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The moon hid its face behind clouds tonight, and the streetlamps flickered overhead as Light focused on the sidewalk in front of him. It was the middle of the night, and he needed to clear his head, to prepare himself to finally meet the person who thought to trap a god.
“Light-o, do you remember this place?” Ryuk hovered next to Light as they walked, but craned his neck to the side, drooling slightly as he pointed. “That orchard?”
The smell of apples in the air was unmistakable, and Light gave Ryuk an irritated look. “Of course.” Light looked around to make sure they were truly alone, then whispered, “The orchard I buried your notebook in, for Misa to find.” He quickened his stride, still waiting for that click in his head that eventually came during these midnight walks, and anxious for the last obstacle to be out of his way forever. My new world has nearly come to pass. Just one more day.
Ryuk tugged his sleeve, trying to slow Light down. “Yup, but before you did that, we used to sit under the trees sometimes.”
Light slowed, a wry smile playing on his face as the spark of memory lit. Those first halting steps—yes, I remember. “I’d tell you my plans, and you’d pretend to listen while gorging on apples.” How different I was back then, such a foolish child. Only pure potential.
Ryuk flapped in front of him, dangling upside down with a toothy grin. Apples, yeah! “C’mon, let’s go do it again, for old time’s sake? Who knows if…” But Ryuk trailed off, thinking twice about finishing that sentence. Who knows if you’ll win tomorrow, and these could be the last juicy apples I’ll have.
Light stopped in the sidewalk, thoughtful now. “So little faith in me, Ryuk?” Ryuk looked sheepish, but Light didn’t need his confidence. He brushed his fingers over the smooth watch glass that hid his precious secret. My winning card. He smiled, imagining the look on Near’s face to see his own house of cards topple. Why not be a little foolish once more? “I suppose there’s no harm in it.”
Ryuk whooped and tugged Light by the lapels of his suit towards the low fence separating the orchard from the sidewalk, lifting him over it as he’d done when Light was a gangly teenager. “Let’s go see if we can find the same tree.”
Light shrugged off his suit coat to keep branches from snagging it, and used the light from his phone to illuminate the steps in front of him between the narrow rows of trees. “You know I’ll never find that same tree in the dark. No clue if it’s even still there after seven years.”
Ryuk looked over his shoulder, “Shinigami have long memories, Light. Follow me.” He led Light to the interior of the orchard, and all the trees were taller, fuller than when they’d been here years ago. He stopped in front of the tallest tree, at the very center, heavy with fruit despite it being January. “This is it.”
The moon had come from behind the clouds now, draining the scene of color, but the silver rays were bright enough for Light to put away his phone. The place felt both holy and profane, and childish to be here as a man. But the pull to stand as a god where he had once dreamed as a child was undeniable. Light plucked an apple off the tree, staring down at it in memory as he wiped it with his sleeve. He held it out to Ryuk with a smile, “Don’t worry. It’s not your last one.”
Ryuk said nothing, but he took the apple and went to perch atop the tree, munching it noisily. Light draped his coat on a branch and sat against the trunk, gazing up through the leaves at the moon. It felt good to sit and reflect on his long journey; he got so very few moments to breathe, to be still. He thought back to before he’d found the Death Note, his destiny, and the boredom with life and school and ordinary existence that had plagued him then.
There had been a sentence his teacher had prompted him to translate the day he found it and he whispered it now from memory. “Having finally made his dream reality, he was overwhelmed both by the magnitude of his achievement and by the joy and happiness that it brought him.” They had been empty words to him then, but he felt their meaning in his bones now—although it nagged him that he should be happier. Shouldn’t he? He’d been waiting for that, for the joy to hit. Maybe I will be when Near and the SPK are dead.
Light reached up into the tree, pulling an apple for himself and taking a bite. It had looked perfect dangling there but was overly ripe in places, and the taste was cloying even as he continued to eat. "We've come a long way, haven’t we Ryuk? One last step.”
Ryuk’s eyes glowed in the darkness above, bulbous fireflies skewered, unblinking. “Suppose so.” He talks like we’ve been in this together, despite what I told him in the beginning. I will write your name one day, Light. I will be your death, your usher to Mu. “Gotta admit you’ve come a lot further than I thought you would. I’m somewhat proud of you. Any regrets?”
Light tossed the half-rotten apple aside, crossing his arms. “A few,” he said quietly.
“Eh?” Ryuk dropped the core of his apple down his throat and grabbed another.
“I regret that innocent people had to get hurt or die to make this possible. People who stood in my way or were sacrificed. I regret it had to be like that, even though it was necessary. That’s not how I wanted my perfect world to begin.” But to make something new, the old must be destroyed. The paradise I build will survive calamity, will be purer for it.
That surprised Ryuk to hear, Light never shared his doubts these days and rarely had years ago. “Like who?”
“My family has suffered greatly.” Light shivered as the winter wind blew through apple leaves. “My father is dead.” Once he was all the authority in my world, the laws of society, and he was my hero. Light remembered now some of the last words he ever heard his father speak: ‘The real evil is the power to kill people. Someone who finds himself with that power is cursed. No matter how you use it, anything obtained by killing people can never bring true happiness.’ Was he right? I never viewed the Death Note as a curse, but as a gift.
Light sighed and let his head rest on the old tree as he counted the stars beginning to peek through the cloudy night. “My sister has been hurt because of me, may never recover.” Sayu’s sparkling innocence, her hope and faith in me was so pure. “And my mother’s left to pick up the pieces.” Full of gentleness and understanding, she’s stood by me, healed me, supported me. “I’ve hurt some of the people who represented what was worth saving in this rotten world.”
I warned you that you would feel the fear and pain known only to humans who've used the notebook. Ryuk hovered around the tree, twisting apples off the stems and hiding some in his wings for later. “And what about L, do you regret that?”
“L…” Light was quiet for a while, listening to swaying branches and shinigami wings as his fist slowly clenched. “I respected him, learned from him. He was a worthy rival.” L had the patience, intelligence, to search for the deeper truths of me. “Unlike Near.” Usurper, a perverse and biased justice.
Light laughed, but it was a cold, hollow thing. Do I regret meeting him or that my actions ended his life and saved mine? No. But... “It’s been boring without him, Ryuk, everything’s come so easy. He’s the one that should be in that warehouse tomorrow, waiting for me.” He’s the one I want to see the fruits of my decisions, my works. Light pulled a pen-knife from his pocket and snapped it open, then yanked another fruit off the tree.
Ryuk chucked a few more apples in his mouth. “Won’t just be Near there.” Kira has many enemies, few friends. There will be no one to help you if you fall, Light.
“No, it won’t be.” Light began to remove the blackened peel of the apple with his knife, cutting away the rotten exterior. He smiled to himself as a long thread of peel began to unwind. “But I’m not concerned with the SPK.” My plan will come together for me, and they’ll all be dead. “Nor with my own task force.” The peel coiled loosely as he turned the apple, its soft white flesh beneath unblemished and bleeding sticky juice onto his fingers. Thoughtful, he added, “I’m not concerned with any of it.”
Ryuk peered down at him then flapped to the mossy ground beside Light, watching him peel the apple. “You’re pretty confident.”
“Shouldn’t I be?” Light raised his eyes to Ryuk’s, his false beacons in the colorless world. “L once told me that however gifted Kira is, he alone can't change the world.” Light pulled the final piece of peel from the apple and tossed it away, turning the pure fruit in his hand. “He was wrong. The world’s already changed. I changed it. I’ve already won.”
“Might not win this time, Light.”
“That won’t happen, Ryuk.” Light took a bite of the peeled apple, savoring it this time without the decay. “But even I don’t, even if I die, there are things now in this world that will outlive me. I’ve already made my mark.” Although Yagami Light fears to die, Kira is complete and will be carved into memory. The world has seen; it will remember. “Near might find my dream harder to kill.”
Ryuk chuckled softly at this hubris, but he’d always found it oddly charming coming from Light. “Aye, many humans have thought their works would outlive them. But without Kira killing criminals, things will just go back to how they were.”
“Probably.” Light took a few more bites of his apple, then tossed it to Ryuk who caught it against his chest. “But if that happens, the world will know exactly what it lost.” He turned to face the tree and began to carve into it with the knife, cutting deeply into the wood over and over.
“All the good that’d do ya. You’d be dead.”
Light brushed the flaking wood away, tracing his finger in the gouges. “Yagami Light would be dead.” Someone had to do it. He folded the pen-knife, putting it back in his pocket. “But they will have made Kira a god.” No one else could have come so far. Light pulled his coat back on and turned back to the orchard fence, towards journey’s end. No one but me.
Ryuk looked after him, then went to the tree to see what Light had written there:
I am Kira, god of the new world.