The Mortality of Kira
by SuziKat
Takes place in final moments of Death Note's LAST anime episode. [ahem Can we say, SPOILERS? ;)
Lights thoughts in his last moments on earth. My very first Death Note attempt. I don't own anything.
Bursting out of the heavy metal door into the bright sunset, Yagami Light's quickly adjusting pupils, were amazingly painful.
Especially when considering the multitude of bulletholes and injuries screaming with every forced and increasingly unsteady step he made away from the warehouse, that almost bore witness to his end.
With Mikami's final sacrifice, he had proved his usefulness one last time by distracting everyone.
And in those precious moments, Light managed to escape.
That was all that mattered now.
The cold smile jumped to his pained expression as his red eyes flashed, brighter even than the rays of the setting sun.
He looked left to right at the first intersection of warehouse buildings before pushing on. He could only wonder that nobody had immediately followed him.
Although running with everything he had, he was managing no more than a fast walking pace. If they left directly after him they would have easily overwhelmed him.
He couldn't stop the thought of Near purposefully delaying them...
He wasn't sure to what aim, but he did hear the boy's voice call to his team, whom Light was sure had initiated pursuit immediately.
It didn't make sense for Near to allow his enemy the escape he sought, but he thought... maybe, if he hadn't been so concerned with Near's rapid discovery of Kira's carefully woven lies, they could have been friends.
Perhaps, Near thought that too.
What Light would never live long enought to learn was that as Near called out to the team, he saw a glimmer of L, guarding Light's escape.
After accepting the existence and powers of, first, the Death Note, and then Shinigami, seeing an apparition of his dead idol moments after his killer had been captured was no large stretch for the genius.
L stood in front of the only exit, hands in his pocket, and shrugged in that – 'it doesn't matter either way' expression.
Near's proclamation of "I understand." Was more to this apparition than the people in the room, waiting to chase after their deceitful leader.
The spirit must have been appeased because it shimmered into nothingness with a contented smile and a small wave.
Light continued to run, barely able to keep his feet. He knew what was coming.
Blood, his blood, flowed in rivulets from his wounds – soaking into his expensive, well-tailored suit.
He, who had been so out-of control just moments ago, calmly accepted his now-unchangeable fate.
Facts were facts.
Ryuk would never be satisfied watching him waste away in a cell.
There would be no entertainment in it for him.
And the shinigami was obligated. Ryuk had told Light from the very beginning.
"When you die, it falls to me to write your name in my death note."
And while Ryuk had been many things, he was never a liar.
So Light knew full-well what was coming. Closer with every step, each thundering heartbeat.
His own death. Proof of his mortality.
The knowledge didn't distress the genius. It spurned him. It steadied him. It was something he knew to be fact.
It was perhaps the only thing that hadn't changed in the life-altering minutes that preceded the soon-to-be end of his life.
He clung to it, like a drowning victim with a death grip on a sinking raft.
The despair of his failure settled in.
He welcomed it.
He could still feel. He was still alive.
That small fact brought him joy beyond measures, even through his devastation.
As Light ran, his mind wondered... as if often did – to L's cryptic apology, that last day he had found L in the pouring rain.
Light could still see the look of raw hope in L's eyes when he told Light – "It all may still end up all right."
L – he crossed Light's mind often.
Light couldn't help but wonder if L saw this all in his mind before he passed on?
The search for Kira continuing...
Led by Light.
His successors being sent after Kira...
Lights death...
Light could almost believe L did see it all. And THAT was what he apologized for, that last day he was alive.
Perhaps THAT was the reason he deleted everything on file instead of forwarding his theory of Light's guilt to his successors to give them a head start.
But he dismissed it as lunacy. NO one could have predicted this. There were too many coincidental factors.
Still, Light couldn't help but feel that L was with him... always.
Even now.
Light tried to outrun his thoughts of his nemesis. His blood had begun pooling in his shoes. And he felt his socks squishing with each step. But still, he was... lighter, somehow.
He had remembered.
He didn't need this world. This world was cursed.
This world needed him.
And now it would not have him.
The rotting would only accelerate. They would realize one day.
And it would be too late.
The empty face of confusion overwhelmed him as he remembered his failure to prevent that.
His head pounded with each step.
How could everything have gone so terribly wrong? How could he have changed it?
He almost tripped as everything ran through his mind in a numbing blur.
Each event... each person... some shorter and others refusing to move on, swirled through his mind.
Each choice the only option.
Each decision forced his hand.
His lungs were on fire... the fence, the same he'd passed on his first day finding the Death Note, had run out. He slowed.
His calculations were correct. No matter which way he ran the scenarios.
It wasn't HIM. It couldn't have been. He... no, his plan had been perfect. Brilliant.
Every move he predicted – each move he saw in his minds eye before it happened.
And each time, like mathematical equations – perfect parallels.
Such brilliant deductions couldn't just be a sign of mere highly developed intelligence.
Such an all-powerful, unbeatable ability to perfectly predict everything in a series of events after having made only a few small moves to line up the pieces...
It was enough to believe in the power of prognosis. The power of a true god – to predict and create that predicted future.
A future that no longer included him.
The human race had killed it's best chance at a utopian world.
Nevermind the fact that thinking along those lines was the first major symption on delusional psycosis.
He had long ago rationalized his more... unconventional ideals.
Lights face was illuminated one last time as he squinted against the setting sun, before escaping into the shadowed doorway of another vacant warehouse.
He scarcely saw his surroundings anymore. His thoughts were becoming more disjointed.
His head now seemed unbalanced and he swayed woozily.
Was it here...?
Was it finally here?
The moment when he would have to think no longer?
He was so...
tired of thinking, and having to outthink himself,
all the time.
It was such a chore... and not half as much fun with L gone.
Light shook his head and looked around... becoming more and more confused as time stretched further and further. He was thinking a lot about L today.
Maybe there was something he wanted... from L.
What did he want?
Light spun wildly, trying to maintain his balance, against the great weight that pulled him down and begged him to rest.
Was he looking for something...
someone?
He looked up...
There... was that something on the stairs... or a trick of the light?
Could it be a flash of sunlight on a loose white shirt?
Or just a stray peice of some discarded rag?
There were boxes in the way. He couldn't see...
He needed to see. He would have to climb.
Leaning heavily on the rail,
desperately panting for air,
Light started up the stairs.
He felt it then: the ripping pain through his chest.
His eyes widened in terror.
Panic seized him, and he was powerless to stop his body's crash to the cold metal stairs.
Was this how everybody feels at the end of their life?
This desperate desire for even a few pain-riddled seconds more. He struggled to turn face-up.
'NO! Not yet...' Managing to turn, Light struggled to sit up.
'I didn't get to see him yet...'
Light's body could move no more and dropped uselessly on the middle of the stair set.
His eyes darted, searching... and finally and opened wide in disbelief.
The look of mixed confusion and horror spread across his features, as Light struggled to understand how it was that L could be standing before him.
Did dieing people have hallucinations?
And if they did, of what emotion... what desire are they born?
Was he releived... glad even to see the friend he indirectly killed, one last time?
Or scared... of what a dying man seeing a man he killed in his last seconds of life could mean?
L's eyes, somehow more vulnerable looking without the dark circles that always hung below them, saw Light, dieing before him.
L stood, hunched, in the same clothes he wore in life. He was solid, except where the suns setting rays shone through the ceiling – revealing his rapidly spreading transparence.
However, it was his expression that shocked Light most of all in his final seconds of life.
Instead of triumph or joy – Light found only a sadly reproachful, yet understanding smile.
The apparition of the long-deal detective remained only a few moments after the young man's face smoothed out in death, as if the end of one mans life extinguished them both.
Unable to take the vacant expression in his open lifeless eyes, so unlike the alive calculating expression he loved, L used every last ounce of his willpower to place an invisible hand over Lights eyelids and close them.
Finally, surrendering the last bit of life he had clung to in order to watch over the man before him, L's presence faded from the world with an unfelt kiss to the dead mans lips.