Chapter [2]

Though still only a child, his wisdom and intellect superseded most people's, including all in the room but his nefarious opponent.

The bangs from his curly snow white hair did little to hide the grim triumph in his eyes, and his voice, though still small and tender in it's pitch, exhibited an uncanny amount of enmity, victory, and disgust.

Though his body was clothed in a loose shirt and baggy pants, everyone could nonetheless tell from the bulging veins in his arms and neck that the usually calm and cool boy was now very tense and quite aggressive.

The child genius had spent over two years hunting the world's most notorious mass murderer, two long, painful, infuriating years of dead ends, of close calls, of his enemy destroying everything and anything he could get his hands on, taunting him all the while.

The reward for all of his efforts and pains now lied before him, and nothing nor no one could take it away from him. Nothing. No one.

Teru Mikami, Kira's personal executioner, stood only a few feet away from his lord and master.

Only minutes before he had stormed into the Yellow Box and, with frantic speed and monstrous energy, wrote everyone's name down into his Death Note.

His eyes had been scorching then, burning red with both wrath and glee, as he set about his work; the eyes may have originally belonged to a death god, but as Teru's sordid murder record had shown all, the evil eyes suited him just fine.

Kira was his liege, but everyone knew that Teru was the man responsible for making mankind fear Kira even more than they ever had before: wherever he walked, necks were snapped, guns were shot, and lives were snuffed as quickly and easily as if they were candles.

Teru's misanthropy was that great, and Near knew that, if left to his own devices, the psychopath would end up choking the life out of the world. No wonder then that the rest of the SPK referred to him derisively as "the Angel of Death".

Not that Teru's delusions of divine glory would help him now.

The Death Note that Teru had used only minutes before was a fake, planted by Gevanni in his gym locker after weeks of following Kira's proxy and establishing his modus operandi.

Teru had been tricked, and he knew it: he flexed his strong, veined hands angrily and regularly, occasionally glancing over at his master, as if awaiting a command that would get the two of them out of this.

No such command was given, and while the atmosphere was tense with resentment and hatred, the KTU and SPK detectives were at least relieved in their belief that no amount of trickery nor cunning could save Mikami or his dark god.

However, Teru's appearance precluded them from feeling entirely self-assured or thoroughly confident. Simply put, he was one scary lunatic.

He was of average weight (though physical conditioning gave him a good fifteen pounds of extra muscle) and of average height, but his midnight black suit and slacks, his jagged, shoulder length raven hair and his flaring nostrils all gave him the illusion of looming, of being taller and bigger than he actually was.

He used these traits to intimidate everyone around him, despite his capture. Mikami was going to spend the rest of his life in prison but considering all the fresh meat he was going to be able to mutilate, flay, and shank, Near wasn't quite sure whether this was a curse or a blessing.

Someone stood in the middle of room, surrounded by enemies, flanked by the men he had once called his allies and even his friends.

He looked more than normal; he was beautiful. His hair was a silky brown, his eyes were a variant of somber mocha, and a conservative suit and tie completed his unremarkably handsome appearance.

This man was Kira, and while Near considered himself at least a skeptical agnostic, he knew now beyond a shadow of a doubt that not only did the Devil exist, but that he walked among man.

The wolf in sheep's clothing, stripped of his mask, stood revealed to all but did not look as if he had been played.

Instead, he moved his gaze from one of the room to the other, sober, focused, methodical. No one here except for Teru was very spiritual or superstitious, no one there believed in angels or demons or bogeymen, but there was something there that they could not deny, something that burned in the back of their heads like so many wasps set loose upon the damned.

Here in this Yellow Box, in this warehouse, in this room, an Old Testament god stared at his foes, eyes alight with a cold, malevolent fire, the room growing colder and colder with him in it.

Hell was a cold and dark place, and the King of Hell was a cold and dark man.

Light Yagami stared at his enemies, looking bored. "You still talking?" he asked Near.

The detectives of the KTU and SPK chose not to reply.

Lying, manipulating, and plotting came as naturally to Light Yagami as swimming did to a fish.

It now remained to see if he had anything worthwhile to say or if he was just clutching at straws.

They would not let the snake twist his way out of justice again.

Light sighed, and looked elsewhere, his gaze indirect and wistful, as if ruminating upon some nostalgic moment, as if he and the warehouse shared some fond memory.

"All in all, it was a pretty good ride. Can't say that I regret anything. In less than thirty years, I've done more than Napoleon Bonaparte and Genghis Khan combined. Had a lot of adventures. Made a lot of friends. Killed even more people. In a way, I'm kind of relieved that the music's finally over." Light's faraway look hardened, and he tossed an irritated glance at Near. "But in another way altogether, I'm bloody annoyed as hell that you're all taking up my video game time!"

"Rester, I want this scum arrested," Near said. This was a waste of his time.

"My pleasure," Rester growled. The large man began to advance on Light, arms raised threateningly.

"Not so fast," Light said, holding up a palm.

"I've got a proposition in mind for you, for all of you. You send me up the river without speaking my piece, and I take all of Kira's secrets to the grave. You'll never be able to put this all to rest if you begrudge me this one last gesture, Near. I promise you that I can and will continue Kira's reign, even from behind bars, even if I'm six feet under."