Fic update: Death Note - Broken Hallelujahs - Chapter 16

[tallulahgs]

[Title] Broken Hallelujahs
[Rating] PG-13 (slightly above that language-wise)
[Fandom] Death Note
[Story Summary] AU. Neither Raito nor Near's victory went as planned. Now the task force and the SPK are on the run with Kira's notebook and all the power of the new world against them.

Penultimate chapter! Who's going to make it out alive?

[Chapter 16 on Fanfiction.net]

[Chapter 16 on skyehawke.com]

Comments

[mayfic.livejournal.com]

Oh my god, we're nearing the end!

Light didn't, in the end, take that much to undo. He was relying on the fact that he was so sure that Matsuda would do what he wanted.

He didn't have much chance after the death note was dissolved, though, so all that needed to happen was either a stretch where Kira kills nobody (all he has is Misa, indefinitely, and she's going to be little use without a death note) or be caught killing people, himself, in a way that would clarify him as just a murderer.

And it's an interesting place for the chapter to end where Light is dead but there's still one more chapter.

The scene where the SPK died (?) was pretty disturbing, because I really do think that Kira's supporters would just tear people apart like that.

Really awesome chapter, looking forward to the final one.:)

a review

[fatalna.livejournal.com]

…in which I blather on using IT terms and a very long paragraph about Matsuda, too.

Aizawa, or the Chief-lite, gone too soon! But I liked his final scene, like that of total prankster, taunting Raito and ducking out. Unlike Mogi or Ide or Matsuda, Aizawa's got the moral high ground of not having screwed up in any way. But that is not enough. Maybe that's what separates the task force and the SPK from the geniuses -- despite his moral superiority, Aizawa still cares for his team mates and chooses to divert Kira's followers from pursuit, bringing the ire of Raito upon him in order to give them a chance of escaping.

The scene between Misa and Mogi is as real as it gets, there are no lies or half-veiled truths thrown around, it is what it is, whatever it is between them two. And I can certainly appreciate someone who is torn between allegiance to two different people, allegiance that is based on different principles in each case, allegiance that wavers, shimmers, and may break down or …or not.

I'm not sure if it's appropriate to go into how I thought things were going to go down, but suffice it to say, the showdown between Raito and Matsuda satisfied each and every expectation, beginning with Matsuda dream-like state when accompanying Raito as he searches for Ide and ending with Matsuda's immediate concern for Raito, having inadvertently shot him in the struggle over the gun. Over the course of the story the two of them develop a kind of relationship -- that of the condemned and the savior, of the turtured and the torturer -- a relationship that binds them a little closer together than Raito may realize. His ploy to break down Matsuda with his words alone, in front of Ide, ends up backfiring not because it was impossible to begin with, in fact, the threat of Matsuda taking his own life was very very real, but because Matsuda is obsessed with doing things right, making amends, proving things to himself and to the world at large. What saved him was a kind of primal instinct (in IT terminology we'd say he POSTed, in reference to the power-on-self-test routines that run after a device is rebooted/powered on), that called up the image of the Chief, his mentor, and his own role as a police officer, and his capabilities as such. Again, the kind of brainwashing he received from Raito (over the course of the Kira investigation as well as the their recent encounters) that he's fighting against is tough to discard, especially since he has previously offered, even begged, to take his own life. One of my favorite moments is when Matsuda externalizes himself into "the smart version of him, the one who always knows the right thing to say, the one who's a nice person," bringing into contrast the kind of person he felt he had been since he had shot an innocent person -- scattered, frightened, damaged -- in search of restitution for the things he did or did not do and an idealized image of oneself that each of us carry within.

By the time Ryuk reappears to confirm Raito's demise (I love how you wove in elements from the ending of the manga and anime) he almost seems superfluous -- the human drama alone drives the story and makes it a compelling and unforgettable read.