"Raye…"

Naomi…no…

"Is dead…"

No, don't cry…

"No, he was murdered by KIRA…"

I shook with tears. Don't cry…I was kneeling behind her, on a bridge in Tokyo. She leaned on the railing, lifeless, like a limp doll. She had always been stronger than me, and she still was, but now she was…hollow. Empty. God, I loved her-there was nothing I looked forward to more in life than being with her every day. We were engaged. But now, I had fallen right into KIRA's trap, and that wasn't about to happen.

-Meanwhile-

Shimura sat on the corner of his bed, his eyes darting nervously around the room. He had every light he could find turned on, to the point where it was blinding, yet he was too scared to close his eyes. The speaker was playing one of his dad's old reggae CDs, which he had put on in an attempt to drown out the silence that might try to creep into his room.

It was a horrid feeling that he couldn't shake, one that crawled up inside him like a parasite, slowly eating away at his sanity. He glanced over at the briefcase he had been carrying an hour earlier at the incident in the subway station, remembering everything that had happened.

To him, it wasn't the death of the American man, or the realization that the man in the white hat was KIRA that stuck with him, so much as it was the moment in between those two. It had all happened so fast, and yet, when everything fell silent-when everything came untied-that was it. The denouement. KIRA had finished talking to the American, the American had stopped struggling hopelessly, and the doors on the train had yet to shut. Everything fell around them. It was just KIRA, the man he killed, and the silence. The cold, dark look that KIRA had as he doused the fire in the American's eyes.

He had to get out.

He knew he couldn't stay in his room forever. He had to sleep, he had to go to work the next day. But no matter what went through his head, he couldn't bring himself to turn out the lights. So he stayed there, in the corner, until morning.

I had been following Naomi around as she wandered aimlessly through the streets, dragging her feet behind her like bricks. I walked next to her, feeling just as hopeless. I wanted to catch KIRA, but then, what was the use? I had already lost any hope I might have had in doing so by mistakenly thinking my best bet was to follow the woman in the white coat, Kyoko. And finding all the other people that were there would be next to impossible now.

Ever since death, my only hope had been the choice I had made to follow Kyoko home. But, as it turned out, she was an avid KIRA supporter with a friend who worked in the subways, and they destroyed everything that could have been of use to L or me. Now, I was stuck with no evidence and no feasible way of finding the rest of the witnesses, with the entire city of Tokyo to search.

And then I saw it. "According to statistics we here at Sakura TV have gathered…" I looked to my right, a TV bulletin posted in a store catching my eye. "At least 50% of people in Tokyo support KIRA, and one in five people in the world support KIRA. What do you have to say about that, MR. Mikami?" I watched the commentator interview the three guests on the show-an author, a store owner, and a prosecutor.

"Personally," began the prosecutor, "I believe that just as much as I believe that one in six people has a sixth sense, meaning I don't believe it all. See, I think that, as KIRA's influence begins to spread…"

I walked back over to Naomi, who had dropped herself on a bench near the TV bulletin a few minutes earlier, and sat down next to her, contemplating what the prosecutor had said. If one in five was a KIRA supporter, then that girl was one in five who witnessed my death that supported KIRA. But, if one in six could see ghosts, then counting Yagami as well, one of them should be able to see me. It was a gamble, but it was worth a shot. Kyoko was already off the list, having not noticed me when I followed her. And Yagami I would save for last, since he was KIRA and I already knew where he lived from when I was tailing him. The homeless man could still be at the station, but he was a nomad, so I was less likely to find him. That meant that the people I was most likely to find were the man with the pipe and the businessman. The man with the pipe didn't seem like he cared much. But the businessman reacted very harshly to seeing me die, likely worse than the rest. I remember he ran around behind me, then left through the east exit. But he hesitated as he left, as if he had sensed something that no one else had seen. And I couldn't remember clearly, but I could have sworn I saw the name "Yotsuba" engraved in kanji on his briefcase…

Everything was starting to become clear to me now-the reason I was here, the flaws in KIRA's plan. The ways I could communicate with Naomi or L. I knew why I wasn't completely dead yet. It was because I hadn't yet married Naomi. My purpose in life had been making her smile. But with the way things were now, it looked like she wouldn't be able to smile until KIRA was caught…

…until KIRA was caught…

Originally, I had always been worried about Naomi stressing herself out too much, even after leaving the Bureau. I was always telling her to relax, and not focus too much on the little details. But now I realized that even just being around made me feel smarter. It was as if her presence automatically cleared everything up for me.

I had finally figured it all out, I knew exactly what to do. And by morning, I had found the man with the briefcase, sleeping in an awkward position in the corner of his room.