Yeah, yeah, it's like I've been dead for ages, and then I suddenly reappear again and start updating everything in sight. Sorry for the delay – although this hasn't had as long a hiatus as The Ghost in the Machine had.

Thankyou to: ZoneRobotnik, teito13, Kazutaka-kun, PikaNecoMico, badwolf5, SeraphChronoMage, Teldra, Silver Ice Rain, Gabi Howard, Marie Ravenclaw, ravensbbf, MoonGun, milleniumthief, toolazytologin, ftwtf, Star Jinin, SonzaiTaz, Lady Kiome, Tainted Ink and Paper, bookenworum, Judith, Vera-Sama, Danny Phangirl, HallucinatingDreams, Keyines, Clennie, Scripta Lexicona, Deus3xMachina, Shikabane-Mai, rein hitomi, RandomFreakazoid, Jack, OneWhoSitsWithTheTurtles and Midoribon!

I just finished ploughing through the abundance of reviews for Inversion Pt II of The Ghost in the Machine and I know that a lot of you guys read that as well as this (hurrah for me finally remembering almost all your pen-names!), so, yeah… Thankyou for your reviews and I'm glad you liked it! Hope you enjoy this update just as much! :)

…Okay, so, some of you got what I was getting at with the end of the last chapter and some of you didn't.

If you didn't, don't worry. I shall beat you over the head with it right now.

;)

Ellery Queen

L woke up because Light wanted him to.

That was entirely the thing. The issue. The problem.

"What's the matter, Light-kun?" L asked as he sat up in bed. He seemed very at ease about the whole thing – waking up in Light's apartment in Light's bed not wearing Light's clothes.

Not that Light exactly had it in him right now to be affronted or insulted or embarrassed or whatever else. He simply stood at the bedside for a long moment, looking down at L, tight-lipped and white, the notebook clutched in one hand. He wasn't surprised, frankly, that L didn't have it in him to be any of those things, either. In fact, he wondered exactly how far L's spectrum of emotions actually stretched. He did seem rather 2D, to be perfectly honest.

"Light-kun?" L asked again, tilting his head.

Light angrily threw the notebook at him.

"Read it," he snapped. "Every word of it."

L blinked at him in surprise, but obeyed. Of course he obeyed. Light didn't think he had much of a choice. If Light told him to go throw himself in front of an articulated lorry, he'd probably go and do it right this second.

Although… the sheer ridiculousness and incredibility of it all aside, it did make several things make a lot more sense.

Sort of.

Light sank onto the edge of the bed as he watched L read. The detective's eyes had widened a little but otherwise both his expression and his body language remained unchanged – he even gave a little nod of understanding when he came to the newspaper cutting.

"It would appear to me," he said at length, finally looking up at Light, "that I am actually not a real person."

Light nodded. He wanted to laugh even though he didn't actually think this situation was remotely funny.

"That's how it seems," he agreed. "Stupid. It's stupid, isn't it?"

"Oh, I don't know about that. You've got one hell of an imagination, Light-kun – I'll give you that."

"But you're not in any of my books!" Light spat. "You're not even mentioned!"

"Look, let's start at the top." L unceremoniously dropped the notebook to the bedsheets and folded his arms over his raised knees, looking directly at Light. "To be honest, I don't really like to admit it, but you having invented me – that is, my existence being a mere figment of your imagination—"

"No, that can't be right!" Light interrupted. "Mikami and Misa… and Mello and Matt…! They could all see you and talk to you and…!"

"I did not imply that I exist only in your head," L said patiently. "As you have pointed out, that is obviously not the case. What I meant was that I seem to exist only because you imagined that I do – and what I was going to say was that, though it's somewhat depressing for me to admit it, my existing being down to you actually makes several things make sense."

Light nodded cautiously – it was, after all, exactly what he'd been thinking himself.

"If you must know," L went on, "I actually have very little memory of anything that I've experienced outside your presence. I can't recall anything that might have happened to me before this case."

"Wh… why didn't you say?!" Light burst out incredulously.

L shrugged.

"You never asked."

"But… but didn't you think that was strange?" Light pressed, stunned. "This whole time you've been fussing about me being an amnesiac, but you actually don't have any memories of your own prior to about a month ago?"

"I don't think it's that I don't have any memories," L said morosely. "I rather think it's that I don't have any experience. I suppose what I'm trying to say, Light-kun, is that I don't think I actually even existed until this case began. Well…" He tapped the notebook. "Aside from in here, of course."

"But that doesn't add up," Light argued. "The case… well, the first murder occurred about a month ago, but I was in the car accident three months ago." He picked up the notebook himself and waved it savagely at L. "I wrote this before the crash, so why the two-month delay between my creation of you and your manifestation in the real world?"

L shrugged.

"That I cannot answer," he said, "but there is one thing that is, unfortunately, consistent with your agreement that you did indeed create me."

"I never said—"

"It is obvious. These notes describe me very well." L reached across to where Light was brandishing the notebook in midair and plucked out the newspaper clipping from between its pages, swinging it between his thumb and forefinger. "It is not uncommon for authors to be inspired by things that they experience – either in their own lives or things they see on the television or internet or read in books or whatever. Let us assume that you came across this newspaper article sometime before your accident and thought that the story of this unfortunate murdered child would make an interesting basis for a new detective character – perhaps for your fourth book, of which you have written four chapters to date." He ran his finger underneath the grainy photograph. "It is true that this looks very like what I might have looked like as a child. I have to hand it to you, Light-kun; I accused you of not being above stealing things from other examples of detective fiction, but this idea is fairly innovative. A detective character who is in fact a murder victim himself—"

"Shut up!" Light put his hands over his ears in a childish 'I'm-not-listening-to-you!' display, dropping the notebook. "It's awful! I shouldn't have done it!"

"Well, it's done, and here I am." L let the cutting flutter back to the bed. "To digress further from the point, you being my author explains a thing or two, certainly. You thought it was odd that I just seemed to do everything you told me to? I even stopped smoking because you told me not to do it. Do you see, Light-kun? It injures my pride, but it seems that you have complete authority over me. I can't help but do what you tell me to do. Or not do, as the case may be."

"I…" Light descended into thought, lowering his hands. There was something else… "When you showed up earlier," he said carefully, "you weren't wet even though it was raining outside. It's probably… because I didn't expect you to turn up, so therefore I didn't expect you to be wet. However, when we went out to see the boy's body, you got soaked – because I expected you to. You even said it yourself – that it was a shame that my expectations govern your reality!"

L nodded gravely.

"Though I don't think that I didn't get wet because I'm waterproof," he muttered. "It's more likely that I was never out in the rain that first time to begin with."

"Then where were you?"

L shrugged.

"I don't know. However, we shall assume that I cater to your whims, Light-kun. You probably wanted me to turn up."

"I did not—"

"Perhaps not consciously, but it was there. It must have been. Frankly, I believe that you must be capable of controlling my actions even without speaking. For example, tonight…" L arched an eyebrow in amusement as he watched Light flinch a little. "Well, I don't think you're actually attracted to me, and you have certainly never verbally announced anything of the sort. But earlier… what you wanted was a distraction. You were so distraught that you wanted something to dominate you so completely that you could forget all about it. You can deny it if you want, but the truth is that I didn't force myself on you. I'm pretty sure I was complying with what you wanted me to do – even if it was a subconscious desire. Don't you think it all seemed rather sudden?"

"Be quiet," Light snapped. "As if I don't regret it enough already. Not only did I sleep with a guy – I slept with a guy who isn't even real!"

L shrugged.

"Neither of those things are my fault," he said pleasantly.

Light was silent for a long while.

"There's one more thing," he said at length. He picked up the notebook once more. "These notes describe you as… well, how you were when you first turned up. You know, trench coat, fedora, smoking, all that jazz."

"Am I not consistent with it?"

"No, you are… well, you were at least, but… that's entirely the point." Light shook his head. "You didn't match up with my perception. I kept expecting you to do things that aren't in these notes… That is, I expected you to be the way you are now. But why is that, L? If this is how I wrote you, why did I wake up after that car crash expecting you to be different?"

"I couldn't say. Perhaps you simply changed your mind about how you wanted me to be."

Light shook his head at L incredulously.

"You're very calm about all this," he murmured. "You just found out that you're not even… well, that you technically don't exist, and yet you just kind of shrug and nod and agree that it makes everything make sense."

"What can I say? It's not that I had an idea that I was a fictional character of your creation, exactly, but… I did think that a few things were a little bit odd. You were relentless in your pursuit to change me and I obeyed without even thinking about it, really. Either your authorial hold over me is very strong indeed or you simply wrote me without much of a spine. I'm more inclined to believe it's the first option, since I don't seem to be the type who takes orders from other people."

"Except from me."

"Except from you. Still, perhaps it's fitting that I exist solely because of you. They call you 'Kira', derived from the Japanese pronunciation of the English word 'killer', and I am a character derived from the unsolved twenty-five year old newspaper story of a murdered child. Whether I was born that night or indeed only three months ago, it is fair to say that L exists because of Kira. I am here because of you, Light Yagami."

"And what about the murders?" Light asked in a low voice.

"I was getting to that. You managed to divert me from that point some time ago, actually." L gave a quiet little sigh. "I can say for sure that you aren't going to like what I'm about to say, but you recall that I said that your acceptance that you created me was consistent with something?"

Light gave a cautious nod.

"Well," L continued, "your acceptance is an admission that you have the power to make fiction reality. I have no idea how you are able to do it, and I expect that you don't either. Is it the notebook? The pen? Or is it simply you, Kira? Is it purely you that has the ability to change the world with written words?"

"I-I don't—"

"They were rhetorical questions, Light-kun. However, would you agree that that is the case? If you don't accept your power then we'll never get anywhere."

"I…" Light clenched his fists. This really was all just getting too weird; but there seemed to be no other explanation. L wasn't real – and yet he was. "I suppose, for now, I have no other choice but to believe it," he bit out finally.

"Excellent – we have progress. Now, if we agree that you invented me and made me "real", so to speak, then by default it is likely that you are able to make other aspects of your fiction reality too. Light-kun, please do not be offended by what I am going to say, but the thing is… I think that you may in fact be responsible for the copycat murders after all."

The words hit Light like a gut-punch despite the fact that he'd kind of been expecting L to say them. His fists clenched tighter on the bedclothes, almost burning, but he couldn't say anything.

"Not personally, of course," L went on, filling the silence. "But we have to consider that there has been no trace of the murderer at any of the crime scenes – no forensic evidence whatsoever. It's almost like they don't exist. Do you not think it is possible that you could have created the murderer exactly the way that you created me?"

"I…" Light looked down at the bedsheets. The thought of it was almost too horrible to consider – but L had a point. "The murderer of Death Note was called Taro Kagami. You think maybe he…? No. Wait." He looked up at L again sharply. "Kagami used the notebook to kill the politicians – he forced them to commit suicide. The character would never have killed with his bare hands, but that's exactly what's been happening with the copycat murders. The politicians have been murdered and the deaths have been made to look like suicides. If Kagami had been made real like you, then he would only kill if the Death Note had been manifested into reality too. It's not like I remember writing the book, but I gather that much from the character. He was too cowardly to kill with his own hands."

"Very good, Light-kun," L muttered, looking up at the ceiling thoughtfully. "However, that doesn't let you off the hook. I have never been in any of your books. We'll assume that you created me with the intent to write me into one of your future novels, but as it stands, I have never been used. It is possible that the killer is another character which you have imagined but never written."

"There's nothing else in this notebook," Light said sharply.

"That isn't the only notebook you have."

"How do I know you're not the murderer?" Light spat.

L gave a thoughtful nod.

"It is true that I have no alibi," he said. "However, you did not create me to be a murderer. Whether you are responsible for the killings or not, we have reached an agreement that you are responsible for me. It is likely beyond my power to be anything other than what you write me as." He gave a sudden sour smile. "Just try not to be too rough with me when you're playing God."

"This isn't a joke, L," Light said coldly. "If the murderer really is a fictional character who can just disappear into thin air, how the hell are we going to catch them?"

"It certainly does make things trickier," L agreed. "And it's definitely true that some murderers are never caught, real or not." He gestured to the newspaper article as he said it. "However, will you allow me to put forward another theory?"

Light shrugged. He wasn't sure if he really wanted to hear anything else, but on the other hand figured that he didn't have much to lose by listening to L at this point.

"How kind," L said dryly. "Very well, consider this: The alteration in the killer's MO came after I said that an alteration in the killer's MO would help us to catch them. Now perhaps I am jumping to conclusions, but I am almost certain that either you were the one who put those words in my mouth or agreed with them after I'd said them, even if you didn't voice it. This is why I believe that you are responsible for the killer's existence – you seem to have a certain amount of control over them. I, your creation, say that the killer's MO should alter and, lo and behold, the killer's MO alters."

"If I have such a great level of control over them, why the hell did they start killing in the first place?!" Light bit out.

"Because you wrote them that way, I expect." L frowned. "Well, either that, or you wanted them to start killing. I really don't know. Maybe this is simply how you alleviate your boredom, Light-kun."

"I would never—" Light began disgustedly.

"I wasn't done with my earlier point. Don't you think that tonight… was rather a matter of history repeating itself?" L tapped the newspaper article once more. "It was so similar to this that it can't have been a coincidence. That child – Near – even had the same eyes as me. This might just be grasping at straws, but… I think that it is possible that that little boy wasn't real either."

"All of the other victims were real," Light said stiffly. "You heard what Misa said – one of the first to die was one of the politicians who framed her father."

"But none of the others were found with a message in their hand especially for you." L exhaled deeply. "I expect this isn't doing much to ease your guilt, but I honestly don't believe that Near ever existed before he was murdered. Well, at least not outside the pages of one of your notebooks."

"Do you really think that, L?" Light asked sullenly.

"It's a possibility. Just when you think that it sounds crazy, I would remind you that you did invent me."

"If it really is all… No." Light shook his head. "All it means is that you were wrong to say that I shouldn't blame myself. It seems that this is all my fault."

"I apologise. I will, of course, take it back. I am sure that you will agree with my wish, however, that I didn't have to."

"I can never write again," Light said miserably. "If this is what happens…"

"Yes. Perhaps your amnesia is fortunate after all."

"Amnesia…" Light's head snapped up again. "L… what if I brought my memory loss on myself?"

L frowned at him.

"As in… you think that you might have purposefully orchestrated that car crash?"

"It's possible… don't you think?" Light got up, pacing restlessly as he thought. "If I can make fiction reality through what I write, then maybe I wrote that I'd get into an accident that cost me my memory. After all… the only thing I can't remember is writing my books. If I wanted to forget—"

"That does make sense," L interrupted levelly, "but the question is why. Why would you do that? The first murder didn't occur until around two months after your accident, so it's not like you wanted to forget that."

"I-I don't know." Light gave a sigh, stopping. "Maybe… maybe something else I wrote became real and I just didn't want to remember it. It seems very much like I went to great lengths to hide some things from even myself." He nodded towards the notebook on the bedsheets. "That was in my desk drawer, but it was beneath a false bottom rigged to blow up if it wasn't opened in the right way."

"What made you remember?"

"I'm not sure… I woke up after… after we, uh… you know…" Light couldn't meet L's gaze. "And for some reason I could… just remember how to open the drawer."

"Perhaps it was your contact with me," L mused. "That might sound silly, but I am your character. Maybe your intimacy with me reminded you."

"…Maybe."

"I'm not trying to entice you back into bed. It's just a thought."

"I'm sorry," Light sighed. "It's not… it's not your fault. It's just kind of… weird. I'm not gay, but even if I was…" He looked at L desperately. "You're a fictional character that I made up! It's not just that I slept with you, it's this whole thing… I didn't think things like this were even possible, and now…"

"Well, perhaps this is exactly why you wanted to forget your stint as an author in the first place," L said, looking up at the ceiling.

"How can you not be bothered?!" Light burst out. "You don't seem to mind at all that you're not a real person. Aren't you… God, L, aren't you angry at me?"

"Of course not. If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't exist at all." L looked back at him, his black eyes unreadable. "Besides, perhaps you simply did not write me with the capacity to be cast into a downward spiral of self-doubt and agonising confusion at the prospect that I am, in fact, spawned from your imagination. If you think I'm a little bit… 2D, shall we say, then you have no-one to blame but yourself. Still, I suppose it's a little ironic that I kept calling myself a "real detective" when I am, in fact, nothing of the sort."

"Mm." Light met his gaze for a moment, offering him a sad little smile. "I'm sorry."

L shrugged.

"I'm here now, either way."

"I can see that." Light looked over L's shoulder at the alarm clock on the bedside table. It was almost midnight. His gaze followed the slow descent of the second hand around the circular face for a long moment, mostly so that he didn't have to look at L.

And then, as he looked at it, something dawned on him. He reached for his watch; without even looking at it, his fingertips found the dial at the side and he clicked it once, twice…

On the fourth time, the bottom compartment suddenly slid out. He looked down at his watch, aware that L had turned his attention to it as well. There was a tiny scrap of paper secured under the bars of the watch's bottom plate. Light hooked one of his fingernails underneath it and winched it out – on the underside was a single word, written in Light's own neat blue-biro kanji.

Woods.

"Hey," Light said, raising his head. "Get up and get dressed."

"You remember something?" L asked, looking at the tiny scrap of paper himself.

"I'm not sure what," Light replied, "but I know where to look. Come on, get dressed."

"What do you want me to wear, Light-kun?"

Light faltered.

"Wear whatever the hell you want," he bit out finally. "Just do it quickly."

He walked away from the bed, turning his back on L, and went to the window. It was still raining. He looked down at the little piece of paper again – a clue that he'd left for himself.

This was really turning into some kind of sick treasure hunt that his pre-amnesiac self had laid out, it seemed.

Why?

Light didn't know, but there was one thing that L had said that he couldn't get out of his head.

Maybe this is simply how you alleviate your boredom, Light-kun.

"I don't think they're going to find a match."

Matt, cigarette dangling from his mouth, glanced up.

"Come again?" he asked, smoke coiling around his words.

"I said," Mello repeated impatiently, meeting his gaze, "I don't think they're going to find a match."

"For what?"

"For that kid." The blonde averted his attention back to his computer monitor. "Blood, DNA, name… They won't find an ID."

"What makes you say that?" Matt asked cautiously.

"Just a hunch." Mello had begun typing. "There was something really odd about him. Don't you think he kind of looked a little bit like that detective who's always with Yagami? You know – the one that doesn't seem to exist."

"E-even so," Matt started, "that's jumping to conclusions—"

"Perhaps, but… this whole Light Yagami thing is just getting weirder and weirder anyway."

"Mello, I know you don't seem to like him much, but the fact that he had a sort of… almost-breakdown when he saw that child's body—"

"It's not that," Mello snapped. "I can understand that completely. He feels guilty about what his books have caused. No, Matt, it isn't that."

"Then what?"

"Come and look." Mello beckoned the redhead over to his side of the desk. "I just figured I'd do a little more research on him. There's all the usual stuff here, his age and his birthday and his marriage eligibility and all the books he's written and the awards he's won, but…" He tapped the screen as Matt leaned closer. "Take a look at this right here."

"Huh…? 'Was questioned… following the death of Kiyomi Takada, a classmate of his at Tokyo University, in 2005…'." Matt frowned, glancing at Mello. "What, did they think he'd murdered her or something?"

Mello shook his head and clicked to open up a previously-minimised window.

"This is the report written following his questioning – I got it from the NPA database. It's not that they thought he killed her, exactly. He couldn't have – she was hit by a car. However, he was the last person to see her alive. It seems that they were a couple, more or less, and they'd had an argument the night she died. She walked out in a rage. It's likely that she was so busy thinking about their argument that she didn't look when she was crossing the road, resulting in the accident that cost her her life."

"What were they arguing about?"

"There's no detail here. Probably some stupid thing. Still…" Mello glanced sidelong at Matt. "The plot thickens. It happened after he'd written his first book. Two months after her death, he publishes his second. Less than a year later, the third one, Death Note, appears – and four months after that, Yagami is in a car accident himself, losing his memory of being Kira."

"Do think he remembers her?" Matt asked thoughtfully, reaching over Mello to stub out his cigarette.

"I don't know. I don't know if it's even something that matters, but on the other hand… it just adds to the bundle of weird, wouldn't you agree?"

Matt gave a sombre nod, re-reading the information on the screen.

"Well," Mello said, standing and stretching, "sitting around here isn't getting us anywhere, and since they're all still PMSing over that kid's corpse down there, fancy a little roadtrip?"

"To where?" Matt asked suspiciously.

"Over to Yagami's agent's office. I want to talk to that loon in person, see what he really knows about his special little sunflower of a hotshot cash-cow novelist."

"Mello…" Matt looked at him incredulously. "It's practically one in the morning!"

"All the better." Mello gave a wicked grin. "I was totally planning on ransacking his office first."

"Well, I have to say, Light-kun, that this looks very suspicious," L said drolly, following Light through the damp, dark, muddy woodland. "The pair of us wandering in the woods sometime after midnight with a spade."

"Are you blind?" Light snapped, whirling on him and holding up the "spade". "It's a trowel, not a spade! I have no idea what the hell I buried out here, but I recall that I buried it in the first place with this."

"I hope it's not a severed head," L sighed as Light turned away again. "I'm really not in the mood for dealing with a severed head right now."

"That makes two of us," Light bit out.

"Hm?" There was a musical little lilt to the way L elicited the questioning sound. "You know, Light-kun, despite the fact that we both just realised that I am nothing remotely like a real, normal person, you still treat me as one. It's very kind of you."

Light gave a snort.

"I simply treat you as a thinking being," he retorted. "If you must know, I never thought you were normal."

"Well, this is how you wrote me."

There was something of an unspoken "Nyah nyah" in that, but Light ignored him as he stomped on ahead. It wasn't raining anymore, having petered out to a gentle shower by the time they'd emerged from the apartment block and started walking. Light had put on a coat but L hadn't bothered, padding along after Light wearing his clothes again. He didn't seem remotely interested in dressing up like Philip Marlowe anymore, but Light wondered if it really had been L's choice.

After all, he had rather been hoping that L would go for Option 2: Light's Cast-Offs.

He… he didn't know. He just preferred L in jeans and that white shirt. It felt… more normal, somehow; or, at least, didn't make it so glaringly obvious that he was a "real detective". Ha ha.

He knew where he was going. As he'd said to L, he had no idea what they were going to find, but he knew exactly where he'd buried it – as though there had been a map drawn on that tiny scrap of paper hidden inside his watch for all these months. When they reached the looming, jagged shape of what had once been a huge oak, struck down by lightning several years ago, he knew he had to look east to the nearest large tree, around which thick veins of ivy were laced like a cruel corset.

His grip on the trowel's wooden handle tightened and he went to the tree, kneeling in the sodden undergrowth, feeling the mud beginning to seep through his slacks already. It didn't make him feel any warmer – and certainly didn't do anything to comfort him – but he did his best to ignore it, spearing the trowel firmly into the soggy earth and beginning to dig. L was standing right behind him, hands in the pockets of his borrowed jeans, watching him in curious silence.

Light found that he didn't have to dig for very long, for he had given whatever he'd hidden a rather shallow grave. It was something fairly small, rectangular, not very heavy, wrapped in several layers of plastic bag to keep it safe and dry. He unwrapped it quickly, but he already knew that it was another notebook.

It couldn't possibly be anything else.

"Hey, Kira," he heard L say as he got the last layer of plastic off and held the bare notebook (it was very cold). "What do you think about two people sharing one identity?"

Only it wasn't L that had said it. Clutching the notebook, wide-eyed, Light knew that without even turning around. When he did look, however, he found himself following L's gaze to a space several metres away between two gnarled, dying oaks.

He didn't like to say that it was another L, because he knew (better than anyone) that that wasn't the case. However… there really wasn't any other way of putting it either. The being before them had the same tired white skin and dark eyes and dishevelled raven hair—

And wore loose faded jeans and a too-big long-sleeved white top.

"You know," this strange new L went on, grinning. "Maybe two writers under one pen-name, like Ellery Queen. Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee, isn't that right, Kira? You know all about that, of course. You know all the classics, all the tricks of the trade. You do your research – that's why you're such a good author. You come up with great plots and great dialogue and great characters…" He tilted his head the way L did. "Only sometimes you come up with good characters and then you come up with better characters and… Well, it really is just too sad to go into, but I'm sure you know what I mean."

He glanced lazily at L, who was completely speechless on observing this sudden grotesque facsimile, and then looked very firmly back at Light.

"Did you tell him, Kira?" he asked in a childish, sing-song voice.

"Wh… That… Th-that you're… near?" Light managed to get out, clutching tighter still at the unearthed notebook.

The double nodded, looking at L again.

"I guess you didn't," he said. "He seems very shocked. Are you surprised to see me, L – or didn't you even know I existed?"

Still saying nothing at all, L turned his gaze on Light; but the brunette had his own eyes firmly fixed on the other version of him.

"No, I didn't tell him, because it's not the truth," Light said icily. "You're not Near. You're B."

"Well," Mello said eventually.

"Well what?" Matt asked faintly as they both stood at the open door of Teru Mikami's office.

The agent himself was slumped face-down over his own desk with a hunting knife sticking out of his back at a perfect ninety-degree angle. There was blood all over him and the desk and the floor.

"Well," Mello repeated grouchily, "I think this could have gone better."

To anyone who predicted that B might have something to do with all this (and some of you did): Oh dear, am I that predictable? :)

Well, look at that – Light is apparently Haruhi Suzumiya. Actually, that would be a really interesting showdown, wouldn't it? The God of the New World (Light) vs The God of the Current World (Haruhi).

Heh heh, I think my money would be on Haruhi. She would kick Light's ass.

Ironically, the poll on my profile at the moment poses the question of who you think would win in a showdown between Light and Lelouch Lamperouge from Code Geass. Lelouch was in the lead for a while but then Light overtook him and was winning by quite a lot for ages but I just checked it and it seems that Lelouch is somehow beating him once again. Personally I think Light would be able outsmart Lelouch. They are quite similar, but Lelouch almost lands himself in it quite a few times. Light is a little more careful – I think L would have caught Lelouch like… immediately. :P

On the subject of Code Geass… this chapter actually doesn't have any characters named after Code Geass voice-actors. However, you may recognise the name of the murderer in Light's book, Death Note; Taro Kagami is the name of the protagonist of the original Death Note pilot reprinted in How To Read 13. Ah, the real character is actually quite nice, I don't think he would have killed any politicians, Death Note or not, but… meh. I wanted to work him in somewhere.

As for Takada… kyah ha ha, this is the first time I have ever actually "used" her in one of my fics. She gets to be a has-been corpse because I hate her. She is like the only DN character that I actually really do hate. She's such a bitch. Misa should have slapped her, totally.

This fic is also the first time I have used Mikami, and unfortunately he had to die. :( Oh well, at least he got to be in it more than Takada.

Anyway… this fic will probably have two more chapters (I think) to wrap everything up, so hope to see you next time! Thanks for reading!

RR xXx