Chapter 2: Duality
Light stared at the latest batch of Kira-attributed deaths. Eleven criminals were dead, eleven criminals that he hadn't been the one to judge. It could be a coincidence, a shinigami extending their own lifespan on a whim, or there could be another death note in the world. There was no choice except to move forwards as if it was the latter.
Thankfully, whoever it was, they weren't sullying Kira's good name. All of the dead were criminals he'd likely have judged himself in time. Then, something caught his eye. One of the faces was familiar, a convicted drug dealer and alleged murderer. Light had judged him, he was certain of it, but that was months ago and he had only died now? There was only one explanation for the death note failing him. Do they have the eyes? That could be extremely dangerous if they want to usurp my position. On the other hand, their goals seem to be aligned with my own; they could make a powerful ally. No, it's safer for me to assume they intend to be the only god of this world.
"Either way," Light started muttering his thoughts. He enjoyed seeing Ryuk's reactions out of the corner of his eye. "I need to find this impostor as soon as possible. They are cautious though, their victims were clearly picked to send a message only I could understand. It could be an attempt to make contact to ally together, or it could be a trap to try and find my face." He leaned back in his chair, stretching his legs, and turned his face to Ryuk.
"In all likelihood, L will, or has already, noticed this change. It didn't take him long to figure out Kira needs both a name and a face to kill after all. So," a smile covered his face as he crossed his arms. "I think it is about time that I join the investigation. Their resources will be vital for tracking down this pretender, and I need to make sure that L doesn't track him down first." Light stood up and gazed back down at the list of the copycat's victims. "And if he does want to serve me, I'll be in the perfect position to ensure L is added to that list before too long."
"Light, to start off with I think you should look over our list of suspected Kira victims. Maybe you can find something we missed." L shuffled away and hopped into a chair. Neither him, nor any of the task-force members, had told him anything, aside from their cover identities, when he joined. The dark-eyed detective now had a plate of cake in his hand, carefully eating without taking his eyes off of Light.
So, it's a test then. He made it obvious enough that he knows I'll know. Light sat down at the offered desk and began scrolling through the names. Each of them had an attached file on the deceased, some of which he examined for appearances' sake. Now, should I suggest a second Kira, more importantly do I have a choice? He's likely picked up on it himself, and it would look suspicious if I didn't notice the change in the pattern. I could suggest maybe Kira gained some source of information, maybe a foreign intelligence agency. No, the victims are too diverse to be explained away that easily. The only acceptable explanation is that Kira only needs a face to kill now.
Light spent a fair few minutes going through the list in silence, mentally tallying what information he could be expected to know and deduce. "Well," he turned to face the task-force as he spoke, choosing his words carefully, "the pattern of the victims seems fairly consistent. All of them, except a few strange outliers, were violent criminals that had either already stood trial, or were evading arrest. Most also had their information publicly available, or at the least in the police database. Additionally, there don't appear to be any nameless victims, and those operating under a false identity were only killed if their real identity was also included in their file. This suggests that the popular rumor about Kira needing a face and a name to kill might be accurate." Light gestured to several names on the list as he spoke, using his pen. Deep inside, he smiled at the irony of pointing out their names with the very thing he used to kill them.
The detectives seemed stunned that he had deduced that much already, all of them except L. Light made sure to resume talking before any of them had a chance to interrupt. "The majority of them also have names using either the Latin or Japanese alphabets, possibly suggesting that Kira is only fluent in those." In truth, Light knew how to read and write in those as well as Cyrillic and Arabic, though he was a bit rusty. If L chose to dug into that detail, he was confident his father would remember his studies on them.
"Now, I qualified those statements by saying it was the majority. There are some lesser criminal deaths that seem unusual for Kira, but it's hard to speculate as to his motivation for them. Perhaps he had a personal motive relating to them, or or maybe they were part of some plan of his. There also appear to be several times where, if this information is accurate, his pattern varied. First of all, there are these deaths, where the victims showed strange behavior before dying. They all happened in a relatively short period, after which he returned to the regular pattern. Maybe he was testing some variation of his killing method, one which allowed some degree of control over his victims?" L's eyes occasionally twitched as Light went on speaking. The detective was hard to read, but he wasn't infallible.
"The pattern again evolved recently, with these new victims. Several of them are still unidentified, but others had their names withheld. Then there are these two." Light quickly opened the pages of two of the criminals. "Their names had been broadcast, but misspelled. This suggests that Kira only needed the faces of these criminals to kill them. If I had to guess, I'd say that Kira is testing yet another method of killing, you yourself said he is rather new to it," he gestured to L, "so refining his technique is only to be expected."
There was a murmuring from the task-force, then Matsuda spoke up. "That's amazing Light! Your theory sounds even better than-"
"Quiet Matsui." L snapped, uncharacteristically sharply.
"You have a different theory?" Light made the question sound so innocent, but inside he felt quite smug.
"Well," L paused to drop a few sugar cubes into his coffee, "yes I do."
Light sighed with practiced exasperation. "And you weren't going to tell me because you still suspect me."
"Not completely." The dark-haired detective took a sip then stood up. "To be accurate, I was hoping you'd come to the same conclusion as me. It would make that theory significantly more credible if we arrived at the same conclusion separately."
"So, what is your theory?"
L gave him a cold stare. "Can't you guess?"
"Ryuzaki!" Light burst out. "Am I here to help with the case or just to be tested more?"
L quietly took a sip of his drink, then looked downwards. "You're right. Please accept my apologies." He walked over and stood beside Light.
"You see, my theory is that there is a second person with Kira's power. This second Kira can kill with just a face, unlike the first. If you graph the deaths like this," L opened a file and revealed a line graph with dates and death tolls marked, "you can see a noticeable spike that corresponds to when unnamed criminals began dying. If we instead ignore the unnamed criminals, the rate returns to the normal range of victims."
"It definitely is possible." So, as expected, he already figured it out. "Still, if Kira was testing a new method of killing, it would make sense for it to be in addition to his daily killings in case it proved ineffective."
"True, but let's look at it from a practical standpoint." L began to walk towards the window as he spoke. "If Kira has simply developed a new way to kill, there's nothing we can do, besides warn the police and take our own measures to conceal our faces." L pivoted around and began pacing the other direction. "On the other hand, if there is a second Kira we might be able to catch them and then learn more about the method they use, which could be exactly what we need to apprehend the real Kira."
Damn that L! "Yeah, I suppose you're right. Have you found a common factor between the unnamed victims?"
L, you can deduce as much as you want. You can lay traps everywhere to try and catch me. You can do whatever you want, but you're never going to get so much as a single crumb of evidence. I'll make sure that's the case even if you catch this pretender, by any means necessary.
Matsuda was the one tailing him today. Truth be told, the young detective was rather talented at it, but Ryuk had chosen to sell him out for the chance of an apple. He had gotten used to being followed since he joined the task-force, but it still irritated him to feel as though L was constantly staring down his back.
It had been twelve days since the appearance of the second Kira. The deaths had remained mostly consistent, though the times of death had started varying after the first day. Despite the best efforts of both him and L, they hadn't dug up any solid leads. Photos of the victims could be found all over the internet, including many Kira fan-sites. For a few days, they thought they had found the second Kira's source of information, but then, as more victims were found, it was disproved. Whoever this was knew not to draw too much from the same well.
Really, that was the most infuriating part for Light: whoever this was, they were competent enough to cover their tracks. It was hard to be mad about that fact on its own, it was terrifying to think about what would happen if a death note was in the hands of someone reckless, but in turn that meant Light had no leads of his own. He had spent dozens of hours looking at the victims, trying to find some coded message for him in them, and had found nothing. Either they had no intention of contacting Kira, or they were waiting some time before doing it. Either way, Light could do nothing but sit and wait.
"Light?" Takada's voice was easy enough to recognize. He turned his head to acknowledge her, taking a seat in the row behind him. "Apparently there was this model asking about you. She's considering going back to school and thinks she should get "the best of the best" to tutor her." A genuine smile went across Light's face. It wasn't the first time he had been sought out for tutoring, but usually they were at least in the same school as him.
"Really? I hope someone was kind enough to let her down easily. How did she even get onto campus?"
"She was doing a commercial on the grounds I think. I tried to suggest a professional tutor, but apparently they would be too 'stuffy' for her." Takada let out a quiet, single-syllable laugh. "It was a bit sad how determined she was though. She asked me to pass on that she needed help with a book report she'd been working on for the last two weeks. I think she called it The Eyes of Death? Some fantasy fluff, but she complained about the number of characters."
A chill went down Light's back. Two weeks? The eyes? Did she mean the number of names? If I was trying to send a message to another death note owner, those are the exact terms I'd want to use to avoid suspicion, but a dumb model? Could it really be her? "I think my sister might have read that story. Maybe I should introduce them." He gave his own half-laugh of levity.
"Well, apparently she's going to be filming on campus all week. So I figured I would tell you before she started harassing you on her own." Her voice had a distinct tone of disdain, she clearly shared his first impression of the girl.
"Thanks for the warning, I'll keep an eye out." Light smiled outwardly. If it is her, she already knows my name. If I use this chance to get into contact with her, it will seem completely natural, just a young man talking to a pretty girl. Still, maybe she is just guessing, or maybe this is all a coincidence, I can't confirm my identity to her until I'm certain it's safe. On the other hand, she's clearly okay with me knowing her name and face if she wants to meet me, there's no way she would do that if she was out to kill me, unless it's a bluff to put me at ease. Light twirled his pencil as he thought.
I need to meet her, I don't have any other choice.
Author's Note:
It isn't an exaggeration to say that Misa contacting Light required more brainstorming and writing (and re-writing) than the entire rest of the story so far. I had fully written out several variations of them "coincidentally" meeting, as well as alternatives such as Rem delivering a message to plan their first meeting ahead of time, but none of them flowed smoothly. Eventually I decided on the tutoring explanation, especially since it fit in with the background I had imagined for this scenario wherein Misa had dropped out before graduating due to her parents' deaths and then taken up modelling as a result.
Additionally I tried to avoid re-treading scenes that would be virtually identical to canon (such as Light's reaction to being invited to the investigation, and initial introductions with the task-force) for the sake of brevity.
