AUTHOR'S NOTE: Technically, all the events referenced here begin in the November of 2001, four months after Dawn's cardiac rupture—and this is when Teru takes notice of her for the first time. It starts during her field trip in Shibuya, which is briefly mentioned in The Flea and the Leech — II. Teru's narration is a recap of significant occasions that happen between 2001 and 2002; they're flashbacks, in a sense, if you will. The actual present moment is that short scene at the end ((:

Here's a look into the timeline:

[2001]

November — Shibuya field trip

December — Teru's obsession and stalking

…

[2002]

January - March — the start of their relationship

April - May — summer exchange programme

June - August — LABB/Dawn gets the Death Note

September — post-LABB/short pre-Kira period

October - Kira's killings start

December - present scene

[Yes, Kira!Dawn gets the Note a whole year before Canon!Light; and the investigation then makes headway during the spring of 2003, rather than 2004.]

PHOSPHENE AND PHOSPHORUS

Prologue — Monster, Monster (With red eyes.)

She is a beautiful absurdity.

That was the first thing he realised, upon chancing on her.

And the deeper he peered into the earth, the hotter it became; the bigger the pit, the harder it was to climb back out.

Everyone called this new world hell.

But it was paradise, he thought, even with the searing heat and all the scorched stone—she was tearing it all apart from the inside, replacing each layer with the viciousness only a goddess can claim on her people, until their every bone melted, and no trees or flowers hoped to live on lands she once traversed. Her destruction burned worse than the sun's—or perhaps that yellow star also existed as her tool, and it only shone as bright as it did these days because of such a thing.

Dawn, she sang as she paraded the name, Yagami Dawn.

A bringer of light; the first visual mark of day. Rising from the muddy clouds of India ink, from behind smoke in a storm; beaming down upon all the creatures of the terrene as she stood. A star on the hill, a guide in the dark, a blinding glimmer resting atop humanity's head.

A deity come down to the masses.

When he looked at her, he saw an apocalypse come alive.

This was her reckoning, and he witnessed it with wonder as flames of all colours ate up everything in sight. A force that consumed all, something so raw; a relentless fury that devoured everything in its path, running through without mercy and leaving nothing but ash. If he used his tongue to even begin describing her, the very idea of her and everything that revolved with her, based only on what he skimmed through from the papers in his grip; he felt as if he would be committing a sin.

Nothing catalogued on her official files even came close to her true form. All these words—countless meaningless letters stacked together to create a coherence for what she is—none of it was enough. She stood as a catastrophe, a power unexplainable and unconfinable. He fancied those terms for her. If nothing else, they came nearest to what she truly existed as; and if he sounded perverse saying it, then he would do so with gleeful abandon.

Something ached within his chest every time he saw the girl, every time he heard her voice, every time he passed by her in the city.

Their initial meeting was not something he expected, not something he had even dreamed of experiencing—and he supposed that neither of them were aware that they did encounter one another, then.

(Or perhaps she was, but he cannot tell for certain.)

Despite the chaos of that day, collide they did; and when he first stumbled into her by the scramble crossing, he did not think much of it. Perhaps it was his fault, then; but it could be excused that Shibuya's infamous street had always been filled with all sorts of minor troubles.

But the fire.

The damned fire.

It was what caught his sight.

(A promise of burning.)

There was a field trip happening at the time, as far as he could tell. A gaggle of female students visited one of the orphanages, off to the sides, about to mount their designated school bus when disaster struck. From what he could retain of the event, two lamp posts collapsed and fell down onto the vehicle. Panic set into the crowds as wires and engines sparked dangerously, and within seconds, an explosion had gone off before anyone could properly comprehend what happened.

She stood amidst the flames, undaunted—and to the present day, he puzzled on if it was not just a trick on his eyes when he took her in; if it was not just a set of phosphenes that blinded him when he drew his gaze onto her lithe form. She had been at the centre of the intersection, right beside the bus as the pillars fell and the machine screeched—face aglow with mischief. He remembered freezing, rooted to his spot, as she became illuminated by the noontime sun—and later on, the ignition. The image sent a shiver down his spine, but he did not look away from her person.

Everything raged around her: men, women, and children running amok to avoid the flames; emergency services and protocols being shouted out to decrease the commotion.

But the girl—

She had only idled there, almost as if immune to that parlous plasma, with a smile of pure joy plastered across her pretty face.

He froze, struck dumb with horror and fear. He had never seen anything like it before: she was untouched by the heat, as though she was a being from another facet of creation. The most unbelievable part of it all was that no one else seemed to have taken notice of what transpired—and when he swivelled his head back and forth, searching for another who must have glimpsed it, he had none to share his confusion.

Then, her eyes slid over to him—

And—

Red.

It caught him by surprise.

(And it is what pulls him in.)

He coincides with those twin pools of warm regard, strangely ecstatic—bright, bright, bright—and for a moment, he did not see something human. No, no. That is not what comes to him.

There she had been; still where the people around them bustled with erratic movements, serene where she should have been screaming with the others, subtle where he knew he could have called for her to join their fellow bystanders. But he did not dwell on any of these things—and in those scant few seconds, what did occur to him was this: he appeared to be the only one to perceive her presence, he seemed to be the only one to maintain that intense gaze, and he is the only one to realise how time suspended as it all passed by.

Then, she had gone, leaving him with a sense of amazement and stupefaction.

(Mono no aware.)

It was ridiculous.

He should not have been so captivated.

(One day in the future, he is glad he is.)

She's only a girl, there isn't any other way that she's anything else, he tried to reason with himself, then, it'd been an act of pure happenstance.

Imagine a time when people decided to call a day a day—when they started to give the patterns of light meaning, viewing the sun as more than some unreachable source of beams that made everything visible; where they voiced their glories to a hand in the sky—assuming it to be a holy presence that illuminated the firmament and plucked them out of the shadows. It was much akin to this, he thought, like a state in which dreams and reality seamlessly intertwined; something so bizarre brought before a homo sapien perception, rationalised as a subject of fascination.

His family had not been religious, but they held onto age-old beliefs and superstitions, as most others were wont to do. Between both his parents, his mother inclined more towards this nuance; and he would admit without shame that it influenced him in vaguer ways that he did not even consider. And so, it did not truly be a shock when he discovered himself pining for her, wishing for even the slimmest portions of answers when he secretly chased after this strange girl.

She is a singer.

"Yagami Dawn, that's my name." Her microphone would echo; voice carrying in a breathy and pleasant timbre as she licked her glossed lips. "Don't forget it."

He dived into her profiles; attempted to understand the faces that she wore amongst droves of people—and what he found, or whatever little Yagami Dawn left out for all else to find, did not satisfy his yearning for more. He pieced the clues together with ease, but even all that was still only a miniscule portion of what she gave to the countless others she interacted with.

It began as an innocent attraction.

(The girl from the fires; beauty with the red eyes.)

Only, it spiralled out of control. He could not resist the urge to keep tabs on her, to follow her everywhere she went; to the mall she frequented every other day, to the parks and alleys she occasionally performed her music in, and even to the outskirts of the village where her school's campus was located. He knew it to be wrong, but the megrim remained; and so, his desperation kept building and building, until he could hardly recognise himself anymore. He started to lose sleep, to miss some important classes, and to neglect his duties as a college student.

Moth to a flame, as those Westerners liked to say, he bit his lip when he figured out that her father was the chief of the Japanese NPA, as a strange and excited itch formed inside his throat—but he imagined himself to be a silly butterfly instead, vividly-coloured and toxic-winged, lifted unto a wind of faith when he intuited his muse. And slowly, surely, as time went by; he fell further and farther into the abyss that he created for himself. The more he learned, the more he became willing to risk everything to be near her—to have her in his arms and claim her as his own.

She is kind, too. He would never forget the day of her little field trip—he had a gander of her carrying an orphan or two in her arms, then pulling other civilians into safety before she disappeared from his peripherals—but it was everything that came after that truly imprinted onto his impressions. The girl performs with that blue guitar of hers during the after-hours, often bewitching crowds as she descanted her charm. He had seen her give or spend the money she earned to or on other less fortunate souls; stray animals and beggars alike.

The music—her voice—is sweeter than a siren's call, and higher than a songbird's delight; and it is what trapped him entirely in this vortex of mystery. Notes that would have tasted like a cold drink by the beach, sultry tunes that sent an urgent heat into his loins; she sang them all in this city of asphalt and neon lights, and the fire that he recalled her from became a kiss of longing in the grander scheme of his life. It is not even just an instrument, anymore; when she opens her lips, it is beyond a hymn, it is beyond a prayer—it is a decree.

Her first words to him are this.

"For what you did to me, and what I'll do to you—you get what everyone else gets: you get a lifetime."

(Three years later, he hums those lines to himself as he hears it on the radio—and then, he is perplexed as to how a man from another country is singing the same song she did. There is a coldness that travels up his back, but he ignores it.)

She is an illogical reality, in a macrocosm filled with things that have already been righted.

But somehow, in some way, she makes sense; as if nothing else would have, had she not been there to begin with.

(Like he cannot even conceive anything otherwise.)

His own irrationalities are pleased.

(Goddess, goddess, goddess, goddess—)

Humans praised gods because they needed the reassurance of knowing that something is there to witness their reverence. If they truly had been alone in the universe, then they must have to cope with their own lonely existences, doomed to repeat isochronisms that never even amounted to anything in the end. But then, there, as he peered into his screen and regarded the lovely face before him; he wondered if this was an echo of a higher love—if she meant to bare herself to him in such a way, if she planned it from the beginning. If she knew that they would have seen each other once, and likely never again.

And so—he lets himself claw at the opportunity to follow her, intemperate for that troth of intrigue.

And then.

And then.

(But then.)

"Do you remember that day, when we met? You told me this gets harder—and, well, it did. Been holding on forever; promise me that, when I'm gone, you'll kill my enemies."

It was, once again, by pure chance that they encountered one another in full on the streets of Kabukichō. Returning home from a night out with his fellow law students, buzzed and dulled from alcohol, he beheld the divine being take form right in front of him. He did not believe he would have been so lucky to do so; thinking it was a fling of the drink, an aphrodisia only visualised. She stood there, in the middle of a busy crowd—radiant despite her petite frame and her subtle-coloured clothing, with a presence most felt even despite the bustling movements of the people around them.

She kept calling out in that melancholy of hers, and he kept fighting for a place to call his own as others advanced.

"Tempting," said one person, "immaculate."

He wetted his lips, then swallowed back a sigh.

"The damage you've inflicted, temporary wounds; I'm coming back from the dead, and I'll take you home with me—I'm taking back the life you stole."

What's she even doing here? He thought dully, still dizzy. This isn't a place for little girls.

And it was true.

Kabukichō's nightlife is a living testament to the vibrant spirit of Tokyo, an embodiment of the city's pulsating energy and unrestrained passion. It is a place where fantasies are indulged, dreams are born, and the boundaries of daily stresses blur. This is a playground for men and women—whether for adventure, connection, or the thrill of the unknown—and her, a child, should not have been there. Her youth was obvious, that much had been clear. But in that moment, the only thing that mattered was the strain in his chest—ripping, shredding, splitting—wild as his mouth moved along with her words, wanting as she beckoned them all with her smile.

There was a certain malevolence in them, he realised, when he neared to drop a roll of banknotes into her open gig bag. Even under the influence, he could still sense it. Her red eyes were blank, despite the rest of her expressions saying otherwise. It had not been obvious, of course. But even still, as he returned home that night, images of that nymphet who sang lingered; and in his sleep, he groaned with a lump of desire in his throat.

(Then, fire consumes all; and there is a hot feeling in his stomach as he wakes.)

Goddess, goddess, goddess, goddess.

Days after her performance; he looked down at a photograph—a CCTV-generated capture of her that he stole from one of the ward's official security systems—printed onto a glossy finish. He had access to them due to his OJT work. Never had he been so grateful as then that he made that decision. He brought the paper closer to his face, breathing shaky, and closed his eyes. She was just a young girl, with her whole life ahead of her. And he, a student of the law, was obliged to be an upstanding member of society and an instrument of justice.

But something dark and twisted had taken ahold of him—and then…

Multiple times; he hissed as he slammed her picture onto his table, leaning down as he heaved with harsh pants.

If she had shared her true status as that—a living phantasm from red and violet—with every other person in existence, then they would have taken her for themselves. They might have torn and stained her dress, greased and tangled her braids, scratched and clawed at her shins. They might have even degraded her into some sort of effigy—to be touched and groped—like the ones in those other foreign countries; lacquer finishes coated with the filth of the fingers and hands that laid on them.

There is no one who gets that satisfaction from her.

Now…

He—

He is—

Teru is obsessed.

He would have stopped at nothing to have her, to possess her, to make her his own.

The young man watched her every move, every smile, every laugh, every tear. His eyes burned like molten lava, raging with a fieriness that could not be extinguished. Then, he became her avid stalker—hiding in the shadows, waiting for the right moment to strike. Time and time again, she tangled him in. This gorgeous creature, with eyes as red as the most dangerous of omens: a warped version of sirens and mermaids; only where there should have been water, there is mire and scum, and where there should have been a pledge of love, there is a turpitude that he cannot help but appease.

Regardless, his heart raced as he listened to her.

He is not the only one with a dark side. The girl—goddess, goddess, goddess, goddess—she had her own secrets, her own desires, her own need for justice.

Kira has made her intentions clear. She was not innocent in any of this, he hummed, every time he remembered when he observed her from his vantage points.

But he was not daunted.

He sat in his ethics class, sometimes, pondering if what he had been doing was good.

The idea was not as relieving as he wanted it to be. Once, his ears caught onto the words of his professor—What is good? How do we know what we are doing counts as so?—and he quietly sighed into his fist as he formulated a response for that inquiry. Ancient texts have argued between two things: it is either what is most important to the individual self, or it is the collective benefit of an entire group. Neither can occur at the same time; the human person can never entirely juggle the responsibility of being a part of society while staying true to themselves.

But she is both at once.

He does not extrapolate much on this assumption, but he knew, then, that if he were to make a decision between what is a personal interest versus what is another person's personal interest, then he would, naturally, choose what he believe aligned best with his own beliefs—and that is the good that he asserted to himself, as he regarded his reflection in his bathroom mirror.

(Her, her, her. It is only a coincidence that the things he values fall beneath the same parallels that she holds dear.)

He delved into the matters that surrounded the girl. Family, friends, hobbies, interests, activities; all of that, and more. That she is circled by these mortal limitations is almost insulting; as if it debases the very notion that formed her mental conception. But he perused through these, anyways; intent on uncovering further of what held him in such a fanciful, deplorable, and pathetic state. His desire for her is not just physical, no. Some wretched bit of it was also emotional.

He craved her attention, her admiration, and her…

Her—

Whatever passed off as her love.

(If it could even be called that much at all, but he does not care for the finer details of this aspect.)

On the account of what is bad—or what is worst—he then posited: if what is good consisted of what makes him happy, with no fear of reprisal or consequence, then what is bad must be what hindered him from achieving what was good. What is bad would then be what made him suffer, but at the benefit of others' interests. And so, he stood with the common populace, trying to decide whether or not he was another face in this rabble; if his efforts to be a better person in society made him any different from those who clamoured to attain her notice.

He visited her frequently enough, during her late afternoon and early evening sessions. She travelled around the city with a speed that he did not initially presume. Over the course of months, she entered an array of entertainment establishments—ranging from traditional Japanese karaoke joints to avant-garde performance spaces. The air is always thick with anticipation as patrons come to watch her perform; the stages she glided upon becoming portals to different realms—transporting her spectators to the past, present, and future with the diverse setlists she arranged.

This is good, it has to be, he hummed one of the songs she played, as he spied her distributing food to several homeless people by the Central Park, she makes me happy, and what she does helps others.

(The inferno swirls in a torrent of orange and violet.)

She reminded him of his mother; slightly.

There is this likeness between the both of them; and in her, she has a presence that stirs something deep within his soul. The echoes of his kin resonated in the way the girl carried herself, in the way her eyes reflected both strength and vulnerability—even despite their…intensity, and her antipathies. It is as if she exteriorised the essence of this affection, a haunting ephemera of what once was and what could never be again. He cannot resolve this paradox: torn between embracing the familiarity that this promising youth exuded, and the pain she resurrected within him.

Amidst the elation that the singer brought, a twinge of guilt tugged at his conscience. He questioned whether he was using her as a vessel to educe the memory of the woman, as a surrogate for the rapture he shared with her, and he thought: is it fair, to burden her with the weight of this—does doing so make him commit the mistake of putting her at so blind a pedestal?

In the end, though, he buried those old sentiments with a vengeance, and soon, the only thing that remained—the only thing that mattered—was the inevitability of the future. Even if she almost seemed to be a mirror, recasting the bittersweet memories of his mother—both a salve and a wound—he cherished his every contemplation of the person before him now, relishing the fleeting moments that reignited the thrums of his heart.

The natural origin of justice is put into perspective.

Is this what was taken from you? Or is this an injustice that you can only believe has been done unto you?

The traitorous idea seeped into his mind.

Did Mother's death teach you anything about what is truly right or wrong, Teru? Does the beauty before you show you what it means to be good?

Once, it had been explained to him; that, in the primitive times, humans followed their instincts: this translated into philosophy in that justice was achieved through the presence of good in one's life—that, in doing injustice to others, in being able to take what is necessary to live and thrive, it is good, and therefore, just; and injustice, in contrast, is then the suffering brought about when one is on the receiving end of another person dispensing their justice.

If I can protect what is mine, even at the cost of what is others', then what I am doing is good.

(Survival of the fittest—that is what his childhood had been defined by. But something in him shifts—as he transitions from the bloom of his teenage years, and into his adolescence. Suddenly, the planet is a cradle of flaws, a set where billions of lives sit inside the palms of higher powers; manacled, at large, by the natures they have attempted, in pure frustration, to flee.)

Kira is…

(She changes him, that is certain.)

Her humanity hampers her. She is not the strongest of them all, not even the most cunning, nor the most resourceful. He would not be afraid to recognise her faults, in this form. But he is sure that the organ that beat between her bones—in that cavity that he longed to lay his head upon in infinite sleep, much akin to how his mother used to embosom him—was just as perfect as the rest of her very soul. His goddess is tender, and she is merciful, and she is benevolent.

He ruminated on this mortal shell and assumed it was a recursive mask, crafted to keep the ignorant at bay. And he did not disagree. There is a layer of distance that he noted, when observing those she graced with her companionship. Her personality did not turn quite stilted—but there is enough exhaustion in her countenance; a mien birthed from doing so much for so many, with so little relief to reward her for her efforts.

A significant part of him wanted to be her protector, her guardian, her shield against the harsher realities of this unsacred dirt. He, a human like the rest, has nothing to offer to even attempt to create a better god—nothing to give to tell her how she should have went about; but just this once, he acted as if his newfound fanaticism counted for something.

He will not be her…her 'everything'—no. Such a notion is meant for the lesser beings who profane the abstrusity of an emotion such as love with their moral and mortal faults. Besides, that role is already reserved for another, if he was right in his conclusions.

"We never got that far; this helps me to think all through the night. Bright lights that won't kill me now, or tell me how; just you and I—your starless eyes remain."

Her brother—a gentle copper-haired young boy she fawned over, only a few years his junior—is the only person who holds her entirely within the grip of intimacy. She lavished him with nuzzles and embraces that lingered for too long, and heady looks of admiration that only partners could replicate. She kept him close, much akin to the way a lover did: protective, possessive; and most of all, prurient.

He saw her kiss him on the mouth, once, when he trailed after her in a park. She pushed the boy down onto a bench, straddling him with the playfulness of a bunny idling with its favourite toy. The girl whispered something in his ear—he did not hear it, he had been too far away to even make out the curves of her lips—and the law student cleared his throat with a blush as her sibling snaked his hands onto her waist. It was a practised move, as if they had done it before; his fingers slotted into the band of her uniform skirt as she put her weight on him and made merry do like an infant that demanded attention.

The two of them conversed in a soft modulation, then ghosted their faces close to one another; until finally, flesh met flesh, and they prodded at each other in full. She took him into a caress and kissed him again and again and again, dwelling beneath the shade of orange maples and by the swaying figures of spider lilies; and her laughter echoed, sweet and true. That day, he went back to his apartment with an ache between his legs; and when he showered, he could not resist the tantalising noetic which embedded itself in his blood and bones.

Only then did she ever let her façade fall—and even then, within a certain regard, he reckoned that it became an acceptable trade. Yagami Light was a part of Yagami Dawn; an extension of her being. There is no dawn to befall the earth without light, just as light cannot be described as anything other than a dawning of electromagnetic radiations; there cannot be a yellow star without it illuminating all the other beings below and around, and there will be no day without the very particles that have given rise to the solar cycles.

And then.

And then.

But then.

She was the one to approach him.

The man met himself in a state of bewilderment, torn between the enchantment of his infatuation and the need to comprehend its roots. It was a complex interplay of affection, desire, and goodwill; and he deliberated on the deduction of it being the force that united them—if it had been what finally forged their bond.

"You've been busy, haven't you, Mister?" She grinned at him—and he was extremely anxious as his back hit the wall of some dingy alleyway. The girl before him—red, red, red, red—trailed her fingers onto his collar, nails long and sharp as she made the digits dance on the fabric of his dress shirt. "Going all around the city, in my school, and even in my home. You're looking worse for wear. Aren't you tired?"

"You—you knew?" He croaked.

She laughed in his face, then; a high sound—not quite the irritating giggles of pre-pubescent school chits, but rather the elegant ensorcellment that only ladies from the ancient noble courts were taught to do. He blushed at hearing it up close; she levelled in, breath hot right beside his ear, and the action sent several pangs to shoot through his body—behind his sternum, down to his stomach, in the spot between his thighs.

"It's quite hard to miss the paranoia of being watched so…intimately." The girl snorted. "Why do you even care so much, Mister?"

The allure of her eyes extended beyond their sheer beauty. He stared into them, into that magnetic quality; a wellspring of indecipherable emotions. Each flicker of light gave rise to a kaleidoscope of hues—burning crimson, smouldering scarlet, velvety maroon; gods, there were so many blees of pure red that he could utter—and none would have been near enough to describe that unnerving curiosity and enigma.

A whine escaped him as he tried to speak. "I—the fire—it was…I didn't—your eyes—"

She quickly cut him off with a disbelieving scoff, gaze dangerous. "The fire. My eyes."

A sense of caution; four beats and a gasp. There was a trace of the untamed forces that lied beneath the surface. Like a dormant volcano, her glare hinted at the potential for both ardour and anger, a duality that he sighed at.

"Y-your voice."

"…my voice." She imitated his tone, confused.

"That sweet call." He breathed, desperate. "Beauty with the eyes, and the heart, and the songs…"

He lost all manner of his composure, then, and broke down in her arms—there was barely even anything that he recalled right after he did so. His vision clouded in a haze of ebon and cochineal, and when he roused into clarity, they were both seated on the cold pavement. She smiled at him, undeterred, cradling his jaw with her thumbs stroking his skin. With a light kneel, she crouched down before him and toyed with his hair.

A few more seconds came by, where he simply melted into the warmth of her touch as he calmed his breathing. The girl hummed—a tune that he recognised, something she sang as she volunteered for an animal shelter—and he followed along, the motions in his throat pulsing in a reflex. Providence did not occur to him for such an event. He should have prepared for this; set a course that would not have trapped him in his panic. But there they were, now—voices low, harmonising like happy fools in a playpen.

As it happened, she pressed her lips to his forehead. She replicated that movement; on his cheekbone, then on his mandible, then on his halse; and finally, she lifted his hands to the space between them, and did the same for his knuckles. The girl pulled him closer to her person, and she pushed their mouths together. In that fraction of time, he wondered if it was only the idea of her that he truly felt anything for—if there existed anything human underneath her skin—as she slipped her tongue in on top of his. The adolescent tasted cherry and grape on the wet flesh and closed his eyes; musing, mesmerised.

Even if she is like him in the end, he felt as if he would not care too much.

(Because she is still a testament of something more than natural; rara rubria papilio in luce et ignis nata.)

"It's a pleasure to finally meet you…Mikami Teru." Yagami Dawn smiled at him. There is a glimmer in her gaze; one spark, two, three, and four. This is an aporia of sentiment and sensation, amalgamating into a calamity of his own damaged nature; rebounded to him in a manner both ugly and comely. "Would you like to tour around the city with me?"

He mouthed the words to himself, each one a dumbfoundment against his palate. But he did not disagree, he did not protest the offer. Instead, he tilted his head and kissed her again—clumsily, he had never had the experience of such an act in the past—mimicking the puissance that she had shown him.

"Take me," he pleaded with a stupid ignominy, "take me with you."

What am I doing? What am I doing? Strict, orderly, well-kempt Teru—seduced by some casual fucking singer on the streets.

She smirked.

"That's it."

"Hip-hip-hooray for me, you talk to me—but would you kill me in my sleep? Lay still like the dead. From the razor to the rosary, we could lose ourselves, and paint these walls in pitchfork-red."

And so, as she laid her sights and her hold upon him—red and hot, and so very poisonous—he did not resist temptation. That day, in Kabukichō, as she took him into her arms; he accepted it all, and sighed in ecstasy as he received his judgement. She must have wanted this, too. That must all be just part of their mutual regard, their—their newfound…relationship. When the whiles drifted by and he was glued to her side—a pleasurable asphyxiation of impulsive insanity that he can never elucidate—he learned, and he adapted.

Why not?

He bit his lip, when she led him to a café soon after they met; head bowed, thoughts elsewhere, as they ate in silence.

Why not? Let me have this.

And oh, what a jest this all is—he is blind and dumb; for their current societal constitution was not the only one that mattered. The true laws of justice and morality ran far deeper than that, and even if they would not be kind to him in the end, he pursued her.

Mother, look, he would glare at the sky, at the wisps of clouds that covered the sun when it was overcast, see me now.

(Mother, look, he dumbly repeats, when his goddess unleashes her fury unto societies, see me again.)

The law is meant to guard, to protect. In the grasp of those driven by their own egos and desires, it turned into a weapon. And she is not guiltless. The being that revelled before and with him acknowledged her own shortcomings; and she took advantage of whatever she could to justify her actions, to manipulate those around her, to keep her secrets hidden. But, like a wildfire, his lust spread—and she, too, pounced on it in a delirium only wild animals displayed.

Justice is supposed to be blind.

Fool, fool, fool, a voice in his head mocked, silly, silly, silly boy.

His eyes have seen nothing but himself.

(Discomfiting. Is his greed a subconscious thing? Cloaked in the delusion that he is doing this for a semblance of good?)

He did not believe that he was above the law, no—never had he ever posited that he could do whatever he wanted to, and that he would never be held accountable for those actions. He is not so arrogant to assume he placed anywhere beyond infallible. In median res; the person that is Mikami Teru is not like Yagami Dawn, in this regard: he is not as privileged (exclusive private school, a powerful and high-ranking father), not as cultured (she has the blood of elites, or is the descendant of some offshoot), and most definitely not as revered (bevvies upon bevvies of friends and admirers).

But she—

She spared her attentions and affections for him—even if a majority of both were directed to her brother—and at the end of it all, it…

It is enough.

For him.

(It had to be.)

The music goes on. She ascended into higher registers, her voice adjusting to an even more ethereal quality—like wisps of smoke weaving through the air in a delicate flutter. And with that, greater and grander crowds put their focus on her: this indelible purity, evoking untold and undiscovered truths that lingered in the depths of one's consciousness. Every bit of her image hung in the air, suspended, as if only waiting in a tease to be savoured.

The two of them stabilised themselves into a basal affair; nothing outside of the ordinary. They ran through the deeds any pair of bright-eyed darlings were expected to do: letters in the mail, messages on their phones, presents during visits. It was slow-going—and he accepted that, just as much as she had stated to him that she preferred everything to be done in a steady rhythm. Patient, they stayed within arm's length of one another; and while he had longed to plummet himself into their amour, he willed himself under control.

She dispensed her earnings on many things—trivial, practical, and substantial; but she especially had been animated in propping him into a position where he could not refuse her advances. His humble background bristled at the ease in which she flounced her efforts, but nevertheless, he could not deny her. And so, it went: in only ninety days, he and she delighted within this poised bloom; only shy of revealing their worst sides.

The consequences would be dire, he knew, if she ever let slip what he had done. But, as his how-many-months of tertiary education commenced—and she, with her own place in highschool; advanced by one year, he remembered—and their being-together shifted from a mere friendship (Or was it? Was it even that?) to an abject and debauched loverhood, she did not hint at any sort of incriminations.

How quaint, that he had been studying to be a prosecutor; after all, he was meant to uphold the laws of the land—but he used every tool at his disposal to worm his way into her view. And she…did not seem to mind. If anything, she humoured his apotheosis. And then, it went: their union bordered libidinous; and then, the rest is history, as many quoted.

He was…content.

For the first time in a long while, his own quiddity had been filled with a joy he thought impossible for himself.

But then, she informed him of her trip to Los Angeles.

And so, he asked her if he had done something wrong.

"No." She shook with mirth, surprised. "It isn't about you, Starling."

Starling.

His little lady was fond of calling him that. Her father often referred to her as Little Red and sweet girl; her grandparents, Uzume and María; and her brother, Dawn-Dawn. It made him curious as to where she plucked the nickname for him. In exchange, she said to him that he could even call her Starlet.

(Fascinating.)

"It's an exchange student programme. I'll be there for the summer—just enough for my own school's citizen training thing to be promoted for their clients." She rolled her eyes, then took a sip of her iced tea. The crystal cubes tinkled in that gold-brown liquid as she moved. They sat facing one another on a patio table in a park—the location, her sire's favourite—beneath the cool of the furniture's umbrella. With crossed legs, she reclined on her chair and gave him a coltish bat of her eyelashes. "I'm sure you'll do well enough, without me."

He forced himself to appear fine. "…of—of course."

She's going, she's going, she's going.

The girl snorted. "Right."

And so, she did. Leave him, that is. She returned to him, eventually, but that had neither been there or then.

In the wake of her departure, an emptiness settled within him. Suddenly, she embarked on a journey that brought her across an ocean and distant lands. Though temporary, the void she left behind made him desperate; it was insurmountable, a chasm that he absolutely loathed. Days turned into weeks, and each passing moment etched her absence deeper into him. His environment became…colourless, for the lack of a better word—as if drained of vibrancy without her being there; and the music that she so loved to echo reverted back to the distant lulls of Tokyo.

Every time, as the moon rose high, he would gaze at the starry sky, searching for the same constellations that graced her own view. He, very briefly, considered introducing himself to the only other person who mattered: that copper-haired boy, whose name shared a character with the very luminescence that he stared at when the crepuscles came into effect.

Now, imagine night as it had been—before being spawned by the mentalities of those as the world began anew. There was only the fear of the unknown; a dread that illudes people into their own conclusions. Here, all are blind alike, none with a hope to function as well as they had when the light pierced through the day.

"I will avenge my ghost with every breath I take; I'm coming back from the dead. And I'll take you home with me—I'm taking back the life you stole."

The boy is…well, he is something.

Genius, kind, sporty, inclusive, considerate, people-pleasing, wired, consistent, uptight, pedantic, sweet—

Sure.

But he is not her.

Try as he did, her brother did not even come close to comparing to what she stood as; he held his own, but it did not suffice.

The utter madness is not there, the desire to hurt is not there.

And so, as she had been abroad—for those five damned months she had been gone to him; communication became a lifeline—his weakness spilled onto paper, carrying his deepest hopes and affections across borders and timezones. He lied awake in his bed, pressing his fingertips to his lips and mimicking the motions of when she would kiss him; then turned onto his side, swallowing thickly when memories of her songs rang in his ears.

In the quiet moments, he found himself seeking solace in the places they had once frequented together, hoping to capture fleeting traces of her essence. The city streets echoed of her laughter; and when he visited the areas where she hosted her performances, joints where others as well probed for her, he mourned her. He heard murmurs from concerned passersby, sometimes, asking themselves where the beauty with the red eyes and the blue guitar went.

Even as the anticipation of their reunion burned within his chest, there were moments of desolation that washed over him like a heavy wave. The scent of her perfume—some strange mix of Gaultier and Victoria's Secret that drove him insane when he sniffed it on his jackets—lingered in the air, teasing his senses, while their temporary interlude tugged at his heartstrings.

But when she returned—

When she comes back to him—

She—

(Her first coffins are only six feet deep, cold and lonely where it always rained, in a shallow ditch where water was still able to touch soil and bone—but when he stares into the pixels of his computer, working tirelessly as he searches for names and faces, he likes to imagine that she will bury him with ash and rage.)

She had glowed, writhed in flame and fortune, as if she had fulfilled a plan of hers; lashes aflutter and cherry-pink lips twisted with some severe mania.

Forty days.

The girl from before waited forty days after her arrival in Japan to drag him further into a well of thorns. She murmured endearments into his lips, mingling them with gasps of pleasure and devotion. They exchanged those long-said declarations. He took her into a tight embrace and did not let go—breathing her in, memorising the very sensation as their bodies were slotted together—until finally, she pulled away and affirmed him of his yearning.

"You'd still take me?" She asked him.

"Always." He breathed.

And then, the goddess of now bared herself true.

She is a beautiful absurdity.

That had been something he attested to, that night when they met again. She slinked into his apartment—he seated her down and catered to her, as was customary in their culture—and revealed to him several flabagasts that he never even assumed to exist. There, clutched in her lovely nieve, flipped back and forth in a playful manner; an innocuous black book shone in the dimmed glow. She held it out to him with an amused smile, and he took it with shaking fingers.

Two monstrous forms appeared behind her, and he froze. One had been a tall, gruesome thing; a kind of humanoid, with melting brown-orange skin and a deformed face. Its jaw hung low and open—set in a silent, but permanent screaming motion. The other creature was crouched on the floor; also humanoid—but bent over, with its bones protruding out of its back and from its joints. Its head twisted in its place, and swayed slightly from side to side.

"These are Godiora and Mahedis," she leaned her head on his shoulder, staring at both wyrds with a fondness that stilled him in place, "and they've been watching over me since…well, since I stepped foot in the City of Angels."

Death, death, death.

"This hole that you put me in wasn't deep enough. And I'm climbing out, right now—you're running out of places to hide from me."

"Consider it a belated birthday gift." She kissed him on the cheek. "Although I could still get you another, if you wanted something else."

"No! No—" he turned to her in a flash, each throb thundering in his chest, "this—this is wonderful. It's more than I could've ever hoped to imagine. It's beyond perfect."

Ba-dump. Ba-dump.

And two more beats.

And two again.

And a seventh.

It was as if he, at last, wangled what he had been searching for in the entirety of his nineteen years on this earth—like a missing piece of a puzzle putting every other fragment into place. The familiarity, much akin to the notion of a long-lost muse come home again; in that instant, it devoured him, purring old ambitions that he strived for as a child.

Finally, finally, finally.

Gavels will strike down and the world will enter into a momentary hush, and the sheer ruin that her insurgence brought would etch itself into the very inches of history. This was it, this was justice—this was good. Peace would be served and closure would envelop those who had been wronged by the people who were meant to pay their dues. Children can heal, they can grow, and they can have the audacity to dream.

("Teru, not everything in the world is going to work the way you want it to. You have to stop doing this—there's no reason for you to suffer so much for your beliefs! What do you think you're proving, getting hurt like this? This is plain foolishness. You have to realise that some things will never change, no matter what you do—")

With a glimmer in his eyes and a stride brimming with hope, the young man stepped forward, ready to embrace the dawn of a new era.

(Hers.)

The winds of change carried him on their wings—and once everything unleashed, it transformed into the catalyst for his rebirth.

She is a beautiful absurdity.

He echoed that statement over and over and over and over again—grappled with the justice he, since long, ached to achieve. His duty had been rewarded, he thought in relief, even as he stood before this triad of mysteries. Godiora and Mahedis—whatever they were, they attached themselves to Yagami Dawn like children that trailed after the one who gave them life; and inside the complexities of his own sense of self, the scales of balance trembled—the equilibrium fragile in the face of such profound human emotions.

Love, justice, Mother.

Oh, oh, oh.

"When you go, just know that I will remember you. If living was the hardest part—we'll then, one day, be together."

For forty days, the girl stalked him, just as he had to her; and four more days after, the goddess appeared.

Then, she seizes him—pulls him into a shadowed corner of his college campus—and pushes him against a wall; whispering names and promises in his ear, playfully biting on the skin of his jaw as he responds to her own advances with pleas on his lips. Then, she lowers herself before he even has the chance to do so, eyes mad with hunger when she claws at his suit pants. He hardly registers the action, until long and low sounds escape him—until finally, he tensed up and gasped like some mutt in heat.

Oh, he moans, God is kind. She gives before she takes.

She gave, she gave, she gave; she did it first, always, coming to the aid of others before she took her own spoils. A whine escaped him. She was the one who shoved him into this section of the building, she was the one who made her way with the initiative for physical contact. He is ready to lie on the floor of his own bedroom if need be, eager to show his adoration—and it should have been him who offered himself, not the other way around—he should be the one grovelling right now, doing the entertaining; not the one receiving the administration of it.

But she did so, anyways, and he is left with the surprise to take it as it is.

She is on her knees—kissing and lapping at him, taking him in his entirety with a vigour he did not expect. Her nails dig into the flesh of his thighs, and he timidly places his hands upon hers. As his fingers ghost on her knuckles, the grip hers have tightens on his skin, and he keens once more when she starts going faster. Back and forth she goes, mouth hot and wet, and he shakes as he leaned against the wall. His legs quiver with each movement she makes, pleasure rippling through him with every bob of her head and every jerk of his hips.

She gives, she's giving, oh, why—

Someone could walk in on them at this very moment.

Curiously enough, the thought is not as unattractive as he often thought it to be. The spot she picked lay in a small junction near the first-floor restrooms, private for a short conversation but exposed enough for anyone else to find them. Instead of fear or shame, though, it was excitement that coursed through him; he wishes to scream her name for all to hear—wishes to let others know as his goddess claims him, wishes for even just one person to witness the scene and realise his loyalty to her—their city's sweet-lipped, silver-tongued, sanguine-eyed Starlet.

But they would not recognise it for what it symbolised, he knew. If someone were to round the corner, all they may have seen was two youths filthying themselves in an office building, a college and a highschool student releasing tension in an inappropriate environment.

"God," he cries out as she removes herself from him with a pop; she takes ahold of him once more, pumping—and his breathing becomes heavier, more desperate, "God, Dawn."

God has found me worthy.

He was her servant, and that should have been it.

(From the fires, from the fires, from the fires—)

Kira is the only name on anyone's lips, these days.

Ever since she made her presence known to the world, even just as a casual singer in Shinjuku, he realised he would have followed her. The same applied for here, now, regardless of what she told him to do. For a time, the honour of being hers alone kept him alive with a zeal he thought lost to him. As she arced down before his person and looked up at him with something so heady and overwhelming, as she smiled with sharpness and knowing in her eyes; he felt as if he could live forever, with only the heat between the both of them, and the melding of their breaths as she pressed herself against him.

God lowers herself before me.

She licks and sucks on the undersides, and he throws his head back, spine arching as he does so. She grunts when he moves—humming, sending a vibration that causes his breath to hitch—but she keeps him in place with a nudge of her arm. The pressure of it weighs heavy on his pelvis, and it feels like a punishment when she slows down to give the tip a small kiss.

"God, God," he whimpers again, "please."

Heat rushes down as she presses harder onto him; it starts with the beat of his heart, then into his belly, and finally into his cock, and he comes undone. He finishes into her hand, and when he continues still for a few seconds, she places her face right onto him and catches the remaining white droplets. Down they go into her throat, and he breathes, fascinated, as she drinks his seed. She does it like a drunkard did with his wine, wanton and wanting—and he sighs at the vulgarity of it.

She slots herself into a servant's role.

"Louder, Teru," she says as she stands to capture his lips with hers, and he groans, twitching, "go on. Let them hear."

And God gives back what she is given.

"Dawn." He follows her command, and this time, he hears it—the satisfaction of his own voice echoing back to him, returning with clarity as the cadence of her laugh joins it.

Dawn, it resounded in the silence of the hallway; and the late afternoon light at the end teases him with the promise for more, as it fades into a mix of purple and amber.

"Dawn," he shivers when she squeezes his cock and she pumps once again, kissing his neck, "oh, Dawn."

"And in the end, we'll fall apart—just like the leaves changing colours. And then, I will be with you; I will be there one last time, now."

Her name resonates, and it is as if something in him snaps—spurring him into action as he makes to give back what he had been freely offered. He gets down onto his own knees, even as his form sways with a slight tiredness. She turns to him, questioning, as he paws at her skirt.

"Please, let me." He begs, and he feels himself stiffen again. "Let me do this for you."

He pants and clutches at her, near-sobbing when she chuckles and bends down to his level. Oh, oh, she is doing it again; he did not deserve such kindness. The young girl presses her fingers on the pulse point by the edge of his jawline, pressing on the soft hollow. He loses himself in that crimson gaze, straining to feel elation once more as she teases him with the promise of another orgasm.

"Come on," she pulls him up and he stumbles into her arms, his cock twitching when it hits the fabric of her skirt, "let's take this inside, Starling."

They enter the women's restroom—he is sure the flush on his face extends even further down—and she checks each stall for other people, then locks the door to the place when she realises all were empty. It would have ensured no one interrupted them when they fulfilled their own carnalities. She pushes him onto the edge of the sink, and he chokes on a moan when his skin meets the cool surface. Immediately, he sheds his jacket, setting it aside in a careful fold so as not to crease them any further. She does the same with her own green cardigan.

The two of them take their positions by a wall.

"You're going to kill me…one day." He whispers, throat dry as she regards him with the same amount of intimacy. It is not a mere concern, it is not his paranoia. The words are a fact. He says them again. "You're going to kill me, one day."

She giggled against his lips—that flavour of cherry and grape: red and violet, sex and power, rage and magic. "Maybe, but not today."

Her fire and music moulds and shapes; and finally, so does their justice. They will purge the impurities of the lands, burning away the veils of evil. Song and flame, intertwined; humanity in the pursuit of a just and harmonious existence.

(God has decided him to be deserving, and he will fulfil his role to the best of his abilities, to the most that his lady may ever need of him.)

He finally chanced upon his true calling—and he knew that if he let go of her now, he would only plunge back into the abyss of his own lonely being.

That would not do, and it was an easy choice.

This is paradise, this is heaven, this is the edifice that he will die upon.

"When you go, just know that I will remember you. I lost my fear of falling. I will be with you, I will be with you…"

Teru kneels before the young woman once again; bows his head, and bares his neck.

"I love you." He declares, and she smiles.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: The song in the prologue/the song that Dawn/María first sings to Teru is It's Not a Fashion Statement, It's a Fucking Deathwish by My Chemical Romance. I thought the lyrics would echo what she feels. I took inspo from the Songfacts article for the meaning, which I'm incorporating as angst material later on.

Generally, I'd envision Dawn's voice to be a cross between Lana Del Rey, Mitski, and Marina Diamandis. Yes, I know, it's a bit cliché. But I couldn't help myself; these three women are literally a trinity of talent—and I can't imagine anyone else coming close in terms of their singing style, save for perhaps Melanie Martinez and Billie Eilish.

Also, Dawn and Teru's first encounter is supposed to be (somewhat) reminiscent of Masao and María's—in terms of coincidence, that is. Both men have come upon the subject(s) of their obsession(s) only through pure chance; and there's meant to be pining involved—mostly because I planned to explore their issues [Masao's religious upbringing (which was very briefly referenced in Puppeteer) and Teru's neglectful one]—with them romanticising their 'love' far too much, before anything truly substantial happens. Cue both men being dramatic little bitches.

There wasn't really any deep-set precedent for Masao to have fallen for María—and the same applies for Teru with Dawn (even if she reminds him of Mrs. Mikami). I wanted to reverse the notion of trauma as an immediate basis for obsession; like, yes, it still applies to both couples, but it's not going to be the focus. The fic is still largely meant to be self-indulgent on my end, while still making sense lmfao (and I'm trying not to make this a dramatised Freudian psychoanalysis JKGHGGB)

Lastly, the next chapter is a bit of buildup; and it will feature the Kira investigation. The dead dove starts after that.