Chapter 14
Oblivion
Dedicated to my readers
Well, Light, Ryuk thought as he lifted up his pen, it's been fun.
The crowd marched through Tokyo. Their signs and banners were colored orange with the dying shine of the sun.
"To Hell With Kira".
"NO MORE MURDERS".
They roared in their anger, carrying guns, frying pans, bats and whatever other weapons that were to be found in their homes. The roars echoed between the skyscrabers, the people too scared to take part in their march closed their windows, locked their doors and cowered in shadowy corners, awaiting whatever destiny they were to have. But more often than not, people opened doors and walked out to join their fellow citizens. At first their eyes were glassy and their gaze empty, but when they blended in with the crowd they became consumed with anger, and they roared like a chor of lions all together. The red light shone in their eyes, all colors, all shapes and all sizes, and it made them demonish to look at, as if flames were dancing right out of their very scull.
There must have been millions.
Freedom fighters were among the crowd of revolution, but for the most it was regular commoners who were just not going to put up with Kira anymore. They did not care for their own lifes, nor did they care for any lifes that stood in their way, all they cared for was revenge. The murder of William Aballini was the famous drop. The cup overfloaded.
They were marching towards Kira's palace, and they came closer by the second. Because the people had had enough.
Damn! Those idiots did not know what they did! Destroyed his perfect world. He could hear their yells through the thick, bullet proof glass of the doors to the balcony, see their ignorant signs and banners. "NO MORE MURDERS". They thought him a murderer? He was justice! After all that he had given them out of the goodness of his heart, this was how they repayed him? Why, those…
"Please, Lord," a chief of the police said behind him, kneeling in full battle armor. "What are your orders?"
Light's teeth gritted, his nails dug deep into the flesh of his palms. "My orders?"
"Yes, Lord, with all due respect."
Silence.
He had no choice. This was all bad. First Mikami died and now this! He would need Eyes in the upcoming battle, who knew how many of his men would turn to the side of the rebellions, and how many rebellions would get through to him? That Adéle woman, humbly and obediantly standing in the shadows. Quite calm and cool. As always, as when she executed Aballini. Could he trust her? Yes, it would seem like it, seem like Hanson really had been the traitor. He had no choice but to trust her. Damn it! And he would have to dispose of her when all of this was over. To Hell with those fools. She was a perfectly good servant.
"Chief," he said and the policeman quickly looked up. "Assemble the army and kill all of the rebellions unless they agree to cooperate, which means to stop this revolution. Call all of my bodyguards and tell them to wait for me here. And also, prepare my bunker."
"Yes, Lord." The man bowed his head. He was in the middle of his fifties. "But, Lord, are you sure it's safe for you to…?"
"Are you questioning my orders?!" a spitting Light interrupted him.
The man flinched and starting sweating icily. "No, Lord, of course not!"
"Then do as I say!"
"Yes, Lord."
The police retreated from the room, leaving only Adéle Segan and Light.
"Adéle," Light said, sighing, "Please come with me."
When they had entered his office Light locked the door. Adéle just stood there, her hands shaking and her face grim with fear. Light grabbed a remote from his desk and pressed the button, so that all the blanks closed the red sun out. There was a hevay, grey darkness in his room until he lit the lamps in the ceiling.
"L-light?" she stuttered. "I-I do not understand…"
"It's the terrorists, Adéle," he said, putting the remote into his chest pocket. "They have deluded the people with propaganda. I've got no choice other than this. It pains me."
"Oh, Light! I'm so scared." She put her arms around her torso as if hugging herself, her entire body shaking.
His slim hand rested itself on her shoulder, while the other one lifted her pale chin. "Don't be, Adéle. I promise, I won't let anything happen to you."
She let herself fall into his embrace and be calmed by his beating hart and warm blood.
"Adéle, I'm sorry," he then said, pushing her gently away, "but we don't have much time. I need you to do something for me."
She looked at him, confused and a little disapointed, but nevertheless answered him. "Of course Light, anything."
"Very well," he said. "Ryuk!"
She looked around and saw the Shinigami in the shadows where it had been standing ever since they came in. It was not the first time A had seen it. When she saw it the first time, on Friday two days before, Adéle had screamed in terror until Light explained her everything, while A had forced herself not to think about what she was about to do, and coolly observe the situation.
"Yeah?" it replied lazily, swallowing the core of an apple.
"I need you to grant Adéle the Eyes."
The Shinigami chuckled wickedly. "Is that so? Well, that's fine by me. But what does she think about that?"
Light turned his head and looked at her, deeply and seriously. "You have to say: 'I want to make the deal'. Then you'll get the Shinigami Eyes. They allow you to see other people's name and lifespan, but you can't see the lifespan of those who owns a Death Note."
The monster laughed again, that hoarse, disgusting laughter, now talking directly to her. "You do know that it'll cut your life in half, getting the Shinigami Eyes, don't you?"
Adéle did not even blink. "Anything. Ryuk, I want to make the deal."
"Alright." It's eyes gleamed for a second. Then her vision was completely red, as if everything had just been soaked in blood. She gasped and blinked, she saw dancing letters spelling Light's name over his head. Light Yagami. The world was sort of blurry and confusing to look at, swirling, as if she saw everything through red water.
"Are you okay, Adéle?" he asked he seriously.
"Y-yes, Light, I'm fine."
"How many pages have you got left?"
She looked at him, puzzled at first, but them she answered him with a shaky voice. "One, I think."
"Very well." He walked over to his desk, steely and moderne, sat on the chair. She watched him.
Light pulled out the top drawer. Funny, really. He smiled inside. He had seen no reason to choose a different hidingplace – only make the old one better. His finger found a spot on the bottom of the drawer, invisible to anyone who did not know it was there, and pressed it. It accepted only his fingerprint and no other. Instead of a small hole, it was now a fingerprint scanner. If a wrong finger was pressed against the scanner, poison would sprout form it and kill in a matter of seconds. The drawer had a fake buttom, too. If someone tried to force open the buttom, then the same poison only would meet their fingers. And even if someone had acid to try and get through, the fake buttom and the rest of the drawer would not be destroyed. It was acid proof.
Silently the fake buttom slithered away and revealed the two notebooks. Both Rem's a Ryuk's.
Light took Ryuk's out. His favorite. After removing it he quickly slammed the drawer and the fake buttom shut. Everything was quiet.
Yes, he deifnitely would have to eliminate her after this, now that she had seen his hidingplace, and find himself a new servant who could be his Eyes. But right now he depended on Adéle to defend his life with her own. Would she do that? Of course. She loved him. Stupid girl.
Or did she? If she was the insider, then she certainly did not. But she was not the insider. She was a stupid girl. The goal of the insider was to kill him, Mikami and destroy the notebooks. In any case, she would not kill him until he had opened the drawer for her. And that would not happen. Of course, if she cut off one of his fingers and… No, that was just stupid. She was a simpel human woman, she did not have the guts to do something like that. No, Light was perfectly save.
He turned around and opened his mouth to tell Adéle to come and take the pages, but did not make it. Suddenly his mouth would not work. Something hard hit his temple and the world blew up in white. He did not even feel the pain.
The world was hurting him. Especially his hand was pained. It was on fire, throbbing, and it was soaked in something warm and sticky. He felt as if his very life was escpaing him through the pain, like he had a hole in his body. His head ached. But it was nothing compared to the hand. He gasped.
Light opened his eyes, everything blurry at first, but when he had blinked he could focus. White moonlight made pain stab his head, briefly, like sparks, and he closed the eye closest to the obnoxious light. He felt weak and empty, someone had all of a sudden drained him of his energy. He felt cold. His hands were tied or cuffed behind his back to the chair he sat on, so were his feet.
A silhouette was standing by the window, gazing out onto the place, absentmindedly, two notebooks in her hand.
"Adéle!" he managed to gasp.
She looked at him, her eyes cold, her face expressionless.
"Adéle… What are you doing? How did you…?" Then he realized it. He cursed. Looked down his own body and saw that he was naked except for his underpants.
She said nothing. Walked to the windows of the office, where the blanks had been only a second ago, and stared at the masses, fighting Kira's army. But the masses were winning.
It was her! Of course it was, how could he not have seen it! Damn it! She was a bloody Whammy, the British accent, an orphan… it was her all along. She had helped Clemens and she had planted those things with the Swedish doctor. How could she have fooled him? No, he had not been fooled, he was God… but she had killed Aballini, that was his final test, how…? And how had she gotten to the notebooks? Oh, the pain, he could not think… Then he saw it. And it mad ehim sick. There it was, in a puddle of it's own blood, innocently lying on the floor. His thumb. He stared at it, speechless. But… how? She was just a simple woman, she did not have the guts…
Adéle was still staring through the glass, she did not even look at him as she lifted a small gun to his head.
"No, Adéle, wait, you can't do this…!" He felt his heart pound, genuine panic, how was he supposed to get out of this… On the wall, maybe a meter from him, a big, shiny button was. The emergency button. His bodyguards could be here within seconds…
"Oh, but I can," she said, her voice as cold and hateful as a thousand, pointy icetaps, but her face did still not show a single emotion.
He must keep the converstaion going.
"What did you do?" He tried to sound taken aback.
"What I did? Simple. I knocked you out with this pistol, then I took all your clothes including your wrist watch off you and tied you to the chair. I figured you must have a hidden piece of the notebook. And I cut off your thumb to open your little drawer, but I'm sure you have already noticed this."
"So… it was you all along? You who helped Clemens and killed Mikami?"
She did not answer.
"No, Adéle, you don't mean this… think of all we've been through! Our love… I love you, Adéle."
"Ha!" Not a single trace of amusement in her voice. "Lies. You have never loved me, nor have I ever loved you. You have never known me. All you have known is Adéle Segan, and she died years ago."
A's hand holding the pistol began shaking. She tightened her grib, but the hand was just out of control. The shaking spread to her arm and to her face, her mask was breaking, revealing her to the world…
"Mommy, don't go! Mommy, stay with me!"
The mask fell apart and hit the floor silently, but she heard it only too well. Her eyes widened, a vulcano that had been locked away in the deep, dark corners of her mind finally broke loose.
"No, Mommy, NO!"
Sounds escaped her lips as her very heart shook with all the sorrow and grief and anger she had refused to feel since she was a child.
"Mommy!"
"I HATE YOU!" A screamed, turned on the spot and lifted her pitsol, the one that Will had given her, tears sprouting from her eyes and her face twisted in mad rage and despair. "I hate you! It's all your fault!"
Light just stared at her, first taken aback, but then a wicked smile spread itself across his face. The auburn hair was messy, bloody at the temple, but still he stared at her with those cunning, evil eyes, red. He snorted and lowered his gaze. Then he giggled. Just once. And again. He sat there and giggled, shrilly and edigly to himself. Then he finally took a deep breath and lifted his head again. "Are you going to shoot me now?"
She did not reply, but tears still made a waterfall of her face, as she pointed the shaking gun to his head. The room was quiet.
"Shoot me?" His voice was low and gentle, the most dangerous one he had. "Do you really think that's the right thing to do?"
The tears in her eyes had drawn out, she looked at him without blinking.
"It is Kira who's maintaining order in this world. Without him everything would be chaos. He has stopped wars and crime and injustice – do you want to bring all that back? Kira is law. It's him who sets the agenda." Light's head tipped to one side, and he watched her gleefully. "Can you really shoot justice and live with yourself?"
It was night now. The sun was down, and the moon shone palely into the office. The rebellion was still going on, even more bloodily, outside.
"When I picked up that Death Note," Light said, letting his head drop down onto his chest, "I was scared at first. I thought I was a murderer. But then I realized… that this had to be done. It was the only hope that was left to stop the world from rotting even more. I had to do it. Even if I had to sacrifice my body and my soul to achieve it, I had to do it. I was the only one who could." He now lifted his head and looked her right in the eye, still with that read gleam in his stare. "You understand. I know you do. We're the same kind, you and I. Destined for greatness. Join me… and you shall be the goddes of the world!"
Silence. They looked at eachother.
Her voice was empty of all the rage and thirst for revenge it had had before. Now it was quiet and every word of it dripping with regret. "I am nothing like you, Kira. Not anymore. You are nothing but a madman. I shall never join you. I have done enough wrong.
You killed all of them, Light Yagami. Mello and Near, Misa Amane and Kiyomi Takada. And all those innocent children at the orphanage… and him. I came here for revenge and justice. To win. To defeat the Kira who beat Near, Mello and… L. To be victorious where they had failed. To prove that I was just as good as any of them, to prove myself to… L. Proove that I was better. But I am not. He must be ashamed of me.
I thought the goal always justify the means. But it never does. You made me into something that I resent. You made me like you. I may have won your game, Kira, but still I have lost everything."
She had murdered Will and that innocent doctor to win. Yes, win. She had won. But what was the price? Was it worth it? She had won, but she had no one to celebrate with. No one who would welcome her with open arms and say that now everything was finally over. The end. She had lost the one person who could have done this. And for what? For Kira? She had murdered him with her own hands. Throwed him into the trashcan and burned his shell when she could not use him anymore.
Behind her the Shinigami chuckled. But she heard nothing of that.
Well, Light, Ryuk thought as he lifted up his pen, unnoticed, it's been fun.
Light did not say a sound. His eyes widened, his jar dropped, but that was it. His throat was tied into a knot, he could not breathe, his entire body stood still. His blood stopped floading, his liver, his stomach, everything stopped. He would have looked at Adéle Segan and he would have cursed her, but he could not move his head, not to mention speak. Suddenly it gave a jerk in his chest. A painful jerk, the pain was all he felt, as if an entire building had fallen onto his chest. He would have grabbed it like he had seen his victims do, but he could not move.
Damn you… Adéle Segan…
It was dark, suddenly. Everything was dark. His mind was empty. His body weightless. He was floading in nothingness. He could not think, but he did not want to. Emptyness. Nothingness. Oblivion. Forever.
A put her hand on the cool glass of the window. She let her shoulders and her head sink, only supporting herself to the glass. She thought that she would cry. But she could not. The tears would not come. Her eyes were dry and empty. She watched her own feet in the high heels. High heels. Ha.
With two lazy moves she kicked them off, standing barefooded on the cool wooden floor. The coat. The doctor's coat. She removed that aswell, putting the pistol into the pocket of her knickers, threw her stetoscope away. Removing it, her hands grazed the silver necklase Kira had given her. She felt anger wash through her veins again, with a growl she tore it off, the diamonds flying everywhere, reflecting in the moonlight. Downstairs she could hear the noise of fighting, the rebellions had entered the palace. They would be here soon. The others. And she would look succesful to them. She had killed Kira, Mikami and she had both of the Death Notes. But she would not destroy them. Then she would loose her memory, and that could not happen. Then it could all just start over again. She tightened her grib on the notebooks.
Then she straightened her back. She must kill him. Revenge.
She turned her head and she knew that he was dead. She could see it on his glassy gaze, empty eyes. It was the Shinigami. It had killed him. It had killed him, and taken her revenge away. She hated it. She screamed. Or roared. She was not sure.
And then she shut. The bullet smacked into his forhead, blood showered everything, he and his chair hit the bloody floor. But he was still dead. She screamed again and again, fired again and again, as she cried and cried like she had never done before. Then there were no more bullets. But she kept pressing the tricker, clicking emptily, until she could not hold onto the gun anymore, her hand shook to much. She fell to her knees, she sobbed incontrollably towards the sky, tearing her own hair from her head in remorse.
"Forgive me, William!" she yelled to the empty ceiling, voice blurred with sobs. "Forgive me!"
THE ENDAuthor's Note: Yep, this is where "Defining Justice" ends. I hope you enjoyed it. Especially this ending chapter (I named it and everything), I tried my best to make it a worthy ending. Thank you so much for reading, you're boosting me with self confidence. I would also like to thank all the people who have reviewed, it is you who have formed this stpry. And I would like very much if you would cast another one for this chapter, too – I'd like to see how my first fanfic turned out. Now I have some topics of the story that I'd like to give you my opinion on/information of (so this Author's Note is gonna be a long one):
The title: I had problems finding a title for the story, but then I figured that "Defining Justice" was a good one. It's probably Adéle who is the main character, Will's her helper and Light's her opponent, and the story is basically about her defining justice – and learning that the goal never justify the means.
A: Adéle Segan died years ago, as A said, and she was just a mask. A has surpressed her feelings ever since she became an orphan. I like to see her as a new Near, but without his noble mind. A would give anything to win, until she realized that that was exactly what she would. Well, you read the story. Sometimes it sounded like she had multiple personalities – when Adéle says something, A thinks something else. Complicated, huh? She's also admired L ever since she saw him the first time, so, if that was not clear, her original goal was revenge for him, until it became all about winning. I hope you like her even though she is an OC. Oh, and Will was in love with her, if that was not clear, either.
Light: Yes, Light died. He's my favoriote character of Death Note, along with Mikami. Sorry, but he had to, it was the only way for the story to end. In this fic, as you might have noticed, he's pictured as a psycopath, because I think it obvious that that is what he is. A psycopath. Psycopathy, for those of you who have forgotten, is not just insanity. It involves not thinking about anyone but yourself, being willing to sacrifice whatever and whoever is necessary to benefit you and only you. Psycopaths are not capable of putting themselves in other people's shoes, i.e. sense their feelings. Nor can they love, and they take advantage of anyone necessary – as said above. They can be very charming when they want to, and then suddenly turn around and be the scarriest thing you've ever seen. After having used people they dispose of them. Like Light.
Misa, Mello, Matt and Takada: I have been asked what happened to these characters before my fic, and here's the explanation: Mello, Matt and Takada all died the way they did in the series. Because basically, the only reason that things went wrong for Light was that Mikami made a move on his own. He didn't do this here, that's why everything went as planned. As for Misa, she has always annoyed me, so she was killed by Light shortly after he became "God."If you have question that you find was not answered here, I'd be more than happy to answer them.
Just send me a Private Message or include it in your review.
I own nothing of "Death Note" (see the Disclaimer), but I'd like to say that I do own Adéle Segan ©, the title "Defining Justice" © and William Aballini ©, and if you want to use them I would appreciate if you asked me first :).Disclaimer: I own nothing of "Death Note", the manga or the anime – no characters, nor any lines. I have not made any money on this, it is simply a tribute to "Death Note".