Hi. Another chapter here for Death Wish. In this chapter, Sayaka and Light meet officially for the first time, which I thought was pretty fun to write. And I find writing Light's point of view to be interesting. I know I don't do it perfectly, especially since it's difficult to capture the essence of such a complex character. But I'm going to try my best to keep him true to the Light we all love to hate, as well as add a little bit of my own twist to his personality. It should be a challenge, but a fun one at that. And L... who knows what I'm going to do when I get to him! THAT will be a tough bridge to cross, lol... but we'll see how it goes!

Anyway, thank you for your support and I hope you enjoy the chapter!

Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note.

Fatal Success

The bus hijacker was dead. One minute he had been threatening to kill them all, and the next minute he was going insane, running from a seemingly non-existent phantom and jumping off the bus into the path of an oncoming vehicle. The driver stomped on the brakes and tried to swerve, but it was too late. Sayaka couldn't believe it, even as she saw him bleeding out on the ground in front of the bus. The car that hit him was now stopped, the person inside jumping out in a panic.

"Don't look," she said to Yori, trembling herself from the sight but afraid that her friend might not be able to handle it. "Someone better call an ambulance," she then called to the other passengers, trying to sound as even as possible. While the bus passengers shuffled around and she saw couple people pulling out cell phones, she slipped past Yori in her seat.

"Hey—Sayaka—"

"Stay there a minute," Sayaka commanded, heading up to the front of the bus where the man in the coat stood, frozen at the sight of the dead man. His eyes were wide, horrified, and for a second she worried he might scream. He was much taller than her, and she peered up at him from the side and asked, "Sir, are you okay?"

He tensed when he heard her address him, and then hesitantly he pulled his eyes away from the hijacker. His voice was a little hoarse and uncertain, but he managed to reply, "I—yes, I'm fine." Looking at him closely, she wasn't so sure he was all right at all. But she supposed, even if he was with law enforcement that seeing something like this happen so suddenly would be enough to render him in temporary shock.

She didn't wait for him to say anything else before brushing past him to get off the bus. In the distance she heard sirens, which meant that someone must have called for help and an ambulance was on the way. The person who'd hit their hijacker with his car was already trying to stop the blood, doing CPR, anything that might revive him.

"Oh, God," the man whimpered while kneeling down next to him. "Oh, God, I killed a man."

Sayaka had a difficult time approaching due to the horror of witnessing the hijacker's bleeding body, but she did her best to stay composed for the sake of the poor guy breaking down in front of her. "No, no, please," he sobbed, even as Sayaka tried to put herself between him and the body.

"Hey—" she said, cringing as she noticed the unevenness in her own voice. She put her hand on his arm carefully, in an effort to console him. "Hey, listen… there's nothing you can do now, okay?"

He shook his head, blubbering out pleas and apologies to God, some that she couldn't even understand in his garbled up Japanese, while he continued in vain to try to save the hijacker. She watched as his hands became covered with blood that wasn't his, and thought for a moment that she might be sick. And for the first time as a result of the fear and intensity of the bus ride, she noticed that she had seen the hijacker before. In fact, she'd seen his face on the news just recently. The guy was a dangerous criminal with a bounty on his head: Kiichiro Osoreda.

Before Sayaka had time to get too involved in her own thoughts, the bus driver and another passenger approached—she heard one of them still talking on the phone with the emergency operator.

"Sir, please," Sayaka tried again. "He's gone. And we need to be out of the way in a minute so that the police can do their jobs. Come on…" He didn't look at her, but he reluctantly let her pull him up by the arms, and she led him back over to where his car was. He was still crying, and tears were running down his cheeks, while his fingers had Osoreda's blood on them. Turning to a couple of the passengers who'd been brave enough to get off the bus, she asked, "Does anyone have any tissues?"

Luckily, the older woman from earlier came forward with her purse in hand, husband close behind. While the woman handed the man a tissue so he could start wiping off some of the blood, Sayaka squeezed his shoulder gently. "I'm sorry—really…" he murmured, more coherently than before as his tears began to dry up. "Oh, I'm such a mess."

"It was an accident," Sayaka said, knowing that there was nothing else she could say. Only to assure him that it wasn't his fault, that he couldn't have foreseen this happening. None of them could have.

"Make sure not to touch your face with your hands till after you've washed them," Sayaka said quietly, dropping her arm. Then, regarding the older folks who were kind enough to share their tissues, she asked, "Can you guys watch over him for a few minutes until help gets here?"

They both complied, and she turned away. What she needed was a moment to breathe and she wasn't going to get it by staring at the scene of the accident or the blood on that man's hands. And to think there was a time when she wanted to go into law enforcement, herself. She guessed witnessing moments like this got at least somewhat easier with time—after all, this was only the second dead body she'd ever seen.

Feeling light-headed from all the adrenaline and suddenly a little bit sick to her stomach, Sayaka moved over to the bus and leaned against the side in case she stumbled. It was just a few seconds later when she heard a voice behind her. Good Lord, she just needed a minute alone.

"Miss, are you feeling all right?"

She turned back around, in the direction of all the chaos, but instead focused her attention on the person speaking to her. She was surprised to see that it was the boy on the bus who'd dropped that piece of paper earlier. Hands in his pockets, he regarded her with mild concern, but otherwise looked unfazed by the incident.

Rubbing her forehead with a sigh, Sayaka told him, "Yeah, I just—I saw all that and felt a little woozy."

"Well, I suppose anyone would after that," he said.

"I'm more worried about him," Sayaka replied, nodding in the direction of the man whose car hit Osoreda. "He's—probably gotta spend the rest of his life wondering whether or not this was his fault."

The boy shook his head lightly. "Sometimes freak accidents happen. Although I guess we should all be grateful that the passengers are safe." A few seconds of silence fell between them. Then, his eyes lit up a little. "Hey—don't I know you from somewhere?"

When he said that, Sayaka had the vague notion that she'd met this man somewhere before, but she couldn't seem to remember where. Because of her job, she saw so many different people on a given day that she usually couldn't distinguish one from the next unless they came in regularly. Not to mention her mind was muddled after the events of the last half hour.

But it only took the boy a moment. "Wait—oh, you're the girl from that café! You were my waitress a few weeks ago."

At first Sayaka nearly let out a huff since the boy pretty much proved her point, but all of the sudden it came back, and she recognized his face from the café. He was the handsome high school student who'd given her the heebie-jeebies a while back. Interesting that they'd been caught up in the same bus jacking together.

"Oh, yeah…" Sayaka finally replied. "I remember you coming in. Sorry I didn't recognize you right away—sometimes it's easy to forget faces when you're a waitress."

"No, I completely understand," he said with a smile. "I didn't recognize you immediately either. It must be—your hair is different, right?"

Sayaka inadvertently found herself smiling that he noticed her hair and she reached up to brush her side bangs out of her eyes. "Um—yeah, it is. I just got it done today, actually."

"Really?" he said. "Well, it's nice. I like it. Oh—uh, my name is Light Yagami, by the way. Your name is—wait, don't remind me—Sayaka? Was that it? Or—well, you aren't at work today, so maybe you have something else you'd rather be called."

She shook her head, not really caring what he called her. She wasn't really a fan of having people use her surname, anyway. "No, Sayaka is just fine. It's nice to meet you, Yagami-san."

"The pleasure's mine," he said, flashing another smile that she thought didn't look entirely genuine. "Although, in that case I guess you'll just have to call me Light."

"Fair enough."

An ambulance and other police cars began filing in, blocking traffic so that no one else could get through or cause further disturbance, and the passengers who had not already come out began stepping off the bus, some avoiding looking at the horrific sight out front. The girl Light was sitting with on the bus today came over, latching onto his arm. "Light? Are you okay?"

The looked down at her and nodded reassuringly. "Yeah, of course. Are you?"

She nodded as well, and then looked over at Sayaka with curiosity. Light noticed this and, seeming to remember himself, said, "Oh—Yuri, this is Sayaka. I just—came over to check on her because she wasn't feeling well after the incident. I know her because she was a waitress at a café I visited a while ago. And—Sayaka, this my date, Yuri."

"Nice to meet you," Yuri said softly, still looking frightened and shaken.

Sayaka smiled a little. "Likewise."

"Sayaka! Sayaka!" Finally, Yori appeared and maneuvered around Light and Yuri to join her. "Sayaka, I was worried when you ran off the bus like that."

"Sorry," she replied. "I wanted to get out here to see if there was anything I could do, but… well, then, I felt a little light-headed after everything that happened. Are you okay? Did you see what happened up front?"

Yori swallowed and nodded. "Yeah, I—I probably shoulda listened to you when you said not to look—but when I walked past…" She shuddered. "Oh, God…"

Sayaka reached over and patted her back affectionately, but didn't say anything. She knew nothing would have been appropriate, since even though all of the passengers were safe now, not everyone made it out alive.

And so short while later, Osoreda was being moved into a body bag and police officers were requesting statements from the bus driver and the passengers. It didn't take that long, but the whole process left Sayaka exhausted and in a foul mood for various reasons. She personally didn't get harassed much with questions, but they did elicit a few details from Yori's side of the story. And the poor girl was so shaken and visibly upset that Sayaka stepped in to finish answering their questions so they would leave her alone. Not to mention she felt terribly sorry for the man who hit Osoreda with his car, who was still crying even as he spoke to the police.

She also couldn't help noticing that sometime between the point she got off the bus and the point the police showed up, the man in coat disappeared entirely. Was he trying to avoid them…? In that case, maybe he wasn't with law enforcement after all.

Letting out a sigh after they were given the okay to depart, Sayaka murmured to Yori, "Why don't we just skip Space Land for today, huh? After all this is over, you and I can go back to my apartment and have hot chocolate there, instead, okay?"

As Yori quietly voiced her agreement, Light, who was still present, turned to his date. "Oh, right—Space Land. I forgot all about that in all the turmoil. Looks like that plan got rained on, huh, Yuri?"

The young girl sighed. "Well—if you want—we could still go later."

Light appeared surprised. "Really? You still want to go?"

"Sounds like the girl just spoke her peace," Sayaka said, a tiny smirk playing on her lips as she glanced between the two.

"Well," he said, reaching up to ruffle the back of his hair, "I guess we still have time if you really feel you're up for it."

Yuri nodded. "Yeah. It'll be fun. Plus, I do want to finish our date."

"Make yourselves dizzy on a few rides," Sayaka laughed. "That'll make you feel better. And Light, maybe you could win Yuri a cute stuffed animal. I hear sometimes they have ones half our size!" She spread her arms out in an exaggerated gesture, which even made Yori chuckle.

"Apparently those are hard to get though," Yori said quietly.

Sayaka lifted her right shoulder an inch and then dropped it again. "Light seems like a talented guy. He could do it."

"He is so talented," Yuri said, seeming eager for the chance to brag about her date.

But Sayaka was too focused on Light, who, despite her previous doubts about him was way too fun to tease. His reactions were so awkward, as if he simply wasn't sure how to deal with all these girls laughing at him at once. And they were the most genuine-looking expressions she had managed to pull from him thus far.

Then Light sighed, granting Yuri a quick smile. "Well, I'll try. No promises, though. It's been a crazy enough day, already."

Pulling her purse farther up on her shoulder, Yuri replied, "It's okay, I understand. I was just playing with you, you know. Anyway—we should probably get out of this place. I really—don't want to be here anymore."

Sayaka folded her arms across her chest as she glanced back over at group of police cars, all huddled up at the scene. As images of the man's body flashed in her mind, she turned her head away and murmured, "I completely agree with that statement."

After that, she and Yori parted ways with Light Yagami and his date, and while she tried to keep Yori occupied with some idle conversation, her own mind was somewhere else. She thought back to the hijacking and subsequently the death of Osoreda. Now that it was all over, certain events ran together in her mind and she found it difficult to keep them separated. She remembered Osoreda boarding the bus at the 11:31 stop, and how he threatened to kill them all unless he got the money he demanded from Space Land. She remembered how he caught Light dropping a piece of paper, and immediately after he saw an image in the back of the bus that frightened him enough to drive him off the bus into the path of his own demise. Osoreda lay dead, and the man in the coat, who she knew had a gun, fled the scene before the police ever arrived.

Something about all these events didn't add up properly in her head. Whatever Osoreda saw, she was certain it would be written off as either insanity or a drug-induced apparition. She also didn't doubt Osoreda's sinister intentions toward the passengers, or the car driver's horror at having killed him. But somehow it all seemed too convenient—as if the universe set this all up just perfectly for its own entertainment.

And then the one loose end that simply didn't belong: the man in the coat.

Light was surprised that Yuri still wanted to go to Space Land after the bus jacking. He remembered how she trembled in his arms while they were on the bus, after Kiichiro Osoreda started firing off shots at Ryuk, and how quiet she'd been for several minutes after. But at the same time, he'd always pegged her as the resilient type.

They decided to walk the rest of the way, since it wasn't far from the accident—and of course Yuri wanted to get away from there as soon as possible. Not that he blamed her. The difference between the two of them was, Light was already accustomed to death. He lived and breathed it daily (however ironic it sounded).

To his annoyance, Ryuk wouldn't shut up the entire rest of the way to Space Land. And worse, with Yuri around there was nothing he could do about it.

"That was a really impressive thing you did back there," Ryuk said, a lift in his tone that made Light clench his jaw in irritation. "I never would have guessed you'd go that far. I have to say, I'm really starting to like the way you think. It's refreshing. You have no idea just how boring my life has been up until meeting you. I have to say it was pretty rude that that guy started shooting at me, even though it wasn't like it hurt or anything."

Light rolled his eyes, trying his very best to block out the Shinigami's rambling as they entered the park. He turned to Yuri, allowing her to make the decision. "So, what would you like to do first?"

The girl stopped a moment to consider. "You know, I think I really want to see if they have any hot chocolate. Those girls we met earlier made me start thinking about it and now I'm craving a hot drink."

Light agreed, and the two of them, along with Ryuk, walked around searching for hot drinks, Light's mind wandered back in the direction of the girl with them on the bus.

Sayaka.

Dark, shoulder length hair, chocolatey eyes, she probably no taller than 5'3''—and she had a playful smile on her face while teasing him today. And yet he got the sense that she kept a calculated distance between them during the entire time they spoke. She was guarded and closed off, and not just from him. She treated the girl she was with in a similar manner. It was strange—and still oddly alluring. He watched her study him like a science experiment, as if she were looking for something threatening or dangerous. Perhaps it was only the fear of the accident causing her to be hyper-aware. And then again, maybe she had more going on in that pretty head of hers than she let on.

Ryuk continued to babble on behind him while he was lost in thought, and more than once Yuri stopped to ask if he was okay. At that point, Light started to think maybe it was a better idea to let today's events go for a while and focus on his date before she started to worry unnecessarily. He hated to have her think he was disinterested, even though the reality was, he couldn't have cared less about the date anymore. Osoreda was dead and he now knew the name of the FBI agent tailing him. Raye Penber.

It's too bad that you just weren't quite smart enough. So little effort it had taken to manipulate Penber into showing him his I.D. Now it was only a matter of time before he'd be able to get rid of him, along with all the other FBI agents who had come to Japan, looking for Kira. There was no way any of those fools were cunning enough to outwit him. Except, perhaps, L. But as of yet, that remained to be seen. If everything went smoothly, Light and L would collide some way or another soon enough. And then it would be a test—a test of who had the most powerful mind. Of course, Light knew he wouldn't lose, but he'd be damned if he didn't follow his ideals through until the very end, no matter the cost. He would never surrender to his enemy, as long as he still breathed.

A few minutes later Light and Yuri came upon a stand where vendors were selling hot chocolate, and he was forced to return from inside his thoughts once again. And like the good gentleman he was, he bought a cup for each of them. He blew on his absently before taking a sip, letting the hot, sweet liquid rush down his throat.

Meanwhile, Ryuk said, "Wow, that looks pretty tasty. Hey, Light, do you think they have any apples around hereEOOOW—"

While no one was looking, Light thrust his heel downward onto the top of Ryuk's foot and shot him a dark look. Stop talking, you idiot.

Ryuk recoiled from the pain and lifted his foot up in the air, holding it in his claws. "What the heck was that for?" he snapped, even though Light had already turned back toward Yori to talk about how tasty their drinks were, as if nothing happened. "Oh, I get it. You want me to shut up and stop talking to you while you're on your date. Well, I can take a hint. I bet you thought that stunt you just pulled was pretty funny. Haha. Well, you aren't going to hear another peep out of me. And the next time you need me for somethin', forget it."

Light sighed inwardly from exasperation. Yeah, okay, Ryuk.

"I'll just stand here and not say another word," Ryuk continued. "Not even one peep. You'll regret it later and wish you hadn't been so mean to me. Guaranteed. And I'll just be quiet like I am right now, because you decided to go and be a jerk about it instead asking me nicely in the first place. So that's it. Not another word outta me. Not even if you offer me a whole bushel of apples."

Well, not another word turned into quite a few more words in fact, but Light realized quickly that whatever he said or did wouldn't make a difference. So he simply continued with his best attempt to ignore Ryuk as the day went on. He and Yuri finished up their drinks, and after that she dragged him onto a few rides that made him feel sick to his stomach, and eventually he ended up winning a plush penguin for her in a game.

And even he had to admit, as they left after a few hours of play, she did look ridiculously cute as she hugged the life out of it. The problem was, she was cute, but otherwise served little purpose in his master plan and her personality was intolerably boring. "This was really fun, Light," she said sweetly, earning a slight ear from him. "We should do it again sometime. And—preferably not almost get killed, of course."

He nodded and smiled, trying his best to feign interest. After all, he never knew when he might need to use her again. "Yeah, I agree."

They took the bus home together since it was too long a walk from Space Land. He knew they had no reason to fear now, but he noticed that Yuri was a bit jumpy and tensed every time a new passenger got on the bus. He supposed it was only natural for her to be nervous—but he was too exhausted from the day's events to even bother trying to reassure her. He wanted to sleep, but he still had homework to do and names to write in the Death Note. Another long evening was ahead of him.

Even so, after he finally said goodbye at her door and rid himself of the girl for the day, he found himself smiling—because in truth, he could not possibly have been more satisfied with his great success.