A/N: I have returned to this story to edit some stuff, and I have realized some stuff. 1. Matsuda said he was too scared to burn the book himself. Therefore, I have to rewrite part of this but am currently thinking of how to do that, so I'll come back to it eventually lol. 2. Your legal name is whatever your name seen with the Shinigami eyes is. But I guess Patience doesn't know that? Sooooo... I'm gonna take her lack of knowledge on the Death Note to my advantage? Isn't it fun when you see years of work go down the drain? Hahahaha! *cries*

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Patience

It was impossible. No, but it was true, wasn't it? Mikami had the eyes of a Shinigami. He could see a person's real name. It had unnerved me when Ryuk called me Piper, but I'd figured that it must have meant that my first name was the same; just my first name. My real name, the name I'd been searching for, was the name I had grown up with all my life.

What the hell does this mean? I thought frantically, my mind racing a mile a minute.

Was I really a Safe Haven baby? Had my birth mother not even bothered naming me, so my "true name" was my adopted name by default? But Jessica had said that she and my adoptive mother knew the truth about my birth mother.

Did that mean Annabelle Riddle had been my birth mother? That was the only explanation I could think of. I'd been searching for my birth mother for years, and it turned out that she might have been right in front of me all along.

"Ryuk," said Near, shifting the subject, "the thirteen-day rule and the rule about everyone that has touched the Death Note dying if the notebook is destroyed... are they real?"

"Nah," said Ryuk, "I just made that up so Light would give me some apples."

"Good," said Near, "so then we can destroy these murder weapons here, once and for all."

"With what?" Aizawa said, barely managing to keep up with Near. A part of him was still stuck in that moment.

I looked up from the fake notebook and silently took out the lighter I'd stolen from Birdie's backpack when she had been hanging around Misa.

"Here," I said plainly, holding up the lighter for all to see.

"What about Amane-san?" Allison inquired. "What's going to happen with her? Will she be arrested?"

"Yagami Light called out for Amane, which suggests that she was involved," I stated, forcing myself to forget about my own problems for a moment in order to deal with the matter at hand. "Knowing that, she is almost definitely the Second Kira and the one who killed May. ...But when she was talking about May's death, she seemed genuinely upset and ignorant of the circumstances."

"Ah, well, that's because Misa doesn't remember," said Ryuk.

"What?" Ide said in confusion.

"Oops," said Ryuk. "I didn't say anything. ...Unless. I guess I could tell you more, assuming I'll get some apples in return."

"Apples?" Near said. "Just apples?"

"Just apples!" Ryuk scoffed. "Apples from the Human World are delicious! There's nothing like it back in our world."

"Very well," said Near. "If you tell us what we need to know, we'll be sure to get you as many apples as you can carry back with you."

Ryuk laughed in delight at this, licking his lips at the mere thought of it. "Alright. You see, if you own a Death Note and then forfeit ownership, you lose all your memories of it. The only way to get those memories back is to touch the Death Note you once owned, but that's only temporary. To get those memories back permanently, you have to regain ownership."

"Could that include killing the former owner?" Near inquired.

"Yep," Ryuk confirmed.

"So Misa doesn't remember," Aizawa said.

"I say we let her remain ignorant," Near suggested. "She's likely no longer a threat. Seeing as she was so infatuated with Yagami Light, it's very likely that she was only helping because it's what he wanted."

"I agree," Aizawa said after a moment.

"Isn't Amane an orphan?" I pointed out. "She saw her parents die. If Light's the only one she had left, there's no way she'll take his death well. She could have an emotional breakdown, and there's no telling how that will end."

"We can tell her that Light's out on business," Aizawa offered up. "We can probably get away with it for a few years at most."

"That might give her time to get over him," I said. "Hopefully."

"Then Misa really was the second Kira," Ide said.

"Which means she possesses the Shinigami eyes," Near added.

"Possessed," Ryuk corrected Near. "When you give up the notebook, you lose the eyes. Misa made the deal twice."

"Then it's only a matter of time before," Allison trailed off.

"Nah, she should be fine," Ryuk said.

"What do you mean? How?" Aizawa said.

"Shinigami kill humans to take their remaining life span for ourselves," Ryuk explained. "It's how we stay alive. Misa traded half of her life span twice, but she also gained life. When a Shinigami kills a human in order to save the life of another human, that Shinigami dies, and the human gains their remaining life. Misa gained life from one Shinigami, traded half her lifespan, gave up the notebook, regained it, traded half her life span and then gained life from Rem."

"Rem?" said Ide. "Then that means..."

"After Higuchi died, Misa was released," Aizawa recalled. "Soon after, criminals started dying. Ryuzaki must have suspected Misa and was going to convict her. That means Rem killed Ryuzaki and Watari... to protect Misa?"

"Rem and Gelus were weird like that," Ryuk said. "They both had soft spots for Misa. Or maybe Misa's just weird like that, since she was able to make two Shinigami care for her without even trying." He laughed.

"Then Misa can live a relatively normal life," I concluded. "Assuming that she gets over Light. If she finds out before then, the consequences could be... hazardous."

Matsuda stormed up towards me, surprising us all.

"Matsuda, what are you doing?" Ide shouted, worried that Matsuda was going to hurt me for what I had said. He was about to run after him, but Matsuda got to me before Ide could. He didn't lay a finger on me, though. Instead, he picked up the notebook off the ground and snatched the lighter from my hand. He flicked on the lighter and put its flame to the Death Note, burning it. No one made any objections as he dropped the flaming notebook onto the ground.

"Aizawa," he said, holding out his hand. Aizawa stood still for a moment before nodding. He walked to Matsuda; Aizawa stood still for a moment before throwing his scrap into the fire. Then he handed Matsuda the notebook, and Matsuda did the same thing with it that he had done with the first. He even grabbed the fake notebook, wanting to burn it, too, if just to let the painful memories die with it.

"And the Yagami family?" Near inquired.

"Near, if you don't mind, we would like to handle that matter ourselves," said Aizawa. "We'll be sure not to tell them about the notebook, but they need to know that Light's gone. I'll tell them what we agreed on about Misa."

"Very well," said Near, grabbing his mask of L and throwing it into the flames.

Allison

Everyone had stayed inside to talk over the remaining details except for Matsuda. Though Patience advised me not to, I went outside in the direction I'd seen him head.

"Matsuda Touta-san, right?"

He jumped at the sudden sound of my voice. He turned to look at me and calmed down, eventually nodding and saying, "Yes."

"My name is Allison," I said with a polite bow.

Matsuda seemed slightly taken aback by the gesture. The SPK had probably seemed like the enemy from his point of view, at least for a time. That and my voice; just like Mogi had been pleasantly surprised by my speech.

"H-hello," he stammered. He looked me up and down, and then asked, "How old are you, anyway?" His eyes widened when he realized what he'd just asked.

Before he could apologize, I smiled, confusing him. "I'm nineteen," I said. "A year older than Near and Patience."

"You're all so young," he breathed. "Eighteen, nineteen. Kira... Light started killing when he was just seventeen.
"That little girl Aizawa and Mogi were talking about... was she really staying with you because she was in danger from her father?"

I shook my head, not seeing the harm in telling him the truth. "Birdie is like us; she's from Wammy's."

"You're all kids!" he said. "You're not supposed to be doing this! You're not supposed to be taking on the world, trying to fix things. You're supposed to be kids."

"Like Light's little sister?" I asked. He seemed taken aback by the question, though I'm not quite sure why. "Yagami Sayu-san is a normal girl, and she's lucky for that. People like myself, Near, Patience and even Birdie are not normal. We're 'gifted', and because we have those gifts, we're expected to use them to help change the world for the better at a young age. There can only be one L, but even those who don't become L generally go on to do jobs that help benefit mankind at a young age. Even if it's not in the typical way of saving lives or fighting crime, we try and change things for the better in whatever way we see fit. We all learn about L and what he does, so many of us feel compelled to make a difference, too." That's when I realized what he had meant. "I suppose Light felt the same way."

"The Wammy's House, right?" I nodded in reply. "They shouldn't be putting that pressure on you. A kid shouldn't have to worry about that kind of stuff. It's not normal; you should just worry about being a kid. Instead, you're expected to put your childhood aside and act like adults." He clenched his fists.

He wasn't right about everything. He didn't know much about Wammy's, after all. They always treated us like children; they let us play, make friends. Wammy's was a place for children to grow up and thrive. If we decided we didn't want to take the same path L did, instead choosing to make the world better in our own way, whether through medicine or even the arts, they supported us. But I suppose he wasn't completely wrong. Even if we were allowed to take our own paths, we were all taught about who L was and what he accomplished. At a young age we were told about horrible things that happened in the world and how L stopped them. We arrived at Wammy's with our childlike outlook on the world, only to suddenly have a blindfold pulled off and become exposed to the evil that exists.

"Maybe that's why it's tradition for children at Wammy's to pick new names when they first arrive," I said. "So that we can leave that innocence behind and become what we need to be. Mihael Keehl, Nate River, Piper Riddle, Abigail Grey... they were all kids. Mello, Near, Patience, Allison... Wammy's expected more from them."

"And for some reason, Light thought the same was expected of him," Matsuda said, tears running down his face.

I smiled sadly at Matsuda. "I lost my friend May to this," I said. "She learned too much."

"I..."

"May knew Birdie since Birdie was four," I said. "May always had a somewhat maternal nature, so I suppose it isn't all that odd that those two ended up developing a special bond. Not that Birdie viewed May as a mother, mind you. She didn't love May more than she loved the rest of us, either, and the same went for May. But May had a relationship with Birdie that wasn't like the relationships she had with the rest of us. So when May died, though it hurt all of us, it was a different kind of hurt for Birdie.
"Honestly, Birdie never really was involved with the case; she sat in the back and watched, since she had been bored back at Wammy's. When we saw Birdie at May's funeral, we could tell she wanted to go back home. Weinberg-san-a man from Wammy's-offered to take her back home. Birdie loves Weinberg-san, and he could have helped her heal. But Birdie said she couldn't go home. She said she couldn't go home because, since May had become a victim, it was her duty to help bring Kira to justice. No normal kid would say that. A normal kid would go home and cry. Birdie may not be a normal kid, but that's not why she refused. It's because that's what she was taught. To solve cases, to fix the world. That's what we were all taught. Because we're the successors of L." I went silent; it was like I was only just registering my words. "...So maybe you are right."
"Losing May... it hurt. It hurt so badly. We weren't related by blood, but when she died, I lost family. I doubt the words of a stranger are of any solace, but I know how you feel." I laughed, tears rolling down my cheeks. "We have a lot more in common than you might imagine."

He looked at me for a moment and then smiled, as if he saw something comfortingly familiar.

"So that Wammy's place is just going to keep telling kids that the world is evil," Matsuda said with a sigh. "They're always going to need a new L, so they're always going to be training kids, treating them like adults. It just turns them into people like Mello and Near."

"If they help in the end, then does it matter?" came a voice.

"Patience," I said, turning to look at the familiar noirette.

"That's what I'm talking about," Matsuda said, frustration evident in his voice. "They take your purity. They train you to become a potential successor for L, and by doing that, they take away your innocence and make you forget what good there is in the world."

"Maybe," Patience said, "but whether Near was right or Light was right... Of those two outlooks on the world, one must be right, and one must be wrong. For Light and Near; for either of them to have gotten this far or to have won... it only happened because they saw the evil in the world."

"Well then," I said, "maybe instead of showing us all of the evil in the world and that we have to fix it, they should just teach us how to fix it. Then as we see things for ourselves as we get older, we can decide what to do based on our own perspective."

Patience looked at me skeptically, almost as though she didn't quite recognize me.

"It was nice meeting you, Matsuda-san," I said, looking back at him. "Even if it was under such grave circumstances. You've given me a lot to think about."

"You, too, Allison-san," he said. "I feel the same way."

Don't be mistaken; he was still devastated by what had happened, but now, he was smiling. It was a sad smile, but it was also genuine, warm. It seemed that his spirits had been lifted just a little bit higher. That was enough for me.

"I have to go now," I said, and then I turned to look at Patience, speaking in English this time. "I'm so happy you found your name! Hopefully, you can find out the truth now. We'll talk about it more when I get back!"

"Get back?" she echoed in confusion.

"Yes," I said, "there's something I have to go do."

Despite the fact that I'd been crying only moments before and was even now still upset, I smiled as I ran towards my motorcycle.

"Goodbye!" I said in Japanese, looking back to wave at them as I continued to run. In English, I added, "I'll see you soon, Patience!"

I never intended for that to be a lie.