I have been gone for over a month. A lot has happened. This had to do both with this story and not with this story. First off, a friend of mine got ill and was in the hospital for a while, school started again and pulled no punches. But also, I realised how unnecessary the sequel actually was. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed writing this story a lot, and I am happy to hear others are enjoying it, but I felt like it was an unnecessary addition to my previous story. I just missed these characters and there were some things I still wanted to explore, without really thinking whether it was actually necessary or not. So I will probably remove this story a few months after finishing it. I will give everyone a warning beforehand, because I think you can save a story or something? I am actually not sure, but I will give a heads up if that is actually going to happen. For now, I am just going to write!

*I don't own Death Note or anything relating to its characters and/or storylines. I only own my original characters.

XxX

16. My Heart is Someone Else's

I saw the boy before I saw anyone else.

I wasn't sure how he'd gotten away, or what he was planning on doing, but he held a gun in his hands. And pointed it at me as soon as he saw me. 'I thought you left.'

I wasn't sure what to respond to that. I lifted my hands and listened. The noises seemed to primarily come from one spot now, the idiots. It would only take a matter of minutes, though, before they would start searching the entire area thoroughly.

'Calm down,' I said softly, hands still in the air. 'What is your name?'

He seemed confused. Of course he did. He had never learned common distraction tactics during his education, nor had he learned how to deal with me. 'What does it matter to you? You're going to be dead either way.'

Yeah well, so was everybody. 'True, true,' I admitted. 'So does it really matter whether you tell me your name or not? I am just curious, is all.'

He seemed really confused. Really… out of it. Like a boy who had blown up his own house and then stood in the garden, looking at his completely trashed house, wondering why he'd done it in the first place.

He looked like someone who had lost his way. The wound on his wrist, my fault, I could've shot his entire hand off, was bleeding, dripping into the dirt. He didn't even seem to notice.

'Won't you tell me your name?' I repeated once more, trying to piece together what I was seeing and how I could use that. Arma was nowhere to be seen. I hoped she had her note. I hoped I wouldn't have to kill this boy, or see this boy being killed. He didn't seem completely out of reach. He seemed like someone who could be put back on the right track, if given the proper attention and effort.

That was only proven when he finally opened his mouth again. 'Yuki,' he managed to get out. He'd clearly meant to spit it out, but it sounded more like an angry teen cursing than harsh or threatening.

'Yuki,' I repeated, not sure what I was expecting. Why that somehow exceeded my expectations. And then I slipped. Maybe it was panic. Maybe it was lack of sleep. Maybe him telling me his name unravelled something inside of me, but I slipped.

For the first time in months, I slipped.

And then I saw it. Floating above his head, numbers and letters and things I did not want to know, thing I didn't want to see. But I couldn't help but look. He hadn't lied about his name. Yuki Shien. The letters so clearly above his head, engulfed in red energy that I had always seen as the colour of death.

And then I looked at the number.

Ico had once tried to explain to me how the numbers worked. It wasn't based on earthly times, but it deed seem to tick pretty regularly. She told me the numbers could change based on circumstances, that they were based on the most likely events. But that you had to be a very, very lucky bastard if your lifespan was ever lengthened.

I didn't know how to calculate the number back to real time. But I didn't have to. Even I could see that his time was all but up. There were only two numbers left and one of them was moving down in a fast pace, slowly taking the other with hem as well.

And then I frowned. While Yuki Shien just stared back at me, clearly just as confused. He was looking around and I could see he was planning on running away. But I didn't get it, because his number was moving so fast. And at this moment I had no intention of killing him. I didn't think I could, even if I had wanted to. He just did not seem like someone who deserved it. Even after everything he had done.

And then he started running. Not away from the building, like I'd expected, but towards it. Passed me. I didn't even have time to think, let alone stop him, before a bulled hit him in the back. I think I might have shouted, but I do not think I made a sound. I don't think I even moved an inch.

Another shot. Another one. And another. As Mishima slowly stepped towards me, with a gun in his hand. He looked… like Mishima. Not so different that I couldn't see him anymore, like with Light. He wasn't the idiot Mishima, the shy Mishima, but he still looked like the Mishima who knew stuff and did his best. The Mishima who criticized me, but also picked me up when he knew I needed it.

'Where are the others?' I asked, slowly backed away as he re-aimed the gun, this time pointing at me.

'Indisposed. You should thank your Shingami friend for that one.' He said it casually. 'I did not expect she would write the Chief's name down to halt this entire thing, but I cannot say it was a stupid plan.' He seemed to shift a bit and I looked at his other hand. He held a small piece of paper in that hand. I knew what that was without asking.

'Why are you threatening to shoot me if you can just write my name down?' I asked, my voice bitter and angry.

He blinked, just once, and slowly lowered the gun, just a little bit. And I realised he hadn't even considered ending me with the tool he had been given. As if I didn't deserve it. No, that wasn't it. No. I realised, only then, what made Light Kira and Mishima Neo Kira. He really had only planned on killing criminals.

Light had always seemed in control. This was a man desperate to be in control.

Since Arma had used the Death Note to control the Chief, I had no way of knowing how long that distraction was going to be. I didn't think the two remaining Task Force members could put two and two together, sorry, but it was the truth, but that didn't mean there wasn't a ticking clock.

There was one thing I did know now, though. Something that I wish I didn't, but I couldn't seem to slip back out. Mishima's name was Ryo Nakagami. And his lifespan was nowhere near being finished. 'Come on, Mishima, this will get you nowhere. Just… just drop the weapon, please. I am not your enemy.'

'Neither am I yours,' he responded. Then said: 'If you come with me.'

I wasn't quite sure I followed any of that. 'Excuse me?'

He seemed almost shy as he continued. Shy, but not humble. He meant what he said when he spoke: 'You can come with me. Be my hostage. And then, maybe after a long, long while. Be more than just my hostage. Be my accomplice maybe. Or… something more meaningful.'

I would be an idiot if I did not exactly understand what he meant by "something more meaningful". I felt the strange urge to vomit. 'You are insane.'

'Probably,' he admitted with a slight frown. 'But even if you would come with me just to spare everyone else… I would take it. Even if you were to be my hostage the rest of our lives… I will leave here. Perhaps consider sparing everyone. Perhaps even considering ending my destiny.'

'You have already lost!' I desperately tried to explain. 'We know who you are now, Arma has the Death Notes and no one will ever, ever, let you get away with it. L will—'

'Come after me?' he finished. 'Even if I have you as my hostage? Are you sure about that?'

'He will feel even more inclined to bring you down,' I responded and only as I said that out loud did I realise those words were true. Because now I believed it. That I was worth something, even if I wasn't useful or kind. I was worth something because… he loved me. Cared for me. Just as I loved and cared for him.

'So… suppose that we were to… disappear,' Mishima said, pausing often, like he was thinking of the plan as he was saying it. 'On the run. The two of us. I won't be Kira and you won't be L's little pet.'

Was he seriously not getting is. 'Are you delusional? What makes you think like I'd want any of that? Even if I were to go with you right now, I would still be searching for a way to bring you to justice!'

Mishima really was not getting it. 'Why? Because of your dear L?'

'No! Because you are wrong. This is wrong!' I pointed all around us. 'Fuck the police and fuck the government, just from a human standpoint, it's wrong! Is that so hard to understand? Why can't you understand?!'

'Because you don't understand!' Mishima shot back. 'Crime was dropping. Everything was getting better. Am I a murderer? Yes, I will not deny that. But I will gladly play a monster if that keeps others human. If that keeps other alive. I am not Kira. But I am more than willing to be him if it means crime will cease to exist. Forever.'

Which was something that I did already sort of understand. But this did not seem like the moment to point that out. Instead, I sighed. 'I am not coming with you Mishima.'

He raised the gun again, pointing it at me with clearly no intention, no heart, to shoot me. Killing people with a notebook felt less… murder-y. Less direct. Shooting someone was something else, no, it just felt like something else. At the end of the day, both methods were murder. 'Then you should die.'

'Allison?' I heard Arma shout, from above me. She looked terrified to see me. 'I thought you left!'

I frowned, opened my mouth. And then… realised Mishima was looking at her, too. Seeing her. And… 'Mishima,' I said slowly, not even considering ever using his real name. 'How did you know what Arma did to the chief?'

Arma seemed to freeze, looking down. 'Excuse me?'

The eyes seemed darker, rounder. Stranger. He seemed otherworldly, almost. I took a step back. 'You are not Mishima, are you?'

'No, he is,' Arma said. 'I saw him running, but I was too busy getting the situation under control, I had been planning on…'

'Killing me, regaining the notebook, yada yada,' Mishima said, his gun still pointed to me. 'You don't mind me saying I have been able to see dear sweet Arma from the very start, do you? I mean, considering the Death Note I received was hers.'

My eyes widened. If the Death Note he received was hers and Arma's note was… 'The first note to be given to a human, this time,' Mishima confirmed. 'It's like art thieves trying to get rid of the stolen painting as quickly as possible. You don't want stolen goods in your possession for too long.'

'But you're not the owner now,' I argued, 'you have up the ownership.' But then he touched another Death Note.

And now we had no way of knowing which was which. And we didn't know who the owner was of the Death Note that once belonged to Arma. I didn't know the rules, but since Ico told Arma only a while ago that the Death Notes still belonged to the human realm… it really meant that giving up ownership wasn't enough. It meant that there had to be an owner, an owner who died, thus carrying it back to the Land of the Dead.

Frowning, I looked up at Arma. 'Could you recognise it? Your own note?'

Arma seemed confused, like she didn't understand the question. 'Every note returns to the male form once owner switches. Only the ones who have magically altered their Death Notes have a different looking Death Note. And I… I never did any of that.'

But she was still here. And I noticed, as I thought about what to do next… that I wasn't so worried about her. I mean, she herself didn't seem worried. It was like she had more than enough time left.

Mishima stayed silent, gun pointed at me, eyes to Arma, as Arma studied my face. And I knew she could see my thoughts, like she was looking right through me. 'You are my friend, are you not?' she asked, after which she disappeared.

And with her disappearance, the case holding the Death Notes stumbled to the ground.

Unsure on what she meant, I looked at it. Mishima looked at it. But I could not make a run for it with a gun pointed at my face. Not if I thought Mishima would actually shoot me. Which I didn't.

So I took a step forward. 'You are not going to shoot me, are you, Mishima?' I said and I almost sounded like I was speaking to a child, or maybe even a dog. 'You will not shoot me.' The only reason I said it was because I believed it.

'Don't take another step,' he said, still pointing the gun at me. 'I will be forced to shoot you if you do.'

But I still didn't believe him. 'I don't believe you,' I admitted, and took another step.

He didn't shoot. But he did take a step. Towards me. 'Why?' he asked. 'Why won't you believe it? I have killed people before. I have shot people before.'

'But you haven't shot someone you cared about,' I shot back. 'Not really. So, no, I don't believe you will shoot me.'

'Your loss,' he said as he took another step towards me.

I was close to the Death Notes now, I could make a quick run for it. But, somewhere, deep inside, fear was swelling as my stonehard confidence was wavering. What if he could shoot me? What if he did?

Then I saw him. Kuromoto, in the trees behind Mishima. Looking alarmed from me, to the case, to Mishima. He braced himself, clearly intending on doing something stupid, so I shook my head, just a little, as another plan began forming in my head. An insane plan. But Mishima seemed pretty insane at the moment, so maybe that was the kind of plan that was needed right now.

Mishima seemed to notice something was going on behind him, but I raised my hands quickly, in an attempt to bring his attention back to me. 'Okay, okay, I won't move. But please… explain to me what your plan is right now. Are you truly willing to give up your ambitions are Neo Kira?'

'I can do it. If you come with me. If you give yourself to me,' he said.

'Myself?' I said, stepping closer to Mishima, away from the briefcase, trying to subtly nod towards it so that Kuromoto would notice it lying on the ground. 'Or my heart?'

I took another step. Mishima did not seem to plan on moving anytime soon. 'Because I can give myself. Be your hostage. Your prisoner. But I cannot give you my heart. It's someone else's.' I reached him without much problems, softy taking the hand with the gun. And he was not stopping me. 'But I can be your captor, if you want me to be.' I glanced towards Kuromoto. I held Mishima's wrist in my hands now, and he had to reaim if he was going to shoot me. Which he didn't do. At least my nearness has some sort of effect.

Kuromoto lunched himself towards the briefcase, Mishima noticing him, trying to aim—

I grabbed his shirt with one hand, still holding the gunhand with my other, and pulled him into me, kissing his angry, insane mouth.

I had seen enough movies and read enough books to notice it when it worked. It didn't seem like it did. He knew exactly what was going on and I could feel his gunhand still trying to break free from my grasp…

With one hand still struggling, the other grabbed my hair as he forced my mouth open, kissing me hungrily, because he knew this was the only thing he could get. He was aggressive and selfish and didn't make it good for me, which was obviously intentional. In my head I tried to replay all the movies I had seen with a scene like this, where the heroine was always reunited with the right person, in the right ending. It would only be a matter of scenes, movie minutes, before I was back there…

BANG!

I stumbled back as I felt this red point of pain in my food, a throbbing, hot point that slowly started to dye my white shoe red.

I stumbled even more and fell, only a bit away from Kuromoto, holding the briefcase and pointing his weapon at Mishima. 'Tell me to shoot and I will shoot,' he told me, not even looking at me or my wound.

Mishima wiped his mouth. 'Did you know that when you kiss someone, that person's spit stays in your mouth for at least two weeks?' A short chuckle. 'I suppose that would mean I have L's spit in my mouth right now.'

It was a disgusting thing to say. And it grossed me out to no end. I wouldn't be able to kiss Ryuzaki for a while, knowing this.

'Actually, it's three weeks.'

With a gun in his hand and A treading behind him, Near came walking towards us, as if there weren't hundreds of police men waiting a few feet away.

'Near, what—'

'Chief Sugawara is dead,' Near told me. 'The police are currently being informed of the situation by my team. We'll call all of this a… misunderstanding.'

'Why?' I asked. Why was I so useless? I didn't want to say that part out loud. 'Why come back even if that was the case? Why escape the car?'

'Because I didn't trust him,' he said, nodding to Mishima. 'And I didn't trust your judgement. And I was absolutely right,' he added, a bit bitterly.

Mishima aimed his gun at Near now, clearly not even paying attention. 'What makes you think I won't shoot you? Even if you are just a kid, I could—'

A loud BANG as Near shot him in his right leg. Mishima stumbled to his knees as Near said: 'That was for shooting my friend.' He walked a bit closer aiming at the head even though Mishima was pointing. Pointing, but still not firing. 'And this is for justice's sake.'

'Stop, Near!' I said. 'You can't kill him!'

'Well, he killed hundreds, no one ever stopped him,' Near argued. 'And I don't feel the need to listen to the current justice system, anyway. A psychopath like this must be—'

'Killed? Just like how he killed hundreds of psychopaths? This isn't the way, Near! Don't do it!'

Near looked at me, raising his eyebrows before making a slight move with his hands. A raised her gun and stepped passed him, handcuffing Mishima even though he looked sad nor defeated. He looked like someone did just shoot him in the leg, which was accurate.

But I couldn't help but be confused. I looked at Near as he looked down at me, on the ground, foot bleeding and hurting, but almost no room left in my brain to process that. 'I don't question your judgement,' Near said, liking his lower lip, 'yet you keep question mine.'

Realisation hit me with more throbbing foot pain. 'You never actually planned on killing him.'

Near smiled the smile I hadn't seen in such a long time, a smile that reminded me of the orphanage, of playthings, of happy times and childhood innocence. 'Let's just say that is true,' he admitted as A looked thoroughly uncomfortable with the man on the ground she had nog cuffed.

'So, was that it?' she asked, sounding kind of disappointed.

I had been shot, people had died and I wasn't even sure where Ryuzaki and Watari had run off too. 'You sound like you want to keep going,' I responded, a little breathless, 'but I am so, so done.'

But nothing is done just because you say so. And in wanting everything to be over, I left endings open and Shinigami unhelped. Perhaps that would be my lethal mistake. I disregarded a Goddess of Death as a threat, despite all the signs telling me not to.

Perhaps Near was not the one whose judgement should be in question. Perhaps it was my judgement that wasn't entirely sound.

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Damn I feel like this chapter was baaaddd. I hate it when I have to write a lot of dialogue while not really knowing how to word said dialogue in a way that makes sense… Also, setting up Arma getting angry was hard because she is not someone who would get like, screaming angry. So everything was working against me, I am tired, I hope this chapter didn't totally suck, goodnight!

So… next chapter will probably be the last, so I will post update on what's going to happen with this story then. For now, thank you guys for reading, I am sorry for the typos and messy plotlines/holes if there are any. Have a lovely week!

XxX

sibunasiren10: Whelp, maybe my writing is just more on the nose than I realised? I just always thought he was Kira because he was the only developed undeveloped character, you know what I mean? Like, the viewer knows him, but now really. So he always seemed like the obvious baddy to me.

Lunamoon531: tension is actually something I have always have problems with (just ask my teachers, I am not great at writing tension) so someone saying that I built up tension well made me feel more emotional than it should make me feel. I hope school is going well, have a lovely week!

intomiddle3arth: thank you so much! (and for your PS: No, no, she is not. Because she and Ryuzaki are clever enough when it comes to crime, but idiots when it comes to anything else. *wink*)

XxX