Sorry for the two-week-and-a-half wait. I enjoyed writing this chapter. Fate and Destiny are my OCs, by the way. Hope you have fun reading. :)

Chapter Three

Alteration

He was always an impatient one- Fate. His sister, Destiny, was in charge of restraining him from making rash decisions involving the time and space continuum and affecting the world in gigantic ways.

Well, basically, Destiny had, once again, failed to stop Fate from doing something utterly stupid. This time, he had discovered some sort of Japanese book about death and got so obsessed with it that he sort of made it real.

Destiny sighed. "Damn it, Fate. Stop kidding around. Now, tell me what you really did do!"

"I'm not kidding, onee-chan, I-"

"Will you stop attempting to speak Japanese in freakishly adorable voices? Now explain properly!"

Fate laughed. "Okay, so it all started when I got bored one day and went searching for something to fanboy on, and then-"

"YOU WENT ON A SEARCH TO FANBOY ON SOMETHING?"

"Come on, Des, the world gets boring sometimes," Fate answered easily.

Destiny scoffed. "Think, you bastard. The last time you fanboyed on something, you altered the future and almost started World War III."

Her brother ignored the last comment. She tried not to hit him and glared at him to go on, wanting to get it all over with. Fate cheekily grinned, adjusting his black cloak. "I transported a random otaku girl's manga into the story of the manga itself."

Destiny growled, "LIAR! You told me that what you did had nothing to do with clashing the real world with one of the fictional worlds!"

"Well, I just wondered what would happen if L and his successors had the upper hand on Light Yagami by getting the manga volumes containing their futures. Don't forget, Des, some of the fictional worlds I altered ended up as hits! Like Titanic. People loved it when the two lead characters kissed; I saw ladies crying their hearts out next to me in the movie house! And Harry Potter. Come on, Des, we both know that J.K. Rowling initially planned for Voldemort to win, and that my changing of Harry's future made lots of fans love it," Fate countered.

"Hey! Everyone thought the seventh book epilogue was crap!" Destiny retorted haughtily, "Look at Twilight. I still don't understand why you made Bella and Edward have a vampire child."

Fate pouted. "Hunger Games! Supernatural! The Walking Dead! Sherlock Holmes! The Big Bang Theory! Axis Powers Hetalia! Chronicles of Narnia! Fullmetal Alchemist! Vampire Diaries! Naruto! Bleach! Kuroshitsuji! Lord of the Rings! Hell, even Spongebob Squarepants! Admit it, Des. I have more successes than failures."

"Idiot! About eighty-eight percent of the fictional worlds you altered ended terribly," Destiny said, rolling her startling, bright-red eyes and twirling her long, black hair, "Death Note is one of the top ten best anime/manga ever, as online polls have reported. You might destroy it into ranking bottom of the list."

"We'll see about that, Destiny. This will be a victory for L," Fate whispered softly, turning and disappearing into the mist.

Destiny sighed again. "Stupid otaku. No matter how brilliant L seems to be as a character, I still think your fiction-meddling won't make Death Note better than it is..."

"Watari."

Watari turned to find L standing casually behind him. "Yes? What may I do for you, Ryuzaki?"

"We're going on a search."

The older man did not reply for a while as he gazed questioningly at the man whom he looked to as a son. "A search, Ryuzaki? For what?"

L continued sucking his thumb and slouched, pacing around the room. He seemed uncertain of what he was about to ask for and frankly, Watari always knew that wasn't a good sign- either L is doubting the success of his following actions, or he has no idea whether or not something is possible.

"Ryuzaki, you-"

"Did you read the manga I told you to read?"

"Yes," answered Watari quietly.

"I have suspicions that Light Yagami hid his Death Note, therefore discarding all memories of being Kira," L stated briskly. He looked up, revealing his dark, calculating, and` perceptive eyes behind the black, messy hair. "He instructed a Shinigami, either Ryuk or Rem, to get him in contact with the notebook after his release- eighty-four point seven percent chance that it's through another person."

"I see," Watari said pensively, nodding. Obviously, L's been thinking of this theory for a long time. "And this is related to the search... how?"

L looked down. "We have to look for the Death Note before Light comes in contact with it."

"But Ryuzaki-"

"I know. There are several places in Japan where Light could hide a notebook; I expected some doubt-"

"Ryuzaki!"

L looked up again. Watari sighed. "I don't doubt your decisions. You're L and I'm Watari. I trust your choices. Besides, I don't blame you for deciding to have this search. It is much better than nothing. I will see what I can do."

"I... I'm glad you understand, Watari," L mumbled so softly that it was almost unheard.

The older man smiled. "Of course I understand. Anyway, what worries me is that there are two Death Notes- Light's and Misa's. Even if we find one, what are the odds of us finding the other?"

"There's a twenty-two point three percent chance we'll find both. There's a sixty-one point five percent chance we'll find only one. There's a seventeen point two percent chance we won't find any of them at all..." L replied, "Also, I believe that Light's Death Note is currently hidden in a place and Misa's Death Note is with a person- a third Kira."

"That sounds plausible. When do we start?"

"Tomorrow. We shall waste no time," L said hastily, "If we find the hidden Death Note, we can study it and give back Light his memories only when we have enough evidence. Then, Kira can be brought to justice. As for Misa Amane and the anonymous third Kira, we'll have to wait and see our search unfold first..."

Watari solemnly nodded. "Understood. I will search through the whole Kanto region of Japan by all means possible."

"Good. There's a ninety-one point five percent chance he's hidden one of the two Death Notes in a place full of trees or an empty building. Prioritize places matching those descriptions first," L added calmly. "Please, do everything you can to find at least one of the Death Notes, Watari."

"Yes..."

L opened the door and walked a few steps when he cried back softly, "Ah, please bring me some cake as well."

And he left.

Near frowned as Mello grinned triumphantly for getting the window seat, once again acting like everything between them was a competition. They were currently in the airplane on the way to Japan.

"What are you looking at, jerk?" Mello sneered, narrowing his blue eyes.

"I wasn't looking at you. I was looking at the sky outside," Near corrected flatly.

Mello grumbled as he kept quiet, retrieving a chocolate bar from his pocket and eating instead. The flight attendant was extremely pretty and he decided to stare at her for a while in order to distract himself from the unnerving albino seated next to him.

Near continued twirling a white strand of his hair and thinking of the possibilities and challenges that awaited them in Japan. What they were doing was bold and dangerous but that wasn't going to stop them. His thoughts then drifted to L. He wondered what the world's greatest detective was doing at the moment and silently decided that he was currently handcuffed to Light Yagami, or Kira.

"Hey Near," said Mello softly.

"What?"

"I still think we should have brought Matt with us," the blond said quietly, "He deserved to know, and he's third in line to be L's successor so-"

Near interrupted in his usual, monotone voice, "We've already talked about this. I thought we agreed that his help would be of assistance if things were to get worse. The lesser we are, the lesser attention we attract. Besides, we wouldn't want another person's safety being risked here."

"Yeah, I guess so," Mello sighed. He then glared at Near. "I still feel bad about keeping him in the dark, though."

"You can explain it all to him as soon as we get to Japan."

Mello nodded. "Right." He took another bite and chewed for five minutes, swallowing soon after. Then, he spoke again. "Another thing."

"What?" Near asked.

"How do you think will we conduct the search for L?"

"I still haven't thought about that part yet," the younger boy confessed truthfully, frowning, "But I'm sure that it will be difficult."

"Oh no, of course it won't! We're going to find a person who specializes in not being found, remember? What a piece of cake," Mello said sarcastically.

Near didn't say anything anymore, continuing his deep pondering on the situation. The older boy made him realize that a search for L was bordering on ridiculous. But it will have to do, or else he will die and Kira will be at large. Challenging, yes. Impossible, no.

The two sat in an uncomfortable, awkward silence for several, long minutes. An old man was snoring loudly. A woman in headphones hummed along to a catchy, upbeat song in her ipod. Two teens were gossiping about the latest news on their favorite actor. A group of businessmen quietly discussed the market share of a famous company. Three kids were playing around somewhere at the front seats while an older teenager was trying to restrain them.

Several arguments later, the older blond boy fell asleep, face pressed against the window and half-eaten chocolate bar lying abandoned on his lap. He was tired. Near smiled slightly, relieved, as he enjoyed the first few moments of silence since they left Wammy's House.

"It's another draw!" Matsuda exclaimed excitedly.

Both L and Light looked at him with annoyed looks on their faces, which made him back off sheepishly.

Light stood up. "You know, Ryuzaki, we can play chess some other time. It's obvious that all our games will end up as draws as well, like they always do, and it'll be fruitless just sitting here, wasting time, if we can find something about Kira anyway."

"I suppose so," L replied monotonously, standing up and following Light towards the computers. "I have a feeling we won't be able to find anything, though."

"Oh, don't be so negative. I'm sure that in the depths of my soul, I'm actually Kira."

L stared.

"I was being sarcastic, Ryuzaki."

The two geniuses then took their respectives seats beside each other in front of the computers, working on different files. Mogi and Aizawa helped out in researching about further details while Soichiro assisted in finding information. Matsuda was in charge of bringing them coffee.

That was how things were in the task force.

But secretly, L was holding his own investigation. He frequently observed Light, not letting him out of his sight whenever he could, but leaving him whenever he had other duties to attend to. Watari was holding the search quite well, but after a month, there were still no findings on any Death Note at all.

L was starting to be pessimistic about things. He was starting to consider the possibility that Light hid the Death Note so well that nobody would ever be able to retrieve it, not even under Watari's searches. However, he knew that there was no backing down, not until the true Kira could suffer under the punishments of justice.

Meanwhile, Light was doubting his innocence, wondering if he really was as capable of being Kira as L thought he was.

I love writing about Near's and L's thoughts. They're both really awesome geniuses, you know. Anyway, I'm not sure if anyone cares or is reading this stuff, so I'll just politely ask for reviews. Buh-bye! :)