The fiery pain rushes all throughout his body as Light runs for his life along the seaside. His skin warmed by his own blood covering his body, his vision starts to get hazy, grey almost.
     He stumbles into a warehouse, trying to make it up the stairs, and instead just falls down upon them. He pants, feeling a gurgling in his lungs, rolling himself over, resting upon the staircase.
     …He knew them… if they were going to catch him, they’d take him alive… they’d want to see him brought to justice…
     …But would Matsuda?

     Outside, the police run through the streets following their suspect.
     “Look!” One of them shouts, “There’s a blood trail!”
     “Follow it!” The commander, Aizawa, orders.
     Matsuda, probably the youngest policeman among them, runs with a hard determination in his eyes, completely focused. I will find you, KIRA! You’re going to pay for everything you’ve done!

     Light’s chest tightens and then quickly expands, as if something inside has exploded. His eyes open wide… and then strangely… softly… they become very peaceful…
     
     The officers follow the trail, but then it begins to get so thin, it becomes hard to tell which way it goes. “Spread out,” Aizawa orders. The officers break off into pairs, each going a separate direction to find their man. Matsuda follows Aizawa, hanging back and covering the rear.
     Coming upon a warehouse, Aizawa notices the door, opened, the handle covered with blood. Very slowly, he peers in, seeing no one. Then quickly, he bursts in, gun drawn. “Freeze!”
     But there is no one standing there – only the bloody body of a young man lying on the stairs…
     Aizawa holsters his gun, sighing, “…It’s over…”
     Matsuda slowly comes into the room. He notices Aizawa is very calm, and then he sees why. Lying on the stairs is Light: silent, unmoving, and bathed in his own blood… blood shed by Matsuda…
     Matsuda feels as though he’s stopped breathing, something welling deep inside of him.
     Aizawa looks over to see Matsuda’s shoulders trembling. He gently puts a hand on his shoulder. “Matsuda… it’s okay…”
     Matsuda gasps a few times, feeling as if he can’t breathe. Finally, a sob breaks through his lips, his knees caving in under him. He holds his hands up to his eyes, but is unable to hold back the tears. “Why Light?! Why?! It wasn’t supposed to be this way! I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!”
     “Matsuda,” Aizawa moves a bit closer to him, “It’s okay…”
     “No it’s not!” Matsuda shouts, never looking up, never removing his hands from his eyes. “This is all my fault!”
     One of the other policemen hears them and comes in, a bit taken aback to see Matsuda on the floor, and to see Light on the stairs.
     Aizawa gives him a stern glare, “Call the station and tell them we’ve got a DOA,” motioning his head for the policeman to leave them be. He silently obeys, bowing briefly and closing the door behind him.
     
     Later, as the sun has just set, its light still visible in the sky, an ambulance sits outside of the warehouse, the medics here to confirm Light’s condition. Matsuda sit outside on a bench, silent, emotionless.
     Aizawa comes out of the warehouse, rubbing his head and sighing. “Well, I guess I’ll have to break the bad news.”
     “No,” Matsuda says firmly. “I’ll do it.”
     Aizawa looks concerned. “Matsuda… you don’t have to…”
     “It’s my responsibility,” he says to him, with all the seriousness of an adult, something rarely seen from Matsuda. “I owe it to them…”
     Aizawa looks as though he wants to sigh, but he doesn’t. “…All right…”
     Matsuda is quiet for a moment. “…But what am I going to tell them? How can I face them knowing what I’ve done? That I’ve killed him?”
     “You didn’t kill him, Matsuda.”
     Matsuda looks up at his commander.
     Aizawa stares off into the distant ocean that lay beyond the docks. “KIRA killed him… The Light Yagami we knew was dead a long time ago… He sold his soul to a Shinigami for power… he’s been dead for years…”
     Matsuda looks back down to the ground. That doesn’t make it any easier, he thinks.
     
     Outside, darkness has fallen, and a knock came to the front door. Mrs. Yagami opens it, to find Matsuda, standing all by himself, looking flustered, nervous.
     “Mr. Matsuda-”
     “Mrs. Yagami… I’m afraid I have some bad news…”
     “No!” She holds her hand to her mouth. “Light!”
     Sitting on the couch is her daughter, Sayu. At the shouting of her brother’s name, she looks up.
     Mrs. Yagami frantically asks, “Is he all right?!”
     Matsuda shakes his head. “No, Mrs. Yagami… he’s dead…”
     “Oh god! No!” she cries, falling into Matsuda’s chest. “My baby!!!” she sobs, Matsuda sympathetically hugging her.
     Sayu rushes up from the couch to her mother, taking her and hugging her.
     “This is your fault, Soichiro!” Mrs. Yagami screams at her dead husband. “Why did you have to get him into policework?! Why, why?!”
     “What happened?” Sayu asks, stunned.
     Matsuda hesitates “…It was KIRA…”
     Mrs. Yagami continues to sob as the tears begin to mount in Sayu’s eyes.
     “You would have been proud of him,” Matsuda says to them. “He was brave to the end.”
     “Thank you for coming, Mr. Matsuda,” Sayu says, looking down. “I know it was hard for you to tell us this.”
     “I’m so sorry,” Matsuda says, pained to see them this way. “Truly, I am…I wish there was something more I could do to help…”
     “No… but thank you,” Sayu says, never looking him in the eye.
     Matsuda bows to the women and silently closes the door.
     Leaving the doorway, he sees Aizawa standing at the edge of the yard… “Let’s go get a drink…”
     
     At a bar, Aizawa and Matsuda sit at the counter with a couple of beers. Matsuda is very silent, his shoulders slumped, hardly even touching his drink…
     “…Say something, Matsuda…”
     “Like what?” He snaps back.
     “You keep silent like that, and you’re going to go crazy.”
     “I’ve got nothing to say…” he takes a drink from his beer.
     Aizawa sighs. He plays with rim of his bottle for a little bit, thinking… then rests his face on his hand, looking at the beer, feeling at a loss. “Drinking is one of the worst things you can do when you’re sad, but in a situation like this, there’s nothing else you can do…”
     Matsuda never looks at his friend, just stares at his beer bottle as if it and not Aizawa were the one talking to him…

     A week passes… and a funeral is held for Light Yagami.
     Friends, family members, and even a few old schoolmates come to see him.
     Light lay in the casket, very clean, very peaceful.
     Matsuda didn’t want to go in to the viewing room to see him. He couldn’t face him after what he’d done… after what he’d done…
     But seeing Sayu going in by herself, Matsuda jumps to his feet to be by her side.
     Slowly he comes up beside her, quietly, and gently taking her by the hand. She doesn’t look at him, just at her big brother laying there, his face so gentle. She feels Matsuda’s grip tighten, and then she looks over – but there were no tears in his eyes.
     I won’t cry! Matsuda firmly thinks to himself. I’m going to be strong… just like the Chief would have been… thinking about his mentor, Soichiro, the man killed by his son KIRA… I need to be strong… for Sayu and her mother…

     At the gravesite, the priest gave the final sacraments to the departed, Light’s grave on his father’s right hand – as in life, as in death.
     Matsuda was by Sayu’s side the whole time, always holding her hand, while her other arm was wrapped around her mother. Even though Matsuda’s face was as solid as a rock, the tears still managed to find their way into his eyes, though they never rolled down his face.
     Right before the lowering of the casket, Matsuda raises his hand in salute, the other officers present doing the same as they bid a final farewell to their fallen comrade.
     
     And going home, completely alone, Matsuda numbly walks his way into his apartment… and cries into his pillow all night long…

     Another week passes…
     The Task Force members were all given the week off for mourning. But the morning they were due back, Matsuda didn’t show.

     The phone at the Yagami house rang. Sayu picked it up. “Hello?”
     “Hi, Sayu?”
     “Yes?”
     “It’s Mr. Aizawa. Is Matsuda over there?”
     “Huh? No, we haven’t seen him since the funeral. Why?”
     “He didn’t come into work, and he’s not answering his phone. I thought maybe he was at your place.”
     “No, he isn’t. But I’ll go check on him if you want.”
     “Would you do that? Thanks.”
     “Sure, no problem.”

     The darkness of his room was his only comfort. Either than that, all Matsuda could think about was the terrible pounding in his head. Not to mention the sour taste in his stomach and the caked on taste of old beer in his mouth.
     Oh, where the hell’s the antacid? he thinks to himself, rummaging around his nightstand without ever removing his pillow from his face.
     The pounding comes again, faster this time, splitting his head. “Oh, shut up…” he mumbles. He hears something – faint, blurry, garbled…
     Pound, pound, pound!
     Matsuda holds his aching head.
     “Mr. Matsuda?” finally a voice comes through all the buzzing noise.
     He throws his pillow over his head, ignoring the probably-salesman at the door.
     “…Mr. Matsuda? Are you there?”
     “Go away!”
     “It’s me – Sayu.”
     Matsuda’s eyes flash open, realizing this was no dream, and certainly no salesman. He quickly sits up, “I’m coming!” He attempts to walk, but the tripping on empty strewn beer bottles and his own dizziness forces him right back into bed. “Whew! I’m not coming…” he mumbles.
     Outside the door, Sayu, who’s been gently knocking on the door waits for a response. And none comes. “Mr. Matsuda? Are you all right?”
     “I’m fine!” he shouts back to her, his voice sounding strange.
     “We’re worried about you. We haven’t heard from you since the funeral.”
     “I’ll be all right.”
     “Are you sure?”
     “Yeah. Thanks!”
     “… Okay… Goodbye Mr. Matsuda…” Defeated, Sayu leaves.
     Holding his stomach as he lays flat back on the bed, Matsuda’s face contorts in pain. Oh, where the hell’s the antacid?

     Later that afternoon, Matsuda is still lying in bed, though his stomachache has kept him from touching another bottle of alcohol. All he’s done is stare at the ceiling. When suddenly there’s a knock at the door. This time, he sits up slowly to keep the blood from rushing out of his head. He gently makes his way over to the door and opens it, a man with flowers standing there.
     “Yes?”
     “Flowers for a Mr. Matsuda,” the man cheerily says, handing him the flowers.
     Matsuda looks perplexed, cocking his head to the side in curiosity. He takes the bundle, noticing a little white card in them. He takes it out and opens it up, reading the inside. From Sayu
     “Oh, she really shouldn’t have,” Matsuda says aloud. “I should be the one sending her flowers.”
     “Well you know dating these days,” the deliveryman shrugs smugly. “Who says girls can’t send flowers.”
     Matsuda’s cheeks blush red. I’m not dating Sayu…
     “You have a good evening, sir,” the man tips his hat to Matsuda and turns and leaves. Matsuda closes the door behind him.
     Matsuda stared at the flowers for a moment, not knowing what to do with them. “I guess I should put these in some water…” He finds a piece of pottery he thinks would make a good vase and fills it up with tap water. “And I guess they should have some sun. After all, they are plants.”
     He takes them to the window, finally opening the curtains for the first time in a week, the golden sun streaming through the shafts of the blinds. At first, this hurts his eyes, but the warmth of it all makes him feel better. He gazes out the window to see birds fly by, and children playing in the street. I’ve got to get out of the house, he thinks to himself. Or I’m going to go insane!
     Donning a coat against the cold February weather, Matsuda goes outside. Luckily there’s no snow, so it’s pretty dry out. At least I won’t catch a cold.
     There’s still a buzz hanging about his head, and he rubs his head, closing his eyes to stave off the pain. But he ends up bumping into someone.
     “Hey ya bum! Watch where you’re walking!”
     “Oh, um, sorry…”
     And the man huffs away.
     Bum? Matsuda looks down at his clothing – old, wrinkled, unwashed… not to mention he probably smelled to high heaven of alcohol. He sighs and keeps walking.
     Matsuda looks up at the trees above his head, spying tiny little buds upon their branches. Hey, the cherry blossoms are early this year. They usually don’t show up for another month…
     “Have you accepted KIRA as your Lord and Savior?”
     “Huh?”
     Matsuda looks across the street to his right, where on the corner stands a man on literally a soapbox with a loudspeaker, a small crowd gathered around him as he preaches. “No more shall evil men walk the streets! No more do we live in fear! We are free to live in peace and harmony!”
     A pain runs through Matsuda’s heart like a knife, and wanting to get away, he ducks into a park on his left.
     He sits on a bench for a long time, just watching the ducks in the pond swim and play. A bird above his head in the tree takes off, knocking one of the sakura buds from its place, and it lands in Matsuda’s lap. He looks down at the young sapling, not even fully grown and yet cut down before its time. He picks it up and tosses it into the water, the ducks rushing after it as if it were a nibblet of bread.
Matsuda sighs, hunkering down on the bench as he looks up to the cold grey sky. Light… did you really create a better world?

     After a long period of sitting, the sun has set, and the ice cold wind sets in, biting into Matsuda’s skin. He wraps himself tighter in his coat. But he doesn’t want to go home. He doesn’t want to sleep. He doesn’t want to drink. He doesn’t want to do anything. But he walks. To nowhere in particular really. He just walks.
     As he walks along, alone, down the dark streets, he hears a little girl’s laughter. He looks up to see a mother and daughter walking towards him, happily talking to each other. Matsuda stops, just watching earnestly at this scene of life.
     “Mommy! Let’s take the shortcut home! It’s so cold!”
     “Sure sweetie,” the mother says, and suddenly they both turn down a tiny dark alleyway!
     “Wait! Don’t go in there!” Matsuda screams, running after them. ““There could be-…” But looking down into the alley, Matsuda sees no one, no one but the girl and her mother, both of them without any fear about them. “There’s… wait a minute!” He looks all around the area, in every dark alley he can find. There are no thugs, no menaces. Only happy people walking about doing their thing. “I don’t understand…”
     Dejected and confused, he walks into a coffee shop, his stomach needing something in it. He sits at the counter, the people around him happily chitchatting amongst themselves.
     “What’ll it be, mack?” the bartender asks.
     “Just a cup of coffee…”
     “Sure thing,” he pours some into the ceramic cup in front of Matsuda.
     “Thanks… hey, can I ask you something?”
     “Sure, what is it?”
     “Has this neighborhood ever had any trouble with crime?”
     “Yeah, a long time ago we did. It used to be so that I had bars on the doors and windows. But ever since KIRA came along, I ain’t been held up or broken into since!”
     “Amen to that!” Someone says, people clinking glasses together in toast.
     Matsuda looks down into his coffee, feeling horrible, a black reflection of himself staring soullessly back at him.

     The cold wind whipping passed his uncovered ears, Matsuda holds his hands up to cover them. He can feel the moisture setting in on his skin. Damn! Snow anyway…
     Walking along silently, lonely, ghostly, he wanders upon the Yagami household. He stares longingly at the home, all the fond memories coming back, between him and the Chief… he and the Mrs. …he and Sayu…
     …He and Light…
     He walks up to the door, for what reason, he doesn’t know. Hesitantly he knocks on the door. “Oh, this is stupid. I should just go home now…”
     But the door opens. Standing there is Sayu. “Mr. Matsuda!”
     “H-hello. I just wanted to stop by and say thank you for the flowers.”
     “You’re quite welcome.”
     “I feel I should repay you somehow.”
     “Oh no, it was no trouble at all!” Sayu says, smiling.
     “Who’s at the door, dear?” Sayu’s mother calls from the couch.
     “It’s Mr. Matsuda!”
     “Why Matsuda!” Mrs. Yagami comes over. “Come on in! Come in!”
     Matsuda smiles, happy, “Thank you!” Matsuda’s finally glad to have some human contact after so many lonely days.
     “Here! Let me put on a pot of tea!”
     “Oh Mrs. Yagami, that’s not necessary…”
     “But where are my manners – let me take your coat.”
     “Mrs. Yagami, you should really be resting.”
     “Oh nonsense! If I rest, I feel I’ll go crazy!”
     Matsuda scoffs to himself. I know that feeling.
     “Please, sit down.”
     “Thank you,” He sits down on the loveseat, Sayu sitting down on the couch as Mrs. Yagami busies herself in the kitchen with her teapot. Matsuda just sort of sits there twiddling his thumbs, not knowing what to say or do. This house used to feel so happy for him; now it just made him feel awkward.
     “So what brings you by, Matsuda?” Mrs. Yagami asks from the kitchen.
     “I just needed to get out of the house. And I thought you all could use someone to talk to, if you needed.”
     “That’s so kind of you, Mr. Matsuda,” Sayu says, kindly smiling. “I know Light would have appreciated you being here. And Dad, too.”
     “Yeah…”
     “I’m just glad to know that KIRA is finally gone,” Mrs. Yagami says pulling some cups from the cupboard. “But that doesn’t seem to have calmed down this fervor any.”
     “That’s because no one believes Near’s broadcast,” Matsuda says. “A lot of people still think KIRA’s alive, or that he’s a god and can’t be killed at all.”
     “Well we know he’s dead,” Sayu says with a bit of determination, “And that’s all that matters. And I’m glad of it, too! I could never forgive the man who killed my brother.”
     Matsuda’s heart sank
     “Well everything’s better now, isn’t it?” Mrs. Yagami says as she brings in a couple of cups of tea for the young ones.
     Quickly switching the subject, Matsuda looks at Sayu, he smiling his old cheery smile, “So Sayu, what are you up to these days?”
     She smiles, “Oh! I’m glad you ask!”
     And the family talks long into the night, chitchatting, laughing, and warm, without a care in the world…

     The next morning when Sayu got up, she found a bouquet of flowers sitting on the doorstep. ~From Matsuda. She smiles.
     
     A week passes…
     Now no one really knows what Matsuda’s religion is, or if he’s even a religious man at all. But the pain won’t go away. It’s there, eating at his heart, torturing him night and day.
     Sitting in a Christian church, he talks to a priest in a confessional.
     “I don’t know what to do…” Matsuda says. “I can’t shake the feeling that what I did was wrong… everybody calls me a hero… but it doesn’t feel right… having to kill your friend in the line of duty…”
     “And your friend who you killed – he was on the wrong side of the law?”
     “Yes…”
     “And as a police officer it is your duty to stop lawbreakers?”
     “Yes sir…”
     “Then consider this,” the priest told him. “In killing the one, you’ve saved an innumerable amount of people. Sometimes the sacrifice of the one is necessary to save the whole. Just as Jesus Christ laid down his life, so was the whole world saved.”
     Matsuda cynically chuckles to himself. You really were the Lord and Savior of Mankind, weren’t you, Light?

     But no relief comes to him. No pain passes from him. And day in and day out, all Matsuda can do is numb his pain in drinking all night and sleeping all day. But he still has work to attend to. The Task Force is back up and running, and even though crime is down, there’s still crime to stop. And Matsuda can find no other release than in the bottle. All his friends are from work, reminding him of KIRA. He feels can’t hang out at the Yagami household because it reminds him of KIRA. He can’t even go out into public without hearing something about KIRA. The only safe place is in the darkness of his room…
     Matsuda cries into his pillow, alone, hurt, his pillow soaked from so many tears. “…It’s hopeless… please God… PLEASE! …Make the pain go away! ...please…”

     The next day at work, Matsuda has his head down on the desk like a highschooler ignoring a lecture.
     One of his friends walks into the meeting room and stops, “Hey Matsuda!”
     He looks up, his face a bit flush.
     “You all right? You don’t look so good.”
     Another officer chimes in, “Yeah, you should take a vacation somewhere.”
Matsuda smiles, “Yeah. A vacation sounds good. I could do with getting away from Japan for a while…”
     “Attention!” Chief Aizawa comes walking in to start the meeting, and everyone stands.
     Matsuda fumbles to his feet, standing so quickly that suddenly he’s really lightheaded. Everything turns a blurry yellow-grey, and he digs his hand into his chair to keep himself up. When suddenly, there’s a pain in his chest, a silence. His eyes are frozen wide.
     “Matsuda? Are you all right?” Aizawa asks. And suddenly Matsuda teeters over onto the ground! “Matsuda!” Everyone rushes to his aid, Aizawa lifting him off the ground a bit, Matsuda’s eyes and mouth half open, his face expressionless. “Call an ambulance!”
     
     At the hospital, the Yagamis come rushing in. “Where is he?!” Sayu frantically asks.
     In a room, Matsuda lies unconscious in a bed, an I.V. tube in his arm and a heart monitor beeping gently alongside him. Sayu sits in a chair by his side, she holding his hand as she sobs into his arm. “Please Matsuda! Don’t leave us! Please!”
     Mrs. Yagami stands silently in the background, biting on her nails in fear.
     And no answer comes from Matsuda. Just the beating of the heart monitor at his side…

     Darkness… and yet not the same darkness… the kind of darkness caused only by closed eyes – and yet you know there is light beyond your lids…
     Matsuda stirred, his chest feeling like someone had hit him with a sledgehammer. Beneath the covers he was burning up, but he dared not remove them, for above covers, he was freezing. Slightly opening his eyes, all he can see is white… And the unmistakable smell of antiseptic tells him where he is.
     I’m alive? …No… I thought… oh God, why? Why didn’t you just take me and get it over with?
     The door opens and a nurse comes in, he ignoring her as he tries to sleep away his pain. She checks his chart, checks his monitors and I.V. bag, busying herself around the little room, Matsuda just waiting for her to disappear so he can be alone.
     But nature calls. He opens his eyes fully and sees he’s connected to a tube. He can’t move without the possibility of yanking it out. He looks to the nurse, “Excuse me, miss?”
     “Oh! You’re awake!” she smiles. “I hope I didn’t disturb you.”
     “No, it’s all right,” Matsuda kindly smiles. “I just need to go to the bathroom.”
     “Of course,” she says as she comes over to him. Very close to his arm is a link in the tube. The nurse clamps the I.V. tube both above and below the connection and then unhooks the two lengths of cord from one another, and using just a simple piece of scotch tape, she tapes the loose piece of tube to Matsuda’s arm. “There, that should do you. And when you’re done, all I have to do is hook you back up.”
     “Wow, that’s neat,” Matsuda gently swings his feet over the side of the bed.
     “Oh, hang on,” the nurse says going to the cabinet. She pulls out a pair of hospital socks and hands them to him. “You might want these. The floor’s pretty cold.”
     He smiles, “Thanks.”
     As he heads for the restroom, the nurse says, “I’ll notify your next of kin that you’re awake.”
     Matsuda turns to her, “Who?”
     She checks his chart, “The Yagami family?”
     Matsuda is surprised… both a little saddened and yet heartened at the same time…

     Later, Matsuda is back in bed, just staring out the window as the birds fly by. A soft rap at the door turns his attention away, and there stands Sayu.
     He gently sits up. “S-Sayu…”
     She comes in and sits down next to him. “…Are you all right?”
     “I think so,” he says, holding his head. “What happened to me?”
     “The doctors say it was a heart attack from stress and over-intoxication.”
     Matsuda looked down, ashamed.
     “What’s happened to you, Matsuda? How did you end up this way?”
     Matsuda held a hand to his face, “I don’t know…”
     “We want to help you – Mom and I both. We know Light’s death was hard on you, but you can’t keep doing this to yourself.”
     Matsuda, removing his hand from his face, gently lays back down, looking back out the window… “Sayu…” he gently said, almost as if he were wanting to whisper. “…I have to tell you something. You can decide for yourself whether or not you want to tell your mother.”
     Sayu listened intently.
     The words barely broke his lips… “…The day Light died… it’s not how you think it was… He died… because…” he couldn’t go on… what could he say? Had he convinced even himself of what he was about to say? “…At the very end… Light was possessed by KIRA… he was laughing this, this horrible laugh… and his eyes were glowing red… this horrible red… and… KIRA was going to use him to kill us all… and… I was forced to pull the trigger… it was either one of us or all of us…” The words came out slowly from his choked up voice.
     Sayu’s eyes watered as she watched Matsuda’s pain, he holding his hand to his mouth as the tears streamed down his face.
     “…I killed him, Sayu… He was like a brother to me… I loved Light… he was my brother… Soichiro was my father…”
     Sayu gently took him by his free hand. “…And I? Am I your sister?”
     Matsuda never looked at her, never answered her. All he could do was cry. He sobbed so much, just breaking down. Sayu gently put her arm around his head and neck and brought him into her, hugging him fondly. “Please forgive me!” he cried. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! Please forgive me!”
     She brushed back the hair from his forehead, and softly kissed him. “…I forgive you… Touta…”

     Night set on, and the hospital floor quieted down…
     Matsuda slept the best sleep he’d had in a long time…
     At his bedside stood a figure, ethereal, ghostly… a strong man… He said to Matsuda, “I know I said I’d never let my daughter marry a policeman… but I’d be damn proud to have you as my son.”
     Matsuda mumbled in his sleep… “Thank you… Dad…”



- End part one -