The yellow warehouse was a dark, dusty place. Sparse shafts of sunlight filtered through steel rafters, highlighting dust motes as they fell upon the nine Task Force members. The only sound that could be heard was the creaking rotations of an industrial fan overhead.

It had been exactly fifteen minutes.

L stood in the center of the group, hands stuffed in his pockets, waiting. Jubilee stood on his left, with Wedy, Aiber, and Mello spread out behind her. Light stood to L's right, the reinstated police officers lined up beside him. None of them spoke.

Matsuda finally broke the silence. "It's past the appointed time," he whispered. "Where is Kira?"

"More likely than not, he's already here," answered L, not bothering to lower his voice.

"Huh?!" Matsuda's hand flew to his holstered gun in alarm.

"Stand down," ordered L calmly. "We have to wait for him to make the first move."

Jubilee nervously eyed their surroundings. It's gonna be okay, she told herself, taking a shaky breath. The plan will work. We'll prove that Light's Kira, and we'll all get out of this alive. We're gonna be okay.

She was acutely aware of the shinigami hovering by Light's side, a look of gleeful anticipation on its face that made goosebumps prickle her skin. No doubt L was aware of the demon too, if the cold blue fear pulsing faintly from him were any indication. Nonetheless, he maintained an impressively steady poker face and didn't make any eye contact with her, much to her chagrin.

To her right, Light visibly glowed with a confidence that unnerved her. Shades of bronzed yellow—which were so like his former aura, yet now sullied with a sickening, darker tinge—rolled off of him in waves. Jubilee gulped, a queasy mixture of fear and mournfulness coiling in her stomach. The old Light was gone...and this one could not be treated like the old one.

She clenched her fists with renewed determination. You haven't achieved checkmate yet, Light. Just because he thought he'd win didn't mean that he actually would.

Hellenos gave her a slight nod when she glanced at him for assurance. Pride cometh before a fall,he agreed, but said nothing more.

The ember of another soul entered her awareness. Beside her Hellenos grew faint, as a sinister Cheshire Cat like grin flitted through her mind's eye. Mikami. She jolted, turning for the door where she felt the man's presence.

"Don't move," said L sharply, freezing her in her tracks.

"But—!"

He brought a finger to his lips. "Not yet," he said, more gently this time. "Keep calm."

Her lips flattened into a thin line but she obeyed, even while trembling all over. Keep calm, he says. Keep calm, and don't die.

Easier said than done.

Light glanced over at her where she stood shaking like a leaf, but he said nothing, wearing an almost imperceptible smirk. He knows Mikami's here, she thought grimly.

"Miss Julie?" Matsuda looked confusedly between her and L. "Did something just happen?"

"Keep your voice down, Matsuda," said L, his own voice low. "To answer your question...the hand of Kira has just arrived, and he is about to write our names down in his notebook to kill us all. Please remain calm and do not let on that you are aware of the fact."

Matsuda flinched violently but, to his credit, restrained himself from a loud outburst. "W-what?" he squeaked.

"Ryuzaki," growled Aizawa, whose shoulders had tensed with the effort to keep from turning around. "You expect us to just do nothing and be killed?"

"Shut up, all of you," snapped Mello's voice from behind them. "And don't turn around. Trust the plan."

"What plan?" hissed Mogi.

Sweat trickled down Jubilee's forehead. Hellenos was no longer visible, and she could distinctly feel a sense of murderous delight coming from beyond the door. Mikami must've started writing down their names already. Closing her eyes, she forced herself to slowly count down.

In less than forty seconds, they would know whether or not the notebook was real.

Delete. Delete. Delete. Mikami's thoughts drifted into her mind in an eerie chant, growing in fervor with each name he wrote. Jubilee's breathing stuttered and she missed a number.

"Be at ease," L was saying quietly to the Task Force. "The notebook which Mikami Teru is writing into is a fake. I had Wedy construct an imitation Death Note and switch it with the real thing." The police officers looked at him in bewildered silence, and he continued, "As I said, I suspect that Kira is already here among us. In forty seconds—if none of us die—we shall apprehend Mikami and his notebook. Whoever's name is missing from among the ones he wrote down...is Kira."

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Aizawa sputtered, barely keeping his voice down, "If none of us die?!"

"Ryuzaki..." Matsuda faltered. His gaze swept over the members present, stalling on Mello for a second, before landing on Light with realization. "You don't still suspect—"

God! Mikami's thoughts sliced sharply through Jubilee's consciousness like a knife. She jumped, losing count at number ten.

Light...Yagami... the man's voice continued slowly with awe-filled revelation, as though reading the name off of a page for the very first time. You...are God.

The man had arrived at Light's name—and somehow recognized him as Kira.

Nervously, Jubilee glanced over at Light—and froze when she saw the look of sheer jubilation on his face. L's pronouncement of their plan hadn't fazed him one bit.

He knew. He had predicted their move all along.

Which meant that he must've planned a way to kill her as well.

It is finished, she heard Mikami think, and knew that he had stopped writing. Five... he started counting where Jubilee had left off. Four...

She felt sick. They were all about to die.

Three...two...

A final, desperate longing filled Jubilee. She looked over at L, willing him to return her gaze, but he didn't notice.

One.

"I win, L," announced Light softly. "And this time, you're staying dead."

Hopeless dread gripped Jubilee and she instinctively squeezed her eyes shut. She didn't want to watch L and everyone around her die.

There was a long moment of silence, filled only by the sound of terrified breathing. No gasps induced by cardiac arrest. No sounds of anyone falling to the ground.

Jubilee slowly cracked one eye open. Nobody was dead.

And everybody was staring at Light.

Shocked relief made her almost fall to her knees. Their plan...had worked?

God... she heard Mikami's thoughts churning, anxious and confused. Why—?

"Aizawa, Matsuda, Mogi." L's voice snapped everyone to attention. "Arrest Mikami Teru. Now."

The three men leapt into action. In seconds they dragged Mikami in from behind the door and forced him to his knees. Matsuda handcuffed him from behind and Mogi pointed his gun at Mikami's head, as Aizawa retrieved the black notebook and brought it over to L.

The detective accepted the book with a nod, then promptly flipped to the last page written on. Turning it to face Aizawa, he said, "Would you do the honors, Aizawa?"

Aizawa's eyes widened, then traveled down the contents of the page. Swallowing, he began to read aloud. "Merrie Kenwood."

"Present," said Wedy.

Aizawa looked unsettled, before continuing, "Tierry Morrello."

"Hiya," came Aiber's voice.

"Mihael Keehl," Aizawa went on.

Mello cleared his throat and raised a hand.

Aizawa continued down the list, reading Mogi's and Matsuda's names, to which they both responded, and then his own name, before he paused, his brow furrowing. Reading ahead to himself silently, he grew pale.

"L...Lawliet—" he began, pronouncing the last name Law-lee-eht.

L lifted two fingers in a small salute, not correcting the other man's pronunciation.

"Strangles to death every remaining female in the vicinity," Aizawa continued to read, in a choked voice, with a pained glance in Jubilee's direction. "Before...setting fire to himself, and the building he is in." Finished, he closed his eyes and took a shuddering breath.

The space grew deathly silent.

Jubilee's thoughts came to a standstill, paralyzed by shock. Did...did Light actually tell Mikami to write that about me...and about L? She was too stunned to even feel angry. Dimly she was aware that L was still as stone, the blue around him suddenly, violently flaring up into a furious red.

Finally, he spoke. "And?" he said coldly, addressing Aizawa.

Aizawa didn't open his eyes. "That's it," he said quietly.

Slowly, everyone in the room turned back to Light. His eyes were wide, and he stared back at all of them like a deer in headlights. Beside him, Ryuk cocked his head, silently observing them all.

Jubilee couldn't breathe. They had him. They had finally proven that Light was Kira.

And now that they had him...she didn't know how to feel, or what to do. Should she be happy? Should she gloat? Relief and unexpected grief warred within her as she watched Light with baited breath, waiting to see his reaction.

It was Mikami's voice that finally cut through the tension. "God!" he cried, looking desperately at Light and shuffling towards him on his knees. "I—I did everything you asked me to! I wrote everything exactly as you instructed. I don't know how—"

"Shut up," Light seethed, whirling on the man. "Do not speak to me, you—you psychotic freak, you disgusting excuse for a human being. I don't know you. I've never spoken with you in my entire life."

Mikami stared, open-mouthed, looking like his whole world was just crushed.

Light ignored his devastated expression and spun back to face the others, jabbing a finger at the man on the floor. "He's setting me up," Light babbled on. "Kira must've put him up to this. I'm being framed. I—" Above his head, a thick black line snapped over and over again.

"Light," said Aizawa quietly. "We all heard your confession."

Light shut up. He stared at Aizawa, then at everyone else, before his gaze finally landed on L. The black haze around Light swirled and churned, licks of blue and orange rolling through its inky depths like tendrils of flame.

"That—that was—" he stuttered. "No! This...can't be right..." His eyes were desperate as he watched L—demanding for the other man to speak so that he wouldn't have to, or for an explanation, or both.

L obliged, stepping forward. "I see you predicted some of our moves, Light," the detective said. "But not all of them." He pulled something out from underneath his shirt—the real Death Note, which Wedy had swiped from Mikami's safety deposit box and which L had strapped to himself before leaving headquarters. "This is the real notebook. As you anticipated, we did switch out the one in Mikami's gym locker, thinking it was the real thing at the time. But, due to the incident with Takada, we noticed Mikami straying from his normal schedule to make use of the actual notebook in his safe deposit box. So, we replaced that one with a fake as well, and this—" He held up the book, "Is the Death Note that was confiscated from the safe. Which means—" His eyes traveled to the demon by Light's side. "That I have been able to see that shinigami this entire time.”

Light’s eyes bulged with disbelief. In the silence that followed, L turned to the demon and stuck his hands in his pockets, leaning back on his heels to assess the dark being.

“So,” he said. “Ryuk, is it?”