Xiana This is chapter 10, Gone. We're one-tenth of the way done! This one is… well, if you haven't read Chapter 58 or watched Episode 25 and don't like spoilers, I highly suggest that you wait to read this one, because the whole thing is pretty much one huge spoiler... Everyone else, this is my reaction to the events of that chapter-slash-episode. This one, I am sure, is in character, though we do have a little of that multiple personalities Light-not-equal-to-Kira type thing, which is pretty much canon anyway, yes? And I call him 'Light' in this story. I don't know why. It just seemed to fit better I guess. No real dialogue in this one, which is interesting coming from me. I wish I could read it aloud to you all, because it sounds better that way, as Keselyx and Ramen Ichiraku will testify, I'm sure.

Also: I am going on vacation tomorrow, so I won't update for a while after this, but that doesn't give you any excuses not to read or review this one. Get on it, punks!

Death Note Fan: Hello again! Yes! Well, in Episode 25, it almost seemed to me as if he had heard that before, and sort of already knew what it was foretelling, so I figured maybe he was with Raito when he heard it before? You were absolutely dead on with that, though. Ah, I see, so you've only read the manga…? Well, I would definitely recommend Episode 25, if no other episode, because the way they made it was so much more dramatic, sad, and effective than it was in the manga. I almost shed a tear! XD Anyway, I'm glad that you liked the second one! There certainly are a lot of what-if's in Death Note, huh? Personally, I think that he would still die, but we definitely wouldn't have gone through the whole Mello/Near section with them against Misa oO What'd you think about the ending? Personally, I… hm… I don't even know!

10. Gone
He had enjoyed it. The way that Ryuuzaki had heard of Watari's death first and had been overcome with fear and hopelessness had been beautiful to him. The way he must have felt when he suddenly felt his heart constrict, to know that he had lost to Kira, was simply poetic. The way that he had suddenly fallen from his chair to land in the arms of his murderer was elegantly ironic, and Light almost wished that it had been recorded, so that he could look back on that moment again and again, to relive that moment of his greatest triumph. And to think that Rem had been so attached to that girl that she would give her own life to destroy Light's three greatest threats in one fell sweep, even knowing that this had been his plan all along. Light smirked whenever he thought of her death. A shinigami, the perfect inhuman killing machine, brought down by such an emotion as "love." Emotions truly were for the weak and foolish, Light reflected, and it was the strong who manipulated them for their own purposes.

It had bothered him, though, how in the seconds before death, Ryuuzaki had turned those eternally empty eyes on him, had looked into his triumphant face with that blank stare of his, and knew that he was right. The greatest detective in the world had never been wrong about anything. But Light had wanted to see shame, hatred, rage directed at him for killing his father-figure and then him, for ending his quest to save the world from Kira in bleak failure. And all that he had gotten was quiet acceptance. "I knew that you were Kira all along, Yagami-kun," that look had said, "but I wanted to believe that you were my friend." There was no betrayal, nothing to suggest that Ryuuzaki had been anything less than ready for his own death.

At the time, he had been so enraged that the only thing he could do was scream. He had remained in character, but only just. He had been shaking when they dragged him off into that adjacent room to wait while his father took Ryuuzaki away in the ambulance. He had waited, and his left hand had not stopped shaking, his soaring heart rate had not slowed, until his father had returned with the official news of Ryuuzaki's death. It was one thing to want to kill someone, to plan his death, to know unequivocally that he was going to die, and another thing to watch him die in front of you, to know that you had been the last thing he had felt as your hands supported him, that your voice had been the last he had heard, that he had seen you in his last glimpse of the earth and had known that you had killed him and had accepted that fact. Light had known that Ryuuzaki must die there, but somehow, he had almost believed –Had wanted to believe? No.– that L would slip away again, prolonging his life to continue battling and occasionally stymieing Kira at every turn. He had thought that in his perfectly executed plan, surely one thing would go wrong, and Ryuuzaki would escape his death one final time.

And he hadn't. Light had sat in that room, across from Mogi and Aizawa and next to a trembling Matsuda, with an utterly blank expression on his face, his mouth hanging half-open. His eyes had reflected no light from any of the dim bulbs or fading computer screens. They had been as soulless, as emotionless as Ryuuzaki's eyes had been in those final moments before they had closed forever. His father had returned, and he had been forced to drop his empty stare in favor of anger and false sorrow. And then he was no longer Yagami Light, but Kira. Kira could triumph in the wake of his rival's death. Kira could do what needed to be done to ensure that he would reign over his light-filled world. Kira could forget, that he, Light, had once honestly and openly called Ryuuga, Ryuuzaki, L, his friend.

In the months after his death, Kira had wondered at the strange emptiness he felt. Life was becoming boring again, the way it was before he had ever discovered the Death Note. There was no challenge left for him. There were loose ends to tie up, naturally, but with the deaths of Aiber, Wedy, and the remaining Yotsuba Six, and the manipulation of the task force members and the police, the only thing left to do was scribble the names of as many criminals as possible into the Note. Kira was the god of the new world, and no one could challenge him. It was almost disappointing. L was Light. Light was Kira. Kira had the entire world. The world had only Kira.

And so, he had remembered that moment, had continued to flash back on it as the pivotal, the defining moment in his life. The sudden crash, the heat of his body as his life faded, the look in his god-damned eyes had been a turning point for him. The climax. The moment of no return. L was gone. Ryuuzaki was gone. He would never come back.

The funeral had been a small affair. Only Light, Misa, and the members of the original task force had attended. Kira had shed a single tear, for that was what Light would do, and that was what Light had done. And then he was Kira, only ever Kira, without fear, without challenge, without anything but his flawed ideals and a dead world to rule.

Ryuuzaki was gone. Victory was hollow.

Next: Candy Cane.