According to Near in Chapter 104, Mikami stopped writing names in the real Death Note on November 25, 2009. The assault on Mello's headquarters was in November 10, which makes a 15-day timespan in which A LOT OF SHIT happened. I would babble about more of the timeline-ness, but quite frankly, my head is spinning in regards to what it implies for some events so I'll spare everyone my yammering.

    Going through this chapter again made me realize what a really interesting character Near is. We get a lot more glimpses into his thoughts (and by extension, his feelings) than we do for Mello, and most of Mello's internal thoughts involve plot-stuff. Mello may explode a lot, but I think his inner thoughts are a lot more complex, and I wish we would have seen more of them. Anyways, back to Near. I really didn't think Near or Mello were out to avenge L, but Near actually refers to himself as a "potential avenger." I don't know if he means that solely in a sense of "I'm out to get revenge for L's death," but it's plainly obvious that he feels strongly for L, and hates what Light/Kira did in general. At one point, Near has to tell himself quite firmly that Kira surpassed L, and that if he wants to live, he has to keep thinking like that. It seems like L had his own place in Near's mind, a pedestal that Near didn't want to remove him from. He didn't want to think of L being surpassed, but he had to even though his feelings were guiding his thoughts in a different direction.

    It's pretty obvious that Near feels strongly against Kira, but there are dozens of little instances that just drive the point home. He says he wants to "make Kira taste his own miserable failure with all [his] heart"--extremely powerful wording, there. He also draws a clear line in the soil and says that his and L's methods of investigation are similar in that they involve no killing; the thought of just killing Kira and X-Kira was unacceptable to him, as it would have been to L. It just makes me wonder if Near has L in his mind just as often as (if not more so than) Mello despite Mello being the more emotional of the two? Anyways, just the impression that I got.

    Speaking of Mello, Chapter 104 continues to torment me with indecision. I don't think Mello was trying to show Near that the notebook was fake (he didn't know about Mikami, and so he couldn't have known about the fake notebook) by laying down his life. I really just don't think that's in Mello's character given the clues we'd had up to that point in the manga. However, Near said that Mello wasn't only trying to get ahead by capturing Takada, and that Mello knew that Near couldn't surpass L. Mello having the rationality to realize something like that really does say a lot about what he understands and what he actually does/says. He's very much a creature of habit, just like Near, trapped by his own nature. I believe that Mello did kidnap Takada to get ahead of Near, but I think something had changed in him by the time Chapter 98 rolled around. He's very ruled by feelings, and Hal made particular note of the long pause before he said, "It looks like I have to do it." Why the long pause if all he was going to do was get ahead of Near? I think there was some kind of conflict going on that involved his feelings about something... I just haven't decided what that something is quite yet. =/ Maybe he sensed that Near's plan would fail? Maybe he felt that someone was going to die soon but just didn't care anymore? Maybe he was just tired of everything at that point?

    Oops, kind of rambled off about that one. I think my thoughts on the matter are really falling into a middle ground in regards to the did he help Near/did he not help Near.