Final Chance
Chapter 5– Final Thoughts

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0.

Near had finally come.

Or maybe it hadn't been that long. Surely not long enough to solve this locked room puzzle he faced. Though a part of him was tired and didn't want to solve that puzzle. Too many holes. Too many things he couldn't go back and fix. It was annoying. Regrets he could do nothing about and the world he strove to make would have only been more imperfect for it all.

The longer he went, the more damage done by each and every one of those mistakes and he still hadn't found the first of them.

And dying with all this noise in his head sounded very…unpleasant.

He wondered when he'd come to terms with dying at all. Maybe when he'd truly realised there was no way out, and what was left was to decide what little part of the board he did still control. Remembering the Death Note, or forgetting it. And his tongue, so long as his heart was still beating.

And the bitter smile that stretched across his lips. 'Finally hear to gloat? Part of me suspected you earlier.'

'Did you know?' said Near monotonously. 'I would consider myself pleased for defying your expectation, except it seems I haven't.'

'No, not particularly. Then again, what victor doesn't gloat? Not that victory's gotten you much.'

'Pity,' Near agreed. 'Since I can define a victory with your death, but you…would it have ended when every man, woman and child in the world was dead, including yourself?'

Light laughed. 'Who knows.' He'd certainly never thought that far and he never would. There were too many people. Too many types of people. People so straight and honest and infuriating but far from being a criminal like Matsuda. Criminals he could almost respect (and wouldn't a good son and brother hate him?) like Mello. 'You strategy needs to be malleable enough to deal with the opposition.'

'Not just opposition,' countered Near. 'Or have you forgotten Mello?'

'I have not forgotten Mello.' His face darkened a little as he said so. 'I have also not forgotten L, if that was your next question.'

'Perhaps.' It didn't matter anymore. It no longer was. 'But all of this is a waste of time, isn't it?'

'Tying loose ends that can't be tied. Undoubtedly.' And then Light grinned, just a little. 'You're not the sort that'll work yourself into the ground solving every case you can get your hands on. You'll cherry-pick the interesting ones. Let others be hurt by leaving the rest open. That's the luxury you'll have now. The luxury of inertia that follows a game's end, right?'

Near's lips twisted. Right. He understood. Understood the undercurrent pinning that little speech as well.

Ryuk didn't. but he saw those lips twist.

Here's the rest of your show, Ryuk.

He was going to be dead in the next minute – and he was too tired to mind. Maybe once he'd rested a bit…but no, there wouldn't be that time.

'I give up.' Take your victory. Take your Death Note.

His mind spun and the only clear words in it in those last fourty seconds weren't his own.

A voice he knew but no longer recognised: 'A coward to the end, Yagami Light.'

And a voice he couldn't hear at all: 'Not much fireworks in that finale.'

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1.

And it was done. Over. A pity, but it'd been interesting enough in the end, even without the fireworks he craved. Light was like that, after all. Full of subtleties that he usually didn't have the patience for.

But he'd stayed five years with him. That meant something.

Not enough to let him get away from this contract though. And so he wrote the name. Did Light lose his memories in those last fourty seconds? He didn't really know. It wasn't necessarily a conscious thing for Shinigamis, when human ownership of a Death Note changed. And did it really matter? Not even the great Kira could pick himself up in the fourty minutes it took for him to die this time for real. The answer would never be known –

And yet it frustrated Near. Frustrated him more than that banter they'd traded before.

'Ryuk,' he said evenly, after a pause in the silence after he'd yanked the ECG leads out to silence their monotonous shriek. 'Did he lose his memories?'

'Beats me,' shrugged Ryuk. 'I can see people's lifespans, not their minds.'

'Hmm… I suppose not.'

And he turned to face him fully. 'Are you leaving? Now that no-one owns a Death Note in this world?'

Ryuk laughed. 'You're sure about that, aren't you? Another bored Shinigami will drop theirs soon enough, but in the meantime, yes. I've had enough fun to last me a while.'

Near said nothing more; he simply watched the Shinigami vanish through the wall.

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2.

The next time they checked Mikami Teru's cell, he was dead. Dead since last night, by the looks of him. Not that they'd had any hope of getting useful information out of him.

And now Yagami Light was dead as well. Two deaths to cover up. Two families to inform – and without mentioning they were criminals, Kira and a devoted and half-blind puppet of Kira.

The Japanese Task Force was, of course, left to clean up that mess. Now with the final move played (and the only person who knew the details of that was Near and all he said was that it was done and Yagami Light was dead), the SPK would head back to England and that would be the end of them unless a new case attracted them.

And, Near said, he'd be taking the title of L as well, so that would be the end of that matter as well. Now it was just two dead bodies to explain in a way that wouldn't give their families unnecessary trouble and pain – because it was all over now, and they didn't need to prolong the aftermath more than circumstances forced them to.

And then it was time to get back to their jobs – or move onto other careers like Matsuda had.

Even if he had brought them coffee that morning.

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3.

Near packed up his blocks. They hardly needed packing but it was something to do, and playing with something or other was always his fall-back.

And he was working off his frustrations, in his own way, as well.

He'd known Yagami Light would throw something, even when he had barely anything to throw. He couldn't stand losing – and that wasn't too different from from L, or Mello, or he himself. Pity, that they couldn't have fought on less brutal grounds: grounds like Wammy house that had been the stage of his and Mello's countless fights before L's death had ended them.

It still annoyed him. Mello hadn't gone out like that. Mello would have refused to go out like that. Admitting his defeat, for one thing. Wiping all memory of it so he died with the illusion of innocence… if that was indeed the case. Probably wasn't. What was less than fourty seconds of innocence going to get someone – and that was assuming the numbers didn't tick into negatives. It gave Light nothing except a brief satisfaction before the fact. And it irked Near.

He was sure though, that if it had been one of the Japanese Task Force, they'd had felt much more. Too close, all of them. He saw them scrambling, trying to think of what to say for Yagami Sachiko, and giving Yagami Light a burial he didn't deserve – but that was their prerogative. Maybe he would've done the same if there'd been a body to recover in Mello's case. Or maybe he wouldn't have. He couldn't exactly call himself normal. None of them could. And neither could Kira. And that was how they'd fought on that board as equals. The Japanese Task Force had just been pawns that were moved along the board by people with less idealistic intentions.

But that was the reality of the world, and he'd learned it along time ago.

So he grumbled silently to himself until the case of Yagami Light would fade into the memory of time and a more stimulating future case – and there would be one. No human was perfect. He'd find a challenge one day that would be his greatest and most horrible and his executioner just as L did, just as Yagami Light did, and in the meantime he would do whatever struck his fancy when he, eventually and inevitably, grew bored.

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4.

It was a strange feeling, walking away from the Police Department after leaving a cup of coffee on Aizawa's desk and a taking few tear drops on his t-shirt in return.

It was a strange feeling to see someone so happy to see him, too, but he was glad. He mattered. And that just made him want to keep these remaining bonds all the more.

It was also a strange feeling to see Mogi following him while sipping on the coffee he'd made for him. He slowed his stride when he noticed anyway, and Mogi gave him a small smile. 'You heading for Sayo-chan?'

'Yeah,' Matsuda sighed. He was still debating on whether to sign up as their housekeeper or not. For now at least, when the world had shrunken down and he wanted it even smaller. Where he couldn't bare the colours and complications and twists and turns of the great big wide world. 'Sachiko-san could use some help around the new house – and someone needs to keep an eye on those two.' He thumbed his forehead. 'Never mind it's running away and all that…'

'I don't think it is,' Mogi said, seriously. 'You're trying to find a new place in this world, but you admitted to yourself that this place wasn't for you and you faced that. Didn't lock yourself up like moulding bread until it's tossed aside.'

Matsuda snorted at that. 'Did you lot take bets on seeing how long I lasted?'

'We did,' Mogi admitted, abashed. 'You exceeded all of them. Except the Chief – ah, Chief Yagami, I mean. He said you'd surprise us. And you did. Not to mention saved our necks…and brought us coffee at the end of it.'

Matsuda laughed a little. 'Yeah, the coffee does seem to be my major contribution to this team.' And he preferred that to the alternative, now.

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5.

Mogi and Matsuda went together. Aizawa watched them struggle back into routine from his new vantage point. The coffee cup sat drying, with only dregs remaining. Matsuda's coffee had always been nicer than most (what with all the times they'd sent him to the machine, he'd become intimately familiar with it) but it was the familiarity that was the warmest, now.

The Chief's desk and chair were still unfamiliar, and would be for a while yet. Mogi and Ide stumbling over his name in the professional setting would be as well, but for the rest of the precinct, they took the change just as well as they'd taken Chief Yagami's ascent. He was the man they reported to, the man they looked to orders, and it didn't really matter who the face behind the name really was. And that would be the new familiar, with time.

Going through more cases than he'd previously had clearance to was new as well, and the new norm. Cases that seemed tame in comparison to Kira, but what they'd done in between and always.

It would take a while. But it would happen. Finally.

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6.

And so, after the final move came the aftermath. People brought together on the board now drifted away as the game and its mementos were packed up. Time continued to flow as it had always done, and they flowed their separate ways as well. Some stayed tangled together.

Some drifted apart. Some faded completely, into the dusty attic boxes that may never be opened up again but would always be there: the reminders of a long, long, tale.

Post A/N: And that's the end. Originally planned it to be six chapters, but Ryuk wrote Light's name one chapter early and so the final chapter merged into this one. As for the conclusion to the Light vs. Near fight, the idea had always been to prove Light's guilt, as oppose to finding out who Kira was. That was the goal of the Task Force in general, but L had been sure since early on that Light was Kira and so the game between them (using the term game somewhat arbitrarily) wasn't so much as stopping Kira as proving his identity. So the game was already over in the warehouse, regardless of whether Light managed to write Near's name on the Death Note, regardless of if Matsuda's shot had missed, and regardless of whether Light had died before this story began. Prolonging the inevitable may have opened a new window of opportunity if it'd been long enough, but since the story takes place over only a couple of days and with no tools at his disposal, Light had no means I could reasonably think of to escape his fate. Forgetting would not forgive him, not when others knew the truth now. That was just a mix of him wanting some peace at the end of it all, and wanting to throw a barb at Near – but whether he forgot or not? No idea. Didn't think it mattered (for him anyway) in the fourty seconds afterwards it took for him to die.