Nate River(A-kira case)

SPK Headquarters, New York — 3:17 AM

The room was silent except for the soft click of dice against the floor.

Near sat cross-legged on the floor, his a bit oversized white pajamas pooling around him like spilled milk. Before him and around all room, a towers of dice rose twelve levels high — a delicate spire of probability held together by nothing but gravity and patience. His black eyes, half-lidded, tracked the slight sway of the topmost die. It did not fall. He did not blink.

On the monitors behind him, the world slept. Crime statistics scrolled in green lines. News tickers murmured about peace — a fragile, exhausted peace. No Kira killings in forty-seven days. The cults had gone underground. The wars had resumed, quietly, in places no one looked.

Near did not look at the monitors. He had memorized the data hours ago.

His left hand played with a strand of long platinum hair, twisting it around his finger, releasing it, twisting again. His right hand hovered near the dice tower, ready to correct a tilt that never came.

"I won," he thought.

The words had no weight. They were simply true — like gravity, like the dice staying stacked, like the fact that Light Yagami was dead.

He had imagined, once, that victory would feel different. He had watched L's recorded messages, seen the man eat sugar and solve the unsolvable, and wondered: Did L feel anything when he solved a puzzle? The footage never showed it. L's face remained blank, even in triumph.

Now Near understood.

Victory was not a feeling. It was the absence of motion. The puzzle was complete. There were no more pieces to place. And without pieces…

He placed the die on the floor. It stood on edge — balanced, improbable, a tower of one.

The room was silent.

Then —

Click.

The door handle turned.