Imprisonment

I finally finished that Death Note piece I tried writing about a week or two ago! Here it is, it's kind of short and focuses on the scene where Misa's been captured for interrogation by L - this scene wouldn't leave my mind for a long while and I decided that the only way to get it out was to write about it.

Hope it doesn't feel too rushed, it's still really raw and I'm not too happy with the ending format but still I suppose this'll do for now.

*This piece belongs to me, though I do not own Death Note.
Damn how I wish I did.*

One… two… three… four… five…

She doesn’t really know why she’s counting in her head – maybe it’s for something to do, to keep herself occupied. It feels like an anchor of sorts, a finger-hold of whatever sanity left in the dark that surrounds her.

Twenty… twenty-one… twenty-two… twenty-three… twenty-four…

He’ll save her, she knows it. She’s afraid and it shows, she knows it shows, from the slight trembling of her bottom lip to the fists that her hands have formed, cold and clammy in their restraints. She’s terrified, but she forces herself to keep her head held as high as she can manage it in the darkness – and there’s so much darkness – because she believes that he’ll come to her rescue, her knight in shining armour.

He’ll save her like he did two years ago.

Forty-two… forty-three… forty-four… forty-five…

A speaker crackles to life somewhere on her right, and the voice that filters through is so heavily distorted that it most certainly isn’t natural. That isn’t to say she doesn’t recognise it, though – she’s heard it often enough over the past few weeks.

“Amane Misa. Do you know why you’re here?”

She doesn’t say anything, but fights the urge to burst into slightly hysterical laughter. How could she not know? She’d known from the moment they grabbed her, when they pulled the cloth over her eyes to prevent her from being able to see anything. And so she doesn’t say anything, only keeps counting.

Fifty-eight… fifty-nine… sixty… one… two…

She doesn’t know how long she’s been counting each minute, but she continues to do so, aware of the fear pressing in on her consciousness, telling herself over and over that he will come. She clings on to this knowledge like a drowning man would cling to a piece of driftwood. He promised her that everything would be okay as long as she did what he told her to do.

And she had, she’d followed every single one of his instructions as obediently as she could, if only to prove that her love for him was as real and strong as his sense of justice. It was as she told him the first night she’d met him – she didn’t care if he used her, didn’t give a damn if he decided to kill her.

“Amane Misa. You are suspected of contacting the murderer known as Kira, as well as aiding him or her in murder as the Second Kira. Is there anything you can say about this?”

All she wanted was to make Light fall in love with her. But of course she can’t say that, can’t say that she’s never regretted any of the things she had to do, because Light is Kira and she’s the Second Kira and if she says anything at all or reacts in any way, the both of them could die.

There’s a light rustling from somewhere behind her, but she doesn’t need to turn her blindfolded eyes to know who it is – Rem has been keeping watch over her since she was captured. The female shinigami has been a source of comfort for her even though she can’t see her, a silent assurance that she is not alone, that she still has an ace up her sleeve as long as she can keep calm enough to figure out how best to use it without confirming any of L’s suspicions against her.

The problem is she’s never been good at chess.

Thirty-four... Thirty-five...

Because L is the nemesis here, the chess piece that needs to fall.

Thirty-seven...

And all she can do now is stay strong and wait for her knight to come and save her, while Rem paces around fretting and raging over how Light had promised that no harm would befall her and look what happened now. Even she falls silent after a while, exhausted by her emotions.

Now the only company she has while blind and mute are her thoughts, like shadows that creep around in her head and bring back memories best left forgotten. Between the thinking and the counting, she can feel herself slowly slipping back into how she was two years ago.

Two years ago had been when everything in her world still had colour, when she’d come home after school just like any other day to find her parents lying in pools of blood, glassy eyes staring at her. She’d been too shocked to react in any other way besides falling to the floor, but she’d cried when they pulled her away from the corpses, praying in huge broken gasps to either have her parents come back to her or aid her in avenging them.

They’d found him easily enough, but the trial dragged on much longer than it should have and blindfolded Justice turned a blind eye to her by letting him go, stating that he must have been falsely accused.

Her world had turned from colour to monochrome to flat gray that day, and that was when the voices in her head started to whisper to her, telling her that everything was useless, that she was a failure of a daughter for being so unable to do something as simple as bringing her parents’ murderer to justice.

Her world was colourless, but the first time she saw a spark of colour was when she read the news announcement two months after the trial was closed. Judgement had been passed on the guilty, the unworthy. God was listening.

God was Kira, is Kira, and will always be Kira.

The thoughts circle around her mind and it eventually reaches a point where she can’t stand it, can’t take it anymore. How many days has it been, or have they all melded into one long period of time? She doesn’t know, doesn’t care to know – all she knows is that she can’t continue with her meaningless counting and waiting and not saying anything, can’t go another 60 seconds trapped in here with the darkness and the voices echoing in her head over and over.

“I can’t take this anymore...”

It’s barely a whisper, but she knows Rem hears it.

“What?”

“Kill me.” Her voice is still shaky, but it’s louder now, clearer too. 

“Misa, I can’t-“

“Just kill me,” She cuts Rem off, fighting to keep her voice steady. “Hurry up and kill me.”

The speaker crackles to life again – L must have been alerted to her talking again after keeping silent for so long.

“Amane Misa, can you hear me?”

“......Yes…” She answers L, but he’s not who she’s trying to talk to, especially not when she’s directing her words towards Rem. “I’m begging you, just hurry up and kill me.”

“Amane Misa, are you saying that you wish to die because of the evidence we have against you as the Second Kira?”

He’s persistent, damn it. “No, I don’t know what you’re talking about, I don’t know about the Second Kira…”

She doesn’t want to have to talk more than is necessary, she just wants the voices in her head to shut up. But when Rem won’t answer her, she snaps.

“I can’t take this anymore! I’d rather die than go on like this… Please, please kill me! I know you can kill me just like that, right?”

“Misa…” Rem’s voice hardens ever so slightly. “If I kill you, I’ll definitely kill Light Yagami too. It’s his fault that you’ve ended up in this situation.”

“No… You can’t do that.” Misa tries shaking her head, but her body can’t move against the boarding she’s tied to. “You can’t do that… Kill me instead. You know I was supposed to have died a long time ago, anyway.” I was supposed to have died two years ago with Mum and Dad.

Silence from Rem. Misa tries pressing her case – she knows Rem could never really say no to her, so she tries to use it to her advantage one last time.

“Considering everything that’s happened, I’ll feel quite blessed to die now… Just kill me now, kill me while I’m still young and pretty.” She’d rather die knowing that she did her best to aid Light, to aid Kira in building a new world of justice. She’ll die happy that way, at least.

“Thinking about it… None of this would have happened if I had never given you the Death Note to begin with… I’m sorry, Misa. I’m sorry for all this.” Rem does not appear to share her sentiment, and Misa hears pity in the shinigami’s voice, and that angers her more it should because she doesn’t need pity, damn it, she needs Rem to do as she says.

“Just kill me now! Kill me right now!” She shrieks. “Don’t give me all this pitying bullshit, just hurry up and kill me! If you don’t kill me…”

She doesn’t get to finish her threat because a piece of cloth is stuffed into her mouth as L orders: “Don’t let her bite her tongue, Watari.”

Rem speaks again after Watari leaves, her voice unexpectedly gentle.

“Misa… I won’t kill you, but I’ll take away your ownership of this notebook so you won’t have any memories of using the Death Note. You’ll still remember your love for Light Yagami, so I think you’ll be happy with that. I don’t know why you love him so much, but I’m alright as long as you’re happy.”

Misa hears some slight rustling, and thinks “thank you” before the blessed darkness claims her as its prize.