Title:A Tale of Two Men
Characters: Matsuda, Light
Rating:PG
Word Count:1039
Summary: There were once two men. One was true, the other false. A collection of drabbles and ficlets in three arcs.

Notes: Been one week since my university exams ended. The time was spent celebrating with FFVII and SMT: Imagine. Now back to business. Third part is nearly done, needs some polishing.

PART TWO: THE DEAD

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper.

-Elliot T.S., The Hollow Men

I: A world gone to the dogs

The world has not ended. Matsuda wonders if it should be.

Once, he had believed in justice, that shining, nebulous ideal. That ideal is dead or dying. Everywhere he turns Kira's justice seems to have taken over—brutal, uncompromising, the justice of the sword. "Kill lists" dominate the media, reams and reams of names together with their corresponding faces, the full set; the needs of Kira satisfied by his hungry followers.

These are the people Matsuda joined the police force to protect. He can't read the papers or watch TV anymore without a sick lurching feeling in his heart, a sense that invisible walls are rising up and closing in, on what appears to be the last bastion of sanity in this world.

The crime rates are in freefall; the people rejoice at what the old justice failed to do.

II: Peace in a teacup

Sitting beside his girlfriend and being harassed by his (very pretty) younger sister, Light looks just like what he should have been; a young man with a promising career and an even brighter future, framed by his loving parents and a family home filled with warmth. There have been little more people whose lives have been derailed as utterly as Light's thanks to Kira, Matsuda thinks with regret. Instead, Light has to work behind an anonymous letter, unrecognized for his efforts and courage.

That will all change, he vows to himself. When Kira is finally taken down once and for all.

Then Light will get what he deserves, fair and square.

III: Tragedy in three

Soichiro is dead. Incredibly, he's dead.

(He should have taken the Death Eyes, somehow. He should have knocked Soichiro flat, damn his stupid morals, and taken the cursed things for himself. Maybe if he had—)

Sayu is the only one that doesn't cry, her mind lost and bound in some distant place free from pain. Matsuda almost envies her.

He thinks of the night L died, of the lesson he had never had the courage to learn. Things can change at any given time. The people that Matsuda admires most are hardly immune. For all their intelligence, their sense of justice, they are susceptible to death like any ordinary person; even more so, perhaps.

And because he is not brave enough, he turns to Light, as he has always done. Light has to prevail, he hopes, he hopes. Light will prevail.

(Light bows his head, wipes the back of his hand across his eyes. Then he's in charge again. How many blows can a man take and remain standing?)

IV: Poison in the waters

It used to be them against the madness raging outside. It used to be so simple.

Near changed everything, with his loaded words and insinuations. You used to be the Kira suspect, L, he says. The rules are false, L, he says.

Now even Aizawa and Mogi, even Ide, look at Light in a certain way and whisper behind their hands, and it's like the old days again, only worse. Matsuda can't understand. Mello and Near and Light, they are all L's descendants. Why are they working against each other?

He can't help but resent Near, just a little. Things were fine before he arrived on the scene. Kira is going to win at this rate, he thinks bitterly, with his biggest enemies turning against each other.

The tension simmers. Light spends less and less of his time with them, and more and more with his new love Takada. No wonder.

V: Kingdom come

At twelve midnight, in a masquerade, the dancers stop spinning and take off their glorious feathered masks to show their true faces to their partners.

At forty seconds, Yagami Light takes his off—and oh, what a horrible, horrible face lies beneath! His perfect lips curl into a smile, and he says, "I win."

(The words hang in the air, crystal clear. They can't be misheard or denied.)

At this moment, Matsuda almost welcomes the invisible, looming death that awaits.

VI: The way the world ends

Matsuda thought he knew what was like to be the only sane man in a roomful of maniacs.

Light? Kira? I thought we'd put that behind us already! God! What's wrong with all of you?

Now, as he watches Light fall, he knows what it's like to be a madman in a mental ward, gibbering nonsense while everyone watches with pity; and worse, he knows brutally what it's like to wake up and realize the truth.

Light hits the ground, just a second before the tears he hadn't known he was crying.

VII: The end of an age

It is Matsuda who rearranges the contorted limbs. It is Matsuda who shuts the staring eyes, who covers the twisted face with his coat.

"You should have let me go to him."

"You couldn't have helped him. I know you were very close to him, but—"

"He didn't deserve to die alone!"

"What about those he killed? The countless men and women, who died alone and without justice? Why does he deserve the privilege of company more than them?"

Silence, closed and damning.

"No one deserves to die like that. But he didn't deserve a friend like you, either."

VIII: A King's Farewell

Light had many friends. Matsuda was one of them, once upon a long ago time.

The white flowers curl their soft petals around Light's face, long released from its damning expression of shock and fear. The blood has been washed away and he looks the young and innocent boy that Matsuda had thought he had known. The makeup artist had done an excellent job. Nothing less than the best for a supposed hero, after all.

Matsuda tosses his own flower into the open casket. It floats for a moment before gently touching down on Light's shoulder. Light sleeps, undisturbed.

Today, Light will go up in flames; an appropriate end for a man consumed so utterly with his own delusion of grandeur. Matsuda feels as though his own heart is ash already; unlike Light's, it will remain within its jar of clay, a dead and leaden weight.

He tells himself he will not cry. He lies.

-end of Part Two-