Chapter 12 - Answers

“Where is he?” Zach asked himself the next day, slightly frustrated. He was wandering around the campus, looking for Light. He wanted to know more about the situation at Task Force Headquarters. He passed by the bench he had seen Light near the last time they had run into each other. There was only one person sitting on it, but it wasn’t Light. Rather, it was a man dressed in a plain white shirt and jeans, sitting on his heels. “What a weird way to sit,” he mumbled to Rek.

“Eh, all you humans are weird to me,” Rek retorted.

“Should’ve known you’d say that,” Zach said with a grin. A sudden shock ran through his mind. “A weird way to…” He did a double-take. “This guy…could…that be L?” He decided it was best not to take chances, and kept walking. A few moments later, he heard the man speak somewhere behind him.

“Hey, Light! How’s it going?” the man said.

“Damnit!” Zach thought, his head racing, “He knows Light! It is L! I’ve gotta get out of here.” And, without a second thought, he walked as fast and as far away as he could. Again he heard voices behind him.

“I hope she's not upset,” the man said, noting that the girl Light had been walking with was not leaving.

“Never mind that,” Light answered, “Is it okay to be here? Didn't you say – ”

Zach could hear no more of the conversation; he had moved too far away. His attention returned to his surroundings. He looked back in front of him just in time to avoid bumping into a young blonde girl running in the opposite direction.

“Was that Mi – ” He stopped short. “I'm just imagining things now,” he said to himself, laughing quietly.

Later that day he found himself once again lying on the hotel bed, waiting for Light to call. He turned to Rek, who was hovering upside down in the air, pretending to be asleep.

“If he doesn't call soon, I'm gonna have to make a move on my own,” Zach said. Rek made no response.

“I know you're awake, Rek.” Still no answer.

“Well, I'm gonna go kill Light now.”

Rek snapped to attention. “Are you serious?”

“No. But now that you're up you can answer a few questions,” Zach replied with a smirk.

“Aw man,” Rek said defeatedly.

“Question one,” Zach continued, “There was one man who didn't die when I wrote his name in my notebook during my experiments. Well, that's not entirely true. He died forty-three minutes after I wrote his name down, at exactly nine o'clock. Why is that?”

“Well,” Rek answered, sighing heavily as he thought, “I suppose there's a chance that Light or the other Kira, Mimi or whatever her name was, may have written his name and details of death before you did. In that case, his name and any details of his death you wrote later would be voided.”

“So you're saying that once a name is written in a Death Note, that persons death cannot be changed by anyone else?”

“Didn't ya hear me?” Rek complained in a raspy growl. “I just got through saying that.”

Zach laughed and rolled his eyes. “Alright then, second question: What do you know about the terms by which Misa Amane acquired her Death Note?”

“Pretty much everything,” he responded sarcastically.

“Care to be more specific?” Zach asked, growing slightly agitated.

“Not really.”

“Fine then. One more question for now. You said before that when a Shinigami writes the name of a human in their Death Note, that human's remaining lifespan is added to the Shinigami's. But what happens to a Shinigami's remaining life? What happened to Sorin's life?”

Rek stared curiously at Zach for several moments. “Why do you want to know that? That information can't possibly help you.”

“Just curious, that's all,” Zach replied casually.

“Look at Mr. Softy,” Rek sneered. “You feel sorry that she lost her life for you, don't you?”

“Look, are you gonna tell me or not?” Zach snapped.

Rek chuckled to himself. “Well let's see. Life can't be eliminated, only transferred. That's not counting people who die when they're suppose to, of course. But life that was meant to be used by someone can only be transferred, usually to a Shinigami. Any humans you kill, for instance, will have they're remaining life transferred to me since I'm what I guess you could call the Shinigami by proxy. But when a Shinigami dies to save a human, well then...I guess I'd have to say that that Shinigami's remaining lifespan is transferred to that human.”

“So you're saying Sorin's remaining life was given to me.” Zach though aloud. “That makes sense, I guess. Otherwise I couldn't have continued living past that day.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” Rek said, clearly tired of the interrogation. “So are we done or what?”

“Yeah, we're done,” Zach said as he laid back down and closed his eyes. His mind slowly drifted off; it had just occurred to him how tired he was. His grip on reality loosened more and more as he slowly drifted to sleep.

He jolted awake. There was a sound coming from somewhere in the room. It took a while for Zach to realize that the sound was coming from his phone on the desk across the room. Zach scrambled over the desk and answered the phone. A familiar voice came from the receiver.

“L knows.”

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