Author's Note: I actually don't have much to say this time, which I'm sure you're relieved about ;P I'm kind of proud of this chapter. I really hope you like it :) And oh, my timeline is going to be a little off on this chapter. Do me a solid and just go with it ^_^
Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note or anything remotely associated with it.
Spoiler Alert: This chapter contains material up until episode 29.
November 10 2012
"Mello, I just checked the intercept program I created for our server. Turns out the SPK hacked into our feeds last month; all our files, everything. I think the Japanese Task Force has been trying to get in too, but it doesn't look like they can get around my firewall." Mello's expression shifted to one of anger and I wondered if I shouldn't continue. "That's not all," I checked the screen again to make sure what I was seeing was correct, "Near and the Japanese Task Force have been in contact." I shook my head in dismay, "There's no doubt in my mind that Near knows this was us, and that he sold us out."
"Why do you think he'd sell us out?" I sensed Mello agreed with me, but wanted conformation.
"You mean, besides the fact that the NPA has been trying to get in?" I asked sarcastically. "You remember Linda don't you? From Wammy's? I've stayed in contact with her for emergency purposes. She emailed me the other day, said there were some suits there asking about you and Near."
"What about you?"
"They didn't ask about me at first, but they know I went to the school now. Somehow they knew they Watari established that school. They connected Watari to L and of course L to me. They've connected me with you guys at least through Wammy's. It won't take them long to put it together if they haven't already; you got the information about the Notebook somehow." Mello just stared and took a bite of his chocolate. "Bottom line, we all just got burnt. We have to be beyond careful now." It was probably already too late for us. If the NPA knew about us, the task force knew about us, and if the task force knew about us, so did Light; with Light knowing about us, it was over. It was bad enough we'd shown up on the grid, but we had his Death Note. I doubted he was going to let that go without a fight. "I'm going to upgrade my program to lock them out the next time they try and get in to our system," I said quietly. As if that would help.
For whatever reason I felt tears coming on; it was over and we were all going to pay for going up against Kira. We were going to pay with our lives. I brought my hands up to my face in a feeble attempt to disguise my hopelessness.
"Jewel," I heard right in my ear. Somehow Mello had managed to get freakishly close to me without me noticing. "I promise I'm not going to let anything happen to you."
I looked up earnestly at him, "It's not just me I'm worried about Mello."
I took a step closer to him and leaned into his chest. Sometime since our perfect first kiss Mello and I had wordlessly agreed to be there for each other. No longer was he treating me like a dog, and no longer was I afraid to show my affection for him. He wrapped his arms around me and held me close.
I had been living in greater fear of Kira this past month though. Ever since we'd gotten a hold of the Death Note, it was like we'd been marked. It was as though we had this bright strobe light above our heads, alerting everyone to where we were, and what we were doing.
I'd kept a tighter watch on the movements of the task force as well as the SPK; and also, our own men. It seemed to me as though Jack had been acting just a little off lately, but I couldn't be sure. It was probably just that he was the one who was in charge of the Notebook, he was probably on edge.
Or maybe it was just me; maybe I was looking for something to be wrong. The whole enormity of the situation was just getting to me I suppose. I let Mello hold me for a moment longer before we made it back to the room with the enormous purple couch.
I was starting to get a crick in my neck; I'd been sitting with Mello on the couch for a good hour now while Mello went over the Death Note with a fine toothed comb. I was also getting pretty sick of seeing Rod fondle the two floozies beside him. I let out a loud yawn and leaned into Mello; I was sweetly surprised when he responded by putting his arm around my shoulder. I snuggled into his side; I could get used to this.
All of the sudden Mello started freaking out. If you could call it a 'freak out' he was always pretty chill unless someone made the mistake of bringing up Near. "The uh... the Notebook just flew." I arched my eyebrow at him, but sure enough, just a moment ago it had been in Mello's hands, it was now on top of Jack's head.
"Ha, it's a notebook that kills people. Hell, nothing surprises me anymore." Rod said from the other side of the couch.
A loud thud and hollering from Jack had us all looking in his direction. "Whoa Boss! Who is this! The guy with the freaky costume! Who the hell is he? Who brought him here?" We all stared at Jack for a moment, and then Mello and I stared at each other. I didn't have an answer for him, I just shrugged. "A shinigami?" Neylon's crazed laughter that followed his exclamation had us all a little worried I think. But a shinigami might make sense. I'd almost completely forgotten about them when one hadn't appeared the first day we'd gotten the Notebook. "He says you can see him if you touch the Notebook." Jack continued. His claim did follow with what I'd observed before. "Please, everyone touch it! I swear I'm not crazy!" Just because the Shinigami might be real, doesn't mean he wasn't crazy, I thought to myself.
"Fine, whatever. Come on guys, touch the Notebook." Rod ordered, and we all leaned in to reach it.
Suddenly Mello had shoved me and I was face down in the couch as a chorus of shouting and a barrage of gunfire erupted right over Mello's and my heads. Not impressed.
"Nice try, but you humans can't kill a Shinigami." It said. The thing reminded me of Rem crossed with a high school nerd. It was definitely a Shinigami, but its voice sounded worse than a pre-pubescent pop-star huffing helium.
"Jack's right, that ain't no costume. That's a real live Shinigami. So now what do we do?"
We all sat around for a minute. We didn't want to get on it's bad side so Mello offered it some of his chocolate.
After a not so formal introduction Mello went after it, asking the Sidoh (or so it called itself,) all about the Notebook; all about how it worked, all about its limitations, and most interestingly, all about the rules.
"Chocolate is so good." Sidoh decided as he munched on a bar.
"Hey, what about that stuff you told us, is it true? 'If the person using the Note fails to consecutively write names of people to be killed within thirteen days of each other, then the user will die. If you make this Note unusable by tearing it up or burning it, all the humans who have touched the Note till then will die.' Are you saying those two rules are made up?"
"Oh yeah, those rules are definitely fake. My guess is some Shinigami wrote those down as a joke before giving the Notebook to a human."
That was too much to process. That one little fact changed everything; knowing that those two rules were false changed the game entirely. If the thirteen day rule was fake that meant... that meant L died needlessly! I was going to throw up.
I jumped up and made a break for the washroom but Mello caught my wrist.
"Sidoh, go keep watch outside! It will be very convenient for us that you can't be seen by humans. Go outside and keep watch, got it!" Mello ordered Sidoh, and then he followed me out of the room.
"Are you okay?"
"No!" I shouted as I started pacing around my room. "I... I... damnit Mello, do you know what this means!" Mello grabbed my arms to stop me from pacing. "L, L didn't have to die!" I wailed. Mello wrapped his arms around me and I buried my face in his leather clad chest. "L died trying to prove that the thirteen day rule was false. L backed Light Yagami into a corner and L killed him because of it. If there had been no need for L to prove that rule was false, if it just wasn't there, Light could've been put away. We could've ended this years ago and L would still be alive!" I ranted, my voice muffled by Mello's clothes.
I felt Mello sigh under me. "I'm really sorry babe," he hugged me closer and the tears started flowing.
We waited a moment and then went back to the main room. Now that the Shinigami had given us a bunch of new information, there was a lot more to consider and go over; a lot more to recalculate.
I checked my watch, I couldn't believe how late it had gotten.
Suddenly there was an eerie silence, everything seemed to freeze in time, no one moved, no one breathed, and then, all at once the men around us began hollering in agony, and grabbing their chests.
"Mello!" I shouted in a panic. He took another bite of his chocolate, seemingly unaffected by the mayhem around us.
The men from the mafia were dropping all around us. They were dying; this was Kira.
By the time the yelling subsided there were only four of us left still standing.
"Jewel! You've got to get out of here now! I'm going to blow the exits! Get moving now while you still have the chance."
Without warning an explosion ripped through the building and then another. Two of the camera feeds on the laptop had been knocked out; the cameras that were on the exits. "Jewel go! You'll still have a better chance with the police outside than you do staying in here!"
"No Mello! I'm not leaving you!"
The thundering in the halls was getting closer and so were the police.
"Fine let's go!" Mello seized my hand and pulled my forcefully along with him as we raced towards the stairs. Just before we started towards the second floor I noticed my hoodie and scarf hanging on the railing. I grabbed them hastily with my free hand. "Roy, Skier, the Notebook's under Rod's body! Bring it to the surveillance room upstairs!" Mello ordered as we took the steps two at a time.
Gunfire and more explosions rang out behind us as we raced through the many corridors of the complex. We made it to the surveillance room and caught our breath.
"Mello I'm so scared!" I whispered into the dark. Mello had yet to release my wrist.
"Get your hoodie and scarf on! Kira had something to do with this, we're going to protect your identity." I realised then that Mello had nothing to hide his face.
"Mello," I whispered again, but footfalls over in the next hallway cut me off. Mello ripped the scarf from my hands and wrapped it around the lower part of my face.
"Put your coat on, hood up." He ordered and I obeyed.
As the footsteps got closer Mello took hold of a black, rectangular shaped box that'd been laying next to the monitors. He pressed one of the buttons on the top and yet another huge explosion rocked the building.
"Don't move!" Mello shouted out into the hall. "I've already blown up the two entrances to this place. This will be your only warning, and then the next explosion will take out the entire building, as well as all your men inside. So you better do as I say." Mello ordered the man leading the raid into the surveillance room and flipped on the monitors for a source of light.
I almost had a non-Kira induced heart attack when I saw who it was. "Yagami again huh? Maybe I should have killed you when I had the chance. History repeats itself, but I never dreamed in a million years I'd be bargaining for the Notebook with you again." I couldn't breathe, this couldn't be happening.
Mello and Mr. Yagami faced off for a moment before he finally took notice of me.
"You, girl; you look familiar." Yagami said, addressing me. I couldn't move, I couldn't think, I wasn't even sure if I'd blinked since he'd walked in.
Besides being acutely aware that Yagami had the Death Note AND a pen in his hands, I was a little worried that my long, silver braids (which remained unhidden by my jacket,) would give me away. I mean, he lived in Japan, how many silver haired teenage girls associated with the Kira case did he run into? Yagami broke his stare with me for a moment, and seemed to be examining something over my head. "J! You're Jewel!" Yagami shouted, and I could make out murmuring in the hallway. No doubt more of the task force that I had worked with under L. "J, what are you doing working with this man? Do you know he stole the Notebook of death? Did you know he kidnapped my daughter Sayu?" There seemed to be an undertone of rage in his voice, something that he was trying to keep under control, but it wasn't happening.
"Mr. Yagami, please, listen to me," I begged, not taking my eyes off the Death Note for more than a nanosecond at a time. "You don't understand, it's not like that. We needed to take it, it's for the case! We're just trying to catch Kira! I swear!"
"Why do you need the Death Note to do that?"
C'mon Jewel, think fast. "W-we," my voice was shaking, "we were trying to lure Kira out. And we did didn't we Yagami? Kira helped you kill the rest of the Mafia members, didn't he sir?" Soichiro seemed unsure for a moment; like maybe he believed we were telling the truth. "L-look, c-can't y-you," I was starting to shake I was so scared, "Look, can't you just take the Notebook and leave us be?" I begged.
"I, I'm sorry, but I can't do that. It wouldn't be right. I'm afraid I'm going to have to take you in."
NO! If we were made to come face to face with Light that would be the very end of us, there was no doubt. Our fates would be sealed if he ever saw our faces.
"You're not taking us anywhere. You're going to have to leave!" Mello ordered, cutting in beside me.
Soichiro turned back to Mello. "You're real name, it's Mihael Keehl." Mello and I both stiffened and I felt another wave of nausea coming on. I took my glasses off, brought my left and up and rested it against my face. It was over. "It's over Mello, it's time to turn yourself in. If you give up I won't kill you, you have my word on that. You know how this works. I write your name, and you will die. Let go of that trigger and put your hands in the air." I stole a quick glance and sure enough Mello was still holding the little black box.
"Yagami..."
"Don't move! I've written your first name, and it will only take me a second to write your surname." Oh God no!
"Mr. Yagami!" I shrieked, "Please, I'm begging you! Don't do this!"
"He's responsible for the kidnapping of my daughter!" Soichiro hollered accusingly at me.
"I'm truly sorry, for what it's worth, I give you my word, I never wanted to kill you. But tell me Yagami, you've never killed someone before, have you?" Mello cut in again. what was he talking about? He wasn't going to kill Soichiro was he? We could negotiate through this right? We could...
Before I had time for another thought gunfire filled the room. I could only stare at Mr. Yagami in horror. I don't care if you're wearing fifty bulletproof vests, getting hit with a round from a semiautomatic would be enough to fatally wound anybody.
"Jose, the Notebook!" Mello shouted as I lost my equilibrium and fell to my knees.
"Damn, this guy! He won't let go of the thing. Son of a..." the world was becoming hazy, and I could barely keep myself from fully collapsing onto the floor face first.
A fog of people appeared in the doorway but I still couldn't move. It was taking all my focus to keep the contents of my stomach where it was.
"Deputy Director!" There was shouting and hollering and just absolute chaos.
"It's all over Mello! Put your hands up and surrender!" Mello... Mello was in danger.
Out of nowhere there was another explosion and I was being hauled to my feet. I was running and tripping, but at the same time it felt like I was standing still. I was choking and coughing, and fighting for oxygen in the clouds of smoke I was passing through. Finally I was able to collapse on the cold, dewy grass in the empty lot next to the complex... what was left of it; the complex AND the grass.
I think I blacked out for a moment, because when I came to I heard someone moaning in agony. with laboured breaths I turned over, and to my alarm saw Mello laying beside me; with a good portion of his face burned.
Well I sobered up instantly after that. "Mello, my God, Mello are you alright?" I checked him over quickly while he tried to work up an answer. "C'mon, we've got to get you to a hospital!" I grabbed him under the shoulders and yanked him up.
"No," he groaned.
"What?"
"No! No hospitals."
"Mello, you're crazy, you need to be looked after by professionals."
"Too dangerous."
"It's too dangerous to not have to you go a hospital!" I hollered at him a little too loudly. I glanced around hastily to check for anyone who might be within earshot. I was so scared, Mello's breathing was more forced than mine was.
"No!" he hollered back. Stubborn ass.
"Well come on then idiot, we can't stay here either way." I half carried, half dragged Mello to my car, which thankfully, remained undamaged in a little ally which was far enough away from the damaged building to have escaped the wrath of the explosions.
We sped away from the smouldering pile of debris that was our old base and made it to the highway. Mello had passed out in the passenger seat beside me and I took another look at the damage that was done to him.
There was an exit for a hospital coming up. "You're such an idiot!" I shouted at the top of my lungs as I passed it. Whether I was shouting it at Mello or myself was a mystery to me.
Author's Note: I did say in the beginning that I was going to stick to the Anime, and have nothing to do with the Manga for this story, however, I did need to have an informant from Wammy's. Using Linda just seemed to work too perfectly.
And hey, get this: I just realised I TOTALLY forgot my own OC's birthday. I was going to have a really cool part in one of the past chapters about it. Mello and Jewel were going to get into it, but bam, totally wasn't paying attention, lol.