"They pose as humans even though they have no understanding of the human heart; they eat even though they've never experienced hunger; they study even though they have no interest in academics; they seek friendship even though they do not know how to love. If I were to encounter such monsters, I would likely be eaten by them... because in truth, I am that monster."
~L
Chapter 4: Aftermath
The Death Note piece from Light's watch made any further doubt impossible. Light was Kira.
With everyone present, Ryuzaki was filling in the details. "The Shinigami clearly preferred to do as little for Light as possible. Mostly it acted as a go-between. When Light's plan required that he wasn't the one acting as Kira, it passed the notebook to someone like Higuchi. When that person outlived their usefulness, they were killed. That way the notebook's ownership returned to Light."
"So Misa wasn't the Second Kira after all!" Matsuda sounded happy about that.
L picked up a gingerbread man from his plate of sweets and bit its head off. The trick was to tell as few lies as possible. His reputation was built upon cases that were truly solved, not just by writing fictional reports that satisfied bureaucrats; it pained him to deceive at all, even if it was necessary to save Misa as he'd agreed.
"Amane was a false trail for us. It gave Light more time to get closer to me. It also made me look bad in front of all of you for the way I interrogated her. Whoever the Second Kira was, they're dead now."
Aizawa nodded. "But at the end, the Shinigami was writing down names itself?"
"At the end, we had Light's notebook locked up here, at the headquarters. He could neither use it, nor pass it on. That's why he had to persuade the Shinigami to write names for him for a while. I have no doubt it included some concession on his part."
He'd only lie about the specific facts of the case, which would soon be nothing but the past. It would be irresponsible and contrary to everything he believed in to mislead about the actual principles involved: the rules of the Death Note and those governing the Shinigami. If the threat ever re-emerged in the future...
"It was all part of his plan. He was preparing to take over my role as L. To do that, he needed to win your trust, and at the same time impress us all with his abilities as a detective. Solving the Third Kira case was crucial for him. He cleared his name with the false 13-day rule, then he proved himself by helping catch Higuchi. His actions even led us to witness a Shinigami. By then you were all prepared to trust him, weren't you?"
The silence was uncomfortable.
"It is clear to me that Shinigami want any human owner of a Death Note to end up actually using it. Similarly, they want the owner to make the Eye deal, which means they will not give up other people's names to the user. That would remove the incentive to trade for the Eyes. Please recall how it managed to make the trade with Higuchi when he realized he was cornered. This indicates that even when Light actually managed to get Rem to write for him, he still had to supply the names to write." He paused, letting the implications sink in, then finished. "I used that against him, by making him think he had my real name."
L reflected on how his plans doubled in complexity when Rem involved herself and demanded Misa's freedom. One layer of deception to fool Light, then another to fool the task force members about how he fooled Light. Pretending to let Light see his name had served the latter purpose.
If Near, Mello, or any of the other potential successors undergoing training, were to come up with a plan for any hypothetical problem with as many elements as this one involved, L would be tempted to tear it to pieces so brutally that at least Mello would sulk for the rest of the day. Good plans, just like good machines, weren't complicated; the more moving parts, the more likelihood that something would fail. The most genius plans managed to fool an intelligent opponent while remaining remarkably simple.
Still, sometimes the mess you had to fix just didn't lend itself to an elegant solution. Accepting the challenge of saving Misa had made it that kind of a mess.
"What did happen to the Shinigami, anyway?" asked Matsuda.
"Ah, well, on that matter I can give you an incomplete truth, or a convincing story. Which do you prefer?"
"Er, truth, please."
"Very well. Light Yagami discovered something that should have been impossible, that is, how to dispose of a Shinigami. What's more, he had good reason to believe that if he did that, the Shinigami's notebook would be left behind. No doubt you noticed, when you reviewed the camera recordings, that Light expected precisely this to happen. As soon as I destroyed the Death Note here, which left him precariously without ownership of one, he decided to run out and look for the other one. He very clearly expected the Shinigami would already be gone, but the notebook would remain for the first person to find it. If he got away with that, resuming the role of Kira would have been even easier for him."
Aizawa spoke up. "But the notebook he picked up wasn't real? Earlier you said that you and Chief Yagami will not die after all. How did you manage to switch it?"
"What Light didn't guess was that I had figured out his plan, and I was able to remove Rem from the equation before he did. That allowed me to fake my own death, and gave Watari time to plant the fake notebook for Light to find. As to how exactly Light wanted to kill the Shinigami, and how I got rid of it instead, that is the part which I will not be explaining. It is not pertinent to the case, since we were investigating the deaths of humans rather than Shinigami. That's why I decided that I can withhold this information without failing my duties as a detective."
He smiled. "I'm sorry. I really don't want more Shinigami coming after me, angry for divulging such a secret."
"Well, I guess we won't be prosecuting a god of death", Matsuda blurted. "But at least we solved the case. We know Light was Kira. We even know how Higuchi died." He motioned in the direction of the bloody paper clipping. "And I didn't think we'd ever figure that one out."
He frowned, stopped by a new thought. "You know, I can barely think of how we mistreated Misa. And she was innocent all along."
It earned Ryuzaki some hard stares. He nodded, hiding his satisfaction at seeing them. I've won.
"I find it regrettable as well. For whatever it's worth, I will be apologising to her as best I can."
Soichiro came to his defence. "You were right about everything else. Most importantly, as much as it pains me to say it, about Light."
That got a grim nod out of Matsuda.
Soichiro continued, "But what interests me is this. You said that the notebook in which Light wrote my name was a fake. However, you also said it was likely that Rem's real notebook would remain behind. Did it?"
Ryuzaki smiled again, in that disarming way of his. "It is in the safe-box over there. Watari has the keys." He reached for the keyboard. "Watari? Could you please come down to us? Bring the keys to the safe-box."
"As you wish, sir."
The names in the notebook indeed matched those of the criminals that had died.
"And just what do you intend to do with it?" Aizawa turned back from the computer, reluctantly gave the notebook back to L.
"Destroy it, of course. In fact, would someone please pass me a lighter?"
Evidently that was not what Aizawa expected. He reached into his pocket.
"Wait a minute, Ryuzaki! Legally, that's evidence." Soichiro said.
"Legally," he said with emphasis, "we do not have a case to prosecute, gentlemen. It's over."
He stared them down.
"This is a murder weapon, perhaps the worst this world has ever seen. Certainly the most tempting I can think of. We simply cannot take any unnecessary risks with it. It's like a cobalt bomb that can't be disarmed. I dread to imagine it lost, stolen in transport by someone less scrupulous than us. In fact, I don't even want any of your superiors to have a chance to put their hands on it. I have no doubt you can see why."
He saw hesitant nodding. His words were taking effect. Finally, Soichiro nodded his assent, as well.
"Now, can I have that lighter, please?"
It was true that the Kira case could not be wrapped up as neatly as he'd like, but he had been ready for that ever since he'd accepted that supernatural elements were involved. No statement would be made to the general public. Official internal reports would be brief and circumspect. Kira has been located and executed. Police Chief Yagami's son Light died while assisting the Task Force. The murder weapon presented a hazard and was destroyed. Everything else was highly classified.
The few high rank officials who were going to receive real reports would appreciate and sanction the cover-up. Any chance to officially prove the notebooks were real was gone, but that was just as well. Ethical issues aside, making a matter like this public would be an embarrassment.
He considered whether, with how legally unpresentable the outcome was, he might have trouble collecting some of his promised fees. No, he had few worries in that department.
He gave brief thought to his fame as a detective. This was, after all, his greatest case. He could announce himself openly as the man who defeated Kira, maybe even with another voice-masked TV broadcast. With the murders stopping, it would be believed.
On the other hand, he didn't want crime to sky-rocket immediately again. Better to let the world have doubts for a while, so the police forces of the world could gradually pick up the old burden of fighting crime without Kira. And people did remember his challenge to Kira on TV, so many would guess the truth anyway, just as they had guessed the existence of Kira in the first place. Yes. The world would at least suspect.
In the end, what really mattered to L was that he knew the truth. He had been right all along. He won the game, solved the puzzle, defeated Kira. He was still alive. And lastly, he succeeded in keeping his promise regarding Misa Amane.
L knew that Misa had a long and painful healing process ahead of her. Would it happen, would she ever mend? He made certain nobody would tell her the truth about Light. Light was her love and Kira was her champion; losing both meant two painful but finite tragedies that she may or may not live through. Light-as-Kira was her god, and losing that would kill her for sure.
He had no illusions concerning his own feelings for her. Of course, a man like him shouldn't be into loud, clingy airheads, but there it was. That cute smile got to him every time, even more so since it usually wasn't meant for him. Besides, there were things about her that he did respect. She had remarkable strength, the way she endured everything until Light's death. And she was smarter than she let on, cunning even, although her impulsive nature often prevented her from using her brains properly. To put it mildly.
But really, it was that smile, those lips. And those eyes. The way he imagined her arms would feel if she wrapped them around him...
Such feelings were not strange to him. They were phenomena like any other, projected upon the screen of consciousness: to be observed, understood, and not reacted to without reason. Except when, rarely, showing them was of some use, like that one time when he was trying to enlist Misa's aid against the Third Kira. He'd caused her to feel appreciated and she kissed him on the cheek, a pleasant memory if there ever was one. "I could actually fall for you", he admitted then. How very true.
How very inconsequential.
"All went according to your plan, did it?"
He turned around from the computer desk.
"Rem. I wasn't sure I'd see you again," Ryuzaki lied. He reached to one of the plates, picked up an apple, offered it to her. "Did you get what you wanted out of this?"
"Misa is free. You have lived up to your end of the bargain." Rem surprised him by actually trying the apple. He couldn't tell whether she enjoyed it. "And it is good that I didn't end up having to write Light Yagami's name myself."
"You did well, too." He was referring to her phasing the other notebook into the safe-box without anyone noticing, after the cat-burglar Wedy had stolen it from Misa.
Rem nodded in thanks.
He touched a thumb to his lips. "I find it interesting that you wanted Misa to lose the notebook."
The Shinigami stared at him.
"I noticed you only agreed to my plan when it included that element. Your own survival didn't seem to concern you as much as that did," he explained.
Rem hesitated before answering. "A Death Note brings misfortune and pain to any human who picks it up. We have seen this in every human who ever possessed one. I regretted giving it to Misa Amane."
He tapped his lips, pretended to think about it.
The Death Note was a strongly corrupting influence. Soichiro Yagami, whose moral compass was more reliable than most, had come up with that idea early in the investigation. Ryuzaki confirmed it for himself by comparing Light Yagami's personality before, during and after his memory gambit. He just wasn't sure if the notebook was supernaturally predisposed that way, or perhaps the power it gave simply unhinged the user's personality. His logical mind preferred the latter answer. The former appeared vulnerable to Occam's Razor. But he wasn't sure.
"So this sort of a thing has happened before?" he asked.
No answer. So much for learning something new. Let's poke from another angle, then.
"It appears she is having her share of pain now."
Rem glared at him. "I believe that from the moment she took up the Death Note, it was inevitable that she would suffer. It's just a question of how much."
"Why did you give it to her in the first place?"
Silence.
"You only came to care for her afterwards. And now you allied with me to cut your losses, or rather, hers."
"Do you think I will end up regretting it?"
Ryuzaki put a piece of candy in his mouth, swallowed it. He knew what Rem was really asking about.
"I don't know. It's good that we managed to clear her of suspicion." It didn't hurt to remind Rem that he made that possible. "You saw how much sympathy she's been getting from the others. The Yagami family share the loss of Light with her. And Matsuda is Matsuda. It just might help if she isn't without friends during the worst of it. That's all I could do."
Of course, he wasn't being entirely truthful. There were things better for Rem not to know while still in the human world.
