Author's Notes;;

Shannara810;; hehehe YAY I'm glad you like it so far! And as for the Oracles, I'm drawing inspiration from several things, one of them being Angel, and just various others along with my own head. Ahem, as for their purpose, well, you'll see. ;)
Freakitten;; A/U means 'Alternate Universe.' And yes, the Oracles are supposed to be creepy. ^-^
Jasxn;; I'm glad you like it!!
izzybelle93;; Thanks. And, well, the whole memory loss thing is going to be explained… ^-^
misswarchan;; haha you're welcome! I figured I didn't need any other description because those who have read Twisted Midnight are likely to read it if they liked the first one. And yes, Evandra is definitely…interesting.

Chapter Two:

Evandra was smirking at me, I hated when people smirked at me. The funny thing was, it hadn't bothered me nearly so much before the first time I had died, when Kira had smirked victoriously at me as I lay dying in his arms. "You want me to restore his memory?" Wait, what? Why had she made the distinction about Light? I nodded and her smirk turned into a semi-malicious smile. "But what about your own memories, L?"

So that was it: my memories had been tampered with as well? Naturally I couldn't remember memories that I no longer possessed so I didn't bother trying to. Her smiled faded to an unreadable one, much like that of the famous painting Mona Lisa, and Aaron gestured once again towards the door he held open. "What have you done to us? What do you mean about my memories?" My voice was calm as I awaited an answer, and I ignored Light on my left as I kept my attention focused on The Oracles.

Again, Aaron spoke, and I liked him much better than his eccentric sister as he seemed more prone to explanations. "Both of you have lost memories; rather, memories have been erased. More have been taken from the younger one for a separate reason, but you have both lost your memories of the time in which you were no longer of the human world."

Light spoke up again, but he was looking at me. "So what you said before…about me being Kira…it was really true?" I couldn't look at him, wouldn't face him. "No…" he whispered, his first reaction denial as usual. "How? I've never written in a Death Note." So, he did remember their existence. It would only be natural considering he'd held it and we'd spoken so much of it.

"Come…let us discuss this further over food." I walked silently toward the door and the strange pair now. If they were going to hurt us they would have by now, or the food would be poisoned, and there wasn't much else I could do, anyway. And still I wouldn't look at my murderer and the one whose murder I had arranged in turn as he muttered that it couldn't be true. I'd learned much about the Light that had existed before he'd ever touched the Death Note, and I knew that Light was a good person. But when he'd picked up that book the power had called to him, lured him in, and replaced him with Kira.

This new room, definitely a dining room, was a nice sea-foam green. It was a soft color and everything in it matched, including the table and chairs set in the middle of the room. There was another door on one of the other walls and a single window on the wall opposite the door we'd come through. It looked out and, from what I could see, that direction was covered in a vast rain forest. Aaron gestured to the seats and I sunk into one of the plush-covered wooden chairs and Light sat to my right. "Now, about the restoration of your memories…this we are willing to grant because you will need them." His gaze shifted to Light, "Especially you. You know more about the Death Note than even the belated Death King himself, I believe. Or, you did, when you'd been using it in the human world." Light twitched and I finally looked at him, gripping his hand and was surprised to find it was cold as ice. I recalled the last time his hand had been that cold; he'd been dead.

"Aaron," I said, addressing him since he seemed to be the more talkative of the two. "What do you mean by belated, and who is this Death King?" I took a bite from the plate of food in front of me, noticing that Evandra and Aaron were eating as well, and I wondered if they had to eat or if they were merely eating to be polite. The chicken teriyaki was actually good and I could practically taste that it was homemade, that all the ingredients had been harvested here, and that great care had been taken. I didn't know how I knew this, but for all I knew it was part of the metaphysics that made this place and these beings exist.

"I think, brother dearest," Evandra's voice cut in icily, "It would be best if we just showed them." She turned back to meet my eyes once more and then her expression softened, but only for a moment. "We can restore your memories from when you were Other, but someone else has requested return Light's other memories to him. We cannot in good faith deny his request seeing as, without his help and information, we would not have the leverage or hope to prevail against this new threat. The two of you working together is the only way. L, your sense of justice, your intelligence and your temperance will serve to keep Light on the right track. Light, your knowledge of the Death Note and your own genius is necessary to both challenge this new impersonator as well as challenge L's theories. You two have always argued and reasoned the slightest of decisions or the most insignificant of details, if you two would work along-side each other instead of at odds with one another, not only could you save everyone but your own souls as well. Think of this as your second chance at avoiding Mu."

And then it happened. The air wrinkled and shifted around me and my grip tightened on Light's hand. I woke up and everything around me was gray. Gray skies gray land and gray trees. The green was spinning around me and it was not only disorienting but nauseating. I wasn't alone; someone's hand was in mine. My left to his right. I looked to my left and I saw a monster with a red tie around its head; Shinigami. And yet there was something familiar in those eyes. Light. I fell from my chair and Light crashed down next to me, his hand leading him to the floor since it was still tightly in mine. My own hand was deformed and dark. He was skeletal but still had a bit of his brown hair. My own vision was slightly obscured by my own hair which was longer than I remembered it being, and my own skeletal appearance was black as coal, black as my eyes had always been. When I stood up and finally took my hand from his, with the sound of bone clanking against bone, I looked down to see I was wearing all white and when I looked across to him he was swathed all in black, cloaked in shadows. And I felt something tied around my own head and reached up feeling a metal chain and I couldn't help but laugh.

And the memories rushed back, the sad desolation of being a Shinigami. It had been boring and Light and I had fought all the time. Well, not all the time. When we hadn't been fighting we'd been…debating. We'd ironically gotten to understand each other a lot better, and then we wound up fighting some more. Shinigami did not have sex, they lacked the correct organs, and so we got out our frustration and longing for physical contact by fighting. We also missed what we'd once shared. I looked toward him when my head had stopped spinning and saw the change in him. In Mu he'd admitted to me that, once in a while, there had been a rare moment where he didn't want to do it anymore; hadn't wanted to kill people to create a better world. But he'd felt it was his duty.

Being a Shinigami was so different from being a human, all our basic needs were Other, and so were we. We hadn't felt the need to show affection towards each other at first, but over time we grew accustomed to our new bodies and each other. We no longer had secrets from each other, truly all our cards had been played and the time for deceit had passed. Even then there had been rare moments of affection as the years passed and we fought less and less, growing all the less angry at the other for how our human lives had ended. Admittedly, when I told him of the eraser, there had been a period of six months where he didn't speak to me out of anger. But eventually that died down as well, and together we took to watching the humans – because they were interesting. We had spent ten years as humans reckon time as Other, and now I knew what The Oracles were talking about. There was a chance to avoid Mu if we helped them; and I was planning on helping them. Light's eyes conveyed the same message, but he still didn't have his memories of being Kira. Oh, since he remembered our time as Shinigami, he remembered conversations with me about him being Kira…but he didn't remember being Kira. I was afraid, that once he did, and with him being human again he might wind up relapsing.

"L…" His voice was softer than usual and I looked at him once more, and I shifted back into my fetal-position-when-sitting usual but he moved back into his chair. When he offered me a hand up I had half a mind to refuse, but I didn't. I got back into my own chair beside his and brought my feet up, feeling rather exposed and, well, hurt. It was as if all the pain of all those fights were being relived in that moment.

Evandra's voice cut the silence once more. "It is not for the living to know the secrets of the dead." She was smiling a bit sadly and added, "By restoring your memories of Mu while in your human forms we have compromised much, but hard times call for measures such as these; measures that could destroy the very foundations of the worlds if one thing were to go wrong. And we are trusting you two, because there are no others suited to the task."

And then Light's crisp voice was in my ears once more, but not directed at me. "So…who is supposed to be restoring my other memories? And what is this situation Ry – L and I are supposed to be helping with?" Well, those were good questions.

And then someone else entered the room through the other door. He didn't open the door, rather he walked through it closed, and the smiling Shinigami with razor teeth took in the scene and he laughed in an all too familiar way. "Hello, Ryuk." Aaron had spoken the words aloud, and Light looked at me, obviously remembering Ryuk from his time in Mu, but he couldn't see him now. I picked up an apple and tossed it to the Shinigami who caught it easily and started chomping on it. The fair-haired Oracle turned back to Light and I. "If you two recall, the death of the Death King caused a bit of a commotion in Mu?" I nodded, remembering the announcement that the Death King had first gone missing, and then when a pile of rust and sand had been found and, among them, the King's crown and scepter, it was determined he was dead. No one seemed to know the how or what, but the Death King was dead. Naturally, Armonia had taken the place of the Death King as, after all, the Shinigami had been the King's right hand man for quite some time. He was also the only one, aside from Light, who knew the Death Note's rules thoroughly. He had also been the one that initially offered me his eraser before I died as if to see what I would do.

Evandra cut in once again, "And we all know who took his place and how things have been since. Chaos has ensued since Armonia's reign begun with many more rules as to when Shinigami are allowed into the Human world and where they are allowed to visit. The Shinigami are too used to being walked over and, when they realize what he is doing, we're not sure they will even care. As long as their card games don't get interrupted, the Shinigami are more or less too dejected to do anything about it." Her attention focused on me, "I understand he made you an offer before you died." I nodded and waited for her to tell me how any of this was relevant. "Well, shortly before then he asked us for a prophecy. He even offered us some of his most precious gems as payment, for that is what we require. If someone wants something from us we require payment." Again, I nodded, what they were saying was making sense but I still wasn't sure how it pertained to the incident she had spoken about. "He had asked of the Death King's fate, which isn't unusual for him, but usually he barters with the King's funds as gifts. We told him that 'The two Chosen Ones, perfect matches in almost every way, who had fought over the fate of the mortals, would unite and bring down the Usurper. Alas, only after they have learned of themselves and of each other after death, can this be achieved to ensure the future of the Worlds."

And now I saw, because with words like those it had to refer to Light and I. Thus far everything matched, but they would have been unable to tell us earlier because there was no way to know it would be us before our events unfolded around us. Also, the idea of an Usurper was not definite for the future is ever-changing. If the future of the Chosen Ones had turned out differently, if Light and I had hated each other and never spoken to each other again, we would be unable to help in this instance. Then again, the Chosen Ones would not need to help if the Usurper had decided not to, well, usurp. "And if we refused?" I shot Light a scathing look, but it was good to know all our options despite his attitude."

This time it was Aaron who spoke once more, "Then you will be returned to Mu with no memory of this meeting." His gaze landed on me and those strange eyes burned into mine, "And this is a package deal, either you both help or all is lost. Without you two, all the Worlds will eventually fall under his command."

Ryuk's cackle announced itself once more and he said, "No pressure…" And then he made his way behind me and I spun, keeping a careful eye on him as he said, "I was the one who came to the Oracles for their help when I realized what Armonia was up to. I'd heard him ordering Shidoh about, and Shidoh is easily frightened and persuaded when promised protection. Armonia was using him but I could do nothing, except come here."

I turned to Light and relayed Ryuk's words, "Oh, just tell him to touch me with his Death Note already so I can get my memories back!" I didn't want this to happen, I didn't want Light to own a Death Note.

I reached out and asked, "Ryuk…is it possible for him to touch it and you retain ownership?" He thought about it a moment then shook his head. Apparently only humans who touch Death Notes owned by another human can keep their memories of it. "Very well. I want to own the Death Note, Ryuk." His reaction was one I was expecting, although the laughter lasted longer than I had thought it would, but eventually he handed it over. Ryuk was the sort of Shinigami to always own two, anyway. And then I felt it, the power of the Death Note's ownership. It was imperceptible to someone who had no knowledge of such things, but to one who had served in Mu the power hovering over the note book was obvious. And Mu was a place that you served in to repent for the lives you had taken when using the Death Note. True, the system, like all others, had its flaws, but somehow it worked.

I owned the Death Note, until I forfeited it or died, it was mine. I touched a corner of it to Light's arm and he screamed. The scream didn't last as long as the last time he'd regained his memories, but the fear in his eyes was palpable, and sweat glistened on his forehead as he slumped in his seat. Reddish-brown met black and he said, "I believe you now."

A//N

Hmmm…I wonder what is going to happen? To be brutally honest, I'm not entirely sure! :D Alright, I do have somewhat of a plan, though.