Time for Caution

L Lawliet had always been a loner. Quiet, reserved, and highly intelligent. Intelligence didn't mean social skills. It just meant, he knew what to do, but didn't know how. His quiet ways made him antisocial, his intelligence made him snobbish, and his looks made him a freak.

His intelligence was even greater than the caretakers that tried to be friends with him. L could always tell those who truly wanted to talk with those who were paid to do so. None of the children his age, older, or younger, wanted to talk to him, so it didn't matter. All the caretakers hid under the façade of a fake parent, loving but hating at the same time.

People couldn't accept what they couldn't understand. L Lawliet had been a child no caretaker understood. When other children cried because of a scraped knee, L merely brushed himself off and walked away. When some children threw tantrums because of split food or confiscated toys, Lawliet would just smile strangely before commenting that he would be responsible for himself. What made the caretakers dislike him was, when other children bullied him, L wouldn't cry.

But he did. L Lawliet remembered crying for the first five years knowing that his parents abandoned him. It took the same number of years before he accepted that none of the children or caretakers would truly care for him. That was because the fourth year, Beyond Birthday came.

He had been L's first friend and his first arrest.

"L, the ICPO has promised to give their all the assistance they can," Teka said after no response from L when the resolution passed. Lawliet smiled, maybe both he and L drifted off when the first person said something along the lines of 'but we can't be sure if it is mass murder.'

"Thank you," L's computerized voice echoed in the now silent conference room. "For this investigation, I request the aid of the Japanese police force."

Beside him, Soichiro and Matsuda stood up in surprise. "What?" Lawliet wasn't surprised at all. He knew he made his first mistake with Kuro Otaharada. That man's case had only been broadcasted in Japan and compared to the criminals he was killing now, his crime was significantly minor. Ever since then, Lawliet had been trying to tap into his old computers in England, Spain, France, and Los Angeles to get cases specific to Europe and America. Apparently, that hadn't worked.

There had been only a two percent chance of that plan working. If it had, he would be very disappointed in L.

Lawliet remained seat and switched on his headset, "L, may I ask why?"

"Chief Yagami," L continued, ignoring Lawliet completely. "Regardless, if the suspect is a single person or an organization, he is most certainly in Japan."

"Where is the evidence?" Soichiro asked forcefully after being address directly.

"I'll have a direct confrontation with the killer soon enough, I will show you then," L said. "Until then, I wish to move the task force to Japan."

"Will you tell us anything before then, L?" Lawliet asked. He didn't like being ignored anymore than Soichiro liked talking about his family. L was never this rude, Lawliet remembered being at one of his conferences in Los Angeles. The famous detective actually like explaining things, this sudden secrecy was baffling.

"I will show you then," was all he said.

-----

Mihael Keehl was seething. It was December 13th, and still no sign of his benefactor. The snow fell softly on Japan's ground and the trees stood silently without any knowledge of his anger. It had been a great task in transferring from Los Angeles to Tokyo, but Whammy had made it happen. All three of them had come to Japan, landed December 2nd.

The soft clicks of the pressing of buttons told Mihael that his best friend was still next to him. Bored out of his mind, but still sticking around. They walked through the street without a map or any knowledge of how to get back to their new orphanage. Well, Mihael would have paid better attention if he weren't infuriated.

The crunching of snow beneath his snow boots gave some relief to his everlasting anger, but the lack of chocolate between his teeth made him cranky. In his complete frustration, Mihael had eaten through a whole box of chocolate that had been his best friend's present. Nate merely advised him to go buy some more if he was going to act childish. What the heck was with that? The little albino freak was calling him 'childish' when he didn't do anything but play with his toys!

Mihael had huffed and yelled to the white haired boy that he was going to do exactly that. Mail had followed him without a word, whipping out his black DS. The caretakers seemed to be glad to have him leave, after all, he had left a small disaster in his wake. Not that he liked the caretakers, they were like all the rest. Uncaring and narrow minded, however, Mihael knew that their benefactor was worth it.

Without Mihael noticing, Mail had steered them both to a street of shops. The red head was still completely engrossed with his game, but Mihael still thanked him anyways. A noncommittal grunt was the best response he could have gotten back at this point. Passing a small bakery, Mihael stopped to watch the baker decorate a small cake from the window that exposed the actual bakery.

The cake was chocolate with the baker sheathing it in a white frosted layer. Mihael felt like he was nine again hold Mail's hand and watching Whammy decorate a cake made just for him on an occasion special to him. As if understanding his thoughts Mail's hand enclosed his, the wool of the gloves being the only thing separating their hands from touching. Mihael tightened his grip on Mail's,

Today was his goddamn birthday and L wasn't here.

----

Ever since the meeting, L Lawliet had a lot to go over. L made no signs of this 'direct confrontation' and Lawliet ended up coming up with ideas and making counterattacks for them. None of them seemed too feasible, but L decided as long as there was one percent he would analyze it. In his head, he turned everything over and over again. The detective had said many odd things.

Lawliet had pondered over what the detective said, 'cleansing' was often used in context with ethnic cleansing which held a negative connotation but cleansing itself was the act of cleaning or purifying. 'Cleansing of criminals' literally meant cleaning out criminals which in such a literal sense was a good thing. However, 'cleansing of criminals' could go along the lines of discriminating criminals and separating them for killing.

Reevaluating his knowing of L, Lawliet concluded that L was definitely acting odd during the meeting. Even the smallest character, L had always knew their names and positions, even if it was the maid. Lawliet had somewhat worked with L before, well actually, he had worked with an agent under the detective. L knew his adoptive father which consequently led to the detective knowing him. Not to sound egotistical, but with all his peculiarities, Lawliet doubted that anyone would forget him.

There were two possible answers for L's odd behavior. Well, actually three, but the third one had been scrapped back in LA. One, the detective didn't appreciate people interrupting his train of thought so he ignored Lawliet in favor of finishing his thought, not the first time something like that has happened. Two, L wasn't really there and it was a recording. Lawliet felt it was strange that L would end it with a fragment of his last sentence, but if so, where would L have gone? Three, Lawliet chuckled to himself, L was actually a woman and this particular date hit mother nature's monthly gift.

"What are you laughing at by yourself?" Ryuk asked not really interested as he watched the mini television that L had brought back from his office.

Lawliet didn't answer and Ryuk didn't press for one.

Lawliet made a list of dates in his mind. He began the cleansing of criminals November 5th, met Ryuk the 13th, the 20th he perfected his hiding place for the death note, signed the transfer papers from LA the 25th, December 2nd they came to Japan, the 9th was the ICPO meeting, the 10th the Kira Task Force was formally created, and the 11th Teka had come with the L laptop as Matsuda had dubbed it. Today was the 13th, which meant it had already been four days since he claimed to make a direct confrontation.

The 13th…oh damn.

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Ryuk had to admit he was a bit confused, L Lawliet didn't like explaining himself much. His little mechanism for hiding the death note had been a complete secret for a couple of days, but by watching L enough, Ryuk got the gist of it. It was a hidden compartment in the second drawer at the right side of the desk. That drawer had most of his file cases, the ones that Lawliet took back and forth to work with him. And at the bottom was a Kira investigation log. It had the miniscule details of the criminals the Kira killed and at what time the police found out. That little black log was the decoy under his files.

"People will assume that I'm trying to conduct my own investigating," L had explained one talkative day. "If anyone bothered with a thorough background check, they know I wish to best the famous detective L because of what happened during the Los Angeles BB murder case. Even not knowing that, I made it pretty clear with my coworkers and L himself that I wish to catch Kira before him. My declaration at the meeting had some value, I hardly do anything nowadays without it being for future precaution."

Underneath the drawer is a small hole the size of the cartridge for a ball point pen, in the hidden compartment is a plastic bag of gasoline with a conductor under that, and atop of it lies the death note. The only reason the drawer doesn't go in flames is because of a rubber stopper that keeps the two metal parts of the conductor from touching, and the only way to open it is with a plastic cartridge pushed up from the hole on the bottom.

"Otherwise, the whole drawer does into flames," L had explained when he was trying to measure the suitable amount of gasoline in the bag. They had done this in an abandoned building that was to be demolished. If someone bothered to come in and look, they would see flames go up every three or four minutes from an inner doorway. "Neither plastic or rubber conduct electricity, therefore they'd be the best choices. I don't use pencils or mechanical pencils, so no one would find it strange for me to have extra ink cartridges."

"I have to assume that L suspects me so I'll cover all my tracks now rather than later. I just solved hiding the death note in case of a search warrant, and I have pages of the death note with me all the time in case of the original death note being obliterated. So, if an investigation were to be held on all the people within the Kira task force, I can to be sure I can come out as white as vanilla frosting. I have no delusions that if L catches me, he won't enforce the death penalty. If L doesn't make the first move, I will. And then for him, that will be devastating," a creepy smile came upon Lawliet's face as he said those words as if he could see the unknown detective suffer.

"The investigation on the people within the task force? Because with Kira's current actions, L will have no choice but to do that," Lawliet answered when Ryuk had asked why the man was so sure that the detective would conduct an investigation.

Ryuk merely watched half amused as L scrambled around for his warmer outerwear after a short swear that the shinigami never heard before today. This man was odd for a human, a bit creepy, overconfident in his intelligence, and obsessed with sugar, but he bought him apples.

And, Ryuk couldn't think of a better person to pick up his death note.

-----

The oh-so great detective L was put in a hard spot. He could no longer go with his original confrontation method because he knew that Kira would not respond to it. L originally was going to use a criminal in place of him, tell that this broadcast was worldwide and narrow down the regions depending on if the criminal died. However, that seemed to simple and L already knew where Kira was. In fact, Kira was planting clues right to the Tokyo police department's door.

L had requested the different departments to keep a number of cases to themselves without exchanging it with their fellow departments. All the criminals from the so called 'secret' cases from Tokyo had died. Kira was forcing L to center his attention to Tokyo's department of the NPA. L could only think of two reasons why Kira would want this. One, Kira had cleaned himself off so that even with an investigation he wouldn't be suspected, and two, to turn the NPA against him. By investigating the members which is Kira's goal, Kira would probably tip the NPA off somehow, probably by killing the investigators. Then L would be forced to make a drastic move that could either save his neck or sever it.

Now there were three things L can do. One, do his 'direct confrontation' and have if fail miserably. Two, do an investigation of the task force members as Kira seems to want and be forced into a corner. Or, three, wait for Kira to make the first move which was probably the fastest ticket to heaven and he trusted his gut instinct. If he truly considered all his options, L truly did have a forth option, but it was too dangerous at the moment. Or is it?

L looked at the chess board set in front of him, he always took black. The pieces were scattered about the board in an intricate game against himself or was it against Kira? It was easy to seek similarities between him and Kira, both competitive, both wanting to win, and if they took this any further, the Kira case would no longer be about maintaining justice, but who will win in the end. A challenge L will not back down from no matter how common sense or Teka told him to. L stood up suddenly and walked to the window letting his breath mist the window.

The forth option was his only option at the moment. L had to make the first move before Kira.

In order to win, one can't always be on the defense. Offense is the only way to win.

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One page taken from the Death Note, or even a fragment of the page, contains the full effects of the note.

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A/N: I really don't know how to continue this. I have ideas bouncing off my head, but none of it takes a definite shape which makes it harder to catch. This chapter was just a bunch of countermeasures, precautions and decisions. The introduction to the three 'successors.' Their story will be explained a little more when L catches up for Mello's birthday.

L's forth option may not be as clever as some of you hope it will. I can't think that 3 in morning on New Years, but I had to stick this chapter out or I would leave it on my computer for another year. Maybe I'll come up with some awesome idea when I sleep!