Please, Let This Be The Last Time

by Striped_Overcast

Summary:

Waka Ona (fake name) forces her way into the Kira case and probably dies-- or something.

Notes:

This is my first time driving. Don't worry, I got this.
(The bus is about to crash)

Chapter 1: 6:65

“June 18th, 2006
Journal Entry One- began at 5:56 A.M,
I’ve gotten bored of forging conversation with nothing. Ever since the day I was rescued from that bomb-riddled cruise ship, my life’s gotten duller and duller. Interactions became repetitive with monotony, faces blurred into each other, and all of the work I’ve done for the FBI has felt like nothing more than pushing a pencil on paper.

With this in mind, I was assigned a mandatory therapist. She thinks I’ve developed a sort of depression, which is why I’ve been made to keep a ‘diary’. It’s probably an accurate diagnosis–I remember being a lot more interested in myself and others, at some point. However, it seems as though all of that interest has recently been concentrated towards a specific person.

The one who saved me that day, to be exact.

He wouldn’t tell me his name, I only spoke to him through a glorified walkie-talkie so even if he could see me, I don’t know his face. He also used a voice filter when he spoke, so I don’t even know his voice. I, along with the rest of the world, only know him by ‘L’. Though, I do know he’s right-handed, he likes sweets, he’s a genius detective, and he has an assistant that goes by ‘Watari’.

I also know that we’ll likely never meet again.

As much as it pains me to write out, L is an incredibly elusive person, especially considering how I likely know more about him than almost anyone else he’s ever spoken to. That’s what I tell myself, anyway. And I hardly know him.

I want to thank L. Truthfully, that’s the only cohesive thought I’ve had these past three years. I don’t even need to see his face, even if some part of me really wants to. I just want to thank the man who saved my life.

Agent Catherine- finished at 6:04 A.M.”

 

After she finished writing, Agent Catherine traced her pen just above the page, dotting any missed ‘i’s and re-crossing her ‘t’s. She closed the leather journal, sighing, before stepping around piles of used clothes and placing it underneath her mattress, keeping the pen in hand.

She looked back at the desk she’d been writing on. All that was on it was a dim lamp and an alarm clock she’d never set. Agent Catherine watched knowingly as the lamp flickered to black, leaving her in pitch darkness thanks to her blackout curtains. Soon after, a faint but unmistakable ticking arose behind her.

 

Without hesitation, Agent Catherine placed the tips of her fingers along her bed and gently shuffled her way over to two sliding mirrors placed in her wall. Opening them gave way to the closet, which revealed a lit flashlight crudely hung over a small metal box duct taped to a smaller replica. Both boxes were screwed shut.

“First, reveal the detonator.”
Agent Catherine stuck her pen through the duct tape and ripped it just enough to freely move the boxes. After slowly separating them, she was met with three thin wires. One green, one yellow, and one white. She ignored them, however, opting to rip the clip from the pen to unscrew the smaller box. Doing this revealed a small, black mechanism.

“Next, make sure it doesn’t explode.”
The wires led into the mechanism with 3 small lights for each. There were also tiny switches corresponding to these lights.

Under closer examination, each light flickered at different intervals for about two seconds before they all blinked in unison, starting the pattern again.

The white wire blinked once per seconds, the green twice, and the yellow thrice. Naturally, the switches were flipped on the mechanism according to the flashing. White was first, yellow was last.

Then, she removed the wires from the mechanism and waited. After two seconds exactly, the ticking stopped.

“Easy enough.”
Agent Catherine stood up, replacing the clip onto her pen, and turned on the light.

 

She closed the closet mirror, forcing herself to look into her ocean blue eyes. Long, tangled, near-black curls crept along her dark, round face like kudzu. Her lips formed a grimace, though they hardly made any other expressions in the mirror.

She wore nothing but blue underwear and a slightly oversized t-shirt to cover her mid-sized form. She’d never hated her body, but she couldn’t hold her gaze with the dark scars covering it. Most were by small explosions from when she was kidnapped.

“They’re nothing to be ashamed of.”
She muttered, bringing her eyes back towards various bright sticky notes on the wall. Each had a different inspirational message, most of which about ‘seizing the day’ or ‘believing in yourself’. Some even had doodles accompanying them. None of them had been in her handwriting.

She pointed a nibbled finger to a specific one- ‘Take your time!’ with a cat in The Thinker pose- and chose to live by that for the day.

 

She turned to her room. On top of the various piles of clothes on the ground, wires and metal scraps were strung about. The only furniture was the bed, a desk with its contents, and its chair.

Sitting on her bed was a folded navy blue suit and a lighter button-up. The clothes were cleaner than anything else in the room, almost as if they were new.

Agent Catherine shuffled out of her sleepwear and put on the uniform, tying her thick curls into a ponytail. She turned back to the mirror- and was met with a stranger.

They were the same age- Agent Catherine knew this as though someone had silently whispered into her mind. They stood at an equal distance from the mirror and had similar body types, but although the stranger’s outfit was the same colors as Agent Catherine's, the stranger wore bootcut jeans and a sweater instead.

If the woman tried looking at the stranger’s face, she’d only be met with layers upon layers of unnaturally bright sticky notes. So, Agent Catherine opted to look at her unscarred hands instead.

The stranger waved, and used her pointer fingers and thumbs to form a heart, shifting her weight to the left so she could lift her right leg. A bright blue sticky note fell from the mass and wafted towards Agent Catherine. She opened a hand, as she always did, and examined the note.

‘You may delay, but time will not. -Benjamin Franklin’

When she looked up, Agent Catherine found there was no proof of the stranger’s presence, and the note disappeared from her hands. She turned away from the mirror and slumped forward, huffing as she trudged out the door.

“...Hopefully the cafeteria has something spicy today.”

Chapter 2: Over, Under, and Back Around

Summary:

Work starts. Darkest of times.

Agent Catherine entered her designated office at exactly 6:55, five minutes ahead of schedule. The office consisted of various low-wall cubicles. Each had a nameplate, landline, swivel seat, and a computer, but were otherwise completely designed by the owner's will. Some had small filing cabinets below the desk to make room for other work, some had stackable paper trays atop, and a few looked like a tornado had blown through exactly three times in the span of one night. Agent Catherine grimaced at the sight.

As she made her way to the table, the agent noticed some new coffee spills and crumbs surrounding some desks. She greeted the pseudo-zombies who had been stuck with more urgent cases than herself, and felt a sort of smug relief as she did so, only to find a heaping pile of fresh paperwork at her table.

“You’re late.” said a lousy older man that Agent Catherine knew as her supervisor. His dry round head, beady eyes, upturned nose, big ears, and perpetually reddening cheeks made him look like a pig in a suit- which is exactly what any of his agents would say he was, if asked.

The woman glanced at the analog clock hanging above the break room door to the right of her.
“I don't believe I am, sir, it’s 6:56.”

“I expected you to be here at 6:30 to make up for leaving thirty minutes early last night.”
He grunted.

Agent Catherine's gaze dulled,
“You told me to drive Agent Misora home because she'd gotten sick. You told me not to bother coming back.”

“Any good worker would’ve come back anyway“Well, you should've come back anyway. Any diligent employee would.” He snorted, “Now quit arguin’ before I write you up for insubordination. You went home thirty minutes early, now you're thirty minutes late today, so I'll need you to stay here for an hour later.”

 

.” He crossed his arms; Agent Catherine thought it looked hard.
She opened her mouth to form a response, but the supervisor raised a finger to her mouth,
“Since you left early yesterday and came in late today, I expect you to stay an hour later than usual.”
Her eyes widened,
“But-”
“AND,” he interrupted, “since you’ve been continually insubordinate arguing with me, it looks like I’ll have to write you up.”

Agent Catherine felt her shoulders descend like ash from a house fire as she watched her supervisor return to his office. She looked around, feeling her cheeks warm. The rest of her division had filed in while he’d spoken to her. All of them either gave her sympathetic glances or pretended not to notice. The woman tried to play it off, grabbing a paper from the massive pile on her desk.

It looked like the usual case report, but seemingly started at a random sentence. That is, until she realized that she was on page 15, and all of the papers were out of order. Agent Catherine felt a fuzziness in her head before a voice that wasn’t hers broke through the mental fog, reminding her to ‘Take your time!’.

Agent Catherine pulled the chair back and took a pen from a blue metal pencil holder, sitting down with a huff as she started reorganizing the paperwork.

Notes:

I hate to say it, but this is gonna be a real slow start. Maybe, idk. It's not like I'm the one writing it or anything.

Notes:

Sorry for any grammatical errors and whatnot-- I've mostly been working on this when I'm tired.
I hope it's at least interesting.