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.Something Wrong
There was something wrong about her brother's death.
Sayu knew that the moment the haze of grief in her mind cleared enough to allow her to think. Something was off. Something huge; she just wasn't sure what.
She couldn't broach the subject with her mother, of course; even if Sachiko hadn't been shattered by the death of her second immediate family member in less than a year, Sayu wouldn't have said a word. Her suspicions were too vague, and talking about them probably wouldn't accomplish anything. This decided, she tried to push the matter from her mind.
After half a year, however, when time was slowly beginning to move again for the remnants of the Yagami family, the feeling returned. What was it?
After much painful thinking, Sayu came to the conclusion that, simply, Light's death just didn't make sense. Her father's sudden end had been horrible, yes; crushing, yes; but everyone was aware of the circumstances surrounding it. Awful as it was, it was understandable, and that gave them some small measure of closure to help start the healing process.
In the case of Sayu's beloved elder brother, it was another thing entirely. As far as Sayu and Sachiko knew, Light hadn't been in any immediate danger. Granted, he wasn't exactly in constant contact with them; in fact, the first time they'd spoken to him in several months was when he called to inform them of Soichiro's death (that would also be the last time they spoke to him, but of course they hadn't known that at the time). But if Kira was closing in on the police force, wouldn't somebody have known? Wouldn't one of the people working with Light have told them?
Wouldn't Light have told them?
It only made matters worse that the details of his death were heavily shrouded in mystery and vagueness. The remaining members of the Kira task force had been unable to disclose any information regarding the whole thing, uncomfortably citing confidentiality issues when asked.
Sayu had expected her mother to be furious when that answer was given. She herself certainly was. Her big brother and her mother's firstborn had just died, without warning, and now they couldn't even be told why or how? Yes, Sayu had been waiting for her mother's explosion. She'd been looking forward to it.
But Sachiko, to her daughter's lasting anger and confusion, said nothing. She clammed up and nodded shakily, and the task force members had left. Touta Matsuda, his eyes rimmed thickly with red, had stayed behind very briefly.
"I'm sorry," was all he said. He said it in a whisper.
Sayu had to exercise all of her self-control to keep from slapping him across the face, and it wasn't until much later that she wondered whether his words had been a condolence or an apology.
With all of the maddening confusion surrounding Light's untimely end, of course Sayu came to the conclusion that something had been 'off' about it. What could have possibly happened, that members of the NPA weren't allowed to tell their colleague's family why he had died?
The question returned to her mind time and again, and Sayu could never come up with any plausible answer.
On top of that, a second and more large-scale mystery had presented itself.
Kira had stopped killing.
It had gotten to a point where this was hardly a revelation; for weeks and weeks people had been speculating-albeit quietly-that somehow, for some reason, Kira had ceased passing judgment. The entity millions praised as "God" appeared to have fallen out of existence. A bizarre happening in and of itself.
But at some point, Sayu noticed something disturbing.
While musing over the disappearance of the hailed savior slash murderer, a thought had occurred to her. She's grabbed a scrap of paper and started calculating, scribbling down numbers and dates and then crossing them out. Her mind went blank, save for the task at hand.
Once finished, her blood immediately went ice cold.
Kira had killed no new criminals, to the knowledge of the press and the media, since January 28th.
The same day that Light had died.
.
After that, Sayu became very quiet. She didn't leave her room for nearly two weeks; Sachiko, still very much wrapped in her own grief, made little effort to convince her daughter to return to the world of the living.
Eventually, she did reenter society of her own accord, and never said anything about her self-imposed isolation period. She burned the papers she'd written on during said period to ash, and slowly but methodically removed every trace of her elder brother from her bedroom.
She never allowed herself to dwell on Light or Kira again.
Yes, something had been very wrong about Light's death.
But in the back of her mind, Sayu considered that maybe something had been very wrong with his life as well.
.Owari