Hey Guys! Song here! I'm just putting up my first ever AU story! I'm doing this for my own writing challenge, the random plot generator challenge. I'll probably be doing a lot of AU over the next few months, because I'm going to do more than one of these. If you want to check the challenge out, it's at forum,fanfiction,net/topic/75103/25974122/1/
A/N: This is an edit and combination of the first two chapters. After coming back to this story, I couldn't believe how many mistakes there were, so I decided to repost. Thanks!
Anyway… this is the part where I disclaim… I disclaim.
Now on to the story!
Heart of an Assassin
Chapter One: Silent Night
Cassingham Avenue at midnight was as silent as a tomb. The darkness was illuminated by a few weak streetlamps. A light breeze gently rustled the well-trimmed bushes on finely manicured lawns. This little slice of suburbia was one of the most upscale neighborhoods in town, occupied by upper middle class families who drove minivans to the supermarket and nice company cars to work. Fences were kept well-painted and sprinklers came on promptly at seven in the morning. A line of carefully trimmed hedges lined every yard. It was in the shadow of these well-maintained bushes that the slender figure crept.
Light was good at his job. He may look young, but he was smart. Very smart. You had to be, in this line of work. The auburn-haired teen moved silently in the shadow of an elaborate two-story brick Victorian townhouse. This wasn't the usual place for a job, but then again, what would be considered a normal place for this type of work? He cast a thoughtful eye over the exterior of the house. The front door was obviously out, and the ground floor windows not only had security wires attached, but a motion light above them would undoubtedly turn on if he went that route. Pretty high security for a suburb, but not too out of place. No, the ground level just wouldn't work. Light instead looked up.
There.
Directly above him, there was a thin ledge that ran around the entire perimeter of the house. Every window on the second floor was accessible from that ledge. Conveniently enough, the drainpipe of the gutter was directly next to him and led directly to the ledge. Light shook his head. Americans! They spend hundreds of dollars on a security system, and then put it on a house that might as well have been designed for intruders.
Oh well, their loss. His gain.
Light reached up into his knapsack and pulled out a pair of heavy gloves and a knit cap. You had to be careful with fingerprints and hair these days. Forensics could vacuum a crime scene, and take what should be dusty trash and turn it into a conviction. You had to be careful with what tools you used, too. Gloves can be traced just like fingerprints these days. Each glove is made out of an individual material and is made more unique as the weathering process of normal use wears marks into the glove. Disposable latex gloves eliminated this problem, but unfortunately the thinness of those gloves sometimes let the fingerprint show through, making them useless.
To avoid being tracked by his gloves (or fingerprints), Light had fashioned a three layer polymer glove specifically for his personal use. The inside layer was a soft lining, because Light had delicate hands and wanted them to stay that way. The middle layer was an extremely durable polymer which was waterproof from both sides. This ensured no water got in, and no oil from his skin got through to make a fingerprint or glove print. The outer layer was thin, removable latex that had excellent gripping capabilities and would not leave a traceable residue. The entire glove was only a half a millimeter thick. It had taken him a few weeks of work to make it, but the gloves were perfect. He himself could detect no residue or mark from them, and even if some genius detective did get a trace, it would be useless because he changed the outer layer after each job. He had implemented a similar covering for his shoes. Thankfully, hats weren't nearly so complicated, as they didn't touch anything and only had to keep his hair on his head.
Light grinned as he grabbed onto the drainpipe and slowly pulled himself off the ground. What kind of intelligent house designer put a lip around the second floor in the first place? Obviously, the amateur designer of this house had paid more attention to aesthetics than practicality. Carefully but swiftly, Light shimmied up the drainpipe, pulling himself with his arms and pushing his feet quietly off the brick side of the house. In no time, he was delicately stepping over onto the lip of the second story. Inching his way around the house, Light made his way to the first dark window, where he used a small hand mirror to peek in. No sense in making it this far just to be caught by a toddler awake after their bedtime. The room was empty, and the motion light was only aimed at the ground floor. Light honestly wondered how these people had never been robbed before.
Now, the people living here weren't complete idiots. There was security on the upper story windows too, but this was much more easily dealt with. Looking carefully at the small box attached to the window frame, Light smiled. It was an open circuit system. Pathetic. There was a power source on one side of the window, with a wire traveling to a bracket in the middle of the window. On the other side was a transmitter, which would sound an alarm and send a signal to the security company if power got to it. There was also a cord that led from this to another center window bracket. As long as the window was fully closed, the circuit was uncompleted and no signal was sent. However, the moment the window was raised even an inch, a small metal piece was raised with it. The small metal piece would go up in between the two brackets and the circuit would be completed. An alarm would go off, a signal would be sent to the security company and it was all over for Light.
But Light refused to let that happen. Light was a smart guy who knew all about circuits (as many people do). Light knew that in this case, as long as the circuit remained unconnected, the alarm wouldn't go off. So Light did what any intelligent person would do if they really thought about it; he cut the wire. Then it was a simple matter of running a glass cutter over the window, popping a small hole out with his gloved finger, unlocking the window from the inside, and climbing in. Of course, he could have just cut out the entire window glass and just shimmied in, but where was the fun in that? It was all too easy.
Light slowly lowered himself onto the floor, making sure his feet didn't land on anything unsavory. He was in a spare bedroom. Creeping to the door, he placed his ear against the wood and listened carefully. There were loud snores coming from a room somewhere, but no one was moving otherwise. According to his stakeout, an older couple lived here, but that didn't mean a grandchild or nephew wasn't visiting. Light didn't want any surprises. Light quietly opened the door and slid into the hallway.
All was silent, and the door at the end of the hallway was open. Light sauntered on silent feet to the open door, and crouched before he was visible in the door frame. Using the small hand mirror, he peeked into the room. The old couple was asleep back to back, the grizzled, white-haired man snoring raucously, and the pale, blond woman with a pillow over her head. He could tell from her light breathing that she was asleep as well. Light put the mirror back into his bag, taking two small items out in its place.
Silent as a cat in stockings, Light crept to the side of the bed and knelt by the old man's face. He didn't stand up, nor did he look directly at the man. People, even stupid ones, could sense when you were standing over them or staring. Without looking at the old man, Light gently hovered the chloroform soaked rag over his grizzled face. Instantly, the man's snores stopped as he went from a natural sleep to forced unconsciousness.
Light froze and glanced over at the pale woman on the other side of the bed. He couldn't chloroform the woman as long as she had the pillow over her face. She might wake up and see him before he chloroformed her. He would have to make sure she stayed asleep. Therefore, this was a dangerous moment as some wives with snoring husbands often woke up if the snoring stopped. She still slept peacefully. Apparently she was not one of those wives.
Good.
Light put down the rag and prepared the other item he had removed from his bag. It was time to fulfill his mission. In one swift movement, Light slid open his carpet knife and gently sliced the fat man's neck. The unconscious man immediately began to spray bright red blood, as Light had put a decent sized hole in the carotid artery. Light was careful not to damage the windpipe, as the gurgling and wheezing would wake the wife up for sure.
Light slid silently under the bed and held his breath. If the old guy struggled or made noise, the woman would wake up. Since the man was completely unconscious, there shouldn't be a problem. However, Light was a professional for a reason; he didn't take chances.
The man was silent. This, of course, did not make it an easy death. Blood spurted from the man's neck in explosive amounts, spattering over the opposite wall and forever staining the immaculate carpet. A few whimpers and jagged breaths came from the man's throat, but he didn't struggle and the noises came gradually to an end. His wife did not wake up.
And that's what was important, after all.
Silent as death, Light rolled out from under the bed, crept out the door and exited the house the same way he got in.
He changed his clothes in a nearby alley, and made his way to the airport.
Light, professional assassin, was halfway to Tokyo before the screams began.
L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L
Deep in the sprawling urbana of London, a gargantuan building sat hulking in a mass of billowing fog. An unexpected cold front had moved in, resulting in a layer of low-hanging stratus that reduced visibility to a few feet at best. On the fifth floor balcony, a wide-eyed man peered through the fog at the pedestrians below. Tourists stumbled down the cobblestoned streets, looking bewilderedly at maps. Veteran Londoners were more adept, walking straight into the fog and deftly dodging oncoming traffic.
Above the chaos of the streets, the raven haired man pondered recent events. A string of murders had been ongoing for five years. Over two hundred people dead across six continents and the police of various nations and Scotland Yard hadn't been able to find a shred of evidence. Finally, the UN had given in and called L.
Leaning nonchalantly on the railing of his England headquarters, the three greatest detectives of all time closed his eyes and analyzed all the information he had thus far. He didn't buy that no evidence had been found; but the files were clear. No hair, no fingerprints, no fibers... only a few inconclusive clues littered the pages of the file, taunting the detective to piece them together.
The killer didn't seem to have a modus operandi. Sometimes he stabbed, sometimes he strangled. Multiple times he had drowned his victims, and once they found a possible victim who was burned alive. There was only one thing that tied the cases together. The victims were all corrupt- in most cases wealthy criminals or unpopular politicians. A few members of Senate, some English royalty; the nephew of a member of Chinese parliament and the secondary heir to the Japanese Imperial Family... there was an Italian mob boss, a high-end burglar, the president of a Canadian cheese industry... all hated by the public.
And at each crime scene they found a single, insufficient clue. A footprint with no tread -a small foot, either a small male or a woman…, a glove print from a glove that seemingly disappears after the first use- latex?..., a single light bulb smashed over the head of a victim... L shook his head. None of it really added up to anything. It was all so mysterious that the media was beginning to give him enigmatic names. In America: Assassin. In England: Death. In France: Tueur. In Japan: Kira. It was rather frustrating, trying to catch this villain when everyone else in the world is so impressed with him.
He really only had two things to go on. There were more murders in Japan than any other country, and it looked like the first few were there. Also, these crimes were happening all over the world, within days of each other. The killer was using airplanes often. He has at least one passport. But that didn't narrow it down much.
Sighing, L reentered the building and turned toward the encrypted computer screen. After a moment's thought, he spoke to the anxious UN representative on the other end of the connection. "Mr. Smith, I will take the case. However, I will need one thing. Please gather a small team from the law enforcement agencies from each country. I will need cooperation from every country to solve this case. In particular, I wish to work mainly with law enforcement from Japan. Please make sure that the Japan group is made up of talented and loyal members, and that each member is thoroughly briefed."
When the representative looked confused, L sighed at the screen. "I have my reasons. Also, tell each team to compile a list of every person in their country with a passport, and then eliminate everyone on that list who is over five foot ten."
When the representative looked almost upset, L continued patiently in his computer modified voice, "Each team is going to need a database. We do not have enough information to pinpoint the criminal yet. So for now, we are working this case by process of elimination. We are starting with every person in the countries targeted so far, especially Japan since that is where the first and most numerous targets were located. Then we eliminate everyone without a passport. We know the killer has a passport, or else there would be no way for him to travel from country to country so quickly. Also, the footprints we found at the crime scene on Cassingham Avenue were a size five, if we measure by the American Men's scale*. No one over five feet ten inches tall would possibly wear a five shoe size, and even that is stretching it. Therefore we will eliminate them as well."
Mr. Smith looked impressed. L smiled a bit, glad the representative couldn't see it. "I am rather good at what I do Mr. Smith," he said, "This is a temporary strategy until we can procure some more information. Tell the UN to make the teams, and to brief the teams. I will speak with each team next Monday. I want the lists thoroughly compiled and checked by then."
Mr. Smith smiled in relief. "Thank you, L." he said formally, "I will relay your message to the UN."
L pushed a button, and call was disconnected.
* A five in American Men would be around a seven in American Women. They aren't assuming the suspect is a man, they just want to all be using the same system of measurement. I don't really know how shoe size vs. height runs, nor do I know anything about international shoe sizes, so work with me here!