A world without life is sadness. A life without joy is nothing but sorrow. No beauty can ever diminish sadness but the loveliness of life itself, and so, the loss of life is a horror story of its own. When life is lost, when it slips through the hands of those who grasp so precariously to it, entire worlds are ended. Entire futures disappear forever. They can never exist without that one life.
Everything depends on life.
These were her thoughts as she walked down the street, the rain spattering down upon her shoulders, soaking through her light shirt to her cold skin beneath.
All feeling was lost, in every sense of the word.
She was numb to every other existence, but only because of the one that had been lost. She cradled the rose against her, the brilliant red flower that she had grown specifically for that life. Now it was only to be used for this death. These last few weeks she had never left bed until that empty hunger forced her to survive. She was living on gut instinct and cold macaroni. Not that she noticed that she was eating macaroni. It could have been sushi, the food that was the masterpiece of all foods in her eyes, and she would not have noticed.
The last time she had enjoyed sushi was before everything had lost purpose in her eyes. Before all time had slowed down to a stop.
The sun hadn't shone on her world since that day. That fateful, painful, gut-wrenching day when her friend, had told her the news. The news that had not kicked in until a full hour later when she had found herself weeping her heart out while curled up on her chair, the tip of her thumb resting between her lips and her feet propped up before her so as to protect herself with her shin bones.
The tears returned to her eyes, but she let them fall freely. Had they returned? Or had they just been there this entire time, unnoticed?
Forget that. They were of no importance now. Nothing was.
"Kira, if you hear me, kill me now." She tilted her head upwards. She believed that there was a God up there, one who was higher than Kira. Kira was no more than a human with impressive power and cunning. She turned to a nearby tree, slamming her skull against it in aggravation, "I don't care how, just kill me now!" she sank to her knees, "You've killed everything that made me who I am. You've cut away all reason to survive. Please, just kill the survivor and be done with me."
No one would hear her. She knew, somehow, that her cries were futile, so she dragged herself to her feet and continued to walk. Perhaps the movements of one foot after the other would distract her from the gut crushing, heart wrenching, mind snapping pain. Perhaps it would change it to that horrible numbness that she somehow preferred. Perhaps.
Then again, perhaps the life she had lived for was not dead. She doubted it though. The way that they had lived proved that they would publicize it more, even if it were barely anything.
She was here now. That terrible, swampy graveyard that always smelled like the skunks who resided there. If she had had any choice, she would have buried the body of the life she had so treasured in a whole other yard. One with beauty, one that had only the most incredible people buried there.
That's what that life was - incredible.
She walked through the soggy earth, avoiding any nameplates in the graveyard so that she didn't disrespect the lives that were etched in gold and onyx. It was in the far corner of the graveyard that she knew the body rested.
It was far to the other side, but she barely noticed how time flowed any more. Everything was meaningless now. Life without love is completely meaningless.
She found the spot, unmarked except for where the grass had not been perfectly lined up after being removed. She knelt down in the warm mud, running her hand through it reverently, before she quietly placed the rose on the earth there. Tears streamed from her eyes, mixing with the rain and leaving marks in the mud before her. She lay down on her stomach on the ground before curling her knees up to her chest and swiping at her eyes like a young child.
Hours passed as the rain beat down on her, until she was sodden and could easily have been mistaken for a gravestone. A pair of troublemakers passed by, throwing rocks out into the graveyard. One narrowly missed her, and she snagged it from the air and threw it back. Alarmed and howling about ghosts and goblins, the two ran off. She paid them no heed. Even a pair of hooligans could no longer make her smile.
A smile. What was it like to be happy? She had forgotten these last two days. It used to come so easily to her. She and him would sometimes stay up late into the night, sitting side by side with one another on the old, battered sofa as they shared a piece of carrot cake, her favourite. Sometimes it was a bowl of cherries, sometimes it was a plate of sushi. Always it was something that one or the other adored.
They shared tales and compared ideas about the latest crimes and criminals. He always surpassed her in brilliance, but whenever she said something that he had not thought of, he would always give her that wide-eyed look, blinking innocently as he told her, "Impressive, Raikura-chan. I hadn't thought of that." They had found that their minds worked different ways, and often together they were an unbeatable team. The time spent together, although it was diminished as he became a professional detective, changed the two of them for the better, merging their minds into one. Their ideals and morals connected, creating two brilliant people. However, as he became a professional detective, she remained always behind the scenes, only ever pretending to be a new acquaintance of his.
She rose to her knees, pressing her forehead into the palms of her hands as she continued to weep for him.
She had warned him that this new case was dangerous, that she wanted to see him come out alive. He had told her that he never was able to guarantee his own life, only that he would expose himself for the sake of closing the case. She had ruffled his hair affectionately in response, telling him that she knew he would be fine, that he would make it through.
Only her darkest nightmares had suggested that he would be wrong. The hunter had become the hunted, and he was now no more than another point on the high score of the hunter. There was no way to replace what had been lost. He had been an irreplaceable gem on the crown of the world, the eighth wonder of the modern world, the ultimate existence. He had been a detective with disdain for shoes and addiction to sugary treats.
"I miss you," she whispered, wiping away the tears around her eyes. She gently fixed the petals of the rose so that it lay perfectly over where his heart would be, "L ."
The next morning a crowd was gathered around the graveyard. Everyone was frozen at the horrifying sight. None but a sole figure moved. Light Yagami pushed his way to the front, staring at the scene before nodding to himself. It was as it was. He glanced down at the scrap of paper he held crumpled in his hands before turning his back on the figure and leaving. No one noticed him leaving, but simply stared at the curled body before them.
Raikura Uhikage
2:34 Sunday, November 7,
2004
Grieving the death of L, she goes to his grave and mourns.
Too tired to continue on without him, she simply gives up on life, as
does her heart. She dies of a heart attack, and is discovered the
next morning. She leaves nothing behind that would show her beliefs
that Light Yagami is Kira.