L slammed Light up against the wall.
"I don't think you want to die, Yagami-kun," he said; his voice, normally masked in monotone, was suddenly colored with anger, frustration - a moody, venomous mix that slid the threat into Light's mind far more effectively than the fists clenched in his shirt.
It was rare for L to show such crude behavior - his cautious causal reasoning would make even the most stringent empiricist envious. But he was also creative, willing to take risks and change the variables if it promised results. Revealing himself to Light while they were in university together was an example of that rashness, his attempt to startle a response. This unanticipated violence was no different and Light's eyes narrowed, his own anger visibly hardened in the amber.
"I don't think I need to reply to that," he bit out, pushing against L's skeletal fists, still twisted in the material of his shirt. "Why would you say that?"
L gave him an icy smile, matching the derision that still tinted his words.
"Yes, alright," he murmured. "I expected you to keep playing the Denial card, even now."
"I'm not Kira. We just caught Higuchi, a watershed in the case that was desperately needed, and yet you still insist on hanging on to these illogical threads. What the hell is wrong with you?"
L only snorted glibly in response before tightening his grip.
"The watershed you needed, you mean. ...Of course, it's the same answer as always."
"You're the one who's like a damned broken record," Light spat. "Even now, when my innocence has been proven-"
"I might have known you'd assume that. That you'd have predicted, even hoped for, that. But as it remains, right now nothing has been proven either way..." L trailed off, perhaps hoping Light would be tempted to fill in the silence of the elliptical wake and reveal a clue.
Light ignored the bait and thrust his hands against L's chest, finally shoving him off.
"You make me sick," he said angrily. "Why can't you just accept that you're wrong?"
"Because I'm not wrong."
"First time for everyth-"
"No, Yagami-kun." L gazed at him hatefully. "I'm not wrong."
For all his excuses, deflections and premeditated answers, Light was struck speechless now, silenced by L's fierce, aggressive adamancy even in the face of the "evidence" that he usually valued so highly.
"And unless you do something about it very soon," L went on, his voice softer but no less vicious, "you're going to die."
L was cornering him.
Despite the fact that Light had already knocked down all the walls surrounding the case, L was still somehow cornering him. It was infuriating and nerve-racking that the detective could continue to proclaim Light as the prime Kira suspect (and Kira himself under his breath and behind veiled threats), even when his alibi was now airtight thanks to the manipulation of the Death Note rules. Light didn't know what other argument he could give, since the exonerating evidence should have spoken for itself. He'd set this all up very carefully, and although L had never really had any sort of concrete, tangible evidence against him, only his tenacious suspicion, now he definitely had nothing whatsoever to stand upon.
They'd caught Higuchi with the Death Note, he'd admitted to having used it, and then Light had killed him before he could be questioned further - and had done so right in front of L. More or less.
Not to mention that he'd thought ahead, predicted - as L had said - this outcome, and prepared the Death Note with the fake thirteen day rule that all but cleared he and Misa from suspicion.
