Sakura and Asya exited the plane after their fifteen hour journey. The first thing Sakura did was to turn her phone on. She went through the security codes that Matt had set up on it and as soon as the phone gained signal there was a message.
12 FBI sent to JP on 14. M2.
Sakura turned the phone so that Asya could see the text message Matt had sent. She nodded after reading it curious as to L's motivation for bringing in FBI agents when he had told the NPA he would be working solely with them, but that would make sense if he were in fact investigating the NPA. This wasn't the place to mull over the case though. They had to keep in character unsure of who might be watching. Neither of the girls were recognizable as themselves but they didn't want to take any chances.
Sakura's once long black hair was now cut short in an angled bob and her hair was dyed with blond and red highlights, she wore gray contacts and gone were the t-shirt and jeans outfits she usually wore, these were replaced by slacks, sweaters, dress shirts and skirts in her new college student wardrobe.
For Asya her short hair was lengthened with a weave that had light brown highlights running through it and she donned green contacts. Her usual black outfits were replaced with more playful pastel dresses and skirts.
They walked down to the baggage claim cheerfully chatting but quickly running out of steam. Sakura spotted a coffee vending machine and walked over getting them a couple cans of coffee. She knew they would need it. They had to get all their things unpacked and begin their work on the case. The last update she had read Kira was now killing criminals by the hour.
Sakura and Asya walked out of the airport and caught a cab to their new apartment. They chatted a bit with the driver about how "excited" they were to get to attend the premier To-Oh University together. The driver politely engaged them saying how nice it was that they got to travel together and go to school together. They got to the apartment building and the driver helped get their luggage out of the trunk and Sakura paid him and thanked him for the ride.
"Well, here we are Amanda!" Sakura said.
"I'm starving Haruko! After we put our stuff up we should go grocery shopping," Asya replied. Sakura nodded in reply, it would be good to stock up on necessities. They walked into the apartment and into the manager's office. An elderly gentleman greeted them cheerfully.
"You must be Haruko and Amanda, it is so nice to meet you," he said with a bow.
"We really appreciate you looking after us while we are here," Sakura replied bowing as well.
"You two will be in apartment 107 just down the hall here. I'll take you," he said as he grabbed the keys from a drawer. He led them a few doors down the hall and unlocked the door. "Here you are, if you need anything at all, please let me know," he told them as he flipped on the light and handed them each a key to the room. They both thanked him a few more times and then they all said their goodnights.
"This is pretty nice, he said it would be furnished but I had no idea he had such good taste," Sakura said speaking of Matt.
"Actually his other half picked out the furniture," Asya replied as she looked at the black leather couch under the window.
"Hmm, I should have known," Sakura said with a laugh as her eyes set upon the couch. "Well let's get our stuff set up." They began pulling their laptops out of their bags and setting them on the coffee table. Then they put all their clothing away in the closet in the hall. "Which bed do you want?" Sakura asked looking at the two futons in the bedroom.
"Either one, not like we'll sleep enough for it to matter," she replied. They both knew it would be more likely that they would doze off on the couch while they worked. After getting everything set they both checked their emails. Nothing earth-shattering had come in so they decided to do their food shopping.
They walked down to a 7-11 and picked up some yakisoba-pan, ramen, miso and other food along with lots of coffee. Then they went back to the apartment and settled in for a night of investigation.
"Ok, so what do we know so far?" Sakura said as she brought over couple cups of coffee and sandwiches for them.
"Well at first it seemed like Kira was killing around some sort of schedule. Then he started killing every hour, as if to prove that theory wrong. Which L in turn deduced a couple things from, one that the killer can control the time of death and two that police information is being leaked to Kira," Asya replied pulling up the data on her laptop.
"And now L has enlisted 12 FBI agents to do some leg work. Did we get an update on who the people are that they are following?" Sakura asked as she started to check through the latest information on her laptop.
"The file here has what seems like a list of NPA officers and their families. There are one hundred and forty one people though. We really need to narrow it down if we're going to do our own search," Asya told her.
"Well then we need to go through those files. If we each take half then we should have it paired down fairly well in the next couple days," Sakura said as she opened the same file on her computer. "So you take A-M and I go for N-Z." Asya nodded and began looking over those files and Sakura did the same. It felt odd to Sakura not having the paper file in her hand as she scrolled through the information on her laptop.
The two stayed up the entire night taking turns getting drinks or snacks to keep themselves awake. They were surprised by their own pace as by mid-morning the next day they had gone through all on hundred and forty one files.
"Alright, anything jumping out at you on the profiles you looked at?" Sakura asked.
"Well, Kitamura has potential. They have a child who is a student of about the right age that L was suggesting in his notes," Asya said.
"Good, I've got the same with the Yagami family," Sakura told her.
"Where do we start then? I mean not only are we going to have to go unnoticed by the NPA but the Feds as well," Asya started and noticed that Sakura was smiling. "Oh no, you don't really want to contact them do you?"
"Not yet, but we will follow them. I mean come on, we're students so we should hang out in the same places, right? And, I was looking further into the Yagami boy's profile and it seems luck is on our side. He has applied for To-Oh University so we'll be able to keep a close watch on him if need be," Sakura said.
"Don't get too far ahead, for all we know he's just an innocent kid," Asya told her.
"Okay, so let's start with the Yagami boy later today," Sakura said with a yawn the eighteenth had quickly turned into the nineteenth.
***
Light Yagami had just finished his cram school session and was walking out with the shinigami Ryuk. "Light, I need to tell you something," Ryuk said as he floated just behind Light and kept slightly glancing behind them.
"Ryuk, how many times do I have to tell you not to talk to me in public," Light whispered in an annoyed tone.
"I have to tell you. I don't hate you, in some ways I think you are the perfect owner for the Death Note. That said, I am not on your or L's side," Ryuk told him as they continued down the street.
"I already knew that, do you have a point?" Light whispered wondering what the shinigami was on about now.
"What I'm saying isn't for Kira. It's just that it gives me the creeps. For the past two days, you've been being followed," Ryuk said. "Even if the guy can't see me, I feel like I'm being watched. It's really annoying."
If this guy has been watching me the past couple days all he will see is a hard working serious student. They've got nothing on me, Light thought to himself as they continued walking. They got to the house and Light announced himself saying he was going up to his room to study a bit more. He was lost in thought about the man following him. He couldn't be NPA if he was investigating the NPA. It would be so much simpler if he knew the man's name. But if he killed him too soon it would point directly at him. He needed a plan.
"Hey Light, do you know the difference between a shinigami and a human?" Ryuk asked randomly.
"You're awfully talkative tonight Ryuk," Light said with a laugh.
"You see a shinigami can use a human's life span," Ryuk started and a look of confusion made its way to Light's face.
"Use their life span?" Light echoed curiously.
"Let's say for instance you have a person who is supposed to live until they are seventy but you write their name down when they are forty. As a shinigami you get those thirty years added to you own life. So as long as a shinigami keeps writing names he can't be killed even if you tried to shoot or stab him. But the human world is really just a means to an end to shinigami, we don't hate humans or want to make this world a better place. We just kill humans so we can live. But the fact that we're merely existing for the sake of existence has made the shinigami realm seem like it's rotting, it's meaningless…" Ryuk said.
"That's ridiculous!" Light said with a laugh. "If a shinigami like you came around once every few hundred years or so and the human world changes so much in that time then surely you have a meaningful existence. You can use what you learn here and apply it in your world," Light told him.
"I didn't know you were such an optimistic guy Light," Ryuk replied in a thoughtful sort of tone.
"Of course, otherwise I wouldn't have thought to improve my own world," Light said matter-of-factly.
"Anyhow, your life span isn't extended by those you kill using the death note, that is the first difference," Ryuk told him.
"This is very interesting," Light said now curious about what else Ryuk had to say.
"The next part is what you'll really think is interesting…" Ryuk started with a grin. "Shinigami can simply look into the human world and write down names. We usually just pick people at random. But the question is, how can we know their names by just looking at them?" Ryuk said gloatingly as he drew closer. Light backed into his chair slightly as Ryuk stared into his eyes. "It's the eyes of the Shinigami. We can look at a person's face and see their name and life span."
"Name and life span?" Light echoed.
"Precisely, so we can look at any person and write their name. Our eyes are the true difference," Ryuk said still smirking. "But, when a human takes ownership of a death note they can make a deal to get the eyes of a shinigami."
"Trade?" Light questioned.
"The price for the eyes…" Ryuk said pausing for his own amusement as he watch Light's expression. "Is half the human's life span!"
"Half their life span?" Light echoed.
"Yes, so if you had ten years you would have five and so on and so forth," Ryuk said his smile becoming wider. "I can see your life span Light, but since I'm not on anyone's side I wouldn't tell you."
"And you wouldn't tell me the name of a person I want to kill," Light pondered.
"Right, that's another rule of shinigami," Ryuk replied. "Just half your life span and you could know anyone's name and life span."
"The eyes would be helpful… But.." Light paused a moment. "This deal, is out of the question. If I want to create the perfect world and be the God of this new world I intend to live a long time to oversee it. The idea of shortening my life span is just ridiculous, you should know that Ryuk." To which the shinigami simply shrugged and nodded.
"I just wanted to tell you before it's too late so that I don't hear any complain later on about why didn't I tell you," Ryuk told him.
"Too late? Then why didn't you tell me when we first met? You should already know it's 'too late' for that," Light said to him as he crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair.
"Yeah…" Ryuk replied.
"So, is there anything else I should know that you haven't told me about the death note?" Light asked.
"No," Ryuk responded. Not that I can think of.. Ryuk thought to himself.
"That's too bad. If it was wings rather than eyes I might have considered it. Flying freely through the sky, now that is Godly," Light said.
"But if you had wings everybody would see you and you'd get caught," Ryuk told him.
"I was kidding Ryuk…" Light said in an annoyed tone. He picked up his death note looking through it. "I've figured it out! It's in the rules written here! I know how I can get the name of that guy who's been following me!" Light announced excitedly. "Tomorrow is Saturday, it will be perfect.."
"What is your plan?" Ryuk asked curiously.
"Well, it's right in the death note. 'If you write the reason of death you have an additional six minutes and forty seconds to write the specific details'. First I'll need to test how specific the details can be," Light told him pausing and changing his course of thought. "If the guy that's following me thinks I'm innocent then it would give me time. But if they went to investigate me again they'd be more thorough it would probably be too late if I waited." Light began to write feverishly in the note book testing it's abilities.
***
Soichiro Yagami sat at his desk at the NPA head quarters. His phone rang and he quickly picked it up. "Six more deaths? All heart attacks, that's definitely Kira," he said to the person on the other end. "Three acted strangely before their deaths? What do you mean?!" Soichiro's voice rose at the words he heard. He began typing in the details on his computer. "Alright one wrote a note, the other drew a picture and the other escape only to die in a restroom?..." What the hell is going on here? He thought to himself.
Watari had been listening in the background and got on the phone to L.
"Watari what's wrong?" L asked.
"It seems there have been more victims, but three died in odd manners," Watari started.
"What do you mean?" L asked.
"I'll send you the images," Watari said and began sending the files to him.
L began downloading the images. He looked over them pondering to himself. This could simply be the act of the criminal out of fear… But if Kira can control the time of death, what is to say he cannot control the victim's actions as well…
Suddenly the old English letter L appeared on Soichiro's computer. "Chief!" L started to get his attention. "Please do not release anything other than the victims died of heart attacks. I believe that Kira is conducting a test. It's possible we're feeding him his results through the media."
"That's sick!" Soichiro yelled infuriated at the idea of Kira toying with people's lives in such a manner.
***
"Ryuk, look at this, the results are already in on my dad's computer. They all did just what I expected. It seems I can use the death note this way after all," Light mused as he checked over the new data.
"What happened?" Ryuk asked. Light began outlining how he had three prisoners do specific actions before they died. Then he told him about three that he had made unreasonable situations for such as a prisoner in Japan dying in Paris and making a drawing of L's face. "Oh, I get it."
"So there for, if the actions are within reason then I can make the person do whatever I want them to!" Light exclaimed giddily. "The next test decides everything. The police will be too busy trying to figure out the useless riddle. Tomorrow morning's paper will be the real confirmation."
Light woke early in the morning much to his mother's surprise. "I figured I would go out today." He told her as he sat for breakfast. He ate quickly and grabbed the news paper. He went back up to his room locking the door behind him. "And the results…" He looked over the paper headline and story with amazement. "This is perfect! I never would have imagined that it would work in such detail!" With the test confirmed be began excitedly writing the day's events in the death note. "Alright, now to makes some calls."
"Calls?" Ryuk echoed in a confused tone.
"Yes, I'm actually pretty popular with the ladies," Light responded with a confident smirk. He picked up his cell phone and dialed a girl from school setting up a date to go to the Space Land amusement park.
"An amusement park?" Ryuk asked after Light ended the phone call. Light began to get ready and they headed out toward the bus stop.
"Of course, my follower would never be suspicious of me going on a date," Light replied.
"So this is all about getting the guy's name isn't it?" Ryuk asked slyly.
"Didn't you read what I wrote?" Light asked.
"Nope, then it would be boring," Ryuk replied.
"Well then you'll just have to sit back and watch…" Light told him.