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This was it.
This was the culmination of all of Light’s planning, his agonizing over schedules and his carefully placed bribes, the nudges and whispers in all the right ears.
This was what had consumed the last two years of his life, and while Light was not so invested in this project as to claim that his whole life had led up to this point, there was some sort of destiny in the air tonight. He could feel it.
The walkie-talkie was small and innocuous in Light’s hand. He garnered no attention as he strolled up and down hallways, criss-crossed the lobby several times, and tapped his chin thoughtfully inside the elevator as if he was trying to remember his room number.
Light walked past the hotel restaurants, each one serving margherita pizzas more expensive than the last, and chuckled sheepishly when he “accidentally” wandered into the kitchens and staff rooms. He guilelessly asked for directions, stalling as his eyes traced evacuation routes and calculated the efficiency of the stairwells.
His last stop was the security center in the basement of the lavish hotel, where the small team on duty easily made way for him. No one commented on the walkie-talkie when he placed it on the cheap plastic table.
Why would they? After all, he was Yagami Light, star detective of the NPA, a beloved and honorable pillar of the force.
He had also been carrying around the detonator to enough nitroglycerin explosives to level a city block. None of the security guards knew how close they were to such immense destructive potential. It made Light feel giddy.
“Has there been any suspicious activity?” he asked, leaning against the table under the pretense of scanning the security feeds.
“No, sir,” said a man who must have been three times Light’s age, “The entire area has been shut down, as per instructions. ID checks show nothing out of the ordinary.”
Light nodded, keeping his eyes trained away from the guards, who were beginning to shift nervously behind him.
Finally, one of them worked up the nerve to ask, “Detective Yagami? Are you certain the informant was telling the truth?”
Smiling with practiced patience, Light glanced over his shoulder at the guard, who reminded him so strongly of Matsuda that he felt his smile soften fractionally into something more genuine.
“The convict has no reason to lie, and every reason to tell the truth,” he said reassuringly. “Although I can’t disclose any details, he has been thoroughly assured of his own fate, should any of the details from his plea deal prove incorrect.”
The guards looked comforted, if not pleased, with this knowledge, but tacitly decided to trust in the survival instincts of a criminal. Inwardly, Light both rued and applauded their lack of initiative. Had he been in their position, he would have demanded more information, wrenching it illegally from police servers if necessary. These people seemed content to accept anything that was told to them.
That was the real reason why they were all taking orders from a twenty-three year old; but Light wasn’t inclined to discourage such complacency. It was, after all, the only reason his explosives had been sitting undetected in the walls and vents of the hotel for the past three days.
Any minute now , Light thought, suppressing his grin, Someone will discover the tampering with the sewage outlets, and the real fun can begin.
The hotel was swarming with agents from both the American CIA and local SAT units, all hidden in plain sight as staff and guests. Majority of the staff were authentic employees, actually, but there was not a single legitimate guest in the entire building.
At least, that was what Light was meant to believe.
Once again, Light had to curb the glee that bubbled up in his throat, lest it emerge as a very hard to explain burst of giggles. Two years, he reminded himself, and nearly shook with triumph.
Because while there shouldn’t have been any real guests at the hotel, the deputy director of the NPA was a sociable man. And as expected of a butterfly such as himself, he had friends who were willing to grease his palms if it meant meeting their own needs. Even if those needs necessitated maintaining their weekly meeting spot in the midst of a police lock down.
These friends were currently sequestered in the east penthouse suite, furthering whatever goals corrupt businessmen and investors had and no doubt rubbing their scheming little rat hands together as they decided how to drag the economy and government around by the nose next year.
They would be the deputy director’s downfall. The man was cautious in a way that only the truly morally bankrupt had to be, but it was through careful manipulation of the Yotsuba group that Light had found his way past every defense. And tonight, he would ruin the deputy director and destroy the Yotusba group in one fell swoop.
The ringing of Light’s work cellphone cut through the gentle hum of electronics and ambient conversation. He flipped it open, heart racing but face composed, and held it to his ear.
“There’s been a breach of the perimeter,” came the rushed voice of one of Light’s fellow detectives, “Clear all personnel immediately, we’re beginning a full scale evacuation.”
“What? What’s happened?” he asked with convincing alarm. From the corner of his eyes, he saw the security guards stiffen.
“Someone snuck through the sewer system and planted explosives,” was the terse reply, “The whole perimeter is rigged to blow in seven minutes. Bomb squad’s ten minutes out. Begin evacuation now.”
Light gave curt acknowledgement and snapped the phone shut.
“We’re all in danger here,” he said, authority coloring his tone easily. “There’s no time to explain. Get outside the police perimeter and help make sure no one tries to re-enter the building.”
They charged out of the room like good little drones, and Light was left alone once more. On the security feeds, he watched as the disgruntled staff were ushered out into the chilly night air by the guests they had been tending to minutes earlier. It was a very orderly operation, and once everyone had been escorted out, a small team of agents, split nearly fifty-fifty between CIA and SAT, broke away to get back inside the building.
They must have thought they were being sneaky, but the security guards Light had sent out did their job well. None of them budged, refusing to allow the plainclothes agents back on the premises and wasting several precious seconds for the agents, who doubtlessly needed to discreetly warn the Yotsuba group about the bomb threat.
Light watched with amusement as the agents fumbled around excuses to the guards and the other agents. He took note of each of their faces, marking them as being in the pocket of either the deputy director, the Yotsuba group, or both, and filed that information away for later use.
One of the agents slipped away, her hand digging into her fancy handbag. Reaching for a cellphone, Light guessed, and wasted no time in pressing the rightmost button on his walkie-talkie.
Several moments passed, and the agent returned, looking frustrated as she put her phone back in her bag. The scrambler was working correctly, then.
Checking his wristwatch casually, Light sauntered out of the security center and down the hallway to the elevator. He theatrically examined the buttons before pressing the one for the penthouse floor. As the doors closed and the elevator began to ascend, Light finally allowed himself to smile.
The explosives had been discovered a little bit earlier than expected, but it didn’t matter. It was too late. As soon as the timed detonations began, the Yotsuba businessmen would begin to panic and try to escape. No one would be able to warn them beforehand, and they wouldn’t be able to escape.
Why? Because the hotel’s fire escape was on the west side of the building, and Light would already have jammed the door to the penthouse suite shut by the time they realized that everyone else had evacuated.
Oh, and they were on the fifteenth floor.
It was the perfect setup; there would be nine fatalities, all of them evil businessmen who should have never been in the hotel that night. A little bit of investigative work, which Light was happy to provide, and their connection to the deputy director would come to light.
It was poetic justice, and Light was the harbinger of it.
There was a pleasant ding, then the doors opened to the fifteenth floor and Light checked up and down the halls for any stragglers before stepping out. Everything was quiet.
He made his way down the east hallway on light feet, stopping outside the unassuming door. He pressed his ear against the wood and listened intently.
Light could just discern the sound of raised voices issuing from the suite; it sounded like an argument of some type. All the better to keep their attention as Light crammed a wad of putty into the keyhole and retreated back to the elevator.
It’s time, he decided, and pressed the big red button in the center of the walkie-talkie. Somewhere inside the foundation of the hotel, the second set of explosives armed itself and began to count backwards from two minutes.
His phone rang just as he pressed the button to summon the elevator. Grimacing, he pulled it out. They had completed roll call faster than he had expected.
“Where are you, Yagami?” blared from the speaker, and Light had to yank it away from his ear. It sounded like the tinny voice of his supervising officer.
“I’m on my way out,” Light said, faking exertion. Then he stilled as something hit his nose.
Just for the briefest of instants, he had felt cold air on his face, coming from the direction of the west corridor.
According to the messages exchanged with the deputy director, which Light had intercepted, all nine members of the Yotsuba group had arrived in their suite on time that morning. There had been no evidence that any of them had left the room, with their meals all being covertly delivered to them and their wishes catered to with the utmost care. Light had been watching the security feeds. No one had entered or exited the suite.
Another gust of cold air hit him and the blood drained from his face. The roof access door was propped open, purposefully prevented from closing and locking in a way that implied there was someone outside.
But if all of the CIA and SAT agents had evacuated, and all of the Yotsuba members were in their room, that must mean…
“There’s someone else in the building,” Light breathed, and dropped his phone with a clatter, heedless of his supervisor’s frantic shouts over the still-open line and the ding as the elevator doors opened.
He raced to the end of the hall, feeling the ticking down of the clock as if it was strapped around his neck instead of buried beneath fifteen floors of concrete, steel, and glass. Light estimated that there would be approximately thirty seconds between the initial detonations and the ones that would bring down the building entirely. That could, theoretically, be long enough for him and one other person to make it halfway down the fire escape.
Then… they would have to jump. The thought made Light feel queasy, but he would pay the price of a few broken bones if it saved his life, and he had done too much to ensure the perfect execution of this plan to allow even one extra fatality.
The door to the roof flew open when Light’s shoulder hit it; the sound it made when it crashed against the brick wall was like that of a small explosion, and his heart seized in his chest.
It skipped a beat when Light’s eyes landed on the man that stood near the edge of the roof.
His shoulders were hunched forward, as if it was uncomfortable to stand, but his head was tipped back to stare at the stars. Despite the horrible chill of the air, and the fact that he wore only jeans and a thin shirt, he showed no signs of being cold.
The man’s eyes, like his riotous black hair, were as blacker than the night sky.
Observing all of this in only a split second, Light’s attention skipped to the edge of the roof where the railing of the fire escape was just visible. He quickly checked his watch, then nodded decisively. Whoever this idiot was, standing out on the roof of a building under police lockdown, he would not be dying on Light’s watch.
“We need to-” Light began, but his words were lost to the concussive retort of the first round of explosions.
The rooftop buckled, the impact sending the concrete shuddering in waves that knocked both men off their feet, though when Light scrambled back up from where the blast had thrown him, he noted that the stranger had managed to land in an unsteady crouch. The man’s eyes, already abnormally wide and staring, sharpened further on Light’s face.
“We need to be off the roof,” Light finished his earlier thought once his ears stopped ringing. “Right now, come on, get to the fire escape-”
“It’s unstable,” interjected the stranger, and Light stared at him in disbelief as the seconds ticked by in doubletime.
“Trust me, it’s still better than the alternative!”
Light sprinted past the man, grabbing a wiry arm as he went and hauling ass towards the fire escape railing. The stranger put up no resistance, for which Light was immensely grateful.
However, he had no sooner pulled them both onto the rickety metal stairs when the entire structure seemed to lurch once more. Light froze, wondering if he had mistimed the second detonation, and his hesitation bought him the experience of watching one of the staircase bolts come flying loose of the side of the building. All of the rest of them popped free with miniature explosions of dust.
The fire escape peeled itself free from the wall with a groan, and Light screamed.
Then his back hit solid ground and he wrenched open his eyes, unaware of even having time to close them, to find the stranger’s face inches from his own.
“I told you it was unstable,” he said reproachfully.
The distant clatter of fallen metal prompted Light’s self defense training to kick in, and he threw the man off, rushing back to peer over the side of the building. Far below - fifteen stories, to be exact - the fire escape lay in a mangled, rusted pile.
The clock ticked a little bit louder as the ground swam before Light’s eyes. He squeezed them shut and took a deep breath.
Pasting a glowing smile on his face, Light turned back to the stranger, who leaned away warily.
“Well,” Light said with false cheer, “How would you like to die? Jumping to the ground or falling?”
“There’s a difference?” asked the man dryly.
A second boom shook the night, and this time the roof did not survive. It shattered into a million little pieces like a sheet of glass, and as Light slid down one of the shards and into the dust-filled blackness below, he decided that it didn’t matter what the difference was between jumping and falling.
The ending was the same either way.
-------------
Light woke up coughing.
He felt as if he had swallowed a bag full of cotton balls, then chased them down with a bottle of bleach. His lungs felt raw, and his eyes watered when he blinked them open.
A sound halfway between a groan and a laugh escaped his lips as he squinted futilely into the darkness. This couldn’t be the afterlife. Everything hurt too much.
Somehow, he had survived the hotel imploding and had ended up in… an air pocket, presumably.
Shifting sent stabs of pain racing up and down down his side, but what really worried Light was the numbness of his right arm. His shoulder felt like it was on fire, and he was pretty sure he could feel some distant echo of pain in his hand, but that was it.
Yes, he was ambidextrous, but the thought of losing the use of an entire limb still made his chest tighten and his breaths come painfully faster. Light hazily recalled thinking that he would chance a few broken bones if it meant saving his live, and scoffed weakly.
That resolve was fairly far removed from the truth, he thought bitterly, tilting his head back and letting his eyes slide shut. It wasn’t like there was anything to see.
A rasping cough from somewhere nearby had Light sitting back up immediately, hissing as awareness of his injuries returned alongside recollection of the reason he was down here in the first place.
“Hello?” Light called, “Can you hear me?”
There was another raspy cough, then,
“Yes, I can hear you.”
Light weighed his options. He could strike up a conversation, or they could just sit in the dark in silence.
“How are your injuries?” he asked, deciding to be a gracious host to his impromptu roommate.
“I no longer have to worry about iron deficiency,” was the cryptic reply. It took Light a moment to parse that before his eyes snapped back open.
“Did it hit anything vital?” Light asked urgently. If both of them had survived this long, there was a chance he could still make it out of this with his pride intact.
There was a thoughtful pause. “No, I think it just missed my liver. My leg is also broken.”
“Hmm.”
Light didn’t volunteer any information about his own injuries, and the man didn’t ask. Ah, that reminded him-
“What’s your name?”
No answer was immediately forthcoming. “Hideki Ryuga,” the man said finally, and Light’s eyebrows furrowed.
Then he let out a loud, derisive laugh.
“And I’m the prime minister,” he scoffed.
“My name really is Hideki Ryuga,” insisted the other, in what would have been a fairly convincing lie had it not been so completely devoid of inflection.
“And my name really is Shinzo Abe,” Light said sweetly.
“Well then, it’s a pleasure to meet you Abe-kun.”
“Likewise.”
“Would Abe-kun mind telling me what he was doing on the roof?”
Light’s eyebrow twitched at the sudden subject change, but he recovered fast. “I was checking to make sure that everyone had evacuated the building. What were you doing on the roof?”
“I was enjoying the fresh air. Why did Abe-kun need to make sure that the hotel was evacuated?”
“A bomb was discovered in the basement. Didn’t you get a warning from one of the staff or other guests?”
“I did not speak with the staff or other guests. And you didn’t answer my question. Why did Abe-kun need to make sure that the hotel was evacuated?”
Light hesitated, somewhat caught off guard. He really wasn't used to being cross-examined in conversations.
“I just wanted to assure myself that everyone was safe,” Light said. “Were you avoiding the staff and guests? If so, why?”
“I am uninterested in interactions with other people,” Ryuga said, shrug audible in his voice. “Is Abe-kun aware that there were nine people besides myself on the top floor of the hotel around the time of the explosion?”
“No,” Light said curtly. “And I guess I should clarify: how did you avoid the staff and guests? The building was on complete lockdown. Someone should have seen you coming and going.”
“Interesting…” Ryuga trailed off thoughtfully, not bothering to answer Light’s question. Feeling himself beginning to bristle, Light took a deep breath in through his nose, then let it whoosh out through his mouth.
“Does Abe-kun have a history with anger issues?” floated innocently from somewhere deeper inside the pile of rubble, and Light had a brief but vivid fantasy of wrapping his hands around the man’s skinny pale throat and squeezing.
“Is Ryuga-san uninterested in socializing, or just not any good at it?” Light fired back, reveling in the charged silence that produced.
“...What is your profession?” Ryuga asked after a moment.
Light debated ending the conversation there. “I think I’d prefer not to say,” he said, just to see how the other would react.
Ryuga made a skeptical noise. “I think you’re proud enough to want to say, but too prideful to actually do so.”
Well, now Light really wasn’t going to tell him.
“...Is Abe-kun, by any chance, a police detective?”
“...Yes,” he sighed. “That was a lucky guess.”
“Not really,” said Ryuga. “Only special forces were being allowed into the building, and you don’t look like a bellhop.”
Two responses warred on the tip of Light’s tongue, but thankfully Then what do I look like? lost to, “So you did know about the lockdown. You were able to avoid detection by all of those agents, and me, because you were doing so on purpose.”
“Why would I want to avoid detection?” Ryuga asked. “I was invited.”
Light blinked, taken aback. He hadn’t been told about any tag-alongs to the investigation, and none of the Yotsuba members had hinted towards an associate. That meant it had to have come from someone far over his head who had shady connections, and while there were many people who met that condition - for now - Light could only think of one who would have a stake in tonight’s events.
Had the deputy director hired a mercenary to protect his friends, then? That seemed low, even for him, and Ryuga didn’t strike Light as being particularly inclined towards violence as a means to an end.
No, he seemed to prefer the same type of probing questions and delicately veiled accusations that Light was fond of.
“You,” Light said as realization dawned, “Are a consulting detective.”
Unfortunately, he didn’t quite manage to siphon all of the disgust from his voice, and Ryuga took notice of it immediately.
“Does Abe-kun find this offensive?”
“Oh no,” Light sniffed, the discomfort radiating from his arm and neck and the low level irritation Ryuga seemed to inspire in him loosening his tongue. “I don’t think deciding when and when not to help people based on the amount of money being handed to you is shameful at all.”
“Would it make you feel better to know that I don’t take cases for money, I take them based on how interesting I think they are?”
“It would not.” And Light found that he had nothing else to say to Ryuga for quite a while after that.
Someone was yelling something. Light strained his ears, but he couldn’t discern anything other than the tone of voice, which was… bossy?
Distantly, he thought he might have also recognized the voice itself. It was a nice one, as far as such things went, he supposed, then wondered why everything felt so hazy.
The ringing in his ears was back again, and shaking his head only made lights appear in his swimming vision. Light groaned, closing his eyes and trying to scoot away from them, but they followed in front of his face. All he managed was to aggravate his arm, which he could now, unfortunately, feel sensation in again.
“It would be better if Abe-kun remained awake for the next few hours, as I believe he has a concussion,” called Ryuga, and Light tried to ignore him while conceding that he was probably right.
There were a few moments of expectant silence. Then,
“Is Abe-kun awake?”
“Yes!” Light snapped. The childish form of address was really starting to get on his already frayed nerves, but he had a suspicion that even if he told ‘Ryuga’ his own name, the man would still insist on claiming to be a pop star.
“There’s no need to be short,” Ryuga said, with false placation, and Light fumed.
“I’m taller than you are,” he said defensively. His jaw clicked shut when he realized his mistake; how bad was his concussion, anyways? But it was too late to take back the stupid statement, so he would have to stand by it.
“Oh? And how tall is Abe-kun?”
“Tell me how tall you are first.”
“I asked first,” Ryuga pointed out.
“So?” Light countered.
The silence stretched as both men slowly came to the realization that neither of them was going to out-spite the other.
At last, Ryuga sighed. “It would seem that we both have issues with trust.” Light’s good shoulder raised defensively, but Ryuga continued before he had a chance to speak. “I am 179 centimeters.”
Light scowled. “I’m 179.5.”
“No you aren’t,” Ryuga said after a disbelieving pause. “So, same height?”
“Same height,” Light muttered. “You just have terrible posture.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“Which does, technically, make me taller than you,” he couldn’t help but add, and received a short sound that might have been aligned with a snort of laughter.
“Has anyone ever told Abe-kun that he is childish and a sore loser?”
“No,” Light said acidly, and it was true. He never lost, so no one ever got to see that quality in him, and he preferred it that way. If he wasn’t concussed and in pain, he was certain he would never have allowed Ryuga to rile him up so much.
“I didn’t mean it as an insult. I am also often childish, and should I ever lose, I’m sure I would do it poorly.”
A vein popped in Light’s temple.
“You must not have done very well at whatever you were hired for tonight,” he gritted out. “If you weren’t even aware of the bomb in the foundation.”
“Hmm,” Ryuga hummed thoughtfully, “I guess I wasn’t. Although, neither was anyone else, were they?”
Light’s eyes narrowed as he sensed a trap, but he wasn’t sure how to step to avoid it.
“Yes…” he said slowly.
“Abe-kun must be a very good detective, then,” Ryuga said, and Light detected a hint of triumph in his voice, “Because he knew about the first bomb, and the second one, too.”
Damn, there it was. Light hissed through his teeth, and even though the sound was soft enough that Ryuga shouldn’t have caught it, the man seemed to take Light’s lack of response as an admission of guilt.
“Not only that, but Abe-kun predicted the approximate time that the second bomb would go off! He was paying very close attention to his watch, after all.” A teasing lilt entered Ryuga’s voice, at odds with how confrontational his next words were. “Now the question is: how did you know?”
Light couldn’t believe he had been caught out so easily. He sat there in the dark for a while, blinking and trying to force his scrambled thoughts into a coherent excuse. It was an exercise in futility; he couldn’t come up with any explanation.
He had never intended to be in the building when the first set of explosives went off. It had all been timed so that he was just leaving the building by then, ‘escaping’ by the skin of his teeth after ‘seeing’ that there were still people in the building but being unable to save them. The second set of explosions would have gone off, and the PD would have had to bring in first responders to shift through the rubble in search of the bodies.
Then he would have pleaded to be put on the investigation into the people he had ‘failed to save’, thus helping bring the deputy director’s treachery to light.
Everything had been perfectly laid out, meticulously planned, and he should never have been in this position to begin with. Light had no excuses prepared with which to fight back against this accursed detective for hire. He didn’t even know how much Ryuga had guessed.
There was no use trying to deny it, Light realized. He would just have to improvise.
“Maybe I just guessed that since the first bombs didn’t bring down the hotel, a set of failsafes had also been placed?” he offered.
“No, I saw your face after the first one went off. You weren’t surprised at all that the building was still standing.”
“I thought you weren’t good at social cues.”
“I’m not good at mimicking them,” Ryuga corrected. “I’ve had plenty of experience with spotting a liar.”
“I,” Light said coldly, “Am the best detective on the police force. I have the highest solve rate despite being the youngest, and anyone you ask will tell you that I’m a credit to my family and my country.”
“I know you are, Light-kun,” Ryuga said softly, and Light flinched back as if struck, “And sometimes the best people for catching criminals are the ones who think like them.”
“I am nothing like them!” Light shouted. The words hung in the darkness, echoing weirdly in some fallen pipe or other, circling quietly back to Light over and over.
Ryuga said nothing, and Light was sure that if it was possible, those big, buggy black eyes would be fixed unwaveringly on him.
“How do you know my name?” Light asked stiffly.
“I always keep an eye on the key players in an investigation,” Ryuga answered. “And while you weren’t the most important in this one, I must confess that I find you the most intriguing.”
Unsure how to interpret that, Light disregarded the last part of the statement in favor of the rest of it.
Ryuga had been invited to the hotel on behalf of the deputy director, who must have suspected some threat beyond that which the police’s informant had reported. That implied that the deputy director had reason to distrust the word of the criminal informant. That was worrying to Light.
The informant had been a man from the United States who had been involved in an underground circuit that dealt in everything from weapons smuggling to social terrorism. When he had been captured during an FBI-led drugs bust, the man had taken a plea deal in exchange for his life.
The deal was that if the man’s information about a hit on a Japanese hotel was correct, and other members of the terrorist group were apprehended, then the man would escape the death penalty. If not, then he wouldn’t.
And how had this ended up lending itself to Light’s plans? That was an entirely different story.
Was it the deputy director who distrusted the criminal’s word? That seemed unlikely to Light, who had had a hell of a time uncovering the whole messy web that had produced the criminal in the first place. And if Light had barely managed to stitch the facts together, there was no way the deputy director, or anyone on his payroll, would have been able to.
Light wondered if there was more to Ryuga’s claim about being invited than there seemed.
“Not the most important, huh?” Light pondered aloud, picking the conversation back up again. “Even though we both know the part you’re accusing me of playing in the hotel’s explosion? I’m certainly not admitting to anything, but if that happened to be the truth, wouldn’t that make me the center of the case?”
“Yes,” Ryuga conceded, “But the destruction of the hotel is only one of the offshoots of this conspiracy. And despite the mayhem I believe Light-kun to be the orchestrator of, I don’t think he is very involved in the more sinister parts of my case.”
Light had guessed correctly, then. Ryuga - or whatever his name really was - hadn’t been involved with this case for the sake of the deputy director; it was more likely that he had used the deputy director as a way into the hotel.
The power it took to use the deputy director for something, rather than the reverse happening…
“Are you L, Eraldo Coil, or Deneuve?” Light asked, throwing caution to the wind.
“...Yes,” said Ryuga, and despite the infuriating answer, he sounded grudgingly impressed. Light’s chest puffed up a little bit.
“Whatever,” Light said, “I’m just going to call you Deveuve.”
Ryuga grumbled something that was lost to the cavernous space.
“What?”
“I said, L is fine,” he said louder, and Light grinned.
“Well, L, if you really are who you say you are this time, then you have nothing but my respect and admiration,” Light snarked.
“Thank you.”
The darkness wasn’t so bad anymore. Light had pretty much gotten used to it by now, and talking to Ryuga - L - definitely helped keep him from focusing on the pain in his arm and the worry that their air would run out or contemplation about just how deep they had ended up buried beneath the wreckage.
It was probably worse for L, who had a broken leg and an iron pike stuck almost through his liver. Light found that he had grown fond of the consulting detective - despite both of their best efforts - and resolved to give him something to focus on, too.
“L.”
“What?”
“Do you play chess?”
“I don’t think I could concentrate well enough to give Light-kun a very good match,” L said apologetically. “Although I do agree that we both need to remain alert.”
“How about twenty questions, then?” Light suggested. “You have to guess what person, place or thing I’m thinking of in twenty questions or less. Yes or no questions only.”
“Okay. Is it Shinzo Abe?”
“I haven’t chosen anything yet!”
“Then choose something.”
“I am!” Light thought for a moment. “Alright, go ahead.”
“Is it Hideki Ryuga?”
“No!”
-----------------
They played five games. Light’s were a skyscraper, a pen, and his father, Soichiro Yagami. That last one might not have been fair against anyone else, but L seemed to have no trouble throwing out the retired police officer’s name, and even went so far as to imply that Light had daddy issues, which Light did not appreciate in the slightest.
The sixth game was L’s, following his choices of an apple and the hotel they were currently sitting in the ruins of.
“Is it… smaller than my hand?” Light asked, using his seventh question.
“From what I can recall, I would say that Light-kun’s hand is larger than this object, yes.”
“Is it a common household item?”
“How am I supposed to know what items are considered ‘common household’ ones? That still counts as one of your questions.”
“That doesn’t seem fair!” Light protested. “Am I really supposed to know where your grasp of basic concepts ends?”
“I have been more than accommodating of Light-kun’s status as a pathological liar in the past few games,” L deadpanned. “And that counted as another question. You have eleven left.”
“Fine,” Light snapped, determined to win regardless of any disadvantages L put him at. “Is it electronic?”
“Yes.”
“Does it have a screen?”
“No.”
“Is it used to store data?”
“Yes.”
“Was it in use before 2000?”
“Government or public?”
“Oh honestly, L, public use, was it in public use before 2000?”
“No. But just barely.”
Light was fairly certain he had gotten the answer. “Is it a USB drive?” he guessed.
“You’re getting closer,” L hedged, much to Light’s surprise and consternation.
“Yes or no, L.”
L sighed. “It is a USB drive, but you have to be more specific than that.”
“What? If I’ve already guessed the correct answer, it’s your turn to pick something.”
“Light-kun has five questions left.”
Damn L, Light didn’t have to put up with this! He had started this whole game for L’s benefit, and the man had the gall to dictate the terms and conditions? None of Light’s coworkers would have been so obstinate.
Although, Light was grudgingly willing to admit that he would never consider playing this kind of game with any of his coworkers. As good as it felt to win, games always seemed to lose their appeal when losing became more of a challenge.
“So, you have a specific USB drive in mind. Is it special to you?”
“It is right now.”
“Does it have data from your current case on it?”
“Yes.”
Light hesitated. “Does it have data about me on it?” he asked, hoping that the answer would be no, followed by scolding about his inflated ego. Instead-
“Yes. Light-kun has two questions left.”
The fingers on Light’s right hand twitched compulsively, painfully.
“Does the USB drive have anything on it that would incriminate me?” he asked, and held his breath.
“Yes,” L said, and the darkness closed in on Light.
“Where is it?” asked a voice Light barely recognized as his own.
“That is not a yes or no question.”
“Where is it?” Light’s jaw snapped closed, and he curled in on himself as best he could, frightened and disgusted in equal measure by the desperation and venom that laced his own words. For a moment, his frantic mind replaced the dusty blackness with the blinding white walls of a padded cell.
He shivered, and the pain from his arm - which he could tell by now was probably broken in two places, not including what felt like a dislocated finger - helped ground him. This situation was bad, but he would recover, he swore to himself.
“My final question is: do you intend to turn in the USB drive as evidence?”
“No.”
A laugh, high and disbelieving, cracked on its way out of Light’s throat.
“Why?” he asked, unable to keep from pushing his luck. “If our positions were reversed, I would turn you in immediately.”
L laughed softly. “I know you would. I think, between the two of us, you have all the morals while I have all the empathy.”
“That’s not fair,” Light said indignantly, despite the smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “While I agree that you have no morals, you’ve only known me for… several hours? A day? That’s hardly any time at all.”
“Is Light-kun suggesting that I should get to know him better?” L crooned.
Heat wormed its way into the tips of Light’s ears. “How much blood have you lost?”
“Oh, not much. As long as I don’t move, the pipe keeps it from gushing. I should last another few hours before passing out,” L said easily.
Light was quiet for a few moments. He wasn’t sure how to interpret the feelings clouding his aching head, much less how to express them. I’m glad we met, was too trite, You’re such a fascinating person, was too abrupt, and, You complete me, actually made Light feel sick to his stomach. And none of them explained why such emotions had been inspired by just that little bit of gallows humor.
Perhaps the closest thing he could come up with was, I don’t want you to die.
Finally, Light settled for a quiet, “We’ll be fine.”
L must have detected at least a little bit of the turmoil behind that statement, because his voice was just as low when he said,
“I think I would like to keep in contact with Light-kun, once we finally get out of here.” L’s voice slipped free of the teasing tone he had sustained for most of the last few hours, becoming flatter in a way Light recognized as indicating sincerity. “I really would like to get to know you better.”
The heat from Light’s ears flooded down into the rest of his face, and he was absurdly glad that no one could see him blushing like a schoolgirl over such a vague proposition.
“We’ll see,” Light said, clearing his throat, and the conversation hit another lull.
-----------
Several hours passed with both men lost in their own thoughts. Eventually, though, Light blinked back to the present.
He tilted his head, measuring the quality of the silence, and found it to be a little bit too unbroken for his liking.
“L?” he called uncertainly, and received a vague grunt in response. “L, if you can hear me, you need to say something.”
“Lost too much,” L mumbled, “Amazed I lasted this long.”
“Well, you need to last a little bit longer,” Light insisted. “I’m sure the rescue team is almost finished clearing off the largest debris, and then they can start searching for us for real.”
There was no reply.
“L?” he tried again, and again there was nothing. A trace of panic began to seep into Light’s bones. “L? Are you still awake? L? L!”
The darkness was a lot less comforting once it stopped talking back to him.
-----------
The rescue team did arrive not too long after that. Apparently, the air pocket the two had been trapped in was the largest in the rubble pile, and had been fairly easy to uncover.
The first emergency workers to descend into the rubble found Light, stunned by the sunlight after so many hours in the dark, but adamantly insisting that they tend to the other man who had been caught in the building’s collapse. If there were any tear tracks evident on the police detective’s face, everyone just assumed it was from the pain of his mangled right arm and cracked ribs.
The other man had not gotten away so easily. In addition to the near-fatal blood loss related asphyxia caused by the iron pipe that had impaled his lower torso, he had a compound fracture in one arm and his legs had been pinned by a chunk of concrete. It was no small miracle that the man - who Detective Yagami identified simply as Ryuga - had survived for so long.
In fact, Ryuga was so ashen and unresponsive that the first responders on the scene mistook the man for a corpse on first look. Yagami, who was being wheeled into an ambulance nearby, actually got up and walked over to cordially invite them to check again.
Very soon, two ambulances were flying down the streets of Tokyo, one of them going much, much faster than the other.
-------------
Light stood when the old man emerged from L’s room.
“Is he-”
“He’ll be just fine, Detective Yagami,” interjected the man, before Light could even finish asking his question. “And he asked to speak with you.”
“Thank you…?”
“Watari,” the man said with a smile that was both kind and tight with suspicion. Protectiveness, Light guessed, tucking that information away and thanking Watari once more before making his way into the room.
L looked very frail surrounded by machines and swaddled in thin hospital fabrics, but his eyes were intent, and just as cavernously black as Light remembered. They just matched the shadows that hung below them, and the hair that hung nearly over them.
L lifted his arm, wordlessly extending the contents of his closed fist towards Light. His stare did not waver at all as Light cupped his hands underneath L’s.
A pile of shattered plastic and metal landed in Light’s palms.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Yagami Light,” L said, and Light smiled.