AN: By the way, Rae Wong is the anglicised version of the Chinese name Wang (family name) Rui (given name): 王 (Wah-ng) 瑞 (Rue-ey). Wang is a very common Chinese surname, while her given name, Rui, means 'lucky/auspicious/suspicious' which kinda made me laugh because, what are the chances of a person actually slipping into a parallel dimension? Almost zero, lololol, but she somehow accomplished it because plot. The anglicised version of her name, 'Rae' means 'advisor/protector', which I thought was pretty apt.

I don't think L is out-and-out evil, but he's very guarded and I think he has very strong intuition. I'll leave it to you to decide whether intuition is the process of one's mind subconsciously piecing clues, or whether it's something more... supernatural. Rae isn't a good liar, so she's not even going to try.

Honestly, I need tips on how to show, not tell in my writing.

Chapter 4: Taken

?

They had to have been lying in wait at her job. One moment her mind had been full of drink recipes, then in a flash she'd been gagged, blindfolded and her arms restrained behind her back. She couldn't recall any more.

When Rae came to, she found herself sitting in an uncomfortable chair in a small, cold room with a single bulb overhead, facing a blank screen. "Where… where am I?" she asked aloud. If L had been the one behind her kidnapping, there were probably electronic bugs and cameras somewhere.

A crackling sound emitted from the screen in front of her, before it is joined by a voice that had been electronically disguised. "Rae Wong. Race: Chinese. Age: Twenty-six. Lack of proficiency in Japanese, demonstrates proficiency in English. Current occupation: trainee bartender. You, however, appear to have no records that prove your existence."

"Mr. Investigator, you have my full cooperation. Please ask what you may."

"On December 27, you were caught on CCTV behaving oddly in front of one we were investigating. He was later found dead at 4.42pm, face down on the train platform. Would you please describe what you were doing?"

"I was avoiding him, Ryuzaki," she said, deliberately alerting him to her knowledge of the ongoing Kira investigation. She had decided that she would be completely open to him. He was already wont to suspect everyone and everything by nature, and any dishonesty he sensed, harmless or not, would not endear her to him. He tensed. "You're probably wondering why and how much I know, and I fully intend to tell you. That is, if you can suspend belief and not, you know, torture me for speaking my truth."

She decided being candid, diplomatic and respectful was the way to go. She recounted how she had been searching for the tourist apartment she had booked online but found only an empty junkyard. She had decided to go to a hotel for the night and was at Shibuya crossing where she watched as he challenged Kira.

"How did you know my true alias?" he cut in coolly. He was on guard now.

"I know more than your alias. I also know your true name. I know how you look like. I know that you are a very lanky and pale young man with dark rings under your thousand-yard stare. And yet, I haven't tried to kill you. I'm not Kira." He was on full guard now. He had anticipated her being Kira's pawn and had not held up too much hope. But she was dangerous. How would he deal with her?

"I'm not dangerous. I could, in fact, be somewhat of an asset in your fight against Kira, if you'll let me. Like I said, I have every intention of giving you my full cooperation. I tried to avoid Raye Penber precisely because I didn't want to be involved with Kira. In fact, I didn't want to be involved in this as well. Power, ego, law – I have no interest in any of those lofty concepts. I simply wished to make my way in this world."

He narrowed his eyes. She sure spoke a lot. No one could be that transparent. For now, he'd watch and wait.

"Explain."

"In my world, Kira does not exist. Neither do you, L. Or at least, not in reality."

"What is my name?"

"L Law-"

He cut her off. "You say many incredible things," he mused. This was not something he could afford to take lightly. What she said was so easy to dismiss, and yet her words rang unmistakably with truth, resounding in his gut. Background checks had yielded nothing on her, and he frowned, hating to be at a disadvantage.

"I look forward to meeting with you again."

?

She was blindfolded and injected with something. She registered the painful prick of a needle before everything faded to black. Is that needle sterile, she thought, dimly.

She found herself sitting in a plush armchair in an opulent setting. One of her wrists were handcuffed to a huge dining table with a large glittering chandelier overhead. What was this, Buckingham Palace? She snorted derisively to herself. The décor was nice, but not to her taste. I wonder if chandeliers could be repurposed as crowns for common folk – wait! That's not the important thing here. Where was she? Shuffling footsteps drew her flagging attention. It must be the drugs. I can't concentrate. Mm, drugs. I wonder how they extract opium from poppies. No wait, that's not important. Did they sterilize the needle?

"We give our suspects the royal treatment," said a deep, monotone voice dryly. …So, did he sterilize the needle or not?

"I'm sorry, I feel a little… ungrounded. I… can't quite focus," she apologized. Huh, was that her voice? She did not mumble. "L," she tried to greet him with a nod, but triggered another dizzy spell. It was unpleasant.

"You've said many fantastical things to me. You even pronounce my last name correctly," he began, almost conversationally.

"You're my favorite," she grinned. Of course I try to know more about you. Wait, was that the proper tense? I tried? I'd try? She was tired. Why was she so tired?

"You claim to be from a different world where I, nor Kira, existed. That seems to contradict the fact that you know this much about me."

"You exist in young adult fiction," she mumbled. "Though Kira was the proga… proto- pro-"

"Protagonist?" he injected, dryly.

"Yes, that!" she exclaimed, more excited than she had any cause to be. "What's wrong with me? It's getting' harrer to pro..pro… say worsss…"

"Drug effects," he stated shortly, not wanting the interrogation to be derailed. The effects of the drug were useful for extracting the truth from interrogation candidates as they were rendered virtually incapable of making up lies. She had to be telling the truth. But now, he needed her lucid.

"I can.. info.. useful," she was visibly struggling against its effects. "Shi-shinigami…"

She was telling the truth, but it appeared that the drug had lost its usefulness. He had her confined in the room next to his, intending to revisit her later. Light Yagami, he knew, was the one who needed to be watched.

?

The next meeting with L only happened at least a couple months later. In the meantime, she had been locked in what appeared to be a hotel room. Meals were delivered regularly thrice a day, but there was nothing to do. She communicated with Watari through a walkie talkie, which briefly amused her for its secret-agent-like connotations, until she got bored of it. That confinement period almost drove her insane, and she spent most of the time doing crunches, jumping jacks and sit-ups. Thankfully there was an adjoining shower room, so she was able to keep clean. She wondered what her colleagues thought about her absence. Did they think she'd cut and run? Where were the rest of her belongings? She at least had her clothes and toiletries back, but she was missing her passport, wallet, smartphone and ipad. She wondered how they had retrieved her things. Did they walk right into the manga-kissa or did they break in? In any case, she would not put it past Ryuzaki to have cameras and bugs everywhere in the room she was currently in, so she showered in the dark. Sometimes, she wondered if she was really in a mental hospital, and that she had hallucinated being in the world of Death Note, but then she'd slap herself silly (sometimes literally). She had to believe in herself. Be strong, her mother had always told her.

She was keeping herself busy counting the number of tiles in the bathroom when Watari finally came in to blindfold and retrieve her. Blindfolded, she was guided to a suite of rooms, where she was allowed to see again. He left her alone after telling her that Ryuzaki wanted to address her personally and could be found in one of the rooms.

Padding through the plushily-carpeted rooms, she finally found him in an armchair, slowing her footsteps as he appeared to stifle a groan, immediately following that with a creepy, deranged grin over his shoulder at her. As she made her way to his armchair, he stood up, still hunched, and offered his left hand to her to shake. "I fear we got off on the wrong foot, Ms. Wong. Pleased to make your acquaintance," he said, in a manner that could be described as… greasy, his thousand-yard stare boring into hers.

"Likewise," she said politely, obligingly shaking his proffered left hand. He grinned creepily again and then wiped his right hand, almost chuckling awkwardly.

She blinked at him quizzically until she placed the scene – it resembled one of the Rewrite anime movies where he meets Light in a movie theatre. Madhouse seemed to have been giving the impression that he was, um, busy with himself, and some netizens theorized that he had been pretending in order to sell the 'social deviant' image. It was said that he tried too hard to make it obvious, and she had to agree. L would not have put himself in such a vulnerable position with a stranger, even if he had the clear physical advantage.

He must've caught the relieved shift in her gaze, for his own narrowed for a split second before he grinned again and continued, "I believe we had a rather amusing discussion last time, though your coherency left much to be desired." His first strategy to creep her out had failed, so he'd switched tack. That knowledge did not make it any easier on her nerves, for now his hackles were up. The madlad sure loved his psychological games.

"You know, you make goosepimples rise on the back of my neck," she laughs, a little shakily. "In any case, I believe I apologized for my lapse back then. As the world's top detective, and I'm sure you have more important things to accomplish with your time. With all due respect, I am willing to tell you whatever you wish to know." Did she lay it on too thick? Making him mad was something to be avoided at all costs.

"You mentioned Shinigami," L stated, getting right to it.

Obligingly, she told him what she knew about Shinigami in the DN universe – how they seemed to have some sort of hierarchy but that it didn't seem to have much significance to some Shinigami; that most were selfish and spent the time gambling and idling until they needed to use the remaining lifespan of humans to extend their own through the use of a notebook of death, but that she knew of three exceptions, two of whom had the desire to protect and self-sacrifice for one specific individual, and one who was an amoral troublemaker and had started the entire Kira fiasco in the first place, seeking entertainment from the human world. His expression was bland and vacant, but she was sure he had committed every word to memory. His eyes sharpened upon hearing about the Death Notes and she explained that to him, too, though she admitted she didn't remember all of the rules.

"In any case," she hastened to add, "that troublemaking shinigami wrote the rules he knew behind the cover of the book that Kira owns. I'm not even sure that they were exhaustive. You already know that a name and face are needed to kill. But destroying the Note comes with no consequence, and there is no rule that specifies the need to keep killing. Users write names in the book at their own discretion."

He did not reply, letting the silence stretch between them. Perhaps it was supposed to be an intimidation tactic, or maybe he was taking the time to assimilate this new information into his worldview. Whatever the case, she took the opportunity to observe her favorite character. His raven hair reminded her of a hedgehog's back. He was even more slender than he'd appeared in fiction, his features sharper and a study in contrast, but the overall effect was somehow pleasing. He didn't have a bad-looking silhouette at all, and though worn-looking, his clothes were definitely clean. His dark eye circles were really fascinating, though. In fiction they looked kind of like thick eyeliner, but seeing him as he was now in the flesh, they stood out against his almost paper-white skin and made his eyes appear to take up half his face.

Death Note boasted an intricate, multilayered plotline, which spawned countless fan theories and interpretations of L's methods and motivations, among other elements of the story, but one thing was certain: L was not someone to be taken at face value despite how cute he appeared in the anime. That reminded her, which plotline were they following here? The manga, anime, or movies? The scene where he greeted her came from one of the alternate canon movies, so what if reality was actually a mix of all-

"Would you tell me more about yourself?" L asked rather civilly, turning over her smartphone. It was out of battery. He gazed at its black, reflective screen. He would try for neutral civility with her.

"I told you," she mumbled. "I don't know how I got here but this isn't my world. My world is very like this world, but we don't have mysterious star detectives like yourself, nor such rampant crime rates. And I was from the year 2020, where technology has significantly advanced." Mournfully, she gazed at her smartphone, one of her only links to her world. "My smartphone is out of battery."

"Yes, I thought you might say that," he murmured, though she wasn't sure what he was agreeing with. "Perhaps you could tell me what you have done since your… arrival here, as you claim."

She started to explain, but reliving the stress and loneliness and desperation of her experiences made her start sniffling. Before long her sniffles graduated to loud, uncontrollable sobs and she covered her eyes with the palms of her hands, mortified that she had lost her composure. Did she mention she was stressed?

"I-" *hic* "I d-do… ap-ap *sniff* apolo- *sniff* gise," she muttered, in between jags of crying. Taking deep breaths, she focused on regaining her calm bearing. She had no idea what kind of reaction Ryuzaki had. Neither was she concerned. "I do apologise. I have been under immense pressure and stress ever since I arrived."

He hummed, changing the subject. "Watari will show you to your room."