Violence, religion, injustice, and death

[chilichoc]

*The fact that she could smell the rain before she opened the door should've tipped her off that this wasn't really the room with the Wammy's House grounds, but she's already taken the first step in

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[chilichoc]

*Mel's mind is too fuzzy for her to puzzle out whether Light can see her; she sits up from where she fell, huddles around the ache in her chest, hands knotted at her rosary, and watches.

What is he doing; does he really think he can talk his way out of this? She remembers him admitting to Miha who he was, but she's never seen Light like this, flaunting that he's Kira, full to the brim with it.

Mel knows Light only sees contempt when he looks at Near; she sees a sort of purity, like the face of a statue of Justice.

He's repeating himself, she wants to say when Light begins talking again. Buying time for some reason... The others realize why the same time as Mel, and she's as surprised as anyone when Matsuda's the one who fires. When Light rails against his father, Mel abruptly remembers that this version of Light is dead: this happened. She doesn't need to break him; he's already broken, and this is what did it.

She hates him, more than Light from her world, probably more than anyone, but it's pitiful, in the most literal sense, as he's reduced to one goal, and then even farther, to the simple need to live; as he begs for people who are dead, who aren't there, to save him. She hears the scratch of Ryuk's pen, and she doesn't look away from Light's death. She wants to see it, but even as she savors his defeat, a buried part of her grieves for what is human in him, for what he could have been. She thinks again that Sayu loves her brother, but hates Kira, and she crosses herself unthinkingly.

If anyone deserves this, it's him, but she has to wonder: Does anyone deserve this?

She's shaking, she should go. She doesn't want to be here when he wakes up. Her muscles still won't obey her.*

[curtainwizard]

[It doesn't seem like twenty-five minutes before Light's eyes start out of his head, and he convulses into a ball, and thrashes for air like a drowning man: a screaming inhalation around useless vocal chords that couldn't, and can't, save him. Hands - both intact - grabbing at himself, where he was ripped open. Leftover pain, throbbing deep inside like hammer blows.

For a few seconds, he gasps like that, clinging to himself. His throat and lungs are screaming: he's got to breathe, nothing else matters. Then his hands slowly spider up to cover his face, his eyes. The sound that comes out through his fingers is keening, broken: not a sob, but a laugh, almost inaudible, cracked and hissing and so, so lost. His hands don't move, except that his thumbs are gliding back and forth over his cheeks and his jawline, whispering reassurance. It looks horribly intimate, something nobody else should ever see. Something he might kill them for seeing.

It's not the sheer relief and confusion of the first time he woke up in the mansion, nor is it the screaming violation of the first time he woke in this room. It's a hollowness, a disbelieving pain - not at the agony, or the humiliation, or the shame. It's going back to who he was, back to that confidence, that secret space he thought nobody could take from him, and having it drain out of him drop by scarlet drop.

He hasn't seen Mel yet, but a whole army could be in here with him right now, and he couldn't care.]

[chilichoc]

*Mel can't watch this; she knows it too well: the feeling of having to put yourself back together piece by mental piece. She curls up again, knees to her chest, fingers of her left hand at the rosary beads, as if relearning how to feel them. Her cheeks are stiff with dried tears, her eyes sore when she squeezes them shut. She gropes for something neutral to say, to warn him she's here. It's bad that she is, but sooner will be better than later. Her voice comes out low and ragged.*

You're in one piece.

[curtainwizard]

[It should alert him, and bring him back under control, but his nerves are still sandpaper-raw. At the sound of her voice, he screams, all ragged, frustrated denial, and having to make it please god stop. Throwing himself backwards, his arm goes out to block: stop it, don't be here, you can't be here.]

M-Mel?

[It's not the usual, knowing lilt he places on it - his accent is all over the place, and it comes out more like "Mery". Still tucked down into himself, his face is hidden, blind hands warding her off.]

[chilichoc]

*She hunches even tighter at the noise, and fuck, she wishes she were anywhere but here.*

...yeah. I just woke up myself.

[curtainwizard]

[It's a bandage torn off too fast, spilling him onto the ground for the world to see. He wants to leap on her, claw out her eyes and tongue just so she can't ever see it again, or tell anybody else. He wants to scuttle back against the wall just to feel it support him.]

Wh-

[What did you see?]

What happened to you?

[chilichoc]

*I died, and I meant to. But all she says is one word.*

Takada.

[curtainwizard]

[The laugh, again, cracked and eerie and terribly, frighteningly vulnerable.]

Ah, like Sayu.

[chilichoc]

*She thinks she ought to know what he means, but she can't connect the dots. She lifts her head slightly from her knees.*

What?

[curtainwizard]

She-

[Breaking off: everything's so thick, and heavy, and maybe he should just be quiet?]

You took them both.

[The unconscious conflation is very unlike him - but then, he is still tucked in a ball, hugging himself. As if he isn't sure he won't start bleeding again. From behind his own knees, he's watching Mel with eyes narrowed to painful slits.]

[chilichoc]

Had to.

*At least she knows that now: the Mel who just died didn't give her life for nothing.*

[curtainwizard]

[Another laugh, quieter and quicker and darker. It hurts, and he's still so cold.]

You didn't have to.

[chilichoc]

*She remembers her thoughts as she drove. Nothing left to live for, or even to hope for. Just the cold determination: I'll take Kira out with me.*

I did. And. She killed me.

[curtainwizard]

What did you expect?

[He remembers the shell of the church, and the photographs of the charred bodies, and something about that keeps the ghost of triumph off his face. It might be the memory of Mikami's mistake, or it might be, far, far down, the whisper of conscience around Takada's death.]

[chilichoc]

I expected exactly that.

*Very, very quietly, but there's a hard edge to it. She caught that he didn't gloat, when it would be so easy to, when she would expect him to, and wonders why not.*

[curtainwizard]

[He's quiet, for a while, getting used to being again, and breathing again: a wounded child freezing water into Lego blocks and building it into walls around him.

Anyway, he'd already known what Takada did.]

You were the random element. You and him.