Poisoned Rationality

Mello\'s hand was on the door-handle, but he sat still. His head was bowed, face hidden under a curtain of blond hair. Matt spoke so softly, calmly, that Mello felt compelled to listen to him. "All I\'m asking is that you give him time." The redhead continued in that even tone. "I know, more than anyone, what it\'s costing you. I\'m here with you, aren\'t I? But just a few minutes. If anyone but Near comes out of that door, then I\'m right behind you. Just a few minutes, half an hour, an hour maybe."



Mello\'s grip loosened on the door and he exhaled loudly, glaring out of the car\'s window at the Yellow Box warehouse across the narrow strip of water. It stood on its own wharf, slightly apart from the other warehouses lining the coastal area. Until two hours ago, they were never going to be here, but Yamada had a car delivered right when Mello had been praying in front of his Shrine. From that moment, it had all been mutterings about signs and nothing Matt could say could stop them taking to the road and arriving here. Mello tapped the semi-automatic against his leather-clad thigh. The sense that he would just bolt was very real. Beside him, behind the wheel, the redhead didn\'t touch him. To touch was to have something to react to; something to run away from. They were walking a tightrope and neither could say if the next few seconds would see that door opening and Mello rushing in to finish the job hitherto left to Near.



"Ok." Mello breathed and he was the one to reach out. He patted a hand on Matt\'s thigh, but stared out of the window with the gun clipping against that now. Matt took chocolate out of his pocket and handed it over. Mello took it like he\'d never seen chocolate before, holding it in a crushing grip. "I\'ll wait. But..."



"I promise you." Matt interjected quickly. "If a single person comes out of that door, who\'s not Near, we are in and I\'ll fucking die with you."



Mello glanced sharply at him, his teeth slowly grinding. Then he was back looking out; if a gaze could have bore a hole in the glass, then this one would have. His leg, jigging with pent-up need to be out there, fell still and he unwrapped the chocolate. The snap sounded loudly inside the car. "What the fuck is he doing in there?"



"Mello, I\'ve never respected you more in my life than I do right now." Matt spoke in that same level monotone. "I\'m sorry that I\'m making you wait. I see it as victory, not for him, not for Kira, definitely not for Kira. You over Kira. I know it sounds fucked up."



"Ok, stop trying to humour me now. You\'ve made your point." Mello stiffened and sat up. "Who\'s that?" A man was approaching in a long black coat, a briefcase in his hands. A slow gait, careful not to crunch his footsteps on the chipped concrete platform. "What the fuck?" They watched as he peeped through the door and now Matt had his gun in his hand too. "What are your thoughts, Matt?"



The redhead gulped, "I wish we\'d bought the rifle."



Mello dropped the chocolate into his lap and held his rosary. "So not good?" They watched the man fall to his knees, his actions shielded by the fall of his coat tails. "What the fuck is he doing?" Mello\'s gun hand was on the handle again. Matt reached out to grab his shoulder and the blond roughly threw his hand away. "Fucking get off me." Nevertheless, Mello didn\'t open the door and didn\'t run across there. He didn\'t shoot his gun. He just watched, with Matt watching over his shoulder, poised for action. "Oh shit."



"What?"



"Is he writing?" Mello squinted forward. The man was standing. "Matt, was he fucking writing?"



Matt raised his hands. "I don\'t know." He watched as Mello fumbled at the door and Matt knew that nothing he could do or say would stop him now. That he had given Near half an hour\'s grace was a miracle. Mello ran around the wharf heading for the cover of a white car parked closer the fence. His gun was in his hand, but the man was already entering the Yellow Box warehouse, stepping out of their view. Matt grabbed the chocolate, lit a cigarette, cocked his own gun and stepped out of the car. As he started to join his lover, Mello made another run for it and was quickly outside the door so recently entered by the stranger.



Even at a sprint, Matt couldn\'t have reached him in time to stop him crashing into Near\'s showdown, but Mello didn\'t enter. He flattened himself up against the wall, one finger against his lips, as he listened to whatever was happening within. The finger left his mouth and Mello fiercely beckoned Matt to his side. Creeping cautiously over the concrete, Matt reached the opposite side of the door and could clearly hear Near\'s voice inside. Utterly, eerily calm, "You might actually have won and I might have lost." Across the doorway, Mello needlessly touched his finger to his lips again in the universal sign for silence. Matt shrugged soundlessly and took the cigarette from his mouth. It had occurred to him that they may smell the smoke inside. He pinched just below the burning end, forcing the tobacco to separate and the ember to fall to the ground. There it quietly burned itself out and Matt held the unlit remains between his lips.



They overheard Near talking about swopping Death Notes and creating fakes, piling evidence upon evidence in that same deadpan tone. Matt felt the goosebumps rising on his arms, despite the cotton of his long-sleeved shirt. He watched Mello close his eyes, his whole body taut, his gun held down at his side. The tension could have been cut with a knife. Then Near announced that he could see a Shinigami and Matt felt sick. Mello\'s expression became more pensive, his eyebrows arched, but he didn\'t open his eyes. He was working things out, using his brain to see where this was leading in terms of proof and strategy; while Matt just worried about the inevitable moment of their bursting in there. Mello seemed so still now, calculating, dangerous.



"Light Yagami, you are Kira." Near stated, so matter-of-factly, as if he was answering a question in a quiz. There was a pause, but no rebuttal. Near was the next person to speak. "You\'re wrong," he stated, though nothing had been spoken aloud to prompt it. There was a shuffling sound, but still no denials. Near\'s next words snapped open the eyes of the blond. "I owe this to Mello. I\'m sure you understand what I mean by that."



Mello\'s composure was lost under a startled stare at the semi-closed door. Matt raised both hands, signalling \'stop\' and remaining so poised, ready to catch the blond should he move. Inside, Near outlined the vital contribution of his former Wammy\'s House rival, stating clearly that without it, they would all be dead now. It was a stream of words which seemed to hit Mello like poisoned darts and Matt cursed his own lack of foresight in not running to the same side of the door as his lover. He was reduced to clenching his hands together, aping prayer, wordlessly begging Mello not to go in there. He found it amazing that neither of them had so much as kicked a shard of concrete; that their presense hadn\'t yet been divined by those inside.



"But the biggest thanks goes to the one who created this situation. Mello." Near finished and, if they didn\'t know him, it would have almost sounded respectful. Fond. Matt was mouthing, \'please, please\', but it was the sound of Hal\'s voice which finally stilled the rage in Mello\'s expression.



"Mello may have known about it." She recounted her side of a telephone conversation between herself and Mello, which filled in some blanks for Matt. It was his turn to glare across the doorway, while Mello shrugged like it was nothing and leaned closer to hear. "But if Mello hadn\'t made his move, then we would all have been..." She didn\'t need to finish for everyone present to insert the word \'killed\'.



Matt half-turned away, staring at the ground. When he looked up again, Mello blew him a kiss, his smile apologetic. Then returned to glaring at the door, as Near concluded dismissively, "I find it hard to believe that Mello thought that far ahead." Mello\'s lip curled into a sneer, his gun dancing in the air. He was only one step away from entering now. Close enough for Matt to reach across and touch his sleeve; though when he tried, Mello gave a look of such disdain that Matt withdrew. Inside, Near was going on, his tone thoughtful as he processed new information. "I am sure that he was always trying to get ahead of me. And that\'s not all. Even if he didn\'t surpass me..." There was a sudden silence. The longer it went on, the wider Mello\'s eyes became and the more Matt\'s heart thundered against his chest. Near sounded unsure. "Even if he didn\'t..." Another loaded silence and Mello\'s hands rose to cover his mouth and nose, the gun protruding through his blond fringe. Matt found himself unable to breathe, as if Near\'s ranking of the Wammy alumni mattered. The pause went on and on. But when Near spoke, it was with a resolution in his voice. No less deadpan, but more certain. "Mello always said he was going to be number one, and that he was going to be better than me and L. But I always knew that I could never surpass L. It could be that I lack the action and he lacked the calm and even though we couldn\'t surpass the one we admired on our own..."



Matt didn\'t even see it coming. Mello just walked right in there, boots clipping against the concrete, smiling in the face of two walls of guns turned in clusters towards him. "Near." He growled and, though the white-haired boy on the floor didn\'t look up, his shoulders stiffened just a little. Matt slipped in a second later, stepping back out of the beams of sunlight, as Mello walked past the SPK members. It seemed that everyone held their breath, but Mello stopped beside Near and stood there. Hal reached to touch his arm, but Mello shook her away from him. His shadow reached out before him, parallel with Near\'s, falling just short of the suited Japanese man. Raito Yagami. Kira. Mello peered up from under his fringe, his eyes blazing like the predator, his gun pointed down to the ground between himself and the tiny genius at his feet. His smirk drained the blood from the faces of those watching him. "We could match L."



Beside him, Near smiled. "Together we can surpass L." His face emerged again from its steadfast staring at the floor; Near\'s emotionless gaze, like someone already dead, was trained upon Raito. "And now, we are facing Kira, whom L could find no proof against, the very Kira who L was defeated by. Facing Kira with solid evidence before his very eyes." They watched Raito\'s gaze drag itself away from Mello, his shock still stark. He had evidently believed his Mafia rival to be dead after all, despite the absense of a charred corpse. Raito\'s energy focused again upon Near, his brain reeling visibly. Near\'s chin dipped, his words rising from the hand resting on his knee. "Let\'s see you talk your way out of this one."



Raito Yagami\'s wild stare flew from Near to Mello and back again. At the back of the room, ignored and unnoticed, Matt relit his cigarette. His gaze took in everyone there. His gun never left his hand. Everyone else watched only Kira, revealed as such in watertight evidence, waiting for him to react. "Urgh!" Raito groaned, taking a step forward, as if he was going to attack. Mello\'s gun rose above Near and pointed straight at the Japanese man\'s head. Mello\'s smile never faltered; Near never blinked. "Urgh!" Raito blinked like he was already shot, his fingers moving in thin air. All calculation through his quick mind returning to the same point. There was no talking his way out of this one. There was no saving genius this time. Suppressed emotion roared up and out of him, more volcanic than anything that Mello could have summoned. It was a screaming rage. His fingers stretched like talons; his eyes darkened, feral and staring.



Raito took another step forward and even the FBI agents were too shocked to react in Near\'s defence; but Mello\'s hand never waivered and, several feet behind them, neither did Matt\'s. Before either could pull their triggers, the fire flew from Raito and he went down. Slamming into a foetal position on the concrete paving with such a force that it was a wonder that he didn\'t break his knees. His hands covered his ears and he just screamed out, over and over again; the sound of it bouncing off the walls and hitting the high, metal ceiling. The assembled officers were visibly shaken, only the Wammy alumni coolly watched. But they had been raised to witness this moment. Neither Mello or Near seemed aware that they too appeared part of the horror, so still and watchful. Only Matt, from his vantage point, was noting it and concluding that, should anyone actually look at him, he would probably present the same strangeness to their eyes. He smirked and forced himself to relax, taking a drag on his cigarette, and keeping his gun trained in readiness at a neutral point towards the centre of the two groups.



The Japanese man was crawling, heading for the locked main shutter. Mello\'s aim shifted, prepared to blow the controls to bits should Raito Yagami attempt to use them. But the officer just started tittering. It grew into a maniacal laugh which signalled to all listening that, if he had ever been sane, then he was no longer. He had lost control. The depth of the laughter seemed to buoy him up and he staggered to his feet. Peering up at the sickened faces all around, he ignored Near and Mello, and addressed everyone else like they were beneath his contempt. "That\'s right. I am Kira."



Eyes flashing with madness, Raito pranced about like a Shakespearian melodramatic actor, demanding submission as his due. He was their Lord and Master. He was the God of the New World. Justifications fell fast and thick from his silver tongue; some of them quite persuasive. He was the great hope; he was the end of war; he was the peacemaker and the instrument through which global streets were made safe. Matt rolled his eyes, lit another cigarette from the first and then froze in shock at what he witnessed next. Mello was bending slightly to hear what Near was whispering to him. Moreover, he was nodding in agreement. Mello actually lowered his gun and reached into his jacket pocket. It transpired that he had another bar of chocolate after all, which rendered redundant the one sticking to the inside of Matt\'s jacket pocket. Matt shook his head, his gaze taking in Near just watching Raito with a bored look on his face. Everyone else, Japanese and American alike all seemed devastated, disturbed, and here were the Wammy\'s House trio all acting like this was a Sunday afternoon in England, with someone tantruming over what to watch on the television. Matt snorted aloud, causing the three members of the SPK to turn and notice him. He raised his hands, mouthing back, "Sorry."



Across the other side of the warehouse, Raito\'s monologue was closing with an accusation fired at Mello and Near, "If you claim that this is to avenge L\'s death then that is an act of folly." Near stared back with lifeless eyes; Mello merely smirked a little more serpentine. "What you see before you is Kira, but also the God of this New World."



Near did something which even Matt wouldn\'t have dared in the circumstances. He reached out and touched Mello\'s forearm. Whether it was an attempt at restraining him from raising the gun, in reaction to the slight against his deity, or a reaching to hold his hand, it wasn\'t entirely clear, but Mello leapt away like he had been stung. He was still glaring down at the white-haired boy, when Near used his other hand to squash a puppet of Kira. "No," Near\'s response came from the depths of his fallen hair, "you are just a murderer."



Even Mello smiled, though he was only one of two who did. He stepped theatrically away and let Near speak damning words, with all the lack of tact and compassion that had been his hallmark when they were children. Mello\'s expression said, \'touche\', and he took the opportunity to touch the Death Note on the floor in front of Near. Mello\'s icy, blue gaze targeted the Shinigami and his smirk positively glowered. Ryuk took a step backwards and Mello turned to look back at Matt. With a slight incline of his head, Matt communicated approval and Mello started to beckon him to join them; but Near\'s sililouquy had shifted from calling Kira a \'crazy mass murderer\' to matters of spirituality. Mello paused to listen. The closest Near came to discussing organised religion, Mello\'s Catholicism, was to state \'if there is a God\'. Mello automatically touched his rosary, but Near wasn\'t looking at him. He was just making a point. He was dismissing Kira\'s Godhead and stating that it was for them all to question divinity.



Raito seemed as though he was going to counter with something, but his gaze took in Mello and he stopped. Instead, he rose to another theme. "You think that no-one can kill and still consider themselves to be acting in the best interests of their God." A finger pointed at the blond and Raito screamed. "Hypocrite! You know all about justice bought with murder! Sinning because you are the martyr to bring about God\'s will! You there! With your crucifixes and crosses dripping with the blood of your enemies and proclaiming it all in the name of a man of peace!" He was drifting away, walking to the far side of the warehouse. "You can call yourself righteous and shoot dead your rivals. Hypocrite! Sinner! Do your Ave Marias absorb you of blame?"



In direct challenge to Near\'s early words about Mello being emotional, he had been the picture of calm, if coiled, serenity since he had stepped foot in that warehouse. Matt had not been fooled for one moment. He knew it was to prove Near wrong. But as Raito\'s vicious intellect divined Mello\'s weaknesses, the humanity penetrated. Mello didn\'t rage, as those who knew him might have expected, but bowed his head, hands limp at his side. Near, peering up and thus the only one who could see his expression, just blinked. He was trying to process information with which he couldn\'t empathise, as it owed nothing to secular logic. Thus it was that, when Rester yelled, "He\'s got a note hidden on him!" The shot that was fired did not come from the blond.



All heads snapped around, as Matt stalked down the length of the far wall. None had even seen him begin trailing Kira from behind the SPK members, so intent had they been on the drama unfolding before them. Raito screamed, blood splattering from his shattered wrist, staring wildly for the one who had hurt him. Matt had his back against the wall now, his semi-automatic moving from Kira to the SPK members who had leapt forward to apprehend him. He reached behind him and pulled out a second gun to cover all angles. The Japanese and Americans alike had their own weapons trained on him. Matt shrugged, "I\'m with him." He nodded towards Mello. "Trust me, he\'d be really pissed off if you shot me."



"You idiot!" Raito roared. "Who are you? Who are you shooting at? Damn you!"



Mello left Near\'s side, striding between both parties to step in front of Matt. He turned, keeping the redhead between himself and the wall. A single bullet could have killed them both, but no-one pulled the trigger, despite Raito\'s screaming at everyone to do so. Near watched, puzzled, then turned to survey his puppets. Mello beamed, calling out, "You didn\'t know to make one." Then he turned to Raito, wincing sarcastically at the damage. "It may be that I don\'t have Near\'s calm and he doesn\'t have my passion; but neither of us have Matt\'s ability to take in everything while keeping well under the radar until it\'s time to strike. L didn\'t have two heirs, Yagami, he had three." Mello shrugged. "But please don\'t see it as a blow to your intellectual pride that you didn\'t even know he was a rival to be watched. It\'s a common theme. Two of the best minds in the world have underestimated him and so yours shouldn\'t have even known he was there."



Mello was silenced with a blast of gunfire from Matt\'s left hand aimed at Raito. Simultaneously, Aizawa screamed, "He\'s writing in his own blood!" Another shot was fired, this time from the ranks of the Japanese officers. Raito went down in a thud, hissing air and screaming. Mello turned again, seeing Matt preternaturally calm, his green eyes moving behind the goggles to take in Raito, then Mikami and back again. Mello laid a hand on his chest, trying to stop him, though his own gun was pointing at Raito now. Blood ran down the stones to trickle around their boots and more drama was playing out in the ranks of the Japanese. The youngest officer, Matsuda, was being held back by his senior colleagues. The situation was spiralling out of control.



"Ok!" Mello yelled. "Everyone just calm the fuck down!" He brought his own gun around in a wide arc, signalling the fact that he could and would shoot anyone from this position. "Everyone\'s jumpy, everyone has weapons. Everyone remember your fucking training. Hal, control your men." Mello glared across and repeated in Japanese. "Aizawa, calm your men. I have mine."

"Mikami!" Raito cried, piteously, then in accusation. "What are you doing? Help me!" He raged on, dripping blood, spitting it out in huge, unsavoury globs onto the concrete. He was dying and it was ugly. Tears and snot ugly; face contorted and hidden under more blood. Under the palm of his hand, Mello could feel Matt\'s heart pounding, but the gamer still appeared so still, watchful. Even as Mikami responded with outrage, finally awakening to the fact that Kira was not God. Kira was a fucked up human being, so caught in his own self-righteous meglomania that it didn\'t matter who got in his way. Matt\'s heart only missed a beat as Raito called out next for Takada.



"Kiyomi Takada is dead." Near responded blankly, his gaze shifting from the horrific, pathetic spectacle of the defeated Kira to stare thoughtfully at Mello and Matt. Mello shrugged, then turned his sights upon Mikami, whom he had not known about. On the floor, Raito shrieked at the Shinigami in one last desperate call to be saved. Mello glare left the fourth Kira and he locked eyes with Ryuk. The Death God quickly looked away, seemingly grateful when Near continued to speak. "Don\'t worry. If that Shinigami is willing to write our names down when asked, then that\'s all Kira had to do from the start." Ryuk\'s eyes glowed in the shadows. "So it means that Ryuk does not assist Kira in those ways."



"Well said, Near." Mello agreed, taking his hand away from Matt and smirking pure Mafioso malice at the towering being, as Raito begged at its feet. He kept on smiling, even as the Shinigami agreed to write a name and every gun, but Mello\'s and Matt\'s, erupted into firing at it. Mello took his chocolate bar out of his pocket and snapped off a chunk, barely blinking as the Death God wrote in his book. His smirk grew only a little wider as it was announced that the name being written was Raito Yagami.



Then forty seconds later, it was all over. Kira was dead. They all stood in the mess of his dying, the realisation barely sinking in that everyone in that room had made it out alive. There was a common ground, shared by all, over-riding all past enemities. They were all survivors in the greatest storm of their lives and none were without their scars. Rester bent to speak with his leader, but Near was sitting with his gaze fixed on Mello and Matt. Hal ran across to hover in front of Mello, but his gaze was fixed on Near. Hal\'s voice waivered more than she had wished. "Mello, please... Near... come on, can\'t you...?" Her gaze shifted to the redhead behind the blond. "Matt, is it? Can\'t you do something to, I don\'t know, help them resolve this... shit?"



"Me? Hell, no." Matt shook his head and slid down the wall. Crouching over the streams of blood, he took a Gameboy Advanced from his pocket and switched it on. As it loaded, he took out a packet of cigarettes and, with a practiced movement, opened it with his mouth and extracted one with his lips. The packet disappeared again to be replaced with a lighter. Then he was smoking and playing Pokemon Yellow, while all around him shock sequed into chaotic tension.



Hal looked from him, to Mello\'s stony staring, to Near\'s calm, dead-eyed gaze. Her hand fluttered to her mouth and she exchanged glances with Gevanni, just to have someone who seemed normal, sane, in this messed up company. "But you won." She gasped. Beside her, Mello sucked on a square of chocolate; twenty feet away, Near twirled a strand of hair, his attention taken with the pile of puppets at his side. "Mello, Near, you won." Near had selected another puppet to add to his little grouping of Mello, Near and L figures. He slid down onto his belly to survey them, like they might talk back. Across the warehouse, Matsuda was sobbing, being soothed in Japanese by one of his colleagues. Hal tried again. "You\'re all, what? Sixteen, eighteen, twenty years old? You\'ve taken on the greatest threat in the world and you\'ve won." Despite all of her usual stoicism, fine-tuned by the FBI, Hal could feel herself becoming overwhelmed. "What did that Wammy place do to you all?"



"Hal." Mello reached out to hug her with one arm. "Ignore us, please? We\'re all onto the next puzzle and once that is sorted out, then we\'ll all be partying well into the night. Trust me." He flashed the winsome grin that had won her over in New York. "You worry about your prisoner, let the Japanese worry about their corpse and let us three work out if the world will end if we let our guards down for thirty seconds. You\'re not going to see a tearful reunion, by the way, just so you\'re warned. This isn\'t \'Lassie Come Home\'." He squeezed her waist and let her go, then stepped over to where Near was playing. "Well done."



"Mello is dead." Near shot back. "Matt is in England."



Mello picked up the Mello puppet, despite Near\'s failed grasp to save it. He stuck it over his finger and inspected it. "You spent a lot of time making this. I\'m flattered." He swooped and picked up the Near puppet, placing it on the index finger of his other hand. Mello spoke to the puppet rather than the real boy it represented. "You said that I didn\'t surpass L. You didn\'t say that I didn\'t surpass you." At his feet, Near stared, emotionless, though a frown creased his forehead. "You have no idea how far I thought ahead, do you? You\'re already piecing it together and you are going to work it out." He shrugged. "This is all you have, Near. Let\'s call it a draw." Mello took the final two puppets from the floor. He placed the L puppet beside Near and the anonymous one beside himself. Nodding towards it, he said simply, "Matt." Then lowered his hands until his fingers were at eye-level with the deadpan boy. Mello left them there, until Near reached to retrieve them, and was rewarded with a sudden smile from the teenager. "Understood?"



"Yes." Near continued to smile, even as his head bowed again over his puppets and Mello stood up. But as the blond turned, Near\'s hand rose again. This time it held only the new Matt puppet. Mello stared down at it with distaste, unsure whether to read the play-acting or to take it. Near twirled his hair, staring at the floor. There were shuffling footsteps and suddenly the redhead was at Mello\'s side, his attention seemingly taken entirely by the game. At the eleventh hour, Matt paused it and thrust it into Mello\'s hand with a faint smile. He crouched down beside the white-haired boy with only the briefest grimace of pain. "Matt was in America as well."



"Matt\'s been on a grand tour of the world these past few months." The redhead confirmed and opened his arms. Beside him, Mello\'s whole body stiffened; in front of him, Near froze. Matt switched to the French language. "Mello is walking away and letting you take over as L. That\'s as close as you are going to get in concessions from him, but that\'s a big thing he\'s giving you. You deserve it. You did brilliantly. You solved the puzzle." Matt let his arms close so his hands could engulf the boy\'s shoulders. A hug would have just panicked him. This was frightening him, though it was barely discernable on his fierce features. "You need to remember to eat and sleep properly. If you aren\'t working from Wammy\'s, it might be an idea to mention to these good people that you have Asperger\'s. They can make sure that you are properly looked after, to free up your mind for solving more puzzles. Would you like me to have a word?"



Mello snapped, also in French, "Oh for fuck\'s sake! Who are you? His mother?"



Near just shook his head. "Matt cares about Near."



Matt shrugged. "In a minute, Mello and I are going to walk out of here and you might not see us again. That\'s just the way it is." His fingers squeezed the boy\'s shoulders. "But maybe, if you send up a bat signal, and it\'s important enough..." He nearly fell over as Mello kicked him. "Take care, Near. You owned Kira good and proper. It\'s all good." Matt reached up and Mello helped him rise. They walked out of the warehouse and no-one even tried to stop them.