43. Heaven % Hell

Somewhere there was a house where a child was meeting his new baby sister.

Somewhere a teacher was smiling at the student who just figured out the answer to the problem on his own.

Somewhere a woman was looking through photographs that were at least fifty years old.

Somewhere a glass of wine was being poured into two glasses, and a toast was made.

Somewhere there was a kiss.

Somewhere there was snow.

Somewhere there was a piano recital.

Somewhere there was a puppy's wet nose.

Somewhere there was a driver's license.

Somewhere he bent on one knee.

Somewhere the view was spectacular.

Somewhere she made it to the meeting on time.

Somewhere everything suddenly clicked.

Somewhere a person was smelling an old book.

Somewhere the last mile was being run.

Somewhere someone could see a rainbow, but here the blind Yomotsu Hirasaka heard the crackle in the skies. The castle churned as it moved above the still land below. Beneath him, he heard the collective moaning of soldiers hungry to fulfill their master's wishes. He heard the bodies drop in heaps, and down below, shots were fired from two handguns.

Out there was a heaven, a world perfectly in the moment. Past this occluded sky were people going about their everyday lives, forging new memories as they revisited the old. Everyone out in that somewhere was unaware that Kira was threatening to take over and create a new world.

Under the premise of eliminating evil, the power-hungry Kira would build a new world out of fear. Perhaps all of the happy memories Yomotsu could imagine would still exist in this new world, but right now everything was still at stake. Perhaps if Light won it would only be another shift in the power struggle that has always enveloped humanity, or perhaps this was something altogether different.

What Yomotsu knew for certain was that no utopia could be made by Kira. Yomotsu wanted to believe that at the very start, when Light first got the Death Note, his intentions were good—obviously misguided, but still good. Now there was no doubt that he had become corrupt, and as his power grew, the risk of further corruption was all too real. Even if all of the evil was removed from the world by Kira, Kira himself would take upon his soul all of that great negative energy and would himself become more a tyrant as the years went by. People would slowly realize that Kira never was a god at all, only a man who wanted to win.

Yomotsu remembered when he used to think that the solution was simply to destroy evil everywhere. What was revealed to him in time, strengthened by his first encounters with Olivia, was that doing evil to destroy evil could never be a true path of justice. That meant the solution would be complicated by necessity, to the point at which at times it would seem impossible to many for good to triumph. A people who no longer believe that good can triumph are willing to settle for the base annihilation of evil—but evil destroyed but not overcome by righteousness is nothing except a vacuum, eventually to which more evil will be drawn.

This was becoming a truly apocalyptic scene, and it marveled Yomotsu that Light was accepting all of this dark imagery. At one point, maybe Light was trying to be the good guy. Now he was summoning undead to subdue his opposition, while he beckoned a flying castle toward Graceville. There was no possibility that Light was unaware of how sinister this all was.

Yomotsu's head was heavy, so it fell. His chin rested on his chest, and the roar of the castle's engine increased the pounding in his head. More gunshots were fired down below—Murmur said his friends were down there. They were being assailed by those terrible undead, and it was all beyond imagining.

Somewhere Olivia was watching it all.

Somewhere Yuri was fighting to save him.

Somewhere The League was risking their lives.

Somewhere there was Mercy.

Somewhere Craig was thinking about paperwork.

Somewhere Masayoshi Hirasaka was not behind bars.

Somewhere below, no more gunshots could be heard.

If heaven was to be denied, if justice was not to be served—then what was the point of living at all? Yomotsu was starting to drift away when the back of a hand suddenly slammed into the side of his head.

"Yomotsu, don't you think you should be awake right now? Our visitors are almost here, and this is the last time you will be seeing them…"

Yomotsu opened his eyes. He kept his head down. He could hear Light take a few steps, so that he now stood behind Yomotsu's chair of bones.

"They're coming here to save you," Light said.

Yomotsu felt Light's hands suddenly on his shoulders.

"If they were doing this for the good of the world, they would be coming here to help me… Their defiance shows their true colors."

Light's fingers moved to the base of Yomotsu's throat.

"What's so special about you, I wonder…"

The fingers snuck up and began tighten around Yomotsu's neck. Out of reflex, Yomotsu's hands tried to reach up toward his neck, but the shackles on his wrists prevented him from doing anything. He wriggled his head up.

"The whole town fell head over heels for you…"

Yomotsu felt his face flush red as Light continued to pull squeeze Yomotsu's neck violently. He heard Light's voice suddenly in his ear.

"You even had Mercy running to you…"

Light released Yomotsu, and not just his neck. The shackles on Yomotsu's wrists and feet suddenly opened up, and Yomotsu went tumbling forward. He was on his knees, still breathing desperately, when Light strolled up to him.

"Yomotsu Hirasaka—the 'Hiro of Rai Chestnuts'— the 12th. Everybody loves a hero."

A blunt impact against the back of Yomotsu's head caused his face to smack onto the stone deck. He felt Light's foot on his back.

"You like it, don't you? Playing the hero? Dressing up in a costume and impressing everyone? Does it give you the purpose you never got, because your dear old daddy never loved you and left you to die?"

Light's foot lifted from Yomotsu's back, only to seconds later start kicking hard at Yomotsu's side. The point of the show jabbed at the same spot, causing Yomotsu to writhe and try to roll away.

Then Yomotsu felt his body start to lift—but he was not being picked up by any body part in particular. His whole body was being raised by some sort of levitation. He felt himself being lifted off the stone deck and finally suspended into the air some distance above. When Light spoke, his voice was still nearby enough to convince Yomotsu he could not be more than 8 feet in the air.

"Well? Aren't you going to answer me?"

Yomotsu felt himself move again, but this time he was traveling neither up nor down. He was violently shaken back and forward, left and right, only in short increments. His limbs flailed around and his head moved abruptly with each strong tug.

"Do you like being a hero, Yomotsu? Do you like where it's landed you now?"

Light stopped tossing Yomotsu around.

"What happened to you, Light…?" Yomotsu asked. "You already are sure you've won… Isn't that good enough?"

A few seconds passed, and Light neither made a reply nor did anything to Yomotsu. Then Yomotsu suddenly found himself being dragged down to the deck again. He landed on right arm and at first was on his side after crashing, until he fell onto his back a second later.

He screamed when the pain shot up and through his arm. He clasped his arm with his free hand and turned his head frantically toward where he predicted Light was standing. A hand came from the opposite direction and clasped over his mouth.

"Now there'll be no heroes—there won't need to be anymore! I've fixed the problem! You're no longer necessary, not for this town, not for Mercy—not for anyone! You'll disappear once this is all over! Even the history books won't remember you, except as one of the unnamed few who tried to stop the perfection of the world…"

Yomotsu grabbed the Light's wrist and jerked the hand away from his mouth just long enough so he could bite down on the hand. Yomotsu clamped his teeth down as hard as he could on Light's hand, causing Light to shout and begin kicking Yomotsu again, until Yomotsu finally released the hand.

Light took a few steps back, nursing his hand back to health with his own powers. Yomotsu spat out the blood.

"You can't win," Yomotsu muttered, then repeating louder, "You can't win."

Light growled and then suddenly seized Yomotsu's collar. He hoisted him up with his left hand and used the right hand to punch him in the face. His right hooks were vicious reminders of the past. Yomotsu's brain was not able to register the pain after the first five strong hits. After that, all he felt were dull waves of force exerted on his face. His face and body became separate from his consciousness, and his consciousness then receded into darkness.

The plan had a 5% chance of success.

Everything hinged on a suspicion Akise had shared with L. The young detective's suggestion was that Kira now had Yomotsu's Future Diary. It was a worst nightmare scenario—Kira's new powers, plus that Diary, were in some respects more dangerous than even the Death Note. While the Notebook could kill immediately and anonymously, Light was only a mortal while he used it. Now he was something altogether different.

If Kira had the Diary, then Akise proposed that their only means of victory was to somehow defy the Diary. They would have to somehow cloud Light's window to the future. Although Yuri had worked with Yomotsu for quite a while, when Akise had originally asked him for how the device worked, Yuri had little to say. Even Yomotsu was still figuring it out. However, one interesting piece of information Akise retained was that the Diary often focused on one target, the one immediately present.

The plan began with a diversion. The 12th Five would do whatever was necessary to distract Light, while Yuri and Kaede would enter the castle and bring the whole mechanism down. Akise was able to piece together information from his first encounter with Yuri and Yomotsu and figure out that the small little flying creature on the deck of the castle was definitely Murmur. He communicated these ideas to L, and L began to strategize even as he pulled strings to get JusTV to air their live feed of the castle's approach.

L and Akise reached the conclusion that Murmur had to be controlling this castle in some way. If Yuri and Kaede could sneak in and take her down, in theory the castle would return to obeying the natural laws of the world. Their success even with this part of the plan depended on whether Light could keep the castle in the air even without Murmur, but they could only speculate on the limits to his power. Supposing the castle would sink, Yuri and Kaede would emerge and challenge Kira head-on. This would serve as the second distraction, so the 12th Five could make it to the deck and take Kira out for good.

"Guys, I dunno if I can do this. I get that they're already dead, but I still don't know if I can kill somebody!" Rocco, the 12th Pink, quivered before the horde of undead dropping up ahead. "I guess you can say I have a pure heart."

Meilag laughed. "I'm glad I don't suffer from that handicap." He drew a pistol from a hilt on each side of his Transformation Belt and rushed into the fray, even as the bodies continued to hit the floor.

Anemone slid forward on a stream of water. The arid outskirts of Graceville trickled forth water at her will. As the 12th Green, she went ahead with a sudden and renewed determination.

Yuri's eyes trailed her. He was possessed by the sudden reality that all of them were risking their lives for the world and, more personally, for the 12th. This was not the first time Anemone had been their protector, but this was the boldest he had ever seen her. For months she had been hiding, watching over them and jumping in whenever challenges seemed to difficult. Yet, Yuri realized suddenly, he had hardly taken the time to register her existence.

All he had been seeing were Yomotsu and Mercy, along with the reflections in the mirror of himself and his father. And the woman he loved.

But Anemone was here now, and where was Mercy?

Anemone stopped and called back the water trail behind her. The woman was strong, in the peak of her shape. She had been training for a moment like this, honing both her power and her body for the day where she would fight to fulfill her mother's wishes. Anemone called upon the water to converge into a pillar, which she summoned underneath a cluster of undead. The rush of water catapaulted them into the air, severing limbs and even heads. Anemone then divided the stream once, then twice, until she controlled four currents of water slicing through the air, crashing with tremendous power and speed through the undead who had just landed.

Yuri turned his head and saw the 12th Red blowing the heads of any of the creatures who got too close. The twin shooter was hissing with delight as the spoiled blood sprayed through the air. The scent of decay fed the earth around him.

He remembered talking with Meilag as they were driving here.

"We're driving into hell on earth," Yuri had remarked.

Meilag, whose big eyeball mask was pushing up against the roof of the car, "Satan would be better off releasing me, anyway. I'll be dragged kicking and screaming into the abyss."

"You sound eager." Yuri sighed. "I thought you were afraid to die."

"Ah, you've hit the mark," Meilag conceded. "You, like so many others I've encountered, clearly have no interest in immortality. I, on the other hand, do. I would choose immortality in this life or in any other world if the opportunity presented itself. Even being stuck in hell for a while would be better to me than nothing. I would prefer heaven, but of course, that would depend on what this heaven would be like… Floating on clouds and playing the harp isn't my cup of tea. Whatever hell Kira has in store for us does not frighten me. I don't need any external hell in order to relive the worst experiences of my life."

Kaede sat in the back, not so much as saying a single word the entire drive there.

"I still can't imagine we will all make it out of this alive," Yuri muttered.

Meilag tried to shake his head, but he had little room to do so. "Kira will do everything in his power to kill us. I can't blame him. That is exactly what I would do. However, as I am on the other side, I do admit that the idea of death is very real and very alarming… But if I survive and Kira is not defeated, what future is left for someone like me? He will eventually weed me out. I am too much of a threat. I will never submit to an authority other than my own. Even death is not as frightening as a future of submission. That being said, I do wish I had a couple of clone bodies in cold storage. At least then the world would not be quite rid of me yet! However, if I had them ready and then actually did survive, I would have to go and kill them all after this is all through…"

Yuri watched Meilag shoot down multiple undead with a couple of quick shots. The bullets pierced through multiple bodies. The bodies were soft, but their numbers kept growing as more and more undead continued to fall from the castle above.

Rocco was flailing around in the midst of an encroaching mob of zombies. He was kicking around in the air and swinging the pair of nun chucks lent to him along with the suit. This was the same Rocco who had only occasionally spoken with them at work. The most direct interaction they had ever had with him was when Yomotsu and Mercy invaded the Goblin Castle. Now the real Rocco, as the 12th Pink instead of Blak Ztringgg, was invading Kira's Castle.

Wi-Fi Man had a tank strapped to his back, connected to which was the weapon in his hand. He released jets of flames sporadically at clusters of undead. His flame thrower would only last for a while, but it was causing mayhem for his enemies. He shouted threats and taunts as "burned their defeat onto their memory chips" and annihilated all of their "outdated hardware."

The remaining 12th, whose blue eye was unblinking and unwavering in the face of death, was the detective Akise Aru. He was easily the most mysterious of the five, and he was the one with whom Yuri and Yomotsu had had the least contact. Akise's motivations, though, did not need much explaining. He was an important member of The League, and with his reasoning skills, he was L's representative for the mission.

Akise looked both threatening and comical as a katana-wielding 12th. He sliced through the strongest undead with ease, littering the floor with the severed limbs left in his wake.

A twin shooter, a water-commanding NEXT, a big dude with nun chucks, a nerd with a flame-thrower, and the detective swordsman—they had to keep the undead busy while Yuri and Kaede slipped through and took down a god's (dis)loyal servant.

"Ready, Kaede?" Yuri asked, turning his head toward the girl.

She nodded. "Let's save the 12th. And the world."

Yuri nodded. He thought about the hopelessness of the situation, and he silently prayed in his mind that at least Kaede would survive all of this. Yuri turned and began running toward the castle.

And suddenly everything around him was white. He immediately halted. The battlefield, the undead, the 12th five, the floating castle—everything was gone. All around him was a blinding whiteness, with no discernable differentiation any which way he looked.

"After all the lives you've touched, and the smiles you created, are you doomed to die alone?"

A soothing, female voice echoed throughout the white expanse. Yuri could not tell where it came from, or even whether she speaking inside or outside of his mind.

"Will my memory outshine my person, or will you notice my shadow on the walls?"

Yuri turned around, and he saw a silhouette walking standing nearby. The solid gray, flat image was clearly the outline of Olivia Walkins. The shadow waved, and then it flashed. In a moment, it was gone, and in another moment, five shadows were there in its place—five shadows with big, circle heads.

"Variables and tangents haunt my dreams, cloud my thoughts, and make it hard to move… This is what happens when an unmovable object meets an unstoppable force. This is where logic and reason have no place besides as components to a contingency plan for when the paradigm shifts too far away from comfort. This is life, and every day it seems to get a little crazier… I know this to be true, yet still I move…"

As the voice continued, it began to become clearer, less like an echo and more like a reality. Toward the end, it began to acquire a solid sense of direction. Yuri turned and looked at its source.

Yuri's feet were on white "ground," but this woman was clearly floating. Her bare feet were hovering, one slightly higher than the other. She had one knee bent forward slightly, which parted slightly the long, golden silk skirt. In turn, this revealed the smooth youth of her legs. Around her waist was a diamond-studded white belt, with a golden crown buckle.

A golden brassiere was all the woman wore above the belt, although her arms were decorated with many thin bracelets.

Her face showed a tremendous ferocity. She had high cheekbones and bright gray eyes. Her hair was medium-length and wild. Her silver hair moved as though by the force of strong winds. The long bangs reached toward her thin eyebrows, occasionally parting to reveal the dot on her forehead that was radiating light.

"Olivia Walkins…"

Yuri could hardly even pronounce the words.

Olivia smiled. "Yuri, it's good to see you again."

She held out her hand, and Yuri hesitated before closing the distance between them. He took her hand and began to feel the nervousness and tension within his muscles and nerves melt away.

"I can only have you here with me a short time," Olivia said. Her voice had a subtle serenity and intense power. "Your friends need you back soon. Our dear Yomo needs you more than ever before."

Yuri nodded. "Kira is trying to overthrow you… Is it true that Murmur is helping giving him these powers?"

"It is true," Olivia said. She closed her eyes and smiled. "I removed the bonds on Murmur's wrists, thereby giving her free will. If I had not removed them, she would have been forced to obey me. I am to blame for what is happening in our world below."

"I can't blame you for this," Yuri refused. "This is all Light and Murmur's doing. We will stop him… We'll do that for you, for Yomotsu, and for everyone… But how can we make everything right in the end?"

She opened her eyes again and looked at Yuri for a while. "Trust me."

Yuri looked back at her for a while, and then he made a slight nod. "I always have."

Olivia turned her head toward a vision that appeared in the whiteness: a world in which streets were abandoned, in which men worked in silence and children kept to themselves in school. Everyone looked as though they might jump five feet in the air at the lightest surprise. A giant castle loomed on the horizon, and in the distance, an immense cloud of smoke rose. So much smoke could only be caused by a massive fire, the likes of which could destroy a whole town.

"I will make all things right in time," Olivia continued. "But for now… Follow L's plan. I wish I could promise you no heartache and no death, but that is not a promise I can ever make for the lives of mortal men."

Yuri nodded. He released Olivia's hand and then bowed on one knee. He lowered his head in obedience. "Thank you, Goddess."

He heard Olivia chuckle, and he looked up. She looked delightful.

"Very charming," Olivia said. "Too bad it would never work between us. Despite how I might look, I am still an old woman, and I will only get older as thousands of years pass… and now that I am the lord of space-time, it would make for a long commute… But you are certainly quite the catch!"

Yuri laughed and lowered his head again. His voice was quivering with joy when he said, "Thank you, Olivia… Thank you."

He looked up again, and the 12th Five were mowing through undead. He turned his head, and Kaede was looking down at him.

"Why are you on your knee like that?" She asked. "Now is not that the time to propose to me! I mean, I like you and all, but you're not the 12th—I mean, uh, I mean—you're not my type! That's all!"

Yuri hurriedly rose. "Sorry about that," he quickly muttered. "I just… Was having a moment. But I am fine now. Let's go."

Yuri ran ahead, and once he made sure Kaede was following him, he did not turn back.

"Good luck, Petrov-kun, Kaede-chan!" Akise called after them, as they approached.

"For justice!" He heard Rocco shout on the way.

"I'll see you after you crash their system!" Wi-Fi Man promised.

"Wipe the floor with that no-good imp!" Anemone cheered.

Yuri ran past all of the others, who gave them a supportive last remark. That is what it felt like too—Yuri felt their fear. Perhaps it was still the effect of Olivia's presence, but he suddenly the reality of their sense of doom was upon him. None of them believed they would ever see him again.

Yuri watched the 12th Red blast away another undead and then turn to him. They were almost past Meilag when Yuri heard him finally speak.

"I never tell people 'goodbye,'" Meilag said over the roar of the battle, "Unless I figure I'll never see them again."

Yuri looked toward him and nodded.

"That's right!" Kaede chimed in right after. "Red's right! We're going to see each other again once we beat Murmur, and then all we have to do is stop Kira once and for all!"

Yuri grabbed hold of Kaede's hand and took flight. He had to trust Olivia, that justice would run its course. Kira could never win in the end. Neither the world nor its goddess could stomach this hell on earth.