A Year of Jubilee [The Death Note Fanfic]

Chapter 36

"I was supposed to gain a good seventy years from you," the dark-haired shinigami continued, straightening up. "But instead, I lost seventy years because of you and that little stunt you pulled."

Jubilee stood rooted to the spot before the demon, her brain whirling. Images from the day of the accident came slamming back into her mind—the grogginess of the hangover, the yellow traffic light, the steel pole coming at her...the sound of sirens and the feeling of pain as she returned to consciousness. She remembered the shock of seeing new colors for the first time punctuated by the presence of otherworldly beings, some light and some dark, and one in particular emanating a shadow as black as the void she had escaped. The creature had been holding an open book in his hand with a pen poised above the page.

Everything clicked into place as she suddenly connected the dots. That book had been a Death Note, and the creature that had been holding it was the same one that stood before her now. Even as she made the realization, she could do nothing but stare up stupidly at him.

"You," she whispered, feeling faint. "That—that was you?"

The shinigami grinned. "The human finally remembers. Maybe that mush inside your skull isn't too far gone after all."

Jubilee backed up a step. "What—what are you doing in Japan?" she blurted.

At this the shinigami guffawed loud and long. "What am I doing a hop and a step away from that other land mass you came from? The sort of questions you creatures ask! This whole world is my playground, I'll have you know. What, did you think I was following you? Tch." He leaned forward again, his long torso bridging the gap between them, and smirked into her face. "You aren't that special. Coincidences do happen, you know, much as Someone somewhere would like to have you disagree. And speaking of coincidences...I thought it was rather poetic, really, that James Jenkins' daughter should die the same way that he did. Don't you think so?"

Jubilee went still at the sound of her father's name.

"It was like the perfect follow-up, if I do say so myself," the demon went on. "Then again, I could be biased, since—" His voice lowered, like he was savoring what he would say next. "I did pen the first death, after all."

Jubilee's breath caught in her throat. "You—you mean..."

"Yes." The demon's grin grew impossibly wider. "I wrote him into my Death Note, too."

The words hit her like a punch to the gut. She stumbled backwards in horror and tripped, falling to the ground.

"Gave me a good fifty years, that one did," the shinigami went on, tapping his chin in thought. "Which really isn't much in the grand scheme of things, but pickings are slim these days. You young folks are killing yourselves off faster than we shinigami can, what with the things you get yourselves into. Honestly," he scoffed. "Used to be that we were guaranteed almost a century whenever we wrote down a young one. These days you've knocked your own lifespans down to a few decades. You were supposed to have at least seventy-five years left on you, until you started keeping company with the crowd that you did. But, who am I to judge?"

Jubilee stared at the ground, silent at this new revelation. Her father could have lived for another fifty years? Slowly, a cold rage began to fill her. She had been blaming the wrong person all along. It was this shinigami who had tempted Light with power...who had caused the deaths of thousands...and who had killed her father.

As if sensing her thoughts, the shinigami smiled with satisfaction. "You're angry," he said. "That's good." He leaned down again, bending at an impossibly low angle from the waist to be eye level with her where she was sprawled on the ground. "What are you going to do about it?" he asked lowly. "Kill me?"