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When Light rushed into the taskforce building, wearing a look of fearful anxiety so unlike his usual calm exterior, everyone started up at once. Soichiro ran to him, asking him if he was ok. Aizawa and Ide began to speculate together in loudly hushed whispers. Matsuda tried to get up close, past Soichiro, to lend a word of support.
L, by contrast, took his time getting to his feet. Light had called him just twenty minutes earlier, speaking hardly sensibly, but managing to convey that he needed assistance.
Light let Soichiro settle him into an armchair, even as his anxiety visibly grew in his wide, uncharacteristically frightened eyes. “You need to restrain us.”
“…us?” Matsuda said.
L sent a text to Watari, then said, “I have restraints on the way. Would you mind explaining to everyone here why you came?”
“We messed up,” said Light, fingers trembling on his lap.
“Who is this we?” asked Soichiro.
Light stared at his hands. “We’d rather talk to L in private.”
The door opened, Watari arriving with a big bag full of various restraints. L took them from him. “Watari, could you help me bring Light to an interrogation room?”
Only when he glistened with chains from shoulder to toe did Light begin to relax into the hard metal interrogation chair. Long seconds stretched on, L settling into a crouch in a chair across from Light. “Whenever you’re ready,” said L.
“Look in our bag.”
L grabbed Light’s school bag from the floor beside himself, unzipping and looking inside. Textbooks. Notebooks. Paper. “What am I looking for?”
“A black composition notebook.”
L gripped the edge of a black composition notebook, pulling it out, taking in the English writing on the cover: Death Note. He flipped it open, reading the rules on the inside cover. Flipped through the pages, pausing. The writing on some of the pages- countless names- was in the process of fading before his eyes. “What is this?”
“It was Kira’s murder weapon,” said Light.
“This seems like an elaborate distraction, Light. Let me guess, we waste our time testing this and nothing happens, and then you present some elaborate excuse for why you confessed. We should be after the second Kira right now.”
“No, it’s not a distraction. If you write names in it, then it kills— it used to kill people.”
L pressed his thumb to his lip, eyes fixed on the fading names, trying to think of a (non-supernatural) way that Light could’ve caused this effect. “And now what does it do?”
“We’re not sure, but they’re coming for us.”
“Coming for you?” L clarified, face blank as he processed this. When Light nodded, L continued, “Why are you referring to yourself in the plural? Do you expect me to believe Kira possessed you?”
“No, we-“ Light broke off, with a look of frustration. “Light is Kira. We are Light. But we’re also part of something else.”
In the next second, Ryuk floated in through the wall, L startling as he laid eyes on a shinigami for the first time. Ryuk ignored the other humans in the room, floating over to Light. “What do you think L can do against your zombie hoard, Light-o?”
“The presence of your… shinigami, I presume… convinces me you are not merely distracting me,” said L. “Shinigami, what is going on? What do you mean by zombie hoard?”
Ryuk leaned over Light, pushing Light’s upper lip up, revealing rows of sharp fangs to the room. “Little Light-o here bit off more than he could chew. Hyuk hyuk.”
Light turned his head away from Ryuk, teeth concealed once more.
A loud alarm began to blare insistently, L glancing at Watari, who nodded and then left. “Light, that alarm means someone has tried to get into the building. Is this related to you?”
Light wasn’t listening, mind increasingly filled with the sensations of the undead. More merged into his mental space with every name that faded from the death note.
Watari quickly returned to the room. “Sir… you are going to want to see this yourself.”
L rose, following him out to the nearest window, where he would be able to see the bizarre sight that Watari had no hope of explaining clearly.
Light whimpered, struggling against his chains, trying to convince himself he was still made up of living flesh and blood, not the bones and maggot-eaten flesh of numerous conjoining corpses. A hopeless task when he was, in fact, all of the above. “You said there weren’t any consequences for using the death note.”
“There aren’t. There is for stealing the death eraser from my belt and experimenting with it, though,” said Ryuk.
“You wanted us to steal it. You let us.”
“Last person who used it didn’t have this happen. Didn’t realize it worked differently when stolen. But can’t say I regret how things turned out- this is pretty entertaining.”
L returned back to the room, settling into his chair once more. “Are they after you, Light?”
“Yes.”
“What happens when they get you?
Light opened his eyes, which had gone an inky black, no hints of whites or amber-hued iris visible in the depthless gaze. “We become one. We’re not sure how, but the part of us here doesn’t want to find out.”
“What happens after?” asked L.
“There’s no after for Light.”
The floor quaked beneath them, L tumbling from his chair and barely managing to catch himself. He got to his feet, a hand curled around the chair as another quake went through the building. After a moment, L shoved the death note into Light’s backpack, slipping the straps over his shoulders.
“Don’t leave us,” said Light, fear rising in his voice.
“It’s a waste of my time to help you if I’m just going to put you on death row.”
“We’d rather be on death row than eaten alive and absorbed into corpses. Please, L.”
L approached Light, considering him. “To be honest, Light, I’m feeling a little unmotivated right now. Your confession has taken all of the fun out of the investigation. Seeing you eaten by a zombie hoard might add some excitement back…”
“But-“
L cut Light off, directing his next words to Ryuk- who was floating beside Light, looking entertained. “Shinigami, what happens if the zombies get Light?”
“You’re seriously considering letting-“
L slapped hand over Light’s mouth, muffling his words. Ignoring the glare being directed his way, he prompted Ryuk, “So, if I let the zombies get Light?”
“Beats me,” said Ryuk, “but I imagine once they get Light, they’ll choose new targets.”
L uncovered Light’s mouth. “In that case, I’ll see what I can do...”
While L and Watari worked together to free Light from the chair without accidentally freeing the sharp-toothed, confirmed killer, the rest of the taskforce stared out the windows in horrified disbelief, backs turned to the monitor displaying Light’s interrogation.
Even Soichiro, who Aizawa and Ide had priorly been restraining, now had his face pushed to the window. Misshapen corpses staggered and squirmed to the building from all directions, grotesquely joining with the mobile mass ramming itself repeatedly against the side of the building.
L peeked his head in. Matsuda stopped his mad pacing, opening his mouth as if to speak, but remaining silent when L pressed a finger to his lips. L then gave a “come here” gesture with his hand. Matsuda glanced back at the taskforce before joining L and Watari (and a bound Light thrown over Watari’s shoulder) on their trek to the roof.
L paused as the elevator doors opened, the floor shaking again. “Should we take the stairs?”
“The elevators can withstand the quakes for now. I suspect a greater risk to us if we take twenty flights of stairs,” said Watari. They filed in.
Matsuda dared to ask, “Shouldn’t we tell the others we’re leaving?”
“We need to leave immediately, for everyone’s safety. We can’t risk an argument delaying us,” L half-lied. Light had forced L to accept this deeply unsatisfying stalemate. L wasn’t going to let anyone else force him to do anything.
Strapping Light into the helicopter on the roof proved minor difficulty, but they managed.
“What happened to him?” Matsuda asked. An overly vague statement, which could have easily referred to Light’s dazed, lost expression; Light’s black eyes and glinting fangs; or the chains thoroughly binding him.
L wasn’t paying attention to Matsuda’s inquiries, starting up the helicopter. The helicopter ascended into the clear blue sky, taking them over the street, away from the building. Far below, but growing closer as it became taller, the mass of decaying flesh stopped ramming itself into the building. The mass turned in a useless circle as L floated the chopper directly above.
Ryuk floated up through the bottom of the chopper. “Quite the show we’ve got going on here.” Unfortunately, no one could appreciate his quip. Matsuda and Watari could not see him, Light was trying to deceive himself he wasn’t the monstrous golem below, and L was flying a helicopter using inference and instinct while keeping an eye on Light’s murderous golem extension. Ryuk unzipped the backpack on L’s back, extracting the death note.
Matsuda shouted as the notebook neared him, pointlessly pressing himself further back into the seat. Ryuk’s menacing smile widened at the reaction. “Freaking out that much and haven’t even seen me yet, hyuk hyuk.” He tapped Matsuda with it, then Watari, pleased by the screams this earned him.
“That’s not helping, shinigami,” said L. The helicopter veered suddenly to the right, a misshapen ball of bone, flesh, and fancy dress clothing flying through the air where they had just been. The ball then fell back down to the deserted street, splattering across asphalt. The splattered bits crawled their way back to rejoin the golem.
“Name’s Ryuk. And it’s helping me,” said Ryuk, snickering. He dropped the notebook into Matsuda’s lap. “Keep a hold on that. If Light dies, I don’t want to be stuck haunting a recluse.”
“How do I go back to not seeing you?” L asked, only getting laughter in response.
“Sir, do you want me to call the nearest military base?” asked Watari.
“Tell them something so they don’t try to shoot us down or blame us for this.”
“But isn’t it our fault? Or, uh… Light’s fault?” asked Matsuda.
“Officially, we have no idea why this is happening,” said L. He guided the helicopter over the street. L moved the helicopter slowly to give pedestrians and drivers plenty of time to get out of the monstrosity’s way.
“Destroying the golem won’t fix Light,” said Ryuk. “You’re gonna hold on to him like this?”
L ignored the antagonizing shinigami, again having to rapidly shift the helicopter to avoid a launched ball of flesh and bone. The mass below tried to follow his movement, crushing a gawking pedestrian.
“Did Light write his own name in here?” asked Matsuda, squinting at the notebook. Ryuk leaned over him, Matsuda flinching. There was indeed the faintest trace of the three characters that made up Light’s name, repeated multiple times, and clearly erased each time.
Ryuk took out his own deathnote, flipping through the pages. He burst out into laughter, finding the same thing. “I thought Light-o just stole the death eraser, but turns out he was exploiting some loopholes.” There was something suspiciously like fondness in his tone as he spoke.
“Death eraser? Loopholes?” Matsuda asked.
Ryuk floated over to prod at Light’s black nails. “If you accidentally misspell someone’s name four times they can’t be killed by that death note.” He lifted one of Light’s eyelids, peering at the consuming blackness. “Light must’ve inferred writing a name four times correctly and erasing it would have the same effect. Except, he didn’t do it accidentally, hyuk hyuk.”
“Maybe we should put this thing away…” muttered Matsuda, holding the death note at arms length.
Screams rose up from the ground below as the shapeless golem squirmed onto the sand of a crowded beach, just-deserted umbrellas and towels getting caught up in its loosely packed mass.
“Light, any chance you can control it to stop throwing stuff at us?” L asked. He maneuvered the helicopter to the side once more to avoid another flesh-and-bone cannonball, before proceeding on over the open ocean. The golem followed beneath, not deterred even as the waves tried to pull it apart.
Light made a mumbled sound, eyes closed and face creased with visible discomfort.
“Not very menacing, are ya? Hyuk hyuk.”
Light’s eyes slitted open, and he bared his teeth at Ryuk with a hiss. Ryuk laughed harder.
L took them higher as military choppers came into view, missiles whistling through the air and slamming into the mass below. Light curled in on himself as much as chains and seat belt allowed. The thing, made up of rotting corpses, had no pain receptors, but the ricochets supernaturally traveled from it to Light with startling discomfort.
Pieces of the thing fell off into the ocean, only to be absorbed back into it.
“Watari, can you take over flying?” asked L, unstrapping. Watari took his seat, L settling down into a crouch beside Matsuda. He glanced at the open door, reluctantly dropping his feet to the floor and putting the seat belt on. He took the death note from Matsuda, grabbing a pen from a bag on the floor before pushing the bag over to Matsuda. “Please take the laptop from Watari’s bag and find the list of Kira’s known and suspected victims.”
“O-okay,” said Matsuda, fumbling through folders and files while missiles continued to uselessly pummel the golem beneath them. “Got it!”
L glanced at the screen, then began writing.
“You’re using the death note?” Matsuda asked, sounding horrified.
“I’m testing a theory,” said L, penning a fifth deceased person’s name, a sixth, a tenth, a twentieth.
Light let out a whimper, struggling against his chains.
Matsuda quickly caught on. “The names fade when Light writes them, but not when you write them.”
“We’ll see if it does anything,” said L, flipping the freshly filled page to get started on the next one.
“But it’s a lot of names,” said Matsuda.
“We can switch off when my hand tires.”
Ryuk floated over, peering over the side. “Huh. Seems to be doing something.”
The golem remained huge, but bones and flesh began to drift away from it into the ocean with no sign of animation- something the military mistakenly attributed to their use of explosive weapons. Encouraged, the military increased their output of long range explosives, sending bits of burnt flesh sizzling through the air, the stench of it soon reaching them even high above.
Light let out a low hiss, blood dripping from his palms where his nails had broken the skin. “What are you doing to us?” The words were spoken in a broken whisper.
As L continued to write names, Light became more verbal, yet somehow less himself. “Let us join. Throw us down.” The black depths directed themselves at L. “Please. Let us unite.”
L switched the notebook and laptop with Matsuda before answering, shaking out his wrist as he spoke. “And what happens if you ‘unite’?”
Light smiled widely, baring his sharp teeth. “We all become Light, and Light can’t be killed by the death notes here.”
“Merging your mind with the undead seems to have hurt your negotiation skills,” said L.
The comment went over Light’s head, the steady shrinking of his massively extended consciousness immersing him more fully in what remained of the hoard.
The more names they wrote, the more bits of flesh lost their supernatural protection, sizzling and sent flying as the military continued to blast at it. The sizzling chunks splattered onto sand and plopped into the water, starting a fire on the shore as abandoned beach items lit up.
Firefighters shortly arrived, hosing down the shore as burning flesh continued to land on it and feed the existing fire.
“Let us go, or unbuckle us and we’ll throw ourself over,” Light said, his requests becoming louder and more frequent as his desire to keep bits of his consciousness from being destroyed grew increasingly urgent.
L took some scissors from Watari’s bag, unbuckling himself to approach Light.
“You’re going to cut through the chains?”
“Your intelligence seems to have suffered. I’m doing us both a favor.” L cut off two strips of his own right sleeve.
“If you want to do us a favor, let us-“
L shoved one of the balled up strips into Light’s mouth. Light glared up at him, fighting as L tied the second strip around his head so he couldn’t spit the first strip out. L stood back for a moment, noting that Light had somehow retained his attractiveness, despite his demonic features. At least, when he was prevented from speaking his bizarre thoughts. “Maybe I’ll keep you like this. Or would you prefer a muzzle? Purely for safety reasons, of course…”
“Mmph,” Light said, meaning I’m going to kill you.
L returned to his seat, putting the laptop back on his lap and angling it so Matsuda could keep writing. The two switched off multiple times, while Light continued to struggle to no avail, until they eventually ran out of names.
L peered over the side. The creature was still quite sizable, despite being significantly smaller. Furthermore, more corpses continued to join it, though at a slower pace. L flipped through the death note, finding some names half faded and no longer fading, but others still lifting up. L took out his phone, calling the military and conferring with them briefly. Afterwards, he said to Watari, “Try taking us back over the shore.”
A net soon landed over the abomination. But as Watari tried to steer the helicopter away, the thing pushed through the net like bits of ground beef, trying to follow the helicopter. The bombs and missiles no longer burnt any of it.
“What would you like me to do, sir?” asked Watari.
“Reverse directions. Take us where the ocean floor drops really far down.”
The mass began to float as it left shallow water, ruining L’s dreams of it becoming trapped on the ocean floor. But as it lost touch with the seabed, it lost its ability to maneuver, not intelligent enough to coordinate swimming. And Light was too disoriented by the shifting of self to assist or deter it in any way.
An idea coming to him, L called up the military again. On his advice, first, they carefully wrapped it in multiple sheets that had been quickly connected together. The mass, fixated on getting to Light, did not fight as boats and helicopters and submarines worked together. The flesh slowly squeezed through the sheet, but without the bone being able to join it, it then squeezed back to the main mass, a constant flux in and out.
When this worked, they attached lines to the sheet-covered mass, using helicopters to pull it by the lines further out, to where the ocean floor dropped miles. Then, they threw a weighted net over it, divers going out to make sure it would stay attached. They attached more weight to the net. Down, down, down the mass of corpses sunk, to the deepest depths.
The next step, which L had discussed over the phone, was to create a sealed impermeable container around it, then either extract it to a safe location to be watched, or keep observation of it on the ocean bed. Wherever they kept it, corpses from various continents would continue to try to get to it.
“Watari, take us back to headquarters.”
Ryuk floated back in, having been watching the divers and helicopters and boats as they subdued the mass. “Light-o’s not lookin’ so good,” he said, sounding amused.
Light, unaware that the extended mass of himself was struggling under increasing ocean pressure, trembled visibly as he tried to make sense of the odd sensation assaulting his consciousness.
Aizawa scrunched his nose as a newscaster went into detail on the scent of rotten burning flesh at the coast, sharing a look with Ide. When L and Matsuda entered the room, Soichiro was the first to speak. “Where is Light?”
“His consciousness appears to be tied to that thing. I have Watari keeping an eye on him,” said L. He pulled out the death note, which they had all seen earlier while watching Light’s interrogation, letting them hold and read it. There were no screams, since Ryuk was upstairs antagonizing Light.
“Why is it full of imprints but barely any writing?” asked Aizawa.
“Any name Light wrote- and, I believe, any name he writes- fades, causing the individual he killed to become part of the zombie hoard. But I discovered that someone else rewriting the names causes them to return to being regular corpses. Unfortunately, our list of Kira’s victims is apparently far from complete, but I was at least able to shrink it significantly.”
“Are you saying Light is permanently connected to this abomination?” Soichiro asked.
“I’m going to send the death note to someone I trust for analysis, who will figure out all the names from the imprints in the pages. But that still won’t account for any names on pages that have been ripped out, if we weren’t already aware of them.”
Soichiro looked like he was ready to tear the building down to find Light. “Let me see my son.”
“No one will be seeing Light. He’ll stay with me, indefinitely,” said L.
“Stay with-? He should be on death row,” said Aizawa.
“Light is clearly possessed by an evil entity,” said Soichiro. “He needs help, not death row.”
L wisely decided not to correct Soichiro that Light was the possessor, not the possessed. “Yes, that’s right, and as a result, he is not fit to be seen by others, and it’s not safe for him to return to society. Which brings me to my main point: the second Kira is still out there, but dealing with this zombie situation and the first Kira- Light- is my top priority. I’ll continue to support you remotely on the case, but I will be leaving Japan with Light to see if we can get him… unpossessed.”
Code for: see if he could restore Light’s sanity and help Light reconnect with his identity as Light, so Light wouldn’t be obsessed with joining whatever remained of the Mass.
Also code for: Light’s confession had stolen L’s excitement in solving the Kira case, and L wanted to keep fixating on Light, not move on to a new target.
A week later found Light curled up on the floor of a Parisian hotel, between the chair he was supposed to be sitting on, and the space where L’s feet would be if L sat in a normal fashion. But consciously, he was not in the hotel room, his consciousness instead spread out over the globe. The drive to unify haunted him, drawing him into these extended parts of himself mentally since he could not go to them physically.
L’s voice saying his name drew him back. Light latched onto the voice, willing himself to be himself. He opened his eyes, and tried to respond, but the gag strapped into his mouth prevented him. He grimaced, wiping drool off his chin and reaching behind his head to undo it. The chain dangling from the cuff on his left wrist clinked irritatingly as he moved. He dropped the gag onto the table, returning to his chair.
“-am positive Light is not still killing. We have to look for new suspects.” L hadn’t been talking to Light- L was on a call over his laptop with the taskforce. His bluetooth headphones kept the response from Light’s ears, though Light knew he’d be briefed later.
The sensation of more of himself tugged at Light, inviting his awareness to leave once more. Light forced himself to focus on L instead, taking in the bite marks in L’s right sleeve, a few inches below the cuff on L’s wrist.
L offered Light his arm. “No, I think the suspect is still in Japan…”
Light pushed the sleeve up, running his fingers over the shallow breaks in skin on the top of L’s arm, just below the wrist. He didn’t remember doing this, but he barely remembered this morning at all. He turned L’s arm over, examining the fading bite marks on that side. He wondered, not for the first time, why he was here instead of a cell. L would only say it was because he hated to lose, but Light wasn’t sure how being chained to Kira and bitten by him was anything other than a loss on L’s part.
“I see… send me the file and I’ll look over it.” L pulled his arm free, ending the call.
“No luck on the second Kira?”
“I have a pool of suspects in mind,” said L. He reached into the bag beside himself, rooting around in it.
The chain pulled at Light’s wrist with each of L’s movements. “Are you really going to make us wear this forever?”
“I planned to, but with the way you keep passing out, it’s starting to feel overly restrictive,” said L. He pulled out a familiar black notebook. Light felt his focus narrow down to it. He hadn’t imagined L had kept it within Light’s reach. Light wanted it, even if he couldn’t properly use it.
But this was likely some sort of test. Maybe it was a fake, to see if Light was trustworthy. But if it wasn’t a fake, was there some useful way he could use it to return to being Kira? He could hardly stay conscious half the time, so maybe not yet, but eventually he could send it to someone and-
Light’s thoughts were derailed as L put the notebook in front of him. “What are you doing?”
L pushed a pen into Light’s hands, pulling up a picture of a familiar FBI identity card on his computer. “Write the name. Also, please note that Watari will tranquilize you on my signal, if needed.”
Looking around, Light spotted Watari in the corner of the room, a tranq gun aimed on him. Light resisted the urge to point out that Raye was long dead, flipping the death note open. The emptied pages with indents were gone, ripped out and sent off somewhere for the names to be reconstructed. He wrote on the blank, fresh page before himself, Raye Penber. Nothing happened, as far as he could tell, the ink resting on the page. He stared at his watch. 37. 38. 39.
The letters began to lift off the page and fade into thin air, starting with the r at the end of Penber.
L pulled the notebook from him, writing Raye Penber beneath. Again, nothing immediately happened, the name Light had written still peeling off. Light could feel the pull to unify growing, could feel his consciousness about to regain a part lost.
38. 39. 40. L’s writing stayed in place. Light’s writing stopped fading, now reading Raye P.
“I rewrote Raye’s name in the helicopter,” L explained. “I was curious if you rewriting the name would cause his un-animated corpse to reanimate. I suspect his corpse didn’t end up getting burnt or destroyed by the military, since it was returned to the US.” L pulled up another picture ID. Light didn’t recognize this one. “Write the name.”
“We didn’t kill him,” said Light.
“I?” L clarified.
“I,” Light agreed.
“The whole sentence,” said L. When Light only scowled at him in response, L said, “Too challenging?”
“Of course not. But this is stupid.”
“Talking around it only proves that it’s too challenging.”
Light clenched his hands in his lap. He didn’t understand why it was so hard for him to refer to himself as a single person. He wanted to be himself, not a hoard of the undead. His speech felt under his own control. But he had yet to succeed in using ‘I’ in a sentence, and the failed attempts stuck with him.
“You can work on it later,” said L. He pulled up a video of a cell on his computer, and Light recognized the man in the video as the man on the ID. Not a video, but a livefeed. “He’s currently on death row for murder.”
Light immediately understood. L wanted to establish whether it was possible for Light to become Kira again. Light himself was curious, and missed writing in the death note. He penned the man’s name. The ink stayed firmly in place. Light felt his excitement build. At forty seconds, the man seized, fall ing down dead. The rush was instantaneous.
Guards ran to the man’s cell, checking on him. He twitched.
Light glanced again at the death note page, his excitement draining as he saw the name beginning to peel itself up. He glared at the stupid notebook, handing it over to L. When L just held it, watching Light intensely, Light said, “Write his name before he reanimates.”
“You don’t want to create an army of the undead?”
Light warily watched as the name continued to peel. “An army of undead that wants to devour its creator, and destroys its creator’s identity.” He liked being Light Yagami, Kira, the individual. He did not want to be Light Yagami the collective hoard of devouring flesh eaters, as he instinctively knew they’d become if they got him.
“Are you saying you would’ve taken over the world using the bodies of criminals if you could? A little off brand for Kira.”
The criminal began to rise. Light felt the drive to unify calling to him strongly. He grimaced. “Just write the name.”
“I haven’t gotten live footage of someone animating before,” said L.
Light could see he wouldn’t be convincing L. He scooped up the gag, shoving it into his mouth and strapping it behind his head. At the very least he could keep himself from biting again, and save himself the embarrassment of knowing L had strapped this into his mouth.
Light increasingly became less aware as he was drawn into the new extension of himself, eyes half-lidded as he lost touch with his body. On the unwatched screen, the undead criminal began to rise, confusing the guards as it tried to walk towards the wall.
L turned in his chair so he could face Light fully. He took in Light’s dark orbs, the tips of sharp teeth unexpectedly cute extending past Light’s stretched, open mouth, their pearly white standing out against the black of the gag. Light let out a muffled whimper, hands gripping the edge of the table. He shuddered, and then his grip relaxed, hands falling from the desk.
L barely managed to grab Light as he abruptly collapsed, moving him to the floor. He’d tried leaving him in the chair before, but quickly learned that Light wasn’t unconscious. His consciousness was, instead, more heavily drawn elsewhere, leaving him prone to random lurching that would leave him on the floor.
The criminal’s name had half-faded from the death note. L rewrote the name underneath, then handed the death note off to Watari, who immediately left with it. Though Light acted like the death note was unusable for him now, L could think of various ways Light could wreak havoc with it. A part of him worried that Light would gain the ability to control his undead victims more actively at some point, and while he wasn’t sure what use that would have for Light, he was sure if anyone could find a nefarious use for undead hoards, it would be Light…
“Not gonna pet him this time?” The shinigami’s voice came from the doorway.
“I thought you were playing video games,” said L.
“I was. Noticed your servant walking off with the death note.”
“My liaison.”
Light let out another muffled whimper, curling in on himself. L settled his feet on the floor so he could lean down more easily, running his fingers through the delightfully soft strands. Light’s face scrunched up.
“Tell him yet that he only bites you because you pet him?”
“I let Light come to his own conclusions.”
Ryuk snickered, floating closer. “With how much time he spends on the floor, maybe you should get him one of those pet beds.”
L could imagine Light’s reaction to regaining awareness and realizing he was on a dog bed…
“C’mon, you know you’d find it entertaining. Hyuk hyuk.”
The reaction would be fairly entertaining, and it would be worth it to see Light curled up on the bed. L sent a quick text to Watari. It was the least Light owed him for forcing this stalemate on him.