Light you look so tired.

               Why don’t you go home and get some rest?

          Yeah, we can finish up here.

               You guys are the best.

     He understood at last, the level of annoyance L had displayed with the Task Force, their whole hearted eagerness to take any and everything said to them at face value not simply classified as a boon, but a hindrance when it came to the lies of others. They couldn’t be trusted to see through his enemy’s ruse and, like a child first learning to walk, must always be guided. Thankfully, their trusting nature played in his favor, falling for the age old trick of feigning exhaustion. At least by the end of the night, he wouldn’t be faking it. That certain someone had that effect on just about anyone interacting with him for longer than a few minutes and Light... Well, he’d taken to gloating for hours over who had won their showdown.

     The matter of moving Misa out of the apartment hadn’t been easy but even with the addition of his living trophy, the relief he gained from her lack of presence brought him peace of mind he’d been missing since he met her. Just him. That’s the way he’d wanted it from the start.

     Which begged the question he posed to himself regularly on these mild walks between work and home, just why he’d chosen to spare the only man who had consistently kept in step with him each phase of the plan. Back then, it had been a matter of wanting to savor that moment of watching Ryuzaki’s expression plummet from his perch on his mountain of Justice. He had deserved what would have come to him, if not for Yagami’s intervention. Regrettably, the old man had to go, either way. He wasn’t particularly innocent, but the fact that he had funded a sanctuary for brilliant minds which produced his greatest enemy was something Light was too petty to forgive.

     But L. The bane of Kira’s existence and the sole obstruction of a perfect world still lived on, drugged to induce a minor heart attack. Seemed borderline suicidal to spare the man who wanted nothing more than your life as forfeit for your great and numerous crimes and yet here he stood, eager to return home to gloat yet again over his superiority.

     The satisfying click of the front door’s lock echoed far into the empty home, proving by lack of summoning an over-exuberant blond that he was well and truly alone again.

     Slender frame, gaunt from undernourishment yet not so dangerously close to being classified as such, rested against the sturdy wood of the abode’s only entrance, taking in the quiet for as long as he was allowed. No hum of computers, no idle chatter, no high pitched squealing calling his name and claiming it as ‘affection’. Just him. His thoughts. And his prisoner. A floor below, squirreled away in his most private of places, dressed in only the finest of bindings to force him to atone for the embarrassing restraints used on him during his own confinement.

     At long last that itch beneath his skin drove him forward, discarding briefcase and jacket in their proper placings by door and desk, soft padding of socked feet carrying him towards his bedroom, fingers tracing over the handle of his closet to pull the shuttered doors open and part the clothes hanging on the rack like the red sea. The center panel provided him a keypad when pressed, fingerprints, retinal scan, hair sample, and voice activated security a necessity to not only keep L himself in check, but any who might seek to uncover his deepest darkest secrets. Incidentally, where he kept anything in relation to Kira that was essential only.

     A small panel to his right released its air tight seal, providing a mildly musty gust of air through the small compartment, and a crack large enough for him to wiggle his fingers in and pry it open. The new joints still stiff from the factory resisted minutely as he swung the door ajar, pushed his way through the open walkway, and tapped the panel on the opposing side to close it. With how often he came down here, it was a matter of time before they became accustomed and wore down. 

     The spiral steps he traversed now were narrow but so spaced that they provided an easy slope downwards without consuming much room themselves and straining the legs. At the base of the stairs lay his trophy room. Occupant: 1. A man with eyes as vacant as a daydreamer’s, hair as rumbled as if he’d never brushed it a day in his life, and horrid bruises beneath his eyes that did nothing to reinforce the fact that he performed any sort of self-care.

     For the redemption of the world, would Light be willing to risk the same?

     When all is said and done, Kira would need a financial backing of sorts to devote his full time to punishing the wicked, and what better way to find his ‘in’ than a man already aware of the full extent of his power? To rely on L’s standing and finances for much longer than the game needed to drag on was foolish. No, not just foolish. It was downright moronic. Those at the Yotsuba’s secret meetings were more than successful enough, had no particular need to be threatened in order to cooperate, and stood to lose nothing, not even their lives provided they obeyed his every command.

     It was with this in mind that he, after several prolonged months of freedom on their end, picked up a disposable cellphone and wired it through a home made anti-tracking device which sends the cell’s signal through several different locations before it finally reaches its destination in order to contact the only man smart enough to realize the potential and risks of the merger. At which point, when Light was certain of the success rate of each pass over tower pinged, he sent the text.

     “You probably don’t get asked this question a lot, and I certainly wasn’t going to be asking it any time soon, your eating habits are not my concern but... Do you ever eat anything without sugar in it?” By sight alone his teeth are rotting, his stomach is churning, and he wants nothing more than to get up from the desk and brush his teeth a thousand times to make sure he doesn’t get a cavity from just watching. It’s almost sickening to count how many times he plucks apart his desserts, stacks them, crushes them together, and otherwise violates the sanctity of their beautiful designs for his...fetish.

The sink was stained with black dye since last night, and obviously since he didn’t bother to clean it up it was still muddy, not like it was actually clean in the first place. The motel he choose was a shitty and shady one on the edges of Tokyo, somewhere where no one will bother to tell anything to anyone. It’s nice that Japanese culture was one of privacy and minding their own business anyway. His main goal today was to observe, to blend in.

Beyond fixed up his face in the mirror, getting rid of too recognizable freckles and remains of scars. Nothing that could be used to actually identify him later could remain. When he pressed an address into the driver’s palm later that morning he was wearing a grey t-shirt and blue jeans.

The car never actually reached its destination, him pulling it over a few blocks away. Light Yagami was a rather noticeable figure on the sidewalk. The letters floating neatly in the air above him, lacking the numbers. Bingo.

“Hey, you alright there?” Getting out of the car, Beyond walked over.

     Desperate not to cause a scene and warrant the heat of embarrassment in the highs of his cheekbones, Light averts the attention of passerby from his clothes to the strange man approaching him so carelessly by turning his frame fully to greet the man. A foreigner, no doubt not only by looks, but the manner in which he spoke. So formal, and dare he be rude enough to acknowledge it, choppy. Almost like Japanese was not his first choice in second language, or even his third or fourth. Something about him, however, reminded him vaguely of...someone he knew maybe? Or perhaps he’d seen the man somewhere before.

     He wasn’t going to ask while he was busy patting down his clothes in the hopes that it’d help shake the clinging droplets loose to help it dry faster. Or should he be trying to hurry home so that it didn’t? What was in that puddle? Would it stain? His mother would kill him if he put his laundry into the hamper like this.

     “I’m fine, I’m sorry to bother you.” Why was it that his culture felt the need to apologize for inconveniences placed upon them by others as if it were their fault? Another loathsome tradition Light did not eagerly adhere to. Appearances were everything, however, and if one were to claim the world as his children and love and protect them as he intended, he must act the part of benevolent leader, loved by all. In the end it’d make less trouble for him.

     “On the evening he was betrayed, Jesus "poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples' feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him" (John 13:5)

     “We both know that percentage is a lot higher, Ryuzaki. I thought we’d moved past this. Either give me the full information or don’t share it at all.” The curt tone in his voice belies his interest in the subject, not even entirely intent on following the detective’s every word and yet not inherently ignoring him either. The stack of papers in his hands are only a few of the documents he’d yet to catch up on.

     There was something he was forgetting. Something important he was sure of it. The longer he stared at the meaningless images flashing over the flat screen of his TV, the more it clawed its way into his veins, making his skin itch and his limbs restless. What was it? The instant Takada’s face flashed across the screen announcing another of her special appearances, it dawns on him like a ray of light illuminating the farthest reaches of the darkest room. Their liaison is no longer available, and while still incredibly risky despite the obstacles he’s overcome, it can’t wait for ‘Kira’s Spokeswoman’ to finish with her duties.

     If the number he has for his stand-in is still correct, it’s time he sent a text from his own disposable cell directing the man to a park between the both of them. It’s late, but that only works to their advantage.

     Were this any normal day, Light Yagami might have found himself at the end of his rope, liable to snap at the wrong twitch of a lip, the repetition of a high pitch noise, the laughter of school girls as he passed. This was not a typical day, and he was not in a foul mood, strange as it seemed to him. Yet even if his mood had improved greatly from the dismal pit it had plummeted into, the world seemed none too gracious to help maintain it for at this very moment, he’d stepped too close to the curb and found his nice slacks splashed with muddy water that had yet to drain into the blocked sewer line.