"Well, Light, it's been interesting."
"All humans will, without exception, eventually die."
After the forty-second countdown ends, the Kira Task Force and SPK remain alive. This shocks both Light and Mikami — especially since Mikami said out loud (just as the countdown ended) that he did everything Light wanted. After Near orders Rester and Gevanni to arrest Mikami, Near reveals that Mikami never wrote Light's name in the Death Note. When Mikami refers to Light as "God", not even Light can hide the truth any more.
Cornered and in trouble, Light claims that he doesn't know Mikami, calling the whole situation a framejob by Near. Aizawa tells Light that he can no longer deny the truth. Mikami has confessed and Near has won. The revelation of Kira's true identity crushes Matsuda's heart, since he'd believed in Light's innocence the whole time. As soon as Mogi tries to handcuff Light, he runs to a wall in a panic and finally confesses the truth.
While Near explains how he foiled Light's plan (which involved a fake Death Note, Mello's kidnapping of Takada and the study of Mikami's daily habits), an increasingly-frantic Light tries to figure out some way out of his jam. Light remembers the hidden piece of Death Note paper in his watch, but upon trying to use it, an enraged Matsuda shoots him several times. Mikami jams a pen into his heart to commit suicide after seeing Light shot and losing faith in "God". While the Kira Task Force tries to keep Mikami alive, Light escapes — but with his injuries, he doesn't make it far. After Light collapses on a staircase in a nearby abandoned warehouse. Ryuk returns to make good on a promise from the beginning of the series, writing Light's name in the Death Note.
As the Kira Task Force searches nearby buildings and Misa Amane stands atop a skyscraper (possibly to commit suicide), Light Yagami dies of cardiac arrest...per the rules of the Death Note.
Tropes used in this episode:
- Adapted Out:
- Among other things, the major plot point in the manga that was taken out has Ryuk clarify what he told Light: Those who use the Death Note will be unable to enter Heaven or Hell when they die. Before he writes the human's name, Ryuk clarifies that human Death Note users (and humanity itself) end up in MU (which means nothingness).
- Also, the manga has Light begging not to die before his time was up. Here, he runs off and later dies in a hiding spot when Ryuk writes his name in the Death Note.
- The final chapter of the series, which was a Distant Finale set one year in the future and showing what the surviving characters are doing after the defeat of Kira, is cut from the anime. Instead the anime ends with Light dying and Misa seemingly about to commit suicide.
- Afterlife Welcome: Light sees L watching him as he dies on the staircase, though it may simply be a hallucination, considering there's no real afterlife for anyone.
- Ain't Too Proud to Beg: As he's writhing in agony from his injuries, Light makes one final plea for his allies to save him.
- Alas, Poor Villain: More like Villain Protagonist and more specifically for the anime version. After all that Light had worked for, he's suddenly in a position where he has no one to turn to and everyone on the taskforce knows who and what he is. He tries in vain to make them see his viewpoint, but no one is willing to listen to him. He makes one last desperate attempt to get rid of the remaining "obstacles" in his path, but he gets fired upon by the last person he expected to turn on him. After being shot, all he can do is pitifully call out for his allies who are either not there or have been killed by him, still not realizing it’s his fault. After escaping the warehouse, he sees himself before he got the Death Note and only sobs harder, clearly feeling regret in the end. Once he lies dying on the stairs, he quietly accepts his fate. Many fans think that his defeat here is pretty sad and makes him sympathetic.
- Always Need What You Gave Up: After having thrown away all his allies, convinced that he was smart enough to not need them, Light pathetically begs Misa and Takada to save him while he's writhing on the ground in agony, the former having shortened her lifespan twice for his sake and the latter killing Mello.
- Ambiguous Situation:
- Near may or may not have used the Death Note to kill Light and Mikami. Matsuda theorized in the manga that he did, but there's no confirmation.
- At the end of the episode Misa is shown standing on the ledge of a tall building with the implication that she is about to commit suicide. It's not shown whether or not she goes through with it though considering how many times she took the Shinigami Eyes she likely doesn't have long to live anyway.
- Berserker Tears: Matsuda, after learning Light is Kira, becomes a crying mess as he’s shooting Light.
- Big Sleep: One of the bigger differences from the manga. Originally, once Light realized that Ryuk just sealed his fate by writing his name down, he started pleading for his life and Dies Wide Open. For this ending, he just shuts his eyes as he dies on the stairs.
- Bloodier and Gorier:
- By far the bloodiest episode in the series, that it earned the series its only TV-MA episode.
- This especially goes for Mikami's death in the anime, where in the original manga, he died off-screen ten days later, having rejected Light as God (and was implied to be through Near using the Death Note, though this is never fully confirmed in the epilogue). The anime has him stab himself with the pen, leading to his legendary High-Pressure Blood death.
- Book Ends: Ryuk returns to Light at the end to fulfil the promise made when the two first met — by writing Light's name in the Death Note.
- Break the Haughty: The entire episode is a drawn-out process of this for Light, and by the end he is utterly, utterly broken.
- Broken Pedestal: Matsuda is utterly devastated upon learning Light was Kira the whole time. He’s reduced to tears and tries to kill Light personally. He had to be restrained to be stopped from fatally shooting him.
- Cessation of Existence: The second rule eye-catch reveals that all humans, regardless of whether or not they used a Death Note, go to MU after death (Nothingness).
- Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Light has no problem throwing his accomplice Mikami under the bus to try and prove he's not Kira.
- Couldn't Find a Pen: After Matsuda shoots Light's pen out of his hand to stop him from writing in his watch, Light tries using blood from his hand to keep writing, forcing Matsuda to shoot him some more.
- Cue the Sun: At the start of the episode, as it's shown that no one has died.
- Didn't Think This Through: Near explains how he was able to outsmart Light. However, the fact that Light prematurely declared victory at the end of last episode is what ultimately exposes him as Kira. Light should have kept his mouth shut until he was absolutely sure whether or not the Death Note claimed everyone.
- Dies Differently in Adaptation: A variation in which in both manga and anime, Ryuk writes Light's name in the Death Note. Unlike in the manga, however, instead of Light dying an Undignified Death, begging and pleading for his life when he realizes Ryuk wrote his name in there, he runs off to a hiding spot and peacefully dies on some stairs while Ryuk merely muses about their time together, all the while reminding him of his promise at the beginning of the series.
- The Dog Bites Back: After all the abuse of the series, Matsuda fires back.
- Driven to Suicide:
- Mikami stabs himself in the chest with a pen, which distracted the police long enough for Light to run out the door. This never happened in the manga and Mikami ended up rejecting Light when he realized that he was never God, just before going to prison and taking his own life.
- It's strongly implied that Misa does this after Light dies.
- Deus ex Machina: Near's plan completely hinged on Gevanni being able to perfectly duplicate the real notebook down to the microscopic level all in one night.
- Dying Alone: Light escapes from the warehouse and dies in an abandoned building alone, though he does see L's spirit (or a mere hallucination of him) before he passes.
- Dying as Yourself: It's implied that maybe in his last moments, Light realized what he had done and was himself for the last moments of his life.
- Dying Dream: As Light lays dying on the stairs, he sees an apparition of L standing before him. As the eyecatch reveals there's no afterlife for anyone, it's heavily implied to be a hallucination of L's ghost.
- Future Me Scares Me: A rare case where Light is currently his future self, as he's running from the warehouse he imagines his younger self before he found the notebook and how his life could have gone differently before he let it corrupt him.
- Heroic Sacrifice: This turns out to be what Mello's actions were for. Knowing full well he'd die as a result, he counted on the fact that Takada is the only direct line of communication between Kira and Mikami; by disrupting her, it was highly likely that the two of them would make some kind of critical error that Near could take advantage of. Near even notes that he wouldn't have been able to corner Light without Mello's sacrifice.
- High-Pressure Blood: Mikami stabbing his chest with a pen results in a geyser of blood, complete with a loud gushing sound. Blood also spurts dramatically when Light is shot.
- Holding Your Shoulder Means Injury: Light provides the trope image, as he runs from the warehouse.
- I'll Kill You!: Matsuda screams this several times when he's about to shoot Light point-blank in the head before the rest of the Task Force holds him back.
- Just One Little Mistake: The way Near deduces Light and Mikami are working together as Kira is seeing Mikami break his usual schedule and writing Takeda’a name in the notebook with a slightly different time of death.
- Laughing Mad: Light, upon getting irritated with Near boasting him to talk his way out. Brad Swaile says that this was the biggest laugh he prepared himself for.
- Motive Rant: After revealing himself as Kira, Light tries to sway the others with how the world needs Kira to handle crime.
- Shut Up, Hannibal!: Near's response. "No. You are just a murderer."
- Moving the Goalposts: Light says that even with global wars having ended and crime down 70% he still considers the world as rotten until it reaches his definition of perfection.
- Oh, Crap!: Both Light and Mikami are shocked to discover that everyone is still alive 40 seconds after their names were written.
- Odd Name Out: This is the only episode to have more than one word in the title.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Mikami breaking his incredibly rigid schedule tipped off Gevanni that there was something wrong. This eventually led to the SPK obtaining the real Death Note.
- Sanity Slippage: Light grows increasingly desperate and unhinged as he runs out of options, laughing, screaming and begging his disillusioned, dead or absent allies to help him.
- Spanner in the Works: Mikami wrote Takada's name in the real Death Note soon after Light did, which alerted the SPK to the Death Note's location and allowed them to confiscate and replace it.
- Speak Ill of the Dead: Light calls his own father a fool, which makes Matsuda angrier than he already is.Matsuda: You killed your father in cold blood, and now that he's dead you called him a fool?!
- This Cannot Be!: Light says something to this effect when Near reveals he had the real Death Note all along.
- Uncertain Doom: The last we see of Misa is her standing on the edge of a building, heavily implying she's going to kill herself. She might not have long to live anyways, considering she's traded off half her current lifespan twice over the course of the series.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Near reveals that since he touched the real notebook he's been able to see Ryuk the whole meeting, and casually introduces himself. Ryuk for his part isn't surprised that Near can see him and helpfully answers his question of if a torn piece of the notebook could still kill someone.
- Villainous Breakdown: Light goes into this upon finally running out of plans and being cornered. He loses all composure as he’s exposed as Kira and is reduced to a raving lunatic while trying to kill Near on the notebook scrap hidden in his watch.
