Disclaimer: The story and characters of Death Note were created by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata.
Thank you to my dear friend and beta reader Meiyl who helped me fix this up a bit.
Rust
2. Ruby
Other humans recognize the beauty of Misa Amane, too. They flock around her as she grows into adolescence. Her family, her companions, her teachers, and all others who encounter her are always smiling in her presence. The faint echoes of her laughter are mesmerizing. Several human years have passed, but the only way I can tell is by reading the decreasing lifespans of the humans through the portal below us.
Gelus has not written a name since the time he first saw Misa. At times I worry that he might die if he continues to neglect writing in his Death Note, but it is not my place to tell another shinigami what to do. There is no way to tell with great certainty how long a shinigami's lifespan is, but most of us don't expect to die until many more ages have gone by. We built up our lives long ago; now shinigami rarely prey on humans, even in sport.
It is my hope that Gelus will resume taking human lives if he knows his time is running out, but this hope is foolish. There is no cause for me to want to keep Gelus alive, aside from my own selfishness. I do not want to lose my only companion.
I suddenly notice how short the numbers are above the heads of Misa's father and mother. Their meager lifespans indicate identical times of death, so they will die together, but what does it matter? Humans' lives, once ended, are extinguished absolutely. There is no togetherness in death, only oblivion, and all things become singular in Nothingness. However, it pains me to realize that these two will leave their daughter behind, and that Misa's life will end soon afterward. Will she waste away with grief? Will she cut short her life by her own hand, to end her loneliness and misery? For now, the three of them are content, completely unconcerned with death. Humanity, after all, is a race preoccupied with living.
Through muddled human time, it is difficult to tell what is going on. Night has fallen, and Misa's parents are sitting across from each other in a dim room of their home, speaking softly. Neither of them notice, of course, the dwindling numbers above their own heads.
They also do not notice that a man holding a gun has just climbed through the window of the adjoining room.
Lightly pattering footsteps sound from the stairs, but the two humans do not look up as their daughter descends. Misa is about to say something—perhaps to announce her presence, or to ask her parents a question—when the armed man walks through the doorway. From where the man is standing, he cannot see Misa, waiting uncertainly in the stairwell.
The man is clearly insane; there is a gleam of madness in his eyes. He stands absolutely still as Misa's parents stare at him in astonishment. Misa's father stands up, protesting the stranger's intrusion.
His name and lifespan evaporate to nothing as the sound of a gunshot echoes through the house and back to where Gelus and I are watching. His wife leaps up with a cry, and her life is just as quickly ended in another spray of blood, a bullet embedded in her chest.
The murderer smiles a deathlike grin, then walks out of the room and leaves the house through the window again, carrying a petty trinket he has taken as his loot. A trinket paid for with two human lives.
Misa has not yet moved or made a sound.
If shinigami could weep like humans, perhaps our tears would be dust, or sand, or pure salt. In contrast, humans are all fluid—they cry, sweat, salivate, bleed. Their emotions pour from their souls like water, and their liquid life spills out all too easily when their brittle bodies are damaged.
Dry sobs wrack Gelus's body as he sees the horror spread over Misa Amane's face, deadening the spark in her eyes. When Misa's scream reverberates through the portal, Gelus buries his face in his arms. It disturbs me to see a shinigami act so emotionally, more than it disturbs me to see the gruesome deaths of two humans in the prime of life.
The sight of Gelus's grief disturbs me even more than the sight of a human who has done a terrible deed running away from his crime. But when I turn my view again to Misa Amane, her look of devastated shock and utter despair shakes me most of all.