You guessed who doesn't own Death Note! For all you slackers, the answer was… ME!
Chibi L: Ahem.
Chibi Misa: So after more than a month, probably, here we are again. You must pardon our Swirly-swirl. She has just discovered that her calling in life lies in bioengineering and the manipulation of animal genes.
Me: …Yeah.
Chibi Raito: So while she tries and fails to execute her master plan for getting into Stanford, please, enjoy the byproducts of her raging stress and teenage problems.
Me: …and stuff.
Chibi Matt: Uni is for sissies.
Chibi Raito: FalcAAAWWWNNNN PAAAUUUNCH!!!!!111
Matt: -dedzorz-
Chibi Misa: Have fun! Read, review, and relax.
D S 2 2
L was in the middle of a calm, serene panic attack. That intelligent gleam in Aiber's eye was unnatural and inhuman. It was only when Aiber announced L's full name that the mini-death recognized him for what he truly was.
An Anti-Kira.
The eye suddenly seemed to bloat out of its socket. A layer of milky, dead glaze enshrouded Aiber's red, ringed iris. It slid and glided like a slimy fish beneath the pink shell of his eyelid.
L had never found a shinigami's eye more disgusting.
He also recognized that this supernatural, glossy gleam existed in only one eye. Where was the other one?
Wedy.
What devious demons these two had revealed themselves to be. They had doubled their strength and their numbers by sharing the eyes of the shinigami. Both of them probably had Raito and L pinned from the beginning. Why hadn't A and W arrested them, then?
True, their shinigami eyes couldn't discern a Kira from a normal human being, but they could definitely discern a lie from a truth. Why hadn't they arrested L for lying about his name? What was more, A and W would definitely recognize L's name as that of Raito's past hallucination. Why not arrest him for being a suspicious and supernatural occurrence?
They were working with Misa to destroy Raito.
They were never investigating the second Kira at all. Misa knew all about Raito and L's participation in the Kira case because Aiber and Wedy leaked the information to her. If this was true, then they shared other personal information with her as well. Misa knew all about their relationships, past and present. She knew that L loved Raito. She knew that Raito cared for L.
Now, L was a liability.
If Raito did not accomplish Misa's desires, she would threaten L. She would force Raito into her service by juggling with the mini-death's life, and if she found him to be a nuisance, she would kill him.
L sat in his chair, watching helplessly as a feral, feline Aiber stalked toward him.
Then, something flew out of the wall, rocketed into L, and bowled both the mortified mini-death and the recently shocked Aiber into the hallway. L tumbled on the cage of his rigid arms and legs and the knobs of his spine. His ribs creaked as he smashed into Aiber's body and rebounded slowly across the vinyl tiles.
Coughing and wheezing from the shock of the sudden intervention, L lay on the floor in a crumpled ball. He pushed himself on trembling arms off of the tiles and wondered irately what schizophrenic force of nature had nearly given him a heart attack. As he wondered, he noticed that Aiber's short acquaintance with the wall had saved L from serious injury and also knocked the Anti-Kira out cold.
"Hooooly shit, holy shit, holy shit holy shit holy shit shit shit, did you see that, L? Did you see it did you see it did you see it see it see see oh, did you see it did you see OH MY GOOOODDDD."
Startled, L somersaulted into a crouching position and stared.
There he was, jumping up and down like a pre-teen girl, biting his nails, teetering on the border between anxiety and tearful hysteria, and for the first time, L was genuinely glad to see him.
Matt.
"I was listening through the wall and I heard him say some weird crap and then I saw his eyes and he was going to, like, kill you, or something so I said 'Oh, my god, I have to help' so I jumped in and I was like 'FALCAAWWWN PAAAAUUUNNNCH' and you were like, 'Oof!' and he was like, 'Oof!' and then he hit his head and you said 'Oof!' again and you rolled away and he stopped moving and are you okaaayyyy, maaaaannnn?"
"Yes," said L.
"Good," sighed Matt, deflating as quickly as a balloon in a lawnmower, "because if we don't get the fuck out of here, you're dead meat."
"I know," said L.
"So let's get the fuck out of here."
"Let's."
----
Raito held a few grievances about his debt with Misa, but they all flew away like happy, golden butterflies when he saw A and W's quaint assault force. They thundered daintily through the street like a stampede of rhinoceros and broke against the monstrous base of the Tower in a tsunami of Kevlar and steel. Helpless shoppers were stranded on the shoals of decorative planters as the army of riot police swept past in rolling waves.
Hidden in a flock of bleating police cars, a man with a megaphone shouted into the streets.
Raito looked on in a sort of resigned fascination. A and W had certainly taken measures to corner their targets. He realized with a sudden pang of doubt that it would not be easy to rescue Ryuzaki amidst all of the commotion.
"Aww! Raito-kun looks so cute when he's anxious!" Misa cooed with a girlish pop of her heel. Raito willed his lips into a nervous smile. "Yeah, Misa. I just don't know how you're going to get us out of here. I mean, look at them," the brunette gestured to the hill of ants below the observatory.
Misa blew a raspberry at him and flicked her wrist. "I'm magic, you dope."
Magic.
"Oh, really?" Raito asked with a playful quirk of the eyebrow.
"Yep," Misa winked. "I can teleport. Wanna' see?"
Yes. Yes, he did.
Raito laughed at Misa's antics. "Of course. Show me."
"Okay. Here goes!" Misa frowned, puffed out her cheeks, and crossed her eyes with concentration. She curled her fingers into claws and pawed at the air like a kitten. She crouched down and jumped right into Raito's face with a feral "Hoowaaaaaaah!"
Raito jumped back and stared as Misa grinned with the teeth of a Cheshire Cat. "Ta-daa!" she bowed.
"…That was it?" Raito asked, half nervous that Misa was only capable of joking around.
"Wasn't it mystical?" Misa squeaked.
"Oh, it was mystical, all right," Raito chuckled anxiously.
Suddenly, Rem interrupted. "Someone is coming up the elevator."
Raito's smile lost its altitude, but Misa's brightened all the more. "Goodie!" she exclaimed, "let them in, let them in!"
"But Misa-chan," growled Rem, "What if Raito was telling the truth?"
"Of course he was telling the truth, silly!" Misa pouted with her hands on her hips. "If someone is coming up the elevator, then I want to talk to them before we leave!"
…Raito really couldn't understand Misa's logic. He tried. He failed.
Rem had no time to protest. The elevator dinged in celebration upon reaching its destination. The white shinigami arranged herself between Misa and the door. The blonde girl latched lackadaisically onto Raito's arm and giggled into the fabric of his sleeve.
A figure dressed in black from head to foot slipped through the parting steel doors like a cat. Raito could tell by his height and the shape of his body that this was Gevanni. Accompanying him were three armored guards, all nondescript in every fashion.
"Kira," Gevanni growled, ironically addressing both Raito and Misa.
The blonde girl smiled expectantly and batted her long, black eyelashes.
Gevanni's entourage spread out and prowled along the windows of the observatory. Meanwhile, he stepped brazenly into the center of the room. "We have you surrounded. Surrender at once."
"Who are you arresting, exactly?" Misa asked boldly with a quizzical frown on her face.
Her blasé arrogance took Gevanni by surprise. He wracked his brain for words as Misa quirked her head childishly and tapped her heel against the floor.
"Kira and the second Kira," growled Gevanni.
"Who's the second Kira?" quizzed Misa.
"You are the second Kira," stated Gevanni.
"Who told you that?" puzzled Misa.
"Surrender."
"Why?"
"Surrender."
"You're a robot."
"Surrender."
"Say please, Robot-chan!"
"You are surrounded. Stop these childish games and surrender."
"How do you know they're not lying to you," Misa smirked suddenly, "your commanding officers?"
When Gevanni replied with "That is none of your concern," Misa marched impudently into his personal bubble and stopped only when his entourage cocked their guns at her. "How do you know they sent you here to catch us?" she giggled.
Us.
Shit.
Well, if Raito's innocence wasn't trampled, he didn't know what was. Misa had just disclosed to Gevanni that the both of them were guilty as charged. He seriously hoped that Misa's teleportation involved more than squinting and cat-claws.
"You concede that you are guilty?" Gevanni growled.
Misa continued as if she'd never heard him. "You know, I think the only reason your bosses sent you here was so you could die. Maybe they don't trust you with their evil master plan, huh? I know I wouldn't trust my subordinates."
Rem did not respond.
Gevanni was in the middle of threatening Misa with force when someone's radio blared with sudden urgency.
"Suspect three has escaped confinement! Traveling westbound in a red Mustang! Believed to be armed and dangerous! Requesting immediate backup!"
Misa took advantage of the confusion and grabbed Raito's hand in hers. Cackling madly, she raised her left hand into the air and snapped.
The last thing Raito felt was his soul being ripped out of his body.
Then everything went-
----
"Please drive more carefully."
"I'm running from the frickin' police, L!"
"Yes, I understand, but would it be too much trouble to stay on the correct side of the road?"
"Do you want me to wreck our ride on a spike strip?"
"Well, no."
"Then STOP COMPLAINING!"
For the most part, the streets were devoid of sirens and flashing lights. Much of Tokyo's police force was probably surrounding Prince Raito and the deceptively helpless Rapunzel in their Lofty Tower. L didn't understand what Matt was grouching about. At the very least, he could drive less conspicuously.
Speaking of the Prince and his captor, L hadn't the faintest idea of how to rescue him. As L said before, Raito was surrounded by all of the weapons in Japan. His only choice was to escape on his own and send Matt scouting once he was hidden in a safe place. As much as L would've liked to throw his arms up in the air, jump from the speeding Mustang, and choke as many people as he could with his bare hands, he couldn't let his anxiety turn to hysteria. If he was going to save Raito, he would need to keep his wits about him.
A peppering of loud popping noises exploded on the asphalt. Matt swore at the top of his lungs and shoved L's head into the dashboard. "Shit!" he roared. "They're shooting at us!"
Much to L's dismay, Matt began swerving violently through the streets, weaving between visible and invisible cars alike. He hit the curbs and rebounded like a crimson pinball. The sound of screeching tires and the misty smoke of burning rubber drowned out the barrage of gunshots.
L's hands gripped the handle of his door like a pair of pipe wrenches. He braced his forehead against the dashboard to keep himself from flying all over the cab. "Matt!" L spat once he found the breath to do so.
"What?" screeched the mini-death.
"Please drive carefully!"
"I'M AVOIDING BULLETS, L!"
"Well you don't need to drive all over the road, do you?"
"THEY'RE GOING TO POP MY TIRES AND SHOOT YOUR HEAD OFF OF YOUR SHOULDERS!"
"You'll pop your tires anyway, the way you're driving."
"FUCK IT, L!"
"Would you stop yelling?"
"I AM NOT YELLING."
"Yes, you are. Please keep calm. I'm sure that by doing so, you will be able to regain your sanity. Breathe."
"FUCK YOU."
"Breathe."
Matt breathed. Luckily, he had done so just in time to notice and avoid a potential collision with a police cruiser.
"Fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck," said Matt.
"Breathe," said L.
Matt breathed.
He gulped and stretched his palms across the worn leather arc of the steering wheel. Matt sucked a slow stream of air into his chest and released it just as carefully, tapping the tips of his fingers on the wheel and pulling the car into another gear. "I can do this," he swore like a group therapy patient. "I can do this."
"Yes, yes," L reinforced quickly.
"I'm fine. I mean, it's not like I can die, right?" Matt sighed, swerving past a furiously honking sub-compact.
"I can," L snapped.
"Well, I don't care about that. See? La la la. I'm just fine. Just fine. Fine. Just fine. I can do this."
Meanwhile, L wished fervently that his insides would stop sloshing around in the pit of his stomach like a pail of worms on a swing set. His adrenaline was taking over his body. L felt as if he would explode at any time, his hot, steaming insides bloating up and swallowing his skin like a fleshy popcorn kernel. Knives slashed up and down the center of his abdomen. Rocks leapt into his throat and back down into his heart. His toes curled up inside the starchy canvas shoes that Raito had bought for him in Harajuku.
The thrill of death coursed from the depths of L's heart to the tips of his fingernails. Fever enveloped him in its prickly, sweaty arms and howled in his ears.
Suddenly, his stomach lurched and he felt as if the icy claws of death were tearing his heart right out of his chest. An inhuman shriek cut through the air. L felt his body skidding to a stop and his soul continuing to somersault through the void with the pull of inertia.
Slowly, the spinning stopped. The numbness in L's brain dispelled like a blanket of morning mist. With a shaky hand, he retrieved his heart from the open air in which it was hanging.
"What the FUCK was THAT?" Matt shouted.
L pried his sticky eyelashes apart and peeked up from his rigid curl, wondering at the mysteries of happenstance that had so roughly fallen upon him.
There was nothing for him to see.
The cab was completely black.
----
-black.
Raito felt nothing, saw nothing, smelled nothing… Nothing. It was as if Misa had sucked him into the darkest reaches of space and he was no longer himself, but a mere collection of frozen molecules and electrical currents.
Then, light! Sound! A starburst of red exploded before Raito's eyes. On its heels followed a shockwave of reality, echoing across the corners of Raito's consciousness and pulling him back into existence.
Upon feeling a familiar flatness beneath the soles of his shoes, Raito promptly tripped forward and hit his face on it.
The pain that split his head in half reminded him that he was indeed alive and well. In an attempt to salvage his face and his reputation, Raito shoved himself off of the ground before the brunt of his agony could register.
Casually, he ignored his head and observed his surroundings. He stood in a deep, dark hall. At least, Raito thought it was a hall. Little lamps hung in black emptiness to either side of the softly glowing carpet, where Raito presumed the walls to be. Exactly how deep the hall was, Raito could not tell, but the illuminated circles of red carpet and the pearl-strings of lights vanished at a thin, distant nexus that was at least a mile away.
Misa's childish giggles reached his ear.
Raito glanced over his shoulder to see Misa smiling cutely and pulling at her pigtails. She waddled over to him and latched onto his arm. "Aww, Raito-kun! Did you hurt your head?"
"A little," Raito admitted.
"Here. Lemme' kiss it and make it better," Misa crooned. She pulled him down by his arm and pressed her glossy lips against his cheek in a short, playful peck.
"All better, Raito-kun?"
"…All better," Raito half-grumbled, feeling like he should've been embarrassed.
"Misa, we should go." Rem's glossy eyes materialized from the darkness. She slipped like a wraith into the lamplight.
"Why?" pouted Misa.
"Raito's friends will be arriving soon," growled Rem.
Raito didn't understand why Rem was so intent on running from his friends, but as soon as Misa dragged him a few feet down the carpet, he saw why.
Matt's car screamed through the ceiling in a lightning bolt of chrome red. A terrified chorus of voices followed the car before the floor swallowed it up.
Raito stared in intent silence at the carpet where the Mustang had once been.
He didn't have long to wonder where the car and its occupants had gone, because the same orchestra of troubled mayhem echoed again. The floor shook as the Mustang bottomed out somewhere far within the depths of the hall.
"Where d'you think they landed, Rem?" Misa asked cutely.
"If we follow that dastardly noise, we should find out," Rem replied with a resentful squint.
Misa and company set out down the hall, listening carefully as Matt's obscenities grew in volume and frequency.
As Raito walked, he passed a large, black door. It was nearly invisible in the midst of the pervading darkness, but the light dancing on its edges gave it away.
Curiously, Raito asked, "Where are we, exactly?"
"Limbo," said Misa.
Raito eyed her skeptically. "…Really?"
"Yep," Misa squeaked with a smile. She pointed at the horizon where the lights and carpet met. "That's the reception desk, down there. It's a ways down, but you don't care much when you're dead, do you?"
Raito's stomach lurched. "Am I dead?" he asked with as much calm and poise as he could manage.
"Of course not, silly!" Misa elbowed him in the side. "If you were dead, this hallway would be a lot more crowded."
"Explain."
"Well, dead people are the only people who can see other dead people," elaborated Misa. "If you were dead, you would see people everywhere."
"I see," mumbled Raito.
"No you don't," said Misa.
"…Right," Raito agreed.
So he wasn't dead, but he couldn't see Ryuzaki anywhere. Did that mean…
"Is Ryuzaki dead, then?"
Misa blew a dismissive raspberry at him. "Naw. They just landed in the icky black parts. That's all."
Wait…
"They?" Raito quoted uncertainly.
"Yeah," Misa grinned. "Ryuzaki-chan and Matt-chan."
So she could see Matt. Raito supposed that made sense, especially considering that Matt had gone so far as to hide behind him at the sight of Misa. The blonde also used the word 'they' a few times before.
"Hm," Raito sighed with thinly-veiled arrogance. "If I can see your shinigami, then it makes sense that you can see Matt as well."
"Yeah," the blonde girl chirped.
As they walked further into the unpleasant cacophony, Rem sighted the Mustang. "There," she pointed into the darkness. Raito craned his neck around a doorframe and sure enough, there was the car, seemingly dangling in the void behind the tightly shut door.
Misa trotted happily off of the glowing carpet. Raito half-expected her to open the obstructing door and walk through it, but she simply bypassed it and marched confidently off of the edge of the world. Raito followed her cautiously. He peeked behind the doorframe, where what should meet his eyes but the opposite side of the door and nothing else. Raito really had no time to ponder. He passed it off as another life-versus-death conundrum and pussyfooted through the cold darkness, heels sweeping crisply along the invisible ground.
His comrades' voices grew louder.
"Holy fuck, L! Where the fuck are we?"
Matt.
"Would you stop swearing, please? I'd like to have a moment of silence. I think I just died."
Ryuzaki, scathing as always.
"What would a fucking moment of silence do?"
"I don't know. It just seems proper. That's all."
"Well, fuck me. What if we really are dead? Wait. I can't die! Why the fuck am I dead if I can't fucking die?"
"Mmm. You're right. The fact that I'm still here with you, who cannot die, proves that I am not dead. I'm going to have a look around."
"IT'S A TRAP!"
The passenger door opened, sending a sheet of shattered glass crashing to the floor. L emerged from the Mustang, gingerly testing his footing against the crackling shards.
Raito fought the smile that stretched across his lips. Seeing Ryuzaki alive made the endless halls of Limbo seem that much shorter. This time, he was not surprised at all when a warm wave of relief washed over him.
"Ryuzaki," he called into the darkness. The ex-mini-death spun on his heel, searching furiously for the source of the voice. Raito waved and Ryuzaki's eyes immediately snapped onto him.
"Ah! Raito-kun!" he waved in a rapid, sloppy arc. "How are you? Are you well?"
"I'm fine, Ryuzaki," Raito chuckled, "but I don't think I'd still be alive if it weren't for Misa," Raito gestured with thickly-veiled urgency to the rapidly approaching blonde.
Ryuzaki's soot-ringed eyes followed the brunette's gesture. They fell on Misa, betraying none of the infernal contempt that Raito knew he was feeling. He waved just as enthusiastically at Misa.
"Ah! The famous Misa-Misa-chan!" he exclaimed. "Raito-kun never stops talking about you. I must say, you are every bit as beautiful as he described."
Misa giggled and jumped into the air.
Meanwhile…
"…Misa…Misa-chan?" croaked the Mustang.
Matt suddenly sprang from the driver's seat and scrambled for the roof of the car. "No! Not Misa-Misa-chan! Anything but Misa-Misa-chan!"
"Matty-Matty-kun!" Misa squealed. She made a mad dash for the car and sprang onto the roof like a rabbit. Matt tried in vain to escape, but alas, Misa pulled him into a vicious noogie and dragged him like a python into the shattered glass, where she proceeded to constrict him to death.
----
L stood next to Raito and let relaxation seep through his toes and into his face. Though hugs and whispers were impossible at this point, L felt happy to simply look at Raito and know he was alive.
Raito's smile remained mild and serene and he never made any sort of eye contact with L, but that was Raito. He couldn't afford to show any emotions that might irk his powerful escorts. Rem had glued her serpentine eyes on them, but Misa remained airy and clueless, or as much so as she could appear. Raito would take no chances, though, and neither would L.
"Let's go, let's go, let's go!" Misa squealed. She turned to Matt, who had become something akin to a blancmange with goggles during their joyous encounter. "Don't you want to go back home, Matty-Matty-kun?"
"No…" Matt moaned like a strangled banshee.
"Come on! Let's go! Come on, Raito-kun! We're off to see the Wizard…" Misa hooked her arm in Matt's and skipped down the endless corridor. For a while, both L and Raito stood there side by side, merrily watching her shrink as she bounced away. Neither of them had long to watch before Rem practically shoved them both into a military march with her laser eye-beams of death.
Raito made small talk to make the journey less unnatural. L replied politely and made pointless banter of his own, but Rem kept her eyes on his neck and followed him like a specter.
What seemed like an eon-and-a-half later, the hall broadened, thickened, and grew immensely in height, or so the gigantic double-doors made it seem. Both appeared to be hewn out of the blackness and nothing else. The only signs of their existence were the dancing comet-tails of light around their edges and the abrupt conclusion of the hall. Here, Misa and the gelatinous Matt waited for L, Raito, and Rem.
"You guys are sloooowwww," Misa complained in her signature pre-teen way. She then turned around and sauntered to a screen on the wall. She buzzed herself in as 'Misa-Misa-chan' and the monstrous doors swung inward.
She dragged Matt's whining body into the dull, red room beyond the doorway. "Let's go, let's go, let's go!" Misa squealed excitedly. "Last one into the elevator is a rotten egg!"
Like a sprite, Misa flitted off with her mini-death baggage. L and Raito both followed in smiling, comfortable silence.
Rem did not smile.
Misa waved them all into a quaint little elevator and pressed the only red button on the control panel. Inertia held L up, the elevator went down, and he lost his balance. Misa cackled madly, Matt continued to complain, and Rem rolled her eyes.
But L wasn't paying any attention to that.
When L was certain that he'd fall into a humiliated heap on the floor of the elevator, Raito grabbed his arm and held him up.
A second passed, L regained his footing, and the feathery remnants of Raito's warmth faded away. The brunette cracked an airy joke at his lack of balance, to which Misa cracked another joke at Raito's own balance.
In no time, L returned to his stoic, careful self.
But Raito moved an inch closer.
When the elevator slowed to an abrupt stop, Raito's arm shot fluidly outward and wrapped around L's shoulder. He laughed and grinned and made a joke out of it, and L didn't know what to think.
Far be it from Raito Yagami to care about something as harmless as falling over.
He didn't have much time to muse, as the elevator doors drew swiftly aside.
L was then assaulted by the worst stench he had ever smelled.
"I did some remodeling while you were gone, Matty-Matty-kun!" Misa piped up as if nothing was wrong. She pulled everyone out of the elevator and into the infernal pits of hell.
And lo, what infernal pits they were.
----
Raito felt as if he had stepped off of the edge of reality and plunged into a blinding, hot, rancid Care Bears set. The hellish scenery around him wasn't covered in flames, but in seizure-inducing rainbows and flower arrangements. The streets were lined with Muppets and ponies, each one singing something similarly deafening. A troupe resembling a bad live-action Disney musical sailed past on an electric yellow hearse, raking their nails against a vibrant chalkboard, spitting gum onto the asphalt, whipping passers-by with a long cat-o-nine-tails, and dancing in inebriated hysteria to a deplorably-remixed version of the Pepsi Jingle.
The hot, stifling air smelled like a toxic mixture of salmon, onions, petunias, and rotten meat. The sky from which it wafted was a pale, blinding shade of blue that was so boring, it made Raito nearly want to rake his eyes out with one of the rusty forks dangling from the eaves above him.
Nearly.
Raito admitted, Misa's hell was unlike any hellish scene he'd ever imagined. He gave her credit for the sheer amount of agonized screaming and moaning, though.
Misa bounced into the street and beckoned cheerfully for Raito's crowd to follow. Ryuzaki stuck unusually close as they inched forward.
Suddenly, a Fraggle cried, "LONG LIVE QUEEN LUCY!"
A tumultuous roar enveloped the avenue in a torrent of deafening racket. The Muppets and ponies swayed where they sat in their plaid jackets and carnival shoes. They banged their peddlers' cans against the sidewalk. One particular neon blue pony belched a dazzling ball of fire into the air, toasting several seagulls in mid-flight, before deflating and crumbling into a twitching pile of ash.
Raito latched onto Ryuzaki for balance as he waded through the knee-deep procession of suffering Muppets. Of course, he cracked another joke at Ryuzaki's footing, just as he had done when he, himself, nearly fell over as the elevator touched down.
Misa led them through the mob and into a quaint little hole-in-the-wall bar, where the noise disappeared the instant the door shut. The barman in the corner observed their entrance with no interest whatsoever and resumed his task of manically rubbing his immaculate shot glasses clean.
The room was empty.
For sixteen seconds, all was quiet.
"…Impressive," said Ryuzaki, on whom Raito was still leaning.
"What were those things?" the brunette asked as he casually removed himself from the ex-mini-death's shoulder.
"Oh, those? People!" Misa grinned.
"…People?" Raito asked skeptically
"Yes," Misa smiled. She invited them to sit down at the one sticky, smelly table in the room. "They were all ridiculous, hideous, useless, and annoying in life, so I made them ridiculous, hideous, useless, and annoying in death. Pretty cool, huh?"
"…I suppose," Raito grumbled as he attempted vainly to find a comfortable position on the broken, gooey barstool. Every time he shifted his weight, the stool would tilt on its uneven legs and nearly throw him off.
Nearly.
"I like to give my people a taste of their own medicine, sometimes," Misa explained. "There's nothing like being surrounded by people like you to make you realize how ridiculous, hideous, useless, and annoying you are, is there?"
"Ah, what a bright angel of enlightenment you are," Ryuzaki applauded. "Or are you an infernal demon of contempt?"
Misa giggled. "Stop flattering me! You're making me blush, Ryuzaki-kun!"
"You have such a cute blush, Misa-chan," Ryuzaki flattered her shamelessly.
Raito stopped his eyes in mid-roll and asked suddenly, "So why are we here?"
Misa blinked, smiling and having no idea what he was talking about. "I rescued you, Raito-waito-kun! You know that. Silly."
"No, I meant here, in this… bar," Raito clarified with a suspicious search around the room.
"Oh! Well, I'm gonna' get you drunk, of course!" Misa giggled manically and wiggled her ass on the barstool.
"Oh. Right," said Raito, who was glad that drinking was the worst deed Misa could think of. It wasn't.
"Actually," she tilted her head cutely and found an interesting scratch in the table. "There's something I want you guys to do for me. You know, as payback!" Misa then beamed at Raito with her best sparkly smile. She clasped her hands over her heart and whined, "You'll do it for me, won't you? I mean, you owe me after all. Right, Raito-bunny?"
A ha.
Raito grinned with as much toxic, gooey amity as he could counterfeit. "Of course, Misa! I'll do anything for you."
"Aaaaaaaanything?" Misa squealed.
"Anything," Raito smiled.
The blonde bounced excitedly on the sticky barstool and squeaked happily at Rem, who seemed nearly as clueless as the rest of them. Misa turned back and smacked her ruby lips in thought.
"…Weeeelllllllll…"
----
"Do you think I could ask all three of you guys to do something for me?"
Misa's eyes gleamed with a knock-off of genuine hopefulness. Really, her sugar-glazed mannerism's were getting on L's nerves and for a moment or two, he wished with all of his heart that she were a sugar-glazed doughnut so that he could just eat her and that would be the end of it.
Alas, misfortune and reality both smiled down upon L with their menacing unibrows and sharp, pointy teeth, so Misa never did turn into a jelly doughnut and that wasn't the end of it.
"Ryuzaki and I agree to help you, don't we, Ryuzaki?" Raito haphazardly tossed L into the spotlight.
The ex-mini-death straightened up and tried his best to look like he wasn't plotting anyone's death in secret. "Of course, Raito-kun, though I wonder about Matt. He is quite useless, actually."
"Oh, sure," wailed the ailing Matt, who until this point had been melting in courteous silence into a puddle of self-pity on the floor.
"You hear? He agrees," said L.
Matt moaned.
"Yay!" Misa celebrated. After she finished waving her arms in the air, she leaned in slyly and beckoned her audience closer with the wide, reeling gestures of a cartoon caricature. L glanced at Raito, Raito shrugged at L, and they both leaned in. Suddenly, Misa pouted and kicked out with her foot. From the gooey floorboards, Matt howled.
"You're ruining it, Matty-Matty-kun!" Misa whined. "Get in the huddle! Come on!"
Matt popped piteously onto the table and hung there like a soggy dishrag.
"Good," Misa clapped her hands villainously. She grinned at the miserable mini-death. "You're gonna' like this, Matty-Matty-kun! I know you will!"
"So what is this evil scheme of yours, hm?" L asked with the express purpose of pushing the discussion along.
Misa wiggled around on her barstool for a few seconds before weaving her fingers together and resting her bottom lip against her hands. Her elastic lips stretched outward in a vulpine grin.
"Well, there's this guy…"
"Another one?" Matt wailed.
Misa ignored him. "I've actually been trying to kill him for a long time. I mean, a looong time. Like, a million kajillion trillion years long."
"…What?" grumbled Raito, wearing on his face the mental comprehension of a frozen vole.
Yes, what? L knew better than anyone that no one escaped the wrath of a vengeful teenage girl. Who could possibly escape the judgment of her shinigami? Better yet, how could her sworn enemy have lived for as long a time as she specified?
…God?
Dumbly, L blurted, "God?"
"No!" Misa hissed. The blonde crossed her arms and pouted with her snooty nose in the air. "I'm not ordering his assassination until he's paid off all of the poker debts he owes me. The cheap bastard…"
"Yes," L remarked dryly. "Of course."
"Anyway," Misa bemusedly ran the pads of her thumbs along the tips of her fingernails. "I want you guys to kill this guy for me."
Well, L saw that one coming.
So had Raito.
"…Okay, so what did this guy do to make you so angry?" the brunette asked.
Misa gave them both the stink-eye. "He steals my business and he trespasses on my property. He's not supposed to come here, to hell, but he does it anyway and he steals chocolate from my candy store! It's mine! Mine!"
"And the name of this perpetrator," L asked curiously.
Misa hugged her arms tighter to herself in a rigid, angular knot. She glowered at the floor and it spontaneously combusted into a circle of blue-hot flame.
"That stupid blonde who copied my hairstyle. Mello."
The surrounding space-time hiccupped, L fell off of his chair, and Matt dropped into an unconsciousness from which he could not be awoken for four whole days.
----
Chibi L: Durrr…
Chibi Raito: What is this, some sort of Christian magic???
Me: No, it's only a reference to L's (much) earlier comment that time runs differently in other realms. So here it is! A hiccup in the time continuum.
Chibi Matt: Foaming at the mouth.
Chibi Raito: …Should we help him?
Chibi Misa: No. –evil grin-
Me: Well, it was a short chapter, especially considering the time it took me to write –cough-procrastinate-cough-, but be nice. I'm… working. Kind of hard, I guess… I am Christmas shopping and English-homework-doing, so shut up. D:
Chibi Raito: Burn the witch.
Chibi Misa: Uh… yeah. So, Swirl is a jerk. Kill her, and as always, review, review, review!