A Year of Jubilee [The Death Note Fanfic]

Chapter 11

Jubilee was in a foul mood. Beside her, at the long desk in the main room of headquarters, L was flipping through that stupid book with unfailing interest, cross-referencing everything that he found with her every other minute. Light, still handcuffed to the detective, had his head down in the crook of his arm on the desk, sound asleep. It was approaching midnight.

"It says here," L began, in exactly the same way he had the last twelve times, "That children have angels who 'always behold the face of the Father which is in heaven'. I assume that an angel stays with a child all throughout his or her life, even after reaching maturity, since that appears to have been the case with you. But, if your guardian angel is always with you as you claim yours says he has been, but he is also always with 'the Father which is in heaven'...then, since you are a physical being in a physical location on earth, and since something cannot simultaneously be in two different physical locations at once, it must stand to reason that 'heaven' is not a physical location. Would you agree?"

Jubilee was singularly unwilling to share L's interest. "I guess," she muttered, arms crossed over her chest as she slumped low in her swivel chair. "How should I know?"

L glanced up at her sharply. "Because you claim to have been there."

"That doesn't mean I can write a whole textbook about it!"

"Your ambivalence on the matter does you a disservice, Miss Amachi," he said, sounding stern. "Remember, you are technically still under suspicion for lying about your background."

Jubilee threw her arms in the air. "What? All I said was 'I guess.' That's the truth!" Vaguely she wondered if her arm might have gone through Hellenos just now. She couldn't see him at the moment, probably because she was severely cranky both from fatigue and L's pestering, but there seemed to be a faint shimmer in the air beside her. Taking a deep breath to try and calm her temper, she continued, "I couldn't possibly have understood the ins and outs of everything that was happening to me at the time. It was like nothing I've ever experienced before."

L thumbed the side of his mouth and leaned in close to Jubilee's face, inspecting her with intense scrutiny. "Tell me what it was like."

With great effort Jubilee refrained from flinching at his proximity. She had gotten somewhat used to this sort of behavior in the last couple weeks, and knew that it would do her no good to lean away because he'd only follow her like a magnet. "I already did," she said, almost reprovingly, but then sighed and acquiesced, "It was like...like I was nowhere, and everywhere at once. Here, there, nowhere, and everywhere. Like I'd been removed from the world yet could just as easily see any part of it as clearly as if I were there...if I had any desire to. Which," she added with sudden realization, "I didn't at all."

"Hmmmm." L nodded as if in confirmation, then sat back in his own seat. "As one might expect of a nonphysical dimension. Now," he continued without missing a beat, "It says here..." Jubilee resisted the urge to roll her eyes at hearing the phrase repeated yet again, but L didn't pay her any mind as he rapidly and precisely flipped through the book to land on a page which he jabbed with one long, pale finger, "That we fight 'not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.' Some basic research has helped me uncover the fact that 'principalities' and 'powers' may refer to certain high ranks within the demon hierarchy...which, according to your descriptions, the being that you saw accompanying Light may be categorized under. So, does that mean that these darker beings are 'in high places' even while they are on earth, in the same way that angels are 'in heaven' even while they are on earth—that they are, in fact, simultaneously in two dimensions at once? And what does 'high places' refer to? Something higher than the earthly plane but lower than the heavenly one?" Finishing his lengthy speech, he fixed his eyes on Jubilee in expectation.