A/N: So, I was originally going to wait a while longer to publish the beginning of this story. As I stated on my Tumblr my original intent was to publish Ghosts and Shadows chapter five before this. But then I realized that the 2nd of March officially marks me being active on this site for 10 years. Guys, that's a little less than half my life. I've spent half of my entire life writing for this damn site! ... So anyway, I decided to treat myself by posting this ahead of schedule. So let's see what happens.

Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note or any of the characters used in this story, or the Petrarch quote at the beginning of this (and hopefully following) chapters. ... Also I don't own the book cover image used for this story. Michael is literally the only thing I own from this story.

Chapter 1: Target

"Only Death can close from my thoughts the loving path that leads them to the sweet doorway of their blessing; but your light can hide itself from you for less reason, since you are formed as lesser entities, and of less power. But, grieve, before the hour of tears is come, that is already near, take to the end now brief comfort from such long suffering."

"Daddy!"

Michael's excited voice carried throughout the room, filling the air with a sick atmosphere somewhere between alleviation and confusion; though it was only further muddled down by the swelling aura of hostility which resounded from Near's person.

He stared at the flood in front him in a paralysis state of shock, the padding of feet on the tile reverberated like drums between his ears while his mind had fled to some other state of consciousness; unable to be confined by the walls of this space which ran rampant with the suffocating stagnancy of unanswered questions.

This couldn't be so. Mello couldn't be standing behind him.

The fire. The wreckage. The further destruction it'd created.

The time.

He began to slowly turn around; his heart fought against the bars of its cage harder than it ever had before. But he needed to know; he needed to visually prove it to himself, to his mind. The slightly movement was just enough to confirm this new mysterious reality, he watched like a brooding shadow on the wall as Mello, who indeed stood in the doorway, let a smile grow on his face as he knelt down and captured Michael in his arms.

Near's eyes narrowed on the older blonde who avoided eye contact with him; the grip his fingers had over the alien action figure turned deadly, snapping the head completely off.

"You're actually alive, Daddy! What happened? Where did you go? Why did you-."

"Slow down," Mello's voice was light as air, but crisp with the hidden chill of the unspoken words. "I'll answer everything you want to know."

The swelling anger which loomed in Near as he watched the scene, feeling it bubble over the edges before he'd had a chance to reign it down. "Get out." Near's curt words broke through the scene unfolding before him, bringing the father and son to immediate silence; finally looking over at him.

"Mama?" Michael asked hesitantly.

The two childhood successors' eyes locked together, smoldering in the embers of the divine fires that'd been burning at the fringes of Near's every thought for an entire year. The glimmer of a smirk grew on Mello's expression, hinting at numerous accusations Near had no intention of standing for.

"Get out." He shot through strained, terse syllables which were perfectly laced with a venom that even the detective hadn't known possible to be allowed to leak out through the carefully sewn seams of his otherwise well-tailored emotional stability.

"Near." Mello mindfully chided, the tone showing his conscious awareness of the precariously set, volatile mine field that he was treading into be even daring to address him.

"Mello." Near warned, mirroring the once natural, delicate choreography they'd so often danced together. But the same refined movements weren't that of a well-orchestrated waltz anymore. The charade had at once been halted, revealing through bared teeth the true identity that'd existed behind the curtain all along -a virulent stand-off. "I will not repeat myself."

"Good, I had no intention of listening anyway, and you know how much I hate repetition." Mello retorted.

Between them Michael looked worriedly from the blonde over to his mother, "Stop..." His meek voice pleaded, small fingers gripping onto the fabric of the black jacket Mello adorned.

The older blonde leant forward, placing a quick kiss to Michael's temple before detaching the boy from his jacket so he could stand up, "It's fine, Michael." He assured, never once breaking the stare with Near.

The detective's own look narrowed on Mello as he registered exactly what this was. This staring contest was just that, a competition meant to reinstate the need within Mello that demanded the participation in a rivalry. It was childish, immature, and Near had no intention of indulging him.

He broke their long stare to look down at the abandoned toys and papers strewn out before him. "Fine. I can have you removed by force."

"Mama! Don't do that!" Michael tried to intervene, his words almost frantic to not have his father separated from him again.

"Do it." Mello goaded, neither he nor Near paying a mind to Michael in that singular moment.

"You're willing to risk it?"

"I dare you."

Near could practically hear the growing smirk on his childhood rival's face from the prideful way he spoke, because while Near hated to admit it, they both knew that the new L couldn't so easily follow through with the statement. Even if he called Rester up to deal with this issue of removing the blonde from his sights, Mello's presence would only incite a demand for answers to the still lingering questions.

The thick silence which began to fall throughout the room was broken by their son tugging at Mello's coat again with the force to turn the boy's knuckles white, as though if he let the material slip for even a moment his father would be forced to leave again, "Mama said Kira got you, Daddy, but you got away after all?"

Near allowed his gaze to travel back over as Mello looked down to the young child. "Well obviously," He stated as though they were discussing any everyday household conversation; like the confrontation brewing between himself and Near wasn't being perpetuated. "Otherwise the only way I could be here now is if I was a ghost."

Near's gray eyes rolled, growing sickened by the blatant immaturity while at once wondering why he'd ever given any consideration to the idea that he could ever miss the said blonde. How easily he'd forgotten just how bothersome Mello really was.

Michael's next words cut the thoughts short. "But you were gone a really long time, Daddy! You didn't come see us or even say anything! You made Mama and me really sad..."

"Michael." Near immediately shot, trying not to meet the boy's own gray eyes with the glower burning beneath his surface. "You need to go to bed."

The boy's innocent orbs widened with a mixture of fear and desperation, "But-."

"Go on," Mello chimed in, only fueling the growing fire in the pit of Near's stomach. How dare he act as though he had any right to just walk back into Michael's life and immediately get to tell the boy what to do, regardless of if it coincided with Near's directive or not, "I'll tell you everything in the morning, but right now I need to talk to Near alone."

It was Michael who glared at Mello this time, "But I never..." He paused, as if about to let out a secret he hadn't wanted to reveal. His expression and the emotions that'd come with it immediately dropped, "You promise you'll be here?" There was a quiet tone of anxiety imbued into every word, reflecting back the image of the boy's every nightmare.

The blonde nodded, "I promise. Go on."

Michael huffed but looked once more between his parents, an air of dejection surrounding him as he made his way to his bedroom on the far left side of the living space. The door was pushed almost entirely closed except for an inch or so of space allowing for the movement of air, light, and sound waves to pass inside.

Near knowingly watched their son go to the room; he knew Mello's mannerisms, he knew Michael's ways, and he knew just how alike the two beings were to one another. Neither of them liked to be shut out of important matters, regardless of whether or not they were even involved or could even understand the issues being discussed. "Michael." He chided with an exhale; immediately the boy's bedroom door was pushed fully closed.

The suffocating atmosphere which was left between the two began to overtake the room as it fell back into its residual silence. Near's orbs moved over to Mello, mentally preparing himself for a mental and verbal battle the likes of which he hadn't had in Mello's absence, nor had he realized he'd been itching for the adrenaline of the fight for dominance like some sort of lowly addict for their fix. It sickened him. These were the sorts of responses he expected to find in Mello, not himself.

The said blonde walked closer to him, those familiar icy blue eyes meandering over the papers that littered the floor. "I see being L is proving troublesome." The tone to his words was even, yet dripped with an underlying sense of satisfaction, as though just the papers' existence proved to be some victory to a rigged competition Near hadn't agreed to participate in.

"What makes you think that, Mello?" Near asked dully, twirling a lock of hair as he watched the blonde reach down and take one of the papers to inspect.

"You're bringing work home, so to speak."

"The time at which I decide to solve cases hardly denotes the relative difficulty it requires to be L. Your assumed conclusion seems to leave out a lot of the distinct variables. Though I suppose I shouldn't expect anything more coming from you." He said as he pushed himself up from the floor, "You owe me an explanation." He took a step towards the bedroom, feeling blue eyes following him.

"You mean you haven't already figured it out? You're definitely slipping. No wonder you're bringing work home with you."

Near turned, his stare positively blistering, "I've considered a few ideas already, but I expect to hear it from you directly. You owe me a great deal." There was a dark glower to the words that held a year's worth of thoughts, reflections, emotions, and endlessly long nights that Near had swore to never breathe a word of to any living soul.

The older successor exhaled heavily, abandoning the paper back on the floor and standing up. His hands dug into his pockets as he looked around the room which was infinitesimally similar in detail to the living quarters Near had resided in for so many years, yet still foreign and different in its own distinct way. It lacked the history the previous space had built up.

"I know." Mello's words were solemn as he pulled out a wrapped up chocolate bar he'd previously been eating, tearing the paper back to take a bite from it.

The two entered into the second bedroom of the apartment, closing the door behind them so as to effectively keep Michael from eavesdropping on the conversation, if he had been doing so from behind his own bedroom door.

After getting Michael from where Mello had left him it hadn't taken long for Near to realize that living relatively separately, that is with Near in his own space and Michael in his own, wasn't going to be feasible, regardless of how close the approximate location of the rooms were. Given the trauma Michael had faced with losing his parents twice in his life Near felt the boy's unwillingness to be left alone was justifiable, and thus Near had had no choice but to move to a different apartment that'd been built into the old SPK building; specifically one with two bedrooms instead of just one.

But even given this fact, as the two successors stood facing each other in the shadows of dusk, the entire scene still felt utterly paralleled to the countless nights they'd had before. It was as if only those two foundations of broken trust, Near's lie to Mello regarding Michael and Mello's lie regarding his survival, were the only factors present which could remind them that time had indeed kept moving, kept pushing them along into these situations that neither of them ever really asked for, or necessarily wanted.

Near swallowed as he stared at Mello, reminding himself with vexatious repetition to remain wholly objective as they engaged in whatever was to come. For his own sake. For Michael's sake.

"Michael seems to be doing well." Mello finally said quietly, unable to completely hide his nerves from Near's attentive ears.

"How?"

"Well, he's not dead, so-."

"You know what I mean." Near said firmly, demanding Mello's explanation; his justification. "One year, Mello. An entire year you've existed completely off the grid." A grid which they both knew Near now controlled the strings of, which only reaffirmed just how far Mello had to go to assure that he didn't become a blip upon that grid. It sent pulses of electric frustration through the detective, both directed at himself for not being more careful, and at Mello for everything he had put them through.

As Mello remained quiet, the agitation built in Near till it finally escaped into his words. In that singular moment he wanted to inflict as much pain as he possibly could onto the blonde, so as to be even a fraction of that which he had generated, "How much of those events actually happened the way they appeared to? Is Matt actually dead or was that simply a construct as well?" He instantly regretted his poor taste of ammunition the moment it was discharged.

Mello's hand rose up to stop any onslaught Near would have continued with, his lips tightened into a hard line and his eyes shut momentarily, "Don't go there with me, Near. Just don't."

"My apologies. I suppose at least one of you deserves more respect than that. Though..." The younger's words drifted off to keep himself from muttering strings of words he knew would provoke Mello's temper.

Mello walked away from their previously parallel position to one another, instead standing close to the wall of windows to their left that looked out onto the city. "There's a lot of things happening right now, but obviously I have to start at the beginning." Near waited quietly, observing all of Mello's subtle mannerisms in the growing moonlight as the blonde used his free hand to reach into his pocket.

He turned back to Near, azure eyes illuminated through the dark as he held up a piece of carefully folded, faded, lined paper. Neatly written across the center of the paper were the words, "Mihael Kee'

The detective sighed with a roll of his eyes, reaching to twist a lock of hair between his fingers, "Of course that's what happened. How dull."

"Dull?"

"Quite." Near stated, "Obviously that's the most reasonable explanation as to how you could be alive today. I expected something a bit more interesting."

Mello's jaw locked together, "Well everyone's a critic."

"More importantly, though." Near's fiery gaze moved back to Mello, "I'm interested in your justification for having kept that, or bringing it here today. You must understand that your possessing of that piece inadvertently makes you the owner of a Death Note now, correct?"

Mello carefully folded the paper back up and placed it back in his pocket, "It's fine. This piece is too small to really cause any damage anyway."

Near's eyes narrowed, "You didn't confront Kira, Mello. You don't understand what even the smallest amount of those pages can do. I had the other notes destroyed; that piece should be as well." He exhaled, when the other made no movement to concede to his point. He should have known, given Mello's inclination towards destructive stubbornness. "In any case, you're merely alive for no other reason than the premature actions of a god."

"Don't say it like that, Near. You don't believe in God."

"I don't. But Kira believed himself to be a god, as did a great majority of the world by the time the case was brought to a close. There are still ignorant people out there praying for his return which I suppose means Kira in one way or another achieved his goal of becoming a god. But what it comes down to at the end of the day is what is God to an unbeliever?"

"An arrogant judge."

The detective's eyes slipped shut, unable to fight the glimpse of a smile that shown through all his latent frustration and anger, "Yes, that is about what I told him as well." The younger's eyes opened, moving over to meet Mello's once more. Their locked gazes shown through each of their outward bravados to the real people that lay beneath; their individual senses of self which spoke to one another through the medium of shifting of expressions.

Contrary to the repeated mantra of objectivity Near held himself to, there existed an unrivaled sense of familiarity to Mello's sheer presence, as though his reappearance had immediately allowed Near to regain the use of half of his body again.

But that still didn't excuse anything Mello had so irresponsibly gotten any of them into.

"That's all there is to that part of the story. Call it whatever you want but the two Kiras' poor timing is the reason I didn't get caught in that fire." Near's mind switched into detective mode, laying out the mental timeline of that day before his eyes, placing Mello's testimony in the general vicinity it belonged and allowing the ensuing string of questions to flood his gray visual screen.

"I suppose that leads us to the more important part of your story, then. If you persisted so well on your own this entire year then why have you shown up now?" Near pressed, "Given your track record from times past, you've probably gotten yourself into some sort of trouble again. Danger does seem to follow you like a bad habit."

The blonde took a bite off his bar of chocolate, letting it sit at moment in his mouth before he spoke, his words coming out hushed, "I went back to the Mafia."

Near's every action came to a sudden halt, "You went back?" He wanted to tell Mello just how idiotic of a decision that had been. Even if the blonde had somehow justified that somehow going as far underground as possible would assure he stayed off Near's grid of activity, any logical evaluation of that reasoning should have concluded that considering Near was the new L, in actuality the simplest way to stay out of his radar was to stay out of the realm of crime.

Perhaps crime really was Mello's bad habit.

Near regained his composure from the surprisingly idiotic notion put before him, working at an inconceivable speed to construct a wall between himself and the blonde in an attempt to view him as just another client seeking his services. If the Mafia was involved, then separation was the only safest route to take.

"So you are in trouble, then." Near sighed, "Unfortunately I have too many things to attend to at the moment to let you stay here. As you've already seen, I tend to take work home, so to speak, which is clearly too much to handle, let alone allowing a fugitive to use my headquarters as a hide out." He mocked icily, starting towards the bedroom door.

Mello's voice stopped him, "I wouldn't be here if I just needed somewhere to hide out, Near." Those cold blue eyes diverted away, showing the blonde's age-old signs of feeling judged under Near's curious stare. "It's much more than that, now. More than it's ever been."

Before the detective had a chance to question him, Mello replaced the chocolate bar in his pocket, turning towards the window so his back was to Near. The black jacket he wore fell from his shoulders to the cold tile floor haphazardly. The action was followed by the sound of the zipper of his leather vest being lowered, till that material slid down to his elbows, allowing half of the pale skin of Mello's torso and the scar that followed the left side of his face down to his shoulder to be revealed.

The revealed skin was enough, however, to make Near's breath catch and his eyes widen by a fraction of an inch. In the center of Mello's back, directly between his shoulder blades, lay the poorly healed burn scar of a purposefully inflicted brand mark, in the shape of two circles, one larger with a smaller inside it, with two crosshair lines running perpendicular through both the circles to meet at the center. It was meant to be a target, such as those used at firing ranges.

Near exhaled a short breath, "You have my attention, Mello."

A/N: I feel kind of odd about this chapter. It just seems kind of off to me somehow, like leaving a bad taste in my mouth but I'm not sure what it is. Perhaps because it doesn't have the tension and anger in it that their confrontation had in my mind while planning this chapter. That being said, all of that is more or less reserved for the next chapter, as well as subsequent ones. But regardless, as always I'd appreciate if you let me know what you think about this continued tale so far!

Please review
-Forbiddensoul562