Reset [L x Reader] • Death Note [Hiatus]

Chapter 20 | desolate

Well... this wasn't the universe he was hoping for.

You and L had hopped on over to the next universe and were quite unsettled to find it was... empty. A complete ghost town, the buildings run down and nature overtaking them. From the looks of things, Kira won in this universe and it'd caused... the end. There was remnants of graffiti about Kira, evidence of societal collapse in the form of looted buildings and the occasional skeletal remains. Clearly it's been a long long time since this universes humanity fell. It was a scary reality, to know that Light was capable of well... the end of humanity.

No doubt it took him his whole life and loosing all his sanity to do so, but it was still scary to know it was possible. This did seem to be Japan still, the fallen street signs were rusted over but the ones still somewhat in tact were written in Japanese. L simply stood in the middle of what would be Tokyo's famous crosswalk, now reduced to a ghost city slowly being reclaimed by nature.

"Wow..." was all you could muster up.

"Wow..." L agreed.

It seemed pretty useless to stay in this universe, there was nothing to find here. But L was a morbidly curious person, so he picked the direction to where the taskforce building would be, and began walking.

"Looking for something?" You asked.

"Not in particular, I'm just morbidly curious" he replied.

"Fair, so am I. This is... eerie"

You half expected a zombie to start chasing you, it looked like the set of a zombie apocalypse movie. But the only life there was came in the form of birds, bugs and the Forrest life starting to move into the fallen city. It was likely that L was the only person in this universe alive, and the first to walk the streets in years. There was no telling what year it was, but from the state of the city you estimated it'd been this way for a good 50 or so years. Enough time for things to start to decay and nature to creep in, but not enough to become ancient artefacts.

"This is what my universe will become if the narrator has his way..." L muttered.

"That won't happen" you assured.

"Hopefully..."

"It won't L. We'll stop him"

He couldn't tell if you actually had optimism or if you were just saying that to try and make him feel better. Either way he appreciated the effort, but part of him felt hopeless. Like this was the fate of his home universe.

Despite the state of the city, he recognised the run down old building before him as the taskforce HQ. Front doors bashed in, the front rooms looted for anything useful. The power was out, none of the security measures he'd installed set off when he walked through the doors.

"Hm... I paid all this money for this building to be made. Only for it to end up like this" he muttered.

"Money is useless in the grand scheme of the multiverse... as long as you have enough to live comfortably you don't need it to be happy. I mean... look at what all those fancy, expensive mansions will end up as one day. Just like this..." you sighed.

You always seemed to have some kind of words of wisdom... your position as a guardian outside the realms of humanity gave you a unique look on society as a whole... how useless so much of it is. There's no force more powerful than the passing of time... and from a room where time doesn't exist, you know that first hand. It made L think, even though one day in a million years when humanity destroys the earth so much they all die, he still wants to save his universe.

Not so much for the universe itself, he knew one day it's end up like this when he's long gone. But for those who he cares for, for those innocent of any wrongdoings, for those who hadn't even had the chance to live yet. The world may be cruel at times, but those small, memorable and joyous moments make everything worth it. His universe couldn't end up like this... not yet.

"Hey... that's your laptop isn't it?"

He snapped out of his daze, turning to face the dusty closed laptop on the desk where he once sat. The rest of the room trashed and looted... why didn't anyone take the laptop? Then again... no power means it's not much use.

"It is" he replied.

"Probably hasn't been touched since this universes you died..." you said.

He stepped over the rubble of the run down building, out of sheer curiosity he opened the lid of the laptop and to his shock... the power light turned on. It had battery left... somehow.

"No way, well if it's in here it would be dry from rain and stuff" you muttered.

The screen lit up, the old MacBook start up sound rang in the air. And after a moment of loading, it asked for a password.

"Wow... I can't believe it still works. Thought the battery would have eroded by now" you said.

'Halloween7931' L typed in, not a very creative password, his birthday. But he'd found that people often thought things like birthdays were 'too obvious' so they never actually tried them. That, and he used the word Halloween rather than the date of 10 for October. The screen loaded for a moment, before the desktop background showed up along with all the programs and folders.

The background was simply his logo, the folders all ones on the case and the battery symbol at the bottom said the computer was at 37%. How it lasted this long, he had no idea.

"Same?" You asked.

"Yep, exactly the same. Mine without a doubt" he replied.

Clicking through the folders to see how far into the case this universe has gotten before he died, he came across one out of place zipped folder. 'To print' it was called. He clicked on it, having to type in his password again to unlock it and inside were two pictures. He didn't remember ever making this folder... maybe this universes' version of him was slightly different.

Clicking on the files bought up the images, and the sight made him feel a little bittersweet.

It was him, standing in front of the wammys house sign with Mello, Matt and Near. All of them still kids, and he himself a bit younger than he was now. Maybe around 21. They all smiled at the camera, all were dressed for a day out with hats on to keep the sun off their faces and a bag on L's back no doubt full of stuff for this outing. The date in the corner read 22/06/1998, so several years before this version of himself would have died.

The second picture was even older, dated at 17/02/83. L was still a kid, the photo quality matched the date it was taken in and looked a bit worn by modern standards. It was of him, as a child wearing a sun hat and summer clothes, being picked up by Watari who carried the same bag L had in the first picture, no doubt full off stuff for their outing.

He'd recreated this picture with his successors all these years later...

"(Y/n)..." L spoke up.

"Yeah?" You replied.

"How the hell are we going to stop the narrator?"

To be completely honest... you weren't sure. But clearly L needed to hear that it was possible right now.

"We will Lawliet. I promise you... for them" you replied.

"But how..?"

You were silent a moment, the uneasiness in his voice killed you. He was starting to seriously doubt himself, seeing what the world could become if he failed. The fact the version of him and his family in these pictures... dead, likely all killed by Kira. It hurt him, it made him start to second guess things. You hated to see him like this... it hurt you.

That's when suddenly, you had an idea. He probably wouldn't like it... but it'd work.

"I have a way... just trust me ok?" You replied.

He sighed, closing the laptop and getting the remote out to try the next universe. He'd bound to be close to home by now...

"Yeah, I trust you (y/n)"