Hello readers! I've had this idea brewing for a while, and even though I'm still half-way through writing my other fic at the moment, it was driving me nuts!
So I thought I'd release the first chapter, and see what you think of it.
Be warned, things may change later.
Disclaimer: Death Note belongs to Tsugimi Ohba & Takeshi Obata, but the OC's are mine!
Chapter 1 – Aka Sora
"You have a job." the man on the phone spoke in an deep authoritative tone.
"..." the person said nothing in reply, and waited for the man to speak again.
"I will be out the front in 5 minutes. Be ready." he said with finality that left no room for negotiation or questioning and hung up the phone before the person on the other end could speak.
Groaning lazily, the person got up out of bed and went over to their closest after switching on the light. They opened the double doors, that were painted a nice off-white, looked inside and lifted out the usual attire and put it on, making sure to use up every singe second of the five minutes they had until the man that was on the phone would be out the front of the small, 2 bedroom house.
Roughly four minutes later, there was the unmistakable sound of a car horn, beeping thrice before going silent again. Groaning again, the person now fully dressed except for the black, knee-high leather boots, walked out carrying them and opened the door to the shiny black car with the dark-tinted windows and got in the back passenger's side. The man who was on the phone only minutes ago spoke and told her what they had to do, while the person put their boots on.
"There is a man hiding in an empty home that has recently stolen over $50,000 from a large, and very important company as well as assaulted and nearly killed several of the staff. You are needed to bring him into custody."
"That's what the local cops are for. Tell them to do their jobs." the person spoke for the first time, their voice low and cold with an irritated edge to it. Clearly, it was a woman, and she obviously wasn't happy about being disturbed.
"We cannot cause a large domestic disturbance since this information isn't supposed to be released to the media because of what company it is. So the local police has not, and will not been informed of the incident. We have been asked to do it because we don't have information leaks." the man replied, his dark brown eyes looking into the rear-view mirror every few moments to look at the woman in the back seat with her foot resting up against the front passenger seat, buckling up her footwear.
She rolled her icy blue eyes in reply and sat back in the black leather seat and watched the houses, trees and whatever else was out the window go by. He gave her the blueprints to the building, and she inspected them as each street light went past. All she really needed to know was where the attic and basement stairs were, and everything could be figured out when she got there, so she quickly checked them over, before being satisfied and putting the papers on the seat next to her.
It was about 5am, and the boss had most likely been up all night looking for this guy, but she didn't really care. It was annoying since the other three members of her team were either; not exactly suited for the field or already had a job to do. She asked about them anyway.
"So why can't one of the others do it? This is my sleeping day, you know that." she retorted sharply but tonelessly to the middle aged man sitting in the driver's seat.
"You are smart enough to know why. They're all busy." he replied just as sharply, telling her how it is with no hesitation.
The woman just rolled her eyes and glared at the back of his seat with emotionless eyes only being revealed. She had her first mask on, that was made from black material and covered her nose and mouth. Revealing her face was something she hated doing, even to the boss who already knew what she looked like underneath it.
A few minutes after waiting for a traffic light to change, so they could move, they arrived a few blocks away from their destination. Since she was supposed to approach the target without them knowing, as usual, she couldn't let the car get too close, so they wouldn't hear the car and go bolting off somewhere. She put on the painted black mask, with the small, white crescent moon symbol in between the eye holes.
"You know the drill. Get in, do the job and get out...before the guys who are picking him up get there." the man sitting in the front seat said with authority that the black-haired woman ignored. He gave her a brief description of the house as well, so she wouldn't break into the wrong one. It was in the middle of a new housing-estate so most of them were empty.
Getting out of the car, she looked around for any sign of people. There was no sign of any presences aside her and the car, so she started walking towards the area where the house was. It was two storeys high and it was most likely that the target was on the top floor or in the basement, and even if he wasn't, it was easier, and better to make your way down or up since the target wouldn't usually expect a sneak attack from above or below.
With a deep breath, she drew a kunai and held it in her mouth, ready for action and used her grapple to grasp onto the roof. The small woman climbed up swiftly and silently and moved over the roof and checked the several windows on the top floor for any signs of the target.
She noticed that there was a half-empty bottle of water with the lid off on the floor in one of the rooms on the top floor, and her eyes narrowed suspiciously, looking in the shadows for any person's presence. The closest window was unlocked, much to her luck – even though it would have been less than easy for her to break in – and she slid it open and clambered in without making a sound and held the kunai that was in her mouth in her right hand, ready for anything that might threaten her in any way.
Emotionless blue eyes scanned her surroundings getting used to the darkness, and her ears listened for any sound to give away the location of the target. She saw and heard nothing, not even the faint sound of a person breathing the air around them, so she looked to the staircase she could only just see in the dim light.
The woman jumped on the staircase rail, looking down for any sign of who she was looking for, and silently leapt down the stairs themselves when she couldn't find anything. Unfortunately for the target, the only other decent place to hide was the basement, so she walked to the door that she remembered as being the door to said room and opened it without any sound and stalked down the set of stairs, kunai still drawn, waiting for someone to leap out of the darkness.
There was still no sign of anyone and she growled in her mind in irritation and made her steps barely audible. Maybe that might lure out anyone hiding here. They were definitely here, she just had to find where in the house they were.
Just barely she heard the sound of a gun clicking a few metres away from her, and made her movement silent again as she moved out of the way as the target shot right where she was only moments ago. Bad move, because now she knew exactly where he was. As her eyes adjusted more to the darkness, she could see the faint outline of a person with their arm stretched out in front of them holding something, presumably the gun and threw the kunai in the direction of their left leg to incapacitate them momentarily so she could tie them up and leave them to whoever was taking care of them.
She heard him grunt in pain as the kunai made contact and rushed over to them as she drew her small plastic strip that would suffice as handcuffs. They were much stronger when done up, and even though they didn't require a key to break out of, they were much better to use for capturing the target than handcuffs. And they didn't jingle around and make noise while you were trying to sneak around somewhere. As she grabbed the short hair on their head, he tried to punch and grab at her, but she dodged or blocked it with ease with nothing more than battle experience.
With only one movement, she pinned him face down on the ground and put a knee into his spine to stop his moving. She grabbed his arms and put them across his back so his wrists were touching and twisted the plastic around the man's wrist and it locked into place as he struggled.
He continued to struggle, even as she checked the link to make sure it was fastened properly. When she'd finally had enough of it a minute later, she reached out and hit the back of his neck hard enough to knock him out. For the next ten minutes, she sat there, waiting as whoever was going to come pick the guy up came, and she scattered away as soon as she heard them approaching the front door of the house and kicking it down.
The woman use her grapple to cling onto the back window, and brought it back when she was close enough to the ground and bolted silently back to the black car that should still be waiting for her a few blocks away. A few minutes later, she opened the back door and climbed in, her mask still covering her entire face.
"I'm done. Let's go." she stated simply and the car took off, heading off in a direction she couldn't help but recognise. They were going to her office. "Why are we going this way?" she asked tonelessly even though she already knew why.
"Because if you don't fill out the report now, you'll have to do it later. You know that." the man in the front seat said with a scolding tone, even though he knew the woman wouldn't listen to him.
She only replied with a near silent groan that conveyed her slight irritation. She certainly didn't want to sign forms and complete paper work now, but it could be worse. They waited at the various traffic lights and finally got to their building about fifteen minutes later. The man turned left into the parking area which had the security check. They both pulled out their identification cards and put them into the slot and waited until they were both cleared before continuing into the underground car parking area and they pulled up just near the elevator.
They both got out of the shiny black car, walked over to the elevator and pressed the 'Up' button so they could go to their floor. It lit up after a moment and the metal doors opened up for both of them. An almost silent sigh escaped her as she stepped inside with the older man and waited as the machine took them up to the fourth and top floor and the doors opened to reveal their floor.
The woman ran a long-fingered, pale hand through her black hair that was pulled back into a long plait that reached the middle of her back and looked out the window mechanically as walls and doors to offices past as they walked out into their main room. People were walking around and most of them nodded respectfully towards her and the boss and she paid no attention to them in return, keeping her eyes cold and unrevealing as always.
Most of them were probably still here from working on finding the guy that she captured earlier, and it wasn't uncommon for there to be more people here in the early hours of the morning that in the middle of the day. The boss pulled out his clearance card and swiped it through the machine, and the doors opened for him. The woman just slid in behind him instead of waiting for it to shut and use her card like they were supposed to. He fixed her with a glare which she ignored and they continued to walk.
Both of them walked into their large office, and one of the other guys on her team popped his reddy-brown haired head over the top of the computer monitor and smiled at her in greeting. She nodded silently in reply and continued following the boss through to his office where her paper work. When they got there, he looked around on his desk for the right pile before raising his head and fixing his amber-brown eyes on her cold-blue ones through her mask.
"Can you take off the damn mask already? You know that you don't have to wear it in our office." he said as she took the papers from his outstretched hand and lifted her other hand up and removed the black mask from her face. Only to reveal the other one underneath. The man rolled his eyes and sat down at his desk as she walked out of his office and sat down at her own desk that was at the back of the room in the corner.
She lifted her head up when she felt the gaze of the hazel-eyed man sitting a few metres away from her, doing his usual technical computer stuff. The tall, thin man smiled at her, even though he knew she would never smile back, let alone even change her expression much, since she did get disturbed on the day that she slept. He could see that she looked a little irritated even though no one else would have been able to pick up on it.
It was just a side-effect from working with her for so long. She was the most composed person he had ever seen, and it wasn't just because he couldn't see two thirds of her face aside from the shadows that moved across the material when she did actually change her expression minutely. He noticed that she was doing paper work. Probably from whatever she got called up to do this morning.
"Hey, Tsuki. Did you capture the guy who stole the 50 G's and was hiding out at that house?" he asked conversationally with his American accent showing through a little and using her 'name'.
"Yes I did." she replied simply after looking back down at the papers on her desk.
Clearly she wasn't in the mood. Normally she didn't mind talking to him, since they clicked quite well, but it seems that she was more annoyed than he realised. She relaxed a bit and looked over to him. She should at least be a bit nicer to him. He was the only other person who had been here as long as she had and was the only one as smart as her. Knowing him, he was probably here since 6am yesterday looking for the guy since he looked like he was about to pass out and start drooling on the keyboard which would be his makeshift pillow.
"You could have probably handled such a simple job, Kumo." she said with a teasing hint to her tone, finally bothering to return the favour of addressing him by his 'name'.
"Hah, I probably could have. But I'm actually investigating something at the moment. We might end up assisting in the case as well." he replied, sounding like he really wasn't that interested. She fractionally raised an eyebrow in question. "There's just been a series of murders with the same M.O. I just have to find out if there is any connection."
She nodded, and signed the last thing on her sheets of paper. There was no point in her going back home since she wouldn't be able to get back to sleep, and if they were probably going to end up on the case, she may as well give him a hand.
The petite but toned woman got up and straightened the small stack of paper on her desk, put a paper-clip on them, and walked over to her boss' office, and opened the door unannounced and flung the paper onto his desk. She shut the door behind her, still without saying a word, and grabbed the closest chair to Kumo's desk and pulled it up next to his.
"So, what have we got so far?" she asked and inspected the information on some of the victims that was currently on the screen. They looked familiar...
"Basically they're all cops. Most of them are pretty high ranking too. At first I was thinking that it was just someone with a grudge, but apparently the time of death was roughly the same. And it was organised too." he answered and gave her a few sheets that had all the victims and their information.
She perused through the list for about ten minutes, still thinking that they looked familiar, but there was one face that stuck out. He was a Senior Superintendent up north and they had worked with him on catching a serial rapist about a year ago. That case had lasted about 2 months, and it had taken them over half of that time before they bothered to call them in. It was a bitch to catch the guy, but in the end Kumo had come through for them and allowed Tsuki to make a plan which trapped him.
As she continued to look, she began recognising the other faces more and more. They had worked with all of these people before!
"Kumo." she said with slight urgency, hoping that she didn't just find the connection between the murders. "I've got something. We've worked with all these people before. Do you remember when we worked with the Senior Superintendent on that serial rapist case? And when we had to find the guy that had killed a politician? This was the leading officer on the case..." she pointed to each victim as she spoke of them, and huffed in realisation.
"You're onto something here. But take a look at this. I just received these. There was reports from the lab that there were red symbols painted onto the victim's bodies." he spoke as he typed swiftly and opened up various files with data on the murders. He opened up a file which had several pictures on them and selected the first one.
There was a picture of one of the bodies, and he scrolled through the find the one that had the close up of the symbol. He found the right one and they both looked at the picture and tilted their heads to the side simultaneously to read "A.S" painted on the victim's chest.
Suddenly the sound of the beep that let them know someone was at the door went off. Tsuki got up, grabbed her mask and put it on before walking down the hall and opened the large metal door to reveal a pretty blonde female with glasses and a tall, dark-skinned man dressed in police uniform. They announced themselves as Superintendent Kotone Fuyuko and Chief Superintendent Hiroshi Ataru.
She heard the sound of her boss' voice resonate down the hallway and they both greeted him and walked in when Tsuki moved for them. It was rare that anyone was actually allowed in their main office but she kept quiet as they all walked back down the hall. When they got back, Kumo had his mask on as well, which was exactly the same as her own except for the symbol of a cloud instead of a crescent moon. He was eyeing off the bag that the Chief was holding and glanced at her quickly to let her know that it had some significance.
"I assume that is the evidence you have for us?" the boss asked the man who was a little taller than himself.
"Yes, it is Taiyou. I'd like one of your agents to look at it." Hiroshi replied and looked in Tsuki's direction, and watched her as she went and sat back down next to Kumo.
"Tsuki. Would you and Kumo both take a look at this?" the man known as Taiyou asked his two agents who both briefly glanced over at the evidence bag containing what looked like a letter and at the other sheets of paper the Chief Superintendent was holding in his other hand.
She looked away, uninterested at the evidence. The most important thing right now would be to figure out what was going on with the murders of these police officers that had worked with the Sora Ops previously. Taiyou noticed this, and resisted the urge to roll his eyes at the girls impudence. Obviously she had already discovered the case, and was probably not going to pay attention to anything unrelated to it.
"It is evidence in the case that you and Kumo are currently investigating." he pressed her and she looked back over at him, then at the bag again. "It's a letter that was left at the last victim's side. And here are the lab results."
Tsuki got up, took both items and sat back down and started going over the lab information. There were no fingerprints, strands of hair, or any fibres from clothing or other materials found on the paper. Clearly they were professionals. Also, the lab had analysed any chemical residue left on the paper, but unfortunately hadn't found anything abnormal. She handed the paper to Kumo, who had gotten out surgical gloves for them to use when they got the letter out.
Pulling a pair on, she gently took the letter out and began to read it.
We're coming after you and everyone involved with you.
Seems that she was right. If they were targeting them, then no wonder Taiyou had acted so quickly. Knowing him, he had already noticed the link between the victims and had notified the police that they would be joining the investigation.
A small red kanji written on the bottom right hand corner of the letter grabbed her attention. It was 'Sora'. Sora Ops was the name of their organisation and it would explain and further back up her theory of the victims being connected to them. She handed the letter to Kumo.
"Look at the red kanji in the corner. It's 'Sora'. Seems like I was right about them being involved with us." she stated simply as they both continued to carefully inspect the letter.
"Well done. If I had as much face-to-face time with the people we work with as you do, then I probably could've figured out that we've worked with them as well. I can't help but think there is more to it though." he replied thoughtfully and looked down as he contemplated the relevance of the symbol.
Tsuki looked back towards the computer screen, where the photo of the victims body with the letters "A.S" written on them in red was. Both that and the kanji were written in red. She got an idea, although it sounded a little silly, but it would make sense.
"Taiyou. I've got an idea about the relevance of the red kanji and the 'A.S' written on the victims bodies. Aka Sora." she said simply, stood up, turned the computer screen around to face the boss and the two police officers and grabbed the letter from the desk to show them.
"It would explain why the letters and kanji are written in red, since it seems that they've done it on purpose. And A.S could stand for Aka Sora. As well as it being even more related to us. Nicely done. That was the only thing I couldn't figure out." Taiyou said with a hand on his chin in thought. Tsuki's theory made sense.
"Well, for the moment we will call the people who did this 'Aka Sora'. Should we release this to the press?" the Chief Superintendent asked, feeling a little left out.
Taiyou was about to answer, but Tsuki got in before him.
"Yes. But we'll have go about it carefully. The general public cannot know about the Sora Ops' existence." she answered professionally, briefly glancing at Taiyou to stop him from talking.
"I don't think we should release anything until we get more evidence." he reasoned with his second-in-command. She could be so stubborn sometimes.
"What else would we need? We have thirteen bodies and a letter saying that they are coming for us. If we release the information now, there's a good chance that they'll be taken off guard by it and they might re-think their next move more carefully. Telling them that we know about them may decrease the total body count in the long run." she retorted confidently.
The brown-eyed man sighed a little. He hated when she was right. And her move was risky, but logical and he hoped that this would decrease the body count. The two police officers both looked a little shocked, but also very impressed. The Sora Ops were clearly as good as they thought.
"Alright, fine. But as Tsuki said, we can't say too much. Only mention that an organisation called Aka Sora has killed thirteen people. We can't tell the public that they were police officers either." he said and watched as the blonde woman who hadn't said a word scribbled down the vague gist of what he said on a small notepad that came out of nowhere.
"Okay. Please keep us updated on anything you have and we'll notify you as soon as we find something new." the blond woman finally spoke up and adjusted her glasses which reflected the light as she pushed them up.
Taiyou nodded, and walked them out of their office. Tsuki turned to Kumo, who had taken off his mask and took a deep breath.
"Let's get to work."
Another hotel, another day of looking for any new cases that he could work on. He had the TV on with a news channel going and he was on the computer as well. Something caught his attention on the TV, and he turned towards the screen and turned up the volume with the remote.
"...thirteen bodies were found and believed to have been murdered by the secretive organisation called Aka Sora." the news woman said with a slightly grim expression, clearly not wanting to be the bearer of such terrible news.
His eyes narrowed at the TV when the person called 'Chief Superintendent Hiroshi Ataru' came on the screen and started talking about the case.
"We found the bodies one by one in the early hours of the morning and have already started to take action into finding this 'Aka Sora' and anyone involved with them. The police also ask any citizens who may have information to inform us immediately as it could help us bring justice on those that murdered thirteen innocent people." the man said and it cut back to the news woman who started reading about something else.
The black-haired man mused for a moment. This kind of case could turn out to be extremely difficult to solve for the police on their own or it might all be overdone and be nothing more than a simple case that just took a while for the suspects to be tracked down.
He heard someone walk in the room and shut the door behind them. The old man who had just entered took of his hat and his large coat and hung them on the hooks just inside the doorway.
"Ryuzaki. I assume you saw the news." he said in his kind voice, referring to what he had seen on the large TV in the hotel lobby a few minutes ago. It had actually made him stop and watch.
"Yes, I did." the young man named Ryuzaki answered and turned to his computer, presumably to look up more information on the murders.
"Will you help?" he asked as he walked over to the seat that Ryuzaki was sitting on, with his knees bent and pulled up against his chest and his long arms reaching around to type on the keyboard.
"I'm not sure yet..." he replied, but trailed off when he clicked on a certain site and read the words that would change his mind.
"We ask that all police officers keep on the lookout and that civilians please notify the authorities if they have any information about the Aka Sora.
Also, we would like to ask for the assistance of L, so that this case may be solved as quickly as possible and that innocent lives may be kept."
He contemplated why they would ask for his help so soon. Usually the police forces were too proud to come right out and ask like that, so that would mean that there was more to this case that had been announced. It was very likely that the people killed were rather important as well since no names or any information about the victims had been released.
It was likely that they had no leads and no information to go off, and if they had decided to release the event to the press so quickly if the bodies were only found that morning, then it was even more likely that they were already getting desperate. And there was a good chance that they had only mentioned this on the internet so less people would know.
"Watari." he spoke to the other man and turned to look up at him. "It seems that I will help out with this case after all." he said, and looked back towards his computer and immediately started putting every bit of information he had into a new file.
The older man smiled, glad to know that L had decided to help out to try and prevent anyone else getting killed. Thirteen people was already a lot and he was saddened to think of the friends and families that had lost a father, mother, uncle, aunt, daughter, son, cousin or grandparent or partner.
Hopefully, what the site said would come true. That with L's assistance, the case would be solved quickly and no one else would be hurt or killed. He walked away from the seat and got out a brief case that contained a lap top, web cam and microphone from one of the hotel rooms cupboards, and also got out a large, full length leather jacket and his hat, that would hide him completely when he went to meet with the police and act as L's link to them...
There we have it! The first chapter.
Things have moved pretty quickly since there is going to be a lot of thought put into this, so I wanted to have the story established as soon as possible.
L is going to be hard to write, but I'm going to enjoy it!
And also the names of the Sora Ops members are named after things in the sky, just in case you hadn't realised!
Please let me know what you think :D
Chapter glossary -
1. Tsuki - Moon
2. Kumo - Cloud
3. Taiyou - Sun
4. Aka - Red
5. Sora - Sky
