CHAPTER SIXTEEN
"Death Times Two"
Light had no desire to donate anything to Nazareth's private sick collection.
When he was dead, a long time from now—when his Brand New World was fully established—he had instructions for his family to donate his brain to medical science and his organs for transplant for those in need. It would be a truly selfless act from Emperor Kira.
Nazareth came at him swiftly with the knife. He sliced through the air with a speed Light didn't think was possible for the big man, and Light just managed to jump back, then pivot out of the way from the enforcer's next quick series of attacks.
Light's baton was of little help. With the skill Nazareth was exhibiting, every time they clashed—the knife bit further into it, and Light knew eventually the baton would break. The baton was made from a strong aluminium, but the knife was stainless steel.
But he had to thank his father for those defensive lessons when he was younger and the police foundations that gave him weapons training to defend himself in this situation now.
With a quick thrust, just as he had predicted, his baton was cut in half when he attempted to block another attack from Nazareth, and Light avoided being cut by inches. Light took several steps back to gain some distance and to formulate his next move, his options limited. He was out weighted and now weaponless against Nazareth, and without his real name, the piece of the Death Note in his watch was useless.
I won't go down fighting here, there must be something I can do.
And then he saw out of the corner of his eye, a thin metal pole that was holding up a growing tree close-by. He bolted towards it, snatched it from its twist-tie holdings and pulled it out from the ground. The total length of it was approximately fourteen feet long.
It would do nicely.
He twirled it around himself in the style of a bo staff almost on instinct, and then brought it to bare. And he had to thank Demetre for this bit of martial arts training. Demetre was or had been a practising martial arts in his youth. In fact, whatever Demetre did, he did very well. His once best friend had taught him a few technics that his police foundations courses did not.
Nazareth laughed. "Do you really think you can use something like that against me?"
"I'm willing to try," Light said determinately.
But the moment Light attempted to use it against Nazareth, the villain very easily cut the pole in two with his knife. The pole, thin aluminum, was even weaker than his baton, and of course, it was not meant for combat.
But Light didn't give up. He discarded one half and then tried to defend himself with the remainder. Nazareth then cut this portion in half, as well.
"Stop playing these silly games, Yagami," Nazareth said, with some annoyance. "And just die like a real man. Your attempts at bravado are just sad."
Perhaps, Light thought. But when I was battling L, I never gave up the fight, and when then things looked their worse, I forged on, and won!
He twirled the pole pieces in hand, they were light, and he could do so with ease.
They had now become escrima sticks, weapons that were designed specially to combat knives and other smaller swords in close combat, and they gave the user more freedom to defend against an attack—technical weapons taken from Filipino martial arts.
But his police foundations defensive trainer said the mind was a person's best weapon, and weapons were but tools. How a person reacted in battle was more important than the tools they wielded.
During Light's training, his trainer discovered that Light worked well with small weapons. And with work, escrima sticks came natural to Light, and they were easily wielded, because of Light's thin frame. He had good reflexes. And his trainer agreed Light should carry on him an expandable baton, as it worked for him as a secondary weapon. He was glad he took his trainer's advise. The baton had done its job, but now he had to relay on his other sets. He knew he was smarter than Nazareth, so he needed to out fox this bear.
Nazareth came at Light again, knife in attack position, but now the brute had turned the knife upside down, and he sliced through the air with a series of quicker strikes. Nazareth knew how to fight. But Light easily avoided the brute this time, and batted away the knife with his escrima sticks on its flat size whenever the weapon came to bare, basically blocking Nazareth's attacks without coming in direct contact with the blade's sharp edge. This rendered the knife moot.
Light pivoted to one side and used his new position to swat Nazareth hard across the backside with an escrima stick. Nazareth let out a sharp yelp.
"Come and get me," Light taunted, wiggling one finger. He was now in control.
Enraged, Nazareth charged in with a blinding rage. And this was exactly what Light wanted. Light drew him in, but circled around him, just avoiding Nazareth's reach. It wasn't meant to tire the brute out, Nazareth probably had energy to spare, but it was Light's way to gauge the man's defensive posture, and expose a weakness.
Light ducked a knife blow, but then Nazareth did something Light didn't expect, and stuck out a leg—in the hopes of a trip up. Light pivoted to avoid the leg. But it was a mistake and Nazareth reached out and grabbed Light's belt, getting through Light's defence—which was an unexpected and a surprising move. Nazareth pulled on it, yanking Light forward, and hauled Light to him. The Yukaza brute then delivered a crushing head smash.
Light staggered back when released and collapsed to the ground on his butt, disorientated. He felt his head. When he pulled back his hand, it was covered in crimson from a bloody nose. Nazareth's nose was also bleeding, dripping out of both nostrils from the attack. But he was smiling, his teeth began crimson with his own blood. Light's nose didn't feel broken luckily.
Light tried to get to his feet, but Nazareth was right there and kicked him in the stomach, winding him. Light landed flat on his back. Then the enforcer shifted his footing, and stomped down hard onto Light's mid-region. Light cried out. Nazareth disarmed him, throwing the escrima sticks away, and far out of reach. Light had no strength to keep hold of them with the pain he felt, clutching his mid-section.
"I'm going to crush you, Detective," Nazareth said, laughing, spitting out blood, coming to stand over top of him. "Your balls are not worth pickling, you're weak and pathetic."
Just then, Riki shouted, and drove his body into Nazareth's frame at full force. The big man was knocked off balance slightly and staggered off Light. Nazareth looked stunned by the attack.
"Don't hurt him, you bastard!" Riki shouted.
"Master Light, are you okay?" Riki asked, kneeing down next to him.
Master…
Nazareth spit out some more blood, and laughed. "The shrimp has guts, how cute," the enforcer said, further laughing.
"Riki, get away!" Light demanded, pushing him back. "He'll kill you."
Nazareth only had to take two steps forward to pick up Riki by the throat with a meaty muscular hand and he lifted the boy off his feet. Riki's legs dangled above the ground and the boy fought against the enforcer, pounding his fists into Nazareth's chest. Nazareth brought him face-to-face. "Nice try, little man. I may have let you serve me when I became the Dragon Sect's new leader, but you should know: a servant can not serve two masters."
Asumi then joined the fight and picked up one of Light's dropped escrima sticks and hit Nazareth over the back of the head with it. It did little. He struck Asumi with a hard back hand across her face with his knife wielding hand and she fell face first to the ground with a thud.
He didn't know what it was, but something inside Light snapped when he saw Asumi hit and he jumped to his feet and charged Nazareth with all his strength. He barrelled into the large man, crashing directly in him. This took Nazareth by surprise, but it had only been temporarily. The man stood firm and Light felt like he had just hit a brick wall. But it did manage to free Riki.
Riki dropped, and he ran immediately to Asumi's side. "Mistress…Mistress…please be okay."
Nazareth turned his full attention towards Light now and Light gulped.
Nazareth threw away his knife, far into the thicket. "I'm going to crush you with my bare hands, Detective. Tigressa failed to break you, but now it's my turn!"
Whether it was a moment of shock or fear, Light couldn't move for a second, and Nazareth delivered a hard knee to Light's chin, forcing Light to stagger backwards. Off balance, Nazareth then clutched Light around the torso with his arms, his biceps crushing Light's ribs, and then the brute arched backwards, slamming his body and neck to the ground, like a wrestler's slam.
Light let out a silence gasp and his entire body went momentarily limp, his pain receptors on overload, his body paralyzed from the neck down. And it almost caused Light to black out.
Nazareth stood over him and grinned, his teeth and face more bloodied than before. He was definitely a maniacal sadist. The brute had Light at his mercy.
This is it, I'm going to die. I can't feel anything.
"In a previous life, before joining the Yukaza, I was a wrestler," Nazareth explained. "But I was banned for unsportsmanlike conduct. I broke a man's neck with that same move, but I only put a quarter of my power into what I did to you, Detective. So even though your body may be in shock at the moment, you'll eventually your recover—if I let you. Now, where was I?"
Nazareth turned back to the others. Light could only watch, and scream: "Asumi, Riki—RUN!"
Riki went to whack Nazareth between the legs with an upward thrust using one of the aluminium sticks in a last ditch effort to hurt the brute, but Nazareth grabbed the stick and prevented any injury. He then backslapped the boy and Riki went down. Asumi also tried to incapacitate Nazareth with an escrima stick, but even her efforts were in vain, easily disarming her, and thrusting an open hand directly into her chest, knocking her to the ground. She let out a painful cry, tears in her eyes.
Get up, Light told himself. Get the hell up!
He gripped his hand into a fist, sensation slowly returning to his body. But it wasn't enough. The shock to his body had been great. How he fell, created a massive jolt to his nervous system. It was called Neurogenic Shock, which affected both the nerves and the spine, disrupting the autonomic pathways of blood flow. Some people could recover quickly, others not so much. And since this had been the first time he experiences such a thing, he was in the latter half.
If he didn't get up soon, Nazareth would kill them both.
"Someone, help them," Light pleaded.
Just then, a black object—or thing—winked into existence, lumbering above him. Light's eyes widened and for the first time ever, he was overwhelming ecstatic to see a god of death.
"Ryuk!"
Light was the only one who could see him and the others were too distracted to hear Light address the Shinigami. Light felt more of his body awaken from the shock, forcing himself to roll over, onto his side, but it was still not enough.
"You look like crap, Light." Ryuk chuckled. He explained how Misa used landmarks in the "Probable Orb" to guide him here. He said he would explain about everything later. It was a bit of a hit and miss at first, but the Shinigami finally manifested into the underground complex, and then focused on the piece of the Death Note in Light's watch. Ryuk looked at scene. "So, what's going on here? Care to fill me in?"
"Later, Ryuk! Quick, I want you to kill that big man over there!"
Ryuk looked. "You mean the man with six names floating above his head?"
"Six?"
"Misa tried to kill him watching events in the Orb, but because of its constrictive round view, she couldn't see his full name to write it down. The larger the name, the more condensed and illegible it looks. But I can see it here. In your language, its more of a bunch of kanji. Still, it's the first time I have seen a human with six names before. Normally the Death Note works fine with just a first and last name, but not with this guy. He was christened with all six."
"Damn it!" Light pounced his fist to the ground.
Light watched as Nazareth suddenly grabbed Asumi and Riki by their throats and lifted them into the air, they both struggled ferociously. And he could only watch in horror, even though he was no where near close enough to hear it—still, the noise reverberated with his ears—as Nazareth broke both Asumi and Riki's neck simultaneously.
Light's throat couldn't produce a sound, but he was silently screaming, his mouth open.
Nazareth grinned as he took pride in his murderous deed. Then the enforcer tossed them, their bodies hitting the ground like sacks of wet cement, folding under their own weight.
"NOOOOO!" Light cried out, finding his voice, his eyes stinging with involuntary tears.
Light grit his teeth so hard that he felt like they were about to crack, then his mouth contorted into the ugliest sneer anyone could ever produce, as he forced himself to one knee, vengeance in his heart. Kira was born to protect the innocent, to punish evil wherever it resounded—evil the likes of "Nazareth"—but despite his best efforts to help them, Asumi and Riki had died as a result of Light's weakness. But Light now knew death by the Death Note was too good for this man, Nazareth deserved more than just a simple fatal heart attack. And for the first time ever, Light prayed to another god to give him the strength to defeat this monster in human from.
They didn't deserve to die for me!
Light felt hatred all over, and if looks could kill, he would have incinerated Nazareth where he stood, blasting every atom of his existence into the cosmos of nothingness. And he almost asked to make the Shinigami Eye deal with Ryuk. If he could see the man's name, he would write it down, even small enough on the piece of the Death Note in his watch.
"I'm going to write your name down in Death Note larger than Lind when I get the chance, you monstrous bastard!" Light cursed. His hands squeezed so tight, his skin bleed from his nails carving into his flesh, not caring he had just exposed himself as Kira.
Nazareth eyed him. "Ah, so…you have revealed yourself, at last," the brute said with a chuckle. "There were rumours of Kira infiltrating the Kira Task Force, how else could he have access to their classified information, and managed to avoid capture for all these years. Master Claw suspected as much. Capturing you was a gamble, but the goal was to squeeze as much information about the Kira Task Force out of you as possible, before sending your back in a bodybag. But you were more resilient than anyone had thought." Nazareth extended his arms wide. "So, how does the great and powerful Kira kill? Will you simply strike me down with one of your infamous heart attacks, or control me, before my death? But I have a secret. I'm protected. Just before we started this little cat-and-mouse game, I met someone who offered me a deal that I couldn't refuse. So, I know all about you and the Death Note, Kira."
Light's eyes widened with a sudden realization and he screamed on the inside.
Morph must have made a deal with Nazareth, after the boy Aiden. The boy was probably not good enough for him, didn't provide him with enough excitement or spiritual energy to feed on, and was now dead. But Nazareth had more than enough of everything to spare.
Light didn't need to call the Imp out, because the cosmic being suddenly winked into existence, as if the mere thought from Light demanded his presence. But Morph was probably watching the entire affair from his invisible dimensional plane. The Imp smirked, amused. "Hello, Light Yagami. I told you we would met again. And I have a new host. And he's much, much stronger than the last one. And with our deal, meet the brand new leader of the Dragon Sect, and perhaps, so much more…"
To be continued…