[FFML] [FIC][DEATH NOTE AU] Silent Partner, Unfinished Business ch. 04

[Paul Durant]

    I am not Brian Azzarello, author of 100 Bullets, nor am I Tsugumi
Ohba, author of Death Note.


                               * * * * * * *


    SILENT PARTNER, UNFINISHED BUSINESS:


    FOREWARNED IS FOREBODING


                               * * * * * * *


    One goes to heist with the crew one has, not the crew who are much
better but are too far from Yokohama to make it in time. Wedy is a
professional. She will adapt.


    Yotsuba's Yokohama office has just activated the GS343 Electronic
Warfare Suite, a device that was never allocated from the budget and never
indicated to be installed. It transforms the entire building into a
transmitter and blasts its interior with radio frequencies, activating any
monitoring systems that would otherwise wait passively and undetectably.
Nobody uses the GS343 any more because it requires all the building's own
cameras and electronic monitoring systems to be shut off for an hour to
avoid interference. That's good. This means that Wedy's spy cameras and
bugs will not be able to masquerade as the building's own security, they
will be detected, they will be triangulated, and if Kira is here he will
go to ground. That's very bad.


    The first task actually goes to Nori, Misa's stunt double. Nori
has to explain Misa's absence. Nori locks herself in Misa's trailer and
has a half-audible, sobbing conversation about her fears that her
boyfriend doesn't want her kissing the male lead. The other half of this
conversation, of course, would communicate in writing. Good job, Nori.


    Matsuda is the face man. He is effectively deaf the moment he
walks up to the Yotsuba office: his phone may be untappable and
untraceable but he doesn't have a secret earpiece to be fed info from. His
jobs are simple and allow some wiggle room. First, he opens the door, and
he holds it open. "Shoko! You coming?" he shouts out into the darkness.
"Is that... Is that a no? ... Okay, fine, get me a coffee while you're
out!" The pneumatic pressure alarm is not shut off by the GS343's
interference. It records events internally, to be reviewed tomorrow, by
someone whose work Kira might be checking. Matsuda needs to hold a ground
level door open long enough for someone to crack a window and slip inside.


    Misa has a face that is instantly recognizable. There is no time
to convince someone from makeup to disguise her. She cannot go inside, as
this encounter must appear to Yotsuba to not be worth talking about, and
autograph requests contradict that aim. Misa is in Wedy's rented office
two streets over. Before her is an open window and an array of laser
microphones and narrow band transmitters. She wishes she was down there
sneaking around and breaking in. She thinks being the spotter is cool too.
"Hey, Light! Guess what we're doing!" She's far more enthusiastic than
even an hour ago.


    Light is on the line. "Misa! I'm here. Ryuzaki and I are in the
control room. We're all caught up on what's happening. You're gonna do
great, I'm sure of it."


    She takes a deep breath. Light believes in her. And if it's on
behalf of Light she can do anything. "All right. Let's do this." She
squints into the little scope, and sweeps the microphone along the bottom
row of windows. "Okay. The third window, and the fourth, and eight, and
eleven... all have people talking in them. Matsuda looks like he's going
in."


    Naomi is going inside, simply by virtue of her hardware. Thanks to
L's overengineering every piece of equipment his crew has, she's the only
one with an untappable comm link conveniently located in her ear. The
system will be able to detect that it exists, of course, if they had truly
untraceable signals the cameras would use those, but they won't know what
data is being transmitted and will think it innocuous. Covering that is
one of Matsuda's jobs. So Naomi is outside, on the lawn, right in the view
of a camera that's turned off. She's nabbed a secretary-style blazer and a
modestly sized scarf from wardrobe, to cover her incredibly recognizable
scars, and hastily smeared foundation above and below her lip as she was
jogging to her destination. Her outfit doesn't quite fit, and neither time
nor her necessary range of motion permitted her to change her blue jeans
for a pencil skirt. She waits for Misa's word that the sixth window is
clear, and she pushes it open. She's in and unmonitored.


    The office is dark and empty, but inspection reveals a name tag.
It can't survive close inspection since it's a man's name tag but it will
work for a second. The most foolproof secret to sneaking in anywhere: wear
a white coat and look very, very fed up. Second place: Flash your name tag
faster than someone can read it and hustle like you really have to pee.
She nabs some printer paper on her way out of the first floor -- looks
like she's carrying something, but no paperwork will be missed. They deal
with extremely sensitive financial information here. She has no idea what
might make a problem if she steals it.


    Yotsuba's lobby greets Matsuda with a large round desk for the
secretary, and security off to the side. "Ah. Hello there!" He bows
obsequiously. "I'm so, so sorry to trouble you. I'm with the movie
project, across the plaza. Can I maybe, perhaps take a teensy bit of your
time?" He walks up to the desk in Maximum Wheedling Mode. "We've been...
having some equipment trouble on set. The tech guys tell me that there's
some electrical interference coming from this building." He hands out a
hearing aid -- the spare, of course -- into the secretary's palm. "One of
Misa's people uses this and, well, just hear for yourself." Matsuda puts
his hand into his pocket as the secretary puts the device to her ear. He
waits four seconds, then double-taps the star button on his phone.


    Misa takes her phone and puts it up to the speaker. Ryuzaki,
Light, and Aiber wince as the channel is blasted with squealing feedback.
The secretary recoils. "See what I mean?" says Matsuda, and then both of
them look at the paper placard on her desk:


    //For tonight's security upgrade, please disable all phones and
radios before 8 PM!//


    He's taken to the security desk. Maybe they can help him with his
problem.


    Naomi isn't accosted on her way from the office. Not many people
are here, and most security is electronic and turned off. No matter how
expensive the system, not enough people are running it, with not enough
care for their work. If she is still here when the cameras reactivate, she
is absolutely hopelessly done for. Her goal is on the 15th floor. Misa can
mark for her when two stairwells are occupied or unoccupied.


    "Okay, stop! The guy is coming into the left stairwell. My left,
not yours. He's... he's going down. He's going down all the way, maybe, I
don't THINK he's a guard?... Okay you are on the sixth floor, right?
He's... Okay, the right side is clear! Go to the other stairway! And, and
don't go to the eighth floor if you can help it! Is that eight? Yeah, the
eighth! Go all the way to nine if you can!"


    Without her crutch, Naomi's knee is starting to hurt. It's not the
greatest of her worries. The stairwell is clear for her to proceed. Misa
has her eyes and her augmented ears on 15 now, sweeping the laser back and
forth across it. Luckily, the enclosed offices all have windows, and Naomi
can see into the maze of cubicles toward the interior. "Nothing...
nothing... typing... Okay, that's one guy, you have to be quiet.
Nothing... Is that..." Misa holds her breath and listens. "Someone's
breathing. I think he's asleep. Okay, two offices have people in them. Or,
I mean, two windows worth of offices. Third and seventh, counting,
counting from where you are. Or, wait, there's someone... Is there a
window that the hallway looks into? Tap the glass if you can see out of
it." Tap. Tap. "Okay, good, that's you, so I can hear the hallway too. So
I just... Light, I just flip back and forth between these three to see if
I hear anything, right?"


    "Sorry... Matsui, right?" the guard says. "We can't shut this
thing off yet. We can try to fix it for next week, but, honestly, that's
going to be hard too." Shrug. Whaddya gonna do? "Security around here is
just, it's crazy, right? They're always adding new nonsense. They say it's
because they deal with so much financial information, but... It's some
kind of scam, since Yotsuba owns the security contractors. Someone's
robbing the company, but not in the way they pay us to care about."


    "That's a good plan, Misa. Keep going. Doing great." Naomi looks
into the interior of the floor. Past the stairwell, three cubicles are lit
with the sickly glow of monitors. One of them is right up next to the
hallway. Working late nights. The cubicle walls are low, and the cubicles
numerous. From the waist up, with no reason to look closely at her, she
looks exactly like a secretary should look. She digs an empty disposable
coffee cup from the burnable trash bin and holds it close to her face. She
doesn't stride with confidence past the occupied cubicle. She strides with
weariness, resigned exhaustion. The guy in the cubicle looks right up to
her. He nods to her in acknowledgment. She nods back. Boy, have I ever
been there! And then he's back to his work. Too many cubicles around here.
Too many people for one guy to track.


    Naomi has a clear shot to her goal, dead center of the hallway, on
the floor dead center in the building: the 15th story employee break room.
There's no door, but there's a freestanding counter to cut cakes on, a TV,
beanbag chairs, et cetera. Nice place, all told. "It's stuck to the top
inside of the third cabinet, where they hide the liquor. Just pop the lock
open and peel it out," says Wedy. There is silence. Naomi doesn't have a
mic, and she wouldn't be able to use it. "You... don't carry lockpicks
with you at all times. Right. Shit. They might notice if you bust the lock
now and they certainly will tomorrow. We can't count on them blaming an
employee."


    "Crap! Crap!" Misa exclaims. "Typing guy is getting up! He's...
Yeah, he's leaving! I have no idea what direction he's going in, you may
have to hide!"


    "Oh, if you wanna talk about bad management, whoo, I have some
stories for you," says Matsuda. He'd love to hang out and talk with these
guys in the security office. The more people looking at him while he's
talking, the less are looking at the isolated pings on the GS343's ugly,
boxy threat monitor display, and there's less odds of them noticing a
precursor. He keeps glancing at the clock. A few devices may create
feedback here and there, and it might even rise to the level of suspicious
if they look closely. But at exactly 8:37 and 11 seconds, assuming the
sweep started on schedule, it's going to test a frequency and that monitor
is going to light up like a Christmas tree. They have about twelve minutes
before things become very, very bad.


    Naomi does have to hide. If this office worker grabs a snack on
his way out... Quick decision time. Hide from sight entirely, but get
totally made if he happens to stumble upon you? Or try to look plausible,
but give him more of a chance to investigate? No. He has an office with a
window, he knows who the secretaries are. Every break room Naomi has ever
seen has a spacious floor-level cabinet that contains only one container
of styrofoam disposable bowls. Here is no exception.


    The late-working manager stops by the break room. To nab a snack
for the road. He's never bought anything that goes into the fridge, but he
is a boss, he has authority over his employees, right? Hmm, what do we
have in the fridge this evening?


    Don't steal something that needs a bowl, don't steal something
that needs a bowl, don't steal something that needs a bowl...


    "My last job was just awful. You ever met Hideki Ryuga?" Matsuda
asks. Nobody did, which means he is free to shit-talk. "He has, he has a
whole team of staff, right? I asked him what I could do for him. He looked
right, he looked right at the secretary polishing her nails. And he said
'Matsui, get us some coffee'. Like, like, I went to the academy, I have an
MBA!" Embellishing is easier than lying. Lying is easier when it's
something that you feel is true and you just swap the details.


    He doesn't steal something that needs a bowl. He steals a sandwich
and some soda. Doesn't even stop to use the microwave. Naomi waits thirty
seconds before she squeezes herself out of the cabinet, her knee now
getting very angry with her. But now she has some time to work. Ryuzaki
and Light just listen to the events, unused to having less information
than everyone else involved.


    Naomi knows a little something about lockpicking, and the woman
talking in her ear knows a lot more. Lockpicking is trivial with the right
tools, and pretty easy with the wrong ones, but impossible without any.
You need something broad and rigid to turn the lock, and something skinny
with a bump on the end to tap the pins. When you tap the pin into the
place the key would set it, the pressure of you turning the cylinder locks
it into place.


    First component is easy. There's a silverware drawer in the break
room, and a butter knife. Done. Second is slightly more difficult.
Nobody's left a paper clip; Naomi doesn't use hair pins. But inspection
reveals plastic toothpicks next to the birthday candles. They will have to
do.


    "Gentle. Think of how big the gap between the lowest point and the
highest point of a key is. There's not much of a difference. Don't move
the pick more than that," Wedy coaches. "Twist the butter knife like it's
a doorknob. Geeently. Like you're going into a room with someone who's
asleep. And juuust... feather the tumblers. Don't push them hard at all."
The metal creaks. She twists the toothpick too much, and it snaps off in
the lock. Wedy has no idea what is happening and keeps coaching. Naomi has
leather motorcycle gloves; she either can't pinch the tiny bit of
toothpick sticking out, or she leaves fingerprints. No time.


    "It's like, it's like bosses nowadays, they expect you to be loyal
to the company when they aren't paying that loyalty back," the security
manager says, to nods of agreement from his two other guys. "We jump
through so many hoops, we deal with so many absurd false alarms, they
don't let us do our jobs by making our own protocol... The only real
problem we have with security is that guy who steals something out of the
fridge every time he sees it, and they won't let us do anything about
him." He nods authoritatively, then picks up when he feels his coworker
about to add something. "Well, that and potatoes. Honestly, who is out
there giving potato cannons to middle schoolers? No wonder people are all
talking about Kira. This country is going down the toilet."


    Naomi drops to her knee and kisses the lock. Her mouth's suction
is enough to pull the delicate pick from the hole; she wipes off the spit
with her sleeve. The second toothpick goes much better. The lock yields,
and sure enough, a false roof on the cabinet reveals a black disc about
the size of a saucer. Unable to signal, she taps herself on the ear twice
so they'll hear her fingertip.


    "Right. That's the WHAT ARE YOU DOING WHERE DID YOU LEARN TO DRIVE
JACKASS?" Wedy snaps. "That's the central hub. The cameras all transmit to
it, and then it transmits back to us. The signal is very, very weak so it
won't be detected. It has a fail-safe mode that slags the antenna on every
camera, rendering them unable to transmit even when tricked by active
transmissions. But the building must be too thick to get the signal in, or
something is creating some kind of interference. So I need you to take
that thing and press it up against a window so Misa can hit it with the
frying signal. A red light should come on. Misa, the transmitter for that
looks like a raygun with a dish on it. Got it?"


    "This is not right," Ryuzaki says. "Wedy, your pedigree is
impeccable. How were you so taken by surprise?"


    "Don't insult my competence, Ryuzaki," Wedy says with all her
composure back. "The only way to truly ensure an absolutely undetectable
surveillance, by any means, is to use no surveillance at all. You wanted
interior cameras, trade offs had to be made. No records indicated that
they had purchased this specific type of ECM system, so I optimized around
that. Companies don't really buy the GS343 outside of Eastern Europe. The
security holes it introduces, like Naomi able to run around in front of
cameras with impunity while it's on, are absolutely absurd. You're doing
great, by the way, Naomi. Keep going. It just so happens this thing has
the one weakness that lets my bugs be found."


    "It's not possible." Ryuzaki mutters. "How would they pick the
single system that defeats Wedy's surveillance? She wasn't observed coming
into the country, we've made no move against Yotsuba, they have no idea I
suspect them..." He looked over at Light. "Even if Light has a means to
clandestinely message outside parties... you know nobody in Yokohama. None
of your contacts suddenly went down there. You've not been able to gain
more information than me. You never had access to her schematic. You
wouldn't understand it if you did. This is a new Kira... whose identity
you cannot yet know... so it's not possible that you have warned him."


    "Well, you're probably busy with stuff for the movie," the guard
says, "I couldn't help you, so I probably ought to stop talking your ear
off. Nice meeting you though, Taro. You guys need any set security, you
let us know, okay?"


    "Oh, it's no trouble!" Matsuda says. "I'm enjoying myself. I'll
stay here and talk as long as you'll have me." He laughs nervously, hoping
it comes off as self-effacing. He can't leave yet. The operation isn't
done, one way or the other. He's got no idea what will be needed from him
next.


    "Well, cheer up Ryuzaki," says Light, eyes glued to the meager
info feed on the main monitor. "I don't think these guys are after Wedy.
Think about it: why would you run a security sweep at 8 PM, when people
are still working? Why not 3 AM and have nothing go wrong?"


    Ryuzaki slowly turns to face Light, eyes lighting up -- as much as
he gets, anyway. "Because I don't want the company to see what I'm doing
at 8 PM."


    Light nods. "We thought we were looking for a corporate
mucketymuck doing suspicious things in his office to give us a trail to
follow him home where he's Kira. Maybe he's doing it at the office."


    Ryuzaki's smiling. "The reason to do it at the office is if you
cannot do it at home. And you can't do it at home... if you're Kira by
committee."


    "Uh, guys?" says Misa. "Naomi's shaking her head. I don't think I
got it. The light's coming on on the raygun... Is something getting in the
way?"


    "Energy efficient windows," Wedy spits. "Of course. Couldn't check
them from outside. God damn it. God damn it!"


    Matsuda's phone vibrates in his pocket. Text from Misa. //OPEN A
WINDOW FLOOR 13 14 16 OR 17//. He flips it shut, slaps himself and curses.
The guards look at him expectantly. Six minutes.


    "Okay, this is gonna sound pretty dumb," he says sheepishly. "Can
I take a picture of the set? From high up? See, there's a problem... We
need a high, far shot for the end of the battle scene. I need to see if I
can get a good one from you guys's place."


    The guards are skeptical. "Don't you have something worked out for
that already?"


    "We did! We did!" he says with a nervous chuckle. Five minutes
forty. "But we got here and you can see the WcDonalds billboard on the
left side. So, you know, if we edit it out in post, it'll look really
awkward. And we're not going to shoot from the building, obviously! It's a
crane shot, the crane would be out in front of your property. I just need
to check the view from the same angle."


    The standing guard scowls. "That's not the job of a star's
manager. That's the job of a director of photography."


    Matsuda sighs, and his shoulders slump. He is defeated. He can't
make a better story than this. "Yeah... that is something the DP should be
doing, isn't it?"


    The guard claps a hand on his shoulder. "Taro, you've gotta stop
letting your bosses pawn this stuff onto you!" He is a fellow traveler
now. A brother in arms against Those Guys Up Top And Their Bullshit. "All
right, come on, but be quick."


    Elevator ride. Three minutes thirty. The guard accompanies Matsuda
every step of the way, ensuring he does nothing untoward. The 14th story
looks good! Matsuda cranks the flash on his phone's camera to maximum,
takes a shot, and nearly blinds himself. "Sorry. I forgot the glare. Can I
crack this thing open?"


    "Eh, I don't know..." Two minutes forty-five. "The windows aren't
supposed to be open without authorization." Two thirty. "Eh, I'll just log
it. I'm pretty sure if you let a cat burglar in, I can just shove her back
out. Come on, the windows over here open." Two fifteen. An open break area
with tables and chair lined along the wall. The guard tries a window.
"Hmm, did we seal these?" Two minutes. "Oh, no, this one works. Here we
go!" Minute forty five.


    Matsuda nearly shoves his upper body out of the window and takes a
picture. He has no idea what this is accomplishing but given the time
scale, sending a signal is very important. The brilliant flash illuminates
the night, unreflected, calling Misa's attention. She shouts "HE OPENED IT
HE OPENED IT GO GO GO!" into her receiver.


    The window open, the air pressure alarm is tripped, and the guard
notes the date and time and location to authorize it. A floor above, Naomi
wrenches open another window, causing an air pressure differential that
the guards will write off as the echo of an oversensitive system. They've
been trained to. Minute thirty. Naomi's grip would be white-knuckled if
she could see her fingers as she holds the hub out the window for the
clearest, most unobstructed line of sight possible to Misa's transmitter.
Minute ten. She pulls the hub back and confirms the red light. The
killswitch signal is transmitting. How far towards the center of this
building does the hub have to be? Naomi has no way to ask this. Nobody can
see her by the stairwell, but they will definitely notice her if she
sprints back to the break room.


    She flings the hub down the hall like a hockey puck. It donks off
one wall and skips to a stop by the water cooler; the closer man in the
cubicle hears the sound, but he's doing too many important things to
investigate or care. Over the next twenty seconds, the red light flashes,
flashes slowly, then goes dead. She gently closes the window she opened so
as not to make a sound and hobbles, favoring her good leg, to pick up the
hub just as it dies. She sticks it in the pocket of her blazer and holds
out her empty papers and empty coffee cup again. All of the antenna have
been slagged, and will never transmit again. The cameras and bugs will be
found eventually, but by then the investigation will have concluded or
Kira will rule the world.


    Forty seconds to spare. Naomi sits down in the break room and
catches her breath. Misa whoops and hollers in triumph. Matsuda is
escorted to ground level by a nice fellow who offers to take him drinking
in a couple of days. The control room crew breathe sighs of relief.


    "Congratulations!" says Wedy. "You managed to pull off what I
could do in five minutes. I'm still seven minutes out; I'll get in and
extract Misora once I arrive."


    And then.


    "Light... We still have time, right? Like, if the scan goes for an
hour, the cameras won't turn on until 9, right?" asks Misa. "They're doing
Kira stuff right now, aren't they? If we have a few minutes, then can
Naomi look for... Wait, do you have like an infrared scope I can see where
all the Kiras are with?"


    "You have eleven minutes, because that's how long it will take me
to extract the last agent. Infrared scope will just show you how hot the
building is. You can't see inside that way."


    Naomi does not like where this is going, but Light and Ryuzaki are
on the same wavelength. "Misa, Misa that's a great idea. Okay. We think
they're being Kira by committee. You can't SEE them, but... whoever it is
has to be powerful enough to tell the entire building to shut off their
phones and install a new security system. There's no point in having a
committee if they aren't all of similar rank, and if they are trying to
increase the wealth of the company, they must all be stockholders. 25 and
26 are executive suites, right? What's going on up there?"


    "Okay... hang on..." Misa is concentrating on the top floors, so
she can't hear Naomi stuffing ice from the break room freezer into a
Ziploc bag to apply to her knee. "The audio graph isn't picking up
anything very loud, I think... But then they'd not say anything next to a
window, would they? Wedy, does Yotsuba have like a darker, eviler
conference room with no windows?


    Ryuzaki and Light share a look.


    "The top two floors are executive suites, yeah," Wedy warns. "The
stairwells have keycard locks and only the executive elevator reaches it.
She cannot get in there. I can get in after I spring her but I might end
up having to sleep there overnight once the cameras come back."


    "We might not have time!" Light says. "Naomi, just... Misa, can
you walk her up to the 24th floor the way you did before?"


    "Roger that!" says Misa with a salute nobody appreciates. "Okay,
you are on 15... which is this one... And there's definitely less noises
going on the higher up you get..."


    The greatest difficulty she has making it up is from her knee,
which is killing her by now. It's time for another surgery, because the
last one did not take. But she's there. 24. One floor below the executive
level. Light Yagami has been mumbling to himself the entire time, almost
in an L-like fashion, and springs into action once Misa reports her
arrival. "Okay! The air pressure system can be fooled by other levels, so
we know the ventilation system is connected between floors. If they're
cutting off internal monitoring, then maybe it's possible to hear them...
and if you can, it can't be through a window, it must be through the air
vents." He's bobbing back and forth to psych himself up. "It's not as good
as Wedy's bugs, but... Can you find a vent, take out your hearing aid, and
place it as far in as you can? Ryuzaki, is there a mixing board or
something? I need to boost the gain to maximum."


    Ryuzaki shows him the control panel, as if he were bowing out of
the way for a master to work. Naomi puts her high-tech hearing assistance
gingerly into the vent, hoping to pick up a few scattered echoes of
conversation. Light winces and grits his teeth as the crew picks up
whispers of "...inconvenient to our interests..." and "...doubted our
methods, he should not have chosen...".


    But he's not grimacing at the callousness hinted at by those
words. It's just that nobody else in the room can hear Ryuk, screaming at
the top of his lungs(?) into the overboosted microphone, "HEY REM! REM!
HEEEEEEY REEEEEEM!"


                               * N A O M I *


    "Everybody rumored! Nobody believed! Now you see it's true!" Misa
shouted triumphantly the moment we made it into the command room.. "Team
Misa has returned to save the day!" Hands wide in the air, up on one foot,
she basked in imaginary praise and adulation from a phantom audience.


    And a real one. "Misa!" Light called out to her. He went to go
give her a hug, but he was still tied to Ryuzaki, who wasn't moving. "Good
work. You've really got a head for this."


    Misa bounded across the room to land in his lap, spinning on the
office chair and winding the handcuff chain around them while she made out
with her boyfriend. Misa was doing most of the work, I think. Ryuzaki
looked put out, and just kind of stuck out his leg so they'd collide with
it and stop spinning.


    I found myself a seat, and one for my extended leg with an ice
pack tied to it. Aizawa and Soichiro and Watari were nowhere to be found.
Aiber had a pina colada in his hand. I don't know where he got it; he
seemed like the kind of person for whom pina coladas just sort of
spontaneously appeared.


    "I can't believe we did it!" Matsuda said to me. "It was all so
fast, I... I don't think I processed it all." I could only grunt my
assent. I was right there with him. I was more scared now than when I was
doing it, because now I had time to be scared. "Did we... did we actually
save the day?" It felt like it. Kinda.


    "We did!" Misa said in triumph. She tried to stand and bound over
to us and immediately stumbled over the handcuffs. "We -- whoop! I'm okay!
-- We're big giant heroes and we're all gonna get medals. Ryuzaki, make us
medals!"


    "No."


    "Well, then, I at least want a fake badge like everyone else got!"
she shot back. "That's kind of like a medal. And I know you have a mold
for it!"


    Misa bounded up to meet us and gave Matsuda a great big hug, which
he only returned after a couple seconds of sheepish confusion. I was
honestly proud of Misa. She was wallowing in self-pity like the rest of
us, yet the moment the call came, she jumped at it. On the battlefield of
info warfare, she was a berserker. Some small part of me felt like 'hey,
she's able to see herself as deserving and agentic because you believed in
her and worked to get her out of harm, she's starting to walk away from
her abhorrent beliefs because of you, part of this is to your credit,' but
it was probably all from Light Yagami. I don't see much emotional support
coming from him, but it's not like I spent all my time with him anyway.
Misa's congratulatory hug for me didn't land in my lap, but she wrapped
her arms around me, and she squeezed, and she buried her face in my neck,
and it felt... It felt really nice. It feels good to be appreciated, have
someone say you deserve affection. Usually "a pretty girl" isn't the
specific polarity of validation I looked for, but I took what I could get.


    I liked Misa. I couldn't believe I was saying that, given I met
her as Kira's biggest fan. But I got Misa. I got how terrified she was,
how unsafe. I could see myself in her. I could see where I might have
gone. And after seeing that she was suffering and afraid, I'm seeing
her... do something about it. Making the world make sense again instead of
relying on others to do it for her. Hunting Kira because she recognizes
that has to be done, rather than just hanging around and maybe helping
because Light says. She was a work in progress. So were we all, I think.


    God, I missed Raye. He'd tell me what a great job I did. He'd be
mortified I put myself in danger, and he'd vow to do it for me, but he'd
tell me what I did was still amazing.


    "Congratulations. You managed to bring us back to slightly worse
than where we started at," Ryuzaki said to us with a looming stare. "We
were not detected. But we destroyed all surveillance in the building. We
have only thirty seconds of distorted audio and no video of the meeting.
Our only grounds for believing that the meeting group is Kira was the
general menacing nature of their conversation. There is still the
possibility Matsuda is reported to management as suspicious. Our interest
is in ensuring this does not happen again."


    "Perhaps next time the cops could fake a block-wide power outage
and reset the cycle," Wedy said, her voice all calm and silky. "Your
briefing led me to believe it was the case, but unfortunately it was
outdated." And theeeere it was again.


    "Outdated briefing?" Aiber said. "Wow, this case has really got
you off your game, Ryuzaki." Ryuzaki was fuming. It was no secret how
frustrated he was, and how much he was fixating on Light Yagami (despite
telling me and all of us that Light is almost certainly not Kira), which
meant he had to be in love with the guy or something. After my outburst,
things were getting a bit more tense around here. I think everyone
realized there wasn't much to do about it. What, can you coup and unseat
the World's Greatest Detective because he's a prick?


    Besides, I wasn't thinking about that right now. I was thinking
about how the cops should have been able to save the operation, but they
didn't, because Koreyoshi fucking KITAMURA signed his pact with the serial
killer to withdraw all support. No wonder Ryuzaki was off his game. He was
manifesting the power of an "institution" of like ten people, trying to
cover the city of Tokyo. Because someone reneged on his duty to serve and
protect. Because someone wanted other people to die so his guys weren't in
danger. Because someone is a murderous coward.


    Light and Ryuzaki were arguing about something now. I didn't care.
Misa was looking at me, and I smiled. Yeah. I did admire her for coming
back, and wanting to do something about the world. I clasped her hands
close to mine, and I told her. "G-good."


    And she bumped her forehead to mine. "I know how much you mean by
that," she said warmly. "But you did all the dangerous stuff. You're
really cool."


    And then, I snapped my fingers for Wedy's attention, waved her
over. "Oh. Yeah. You? You'll have your thing by tomorrow," she said,
though not admitting she felt a debt or anything.


    I should stop feeling sorry for myself. Stop fuming at the
injustices inflicted around me. I should do something about it.


                                 * R E M *


    The human I was haunting was a repulsive creature. Selfish.
Avaricious. He used the Death Note for his personal monetary gain. His
blue eyes had no light or compassion in them. His short styled hair can't
make him look any less worthwhile. "Hello, Renesco Salvatore of Naples,"
he said as he inked another name. "Goodbye, Renesco Salvatore of Naples."


    But I must follow him because he bears the Death Note in my
custody. And I must accompany him because this is Light Yagami's plan. I
despise Light Yagami. He is the most repulsive human creature of all. But
I do not understand the human world, and he does. I do not understand how
to save Misa Amane from danger, and he does. So I am his puppet. I gave
this man the Death Note, as instructed. I told him what he must do with
it, as instructed. I answer his questions about its powers, as instructed.
His shinigami Ryuk shouted a message to me through the air-spraying
system, and I dutifully reported it, as instructed. I have said nothing
since. I stayed one meter behind him and watched with as much disdain as
my body can manage to convey.


    I have nothing to do most of the day. I have no interest in the
wealth games he plays to sustain himself. He has nothing to offer my body
or mind. He sat in his study after his day of accomplishing nothing
worthwhile, killing humans for no reason other than that he cannot be
stopped. It does not sustain his life to do so. Most of the humans he
kills are grotesque monsters. The total level of monstrousness in the
human world does not go down. Perhaps Light Yagami is right. The world
needs to be cleansed of its corrupt and wicked. Like those vile people who
would cleanse it of its corrupt and wicked.


    "Hello, Yuri Sokolov of Saint Petersburg. Goodbye, Yuri Sokolov of
Saint Petersburg." I cannot despise this world as much as I should. I do
not have the strength. There is not enough room in my being to accommodate
that depth of emotion. Goodness in a human is defined by their ability to
partially balm the suffering created by other humans.


    The door opened. His disgusting wife poked her head inside.
Another human was growing inside her stomach. When it emerged it would
suffer and create suffering. The only measure of existence for humankind.
"Honey! I know you're still working, but dinner is ready soon. What do you
want to drink?"


    He flipped the Death Note closed over his finger to hold his
place. "Sweetie! I told you you should stay off your feet! I can make my
own drinks when I get down, you just sit!" he said. The warmth in his
voice was a mask to enable him to commit more atrocities. I am learning
this is true of all human voices.


    "It's no trouble!" she said, cringing and fawning. "Don't you
worry about me, worry about us!" she said as if those words hold any
actual meaning, as if it made her a good person to defer to another. Then
she turned her gaze to me. "Rem, sweetie, how about you, did you want
anything with dinner?"


    I have told her many times I do not, but she was a human. She
didn't care what I said.


                               * N A O M I *


    No filming until the evening. We had a lead on the new
perpetrators, but we had to wait on Wedy to lay down new bugs that didn't
trip the security system. That meant nothing to do but hang out.


    "So. Misa," said Matsuda, "I've been good at dodging questions so
far, but we're going to have to come up with an explanation as to your
prolonged absence. We can't exactly say the real answer, and the tabloids
are starting to say you were in rehab."


    "Ugh. That makes me sound like Paris Hilton." Misa shuddered. "Her
spectre haunts all young female celebrities." She paused and her tone
became defensive. "What? I read books! Anyway. What if I was out, like,
helping starving children in Africa?"


    "Yeah, but then why would we keep that a secret, and why wouldn't
we film it?"


    "Good question." She put her hand to her chin in contemplation.
"Ooh! I know. I was in the hospital, but because I was in a car accident.
And we didn't tell anyone because we didn't want the hospital flooded with
fans and well-wishers."


    "It's not your fault, it makes you seem more vulnerable for being
injured and more spunky for clawing your way back... Yeah, yeah, that
could work." Matsuda was starting to get into his role, I think.


    "And," she said in a voice overflowing with melodrama, "Misa's
ever-faithful bodyguard Shoko Maki, ignoring her own wounds, heroically
pulls her frail little body from the burning wreckage and brings her back
to life with mouth-to-mouth!" She put her hand on her chin and glanced off
to the side. "Actually, we should write that down, we might want to do a
movie with that."


    "That was 'The Bodyguard'," Aizawa said without looking up, "The
one where Whitney Houston sang 'My Heart Will Go On'."


    "Damn it!" Misa snapped.


    I was also kind of unsettled by it. "Uh. Misa. Misa... ummm, Misa?
Light?" My what card didn't work for this. I needed a 'what about' card.


    "Light, what about Light?" she asked in genuine confusion. "He
couldn't have pulled me out of a car accident, people saw him since then."
She blinked at me a couple times. "Aren't you hot in that jacket all the
time? Ryuzaki keeps the heat turned up, I'm boiling. It's... You know it's
okay. Everyone here is on the team anyway." I was a little hot, to be
perfectly honest. But that wasn't why she was asking me.


    I slowly slipped out of my jacket, revealing the black tank top I
had underneath it. Just like she'd wanted, she could see my scars.  And
she just started... running her finger up the scar on my arm. Like she was
a child pushing a toy train or something. This time, I wasn't stopping
her. I just watched the top of her head, watched her pigtails jiggle.
There were like five other people here. One of them was her boyfriend. He
was like three meters away.


    "They're really beautiful," Misa said. she was lingering near my
elbow. Could anyone see me blushing? "Hey, would you mind if... Can I use
them for, like, a character?" She looked up at me with her big blue eyes
full of promise. "Not in this movie, we already shot the ending. But,
like, a future project, a movie or a shoot or something. Get makeup to
give me the same pattern." My arm was ripped open when I was forced to
commit suicide by leaping off a cliff, gouging my flesh on the jagged
rocks and forever marring it. Her finger was wobbling back and forth on
that gouge, pressing down ever so slightly on the raised, pale mark.
Because it was interesting.


    She liked it. I liked being liked. I hadn't had any romantic
contact in the better part of a year, and I was afraid to do anything in
my room because I didn't know if Ryuzaki put cameras in it. I just closed
my eyes. I closed my eyes and I pretended it was Raye, just for a second.
Raye was back because someone felt good about me. Just for a little bit,
everything felt okay. Misa probably had no idea what kind of significance
I assigned to this, but, it didn't matter. We could be friends. I could be
a cool person she liked to see. That felt real nice too.


    "TIME!" said Light, as he finished his puzzle with a dramatic
flourish that was way too over-the-top for simply writing something down.
At the noise, Misa got up and wandered her way over to him, to see what he
was up to.


    "Six minutes forty seconds," said Ryuzaki. "New record."


    "Okay, I never said I could outrace you," said Aiber. He hadn't
done anything yet, but he was still here in case we needed him, and he got
paid either way. He scratched his chin. "Seven letter word, 'acquired
clumsiness', A-P-blank-blank-blank-blank-A."


    "Is it... ooh, what was it... 'Apraxia'?" Wow, Misa must have
really done her research into strange disorders caused by head injuries.


    "Then 28 down, 'sign of crossing', is 'PED XING', that fits."


    "See? I know things," she said, and stuck out her tongue. Ryuzaki
turned his attention back to his shortcake, which looked to be mostly
frosting.


    "Ryuzaki... I actually need to talk to you about something," said
Light. "Misa and I were the two biggest Kira candidates, so if you die,
we're probably going to be held responsible, right?"


    "There's a new one at Yotsuba," he said around his fork. "Misa
might be okay."


    "Ryuzaki, what if you die of diabetes?" Light asked. Misa and Mogi
started snickering. "I'm serious. I am handcuffed to you. You've never
eaten a vegetable or a fruit in my presence." Ryuzaki waved a strawberry
at him. "That's a berry, not a fruit," he said, with just the barest hint
of frustration seeping into his voice.


    "A strawberry is an accessory fruit," Ryuzaki... corrected?
whined? It was becoming more and more clear that Light was the real one in
charge around here, and Ryuzaki was just spinning his wheels. More than
the rest of us, I mean.


    "Whatever!" Misa chimed in. "He's right, you know! I'm trying to
be reasonable about you taking precautions but blowing Light's head off
because you got a heart attack the old-fashioned way is just not cool."


    "You... could afford to have more healthy habits," said Soichiro.
He was in the corner reading his newspaper. "If your life is tied to my
son's."


    Ryuzaki steepled his fingers in contemplation. "Hm. Does this have
anything to do with the amount of apples you eat, Light? Watari's told me
you have quite an appetite. What did it say-- that gods of death like
apples?"


    Light looked defensive but cool, like every other time he got
vaguely accused of bring Kira. Every inconsequential detail was an
accusation, allegedly testing his reasoning and memory... by now, mostly
our patience. I admit being leery of Yagami at first. I had a flash where
I thought I remembered him doing it, but I also remembered Matsuda in the
room with me and Raye, and Mogi sitting next to me on the All Nippon
Airways flight and being a total dick and trying to smother me with his
inflight pillow. And the natural thought when presented with Ryuzaki's
insistence was that he was lying about Light not being Kira, and his ego
had driven him to the point where only he was allowed to prove it. Then,
when you saw the complete insubstantiality of everything he accused Light
with, it became clear this was an exercise, and not a good one.


    "You showed me the message when I was hungry," Light said. "I
thought 'man, when was the last time I had a good apple?' and I simply
haven't broken the habit. I feel healthier, too. If Watari started buying
them, would you eat them?" This had to have been humiliating. Light
talking down to him like a child. I didn't know if Ryuzaki even noticed
these kinds of dominance games, or cared, but they were starting to get on
my nerves. Misa looked a bit put out too, even though she had more stake
in it. Matsuda was clearly enjoying seeing Ryuzaki be the low man in the
operation.


    Ryuzaki rolled his eyes and scooted over to the console to call
Watari, dragging Light's chair with him. "Watari. The next time you get
our food, get us... Get me some apples, I suppose. For a health diet."


    "Of course, sir," came Watari's voice over the link. "I was about
to call you. Geraldo Coil has just been contracted to find out the
identity of L."


    It was like a light flicking on. Like Clark Kent in a Superman
costume realizing he could be Superman. Ryuzaki was here, focused, alert,
ready, eager. Just like that. "He has, has he? Who is the client?"


    "The client is anonymous. But used an Internet cafe that mostly
does business in Yokohama."


    "Excellent, Watari," he smiled. Geraldo Coil was the 'second-best'
detective in the world... well, I knew Ryuzaki's ruse, I had some extra
information, but even if I could actually explain it in a comprehensible
fashion it would be rude to steal his moment.


    "Geraldo Coil?" Soichiro said with concern. "This could be
trouble. He's undoubtedly been hired by Yotsuba. He may be able to sniff
out our trail."


    Ryuzaki was actually smiling. "Mmm. Definitely Yotsuba. They must
be afraid I might be able to uncover their actions. They are trying to be
proactive."


    "So we're short-handed, we have no police backup, and now we're
going to have to play defense as well," Mogi said. "That's going to be a
problem."


    "It's not going to be a problem at all." Ryuzaki turned around in
his chair and looked up at everyone, smiling. He was getting a lot more
satisfaction out of this twist than I think it warranted. "Can you keep a
secret?" Light, Misa, Matsuda, Aizawa, Soichiro and Mogi nodded. "Geraldo
Coil... is me. I already operate under a false identity, why not construct
another for when the situation calls for it? So really, of the five
greatest detectives in the world, Denevue is number 2, Adrian Monk is
number 3, and Enrique Khamil is number 4. Nobody really keeps track of the
sixth greatest detective, but someone else is number 5."


    "Geraldo Coil is also me!" Aiber said as he got up. He clapped his
hands and rubbed them together. "I better start getting warmed up. I enjoy
playing Coil, he's a fun character. He's kind of a dick like you, Ryuzaki.
But he's charming."


    "I'm flattered," Ryuzaki deadpanned. "We have our way in now. If
they meet in the same place again, Wedy will have it locked down, and if
they do not, Aiber will be able to determine their meeting spot." He
looked up at his master display screen, showing Aiber with Coil's fake
vital statistics. "Now is when we start taking action."


    He was right. Today, Wedy had given me an envelope.


                               * L I G H T *


    As I did two nights a week, I sat at my desktop computer and
booted up World of Warcraft, to send my 'Blood Elf Paladin' named
'Justiceangel' to 'Serpentshrine Cavern' and kill the minions of 'Lady
Vashj' with a bunch of 'losers'. I wasn't actually enough of a hikikomori
to want to play this on my own, but I bought an account anyway because at
the high levels, play consisted of getting 24 other pathetic shut-ins
together to attack imaginary monsters while you yelled at each other over
a voice-chat program called Ventrilo about tanks and aggro and overheals
and other crap. The conversation was loud and chaotic and would perfectly
cover any OTHER talking I wanted to have going on, L didn't know anything
about how the game worked -- most Japanese people play Final Fantasy XI,
which is even worse -- and I could appear to be actively involved in it
while I was actually doing something completely different.


    My first instinct was to think that pathetic, shiftless men such
as these would have no place in my new order. Upon further consideration,
though, I realized that wasn't exactly the best plan. Even in the glorious
Golden Age of peace and enlightenment I will reign over as a God, we will
probably still need tech support and IT guys.


    I cradled my phone in my lap, almost entirely hidden from
Ryuzaki's sight. He latched onto it immediately, demanding I tell him what
I was doing. Why, I'm just looking up the strategy information, Ryuzaki! I
need to know what the monsters are doing, that's why I'm using my phone
out of your sight! He clearly couldn't tell if I'd found some way to
bypass his monitoring system and use the untraceable cell phone tower the
other investigators enjoyed. So he snatched it out of my hand. Told me he
would look up what I needed.


    And that was how I got him to sit down next to me, reading to me
about Hydross the Unstable, while I played the game entirely with my mouse
hand and had a very fruitful conversation with the other.


    //REMRYUK - Level 1 Undead Warlock - Tirisfal Glades: Deathknell 1
Player Total.


    To [Remryuk]: Got Rem msg. Good


    [Remryuk] whispered you: This is an unusual way for a god to
contact a disciple.


    To [Remryuk]: Game chat no log/watch


    [Remryuk] whispered you: You seem distracted. Shall I come back
when you aren't raiding, or do we have something important to talk
about?//


    Cute. Baiting an admission out of me, or just being coy. I could
warn him about Geraldo Coil, but that wouldn't be prudent. Like Ryuzaki
said: if you had one false ID, why not another? Why not a third? If I
warned him off Coil, and he went to a competitor, he might just get
Ryuzaki again. And Ryuzaki would know there was a mole. I wasn't quite at
the place where that would make him suspect someone other than me.


    One eye on health bars. One eye on the top of Ryuzaki's head.
Flick between for hidden words. "Light. It says here one encounter is
fished up with a fishing pole. I wouldn't mind seeing that."


    "It's not that impressive, it just spawns in," I told him. "But
I'll tell you if we're summoning him." Control-8 to hide the window when
he looks. Control-8 to bring it up when he sits back down. The text and
notifications move so fast that he cannot notice it even if I'm late in
hiding my conversation -- he sees just another band of colored text.
Because he's careless. And he gets bored easily.


    //To [Remryuk]: Cut BS


    To [Remryuk]: God of death give msg


    To [Remryuk]: U know what abt


    To [Remryuk]: Rem OK?


    [Remryuk] whispered you: Rem is depressing.


    To [Remryuk]: Yup


    To [Remryuk]: Tell Rem: our friend safe. Plan changed. Don't


    [Remryuk] whispered you: Don't what?


    To [Remryuk]: See friend w/o approval. Try help may make danger.


    [Remryuk] whispered you: uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuynndrstud


    [Remryuk] whispered you: Rem is not very experienced with a
keyboard.//


    I noticed my new Kira hadn't identified himself, hadn't given out
any info he didn't already know I had. Frustrating, but smart. I was going
to need him to stick around for a while. L couldn't get the Note too soon,
not until I had my bona fides. And if I became L and always was just
behind that rascally Kira, people would prooooooobably get suspicious.


    "Justice! Stop healing! You have an inner demon!" came the
throaty, mucous-choked voice in my ear. For a moment I told myself he's
referring to a lack of moral clarity, an inner specter of doubt, instead
of a purple version of my character model throwing wads of evil goo at me.
But the latter is the only one that really exists. Sort of.


    //To [Remryuk]: Smoke detector


    To [Remryuk]: When change battery?


    To [Remryuk]: Recently


    [Remryuk] whispered you: When did I last change the battery in my
smoke detector? Never. I haven't owned the house for long enough.//


    Cute. He may be trying to bait me, to see if I go after a member
of his council who just bought a house. But the speed at which he
formulated the response probably tells me something about him anyway.


    I had a specific instruction to give him that would take more
fluent writing to convey what and more importantly why I needed something
done. I played normally for a few minutes, and when I was helping to my
utmost, the group succeeded. "Okay, Ryuzaki, what's a Holy Paladin
supposed to do on Morogrim again?" I asked. He sat down against the wall
with his phone, and he popped his neck. He'd be down there for thirty
seconds at least when he did that. Then I muttered, "Oh, like hell that's
a hunter weapon, come on man," perfectly justifying my typing into chat.


    //To [Remryuk]: Given what happens to you should your book be
burned, it's important for you to care about fire safety.// This was
important. He had to care. He had to still care when he lost his memories
of the Note. //I want you to take a blank page, fold it up, and hide it in
one of your smoke detectors. This is the last place anyone will look for
an emergency backup. But I am serious about fire safety -- please, get in
the habit of changing the batteries every six months.


    [Remryuk] whispered you: That was verbose all of a sudden.


    [Remryuk] whispered you: KK.//


    If possible, I was going to get this guy out by removing his
memories. And then in six months, he was going to change his battery, he
was going to touch it, and he was going to start all over again. And I
would catch him. And I would pretend to lament the fact that Kira was
eternal.


                               * N A O M I *


    Wedy gave me an envelope. She sealed it with a kiss. It had an
address and a time. August 10, from 9 to 11:30 PM. Room 12 at the Health
Tokimeki Clinic. Unlike in the States, 'Health' in a Japanese business had
a connotation of 'massage'. Exactly like in the States, 'massage' meant
'prostitute'.


    And now here I was. Idling my bike outside this luxury, upscale
brothel. Kitamura's car wasn't here. His driver would pick him up when he
was done. I killed the engine, I took my crutch, and I double-checked all
my cards and components. Everything I needed to communicate. No, not
everything. There was also my gun, secure and beloved in my armpit.


    The crutch's adjustable pin made its distinctive click every time
I put my weight on it. My step was even, regular, as I approached the
front desk. The building was divided up around a central garden area, with
all the rooms around it in a square. Maybe this building was a shrine in a
past life. The white-clad attendant at the desk looked at my leg, then at
me, and bowed. "I'm sorry, Miss! While Health Tokimeki Clinic would love
to assist you, I'm afraid we're a rather specialist clinic, and we
cannot--"


    I slapped a wad of ten-thousand yen notes on the counter. The L
slush fund had come through. I didn't say anything, though. Had to save
that up. All my energy was going to room 12.


    "--my apologies, ma'am, you are better aware of your medical needs
than I." Another obsequious bow. "Do you have any specific requests,
miss...?"


    I put one hand over my mouth and shook the other. It wasn't actual
sign language, I wouldn't be able to use it if it wasn't something I just
made up, but it got the point across. "Your nurse should not speak." Well,
I thought it would get the point across. "No? Oh, my apologies. You cannot
speak. Of course, miss. If you would please go to room 8 and disrobe, I
will ensure that you meet an attendant who is skilled in nonverbal
communication." She must have been waiting a while to use that line. She
handed me a room key and pointed me down. There was no concern I was an
angry wife come for her husband. I was a scarred, crippled, brain-damaged
freak. Nobody could have loved me. The one who did was gone.


    I was here. Now. Doing it. I wasn't giddy, I wasn't terrified. I
felt kind of disbelieving. Was it going to be this easy? Just have Wedy
drop the address in my lap and that was it?


    No, that wasn't it. I had earned this. She thought I earned this
by helping melt her transmitter before it was detected. She was wrong. I
earned this walking the parallel bars and falling and screaming in pain I
couldn't articulate. I earned this pushing myself on the giant rubber ball
and smashing my elbow against the floor. I earned this with the giant
novelty pencil. I paid for this with every word I lost. I paid in blood
and brain matter.


    I crawled my way out of my grave. I assembled myself out of the
blasted pieces of my own corpse. The entire time knowing that someone did
this to me, someone did this to Raye, someone thought he had the right,
and he was going to pay. That's how I earned this. The fact I was here at
all. This gun was a promise, now I was keeping it.


    The only security was the guardrail to keep you from falling into
the garden. No matter what it is, people think a traditional garden makes
it more classy. Nothing stopped me from walking up to room 12. Nothing
stopped me from listening at the door and hearing what was going on
inside.


    "This one is a hardened criminal, X! If she won't confess to being
Kira, we'll have to use our advanced methods!" said an older man.


    "Excellent deduction, L!" said a younger woman. "Maybe some hot
wax will loosen this criminal's lips!"


    And that was when I kicked the door in. There was Kitamura, shirt
unbuttoned, pants hanging open just like his mouth and his eyes when he
saw the gun I leveled at his head. There was a woman in dominatrix gear
next to him, white-haired and red-eyed, who instantly dropped the candle
she was holding and put her hands up. On the massive bed adjacent to them,
a brunette was blindfolded and frog-tied with red marks on her ass. "Oh,
no!" she squealed. "Don't torture me! I swear I don't know anything!" The
other two stayed in shocked silence as I stared at my prey. "...X? L?
What's going on?"


    "Our client's wife is here with a gun, Kimiko," the white-haired
one hissed. I dragged the door closed with my heel, and I slapped on the
lights. No backlighting. Full illumination. No mistaking who I was.


    He stared at me in desperate incomprehension. "Ladies... I've
never seen this woman before in my life."


    He knew me well enough to send Raye off to die so his friend could
'get' me. He didn't even know what I looked like? I knew who he was. No
mistaking that sodden face. "A gun!?" the bound girl squealed, and
futilely started trying to hop in place. "Kioko, tell her we don't screen
the clients! We don't know who he is!"


    "Kitamura!" I spat like the sound itself was repulsive. I gestured
with the gun for him to move closer to the corner, away from his hookers.
"Kitamura. Kita, Kitamuraaaa... Uh. Um."


    "Are... are you okay, miss?" asked the white-haired one, Kioko.
Her concern was genuine because she was becoming convinced I was a crazy
person. I flung the little informational card the hospital gave me at her,
and I nodded for her to pick it up. "Okay... //I have a condition called
'expressive aphasia'. This makes every word I say very difficult, like
when you have the right word on the tip of your tongue but can't grasp it!
I may cry sometimes when I have difficulty speaking, and though I don't
mean to be rude, it's impossible for me to address others with the proper
level of formality. I ask for your patience as we learn to communicate,
but if we both try our hardest I know we can have a productive
relationship!//"


    I wasn't looking away from Kitamura. I wasn't blinking. My free
hand slowly went to my head and pointed. Then I pointed at him. "Hurt."


    Kioko was giving me that nod of someone who thinks she will die if
she doesn't emotionally validate you every second. "Okay. So. Your brain
was hurt. You have brain damage. And it makes you unable to talk. And you
think that our client is responsible. Sir, have you... hit anyone with
your car recently?"


    "No! No!" he stammered. "I have a driver anyway, I swear I don't
know what this woman is."


    "Miss, let's just put the weapon down, and we'll be very patient
with you while you try to tell us what's wrong, okay?"


    How many lives can you have ruined that the fact of my presence
isn't narrowing it down? Did you forget? Did you make yourself forget? Has
it still not occurred to you that what you did MAY HAVE BEEN WRONG?
"Forget. Uh. Forget, and... wrong..." No. No that wasn't what I wanted. I
pulled out the microcassette recorder, I hit play, and I tossed it onto
the bed. Kimiko and Kioko just looked more confused, as neither of them
spoke English. I didn't care.


    Kitamura's voice on the tape laughed. "Oh! Oh, I got a good one."
At this point the color drained out of the real Kitamura's face like his
jaw had been slashed off.


    "Who?" The other voice was one he knew well.


    "Pember. Raye Pember." On the tape, Kitamura said it with
satisfaction. In the real world, he was horrified. "You... you're Naomi
Misora," he whispered.


    That's my god damn name all right. "First off, I think you mean
Raye Penber with an 'N', and second, why do I want to get rid of him?"


    "You don't, really, but you wanna get Misora back, don't you?"
Kitamura on the tape was giving a hot tip to a friend. Kitamura in the
real world was staring at the tape recorder like it was about to cause a
nuclear detonation. "N-now wait, you have to--"


    "NNNGH!" I grunted to silence him. No word. He didn't need a word.
He yipped and kept his hands up.


    "Ohhhh!" The man on the tape laughed. It's easy. Genuine. A man
just hanging around with his pal. "That is a good one. No marriage, no
kids, no reason for the gal that cracked the BB case to retire early."


    Kitamura on the tape gurgled and tried to imitate Raye without
knowing what he sounded like. Never having heard his gentle reassuring
tone or the shrill way he got the giggles or his confidence and assurance
when everything around him was going wrong. "Naomi... with my last
breath... I ask you to avenge me!"


    And then his friend was trying my voice. "Oh Raye! I swear that
I'll hunt down the criminals of the world in your memory!"


    And then the tape clicked to a stop and we were standing there in
silence, in this room that stank of sex and candles. He said nothing. I
said nothing. Kimiko started to say something, but was hushed into silence
by her coworker. Just the two of us, his two onlookers, and my friend the
gun.


    "Y... You... Kira didn't kill you..." he stammered with awe.


    Oh, Kira did kill me. But I came back because I wasn't done with
you. "Dead." I was a fucking revenant. My flesh was animated by his
betrayals.


    "Miss..." Kioko said, though now like she knew something was
happening and I wasn't just crazy. "We're not involved with whatever is
happening... I can just untie my friend here, and we can go."


    "Tell," I growled. I stared at Kitamura, then pointed to the
girls. "TELL! Tell, ah, and... tell!" What was the thing she was doing? I
gesticulated at her before saying "Open!" She stared at me. She had no
idea what the hell I meant, that it was okay to open her coworker's
bindings.


    "I'm... see girls, I'm a deputy director in the NPA," Kitamura
said with a nervous chuckle. I tried to mime untying with one hand. They
should get to go once they know what is happening. "Remember those brave
FBI agents from America who died hunting Kira? Her fiance was
unfortunately one of--"


    "NnnnngggGGAAAAAAAAAAAH!" I growled in fury. Lying prick! Useless
lying asshole! What was even the point? Could he just not stop himself
from being a piece of shit?


    "--I suggested that they send her fiance, so that if he died she
wouldn't quit the force!" he added, like he knew he was caught doing
something that could have never worked. Kioko looked at him with disgust.


    "Open," I told her again. How come she couldn't get it? I felt for
the divot on the laminated edge of my note card. Notched so they could be
picked by touch. //WHY: I am asking a question about causality or
origin!// Why do you get to decide whose lives to ruin, Kitamura? Why are
you allowed to play God? "A...um, allow."


    "I... I allowed Director Sorenson to make that call because I
believed he knew what was best for his organization!" Kitamura stammered.
Argh! No! That's not what I was saying! "It was wrong that Mr. Penber was
going to keep you barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen! Walter, Walter
told me that would be wasting a gift, a gift the world needed! I believed
him!"


    Who made you the world? When did the world get to kill people I
loved so I got to be more useful to it? Who gave you the right to live my
life and end his? //WHO: I am asking a question about a person!// "Uh.
Uhh. Pick."


    "Y-- you must have heard the whole tape!" Kitamura sniveled.
"Sorenson picked the agents! I, I was just his cheerleader!" No! No god
damn it, you didn't know what I was saying, you're trying to weasel your
way out of this, why can't I, why don't you see?


    You're supposed to be cowering in terror, you're supposed to be
confronting the atrocity you committed! Not wheedling! Why do you think
you can wheedle out of this? You're supposed to be destroyed by seeing me!
You're, you don't even know how awful you are! You haven't even tried to
convince me you felt any remorse! I can't, I can't even communicate to you
how awful what you did was!


    Tears of frustration flowed down my cheeks. Kioko was getting the
hint now and undoing the bindings on her colleague. There was one last
word in my repertoire, one I knew had effectiveness. I took two steps
closer, leaving the door open for the hookers to escape. I stared him
down. "Beg."


    "Wh-what?" he stammered. Like he didn't know.


    "BEG!" I wanted him to beg for his life. I wanted him to grovel
and debase himself. I wanted him to know he couldn't be degraded more than
I had been. I wanted to give him the chance to live he didn't give either
of us.


    "P-Please! Please, don't kill me! I can, I can make sure you are
well taken care of!" he said. His hands were clasped together in prayer.
Because that was what he saw in movies. "Nobody needs to know about any of
this, we can all walk away! You can find a nice man who--"


    BANG! BANG!


    Kitamura screamed.


    BANG! BANG!


    Kioko screamed.


    BANG! BANG!


    Kimiko screamed.


    BANG! BANG!


    The customers next door screamed.


    BANG! BANG!


    And I screamed.


    The gun was empty. I threw it to the floor in disgust and grabbed
my head, sobbing. Chunks of plaster rained down over Kitamura from where
I'd emptied the gun into the ceiling. He clutched his chest in terror and
slumped against the wall. Kioko sprinted past me out of the room, and
Kimiko locked herself in the toilet, both screaming.


    The police told me later he died of a fear-induced heart attack.
The law here was the same as in America, they said, and I had committed
murder just as certainly as if I had struck him with the bullets. They
said I was a cop-killer who was going to be murdered in prison before I
even got a chance to hang. They kept saying that for 6 hours and 40
minutes, and then they gave me my gun back and let me go.


    They said I had murdered him. It was a lie. I couldn't do it. I
couldn't do it. My chance for revenge, I couldn't take it. I turned the
gun away. He wasn't even sorry and I couldn't do it. I was weak and
useless and stupid and I had a worthless, broken brain. I couldn't take
revenge. I couldn't take anything. Powerlessness was the only rule of this
world.


    I walked back to where I parked my bike, alone, in shame. I rode
back to L Plaza. The guard at the garage took my check-in without looking
at or speaking to me. Nobody was in the command center. Nobody met me on
my floor. I fell into my bed without even taking off my boots and I cried.
I cried like every other day of my broken, worthless life.


                                * M I S A *


    "Lolita ga Gotoku" finished the on-location shooting at the
fountain, which meant we got to be inside, on sets, doing interior shots.
My character, Kasumi Judgment, was confronting the Chairwoman over the man
they both loved. And getting her first orders, and reporting a successful
assassination, and chatting to her girlfriend out in the hall. Someone
else was going to need the set so we needed to use it up.


    The Chairwoman insisted her face be cast in shadow at all times.
She said it was for artistic integrity. And Takarazuka just opened a new
show called "Shadow Play" where the stage was covered by gauze and
backlit, leaving it to the audience to interpret which actress was the
lead singer in each song as that changed the meaning of the lyrics. To
blaze new trails in performing arts.


    People were afraid of Kira. People whose job it was to have their
names and faces out there for others to enjoy were getting afraid of it.
Before I was arrested, I yelled at a fellow performer about that, I told
her that Kira only goes after the corrupt and wicked. But... he made
mistakes. Even if he didn't make many, that was no consolation to people
like Naomi and Raye. You don't want to be the one mistake. A one in a
million mistake isn't very comforting when that one is you. We had to make
sure Kira was something people could trust. That he built a perfect world
where people didn't live in fear, instead of switching one terror for
another.


    And... maybe there was something he could do for Naomi. Something
to make it right. Or at least show how sorry he was. Naomi, and Raye, and
the investigation member Ukita, and the reporter Hibima. He's building a
perfect world, he has to be able to do something. If we make him
understand how serious these things were, then he can figure out how to
earn forgiveness.


    Naomi was following me. Well, Shoko Maki was. I didn't know if she
considered that another, distinct character. She was my bodyguard, most of
the time. Last couple of days, this came with no small talk, no joking
around. Just looking around for threats. I spent ten hours a day with her
and I missed her. Matsuda was trying to pick up the slack, but he was
trying too hard and knew it. So when we broke for lunch, I called Light,
like I always do. I told him I loved him, he told me he loved me, I told
him what we'd done in the film, he told me Ryuzaki hadn't done anything.
Then I had lunch in my trailer, just me and "Shoko". Side by side, eating
bentos packed by craft services.


    "So... Feeling pretty lousy again, huh?" I asked. She just slowly
nodded. Slow was how I knew it was really a nod. "Shoko... Where were you
on Friday? The tenth?"


    She just looked at me quizzically.


    I continued. "Because you didn't really tell me and... I was a
little scared without my bodyguard." She started looking away like she
didn't buy it. "No, it's true! I know that... the talent agency had other
reasons to assign you," since someone might have been listening. "But you
still are my bodyguard! I mean... I had a stalker come at me with a knife
once! I was so scared, I, I... I don't even remember how I got out of it.
I blacked out. But I could have died! And, you know... you could take care
of someone like that if another one shows up."


    "Uh... Matsuda," she said.


    "Maybe, but I don't trust him as much." It was true. Nice guy, but
not quite as all there. "It's okay to have your own life, but, I heard
that that police guy got killed, and I was afraid there was going to be
some kind of war on, on f-former Kira supporters," Misa why are you
bringing that up in front of her, "so I was scared someone might come
after me again! Just, you know, can you warn me next time? Keep your phone
on?"


    She looked contemplative in the quiet. Then she just said,
"Apology." And she held out her arm, and I leaned into her, and she into
me, and she was holding me. And he gave me a little reassuring shake. And
it was nice. She didn't need to talk to tell me what she meant. She
apologized, and she knew how important she was, and she was going to be a
reassuring presence there for me, and everything was going to be good. I
grabbed her hand and I squeezed. And I remembered something.


    "Shoko... have you noticed I had a hard time holding the props
today? Like I kept dropping the pen when Kasumi was signing the death
warrant. Is that a problem?" And she looked at me. And she sighed, but it
was warm. And she reached into her pocket, and she pulled out her purple
squish ball, bringing her notepad out with it. She handed me the ball and
I understood. "I haven't recovered my hand enough. Gotcha. Thanks for
giving me your ball. Hey, the guy who does the chibi art is here, he can
do some decals of you for some new cue cards, if you want!"


    She scratched out a note. //LIKE IS. CHEERFUL.//


    I nuzzled my head into her side. "Aww, that's nice. I'm glad
something I did cheered you up." I was pretty worthless, so any time I had
a chance to do something good, I had to take it.


    Then she handed me another note. //FRDAY. POLICE DEAD = KITAMURA.
KILL I KITAMURA.// The word "kill" had been crossed out, and replaced with
//TRY//.


    I gasped. "You--" but she put a finger over my mouth. I lowered my
voice to a whisper. "You tr-tried to kill him? Why? Because he was allies
with Kira?"


    Slowly, she shook her head. My breath hung in my throat as she
composed the next message. //KITAMURA KILL RAYE. SEND -> KILL. WANT I WORK
NOT FAMILY//


    "He... He killed... no. He sent Raye to be killed? By Kira?" This
was... a lot to deal with. I wasn't sure I was reading her right, much
less how to feel about it! "So you work not family... So you wouldn't
leave work to start a family? Is that right?"


    She nodded. "Friend, ah. Ummmmm. Friend, FBI."


    "You have... He had a friend in the FBI. Oh, and he was doing that
for his friend in the FBI." I was focusing on my breathing. I couldn't
flip out. She was sharing something important with me, and we could be
discovered. "That... that's horrible. How could anyone do that?" How did
Kira MISS a guy like that? If there was any more proof I needed that the
new Kira wasn't the old one, this was it. Kira would never, ever make a
deal with someone like this. Even when Kira killed the guy he sent out.
Kira may not have known everything. This guy, this guy knew what he was
doing. "So you tried to kill him. And... what happened?"


    "C... Not. Not. Can. Uhhhhh. Ummmm... Ah, and, uh, and weak."


    So I grabbed her. I held her and I wouldn't let her go and I said
the most I could. "I still believe in you. You're strong." Because she
was. She was just merciful too.


                               * N A O M I *


    So here we were. Wedy had nailed down the transmission profile of
the Yotsuba Yokohama building, and encrusted its upper meeting floors with
customized bugs. She'd gotten us license plates from the parking garage
and we'd pieced together profiles of the most likely suspects. And now
that they were filing in to their somewhat ornate meeting chamber, we
could see who they were. Seven of them at an eight sided table. Five men
and two women. Yotsuba's Yokohama offices were mostly independent, dealing
in Yokohama finance, real estate, shipping, and technology. But not
independent enough that their senior executives could have this meeting
without fear of their superiors finding out. And we'd see and hear it
perfectly.


    And that was all we could do. That was all I could do.


    "So then," said a man when the door closed and latched. Reddish
hair. Hiraga Shohei, International Shipping. Looked to be the informal
leader of the group. "Now that we're all here. What is the first item on
the docket for our prosperity council?"


    "How about Koreyoshi Kitamura signs a peace accord with Kira and
two weeks later he gets his dick shot off?" snapped an old woman with
fading orange hair. Eba Watsuji, Commercial Real Estate. I could see the
cigarette she wished she had in her hands. "That seems like something L
would do to me."


    "Nobody got their dick shot off. What are you even talking about?"
Black hair, young face, man. Yoshitake Takara, Residential Real Estate.
"Why would L want to shoot off a guy's dick?"


    "Ugh, because it's a figure of speech." Heavier man, bald. Koin
Hatanaka, Heavy Manufacturing. "L would want to make an example of him,
Yoshi."


    "Yeah, that's a Kira problem." Dark blue hair, male, still
youngish. Isamu Egawa, Home Appliances. "But is it really an us problem?
If Kira needs our help, I'm sure... Actually I'm sure he doesn't need our
help."


    "L is our problem too, Isamu!" said Mayo Juba, headed up Materials
R&D. Round, matronly type of woman, wide waist and wide smile and black
bowl cut. "I hope everyone read the report we received."


    "The report is bullshit!" said the young man with the grey hair.
Daisuke Sato. Communications Technology. "I could have done it in half an
hour on Wikipedia. This is all stuff everyone already knows about L."


    Seven of them. Not too formal; must know and trust each other. Not
the highest ranks of their company, but interested in expanding its
fortunes and their own. Rankling at the restrictions imposed from above,
each thinks they can and deserve to do better. And none of them admitted
to being Kira. One of them acted like Kira would ask them for something,
another that his problems were not theirs. One of them was contacting
Kira. One of them was pretending to, to cover their killings up. My hands
were shaking.


    "Is one of them missing?" Misa asked of Light. "Or can they not
find a heppa... a setpa... a seven-sided table?" Good question. Were they
killing one of their own last week? It sounded menacing, but nobody had
gone missing. They didn't seem distressed. Maybe there just weren't any
heptagonal tables.


    "People, people!" Hiraga. "Can we please focus? Yes, the first
item is the unfortunate death of Koreyoshi Kitamura. However! I have
reason to believe this was not L's doing. My inside source informs me that
while Kitamura's death was filed as murder, and there was a gun
discharged, the proximate cause of death was fear-induced heart attack.
And that the police will not be pursuing the investigation."


    Everyone on the screen and half of them in this room sounded
shocked. Ryuzaki just looked at me. He knew. He said nothing.


    "So," Hiraga continued, "it is clear to me what happened. Kitamura
crossed Kira in some way. The police are honoring his deal by not
investigating a killing he committed." What? No. No! That wasn't it! I
was... I was enraged and I didn't even know what I wanted him to say
instead. That it was me? It hadn't been me. It hadn't been Kira. Or maybe
it had. Maybe he was trying to steal from me again.


    "So then!" Mayo said with a clap of her hands. "As I was trying to
say to--"


    "Mayo, please. Our docket?" Hiraga said. "...Okay. The next thing
we are discussing is Geraldo Coil's report. Go ahead."


    "...as I was trying to say to Daisuke, the report doesn't have
much information on L. But at the end, it says 'If you continue killing
financial rivals at your current pace, L will find it easy to track you
down.' He figured us out!"


    "But he hasn't gone to L, and likely intends to keep working with
us." Isamu. "He seemed not to be a fan of L either."


    "Could be he hates being second banana." Yoshitake.


    "So, we tone it down." Koin. "Motion to cut to one kill a week
until we find L?"


    Six yeas, one nay, from Eba.


    "All right... So then who is the guy this week?" Yoshitake again.
"I say the time is right for Sachi Abe. Heavy drinker, heavy smoker,
excellent manager. His properties will be going for a song once Flower
loses the one guy who keeps track of them."


    "If you want some piddly-ass houses," croaked Eba. "Banhi Pak is
wasting prime real estate with a family laundry his kids don't know how to
operate. He gets mugged, kids have to sell, now we have a foothold in
Gumyoji. Get real upscale, soon Banhi's neighbors can't afford the rent
and have to sell."


    "Oh, the Gumyoji tourist trap is a fool's errand!" Koin teased.
"Now, I think we're running out of time on this IPO, if you'll hear me
out..."


    They were arguing. They were bickering. They were teasing each
other. They were laughing like friends who had earned each other's
respect. While they talked about murdering people for, for a few million
yen here, a few million yen there. It was a joke to them. A game. Find
someone tangentially connected to a source of wealth. Kill them. win
points.


    I should've been paying close attention to them, see who signaled
they were Kira. I would have to watch the tape later. I was too mad to see
straight. Hate and fear and powerlessness were all washing over me again.
I had to focus. I had to get myself thinking straight.


    They eventually decided on Santoro Zansai, of Earth Liberation
Front, who was blocking some kind of shopping mall. He had a family
history of high blood pressure. A stroke wouldn't be suspicious. And the
moment they decided this, Misa started writing in her notebook, saying her
words aloud. "//SANTORO... ZANSAI... STROKE.// Okay. If we warn him and we
warn the hospital, they have a much better chance of saving him, right?
Yoko did one of those public service announcements about it."


    "Dead." I said.


    "well, I mean, he has to get dead, but maybe if they are too fast
fixing his stroke, they can fix a heart attack too, and bring him back
from that? Or, like, isn't there an operation where they kill you on the
table so they can work on you without your heart messing things up, and
they like Frankenstein you back? Maybe if he's already dead it just leaves
him alone."


    "Far too risky," Ryuzaki said. "Especially risky for a man in as
poor health as him, and there's no way of us knowing when he is scheduled
to die." He shoved a bit of shortcake into his mouth. "But there's no way
to stop them at this point," he said with only a slight spray of crumbs.
With only one kill, the meeting was winding down. "Aside from Watari
shooting one of them, and that," gulp, "that has a small chance of
working. They all have their phones turned off, and will be until they can
no longer speak to each other." He clasped his fingers to his chin. He was
working something. He was back, I think. "So some form of medical
treatment may indeed be our best option. It would be very useful to see
the specifics of Kira's workings, and what parameters may be required to
recover from death. Since we don't have a time... if miss Naomi does not
mind pushing her medical affairs back by a week, I can ensure Mr. Zansai
spends the next week next to a crash cart."


    Of course I didn't mind. My thousandth knee surgery didn't outrank
not being Kira'd to death. Misa pumped her fist in the air. "Yay!"


    Ryuzaki smiled. "Good. Now in exchange, I need your help, miss
Amane. You are the next part of the plan."


    "Whoa, wait a second, hold on..." Light said.


    "Miss Amane was imprisoned by L on suspicion of being the second
Kira, wasn't she?" Ryuzaki said with a grin. "Geraldo Coil would find
this. He is a great detective, after all. He would want to put the Yotsuba
Prosperity Council together with their information source. She would
insist on meeting in person. Because she was still looking for Kira. And
would do anything to prove her love."


    It dawned on Light first, and then seeing that there was something
to dawn made it dawn on me. "We just heard each of them detail a person
that they want killed. She can ask Kira to anonymously send a picture of
who they want dead to prove herself... and we'll know who messaged her by
whose picture is sent."


    "Exactly." Ryuzaki smiled darkly.


    "I'll do it!" Misa proclaimed, over Light and my objections. "I
wanna be useful to the investigation, and I am an actress. I can act like
I'm crazy for Kira with no problems."


    "That's clever, Ryuzaki" said Light. "You're almost back on your
form. But you can't just send Misa off to meet a bunch of murderous
business people who are involved in real estate so I ASSUME have yakuza
ties."


    "Why not? She's going to have a bodyguard."


                               * L I G H T *


    One thing was frustrating: Rem sat in the center of the table the
entire time. I couldn't tell who the new Kira was by following her. I
couldn't get a hint who the new Kira was by listening to them argue,
either. I had the slightest twinge of sympathy for Ryuzaki -- this task he
failed at really was difficult. If you refused to play to win.


    The first night after the meeting, Ryuzaki watched me play my game
very, very intently. Much more than he even had at first. I activated
abilities I didn't need, I used spells that were useless, all to keep up
the illusion of frantic gameplay. He was very interested in the giant
water monster, the blind demon hunter, and the fish fished out of the
hole. and we talked. You know, like friends do.


    "I still don't know if I'm okay with you sending in Misa like
this," I told him. Whack-a-mole with those health bars. "She's been
feeling kind of out of it lately, and she's got, this weird thing going
on... I think she might have a 'thing' for Naomi."


    "Are you worried she'll leave you?"


    "No, I mean, you've seen how she looks at me. But I am worried
she's trying to impress Naomi while she sorts her feelings out." If there
was any danger of Misa turning against me, she could just get her memories
back. I did wonder what the sex would be like if they ever did it. While
Misa was squeaking 'Yes! Yes! Yes!' was Naomi stammering 'Uh! Ummm!
Errr!'? That would be hilarious.


    "Unfortunately for us, we have to deal with Miss Amane's
irregularities for the time being," he said. "Nobody else is in such a
position to infiltrate the workings of the Yotsuba Prosperity Council and
get close to their Kira." He took a bite out of his apple and sprayed a
couple globs at the screen. "Your bear died."


    "Yeah, the bear died, because the bear decided to keep standing in
the poison debuff," I snarked. This was a wipe. Everyone just die where
you can be resurrected easily. "And after Misa's interview she tells them
she's the Second Kira, and then the Yotsuba Kira contacts her, we know who
he is. But that's just too dangerous. If Kira-Y can tell she isn't the
real thing, her name and face are all over magazines and TV."


    "You have a problem with that. You believe I am exploiting a
girl's foolhardiness and naivete without regard to her well-being?"


    "It doesn't make sense! You said it yourself, she's the..." Arch
one eye, look off to the side while 'thinking' hard enough to come to a
revelation... five seconds ought to do it... "You don't think Kira can
kill her, do you? In fact, you know that Kira-Y will be able to tell she's
fake, and you're counting on that."


    "Once again, correct. You amaze me, Light." He looked down at the
desk for his apple, only to find it gone. It damn well better have rolled
onto the floor. I agreed to double the apple supply around here in
exchange for Ryuk's help over the radio, but he still isn't allowed to
take any that are being actively attended to. "How did you arrive at that
conclusion?" Ryuzaki asked while he found his apple by my foot. He tossed
it into the wastebasket, and it was not going to be there when the trash
got taken out.


    "Well, I guessed based on what you were doing. But when I think
about it, it makes sense. If Naomi Misora and Svyatoslav can't get hit by
Kira, it's not impossible she can't either. Didn't she try and kill
herself in captivity, maybe that was Kira's failed attempt?" Oh, also, I
know because I have firsthand knowledge. And she isn't Kira-proof so much
as she's wearing a Kira-proof vest.


    "She couldn't kill herself by biting her lip," Ryuzaki grumbled.
"She could get blood everywhere and create a biohazard as well as a huge
mess, which is why she was stopped. And in any case, Kira would not need
to kill her by suicide, as we would expect he would know she was kidnapped
and kill her by heart attack before she could reveal any information. The
same reason secret agents carry cyanide capsules." He leaned on my desk
and smiled at me, staring into me with those big sunken eyes. "Don't be
shy, there's nobody else here. You know the reason I think she's
Kira-proof."


    Big, deep, regretful sigh. Oh lawd, oh lawd, how could noble Light
Yagami be about to say this? "Because it took her too long to lose her
memories of being Kira, and if you had a mind to actively torture her, go
in there with a jeweler's blowtorch, you would have Kira's name, address,
birthday, and license plates in five minutes. It makes no sense for Kira
to leave her alive that long unless that was his only option."


    "That's exactly what I thought, only with a cigar cutter."


    "And what Misa's going in there to do isn't get contacted by
Kira-Y. Since Y will know she isn't Kira, and Y can't kill her, Y will
stay away from her. You are going to have her say something that will make
everyone except for the one who knows she's not Kira contact her, and then
you'll know which one is our killer."


    "Precisely." He took a little bow. "Kudos for figuring it out.
You're almost back on your game."


    I was obvious why his interest was renewed. But it couldn't last.
He got agitated, jingling our handcuff chain. Bored. I handed him my phone
and asked to look up what order to kill the Fathom-Lords. He sat down,
back to the wall, and started to 'help me'. Barely even checking my screen
now.


    //To [Remryuk]: Thank you for waiting.


    [Remryuk] whispered you: wwwwwdddadaasassasdhlo


    [Remryuk] whispered you: Hello, Kira.//


    Hmm.


    //REMRYUK - Level 14 Undead Warlock - Silverpine Forest: The
Sepulcher <Paragons of Virtues>: Squire 1 Player Total.//


    Okay then, Rem.


    //To [Remryuk]: I see you had a fruitful meeting. Nice touch with
having Rem sit on the table.


    [Remryuk] whispered you: I only want to live up to the legacy of
the name you started.


    To [Remryuk]: No time to mince words. In the next few days you
will hear word of Misa Amane being connected to the Kira investigation.
She will ask to meet with you, and the group will accept. Misa is very
important to Rem and myself, and we will be very put out if harm were to
befall her.


    [Remryuk] whispered you: I take it that being put out in this
context means you will kill us.


    To [Remryuk]: Yes.


    To [Remryuk]: Misa works


    [Remryuk] whispered you: ??


    To [Remryuk]: for L


    To [Remryuk]: Because she's unaware of her connection to us. She
will pose as the second Kira and present you with the opportunity to give
her the picture of someone you want dead, for her to kill. Send her the
picture of the person you argued for at tonight's meeting, even though you
know she cannot do what she promises.


    [Biizzardgm] whispered you: [Game Master] Hello blizzard game
systems scan to your game account for potenital safety hazards, please
visit https://quickbiz.co.jp/account to re-enter billing information or we
will suspend your account


    To [Remryuk]: Is there another member of the Yotsuba Prosperity
Council you wish to see punished?


    Biizardgm has been reported for spam.


    [Remryuk] whispered you: Several.


    To [Remryuk]: Narrow it down to one. Convince that person and only
that person that replying to the message is walking into a police sting.


    To [Remryuk]: Found disciples yet?//


                               * N A O M I *


    "Safe. Uh, nnnn, danger!" It was dangerous. Light was right, these
people were guaranteed to have some yakuza ties. I had followed her all
the way to her apartment, because there she couldn't just keep moving to
avoid answering me. Everything was covered in little tchotchkes and
knick-knacks with skeletons and other grim things on them. The unrolled
Offspring and NOFX posters in the corner looked very out of place.


    "It's dangerous but it's my job!" she said back to me. "I'm an
investigator, not a tag along! I can... I can do it! I want to be useful!"


    "Nnnngh!" I grabbed onto my face and massaged my temples. Took a
few fruitless steps in circles, and rather than knock over a Mexican sugar
skull, I sat down on her loveseat. How could I tell her this wasn't about
her feelings, it was about expertise? "...Useful!"


    "I am useful? No I'm not, I make you follow me all the time
instead of doing other stuff, that means I'm like negative one agent. I
have to do something that matters!" She sat down next to me.


    "Laser. Laser, uh, and matter." She was part of the team that did
an emergency heist of the Yotsuba building, she was on laser duty! She was
elated after that!


    "That... that part... it doesn't count!" she stumbled through her
words.


    "Talk!" I pointed to myself. She read my notes for me, and she
interrupted when I couldn't get a word in.


    "That doesn't count either! That's, that's something that should
have never happened to you!"


    //WHAT ABOUT: I am asking a question about how our current subject
relates to something else!// This one had me on it, comparing two picture
frames. "Light?"


    "This... this isn't about Light. No, really, it isn't!" she
exclaimed. "Light isn't going to be there! I can do it because, because
you're going to be there!"


    Long pause. //YOUR PREFERENCE: I am asking how you would prefer
for this thing to be!// "Happen?"


    "I want Kira to be found, and..." She winced stray tears from her
eyes. "I don't know. I feel really weird, okay? I don't... You respect me,
Naomi. I look up to you, you're strong and brave and cool," I was none of
those things, "but you don't look down on me. You respect me. You think I
can do stuff, like, for real. And you care about how I feel." The tears
were coming more freely now. "So many people want me, or get obsessed with
me, because I try real hard at my job, but it's something in their heads.
They want a toy. You think I'm a person who deserves better." She sniffed
and dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief. "I don't think Light even
respects me. I don't... I don't know. He acts so loving but he says
things, he says things like 'you're beautiful no matter what you wear'.
Like I don't puts lots of work into being beautiful, like he didn't even
notice?"


    Why would you say that to a professional model? Also, when had
Light ever been loving? He was too detached, too much of a wet blanket for
any giant emotional displays.


    "So I just... I wanna be useful, right? I'm a useless manufactured
starlet with no artistic merit. And you're this cool agent detective who
didn't even let getting killed stop her. So maybe if I earn your respect
I... I'll be worth something." Her eyes were getting red. "Pretty crazy,
huh?"


    It was. I did respect Misa. I was looking up to her. She sprung
back, while I wallowed in pity and withered. "Respect... uh." I pulled out
my pen and pad. I wrote my note. She watched me write it, and she held it
up, and she read it out loud for me, as a complete and coherent paragraph.
//I RESPECT YOU. YOU JUMPED AT ACTION WHILE I DOUBTED MYSELF. YOU HAVE
CONVICTION AND MOTIVATION.//


    She folded the note, and she nodded. Waited so there would be a
clear delineation of time between her words and mine. "So if you like that
I jump into things, why can't I go on this assignment?"


    And I didn't need to write it. We both knew it. Because I was
worried about her. I was afraid of her getting hurt. I was afraid I
wouldn't be able to protect her. And slowly, real slowly, she put her arm
around me. Waiting at every stage for me to say no. To wave her off. To
indicate I cared about her but not in that way.


    I didn't.


    "I think it's okay..." she whispered. She slid herself into my
lap. And I held her in it, she was looking up at my face. "I'm not sure
what I feel... I care about you a lot too. I don't want you to be unhappy.
I don't want you to live in a world that's awful to you."


    I clutched her close. Her crimson lipstick had already started
rubbing off. Little streaks ran through her eyeshadow from her tears. She
was so beautiful. My breath was quickening. I'd kissed a few girls in
middle school, that was normal in Japan, I mostly did it because I felt
like I should have. I had experimented in college, everyone did, but I
thought the experiment's result was a conclusive "no". But a pretty girl
was holding me, and now she was kissing my neck, and she was telling me
how important I was. Maybe I performed the experiment wrong. Maybe I was
just so desperately lonely now. Maybe I was just Misa's experiment.


    "Okay," I soothed her. "Okay." I saw her as more than a useless
manufactured starlet. She made me feel like more than a brain-damaged
cripple. She ran her hand up my scars again. Reverently. Like her fingers
walked sacred ground. She bent over, and she kissed me. Right on the
inside of the elbow. A quick peck on the ridge of my scar. I saw her
shudder. My skin didn't feel anything special, but my heart did.


    "I... don't have any idea how to kiss girls..." she stammered.
"But it's all going to be all right." She put her face up to mine, and she
hugged me. "Being with you, I know that everything is going to be okay."


    I felt so happy. I felt so light. It was wonderful, and I should
have known, I should have known it wasn't right. Nothing could be this
good. Because it was then that I realized some terrible things.


    That I was in love with Misa Amane.


    That Misa Amane was in love with me.


    And that Misa Amane was, without a doubt, the second Kira.


    * R U L E S *


    61: Even if a new victim's name, cause of death, or situation of
death is written on top of the originally written name, cause of death or
situation of death, there will be no effect on the original victim's
death. The same thing will also apply to erasing what was written with a
pencil, or whitening out what was written with a pen, in attempt to
rewrite it.


    ADDENDUM: A-61b: New names, causes, or situations written on top
of originally written names, causes, or situations, without erasing the
previous text, are illegible text that does not create a valid entry.


    ADDENDUM: A-61c: If a previous entry is erased by white-out, and a
new entry is written in the same area, the text will be written on the
white-out and not on the Death Note. No valid entry will be created.
White-out should not be used with the Death Note as a general rule.


    X-4a: If two humans share the same name, and the user of the Death
Note envisions the faces of both of those humans in turn while writing
that name, the user creates an invalid entry and neither human will die.


    X-4b: If two humans share the same name and have faces so similar
that the user of the Death Note cannot distinguish them (and as such, when
they envision a face, cannot be certain if they envision one or the
other), that user will not be able to use the Death Note to kill either
one of them until one of their faces changes enough to differentiate them.
Because lifespan display is not always accurate, seeing different
lifespans with the Shinigami Eyes cannot differentiate faces.


    X-4c: If two humans known to the user have indistinguishable faces
and one human's name is contained within the other's (such as with a
"Tarou Yamada" and "Tarou Yamadaki"), the second cannot be killed by the
Death Note until the first dies, or their faces become dissimilar.
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