[FFML] [FIC][DEATH NOTE AU] Silent Partner, Unfinished Business ch. 05

[Paul Durant]

    I am not Brian Azzarello, author of 100 Bullets, nor am I Tsugumi
Ohba, author of Death Note.


                               * * * * * * *


    SILENT PARTNER, UNFINISHED BUSINESS:


    SLAUGHTERHOUSE


                               * N A O M I *


    "Honey! I'm home!" I called out to the house as I chucked my keys
onto the counter. "Boy, work was really murder today!" It wasn't. I didn't
murder anyone. I just took credit for it. The blood on my clothes was
mine.


    "Naomi, sweetie! Come here, give me a kiss!" Raye said as he came
out from the kitchen to meet me. He had on the flack jacket of a Hostage
Rescue Team member. He kissed me on both cheeks, and then I grabbed him by
the neck, swung him down, and shoved my tongue down his throat. He grabbed
on to me, and we moaned into each other's mouths as we made out. The
zippers and spikes on my leather jacket were clinking and rattling as we
rocked each other's bodies.


    And then he stood, wiped my lipstick off his mouth, smacked his
lips. "Mmmmm. Mmm. Who's she?" he asked, pointing over to Misa.


    Misa had been waiting quite patiently with her hands folded at her
waist. When Raye indicated her, she bowed deeply, and said "Konnichiwa!"


    "I wanted you to meet her, Raye!" I said, and I held out an arm to
each of them. "This is Misa Amane. She's a famous model, AND, she's a
serial killer! We're an item!"


    "You're getting married?" Was that what I said? He looked hurt,
and the spear in his chest didn't help. "I thought I was everything you
wanted... I thought you would be with me forever!" He pointed to the
kitchen, where I was waiting, barefoot and pregnant, holding a roast that
had just come out of the oven. "What happened to her? She was who you were
going to be, wasn't it?"


    "I was..." I said defensively, backing away like he was a coiled
snake. "...But you died. I can't be a housewife to a dead man. I'm, I'm
someone different now. I had serious brain damage. Maybe I like girls
now."


    Misa passed me a note. She couldn't speak on her own, but she
wrote in Japanese, and I had to tell myself I didn't read Japanese so I
could act like I was an American.


    "What about our Naomi?" asked two men in unison -- Kitamura
Koreyoshi and Walter Sorenson, though I had never seen the latter.
Kitamura had ten bullet anti-holes in his chest. They pointed out onto the
command floor where Naomi Misora, FBI Agent was hard at work cracking a
case. "You thought you were going to be her forever too. We just wanted
her back, that's all!"


    "I wanted to start a family!" Why was everyone attacking me?
"That's normal for women of my age!"


    "You wanted to quit the first time you had a disciplinary
procedure," Sorenson said. His mouth didn't move. He didn't have one.


    "And that's why I swept in to tell you I could take away all the
problems you made for yourself and make everything better," said Raye,
clapping me on the shoulder reassuringly. Misa was trying to tell me
something. She couldn't. I could tell from her eyes it was important, but
I wasn't a good interpreter. "And that's what you needed at that part of
your life: an easy out!"


    "You told yourself you were going to get revenge on me," said
Kitamura, "and look how that turned out! You couldn't seal the deal there
either."


    Ryuzaki was perched in the chair behind me. "I was considering
making you the next L. You're tempramental, moody, unreliable, and deal
poorly with frustration. You also solve cases on occasion."


    "Shut up! Just shut up, okay!" My lips and tongue were numb and
motionless, but my voice came out of Misa's mouth, so it sounded weird,
like hearing a tape of your own voice. "I got through physical therapy!
That was hard! I didn't quit!"


    "I had to dangle a license to kill in front of your face to get
you to crawl out of bed, and it still took you months to even try to use
it," said Agent Graves. He was just a silhouette, holding a briefcase, all
of him black but the white dress shirt under his suit coat and his amber
sunglasses. When did I see him in sunglasses? The shadow cast behind him
was a tableau of revenge and murder and injustice. "Now you just mope
around L's office and sponge off his trust fund."


    "It's okay, Naomi," Raye said in his perfectly charitable voice.
"I know you still love me. I know you still honor our commitment. We're
better off this way, right?" That's him, finding a silver lining. "I'm
dead, so I can't say anything to piss you off or make you give up. You
probably wouldn't have made it far enough in the engagement to leave me at
the altar."


    "Don't listen to them, Naomi!" Misa implored me. "They're just
saying what you hate about yourself, not what's true! If you need me to
help you communicate, I can help you keep going too!" She hugged me and
buried her face in my chest. Her touch was so reassuring. It was just what
I needed. "And there's nothing wrong with wanting a man to take away all
the problems you made and tell you what to do! That's what I did!"


    "What's up, people!" Light Yagami said as he threw open the front
door and slid inside. The laugh track lasted at least five seconds.
"Whooooooooooa, what's going on in here? You didn't say you were stealing
my girl, Naomi!" He winked to the camera.


    All color drained from the room as I shoved Misa behind me and
whipped out my gun. I leveled it at his head. And my hand shook.


    "What's the matter, Naomi? Figure that since Misa is Kira I must
be too?" he asked with a deranged glint. "Well Misa doesn't think so, does
she? And Ryuzaki doesn't think so. He's much smarter than you. Maybe I'm
innocent. Maybe I used to be Kira just like her, and Kira left me just
like her. What are you going to do about it? Even if you thought you had
something, you couldn't act on it. Don't you know powerlessness is the
only rule of this world? All you can do is let L think for you. You know
how much you'll screw it up if you try. You're a fraud. You tricked
everyone into thinking you were a genius because a dumbfuck
triple-murderer decided to try and impress you by jerking off in your
face. What can you actually do?" Blood was oozing from his eyes. His skin
was marked with arcane symbols in thick, livid red scars. I lowered my
gun. He was right. I couldn't kill the guilty, how could I kill the
innocent? How could I find out, when I was a useless, crippled fake? How
could I do anything?


    "C'mere, Misa!" I shouted. "I'm so damn tired and so damn lonely,
I don't even care about the blood on your hands!" She squealed and jumped
on me, knocking me to the floor--


    I fell out of bed. A nightmare. Of course it was. It made sense
when I was in it, and I woke up, and realized it was nonsense. Misa hadn't
been awoken by the noise I made on impact, but her sleep didn't seem
peaceful. She grimaced, disturbed by what she saw in her dreams. Her room,
filled with mementos mori, was creepier in the dark. The scythe-wielding
skeletons around me didn't exactly loom, but they outnumbered me if things
went south. The clock said it was 4:15 AM.


    I promised to Misa I would stay in her bed all night. So I stayed.
I laid back down, I gently picked up her hand, and I put it on my chest.
Just touching the thick scar between my breasts. She wasn't totally
tranquilized by it, but she did seem calmer. Somewhat more peaceful. I
watched her sleep for a while. Then I fell asleep myself.


                                 * * * * *


    "Hello, Santoro Zansai," the man says as he scribbles into his
notebook. //SANTORO ZANSAI. STROKE. SEPTEMBER 9, 2007 3:23 AM. AWAKENED IN
SUDDEN PANIC, HE ATTEMPTS TO CALL EMERGENCY SERVICES BUT IS UNABLE TO. HE
PERISHES AFTER AN HOUR AND A HALF OF CONFUSION AND FEAR AS HIS
OXYGEN-STARVED BRAIN DISTORTS HIS THOUGHTS AND PERCEPTIONS.// He flips the
notebook closed. "Goodbye, Santoro Zansai."


    "Ugh, people like him are just the worst, aren't they?" his wife
asks. They are seated at the dinner table. "Holding up everyone's lives,
stopping everyone's business, just so they can feel important about
themselves." She hands her husband a reheated pork bun, and then offers
one to Rem. Rem declines. "You can't get him to take out any of his odious
friends, can you?"


    "No. Only one person per entry. I have told you this," Rem
mumbles. She was told to assist her new charge in using the Note's rules,
and reminding him of them. So that is what she does.


    "Well, he'll learn his lesson, at least," the man says with
chipper finality as he slides the notebook back into its protective
casing. "If only that was enough to teach all of them. But hey, that's
what Kira is about, right?"


                               * N A O M I *


    Aiber would now be serving as Misa's acting coach for her
performance at the Yotsuba Prosperity Council. If this investigation went
on much longer, the entire task force would probably turn into her talent
agency somehow. He and Misa were in high-back chairs in what looked like a
living room, whose purpose in L Plaza I couldn't begin to guess. I stood
behind her, leaning on her chair for support.


    "All right." Aiber hid his face behind his steepled hands. "What
are you doing here, Misa?"


    "I'm here so you can be my acting coach," she said like she was
unsure if this was a trick question. "I need to go undercover to help the
investigation."


    "And? Who is the character I will be coaching you to perform?"


    "Uh... Basically myself as of April." No, Misa. Not that. In
April, you were Kira. You don't know what you were like then. In March,
maybe you were just a zealot. Unless you weren't, and you just waited to
use your powers. "I had, uh, much, much less nuanced beliefs about Kira,
and also hadn't joined L's investigation to catch him. I want to meet Kira
and help him, only, not in a way that maks him accountable."


    "Oh? That seems like a very easy role for you to get into. You
know way more about it than anyone else in the world," Aiber said. "Why do
I have to waste my time coaching you?"


    "Because... if I screw up, they're going to try and kill us," Misa
said in 'why do I have to say this' disbelief. "Then the entire
investigation is derailed and the fake Kira goes into hiding and maybe he
makes MORE fake Kiras and eventually everyone in the world has a heart
attack and--"


    "Misa? Calm down," he told her. "You understand that you have to
take this seriously, that's good. But it's not the end of the world. You
have a bodyguard, you have cover from Watari with the Grizzly. You're
safe. If you screw this up, you are going to waste a lot of time and
money, just like if you extend shooting for another day by screwing up a
take. But the movie will still come out. You understand me? It's hard to
act natural if you think the world is at stake."


    Misa inhaled through her nose and nodded. "Right. Don't oversell
it. Only the normal amount of pressure here." I didn't know how much of
what Aiber said was the truth -- it really depended on how many angles
they would come at me from, if I could take out everyone and keep Misa
safe on my own -- but it honestly was comforting for me too. We had
geniuses around. There was a margin for error. If Misa and I jumped the
rails and screwed up, that wasn't the end of the world.


    "Now the good news is," he said, "I'm actually going to tell you
that you are a better actress than people think. I've seen your work. Your
primary problem? You care too much about what the director thinks."


    "Hey, hang on, that's what I'm supposed to do!" she protested.
"That's my job! The director is, you know, they're the one responsible for
the whole movie! Anyone who went to film school can tell you that!"


    "Okay, for one, you get lousy scripts, and the director is okay
with the script, so what do they know?" Aiber said, counting off on his
fingers. "Two, I can tell when you're ad libbing. But you're asking
yourself 'what does the director want?' When you're doing that, you're not
asking yourself 'what does my character think?' You need to know who your
character is, you use the script as a guideline, but you do what YOUR
CHARACTER would do. Your character doesn't have a director. They just have
a personality and mental state."


    "Soooo..." Misa asked, "That means I'm... not going to have a
script."


    "If I give you a script to read when they question you in a
boardroom, and they interrogate you on a metal chair with a spotlight in
your face, or they take you to a ski resort to hobnob with champagne,
you're not going to sound right at all. You've gotta just know your story
backwards and forwards."


    "All right, all right!" she said with her hands out. "I'm an
actress, I know how to improv, off script is fine!" She must have figured
it would be like a press conference, where the whole thing was scripted
and pointless. "I was just hoping it would be like a press conference,
where everyone knows every question ahead of time so they'd be better off
just handing everyone the script so they can go home." Ha!


    "And don't think you're off the hook," he said to me. Me? "I saw
how mad you got at her saying it was herself from April? Just because you
can't talk -- and you shouldn't, not one word, you sound like an idiot and
I don't care if it makes me insensitive -- doesn't mean you aren't
painting your emotions all over your face. They're going to watch your
face. You need to tell the same story that is coming out of her mouth."
Well, I didn't exactly, but close enough to it; he was right. "And don't
go mugging on me. You are a stone cold badass bodyguard. Aloof
indifference is a valid response to most things. Don't be all, bleagh!
Awwww!" He pantomimed the masks of comedy and tragedy.


    Misa looked up at me to make sure I was getting it. The Kuleshov
effect. I nodded, and her face... it didn't light up, but it was brighter.


    "Okay. Here's our first question for April Misa. where were you
between April and August?" Aiber held his fingertips together.


    She held her hand over her brow and swiped downward. In character
now. "I was in a car accident! I would have died if my bodyguard hadn't
pulled me away from the wreckage."


    He looked at us in silence. Then he snapped. "Yo. Shoko. This is
one of the times aloofness isn't a valid option. You saved your charge's
life. How does that make you feel?" I squinted at him, rolled my eyes, and
I put my hand to my brow and swiped it down just like Misa had. "Oh, I'm
sorry, forgive me! Shoko Maki, has just appeared in this room! Just, this
very moment now, coalescing out of the ether! Only to answer, how does
saving your charge's life make you feel?


    I mean... when he put it that way. I didn't have authetic feelings
about an imaginary car crash. But I did have some about saving her life.
Hope tinged with regret. Pride with sorrow. There was no way all of that
would be conveyed even if I had been trying to, but the Kuleshov effect
was an actress's best friend.


    There was a knock on the door, and then without nearly enough time
to open it, Ryuzaki cracked it open. His handcuffs were clinking, and
behind him, Light Yagami had a bag of bagels. I knew now in the bottom of
my soul that Misa had been the second Kira. And the implications were
obvious. I could have blown his brains all over the room right there.
Nobody else was armed. It would take a second to draw and pull the
trigger. I would never make it out alive even if there weren't some kind
of laser turrets in the ceiling, and the investigation would be derailed,
but he'd be dead.


    But he might be an innocent kid. Might have lost his memory like
Misa when the parasite found a new host.


    And if I ventilated his skull, I'd never know if he was or not.
And I'd never know how he did it. And I'd never know how to stop it from
happening.


    And I'd think I was smarter than Ryuzaki and knew more about what
was going on than him.


    And I'd have to be strong enough to pull the trigger. And I'd have
to deserve vengeance and closure.


    And Misa would be utterly destroyed. She had to believe in him.
She had to know he was a good person. And I needed her. God, I needed her.
I needed her to believe in me. I needed to feel her touch my scars.


    So I had no choice. I did the only thing I could for now. I had to
keep quiet and stick to the plan. I'd be good at that. I held up my
shooting hand and I said "Bagel." I knew I looked conflicted. There was
just so much to be conflicted and powerless about.


    "No talking!" Aiber snapped. "Shoko Maki doesn't talk!" I snagged
the blueberry bagel Light threw to me at the same moment Aiber flicked a
rubber band into my face. Ow.


    "We were coming in to check on how the coaching was going,"
Ryuzaki said in complete deadpan. "It appears to be going well."


    "Ryuzaki, I met you in the lobby. I've been with them for like ten
minutes." Aiber rolled his eyes. "Okay! You were in a car crash, Misa.
What happened after that?" Light Yagami was looking at her. He wanted her.
She was his girlfriend, of course he did, and that was another problem
altogether.


    Misa chewed her lip, staring up at Light. "You know, I... uh,
Light, that's... Ow! Quit that!"


    Aiber nailed her right in the cheek with a rubber band. He was a
damn sniper with those things. "Don't look at Light! Look at me! You don't
have a director to please, and you don't have a boyfriend there either!
Nobody's approving of anything for you, not even your bodyguard!" Did he
not notice how nervous she was, thinking about the secret she hid from
him? Or did he not care?


    "It's fine, Misa," Light reassured. "Pretend I'm not here. I'm not
even paying attention."


    "R-right," she stammered. Deep breath. Hand over her face again.
"Okay, so you ask where I was after the car crash, and then, I say... I
was in the hospital!" she suddenly snapped. "My new manager kept it secret
so we weren't swarmed by fans." Light looked for a seat, but there was
none close enough to Ryuzaki, who was just standing with his hands next to
his pockets by Aiber and looming.


    "Oh. That's very sad. What hospital?" Aiber asked. Light kept the
asiago cheese bagel to himself. That wasn't evidence he was Kira. I would
steal those from Raye.


    "Kanto Rosai in Kanagawa," Misa said without missing a beat. Light
was just standing there with a bagel in his mouth, like it was his idea to
stand within 2 meters of Ryuzaki and not a limitation.


    "Oh! Why, that's very interesting, Misa!" Aiber said in an
absurdly phony voice. "Here, let me do something!" He held out his thumb
and forefinger in the shape of a phone, and tapped iit with his other
hand. "Beep boop beep bop bip! Brrrrrring! Brrrrrring!..." He cupped his
hand over the 'receiver'. Misa was staring over to Light again. "It's
ringing... Hi, Kanto Rosai hospital? I'm doing due diligence about a car
crash involving Misa Amane and her bodyguard Shoko Maki. You have no
record of one? Of course, that's what I would expect if it was kept
secret! But you know Shoko Maki is a person who doesn't exist, and you
have a record of someone arriving under that name in January, comatose?
Who looks exactly like and has the exact same rare brain injury as our
Shoko Maki but had nothing to do with Misa? Wow, that's a coincidence!"


    Misa startled, then swiped her hand upward over her face. "You
don't have to be a jerk, Aiber. It was the first one I could think of."


    "Yagami! Bagel me and tell me what hospital your girlfriend stayed
at," Aiber called back.


    "Let's see." Light produced a chocolate chip bagel and handed it
to Aiber. "Jiyugaoka would be somewhat out of the way, so--"


    "Jiyugaoka, got it. You were at Jiyugaoka Hospital," Aiber stated.
Light had more to say, some more reasoning to follow, meaning he was
overthinking the question. Because he was Kira and he gave calculated
answers to everything? Or was that just his way?


    No. I was going to go insane. Ryuzaki was more perceptive than I
and he'd gained no useful information from this kind of thing. He was
confident that Light wasn't Kira. Our job right now was to go to Yotsuba
and stage our deception and see who knew what they shouldn't. We were
going to do that. And I would trust Ryuzaki's judgment until then.


    But we'd still want to avoid Light. For... rather obvious reasons.
I can't imagine he'd be okay with what Misa and I were doing.


    Aiber walked her through her story, jabbed at its holes, and flung
rubber bands at anyone who broke character or interrupted. He was really
enjoying being able to do that. Eventually, Misa had an idea. "Hey, what
if I just... stay in character the whole time? Like I talk to all of you
like I'm April Misa. But, like, I'd have to, uh, I'd have to stay away
from Light and Ryuzaki, because, because you guys are in charge of
stopping Kira and it's hard to go around that. Aaaaaand I'd pretend this
is not the investigation HQ, of course."


    "Oh, yeah," Aiber said. "Method acting. Jim Carrey did that when
he played Andy Kaufman in 'Man On The Moon'."


    "DAMN it!" Misa snapped. "I thought method acting was just asking
about your motivation all the time! Man, everyone already had my good
ideas!" Aiber snapped a rubber band at her. "Ow!"


    Aiber rolled his eyes. "Whatever. Your character is close to you,
so it's not normally necessary to go to great lengths to stay in
character. But since you have a problem acting out things you think are
immoral, it will probably help. Go around telling the rest of the crew how
great Kira is and how much you want to meet him, and react to whatever
they do. Dodge the investigation leads who are trying to stop him."


    "Oh, right." She squirmed in her seat a little. "I can't do that,
then. Naomi is... had a very bad experience with Kira. It wouldn't be fair
to make her follow me around and listen to me say he's great when he did
such awful things to her... Ow! Stop flicking those at me!"


    "Naomi Misora?" Aiber asked sarcastically. "Who's that? You never
met anyone by that name. Naomi Misora is dead. All I see is Shoko Maki.
Your loyal, faithful bodyguard, who is clearly okay with your views on
Kira because she still works for you." He looked up at me and readied
another rubber band. "And who needs to be able to practice hearing praise
for Kira without getting visibly upset by it. Right?"


    Misa looked up to me for approval. Slowly, tongue jammed into my
teeth, I nodded. Aiber was right. And I knew that if Misa was professional
enough to do this, I could be too. Misa nodded back, slid her hand down
over her face again. "Of course. Shoko knows how important Kira is to me."


    Great. That was all I had to do until the meeting. Silently watch
Misa. Watch her pretend she was still in love with Kira. And pretend I
didn't know that she really was Kira.


                                 * * * * *


    Sakura TV, the station which originally aired the tapes from what
Ryuzaki would term 'the second Kira', noticed the spike in ratings it
received from broadcasting Kira's words, and now was airing a limited test
run of a talk show called 'Kira Knowledge', title subject to change. At
Week 1, it was a round-table discussion of Kira and the implications of
his powers and the of investigation. Week 2 was a screaming match. By Week
3 and onward, calls and guests were being pre-screened and the discussion
had turned into a praise hour. Maybe fitting for one who styled himself
God of the New World.


    The man and his wife watch the program every week, of course. Rem
has no other option but to watch it too. They don't watch it for praise.


    "Whatever happened to that second Kira, huh?" asks the man over
the phone. The host nods to show he's listening. "He had the right idea,
but not far enough. People should be put to death for speaking out against
Kira, even if it's not in public! Kira's perfect world has no place for
people who doubt him!"


    Rem turns up her lip in revulsion. "Humans are disgusting," she
mutters.


    "Ugh, aren't they?" the woman says. "These people are scum. Look
at them. Half of them are bootlicking in terror, and the other half think
Kira's going to just kill everyone who ever hurt their feelings. Give them
the slightest chance to hurt people and get away with it, even
vicariously? They take it. Everything is about them." She absentmindedly
rubs her pregnant stomach. "I'd feel terrible about bringing a child into
this world if we weren't doing something about it."


    The caller is continuing. "...because nobody should doubt me, I'm
Kira! I'm Kira and I'm ushering in a perfect new order! Worship me, and--"


    "All right, all right, that's enough," the host says while making
the 'cut call' motion over his neck. The show got one or two of those a
week. "Let's cut to commercial, okay?" The commercials for Kira Knowledge
were all ads for other programs on Sakura TV -- despite the massive
ratings, no company was yet willing to advertise on it.


    "Hmm," the woman muses. "Obviously you couldn't just call in and
say 'I am Kira', they get those all the time." She put her hand to her
chin in thought. "Rem, do you think it would work if he wrote an entry for
the host that said, something like, 'answers a caller who claims to want
to talk about Kira's impact on international finance, hears the caller
order him to die of a heart attack, and then coincidentally dies of a
heart attack'? Then Kira's on the air, demonstrating power, to an audience
of Kira fanatics ready to hear his words. Kira gets to summon up an army
like he wants, if he wants it during the right time slot."


    "I... am not sure." Rem said. "I don't know how a television
program works. Everyone must behave in a plausibly normal manner."


    "Oh, there's just someone screening the calls, that's all!" says
the man. "They'd definitely let me on the air, that's their job. That's
very clever, honey!" He hops to his feet and kisses his wife on the top of
the head. "I'm going to go write that all down without the name and time,
in case I forget. Let me know if I miss anything interesting, okay?"


                               * N A O M I *


    Shoko Maki, Taro Matsui, and April Misa were going out to dinner
after a long, hard day of exterior shots and running in high-heeled boots.
Since I wasn't going to say anything, I got to refer to her as April Misa
all I wanted. I forfeited all my knowledge of the best local ramen stands
long ago, but any ramen stand is the best when you've been on your feet
all day pretending to be someone you used to be, pretending to be someone
they're not. So we found a little cart by the road, and Misa ordered. Taro
ordered. And Misa ordered for me: "Miso ramen with pork cutlet and five
times as much garlic as you think it needs." It felt good. It wasn't the
first ramen cart we'd been to this week, but this time, I was able to get
my order conveyed with no difficulty, no inarticulate fumbling. Almost
like a person could. We got our food, we picked up our bags, and we got a
nice little park bench. To sit, three show biz people with no ulterior
motive, and watch Yokohama walk by us at dusk.


    "All right," Misa said after a bit. "I'm just gonna say it. I
think we need to ask for some rewrites. I don't think the movie is shaping
up."


    "Mmmm?" Taro said around a mouthful of noodles. "Wha whra--"
slrrrrrp! "--What's wrong?"


    "Well my character Kasumi is supposed to be crazy in love for
Shinchiro, right? And I get that! And she does anything she can for his
sake, even if it means turning against the Family! But then..." Misa
looked around, but there were no reporters lurking around waiting for
spoilers. There was a rumor she was bad luck to follow around. After I
kicked that one guy. "But then she just kills herself for him? Why? I
don't get it."


    "Oh, well, Misa," Taro said, "It's the ultimate sacrifice, right?
Sometimes, you love someone so much that you want them to be happy even if
it can't be with you. And you give up your own relationship with them, to
make sure they are safe. So when she realizes they'd never stop running if
they were together, she walks into the battle she knows she can't win,
she's really winning his freedom. And she wants that more than her life."


    "Okay, but, like..." Misa groped in the darkness for the words.
"...How does killing herself actually win his freedom? She never dealt
with the reason she came for him in the first place, he still saw the hit
go down, so he's still a loose end. The Chairwoman still wants him dead,
she's still gonna be after him, that's why she sends people for a battle.
He still has to escape, only now he needs to do that with one flower shop
owner instead of a flower shop owner plus a badass assassin. And he
doesn't! He comes back to the fountain so he can kiss Kasumi's angel!" She
spooled up a giant wad of noodles and crammed it into her mouth. "Tha ja
buh tha cra ouha me."


    "Huh." Taro wondered. "That's... That's a good point. That's a
pretty big plothole."


    I hadn't noticed it because I hadn't been reading the script and
had no idea what scenes were in what order. With nothing to add, I slurped
my own noodles. Delicious, garlicky noodles. Little flakes of garlic clove
sticking out of the gaps in the cooked pork.


    "Mmph! Mmm," Misa grunted as she swallowed. "It's like they're
saying being in love makes people stupid! Like Kasumi would jump off a
bridge or something. 'Oh, Shinchiro, I'm jumping off this bridge for
yooooooouuuuuu,' splat!"


    "Mmh. Mm. 'Omen'?"


    "Yeah, that's a movie, right?" Taro asked. "With like the little
devil kid." He wasn't in America last year, he didn't see the ad with the
lady jumping off the building every commercial break, he must have picked
it up through osmosis.


    "Damn it!" Misa muttered. "Every time with this! Whatever,
whatever. The point is, I don't want my name attached to something that
denigrates true love, right?" And then she looked up at me, and she held
my hand in hers. "It's... bad for my brand. Right?"


    I shook my head yes, finished swallowing, and then slowly nodded.
She squeezed my hand harder.


    "Okay, first thing tomorrow, talk about reshoots." I stared off
into the distance and so did she. Holding hands. The air just starting to
get cold. Two people, together, watching the world go past them. Sometimes
that was enough. Maybe we could hold hands and slurp noodles forever and
tomorrow just wouldn't happen and nothing would change and nothing would
be scary.


    "Ah, I forgot something, I was gonna show you!" Or, maybe not.
Misa gestured for Taro's valise and he cracked it open. "Since this
shopping mall thing isn't going through Sunshine, I whipped up my own
promotional material at the print shop. Let me know what you think."


    Carefully, I slid my soup to the side before reviewing. A
collection of headshots, glamour shots, testimonials, reviews, and quotes
summarizing and extoling the career of Misa Amane, Model. She did not slip
in her vampire schoolgirl, which must have taken some restraint. The
Yotsuba meeting wasn't really about having a spokesmodel for the shopping
mall, but April Misa had to pretend. Besides, the portfolio let us include
the most important piece of the plan:


    The flyer, rimmed with flower designs and decorated with chibi
cartoons of all of us, listing our contact information. The numbers for
the special phones given out for //MISA AMANE, STARLET AND HEARTTHROB//,
//TARO MATSUI, GENERAL MANAGER//, //SHOKO MAKI, SECURITY (TEXT MESSAGE
ONLY)//, and the fictional //GEORGE ADAIR, INTERNATIONAL LICENSING//.
Without this there was no plan: we had to see who would and wouldn't call
Misa's number.


    It all looked good. I gave her the thumbs up. She was getting
ready any way she could, and that was important.


                                 * * * * *


    Santoro Zansai wakes up in the middle of the night, screaming in
pain. He has to get out. He has to get to the phone. But he can't. He's
been strapped to this gurney by the same fiendish masked men and woman
that kidnapped and drugged him. They look like doctors. Bedside manner is
not their strong suit.


    "He's up!" the woman cries out in Portuguese. "His EEG is all lit
up, he's having a stroke!"


    "About goddamned time!" shouts one of the men back, throwing the
light novel he's reading into the face of the third doctor, still on his
cot on the floor. As this man washes his hands, the woman holds up a
syringe that has already been loaded with the exact dose appropriate to
his body weight. He has no idea who these people are or what they are
saying. He doesn't know that that syringe full of Alteplase IV r-tPA is
more effective the sooner after stroke it is administered, petering out at
three hours, when he's been dosed after 20 seconds. He never saw Yoko
Yokako's medical PSA urging rapid response, because time lost is brain
lost. He just knows he is confused and terrified.


                               * N A O M I *


    This was it. A week passed in a nervous haze of not thinking and
not wanting to hear Misa praise Kira. The meeting was taking place at the
site of the mall itself, right at the edge of the Kanazawa Nature Park,
where they were planning on expanding into. One of them must have been
able to vet its security better than their meeting places. The fact that
it was daytime in a nice part of town spoke well of their intentions. On
the other hand, the mall was still under construction, so they had a
perfect place to dump bodies.


    Yotsuba's security, looking about as Yakuza as anyone can get
while having all their fingertips, ushered me and Misa in to the front
doors of the shopping center, while Taro pulled away. He'd be a couple
blocks away in case things looked bad. Watari was also a couple of blocks
away, but with the gigantic antimateriel rifle he had, he wasn't going to
have to get up to help. Misa was already dolled up, but I pulled out the
final piece of the puzzle: my badass sunglasses.


    We were greeted by all seven of the Yotsuba Prosperity Council, in
sharp black suits, smiling dully. And as soon as I stepped in with Misa,
there was a problem. "Misa, who is this?" asked Hiraga. Leader-guy. "We
didn't think the talent agency would be sending any visitors with you."


    "Her? No, no," Misa said, "This is my bodyguard, Shoko Maki.
Shoko, wave to everyone."


    I did.


    "Shoko goes with me everywhere I go. She saved my life, so I'm
always in her debt." April Misa was telling the truth about that. So was
Regular Misa. It made me feel warm.


    "My apologies then," Hiraga said with a bow. "Miss Maki, may we
take your jacket?"


    I slowly shook my head. Shaking your head slowly with your tongue
in your teeth means no. "Actually, Shoko can't talk," Misa said. "Because
of the accident, she can understand words, but she can't really form
spoken language. She has to write notes for me to read. If that's okay
with everyone?"


    "Shit, I've heard of that," muttered Daisuke. The rebellious one
who thought it was bullshit. "That's the... damn, what is it?" Everyone
was looking at him while he snapped his fingers trying to recall. "It's
the... a... Aphasia, right?" I pointed back at him, he got it. And I
wanted to get going.


    "If you'll follow me, please, I can show you how Kanazawa Shopping
Park is shaping up. We've got over thirty retailers lined up, domestic and
foreign..." He started going into his spiel, with Eba -- old battleaxe,
said L shot Kitamura's dick off -- chiming in with details. I didn't care
about any of it. I was scouting the situation. Sunglasses are useful
because nobody can see what you are looking at. They also make you look
badass. They make you badass BECAUSE nobody can see what you are looking
at, and so, you appear not to be concerned with your surroundings. That's
why bodyguards wore them. My eyes were flicking left and right and up to
see what guards were posted here, but none of them could tell any of that.
I appeared to be looking straight ahead, unconcerned with everything.


    This would be a shitty place to have a firefight, the only cover
was low glass walls, but security wasn't going to start shit while I was
so close to the Prosperity Council. Four of them would be bleeding out on
the floor before a firefight really got started. If they had any
experience they would know I was packing by how I walked, and if they
didn't, they likely didn't have guns themselves. I kept my ears open for
the sound of someone stepping up next to a railing, on the upper levels.
That's where an attack would come from. I didn't care about Eba and
Hiraga's spiel about cross-promotion and the synergy of having Yotsuba
brands. Misa didn't either. They just couldn't turn it off.


    A pavilion, a food court, another pavilion, a movie theatre, an
indoor park area, children's fun zone, various degrees of completion and
preparation. Disco pants and haircuts. Lot of space in this mall. At last
they led us to a conference room, with a long oak table. Big enough that
all of them could sit on once side, and Misa and I would still be on "the
other side". There was no other way out of the room, the walls were
cinderblock, but unless they had grenades or gas they'd have a real bad
time trying to take us out through the one choke-point while we were
behind this thick table as cover. Either they weren't planning on
attacking us or they were bad at it.


    'Geraldo Coil' was here, of course. He had a pina colada in his
hand. None of the storefronts here were operational, there was no place he
could have got it.


    Misa took a seat in the big corporate chair. The other seven took
their places. I opened my overstuffed messenger bag and I handed one
portfolio to each of them, before taking my station behind Misa, staring
at all of them.


    "So!" Eba said with a clasp of her hands. "What do you think?"
This was not the purpose of our visit, but clearly she had more
emotionally invested in this project than the rest.


    "I like it!" Misa chirped. "I would hang out here. I have a couple
of ideas though, that I think would make it--"


    "That's... We'll wait until the end for those," Hiraga said. "Mr.
Coil here helped set us up with you, and we just have a... a few questions
about your background."


    "We have to be careful about who we associate with our brand, you
see," Eba added.


    "Of course! And if you don't like all the Gothic motifs, we can
turn that down. I'm versatile."


    "No, no, nothing like that," said Isamu. Guy who thought a Kira
problem wasn't a them problem. "Just some minor background details."


    Aiber got out a stack of papers and began. "Misa, how long have
you employed miss Maki here?"


    "I thought this was my background check?" she asked. "I mean, it
depends. The talent agency assigned her to me last... June, I think? But
she only showed up for special events and appearances. Then back in March
a crazed fan came at me with a knife, so I got really serious about my
safety. She said I needed a full-time bodyguard, and, I agreed! And it
honestly paid off. So Sunshine Talent Agency hired her for me in June, but
I actually employed her personally in March. Right?" I confirmed her
story. It was exactly what we'd gone over, and exactly what the records at
Sunshine Talent Agency would say. Misa's old manager was going to retire
off of the hush money he was being given.


    "Good for you, I guess," Aiber continued. "where did you disappear
to in April of this year?"


    "I was in a car crash!" she said, insulted. "We were driving out
to meet a friend and a drunk driver hit us. I would have died if Shoko
hadn't saved me, and then I was in the hospital recovering! We kept it
quiet because I didn't want fans flooding the hospital. I had enough
problems." This was a lie. She was kind of squirming while she said it.
She had to practice lying badly, while also lying fluently.


    "Oh really?" Aiber asked. "What hospital?" This was indeed what we
rehearsed for.


    "Jiyugaoka," she said. "Why, does it matter?"


    "Misa..." said Daisuke. "Your bodyguard is obviously covered in
scars from the crash. Your skin is pristine. Why did you need to stay at
the hospital for months?"


    "Why thank you, but--" Misa caught herself. "Oh."


    "If you were in rehab for a drug problem, we can't have you as a
spokesmodel." Daisuke said. "We want families to feel welcome here." There
was a zero point zero percent chance that at least two of these people
didn't have cocaine on or inside of them right now, but all were nodding
gravely. I knew it was pageantry, but it was still nauseating.


    Misa got glum and she looked away. "I wasn't in rehab. There was a
car crash. Shoko did save me!" She snapped her eyes back to them to say
that. Her conviction was real. She had to channel things she believed were
true, to get April Misa to believe the slightly altered story. So she was
indeed telling them the truth, I saved her life, just not from a crash.
"But I was trapped, not seriously injured. I twisted my ankle and broke my
left pinky and ring finger, that's all. She was seriously injured, but
they only wanted me overnight. And while she was unconscious, I... I...


    "Some guys in masks took me! They blindfolded and drugged me and I
woke up in a straitjacket somewhere! At first I thought it was a crazy
stalker man, right? But he just kept asking me over and over and over,
with this weird scrambled voice if I was Kira and asking me to confess.
Saying I killed the Sakura TV newscaster. I wasn't Kira! And, and when
Shoko got out of the hospital, she never let up. There were police who
were in on it, or who knew something and weren't saying anything, and they
refused to investigate my disappearance, and she had to go around them,
and, and, she eventually tracked me down to a warehouse, but by the time
she got there, everyone but me was gone!" Her voice was laden with fear
and panic, so were her eyes. My part of that story hadn't happened, but
her fear had. I was so sorry I couldn't help her. That I played along in
her imprisonment for as long as I did.


    "At any time, did you see the face of your captor?" asked Isamu.


    "No!" she whined. "I was always blindfolded, and he was talking
through a microphone in another room that flanged his voice. I think there
were other people too, but I'm not sure. Nobody was in the room with me.
They knocked me out any time they wanted to move me or do something like
change the bag I peed in." She thought about it, and turned her lip up in
disgust. "Ugh, I really hope they weren't saving that." Ew. I didn't need
to hear that, Misa, and neither did most of Yotsuba judging by the looks
of it. "Anyway, Shoko got me out. I didn't go back to work right away
because I had lost eight kilos and needed physical therapy to get my
strength back. I don't like to talk about it because people won't believe
me."


    "Hmm." Hiraga mused with his hands steepled over his mouth. "If he
actually believed you were the second Kira, then those were actually
reasonable precautions. And he certainly had some cause for suspicion,
didn't he? If you weren't the second Kira, you certainly were a Kira
supporter."


    "There's only one Kira," she grumbled, fidgeting in her seat. Only
one could be the real thing. Only one could be who she loved. Everyone
else was a phony. "And lots of people are Kira supporters. All over. They
have a TV show for him and everything. Plenty of people agree with what
he's doing."


    "They do," Hiraga said. taking the lead for the Kira questions.
"But not everyone had to be removed from a New Year's special because she
got into a backstage fistfight with a member of Smile Kiss over the
justice of Kira's actions. You are more akin to a Kira-worshiper, aren't
you?"


    "NO!" she barked, and slammed her fist into the armrest. "I'm...
First off, it wasn't a fistfight. Shoko would have broken it up if it was.
We had a... a vigorous disagreement." That was a nice touch, placing me at
the incident but having reason not to intervene. "And second, I don't
worship Kira. That means, like, that I rave about anything he does no
matter what it is. That I don't think about it. That my devotion is blind.
And it's not!" She brushed her hair from her eyes to compose herself. "I
love Kira. Kira killed the man who murdered my parents. He protected me.
Not even Shoko could have done that!" Her words still hurt, and I couldn't
hide it. I looked down at her and felt real sorrow. This was horrible.
Horrible that she would feel this way. That she would live in a world that
would produce this. "Kira's making a new world where people can be safe.
And I love him for that. That doesn't mean I'm just some, like, a blind
zealot."


    She took a deep centering breath. "But on New Year's, it had just
happened, my emotions were very high, everyone was tipsy on champagne.
I've learned the importance of... keeping my true views about Kira secret.
I haven't said anything political since I came back to show business. The
second unit director's very outspoken in hating Kira and all I did was ask
him to change some lines back. I'm not going to associate you with any
controversial views. I can keep my devotion to myself. I'm a
professional." She was. Those lines meant growth for her, I guess. She
didn't believe in Kira any more, not like this. That she could say those
opinions meant, maybe, she'd overcome them. And that she could talk about
keeping her opinions private meant, maybe, that she had learned from how
her own stance had changed. She had to have been thinking the same thing
as I: on New Year's Day, Kira was forcing me to commit suicide.


    She really was the second Kira. She killed people for speaking out
against him. I looked down at her, and I wondered. Was this really growth?
Did she really learn not to feel murderous wrath at people who threatened
her worldview? Or was it simply that she never needed to, and Kira inside
of her did it? Kira's hold didn't know how I should have acted, either. I
wanted to believe it was controlling her, that she didn't simply realize
she had the power to murder people for hurting her feelings and used it.
And I was already looking too forlorn and morose for too long. So that's
what I believed.


    Yotsuba wasn't suspicious, but, I could tell Misa was getting
upset. I passed her a note, which she dutifully read aloud, adding syntax
and structure. "//DO YOU NEED TO TAKE A SHORT BREAK?// Actually yes. Is
the little girl's room hooked up, yet?"


    "Here, I'll show you," Isamu said as he opened the door for us. It
was not too far, and nobody followed us, which was good.


    She splashed some lukewarm water on her face, inspected herself in
the mirror, smeared off and reapplied bits of lipstick. "I don't know if
it's going well," she confided -- still in character. "I can't tell if
they like me or not. I -- GACK!" She recoiled away and shivered. "What was
that?"


    I held her to my side and I looked around, then I looked at her
hands and arms. Nothing. "No, it's not... I don't think anything touched
me," she said. "It's more like... You know that saying, 'it's like someone
just stepped on my grave'? I felt real weird, that's all. I'm good to keep
going."


    That was what we did.


                                 * * * * *


    In the car on the way back from the fruitfully fruitless meeting,
Isamu -- it was Isamu, by the way -- turns to his spectral passenger. "So,
how was Misa doing?"


    "I don't know," Rem says. "I couldn't observe her for long. She
wasn't distressed."


    "Well, hey," he says, "She was doing undercover work and not
freaking out, that's something. Bodyguard seemed capable. And she has at
least two gods of death looking out for her. That's also something. She'll
be fiiiiiiine."


    Rem stares him down with her ophidian face and a shiver goes up
his spine. Death incarnated into misshapen flesh is in his car, scowling
at him. "I don't care about Kira's plan. Nor yours. The only reason I
cooperate with any of this is the safety of Misa Amane. Do more than hope
that she is fine, Isamu, because if any harm befalls her due to her
association with your group I will kill you, your wife, and every single
one of your colleagues."


    "Jesus!" Isamu almost smacks into a parked car. "For God's sake
Rem, I was trying to tell you to take it easy, people are watching out for
her!" He refocuses on the road, rolls his shoulders to work out the sudden
tension he's been given. "Rem, you have got to learn some people skills.
Yeesh."


                               * N A O M I *


    The meeting was now over. No hitches. Misa wrote out several
potential messages to meet with my approval, I signed off on one, and she
then showed it off to Ryuzaki and Light before she sent it off to each
member of the Yotsuba Prosperity Council.


    //I'M SORRY TO MAKE YOU WASTE YOUR TIME WITH THAT CHARADE, BUT
IT'S OBVIOUS WHY I COULD NOT TALK ABOUT WHY WE REALLY CAME. BUT NOW YOUR
INTENTIONS ARE CLEAR TO ME, BASED ON WHAT I HEARD. I AM THE SECOND KIRA,
AND ONE OF YOU KNOWS THE ORIGINAL. AND I THINK YOU KNOW WHY I NEED TO FIND
HIM, AND KEEP IT SECRET. I NEED TO CONTACT THE ORIGINAL KIRA, JUST AS YOU
HAVE.


    I DO NOT EXPECT YOU TO ACT WITHOUT PROOF. MY CONTACT INFORMATION
IS IN THE PACKET YOU RECIEVED. PURCHASE A BURNER PHONE AND SEND ME THE
FACE OF SOMEONE YOU WISH KILLED, OTHER THAN A MEMBER OF YOUR GROUP, TO
PROVE MY ABILITIES. WHEN THAT PERSON IS DEAD, WE CAN TALK ABOUT GETTING IN
TOUCH WITH KIRA.


    I LOOK FORWARD TO WORKING WITH YOU --K2//


    The trap was set. All that remained now was to wait a few days and
see who messaged Misa. If anyone even did.


    I was having terrible nightmares. Judged and condemned by Raye, by
everyone. Misa tricking me to opening my shirt, and carving my organs out.
Misa holds me down while Light re-ties the puppet strings around me, and
forces me to humiliate and degrade myself before committing suicide. And
yet here I was. walking her to her room, while she held a cake, that she
intended the two of us to eat together.


    Would I have made it to the wedding? I would never know. The
thought that I would be shackled forever to a corpse killed me just as
much as the horror of devaluing my love for Raye like that. I was tearing
myself apart. And then a little blonde serial killer beckoned me inside,
and...


    I needed her, Raye. I needed the strength she had. She kept going.
She wanted me to keep going. She could go, she could act. She was happy.
Maybe the screams in my brain were right, and I did quit when it got hard.
And she was there telling me not to. Telling me I kept her safe. Just like
you did for me, Raye. I needed her so badly.


    "I don't know if you light candles for a job well done party,"
Misa said, "but, uh, yay! Congratulations on a job well done, Misa and
Naomi!" It was a strawberry cheesecake, the kind Ryuzaki scarfed down, she
must have done something special to acquire one without Ryuzaki-shaped
bite marks. She set it on her little kotatsu table. And she smiled up at
me and it was so... pure. She was happy to see me even though she saw me
all day. Because I meant she was safe and her world made sense. I took off
my gloves, put them in my jacket pockets, hung that on her coat hook.
Ryuzaki had her room made with a coat hook. My scarred arms were open for
her to see.


    The cheesecake had a thick layer of white frosting outside, and a
vein of strawberry sauce running through its rich, yellowy mantle of sweet
cheese. The slices were all separated by paper, no cutting required, and
Misa and I each staked our claims. I got ready to take a bite, but she
held her fork out to my face -- I held a piece out to her, too. More
romantic this way. With a silent count, we each fed the other a bite. It
was... heavenly. Sweet, and rich, and tart, with the perfect texture that
provided just the right amount of resistance to the tongue. Real
strawberries died to make this cheesecake, and their local bushes were
still asking where they went.


    "Mmmmph!" Misa moaned in joy. "Mmmmm, that's amazing! No wonder
Ryuzaki's always hoarding these!" She looked down at the cake in wide-eyed
concern. "Naomi. Naomi, do not let me eat more than two slices of this.
Don't let me get fat, Naomi." We both stared at the cake -- ten of the
twelve slices remained -- as we got ourselves each another bite and
swallowed. "Mmmmmm... Okay I can be a little fat. Three slices fat.
Winter's coming up." I nodded at her gravely. I was ready to unhinge my
jaw and shove this whole thing in my mouth like a rare, endangered snake
that lives only in a patisserie, and then her eating any more slices would
be a moot point.


    "Mmmm! Ugh, how does Ryuzaki keep his figure when he eats one of
these a day?" she whined. "He never works out, he lounges around all day,
mmmmph!, he looks terrible, but it's a 55 kilo terrible."


    I shrugged. I had no idea. It just made me think of a story I
couldn't... No. I could. Why not? I stood up, and I got the pad and pen
from my pockets. And Misa, she just put down her cake. So she wouldn't go
faster than me... and then she picked it up and had another bite while I
wrote, because it sang to her like the Sirens. It was like each word was
elusive, each one was difficult to pick like I was writing a breakup
letter to an emotionally unstable boyfriend set off by anything. But she
waited. And though I handed her //GAIN I 7 KG USA <= FIND KFC NOT
RESERVE//, what she read aloud to the two of us was, //I GAINED 7 KG WHEN
I WENT TO AMERICA, BECAUSE I FOUND OUT KFC DIDN'T HAVE RESERVATIONS.// My
thoughts. My story. A complete sentence. Read slowly so I could interrupt
if she was getting it wrong, but it still felt damn good.


    And she added "Wait, you don't need reservations to eat at KFC in
America? Oh, I bet that's because they have a bunch more of them over
there. It's probably only like a twenty minute wait." I pushed my tongue
and slowly shook my head. "Really? That's crazy."


    Chomp. Swallow. Mmmmmmmmph. God, this stuff was good. "America
sounds pretty cool, you like it a lot there," Misa said, graham cracker
crumbs spraying out of her mouth. "Mmm, maybe when this is done, we can go
visit. Take everybody. You can show us around."


    There was a little problem with that. "Mmph?" I tapped my chest
and gestured to my mouth. "Uh... Um." God, the joke was being ruined, what
was the word? "Translate?"


    Misa laughed like I'd told a risque joke. "We could get a
translator! I'm an interpreter, that's different, we can still combine
them. Like one of those bucket brigades, only for words."


    'This is Naomi, this is her interpreter, and this is her
interpreter's translator.' It was pretty silly, and I giggled. And by now,
I was sick of tiny bites. I picked my slice up and shoved it into my
mouth, filling up my cheeks. It was so god damn delicious, partly because
it was the reward for a job well done, mostly because it must have had so
much fat in it. Misa stopped eating and stared at my hamster-cheeked face,
struggling with all the cake in my mouth. She blushed a little, pushing
her hands into her lap.


    "You, uh... You got a little something... on your mouth," she
said. I grunted quizzically. "Right... right here." She pointed to the
corner of her mouth, and I felt with the tip of my tongue. A stream of
strawberry oozed out of the corner of my lips. "It looks like... like
you're a vampire or something. And you're a messy eater."


    One advantage, I guess, of having to communicate in brain-damaged
telegraphs was I could still do it with my mouth full. Because I had gone
too far with this. My mouth had overcommitted to this confection and now
Congress was calling it a quagmire. //ALL VAMPIRE MESS?//


    "//AREN'T ALL VAMPIRES MESSY EATERS?//" she said. "Yeah, they kind
of are, aren't they? You would figure that they basically have straws in
their mouth that they drink through. But they get blood all over the
place. I mean, Aiko did it because she was crazy, that's what I decided,
but she wasn't spraying it on the walls of the vampire clubhouse." She
tried real hard to not take another bite and talk with her mouth full.
"Mmmph. Mmm! Mahhe iff lihe, hey geh cahahees." Gulp. "Maybe it's like
they get cavities. And when they suck blood it, just, it sprays out of the
holes in their other teeth. So if you turn into a vampire, brush your
teeth!" she admonished.


    I laughed and crumbs sprayed out of my mouth. It was absurd, but
in just the right way. Grab a silly premise and just keep going with it.
//HOSPITAL => LOSE REFLECT. MIRROR NOT KNOW 2WK. VAMPIRE?//


    "//I LOST MY REFLECTION AT THE HOSPITAL. I COULDN'T SEE MYSELF IN
A MIRROR FOR 2 WEEKS. AM I A VAMPIRE?//" she read. "That's weird. It must
have been really scary!" God damn it, Naomi, why did you bring up your
brain damage when the two of you were having fun? But she didn't get
brought down. She smiled. "Maybe you are. If you can't see yourself, then
I have to... get that for you..."


    She leaned over and she licked the strawberry off of my cheek. My
whole face flushed. My heart beat faster. Heat rushed through my body. I
nearly choked on a wad of cheesecake. The wet patch her tongue had touched
me felt a kilometer wide, like every nerve in my body pulled up its roots
and moved to my cheek so it could be a part of feeling that sensation. I
wasn't sure how I was still breathing and was afraid to investigate too
deeply.


    She was blushing just as much as I was, I think. She held my hands
in hers. Her fear and uncertainty were not going to stop her from going
forward. That was why I loved her. That was what I needed. She made my
fear and recrimination quieter. But even so, as she brought her lips up to
mine, as we both closed our eyes, I couldn't shake the feeling of
impending disaster.


    And it came.


    Sure enough. Not long thereafter, we were lying in her bed,
looking up at the ceiling. Both of our clothes undone. Moaning.


    "Uuuughhh... I cannot believe you let me eat four slices of
cheesecake, Naomi," she groaned.


    "Bluuuuhhh..." was all I could respond. It was too much. I was
ready to pop. I knew I should have stopped but it was right THERE, it
called to me, begging me to eat more, flapping to speak like a
strawberry-coated Pac-Man. I'd do it all again if I had half a chance.


    "I can't move. You're gonna have to roll me into the car
tomorrow."


                                 * * * * *


    //[1. General - Silverpine Forest][Vraxx] kira kills criminals so
if u say he is bad u must be a criminal


    [1. General - Silverpine Forest][Showmethehoney] Seriously how is
this the best place for wool cloth? I'm getting nothing.


    To [Justiceangel]: I haven't sent Misa's message yet. Don't want
to be too eager. My colleague Eba, however, is convinced this is all a
trap, and will not be responding.


    [1. General - Silverpine Forest][Shadowwraith] vraxx how many
pirated mp3s do you have? everyone is a criminal


    [1. General - Silverpine Forest][Vraxx] honey just buy it on
auction house


    [Justiceangel] whispered you: How unfortunate for her. If
possible, you should copy one of your pages of entries in the Death Note
in a replica of her handwriting, onto a blank page. If you cannot do this,
then you will have to plant a few blank pages on her.


    [1. General - Silverpine Forest][Vraxx] mp3 pirating doesnt make u
a bad person kira kills bad people


    [1. General - Silverpine Forest][Vraxx] you should be more
greatful hes keeping u safe


    To [Justiceangel]: Is there something we should print on the loose
pages? We thought if Kira was handing off pages to suicidal disciples,
there might be a letterhead with instructions.


    [1. General - Silverpine Forest][Showmethehoney] I'd love to buy
it off the AH. But the cheapest it's listed is one gold each!


    [1. General - Silverpine Forest][Godofdeath] Kira's going to kill
everyone, not just the bad people, that's why he's awesome.


    [1. General - Silverpine Forest][Shadowwraith] how long did it
take you to go from "kills criminals" to "kills bad people"? now imagine
how easy it is to go the other way.


    [Justiceangel] whispered you: Say "Kira will kill named person"


    [1. General - Silverpine Forest][Vraxx] criminals are bad people
genius


    [Justiceangel] whispered you: Not "paper kills"


    [1. General - Silverpine Forest][Shadowwraith] son of arugal
outside sepulcher btw, everyone but vraxx watch out


    [Justiceangel] whispered you: Have you found a supply of Kira
worshipers?


    [1. General - Silverpine Forest][Stabby] But if killing makes you
bad, will Kira kill himself? CHECKMATE ATHESITS


    [1. General - Silverpine Forest][Showmethehoney] I have two bolts
of wool cloth and I have been here for an hour. Why can't it just be
cheaper on the AH?


    To [Justiceangel] Provisionally. Under a limited circumstance. The
yakuza will understandably take a bit more time to shake out.


    [1. General - Silverpine Forest][Godofdeath] Kira's going to kill
the rest of you for sassing him and Vraxx for having bad grammar


    [1. General - Silverpine Forest][Syrine] You people are why every
non-JP guild I apply to just says "Shut Up About Kira". You know what? I
can't even get mad at it any more.


    [Justiceangel] whispered you: 2 weeks to prepare. You still need
1more piece.


    [1. General - Silverpine Forest][Showmethehoney] Is Kira going to
kill people for listing wool cloth on the AH for one gold apiece? Because
SIGN MY ASS UP.//


                               * N A O M I *


    Physical therapy. I'd stayed with it the entire time, even after
joining the investigation. Even after moving into the tower. Self-directed
physical therapy in the little personal gym Ryuzaki built. Only an hour at
a time, while Misa was asleep or getting ready or with Matsuda. But
consistent.


    The treadmill? That's recovering my cardiovascular health after it
waned, and it was a bitch to run with a crutch or a busted knee. These
chin ups, shore up my waning upper body strength. So was this speed bag. I
had to build my endurance back up with these bench presses, I had wasted
away. The paper target? The gun in the locked safe, the one that wasn't
special so it had lots of ammunition? Fine motor control. I needed to be
accurate. I needed the ability to put a shot on target, and not pull it
away. What I used to have. I needed it back.


    Physical therapy. Physical therapy is about getting back what you
had lost. I had lost a lot. I was going to need to be in my peak shape for
what was coming. We were right about the Prosperity Council -- the
messages were pouring in. The next step might be dangerous. There was only
so much you could do in self-directed physical therapy. Sometimes you
needed a therapist with you to push you along. That was why Watari set up
an impromptu boxing ring. That was why Mogi was in it across from me in
his boxing gear. And everyone but Watari was watching, for obvious
reasons.


    I had on a long-sleeved sweatshirt -- it was hot, but too many
people were watching to show my skin. One of those ice pack kneepads under
my pants, to activate pre-emptively when my knee went bad on me. "You
ready?" he asked me. I indicated the affirmative. "Okay, I'm not going to
go easy on you..." There was an obvious point of attack: my right knee,
the bad one. The one I couldn't have worked on because our medical staff
were indisposed. A solid hit there and I would go down. Not going easy on
me would mean going right for the knee. I started to step forward, then
back. Left, then right. The ginga, the neutral stance that keeps you
moving in capoeira.


    Misa was sitting next to Light. And I wasn't talking to her, so
doubt was creeping in. How did she still feel for him? She still cared. I
guess she wasn't the first person to think 'bisexual' meant 'I have one
girlfriend and one boyfriend' but that's not how it was going to work out.
Light felt... If I was being mean I would say he felt entitled to her. If
I was being nice I would say he felt like she was a basic, fundamental
part of his world. He was paying more attention to Ryuzaki, always. Kira
would do that, but he'd also do that because he was handcuffed to the guy
and trying not to lose his cool. Because Ryuzaki had kind of a platonic
thing for him. Maybe platonic. If Light was Kira, was still Kira, then I
didn't give a flying shit about smooching his girlfriend while we were
both bloated with cake. But if he wasn't, or we could drive it out of him,
then I was doing something horrible because I couldn't control myself.
God, I hoped this wasn't some great circuitous plan of Ryuzaki's, that he
always meant for the two broken girls to fall in love.


    Mogi thought he saw an opening and took it. He was a boxer, not a
kickboxer, and when I put my right leg forward he had to pitch his upper
body downward to throw a punch at me. He was quick, but I was quicker.
Light on my feet, my right leg was twirling away from him by the time he
threw his punch. He tried to pull out, too late, and I transition into a
spin-kick that lightly tapped the back of his head. You got points for
that. My knee started to ache a bit.


    I miss you so much, Raye. I wish that you could tell me it was
okay. I wish you were here doing your stupid impressions that didn't sound
anything like the person. Or saying 'Kick his ass, sea bass!' because one
person in this room hadn't heard you say it before. And I don't know... I
don't know if that hurt me. Am I going to be trapped, pining for a stage
of unhealthy infatuation and heightened hopes that would have been
shattered? I don't know. I never, ever will. I'll always miss you. I'm
sorry for even thinking of that.


    Now Mogi's awake. He threw an uppercut at me, and I fell backwards
to avoid it, turning into a ground somersault. The moment my hands were
flat on the ground I launched into a handspring kick. Mogi had a
fifty-fifty shot at blocking my attack, but I chose option C. He guarded
his chest and made to grab my ankles, and I darted my legs in between his
and spread them, throwing off his balance. I spun into his shin before he
could right himself, and he fell to a knee.


    "Okay, I think I should specify, I never said I was a
professional," Mogi grumbled as he stood. "I said 'I used to box.'"


    I'd proven I had it, I think. At least against him. But I didn't
stop. I cartwheel kicked him in the arm, I swept his legs out from beneath
him. I waited for him to punch and I threw him. I never stopped moving. My
knee was throbbing in pain, and he never scored a direct hit.


    I never hit him hard enough to knock him out, but with every
touch, I showed my superiority over him. I scored on him again and again,
losing myself, until all at once I saw the burning red embarrassment on
his face as he got up. I stopped dead. And he nailed me right in the
stomach, and I fell over, and I wasn't just doing it to make him feel
good.


    "All right," he said. "Let's call that a draw." He didn't offer to
help me up and I didn't blame him. I'd humiliated him just to feel good
about myself. Just to feel like I was back to full strength. Ugh. I caught
my breath, and rolled myself to my feet. The cops were applauding Mogi,
saying we both did an excellent job, yada yada. Light and Ryuzaki both
looked like they had something to say too, when Misa spoke up.


    "Is that a text message? Ooh, is it the last guy?" She looked at
her phone, and her face fell. She turned the screen to show us all: a
brunette American-looking man, an image sent to Misa's number. Underneath
were instructions for death. "That is the last guy, isn't it?" she said.
This had all just become very real. The danger we were going to be in, who
we were against, was all rushing at her. My stomach sank right along with
hers. But I kept my cool.


    "Scott Davenport, General Electric," said Light. "That was Isamu's
guy, right?"


    "Exactly," Ryuzaki said. "While we want to wait a few more days
before moving, just to be certain, this would indicate that Eba is our
Kira. Only she knew that Misa could not solve her problem."


    "She, she sure didn't!" Misa said with a nervous chuckle.


    "I'm going to call Wedy," Ryuzaki said. "There is still a chance
Eba will message you, but there's no harm in laying out preliminary
surveillance. She has a good sense of their schedules by now. We're also
going to have to make six people disappear..."


    "You're not going to kill them, are you?" Misa asked in a panic.
"Don't kill them! Not even to keep me safe!"


    Ryuzaki stared at her for a couple of seconds. "I'm not going to
kill them, Misa. I'm going to bribe them to disappear for a while. You
will just say that you were proving your power, and never agreed to carry
out their circumstances."


    "Oh. Good. Good!" Misa said. "We've got a big plan, then. Don't
worry, Light. We're going to get this all solved soon enough!"


    I could only hope she was right.


                               * L I G H T *


    Ryuzaki was damn proud of what we'd done. Eba's phone had already
been wiretapped. Wedy was inside her penthouse apartment right now. L had
already created another secure facility with a lead-lined cell to contain
Kira in -- for if Kira was a being that resided in a person, its escape
could also be blocked. The plan was elegant and subtle from here on. Misa
would have to do some more acting, so would Matsuda. We would entice her
with a string of bait that lured her away from the security of her home,
with information too crucial to entrust to the ears of anyone but herself.
When she was exposed, we would trap her. The rest of Yotsuba Prosperity
Council would stay away from her, for fear of her power, too dangerous to
even admit they had sent the second Kira a face to dispose of their dirty
work. She would be imprisoned before she could enact any contingency.


    And they would find a few pieces of paper in her home, shreds that
promised to let Kira kill with a name and face. That would be easy enough
to arrange. She'd protest her innocence. The investigation would continue
to break down, especially when I revealed L's role in covering up the
murder Naomi committed, the one nobody was talking about. Trust breaks
down as we seem to go nowhere. My Kira would forfeit his memories. He'd
change the batteries in his smoke detector, and get them back, and oh
look, Kira has begun killing again! I had two people in L's organization
to kill, but luckily I had two options: Naomi's murderous emotions and
Misa's suicidal idiocy, enabled by the second Note my Kira was going to
move for me. Once that's done, I'll be the only successor to L to be
found. Misa would be my shinigami-eyed pet. Now emotionally dependent on
her, Naomi is her pet who shoots people who are immune to the Note. I am
the God of a new world and I eliminate the scum from it forever.


    "You're smiling," Ryuzaki said. "What is so funny?"


    "Oh, nothing. I was just thinking about that time Matsuda got
stuck in a chair," I said.


    "Heh. Yeah, that was funny," he replied.


    We both had big plans for the future. But all we could do right
now is wait. Sit here in HQ and wait for word, wait for news. Watch
whatever he had up on the big screen. Try to flick our wrists at each
other so the wave we made in the handcuff chain cancelled out in the
middle. Ryuk made like he was jumping rope with it, by drifting through
the floor.


    "Oh. I forgot to tell you," he said after a while. "Watari
notified me and the investigation while you were in isolation. Santoro
Zansai died."


    "Really? What happened?" Ryuk drifted to a stop as well. This was
information a Kira should be appraised of.


    "The blood clot for his stroke cleared right away," Ryuzaki said.
"Then after an hour and a half, he had a heart attack. As we suspected --
Kira kills by default method if the original method becomes impossible.
They did everything they could, but they said it wasn't possible to
restart his heart. Zansai was old. Medicine isn't a sure thing. Or maybe
the method of inducing a heart attack is irreversible. At least Aiber got
them to postpone their kill this week."


    "Oh. That's a tragedy." It was, actually -- Zansai didn't do
anything wrong, as far as I knew, and he cared about his community. My
pocket Kira was not going to escape justice, in the long run. But it was
nice to know how hard it was to evade my justice. Mathematically speaking,
Naomi couldn't have been the only one, but it had to have been a small
club.


    Both of our phones buzzed. Think of the devil. A group text, from
Naomi. //MISA GONE SWP DOUBLE//. Then followup //STUNT//.


    What.


    Ryuzaki and I both texted back in unison, //IS SHE MISSING?//


    //YS//


    God damn it. Misa went missing and left her stunt double to cover
her absence. This meant she was doing something that Naomi or Matsuda
would stop. This meant she was doing something stupid. And Rem couldn't
see her to bail her out, and she didn't have her memories to even put her
stupidity to a productive end!


    Ryuzaki called her from the master control panel. "Hi! You've
reached the phone of Misa Amane, heartthrob and superstar! I'm probably
out making dreams right now--"


    Ryuzaki called her from his line. "Hi! You've reached--"


    And then he looked at me. I called her from mine. She picked up on
the second ring. "Light! Hi, honey!"


    "Misa," my voice was stern yet even, "Where are you right now?"


    "Don't worry, Light!" she chirped, like she was distracting
herself from the fact she was about to throw up. "I'm gonna take care of
it. The longer this goes on, the more likely someone gets hurt, right? You
get hurt, or Naomi gets hurt, and I don't want that!"


    "Misa -- Misa if this is about your feelings, it's okay, I
understand that you have to work out some things. I still love you." Those
words were easy to say, easy to sound like I meant something. "We can work
through this, you don't have to do something silly." Please don't. Please
don't do something silly.


    "It's not silly!" she admonished. "It's not silly. Wedy got us the
reports of everyone's routine. Tonight is Pai-Gow night for Eba. She's in
that little casino place. If she confesses, nobody has to get hurt, and if
she's in public, she can't make a big scene."


    "Misa? MISA!" Ryuzaki was shouting into the speakerphone. "Do not
approach Eba! The operation requires she not be aware of our
surveillance!" We didn't have an actual tail on her to keep her suspicions
down! If she's approached too early then she doesn't have Death Note pages
planted on her no matter how clever I was about the method! The trail is
broken, there's no 13 day rule, Kira doesn't stop killing when she's
arrested, there are serious questions about if she was framed and if there
was a leak of inside information, Ryuzaki gets off his ass and removes my
connection! The whole plan is about to be ruined by this blonde idiot and
I was too far away to do anything!


    "I still love you too, Light," she said. And she hung up.
Desperately, I called her again. "Hi! You've reached the phone--"


    Me and Ryuzaki looked at each other. Just like that the HQ had
gone from the nerve center of everything to a sensory deprivation tank.
Eba was in an underground Chinese gambling house called the Little Three
Dragons. We didn't have anyone on it. We had her car wired, and Wedy
wasn't tailing her because she was at the apartment. Dad and Mogi were
here with us. Watari was across town and though he had a chopper, his
go-to option was conspicuous as hell. Naomi was behind, and I texted her
the address, but she wasn't going to go faster than Misa to the same
destination. And if she got there she was the least qualified person
possible to negotiate a tricky, delicate situation if Misa got into
trouble.


    "Wedy?" L's switchboard put me right in her ear. "Tell me we have
eyes on the Little Three Dragons."


    "Yeah, yeah, I'm bugging her house right now, it won't be fifteen
minutes. Wait. The casino?" She was so flummoxed that, watching her from
the camera she just put in, she almost fell off the ceiling. "No. That
wasn't part of the operation profile. If I wire every place she goes then
I'm going to get caught, period."


    Ryuzaki brought up the external cameras from Eba's car. It wasn't
much, but it was something. "Wedy," I told her, "We need as much camera
coverage of Little Three Dragons as possible in the next... five minutes.
Mission critical."


    "All right, hang on," she said, and she dropped onto Eba's
old-lady-couch and pulled out her laptop. "If memory serves, their cameras
are networked. But this does not come with a secrecy guarantee. This is
not enough time to do clean work."


    A flurry of clacking keys. Ryuzaki and I looked at each other. "Do
we call the cops?" I asked. "It's an illegal parlor. If they shut it down,
Eba's going to make herself scarce and not see Misa."


    "The whole neighborhood knows about it," Ryuzaki said. "They've
paid the local police their monthly bribe money, and they won't respond
fast enough in any case. We have no leverage with the police force now
that they refuse to aid the investigation."


    "And they get bomb threats all the time from disgruntled gamblers.
They won't care. Cutting the power is way too suspicious. Watari is too
far out to take out infrastructure." I ran my hands through my hair. God
damn it Misa. "I... don't know if we can stop Misa from getting there. We
need to control the encounter when she does."


    Ryuzaki saw what I was suggesting. "We may have to negotiate. She
doesn't know how little we have. She's outside of her comfort zone as
well; this is a Chinese operation."


    We waited.


    And we waited.


    And then one by one, the camera feeds from Eba's penthouse became
the security cameras at the gambling den. Inside and out. Revealing
patrons milling about a dingy, smoky two-story chamber lined with pachinko
machines and Chinese designs, filled with pai-gow, mah-jong, and other
gaming tables. I could smell the cigarette smoke from the other side of
the monitor. Most of the patrons were withered and old. There was Eba on
the second story, it looked like her game was going real well. But the
blonde woman emerging from the subway station wasn't withered or old --
she was Misa Amane, obvious even with her sunglasses and hat. A couple
people stopped and asked each other if that was really the famous model.
She was. And how did she get here so fast? How long ago did she give Naomi
the slip? Help was at least fifteen minutes away. Watari could not shoot
her.


    We called Misa again and again, but her phone was turned off. She
wouldn't be dissuaded from her heart of justice. We watched her from
catty-corner angles walking into the run-down little parlor. She talked to
the guard at the door, showed him something in her purse, took a picture
with him and went inside. Eba stood up and went to the balcony to tap the
ash from her cigarette on some unsuspecting head.


    Ryuzaki and I locked eyes for a second and held our breath. If he
wanted us to bond, well, we were bonding through shared trauma now. Maybe
Eba wouldn't notice Misa. Misa was slowly walking past everyone, comparing
them to a photo of the woman. Maybe she'd be turned away at the right oh
god damn it there it was Misa just got made.


    Eba answered her phone on the first ring. Ryuzaki talked through
his filter. All I could do was watch. It felt disgusting to be so
powerless.


    "Hello, Kira," said Ryuzaki. "You're talking to L. I can see you
and everything in the room right now. I can see your fortunes are up and
just like you I can see Misa Amane standing there. Should people begin to
die, should people begin to behave strangely, you will find your life
extraordinarily unpleasant."


    "Who. The actual fuck. Are you." she snarled. Below, Misa stopped
to look at a pachinko machine. Can't be dissuaded, can be distracted from
her heart of justice. God damn it Misa. Just answer your phone, read the
texts... if I could get five words to her I could stop this, I could
salvage it!


    "I told you. I am L. I'm the one hunting for you, Kira. And I've
just found you," Ryuzaki said.


    "I ain't no God-damn Kira!" she whispered. "I knew you were going
to set me up. I knew it. Misa works for you. Come to set me up. What if I
get some people here to slap leather and blow open her head like a
pumpkin? You going to keep slinging Christing accusations?"


    "No way," I whispered. "All the guards here are Chinese." I pulled
up the family registry and frantically searched it. "I don't think she has
any family ties here, I think she just likes gambling!"


    "I don't think you want to do that," said Ryuzaki. "For one, it
would make an awfully big scene. For two, there is an anti-tank rifle
being pointed at your heat signature. Firing it would be unpleasant for
all of us." This was a bluff. Watari had an antimateriel rifle, but he
couldn't see through walls. Boy, I hoped she didn't know how that worked.


    She croak-cackled and leaned onto the railing. Below her, a bald
guy slapped the cigarette ashes off of his head. "So we got a
mother-fucking Mexican standoff, don't we? Now I don't think you normally
send your people in just to threaten anyone what looks at them. Not your
style." She took a long drag. "So you wanna trade for her safe passage.
You wanna call me Kira. You can only get one of those things and it ain't
the goddamn second one. What ya got to offer in return?"


    "Misa is here to take your confession," said Ryuzaki. "You are
going to give it to her." Ryuzaki put his hand over the reciever. "What am
I doing here, Light?" he stage-whispered.


    "Okay, uh, she's confessing, because..." I stammered. "We're
getting the whole Prosperity Council right now, and Misa just wants her
part, and you don't know she's the only one who's Kira! Get her to roll on
them!"


    "You're going to confess to her all of your acts as Kira in the
Yotsuba Prosperity Council. Your six partners in crime are being detained
right now and other agents are taking their confessions. Those of you who
are less culpable will be given reduced sentences."


    "So you know about the Prosperity Council?" she said. "Who told
you that shit? Was it Mayo? God damn Mayo."


    "Okay, now if any of them die, that's proof on her!" I hissed.
"She kills them to cover herself, not knowing the other six are all free!"
I had to get my Kira to whack a few of his colleagues quick, and make sure
Eba had open time she could have done it in. God damn it Misa, why can't I
just reach through the screen and grab you by the throat and stop you?


    "L has eyes and ears everywhere," Ryuzaki said. "Miss Amane
believes you to be the least culpable of the group. Give her a full
confession, and if it matches what I know, maybe I will believe her." Misa
was going up the stairs now. No obstruction between her and Eba. "A car is
being dispatched to take you into custody. Protective custody."


    "I'm being framed. I ain't no Kira." She saw Misa approaching, and
she hung up.


    We had no people, we had no communication. No way of affecting
things on the ground. Able to see everything, powerless to act on it.


    What was Eba going to do? Take the chance to roll on the group,
which Ryuzaki assumed would involve Kira powers? Or would she grab Misa
and hold a knife to her throat and shout 'Don't nobody move!' The
situation was out of control. That was the place I tried to keep
situations out of.


    Misa greeted her. They bowed politely. Their lips were moving. No
idea what they were saying. Eba wasn't going for a weapon...


    Okay. They sat down at a table. Misa went into her bag. She
lowered her sunglasses, and she handed Eba something. Some paper. Probably
evidence against her. A transcript?


    And then... she got up? Misa got up. Misa started walking away.
Ryuzaki mashed the 'redial' button, and Eba picked it up immediately.
"That was a quick--" was as far as he got.


    "Is this some kind of joke?" Eba snarled. "Is this even L? Am I on
a goddamned TV show? First you send the god damn mute at me with the
honey-pot. Now you threaten me into giving a fake confession to nobody?
You get your fucking rocks off on this, kid? Because I'm gonna find you.
And I am going to shove a knitting needle up your dickhole and twirl it
until it looks like the inside of a funnel."


    Oh no.


    Oh no, oh no, oh no.


    Oh no no no no no no no no no no nononononononononononono.


    Ryuk wasn't even laughing at me. He was chuckling at Eba's
vulgarity. He didn't even realize what had just happened.


    I stood up, flinging my chair backwards, and I grabbed the
handcuff chain linking us and I yanked.


    I had to get to the bathroom.


    I had to kill myself as fast as I possibly could.


    * R U L E S *


    60. After a god of death has brought the Death Note to the human
world and given its ownership to a human, that god of death has the right
to kill the human using his/her own Death Note for reasons such as
disliking the owner.


    CLARIFICATION: This does not grant the right to kill the human in
any other fashion.


    X-5a. It is not advisable for a god of death to haunt a human
immune to the Death Note, as they will be unable to end the haunting when
they wish to. Even though it does not create a valid entry, a god of death
haunting such a human must still write that human's name in the Death Note
when they die.


    X-5b. Gods of death who drop a Death Note in the human world that
is picked up by a human will remain leashed to within 235cm of the owner,
measured from the human owner's heart to any part of the god of death's
body. Distance is fine if it is horizontal or vertical, and even keeping a
single toe or wingtip in range is acceptable.


    X-5c. If a god of death haunts a single human, who dies, and the
Death Note is immediately claimed by another human, that god of death will
leash to the new owner's proximity. If the Death Note remains unclaimed
after 127 seconds, the god of death will have to search for the new owner
to attach to them, or return to the shinigami realm.


    X-5d. If a god of death haunts two or more humans who each own a
Death Note that god of death dropped in the human world, that god of death
may exit the leash range of one of the humans in order to travel to
another haunted human. The god of death should travel directly to his or
her destination and may incur punishment for detours.
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