[week 12 - day 6] - video
[The hitomi blinks, resolving into a picture with a flutter of static. When it clears, a face is peering out, framed in a loose track jacket and some unnaturally-pleased bamboo. It's a face some might recognise; it looks like it could be nice enough if it tried-or more than nice: brown eyes, brown hair, fine, sharp features like a clever bird's.
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[His lips purse, as he thinks that over; he doesn't try to hide it. If he takes that at face value for now, there are any number of people who'd like Light dead, and at least four who might have been able to do it. And yet - out of L, Rem, Ryuk and his father, he can't imagine any of them killing him in his sleep. Well, Rem might, but not now; not when Misa is depending on him... And that's a problem all its own, he thinks. What will Rem do, if I never come back? How soon will Misa be executed, if I vanish?..]
[Meanwhile, the conversation continues.] That's difficult to believe, though not more difficult than all of this. [The hitomi wobbles a little, as he nods around at the bamboo and the trees.] I suppose there's not a handy way to tell which you are? The dead ones aren't translucent or some such thing?
No, forget I asked that. [More wobble, as he shifts on the rock he's sitting on.] How did you get here?
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And you were awake at the time? You woke up under the - [his eyes flick over towards it] - tree in, ah, Himorogi?
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Like I said, I was at home, doing my own thing, doing stupid school stuff and then the next I was here.
And if I were you, I'll go to the closest village I can get to. Crazy stuff happens here.
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When you say "crazy stuff" - [the question's delicately balanced, with any answer ready to be analysed six ways from Sunday.] - exactly what did you have in mind? The sort of thing we've been brought here for, is it?
[No, if I'm here, there have to be others. It's not possible that I'm here alone; even if all the messages were faked, I'd still need shelter of some kind. The idea of heading for one of the villages rests uneasily in his head, or he'd have done it by now.]
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The guy knows nothing, remembers nothing, of Marco at all.
Let him think of his conspiracies.]
On the second day I was here, I was checking things out, you know? Got into a village. Then out of nowhere, monsters came. Have you ever read that book, Where the Wild Things Are? With all those monsters with the teeth and the claws?
It's like that, but in the thousands. Like an army out of Hell. Those lucky to survive went to a few safe zones and waited out until the monster incursion disappeared. It hasn't happened again yet, but there's still weird animals out there. Dragons and such. The occasional tiger too, but those are normal, right?
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[...then he looks back to the giant tree, and the impossible waterfall that cascades down it, and the too-fast sun behind it-and he is clearly struggling with disbelief in his surroundings; he's not making too much of an effort to hide it. Fantasy. A fantasy setting. Tigers and dragons. The sorts of thing that would make him doubt his own sanity, if he was going to.]
In the book, the monsters were harmless. Is that how you're supposed to have survived thousands of them?
You must know that sounds an unbelievable story. Which village was it?
[The boy's little lie is nagging at him, but Light's almost sure it's a false alarm. Everyone has boring secrets they think are the end of the world.]
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In the book, they became harmless because some kid in his PJs pretended to be their king or whatever. This time, not so much.
And how I survived? [He makes a gesture with his hand, a peace gesture ironically while presenting two fingers.] Two words: Adrenaline rush. It's amazing just how fast you can run, doesn't it? [Which is more or less true - Marco spent more time running away from the monsters than fighting them while in morph.]
Hisato. And Raisato, Amesato, Kusasato . . . . it pretty much happened on all villages, except that Yomisato one. It didn't even existed until a couple of weeks ago. Or the natives for that matter - for the longest time, the only people were in this place were the ones with the Hitomi. Then these people arrived overnight and claimed they were here for centuries, that we are the newcomers.
Makes little to no sense whatsoever, but that's often the case here.
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[The memory's forgotten in less than a second, then he leans back on his rock, taking the hitomi with him. He doesn't buy it. An army of carnivorous somethings, and next to no prey for them if all the villages were as good as empty, and this kid outran them? On the other hand, children are fast; Light knows that better than anyone, as well as he knows what the instinct to survive can do. But on a foot or an elbow or something, he would have found it far more convincing if the boy had just said he'd hidden...]
[In the end, he nods, and lets it go. Something like that will be trivial to confirm; still, he's letting his displeasure show, a skirt hem flapping in the wind.]
So. Armies that appear, and vanish. Villages that appear, and vanish. Entire races of people that ... I can't help noticing a trend here.
When you say "we", you mean the people who've been brought here like us? How many? Who? [Yeah, that's no innocent question; there's a bit of an arrogant snap to it. Mainly, he wants to see who Marco will mention.]
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[The way Light talks reminds Marco of the Andalite warriors back home - demanding of answers and refusing to give anything else in return. But then again, isn't Marco doing the same thing here, but without the asking?]
How many? I can't tell you that, man. I never bothered with a headcount, because the numbers are always changing. A person disappear and two appear in their place. And the other people I've gotten along with started to disappear and reappear, usually without their memories of this place. Not entirely sure if names can really help you, frankly, but I guess Lelouch would be your best chance.
[Lelouch, Marco knows, can stand on his own against Light's sociopath bullshit. Rin, not so much. Rin's strong and all, but she doesn't have the savvy like Lelouch does.]
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He taps his chin with his fingers a couple of times before speaking. ]
What do you think?
[ A quite simple question. Lelouch is choosing to trust you right now, Marco. ]
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That guy's is a freaking sociopath, that's what.
Maybe you haven't known this, but the only guy who can really keep him on a leash isn't here anymore. You know, that L guy? And I know for a fact that Light is going to dig through everything he can to get ahead. Sorry, Lelouch, but I am not interested in having Elfangor or Rin getting endangered as far as I can help it, especially if he decides it'll be better for him to have an interest in me. Besides, you are the only person besides Rin who actually did went home and return with the memories of this place in tact. Everyone else I know is gone or doesn't remember a thing.
I could have suggested Renji, but who knows what that guy will say?
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[ As Lelouch speaks, he is not looking directly at the camera. There is a faraway, calculating look in his eyes, as if he's holding a conversation while pondering his next move in a chess match. Which in a way, of course, he is. ]
In fact, I'm almost glad you've diverted his attention to me. I need to find out more about him.
Dangerous he may be, but if we can get him on our side...
[ Lelouch has always been an adherent to this rule: Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer. Though, in Lelouch's case, he's learned to keep his friends at an arm's distance. ]
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But then again, Marco's enemies are the sort where you are better off fighting long-distance than close combat. Something about not allowing the slightest chance for the enemy to realize you are actually human and not Andalites.
Question remains on whether Lelouch should know about the notebook. Later, when Marco is not so busy making arrangements with a Hork-Bajir tribe.]
I've never been a fan on that whole "friends close, enemies closer" idea. Giving him access to whatever in the name in friendship or whatever seems too much of a risk to me.
But if you think it's worth it, go for it. I'm just trying to do damage control here.
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I won't give him any information you don't want out there. That's a promise, Marco. [ Another promise. He collects them, it seems sometimes. ]
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[You don't need to be a genius to put that puzzle together. Light's seen himself in the hitomi, as attractive as other people's reflections are said to be but still himself, and yet he remembers nothing of this place at all. Is it possible? That he was here, and then returned without his knowledge? And knowing nothing?..]
[If that's so, then no matter what L knows - for he's under the impression that L is still somewhere in Kannagara - it makes no difference. I can't be exposed here - well, that's something. And time can't be passing - because I've never disappeared, and neither did Ryuuzaki. But if neither of us will remember being here, then from the moment I was taken, no matter how I got here, I'm as good as dead regardless...]
[The thought creeps around the back of his neck; a ridiculous image of L flits through his head, of the detective sewing one of Light's school nametags to a prison noose. Spidery fingers weaving string. Oh, he'd been prepared to give up his memories as a final gambit, Light had, as a last way to win when all else failed - and it had felt like facing suicide, when he'd known (no, he had most certainly known) that he'd get them back. A temporary sacrifice, yes. But this...]
[What makes Light himself are his memories, and his mind. It's woven through him; it's the core axiom that will give him the world. So if he's destined to be reset at some point, to cease to be as he is now... what's the point? Why bother? No! I can't let myself think like that!]
[The hand around the hitomi has fastened into a claw, fingers straining across the still image of Marco's stupid face. Bastard child, how dare he - but no, Light knows it isn't the boy's fault. Not anyone's fault but that of those who've brought him here. He wants to throw the box across the clearing he awoke in, to test it to the point it splinters into narrow silver shards - but he doesn't. No, for he needs it yet; it's the only external resource he has left to him. Nowhere to go but in. So, sitting on his rock in the shade of the bamboo, he folds his head into his lap, and his arms over his head, and hisses all his anger, all his new resentment at his situation and at Misa and at L and at the gods of Kannagara, wherever they might be.]
[And then, quietly at first, he starts to laugh.]
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