71 Perfect Timing

He sauntered towards her like a predator stalking its prey and leaned forward to take a sniff of her. Repressing her disgust, she held her breath and controlled her expression.

Waiting till the right moment, she lashed out. Her goal was to incapacitate instead of kill. During her scan, she noticed there were many other Variants in the building and she would require a hostage in order to escape. What better hostage than the leader itself?

Grinning savagely, she watched as the knives entered Peter, excited to counterattack.

The moment the knives entered his body, something odd happened. Peter swelled up and repelled the knives, shooting them back out. Aida quickly dodged with her quick reflexes and created distance between herself and Peter.

Looking on in interest, she watched as Peter transformed and grew bigger. Soon, he had pig ears, a tail and a snout.

"HAHAHA" Aida burst into a fit of laughter. She couldn't help it. There was nothing more fitting for Peter than becoming a pig.

Peter the Pig cocked his head, confused by her reaction. Typically at this point in time, his victims would be screaming and begging for forgiveness. Even if they didn't, they would at the very least watch him stoically and with fear. He had never encountered someone like Aida who would almost fall over from laughter. Perhaps she lost her mind?

Gathering herself, she wiped her tears and she tried to focus on the fight. Taking out a few more knives, she threw them with great accuracy towards the pig's limbs. She had to finish this fight quickly before his minions heard the noise and intervened.

What she didn't know was that his minions were accustomed to hearing wailing and thumps throughout the house as the pig abused his victims, so they would not have reacted even if she made even more noise. The laughing was a new addition, but they would have just figured that Peter drove the victim insane.

***

Downstairs in front of Peter's building, Lucifer, Light and the others stood there before the building.

As Lucifer charged towards the building, he noticed Light and the others on the side surrounding a trash can. He curiously walked over to see what they were doing. As he approached, something strange happened as a child appeared from the shadows and warned them.

Looking up, Light's sharp eyes honed in on the person approaching. Looking closely, he was quickly able to recognize the familiar figure despite the ragged clothes. Putting on a casual smile, he waved lazily as he stepped forward concealing the trash can, "Hey, good to see you again."

Light was about to explain that they were building a bomb as a distraction when they saw Aida strolling down with Peter in tow. Seeing the others, Aida said, "Hey, perfect timing."

Rin, Yukio and Ace quickly ran to Aida to give her a huge hug. They refused to let go despite feeling Aida's cold gaze on them. Rin also quickly handed Xiao Ai to Aida, knowing that it was important. Carefully holding Xiao Ai, she felt her heart was at peace again. They all ignored Peter the pig who was beside her.

Seeing they weren't paying attention, he tried to sneak off quietly when he suddenly found a force holding it back. He noticed Lucifer staring at him with red eyes, and could not help breaking out in cold sweat.

"Not here." reminded Aida. She still wanted to keep Rin and Yukio as innocent as possible.

Nodding in understanding, Lucifer dragged the pig off to the side for slaughter.

Seeing that Lucifer left, she turned her attention to Light. He had kept his head down this entire time, but she could feel the turbid emotions roiling beneath the surface. Gone was the calm and elegant person she had first met. Sighing, she walked over and patted Light on his head. She could sense that the darkness within him had cleared and he seemed to be encompassed by an intangible milky light.

Looking down at the floor, he apologized to Aida, "I'm sorry."

He only said two words, but Aida could feel the strong emotions that were contained within the two words. In fact, Aida completely understood Light's plight. She could tell that Light's reaction was an example of extreme dissociation [1].

While he was encompassed by the darkness, he had an out of body experience where he seemed to be watching everything that happened to himself as though it were just a movie as opposed to something that was actually happening to him. He was emotionally numb and detached with little feeling of pain, and time seemed to have passed very differently for him. He was fully aware of his actions, yet he didn't seem to have any control over his actions at all.

She was very familiar with this state as she also faced the same struggles with her nothingness state. The only difference was that she was able to control it to some extent. In Light's case, the trigger for him to fall into depression was the accumulation of his lifetime's worth of suffering in addition to losing one of his main mental supports. He had fallen into a deep pit that no one but himself could have helped him out of. Thankfully, he was able to pull himself out of it fairly quickly before it could do lasting damage.

With her habitual cold look, she casually said to Light, "No harm, no foul. We're family aren't we?"

Light paused as he digested what she said. Wasn't this what he wanted all along? A family who he could rely on and who would forgive him even if he made any mistake. Not the family who constantly stabbed him in the back and waited for him to fall.

Tears silently streamed down his face as he truly accepted Aida as his family. Up till now, he had mostly just been grateful and looking to Aida as more of a goddess figure that he would support distantly. However, he now treated Aida as the same level of importance as Rin and Yukio. With the three of them plus Xiao Ai around, he would never allow himself to fall into the same despair again or allow himself to be put into such a helpless situation.

[1] Dissociation is a serious mental health issue that people who are depressed may have. If you or someone you know is feeling something similar to what Light experienced, make sure you seek help.