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ONE
Dissociation
It's difficult to form solid opinions about human principles such as morality or ethics or jurisprudence, when reality itself is up for debate. For what does it matter if it is right for a woman to kill the man who had raped her, what does it matter if what anyone does is right, really, when it's very much possible that none of it's real? That nothing in the world is real — not your past experiences, not your bonds and relationships, not even yourself. The transitory nature of reality, Hoshino Akira thinks, invalidates rules and laws and the supposed lines between right and wrong, and pondering these things is a useless and ultimately pointless endeavor.
It's a damn good intellectual exercise though. Thinking about the differences between good and bad, in a world where none of that shit matters. Where nothing matters. It's strangely freeing, because as she watches the news on television and sees the "Bizarre Prison Deaths" report, she thinks about all these people in the country watching the news... she thinks of how they're feeling all sorts of emotions ranging from violent outrage to smug glee, and how they're all going nuts wondering how this unknown person is possibly killing criminals with heart attacks, and none of it can touch her because none of it matters. Not the culprit — the recently dubbed Kira — not the victims, not the masses, not the police. Nothing matters. Especially not the the hypothetical distinction between "right" and "wrong".
Nothing matters, because nothing's real.
And it doesn't bother her at all. In fact, she thinks it's funny, in that strange detached sort of way she now perceives all things. Imaginary laws for potentially imaginary people and things — she can't help but think that there's some twisted sort of poetry in it. The truth that nothing matters, in her opinion, doesn't matter at all. Not to her, at least.
She eyes the red box on her table, thinks about the possible ramifications of what she has just done — of what she is about to do — and decides that just like everything else, they too matter not on the grand scale of things.
There is no "grand scale of things".
She opens the box. Slips on some latex gloves.
"Hello there," she whispers dully at the object inside the box.
Akira takes the object into her gloved hands and runs the pads of her fingers across its surface, feeling its strange velvety texture even through the thin layer of rubber.
She frowns. "You look uglier in person."
The Death Note doesn't react.
A/N: Finally! My Death Note muse is alive, and I am now a proud writer of one (1) chapter of one (1) Death Note fanfic! Words cannot explain just how accomplished I feel right now. Even if, you know, it's just over 400 words long (or short?). Inspirations for this fic are Metempsychosis by Mirthful-Malady, and God of the Machine by The Carnivorous Muffin, and Sayu Yagami by jokergirl2001.