Embrace



Embrace (抱擁, Hõyõ) is the fourth chapter of volume seven and fifty-fifth chapter overall.

Plot
Following the instructions given to her by Light Yagami, Misa Amane goes to the forest where Light buried her Death Note. After a little digging, she finds the Death Note and holding it brings back her memories of using it: The Kira tapes; the time she first saw Light at Aoyama; their first actual meeting etc. Although Rem once told her about her past as the Second Kira, it is only now that Misa actually remembers it all, having given up the Death Note and her memories of it when she was first held in custody by the Kira Task Force.

In the Death Note she also finds a letter from Light addressed to her. In the letter, he reminds her of the time when she first set eyes on L at the To-Oh University campus. L used a false name when they met but Misa saw his real name with her Shinigami Eyes. Light now wants her to remember that name and use the Death Note in order to kill L when Light gives her the signal.

The letter also tells Misa to take a few pages of the Death Note for her own use and then re-bury the Death Note itself. (If the Kira killings resume then the Kira Task Force may suspect Misa and find the Death Note in her possession, so she will have to use a few pages which she can then easily destroy before being searched.) Next time they meet, she is to touch Light with one of the pages.

If Misa does all this, the letter concludes, then Light will love her forever! Misa is thrilled!

She then realizes that she does not remember L's real name! It's been almost five months since she first met him and she was unaware of who he was. Furthermore, she was, at the time, seeing hundreds of names and lifespans every day and could not remember them all.

Misa becomes desperate. She fears that if she does not remember then Light will not love her and she cannot face that possibility.

At that moment, Ryuk suddenly reappears. He returned to the Shinigami Realm when Light gave up ownership of his Death Note but can now return to the human world since someone has claimed the Death Note to which he is attached. Misa is delighted and even hugs him &mdash; at which point Ryuk turns intangible, causing her to fall. Ryuk admits to being shy when it comes to women.

Light told Misa to take an apple with her and she gives it to Ryuk who eats it up heartedly. He loves human apples because they are so juicy. He gives Misa a Shinigami apple which she rejects when she finds it to be dry and sandy.

Misa tells Ryuk about how she cannot remember L's real name. In desperation, she asks to do the trade with the Shinigami Eyes! Ryuk reminds her that she has already made the trade with Rem and that that irrevocably halved her lifespan! Now she wants to halve it even further! Misa insists that it is what she wants! She cannot face Light otherwise!

At the Kira Task Force HQ, the detectives are getting down to work to find the original Kira whom they believe is still at large along with another Death Note. L's first confrontation with Kira established that he was in the Kanto area of Japan and Kira subsequently killed many criminals in that area. At the start of the Yotsuba investigation, it was established that Kira can kill by means other than heart attacks, such as causing victims to have fatal accidents. Light therefore orders the Task Force to probe all the deaths in the Kanto region caused by accidents and even disease! Matsuba groans at the workload that they are facing, but Aizawa tells him to get on with it.

L meanwhile is questioning Rem who claims to have only become involved in the Kira affair when Higuchi picked up her Death note.

Light expects Misa to recover the other Death Note, her memories and thus remember L's real name! That way he will be able to kill L and, even if Misa cannot remember the name, he is quite sure that she will do the eye trade with Ryuk!

At that moment, a security monitor shows Misa appearing at the entrance of the Kira Task Force HQ. Rem looks at her on the screen in horror! L notices this but makes no comment. Rem has seen that Misa's life span has been halved yet again! She now realizes why Light made her and Ryuk swap Death Notes in the forest all those months ago: In order to attach him to Misa's Death Note and thus give her a chance of getting back the Shinigami Eyes &mdash; something which Rem was unwilling to do!

Light joins Misa at the entrance. As they hug she touches him with a piece of the Death Note. Light can now see Ryuk again and they exchange pleasantries!

Misa admit to Light that she cannot remember L's real name but has obtained the Shinigami Eyes from Ryuk. Light reproaches her for sacrificing half her lifespan but she insists that she wants to help him in any way she can. For his part, Ryuk has no doubt that this is precisely what Light intended from the start!

Light tells Misa that his love for her is genuine and that he wants her to be part of the new perfect world which he is going to create. Furthermore, he already has another plan to get rid of L!

Conception
Ohba said the chapter's title "Embrace" refers to Misa hugging a lot of things in the chapter, like the notebook, Ryuk, and then Light in that order. Ryuk also makes a small reference: "All this girl does is hug things..."