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Light—Kira—is running. Or, at least, he's trying to run, but Matsuda's bullets are buried deep within his muscles and they make him clumsy on his feet.
They're shocked into silence. Near watches him pry the warehouse door open, warm orange light seeping through the crack. Aizawa moves as if to chase him, but Near motions for him to stand down.
"He won't get far," he says.
A wounded deer with its legs broken. Near gets up by the knee and makes for the exit.
"Where are you—"
"Stay," he orders without so much as glancing back at the group. Two factions, now united. He can still see Light in the distance.
It doesn't take long to catch up. Near walks at his usual pace, sure that Light is too delirious to realise he's being followed. The shinigami follows them, cackling—it'll bring about Light's ultimate demise, no doubt. He should smile at the thought.
There's no joy in watching Light limp across the dock like an invalid. None at all. The sun is setting; pinks and purples and reds, Near isn't used to walking for this long. He persists regardless.
He finds Light splayed out across an altar of stairs and tarmac. His eyes are closed, barely, chest rising with bloody, ragged breath.
"Not a fitting place of death, for a god."
Light's eyes open halfway.
"You came."
"Don't overexert yourself," Near's feet make their way up the staircase one at a time until they're level. Light sighs, eyelids drooping. He's got no fight left in him.
Near sits.
"I'm going to die either way," Light's voice is broken, reedy. Near eyes the blood soaking his suit, notes his loosened tie. "May as well do it speaking."
"I told you I'd see this through to the end."
"Not exactly the end I was envisioning."
"Still," Near gently brushes the hair from Light's forehead, sticky with sweat. "One of us had to win."
"Yes."
"You looked pathetic back there. That's all they're going to remember you by."
"Yes."
Near turns his gaze to the horizon.
"Nate?"
"Hm?"
"Thank you."
Near blinks. "For what?"
"For making it fun again."
A game. That's all this ever was. Chess with a bodycount. For all his posturing about right and wrong, punishment and penance, Kira was birthed from one thing, and one thing only.
Boredom.
(Somewhere, deep within him, Near has a terrible feeling that he's picking up where Light will soon leave off. That the boredom will get him, too, seep into his gut and stay there like a cancer. That he's going to live the rest of his life in the shadow of a man he never knew with the ghost of his executioner hovering behind him. He'll be twenty, then thirty, then forty. And he will spend each of these years thrown further and further into the supposition that this world is rotten.)
"I'm tired," he says.
It's remarkable that Light can manage a smile despite it all. "Rest here, then. Christ and," he grunts, "His apostle."
Near's lips purse. "You don't regret it."
"Never."
It's all the confirmation he needs. Light cannot, and will not, change. He will never atone. It is the one thing Near can be sure of, now. He supposes there's a comfort in it.
Slowly, carefully, he lowers his back against the steps. They are hard and damp. Complaining will do very little. Near thinks that, maybe, he has no fight left in him either.
Light hisses in pain when their shoulders bump and relaxes at the brush of their hands. Near's eyes are heavy. The moon will rise soon.
"I don't think I want to be L," he murmurs. "Maybe I've fucked it up for both of us."
"You aren't," Light's voice is so weak it dissipates into the air upon contact, "You're worse."
This is it, then. This is the culmination of Near's work and Light's greed. Two men laying side by side with concrete digging into their backs, skin of their fingers a hair's breadth from touching.
Near shuts his eyes.
There are worse fates than this.
THURSDAY, JANUARY 28, 2013.
5:34 PM.
Light Yagami is killed by the power of Ryuk's death note.