A/N: This story exists because, all in all, I find Mikami neither funny nor mad. As always, I own nothing.
Mikami couldn't move. Couldn't rouse himself enough to care what would happen to him, now that Kira was gone.
He would be executed as a murderer, and as the accomplice of a murderer. More than likely in secret, as the public at large was not acquainted with death notes, traded eyes, or shinigami.
There would be no trial for him.
Mikami wondered if the white haired boy had sealed his fate yet, and whether his life could be measured in days, minutes, or mere heartbeats. His disciplined mind discarded this idle question. It was completely irrelevant.
His attention turned back to the only subject that was still worth contemplating. The only thing he would allow to occupy his severely-limited time.
Kira was only ever a man; scarcely more than a boy. Sharp, strong, and infernally clever, but painfully young. Painfully human. Mikami's disappointment, when he realized this, had been acute. And yet … Kira was dazzling, all the same. Bright like a newborn star.
Or a dying ember.
Mikami closed his eyes and lay motionless, leaning against a thin bed and the wall of his cell. He didn't have the energy left to twitch, and it was not required of him anyway.
God –No. Light, he reminded himself severely- had no further use for anyone.
Mikami's breathing, unsteady to begin with, quivered as he forced himself to confront this. He had failed. Spectacularly. And though there was, perhaps, some comfort in knowing that justice would be done, he could no longer press that to his heart and be reassured.
He had betrayed the law in his devotion. More than that, he had lost track of what justice was.
The world would not forgive him. And he could no more excuse a criminal fit of madness than he could deny it. They would have his head for this.
But what Mikami found truly intolerable was that it was still attached to his shoulders.