Chapter Seven: After

They were surrounding him, looking at him with disgust and shock. Matsuda's gun was drawn, while Near stared at him with a cold, uncaring expression. Mikami was screaming how Light wasn't his God, not who he'd thought he was, and L had probably returned to whatever dimension of the dead he'd slunk out of, filled with hate at Light's lies, and his refusal to repent. Light picked himself up off the floor, shot twice in the side, in his shoulder and his wrist, bleeding and angry, but not yet dead. He could still survive! He had to get away from them, away from Yellow Box! With as much force as he could gather he threw open the warehouse door and ran as fast as he could, clutching his shoulder, trying to get away from them. He watched himself running past, Death Note in hand, himself so many years ago, when he had first started his mission as God, a feeling of cold gripping him in spite of it being a warm afternoon. There was a building he could hide in! He could hide there until everyone was gone, and then escape!

From atop the tallest building nearby, Ryuk was watching Light; the way he desperately clung to life, even though he'd dealt out death to others so easily; the way he denied his fate, in spite of how little blood he must have left. They had made a deal when all this began; when Light died, Ryuk would write his name into his notebook, and he did. Forty seconds to go. Light made it inside another warehouse, closing the door and laying down on stairs, beneath a skylight which streamed down light on its namesake. They won't find me here, he lied to himself, ignoring his trails of blood, and stared upwards with tears in his eyes. This was . . . what every single soul who he'd sentenced to die had experienced.

After a shinigami destroys all Death Notes they have claim to, they loose the right to be a shinigami. L had a feeling when he destroyed the notebook, that something had changed, and it was verified that afternoon as he hung about on a rooftop, eating a donut he'd nicked and staring at the cut in his hand where that shard of glass had punctured it the night before. It was now bleeding, not from a body, but from a source having nothing to do with anything physical; from his soul. This meant that the soul probably would deteriorate after a certain time on its own, which explained why there were so few people in that supposed "Heaven." If you thought about it, after all the people in history who have died, assuming most of them aren't people who commit serious crimes, heaven would be massive and crowded with hundreds of times more people than exist at any one time on earth; yet it had seemed strangely barren. He watched the blood drip down onto the rooftop, where it was absorbed into this layer of reality. Mu. Nothingness. It really was . . . everyone's eventual fate, although based upon his great uncle's continued existence, it probably took a while.

The last bite of donut dropped thirty stories down into the street below, L staring with wide eyes. His heart had just twitched. A few hours after the Death Note had been destroyed, his pulse had started again. But this feeling was different. This was a feeling of pain, a feeling he no longer had. Something had happened to Light, and he could feel something pulling at him, directing him to go a specific way through streets where he walked, unseen in the crowds, unfelt, as he passed through two people on accident and got to literally take a look into their minds. There was the coast, and stretched across its edge a series of warehouses, glinting warmly in the pink of the most tragic and beautiful setting sun. He passed right through the door without opening it, and found Yagami Light there, stretched across a series of stairs, shot through with bullets and bleeding to death.

He felt angry inside. Near hadn't found a way to avoid killing him. No, he was certain that Light had brought this on himself. He should be glad that it was ended, but he couldn't be, and L stood in patient vigil, waiting for Light to die enough to be able to see him. Light's eyes finally focused on L's form, and in them there was, at last, a look of understanding and peace. The eyes of his body closed, for good, and Light sat up out of himself, looking quiet and troubled. He stood up, looking at his hands, and walked towards L.

"Why doesn't it hurt anymore?" he asked gently, as if waking from a dream: but instead of finding reality, as expected, he found that reality itself was a lie, something much different being the final core of existence.

"Light-kun," L said quietly, and met his eyes, tears flowing freely from his own. "You're dead."

"So that's what I was doing," he muttered, looking about in delicate confusion. "I knew the words and images of death. It isn't the same as it sounds. As it looks."

"I think we can guess what happens to a user of the Death Note," L said, thinking back on his own experience. "You are earth-bound. Sentenced to exist in a world you have no power to change. Ironic, noting that you gave so much up so that you could bring about change."

"Ryuuzaki," Light said in a small voice. "I'm so sorry." He was lost, shocked, tortured even, as a cavalcade of understanding overwhelmed his senses, barely leaving room for him to detect L's arms wrapping around him protectively, pulling him close. A part of him finally realized what L felt for him; finally knew what L would have done if left alive. Finally admitted how he really felt for L himself, if he hadn't been so afraid of L hurting him. "I love you," he wept, pressing his face against L's shoulder.

"Light-kun," L suggested. "Let's go someplace else. I can't stand looking at your body anymore."

"My body?" Light asked, in confusion, and L nodded to a place behind him. He turned to find himself stretched out uncomfortably and stiff across the steps leading to the second floor, covered in his own blood, a look of extreme sadness on a face cast in white death. His arm trembled in the grip of L's hand as L lead him outside, walking straight through the wall, which terrified Light. "What is this?! How could you do that?!"

"This is being a ghost," L said, looking imperceptibly amused. "I wish you would disappear."

"What?" Light asked.

"I wish that place claiming to be Heaven would pull you into it. That you wouldn't be stuck like this. But I suppose it's better than Hell."

"But then why are you here? You never used the Death Note," Light realized.

"Maybe because I want to be," was all he could conclude.

From the top of the tallest building in the Kanto region they watched the sun's last rays, as the stars and moon came out above them, feeling bigger and more mysterious and sad than they ever had in life. The perception of distance and size was more accurate in death, Light found, and the sphere of the sky was amazingly lonely as he stared into its depths, everything so far apart. Then he turned his head and caught sight of L, and that sense of loneliness subsided, as he entwined his fingers with the other boy's and kissed him, feeling warm and safe even though the wind permeated his entire soul.

Author's Note: As you can guess, after first watching the entire series, then writing this, using the manga as a reference while doing so, I've gotten pretty damn bored of Death Note. Hence the brevity of this final chapter: I've run out of good ideas! Might improve on the last two chapters or replace them if better ideas hit me eventually, as I think I made it too sad by having the end of this run parallel to the end of the series.

Hope everyone enjoyed though! Peace, LJ.