Eight years have passed since Kira stopped judging; even his most faithful supporters have come to believe he's gone forever. Then a woman called Oath appears claiming that he's coming back on 28-01-20. Who can stop him? Some friendships last a lifetime. But when a mind meets its match, some enmities may transcend even death.

AN: This fanfic is done with the uttermost respect. I don't claim ownership of the characters -not even the ones I made up, they seem like natural conclusions to a train of thought which is not entirely mine. And, of course, I don't lay claim on the concept or anything else. It's just that I feel there are too many loose ends. I need closure -the HTR didn't suffice- and frankly, for me at least, the end was, humph, lets say less than satisfactory. Hence this is just me trying to cope with the deprivation syndrome of my Death Note-Light-L addiction. There are lots of spoilers so, if you haven't read Obata's and Ohba's to its bitter end and "don't want to know", refrain from reading mine.
This is a second draft, but all I've changed is Black's age for reasons explained in Scroll 10. And all the chapters thus affected have the following tag: (Second draft).

Kira's Kingdom

Scroll 1: The Herald of a Golden Age (Second draft)

1.1 Best served cold:

England, January 29th 2010, Wammy's House:

"He did it!"

"Did he?"

"I knew it!"

"That's it, isn't it? Is official then? He's L now!"

"I wonder what Mello has to say about that."

"Didn't you hear? He's dead!"

"Dead?"

"Yes, he and Matt died trying to catch Kira."

"I'll kill him!" cried out a bespectacled blond

"Too late, he's already dead."

"I'm glad! He was evil, he hurt L…I mean the other L." said a redheaded waif placing her thumb over her lower lip.

The whispers ran up and down the line of boys and girls entering the house from the yard. One of the boys stopped briefly at the game room's door and cried out to the children that were playing inside. He said that they were celebrating by having strawberry and chocolate sponge cake and everyone should come.

Origin, an eight-year-old brunette, got up from the carpet. She had heard all, her little body waddled more than usual while she walked trembling towards the fortress she had been raising and angrily kicked the diminutive building blocks.

Her shinny eyes looked crossly at the scattered bits of plastic. Then she half-kneeled once more and with incredible speed she raised another three towers spelling out R-I-P. She took a blow at the letters standing there, taunting her. Finally she turned around to follow her classmates. She stopped after walking just a few steps. She couldn't leave the blocks just lying there. She stifled a shiver. She just couldn't stand the mess. With a frustrated sigh coming out from her pouty lips, she began placing the building blocks in neat stacks. When she was done she followed the other kids, grabbing Molly from a pile of dolls. Before opening the door of the dinning room she bit her lip hard and tried not to let her tears show.

1.2 Night Visitor:

Geneva, January 28th 2011, Ecole Bénédict:

The man with the bright eyes had come to her that night. She made a note in her diary as soon as she woke up so she wouldn't forget anything of what he had told her. Ophelia wrote the note in English; though she wasn't sure about the spelling of most of the words. She blushed intently, even if her teachers insisted on the importance of learning that particular language –from among the four that were part of her Swiss boarding school's curricula- she'd never really excelled in it. Looking at her own lonely reflection in the middle of the night she could admit that had a lot to do with her dislike of it. Though the small fib she had often used when talking to her tutors about the particular wasn't that far removed from the truth. She much preferred the musicality of Italian or the lyricism of French. But English had been the language the man had spoken in.

She closed her eyes and tried to recall what the man had looked like. He was a handsome man but she had never dreamt of handsome men in the fourteen years she had dwelled on this world. Nor she wanted to; she had more important things to think about.

Ophelia knew that much about the man that had come to visit her, he was important. That somehow dampened the uneasy feeling that the vision had left. Even if the interview had been perfectly innocent there was something wicked in the idea of an older man visiting her at night in her bedroom. Plus she wouldn't want to fall prey of one of the follies she abhorred the most in the other girls she forcibly shared a life with. Take Eliza, her roommate, for example, Ophelia had always found it incredibly pathetic that the girl had a more busy social life while unconscious than she did while she was awake. But this man was different; this wasn't like the dreams her foolish classmates used to have.

She had been chosen for greatness and she loved the thought. She'd always known that she was special. In any case, she wasn't an ordinary girl and that was obvious to anyone who had eyes. She was already doing the courses to get her Matura diploma, three years earlier than most of her classmates.

She felt pride in her analytical abilities so she tried to figure out where the man had come from. He looked a bit Asian, but she didn't know anything about accents that could help her narrowing it further down. He was smart and well educated, it was clear that he was not a native English speaker but he spoke it with ease. She blushed again and finished writing the man's message on her diary. She thought it best to transcribe exactly what he had said and then she'd try to translate it to German. Getting the message right was more important than anything else.

Not even for a moment did she doubt he had been real. Still, it's amazing that she had no clue about the man's identity, especially after he had delivered his grandiose speech. That issue was easily clarified if you met Ophelia's nana. The woman was old school, to say the least, and had made certain that her grandchild was kept in the uttermost ignorance about the world's ways. The people in the boarding school had exceeded the old hag's wildest expectations, and had succeeded at keeping Ophelia completely out of the loop while grooming her for taking care of the family business. To anyone else, that hadn't been under a rock for the past seven years, the man's identity would have been more than evident.

1.3 Misbegotten Missionary:

Scilly, February 13 2011, a hotel room in St Mary's Island:

Oath was born on a cool winter night while the sky battled furiously with the sea. And she was born with the same rage as the storm that convoluted the world surrounding her. The minute the deal was done, she'd turned around to face him- with her beautiful features blazing, reflecting the lighting glow that came through the window. And her first act in life was to have a whispered discussion with her nightly gentleman caller.

"I'm not a puppet! I'm an ally!"

"You are a little girl, and you can't possibly understand this fully."

She was petite and that was why most people thought she was younger than the fifteen years she had. But she'd never felt like a little girl, not even when she still crawled on the carpet. She snorted: "You supercilious bastard! Is that why you picked me up?"

"Manners, my dear, there's no need to get personal. Our meeting was destiny made."

"Hah! Does that actually work?"

"Huh?"

"Say that line to one of your bimbos. Oh wait. You can't, can you? One is dead and the other one is brainless. And brainless won't cut it out for you, not anymore. Now you need more active, trustworthy collaborators, don't you?"

"I don't know what on earth you are talking about." He said narrowing his eyes.

She didn't bother with his charade. She got up from the desk's chair and walked towards the bed carrying her laptop and she placed the screen facing him. She showed him file after file, watching him closely. Once or twice anger flashed in his deep eyes but he kept his cool. Apparently, he had learnt a lesson or two after dying.

"As you see, some of it is purely speculative. But I'm reasonably certain this is the truth. By the way, I've erased most of the records. Well, what those dumbarses in the police had left behind. Those coppers were rather sloppy. Don't you hate that? If I could find it, anyone else can. Though I've wondered why he didn't make sure that everything was erased. I can't help thinking some of it was left on purpose. I doubt that he would leave any trace if he didn't mean to, is almost as if he wanted us to find them."

"He? Us? You erased most of them?"

"He, and don't pretend not to know who I'm talking about. I've told you I'm not stupid. And it's us from now on, like it or not we are in this together. My suspicion that it was left on purpose is the reason why I didn't erase them all. I wasn't going to take that bait, if that's what this is. Don't worry. You can trust me. Then again, I know you won't. But it's not as if you really had a choice. I was very careful choosing what to erase. I muddled the water by putting in exchange some false information. Nothing major or that could be easily identifiable as false, but I picked up facts that would seem innocent and that can actually be quite harmful to anyone following our tracks. Some of it, I couldn't help it, I left untouched. Of course I did try to make the deletion appear random. And I scattered the remaining tidbits as much as I dared."

"You've been at it since the beginning." He didn't sound accusing, he stated it matter-of-factly.

"Of course, I wouldn't be of any use to you if I were the kind of person who'd get into this sort of deal without thinking it through. I wanted to know what kind of partner I was getting in the boat with." She matched his tone.

He raised an eyebrow when she said partner but didn't comment until she was finished: "So tell me, Oath. If you knew all this, why did you go through with it?" It seemed almost like a rhetorical question, as if he already knew the answer.

"I've already told you. And you know it well, or neither of us would be here. I'm an ally. I won't get on my knees and worship you, but I believe in your ideals. I'm also willing to sacrifice myself to bring them to completion. And, more importantly, I'm able to carry your plan through. Let me warn you though, I'm willing to be Kira's Herald but I'm not your plaything. I don't want to be the queen of your chessboard. I don't aspire to be your consort goddess or whatever you're calling them these days. This is a partnership among equals. Is that understood, Ghost?"

Under the night's canopy, illuminated both by stars and lighting, the little girl faced the man that once had been a god and was now a shadow. They both stood their ground, not taking their eyes from each other's faces.

He looked at her and after a few seconds of silence, he held her chin in his fingers, making her rise her face higher while he leaned closer.

"I wouldn't bother trying that if I were you. It won't work either."

Her voice was firm but he could feel her trembling slightly under his fingers: "You've made your point perfectly clear, Oath. And we've lost enough time with this discussion. Shall we proceed?"

She gulped and shook away from his grasp. Then she took a deep breath, let her nightgown fall down to the floor and lay on the bed: "Let's get this over with."

She was lying on her belly and couldn't see his evil grin: 'Let her think what she wants. She most certainly isn't a puppet, she is a tool. A blade, but not like those soulless western swords. No, in time I'll make her be a well honed katana. She'll be a fine instrument of my wrath. Even now, as blunt as she is, she has become the most powerful weapon the world has ever known. She lies in my hand and this time I won't let her slip 'til my enemies' heads fall to the dust.'

He caressed her back and felt her shiver under his cold touch. His smile widened as he whispered in her ear: "If you need to scream; do it in the pillow."

"That's hilarious. You're quite the funny man. Just do it already. I won't scream." She spat out every word through clenched teeth.

She didn't scream, her steel proved better than that. She put a stiff upper lip partially to prove her worth to the Ghost and partially because her big brother was sleeping in the other room, separated by a paper-thin wall. Matthew's snoring helped keep her focused and she didn't make a sound while he passed the needle over her skin. But she breathed in deeply every time he wiped the blood from her back with his hand. At least, lying flat on her belly, Oath was spared the sight of the cruel spirit she had struck a deal with. From the smile on his face you could tell that he couldn't help enjoying it every time the needle went deeper and she winced in pain.

After a while that seemed to span for ages he straightened up and said: "It's done. Tomorrow we'll see if it worked."

But he needed no confirmation, and neither did she. All the time he had scribbled on her back she'd felt gushes of death wind going down her spine. It was done, she knew it and he knew it too. He went away to let her rest. Before falling asleep, Oath thought: 'If you think you can use me and then drop me as you've always done before, you are in for a nasty surprise.'

1.4 Aimless drifting:

Japan, February 14th 2011, Shuzenji, last station of the Sunzu line in the Izu-hakone railway:

Misa Amane was supposed to go straight back to the Arai Ryokan once she finished visiting the Shuzenji Temple. She had listened absentmindedly to the private tour guide that tried to get her interested in the temple's history. The guy was kind of cute and he seemed enthusiastic about what he called one of the oldest structures in eastern Japan. The original structure dated back to 807, he pointed out with a wide smile.

Misa acted her part and gave him a lukewarm smile. Her agency had sent her for shooting a commercial the previous day and they had generously offered to pay if she wanted to stay one more day. She didn't have a Valentine that year. She glued on the fake smile as she felt increasingly depressed.

She always thought about Light-kun but on that day she couldn't get him out of her mind. The fact that he had died a hero, something that usually helped her get through the day, didn't seem important today. All she could feel was a great emptiness. She couldn't help remembering her last conversation with Rem, when she had told her that her life would be pointless without Light.

She was thinking that she should get back to the ryokan and hit the hot-water springs. That way she could relax. Afterwards, she'd order a bottle of wine and some fancy dinner on the company's expense account. 'The hell with that!' she thought bitterly. She'd order sake and get blind drunk.

Misa didn't very well know how she had ended taking the wrong bus. She climbed on the one that led to the train station. The place was deserted, not really hard to understand on Valentine's day at seven o'clock, when the best date time was just starting. Misa felt a dark shroud falling over her head as she started walking purposefully, still, she would probably have cried howling if the train hadn't hit her as she fell off the platform.

The railroad employee and an elderly couple, who were the only eye witnesses of the incident, were sure it hadn't been an accident. They told the police that for a moment the girl hadn't seemed aware of where she was. Then she had started walking towards the edge. She didn't jump; she just kept walking and was caught midair by the train that just happened to be rushing into the station.

Next: Scroll 2- Living in a grey world: NPA and Near meet again when Oath throws the gauntlet in the famous detective's face and the countdown towards 28-01-20 begins.