Riddles {a Death Note MelloXOC and NearXOC story}

What's In a Name?

A/N: I have returned to this story to edit some stuff, and I have realized some stuff. 1. Matsuda said he was too scared to burn the book himself. Therefore, I have to rewrite part of this but am currently thinking of how to do that, so I'll come back to it eventually lol. 2. Your legal name is whatever your name seen with the Shinigami eyes is. But I guess Patience doesn't know that? Sooooo... I'm gonna take her lack of knowledge on the Death Note to my advantage? Isn't it fun when you see years of work go down the drain? Hahahaha! *cries*

======================================================

Patience

It was impossible. No, but it was true, wasn't it? Mikami had the eyes of a Shinigami. He could see a person's real name. It had unnerved me when Ryuk called me Piper, but I'd figured that it must have meant that my first name was the same; just my first name. My real name, the name I'd been searching for, was the name I had grown up with all my life.

What the hell does this mean? I thought frantically, my mind racing a mile a minute.

Was I really a Safe Haven baby? Had my birth mother not even bothered naming me, so my "true name" was my adopted name by default? But Jessica had said that she and my adoptive mother knew the truth about my birth mother.

Did that mean Annabelle Riddle had been my birth mother? That was the only explanation I could think of. I'd been searching for my birth mother for years, and it turned out that she might have been right in front of me all along.

"Ryuk," said Near, shifting the subject, "the thirteen-day rule and the rule about everyone that has touched the Death Note dying if the notebook is destroyed... are they real?"

"Nah," said Ryuk, "I just made that up so Light would give me some apples."

"Good," said Near, "so then we can destroy these murder weapons here, once and for all."

"With what?" Aizawa said, barely managing to keep up with Near. A part of him was still stuck in that moment.

I looked up from the fake notebook and silently took out the lighter I'd stolen from Birdie's backpack when she had been hanging around Misa.

"Here," I said plainly, holding up the lighter for all to see.

"What about Amane-san?" Allison inquired. "What's going to happen with her? Will she be arrested?"

"Yagami Light called out for Amane, which suggests that she was involved," I stated, forcing myself to forget about my own problems for a moment in order to deal with the matter at hand. "Knowing that, she is almost definitely the Second Kira and the one who killed May. ...But when she was talking about May's death, she seemed genuinely upset and ignorant of the circumstances."

"Ah, well, that's because Misa doesn't remember," said Ryuk.

"What?" Ide said in confusion.

"Oops," said Ryuk. "I didn't say anything. ...Unless. I guess I could tell you more, assuming I'll get some apples in return."

"Apples?" Near said. "Just apples?"

"Just apples!" Ryuk scoffed. "Apples from the Human World are delicious! There's nothing like it back in our world."

"Very well," said Near. "If you tell us what we need to know, we'll be sure to get you as many apples as you can carry back with you."

Ryuk laughed in delight at this, licking his lips at the mere thought of it. "Alright. You see, if you own a Death Note and then forfeit ownership, you lose all your memories of it. The only way to get those memories back is to touch the Death Note you once owned, but that's only temporary. To get those memories back permanently, you have to regain ownership."