All The Way Here

Matt prowled around the lower part of the warehouse, his semi-automatic loaded and lifted up to within inches from his face. Occasionally a volley of shot ran out and another mannequin fell to the ground. He paced out the distance and inspected the damage. His accuracy was improving no end.



Pleased with himself, he jogged up the stairs and into the back storage room. The weapons had been moved there, after it was pointed out that any intruders could have reached them before Mello and Matt in their previous location. There seemed to be an endless supply of bullets. Just when he thought that he\'d found them all, another large box would reveal another five thousand or so of the things. Mello must have been planning for Armaggeddon when he placed his order.



Matt selected a rifle and experimented with loading it. It was fairly simple once he\'d had a close look at the chamber. He ran back along the landing, then sent himself into a skid to a position at the railings. He aimed down at the mannequin waiting to be sniped and tested the weight of the firearm. He\'d never fired anything except an automatic pistol before and this felt alien. Still, he\'d never learn if he didn\'t try and he was supposed to be practicing. His hand covered the trigger area, his vision peered along the top of the barrel.



"That had better not be loaded." Mello spoke up from the armchair, still typing. When Matt didn\'t respond, he rose in one fluid movement and paced their distance. "Get your finger off the trigger. Give me the gun." It was relinquished with a frown. "What ammo did you use?"



"The ones that looked like they fit." Matt shrugged.



Mello gave him a withering look. "Fetch me the box."



Before Matt could return, Mello\'s \'phone was ringing and he took the call balancing the rifle over the railings, pointed downwards. He was already glaring when Matt set down the box beside the gun, but spared the time to roll his eyes and direct his murderous look towards his lover. Nontheless, his tone was even as he responded, "Thank you, Hal." Then hung up.



"What\'s happened?"



"I could fire this gun like you were about to and either lose a finger or an eye, but I\'m not going to." Mello carefully opened the chamber and removed the bullets. "Near has got Misa Amane. What the fuck is that about?" He thrust the rifle into Matt\'s hands. "Put that away and meet me on the settee." Matt did as he was told, but contrived to flop with bad grace onto the seat next to Mello. He lit a cigarette and waited patiently for instructions. "Why has Near got Misa Amane?"



"Because she\'s the second Kira?"



"No." Mello turned his laptop, so that a series of circles and text could be seen. As with 90% of Mello\'s thought-process diagrams, it was completely incomprehensible to anyone else. "I\'m certain that she\'s not. She was but she\'s not now. It makes sense that Takada is the second Kira."



"Maybe he\'s just got her for questioning?" Matt ventured. The more he looked at the monitor, the clearer the interwoven circles became. "This is a relationship thing to Kira?"



"Yes." Mello pointed. "Here is Amane. She\'s getting further away from the source all of the time. I\'ve watched her, the Japanese have watched her and, though Hal doesn\'t know about it, I find it hard to believe that Near hasn\'t watched her. Add that to the fact that she can\'t move without a camera crew following her and she\'s probably the most watched person in this whole fucking drama."



"But no-one\'s been in her house since Los Angeles?"



"Mogi has. The Japanese police officer. He has been taken by Near too."



"I know who Mogi is." Matt bristled. "But is he reporting to Near?"



"Not necessarily." Mello pointed to another circle, touching others, but still separate. "This is Mogi and Aizawa. They are branching off on their own somewhat. In reality they could report to L or to Near, but before they do either of those things, they are going to make judgments of their own. We know little about these men, they could be stupid."



Matt shook his head. "No, they are top police officers. You don\'t reach that position without having some skills in reasoning and observation. Don\'t underestimate them."



"Ok." Mello didn\'t look convinced. "Say that they are on the ball. If Amane has shown her true colours, Mogi could have contacted Near. That\'s one explanation for Near bringing her in."



"It\'s the most logical explanation." Matt pointed to a circle with multiple, recent edges radiating out to Light Yagami. "This is Takada?"



"Yes." Mello shook his head. "It makes no sense for Amane to be the second Kira anymore. Takada is much closer to the action. The things that she says on television are too, what\'s the word? Informed. Either Near knows something that I don\'t or he\'s got this one wrong."



Matt scratched his head. "You\'d hit me if I said, \'unlikely\', so I won\'t say it."



"Near gets it wrong more times than you imagine." Mello barked back. "At the moment, he\'s not doing anything to mess up my plans, but he is making a move. I need to work out what that is." He pointed to a cluster of circles near the top. "Near\'s effectively just wiped them out. Mogi and Amane. Which means that Aizawa is disabled too. This leaves just four camps. Us, Near\'s, Takada\'s and the Japanese taskforce headed by L." He clicked his mouse and added a line merging Near and Misa Amane. Dragging and dropping several other circles left the page displaying the four. "The only one of these which isn\'t compromised is ours. Unless you are secretly working for Near..."



"I\'m not."



"... then all of the others have an informer at their heart. Near has Hal informing me; he also has Amane, who will possibly try to inform Kira; Takada also has Hal, informing me and Near; the Japanese have Aizawa possibly informing Near and, via Hal, me too. Though Kira obviously doesn\'t know it, his brightest move would be to remove Hal from the equation." He pointed to the one circle which interlinked so many others. "That would reduce Near\'s resources, but would also stop of lot of information being passed back and forth." Mello frowned. "It makes no sense to bring in Misa Amane! He\'s just lost an important link right to Kira." He clicked to isolate Aizawa beside L.



"Damage limitation?" Matt pondered. "Taking her out clarifies the picture marvellously. Besides it reduces the number of lose cannons, which places more power in the hands of those still able to operate. It\'s brilliant in that regard. All he has to worry about now is what we\'re up to." He stubbed out the butt of his cigarette in the ashtray. "You know how Near loves control."



"So he\'s just loading the dice?" Mello glared at the screen. "To be honest, this clarifies things for me too. Hal will tell me if Amane or Mogi say anything interesting." He grimaced. "Though I doubt it, after listening to them for a week. It narrows down to three the ways I can move and kidnapping Amane was always the weakest of my plans anyway."



Matt surveyed him coolly, "So why were you thinking about kidnapping Misa-Misa?"



"To block off that avenue for Kira to use. I want him completely cornered before I make my move." He smirked.



"By that reasoning, it would make more sense to take Takada out of the equation." Matt pointed to her proximity to Kira.



"Yes, but that would be difficult to pull off. She\'s better guarded than Yagami, who I believe is Kira. Why go for the puppy when you can get the master?" He tapped the table. "Near might try to eliminate us too."



"No he won\'t." Matt shook his head emphatically. "He could have stopped you leaving in New York and he didn\'t. Even now, when he\'s obviously got something planned, I think it makes more sense for him to have you running around independently." He bit his lip. "Well, in lieu of you agreeing to work with him anyway."



"That\'s not going to happen. It\'s how it is, but it\'s also a strength of ours." Mello sat back with a cynical smirk. "Yagami has family. I\'ve already taken his sister once and his father. You, me, Near, who is out there who can be used as a pawn to draw us out? The closest we have to family is each other and I wouldn\'t spit on Near if he was on fire. One thing The Wammy House did was put wedges between the lot of us." The blond glared into the distance. "I wonder how the Japanese police, when they were sniffing round there, took it? Them there with their pretty families and their picket fences and flowers and shit. Then they find themselves in the middle of the most self-absorbed, half-insane, smart arse collection of back-stabbers they are ever likely to find. I wonder if it was very obvious or just subtly so, that they learned nothing not because we\'d pulled rank. It was because there\'s not a kid there who would share a thing, for fear of accidentally giving someone a lift up higher than they are." His eyes narrowed, shooting daggers with a glare. "Kira couldn\'t kidnap a supposed brother or sister of mine, because the way we were raised, that\'s just removing another of the opposition. We wouldn\'t fly half way around the world to give up our hand out of sentimental familial love, because the poor, little orphans haven\'t got family worth shit to worry about."



"Note to self, don\'t get kidnapped and expect Mello to get you out of there." Matt grinned. "Oh hi! Did you forget I was here?"



"You\'re different." Mello twitched. "You are where I fucked with the system."



"Oh good." Matt rose. "I\'m getting a cup of tea. Presumably you want hot chocolate, while you\'re working out how to kidnap Yagami Sayu again."



"That\'s just one of my options. It took a while to work out where she is, but I have her now. Just need to work out whether it\'s worth it." He was glaring at the screen again. "L put his own father in danger last time to the point where he was killed. Would he view the kidnapping of his sister as anything more than an inconvenience?"



Matt shrugged and wandered off into the kitchen. When he returned, Mello was just staring into space, eating chocolate absently. "Other options?"



"I\'m working on them." Mello glowered. "Matt, what would happen if Kira was destroyed but with no proof that he was Kira?"



"You\'d get the dead celebrity syndrome. He\'d really end up as a God, at least in the public perception."



"As I thought. Thank you." Mello snapped out of his reverie to take his mug of hot chocolate. "Matt, I\'d rescue you if you were kidnapped."



"I know." Matt smirked. "And you\'d rescue everyone else as well."