46. Let Me Help You % Get Back
"Looks like even the Goddess herself can't save you!" Light exclaimed.
Everyone was still staring at the empty spot only seconds ago occupied by Meilag. The 12th Red had vanished inside the bubble Light had created, the bubble that shrank down until it disappeared completely. The other 12ths were scattered around the deck, having stopped immediately in place after their frenzied attack. The real 12th sat locked in his chair of bones, expressionless, perhaps even asleep. His eyes were open, but an occasional blink was the only sign of life in him. He was looking almost as pale as his white shirt and offwhite khaki shorts.
"I can tell this was not part of L's plan," Light continued. Yuri turned with the others toward him. He retrieved the recorder from inside his jacket pocket. "L would have presumed that my Diary would tell me about the bomb—and that is precisely what happened. I knew Olivia was going to bring you back, and I knew that the red one had a bomb inside of him. I can't believe Olivia honestly thought that was going to work. All she did was throw that man's life away. Maybe she doesn't value you as much as you might think?"
Yuri's immediate thoughts were that what Light said could not be the case. Olivia would never have thrown Meilag's life away. There had to be some purpose in what she had done. Meilag's death had to be a part of her plan, had to be useful for something… Yuri just could not decipher what.
"You're wrong!" Kaede started up. Yuri heard the quivering in his voice before he saw her tears. "You're wrong—about everything! How can you be so calm, after what you just did?"
Light looked at her. "Don't tell me you don't believe in self-defense?" He smirked. "Kira is working to defend you and people like you, Kaede. The best defense is a strong offense… By eliminating all criminals, we will finally a world safe for children. If your father realized that, he would be helping me, not sending his own daughter in to challenge the new god."
Kaede took a couple more steps back from Light. She hunched forward and clenched her fists. "Don't you dare talk about my dad like that!" A fierce glow consumed Kaede, and arcs of purple electricity darted around her body. Four shadow tentacles shot forth from her back and lashed out toward Light.
The tentacles struck a second after they appeared, but that was all the time Light needed. With one swing of his scythe, he sliced through the four tentacles, causing them to fade into smoke.
"Not bad!" Light said, resuming his former posture. "But the original is much better."
Murmur shot forward from behind Yomotsu's chair and landed in front of the 12th Five. She let out a hungry growl and a burst of energy; she divided the deck into two halves with the same type of impenetrable but invisible forcefield as what had formerly guarded the engine. The forcefield cut right behind Murmur and enclosed the perimeter of the rest of the deck, trapping the four remaining 12th Five with her. That left Yuri and Kaede with Light and the shackled Yomotsu.
Yuri was still trying to grasp what had happened. Murmur must have recovered fully, because he imagined that creating a barrier like this had to exhaust a lot of her energy. She looked back at him and Kaede with her big red eyes, and then she turned toward her new prey. Akise unsheathed his katana, Wi-Fi Man let out a puff of flame, Anemone summoned a ball of water in her hand, and Rocco started to flail his nun chucks. Yuri and Kaede would be able to see their fight, but they would not be able to interfere—the same was true the other way around. Right now, he was not sure which side was more evenly matched: four against Murmur, or two against Light. At least Kaede still had Murmur's power; only one of the four 12ths had NEXT powers.
"They should keep Murmur busy for a little while," Light said, suddenly bringing Yuri and Kaede back to their own side of the fight. Light pointed his scythe toward the invisible wall. "That should be just enough time for me to eliminate you."
Kaede and Yuri jumped back and levitated over the deck. Kaede charged up her copy of Murmur's powers, and Yuri in turn summoned forth flames into each of his hands. Light looked at them both and laughed.
"I'm starting to get a little envious," Light said. "Afterall, it's been mankind's dream since antiquity to be able to fly. And what kind of god is limited to walking on foot like mortal men?"
Light closed his eyes and stretched out his arms. Yuri heard several cracking sounds come from Light's body, and he watched with a loudly beating heart as two wings sprouted from Light's shoulder blades. The wings reminded him immediately of the same kind Ryuk the Shinigami had. The wings started beating, and Light rose above Yuri and Kaede.
"Much better, don't you think?" Light cocked his head to the side. The blade of his scythe faced the deck below. He reached out his open left hand toward them. "Are you ready to face your death?"
Yuri rose. The fire in his hands intensified. "Years ago, I felt nothing but death," Yuri said. "Now I feel more than alive enough to put an end to you."
Kaede soared up to him. "Then let me help you," she said, looking Yuri in the eyes. "Not just for my dad, or for the 12th, or for everyone else… I need to prove that just because I want a safer world, doesn't mean I want what Kira is planning on doing."
Yuri looked Kaede in the eyes and nodded. They both then turned to look back at Light, whose left hand was swallowed in a great, yellow glow. They could hardly even look at the hand for more than a couple of seconds, before the intense light began to bother their eyes.
"Not that long ago I realized that there are very few thinking men in this world," Light stated. "If you look upon a crowd—how many of them do you think are really aware of what their actions are, of what influences are controlling them? People are scared to think, so they let others do the thinking for them… I woke up, and I've never looked back since. I've done everything I can to change this wretched world, and I'm not going to let you get in my way! Crime will be destroyed, and evil will cease to exist! I am going to rule as god, and there is nothing your senile 'Goddess' can do about it!"
Light held out his open, glowing left hand. He closed his hand, and as his fingers curled into his palm, the light condensed and intensified. Light wound up his hand and then threw the condensed light toward Light and Kaede—and the ball of light rapidly expanded as it approached them, until finally exploding in a burst in front of their eyes.
Yuri closed his eyes, but it was too late. The intense light burned into his corneas, and even with his eyes closed, all he could see was white light. He cried out and clasped his face.
"Yuri!" Kaede cried out. "Watch out!"
Only, Yuri could not see anything right now. He could not see Light approaching, but he certainly felt it when Light sent him crashing down with a single kick in the back. Yuri heard the whistling of the air as he fell from the sky. He fought to regain his powers, and he did manage to slow his fall. However, that did not stop him from hitting the deck with enough force to nearly have the wind knocked out of himself.
"Petrov-kun!" Akise called out from the other side of the forcefield, as well as from the other side of Yuri's perception.
"Holy crap, dude! You okay?"
"Kaede is managing to hold him off—but it looks like Kira's just playing around!"
"Save your input for later… We have our own malicious software to troubleshoot… Yuri, reboot!"
Yuri blinked several times, and his eyes started to adjust again to the dark sky. Everything was still very blurry, but this was something to work with. Yuri rose to his feet and then, after taking a deep breath, shot back up into the sky.
He saw that Light and Kaede had already descended closer to the deck since Light's first move. Kaede was firing orbs of dark energy at Light, who in turn was dodging and returning with melee attacks. Since both of their powers derived from Murmur's, every contact Kaede had with Light did nothing to affect her powers. What the contact did do, however, was injure the girl.
Yuri suddenly flew in between Kaede and Light and seized both of Light's wrists. Yuri channeled his powers and passed the flames through his own hands and to Light's. Instead of lighting Kira on fire, however, the flames dispersed as soon as they were released.
Light laughed. With the cloudy sky as his backdrop, he shouted, "Yuri! I am god now! Your fire can't hurt me!"
With a quick kick, Light shoved Yuri away and forced Yuri to release his wrists. Light spun his scythe once and then swung it in Yuri's direction, but the blade was blocked by a magic shield put up just in time by Kaede. She hovered in front of Yuri, with her palms stretched out toward Light, and maintained the shield for a few seconds before retaliating by firing from her hands a beam of concentrated dark energy.
Light rapidly spun his scythe, and the scythe's properties allowed him to deflect the energy. Kaede ceased her attack, and Light slowed the spinning of his scythe only to suddenly lunge forward and make another swipe, time at Kaede. Yuri saw this coming and intercepted by pulling Kaede back before the blade could cut her.
"Don't you feel ashamed, fighting a young woman her age?" Yuri taunted. "And you call yourself a 'god'…"
Light withdrew his scythe. "The only god," he corrected. "And I can't make exceptions, much as I'm not interested in killing children. She hardly knows what she's doing. If she was allowed to grow up a little, she would likely have enough life experience to realize that what I'm doing is right for humanity."
"I know exactly what I'm doing!" Kaede exclaimed. "I'm kicking your butt, and no amount of 'growing up' is going to warp my brain into thinking you're doing the right thing!"
Light was about to respond when Kaede turned and began to rapidly descend toward the deck.
"Where are you going?" Light called out.
Instead of responding, she increased the speed of her flight. Yuri looked back at Light and saw that he was beginning to get nervous. Light's wings beat heavily, and then he prepared to glide after her. Yuri grabbed Light's foot and held him back, which roused Light's immediate fury.
Kira swung the scythe, and the blade reached back to where Yuri's hand was. The blade could very well have cut Yuri's hand off, but instead it only scratched the skin on the surface. The scare was enough to cause Yuri to release Light's leg. Yuri clasped his bleeding hand, and Light tried in vain to reach Kaede, who had already landed on deck.
Yuri watched her as he made his slow descent: she was standing next to Yomotsu and was using Murmur's powers to free Yomotsu one shackle at a time. First one hand, then the other… One foot, then the other… And then with a shout, Kaede used Murmur's powers to cause the chair of bones to crumble. Yomotsu fell back, on his butt, and looked absolutely puzzled.
When Light's feet touched the deck, Kaede had already reached her hand out to Yomotsu. Yomotsu seized the hand and rose to his feet. Yuri stopped mid-flight. Yomotsu was looking up at him.
"Yomotsu!"
The voice came out like ambient noise. Somewhere the sound fragmented, distorted, and spread out.
"Kira, what've you done to him?"
Each word came to him with an echo, and the decoding of the question took a long time. There were other words being said, too, but they were all too grainy to be understood. Yomotsu processed what he could, but everything was automatic right now. If it did not come naturally, it would never reach him.
He figured he was breathing and blinking, but he was not aware of anything right now. At best, he could muster up some garbled thinking, so that is how he occupied his time. He lived in his head. Perhaps he had finally achieved some sort of Nirvana, where bodily awareness was zero and he was freed from the mortal world. He was probably drooling while shackled into a bone chair, but some might call what he was experiencing a peace of mind.
Even the disheartening thoughts were passive and calm. The negatives of the situation were so obvious and presumed so thoroughly by now that he even ceased to be bothered. They likely were all going to die, and that was just how things were going to go. He could do nothing about it, and even Yuri could not defeat a demi-god.
So what had Kira done to him? Yomotsu wanted to believe at first that Light had broken him down, physically and emotionally. He wanted to blame Kira for defeating the 12th, for that is essentially what he felt was happening right now—he was Yomotsu, post-12th. Then other thoughts drifted along and crept over the old like a dreary haze. One thing led to another, and now he felt like it really was not Light's fault. Kira had not done anything to him. He was only speeding up the process. The 12th had already been delivered the fatal wound when the mask was hung up and when Yomotsu kept to himself in his room for days on end. What could Kira do that Mercy had not already accomplished?
He felt a vague resistance toward thinking about Mercy, but he did not have the energy to push back anymore. He also did not have enough strength inside to feel sad about the thoughts, or feel much of anything at all. Mercy was not threatening to destroy the world. Kira was evil. Mercy was just the one who killed him. Yomotsu could live with that, if the world did not end. He could live with having been killed by the woman he loved. He felt bad for Yuri, presuming he would also live through this, but he could find a new, better partner.
Yum Yums had been blown up. The place where he had made something of a name for himself—as himself, not as the 12th—was now a pile of rubble. With the way Craig was talking about the business' financial situation, there was no way they would be able to afford rebuilding. Yomotsu would have to find a job, and maybe there he would meet cool people again. He just would have to make sure he did not attach himself again like he did with Mercy. Perhaps that would not be a problem. Maybe she really had killed that part of him, and he would not feel tempted to have that type of intimate relationship again. That would make it easy for him.
The path of justice is lonely—he knew it, yet he defied it. He fell away from the path and sat down in the grass. Outside, Yomotsu perceived some sort of commotion, but he did not manage enough interest to listen. Whatever was happening would have concerned the 12th, but he was only Yomotsu. Yomotsu worked at Yum Yums, but now it was gone. Yomotsu did not really feel anything for a while, but then he felt a whisper of everything.
There was a literal whisper at first. "Yomotsu," she whispered. "My dearest Yomo!" He roused himself to listen.
"Oh, Yomo," the soft, powerful voice called out. "You are so close to knowing. Remember: We help the world mend by being ourselves and following our own paths, not by being someone we're not and trying to follow the easiest path out. Chaos is born when we deny our hearts and the love that is expressed when we find our centers. You are Yomotsu, and you are the 12th. Please, Yomo, do you love me enough to hear me in this moment?"
Yomotsu felt himself replying with direct thought. "Olivia… Of course. Of course I love you. You have been too good to me…"
"Yomo, love is the answer to the question that I know I've been asked but have long since forgotten. I am old, and I am going to get much, much older… Let me tell you a story, then. Old ladies like to tell old stories, right? Here is what you need to know: I overcame myself and prospered. I found love and have learned to cherish the moments I consider dear. I learned and developed ideals that were suitable to my understanding of the universe and the people in it. These values complimented the life I lived. In my last few mortal years, I lived more than most people live in an entire lifetime. I came to understand the nature of myself through pure experience and a dash of hindsight."
"No, the journey has not been without its joys and perils," Olivia continued, "But even if I could have saved myself from the latter, I never would have. Only through the madness of this illusion can we find Enlightenment. What a beautiful word, 'Enlightenment'—! And I ain't even referring to the Age of Enlightenment in human history. Nature and Fate love courage. You know that, right? If you have pure resolve and confidence, all obstacles will clear from your path in time, and you will be rewarded for all of your hard work. Do not be afraid to be yourself…"
"Cherish what you've learned and the experiences you've been blessed with. Don't worry about changing the world. Don't worry about changing another person. We can only change ourselves and live by example. The rest will flow. Let your hope be that others will see clarity in you and will vibrate with your way of thinking. Live with compassion and empathy at your side, and a myriad of possibilities will blossom. This I promise. Thank you for listening."
The words sank in for a moment, and then Yomotsu responded, "Thank you for saying such kind things, Olivia. I wish I could live up to them, but…"
"No buts!" Olivia interrupted his thoughts. "Unless it's your friend's super-cute butt. No other butts allowed—do you hear me? You are supposed to have excellent hearing, Yomotsu, yet if you really have been listening to me all this time—and I mean all this time, not just this one encounter—then you know the faith I have in you. And if the Goddess of Space-Time is on your side, who could stand against you? The answer: only yourself. Not even Light Yagami can defeat you. I want to help you, but you can't win if you are going to refuse to fight. I will never ask you to pretend to be something you are not, but if I give you the tools to win, will you be the hero you truly are?"
Yomotsu was not even thinking clearly. He had no argument against what she was saying, and her words moved her so much that he replied, "Yes, I will do whatever you need me to do."
Without warning, Yomotsu's perception was flooded by light. This was the same phenomena he experienced when he visited Olivia with Mercy for the first time, only this time he was not in the kitchen of her house, and this time he was not experiencing all of the other negative sensory inputs. There was only this intense light.
"I have chosen you," Olivia promised. Suddenly her voice was loud and reverberated through his mind. "I have set you apart to receive a portion of my power. Just as Light received his power from Murmur, you shall receive power from me. I will loan this power for only as long as needed, and then you will return to your normal state. Let yourself be changed by it, nonetheless! Change is only bad if something of value is being lost or being replaced by something of lesser value. Let yourself be changed by my blessing, for this will not be the only blessing, even if this particular blessing will only occur once and will be especially rapturous. Hold on to the experience while it lasts, and then hold onto the memories—but remember, all of this is to awaken your true self! Don't lose sight of yourself… Don't lose sight of justice, even while you temporarily have sight."
Yomotsu hardly had time to process the implication of her last word, when suddenly he saw, in the whiteness, the blurry outline of an angelic woman reaching her hand toward him. The woman was wearing a long, golden silk skirt and gold brassiere. She had untamed, silver hair and a mole on her forehead. She was a young woman, the first woman Yomotsu had ever seen—and he was immediately struck by her beauty.
"Olivia?" Yomotsu cried out. "Olivia? Is that…"
"Look out for your friends." The woman's lips were moving. It had to be Olivia. "They need you, and you need to rise to the occasion. I am equipping you with everything you need to defeat Light, but you must trust me, and you must trust yourself. Yomo, I chose you, so I know you can do this."
Yomotsu's attention flashed again to her outstretched hand. He hesitantly reached out for it, and as soon as his hand touched Olivia's, the light faded, and he was transported into the dismal reality of the Castle's deck. He still was holding a hand that had been offered to him, but now staring back at him was a young female with brown hair.
"Who…?" He mumbled. He noticed blurry figures approaching behind her.
"I'm Kaede," the girl explained. Yomotsu watched her lips moved as the sound was produced. He looked back up to her eyes. "Yomotsu… You've got to—"
Kaede was struck by the shaft of a scythe. Yomotsu looked up at where Kaede had been, and he saw a smug-faced man approaching.
"I was hoping you would be able to live through Graceville's entire purging, but it looks like I will have to eliminate you now…"
That was Light's voice! That was Light! Yomotsu rose to his feet.
"Get back," Yomotsu ordered. He cracked his knuckles. "Brace yourself, because you're about to feel some serious justice in a few moments."