…Keeps Death his court and there the antic sits,
Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,
Allowing him a breath, a little scene,
To monarchize, be fear'd and kill with looks,
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
As if this flesh which walls about our life,
Were brass impregnable, and humoured thus
Comes at the last with a little pin,
Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king!…
--
Pain. Blood. That is all that was; that was all that it had come to.
How had it happened? Everything beforehand, since the fateful day that he had picked up the notebook, all seemed like a dream, or a quick snap in his short life. Amazing, really, how one simple incident—a blessing, or so he had grown to believe—could have led him here.
Ever so slowly, Raito had laid himself upon the staircase. Through a delicate window, the sunset gleamed in from outside, illuminating every trace of his pathetic form, though, of course, he was now too weak to behold it for himself. In his hand and around his torso, they burned… those awful, awful gunshot wounds he had received at the site of his overthrow. At which point he—the dexterous, sly killer—had been forced to scurry away on the floor like a doomed rabbit.
Where had he gone wrong? Oh where, where? His plans, perfect… his disguise, flawless… And at the beginning, it seemed farfetched that anyone, even L, could catch him. But as the story came to a close, all that he had done was force himself further and further into the corner. And now, it was clear what that corner had come to be.
How intoxicating his rule had been, too… for if only for a moment, Raito had become more than just a man. He had been God… The very lives of his fellow humans resting in his hands.
Including that most monumental life of all.
Raito recalled it clearly. He remembered kneeling upon the floor as the chaos ensued around him. It was the second fateful day… the day of the very death of L.
The feeling that day had overrode him with conceit. That very touch—he had even gotten to touch it, by lord—of the man's soft, dying body in his arms. Directly under Raito's glance, a heart had been stopping… The fire it sent into his skin filled him with the vision of invulnerability. He had silently laughed down at the heathen in pride. L… the only thing in his way, the impudent, raven-haired man who seemed to trap, to hunt, to foresee Raito's every move…
Was dead.
But, in the end… what? What… what all for?
Raito's face tensed up a little bit, in sorrow and in hate. The nasty little voice of Near was scratching around inside of him like some sort of horrible parasite. Everything the boy said back in the other warehouse was coming back on him like a wicked case of food poisoning. In all reality… could it be that… there was no justice? Not before Kira, not after Kira… and not during Kira?
Impossible, though… there was justice. And all innocent lives that had to be taken, all had been done in the pursuit of that justice…
And it was true, anyway… Raito was not completely perfect, but still… Who else could have done it? Who else, if given the death note, could outwit the greatest detective in the world and bring the entire earth to its knees before him? Nobody, he smiled. In the end, Kira was still worth something. He had made a difference! One man. One man!
But… what sort of a difference was that, anyway?
The wounds… they stung so bad.
"Hello, Yagami-kun."
A voice whispered from somewhere his eyes could not see. The glare outside shone in relentlessly, like a holy light… hindering him. It was gnawing at his eyes with a soft sort of viciousness, and threatened with its luminosity to pull the tears straight away from his face.
All of a sudden, a feeling entered him… a feeling he had never in his life experienced, even as barely half an hour ago, Matsuda's bullets had pierced his flesh. It was grim sensation of unbearable melancholy… the feeling of absolute defeat. Raito's eyes were relaxing now… at the moment, they found themselves half closed. Confounded light shone in painful stars in between his eyelashes, and the blood sticking to his clothing forced its heartless presence upon him.
In the blinding whiteness before him, an image almost appeared to stir. With a tear-filled blow to his very soul, the illusion of a shiny, ebony-colored mess of hair twinkled in the visual area of his dying brain.
In his mind, a man was standing before him. Opening his eyes just a little more, he could have sworn he'd had seen it right in front of him… In all its evil, taunting glory. Somewhere, outlined by the broken glow, the sun painted in nostalgic strokes the figure of a hump-backed man wearing a white shirt, his raven mop splattered with the sunset's sleepy orange colour.
Raito's mouth mustered a choking sigh.
"…
Ryuu… zaki."
His veins filled with the presence of icy epiphany. If this vision in his head were real and sanding before him… he could only imagine how it must look. He beheld the detective's face… Stern and stoic as ever, cold and criticizing, yet all the while shone with an angelic victory. At first, he questioned why this was so. L had lost, had he not? He had died right under him. How could a loser such as Ryuuzaki… be giving him such an unwavering stare of triumph?
Then he was reminded of his own self, and how he must have appeared… The sad, hurt, soon-to-be corpse of Kira, body masked with his own blood and sprawled in a sick defeat upon the stairs.
L…
He must have had it easy… indeed, he would have felt the jolt of losing to Kira tear at his insides… but, if Raito was correct, his own sinister grin would have revealed it all. L may have went down, but he went down knowing that all along, he had been right…
Unlike someone else.
Kira…
He had lost.
He thought with a sting on how that spirit must have smiled upon that awful Near… He wondered if Mello would be watching over him as well, and Watari… and every other innocent human being who had died so unexpectedly wrongfully…
All because of "justice…" all because of Kira… all because of him.
And in no less than a second, the final pain arose… right in the man's chest. Somewhere out there, a pen had struck the paper, and Raito knew… that all just from a few simple strokes of ink… the end of him was finally coming. This arrogant joke of a god was now being forced to suffer his lonely demise.
Eyes closed, and the shining vision of his enemy bid its farewell to end all farewells, his ebony strands fading away into the light that Yagami Raito himself could not hope to grasp.
Like a helpless mosquito falling into the black mouth of a swallow… the mighty Kira was gone.
--
…Cover your heads and mock not flesh and blood
With solemn reverence: throw away respect,
Tradition, form and ceremonious duty,
For you have mistook me all this while…
How can you say to me, I am a king?
--
Read and review. :)
Yeah, as you can tell, this is based off of the anime ending. Ironic, since personally I like the manga ending a lot better, being that it shows what a whiney piece of trash Light really is and whatnot. But, this ending allows more detail for fics such as this one, so… yeah. In the end, L did have the better end of the deal, I think…
Little excerpts at the beginning and end taken from Shakespeare's King Richard II, in case anyone was curious. I thought they suited Light well. :3
-Sheep dog