True Elision

by Ezan

YAOI RaitoRyuzaki.Raito dies and becomes nothing. But the Shinigami need his soul,so they give him a second chance.They recreate his spirit and send him to a hellish trial where he must face his living nightmares.Intense romance comes late in fic

19. Municipal Mutations

Hello to everyone, and if you're still reading - thank you! Thanks for the review, Rirren - it really made my day! Even one person is fine for me, to share the happiness of writing this story. Maybe don't get quite so comfortable yet, though...as you'll see now, we still have some way to go before these two can accept what is going on between then hahaha

You know guys, it has taken me until now to realize - this is basically like, two novels in one. The Trial was one mini-novel, Mu is technically Part 2. Perhaps the reason I couldn't continue it all those years ago is that I realized how big of a story it would be, and I wasn't ready to deal with it quite yet.

But I am now... MWAHAHAHAAA!

So this chapter is a bit of a calm before the storm. I haven't beta-read it yet because I'm so eager to move on to the next part...so if you see grammar or syntax glitches, please do forgive me. I'm sure you will be glad when you see the next chapter coming...and what it has in store for you...

Have fuuuun!

---

"'Two-hundred floors plus', you said?" Raito muttered, his neck craning further and further back as his eyes climbed higher and higher, taking in the immense, black tower-structure that loomed above them. It was a monolith of shimmering glass that stretched impossibly high, its surface a glassy mirror that reflected Mu's distorted skyline with eerie precision."I think you may have shorted them some." he concluded.

Even though they were still standing a good distance away from it, from their vantage point, its pinnacle still disappeared into the dark, hazy sky - as if it truly had no end; an inconceivable height.

"Affirmative." L's slow drawl echoed from the left. "Although I'm sure at some point they also lost count." For anyone else, the robotic neutrality would signify boredom, but Raito knew the detective well enough to recognize it was actually a sign of apprehension.

And apprehension absolutely made sense when faced with this thing: its sheer height seemed to defy logic, both of what they had known on Earth and even of this bleak realm - a juxtaposition made all the more stark when compared to the very conventional, low-storey Victorian surroundings. At the ground level, its base was wide and sulfurous, having crushed the neighboring houses beneath its bulk. Resting in a crater of ruins, it seemed to expand like a grotesque black parasite, melding with the rubble around it, making it impossible to tell where the building ended and the wreckage began.

"If 'they' who made it were even human." Raito countered skeptically, sizing up not only the immense height, the volcano-like base, but also the unnatural reflectiveness of the entire thing's surface. From top to bottom it seemed to be made of some kind of…black glass? Running all the way up there didn't seem to be any openings, windows or doors visible - at least not from this distance. And although shaped like an obelisk, its facade was far from flat: the glass surface broke out into jagged planes, creating an unsettling cubist effect, as though someone or something was punching the glass out from inside the edifice. Each panel of glass would catch the faintest glimmers of light from distant, unseen sources, warping them into strange, almost hypnotic shapes - shapes that Raito wasn't aware even existed.

"It certainly looks like space debris, doesn't it?" L commented, and Raito could hardly argue with that. "Perhaps Earth has been destroyed and Mu is branching out to our interstellar colonies?"

"'Well it was created by a comet storm…" Raito smirked, his eyes dropping to the base of the building again, almost unconsciously checking the rubble for signs of asteroid sediment. "Call me old-fashioned, but when I was alive, meteors mainly destroyed buildings…they didn't build them." Was it indeed from another planet? Were alien dead souls also sent to Mu? Raito hadn't seen any yet…but of course, as he had soon come to accept in this place…everything was possible.

"I trust we are referring to natural disasters …" L started, with a tone that definitely carried an undercurrent of sarcasm "...or did Kira-kun go on to engineer entire Armageddon events, after my passing?"

Raito's muscles tensed involuntarily at the mention of Kira, but within seconds he realized he could almost hear the proverbial rasberry being blown at him. He relaxed, shooting L a mock-angry glance - which L meticulously ignored, black eyes still fixed on the building, a picture of angelic innocence.

"Ha ha. Very funny." said 'Kira-kun', shooting the appropriate daggers with his eyes and then turning away as well. A few moments later though, after processing the statement…he did feel obliged to correct the record: "Anyway at that point Kira was already being called the " Rain of HellFire"…so it would have been redundant."

The snort that echoed back was unmistakable but, strangely, Raito didn't mind it. In fact, for some reason, he had a small smirk on his face as well. It felt rather good to know he was witty enough to amuse someone as intelligent as the other. And to be honest, thinking back on it…yeah, 'HellFire' was a bit much.

"Speaking of raging megalomania…" L said in a mock-discursive tone, and Raito again quickly realized there was little bite in it "...Do you think this is corporate?"

"Takes one to know one, Headquarters." Raito quipped, remembering only too well L's penchant for highly fortified, insanely tall, absolutely indiscreet glass buildings.

With satisfaction , he heard a snort coming back to echo his own. At least if there was one thing he could appreciate about L, it was that he could take insults as readily as he could dish them out. No thin skin problems here. In fact, it had taken Raito some time to realize that half the time L shot out some absurd impoliteness or overt insult, it was a test to sniff out weaknesses in the interlocutor's character… The other half of the time it was just L's complete social unawareness and possible disinterest in other peoples' feelings….but either way, L rarely got insulted -or cared - if people retaliated.

"Well, only one way to find out, isn't there?" Raito finally gave the rhetorical question. He had noticed that, despite the foreboding atmosphere around them, a few people were daring enough to approach the monstrous skyscraper, their steps hesitant but obviously emboldened by a mix of morbid curiosity and desperation. They were weaving through the wreckage, inching closer to the smooth, reflective surface of the glass façade - even reaching out to touch it with trembling hands, as if seeking to verify whether it was real or some ghastly illusion conjured by the storm. In fact, unless his eyes were playing tricks on him with all these reflections…he thought he could even see multiple people entering it. "Let's take a closer look."

They made their way toward the building, for once unimpeded by slow traffic. The street - or, at this point, the 'open square' - was much more devoid of people than was usual in Mu's 'bustling urban centers'. Raito noticed that this 'open square' had certainly not been here before the meteor storm…and was obviously the result of the leveling of entire housing blocks, which had been brought on by the birth of this glass titan…The evidence of destruction was there to prove it: the whole area before and around the wide base of the skyscraper sprawled out like a battlefield, littered with the stone remains of the once homogeneous Victorian neighborhood.

Broken benches lay scattered, splintered into jagged pieces, half-buried in mounds of dirt and debris. The remnants of old street-lamps jutted out from the ground at odd angles, their glass lanterns shattered, casting long, ghostly shadows on the ground - their greenish light somehow still flickering, originating from some unbidden, unseen source. Rubble from house-fronts lined the perimeter, their walls cracked and crumbling, like the remnants of a civilization left to rot after a severe bombing campaign. Jagged chunks of stone and brick were strewn across the square, interspersed with fragments of ornate cornices and iron railings, now twisted into unnatural shapes. The air was thick with dust, and the faint stench of something metallic and acrid lingered, carried by the occasional gust of wind that swept through the chaos.

"And Mu was such a happy place already…" Raito muttered beneath his breath as he walked, his eyes catching what was perhaps the most regrettable element out of all this destruction - the people. Among the wreckage, the unluckiest survivors of the meteor storm huddled like the living specters that they were, nursing their wounds in mute shock.

Some of them clutched makeshift bandages, much like Raito had done for L the previous day. Others sat slumped against the ruins of the buildings, their faces pale and smeared with dirt and blood. They watched the towering structure with wide, haunted eyes, as though expecting it to collapse at any moment and bury them alive.

A woman with a broken arm wept quietly, her gaze fixed on the jagged edge of the skyscraper where it had torn and wrecked the entire facade of a quaint Victorian villa. The way she was watching that house was almost as though it had been her personal property…but that was highly unlikely. Perhaps more likely, someone she cared about had been….hurt? Raito cursed internally for the umpteenth time about the damned nature of this place. If only he could speak to her, he would try to figure out if he could help her…but as it was, for yet one more time, all he could do was watch her face, in the full knowing that if he could hear her voice, it would be wailing.

Those who could still walk, limping and covered in dust, seemed to be pacing the edges of the square and circling the building cautiously, their heads constantly jerking up to survey the massive structure with fearful apprehension. Conversations of course were non-existent, at least not that Raito and L could hear… and what little interaction did occur was limited to brief nods or waves of the hand, maybe some understated body language…as though overly big movements might provoke the wrath of whatever force had brought the meteor storm and this impossible monument with it.

"...something to break the monotony, I suppose…" the low response finally came back, and Raito sneered to himself. He was certain that, given the choice, most of these lost souls felt exactly like he did - they had absolutely zero desire to have their Mu-notony broken by anything except finding the person they were looking for and being transported far far away…especially not a devastating rain of comet rocks..

L's words gave him an idea, however.

"Have you seen this happen before, while you've been here?" Raito was still considering the possibilities of whether this extreme event had any sort of reasoning or consistency to it. Mu was a crazy world, that was true…but it did seem to have certain patterns or working rules, at least. Were meteor storms a feature that he hadn't known about?

"Not as such, no." L answered, and his voice, despite the low volume, rang disturbingly clear in the silence around the.m "But I have seen buildings be 'created' in other ways in this place…all of them unpleasant."

Raito had the good sense not to ask for details; the current situation assured him they would be less than savory. He was sure that L was making similar calculations as he was, however, so it was worth picking his mind.

"I'm just wondering if these buildings appearing here indicates that they were destroyed in the real world…" Raito started, although he was almost certain that this was the case. All the structures they had seen until now, from the smallest of houses all the way to the infamously torched old St. Pauls' Cathedral, had been edifices that had disappeared from the living world.

"Most probably, at a likelihood of ninety-six point seven percent." L answered, and Raito literally rolled his eyes, quickly turning away from an injured bystander so that they didn't think he was mocking them. "The real question is," L continued, turning aside as well to check something of interest on a wrecked house nearby "whether the manner in which they appear here corresponds to the manner they were destroyed on Earth….or whether it is some sort of psychic manifestation…as most things here seem to be."

Raito nodded along slowly, recognizing the question he had been posing in his own head. But since L, who had been here at least a bit longer than Raito, didn't seem to have a conclusion on this question…he supposed they'd have to wait some more and possibly garner some more experiences…if they were ever able to construct a working hypothesis before leaving this place.

Although I kind of want to know the answer anyway…, a voice in his mind supplied, and he was hard-pressed to deny it. He supposed, after having been here for as long as he did, in the absence of anything else to keep his interest, it was natural to become interested in the workings of the world around him -convoluted though they were.

"Well, a meteor storm like that is a pretty big deal," Raito expounded, noticing that the height of the buildings got lower and lower as they approached the skyscraper, the structures closest to it having taken the brunt of the damage "I'm sure if it occurred on Earth, it would take out more than one building…and I don't see any others growing around here."

"True…" it was L's turn to nod slowly "However, can you guarantee that they have not appeared elsewhere in this realm?"

Guarantee? Ha. That was a good one. There was no such concept in Mu.

"...you mean, like….sprout all over in order to maximize human casualties by bombarding different spots?" he looked around him, his eyes catching a man on the side of a house, who was rolled into a fetal position, holding his…amputated arm close to his chest. Raito dry swallowed. There was nothing he could do…hopefully this person would…"recover" soon by himself. Oh yes, Mu loved torturing people. "Yeah, I can see that." he concluded, with a bitter tone.

Thankfully, L was discreet enough not to provide the exact percentage calculation for this. Perhaps he was distracted by the change in the environment, as it seemed to become more and more oppressive with every step they took closer to the skyscraper. Even though the building wasn't casting its shadow toward them - did it even have a shadow? - the sky overhead still got unexplainably darker, and the air started to carry the scent of…smoke? Brimstone, definitely. Inhaling definitely was becoming less comfortable.

And the building itself was becoming more disturbing - the more they neared it, the sleek glass exterior took on a far more sinister quality. What had seemed like pristine glass panels from afar, now from up close revealed a subtle distortion - surely it reflected their figures, but on closer inspection the reflections were…not quite right. The glass was mirroring the surrounding Victorian houses, the sparsely populated street…but sometimes in the reflections on the glass, he thought he saw, perhaps…some cobblestones that weren't actually there? A dog that didn't exist? Or a bench that was colored white, when he'd sworn it was actually brown?

When they were close enough Raito caught sight of their own images…and sure enough…not quite right. Not unless he didn't remember exactly how he looked after all this time. But L's reflection was definitely off: looking slimmer even than the real L, flickering unnervingly…And then, for both of them, as well as the rest of the people around…their reflections were moving just out of sync with their movements, as if…they were not quite reflections. As if they were watching themselves in some kind of delayed video stream.

"Never mind space debris…" Raito commented, watching a teenager near them going close enough to the glass to actually touch it - as quite a few were doing…but he noticed that the boy's reflection warped grotesquely upon contact: face stretching unnaturally, limbs elongating like an expressionistic painting. "More like a space funhouse."

This was happening all around as people looked into the glass, eliciting what Raito mutely lip-read as sharp gasps, causing a few to stagger back. But still, not all were deterred: A handful of brave—or perhaps foolish—souls were hovering close to the automatic glass doors that comprised the entrance, some of them even daring to enter. They crossed the threshold, disappearing into the looming shadow of the structure as the remaining onlookers exchanged uneasy glances, too afraid to follow but too transfixed to flee. They loitered further back from the entryway, their gazes fixed on the vast doors that led into the glassy bright interior as they opened and closed with each new entry - doubtless trying to make out what was inside and whether it was safe or not.

"Interesting." Raito heard L from his left, the tone once again meticulously neutral. Raito himself clenched his jaw. "People are going in…" L started, his black eyes perhaps for the first time met with a surface both as black and as reflective as their own.

"...but they're not coming out." Raito completed, letting his own eyes linger on the doorway. He couldn't clearly make out what was inside, but he wasn't sure he was ready to consider it anyway. The fact that no one was exiting was not necessarily a bad sign…but still, something definitely didn't look quite right. They were now standing close enough to the onyx walls that he could see, beneath the black mirror surface, what looked like thin, imperceptible veins of molten red and orange. They snaked under the glass reflection like lava, pulsing faintly, as though the building's foundations were alive with a slow, simmering rage. The glow wasn't constant—it throbbed irregularly, literally like blood pumping through capillaries… and Raito could swear he could actually feel a pulse of heat through the soles of their shoes - as if the very ground they were walking on was at risk of splitting open.

Definitely not going in there yet, no matter how many people he saw entering.

"Lets see if we can find a way around" he said in an even, calm tone, and L offered no resistance…which was wholly unsurprising, considering who was traditionally the more analytical and risk-averse of the two. Although, given his recent experiences, Raito had to admit that this place was making him more and more cautious by the day as well. He was in absolutely no rush to get back into a situation where they would be partly or entirely incapacitated - even if they did have the ability to revive and survive…the cost was too great.

They walked along the glass facade, keeping the building to their right and stepping over the rubble that laced the ground everywhere around them, forward and on the left. Raito eventually spotted that, although the building was as wide as two Tokyo city squares, it did eventually have an ending - a corner they could turn. As they walked along, occasionally their eyes would slip to the reflections on their right and - from this extremely close distance - they'd catch glimpses of shadowy figures, faces half-formed in the glass, slipping just in and out of view, leaving behind only the unsettling sensation of being watched from beneath the surface. It was as though they were looking at the surface of water…and here and there they could see a face floating close to the surface, only to be submerged again.

He glanced at L to see whether the other could also see the apparitions - or was it just Raito? But L's eyes were also fixed on the glass, as though most certainly he was noticing oddities.

Well that's nice…at least I'm not going crazy. Raito thought, and averted his eyes as he saw another face - a woman with an anguished expression, 'float' to the surface of the glass beside him. Concentrating hard on making no sudden movements or jumping in fright - he did have a reputation to uphold, after all - he averted his eyes, looking instead at the ruined Victorian buildings on the left. Although under regular circumstances they looked grim and melancholy in their own right, at the moment their presence felt almost comforting - a solace of familiarity within all this uncanniness.

Nothing, however - not even the most ardent mental preparation - could have prepared him for the sight that awaited them around the corner of the building. This time, Raito couldn't prevent himself from actually jerking back with a repulsed gasp. From the left, he could even feel L stiffen impossibly, like a pillar of ice. It took a good ten seconds for them to resume normal circulation and start relaxing again, both their eyes still fixed on the gruesome sight:

It looks like, on this side of the building, the meteor storm had been less forgiving. On this side, where limbs…entire human bodies—frozen in agony—were grotesquely fused into the walls, some embedded halfway, their expressions contorted in eternal suffering. This side, where the exterior of the building was no longer a seamless mirror, but an unnatural fusion of steel and flesh… remnants, perhaps, of the souls that died in the storm? And if only it had just been the visual component…but far from it. The olfactory experience of rotting flesh, on this level, was something that Raito had never quite experienced — not even in his Trial. And that meant something.

He had to swallow multiple times to keep the bile from climbing up to his mouth. Thank God I didn't have breakfast yet., he thought, as he doubted he could ever have kept it down. L, however, to his credit…did manage.

"Charming." Raito said dryly, trying his best to break the impossible tension in the air. He could still feel L, standing stiffly at his side. "Although I'm not sure it fits the neighborhood aesthetic."

As if by tacit agreement, the two of them stepped forward slowly again, picking up their pace in a much more hesitant manner than before. It was impossible not to fixate on the faces of the…people on the walls. But both of them unconsciously kept a much wider berth than before from the surface of the building.

"Oh, I'm sure the Victorians would be overjoyed." L's answer, equally dry as Raito's, finally came. "They were all about optimizing square footage per capita." They both slowed down to a stop again, unable to keep going or look away from the horror - simultaneously gruesome beyond words and fascinating in its composition.

"Don't you mean 'cramming as many people in as little space as possible'?" Raito was glad for the distraction of this pedantic small talk. At least something to distract from the repulsive sight. L, however, was the first to move again, actually going closer to the horrific walls. Perhaps he was more used to gory or violent scenes after years of being an investigator. Raito, for all his copious…activities with the Death Note, had historically remained rather far removed from the more…intimate aspects of death.

"I believe that's what I said." L said, without turning away from the…'crime scene'. He was actually leaning forward, observing quite closely - the only thing missing was a magnifying glass. Raito was only starting to get over the initial shock…and the smell - the smell , God-...in order to even start turning off the more primitive, disgusted part of his brain and instructing it to look at the surface as though he was observing any other…inanimate object. L, on the other hand, already seemed to be miles ahead on that score - he was literally sticking his face as close to the surface as Raito would dare imagine, examining details in the structure. This guy… cold as ice. Raito thought, with a reluctant form of admiration at the other's level-headedness. It was infuriating in day-to-day interaction but, he had to admit, at moments like these…a cool head came in handy.

And Raito had to admit, it was stunning - the seamless manner in which the glass and steel material seemed to have…fused…with the biological tissue, to create a perfect patchwork. It couldn't simply be the result of the meteor bombardment. There was strangely no blood anywhere - it was just the corpses built into the wall. It was unnatural.

"Are these even people from Mu?" Raito wondered aloud, watching L slowly walk along the disgusting…mural, observing every single nook and cranny, as though this was some twisted art gallery. "I don't see how the meteors could have caused…this." Raito added.

Sure, there were amputated limbs and dead bodies strewn all around the wrecked buildings - bodies of Mu's residents, which would inevitably revive, sooner or later…but this seemed to be quite different. "It's almost as if…" he started, not sure exactly how to express his thought "...these people are…'part' of this thing." And by thing he was referring to the tower…which he was starting to think of more and more as a living entity - or at least a sentient one - rather than a simple compilation of brick and mortar.

Is it actually draining life force out of these…people?..'Feeding off' of them? He wondered, and wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer. If it did…then what was it using their…energy… for?

He just really, really wanted to bypass this thing and never see it again, now.

"Well, if this is indeed a corporate entity…" L let the statement float, and Raito was happy to be distracted from his unpleasant thoughts. He reluctantly approached the wall as well, finally conditioned enough to the gore to be able to observe it more carefully.

"...it is one way of guaranteeing a 'permanent workforce' " L finished, and Raito could not believe that…despite all odds, he was able to enjoy the humor.

So much so, in fact, that he couldn't help but burnish it with his own contribution, having thought so recently about the concept of it feeding off the souls of the perished: "I believe modern capitalism would term it as… 'employees being part of a strong foundation'." he said with wry sarcasm, as he noticed a human body blended with solid black rock at the very base of the building - at the spot where it connected to the street below.

L, who was right beside him at this point, actually broke away from his intense investigation to send him a sideways glance. "Corpse humor, Raito-kun? Is it not too early for that?" Raito recognized the mild amusement in the voice, and actually smirked.

"You started it. Anyway…" he trailed off, noticing how the biological material was blending with the building wall even as it sank below the surface of the ground. Did this gore continue all the way to the building's underground foundations? Or could it be even worse below ground? He shook his head, looking away again, toward the destroyed neighboring houses "Just trying to lighten the mood."

"As is your namesake, I suppose." L countered rather absent-mindedly, lost again in his inspection - this time of the foundations of the building base, much like Raito had been doing before. It took a moment for Raito to comprehend that L was referring to the meaning of his name in English - "Light" - before the other sent him another quick glance - what's with these glances? - before continuing his pensive drawl. "You would have indeed made a great Interpol man, had the Shinigamis not gotten to you first."

Raito blinked a couple of times, not sure if he should be flattered by the backhanded compliment or not…but then, as his eyes fell on the repulsive scene once again, as well as L's seeming total indifference to it, he grinned lop-sidedly. "Yeah well, if this is the kind of thing I'd have to look forward to…" he started, but could not in good conscience complete it. Normally he would have said 'I'm not sure I regret it'...but in reality, he wasn't exactly sure that was true. The Death Note had been a bloodless way of fighting crime, definitely…but at the end of the day…had it been worth it?

Better not speculate.

"...I'd probably evaporate from never eating." he finally chose a less controversial route.

But L was distracted anyway, looking at something Raito couldn't fathom. "You get used to it.", his baritone voice echoed, and Raito saw the slim shoulders shrugging from the back - the khaki jacket totally unfamiliar on the lean figure.

"Not sure I'd want to…" Raito muttered, and turned to survey the environs yet again. Rubble, rubble and rubble, as far as the eye could see. Among the remnants of the massacre, even here, he could see the odd person walking carefully, surveying the ruins - although there were much fewer than there had been at the front of the skyscraper. Scavenging for objects, no doubt. Raito realized, and wondered if it would be worth doing the same. He threw a glance at L - he was…distracted, definitely. If he didn't end this investigation soon, Raito might as well go treasure-hunting… He looked around again - piles of ruins and junk from the houses; he couldn't see a clear street for quite a distance. The block right next to the monolith had been almost completely leveled but… beyond that, all that was visible were just more houses - no indication of the street layout.

"Jesus, L," Raito started, catching sight of what L was now doing from the corner of his eye. He flinched openly as he saw L actually stretch a hand towards one of the frozen faces on the wall, as though to touch it. "Must you?"

But L was undeterred, keeping his hand steady and carefully - almost reverently - touching the disembodied face, placing his index finger under its nose and his thumb on its chin — attempting to pry the mouth open…which apparently was not quite so easy. Raito thanked God for small favors, noticing that the face's eyes were closed and it didn't seem to be reacting in any strange way to the touch - which he had half-feared it would.

"Jesus…" Raito repeated, looking away. He hadn't realized quite how desensitized and emotionless L could be. It was a bit unnerving, to be honest. Certainly in the Kira case, L had always been very calculating and methodical with his analyses - it was definitely hard to see his perfect neutral facade cracking, even under the most stressful of circumstances, when everybody else would be panicking… But the Kira case…well, it had been very cerebral, much about mind games and strategy, in and of itself. Although the killings were happening, they hadn't had to…L didn't have to… Being so emotionless when faced with such corporeal horror, to Raito's mind, was…quite another story.

Cold as ice. Seriously. Raito thought again, this time not just with admiration...but also a small dose of apprehension. He'd always thought of L as cowardly, because of his pervasive paranoia and cloak-and-dagger tactics. This kind of coldness, though…it was a bit…subhuman.

"Just a moment, Raito-kun" came the steady voice and, despite unseen, Raito made his frustration patently obvious by glowering at the other man's back. "I'm trying to figure out what happened here."

"I think it's pretty obvious what happened here!" Raito countered in an exasperated tone, rolling his eyes in an exaggerated fashion that, under other circumstances, would have reminded him of his younger sister at the height of her teenage rebellion.

"Is it?" came the unaffected reply and, again, despite his better judgment, Raito did turn to watch L's activities with a form of morbid fascination. "The intensity of the odor does not correspond with the levels of putrefaction on the cadavers. Or the fact that some are not decomposing at all." As an afterthought, the black haired man suddenly and very slowly reached his free hand to right, where a …black-and-purple, bloated forearm was enmeshed with the wall, a few feet away from them - Raito hadn't noticed it before, but now he did…and as L calmly and clinically ran a long index finger over it...

To Raito's horror….the flesh reacted, cobbling up as though it had goosebumps.

"Cutaneous sepsis, level one." L uttered mechanically. "Tissue: living"

"Urgh…" Raito felt goosebumps crawl over his own skin as he whispered through a grimace, shaking his head to himself and looking away. Did that mean…They were alive? Or, at least, some of them?

He felt like hurling, again. Urgh.

"I can't believe you're trying to reason it out. As if logic ever applied or mattered in this place." the auburn-haired man commented snidely…but he couldn't help but consider L's point. It was true….that the bodies did not look homogeneous. And certainly, though Raito was not an expert at the process of human decay - unlike some people, apparently - he did know enough of the basics so as to recognize that they were in various stages of bloating and blackening skin, so as to merit questions about their origin.

"Never hurts to investigate." another absent-minded mutter came, as L's concentration was clearly focused elsewhere. Until finally, thankfully, he seemed to succeed in his quest. The mouth of that thing opened, and L drew his face even closer to observe. Raito's lip curled in disgust, trying to understand if there was any rhyme or reason in the other man's madness. He watched L gingerly press his index over the corpse's upper lip, a very very soft touch, as though searching for something. And certainly, a few seconds later - to Raito's eternally reluctant amazement - a few small yellow objects fell from the open mouth; teeth.

"Stage four." L said simply, narrowing his eyes. "As I suspected." he finished thoughtfully, and finally leaned back, taking a few steps away from the accursed wall. Raito released a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding, thanking his lucky stars that nothing horrible had happened when L had been bold enough to actually make bodily contact with that stuff. Just how comfortable was Ryuuzaki - L, L - around dead bodies? Should Raito be more than a little disturbed that he seemed to be more comfortable around them than he had seemed to be around people?

And then, like a brick, the thought hit him: How much do I really know about him, actually? He glanced at the other man, who was wiping his fingers carefully on the rapidly degenerating khaki jacket. Who would have thought that a creature as slim and weak-looking, that likes sweets and cookies, would have such a…strong stomach? Raito wondered, for the umpteenth time. He looked absently down, watching L's long, delicate fingers…Who would have thought what they were capable of touching?

The black hair bobbed softly as L leaned his head to one side - a signature 'calculating' gesture that Raito hadn't seen in a while. Raito caught the beautiful shine of blue light on the black hair as it swayed, letting his eyes linger on it. I know how his hair feels…but I have no idea what life he lived before I met him… And as if driven by some primordial instinct, while L was lost in his own musings, Raito's mind strangely went to the old photo he kept in his wallet, of a small black haired child holding a middle-aged Whammy's hand, in front of Big Ben. That was it – all he knew about L's past, really. Who knows what his eyes have seen…if he can touch something like that so easily? And then, unbidden, an image of B floated in his mental vision…and he decided to save the speculation about L's past for later. Perhaps it's better if he didn't find out about it now…lest he get angrier than he wanted to so early in the day.

"So?" he chose to ask instead, genuinely curious if L's torturously long-winded 'investigation' had done any good.

"These people died at least eight days ago, some of them even earlier. At least this would be consistent with the smell and the internal state of the bodies. " Raito shook his head, bringing a hand to massage the bridge of his nose - what a headache, this place. "...Which means they certainly did not come from Mu. Regardless of the fact that, on the outside, they look… 'fresh'."

Could've told you that without almost kissing them! Raito's head shouted in protest, but he kept listening nevertheless: "...Which means they are definitely an inbuilt feature of the building, either having died inside it, or as a psychosomatic manifestation of it…..which in turn means that this structure… is absolutely, definitely, one-hundred percent…untrustworthy and unsafe."

Finally having stated the conclusion, L drew his eyes aways from the tall structure and landed them on Raito's face - the irises completely black, as though ready to absorb everything and anything around them…certainly Raito himself, who felt sucked in, as he always had, under this mode of intense scrutiny.

"...which finally beggars the most crucial question: if it is so utterly unsafe, and if, as you aptly noticed, that risk is so patently obvious even without close examination of these…particularities…" L left a pregnant pause hover for a few seconds, letting the argument sink in before delivering the punchline: "Then why are so many people still entering?"

The question fell between them like an anvil - loud and intractable. Possibly because the loudest thing about it was not the question itself but, rather the answer…which was as obvious as it was disquieting: Because they have no choice.

The two of them looked at each other, the silence hanging over them oppressively. They were both thinking it, no doubt. It was the only possible explanation, other than people suffering from mass idiocy or madness. But even stupidity would not affect everyone simultaneously…not to that extent.

"Well…" Raito started, figuring there was no use in staying immobile in any case. "We might as well keep going. Lets see what's around the next corner, at least."

L nodded mutely, his volubility temporarily sated after the delivery of his investigative conclusions. Raito walked first, choosing to ignore the grotesque…sculpture…on his right, which he was quick to note would stretch over the entire ground-floor level of the building on this side, and determinedly kept his eyes looking forward in a narrowed glare. He let L follow him, hearing the steady footsteps drag on the ground, no doubt still scrutinizing the rest of the macabre building surface. On his part, he chose to take in the rest of the surroundings on the left.

But now that they were not speaking, and as the quota of corpses on the walls climbed higher and higher, Raito could hear thatthe unsettling silence was punctuated by faint whispers, as though the voices of the dead were still …lingering, themselves trapped in the walls. And since L had told him that a few of them may still…still be alive…he couldn't quite calm his heart, every time he heard even a small suggestion of a whisper, or a hushed mutter.

Inspired by L's frigidity, however, he was determined not to let it get to him. Despite the macabre scene, they had to press forward. It was the best and most foolproof way of getting away from this scene, as fast as possible.

Just as he was squinting, however, and trying to make out anything he could in the horizon - where he could faintly see the end of the building's grotesque frieze - he heard a voice…a crying female voice, much louder and clearer than the strange indistinct whispers he could sense coming from the right side. He turned to the left, letting his eyes scan over the rubble, realizing that, if he could hear a voice, in this realm it could mean only one thing.

Elision.

Where was it? Without any explanation, he veered off to the left, walking amongst the broken pieces of stone and brick. L's footsteps stopped echoing behind him, replaced with a soft call instead.

"Raito-kun?"

"Just a moment." Raito answered, stretching his auditory perception to detect where the voice was coming from. It was getting louder and louder, so it couldn't be far, now. From here, he could even make out some faint words..

"...where…sob-sob…where di d you go…? Sob-sob"

Finally, Raito spotten a particular piece of debris, the remains of a dilapidated bench. It was turned upside down, creating a small crevice on the ground. That's where it must be coming from.

He sent a glance back to L, who was waiting at the edge of the rubble with a slightly questioning look on his face, and nodded quickly as a form of reassurance. Then he turned back to the bench, bending down to see what was hiding underneath.

What greeted him was a small, fuzzy-looking, curled up ball. It was being rocked now and then by the heaving of sobs, and Raito could recognize the slight flicker of its body - an apparition, definitely. A little child, probably.

Why was it always children?

"Hey there…" he started, using the softest, most polite voice that he could muster - the one he knew could make ice-cream melt. And sure enough, at the sound of his saccharine call, the little ball slightly moved - interrupted in its misery.

"What's wrong?" he continued, encouraged by the child's reaction. "Are you lost?"

Slowly, very hesitantly, he saw two brown eyes peek through what looked like a ratty blanket. And although he definitely didn't believe himself to be the soft and fuzzy type of person…if he had been, this would have probably done it.

"What happened?" he kept his tone steady, and the soft smile on his face - once such a staple when dealing with people, and especially gullible women, in the real world - felt rather foreign and strange…but not entirely artificial, for once. "You need help?"

The small ball slowly unraveled, at least as much as would be possible in its cramped hiding spot. It revealed a little girl's tear-streaked face, scared and confused…and utterly, hopelessly miserable.

"Mommy…" the girl started, and Raito felt his heart sink. He didn't know where 'Mommy' was, but he was willing to bet he wouldn't be able to find her or bring her to this poor child. And since he wasn't a woman himself, and nor was L, he started to doubt if he had any chance of helping at all here..

"Mommy said she would find some food…" the girl repeated, and Raito couldn't help but feel a crack in his picture-perfect smile. Always the children, dammit… he thought again, and in his heart was hit by a mix of anger, sadness and despair.

Inevitably, it came…the line he'd been waiting for all along.

"...But she never came back…"

His mind whirred as quickly as possible, thinking of ways to possibly make her feel better. It's not that he could bring her mother back, obviously…but who knows how long she'd stayed here - hallucination or not - terrified and alone, waiting for her mother to return. In any case, he figured, at least he could console her.

"...I'm sure she's just late. It's hard to find food around here." he said with what serenity and cheer he could muster. He wasn't really sure if this child could see the world of Mu, or if she was living in a completely different dimension than him…but sure enough, food could be hard to find anywhere sometimes. And although he had no idea what had happened to her mother, he would tell her a story that would at least sound good.

"Why don't you come out, huh?" he said with sudden inspiration. Staying huddled under the bench and crying didn't seem to have worked out so far. He might as well engage with her for a bit and see…perhaps that alone would help her. To have someone be kind to her. "We can look for her together."

She blinked slowly, appearing to consider it.

"Really?" she asked, obviously hesitant to build up the hope.

"Yeah. She can't be far." Raito nodded with his best and most genuine smile, the one that had fooled dozens upon dozens of the best Interpol investigators. Surely, for once, it could help him fool someone in the name of good? "But you have to come out first, right? Otherwise she won't see you, will she, you silly?" he chuckled a bit, a clear chiming sound that he knew very well how to make sound like a clear, fresh bell. Or perhaps, as some more spiritually inclined would say…a charm.

"...but she said I shouldn't talk to strangers…" the girl seemed to pace her excitement, clearly tempted but unwilling to disobey her mother's directions.

"Well that's good…because now we've already met." Raito winked at her, his most winning smile in place again. "I'm Light. What's your name?"

"...Nora…"

"Nora." he repeated, looking at her with genuine empathy, his smile perhaps slipping into something a bit sadder…but also, more natural. "Come outside, Nora. Let's search for her together, ok?"

And with those words, he extended his hand toward her under the bench with his palm facing up. "I'll help you." he finished.

The little girl looked at his hand, then back to his face. She seemed a bit mesmerized by his eyes, truth be told, and he kept his grin in place. Still got it. He couldn't help but think, with an ironic sense of pride of at least being able to convince one person he was still a good human. Until finally, with a broken, shy motion, the girl placed her tiny palm onto his own, and allowed him to wrap his fingers around it.

"We'll find her." he repeated, and pulled lightly as though to help her move outside. She crouched a bit forward, still looking at him - as though awestruck.

"Thank you…" she said, in a slightly tearful voice….and perhaps a man as cold as L would not be affected, but Raito definitely felt something stir inside his heart. "Thank you…Light…" she said and, ironically, just as she said the word for his name, her whole body started glimmering with a faint shine…as she slowly dissipated into vapor.

He stood there, motionless, for a few moments, with his hand still outstretched and the sad smile unconsciously still on his face. Until finally, he let his palm return to his lap and stood up to full height - only then registering the shadow standing nearby.

"A heart-warming scene to be sure, Raito-kun." the flat voice evaluated, as Raito kept his eyes averted, patting non-existent lint off his trousers. He felt a bit embarrassed, for some reason…all the smiling and sweetness he'd used to talk to that poor girl…it came in such stark contrast with the dry way he usually conversed with L. And now that he was here, it felt as though Raito was a teenager or something, caught doing something totally unmanly…kissing a girl behind the seats at the gymnasium or something. Ridiculous.

"Yes well, I thought you could use some extra time to do your autopsies…you seem so much like you enjoy them."

"Indeed…thank you very much for the consideration…" L supplied, but it was as empty a felicitation as Raito's had been sarcastic. In any case, sarcasm and barbs were much easier than the awkwardness that had somehow pervaded the air previously.

"Shall we move on, or would you like to study some more?" Raito extended the fake offer, and L shook his head decisively.

"You're too kind. I'm done here, thank you... After you." The ludicrous politeness mirrored his own, provocative in its utter insincerity. The black eyes, though, stayed large and unblinking, looking at him with some…unexplainable…maybe judgmental kind of intention? As though L was back to analyzing him…trying to decipher him…just as he did one of his endless spreadsheets. Or his cadavers.

"This way then." Raito said stiffly, and navigated them out of the rubble without further ado. He ignored L's unblinking eyes, which he could patently feel were glued to the back of his head, and confidently walked them toward the far side of the building - as though this little episode had never happened, except for L's newfound, watchful silence behind him.

Suspicious again, I bet, Raito sighed internally. Only now did he realize how long it had been…He'd forgotten what it looked like, much less what it felt like, to be well and truly under L's scrutiny. The utter fake politeness. The robotic-ness. And the large, unblinking, bottomless eyes.

He's probably wondering if I was lying to her…evaluating me…Raito thought, and somehow felt a form of frustration building inside. Seems like there was nothing he could do, not related to anything…not even to L himself…nothing he could really say to make the other man stop suspecting him…his words or his intentions or his actions. Even if there was nothing to suspect. The last time he had felt like this, strangely, was the time he remembered living with L in the Headquarters building…back then when he had given up his memories and felt genuinely innocent and wronged by all the suspicion.

But now…well now, he had his memories back, right? So he didn't really have an excuse to be frustrated…he had been guilty, after all. If L suspected him, he was fully within his rights. But still…still..

Well, I did murder him, technically. Raito's brain helpfully pitched in, and he actively told it to shut up. Really, where was a tree when he needed to whack it? Why couldn't he just focus on the here and now? Who cares what L thought - they had much bigger fish to fry, here.

But at least that kind of frustration was familiar. Earlier in the day, when they had even started joking about him being Kira…well, that had felt good, but also a bit surreal - not in a million years could someone have told him that he would be joking with someone - much less L, of all people…his greatest enemy on Earth - about the entire Death Note experience. But then again, in a strange way, L was the only person who had been there throughout…well, a lot of it. If there was anyone who would ever understand, even remotely…

Don't kid yourself. You see, he doesn't understand.. A rather harsh voice in his mind whispered. And although it certainly was familiar, he realized he hadn't heard it in a while. It's just a temporary truce. He jokes about it…but he'll never 'understand.' He's still looking for Watari…and given a choice, he still suspects you. And still hates your guts.

Raito blinked a couple of times, his eyes having dropped down to the floor, absently staring at the mess on the ground. He felt a bit bad, all of a sudden… maybe he should try not to solve elisions around L at all, if this is the kind of side-eye he would get for it. But then again…he should not and would not betray his principles, regardless of anything someone else would do. He had sworn to help elisions as often as he could after that day in the meteor storm, and he intended to keep that promise.

He'd felt what it was like to be in this world, alone and hurting…without anyone turning to help you. To allow those people to suffer in pain, whether they were elisions or not, without having a means of deliverance…that was not something he would like to have been done unto him. So as far as he was able, as long as he was around this miserable place, he would take the few extra minutes necessary to help them. And who knows, perhaps somewhere else in Mu, Nora's real soul was roaming in search for her mother…maybe resolving her elision here would give her some luck.

That would be nice… Raito smiled a bit to himself, a genuine smile that he gave without realizing, as he remembered the little ball, curled up and shivering, under the bench. I hope they find each other.

And when it came to L…Well, no use thinking of L's suspicion anyway…clearly, it would always be there. L might be more expressive and open now than he was before, but there was little chance he'd get over a lifetime's worth of competition because of just a few days of peace…at this late date…Clearly it didn't matter what Raito did or why, be it to save him from a falling asteroid or to punch him for being insufferable…L would just never trust him.

I should just accept it… Raito thought to himself, averting his eyes from the horrible surface of the skyscraper, which again was way to close for comfort. No use trying to convince him of anything. I should just do what I feel like, independently…

"Raito-kun?"

Raito glanced quickly to the side, jarred out of his thoughts. He saw L standing there, with his large eyes now blinking and his head slightly cocked, as though he'd just asked a question.

"Hm? Sorry, I was thinking…" Raito asked rather distractedly, trying not to reveal the melancholy track his mind had taken.

"I said: is it just me, or does it look like the way is blocked?" L said, raising his hand to point a finger toward the far distance. For a moment, Raito watched the finger itself, the way its long, fine line curved like a white bow in the air, ending in an almond shaped, slightly too-long nail…but then he shook his head, realizing he was distracted again.

He turned to look at what L was actually showing him. At the edge of the skyscraper's wall, where it finally finished, the skyscraper's corner was actually lodged into a nearby building, having ripped into it during its genesis, apparently. The result was the creation of some kind of Frankenstein construction, where the skyscraper's corner at ground level was buried into the much shorter, wrecked house, making the two buildings appear continuous with each other without any kind of passageway in between.

"...it certainly looks that way…" Raito agreed, narrowing his eyes. At this point, though, they had walked so far that they might as well check it out from up close. Besides, it was important to remember they were in Mu - a place where, despite all of L's insistence on the empirical process, rationality did not necessarily apply. "Let's see…"

As they continued along the side of the skyscraper, nearing the spot where it connected with the other building, the path became increasingly choked with debris, forcing them to slow down. Until finally, they hit the exact part where the glass corner of one building was lodged into the other.

And yet, perhaps impossibly…there was just enough of a passage - a crack in the wall, almost, between the glass on one side and the smashed jagged stones on the other. Raito stopped, eyeing the slim gap between a pile of rubble and the building's gleaming surface.

"Great," he muttered, "not claustrophobic, are you?"

L peered past him, and Raito was not sure if the other man really stiffened up a bit, or if it was just his imagination. But when the reply came, true to form, L's voice was as even and 'bored' as usual:

"I've dealt with tighter spots than this, Raito-kun." and then, perhaps as an afterthought "As long as we don't encounter any mousetraps, I'll be fine."

Raito shot him a look. "I'm more worried about whatever's waiting on the other side."

There was nothing to it, though. They didn't really have many other options - if they wanted to traverse this skyscraper, save for entering it and walking through it, this seemed to be as good a way as any.

Biting his tongue to prevent comments about L's obvious fixation on rodents and mousetraps, Raito took the lead and began squeezing through, his body pressing tightly against the cold glass of the building. He could feel the jagged edges of stone scraping his back as he maneuvered through, each movement becoming more awkward as the passage narrowed. At this point though, he was just glad he didn't have to touch any kind of repulsive biological tissues in order to go through.

L followed close behind, and Raito could feel the brush of the other man's sleeve against his left arm. Strange how it was so noticeable in such a tight space. Raito narrowed his eyes to make out the path through the cramped darkness, but it was impossible to see - he had to feel his way through.

"Damn…I think it's getting narrower…" he muttered under his breath as he sucked in his stomach, trying to make himself as small as possible. At this point he could feel solid stone pressing both against his lungs at the front and against his spine from the back. What was even behind him? Glass? Metal. Hopefully it wasn't anything else.

"Don't tell me we're caught between a rock and a hard place." L's voice was a hoarse whisper but it sounded extremely loud in this small space. It was perhaps a bit of a predictable joke, but Raito still found himself grinning a bit at the sarcams. And knowing him as well as he did, Raito could recognize that L's voice was definitely…not that calm anymore. And here we were talking about a person who could touch a disembodied corpse without losing his cool…so maybe…

Claustrophobic indeed, eh? His brain supplied, but his thoughts were interrupted by something sharp from the right.

He immediately stopped in his shimmying motions, causing L to bump into him from the left. Within the whole confusion of being squeezed from every side, suddenly the clearest thing he could feel was the - definitely soft - entire length of L's body glued to his side, literally from shoulder down to ankle - their bodies pressed side by side, impossibly close. Combined with the restriction in his breathing, Raito suddenly felt a strange sensation of dizziness come to his head - his pulse quickening involuntarily, adrenaline rising. He grit his teeth, forcing himself to focus on the task ahead.

"Watch it, L," he said, his voice coming out more strained than he intended. "Any closer and I'll be slipping on your shoelaces."

"…even though I tied them?" L's voice was a low murmur just behind him, his usual flat tone carrying an edge of amusement.

Raito felt around as much as he could. The thing he had felt didn't seem threatening, just a piece of metal that jutted out of the stone, probably.

"At this distance…yes." He tried to slither around it, realizing if he moved very slowly, it didn't hurt "Careful, something sharp here…"

Thankfully, as he glanced to the right, he could just about see some light. Just a little bit closer…he gave a push through the stone…and finally! He broke free from the narrow passage, stumbling sideways into the open air. He took a couple large breaths and blinked…but the momentary relief froze on his face as he realized where they were.

"No way…" he muttered, eyes widening.

L emerged beside him, his brow furrowing as he scanned their surroundings.

Here they were again…back in front of the building's main entrance - at the exact place they'd started. The sprawling glass facade was there gleaming at them, the distorted reflections warping in mockery.

L's eyes narrowed. "Curious. I don't recall us agreeing to a perimeter recon."

"We didn't." Raito frowned, clenching his jaw and making the muscle pump. "There's no way we doubled back." He watched the ghoulish people walking back and forth in the space before the glass automatic entrance - exactly as they had been before but now seeing them from a different vantage point. "It threw us in a loop."

They had emerged from the side where that injured woman had previously been staring at the ruined corner of the building…now Raito wondered if the reason she had looked so persistently at it was because she had tried to go around and it had played the same exact trick on her.

L let out a soft hum, tapping his lip with a finger. "A spatial distortion, perhaps? Or some other phenomenon that defies conventional physics."

Raito snorted. " 'Phenomenon?' That's one way to call it… Knowing this place, I'd say more like a funfair trick."

"Indeed." L replied dryly, "...Too bad we're missing the carousel horses."

"...Or the cotton handy for you, hm?" Ratio finished with the same wryness…but his teasing quickly gave way to frustration as he ran a hand through his hair. "So, what now? Something tells me if we try to go around again, same thing will happen."

L gave a small shrug, his expression unreadable. "If this…construction is playing games, we'll have to be more persistent than it is." His eyes flickered toward the glass walls again, taking in the surreal sight. "Though, I admit, it's an impressive effort. I almost feel flattered."

Raito shot him a sidelong glance. "Impressive? If you admire this, I hate to see what would actually get you worried."

L's lips twitched, barely a smile. "Let's not tempt fate, Raito-kun."

Raito exhaled, trying to suppress his irritation. "Might be too late for that…" he said a bit bitterly, noticing an older man rummaging through a pile of detritus at the other end of the street. So many people, so much suffering on a good day…and now this. "Whatever built this thing has a sick sense of humor. "

L straightened, the flicker of amusement gone. "Agreed. Lets try bypassing it completely. Maybe by walking through the side alleys.." but truth be told, he didn't sound so convinced of his suggestion, and the way he allowed his voice to trail off belied the calculations taking place in that immense brain of his. It seemed like he was weighing together multiple things, making Raito wonder if he had noticed something that he hadn't…or if it was just the fact that - like Raito himself - L was thinking the obvious: it couldn't be that simple.

Raito knew better than to press the detective about it, however. Firstly, it probably was just L's innate pensiveness that made him sound so ambivalent. And secondly, even if it wasn't and he had something specific in mind, L was the type who tended to gather all the information internally first, then come out with a working hypothesis of a conclusion when he had sufficient evidence to back it up.

Well, whatever it is… Raito thought, He has a point. If we can't go through it, or around it…we might just be able to veer off it through the district.

"All right then…" he started, seeing the remnants of a street through the rubble, on the far side of the 'square'. That seemed as good a place as any to start. If they walked a couple of blocks on that side, then turned right, they might find a street that allows them to exit this side of town without any issues. "Lets go…"

Then, as they set off wading through the people and debris, he send L a quick glance, adding the afterthought "You've got your mental map-creation tool turned on, right?"

Against all odds, a rare sight, L's side-lip actually twisted - another almost smile, perhaps. "Affirmative, Raito-kun." and then, with a rather more serious look, he turned his eyes to meet Raito's for a few moments.

"Although everything considered… getting lost might be the least of our problems."

---

It didn't take long, however, before they realized that 'getting lost' was not only a minor worry - it was virtually impossible. Whatever had happened to the surroundings, whatever "physical distortion" or "spacetime discontinuum" was taking place, the result was that it didn't matter which road they took, which direction they turned or how long of a radius they tried to create between themselves and the skyscraper - at some point, inevitably, they would end up back in the 'central square', as Raito had began referring to it.

This is how they ended up spending their entire morning and a good chunk of their afternoon - walking and walking, up and down, right and left, in interminable circles, both of them realizing that whatever new turn they took would probably not lead to salvation, but giving it a shot nonetheless - at least to claim they tried.

Sometimes, if the route they had chosen had been particularly flashy - maybe going in between two buildings through a narrow passageway or crevice, or maybe going up a bizarre staircase that one would expect didn't lead anywhere logical - sure enough, the spatial 'game' would mock them additionally, bringing them not to the central square in front of the glass entryway, but to the side of the building where the wall with the 'death mural' was locatedh. At this point, Raito was sad to admit, he had seen it enough times to become almost as desensitized as L.

His desensitization, however, did not extend as far as the new sights of horror they were constantly greeted with as they walked around the decimated blocks of the district. As they made their way amongst the rubble, not only were there the obvious and more 'natural' results of the meteor storm - the bodies of people crushed under collapsed buildings, the amputated limbs strewn across the streets - but the worst came in the form of macabre bizarreness - echoing the mural on the side of the skyscraper itself. Such was the image of bodies half-melted into the sidewalks, embedded impossibly into the facades of houses, fused with some of the windows.

If by some chance they passed by a glass window, even though it was not on the actual skyscraper, Raito would occasionally catch the reflection of a face that wasn't his, twisted in agony or anger - but if he turned to look directly at the glass, nothing would be there except his normal gaunt face. He did his best to brushes off most of it, intent on moving forward. For the most part so did L, but sometimes he would stand to focus on some detail, mapping out the terrain and simultaneously analyzing its elements as they walked.

With every new route they took and with every new instance they - yet again - landed on the same accursed square, Raito felt himself getting more and more frustrated. The only things he could count on to alleviate his irritation were the sardonic quips he could exchange with L or the elisions that would pop up here and there, giving him a chance to actually apply himself and resolve something effectively, for a change. Finally, on the fifth occasion that he heard a distressed voice from a dark alley and went over to help the elision - some young woman being bullied by her husband, apparently - L commented:

"You seem to be very altruistic all of a sudden, Raito-kun." the eyes narrowed again, but Raito was past L's renewed suspicion, at this point. "Any particular reason?"

"Just makes me feel useful…" Raito commented, shaking his head and massaging his chest a bit, where he had received a bit of a phantom hit. Her husband had tried to put up a fight, of course…thankfully though, it was just her feeling that someone was present to support her that had been needed to 'deliver' her spirit. Raito was starting to find that this was actually the main common denominator with these apparitions - usually it was more about the emotion of being heard and helped, apparently, rather than an actual practical solution to the situation. How could these situations be resolved anyway, he reason, when they were just memories or fantasies? It's not about resolving them, really…it's about the feelings…

"Anyway," he continued, seeing that L was still frozen, looking at him with that steady gaze that implied he was still waiting for a real explanation. Typical…can't believe I have good intentions to save his life. "Aren't you the one who was saying that we ought to help them, if we can?" Raito recalled the very first day that he had run into L in Mu, and how the detective had certainly been keen on jumping into the elision fray then.

"That's true…." L started, and Raito was a bit surprised to see his black eyes escape to the side, as though he wasn't extremely proud of what he was thinking or saying at the moment "...but then again due to recent developments, I was reminded of the importance of keeping a low profile."

Raito snorted. I guess that's L-speak for "I saw B and I wet my pants." In a rare show of gregariousness, however, he thought he'd cut the other man some slack. Having seen B's bloodthirsty eyes, he could understand why L was not too excited to stick his neck over the parapet.

"Besides…" L continued, and Raito crossed his hands to complement his smirk, an image of incredulity even though he wasn't striking it on purpose "...they are not alive, correct? Their suffering is not real."

Raito was not prepared, however, at the effect the last phrase had on him. One minute he'd been raising his eyebrow at L's reluctance to admit his cowardice…but this… this was entirely different.

Entirely different.

"I resent that." he spat out, surprising himself at how absolutely scathing his tone was. L certainly looked surprised as well, his black eyes jerking back immediately to focus on Raito's face. Belatedly, Raito remembered who he was dealing with, and cursed himself for maybe letting his real emotions show a bit too much…

…well screw it, I'm not taking it back now.

Faced with the utter question mark drawn across L's face, Raito continued:

"Just because they are not from this reality, or 'elisions' or whatever, that doesn't make their suffering any less 'real'. Who's to tell what is real in this world and what is not - you? Would you like to be suffering while millions of people pass you by every day?"

L looked on, his expression rather inscrutable - perhaps more interested in evaluating Raito himself than in what Raito was actually saying. But then, after a few moments, he opened his mouth to let out a low, very low, mutter - as though processing in real time.

"...Fair enough…although you know they cannot see us."

"So?" Raito shot back again, and did not realize he had actually raised his voice. "That makes it even worse - so if you are to help someone, you would only do it for social applause or what?"

L did not reply again, he just kept looking at him silently. Silently enough to alert Raito to the muted environment around them, and to the volume he had started using in his own voice. He took a couple of deep breaths, feeling his nostrils actually flare…and then feeling even more frustrated, perhaps by the awareness that L was watching him get angry…and possibly drawing conclusions.

Whatever. Let him suspect…bastard. His mind complemented for good measure, the mental insult somehow helping him calm down.

"Anyway. When you were injured and I was dragging you around the streets, nobody was helping me…and I can tell you now, that wasn't any fun." he said, lowering his voice back to normal. He massaged his shoulder again, feeling a dull ache from where that ghost had punched him a few minutes ago. He looked away from L - no use dealing with him, really.

"So I've decided to help out as many of them as I can. It only takes a few minutes anyway." he said, now his tone much lower, almost talking to himself. "As long as I see them…I'll help all of them."

This time, the reaction was immediate. And for once, it seemed not to be premeditated:

"All of them?" the wide, black eyes inquired - in clear and very expressive disbelief.

"All of them." Raito repeated, meeting that gaze. As he took in L's genuine surprise, however, the reality dawned on him. Perhaps L…would be too scared to stick around now. Talking to elisions in the world of Mu was a bit high profile…

Watching L's continued silence, Raito broke eye contact. He kept his eyes averted as he said the next part…and by now his voice was quite low - as though he didn't really want to speak it out loud. "If it's too high profile for you, or too much of a delay…I get it." And the implication was clear…that L was free to go off without him.

But still…unhelpfully…L didn't seem to be reacting at all. The only reaction, if any, was that the black eyes seemed to narrow a bit, lowering to stare somewhere around Raito's shoulder - lingering at the point where he had been massaging the injury.

Until finally, a few seconds later, propelled by some infernal inner source that he couldn't quite understand, Raito felt the need to break the silence himself, adding – "But since I'm helping all these guys, obviously…If something happens, I'll also help you."

L's eyes snapped back up, piercing him right through.

Oh God. Raito felt himself mentally throwing a palm over his face. "I'll also help you" !? Could he have said anything lamer?! The moment he'd said it, he regretted it. And now L was watching him like a hawk, of course. Of course. Because in L's mind, someone - especially Light Yagami - declaring good intentions towards him was the dodgiest thing ever! Virtually means I'm re-plotting to kill him!

But this time, faced with L's non-reaction, Raito forced himself not to say anything, in case he screwed things up even further. He turned his eyes away and stared at something - anything - apart from L's calculating face…And with every passing silent second, he pursed his lips more and more, biting them on the inside, narrowing his eyes until he was virtually glaring at the nearby building - getting ready for the inevitable blow. He did his best to turn the inner dialogue upside down.

I'm an idiot, anyway. Why would I put myself in harm's way to help him deal with his psycho fanboy? Let him go by himself, it's fine. I'll be faster on my ow-

"Not to worry, Raito-kun. I was just surprised at your sudden…compassion." The reply finally came, and it was Raito's turn to snap back in surprise. At least he thought he was feeling surprise, because the emotion he felt was rather buoyant and positive, the dominant leading thought being: He's not leaving!

But as he took in L's skeptical face a bit better, the 'surprise' - or whatever it was - quickly gave way to confusion, and then a smidgeon perhaps of anger at the implication that he was not compassionate by default…which at least he'd always considered himself to be, no matter the circumstances. Everything I've ever done, I've primarily done to help people…

But if he was honest with himself, as he continued to be faced with L's blank stare, the main source of the anger became more clear-cut: it wasn't the insult of being considered indifferent…it was more of the same frustration he had felt previously that day, after he had solved the first elision under the bench. Of course. He suspects my motives….And he'd rather stick around and 'analyze the suspect' than even hide from B.

"Yeah well." Raito said, keeping his tone neutral. What was he supposed to say? He'd dealt with this version of L before, right? And he knew, no matter what he said or did…

…anyway.

"Let's go. We might have a few routes left to try." he simply said, and walked past L, who didn't turn around immediately. But Raito paid no mind, looking at the street ahead. Soon enough, he heard the footsteps echo behind him. L was following.

Let him do whatever he wants. I don't care. He thought, and for some strange reason, as he buried his hands in his pockets, he felt his palm tightening around the ever-present, ever-comforting, soft leather lining of his wallet - the place where that photo was stored.

---

"Well…that's one more way that didn't work. What are we on now, eleven?" Raito asked, yet again having found himself looking at the glass facade of the main entrance, wondering if the whirlpool of reflections in the mirrors was indeed becoming more warped with every failed route they tried - or if it was just his impression.

"Twelve."

"Right. And how many more to try?"

"Well…considering the number of side streets we know of in the nine city blocks that we have been able to access, calculating for the number of possible turns we could take on each street, and assuming that each turn could somehow factor into the spatial distortion taking place…approximately five hundred and eighty two."

Raito shook his head but couldn't help but snort, more in exasperation than anything else. That and perhaps the ridiculousness of L's mathematical precision, even at these totally illogical circumstancecs.

" 'Approximately', huh? Well, you're all about being persistent…" Raito shook his head, watching a woman pace nervously to and fro in front of the large building entrance, trying to peek through the doors as other people entered it - obviously considering her options as well.

Raito shook his head and sighed, letting his head hang a bit and again running an exasperated hand through his hair. Ok, jokes aside…he was not willing to try five hundred and eighty two more ways - at least not right now. He put a hand on the bridge of his nose, massaging it.

"...true." Came the response, and he turned to watch L a bit absently. The other man had a finger on his lip, the signature image of thoughtfulness. Raito thought be should point to L it might be unhygienic to put fingers anywhere close to his face, considering which face he had recently been touching…but he honestly didn't have the energy. Walking all over the place had been exhausting. Arguing with L about the minutae of bacterial infection was just too much right now.

"...but?" he asked, feeling there was a 'but' coming up by the other's tone. And sure enough, L continued.

"...I'm just thinking that we would need to be persistent in a different way."

"...what do you mean?" Again, way too tired right now to deal with L's cryptic 'slow buildup' technique. But L still didn't answer, and Raito watched the black eyes rapidly snap right and left - the telltale sign of the calculating process. "L?...Know something I don't?" and then, with no small amount of burgeoning annoyance. "...Do feel free to share. Not like I'm trying to get us out of here or anything." He just hoped the other was not playing suspicion games with him again - God knew that would piss him off.

Finally, and, infuriatingly, not because of Raito's pressure, L seemed to reach some form of conclusion. He stopped 'calculating' and turned slowly to the auburn-haired man.

"Hm… a hypothesis, possibly. Based on some previous experiences I had in the realm…"

Now he tells me. The irritation struck Raito so suddenly, that he went right back to massaging the bridge of his nose.

"Ok…" Raito took some deep breaths with his eyes closed. Give me strength. He internally repeated, not knowing who he was pleading with, since he had no stable deity he believed in, Give me strength not to chew him out… Chewing him out would probably just slow things down even more. Instead, he opted for practicality….and more deep breaths. "What is it?" he simply asked, in a tone that didn't brook much opposition.

"...Lets find a place to rest and I'll explain." L said, and Raito could have sworn with that utterly ignorant, innocent voice, it was almost like he was doing it on purpose to piss him off. "Don't know about you, I'm getting a bit tired. I'd like to find some sustenance."

Give me strength.

---

BANG!

Ahhh…there IS a God.

And thankfully, God had responded to his pleas - both for the strength, and for an outlet to use it.

BANG!

"Nice." L commented from the opposite side of the tree, looking down at the pieces that had just fallen, taking his time to pick the best - as though he was in a confectionery shop, and the choice even mattered.

BANG!

Raito gave a final strike - this one complementary, for his own entertainment - and finally nodded in satisfaction, throwing away the metal rod - piece of streetlamp, unless he was mistaken - that landed nearby with a crash.

They'd found a small area in one of the blocks around the skyscraper, a bit less affected by the catastrophe than the others. Naturally, the scene around them was still horrific - limbs and bodies still decorating the landscape - but they had become even more desensitized to the horror by now.

During their previous reconnaissance they had spotted a couple of trees on the side of a bystreet which remained eerily untouched by the devastation, so they had made a mental note of the location to return later. A couple more people were around, scavenging for 'sustenance', as L would put it. Raito had noticed that in this area, as with most of the ones they had passed by, there were fewer 'dead' bodies lying around with each of their visits.

Guess they are 'waking up'...Just as L did., he had pondered, not sure whether to be disturbed by the thought of corpse reanimation or not.

As he climbed back down the tree, however, a quick look at L - fully awake and functional - was enough to remind him that, be it a Frankenstein scenario or not, he was indeed glad it was possible to revive despite severe injuries.

Finally, L seemed to select his choice of fruit, picking up a couple from the ground and wiping off the dirt on his khaki jacket again. Seeing the other was taking care of it, Raito just moved toward a nearby patch of cobblestone ground that was relatively clear of broken stone, and sat down with a huff of relief. He just watched L slowly walk towards him, noticing with mild satisfaction how other emaciated denizens in the background were also huddling around the tree, looking gleefully at all the fruit that had fallen from Raito's mid-day mini-rampage.

Wordlessly, L threw over an apple, and Raito caught it without missing a beat. He was about to bite into it when he suddenly remembered something, reaching into his pockets. L, in the meantime, was settling in beside him, shuffling around to make himself comfortable.

"So? Any ideas? Insights?" Raito started, remembering L had been hypothesizing about something previously. "Do feel free to share." he added with no small dose of sarcasm.

In the meantime, as L was finalizing his seating arrangements, Raito finally found what he was looking for, bringing out the pocket knife and snapping it open in one smooth motion.

No sooner had he done it, however, than he felt L freeze beside him - so suddenly and absolutely that it was noticeable without even looking.

"Nifty tool, Raito-kun." L's black eyes were transfixed on the object, the shuffling movements now completely frozen, the voice completely, utterly, scrupulously neutral. "Where did you get it?"

Raito didn't exactly know why -but he suddenly felt a bit self-conscious. Perhaps it was the sudden intense scrutiny. He hadn't acquired it in any nefarious way, obviously…but L's hyper-awareness was making him feel a bit like a deer caught in the headlights.

"Yesterday in the House…while looking for your clothes." he started, wondering if he should bother going into details. If anything, the story of its acquisition had been a bit…embarassing. How exactly would he put it? 'I was stupid enough to walk like a mouse into a trap and then I almost suffocated while cowering like a little boy?'

He watched L, who kept his face carefully neutral. Suspicious again, or what? Raito shook his head and decided to think nothing of it. He took hold of his apple with one hand and started cutting it with the other - focusing on the action and ignoring the other's peering gaze, which had now moved on from observing the knife to observing Raito's face - with very blank, very black, very absorbant eyes.

No use explaining, forget it. Here L was, already suspicious of him for helping little kids get out from under benches and crying women from escaping their abusive husbands. How would he react if Raito told him he had managed, by fluke of helping an elision, calm down an entire House? Better leave it…at least until he knew if it had been a fluke or not.

While his mind had been running a mile a minute, his hands had automatically been working on the apple. Now having cut the sad thing in two halves - and still wanting to slice it in quarters, so that he could finally eat one of these damn things without having to bite into their disgusting flesh - he found his hands full.

"Here," he offered one half to L without really overthinking the gesture, hoping to break the awkward silence that had fallen between them with something humdrum. And indeed, he watched how L transferred his intense gaze from Raito's face to the piece of fruit hovering between them. To Raito's amazement though, as L looked at it, the nature of the detective's gaze seemed to change a bit - less like intense analytical observation and more like intense…fascination? A bit like a moth drawn to a flame, looking at it with a mixture of magnetic attraction and hesitation.

Raito openly rolled his eyes, figuring the sudden hesitation was again due to his use of the knife. He hadn't known L to be shy around food before otherwise - especially when he'd professed to be hungry. Even if it was pretty awful in this realm. "Don't worry…" he finally said, with no small measure of sarcasm, "I haven't poisoned the blade yet. You can eat."

L blinked several times, apparently awoken from some kind of inner trance. Raito was a bit confused - wasn't 'possible danger' what L had been thinking about? He was just expecting the black-haired man to come up with some other ironic barb about blades and poisons, in fact, when L surprised him even more, by coming up with a tone that sounded much more…what was that? Distracted? Ambivalent?

"Actually, Raito-kun,..." L started, and Raito couldn't be sure if his ears were playing tricks on him or if he could indeed hear some kind of…shyness in the other's tone. Shyness? "...Is it alright if you…uh…because I touched that thing before…" the black-haired man hobbled on with uncharacteristically unfinished statements - his body language mirroring the imprecision as he raised one palm and gestured at it rather vaguely with the other.

Raito furrowed his brow slightly, trying to decipher all this suddenly cryptic subcommunication. What the…'he touched'…?

Wait… the thought occurred, as he watched L actually avert his eyes to the side, clearly grappling with some kind of massive awkwardness, is he asking me to feed him?! Raito realized, and couldn't help the incredulity from reflecting on his face, with his eyebrows actually shooting up in disbelief.

Why? he thought, trying to make a connection, but, because of his tiredness, kept drawing a blank. Then, L supplied the next segment of stammering information.

"...It would be unhygienic…"

The detective let the statement trail off and, again, Raito just looked at him blankly for a few moments. Then his eyes snapped down, distracted for a moment by the Adam's apple that bobbed up visibly in the pale throat, as L swallowed dryly.

And that's when, finally, the light of realization dawned on him. Ohhhhh! Because he was touching those…bodies before! Raito shook his head a bit in obvious exasperation and then just nodded quickly in acceptance - not missing the extremely obvious and undisguised expression of relief that came over L's face…. Probably glad that he doesn't have to spell it out, the idiot. Raito smirked a bit to himself as he pulled back the piece of apple, shuffling everything around in his hands in order to slice it to even smaller pieces.

"You do realize you've already touched it, right?" he asked with an amusement as undisguised as L's apparent relief. He distinctly even remembered L placing a thumb in his mouth previously that day, as they had been wandering the streets. Although, to be fair, Raito knew that the biting-thumb gesture was so much a staple of the detective's 'm.o.', he hardly thought L was even conscious of when he did it.

"...sorry…" L gave the small mutter, and Raito just shook his head again with an amused huff, just enjoying the few gleeful moments of lording something over the other in any kind of context.

"...Never mind. Better late than never." And then, as he finished peeling and de-seeing the slice: "I'm just happy you have some kind of hygiene awareness."

And with that, he brought the clean peeled slice up to L's eye level. The Adam's apple bobbed again, and the black-haired man actually licked his lips in apparent preparation, although it was so fast that Raito barely noticed. He smirked again internally, watching L finally go for the kill in a manner that could only be described as that of a huge, oversized Pakman - or perhaps a shark - with black eyes and incisor teeth chomping down on half the slice and chewing with an expression of ardent enthusiasm.

"Pff.." Raito smirked "You almost make it look tasty." He turned to occupy himself with his own slice, going about the peeling procedure. From the corner of his eye, he vaguely registered how L stiffened a bit at his teasing - self-conscious, probably - and the chomping definitely decreased in animated scope. Raito shook his head yet again at the other's utter haplessness, eventually bringing one of the fruit slices to his own lips – a nice, juicy, sugary smell….which quickly gave way to a mushy consistency and a very unremarkable 'grassy' taste, upon actually making contact with his mouth.

Well, no maggots at least. Nevertheless, he wouldn't complain. He was hungry enough right now that he'd take pretty much anything without protest. He shot a glance at L, who, judging by the muted dull satisfaction on his face, seemed to be of the same opinion.

And this is mostly how their late afternoon progressed, quiet and peaceful, punctuated only by the silent sounds of chewing here and there, or by the occasional passerby making their way through the surrounding debris. The black form of the immense skyscraper was, of course, visible over the skeletons of the surrounding buildings…but Raito relished the chance to simply not think about it for a bit. They would inevitably have to deal with it soon anyway…a few minutes of peace would not be the end of the world.

Nothing good could last forever, though, and so it was with their riposte. As the food supplies depleted and a form of satiation finally took over, the reality of their situation finally came back knocking. The dull sunshine of the afternoon was slowly but surely starting to give way to darkness - they would have to decide on their next steps relatively quickly, otherwise they'd have to head back to the Huts again for the night – and that would mark quite a loss of time.

Swallowing the last of his apple, Raito finally leaned back against the nearby - wrecked - bench. He absent-mindedly threw away the apple core, trying unsuccessfully not to remember a certain Shinigami, and allowed himself to travel upward again, magnetized by the precipitous peak of the glass skyscraper.

"So….Ideas? Thoughts?" he returned to his question from earlier, allowing his legs to stretch forward and cross at the ankles, approximating a stance of relaxation as much as possible. Who knew what new horrors were awaiting them later? Better rest as much as he could now that he had the chance.

"Hn…" the pensive murmur came from beside him, L sounding a bit more relaxed as well , curled up as he was with his thumb - of course - very unhygienically tapping his mouth, one knee drawn to the chest and the other leg extended out - foot almost touching Raito's. "Well, this is more of a working theory…"

"Come on L, out with it." Raito allowed himself to close his eyes for a bit, leaning his head back completely. There was a very small semblance of a cool breeze blowing…if he tried, he could even imagine being somewhere else. "We don't have all day."

"Hn.." the assessing tone came again.

"...What did you mean that we might have to be 'persistent' in another way?" Raito patiently fished out the details, very used to this by now.

"Well," L started, and Raito kept his eyes closed as he listened carefully "...I seem to recall something similar happening before while I've been in this realm - again, not entirely identical, but similar."

"Meaning?"

"This kind of…extensive spatial distortion." L paused a bit, sounding like he was searching for the right words "At the time, I witnessed the…creation…of another structure, not quite as imposing as this one, but certainly futuristic."

Raito still kept quiet, feeling a bit like he was a child again and his grandma was telling him stories to sleep. It was kind of pleasant to sit back for a while and be told fantastic stories…with his insistence on pragmatism, he hadn't been able to enjoy it for a while. Only, in this case, unfortunately…the 'fairytale' was likely of the horror genre… and even more unfortunately, he'd have to live through it himself.

"At the time, the 'genesis event' was a massive earthquake - featuring destruction and mass injury analogous to the one we are seeing now."

"Lovely." Raito commented, slightly amused at the euphemism of 'mass injury' to describe the utter horror they - and their fellow denizens of Mu - were currently experiencing. "And did it feature the same kind of…extreme surrealism as this?" Raito asked, thinking primarily of scenes of such rare wonder as corpses melted into sidewalks, corpses fused with walls…and in general, all the joyful scenes they had been subjected to that day.

"Yes." the answer, for once, was simple. A moment later, supplementation was provided "There was evidence both of spatial distortion - disjointment, disproportionality, route perversion - as well as accentuation of macabre elements beyond the scope that would be expected or consistent with either the Mu earthquake or, even, any other kind of catastrophe in the living world." A pause, to let it sink in. "Again, not quite of the same scale as this, neither in terms of intensity nor in terms of square footage…but all the elements were there"

"So basically, there was completely awful unnatural stuff…and the landscape was also acting weird. But less disgusting and not as widespread as this?"

"That's what I said."

"Right." Raito smirked slightly, still keeping his eyes closed. "And?"

"After copious attempts at, first, exploration and, later, escape from the area affected by the earthquake, it eventually became obvious that there seemed to be some kind of…psychic forcefield emanating from the new building. Every route taken would inevitably loop back to the building itself, defying all sense of logic - it was a though there was some kind of psychic barrier in place." a small pause, perhaps allowing for some more detailed consideration.

" Similar to now, I eventually concluded that the behavior of the environment was almost…punitive. As though …'it' was insisting that everyone pay attention to this building. "

"Sounds familiar."

"Indeed. And just like our current case, there were quite a few people who would reach exasperation and eventually enter it - seemingly the only way out of the loop, considering that those who entered…did not seem to exit again."

Raito finally opened his eyes, frowning at the far distance for a moment, before moving his glower to the black, glass peak of the skyscraper - indeed the focal point of their current environment at every step. This was all sounding quite ominous….

"...'seemingly'..." he repeated L's words, seeing where it was going "...so you did not go in?"

A pregnant silence. And finally, the answer Raito expected.

"...Affirmative.""

A slightly longer pause, this time followed by a tone that Ratio could describe as perhaps a bit reluctant: "...at the time I had not been very experienced in this realm…and I was operating on my own…" And indeed, L sounded perhaps a bit apologetic, or embarrassed at the acknowledgement of cowardice, although Raito actually would not have considered it as such. In fact, listening to that unusually subdued tone, Raito could almost feel a little bit sorry for-

"...Without the considerable privileges of your 'HellFire' to back me up, Raito-kun…" came the afterthought, and this was definitely with a less self-conscious tone.

…Yup, Raito was definitely not sorry for him, the cheeky wimpy bastard. Trust him to find a way back to a winning argument, even though he was admitting to being a total wimp!

"Ugh…I should have never told you…" Raito muttered, shooting daggers with his eyes - all the more so when faced with L's seemingly innocuous 'ignorance':

"On the contrary, Raito-kun…It is highly comforting to know I was sent here by such an unstoppable force." came the taunt, and Raito could swear he had never met 'one' who could deliver this amount of mockery with this same amount of angelic innocence!

"Urgh…" He rolled his eyes and shook his head in dismissal, turning away without taking the bait. What was there to say, anyway? L was right - They both knew it was ridiculous. Compared to the blood-curdling nightmares they were dealing with in Mu, Kira and his Death Note had been a bag of hot air. 'HellFire' my ass… he thought, curling his lip unconsciously in a small sneer of contempt for both himself and all the people in his past who had thought he had actually been anything close to important - including, actually, L. If only we'd known…

"...anyway, " he moved on to something more important, "What the heck did you end up doing?"

"To be perfectly fair...just waiting. It was not on purpose, in the sense that I did not know what would happen at the time. I was trying different routes every day, as well as different timing combinations…I was taking the time to study the new building as well as the ones who entered it - more and more every day, the area was emptying…until eventually, one day, the spatial loop just…stopped. "

Ratio frowned. "Why? Too few people left in the district?"

"Unclear." L's mouth went slightly lopsided "Either that, or some other unknown variable. Or simply it was a question of time itself - enough time passed for it to...sate it's anger."

"And how much time was that?" Raito hadn't been very encouraged by L's tone so far, but when the other man took a few extra moments to answer, he could virtually feel the bad omen coming.

"...Sixteen days."

"Sixteen days!?" Raito repeated, in a mixture of disbelief and exasperation.

"Affirmative." answered Mr Roboto, but to his credit, at least he did sound at least a little bit contrite about it. "And that was a smaller building than this." He kept worrying his thumbnail with his lip as he spoke, looking away from Raito while he continued explaining,

"...which would mean…. if my hypothesis is correct that the creation of a building instigates some kind of psychic forcefield in the nearby area…and if that forcefield is then proportional in its intensity and scope to the magnitude of the building…"

Raito didn't even bother factoring in L's faux- self-depreciations - his hypothesis was probably correct and they both knew it. Now he was just waiting for the other shoe to drop…although it wasn't hard to see where this was going.

"...then?"

"...then we are looking at a pretty long period of time - I'd wager twenty-five to thirty days."

Silence. Raito frowned and pursed his lips slightly.

"...Right."

L took his eyes away, turning them to the ground, apparently sinking into a bit of thoughtful resignation. Then, finally, it was Raito's turn to make a hypothesis.

"Unless…we enter it." Raito looked again at the black monolith in the distance, the sky darkening around it - whether due to the natural cycle of the day or because of its…'psychic distortion', he wasn't sure. "...Then, we don't know what happens."

A few seconds passed…and then came the pensive: "..Correct."

Raito took a big breath, letting his sigh be heard as he weighed their options. Twenty or thirty days was a long time in Mu. Apart from the obvious unpleasantness of being impounded in this space, there was no telling how many opportunities they'd be missing to run into the people they were looking for. If they could find a way out of here, the faster was unquestionably the better.

As he was weighing their options, a thought suddenly struck him - something that had niggling on him from before - and he shot L a pointed glare of annoyance.

"Well…I'm just glad you told me all this straight away, before we would go off walking in circles for five hours."

"I wasn't sure about it, Raito-kun." the tone that came back was surprisingly concilliatory…if not just a tad patronizing, "I couldn't be sure whether that previous building had been an isolated incident or not. It would have been unfair to you to create bias in your mind, or to have you risk more danger without first gathering more data…"

Yeah well…. Raito thought as he shook his head. He could see L's point, but he was still a bit miffed. You could have at least said SOMETHING.…

But there was no use arguing now. What's done was done, and if the only way out of this 'forcefield', as L called it, was indeed only through that building…they had more serious worries now.

"Nevermind," Raito started getting up. They'd have to do some more careful reconnaissance of the building itself and the people who were entering it, if they wanted a shot at getting a better idea of what was in store for them. "Let's go back to the main entrance then, while we still have some daylight. No use wandering around any more, sounds like."

"Agreed." L mirrored his movements, rising up and looking back at the ground to check he hadn't left anything back. "Should we try to find a water source first?" he added, and Raito considered the point. A spot of water was not a bad idea for sure, but going out to the outskirts, or to the Huts, would take time – if the environment would even let them go back to the Hut they'd come from, at this point.

"...I say let's head back to the entrance anyway, and we might find one on the way." he concluded, and L just nodded, setting off walking slowly beside him without broaching any argument.

"...well thankfully", he detective said, a sardonic tinge definitely present in his tone "...I doubt we'll lose our way."

---

It didn't take long before they found themselves back in the open square with the main glass entrance, it probably being the only place they could reliably trust to 'find' at the moment. Just a few turns - intentionally wrong this time - and sure enough, the environment looped them back just like clockwork. L's hypothesis really did have legs here: this entire district did seem to be under some kind of 'spell' - or, aptly named, 'psychic distortion' - which would just inevitably drive back to the focal point again and again. What it was 'trying' to show them, or put them through, however…was yet to be seen.

This time they had entered the square through a side street, with the main entrance to their left. They stood there for a while, watching the glass facade with renewed interest now that they were aware they might actually have to engage with or enter it soon. There was still quite a flow of passersby navigating the area, even more of them entering the building now than they had this morning. Raito and L circled around to face the large entrance, watching as the glass doors swung open and closed with each new entry. The murmur of footsteps hummed in the background, the only audible thing except for the occasional rumble of a dropping stone, or some random piece of iron falling onto the ground from a nearby half-broken building. And yet, despite all this, the loudest sound in Raito's ears was the soft swish of the automatic glass doors, which seemed to open like giganitc gaping jaws every time someone approached them, closing back behind them…swallowing them whole.

And yet, it didn't seem to be swallowing them into total darkness, or even regular Mu darkness - far from it. Raito squinted, trying to peer past the glass doors when they opened, hoping to get some clue about what may be in store for them in the interior of this monolith. From his current vantage point, every time the doors opened, he could definitely make out the shapes of a grand, open hallway…and there seemed to be light coming from the background and the sides as well. A bit like what he remembered to be large glass shopping malls in the living world.

"Looks like there is light at the far end, for sure." Raito muttered, still watching the doors. He moved a bit closer, hearing L follow nearby. "...Makes sense, if it's all made of glass." he pondered aloud, trying not to hear the voice in his head with reminded him, yet again, that logic perhaps didn't apply at all to this situation.

L tilted his head in faint agreement, his wide eyes reflecting the light as they flicked from the inside of the glass lobby to the sides and upper floors of the glass facade. "Indeed…Perhaps more of a glass passage? It's large enough to make for one, certainly…" and after a few moments of thought, he added "Perhaps the immense size of the building is enough to 'handle' multiple people without triggering the usual…House dynamics."

Raito gave a quick, dry chuckle at L's euphemism for both the horrific Trial scenes that could be triggered when multiple people entered regular buildings in Mu, or just the simple nastiness of entering Houses alone and having Ghosts turn hostile at every step. "Yeah well…At least we won't have to worry about cobwebs." he finished.

"...Indeed. Or so it seems." L said, with the implication being clear that the apparent safety might bely something much more sinister. In fact…it probably did.

Raito, however, having already considered this possibility himself, was only half-listening, temporarily distracted by something just off to the side. Among the newest throng of people walking by there was a figure—a man— walking to the entrance, dressed in a knee-length gray cloak of medieval persuasion, with a heavy hood pulled over his head to obscure his features. He was holding a piece of scuffed-up parchment in one hand…and a bag stuffed with yet more rolled-up scrolls hung from his shoulder. Unlike the others around, he seemed rather matter-of-fact in his gait…as though he actually knew what he was doing and where he was going.

The sight was so out of place, even for Mu, that Raito blinked in surprise. He turned to point it out to L, but the detective's piercing gaze was already locked onto the man, expression unchanged as usual. L had already noticed too, then.

WIthout needing to say anything, they both silently watched as the man entered the building and disappeared from view.

A few moments of silence passed, no further changes occurring. Whoever he - or she - was, they'd gone inside like everyone else.

"Interesting." L remarked eventually, seemingly reading Raito's thoughts.

"Indeed." Raito added in an even tone, knowing that L would also be filing this information for later consideration. He didn't think he had ever seen anyone walking with such purpose in Mu…let alone carrying parchments. What the heck was that about? Should they take this as a sign of encouragement, actually…? That at least one person seemed to have gone in without much hesitation…?

But in any case, they couldn't linger on this for too long. They continued observing the glass facade silently, weighing their options as they watched, on the one hand, the people approach and continue to enter the building and, on the other hand, the mirror surfaces distorting and warping each of their reflections before they went in.

Well…no matter how dangerous it is…which it clearly is…we don't have another choice, do we? But before Raito could suggest moving forward in any way… a sharp, high-pitched voice cut through the ambient noise.

"Gov'nor!"

Raito froze. The sound seemed to come from the right side, near the impossibly narrow crack between the skyscraper and the wrecked Victorian building that they had squeezed through earlier that day. Slowly, Raito turned, his breath catching in his throat when he saw the source of the voice.

The ghostly figure of the boy—the same one from the Haunted House where he had found the knife—stood there, half-hidden in the shadows of the narrow passage. His small hand waved eagerly, motioning for Raito to come closer.

Raito's eyes widened. He had never seen an elision reappear after it had been dissolved. The boy's form shimmered faintly, translucent yet insistent, and Raito's pulse quickened as confusion set in. How was this possible? And why now?

Glancing quickly at L, he was doubly shocked to see that the detective was still looking at the glass facade of the building - apparently still engrossed and trying to make out the interior. No indication that he had heard or seen anything unusual. No hint of recognition at hearing this boy ghost. Nothing.

What?

It was impossible to think that L would not have focused on the ghost if he could see it - the man wouldn't let a pin drop, let alone miss a half-translucent child calling loudly at them in the middle of the street. Just a few moments ago, he had spotted 'medieval guy' even before Raito had pointed him out. Which means, there could only be one explanation…

He doesn't see.

Raito clenched his jaw, for some reason feeling a cold, terrible chill run over his flesh. He wasn't sure exactly why…perhaps the shadow of a memory, from the last time he had been able to see things that other people did not. But a flicker of paranoia ignited in his mind—if L didn't see the boy…that meant something had changed, something Raito didn't yet understand…. And Raito did not like having more stuff that he didn't understand happening.

"Gov'nor! This way!" Raito threw a furtive glance toward the corner again, where the child was standing in front of the narrow passage and calling to him. Some kind of deep preservation instinct - or perhaps the force of habit, after spending years with the ability to see Shinigami around people who couldn't - kept him from saying anything aloud.

He kept his eyes fixed on the glass entrance of the building for the moment, staying unresponsive and copying L's exact attitude, while in the meantime his mind was whirring: He already suspects me of ulterior motives with these elisions, clearly…what is he gonna say now if I tell him I can see stuff that he can't?

"Gov'nor!" the boy called yet again and Raito did his utmost to keep his gaze unmoving and his body completely relaxed next to L - belying any form of reaction he might have. "Come here! You have to see this!"

Quite insistent…

Could he trust this Ghost? Was he showing them a way out?

Better to stay silent for now. He finally made the executive decision. Explaining this anomaly to L now, while he still wasn't sure if this Ghost meant them ill or well, might only complicate matters. First he would follow this boy and try to get a better understanding of what was going on – Besides, that's what L does too, doesn't he? With his little 'hypotheses'... He thought with what he recognized as a bit of petty spite, but at least it made him feel a bit better about keeping the secret - for now.

"Actually – did we ever try going around from the right side? Maybe we should go in the reverse direction from before? " Raito finally broke the silence, pointing toward the crack between the buildings.

L raised an eyebrow, clearly skeptical. "You think going backward is the answer?" He turned to look at where Raito was pointing…the place where the Ghost boy was still standing, waving at them…. L was technically staring dead straight at it…and sure enough, still did not react in any way.

Raito just blinked, watching L as though he couldn't see a single thing either.

For reasons that he didn't really want to examine, it was only too easy for Raito - a trained habit - to bring that innocuous discursiveness in his voice.

"Maybe" he shrugged a bit, as though he didn't care much about it either way. He gestured vaguely toward the distance. "That's the only route we haven't tried, isn't it? Maybe this circus will throw a different trick if we go around that way."

L moved his head and worried his lip a bit pensively, clearly weighing if it was worth a shot or not. Raito turned to look at the corner of the buildings as well, ignoring the child that was looking at him eagerly, and instead throwing a smirk. "Imagine if that was the simple answer all along...that definitely sounds like something this place would do."

A soft hum finally came from the other man. His reluctance was understandable, really. That small passage between the buildings was extremely narrow and unpleasant to pass…and, for all the nonchalant bravado, Raito did get the sense that L had a bit of a claustrophobic streak.

But then…imagine! If that kid leads us out of here…I'm sure he'll say it was worth it!

"Alright," L finally conceded, turning to follow Raito's lead. "But if this turns out to be another dead end, I'm not letting you make the next call."

Raito snorted loudly and nodded a bit, trying not to seem too excited as he took off towards the passageway…and the smiling boy.

As they approached the narrow crack between the walls, Raito watched the child slowly dissipate right in front of his eyes. He didn't know if the Ghost would appear again, but the fact that he had been looking satisfied before he vanished gave him a hopeful feeling.

"All right…" Raito muttered when they had come close enough to the dark, crumbling passage "Ready for another ride in Tokyo metro?" he glanced at L with a small grin.

"Too bad." the deadpan answer came back without missing a beat "I've already pickpocketed you."

Raito snorted, shaking his head dismissively as he dove in first.

This time was a bit easier to navigate, since he'd known what to expect. L also seemed to have an easier time of it, less bumping and rapid breathing and the like.

Finally, a few minutes later, they squeezed out of the narrow crack and emerged back into the open….

…only to be right back in the same accursed place where they expected to be. No secret passage, then. Raito tried to keep his disappointment from showing too much on his face, as he felt the unsettling chill of familiarity around him. The grotesque wall stood before them once more, corpses fused unnaturally with the glass, contorted faces frozen in endless agony. The distortion field had played its trick again—they hadn't escaped.

"Damn it," Raito muttered under his breath, his eyes scanning the scene.

"It would be too easy." L said flatly, already back to studying the macabre wall as if it were an art piece.

Raito shook his head and pursed his lips, scanning the rubble around them - let alone the facade of the building. Was there really nothing new? Nothing? So what had the boy been …?

L's clinical voice interrupted his thoughts. "Incidentally – these corpses... Have you noticed, they change configuration each time we're here. The positions, the faces." a short pause for consideration "It's not static."

Raito blinked, pulling his attention away from the distance and turning back to look at L - and the macabre background of the wall. "Change?"

L nodded, his sharp eyes never leaving the twisted forms. "As we were discussing before with the inconsistencies…" Raito narrowed his eyes, his brain immediately supplementing with " As YOU were discussing, yes…", but he kept listening nonetheless: " So much for having died in the building or not…I suspect these aren't even 'real' corpses. They're psychic projections—manifestations of the building itself." …That glass entrance in the front may look normal, but it could be just as warped as this." a pause, as L turned to look at Raito, his gaze laden with meaning "It's just not so immediately visible."

Raito tried not to swallow too loudly or obviously, as he let his eyes roam over the patchwork of gore on the wall. From the side, L resumed his study as well - thankfully choosing not to extend to "hands on" examination this time.

But just as his mind was weighing the possibilities of what L had just suggested - which was basically that the interior of the building could possibly be full of horrors analogous to this - even if it did not seem so from the front - something else caught his attention—a flash of movement at the edge of his vision, like a flicker.

He turned and froze.

The boy was there again, standing twenty or so meters away at a spot near the grotesque wall where rubble lay heavily concentrated, waving at him again - this time with both hands, as though wildly trying to catch his attention.

"Gov'nor! Here! Here!" the Ghost called again, definitely more animated now, alternating between waving at Raito and pointing to something among the debris.

Raito's heart started racing again as he stole a side-glance at L - once again, zero reaction.

Without breaking stride, Raito kept his face neutral. He had to act quickly. "Let's just go around back to the entrance then." he suggested smoothly, nodding to the direction that would lead them along the long mural of corpses and back to the main square… and also, totally coincidentally, the direction of the boy. "This was a fluke I guess. Might as well complete the loop around."

L gave a mild shrug, eyes still dissecting the corpses. "That would make spatial sense for a change, I guess."

They made their way toward the boy's position, L's mutterings continued as they walked. "These manifestations... they seem designed to provoke fear or disgust, but they don't seem to hold any real power - at least not in direct force.. They're just part of the building's psychic signature…."

"Right," Raito murmured back, but his attention was completely on the boy as they approached, his ghostly form flickering slightly.

Then, finally, when they were only a few meters away, his wide eyes clearly locked onto Raito's and he spoke again. "Look Gov'nor! This might come in handy!" He said, an excited smile spreading across his face. Raito noticed he was pointing at something amongst the crumbled rocks - something that gleamed a bit in the light, in the same way that that knife had gleamed in the pantry…at the House where Ratio had first met him.

"Good luck!" came a final call and a last, earnest smile. Then, without warning, the boy faded—disappearing into nothingness.

Raito smoothly slowed down, then finally stopped in his tracks, scanning the rubble where the boy had pointed. Thankfully, L was also busy observing the environs so didn't think much of the pause.

At first glance, it all looked ordinary, just shattered remnants of glass and debris. But then Raito noticed that gleam again. There it was—a small, sharp shard of mirror glinting faintly amid the rubble. As he bent down to pick it up, he noticed a faint glow emanating from it, or around it—so subtle he couldn't be sure if it was real or just a trick of the light.

"Raito-kun?" L's voice interrupted from behind, his tone quizzical.

Raito straightened, holding the shard up for L to see. The detective looked less than impressed.

"What about it?"

So again…glow or no glow…he can't see.

"It's just a piece of glass." L's brow furrowed, and he regarded the shard with a mixture of skepticism and mild disinterest.

"Exactly," Raito countered quickly, careful to keep his tone totally casual. Without further ado or further discussion, he simply slipped it into his pocket, as if it was the most natural thing in the world to want to collect it. He had the excuse right and ready: "A sharp piece of glass. Hard to find around here.."

L gave a small, noncommittal hum, apparently now accustomed to Raito's newfound fixation on sharp objects, and turned his attention back to the surroundings instead. "As is some water… I don't remember there being any on this side of this bleeding district either…." the detective seemed to be muttering more to himself.

Raito shrugged and nodded, so distracted by his febrile thoughts that he didn't even notice L's exceedingly rare use of profanity - an indicator of how extremely thirsty the detective must have been.

But Raito was way too lost in mental gymnastics while they retraced their steps around the side of the Glass Macabre - as he had taken to privately calling this monstrosity. What did the kid mean, 'it might come in handy?' …and why 'Good Luck' - what am I missing here? …And that thing…Is it really glowing or was it just my imagination?

He was burning to bring it out of his pocket and study it a bit better, but he knew too well it would draw way too much attention. Perhaps later, if they sat down, he could bring it out just "abstently"...but not yet.

Thankfully, it didn't take long to get out of his more 'unsavory' side of the building. Just a turn around the corner and they found themselves back in the open main square, once again facing the main entrance. The grand glass doors loomed ahead, the light beckoning from within, yet there was an uneasy tension in the air between them. The building's psychic tricks weighed heavily on their minds; no matter how bright and spacious it looked…they both knew there was a high chance it was deceptive.

Raito inhaled slowly, steeling himself. He knew…and he knew without asking that L also knew…that they had pretty much run out of options. Whatever awaited them inside was most probably a risk they would have to take.

"So." Raito asked, his voice dry but laced with unspoken finality: It was no longer a question of if they would enter…it was a question of when. "Still want to search for water? …or are you ready to go?"

L glanced at him, then back to the doors. "My thirst is only illusory, Raito-kun." The answer finally came, even-toned and neutral, but hiding its own resolve. "As is everything in this world…important to remember that."

"Strong words, master sleuth." Raito smirked, not bothering to point out just how real some of these illusions and sensations could feel - and how excruciatingly unpleasant. He started zipping up his jacket. That was it then…they were going in. "Lets just hope you don't regret them."

L kept perusing the black mirror surface of the building - a strangely perfect match to the reflective surface of his own onyx eyes.

"...Alas…something tells me I might."

---

A/N: So? Insights? Thoughts? Poor L... Next chapter they finally enter this building...so something tells me he might too :D