Curtain

Curtain (幕, Maku) is the ninth chapter of volume twelve and the one-hundred-seventh chapter of the Death Note manga series. It is the penultimate chapter of the manga.

Plot
Finally, Light notices Ryuk standing there. He asks that he write everyone's names in his Death Note. Everyone is shocked, but Near tells them that if Ryuk could do that, then Light wouldn't have gone through all this trouble in the first place. Near is confident that Ryuk won't help.

Light begs Ryuk to write the names down in his notebook. Ryuk takes out his Death Note and answers, "Yeah… I'll write."

Everyone starts to shoot Ryuk, but it's all in vain. Light laughs evilly and tells them that they're all going to die.

However, Ryuk says that it is Light who is going to die. He writes Light's name down.

Ryuk tells him that it's been fun, but there's no way that Light's going to get out of this one. He doesn't want to wait until Light's out of jail or until he dies a natural death in order to get the Death Note back. He warned him that he was the one that was going to write Light's name in his Death Note. That was the deal they made when he received ownership of the Death Note.

Light is going to die in forty seconds from a heart attack.

Light flails anxiously in disbelief and screams, "I don't want to die!" repeatedly.

A flashback sequence: Light remembers when Ryuk told him about where Death Note owners go after they die. According to Ryuk, they go the same place that everyone goes to because there is no such thing as heaven or hell. "All humans are equal in death."

Light collapses and dies.

The chapter ends on a black page with the following lines: "All humans will, without exception, eventually die. After they die, the place they go is Mu. (Nothingness)"

Conception
Tsugumi Ohba said that the chapter title "Curtain" was given as Ohba explained that he was trying to represent a curtain with the final two pages being entirely colored black. He said that he also considered the word "Black Curtain," in Japanese the word refers to a person behind the scenes orchestrating the events, but Ohba felt it would not be good to inadvertently make readers believe that a new character was appearing. So in the end Ohba chose "Curtain" for the title of the second to last chapter.

Ohba also added that he considered using title "Nothingness" but felt it would reveal too much, and also that he already used the word "Black" for Chapter 43.

Trivia

 * The events in this chapter were not included in the final anime episode New World. Instead, Light flees the warehouse. Ryuk still writes his name down, unseen by the Task Force.
 * In the Japanese live-action film series, the battle is kept between Light and L, but some aspects of this ending were used. In the film Death Note: The Last Name, Light is cornered by L instead of Near at Task Force headquarters and exposed in front of the Task Force. Light asks Ryuk to write down a name, and Ryuk writes down Light's name.