A/N: Hello, everyone. Long time no see. I am very, very sorry for the delay on my part. I had sort of moved on from this fanfiction even though I had not finished. I only decided to finish it up earlier today. So I went and did that. Hooray. To any readers that started it when I regularly updated, I am glad that you continue to give me a chance. :) To anyone who waited, I hope this is able to make up for any injury you may have sustained in my absence. I'm not vain, I'm just very sorry. Thank you, thank you for returning.

To anyone else who is reading this, I'm glad you made it this far. :) I love everyone.

To your grave I spoke,
Holding a red,
Red rose.
Gust of freezing cold air,
Whispers to me,
That you are gone.

Always asking the question,
Why life is overrated.
But I never,
Never expected that I'd,
Underestimated my love for you.

Always,
Always just out of reach from my,
Over frustrated,
Shameful hands.
And I never,
Never expected that I would ever,
No never take for granted your precious time.

Spent a lifetime of holding on,
Just to let go.
I guess I'll spend another lifetime,
Searching for a new hope.

Broken Iris - A New Hope

Chapter Eleven: Everything

Horrendous torrents of black smoke vomit their way out of the library doors. I rush towards them and immediately heave over a lungful of the stuff. I amend myself to become incorporeal and my chest is cleared.

The library is an inferno. I've only seen worse on my few, selective trips to Hell (although maybe that is because everything I've come to find beautiful in this part of my life was burning). Smoke rises to the ceiling like a monster, biting and pummeling itself as it fights to go upwards. Flames spit their way across the shelves, their progress of conflagration almost deafening. The raging heat in the air seems to reach me regardless of my substance.

Dodging the worse of it, I find my way to where Quinn had been knocked out.

"Hi," she says, devastatingly calm, for she is standing between two bookcases made of flame. Pyre's bandanna is clenched in her fist at her side. An unlit match drops from it and lands by her feet. It quivers for a moment, then catches fire.

I am in no mood to play her game.

"What are you doing?" I ask.

I can tell by the way she presses her lips together she had given up the game as well.

"Did you bring the Death Note?"

"Why didn't you kill her?" I counter. As soon as my curt words pass my lips, she smiles. It's a smug, laughing smile.

"I never planned to kill her. I just wanted to ruin her life. She ruined my life here. But the supreme medal, Anathema, goes to you. All of this is your fault."

"Mine?" I snort. "You stole my -"

"NO, STOP IT! SHUT UP!" she screams over me. Surprised, I actually draw back. She continues, pointing an accusatory finger at me. "It's your fault. My life was fine until you showed up with the monsters and the new voices!"

Disgusted, I make to interject again, but she continues shouting, "IT'S. ALL. YOUR. FAULT." She seems to calm before continuing again. "So I'm going to kill you and destroy Pyre. That's what they're telling me to do now. Pyre's matches, Pyre's fire." She grins. "And your fault."

If Quinn frames Pyre for this fire, she'll be locked up for the rest of her life. My eyes go back to Quinn's lifespan - today, for sure, but will Pyre be dragged down with her?

"Who's telling you to do this?" I ask. She looks back at me. It's apprehensive, like she is sincerely calculating whether or not she should tell me for fear I make fun of her.

Finally, she says, "The voices. They've always been there. I try to ignore them, but everything they say is really rude and...annoying. They make me feel awful about myself. One of them always tells me to step in front of cars. Some others - I have names for all of them, but - they'd whisper as I walked down the school hallways. They'd tell me someone was giving me a dirty look, or laughing at me behind my back. I hated it. Always rude, no matter what I said back to them. But now they say if I burn the hospital, they'll forgive me for being stupid and useless and an idiot. They'll say nice things instead. But only if I burn the hospital." She stares glassily into a distance only she can see. After her hesitation, she appears to come to her senses. "Killing you and Pyre is for me, though."

My spirits fall, though I am not really surprised. For a brief moment, I had begun to allow myself to hope that maybe she was a saner person, a more reasonable person.

A person who was just a victim.

A person who could be reached.

A feeling I can not quite identify swells in my chest, just as the bookcase Quinn stands beside falls. It buckles inward and lands right on top of her with a shuddering groan.

Quinn does not even have time to scream.

I do not see her numbers blink out.

A new fire blooms upwards out of the bookcase and the smoke turns acrid. Before I can think to fade out, I am bit by the new flames, like Quinn has risen for one last attempt at vengeance. Even in death, she still aims to claw out the eyes of her supposed oppressors.

And maybe it is all my fault. If I had been more vigilant, she never would have gotten hold of the Death Note. She could have led a normal life. No one would have died.

I go, slowly and quietly, through the hospital to retrieve the Death Note from the wall.

I do not look at the fire.

I do not look at the smoke.

I can't help but see Anna feebly stirring under an inflamed, collapsed beam. Her chest is caved in. Aidan, who I can only guess was pushed out of the way by Anna, is taking rapid and shallow breaths - hyperventilating.

Light catches my eye. Two firemen holding flashlights have kicked in the door. They make it in time for Aidan.

I step through the wall and into the outside night.

It's far too clear and sensible for the world in its current state. The air is brisk, the light breeze pushing all the smoke away and leaving only piney air. The stars above are lucidly shining. They hint at a more beautiful truth than this. It's almost boastful in its perfection. How dare the night be so aloof when the world was ending?

The street is lined with emergency vehicles. Across it, the evacuated patients and staff are spread out over the hill. I am torn for a long moment, debating whether or not I should continue to impose on their lives. I cross the street and find my lunatics. They are all there, except for Quinn and Aidan. Chloe is pretending to listen to Thompson ("I told you. This is where they start. That Quinn-girl brought them") and my insides twist guiltily.

Away from the crowd, Pyre is sitting, yanking up tufts of grass and sprinkling them on her knees. She's staring at the burning hospital. Even though I can't talk to her, I take some comfort in sitting beside her.

"I'm sorry this happened," I say aloud. She's humming to herself and gives no indication she can hear me, but I continue anyway. "It was all a mistake. It's all my fault." I can't think of anything else to say. In the barest of emotion, this is what I mean to say. This is all I can say. I put a hand over my eye and try to massage away the pain in my head. She keeps humming.

I groan and drop backwards so I'm lying on the hill. This is a disaster.

"It's kind of pretty, isn't it?"

My eyes shoot open.

What?

Pyre looks back at me and raises her brow.

"But I guess that doesn't make you feel any better. Like, the thing that I find pretty is what you're apologizing for. Understandable."

I don't know how to reply. She holds up a ball of paper.

"I found this while we were being pushed out the doors. It was behind a bush. Don't really know why I picked it up. Though, I do remember seeing it when I went out for breakfast with my brother. Thought it was just a stupid wad of paper. But it's the only variable I recognize in the Equation. So what is it?"

"Duuuuuh?" I say.

She smiles and me and I duuuuh harder. Then I remember what is going on.

"It's the reason Quinn is dead," I blurt. Her mouth drops open and she looks around like she hadn't realized that Quinn was not there.

"She's dead?"

I nod.

"I've known she would die today ever since I met her. But she tried to frame you for burning down the hospital. I'm not sure if she'll succeed." And I tell her the whole story while we watch the emergency vehicles work. They have little chance of putting the fire out quickly, but they at least contain it while it starts to burn out. Pyre listens the whole time. When I finish, she turns the page of the Death Note over in her hand.

"Is that it?" she asks, pointing at the Note at my side. She wrinkles her nose as a maggot crawls over it.

"Yeah," I say, and then do a double take. The Death Note should have been returned to me when Quinn died. That must mean that when Pyre picked up the page, it transferred to her. And that's why I'm still in my God form. So my year of penance has not restarted. In a way, I am still attached to my mistakes here. I tell her so and she frowns.

"So you have to stay here...bonded to me now...until I die or let go of this?"

"Yes."

"Hmm." She brushes grass of her knees. I blink as the ball of Death Note paper hits me in the face softly. "I relinquish the Death Note-thing. You should go back to where you were."

I am offended for a moment. "What?"

"You don't want to get stuck with me wherever I end up. If I do get in trouble because of Quinn, I don't want you hanging around while I drool in a straitjacket. I want you to go do whatever you want to do once your year is up."

A thousand possibilities flash through my mind, debating why she does not want me around. Because of what she said. Because she doesn't want me to deal with the aftermath. I disgust her.

And then I force myself to think realistically. An hour ago, this was not about my feelings. It was about the tragedy that occurred on my watch. I even felt bad for Quinn. Ryuk and all of the others must be watching the events of tonight and thinking what they may. I did not want to return to the Death God Realm after seeing this world. I could only think of my existence there. Gambling aimlessly. Getting and giving dirty looks from and to the other Death Gods. I feel like a maggot now, skittering around. Leeching off a larger part of something for no reason whatsoever. Death Gods have no purpose. Not that we can remember. Maybe it would be better for us to find something to do in the Human World. Improve upon something; improve upon ourselves.

To see and feel everything.

"Alright," I say finally. I pull down the bone mask and give her a small smile. I hope it doesn't look too much like a leer to her. "But expect me."

"Yeah, I figured you'd say that."

"I'll come back to see all of you. Aidan as well. And I'll stay close by somewhere, so that I can pay my respects to Anna."

She nodded and ducked her head. I touched the Death Note at my side and felt my God form seemingly melt away. I felt heavy in my human form - but heavy with purpose. Humans must feel this all the time. I stood up, feeling my still-brittle joints crack. She reached out and bumped my fist. I suppressed a grin.

"See you later, Rebecca."

"Bye, Anathema."

I turn away from the scene after checking that my departure will go unnoticed now that people can see me. Either way, I'm not a patient of theirs. Though after all that had happened, I could be. I started walking away - it is a long, flat stretch to the nearest town once I got up the hill. Too bad that my wings are gone, but if I am to stay as a human, I may as well be grounded like them.

I look back after I'm a long way away, far enough to see almost everything.

(it's a bit too soon to speak of everything)

The hospital is still burning like the little spark of a heart in the distance. But if fire looks like the spark of a heart, then everything I've learned from Rebecca and these stupid lunatics means that it can only grow.

A/N: Thank you for reading. I hope you liked it, and I hope it made up for the wait. Please review, I'd love to hear from some of you again.