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“How glorious it is - and also how painful to be an exception.” - Musset
Damage With Care
The Kira case had been resolved in three short steps.Sometime after freeing the original Kira suspect and following the too good to be true lead on another Kira-like perpetrator within a corporation; L had lost the drive to pretend that Light Yagami, who kept proving all his theories about the personality type of the first Kira while chained to him, was in some way not Kira.
Though he let his group help with the preparations; L took all the final steps to resolve the Yotsuba Group Case on his own.
Once he’d gotten ahold of the murder weapon, a black notebook that magically caused the heart attacks Kira had staked his name on, he had all the evidence he needed.
Yet things were not so simple. He met the pale shinigami who haunted the notebook and she gave him an ultimatum that changed his course. L could not allow any judgment be passed against Misa Amane and Light Yagami that would end in the death penalty. Because if he did - this Shinigami who called herself, Rem, would kill him. She didn’t give him her reasons why she guarded the two young people but they were easy to guess as she lauded them both for their 'purity'. He supposed what constituted purity for a shinigami and what constituted purity for a human must be different.Therefore, he had been forced to do what he could to make the two look innocent enough of their heinous crimes. Not completely innocent, though. He chose to record the presence of the demon and prove a complicated coercion argument. He passed the notebook around at multiple government headquarters. Showing Rem over and over again to shocked assemblies. She was shot at by the security at nearly every meeting. To which L would call out from monitors and tv screens behind his white 'L' text with some glee for the chaos, "Rude!"It had been no easy task to convince the governments of the world that Light and Misa had been possessed by this same demon.
It had all been far too tedious for L’s taste. Red tape met with him everywhere. His insistence the two young people had been possessed by the demon he kept showing everyone hardly sufficed; as shocking as the evidence was. For her part, Rem backed him saying in a not-very-evil sounding voice that she had encouraged the deaths of criminals because she was sick of humanity's comfort with murder. "Early death," Rem said once to every separate group, with heavier conviction than her 'murderers bad' spiel, "Is for my kind to decide. Not yours."
‘Quiz them extensively.’ L had promised the Japanese NPA after they were left with the two Kira convicts on their hands. ‘Though I can prove it was the two of them working in tandem; you will find as I have, they retain no memories.’ L had been tempted more than a few times in the process to give up, move on, let the young man and woman receive the death penalty. But Rem stood behind him steely eyed with her resolve. He did not want to die. He’d worked very hard to become the three greatest detectives in the world.
In the end the Japanese government acknowledged that because of the supernatural influence it was entirely possible that Light Yagami and Misa Amane were in a very loose sense partially innocent of these crimes. Yet they could have told someone, anyone, to help them. They had chosen not to. They had chosen to kill. Their writing had been recorded in the found Notes.
All this really meant was they would not receive a public hearing, their names would not be announced and their families would not be shamed for having produced mass-murderers.The deaths of thousands could not go unanswered for. Misa and Light's names and pictures were given to the top security agencies in the world. Japan was asked by other governments to confine these bad actors regardless of a demon who had been pulling the strings. L thought cynically it was so people in those governments who had to put their faces on TV for the sake of their jobs, who might like to occasionally commit crimes, could still sleep at night.
Kira had not been in the right. Such people were wolves but they had and would always need to exist. The wolves hunted, killed off the weakest and ran together while the rest slept. These were people like himself. Light was like himself. But what Light had done was unforgivable.
Eventually L accepted the briefing from the NPA on what would become of the two convicts, the expected result of his work:Maximum security confinement; multiple life sentences. “Better than death.” He had told Rem but she had not been satisfied.
To soothe the shinigami’s strangely romantic inclinations, he’d written one more demand back to the Japanese NPA as the man who'd brought them the heads they'd been hunting for. He requested the two at least have each other’s company by being confined in a shared room because it was a proven that long term solitary made people lose their minds. Yet, it was only because Rem insisted that Misa would be happiest that way.
L was a bit of a romantic himself. At least with concern to knowledge, Light Yagami could still create something of immense value within his confinement. He asked the man be given a computer without internet access. And library access to whatever books or journals he wanted which could all be billed to L's own accounts.
Knowing that they would not die and have a modicum of comfort in each other - this was not true justice; it was far better than they deserved.
They deserved to rot but L didn’t deserve to go down with them.
He’d have asked for more assurances all his conditions had been met but he'd already been onto his next enthralling case. A young female serial killer at work; the drained state of the dead truckers were like nothing he’d encountered prior.
L didn’t have time to have any more time to have sympathy for the Kira convicts or the lonely immortal white devil who was in love with Misa Amane. The shinigami eventually took her notebook and left.
Light's intoxicating combination of near superhumanly perfect traits had too dangerous an effect on him for any closer contact to be advisable. He’d check back in a number of years.Light had not seemingly aged a day since L had last seen him. That was the most unexpected part of their visit thus far. He appeared as if he'd been on an extended spa vacation. He was in clean black scrubs, clean shaven, white teeth shining, looking well-fed, gracefully at ease in a bitingly cold metal chair with one arm chained to the table.
Sunshine filtered in through the ceiling. This was also somewhat surprising the high security facility looked like one of the brutalist architects had designed it.
They shared no greeting while looking each other over. Eventually they met each-other's eyes, mutually narrowed. He felt again that primal feeling of combat-readiness Light always created in him whenever he let his glare go so naked. He wondered what they looked like on the camera feed, as both of them bared their teeth in distaste for the other. He felt like a mangy black wolf facing down a shiny red fox.
“Why are you even here? You got what you wanted. You even convinced the both of us we were culpable. I have no memory of being Kira and neither had Misa. All we had strange blank parts of our memories. Shared gaps. So we both knew why we were here. Misa died to atone for sins she could not remember. And I'm dying a little more slowly. Go away another 3 years - I'm sure I'll be gone as well.”
L chooses to ignore that, "You already know why I am here then."
"Actually, the world doesn't revolve around you, though you radiate with an assurance it must, so no, I don't."
"Educated guess, Yagami-kun. Are you still making those."
"Do not use an endearing honorific. We are not on those terms. My guess: Something in the records. Something I did. Is this about that guard I bit the neck of? He was in the hospital a week, didn't die, not even close. He deserved it. He was getting violently handsy with Misa."
L had read that, and it had thrilled him a little to imagine, but he moves on, "The records I received also state that your internet privileges were revoked. Care to tell me why that is?” It had been extremely stupid of them to give Light access to the internet in the first place. Just a number of warnings they'd ignored from his end.
“Pretending you care about something mundane, needling me repeatedly before you get to your big questions, just the same as before? Your interrogation style never changed. It should say in the records. I can’t imagine you weren’t sent briefings even though they think you are trash. I hacked the post office bank to send my family 10 million yen after discovering my father suffered a heart attack and was too disabled to work anymore. It was to be distributed to my mother’s personal account over the next 20 years. They stopped the transfer. I can't be sentenced to more than life but trust me - they made me sorry for it. I mean, it’s okay. Sayu got into Tokyo University on the government scholarship. She wrote me to say she’s going to take care of everyone.” Light tapped his fingers against the chair expectantly.
L remembered profiling Light’s fun-loving sister. She didn’t have the work ethic to get accepted somewhere like that. Let alone on full ride.
So the money would have been what they caught by the time Light was getting overconfident with his systems hacking and his social engineering. “Okay. I believed I mentioned Misa is dead. Let me think... Something like you.... something like you... I know. Are you here to tell me somehow I did that too.”
“I hardly believe you would have killed her Light. When I received the notice I did read how she died as Misa Yagami. Was she pretty in white?”
Light spits at him, the lessened formality between them the least of his reasons, “It’s not as if we were properly wed. I gave her what was left in my power to give her to make this all a little less like hell.” He snarled, any hint of pleasantry dropped.
“How did it happen?” L asked, and in case Light mistakes his meaning for being about Misa and his paper marriage, which he could not care less about, “How did she die?”“They did it to us.” He ground out.
“Who did it. How?”
“The imperial guard’s crummy doctor botched that sterilization.” Light responded staring blankly ahead, looking emptied by what he was about to say. “She was in so much pain for a long time. She tried to hold on. She didn’t want me to be alone.”
“She was sterilized,” L considered the phrasing, “You both were?”
“My surgery went well.” Light assured him, darkly, "We'd been successful with the rhythm method. The second we weren't action was taken. Just as likely it was done because it wasn't mine and the evidence had to be hid. All things are possible when your residence is in hell. Misa and I were careful with one another. The guards and wardens though. Well," He stopped himself, "I'm not here to turn you on, pervert." He said the way Misa would have said about the other man.L looked away, stressed with the implication of types of abuse going on here. Angry as well, because Wammy's House could have taken in the child. Misa was above average intelligence or she'd have never been able to collude with Kira. L had been given no oversight. He’d forgotten how serious the Japanese were about keeping undesirables out of the gene pool. L has a sudden uncharacteristic guilt pang him, he smacks his lips and rubs them nervously. Ash in his mouth, coal in his eyes. Vasectomies were not easy to reverse and if they’d gone more medieval than that; he almost shuddered to think. Light’s voice sounded no higher though.
So in all likelihood he'd lived through a small but life-changing surgery rather than a horror show.
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re not. Not for me anyway. It’s not how you wanted us being punished so you are pained about the method. That’s not a real apology.”
“Light. Do you have any idea how many broken lives Kira left in his wake?”
“I do. 756 children affected. Kira created 22 orphans. 622 widows. 3 widowers.”
“Yes. It was terrible. What you two did.”
“Give me a break. Don’t act as if sorrow is in your emotional repertoire.”
“They told you about these survivors. There were also those who were not recorded as Kira victims because you did not stick to killing criminals. Only I know about most of the non-criminal victims.”
“Well, don’t get your panties in a bunch, they don’t tell me any goddamn thing. The guards do what they are told. They are the best in the country and they believe this job is beneath them. Back then, I had internet access and the information for the victims was readily searchable online. I told the Imperial police officers I was trying to understand what I had done when I was under the demon’s control. It was always what I would pull up while utilizing hidden virtual boxes. Obviously none of them were watching all that carefully.”
“You aren’t sorry either then.” Why is Light revealing these things out loud on camera? Any chance he might have access to internet information in the future would grow non-existent at the review of these logs.
“I’m sorry about many things Ryuzaki. I’m sorry I ever met you, for one. That I once trusted that because we were friends everything would be okay. I understand you now. You didn’t ever care about justice. Winning is your MO. Misa and I were another example for you to tout about how you were never wrong.”
“You two were spared the death penalty because of me. It was more than fair.”
“It’s only about fairness? Were you able to raise your rates after bagging Kira?”
“Quite a bit, actually, yes.” He can’t help but to give a cruel little smile at that. Stop a chaotic would-be God of the New World; get a pay raise.
“You’re a psychopath.” “Are you an armchair psychologist now? I have a PhD in Criminal Psychology. You’re a sociopath, Kira.”“You smile at me minutes after I tell you how badly I've suffered here, and I'm the mentally sick one? Moreover, I was fool enough to wait for you to come here and argue my girlfriend and I out of inhumane confinement. Then I realized, as months turned into years - this is what you had wanted all along. I eventually concluded after three years of zero contact you wanted the death penalty for us but some more reasonable party convinced you otherwise.”
“Were I a psychopath taking moral advice would go against my base motivations. You might want to rethink your premise.”
“Good. Do what you always do. Dodge the real issue. I feel like the PhD is another lie but if you are - I’m a little smarter than your average college kid armed with the DSM-4. I have above-average narcissistic traits at most. Like every goddamn kid from my generation.”
This is a pointless fight and L feels too restless to argue with Kira who is and isn't the insane person in the room. There are a number of orchids in the interview room with them. They seem strangely out of place in the concrete surroundings. "How long have you been effectively in solitary?”
“Long enough to let almost every guard in rotation fuck me. You met Hiroshi. Big gruff man, ex sumo wrestler. Nice baritone. Married so he’s been holding out on me. Do put in a good word for me. A reference for my shower fellatio would suffice.”
“Stop it.” L demanded. This was not a joke any prior version of Light Yagami would have made. An uneasiness started sweeping through him.
“I have counted 122 sunrises since Misa died. It is possible missed some of them.”
“The dossier put your missus' date of death as no more than two months ago.” He'd gotten the dossier actually and the only thing he'd really cared get answered from this visit was why he was still alive if Misa was dead. Though Light making his mind have to work at this level of back-and-forth was making him nostalgic for the time they'd shared.
“Are you not getting it? The imperial guard is a holier-than-thou branch of the NPA. They barely give a damn about you. In fact, they laugh at your self-congratulatory World's Best Detective title. They've asked me before if you distribute it on a mug or a t-shirt. They only answer to the emperor whom they consider to be a God. I’m surprised they even told you she died. That they even respect you even that much.”
Light was the problem of the Japanese government until he also died; and that’s all they saw him as. A natural born citizen who shamed their country to the rest of the world. This albatross around their necks. L had been wrong to think they'd appreciate his rare mind. They probably did everything they could not to encourage the man's intellectual input.
He considered Light, closer this time. This insanely beautiful creature who would readily tell him any number of things in all ways as long as the end result was what he wanted. Light was entirely at ease. It was as if L were the one chained to the table and Light was the one who was free to move.L realized he would hear anything from Light except the truth. That had always been the way with him. L couldn't help but feel this was natural coming from someone this apparently perfect; as if gritty, honest truth was too ugly to flow from such a pretty fount.
Something was wrong here, Light should be completely out of sorts to be confronted with him now, so this conversation was over... he had to make it be over. L had heard all he was willing. He only knew two things. Light and Misa had not been properly imprisoned according to his recommendations. And Light was still an unreliable narrator so he had to disregard most of what had been said.L exited as he had arrived by saying nothing.
"You bast-" Light started to scream. But the door shut behind him was soundproofed.Rem and Ryuk sit with him sternly. Usually they trade off every 81 days. They bring pieces of the note only. He stuffs them in pillow lining. He memorizes names and faces.
It's Ryuk this time, "I don't know Rem is coming back again Light-o." That has more than one meaning. He may have to deliver what's left to her. The love she was living for was gone.
"I'd understand if not." He signs slow as a whisper in the runes Rem taught to him. Hand at his side. What the guards thought was a nervous tick he'd developed in captivity.
"Ya must be touch starved by now. Sorry, but for how these hands would only harm. I'd botch it all."
"The veil between you and I grows less thin." He signed. Not the first time he'd hit on Ryuk. And Ryuk wouldn't have dreamed of flirting with the man otherwise. They did sometimes though. It was all flattering and pointless. He supposed it filled him with some amount of yearning. His eternity always about absence.
He watched Light's right hand dancing the approximation of the runes next to his thigh. No shinigami sign language had existed prior to Light Yagami creating one when he couldn't risk writing and he couldn't risk speaking. And if Rem hadn't realized what he'd been doing; Ryuk would have not looked at the small details in the apparent hand twitch and their communication line would have fallen flat.
Ryuk ghosts his incorporeal hand across Light's hair, not even one strand moves. It's not as if he could go join him in Mu but he loved to dream it were possible. Mu existed for mortals. Death Gods just rejoined the universe as energy. He thought about when he'd realized he was in for the long haul. Light had that way about him. You'd follow him even if he couldn't give you what you wanted. Even Misa had known a couple years in that Light hadn't wanted her when two people were confined as they were - well, he was an amazing actor part-time. Full-time it all broke down, "You miss her."
"Who wouldn't." He signed like a sigh.
Who wouldn't indeed. In what should have been a static hell, Misa had been unerring support and comfort. A lap Light had laid his weary head in. She had proven to have a knack for oral story-telling. She'd tell Light about enchanted animals and children on simple adventures. Low and soft so the guards wouldn't stop her for being annoying. Ryuk liked that he could follow her stories. How they had a beginning, middle and end. When Light tried to use her characters, to tell her stories back, Ryuk felt lost as Light meandered in the broad strokes of the profound and ineffable, unable to fashion the sort of bow-on-a-present ending she could.
Ryuk remembered Light one day undoing the threads of his comforter and fashioning her a ring. A guard had dropped part of a small key link on the floor. Light had threaded in the tiny metal links.
They had hurt him for making a proposal. As if it hadn't been enough to hurt Misa like they had. Down on one knee he'd made his cellmate sob with joy. Ryuk had watched for Rem couldn't bear to.
They were never able to hand him large enough pieces of the death note that he could have written the sentences necessary to even the score.
The guards had thrown the ring away. Rem collected it and it sat with the matching one Misa later made for him, from the dismantled cufflink of some higher up who'd been fucking her, in between the pages of the Death Note she never used anymore.
That was the thing about her and Light. While both of them were being used by those who were meant to oversee their confinement, neither ever spoke to the other about it. He supposed that was love. Ryuk wasn't the smartest shinigami from his realm but he knew how to read the room.
"You don't laugh anymore." Light signed, his eyes closed, his face serene, "I want to hear it like old times."
Nothing was remotely amusing. He wasn't bored. He sat like a stone watching his brilliant friend caged and hatred festered in him like a cancer.
Both he and Rem had gone to the King, bowed low, hands and knees in full supplication, asking for an exception. Rem, more eloquent between the both of them, posed it. They discussed how they'd be eliminated for asking exception to a major rule. She asked for one rule exception for herself, almost a secretarial rule.
The King agreed in exchange for 8 apples. That had required Rem and Ryuk finding and killing two new Death Note users. They were not allowed to take anything from Earth that didn't belong to their Death Note user.
The only reason Ryuk hadn't mercy-killed his friend was the only thing still keeping Rem alive now.Light's cockiness ran through his nightmares; ice water injected into his veins. When L demanded he be given direct oversight again over Light, given the man's ability to commit crimes even while in captivity; he'd received, hand delivered, a notice in overwrought keigo from an imperial official that if he continued attempting the undermining the authority of Japan's legal system, all business ties with his firm would be permanently cut.
His brief visitation with Light Yagami weighed heavily on his mind. Not a pain point. It was the way he used to feel about the Kira case, like he was lining up against a wall for the firing squad because Kira had been expecting him and had been openly toying with him. L orders orchids, with 27,000 varietals it takes a solid three hours to find the exact kind in that visitation room, he crushes their white petals one by one in his palms while frantically trying to get all the facts on the shadow workforce which attends the specialized Kira prison. These particular petals have a musky scent - folk legend says they have some effects on unborn children. He licks his inner palm and their candy sweet comes as a surprise.
Many of the guards put on Kira were former criminals themselves, most of them long ago booked for drugs or trafficking crimes. They must have been thrilled, it must have been beyond their wildest dreams, to be given imperial officer titles in a rehabilitation effort after falling to the lowest rungs of their society. But those fancy titles were only in name. These were already people that it had determined society wouldn't miss should Kira's power turn out to be innate. Many times it had been expressed to L the fear of the possibility that Light and Misa may not have need of the shinigami to kill who they wished. Though this was only paranoia - he barely managed to assuage it in the others. It had been one of the strongest arguments given by the prosecuting attorney to execute the pair yet it wasn't even in the realm of possibility. People were far too unreasonable about that which they had no prior frame of reference for.
L came across Hiroshi's story and where his blood felt icy before; his body feels wooden. Big, gruff guy, just as Light had claimed. Except L had not once met disgraced ex-sumo wrestler, Matsumoto-san. Light hadn't been taking about the guard who'd escorted L in, a tall, but stately looking individual, who all too conveniently shared that same first name, Hiroshi, on his access lanyard.
Hiroshi had died about 99 days before the time the Imperial Officials had agreed to allow L to check in on the convict. Exactly 23 days after Light had mentioned Misa had truly died in his retelling of things. A fast moving brain cancer notable for causing excruciating pain had taken him out.
These fools.
He dialed his direct line to the Prime Minister's assistant. He did receive the respect of a call back, in short order, "I don't override Imperial authority." The elected man informed him simply after he requested to be able to interrogate Kira as soon as possible.
"Everyone tasked with overseeing the original Kira is in mortal peril. You must allow me to take over his surveillance again." He tells him what he believes he sees and how he believes Light Yagami killed Hiroshi Matsumoto.
"L. Our Country, and my party, deeply respect how you've single-handedly brought the very worst criminals in our midst under control. Please try and understand, this isn't your England. Our legal system is not open to outside oversight. I'll try to get you back in, to interrogate first Kira. A man dying of a common cancer is no sign that Kira has returned so we may need to provide a larger body of documentation."
"I have one question before I let you go. Those in attendance of the two Kiras were made to touch the Death Note per my original suggestion right."
"This is privileged information. A second shinigami appeared to claim the note from the Warden. It said it would kill him if the note was not returned. Top brass was informed and a week later a decision to return it was reached."
"Why was I not immediately informed of this development? At least all of them had been made to touch the note as per my instruction?"
"You were off the case. You still are off this case. No one but the Warden had ever been expected to take on the burden of touching the Note."
"Burden?" L was incredulous.
"Yes, Detective. A burden of the known curse that all those humans who maintain the Death Note are plagued by misfortune. The Warden returned it, but died, presumably for making the shinigami wait."
"Are you meaning to tell me no one who has touched the Note is watching first Kira!?"
"I don't have access to that information. We cannot risk his growing cult coming into contact with him all information is kept internal. I was informed of the warden's death. What I have revealed to you I've gone past my own authority to divulge. You must keep this knowledge strictly confidential."
"But they'd hired former hired criminals. How do they know they all aren't also in his cult?"
"That's quite a question. No experienced Imperial guardsmen could be spared for the Kira Project with its inherent bodily risk. We hired people who worked or were friends with those killed by Kira. Those with vendettas against his past cause ensured they could not sway them to his cause."
So that's why somehow all the people guarding him had been hunting him and Misa. It's not as though people were uniformly evil. They'd rather put them both in a cage with primed hungry wolves. He grit his teeth, gave a terse goodbye, and calmly placed his cell down on the table and decided he'd be fine in fabricating evidence, in this case, when Yagami is up to something dire. He should have extradited them to The Hague. He kickboxed in his personal gym until his fists and legs throbbed. One of his home attendants keeps bringing him ice cold towels. He hasn't even learned their name and they've been here two years. His staff are paid enough not to care for how he doesn't care. The ceiling mounted punching bag holds up. Hiroshi brings him flowers again. The only ones he said he likes. He grows them in his garden at the complex because he admits they have to live far from any big city to attend to Kira's prison. The guards all have a deal with each-other to cut the feed to Light's room at certain times of day and the one of them who is skilled at looping footage for the sake of the records. The rule, Light knows, is that if it's your turn with Kira no one can ask you what you did. It used to be less frequent. They used to only do this once a week when Misa and him were taken to the showers. But lack of upper-tier oversight had made the conspiring group of men bold.
A couple of the men watching him were tried-and-true sadists. Light got pretty jumpy when they were on shift. He'd learned begging certain people to stop only excited them more. The majority simply fucked him and told him he was beautiful. He used to be, but he's not sure most would find him all that lovely anymore, what with all the jagged scars hidden underneath his prison clothes. But only Hiroshi amongst them uses his time like he's a paid escort meant to entertain and have drinks with. What the man doesn't know, is that while he accepts and fakes the return of easy conversational 'affection' in this coercive environment, is that this is going to be the most he's ever paid for anything.