A/N: Please note, I am extremely dissatisfied with this chapter. As soon as I finish this story or as soon as I am able, I will do a pretty heavy re-write on this chapter. Stick with me; it gets better, I promise.

Just a Martyr

A Death Note Fanfiction

"If of all words of tongue and pen,
The saddest are, "It might have been,"
More sad are these we daily see:
"It is, but hadn't ought to be."

-Francis Brett Hart

Chapter One

He knew that anything they dealt with after the Kira case would be completely boring, completely stupid.

The apartment was dark. It had to be around nine o'clock by now, but he hadn't bothered with the lights, and the sun seeped through the curtains despite the fact that he'd closed them tightly the night before.

Touta Matsuda sighed heavily and flopped over on his other side in bed. Maybe he could slide back into sleep, providing the nightmares didn't wake him first…

"What was it all for then? What about your dad? What the hell did he die for?"

"…You really want a world where people like him are made to be fools?"

"…And now that he's gone, you're calling him a fool?"

"His blood!"

"Aaagh! I'm gonna kill him! He has to die!"

"Matsuda!"

Bam!

He gave a strangled cry and bolted upright, sweat running down his face and back even though the ceiling fan was blowing steadily in the middle of winter. He heard the garbled ringtone before he saw the little square of glowing white light.

"It was just the phone…just the phone…" he breathed. Groping around for the cell on his nightstand, he finally grabbed it and flipped it open without looking at the caller ID.

"Hello?"

"Matsuda? Dammit, where have you been? This is the fourth time I've called!" It was Aizawa, and he sounded a lot angrier than necessary.

"Hi Aizawa," he replied wearily, running a hand along his face. "Um, sorry…I'm… a heavy sleeper..?"

"What?"

Matsuda winced. "Come on, you know how my place is. Bad signal and all…"

"That's got to be your worst excuse yet, and that's saying something," Aizawa snorted.

He gripped the phone tighter. It was too early for this, and the man was starting to get on his nerves.

"So did you call just to yell at me?"

"No!" Matsuda could have sworn he heard Aizawa's palm hitting his forehead. He sighed. "Look, we're just going down to Ide's apartment to talk about what we're going to do."

"Do…?"

"Yeah. About the Kira case. How much we'll reveal to the public and all that."

"Oh." He heard his own voice tighten, so he forced himself to sound pleasant, eager even. "Well, I'll see you then!"

"Uh…Matsuda…"

He winced. Aizawa's voice had completely changed, all irritation gone. "Yes?"

"You doing…okay?"

He surveyed his dark apartment, mostly kept that way because he was still trying to pretend that the place wasn't quickly turning into a rat's den. Unwillingly, he thought about how exhausted he was right after getting up, in the middle of the day…all the time….It had only been three days since he'd shot his former friend, Light Yagami, but still…

"Of course," he lied, keeping the "happy vibes" on high.

Aizawa muttered something indiscernible and said, "Kid, you're a terrible liar. After the meeting, come with me to get lunch or something, okay?"

Matsuda held in a sigh. He knew what the guy's motive was. "If you insist," he agreed obediently.

"Yeah, I do. See you at ten." He hung up, and Matsuda stared at the phone like a hypnosis victim before finally closing it and tossing it on the bed.

Kid. Since when did Aizawa call him "kid?" He wasn't a kid. Is that what they all thought he was? He sighed again. Of course they do. I'm just "Matsuda the screw-up, Matsuda the idiot…"

Matsuda, you idiot! Who the hell do you think you're shooting at? Don't screw with me!

He yawned and scratched his tangled black hair, standing up and feeling the chill now that he was standing in just a pair of old sweatpants. Unconsciously, he ended up in the bathroom and didn't bother with the light.

Matsuda looked away, unable to meet his own eyes in the dark mirror. Turning the squeaking handle, hot water from his tiny apartment's bathroom faucet gurgled and splashed down the drain. He still couldn't look at himself in the mirror. He couldn't look at the person who'd shot Light. So he'd been Kira…so what?

He scrubbed angrily at his hands, red and raw from the water, grinding the soap bar into a sliver. Steam was clouding up from the water, pressing against his face, and he shut his eyes, gritting his teeth. Light had been the worst serial killer in history; it had been okay, no, necessary, to shoot him down. That's what everyone at the Task Force kept telling him anyway. He cared for those men, he really did – they'd become his family, seeing them every day for six years… but he didn't know how many more times he could listen to that phrase. They said it kindly, meant well, but it still couldn't erase his horrible guilt.

Matsuda sighed, bracing his hands on the ceramic sink and letting his head hang down into the steam, like a suffocating blanket caressing his nose. Sure, he hadn't felt an ounce of guilt while he was holding that gun, firing over and over again when Aizawa yelled that Light was even then trying to write their names in that killer notebook. Not even when he screamed for Light's death and fired at the young man's head in a blind red haze. If not for Aizawa and Ide and Mogi, he would have blown Light's brilliant brains out.

Realizing he was still standing there, Matsuda turned off the water and eyed the soft towel hanging nearby, but didn't bother reaching for it. His hands smarted from the scrubbing, but regardless, he continued to wash them incessantly whenever the thought came to him, which was often. He headed out of the bathroom and fumbled with the light switch, grabbing the new suit he'd bought after that day in the warehouse. Shrugging on the jacket, he wondered if it had been a good idea to burn the old one after he'd come home.

Stupid… why did I do that anyway? Oh yeah… because I wouldn't have been able to wear it again…

When had that guilt started anyway? He wondered, standing in front of the full length mirror, carefully keeping his eyes only on the clumsy fingers working at his black tie. Maybe it was when he and Aizawa were sprinting along the fence, following a trail of Light's blood spatters, desperate to do…what exactly? He still wasn't sure. Subdue him? Capture him? See if he was even alive?

Matsuda pocketed his cell phone and headed out the door. He felt himself glaring at the doorknob, clutching it tighter than he had to. He really didn't want to go to Ide's place; if he had his way, he'd just put on those sweatpants again and go back to sleep. But Aizawa had sounded pretty mad over the phone, and he didn't want to press his luck.

He slowly shut and locked the door behind him, and realized that the guilt had first crashed over him when he and Aizawa had found Light's body sprawled out on a staircase.

Reality I guess does stuff like that, he figured, jumping in his car and starting it up.

Out of habit, he drove into town, towards the huge skyscraper complex that served as the Task Force headquarters. Cursing, he ran a red light and turned around, only to realize that he was driving down the road to the police headquarters.

"What's wrong with me?" he asked aloud, smacking the steering wheel.

And that's when he realized he had absolutely no idea where Ide lived.

"Stupid, stupid, stupid!" he groaned, jerking off the road and parking at the curb, earning a loud blast from someone's horn. His hand hurt, but he fished his phone from his back pocket – of course he had to be sitting on it – and punched the redial.

"Yes?" Aizawa answered on the first ring.

"Um…you didn't tell me where Ide's apartment is."

"I thought you knew, sorry." His voice sounded distant. "We're at block sixteen, just past the ICPO headquarters. The apartment is tall with a bunch of windows…and it's got a brick entrance. You won't miss it. Ide's number 58."

"Thanks," Matsuda answered lamely, snapping the phone shut.

Well, I can see the headquarters now, so I guess it's down the west street for me, since block sixteen is that way…

He saw the apartment complex a lot quicker than he'd expected, and he stole a quick glance at his watch. 10:17. Not bad.

The sliding doors opened crisply and a blast of heat hit him.

Nice place. Like a hotel in here…

"Can I help you?"

There was a pretty young woman standing at the desk; Matsuda winced when he saw what she looked like. She had an uncanny resemblance to Sayu Yagami.

"Um…I'm looking for apartment number 58…" His face was heating up and he knew it was probably pretty obvious.

Great, now she probably thinks I'm hitting on her or something. Not staying in bed was looking more and more like a fatal mistake.

"Sure, there's an elevator just to your left, and 58 is on the second floor."

"Thanks." He gave a quick bow and made a hasty exit.

His shoes clacked loudly on the shiny wood floor as he made his way to the elevator, trying to stifle a yawn. The doors parted for him, and he stepped inside, mashing his thumb into the glowing "two" button.

He caught sight of his reflection in the polished brass trimmings and groaned. His hair was still tangled and standing up in places. A hasty search of his pockets proved that he wasn't carrying a comb or anything.

Nothing like walking into an important meeting looking like a zombie, he thought as the elevator dinged cheerfully and let him out.

He walked down the hall until he saw the number 58 neatly tacked onto the door on a copper square plate. Taking a deep breath, he knocked twice.

"You look like hell," Aizawa said.

"Thanks, it's nice to see you too," he quipped, inviting himself through the door.

Matsuda heard it click shut behind him, and habitually dropped into a small bow to Ide and Mogi, seated at a small table covered with notebooks and pens. Steam curled up from the cups of coffee pushed off to the side of the table, forgotten. He plopped into a chair and tried to ignore the other men staring at him, pretending that showing up to an important meeting half an hour late wasn't a big deal at all.

Yup, completely normal…

Ide had half-risen, his arms braced on the table. "Hey, Matsuda. Can I get you anything? Coffee?"

So you really wanna be useful? Then can you get me another cup of coffee?

Matsuda flinched; he heard L's voice as clearly as if he were there. For some reason, the thought made him sick to his stomach. He swallowed hard several times before mumbling, "no, thank you…"

He felt his fingernails digging into his thighs under the table, out of sight of the others. When he looked up, he saw the three trading looks anyway.

"Okay, then," Ide said uncertainly, sitting back down.

Aizawa suddenly materialized in the chair next to him.

"Well, Matsuda, now that you're here, we can update you on what we were talking about. We haven't gotten too far."

"Sounds good."

He watched Aizawa fish through the pile of papers, retrieving a small spiral-bound notebook. "Clearly, we can't tell anyone the truth. That much is obvious. No one can know about the notebooks or the Shinigami, and most importantly, the identity of Kira."

"Does anyone have to know he's actually dead?" Ide asked. "If we keep quiet, everyone will just assume Kira has gone into hiding or changed his mind or something. They all thought he was some kind of god anyway."

"True," Aizawa agreed. "We could say nothing. There's always that; we'll probably end up doing it, but we need to consider all the options and make sure nothing negative will come of it. I've had it up to here with everything that's been going on." He jabbed his hand into his forehead angrily.

Matsuda eyed the table, the papers and the ballpoint pens strewn about. He glanced down at the floor and saw several wads of paper and a pen or two there as well. He stifled a sigh; as usual, it was the Task Force making plans…and then there was him, Matsuda the reckless idiot who came up with a bright idea once in a while, but mostly just got into trouble, killed Kira, and prepared the coffee.

"What about the Yagami's?" Mogi asked quietly.

The name brought Matsuda back with a painful jolt as he jumped and smacked his knees against the low tabletop. He cursed quietly and rubbed his kneecaps. "Don't mind me," he muttered. "What about the Yagami's?" he prompted.

His face was hot, but he dared to glance up at Aizawa.

"Sayu and Sachiko…what are we going to tell them?" Aizawa gave him a strange look, then sighed and rubbed his hand down his face.

Matsuda gulped and felt like his sweat was freezing over. He needed to wash his hands, right now. Sayu…she couldn't ever know that he'd been the one to shoot her big brother full of holes.

Oh god…

His stomach gave a violent jump, and he knew he was going to be sick.

"Hands. Gotta wash my…gotta go to the bathroom," he gasped, jumping up and running to the open bathroom. He slammed the door behind him and knelt over the toilet, throwing up what little he'd eaten the other night. He stayed bent over the bowl, panting, his hands trembling on the rim, sweat trickling down his face. Something hot prickled the corners of his eyes and his hands felt covered in filth and blood.

What's wrong with me? What the hell is wrong with me…?

Matsuda stood up and glared at the sun coming through the little window, flushing the toilet and mechanically turning on the water.

The hot water takes forever to come on…

"Hey, Matsu."

He groaned when he heard Aizawa's voice on the other side of the door. At least the man had the courtesy not to enter.

"What?"

"Aren't we all invited to your little party?"

Party? What the hell…?

"Um…I'm coming out. Just washing up." He glanced down at the sink. "Oh man…" He added, cursing under his breath when he saw the blood – his own actual blood - trickling down the drain, turning the tidy white sink a sickening pink.

Sorry, Ide…

He turned off the water, leaving thin, watery spatters of blood on the handle. There wasn't a towel anywhere, so he grabbed a handful of toilet paper and cleaned up the mess.

"Matsuda?"

"I'm coming," he said tightly, trying to keep the irritation from his voice.

He snapped open the door and heard Aizawa curse.

"Geeze, kid. Try not to break my nose, okay?"

"Sorry," he sighed, collapsing into his chair.

The men eyed him, but said nothing until Aizawa sat back down and cleared his throat.

"As we were saying…is it agreed then, that we won't tell the Yagami's the truth about Kira?"

They all nodded.

Ide lifted his hand partly off the table. "Are we going to keep Light's death a secret? The Yagami's already know, and they've invited people to his funeral."

Matsuda looked over at Aizawa, who was frowning hard and shredding a scrap of paper with his fingernail. "No," he decided. "Too late for that." He shook his head. "But no one has to know Kira was at the warehouse that day. No one even knows about that meeting except for us, Near, and the SPK." Aizawa looked at all of them in turn. "It's best that the Yagami's continue to believe that Light died the way L and all those criminals were killed: by a heart attack from Kira. We've already paid off the mortician to keep quiet about the bullet wounds, and his funeral isn't until this evening."

"It looks like we're just going to be keeping quiet about everything, then," Ide observed.

"It's looking that way. If we don't, and the wrong information leaks out, like Kira being killed at the warehouse…soon everyone would find out that Matsuda was the man who killed Kira."

Yeah…it's…it's true...

Aizawa frowned, like he realized what he'd just said.

"Not that it's true," he amended. "Everyone knows Ryuk the Shinigami was the one who killed Light – he wrote his name down in that damn notebook of his."

"I bet…I bet Light would have died even if Ryuk didn't do it first," Matsuda mumbled.

When he glanced up, Ide and Mogi looked away. Only Aizawa continued staring steadily at him. "You know that's not true," he said, his voice hardening.

Matsuda clenched his fists beneath the table. There was just no way he was going to let himself be sucked into another pointless argument. "Light's funeral… are we all going?" he asked to change the subject.

"I think it would look incredibly suspicious if we don't," Ide remarked. "It's at six o'clock, right?"

"Yes, it is," Mogi replied after consulting a paper.

Aizawa absently took a sip of his coffee, making a sour face when he lowered the mug. "Cold…yeck…"

When he noticed everyone looking at him, he added, "So we've decided – for sure -?"

Mogi started scribbling on a yellow notepad, while the others nodded.

"We're going to act like nothing's changed at all," Ide answered. "As far as they know, Kira has decided to stop killing, and no one knows why, and they never will. They'll never know of his death. As for the Yagami's…" Ide cast a glance at Matsuda, who pretended not to see it. "they'll be led to believe Light was murdered by Kira. And no one will be told of the killer notebooks."

"All right then." Aizawa leaned over and started tugging the mess of papers into a shapely pile. After stashing what he could fit into a case file, he stood up and bowed to the others.

"Thank you all for coming, and thank you, Ide, for the use of your apartment. If it's agreeable to you and everyone, I think we should use this as our meeting place, if we ever have to call another." He paused for a minute, his eyes going out of focus. "When we leave, we'll go in two groups with fifteen minutes in between, just like we came in. Mogi, you can go first, and I'll stay with Matsuda. I'll see everyone at six tonight."

"Bye, Aizawa," they echoed.

Mogi collected his papers and notepads, bending down to retrieve some of his pens and throw the paper wads into the trash. Then he bowed again and headed out, closing the door softly behind him.

"For such a big man, everything about him is quiet," Ide commented as he gathered up the coffee mugs and poured their contents down the sink.

Matsuda nodded absently, watching Aizawa pace back and forth in front of the doorway.

"I don't need to tell you to make sure you get all our crumpled notes and throw them out right away, correct?"

"Nah, I know the drill," Ide replied, rinsing the mugs.

Aizawa nodded and turned to Matsuda, still in his chair, staring at the table.

"And you're not off the hook, you know. You're still coming with me for lunch."

Matsuda looked up at him and blinked. "But it's only eleven-thirty."

"That's close enough," he said, rolling his eyes.

Aw man, I hoped he'd forget. I'm not even hungry, and I'm probably broke too…

Matsuda watched him resume his pacing, checking his watch every two minutes, until he finally said, "That should be good…we're heading out, Ide. Thanks again."

Ide had been wiping down the table, but stood erect and saluted. "You're welcome."

Matsuda dipped his head to him as they headed out the door and down the hall to the elevator.

"So…where are we going?"

Aizawa shrugged as they stepped into the elevator. "There's a decent place just down the street from here. Jemm's Diner or something like that."

Matsuda didn't reply. He was busy trying to think of how he was going to get out of this. Food wasn't the most appealing thing at all at the moment, especially after he'd retched in the bathroom. His stomach churned all over again at the thought of having to go to Light's funeral that night.

"What you said earlier..." he began, touching a hand to the back of his neck. "Do we all have to go?"

"Go where?"

"You know… the funeral."

The elevator dinged and opened, and they both stepped out and walked through the lobby, shoes clicking away.

"Sorry, kid, but yeah, you do. We all do." Aizawa's voice softened. "I know it's going to be tough for you." They were outside now, and he faced him, tried to put a hand on his shoulder.

Matsuda flinched back. He was really tired of this. "I don't want your pity. I know that's what you're trying to do with this stupid lunch thing too."

The reaction from the other man caught him off guard.

Aizawa snorted, "Yeah, that's totally it, Matsuda. I'm buying you lunch because I pity you, not because you've already lost a lot of weight in just three days, and certainly not because I'm trying to show you I actually give a damn about you. I'm doing this out of pity."

Matsuda locked his arms across his chest and stood there glaring at Aizawa in the middle of the sidewalk. He knew he probably looked more like a dumb little kid than ever, but he didn't care.

Against his will, he noticed how tired Aizawa looked, with dark circles almost deep enough to match L's rimming his eyes. The wisps of beard along his jaw seemed scragglier than usual, and his clothes were a little rumpled, like he'd fallen into bed a few nights without bothering to take them off.

"Matsu, I'm not trying to pity you, or insult you by implying that. Believe me, won't you?" He dipped his chin down so he could look Matsuda full in the eye.

"Yeah…" Matsuda sighed, felt his eyes burning as a shudder ran through him, leaving him dizzy. "But I feel awful…"

He felt Aizawa scrutinizing him again. "When was the last time you ate?"

Matsuda ducked his head away and stuffed his hands in his pockets. "I don't know…sometime yesterday or so."

"Sometime yesterday?" Aizawa echoed, his eyebrows furrowing together.

He shrugged. "I'm just not that hungry."

"Well, that's probably why you feel like crud," Aizawa observed dryly. Then he actually smiled a little, which surprised Matsuda even more. "Come on, let's get some food. I'm starved too."

To be polite, he forced a small smile in return.

"See you at the café'."

Matsuda nodded and turned, waving. He'd parked in the opposite direction, just down the road a bit. He found his car and got in, turning it on and listening to the radio yammering away. He sat there for a few minutes, just staring at the dashboard.

He didn't want to think Aizawa was lying about what he said, but somehow he knew he was. He'd seen the way he and everyone else had been looking at him, with the delicacy of one eyeing a man holding a gun to his own head.

Are they worried about me? He scoffed. If they are, they should just…mind their own business…

But still…

He slowly pulled out and into the busy street, rolling the window down and sucking in the icy air.

What's wrong with me? He wondered yet again. He remembered throwing up in Ide's bathroom, and washing his hands so hard they bled. That had been a first. He remembered the cold sweat, the sickening dread at hearing the Yagami name. And he was angry at Aizawa for being concerned?

Matsuda rolled to a stop in front of a red light. For no particular reason, he reached over and jerked the dial on his radio, cranking it up way too loud.

"Screw my life," he whispered to no one. "Screw my life…"