Yes.
So the reason why this one is an easy answer is because the (En)Closure series as it is now is still me just throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks.
Actually, to be entirely honest, (En)Closure originally started as one of Tetsuki Kaiza’s reincarnated lives–which is why she’s originally slated to die during the Kira vs L disaster, because I am awful to Tetsuki Kaiza and never let her live beyond 25 years old.
But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the person I wanted for (En)Closure doesn’t work with Tetsuki’s personality. Haru is nosy and loud and greedy, she wants to help because she does believe in humanity as a whole but she is terribly rude and awkward. Whereas Tetsuki tends to be sullen and overly polite and she only gets involved when individual people she loves are in danger.
Vastly different people, as you can see.
As it is right now, I consider the (En)Closure ficlets as prototypes–me trying to figure out what might work, what details I want to include, what thoughts persists but don’t actually fit: Haru’s death is one that is changeable.
I think, beyond the Tetsuki Kaiza curse, the reason why I originally proposed Haru dying was because I wanted to express that even with her medium abilities, she ISN’T a genius. She solves crimes because she has more clues, not because she can make impossible but true deductions off of what little clues exist.
But her not being able to keep up–or her only barely keeping up because of her network of ghosts–can be shown in other ways. And it’s not like Light and L are working completely on their own: they both have their own teams. I guess instead of thinking of it in terms of Haru vs Light vs L, it should be the dead (guided by/via Haru) vs Kira (as created by Light) vs the law (led by L). So it doesn’t matter that Haru as a person cannot keep up with Light and L as people–she is a vessel through which spirits work through, she does not need human intelligence to win/survive.
I do think, however, there may be sacrifices. Maybe she survives because her medium abilities come from being “born dead” (water in her lungs) and because of that she can’t be killed via the Death Note. But no doubt Shinigami have other abilities besides that.
Maybe instead of Sai asking Haru to help him move on he sacrifices himself such that she doesn’t die. Like. She knows she can’t keep up, but she didn’t realize how outclassed she was until then.
And it would kind of lead into why Hikaru doesn’t show up so much–because she did distance herself from him to keep him safe, but also this time there is a concrete reason for why Sai is gone. It’s not Haru, of course, but she won’t tell Hikaru the truth. She has to keep him safe (it’s the last thing Sai asked of her).
During the Hikaru no Go part of (En)Closure–aka her teenage years–she was confident in the knowledge that she was one of the strongest mediums (if not THE strongest) in Japan. But mediums being able to interact and even control spirits doesn’t mean shit against gods. And that’s where the Death Note part of her life–aka, her twenties–starts to shake her faith in herself, forces her to confront the fact that her abilities do not make her invincible.
But there’s something appealing about her surviving despite her lack of genius. And maybe, true, it’s because she wasn’t really the primary target of Kira, but it’s a mark of… skill? luck? composure?… to be someone who has survived Kira.
All that being said, I should probably admit that I never actually finished reading Death Note. O_O Which is why this is a giant rant and not a proper brainstorm. I got up to where L dies and some intro of Near and Melo, but not any farther than that so…
However, I might be able to do some quick and vague “after the danger has passed but now we have to deal with the consequences” feels stuff? Let’s see…
~
Haru kneels beside her parents and tries to focus on being the perfect image of a bereaving granddaughter.
She shuts her eyes, squeezes them tight, lets the phosphenes paint pictures behind her eyelids.
Fuck, what a horrible thought. As if she weren’t honestly grieving. As if she were just up here for looks, out of obligation, maintaining the reputation of a man already dead. Or, worse, to maintain her own reputation.
Her own stupid, useless, overblown reputation.
Gods–and they do exist, she’s seen some–she used to be so proud of that reputation.
And then look where it got her.
She takes a shaky, steeling breath and opens her eyes. Sees the crowd of faces that have come to pay their respects.
This is the first funeral she’s gone to in what seems like an eternity that had absolutely nothing to do with Kuwabara Haru, the professional medium, and instead Kuwabara Haru, the person.
—
She has nightmares sometimes.
After what she’s seen, what she’s had done to her–worse, what she had to do to others–it’s no surprise.
Her cousin Shizuru says it’s a natural reaction, her subconscious mind trying and failing to process the trauma.
Haru is pretty sure it’s punishment.
The worst nightmares are the ones in which everything is exactly the same but above everyone’s heads she sees their names and remaining times in glowing, ominous red.
—
Most of the visitors are, unsurprisingly, from the Go Institute.
Ogata-juudan, of course, who was finally able to rip the Honinbou title from her grandfather away before losing it, almost immediately.
Grandfather had laughed so hard that day, she thought he might have actually hurt himself.
The retired former Touya-Meijin and the current Touya-Meijin, and of course the current Honinbou.
She used to hate knowing so much about the Go world–had considered it an unnecessary distraction from her fate given role. Now she wishes it were still the safe and comfortable haven it used to be.
The Honinbou steps forward to give his condolences:
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Hikaru says, so bland and dry and empty.
She hates this most of all.
—
Sai was the oldest ghost she has ever and, most likely, will ever meet.
In his own way, he was also the most powerful.
He was kind and wise, caring and honest, and probably the best person she could have the honor of considering a friend, dead or alive.
She may not have destroyed him directly, but it’s because of her that his soul will never find peace.
Hikaru doesn’t know the truth.
Hikaru can’t know the truth.
—
Grandfather and Sai and Hikaru.
She misses all of them so much.
~
JackSGreyson Says 