Who has two thumbs and is failing in both school and updating? Me! Stuff is not going great for me, but I'm sure I will find a way to climb back up. There's this Dutch saying I don't know how to translate about how hope makes life or something I wouldn't know how to translate it, because very literally, it just becomes "hope does life" and that makes no sense at all, so there… When did I decide to give you guys a Dutch lessons? I don't know, I'll stop.

DISCLAIMER: yup, I checked. Definitely do not own Death Note or any of its original characters or plotlines. But my OC's are mine, so yay, I guess. Also, I am a typo manic, so I would not recommend my stories if you are against those.

XxX

5. Dead & Gone

'Remember, come close, but not too close, he cannot suspect you too much, he is our only lead to finding Near.'

'And why can't I just ask him? I mean, if I tell him I already know he works for N, than it wouldn't matter anymore, right?' I ask as Watari parks the car close to the Japanese Task Force building. I held my phone in my hand, on speaker, so that Watari could listen, too.

'If Near does not want to be found, letting him know we are still actively looking is not a smart idea,' Ryuzaki answered, clearly busy with something else entirely. I heard that he had his mouth full, but that was nothing new. But he also sounded like he was focused on something else.

And to be honest, I was having trouble focusing, too. 'You know, let's say you are right and forget everything I just said.'

Watari chuckled next to me before getting out of the now parked car, walking over to my side to open the door for me. Something I actually let him do after I protested for about an hour and not getting anywhere because Watari was more stubborn than on old tree. Well, Ryuzaki had to get it from somebody, I guess.

Me and Watari were normally quite early, but today we were kind of late. An early meeting had been arranged and for some reason, they decided to not tell us this until this morning. So we came in last, with the new detective again in the chair against the wall, almost laying on it as if he owned the place.

Chief Sugawara did not seem happy today. Probably had something to do with the virus-thing. 'Any ideas?' he asked kind of angrily.

'Well,' detective Arai said, jumping out of his chair. He walked up to the screen, Mishima's little toy, and walked in front of it as he spoke. 'The focus should be on who'd have Light's image. There aren't many people who know his actual identity. Five FBI agents in total, a few loose ex-Task Force members, and you.' He looked at us all, a look in his eyes I knew very well. I had seen multiple little oprhans with that look. I had seen Ryuzaki with that look plenty of time. Not so much an accusation as much as a warning.

Nanase pulled her chair back a little and stared at the detective angrily. 'You doubt us?'

Masayuki Arai put his hands in the pockets of his long, dark coat and smiles devilishly at her. 'That's my job, isn't it?'

'We don't trust you, either,' Mishima said, standing up, looking royally pissed off. 'And we don't need your cooperation. Any of you.' He shot me a short glance. I had wanted to support his claim, but now, I couldn't. He had put me and detective Arai in one little box.

Instead of shutting up, detective Arai stepped closer to Mishima. 'Suits me. If I need you, I might put you to use.'

They were standing so close now. And I noticed for the first time just how tall Mishima was. Detective Arai looked so tiny in front of him.

'That's enough,' Chief Yagami said with a sigh and Mishima stepped away from the detective with an angry look on his face.

Detective Arai held Mishima's gaze for a moment longer, then looked away from a shrug. 'For all we know, this could actually be Light. Perhaps Light is Neo Kira,' he said, as if it was completely logical.

'Bullshit,' I said, so sharply that everyone looked at me with a shocked expression. 'Light is dead. I was there the day he died. You must've read the report, you know I'm right.'

'Right,' he replied, but not in a way that made me feel like he was agreeing with me. 'In a world with Shinigami and killer notebooks, is there such a thing as death? How do we know that he is actually, truly, dead?'

I pressed my lips together and looked at him angrily, but I had no reply. I could hardly tell him that I had two Shinigami friends who said that wasn't the case.

Matsuda interpreted my silence as agreement. 'I see. So Light might actually be alive,' he mused with a vague smile on his face.

Detective Arai chuckled, pulling up an eyebrow. 'Don't be happy, idiot, we're still talking about a murderer here.'

Matsuda thought about that for a short while before looking down, embarrassed.

The detective sighed dramatically before talking again, pacing in front of the screen as he did so. 'The Kira virus was used to access the personal information of international VIP's, agents and their families.'

'So he can kill them at will,' Kuromoto said nervously, saying something out loud that we'd all realised.

'Yes,' detective Arai mused, 'so law enforcement agencies are immobilized. The FBI agents who knew about Light's identity are being protected, but more than that seems to be impossible at the moment.'

'But then…' Chief Sugawara looked at Chief Yagami with legit concern in his eyes. 'Is our Task Force alright?' Obviously, only concerned for himself.

Chief Yagami crossed his arms. 'I have only hired people without close family ties, so no officers in the Task Force have families. We put one of the best detectives and hackers in the world on making the untraceable and everyone here goes by pseudonyms.'

Everyone seemed to nod in agreement.

'That is,' I said slowly, 'everyone except myself, Matsuda, Chief Yagami… and you, Chief Sugawara.' I smiled innocently, but this little piece of information did humour me.

Chief Sugawara looked at me, completely shocked. Detective Arai laughed. 'Oh, your personal information might have been stolen, chief.'

Chief Sugawara looked at the smiling detective he hired, smiling because his boss might be in danger. I saw it in his eyes, the exact moment he regretting hiring the man. Chief Sugawara stood. 'Have the police servers checked. Everyone, dismissed.' He walked out of the room, so fast that no one had any chance to stop him.

Slowly, people started to collect their papers, moving back to their desks outside the meeting room. Everyone except for Mishima, me, Chief Yagami and Detective Arai. Mishima stayed because the meeting room was his office, hence all the toys were his, I stayed because I had no office, so I usually just sat somewhere until I could be of any help. Why the other two stayed, I had no clue.

As some people were leaving, Detective Arai plopped in the chair that belonged to Chief Sugawara. 'Mishima,' he said, 'tell me more about Kira's accomplice, Misa Amane.'

I froze. Why did he ask Mishima about that? I was sitting right here, wasn't I?

'Don't order me around,' Mishima said almost automatically as he walked over to the pedestal with his laptop on it.

I grabbed my phone, to give me something to hide my emotions with, and said: 'She wasn't charged with any of the murders. Her memory was wiped when she gave up the Death Note and because of some special circumstances, she was rendered mentally unstable and has been in a psychiatric hospital ever since.'

The few people still in the room loitered in the room, wanting to eavesdrop on this conversation. Matsuda pretended he needed to order some papers, but I could tell they were all completely empty.

'Aren't you letting her off too easily?' Detective Arai said, almost sounding like a whining child.

'It's the law,' me and Mishima said at the same time. We looked at each other briefly then and I could see he hated it just as much as I did than we'd talk simultaneously.

'Light was the love of her life,' Matsuda said dreamily and I slapped him in response. He did not even seem too upset about it.

'I'm sure he used her,' Detective Arai replied.

'He did,' I said, looking at my telephone screen, sounding bored.

From the corner of my eyes, I saw detective Arai going through some papers. 'I read in a file that one of the FBI agents keeping an eye on her disappeared a while ago. Is anyone on that case?'

'I was,' Mishima replied.

I looked up from my phone for a second, only to see detective Arai pulling up his eyebrows. 'Was?'

'The case has been put on hold when Kira returned,' Mishima said. When detective Arai just looked at him with his eyebrows pulled up, Mishima sighed and clicked on some keys on his laptop. A familiar file appeared on the screen. 'His car was found at the foot of Mount Kora. So far, we have found no further clues or evidence and the agent's replacements have found no odd behaviour from Misa Amane.'

'However,' I said slowly, realizing the importance of it now, 'I have known her for a little longer and I did find that she was acting… strangely when I visited her. It might not have anything to do with the Kira case, but she was definitely showing some out of character behaviour.'

'If it were a copycat,' chief Yagami said, then he shook his head, erasing the "if". 'Neo Kira nows Light Yagami was the first Kira,' he said without flinching, 'wouldn't it be natural to assume that Neo Kira knows about Misa Amane, too?'

'And knowing that, he might want to recruit her, to become even more like Light,' I said, frowning. 'We need more people on Misa-watch.'

'B-but there's no way she's involved, right?' Matsuda asked, clearly still a big fan of Misa.

'Involved or not,' said detective Arai, 'she is a lead.'

'Speaking about leads,' I said as I put my phone away and I knew Ryuzaki was turning away from his food and laptop now, frowning. Wondering just how stupid I was going to be. 'What is your view on the Neo Kira case so far, detective?' I leaned over the table a bit, closer to the detective in an attempt to make him feel more cornered.

Detective Arai smiled, clearly not feeling cornered. He leaned forward, pushing me back a bit. A frown appeared on my face as he showed me a childlike smile. 'That's a secret,' he whispered, before spinning out of the chair and walking out of the room, laughing as if someone had just told him a really funny joke.

'Um. What was that?' Matsuda asked, just as confused as I was.

'No clue,' I replied.

XxX

'Found anything?'

I asked Arma as she and Ico appeared in the kitchen. I got home about an hour ago, but Ryuzaki had been nowhere to be found. Watari told me he was in a meeting of some sorts, but I couldn't imagine what for. I thought I was supposed to handle all the social, human stuff, so that he could sit working at his laptop eating sweets all day.

'We found an owner,' Ico said, sounding way too proud. 'He works in a big building. We saw his Shinigami.'

'The one with all the feathers,' Arma said, as if that would help me. As if I knew any Shinigami's.

'She cannot do anything with that information, Arma,' said ico, poking the other Shinigami slightly. The serene calm Arma and upbeat, loud Ico did not seem to get along, but I think they had some sort of friendship? They did not seem to hate each other, let's keep it at that.

'Okay,' I said, nodding. 'Where do we find this man?'

'Ehh,' Ico said. 'I forgot the name of the company, but I remembered his name! But, anyway, Ryuzaki asked me to find a murder case to tie people we find to, right? I saw his Death Note. Haruna Kiyokawa will die of a heart attack tonight! It's the last one he wrote down, so with this information, we should be able to stop him!'

'But is it Neo Kira?' I asked, looking at Arma as I did so. I noticed Ico was only talking about one Death Note, so I guessed the answer already. So I wasn't surprised when Arma shook her head, confirming that she had not yet found her Death Note.

I sighed. 'Well, if we get him first thing in the morning tomorrow, that at least means one more worry for the Task Force.' I wrote down details Ico gave me on a small piece of paper, while Arma hovered awkwardly in the room, staring into space, eating grapes. When I got all the details I sighed. I wasn't sure what kind of sigh it was. 'You guys can go look further. I would like it if you'd keep an eye on Misa, I think Neo Kira might be easier to find if you keep watch over her.'

Ico saluted me clumsily. 'Roger, boss!' she said with a smile.

I rolled with my eyes and gave her a dry smile. 'Go,' I said.

The two Shinigami disappeared right before my eyes. I sighed again, grabbed my phone and texted Ryuzaki.

I am going to kill you if you don't explain to me where you are. Also, there's news. I will fill you in once you get back, okay?

XxX

'According to her friends, Ms. Kiyokawa suddenly goaded Kira and then died,' Uragami said, him and Kuromoto being in charge of bringing in possible Death Note related accidents. I actually called Kuromoto this morning to confirm they were bringing this one up, but it was deemed unnecessary; they already had this case on the top of their list.

'Like she was hypnotized,' Kuromoto added.

A problem with having very specific tasks for every members, was that Mishima took all the tasks upon himself anyway. 'She has been an open supporter of Kira since the very beginning. There was much controversy around her, since she was a news anchor who openly supported Kira of TV. The channel fired her, but she quickly got hired by another company as soon as the Kira case closed.'

Neither Uragami nor Kuromoto seemed upset that Mishima just took their task away from them. I could not understand why.

'She hasn't talked about Kira on television since then,' Uragami sent on, taking the talking back from Mishima. 'But her friends told us she still openly supported Neo Kira outside of work.'

'Which means that she was killed by a Death Note holder who is against Neo Kira,' Mishima concluded.

'Or it was Neo Kira, who thought that she was no longer supporting him, since she wasn't supporting Kira on television anymore,' detective Arai said.

'Unlikely,' I shot back, not wanting to be on the wrong path. 'None of the other reporters, journalist or other people with a wide audience who used to support Kira have been targeted, and she is no special case. With the timing and choice of victim, I'd say Mishima is right. And I also say that this holder is probably choosing his victims online. There has been an article about her being a Neo Kira supporter and it was posted only yesterday morning. '

'Not a coincidence,' Chief Yagami agreed.

'Miss?' Watari said through my earpiece. He had dropped me off at the Task Force building and left, saying he had other business to take care of. 'I thought you would like to know that Ryuzaki has returned. He is quite well, I assure you.'

I looked down, covered my mouth with one hand. 'That's great,' I whispered, knowing he could hear me, 'thank you.' I checked my phone to see if Ryuzaki had replied, but there wasn't any response to the text I'd sent yesterday.

I put my phone away, accidently crossing eyes with detective Arai, who had once again taken over Mishima's spot in front of the screen. 'Everything okay, miss?' he asked mockingly. 'Do you and your phone need a minute?'

I gave him a mocking smile back. 'If you want me to pay attention to you, you should say something interesting.'

'I bet you say that to your boss an awful lot,' he joked, before turning back to the screen as if I would let a remark like that stand.

'You don't even know him!' I said, standing.

'I know enough!' he shot back, sounding more frustrated than I'd imagined he would be.

I rolled my eyes. 'What's that supposed to mean? You know jack all about my boss!'

'Please don't fight,' Matsuda whispered.

Detective Arai looked like he was going to stick out his tongue to me like the child he seemed to be. 'You don't know anything about mine, either!'

'Ha! I know much more about that little albino boy than you might think!'

'ENOUGH!'

Just as Chief Yagami stopped us, me and Masayuki Arai made a connection for the first time. I saw it in his eyes, he knew what Near looked like. He knew exactly who I meant. And now he also knew that I knew Near and that he was working for him. And that I knew more than he might think, more than he knew, probably. Knowing the orphanage and the way they had raised him. Knowing Ryuzaki with all his secrecy.

Chief Yagami hadn't noticed, hadn't realized the non-verbal conversation detective Arai and I were having. 'I don't want any fighting in the meeting room, alright? If you want to shout at each other, do it on the streets. And no shouting case related information, alright?' Chief Yagami's stern voice when he was angry was all too familiar. It was the voice of a father.

'I am so very sorry,' detective Arai mused after a long silence, bowing cheekily in an attempt at an apology. 'Do forgive me, miss Upson.'

I had completely forgotten what I was doing here, what my angle was, my purpose. Who we were supposed to be after. Slowly, as everyone stared at me, I sat down. 'Pardon me,' I said, 'I seemed to have lost my temper for a moment.' Then I cleared my throat and said: 'I believe our main suspect for this Death Note holder would be Kenichi Mikuriya. He is a judge who has stated multiple times that he would kill Kira if he had the chance. Not only that, but he's on twitter, too. He used to tweet about how much he despised Kira all the time. But, around the time Neo Kira rose, he suddenly stopped.'

Chief Yagami and the other seemed to think about this for a while. Mishima decided to support me for once and I could see that my little argument with detective Arai had surprised him, too. 'I also found Kenichi Mikuriya during my research and wanted to say the same thing. He seems to be the most likely right now.'

'Right,' Chief Yagami said with a sigh. 'Let's sent a team to investigate.'

'Judge Kenichi Mikuriya?' Nanase repeated, frowning. 'I… I just got a call from the reception downstairs,' she says, tapping the earpiece in her ear. 'They told me he was here and wanted to talk to someone on the Task Force. She told him to wait until the meeting was over.'

Detective Arai jumped on the table, so suddenly that we all shot back a bit, and pressed his nose to close to Nanase's face that she looked uncomfortable. 'Why did you only tell this now?'

'People have questions and visit us all the time, it didn't seem important!' she said.

Detective Arai jumped down again. 'Well,' he said, adjusting his coat. 'Let's go ask our little judge what he wants then.'

Just then, someone came running into the office. A younger officer, an assistant from the Task Force, was panting heavily and speaking quickly as she said: 'A man with a knife is walking towards the stairs with a knife!'

Mishima was the first out of his chair and after the assistant, but I was a pretty close second. Followed by all the other members, we ran down the hall to the stairs. I caught up to Mishima at the balcony, where he stopped to look down. A great number of police officers were standing, guns raised, on the top of the stairs, shouting words of halt to none other than Kenischi Mikuriya. He had indeed a knife, which was pointed up and forward a bit, but not too threatening. His eyes were glazed over, as if hypnotized.

Neo Kira got to him first.

Mishima was already running again, so I shot after him. As soon as we – members of the Task Force – came on scene, Mishima and the others hiding their faces just how they learned to do it – the other police officers gave us space. This was something for the Task Force, not the regular cops.

Kenichi walked to slowly, so nonthreateningly that no one had much reason to shoot. He looked at us with dead eyes. 'I am looking for L,' he said, as if that was a normal thing to say. I felt shivers down my spine, though I did not quite understand why.

'Drop it,' Mishima ordered Kenichi, as if that made any difference. The other members of the Task Force formed a perfect triangle, clearly perfectly trained. I hovered somewhere next to Mishima, face uncovered and the gun in my hand already down. For I was not in danger and there were many, many guns pointed at him.

'Drop the knife!' Mishima repeated frustrated, clearly.

But Kenichi Mikuriya sounded so calm when he said: 'I have a message for L. Kira has already eliminated 3 Death Note holders. Now, it's the fourth ones turn.' Kenichi Mikuriya raised the knife and pointed it at Mishima, but he wasn't moving forward anymore. He just stood there on the top of the stairs, dead though still alive. For now.

'Kira is God,' he went on, sounding like a robot. He put both hands on the knife now and slowly started to move it towards his own neck. 'Humans can not defy God.'

And as the whole Task Force watched, Judge Kenischi Mikuriya stabbed the knife in his own neck.

XxX

I tried so hard to make the last scene tense and I just could not find a way to do it. I guess the music really does help, which is something I can't achieve in a story.

Anyway, that's it for this week. I certainly won't be able to update next week, but perhaps the week after that? I think that will work. Anyway, goodbye for now, thank you for reading, I am very hungry and very tired, so I'm going to eat and sleep and then back to school on Monday, yayy! I really do get way too chatty in these parts of the chapter sometimes. I should really learn how to control myself. Oh well.

Until next time!

XxX