Ryuk is watching Raito sleep.
This is nothing out of the ordinary. Shinigami are always awake.
The human sleeps so soundly, it's almost laughable. There used to be nightmares– tossing and turning and crying out. Guilty dreams. Now he sleeps like a child.
And Ryuk knows what's changed. There's always come a point, some time after a mortal latches on to a death note, a step deeper into delusion. They start to think they are more shinigami than human. They have the eyes, or maybe they have the power of names.
Raito's begun to think he's immortal, like Ryuk. That's how his façade still remains somewhat of a game to him. It keeps him just that one necessary increment more sane – logical– loyal to whatever cause they've created. Whether you want to kill off Jews or kill off criminals, you have to have some belief in your own words. Your own lies.
Humans and evil– they're like hydra, or rabbits in the springtime. There will always be more. But Raito thinks he can stem the flow despite the fact that he hasn't gone to the root of the problem. Humans themselves, why– that's the reason the world's a mess.
Kill all the humans, end the disease. Burn the taproot.
There's a video game like that, isn't there?
The thought flits idly across Ryuk's ugly jester of a face. Even the humans think about their own extinction.
The mound under the blankets shifts and mutters in slurred dream-speech.
Ryuk wonders at the future.
Humans and death notes have a tumultuous history that will never be printed in the textbooks. Shinigami need their fun: upsetting the balance is the only way to relieve the boredom. The humans always die eventually. They get caught, or they can't handle it, or their curiosity of the Beyond grows too strong.
Ryuk thinks– no, he knows, of course he knows– that Raito will be caught. The cycle must run its course. If Raito deviates from the path, then the fun must end. Ryuk will step in.
This is how everything must be.
Another funny thing. How Raito thinks he's in total control. Maybe it's his quiet megalomania that does it, or his bleak world view. Admittedly, he is something of a prodigy. He has a mind built for murder and justification, and Ryuk couldn't have chosen a better mortal.
Ryuk did it. I made him.
He may beg like a dog for apples and excitement, but he knows what he's doing. He is not subservient, but neither is he running the show in its entirety. He knows the game, knows the rules. Knows how to move the pieces.
Sometimes he needs the satisfaction of this knowledge. The one thing he knows for certain, that Kira does not.
Raito and Kira wander the mists of their joined unconscious. Ryuk watches.
Though they may not know it, they prepare for the end.