A Year of Jubilee [The Death Note Fanfic]

Chapter 15

Sometimes it seemed as though the moment Jubilee managed to cut herself some slack, the ruthless voice of doubt and self-condemnation would come charging in again. Some days she really did believe that she was a new and changed person, living a new and changed life. Other days it felt like she was only proving how incompetent she was at handling second chances, with every step that she took.

This was one of those days.

Today Jubilee sat in her office chair, staring blankly at her computer screen and feeling utterly useless. Yet another video of old security footage was playing on the monitor, this time of Light. Yet again, the black haze shrouded him, and the tall demon glided beside him as he walked in the street. Jubilee simply watched with a vacant gaze of disinterest. It was always the same thing. Old Light covered in darkness. Current Light having none of that; only a faint yellow hue that was perfectly clean, perfectly innocent, and perfectly boring. Old Misa unusually unmarked by any spiritual signature. Current Misa exuding a perfectly normal pinkish aura. Nothing following either current Light or current Misa. Jubilee must have watched over a hundred hours of footage by now, and she was still no closer to understanding what anything that she was seeing meant.

She tipped her chair back and looked upwards despondently. "What's the point?" she asked the ceiling. So she could see angels and demons. So what? She hadn't been able to contribute squat to the case.

Behind her in the lounge area, Aizawa and Matsuda pointedly ignored her pity party as they took their coffee break, having gotten used to her occasional mood swings—and outbursts at thin air—by now.

Beside her, Hellenos tsked. Be of good cheer, child, he said. You know there is always a point and a purpose.

"Everything is meaningless...completely meaningless,"quoted Jubilee under her breath. "Ecclesiastes, chapter one, verse two. Bam."

Hellenos gave her a hard look, before choosing the route of optimism. You've been studying. Well done.

Still lying back in her chair like a ragdoll, Jubilee put her hands over her face. "Much study is wearisome to the flesh," she mumbled through her fingers. "And thus, meaningless. Ecclesiastes, chapter twelve, verse twelve."

"Why the long face, Miss Amachi?" L had rolled his chair down the length of the desk beside hers, his handcuffed arm hanging behind him. A couple feet down Light patiently allowed his arm to hang outstretched as well, while ignoring the two and continuing to scroll through statistics on his computer.

Jubilee barely spared the detective a glance. "It's all meaningless—like chasing the wind," she intoned through her fingers. "Ecclesiastes, chapter one—"

"Verse fourteen," finished L.

Hellenos crossed his arms and gave Jubilee a look. This is very cute, you two bonding over bible study and all that. But might I suggest switching to another section of it for the time being? He looked skywards and muttered, Sixty-six books to pick from, and she just had to choose Ecclesiastes.

Jubilee removed her hands from her face to give both the detective and the angel a sharp glance. "It's apt," she said. "Seeing as how, with everything I can see, it doesn't help the case at all."

"How do you mean?" inquired L, his tone calm.

Jubilee pointed at her computer screen where the video was still playing. "There's Light," she snapped. "He's got a black haze around him and a ten-foot-tall demon following him, as usual. Nothing new. There's a man," She jabbed another corner of her screen, "With two grayish clouds trailing after him. Here's a woman with something that looks like a red serpent coiled around her. There's a little girl with an angel standing behind her." She crossed her arms. "I could go on, but what's the point?"