Prologue.

Sometimes the memories still haunted him.

Memories of times past; experiences not easily forgotten. Experiences that held him, taught him, tested him and shaped him. Experiences that scared him, damaged him, broke him and rearranged him. Experiences that human beings were never wired to forget.

Experiences.

Sometimes he wished things had been different. He refrained from looking in the mirror as much as he possibly could for a fear he couldn't quite place. He slept minimally for a fear that threatened to return his past experiences to him in an unkindly manner. He could never bring himself to eat a full meal for a fear that lived in the very pit of his stomach where meals were no longer welcome; something of a fear that came quietly but set in hard and took roots.

Experiences. Some people live by them, others die by them. Experiences shape who we are - regardless of who we are - and within that simple concept lies a strange and simple beauty; a truth.

For him, that truth was absolutely everything he despised - yet he guarded that truth. He stood in front of it as if it were a child in danger. He made it his duty to protect the innocent that were affected by that truth and every consequence that it bore.

It had become evident in his very being.

He had become his own worst enemy in light of a truth that saved lives as well as destroyed them. A truth that was both friend and foe. A truth composed of six letters, no more and no less; a truth that can all-too-easily be disguised as a lie.

A choice.

Perhaps a regret.

Maybe a future.

Three different options but all one in the same.

They were all that he ever fought for; all that kept him alive. The principles to which he based his self-neglect, his apathetic viewpoints, his inability to love - principles that disallowed him to feel; for the human mind was never meant to endure the levels of pain that he repressed, the density of the memories that he held or the depths of the cuts that he concealed.

The credibility of the lies that he created were all he had to live for.

How was it possible to measure the pain of such a man? Was it a strain so heavy that L's back curved under all its weight? Was it an agony so terrible to leave the indelible dark circles around his eyes?

A champion of justice, some called him. Others called him selfish and arrogant, some even perverted - but he was none of these things. He devoted himself to merely doing what was right, and doing it again and again. He did not stop when he grew tired. He did not stop even when he grew weak. He simply continued forward for the sake of humanity and humanity alone. For the sake of the innocent.

For the sake of a personal desperation.

For the sake of a stumbled beginning that he just couldn't help but consider anything more than a glorified mistake.

"It is the cause, not the death, that makes the martyr."-Napoleon Bonaparte