"Just a little light mauling, maybe? C'mon, he did kill a bunch of people, and he tried to blast me to little bits of gore!"

They'd reached Central to talk to Mustang, and Annabeth was still asking to kill their prisoner.

"No." they all said again.

"It's not like he has any real value! Please?!"

"No, Annabeth. The answer has been and will be no." Ling said bluntly.

"I'm gonna keep nagging until I can kill 'im... And Al knows the extent of my nagging powers!"

"Yes, unfortuneately I do. But now isn't the time, Annabeth." he sighed.

"Please please please please?! He deserves it! Can't I just give him a good whacking-around? Pleeeeease!"

"Just ignore her..." he groaned.

"I'll try..." May sighed. He could see that the nagging was already affecting her. Ling and Lan Fan seemed oblivious to it for the time being, but he knew that it wouldn't stay that way.

He was right. By the time they'd reached Mustang's office, Annabeth had resorted to her favorite method of nagging Edward.

This was composed of her clinging to someone's leg and bawling loudly, begging and pleading. Lucky him, she decided to hold onto him.

"Sounds like someone's rapidly replacing his brother." Mustang smirked as they entered.

"That's part of why we're here..." he grunted, heaving his leg forward. "Edward has been kidnapped."

Except for Annabeth's bawling, there was silence.

"Who's she pleading permission to kill?" Mustang asked finally.

"A Drachman. He's an underling of the guy who kidnapped Ed." Ling replied.

"Ling...? Who all is here?" the soldier asked in confusion. Hawkeye and Doctor Marcoh quickly gave him a list of everyone present. "So, what all happened? Tell me everything, don't leave anything out."

Ling and May took over here, explaining while he and Lan Fan kept an eye on the Drachman agent and attempted to pry Annabeth off his leg. However, she had a few years of practice on her side, having had Ed resort to pretty desperate methods to try to get her off.

"I honestly don't see any real reason to keep the man alive." Mustang said at the end of the explanation.

"S-sir!" Hawkeye yelled.

"He has out-lived his usefulness..." Marcoh said slowly.

"So it's settled. Let the angel kill the Drachman agent. I highly doubt that this Shayle character would send someone valuable, so why not? It's not like we can bargain with him." Mustang nodded, crossing his arms.

"Yaaaay! Domo arigatou, Mustang-sama!" Annabeth yelled cheerfully, jumping up and kissing the soldier. Mustang's cheeks burned red as Annabeth dragged the pleading Drachman away.

"Sir, that was unnecessary! We could've gotten further information out of him!" Hawkeye scolded.

"I somehow doubt it. From what Ling and May tell us, Al drilled him pretty good. And that hints that he doesn't know diddly."

"Still... Annabeth could get a little out of control... I'll go keep an eye on her..." he sighed, leaving the room.

It didn't take too long to find her. She was actually on her way back when he found her!

Oh no... She's already killed him, and if that stain is anything to go by, it was pretty messy!

"Annabeth, what did you do?!" he demanded.

"Oh, the stain...? I was shocked too. In all the spy-novels and junk like that, there's very little blood. It goes straight to the brain, and there's practically no blood... I must've done something wrong." she said nonchalantly.

"What did you do?!" he almost yelled.

"Oh, you mean to kill him... I took him into a small place of woods, dug a hole, and then I transmuted a swordy-thingy... You're supposed to stick it right here, near where you get the pulse, only closer to the ear, and it supposedly has minimal mess and instant death... But I must've goofed, because there was this huge spurt of blood." she said.

Then he saw her eyes were blank.

"Annabeth...?"

"I... People always empathized how painful the first kill is... But I guess I never took them seriously. The Homunculi don't count, they weren't human... But now I've taken my first human-life... I... I don't see how Light just killed people without any qualms at all..." she shuddered, tears springing to her eyes.

"L-Light...? Who... What...?" he asked, confused.

"Another anime character. His voice-actor was the same as Ling's, but I don't see any connection other than being anime characters... Light, you see, was a teenager who found a notebook that could kill people. He decided he was going to purify the world, kill every criminal, every person he thought was bad or evil."

"Wouldn't that be most of the world?!" he gasped, almost reeling at the thought.

"That's what some people said. But Light decided to do it. He killed many, many people. And he did it with no qualms at all, like they were cattle raised to be slaughtered..."

"That's disgusting!" he cried.

"Yes... And I always thought that it meant it was easy... But..."

She broke down now, shuddering and sobbing, tears streaming down her face.

He wrapped his arms around her. He couldn't blame her for being upset... He'd been upset enough when he watched people die before him, so why not be this upset about actually killing someone...?

Thanks to Bittersweet Alchemist and elysenjazz for helping me out of my writer's block and giving me ideas for this chapter! I don't own Death Note. If I did, L wouldn't die, and Ryuk would have all the apples he wanted.