Mrs. Lawliet: Tsk, tsk, you most certainly should have a talk with that husband of yours. Ahh, Samsam's got some skills ever since the final stage was reached~ Yep, it is possible that he took over, though. .u.
Guest: In a way, Near has done something considered bad, so kinda. Then L has killed off children and Mello has kidnapped and not to mention Light has killed countless criminals. It makes one wonder who the good guy really is; hmm...
Ahh, yes, I suppose we'll see how it goes with BB. You're right, eventually his killing spree will have to be cut off, won't it? It's justice, after all.
Matt or even Mello, now, huh? Hmm, so many possibilities.
Great name? EndingsAndBeginnings; huh... I honestly just came up with that randomly because I didn't know what to name myself. xD
Amy: Mello and a Death Note...yikes.
Uh-oh.
Hmm, so many theories on who Max could be. I cannot confirm or deny anything. As usual.
Ahh, first of all I would like to apologize for not responding to...responses. PM's; you know. I've been rather busy... I will get around to answering everyone - I promise - but for now I'll just answer reviews. So there's that...
Also, you're probably wondering why I'm updating on a Tuesday. Well, it's because I can. (I'm going to busy tomorrow, so I'd probably forget otherwise. ^^;) The good news is, it's going to be a double update this week because not only has this story reached 150 reviews, but It Is What It Is has reached 300!
...I seriously love you guys.
So, a weird Tuesday update today, and a second update on Thursday! Hooray for abnormalities! :D
Now. Anyway. Enjoy, dear readers of mine~
Sam and I chatted for awhile after, all the way up to the point where Anna got home. I got some food ready to cook, and told the both of them what they should do when they got hungry. I made sure it was a simple dinner, just in case. With this, I headed over to Light's again to work out with him B's next move. He'd be killing again tonight, that much we knew. We even knew where it would be: Ikebukuro. It is said that there are three possible origins to that district's name, for it literally meant 'pond bag.' One of these possible origins was that, long ago, a turtle came out of a pond with a bag on its back, thus the turtle figurine with the bag placed on its shell. Now, if only we could tell who the next victim was…. There had to be a victim pattern. Who would be killed tonight…?
Saki Ijiri lay sedated on the ground of the alley. Daughter of an important family and spoiled rotten; a perfect choice for tonight's kill. Alright, first off with the hands, yes? She didn't need them anymore anyway. B cut one off, Sophia cut the other. Blood sputtered from the stubs. They expected this, though, and knew to move out of the way. Next were the feet to sever. Beyond took off her designer boots, tossing them behind him carelessly. They noticed Saki had her fingernails and toenails painted a pretty gold. Her lips were a lavish red. She was beautiful, sure, but also a little brat, ignorant of the pain around her and strutting through life with a cocky and arrogant air. But then, ignorance is bliss, isn't it? Her dark brown hair was thick and silky, her eyes a deep brown. But B and Sophia saw people for who they really were, and to be honest, if they had cared, they wouldn't have liked her very much.
Poor, poor, Saki Ijiri.
Next to go was the head; that would certainly end it all. Her life would end… now, as the large knife sliced through her flesh, severing veins and arteries and muscles and tendons; slipping between two pieces of the spine and rupturing a spinal disc before making its way out to the end. Her body seized up then went limp as blood sprayed up, up, up, spattering the wall in a pattern that shot upwards, reminiscent of a beautiful fountain. Her head rolled away, mouth open, her eyes now wide and pupil-less. B walked over to the detached cranium and lifted it.
"You aren't so pretty now, are you?" Beyond whispered into her ear, then tied a blindfold around her unseeing eyes. Sophia started gathering up the hands and feet. He went over to help her, and in the shadow of night, when no one was looking, they placed the body parts in their respective places. They left the body in the alley to be found the next day. Their kill for the night was done; it was time for them to go back to their hideout. Beyond was hungry. There was nothing like a celebratory snack of strawberry jam to follow a successful murder. Thank you, L, for your little treat.
It took a bit longer to reach their destination from Ikebukuro, but it's not like they couldn't handle it. Under the light of the waxing moon, they slipped into their current abode to rest. Beyond walked straight for the strawberry jam, but hesitated. His hand lingered near the jar. It had taken awhile to get here… he wasn't hungry anymore. His hand dropped to his side. Sophia grabbed it, staring at it. It really was a shame that he wasn't hungry… it would have been such a nice treat. Maybe he'd eat it anyway…. No. Not now.
Sophia made her way over to the small food area and grabbed a small spoon. It was one of the few differences between her and Beyond: she didn't like having her hands sticky. She sat beside B on a little stool and watched as he turned on the computer. She opened the jar and set the lid on the table with a little sigh. Yes, B would have liked strawberry jam…. Maybe he'd have just a mouthful. A little later.
Sophia, meanwhile, dug in. She liked strawberry jam too, after all, and if Beyond wouldn't enjoy it, she would. And even though B wasn't eating it, he could still taste its sweet strawberry goodness in his mouth. He didn't necessarily enjoy it – he didn't really enjoy anything, save for beating L – but it was nice. So Beyond did his research for his next murder (which would take place next Tuesday) as Sophia sat beside him, eating jam silently. She ate slowly after the first few bites, just in case B might want some, but eventually it was decided he probably wouldn't have any. At some point the jar was emptied, and the two of them sat in silence.
Another hour passed of research, though B's head was starting to annoy him. Sophia, too, seemed to be getting a small headache. She rubbed her eyes. Perhaps she would go to bed. Yes, and Beyond would be right behind her. He'd sleep soon after her, and go to his own respective bed. Sophia slid off the stool and shuffled to her resting place, quite ready to go to sleep. Her bed was the one closest to the door; Beyond's was the one farthest. She snuggled up under the dull-colored sheets, grasping at her faded red blanket. She gripped her little piece of who she almost was, but wasn't, tightly, and closed her eyes. She eased herself into slumber rather quickly.
Beyond stayed up around thirty minutes more before closing the laptop and heading to his own resting place. Maybe some rest would get rid of that annoying headache…. It was odd; he never got headaches. Oh well; tonight was an exception, he supposed. Soon his eyes, too, were closed as he rested almost peacefully, dreaming only of darkness…. His thoughts meshed with hers, and her mind created fleeting images and colors. It wasn't quite dreaming, but it wasn't the dark, dreamless sleep that Beyond used to have, either. They sank deeper into slumber, the colors sweeping past their sleeping eyes. Time passed. The colors and images seemed to grow frantic. Fluttery, almost. But the colors would continue to play and appear and disappear, almost comforting. And then….
…All was black.
The images; the colors; they were shut off. Just… suddenly gone, like the flip of a switch. A candle being blown out. And in this darkness Beyond immediately awoke, as if he'd been jolted awake. His heart was thudding in his chest like it was fighting to keep him alive, to keep him in existence. It was almost as though he'd just gone through the In-Between and died again. But the worst thing was the horrid emptiness he felt, ready to swallow him whole.
He threw off the bed sheets and flicked on the light switch of the lamp between him and Sophia to confirm what he already knew. His heart continued to thud against his ribcage. He grabbed at Sophia's shoulder; turned her around so he could see her face. There were no numbers above her head; the name Sophia Ellis had disappeared. No, no, that couldn't be. Not a single one of her lifespans was set for today, and… and…. No, his eyes couldn't have betrayed him. Not only that, but the Bond had lied. He should have died too.
He felt for her pulse. There wasn't anything. What went wrong? Her hands were still holding onto that blanket of hers. Her hands; her dead hands. She was still warm, but he knew how death worked. She'd be cold before long. The warmth of life would slowly seep away, leaving behind only an empty shell. An empty shell….
Half of him was gone. He couldn't ease this horrible feeling. He couldn't get her back this time, death had stolen half of him away, which didn't make sense because Beyond was death. It didn't make sense; no, none of this made sense! He felt his soul trying to grasp at something that wasn't there. His being was torn. Torn in half. And he couldn't sew it back together.
B had known emptiness. Death, surrounding him everywhere, had taken away the feeling of wholeness, leaving him with nothing. He was used to emptiness. But now? A Bond so strong, suddenly cut off just like that? It was worse than any kind of emptiness than he'd ever known, which of course, like everything else, didn't make sense because B was the epitome of emptiness. He'd been empty as long as he could remember. But no, no, not like this….
He fell to his knees. The hollowness was tearing at his chest, pounding in his head. He was at the brink of nothing, at the brink of everything. This was what it was to be truly empty. He could barely stand it. How could he keep on…? How could he…? He screwed his eyes shut, curling forward. It would ease off, wouldn't it? He was dead. He was alive. He was restless, but he couldn't move. He clenched his teeth. Ripped off his shirt on auto-pilot. Clutched at his chest, clawed at it, creating long lines of crimson. Stop it. How could he—? He wasn't even a full person anymore, he couldn't— But—
L.
Taking shallow breaths, Beyond stared at nothing, his hands near the sides of his head. L. He still had L to beat. B's hands dropped to his sides. He still had L to beat. That's what he had to do. What did this matter in the long run anyhow? He'd learned early in life that death came to everyone he knew. That's why he never grew close to anyone. Sophia was the exception because of the Bond. He just didn't expect her death. Not this time. Especially with him still alive after. He took a deep breath. He'd beat L. He'd do that, and he'd be done. That's all he had to do. He could stand this, and if it truly didn't ease, he had enough will to keep going if it meant defeating L.
Filled with a sense of dull calm, he still felt hollow and restless. Dizzy, too. He stood up without expression. What was emptiness to him anyway? He'd lived with it all his life, hadn't he? So what if it just got turned up a notch? Beyond was no ordinary human after all. He was the human reaper, the mortal shinigami. Something like this could be stood easily. He'll admit that for awhile he wouldn't quite be himself, but that was fine. He'd get the job done, and that's all he needed.
L gazed at the new information on his screen, deep in thought. Saki Ijiri, daughter of the well-known Ijiri family. So far, the police force had only found her body in an alley, in the district of Ikebukuro. One of her hands, too, had been found by a civilian looking into a tree while walking down the sidewalk. One hand, two feet, and a head were still missing.
L released a small sigh. What could he be trying to say here? He supposed he'd only be able to tell once the missing body parts were found…. Sam opened the door, entered, and closed it gently behind her. L took the lollipop stick out of his mouth and stood, heading over to the garbage to throw it out. He didn't need to greet her, and she didn't need to announce her presence. L sat down – yes, actually sat, with one knee up – and Sam merely sat down beside him.
Sam eyed his hand, but soon disregarded the urge to grasp it and looked to the screen again. L smiled ever so slightly and reached out to grip her hand. She shifted slightly, but of course accepted the gesture.
Well, of course the first thing they had to figure out was what Saki represented. He bit the thumbnail of the hand that wasn't grasping Sam's. Saki Ijiri, a girl who didn't know the meaning of value…. Frivolousness? Maybe. Or perhaps it had to do with how she was given everything without needing to work for it. Indulgence, perhaps? No… that word didn't quite fit….
There was a beep as his computer alerted them that Aizawa was trying to contact him. L pressed the connection button and spoke into the microphone. "Yes, Chief Aizawa?"
"Er," Aizawa said, "we found the victim's head, L."
"Good, please send Watari an image." With this blunt response, he disconnected. After a few minutes of waiting, the image came through. Saki had been blindfolded. Yes, that must have been the clue. The clue to what she represented…. Unseeing… Blind…. Unable to see what was in front of her. Ignorance? It fit her. Yes, ignorance must have been it. So the pattern was sickness, obsession, Pandora's box, hatred, and ignorance? What came next? In fact… was there a next? Surely there must be. The Bonded pair was left in silence as they puzzled over what could be next in this pattern….
"Okay," Matt informed his friend, "if you go mad with power or some stupid shit like that, I'm going to whack some sense into you, okay?"
Mello frowned at him. "I'm not going to 'go mad with power or some stupid shit like that.'"
Sierra giggled, and Ryuk snickered. "I dunno, that notebook affects every human differently," the shinigami remarked.
"Just don't let the power go to your head," Matt shrugged. "Then you're good."
"I won't let that happen either!" he snapped.
Matt chuckled. "Good," he said, then grabbed an apple from the basket.
The shinigami made a noise of surprise. "Hey!"
Matt looked up at the death god with a mouthful of apple. "Eh, I don't like it much anyway. You still want it?" He held it up to him.
"How could you not want it?" Ryuk asked blankly.
"Because I don't. I guess you do, though," he responded, quirking an eyebrow.
"Yeah, but you took a bite of it already." Ryuk sounded disappointed.
Matt shrugged and set the red fruit on the table. Poor apple. "For a shinigami, you aren't very threatening." He turned to my niece. "So Sierra," said Matt, "how long have you had the notebook, exactly?"
"Uh… I remember it was in April when I got it," she offered.
"Okay, before or after Mello got out of jail?"
"After."
"How long after?"
"Um… maybe… a week?"
"So we'll say the twenty-first, the twenty-second, or the twenty-third of April you got this thing," Matt said with a nod.
"Er, yeah… maybe." She eyed Ryuk, who had snatched the bitten apple off the table anyway.
"My question is why you didn't tell us," Mello muttered.
"Because I was working as Kira!" Sierra snapped. "And with you guys against Kira, I didn't think it would be a good idea to tell you!"
"Well, she has a point there," Matt shrugged.
"Still," said Mello, still sounding irritated, "why were you acting as Kira in the first place?"
She grew quiet, her gaze lowering to the ground. "…I wanted to kill people like Tony."
Mello paused in bringing his chocolate up to his mouth, then lowered it. Matt eyed her through the goggles. "Well, that makes sense." Matt chuckled. "I guess you're lucky, though. Some people don't have specific people that made their lives crappy. Sometimes they don't know who caused it, sometimes they don't remember," – he eyed Mello at that – "and sometimes it's no one's fault." He shrugged.
"Yeah… I guess so…," Sierra agreed.
"In any case," said Mello, "we've got a plan to get together."
"Right," said Matt, while Sierra just nodded.
"We'll make the kidnapping next Wednesday," he said. "It's Friday now, so we have five days before we carry this out. Before then, we'll use the surveillance cameras we were using on Misa for Natalie so we know when to strike. I'll stalk her if I have to."
Sierra shifted uncomfortably. "Uh, one, that's kinda creepy…."
"I could stalk her instead," Matt offered, then looked to Mello. "You got to stalk the cute girl last time," he added, cocking an eyebrow.
She furrowed her brow. "Um, that's still creepy. But oh well…."
Matt snickered.
"Two, we're kidnapping my aunt… why?"
"We're kidnapping her because she's connected to Kira. Not just connected, actually, she's working as Kira," Mello informed her. "Plus, she's got the mind sync with the main Kira, which may be useful as long as we don't give too much away to her."
"Wait, she's gonna know our location even if we blindfold her. She's lived in this place before, hasn't she?" Matt pointed out. "And if she knows where she is, then so does Light, and therefore the police."
"Yes," Mello agreed. "That's why she isn't going to be staying in one of the actual rooms. We'll be keeping her in the basement instead."
"The basement?" Sierra asked. "Isn't that… kinda mean?"
"Where else will we keep her?" Mello shot back. "Besides, it's not like we'll starve her or anything; she's still going to get all the necessities. I'm not heartless."
"I know," she responded in a soft voice.
"Okay, but the next question is how we're getting her here," said Matt. "We can't just steal her away in broad daylight. Of course, I could always be the distraction again, but I have a feeling that's not what you're going for this time."
Mello shook his head. "Natalie's not all high and mighty like Takada was. She doesn't have bodyguards or tons of people watching her. This is going to be one of those low-profile kidnappings. It'll happen while she's walking home, or just going out that day. If an opportunity doesn't come up on Wednesday, then we'll do it the next day, or the day after that. I'd prefer it to happen faster, though. We'll try to get it done on Wednesday…. If necessary, Matt, you can shoot off a smoke bomb to cause confusion."
"Cool," Matt responded. "Got it."
"Now before we do anything… we still have to get some rope. We can use cloth as a blindfold if we have to, so we're good on that."
"Do we get to use the chloroform for this one?" Matt asked, traces of excitement in his tone.
"What? We have that?" Sierra asked confusedly.
Matt scoffed. "Of course we have that. What, do you think I only keep electronics in all of my bags?"
"Uh…," she responded. "…Yeah."
He snickered. "Nope. Those bags are also where I keep all my smoke bombs, my ammunition, and of course you can't forget the chloroform."
"…Huh."
"Well, anyway," said Mello, getting to his feet, "I need to go find some rope lying around somewhere. It's not going to be in this place…." He looked to Matt. "And Matt, yes, we might use the chloroform if she struggles. But you've gotta remember she's a trained police officer now."
"Of course," Matt responded.
"Also, while I'm out, you can work on getting this place's security working."
"Roger," he saluted.
Sierra raised her hand. "Can I come with you?" she asked the blond.
"Sure," he replied. "Just make sure you keep up and don't get sidetracked."
"'Kay!" she yipped, and followed behind him as he headed out of the old investigation headquarters.
Alright, so who who saw it coming that Sophia would be the one to die?
I've gotta say I really loved writing that death scene, though...
Fun Fact: Rereading this now, I can only think of Durarara when I see that that took place in Ikebukuro. At the time of writing this, I didn't know the anime, and...there's actually a girl named Saki in that anime.
Oops.
Review? For kidnapping!