A/N: Here it is, the final chapter. I do hope this last one does the story justice. Enjoy! x

Susanoo's Stratagem - 11

The human whose name is written in this note shall die.

"L is dead."

Raito stayed silent, getting over how Hikari had rung him when he wasn't expecting it and also because his brain needed to process the words she said. He was in his room having chosen to go home instead of turning up late to his class. Is she telling me the truth? As soon as the question was thought he dismissed it just as quickly. She sounded upset on the phone and he knew she wouldn't lie to him about something this important. His smile grew the more he realised that the famous detective was dead. Dead, not breathing and not able to ruin his plans for the new world he was on his way to create. Hikari would be by his side in this world, which made everything a whole lot better and worth it.

"Meet me by the graveyard."

He was left listening to the tone of her hanging up. She didn't even let him congratulate her. Raito would need to buy her flowers, although the idea was vomit-inducing, girls liked flowers, right? It would be fitting, since they were about to be meeting in a cemetery and with L's recent death. His grin was so large it rivalled Ryuk's twisted one. His fingers were twitching, the Death Note would be in his hands and he would be able to kill criminals without having to pace himself.

"Let's go Ryuk. I don't want to keep Hikari waiting long."

The shinigami was laughing he didn't think the human girl had it in her but Ryuk had been proven wrong. "This makes for an interesting turn of events."

Before going to the cemetery, Raito stopped by a small flower shop which was on the way. Inside he browsed through the different varieties and colours of flowers before seeing a lone blue rose that cost more than a half a dozen red roses. He didn't know whether it had been genetically modified or just dyed and he didn't care to ask. After reading the note attached to it, he bought the flower and left. Ignoring the insults Ryuk sent him as he walked on. He saw Hikari and Ankh standing at the graveyard entrance.

It was raining and she was without an umbrella. Raito could see the way her top was sticking to her skin. He was glad she wasn't wearing anything white because it would've turned see-through and the last thing he wanted was a bunch of hormone driven guys staring at her, but was he any different? Hikari turned to him and her eyes were lifeless, as if she had been the one to get killed and not the one who did the killing. Seeing her down made it seem as if every raindrop that dripped onto her was draining part of her. Something pulled at his heart upon realising he didn't want to see her sad, ever again.

"I got this for you." Raito held the umbrella above her as he gave her the rose. He didn't bother greeting her shinigami. "I know you didn't want to kill him, but I want to thank you."

"It was either him or you and at the time I couldn't ever think of writing your name down." Hikari read the note that was wrapped around the stem, laughing humourlessly. "Is this meant for you or me?"

Give to the unattainable one you yearn for.

"For you." He bent down intending to kiss her lips but she turned her head away and he kissed her cheek instead. "Shall we get the Death Note now?"

"Sure."

Hikari was quiet during their trip through the gravestones. It looked like she was following Ankh because he was in the lead. Was she traumatised after what she'd done? Raito couldn't be certain. He held onto her hand and she looked down between them at their interlinked fingers. A ghost of a smile appeared over her features and she gazed up at him when thinking he wasn't looking at her. She blushed when they made eye contact and quickly looked away. They stopped in front of a mound of freshly dug up dirt, the rain had turned it to sludge. There was no way he was getting on his knees to dig for the Death Note.

"Coward." Hikari whispered, handing him the rose and she bent down to retrieve the notebook. "I've killed a man and you can't even get your hands dirty. Now I look like a mess."

It was true, all of it. He wouldn't admit either out loud, but she did look like a mess. Her jeans and hands were covered in mud. If anyone were to walk by, Hikari would be looking suspicious of some sort of grave robbing. The Death Note was in one of her hands and it resembled death now. The edges were tattered as if some insects had tried to nibble at it. Raito tried to control his nose from scrunching up. He was supposed to use this book to kill criminals, a book that now looked like an overused bible. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad after all? He was going to become a God when the new world is created.

"Come back to my place, you can wear some of my clothes while my mother washes yours." He held out a hand to her, which she took after wiping her dirt covered hand on her jeans. "I will be able to use to the whole Death Note now, right?"

"Sure."

It was her answer to everything Raito had said. All Hikari cared about at that moment was getting out of the public place, she didn't like the way people were staring at her. She felt as if she had a neon sign above her head that alerted every person of her having killed someone. Never having felt this way before, she knew she wouldn't be using the Death Note out of haste for a long time. She was now a murderer and on the same level as the ones the guy next to her considered evil.

Sayu greeted them at the door when they arrived at the Yagami household. "Hikari! What happened to you?"

She looked down at her messy self while taking off her shoes. "I tripped over. Lucky Raito found me when he did. I would probably look a lot worse." Hikari smiled at the younger sibling.

"Raito does seem happier now, even with this horrible weather." Sayu started rambling on. "He has been moody all week. I had thought you two broke up. You are still going out I hope?"

"Of course we are." Raito said, grabbing Hikari's hand and taking her to the stairs. She tried her best not to get any mud on the floor. "Sayu, can you get Mum? Hikari is going to need her clothes washed."

As they ascended the staircase, they heard Sayu calling out for her mother. Inside his room, Raito grabbed some clothes and gave them to Hikari. He expected her to leave the bedroom and get changed in the bathroom but to his surprise she unclothed and dressed right in front of him. Hikari didn't mind that they were watching. Ankh used to take baths with her when she was younger and he was around her a lot, so that shinigami seeing her nude was nothing new. Ryuk had the decency to turn around and cackled at Raito. Who loudly gulped while removing his tie and undoing the top few buttons of his shirt, relieving his neck which suddenly felt constricted.

"Lucky the cameras are gone."

Hikari allowed herself to smirk at him. "L already saw me naked when I was at home." She quickly went to her bag to find the piece of paper which had L's death on it, after noticing Raito's darkening mood. "The cameras are gone because of this."

He took the note and read over it a few times. "When did you write this out?"

"Yesterday."

"So earlier today at Uni, the call from L and…" Raito trailed off, all the pieces were slowly coming together in his mind. All her actions suddenly made more sense. "You wrote this when you had skipped classes."

"Yes." Hikari thought it would be best not to mention meeting Teru and the man's part in her decision. She didn't think Raito would like it very much, especially with someone else having the knowledge of what the Death Note was capable of.

There was a knock on his bedroom door and Sachiko picked up the dirty clothes on the floor to put them in the washing machine. Hikari thanked her for the kindness and Raito went in the bathroom to try and clean the Death Note. Coming back in the room, the notebook was looking much cleaner and nicer but still was tacky around the edges. She sat on the bed while he went to his desk, booting up his computer to start writing lists and lists of names of criminals he felt needed to die. She took the blue rose from the desk and was staring at it, waiting for her clothes to be washed and dried.

Hikari had left the Yagami residence soon after getting her clothes back and having dinner, which Sachiko insisted on her staying to eat. She was on her way home with Ankh walking beside her, making her feel safe even though the sun had set over an hour ago. In one hand she held her cell phone and in her other hand was the business card Teru had given her. She couldn't see the numbers on the card at all in the dark, but her mind wasn't on the call she was about to make, it was on what happened in Raito's room earlier that evening.

"I think we should live together." Raito's writing had ceased and he turned around in his chair to face her.

"What?" Hikari was brought back to reality and looked at him confused. "Don't you think it is a little early for that?"

"No I don't. I love you and you love me. We were made for each other." He got up and sat next to her on the bed. "I want you to be by my side forever. The sooner we make it official, the better."

She shook her head as he took her hands in his. He had removed the rose and placed it behind him on the bed. "I think we should concentrate on our studies before taking the next step."

"Moving into our own place isn't that big of a step."

"Think of all the responsibilities we would have to take on." Hikari tried to look into his earnest gaze but found the floor much easier to look at as she continued talking. "There would be rent and bills to pay-"

"My father said he would handle all the money issues." Raito interrupted, rendering her argument useless.

"Give me time to think about it." Those had been the same words she said to Teru. "It's late, I should be heading home." She quickly kissed him on the cheek before picking up her bag and leaving his room. She had purposely left the blue rose on his bed where Raito had put it and also didn't bother saying goodbye to him.

"Does it make me a bad person for doubting my feelings for him?"

"No." Ankh replied quickly and then added. "It's about time."

"Do you think I should take Mr. Mikami up on this job offer?" Hikari was unsure about a lot of things. It had been less than a month since she quit her last part-time job and enjoyed the free time, though this offer could be seen more as work experience, which would help when she did finish her studies.

The shinigami stayed silent for a bit. "With as much as you told him, it would be dangerous to leave him alone. If you took up his offer, you could keep an eye on him."

It was all the convincing she needed and she pressed the buttons of the numbers Ankh read out for her, since she couldn't see them. The phone rang for a while and Hikari thought that he wouldn't pick up at all, just when she was going to cancel the call, she heard his voice.

"Mikami Teru speaking."

"Mr. Mikami, it is Shimizu Hikari. I hope I'm not interrupting anything?"

"No… I just finished up at the gym. How are you feeling?"

She paused for a second, not sure how to reply to the question. "It is complicated. If you are too busy I can ring back at a more convenient time…"

"I'm on my way home, nothing major. What is it you wanted?"

"The opportunity you gave me yesterday. I want to accept it." As she waiting for him to talk, Hikari started having her doubts. Only a day had passed but was she already too late?

"That's great. I will sort everything out and get back to you."

"Okay, that sounds good." Hikari was about to hang up until she decided to be polite. "Uh… I'll talk with you later then. Bye."

Her trip home didn't take much longer after the call ended. Her parents weren't downstairs which meant they either were already in bed or hadn't even left work. Ever since she started To-Oh University, they worried less about where she was. She climbed the stairs to her bedroom two at a time and finally noticed that Ankh wasn't following her. Hikari shrugged her shoulders and assumed that he was in the kitchen having a snack. Her bag was thrown in the corner and she jumped onto her bed and stared at the ceiling.

Her gaze went from the ceiling, to her bag and over to her desk before she got up and took out another page of the Death Note she still had in there. Raito may still be in possession of the actual book, but she had taken out enough pages from before she buried it, to last her a bit. Hikari only had one name she wanted to write down and she made sure to picture his face in her mind clearly. I wasn't strong enough. Taking a pen, she placed it on the page and started writing.

Yagami...

"Ankh!" Her hand stopped as she called out for her shinigami.

When there was no reply, she got up and started searching for him. The first room she checked was the kitchen, but he wasn't in there. The milk was still sealed shut and the new bag of cookies hadn't been opened either. Hikari found this strange, but continued her search throughout the whole house. For half an hour she looked around the house, even in her parent's bedroom which was also empty. Bathroom, bedrooms, lounge, kitchen, outside; they were all empty and didn't contain the shinigami she was looking for.

"Ankh you can come out now, this isn't funny!" She tried to laugh but was honestly scared.

There was still no reply. Hikari thought back to the last time she remembered seeing him. It was before her call to Teru, after that she had assumed he was behind her or flying above her. Not wanting any of it to be real, she carried on searching every single room in the house and even spent a long time outside in the garden. There was nothing. The old scaly, skirt wearing shinigami was gone and she had no idea where he was.

For the first time in just over thirteen years, Hikari felt truly alone.

A/N: That's it! Story finished! I just want to thank everyone who has read it and all the reviewers/favouriters/ alerters. There is a sequel being planned and I am hoping to have the first chapter for that up in a couple of weeks. The first chapter has already been planned and it will most likely be longer than normal and then after that all other chapters will be original SS length. :D