I want you to know that it doesn't matter. None of it, your stunts, your accusations, your tricks. We dance, and I find you to be a most interesting partner, but nothing you do will change me.

Why, if you are nothing more than another challenge, do I feel the need to relate to you. On some subconscious level, I think I seek your approval. You have experience, you know things that I do not, and I cannot bring myself to disregard your opinion. My own father dances on my strings, and you remain so very distant. You stand aside from my shadow, with your hands in your pockets, and leave me to wonder what I'm doing wrong.

You tell me, time and time again, that it will not last. You tell me, time and time again, that you know.

And you do, don't you?

I have never had a chance at hiding it from you, but at this point, it hardly matters. At this point, it is merely a matter of time, and all I have to do is keep my footing. I cannot help but wonder if you'll ever understand my work, why I do what I do.

You know me better than I know myself, and it scares the hell out of me. I have denied myself everything, any hope of a future, to try to make yours worth living, and you know nothing of it. Worse, you've taken the scrap that you do know, and turned me into a monster. You paint me as a murderer, and when the greatest mind in the world whispers, the world listens.

You are powerful, and it attracts me in a way that I'm not sure I comprehend. It is not romantic, or even sexual, but I feel the need to relate to you. I feel the need to be accepted, because we are just alike, are we not?

You can't answer that. You refuse to.

We are alike, and you yourself wonder…what would you have done in my stead? Had the note fallen at your feet instead of mine? I have trouble believing that you are as incorruptible as you portray yourself to be…your every move tells me that you are accustomed to going beyond what is necessary and into the extremes. I can't help but wonder if you'd have taken up the mantle just as I did, even with your pre-established title. The world already knows you for your works, and you warrant even my respect, if nothing else.

Could you?

It is one thing to hunt, it is another to kill. Would you prefer to stay the hound, to chase your quarry to the tree, and wait patiently below as it waits in terror for the one who will finally kill it? Or would you become the wolf, as I have, and strike without limitation? Tear the throat from your victims, grip the very heart in your palm and compress it until it lies still against your fingers?

I think you are scared of me. I think you know what it is that I do, and how addictive it is.

I think you know.

You could, couldn't you? Throw away your morals like so many scraps of paper, to let them hover in your indecision. Then the pen would meet the paper, and you would know. You would kill, just as I do, and you would enjoy it. This is true power, this is what it means to be a God.

A God.

If I could only show you. I know you would understand, but that would be my downfall. I will not sacrifice my future, your future…for the sake of a companion worthy of my time. Not for a friend…not for the world. You are not meant to have the Note, and perhaps it is better that way. Perhaps you are here merely to present the idea of failure to me, so that I may know what lies at stake. My life is nothing…but my work…my work decides the very fate of the world. Mankind will look to me in fear and love one day, and I will remember you when you are gone.

You shouldn't matter, but if I'm wasting my time considering this, then it is already too late. At the least, I will remember you. You who challenged me, you who engaged my attentions for far too long…you who made this work worth doing. You present the ideal to me, and I have taken it betwixt my fists and ripped it wide, to the very heart of your morals, and it is there that I will break you. I play upon your very will, your very soul, because I represent everything you are sworn to be rid of. Evil. Vigilante Justice.

It is a sweet poison, I must admit, to have justice woven into your soul as we do. You and I are not so different, and one day you will realize that. You know it now, though you will not accept the fact. Kira taints your mind, mocks you in ways that I cannot do in person. I am justice, in its rawest, untainted and cruel form…you tremble to witness it, for true justice doesn't know the limitations of the human world. It has become apparent to me that Justice is more than a mere ideal…Justice and Death are brother and sister. One cannot exist without the other, without exemplifying the strength, and inherent weakness, of each other.

You know this. And yet you are content to chase.

I know…I know that it would only take you one time…just once to scratch a name, any name in the world, onto the paper. It could even be my own. You wouldn't be able to control yourself, because real Justice is the sweetest drug you'll ever find L. It's the one taste you cannot forget, the one day you cannot regret, no matter the misery that may follow it.

Real Justice will kill you. I will kill you.

But I will never forget you…

How could I possibly forget?