Welcome To The Family Ch 20 And Suddenly-Ninjas!
A/N: This is a Death Note fanfic. I don't own Death Note.
***
Light swore that Near was secretly a ninja. Well save for dressing all in black and knowing martial arts-an out of shape, snowmageddon ninja then-but that was beside the point! The way that that kid could get the drop on him defied all logic! He wasn’t human! He must have been born as a Shinigami-polar bear hybrid that could walk through walls or something-that was the only plausible explanation!
“Hey Near. What are you doing out here?” Light asked while affecting a most cool and casual manner, leaning against the wall and shoving his hands into his jacket pockets while he flashed a kind, disarming smile in an attempt to look perfectly normal not the least bit suspicious and braced himself for yet another onslaught of veiled (and not-so-veiled) accusations.
Light reflected that Near was clearly dedicated in his stalking-his obsession of him must have overridden even his agoraphobia seeing as Near was actually outside-it was admirable, really, even if it was incredibly annoying.
Near sat down right there on the cobblestone steps, uncaring if his pristine white pajamas were getting smudged and dirty from sitting on the floor so long as he prevented Kira’s escape.
“I didn’t see you around this afternoon and I thought we’d discuss putting those finishing touches on our project.”
Near said, well-aware that his attempt at casual, non-suspicious social interaction looked just as fake as Kira’s. When Light approached and Near looked away slightly, as if nervous or uncomfortable while tugging at his favorite strand of hair and Light slipped passed him to begin a slow, leisurely descent of the stone stairwell-totally not at all running away-and Near doggedly followed him-totally not at all stalking him.
“Oh, right. Sorry. I thought we finished that already… Wait… Mello didn’t-”
“No. So far our security precautions have held and have foiled all sabotage attempts-all twenty one of them…”
“Wait, twenty one-”
“Yes, twenty one attempts have been recorded and all twenty one have failed” Near assured him, “but I was just thinking about maybe putting some finishing touches on it…”
Their conversation was interrupted by a thunderous roar blasted through the air.
“Woah!”
Light froze when he too noticed what had drawn the attention of his Shinigami-the massive fireball that erupted out of the south west building.
“What?!”
Near just sighed and shook his head. “It looks like some idiot blew up the science labs again.”
“Again?” Light asked as he looked on at the wreckage. “This has happened before?!”
Meanwhile the fire continued to burn. That could be… bad. Most of the students would be headed down to the cafeteria but there was still a chance of casualties if that was allowed to burn out of control.
“Should we… go help or something?”
Near sighed, slightly annoyed at having the flow of their conversation on their project being interrupted by this inconvenience. He gave another hair a compulsive tug and Light marveled over the fact that the kid had yet to go bald. “I wouldn’t worry about it too much. It happens at least once a month. It was probably P, anyway.”
“P?!”
“P,” Near affirmed.
“Dare I ask what the P stands for?”
“Pyro.”
“Well… that makes sense.”
“I call him P though because he’s a pee-pee head,” Near declared in a voice that was as dispassionate as ever.
Light sighed. “Near…”
“Anyway they’ve got fire crews standing by just for this sort of thing... Aw, there, see? They’ve put it out,” Near said as he yet again pulled on his white curls. “At least it wasn’t a nuke this time.”
“…Someone once built a nuke?”
“Yes.”
“Is that even possible?”
“You do realize this is a school for ethically questionable genii, right? Yes. Someone once built a nuke-or tried to anyway. I think the teachers caught it while it was still in the planning stages. The student involved got expelled for that.” Near said with a shrug.
“Oh yes, that makes it so much better.”
“I think I like science!” Ryuk declared with a definitive nod of his head, the brilliant orange of the flames reflecting ominously in his odd, bulbous eyes. “Science is fun!”
“Light? … Light?”
“What?!” Light snapped as he tore his gaze away from the view of the wreckage when he felt the smaller boy tugging insistently at his sleeve.
“Our project…?”
“What? Wait, it wasn’t in the blast, was it? I thought you had it tucked away in your basement?”
“It is. I meant I still needed to talk to you about those finishing touches I was trying to tell you about…”
“Er… Right. Okay, so what did you have in mind?”
“I was thinking racing stripes!” Near declared with boyish enthusiasm, reminding Light that despite his coldness and creepy stalking Near was still very much a child. It threw Light off his game every time.
“On a desalination facility?” Light arched a fine eyebrow in bemusement. If there projected hadn’t been sabotaged then it was, indeed, done. So this had to be the all-time winner for “The Most-Completely-Transparent-Excuse-to-Hang-Out-with-Him” award.
“Blue ones… or maybe teal?” the younger boy pondered aloud most gravely, as if he were weighing nuclear options.
“I suppose a swirly, kind of watery pattern might be appropriate,” Light agreed thoughtfully.
“And the Autobots logo!” Near insisted.
“You do realize that’s copyrighted material, right?”
As they discussed their project and differences of artist opinion Near “escorted” Kira back to the school proper. But no sooner had they arrived than Light was beset by Wammy House’s private army of ninja security guards and tackled to the ground. That settled it-Wammy’s must have a ninja training grounds around here somewhere. Light wondered if he could arrange to sign up for that class. That was, of course, assuming that said ninjas weren’t about to take his head off.
“W-what’s going on?” Light wondered exactly what had changed to make them look like they were all planning on murdering the hell out of him and dumping him in an unmarked grave somewhere…
“It wasn’t Pyro?” Near asked in an odd tone that nearly had an inflection in it.
“No… this was no mere prank! It was a terror attack!” declared one of the ninja.
“Since no alarms were tripped it had to have been done by someone on the inside,” muttered another.
It was clear who they thought was the attacker given they were currently pressing his face into the ground.
“Er… And you don’t think it might have been this Pyro guy?”
The guards glared at Light for daring to speak.
“Of course not! Pyro is denied access to the high explosives-for obvious reasons.”
“And you think that would stop someone obsessed with fire?”
“Well, no. But we do keep him carefully monitored!”
“Of course. Because no one could ever get around the security here,” Light said with what he thought was obvious sarcasm but seemed to go over the heads of his captors. Light supposed that professional ninjas don’t have much of a sense of humor. It then occurred to him that suggesting he could get around the security here wasn’t exactly helping his case and once again cursed his stupid pride for getting him into these kinds of situations. Luckily before he could dig himself any deeper a certain begoggled redhead arrived on the scene, demanding his pound of flesh.
“YOU! THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!” Matt roared, pain and grief turning the normally mellow-mannered gamer into something absolutely terrifying to the point that even the ninja guards seemed to view Matt as more of a threat than the Kira-suspect as they suddenly released their body binding hold to deal with the enraged teenager.
“This is all your fault!” Matt cried again.
“So I gathered,” Light grumbled as he rubbed his sore wrists and wondered what he could have possibly done, or allegedly done, to so offend the gamer.
“If you hadn’t said anything we wouldn’t be fighting and he wouldn’t have even been there!”
“What kind of bizarre breed of logic is that?!” demanded Light. He was beyond vexation that he was, once again, getting blamed for everything-even circumstances that he couldn’t possibly have had any control over.
“What are you even talking about?” Light demanded but Matt was beyond all reason, having collapsed into a sobbing heap on the ground. What’s going on? Was somebody hurt in the explosion?
“Ugh! Say it, don’t spray it!” said one of the less sympathetic kids in the crowd that had gathered to watch the ensuing drama.
“I don’t understand-why am I even a suspect? I had nothing to do with this!”
“You’re already a suspect, Kira!” snarled another of the guards.
“I’m not Kira! And what would this have to do with Kira, anyway? Did a criminal have a heart attack? I thought this was about a building blowing up!”
“I’m sure that’s exactly what you want us to think!” Matt snapped cruelly.
Light sighed and squeezed the bridge of his nose. “Isn’t there camera footage or something?”
“Of course not!” Matt snarled viciously while kicking over a trashcan. It made a satisfying clatter as it smashed around against the pavement and the red brick wall.
“You didn’t think it would be that easy, did you?” said an odd woman in a nurse’s outfit who was fighting obvious amusement. Of course this was a serious situation and Matt’s breakdown wasn’t funny, really-except that it kind of was, and that just made it all the more terrible. The woman was so bizarre-looking that Light wondered why he hadn’t noticed her before-probably because he was being attacked by ninjas. She had Heterochromia iridum; that is she had two different colored eyes-her left eye was a rich mocha brown and her right eye was a bright electric blue and her dyed rainbow-colored hair was tied back in a professional pony tail.
“All the cameras have been blocked,” Roger stated most dourly.
“Then there’s also the matter of how the perpetrator managed to slip by security…” said another ninja security guard who then tossed something at them. Light caught it reflexively to avoid getting smacked in the face. The thing he now held was horribly deformed and withered and appeared to be a dull shade of green-grey but nevertheless there was no denying that they were…
“Apples?!”
Ryuk perked up at the mention of his favorite addiction: “Hey, that’s an apple from the Shinigami Realm!”
Light cast an aside glance at the Shinigami.
“Hey, don’t look at me, kid! I haven’t been back there since I bonded with you and I didn’t bother to bring any of those with me! They taste terrible! Apples in the human world are so much tastier, so much… juicier.”
“Yes, apples,” said Roger oblivious to the byplay between Light and his “imaginary” friend though he found it odd, given the circumstances, how the teen seemed to space out for a moment.
“That is most curious.” Near said thoughtfully.
“That’s an apple? I thought it was a jalapeño!” declared a startlingly green-eyed child.
Roger sighed, “Then you should study your botany lessons more closely, Hoodwink.” The elderly caretaker then turned his suspicious gaze on to the brunette. “We know you’ve been taking apples from the kitchen.”
“And is that a crime? Linda said we could take the food there. This,” here Light held up the apple they tossed at him with barely masked contempt, “is nothing like the apples that come from the kitchens.”
“You have to agree that it is very suspicious that apples were used in the commission of this crime and you have reason to resent Wammy’s House…” said another of the nameless, faceless ninja guards.
The brunette teenager leveled his gaze at his accusers and declared with the utmost calm “This is a setup.” Light was quickly calculating which elaborate lie to spin in order to get out of this when he was startled by the bored-sounding, childlike voice that piped up beside him.
“It wasn’t Light Yagami,” Near declared to Light’s obvious surprise. “I can vouch for his whereabouts before and during the attack. He was out in the old church calling his sister on his little ham radio set.”
Near was utterly unfazed when Light shot him his trademarked death glare. It was hard not to become inured to that sort of thing when one receives death threats from a certain chocaholic blonde on a fifty times a day basis. “What?” asked the pallid boy, his corvid eyes sparkling a glossy black with faux innocence, “Was that was supposed to be a secret?”
Near then addressed the assembled adults again, giving them an alarmingly detailed itinerary of Light’s daily schedule, down to the minute, including his sleep patterns and time spent in the bathroom clarifying that he wasn’t actually helping out of any loyalty to Light so much as this was a testament to Near’s investigative (or rather stalking) abilities. “Between classes, homework, scheming up escape attempts, and the amount of time he spends socializing” (here Near made a face as if that were a dirty word) “Light Yagami wouldn’t have had time to engineer this plot. I suggest you look elsewhere.”
The ninja guards put their batons away, visibly disappointed.
Light breathed a sigh of relief. Who could have ever guessed that Near’s creepy stalking would actually be helpful to Kira? Though it was worrying that they didn’t seem at all concerned by his testing of their security system and communications with the outside world-were they just that confidant about L’s safeguards? Light began to sweat a little as he considered that perhaps he should be alarmed that they weren’t alarmed...
This whole time… have I just been playing right into their hands?
“Guys, can we focus on the real issue here?”
“And what might that be, Nurse Sue?” Roger asked, trying to keep his naturally crabby voice neutral in an attempt to mollify the rising tempers.
“Dr. Caduceus wants this section of the school under quarantine effective immediately.”
Previous Next
***
Light swore that Near was secretly a ninja. Well save for dressing all in black and knowing martial arts-an out of shape, snowmageddon ninja then-but that was beside the point! The way that that kid could get the drop on him defied all logic! He wasn’t human! He must have been born as a Shinigami-polar bear hybrid that could walk through walls or something-that was the only plausible explanation!
“Hey Near. What are you doing out here?” Light asked while affecting a most cool and casual manner, leaning against the wall and shoving his hands into his jacket pockets while he flashed a kind, disarming smile in an attempt to look perfectly normal not the least bit suspicious and braced himself for yet another onslaught of veiled (and not-so-veiled) accusations.
Light reflected that Near was clearly dedicated in his stalking-his obsession of him must have overridden even his agoraphobia seeing as Near was actually outside-it was admirable, really, even if it was incredibly annoying.
Near sat down right there on the cobblestone steps, uncaring if his pristine white pajamas were getting smudged and dirty from sitting on the floor so long as he prevented Kira’s escape.
“I didn’t see you around this afternoon and I thought we’d discuss putting those finishing touches on our project.”
Near said, well-aware that his attempt at casual, non-suspicious social interaction looked just as fake as Kira’s. When Light approached and Near looked away slightly, as if nervous or uncomfortable while tugging at his favorite strand of hair and Light slipped passed him to begin a slow, leisurely descent of the stone stairwell-totally not at all running away-and Near doggedly followed him-totally not at all stalking him.
“Oh, right. Sorry. I thought we finished that already… Wait… Mello didn’t-”
“No. So far our security precautions have held and have foiled all sabotage attempts-all twenty one of them…”
“Wait, twenty one-”
“Yes, twenty one attempts have been recorded and all twenty one have failed” Near assured him, “but I was just thinking about maybe putting some finishing touches on it…”
Their conversation was interrupted by a thunderous roar blasted through the air.
“Woah!”
Light froze when he too noticed what had drawn the attention of his Shinigami-the massive fireball that erupted out of the south west building.
“What?!”
Near just sighed and shook his head. “It looks like some idiot blew up the science labs again.”
“Again?” Light asked as he looked on at the wreckage. “This has happened before?!”
Meanwhile the fire continued to burn. That could be… bad. Most of the students would be headed down to the cafeteria but there was still a chance of casualties if that was allowed to burn out of control.
“Should we… go help or something?”
Near sighed, slightly annoyed at having the flow of their conversation on their project being interrupted by this inconvenience. He gave another hair a compulsive tug and Light marveled over the fact that the kid had yet to go bald. “I wouldn’t worry about it too much. It happens at least once a month. It was probably P, anyway.”
“P?!”
“P,” Near affirmed.
“Dare I ask what the P stands for?”
“Pyro.”
“Well… that makes sense.”
“I call him P though because he’s a pee-pee head,” Near declared in a voice that was as dispassionate as ever.
Light sighed. “Near…”
“Anyway they’ve got fire crews standing by just for this sort of thing... Aw, there, see? They’ve put it out,” Near said as he yet again pulled on his white curls. “At least it wasn’t a nuke this time.”
“…Someone once built a nuke?”
“Yes.”
“Is that even possible?”
“You do realize this is a school for ethically questionable genii, right? Yes. Someone once built a nuke-or tried to anyway. I think the teachers caught it while it was still in the planning stages. The student involved got expelled for that.” Near said with a shrug.
“Oh yes, that makes it so much better.”
“I think I like science!” Ryuk declared with a definitive nod of his head, the brilliant orange of the flames reflecting ominously in his odd, bulbous eyes. “Science is fun!”
“Light? … Light?”
“What?!” Light snapped as he tore his gaze away from the view of the wreckage when he felt the smaller boy tugging insistently at his sleeve.
“Our project…?”
“What? Wait, it wasn’t in the blast, was it? I thought you had it tucked away in your basement?”
“It is. I meant I still needed to talk to you about those finishing touches I was trying to tell you about…”
“Er… Right. Okay, so what did you have in mind?”
“I was thinking racing stripes!” Near declared with boyish enthusiasm, reminding Light that despite his coldness and creepy stalking Near was still very much a child. It threw Light off his game every time.
“On a desalination facility?” Light arched a fine eyebrow in bemusement. If there projected hadn’t been sabotaged then it was, indeed, done. So this had to be the all-time winner for “The Most-Completely-Transparent-Excuse-to-Hang-Out-with-Him” award.
“Blue ones… or maybe teal?” the younger boy pondered aloud most gravely, as if he were weighing nuclear options.
“I suppose a swirly, kind of watery pattern might be appropriate,” Light agreed thoughtfully.
“And the Autobots logo!” Near insisted.
“You do realize that’s copyrighted material, right?”
As they discussed their project and differences of artist opinion Near “escorted” Kira back to the school proper. But no sooner had they arrived than Light was beset by Wammy House’s private army of ninja security guards and tackled to the ground. That settled it-Wammy’s must have a ninja training grounds around here somewhere. Light wondered if he could arrange to sign up for that class. That was, of course, assuming that said ninjas weren’t about to take his head off.
“W-what’s going on?” Light wondered exactly what had changed to make them look like they were all planning on murdering the hell out of him and dumping him in an unmarked grave somewhere…
“It wasn’t Pyro?” Near asked in an odd tone that nearly had an inflection in it.
“No… this was no mere prank! It was a terror attack!” declared one of the ninja.
“Since no alarms were tripped it had to have been done by someone on the inside,” muttered another.
It was clear who they thought was the attacker given they were currently pressing his face into the ground.
“Er… And you don’t think it might have been this Pyro guy?”
The guards glared at Light for daring to speak.
“Of course not! Pyro is denied access to the high explosives-for obvious reasons.”
“And you think that would stop someone obsessed with fire?”
“Well, no. But we do keep him carefully monitored!”
“Of course. Because no one could ever get around the security here,” Light said with what he thought was obvious sarcasm but seemed to go over the heads of his captors. Light supposed that professional ninjas don’t have much of a sense of humor. It then occurred to him that suggesting he could get around the security here wasn’t exactly helping his case and once again cursed his stupid pride for getting him into these kinds of situations. Luckily before he could dig himself any deeper a certain begoggled redhead arrived on the scene, demanding his pound of flesh.
“YOU! THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!” Matt roared, pain and grief turning the normally mellow-mannered gamer into something absolutely terrifying to the point that even the ninja guards seemed to view Matt as more of a threat than the Kira-suspect as they suddenly released their body binding hold to deal with the enraged teenager.
“This is all your fault!” Matt cried again.
“So I gathered,” Light grumbled as he rubbed his sore wrists and wondered what he could have possibly done, or allegedly done, to so offend the gamer.
“If you hadn’t said anything we wouldn’t be fighting and he wouldn’t have even been there!”
“What kind of bizarre breed of logic is that?!” demanded Light. He was beyond vexation that he was, once again, getting blamed for everything-even circumstances that he couldn’t possibly have had any control over.
“What are you even talking about?” Light demanded but Matt was beyond all reason, having collapsed into a sobbing heap on the ground. What’s going on? Was somebody hurt in the explosion?
“Ugh! Say it, don’t spray it!” said one of the less sympathetic kids in the crowd that had gathered to watch the ensuing drama.
“I don’t understand-why am I even a suspect? I had nothing to do with this!”
“You’re already a suspect, Kira!” snarled another of the guards.
“I’m not Kira! And what would this have to do with Kira, anyway? Did a criminal have a heart attack? I thought this was about a building blowing up!”
“I’m sure that’s exactly what you want us to think!” Matt snapped cruelly.
Light sighed and squeezed the bridge of his nose. “Isn’t there camera footage or something?”
“Of course not!” Matt snarled viciously while kicking over a trashcan. It made a satisfying clatter as it smashed around against the pavement and the red brick wall.
“You didn’t think it would be that easy, did you?” said an odd woman in a nurse’s outfit who was fighting obvious amusement. Of course this was a serious situation and Matt’s breakdown wasn’t funny, really-except that it kind of was, and that just made it all the more terrible. The woman was so bizarre-looking that Light wondered why he hadn’t noticed her before-probably because he was being attacked by ninjas. She had Heterochromia iridum; that is she had two different colored eyes-her left eye was a rich mocha brown and her right eye was a bright electric blue and her dyed rainbow-colored hair was tied back in a professional pony tail.
“All the cameras have been blocked,” Roger stated most dourly.
“Then there’s also the matter of how the perpetrator managed to slip by security…” said another ninja security guard who then tossed something at them. Light caught it reflexively to avoid getting smacked in the face. The thing he now held was horribly deformed and withered and appeared to be a dull shade of green-grey but nevertheless there was no denying that they were…
“Apples?!”
Ryuk perked up at the mention of his favorite addiction: “Hey, that’s an apple from the Shinigami Realm!”
Light cast an aside glance at the Shinigami.
“Hey, don’t look at me, kid! I haven’t been back there since I bonded with you and I didn’t bother to bring any of those with me! They taste terrible! Apples in the human world are so much tastier, so much… juicier.”
“Yes, apples,” said Roger oblivious to the byplay between Light and his “imaginary” friend though he found it odd, given the circumstances, how the teen seemed to space out for a moment.
“That is most curious.” Near said thoughtfully.
“That’s an apple? I thought it was a jalapeño!” declared a startlingly green-eyed child.
Roger sighed, “Then you should study your botany lessons more closely, Hoodwink.” The elderly caretaker then turned his suspicious gaze on to the brunette. “We know you’ve been taking apples from the kitchen.”
“And is that a crime? Linda said we could take the food there. This,” here Light held up the apple they tossed at him with barely masked contempt, “is nothing like the apples that come from the kitchens.”
“You have to agree that it is very suspicious that apples were used in the commission of this crime and you have reason to resent Wammy’s House…” said another of the nameless, faceless ninja guards.
The brunette teenager leveled his gaze at his accusers and declared with the utmost calm “This is a setup.” Light was quickly calculating which elaborate lie to spin in order to get out of this when he was startled by the bored-sounding, childlike voice that piped up beside him.
“It wasn’t Light Yagami,” Near declared to Light’s obvious surprise. “I can vouch for his whereabouts before and during the attack. He was out in the old church calling his sister on his little ham radio set.”
Near was utterly unfazed when Light shot him his trademarked death glare. It was hard not to become inured to that sort of thing when one receives death threats from a certain chocaholic blonde on a fifty times a day basis. “What?” asked the pallid boy, his corvid eyes sparkling a glossy black with faux innocence, “Was that was supposed to be a secret?”
Near then addressed the assembled adults again, giving them an alarmingly detailed itinerary of Light’s daily schedule, down to the minute, including his sleep patterns and time spent in the bathroom clarifying that he wasn’t actually helping out of any loyalty to Light so much as this was a testament to Near’s investigative (or rather stalking) abilities. “Between classes, homework, scheming up escape attempts, and the amount of time he spends socializing” (here Near made a face as if that were a dirty word) “Light Yagami wouldn’t have had time to engineer this plot. I suggest you look elsewhere.”
The ninja guards put their batons away, visibly disappointed.
Light breathed a sigh of relief. Who could have ever guessed that Near’s creepy stalking would actually be helpful to Kira? Though it was worrying that they didn’t seem at all concerned by his testing of their security system and communications with the outside world-were they just that confidant about L’s safeguards? Light began to sweat a little as he considered that perhaps he should be alarmed that they weren’t alarmed...
This whole time… have I just been playing right into their hands?
“Guys, can we focus on the real issue here?”
“And what might that be, Nurse Sue?” Roger asked, trying to keep his naturally crabby voice neutral in an attempt to mollify the rising tempers.
“Dr. Caduceus wants this section of the school under quarantine effective immediately.”
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