A/N: Yes, seriously, I'm back! Bet'cha never thought you'd see this fic continued, huh? Especially not after almost a decade of hiatus!
Well, that assumes anyone who actually followed it back in the day still has it on alert and still cares, woops. I am gonna finish it, you guys. I have been sketching scenes and plotting the hell out of this for weeks, so it's getting done this time, dang it.
But if you're a new reader, please be forgiving about the update schedule and just be glad you don't have to wait years. :P
Some old chapters have been updated to fix minor errors (if you happen to get weird chapter alerts for them, that's why). For the most part I'm leaving them be, even if the writing in some places is preeeetty bad in hindsight... But I'll never finish if I let myself start editing old chapters. :P
Traditional Silly Disclaimer: I don't own Scooby, and clearly I don't own Death Note, because if I did it would have never gotten an ending and all the fans would be frustrated forever. So basically it would've ended up like the Loveless manga. *ba dum tssh*
Chapter 9: Those Meddling Kids
The heavy double doors swung open as if in slow motion. Chief Yagami, Aizawa, and Matsuda had pistols trained on the dark space beyond. The whole room tensed and held its breath, waiting for what felt like years to see what that darkness held. Could it be the shinigami? Kira himself, even? Or some new horror yet to be imagined..?
As all eyes looked for something larger than life, something small and brown rolled into the room. The policemen paled, fingers frozen on triggers. A bomb?!
The little brown thing uncurled and puffed up.
"Ya-da da da da daaa! Puppyyy powerrr!"
"Oh dear Lord," said L, hiding his face in his hands.
"Rappy!" Scooby declared, rushing out from under the desk to meet the apparently bipedal little dog. The confused policemen lowered their weapons and stared.
"Scooby-san, you have a puppy?" Matsuda ventured.
"Rephew, ractually."
"That's rrright! Scrappy Dappy Doo, at your service!" the little creature proudly announced to the room. The task force stood dumbfounded for the... hell, everyone had already lost count of how many times they'd stood around dumbfounded lately. L still had his face buried in his hands and was grumbling a string of curses into them.
"Scrappy, what on earth are you doing here?" Fred admonished.
"You mean, what on earth are we doing here?" came a cocky male voice from the shadowy doorway. Gun hands twitched as everyone's attention returned there.
L drug his hands partway down his face, so he could see between the fingers. "This cannot be happening..."
"Ryuuzaki, what's going on here?" asked Light, beside him. Before he could get an answer, three young teenagers sauntered into their headquarters like they owned the place.
Well, the first two sauntered. The third shuffled in a few paces behind, and on second glance looked three or four years younger than the others.
"Mello and Matt are on the case!" the cocky one declared, pointing a finger in the air and striking a pose. The red-headed boy standing with him didn't pose, just stood there grinning, orange goggles over his eyes and a small electronic device in his hand.
"And Scrappy!" the puppy huffed.
"Yeah yeah, him too," the apparent leader said, un-posing himself. The smallest boy shuffled silently up to his side, twirling a piece of his dull white hair around his finger and glaring at the taller boy with eyes almost as big and black as L's. The leader noticed this and rolled his eyes so high they seemed to disappear under his blond bangs.
"And Near," he amended with a groan.
"You're sure that's all?" L asked, not even bothering to hide his displeasure. "You didn't bring Linda along to draw caricatures of this farce, too?"
The annoyed comment seemed innocuous enough to the other investigators, but the blond boy was visibly stung by it. "We came to help, L-sama," he said, weaker than before.
And that's when everything seemed to click into place. The boys' names and unusual accents hadn't registered right away, in the oddity of the moment, but L-sama... he'd only heard that particular title in one context. Chief Yagami holstered his weapon, and his subordinates followed suit.
"You're the boys that called here a few days ago," he said gently. The blond one looked over at him and nodded.
"Didn't realize we had such a big audience for that," the redhead mumbled.
Just then, Mogi appeared in the doorway. He made a quick observation of the room and turned to the chief. "How did these kids get in here?"
"That's what I'd like to know." The room's collective attention swiveled to find Velma at the top of the glass staircase.
"Well that's easy," said the blond boy, his confidence seemingly recovered. He grabbed his companion around the shoulders. "Matt here tricked the security system."
The boy, Matt, gulped. "That reminds me... I should probably go ahead and un-trick it."
The one they now knew had to be Mello gaped at him. "You were supposed to do that once we got here!"
"Well, Scrappy wanted to make a big dramatic entrance..." Matt punched some buttons on the device in his hand. Mello looked on over his shoulder.
"Totally worth it!" Scrappy declared, punching the air triumphantly. Scooby laughed, until L stomped past him with the coal of his eyes smoldering. He ignored the dogs altogether and towered over the kids instead, stretching out his hunched spine like a snake about to strike.
"You could have been shot, do you realize that?" L snapped at them. The whole room seemed to recoil from his uncharacteristic anger, but none more than the three kids.
"The Japanese police do not fire at shadows, Ryuuzaki," Yagami said. L ignored him.
"Do you have any idea the situation you've walked into?" he continued, almost yelling. "What were you thinking, showing your faces in Tokyo? You could have been killed on the streets, and no one would even have known you were here!"
"Ryuuzaki, that's enough," Velma said, coming up behind him. The boys stood in shock, Mello on the verge of tears.
"Really, we just wanted to help," Matt said, because he knew his friend could not.
"You are not getting involved in this case, and you are not staying here," L told them, quiet and cold.
"We can't very well kick them out," Yagami said.
"I'm well aware of that," L grumbled. "I will contact Roger to pick you all up. Until he arrives, I will give you a floor of guest rooms to yourselves, and you will stay there and keep out of our way."
Mello hung his head, hiding his face in shadow and yellow hair. The other two boys nodded silently.
"L," Velma said firmly, reaching above her head to grasp his shoulder. "They're stranded here for the time being, so why not let them help? They'll be safe so long as they don't leave the building, right?"
L glowered a moment longer, but ultimately deflated. "So be it."
Mello snapped back to life, and even Near's face seemed to light up just a tad. Velma squeezed L's shoulder before releasing it; he wasn't sure why. She turned her attention on the boys and seemed not to notice L simultaneously turning away.
"But not one step outside this building, and no more hacking, okay?" she told them, all smiles. They nodded vigorously, and the whole room seemed to lighten up, with the exception of L, who was quickly leaving anyway. No one bothered to stop him.
Soichiro Yagami and Velma volunteered to lead the trio of newcomers and one hyperactive puppy to a suite on one of the empty hotel-like floors of the building. Soichiro carried two of their suitcases, which they'd abandoned in the hallway outside headquarters earlier for the sake of their 'dramatic entrance.' The boys easily carried the rest themselves. They could have taken it all, but the older man had insisted on helping.
Once introductions had been made, the team as a whole had decided that the kids should get some sleep. It was well past midnight by now and, frankly, no one had the energy to deal with them. It had been an incredibly long day and most of the team would be probably continue to work through the night. The kids had protested at first, but relented after a solemn promise from Velma that they'd be fully briefed in the morning and allowed to help then.
"Which room?" Mello asked impatiently as they spilled out of the crowded elevator. Velma pointed at the door directly ahead, which should have been the largest room on the floor, assuming it was laid out the same as the floor Mystery Inc. inhabited.
Mello and Scrappy both broke off from the group in a run, Mello dropping his luggage for speed. Scrappy attacked the door first, jumping up to reach the handle. Despite an exuberant declaration of "puppy power!", he missed it by a mile. Mello laughed and kicked him out of the way before opening the unlocked door himself and rushing inside.
"Mello!" Velma yelled.
"Always gotta be first," Matt commented, picking up the bag Mello had abandoned.
"Scrappy, are you okay?" Velma picked the puppy up in her arms. He looked a bit dizzy, and shook like he'd just had a bath to clear his head.
"Lemme at 'im!" the pup demanded, and wrenched himself free of her arms to chase after Mello.
"Guess he's fine," Velma muttered to herself. She held the door open for the overloaded Matt before entering the room herself, Soichiro and Near filing in leisurely after.
"Hey, there's not even a computer console in here!" Mello announced, popping his head out of one of the bedrooms. He must have already run around and appraised the entire suite.
"Of course not," Soichiro chuckled, dumping the luggage he carried near the door, where Matt had already deposited his. "This isn't a workroom, young man. You're here to get some rest."
"In other words, we're to stay out of the way until L figures out what to do with us," said Near, in a serious monotone that seemed out of place coming from the small boy, who was supposedly 14 like the others but looked no older than 10 or 11 to the chief's eyes.
"Nothing so sinister," he tried to reassure the boy, though his body language gave no indication that he needed it. "This has been... a very trying day, for all of us."
Mello walked toward them, his face darkened with defeat. His moods seemed to constantly swing between extremes, Soichiro noted. Biting his lip, the boy asked, "L is really mad at us, isn't he?"
"I told you this was a foolish idea," Near said, twirling a finger in his hair. For all the harshness of the words, there was none to be heard in the way he said them. Eerily similar to L's usual demeanor, if not colder, he realized.
"Shut the hell up, Near," Mello snapped back at him. The fire didn't erase the insecurity, though. L was clearly important to these boys, and probably didn't begin to realize the damage he'd inflicted by being so hard on them.
"Language, Mello," Velma quietly reminded him
"Sorry."
They all stood awkwardly a moment, not knowing what to say. In the farthest bedroom, a television could be heard; apparently Scrappy had found some cartoons to watch.
"Anyway," Velma continued, putting on a kind face for them, "don't worry so much about what L thinks. You boys just happened to drop in at a bad time. We're all on edge, and L... isn't exactly himself right now, I don't think." She couldn't help feeling a bit guilty for this whole situation, since it was probably her chewing him out earlier that had put L in such a bad mood.
Soichiro nodded. "I don't think he was simply angry that you're here, either, boys. Rather, he was upset that something bad might have happened to you along the way, and that he wouldn't have been able to protect you from it. As a father, I know that feeling quite well."
All three of them looked up at the man, each one with a different sort of curious written on his face. Had the chief forgotten he was speaking to a trio of orphans?
"Just try not to worry about it, and get some sleep. I'm sure everyone will be in a better mood by morning," Velma said, not-so-subtly herding her colleague toward the door. "Goodnight!"
"Goodnight," the rest replied in lazy unison. The door closed, and the elevator beyond dinged soon after.
Matt flashed a sneaky grin at Mello before diving into the pile of luggage. Mello locked the door as Matt pulled out his laptop and an assortment of custom-made devices from the largest of their suitcases. Sitting on the floor, Matt cobbled together a piecemeal command center in a circle around himself.
Mello pulled another bag from the pile. Soon, Mello sat in a neighboring circle of folders filled with charts and handwritten case notes. Lastly, he pulled out a chocolate bar and tore into it, breaking off a chunk in his teeth.
Near continued to stand by, watching, until Matt noticed him. The redhead rolled his eyes and pulled one last object from his bag, tossing it to Near. His pale face lit up (but just barely) as he turned the little box over in his hands – a deck of playing cards. He joined the others on the floor, the cards quickly forming a third and final circle.
"Should we wait for Scrappy?" Matt asked. Bits and pieces of Spongebob dialogue could be heard from the other room, punctuated by odd bursts of bark-laughing.
"Hell no," said Mello.
Matt pulled his trusty orange goggles over his eyes. "Then let's get to work."
"Ris ray!"
"Shh, shh, I know."
Scooby ran ahead a few paces, then resumed sniffing the ground where the hallway split. He apparently found the correct path and took off again, tail wagging.
Light chuckled to himself. He should have known to check the kitchen first.
He turned down the hall Scooby had taken, and sure enough, it was in the doorway of the kitchen that the huge dog had stopped. His tail wagged slower now than Light had ever seen it wag in the vicinity of food, and he had an uncannily human worry on his furry face. Light peered inside. There was L, at last, sitting in the floor surrounded by open, half-empty donut boxes and cookie packages. He faced a window, but seemed to stare at the wall beneath it instead of at the black sky outside.
Light smiled at the worried mutt and scratched behind one of his ears. He took a silent step inside and jerked his head to indicate that Scooby should follow. He grabbed a box of Scooby Snacks off the counter and joined L on the floor.
"Want some company, Ryuuzaki?" he asked as cheerfully as he could, deftly folding his legs beneath him.
The detective didn't even turn his head, just swiveled his big black eyes around to regard him. It dawned on Light that he really was sitting on the floor, cross-legged, instead of crouching.
Scooby settled in on the other side of L, apprehensively. Light supposed the animal could sense the heavy mood. "Ri, Roo."
L's eyes swiveled away from Light. His shoulders slouched and softened, and finally he sighed and patted the dog's head. "Hello, Scooby."
Light relaxed. At least he was talking. He ripped off the top of the box of dog treats, loudly enough to catch L's attention. Light offered him a couple of the snacks, and after a moment of blinking, L accepted them. He passed them along to Scooby, who gobbled them out of his hand.
"At least you don't hate me, I suppose," he mumbled, wiping slobber on his jeans. Scooby looked at him with incredibly soulful eyes before confirming this with a face-full of dog kisses.
Light laughed more than he probably should have. L gently pushed Scooby away and wiped his face on a sleeve.
"So, have I missed some new ridiculous development?" L deadpanned, reaching for a donut once he had deemed himself reasonably clean.
Light grabbed a cookie for himself from the nearest package. "No, I..." He glanced at Scooby and rephrased. "We just wanted to make sure you were okay."
L shoved the entire donut into his mouth at once, his cheeks puffing out like a chipmunk and rendering him unable to speak. Light sighed. He wasn't okay.
"Besides, it's kind of weird not being attached at the hip anymore, even if that was only for a few days," he said with a smile, trying to lighten the mood. L laboriously swallowed his donut.
"We were chained at the wrists, Light-kun. Being attached by the hips would have been awkward and uncomfortable for us both."
"It's just an expression, Ryuuzaki."
L merely hummed in response, and held out a hand expectantly toward Light. He poured a few Scooby Snacks into it, and L passed them along.
"You shouldn't be here, you know." L wiped off his hand again. "You should be helping the rest of the team."
"I could say the same to you."
"My help isn't welcome right now."
"I don't think it's as personal as you're making it, Ryuuzaki." Light dug a couple more Scooby Snacks out of the box and pressed them into L's hand. "Everyone's on edge, that's all."
"That's not all. You're smart enough to see it, Light-kun." L stared hard at the treats.
"Ree rhat?"
"I'm afraid I'm not sure myself, Scooby-san."
As they waited for an explanation, L nibbled experimentally at one of the Snacks. His face twisted, and he quickly passed it off to Scooby. They waited. He rolled backwards just enough to free one leg, propping it up into an abbreviated version of his usual pose. They kept waiting until a heavy sigh finally rumbled out of him.
"Isn't it obvious? No one trusts my judgment anymore."
Light frowned. "I do."
"Re roo!" Scooby insisted, laying a paw on L's knee. L smiled half-heartedly, despite himself, and scratched the silly mutt's head.
He never should have called V. He never should have befriended Light. He never should have shown his face to the Japanese task force. There were too many characters involved in this case now, and all it did was confuse things.
He should have worked alone, from a distance, like he always did. Trying to solve things on a more human level... All he'd done was spur Kira on, gotten even more people killed, gotten Daphne kidnapped, and for what? The investigation was at a standstill, he still had almost no evidence, no more suspects... And on top of everything, his heirs were now here to witness his first failure.
The last thing he wanted to be right now was L, and he could hardly fathom why those kids would ever want to take his place.
"You shouldn't," he decided. "I've led this investigation astray and put you in danger."
"'You?' As in, including me?" Light scoffed.
"Assuming you're not Kira, yes."
"Right, right... I don't suppose it would help to tell you I'm not?"
"No, not really." L plucked the box of treats from Light's hands and dumped out the remainder of them for Scooby to scarf down. "And I can't let you go until I am one-hundred percent convinced of your innocence."
"I know." Light leaned forward and drug one of the fuller boxes of donuts toward them, taking one and offering the rest to L. "But it's not as if I'd want to leave anyway, Ryuuzaki. I want to catch Kira as much as – no, more than anyone."
"Rhy?" asked Scooby between snacks.
"To prove his own innocence, of course." L plucked a chocolate donut from the box and shoved it in his mouth, whole.
"No, it's not just about that anymore," Light said in a grave tone, though the effect was undercut by the fact that he was gesticulating with a pink-iced donut that dropped sprinkles with every other word. "When Kira first appeared, I... I can understand why you suspected me, Ryuuzaki. His profile, his ideology... it's wrong, of course, but it's not as if I've never thought that some criminals should die. But now..."
"This Kira seems different?" L mumbled around his mouthful.
"Exactly! The Kira we have now seems to have lost that ideology, and just... does despicable things without a clear reason, even stooping as low as kidnapping. This Kira disgusts me, and there's no way that I could ever align my thinking with what that shinigami has done... Do you know how horrible it feels to be suspected of that? To have a friend suspect me of that?"
Scooby whimpered. "Rit's rerrible."
L finally swallowed. "The thought had crossed my mind that there could be two Kiras involved..."
"R-r-rwo Riras?" Scooby's teeth started chattering, and he bit his nails to slow them. L patted his head.
Light nodded. "I think so too. And we're going to need to work together – all of us – in order to catch them."
"Assuming anyone is still willing to work with me, you mean."
"You can't hide in the kitchen forever, Ryuuzaki. You'll just have to suck it up and start mending the bridges you've burned." Light finally put his uneaten and now un-sprinkled donut down and grasped L's shoulder. "But you won't be alone in it. You have me and Scooby-san, at least. Somehow we'll figure out a way to help you regain everyone's trust."
"Reah!" Scooby hopped up, wagging his tail excitedly.
L stared at Light for a moment, a little more than dumbfounded. There was a shine and sincerity to his eyes that he found himself dearly wanting to believe in.
"Light-kun is a much better friend than I deserve," he said, almost in awe.
Light laughed and rolled his eyes. "It's not exactly a matter of deserving."
"Reah! Riends..." Scooby paused, tongue-tied and scrunching his face in frustration, before switching to English. "Riends rick rorether no ratter rhat, Roo!"
L glanced toward Light. "Need I translate?"
"It's not exactly the variety of English I learned in school," he chuckled, "but I think I got the gist of it."
"Risten, Roo," Scooby continued, uncharacteristically serious, "rhe rength of Rystery Rinc ris our riendship. Re rove each rother, and relp each rother. Robody rets reft berind, and robody rives up. Rat's rhat riendship reans to rus. Re and Raggy ray be rew-ups, but re relp our riends rowever re can. Roo, rou rewed up, but rat ron't ratter as rong as rou relp rake it right. Rat's all re rexpect of rou."
"Wow, even my old English teacher couldn't have made sense of that..," Light mumbled.
L ignored him, and instead looked the resolute Great Dane straight in the eye. "I will do everything in my power to get her back, Scooby, I promise you that. I will find a way to make this right."
Even as Scooby covered his face in slobber again, doubts remained in L's mind. Things like friendship, things like love... they were too fragile to survive the wrath of Kira, weren't they?
The bags under L's eyes were especially dark the next morning, as was the coffee that kept his eyes painfully open and staring at police reports and forensic data.
The labs had made quick work of what little evidence was left at the restaurant and on the rooftop, thanks to Aizawa pulling some personal strings, but it hardly mattered. Nothing they turned up gave them any new directions. It seemed that the shinigami had gotten more cautious after Harajuku, less willing to give up its secrets. Though it had dropped the broken piece of a scuba valve, the culprit seemed to have been fastidious in leaving no fingerprints or identifying marks on his equipment. There were even fewer eyewitnesses this time, for the creature's escape at least. The police had found only four witnesses who claimed to have seen it flying off into the night with Daphne, and they couldn't even agree on which direction it had flown.
L pulled up a detailed map of Tokyo on the largest monitor. He stood up from his chair for the first time in hours, bones cracking as he straightened himself out. He stared up at the map, fish-eyed. If the witnesses couldn't agree on a path, he'd simply have to consider them all and see if a promising kidnapper hideout lay at the end of one.
Light had been right about one thing. The Kira he had come to know before all this shinigami business would never have stooped to kidnapping...
No, it wasn't just that. The shinigami attacks weren't even consistent with each other. The first two had a pattern to them, but the government district attack broke that pattern. It was a higher profile target, and one that had evoked a political message in public opinion. It was also a far more densely populated but far less open area than the first two targets. The restaurant was even stranger – small scale and personal. Almost as if...
L blinked, and saw the map before him for the first time since he'd stood up to look at it. His eyes chased around it, from attack point to attack point.
The locations. The behavior. The timing. The lack of timing. The pattern. The lack of pattern.
The three-day gap that broke the pattern.
Two shinigamis.
Not just a second Kira. More than one shinigami and more than one Kira masterminding it all, and all of them potentially separate people. Perhaps three or four people in total, all armed with the power of Kira.
Percentages flew around his brain. It made sense. It made a terrifying amount of sense.
If Kira could recruit people, shove them in a costume and set them loose to kill for him, how could he be stopped?
L swung around. On the far side of the room someone had left a television on, the morning news softly speaking through it – speaking of Kira, as it always did now. A montage played of footage from around the world, riots and rallies, Kira worshippers in Guy Fawkes masks and homemade shinigami costumes.
Thousands, maybe millions of worshippers around the world... Kira had an army just waiting to be drafted.
L had a handful of detectives, an old butler, three teenage boys, and a couple of talking dogs.
He couldn't stop himself from calculating the odds. They weren't encouraging.
Heavy steps above him snapped L out of his stupor. Mogi and the elder Yagami were descending the glass stairs with coffee in hand. The three men grunted tired greetings at each other.
Across the room, under the glow of the morning news, Matsuda stirred at the noise and slowly drug himself off the couch he'd collapsed on three hours ago. Light still snoozed on another couch nearby, and Scooby on the floor beside him, belly-up with one hind leg kicking the air. Dreaming about being chased by shinigami, L supposed.
The others had all drifted off to find actual beds during the night, one by one, as each reached their limit. Mogi and the chief had been some of the last to do so, Mogi because of the workhorse he was, and Yagami... well, Yagami seemed to be just as disturbed by the kidnapping as Mystery Inc., perhaps because he had a daughter at home.
"Coffee..." Matsuda's voice was a sing-song mutter, resonating through the room and giving L caffeine-pangs. He was standing on shaky legs and sniffing the air almost blissfully as his colleagues and their steaming styrofoam cups approached. "We should really... get more coffee..."
L could use a fresh cup himself, but he needn't disturb Watari for it. The old man was spry, but he'd been up late too and needed the rest.
"Yes," L found himself sighing, "Matsuda-san, let's go and fetch some coffee and snacks for everyone."
Matsuda just stared at him, confused and sleepy and wide-eyed all at once, but L started up the glass staircase without another word, and sure enough Matsuda followed without question.
L plodded up the stairs, groggier as the distance grew between himself and his work. The glass was cold enough to keep him awake. It stuck to his bare feet and suctioned off with every step; by the time he reached the top he was hypnotized and nearly ran into the second pair of feet that suddenly appeared in front of him.
He stopped short and found himself face-to-face with Velma.
Matsuda didn't stop at all, which put him more shoulder-to-face with her, and hard enough to send her glasses clattering to the floor.
"Crap! Sorry!" Matsuda squeaked, recoiling off L's back like he would a hot stove eye.
"My glasses!"
"Idiot," L grumbled at the floor as he bent to grab them. Whether he meant to insult Matsuda or himself, he couldn't quite say. Matsuda was rubbing the back of his head and laughing sheepishly at himself.
"Sorry, I should've been watching where I was going, but I'm still really sleepy..."
"It's okay, Matsuda-san. I really should just get a wrap-around cord for them. You wouldn't believe how often this happens..."
The words died in her mouth as L pressed her glasses into her hand, his fingers at her pulse to keep her hand steady and brushing hers as the object changed hands. Velma could feel the blush invading her face and could only hope her glasses would hide it. She knew from experience they wouldn't, not quite.
L caught her eye entirely by accident, and swallowed the minor panic that came with it. He was socially aware enough to know that he had to say something, because it would be awkward not to.
"Hi," he said lamely, because she might still be mad at him, and because looking at her somehow made it difficult to find words.
"Hi," she said, and laughed, because it really was absurd that a couple of geniuses should have so much trouble dealing with each other. A little smile crept onto L's face, which was as good as laughing for him.
Matsuda stifled a giggle, because geniuses could be so dumb sometimes. He clapped L's shoulder. "Ryuuzaki, I'll go on ahead and get some refreshments for everyone. I'm sure the two of you have more.. important things to attend to."
Matsuda winked at him blatantly as he slipped past and headed for the kitchen.
"What was that about?" Velma wondered.
"There is a four percent chance that he was attempting to flirt with me." L bit his thumbnail ponderously. "I do hope he doesn't become upset and quit when he realizes I am not interested."
Velma snort-giggled into her hand. "Anyway, Ryuuzaki, I was actually just about to come down to find you."
"Oh?"
"I thought I'd see if you were up for bringing the boys up to speed on the case."
L sighed. Velma looked at her shoes.
"I did promise them a briefing first thing in the morning... on your behalf. Sorry."
L shoved his hands in his pockets and settled into a deep slouch. Time to 'suck it up' and mend some bridges, as it were.
"Don't apologize, it was the right thing to do. Let's find them and get it over with. The quicker we do, the quicker we can get back to work."
"Right."
"Wrong!" They turned to find a smirking Mello trouncing toward them, his peers (and a puppy) trailing behind. "We've pretty much briefed ourselves already, so no worries!"
"How, exactly?" Velma asked. She crossed her arms over her chest, certain she already knew the answer. Mello snickered.
"Matt tapped into the case files during the night, so unless there's some unofficial stuff that's not been documented..."
"I should have expected as much from my heirs." L smiled, and Mello beamed.
Velma was less impressed. "What did I say about hacking?"
"Hey hey, this wasn't exactly hacking!" Matt spoke up. He was clutching a laptop that looked like a Frankenstein's monster of other laptops, and Scrappy sat atop his head. "The security system? That was hacking. We were trying to trick you then. But we're part of the investigation now, so we should be privy to all the case files anyway, right?"
"You tell 'em, Matty!" Scrappy said, punching the air.
"Hey, only I get to call him that, runt," Mello snarled. He quickly turned back to L and Velma, all smiles again. "Besides, we'd been secretly working the case ourselves back at Wammy's, from the public info." The boy patted the folder wedged under his arm, fat with papers. "And when Mystery Inc. showed up with the runt, and he told us you'd tapped them for help..."
"Are you trying to tell me," L said, an incredulous thumb tugging his bottom lip, "that you ran away from the House and came all the way here... because of Scrappy?"
"W-well, I mean... kinda, yeah." Mello tried to hide his red face. It seemed he hadn't realized it himself until now.
"That's rrrright! Puppyyy powerrr!" Scrappy bounced in triumph on Matt's head, earning an embarrassed death glare from Mello. Matt clamped a hand around his muzzle.
"But the important thing is, we figured that if anybody should be helping L, it should be us!" He turned his goggle-clad eyes sheepishly to Velma. "Um, no offense to Mystery Inc., of course."
Velma just laughed. "None taken."
"And 'us' included Near?" That was incredibly progressive for them, L thought.
"Well... not really," Mello admitted, peeking at L through his bangs. "It's just that when we started talking about it, the stupid dog got all loud and excited and sheep-boy overheard. We had to let him come so he wouldn't tattle on us."
"I'm right here," Near grumbled, tugging at his hair.
"So you all are." L was too amused to fuss about Mello's rudeness. They were all working together, regardless, and that alone was a miracle. Perhaps he should be the one learning from them.
L reached out and let his hand rest atop Mello's head. The boy looked up at him with an intense admiration he wasn't sure he deserved.
"Thank you all for coming, boys," he told them with a smile. "I am beginning to think I need all the help I can get."
The dim hallway seemed to brighten tenfold from all the surprised and happy faces; even Velma was beaming at him. For the first time in days, L felt like he may have finally done something right.
"Do you do this sort of thing all the time, Matt-kun?"
"Huh?" The boy in question looked up from Mogi's laptop, goggles shielding his eyes. "You mean, like, modding stuff?"
Soichiro Yagami chuckled warmly at this. 'Modding' was what he was supposedly doing right now. He claimed to be making it so that Mogi could gather data on criminals' deaths worldwide more efficiently, almost in real time. Initially they'd been curious how he would do this, but once the teenager set to work, his fingers flew over the keyboard too fast to follow. Even Mogi didn't know enough command line terminology to understand just what he was doing.
"I mean all of it. Weren't you the one who hacked the security system and accessed our case files?"
"Oh yeah, it's kind of my thing," Matt shrugged, resuming his work.
"Lucky you're on our side," Mogi observed.
"Indeed. You're clearly an extremely capable young man."
Matt just shrugged his shoulders and kept typing. "Thanks, I guess."
"So, if you don't mind my asking, why are you ranked behind those two?"
This time, Matt grinned. "Actually, a couple of our teachers have a bet going that if I ever really 'applied myself,' I'd blow past the both of them."
"So why don't you?"
"Because I have to live with those two." The boy jerked a thumb toward the other side of the room, where Mello and Near hovered on either side of L. They'd spent most of the morning talking through theories with him, when they weren't arguing with each other or shoving a meddlesome Scrappy out of their workspace. "Believe me, Yagami-san, that's not a competition you wanna get in the middle of."
"I can see your point," the older man laughed.
"It's not like I'm a slacker. I mean, I'm the entire reason the teachers are required to keep paper gradebooks now, so obviously there are some things I apply myself to..." He typed a few more keys with a triumphant finality and passed the laptop back to Mogi, who simply stared at it as if it might spring to life.
Soichiro smiled. "You know, you remind me a lot of my Light, when he was your age."
Matt scrunched up his nose and pulled his goggles up to rest in his hair. "Really? Why?"
"He's been the top student in every class his whole life. His teachers, his mother, they've always been so sure he'd grow up to be a great success, simply because he was so smart, so capable..." Soichiro glanced around the room to make sure his son wasn't in earshot. "But when he was in middle school, I started to worry. He was too smart, too capable. School didn't challenge him at all, and although he never complained, I could tell he was bored. When the high school entrance exam season approached, I pushed him to go to a cram school to prepare, though I knew he didn't need it. I was trying to keep him busy, because I was so worried that if he became too bored, he'd decide that school was a waste of time and quit, and what would become of him then?" He laughed nervously. "Obviously my fears were unfounded, but..."
"Chief! Ryuuzaki!" Matsuda cried out. He was standing in front of the television, hurriedly punching the volume button.
"...and we must assure our viewers, again, that we are not showing this for the sake of sensationalism..."
"What's happening?" the chief demanded, standing up and marching closer to the television.
"It's Sakura TV! They're claiming that Kira has sent them a video message and demanded they air it!" Matsuda rambled excitedly, practically bouncing in place.
"...in the letter that came with these tapes, it is stated that the sender will show proof that he is 'the real Kira' at precisely 10:02, in approximately twenty seconds..."
The rest of the team moved in closer to better see the television. L moved to the forefront, his teenage hangers-on with him. The remainder of Mystery Inc. hung toward the back.
"A hoax?" Light wondered.
"Or another change in behavior," L muttered.
"...until 10:03, at which time we will begin playing the first tape, as instructed – aaaaah!" The anchorwoman screamed and jumped from her chair, sterile demeanor falling apart.
The anchorman beside her had collapsed.
"It could, like, be a stunt..," Shaggy offered weakly. Scooby whimpered beside him.
On the screen, crewmen were crowded around the anchorman, trying and failing to revive him.
"I don't think so, Shag," Fred said.
The news crew was still milling around when the time displayed in the corner hit 10:03, and the tape began to play without further introduction. The word 'kira' appeared, written in English letters over a white background.
"By now it should be clear to you," said a scrambled voice over the crude image, "that I am the one you call Kira."
A/N: Less of a cliffhanger than last time, at least... I'm still a jerk, I know. XD
I think/hope my writing style has improved since 2008, although I'm trying to maintain the same overall feel. I really don't want the latter half of the story to be super-obviously written 9 years later, you know?
And yes, Scrappy and the Wammy boys (oooh, what a band name!) were always intended to be the surprise thing behind the door. I have my old plot notes to prove it! Seems like a dick move after a 9 year hiatus, I know, but I swear I didn't intend to leave it hanging off that cliff this long... :P
Language note: Mentioned in an older chapter but relevant here... You can safely assume everyone is speaking Japanese most of the time, or at least when a Japanese character is present. Scooby's bad at speaking foreign languages because doggy-speech-impediment, so he switches to English if he has more than a short phrase to say, but like his humans, he can understand several languages.
If the convenient lack of language barriers bugs you, just repeat to yourself "It's just a fanfic, I should really just relax!" :P
PSA: Beloved readers, if you have a creative or personal project you want to do, but some little voice in your head keeps telling you to wait because you'll have more time for it later (after you graduate, for instance)... Please, please, please don't listen to that voice. It's a trap! That magical, perfect later will never happen. Life goes by quick when you're adulting. Go do your thing, and do it now!
I mean, consider this: in previous chapter notes I mentioned college classes and a boyfriend, right? Since chapter 8 was posted, I graduated college (twice), married that boyfriend, produced an indie horror movie, and bought a house, but still didn't finish this silly fanfic, and all my novels are still unedited drafts. So I kinda know what I'm talking about here.
