[FFML] [FIC][DEATH NOTE AU] Silent Partner, Unfinished Business ch. 08

[Paul Durant]

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


                               * * * * * * *


    SILENT PARTNER, UNFINISHED BUSINESS:


    TERMINATION PROCEDURE


                                * M I S A *


    "Go!" I shouted, brandishing my blank pistol. "I'll defend myself
if anyone shows up, and I'll find the evidence!" I needed her here, I
needed her to protect me, but I had no other choice. There were only two
of us. There were two places we had to be. She ran down the hall, smacking
her leg to turn on her ice pack. I ducked back into the apartment. The
fire alarm went off, and I heard gunshots, but Naomi waved me back to the
apartment. She looked totally in control and not afraid at all, so, it was
time to get the info.


    All right. What did the Egawas leave in here?


    First thing to do was make sure they didn't leave any people. So I
opened the closets, nothing. Bathroom, shower curtain, nothing. Tiny
bedroom, nothing but fresh white sheets and bloody ones in the garbage.
That's not burnable trash, that's in the wrong can. Tiny guest room, a
couch covered in more blood, but no people. Nobody hidden in the main room
behind furniture. Nothing really to hide under. In the refrigerator?


    I opened the fridge and a human corpse fell out. I screamed in
shock. There was no blood anywhere on him, and the guy was in a suit with
no tie like gangsters wear. He wasn't the source of all the blood. Isamu
probably was, the doc worked here. This guy wasn't shot or stabbed... Damn
it. Isamu Kira'd him to prove his powers. He probably was turning state's
evidence or something, and the other gangsters didn't stop him.


    I don't know what you do to someone like that to show respect. Or
if you show any. He could have been a gangster with a heart of gold trying
to go straight or an evil slaver and murderer. I'll never know. I closed
his eyes, and I put a towel over him as a shawl, and if I knew any good
prayers I would have said one. But I had to keep going for the people I
could still save.


    There was nobody in the house, unless there were secret
compartments somewhere, and if there were they were probably awkward to
get out of. Okay. If I was evidence, if I was a stack of murder paper,
where would I be? There was a bunch of medical supplies on the door of the
fridge where the guy was, and I grabbed a couple of things I recognized.
No notes, though. More medicine and strawberry ice cream in the freezer.
It's just a little kitchen nook, no island, no full size oven. Probably
wouldn't find anything, but I wanted to make sure --


    Hang on. Everything turned off when the power went out, but the
toaster oven doesn't have its knobs straight. It's... Who sets a toaster
oven to 200 degrees?


    Apparently, someone cooking paper. No! Drying paper. It was a
stack of lined sheets, like they'd all been torn out of a notebook on the
perforated part. The lower right corner of the stack was burned up, like
it was set on fire. And the rest of it was damp. Like they doused it to
put the fire out. How was it still damp after so long, with some amount of
that time in an oven? It was magic paper, maybe it had infinity water in
it, I don't know.


    The front of the stack was just encrusted in names and times, no
details. God, this was... a lot of people. On this one sheet of paper.
People I had no idea about. Probably all of them were criminals. I
couldn't do anything about them anyway, they were already dead. If I pried
these pages apart one at a time I'd never get to what I needed...


    I flipped the stack over. //SALVATORE DI FORENZI. OVERDOSE. BREAKS
HIS FOOT IN A MINOR TRAFFIC ACCIDENT AND IS PRESCRIBED OPIOIDS. ONE WEEK
LATER, HE DRINKS HEAVILY TO CELEBRATE A SOON TO BE COMPLETED BUSINESS
DEAL, AND THE INTERACTION CAUSES HIM TO DIE OF AN OPIOID OVERDOSE ON MAY
15TH AT 9:28 PM CENTRAL EUROPEAN TIME.//


    A business guy. Isamu did his criminal Kira-ing on one side, and
then his personal murders on the other. He would want to keep them
separate, wouldn't he?


    Everything was stuck together, and now the lower left corner was
burned up. It was gooey, so I couldn't rifle through it, I could tear the
pages and they could get stuck together with important info on them. I
didn't have time to dry it out all the way, for all we knew the cop's
deadline was in ten minutes. But... I have a scalpel, to use for various
things. And was there a hair dryer in the bathroom? Yes, it was a crappy
one, but it blows air!


    All right, this can work! The scalpel is super thin, so it can
slip in to any tiny crack between the pages when I bend the whole stack.
Turn it sideways to prop the hole open... point the hair dryer in there...
Schloomp! It puffed the hole out, and the paper peeled apart as naturally
as it can! The burned part crumbled away, and there was bleed-through of
the ink between facing pages, but it's still legible. Eat it, Kira, acting
like I don't know how to do things!


    I know what name I'm looking for, so it didn't take much time to
get each page out and classify it. The last guy he killed for personal use
was Santoro Zansai, so once I see that name...


    There! It's cut off by the burned bit, but I can see //STROKE.
SEPTEMBER 12th, 2007 3:23 AM. AWAKENED IN SUDDEN PANIC, HE ATTEMPTS TO
CALL// and //OXYGEN-STARVED BRAIN DISTORTS HIS THOUGHTS AND PERCEPTIONS.//
That was the right day and cause. But everything below it was burned up,
nothing on the facing page...


    No. It wasn't lost. I had to keep going. The next page was blank.
But I can't stop. The next one was blank too. But...


    He was in a hurry, wasn't he? He wouldn't go to the last entry and
make another one underneath it when he was afraid of being shot. He'd grab
the notebook, grab the pages from the back in a chunk, flip past all the
ones that had something written in one go... And stop two or three pages
past it.


    Here we go. I mashed the quick-dial for Ryuzaki's Official
L-Phone. "Ryuzaki! I found it!" I shouted without bothering to let him
talk. "The entry for the cop they have controlled! Get a pen! It's //TARO
OGAWA. SUICIDE. WRACKED WITH LONELINESS, HE FALLS IN LOVE WITH THE
PREGNANT WOMAN WHO JUST LEFT HIS OFFICE AND RESOLVES TO DO ABSOLUTELY
EVERYTHING HE POSSIBLY CAN TO HELP HER AND HER HUSBAND ATTAIN THEIR GOALS.
ON OCTOBER 6th, AT 4 AM, HE REALIZES HE CAN NEVER HAVE HER AND TAKES HIS
OWN LIFE TO BE AT PEACE.//"


    There was a bit of silence on the line. Then Ryuzaki spoke. Good,
because if it was Light I would have to do it again. "Is that it? It uses
natural human language? It can... dictate circumstance so widely, but be
so vague about it?"


    "Apparently, yeah!" I said back. "This is definitely the stuff!
But I don't see... any entry about the paramedics... God damn it! He
didn't control them. They were already on Kira's team. What -- whatever!
You got his name, you got the time, you got the thing he has to do! Are
you going to save Taro Ogawa's life or not?"


    Another pause. There was a conversation in the background, some
important command. "I will do everything in my power to ensure that on
October 6th, at 4 AM, officer Taro Ogawa is naked in a padded cell
containing only a reversible method of suicide."


    "Good! Good. Okay, I'll see you again when we catch Light and
prove he's Kira and I'm not," I said.


    "You have now admitted to me that, from Isamu Egawa, you reclaimed
the object used by Kira to perform killings," he said.


    "That's a conversation we can have when you're apologizing to me
for thinking I was Kira!" I snapped. And I hung up. Man, that felt good. I
just saved an innocent guy's life and that mattered a whole lot. Time to
put all these sheets in a plastic bag, try to secure it with our stuff,
and turn around and "OH GOD WHERE DID YOU COME FROM?" I fell against the
kitchen nook counter. I pulled the gun from it and waved it at her, but
even if it was real it wouldn't work.


    Rem was here. Staring at me. For I don't know how long. She slowly
lifted a bony, bony hand and she pointed at me. At my wrist. The paper
bracelet on it. "You were the first to touch the Death Note after the
previous owner died." I couldn't tell if she was sighing or hissing. "That
makes you the new owner, and my charge."


    One, Isamu was dead? Damn, Naomi, that was only like ten minutes.
Two -- "Are, are you possessing me now? Are you going to make me Kira? Or
are you a Kira and you make me your servant?" I grabbed at myself, my
face, my stomach, my legs. Was I growing spikes? I didn't feel evil, but
SHE didn't feel evil either. All this paper was valuable evidence that
would give families closure, but I couldn't be allowed to have it, maybe
it could fit in the garbage disposal before I turned...


    "I haunt the human who owns the Death Note," she said. "I cannot
compel your actions."


    It didn't feel like she was lying. She didn't have the energy for
it. So that was... maybe I had been possessed by someone else. I put the
papers, the Death Note I guess, back into the baggie. "Okay..." I told
her. "So you are not serving the Egawas any more. I'm your summoner? I
have to kill for you? What are you? Why were you helping that couple?"


    "There is... no need for you to do that," she said. Was she biting
her lip? Did that even mean the same thing? "I am a shinigami. We are gods
of... We are created by the Death Note. A notebook that can slay any human
by recording their name and envisioning their face. Each of us must have
one with us at all times. We are ordinarily invisible to humans. But if
one of us acquires two Notes... they may grant it to a human. The human
may do with it as she pleases." Another pause. "I helped those two
because... Kira said it was necessary to maintain your well-being."


    "Kira. That's Light Yagami. I know it is, you don't have to
pretend," I said. "Do you have to do what I say? Can I make you tell
everyone what Light is doing?" Because that would be like cheating, but
man, I would totally take that.


    "I won't... do things that may endanger your safety." I wished I
could read her face. "Know that Kira as a plan for you to ensure your
well-being. I'll go along with it. I will help you to the best of my
ability outside of that."


    Hmm. "So. You don't want to hurt me. You can't make me kill
people. And -- you are here with a space book. So you gave your spare book
to Light Yagami? Or you gave it to me. Or it belonged to your dead friend,
right?"


    This definitely was a sigh. "It belonged to Gelus. He died to
spare your life. I thought it right that you have it. You loved Kira, the
other user, so much."


    I really did. God. That was... that would be when the stalker came
at me with a knife. It was right before the Second Kira. That would be why
I couldn't remember how I got out. I didn't remember anything involving
shinigami.


    A shinigami. A god of death, or, the delivery mechanism for the
real god of death. She could answer so many questions. Provide valuable
intel. I doubted she would betray the head Kira by giving up Light's plan,
but still, she knew so much... I flipped open my phone. I found the
recording function. And I asked. "Gelus. Your friend. You said... that if
I died, the last of him would be gone. right?" Take a deep breath.
Someone, something, died for me. I had to... I had to respect that
somehow. "Tell me about him."


    Rem looked taken aback. I think she would have gasped or something
but she doesn't need to breathe. She kept looking to see if I was serious.
I kind of waved the phone recorder at her. "Gelus was...


    "Shinigami. We are the most vile, repulsive, irredeemable beings
in existence. We sustain our lifespan by stealing it from humans with the
Death Note, and expend it to no purpose. We are worthless. Except him. I
do not understand how he came into existence, or how he existed that long.
He was... a frail creature. Like a cloth doll. He took lifespan only from
those in incurable suffering. He was gentle. He... he watched humans. Not
to prey upon them. To see them being happy. He believed... humanity was
precious. Worth something. More than we were." Other than pausing for
words, Rem wasn't emoting at all. No movement, no changes in register, not
looking away, nothing. Was she emotionless? Or did she just not express
them the same way?


    She kept going. "He fell in love with you. He... admired you. You
performed after the death of your parents. To continue to make other
humans happy. He found this trait admirable. Worth saving. Shinigami can
see a human's lifespan, and knew that yours would be short. He said that
were it not unfairly taken from you, you would use your life to become
someone great. He followed you. He wanted to see if he could make your
last moments happy and peaceful. He saw your stalker, and his knife... A
shinigami who extends a human life by using their Death Note will die. All
of their lifespan will be transferred to the human he saved. I warned him.
Urged him to stop. He said he was happy to stop existing. To give his life
to you. Your assailant died of a heart attack before he could claim your
life."


    Oh my God. "And you, you saw it? You came to give me the Death
Note afterwards because, because what? So I could be more like him?"


    "His Note fell to the ground when he died," Rem said. "I thought
it only appropriate you have it. You had his life."


    Oh my God. "You, so you haunted me. And you, what, you watched me?
You WATCHED ME?" All of a sudden I was shouting, gasping. "You watched me
kill those people! Is that it? Did you help? Did you direct me, or did you
just say how it works and tell me to go nuts? Why would -- how -- Is that
what Gelus wanted? Huh? Me to kill a bunch of innocent people? Make a, a
bunch of awful mistakes I can never take back?"


    Rem tried to defend herself. "I gave you only what you--"


    "YOU GAVE A CHILD A LOADED GUN!" I shouted. If there was still a
crowd downstairs they heard me. "I wasn't, I couldn't have that
responsibility! Not then! Not like that! I was confused and distraught and
broken up and I wanted someone to take away my pain and you thought, you
thought, you thought that me killing people was going to solve that
somehow? Huh? If something is awful, and you wanna do something, and you
don't know what, you, you should at least not make it WORSE!" I snapped
through the tears in my eyes. It was me. It was all me. No possession. I
was an awful, murderous person. Some irresponsible monster gave me the
perfect murder weapon and I went crazy with it. I couldn't even figure out
what was wrong with doing that. All I cared about was Kira. No. All I
cared about was myself. Making that empty, hollow Misa-shaped shell I was
get filled up with something, anything to make me exist again. To make the
fear go away. To make the world make sense. Well this was an awful world
with gods of death who do whatever they feel like and it would never make
sense. I'd never be a full person.


    "I have..." Rem said, "Tried to aid you as much as I could. I have
followed Kira's plan to ensure your safety. All of these events were
engineered by him."


    "Shove it," I spat. I clicked the phone recorder closed. "Light
isn't that smart. Naomi and I are going to take him down. I don't want you
cooperating with his dumb plan any more, okay?" Outside, a truck rolled
up. //EXPLOSIVE ORDNANCE DISPOSAL// in big yellow text. And it came here
first. That meant they were in on it. Crap. And now my phone was buzzing.
She needed help. "After Naomi took out Isamu, did you see where she was
going next, or were you pulled off right away?"


    "Naomi did not kill Isamu," Rem said. "The human with the distance
rifle did."


    "WHAT?"


    Outside, the one remaining patrol cop was letting the EOD team
inside Four guys? Five? "THAT'S what that was? Watari is sniping people
and she's pinned down and you didn't tell me? We have to go after her! Can
you, can you fly over and carry me?"


    One of the team was wearing a huge, bulky bombproof suit.
Wonderful. "I am incapable of carrying a human for the purpose of
transport," she said.


    The door closed behind them. The bomb squad was on its way up and
they were going to shoot me. "Great!" I shouted. "I'm jumping out this
window, so all you have to do is catch me!"


                               * N A O M I *


    Screams of pain aren't words. I can produce those just fine. As I
fell to the ground, my flesh ripped open by a switchblade, I produced a
very fluent one. The blade went in just below my bulletproof vest, and its
owner couldn't drag it upward like he wanted. At least I didn't drop my
gun when I fell.


    "You WHORE!" the man shouted in anger. "You have any idea who that
was? Any idea? Kira's going to have all of our heads for losing his
servant. Unless I bring--"


    BLAM! BLAM!


    I can still aim from the ground. I'm not letting you bludgeon or
stab me any more to get in Kira's good graces. Therefore, shut up. The
first bullet struck him dead center mass, the second was insurance. He
fell dead to the floor.


    My knee was in agony. I was aware of the pain in my side, and the
life leaking out of it. It hurt. But it didn't smell like shit, so he
hadn't nicked my intestine. The wound would kill me as I lost more and
more blood, but that would take hours. The knee was the big problem. I
couldn't bend it, and there was no way I could put the slightest weight on
it. I'd collapse in agony again. People were running, screaming, fleeing
in the main street of Isezakicho, but the police were going to be here
quick, and then so would L's people, and I wouldn't last long enough to
run ballistics or a serial number. If I even got taken in, I wasn't
getting out under my own power. Isamu had a cop in his thrall, I had to
assume he'd get the police back on his side before long. If L didn't get
me I'd coincidentally die of excited delirium.


    None of my theorizing would matter if I couldn't get up. Above
Isamu's decapitated body, I could see the seat. The briefcase he had with
him. It had to have his notebook sheets in it, whatever wasn't left behind
for Misa or in his hand. Nobody else could get that, nobody who could be a
Kira disciple, and nobody who could hand them to Light. And if I got
outside to grab them my head would be blown off.


    I groaned in pain as I flipped onto my stomach. Every time I
moved, my stab wound was getting worse, more blood was oozing down my
side. What did I have before the attack came? A minute? Thirty seconds? I
wasn't leaving a whole snail trail of blood as I crawled on the floor,
just spatters. That was good. I had to use my upper body entirely, and I
was aggravating my wound more. That was real bad. Where -- where was the
pole I hit Rem with?


    Here. Here we go. Three slots on the top to clip ribbons to, and
then one that the ribbon comes out of. Used to make barriers to guide
people standing in line. It would have to work for me, too. I pulled out
the fabric ribbon and tied it to my right hand. Pulled out as much slack
as I could. If I got out of the doorway I would be shot... but I could
chuck an improvised grappling hook into the SUV sitting right outside.
Close my eyes, try not to look at the oozing neck stump that used to be
Kira-Y. And slowly reel my pole in. Drag it over Isamu's remains, throw it
and latch on again. The sheet in his hands was drenched in blood,
impossible to use. Where were the cops? They should be here by now. I
grabbed the blood-soaked case, and I clutched it close, like a violently
ill child lying in the hallway holding a bucket. I hadn't been shot yet.
So that was good.


    I'm not going to die here. Misa isn't going to follow a blood
trail to my corpse. She had the supplies, so I had to tear off my blouse
sleeve -- I couldn't bend over enough to get a sock -- and I wadded it up
and held it as hard as I could on my side, with my exposed, scarred arm. I
was not going to die here whether or not the cops are coming in. I was
going to text Misa, //HLP ARCD//, and she was going to follow a trail of
blood I left crawling on the floor to find me, screaming like a little
bitch.


                                 * * * * *


    "No! Let me go! That's my HUSBAND! He NEEDS ME! You're, god damn
it, you're supposed to do what I SAY! I don't CARE If I got shot! DO WHAT
I SAY AND GO BACK AND SAVE HIM!" Nabiki is shrieking, struggling uselessly
in her captor's grasp, holding out her hand as if to touch him one last
time.


    But there is nothing to do. With an echoing BOOOM!, the
anti-materiel rifle fires again. She can't see Isamu, but she can see the
spray of gore. See Rem vanish. He's gone. She goes limp in Officer Ogawa's
arms, moaning. "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Tears flow freely down her face. "You,
you useless piece of SHIT! What are you even doing! He's DEAD! You let him
DIE! HOW COULD YOU LET HIM DIE?" She pounds on him, to no effect.


    "Shh. Shhh." he whispers. "I have to get you to safety. We need to
hide. The police are everywhere but they don't know what is happening
right now. We need to grab our friends  and get hidden. The police are on
her side, and you're not in condition to flee."


    "Isamu..." she sobs. "It's not right, it's not right, they can't
take him from me... They can't, they can't! Why didn't Rem turn around?
You, you should have done something! Where, where, give me my purse! Give
me my purse! Amane dies for this! DEAD! She dies SCREAMING, you hear me?"


    "We have to go, honey," Ogawa says. "You can't kill Misa. That
page is gone. Burned."


    "You did WHAT?" she screams, and tries to punch him again
uselessly. "Why would you do that? Why? That was, that was my one piece of
leverage! It's my revenge!"


    "You said it would lock you out of heaven and hell!" he protests.
"And one you do it, you have to do it again every 13 days, and there's not
much paper left! I, I couldn't let you do that to yourself! What if it
works by majority rules, and someone else put the last character in and
you were on the hook? I can't let that happen! I have to watch out for
you!" He grabs her wrists so she will stop hitting him. "We can get
somewhere to hide if we move now, but we have to move NOW. You can mourn
later!"


    "Where... I need..." Her world is falling apart. Her life is over.
She was shot in the thigh and doesn't even feel it. "They're gonna pay.
They're gonna pay. They're all gonna pay," she mutters as she's led away.
Obviously a traumatized victim, like so many others in the confusion,
being led to safety by a responding officer.


                                * M I S A *


    "Get down!" The patrol cop from before grabbed me by the neck and
pulled me into a side street, up against the outer wall of a bookstore.
"This is her!" he shouted over to the three other officers in the alley.
Two had their guns drawn, and the last one looked younger than me, wearing
a reflector vest like she was a traffic inspector. "You, JOCD! Miss
Maruka... Marukabu... Miss Maru, this place is a warzone! We've got at
least one sniper down the street! The American you were supervising, she
fought some kind of, of, of, of some supernatural entity outside, made
pursuit of the fleeing suspects on my bike, and she's inside that arcade,
fighting at least one entity!"


    "Please, do you know what is going on?" asked the traffic
inspector. Then she started staring at me. "Wait, are you..."


    "The actress? Yeah, I get that a lot," I said in my world-weary
voice. "If she really joined Kira's team, that's like five reasons I have
to be mad at her." My cop character hadn't heard the interview, see, that
made it more believable we were separate people. And why be suspicious?
Misa Amane is an actress, she doesn't do crazy dangerous things. "Stop
putting on makeup, so people can see I'm ten years older than her too..."
I mumbled.


    Watari was shooting and I didn't know from where. Naomi needed my
help. Any inconsistency in my story would result in me being arrested for
impersonating an officer and not getting help and not helping her and also
being kidnapped and/or shot. It's not like improv where you aren't allowed
to ever contradict what someone says.


    "I have no idea what is going on," I told them. "I thought miss
Maki was here to deal with someone using a Japanese business to launder
money for American gangs. She told me we had to split up, I grabbed some
financial records, and apparently she fought a ghost? Or a demon? And
there's a sniper too? Is the sniper also a ghost? How, how long has the
FBI had anti-ghost units? I was wearing this vest because she insisted! I,
I pilot a desk!"


    I didn't know any more than they did, see! I don't need to say
what I know. I couldn't contradict anything they knew. I was just an
unimpressive person. If this was acting school I would be yelled at for
not adding anything to the scene, but that's why I did it.


    "We don't know what the sniper is!" the beat cop said. He'd pulled
his name tag off. Probably smart! "It took out Egawa's vehicle. But nobody
ordered him, or IT, to do that, we have no idea where it is, and we have
no idea where its loyalties lie. Everyone is to take cover until armored
support arrives. EOD should come soon, and the SAT after that. We're
supposed to just hunker down until then."


    That was bad. That was really bad. EOD were the bomb guys. Bomb
guys were in on it. They were going to shoot Naomi while she needed help.
I had to get in there. Okay. Why did my character... no, why did Naomi's
character need help? She was a monster hunting cop. Way cooler and faster
and smarter than me. My character didn't know any of the details because
she was a desk jockey. But I was carrying Naomi's stuff and her spare
clothes. What did I have that could be what she needs... Did I have salt?
There's something you do with salt in magic, but I didn't know if I had it
right... No, I didn't know what she gave me! My ignorance is the whole
point! It could be any sort of monster supplies for all I know, I don't
have to detail them!


    "I can't do that," I said. "I have no idea what she's doing but
that woman is my responsibility as long as she's in Japan. She told me to
hold all her stuff in this bag... there's some weird things in here I
didn't ask too much about. If she deals with monsters... If she's not even
FBI... she could have something in here we need. That she needs." I
unshouldered the bag and held it out. Like I was giving him a chance to
add to the scene, say something new.


    But he didn't. "I don't... I can't take anything in there. There
was definitely a gunshot. Nobody saw what happened, but the thing went in
there, and bullets went through it."


    "She's my responsibility." I established myself as going in alone.
This is in character. "I... Miss? Could you give me your hat and
reflective vest? I don't want to be a victim of friendly fire." A traffic
inspector had even less reason to be inspected for being Misa Amane by a
hypothetical sniper. The Second Kira would have no problem sending a human
shield, so if that was who Watari thought I was, he wouldn't be able to
shoot me. And if he didn't think I was the Second Kira, then he wouldn't
want to shoot me anyway!


    The traffic cop looked at me. Real hard. And she nodded. Slowly,
she unhooked her key ring, and she clipped it to the vest as she handed it
to me. The keys to her mini car. She must have been a fan! Of course, my
fans would have spent a lot more time looking at my face than Kira
cultists would. Unless the fans were also Kira cultists. I kind of asked
for that audience.


    I couldn't thank her or acknowledge her anyway. The three other
guys here might have been on Kira's side. Any crowd might be a danger to
me. I could just put on the vest and hat, nod to her, and walk out. No.
Stop. What is the physical language of this scene? A traffic maid, scared,
carrying bags. I wouldn't have them slung over my shoulders. I would have
them... one in each hand, out at my sides, like I'm scared of them.


    Nobody shot me. So I guess it worked.


    I jogged into the arcade, alone. There was so much crap in the
windows and so many flashing lights, nobody could see inside. I went in
the side; there was a car crashed at the front. Inside was a dead gangster
and a trail of blood leading to the ticket counter.


    No. She's not dead. It's not enough blood. She's... Yeah, she was
gasping and moaning in pain.


    She was behind the counter, clutching her side, on top of a
briefcase. "You scared me!" I yelled at her. "The bomb squad is coming.
Four, five guys? They made a beeline for the hamburger building, so
they're on Kira's side." I jumped, grabbed the top of a Capcom vs SNK
cabinet, and I clambered on top of it. To stay inside the minimum range,
Rem was dragged out of the ground until her intangible head was poking
out. "Rem's following me, but she's at least cooperative," I said when I
hopped back down. Once she got the signal to stop hiding, she hovered her
way back up. Naomi drew her gun, and I don't blame her. "Easy! She might
not take all of my orders, but she's not taking theirs anymore either."
Rem didn't really seem to take much initiative.


    "Ah. Ah. Uh." Naomi had a way harder time finding the word than
usual. Probably because she was bleeding, a lot. "Um." I'd kept up my
First Aid certification ever since my second professional role, Young
Drowning Victim in the Red Cross Society of Japan's instructional video
First Aid for Teachers and Counselors. The certification course was me and
Dad's only payment for the role, beyond getting my name in with the video
production company, so we made sure we got value out of it. "Er..." The
problem was that first aid is what you do to get ready for an ambulance to
show up, and that wasn't happening. The second was that first aid for a
bleeding wound was going to require her to not do a bunch of things she
was totally about to do. Like move around. Probably run. "And... ah," But
I had a first aid kit so I was going to do what I could and maybe later I
could sew the wound up.


    "Hnnn... Body! Body!" she said with both relief and panic when she
finally got the word.


    "Body. Someone's body," I said. I wished I knew her well enough
that I could guess on the first try what she meant, but that was
unrealistic for a bunch of reasons. "There is a body here? Yes? The
gangster? No. There is -- Oh, God!" I gagged when I directed my attention
to the front door, and the decapitated corpse there. I felt my lunch
coming up, but I held it down. "Okay. You need that. That's probably
Isamu, so he has shit in his pockets. Right?" She grunted affirmatively.
"Okay. Okay. Rem. I'm gonna walk up close to the door... backwards... and
I want you to, to grab the body as soon as you can, and then we drag it
back inside, and I don't get shot." The cops might have been going after
Watari, but I don't know if they got him yet, or if they even had a
chance. Rem nodded. I did what I said, until I heard the body start being
dragged. Then I ran back to the counter. Shinigami can't carry humans for
transport, but I guess corpses don't count. "Put him up on... No, God,
don't do that," I said, trying not to look at the trail of blood leading
to the awful gory stump of a man who had his head shot off. The Second
Kira never had to look at this, maybe that's how she could be so
remorseless. "Take, take off his jacket. Empty his pockets."


    Rem complied. Robbing the dead wasn't against the rules either. I
got around the other side of the counter again and I got on the ground. I
unzipped my kit and got out my stuff. It would take a little while at
least for the bomb squad to check the other building to see if we weren't
hiding out. Maybe we could escape? Or maybe we'd be spotted with Rem, or
maybe we'd be the subject of an APB and be unable to get away with a mini
traffic ticket car that couldn't go over 50 KPH. Maybe we needed to fight
here. Boy, I hoped not. I bound two ice packs to her knee with an Ace
bandage, and I swabbed the blood off her injury with an alcohol pad while
she hissed in pain. She was stabbed, it looked to be, like 10 cm, and
stopped by the underside of her vest. "Rem!" I said. "Come here. I need,
like, a nurse."


    She stared at me with that one exposed eye. "I cannot participate
in human medical care. I cannot directly act to prolong human life."


    "WHAT?" I snapped. "What the hell? You have spent the past two
days leaping between bullets and Isamu Egawa!"


    "That..." she paused. "Is different. My body is wider than his. I
cannot predict trajectories. I do not know if I am stopping any bullet
that would otherwise kill him."


    Naomi and I both laughed even though it wasn't funny at all. "Oh,
well, technically, that's fine! What, what is this? How do the rules work?
Are shinigami like that Jewish guy who figured out he could wrap sacred
string all over Manhattan and that made it okay to eat bacon?" I was
pretty sure that was how that worked.


    Naomi was looking up at me. Pushing up with her hands, like she
was holding something. Mime. "Okay, pushing. Holding. Carrying. Carrying!
Carrying you? Rem can't... Ah. Gotcha. Rem! Can you pick her up, and stay
very still?"


    She could. I grabbed the briefcase, stuffed the things in Isamu's
pockets into my bag, and grabbed something that looked like it might be
usable as a cane. Little pole thing. My shoulders were hurting from
lugging all our shit around but it was not a good time to complain. Naomi
needed me. I could do this, because she could do this. She pointed to the
back -- the spare room, where they'd take breaks and keep the out of
service machines. We had to go around... So I told Rem "Hold really
still." And then I walked out from the ticket counter, dragging Rem with
me. Their rules don't make any sense.


                                 * R E M *


    I put Naomi Misora down on the table in the rear room. Misa Amane
began treating her injury, wiping up the trail of the awful writhing fluid
that oozed out of the hole in her body. They were trapped here. The
criminals would kill them if they escaped, and if they stayed. The
repulsive Nabiki Egawa had certainly told them, out of my earshot, to
murder Misa Amane and ensure the remains would never be identified. She
assumed I would remain near her husband and not see it. The piece of Death
Note upon which she wrote the threat to Misa Amane was destroyed. Had Taro
Ogawa not done that, I would have stolen it myself.


    Misa Amane. I wanted to save the last piece of Gelus. I didn't
know if I saw what he did. If I am capable of love. I see something in her
now. This incredibly fragile thing, this hollow person, made of spun
glass. Appearing to be what others need. To fill the hollowness inside of
them.


    She had a weapon. She informed me it fires blanks. False bullets
that don't exist. It was what she is.


    Her savior was so frail. So broken. She could not communicate. Nor
stand. Her injuries will only get worse. I didn't know what her lifespan
was, or if she has a lifespan as shinigami understand it. I know she will
die. She will be broken and dashed to pieces by this awful, irredeemable
world. A world of Egawas. A world that could be cleansed by a thousand
Kiras and still never be clean.


    They talked. Misa Amane talked and Naomi Misora grunted and
gesticulated. It was about the bomb squad approaching. Naomi Misora was
excited when she heard one of them was wearing heavy blast armor. If Misa
Amane interpreted her correctly, this meant that they were not police.
They were the yakuza, the criminal organization. Vicious men who live to
no purpose and no end but to take life from others. I saw eight of them.
Changing clothing. Unmasked, unaware of my existence.


    "He has done it," I whispered to myself. "He can kill a shinigami.
He has surpassed us..."


    Only now did I realize the extent of his manipulation. This was
always his plan. I was too dangerous to be allowed to remain, I would
threaten his plan. So he manipulated everything. He ensured Misa Amane
would obtain ownership. That she would be placed in a life or death
situation. And that I must die to extend her life. I will extend Naomi
Misora's life as well, unavoidably. Perhaps he had a plan for her as well.


    He will ensure she recovers her memories. She will remember all
her reasons for loving him, and vow to do anything for him. She will gain
the shinigami eyes and lose half of her lifespan, so she can be useful to
him. Half of what Gelus and I gave her.


    She could never escape him. I suppose I always knew. My plan was
to tell her of her place in Light's plan the moment we first met, but her
negative companion was too close. She could never escape him. He surpassed
Death. He will be the awful, charnel God of this terrible world. A wicked
creature who smites those more wicked than he, those like the Egawas. But
no shinigami will die for him. Maybe she can outlive him. Her and her
companion can be happy together, when he withers away. Watching everything
else decay around them, providing fleeting solace to the suffering of
others. They will enjoy a new world he creates but will not occupy.


    "Rem. REM!" Misa Amane snapped her fingers at me. "Look, I'm, I'm
sorry I yelled at you, okay? But we need your help. Can you, are you
allowed to grab somebody if they get on me?"


    Naomi Misora stood, one leg away from the ground, holding an
improvised cane. Shaking. She was able to strike me, and dominate
noncombatants. But these are the cruelest of the cruel. There were too
many of them. I could only save Misa Amane, and I can only ensure she pays
the least cost, that she moves most smoothly into her role. Out of danger
from the Death Note, where my lifespan will protect her from the cruelty
of Death.


    "I can help you," I told her. "But you must ask for something. You
must tell me that you want my eyes back."


    "I... What is this? What does that mean?" she asked. "Is this a
trick? Are -- is this how you possess me?"


    "It is not a trick. The cost has already been paid, and will be
returned to you." Both statements were true. I took half of her lifespan.
I would take half of her lifespan again. And I would give it back within
two minutes. She had already told me she is willing to pay this price -- I
need not explain in depth. "I cannot possess you. It will grant you
superior vision, that's all. I cannot agree to help you if you do not take
my eyes."


    Naomi Misora appeared confused. She looked down. Over to Misa.
Back to the table she bled upon.


    "Well, if this was a plan to put a curse on me, it's really
circuitous," Misa Amane said. "Naomi, if, if... Keep the Death Note paper
away from me for a while," she said, throwing a bag onto the machine Naomi
Misora was leaning on. "If I look like I am turning evil, I give you
permission to, like, to break my legs or shoot me in the butt. Okay, I
want your eyes back, and I don't agree to ANYTHING else."


    The deed was done. Instantly. Lifespan flowed from her to me.
"Gah!" she exclaimed, pitching her head forward. "You said I had superior
vision, this is a curse! Everything is blurry!"


    "You wear contact lenses," I told her. I remembered that. They
corrected her vision. She was surprised last time as well. Naomi Misora
had her back turned, creeping to hide behind the machine. Waiting to
strike, and then die fruitlessly.


    "Ah, shit, that's right," she muttered. Head still down. I wished
I had time to explain the eyes and what they meant, but there was no time
to spare, to acclimate her. She took the transparent lens off of the
surface of her gelatinous eye. then the other. She blinked. "Wow, yeah.
That is clearer. If I had the gun, that would... probably be more useful,"
she said. "Okay, now, come here--"


    The front door opened. A voice came out. "Bomb squad! Everybody
come out..."


    Then another, "Daisuke, if there's anyone in here... I don't know
if they can come out on their own, eh?"


    Naomi Misora flicked off the lights in the back room. Misa
continued her whispering. "Get over here to get in bullet stopping range!"
she hissed. "If one of us gets grabbed, grab that guy and pick him up.
Don't, you know, don't hurt him or transport him in any way, just pick him
straight up!"


    "Of course." None of the criminals would see me. They didn't when
they changed clothing. They were told to waylay the explosive disposal
police and take their uniforms, allowing them to act with impunity. I
heard that portion of the plan. I didn't know who was who, but I knew who
they could have been. I stood near the entrance. Inside a machine. Where I
could write. All but one character of each of eight names. Then the last
of each, to ensure I completed all in time.


    "Come on out..." the one in the lead said. "We ain't gonna hurt
ya..." His voice draws closer. It echoed from inside some kind of armor.
"We know someone is bleedin' real bad..."


    "They ain't here, you dumb prick," said a man behind him. Malice
oozed from his words, malice and cruelty. A man who could happily crush
Misa Amane. "We took way too long. If someone's fat ass hadn't insisted on
wearing an explosive suit..."


    "We're the bomb squad! Also, I am not a fan of being shot. Going
after a shooting lady? Good idea to get lots of armor!"


    This was the only way. I felt it when I complete the first name,
and it grew as I complete the other seven. The deed was done. I felt...
lighter. The illicit life I stole from humanity, being returned. I am
relieved of my burden, the awful burden of existing. Only by passing it on
to these fragile, helpless things.


    "I'm sorry," I whispered as the men approached. I stepped into the
center alley. "Just hide. You will be safe. Hide and... outlast him."


    Naomi Misora glowered but said nothing. It didn't matter. Soon it
would be over. The armored one came first through the door. "Anybody in
here?" he asked. His collar was too high and rigid to look to either side.


    I felt it. My fingertips. Turning to dust. She was useful to Light
Yagami, she will be kept safe by him.


    Naomi Misora flipped the machine cabinet forward. The man in armor
fell beneath it instantly, grunting and struggling, unable to twist,
lacking the range of movement to lift the weight. Misa Amane emerged, with
her fake pistol. The man behind the armored one shouted "Shit!" at his
fallen companion, and then...


    BLAM!


    The pistol was fake, but she shot him so close the burst of flame
touched his skin, and blood sprayed outward from him. Totally unprepared
for an ambush, he fell backwards into the next man. She kept firing. Naomi
Misora screamed in pain and fell forward to the entryway, weapon out,
tears in her eyes, body concealed by the wall. With Naomi in place, Misa
kicked the gun on the floor away from the armored man's hands.


    They were...


    Misa Amane was fragile. Wasn't she? That was why you wanted to
protect her, wasn't it, Gelus?


                               * L I G H T *


    "Okay. I'm going to call that... mixed success," I said. I was
lying. It was fantastic.


    "We took out Isamu Egawa," I continued. "According to what Watari
saw, Naomi Misora recovered his materials. If Nabiki had any extra
material, she would have definitely used it to escape. As far as we can
tell, she hasn't."


    "However," Ryuzaki continued, "At least half of the Yotsuba
Prosperity Council are dead, undoubtedly by the work of Isamu, and more
still could have died without our knowledge. And on top of this, Misa has
recovered the power to view names by seeing faces. Five criminals,
disguised as a bomb squad, carrying no identification, died of heart
attacks when they assaulted her. Two more died of heart attacks while
bound to a staircase, and one was shot in the heart. Nabiki Egawa, as well
as Misa and Naomi escaped... despite the presence of our men."


    "Hey!" Aizawa snapped. "I was not going in on her without support
from the bomb squad. When our targets ran out after we heard gunfire, Misa
was screaming 'Oh my God it's eating them someone help', and everyone was
way more worried about that. I couldn't get to her in time and if I shot
her, my cover as an SAT gets blown. So does my head. Off." Ryuzaki
glowered at him.


    "Ryuzaki's not in a position to reprimand you, Aizawa!" I said.
"That's my job, and I'm not going to. You clearly made the right call. You
didn't provoke Naomi to kill any of the police and by staying undercover
you were able to get Wedy extracted. Everyone got out safely. The only
additional casualties were Isamu Egawa, professional violent criminals,
and one patrolman who tripped and broke his jaw. Considering the amount of
lethal force being swung around? The amount of time we had to set up? The
fact there was some kind of violent supernatural entity swinging around? A
small gain with no loss is an exemplary performance." Most importantly:
they got me what I needed.


    "Hmph." Ryuzaki stared away for a second. "There was a man in a
bombproof suit there. His face covered. How did Misa kill him? Did the
rest take off their masks?"


    "I've got some theories on that, but just theories." Too
suspicious if I already had a story for the crazy supernatural shit.
"Whichever one of them did it, it could have been a test. Some of them
were shot before their heart attacks. If it was a test of the Kirascope,
maybe Naomi used a few bullets to keep everyone standing still for it. I
doubt Naomi had much trouble taking out common thugs, whose main
experience is threatening shopkeepers, and pulling off their masks. That
bombproof suit probably tips over easily."


    "Misa is clearly deriving her sense of morality from Naomi's
presence," Ryuzaki said. "She is emotionally invested in being a kinder,
gentler killer. She's not opposed to killing, as we know Naomi has no
problem with murdering for revenge. Perhaps she wanted to verify these
were criminals, and not police. She doesn't want Kira to make mistakes.
Then, once unmasked, why not use your Kirascope anyway?"


    "Maybe it had something to do with what she said about fighting 'a
Kira'," Mogi pitched in. "Could be related to the strange dust pile the
cops say they found. Residue? Or maybe they breathed it in."


    "We're going to want masks that are difficult to yank off," I
said. "Probably with breathing protection. It may not have gone according
to plan, but we're closing the noose, people. Every encounter we have
brings us closer."


    Nabiki and Isamu left behind the Note pages as bait, to split up
Misa and Naomi. Torn carefully out of the Death Note's cover, and out of
their possession. I ordered Watari to take the shot when Nabiki wasn't
touching any piece of the Note, ensuring Rem would snap to Misa due to
that bracelet the officers reported. Then she'd get into a situation where
Rem had to die to save her useless life. Now a bunch of guys threatening
Misa and Naomi were obviously Kirafied. Nabiki couldn't use the Death Note
because her supply of paper, if she has any, was so limited she can't use
it for fear of eventually killing herself with the 13-day rule. Her only
option was to go get the backup.


    Everything went just as planned.


                                 * * * * *


    "No anesthesia!" Nabiki screams. "It's bad for the baby! I'm not
losing his daughter, do you hear me?" She's already hissing as she slaps
her thigh. "Dig the bullet out already!"


    The doc looks around in confusion, toward the masked chairman.
"Miss Egawa," says the chairman. "Your situation has changed since you
last partook of this man's services." And not only because now they are in
the basement of a brothel. "I think it would be perhaps for the best if we
took you to a hospital."


    "I go to a hospital, you get off Kira's good side!" she hisses.


    "I do not appear to be there already. His subordinate is dead. So
are eight of my men." He doesn't need to take his mask off to show his
dissatisfaction. "Our relationship with you has become very negative, very
quickly."


    "Amane. It was Amane. Do you remember how nobody was supposed to
kill her if anyone could find out?" she says, even through the pain she is
lecturing. "She broke the rules. You can kill her all you want, now."


    "Perhaps being involved with miss Amane is something we don't want
to take on," he says.


    "Then let me do it. There's another notebook!" she blurts. Taro is
just holding her hand. He has no idea what to say here. "It's, it was my
copy. I never used it because I never needed to. You get me to my
notebook, and you have Kira's friend for life. But I'm the only one who
can use it."


    "And... if this goes as badly as things went tonight?" the
chairman asks.


    "Then you probably want to kill us!" she hollers. "Which you'll do
anyway if you don't help us, but you want to take our bodies far out of
town so it's harder to find us. Taking our bodies out is really easy if
those bodies are cooperating! Like, say, to a forest. Where my notebook is
buried. You'll go fifteen minutes out of your way to see if it shakes out.
If it doesn't, why, you can just stick us in the hole we dug up! It won't
be any work at all!"


    "...That isn't how most people speak to me," the chairman finally
says.


    "Most people don't have bullets in them that need to get yanked
out!" she snaps. "You can cut off my pinky for impropriety when this is
done! I don't need it to write down Misa Amane's name, and the names of
anyone you want dead! If she helps L trace my corpse back to you,
impropriety will be the least of your problems!"


    "...Treat her. She'll take some of us to her notebook tomorrow."
He sighs. "Try not to scream too loud. Not everyone in this building knows
what is going on."


    She wraps Taro's sock around his belt and clamps her mouth around
it, never breaking eye contact.


                               * N A O M I *


    Rem was dead. We thought. Misa grabbed as much dust as she could
in an empty water bottle, and the notebook laying on top of it. We had to
go. We escaped in the chaos, and went exactly as far as a traffic-ticket
minicar can take us before the speed was outweighed by conspicuousness.
Then we took a subway. We weren't talking much.


    Not until we found a motel. Misa was kind of far-away the whole
time until she realized "Oh! I should... Pull up your shirt. I need to
check your wound."


    I did. The bed was small and the bedspread scratchy but it was
cheap, and we'd need to stretch our money and Isamu's wallet as much as we
could. Misa pulled off my blood-soaked gauze and inspected, while I looked
at what Isamu had. A locked phone, and a locked briefcase. I needed
equipment to get into his phone and that required me to be able to type
code, so unless Misa also minored in computer science that was going to be
off limits. But his briefcase locked with a key. No doubt Nabiki had it,
but locks are pickable without language.


    Our phones went dead, by the way. 24 hours after Ryuzaki thought
Misa 'killed' Light. Probably had a waiting period for security reasons,
so they can't be shut off as an attack. It was fun while it lasted.


    "Yeah, a bit of it ripped open again... you're going to have to
sit still." I leaned back, and she dabbed the injury with an alcohol pad.
Cleaned off the dried blood, before applying a fresh bandage. We couldn't
sew it closed because we didn't really know how to do that safely. This'd
have to do.


    "Naomi, I..." Her words caught in her throat. "About what happened
there. Rem, killed those guys who were attacking us. And she died to do
it. She, uh, she told me that was how it worked. So she, before she died,
had to..."


    Rem talked about some deal, like it wasn't a big thing. Something
she could give back. It was for... "Eye?"


    "Yeah. Yeah. The eyes." She wasn't looking at me. "I can see
really well now. Way better than my contacts... I can see your name,
Naomi. Everybody's. I can see... every person we saw the face of, on the
way over. Everyone has their name hovering... above their face... and then
some numbers underneath it." She was chewing her lip. Breathing heavier.


    "Uh. Ah... Number?" I asked while I pointed at myself. Then her.


    She nodded. She turned to face me for a second. "//NAOMI MISORA
-1A227//. You... Nobody else I saw has a negative number. Yours is
counting up a couple times per minute. Or down, I guess, but it counts
through some English letters too. Nobody else had any letters. I looked at
myself in the mirror, and I don't have a number at all. Just //ENAMA
ASIM// in the mirror. Nobody else didn't have a number, either." Her lip
quivered.


    "This is... These are her eyes, right? I had them before. She gave
them back to me," she said with shaky voice. "I had these... when I was
the Second Kira. I can see people's names... so I can write them down. And
kill them."


    This was big. This was heavy. The Kirascope we were so concerned
with... Misa just had to ask for it. Rem held it for her while she was
gone. It wasn't an object like we thought, it was just part of her.
Because someone, someTHING, thought she wanted them back.


    I sat up, carefully, trying not to aggravate my wound. I saw the
tears welling in Misa's eyes. So I held her. She whimpered. "I'm afraid,
Naomi. I don't want it. I don't want to be her. I think it was easy to be
her."


    Like so many other times, I wished I had the words. The subtlety,
the nuance. To say it's okay to not feel sad about defending yourself. To
say that her fear is good, because it is what allows her to try and not be
the Second Kira. To say how much I trust and admire who she has made
herself and how much she has changed. I wiped a tear from her eye. I
pulled her into my lap on the edge of the bed. Laced her hands into mine.
I just said "Love."


    "I... I..." She was searching for something. Important. Building
up the courage to say it. But she couldn't. She said "I love you too,
Naomi," which made me feel warm, and takes some courage too. Whatever she
was going to say, I trust it wasn't tactically relevant, and so it could
wait. "But, like... I'm the one who loves you. If I... If I turn into
someone different... she won't."


    "Uh..." What is it she was talking about, the thing? "Possess?"
Rem didn't seem to do it. I didn't know how likely it was.


    "Y--yeah. Yeah," she said. "If I get possessed. If I turn evil. It
would be really nice if you, like, only shot me in the butt and stopped me
and got the evil out of me again. And, like, I give you permission. To
straitjacket me and blindfold me and strap me to a strappy thing, in case
part of that is what... g-got the thing that possessed me out." Then she
looked up at me. She could see my name and what sounded like a hexadecimal
code floating above my face, and her eyes only looked different in that
she wasn't wearing contacts. "But maybe you can't do that. If I'm, if I'm
going to hurt someone. Make an awful mistake. Get away and help Light be
Kira. Then you have to kill me, Naomi. You have to promise, if I turn evil
again, and you can't get me safely, then you'll kill me."


    What could I say? That's not gonna happen? I have no idea what
makes that happen. I'm not going to let it, if I have anything to say
about it. But this... I don't want to do it. But I don't want to lie. I
need her. I need her so much. I need to feel her touching me like this. I
say "Uh," of course. "Uh... Hard. Hard."


    She gave that nervous chuckle, laughing when she really doesn't
want to. "I mean, I think I've done a good job handling myself, but I'm
still mostly an actress and you're basically the Terminator. You could
kick my ass inside-out." Then her hand went to her mouth and she gasped in
shock as she realized how off she was. "Oh! Oh. Oh, oh God, I'm sorry. I
wasn't -- I'm not making fun of you!" I jostled her a little. Let her know
I was fine. Keep going. "I'm... I know it's hard. I really, I love you
too. But I know you're strong. I know you can do it. If I become the
Second Kira again, you know what has to be done."


    Could I? Could I lose the person I loved again? I... I don't know.
And Misa could probably feel that. But she was right. This was important.
Not just to her. What else could I promise to do? "Umm... Try. Try."


    "Try your best, okay?" she asked me with a bit of a sniffle. "I
know you, you know, you won't let anyone have me but you. Because, because
I have your blood and everything. But just in case... just try your
hardest, right?"


    I nodded. Slow. Slow enough to know what I was doing. And her body
relaxed in my grip. She leaned her weight away from my bad leg. "I'll...
Maybe I can get rid of Kira vision. Or maybe we can figure out a weakness.
Maybe it's like eye lasers, you know? We make some special anti-Kira
glass. And I walk around with cool laser glasses all the time." That was
what I liked to hear. Misa happy, charging forward. I chuckled.


    "A fan of mine helped us escape," she said. "I don't know how
clear I was on that. The traffic ticket lady. I think she recognized me,
so she gave me her keys. I'm, you know, I'm really  gonna miss acting. It
was a lot of work sometimes, but it was fun. And I guess I touched people.
Looking back on it... a lot of people loved me, and I don't think I saw
it. But I'm never gonna work in this town again."


    No glumness! I jabbed her and grunted. She can, she could go to
the place... ugh, what was it, the place I pretended... "America!"


    "Hollywood?" She laughed in disbelief. "Naomi, you know what Dad
said they called a Japanese top-ranking movie star who moves to Hollywood?
A waitress. I'd need to learn English really good, and I'd need speech
therapy after that, and there's twenty Misas for every Misa-shaped
role..."


    "Ahh... Nngh!" I grunted in frustration. The thing, the thing she
did and I couldn't! I didn't know. I just mimed myself talking.


    "Talk. Talking. Radio? No, radio's dead. Voice, oh, voice work?"
she said with dawning realization. "I could... Maybe I could do that.
Yeah. I could be in some cult classic to start, and get a devoted fanbase
by the time I voice an iconic franchise role. And when people dig up I was
heavily involved in the Kira case, it won't even matter, because Hollywood
will be mad at something else. And Earth will probably be getting invaded
by aliens or something dumb." She smiled weakly. I smiled back. I can do
that just fine.


    "I know it's early, but... I'm just really, really tired," she
said. "I'm not feeling well. I'm cold, too. I'm just gonna go to sleep
here..." She squirmed out of my grasp and laid herself down beside me.
"And, you just wake me up if you need me to do something. I'll sleep in
these clothes so we can go in a hurry. They're already pretty much
ruined."


    I brushed a strand of hair from her face, gently put the crappy
scratchy blanket over her. "Uh. Ahhhhh... Nnnn..."


    "Goodnight to you too, Naomi," she said as she closed her eyes.


                                 * * * * *


    The Dangozaki service area, essentially a truck stop, features
refueling stations, restaurants, and shopping for food, supplies, and
essentials. This is not why Nabiki Egawa has her escort stop there, but
it's what she says. They need shovels, and they need to stay off of trains
where there's no safe exit.


    Dangozaki lies right before the point where the Chuo Expressway
splits in two. It leads to either Yamanaki, where Nabiki was told her
escort they are going. Or the base of Mt. Fuji, where Nabiki is actually
going.


    The real feature of Dangozaki that interests Nabiki is that there
is a 2006 Ford Fusion outside it -- rare to see an import automobile in
Japan, rarer still to see it in hello-officer red, very easy to pick out
of the parking lot. The keys to that automobile are hidden behind the iced
energy drinks in the refrigerator at the gas station. The yakuza escorts
are, quickly, located somewhere that Nabiki and Taro are not.


    Nabiki hops into the passenger seat as Taro keys the remote-start.
"Go, go!" she shouts. "He left the shit in the back seat, we don't know
how much time we have!"


    She throws her crutch and purse onto the pile of camping supplies
in the back seat. Chairs, tents, a stove, jerky, bug spray -- and shovels,
of course. Nabiki chows down on the meat bun Ogawa hands her, and he lays
tread on the way out.


    They are not followed.


    Nabiki sweeps the crumbs off her stomach and leans the passenger
seat as far back as it will go. "I feel terrible," she says, pulling a
cold compress from her purse and laying it over her face. "Just get us to
the forest, all right?"


    The compress over her eyes covers her as she weeps.


    Taro is more soft-spoken than Nabiki, here. And he's further
forward. Were one to be listening from a purse's eye view, they would hear
her responses, but not his questions.


    "No!" she barks. "Well, maybe. I have no idea. All I know is Kira
told us that it was valuable to whatever his plan was. So we're basically
going to have to hold it hostage. For all I know it could be another
notebook. But Kira won't get whatever it is until we get what we want."


    The road hums.


    "No, I'm not -- I'm not mad at you. I have a headache. Being
pregnant and having my goddamned leg shot probably have something to do
with that. Normal people get to stay in hospitals and rest this kind of
shit off. You -- yeah. Yeah. I know. You were looking out for me."


    She shudders involuntarily.


    "I know you love me. Yeah. I'm really glad." The insincerity burns
her lips. Perhaps he chooses not to notice.


    No radio. No music. Just stewing in silence.


    "It doesn't... It doesn't feel like he's gone, you know? Like
we're going to come back home, and he'll be there, wondering where I was
this whole time." She laughs. It's not funny. "We don't have a home any
more. I slept in a hooker's bed last night. I swear to whatever God
exists, I'm going to make these people pay. All of them." She hisses to
herself. "L, and Amane, and your mute -- oh, no, I'm sorry, your, ah,
your, ah, the, uh, your, your APHASIAC freak with the stupid name. All of
you are gonna beg me for your lives. You took Isamu. You took my, my, you
took him..." She sobs.


    He lays his hand on her thigh to console her. She recoils like
it's a hot skillet against her flesh.


    More driving in silence.


    "...The hell do you know. You're some kind of zombie anyway. Why
did you destroy my page, huh? Because you know what's good for me better
than me? Why did, why did you pull me away? Huh? That's not what I wanted!
Isamu was right there! You could have saved him, but you chose not to! You
could have pulled him to safety. You could have held up a shield. You
could have jumped in front of the God damn bullet but you didn't do any of
that! Huh? I thought you were supposed to love me!"


    She gnashes her teeth together.


    "YOU SHOULD HAVE KNOWN THAT WAS WHAT I MEANT!" she bellows.


    He clearly has no rejoinder. He has no voice here. He mostly
exists for her to yell at. Maybe if he takes enough abuse she will see how
much he loves her.


    "Turn on the radio," she finally says. "Find where the hick music
station is. I want something to take my mind off of, of, all of this."


    He searches the dial until they find caterwauling. It's real
authentic caterwauling, too.


    She laughs silently again. "You hated this shit, didn't you. I'm
sorry, honey. I'll have to buy some albums like you like. And I'll listen
to them all day. Tales, Tales from Topographic Oceans, right? The songs
were so long, they could only put one of them per record. And nobody
appreciated it in its time. I'm sorry I never found time to listen. I will
now... I'll, it will be like you're with me."


    She says nothing more as they drive. Commercials come and go. Cars
whiz by in the other direction. No sign they were followed.


    Fuji looms ever closer in the distance, until they go alongside
it.


    "Owner of a lonely heart..." she sings softly to herself, out of
sync with the beat on the radio. "Owner of a lonely heart..."


    Taro must not know the song, or must not hear her. It's much
better than the owner of a broken heart, but that is not relevant any
more.


    Fuji watches them circle it. Fuji won't talk and neither will
they.


    At last, they arrive at their destination. The car rolls to a stop
at the toll booth, and then at its parking space.


    "No, it's all here. Help me get up, my crutch is back there. And
my purse."


    They go forth on their dark mission. To find something to hold
hostage for Kira. They leave the car behind.


    A minute passes.


    Two.


    The emergency latch on the trunk pops.


                               * N A O M I *


    Isamu wrote a very nice, very detailed story, about a man who
wants to drive out to the countryside to get away from Yotsuba, rents a
car that can't be traced to him, stops at the truck stop to buy camping
supplies, goes back for an iced coffee, accidentally leaves his keys in
the drink cooler, is struck by the beautiful silliness of it all, and
kills himself in a ditch where nobody will find him for days. Too bad the
real Geraldo Coil lives in Santa Monica and has a face that could at any
moment open up and disgorge a train of Hieronymus Bosch devils, completely
unlike the handsome pina colada apparition that Isamu met.


    I didn't catch everything she said, but given how the entry from
Isamu's briefcase specified shovels, I was pretty sure they're here to dig
something up, and I knew it's something Kira wanted. I jostled Misa awake;
she'd been sleeping back here for a few hours even before the car started
moving, wrapped in the emergency blanket to stop shivering. No idea when
the two would show up today, after all. I was reading a light novel by
pen-light, a shoujo-ai romance. Kind of hoping that I would read about
someone questioning her sexuality so I could go "Oh, that, that was the
step I skipped, that's why this feels so weird!"


    But they hadn't even kissed when I was over halfway through. And
then I had to stop reading so I could listen to our targets speak, and get
ready to shoot if they popped the trunk.


    "Ugh, my neck feels awful, I slept on it funny," Misa said as she
got out of the trunk. She stretched and tried to pop her neck again before
leaning back in to help me out. "Is your leg okay? Man, I had the weirdest
dream. They were making a movie about our lives, only we got to this part,
like what we're doing now, and I couldn't tell them what happened next. So
then our characters in the movie, started making a movie about their
lives. And they didn't have any actors so we had to come on to play each
other, and then you couldn't fit in my straitjacket."


    I giggled politely as she helped me to my feet and handed me my
shitty pharmacy-checkout cane.


    "I know, it's crazy, right? A straitjacket is one size fits all,"
Misa said. She slammed the trunk closed once all our crap was out of it.
"So where are we, anyway?" she asked.


    Mount Fuji loomed in the distance, and before it, there was a
great forest. A path led from the parking lot, past a ranger station, into
the sea of trees. A sign at the entrance implored, in English and
Japanese, //LIFE IS A PRECIOUS THING GIVEN TO US BY OUR PARENTS. ONE MORE
TIME, JUST THINK ABOUT THE PEOPLE WHO LOVE YOU, YOUR PARENTS, SIBLINGS,
AND CHILDREN. DON'T FEEL THE NEED TO SUFFER ALONE; CONFIDE IN A FRIEND OR
ONE OF US.//


    Aokigahara. The suicide forest at the base of Mount Fuji. A place
like this might be sacred to shinigami, beings that called themselves gods
of death. Or maybe Light just hid something here because it was out of the
way and, empirically speaking, it was known to be a place where you could
do things without being watched or discovered for a while.


    Misa got quiet once we stepped onto the path. Above us, the trees
vanished into fog. There were no birds, no frogs, nothing to damage the
stillness. The silence weighed down like a heavy blanket. Informational
stands informed us the floor of Aokigahara was volcanic rock and soil, so
rich in nutrients it led to the forest being very thick and the
undergrowth dense. It was creepy. Misa and I switched sides, so she
couldn't help support my bad side, but I could hold her hand. All we could
hear as we went deeper into the woods was our footsteps... and, when I
strained to listen, the straining "click" of the metal locking pin used to
adjust Nabiki's crutch to her size, as she put her weight on it. Click.
Click. Click. Moving deeper into the forest. But not as fast as us.


    Life is a precious thing given to us by our parents. But it's the
only valuable we can't lock away. Most people don't choose to throw their
own out. It gets taken from them. Usually by the cruelties of Fate, and
sometimes, sometimes it's taken by someone else. Not much we can do to
hold on to it.


    I heard someone say once that since everyone's going to die and
not come back, let's all just try to do our best with the time that we
have. I think that's a fine sentiment when you're talking about dying of
disease, or accident, or old age. When it comes to someone taking your
life from you? I feel like 'oh well, let's just do our best' is not the
take-home lesson from this story. You should try to stop them. Failing
that? You should make them pay. Maybe I can't stop everyone from hurting
me if they like. But I have the right to be someone who it's not okay to
hurt. Let's all do our best to stop people from hurting us. And if we
don't, let's all do our best to make sure they pay dearly for the
privilege.


    Click. Click. Click. We gained on them quickly, even with my
injuries, I just had more experience walking with assistance. We had to
slow down to make sure they wouldn't spot us before they got to the burial
site. Stopped, drank some bottled water and some Overdrive Orange energy
drink. Both of us were parched; we'd not drank anything all day so we
wouldn't have to pee while in the trunk. Walked some more. Click. Click.
Click.


    I don't begrudge Misa being thankful that Light killed the man who
killed her family. As a law enforcer, I should have probably chastised her
about how revenge was not justice, but -- screw it. A justice system that
lets someone get away with that because he knows the right people is a bad
justice system that does not deserve respect. When we met, Misa thought
what Light, what Kira did to me was a one-in-a-billion outlier, even
though she felt compassion, and agreed that it should not happen. What she
didn't realize, I think, was what an outlier she was. Kira used his power
to kill someone who had completely escaped responsibility for his actions.


    Kira barely ever did that. The number of his victims who 'escaped
justice' only to be killed by the light of Kira could be counted on your
hands. Kira just found thirty or so people a day who had already been
caught and, knowing nothing about them because there aren't enough hours
in the day, decided they should be punished with death instead. A
reverse-governor anti-commuting sentences. The grand edict of the god of
the new world: keep all of our existing laws and enforcement, just change
the penalties for the ones I notice to death. That's the imagination of
someone who cannot imagine anything but his lust for power. He'd never
kill anyone like Koreyoshi Kitamura and Walter Sorenson, he doesn't care
enough to dig deep into what they did.


    It was only just 1 PM but the forest was dark. The fog blocked the
sunlight, and the trees grew taller and thicker. The pace and tone of the
clicking changed as Nabiki left the path, walking over the uneven forest
ground. I heard her slip and Taro catch her a couple of times. Click-ick.
Click-ick. Click-ick.


    Of course Kira had worshippers. Most in Japan, where he was
headquartered, but around the world too. Judging by the magazines from
back home, Kira was going to decide the 2008 election, and both parties
were scrambling to find a candidate who had the right Kira opinions
despite not knowing what those should be. Did I hate them? Yeah, I guess.
I understood why it happened though. You know in the back of your mind
that someone can take your life at any time and there's nothing you can do
about it. You cover it up and you ignore it and you pretend everything is
great and it eats at you whenever you get reminded. Then a huckster comes
along promising to take that fear away, forever. Of course lots of people
are going to eat it up. Not going to look too closely at what he does when
what he says is so glittering and beautiful.


    The clicking stopped. We kept moving. Soft noises of talking, of
leaves being rustled around. We kept going. There was a clearing up ahead,
at the feet of the great standing trees. I'd say it was 'watched' by them
but the trees couldn't see through the fog. Taro was pushing through the
leaves carpeting the floor. Misa and I crept around the edge of the
clearing, staying out of sight.


    Isamu's briefcase held seven pages of paper, from what Misa told
me was the Death Note. One was half-covered in names in
meticulously-copied shaky handwriting, and the opposite side had all the
entries to kill off the Prosperity Council in much less meticulous
handwriting. All of the pages had directions photocopied onto them: //1.
WRITE A CRIMINAL'S NAME WHILE THINKING OF THEIR FACE, AND KIRA WILL KILL
THEM. 2. WRITE A TIME OR DATE WITHIN 40 SECONDS OF THE NAME, AND KIRA WILL
KILL THEM AT THE SPECIFIED TIME. 3. ONCE THE PAPER RUNS OUT OF SPACE OR 13
DAYS PASS FROM YOUR LAST NAME, KIRA WILL KILL YOU. 4. PRAISE KIRA.// There
was also a graphic that I think was supposed to be Rem, but it had the
quality of a fifth-generation mimeograph. It could have been a sad
starfish. The crappy quality gave it a very underground punk aesthetic,
because of course Kira supporters would want to think they are underdogs.


    Clever plan on Light's part. He wanted to have L's access to
information to kill more people and gain more power. I don't know how he
found Isamu to begin with, but he was going to catch Eba with these sheets
on her, and establish Kira was handing them out to disciples, and he could
be chasing him forever. Then he can keep killing and hunting a plausible
ghost. After how terrible Isamu'd been for him, I doubted he planned to
actually give active pages to anyone else before he had them killed.


    Taro started to dig. I couldn't attack yet, they might have got
the location wrong. But it didn't take long to confirm it; whatever it was
wasn't buried very deep. Of course. Misa's not much of a digger, and it
was meant for her. The moment we heard him say "I found something! It's
like a shoebox!" both of us stepped from behind the tree with our weapons
drawn.


    "Okay," said Misa, all business, hand steady with her blank
pistol. "Step away from the box. Both of you put your hands behind your
heads. And get down on your knees. Don't open the box."


    Nabiki scowled at Taro with disappointment and betrayal. If she
was closer I would have kicked her mouth inside-out. I didn't say a word.
I didn't want her laughing at me when she should be terrified and maybe
feeling remorse. She put up her hands and knelt, and so did Taro. Her
crutch fell to the ground beside her.


    "You bastards. You followed us," she spat. "You already killed my
husband. You're just determined to ruin my life, aren't you?"


    "Lady, after what you did to that man, you don't deserve one at
all!" Misa spat. "You are an evil person and you think we're going to feel
sorry for you?" She shook her head to clear her thoughts. "You talked to
Rem. You know what she can do. //NABIKI EGAWA 72011009// and //TARO OGAWA
38769727//. Do you, do you see those too? What do they mean?"


    "You took the eye deal and you didn't even ask what it did?"
Nabiki laughed bitterly. "At least you're going to die young so you don't
have to screw up for much longer. Do you even know you spent half your
lifespan for those?"


    I approached Taro to bind his arms and legs. I had a stab wound
and a knee that still objected strenuously to me bending it, but if and
when he started something I would be better off than Misa.


    "I already paid for them," Misa deadpanned. "She said she was
giving them back. What do they mean?"


    "She's not even here. She probably died trying to save you from
your own stupidity," Nabiki fumed. "A useless bit of eye candy and a
crippled freak took away the sweetest man in the whole world."


    Yup. There it was. Not her insulting my disability, Taro jumping
at me. Making a heroic stand. I pivoted on my cane out of his path and
helped guide his momentum to keep flying past me and land facedown in the
knobbly volcanic dirt. I put my boot into the small of his back and I
yanked his arms up to tie them. Simple and easy. He wasn't thinking
clearly enough to fight like he'd been trained.


    "All right, both of you freeze!" Nabiki shouted. While Taro jumped
at me, she must have gone into her purse. She was holding the black cover
for the Death Note and a stick lighter, the kind you use to ignite a
grill. "Nobody god damn move! You remember all those people you slapped
with your sheet so they could see Rem? You didn't know that if this sucker
gets destroyed, every single human being who touched it dies. Me, you, the
cops, all those pedestrians. It's on its last legs already, but it's still
got the spine, see? I light this baby up and I take all of you with me.
Now back off."


    What? That was impossible. Wouldn't Rem have mentioned it? There
was a lot she didn't mention. The rules for the Death Note seemed to have
plenty of holes, but that seemed to have nothing to do with what the book
did. She could be making it up... Could there be a notebook Light never
touched, so he was safe to hand it out?


    I finished tying Taro's wrists in the same motion I stepped off of
him. Just in case. Misa said what I was thinking. "I don't believe you.
You're making that up."


    "You can believe whatever you want, honey," Nabiki said, "but it's
right here on the back cover. In plain black and white." She held it up
with one hand, waving her stick lighter with the other, holding the inside
back cover outward.


    "Hold it still! Let me see, you're wiggling it around!" Misa said,
and Nabiki was probably surprised given how she was like 10 meters away.
She squinted. "Okay, it says... //IF THE PERSON USING THIS NOTE FAILS TO
CONSECUTIVELY WRITE NAMES OF PEOPLE TO BE KILLED WITHIN 13 DAYS OF EACH
OTHER, THAT PERSON WILL DIE.// And //IF YOU DESTROY THE DEATH NOTE BY
TEARING IT UP OR BURNING IT, ALL HUMANS WHO HAVE TOUCHED THE DEATH NOTE
WILL DIE.//" Damn. Her vision really was good.


    I put my boot onto Taro's back again, just as he was starting to
wiggle. I bound another zip tie around his elbows, to make it harder to
bend them. Nabiki shouted. "You! Stop that! I ordered you to step back!"


    "No." Misa was more glum, looking away. "Set it on fire if you
want. It's not going to work."


    "H-How can you take that risk?" The lighter ignited. The flame
danced close to the cardboard cover.


    "Because the other rule there is fake too," Misa said. "I
didn't... I went a lot more than 13 days without killing someone."


    Nabiki's face fell. She dropped what she was holding. "No..." she
whispered as she realized her ace in the hole was useless. And that I was
approaching with my gun.


    "No!" she yelped. "Don't, don't kill me! Don't kill my child! I --
I know! You must have a notebook, right? The paper from my husband's
briefcase, that's how you knew we'd be here, because I told him to burn it
and he didn't!" Lady, you were with him the entire time. "You can use it,
use it on me! Just, just write that I don't care about anything but
walking to the hospital and getting my baby delivered by C-section. Then,
then you can say I get tortured to death! Right? But our child, she
doesn't have to pay for this, does she?"


    Misa looked to me, and I nodded. My bag had all the Death Note
paraphernalia we carried, and she still appreciated me keeping it out of
her hands. Rem's notebook was full of names in crisp, meticulous
handwriting, with notations in Greek. But the back page was blank. So I
pulled out Rem's notebook, showed it to her, and started scribbling.


    Nabiki didn't move. Her face got more and more bright as she saw I
was complying with her plan, peaking when I capped my pen and began to
wait. She waited a couple minutes, looking around. And then her face went
blank. Her features slack, her eyes dull. "I'm sorry," she said, "there's
something I have to do."


    I held up the back page of Rem's notebook, to show them both the
picture of Doraemon I'd drawn on it. Even though the eyes weren't very
good, it clearly wasn't text.


    "...no..." Nabiki muttered under her breath.


    "Nice try," said Misa, being charitable. "If we weren't already
immune and figured that people would get immunity however they could,
then... well, we would have figured out anyway."


    Nabiki was crying now. On the dirt, face in her hands. No more
tricks. No more ways to be ruthless. Just the cold realization the ride
was over. "Why do you people do this to us?" she sobbed. "Why? We just
wanted a nice life in a safe place! That's all! Why is that so wrong? Why
don't we deserve to be happy?"


    I advanced, gun aimed at her. She was an awful person. A
bottomless pit of a person. Who could look at the murder and rape she
committed and sincerely ask 'why is that so wrong' because it didn't CLICK
for her that other people existed apart from her needs. And it never
would. Someone who thought she had infinite entitlement to everything and
everyone, and demanded violence from others with a clear conscience. Human
life would be in some miniscule but tangible way cheapened as long as she
got to call herself a member of it.


    Taro rolled over in the dirt. "Please," he said. "Please don't
kill her. I know she's done some bad things, but, you don't understand.
She's not a bad person. She means so much to me, she only, if you only
could see in her what I see... She, she deserves a second chance, doesn't
she? She only wanted to do good, right?"


    I was nauseated. Every plaintive word out of his mouth was another
violation. More proof of her wickedness. But... could I execute her in
front of him? He would still suffer. Maybe he wouldn't be able to pick
apart his feelings from the falsehoods for a while. He would, he would be
in agony. Was it my place to kill her?


    No. I can't kill her. It's wrong. I can't bring myself to do it.


    He should be the one to kill her. I can't, I can't rob him of his
chance. That's why.


    I holstered. Taro breathed a sigh of relief, and Nabiki didn't
notice or care, sobbing in self-pity. I snapped my fingers and motioned
Misa over as I grabbed Nabiki's arms and zip-tied them together. She
didn't respond. She was just moaning. "Everything always turns out this
way... You gave us that notebook on purpose..." No resistance to tying her
ankles, either. Or Misa gagging her.


    When I dislocated her shoulder, though, she screamed and writhed
around. I could not stay to see her get into custody, and I wasn't taking
the risk she escaped. Misa recoiled at the sight, but when she saw I
wasn't just hurting her for the sake of pain, she softened a bit.


    All right. Now there was a box here that Kira wanted. Wrapped in
paper, it wasn't locked -- looked like a shoebox of some kind. Lid came
off easily. Inside... a black notebook. //ARVC-5// written on the front,
or something close to it. I took off a glove and gingerly picked it up.


    This was it. Definitely a Death Note. First pages filled with
names in strange handwriting, in many different languages. The ones I
could read were about people dying peacefully, not suffering, reconciling
their final business.


    "Crap. That's another Death Note, huh?" Misa said. "G-give it to
me for a second. I'll just hold the cover, but if this one has a different
Kira, I need to see her too."


    I held the notebook closed and extended it to her. She grasped
it... and her fingers locked. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she
started convulsing. Flecks of spittle gathered at the corners of her
mouth. Was she having a seizure? Was this shinigami magic, and if so why
didn't I have a seizure?


    Her legs went limp and I was barely able to grab her before she
hit the ground, and I knelt and pulled her into my lap. She curled into
the fetal position and her hands clawed at her temples. Finally, she puked
up the remnants of the single hiker's energy bar she'd allowed herself
today, and then kept dry-heaving. What the Hell was happening? God, what
do I do?


    There was a whoosh, of great black wings stirring the formerly
tranquil air. I looked up. A shinigami. A grinning harlequin of Death,
with leering yellow eyes bulging from his corpse-pallid face divided by a
maw of jagged teeth. Feathery black wings emerged from his back. His pale
blue neck was attached to his jet black body with surgical staples.


    "I'm back in the human world again!" he proclaimed in a horrid
gravel voice. He looked down at us with the awful reddish pupils that
didn't point the same direction. "That felt like forever! You guys..." He
saw the one bound cop, the bound woman screaming in muffled pain, Misa in
my lap twitching and puking, and me pointlessly aiming my gun at him.


    "...What the hell kind of party are you humans having, huh?"


                               * * * * * * *


    30a. If you possess or have have traded for the Shinigami eyes,
you will see a person's primary life span in the human world.


    CLARIFICATION: "Primary life span" refers to the amount of time a
human would live if the Death Note ceased to exist the moment they came
into being -- alterations in fate caused by the Death Note before a human
came into being will be reflected in their life span display.
Additionally, any life span directly added or subtracted by interacting
with gods of death is shown. Increases or decreases in life span due to
unforeseen secondary effects of the Death Note are not displayed.


    X-8a. Lifespan is displayed in units of shinigami days. For each
day on Earth, 3,556 days pass in the shinigami realm, making a shinigami
day roughly equivalent to 12.14 seconds.


    X-8b. As there is no sunset or sunrise, the shinigami day is a
purely arbitrary unit of time. Time passes at the same speed in both
realms.


    X-8c. A human's displayed lifespan can be zero or lower, due to
errors in display or a life prolonged by secondary effects. Events that
would cause such a human's displayed lifespan to be updated, such as
trading for the Shinigami Eyes, will not be accurately reflected and will
compound the display errors.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www.chez-vrolet.net/pipermail/ffml/attachments/20191207/c2100223/attachment.html>