*** Author's Note ***

See? I wasn't lying when I said you wouldn't have to wait long for the next chapter.
I'm sick right now so every time I lay down to sleep, my nose gets so stopped up I can't
even breathe out of it. So here I sit, putting off sleep, and stopped up nose, by writing
on Kira Again. It's currently 4:12 in the morning as I write this and my stomach just
started growling. Fun huh? Lol. On the lighter side of things, I got two new fans last chapter,
So~ Welcome aboard, sazyboo and Helga G. Pataki
Also, only one person has even tried to guess my name. It's not hard to find, people.
It's just not easy. And it's not Gebrelle. Nor am I a song artist. That should narrow it
down. I mean it. Oops! I just nearly nodded off while watching the fish… lol.
Remember all, You only have till next chapter to guess, because chapter ten is when
the contest ends!

Good Luck,
~Gebrelle

P.S.- My space bar is messed up, so if I missed a place and two words are mashed
together, blame the space bar. I have had to adapt my whole typing style because of it.

*** End Note ***

When Nina got home after dropping Anne off at her house, she wasn't sure what to expect. So the first thing she did when she got in was go to her room. Sure enough her dad had been in there. He never tried to hide that he had searched her room. There were ashes and cigarette butts all over her bedroom floor. The rest of the room however was just the way she had left it. He never tried to rearrange her things because he knew that if her things were sorted that she would never be able to find anything.

Light looked the room over, "I take it your father doesn't trust you?"

Nina laughed and shook her head, "You have it all wrong. He stays shut in his study all day, but I take care of him, making sure he has coffee, that he eats, and that he has clean laundry. So he feels that he needs to watch over me in some way. Going through my room is his way of checking on my grades, looking in on my interests, and the quality of my clothes to see if I need new ones or new shoes, and such. It's his way of showing his love. It's annoying, but I bear with it."

Light just grinned his freaky grin and shook his head. Nina suppressed a shiver and sat on her bed to dig around in the tote by her bed for the folder that she kept the other life spans in, and copied the old numbers and times onto a new sheet of paper along with the bus driver's. All she could do was stare at them; she had eight people's numbers now. She glanced at the mirror to check up on hers when she panicked. All she could see was 'Nina Laverock'-backwards mind you- floating above her head. No lifespan.

"Light?" she asked freaked out. He looked at her curious to find out what had her stressed. "Where is my lifespan?" she asked trying to keep calm.

Light chuckled, "Owners of a DeathNote do not have a visible lifespan." He explained coolly.

She looked back at her reflection. It looked strange now, like your reflection wouldn't show your nose in the mirror even though you knew it was there. She had always thought of a lifespan as a part of one's body. Everyone had one. But now she didn't, Light didn't either, but he was a death god; he didn't need one. It was strange but she knew she was the only one who could see it.

Nina shook her head and stared back down at the paper covered in numbers in her hand, she sighed and folded it up, sticking it in her pocket, before going to the hall closet to grab the broom to clean up her floor.

She had just opened the noisy closet door when her dad wheeled his desk chair around the door to stick his head into the hallway. He grinned and motioned for her to come into his study and she closed the closet door with a sigh, when she looked back up at him, he winked at her and disappeared.

When she stepped in, she saw that he was keeping up with the news. Many of his monitors were streaming different stations. Nina noticed that the running total was only lacking 53 now. She stared at the screens as if bewildered. Her dad knew that she and Anne never watched the news whenever they slept over at each other's houses.

"When did this start?" she asked trying to sound appropriately awed.

Her dad glanced over at her, "The killings started at midnight. I'll tell you. It's very interesting to watch," he said, returning his eyes to the screens.

She just nodded, afraid of giving herself away. Her dad would see right through her if she made even one slip.

She sat with him listening to him talk about the case, comparing it to the last one and such for about 20 minutes before he suddenly reached out and pulled the folded paper from her pocket.

"What's this?" he asked enthusiastically, and she was glad that she hadn't written down the owner's names on that page.

"It's a code. The numbers stand for real time, but I can't seem to figure it out." She wasn't lying. Just leaving out that they were dead people's ex-lifespans.

Her dad tilted his head, as if it would give him a better grasp of the numbers, and inevitably, she wound up tilting her head to look at them too. He must have been trying to figure in the sideways numbers. What bothered her most was that he never made a move for a pencil, pen, or calculator; he just had to look at it, and, if she was honest with herself, he could probably look away and continue his figurings.

He took a deep breath and she looked at him, "Aaahhhh~" he said, drawing it out, and he turned and grabbed a pen from his desk, scribbling on her paper as he explained, "If you look at each number, not as a place, but as its own multiple, then you move this way. Figuring that sideways numbers and upside down numbers have different values, we can say that this means this. So when it is all figured out, your remaining number is seconds. By converting those into minutes and those to hours, we get our exact time. This last one here… It says 10:47 pm. When it was in fact… exactly 10:47 and 36 seconds…"

Nina took the paper from him and stared at it. It hurt her pride when he was able to pull off something like this…
She looked down at him where she had been hovering over his shoulder and smiled, "I hate you sometimes," he knew she was kidding. Definitely jealous, but definitely kidding.

"I love you too," he said, winking at her again and turning back to his main computer which displayed four desktops at once on one monitor. She laughed and turned to go.

When she got to the door, her dad called out to her, "Oh yeah, one more thing…" she looked curiously at him, "I know you've always been interested in the Kira case and all, I mean, hell, you named your cat after him… Just that… I decided something. All of the killings happened at the same time on the hour. If Kira were trying to make a point, he wouldn't have had to kill ones from all over; obviously, he was trying to make it seem as if he could be anywhere. But, assuming Kira wanted to make a big boom, he would choose a special time, either noon or midnight, with the knowledge that he was killing many people, he would be most likely to choose midnight." Nina was sure she went pale as he continued, "Only one time-zone is midnight at any given time. It was Eastern Time. That's our time-zone, not a very big one I'll add. So I just wanted you to be extra careful if you decide to look into this case, because I know I can't stop you. If you meet someone who maybe knows too much or acts guardedly about the subject, be careful that they might be Kira."

All Nina could do was nod, "Okay, Dad, I will," she called as she left the study, her father watching as she left.

She hadn't thought about the time-zone. If she had, she would have made them die at a random time to throw off the investigation. She hit herself in the head with her palm, if Near was as smart as she had heard he was, then he already knew which time-zone she lived in. She would have to watch her back far sooner than she was expecting to have to.