Peace would kill Kira just as efficiently as any heart attack or bullet. It wasn't Near that had defeated Kira; nor was it Mello or Matt. It was time itself. Kira didn't do well inside stone walls, Kira didn't play well with an empty chessboard; Kira needed an advisory, just as God needed the Devil, just as the earth needed the sky. He was unbalanced, he was fumbling without a challenger to try to take the throne—he needed war, he needed death, he needed to battle the other mind, and there was no one left.
His goddess purred contentedly as she wrote away the lives of petty criminals; the mob fell down to worship him, to sacrifice their fellow men for his cause. His advisories consisted of a few middle-aged men, fooled by the very masks he had worn for years. He was dying in his contentment. He had been forced back into the world he had once known, the world before Kira, the world before the Notebook and L. The boredom would soon ensue, and Kira was beginning to panic. He would pace; he was waiting for L's return.
But in Kira's world, the dead were dead and did not return from the earth. Cassandra watched with tired blue eyes, feeling, as he was being woven away, that such things could not last. Kira could not last in the world he had created. The order of the universe would be restored, life and death would be restored, and Kira would die just like any other man. Cassandra remained silent, watching him continue to play the one-sided chess game, aching for an enemy to take up L's fallen queen.
His patience was dwindling, his prison was closing in on him; he was dying ever so slowly. Misfortune had caught up with him at last, and there was nothing to do but watch. Once more she saw Troy burning beneath the Greek flames, the Trojan Horse standing tall and upright inside the walls, ravens perched in the barren trees, waiting for the great city to fall. All for a golden apple that had fallen into mortal hands.
"Light," she said, watching as he stiffened, his pen-wielding hand stalling before writing another name. He was waiting for the gods to condemn him, waiting for the executioner to strike his final blow. Yes, even then, Kira had known he was going to die, and he hated himself for it.
"What do you want?" he asked shortly. He had long ago lost his tolerance for the stories she told, for the world she came from. He saw his own world ripped away from him far too shortly to listen of tales for another—he no longer had time to spare for leisure.
"Did I ever tell you that God himself set the means for his people's destruction right within the paradise he had given them?" She watched as he turned slowly, his golden eyes baleful, laughing at the irony of it. His memories had destroyed him; the child he had masqueraded as had not fared well with the death he had unleashed, for the memories were eating him alive.
"I know this story—the Tree of Knowledge. Am I correct?" he asked. She nodded slowly but continued in spite of his words.
"There was no logical reason for him to place that tree in the garden, not if they weren't supposed to eat it. What means of destruction have you given your people, Kira? You haven't given them trees or apples." She paused, waiting for him to answer; he said nothing, thinking back on the days when their relationship had almost been one of friendship, back when Eden had seemed possible.
"I don't know," he said, his masks slipping. The truth showed underneath, a twisting, shifting thing that changed at his whims. Kira's golden eyes looked sorrowful; his world filled with black as his vision fell back to the human tones it barely remembered, to a world without light.
"You gave them hope, a tiny star trapped inside a box, the one demon left after Pandora released hell upon this world. And wouldn't it be ironic if it weren't Adam or Eve that opened that box, but Kira himself."
He walked past her, to stare outside the window. Her warning rang like church bells in his ears; his golden eyes closed shutl his fingers twitched. Kira built his world, and with his own ink-stained hands he could destroy it just as easily.
A god made of glass flesh had no use ruling the earth and sky.