Watching

The light in the apartment was dim, with only the moonlight, coming languorously from between clouds and though the glass window and door of the balcony; the light of Ami Mizuno's notebook computer screen, live and glowing on her lap; and the light from the kitchen, which lowly lit a small corner of the living room. Minako, Makoto, and Rei had fallen asleep on the couch and the shag carpet in the living room, and they continued to pacifically slumber. Their breathing, even and easy, filled the room with a lulling rhythm of sleepiness. Usagi and Mamoru were cuddled up, asleep in a large cushioned chair, at the foot of which Minako had curled up to sleep, not unlike a large dog.

It was close to midnight, and the blue-haired girl was still sitting on the carpet, resting her back against the wall, typing energetically on her keyboard. From the kitchen, she could hear Haruka and Michiru still awake and chatting quietly, though she wasn't listening to what they were saying. After reading over her email one last time, to make absolutely certain there were no errors, she finally clicked the button to send the message and made a gentle sigh, partly out of relief that the message was delivered at last and partly out of the gentle excitement of imaging its recipient reading it. She had been anxious to send the message but even more anxious to be sure that it was written properly and correctly, that her argument was cogent and her logic sound; with each email she had sent tonight, she had become increasingly nervous – not as if she were being tested, but rather as if she were afraid to disappoint the messages' recipient.

"Are you planning to sleep tonight, Ami-chan?" suddenly asked the voice of Haruka Tenoh, standing over Ami. She had not noticed the tall woman approach; she had not the slightest idea how long she'd been standing there watching her.

"Oh, I should be done soon," Ami replied, pleasantly but nervously. "As soon as I'm finished, I'll go to sleep."

"What's got you typing so furiously anyway?" She held a smirk on her face that made Ami feel as if Haruka knew the answer to the question but asked only to tease her.

"I, uh," Ami began but faltered with words. She took a quick breath through her nose to regain her composure. "I started playing chess with someone through emails this afternoon, and well, one thing led to another…."

"One thing led to another?"

"After I beat him playing chess, he asked me if I could solve a riddle," she explained, more comfortable now and amused with the story as she told it. "I solved the riddle, then he sent me another and then another and another. I kept solving his riddles, and then I sent him a few, which he answered – perfectly too! Then he started sending me these detective mysteries: a short story, written like a police report, with evidence and things like that. He sent me three of them, sort of like Sherlock Holmes or Kogoro Akechi stories. It's like a game: I'd play investigator, and I'd send him a message saying what I would examine or what I would investigate, and he'd reply with more information, until I figured out the mystery. I just sent him the solution to the last one, a mystery about a thief breaking into a museum in France and stealing a valuable painting."

"A painting stolen from a museum in France? The Louvre?"

"That's right, The Louvre – one of the greatest museums in the world. A thief stole a painting by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, without being detected by security. It was a cunning theft, and the police couldn't figure out how the thief had entered the museum or how he'd gotten out with the painting, but the truth was that the thief had stolen the painting from its exhibit at night but not taken it out of the museum at that time. He had hidden it somewhere else in the museum so that he could pick it up later without being caught." Ami explained the story excitedly. "It was very cleverly written. He must really love mysteries, the boy I'm playing this game with. And he must be so intelligent." Saying this aloud spontaneously and without forethought, Ami suddenly blushed and shrank slightly, grasping the edges of her computer and laughing nervously.

"Playing games with a boy you like, huh? Sounds like a good reason to stay up late," smirked Haruka. She then arched her brow in thought. "Say, wasn't there a real case like that, about a thief in the Louvre, a year or two ago?"

"Hm? Was there? I don't know."

"Maybe I just got it confused with something else." Haruka shrugged and placed her hands in her pockets. "Anyway, Michiru and I are going to bed. Will you be all right by yourself? Oh, well, you won't be by yourself; you'll have your friend who likes mysteries." With a wink, Haruka strutted off toward the master bedroom of the apartment.

After Haruka had gone, Ami looked down at her computer again to see that another email had arrived:

Mizuno-san,

You certainly do not disappoint. Your deductions were perfect, and you were correct to suppose that the criminal would return several days later and that he would not bother to alter the security camera footage as he surreptitiously retrieved the painting, as he would assume no one would check the footage or notice that he had merely walked out of the bathroom with a small parcel.

Again, your reasoning skills are amazing.

Would you like to attempt another?

Best regards,

Kogoro Akechi

In the morning, Light Yagami was the first of the task force members to wake uncomfortably on the hard floor of the headquarters main room. Sitting up on the floor, he rubbed his eyes and ran his fingers though his hair to straighten it from the unkemptness of rolling on the floor in his sleep. He stood to see Mogi, Matsuda, Aizawa, and Ide strewn about the floor, among papers and folders, as if they had been tossed about like dolls in a storm and left in disorder. The shinigami Rem stood over Mogi, unmoving but watching Light as he stretched his arms above his head. His father, Soichiro Yagami, was the only member of the task force sleeping in civilized dignity on the sofa near the stairs, having been the solitary member of the team who had realized just how tired he was and decided to get some sleep before he dropped from exhaustion. The others had simply dropped from exhaustion, Light included.

Light, however, was not merely exhausted by difficult investigative work, but he was also distressed that his plan had not come fully to fruition: L was still alive. In fact, quite alive and awake, sitting at his computer even now, watching what appeared to be a grainy surveillance video – though Light could not fully make out what the detective was watching, being several meters away. As Light walked slowly and tiredly toward Ryuzaki, he gritted his teeth in silent frustration that his adversary was still alive. He couldn't figure out why his plan had not worked as promptly as he expected. He had deduced that L would realize that the only option would be to test the notebook, and to do that, he would employ prisoners who had been sentenced to death, just as he had when he used Lind L. Tailor as a decoy to confront him on television, so many months ago. Once L decided to test the notebook, the game would be over: L would be able to prove false the notebook's rule that if I person who wrote a name in the notebook did not write another name within thirteen days, he or she would die; after he did that, Misa would be arrested again for being the Second Kira. In order to protect Misa, Rem would have no choice but to kill L. Light Yagami had calculated that L was intelligent enough to deduce that testing the notebook was his only option – but why had he not done it yet? What was taking so damn long?

"Ryuzaki, what are you watching?"

"Oh, Yagami-kun," began Ryuzaki, turning his head to see Light, "you're awake. You were awfully tired, and I thought you might sleep a bit later."

"I'm fine. What are you watching?"

Again, Light was befuddled. Ryuzaki seemed to be watching surveillance footage from a traffic camera overlooking an intersection. There was nothing – absolutely nothing – in that footage that could possibly aid the Kira investigation, and Light had no idea why L was bothering to watch it. Light was furious, but he made a powerful effort to show no emotion. Buried under a sincere face, Light's frustration boiled: L's inaction was prolonging his life.

"This is traffic camera footage."

"I can see that. Why are you watching it? Did you discover something?" Light asked this knowing that Ryuzaki had discovered nothing – or at least, discovered nothing of any value to the investigation.

"Regarding the Kira investigation, no, not directly. I have discovered nothing that will directly lead to identifying and apprehending Kira."

Despite Ryuzaki explaining that he had found nothing substantive, Light pulled up a chair beside him and began watching the video with him. "So what are you looking for? Something that will indirectly lead to Kira?"

"Not quite," he said bluntly, not taking his eyes off the footage.

Light could only see cars coming and going at the intersection, pulling up, stopping, waiting, going. It seemed to be the same thing for several minutes. While Light's attention was transfixed on the screen, Ryuzaki's eyes suddenly widened, though he said nothing. He had found what he was looking for. That's it! he thought excitedly. That's the car! He quickly took note of the license plate number before pushing the button to stop the footage.

"That's enough for now," Ryuzaki said dryly. "We can follow other leads."

By the afternoon, Kira had killed nearly a dozen more criminals. The reports were still coming in. When Aizawa brought the news to Ryuzaki, he had simply said that they should assume that Kira had killed many more criminals besides these victims they knew about and that they should continue searching. While the task force toiled over myriad reports of heart attacks, Ryuzaki seemed to be conducting his own investigation of leads he had not disclosed to the rest of the team. Aiwaza and Ide eyed him with suspicion each time they passed him, as the detective squatted on his chair watching an apparently irrelevant surveillance video or reading a report they didn't recognize, all the while snacking on several slices of strawberry shortcake.

Finally, without any warning, Ryuzaki turned around in his chair and declared loudly to the task force that they would convene in the conference room – which they had not used at all until this point – in one hour. He then rose from his seat and left the main room.

In an hour, the conference room was occupied by the members of the task force, except for Ryuzaki and Watari, all of whom sat around a large oblong table, in anticipation for what Ryuzaki had to show them. If the genius detective had thought it important enough to call a formal meeting in a conference room they never used, they all thought it must be important. In secret, Light wondered if L had finally decided to test the Death Note and if he would reveal his plan to do so at this meeting. It was certainly important enough for everyone to gather. Across from the contemplative Light, Soichiro Yagami sat with his arms folded and his head tipped down, apparently in intense thought. Aizawa and Mogi chatted quietly on the other end of the table, drawing speculations about the reason for the meeting. Matsuda drummed his hands on the edge of the table in nervous anticipation.

With a suddenness that startled everyone in the room, Ryuzaki swung the door to the room open and entered, followed by Watari, who carried a large stack of folders, which he immediately began distributing to the members of the task force while Ryuzaki made his way to the head of the table and squatted in the chair.

"I would like you all to examine the documents inside the folder, with the exception of the contents of the sealed envelope in the rear of the packet, please," requested Ryuzaki. "Watari, would you please bring me some coffee and a slice of crumb cake, please?"

"Certainly."

The door shut quietly as Watari exited the room and the task force began examining the documents that had been provided to them.

"Inside the folder, you will find several documents and photographs profiling an individual: Ami Mizuno, age 17, a student at Juban High School."

"A student?" asked Aizawa.

"That's consistent with Ryuzaki's early deductions that Kira could be a student," remarked Mogi.

Matsuda flipped through several reports regarding her academic achievements. "She's definitely smart enough to be Kira!" he exclaimed.

"Her mother is a doctor, dedicated to helping people," flatly observed Ide. "That could give her the ideal of justice for people who can't help themselves."

"And she even lives in the Kanto region!" cried Matsuda, clearly excited by the prospect of a new suspect. "She could have easily seen the broadcast when L confronted Kira with the decoy!"

Watari reentered the conference room and placed a tray of cake and coffee in front of Ryuzaki.

"Yes, everything seems to fit," Soichiro said, "though I had hardly considered the possibility that Kira could be female. I always expected he would be young, since Ryuzaki said Kira could be a student and that Kira is childish, but I never suspected a young girl. It's certainly possible, though."

"Ryuzaki," Light began, leaning over the table to look at L in the eyes, "Do you suspect that she's Kira?" Light wondered if it was because he was Kira that he felt so indignant that such a sweet-looking young girl was being suspected. Pressed under his hand was photograph of the blue-haired girl smiling happily outside her former middle school.

"No, I do not," Ryuzaki remarked in monotone. "Not the slightest."

"No?" shouted almost the entire task force in tandem, as several of them slammed their hands onto the surface of the table in disbelief.

Ryuzaki took a long sip of heavily sugared coffee. "The possibility that Ami Mizuno is Kira is zero percent." He set the coffee cup down on its saucer. "Considering that there is nothing to suggest she knew that the FBI was investigating the police department several months ago, nothing to suggest she would access to classified police documents early in the investigation, and nothing in her documented actions that correlates to any of the known events in the Kira investigation, there is absolutely nothing to connect Ami Mizuno to Kira. Nothing at all."

"Then why are we looking at all this!" demanded Aizawa. "What is this?"

"Calm down, Aizawa," pleaded Soichiro. "I'm sure that Ryuzaki has good reason for showing us these documents. Let's be patient." He then turned to look at L. "Ryuzaki, why are you showing us all this?"

"I have been watching this girl, observing her."

"You've been watching her?" repeated Light almost in disbelief.

"Yes," Ryuzaki replied. "I have been watching her, and I have communicated with her through the internet, to test her. Based on her capacity for deductive reasoning, I would like to bring her into the investigation."

"What for?" asked Light shortly. "She's only a high school student."

"It's not as if you are much older than she is, Yagami-kun."

"That's true, but she has nothing to do with this case whatsoever, and she's had no investigative experience."

"That's only partly true," Ryuzaki answered with a mouth full of crumb cake. "While I was testing her deductive skills, I presented her with several of the cases I solved several years ago. She was able to solve each crime, without any help, just as quickly as I was able to."

"She's seems competent, based on what you've said, Ryuzaki," conceded Soichiro. "So you want to bring her into the investigation? You mean you want to invite her here with the rest of the team?"

"Yes, I would like her to join the task force," said Ryuzaki. "I would like…"

"You would like…?" Light repeated.

"Well, I mean to say," Ryuzaki began hesitantly, fumbling with loose crumb chunks with his fork, "that I would like it if she were here. With us. I think it would be nice."

Several seconds passed in silence, as Ryuzaki began to eat crumbs from his plate with his fingers and the task force stared at him in mild unbelief. Without moving, each member of the team sat looking at the leader of the investigation and wondered what on earth had brought this all on. Light tried hard not to scream at the utter absurdity of the situation, at the unmitigated vexation.

"I do not plan to bring her here immediately," Ryuzaki said finally. "I want to watch her for a bit longer. That is, I would like to be sure of her trustworthiness and her abilities with a few more observations and tests." He gulped down the last of his coffee. "With that out of the way, we can move onto the next important subject of this meeting." Turning his seat to face Light, Ryuzaki said, "Yagami-kun, I would like to speak with you in private. Meanwhile, when Yagami-kun and I are out of the conference room, I would like the rest of you to read the contents of the envelope in the back of the folder please."

With this last remark, he rose from his seat and ushered Light into the main room, up the stairs, and out to the roof of the building, where they were in complete privacy. Left behind were the thunderstruck members of the task force, tongue-tied and unsure what to do or to think except to open the envelopes Ryuzaki had given them.

Instead of being dropped off at her house, Ami Mizuno asked Haruka Tenoh to please drive her to the Azabu Library. She wanted to borrow some books before returning home, she explained to Haruka, and taking the bus or walking was no trouble at all.

In front of the library, Haruka sat in the driver seat of her yellow 2000GT and watched Ami happily stroll into the library after thanking her for all her hospitality and saying goodbye. The whole ride from Haruka's apartment to the library, Haruka had tried to learn more about Ami's new friend she had been talking to all night over the internet. She'd finally fallen asleep sometime in the early morning, and Haruka and Michiru had found cuddling her closed computer in a fetal position on the carpet. Ami had been hesitant to say much about her friend, though, and had kept to short answers, not evasive but embarrassed. Naturally, however, Ami's embarrassment only made Haruka more curious.

With Ami in the library now, though, there would be no prying answers from her, so Haruka sped off in her car, deciding spontaneously to stop for some coffee on the way back home. She did not want to return home so quickly. She knew Michiru enjoyed her time away from Haruka almost as much as she enjoyed her time with Haruka, separation making the heart grow fonder – or something like that – even though she could hardly imagine either of them growing much fonder of the other, having very nearly reached the maximum of fondness. She knew also that Setsuna would still be at the apartment, likely chatting casually with Michiru, and Haruka liked the idea that they might talk about her while she wasn't there.

Cruising along the streets of Juban, toward a coffee shop she knew several blocks away, she amusedly wondered what kind of person was on the other side of the computer, playing games with Ami. Haruka figured that he was probably a boy she knew from school, but she'd never mentioned anyone who seemed similar to this person; indeed, though Haruka admittedly was not terrifically close to Ami, she had never heard Ami talk much about boys at all, not the same way most of the other girls did. It did not require a genius-level intelligence to discern that Ami was infatuated – or at least fascinated – by this person, whoever he was; if she weren't, she'd not have stayed up all night. In Haruka's ample experience, the two things most likely to keep one awake at night were nightmares and romance. This was assuredly not the former.

Grinning to herself, Haruka accelerated into the wind, letting the air whip through her short hair. Whomever was on Ami's mind, Haruka was certain the other girls would detect her infatuation and coerce the truth out of her; after all, if Ami had fallen in love with a boy, the other girls would be hysterical to know. There would be a great deal of excited cajoling until Ami divulged the secrets of her desires to her prying friends. When that happened, Haruka figured she would almost certainly hear it though the proverbial grapevine. She smirked again as she imagined hearing animated stories of the gruesome details of Ami's infatuation from the other girls.

Inside the library, Ami crouched near the floor, examining closely the spines of books in the mystery subsection of the fiction division. After last night's electronic escapade, solving mysteries in the game she played with the person calling himself Kogoro Akechi, Ami had taken a prodigious fancy to mysteries, and she wanted to find good stories, entertaining in her mind the idea of challenging Akechi with mysteries of her own design. She had known enough riddles to have kept up with him for a while, but once he had begun sending detective stories, she could not compete except to solve them; offhand, she didn't know any such mysteries and could not reciprocally challenge him. Figuring that if she read enough stories she could write her own mysteries, she scoured the library. At the very least, she would acquaint herself with enough detective fiction to keep up with Akechi – maybe even impress him.

Since last night, she had very much wanted to impress him.

Whimsically, as she ran her finger on the hard spines of library books, she wondered what Akechi looked like and what he liked to do besides critique poetry and play chess and solve riddles and write mysteries. She imagined a young Einstein smilingly typing on a computer after reading a mystery novel. Her finger stopping on the spine of a Japanese translation of Arthur Conan Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles, another image flew into her mind's eye: the awkward young man she had met on the street outside of Parlor Crown, in his white t-shirt and jeans. As she recalled her encounter with him – remembering the young man's hands fixing her beret on her head, the brief feeling of his fingers on her hair – her face grew warm and reddened. Quickly trying to dispel the image from her mind, she blinked her eyes and laughed lightly to herself before returning her focus to the books – or trying to return her focus to the books. She could not maintain her concentration on the titles of books, as her mind seemed to spring back to thinking of that young man, imagining him to be the Kogoro Akechi she played chess with, hoping; she ran her fingers across the spines on books as she moved along the bottom shelf, but she was hardly paying attention to any of the names of the books.

Finally, she surrendered to the thoughts as she reached the end of the aisle of books, and with a sigh, she shut her eyes and remembered again the feel of bony fingers replacing her beret on her head.

"Why did you bring me out here, Ryuzaki?" Light asked, sincerely curious. "Anything you can say to me, you can say in front of the rest of the task force, can't you?"

"Not this particular piece of information, Yagami-kun." Ryuzaki stood with his hands in the pockets of his jeans, his eyes downcast. The sky was overcast and all the light around the two of them was grey. Humid and hazy, it felt as if it might begin to rain at any moment.

The slouch Ryuzaki held looked particularly awkward and uneasy, Light noticed. He looked sincerely distressed; his mouth opened to speak and then shut, as if he could not fashion the proper words for what he had to say. A strong gust whipped across the two of them, and Light folded his arms against his chest to fight the cold, while Ryuzaki seemed numb to everything. The detective, body hunched, head hanging, looked not languorous, not lazy, not tired, but drained, perhaps sad.

"Before I proceed, Yagami-kun, I want you to know that when I said a while ago that I regard you as the first friend I have ever had, I meant what I said," he began uneasily and without looking up at Light. "The fact is, however, that you remain the most probable suspect in this investigation. You have been exonerated only by the thirteen-day rule in the notebook, but I intend to test this rule."

I've won, Light thought, fighting back a smile as Ryuzaki said this.

"The rule may be a fabrication, a ruse of some kind. Given your intelligence, I am sure this possibility has crossed your mind. If the rule is fake, however, then it was fabricated for a purpose, possibly even by Kira himself. Considering this possibility, there is a strong probability that if I test this rule and prove that it is in fact fake, I will be killed."

"Why do you say that? How could you be killed?"

"I cannot help but think that the rule exists as a trap for me, set by Kira, and as soon as I spring the trap by testing the rule, I will be killed. This assumes a great deal, however, as you would be quick to point out. Consider, though, what it would mean if I were killed. Assuming I am killed by one of the killer notebooks, it would have to be by one of the four we have deduced to possess a notebook: Kira, the Second Kira, and the two shinigami. Only one shinigami has seen my face, and we have deduced that shinigami – as well as the Second Kira – have the power to see the names of humans by looking at their faces. The only others to have seen my face, knowing that I am L, are Misa Amane and the task force, including you, Yagami-kun.

"If I prove that the thirteen-day rule is false, it means that you and Amane are once again the prime suspects in the Kira investigation. Indeed, it will be almost undeniable that Misa Amane was or is the Second Kira. Demonstrating that the rule is false, you see, endangers you and Amane – you and Amane alone.

"This means that if I am killed as a result of disproving the thirteen-day rule, only you and Amane would benefit. Of course, Kira hasn't killed me yet, which means that it's possible that, provided that she is acting as the current Kira, Amane somehow does not know my name. I would assume if she knew my name, she would kill me immediately. If you are not Kira or do not at present possess a killing notebook, that means there is only one who could kill me, and that is the shinigami. While I have not been able to figure out a reason the shinigami would act on the behalf of Kira and the Second Kira – that is, you and Amane – it is a possibility. A lethal possibility."

Light stood in the wind, in stoic silence, listening to Ryuzaki as he continued.

"By saying this, I have virtually guaranteed that I will not be killed after disproving the thirteen-day rule, since it would no longer benefit you and Amane for me to die at that time, but that is not the only danger. There is also the possibility that the shinigami might kill me for another reason entirely.

"After testing the notebook's thirteen-day rule – and in the process testing all of the rules in the front cover concerning the methods of killing – the next step will be testing the rule that destroying the notebook causes each person to have touched the notebook to die. It is likely this rule is also fake, if for no other reason than that it is also on the back cover of the notebook, with the other presumably fake rule. This rule is likely a fake intended to ensure that I will not destroy the notebook, therefore causing the shinigami to leave, as she would no longer haunt the notebook.

"After disproving the thirteen-day rule, I intend to ensure that the shinigami cannot kill me by destroying the notebook, disproving the destruction rule in the process. I will destroy it in secret to guarantee that the shinigami cannot anticipate the move and kill me before it is done. If I am killed by the shinigami before that happens, it would strongly imply that it would be beneficial to you that I am killed again, but it would also strongly imply that one of the people of the task force informed her that I was going to destroy the notebook – in which case, it would again, only benefit you for me to die at that point.

"So let us say that we have done all this: the shinigami is gone, and the thirteen-day rule has been proven false. You and Amane will once again be the prime suspects. We will arrest Amane, and I will put you under investigation. At this point, there would be virtually no way for me to be killed by Kira. I will not allow Amane to see my face again, and you – if you are Kira – do not have the power to kill with only a face. As you can see, there would be no way for Kira to kill me.

"Do you follow all this, Yagami-kun?"

A moment of silence passed. "Yes, Ryuzaki, I follow your reasoning."

"Good," he said. "Then I will continue." Up until now, he had not looked up at Light, keeping his eyes downturned, staring at the roof and his bare feet on the moist metal; now, Ryuzaki looked up at his companion. "At the beginning of the investigation, I told the task force I was willing to risk my life to battle evil. I stand by those words.

"If I test the notebook and successfully destroy it, the only way I could die is if Kira had my name and had seen my face. If you consider me as much of a friend as I consider you a friend, I feel I can trust you with this. And Light Yagami, if you are Kira, after I have destroyed the notebook, if you have the audacity to use this, it will prove to everyone definitively that you are Kira, even if you think it will give you an advantage, however fleeting."

"What are you talking about, Ryuzaki?"

Ryuzaki's voice had grown excited, not happy, not triumphant, but as if it were emotionally straining to speak this way.

"Everything I have said up until now, I have included in the document each member of the task force is reading now, Yagami-kun. Every member of the task force knows everything except this."

"What?"

"My name is L Lawliet. L-A-W-L-I-E-T. Kill me if you dare, Kira."

After the clouds had broken in the evening, the sun was setting, and Juban was painted a glowing orange. Ami Mizuno paused from reading her book as she sat in bed in her room to watch the orange light grow beautifully darker through her window. As a single broken cloud passed in front of the sun, the light shattered and splintered in a gorgeous pattern across her room, and Ami was grateful to have stopped reading to see it.

Startling her, a soft but sudden tone sprung from her laptop computer, which she had left on her desk. She turned to see an instant message window open on the desktop, though she remembered that she had disabled the program earlier in the afternoon. Curious, she moved to her desk and read the message:

KogoroAkechi: Hello, Mizuno-san. Please pardon the intrusion. Do you have a few minutes to spare?

Though taken aback once again by this Kogoro Akechi's uncanny computer skills, she could not help but feel a rush of flattery and excitement that he had once again reached out to her. She took a seat at her desk and immediately began typing a response.

MercuryGirl: I have a few minutes, but how did you get in touch with me like this?

KogoroAkechi: I am a skilled hacker. Please excuse my presumptuousness, but I hoped you would not mind terribly.

KogoroAkechi: I contacted you for an important reason, though.

KogoroAkechi: I wanted to thank you for your advice last night.

MercuryGirl: Advice? I don't remember giving you advice.

KogoroAkechi: Your deductions regarding the last case I gave you.

MercuryGirl: The one I wasn't able to solve because there wasn't enough information?

KogoroAkechi: Yes, that is the one. Your deductive reasoning was much faster than mine.

MercuryGirl: What do you mean much faster than yours?

KogoroAkechi: I mean that I haven't been able to figure out that case yet, either, but you were able to help me gain insight I might never have otherwise had.

KogoroAkechi: Your reasoning has been more helpful than you know.

MercuryGirl: You mean you didn't write those cases? Where did you get them? A book?

KogoroAkechi: Not a book.

MercuryGirl: Then where?

KogoroAkechi: They are real criminal cases.

MercuryGirl: Then what was that last one? An open investigation?

KogoroAkechi: Yes, that is correct.

KogoroAkechi: I changed names and facts, making them unidentifiable but perfectly analogous to the real case.

MercuryGirl: If that's a real case, then what is it? And who are you?

MercuryGirl: I'm sorry. You don't have to tell me.

MercuryGirl: But I've been wondering about you ever since you sent that first message.

KogoroAkechi: That's okay. I understand.

KogoroAkechi: That last case I gave you was modeled after the Kira investigation.

MercuryGirl: The Kira investigation? Really?

KogoroAkechi: Yes, really.

MercuryGirl: How do you know about the Kira case?

KogoroAkechi: Can you keep a secret?

MercuryGirl: Of course. I promise not to tell.

KogoroAkechi: I am L.