Chapter VI

Like a prenatural hawk, the Shinigami sat poised atop a skyscraper; Tokyo-inhabitants crawling under his feet on the sidewalks below. It was dusk, the bloody red of the sky bleeding into the dark tip of Fuji-san. The clouds illuminated under the breath of a dying sun, expanding across the horizon. Few things inspired the Shinigami with a sense of awe.

This was not one of them.

In fact, his attention was not on the sunset. Nature rarely amused him the way that humans did. In all their folly, mortals were a spectacle. A continous comedy built on all their hypocrisy and miscalculations. They were inferior, yes, but also interesting. The shinigami wondered if they could be trained, trained in the way they dominated over their pet animals. But he had yet to make a lasting judgment. He was still testing the possibility on Kawahara.

The shinigami continued to watch the humans from his lofty perch. He was, both physically and mentally out of place in the mortal's realm and yet they walked by and he remained unobserved. Anonymity was a double-edged sword; he enjoyed being able to spread his wings and fly through the sky without the collection of stares but something, a dull annoyance in the back of his mind was telling him that it should not be this way. He should not only be seen, but feared.

Spurred by a sudden urge the shinigami leaped, black wings licking the air as he spiraled high into the clouds of blood-color. . .

"To have wings would be cool," the teenager said with a mixed tone of wonder and thoughtfulness. His brown eyes widened with a childish excitement. The scene unfolded, the warm glow of the small bedroom revealing shelves of books, a small television and a computer. They were alone, the boy and his shinigami-roommate.

The Shinigami grinned and grinned, delighted that he might have finally caught the boy saying something foolish, "but Light wouldn't that attrack unnecessary attention?" His thick lips folded back in an unwavering smile that stretched across his caving white face. Long, hideous fangs gaped in his mouth like a cavern of teeth. Where other mortals would have winced, the teenager met the shinigami's gaze with a level-headed boldness. There was an absence of fear in his expression, the first clue that this was not an ordinary mortal.

The veil of innocence fell away, a cold serious man lurking under the surface of the teenager's guise. Lean arms folded across his chest, he leaned back into computer chair and gave a mild shrug, "You're right, Ryuk but I was only joking anyways." But secretly he wasn't. Secretly, Light dreamed of a day he could have his wings, flying in the sky and judging the impure with godly might.

The Shinigami snapped back to reality, the fingers of the memory loosening their hold. The death god felt disoriented as he often did after these experiences. They came to him unbidden, triggered by some unknown force of recollection. But to recollect something is to imply I have experienced it before in the first place. As far as the Shinigami could rationalize he had never known a young man named Light before now. And this new character in these memories, Ryuk. Wouldn't I remember such a deformed smile if I had seen it before?

In the other realm, there were many shinigami spread out across an unlimited field of places. Even if he wanted to find this death-god Ryuk, it was slim to none that he could be easily located. It was said once that the death realm stretched on into eternity, that nobody but the Shinigami King knew for sure how many death gods there really were. If only it was as simple to find someone in the death realm as it is here on earth. Shinigami Kira marvelled at the tenacity of humans to create new inventions. The telephone, the computer, the internet.

He had watched Kawahara use these devices before, surpressing his curiousity at how it was all achieved with such a lowly species. Humans had mastered the art of long distance communication while death-gods were still living in darkness. That is terribly pathetic.

But as grave as the death realm's downfall was to the shinigami, he had other matters to attend to. There was a person he needed to find. It was important enough that he didn't give Kawahara the responsibility. Because humans are suspectable to failure, he thought to himself and the shinigami could not afford it. Not on this ocassion. The person he needed to find was someone he knew was important even if he didn't know why.

More important than Amane Misa, more important than those investigators. It was someone who could unravel the puzzle, feed him the answers he needed.

And maybe what ever he discovered would lay to rest this ghost that haunted his thoughts.

After meeting up at the cafe, Matsuda and Sayu had been called into the headquarters. It was crowded, reporters and Kira-demonstrators still stationed outside the doors. The clerks at the front desk gave them a weary nod while they continued to manage the phonelines that had yet to stop ringing.

"I can't believe it's still so crazy out there," Matsuda commented, glancing several times over his shoulder as they left the main entrance and the many people loitering outside.

The mayhem of the civilians didn't seem any worse though than the chaos of their office. There was a frantic buzz in the air as the fax machines beeped and the printers roared. One detective accidently knocked into Sayu as he sprinted down the aisle. As they discovered, some of the agents had been up all night tending to phonecalls. There had been a constant flow of information, mostly dead-ends, through the evening well into the morning.

Sayu and Matsuda were immediately put to work in reviewing phonecalls and email print-offs. The surge of civilians trying to share their guesses and tips did not waver and within the first hour alone, Sayu was already feeling overwhelmed with the mounting pile of papers on her desk. She was about to let out a whine when another pile of papers were added to the load when she looked over at her partner.

Matsuda, who's desk was stationed facing her own, seemed flushed with work but did not complain. Another one of his virtues Sayu always appreciated was his readiness to do any task set before him, no matter how tedious or trivial others would take it to be. She watched him as he worked, his head burrowed in the print-offs; his eyes were focused as he wielded a highlighter, marking down anything that might be slightly useful. When he caught her looking at him, Matsuda smiled and spoke encouragement as he continued, "don't worry Yagami-chan, it gets easier."

They were working diligently for a couple of hours before Ide stopped by their desks. They both looked up but Sayu seemed invisible to Ide as he addressed Matsuda, "Aizawa wants to talk to us right now."

"Okay!" Matsuda bumped his knee on his desk as he jumped up, wincing. Sayu merely blinked, having set her pen down and waited for Ide to at least acknowledge her existence. Ide turned away and was already marching towards the chief superintendent's office.

"What's going on, Matsuda?" She asked, "This can't be about that case again is it?"

Her partner shrugged. There was a flash of nervousness in his expression but it disappeared as he tried not to meet her gaze evenly. The momentary change from happy-go-lucky to nervous was caught by Sayu, even if it did not immediately register any suspicion. With a bow, he answered, "I guess I won't find out until I go talk to him. Gambatte, Yagami-chan. I'll be right back."

Although Matsuda had been cheerful, it did not rub off on Sayu. Scowling, she glared at the chief-superintendent's office door where she had watched Matsuda, Ide and Mogi. She hadn't liked the way Ide had totally ignored her, the way her partner for the second-time had left for a meeting that didn't involve the both of them. Sayu often felt the isolation of being the only woman on the detective division but it didn't usually bother her, not like this.

Just as she was fuming over the treatment she had momentarily been given, a cup of water was placed in front of her. Sayu looked up and saw a familiar face. She forced a polite smile, bowing her head slightly in greeting, "oh hello Sekiguchi-san. Thank you for the water."

Sekiguchi smiled in return, casually leaning on the edge of her desk, "No problem. You looked like you could use something to drink. I think everyone here is pretty stressed, wouldn't you say?"

There was a general atmosphere of frustration in the air, but looking into Sekiguchi's face Sayu could see no sign of distress. He was calm, relaxed and this slightly disturbed her on a level she could not comprehend. It was a matter of intuition, one she depended on frequently to crack a case even if she did not always realize she was relying on it.

"Yes," she said with a clipped tone, "I just got here a few hours ago though, so I am not as bad off as those who have been here all night."

He nodded. There was a lull in the conversation before he picked it up once more with a question that had already been aching in Sayu's thoughts, "so what did Ide-san want with your partner?"

Sayu didn't want to answer with the truth because then she would feel foolish for being so out of the loop herself. So instead she merely shrugged and answered with an ambigious reply, "He mentioned something about an old case, one before I was Matsuda's partner. I think he wanted clarification about it."

"Ah," he said, "was it about the old Kira case?"

Sayu froze. Although she had been lying to Sekiguchi about why Ide and Matsuda had gone into Aizawa's office, this question raised her own suspicions about why Matsuda had been called away again. Ide, Mogi, Matsuda and Aizawa hadn't they worked together with her father and brother? Of all of her father's collegues they had been the only four that he had invited over to their home repeatedly once the Kira case had been fast underway. . .

Sekiguchi was still awaiting an answer, his eyes boring into her. He was smiling pleasantly and perhaps for him this was just idle conversation but for Sayu it now brought to light a very likely cause of her partner's disappearance for the second day in a row. As such, she could not recipitate the amiable gesture. "Maybe it was," she replied, "I wasn't listening very closely."

At that point, Sekiguchi must have guessed she did not want to talk more about the topic because he let it go. He asked her other things, but they were small questions, things she could easily dodge if she didn't want to answer. Questions like what she did for fun in her spare time. Things that circled around her personal life, or lack thereof.

Sayu found Sekiguchi attractive but only on the basis of physical features. He was young, like herself, but other then that they had little in common. She knew the rumors of this detective, that he didn't always play by the rules. Sayu was not one to place trust in idle gossip but something about it stood true and the woman was not about to discredit her feelings.

And one thing was for sure, Sekiguchi made her feel uncomfortable.

Diverting her gaze to the paperwork so she didn't have to look at him, Sayu had begun to take notes again in hopes that Sekiguchi would take a hint that she wanted to be left alone. Several moments passed and subtely she found her writing hand gently engulfed in his. Sekiguchi leaned closer but only for a fraction of a moment, his smile was closed as he whispered,"catch you around, Yagami-chan."

And then he was gone. Sayu felt flustered, shocked by Sekiguchi's forwardness. Her personal space having been violated she looked for witnesses of the incident but when she peered about, it seemed no one had noticed this encounter. Everyone was still in their same routines. Sekiguchi's mild harrassment had gone unnoticed.

Sayu had planned to stay and wait for Matsuda to come out of Aizawa's office because he had made it sound as though whatever matter he had to address could be handled quickly. But fifteen minutes, then twenty and then a whole hour and a half went by and no one came out of that room. And if it really was about Kira, then Sayu figured he wasn't going to come out any time soon.

So instead of waiting, Sayu took a suitcase full of papers to sort through and left. She didn't feel comfortable after the incident with Sekiguchi, in fact she was very troubled by it, and her anxieties were compounded by the fact that she now harbored a sense of doubt in Matsuda--her one and only ally in the National Police Agency. Had he lied to here about the real reason Aizawa had spoken with him the other day? If that was a lie, what else was?

She didn't like to think that Matsuda could be dishonest with her. But already her investigator's mind was jumping to conclusions, testing the plausibility of each and every one of them. Discovering which conclusion was right would become a process of elimination. It wouldn't be long before she would begin to seek answers through what she did best---investigating. If it was sheer paranoia pushing her, Sayu would find the evidence to cure her doubt. But it was clear, once she started a search for the truth nothing would deter her. She knew this about herself, knew her stubbornness to unlock secrets would push her to face even the grimmest of realities. She was walking through shadows now, but only for the present.

What Sayu wondered was when she found the proverbial light switch, would she be satisfied with what had been hidden in the darkness?