Declaration

Declaration is the fifth chapter of Volume twelve and 103rd chapter overall.

Plot
At the last second, Light declares, "Near, Victory is mine!" Everyone else braces themselves. It's been 40 seconds! And no one dies...

-- which is exactly what Near had predicted all along

Mikami starts to panic and cry out about why they didn't die. Light just wants him to shut up. He cannot believe what's going on!

The SPK members detain Mikami and grab the notebook. Near opens the notebook and shows them the names that are written. The SPK members... The Japanese NPA members... Near... but no Light Yagami!

Light cries out that this is a trap that Near had set up to frame him! Aizawa touches his shoulder and tells him that it's too late. Light said, "Victory is mine!" It was the same as a confession. Matsuda gets down on his knees, shocked in disbelief.

He tries to escape being cuffed by Aizawa, but he runs into a wall.

Near explains that they altered the fake notebook just as Light had predicted. However, Near also altered the real notebook and replaced all of its pages with fake ones. Then, Near pulls out the real notebook and tells him that he's had it all along. Gevanni constructed an exact replica of the real Death Note and made a fake one. He then replaced the fake one with the real one. Near acknowledges that because he touched the real notebook, he had been able to see Ryuk all along. He greets Ryuk who is watching besides the investigators. Near asks him if someone is able to kill a person by ripping off a piece of the Death Note and writing the name down. Ryuk answers yes, and Near concludes that that's the way Light could keep so many people fooled.

However, Light is confused as to how they could get their hands on the real notebook when Mikami always had the fake one, and he didn't get the "real" one out until today.

Near answers that it was because of Mello.