It was chilly inside of task force headquarters, and Light and L were arguing again.
This came as no surprise to the rest of the team, who were resolutely pretending not to hear them even as they braced themselves for a fight. The two young men were similar in many ways, but they significantly disagreed on far too many topics to get along all of the time. On this particular occasion, they were arguing about their least favorite topic: Kira.
L eyed Light irritably, feeling the strong urge to kick him. Not for the first time, the detective wondered what he had been thinking, allowing this 17 year old onto the task force.
It had started back when the Kira case was just beginning. He had just met Yagami and his team face to face, and they had initiated the phase of the investigation that was largely separate from the rest of the NPA. When L interviewed each member of the group in order to determine if any of them were Kira, he questioned Yagami about his family. This was the first time he heard the Chief talk about his son.
If his father's description was even remotely accurate, Yagami Light was the perfect child every parent dreamed of having. Amazing grades in every class, highly skilled at tennis, popular and attractive—hearing the Chief gush about his son was enough to make any other parent jealous. None of this information particularly interested L, except for two things: Light wanted to join the police agency when he was older and he was apparently a genius.
These two facts sparked the detective's suspicions, which were already directed towards anyone connected to NPA officials. Since Kira appeared to have access to the police database, he was either an accomplished hacker or someone who was linked to the NPA. With this information in mind, L began investigating Yagami's son without informing the Chief. After about a week of this, it became clear that Yagami Light was most likely not Kira, though not for a positive reason. Kira's and Light's ideologies about criminals were too different for the connection to make sense. While the mass murderer only killed people if there was significant evidence that they were guilty of a serious crime, L was convinced, based on what he'd learned about the young man in that one week, that Light would murder any potential criminal if he had the power to kill with just a name and a face. (L did not mention this belief to Yagami when he admitted to the older man that he had been investigating Light).
Once it was clear that Light was not the murderer he was looking for, the detective decided to bring him onto the case. Having a fellow genius on the team who could think at the same level as him would be enormously helpful, and keeping Light around would also make it easier to watch his every move with a careful eye. Although he wasn't Kira, there was the chance that Light might go down a similar road at some point if he was left unchecked. L asked Yagami for his consent, which the older man reluctantly gave, torn between the desire to keep his son safe and his pride that the world-famous detective considered his brilliant child a valuable asset.
L and Light's first meeting had gone better than L could have anticipated. The Chief walked his son to task force headquarters, where both of them handed their phones over to Watari before they were escorted to the main room, where the rest of the team was waiting. Unlike the rest of the task force, Light did not question it when L introduced himself as the world famous detective who had challenged Kira. Instead, he actually managed to surprise the detective by confessing that he knew he was being watched over the past week. Additionally, Light correctly deduced that L was having him monitored because he was a suspect in the Kira investigation and that the reason he was here now was because he had been cleared of suspicion.
Although the detective hadn't let it show in his facial expression, L was impressed. Despite his knowledge of the young man's genius, he had not expected him to be so perceptive. The two of them shook hands and Light joined in on the day's investigation, eagerly contributing to the casework and matching L's thought process step for step.
Unfortunately, Light's mindset towards criminals and Kira in general frequently bubbled to the surface. Although he agreed intellectually that Kira should not be allowed to kill whoever he wanted, he also empathized with the murderer because of his own strong feelings about criminals. This point of view often came into conflict with L's unwavering belief that Kira was just another psychotic mass murderer who should be sentenced to death. This led to quite a few fights between the two men. Some of these fights were verbal, while others resulted in physical blows. More than once, the task force members had to forcibly split the two of them up during one of their more intense disagreements about whether or not criminals' lives were worth saving. Whenever one of these "incidents" occurred, L would feel his respect for Light's intellect and skill fade away and be replaced with disgust at the other's lack of respect for life. But then some time would pass, the two of them would calm down, and before long, the detective would find himself engaged in an intriguing philosophical conversation with Light again and he would start to forget his earlier animosity. That is, until another "incident" occurred.
Like today, for example.
It had started when Aizawa rushed into headquarters twenty minutes late and urged them to turn on the television to Sakura TV.
"Kira's killed…again," he panted, covered in sweat and looking like he might have a heart attack himself at any moment. "Sakura TV…it's Lowell Richards."
L quickly turned to his computer, typed in a few commands, and the Sakura TV broadcast popped up on one of the many television screens that covered the wall across from him. A female reporter with long black hair and an oddly excited look on her face held her microphone up to her mouth and spoke quickly towards the camera.
"…yes, Mr. Richards has collapsed! Although we can't be certain of his cause of death, he clutched his chest before he fell, so it is likely Kira who killed him…"
A murmur ran through the task force as Sakura TV replayed a clip from several moments ago. A white man with short light brown hair and a square jaw walked out of a building, escorted by security guards in tight dark uniforms. Quickly, the camera jostled closer to him as the reporter from the beginning of the broadcast shoved her microphone into his face and asked: "How does it feel to be acquitted?"
"It feels wonderful," the man replied, smiling widely in a way that might have been considered charming to a different audience. "I'm glad that the courts have recognized my innocence."
Out of the side of his eye, L saw Light, who was sitting in another chair a few feet away from him, clench his left fist in anger. He could understand what the other man was feeling.
The Lowell Richards case had been in the news for months, largely because of its particularly nasty details. Mr. Richards had been arrested for allegedly abducting three children and their babysitter and torturing them for several days before bludgeoning them to death with a hammer and throwing their bodies into the ocean. When the bodies were discovered, the children's parents were devastated and the nation was shocked; everyone demanded that the police find out who the killer was.
Thanks to camera footage from a convenience store near the house where the four victims were kidnapped, the NPA identified Lowell Richards, an American businessman who was currently living in Japan on a work visa, as a likely suspect. They arrested him and some time later, his trial finally commenced. Several essential pieces of evidence were presented before the court, most notably the hammer that killed the victims and pictures that the killer had taken of his four captives before he murdered them. The evidence was damning and it looked as if Richards was certain to be convicted.
Then it came to light that the officers who had collected this essential evidence had done so illegally. In their eagerness to ensure that the killer was put behind bars, they ignored several significant protocols and violated Lowell Richards' rights. As a result of this revelation, the judge dismissed the evidence from the trial, and the case fell apart. The children's parents were devastated and denounced the court for its incompetence. Everyone was outraged that this man who was almost certainly the murderer was going to walk free, and even L had started to consider temporarily getting involved in the case so that Richards could be convicted.
Apparently, Kira had been outraged at the outcome of the trial, too.
As the task force continued to watch the video, many of them winced as Richards suddenly gasped and clutched at his chest.
"S-Sir? Are you alright? What's wrong?" the reporter asked, trying to move closer to the dying American before she was shoved back by the security men, who were desperately trying to save their client. One of them gave the now unconscious man CPR, but they all quickly realized that it was too late. Lowell Richards lay dead on the concrete, eyes open, with a shocked expression on his face.
The broadcast returned to its original image of the woman with the long black hair standing in front of the camera, holding a microphone. "The police are refusing to comment at this time," she stated. "But it appears that Kira has struck again." The reporter now looked as if she was about to cut off her part of the broadcast, but then she hesitated and stared straight into the camera lens. "This may be a bit unprofessional for me to say," she boldly confessed. "But Kira made the right decision today. It's good to know that someone is willing to pick up the thread that the justice system carelessly dropped." The reporter paused, smiled briefly, and nodded to someone behind the camera. The live feed cut out and a commercial zoomed onto the screen.
A short silence filled the task force headquarters before it was abruptly interrupted by Matsuda. "This may be unprofessional for me to say," he said, staring angrily at the screen, "but I think she's right about this one. I mean," he added, gathering steam, "yeah, it's wrong for Kira to kill people who might not be guilty, but Richards was clearly a murderer, and he was about to—"
"Matsuda-san!" Yagami interrupted. The man in question turned towards his boss and looked slightly alarmed to see the majority of the team glaring at him. The exceptions were L, who had moved from staring at the television screen to staring at his computer screen, and Light, who was looking down at his hands.
"Yes, there was a good chance that that man was a murderer," Yagami agreed, gesturing towards the TV screen. "However, that is not for one citizen to decide! A person's life is too important to take lightly—no single person should be permitted to take that life away, which is why we have these safeguards in place to protect the innocent."
The Chief paused his lecture and watched Matsuda for a reaction; the young man looked like he wanted to argue but was afraid of getting yelled at again. Yagami's face softened and he said gently: "The system isn't perfect—I agree with you there. Those safeguards that are intended to protect innocent people sometimes allow guilty people to walk free." He glanced towards the television screen. "But there are other ways to try to change the system than simply killing anyone who slips through the cracks."
L murmured his assent to the Chief's comments, never taking his eyes away from his computer screen. Yagami directed a small smile at Matsuda, who relaxed a bit as he realized that he was no longer in trouble. The rest of the task force relaxed, too, and all started moving to their computers to look into the details of Lowell Richard's death.
"So what are we going to do in the meantime?"
The question was asked so softly that L suspected no one else had heard it but him. With his legs pulled up to his chest and his feet relaxed on the seat cushion, he swiveled his chair so that he was facing Light. Perhaps in response to this movement, the young man turned his head and met L's stare.
"What are we going to do in the meantime?" he asked again, his voice stronger now. "What are we supposed to do about the criminals that run free while we attempt to patch up our damaged justice system? Any change that might eventually happen will take years to implement, so who is going to give justice to the victims of these violent crimes in the meantime?"
Light looked straight into L's eyes as if daring the other man to answer him, ignoring his father, who had now turned, exasperated, towards him. L met his gaze unwaveringly. "Are you going to give them justice?" Light questioned icily, because he already thought he knew the answer.
"Actually," L admitted, "I was considering taking on the Richards case as a side project while I devoted most of my energy into catching Kira, but his death has made that thought irrelevant." As he said this, L watched as the young man's eyes widened in surprise and felt a sense of childish satisfaction from getting a rise out of him. "But I suppose you're right, Light-kun," he continued. "I can't be everywhere at once, so I choose to devote my time to cases that are interesting to me personally. Since I'm currently unavailable, how about you?" Here L smiled in a way he knew would infuriate Light, and based on the glint in the other man's eyes, his efforts were successful. "Are you going to give these victims justice?" The detective put the tip of his thumb in his mouth and bit down on the nail as he watched his companion fume.
The rest of the team began eyeing this conversation worryingly. Soichiro briefly considered intervening and chastising Light just like he had chastised Matsuda, but as he had quickly learned after the pair's first serious argument a couple of weeks ago, Light would not be easily swayed from his opinion once he got going. L was the only person who was consistently capable of checking Light's arrogance. However, even as the Chief decided not to say anything and let L take care of the situation, he readied himself to grab his son if the situation became physical again. Across the room, he could see Aizawa and Mogi tensing up as well.
Light glared at the detective furiously as he spat out his answer: "No. Instead, I'm going to catch the only person who is trying to help them!"
He stood up suddenly, and everyone in the room braced themselves for the fists to start flying. To the majority of the task force's surprise, Light instead turned around sharply and marched out of the room, slamming the door behind him. L pressed down a few of the computer keys to his left so that the television screens now displayed the view from the cameras that were situated outside of the main room. The team watched as Light retrieved his phone, said a brusque goodbye to Watari, and promptly exited the building at a fast walk.
"Phew!" Matsuda exhaled, wiping nonexistent sweat off of his brow. "I thought for sure Light-kun was going to hit him that time." Aizawa elbowed the young man as everyone relaxed and resumed their work.
L remained sitting in his chair, staring at the screens but not paying any particular attention to them anymore. Although he was careful to keep his face neutral, the detective felt his stomach clench tightly. Like him, Light was accomplished at masking the majority of his true feelings, just as he had hidden the full extent of his emotions when he had walked out of headquarters. To the rest of the task force, the teen had simply appeared to be angry, so he naturally left the building in an effort to control his rage and not engage in another altercation.
But L knew better. He had only known Yagami Light for about a month, but he could read the young man just as well as Light could read him. Light had been angry, yes, but more than that, he had emanated an aura of…despair.
"Instead, I'm going to catch the only person who is trying to help them!"
L had heard the note of impotent frustration in the other man's voice. The feeling of wanting to give justice to victims of violent crimes, but instead having to work to catch the man who was actually getting results. But what else could Light do? He couldn't join Kira or even actively support him, because that would be wrong.
L flinched minutely as the fist that was closed around his stomach tightened its grip. It was at moments like this that the detective wondered if bringing Light onto the investigation team had been a good idea. His constant exposure to the case appeared to be having more of a negative impact on his point of view than a positive one. As Kira's case continued, Light's anger and despair seemed to grow in size and intensity.
L wondered when Light had first started to agree with the killer's mindset.