He was a good man—a good cop— a good husband—a good father. These things had always seemed to go hand-in-hand before now. He'd always trusted the system; it had its flaws, its deficiencies, and sometimes…sometimes things slipped through the cracks, he knew that; but he hadn't realized until now, hadn't imagined just what it would be like to be the one the system failed.
It felt like betrayal.
He'd seen another way. A justice so ruthless it terrified crime into submission; both entrancing and repulsive in its precision. He'd also seen how it ended; had ended that twisted man himself with a mere two kilograms of pressure applied to the trigger of his gun, simultaneously destroying every last vestige of naïveté he'd possessed.
Putting the pieces back together after the Kira investigation had been much harder than he'd been able to admit to anyone, but the experience had strengthened him; had firmed his resolve and clarified his sense of morality.
He was a good man—a good cop—a good husband—a good father. Suzuran; his lily-of-the-valley; the light of his life. From the moment the doctors first placed her in his arms she had been his entire world. So tiny, so precious; he'd have done anything to protect her, faced any nightmare, fought any demon. With her small hand in his, he felt invincible. Watching her grow up, even through the temper tantrums and rebellions, even when she'd pushed him to the sidelines of her life because "God, dad, you can be so embarrassing sometimes!" he'd been proud of the person she was becoming; proud of being the father of such a vibrant young woman.
Rina was proud too; not with his same beaming enthusiasm, but in her own quiet, understated way. Delicate, supportive, and deceptively strong because being the wife of a cop required that strength, the bravery to face the possibility that each time your husband walks out that door, it could be for the last time; to believe that what he's doing is worth that possibility. She ran the house and raised their daughter with grace, efficiency, and love. They'd argued, yes, bickered bitterly and sometimes barely talked to each other for days, but they'd always known that their marriage was stronger than the petty and not-so-petty fights.
He was a good man—a good cop—a good husband—a good father. But faced with this… The beeping of the heart monitor, the hiss of the respirator, Suzuran's still form seeming so small and fragile in the stark hospital room; his wife's beloved face smiling vacantly at him from within a black picture frame…
Suzuran's bruises were now mostly healed, but he remembered them when they were fresh; when her face was so battered and swollen he could barely recognize his little girl. The knowledge that she had been violated, repeatedly, before they'd left her for dead; Rina, at least, had been spared that terror—they'd merely stabbed her to death; presumably because two struggling women would be too much to deal with, and so that Suzuran would be too traumatized to fight back.
He was a good man—a good cop—a good husband—a good father… Was…until five monsters and the system he'd put so much faith in had stolen that from him.
In Kira's world, those monsters wouldn't have been able to escape justice on a technicality; they wouldn't even have cluttered up the jails. Quick, clean, final; that was Kira's justice. In Kira's world, they never would have dared in the first place—the fear of a looming, vengeful God had become so strong by the end that one could walk down the street in the worst part of the worst town in the middle of the night with impunity; but in a world without Kira a woman and a teenaged girl walking home from the corner market in a small town at dusk could be grabbed off the street by a few punks in a van.
In Kira's world, Suzuran would still be her bright and cheerful self; not a broken shell, trapped in a coma that she becomes less and less likely to awaken from with each passing day. In Kira's world, Rina would still be alive.
In Kira's world, his family would have always been safe.
He watches Suzuran sleep as he fingers the black binding, wishing he could understand the numbers he sees floating over her head.
He was a good man—a good cop—a good husband—a good father.
And in twenty-three seconds, Matsuda Touta will become Kira.