𝘼 𝘿𝙚𝙩𝙖𝙘𝙝𝙚𝙙 𝙍𝙚𝙨𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙖𝙣𝙘𝙚 | 𝘭 𝘭𝘢𝘸𝘭𝘪𝘦𝘵

𝘊𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘵𝘦𝘳 26

It took one phone call for Sachiko Yagami's entire world to fall to her feet.

In just one measly five minute call, she had been informed that her eighteen-year-old son had been arrested for being the most notorious serial killer of their time, and that her husband had collapsed from the shock of the news as Light's arrest took place before his very eyes.

Sachiko felt the bile rise in her throat, her eyes burning with tears as her heart plunged into her diaphragm, bringing everything within her to a terrifying standstill. She didn't know what to feel, what to think, what to do. Suddenly, she was the mother of a murderer. Suddenly, she had lost her son.

Suddenly, suddenly, suddenly, su-

Was it really that sudden at all though?

Sachiko Yagami mourned her world, her son, her pride, and she tried not to feel guilty for giving birth to a killer as she tried to remember how to get to the hospital.

•• ━━━━━ ••●•• ━━━━━ ••

Soichiro's ears were ringing. He was drowning.

There had to have been a mistake. Light would never. Soichiro couldn't have raised a killer. His son couldn't have killed so many and then lied so perfectly about it. Nononononono--

And yet, it was happening before his very eyes. Burly policemen closed in on the eighteen-year-old while L stood behind them, condemning Light for his crimes with all the evidence that stopped being circumstantial now that there was definitive physical evidence against Light. The brunet protested, shrill screaming and tears leaving him as he cried about injustice and eventually dissolved into manic laughter, swearing vengeance as he claimed to be greater than any Gods.

Someone was holding Soichiro's hand, rubbing his back as his vision blurred. Oh, was he crying? His gaze drifted to the hand holding his own, tracing it to his daughter-- his good, faithful daughter who had just lost her beloved brother to the clutches of greed and mania. Except (Y/n) didn't look all that surprised. She was crying too, but she didn't look surprised as she mouthed something.

Fuzzy black dots began clouding Soichiro's vision, and belatedly, he realized (Y/n) wasn't just mouthing-- she was saying something. He just couldn't hear her. He couldn't hear anything but his own pounding heart and labored breathing and--

Why was the world going dark?

I'm sorry, Dad.

•• ━━━━━ ••●•• ━━━━━ ••

"I am justice! I am your God! Get your hands off me, dammit! You'll all pay for this!"

Matsuda swallowed around the lump in his throat, refusing to cry because he didn't deserve to. Light Yagami wasn't his family. They were barely even friends. But, well, Matsuda had trusted the boy and to find out he was being lied to the whole time felt like a sucker punch to the gut. He felt humiliated and angry and so, so stupid for trusting a killer.

Secretly, he was glad L had brought in other officers to make the official arrest. Matsuda didn't even feel totally steady on his feet, and his head felt like it had been stuffed with cotton. He'd be truly useless right now.

Or he'd thought so at least, but it only took (Y/n) yelling out "Dad!" and the sight of Soichiro's body falling limply for Matsuda to be flying across the room to get to the two Yagamis, thrown into a frenzy of panic as he held onto his superior.

(Y/n) was crying, Matsuda realized, and that was all it took to shatter his brittle self control and send him into a burst of tears as well. He had always been too nervous to ever really make any extended contact with the woman because he had always admired her and some part of him would never stop being intimidated even though she had only ever been friendly with him, but his nervousness was nowhere to be found as he gripped her arm and the both of them sobbed over Soichiro's form, Light's screaming ringing painfully in the room.

•• ━━━━━ ••●•• ━━━━━ ••

"Light Yagami has been taken into custody," Aiko Hamada informed Misa gently, lingering in the doorway to respect the blonde's privacy, especially since she had been in a fragile state of mind since her memories had been restored.

She sniffled, hating herself for the urge to worry about him even as she nodded to dismiss the policewoman assigned to be her handler till the court trial would be over. Misa knew that the version of events (Y/n) had instructed her to repeat to her interrogators wasn't entirely true and that a lot of it framed Light.

She had known even then that the elder woman had betrayed Light, but the Yagamis were being threatened by Rem, so it made sense, right? Desperate times meant desperate measures. Misa told herself not to think too much about it. For (Y/n). But her stomach had churned sickeningly at the thought of betraying Light-- was it love or was it fear?

And then they told her Light had her name in his Note. He was manipulating her and her feelings the whole time. Misa's world began spinning and suddenly the foundation of everything she believed had been entirely uprooted and she didn't know what to think but her heart hurt and maybe she was dying.

The worst part was that she could believe it. She didn't think that using her was beyond Light. She wasn't as surprised as she'd liked herself to be. It still hurt, though. Why did she have to love him? Why couldn't he have just loved her?

She was ready to betray him though. So why did it hurt to know he'd been doing the very same since the start?

Her head hurt. Her heart hurt. There was just so much pain, but she'd cried so much already and Misa was just so tired.

Why could no one just love her for her?