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Chapter One: Closure
Disclaimer: "Death Note", and all canon characters and characteristics remain the property and rights of Ohba Tsugumi and Obata Takeshi. All I own is the writing itself, and any original features and / or attributes portrayed within said writing, including the original characters. Elements adapted from original manga, chapter zero, and Nisioisin's light novel.
A/N: Apologies for making the first chapter so OC-centric; I promised myself I wouldn't do that, but I couldn't think of a better way to open. iFail. But it gets much better from here! With less CSI lessons and moar non-pairing-centric levels of awesome! No, really! Reviews are highly appreciated!
I--I
"You don't need to see this."
"Why don't I?"
"You know perfectly well why.", he snapped, charging ahead to stay in advance of his colleague's pace. "We could have just as easily put Shuji-san on the case."
"Kitamura-san is working in two divisions at once; the poor man has his plate full enough.", she said flatly. "We shouldn't have to bother him with something this trivial."
The previous detective's irritated expression twisted into a scowl, the ill-disguised resentment he held for the woman only deepening as she did nothing but smile in response.
Takimaru Daisuke was an inexperienced but determined young man new to his division, one who tried to rise in the ranks of his department by debasing those whom he believed to be messing up their responsibilities. Kitamura Shuji, his official supervisor, was the only one he gave credence or showed any sign of respect toward, for these other arbitraries he was appointed to assist weren't worth his time.
It wasn't a secret he had a personal vendetta against this woman ever since she mysteriously started showing more eagerness in her participation: his field was no place for this investigator or her strange emotional detachments.
Finally, Takimaru spread his arms to grab a firm hold on the banisters to the either side of them, blocking the narrow steel path leading them to the crime scene.
"Why is this so important to you?", he demanded.
"Daisuke-kun, I appreciate your concern, but your empathy is getting in the way of my job."
He froze.
Empathy? Hardly.
Stupefaction was more like it.
The individual responsible for manufacturing his dissent stood a little over 147 centimeters (point thirty-eight above, to be exact) tall, and was almost always dressed in business-casual. The top half of her dark, elbow-length hair was tied back with a small red bow into a low ponytail; her shortened bangs were parted neatly, just enough to frame her face. She had a thin set of headphones wrapped around her neck even when they weren't in use, the same pair her perpetual sense of music appreciation would lead her to use whenever situations became most stressful. Her entire guise and the pseudo-amiable personality sloppily tacked onto it didn't exactly scream 'professional'.
Nonetheless, this woman was two years his senior, in both age and professional experience.
And whether or not Takimaru was willing to acknowledge it, she ranked amongst the best Japan's National Police Agency had to offer.
Glancing up at her subordinate with incredulous disappointment, she closed her eyes and walked forward, short enough to shuffle under his obstructing arm without doing much more than leaning over.
The casual indifference with which she treated the subjects of her investigation was an advantage she liked to believe she held over the other females in her division. She wasn't a cold, cruel, or otherwise unfeeling individual; she simply never saw a reason to treat her job as anything more than an important responsibility, never once considering what she had to do as gruesome, or morbid.
This attitude remained her constant variable, even when she first saw him.
The victim appeared to have fallen to the ground back-first; his lithe, defined figure sprawled out indefensibly across the cemented ground, his body striped with shadows cast by the metal bars of the jail cell.
For a short moment in time, the detective thought, this vault became a room anyone could have spent their last minutes in. For a split-second, this cell ceased to be a compassionless article of containment, and evolved into his conduit of freedom. He lost his life within these walls: these wretched, unfeeling slabs of confinement this man knew he deserved.
How could you believe a thing like that?
Takimaru watched carefully, his superior's impassiveness towards the situation chilling him to the core. He instinctively reached into his back pocket, pulling out a small, overused notepad as the woman in front of him crouched to the ground and slipped on a pair of disposable gloves.
She pressed her index and middle fingers against the prisoner's neck to confirm the obvious.
"No pulse. The hypostasis confirms the reports of how long he was here before he was discovered; he couldn't have been dead for more than a few hours."
He's so...cold.
"No obvious signs of blunt force trauma or external bleeding. Whatever killed him most likely did it from the inside, but we can't confirm anything before an official examination...there might be something here we're not seeing."
You know there isn't.
"Yet, since we're expected to propose a theory for the initial report, the circumstances of the scene lead us to conclude he died from a heart attack."
Don't act so surprised; it was only a matter of time.
Takimaru raised his pen. "Don't you mean 'myocardial infarction', Tanaka-san?"
"Absolutely.", she said, nodding in agreement. "And as you know, we only have one person to blame for that."
"Kira."
She winked. "You know it."
Takimaru stared at her and begrudgingly took down another line, as his affiliate pushed another finger firmly against the murdered's skin.
'When a heart stops beating, circulation ceases.', she reminded herself. 'Once livor mortis sets in, the blood within the body pools down according to gravity, forming a dark magenta discoloration visible through the skin. Due to the fact this discoloration is on the front half of his body while he's laying on his back...this means he was moved at some point after death.'
The body was moved before she arrived without her authorization.
"So...", she started, sitting back up. "A shot in the dark here, but did Kitamura-san come to a Kira-based conclusion as well?"
"What are you talking about? You're the first investigator from our division to arri--"
"Daisuke-kun, we both know you've never trusted my judgement. If you wanted to get a statement from Shuji first and compare it to mine, I don't mind at all, as long as he didn't tamper with any foreign materials that were present at the scene prior to my arrival. I can trust him that much, can't I?"
"...he used the term 'myocardial infarction'."
"Of course he did.", she said, looking over the body again. "Guy wants to get technical on us and he can't even remember which side of the corpse to leave facing up."
She could basically feel the resulting glower stinging the back of her neck as she snapped her latex gloves off.
"Well, you know the routine.", she sighed loudly. "Send for a body bag and a batch of the usual forms. I'll fill out the paperwork for this one. That is, of course, if you haven't given that job to Kitamura-san as well?"
Takimaru muttered something foul under his breath before turning his heel and flipping his notepad closed.
Pretending to pay little attention, the woman took advantage of her regained solitude to make a closer search of the cadaver. Similar to those she had encountered during the Kira cases, the man looked anything but peaceful; he possessed the same mortified, pained facial cast as all the other prisoners she had examined, all those not-so-innocents she had already lost count of.
Her eyes leveled his own and her silent suspiration became shortened and irregular, as if a mysterious force had grabbed a hold of her lungs and was determined to keep her from breathing. Her heartbeat grew strong enough to muffle her hearing; her stomach gave an unfamiliar, awkward churn, and for a second she felt about ready to vomit.
For a short moment in time, this vault became a gateway which allowed the poison of reality to creep through her soul like stretches of caustic vine, forcing professional reticence to make way for sentiment in spite of her better judgement. This was the closest she'd ever let herself come to panicking.
His spirit was free and hers was in a prison.
The irony left a bitter taste in her mouth.
She leaned forward, giving a faint smile as she took a bare hand and brushed the length of victim's dark bangs away from his terrified expression.
'Ah, Aniki. Look at the mess you've gotten yourself into this time.'
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