Disclaimer! All fictional entities featured/ mentioned in this segment belong to Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata; except Erin Blogger and a few extra characters not from the canon cast, who I made up for the purpose of this fan fiction. The haiku featured in this chapter was written originally by Japanese Meiji period poet Masaoka Shiki.

Okay, one more chapter before I leave. Remember how I said that this could get darker and grittier than the first story? As the new rating indicates, this is where it starts. Fasten your seat belts, ladies and gents: it's gonna be a bumpy ride!

9. Harm

"Well I can't say I'm not a bit disappointed. I was looking forward to bringing Demegawa to court and prosecuting him. And yet…somehow this is better than any punishment the courts could have handed him. It seems he did himself in, instead. A fitting end, don't you think?"

Kiyomi placed two fingers to her mouth although she and Umbra were the only ones in the room. Somehow the gesture helped her to feign shock. On her lap sat the daily edition of the paper open to the article bearing the news of her former employer's untimely demise. "Teru, doesn't that sound a bit extreme? It isn't like the man killed anyone."

As it turned out though, to her pleasant and more genuine surprise, she didn't have to fake anything, at least as far as her feelings toward the whole incident went. "Kiyomi, you don't have to pretend for me. I know that you're happy that this happened to him and you know that he deserved it. He is unworthy of anyone's sympathy, including yours or mine."

There was a calm contentedness in Teru's words, as though his secret prayers had just been answered once again, that most might have found eerie in this context, but not Kiyomi. Nothing he had said in this conversation was untrue. She was struck by a faint urge to tell him that she had been the one to deal Demegawa his sentence but prudence stamped it out before it could grow any more.

"I guess you're right. To tell you the truth, I'm actually more worried about what sort of chaos this is going to bring about at work. Fortunately I'm not planning to stay much longer; I've submitted my resume to NHN and thanks to my position as Sakura TV's anchor I think they'll accept me without hesitation."

"The sooner you can move to a more credible station, the better. I always thought that you'd make a better spokesperson for Kira, anyway. People would be more inclined to accept his ideals if you were there to spread his word rather than someone like Demegawa. He never cared for his ideals; he just wanted attention and money. No one could take him seriously."

"The problem is, I'm not sure if NHN supports Kira enough. Their current Golden News anchor Tanakabara has argued against Kira ever since the night Kira tried to broadcast his message on Sakura TV. But…perhaps I can persuade them, if they'll have me?" She brushed a hand over the notebook that lay next to her on the sofa.

Yes. They'd have her this time. She'd made sure of it.

After the two made plans to meet for lunch later this week and bade each other farewell, Kiyomi hung up and started to dial her parents' number. Her manicured fingers hovered over each button as she thought about whether Teru would make a good accomplice. A servant. Most gods in the scriptures and texts had servants, didn't they? While she didn't think he was onto her secret, they sure did think alike. The more people she could get behind her, the more criminals that could be slain and the more the police would be distracted from her.

On the other hand, it was a fairly well-known fact that a plan that had more people involved was also more likely to fail, especially if some of them were to be caught and forced to talk. Kiyomi couldn't afford to have careless people work under her. At least until she somehow gained control of the police, which she hadn't yet conceived a plan for. Actually, she'd been so busy playing an anchorwoman and being Kira—yes, I'm Kira now, aren't I? This isn't just his will I'm carrying out; I. Am. Kira—that she hadn't had the time to even consider that.

At any rate, if she wanted to enlist Teru's help that would mean letting him in on her secret. Kiyomi wasn't sure she could take that risk when there was currently no need to do so.

From the apartment next door a newborn's shrill cry pierced the walls between the neighbors and she tightened her grip on the receiver, frustrated. Ever since the Tamakis brought their new son home all he'd done was scream and wail, all day and into the night. One would think that they had never gone to quiet him even if the very opposite was true.

This was why she would never have children. If her mother didn't agree with that, too bad.

It was strange. Before the Death Note landed in her living room she had deferred almost entirely to her mother's implacable whims. Becoming Kira seemed to have awakened her, made her more—aggressive? No, assertive. And why not? Surely her mother would be proud of her now. Besides the obvious, she was finally breaking away from Sakura TV.

Her mother's first reply to the news was: "And who did you sleep with to get that position?"

Kiyomi was speechless for a second. It had been surprising enough that her mother would stay on the line after she had affirmed herself. But why would she think that she—

"I'm…I'm sorry? Mom, what are you talking about?" She uncrossed her legs and her posture became ramrod straight.

"You think I'm a fool? A respectable business like NHN would never accept a reporter from a station like Sakura TV based on their own merits. How else could you jump that far up from the bottom?"

Will nothing I do ever be good enough for you, Kiyomi wanted to scream but she couldn't. She sat there with her mother's cold stubborn condemnations in one ear and that baby's shrieks in the other. Her head felt close to exploding off of her shoulders. She wanted to kill someone.

When she'd had enough of the unprovoked shaming, she decided to calmly end the conversation, lest she say something that her mother would somehow use to prove her point. "All right, Mom. I just thought I should call to tell you how I was doing, in case you were curious."

"I wasn't until you called."

"Yes, Mother. Good-bye."

Click. That was all. No "Thank you" or "I love you." Just "Good-bye." Indeed, what was more appropriate in this case? She thought about calling her father to ask if he could help her set the record straight, that she hadn't slept into her prospective job, they'd raised her better than that, how could she accuse her of something so outlandish? Just because she hadn't gotten her dream job the first time around and had had to settle for far less than she'd deserved for so long?

But what was the point to that? Her father had never stuck up for her; why would he start now? He was a worm under her mother's iron will. He always had been. She would have all the plans for Kiyomi's future—the pageants, the schooling—and he would just go along for the ride.

Her resolve suddenly become steely. She looked up from her lap and stared a hole into the print that hung across from her and bore a picture of a lake and the words to a haiku from Masaoka Shiki:

A lightning flash:

between the forest trees

I have seen water.

You know what? It's fine. I don't need them, not anymore. They've served their purpose.

She pressed the button at the top of her pen, put the paper aside and replaced it with the notebook.

I wonder if I should make it so that, if they've removed me from their will at this point, that they put me back on it before they die. No. That may look a bit too suspicious and besides, I can easily strike out on my own without their money. And it's time that I did just that. I'm a goddess.

She turned to the next blank page and wrote the following entries at the top:

Chiharu Takada née Chiharu Sato, suicide by gas inhalation. On September 7th at 9:00pm she seals all of the windows and doors of her house, then turns on her oven and places her head inside. The house fills with gas and she dies from carbon monoxide poisoning.

Akio Takada, suicide by burning. On September 7th at 11:15pm he returns to his house to find his wife dead in the kitchen. Overcome by despair, he douses himself with kerosene and strikes a match. He not only sets himself on fire, but blows up his gas-filled house in the process. His and his wife's bodies are completely incinerated.

Like a scene from out of a tragic melodrama. No sooner than punctuating the second entry she closed the book, sealing their fates with a sense of detached finality. She would never see or hear from them again after that call. She couldn't even if she'd wanted to, not if she wanted to avoid being incriminated. She had made sure to list both her mother's married and maiden names as from what she had gathered, the notebook only worked for a victim's birth name.

It was then that she noticed that the baby had fallen silent.

So for that matter had Umbra's licking, grunting and chewing. In fact, where was Umbra? He left his half-eaten box of daifuku sitting on the counter.

A woman's scream split the air, Mrs. Tamaki's scream, followed by frantic pounding on Kiyomi's door. "Kiyomi! Kiyomi, are you home? Please answer!"

Kiyomi quickly slid the notebook underneath a cushion of her sofa and rushed to answer the door. "Mrs. Tamaki! What's wrong?"

"M-my baby! He—h-h-he's floating, Kiyomi! I went to check on Hajime and he's floating over his crib! Come quick!"

Floating?

Oh no.

The two women hurried back into the Tamakis' apartment and into baby Hajime's room as soon as they could. But when they burst in, they found him curled back into a fetal position in his crib like nothing happened. Only Kiyomi could see Umbra—as she'd suspected—crouched on the far side with his chin resting over the bar and a blank expression, and one giant paw lazily batting at the mobile hanging over the infant like a cat with the end of a string. He spun it slow enough to seem natural. At least, to the point where no one would suspect a ghost sitting there.

Mrs. Tamaki staggered and collapsed against the doorway with a hand over her plump chest. "B-but, but he was floating. He was, just a moment ago. I-I know what I saw," she stammered breathlessly.

Kiyomi took her hand into hers and stroked it, trying to soothe the nerves of a woman who truthfully had gotten on her nerves almost every time they'd spoken to each other. Oh, how she wanted to scream at that damn shinigami then and there! "There, there, Mrs. Tamaki," she said in fake gentleness. "I wouldn't think that you've gotten much sleep since you brought him home. Exhaustion must be making you hallucinate."

Mrs. Tamaki blinked and rubbed at her half-squinted, baggy eyes. "I—I don't know. Maybe you're right. I mean, Hajime seems calm now so maybe I should…"

Kiyomi nodded. "Why not let me tend to him while you rest up? At least until Mr. Tamaki gets home. It's all right; I've got no place to be for tonight."

"Ah, thank you, Ki-ki. You're an absolute angel," Mrs. Tamaki sighed with gratitude.

After Kiyomi helped the new mother to bed she turned to Hajime's room and shut the door. There was no baby monitor to be seen and the baby wouldn't understand anything she was about to say never mind mention it to his parents, so she deemed it safe to chastise Umbra in front of him. Quietly, that is. "What do you think you're doing?" she whisper-snapped.

"I was trying to find out where that awful noise was coming from," explained Umbra, his vacant eyes fixed on the tiny pink, squishy-looking creature curled under him. "It came from this baby. When I picked him up he stopped making that noise."

"Do you realize what could have happened? I thought we've talked about this, several times. Are you deaf or just stupid? Even if I'm the only one that can see or hear you, you are not to make your presence known to other people in any way. Now I'm stuck here watching this baby until Mr. Tamaki comes home from work. And who knows when that may be?"

Umbra didn't answer that time. He scrunched over himself and poked an arm through the bars to stroke Hajime's back with two claws, like a child petting a small furry animal. Another paw remained stretched out to keep spinning the mobile. Kiyomi couldn't understand what about the baby would fascinate the spirit so much; had he owned the notebook instead of her, he might have killed him for his lifespan by now.

Kiyomi cupped her chin in thought and paced for a bit. It wouldn't be wise to bring the notebook out of my apartment. But I can't go one day without meeting my quota. Or could I? No, if there's any break in my schedule the police could catch on to me somehow. At the same time I shouldn't take the baby out of the apartment, and I can't leave him unattended either lest he start screaming again.

Looks like I have but one option…

Kiyomi approached the crib and lowered her voice. As dumb as he acted, the shinigami did have his uses. "Umbra, go back to my apartment. I want you to pull out the notebook and take over killing criminals for me for the night. I should have the targets I've chosen up on my laptop already. Kill them all with heart attacks, nothing else. After you've done that I want you to erase the history from my browser, close the laptop, tear out all the used pages and dispose of them as always. I don't want to have any pieces stuck to the spine or crumbs on the computer like last time. Lastly, hide the notebook in its usual place. I'll know if you didn't do everything I asked."

She said that last part as though she had a punishment in store for him if he didn't meet her expectations, though there really was very little in the way of such when shinigami were immune to physical harm and deprivation.

After a moment more of staring at the infant Umbra slowly arose, his mane brushing the ceiling. "Okay." His newly acquired sweet tooth had begun quivering in his lower jaw again anyway.

He phased through the crib and an oblivious gurgling Hajime and not bothering with any doors, passed through the walls. On the way out he stopped to help himself to the box of cookies that sat on the coffee table, dropping each one onto his long black tongue before pulling them in for chewing.

After writing down the names of Kiyomi's twelve daily criminals, each destined to die an hour apart from each other, he tore out the used pages, folded them into squares and stuffed them into his belt with all the other pages. After all he hadn't been as lucky as Lumen, who had had time to plan his expedition and gained access to the human world by dropping an extra if dubiously obtained notebook while holding on to his own.

Umbra briefly scanned the page bearing Kiyomi's parents' names and the details about their impending deaths, combing his claws through his mane. What did they do that made her write their names in here, he wondered, but he didn't dwell on this for long. It wasn't his business.

Before he took care of the laptop however curiosity got the best of him. Using the tip of the pen as a "finger" as his claws were too big for the keypad, he typed a name into the search bar one letter at a time. A name he recalled quite well given that he'd been watching the human with this name for about two years before this all happened. Umbra had first seen her one night on a rooftop burning something—it had looked like a spiral notebook—and he had kept seeing her ever since. He didn't know why he was so compelled to watch this human in particular live her life but it gave him almost the same feeling he got from eating sugary things, only softer and warmer. Especially when she smiled.

A few articles under her name and the link to her Facebook™ account popped up when he pressed "Enter." He clicked on the link to her account and found a picture of her, with her Fedora, a sheepish smile and her cat in her lap who had turned away from the camera and looked in the process of trying to escape.

Erin Blogger.

He sat crouched on the sofa with a claw from one paw dangling from his mouth and the other paws resting on his knees. What was she up to? He could still see her lifespan so she had to still be alive. He hoped she was doing well. He hadn't seen her since he'd dropped his notebook in this very room and possessed Kiyomi. It appeared that she hadn't updated her page for some time. He thought it brave of her to keep pictures of herself up on the Internet in a time where anyone's life could be taken by revealing his or her name and face to the wrong person.

His brave, kind little Erin.

He wasn't sure if they'd get to meet face to face before he completed his tasks and could return to the shinigami world, but as long as she didn't interfere with Kiyomi or whoever Lumen was currently attached to, she would be fine. Right?

With his leftover daifuku perched in his own lap he stared at her image for two hours, having enough sense to erase the history before Kiyomi came in through the front door. He caught wind of this when he eventually heard her speaking to a tired and immensely thankful Mr. Tamaki from the next door down.

"Yeah, it looks like Demegawa from Kira's Kingdom is dead. They found him bare-ass naked in a baby swing sitting in his own shit. No word yet on the autopsy, but they didn't find any evidence of foul play. According to this his chums said that they were all wasted and he'd bet that he could fit into the swing for, maybe a hundred from each of them. They left him hanging as a joke and insist they didn't know that it would kill him."

"Interesting. What this tells me is that this faux-Kira has to be in and from Japan. Kira's Kingdom is most popular there. Why would someone from another country bother to kill that fat bastard?"

"Mello, how do we know that our guy had anything to do with this? It sounds to me that Demegawa was just drunk and stupid."

"That's where you'd be wrong. He probably killed Demegawa this way to give people that kind of impression. Besides, I found another intriguing piece of evidence. This hasn't been made public yet, but one of the moles we dispatched to Japan has reported that before he died he'd ordered to have all the money he'd asked for on the show returned to their donors. Why would a money-grabber like Demegawa do something like that? Not by his own free will, he wouldn't. Our guy must be someone who knew or worked under him, who had a grudge against him and thinks he's sullying Kira's name, so he used the Death Note to control his actions before killing him." There was a slight growl in his voice at the word "grudge." Mello would know very well what having one of those was like.

"On top of that, the network is talking about cancelling the show since they don't have the money to continue it. Now where do you think all that money went?"

For a moment Matt wondered how Mello would have done had he taken on L's title. He didn't hesitate to throw everything he had at a problem whereas Near was more thrifty with his resources. Or maybe Roger actually had a fairly decent idea when he'd proposed that they work together? Matt personally hadn't had big problems with the kid, creepy and dickish though he was; they were mostly enemies because Mello had deemed him as such.

But there was no use in wasting time thinking about the could-have-beens. Now Mello was dedicated to destroying the title and the empire around it, even if it meant plunging the world into the kind of chaos that plagued his mind. That was what mattered.

At least he hadn't deluded himself into believing that this would do anyone good like Kira had.

"Excellent. This narrows down our search considerably. Oh. By the way, Matt: have you replied to her texts?"

"I was getting around to it."

"Are you fucking kidding me? You know this isn't going to work unless you keep up your correspondence with her. Have you decided on where and when you're meeting?"

Matt bit back a groan. "I said I'd be free Saturday night."

"Well follow up on it. Agree on a time and tell her the name of the hotel you're staying at. No matter what happens just go along with it and you'll be fine. You're good at that."

"Yes, your Majesty."

"Yeah, good luck, Casanova," cackled Lumen from the other end.

I'm still not sure why you can't do this yourself. It's not like you haven't had practice.

But Matt did know why. Mello sending Matt to take up this dirty job had been for the same reasons he had exiled him to this hotel room miles away from him and the mafia, posh as it was. He had even been considerate enough to get him a smoking room. If they were going to get close enough to Near for Mello to deliver a blow he'd have to stay far enough out of the way where Near couldn't reach him to hit back.

Matt hated posh. He couldn't explain why exactly. Maybe growing up poor before coming to Wammy's House had made him unused to the glitz and excesses of the rich. He felt surrounded by silicone, neon lights, glitter and illusions. He pulled his orange-tinted goggles over his eyes to dull the garish colors and lit another one up, falling backwards onto the bed where the cool sheets splashed against the bare skin of his back. There he lay for a while, concentrating on the warm puffs from each drag to the rhythm of the rise and fall of his chest. If he focused on it for long enough he could feel his head rising and falling on top of his dad's chest like it did when he was little and his old man was snoring off another night at the pub.

The man who came home on Saturday night was quite different from the hard, stern mechanic who slaved away during the week to make ends meet and gave him clouts on the ear if he fucked around too much in his shop. That man was far more tender and affectionate and Matt would stay up waiting until he came home, just moments away from falling asleep when he'd hear the creak of the unlocked door and his dad softly slurring his name, asking for a hug and a kiss. Together they'd sit on the couch and they would talk, most of it nonsense naturally, and sometimes he'd tell Matt that he loved him and that he was all he'd had in the world. Things he would never tell him when he was sober.

Until one night he didn't come home. That night nothing had stopped Matt from drifting off and he had awoken late in the morning to cops and concerned neighbors (who hadn't shown much concern for them before from what he had seen) shaking him back into consciousness. Evidently the old man had fallen off the bridge while stumbling home from town and drowned in the river. An accident, or a buried suicidal impulse that the liquor had unleashed along with all of those sentiments? It would always remain a mystery, and perhaps it didn't matter.

All Matt had known then was that he was alone, and he'd continue to be alone until he somehow found himself on the doorstep of Wammy's two years later where he met Mello and Near. "Because he belonged with smart kids like him." None of the kids knew each other's names from their old lives, but rather chose for themselves new ones to go by. He'd chosen Matt because it was much easier than his real name to pronounce for even the slowest people.

Yet here he was again, on his lonesome.

He crushed out the cigarette inside the ashtray resting next to him—which looked like it had been crafted from the shell of a sea turtle he couldn't identify, weren't those supposed to be illegal?—and exhaled his last puff towards the ceiling fan humming overhead. The cloud of smoke dissipated as soon as it was released.

He'd better get to it, then. His reply was overdue and little doubt she'd bitch about making her wait when they saw each other again. Matt slowly hoisted himself up and fished through the nightstand for his phone.

"Ooh-ooh! Kimi, look! A mood ring! It changes color depending on however you're feeling at any given moment. I'm gonna try it on!"

While the Amane sisters crowded around the jewelry Erin stayed behind them absently shuffling through tops that she probably wasn't going to end up buying. She found herself holding her breath as Misa observed the color change in the stone and announced the end result: "Ah, it's red."

"Red? What does that mean?" asked Kimiko, holding up the legend but unable to read it.

Misa took the card from her and recited: "Red: means high energy, adventure, passion, fear or anger. Hm. Well I am feeling particularly peppy today so that doesn't sound that far off! Not that that's anything new, of course. Hey Erin, wanna try on this mood ring?"

"Uh, no thanks. Not interested."

"Well hey, Misa. Maybe I want to try?" Kimiko suggested. "Just for the fun of it."

Erin turned her back on them again and gulped. She was afraid of what color the ring might have turned if she put it on. Come on, you can't judge whether somebody's guilty of something just by the color their mood ring changes. It's a stupid mood ring, not a polygraph. Misa's always been really energetic, besides.

When should I pop her the question? The weekend's looming over us. I'd better do it soon to get a feel of things.

She found her window of opportunity later on in their venture when Kimiko went in the ladies' changing room to try on a few dresses that caught her fancy. Not that Erin didn't enjoy the older Amane's company, but it was becoming increasingly harder to keep biting her tongue about Misa's text messages. As her sister didn't she have the right to know?

But she couldn't know. Poor Kimiko, I don't think she suspects a thing. She wants to trust Misa as much as Misa trusts her. There're so many things about Misa she doesn't know about. Things that not even Misa would know herself.

"Hey, Misa?"

"Yeah?" The girl in question was holding a skirt in front of her to see how it would look. Today she had her hair up in a ponytail near the top of her head.

"So, uh, what'cha doing this weekend?"

"Probably gonna be working. Why?"

"I was just asking 'cause I was thinking about going out for the weekend. Y'know, a girls' night out on the town? How 'bout Saturday night? Saturday night's all right for a fight! Right?"

"Awww, sorry Erin but I can't do Saturday. I'm working late for another night scene. How about Friday, instead?"

"Oh. I dunno if I can do Friday. I promised Lawliet I'd spend some time with him. Then, uh, Stephen and I were going to hang out later on."

Misa wagged a finger in her face, gently chiding her, "It's okay to call it a date, you know. I don't understand why people these days are so afraid to use that word. 'Hang out' makes it sound like you guys are just friends when you and I both know that you're a lot more than that."

"Well, yeah. It's just that, we don't want to take things too fast, know what I mean?"

"Dating doesn't mean committing to anything. Dating's about getting to know somebody to see if they're boyfriend or girlfriend material. It's not like you're looking to get married. Then it'd be an omiai." She beamed and raised a hand in volunteering. "Though it would be awesome if that's what you end up doing. I call planner and maid of honor."

Erin put up her hands. "Whoa, easy, Misa. You're scaring me with that kind of talk."

But this time it wasn't so much what Misa said that frightened Erin, as it did what she wouldn't say. She was not looking forward to stalking her all weekend, but it was the only chance she had at finding out who "m" was and whatever else Misa might have been hiding up until now. She had asked Macy to watch Lawliet during her "errands" and from what she'd heard he hadn't been too much of a hassle so far. He always did seem more welcoming to female company than male. That was probably an animal thing. Males fought and competed.

Suddenly a muffled tinkling noise rang from inside Misa's black leather purse. "Oh! Was that my phone?" She set the skirts aside and whisked her purse off the floor. "Better see who's calling! I'll be in the changing room!"

With a toss of her golden locks she disappeared behind the swinging doors before Erin could comment on the interruption, and her gut coiled and pinched itself like a tangled garden hose with every guess she made as to who was contacting Misa and was so important that she had to hide in the changing room to answer. Could it be "m?"

The phone had made that noise it did when someone had sent her a text. And if she followed her in Misa might get suspicious. What if the same thing happened if she asked who that was when Misa emerged? Erin felt stiff and helpless. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and noticed how sunken her face looked, at least to her. She swiped a hot, clammy hand over her face as though to erase that look on it.

Oh, Misa. What's going on with you? I thought you were past all this. I thought I was past all this.

Matt got a gaping pit in his stomach when he heard those dreaded knocks on his door and it got wider and wider with every step he took to go answer it, knowing too well who he would find outside.

There in front of him stood Misa in a black leather jacket with matching high-heeled boots, fishnets, corset and skirt. She was slumped against the doorway with one arm up along the woodwork and the other arm bent on her hip. Her lips were as bright and sinfully red as her nails, and her half-lidded honey eyes glazed and feral, already getting bloodshot around the edges. She looked like the quintessential whore.

Wasn't that the idea?

"Hey, Matt," she greeted in her warmest and most sultry voice, though the high pitch of it kind of dampened the effect in his ears. She wore her hair completely down for the occasion, and the way her pupils dilated made it look as though she were boring a hole through him. "Mind if I come in?"

Looks like she hasn't wasted any time. He stepped aside, wordlessly inviting her to enter. He shut the door behind her and watched her saunter over to the sofa with an extra sway in her hips. She reached up to rake her fingers under her hair, letting it fall over her shoulders as her purse swung from the crook of her arm. She pulled a small box from out of it and knocking it against the glass a few times, she dumped its contents onto the table: two long, thick lines of stardust already cut up into powder.

She expects me to snort some too?

"I brought a little treat for the two of us," she offered with a pearly white smile as she took her seat on the sofa and crossed her legs. She stretched herself out like a cat and made sure to show off as much thigh and cleavage as she could, as if to tease him.

It's hard to tease a man though when he knows where it's all going.

She patted the cushion next to her. "Come on, sit with me."

Against Matt's private wishes he obeyed.

"Phew! Is it hot in here or is it just me? I think I dressed too warmly. Better fix that." She began to wiggle out of her jacket first like a snake shedding its skin, then thrust her hips upward to undo her skirt and shimmied it down her legs before kicking it off across the room, revealing a low-hanging pair of tight black panties.

Matt felt sick. Rather than watch her striptease he had looked the other way trying to pretend that this wasn't happening but it was no use. Misa made sure he'd keep his head in the game by straddling him and clutching his jaw in her hand, but not before taking her straw and snorting in half of her line of dust. How she managed to fit all that into her tiny nose was nothing short of a wonder.

Matt grimaced. "You…got something." He gestured to his own nose with his thumb. A large smudge of white dust had found its way under her right nostril and the spot trailed down to her glossy lips.

"Oh dear. Silly me," she giggled, licking the smudge away. By this point she had begun to twitch and tremble, but Matt doubted that this was necessarily from real desire. Just how much dust had she snorted already before she came here? She held out her used straw. "Try some; it feels wonderful. I can't remember the last time I felt this relaxed. It'll help loosen you up, too!"

"No, thanks. Didn't they ever tell you that you shouldn't share straws with people? That's how you pass shit around." He knew that Misa was clean as far as diseases went but still the idea repulsed him. He had been all for experimenting before but this was getting too much.

Besides either Misa had smudged her lipstick when she'd licked the dust off her nose, or her nose had started to bleed from the self-inflicted trauma.

"Aw, come on! It's romantic!"

There is nothing romantic about this and you know it.

"Hmph! Fine, we'll share it another way." She leaned backward and slammed the straw on the table, all the while spreading her legs as far as she could and grinding her hips against his, rubbing against his nonexistent hard-on. He wanted to throw up.

"Come on Misa, your nose is bleeding," he grumbled, reaching around her to yank several sheets of tissue from the box nearby. When she came back up ready to lunge at his lips or whatever she'd had in mind he squeezed the tissue around her nose. "I don't think we should do this."

She twisted her head away, her moist matted hair catching in his unwelcoming mouth which he hastily tried to pick out with his free hand. Her smile became devilish and perhaps a little bitter. "Don't you think it's a little late to go back now? Now don't you fret; I've got everything we need in my purse. We'll be safe."

She lowered her head and latched onto his neck, her hot mouth sucking gently. Matt winced on contact and tried to push her away but she anchored herself by locking her knees around his back, pressing her firm breasts into his chest and sliding her warm hands up his thin striped shirt, stroking his skin with her palms and fingertips as she started to lift the cloth off of him. Her mouth moved up to his ear and before long she was licking and nibbling at the lobe. Her grinding intensified. She had him trapped.

In between pants she whispered, "If it helps, pretend that I'm Mello. Also, you should clean your ears more often. They're all icky and waxy."

"GAAAAH, I can't take it anymore!"

After four days of dread and twenty minutes of watching the front of the building in tense silence Erin exploded in a swell of fear, fury and frustration and tore out of the car, slamming it behind her. Stephen hated it when people slammed car doors, but for now she was too swept up in her emotions to notice or care.

"Hey, where are you going?" Stephen called out, scrambling out of the driver's seat after her.

"Where do you think? I'm going in!" was all she cried back in reply, catching herself before she fell to the ground. She disappeared into the revolving door after taking a few hurried seconds to figure out exactly which way she was supposed to turn it to get inside.

Stephen started after her, beseeching her to stop. "Erin, wait! Come back, you're gonna blow our—"

"Gevanni, stand down," commanded Halle's voice from the phone device in his ear.

"Wh-what do you mean, stand down? Erin just charged into the Marriot™ to confront Misa. She's going to blow the whole operation—"

"No. Let her go. If she's about to do what I think she is, it'll make our job that much easier."

Stephen frowned. What job? Had L planned something that he for whatever reason couldn't tell him or Erin about? "What do you mean by that? Did I get locked out of the loop again?"

"I'm afraid there's no time to explain it now. I will afterwards. For now, just trust me and roll with it."

Stephen glanced back at the Marriot™, none the less worried or doubtful. "Still, she looked like she's going to kill someone."

"I don't think she will. I've seen that look before and it hasn't happened yet that I'm aware of."

Her fist ached and throbbed with every pound on the door of Room 309. What the hell could they be doing in there? Her mind swam with a hundred ideas, each worse than the last, and it put an extra oomph in her swing.

A shirtless young man answered, looking awfully disgruntled for someone who presumably was about to score unless he looked that way because of the interruption. All along his face, neck and chest she could see red and white smudges. The red ones from what looked like lipstick, but the white ones…

Well, this wasn't Mello. Or at least he didn't look like him. But he did look familiar; he was the guy from tech. She had seen him hanging around the set smoking cigarettes but had never thought that much about him until now. Also, over his shoulder she could see Misa squirming upright on the sofa in nothing but a corset and panties that looked way too tight to be comfortable, her smooth, round pink rear end protruding from out of them. Next to her sat a shiny black box and a line of snow white powder.

"Erin!" She couldn't tell if Misa's surprise was genuine or not. It looked and sounded real, but Erin still didn't know whether to believe it. That had to be the worst part. It was practically a scene from fresh out of a rag mag.

These details were all she had time to think of before pouncing on him and wrestling him into a half-nelson.

"You scumbag fuckface dickhead asshole!" The obscenities spouted from her as though she were possessed and speaking in tongues. "You shitkicking motherfucker, how dare you! You degenerate tomcat! No no, to call you that would be an insult to cats everywhere!"

"The hell're you doing, lady?" he demanded from under her arms as he writhed around to try to break free. Misa scurried over to pry Erin off of him, swaying side to side all the way. "Who the hell are you? Is this your girlfriend?" he grunted to Misa, managing to point a finger at the red-faced girl crushing him.

"No no, not in that sense! Erin, wh-what are you doing here? Hey! Let Matt go—"

Erin jerked away and hoisted the man up so she could pin him to the wall. She would deal with Misa later. "Matt, that's your name, huh? Matt, Matt you listen to me you little jackass: if I ever—you hear me? If I ever, ever catch you anywhere near Misa again, damn it, I'll knock all your fucking lights out! And I don't care if it lands me in jail." She couldn't be sure whether she meant half of all of these words, all of this venom firing from her but she didn't fight them. As soon as she'd seen the coke and Misa half-naked whatever capacity she might have had to give him the benefit of the doubt flew off the balcony. As far as she was concerned he was lucky she wasn't going to knock him out right then and there.

"Technically you could go to jail just for this," he growled.

"I don't care about that either! Now get your shirt a-and your coke and get outta here!" She released him from the wall only to shove him in the direction of the sofa. Meanwhile she felt Misa pound on her back with her tiny fists, screaming words of protest she couldn't make out. Erin wanted to cry, but she forced herself to hold it in and held out her arms when Misa tried to sidle past her and get back to Matt.

The guys would be outside when Matt left. Maybe they'd see the powder and bust him on it? A little jail-time could do him some good. Did they have the authority to do that, though?

Wait. What if this got out to the paparazzi? Misa would be screwed, and what about Matt? Would he be killed? What if they both got killed? Goddamn, she'd acted without thinking again.

As he fumbled with the hem of his shirt in one hand and held the box in the other he sighed, "Sorry about tonight, Misa—"

"Don't! Don't even talk to her! Out out out out out!"

"All right all right, I'm going. Jesus."

Maybe it should have seemed suspicious that unlike Misa he didn't put up much of a fight. But then maybe Halle had been right to an extent. Matt must've been a common party animal, a good-time Charlie who loved 'em and left 'em. How Misa got tangled up with a shitcan like that Erin couldn't fathom, but she was going to undo it.

"God Erin, why d'you gotta be such a wet blanket? Wh-what are you doing here anyway?" By now Misa was teetering around on her heels. Her eyes were so red and bloodshot, her pupils so dilated that she looked like a deranged cartoon character. What the fuck had happened in here?

"What am I doing here? I should be asking you that! What the hell are you doing here? I thought you were working late!"

The girl gritted her teeth. "S-so maybe I lied so I could have some time for myself; what's it to you? You're acting like a jealous girlfriend or something! Steve won't be around long with a-an attitude like that. Have you been following me or s-something?"

Shit. Erin had gotten so caught up that it hadn't occurred to her that finding her here like this suggested that yes, she had in fact been following her. Was the jig finally up? Hold on. Misa was stammering. She was high, wasn't she? Look at her shaking all over. And what happened to her nose? Is it bleeding? From the snorting, or did he hit her? Oh Misa, when did this all come about?

"Time for yourself? What, to do coke and some asshole from your set crew? Normal people don't do that to pass the time, Misa!"

"Oh Erin, Erin, Erin. You're so naïve, you don't even know. O-of course everyone does it. Except squares like you, apparently." She bent in at the waist and had both hands on her hips, as if taunting her. She jabbed a finger into her chest. Misa was too high to be reasoned with but still Erin fought against her.

She looped an arm around the shorter girl's shoulders and started to guide her back to where her jacket and skirt lay. "No. They don't. Now come on, get dressed, we're going home and getting—"

"Well maybe I'm not normal!" Misa shook her off, her voice suddenly getting higher, sharper, more…resentful. "And maybe I don't want to go home right now! Who made you my mother?"

Who was this girl? How could this be Misa, the same girl who had criticized Penny for cheating on Farley? Erin hadn't seen her like this since...

She drew back for a second. "W-well you're not staying here, that's for damn sure! Excuse me for thinking that after what'd happened with Kimiko you wouldn't do stupid shit like—"

"I am not my sister! You can't tell me what to do, Erin! I'm older than you and more important than you! I'm almost 24 years old and a biiiig star! I'll do whatever I wanna do, I'll go wherever I wanna go, I'll see whoever I wanna see, and I'll fuck whoever I wanna fu—!"

She stopped in mid-rant like something had just sapped her energy, and she draped helplessly against Erin like a curtain, trembling and her breath in shallow gasps. Her clammy skin felt sizzling to the touch and when Erin placed two shaking fingers up to her neck her pulse thudded much too fast for her to count. Her heart seemed to beat against hers like a frantic little bird fighting to get out of its cage. This was enough to get her own pulse accelerating with reawakened fear.

"Oh my God. Misa, how much did you—"

She didn't finish. Misa wouldn't have been able to answer her anyway. Was she having a seizure? How the hell could she have taken so much cocaine? Had she snorted some in the bathroom, and in the taxi ride over here? How could she have missed it? It didn't matter now. Erin needed to get help. She thought about going back down to get Steve but what about Misa? She couldn't leave her alone. Something could happen to her, something worse than now.

Erin carried her away from the door and gently set her on her stomach on the floor with her head turned to the side. Before trying to loosen the strings of the corset she pulled the phone off the stand and called for 911 and then Steve's cell phone.

Matt was tempted to tell her that she couldn't technically throw him out of his own room, but decided not to argue and get out when the opportunity presented itself. The farther away he could get from Misa and her overprotective batshit insane friend, the better. He felt violated and Misa hadn't even gotten to unzip his pants. He shuddered to think of how far she had been willing to take things before the interruption.

But this was supposed to happen. Maybe not exactly in the way he thought it would happen, but the end result would be the same regardless.

The things I do for—

His fingers hadn't even brushed the keypad by the elevator when someone pulled him backwards into them. Their stocky build made him infer that it was a man. The last thing he would see was a giant hand clasping a rag over his eyes. He did not struggle nor run or fight back. It would have been useless to.

"Matt McDean?" the man asked.

"Yeah?"

"This is the police," someone else said, a woman this time. "You need to come with us. You're under arrest for conspiracy."

"A—Armo Justin?"

"It's Armonia Justin," corrected the gold and jewel-encrusted shinigami from his throne of skulls. He chewed on a thick smoking stick that looked like a cigar from the human world and rested his ornate jaw on a bony white fist as though he were thinking, when in actuality there was little for their kind to contemplate. Armonia Justin Beyondormason knew the rules of the Death Note and shinigami life better than anyone here (apart from the King, that is), making him a sort of advisor for the others. His voice was tinged with mild exasperation, even if he'd expected Sidoh to get his name wrong. He almost never got his name right, or anyone else's, for that matter. This was especially true when he got nervous, which seemed to be far too often for a god of death.

"S-sorry. So, I've got a little problem and I was wondering if you could help me with it, since you know all the rules and all."

"Well, out with it."

"Oh Armonia Justin, I need your help real bad!" The cicada-like shinigami begged, shuffling around his chair until he was directly in front of him. He held out his long thin, stick-like claws as though asking for an offering. "Midra's gonna destroy me when she finds out I lost her notebook!"

"Wait. You mean Midora? And how did you lose her notebook? A while ago you came to me complaining about how you lost your notebook."

"Oh yeah, Midora. Uh…do you want the long or short story?"

"Short, preferably," Armonia Justin requested, his diamond eyes gleaming amidst the gloom.

But Sidoh being Sidoh, the story he gave ended up becoming quite long. And perhaps it couldn't be helped; it would turn out to be too unusual of a situation to understand without a full explanation. "W-well, it's like this: when Ryuk returned from the human world and I asked him for my notebook back, the one he took the first time, he told me he couldn't give it back to me because these humans…d-destroyed it. I couldn't enter the human world to look so h-he had to be telling the truth.

"I went and told the Old Man about it but he wouldn't give me an extra notebook. What else was I supposed to do? I was desperate!" Sidoh's voice cracked like he was on the verge of crying, provided that shinigami could cry. But they had no tears to shed and very little to shed them over even if they did.

"Hm. He must be getting senile in his old age," said Armonia Justin with a smirk in his voice, if not on his frozen skull of a face. Had he cared enough to sympathize with Sidoh's plight, what good would it have done? The King's will was absolute, no matter how unreasonable or off-kilter.

"So I, uh, I bumped into Midora and we agreed that we'd, uh, share ownership of her notebook so I could still keep killing for lifespan."

"Hold on, you can't share ownership. There can only be one owner to a notebook at a time."

"We found a way to do it. Uhm, Midora did, mostly. She would be the owner for a while, then she'd pass ownership on to me so I could kill a human and I'd give it right back to her."

Armonia Justin grunted in bemusement, and amusement. He'd never heard that done before, but there was nothing in the rules that he could recall saying that it couldn't be done. Not that it was recommended, such as for reasons Sidoh quickly laid out:

"But now I've gone and lost that one too! Midra and I are both in trouble if I don't get it back soon, and she'll make my last moments of existence miserable in the meantime. Sh-she told me so! I asked Ryuk if he took this one too but he swears he didn't. He isn't allowed to leave the shinigami realm anymore unless he drops his own notebook and only his own notebook. He said someone else musta took it instead, probably that scary Lumen guy that he told his story to a while back," he moaned, hanging over at his theoretical "waist."

Sidoh wasn't generally a bitter sort, but how was it that he and Midora were both facing the ultimate death for Ryuk's crime while Ryuk himself could keep living on forever? How much more unfair could this get?

"Heh. Okay, who owned the notebook last before you dropped it and Lumen picked it up?" Armonia Justin said finally.

"I did," mumbled Sidoh.

"I haven't seen Lumen around in a long time yet. My advice is to go to the human world, find Lumen and get your notebook back from him."

"Are you kidding me? He musta passed it on to a human by now! I'd have to wait until either that human dies or gives it up! I don't know how much time me or Meadra have left!"

And I asked Umbra to help me look for it but he hasn't come back either. What's taking him?

Unless he stopped looking for it 'cause he's mad at me for making him drop his when I asked for help. I kept telling him up and down that it was an accident!

"Well then you'd better stop wasting it complaining and get out of here. Have fun."

I guess I don't have a choice. I gotta go to the human world. This sucks.

"Hmmm, all right. But can you promise me one thing, Alamo Justin?"

"Armonia Justin, and what?" he snarled, already getting sick of hearing Sidoh's whiny voice and his mispronunciation of his name. His jaw clenched so tightly that his smoking stick snapped in two, with the burning half falling to his feet.

"Please, please, please don't tell Meadra about this. She can't know, okay?"

"I can't know what?" asked a booming voice from behind them both. "Sidoh, there you are! Where the heck have you been?"

Sure enough along waddled a massive, warty amphibian-like creature with beady red eyes, big dark lips and muddy brown spots running down from the top of her slimy head to the tip of her fat crooked tail.

"Have you been avoiding me? Don't be so greedy, I need my notebook back. Give it here!" She stretched a stubby arm and demanded her book back with a hungry wave of her slender newt-like fingers.

Sidoh quaked with panic. His yellow beady eyes darted downward. "Oh! Madea! N-nice to see you again! I, um…uh…"

"Sidoh lost your notebook," Armonia Justin deadpanned. After all he hadn't promised to anything and was an advisor, not a secret-keeper. "He's gotta go to the human world to get it back."

"You. WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?"

Midora's roar echoed for what sounded like all around the boundless emptiness. As did the whacks Sidoh made against the ground when she grabbed him by the ankle and smashed him face-down into it back and forth like a club, and the accompanying guffaws from Armonia Justin. Humans couldn't hurt shinigami nor could shinigami physically harm humans themselves, but other shinigami could maim each other if they wanted. They were just unable to kill each other.

Somehow that made this all the worse for Sidoh.