AN: OK, this is officially my first death Note fanfic and first fanfic. If you go to my profile you will see I've submitted a story before, but that was an original story. I hope submitting this will give my older story bigger popularity.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything, it's really all my parents. My body too. :(

He had died such a sad death.

I know he had held back his emotions, as he always did, when Watari had been killed. It must have been devastating, losing a father, seconds before losing himself to the selfishness of a friend.

After he passed softly in my arms, my mind went unhinged. The taskforce doesn't talk about it, but it's the moment that comes to the forefront of their minds when I seem under any suspicion as being the other me, the one that killed my friend.

'Why would such a good boy do this?'

My depression following Ryuzaki's death was so painful that I wasn't quite either of my selves.

I was the best friend who lost the friend he had actually loved and the murderer who only regretted having no challenge left.

I was essentially empty…

I can still see his soft, pale skin. Pale from death, pale as the flag of surrender.

I had been silent for an entire day, rarely thinking, and only thinking of him when I did.

The team hadn't known what to do with them. Where should we bury them?

The day I didn't speak, the day I stayed in my room longer than ever before, they must have arranged their funeral.

Watari was in his usual suit and tie, making me think a little of my grandfather when he died or what my father would look like on his funeral.

'You didn't get to live that long, did you dad?'

L, however, was in a white dress shirt and black slacks. He seemed a stranger, more alien than ever, for looking so normal.

We had buried them, figuring that, since both of them were foreigners, they would want the Christian burial.

'Did you believe in a God besides the Shinigami?'

It was hard to look when they lowered them both softly to the ground, but I stayed resolute and watched my true mistake.

I wanted to scream, but I kept my silence.

It sickened me to listen to the team's eulogy about the great detective and old man.

Matsuda mumbled his apologies for crying several times.

I felt guilty as my father promised to catch Kira for Ryuzaki. I agreed with him, slightly surprising everyone else for finally speaking.

We shared a moment of silence before people began departing. Matsuda, doe-eyed and sad, called my name, expecting me to come with the team, back into the cars to return to headquarters. Father called him away.

…I disappeared and was taken over by the madman in me, the evil of the Death Note that had seeped into my mind.

I remember laughing triumphantly and sinking my fingers into Ryuzaki's grave soil like a monster.

Yagami Light had temporarily vanished… leaving Kira in his wake.

I would return in flashes or halfway and whenever I did, my dimmed eyes could see him… visions, ghosts of memories.

I was partly myself when on a date with Misa, I felt strange, I felt like somebody was missing, that Misa and I had never been on a date alone together.

'There's still a mark of attachment on my wrist.'

The last thing I remember was the abandoned buildings, running in pain and seeing what I once was.

I felt Kira wear off, I felt the end near. I felt myself return and hide away from the people who didn't understand who I was.

'I'm not Kira! I'm Light!'

I had been so depressed and tired of everything that I took a chance and transformed into something loathsome, something unlike me.

Ryuzaki didn't even understand! He taunted me, coming up with ways to compare me to Kira.

He looked at me with such unashamedly impassive, dark eyes. I could see him now.

It made me want to cry out.

I felt my heart jump and my arm tingle unpleasantly. I can't believe I did this to people. I suppose I was a criminal too and it made me feel like shit to know that I had done this to my friend.

'Do evil hearts feel as much pain from this as everyone else?'

Ryuzaki watched me.

He was there for me and I hoped now understood me. Such a shame I never really understood him.

'Thank you for being here like I was there for you.'

What did he think about what I did now that he knew the full truth?

He should know that what I wanted for the world was not… this.

I felt my eyes close.

'I wasn't wrong… But… I…'

AN: Did you like it? I made that last line of Raito's thoughts the same as L's when he died. Just to show how similar they are. By the way, this is a spin-off from the anime story. That scene of the funeral, if you haven't seen it is here for your viewing pleasure: /watch?vtX1K-mUH94 It's from YouTube

I'm new at fanfics and I'm not too satisfied with this, but tell me what you think.