Before the Judgment Seat

Fear.

Pure, undisguised fear, soaking into his marrow like ice water, appeared with startling clarity for the first time on a face that always tried to remain either calm or furious. His pupils dilated as far as they could, reflecting the ominous outline of the black notebook in my hand-and his own world as it collapsed.

"...Judge...me?" His voice rasped like sandpaper, trembling with disbelief. Even the searing pain in his wrist seemed momentarily overwhelmed by this greater terror.

"Who else?" My voice was steady, but cold as a final verdict. "Who did you think this game was aimed at? Those scum? Those parasites? Were they worth such...meticulous preparation?"

I gave the notebook in my hand a slight shake.

"From the first cat abuser, to your 'Shepherd,' to your 'system' destroying itself...wasn't every step, every 'iteration,' meant to force you, little by little, before this judgment seat?"

His breathing stopped short, his face turning ashen, as though an invisible hand had closed around his throat. He tried to understand, tried to find some foothold among the ruins of his logic from which he could argue back, but found none. Every clue, every "coincidence," every "incalculable" fluctuation now converged into one answer that left him in despair.

"You..." he rasped out. "You knew all along...you've been..."

"Guiding you?" I finished for him, the corner of my mouth curving into a cold smile. "No. Feeding you. Feeding your anger, your fear, your...arrogance with the deaths of your own kind. Making you walk, step by step, into this cage built especially for you."

In the corner, Ryuk let out a deeply satisfied, gurgling laugh, as though watching a carefully staged play finally reach its climax. "A cage! Yes! A beautiful cage! He walked right into it himself! And slammed the door shut! Gahahaha!"

"No...impossible..." He staggered, barely able to stand, his gaze unfocused. "The data...the models...the volatility..."

"Those were the noose you wove for yourself, Mentor." I cut him off and advanced, my voice quiet, yet every word struck his nerves like a hammer. "You were obsessed with interpreting everything through your own rules. But you forgot that you were never the one who set the final rules."

My gaze swept over the silver revolver on the floor.

"Just like that gun. You thought it was your safeguard, your trump card. But against me, it's no different from a stick for stoking a fire. In fact..." I paused, locking my gaze on him again. "Just now, it even saved you a bullet."

His body jerked violently, as though those words had pierced his heart. The bullet that had missed became the most humiliating footnote to his utter defeat.

"Now," I said, stopping less than a meter in front of him, close enough to see the cold beads of sweat on his forehead and the utterly shattered light in his eyes, "for the final procedure."

I slowly raised the Death Note and uncapped my pen with my other hand.

The tip hovered over the faintly yellowed page.

"Do you have anything to say in your defense, Mentor?" My tone was as calm as the most ordinary question, yet carried a suffocating pressure. "Or do you still insist that your 'calibration' was flawless? That your 'command source' remains valid?"

He opened his mouth, guttural sounds scraping from his throat, but could not utter a word. A defense? After all this? While the muffled sound of the system destroying itself still echoed in his ears? Any words would have been feeble and laughable.

Overwhelming despair and a sense of absurdity seized him. The being he had hunted for so long had intended to judge him from the very beginning. All his analysis, resistance, and anger had merely paved his own road to the chopping block.

"...Why?" He finally forced out a question, his voice shattered, carrying one last trace of bewilderment that refused to accept defeat.

"Why?" I repeated, the pen still hovering. "Because what needs to be cleaned out of this world isn't just the maggots crawling on the surface."

My gaze turned utterly cold.

"There are also those who think holding a flyswatter gives them the right to decide which insects should live and which should die..."

"...Those self-appointed gods."

The pen tip slowly descended.

It was about to touch the page.

His eyes remained fixed on the pen tip that would decide his fate. The last light in his pupils died completely, leaving only a hollow, lifeless gray.

Just as the pen was about to write the first character-

"Wait!"

He suddenly screamed, using the last of his strength!

My hand stopped, the pen tip hovering. I raised my eyes and looked at him coldly.

"...Your name..." he panted, a twisted, dying desperation in his eyes. "At least...tell me...your name..."

"Let me know...who it was...that beat me..."

Dead silence fell over the room.

Only his harsh, agonized breathing remained.

I looked at him for a long time.

Then, slowly.

An agonizingly slow, utterly cold smile spread across my face.

"My name?"

My voice was soft as a whisper, yet carried a crushing weight.

"Haven't you..."

"Known it all along?"

"Kira."

That name rang like the final death knell through his utterly collapsed world.

His body gave a violent jolt, and the last strength holding him up seemed to drain away in an instant. Like a boneless sack of flesh, he slumped limply onto the carpet, his eyes still wide open and staring at the ceiling, filled with nothing but endless, frozen terror and emptiness.

I did not look at her again.

At last, the pen tip touched down.

On the faintly yellowed page, I neatly wrote-

[...(his name)]

[Cause of death: acute psychogenic shock caused by the collapse of self-perception. Effective immediately.]

The instant the pen left the page.

The limp body on the floor convulsed once, releasing a faint breath like a sigh.

Then.

It became completely still.

His eyes remained wide open.

Reflecting the dirty, dim light on the ceiling.

In the corner, Ryuk smacked his lips, still wanting more.

"Tsk...that's it? Psychogenic shock? Honestly...not entertaining at all." Grumbling, he pulled out another rotten apple and took a bite. "Choking on an apple core would've been more interesting."

I said nothing.

I merely gazed quietly at the name and cause of death in the notebook, the ink still wet.

I closed the notebook.

It made a soft, dull sound.

Snap.

Judgment.

Carried out.