Journey below [L x reader] • Death Note

Chapter 32 | education

Now that the first part of the Kira problem was out of the way L had time to himself while he waited until he could go back up to the surface again. After spending a good day or so sleeping thanks to that mask Hypnos gave him he found himself back in the spot he found himself when he first came here. Sitting by the river Lethe with questions.

Now he'd been dead for a good while, and he was used to the underworld and how everything worked down here he had time to think about something he completely brushed over before in the shock of being dead.

How did shades work?

He was a semi-transparent being that looked and acted exactly like he did when he was alive. So was this is soul? His mortal body would be decomposing in its coffin up on the surface by now. He didn't have a beating heart, blood flow, pulse etc yet he could still breathe like normal. He was a bit cold due to the lack of body heat, but not freezing. He couldn't float like the deities could, but he was see-through and could walk through walls. He didn't blush pink because he had no blood flow, but he did blush as an emotional response and it was blue.

What exactly was a shade? A ghost? The soul of the person who'd inhabited the body? An energy?

He couldn't help but look down at his hands, through them at the ground below him and wonder what the hell he, a shade even was now. Although he had an idea who to ask, and he also knew she'd pass though here eventually for her weekly shopping.

"You do like to sit by that river huh?"

"Actually I was waiting for you Eurydice"

The much older shade gave him a raised eyebrow, wondering what exactly he was waiting for her for.

"Oh? What's up?" She replied, sitting next to him with her basket of fruits and vegetables.

"You answered all my questions when I first got here so I figured you'd know. How do shades... work? Like what are we?" L asked.

"Ah, yes that identity crisis all shades go through. I guess the easiest way to describe it is like this..."

She turned to face him, and he turned to face her and take in all the inevitably confusing information he was about to get.

"We're basically the souls of who we were when we were alive. When we were alive we were inhabiting our moral bodies and when he die, our soul is separated from our flesh in the state in which that flesh died. That why some shades have scars from how they died, and those souls get taken down here where they merge with the energies of the Styx and become a shade. So basically shades are the souls of the living after they die mixed with the magic properties of the Styx" Eurydice explained.

L still didn't fully understand magic. He kind of just accepted that it exists and let it do it's thing, nor questioning it. But when it came to how he himself worked he was curious.

"So Styx helps turn a soul into a shade?" L asked.

"Exactly. That's why when you die you don't remember the journey with Thanatos. You were just a soul, but when he puts you in the Styx and you rise from it as a shade. Because shades aren't in a physical flesh body, they don't need to eat or drink to survive but you can eat and drink just for the taste of you like. You don't need to sleep to survive but you can for the comfort and mental stability. You can't die since you're already dead, but Styx gives you the ability to function relatively the same to living just without the risk of death" Eurydice explained.

Now it was starting to make a bit more sense. He was a soul merged with magic from Styx, carrying memories and personality from his life and able to have normal bodily functions thanks to the Styx's magic, just without pain or death.

"So even though I have no physical body, and no blood flow or heartbeat the Styx's magic allows my soul to act like it does have normal bodily function, just with no death as a consequence" L said.

"Exactly. Soul plus Styx equals shade. You can sleep, eat, breathe, hear, see, touch, taste, smell... everything. And have a few bonus things like walking through walls, just without the risk of dying since you're already dead. And since you have no blood flow etc, your soul will react to emotions in place of bodily function. Which is why you can still blush at (y/n) even with no blood. It's your soul reacting to the emotion and causing an effect" Eurydice explained.

"H-hey I don't blush around them that much"

"Yes you do. Your cheeks are ALWAYS blue when they're around, your soul is practically screaming it's adorable"

Well... he couldn't argue with the truth, so instead Eurydice got a playful pout rather than an argument. She snickered at his reaction and continued.

"Man I'm like your underworld guide at this point, anything else?" She joked.

"I appreciate all you've taught me, thank you. But there is one last thing... so we can perform any function as if we were alive even with no physical body? Our souls will react to the emotion and produce the correct outcome for us?" He asked.

"Exactly. If you eat something gross, react with a negative emotion your soul will tell you to throw it back up. If you watch your best friend die, react with sadness, your soul will produce tears and you'll cry. And if your lover pulls you close and you react with romantic feelings, your soul will make you blush or dare I say, act upon arousal"

Eurydice couldn't help but tease the easily flustered L with that ending part, watching his cheeks turn blue when his soul reacted and went flustered.

"Good to know..." he replied.

"Oh! And I hope you don't want kids because no living things can be born down here unless they're a deity. So no shades can get pregnant or give birth" she added.

"Well I already kind of have three kids alive on the surface so I think  good on that"

She remembered L briefly mentioning the successors when they first met, and found it cute that even if they weren't biologically related to him he still felt as if he were a parental figure to them.

"Oh yeah they're still alive! And young! Poor kids they won't get to see you again for a long time" she said, with a saddened tone.

"As much as I miss them, I'm glad they haven't shown up here yet. I'd rather they live long lived and learn their moral lessons before dying and finding me here. I look forward to seeing them again, but I'm willing to wait as long as they get to live long, happy lives" L replied.

"Good point, it'd be horrible if they died so young. But hey maybe you and (y/n) can stoke a deal with hades to go check up on them sometimes, you know as repayment for working on the case"

That wasn't a bad idea actually, he hadn't seen them since he sent the email from wammys on the first trip to the surface. He missed them, he hoped they were ok. And if you were his lover now that made you somewhat of a parental figure to them as well, even through they don't even know you exist yet. Now that would be an interesting conversation to have in 80 or so years when they die of old age and find L in the underworld.

Hey I've had a lover this whole time, so say hello to your new parental figure kids. We can be a family on death, together forever this time.