Riddles {a Death Note MelloXOC and NearXOC story}

Arrivals & Departures

"Near, I understand your theory, but we cannot write somebody's name down just to find out whether or not the rule is fake or not," L said. "We have talked before about testing the notebook, but we've always concluded that we must respect human life, and therefore, testing the notebook is something we must never do."

"Then how about this?" said Near. "I'll write Mello's name in the book. Of course, that is only if you know Mello's real name."

Birdie looked like she wanted to kill Near more than usual at this point. Gevanni, Lidner, and Rester were all staring at him curiously. My eyes were wide in shock; for one thing, why on earth Near was assuming that L knew what Mello's real name was? Patience seemed to be the only one with no reaction, a calm expression on her face. Well, I suppose she hadn't picked her name for nothing.

"Obviously, Mello will get the death sentence if he is caught," Near pointed out. "So I'll take responsibility for writing his name down, since I let Mello escape after getting my hands on him. If I specify where he dies, then you will be able to confirm Mello's death. After that, you can perform DNA tests upon the things you have gathered from the remains of the explosion. If Mello dies, and I die thirteen days after writing his name down, Kira wins. I have no problem with that.
"'If the person using the notebook fails to consecutively write names of people to be killed within thirteen days of each other, then the user will die.' Testing this rule may turn out to be a plus for our Kira investigation, and it could never be a minus."

Now I saw where Near was going with this... sort of. Though by the looks of it, Gevanni, Lidner, and Commander Rester were all still lost.

"Near, please wait a minute," said L. "We need to talk about your suggestion." This was followed by another clicking sound. I got up and walked over to Patience, knowing that if I addressed her from across the room, she'd be too timid to respond.

"I don't get it," I told her. "L's obviously going to refuse. Either he's firm in his resolve, or he really is Kira, so accepting it would be a dead giveaway."

"He knows," Patience said, nodding in Near's direction. I raised an eyebrow and looked at her in annoyance, wanting more of an answer than that. She shrugged but nodded, acknowledging her curtness, then elaborated. "You're right about L's answer, but that isn't the point. The point is that there are people with L. No matter what L answers, Near's suggestion gives them doubt."

"Either way, the answer will be the same," said Near, surprising me and Patience, who had thought she'd been talking quietly enough for only me to hear.

On cue, there was the clicking sound again, followed by L's answer. "Near, we can't test the notebook, whatever the reason. We promise you that we'll take full responsibility for protecting it."

"Very well," Near said. "As expected."

Lacey

Despite the fact that she was walking along the hectic streets of New York, Lacey wasn't paying all that much attention to her surroundings. She had been in New York City for a couple of days now, as that's where a tournament for one of the many sports she played was taking place. So far, she hated it and wanted to get the hell out of there as soon as she possibly could.

New York. New York her ass. If York was anything like New York, she would have to make a note to never go there.

Lacey made her way down the sidewalk, quietly humming a song to herself, taking carefully paced heel-toe steps. It was then that a man roughly brushed by her, knocking her in the shoulder and off balance.

"Oi, John!" she shouted, prompting the man to turn around. "You out of your tree or something? Next time, have a butchers before you decide to walk into someone, yeah!"