Futatsu no Tsuki

Futatsu no Tsuki

Chapter 24

- "Hey!" A voice called to Yue as the seventeen year old walked away from the courthouse. His eyes lowered, he slowly raised them in the direction of the nearby police station. The voice behind him once gain called out. "Hey, you. Ya…."

Yue's heart skipped as the stranger grabbed his arm, his breath caught in his throat. The voice and touch intruded upon the thought that passed through his brain and wrapped him so completely in its snare. He barely heard the voice and failed to catch the sudden halt in its call.

"I saw you in the courthouse - it looked like you wanted to clobber that lady…."

"….who are you?" The teen asked, glancing over the dark haired, fair skinned stranger dressed in a suit. It looked slightly outlandish on the man who seemed only a few years older than Yue.

"Oh, I work part time as a clerk in the courthouse. The name's Tenichi." The stranger responded casually, though there was a strange twitching of his lips, and the intensity of his gaze bewildered Yue momentarily. It seemed the stranger was silently chastising himself for something.

"I'm not in the mood to talk." Yue started to turn away, but the man refused to loosen his grip. "Let…."

"….you want to get a new trial for a friend of yours, right?" Tenichi interrupted, at the same time releasing Yue's arm.

"You…."

"I overheard your argument. Sorry. However, I think I might be able to help. I know people who can speed things along."

Yue's eyes widened in wonder at the stranger, barely able to believe his words. -

0

Yue woke abruptly from a sudden kick to his stomach, the taste of blood in his mouth; blood that came from a busted lip. He cringed then coughed, the next moment flinching at the sudden sensation of a hand on his shoulder.

"Heh. I'm not going to hurt you. Not yet." B laughed, his wild eyes watching as the teen ignored him and tried to move. The sharp cut of the handcuffs digging into Yue's wrists caused the teen to pause, the next moment discovering that his legs shared the same predicament.

"Tenichi, why…."

B stepped on Yue's face and laughed, the tone spiked with bitterness and disappointment.

"To think I ever considered you useful…." He scoffed and pressed his barefoot firmer against Yue's cheek. "You fell for my disguise and that detective's lies. You even failed to notice how I almost called you by name when we first met….."

"Tenichi….."

"Wrong." Contempt flashed across B's face as he spat out the word, his lips twitching as he picked up a pistol from the table. Its metal gleaming under the single florescent bulb hanging from the ceiling. "To think you got to do that with L….."

Yue swallowed, eyes shut tightly. His heart and head pounded in rebellion, desiring flight even though his limbs were bound. He heard his friend's words, the anger in them and meaning behind them flitted just beyond the grasp of his throbbing brain. 'Tenichi….why?'

His friend's appearance flashed before his closed eyes; the clothes he wore and the way he styled his hair - it was all identical to L. Yet Yue knew by the burn scars that crept around the man's neck and continued beneath his shirt, as well as by the wild glint in his otherwise expressionless eyes, that it wasn't the detective.

He swallowed, his pulse racing as he struggled to form his thoughts into words. He understood but his brain rebelled at the idea. This wasn't Tenichi either - or rather Tenichi hadn't been who he thought. 'He helped with my investigation. He attempted to help with Taeku at least until Taeku died, I…..'

"I'm not going to spell it out for you. You either figure it out, or…." The crick of the hammer being cocked back on the pistol echoed the unspoken threat.

Instead of flinching at the sound of the gun, Yue merely opened his eyes and exhaled.

"...B."

0

Dark eyes peeked out from beneath a mass of unkempt black hair. Its dark hue brought out the paleness of the man's skin while the white shirt he wore attempted to counter that effect.

'Though the probability is only 58% that B had an accomplice who hacked into the L.A database and passed the info on to him, if there is an accomplice there's a 80% chance he or she will come here.' L viewed his surroundings, his pupils reflecting the sullenness of the night. Though B had been captured, there still remained questions to be answered. Questions that no amount of interrogation seemed able to wring from his failed replacement.

'B hasn't uttered a sound since he was arrested. Not even when I interrogated him...'

L sighed.

'The person who hacked the database might just be someone B used and so knows nothing about B's plan, but...' The detective brought his thumb to his lip and stared before him, unseeing. 'A few days before B's attempted fourth 'murder', an unknown person sent in a solved version of the crossword B sent forecasting his murders. This person may be the accomplice or may simply be innocent. The chances of me finding him or her is about 9%...'

The city around him buzzed with noise and the humdrum of life. The darkened skies lessened the keenness of his vision; his tongue craving sweets.

He walked a few steps toward the main thoroughfare, passing near a club.

'Wha...' The detective's gaze locked on a teen with dark hair streaked with yellow and a wistful aura in his expression. There was something about the teen that lulled his attention, something that invigorated his brain, yet before he could figure out what it was the teen approached him.

"Yue." L whispered and stared out the hotel window, the room behind him empty except for Watari. Twenty-five minutes had passed since the task force officers each left to search for Yue and B, and it was fifteen minutes since he received the phone call.

"Ryuzaki, that phone call..."

"Don't tell anyone, Watari. There's nothing the task force can help with. It'll make things worse if..."

"But B has Yue, that..."

L glanced out the window, his eyes livid beneath the shadows cast by his hair. His reflection stared back at him. "...B also knows about Wammy's House."

Watari's wrinkled eyes widened, his lips parting then closing, the opening again to speak.

"You mean B, he's..."

"B threatened flat out that he will kill all the orphans there using Kira's power if I don't do what he says."

"That..." Watari fell silent, horror stricken.

"If that the task force gets involved, it'd just make things worse."

"But..." Watari approached L. "Not even B should know the real names of the children there. They should be safe."

"...unless he has the same power as Second Kira." L glided his fingers over the window in thought, then clenched them into a fist. "There was always something I didn't understand about B's murders in L.A. Why didn't his victims struggle? There was never a sign of any of them fighting back before their deaths...that was always odd." L mumbled.

"Ryuzaki..."

"...I have no proof that it's the case, but my instinct tells me that B isn't bluffing – that he can kill the children at Wammy's, at least those who were there when he was." L leaned against the window, pressing his forehead against the cold surface.

'B...what is your plan? You...You want me to arrest Second Kira? But I have no proof that Second Kira is who you said...and there's .01% chance that this is not a trap...'

The detective pushed away from the window.

"B wants me to arrest Second Kira in person. No middlemen, no gimmicks. Just a confrontation between myself and Second Kira."

"That's...too dangerous, and besides Second Kira disappeared." Watari reached for the detective, who pulled away from his grasp. The threat to the children at Wammy's House hung in the air, bringing fear and pain to Watari's face. "Ryuzaki..."

"B gave me Second Kira's name over the phone. As well as where to find her a few days from now." L turned toward Watari and met the man's wizen eyes. "I'll do as B says. I'll confront Misa Amane."

0

"Heh. Should I shoot you now or wait?" B sneered, his wild eyes locked on Yue. The teen shivered on the floor, still bound. "To think you were able to seduce L..." The raven-haired man spat out those words, his eyes roaming over Yue's curled body, livid.

Cruelty, almost like lust, gleamed from his eyes; their red tint intense.

"Not only that...you thought you could also use me, as your friend 'Tenichi', to take the fall as Kira while you helped your brother escape suspicion...Assumed I would follow your plans..." B spat, grinding the pistol's barrel into the teen's right temple.

Yue shuddered, the touch of cold steel against his head enough to chill his bones. The pain of B attempting to stab him with the pistol nauseated him; the soreness of his abdomen dulled beneath the fear.

"...why didn't you tell me who you were? All that time in the States, and then after I returned to Japan..." The bound brunet swallowed, his voice just a few decibels above a whisper.

"Why should I have had to? It's your fault for not realizing it sooner." B growled, then sat down on Yue's side. The pistol leaving the teen's temple, replaced instead by B's hot breath. The raven-haired man's face centimeters away from the brunet's skin felt more menacing than the gun.

Yue cringed as B grabbed his hair and then muffled Yue's mouth with his own. The man's lips hungrily devoured the brunet's, B's tongue forcing it's way into Yue's mouth.

'Wh...' Yue tensed, his entire body chilled by B's ministrations. Limbs bound and his torso trapped beneath B's body, he could do nothing to resist. His pulse pounded on his eardrums as a hand slid beneath his shirt.

"No. Stop it." He gasped after he managed to escape B's mouth, his eyes glossy with increasing anger. "B..."

"When you and that detective had sex, did he do this?" B nibbled on Yue's ear, his body pressed close to the brunet's. Yue shivered beneath his hot breath, and then the touch of his tongue as he moved to the teen's neck and sucked on the supple flesh there.

"Stop."

"Heh. No." B sneered, placing the pistol on the floor beside them.

0

"No way..." A voice mumbled in front of a TV in a darkened room; the News headline about the massacre illuminated on the screen. "No..."

The voice trembled with anger – disbelief.

"Misa..."

Chapter End