"HOLLOW VICTORY"
—Death Note Novel—

CHAPTER ONE:
"LIGHT YAGAMI'S ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY"

Light Yagami was never one for parties. In fact, he thought they were a waste of time. He thought there was better things to do than socialize with people that he had absolutely no interest getting to know or being around. However, there was also something to be said about socializing that was of an obligatory nature when it came to celebratory events — namely anniversaries.

In his moderately sized apartment that his father rented for him, that also doubled as the KIRA Task Force de facto headquarters, Light and the other task force members raised their crystal glasses filled with bubbling champagne for a collective toast. They all stood in the middle of the living room that also doubled as the War Room, they all liked to call it, where Light had his bank of monitors and hard drives.

"Congratulations to my son in becoming a police officer with the NPA one year ago today," his father said proudly. Cheers of 'here, here' were heard all around. Light had joined the National Police Agency which was the police foundation agency in Japan and then climbed the ranks quickly. Once he graduated, he was appointed to the Information Bureau, then he transferred to the KIRA case, much to the regret of the NPA, who yearned for his talents in cyber warfare.

They all clinked their glasses and took sips, except for Light. He only pretended. He didn't much care for alcohol as it dulled the senses, give him coffee or an energy booster any day. But for appearances only, he sipped the champagne for all those in attendance, so not to appear rude. One of the most important things to him on a personal level was the fact he liked to stay alert.

"Thanks Dad," Light said back.

"I'm so proud of you," Soichiro added to his sentiments and Light thanked him again. "The road has been long, and sometimes, rough, losing friends and colleagues along the way," he said a been quieter, "but we've persevered, and now, in only one short year—how time flies—you're the top information officer for both the NPA and to us in the KIRA case. L may be gone, but you are his worthy successor. And we'll catch Kira!" His voice elevated so everyone could hear. "And then justice will be served."

They clinked their glasses again taking sips, all except Light once again, pretending. Not likely, Light thought. But you can try. I'll foil your plans every step of the way, Dad. Kira is standing right in front of you!

The KIRA task force was a farce, and they meant nothing to Light. His plans to reign over the world using the Death Note was well beyond projected targets since becoming a cop, acing the NPA entrance exam like he did with Toho University. Now he had greater freedom in which to evoke justice upon the world.

Is it arrogant to actually know you're a genius? And that everyone else is far beneath you? No, it's the truth! I'm only two years into my campaign to cleanse the world, but it's going so well.

But, with L dead, Light felt the tedium of boredom without a rival to tax his limits. Rem, another Shinigami, had murdered L and his loyal subordinate Watari—(who turned out to be the proprietor to a child's orphanage called 'Wammy's House' in the United Kingdom, England)—with her Death Note, subsequently causing her own disintegration and death, breaking the carnival rule that all Shinigami had to follow: never fall in love with a human. It was the only way to kill a Shinigami, as Misa had told him.

Shinigami were angels of death. If they murdered a human for the benefit of another human, that went against the grain of their purpose. Shinigami killed to add to their own time span, not to extend someone else's life. Rem killed L for Misa and Misa in turn asked Rem to do so by Light's directive. That then opened the door to a number of other possibilities, he later considered. If he could manipulate a Shinigami, what else could he do?

Now he was L—the great detective. Interpol had to believe that L was still alive, so the task force opted to choose Light to succeed Ryuzaki, since at one weak moment L had admitted that Light would make the perfect person to follow in his foot steps if anything happened to him. And since both Ryuzaki—Louis Lawliet—L—(it didn't take much to learn L's real name)—and Light were both incredibly brilliant and very similar in nature, according to Light's own father, Light was the perfect choice.
Once the congratulatory festivities were done and the others went their separate ways, talking amongst themselves, Light sat down at his work station with its bank of monitors, set his wine glass aside, and went to work. He had programmed his computer's network to look for any keywords on the internet about Kira.

Thousands of entries came up, mostly "keywords" from the internet, and within public forums, search engine inquiries, written articles of note. There were requests left on message boards for Kira to punish criminals for stated crimes: foreign and domestic, rape, robbery, attempted murder, theft, child abuse, and a variety of other things, leaving the criminal's name and picture.

To use the Death Note, Light had to envision a person's face in his mind while he wrote down a name, so a person with the same name wouldn't be affected. Even without knowing this rule, L had tried that trick when he choose his university pseudonym—Hideki Ryuga: The name of a popular singer/actor in Japan at the time, where he introduced himself to Light for the first time. With a picture displayed, Light merely had to look at it, then write the name, and within forty-seconds, the criminals was nothing but a memory in the annals of time. But with L, he couldn't do that. It was obviously an allis.

He finally beat L, and now the so-called greatest detective in the world was nothing but a remembrance. To the task force, L was dead. To the rest of the world, the battle between L and Kira continued.

But that was not his concern. To him, the matter had been laid to rest.

For right now, the narrow set of perimeters for what he was actually looking for produced mostly junk, they had nothing to do with what he wished to know, so there was nothing of keen interest to him. So, for the task force, he would have to fabricate some leads for them follow later.

No one knew who Kira was, which was what he wanted. The police and other law authorities around the world—all except in this room—all accepted Kira's judgement.

Kira had complete reign to kill. He knew there were a few resistance groups, but he didn't care about them; they were all talk and no action; they talked big behind their computers but in truth they were just as impotent as the KIRA Task Force.

With a small desk mirror near his keyboard, he observed the others from afar. He was careful not to raise their suspicions of him like before. Aizawa had been the only one that suspected him as Kira before L's death. Now, he seemed to fall in line with the rest with a blind enthusiasm to find the "real" Kira.

They were all stupid in Light's eyes, killing them would be merciful. But he chose to tolerate them for now until their uselessness came to an end. He enjoyed playing games with them. It gave him a thrill. He gave the task force members fake leads to rally them, only for Kira to slip through their fingers every time.

It reminded Light of an anime serial he used to watch when he was kid, where the heroes would come within the narrowest of margins of catching the major villain only for him to slip away at the last moment, escape, and then swear his revenge on them, to come back next week with another dastardly scheme.

Light had to play the role of L for showmanship purposes. It would be much easier to kill the whole lot of them, including his father. But leaving himself as sole survivor would be tantamount in saying, "I am Kira!"

And then, there was the other buffoon — Misa Amane, his now steady girlfriend, but in name only.

She was beyond stupid, but she did follow his orders to the letter like a loyal subordinate. She was also head-over-heels in love with him. Kira murdered the man who slaughtered her parents. He assumed it was a fan-crush to start with, but then when she found out Light was Kira she fell in love with the man behind the persona. The whole issue was awash, as both he and Kira were the same. Did she love him or his power? Regardless, he didn't much care for her either way.

He longed for the days he spent with Kiyomi Takada, his university sweetheart. She was attractive, smart, and was fun to be with. If only they had meant earlier, they may have been lovers. But, by now, she had obviously went on to bigger and better things, since he was no longer around campus. She had an interest in television and media, so maybe he would see her on television in the future. He hoped so.

An alert came in on his computer, a double beep. He had the volume turned up, so it echoed even over the noise of the others. It was a request from one of his contacts out in the field.

He mostly dealt with the Kira Case, but he still had friends within the Information Bureau at the NPA. The NPA denied the KIRA Task Force any resources, but L had left more than enough money in reserve for it to keep going for many years to come. And he helped the IB out from time-to-time secretly. He had made some good allies within the Bureau when he took his courses. He was a genius, but he never acted like a snob, and he made a lot of good friends. He knew what he wanted to do, and he needed influence and power to get it, and as he went along, he made good contacts that he could use to help him later in his career.
Any information from contacts he had made within the IB associated with Kira was passed down to him, albeit in secret. To help the KIRA Task Force was like signing your own professional death warrant, as Kira had ordered the NPA to stop hunting for him or he would kill their officers like he did those twelve FBI agendas, interposed in Japan.

But no one knew Light was the man everyone knew as Kira, so why would they think that the very information they gave to him about Kira could very much kill them one day? It was unthinkable.

He put in an earpiece, the music in the room was a little too loud to converse openly. "L here…" he said, using his synthesized voice box to disguise his real voice. He told his contact who announced himself as KF4—Kira Fielder #4—to state the agreed daily code-phrase before relaying any information. It was for security purposes, but Light had such a sophisticated surveillance system it next to redundant.

KF4 spoke: "The sheep in the meadow has burs, but I like to pet him anyway."

Light withheld a smirk. It was a silly code-phrase and he had a different one daily. It gave him a certain perverse humour for his Fielders to say it. But no one could recite it by accident, or guess it, unless his Fielders were either compromised or tortured. In that case, he would disavow them.

"Correct," Light said. At this time, the music had been shut down and rest of the task force had gathered. He removed the earbud and put KF4 on loud speaker. "Please relay your information KF4."

KF4 relayed his information and it related to the Yukaza. They were a collective member of Japan's foremost crime syndicates. They had gone underground when Kira came onto the scene after when a lot of their members spontaneously began dying of unexplained heart attacks. They had gotten smart, and those who were left, and there was still a lot, used aliass instead of their real names. This made it ever more difficult to hunt them down. This particular bit of information related to Kira specifically. It claimed someone within the Yukaza knew who Kira was and he would sell the information for a price.

Light's mind worked. Was this legitimate? Did someone actually know the real identity of Kira? It wasn't likely, but he had to pretend there was a possibility for the sake of the task force. "Valuable info, KF4," he replied, when all the information was relayed. "Thank you, and keep in touch." He ended the call.

He swivelled his chair and faced the others. "Thoughts, gentlemen? You all heard KF4."

"I'm not sure," Matsuda, the youngest task force member, said. "It sounds a bit fishy. Like a trap."

"My sentiments exactly," Aizawa agreed. "On the other hand, our information on Kira has been scarce lately. Any information no matter how small could be important. It could lead to something else."

"Unfortunately, we don't have an inside man within the Yukaza to verify it," Light put in. "KF4 is reliable, but with information this sensitive, we should gather more intelligence before acting on it."

"What about you?" Matsuda said, his words were a little slurred. He had had too much to drink.

"You want me?" Light was dumbfounded by the suggestion. "Why do you want me?"

His father started to retort, when Matsuda continued, "Because you're young and idealist. The Yukaza crime syndicate recruits people like you and you've got major skills with computers. Think of what they could do with that, if you offer your services?"

Matsuda was obviously not thinking with a clear head. Aizawa took the glass of champaign from the young task force member and put it aside. "I think you've had enough," he said.

"Absolutely not!" Soichiro Yagami chimed it strongly. "I will not have my son anywhere near them. They would eat him alive. They're vicious and vile. And Light is not trained to be an undercover agent."

Knowing what information he had on the collective Yukaza crime syndicates, KF4's intel had a pretty good chance of being reliable and accurate. There was no telling what the Yukaza was capable of in this new high tech world. The Dark Web had a lot of information the Free Web was not privy to. But to his knowledge, Light had closed all loopholes from his past. He had made no careless mistakes. L first learned about him because Kira's killings coincided with of a high school student. But with L's death, all his past mistakes had been erased. However, did he miss something? There was always the possibility. He had nothing to be afraid of. Yet again, this was the Yukaza…

He had to take the chance.

"With a few alterations to my appearance, I could look the part to enter their viper's den," Light said. "Right now, I look like a police officer, clean cut, proper shaven, and hair that has been looked after" —he put a hand through his styled hair. "All red flags to their organization. If I go through with this, I would need to get a major trim, a new style, and suitable clothes to match. I've been thinking of a new look anyway. So, let's do it."

He knew his father would disallow it, but he had to give the impression he was willing to do what it takes to take down Kira. And yet, even going with all this, he knew he would still need the NPA's approval since he was still one of their officers.

His father protested, of course, but Light insisted if only for appearances, and said it was a necessary step to learn the possible identity of Kira, or rather this person who claimed to know Kira's real name, and then eliminate him. He would set up a meeting with this Yukaza informant, there was really no need to enter the viper's den, and safeguard Kira's identity for good.

To be continued...