[fic] Believe

AGGGH, ficcing is PAIN. ^^; HAAATE! ::dead::

Anyway... poor Raito! ;-; So unloved, man! Don't get me wrong, I can't decide between L and Raito myself. ::lol::sweat::


Disclaimer: Death Note belongs to its respective artists. The fic's storyline is my creation.
Genre/Story type: Angst. Deathfic.
Rating: PG
Series: Death Note
Warnings: Contains light spoilers up to chapter 29.
Notes: Does not factor Misa's Death Note. Starfish anecdote may be found here: http://www.noogenesis.com/pineapple/starfish.html. Apple symbolism sparked from iniaes ♥ C&C appreciated. Please do not post this fic anywhere without my permission. ♥;
Thank yous: Karen & Ebby. ::MUCHLOVE!!!::


There was a starfish anecdote that Raito remembered with secret sentimentality. At dawn during his walk down the beach, an old man had espied a young man repeatedly picking up stranded starfish and throwing them into the sea. Puzzled at the exertion of immense, seemingly pointless effort, the old man asked the young man why he was doing this. The young man said that if he left the stranded starfish, they would die under the morning sun. The old man protested, "But there are thousands of miles of beach and miles and miles of starfish. How can your effort make any difference?" The young man threw another starfish to the safety of the sea and replied, "It makes a difference to this one!"

Raito knew that an individual could not make a significant difference for the world. But he wanted-- needed-- to make a difference for some people.

Raito worshipped his father when he was young. Being the Chief of Police, his father was often not home. The conspicuous absence of his father always impressed on Raito how the justice that called his father away from his family was an incredibly great and important thing. It held precedence over all. Raito respected that. So, his sense of justice was great. His passion for justice could be surpassed only by his passion for humankind, despite the ugliness they inflicted on themselves. Helping people became essential as breathing air to him; he could repute it as easily as ripping out his own heart with his bare hands. Sometimes Raito wondered if it were love or duty that drove him to try, try, and try even though he knew, to his utter frustration, he could not fix the world single-handedly and make it perfect.

As he grew older, Raito wondered what he could do, for justice. His calculations and predictions for circumstances were nearly perfect. He was an earnest student. He would make it into one of the top universities, graduate with honors, get a stable job as a detective, rise to the position of Director of the National Police Agency, and more or less end up as one of the infamous "salary men." Raito could see exactly how his future would unfold and the difference he'd make. Minimal-- but still a difference. He kept reminding himself of that.

Then one day he had picked up an innocuous, black notebook in the schoolyard of his high school. He used it and, when he realized what he had, nothing was the same, ever again.

The power to hurt. The power to heal. The power to save. The power to kill.

There would be no second chance for something like this. It was one chance in a lifetime. He would be a fool to throw away the one thing he always wanted: a chance to change the world, to be a god, to make a real difference. And Raito was anything but a fool.

He had in his hands, the means. He had in his heart, the will.

Raito was prepared for consequences. To do something so great required something as great in return. At the very least, he would consign his life to take the Death Note's gamble. His life or the world's-- it was no choice at all. He took the bet, for justice. For the world. It was a worthy thing to do. It was the right thing to do, even though he would go to neither heaven nor hell upon death-- just end or be destroyed. The price was too high to pay, but he paid it anyway and more.

Raito disliked the thought of being a martyr or a sacrifice, but to have power over life and death... He would be God during his mortal life and he could make the world a better place.

He had been so idealistic at the beginning-- he thought he would change the world. He had, but it didn't last.

"In the past week, since the police investigative force announced the disappearance of Kira, criminal activity around the world has been rising steadily!" said the announcer on the lit screen of the LCD mini-TV. "Speculations run wild about Kira's disappearance--"

"Heh." Raito tossed the apple in the air and caught it. Toss. Catch. Toss. Catch. Repeat. "Couldn't be helped." He grasped the apple and looked away from the mini-TV to the yawning black evening sky. He turned the apple over and over in his hands, looking at his reflection in its skin's waxy gloss. His face was smeared beyond recognition in its plastic shine.

Deep red. The color of wrath, violence, danger, and passion. Raito had found it surprising that a Shinigami liked fruit. It was unsurprising, however, that it would like apples.

Apples and death. Adam and Eve. Forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge that imparted knowledge, temptation, and death.

He bit back a laugh that held no humor in it, only morbid irony.

Ryuuku had given it to him before vanishing from his eyes. Raito had shared apples with a god of death.

Raito lowered his head to take the first bite out of it. It crunched in his hand.

He had filled the notebook. His Death Note was complete.

He had won the game against all odds through sheer intelligence, brilliant ingenuity, sly caution, and responsible determination.

For good. For righteousness. For justice.

But his father was gone now. His mother, Sayu... Misa.

Even L.

No one had been left to stop him in the end except his own hubris, burning brightly like the light of a thousand suns.

It burned him from the inside out and left him an empty husk. One direct touch now would disperse his ashes in the wind.

Sometimes Raito wondered if he were mad-- stark raving mad from the power he had held and the knowledge of what he had done. But if he knew he were crazy, he couldn't be insane, he reasoned.

He had been so sure of himself.

He was still sure of himself.

But standing alone at the top, enthroned on hatred and fear, Raito wondered if helping humankind was worth it. If helping a world that hated him was worth it. The world was rotten. And after all he'd done, it still was rotten.

Raito had grasped it, but it gave under his fingers, collapsing from decay. He couldn't hold it together, although he had meant to. It never stopped rotting.

He always knew that in the end, but he also knew that for a while-- just a little bit-- he had frozen its decay with death's icy breath. He had made a difference.

But at lulls, the awesome responsibility had been maddening. Raito had felt like a zookeeper, looking after stupid blundering beasts that had no appreciation or understanding of what he was trying to do for them. He had wanted to scream, "I am not your keeper!" and throw it all away, but he clenched his teeth and forbade from giving up, renouncing his power, and turning his back on humankind.

He did it. He promised himself he would. He couldn't stop trying for justice, no matter what it demanded of him, not when his family had believed he could do anything he set his mind to. Not when they had given up such much for it.

"Sayu..."

Oniichan will do it! I believe in you. If anyone can do it, you can!

Raito continued crunching on the apple, turning off the TV as the news ended.

He had seen to it Sayu's death had been painless.

His sister had placed her faith in a monster-- but he did what he promised. Her belief hadn't been misplaced.

Believe. Believe. Believe.

His parents had. His teachers and peers had. Misa, strange and foolish, had. Even L had, in a way. Raito disappointed none of them.

He wasn't a fool. He didn't regret it. But he wondered if he'd do it the same way if he could start over again.

All his high aspirations amounted to nothing but so much wax, feathers, and pain. Ultimately, death held neither beauty, nor glory. It was only death.

His calculations and predictions for circumstances had been nearly perfect.

Nearly perfect, but never perfect.

He had wanted, so badly, to make the world perfect.

Raito had believed in it-- the possibility of a perfect world.

Raito finished the apple with a soft snap and dropped the stem and seeds to the concrete floor. The fruit had been crisp and sour-sweet. He leaned against the rail separating the platform from a spectacular, dizzying plummet.

Raito had wanted to use the Death Note as a human for humans. In the end, he had to throw away his humanity to use it for humans.

He gripped the top of the rail tightly. Raito paused once, before lifting himself up and swinging his leg over. He stood carefully on the small ledge that protruded shortly past the rail. Tokyo Tower really did have an incredible view.

Ryuuku had been right. He was an excellent Shinigami.

But he couldn't kill anymore, which contradicted his existence. Raito no longer held power over life and death. He was useless now and consigned to fall apart into debris, just like other Shinigami who went against their existence's purpose and thus caused their own deaths.

Raito let go of the safety rail and took a step.

Did you know? Wingless gods do not fly; they only fall, fall, and fall.

The freefall was beautiful. But after a minute of looking, Raito tucked in on himself and pulled out an innocuous, black notebook from where he tucked it in his jacket. He opened it.

He read.

Otoharada Kurou. The first person he ever killed. Takuo Shibutaku. The second. Then a multitude of names whose weight had stressed his determination and hardened it into unyielding stone.

Lind. L. Taylor. The point of no return. The name where he had decided that those who opposed him and his quest for justice were evil and had to be eliminated. More names. Raye Penber. The names of the other eleven FBI agents who had threatened his authority. Other names. Misora Naomi.

Rambling pages, some whole and some cut, flipped in his hands, filled with scribbled characters that accumulated into a book of names. His life flashed before his eyes. Raito faintly remembered each and every person he had sentenced to die. A few he remembered strongly, as if their faces and names had been seared red-hot into his mind and eyes.

On the bottom of the second to last page was L's real name. Raito had known his time was finite, but until then, he forgot that the notebook was finite. Or he had made himself forget.

It hadn't mattered anymore, when he remembered, for his life to last as long as possible. He had exchanged half his life for the eyes of a Shinigami then. Misa became unnecessary. She became a liability, so he had written her off too.

Raito supposed he knew then, what he would do when the notebook was filled and Ryuuku had left.

Logic started him down this path. Logic sustained him and saw him through it. It only followed that logic would dictate where his path would end. Emotions were unnecessary. Attachments were dangerous.

His family had impeded him from his purpose. So, he had eliminated them. Their names were in the pages in his hands.

Raito had fulfilled his purpose. There was no more reason for his existence. There was nothing left for him to live for.

He should be eliminated.

It was all very cut and dried.

Raito wondered if Ryuuku would come for him when he was back on the ground.

He would find out soon enough.

...Raito missed them. All of them. It hurt-- a dull ache that never ended and never would as long as he was alive. It was hideously lonely in the end, all by himself.

He read to the last page, to the very end, and looked up.

Eight feet from the ground and falling fast.

He loosened his death grip on his death note and let the howling winds claw it from his hands, scattering its pages on the wind.

He wondered if anyone would find the pieces and read it and understand what he wrote for the rest of the world.

The sudden stop hurt. Hurt like nothing he'd ever imagined, like that one second when he realized everything he did amounted to nothing-- that moment when he had signed away L to death--

It hurt and then it didn't.

There was nothing left.

Not even to believe.