Death Note: Blood Ties - 12. ULTIMATUM

Chapter 12: ULTIMATUM

Ethan:

The entrance to the school library was only a few metres away. I paced towards it quickly, wondering what on Earth I was going to say to Billy. Before I could reach the double doors I was intercepted and my path became blocked by Ms Leroy, my Earth and Environment teacher.

When she looked at me her expression was sombre and very serious "Ethan Jones. You need to come with me right now."

I paused, taken aback by the urgency in her mildly accentuated words.

"I have to see my friends-"

"Would these friends be William and Hannah?"

For the second time I felt taken aback by her "Yes."

"They are waiting for you in Mr Harris's office. We have important matters to discuss."

Uncertainly I walked with Ms Leroy in the direction of Mr Harris's office in the administration block of the school. Does this have something to do with the death note? If not, then why were only me and the other two being interrogated and not Emma? It may have been noticed by teachers that the four of us often sat with each other at lunch, but still. I suppose I would see when I got there. After we headed into the administrative block, Ms Leroy walked me to Mr Harris's office and opened the door.

Inside I was shocked to see a couple of police officers in their uniforms. Standing in the corner of the room I could see Mrs Mirsky the school principal, dressed as usual in vibrant shades of pink. She looked just as sombre as my escort while she observed three seats in the room. Mr Harris was beside her. He was wearing his typical suit and tie and his bald head seemed to be shinier than usual. Maybe from the rain?

"Thank you, Miranda." He said and Ms Leroy nodded before closing the door behind me and leaving.

One of the seats was empty. It was closest to me, the one in the middle was occupied by Hannah and the one on the other side seated Billy. Hannah looked at me with wide eyes and I knew they had already been told about Jack. I felt my stomach drop. Billy wasn't looking at me but the way he fidgeted in his stool showed he was incredibly uncomfortable.

"Please take a seat." One of the officers quietly ordered.

I walked over and sat.

"So it's true then?" I asked shakily. "Jack's really dead." I heard my voice crack pathetically at the end of my statement.

He had been indisputably the leader of our group, he had organised us. Jack may have been a pot-head and a rebel, but he was intelligent, resourceful, witty and he had always been suspicious and untrusting. Not that it had seemed to do him any good. The fact I knew of his death seemed like a surprise to the officers and the two teachers. However they quickly recovered and the brown-haired officer who had spoken to me first continued.

"You must be wondering why the three of you were called here. It's true, at 7:09 last night we received a call from Jack's parents saying that they found their son dead in his room. He had been sitting behind his desk when he suffered a heart attack and passed." The voice of the policeman seemed hollow to me. It was as if I was hearing everything through a filter. I couldn't look the policeman in the eyes, instead I kept my unregistering vision on the carpet floor "When we arrived at his house, we found something peculiar on his desk in front of him. It appeared to be a suicide note."

My eyes widened and I felt all three of our heads shoot up to look at the officer. A suicide note? When he died of a heart attack. How can this be? "There was an autopsy done this morning, it proved that the heart attack occurred naturally-"

Billy coughed savagely into his hand as if he were gagging. His shock didn't appear faked, but how is that so? Billy himself had told us Jack's lifespan seemed comparably average, and the only way anyone can die before their predetermined time was if they were killed by the death note. I still didn't trust him. Billy seemed to recover and the policeman continued. He turned to the desk and picked up a piece of paper. We all recognised it as a page of the death note. "Analysis proved that it was Jack's handwriting."

He cleared his throat and began to read: "'To Ethan, Hannah and Billy. I have come to realize the true evil of the notebook. As long as it remains within the reach of humans, people will continue to die. I have decided to take it upon myself to destroy it and I have succeeded, all that is left of it is this page which will be taken in as evidence. I pray you will not succumb to the monster that it was turning us into. Farewell. Jack Martin.'" he looked up to see our faces. Mine was frozen in shock and utter astonishment.

I heard Hannah mutter darkly from beside me "God damn you, Jack."

Billy made a noise reminiscent of a squeak that shook with his body. Destroyed? Jack had the death note destroyed? No, that can't be! He was the one who didn't care about human life! He was the one who first killed for amusement! Even if he did have a change of heart and wanted the death note destroyed, why did he have to write his name on the page and kill himself? He could have simply burned the book and erased his memories by removing the piece of the death note?

But… then we would of… then he could have just… so does that mean it might have been… murder?

My eyes narrowed. This had almost convinced me, if it weren't for the fact I knew Jack so well. If he was murdered then that would mean the death note is still out there. Regardless of whether it was Billy, or… a new player, a new thief.

No. No one should know of its existence and this is far too well thought out.

Unless someone discovered it somehow, all of the evidence points to Billy. From the beginning I could deduce that Jack, Hannah and I were all clever. Could Billy secretly have been just as clever? I couldn't see his expression, but it seemed like he was just as shocked as we are. Hannah and I were still alive, until he decided to kill us. He could have manipulated Jack's moment before death, and made him write down his own name on a page of the death note so that it looked like Jack had killed himself when his name had already been written down before that.

There was only one person that would know all the answers. Even if he would be reluctant to say much. I would have to find Gallu.

Gallu:

I remained in the room after Ethan made his exuent. Now it was just me and the crying girl, although as soon as the door closed she ceased crying. Her eyes were on the ground and I stood so as to stretch my long limbs.

"You can see me, can't you?"

Her eyes suddenly made contact with mine "Forgive my manners, but I'm not too sure how I should act. This is the first time I've been acquainted with a Shinigami." The young girl said while she wiped the smudged makeup from under her eyes.

She was a lot better at it than Hannah was, I could tell even though it'd been ruined by tears.

"Too bad I wasn't around when you killed Jack. Imagine my surprise when I found him dead and the death note missing. That note of yours almost fooled me. I was just so worried that I would never find who the new owner of the death note was. It was you, Emma King." She smiled. "Jack was always so secret about his personal life. If they had known you two had broken up a week ago like I had they may have very well suspected you."

"But they don't know that."

"Now I doubt they ever will, your performance was excellent by the way." The girl named 'Emma King' lay back in her seat and sighed. Underneath her name I could see her lifespan: '110844123'.

"What gave me away?"

"Your eyes did. You were purposely avoiding making eye contact with me when you scanned the room."

"Is that so? Thanks for not telling Ethan when he was here. I read my new book carefully, that's how I know what you are. 'Gods of death in principle don't do anything to help or prevent the deaths in the notebook'."

"You're right. We only observe. I have no loyalties, not to any of those humans, or to you."

Emma sat forward in her chair, she put her handbag onto her lap and pulled out the small black notebook. On it, printed in a strange white font all in capitals was the familiar title: 'DEATH NOTE'. "I have many questions. I'm a curious guy."

"What do you want to know, Shinigami?"

"Please, call me Gallu. As for what I wish to know: how, why and what do you plan to do next?"

"Those questions are all very general."

"I think I should start off with a general knowledge of the situation. Then we can start to go into detail."

The young girl sighed and then smiled to herself "Very well. A general explanation: It was many months ago. Before me and Jack had broken up. I found his notebook when I was going through his school bag. I read it, all of it. Then I put it back. The next time I saw Jack it was at a distance. I wanted to ask him about it, but while I was still at some distance away I saw you fly over to him." She cringed slightly "I thought I was crazy. But I remained calm. I decided to look up some of the names I had seen in the book and discovered that those people had died, and recently. Their deaths had also been labelled as suspicious although natural by the media.

"The first death that stood out was 'Reece Caldon'. Afterwards all the names were in English. I noticed there were four different types of handwriting, so I knew he was not doing it alone. He always spent so much time with those other three: Ethan, Hannah and Billy. It was strange that he would suddenly start hanging around and talking to people I would have never imagined he would get along with."

I laughed quietly to myself. Emma had bore witness to Jack, Hannah and Billy's handwriting. She must have also seen Vincent's writing, the guy Jack controlled to kill that drug lord. She probably assumed it was one of the other's handwriting. How amusing. "Then he went and dumped me! After all I'd done for him!" she quietened down, so no one would hear her probably. "So I stole it from him the next time I found it in his bag. I thought of it all myself. I made it look like Jack had killed himself after supposedly destroying the book. Now it's all mine." Her grip tightened. "I've seen what they've written in here. Killing for money and drugs. Pathetic and petty criminals they are. With no imagination. I could become a politician, and I could use this notebook to kill off all the powers of other nations on the planet. I could cause governments all around the Earth to collapse, America would no longer be the most powerful country. By the use of this book, I could eliminate all threats to Australia and become dictator of a new world! My world!"

I gave a respectful silence. A human who covets the world. It's not unheard of even in the Shinigami realm. She's much more ambitious than any of the other children, that's for sure.

"I heard that opposites attract, but if anything you're even more wicked than Jack ever was."

Emma laughed "Of course, don't you see? He was the nice one in our relationship."

With the death note in the hands of this girl, this world will change. She wishes to become like a god figure, only instead of hiding in the shadows she wants to be known.

"Sounds a lot like world domination to me."

"My parents taught me to dream big, you see."

"Oh?"

"It will take a while, years until I finish school with the marks I need to make it into politics and then become a member of parliament." Her eyes seemed manic. "But from there I will begin to change the world."

"There's still a few holes in this plan."

"What?" she snapped rudely.

Jack was right in his assessment. She is bossy.

I thought before continuing "The others would never believe that Jack would destroy the death note. You got lucky with Ethan."

"What do you mean?"

I leapt towards her suddenly. She recoiled away from my face. Curse these exuberant movements, they always happen when I get excited "I mean, if Ethan had the Shinigami eyes he would have known immediately that you were in possession of the death note. One who possesses the Shinigami eyes can't see the lifespan of a human who owns a death note. He just said he was bringing back two other people. I wonder which two he could have meant?" Emma's face whitened in realization.

My smile broadened "They'll be here soon. If one or both of them possess the Shinigami eyes you'll be exposed. Based on the fact you left them alive I'm guessing you're not all that certain about their surnames either, are you?"

I analysed her as she sat quietly "Would you like to become certain?"

Emma looked up at me, her expression serious.

Ethan:

In the end all three of us were released when we claimed to have no idea what Jack had meant in his letter. They didn't have any choice, considering the police had no solid proof to connect us to his death aside from the suspicious note Jack had left. Billy split almost immediately. He said he wasn't feeling well and Mrs Mirsky agreed to have his mother called to pick him up. Just as well, I needed to confer my suspicions to Hannah alone. We made our way towards the abandoned art room to discuss what had happened.

When I opened the doors to the art block I stopped when I noticed Emma standing on the other side. She froze and glanced at me before staring directly at Hannah. For whatever reason it looked as if she were afraid as she studied Hannah's expression.

"Oh, Emma? Are you feeling alright?" I could tell Hannah was surprised by the look she was getting, too. Emma seemed slightly relieved, as if she'd mistaken Hannah for someone else.

"I need to be alone right now." she whispered and pushed through us. I turned to watch her hasty retreat.

"So is that how you knew about Jack before, Emma told you?"

I nodded to Hannah and then continued inside. We both made our way into the abandoned art room. This room held a lot of memories. It was the first place we had all gone when we agreed to join forces and share the death note. Now we might never see the notebook ever again. Not that I was bothered by that in particular. Although I'm sure it was for that reason that Hannah still seemed dazed right now. The only thing that bothered me was that there was a slim chance that Jack had not ended his own life.

As slim as that chance was, if there is a killer the main suspect would have to be Billy. If not, there was an even slimmer chance that there was a new player in this game. "Gallu isn't here." Hannah observed. "Probably went back to that Shinigami realm he mentioned."

"I don't think so."

"How do you figure?"

"He's probably with the new owner of the Death Note."

Hannah's eyes widened as I explained my theory to her. She didn't seem accepting at first, but as she let me continue I could tell that things I was saying were starting to click together in her mind. "I agree with you. All the evidence points to Jack destroying the death note. He was always so secretive, I guess it is impossible to really know someone. However, if there is a slim chance that it was murder we have to be sure!" Hannah looked down and her forehead creased. "What is it?"

"I was just thinking about Emma. It was really weird how she was looking at me..."

"How so?"

"Well, usually since she'd seen me with Jack she would always glare. She was one of those snobby popular bitches, you know? Just then… it seemed almost as if she was intimidated by me."

"She's not in the right state of mind at the moment. She was just told that Jack is dead." It didn't feel right to say that. I hadn't seen his body. Jack still seemed alive to me, just somewhere far away. How long would this feeling last?

"Yeah, you're probably right."

"Now we just need to think of how to be sure someone else doesn't have the death note. We've already agreed that if it does still exist it's most likely in Billy's possession."

I'd been a little worried Hannah would become angry at me for mentioning my suspicions of Billy. It was plain from her face that she still didn't trust him from when he'd stolen pages from the notebook.

She'd been averted to the idea that he would have more pages however, instead saying it was far more likely he would have stolen the death note from Jack first.

"In all honesty, I'm surprised Jack hadn't noticed Billy had stolen pages before he told us about it."

"Huh?" Hannah looked up at me from her seat.

"I never mentioned this before, but I was flicking through the death note once when it was mine and I saw something sort of strange. I found crease marks on some of the pages, as if a small part of a corner had been folded back and then flattened again. When I paid more attention I realised someone had been folding back a corner exactly every ten pages."

"Someone had been counting the pages?"

"Seems like it. I thought it might have been Jack, making sure we didn't steal any of the pages like we promised. It sounded like something he would do. The only strange thing is I noticed the creased pages before the death note was stolen."

"Does that mean Billy was counting pages?"

"I don't think so. Why would he need to if he was going to steal pages anyway? After all, anyone could use that counting system now. It seems too cautious for him as well. Someone was being very careful that they didn't miscount. It's that compulsiveness which reminded me of Jack. I didn't count the pages of the death note." I told Hannah. "If Jack had counted them it means he should have noticed that Billy had stolen pages before he confessed to it. So why didn't he say anything?"

Hannah shrugged.

"Either way, I think we should take a visit to Billy's house after school." Since I'd gotten the feeling the four of us were all becoming friends, we'd been told each other's addresses. Not that we'd ever gone over to visit each other outside of school. The thought still made me sad, and made me suspect Billy less. Even so, the death note undeniably changed people. Billy was still our major suspect.

"What will going to Billy's house accomplish?"

"If he is the current owner of the death note, as you suspect, Gallu will have to be nearby or at least be returning to him soon."

The plan was a blunt one. Very straight-forward. If Billy had the death note Gallu would be forced to follow him, there would be no way he could lie out of that. Not only will this plan let us know if Billy is the murderer but it will also prove his innocence if the notebook truly was destroyed. Billy's mother looked a lot like him, having his honey-brown hair and bright blue eyes. She was a quiet and gentle person. She'd been very kind to us, it seems that before Billy had become involved with the death note he hadn't had any friends.

It appeared to overjoy her that her son had companions who cared enough to check up on him. I registered slight wrinkles and laugh lines on her face. It'd been a long time since I'd seen my mother smile.

"He wasn't looking well at all when I picked him up from school. Went straight to his room and hasn't been out since." She pointed us to his room and the two of us declined her offer to make snacks for our gathering.

Her politeness set me a bit on edge. She'd even asked for our names and seemed genuinely interested, as if committing us to memory. At least she gave us space and let us speak with Billy alone.

Hannah knocked on his door.

"Billy?" No response. "Billy, it's me. Ethan's here too." Getting no answer she opened the door.

What awaited us would haunt me for the rest of my life. For however long I had left to live, because the chances of me living to the end of my natural lifespan now seemed debatable. Hannah and I no longer suspected that Jack had been murdered.

Now we knew he'd been.

We no longer suspected that Billy was guilty. We knew he was innocent.

We no longer suspected the death note had been destroyed. We knew it still existed, not only that. It was being used.

Inside of Billy's room there was a lot of blood. It seemed Billy had been cutting himself… to death. He was lying on his bed with his face turned in our direction. A single tear had made a trail down his pale white face. Sure, on its own this wouldn't mean that he'd been killed by the death note. There was a message written in blood on the wall above the bed and Billy's lifeless form. It read: 'Shadow was not one, all four of us are guilty: Jack, Billy, Hannah and Ethan'.

Neither of us could speak. I heard gagging noises coming from the girl next to me. Hannah's knees started to shake and it seemed like she was going to collapse. Quickly I grabbed her by the arm and turned away. We left the house without saying a word to Mrs Taylor. Hannah didn't try to fight me as I led her onto the street and away. I didn't know where to go but we had to get away. Someone had controlled Jack with the death note.

In his letter the four of us were mentioned. Billy had also left a dying message singling out the four of us. Whoever had the death note knew all four of us had been involved. They had already gotten to Jack and Billy. They could kill Hannah and me at any given moment. Unless I figure out who is killing us first, but we may have already run out of time!