Disclaimer: Otaku-Sage-of-Llamas does not claim to own Death Note and its characters. Rather that privilege belongs to Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata. Also, the concept of Room 101 is not mine but rather borrowed from 1984 by George Orwell.

Warnings: There is AUness, OCCness, clichés, mild cursing, and yaoi. Also, beware of spoilers (for the anime/manga AND the Another Note novel) and the authoress’ sad attempt at writing. There are spoilers for L’s real name in this chapter if you do not already know by now.

Genre: Drama/Romance and a tad bit of Humor

Pairings: Raito x L

Rating: M

Contusa Persona

by Otaku-Sage-of-Llamas

Epilogue

- Post Mortem -

No one understood why L, the world’s greatest detective, was not present at Kira’s execution. After all, none of this would have happened hadn’t it been for L…or maybe that was the problem.

Leaving the boy to his death, the demon casually took a stroll across the sidewalks of a nearby town, the name of it wasn’t a concern of the demon. The other pedestrians seemed to avoid walking near the monstrosity as it would often go into violent convulsions of the body, as if it was having a seizure.

Also, it was peculiar as the demon seemed to be talking to itself. The pedestrians thought it might be bipolar while others feared that it was a person possessed by some daemon.

“I won’t forgive you for what you have done,” said the first personality.

“Really, I don’t see you trying to stop me,” replied the second as they approached a bridge.

“Haven’t you done enough? You took everything away from me!” the first screamed out in agony.

“Poor little Lawliet, no one loves him,” the second taunted.

“Shut up! I have had enough!” he yelled with all the air in his lungs and onyx finally became victorious over crimson. Suddenly, the bipolar man stood on top of the edge of the bridge, looking down into the water that lay underneath.

“Forgive me…” he whispered as tears streamed down his face. The man took one step forward and fell, his arms reaching out before him towards the water.

But it wasn’t an effort to swim…No, the man was embracing his watery grave.

“The human who uses this note can go neither to Heaven nor to Hell”

- Death Note Volume 1

It was an indescribable feeling, difficult to put into words. He wasn’t alive but yet he had some sense of consciousness.

His new surroundings were nothing like the Earth that he knew. The ground was bare of any vegetative life, simply a bland grey color similar to that of the moon’s surface minus all the craters.

There was no beautiful blue sky with a sun illuminating the scenery that humans typically took for granted. No, it was darkness and the only reason Raito could see the ground was from a starlight glow emitting from it.

Maybe this was Mu…a rather bleak place to be. A twisted and pointless existence.

Raito fell to his knees when he felt a sharp pain somewhere inside of his being.

“Ah!” he screamed, his eyes being forced shut from the pain.

When he finally reopened his eyes, Raito found himself inside the body of Kurou Otoharada, his first victim as Kira. He took in the scenery, the faces of terrified children inside of the fateful nursery school. However, he could not control the actions of his new host.

He was helpless…and in five minutes, the past repeated itself, and Raito experienced the same heart attack as Otoharada had.

Then he floated back into unconsciousness until he was in the body of Takuo Shibuimaru only to experience the collision with the truck…

The cycle continued…he relived the dying moments of everyone that he killed with the Death Note and he couldn’t do anything to stop it.

When the whole ordeal was finally over, he was brought back to Mu only to be surprised when a creature approached him from behind and placed a blindfold over his eyes leading him to some unknown location.

Once his eyes were freed from the visual restraint, Raito realized that he was in a 5 by 5 foot room. The walls were made of concrete and the ground consisted solely of dirt. Nowhere in the room could he spot a door, stirring a well of panic within him. He was sitting upon a steel chair that was attached firmly to the ground so he couldn’t knock it over with his body weight and his arms were chained to the sides.

“Welcome to Room 101, Kira,” a human sounding voice finally spoke. Raito turned his head and saw the figure of Beyond Birthday smirking at him. Mocking Kira by putting on the appearance of L.

“What is it that you fear?” he whispered at his ear by leaning towards Raito’s back, resting his head on his shoulder. However, despite how intimidating the demon was, something was not the same.

Maybe those crimson eyes…that currently appeared to be a dull red color. Normally, they shined with a malicious glint.

Those pale hands ghosted over his skin tauntingly, trying to arouse some emotion from Raito. But he refused to give in this time, he bit down on his lip to remain silent.

The demon was not amused and hit the back of his head with a closed fist, which oddly hurt for being a dead person.

“Submit!” he screamed but Raito resisted.

“I will not…because you are a mere illusion!” Raito shouted and all the suddenly Room 101 along with the demon disappeared. And he was left standing in a courtroom and above him on an elevated platform, so high that he had to look up and tilt his head upwards, were about ten people donned in black robes with their faces hidden by shadows.

“I am impressed that you endured the Duovultus trial. Not many lost souls do…most of them lose whatever is left of their consciousness,” the one robed man spoke, whom appeared to be the leader of the group.

“However, it is required that you spend eternity in Mu for that is the fate of one who uses the Death Note,” a female voice mentioned.

“Yes but…Raito Yagami you will find that you are not alone,” the man concluded and darkness swept across his eyes once again.

Back in Mu, Raito was left puzzled by the mysterious man’s last words. How could anyone else be in such a miserable place? There was no one in sight for miles…

Forty five minutes, or at least it seemed to be, went by and Raito noticed that the terrain started changed a bit. There were some rocks and bare trees that appeared to be long dead.

He was surprised to find a figure of a human sitting upon one of the bigger rocks and his jaw dropped when he recognized the figure as L.

“Ryuzaki,” Raito called out and the former detective turned his head.

“Don’t call me that. It’s not my name,” he replied and Raito could see the exhaustion in his onyx eyes.

“What shall I call you then?” he asked, attempting to overcome the awkward atmosphere.

“Lawliet.”

“Isn’t that French?” L nodded as Raito took a seat beside him on the rock, looking out into nothingness.

“What happened to you?” he spoke boldly but he wanted some answers.

“One day, Beyond Birthday approached me with a little bet,” Raito shivered at the utterance of the last word. “And I lost…then he disappeared and I found that my memory started becoming unreliable.”

“Then, it took your own death for me to put together what was happening to my body…He had somehow taken over, leaving me at his mercy.”

“But you weren’t acting strange when I first met you,” Raito commented.

“I think it was when Watari died that he started taking over…” he cried into his hands, “You saw what he did! I can’t forgive myself!”

“…why are you here anyways?” Raito nervously tried to change the topic.

“Did you ever wonder what happened to Rem’s Death Note?” Raito’s eyes widened as everything started to fit together.

“But that wasn’t even the worst of it, Raito-kun…No, I had to experience the deaths of his victims, including yours even though it wasn’t caused by the Death Note.”

“What? The same happened to me…but for it was those that I killed as Kira.”

“Yes, I assume that anyone who used the Death Note would each go through a different, yet similar, version of the Duovultus trial…before they are returned here for eternity.”

“But why isn’t anyone else here? There were other people that used the Death Note before and after me,” Raito reasoned.

“The Duovultus trial is intended to break the soul. Completely annihilate by drowning it in its own weapon of pain and worst fears…but we overcame that obstacle, a feat that had not been accomplished before.”

“Oh,” Raito let out in reply. Soon, L started crying again and Raito decided he couldn’t take it anymore, trying to comfort the other man by hugging him.

“It’s alright, Lawliet. I will be your light,” Raito said softly, gently kissing the tears away from his cheek.

They had the rest of eternity together to get to know each other better. Then one day, the façade known as L would totally break away. There was nothing left to hide anymore…

Simply making them Raito Yagami and L Lawliet.

“Once dead, they can never come back to life.”

-Death Note Volume 12

Authoress’ Notes:

Well, it’s finally over. My precious 89 handwritten pages of Contusa Persona.

I still left some questions unanswered (don’t worry my dear anon. reviewer, I will answer yours shortly) like, what was Beyond Birthday’s motivation for doing this? However, like Obata and Ohba, I want to leave such questions to the reader’s interpretation.

I sincerely hoped that you enjoyed reading Contusa Persona. Also, I want to thank you for taking your precious time reading and/or reviewing. Personally, I had fun writing it even though for a month I was struggling to work on this, physically and emotionally.

As for some questions that need to be answered…but first I must say that I am floored by your words, anon. I never received such a great compliment about my writing before!

Looking back, I never intended the major focus of this fanfic to be upon romance. However, I knew that my epilogue would have some twisted form of a relationship between Raito and L in order to create a true ending to this fanfic that would leave a bittersweet flavor behind. Did what I just say make any sense? O.o

Translations of the Title and Chapters:
(note: all Latin translations were done by me and not by some online translator)

Contusa Persona – A Broken Mask

Intentio – Tension
Opacum Latus – A Darkened Side
Reditus Potens – A Powerful Return
Deprehendentur – Surprised
Praeteritum Tempus Fodietur – Digging up the Past
Primus Motus – First Move
Hosepes – A Guest
Promovens – Moving Forward
Certamen Superatur – A Struggle to Overcome
Finis – The End
Post Mortem – After Death