Near said that we should lay low for a few days, just until he cleans things up. Nobody should know who Kira is…or was…and nobody should know that the NPA was ever involved after L's death back in 2004. God, it's been forever since then.

I remember I was up late watching the news, witnessing the last of Kira's victims go up on screen as tally-marks. It had taken them three days after Kira's death to finish counting. I got sick all over the floor when the total was released. Ide just scowled more vehemently and cursed. Mogi balled his fists and turned away. Rester and Gevanni were professionally silent, but Gevanni clenched his jaw in remorse. Halle dabbed at her eyes fiercely and crossed her arms over her chest. It was lucky that Matsuda had been asleep.

Nobody talked much. Rester and Gevanni spoke English in hused tones, with such thick American accents that I couldn't understand. Mogi did a lot of Sudoku puzzles. Ide just instant messaged for hours on end. Matsuda spent days in his bedroom. As far as I can tell, he spent the time looking obsessively through Light's files, notes, voicemails, sent and received texts, emails, and photographs. He needed it. Light was dead. What did he care that we went through his things?

Halle stayed at the hospital for days on end, texting me every hour on the hour, keeping eyes on Matt and Mello. She said that Mello was awake and doing fine, but hadn't eaten, and kept asking for Matt and Near and Watari and L. Matt still hadn't come to, after hours of surgery and liters of morphine. Not to mention the tobacco withdrawal pretty much destroyed him.

I was the new director of the national police force of Japan. I was supposed to make this big speech about how the nightmare was over and everyone could live in peace again, and how we were all free from Kira's imposed regime. I delivered the speech pretty well, I think. I tried to hang myself after I was out of sight of the cameras, but I was shaking so badly that I couldn't tie the damn knots, so I fell to the floor and passed out from hyperventilating and the crippling adrenaline rush.

I wasn't the only one who tried to end it. Everyone on the case tried to commit suicide at least once in the first two years. Mello held the record with five attempts, and Matsuda came in second with three. Both of them wrestled with anti-depressants and therapy, but in the end Matsuda refused to be treated, and Mello simply disappeared. I'm just glad that there weren't any successes.

My speech was a lie. The Kira case will never be over and solved and closed. Damn Light Yagami to hell. He created the worst murder mystery of all time, and had made it so he still ruled us all after his death. And all when he was still a teenager…

I still wake up at night after dreaming about Light or L. Sometimes I see them both stone dead and covered in blood, and other times I see them alive and smiling pleasantly, just talking, as if nothing had ever happened. Sometimes Chief Yagami comes to visit. Ukita came once, too.

After all these years, my wife doesn't understand why I keep their pictures on my desk. My daughter just remembers a time when I was scarcely home. My wife remembers the lonely nights and the strain of doing all the housework on her own. She says she felt like a widow, and it was almost like I was in heaven, because she didn't hear from me or see me for months on end.

The neighbors can never know.

-Aizawa|