1: Change

Elle sighed, narrowing her eyes. Sometimes reading newspapers while walking down a ridiculously windy street was not recommendable. She scowled.

Currently, she had been trying to read about the now dubbed "Kira Massacre". In total, 5,987 criminals had died around the world at the same exact time.

Makes sense, Elle thought, that within those two months of rest he'd have had enough time to write down that many names…

But to her dismay, the majority of media coverage on the subject praised Kira on it. It downright pissed her off. For such a negative name, it seemed that many people welcomed that new change.

Elle sped up her walking when she noticed a small child whip his head away from her direction. A puzzled expression showed on her face, right until she realized she had been glaring madly.

Oops.

She reached into the grocery bag she had with her and pulled out one of very many lollipops that she had bought for L. Walking over to the kid, she smiled sweetly and gave him the lollipop. He beamed and happily took it.

"That was cute, Elle," a voice said from behind her, slightly chuckling.

"Huh?" Elle said, startled. She turned around and grinned at L, "Oh, hey."

"Would you like to return to the taskforce anytime soon?" L said sarcastically.

Elle paused. Ohhh, right… Oops, she thought, remembering that she, in fact, had rushed out pretty much abruptly. There really wasn't a reason as to why, but she headed out to the grocery store anyways. And bought a newspaper while she was there.

"Uh, sorry about that… Here, I figured you'd want these," Elle said, handing him the bag filled with sweets.

"Thank you. But we really do need you over here. We think that the percentage chance that he's in Japan is less than 3%. So we need to find new leads," L stated, picking out a box of Pocky.

"Hmm, where do you think he is?" Elle said, walking next to him.

"Somehow, the possibility that he'd be in either North or South America strikes me as slim. It's too far… But knowing Light, it's not at all impossible that he'd go out of his way to move to a different continent. Still… Maybe he could be there. It really isn't that far…"

Elle glanced at L with pure concern. So far they had gotten absolutely nowhere with this. And the fact that L just second guessed himself assured her that they were still so lost… The investigation… Light…

This time, it was even possible that they would never catch him. Light was carefully distributing his killings… or perhaps concentrating the killings somewhere that he wasn't. That way, they would know he wasn't in the place where the majority of the murders happened. And maybe he was there, but since that's the most illogical thing to do everyone would think he wasn't there when he was. So he could trick them that way.

"Aaahhhh, headache…", Elle thought. The situation truly was confusing.

And the worst part was, something told her they wouldn't catch him.

No, you cannot think like this, Elle thought, chastising herself, if you do then you'll eventually give up. And if you give up… Millions of people will die and Kira will rule. No, it cannot happen.

"Elle?" L asked. Elle was staring far off into the distance.

"Yes?" Elle answered.

"Is there something you're thinking about?"

Elle smiled.

"Only that we can't give up. We have to keep going. And we'll catch him soon enough," Elle said.

L gave her a small smile in return and thought fondly of her optimism.

"You are right," L said, taking a cookie, "but for now, let us return to the taskforce."

"Alright."

We have much to do before we catch Light… L thought.

To catch Kira.