A Year of Jubilee [The Death Note Fanfic]

Chapter 33

The main room at task force headquarters was deathly silent, even though it was filled with more people than it had been for many months. Everyone on the team was gathered there, barring Misa, who could be seen over surveillance on the large monitor, so it was practically as though she were there too. In addition, Aizawa was back.

And there was the demon.

Rem, she had called herself. She hadn't said much else, other than explaining that she would come along to keep an eye on the notebook. Everyone had been shocked to hear her speak, and even more so to see her follow them. She had ridden back to headquarters in a car with Mogi and Aiber. Jubilee couldn't begin to imagine what that experience must have been like.

At the moment she was sitting back at her desk, silent like the rest of them. She was still reeling from the shock of everything she had seen and felt, and hadn't said a word since emptying the contents of her stomach back at the scene of Higuchi's death. On one side of her stood Hellenos, a faint and quiet shimmer that kept wavering in and out of her sight; and on her other side, L and Light sat at their respective spots along the desk.

Light was typing away diligently at his computer, continuing to cross reference names. Jubilee clenched her teeth as she felt the dark, ominous haze continue to hover over him like a storm cloud. She wanted to scream, to get up and shake him and somehow bring him back to his senses, back to the Light that she had known. But she held her tongue. What could she do or say that wouldn't immediately incriminate him? Was she willing or ready to do that to him, to someone who had been her friend?

In any case, L was sure to bring it up sooner or later. Jubilee nervously waited for the moment that he would. For the time being the detective simply stared off into space, lost in thought, drinking a coffee and distractedly stacking his discarded containers of creamer into a wobbly tower. Apparently this was the kind of thing that he did when he was stressed.

Everyone else was gathered around the large table towards the back of the room, the surface of which was littered with notes, graphs, and photos from the investigation. Rem stood a little ways off , watching them and making everyone feel uneasy. Aizawa stood at the head of the table, the black notebook open in his hands. On the front cover were the words, Death Note, etched in white.

"Rules for use," Aizawl read aloud from off of the inside cover. "The human whose name is written in this notebook—" He sucked in a breath at what he saw, before continuing, "Shall die."

There was a beat of silence as everyone processed this pronouncement. Even after all the evidence that had been stated and given—and, for Jubilee, all the glimpses she had seen through dreams and visions—it was still difficult to grasp the notion that this simple black book was truly how Kira killed.

Aizawa continued reading, slowly, "This note will not take effect unless the writer has the person's face in their mind when writing his or her name. Therefore, people sharing the same name will not be affected. If the cause of death is written within forty seconds of writing the person's name, it will happen. If the cause of death is not specified, the person will simply die of a heart attack. After writing the cause of death, details of the death should be written in the next six minutes and forty seconds." Aizawa paused for a moment, then flipped to the back cover. "Additionally, on the back cover, it says...If you make this note unusable by tearing it up or burning it—all the humans who have touched the notebook until then will die."

Matsuda gave a startled cry at this. "What? Is that true, Aizawa?"

Aizawa failed to give Matsuda the usual glare he would've shot him at being interrupted. "Yeah," he said grimly. "That's what's written."