The Other Side of the Mirror

WARNING!! DO NOT CONTINUE TO READ IF YOU HAVE NOT READ DEATH NOTE OR SEEN THE ANIME. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED!!

THERE ARE MANY SPOILER ALERTS IN THIS FANFICTION NOVEL THAT INVOLVE A LOT OF CLIMACTIC POINTS IN THE ANIME/MANGA.

I REPEAT, DO NOT CONTINUE READING IF YOU HAVE NOT READ OR SEEN DEATH NOTE!!!

YOU'VE BEEN WARNED!


This fan fiction novel takes place after the Yellowbox mayhem of Kira's downfall yet almost all the characters are not actually dead. Main pairing is LxLight, of course, but the whole point of the story is mainly L's relationship with this ghost of his past.

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Oh yes, Kira was very much a live.

As alive as he was, as alive as probably the lot of them had been. No one raised by Wammy's--or as brilliant-minded as Kira--was ever that stupid to honestly let themselves be killed just like that. All of them, raised to be just like the world's greatest detective, had something up their own sleeves.

It was just a mere coincidence that all of them ended up injured while faking their own deaths.

That could be Wammy's own signature--known for faking their deaths to solve epic cases world wide.

Wouldn't that bring much more attention than he needed at the moment. That's the last thing this man needed--apart from the Kira case that revealed too much already than he wanted to--to have an entire population constituted of billions and billions of people KNOWING what he had fought for to keep a secret.

Yeah, that's EXACTLY what he needed... right.

And even though he had hung his own soul on the lifeline, compromised it without a second thought just because he was justice-thirsty and wouldn't let himself be defeated by such a pathetic little college boy who thought himself greater and otherworldly, he had to fool everyone into believing that he'd been outwitted by the warped mind of a 17-year-old. And for what, exactly? So he could be standing there, gazing unblinkingly at the bound, worn-out form of his equal pretty much alive when he was supposed to be dead? To save him from what he had exactly set up for in the end?

Oh yeah, that was the cherry on top of the case. Kira, very much alive, but not entirely by his own doing. Partially the reason why he was here standing now at the edge of the hospital bed, stoically marveling the man that 17-year-old pretentious boy had turned into--wounded by bullets Matsuda's trigger happy finger had induced--was because Kira, the almighty self-proclaimed god, had talked to Ryuk--he was so very sure of it.

But even then, even when Kira was so vulnerable to the world on that little bed with only the thin fabric of the hospital robe to cover his glorious body now tainted with bullet wounds and the blanket making his slumber a peaceful one in sedation, the world's greatest detective could not bear the site that he had even been hurt in the first place. Or worse, that it was Kira's day to die, that the shinigami that haunted him all those years was suppose to take his life on this day.

So where did that leave him?

There was one irrational part in his mind that this wasn't suppose to be the ending of the person who could ever come to equal terms with his wits and brilliance like that--who'd come so far in plot and steps and then took down his guard because he was standing merely against a child in odds.

And then there was the rational part of him that kept nudging a pounding discomfort in his brain--this is what he waited his whole life for! Kira, defeated, defiled, degraded, undermined, tossed like the scum he was suppose to be when L fancied the case at the beginning. How dare he call himself the agent of justice?! But L supposed he was no different. Not that he had a warped sense of mentality and knocked all the pawns that would go against him--besides, most of those pawns WORKED for him so maybe it was a little unfair to compare and contrast either perspective of justice--in order to purge and cleanse the earth of filthy undeserving criminals that did wrong to the innocent. No, not in the sense that Kira had taken it to--not to that extremity and level of delusion, proclaiming himself a god because some otherworldly ultimate killing device had fallen from the heavens upon his feet, evidently choosing him as the almighty Harbinger.

No, not to that extreme.

L wasn't any better because, in a way, even though he proclaimed himself justice, it was a warped sense of God, wasn't it? He took Light into the case, all well suspecting and deep inside knowing that he--that good looking golden boy--was Kira himself. Yet he even befriended him, knowing in the end, this would be the death of him--Light would stab him in the back. Wasn't that the same thing that had happened to God with his disciples? "One of you will betray me by the end of this," or something? Yet he took all of them under his wing knowingly of what would happen.

So again... where did that leave him? In what position was he in to really judge?

Not that it would matter anymore--he had already rescued the cowering Kira from his dying agony. And here he found himself again, face to face with the opponent, the enemy... waiting patiently to wake from his slumber and recuperate to take him under his wing again and to protect him from the outside world.

When would he ever learn...


* * *


"Ryuuzaki... please."

Light sighed for the umpteenth time, pinching the bridge of his nose before wincing lightly.
He still remained annoyed.

"Gomenasai, Raito-kun."

L had been prodding at his bullet wounds, doing daily check-ups for potential changing in binding or to just tend to the wound properly as needed. He was being particularly careful, but some of them were still tender. Some of the bullets had dug deep into the skin and been left inside for far too long without immediate and proper medical attention. Those were going to be the hardest ones to heal.

Of course, the bastard was just stalling away the attention from the real problem; dodging the questions as per usual and finding a way to successfully distract Light away from his own worries.

Light would still revisit them later, however.

And L knew it too but he was too damn childish about it and highly stubborn.

"Ryuuzaki, are you going to answer my question?" Light could be just as stubborn, though. It was his right to know, anyway.

L's owlish expression didn't shift in the slightest. His deep obsidian eyes averted from Light's amber gaze back elsewhere, thumbing his lip as routine, and returned his gaze to Light's shapely form.

"Are you going to answer mine?"

Light's turn to stiffen. He'd been dreading L ever even touching that subject... not that it didn't mean he couldn't dodge it easily and well-faked as he always did with everything else pertaining in the Kira case, buuuuut the detective always saw right through his well-constructed facade--nothing could go through it unless he didn't know what or expected it. Light had to figure out a way to be 10 steps ahead again, but his brain just couldn't think properly at the moment for such critical brainstorming.

So it was battle of the immature then. Both of them were going to continue to be childish and stubborn about this until either answered. Fine. Not like he had played that game before--a simple lie would suffice to end the game with unsettling truths. Nothing between them wasn't a game of who knew who was telling the truth, the lie, who was being honest or who was analyzing what the other would do or say to then foreshadow 3 days ahead.

"I didn't make a pact with Ryuk. You know me, Ryuzaki. I wouldn't put my life on the line for anything so ridiculous." His arms folded around his chest, feigning offense.

True. Light considered himself to be too precious of a jewel to risk himself like that. He had to value every iota of time he had left in his future--each ticking second was another precious moment wasted that he wasn't flaunting his meticulous perfection to the world.

"I guess you're right," the detective finally answered after a moment of staring widely at his partner.

With a victorious lift of his head, Light went to pursue once again the matter of his right--how was L alive? No one survives the supernatural powers of the Death Note... but here he was, in the flesh, very much alive and well, taking care of the fallen "god."

But L's constant dodge of subject and non response was irritating him to no avail--asking him in this way was futile and his wounds were agonizing him to a whole new level of pain he had never experienced in his life. His own downfall had depressed him internally, but nothing too deep. He would probably get over it quickly if he could find the damned Death Note...

"Ow, L!"

"Gomenasai." L apologized, shrugging back to himself, prodding his thumb back unto his lower lip, owlishly staring at Light. He wished he could make him stop thinking about the incident, knew that it would only affect his warped mentality even more until driving him into a self-induced hysteria.

"How... How did you survive, anyway?" And this is where his acting skills would pay off, hopefully.

"The Shinigami made a mistake when spelling my name."

"That's impossible, L," Kira was quick to interject. "Shinigamis can see people's name and lifespan regardless of whatever aliases people may hold to the world. They see your chosen name. It's impossible to mistake that particular chosen name and make a slip, they take away our life to add to theirs."

And even though what Light said was utterly true, he still sounded so high and mighty about it...

"Hai."

"Then your story is obviously a lie, Ryuzaki." Light's amber gaze finally burned through L's form in front of him, crouched and blank as usual, searching for some reassurance that this was all a fallacy and that the detective was just pulling his strings to make him play along.

"She started disintegrating while scrawling my name, Raito-kun."

Oh.

Well, that explained a lot.

Light's arms folded again over his chest--he'd given up on the subject even though he'd gotten the answer he was questioning about, right?

But not the answer he wanted to hear.

"Is something bothering you, Raito?"

Sometimes, it felt like L could read his thoughts on the spot instead of making up some magical deduction out of his expressions. The notion still didn't pass him, however. It was creepy the way he could tell so easily, the way no one else could believe all the lied he spoon-fed them.

It was these moments that Light realized why L was still in the place he was, facing him as an equal and... as the lover no one else knew they actually were even after all those nights of seduction over the camera's blind spots, in the bathrooms and in the bed when they were handcuffed. No matter what they actually meant, even if it was to get the other out of the subject, to get information or to simply distract from the task... sometimes, Light wasn't faking, and those times were usually with L.

"So... when are we going to your manor in England, Ryuzaki?" Aversion tactics from the obvious mind-boggling problems.

If L knew what was going through Light's mind at this moment and knew he was using this question to stall away the spotlight from shining on him, he certainly didn't show it.

"As soon as possible. You will have to wait in the car for probably a few minutes before going in."

Light's eyes narrowed immediately with suspicion, the amber gaze burning in L's direction. He had done something, something Kira didn't like and something he'd have to suck up and endure like a good boy--like a dog on a leash. Peachy.

"Why?"

"Just--"

"Don't give me any bullshit right now, L, I am not in the mood. Just tell me why do I have to wait in the car and stop beating around the fucking bush. I will find out eventually." Light was clearly agitated by whatever decision L had decided to take and he wasn't privy about it immediately.

L kept blank as always, owlish gaze locked on Kira's razor narrow gaze underneath the honey tresses that fell lightly framing his eyes.

"Matt and Mello are staying with us." L waited for Light's explosion.

"WHAT?!" There it was. "L, tell me you're joking! This is not funny! With your wannabe-successors that fell behind Near?! THAT WANT ME DEAD?!"

"They refuse to go back to Wammy's. As my appointed successors, I will take care of them properly and they will be out of your way, I promise. You will barely even know they're there." L finished, stood up from his crouching position and stalked away to the computer, engrossing himself in the monitor screen, obviously done with the conversation. Light wasn't in any mood to talk about this like a civilized person and he still needed to work on bugging the place now that Matt was there just in case. L was going to bring along the Death Note in a safe, but knowing Light, he had to be extra careful so Light wouldn't know that the Death Note was actually along with him and not with the SPK still as he thought it had been.

Light, however, wasn't buying it and was obviously stewing over the fact that he had to be in a house with people that thought they could remotely compare to him and surpass him. Especially braniacs from Wammy's. He didn't need more of those, L was already too much. Near, however... Near was on his hit list if he ever got his hands on another Death Note.

"Fine, whatever. I refuse to spend time next to you, however, if they're even 50 feet near my presence."

L didn't seem to be hearing Light's demand, but Light knew otherwise, which is why he even bothered in voicing his childish thought in vain. Kira prized himself in believing he was exclusive, sacred and the only one who deserved all the attention and had his ways of getting it which didn't require even lifting a finger. He was in a glory-ridden high that he was so high and mighty, perfect, primp and pristine in his golden glory that he was desired when denied contact.

Not that it wasn't true... the bastard knew how to tempt anyone and make them quiver with anticipation, but his techniques often didn't work on L and he was working his way up with the goal of cracking that decision.

Suddenly, the phone in L's pocket vibrated, and in seconds, it was held firmly between his fingertips up to his ear.

"L-desu."

"L, this is Roger. I'm sorry if I'm calling you at a bad time, this is important."

"What is it?"

"I know you told Matt and Mello to go to your manor, and they're safely there, but we're afraid that they might be in danger."

Silence from L's part. His expressionless face gave nothing away.

"Er... anyway, while Mello was trying to organize the stacks in the library, there was a fire. Ignition points recovered 13 different books. Do you want me to mail you the data?"

"That won't be necessary."

"Er... L..."

"That won't be necessary. I will be arriving as soon as possible. Arigato-gozaimasu."

13 different books...

A sudden chill ran down L's spine at the odd mention of 13 books with points of ignition.



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Hey all :) Lilly here. I hope you all enjoy the first chapter in my BxL fic/story/novel whatever you wanna call it LOL.

Little things: It might start like this, LxLight and totally irrelevant, but even though I wanted to make this a short story, my muse usually ends up writing itself and I can't help how my muse entertains itself when it comes to writing, so I guess the plot will slowly build up? LOL. Or it might turn into just... some story with no point at all. xD Let's see how it goes. Wish me luck!

I assure you there probably won't be many chapters and they won't be that long (or there might be a lot of chapters but not that long) but BxL is coming! Thanks for reading if you did and I hope you enjoy my work in progress. :) Please leave reviews! Lolol. Highly appreciated.