Scare and Amaze
Full Summary: “My name is Light Yagami. I scare people”. A not-quite-poem in verse of the life of Light Yagami, a man who scared and amazed, who truly ruled the world. Rated T just in case, with whole series spoilers, and perhaps a few suggestions of adult themes (slightly hinted LxL). You have been warned.
Disclaimer: I do not for one second own Death Note, nor have I ever, or will. If I did, you can believe that it wouldn’t be as good, and yet just as controversial (perhaps more).
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Scare and Amaze
My name is Light Yagami. I scare people.
Aged zero years and five minutes, I scared people.
I didn’t cry, barely squealed upon entry,
They thought I was dead, couldn’t breathe.
The scowl on my face, glaring at the midwife,
That clued her in.
Aged one, I scared people.
I didn’t smile much, didn’t laugh,
Resisted being held for too long.
They thought there was something wrong,
But there wasn’t - such pragmatic, trivial features
Weren’t hardwired, a flaw that blessed.
Being held, smiling, those were on my terms.
Mine alone.
I hadn’t yet learnt the importance of hiding,
Of not being earnest.
At least, not to their faces.
Aged six, I scared people.
My solemn gaze, no nonsense attitude,
It was too much for the children,
Who hadn’t learnt to apply themselves.
Difficult to approach, hard to talk to,
Who ever thought that this would be the ticket
That would lead to popularity?
‘Tortured Prince’, they called me later.
For now, I was a ‘Little Piece of Brilliance’.
Just ask my teachers.
Aged fourteen, I scared people.
My topspin serve too fast, it won many an Ace.
It has caused many an opponent to balk,
To misjudge and fail for it.
A skilled athlete, a fierce opponent,
I hated to lose, and never tasted defeat.
Was this a foreshadow of later?
A clue, perhaps?
Aged sixteen, I was adored by people.
A handsome face, almost full-grown, blooming properly.
A dazzling intellect, far mature for my years,
An ‘Angel on Earth’, the girls would call me.
I’m not surprised.
I duped them all, made them believe,
Made them blind to my true self.
Even my family knew nothing - nothing strenuous,
To create this ignorance - they were used to a numbed mind.
Yet I was wishing for that feeling, tired of the motions,
Bored out of my mind.
Is ignorance bliss?
Aged seventeen, I scared myself.
I picked up the notebook, thought it a joke,
Testing it out with abandon, somewhat.
What did I do that for?
I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat, far too aware
Of the consequences awaiting me, would they find out.
And yet, it was a flaw that blessed,
An opportunity, handed down from the gods.
No, one god, a God of Death.
I took it, vowing to save with death,
Become the god.
No longer scared, but sure.
Still aged seventeen, I scared people.
Not directly of course: as the Archangel,
Bringing death swiftly to Criminals and sinners.
‘Kira’, they called me, from ‘Killer’.
Never fell in love with the name, and yet I couldn’t argue.
Men now unable to sleep, scared in their cells,
Waiting for death to come, not knowing how, or who,
Only why: That they had sinned,
Had to pay back-tax and debt to an immortal,
Or so they thought.
Some died before I could take them,
And write them down, just as well.
By their own hand be it.
Not long down the line, L found me.
Tricked me, goaded me,
Made a public scene - death on live television.
Enough to scare the innocents, enough to scare the sinners,
Enough to scare me, I’ll admit.
With it, he tracked me down to one area,
Insistent, brilliant, unshakable,
And yet so brass-necked.
He doesn’t know who he’s dealing with,
That I pass judgement, not he.
He will learn…
One day.
Aged eighteen, I was the scared one,
Not knowing why I was handcuffed,
Confined for what I hadn’t committed, Kira would have to pay.
Fifty-three days spent locked up, L’s camera on me like a shadow,
A third eye that didn’t blink.
I grew thinner, refusing food when I could,
Sure it was poisoned, amazed every time when it wasn’t,
When I ate hungrily, and didn’t keel.
Finally, I was released, reunited with the blonde noise-box,
Sure the remaining handcuffs were a bad sign,
Something wasn’t right.
Driven off the beaten track, to the dried up bank,
The Middle of Nowhere…
Father pulled out the gun, held it to my head,
“You, and then I,” he said, cocking it with a click, at point-blank range.
…Where No One will hear you Scream.
I cried, struggled, tried to stop him, the girl no help -
She screamed, he emptied the clip, I waited for Death.
It didn’t come. It was all a ruse, shooting blanks.
L spoke, thought I’d have seen through it, were I Kira,
Demanded I work with him, 24/7, to which I smiled, nodded.
Selfish Bastard.
Still aged eighteen, I scared people,
Handcuffed now to L, fighting him constantly,
Punching him in the face, while he kicked mine,
Causing a ruckus, scaring the girl, who screamed, always screaming,
So sure the chain broke laws, struggling against him,
Punching the man, knowing he couldn’t bring in the Police
If I did too much damage: he’d have to explain the chain then,
Not the right attention.
Late at night, away from prying eyes, working together,
The war on temporary peace-time, wounds healing,
Wanting the company, yearning,
Screaming for a different reason, waking the building,
The cameras the only clue, the old man’s word he wouldn’t tell,
I know I wouldn’t. The rumour of the ghost haunting at night fooling them,
Always screaming.
Still aged eighteen, I scared L,
Feeling the strange notebook in my grasp,
Unable to let go, images in my third eye
Filling my head, too much pressure there, hurting,
Screams filling my ears, throwing my head back,
My screams.
Gasping for air, he enquired after my health,
I assured him I was fine, at least, I would be,
Remembering only my hatred for him, victory,
Imagining the day he’d scream, and fall.
He deserved it, no questions, no recollection of peaceful nights,
He was in the way,
End all, be all.
Aged twenty-five, L scared people,
Red lights flashing, the old man disappearing from the screen,
Pain in his eyes, finally. It was the time for pain, after all.
Inside, I smiled. On the outside, I looked shocked,
Watching as, with a missing heartbeat,
He fell.
Had to be sure he died, I fell with him, catching,
Hand digging into the shoulder.
Watching the life extinguish, I smirked,
Let him, him alone, know he was right, Kira was with them,
But he didn’t win, he’d never win,
A satisfactory checkmate. He’d have to deal in Hell,
He couldn’t be allowed in my Heaven, Rem too,
If I wanted to give up now, I couldn’t:
Too far gone, innocence dying with the detective,
But it felt good, losing the half, it felt like…
Freedom?
Aged eighteen to twenty-three, I scared people,
Writing every night as Kira, typing away every day as L,
People didn’t know where to run, couldn’t run,
Beginning to believe, praying to me, true worship,
Crime rate down, names on the Internet with pictures.
To own your name, to keep it safe,
That was no longer the right it was,
But a privilege.
Were they learning lessons? Who knows?
They changed, anyhow, knowing my truth, knowing peace.
The peace was their right, with my love.
The peace that I alone, that I above all, could take away,
I was their god, their Kira.
Aged twenty-three, I scared the people, and they scared me,
I came out, admitted it, preached the truth,
My Sermon on the Mount.
Yet, they couldn’t take it, unwelcome in my city,
Made it my last, opening firing on the last attempt to do away with the boy.
Emptying the clip on their god, their idol, their Light.
I yelled, resisted, feeling the sting of hot lead, falling, hitting hard floor.
I’m not ready, I don’t want this, kill them for me,
But no one listened, only stood,
Watching the Fall of an Angel on Earth.
Time running out, on the brink of death, I made a last appeal,
Asked the Shinigami, begged him to write down their names, to kill them,
To let me rule once more.
It failed. I was tricked, given one name before all others -
Mine own.
Once more I fought, resisted, knew it would be a waste to die now, to
Never complete my duty, leave K.I.A.
In forty seconds, rather than in hours bleeding,
I left, crumpled, all dignity lost, all hope lost.
Still struggling, still angry, I died, breathed my last, no longer God,
Just a man.
Ageless, many years later, I scared no one,
Darkness stained the Earth once more, Man free to sin,
So easily, they slipped back to the old ways, six years of progress
Destroyed in one.
Sat in MU, here, they have a saying:
“When one is remembered, one never truly dies”.
I found out the hard way, heard every word spoken of me, saw every action,
Learnt every thought. I watched the funeral, many hearts united in thought
For me, watched them cry, talk in my favour, reminisce my life,
Or what they knew of it.
Meanwhile, I heard the thoughts for Kira, as the World felt the loss:
They noticed the lack of deaths, the lack of judgements,
Hoped I was resting, just gathering my thoughts.
For two weeks, they slunk around, scared,
Never wavering from my path,
With no change, they stepped off, stretching carnal limbs, loosening ties to God,
Leaving in the year, never returning as Prodigals.
My family, they thought I’d died in the fight against Kira, a noble death,
A Just Fighter. How wrong they were.
Long after, the sweet idiot, married to my sister, gave her the tape
From the camera in the warehouse, let her watch the Fall.
Everything clicked for her, my speech, my actions,
Accounts from all who knew me supplying evidence.
A Tortured Prince, she called me, a man who, in richness and health,
Lived in sickness, plagued with a true flaw, unable to cope with his own infallibility,
Like an immortal once destined for death.
Learning the truth, she wrote down my story, all she knew,
Sought an artist’s help, who drew it,
Determined that the world would learn the truth, realise what Kira did,
What he still had the power to do to all who tried to follow him. She,
A teacher, a storyteller, Kira’s first and last prophet.
My story lives on, my name always known,
A monumental event, I will always be remembered,
Immortal.
My name is Light Yagami, and Kira.
I scared people, and I will always scare people, my legacy alive for ever,
Always in living memory. Though dead, an idea that lives on,
Like a God, really, truly, or like a parable, a moral story?
Intended for assistance in keeping Commandments?
Just a story to scare, to keep children learning their lessons,
Or so they’ll think.
Gone are the days when this lesson had ground, when the threat was a promise,
Had consequence. This is temporary peace-time, surely,
A God of Death, a Shinigami will fly, will drop, assist in Rebirth.
One will rise, will use, exact Justice once more from behind the Black Curtain,
Enough to scare the innocents, enough to scare the sinners, enough to scare myself,
I’ll admit.
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A/N: Here, a lovely ‘little’ one-shot I decided to share with you, because I can. I really enjoyed writing this, and if anything, exploring the themes and elaborating on the past he may have had, the present we knew of, and the future that could be was very interesting, all things considered.
This is probably the point where I should tell you that yes; I was greatly influenced by Biblical imagery and language when writing this, as I was by the writers of the series themselves, as with the use of a ‘Black Curtain’ - to explain, check out volume 13, in the explanation of the choosing of the names of the chapters by Tsugumi Ohba, especially for chapter 107, “Curtain”.
When I wrote about the ‘Tortured Prince’ who was like a mortal man made immortal, I was probably thinking about the third book in the ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ five-part trilogy, “Life, the Universe, and Everything”, in which an alien who - after accidently becoming immortal, found that he couldn’t cope with his new found immortality like those ‘serene bastards’ the immortal beings, who had been born that way - decided to make it his personal mission to travel the galaxy/universe and personally insult every being there was to insult, going on in alphabetical order, just because he could. Sounds very familiar, doesn’t it?
Everything before ‘Aged seventeen’ was a fabrication on my part, as was everything after his death. I mean, why not? As long as it made sense to you, I’m totally cool with it. Absolutely fine. As for Sayu’s prolonged presence, and her actions, these are once again fabricated, but maybe not. Perhaps she really did recover enough, actually found out, and decided to use the opportunity to write down her brother’s story, as a warning to others. Hey, maybe she even donated the profit to a mental health charity or two? These ideas are all open to interpretation, as well as being fun to think about and use, in the long run.
I talked way too long, so let me just leave by saying: If you want to discuss this and/or analyse this, go ahead, be my guest - just remember who wrote this and where you found this, and leave a link at least once on the discussion board. Expand on the ideas explored in this poem if you like, and if this inspires you to write something phenomenal, then let it, and go ahead, just remember who inspired you and cite me and this poem, so everyone can see what inspired you, and perhaps benefit, too.
Do leave reviews, because I, like every fanfiction author, live off these things, so do try and add as much constructional criticism as possible, and such. If you flame, don’t blame me when you get reported by someone or another because you couldn’t reign in your stupidity. In short, say what you have to say, be helpful, and please observe copyright and plagiarism laws and regulations, because no one likes theft.
Thanks for reading, please R&R, and I hope you enjoyed it.
Until the next time, hmm?
Ruin Takada XXX