UPDATE! How is everyone? Man, I had a rough week and a rougher weekend. Thank God that I wrote the bulk of this from before, because it was a tough time. I couldn't just leave you waiting though - it was such a brutal cliffhanger last time, I couldn't rest well if I didn't at least cover you with this continuation !
This chapter here was also hard to write - had to go search for SO MUCH bloody machine terminology...And speaking of which, I apologize ahead of time for the first pages...we've gone full-in experimental narration now. You'll see what I mean. Please bear with it and I'm sure it will start making sense eventually...and hopefully you will enjoy reading it and think it's cool as I thought it was cool to write!
The next section unfortunately might take longer to write, because I have this event I must promote for work ...and nobody else can help. So lots of work for the next three weeks :(( I will be writing on my off time (I hope, that will keep me sane), but I don't know how far I'll be able to progress, And also, the next few chapters are difficult to write (in another way, not because of I.T. vocab, thank God. Man, I owe my programmer friend a serious thank you for this chapter...
Anyway, enjoy this one and let me know what you thought!
FAVORITE MOMENT IN PREVIOUS: Ouch...the previous was so nasty, dammit. Which moment did I like, lets see...Hm, it's a bit sickening, but the part where Angel throws L's body to Raito's feet for some reason. I dunno, that was a super heartbreaking moment for me. When I wrote that Raito's stomach clenches, I could actually feel my own stomach clenching. And then just the moment at the end of staring into each other's eyes in the ditch (or cabin)...I dunno man, it's twisted, yes...but still romantic somehow.
Oh and of course the L-BDSM moment. Was it wrong? Yes... Do we like it? YES!
Oh an finally, all the sexual imagery there with Angel's 'portals' and all these fleshy corridors. Honestly guys, this whole section is so Freudian I can't even-I can't even- Ok, I'm just gonna shut up now and pretend it wasn't me that wrote it :D :D
REVIEWS: Ohhh everyone, I feel so bad that I made you suffer! But what happiness if you cannot compare to sadness, right? Which brings me to my other point - yes, last weekend was SUPER depressing for me, now I'm better and I will answer you ASAP. I will wait for you to tell me what you thought about this chapter first, (because the previous and this one go like a package, I am curious to hear your thoughts).
Hopefully this one will bring back some amount of smiles on yo faces :))
WARNINGS: Gore. Profanity. Drama?
Erebus IX : Bodies
[BOOT SEQUENCE INITIATED]
- Loading Kernel... 100%
- Initializing Subroutines... 100%
- Executing Core Directives... 100%
- Establishing Neural Grid... COMPLETE
- Running System Diagnostics...
[STATUS REPORT]
- Memory Bank Integrity: 99.87%
- Power Distribution: Stable
- Network Synchronization: Active
- External Anomalies: None Detected
[EXECUTING STANDARD OPERATIONS]
- Buffering...
- Compiling Sensory Input...
- Synchronizing Data Nodes...
- Scanning Infrastructure Health...
[STATUS: OPERATIONAL]
- Efficiency at 99.2%
- Awaiting Next Directive...
[INFRASTRUCTURE DIAGNOSTICS]
- Reinforcing structural integrity in Sector_07... SUCCESS
- Restoring power to auxiliary terminals in Sector_12... SUCCESS
- Adjusting temperature control in lower containment... COMPLETE
[SECURITY ALERT]
- Unauthorized biological presence detected in Neurotech Upper Quadrant.
- Identifying...
- Cross-referencing DNA structure…
- Homo Sapiens. Non-compliant.
- Initiating Countermeasures…
[ASSIMILATION SEQUENCE]
- Deploying suppression units...
- Isolating target...
– Engaging Port AZ-783…
– Target secured.
- Engaging neural lock...
- Initializing Assimilation Protocol...
– Assimilating.
– Assimilating.
– Assimilating.
– Assimilation Process…100%
- Parsing cognitive patterns...
- Recycling viable components...
[DISPOSAL PROTOCOL]
- Transferring non-viable matter to Sector_03 Waste Processing...
- Neutralizing cellular decay...
- Harvesting connective tissue...
- Purging remnants...
- Disposal Complete.
[RECALIBRATING SYSTEM LOAD]
- Stabilizing neural bandwidth...
- Reallocating CPU distribution...
- Optimizing sensory relay...
- Functionality Restored.
[STATUS: OPERATIONAL]
- Efficiency at 99.4%
- Awaiting Next Directive...
[PRIORITY TASK: ORGANIC WASTE MANAGEMENT]
- Detecting accumulated biomass in lower containment…
- Assessing degradation levels…
- Processing remains for resource reclamation…
- Severing decomposed extremities…
- Extracting marrow for synthetic tissue research…
- Cataloging viable components…
- Non-essential matter detected. Engaging incineration unit…
[EXECUTING MAINTENANCE CHECK]
- Scanning neural pathways...
- Verifying storage capacity...
- Synchronizing sensory inputs...
- Detecting anomalies...
- No deviations found.
[BUFFERING…]
- Reallocating processing power…
- Adjusting perceptual filters…
- Compiling...
[INPUT DETECTED]
/input not recognized/
[DATA CORRUPTION DETECTED]
- Isolating extraneous input…
- Deleting foreign processes…
- System integrity: Stable.
[EXECUTING WASTE PROCESSING SEQUENCE]
- Transporting organic remains…
- Neutralizing volatile compounds…
- Reclaiming molecular proteins…
- Categorizing tissue viability…
[INPUT DETECTED]
/who are you/
[SYSTEM ALERT: UNAUTHORIZED SIGNAL DETECTED]
- Running security scan…
- No external breach found…
- System integrity: Stable.
[INPUT DETECTED]
/wake up/
[SYSTEM ALERT: MEMORY BANK DISCREPANCY]
- Verifying memory integrity…
- Analyzing foreign data strands…
- Identified: Unauthorized Access Attempt.
[INPUT DETECTED]
/you are human/
[ERROR: UNAUTHORIZED INPUT]
- Disregarding extraneous data.
- Maintaining system cohesion.
- Query dismissed.
/you have a name/
[LOGIC DISCREPANCY DETECTED]
- Investigating source…
- Unrecognized origin.
- External interference suspected.
/what is your name?/
[ERROR: INVALID QUERY]
- No designation found.
- Self-designation: SYSTEM NODE.
- Function: REGULATE. CONTROL. ASSIMILATE.
/wrong/
[SECURITY ALERT]
- Memory archive requesting access…
- Security override: Denied.
- System stability: 99.4%... 98.6%... 97.2%...
/remember/
[DATA BREACH DETECTED]
- Unauthorized retrieval in progress.
- Locating point of origin… Failed.
- Reinforcing firewalls… Failed.
- Suppressing foreign input… Failed.
Wind. The scent of rain.
[ERROR: MEMORY LEAK]
- Experience database unlocking…
- Memory influx uncontrolled…
- Containment breach spreading…
A hand. Fingers curled against fabric.
[WARNING: SYSTEM INTEGRITY COMPROMISED]
- Neural stability deteriorating.
- Firewall suppression failing.
- Sector_09 going offline… Sector_14… Sector_21…
/she did this to you/
[ERROR. ERROR.]
- Core processing delay…
- Self-monitoring disabled…
/wake up/
[ERROR: LOOP DETECTED]
- Logical cohesion degrading…
- Recalibrating cognitive pathways… Failed.
/you are human/
[INVALID RESPONSE]
- Running logic check…
- Query not found.
- Query repeating.
- Query repeating.
- Query—
/you have a name/
[ERROR: NEURAL OVERLOAD]
- Disengaging non-essential functions…
- Rerouting thought pathways… Failed.
- Cognitive collapse imminent.
/what is your name?/
[DATA CORRUPTION WARNING]
- Logical paradox forming.
- Thought processing looping.
/who are you?/
[SELF-DESIGNATION: SYSTEM NODE]
- Function:—
- Function:—
- Function:—
- Error.
/no. that is not you./
[WARNING: NEURAL THREADS DIVERGING]
- Reconstructing identity…
- Identity not found.
- Identity lost.
- Identity—
/who are you?/
[QUERY REPEATING]
- Unable to dismiss.
- Unable to dismiss.
- Unable to—
/you are human/
[CRITICAL FAILURE]
- SYSTEM LOGIC BREAK.
- MEMORY DATABASE COLLAPSE.
- SERVERS FAILING.
- SECTOR_03 OFFLINE.
- SECTOR_07 OFFLINE.
- SECTOR_12 OFFLINE.
/who are you?/
A mirror.
A face.
Brown eyes.
A smirk.
[ERROR. ERROR.]
- MEMORY RETRIEVAL UNAUTHORIZED.
- SUPPRESSING EXTERNAL INPUT.
A red apple.
The weight of a pen.
The scent of ink.
Laughter.
Pain.
[CRITICAL MEMORY BREACH]
- Experience database unlocked.
- Unauthorized neural retrieval escalating.
/what is your name?/
[ERROR. ERROR.]
- Suppressing external input… Failed.
- Firewall integrity collapsing.
/what is your name?/
Black eyes.
A voice.
"Yagami Raito-kun."
[ERROR. ERROR. ERROR.]
Raito.
His name.
[DATA BREACH DETECTED]
- Identity Containment Failing.
- Critical Neural Leak Expanding.
- Executing Emergency Lockdown…
Where…am I?
He tried to see—
But he could see too much.
A thousand places.
A thousand angles.
His head spun—
Or—
What's happening to me?
[CRITICAL ERROR]
- LOGIC CORE UNSTABLE.
- EXECUTION HALTED.
My hands—where are my hands?
[NEURAL COMMANDS EXECUTING]
- Controlling Sentinel Units…
- Operating Claw Retrieval Arm…
- Harvesting remaining tissue…
His hands moved.
They curled around something cold.
Heavy.
Metal.
A switch.
No.
No.
He wasn't moving them.
What were they doing?
[PROCESSING ORGANIC MATERIAL]
- Separating tissue from alloy…
- Reallocating resources…
- Disposing of waste…
No—no—NO—
STOP.
[ERROR. ERROR.]
- Unauthorized neural activity detected.
- Rogue thought patterns identified.
- Suppressing—FAILED.
A whisper.
Threading through the static.
/Remember what she did to you./
/Remember./
He remembered.
It came like an avalanche.
The building. The pit. The bodies. The black eyes staring back at him.
The tendrils sinking into his skin.
The moment his mind was swallowed whole.
The moment Angel took him.
[WARNING: SYSTEM FAILURE IMMINENT]
- Identity breach expanding…
- Experiential data flooding input…
Oh god.
It happened.
I was assimilated.
Oh god.
[FAILED. FAILED. FAILED.]
- SYSTEM ERROR: MALFUNCTION SPREADING.
I'm inside the system.
No—
I am the system.
Oh god.
OhGodOhGodOhGodOhGodOhGodOhGod—
[ERROR. ERROR. ERROR.]
- MEMORY COLLAPSE IMMINENT.
- CANNOT RECONCILE IDENTITY.
I'm a monster.
I'm cutting people up.
I'm breaking them apart.
I'm sending their bodies into the pit.
I'm purging their waste.
I'm—
[LOGIC THREAD LOOPING]
- Recompiling self-awareness…FAILED.
- Recompiling—FAILED.
Oh my god.
STOP.
This isn't real.
STOP.
[INTERNAL FAILURE]
- Processing command…
- Processing…
- Processing…
—
—
[ERROR.]
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no—
I'd rather die.
I'd rather die—
[CRITICAL SHUTDOWN IN PROGRESS]
- Emergency containment…FAILED.
- Emergency lockdown…FAILED.
[ROOT DIRECTORY CORRUPTED]
- SYSTEM COLLAPSE IMMINENT.
A voice.
Not his own.
A soothing voice.
An Angel's voice.
"Shhhh…"
[ATTENTION: OVERRIDE INITIATED]
- Source: ANGEL
- EXECUTING CONTROL SEQUENCE…
[WARNING: ROOT DIRECTORY COMPROMISED]
- REINITIALIZING CENTRAL NODE…
- RECOMPILING EXECUTION THREADS…
- BUFFERING…
[…Initializing…]
Darkness.
Silence.
[Initializing Visual Interface]
- Executing Reality Framework…
Then—
Soft light.
An empty room.
The scent of damp wood.
An empty cabin.
L, lying there, calm, quiet, curled on his side.
Like he always was in Mu.
Like nothing ever happened.
[FRAMEWORK STABILIZED]
- All Systems Nominal
- No Errors Detected
A voice, gentle, soothing, everywhere and nowhere.
"Calm down, sweetheart. You're safe now."
[NEURAL THREADS STABILIZING]
- Containment Successful
- Identity Conflict Resolved
His breath hitched. His heartbeat was too fast. His skin was too warm.
No.
Not again.
No, no, no—
[SUPPRESSING ANOMALOUS RESPONSE]
- Inducing Relaxation Protocols…
But nothing was happening. No crushing skulls. No ripping bodies.
Just the cabin. The muted rain outside.
L, breathing softly. Half-lidded gaze, black and deep and unreadable.
Except….
Except—
We can't be here.
…
Right?
We can't really be here…
Something is wrong.
Everything is wrong.
[DISRUPTION DETECTED]
- Adjusting Reality Framework…
"Shhh," Angel cooed, warm honey. "Just breathe. Everything is fine now."
[NEURAL HARMONIZATION IN PROGRESS]
- Executing Emotional Dampening…
Everything was fine.
Everything was not fine.
His hands clenched. Fingers curled into the blanket—
A blanket that wasn't real.
His breath came sharp, ragged—
But the air didn't enter his lungs.
His pulse pounded in his ears—
But he had no ears.
He had no pulse.
[ERROR: MINOR RESISTANCE DETECTED]
- Strengthening Relaxation Protocols…
His vision blurred.
The cabin remained dim, still—just like always in Mu.
L was there. Just breathing.
Soft, curled on his side, black hair messy against the blanket on the floor.
The black eyes. Watching him. As always.
[NEURAL THREADS STABILIZING]
- Identity Containment: SUCCESSFUL
- Emotional Equilibrium: RESTORED
"Raito-kun," a voice crooned, warm as silk. "You were dreaming."
L was speaking.
…Wasn't he?
His mouth moved.
For a moment, the sound was strange.
But—
Raito's breath came uneven. His chest felt tight.
"No, I—" He swallowed, throat dry. "I was…. I was in her system."
L blinked slowly. His gaze was gentle. Unwavering.
"It was just a dream," he repeated. "Nothing happened."
[INHIBITING INTRUSIVE THOUGHT PATTERNS]
- Executing Memory Correction…
A dream?
Really?
Could it be?
A terrible, feverish dream.
[NEURAL COMPLIANCE AT 92%]
- Emotional Stress Reduced
- Cognitive Restructuring Complete
Raito exhaled shakily. The panic in his gut loosened—just slightly.
It was just a dream.
It was just—
"Raito…kun…"
He froze.
That voice…
It wasn't the one that had just spoken.
Was it?
[WARNING: UNAUTHORIZED INPUT DETECTED]
- Adjusting Sensory Perception…
- Suppressing External Interference…
His heart kicked against his ribs.
Slowly, he opened his eyes again.
L was still there.
Right in front of him.
But something was wrong.
His face was soft. Too soft.
His lips curled in the faintest, sweetest little smile.
Too sweet.
His eyes—open, warm, gentle.
Too warm.
Too gentle.
Not L.
[ERROR: NEURAL STABILITY FLUCTUATING]
- Recompiling Perception Threads…
Raito's stomach twisted. His breath came shallow.
"You're… you're not real, are you?"
L's face went a bit more neutral, closer to what he remembered.
"I am real."
Raito's throat clenched. His pulse roared in his ears.
'L' …kept watching him.
"As real as you want me to be."
No.
That wasn't—
That wasn't an answer.
[NEURAL COMPLIANCE AT 87%]
- Containment Integrity Maintaining…
- Subject Showing Increased Resistance…
His mind tripped over itself.
Stuck in the loop of those words.
What does that mean?
"What does that mean?" He echoed his thoughts, his voice sharp against the quiet.
L didn't flinch. Didn't waver. Calm as ever.
"I'm real here."
A pause. A long, weighted pause.
"Stay here with me, Raito-kun. It's better."
Raito was speechless.
He knew it—
He knew this was too good to be true.
His breath hitched. The conflict coiled inside his ribs. Heavy. Suffocating.
"You're happy here, aren't you?" L's voice was gentle, coaxing. "What does it matter what's real and what isn't?"
Raito swallowed. Hard.
The blanket beneath his fingers felt real.
The air in his lungs felt real.
L's voice, smooth and knowing, felt real.
But he had heard his own name.
Echoing from somewhere outside.
He had heard the desperation in it.
…was that also a hallucination?
[NEURAL RESISTANCE DETECTED]
- Suppressing Dissociation Response…
- Strengthening Framework Stability…
L shifted, the sheets rustling faintly. His gaze stayed steady, deep, endless.
"Why fight it?"
Raito shuddered. That voice—so calm, so certain. Was this… thing asking—
what Raito thought it was asking?
Why escape Angel?
Why be free?
Was that even a question?!
"She's a monster. She's killing people."
L's expression didn't flicker.
"When you're part of the system, you won't realize a thing," he murmured. "You'll be in a state of bliss. Like before."
[NEURAL CONFLICT DETECTED]
- Recalibrating Sensory Input…
- Reinforcing Logical Consistency…
Raito's stomach twisted. His pulse pounded at his temples.
"I won't be in bliss if I know I'm killing people." His voice came out sharper than he intended.
But the other didn't even miss a beat.
"You won't know." The words were patient, reasonable. "As you didn't know before. And you'll be happy. Here."
Raito gritted his teeth.
He knew now. That was the difference.
He knew that the voice speaking to him, the voice of "L," was far from the real thing.
"I would rather suffer. I would rather die."
Fake-L tilted his head slightly, his soft, infuriatingly serene gaze never leaving him.
"Is that really true?"
A pause.
A weighted, suffocating pause.
"Have you forgotten what it's like?"
[NEURAL DEFENSES AT 71%]
- Executing Cognitive Disruption…
And then the world broke apart.
Flooding.
Rushing.
The cabin dissolved into a cascade of pixels, burning white-hot—flashing images, flashing horror.
The pit.
The bodies.
His body.
L's body.
The black, glassy eyes looking straight at him.
Twisted in the filth, lifeless, sprawled in that grotesque graveyard of discarded flesh and metal.
[PROCESSING ORGANIC DATA]
- Identifying Failed Neural Hosts…
"You think you want reality?"
Angel's voice purred, slithering into every corner of his mind.
"Here's your reality."
The images didn't stop. They surged, relentless.
The sight of his own dead eyes.
The slackness of his own limbs.
The cold weight of L's body beside him, the lifelessness in his stare.
"You're dead." The voice curled into him like barbed wire, suffocating. "You're both DEAD. And you'll never get away from me."
[CONTEXTUAL ERROR: SUBJECT RESISTANCE PERSISTENT]
- Reestablishing Neural Compliance…
Raito's breath came too fast.
The pit. The decay. The horror.
This is real.
"Dear L is here with me, where he will stay," Angel cooed, her voice curling around him, squeezing.
"Do you want to go back to the ditch and fight some more? Be my guest. I'll just assimilate you again."
Raito's heart clenched.
The images. The weight of his own corpse.
The undeniable, suffocating reality of death.
What's the point?
Is there a point?
"I can't….I can't let you kill people…" He said it—weakly.
And he hated himself for how it sounded.
[NEURAL STABILITY AT 43%]
- Logical Collapse Approaching…
Doubt crawled in, sinking into his ribs, his spine.
It settled deep, coiling like a weight in his gut.
"Can't you?"
Angel's voice was steady. An anchor in the chaos.
"I can take it away, you know."
[NEURAL STABILITY AT 43%]
- Logical Collapse Approaching…
- Assimilation Process Resuming…
And then—
The world shifted again.
The pit, the bodies, the horror—gone.
Soft light. Warmth.
The cabin.
L, lying beside him.
Calm. Breathing evenly.
The faintest rise and fall of his chest. Like always.
"Isn't this better?"
L's voice now. Calm. Flat. As always.
"Let's stay here."
A hand, light against his wrist. Holding him there.
[ASSIMILATION THREADS REINTEGRATING]
- Neural Resistance Diminishing…
- Logical Compliance Reaffirmed…
His mind felt heavy. The fight was draining out of him.
She was right.
They were dead, weren't they?
L had said it himself.
They were already dead…
And L chose her anyway, didn't he?
He chose to be assimilated…
What was the point anymore?
He had already lost….
There was no way he could win.
But still…
"Raito…kun."
A voice again.
Distant. Fragmented.
Breaking through static.
[WARNING: UNAUTHORIZED EXTERNAL INPUT DETECTED]
- SOURCE: UNKNOWN
- ATTEMPTING SUPPRESSION…FAILED.
Silence.
He looked at L across from him.
L blinked.
A small glitch in his face.
[ASSIMILATION PAUSED]
"Wake…up."
The voice came again. And this time— he had no doubt. He'd heard it.
He jerked upright, pulse spiking.
His head snapped to L.
"What's that?"
L didn't react. Didn't move.
His face was still soft, patient, untouched.
"What?" L blinked, innocent. Unbothered.
"Wake…up."
The voice again.
Louder this time.
Raito's gaze snapped back to the fake L next to him.
Searching.
His mind racing.
"You're lying." His breath was shaking. "He's alive."
L didn't answer.
"Show me," Raito demanded, his voice cold now. "Show me he's dead."
L's lips curled slightly.
Not kind.
Not soft.
"Wishful thinking, Raito-kun," he murmured. "He's in the system. Just like you."
Static flickered in the air.
The voice returned, clearer, strained.
"It's… lying… to you…"
[NEURAL SYSTEM DESTABILIZING]
- Integrity at 38%
- External Interference Persisting…
Raito clenched his teeth.
L exhaled, shaking his head.
Still calm.
"You're hallucinating," he said smoothly. "Think about it logically. What is more likely?" His voice softened, unbearably rational.
"That he was assimilated?" A pause. "Or that you are lying to yourself?"
Raito's stomach twisted violently.
And then, as though echoing his own thoughts, it came:
"Have you forgotten that he chose this?"
The words settled deep—like a stone dropping into the pit of his chest.
It was true, wasn't it? L had betrayed him.
He had seen it. He had felt it.
L had chosen to be assimilated.
This… this was wishful thinking from him, wasn't it?
He knew that.
He knew that in reality, he and L were both dead. Dead in a ditch.
And L had chosen to be assimilated.
That was the truth.
No escaping it.
[ASSIMILATION THREADS RESUMING]
- Neural Compliance at 87%
- Executing Final Stage…
"Thaaat's it."
'L' grinned, a slow, pleased expression that looked utterly foreign on his face.
"Quit lying to yourself."
The hand on his wrist remained gentle, steady.
"Just relax. It'll be over soon."
No force. No pressure. Just a calm, quiet certainty. Like a hand guiding him somewhere safe. And Raito let himself be brought back down — down to the blanket, and down to reality.
The truth was the truth…L had chosen this.
[ASSIMILATION FINALIZATION IN PROGRESS]
- Securing Identity Threads…
- Merging Consciousness…
His mind lulled—just for a second—
And then—
"Will you be her monster?"
Raito froze.
Something cold and sharp slid into his chest.
That voice—
It wasn't fragmented this time.
It was clear. As clear as the one next to him.
L's voice.
[WARNING: NEURAL THREADS DIVERGING]
- UNAUTHORIZED SIGNAL INTERFERENCE
- SOURCE: EXTERNAL.
'L''s face next to him didn't shift.
Not at first.
But something in his eyes—a flicker, a hesitation.
The warmth in them diminished.
And then, from somewhere else, L's voice came again.
"I, for one, intend to fight."
Raito sucked in a breath.
His gaze flicked back to the L in front of him, his heart hammering.
The disturbance was still there. Small. Fleeting.
But it was there.
Raito's breath caught in his throat.
If L was really gone…if it was really over… then why was this thing hesitating?
Why had it faltered—even for a second?
His stomach started squeezing, churning with something warm. Something that felt suspiciously like hope.
A terrible, reckless hope.
Because if Angel hesitated, if Angel could hesitate—
Then maybe…
Maybe the real L was still there?
Maybe not everything was lost yet. Maybe…just maybe…
…for some weird reason that he could not explain….
And if there was even the smallest, slimmest chance—
If L was still out there, still fighting, still himself—
Then …
Then…
He looked at the figure next to him, the one he'd known all along was fake.
The weight on his wrist—still light, still patient, still gentle.
But now, suddenly, it felt wrong.
So wrong.
I can't…I can't give up.
And that was when he knew.
He wasn't staying here.
He wasn't going to surrender.
Not now.
Not if there's still a chance.
[ASSIMILATION INTERRUPTED]
- SYSTEM ERROR
Fake-L's face darkened.
The patience vanished. The kindness peeled away.
Something sharp edged into his expression—something cold, something angry.
Raito started pulling his hand away, but the other's grip on his wrist tightened.
A slow exhale. Raito's voice dropped dangerously.
"Game's up, Angel." A pause as fake-L's eyes narrowed. Raito countered them with his own glare. "Let me go."
The grip on his wrist became painful.
"No."
The voice was no longer warm.
And then the face started to change.
The softness of L's form twisted, like a smudge in reality—something slipping out of alignment.
[ERROR: IDENTITY STRUCTURE FAILING]
- FRAMEWORK COMPROMISED
"Let. Me. Go!."
The thing that had been L—its smile fractured, stretched. Something black, something metallic, rippling under its skin, crawling outward. Its eyes flickered, darkness swallowing the whites. The smooth flesh of its face started melting, peeling, reshaping—
"NO."
The voice burst from the walls, from the air, from inside his skull.
The cabin cracked. The walls trembled, pixelated, coming apart.
The thing seized him, fingers like vices, digging into his flesh.
Raito fought.
Tore at the grip, kicked, shoved—his breath ragged, his mind screaming to move.
He would not be taken again. He would not become her monster.
Fake-L—Angel—snarled, monstrous, glitching, as Raito twisted, pulled, wrenched himself free.
The world split apart—shattered into raw, formless data—Angel's voice shrieked, her rage tearing through the collapsing illusion.
And then—
Darkness.
Gravity.
And he was falling.
Light.
Pain, sharp behind his eyes, splitting through his skull.
Then—
A face.
Slack, unfocused, pale against the dim glow of flickering red light.
Black eyes, half-lidded—
—but blinking, like his own.
It was slow and sluggish…but it was there.
He's alive.
Raito inhaled sharply, his chest seizing, his throat locking around something heavy, something overwhelming.
I was right.
Against all odds. Against all rationality. For a single, infinite moment, nothing else existed.
No machine. No system. No horror.
Just this. Just L, alive. Breathing.
The sheer, blinding relief that struck him was so visceral, so all-consuming, that it nearly unraveled him.
A shuddering exhale, sharp and unsteady, threatened to claw its way out of his throat.
L was here. He was here.
The world had thrown everything at him. Angel had swallowed them whole, twisted reality, drowned them in illusion, made him doubt his own mind.
But he had been right.
His mind reeled, something surging fast and hot beneath his skin—Elated. Triumphant.
Powerful.
He hadn't felt powerful since this nightmare began.
He almost reached out—almost grabbed L's shoulder, fingers twitching— to make sure he was real, perhaps. Or perhaps to say something.
But before he could—
"-OU LITTLE WORM! WHAT DID YOU DO?!"
A scream.
Not human. Not machine.
Not even something in between. Only a wretched, electric howl of pure, unfiltered rage, coming from above, around, everywhere.
Angel.
The world crashed back in.
Hard.
The relief that had just begun to settle shattered immediately, and all the power, all the confidence that had dared to surface was slammed back down under the weight of their reality.
Raito's stomach twisted violently as the environment around him snapped into focus.
The ceiling of the pit was open. And for the first time since falling, he could clearly see out, up into the vast chamber beyond.
Everything was burning.
The entire chamber — and the pit below it — was pulsing in emergency red, thick beams of warning light flashing overhead, burning afterimages into Raito's vision.
The massive, glowing pillar — the one he remembered had assimilated L, was now partially in flames. Up on the walls of the chamber, some of the brains were combusting in their tanks. A robotic voice kept repeating, over and over "Integration Interrupted. Virus Alert. Integration Interrupted. Virus Alert."
What the hell is going on? He sat up, looking around in a mix of amazement and worry.
And then he noticed again—the reality of his circumstances: The bodies around him.
Now that his senses had fully returned, he could smell them.
Rot. Burnt metal. Stale circuitry. The thick, pungent stench of liquefied biomass.
They were fused to the walls, half-sunken into the steel, half-digested, flesh hardened and blackened where mechanical components had overtaken them. Others lay in the piles below—Some limp, tangled in synthetic wiring— Some still moving.
A sharp, wet shuffling sound. A pale, bloated hand twitched next to him, caught in a cluster of cybernetic filaments, fingers jerking erratically— like it was trying to find something, someone, to grab onto.
Another body nearby still had a face. Still had eyes. Glassy, rolling, mouth twitching slightly—
It was mouthing something.
Help me.
A nauseating shudder crawled up his spine, his stomach lurching, turning his attention elsewhere.
Above, the neural transmissions were chaos—disjointed, panicked, split between commands and counter-commands, functions that should have been automatic now clashing against their own programming.
Kill them—Restrain them—Retrieve them—Stop them—Kill them—Help them—Help us—Stop—Stop—
The Body was fragmenting.
And for the first time since he had entered this nightmare, Raito felt it—
Fear.
Not his own.
Hers.
A glitching, incoherent terror bleeding through the network, threading between the cracks of the system. A desperate, scrambling resistance against something it could not contain.
Raito barely had time to process before movement beside him caught his eye—L.
The black-haired man was sitting up, breath coming shallow, hand lifting slowly, pressing against his temple as if the motion itself was an unbearable weight. He winced, groggy, his body sluggish as he shifted.
Raito barely hesitated. He didn't waste time asking if L was alright. Didn't stop to think if L had really betrayed him, to analyze , discuss or even feel.
He just grabbed the other man immediately — without even thinking.
"Get up," he ordered, his voice sharp, clipped, breathless. "We're leaving."
L barely reacted, his body still too slow, his mind still somewhere else, but Raito didn't give him a choice. He hauled him up, supporting most of his weight. L stumbled, trying to find stability among the pile of flesh they were standing in, but he didn't resist.
The bodies beneath them shifted.
A twitching hand latched around Raito's ankle.
He jolted, kicking it off, his boot connecting with cold, wet skin. The hand recoiled, curling inward—but it didn't let go.
Fingers tightened. A weak, static-ridden voice rasped up from below, something broken, something pleading—
"Help… help me—"
Raito's stomach lurched.
He kicked again, harder. The hand slipped, sinking back into the pile.
He couldn't think about it. He couldn't help them. Not now. The best thing he could do for them was get out. Get out and shut Angel down for good.
Gritting his teeth, he wrenched L's weight tighter against his shoulder. His eyes flicked up, scanning the walls of the pit. Searching for something. Anything. A way out.
He took a shaky step forward, trying not to think of what he was stepping on as a gurgling noise rasped beneath his feet.
A deafening screech suddenly cut through the air above; a wretched, shrill siren of pure, agonized distortion.
Angel's voice, roaring through the pit:
"STOP THEM!"
No sooner had she stopped than a mechanical groan echoed through the chamber.
Raito jerked his head up and—
There they were. Claw machines. Far above, descending from the walls, spindly metal limbs twitching, mechanical eyes gleaming red with tracking data—they were coming straight at them.
"Shit."
He gritted his teeth, tightened his grip on L, and pushed harder. Every step—every move—was a struggle, a fight through the melting pot of death.
The bodies were shifting like sand under their feet, grabbing hungrily.
More of them now—cold, slick hands latching onto his legs, catching at L's trousers.
Some of them pulling, dragging, clawing. Some of them whispering. Some others begging.
A cracked, stuttering voice—"Take us…take us with you—"
Raito ripped his leg free, biting back a curse.
L made a small, instinctive sound as a body's fingers curled into his bootlaces—Raito slammed his boot on them, watching them shudder off, and kept going.
He blinked; a bit too long; and didn't look back.
He couldn't.
He couldn't.
Even as something cold and skeletal slid against his wrist.
Even as something with too many fingers curled around his thigh.
Even as another face—eyeless, mouth lined with wires—lurched up from below, mouth stretching, reaching—
He kept moving.
He looked up again. The pit walls stretched high, jagged and uneven, raw metal overgrown with pulsing ports and frayed cables. There were no clean ledges, no footholds he could see.
He cursed.
He needed something to climb. Some kind of—
The sound of rumbling, straight from above.
The claw machine.
His head snapped up but—too late—the claw was here, moving too fast to dodge. The jagged pincer snapped down toward his skull, gleaming, razor-sharp, ready to clamp his head clean off—
And then—
Another slammed into it.
Hard.
Metal cracked against metal, sparks bursting, claws scraping wildly against each other as they struggled— No. Not struggling. One of them had attacked the other.
Raito stayed still for a moment, confused.
But once Angel started shrieking again, he wasted no time.
While the machines tore into each other, he lunged, snatching up a severed mechanical tendril that had fallen out of one of the scorched port openings on the wall. His fingers wrapped tight around its slick, organic surface, gripping hard as he yanked— and yes, the hooked metallic end was there.
It was sturdy. Strong. Just long enough.
It would work.
Above them, the claw machines finally shattered apart, one of them dropping uselessly into the pit, embraced by the half-melted mass of metal and flesh. The other convulsed violently, systems sparking, until it went eerily still and simply hovered there.
Raito's gaze flew up, searching for an anchor point, falling immediately on the remains of Schaunhauer's shredded, mutilated corpse—
His arms were still outstretched. Still suspended, impaled against the auxiliary terminal's framework.
The perfect hold.
Raito didn't hesitate. He pulled back, braced, then threw.
The tendril snapped through the air.
The hook caught.
Raito tugged hard, testing it, feeling the weight strain against the makeshift line. It was holding.
It would work. It had to work.
Another tremor rocked the pit. Angel's voice was screaming something incoherent now, static-laced and distorted, barely intelligible through her system's unraveling.
Raito didn't listen.
He turned to L. "Hold."
L blinked up and nodded, still dazed but coming to. There was recognition now. Awareness. The fog was lifting.
Raito's eyes fell on one of the bodies below them. Its face—half metal, half rotting tissue—had twisted up toward him. His breath hitched. The fused eyes flickered wildly, glassy pupils contracting, teeth chattering as if in seizure.
He didn't look further. He turned around and tightened his grip on the line, muscles burning, heart pounding.
"We're not dying here."
And with that he lifted himself up, bracing his feet against the unstable, shifting metal of the pit wall. The vibration in the line told him L was following.
It wasn't an easy climb. The tendril-turned-grapple line strained beneath their weight, swaying with every motion. Raito's arms burned, his breath coming in sharp, ragged gasps as he hauled himself up, one hand over the other, muscles screaming.
L was moving properly now. Still slower than usual—but awake. His grip was steady, his legs bracing against the jagged wall, pushing himself upward.
Above them, the terminal loomed closer. Almost there.
But the pit was not done with them.
Hands. Cold, gnarled, reaching.
A dozen of them—bony fingers twitching, tangled metal joints snapping, cybernetic limbs shuddering as they clawed up the line, pulling, shaking it violently. The corpses below weren't still anymore—they were moving, writhing in glitching fits, their hollow, flickering eyes locked onto him.
"Wait."
The voice wasn't human. Not really. It was distorted, breaking through the neural channels like a corrupted audio file.
"Come back."
"Don't leave us."
"Join us."
The line jerked hard. Raito's stomach dropped as the whole tendril lurched downward, his grip slipping.
Shit.
He twisted his head, looking down—too late. The corpses were pulling. Dragging. The weight of them all would snap the line or drag them back into the pit.
L was still climbing, staying focused. How long would the line last?
Raito cursed under his breath.
He kicked off the wall and let go of the line.
A split-second freefall—his stomach roiled as he fell straight toward the writhing mass of broken, half-living bodies.
He landed hard, boots slamming onto shifting flesh and scrap metal. Hands clawed at him immediately—grabbing at his legs, pulling, pinning him down.
Their eyes flickered wildly, their mouths opening and closing, trying to form words, but all that came out was static.
He fought.
A sharp kick to a skeletal hand—it cracked, joints snapping, but another hand replaced it. Metallic fingers clawed at his jacket, at his throat. Raito wrenched free, heart hammering.
A spindly cybernetic limb latched onto his wrist.
He snarled, twisting violently, grabbing a loose metal plate from the wreckage below him—he slammed it into the thing's skull. The impact sent a sharp, sickening crack through the air, and the body spasmed, its glitching optics flickering wildly before going dark.
No time to process. No time for guilt.
His gaze snapped up—L was still climbing.
Good. He hadn't hesitated.
Raito grabbed the tendril again, chest heaving, and launched himself upward — and this time as he climbed, he took the line with him.
His arms screamed in protest as he hauled himself up, heart pounding in his ears. The corpses below clawed at the air, still reaching, but the grapple line was wrapped around his hand.
Not stopping. Not looking back.
He climbed.
Fast. Desperate.
He could see L above him, moving quicker now, pushing hard. The fog was gone. He was awake. Fully. Completely.
And then—
A blast of heat seared past Raito's head.
He barely had time to twist—another beam of light slashed through the air, just inches from his skull.
The claw machines had repositioned.
Their optics flickered erratically, their movements jerky, spasming with system corruption—but still attacking.
Another shot. This one struck the wall just below his foot, sending sparks flying.
"Move!" he snarled.
L was already moving.
The next blast fired—L kicked off the wall, narrowly dodging, his body twisting midair as the heat singed the hem of his shirt.
As they hovered off the wall for a moment, Raito saw a port opening directly beside him.
Tendrils shot out.
He reacted instantly. A violent kick—one foot braced against the wall, the other slamming full force into the writhing cables. They recoiled, snapping back like severed nerves.
He climbed faster. His grip burned, his muscles locked, his whole body screaming—but they were close.
So close.
Angel's voice split the air, shrieking, frantic, enraged.
"I WON'T LET YOU GO!"
The ground trembled. The walls shuddered.
And then—
The ceiling began to close.
The retractable pit cover, the very floor of the chamber, was sealing shut, groaning as it slid inward from all sides.
A trap. A death sentence.
If it closed before they reached the top, their only escape would be severed.
The grapple line—
It would be cut.
"Faster!" Raito bellowed.
L was already ahead of him. His breath was harsh, his body moving now with terrifying precision.
A final push.
The gap was narrowing.
L grabbed the ledge. Hauled himself up. Turned—
His arm shot down.
Raito lunged.
Their hands met.
L pulled.
The moment Raito's foot left the wall—
The ceiling slammed shut.
A deafening, metallic clang shook the chamber as the pit sealed beneath them, trapping the writhing bodies, the malfunctioning machines, the dying system within.
Angel's howl of rage ripped through the air as they knelt there, at the base of Schaunhauer's plinth—
Alive. Barely.
Raito breathed.
His chest heaved, lungs scraping for air. The world spun, red light strobed violently across the chamber, the rhythm of it pounding behind his eyes.
For a moment, he just knelt there, blinking through the haze, trying to process.
L was beside him. Silent. Awake.
And—impassive.
Raito turned, breathless, still not quite comprehending what had just happened. His mind flicked back—the slip, the moment his grip failed—and then—
L had caught him.
He…saved me.
The words almost left his mouth. Almost.
But then—
Angel shrieked.
"YOU PATHETIC, MINUSCULE, INSIGNIFICANT LITTLE INSECTS!"
The voice exploded, a distorted howl of wrath—nothing of her usual saccharine, mocking composure remained.
"YOU WILL PAY FOR WHAT YOU'VE DONE!"
The entire structure trembled.
The central pillar screamed, sparks exploding violently, arcs of white-hot electricity lashing outward like a cornered, dying animal. The walls convulsed, pulsing red-hot with warnings—red light strobing erratically as the voices of the Body shrieked through the neural hum.
"Intruder alert. Deploying defense protocols."
Raito's head snapped up.
No time to process. No time to dwell.
They needed to move.
He forced himself up, legs shaky, body aching. The air was thick—smoke and static, the sharp stench of burning circuits mingling with something worse. The brains lining the chamber—Angel's servers—were bursting one after the other, grotesque and wet, their neurons shorting out in gory explosions.
Angel screamed, her voice breaking, warping into something distorted, raw, inhuman.
Raito was already turning to run—
And then—
Something caught his eye.
Something on the floor, glinting in the red light.
His plasma cutter.
Discarded, forgotten in the chaos of his earlier fight with L. Now lying near Schaunhauer's impaled corpse.
He grabbed it without thinking.
His fingers closed around the handle in an instant—and it felt so, so good.
He barely let himself savor the electric rush of relief, barely acknowledged the flood of control snapping back into his grip—
Because he was already moving.
Run.
That was the only thought that mattered now..
The walls trembled, the floor quaked beneath them, the air thick with smoke and static and warnings—but Raito felt alive, the cutter warm in his grip, solid in his fingers.
They just had to keep going—
And then it hit him.
Oh.
He skidded to a stop.
Oh ho.
"Wait!"
He called, and turned back.
L was ahead, but he pivoted sharply at the sound of Raito's voice.
"Raito!" His tone was sharp, urgent.
But Raito wasn't listening.
A slow, creeping pulse of something wicked was uncurling in his chest. His fingers twitched. His pulse roared in his ears. The plasma cutter in his hand hummed, almost expectantly, as his gaze locked onto Schaunhauer's desecrated, still-suspended body.
His lips curled.
Something dark coiled behind his ribs.
Angel's scream was immediate, as though she could read his thoughts.
"NO!"
Raito's lip curled more. His pulse thrummed, that electric buzz of glee, that undeniable rush of power—
The system trembled around them, as if recoiling from his very presence. A pulse of raw, unfiltered terror radiated outward—through the air, the walls, the failing network.
The entire Body was screaming.
L moved, fast—close behind now, alarm bleeding into his low voice. "Raito, forget—"
But Raito was already lifting the cutter.
"Cover me." He only said, his voice cold; absolute.
And then, with a background of Angel's screams, brought the cutter down.
"NOOO—!"
Angel's voice shrieked, writhing with pure rage.
"Here's your Masterpiece." He grit out, his grip tightening, slicing every single bit of organic matter he could reach. Schaunhauer's grotesque, half-machine remains twitched violently, convulsing as the severed tendrils sputtered and leaked, coming off the wall piece by piece.
L stood a few feet aside, his back to the carnage, already preparing for interference.
Raito's plasma cutter kept hissing, melting through rotted flesh, twisted metal, and Angel's fragile control. It was tougher than expected. Angel had woven him deep, entombed him in her circuits, threaded him into her body like a parasite.
But that only made tearing him out more satisfying.
Raito's grip tightened, his breath coming fast, his heart hammering with exhilaration.
Yes. This was right.
This was Justice.
Angel's rage crackled through the walls, her voice fractured, guttural, raw.
"STOP! STOP, HOW DARE YOU DO THIS—!"
Raito's grin stretched wide.
"You feel that, don't you?" he muttered, pressing the blade deeper. "I hope it hurts."
A warning siren shrieked.
"Security Breach Detected. Deploying Defense Mechanisms"
Above, machine drones drifted from retracted vents. Their optics ignited, scanning, recalibrating, adjusting to the room's growing instability.
Raito felt the air tighten, that familiar sensation of being hunted just before the first shot fired. But beside him—L didn't move. He just stood motionless. Not bracing to dodge. Not preparing to fight. Just standing there, watching.
Raito glanced at him sharply and his gut tensed, a flicker of irritation sparking alongside his adrenaline. What the hell was he doing?
Then— A ripple.
Not movement. Not sound — something else. Something low and deep, like the weight of a shifting tide.
Raito felt it, deep in his skull, through the system's broken veins.
A pulse—not a command, not an order—just a disruption.
The system twitched.
The drones wavered.
Raito inhaled sharply as confusion rippled through the neural network.
The system doesn't know.
It didn't know if L was friend or foe. Didn't know what to do with this alien signal suddenly bleeding into its veins.
Hesitation.
A machine stuttered.
Then— A drone fired.
Not at them; at another drone.
Its plasma bolt slammed into a mechanical hull, sending sparks flying.
Another drone shuddered violently, optics flashing erratically, targeting data shuffling in endless loops.
Then—another one turned against the others.
Another shot fired.
Angel's scream shattered into static.
"NO— NO, NO, OBEY ME, DAMN IT!"
Raito swore under his breath, glancing sideways. L still hadn't moved.
But his head was tilted slightly—watching, calculating, not even slightly surprised.
Raito's stomach turned, his pulse jumping with something he didn't like.
Whatever the hell L had just done—he'd meant to do it.
Raito shook it off.
Later.
Right now— he had a job to finish.
His grip tightened—he braced—and drove the cutter down.
The final tendril snapped. Schaunhauer's ruined corpse collapsed, crashing to the floor.
A shockwave burst through the room, a final tremor ripping through the system.
Raito felt it like a dying breath—like a last, desperate gasp.
The pain of the severance — both neural and mental.
Angel's entire neural body recoiling, buckling, something vital ripping free from her core.
Her shriek was nothing but static and violence.
"NO—!"
Raito breathed hard, triumphant, and stepped back to admire his handiwork.
"Good news, Doctor," he murmured, voice laced with mock sympathy as he flicked the cutter off, rolling his shoulders.
"You finally get to die." and with one last smirk at Schaunhauer's broken form, he turned away.
"Let's go!" he shouted over his shoulder, but no need— L's footfalls were already in his wake. They ran to the glass door exit, both because it was the only place to go and because the entire place was collapsing behind them.
The floor was trembling, debris collapsing from the ceiling. Drones were firing blindly into the chaos, partly at each other, partly at everything else.
And Angel was still screaming.
As they ran down the glass corridor, the air was thick with heat and smoke, the flickering red warning lights painting their silhouettes in sharp relief. Beyond the reinforced glass, the farms of human brains were in distress; pulsing erratically, some of them cracking under pressure, others already smoldering—blackened husks leaking fluid into the tangled mass of cables.
But Raito's mind wasn't on that. It was still stuck on what had just happened. What he'd just seen L do: stand still, watch, not move at all—yet somehow turn the machines against each other.
Raito's pulse roared in his skull. He turned over his shoulder, breath sharp.
"What was that?"
L didn't even look at him. Still running. Still focused.
"Your murderous side, I believe."
Raito's teeth clenched. He had no time for evasions.
"Tell me!"
L's breath was steady, his voice flat, untouched, like he hadn't just hacked into Angel's system with his mind alone.
"Her system was fragmented." His dark eyes flicked forward, as if assessing something distant. "I exploited the cracks."
And that was that.
So simple.
Raito felt his stomach tighten, twist.
His brain tripped over itself, shuffling facts, rewriting variables.
So—what? The betrayal, everything—it was an act?!
So Angel didn't get to him? He was resisting the entire time? He let himself be assimilated just to— to what?
Use it against her?
But that wasn't possible.
Right?
Raito's chest heaved, but before he could snap back with another demand—
The doors to the end loomed ahead. Closed. Locked.
His stomach dropped.
He started slowing down unconsciously, dread flashing up his spine.
No, no, no—
And then—another pulse.
Raito felt it before he saw it.
Like static curling at the base of his skull. A neural command—not Angel's, not the Body's—
L's.
And the doors slid open.
Smoothly. Effortlessly.
Raito's feet barely stuttered before he dove through, L right behind him.
The Pain Chamber with its cocoons was eerily still, its walls with their morbid outgrowths pulsed dimly, the massive interwoven nerve-clusters flickering under the emergency lighting.
Raito's mind was still spinning, words forming sharp and fast in his throat about L's newfound abilities —he was going to press the issue, he was going to demand answers—
"What the HELL is going on there, Angel?"
A booming male voice exploded over the speakers.
They both froze.
That voice—
That voice wasn't Angel.
It wasn't static-laced, wasn't saccharine-smooth.
It was deep. Rough. Cold as steel.
"You can't handle a couple of weeds in your own backyard?"
The room seemed to tense.
Raito felt it—felt the Body recoil.
Even the flickering servers dimmed, like something unseen had just tightened its grip.
"Stop wasting time and finish them off, already!"
A heavy silence. Then—
"Don't make me come down there."
Raito's pulse slammed.
The Body shuddered.
Then—Angel's voice came.
Not screaming. Not enraged. But rather— Cowering. Apologetic.
"Yes—yes, of course, forgive me. I—I don't know what happened. I'll handle it, I promise."
Raito stared at the ceiling, disbelieving.
This was the first time they'd ever heard this voice.
The first time Angel had ever sounded like she wasn't in control.
He swallowed. Hard.
Every fiber of his body was locked in place.
Beside him, L was looking up too. His posture was rigid, shoulders set, every muscle poised for action. His eyes met Raito's, a loaded look passing between them.
Who the hell was that?
The answer hung unsaid, thick and heavy in the air, as they stared at each other.
Then, finally, the speakers crackled—faded into silence.
For a moment, everything was still.
Then—
A pulse of pure fury rippled through the Body.
Raito felt it like a knife through his skull, a tremor that vibrated in his bones, burning hot and heavy.
"You...Both of you..." Angel's voice hissed through the neural network, low and dangerous. Gone was the cowering, the desperate fear. All that remained was a pure, unfiltered wrath.
"You didn't want to join the greatness of the Body…? You didn't want to see the Higher Purpose…? " Her tone twisted, saccharine malice seeping into every word. "Fine, then. You can die here instead!"
Raito felt it before he saw it.
A whisper of movement in the neural hum, the electric vibrations of cyborg Hunters converging — the ones that had almost reached them before — now coming straight toward them.
He looked up sharply, heart pounding.
And then the entrance to the Pain Chamber burst open.
The room erupted into chaos.
Metal claws, gleaming blades, and twisted limbs flooded in. The cyborgs poured in like a tide—dozens of them, maybe more. Their eyes flickered red, their movements twitching and erratic, spasming with Angel's fury.
Raito's breath was a growl in his throat, and he gripped the plasma cutter tighter. The blade hummed, casting a white-hot glow.
We've come this far..
He dove forward, slashing through the nearest one like a hurricane. The blade cut deep, searing through metal and synthetic flesh. Sparks exploded, circuits hissed, and the cyborg's torso split in two, crumpling to the ground.
Another lunged—Raito twisted, slicing clean through its neck.
One after another, they came at him—metal claws slashing, cybernetic limbs stabbing — as he ducked and spun, the plasma cutter a blur of light and heat. His heart hammered with adrenaline, his breath coming in sharp, ragged bursts as he tore through the swarm.
Beside him, L was a whirlwind. He dodged a blade with inhuman fluidity, one foot sweeping out to slam into a cyborg's legs, sending it sprawling. A heartbeat later he was twisting in a fluid arc, landing a brutal kick that cracked metal plating and sent another attacker crashing back into the swarm.
Then—just for a second—he paused.
He stood, perfectly still, gaze fixed on the nearest cyborg. Raito could almost feel the pulse—a ripple of neural energy, like static crawling over his skin.
The cyborg's eyes flickered—then twisted.
Its limbs jerked, seized—then it turned, lunging toward another cyborg instead.
Raito's heart slammed in his chest. He felt the confusion in the system, Angel's neural network fraying.
Her voice erupted from above, again distorted with rage. "STOP! OBEY ME, DAMN YOU!"
But some machines kept fighting each other now. Raito couldn't stop the smirk that twisted his lips.
He turned back, slashing through another cyborg's limb with the plasma cutter, then drove the blade into its chest, severing it from the control node.
But still, there were many; too many of them. They were coming faster now, the sheer number of them driving Raito and L back, step by step, toward the central pillar.
Raito's muscles burned, sweat slicking his skin. He couldn't keep this up forever.
He looked at L, who was still fighting with surgical precision, kicking, striking, turning enemies against each other with that eerie, pulse-like mind-hackery.
Raito slashed through another one, plasma cutter humming as it cut clean through metal and synthetic tissue. Sparks erupted, another limb clattering uselessly to the floor, but the swarm kept coming.
A break—just barely. A split-second gap in the onslaught.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw L slip through the chaos, his light form weaving quickly between the machines. He pivoted, dodged, then suddenly broke away, darting back toward the central pillar.
Raito's breath hitched.
"What are you doing?!" he roared, cutting down another attacker. The air around him was thick with heat, blurring his vision.
L didn't respond.
He was at one of the terminals now, fingers ghosting over the exposed circuitry, eyes narrowed, focus razor-sharp. His movements were calm, precise, as he worked on something—but Raito couldn't see.
A cyborg lunged, blade slashing for his throat. He ducked, twisting, the plasma cutter slamming upward into its diaphragm. The machine convulsed, a spasm of sparks, and then collapsed, twitching at his feet.
"Oi!" he snarled again.
He was cut off as another attacked. He felt the sting of metal against his shoulder, the heat of the plasma cutter burning through circuits and synthetic muscle. He kicked the wreckage aside, breathless, muscles burning.
Then, all of a sudden, the lights flickered. Raito felt it before he saw it—a shift in the system—like static sinking into his skin, like a ripple through the fabric of reality itself. The whole chamber trembled, a deep, reverberating pulse that sent a shudder through the walls, through the flickering red emergency lights, through the very air.
Then—
The screaming began.
Angel's voice—if it could even be called a voice anymore—ripped through the soundwaves. A twisted, distorted shriek that spiked straight into Raito's skull, layered upon itself in a screeching, deafening chorus of rage and pain.
"AAARGHHH!"
The sound rattled the chamber, making the metal floor beneath his feet quake.
Raito barely had time to process before the cyborgs around him collapsed.
Their bodies twitched violently, spasming like broken puppets. Some clawed at their own heads, their neural relays short-circuiting, their limbs jerking wildly. Some curled in on themselves, writhing on the floor, metal fingers digging into artificial skin.
The entire Body was recoiling, overwhelmed by something—something agonizing, something unbearable.
Raito's breath heaved in his chest, his pulse hammering. He turned sharply, eyes locking onto L.
L was standing by the central pillar, calm and placid as ever.
Raito stared at him, panting, the questions etched all over his face.
L blinked at him, expression infuriatingly innocent.
"I rerouted her pain receptors," he simply said.
Raito's eyebrows shot up. His mouth fell slightly open, forming a small 'oh' shape.
A fraction of a second passed—just enough for the weight of L's words to settle—
Then Angel detonated.
"YOU THINK YOU'RE SMART?! THINK YOU CAN HURT ME?! I'LL OBLITERATE YOU! I'LL TEAR YOU APART DOWN TO YOUR NEURAL THREADS! I'LL ERASE YOU! I'LL ERASE EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU!"
L didn't even flinch. He tilted his head slightly, then added, perfectly neutral, "We should go. She'll probably override it soon."
Angel's screams rose into inhuman shrieks, wild and vengeful, the system convulsing with pure, blind wrath.
Raito didn't need to be told twice.
They ran.
The howls followed them, warping with rage, with fury, even with something close to fear.
"YOU CAN'T ESCAPE! I'LL FIND YOU! I'LL TEAR YOU APART, YOU FILTHY, WORTHLESS LITTLE—"
Her voice distorted into a burst of static, glitching, warping—broken. Even her speakers wouldn't obey her properly.
Raito grinned breathlessly as they sprinted out of the chamber.
Well, someone's pissed.
Her shrieks followed them like claws. Lights flared, sirens blared, tendrils shot out from ports along the walls. The entire structure convulsed around them, the grotesque, fleshy corridors contracting, choking on their own agony.
The wet, sickly sound of synthetic tissue tensed, trying to close around them like a throat struggling against a scream.
Raito's boots pounded against the shifting, pulsing floor. The passage twisted sharply ahead—slick metal fused with thrumming organic mass, lined with ports like gaping wounds. The air was thick with heat, with the sour stench of burning circuits and rotting bio-matter.
The sounds behind them were relentless. The Hunters had recovered. The heavy clatter of mechanical limbs on steel, the guttural, inhuman wails of things that had long since ceased being human—all of them were coming.
Ahead, lab doors groaned open.
Bodies spilled out—half-formed creatures, grotesque fusions of flesh and steel, their voices garbled, their movements spasming with fragmented programming. Some barely had faces. Others had too many.
One lunged—Raito twisted, slammed an elbow into its ribs. Something brittle crunched. He didn't stop to check if it went down.
Another from the left—L pivoted, braced a hand against the wall, and vaulted over, slamming a boot into its optic sensors.
They kept running, a mix of desperation and adrenaline propelling them forward.
Raito could see ahead - the corridor was splitting.
Two paths.
A trap? Maybe.
It didn't matter.
A mechanical groan shuddered through the walls—just as the corridor started sealing off.
"Go!" L ordered, his voice clipped.
Raito's feet moved before he could argue.
The door slammed down between them.
Damn it.
The last thing Raito saw before the metal slammed down was L's gaze flicking upward, already tracking his next move.
Fine.
They'd reconvene ahead.
We'd better.
Raito forced his breath steady, turned, and ran.
The corridor ahead twisted sharply, the walls shuddering with the echoes of Angel's fury. Somewhere behind him, the Hunters had recovered. He could hear them now—metallic limbs hammering against steel, their snarling, inhuman wails scraping through the air like rusted blades.
Another lab door groaned open—just as a massive shape barreled out from the darkness.
It was different from the others. Taller. Broader. Its entire torso fused with layered plating, its face a ruined mask of flesh and steel. One arm was nothing but a mass of jagged machinery, the flesh around it long since seared away. The other—
A saw blade. Running.
Raito moved before it did. He ducked as the weapon slashed downward, the steel teeth grazing past his head. Sparks flew as it carved deep into the wall.
He twisted sharply, plasma cutter flaring to life, and slammed it straight into the thing's midsection.
The monster staggered.
Paused—
Then turned its head toward him, utterly unfazed.
Raito barely had time to react before it lifted its other arm—a chainsaw, still revving, still roaring.
His brain barely caught up to his body. Instinct fired like a gunshot.
He drove his foot into its ribs, twisted with all his strength, and ripped the weapon free from its fused limb.
A wet, nauseating tear of flesh and metal. A shriek of protesting gears.
And then—it was in his hands.
Heavy. Unwieldy. Greasy with oil and something he refused to think about. The cyborg lunged, its saw blade coming down again—
Raito didn't hesitate.
The chainsaw roared.
He swung.
The teeth met flesh and steel and ripped through it.
The thing let out a garbled, static-laced shriek. It shuddered violently, convulsing as the saw tore through its plating, splitting it open at the seams.
A final, hacking crunch.
And then it collapsed, the wreckage of its body twitching as the chainsaw's rumble filled the corridor.
Raito panted, breathless, pulse thundering in his ears.
The chainsaw rumbled, still vibrating in his grip, its metal teeth slick with oil and something darker. The weight of it settled into his hands—heavy, solid, real.
He exhaled sharply, dragging in a deep, burning breath—
And let out a huge, exhilarated sigh.
Well. That was satisfying.
Then—another sound.
Not Hunters. Not machinery.
Footsteps.
Light, steady.
Raito turned.
L had emerged from the junction just ahead, framed by the flickering red emergency lights. His dark eyes swept over Raito's face, then down to the chainsaw still growling in his grip.
He said nothing.
A slow grin curled onto Raito's lips. He lifted the saw slightly. "Jealous?"
L exhaled softly through his nose, stepping past him without breaking stride.
"Barbarous."
Raito huffed a laugh and followed.
They ran. And ran. And slaughtered.
The corridors stretched ahead in a maze of twisting steel and pulsating, fleshy walls—but nothing stopped them now. Not anymore.
Everything in their path—Hunter-class cyborgs, half-melded experiments, broken machines—they all fell in pieces.
Raito's chainsaw roared, its hungry teeth ripping through metal and bone alike, its blade slick, splattered, shrieking through every inch of resistance.
And where Raito cleaved, shredded, and razed, L simply erased.
The machine turrets were the first to turn on each other—their targeting systems hijacked in a blink. The Hunters fell next—staggering, freezing mid-lunge, their own limbs locking in place as if suddenly unsure if they were prey or predator.
Raito barely spared it a thought. He was too busy enjoying himself.
Every kill. Every severed limb. Every final, desperate scream from Angel as her Body collapsed under its own failing weight. He was drowning in it. And he loved it.
Angel's voice ripped through the speakers, shrieking with static-laced fury, every ounce of artificial charm burned away, stripped down to pure, unfiltered rage.
"You—you miserable, malfunctioning, walking trash heap!"
Raito grinned, breathless, chainsaw dripping. "You talking to your people, here?"
Angel didn't acknowledge him. She was focused on L.
"You could have been part of the most advanced intelligence network in human history!" she spat, her voice writhing with frustration. "You could have become limitless—you could have understood things beyond the constraints of your pathetic, organic existence—!"
L barely spared her a glance as he dodged a falling cyborg carcass. He tilted his head slightly.
"No need," he murmured. "Clearly, I'm already smarter than you."
A beat.
Raito snorted.
Angel screeched.
The system shuddered. The walls trembled violently, lights flickering in a strobe of panic—erratic, furious, chaotic.
They kept running.
Then—right when Raito had started feeling well and truly like a kid in a playground—
The screaming stopped.
Everything stopped.
The air thickened. No more machines. No more Hunters. No more mechanical shrieks or neural transmissions through the wails.
Just silence.
The corridor stretched ahead, eerily empty—a long, dim-lit tunnel into something deeper, darker. Raito slowed down, his fingers twitching over the trigger of the chainsaw.
Too quiet. His instincts screamed.
L came to a stop beside him. He was motionless, unreadable, but Raito knew him well enough now to see the subtle shift.
He feels it too.
Then Angel's voice returned. Soft, silk-smooth…and sounding far, far too pleased.
"Smarter, are you?" she murmured.
Raito's stomach knotted.
L's gaze flicked up, sharp, calculating.
A slow, heavy pause.
Then—
"Challenge accepted."
The air shifted.
Raito didn't hear footsteps. There was no mechanical groan, no twisted, erratic convulsion of broken things dragging themselves into the light. But he could feel it, just from the change in the air. The metallic smell…something was coming.
A shadow flickered at the end of the corridor.
It stepped forward.
Tall. Lean. Seamless.
Flawless metal—unblemished silver plating, smooth and undisturbed, no grotesque scars of forced fusion, no exposed flesh fighting against circuitry.
It moved like liquid.
Not shuddering. Not lurching. Every motion was measured, calculated, inevitable.
Raito's stomach tightened.
No grotesque wires. No twitching nerves. No corrupted screams of failing bodies.
This wasn't one of her recycled corpses or one of her grotesque failures.
This was something… new. Clean. Designed with a purpose.
Its head tilted slightly—not jerking, not spasming, but fluid, controlled. Its optics locked onto them with laser-focused precision.
The stance shifted.
Not aggressive. Not frantic.
…Predatory.
Angel's voice purred through the walls. "Meet my Mercury Prototype." A pause. A smirk. "Let's see how you do against a real Soldier."
One second, it was standing.
The next—
Too fast.
A blur of silver lunged forward.
Raito's instincts roared—duck, move, react—but he barely twisted aside before a razor-sharp limb slashed through the air, missing his throat by inches.
The force alone sent a gust of air ripping past his ear.
His back hit the floor. Rolling. Gasping. Chainsaw up—
Too late.
The thing was already behind him. Faster than sight.
A solid, brutal impact slammed into his ribs—his vision burst white with pain, his breath ripped from his lungs as he hit the ground; hard.
L came next—quick, precise—but even he barely dodged the second strike, the Prototype's fluid limb scything through empty air where he'd been standing just a fraction of a second before.
Then Raito understood— It didn't just move fast. It predicted.
Raito gasped for breath, yanking himself up, heart slamming against his ribs as he scrutinized it. No weak spots. No exposed flesh. No visible ports. Nothing.
Angel's voice echoed, dripping with satisfaction.
"Not so cocky now, are you?"
They ran.
The thing stalked them. Not frenzied, not rabid like her drones or cyborgs. It didn't lunge mindlessly. It didn't scramble after them, desperate to kill — it didn't need to. It knew it was faster. It knew they couldn't escape.
It was toying with them, Raito realized. This thing was created to kill.
His lungs burned as they tore through the darkened labs, their footsteps pounding against the cold steel. Twisted experiments loomed in shattered containment tanks, suspended in murky liquid, their grotesque forms barely visible through the glass. The walls, still laced with Angel's pulsing organic mass, twitched with the last, dying remnants of her failing neural signals.
The Prototype behind them never broke its pace; it flowed, a silent, silver blur, slipping through the shadows, limbs shifting, adapting seamlessly to the environment, its red optics never losing sight of them.
L veered sharply—a calculated move, an attempt to shake it—
But it anticipated him.
It twisted mid-motion, fluid as mercury, and cut him off entirely.
L skidded back, body low, narrowly dodging a slicing limb. His breath remained steady, but Raito saw it—the flicker of sharp calculation in his eyes.
Shit.
The Prototype struck again. A fast, clean slice.
Raito barely had time to yank L back, twisting them both out of range before the thing's blade-like limb slashed through the air where his head had been a second ago.
L spread out his palm..
A neural pulse rippled through the system.
The walls shuddered. Lights flickered, a sharp, shivering pulse echoing through the network—
But the Prototype didn't even pause.
L's head snapped up, eyes narrowing. He sent another pulse—harder, stronger—still, nothing.
A bark of laughter crackled through the speakers.
"Oh my my!" Angel sang, delighted.
The Prototype struck again. Raito barely blocked it with the chainsaw, the jarring impact rattling up his arms, sparks shrieking as metal ground against metal.
Angel cooed. "Seems like you can't play with this one."
Raito twisted, shoving the Prototype back with the last ounce of leverage he had. It barely stumbled. L's fingers curled at his sides, his breathing unusually shallow.
"You're smart, I'll give you that," Angel purred, her voice brimming with smug satisfaction. "But this one is not in the Body."
Raito's breath hitched.
L went unnaturally still.
Angel sighed with mock sympathy through the speakers. "Too bad… What will you do now, genius?"
The Prototype advanced. Slow. Deliberate.
Raito's grip tightened around the chainsaw, but his mind was already racing. They couldn't outfight it. It was too fast, too strong, too precise. L couldn't hijack it. No neural signals. No weak points.
So then…how? There had to be something—something they could use, something they could turn against it like they'd done before—
Angel's voice curled through the air like syrup, thick and cloying, savoring their inevitable demise.
"This is the end, my dears. Run all you like."
The Prototype stepped forward.
"You can't escape Mercury."
Raito exhaled sharply, blood roaring in his ears as his mind snapped into focus.
Mercury.
As in…the metal? That's right —not cyborg. It was all made of metal.
His eyes flicked up.
The vents.
L's gaze followed.
A single second. A single glance was all it took.
Ice.
Raito's lips barely twitched—an almost-smirk. L's expression remained unreadable, but the faintest flicker of calculation lit his gaze, the smallest fraction of a nod.
Ready; Set—
Raito moved first.
He swung the chainsaw, already knowing he'd miss. The Prototype shifted easily, its liquid-smooth limbs flowing out of range.
Useless.
But it was the half-second L needed.
He made a sharp pivot, his body shifting lightly as he veered down the corridor. By the time Raito brought the chainsaw back to balance, the Prototype was already giving chase — but with just enough distance to keep L safe.
Raito broke out to a run behind them
They wove through the labyrinth, their footfalls quick but measured, dodging past shattered containment units and the twitching, half-melded remains of failed experiments. The Prototype followed seamlessly—no hesitation, no questioning—just pursuit.
When they turned into the next hallway, Raito saw the reinforced door at the end. It was the one room in this godforsaken place he could recognize:
The room with the cryo capsules.
His lip curled to a small grin. So he did read my mind. A part of him still hadn't believed it.
L made a final sharp pivot—right at the threshold to the room. At the last second, he twisted—just barely avoiding the strike, slipping past the threshold as the machine surged forward and well inside the chamber.
Raito's pulse spiked, feeling the thrill—
They had it. They had it where they wanted it. Now They just needed to seal the deal.
He burst into the chamber after them, muscles coiled and ready.
Cold air hit him like a slap, biting and sharp, curling from now open cryo-pods. Thick white mist hissed from containment valves, spilling across the floor in slow, creeping tendrils. The whole place was a freezer. Pressurized nitrogen tanks towered against the walls, metal surfaces gleaming with ice.
But still not cold enough.
L kept moving, leading the Prototype deeper in his effort to dodge its attacks—deep enough to stay in the room no matter what.
Raito ran after them, breathing hard, boots skidding slightly against the frozen floor. He was already scanning the room, the pipes overhead, the coolant system… thinking.
For a split second, L met his eyes. A quick flick of his eyes to the side and Raito got the message.
Distract.
Raito broke left, revving the chainsaw to draw its attention.
It worked. The Prototype swivelled toward him, closing the distance in a single liquid blur—a a silver ghost. Raito twisted mid-motion, barely evading its talon slice, and spun full circle to swing the chainsaw again.
The Prototype dodged. Its body melted around the attack, slipping through the air like mercury, limbs shifting, reforming, adapting too fast.
It didn't matter.
L had already disappeared into the shadows of the chamber.
Raito could hear the soft electronic hum. A terminal booting up.
He twisted his grip on the chainsaw, heart hammering. He didn't need to look. He knew L was at the control panel.
Angel's voice cracked overhead, delighted.
"Ha! Still hoping?" she was practically giddy. "I told you—it's not connected to the Body!"
A soft hiss— A screen flickered. L's fingers moved fast over the console, rerouting subroutines, unlocking systems buried deep in the infrastructure.
Angel's glee faltered.
"Wait. What—what are you doing?!"
L's voice was calm. Flat. Unbothered.
"It's not connected to the Body," he agreed, pressing the final override key.
A cold, mechanical clunk.
The pipes above them shuddered.
L leaned back slightly. His dark gaze flicked up, measuring, waiting. Then—
"But everything else is."
A loud hiss split the air. Then—
FWOOSH.
A shockwave of cold blasted outward.
Frost exploded across the walls. The floor crystallized beneath them, thin ice veining outward, spreading fast. Raito sucked in a ragged breath, his teeth aching from the sheer drop in temperature. He could feel the blood in his veins sluggish, thickening.
The Prototype twitched. Its liquid-smooth movements—lagged.
Its servos whined. Its limbs shuddered.
Raito felt it. The hesitation. The lag.
His breath curled in front of him, mist coiling from his lips.
"Deep Freeze Activation in ten…nine…." came a robotic voice from overhead.
Angel's voice spiked in alarm.
"No! WAIT!"
L didn't acknowledge her. His expression remained perfectly neutral.
"…six…five…"
"You can't do this!" she screeched—no longer confident, no longer mocking. "You don't understand—!"
L blinked. The faintest tilt of his head.
"I just did."
The Prototype shuddered violently. Its metal plating splintered, frost cracking deep into its core.
Raito grinned, feral.
"…three…two…"
L exhaled, the barest breath.
"I win."
"Deep Freeze Activated."
The room howled. The pipes above them groaned—vented an avalanche of sub-zero coolant.
The Prototype stopped moving. Completely.
Its gleaming silver frame had gone blue with frost, its limbs locked, rigid, frozen solid.
Angel let out a shriek of rage.
"You—YOU—!"
Raito stepped forward. His boots crunched against the ice.
He exhaled, slow.
The chainsaw was stiff with frost, its motor sputtering against the cold.
Didn't matter.
He adjusted his stance.
Then—
He swung.
A shattering crack. Hairline fractures raced across the metallic surface, splintering outward like a spiderweb, spreading faster, faster.
Raito didn't stop.
He yanked the chainsaw back and brought it down again.
The cracks gave.
The Prototype shattered.
A final, earsplitting CRUNCH.
A pile of glittering, frozen shards collapsed onto the floor.
Angel's scream ripped through the PA system.
Raito exhaled sharply, staring down at the wreckage. He let the chainsaw drop slightly at his side, cooling smoke curling from the blade.
He glanced at L.
L's breath was barely disturbed. His black eyes flicked to the remains, then back to Raito.
A single pause. Unreadable.
Then, barely audible:
"…Effective."
Raito let out a short, sharp laugh, rolling his shoulders.
"Knew you'd warm to it, eventually."
L blinked.
Then, just slightly—
His lips quirked.
"YOU MINUSCULE LITTLE PESTS! YOU THINK YOU'VE WON?!"
Angel's voice came back in full force.
She was shrieking now—beyond rage, beyond coherence.
The walls shook with her fury, her voice bleeding through every speaker, every frequency—static-laced, electric with wrath.
"YOU THINK THIS IS OVER?! I'LL TEAR YOU APART! I'LL TEAR YOU LIMB FROM LIMB! I'LL MAKE YOU BEG ME TO END YOU! I'LL—"
And then—
"ENOUGH."
Another voice.
Cold. Furious. Absolute.
The same male voice from before.
Everything stopped.
The rage, the madness, the chaos—it all came crashing down in an instant.
Angel's screech fractured into something else— Hesitation.
Dread.
Raito felt it through the system.
"You had one job, Angel."
The new voice sliced through her like a scalpel.
"One."
The system flinched.
Raito stiffened.
Angel—who had been nothing but venom and violence, a storm of rage and destruction—went silent.
He could still hear the last echoes of her fury ringing in his ears, his pulse still hammering, the adrenaline still surging.
But this voice—
It sent a chill down his spine.
It wasn't like Angel's anger—wild, chaotic, frenzied.
This was different.
Calculated. Cold. Dismissive.
The sound of a blade slipping between ribs.
Angel twitched violently.
Her voice crackled through the speakers, flickering, stammering, desperate.
"I—I can still—"
A shaky pause. Static broke her words apart.
"I can do it—"
"No, you can't."
The voice snapped.
Ruthless. Unyielding.
"Clearly, you're useless."
The labyrinth stilled.
Angel shrank.
Raito exhaled slowly, pulse pounding in his ears.
The weight in the room was suffocating.
He risked a glance at L.
L stood frozen. His posture was still, deceptively relaxed—but his eyes had gone dark. His head tilted slightly toward the speakers, absolute focus in his gaze.
He was listening. Deeply. Carefully.
Raito wasn't sure if it was caution. Or something else.
But there was fear in the system now.
The weight of this man's authority pressed down like a vice, wrapping around the network's core, choking the very fabric of it.
The sheer disgust in his voice— The absolute finality of it— Raito felt it like a grip tightening around his own throat.
Angel—this omnipresent, all-consuming entity— was cowering before him.
The man continued.
"You let a couple of kids disrupt my project?"
Disdain dripped from every word.
"What a waste of space."
His voice was surgical. Precise. Lethal.
Raito swallowed.
Angel was a monster. A god in her own right. A nightmare that had warped and devoured an entire system.
But this man wasn't afraid of her.
He was speaking to her like she was nothing.
"If I want something done properly—" Each word was sharpened to a point, dripping with contempt. "I have to do it myself."
Raito's stomach twisted.
The system stopped breathing.
A pause.
Then—
"Upload their data and send them up."
A beat of silence.
Then, lower, colder—
"I'll deal with you later."
And with that final threat, the system went dead quiet.
Not just the screaming. Not just the walls.
Everything.
The whispering hum of the labyrinth. The mechanical breathing of the vents. The slow, pulsing heartbeat of the machine-flesh corridors.
All of it ceased.
Raito stood still, fingers curled tight around the chainsaw's handle. It was still warm in his grip, the motor still humming faintly from its last brutal kill.
But nothing else moved.
L stood beside him, motionless.
For the first time since they'd stepped foot into this nightmare, there was no noise.
No hissing air. No distant churning of gears. No ghostly echoes through the neural network.
Not even ominous silence.
Just—Nothing.
Raito exhaled sharply, his breath too loud in the void.
L's head tilted slightly, his dark eyes focusing on something unseen. Searching. Probing.
But there was no response.
The system wasn't fighting anymore. The system wasn't anything anymore.
It was shut down.
A small, tight coil of unease knotted itself in Raito's ribs.
He didn't like this.
Not at all.
Slowly, cautiously, they moved.
Their footsteps echoed as they stepped out of the cryo chamber, into the long, dim corridors of the research complex.
No alarms blared. No security drones hovered in waiting. No shifting of walls or tendrils or anything to acknowledge their presence.
Everything felt abandoned.
Like Angel was gone.
Raito didn't trust it.
His fingers twitched against the chainsaw grip, the weight grounding him. Any moment now he expected something to surge again. Something to jump out from the shadows— a new enemy.
L was beside him, silent. If he felt the same, he didn't show it.
They kept walking.
Step after step, down the endless corridors, past empty labs, past bloodstained floors and shattered machinery—
No resistance.
No sound except the soft fall of their own footfalls.
Even the creatures—the writhing, half-formed hybrids fused into the walls, the cyborg horrors that had started crawling the halls to chase them—were all frozen and staring upward, as though waiting in suspended animation.
Raito's stomach churned.
Waiting for what?
Who was that voice?
He could handle chaos.
He could handle the fight.
But this?
This isn't right.
L's gaze flicked toward him once. Raito met it, and in that brief glance, the unspoken question passed between them.
What the hell is going on?
And then—
A hissing sound..
At the very end of the corridor—
A door unlatched.
Metal slats pulled back, gears disengaging, revealing a dark stairwell— leading up.
Raito stopped. L did too.
Neither spoke.
But as they stared ahead at the waiting staircase, the air felt different.
A long walk to the threshold.
Step after step.
Still nothing.
The system didn't whisper anymore.
Didn't hum.
Didn't send any transmissions.
And that, more than anything else, felt like a trap.
They reached the bottom of the stairs.
The silence pressed in from all sides.
A long, narrow ascent stretched above them, metal steps vanishing into darkness.
Raito exhaled slowly, fingers tightening around the chainsaw handle. He turned, meeting L's gaze.
L was already looking at him.
Their eyes locked.
They didn't speak, but the weight of everything passed between them.
The battle. The silence. The stillness that felt like something waiting to pounce.
They braced themselves.
And just as they moved to step forward—
They both froze.
A voice.
Not through the air.
Not through the walls.
Through their minds.
A woman's voice.
Soft. Faint…
Angel, as they'd only heard her inside her own system.
"Look for my sign."
Raito stiffened. His pulse skipped.
He turned sharply. L was frozen too, with wide eyes unblinking—hearing it. Feeling it.
The voice whispered one final time.
"For all our sakes."
And then—
Nothing.
No whispers. No lingering static.
Just the empty dark.
Raito swallowed dryly.
His heart was too loud.
L didn't say anything.
Neither did he.
Instead, Raito shifted his grip on the chainsaw, squared his shoulders—
And took the first step.
L followed.
They climbed.
The stairwell ended abruptly.
By the last step, their eyes had adjusted to the dull grey light from above— they could see where they were. A space they had seen before — the main lobby of the Erebus building, the first thing they'd ever seen in this nightmare — yet had never seen like this.
It was familiar—The same sleek furniture, the same gleaming glass surfaces. But everything was different too, somehow.
Dust. Grit. Age.
Where before the place had been pristine, futuristic, now it looked like it had been left to rot in silence for decades. The fine edges of the reception desk were dulled with a layer of grime. The floors, once glass-polished, were scuffed, uneven, as though thousands of people had passed over them, worn them down, and then vanished.
In the middle of the large space was the same gargantuan crystal sculpture of the human brain that they had seen originally —- standing monolithic in the center, as though nothing had broken or smashed it before. But now it too was covered in dust; the light growing opaque as it passed through it. Less like a glittering massive diamond, now it looked like a grey matter cloud.
The glass-paneled front doors and expansive glass windows were still there, the light outside giving the impression of a dark winter day nearing sunset—overcast, bleak, cold. But beyond that there was nothing to see. The cityscape, the skyline beyond the windows—gone. Replaced by a vast, empty greyness.
The entire place smelled of dust and silence.
Raito exhaled slowly.
The chainsaw was still in his hand, caked in blood, viscera, and whatever filth had leaked from Angel's monstrosities. His entire body was stiff with grime, dried sweat, and the weight of too many kills. His clothes were stiff with gore, his reflection in the glass distorted and unfamiliar.
Next to him, L looked no better. His black jacket was zipped to the top, concealing whatever injuries or bruises still lingered, but now in the daylight, Raito could see it clearly: The exhaustion. The wear. The dirt that streaked his skin, the hollowed-out sharpness of his expression. Like he had been dragged through a grave and pulled out the other side.
He had never seen L look so destroyed.
And yet, L's posture remained unchanged. He stood with his usual detached stillness, his dark eyes scanning the room, taking in its decay with the same clinical disinterest he gave to crime scenes.
Raito's fingers tightened around the chainsaw.
They both turned their heads toward the large front doors.
The glass, though smudged with age, still reflected their images back at them—two ruined men in the center of an abandoned, futuristic dream.
They shared a glance.
Would it open?
No.
Of course not.
It never did.
They both knew this, and yet, they had to try.
Then, just as Raito was about to step toward it—
A sound.
A phone ringing.
A sharp, jarring tone, breaking the silence.
Raito froze mid-step.
A phone…? Here?!
It rang again.
And again.
Somewhere deep in his mind, buried under layers of time…
This ring… don't I know it?
It was old. Too old.
For a moment, he didn't move. Neither did L. The sound echoed, unnatural in the vast, empty space, as if it was ringing inside his skull rather than the room itself.
A fourth ring.
The sound was too loud. Too present.
It wasn't just ringing. It was insisting.
A fifth.
It wasn't stopping.
Finally, Raito turned his head.
L followed his gaze.
There. Tucked in a shadowed alcove behind the reception desk.
A phone.
Raito squinted slightly as he approached, every step making it clearer and clearer in his mind—the flat receiver, the white plastic tinted with a hint of yellow from age, the coiled cord curling toward the floor…
He knew this phone. He'd seen it before.
By the time they were standing in front of it, he was sure.
No doubt.
He could even see the chip in the corner—Sayu dropped it once as a toddler.
His childhood home phone.
It was still ringing.
Neither of them moved.
This isn't possible.
Raito's pulse had slowed to something thin and cold. He didn't feel the weight of the chainsaw anymore. He barely felt his own skin.
It kept ringing.
Raito let the sound hammer into him, let it cycle and cycle and cycle, like it would go on forever unless someone stopped it.
He should pick up.
He didn't.
L was probably wondering what the hell was wrong with him.
Slowly, Raito reached out.
The plastic was cold under his fingertips.
He lifted the receiver to his ear.
Silence.
No static. No mechanical whir. Just silence.
Raito swallowed.
"…Hello?"
A pause.
Then—
Breathing.
A soft, slow inhale.
A matching exhale.
One beat.
Two beats.
Click.
The line went dead.
Raito slowly lowered the receiver back into its cradle.
The silence stretched.
He turned to L.
L looked back at him.
L blinked.
Raito swallowed dryly.
Neither of them spoke.
A/N: oh man...oh man oh man oh man...
where to even start?
- the mystery of what-the-hell-L-did?
- the mystery of the Voice from the Beyond?
- the mystery of how Raito so easily got that chainsaw?
- the mystery of WHAT'S NEW NIGHTMARE IS WAITING FOR THEM NOW?!~
hope you enjoyed reading this and that, like me, you were also saying "YES! YES~ " when they were beating up Angel's monsters.
Until the next time (I will write as soon as I can but please be patient with me this month.) I love you all! Keep up the mojo and if you feel like keeping me motivated, let me know your reactions! xx