Chapter Nine: January 8th.

The truth was simple, really: L had disappointed me.


The beams shone down harshly on the plateau, highlighting every line of the expensive furniture arranged there and every tooth of the smile our host directed at us from the red couch. I looked around, shielding my eyes from the glare, squinting to make out the spectators, but everything beyond the floor's limit was cast in complete darkness. It was as if we had just stepped onto a stage floating in the middle of a black nothingness.

Next to me, Haru started trembling. "It's alright," Sandra told him, taking his hand. "We're here with you, remember." On my other side, Olm shot him a glare that made him cower even more. He started gnawing on his lip as the host approached us, the sharp, unnatural smile never leaving his face. Personally, I considered the fact that Haru was actually on the plateau a big achievement.

"Hello, children! Welcome! My name is Mr. Jumma, it's such a pleasure to meet you!" he exclaimed loudly, his grin widening even more, until it was vaguely reminiscent of a shark's. His hair was slicked back, dunked in so much gel the light reflected off it like a mirror. "Come here, come here! Take a seat, I don't bite!"

Haru seemed rooted to the spot, frightened by the four or five cameras around the stage that were now focused on us like huge, unblinking eyes. I couldn't blame him; in all certainty half of Tokyo was currently tuned to their televisions, watching our every move. I shifted nervously in my new, expensive shoes, wishing we were walking down to the Sunken Corner like usual. "Seriously, though, I don't bite."

I made a decision then. If I ever became a real detective, I would do my best to avoid the media. I didn't like the idea of millions of strangers knowing my face and my name and what I had done. It made me feel naked and helpless. Working from the shadows was a much more appealing perspective.

Sandra, however, seemed completely in her element. They had put her in a pretty blue dress, curled her hair and polished her nails, so she looked almost like a true princess. She even smiled and waved at the cameras as she slowly followed Mr Jumma towards the couch, pulling Haru along. Olm gazed adoringly at her, practically drooling. It was disgusting.

Haru was looking around wildly, absolutely terrified despite Sandra's words of reassurance. After barely four steps he tore his hand away and ran back into the darkness. "Rook!" Sandra cried, then snapped harshly to me, "Go get him."

I obeyed, only too happy to escape the cameras' glare. Behind me, I heard her explain to the puzzled host that it was alright, Detective Rook did that sometimes.

I raced after Haru through the studio's corridors and lost him. But there weren't that many lonely, isolated places he could hide. I found him crouched inside the boys' bathroom, hugging his knees and rocking back and forth, his breathing fast and irregular, his eyes impossibly wide, fixed on the floor in front of him. "Haru?" I asked, approaching slowly. He didn't respond. "What are you doing?"

He looked like one of those broken toys at the orphanage that couldn't stand up straight. Back and forth, back and forth, frantically. White knuckles, shallow breaths hisssing through his teeth.

It had never been this bad before. I didn't know what to do.

After a while I crouched next to him, being careful not to touch him. "Hey, it's alright. You don't have to go if you don't want to," I lied, with the hope it would settle him down. Jun had tried to dissuade him from making an appearance on tonight's program, but Sandra had insisted he would be alright, and in the end she'd won the argument. But perhaps it hadn't been such a great idea.

He kept rocking, back and forth, back and forth, and I just watched him, my worry slowly being replaced by a child's morbid curiosity. How many oscillations was he completing in a minute?

Unfortunately, the door to the bathroom opened before I had time to count the seconds. Inspector Gwenn, dressed in her uniform, stormed into the room, but froze upon the sight of Haru. "Haru? Are you alright?" she asked worriedly, taking three long strides towards him.

"I wouldn't touch him if I were you," I warned. "He gets worse."

Her hand paused in mid air and she turned towards me slowly, without taking her eyes off him. "Why didn't you tell me about this before?"

I shrugged. Gwenn had been assigned to take care of us yesterday morning, after reporters had shown up by the thousands at the Willow's gates. She had brought Sandra, Olm, Haru and me to her house, and we had spent the night there. Haru had taken the change of environment surprisingly well, so I figured there was no need for her to know about his episodes at the moment. But that had been before Sandra convinced him to appear on TV. "He gets like that sometimes," I explained. "When strangers touch him, or he's in a crowd, or things around him move too quickly. He runs into a quiet place and stays there until he gets better."

She looked at him, biting down on her lip anxiously. "Haru," she started in a quiet voice, "it's alright. Nobody's going to hurt you."

He rubbed his arms, where his scars were hidden under his sleeves. "Th-they're all w-watching me," he breathed. "They're watching me!"

"It's alright, honey," she tried again. Then she sighed, turning back to me angrily. "Sandra and Olm, I understand... But you... You should have known he wasn't right! Why didn't you tell me? Why isn't he seeing a specialist?"

I shrugged again. I'd established long ago that Haru suffered some sort of mental disorder from his torture at the hands of the Director. Any other child would have been immediately put in a program, or taken to a shrink, to make his recovery as smooth and easy as possible. But nobody noticed those kinds of things at the Willow, and there was no money for it anyway. Jun had talked to me about it a couple of times, worried, so I told Gwenn the same things I'd told him. "He was getting better by himself, little by little. On Christmas he went down to the Sunken Corner and played with the other children without any kind of trouble at all." I looked at his shivering shape, still hugging his knees. Now that we were famous, perhaps it would be easier to get help. "But you're right. He needs to see a specialist. He'll need someone he knows to come with him or he'll break down, though."

"I'll take him to a doctor, right now," she stated with decision. "Go back to the plateau. They're waiting for you."

I complied, leaving the bathroom and making my way back through the corridors. I wasn't too worried about Haru. I knew that inside, he was strong; perhaps it would take a while, but he'd get better eventually.

I wandered back to the stage, hands in my pockets. They had tried to put me in a dress too, but in the end decided for pants, since they would hide my skinny legs better. I was about to step into the light when sounds coming from my left, through a half-opened door, froze me dead in my tracks. "Switch to camera three." There were grunts of agreement, and then a younger voice spoke. "Wait up! L says to play the message now."

"Alright, do it."

L says to play the message now? I slipped into the room, which was only lit by the glow of screens showing the interview from many different angles. Men and women sat in front of chairs with headphones on, handling cables and switches. A simple message appeared at the top of all the screens in small white letters. "NKK News special report: in an effort to capture Kira, the ICPO has brought 1500 FBI investigators to Japan." Breathless, I grabbed a random remote and pressed a button. One of the TVs in the room changed channel, but the message was still there, just like with the Lind L. Taylor broadcast a month ago.

"Hey, who did...? Oh, you're the one we've been looking for! Come on, they're waiting for you!" A man took my hand and dragged me out of the room, and threw me in the shining plateau outside.

The public clapped as I stumbled into the light, and the host stopped talking to Sandra to smile brightly at me, standing up with a grandiloquent gesture. "Oh. If it isn't our Bishop! Come here, girl, sit down! There, next to, uh, Detective Knight, you'll be alright." Olm glared at me as I sat, but I was barely paying him any attention. "What about Rook?" Mr Jumma asked.

"He got sick," I replied distractedly. "He had to go see a doctor."

Mr Jumma laughed, though I hadn't intended to be funny. "Oh, well, maybe we'll get to see him next time. We were just talking about how you got that evidence you sent to the newspapers. Even the police couldn't get their hands on something like that!"

"Mmm... Yes, it was a complicated plan." No longer able to resist, I got out my elastic, completely ignoring the cameras. L must have been the one to send that message, no doubt; no one else could have done it. But it was such an obvious lie I didn't want to believe it. If he were truly calling undercover investigators to work with him, he wouldn't announce it to the four winds, it would defeat the purpose. Therefore, the message was fake. Anyone with half a brain would have been able to figure that one out.

"Will you tell us about it?" Mr Jumma asked, feigning enthusiasm.

"No." Perhaps he aimed to bait Kira, just like with the broadcast... But that didn't make sense. Even if he fell for such an evident trap, Kira had no one to kill this time, no way to possibly react. Maybe L just wanted to scare him? There was no other explanation for such an absurd move. And there was no way Kira would believe it anyway. He was probably laughing right now. Why had L done something so obviously stupid and pointless?

This time, Mr Jumma couldn't disguise his disappointment. "Why not?"

"Because, if I tell you, I won't be able to use it again." Perhaps he really had brought more than a thousand FBI men into Japan? What did he gain by announcing it then? "What's the FBI?"

Mr Jumma was caught off-balance by my question, but he answered it anyway. "It's a secret police in America," he replied automatically. So I'd been right in my assumption: they were undercover agents. Announcing their arrival didn't make any sense! I was practically tearing my hair out from the frustration.

"Don't pay her any mind," Olm interjected, kicking me in what would look like a playful manner on camera but was in actuality quite painful. "She says random things sometimes."

For once, I was grateful to Olm. Mr Jumma left me alone for the rest of the interview, focusing his questions on Sandra, who was only eager to share. "What about the trial? Will you testify?"

She waved a hand in the air, dismissing the question. "Of course, of course. But they told us that trials take loads of time, so we aren't really worried about that for now."

I kept fumbling with the elastic, frowning.

It is difficult to explain how I felt in that moment. I had looked up to L for such a long time, admired him more than I admired anyone else in my life. He was my hero. He'd been silent for so long I expected his next move to be incredible, a masterstroke. But he did this, a pathetic attempt at intimidation unworthy even of the most mediocre of detectives. And, no matter how many explanations I tried to come up with, none were even remotely plausible. The best I could think of was that this was only a small part of a much larger plan he was keeping secret for the moment; but it was only a half-hearted excuse.

The more I thought about it, the more my heart sank in my chest like a stone. I'd been dying of anticipation, waiting for him to leave me wide-eyed and breathless, for a whole month. And I got this... Pointless intimidation tactic instead. Was he even trying to catch Kira?

The truth was simple, really: L had disappointed me.


A.N: Tell me what you thought about this one :) And thanks a bunch to the anonymous nice people who reviewed!