zero hour

by acerbicapplecoffee

Tokyo is surfeited: just press your finger down on it, and the turbic juice will ooze. 50 sentences. Total psychological drama. Extremely slight Aizawa/Matsuda/Ide.

Frame 1: Crowd

Tokyo is surfeited: just press your finger down on it, and the turbic juice will ooze; grey walls, soaring roofs, bright lights, hundreds of signs, thousands of noises, millions of people are swirling around the flat blocks - their eyes are straying fussily, their thoughts are softly bypassing daily troubles, their claims of something better are needling their bosoms - and trampling the dull concrete ground with soles.

Frame 2: Incipience

Light Yagami is seventeen years old, and he is already clever and devoid of any illusions - it is not so easy to save them when every passing day persuades you of the human nature's indolence, and cowardice, and meanness: this world is rotten to the core, as Light is convinced, there is nothing to do here, nothing can be done here, just to think of such seems nauseating, but remains impossible to cease; Light apathetically stares out the window and suddenly notices (and why nobody else does?) that something dark has fallen down in the schoolyard, like a stone, and he goes for it, passes through the hallways unhurriedly by intention, occasionally greeting faces which are too familiar, and finally exits the school building - a small notebook in a black cover is resting at his feet.

Frame 3: Disengage

A death of a person is an ordinary occurrence, nothing significant; it is easy to kill a person, the actual torment is a realization of a murder, an understanding of a fact that a personal right has been put above the another's one, that you are unique, you are making decisions, you are allowed of way more than everybody else now; but only from the moment when the understanding is replaced by a habit the murderer is disengaging from the common morality irretrievably.

Frame 4: Explosion

People are dropping like flies, and we are just witnessing it... - Soichiro Yagami is absolutely not delighted with this comparison, but the situation cannot be described in any other words: for all his long-term work experience a suchlike case has never occurred, and even over the NPA - which is supposed to represent the stronghold of the entire nation - an afflictive feeling of an imminent disaster is regning; a post-war child, Yagami remembers the only time when his father - nervously and choosing words with evident difficulty, although this behaviour was not peculiar to him - told what exactly had he chanced to see during those days when two nuclear suns had bursted over Japan; Yagami remembers and realizes: these disasters are unnaturally akin to each other, and he will rather sacrifice his own life, but will never allow any more blood, or death, or fear.

Frame 5: High

Highness is a tiny word that is absolutely appropriate for Light's outstanding achievements: his highest mental development is remarked by every teacher, in the grades list and national rating his surname stands higher than anybody else's, sport competitions always end up with the best results, with the highest honour and on a high note; life is not complicated for Light Yagami, he manages to succeed in any matter he has ever undertaken, and so dispensing justice has proved to be very simple and pleasing to some extent: he is already considered as great, and the highness to which the greatness is exalting him, makes him high.

Frame 6: Swarm

The newspapers are reasoning, the television is seething, the internet is raging: curious people in the street are ready to gnaw - gladly, like unfed dogs - every piece of news and every rumour to the bone, rushing into thick of events, tearing their throats on talk shows constantly repeating, furiously smashing their keyboards in the heat of virtual debates - the entire hysteria is for the answer to the simplest question: will Kira get caught?

Frame 7: Acquaintance

Everybody has walked off, and there are only five of them left; while waiting for Chief, Aizawa is scrutinizing his colleagues, as if seeing them for the first time, and trying to understand exactly what sort of reasons - and these reasons must be significant - has compelled every one of these men to come back to the headquarters on this rainy night of December, 31st: they have been working together for long years, after all, they say hello to each other every morning, do converse on some notional subjects occasionally, - and, as it is turning out, have never even actually known each other.

Frame 8: Eminent

How difficult must've it been for him to create such a mysterious and convincing image; he doesn't even look like a detective, Matsuda supposes, and his notion seems right, but he reasons by the standards of an ordinary person, whereas L indeed is eminent in all respects: he anticipates criminals' way of thinking as if reading them like an open book, he closes the most discouraging cases before which the entire NPA surrenders, he is even able to drive a phantom into a corner, as he has already done so with Kira, and, what is most important, is never mistaken.

Frame 9: Predaylight

Stars cannot be seen in the irradiated sky under Tokyo - those have coarsened and are falling down the streets as candescent neon signs, car headlights and lantern beams, - and the sun always rises too soon.

Frame 10: Normal

Everybody has their own understanding of normality, this is a well-known verity, but Ryuzaki's viewpoint on this matter is dissenting, and he is building his own reality, establishing the only acceptable pace of life and way of thinking, and subjugating the entire team to it: strong black coffee instead of breakfast, uncomfortable chairs and narrow couches instead of bedstead, hotel rooms are incessantly changing, their eyes are fixed on dozens of screens - now this is their home, and their workplace, and temple, and they are already considering this as normality.

Frame 11: Thread

All the threads - thin threads, adeptly hidden, hardly perceptible - lead to Light Yagami; Ryuzaki is far from being called an idiot, he is a complete stranger and is capable of viewing the facts sanely, he is examining Light who is sitting in front of him, and recognizes himself: rational, cautious, hating to lose; Ryuzaki trusts his own mind completely and is convinced that Light Yagami is guilty - the only thing left is to reveal the evidence.

Frame 12: Asphalt

Ukita's body is growing cold on the grey asphalt - one hand is reaching for the belt, another is gripping the shirt fabric by heart; and somewhere far afield, a few blocks away, furious Aizawa is breaking through to him with a shout; and somewhere far afield, in a hospital ward, Chief is clenching his fists exhaustedly - he is blaming only himself, he was not able to save his man; and somewhere far afield, in a small town, four hours by train, parents are falling asleep with no worries; and somewhere far afield a single life has passed away, barely begun, but it all does not matter anymore, it all does not matter...

Frame 13: Outspoken

Aizawa respects Ryuzaki despite his young age, respects him as a detective who is far-famed all over the world, as an owner of an undeniable mind that obeys the rigorous rules of logic, as a person by whom Kira will be eventually arrested and thereafter penalized, but at the same time Aizawa is a law-abiding man, he has his own beliefs and principles that he was not going to derogate from and is not going to, and Ryuzaki, on the contrary, is ready to waive the letter of the law, even the human right for attaining the truth; Aizawa is extremely indignant at this point of view, and he states it outspokenly right in Ryuzaki's face - it is even amusing: it seems like he has never known of a treatment alike.

Frame 14: Phantom

Everything phantom: bravery, promises, hopes, time, world outside of the headquarters, next step, silence, verity, Kira, L.

Frame 15: Tangible

Everything tangible: work, documents and files, unshaven face, circles under the eyes, hotel room, mistakes, death, Light Yagami, Ryuzaki.

Frame 16: Expatiate

Ryuzaki instantly ascertains that something goes wrong when Light begins to speak to excess.

Frame 17: Army

To the question whether an army may consist of six people, now the answer exists: yes, it may; to the question whether an army is able to risk everything it has ever had, the answer has been determined from the first day: yes, it is able to; to the question whether an army is aware of a fear of the merciless enemy, the answer must be: yes, they are, but people are naturally meant to feel fear; and to the question whether an army will gain the victory, the answer remains a scattered silence.

Frame 18: Slumber

Eternally veridical, Ryuzaki suffers (to admit mistakes the one must cope with the titanic work) and languishes just so childly - his genius has fallen into a monotonous slumber and, without realizing, is contaminating everybody else with it: at no time before the headquarters has accrued such slack and noiseless days.

Frame 19: Crumpled

Killing for salvation - no sane and clear-eyed parent would have reckoned this suggestion as funny; Soichiro Yagami also does not consider it as such - unwashed, bleary and immensely perplexed, he is impaling Ryuzaki's slouched, almost hateful figure with unseeing glare for a few moments, then heavily falls in a chair and mutely consents in the end, and his crumpled clothes is flashed with the shrilling sun of the evening.

Frame 20: Causeless

Everything causeless only appears as such: this world is built on the elementary, like an alphabet, rules and follows stable consistent patterns, just as its inhabitants; something never comes from nothing, and even Kira who keeps the entire civilized society in fear precisely with his chaotic lack of reasons, is nothing but a consequence of certain circumstances.

Frame 21: Omission

An unwonted feeling is constantly chasing Ryuzaki (he has omitted something important: where has he been deceived, what in, when exactly?), and Ryuzaki hates it with a rare sincerity.

Frame 22: Enumerate

Every time when Matsuda inquiringly looks through the unending lists of killed people printed on sheets of paper, grey from frequent touches, he is hideously distorted, and there simply is something despicable and timid, something completely unworthy of being a policeman about it, but he overcomes himself, recovers quickly and gazes into the columns of names again: how much insane, how much embittered must Kira be, he thinks, to get rid of people (there was a person - there is no person) so easily; somewhen before, to tell the truth, Kira's actions reminded him of a kind of weird and warped but unfeigned justice, and it seemed to Matsuda that he had understood it quite clearly then, even in his mind a suchlike thought appeared sometimes - you see a criminal, you read what exactly has he committed, and the indignation disturbs your soul: why, by what right is he still alive, and his victims, ordinary people, have died for nothing? - but this impression has long vanished away; within a few minutes Matsuda puts aside the impassive documents and turns his steps to perform his new duties, doubting that all his efforts would ever bring any benefit.

Frame 23: Irritable

Aizawa is angrily, impetuously, gratingly pacing through the spotlessly clean hallways, through the first, the second and the third, and does not notice himself going faster and faster; in anger he cannot see anything in front of him, and nothing would have made him look back, he is entering the lift and unconsolabely hitting the first floor button: lift's running is enormously slow, and Aizawa is clenching his fists, closing his eyes to calm down, but he can't, that has always been his bothersome weakness, and who the hell does this Ryuzaki think he is, who let him test them this way, who let him say such words which are told when people respect each other, when they got used to each other, and lie so shamelessly; Aizawa has always worked responsibly and thoroughly, and yet has never worked so devotedly, he has dedicated his whole self to this case and wanted to go till the end, but now is deprived even of this possibility, and so it turns out that he is not worthy of anything more, he has nothing to work at anymore; Aizawa is nearly running out of the building, and standing petrified, and perplexedly looking ahead: everything is fine, peaceful and strikingly quiet outside, autumn has already come, he may go wherever he wants to - but what is left for him to go to anyway?

Frame 24: Nights

Every night that is slipping away - wordless, heartless, endless - is bringing them to success little by little: this way it is easier to work, this way it is easier to think, this way it is easier to believe.

Frame 25: Fabric

One day Light was being killed according to Ryuzaki's plan, and now Matsuda is - not for real, of course, this is only a little part of an artful way out of troubles that Matsuda has driven himself into thanks to his own reckless courage and, as he has just been informed by cellphone, frank idiocy; he does not like the unpreventable perspective to fall down, does not like the perspective to die in general, but anything else cannot be done here, it is simply impossible to turn back halfway to the balcony, and now it already appears to him that he's got nothing to be afraid of anymore, that there is always the first time for everything, even for death, - and in a few seconds the fabric of his shirt is drunkenly flickering as a snow-white spot among the highest buildings and the night sky and disappears in an instant.

Frame 26: Game

Light is always - every minute, every second - analyzing the current situation, he is keeping in mind all circumstances of the case which he is aware of: dates, names, profiles, events, Kira's presumptive line of thought, the number of deaths during different time periods - and is binding them into the neat chains of facts; no liberties, assumptions or inaccuracies can exist here, the whole further course of the investigation depends on the detailed analysis, and his own innocence also does; Light does not approve anything ephemeral, but still occasionally catches himself on a ludicrous conjecture: so many decisions of Kira coincides with those he would have made himself (although it is impossible, absolutely absurd, Light Yagami is not a criminal after all, he cannot be wrong), and at such moments he feels as if he is involved in somebody's amplitudinous bloodcurdling game, is unconsciously moving along the predetermined convoluted path - at such moments he clearly sees that there is not much left until the end.

Frame 27: Sedition

Misa-Misa is a smart and quick-witted girl, it is just that nobody noticed it before, and Light also did not, but she does not need that, because she loves Light, and he - it goes without saying - loves her: he honestly promised her that when this stupid investigation finished, they would live together happily ever after and, maybe, would even get married, and Misa does want it indeed, but lots of things just obstruct their happiness all along, and even now, from a bit scary but very kind shinigami's words she has understood that Light is in danger, which means that Misa's duty is to help him without straining herself, and so she will do; yes, some rules which that pervert Ryuzaki thought up once will be broken - though, now Misa knows why exactly they are necessary, - but she is not afraid, she longs to do it instead: if this tiny sedition presents the victory to Light, her entire existence justifies itself.

Frame 28: Severally

The time is versatile, a lot of matters depends on it, literally everything; usually it seems undivided, but sometimes this happens: weeks decay into days, days decay into hours, hours decay into minutes, minutes decay into seconds - smaller and smaller, independently of one another, these segments must not be perceived in conjunction anymore, they are too significant on their own; an ordinary person is too paltry and by his definition is not able to compete with the value of time, and in those few occurrences when he and the time act separately or, more tragically, confront each other, is doomed to a disgraceful defeat.

Frame 29: Wind

Exactly twenty five days have passed, and in the late evening of the twenty sixth day Aizawa is going towards the sorely familiar battlefield again - it rejected him once, taught a severe lesson, however Aizawa does not belong to those people who blindly follow others' precepts - this, as it proved to be almost a month ago, burdensome but essential feature rescued him not once and not even twice, - and he is coming back with dignity; although people seldom change in such a brief period of time, Aizawa thinks he has changed, that he, probably, has become a bit more tolerant and forbearing and, most importantly, has firmly decided on what exactly he is going to achieve and what exactly does he want: if he is not destined to arrest Kira personally, he will render all feasible help to those ones who are destined, if the doors to the investigation team are closed for him, then, well, he worked hard and now will support those ones who have stayed; yet there is so little time, no time to ponder, the car is going fast and with ease, and Aizawa feels relaxed in a good way: nearby him there is a person whom he could always rely on, even if he remembered of it less and less often, they are sitting close, they are not looking at each other and are not breaking the silence - all the words of gratitude were said long ago, but was there even any need in such words? - and the zealous Tokyo wind is tapping at the car window, and Aizawa knows for certain - this time they will prevail.

Frame 30: Recollection

light yagami is not kira or light yagami is kira or what is going on where are these memories from he has done it has he really done it dead people slain to no purpose to a purpose who are they invisible blood on his hands black cover he has just been innocent snow-pure page now he has become the embodied evil names ink trace dates names who are they why are they staring why he remembers ryuzaki was right all this time ryuzaki was right why so many of them who is he somebody else is invading here who is he he is disappearing - and everything falls into place, and everything goes just as planned, and Light Yagami is Kira, and he screams, screams, screams.

Frame 31: Nonsense

Within these unbearably long seconds when events and ensuing repercussions that were formerly undeniable, deprived of any solid evidences all at once, when the factual reasoning appeared to be so vulnerable against the uncanny will which in a literal sense is not inherent of a human being, and against the careless pen stroke, when the hated omission finally demonstrated itself and turned out to be fatal, when Kira's lie intertwined with the truth to such an extent that a plain realization would make anybody feel sickened, the one and only axiom matters for Lawliet: L is dead, Ryuzaki is dead, L Lawliet is dead, this is the end; although he envisaged the possibility of this denouement in thousands and thousands variations, death has crept up unexpectedly: his time is already over, and he has not noticed, and the image of a body convulsively twitching on a cold asphalt is emerging before his eyes, and in a moment Lawliet will be doomed to the same final, just like all the other victims were doomed - their faces always distorted in mad, irrational, primal fear, because nobody wanted to die; he is falling and he has nothing to expect anymore, but his mind is strangely clear and sharp, as in the distant childhood, and somebody's arms are catching him abruptly, and the last thing he is forced to see consciously is becoming the disdainful eyes of a person who has long forgotten any mercy to the defeated; Kira is brushing away the very fact of his existence so offhandedly, like people are brushing away any kind of nonsense, as Ryuzaki is still able to perceive, and a suchlike death is insulting for him - but this is what Kira exactly wants, and this is what his final word will be.

Frame 32: Lineal

The new day is coming, the new year is coming, everything is quiet, everything is fine, take care of your nerves, you should not worry; no more indolence any longer, no more cowardice, no more meanness, no more rot, no more evil, no more contrariness, no more faces, no more names, no more memories, no more past, forget about this inanity, this is archaic; every one of you is beautiful, every one of you is faultless, every one of you is chosen to live in the new world, in Kira's world, Kira cares about you, Kira looks after you, Kira knows everything you have done, are doing and will do, but Kira still loves you, believe Kira, you cannot help believing, Kira is your god now.

Frame 33: Revel

Misa will never admit to anybody that once at night she woke up from a barely understandable but persistent foreboding - the habit of sleeping in a half empty and cold bed had formed much earlier - at the worst time possible, she, like an uninvited guest, made her way on tiptoes to the only room which was morbidly, dimly illuminated with a used table lamp at this late hour somehow, and saw Light - dressed in a formal suit, neat, handsome, benumbed as a monument, and only his fingers were clutching the lacquered armchairs feverishly; Misa was waiting for a single word, let it be even an angry word, but he did not notice her, he noticed nothing in front of him and was not doing anything, and it felt so weird to watch him, an ever busy person who valued the time as no other did, in a total stillness; for a few seconds there was no sound, and suddenly Light began to laugh, his face disfeatured in laughter, he laughed, and laughed, and laughed, and did not stop, and no matter how much Misa trusted Light, no matter how much she loved him, at that exact moment she was truly scared of him for the first time; however, Misa is not going to tell anybody - she does not want to, and even if she did, she would not be able to.

Frame 34: Futilely

Five bitter years ago, as if in the past life, Soichiro Yagami assured his men that soon they all would enter the new path, the path to the better tomorrow, - but he has broken this promise; he firmly resolved that he would never allow any more fear, - but eventually the determination has attenuated, and the dire awareness that even the strong will, brave heart and longest experience are not able to restrain the disaster, has come; he pledged that Kira's phantom hands would not drag away a single person, - but death has mowed down the best ones, has taken away both young and old, both those who have had nothing to lose and those who have not yet found anything worth losing; from the first day he sweared to himself that under no circumstances, no matter what, never his family would be privy to this atrocious case and would never be aware of people from the other side, people who had lost any sign of humanity, - but his children are dying, they are dying and his heart is bleeding; Yagami doesn't know what the reason is - whether has he become too old and decrepit, or has he overestimated his own capacities, or has he taken responsibility that is grueling for an ordinary man, - but the result is much more important here: he has sustained an inexcusable defeat and has managed neither of assigned tasks, and this is much more humiliating than just to lose his face.

Frame 35: Premeditated

The bad things are done stealthily and not for free, the good things are done loudly and with an eye to profit, to the chance that they will be remembered, noted and treated graciously, and perhaps, who knows, will be brought closer to the almighty hand; Kira is not considered as a phantom anymore, he is a being of flesh and blood, he is as tangible as we all are, he does exist, but the main difference is that he owns the infinite power which cannot ever be questioned, and, consequently, the authority, and the humanity is reaching out to the powerful ones and is clinging to their feet, and those who still remain disbelieving in such, are purblind, impractical and, frankly speaking, hopelessly dumb; perhaps, initially Kira intended to change this world for the better, but hardly could he imagine that sooner or later he would stay alongside with innumerable despots encircled by myths to whom only a dissembling is turned.

Frame 36: Unconfident

Ide does not believe anybody except for Aizawa and his colleagues in investigation - he has been working with them in the NPA for god knows how many years and has bonded to them in a way, he knew some of them for the most part of his professional life and he knew a certain one of them for his whole conscious life, and, actually, it cannot be said that a particularly large number is obtained, but Ide has not got used to waste such an attitude: he always considered himself as a composed person in many ways, and, probably, this is exactly why he never managed to love anybody - in a conventional, absolutely overused meaning of this word which imprinted in Ide's memory as living only on the book pages full of dust, - but he managed to trust, and in his understanding trust necessarily means compassion, and when Ide sees Matsuda, who, as it should seem, has spent almost seven years in the very midst, but still looks like only yesterday he has graduated from the university, who glimpses into the forthcoming day so clearly and smiles so brightly, so untimely, but in fact no longer knows on which side there are friends and on which side there are enemies, where should he go and what to do next, and he has lost faith in everything he was sure of, he fears and rushes, he risks himself and eventually sticks his neck out, indeed like a real fool, just for keeping in secret the name of Chief's son, Ide is not able to understand him - Ide would have never done the same thing willingly, - but he feels terribly, painfully sorry for this youthful person somehow able to save a little boy of his soul even at his age of thirty.

Frame 37: Far

Here are different cities, different sounds, unfamiliar people and faces, unaccustomed movements and thoughts, here is the foreign language, and even the time has changed its usual passage - excuse me, please, excuse me, you've reminded me of a friend of mine, do you speak Japanese? - they do not go out, the case has enmeshed them to death, has dragged them into a morass, they are locked in a hotel room again, they have a table, two crumpled sofas and a screen for each one; another instant - the barefoot, rawboned, transparently pale as a shadow, silhouette is appearing, and they, being so wary, are exchanging glances and opening the door, though to return to their dear families and friends would be much more better for them - tell me, where are you from, how did you come to be here; this place is so far away from home, it's terrible to say, but I've even forgotten that I live somewhere, - but they have come here anyway, and he is saying that justice, embodied in them all, will soon prevail: the simplest words, the simplest ideas, but they are supporting them excitedly, - and they do not want to admit it so badly, but this is only a momentary vision: he is leaving, he has disappeared, he has remained in the eve of the 2004 and is slouched in a chair and is drawing the case diagram on a new sheet of paper, and they are surrounding him - because they have stuck in that evening of five years ago, too, and are not able to get off dead point; if the investigation does not require it, they do not go out, here they have nowhere to go anyway - wait just a minute, please, why are you leaving, come back: perhaps, you do speak Japanese after all?

Frame 38: Renunciation

Well, at the very least, Soichiro Yagami has passed away calmly, peacefully and with a tired but untroubled smile on his face.

Frame 39: Velvet

The velvet robes are flowing down the exultant fanatics shoulders - in TV studios the blissful human seas are rippling; the velvet obedience has hung over Tokyo - talkings on the streets are not heard anymore, the windows are curtained tightly as soon as the streetlights are lit; there are velvet walls in the hotel that was chosen for meetings - a person gets free inside its rooms and shows the genuine self, because no stranger would recognize him within these inmost walls; Kiyomi Takada wears an elegant velvet dress under a luxurious fur coat - she has always stood out with her undoubtful taste and has always received the best gifts from the fate: appearance, clothes, education, men, Kira; Light Yagami has a velvet voice and velvet hands - everything is available for him, he is capable of everything, his triumph is just a matter of time: for so many years he has been creating the deception so sophisticated that absolutely nothing more grandiose has appeared in this world yet, and all these mysterious night meetings represent nothing more to him than a tiny venture in the colossal game; and somewhere nearby, in a room choked up with extremely complicated equipment that was useless from the very beginning, in a room where Aizawa, Matsuda and Ide are clustered, the velvet, awkward, shameful silence has thickened for the first time.

Frame 40: Olden

That monotonous, terribly childish voice is still heard from the phone, but Aizawa is not paying attention anymore: all these words are shamelessly lying, and the truth which he demanded so persistently was pronounced a few seconds before, and it would be so much better if he ceased being an idiot, calmed down, thought everything heard and seen throughout this night over a little bit longer and shut his mouth just for once, but he cannot act this way and never could; it seems like he will shove it right back down the next eminent detective's throat, throw the phone away, slam the door with a crash, break into the headquarters, grip the white collar of Yagami s fresh shirt, only once peer into his eyes and strangle him right there and then: for the first time in his life Aizawa consciously wants to kill somebody - he has never had any idea he would drop to this point, - but hopelessly realizes that he already has one foot in the grave and three more persons, two of which have come too close, abnormally close to him, are also there, that he is not able to do anything and hardly has ever been able to, and he feels even more miserable at heart; the conversation is about to end, it is disgustingly stuffy in the phone booth, the voice is calling for him again, but Aizawa is not listening, he is answering modestly, with the utmost politeness, that he got it, they will assume no action, no, they will not bring any trouble to this plan, and is hanging up the phone without any formal farewells; Aizawa gets out on the street and realizes that he is unendurably tired: tired of struggling for the right to participate the investigation, tired of proving the importance both of his own and his team's efforts, tired of endless sacrificing to work, tired of dissipating his entire soul, tired of listening to self-confident geniuses, one after another, who are becoming younger but for some reason always remain completely right, tired of hating Kira, tired of watching the horror that was unfolding before his eyes for so long and that will be impossible to eradicate; he is going out to the street, his boots are creaking, his coat is dirty, it is snowing outside, the new year will come in a little while, and Aizawa notices that a happy couple is passing him by, a pretty girl in shiny little shoes and a gleeful guy with unruly hair, and disappearing in the illuminations, and he watches their steps and remembers that he himself had once been just like them - but when? - and feels inappropriately, immeasurably, heartbreakingly old; in a minute he straightens the collar of his coat, quietly turns around and walks away.

Frame 41: Palace

There are not the lands under his feet, but the bodies; there are not the fabrics under his fingers, but the names; there are not the walls behind his back, but the glassy eyes; there is not the sky under his head, but the frenetic plea; he is pacing with indifference - He has embraced the globe, He is immortal, He is god, He has built his own palace on bones.

Frame 42: Acerbic

Matsuda has never seen Aizawa smoking; Ide saw and even tried to take part himself, but that happened so long ago and so seldom, during their school years: frankly speaking, all boys held a cigarette in their hands just for once, he and Aizawa were no exception: after the classes they ran, they hid in some silent place that had been remembered in the first instance, and smoked, and it seemed that they had had more freedom, had been becoming more independent and, maybe, a little bit older; they had long since got older, over the years there had come the responsibility, and they had been no exception again, ordinary people, that is all, but at a certain point they had taken a different path, had made a different decision, everybody else had walked off, but they had just gone on working, and it had inevitably increased to such an extent that anybody who would have ventured to act alone, would have been broken down; the responsibility has broken Aizawa down in the end, and now he, an unacceptably free man by his temper, is restraining himself and smoking because of feebleness - Ide understands it and is not asking anything, there is no use in questions; Matsuda is asking, no answer is heard, and he is coming two steps closer and, a bit softer, calling Aizawa by name, as he never dared to; Aizawa is shuddering, his own name is stunning him, and he is turning round - frown, darkened face, wrinkles on the cheeks and at the mouth - and taking a long and shrilling look at Ide and Matsuda, and it is as though he is feeling sorry for them, he is being torn apart by words, but he will keep silence - by the very reason of feeling sorry, and he pulls himself together, quenches a cigarette, licks his acerbic lips and comes up to them: he was waited for.

Frame 43: Enthrallment

Nobody wanted to die, and He appeared before them and exclaimed them to die, and they agnised their paltriness, and felt ashamed of it, and everybody died, and nobody was left.

Frame 44: Waste

They did not notice how did they come to this and how this became the inseparable part of theirs, they have chosen not to ponder why the very first alarming signs have emerged at all, could they possibly avoid these signs and have they betrayed their past selves, however they remember the precise day, hour, minute when everything entangled into a tight inextricable knot, when the point of no return was reached, when a plain living became so difficult that they ended up in a desperate, shameful need of each other and were not able to resist it anymore, and they know for certain they will not leave a single moment behind even if they try with all their strength; in the past they would definitely have been stung by remorse, would have suffered from the fact they had crossed a thin line between the usual morality and the shameful deviation, - to be honest, any of this would not have happened in the past, they were different beyond recognition then, but right now they do not care about such nonsense - one way or another, they are doomed, they are insignificant, and their life continues as long as the young genius who is hidden behind white flickering screens, is alive and capable of objecting to Kira, - and they mutely lock the door with a key behind them again and again.

Frame 45: Invisible

Even the divine foot which is invisible to human eyes leaves a bloodstained trail on the stones.

Frame 46: Day-star

The present day is all wrong: this is the last day the beginning and meaning of which could have been predicted, it is totally unknown how the things will turn out; today's meeting is all wrong: the place of suchlike meetings is not designated in the abandoned rusted warehouse on the very edge of the city - negotiations are never held there, people are beaten out for truth there, people are tortured, killed, and their bodies and all the evidences disappear without a trace, and in any way they will not get out of there uninjured, - but they have no significance, now they are doubly dependent people; the car's running is soundless and smooth, in the cabin the sepulchral silence is kept, the highway is clear and flat, they did not have to stop anywhere along the road, no accidents has yet happened during these hours, everything remains strikingly peaceful and therefore abnormal - their tensed senses and thoughts are repeating persistently that the importance of upcoming events must be seen at least just a little: the downpour must strike them, the storm must arise, the ocean must roar, the streets must be filled with spite - but nothing is happening, and the warehouse building is appearing under the dusty azure sky, and their path is finished on this point, they are leaving the car, letting go of door handles, and the day-star is blindly illumining their crackly steps.

Frame 47: Rodomontade

Stale air, dirty walls, direct question, fatal answer, unbidden truth, disdainful posture, formal suit, weakened tie, tousled hair, sprawling gestures, sharp fingers, abrupt tone, rodomontade smile, darting glance - and this glance is digging into Matsuda, Matsuda is not controlling himself anymore, his legs are trembling, and Matsuda is shuddering, and crying - Kira, scum, when, how, why he must have become you? - and desperately holding on, and shooting.

Frame 48: Stilly

Boy, boy, seventeen years old, where are you, have you played enough, have you played too much, where is your dream, where is your face, where has the flame in your eyes gone - are you in peace?

Frame 49: Coffin

And hardly could Kira imagine that a curved, steel and windswept box would be his mausoleum.

Frame 50: Erst

It was so easy to speak, so easy to reason and to be convinced erstwhile: the less a person knows, the better his sleeping is; erstwhile there was only black and white, or bad and good, or crime and punishment, nothing but the extremes, and the emptiness in the middle, and basing on the old point of view, they do not belong to anything, they are in the middle, they are the emptiness; so have they ever had any right to judge, do they have it now?

11.10.16