AN: I got a couple of ideas and decided to continue. Heh. Just a warning; the plot might not make much sense, the ending will most likely suck, chapter lengths will vary, and updates will be sporadic at best. This is originally why I didn't want to continue... but I had too many ideas and now you have to deal with my strange schedule.

Oh! And before I forget, I would like to thank my friend for helping me infinitely with this fic. We bounced ideas back and forth and she helped me fill up plot holes and make everything as in-character as I could possibly write it. Without her, well. Let's just say this would have turned out a lot worse than it already is. XD

The hilarious thing is that her name is Kira.

I swear I'm not joking.

Disclaimer: Death Note does not belong to me, and neither does Death Note: Another Note. None of the characters that might appear or be mentioned in this fic are mine.

October 30, 2004

.

L stared at the monitor screen with large, black rimmed eyes. He chewed on his thumbnail as Misa greeted Light with an affectionate hug. His eyes narrowed minutely. 'Light is facing away from the cameras. From here, I cannot read his lips. Is he doing this on purpose? What is he really saying to her?' he wondered, brow furrowing. 'I am 80 - no, 90% sure that Light has become Kira again. Misa must have become the Second Kira some time ago. What is Kira planning now...?'

"Hey!" came a voice to his left, and L startled slightly. He had not been paying attention to his surroundings. As per usual for the eccentric detective. He shifted his feet slightly, adjusting his centre of gravity, and glanced out of the corner of his eyes. Ah. It was Aizawa-san. To be completely honest, L was quite glad that the man had decided to return to the Kira Task Force. He was reliable in a pinch, and though a bit hotheaded, was a valuable member.

"Light and Misa were released of all suspicion, remember?" Aizawa sighed, reaching and pressing the button that disconnected the monitor from the camera in the lobby. "You shouldn't be monitoring them anymore."

L blinked. Well, he supposed Aizawa was right, he 'no longer suspected' Light and Misa. So L huffed, and decided to allow the gullible Task Force to have their satisfaction. It was not their fault that their thinking processes weren't on his level.

"I suppose you are right," L said morosely, spinning his chair around. "I am simply unused to not being suspicious of Light-kun."

Now with nothing else to do and no new leads on the Kira Case, L opened up his laptop. He would get to work on another one of his cases, so he wouldn't waste time. L was annoyed at this, since he saw it as a small victory for Light, driving L to boredom so he would work on another case. Really, L was at a loss as to what to do... Light had successfully sidestepped all of L's accusations because of that 13 day rule, and L had to somehow put the suspicion back onto the young male. Light had the advantage now. L was sure that testing the 13 day rule would be the fastest way to convict Light, but he was apprehensive about it. Like he had already mentioned, Light had the advantage, and who knew if L would just be walking into his trap if he tried testing the rule. 13 days... 13... The number 13.

It was a rather nostalgic number for L. It reminded him of the days before the Kira Case, when there was another challenging case called the LABB Murders - short for the Los Angeles Beyond Birthday Murders. The number 13 had been a symbolic number for the murderer, one of L's successors. His name was Beyond Birthday, or BB for short. He was quite the intelligent man, and L liked to think that in another universe, B would have never strayed from the path of his sanity and they worked together on cases. B had wanted attention from him, craved it, and if L had known that, then perhaps he could have prevented B's tragedy. No, L did not dislike B. On the contrary, he respected him a great deal. He had come quite close to beating him, after all, very nearly killed himself and cemented the LABB Murders as a true mystery. L could respect someone who had such ambition. If only that ambition had not been used for the wrong purpose...

Well, enough thinking about things that should be left in the past. B was in prison now, and he would not be getting out. Back to the case at hand... quite literally too. It was an interesting case of arson, where the arsonist targeted populated places and set off a string of seemingly accidental explosions, thus setting the intended building on fire.

Light entered the room, having finished saying his 'goodbyes' to Misa. L ignored him and focused entirely on the case.

L solved it in seven minutes and twelve point nine seconds, and spent the next half hour staring blankly at his screen.

He sighed and began spinning around in his chair, sucking absently on a lollipop. Everything was so boring. There was simply nothing to do now that the Task Force was no longer suspicious of Light. How could he bring the spotlight back onto Light? How could he throw the young man off guard? That would be a difficult feat, seeing as said young man had spent the past three months in L's company. Light knew how L thought, and that was bad, because L didn't like being predictable. Then again, he also knew how Light thought, which was why he was so reluctant to test the rule, because he knew that Light knew that was how he thought, and most likely anticipated that he figure out the rule was a possible fake.

L perked up as his inbox lit up with a new message. He used a certain e-mail service that was completely private, and only those registered onto it (aka Watari, Roger, and himself) were able to access it. As well, incoming e-mails would be deleted within 3 days of reception. He clicked on the new e-mail, which was from Watari. It was most likely another case, seeing as Watari never used e-mails if it was anything too urgent, or anything too trivial. Usually, he would call him, or come bother him in person.

Shifting forward in his chair in anticipation of a new case to solve and a momentary respite from his constant boredom, L set down the lollipop stick and picked up a plate that contained a slice of strawberry cake - his favourite. He took a quick bite, before allowing his eyes to quickly scan the contents of his email.

It was only an update from the California prison in which B had been sentenced to. It appeared all was going as normal, B had not attempted suicide (not that he could, anything potentially harmful was kept away from him at all times), he was perfectly healthy, wasn't causing trouble, was mostly just silently contemplating the ceiling of his cell, as the weekly reports often went. Yes, weekly. A normal detective would only have monthly updates, but, well, L was evidently far from a normal detective, and had insisted on weekly updates, being the paranoid bastard he was.

It was while he was scanning the email that a certain phrase caught his eye. Apparently, one of the guards had been told by B himself to include this in the weekly report. This was new, he thought, B had never before left any messages for him. He read over said message and was immediately confused. His brow creased at the simple strangeness of it. What did B have to gain by telling him this? Was he trying to imply that - but he wouldn't want to, his sole purpose was to surpass L, himself. So why...?

L's mind suddenly clicked. His eyes widened as what felt like a ton of bricks slapped him point blank in the forehead. This... this was perfect! Even better than his original plan. He had been so preoccupied on how to get out of this trap that he didn't think about what would happen after... But now he knew what he was going to do.

It was a very fortunate thing that he had made the decision just over a year ago not to broadcast B's name and face, and to instead keep it confidential within the FBI files. The public was only informed that the criminal involved in the LABB Murder Cases had been captured by L, and that was that. It was luck indeed, for surely if B's name and face had been broadcast, he would have been killed by Kira for his heinous crimes.

L allowed a small smile to spread across his face.

Perhaps it was luck, perhaps it was fate, perhaps it was justice. Perhaps it was someone who held control over the world, and decided that they wanted a happier ending to Beyond Birthday's life. Perhaps L's entire life and existence was purely fictional and he was actually part of an intense and very popular drama anime/manga filled with mystery and tragedy and some crazy fangirl somehow generated the idea of his decision not to broadcast anything about B and created the entire timeline he inhabited through a keyboard and a certain website. But that was absurd. Why had his superior intellect even generated such a strange notion?

Well, whatever it was, L would make sure to make the best of this situation. He had a plan.

'Did you hear that, Kira?' he thought, glancing at Light out of the corner of his eyes. 'I haven't lost yet.'

Light blinked in surprise as Ryuzaki set down his cake and stood abruptly on his chair. Yes, on his chair. The eccentric detective spun the chair around and hopped off. It looked highly unsafe. Fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, Ryuzaki landed safely on the floor and his chair merely spun like a possessed creature for several seconds before slowing to a stop. "Ryuzaki? Are you going somewhere?" Light asked curiously, wondering what had happened that caused L to leave his cake. Light had seen him with his cake, and his cake was not something he ditched easily.

"Yes, I just remembered I have some urgent business to attend to," L replied absently, gaze hovering at a spot somewhere above the door. "I shall be gone for several days. Please attend to your duties normally, thank you."

After this, L seemed to come out of his contemplative haze and his gaze snapped around to Light. Light once again blinked, confused. Ryuzaki was acting very strangely today, and Light wasn't sure whether to be wary or concerned. Was the detective finally loosing his sanity?

And then L smiled. He smiled, and everyone started, because the only times they had seen him smile was when he had declared that he was justice, when he was staring down a huge cake piled with whipped cream, and, for Light, in the helicopter when L had looked at him and smiled and replied, "I suppose it really is over."

"I shall see you soon," Ryuzaki said after a moment, smile dropping off his face as he turned and hurried out the door.

The Task Force sat there in mutual shock for several long seconds, staring at the door through which Ryuzaki had exited.

"He... smiled at you, Light-kun," Matsuda said dazedly, with a stupid grin on his face, as usual. "You two must be really close friends, huh."

Light clenched his fists involuntarily under the table.

"I suppose we are," he replied nonchalantly, before turning back to his computer. "We should get back to work. He did tell us to continue as usual."

The other members made noises of agreement, and soon the sound of typing and shuffling papers once again filled the room. Although Light looked like he was hard at work like everyone else, his mind was far from the countless faces and names of criminals long dead flashing by. It was, in fact, on a certain dark-haired detective. To be completely honest, Light felt slightly annoyed that some 'urgent business' had come up, distracting L. What could possibly be more important than capturing him, Kira?

Well, he would try not to let it affect him too much. Light was actually quite excited for the coming days. He was pleased that his plan had succeeded, and he now had his memories returned. His trap for L had also been laid. It would take several days for L to feel pressured enough to actually walk into it, however, seeing as the man was wary of anything he even thought anymore, in case Light had planned him thinking it. However, once it was revealed that Kira had started killing immediately after Misa was released, L would have no choice but to apprehend her once more. Once he tried testing the 13 day rule... that was when Rem would feel that Misa's life was in enough danger for her to kill L. It was the perfect plan. There was nowhere for L to go now. Light hid a smirk behind his hand.

'Checkmate, my friend.'

However, his mind drifted from the near future to the present. What could have possibly happened to drive L to leave so abruptly? From his months of confinement, Light liked to think he knew the reclusive detective quite well, or at least well enough to be able to partially predict his train of thought and to read the emotions on his pale, sleep-deprived face. And the expression he had been wearing just now was definitely one Light was well acquainted with - that of subtle excitement and determination. Had L come up with yet another plan to trip Light up, just as he was at the cusp of his victory? It seemed very likely. Light bristled at the thought - sly bastard! Why couldn't he just drop down and die already?! Well, he supposed it wouldn't be fun if it was any other way, but Light would be extremely infuriated if his plan was walked all over yet again by L. But then, he could just be over-analyzing the situation. What if L had just received word that a friend of his was in town or something, and had gone to discuss theories with them? Yeah, probably not... it was hard to believe that L had any emotional attachment to the world. The most likely situation was that L had thought up another plan that he was certain was foolproof, and shit was about to go down.

Satisfied with his conclusion (although now much more on edge than he had been before), Light turned his thoughts to wondering how L's absence would affect them. This was a situation he could take advantage of, since L would be gone. Of course, Watari was probably still going to monitor them, and L most likely had some sort of long range device that allowed him to see what was happening in the headquarters, but their guards would be slightly lower than usual. Ha. If L had thought up of a plan to once again try to trick Light into revealing more information, then there was no way Light wouldn't rise up to the challenge.

October 29, 2004

.

Boredom was something that not even the strongest person could escape.

It ate you up from the inside, clawed at your sanity, killed brain cells until you were reduced to an incoherent meat bag.

The same could be said about humiliation. If you embarrassed yourself, you would remember the experience your whole life. The shame would haunt you, tear you up, set you screaming every time you remembered it. There was simply no escape.

Especially not for a prisoner. Especially not for someone who had physical reminders of their failures.

A prisoner didn't get the chance to distract themselves from their mistakes. No, they were left to dwell in them until the time when they would be released. Or until they died there. Either way, their blunders haunted them for much longer than the average person.

Even with someone such as Beyond Birthday, this reigned true.

The man sighed for the eighteenth time that hour, staring at the ceiling as he lay on his cot. After only about a year of his imprisonment, and he was already bored half to death. Not to mention, he knew L was still out there, solving cases, and he had to wallow in the shitty fact that he had failed. B huffed, playing with the overgrown strands of his hair. How much longer of this did he have to endure? He wished he could just kill himself. But noooo, L, with his stupid sense of justice, had condemned him to this monotonous hell. The bastard probably knew what he was putting him through by giving him a life sentence instead of an execution, and was laughing sadistically somewhere on the other side of the world as he received weekly reports of how bored B was.

B's gaze wandered to the walls and he wondered how long it would take for him to die from head trauma if he started bashing his head against it. It would be an interesting experiment, and would serve to end his pathetic excuse of a life. But the guards would most likely catch him before he died, and it would only serve to bloat L's ego about his victory. Besides, the human body was quite ingenious, for being merely a bag of meat and nerves and guts. Basic survival instincts wouldn't allow B to hit his head hard enough to cause significant head trauma. Probably. Now he really wanted to see if he could defy his own body. But no, he couldn't give L yet another triumph. He had to remain strong...

Ah, who was he kidding. L had probably forgotten all about him by now.

He felt the sudden urge to violently dismember something. Preferably a certain dark haired detective across the world from him.

B sat up on his bed as he heard footsteps approaching. It was most likely the morning guard, finishing up his shift by checking on B. He was the only one B looked forward to seeing, if only for the fact that he always read the newspaper in the morning and gave it to B once he was finished with it. Which meant, of course, some very slight excitement in his tedious schedule. B was always eager to hear more about the Kira case. The guard probably thought it was some sort of irrational fear or something. Ha. Like B would ever fear someone who could kill him. He welcomed death, in fact, and was mildly disappointed at the fact that Kira had not yet found out his name and face and killed him. That was a disappointment.

Then again, he didn't exactly want Kira to kill him. That would be annoying. Mostly because B actually detested Kira. It was obvious that Kira was using some sort of supernatural means to kill his victims, simply because it was impossible for someone to give another person a heart attack. B did not doubt this. If he was able to see someone's name and lifespan floating above their heads, then why couldn't a magical murder weapon exist?

Anyway, the simple fact that Kira was using something otherworldly to kill people pissed B off. That was cheating, as far as he was concerned. He, himself, had worked long and hard to kill his own three victims, and their deaths had been a result of his blood, sweat, and tears. And then Kira came along and for all he knew killed people with a snap of his fingers. Yes, the world was unfair, and B knew that perhaps better than anyone else, but seriously? Murder was something B always thought would remain the same for all time. But Kira changed that.

There was also the fact that B might also have been very slightly... jealous.

Kira had already killed over a thousand people in just under a year. B had only managed to kill three people in a month. Although to be fair, he had planned out his victims and left teasing clues that served to hinder him... But the real thing that made him envious of Kira? The fact that L had been working on his case for about the same amount of time Kira had been killing.

And L still hadn't caught him.

Sure, B had intended his own case, the LABB Murders, to last only a month, but this was ridiculous. An entire year? Kira had to be damn good to evade L for such a long time, and B hated how much attention L focused on this criminal. B hadn't been worth even half of that attention, and that just ticked him off royally.

If B ever got out of prison (which was unlikely), the first thing he would do was to beat L by becoming a detective and solving the Kira case before he did. And then execute Kira. While laughing. Maniacally.

B smothered several giggles with his pillow.

"Hey! What are you laughing about in there?"

Ah, the guard was here. B must have not been paying attention. He had noticed a decrease in his observation skills now that he wasn't exercising them as much as when he had been a successor or a criminal, and that wasn't a good thing. B disliked letting his guard down, even though he knew how unlikely it was that he would get out of jail.

He sat up and looked at the door of his cell. Sure enough, the guard could be seen peering through the small gap set into the door that served as a window. Yes, he had a door, instead of a normal jail cell with bars and whatnot. It was a bit strange, and B suspected that it was L's doing that he was separated from the other prisoners and given special attention. L's pity pissed him off, but hey, it wasn't like he was complaining. He would probably have died from the sheer stupidity of the rest of the prisoners by now had he been forced to interact with them.

B grinned at the guard, making him tense. He knew it was never good news when B grinned like that.

"Did you know," B remarked, in the manner of someone commenting on the pleasant weather outside, "that the most satisfying way I've ever killed someone is through blunt force trauma? She was just a little girl, unfortunate enough to die on that day, and equally unfortunate enough to have the requirements I was searching for. Do you have any idea how it feels, to see a person's skull cave in when you hit it just right? To hear the completely gratifying sound of their brain being crushed by the force of your hit? And when they collapse on the floor like a doll, dead, it's a rush of adrenaline and power. I feel bad for you, never having felt that." B frowned just to make it more believable. As if he actually felt bad for the guard. As if he actually felt something other than vague interest in how the guard would react.

The guard shuddered. Even after a year of knowing this strange, half-mad prisoner who they got ridiculously scant information about (none of them even knew his name, for goodness' sake), he still wasn't used to the creepy-ass things he said daily. "Whatever you say," he muttered, and silently thanked the prisoner for giving him some lovely nightmare fodder. Sarcastically, of course. "Did you just want the newspaper today?"

B shrugged. "Sure, why not." He got up and stretched, before walking the very short distance across the room to the door, where he took the offered roll of newspaper. "Huh," he mumbled, too quiet for the guard to hear him. "Kira made it to the front page again. Arrogant bastard..."

Suddenly, he had an idea.

It was insane, irrational, and completely and utterly rash. He shouldn't do it. It was a horrible idea. Why had he even come up with it? Honestly, the things his mind vomited after a year of rotting... What would L think? He would be incredulous, no doubt. And insulted. He would be very insulted...

Dammit, this temptation was too much for him to take. Not to mention, the boredom was killing him and maybe this would bring some excitement back into his life and allow him to start forgetting the humiliation.

Nah, who was he kidding. Abort mission, the plan would fail. It was stupid. It would never work. L would never be foolish enough to actually -

"HEY! Can you include a message from me in the weekly report?" B called, just before the guard's footsteps faded away.

... Fuck.

'Don't hear me don't hear me just ignore it just keep walking what the fuck did I just do.'

The footsteps stopped. "What is it?" the guard asked.

... Double fuck.

Well there was no going back now, so he might as well do it and bask in his minuscule, childish win over L. And on the very, very small off-chance that L actually listened to his message then, well, he would no longer be bored. So, it was a win-win situation!

Before he could change his mind again, B stated boldly, "Tell him to remember... that B stands for Backup."

AN: Aaannnd here you go, have something that suspiciously resembles a filler chapter because I'm annoying like that. Heh. To be completely honest things don't really kick off till, like, the fourth chapter. Whoops. Also, it's kind of 12:30 at night right now and I probably missed a lot of stuff while reading over it. Anyway, I'll try to write the third chapter as quickly as possible, but, well, school is about to end. And that means provincial exams. So... (extremely sarcastic) yaaayy...

Basically, I'll be pretty busy with that for a couple of weeks. I'll try getting the third chapter up before I have to start studying, but no guarantees. So don't be surprised or angry or anything if the third chapter gets posted sometime in the later half of June. This is my warning to you. Fortunately, in the summer I'll (probably) be updating a lot more! So, that's good. Hope you enjoyed the chapter (even though it's a filler)! Constructive criticism is appreciated. Thanks very much for reading!