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Justice Lives Ch.1
Justice Lives Ch.1
This has been on my mind for a while.
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I :: Resurrection
Light's breath comes in deep gasps as the oxygen floods his now moving lungs. He grasps at his face...his eyes are open, but he can’t see anything. He’s surrounded in pitch black darkness just as he has been, but it’s a different kind of darkness. This one feels real, as if there is something there. He notices a faint square outline of light at his feet coming from the edges of the box that seems to be encasing him. There are surfaces and he has flesh and his hand clutches the white shirt that clings to his cold body. Light's breathing is still short and gasping as his brain starts receiving blood and it suddenly hits him—he is breathing. He’s alive.
It’s odd, considering that the last thing he remembers is watching Ryuk's morbidly grinning face as he died cursing everything from Near to his own foolish reliance on Mikami. He could remember his heart stopping and the pain that had filled his chest as he suffered that far too ironic heart attack.
He died.
Matsuda shot him, Near mocked him, and Ryuk killed him. He remembers dying. But that isn't the point. Light moves his arm up and feels the ceiling of his small enclosure with the palms of both his hands. Where is he? Ryuk said that when people die they turn into nothing and went nowhere. Mu, is what it was called. There is no heaven and hell; Light was certain that's where he ended up, but he certainly wasn't there anymore. The brunette's mind tries desperately to wrap around the situation, but he can't come up with an explanation. He only feels as if he’s been ripped, disembodied, and he’s cold—so cold.
Listening intently, he hears a metallic tapping over his heavy, but appreciated, breaths. Light squints his eyes towards the glowing outline at his feet and taps the side of his box-like prison. It echoes the same metallic noise, so whoever is doing the tapping must be outside. Maybe if they hear him, they'll let him out. Even if it’s Near, Light would be happy to find out what the hell is going on. Before he can make any move to do so, however, there’s a sudden yank that makes him slide up and hit his head on the top of the metal box. A hiss of pain escapes his lips and he finds himself bathed in light and exposed, staring at a very hideous yet familiar face about an inch from his own. Light screams--or he tries to. A clawed, gangly hand smothers his mouth.
“Nice to see you, too.”
Light takes deep, panicked breaths through his nose as his wide, almond-shaped eyes search the room. It is a simple white room and he’s in a sliding drawer of some sort. There are metal tables with sinks and what look to be medical tools. In front of him, with a bony hand still on his mouth, is someone that the brunette should be pissed at, but he’s too confused to manage it. He pulls a hand up to tug away the tight grip but stops to stare at his hands. They’re deathly white. It’s as if no blood has been pumped into them for a while, but since Light is supposed to be dead that would make sense. Unlike everything else that is happening right now. On top of it all, things seem to be taking ten times as long for him to process compared to how fast he used to think. A pale, shocked Light looks around the room one more time and finally comes to a dreary conclusion: he is in a morgue.
“Calmed down, now?” Ryuk chuckles at the spooked human before pulling his hand away. He can't blame the kid; he’s been dead for a few days. Getting yanked from nothing can be quite taxing, especially when the host body's been cold and not unused for so long. Normally he'd let Light sit and adjust, but he sort of needs to hurry things along before that doctor guy comes back. “You're lucky your wake and funeral got postponed a day or two. Otherwise you'd be a pile of ashes and that's hard to resurrect.”
“Ryuk?” Light rubs his chest and feels his heart beating. He hugs his arms around himself and keeps rubbing to build up warmth. Looking back up at the shinigami and around the room again, he isn’t any more sure of what is going on than when he first awoke. “Ryuk—”
“We'll talk later,” the shinigami interrupts and grabs Light by the arm to pull him from the drawer. Dead bodies in drawers; humans are such a riot. “We gotta go.”
Light's legs buckle under him when his bare feet hit the cold floor. He can hardly walk; his body still feels mostly numb and cold. Ryuk drags him from the room by his arm but he still has no idea what on earth is going on. He’s smacked into a metal table when Ryuk pulls him around a corner and some metal instruments clatter to the floor noisily. Light rubs his side, more out of knowing that it should have hurt than from actually feeling the pain. “What...?”
“I don't know when they're coming to get your body so we need to leave now.” Ryuk rolls his eyes as his favorite human still looks disoriented and stumbles around as if his legs are made of jello. He should have seen this coming and prepared better for it. It’s a shame they hadn't left his body alone sooner. Stupid humans crowding his things. “That doctor likes to come in and out all the time.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You're supposed to be dead.” Ryuk heads towards a large window at the end of the (thankfully empty) hallway. He just has to hope no one is out on the streets to spot a flying brunette in funerary garb. Though, that would be sort of funny to watch people pointing and screaming and stuff.
Light blinks and realizes his arm is bruising from Ryuk's firm grip. The pain is helping him get a more solid grip on reality. With that it mind, Light notices that they’re standing in front of a window when he asks, “And I'm not?”
“Very good.” Ryuk cackles and yanks Light up, getting him situated to hold onto his neck. The shinigami shoves open the window so he can get Light through it as well (he really hates that stuff in the human world can't phase through walls like he can) and proceeds to do what he does best. “Hold on.”
“s**t!” Light yelps when Ryuk leaps from the building and starts gliding through the dark evening sky. There is no way this is real. He’s still dead and suffering from the backlash of the insanity of absolute nothingness. That’s it. This is just a dream or something. Light clings to Ryuk's neck for fear of falling all the same. Despite what he’s telling himself in his head, it still feels real. And he can feel Ryuk's claws at his waist from where he’s being held up. Looking down below him, his eyes widen. They’re really, really high in the air. “Ryuk...”
“Calm down. You're going to strangle me holding on that tight.” The shinigami snickers. He knows this is going to be a blast. Humans are far too much fun to play with. “I'm not going to drop you.”
Light swallows and calms down a bit as Ryuk's grip tightens. It seems like the shinigami is going to keep his word as far as not letting him drop to become a painful splat to the ground. He watches the cars and a few people bustling below his feet as they fly through the air, too high to be spotted. His hair blows in his face and he risks pulling an arm down from Ryuk to brush it out of his eyes.
“What's going on?”
“I brought you back to life.” Ryuk looks down for a good spot to land. Light is talking to him, but it’s clear his attention is split between the view and the breeze through his hair. Or possibly the very long drop beneath them. Strange...Ryuk distinctly remembers Light saying that he would have liked wings to fly. You'd think the kid would be ecstatic to get this chance. “We're gonna' land now.”
“Yeah, alright,” Light mumbles as he feels air whooshing around him as they descend. It feels so good against his skin it almost hurts. Ryuk lands in a small park among some trees and plops Light on the ground under one with stray foliage splaying in all directions. The young man tries standing on his own, but his legs refuse to cooperate and he falls flat on his butt. “Ow...mmph...”
“You okay?” Ryuk covers his mouth as he laughs. Light is pouting and has a pained, almost childish look on his face. It makes him look much younger than he actually is and reminds Ryuk of when Light was in high school before the police and his days as the new 'L.' And even then, Ryuk couldn't remember the last time he saw Light this out of sorts. It was almost endearing. “That looked like it hurt.”
It did, he thought to himself, but Light keeps his mouth shut and rubs his backside before looking up at Ryuk. He really is standing there in all his gangly, ugly glory. Ryuk looks exactly the same as he remembers the shinigami and he even has that infernal notebook hanging at his waist, as always. The last rays of the day's sun glint off the rings on his long fingers and the young man turns his attention back to his own body. Specifically, Light looks down at his hands to see that they’re returning to their usual sun-kissed shade, no longer a ghastly white color, probably from all the blood that was pumping through his veins again.
“You brought me back to life? Did I hear that right?”
“Hyuk hyuk hyuk, yup. Your hearing is just fine.” Ryuk laughs, pulling out a little white object and holding it in front of Light's eyes. The amber eyes narrow and focus on the tiny object. Ryuk laughs and clarifies before Light can even get the question out. “I did it with this.”
Light's brows furrow as he takes the object from Ryuk's hand and stares at it. If he didn't know any better, he would think it’s just an ordinary, run of the mill eraser. But he knows about regular, run of the mill notebooks that could kill people. Light ventures a query to clarify, “An eraser?”
“A Death Eraser.”
Ryuk laughs raucously as Light lifted an eyebrow at him. The ex-Kira looks at the eraser and back up at the shinigami, and once again back and forth with his mouth slightly agape in disbelief. “You've got to be kidding.”
“No joke.” Ryuk snatches the little eraser back from Light before the young genius can completely regain his bearings. He’s already getting that bit of ego and recognition back in his eyes and Ryuk only has one of these things. Getting a Death Eraser isn't as easy as conning a Death Note out of a fellow shinigami. Ryuk makes sure to slip the eraser back in its place in his belt loop, tucked away safe and snug. “As long as the body is still in one piece, if you erase the name from the Death Note with that they'll come back to life. Neat, huh?”
“Wait.” Light thinks back on all the times he's written names down and the way a shinigami could die...something just isn't adding up. One would think this would have come up in the scrawled rules somewhere. It seemed like an important loophole that required some sort of mention. Light narrows his eyes once again and frowns at Ryuk. “I thought shinigami can’t save a human life or give life...or else they die. That's why Rem died, isn't it? By extending Misa's life span?”
Ryuk shrugs and flicks Light in the head. The young brunette swats the gnarly hand away and Ryuk chuckles again. “Hyuk hyuk, I didn't really extend your life span, you know. I just took your years when you died and gave them back when I erased your name. You're not living any longer than you were supposed to.”
Light sit up straight and looks down at the ground. He grips the grass with his hands and enjoys the texture and cold, moist dew, but the slight dampness is starting to soak into his clothes and becoming distinctly uncomfortable. That could only mean one thing.
“I'm alive.”
“Yes.”
“I'm not dead.”
“Yes.”
“Ryuk.”
“Yeah?”
“Why the hell didn't you tell me all this earlier!?”
Ryuk flinches. Yeah, Light is getting back to his old self, alright. So much for innocent, endearing Light. “I forgot?”
“God, you're an idiot.”
“I can always write your name back down, you know.”
The young man’s eye twitches and he looks up with a remnant of his earlier pout. “Sorry,” he says half-heartedly, “I’m stressed from dying, that’s all.”
“Yeah, well at least you're not in jail.” Ryuk snickers as Light looks at him, seemingly pondering that statement. “Though, I might have to peak in and see their faces when they find out your body’s missing.”
“Hm.” Light tries standing again. He has to look up at Ryuk to talk to him even if he stands, but at least the distance wouldn't be as far. Light's legs are unsteady, but he manages to keep his balance this time. His strength is slowly returning. “So, why did you bring me back?”
Ryuk tilts his head and answers simply, “I was bored.”
Light actually laughs and wipes a hand down his face. “Is that it?”
“Pretty much.” Ryuk pokes the human in the chest. Light flinches and rubs the spot tenderly. “It was only a day and I felt like that time when you gave up the Death Note all over again. The only difference was this time I didn't have your return to look forward to.”
“You didn't have this planned out at all when you first wrote my name down?” Light holds his head by the chin and ponders that. He was back because of the whim of a shinigami who was forgetful as sin. How do you forget something like a Death Eraser that brings people back to life?
“Well, I remembered about it when Matsuda was shooting you. It just sort of popped into my head.” Ryuk chuckles. “I guess I decided to do it then because it was the only thing I could think of to get you out of that mess without expanding your life span and still having some fun afterwards. Besides, like I said: it's really boring when you're not around.”
Light blinks before getting a rather smug smirk on his face. He puts a delicate hand to his chest and cocks his head to the side. “You knew you were going to miss me that much, Ryuk? I'm touched.”
“Ha, you wish.” Ryuk snorts and stretches his arms out. “I was going to miss the apples.”
“The apples.”
“Yup.”
“You brought me back from the dead and snuck me out of a morgue...for apples.” Light drops his hand and gives the shinigami a deadpan stare.
“'Bout sums it up.”
“You're hopeless.” Light shakes his head, but he can’t help but have a little smile on his face. He’s alive, after all. Looking up at the sky, he watches the sun in the sky as the warm reds and yellows tone down into a subdued shade of blue. He was alive and he couldn't have felt better. “But...thank you.”
“No problem.”
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