"JAGUAR!" My voice failed me as I tried to snatch the pen from her hand. I fell onto my knees, panting. "I thought I understood you... But I... I underestimated you."
Jaguar laughed as she kicked me to the floor. "Your name is already written. Don't pretend it's not true. I'm watching you die slowly right now." She leaned in to brush her lips across my cheek. "And I'm enjoying every minute." She checked her watch. "You still have several more minutes before the Death Note will let you slip away. I might as well have fun with you until then, don't you think? Since for now, it's impossible for you to die."
"I... Knew you had a secret... But this? Why? Kira! Murderer! Traitor!"
"Oh, no, L. Kira is still up and running. I am simply... An experimenter. I enjoyed having you around for a while, but you just became too caught up in your little game. I had to do it. But I couldn't let you leave without saying goodbye."
"I... I hate you! More than I've hated anything before. More than any Kira! So... Since I'm dying... Who is it? Was I right?"
"Are you ever not? Except with me, of course. I don't know how you managed to slip that up. But yes. He put up a good show, though, didn't he? Apparently a better one than I did. If you had never confronted me, you would have been fine. But you made a mistake. A calculated risk. And you lost." She checked her watch. "Still fifteen minutes of watching you roll around in agony. This note really is amazing. You can choose almost any method of death for your subject. Any time, any where... It's interesting watching you starve to death so rapidly. I didn't know even a Death Note could speed up the process of starvation."
I laughed. "So that's why... I'm so hungry. Could I at least have a candy bar or something?"
She laughed and tossed me a handful of giant candy bars. "Chow down."
I lunged as quickly as I could (which was not very) for them. Jaguar kicked me again and sent my face sprawling into the pile of candy. She let me up and watched as I tore open the wrappers and gulped them down one after the other.
"You're disgusting," she snarled at me, laughing. Her face twisted like a wolf's when she laughed. "Perhaps I should have chosen a less vile method of death."
I looked up. "Sorry it didn't work out to your advantage." I suddenly coughed, wheezing and hacking up bits of chocolate and nuts. Some of them landed on Jaguar. But I couldn't stop coughing, and the food stuck in my throat. My hands grasped my neck as I struggled to breathe.
Jaguar casually flicked the candy off of her as she remarked, "Hmm. I wonder if the Death Note could sustain you for what should be the remainder of your life span?" She sighed and delivered a more powerful back blow than I could have imagined coming from her. I coughed and finally spit out the almond I had been choking on. "I don't want to risk it. This is too much fun. I love seeing you be afraid."
"I thought you were my friend." I tried to growl it, but it came out as a simple whine.
"Aww, poor little genius L needs a friend to tuck him in at night? Well, I guess I already solved that problem, then. I'll make sure to whip up a real nice grave for you."
"You can't possibly think up an explanation for this."
"Here you are, inches -" she felt my stomach - "away from death, and you're underestimating me again? What a fool you are."
"I'm not the only good detective, you know. There are others, and I'm sure they'd be very interested in finding out all about you after my death - you're one of my closest associates; you'd be an instant suspect."
"Oh, Lawliet. Do you honestly think I care? I won't have anything left in this world once you're gone."
"Then why the hell did you kill me?"
"Because you were getting too out of control. And I thought it might be fun to go together."
"Why not just let me live and see how things play out?"
"Because I'm crazy. I am honestly just bat-shit crazy. That's why."
I laughed. Laughed, laughed, laughed. Starving was kind of fun, once the pressure was taken off of you. "So what? Are you gonna shoot yourself in the head? Is that written in that Dumb Note of yours? Or would you prefer to starve as well?"
"Oh, no. Nothing like that. You'll kill me. In the final seconds before your death, you will kill me. I have it all timed out perfectly. You always said you wanted justice. I had to give you that much, at least."
"Great. Now I'm gonna be a murderer before I die, too," I sighed. "So how do I kill you?"
"Why not just wait and see?"
"You're all about games, aren't you? Did you ever speak even one truth?"
"The part in the diary Summer Rose read... That was true."
"Yeah. I'll bet." I stumbled to my knees, ignoring the aching weakness that was spreading throughout my entire body. I didn't get very far; I tumbled onto Jaguar, which is where I wanted to end up, anyway. She simply laughed and let me hang there until I kissed her. Then she grabbed me back and pressed me even closer to her face. I suddenly realized that I had a knife in my hand. Jaguar must have somehow slipped it into the room. I doubted that the Death Note could truly make me kill her, but if it would bring justice... I had to do it.
I could feel the despair washing over me now - the immutable fact that death was a breath away. I found Jaguar's stomach and sliced her open from stomach to heart. She moaned with eerie pleasure and screamed with pain in the same instant, never taking her lips from mine. As death overcame both of us, we heard a soft cackling in the background and the crunch of an apple being bitten, then the rustling whisper of a pen on a pad of paper.