Chapter 27
Unforeseen Consequences
Theme: SID-Melody
Light had rummaged through his entire room, looking for the Death Note.
"Damn it, where is that thing? I told Ryuk to guard it! Lazy bastard...he must have went off to steal some apples...but why didn't he come back?"
The auburn-haired teen gritted his teeth...Kiyomi had lost hers, as well. He needed just one note...as it was, he only had a small piece of it on him...he could barely write a single name on the scrap of paper he kept hidden inside his watch.
He couldn't believe it...the world stopped rotating around Kira. Around him.
Day by day, the news reports of Kira deaths dwindled down to nothing. His power...his empire, the perfect world he'd built for himself...it crumbled like a child's hard-built sand castle washed away by the rising tide.
All that work. All that effort. All he'd ever wanted to do was make the world a better place...why couldn't anyone understand?
He had everything...and now he'd lost it all.
It was an empty, gaping hole in his heart. The power had torn him apart, leaving nothing but Kira. Light was a thin shell, flimsy, about to break...to shatter. Kira had been getting stronger by the day...but now, it was deprived of its source of nutrition, its only strength, like sunlight for a flowering plant.
Kira was wilting...and so did Light fade away with it.
He never realized that life had second chances, had more in store than death and cold justice...the perfect world had eaten away at all he had been.
Ultimately, he'd suffered more from this than anyone else had.
Only fitting, he thought.
A heart attack really wasn't that bad, was it? An easy way out.
But so cowardly, so dishonorable.
He had to tell them, explain it to them...to Sayu, Sachiko. Soichiro. His father. They all...deserved to know.
He wrote a brief note.
A death note, of sorts.
He signed his name, and then copied it neatly, in his beautiful, clean calligraphy.
As the last stroke of ink hit the paper, he looked down at his watch.
Thirty-nine...thirty-eight...
The seconds felt like minutes.
The ticking of his pocket watch was loud...it was incredibly loud...it thudded in his ears...he was reminded of a story he read.
The Tell-Tale Heart, by Edgar Allen Poe.
He smiled slightly, a real smile...a light smile; it was the first time a genuine smile had appeared on his lips in months...ever since he'd gotten the Death Note.
It was a curse and a blessing. A double-edged sword. Elegantly lethal.
As the watch ticked, his heart throbbed.
Three...
Two...
One...
His heart stopped, warm red blood no longer lighting his face.
But of course, his family could live without him.
They had to.
Light Yagami, July 21, 2011, approx. 6:30 P.M.
Cause of Death: Acute heart failure.
That was what the coroner's report said.
Cold, analytical, emotionless.
Soichiro's emotions when he saw Light...his son...his beloved, bright son, in a heap on the ground in his room...
They were beyond description.
"Light!" He shouted, diving at his son's stiff, motionless form, desperately attempting to shake him awake, cradling him in his arms, as if his body's warmth might miraculously bring him back from the dead.
There was no pulse, no heartbeat.
The bright auburn eyes that had once been so lively, so vivid, were dead, lifeless, to be forever covered by pallid lids.
"Light...no...please...wake up...please...this was all a dream...wasn't it...Light...my son...Raito-Kun...please...it's Soichiro...your father...it's your dad...wake up..."
He broke into tears of grief, sobbing against his son's stiff, cold, unresponsive body.
This was wrong...so wrong. How could he outlive his son? Why? What cruel trick of the fates was this?
Everything else was a blur. The ambulance, filling out the death certificate...the funeral...lighting incense...the little candles...a memorial...it was always there...a little prayer was said every evening for the sake of Light's soul...a tiny sunbeam breaking through the blinding darkness of the bleak world he was in now.
When Ichirou heard the news, he did a double-take. Was Light Yagami really dead? A heart attack? It couldn't have been Kira...no...not...suicide?
He didn't want to think of the possibility.
As Ichirou typed up Light's eulogy, he decided to portray him as a young hero...someone who died trying to stop Kira.
And it was true.
Light Yagami had ultimately died to stop Kira.
He was as much a hero as Ray Penber.
The auburn-haired teen at least deserved to be remembered as a hero...not a villain.
The truth...would die with a handful of people who'd sworn an oath, written in blood, sweat, and tears.
Nobody would tell a single soul about the reality of what Kira's identity was.
Johnathan Price.
Naomi Misora.
Ichirou Carson.
Soichiro Yagami.
L Lawliet.
Quillish Wammy.
All of them swore; L even showed his face and revealed his real name to the other five, apologizing for any undue duress he caused.
The matter was buried, as Light Yagami was.
Every one of them went to his funeral, solemnly remembering the one person who brought them all together, from across the globe, to Tokyo.
They always kept in touch, sometimes even meeting face-to-face; whenever one of them travelled overseas, they made a point of visiting one or more of their friends.
For the next several years, they remained close.
