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Matsuda could still feel the gun’s recoil.
His fingers trembled with it. His arms shook. His breathing came in gasps.
He felt, once more, the sensation of horror—of rage—at pointing a gun at….him. Of firing. Everything he was in that moment, every act of hope that made him human, every smile he brought to his lips, every speck of optimism for the goodness of those he cared for...everything was in that gunshot.
And the one after it. And the next. And the next.
'Faith.'
What an odd word. Humans had such a complicated relationship with faith. Faith could create gods. Faith could tear them down.
Faith could make a human with a notebook take hold of the world.
And faith could make Touta Matsuda blind.
Light Yagami is Kira.
That statement. That fact.
Who’d been the first to say it, again? Or, no, that was a ridiculous question. Just one more guilty thought he'd buried out of his stupid faith. Matsuda knew exactly who’d been the first to know the truth. The first to say it, over and over, to a deaf audience.
When he thought of that man, Matsuda could smell sugar cubes and coffee, could see macaroons and mochi, could remember pale skin and dark shadows under bottomless eyes.
He could still recall standing between them when they fought. And being spared twin glances of annoyance at his efforts.
He could remember standing behind them when they smiled at one another, and being ignored completely as if his very existence was obsolete in that moment. As if he would never be anything but an outsider looking in.
Yet he never could bring himself to resent it.
Because he'd been sure, back then, that those had been the only real smiles he'd ever seen from them. He’d been certain because he’d been given fake smiles his entire life, and so thought he knew at least that truth. Thought he understood, at least, a look of genuine...care.
And perhaps that’s why he’d never believed it. Never truly entertained the thought.
Because how could anyone smile like that, yet still kill so heartlessly?
How could Light scream in anguish, how could his eyes deaden, how could his voice dull at any mention of that man…
And still expect Matsuda to truly believe he’d killed him?
'Matsuda, you idiot,' said that deadpan voice, long silenced.
Yes. Yes, he’d been an idiot, hadn’t he? He'd been an idiot, this whole time.
Swallowing lies upon lies. Twisting reality into illusion. Truth into delusion.
Hope into shame.
Because faith made fools of men.
“That’s right Matsuda. In this world, all those earnest people that fight for justice? They always lose. You want a world where people like that are made to be fools?!”
Bang.
The trigger under his fingertip. The pain in his heart turned into a weapon.
The recoil making him tremble and tremble and—
“Matsuda.” A hand on his shoulder, badly startling him. The hold tightened. “Hey, get it together. We’ll find him; he couldn’t have gone far.”
He looked up at Aizawa, whose expression was a mix between hardened cynic and sympathetic friend.
Sympathy, for him. Sympathy, for how he’d broken down, while all of the others, who'd already harboured doubts in their hearts, had expected it. Because who else could have been Kira, really?
Matsuda smiled, because he never knew what other expression to make, and stepped away from the touch. The hand slipped off his shoulder, hovered momentarily, and then Aizawa cleared his throat and dropped it.
“Come on,” The man said, gruff, turning away. “Let’s search the next warehouse. At the very least…we should find him before the SPK does.”
Near. Matsuda looked down, at his shaking hands, and curled them into fists. Near, who'd been the...heir. Near, who Matsuda didn't want to look at ever again.
“Yeah," he rasped out, throat tight. "I—yeah. We should be the ones to—to take him in, and—and make sure he's, not—”
His voice broke.
“Hey,” Aizawa said, hard. “You did what you had to—”
“Stop,” Matsuda cut in, and perhaps they were both surprised by how cold the words were, all hope drained away. He turned his back.
They continued following the blood trails, each step making his stomach turn as they grew larger and larger. Red bled into the puddles, stained the ground, twisted up railings like bloody vines. The walls were painted like a macabre show, blood dragged across them. Aizawa muttered something about how far 'he’d' managed to get, and Matsuda had to take a moment to suppress the phantom recoil that shook his arms.
Finally, they found a bloodstained door, barely pushed open, both edges stained heavily red. Glancing at one another, they nodded, guns ready just in case, and quickly followed the trail—
Only to come to a complete and utter halt.
Right then, Matsuda could have believed this was all his nightmare. He expected, for a moment, to suddenly jerk awake in his bed, soaked in sweat, and find it was all a cruel lie made by his subconscious, a torment he would thankfully forget as soon as he awoke....
But pain couldn't be felt in dreams, and all Matsuda felt was pain.
And Aizawa’s sucked-in breath was all the further proof he needed.
There was a person standing in the middle of the warehouse.
White shirt. Pale jeans. Bare feet.
At their entrance, he turned his head to glance at them, just for a moment. His black hair covered his eyes, rendering his expression half in shadows.
Matsuda could—almost believe it was someone else. A homeless man, who’d stumbled upon a crime scene, and gone to take a closer look. Just some innocent civilian they needed to get far away from here, far away from the body lying on the stairs just steps away.
Except the sunlight passed right through the person standing there, making no shadows, and human beings were not supposed to be transparent. Even shinigami were creatures of substance.
Illusion. It had to be an...an illusion.
But then Aizawa muttered something like a prayer under his breath and Matsuda nearly dropped to his knees from it. But a hand came up once more, clutching at his shoulder tightly as if seeking proof he was real, and this time Matsuda didn’t even try to shake it off because he needed the touch in the same way. The same confirmation.
The…ghost…raised his finger, thoughtful, to his lip, and that gesture was so familiar that Matsuda's heart trembled.
Then on soundless feet, the familiar stranger walked towards the body on the stairs, climbing up step by step, until he stood right over him. His profile was to Matsuda, but hair concealed his face, and the sun at his back made him difficult to see. For a second, he just stared down at the body, thumb at his lip, as if he wasn't quite sure what to make of the man laying there.
Or what to do with him.
And then he crouched down, abruptly, into a posture that was so familiar that Matsuda’s eyes nearly filled with tears once more. A pair of pale, transparent hands dove right into Light's chest, passing through flesh and blood without hesitation, as if scooping up water.
Then he pulled them out, hands cupped together, like a child who'd caught hold of a moth and trapped it between his palms. He rattled his hands briefly, like confirming something was within them, and brought his palms close to his eye.
Tilting his head curiously, he parted his hands, peaked inside the crevice of his fingers...
And smiled.
‘Caught you.’
In the next moment, he was gone.
And outside the window, the sun finally set. Leaving behind only two men and a corpse.
Suddenly, all the jagged emotions in Matsuda’s heart, that terrible knot of anger and sorrow and pain…
Settled. Just a bit.
It was a bittersweet feeling. A final end.
Two people, sitting side by side with only a chain between them, speaking half-finished thoughts that only the other understood.
Looking at each other, and each other alone.
Because no one else had ever mattered.
Matsuda hoped the world never saw the likes of them again.