The Last Enemy
By: PhoenixJustice
Disclaimer: Death Note is owned by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata. I only own this story and make no profit from this.
Warning: M for sexual content, slash, language, violence, etc
Pairing: L/Light
Setting: Up to episode 25 of the anime, with spoilers of the anime and manga.
Summary: Light's master plan to kill L is shot down by one person's foolish decision and the result leaves Light and Kira at odds within Light.
A/N: I've had the idea for this for a little while now and I've been toying around with the idea of writing it, but I've waited until I was finished with one of my L/Light fics and with Redeemer having wrapped up, I feel better about starting this; Untold will still be worked on just as regularly as it has been, so don't worry, but I am loving all the ideas that I've thought of. You know, I'm surprised people have used more of the Death Note rules to their advantage for fic ideas, but hey, that's more for me. :D
Dedicated to: MiaoShou (this isn't quite happy-ish...yet? But...perhaps...it'll get there. I'll leave the humor to you; you do it better than I. :D)
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Part One-
0.06 seconds
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Idolatry is committed, not merely by setting up false gods, but also by setting up false devils; by making men afraid of war or alcohol, or economic law, when they should be afraid of spiritual corruption and cowardice. -G.K. Chesterton
It was the day of L's execution, the day Rem would fulfill her promise to Light and kill the world's greatest detective. Rain poured from the sky in buckets and the detective was nowhere in sight. Light frowns, gazing unseeingly at the screen in front of him. It had been more than fifteen minutes and that was unusual for the detective to stay away that long.
Glancing over at the detectives, he stands up and walks out of the workroom, almost feeling the handcuffs that were no longer there. A search of the rooms he comes across (the ones which he could enter without a password anyway) finds nothing. He walks up the stairs and looks at the door in front of him.
With an inward sigh, he opens up the door; the sound of the wind and rain enveloping him. L was standing there, face tilted up towards the rain, hair plastered to his head from the downpour. L was such an enigma; he was unlike anyone he had ever known. He was such an opposite to him in so many ways, yet when it came to the important things, they were just alike. Opposite sides of the same coin.
It felt so wonderful to find (finally) a true equal. It was just sad that L had to be opposed to Kira, for together, they would be an unstoppable force. He realizes that he's just been staring at him, and takes a step forward.
"What are you doing, Ryuuzaki?" He asked the world's greatest detective.
L turns to him slowly, looking at him with that ever intense stare, but with a different look behind them than before. L cups one hand over his ear, looking at Light now, questioningly.
"What are you doing, Ryuuzaki?!" Light yells over the rain.
L's eyes widen a bit and he seemed to hear Light's voice over the rain this time. The detective gives a grin and leans slightly forward, exaggerating the gesture with his ear. The teen felt slightly surprised as he looked at L, and he found himself walking forward before he really realized he was doing so.
The rain comes down onto him hard as he leaves the shelter of the rooftop door, though the wind had slackened somewhat. It only took a few steps to come to stand in front of the enigmatic detective.
"What are you doing, Ryuuzaki?" He asks again, much softer this time. L looks away, gazing upward again as he had been when Light first came up to the rooftop.
"I've been listening to the bells."
Bells? Just what the hell was L talking about now?
It was silent outside for once, other than the noise from the wind and rainfall. "Bells." Light had to ask; he couldn't hear anything of the sort.
"Can't you here them, Light-kun? The bells are really loud today," said L softly. "Either from a wedding or..." He trailed off, glancing away again. The look on the detectives face was so forlorn that it surges a response of sympathy in Light; a feeling which he had to push away fiercely, for he couldn't feel anything of the sort towards L.
"Come on Ryuuzaki, let's go inside; they're waiting for us."
L turns to look at him. "I'm sorry." Murmured L.
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Once they get inside the building, they both grab towels from the closet on the side of the room that the door which led to the roof was on. He was already sitting on the steps, rubbing his hair dry as L comes shuffling over with a towel on his head. Light was still drying his head off when L suddenly kneels on the step below him and grabs Light's foot, causing Light to flinch in surprise.
"W-what are you doing?"
The detective looks up at him. "I thought Light-kun might like a massage; I'm pretty good at them." He sits there and tries to ignore the fluttering in his stomach as L caressed his feet (there was no other way he could put it.) He sees water dripping from L's hair and towels it off without thought, touching the side of L's face; but he made it something all right to do in his own head by making himself believe that it would look strange if he didn't reciprocate the nice thing that L was doing for him (when all along his heart was beating rather strangely).
"I'm sorry," said L. Why would he say that?
The detective stops the motions and Light looks at him; he was feeling the invisible weight of inevitability coming ever closer. L's last day was soon at hand and Kira would become the God of the new world.
"We should head back." Said Light.
Very soon...
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She hated this! She hated not being able to help her Light! She had become more than useless to him, even with the Eyes. She had to remember Ryuuzaki's name! She had to--!
...She dreamt.
It had been a great and a terrible day for her, the day she dreams of; great because she got to see her Light and terrible because it was also the day she was captured under suspicion of being the Second Kira. She sees the day as it progresses, through her dreamself's eyes; watching as she walked with Rem by her side, and her happiness at seeing Light, standing next to the most strange looking man...man...she wills her eyes to look up and see the name...the name!
She is rewarded as the floating lifespan and name come into her vision. His name...
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She wakes up with a gasp, jumping off her bed in a hurry, ignoring Ryuk's sudden exclamation behind her and goes over to her desk. On the top of the desk lay the Death Note that she had received, per Light's instructions and she quickly takes a seat on the chair in front of it. The Note lay opened up, with a page and a half of names clearly written down, with some of them not scheduled to die for a few days or weeks, as Light had asked her to do.
She remembered! Light would love his Misa forever and ever for remembering his elusive name!
She picks up the pen that lay in the middle of the book and looks down at it for a moment.
With a few simple strokes and forty seconds...L Lawliet would die and Kira could begin his reign over a new world.
A strike of lightning flashes just as she starts to put her pen to the paper--
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This was the final thing she would do for Misa and also for Light Yagami, whom she had come to care for, believing in him and Misa both, seeing their innocence that even they, along with others, could not see.
This would save Misa, for if Light Yagami was uncovered, then it wouldn't be much longer that Misa would, and the 13 day rule would only hold so long; L was about to test it on prisoners soon, and he would know that it was a lie and that two Kira's existed right underneath his nose.
She eyes L for a moment, watching all the detectives talk, leaving her unnoticed. She slips away and glides by another person, Qullish Wammy, L's cohort; surely he could not be left around either. She would make sure to kill him too.
Finding a suitable place, she lets out an unneeded breath and grabs her Death Note and pen. With a few simple strokes and forty seconds...L Lawliet would cease to exist...as would she, if she managed to survive forty seconds.
A flash of lightning strikes just as she puts her pen down onto the Note--
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She writes the name Qullish Wammy--
She felt a sudden hesitation, like something was making her wait for the right moment to write L's name down--
She gives a small gasp as the disintegration starts to begin and hurries to put her pen down to write L's name--
She puts her pen down onto the paper--
She writes L's name down--
She writes L's name down--
Her body crumbles into dust. 'All for you...Misa...'
She felt the sudden desire to weep.
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All data deleted! All data deleted! All data deleted!
It filled the screen. "Watari?" L asked. Lightning passes the windows and L exclaims, "The Shinigami! Everyone, the Shi--" He stops suddenly and Light holds his breath; this was the moment!
L's eyes widen and he clutches at his chair for a moment before falling out of his chair; the moment seeming to slow down before Light's eyes. This was it!
No!
It was...something strange. Some distant part of himself; no? What would the word 'no' accomplish? This was the moment Kira could rise as a God!
L's body falls to the ground with a sudden loud thud and the detectives all gasp and rush over.
"Ryuuzaki!!"
He had felt immobilized until he hears the thud and he starts to move over towards them all when something comes that he did not expect--
"I am fine. Stop fussing."
Ryuuzaki was talking, Ryuuzaki was starting to slowly stand up...Ryuuzaki was living!
His feet run off when he gets far enough away so they wouldn't notice the sound. Damn that Rem! She must have just had time to kill Watari and failed to write L's name down! He sees something in one of the small side rooms and sees a pile of dust with a Death Note in it.
The sight of such a crushing defeat, mixed with the knowledge that the world's greatest detective still lived...he breaks.
And a war within begins.
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Pick up the Death Note! What are you doing, you fool?! We must take it before the detectives come looking!
No! I will not pick up that murder tool! I won't do it!
Fool named Light Yagami! You know what must be done! I, we, as Kira am doing a service for the world! This place is rotten and needs to be cleansed of all people who are unworthy!
Who are you, I...who has the right to judge that? I only wanted to help the world! I didn't want to slaughter it! And you--you--you're me, but you're not.
I am righteous! I am the entity known as Kira who has eradicated scores of criminals and fools who did not deserve to live! With the Death Note, we can change the world Light! PICK IT UP!
NO! You--you're something else; me, mixed with venom and hatred and evil. The Death Note corrupts all who touch it, but not me. Not any longer. I won't be apart of this egotism, becoming this megalomaniac--killing all, judging all. I am not that person. You have no right!
Quit being an idiot and think Light! If you do not, if we do not, kill L within a few days, he will have used a criminal to test the thirteen day rule and he will find out the truth. You value your life more than anything else and I value it because we are together; I am you, but I am also me and I cannot be away from you.
...You're not me!
Laughter echoed from his lips; laughter that was not his own.
I am justice! I avenge all those deserving and kill those undeserving. I am Kira. You created me; when you used the Death Note, I was born--this side of your persona. I am the part willing to do whatever it takes to change the world, even if you won't. For the last time, pick up the notebook!
He falls to his knees, gritting his teeth as his arms get pulled this way and that way; he turned one way and he was turned another by...by Kira, though it sounded so unreal to his own thoughts, but ones which he could not deny.
I am in control! Light Yagami is controlled by no person or being, whether that is L, the detectives, Shinigami or Kira! The Note--book--stays!
He lets out a cry as he manages to push back Kira within himself, aching and falling back on his butt just as his father and Matsuda pass by.
"Light!" Exclaimed his father.
They come into the room as well and he points with a slightly shaky hand at the pile of dust that was once Rem, and the Death Note still laying there.
"I--I think that was, Rem." He said, trying to steady his voice and his body. "The Notebook is still there, I didn't touch it yet. You should pick it up for--for Ryuuzaki."
He felt a sense of relief when his father picks up the notebook and gives it to Matsuda who heads back the way they came. Light stands up with a hand from his father.
"Are you all right, Light?" Asked his father. "I know it's a lot to take in."
He didn't pick up the Death Note, L wasn't dead and he had denied Kira.
This isn't the end of this, Light. Not by a long shot.
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A/N: XDDDDDDDDD Okay, so I'm totally happy with how that chapter turned out. More will be coming soon, this IS a chaptered fic, so don't worry! Lol XD I've had this idea for my head for a long while now; it started out as some random imaginings as I was waiting for the bus to head back home (I had been staying at one of my best friends house) and the idea popped in my head; what if Misa suddenly remembered L's name and wrote it down just as Rem was.
The 0.06 second rule is one of the Death Note rules and it's like this; if a person's name is written down in a Death Note and then written in ANOTHER Death Note within 0.06 seconds of being written in the first one, the person will not die.
Guh, there are so many awesome DN rules for ideas. XD
I hope I did okay with the whole rooftop scene and all, I think I did pretty well as I was just going from memory...I tried to write it all down as accurately as I remembered it...
Tell me what you thought!
--PhoenixJustice