Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note... Does this statement feel redundant to anyone else?
A.N: Heya! Thank you so much for the reviews, Gethernia, Dark Miko, IamAsimpleReader, and deathnoteno1fan-codegeasslover! (Does a happy dance)
If I left you out of that list or misspelled your name, feel free to send me a PM, and I'll rectify the situation immediately. :P
The Seventh Chapter
"...and I don't think you have the eyes..." Light looked up from the paper in his hands. He and Misa were sitting across from each other on his bed. "Misa, you can't just give that away."
"You told me to write it how I was going to," she said. "Are you sure making a tape that makes them think there's a second Kira will help you get onto the task force?"
"Definitely. L thinks I'm Kira. He'll see the tape and think the second Kira wants to contact me. Then he'll want to be able to watch me carefully, and observe my reactions to the tape. He might even make a reply video, and want me to help so it's realistic. He won't be able to resist, and I'll be right where I've always wanted to be."
Misa nodded at this, thoughtfully. "You're really amazing, Light. You only kill criminals, and your end goal is to make bad people actually go to jail or get killed legally." She glanced away, messing with the frilly end of her dress and grimacing, as if his goals were bringing up self-loathing and guilt. "Misa did something bad."
Light mulled over her words. Did he even want to know? It doesn't matter if I want to know. I need to have as much information as possible. Grudgingly, and yet forcefully calm, he said, "What did you do?"
She locked eyes with him. The guilt was unsettling. "Misa killed news reporters that were against Kira."
Light stared. She...
"Light? Say something."
"Give me a moment." He needed to process this, and organize his thoughts. Otherwise, he'd end up yelling at her and calling her a murderer. That wouldn't help his cause at all. Neither would thinking of her as a murderer. She needed to be relatively innocent in Light's eyes if he was going to have any relationship with her, be it follower-supporter or friends.
He looked the blond model up and down. She wore gothic lolita outfits, but didn't seem like a wrathful killer. What would make her do something like that? Her parents were killed by a burglar. Kira killed that burglar. Right. He'd have to go through the facts. Kira became her god... I guess she got upset to hear her god called a murderer, and thus compared to the person that slaughtered her family.
Yes, that would make sense. People in pain did stupid things. And writing in the Death Note wasn't like putting a gun to someone's head and pulling a trigger. It put a distance between the killer and the killed. It was easier to kill people. Just a face, a name, and the movement of pen on paper. "How many did you kill?"
"Two."
At least there was that. When she had said news reporters he had been worried they were dropping by the dozens. Her eyes were anxious, as if waiting for an explosion. As nice as yelling sounded, it would be both stupid and cruel, neither of which Light considered to be desirable traits. "Don't kill anymore."
Somehow, this seemed to hurt her more than Light yelling would have. She ducked her head. "Okay."
Great. It seemed her judgement would be even more clouded than his was. Unless... He opened her Death Note. Unlike him, She had barely filled out three pages. He handed it to her. "Rip out any pages you wrote on."
She frowned at this. "Why?"
"It might help you feel better." And now he wouldn't have to burn the pages alone. Usually he liked solitude. But usually he wasn't suffocated by the guilt of being a murderer. "The pages never run out, and destroying the pages won't undo anything."
She seemed to understand, and while she ripped out less than Light, she seemed to be somewhat-liberated. "It... helped a bit."
He took her papers, shoving them into his messenger bag. He vaguely noted he was being stupid for having them on him whenever he went to school. He definitely needed to clear his conscious to some extent. "Do you have hair spray on you?"
"Always."
He got up. "Alright. Follow me."
"What's the food for?" asked Misa, watching Light with curiosity. They were in his backyard. He seemed to have a fire pit in it, with a few logs. He had a bag of marshmallows, some kind of graham crackers, and chocolate bars.
"We have to be really careful. It would be suspicious for us to just randomly be burning something in my backyard," Light explained.
"Oh, yeah." Misa wasn't used to feeling stupid. She was used to having people flock around her and tell her how cute she was. If she was going to be useful at all, she would have to start thinking like Light. Well, not exactly. He's a genius. It would be truly stupid to think she could be on the same level of the straight-A honor student. That didn't mean she couldn't learn from him, though. At the very least she could learn to keep from getting them caught.
So, the first thing she learned was... he thought everything through. He had probably been planning to burn his pages before she had even come along, since they were already torn out. Which means he invited Misa along to be nice! That thought was the first uplifting one she had had that night.
The blond watched as he sprayed hair spray on the logs, almost amused at the purpose it was serving. And disconcerted when the log was soon bursting into flames. She subconsciously lifted her hands to her hair, opting to keep some distance between herself and the flames. He then opened his messenger bag. "Here. Burn some of mine, too, if you want. Just burn one at a time, and don't put too many in at once, or we'll put out the fire."
She reached in, taking out a piece of the Death Note and dropping it into the fire pit. A hole formed in the middle as the edges curled in, sparks floating from the fire. As it turned to ash, she found it was liberating, and reached for another. Light was dropping in papers as well, his eyes, usually so intense, now distant. And for the first time since her parents had died, she felt free.
L searched through the list of deaths. Perhaps it was coincidence that two newscasters against Kira died of heart attacks. They might have been stressed that Kira would kill them, which in itself could cause a heart attack. None had been killed before them, and none after. And yet, it was too strange.
Maybe there were two Kiras, and they had met up? But how could they possibly find each other? The odds were unbelievably low. The percentage was less than 0.0001. Two people with the same power that could be anywhere in the world happen to find each other randomly, when the police had personally failed at finding even a hint of who the first was. Unless both Kiras were geniuses, but he doubted that.
"Hey, L! Uh, I mean, Ryuuzaki!"
L didn't bother looking at Matsuda. "Yes?" He hoped it wasn't another complaint about the coffee maker being broken. Matsuda had told L about it three times already within the last hour.
"You might want to take a look at Sakura TV."
L decided to humor the man, getting up from his chair to settle on the sofa in front of the television, flicking it on and finding the appropriate channel. He was surprised to find that Matsuda truly had been useful, though it was probably because he had been slacking off and watching TV...
The task force was soon gathered around, probably herded to the sofa by an over-enthusiastic Matsuda.
The word Kira was spelled out in the same font L used for his L when speaking to the public or police, over a white background. A computer-disguised voice was heard through the TV speakers.
"This is Kira. If this was played at 10:30 a.m as I requested, it should now be... fifty-eight...fifty-nine... 10:31. The first thing I'll do is prove to you I'm Kira."
"Prove he's Kira?" asked Mogi. "He doesn't mean he's going to-"
"Shh," said Matsuda, leaning forward from his place on the sofa. For once L agreed with Matsuda. Silence was needed so they could pay full attention to the broadcast.
"At 10:33 A.M, Laota Kosata will die of a heart attack. He's in South Hill prison for repeated sexual assault on children. I expect Sakura TV to get footage on that instantly, since it is only a few miles away. Put it in a square on the corner of the screen so people can continue to listen."
Silence.
More Silence.
L could tell that the task-force members were growing both anxious and impatient, having a hard time waiting for the two minutes to pass. Soon enough, a square appeared in the corner of the sccreen, revealing an inmate clasping at his chest and falling to the ground. A woman soon appeared before the camera, proclaiming the man dead.
Kira announced yet another victim, and the process was repeated.
"Now that I have proved who I am, I want to thank the public for any support they have given me. I am sorry that some don't support me. I hope that when you find the world crime-free, you will see the truth of my abilities and the wisdom of my actions."
"What the hell?"Mogi demanded, abruptly shattering the silence. Before L could speak a word, Mogi had left the room, most likely running to the studio. He hoped the action, not at all thought through and completely compulsive, wouldn't result in Mogi's death. There wasn't much L could do about it, though, so he focused on the TV once more.
While I won't kill people for disliking me, I am disappointed that L and the police are in disagreeance with me. We could work together to make this world even better. If we combined our strength-"
A picture popped up in the corner of a car smashed to pieces on the side of the road. It was undoubtedly Mogi's civilian car, smashed by a semi-truck. Had Kira done that? It was what Sakura news implied by showing it with the broadcast.
"Mogi!" Aizawa went to leave. Matsuda gripped the other man tightly, his weak hold only working because he was practically hanging off the other man to keep him in place.
"Don't leave," L ordered.
"Kira just killed Mogi! I'm going to stop this broadcast! It could turn into a murder fest if this continues!"
"It will turn into a 'murder fest' if you go out there. If Kira killed Mogi that easily, you'll merely be throwing away your life."
"I came here to risk my life," Aizawa said, voice cracking with emotion.
"To risk it. Not throw it away. If Mogi's dead, we can't do anything about it. Your death would only strengthen Kira and weaken our investigation team." This time, L's words seemed to get through, albeit barely.
Aizawa grunted, and L heard heavy footsteps approaching before the man collapsed heavily on the sofa. "If he died, I'm going to strangle Kira to death when we find him."
L decided it was wisest not to comment. The irrational decisions of the general populous was quite irritating to deal with. Especially when the event was filling him with sadness as it was. He didn't need to deal with ignoring their emotions as well as his own.
"Misa! I told you not to kill anyone!"
"Misa didn't!" she said, lifting her hands defensively. "I haven't written a single name since you told me to stop! And you have my Death Note!"
Light forced himself to calm down. At least enough to actually think. He liked Mogi. He was a hard working cop. While not the smartest man, he was determined, and went all out with his job, always giving it his all.
Light settled back down on Misa's bed beside her. They had decided to watch the news in her apartment, though only after having Rem check for bugs. Rem didn't seem to mind. Light sensed protectiveness over Misa from the Shinigami, which he couldn't exactly understand. At least not with what Ryuk was like. He couldn't ever imagine Ryuk helping Light out of protectiveness. In fact, the thought was creepy.
"So he was probably just rushing in traffic to stop our broadcast," Light deduced. "Car accidents are common, and he wasn't paying attention. I guess it makes sense."
Misa seemed relieved that he was no longer blaming her. Then again, who wouldn't be relieved to no longer be accused of murdering someone they had by no means murdered?
"And the new world will be perfect, with only perfect people that I have selected as good citizens..."
Light had purposefully had this part rambling to give L time to get the tapes from Sakura TV if he wanted. Mostly because he thought that the more effort that was put into getting them, the more important the tapes would seem.
"Those who are not evil should not fear-"
"Finally!" Misa exclaimed, sighing. "It was getting really boring."
Light couldn't find it in himself to disagree. He had ran out of important things to say when writing that part (for in the end, he was the true writer of the speech) and had started to say the same things with different wording.
He was glad that he hadn't set the task of recording and sending the tapes to Misa. The amount of evidence she had originally left on the tapes was enough to put her on death row. Light had carefully cleaned away any evidence and left the tape in the park, hidden behind a spiky bush and within a plastic bag. He had then written in the Death Note for a criminal to put it in the mail four cities away from Light's house. That was only after having them take it out of the plastic bag, put it in an envelope, and address it to Sakura TV with KIRA placed across it. That kept all the fingerprints from being Light's or Misa's. And the criminal was now dead, so finding the criminal would be a dead end to investigators.
Light had feared that it wouldn't work, and was quite pleased it had. Then again, if Misa could get a prisoner to do something as strange as draw hearts on the wall above them before dying, why couldn't he get a prisoner to package and send a few tapes?
When Yagami Soichiro entered task force headquarters, L didn't know what exactly to expect. The man had still been in the hospital because of his heart attack. When he dropped a plastic bag beside L on the couch, L was once more puzzled. He opened it, finding tapes.
"This should be all of them. Every tape Kira sent to Sakura TV."
"Excellent work," said L, and he meant it. "It is a relief to see you didn't die in the process." For some reason, his words seemed to anger Aizawa. Perhaps he thought L was being sarcastic. "However, at the moment, we should probably go and see how Mogi is doing. I've been notified that he's in the hospital, and not dead."
