The awful truth

Is awful sad

I must admit

I was awful bad

And I, I, I, I, I, I, I

Walk the streets of love

And they're drenched in tears

_The Rolling Stones_

- Anna PoV -

People say New York never sleeps. In this city everything is alive at every hour of the day.

This is a damn big lie.

I have been living here for years and people in this city sleep like everyone else. Maybe less hours, maybe less frequently. But at night, the frenetic lifes of these people stop too. Everything stops.

But somehow it always starts again. It always comes back to life.

Every morning.

New York wakes up and everything is back to normality.

Like there still is normality in this world.

I envy this city.

I envy how normal it seems for it to come back to life again and again, at no cost, at no condition.

As I said, it seems. Because there is always a price. In my life I learned that nothing is for free. You might not figure out your loss the very moment you earn what you craved for. But sooner or later you are going to realize it. It's up to you to evaluate if what you obtained is worth the loss...If that's even a comparison human beings are allowed to do.

Sometimes life has funny ways to twist things. They just change, and you don't understand if it's for the better or the worst.

I am not worth to decide if my gain was worth my loss, for instance. I am even scared to know what I could say.

But, at least, I want to make up for my unending ingenuity.

I must make up for getting too close to what is God's domain.

I walk with steady feats towards the Imperial Hotel.

Glimpsing at the glass walls passing by my side, I have problems in recognizing my own reflection.

All I see is a woman wearing a boring black tailleur and stilettos. I don't like her blonde stright hair, I hate her skirt and I totally detest her glasses.

I focus my gaze in front of me, to not see her.

As I walk I notice a couple of men staring at my legs.

Thankfully even New York sleeps at night. I would have felt awkward walking around dressed like this during the day. But, to anyone seeing me, I have to give the impression to be only a business woman. I am one indeed, but not one of this kind.

When I finally make it to the hotel I kinda jump in the elevator to get a break from this acting. Unfortunately I am once again surrounded by mirrors. On the walls, on the ceiling. I am sort of surprised that there's not one on the floor. At least that would have been fun.

I close my eyes until I finally reach the 18th floor. I knock at the room L told me.

Geez, if only that stupid nutshell idiot didn't end up in hospital I wouldn't have to do this alone...

"Come in"

In silence, I nod and join the agents inside.

"Anyone saw you?"

"I didn't notice a thing, but that wouldn't be a problem dressed up like this..."

"Anna! Don't tell me you dyed your hair!"

I laugh at Ide as I take off the stupid wig and the glasses.

"Much better..."

"I know Aizawa! It's nice to see you!", I confirm hugging my old friend. Despite everything I hid to him in the past year I am glad to see that he's happy to see me as well.

"So once again you couldn't stay out of trouble, uh?"

"Is trouble that comes to me! I swear I behaved like a good girl!"

"So what are you here for?"

Matsuda asks that in a harsh tone, clearly not intentioned to bright up his bad mood.

But I didn't came here to be treated nicely. I am here to do something good, for once.

"I came here because I know how to to bring back a deceased person, Matsuda. But I have some conditions"

"That's not going to be a problem. We are going to do as you want Anna"

"No Aizawa. Please listen. First thing, I want to join the investigative squad"

"Yeah! Deal!"

"IDE! WOULD YOU STOP ACTING LIKE A GROUPIE?!"

I cannot avoid laughing again. I really like these men. At least, if we have to work together again, this time we can really do it as a team.

"Second thing?", asks Mogi with a polite smile.

"Except for today... no one touches the notebook aside me and L"

This is the difficult point. As expected, my words are followed by a series of puzzled faces.

"What...notebook...Anna?"

My answer takes awhile to come.

"What about the deal?"

"Fine. Deal done. But what do you mean with notebook?!"

I feel the four men's eyes locked on me as I slip off something from behind my back. As I do so my ironed shirt ends up in a mess. I pull it out from the skirt and don't bother about it. I will fix it later.

Now my focus is on what I hold in my hands. On the thing that I carefully hid to the world until this moment, and that now is protected only by the thin black velvet I used as envelope.

"Please guys, put down any pencil or sharp object if you have any at hand"

"Is that a Death Note?!"

Aizawa stares wary at the rectangular envelope.

"Do as I say Aizawa. It's not easy for me..."

I observe my friend putting his pen down on the furthest table from where we stand. Soon after Ide follows his example and drops his keys.

"Matsuda. Your pen..."

Mogi points his finger at the pen showing from the pocket of his colleague.

But Matsuda doesn't move. I don't understand why he is so cold to me, but for some reason I don't seem to be liked a lot. In truth, I never befriended him like Aizawa and Ide. I am not Mogi's bff either, but with Matsuda is quite awkward. I met him only twice. The first time I sweared and I nearly threw him a porcelain cup full of cocoa. The second time was when his friend Light was arrested for being Kira. Maybe it's not so strange if he doesn't associate my presence to pleasurable moments.

However, he slowly moves to the other side of the room and puts down his pen as well.

"Do you fear that we are going to use that notebook to kill you?"

Once again. The urge to throw something at this idiot overwhelmes me.

I sit on the sofa and wait for everyone to come back and take a seat too.

I slowly lay down the package on the table and unfold it.

The white paper pops out of the dark velvet, showing the familiar writing.

"Life Note?" Aizawa reads it in a low voice.

"This notebook has the power to bring back to life a deceased person. If you want to open it, you will find L's name on the first page. I was the one writing it, so I can confirm you that this notebook really works"

Aizawa takes the Life Note and studies it in detail. The cover, the material, the writing, each and every page of it.

"At first look no page was cut off. You wrote only L's name here..."

"Yes"

"If this notebook really has the power the revive people why didn't you bring back anyone else?"

Aizawa noticed it in less than a minute.

"As you see...there are no rules written in this notebook. Nor a reaper holding on to it"

"Oh, that's right..."

Mogi takes the notebook and realizes that there's no monster on my shoulder.

"But there must be rules. Since I wrote only my husband's name, the events that I am going to tell you about might be just coincidences. Despite that, I believe they are a direct consequence of this notebook"

"We are listening..."

"I suppose that, as it happens with a Death Note, you must write down a person's name and know the face. L doesn't remember a thing about how he got there, but I found him in the same place where I wrote his name fourty days later"

"A Death Note takes fourty seconds to kill someone. It is a far greater time..."

I nod at Aizawa, knowing that too well. I stopped believing that the notebook worked in less than five minutes. When I saw L standing there after so long I nearly passed out.

"But that's not the point...I suppose that taking a person back to life is a bit more complicated than to make a heart stop beating. The reason why I didn't write any other name is... is the price..."

"What happens after you write a name Anna?"

Aizawa insists as if I this is a interrogation. For some reason I am thankful for that, because otherwise I am not sure to be able to continue.

"I think that... the notebook takes someone else's life is return. Few seconds after I wrote L's name...my mother...she died by heart attack..."

That's it. It's my fault if she died. I didn't know what I was doing, but I nonetheless did that. And the worst part of it is that even if my conscience gives me no respite I cannot help myself being happy to have L back.

I angrily wipe away a tear with my sleeve. Some makeup leaves a multicolored trial on it but it doesn't matter. I won't even try to clean it up.

"Anna...it's not your fault..."

"Yes it is. I killed my own mother to have back the man I love! I am a monster!"

I give up trying to lie to myself, to Aizawa, to L, to everyone. Even if I knew the rules I cannot say for sure that I wouldn't have done so. I know for sure that I wouldn't have done so for anyone else but L, but that's not going to excuse me. It doesn't clear me from my sin.

"Anna, you didn't know the rules, and indeed, that could have been a terrible coincidence"

"That's too forced to be a coincidence"

"MATSUDA!"

He's right. But there's something else I must split out.

"One more thing...I had another notebook. Identical, but the writing on the cover was composed of unknown characters. I noticed it was missing when L came back"

"Let me ask you one thing. Where did you find these notebooks?"

"They just appeared in my kitchen in December. Right out of nowhere"

I observe Aizawa staring again at the deadly thing on the table.

"And the other one disappeared in the same way?"

"Yes, in January"

"Did you use the other one?"

"No. As I said before, I wrote only my husband's name"

"In other words you never became the owner of the second notebook. You just touched it..."

"What do you mean with that?"

"I think that a reaper gave you this notebook. And again a reaper took the other one back...to give it to someone else"