(Written around the same time as Grave Appearances and Looks; that same East Coast trip. Lots of cemeteries over there. What can I say. I am a big, fat dork. As ever, unedited as all get-out, so bear with me.)
One of the first things L did as Hideki Ryuuga was memorize the routes of the subway system, in case he needed to travel at a different level of incognito. Quillsh (Watari) did not approve. Then again, his concern for L's safety had ridiculous origins. It was only because of his good sense and exactly what he had intended once to establish that he had not become someone like Soichirou Yagami, chief of police and head of the Kira investigation.
--ah, the Kira investigation.
It was actually going to be interesting.
Out in the world he usually watched from afar he operated on the longstanding and obvious principle that people did not suspect what was peculiar half so much as what was ordinary. This was a time of skepticism—L was a skeptic—he understood. Kira was either one of the greatest skeptics alive or he was the opposite, but as yet he had only questioned what was convenient, and that said very much indeed.
…Kira. They called him so much when they couldn't be identified. Savior. Harbinger of death.
Death, how absurd. Kira was a man and he could also die.
That was very clear.
(Ninety-nine percent, at the very least.)
He did an odd, impulsive thing and went walking through a cemetery the evening before he was due to take the entrance exam at Touou University. He was thinking about death.
They always had to make it aesthetic, didn't they? Carefully planted trees and now ironic wilted bouquets cast on uselessly ornate stones. L had never thought much of that. Death was very straightforward and simple. Biological inevitability. It could be a tool, but very rarely after the fact. L had solved enough cases of murder to be bored with them, and this. Kira, though. Kira had achieved a certain distinction.
--how does he do it?
That was the unknown; that and who—
--how does he do it?
That was a hungry and persistent question that he could not allow to overtake all of the others.
Kira; death-from-afar. There had to be some trick to it. It was such a cowardly, brilliant way of committing murder. There was no immediacy, no locked eyes with the dying victim, no sense of what death truly meant. Kira was making use of something that he did not understand. Something somehow clean and without complications—ha! The audacity!—excused in the name of justice. Kira never had to touch it. Neither had L, if it came to that. –Why did he compare himself to Kira?
Justice.
That was what this was about, after all…
(Opposites, antitheses, adversaries.)
Underneath elm trees and a grey sky L sat and thought about Kira and ate an éclair. It was a very good éclair, really, not unlike those he had found at patisseries in Paris.
Why did he compare himself to Kira?
(L had recognized eight reasons, and added a ninth silently to the list.)
He had sent Lind L. Tailor to his sixty-two percent probable death and felt no remorse, because he had been a criminal, and there had been a necessity. He had ordered agents into situations that brought their deaths, and they had known the risks and met them. Catching Kira was the absolute priority. Everything else was secondary. Everything. (What a respect to accord to Kira; this would not be quick nor would it be easy.) He had worked on several cases that ended in the death penalty; the most interesting were often the most dangerous. He had not felt any aversion to this. There was no reason to.
…and yet noting the strangeness of it was only a human impulse, was it not…? To spend effort and time learning who they were and how to catch them and then—absence.
Of course that is why Kira is dangerous.
…Contemplating death in the silence, he was led again to the obvious fact that he was unlike Kira because he had a comprehensive understanding of the world and of 'evil' and of all the fascinating and unpleasant nuances that made Kira's philosophy seem childish and stupid. It had always been obvious. It would always be obvious. And also, what silly logistics. Didn't the incompetence of the Japanese police teach Kira anything about crime as defined by capture? If he killed every criminal reported by the media and named by the authorities, he would end up with a world of fearful servants and the criminals smart enough not to get caught.
…It was that edgy, unfamiliar sensation.
That's fear, thought L.
It had been a long time, since he had…
Well.
As long as he knew.
What happens, happens. Que séra séra. He would move forward and he would meet with success. He expected to be surprised, and that was tantalizingly appealing.
He did not fear Kira—and he certainly did not fear Light Yagami.
He smiled slightly. He was anticipating this next stage very much.
Do not disappoint me.
--stood, and walked away through the damp grass. What was beneath it had no consequence. There was work to be done.
Still, he almost thought, descending the stairs, if I…
…Six percent, he decided, and, shivering, turned down the hallway to the station.