Chapter Text
The warehouse was cold. Dark. The pain in Light’s chest from the bullet wounds was still fresh, but the agony was nothing compared to the crushing weight of failure, of defeat. His vision dimmed as he lay in a pool of his own blood, L’s expression—calm and victorious—etched into his mind in his final moments. The mocking grin of Ryuk was the last thing he saw before everything went black.
But death didn’t come with the sweet release of oblivion. No, death brought him to Mu.
Light had long accepted that he would neither go to heaven nor hell. Ryuk had said as much when the Shinigami first entered his life. Yet, Light hadn’t anticipated this—a cold, endless void. Mu stretched out in all directions, a place where nothing existed except the weight of the lives he had taken. He had no body, no form, just a consciousness adrift in nothingness.
At first, he tried to make sense of it. He rationalized that it was a temporary state, that he would find some way out of this limbo. But days turned into years, years into centuries, and centuries into millennia. There was no escape. Only the mounting horror of reliving every death he had caused, every innocent soul he had sent to an early grave.
Naomi Misora was the first. She appeared before him, her face twisted in confusion and pain as she realized who he was, what he had done to her. Light tried to reach out to her, to explain, but she couldn’t hear him. She was trapped in her final moments, walking aimlessly, clutching the note he had given her before she disappeared. Her terror was endless, reliving the helpless spiral toward her demise.
Every moment she had lived, every second she should have experienced if she hadn’t crossed his path, stretched on for what felt like an eternity. The time she should have spent living—a life filled with potential, joy, sorrow, growth—was presented to Light like an open wound. He could see everything she had lost because of him.
And then L.
The image of L appeared before him, stooped in his usual hunched position, his eyes cold, calculating. But this wasn’t the L he had sparred with. This was L moments before his death—betrayed, broken, and deceived by the one he had considered his friend.
Light saw it all again. How he had used Rem to manipulate L’s fate, how L had been too trusting in those final moments. He remembered the way L looked at him, the faint spark of understanding dawning too late in his eyes, and then… death. The fall from the chair, the empty stillness that followed. And then, like Naomi, Light saw the life L should have had—decades more of work, solving cases, saving lives.
The more deaths Light relived, the harder it became to separate himself from the weight of their consequences. It was as though their pain, their suffering, and their lost potential were slowly fusing with him. It wasn’t just guilt anymore. It was like the essence of every life he had snuffed out was suffocating him, drowning him in an ocean of misery.
As the millennia passed, he began to understand the true horror of Mu. It wasn’t just nothingness. It was being confronted with the irreversible damage he had wrought, with no hope of making amends.
And then, the Shinigami King appeared.
Light had never seen the King before, but the sight of him was grotesque. His form was enormous and skeletal, with a face that seemed to shift and contort, never settling on one expression for too long. His eyes, burning like twin orbs of decay, peered down at Light with an unsettling mixture of curiosity and boredom.
“You’ve been here long enough, I think,” the Shinigami King said, his voice a low, grating rasp that echoed through the emptiness.
Light, for the first time in millennia, found his voice. “What do you mean?”
The King’s grin stretched impossibly wide. “Mu isn’t meant for beings like you. Humans… You’re not supposed to stay here forever.”
Light frowned, the haze of guilt and pain briefly parting. “Ryuk said there was no heaven or hell for people like me.”
The Shinigami King chuckled, a sound like bones grinding together. “He wasn’t entirely wrong. But staying here forever? No. It goes against the balance of life and death.”
Light’s mind raced, though it felt sluggish after so long in the void. “Then why was I sent here?”
“Humans believe what they want to believe. We Shinigami… we enjoy watching how you respond when faced with your end. Mu is a place for reflection, for realization. But it’s not your final destination.”
Light’s heart—or whatever passed for one in this formless state—began to pound. “What happens now?”
The Shinigami King leaned closer, his decaying breath washing over Light like rot. “I’m giving you a second chance.”
Light blinked, struggling to comprehend. “A second… chance?”
“You’ll go back. Back before you ever touched the Death Note. You’ll relive your life. But this time…” The King’s eyes gleamed with cruel amusement. “You must not repeat your mistakes. If you can avoid the path you took, perhaps you’ll find a different fate.”
Light’s mind spun with the implications. “And if I fail?”
“Then, human, you will wish you had stayed in Mu.”
Before Light could protest, the Shinigami King raised a bony hand and snapped his fingers. The void around Light twisted, the millennia of torment spiraling away like a vanishing nightmare. His consciousness plunged into darkness once more.
Light shot up in bed, his scream tearing through the stillness of the night. His chest heaved, heart pounding so hard it felt as though it would burst through his ribs. His throat was raw from the force of his cries, and for a moment, all he could see was darkness—a suffocating blackness, like Mu had followed him back into life. His hands clutched the bed sheets, fingers trembling as sweat soaked through the fabric beneath him.
The door to his bedroom burst open, and Sachiko Yagami rushed in, her face drawn with worry and fear. “Light! Light, what’s wrong?!”
Light barely registered her presence, his breath coming in shallow, ragged gasps. He could feel his chest tightening, each inhale more painful than the last, as if his lungs were refusing to cooperate. He didn’t recognize his surroundings, not fully—his mind was still trapped in Mu, drowning in the faces of the people he had killed, in the endless replay of their deaths.
Sachiko was beside him in an instant, sitting on the edge of his bed and reaching out with trembling hands. “Shh, Light, it’s okay, it’s okay. I’m here.” Her voice was soft, filled with the kind of tender concern only a mother could offer.
She cupped his face with gentle hands, brushing away the sweat that beaded on his forehead. Light’s vision blurred as he blinked rapidly, trying to pull himself out of the swirling storm of emotions, but it was no use. The guilt crushed him, suffocating every rational thought, and he could feel himself spiraling—falling into a deep well of shame and regret.
“I… I can’t…” Light rasped, his voice barely more than a whisper, choked and strained. He wanted to say more, to explain the unbearable weight pressing down on him, but the words refused to form. His chest burned, and his breath hitched as he fought against the rising tide of panic.
“Shh, it’s alright,” Sachiko murmured, pulling him into her arms. The warmth of her embrace was familiar, comforting, yet it only made the guilt gnaw deeper into his soul. How could he ever let her hold him like this, knowing what he had done? What he had become?
Sachiko rocked him gently, as though he were a small child again. “It was just a nightmare, sweetie,” she whispered, her chin resting on the top of his head. “You’re safe. It’s over now. You’re home.”
The words cut through the haze of panic, but they offered no relief. Home. The very thought made his stomach twist with nausea. This wasn’t home. He didn’t belong here. He didn’t deserve this. Not after everything…
“I… I can’t…” he muttered again, his voice shaky and uncertain. He buried his face into his mother’s shoulder, the fabric of her nightgown cool and soft against his damp skin. He was trembling, collapsing inward under the weight of his own mind. He didn’t have the strength to fight against it. He wasn’t the all-powerful Kira anymore—he was just… Light. A scared, guilt-ridden boy, crumbling under the weight of a burden too great to carry.
Sachiko’s hand moved in slow, soothing circles along his back, her touch gentle and patient. “It’s okay, Light,” she repeated, her voice unwavering. “I’m here.”
Her reassurances washed over him, but they didn’t reach the deep-rooted guilt gnawing at his core. His breaths came in shallow, irregular bursts, each one more difficult than the last. His chest felt tight, like a vise was clamped around it, squeezing out every last bit of air.
“I’m sorry,” Light whispered, barely able to get the words out. He wasn’t even sure why he said it, or who he was apologizing to—Sachiko, himself, the endless stream of victims whose faces haunted him? He didn’t know anymore. He didn’t even know where he was or when he was. It all felt like some twisted nightmare he couldn’t escape.
“Sweetie, you don’t have anything to be sorry for,” Sachiko replied softly, her fingers still threading through his sweat dampened hair, trying to calm him. “It was just a bad dream. That’s all. It’s not real.”
But it was real. It was all real. Every death. Every life he had taken. Every single moment of his past, laid out before him, replaying over and over in his mind until it was all he could see. He squeezed his eyes shut, but the faces still came, relentless and accusing. Naomi. L. So many others. He could never outrun them.
“I didn’t mean to…” Light’s voice broke as he stammered, his breath catching in his throat. “I didn’t mean to…”
“Shh, it’s okay. It’s okay,” Sachiko said again, her voice soft and lulling, her hands never ceasing their gentle movements along his back. “Whatever it was, it’s over now. You’re safe. I’m here.”
Light’s body shook with silent sobs, the overwhelming emotion crashing over him like a tidal wave. His mind was unraveling, pieces of it slipping away as the weight of everything he had done came crashing down in full force. His grip on reality, on the present, was tenuous at best. He felt like he was trapped in the body of a child again, scared and vulnerable, with no control over his surroundings.
Sachiko’s voice pierced through the fog. “Light… sweetie, was it a nightmare?” she asked gently, her tone filled with nothing but concern.
He didn’t know how to respond. How could he possibly explain what he had seen? What he had felt? The millennia in Mu, the endless deaths, the crushing guilt? He couldn’t. He couldn’t make sense of any of it.
“I…” He hesitated, trying to pull himself together, to force his voice to steady, but it was no use. His throat was raw, his breathing shallow. “Y-yes,” he whispered eventually, clutching onto the lie because it was easier than the truth.
Sachiko’s expression softened, her shoulders relaxing as she let out a relieved sigh. “Oh, Light… You’ve been watching too many of those police shows again, haven’t you?” she said with a gentle smile. “I keep telling you, solving those cases along with the detectives for fun isn’t good for you. You get so caught up in them.”
Light flinched at her words, guilt surging through him like a sharp stab to the heart. She thought it was just a nightmare—an innocent side effect of his habit of solving crime cases for amusement. She didn’t know. She couldn’t know. The idea of her finding out the truth made him feel sick to his core.
He could barely meet her eyes. “Yeah… maybe,” he muttered weakly, his voice devoid of any conviction. It felt wrong—everything felt wrong. His entire being was at odds with itself, torn between the crushing guilt of his past and the impossible reality of being here again, in his old bedroom, with his mother comforting him as though he were deserving of it.
Sachiko pulled back slightly, brushing his hair out of his eyes. “It’s just a bad dream, sweetie,” she said, her voice filled with that same warm reassurance. “You’ll be okay.”
Light wanted to believe her, but how could he? How could he ever be okay again? He could feel the memories of his first life clawing at him, trying to pull him back under, and it took every ounce of his strength not to succumb to the panic again.
“You used to have nightmares when you were little, too,” Sachiko continued softly, her hand still resting on his shoulder. “Remember how you used to crawl into my bed when you were scared?”
Light blinked, his vision blurry with unshed tears. The memory surfaced unbidden, and for a brief moment, he was pulled back to a simpler time—a time before the Death Note, before Kira, before everything had gone so terribly wrong. He remembered those nights, how he would run to his mother’s room and climb into bed beside her, the warmth and comfort of her presence banishing any fear he had felt.
“I remember,” he whispered, his voice trembling.
Sachiko smiled gently. “Would you like to do that now? Just like old times? You can sleep in my bed if it’ll help you feel better.”
Light hesitated, the offer both comforting and painfully nostalgic. He hadn’t been close to his mother in years—not in his first life, at least. He had distanced himself from her, from all of them, in pursuit of his twisted idea of justice. The realization hit him like a punch to the gut, and the guilt gnawed at him even more fiercely.
But here, now, in this moment… he couldn’t bring himself to refuse. He needed the comfort, the warmth, the familiarity. He needed something to ground him, to remind him that he wasn’t in Mu anymore, that he was back in his old life—even if that life was filled with the ghosts of his past.
“Okay,” he whispered, his voice small and fragile. “I… I’d like that.”
Sachiko smiled again, the kind of smile only a mother could give—a smile filled with unconditional love, with the promise of safety and comfort. She stood, gently guiding Light out of bed and toward her room, her arm wrapped around his shoulders. He followed her without protest, his body still trembling, but his mind slightly calmer now.
As they walked down the hall, Sachiko’s voice broke the silence once more. “Everything’s going to be okay, Light. I promise.”
But Light couldn’t shake the feeling that nothing would ever be okay again.