"I'm going to get a snack; you might as well stay here," Raven told the Shinigami in her room as she took her empty dishes downstairs.
Moon shrugged and sat on her bed nonchalantly.
Raven unlocked her door and walked down the stairs to the kitchen. Truthfully, she was surprised Moon was doing what she said. The delicious smell of one of her mother's omelets wafted to her. Her mother was bustling around, making breakfast.
"Do you want one dear?" Her mother asked as she chopped some chives.
"I already ate, thanks," Raven said.
She opened the pantry door and took out a bag of potato chips. They were the original flavor. Beside them was a bag of barbecue flavored ones that her mother liked. How someone could eat those things Raven would never guess.
Her mother frowned when she saw the chips, but Raven retreated upstairs before she could say something like how Raven should eat less and watch her figure. It really wasn't a problem for her. Unlike most girls – including her friend Lily, she didn't try to starve herself. Raven actually wanted to put on a few pounds, but her hyperactive metabolism usually didn't let her. She could eat whatever she wanted though, so Raven supposed she didn't mind too much.
When she got back to her room and locked her door, she found the headphones she had thrown at her new Shinigami friend were back on her desk and Moon was staring out her big bay window. Without saying a word, she put the headphones back in a drawer and opened the chip bag. The sound of the bag being torn open made the Shinigami look her way.
"Are those potato chips?" Moon asked.
Raven took a chip and set the rest on her desk, safely away from her keyboard. "Yes… Do you like chips?"
Moon nodded. He walked over and took one, eating it gratefully. "The Shinigami World doesn't have anything like these. Do you have any apples?"
Raven rested her head on one hand as she looked at him curiously. "Are all Shinigami as hungry as you?"
Moon looked away. "Shinigami are already dead, so we don't need to eat and there's nothing worthwhile to eat in our world anyway."
"So you have been to the human world before," Raven smiled.
Moon paused as he reached for another chip. Rats. He was losing his touch. "Shinigami usually just look to the human world. The only way we can stay here for any length of time is if we've possessed a human who has a DEATH NOTE we dropped. Actually, I can't leave your world until you die, the DEATH NOTE is destroyed, or you give me back custody of it."
Raven noticed Moon hadn't given her a straight answer. It was obvious that Moon had been to Earth before. The phone in her room rang suddenly, spooking Raven. She jumped and then glared at it. The caller ID said it was Abigail North, a friend of the family. Her mother answered it before she could.
She sighed. "All right, Shinigami, tell me more about the DEATH NOTE."
Raven munched her chips as Moon finished filling in a few details of the Kira Investigation that had not been made public. "So let me make sure I have this right," Raven said carefully. "The first Kira, Light Yagami, is dead. The second Kira is someone named Misa Amani and she lost all memory of the DEATH NOTE's existence when she gave up ownership of it, so she might as well be dead."
"As for the detectives," Raven continued, "L was killed by Light Yagami. After that, another detective called Near joined. Near defeated Light which ended in Light's death. Near, the FBI with him, and the Japanese Taskforce know everything there is to know about the DEATH NOTE and the Shinigami. Hmm, I suppose that makes things interesting."
Moon chuckled at her definition of interesting. It also sounded like she was seriously considering using the DEATH NOTE. That was good. "So, are you interested in the eye deal?"
"Trading half my remaining life span so I can get the eyes of a Shinigami?" Raven asked. "No, I'd just as soon not lose that much. Being able to see a person's name by looking at their face would make things easier, but I can manage."
Moon admired her self-determination. "How will you manage Near? When he finds out about this, he'll start hunting you."
"I don't suppose you could just write his name in your DEATH NOTE for me?" Raven asked sweetly.
Moon tilted his head. "Now where's the fun in that? I'm here because I'm bored. I'm not on your side."
Raven sighed, "I thought so." She turned her chair back to her computer monitors and started opening up a program in one of the monitors after wiping the chip grease off her fingers with a napkin.
"Now what are you doing?" Moon asked as he snuck another chip. He hated having to ask, but he just didn't understand this computer nonsense.
"I'm going to say hello to Near," Raven smiled. She reached into a drawer and took out a Bluetooth, clipping it onto her ear with one hand as she continued working on the program with her other hand on the mouse.
Moon hesitated for a moment. "You're what?"
"Raven!" Her mother's voice called up, interrupting what Raven had been about to say.
Raven paused and then shouted back, "yeah mom?"
"I'm going to go over to Abagail's! I should be back by lunch!"
"All right mom!" Raven answered cheerfully. That worked perfectly. Now she would be able to speak t without risking her mom overhearing.
She waited until she heard the sound of the car engine starting and her mom driving away before she looked back to Moon. "As I was trying to say, I'm going to use a trick from World War 2."
Moon gave her a blank look, so Raven exemplified. "During World War 2, there was this really bad dictator named Adolf Hitler. He killed twelve million innocents. Believe me, he wasn't missed. He was so bad some of his German citizens tried to kill him. They actually tried several times but one of the best ones was called Operation: Valkyrie. They blew up the building Hitler was in and a lot of people thought he was dead. In order to assure his people he wasn't, Hitler went onto the airwaves and spoke to them himself."
Moon nodded. Now he understood. "Many people believe that Kira is dead and you're going to make them think you're not by speaking on the airwaves. So you are going to become the next Kira."
Raven stopped moving her mouse. She looked down at the keyboard. "I didn't really think about it but yeah. I'm not a god. I'm human and all humans die eventually. I will to. That doesn't mean Light had the wrong idea. There are a lot of bad people in the world and the goal of creating a new world is a just one. I don't see why I can't become the third Kira."
Moon smiled, teeth clicking quietly. She doesn't have a god complex – yet, that was odd. He wondered exactly what she did have. There was a drive in her eyes and strength in her voice. Something had happened to make her willing to accept the DEATH NOTE's power.
Raven reached for a remote near her computer monitors and turned on the TV. "All right Moon, watch the TV." She tapped a few keys on the keyboard and then clicked something on the screen.
Moon looked curiously on the TV. The video of a news station suddenly cut away and was replaced by a white screen. In swirling black script was the word 'kira.' After a few seconds the screen vanished and the news anchor resumed.
"That's it?" Moon frowned. "Not much of a message."
"That because that wasn't the message," Raven snapped. "I was just testing out my system and making sure the scattershot worked."
"Scatterwhat?" Moon asked in a dazed voice.
Raven sighed. "I don't know what's it officially called, but it takes a broadcasting signal and scatters it. It makes it impossible to track down the location of the transmissions source. Look at the computer monitor."
Moon complied. There was a picture of a blue sphere on one on a background of black. Scattered above and around the sphere were yellow dots and a web of red lines connected those dots.
"That blue sphere is the Earth, the yellow dots are the communication satellites in orbit, and the red lines are the transmissions that pass between them," Raven explained in a somewhat mollifying voice. "When someone sends a transmission, the signal is beamed up to one satellite and then broadcasted to the other ones. If you want to find the source of a transmission then you simply look at the satellite it was broadcasted to and that gives you a general location. The FBI can easily pinpoint the location to a single address from that."
"The FBI are at Near's disposal," Moon muttered. "Didn't sending that transmission just now endanger you?"
"I was using the scattershot program," Raven smiled. "It essentially scatters the signal throughout every single communication satellite and makes it impossible to pinpoint my location. That few seconds image was the test signal. The program works fine so now I get to send the real message."
Raven turned on the Bluetooth and opened a program on the second monitor. "This is a voice scrambler," she said before Moon could ask. "It will disguise my voice so I should sound just like the first Kira."
Moon noticed that a third program had on another monitor had been activated. "What's that other program?" Moon looked at that screen.
"Wait and see," Raven smiled.
Moon waved a hand, inviting her to start speaking. This was interesting.
Raven turned on her programs and cleared her throat. Moon glanced at the TV as the news reporter was once again cut off. The same screen appeared as last time.
"I am Kira," Raven said slowly. Sure enough, her distorted voice sounded like Kira's. "I speak to you now so you may hear my voice and know that I am alive." Raven pulled her DEATH NOTE closer and wrote two names in it. "In order to prove to you who I am, I have just killed two prisoners. Their names are Justin Wild and Tajima Shingen. Both were found guilty of various counts of murder."
"I thank all of you out there who believe in me," Raven continued. "Your support e has allowed me to recover faster than I would have otherwise. I promise you all that my mission has not changed. I will create a new world free of injustice and criminals with your help."
She quickly got into the mindset of her character and stood from her chair, pacing around the room and waving her hands to accent her words. Moon sat on Raven's bed. It seemed he was going to get a show with the announcement.
"Many of you have heard about the death of Light Yagami," Raven increased her pacing as she spoke. "He was not Kira. He was an ally of mine who was slaughtered for helping me. I gave him some of my power so he could aid me and his death and the loss of the power I gave him weakened me for some time. That is why I have been resting and not passing judgment to those who deserve it. My power has now returned."
Moon started laughing. In one fell swoop, Raven had not only explained Light Yagami, but the break in Kira's killing. She might just make this entertaining for me yet.
"Now to the one who killed Light Yagami," Raven smiled. Playing a deranged god was kind of fun. "Hello Near."
Standing in a crosswalk in New York City, a boy with curly white hair who watched the announcement on one of the screens narrowed his eyes.
Me, Near thought, Kira's addressing me. How does he even know about me? No, what was going on? Light Yagami was Kira, so who was this?
"Near," Raven continued. "You are responsible for the death of one of my closest allies. I will not allow you to get away with that. You do not only stand in my way Near, you stand in the way of all of the people who deserve this new world. They are the ones that you are harming in your unneeded fight against me."
Unneeded? Near narrowed his grey eyes. This imposter was clearly just as arrogant as the old Kira.
"I will not forgive you, not just for the death of Light Yagami, but for denying the people the new world that they rightly deserve," Raven slashed a hand thorough the air sharply. "For standing in the way of the people, Near, I will find your identity and I will kill you just as you killed Light Yagami. So go on Near, catch me if you can, before I catch you. For the new world."
Raven reached up and turned off the Bluetooth. The signal on the TV cut out and was replaced by the news station. The news anchor sitting there was just staring, clearly in shock from her transmission.
She took the Bluetooth out of her ear and picked up the TV remote. With a smile, she turned the TV off and started laughing.
Moon covered his face with one hand, bone fingers splayed. One of his red eyes peered out from a gap between the fingers. He waited until Raven finished laughing and shut down her scattershot and voice distortion programs before speaking. "Do you know what the word 'subtle' means?"
Raven frowned, "Fine or delicate in meaning, making use of clever and indirect methods to achieve something, cunning, wily, or crafty. Take your pick."
Moon lowered his hand to glare at her.
Raven shrugged and looked back at the computer screens.
"Why did you goad him?" Moon asked after taking a second to calm himself. "Unlike you, Near knows how to be subtle."
Raven turned around to glare at the Shinigami. "I wasn't trying to be subtle. I want Near to respond."
"Why?" Moon demanded. "Are you trying to get caught? This won't be any fun if you get caught right away."
Raven sighed and pointed at the third monitor, the one with a program still on it. "You remember asking about this program? This is a tracking program. If Near responds over the airwaves this will narrow down his location."
"Once I figure out what building he's in, I can tap into its security system like I did with the prison. Then I bring up the video and find Near. You said he was a boy who plays with toys, right? Using that information I should be able to get a picture of him." Raven spoke with as much patience as she could muster. "Once I get a face, I can run it through my facial recognition program and try to find some more information about him. If his real name is in cyberspace, I'll find it."
Moon looked thoughtfully at her. "It seems I underestimated you, but I don't believe that Near is foolish enough to respond."
"True," Raven admitted, "but Near doesn't know that I'm good with computers. He'll probably come to the same conclusion that you did that I was acting foolish and will underestimate me. Underestimating your opponent is the first step to defeat."
Moon chuckled. "Well, you are full of surprises. That little acting was just one side it seems."
"Hey," Raven said with a cocky smile. "I'm not just a computer nerd. I also take theater classes and I love them."
Moon leaned back on her bed. "Well, certainly a different approach then Light Yagami took, but an interesting one. I wish you the best of luck though I won't interfere on your behalf to either help or hinder you."
Raven smiled and chuckled, "finishing Light's work wouldn't be any fun if you did."
I'm afraid subtly and Raven don't really go into the same sentence although she has a good idea. She just doesn't understand all of this detective stuff. Moon likes potato chips!
I don't want to get anyone mad at me, so i will mention that i do not approve of Hitler. I'm just using an example and making a comparison between Raven and Hitler to foreshadow what's to come. You really should watch Operation: Valkyrie, it's based on a real story and it's really good. There were over a dozen attempts on Hitler's life but they weren't broadcaste by the US because the US didn't want there to be any sympathy towards any of the German people.