A/N: Now, for the long awaited Kira scene!

But first…

I've gotten several messages/reviews regarding Near using sign language. Basically what he and Mello are doing is putting their hands loosely around the other person's hand while they sign letters and such. It's a difficult method to use, since you can't see what you're doing, but in 7th grade, there was a blind student and a deaf student who would talk under the table like this like how the rest of us were passing notes, and if they could figure it out, supergenius Near and Mello can too. I chose this method because it shows Mello and Near's skills off, it would be difficult to pass Braille notes under Matty's nose, and there's the cuteness factor of the two of them handholding under the desk. If it bothers you, however, or you just can't envision it working like that, by all means, just insert the words "passed braille notes saying" whenever it says "signed". It doesn't affect the plot one whit. Hope that clears things up. Now enjoy…

When Light arrived, Near produced two ridiculous hand-painted masks. Each had half of L's face and the other half was white for him and black for me. Honestly, Near's theatrical side was almost as intense as mine, only I had much more panache, and much less phantom-of-the-opera. We walked into his room, and when he saw the chain connecting us he started laughing so hard he looked completely unhinged.

"I…I guess you really were…haha…meant to be L…hahaha." It wasn't that funny. "Allow me to guess, it's starting to scratch?" Neither of us answered, but he tugged back an immaculately white cuff to display a scar that ran in an almost perfect circle around his wrist. "Try it for 5 months." He regained his composure while he fixed his sleeve. "I suppose it isn't that funny, yet the similarities…" he shook his head, disbelievingly. "And the masks? Hmmm, most likely symbolic. Aren't we clever?" I sympathized slightly. It was hard to hide one's disgust with Near for long. "Although youmight just be hiding some scars?" What little sympathy I'd had vanished. We needed to shoot him. Now. "You bastard. You killed my father, you know? I hope you're ugly under there. You deserve it." To say such things in such a pleasant, conversational tone, Light looked like he was on the edge. He would have snapped soon, even if we hadn't planned this. His face stretched out into a cordial but stiff smile that looked like it had been practiced many many times in preparation. His perfect suit contrasted with his hair, which was starting to separate from his scalp like hackles rising on a dog and falling into his face, which he had tilted downwards, making the lighting react oddly with his eyes, turning them almost red. "So," Even more worrying than the ominous appearance was its sudden disappearance; he slipped into such a welcoming and helpful persona it was difficult to connect him to the insane looking person of a moment ago. His act was flawless. "how can I help you?"

"We have a suspect."

"Oh? Another interrogation, then? I can't say I approve of your methods." Now he looked fatherly and reproving, filled with authority which gently disagreed with our actions.

"No. We would like you to call Kiyomi Takada. Invite her here."

"She's his spokesperson. He wouldn't choose anyone so obvious."

"Is that a confession?"

"Of course not. I'll call, I just don't see anything coming of all this secrecy." He grimaced. "Or the damage on my computers."

Takada arrived in her room faster than Yagami had.

"Go in and confess to being Kira. Based on her response, we can check both of your reactions."

"You really are just like L. I won't do that. It's wrong to trick her." Near nodded in agreement.

"As expected, your morals are strong but misguided. Then you wish only to be fair to her?"

"Of course."

"Unfortunately, I do not share that wish. In university, she cheated once on an exam. I have created a

virtual persona in their files who was expelled for cheating. If you do not enter that room and confess, I will sue until her degree is revoked."

"They can't do that!"

"I can do anything. I have found bribery to be an extremely efficient method of coercing the law."

"That's…illegal."

"As is mass murder. It is within your abilities to prevent both." The red look reappeared as he gritted his teeth and applied a new mask of righteous fury to his face.

"Fine."

Takada entered her room and sat down on the bed, arranging her hands in her lap before staring blankly off into space. It was very different from her television appearances; she seemed almost like a wind-up doll that needed to be rewound. She must have been brilliant of her own volition once; her school records spoke to themselves. Who had conditioned her so thoroughly? God- the real one- answered my question with the entrance of Light into the room.

"Kiyomi, you look-"

"Any comments regarding her appearance or that are not strictly necessary will be regarded as code and we will arrest you both." Near interrupted into his headpiece. He tilted his head slightly into the earpiece and his eyes went distant as though he were listening to something, trying to give Takada a hint that all was not well, but she kept gazing at the wall, and her fingers only moved slightly in her lap. "If you insist on being so obvious, make the confession now."

"Kiyomi Takada, I am Kira." Now Takada came to life, turning to Light with pathetic adoration in her face.

"God?"

"Allude to having spoken before."

"We've spoken before."

"Yes, God, I did everything you said. I did everything you said and the people love you. They understand your mission, our mission." She wriggled in delight. "Soon everyone will see!"

"Thank you, Yagami. We have our confession. You may return." Light scowled at her and stalked out without saying anything. As he walked back into his room, where we both waited, Near removed his headset and turned to face him. Light took a breath and then broke into a wide smile, only a little manic on the edges, and waved his hands slightly in enthusiasm.

"We did it! We caught someone Kira has made contact with! Now if we go through her communication records-"

"There will be no further need for your assistance. We appreciate your help, and apologize that it was not safe to trust you before." Near took off his mask. I removed mine. He sneered at my ruined face, but turning to Near, all expression dropped off and he reached out towards his face.

"…L…"

"Please do not touch me." He snatched his hand back and looked at it like a disobedient dog.

"Not L. Sorry, you just…look like him."

This false display of trust was a little ridiculous, but we had to goad him into action somehow. A voice crackled on over the headset.

"Melly, there's something in the corner. I have the whole room covered, but it's too dark for me to tell what it is." My eyes instantly flicked towards the corner, where I didn't see anything at first, but then the movement caught my attention. A tiny cell phone hovered from the darkest place in the room.

"N, the shinigami has graced us with his presence." Discovered, the phone floated out of the shadows and towards us. Near jumped in surprise, and he started twisting his hair in agitation. When the book brushed my arm, I was prepared. I was less prepared for the red eyeballs that appeared less than an inch from my face.

"Hyuk hyuk. I'm Ryuk. Didn't think you'd catch me so fast. He warned me you might."

"Who is 'he'?" His head stayed in the same place while his body rose higher, giving him the appearance of lying on his belly in the middle of the air. Suddenly, he whipped out a pale, bony hand covered in gothic silver bracelets and rings and covered his lips with a finger.

"Secrets, secrets. Hyuk hyuk hyuk. Figure it out."

"Who are you speaking to?"

"The shinigami has made itself visible to M and me. We have both been touched by the Death Note."

"Can I-…?" Light walked off in the wrong damn direction, fingers extended in hopes of contact. It was obviously an act, but what mattered was it wasn't a confession.

"Love apples." Light and I both stared at Near. "Do you love apples, Ryuk?"

"Hyuk hyuk. I like this one. Whydja ask? Huh?"

"Was I misinformed? I heard Shinigami love apples."

"Never had one." He stared hard at Light. Probably reminding him of some promise he'd made in

exchange for his cooperation.

"Try one." Near produced an apple from God knows where- his pajamas definitely didn't have pockets- and tossed it to the Shinigami, giving him the option to catch it or let it splatter against the wall. He ate it, stem and all in five bites. After thoroughly licking his fingers, he shrugged.

"S'okay."

"Just okay? Its not a normal apple, you know."

"Juicy…"

"Yes. Would you like to know what I did to it?" He nodded, looking entranced.

"They're special, genetically altered apples, for maximum size and juicyness, with just a little strain of pear in them to improve flavor. I purchased an orchard of them yesterday." He licked his lips.

"A- a whole orchard?"

"Yes. I thought you might want some. But since I was mistaken, and you do not love apples, I will simply sell it, and try to earn a profit."

"If you went to all that trouble, I'll eat 'em. Where's the orchard?"

"Are you certain?"

"Yes. Where is it? Gimme, gimme." He rolled in the air.

"Who is Kira?"

"Clever human. You remind me of that other one. Bony with black fur."

"Who is Kira?"

"Secrets, secrets. There's rules, ya know? Hey, hows about I give you a little hint, though. Did you know drawings don't work?"

"Don't work how?"

"You can't see the name of someone in a drawing, unless they're very very good. That little girl Linda, she's good, but not very very good, capiche? Or it's been a while since she saw you. Those are new."He touched my scars, and his skin looked so much like a dead thing I was glad I couldn't feel his touch.

"You are not willing to tell us who Kira is?"

"Told you I can't. I helped though, so gimme the apples." I crossed my arms, giving the signal that Light looked nowhere near giving himself away, and we needed to push him further.

"I'll give you the apples…if you kill Light Yagami." Well, that would certainly push him further.

"What?"

"Write his name in your Death Note."

"How big is the orchard?"

"20 acres. And I can buy more."

"Hmmmm…as many as I want?"

"Yes." He rolled and squirmed in the air.

"That'll be boring after a couple of years…"

"I am currently acting as the detective L. You may follow along in my cases if you grow bored."

"It woulda happened eventually anyways. Nothing personal, Light-o." He pulled out a notebook. Light's

blank look dissolved into panic.

"What are you doing? You can't have him kill me, I'm innocent! Stop it. Stop it! STOP IT!" He snatched

the notebook from the shinigami's hand, flipped it open, and started writing.

He knows my name.

I'm first.

I'm going to die.

Near produced a gun and shot him in the shoulder.

We all stared at each other for what could only have been a second, but felt like much longer. Light swayed. I waited for him to fall, but he touched the bullet hole with a finger from his other hand and looked at the blood in surprise. Then he started writing again.

Near shot him in the other shoulder.

We all stared at each other again, and this time Light fell. On the ground, he started laughing maniacally.

"I can still kill you, or save your life. You only have to give up." I jumped forward, snatching the Death Note.

"Idiot. What are you talking about? You're on the floor, probably bleeding to death." He laughed, coughing blood out on to the floor until he had to stop. Each tooth was coated in red and the lines between them were almost black. Still, he smiled.

"Yes, but I know something you don't know."

"What is that?"

"It's so obvious."

"Your third associate? We have already apprehended him." It took great effort for him to move, but still, he moved his hand enough to shake a finger at us reprovingly. What the hell?

"Liar, liar. So what can a man do with only a drawing which, as you heard, was useless? Unless he had a name…like Mihael Keehl."

"I do not-"

"Near, the phone. We've been on the phone this whole time."

"With Matt and the others? I still do not understand."

"No, Near, we caught the Shinigami because he had brought in a phone. A phone. He wasn't taking a picture, he was making a call."

"That is not-"

"Idiot, I'm dying." And then, because I didn't have anything left to lose, I said, "I'm sorry. It was a big deal." And then I kissed Near, and I really didn't care if he enjoyed it or not because I had maybe fifteen seconds left to live and I wanted to spend it in his mouth. I barely registered him dropping the gun. He tasted so good. I ignored Light's pathetic shuffling on the ground. Better than chocolate maybe. The headset crackled, like Matt had knocked over his microphone in a rush to get out of his room and I sent a mental farewell to him.

It turned out I was leaving behind a lot. Chocolate, and a Family and a family and Matty and this comfortable feeling of just kissing Near, like my world wasn't ending. There were tears, I couldn't tell whose, but they stuck us together a little more and I approved. How many seconds left of this would I get?

"MELLO, THE GUN!" I pulled away from Near to look at Matt in the doorway, which I instantly regretted because I didn't have time to waste. Then his words registered, and I looked down at the gun, which had managed to point itself at us. No, Light had dragged himself over to grab it, and in my rush to grab the notebook, I'd forgotten there was more than one way to kill. I was already doomed. So the barrel aiming at Near didn't surprise me.

And then his hand tightened.

No.

I pushed Near, and for a moment I wondered what would happen if I died all by myself at the same time I was supposed to die in the Death Note. Then I had a brief flash of horror as I hoped desperately that this wasn't the actual death written for me, and I was playing into some nefarious plan. And then the bullet hit, and though I struggled manfully to achieve some profound last thought, I was thinking something like …

I fell down and watched boots clomp into the room.

I heard a gunshot and watched Light's head explode. Nevelli's boots then.

White tennis shoes, and I struggled to turn so I could see something higher. The edges of my vision were fading.

Almost all black, with Near in the center, and he was so damn bright, he actually did look like a goddamn light at the end of a tunnel. I opened my mouth to tell him, and more blood came out instead.

"shhh, Mello, do not move." Near warned me, as he faded into a white smear.

And then even that was gone.*

When I woke up again, everything was completely black. I tried to open my eyes, but they wouldn't move. When I reached up my hands to check if they were already open, they wouldn't move either. I had a distinct feeling of still possessing a body though, and wondered if I was in purgatory, since it wasn't moving.

"Hello?" Something shifted around me, as if the world tilted. I felt displacement, but it was weird since I didn't know where I had started out.

"Mello?" Weird.

"God? Uh, sir? I know it shouldn't matter, but can you please make my head stop hurting?" Very, very privately, I disapproved of the kinks in the dying system that made it so I couldn't move, but I could still feel the pain.

"Mello!" I heard some clicks then and some beeps in the background. My arm felt cold, and then some of the pain did start fading away. So did my consciousness. As I fell back asleep, I mumbled

"You know God, you kind of sound like Matty."

When I woke up again, it was still dark, and I was stiff, but I felt a lot better. Better enough to register the itch on my left foot. Experimentally, I tried to move, and found my arms completely mobile. I pushed myself into a sitting position so I could reach, but as soon as I sat up, nausea, vertigo and a horrible pain in my chest assaulted me.

"Fuuuck." An amused voice answered me.

"Melly, God wouldn't like that kind of language."

"If I was in heaven it wouldn't hurt so much. If I was in hell, it wouldn't matter. Anyways, I didn't see you on death's door, and it smells like disinfectant, so I'm guessing hospital?"

"Excellent detective work. The title of L is unworthy of you." I wrinkled my nose.

"Why's the sheep here?"

"You kind of spent your last moments kissing him then took a bullet for him."

"Did I get my eyes gouged out somewhere in all of that?"

"What?"

"Then what the fuck's wrong with my eyesight?"

"We just had to keep it dark so you could sleep."

"Well, I'm done sleeping, so turn on the lights." A cool hand fumbled clumsily around my head and pulled away some sort of cloth. I could see a little through my eyelids, but they wouldn't open. "My eyes still won't open."

"Ewww, Melly, they crusted shut." Matt dabbed at my eyes with a wet cloth until I could finally pull my eyelids apart, letting in a few eyelashes and some painfully bright light. The first thing I saw was Matt.

"You look like shit." He did. His eyes were puffy and red like he'd been crying, he smelled like he'd been chainsmoking and his clothes were rumpled and dirty. Then I saw Near. "You look like shit too." He did. His eyes didn't look like they'd squeezed out a single drop for me, but I'd have bet ownership of Godiva that he hadn't slept since I'd gotten here. "Really, the L look doesn't do it for you." Finally, I caught sight of myself in a mirror attached to a dresser across from my bed. "Oh." I said, and my voice came out hoarse. "I look worse than both of you." Besides the scarring, which I'd almost gotten used to, I had a huge scrape on the other side of my face, my eyes looked set back in my face, I had wires coming from my arms and a tube in my nose, a bandage around my head that made me look like a war refugee costume, bandaging around my chest and left shoulder and my hair was a tangled mess. At least I was clean. "So I'm alive?"

"Yeah," Matt answered, "but you can keep calling me God if you want."

"How?"

"Just open up your mouth and say it. God. One easy syllable."

"How'm I alive, moron."

"Touchy." I glared. "You sir, evaded death not once, not twice, but four times!"

"Feels like it."

"Need more morphine?"

"No, just tell me what happened." He held up a finger.

"First, Yagami got shot only three letters from finishing your name. He wrote another two letters in blood before Near shot him again." The second finger went up. "Second, Kira number 3 misspelled your name a bunch of times before he died of- get this- a heart attack. Turns out trying to save your god will work you up into a frenzy, and he overdid it on coffee. Real workaholic, his cats ate most of him before he even got cold." Good. The third finger went up. "Then, you took a bullet for snowflake here, which would probably have killed you, except some of us are apparently into men's jewelry-"

"My rosary?" I asked, reaching up to notice its absence for the first time.

"Yeah. It went through, obviously, but it slowed it down enough it didn't blend your guts, so much as blend your left lung, and it threw it off course so it was your lung that got blended instead of your heart. You're minus about half a lung now, by the way, so don't take up smoking."

"That's all I remember, did something else get me while I was out? You said four times."

"Then you fell down and bumped your head."

"That's it?"

"You bumped it really hard. You got a massive concussion and you've been out a couple of days."

"A couple of days?" I frowned. "Why aren't I hungry?"

"They fed you through a tube."

"Don't tell me…"

"A nasogastric tube."

"I'VE BEEN EATING THROUGH MY NOSE?"

"Yeah." He grinned at me, then suddenly, all the humor went out of his face. "Don't do that again, okay? We were really scared for you."

"No, I take bullets for sheep for fun. Of course I won't do it again. So Near, next time, if I have time to take a bullet for you, you have time to move."

"If Mello recalls, I was distracted." Oh yeah. I'd sort of…jumped him.

"Sorry about that. I thought I was going to die."

"I believed so also. I am glad Mello is not dead. I see you are alright, so I will go." He got up to leave and I didn't stop him, so he didn't stop. Matt looked at me carefully.

"You sure you want him to go?"

"Matt, that's not what's important here. I need you to swear something to me."

"What is it?"

"If this ever happens again…" Matt leaned towards me to catch my words. "Can you pour some Hershey's syrup into my feeding tube?"

"Mello!"

"Don't punch me in the arm, I just got shot!"

A/N: Wow, so two updates in one day! That's kind of an apology for vanishing for so long. I've actually written a bunch of chapters for all my fics, I just need to type them up now that I have a computer. I'm updating The Lion and The Shark next. So…

Can anyone guess what happened to Mikami? Besides Karma…

About the other stuff, like the specifics of Near & Mello's plan, there will be more explanation later.

*This is where I would have ended things if I was anyone else. Repay me for my non-cliffie with reviews.

BTW, this means there WILL be more mafia, and less Kira, so if you don't like it, that's your own fault for not voting. As you'll notice with the whole Mello living thing, I do take your opinions into consideration, but if you don't share, I can't help you.