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There was a difference between knowing and knowing.
Misa Amane knelt on the cold ground in the woods, dirt packed beneath her nails, grasping the Death Note so tightly that her fingers trembled. Months of memories came flooding back all at once.
Finding the notebook and feeling the thrill of it in her hands. The first time she saw Rem looming above her. Sakura TV and the tapes. Light.
Light Yagami, who really was Kira.
She had known that already. Rem had told her during the Yotsuba interview.
Misa had believed it then. Accepted it because the fact of it made her heart swell with adoration even without understanding why.
But that had only been knowing. Now she remembered the truth.
Before she was captured, Light had held her and he had kissed her with purpose. He had told her she was important to him, that she would stand beside him when the new world was born.
She remembered the warmth of his hands now. The way his voice dropped when he spoke about the future they would create together.
They were meant to rule together.
While her memories had been erased, she had forgotten their intimacy. All she knew of her relationship with Light were blurry, fleeting moments. Dates that felt staged and affection that never quite landed. In those empty months she had even admitted, in quiet moments she would never speak aloud, that it might have been a little one sided.
But now Misa remembered Kira’s gaze when it softened just for her. She remembered the way he had chosen her and kissed her like she mattered.
Kira must have loved her, too.
And that realisation did not arrive alone.
Knowing that Light was Kira changed everything that came after. It pressed itself over the months of captivity and suspicion and waiting, sinking into memories that had once been meaningless and forcing them into new shapes.
Ryuzaki cuffing himself to Light like some kind of obsessive. The way he inserted himself into every moment without apology. Sitting so close that their shoulders touched at headquarters, their knees brushing beneath the table again and again as if by accident. As if Ryuzaki did not have the rest of the desk available to him.
That horrible chain…
Misa recalled a moment that had occurred a few weeks ago. Light had been seated beside Ryuzaki with their wrists linked together, a bowl of fruit between them that Watari had provided.
“You’re not eating,” Ryuzaki said, his eyes fixed on Light’s mouth.
“I’m working.”
“You need sugar to maintain concentration.”
“I’m perfectly capable of maintaining concentration without sweets.”
Ryuzaki reached out anyway, long fingers selecting a strawberry from the bowl. He held it up, patient.
“Just one.”
Light hesitated, but then leaned forward and ate it from his hand.
Ryuzaki smiled.
Later, he licked sugar from his own thumb while maintaining eye contact with Light as though it were a private joke.
Misa’s stomach churned at that memory now. At the time, she had thought it was simply Ryuzaki being, well, Ryuzaki. Now she worried it had been something more. That it had meant something to Light.
It made something hot and poisonous curl in her chest.
They had shared everything. They worked together, ate together, washed together.
Slept together.
Misa’s mind betrayed her with images she could not stop.
The two men in the same bed, chain pooled like a serpent between their wrists. Light on his side, hair falling into his eyes while Ryuzaki leaned close enough that their breath mingled beneath the sheets. The mattress dipping as Ryuzaki shifted nearer, nearer still, until the space between them vanished entirely.
“Light,” he murmured in her imagination, “can’t you sleep?”
“It can’t be helped,” Light replied quietly. “You’re too close.”
“You don’t seem to mind.”
“I don’t.”
Misa’s nails dug deeper into the dirt.
She could see it so clearly. Ryuzaki’s hand settling at Light’s waist beneath the covers, long fingers pressing through thin fabric of his pyjamas. Light turning towards him instead of away, their foreheads nearly touching in the dark.
Their lips meeting, and Light smiling through the kiss.
Misa gagged, bile rising sharp at the back of her throat.
Before the memories returned, she had not considered these things. The chain had been embarrassing. Just a joke to laugh off while she had her ‘dates’ with Light.
Now it felt obscene.
Light was Misa’s and Ryuzaki would pay.
All she needed to do was write his name.
She thought back to that day at the university. God, he had been a creep back then too. Barefoot and slouched over, Ryuzaki had grabbed her arm without permission, long fingers digging into her skin, and smiled in that nauseating way as though he understood something she did not.
His name had been right there. It was foreign. Not written in Japanese.
L… something.
“Think, Misa, think,” she hissed to herself. “Lawless. Lawton. Larkin…”
Her voice broke on a shout as frustration tore through her. She slammed her fist into the earth.
“I forgot!”
The woods were quiet around her. Her thoughts circled, snagging on the same images again and again. Light laughing at something Ryuzaki had said. Light allowing himself to be pulled closer by the chain without protest. Light giving Ryuzaki a soft smile.
Wings rustled overhead.
“Well, hey there,” a familiar voice crooned. “Long time no see.”
Ryuk dropped down beside her in a loose crouch, grinning wide enough to split his face. His eyes gleamed in the low light.
Misa’s head snapped up. Relief flooded through her so quickly it almost hurt.
“Ryuk!”
Even with everything churning inside her, even with jealousy burning a hole straight through her chest, she felt a laugh bubble up. He was real. This was real. The notebook in her hands was real.
“You’re back,” she said, breathless. “You’re really back.”
“Of course I am,” he replied, tilting his head. “You touched the notebook again, so I can come back to the human world.”
Without dropping the Death Note, Misa fumbled in her bag with her free hand until her fingers brushed against the apple Light had told her to bring.
She held it out and Ryuk’s grin widened impossibly as he snatched it from her and took a wet, crunching bite.
“Ahhh,” he sighed around the mouthful. “Now this is what I missed.”
Misa went back to the notebook. As she shifted, something slipped free from between its pages. A piece of paper drifted down into the dirt between her knees. Misa stared. It was in Light’s handwriting.
No.
Kira’s.
And Kira wants L dead.
Misa’s heart raced at the thought.
Light might not want that anymore, even with his memories returned. This Light who allowed himself to be chained, who slept beside him, who leaned in close enough that their shoulders touched even when there was space enough to sit apart.
This Light might be falling for Ryuzaki.
Misa’s thoughts lurched somewhere worse.
A future where Ryuzaki stood beside Light as the new world was born. Where the chain was never removed. Where the two of them ruled together while she watched from the side.
“He belongs to me,” she whispered, voice unsteady.
Ryuk tilted his head again, apple half gone in his hand.
“You sure about that?”
Misa opened the Death Note once more, reverence replacing the tremor in her hands.
Ryuzaki must die. No matter the cost.
Even if Light protested. Even if he never kissed her again the way he had before.
The world they were going to create together mattered more than that.
And once Ryuzaki was gone, Kira would remember who stood beside him from the very beginning.
“Ryuk,” she said, eyes bright, dirt ground deep beneath her nails, “let’s make the deal.”