A/N: Based on a couple of suggestions I got to let L have his revenge.
There were stories. There were always stories, usually told on those dreadful daytime talk shows that his mother and sister sometimes watched. A dewy-eyed middle-aged woman telling the gullible crowd about her near-death experience; how she "floated" above herself, feeling no pain, hearing singing from heaven, a voice telling her kindly, "Go home, it's not your time." Stories about how when good people die, they don't feel pain; only elation as they are welcomed into the afterlife.
Bullshit.
There is no pain in the world worse than dying evil and losing everything. Hearing distant shouts and footsteps as the fools who just defeated him try to hunt him down, even after he's done, even after all the fight has been shot out of him by a former colleague and is now dripping steadily down the stairs where his life will end.
Because it will end, Light Yagami knows. Whether he lives or dies, his purpose has been extinguished. There is no getting out of this. There is no power-up; no come-back; no minor setback within a grander plan. This is the taste of failure, and it tastes like salt, iron, and dust.
He wonders whether they will bother patching him up and taking him to jail, if they find him before he bleeds out, or if they will just stand there and watch him die. Maybe they'll be merciful and put one last bullet between his eyes. Maybe they will be cruel and zip him up in a body bag before he's done choking on his own blood. Maybe—
All hypothesizing ends when he feels an icy hand close around his chest. Inside his chest, squeezing his heart, cutting off his everything.
Ryuk, he thinks, as his vision fades. So this is what it feels like...
"Yagami Light," a cold voice rasps, coming from everywhere and nowhere, inside his head and all around him. He tries to respond but he can't. It is as though his mouth has disappeared, along with his entire body. He is nothing, only a spirit on the air.
"You have been found guilty of crimes against the human race," the voice continues. "You allowed yourself to be corrupted by power, and used it to corrupt the world. You shall be punished."
As the entity speaks, its voice solidifies, becomes less ethereal and more concrete. It also becomes confined to its source; a place just in front of him. He is back in his body now; the icy hand is still there, not squeezing anymore because its work has been done. It holds its grasp on Light's dead heart, and as Light's vision returns he can see it, pale, almost blue, reaching into him, through his flesh and bones, to his very center. His gaze follows up the specter's arm. A thin, bony wrist, a lanky arm draped in white fabric, an angular shoulder, a sunken set of collarbones. A blue fire is lit within those once black eyes, his sallow face partially concealed with shaggy strands of coarse black hair.
"I told you, Light-kun. One day you will die. And now it is my turn."
to be continued (...?)
