Chapter 12

Author's Note: Thanks for your tremendous reviews. I'm so glad that people read my stuff, it really is heart warming. Hope you enjoy the chapter. And yes, cyanide is old school, and that is why it is so "A-ish". I hope you understand. And, just so there's no doubt, Light is not sure whether or not Adéle is a traitor, he merely suspects her. But that's just as bad as having him actually knowing you're a traitor, right?

Mikami always ate his meals behind God. This was dinner. They were having roasted duck. The room was lit dimly and cosily by an orange lamp in the ceiling, the long table, made of oak, were standing in the middle of the Lord's dining room. Beautiful paintings made by long since forgotten artists decorated the walls, colorful, and yet absent. It was cold, the Lord's eyes were closed as if he was concentrating on something important, and his face was quite calm.

Mikami's grip on his notepad tightened. The grip on the pen. The grip on his weapons. His eyes were on God. Or, rather, drifting from God to Adéle Segan and back again. She stood next to him, behind God's chair, but on the left side, Mikami himself was on the right. Her eyes were on the detailed marble floor. She, too, was concentrating on something. Their faces looked so much alike. Separated by the back of the chair, only about a meter and a half, but it could have been thousands and thousands of miles of ice. And yet they looked like to different halfs of the same body.

She was not worthy to look like God. She was just a mere human, dragging his name through mud and dirt by impersonating him like that. He did not like her. Her face shone with a kind of noble, yet assumed arrogance. As if he was a queen. She looked like she ran everything, like she was supreme, like she was God. His eyes narrowed in a loathing way for a short moment, but nothing else.

God put down his fork and knife, drank a little of his water. Even though it was eight o'clock in the evening, his suit was perfect, his hair was perfect, his whole appearance as perfect as possible. Mikami corrected his glasses, tightened his own tie and was embarrassingly knowing how his hair must look compared to God's. No. He must not compare himself God. He was a mere human. And so was she.

Suddenly God stood up. His face was calm, in fact a little, pleasant smile made his face even more divine, and he took a deep breath before talking.

"You, by the doors," the bodyguards flinched and knelt as he spoke to them, "get out." They left.

The doors closed with a thud. Silence. God corrected his perfect tie.

"I have some important information I want to share with you," he then said. Mikami straightened his back and watched God carefully, while Adéle Segan merely lifted her gaze to look at him. Mikami's eyes narrowed again.

"Let me get straight to the point. You both know that the people has been acting all out because we captured Aballini. They're being blinded by the propaganda of this terrorist cell." He sighed and his shoulders seemed to hang sadly. "I'll have to make things straight. Set the people back on the right track. But first, I have to execute William Aballini."

He gestured despairingly. "It's really sad. He won't say anything, I could have spared his life if he would only cooperate. But that's too late now. I really tried. But that's not to be changed now. He'll be executed this Friday. Mikami?"

Mikami straightened his back even more and listened carefully. "Yes, God?"

"I want you to announce to the people that this Friday they'll be free from going to work. And free to come and see the execution."

"Yes, God." Mikami made a few notes on his pad, not the pages of the Death Note.

"And now…" God sighed, his shoulders lowered even more and his slim hands grabbed the table as if he was seeking support. "Now I'll need you both to listen carefully."

Adéle Segan did not change her face expression, in fact she was looking dreamy to Mikami. She sickened him.

"I have told you, Mikami, before, that I suspected an insider in this palace. The goal of this insider is to have both Mikami, myself and maybe you too, Adéle, killed. I do not know yet who it is, but I'm working on it." God sighed for the third time.

Mikami fell to his knees. "God! Tell me who you suspect! Let me help you!" His voice was shrill, but he did not notice, his hands raised themselves, pleading God's back.

"I'm sorry, Mikami, I can't do that. But the fact that I've told you both this means that I suspect neither of you."

"Yes, God." Mikami bowed his head. Of course God could not tell him, a mere servant. How stupid was it not of him to claim the right to be part of God's plans? Now he had made a fool of himself.

God straightened himself and corrected the perfect tie.

His bed was soft and cool, comfortable to lay on. First Mikami had removed his tie, folded it neatly, then the jacket, the shirt, then the shoes and socks, the pants. Put on his pajamas – one button at a time. Then he brushed his teeth. Fifty brushes on each side. Cleaned his glasses. Three times. Took a glass of milk. He emptied it in ten sips, not letting a single drop run down the sparkling glass. Then he lay down, folding his hands on the blanket and closing both of his eyes at the exact same time.

That was what Mikami did every night before he went to bed. He did it in exactly fifteen minutes. Lay on the bed, not moving from his position in ten minutes, then he fell a sleep. Always had it been the same.

His room was next to God's in God's own, private part of the palace. This what not how it had started out, but since that time with George Clemens, God did not take any chances. That was why Adéle Segan slept in the other room on God's other side. So that she could come to him if he needed her. He had two buttons, connected to alarms in both of their rooms in case of emergencies. There were even doors right next to their beds so that they could be there only a few seconds after he had rung the bell.

But this night, something was different. Mikami had an odd, twisting, burning sensation in his stomach. Not in a good way. It was bad. It was uncomfortable. He resisted the urge to lay differently. No. It would pass, he was sure it would pass. But in a matter of minutes the symptoms got even worse. A lot worse. He caught himself whining, grabbing the stomach. What was happening? He tasted metal, like blood, on his tongue, it made him nauseas, he felt like throwing up… The pain was excruciating. He gasped and dug deep into his own belly with his finger nails. He could not control it. He curled up into a little ball and with a jolt bloody vomit came out of his mouth. It landed on the floor, all over the floor, like red and orange flowers. He could not stand looking at it, smelling the sour stench, it was filling his nostrils, he threw up again.

The pain. It was as if a white hot fire was burning his internal organs, made his heart pound painfully and so fast his lungs could not follow, he could not breath, he threw up again… What was happening? Blood all over his white sheets… white sheets… dirty. He felt disgusted with being in them, he wanted to jump out of bed and shower for a week. But the blood… and the pain… and the both sour and metallic taste on his tongue.

It was not normal, this. It was not food poisoning. It could not be. They had people testing all their food for such things, for poison, but he was sick and dying, he knew it… The pain was too much, he could not think. His entire body burned, he rolled and rolled on in his bloody sheets, he screamed with agony.

His hair was sticking to his for head, he had torn apart his own shirt in madness.

He could not have been poisoned. It was impossible. But… no, the milk. The milk he did not have anyone test, that milk was God's personal, tested for all kinds of poison by Adéle Segan herself… It was her! She was the insider, she had poisoned him and God… but maybe God had not drunken his milk yet. He did not do it in the evening like Mikami. Mikami had to warn God.

People and bodyguards and doctors came running into the room with the sound if his screams. The took his pulls and his temperature, but he did not sense it. He must warn God… he must protect him…

The panicky words of all the people mixed up into something of a chaos, he did not notice it, could not hear it, it was just a mess of disturbing noises. Mikami rolled out of his bed. All the people gasped in disbelief as he hit the floor hard with a thud. Blood flew out of his moth and hit the floor, the pain, he was crying, even though he did not realize it, he must warn God, his eyes were blackening…

Mikami only had to drag himself a few centimeters over the floor, blood dripping form his lips, as the door to God's bedroom right in front of him opened.

God stood in the doorway. His face showed disbelief, it was frowning, Mikami could not blame God, he himself must look horrible… He raised his bloody, white hand towards God, as if pleading for help, his lips formed words with his very last powers:
"God… Insider… Milk… poisoned…" He gulped blood, sank down onto the floor, his eyes rolling. God's face watched him, the soft hair as perfect as always, eyes expressionless and cool. Darkness put it's arms of oblivion around Mikami's mind.

"I'm… sorry… God."

Author's Note: Sorry for the "relatively" late update, I had to research poisons. None of the poisons which I found fitted exactly into this situation. So I changed the one I found a little. I hope you don't mind. Call it "artistic freedom". And this poison's Mercury Chloride as far as I remember. Here, in my story, Mikami drank it with his glass of milk, because Mercury Chloride can be made into white salt. And let's just say it can be dissolved into liquid when it comes into contact with water, like most salts. Beside the symptoms in the chapter, Mercury Chloride is also supposed to cause bloody diarrhea, but I thought I'd better leave that out not to make stuff too gross. I never payed attention I Science Class. And I apologies to any Mikami fans who're really depressed now. I feel kinda sad myself.

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