Warning: Spoiler for Chapter 58 (THE chapter).
By Any Other Name
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Raito never knew how Rem's handwriting looked like.
Judging by her personality, it was probably neat. Almost like his own, but with a mild artistic touch. Small fonts, mostly evenly spaced, and slightly leaning towards the right.
He had taken over her Death Note without bothering to look into it. He certainly was not interested in Rem's handwriting; not in the last name written into it, either.
Names were just tools. A means of labeling, and later on, of killing. It would be utter disrespect to reduce a human to a name -- exactly what most of those people deserved.
L had been worth defining beyond a name and a face. Raito took care in fleshing out that extraordinary personality from every little detail of their exchanges; he would turn the world around to know his thoughts, his weaknesses, the way his mind worked.
Now that he couldn't-- wouldn't have to-- deal with all that anymore, a single alphabet was more than enough to serve his fond remembrances from time to time.
In fact, Raito thought, nothing else could have been more appropriate. For all he'd accomplished over the years, what a pity it would be to credit that life to a name the world didn't know.
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