"Light-kun!"

Everyone swivelled around to stare at Light's retreating silhouette as he flung open the door of the warehouse, disappearing around the corner. The police members gasped.

"Light-kun! Hold it!" Aizawa shouted.

All the members of the Japanese taskforce made for the door, intending to chase after Light, when they were stopped by a quiet yet firm voice that was startingly in its sureness.

"Mr. Aizawa. He shouldn't have any more hidden notes," Near informed them from his crouch on the floor, surrounded by his dispersed figurines. Gray eyes peered up from a layer of silver hair to regard them intelligently. Near continued, "And he can't get far with those wounds… If we leave him alone, his movements will stop."

There was a pause, before Aizawa said just as determinedly, "Near, I won't follow your instructions."

Near looked up with mild surprise evident on his face, before he bowed his head in assent. "I understand. I'll leave him to you."

The Japanese taskforce members immediately ran. Matsuda was shaking as he ran in the wake of Mogi, Ide, and Aizawa. All he could think about was I shot him. I shot Light. I almost killed him. I would have killed him. I wanted to kill him.

They'd been running for nearly an hour when Aizawa stopped abruptly. He turned to face his colleagues. "Has anyone spotted Light at all?"

The other members mutely shook their heads, keeping their faces grim and passive but all feeling secretly distressed. Light had had multiple gun wounds to his arms and chest and abdomen areas. It wasn't a question of how long he could hold running but how long he could hold breathing…

It was unclear whether the glistening tracks down the faces of the police members was sweat or tears or both. The knowledge that Light-kun was Kira after all and it was he who'd been responsible for all these deaths… Chief Yagami… Sayu's illness… all the innocent people who had defied Kira's law… the knowledge was too terrible to properly ingest. They faced each other and were only able to draw a little comfort from each others' presence.

"Let's split up," Aizawa spoke abruptly. He'd roughly wiped away at his face so that it was calm, albeit the furrow in his eyebrows and set frown. "Ide, Mogi, you two continue on ahead and look up any traces of Light-kun. Articles of clothing, blood. Especially blood, with wounds like his he probably trailed a lot. Matsuda, come with me to retrace our steps and let's look more carefully in some of the buildings we passed by. He might have taken refuge in one of them. This is no longer a chase. Like Near said, he can't have holden up any longer. He might even have passed out."

Aizawa turned to address Mogi and Ide specifically. "If you find him, don't arrest him quite yet. According to the law, because he's critically injured, we need to bring him to the hospital first to treat him. We'll gather together once one of us finds him. Go."

They dispersed. Aizawa turned with Matsuda back to the direction of the Yellow Box. Along the way, Matsuda turned hesitantly to his colleague, his heart jumping at his throat. "Aizawa-san—" and his youthful voice trembled and broke. He recalled the unadulterated rage that had filled him when he found out the truth about Light, how the desire to hurt Light had filled every particle of his being, endrenching any common sense. He would have fired that bullet straight at Light's brain had they not wrenched his arm away at the last moment. He shuddered violently.

"I know, Matsuda." Aizawa looked at Matsuda with a clear gaze. "I understand."

A moment passed, before Matsuda nodded slightly, his bowed in shame yet relief. This simple confirmation of understanding was enough. The two smiled at each other slightly before resuming their search.

Ryuk was admiring the pinks and purples of the human world's setting sun and thinking how depressing the ceaseless, perpetual dark shades of the Shinigami world were in comparison. His vermillion Shinigami eyes glowed like two rubies, glinting in the shifting rays that reflected the warm red hue.

"Light…" he mused, tapping thoughtfully at the Death Note he'd just retrieved from Near.

"Shinigami-san, I give up the rights of this Note of Death to you," Near had said respectfully. "To it's rightful place, the owner. A true god of death. May its power never corrupt the weakness of human nature ever again."

Ryuk had only grinned and swooped away. Depends on if another Shinigami doesn't get bored again, he'd thought, cackling slightly. Now he sat and he knew he had an obligation, a duty.

"Light, you've lost." Ryuk spoke out loud. From his perch on top of a high rise building, he had a good view of the Kanto region. He could see the figures of Matsuda and Aizawa walking and coming closer to the dilapidated building where Light was lying, writhing in pain from his wounds and attempting to catch his breath. Ryuk knew from looking at Light's lifespan that Light's time wasn't nearly done, and yet, he was steadily dying. Ryuk rose one skeletal hand to the air, pen in hand, and brought it down to his Death Note. He paused.

The truth was, Ryuk didn't want to leave the human world. He had thoroughly enjoyed his time tailing Yagami Light's ascent to become "god of the new world" and seeing humans in their many interesting manifestations. It was all entertainment for him, and such entertainment it had been! He was lucky the Death Note had landed in Yagami Light's hands—he was by far, the most interesting of the lot. Surely, even when he was jailed, there would be many more interesting developments? And Ryuk had only but seen this small part of the human world. There was the rest of the world to be explored. Plus, the apples were so juicy… and delicious…

He suddenly thought of the acrid taste of the Shinigami world apples as distinctly as if he'd just bitten into one and threw his pen down with conviction. Surely, none of the shinigamis would mind if he stayed for a bit longer? Surely he wouldn't be breaking any laws of death? Surely…

And that's when Ryuk made up his mind. He would stay and wait until Light died at the end of his lifespan. He'd gotten a taste of fun and wasn't keen on leaving so soon.

"Light," he said with a glint in his fading red eyes. "You are very lucky. See you around." And Ryuk took off, spreading his spiky wings and soon his silhouette couldn't be seen.

"Aizawa-san! Look here!"

"What? Is it Light-kun? Did you find him?"

After nearly an hour of scourging, both Matsuda and Aizawa were sweaty and swooty from sweeping the length of various warehouse buildings. Matsuda had entered the dilapidated building not thinking too much about it until he spotted the trail of dried blood leading to a wide opening in the building's side.

Aizawa came running up and followed Matsuda's gaze to the blood trails. "Most likely Light's," he murmured. They looked at each other briefly before both breaking into sprints.

The sight that met their eyes sent Aizawa into shocked silence and Matsuda into wails of despair. Light was lying on the cement stairs, barely breathing, his face a sickly shade of puce. His eyes were half closed, and hair stuck plastered to his face with blood. His suit was ruined too, half of it obscured by a hand clawing helplessly at a chest wound out of which was leaking a thin trickle of blood.

Aizawa snapped out of his despair and immediately called the ambulance. Matsuda's knees gave way and he crumpled, overcome by a terrible pressing weight of guilt and sadness. The man he saw lying defeated on the stairs wasn't Kira. It was his friend, Light, the son of the Chief he had always looked up to.

Within minutes, the paramedics had whisked Light away, leaving Aizawa on the phone to call Ide and Mogi that the search was over and Matsuda to stay in his crumpled position, tears spilling down his cheeks onto pools of dark red blood.

"Mogi-san. Yes, he was taken away by the ambulance. As for the legal procedures, we have nothing to do with them. I believe after he has recovered he will be tried by the jury and court. …Nothing else. Meet us at headquarters? Alright."

Aizawa placed a heavy and comforting hand on Matsuda's shoulders. "Matsuda. It's over. It's all over. This case is closed." But Matsuda was thinking of all the people they had lost along the way and the horrible betrayal they had all learnt of and wishing none of it had started to begin with.

"Near, shall we head back to the headquarters at the hotel?"

Near was silent in his contemplative state, as he subconsciously carressed the Mello figurine in his hands. He wasn't thinking of his victory over Kira. He was thinking of how lucky he was, that at the last minute, Mello had become strong enough to ovecome his inferiority complex and do justice for justice's sake. He'd abandoned his ambition to become number one and his jealous hatred for Near to catch Kira. He'd done all this, prepared to lose his life. He'd done all this knowing he would obtain none of the glory he so desired and he would never become L's successor. For the first time in his life, Near was perplexed. He wanted to know—why?

"Near?" Halle said softly. At the end of the day, Near was just a boy, not yet a man. Oustandingly intelligent or not, he'd been through a lot. "Would you like one of us to carry you?"

"No," Near responded automatically. "I will manage."

By the time they'd gotten to the hotel, Near's head was swimming, an unusual sensation. He saw problems as complicated knots—with patience and dedication and enough focus, he could see where the threads tangled and carefully undo them until it all made sense and there were no more lumps. But the question of why Mello had done so much—this wasn't a rope to be untangled. This was something entirely out of Near's domain.

They all entered the suite and the first thing Near registered was that strangely, the lights were on. His flawless memory told him they'd turned the lights off when they left. Stranger still, was when Near began to hallucinate.

Because sitting on the couch merely a couple of feet away from him was Mello.

"Mello…" he breathed. He took a stumbling step forward, filled with a tingling sensation in his body that made it impossible for him to not smile. His arms stretched out of their own accord—

Then the unmistakeable click of a gun.

"Drop your weapon!" Lester shouted forcefully. Near registered belatedly that Mello had a gun himself, and it was aimed straight at Near's heart. His corners of his lips curled into a smirk. His blue eyes narrowed as he snapped off a piece of chocolate.

"Thought I was dead, huh?"

"Mello!" Halle was shocked and beyond hiding it. "How? When? Y-You… you're alive…" she sputtered incoherently.

Near somehow found his voice. "Everyone drop your weapons. I would be very interested in hearing how Mello is standing before us, alive, when all evidence points to to the precise opposite."

There was a tense showdown between Mello and the SPK members, neither side willing to yield first, until Gevanni reluctantly lowered his weapon. Lester followed, and Mello stowed away his gun. He turned directly to Near.

"How I'm alive huh? I suppose I owe everything to…"

And from the shadows, a man emerged. The members of the SPK couldn't suppress their gasps. No one had noticed him. As he stepped into the lighting, Near took in his appearance: a plain long sleeve T-shirt, dark wash jeans, overgrown black hair, and dark half moons that underlined intelligent and penetrating onyx eyes. Near deducted who he was in seconds, through the process of elimination. He had only ever heard this man's technologically altered voice and absorbed his words of wisdom through a computer, but there was no mistaking it.

The man walked into the centre of the room, his hands shoved deep into his pockets, his back hunched over. He surveyed the people in the room and a corner of his lip tugged upwards in senseless humour as he opened his mouth to speak:

"I am L."