savetheearth | {004} Log: White Day [CLOSED]

"I guess that makes sense... we were talking in Japanese in my last echo," Misa murmurs, continuing to skim the article. She hadn't really thought about it; Japanese was the default in her mind, it only made sense for memories to be in her native language.

The doppelganger is thoroughly ignored as Misa continues reading about her alter-ego's one-in-a-million life.

It's been a rough year between her manager's arrest for drug possession and Misa-Misa's subsequent mysterious two-month disappearance, but sources have denied her involvement and insisted she simply needed a break from the entertainment world. Some are even saying it was all a publicity stunt! Whatever the reason,

Misa's eyes go unfocused, words blurring together and room falling away. Everything is dark, everything is silent. Her eyes are covered, and her entire body aches like she's been standing in place for hours. Her back is pressed against something hard and flat, her bare feet forced apart by shackles on her ankles. Her arms are folded against her stomach by what feels like a straight jacket, and she can feel additional restraints at her crotch, her breasts, her hips, her neck. Her legs are completely bare up to mid-thigh, she is cold and stiff and hungry and parched and she can't see anything but blackness. She is going to die like this.

Misa screams, heart racing as she comes back to the stairwell crying, magazine on the ground. She instinctively curls inward on herself, hugging her legs with her head against her knees. What was that? She tries to breathe but can't, shaking and gasping with the ghost feeling of a strap against her neck.

"I'm very comfortable with it..." he says, and it occurs to him that maybe he should offer to switch over for her, if that would make things ultimately easier. Though he is bad at handling distress in all but his closest of friends (with whom he has a nearly preternaturally adept touch), he is grasping for ways to make this situation somehow better and less stressful for the girl.

I can attest to that...

What had he meant?

His eyes scan over the words; though he's a speed-reader, Japanese is not his native language and it takes a fraction of a second longer for the characters to fall into meaningful order in his thoughts. Once they have, though, the pit is dropping out of his stomach again, and he's in the dark, settled on a couch and staring impassively at a blonde girl, trussed and restrained. He sees everything. He watches her suffer and sips his coffee. He munches sugar cubes while she sobs. She won't die here, but she will wish for it, and he feels nothing as she begs, her terror glancing off his black-ice eyes like twin indifferent mirrors.

This echo is different. It leaves him freezing, trembling with the cold as if he's been pulled out of a frozen lake. His doppelganger is lauging, the girl at his side screams, and that empty feeling remains, filling slowly with the empathy that Lazarus feels where his preinacarnate perhaps couldn't. As his doppelganger glances Misa over with new knowledge of what she looks like in intimate and compromised positions, he looks away. What can he say? What would it mean, what does she know about his role in her torture?

"I'm so sorry," he says, horror and chill flash-freezing his tone. "I am so sorry..."

Edited 2015-03-30 13:55 (UTC)

Misa doesn't respond immediately, shaking her head back and forth as if denying the out of body experience entirely. She can't stop crying, and doesn't try to, focusing instead on breathing in and out and squeezing herself to keep from falling apart.

The doppelganger is laughing. At her, no doubt. The sound fills Misa with anger and embarrassment at being seen like this, but she can't find it within herself to pull herself together or tell him off. Not yet. Not with that terrible black void in the forefront of her mind, cold and miserable and hurting in so many ways. It had felt like something out of a horror movie, and Misa can't decide if not knowing what she looked like is for the better or if it makes everything that much worse.

Eventually she manages to tilt her head to the side, looking up at Lazarus with red-rimmed eyes. She tries to say something but stops short when her voice comes out alien, a strangled croak that is a far cry from words. Misa clears her throat, looking down again and letting go of her legs to wipe at her eyes. How shameful, letting them see her like this, maybe even letting them see her like that.

"You saw?"

She isn't quite ready to think through the implications of that. Maybe Lazarus is just reacting to her outburst and doesn't know the context, but something about the horror in his voice suggests otherwise.

There is no language like Japanese for apologies; they are a veritable art form, Lazarus understands, a different one for every occasion at every level of formality. The one he needs is one that expresses both his remorse and his helplessness.

Moshi wake arimasen.

I have no excuse for myself.

He has the words, but not the voice. It sticks in his throat in a heavy lump, and he swallows it, imagining it wet and leaden and slimy in his stomach as a young woman sobs beside him.

L's doppelganger chuckles darkly. "'Saw?' Certainly one way to put it. I'm into it, by the way... All those straps, the blindfold, definitely watching y--"

He's interrupted mid-sentence by Lazarus staggering to his feet, striding forward and twining the chain around his forearm to shorten it. Before he can protest, the doppelganger is getting kicked in the face so hard that his head almost spins 180 degrees on his scrawny neck, and he's knocked to the tile floor where he stares dazedly and then scrambles uncoordinatedly backwards.

Misa cringes at the doppelganger's commentary. For everything she just felt to be sexualized, is he even human? But then, as much as she doesn't want to think about it, part of her has to wonder if it wasn't planned that way. The placement of the straps, the fact that she was practically naked from the waist down with her feet held apart. She shivers, hugging her arms and feeling terribly exposed all over again.

Obviously she was kidnapped by some psychopath. A deluded fan, probably, since the past-her seems to have been famous. But why did Lazarus echo the scene back too? His other had been a detective, maybe he rescued her. Except the way the doppelganger said it, 'Saw? Certainly one way to put it.' But how can she trust anything he says anyway?

It's simultaneously jarring and a relief when Lazarus strides forward and kicks his double into silence, though for a moment Misa fears that he really has broken the idiots neck. Maybe she doesn't mind so much now, but the consequences could be...

Any relief is short lived. Her stomach drops and her mind is filled with a new scene, a large bright room with the trio from before, not again. Her vantage point is that of someone hiding behind a couch as L and Light square off against each other, wearing those damn handcuffs again. "I have just realized something..." L says, "I wanted you to be Kira." Light punches him in the face, and L retaliates by kicking him in the jaw.

"No more," Misa mumbles, pressing her palms against her eyes until she sees spots. If another echo happens she is either going to puke or have her head explode, possibly both at once.

Some of the doppelgangers insist that they are just like everyone other human, they just entered the world by different and unconventional means. L's doppel has never made any such claims, actually seeming to revel in his maliciousness button-pushing and insensitivity to sickening subject matter. The kick is something Lazarus believes fully that he deserves, and it's driven by the desire to put a stop to whatever all of this is. The dizzying volley of echoes is going too far, he can't even sort through all of them they're coming on so quickly. He's furious, breathless, shaking, but the second his foot connects, he's just made it worse for all of them. He's reeling in in horror before his doppel has even hit the floor, and he's covering his own face with his hands and hanging his head even as his doppelganger is scuttling warily away from him.

He couldn't agree more fully with Misa. He can't take more, either, and he's at the limit of his ability to weather it.

"Go..." he murmurs, gesturing toward the stairs rather than the door. He's not dismissing her, just begging for some space, just for the moment to give them both chances to recuperate before they subject themselves to more of this so quickly. "There are rooms upstairs, take whatever one you like, we'll... we can talk later, about this."

At first Misa thinks he must be talking to the doppelganger, but when she glances up and sees Lazarus pointing rather than undoing the cuffs she realizes that he is talking to her. Go? As if any of this is her fault, he's the one that started that one—

Biting her lip, Misa turns away from him and gets to her knees, gripping the rail tightly enough for her knuckles to go white before making any sort of move to stand. He's right, they need to be apart from each other, they need to end whatever terrible train of echoes is unfolding. But it still hurts being sent away like this when she wants nothing more than to cuddle up and be held by someone. Sniffling, Misa wipes at her eyes again and starts to make her way up the stairs, going slower than she would like. Anything else feels like it would be dangerous. She needs to pull herself together.

"Bring tea," Misa mumbles, before stopping and turning her head to be heard better. "No, bring hot chocolate. With marshmallows."

With that, she finishes climbing the stairs and shuts herself in the nearest room to cry herself dry and wait for the echo-induced vertigo to pass.

At first, Lazarus feels horrendously guilty. He can see in hindsight how the words and gesture could be interpreted, far from his intention but certainly abrupt and harsh. He's raking a hand through his dark hair and preparing to apologize, but as she's making her way up the stairs looking every bit as lost and sad as a kicked puppy, she makes a request and gives him a chance to make it all better.

He's incredibly grateful. In the midst of all this horribleness, it's doable and accessible. He nods hurriedly, shooting her one last glance while she's still in view.

The rooms upstairs are small dormitories, some with only one bed (Lazarus' is like this) and others with double that number. They've all been minimally outfitted for livability and comfort, with mattresses, sheets and blankets on the bed frames and general toiletries in the desk drawers, but ultimately, they're pretty spartan, and the light fixtures haven't been redone since the 1970s or earlier.

Approximately an hour after the altercation, there's a knock at the door. "Hey, Misa... I brought the hot chocolate and..." he pauses, clearing his throat. "I came alone. The custodian's watching him to make sure he doesn't get up to trouble. May I come in?"

By the time he arrives Misa has cleaned herself up. Her face is washed and she spent a good amount of time staring at herself in the mirror, trying to get used to the blonde. She pulled the pigtails out, feeling silly, but otherwise looks the same as before except calmer. She has relieved the one bed in the room of its comforter, huddled with it clutched around her shoulders.

She is composed. But not fully recovered, by any stretch of the imagination.

"Come in," she calls, draping her legs over the side of the bed but not standing up. It's a relief to hear that neither the doppel nor the chain that started all of this is with him.

The moment he gets the go-ahead to enter, he's doing so, turning the knob and peering cautiously into the room. He looks wan and run-down, and while the volley of echoes haven't aged him physically, his eyes convey a dull, jaded lifelessness that wasn't present before.

He pulls the room's folding metal chair away from the desk, situating it close to the bed where Misa sits wrapped in a comforter, and offers her first the hot chocolate, and then a tied-off bag of mini marshmallows that is half full.

He's silent as he does so, watching her with his hollow gaze, ultimately leaving it to her to make the first comment whenever she is prepared to.

Despite the fact that she was the one who left their last encounter sobbing, somehow Misa feels like Lazarus looks just as bad as her, if not worse. She almost doesn't want to ask what it is he's seen... but she has to. That's the point of this, to get everything out there and try to figure things out together.

She accepts the hot chocolate and marshmallows, offering him a smile that doesn't reach her eyes. Putting the bag down on her lap, she pats a spot on the bed next to her. The folding chair looks spectacularly uncomfortable.

"We're probably going to be here a while."

He sits forward in his chair, but his movement and attention are focused downward rather than forward, and his elbows press against his knees as he clasps his now-empty hands.

"I think you're correct," he answers softly. "I think the best way to approach this is to acknowledge, first, that we are an amalgam of those people and ourselves, and we're formed primarily by the choices made in this life and not the last one. Can we move forward with that understanding?"

Misa tilts her head, a little confused by his words and uncertain if Lazarus is refusing to join her on the bed or if he just didn't see the invitation. Her gaze drops to her lap and she fiddles with the bag of marshmallows rather than offering again.

"Yes... that sounds right. I don't think I'm that same person from the memories, even if I feel what she does, but we are similar."

She drops a few marshmallows into her hot coco, watching them start to foam and dissolve, and blows before taking a small sip. "I guess we should start with saying everything we got back."

He in fact was completely oblivious to the invitation; if it had been a little more blatant, he may or may not have accepted, but he continues on as though he has no clue what she was offering.

He waits for her to take a sip of her hot cocoa and propose saying everything, which is admittedly daunting. He swallows. "Everything is a lot... are you quite sure? I admit that I feel somewhat responsible for making you cry, and that bothers me. I'm a very detailed person and I don't... really want to make you experience that again, intentionally or not."

"It's not your fault," she assures him, shaking her head a little. "I remembered something awful because of that magazine, but... we can't help that. It's better to try to figure out what we can from it."

She takes another sip from her mug before continuing, licking her lip to avoid a hot chocolate-mustache. "I'm confused, about our... the relationship between your Other and mine, what it was. I got back some things that don't seem to go together at all. It seems like maybe... a love triangle?"

She isn't sure what else to make of echoing from kissing him, L's comments in the memories, or him fighting her boyfriend.

The reassurance is comforting, at least. Even if he's not sure if she'll still feel that way at the end of this conversation.

"I don't know," he confesses, staring at his hands. "I will admit that there seems to have been some familiarity there that goes beyond what a normal acquaintance would feel for another, but... as you said, you had a boyfriend. Light Yagami. Maybe one party had feelings that were unrequited, or something like that."

I wonder who it was.

"So, it started when your hair turned. Judging by things I saw, it was because you saw the handcuffs, wasn't it? I got those back from an echo months ago and I think they are the same pair."

"Right... when I saw the handcuffs, my hair changed and I remembered the three of us in this fancy looking room, like a five star hotel or something like that. We were arguing, because you were handcuffed to Light for some reason and being kind of creepy about it."

It had been scandalous at the time, but now that particular echo is one of the lighter ones of the day. "The Misa and Light there were definitely dating, and it didn't seem like that Misa liked L very much. But then... kissing your cheek gave me the magazine. So there must have been something there."

He listens to her recall what the Echo gave her back, and while he doesn't personally remember such a thing happening from his perspective, it sounds pretty consistent with what might have.

"If she didn't like L very much, then I have a hard time seeing it as a love triangle..." he murmurs. "Maybe something changed later to improve her opinion of him. Backing up for a second... you said his name was Light, and that gave me back the knowledge that he was Light Yagami, as well as my prime suspect in the Kira investigation. You already know as much based on what the doppelganger told you... and you maintain that you wouldn't fall in love with a mass murderer, which... well. You mentioned calling me a pervert, which I can't really be sure of, but that was your Other's opinion, and I won't argue it."

Still with us so far...

"So... then we talked a little bit about... things that happened in the past in our lives and you kissed me, and it's like you said, there was something there. I got a memory back from it, and in it... Light and I had come to see you and we were handcuffed together. There was a lot of information, so let me try to put it in order..."

He pauses, closing his eyes briefly.

"So Misa was sitting on the couch and reading that magazine. She was happy to see Light, saying something about a date, but she seemed annoyed that L was present. He made a point of rushing forward towards her and asking if she loved Light from the bottom of her heart. He got very close to her and she had an apparent aversion to his presence, leaning away and insisting that she did love Light. He then challenged that claim by asking if she also worshiped Kira, which she... also confirmed. So it seems like whether or not Light was Kira, she felt strongly and positively about both of them, but when L asked her who she'd pick if she had to, she insisted it would be Light, even though she was 'grateful' to Kira. My guess is he killed someone she wanted dead."

He pinches the bridge of his nose.

"There is more but before I continue, are you still OK? What are your thoughts?"

Misa takes in everything Lazarus says in silence, and doesn't respond immediately when he asks for her thoughts. She has so many, most of them rooted in confusion. Where to start?

"Kira... What is Kira? I know he's a mass murderer whose identity wasn't clear, but... do you know anything else about it? Why would any person worship a serial killer?"

As for being grateful to a killer, and someone she wanted dead... Misa immediately suspects the man who murdered her parents. That's a common strand between their two lives, and she can't deny having had thoughts like that.

He has a lot to say, and realizes it's not something he can just filibuster out, even if it's tempting to just get it over it. They're going to discuss this, after all, and hopefully reach some kind of understanding about who they were... not lecture one another.

"Kira is the name of the serial killer L was chasing," L explains. "And I know that he killed criminals with heart attacks, somehow, and that he didn't have to be present to do it. It was a tough case," he says, unnecessarily. "Like I said, my guess is that, since she was 'grateful' to him... maybe he killed someone she wanted dead. Someone who had wronged her, or those she loved."

He clears his throat before trying to go on.

"At that point, L offered Misa the chance to work with him on the case. She was enthusiastic about the possibility, saying that she wanted to support Light no matter what, so... it's pretty clear from that much that L's prime suspect was working alongside him on the case. Another reason for the handcuffs, must be, but Light didn't like the idea of her working on the case. I don't know who most of these people were, but L's exact words were 'I'm planning to have Aiber pose as Eraldo Coil again. He'll tell the Yotsuba members that while he was investigating L, he discovered that Misa Amane might know who he is. He'll also tell them that L brought her in for questioning on the suspicion that she was the Second Kira.' So... it sounds like he suspected Misa, too."

It's hard not to erupt into a flurry of new questions at the information that Kira kills people with heart attacks, but Misa keeps her mouth shut until Lazarus is done talking and tries to absorb everything he says. She doesn't want to believe much of it, but it does click into place and though she might not like it, she can envision it making sense.

"I have no idea how someone could kill healthy people with heart attacks, but... If the man who murdered my parents in that life looked like he was going to get away with it... maybe things happened differently then. Maybe there wasn't any justice, and he escaped. If that happened... and then someone came along and killed that man... I can see being grateful."

Her speech is slow and deliberate, as if every word is a confession she doesn't want to give. L must have been wrong, there's no way she was a killer herself, or whatever a 'Second Kira' is. But that would explain why her Other worshiped a murderer.

"We don't know that L was right. The last memory I got, when you kicked your doppelganger, it was of L and Light fighting while in those handcuffs. L admitted that he wanted Light to be Kira, he didn't just suspect it. Light punched him, he kicked. I was hiding behind a couch."

There are so many questions, and many of them are also on Lazarus' mind. It sounds strange and ridiculous to him to say some of what he's echoed back out loud, but he presses forward, nevertheless.

"Your guess is as good as mine," he mumbles. "And that... sounds viable, you know. It seems to fit, doesn't it?"

He's troubled by it, as if it is a confession, but it's not like he's never gone after people just for vengeance's sake. He doesn't have a leg to stand on in that regard.

"It's true, we don't know that L was right," he says, despite feeling, strongly, that it is the case. He can't help it; the feeling seems to run deeper than bone. "I don't remember a fight, so these must have taken place at different times," he surmises. "My guess is that they're different memories... clearly, L and Light didn't see eye to eye, and if one was a suspect and the other was a detective I can see why."

What a mess.

"There's more to my own memory. It was quite a lot of information," he says, an unspoken apology nevertheless coloring his tone. "He also said, again verbatim, 'If the Yotsuba group believes that Misa could be their lead to finding L, then they'll say that they want to interview you to discuss their advertising campaign. They'll use that opportunity to question her. Thanks to Matsuda's screwup, they may already be considering Misa as their new spokesperson, so this could work.' Light was strongly against it, saying that it was too dangerous, but you-- I mean, Misa, was just anxious to help him. She was even... happy? Flattered, that he was worried about her? It was very strange. You even said that you... wouldn't speak even if you were tortured, after Light said that they might try to get you to reveal the identity of the detective L."

"That's not so strange," Misa says, a small smile gracing her lips over how confused Lazarus seems. "I must have loved Light very much. To the point where I would do anything for him, and risk anything to help him. Of course I would be happy, seeing him care about me, and having the chance to be useful to him."

Though Misa knows next to nothing about who this Light Yagami was, she is obviously affected by the thought that her Other cared so much about him. A little envious maybe, that her Other had someone so important in her life. Of course a movie star would have a handsome boyfriend, but it seems that their relationship was anything but shallow.

"If we were trying to catch Kira, then we couldn't have been suspects right then, right? Maybe we were before, but it sounds like the 'Yotsuba group' were the ones being investigated."

L frowns. "It does seem that way," he agrees. "But I remember a few of the other cases L solved and they have a tendency to get complicated. Maybe he thought that Kira could be more than one person... in fact, I'd say that's a given, since he called Misa the 'Second Kira.'"

He pauses, thinking back again. Yes, there's more, and it seems to be exhausting him. They haven't even gotten to the torture yet (God help him), and he wants to sink into a deep and forgetful sleep.

"Light kept on arguing that Misa was in a lot of danger, and that if the Yotsuba group did manage to kill L, they'd have no use for her and kill her too. That seemed to sober her up pretty quickly, but then L said something about the handcuffs that you might find helpful." He doesn't sound particularly hopeful. "He said that as long as he and Light were handcuffed together, they shared the same fate. He said that if they died together, Misa would grieve the most of all, and said that they could either die together or catch Kira. After phrasing it that way, she was all about catching Kira. Then... well, honestly I think he flattered Misa purposefully, but maybe he meant it. He said that he was turning to her for help because her 'bravery and love for Light was boundless.' Then she... very dramatically lamented that she'd misunderstood him all along and even called him a pervert, so I can corroborate that part. That's when she kissed him, because I think she was happy that he'd acknowledged her love for her boyfriend so openly."

He sighs.

"If you're still thinking 'love triangle,' he did say that he could fall for her, but she pretty much friendzoned him on the spot."

"Sharing the same fate... how odd," Misa mutters, mulling it all over. Lazarus is quite obviously exhausted by all the new information he's received, but Misa's sympathy is limited with what she has echoed back herself. They have to press on regardless.

"He said that in front of her boyfriend? Wow. Your Other really was awkward," she says, eyebrows raised. It does not come as a great surprise that he was rejected. "It still seems like he has a weird fixation on them, between saying he'd watch them kiss and now this. But even if there was a love triangle and he was trying to edge in on their relationship, it seems like there's more to it than that. Besides, that Misa can't have thought he was all bad if she kissed him."

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