Light and Kay locked gazes, neither being able to read the other's expression. It isn't until everyone left in the Task Force have exited the terminal that her face goes from recognition, to horror, to misery. Kay's mouth opens and closes several times as her eyes dart between the men guiltily gazing back at her.
"No…" she breathes, cupping a hand over her mouth as a lump forms in her throat, "no…Oh my god."
Light steps forward with the intention of placing his hand on her back and leading her out of the airport, but she slaps him away, taking a step back as tears build up in her eyes.
The party stare at her in shock, and Light is the quickest to recover, glaring at her before turning away and tightening his grip on his luggage.
"We should go. Everyone clean up and meet at my house in an hour."
"Right," Aizawa mumbles, trying to make sense of Kay's reaction.
They depart in their separate ways, but three stay behind. Matsuda and Light both gaze at Kay, who in turn lets her eyes fall to the floor. Her chest rose and fell evenly, and she blinked rapidly as if unable to discern what she was seeing. Without warning or looking up, she begins walking through the airport, not fully-aware of her surroundings. Light and Matsuda followed her a few paces behind, one wanted to make sure she was okay and the other wanted to make sure she wasn't a threat.
No lift was hailed, no buses were boarded; they walked past Matsuda's apartment complex and then to her and Light's house. Feeling numb, she unlocks the door, stumbling into the dark foyer. Taking her shoes and coat off, she wanders into Nozomi's old bedroom without a word, closing the door behind her.
Light was becoming increasingly intense by not being able to read her. The silence was short-lived as crashing sounds and agonizing screams carried out into the living room where he was standing. Dropping his duffel bag, Light sprints towards the door, desperately opening it to find Kay red in the face as she cried out and threw things around, some things breaking while others bouncing off the floor. Unable to think of what to do to make her stop destroying Nozomi's nursery completely, he crosses the room in two strides and wraps his arms around her from behind, burying his face in her shoulder so that she couldn't swing her head back and hurt him.
"Let me go! Let me go!" she screamed in anger and terror, thrashing wildly in his hold as she swung her arms and legs around in the hopes of hitting him so that she could break away from his grasp, "Let me go, goddamnit!"
Her energy leaves her, and she goes limp in his arms, her head dropping as her body trembled. Hot tears burned her cheeks as they dropped down onto the carpet. Hair in her face, she struggled to breathe, unable to force enough air into her lungs.
"Why...do you insist on making the world burn?"
"What?" Light asked, trying to peer around to look at her.
"How many people do you have to kill before you're satisfied?" Kay mumbled before breaking free of his grip and whipping around to stare him down and yell, "How many loved ones will I have to say goodbye to before you realize that the end you were sacrificing them for is nothing but an idiotic, egotistical fantasy?"
Light's hands balled into fists, his anger boiling. Hatred consumed his eyes, sending chills down Kay's spine.
"I am doing this for you, for us, for the world! I am selfless, I am righteous!"
"You are nothing more than a narcissistic psychopath!"
"Now listen here," Light says menacingly, grabbing Kay's wrist and pulling her closer to him, "I am the god of this new world that I have given everything to create. Those who defy me leave it, permanently."
"Why don't you care? Our child is dead! Soichiro is dead! Ryuzaki and Watari and Raye and Naomi are dead! All because of you! Why don't you care?"
"Because I have work to do! We have work to do!" Light shouted in her face, his grip tightening as he also put his other hand on her arm so that she couldn't move.
"I should have never, ever trusted you!" Kay screamed back, struggling to break free.
"Why weren't you who you swore that you would be? You were supposed to be my soulmate, my goddess! And now you are openly betraying me and breaking my heart! We were supposed to change the world together! We were supposed to do everything together!"
"You're a maniac! I should have thrown that damn thing out as soon as I saw it!"
"I gave you all of me; my blood, my sweat, my heart, and my tears! Why don't you care?"
"You have not shed a single tear; you feel nothing anymore but anger and satisfaction at your manipulations!"
"And all you feel is guilt! If you just saw things the way I do, all that guilt would fade away!"
"I will never see things the way you do; I will never be like you."
"Why are you against me?" Light shouted, his own hands shaking.
"You have to understand that the one I killed is me all those years ago; changing what I was for what you wanted me to be! I followed your direction, did everything you asked in the hope that you would snap out of it or be satisfied and stop! We would still be forever evil, but no one else would have to die! Of course, I was too naive to think that I could make you change."
"You and I were on the same side!"
"I was never! You were just too blinded by your morbid ambitions to see how every name I wrote chipped my soul, my sanity away!"
Light's jaw clenched, and his dark eyes stole away into hers so that she would absorb every word that he said.
"The time for talking is in the past. Either you are with me, or you force my hand to write down those who know us."
Kay gasped, her pupils shrinking.
"Y-you wouldn't."
"Don't try me. I am a god, and, if you are not my goddess, then you are a powerless nothing."
With that, Light let go, stalking out of the room and slamming the door behind him, making Kay jump slightly. Crumbling to the ground, she digs her fingers through her hair as she begins hyperventilating.
"What do I do? What do I do?"
'Damn it! He got me!'
Muscles locking up, Kay can't will herself to move, further restricting her breathing as her knees pressed against her chest uncomfortably. She wanted to run, she wanted to kill Light, and she wanted to kill herself to make the torture of existing go away. She knew, deep down, that none of those possibilities could come to fruition if she wanted to protect those she loved that were still alive. Consciousness was so overwhelming, conflicted by the very air she breathed, broken by her head left unkempt. The ceiling gets higher and higher, threatening to crush her all the more when it inevitably crashed down on her.
Her legs began shaking, and she finds herself falling back as her breathing quickens. Staring up at the ceiling, her eyes grew wide as she clawed at her throat. Once again, every person that she has killed flashes before her, haunting her as her sins scrape at her back, threatening to pull her down into an eternal damnation. She would have screamed if she could focus enough on remembering how to. Exhausted, alert, numb, terrified, lost; the whirlwind of feelings and emotions trapping Kay in her own mind.
Time crawled at a snail's pace, seconds going by agonizingly slow. The sun crept by outside the window, serving as the only thing to prove that time was actually passing. All noise was drowned out by her own heart pounding in her skull, and her mind felt fuzzy, to say the least, as if she were intoxicated.
"Kay? Are you alright?"
'Go away.'
Touta entered the room, lying down on the floor so that his head was next to Kay's but he was facing the window. Neither of them said anything for awhile, silent as they tried to find the right words to say.
"I'm over all of this bad luck. Is it ever going to change?" she finally croaks.
Matsuda hums in response, not sure what else to do.
"How many times must I be destroyed to level the karma placed on me?"
"What?"
"My parents died, my friend died, my daughter died, and now the closest person I had to a father growing up is dead. I'm not even sure what to think anymore."
"I'm sorry."
"For what?"
"For not being able to protect Ryuzaki or Nozomi or Soichiro; I was there. And now they're gone, but I'm still here."
They both tilt their heads to the side to look each other in the eyes, finding comfort in their gaze. Matsuda smiles softly at Kay, but she doesn't have the energy to mirror the expression.
"Promise me that you'll always come back at the end of the day."
"What?" Touta asked, taken aback by the implied intimacy of the request.
"Promise me that you won't die, too."
"If it's to take down Kira, or...to protect you, then I can't make that promise."
Air forced itself into her lungs, and she wanted to reach out and touch him just to make sure that he was still there.
When Matsuda, the last of the Task Force members, left, the door clicking sent shivers down Kay's spine. Her eyes darted to Light, whose composure was leveled, calm. It frightened her.
She could hear him breathing, which just helped her to remember that he was human, killable. Could she do it? Was she really allowing herself to accept that she just couldn't save Light? Was she really so weak that she couldn't save the man that had been everything to her? Her childhood friend, her first crush, her first love, her husband, the father of her children; could she definitively say that that boy was gone?
She was able to kill Misa because she knew without a doubt that there would always be a killer in the blonde. Not only had she accepted the Death Note so willingly and for selfish motivations, but she had implied that she would side with Light even if he was Kira. Though Amane haunted her dreams along with so many other faces, Kay couldn't bring herself to mourn Misa.
She could do it. She could steal the notebook and write Light's name as fast as she could. It'd be over so easily. All this pain, all this fear...it would be over. She let the monster rage on, and she could slay it. Then, before she could completely lose her sanity, she could write her own name. Neither of them could be saved by that point. But...there was someone else. She knew it.
She didn't know who, or where, or how, but she knew that Light had quickly replaced Misa. This person had a Death Note, and thus couldn't be kept alive. She couldn't make Light kill the proxy; it'd go against the rules of the notebook. She couldn't even just get him to show her a name and photo because the Death Note would know that the intention would lead to another's death. And there was no way in hell Light would willingly kill this new Kira by his own accord, not even if she were somehow able to convince him that she was ready to be his goddess or fulfill whatever demented picture he had in his head. No, this person was safe from her.
Is that why Light acted so quickly? Was he able to figure out that all bets were off the table and that Kay had been the one to kill Misa? Did he find a replacement so as to have a safeguard against being killed? Kay grit her teeth as she realized it was very possible, if not probable. As long as the new minion was still alive and in possession of the Death Note, then Light had free reign, immunity. The thought made Kay feel nauseous.
"You don't have to be so tense; I forgive you."
"What?" Kay croaked, her voice still trying to readjust to being used after her silence.
"After our fight, I forgive you."
'This self-centered, egotistical, little bitch…'
Light turned around in his chair, already matching Kay's hateful gaze.
"You defied me, as if I was trash. For that, you should honestly be dead."
Ryuk's eyes glowed redder, making Light sweat.
"But then, it hit me," he continued, standing up, "what's keeping you away from me is your blind faith in this current, disgusting society we call humanity."
Kay jumped up, matching every step that Light took forward with a step back of her own down the hallway. His crazed look was enough to stifle the air trying to get to her, choking her off.
"Your feelings have made you blind and messed up your head, but I can set you free," Light cooed, placing his hand over his heart as his lips contorted into a conniving smile.
Kay swallowed hard, silently debating over whether to turn and run as far away as she could. Though he had no pen or Death Note in his hand, or any sort of weapon for that matter, Kay found that he looked absolutely terrifying and dangerous.
"Without you, I wouldn't have had the strength to fight for the good that I see in you, that I know those like us are."
Kay backed up into the doorknob of her bedroom, making her jump at the slight pain. Light looked truly insane, delusional, and Kay didn't want to find out what he was capable of.
"I was meant to be yours. We were meant to be one. Don't give up on me now, my goddess. Finish what we have started."
"You're insane."
"I am all that you need. You and I can rule this world together; make things the way we want them to be!" Light said gleefully, only a foot away from Kay.
She let go a breath she hadn't registered that she was holding, and her lip trembled. Light's eyes grew sorrowful, and he ignored her shudder as he cupped her cheek in his hand.
"You scare me when you're like this, Kay," Light said softly, his voice low, "Your fear hurts me, you know?"
"Please don't touch me."
Sighing, Light closed his eyes, his hand dropping to his side.
"Can we not fight anymore? Kay, sure, you're scared. I've been there. I can set you free from this agonizingly life you've been living."
"It's agonizing because of you."
Light physically recoiled, as if he had been slapped hard across the face. He seethed, his nails digging into his palms in his clenched fists.
"It's because of you that I lost touch with my friends," Kay roared, jabbing a finger against Light's chest, forcing him to back up as she advanced on him, "it's because of you that I was locked up in that hell hole of a cell for weeks! It's because of you that the men I owed my life to died. It's because of you that Sayu is unresponsive. It's because of you that Sachiko is alone and Soichiro is dead. It's because of you that my daughter is fucking dead!"
Light's eyes grew wide, and, blinded by rage, he connected his fist with Kay's jaw. She fell back, crashing against the floor. They both gasped at what he had done, and both were still for a moment. Kay touched where he had punched her, wincing and pulling her hand away when it stung.
Without looking at him, she stands up and walks into their bedroom, closing and locking the door behind her. Light stares after her for a moment, stunned, before he charges the door, jiggling the knob.
"Kay, open the door, please," he begged, his voice cracking.
With no reply, he knocked nervously.
"Open the door."
No reply.
"I'm sorry," Light cooed, leaning against the door, "I'm grieving too, okay? And...you saying that just...pushed me over the edge, and I'm sorry."
No reply.
"Kay?"
The other side of the door remains silent. Light knocks again, an emotion that he couldn't even described sends his adrenaline levels into overdrive.
"Let me in!"
His knocking turns into pounding his fist against the door.
"Kay, stop this stupid game and let me in!"
Nothing.
"Don't make me come in there!" he yelled.
Nothing. Huffing, Light steps back before throwing his body against the door, breaking its hinges. He stumbles into the dark room, only to find it empty. One of the windows was open, letting the rain inside.