#she halved her own lifespan twice and said she 'didn't want to live in a world without light'

[13eyond13]

you ever think about how Misa's lack of intelligence and the way she lets her emotions impulsively dictate her actions was kinda constantly made the butt of the joke in DN, yet she genuinely outlived all the dudes and dudettes who were always scoffing at her stupidity. Somehow this is even better to me in that she wasn't even trying to outlive Light and didn't have any particularly high regard for her own life, so it's not due to her secretly being the best strategist of them all intentionally either... Regardless of the author's intent behind it I like that it pokes some holes in their constant smug assertions that you must have the very highest IQ to be the last guy standing in the murder notebook game

[kiyomitakada]

Light stalks into the hotel room at 1 a.m. It's November 12th already.

They called his mom earlier. He'd almost forgotten, in the midst of it all. Light told her the truth — or as close to the truth as he could get, anyway. The raid. The gunshot wounds. The blood loss. His words came out odd and robotic, which was bad, because it was suspicious. He wasn't sure why he wasn't projecting emotion right.

Aizawa and Ide kept sneaking glances at him through the whole thing. They weren't subtle. Matsuda wasn't either, but at least there was only sympathy in his eyes. Misa held his hand through it all, tracing circles with her thumb. The touch was repulsive. He's pretty sure he'd dug his nails into her palm, considering how hard he'd gripped her hand back, but she hadn't complained a bit.

Sachiko cried. Misa cried, too, even though Dad had never been her father. It felt like an insult to Soichiro Yagami's memory that Light couldn't make the tears come out of his own eyes. He was usually so good at faking it. The dryness felt damning.

"I'll arrange the funeral," he said.

"I'll fly over right away," his mom answered quickly. "I'll get Sayu—"

"No!" He lurched out of his seat without meaning to, then fell back. "Don't tell Sayu."

Aizawa and Ide eyed each other again. He wanted to kill them all.

"We'll have to at some point," his mom said gently.

"I know," Light said. He swallowed. "But Mom, neither of you can come. It won't be safe here. You rented the countryside house for a reason, right? You both have to stay put for now. Mello is still active."

He hoped she would argue. She didn't. "Alright," she said softly. "But you tell me if you need anything, okay, Light?"

"Okay," Light said, and the rest of the conversation was logistics.

It's almost half past one in the morning now. The task force is asleep. Misa is, too, on one of the twin beds they pushed together. He thinks about writing down all the criminals he can in one night and murdering everyone in the building and jumping off the hotel balcony.

"Ryuk," he says instead, as he sits down on the edge of the other bed.

"Yeah?"

He tries to laugh. It comes out wrong, too, but not as badly as the earlier attempt at tears had. "It's funny, isn't it?"

"Wow, Light, I didn't think you were that cold," Ryuk remarks.

"It's just," Light says, "that he only lived one day after trading for the eyes. So even if he hadn't… I guess he wouldn't have stayed alive that long anyway."

Ryuk frowns. "Huh? I don't get it."

"The eyes take away half of your remaining lifespan, right? And Dad wasn't killed by the Death Note, so that really was his natural lifespan. Which means, since he died after one day, he was only going to live two days if he hadn't traded."

It should be a relief. It is a relief. It's not Light's fault. Soichiro Yagami was going to die anyway.

"Wrong," Ryuk says.

Light flinches backwards. It's been five years, but sometimes Ryuk's smile still scares him. "What do you mean, wrong?"

"Welllll… maybe wrong? I dunno, actually." Ryuk scratches his chin with one claw. "Yeah, maybe you're right. I haven't looked at the rules in forever."

"Ryuk, what are you talking about?"

"See, I'm not sure if that half is from how long you would've lived without the Death Note, or if it's from your new lifespan after you get the Death Note."

Light gapes at him. "It's obviously the second one!"

"That's the funny thing, Light-o," Ryuk says, and grins. "You can't know how long someone's gonna live if they have the Death Note. It's impossible. That's why you can't see the numbers over the heads of Death Note owners."

"But — Misa traded half her life away," Light says. "Twice. So it can't be her original lifespan, since that stalker was going to kill her."

Ryuk shrugs. "Who knows? Maybe she's been trading halves of zero this whole time."

"That's… No," Light says. He doesn't notice the way his fingers tighten around his grip on the thin hotel sheets. "No. That would be stupid."

"It is stupid," Ryuk agrees. "You're probably right."

"I'm definitely right." Breathe in. Breathe out. "So you don't know how much time you got from Dad — from my father?"

"No clue," Ryuk says cheerfully. "But it's okay. I've killed oodles of regular people, so I should still have a lot of life left to go."

Light abruptly, desperately hates him.

"I'm going to bed," he says. "Talk to you in the morning."

"Cool," Ryuk says. "I'll go sightseeing."

---

a/n: happy 11/11 :)