remorse

They'd been walking for an eternity, but hadn't yet reached the end of the field of skeletons. It had become difficult to remember that there had ever been a beginning to it.

'How old were you when I killed you, anyway?' asked Light, eventually.

'Twenty-five,' said Lawliet.

Light let his lips twist, tilting his head to watch the ash that was perpetually descending, nestling in their hair, and which they'd long ago stopped bothering to brush it away. 'And you were beaten by someone who was only eighteen.'

'You were also beaten by someone who was only eighteen, you know,' said Lawliet, glancing at him through ash-frosted bangs.

'Yes,' agreed Light, 'but he was only five years younger than me, while I was seven years younger than you.'

'Two years is not that much of a difference,' said Lawliet.

'No, I suppose it isn't,' agreed Light, and gazed out over the skeletons that had long ago stopped being corpses that had once been bodies, now nothing more than bones that had always been merely bones. 'There isn't much difference between us now, is there.'

'Well, considering we are both dead,' said Lawliet, 'I'd say not.'

Light glanced at him. With all the gray-white ash in his hair, Lawliet's eyes and the shadows beneath them were the only darknesses that remained.

'At least it's obvious what my mistakes were,' said Light, turning his gaze once more to the nonexistent path ahead of them. 'Did you ever figure out what you did wrong?'

'I did nothing wrong,' said Lawliet, watching the ash descend, like feathers from a molting phoenix that would never again rise from its own remains. 'And at least I can say that.' Dark eyes flicked to Light's face. 'I never let my ego get the best of me.'

'If you could go back and redo it, there must be something you'd do differently,' said Light.

'That is a pointless hypothetical for two reasons,' said Lawliet. He held up a finger. 'One, we can't go back and redo anything. And two,' he held up another finger, 'if I could go back and redo everything with my current knowledge, I would just have you arrested immediately.'

'You would still need proof,' said Light.

'The fact that the killings would stop as soon as you were locked up would be proof enough,' said Lawliet, returning his hand to its pocket. 'And I'd already know you killed with the notebook, and would have your room searched after you were safely locked away.'

Light shook his head. 'You wouldn't have been able to retrieve it.'

'No, Kira would have done something clever with it, I'm sure,' agreed Lawliet, gaze following the ash as it drifted down, fluttering gently in the air they couldn't breathe. 'He probably would have hidden it in such a way that someone else's attempt to retrieve it would completely destroy it.'

'You give me too much credit,' said Light.

Lawliet glanced at him, eyes darker than ink. 'Nobody ever gave you enough credit, I think.'

There were a few moments of silence, and then Light chuckled softly. 'You make my life sound like a tragedy, L.'

'In a way,' said Lawliet, 'it is.' Inkwell eyes stayed marked on Light's face like they could brush darkness there with just their gaze. 'Nobody with a happy life would have become Kira, after all. And there was no way that anyone who became Kira would have led a happy life.'

Light nudged a ribcage with his foot, watched it crumble apart. 'I'm hardly the first tragedy you encountered. Detective work makes its business out of tragedies.'

Lawliet crouched down, carefully picking up one of the stray ribs between thumb and forefinger, holding it up to what meager illumination filtered through the heavy mists. 'I suppose that's true, to an extent.'

The surface of the bone bore no blemishes to suggest that it had been subject to the passage of time.

'Then I'm just the one that scared you the most,' said Light, eventually, and Lawliet carefully set the rib back down, hands resting on his knees.

'Do I still scare you?' asked Light, when Lawliet didn't answer.

'The dead do not scare me, Kira,' said Lawliet, eyes obscured by his hair, lips just barely moving. 'Nor, as one of the dead myself, do I now have anything to fear.'

'You said you were watching me,' said Light, looking down at him. 'Before I died, then, you weren't afraid of what I'd do to the world?'

'It was obvious that Kira was heading for a fall,' said Lawliet, 'and his reign would not last.'

'You must have felt flattered, then,' said Light, 'to think I tried so hard just for you.'

Lawliet's thumb moved to rest at his lips. 'When you look at it that way, it would make me partly responsible.'

'Do you believe yourself to be partly responsible?' asked Light.

Lawliet's chin lifted, hair tilting out of his face, his gaze drawn back to the ash still feathering downwards. 'I do believe that my actions may have spurred Kira on. That does not mean, however, that I believe I was wrong to act.'

Light's lips curved upwards. 'I'm glad you chose to act, L.'

'Yes,' said Lawliet, meeting his gaze, eyes dark and wide-open. 'Me, too.'