Chapter 43

"Mello!" Jubilee shrieked, jolting forward to clutch the screen of her laptop with her hands. Onscreen, the camera angle had been knocked askew and was now pointing at the empty passenger seat. The interior of the cab looked dim. "Oh, God," she whispered. Beside her, Hellenos had disappeared. "Mello!" she cried again in desperation. Tears filled her eyes as she suddenly realized that their last exchange had been her yelling at him.

"For Pete's sake, J," whispered Mello. "Quit hollering. I'm trying to pretend I'm dead."

Jubilee almost cried with relief. "Mello!" she exclaimed a third time.

"Yes, that's my name," intoned Mello dryly.

"For the love of—" she began, slightly irritated, before cutting herself off. "You nearly gave me a heart attack! Are you okay?" she whispered.

"Yes," he murmured. "Drove through the wall of an abandoned farmhouse. The structure is old so the walls are weak and the impact wasn't severe...but it made enough of a ruckus that Takada should think it's a serious crash."

Jubilee sat back on her heels, stunned. So the kid had managed to plan out even that little detail in advance.

Mello continued, "Can you tell me what she's doing now? Oh, and by the way, J...you don't have to whisper. I just wanted you to stop yelling because you were hurting my ears."

She huffed, but was too relieved to be angry with him. Turning her attention to the other video feed on her screen, she saw Takada pulling herself up from the floor of the truck. She seemed a little worse for wear—several plastic tanks of spare fuel had slid from the back of the cab and knocked into her—but well enough. Rewrapping the blanket around herself, she took shaky but determined steps forward.

"Takada looks a little bruised, but overall okay," Jubilee reported. "She's coming up to the front and...putting her ear to the wall of the cab. I think she's trying to listen for you."

Mello remained silent.

Jubilee continued to watch. "Now she's getting her phone...and making a call."

"Listen in," instructed Mello quietly.

Jubilee raised the volume on Takada's video feed.

"Light?" the other woman's voice filled her headset. It was quavering with fear. "Light, please...I need you to come and save me. Someone's—someone's kidnapped me, and I don't know where I am." There was a pause. "I don't know...it was an intern at the station—but he's just a boy, I don't know who could have put him up to it, and—and he's dead now, he crashed while driving but I'm still in the back of the truck and...Light, please! I'm scared and I—" She stopped again, listening. Taking a deep breath, she continued, more calmly, "Yes." She nodded, then repeated, "Yes. I understand." A single tear fell from the corner of her eye then. "You'll find me soon...right, Light?" She lowered her head, clutching the phone to her ear like it was a lifeline. "I believe in you," she whispered, then let the phone fall to her side.

"She called Light to have him come find her," Jubilee reported, her voice involuntarily hushed once more as she continued to observe Takada. She almost felt bad for the other woman. If the pulsing red and blue hues over her were any indication, she was terrified.

"Okay," Mello whispered back. "Listen really carefully, J. I need you to do several things, all at once."

Jubilee snapped to attention. "What are they?"

"First, I need you to keep a close watch on what Light does next, while still keeping an eye on Takada. Light's the current priority though. Open up a channel to downstairs so you can monitor him. Do it now."

Jubilee obeyed without protest, opening up a new video feed and dragging it over to the one that still showed Takada. Surveillance from the main room downstairs appeared in the new window. In it, L sat in his usual spot at the forefront, while Aizawa and Matsuda paced anxiously in the background. Light was standing a little ways in front of them, behind L, with his phone still held in his hand. His face was carefully blank, but anxious reddish streaks spiked from out of the black haze surrounding him.

"What are you going to do, Light?" asked L quietly without turning around.

Light's fingers tightened around his phone but his expression didn't change. "Is there any way we can track Kiyomi's phone location to go and rescue her?" he asked calmly.

"Hmm," L hummed. He rapidly tapped a few keys on his keyboard. "I think we can manage that." Within a minute, he gestured towards the main monitor. "There she is. Looks like the kidnapper was driving into the countryside before he crashed." With that, he swiveled to Light. "How do you think it just so happened that he had a fatal crash, right after kidnapping Kira's spokesperson?"

Light returned his gaze steadily. "I imagine that Kira must've had a hand in that, but I couldn't know for sure." The line over his head snapped. He turned towards the exit. "What's more important is Kiyomi right now. Even if she is is Kira's spokesperson, she's still a human being, so I'm going to go and help her." Again, the line snapped. He nodded to Aizawa and Matsuda. "Could either of you give me a ride?"

"Yes," agreed Aizawa.

L had risen from his seat. "I will come with you."

Light seemed to pause at that. Then he glanced over his shoulder at L. "Alright," he said simply. "Let's go."

"J," Mello was speaking into Jubilee's headset again. "When you get a chance...I need you to do something else."

"Okay," she said, her eyes still on the Task Force as they filed out of the room. "Everyone is leaving now to go find Takada, by the way. L's going with them." Takada's video feed caught her eye. "And Takada...looks like she's writing again."

"Alright," said Mello, then continued at rapid fire speed, "L will keep an eye on Light now, so that's good. You keep an eye on Takada. Make sure the cameras are getting everything that she does, and what she's writing."

Jubilee hurried to obey, tapping keys to zoom in with the camera.

Mello went on quickly, "Also, send a message to Wedy and to Matt. Make sure Wedy is closely monitoring Mikami like she's supposed to be doing. Then, ask Matt to call you and pull up the phone call that Light just had with Takada. It probably won't reveal too much because Light was in front of the Task Force, but let's find out what was said on his end and see if there might have been some sort of code they used. Matt will be able to patch me in to the call too."

"Okay," muttered Jubilee again, struggling to switch her attention back and forth between Takada and the contacts list that she was now pulling up. "Uh...looks like Takada is writing names. As many as she can. She's keeping the print tiny to fill up the scrap of paper she has. I don't recognize any of the names off the bat." Pulling up two message windows, she took her eyes off the video feed for a moment to type brief messages to both Wedy and Matt.

Wedy responded right away, with a short Roger that. Seconds later, Jubilee's headset buzzed as a call came through, with a lower-case m blinking on her screen.

"Hey there," greeted Matt when she answered. "Let me just connect Mello real quick...there we go. You with us, buddy?"

"Yeah, I'm here," answered Mello.

"Course you are," said Matt jovially. "Okay, here's your call." There was a light click, and then a recording of Light's and Takada's voices filled the headset.

"What do you mean, someone's kidnapped you?" said Light's voice. "Who?"

Takada babbled her response from earlier, finishing with, "Light, please! I'm scared and I—"

"Kiyomi, calm down," Light cut her off. "You sound like you're not hurt, so just take a deep breath and let's think rationally for a second. Someone must have had you kidnapped because you are Kira's spokesperson, and they're trying to get to Kira. Right? But it sounds like Kira's already taken care of your kidnapper. So things are going to be okay. Your kidnapping failed, and the plan against Kira failed. Yes?"

A pause, before Takada answered, "Yes."

"And I'm going to come and get you now, so there's nothing to worry about," continued Light. "Just stay calm, and don't be scared. Think about Kira and what he would do. Okay?"

"Yes. I understand," said Takada after a moment. "You'll find me soon...right, Light?"

"Of course," promised Light.

"I believe in you," whispered Takada, and the recording ended.

"Think about Kira and what he would do," repeated Mello lowly. "There it is."

"What would Kira do?" quipped Matt. "Oh, kill as many people as possible, I suppose."

Jubilee glanced back at the video of Takada, where the other woman was still hunched over in the back of the truck, scribbling down names. It suddenly registered with her that she was witnessing multiple murders take place, right before her very eyes.

"Shouldn't we stop her?" she questioned nervously.

At that moment a message from Wedy popped up on her screen, distracting her from the boys' replies. Mikami moving outside of normal schedule, it read. Went to bank. Used deposit safe.

Jubilee's brow furrowed. She was vaguely aware of Mello and Matt arguing over something in the background as she typed back, Break into it.

"Hey, Mello?" she began.

"I get where you guys are coming from," Mello was saying, "But saving a dozen people at the risk of losing a lead is—"

"And I get where you're coming from," Matt refuted, "But J has a point and it's not like you have anything to lose at this point..."

"Not true," shot back Mello. "There's always something to lose."

"Guys—" tried Jubilee again.

"Takada's in an isolated box," argued Matt. "It won't blow your cover."

"It will, once Light finds her and she tells him that the dead intern came back to life and stopped her from writing down any more names," snapped Mello.

"We have enough evidence to apprehend her at this point," pointed out the other boy.

"But not him," returned the blonde.

Matt seemed to deflate a little at that. "Okay, but..."

A response from Wedy popped up on Jubilee's screen. There was no text, only a photo—of a Death Note, lying inside a safe.

Jubilee went cold.

Before she could say anything, another photo followed the first. This time the Death Note was open. The page on the left was full of names, but the one on the right had only one.

Kiyomi Takada.

"Um, guys?" said Jubilee again. "We have a situation here." She quickly zoomed in on the photo to read the sentence written in smaller text below Kiyomi's name.

"What is it, J?" snapped Mello.

Jubilee gasped at what she read. Whipping her head back to the other video feed, she watched in horror as Takada finished dumping the final tank of gasoline over herself and her surroundings, a vacant expression in her eyes. The blanket had slid from her shoulders to the floor, and was also drenched in fluid.

"Get out of the truck, Mello," Jubilee ordered.

"What?" said Mello, exasperated. "Not you too, J. I'm telling you guys, I'm not going to get out and—"

"Takada's gonna blow up the truck," said Jubilee quickly, hoping that a shorter explanation would make Mello move faster.

"She what?" said Matt, incredulous.

"That's impossible," said Mello. "She has no way to start a fire."

Jubilee hesitated. He had a point. Surely it wasn't actually possible for the woman to carry out what had been written down in the Death Note. Not if it was physically impossible to do so.

Then Takada reached up and retrieved something out of her bra. It was a lighter.

"Get out of the truck now, Mello!" Jubilee screamed.

There was a pause that seemed simultaneously too long and yet too fast, during which Takada knelt down to the floor and held the lighter to the tip of the blanket. Jubilee had only a moment to register a small spark grow into a whoosh of flame. Then there was a loud BOOM.

The cameras on both Takada and the interior of the truck cab jolted violently, fizzled with static, then went black.

"Oh, God," whispered Jubilee, staring at the dark screen in horror.

"What—what just..." Matt, for once, sounded completely serious.

They both said nothing for three long seconds.

"He's got to have figured a way out of this," declared Matt suddenly. "He always does. I'm calling his phone. Hold on."

Jubilee remained silent, still in shock. Distantly she was aware of the sound of a ringtone in the background from the call that Matt had just patched her into. But she didn't even have the presence of mind to pray that someone would answer. All she could think was, Not again. Not again. Not again.

The ringtone stopped. Jubilee suddenly felt a horrible, heavy thud in her soul, that of her heart cracking under the weight of another loss. Then she realized that the feeling wasn't coming from her. It was coming from Matt.

"Matt," she began, her voice a low croak. She had no idea what to say. "It's gonna be—"

A ringtone interrupted her. The feeling she was sensing from the boy suddenly spiked upwards in shock, and then into unbelievable hope.

"It's him," said Matt, sounding dumbfounded. "It's Mello."

Jubilee, equally flabbergasted, was too overwhelmed to respond. There was the sound of a click as Matt and answered, and then Mello's voice filled the line, sounding breathless and haggard.

"Hey," was all he began with. "J there?"

"Um," said Matt, his tone stupefied. "Yeah."

Mello addressed Jubilee. "You weren't kidding, were you," he stated flatly.

Jubilee was still too speechless to respond.

"So," continued the boy, "Who wrote Takada's name into a Death Note and almost got me killed?"

"Mikami," she answered, more out of autopilot than anything else. "He has a Death Note in a bank safe. Wedy saw him going there so I had her break into it."

"Huh," said Mello. "Just my luck."

At that, Jubilee's emotions finally flooded to the surface and she began to cry.

"Why are you crying?" said Mello after a minute, sounding uncomfortable. "I'm alive."

"I thought you died," hiccuped Jubilee as she tried to stifle her sobs. "Twice."

"Yeah, well...surprise," muttered Mello.

She rubbed her eyes with her sleeve. "You have got to stop doing that."

Mello didn't say anything for a second, then mumbled quietly, "Sorry." He sounded pained.

"Buddy," spoke up Matt, recovering from his stupor. "You okay?"

"Yeah," said Mello. Jubilee saw a line snap in her mind's eye. She was too startled to say anything, mostly because of the sudden realization that this was the first time in the last twenty minutes that she had visually seen anything in the spirit.

"How'd you get away from the explosion in time?" asked Matt.

"Well..." Mello seemed reluctant to answer. "I had already gotten out of the truck earlier, when J wanted me to stop Takada. I just hadn't gone back there yet."

Jubilee eyes started to well up again. Get it together, woman, she thought to herself.

Mello went on, "Then when J started screaming about Takada blowing up the truck, I was already moving. Just in case." His voice sounded strained.

Jubilee caught a glimpse of a blurred image then, of Mello and the fire. Licks of flame had shot out and lashed at the side of his face.

"Mello," she said softly. "You're hurt."

"You are?" demanded Matt. "He is?"

"I'll be fine," Mello grit out in both pain and irritation. "Your psychic powers are really annoying, J."

Jubilee laughed a little despite herself. "I'm not psychic," she said, remembering a time she had said the same words to another, older genius. "Will you go to the hospital, please?"

"You really should," added Matt.

"And tell them what?" returned Mello sardonically. "That I got caught in a truck explosion while kidnapping Kira's spokesperson?"

"Well," said Jubilee. "Cover stories are your speciality, aren't they?"

"They are," affirmed both Matt and Mello. The latter sighed. "Fine," he said. "I was heading there later anyway."

Jubilee's brow furrowed. "Why?"

Mello hesitated. "I was going to tell you, J," he began slowly, "After we'd finished the mission with Takada, and when there was more time. Something...something went wrong, back at Sakura TV station. The—" He stopped suddenly, as though distracted.

"The what?" prodded Jubilee, alarmed. "What happened at Sakura station?"

"I gotta go," said Mello hurriedly. "There's a car pulling up. Light's here." He hung up.

Jubilee listened to the silence on the line for a few seconds, her heart pounding.

"Matt," she began. "Do you know what he's talking about?"

"No," said the other boy.

She brooded over that for a moment. "Do you think he's going to be okay now?" she asked.

"Yeah," said Matt after a second of thought. "I think so."

There was an uncomfortable beat. "Are you okay?" she prompted.

Matt made a noise that sounded like a scoff. "I'm thousands of miles away in my room, surrounded by video games, and my best friend's not dead. Neither are the rest of you. Yeah, I'm okay." He paused. "Are you okay?"

Jubilee took a minute to actually think about that question. It was then that reality caught up with her like a giant wave crashing against the seashore. "Takada's dead," she breathed.

Matt didn't say anything for a moment. "Yeah."

"And...and so are lots of other people—"

"Jules," Matt interrupted. "I wasn't asking if Takada is okay. I was asking if you're okay."

"But—"

"Takada made her choice. What happened to her sucks, but you know what? Mello could've have died too. And he didn't, because of you."

"Me? I didn't do anything," protested Jubilee. "I didn't even have to use my sight. Wedy was the one who found out first, and that was only because Mello had me make sure she was monitoring Mikami like a hawk in the first place."

"You're missing the point," said Matt. "Don't you see, Jules? If Mello was still sitting in that truck, he'd be a goner. He got out in time because you cared about Takada and the people who were dying...and he cared about what you thought. Even if he didn't want to show it."

Jubilee went silent.

"By the way," Matt continued, "It's pretty rare for him to care what other people think. Ryuzaki's the only one who's permanently on that list. I'm only on it half the time." He chuckled. "Congrats, Jules...you're the third person in the world who's ever made him give a flying flip."

"I think it was just an accident," she admitted weakly, afraid to feel too pleased by this revelation.

"And I think you still don't give yourself enough credit," said Matt. "You spoke up as soon as you had a concern. And you moved fast by delegating to Wedy, instead of waiting around for someone to tell you what to do. Both those things helped save Mello's life. Plus...now we know where Kira's Death Note is."

Jubilee went still. The Death Note. So much had just transpired in rapid succession, that the impact of this discovery hadn't fully registered with her until now.

"We've got him," she breathed in realization. They had found Kira's weapon. L and the Task Force would be saved.

A ringtone interrupted her thoughts. It was Aiber.

"I gotta go, Matt," she said. "Talk to you later."

"Later," said Matt, and she switched the line over to Aiber. "Hello?" she answered.

"Reporting in," said Aiber gruffly. "We have a situation."

Jubilee felt an anxious knot form in the pit of her stomach. "What is it?"

"There was a cop who appeared on the scene at Sakura, much earlier than anticipated. He got caught in the crossfire with the Yakuza. Guess who?"

Jubilee was silent, the dread in her belly growing.

"Soichiro Yagami," Aiber continued.

She gasped. "Mr. Yagami? But he—how?"

"Somebody shot a bullet and he was standing in the line of fire," explained the con man dryly.

"No, I mean—" Briefly she thought back to her surveillance of the Task Force downstairs, before they had left to retrieve Kiyomi. Soichiro hadn't been among them. "What was he even doing there?" she asked with despair.

"Dunno. Lunch break?" Aiber sighed. "Or he was itching to investigate on his own after being reinstated into the police. Either way, it was bad timing. He pulled his gun on them, so they did the same to him."

Jubilee could feel her breathing become shallow. "Is he—is he—?"

Aiber didn't answer for a second, letting the unsaid word hang in the air. "He's in critical condition," he said at last, quietly. "So he's still alive...but not for long."


L normally considered himself to have a high tolerance for mental strain. Tensile strength, he called it—the resistance to breaking under tension, like that of a strong rope holding a ship to anchor. At the moment, however, he found that this strength was beginning to fray.

In the last two hours alone, he had helped put out the fire of a truck explosion while choking on the smell of smoke, diesel, and burnt flesh...then he had watched as emergency personnel pulled out of the wreckage a body that was burned beyond recognition—only one, he noted to himself with only a small measure of relief...and finally, he had received word that Soichiro Yagami, former chief of police, had been shot and was in rapidly declining condition at the hospital. To top it all off, Jubilee Jenkins had left her room against his express wishes and was now standing in the main room of headquarters before him, Light—Kira himself, for God's sake, what was she thinking?—and the rest of the Task Force, her eyes blazing.

"I will not stay here in my room," she declared hotly. "He's dying! Maybe I haven't worked with him as long as the rest of you, but I still care about him. Don't I get to see him too?"

A few feet beside L Light was silent, looking uncharacteristically shaken as he gazed down at the floor with his fists clenched. Interestingly, he hadn't looked nearly as unnerved when they'd stood before Takada's corpse. But while he didn't seem as devastated by the news of his father as an outside observer might expect, he still seemed genuinely more fazed by the event than L had anticipated. Perhaps because he hadn't seen this coming.

Jubilee's eyes flickered briefly over to Light, and whatever she saw there made her look pained before she turned back to L. "Please let me come with you guys."

"J," L responded grimly. "You know the risk. You'd be increasing your odds of being exposed to Kira. And you are on his list of specific targets right now."

"So are you!" she cried. "So are all of us." She took a step closer to him, looking up into his eyes with a pleading expression. "But ultimately, the risk to me and you is minimal compared to the risk to Mr. Yagami. You and I both know that."

Instantly the memory he had been trying to avoid, that of a cold darkness so piercing and painful that it had almost permanently shredded his soul, filled his mind.

"There's nothing we can do about that," he said quickly, the words stabbing at his heart even as he said them.

"Yes, there is," she said fiercely. "We can talk to him. Together."

He closed his eyes, suddenly torn by a conflict greater than he had ever felt. "You would be safer if you stayed here, though," he stated quietly.

Her tone softened. "Maybe," she agreed. He heard her take another step closer to him. "But I'd rather risk being unsafe," she continued, her voice lowered so that only he could hear her, "Than let someone we know die and go where we almost went...without having done something to try and stop it."

He sighed at that and opened his eyes to meet her imploring look. As she caught his eye, her lips turned upwards slightly.

"Isn't that what you would do?" she added.

He measured her silently for a long moment. "Yes," he conceded at last, not breaking their locked gaze. "It is."

He turned away from her before allowing a small smile to creep onto his own lips. Maybe he was starting to lose it because of all the stress, but in spite of the current circumstances being bleak, he felt like he was finally starting to understand something brilliant.

"Very well," he said, striding towards the door and turning to address the rest of the Task Force. "Let's go."


A/N: Well, a lot sure has happened since our last update, hasn't it? And I'm not talking about in the story. I hope you all are safe and in good health. I've thought about you guys through the months; every holiday that seemed like an opportune time to update I've looked forward to touching base with you all. Alas, it wasn't until now that this chapter was finally, blessedly finished.

Shortly after my last update I made some major life changes. Long story short, I got out of an unhealthy situation that was negatively affecting my life and mental state. I'm happy to report that things are tremendously better now! It's truly a wonder how drastically things can change for the better once you cut ties with certain things. Thank you all for your patience and prayers over the last few months.

Some highlights, both in my life and around the world right now:

*****I got my first "coffee" donation for writing! Many thanks to Taylor for showing some love

*****The original version of this story has 30k words drafted and is on brief pause as I revise the plot structure

*****A 103-year-old woman beat the coronavirus

*****After the Chicago Aquarium had to close, they let all the penguins loose to waddle around and visit the other animals

What have been some highlights for you all?