nightelf37: After literally actually forgetting I was supposed to do this, and a PM reminder from one Alexis Vance (id number 7037246), I'm gonna re-publish the ten (well, nine since I already put up the first) chapters I have. The text syntax (i.e. which text should be in bold, italicized, or underlined) might change from what it used to be because I can't remember which text should be in what style. Copy-pasting such content into document writing apps doesn't carry over the format, just the text.

Disclaimer: I own absolutely nothing here. Death Note Is by Tsugumi Ohba, and this fic belongs to Scienstist's Thesis/Pedro. Here's chapter 2.

A/N: Light mentions the use of Tor. Information about it can be found on its Wikipedia page because this website blocks links.

December 4, 2003. Interpol emergency council.

Flags from all member countries of the ICPO decorated the large room's walls. A large number of desks overlooked an empty dais, with each row of desks on a higher level than the one in front of it. The people sitting at the desks were discussing loudly with each other, which resulted in a complete confusion of ideas, suggestions and thoughts - but mostly just lots of outraged yells.

"The death toll is over a hundred, even just the ones we know of."

"Well, who cares? They're all mass murderers or worse. I say they deserve to die!"

"What did you just say? Are you crazy?"

"Who could do such a thing? The killings are spread all over the world. This must be some huge organization…"

"It's the CIA or the FBI!"

"What did you just say?!"

"We'll have to call L to help us solve this," one voice said silencing them all.

And for a few seconds that silence reigned. Then the murmurs restarted, and once again evolved into a cacophony of parallel conversations.

Most of the chiefs in the room brought an entourage, and on occasion that included a few promising young policemen. One of these, Matsuda Touta, leaned over to his boss, who was following the conversation intently but not participating.

"Who's L, chief?" The young police officer asked Yagami Soichiro.

"Oh, right, this is your first meeting," he whispered back. "L is… a private investigator of sorts. No one knows what their real identity is. They have helped us with many impossible cases in the past. But the thing is, we can't contact them. They're our last resort, and they only come when they're interested."

At that moment, a deep male voice overwhelmed the general noise. "Ladies and gentlemen, L is already on it," it started. Everyone looked at the dais, where the amplified voice had come from, and saw a man wearing an overcoat, a hat and shades that hid his face.

"Who's that?" Matsuda asked.

"That's Watari, L's personal assistant. We also have no idea who he is. L rarely speaks with us and usually just tells Watari what they want."

"L has already started working on this case," he continued, "and is requesting your full cooperation. They believe these deaths are being caused by a mass murderer. The situation is incredibly atypical, however, and without the aforementioned full cooperation we can't begin to hope to solve this." Everyone remained completely silent as Watari spoke. "L says this may be the hardest case they have yet faced, and while they have some idea on how to start the investigation, they believe this murderer may be too smart for normal methods.

"We'll need to be careful, and use every resource available."

4:23PM. December 5, 2003. Tokyo, Japan.

"I'm home!" Light called when he arrived. His mother acknowledged his greeting as he went to his bedroom with Ryuk on his tail. After he sat down at his desk, he opened his backpack and took out the nondescript white notebook from it. Ryuk, as always, peeked over his shoulder as he performed his ritual of grabbing the dice and rolling them to decide what time zones he'd take each victim from. "You know, Ryuk, there is a flaw in my anonymity plan."

"Eh?" He sounded surprised. During the past few days, he'd developed a sort of admiration for the human boy, who always seemed to be one step ahead of… everyone, really. He was now floating above the bed, eating an apple; it turns out that while shinigami don't need to eat, Ryuk really enjoyed apples. "What flaw?"

Light waited for Tor (an online anonymity network) to connect on his virtual machine as he explained. "My first victim. He wasn't a famous, big criminal, so only someone living in Japan could have seen him. The sole non-Japanese news I found about him online showed up after his mysterious death. Of course," he continued, "it's possible that some non-Japanese person with the Death Note would pick a Japanese TV station to watch at random, but the odds are pretty low, and I killed him while he was on live TV. Very few people can actually speak Japanese. Even I can only speak Japanese and English, although with translation tools I have access to quite a wide range of online sources." He closed his eyes and thought for a while. Ryuk chewed on his apple, his ever-present creepy smile widening a bit. The slow, deliberate chewing noises irritated Light, but that was just a silly irrational peeve. "I guess there's no way around that. It was a stupid mistake, and I never realized it. It might be a problem. But then again, it might not. Here's to hoping."

The names of the people he'd found and planned to kill were all in a thrice password protected area of his computer that could not—or so he hoped—be accessed while the computer was connected to the internet. He had a word document organized by time zone with the names, faces and crimes of each person. As soon as he wrote their names on the Death Note, he erased them from the document.

"Look at this," Light said as he opened a website to show Ryuk. It had an intricately designed heart pattern with wings, gold against a black background, and presented the text:

THE LEGEND OF THE SAVIOR KIRA

Criminals worldwide are dying one after another because Kira is amongst us. He is the one who will tolerate no wickedness, our messenger from Hell. Only those who believe in his existence may enter this site.

"Quite colorful, isn't it? I believe this was from the failed Japanese pronunciation of the word "killer". I'm not sure I like the sound of it," he said, rolling his eyes a little bit, "but websites like this one are popping one after another, and it seems all of them have decided that's my name now." He entered the website and scrolled past a few blog entries as he talked. "Official media still refers to these deaths as 'the strange and frequent heart attacks of heinous criminals,' but there are people who believe—correctly, of course—that someone is behind all this." He turned his chair around to face the shinigami, who had that disturbingly amused look on his face again. Light himself wore a perfectly neutral expression as he talked. "Do you see what this means? It's working. People are aware there's someone. A person behind all this."

"Eh… Light… you told me the other day that you were kidding when you said you wanted to be god. Isn't that a bit god-ish for you?" Ryuk swallowed the last bit of the apple, still floating, and turned upside down.

"Yes, but that's a necessary consequence," explained the boy, smiling at the aerial tricks of the creature. "Whenever people see correlation, they suppose purposefulness—false positives, most of the time. And whenever that purposefulness is vague and threatening, they believe it's a god." He turned around again and closed the browser. Ryuk couldn't see the smile that touched Light's lips for a split second as he read 'SAVIOR KIRA' again. "It's the only reason religions exist in the first place. They saw thunder, they imagined a god of thunder. They saw fire, they imagined a god of fire. Now they see death, and they imagine a shinigami. But I don't mind. They have to know there's someone. They don't have to know who that someone is. I'll be… the Dark Knight." He chuckled to himself.

"We interrupt your programming to bring you an important message from the ICPO. This is being broadcast all over the world." ICPO? Light looked at his TV and turned the volume up so he could listen. Wasn't dad at a meeting there a few days ago? "Japanese voiceover was provided by translator Yoshio Anderson."

"My name is Lind L. Taylor, widely known as 'L.'" The voice came from a man who looked young and had dark, straight hair that framed his face.

December 4, 2003. Interpol emergency council.

Watari's head turned to the general direction of the Japanese entourage, though the shades prevented anyone from seeing the actual focus of his eyes. Still, Yagami believed he could almost feel the gaze on him, and wasn't surprised when the mysterious man spoke.

"Mr. Yagami, L has reason to believe the killer is Japanese. They will need your help. They will try something, just on the off chance that it works. L believes that it's possible they may be overestimating the intelligence of this murderer, but they aren't sure. Therefore, they will attempt to ascertain whether those responsible are really as dangerous as some fear. They want to gauge the killer's intelligence."

4:46PM. December 5, 2003. Tokyo, Japan.

"To the perpetrator of all these serial murders: you have committed the most abominable act in history. I will personally catch you, the one causing these horrible deaths, at any cost."

Whoa, Death said. That's a threat right there. I think we should do something about it.

You know, you're a bit trigger happy, Common Sense said. He's not a murderer. He's an investigator that helps the ICPO. What do you think the result of killing him will be?

Erm…

That's a no, Practical agreed.

"Kira, I think I have a pretty good idea of what you're trying to do and why you're doing it. But that is evil!"

He's right, you know, Moral said.

We've been over this already, Practical grunted. Yes, it's "evil" as a general rule—and you should really not throw that word around—but we're doing it only on strict necessity. We're only killing those without whom the world is better off.

That's just rationalizing murder, pointed out Moral.

Maybe so, Death said. But Practical has a point. We're not about to just start questioning our motives, are we? Besides, why do you even call yourself Moral anyway? Your morality is an outdated evolutionary hack. We think you should leave.

Aye, said Practical.

Aye, said Common Sense.

Aye, said Light himself.

There was no answer from Moral.

Light stopped paying attention to the man on the TV, returned the notebook to its place and grabbed his homework. He focused on it for a few minutes, until…

But what if he does catch us? Death asked after some time, his voice soft and seductive. For a while, no one replied. Then he continued. If he was stupid enough to show us his face and his name, he couldn't have been a very good asset to the Interpol in the first place. And if he dies, whatever perks he might have that drew the Interpol to him in the first place will be lost.

It's a net positive utility.

December 8, 2003. Interpol emergency council.

A few days later, at a new Interpol meeting called by L, Watari was waiting for everyone to sit. When they did, he cleared his throat, and the amplified sound of it made everyone become silent, echoing through the chamber in an authoritative manner.

"L's plan didn't work exactly as he'd expected. They believe the odds that Kira is Japanese are very good." He cleared his throat again. "Lind L. Taylor, to those of you who do not know, was a murderer scheduled to die at the date he showed up on TV pretending to be L in Japan. He died of a heart attack a few hours after his last announcement. Other death sentence victims played the same part in other countries, and many of them died afterwards, too." The sound of whispers now could be heard from everywhere.

"What happened, Chief?" Matsuda asked again.

"L wanted to figure out where in Japan Kira was, so he made this Lind L. Taylor assume their identity and made that announcement in Japan in hopes of luring Kira out somehow. Simultaneous transmissions were made with different criminals appearing on TV all over the globe, mostly to keep up the pretense but also just in case Kira wasn't in fact Japanese. Taylor was the first to die, but every other one of them died too, all of them after their transmission. L believes this is evidence for Kira being Japanese." The director himself looked a bit unconvinced.

"Couldn't Kira have gotten this information by coincidence?"

"He could. I think L must have thought of that, though."

"L will need a team of your top investigators to start immediately." There was a commotion at this. "They believe Mr. Yagami should lead the team. The Interpol should decide on how to best handle this situation. In a week, L will want to hear what you ladies and gentlemen have to say."

Watari then turned and left, while the Interpol organized themselves - which is to say, everyone started to talk at the same time in confusion.

7:12PM. December 5, 2003. Tokyo, Japan.

"That's strange…"

"What is it, Light?" Ryuk floated over to look at Light's computer screen.

It'd been a few hours since Taylor showed up on TV, and he still wasn't dead. "This person doesn't look like… Taylor…" Then he stopped talking and his eyes widened in terror as comprehension dawned on him. Oh, no… Oh no, no, no…

On his screen, one of the Savior Kira websites was open, a British one, and it showed a lengthy rant about the Interpol allying with an investigator called L… who was a female and whose name was, apparently, Jane B. Angelo. No, no, no… He looked up other international websites dedicated to Kira and each of them showed a different L. He clicked and clicked and clicked and somehow there was a different L for each couple of countries. Some of them - the USA, England, China, Japan - got one person all for themselves. By then, a number of those websites had picked up on this already and were choosing one of two stances: L was in fact all of those people, or none of them.

Ryuk watched, fascinated and with growing amusement. "Light… I think they got you."

"NO," he said, then stopped himself.

I told you, Common Sense said.

Shut up, Death and Light replied.

No. You shouldn't just kill people like that. You shouldn't leave the pattern. You made a mistake, Practical commented.

No…

You made a mistake, the voice he used to call Moral continued, and it was an easily avoidable mistake. Maybe he should call it Cautious.

How? How could I—

You know exactly how you could. You're Kira. They would never send the small guns after you. You thought L was just some random pawn and your arrogance turned against you.

"No," he said out loud, but it sounded like a question to his ears. "No, that's nothing. I already suspected they'd learn I was Japanese." He wasn't quite succeeding at convincing himself. His voice was breaking and he was trembling. "I can't kill back in time to change that…" Then he eyed Ryuk suspiciously. "Or can I?"

"Kukuku… We're shinigami, not gods of time," answered the strange creature, looking way too cheerful. Light decided he'd deprive the shinigami of apples for a while. But anyway, he nodded. As he'd suspected.

Let's be rational. The mistake has been made. What can be done now to help? And he thought of an idea. He heard a gasp coming from the depths of his mind as it formed, but he quickly reasoned it was necessary. They couldn't know he was Japanese. He'd make it much more difficult. If they caught him, many more people than just that handful of actors would die…

He spent the next two hours looking up the names of the other Ls around the world and writing their names. After he was done, he ripped the full pages off, put them in his first desk drawer and closed the notebook. Ryuk had spent that entire time watching in fascination. Light looked at himself and felt his clothes sticking to him and his heart racing. His whole body was tense, and he felt he'd just escaped sure death.

"They might still know I'm Japanese, but they might believe this was all random, too."

Random murdering of innocents, you mean, Moral said. None of the others except for Death, who was quickly shushed, had anything to say to that. It was true.

"L is still alive, and whoever they are, I underestimated their intelligence."

December 15, 2003. A dark room with a bright monitor somewhere.

L stared at the monitor as Watari entered the conference room a week later. "Watari," he said as he pressed a key on his computer to let him speak to the man, "ask them to invite Klein to the team in Japan."

9:02AM. December 16, 2003. Kira Task Force Headquarters, Tokyo, Japan.

Yagami Soichiro was a tall, powerful man. His greying hair, square glasses, moustache, and usual grey suit gave him a very professional look. He sat at a desk in the headquarters of the recently created Vicious Criminal Serious Murder Special Investigative Force, or informally Kira Task Force, in Tokyo. Watari was sitting at the back with a notebook and his face covered as usual. The other investigators, from all over the world, every now and then glanced nervously in his direction. He seemed not to notice, focused on whatever was on his screen.

"Yagami-sama, we have the report ready," one of the investigators told him.

"Let's hear it. Watari-san," he said that last word a little bit louder, "you might want to let L hear this, too."

Watari almost imperceptibly nodded and turned on the relay. "L, you will now hear the report."

"Good," the electronically distorted voice was heard by Watari only.

"All the victims were discoverable from Japan, but only through the internet—that is, they were also discoverable from anywhere else with an internet connection. They were all people arrested for or suspected of heinous crimes such as planned murder, rape, and torture. None of them were people who committed one-shot impassioned crimes or accidents. The times of death were always during the first minute of each hour of the day. The places these victims come from seem to follow a statistically random pattern as opposed to what a layman would believe a random process should look like. During the collecting of the data, there were some windows between deaths that were longer than an hour, but most of them were eventually filled by a death that hadn't been previously noted. Currently there are still some hours of some days that don't correspond to any murders on record, but more information is being gathered as we speak."

An apprehensive silence followed that report, which eventually was broken by Watari. "L wants to know what parts of the published information of the victims all of them had in common."

"Apparently, name, location, and picture of the criminal and description of the crime are the only features that are found consistently amongst all victims, with the one notable exception of Lind L. Taylor, whose name was mentioned only briefly in a few news outlets in the U.S.A. and whose face only became public during the announcement," the one reporting the data promptly replied. Then, another investigator got up and started their report.

"So far, we've received 3029 calls regarding the case. The vast majority are from curious civilians wanting to know whether the broadcast, L, and Kira are real. Fourteen calls were along the lines of 'I know Kira' and 'I saw Kira.' We've followed up and recorded all of them. Twenty-one calls were from people claiming to be Kira, which were also followed up and recorded."

After that, one young officer got up and the other investigator sat down. Matsuda Touta was a man of average height and build and straight black hair. His face was somewhat childish and beardless, though his posture and suit were serious and his tone was very down-to-business. "In the past few days, criminal activity all over the world has decreased dramatically. There seems to be no order to the decrease, but it can be more strongly detected in most countries where the general populace has access to news concerning the case."

The uneasy silence was somehow loud after that, heavy. The investigators traded glances but it seemed they were afraid to even breathe. Once again, Watari broke it. "L wants to be sent a copy of the full report, and wants to know whether Klein has arrived."

This time, Yagami was the one who answered. "The report will be sent through whatever forms of communication L chooses to disclose to us." His tone of voice was dry and somewhat resentful. "Meike Klein hasn't arrived yet, but her flight is scheduled for tonight. She should be here in two days at most."

Watari remained silent for a few seconds before saying, "L will be looking forward to working with Klein and with the team already assembled. They thank you for all your effort, and say they believe that with this information, this case may not be unsolvable after all." The effect of that one statement was subtle, but instantaneous. The wording was carefully chosen, of course. It implied even L had had no expectations of solving it, but what they'd learned had given him hope, so further developments would likely point them in the right direction. As Watari closed his laptop and got up to leave, the mood in the room had perceptibly improved, and people seemed to have recovered the drive to work.

6:16PM. December 16, 2003. Yagami household, Tokyo, Japan.

"So the solution of the quadratic equation is really just a consequence of the way it's set, see? If you ever forget it, you can just re-derive it from that," Light explained to his young sister Sayu in his room. Ryuk watched the exchange, looking bored, floating above the bed.

"You're so smart, Light-kun! The sensei should've taught us that! All he did was throw that formula on the board and tell us to memorize it!" She puffed her cheeks and Light laughed.

"Yes, but now you can teach all your friends!" They heard the noise of the door being unlocked downstairs. "Oh, dad's home. We should go down to have dinner with him."

"Yes!" she replied and quickly got up and moved towards the door.

"But Sayu, you need to practice! If you don't do the exercises, you won't remember."

"Gotcha," she said as she left, followed by Light and Ryuk.

"I'm home!" Light heard his dad saying as he walked downstairs. "Hello, Sayu, Light."

"Hi dad!" Sayu greeted and hugged him.

"Hello, dad. Let's eat?"

"Sure, I'll be right there," answered Yagami Soichiro.

6:27PM.

"So, Light, how's school?" Soichiro asked between bites.

"Eh? Ah, same ol', same ol'…" he replied with poorly concealed pride.

"So, still at the top of the class," his dad said with a chuckle. "And you, Sayu?"

She had been grinning at her brother, but then stopped and held back a snicker. "Oh, same ol', same ol'…" Everyone laughed.

A few more minutes passed in silence until Light said, "Hey, dad, how's the Kira case going?"

"Kira case?" Ryuk asked, surprised. He was floating just behind Light, who ignored him.

"It's like trying to catch a ghost. This guy's really careful."

The corner of Light's lips twitched imperceptibly, but luckily no one was looking when that happened. "Do you have any clues? Any ideas?"

"Now, Light, I know you want to work at the police when you grow up, but this case is classified. I can't disclose this information to you or anyone. I'm sorry, it's not that I don't trust you, but rules are rules."

"I'm sorry," Light said, sounding the teeniest bit bitter. That, Soichiro caught.

"I know you want to help, and your help has been invaluable in the past, but this case is strictly confidential, and not even the investigators working on it have full access to all the info."

"I understand. Don't worry about it," Light replied with a smile. "I'm just being silly."

"This is so interesting…" Ryuk remarked to no one.

7:00PM.

"Eh, Light, your dad is not only a cop, but he's also working on the Kira case, huh? That must be quite a lot of pressure," Ryuk commented with mock concern as they walked back into his room—or rather, Light walked and Ryuk hovered.

"Quite the contrary. It means I can use his computer to figure out details of the case. In fact, I can assess exactly how much of a threat this L can be. Their plan was much smarter than I'd suspected, putting an actor to pretend he's them and confirm my location." His lips twisted then, and his brows furrowed. Light had looked up the names of the people who L had used as puppets. They'd all been found guilty of exactly the type of crimes Kira despised. So they weren't innocents.

It wasn't that bad, was it? Death asked tentatively.

You didn't know that. You just killed a bunch of people you thought were innocent. Because of your pride and arrogance. Moral once again was the last to speak, and even Light himself felt his stomach churn as he thought these things at himself.

"I won't let him catch me by surprise like that again," he said, and smiled a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. Ryuk shuddered at the sight. The human boy looked more terrifying than a shinigami.

If this L person is helping the police… I wonder who they are.

8:59AM. December 17, 2003. Kira Task Force Headquarters, Tokyo, Japan.

There was a knock on the door of the headquarters. Without waiting for an answer, the door was opened, and an austere-looking woman walked in. She was in her thirties, tall, and—in spite of the cold hardness of her face—beautiful. She wore glasses and her blond hair was wrapped in a ponytail. Her suit was black, and her high heels clicked against the floor as she walked with confident, strong steps.

"How may I help you?" Yagami asked, the shadow of a frown forming on his face because of the stranger's interruption.

"I believe L requested my help. I am Meike Klein," she answered in a strongly accented Japanese. "I am a psychologist, anthropologist, and criminal profiler." She talked like she walked: confidently, surely, strongly. Her voice was loud and clear, and even through her thick accent it was always possible to understand what she was saying. There was a small smile on her face, a smile that said 'I'm good at what I do, I know it, you know it, and it makes you furious'.

Everyone looked a bit shocked at the woman's presence, except for Yagami himself. "Yes, of course. Do you want the report?"

"No need. L has already sent me the relevant details. I believe we can further this investigation and significantly narrow down the possible suspects." Watari watched the woman, and the webcam attached to his laptop showed a gleeful L the image of her arrival. "They have asked me to profile this criminal so we can find him. When can I start?"

"Following the report," Yagami answered. "Matsuda?"

Matsuda got up, and his tone was the same down-to-business one of before. He wanted to be taken seriously by his peers, who judged him because of his age. His ambition and drive did him credit, however, and even Klein raised her eyebrows at the power the young man emanated. "The pattern has continued. Twenty registered deaths in the past twenty-four hours, hourly except for a few missing spots. Previous missing spots were filled with other confirmed deaths by heart attack of criminals in more remote parts of the world. Nothing more to report."

"Thank you, Matsuda. Klein-sama, would you care to elucidate us on this murderer's personality?"

"Certainly." Matsuda sat down again while Klein walked to Yagami's desk at the other end of the room and turned around, her back to Yagami but facing everyone else—Watari included. "Our killer is likely male, between 20 and 34 years of age, based simply on general statistics. He is brilliant and knows that, but he is also arrogant and prideful, and very methodical and meticulous. His murder of Taylor and the other fake Ls shows that he doesn't like being challenged, and will kill even when he doesn't know his target is a criminal if he believes that will help him achieve his goals. His goals, of course, are to rid the world of evil. He believes he is doing a purging, a cleansing, and might even fancy himself a supreme judge over humanity. He has cleverly hidden his identity by killing always one person per hour, never concentrating his murders at any single time frame that might incriminate him. That also suggests his reach is temporal in addition to spatial."

"H-hold on," one investigator said. "You're saying that all of this was caused by only one person? And he can kill whomever and whenever he wants? How?"

"Bear with me," Klein answered patiently. "Yes, we believe it is a single person, or perhaps one person heading a team. But the mastermind is only one, yes. Though of course we are not certain of this, it's the most likely scenario. Groups of people are agents with patterns of behavior that are remarkably different from individuals. The kind of mistakes made, and the overall structure of the murders, they point to a single person with a specific ritualistic M.O. Indeed, other than the characteristics of this case that make it peculiar—the spatial and temporal separation of victims, the manner of killing, the sheer amount of victims—the model of the killer as an individual is the most restrictive and predictive." She nodded as she explained that last part. "Of course, we cannot completely rule out that it is, in fact, a group of people instead of only one person. But that—I believe—will become clear as we continue investigating. If we ever reach a point where our model of the killer as an individual mastermind fails and our observations are better explained by a group, we can switch models. But I feel confident in saying that this will not happen.

"As to how he does it… we can't rule out very advanced technology, but all autopsies so far revealed natural causes. I beg your suspension of disbelief here. L and I have come to the conclusion that… the means may be supernatural." Her mouth twitched at that, L noticed through the webcam.

Yes, I know it's hard to swallow… but it looks like the most plausible option, L thought as he saw the room fall into disarray and chaos.

"Supernatural? What do you mean?"

"Is he a demon?"

"What if he's really a god? A shinigami?"

"Don't be silly, there's no such—"

"He's killing people all over the world with heart attacks! It's the only explanation."

"Silence!" Yagami shouted, and everyone quieted down immediately. His face held a deep frown, wrinkling his foreheads and pursing his lips. "Please, let Klein-san continue."

"Thank you," she replied. "Yes, supernatural. The victims are completely randomly distributed, all dying of heart attacks in the first sixty seconds of each hour. These victims range from those in solitary confinement to those being tried, including some who were cleared of all charges and even some that were missing." Her lips pressed into a thin line as she thought about what to say, how to explain. "As I said, we cannot rule out extremely advanced technology, and it's simply true that the supernatural has incredibly low priors. But however he does it, it is clear that Kira is capable of deeds that would not be thought possible by ordinary means. Even if it's not supernatural, we should label it as such at least as a mental warning that we have absolutely no idea how he is doing it." She let that sink in, let the people murmur, whisper, talk. It was better that way. When she felt they had mostly digested the news, she continued with the good ones. "He has, however, not been perfectly careful. If he has such fine control over time of death, that probably means he somehow schedules the deaths beforehand. But it seems like he creates that schedule at a regular rate, instead of having scheduled all those deaths at some point in the past and just watching them happen." A few murmurs started at that. "If that were the case, most deaths would take a few days to happen after the victims showed up on the news. Taylor and the other fake Ls are the prime examples of people dying on the same day their faces appear on the news, followed by people who appeared much earlier. This line of reasoning assumes that he cannot change the schedule after he set it, and we believe this is the case because otherwise he wouldn't have had any reason to kill the other fake Ls immediately afterwards unless it was to cover his blunder with Taylor once he found out." The murmurs got louder. "The only way to keep it watertight like this while at the same time updating it with recent information would be to recreate the schedules at least daily."

The murmurs were now open conversation, but one investigator asked something that made everyone else quiet down again: "And how do you know all that?"

Klein smiled. "There's a reason we talk about a Modus Operandi when we describe serial killers. They all have a preferred form of killing, and a ritual. They are highly organized people, and generally can be very upset if their carefully built plan is somehow messed with. This killer shows that with his strict obedience to time of death. Always the first minute of every hour.

"I do not believe, as some of you have suggested, that he's a supernatural creature. A shinigami or something like that. That's because of a simple application of Occam's Razor. A supernatural agent would beg too many burdensome details, the posterior probability of it is still incredibly low even if we're considering supernatural means. Why would the creature act now and not at any other point? What would have changed? Too many improbabilities stacked one on top of the other. Of course, we can't rule it out, not yet anyway. But if it is a supernatural creature and not a human, this investigation will have to change dramatically to find a sentient species that has been able to hide for the entire history of humanity. So let's assume it's a human until and unless the evidence tells us otherwise: the posteriors are still much less than we should consider given our current evidence."

"And how does that help us?"

"I second that question," Yagami said. "I'm not sure how that information can help us catch him."

"His first kill didn't fit the pattern," Klein answered. "His first murder was a man named Otoharada Kurou—you can look him up—and it was made during the screening of the crime on TV. And after that one, it took another couple of days for him to actually start his schedule."

Watari cleared his throat, and then spoke. "L believes we can get clues from that murder. And there might possibly have been others. Indeed, L believes Kira may have been testing his powers at that time. If he had already had complete information about what he could do, he wouldn't have been so sloppy."

This time, for the first time, a few investigators, including Yagami and Matsuda, were nodding at Watari's announcement instead of just staring dumbfounded.

L saw all that through the webcam. Good, he thought. They're catching up. We can't have people who are constantly surprised at the most obvious developments and ideas. They will be a hindrance instead of an aid.

"Matsuda. I need you to head a small unit to research possible other deaths of criminals between Otoharada Kurou and Gabriel Heinsterr." A grin crossed Matsuda's young face before being replaced by his usual serious expression.

He wanted to show he was responsible, L believed, and just nodded as he started gathering people he trusted.

L smiled at the whole exchange behind his computer screen. Matsuda looked very promising, and Captain Yagami remembered by heart the names of the first recorded victims. L hadn't been wrong to choose that man to head this team, and apparently he wasn't much less picky with his own. "Is there anything else we should be informed of, L? Klein-san?"

"As far as I'm aware, we're done for now. I would like to be notified if any further patterns are found in the deaths," Klein answered.

"L says you should, once again, pay especially close attention to the times of death of these criminals," Watari said, then closed his laptop and got up, walking toward the exit.

5:30PM.

Yagami was the last to leave the headquarters. When he did, he was surprised to find Watari standing beside the door. "Yagami-sama. Do you mind if we speak in private?"

"Not at all. My office?"

The headquarters was in the police building, and Yagami's office was on the top floor of that building. They headed in that direction, and as they walked in, Yagami locked the door and said, "Please, sit." Watari did as instructed while the chief sat on the other side of the now mostly empty desk. Since this case began, it hadn't seen much use. Now, he spent most of his time at the headquarters. "What do they have in mind?"

"L believes this team is too large. Too many non-expert people, too slow on the uptake. We need only the best minds on this team."

"Yes," Yagami sighed, "I agree. The team needs a reduction. And tighter security. I didn't keep any of the case files in my personal computer as I generally do—it's just too dangerous, and most of my cases aren't classified anyway—but there are still too many ways this could leak."

L, who was always watching Watari's actions, watched his respect for the man grow. "What do you suggest?"

"I'll handle it. Don't worry. Was there anything else?"

"No, that was all. Thank you for your time, Yagami-sama."

5:02PM.

"You're looking agitated, Liiiiight-kuuuun. What's up, Liiiiiiight?" Ryuk floated and ate an apple as he watched Light pace around his room. After his ritual, the boy had tried doing his homework, but failed and started fidgeting and pacing instead.

He didn't answer. There was a mental debate going on in his mind. There had been no update to my father's computer's case folder in more than two weeks, Light thought.

Do you think he's onto us? Do you think he's hiding it from us? Death asked, sounding worried.

Don't be silly, Common Sense replied. This is the most important case of his career. We have killed more than two hundred and eighty people. Have you ever heard of a serial killer with this many murders? Especially in such a short time?

Light slowed down his pace and smiled a bit when he thought of that, but then immediately frowned. We're not serial killers. We're justice.

We're killing people in series, explained Common Sense, slowly and carefully. We even have an M.O.! We're serial killers. The fact that our killing is just doesn't make it any less killing. Don't try to pretend you don't know that. Don't try to diminish what we're doing. We are killing people, and that is bad.

Yes, but it's a necessary evil! We're not the Batman, if we have the power to st—

Yes, we know about the Batman, Practical interjected impatiently. The fact that these killings, in the end, have a positive impact doesn't mean killing is a good thing. Never forget that. They are people who didn't want to die, same as us, same as everyone else.

But they deserved it, Death said.

Yes. They did, Practical conceded.

We're drifting from the subject here. Without dad's computer, we won't know anything about the investigation. That will leave us vulnerable.

They all thought about that. Practical said, We need to hack into the police's computers, then.

Oh, like it's easy? Common Sense replied with annoyance. It's one thing to hack into your dad's personal computer at home, but trying to get into the über protected servers of the police? Insane.

None of his parts had any reply to that. It was insane. Hacking into the police computers wasn't an option.

"Light?" Ryuk sounded concerned. He snapped out of his internal dialogue.

"Sorry. I was thinking. My dad's computer doesn't have information on the case anymore. I'll have to find another way to get my information."

"…how?" the shinigami asked, curious. Light frowned a little bit. He didn't know.

9:01AM. December 18, 2003. Kira Task Force Headquarters, Tokyo, Japan.

"What's this?" Yagami asked the three investigators who just put letters on his desk and were standing in front of it, staring at him. One of them was Matsuda, who looked fearful and nervous.

"This is our resignation letter!" Matsuda said. Yagami's eyebrows shot up and his eyes widened, his mouth slightly slacking.

"W-what? Why?!"

"Everyone has noticed it by now, haven't they?" one of the other investigators, dressing smartly in a green suit with his black hair perfectly combed around his head and eternally tired eyes, said. "Kira is a supernatural killer, and Klein and L may talk a lot of shop, but they're not police. They don't have to go out there and investigate; their names aren't tied to the case. L doesn't even have a name." He inhaled deeply, gathered his courage, then said, "I'm doing this because I fear for my life! I would like to be reassigned to another case, but if that cannot be done, we quit this case." Yagami looked too stunned for words. Watari and everyone else watched the exchange in silence.

"But Matsuda… why? You, too?"

"Y- yes, chief." Matsuda seemed to waver, his serious façade dropping an inch, showing how young he really was. Only eight years older than Yagami's own son. "I-I can't. I'm too young. I'm not even married yet; I haven't done anything. Kira can reach all of us. He killed Taylor when Taylor pretended to be L and to be hunting him. It's only a matter of time."

"Why now?!"

"Because we're getting close, chief," said the third man, the one who hadn't spoken yet. He was tall and very muscular, with a strong jaw and fierce eyes. The fearful expression looked out of place on his face. "Because we might actually have to hunt him, and if he finds out… he'll kill us. He'll kill all of us."

"I hope you can understand and forgive us," Matsuda said, and the three of them turned around and left. Yagami realized he had at some point thrown his chair back and was now standing, paralyzed in shock. Only Watari noticed, however, the small flicker of the chief's eyes in his direction.

nightelf37: Extreme apologies for the wait. See ya on Third!