Embers

Dead silence.

Unlike any silence before it. This was absolute dead silence, utterly drained of every sound, every movement, every sign of life.

On the floor, the shell once known as "Mentor" lay limp, his vacant eyes staring at the ceiling, reflecting the blurred halo of the rental room's grimy overhead light. His final terror and disbelief had frozen on his face into a rigid mask.

The air still held the smell of gun smoke, blood, and a kind of... cold satisfaction.

It was over.

Or rather, one phase was over.

In the corner, Ryuk broke the suffocating silence with a loud smack of his lips.

"Tch! That's it?" He stretched his enormous body, his crimson eyes flicking disdainfully toward the corpse before turning back to me. His voice was full of undisguised disappointment. "Psychogenic shock? That's all? One snap and he's gone? I thought there'd at least be something... more exciting. Like his head bursting like a rotten watermelon? Or him turning into a puddle of sludge too? You humans are really cutting more and more corners with your deaths!"

He complained as his thick fingers pinched the rotten apple, its juice dripping into the shadows.

"Boring as hell. All that buildup, and what a lousy ending." He crunched off a large mouthful of flesh and muttered through it, "Watching an apple rot would've been more interesting."

I ignored his noise. My gaze slowly left the corpse on the floor, swept over the blasted-open door and the fresh bullet hole in the wall, then finally returned to the black notebook in my hand.

Its cover was cold and heavy. The ink should have dried by now.

An immense, hollow feeling swept over me-not disappointment, but a kind of... emptiness after achieving a goal. A string held taut for so long had suddenly gone slack, leaving only soundless vibrations all around.

He was dead. The man who had hunted me, analyzed me, tried to "counsel" me, and finally roared that he would kill me had died under a "judgment" he could not even comprehend.

But what came next?

SRO-7's core had destroyed itself, but its fragments remained. Its upper management, its funding sources, its international network of connections... they were only temporarily stunned. Soon, like a wounded octopus, they would reach out with their tentacles again.

And then there was this world. The countless evils breeding in the shadows of law and morality. They would not disappear just because one "Mentor" had died.

My work was far from over.

My gaze sharpened again, cold and resolute.

A deeper, greater sense of purpose drove away the emptiness.

The cleansing had only just begun.

I walked to the computer. The screen was still lit, displaying the news bulletin about the "suspected earthquake." My fingers flew across the keyboard, deleting all recent browsing history and traces of activity, overwriting the temporary files.

Then I stood and walked over to the corpse.

I crouched and checked the side of his neck with my fingers. No pulse. His body was rapidly losing warmth.

Expressionless, I searched him. A wallet containing forged identification and a little cash, a spare key, an encrypted communicator whose chip had been burned out by some force, and... an old photograph, carefully laminated, its edges worn.

The photograph showed a much younger version of him standing beside a woman with a gentle smile, a sunlit lawn behind them. The woman held a swaddled baby in her arms.

Lina Adler? No resemblance. This was from an earlier time.

I stared at the photograph for two seconds. Then I pinched it between my fingertips and gave it a light tear.

The plastic film and photograph split silently in half. I tore them again, into scraps, then scattered them across the carpet, where they mingled with dust and wood splinters.

An irrelevant keepsake.

Finally, my gaze fell on the Colt revolver lying on the floor.

Its silver frame gleamed cold and hard in the dim light.

I reached out, but did not pick it up immediately. Instead, I first took the Death Note, aimed its hard black cover at the revolver's hammer, and smashed it down!

Smack! Crack!

Several sharp snaps of twisting metal!

The finely crafted killing tool instantly became a heap of mangled scrap.

Only then did I pick up the scrap metal and heft it in my hand. I walked to the blasted-open doorway and swung my arm, flinging it far into a filthy trash can across the street below.

With all that done, I returned to the center of the room.

I looked around. The destroyed door, the bullet hole in the wall, the corpse on the floor, the smell in the air.

I couldn't stay here.

It was time to leave.

I picked up my backpack and carefully placed the Death Note in its inner compartment. Then I began packing the other necessities quickly and methodically: the computer, the hard drive, the disposable phone that had never rung again, a few clothes, and the remaining cash.

The entire process was calm and efficient, without a single wasted movement.

Ryuk tilted his head as he watched me work, an inscrutable light flickering in his crimson eyes.

"Leaving?" he asked hoarsely. "Finding a new nest? Going to keep playing at writing names?"

I did not answer. I zipped up the backpack and swung it onto my shoulder.

I took one last look at this filthy, chaotic temporary dwelling, steeped in the air of death.

My gaze passed over the corpse growing cold on the floor, without the slightest stir of emotion.

I turned.

I walked toward the blasted-open door that led to the outside world.

My steps were steady, without a trace of hesitation.

From the shadows behind me came one last crunch as Ryuk chewed his apple, followed by a muffled murmur, as though he were talking to himself:

"Tch... humans..."

"...really are the best rotten apples."

I stepped through the doorway into the dim, noisy corridor outside.

Fresh air rushed toward me, carrying the city's foulness.

Behind me lay the embers of the past.

Ahead,

lay an entire world waiting to be cleansed.

Judgment,

would never stop.