(Time is spreading thin on me. I'm obsessed with this story, though, so don't worry…if you were, anyway. Once again, kind words are appreciated, always. L may be above ego stroking, but I suppose I'm not…Although, here's to hoping I get there.)

#---

In the perpetual darkness that clogged the tunnels like trouble clouded the situation within the Wammy house a single light strode through, oblivious to the fact it was where it didn't belong.

Below this light was a child's face. He had mopped brown air and green eyes that scanned the lines of the book that the light sat on with jubilance possessed only of the unaware.

Beneath his feet bugs and insects scrambled out of his way. His foot caught a spider, squishing the eight legged bug out of the existence of this world. The child walked on unaware.

Finally he breached the walls of the Wammy house. He reached up and plucked the light from the top cover of the book. Still he continued to read.

He passed a kid on his way up the steps. The child shouted something out but he didn't bother to stop and understand it. He made his way to the back room, traversing the kitchen without bothering the occupants.

He entered into the back room, sat down in the darkness, secured his light once more to the top of his book, and began to drift away from reality.

#----

The Aconite killer had been growing more aggressive over the few days after L and he had established the day of the meeting. Five or more were dying in a day, perhaps as a signal, or perhaps because the killer just enjoyed it.

Killers, to be more precise. The area of the killing had spread out, jumping from city to city. The Aconite killer(s) had dropped all pretense of working alone.

With so many people dying it was logical to assume somewhere along the line someone would mess up, a clue would be left. But there was nothing. Not even an agenda appeared through the killers choices of victims. Businessmen, blue collar workers, mothers of children…

But never the children themselves. That was the one inconsistency, for there was one child who had died.

As he went over these things in his head a brown headed boy entered into the room and sat down with a lighted book in his hand.

L called out to him three times before he found himself snatching the book out of the boy's hands.

The boy didn't even move. He sat as still as a statue, his hands cupped as if a book was still within them, his eyes starring at empty space. Finally he blinked twice, looked up at L, and narrowed his eyes like a snake.

"Give that back!" He hissed.

Maybe the child was a snake, L thought, and he had just traversed onto his territory.

Only this snake was a part of a pack, a pack whom had not returned to the den, "Once you tell me where Roger and the other children are."

The child's eyes glazed over then. His body once more returned to that statue like, blink less state. After a few moments he blinked twice, narrowed his eyes again, and shrugged. "Beats me, now give me back my book!"

L held the book above the child's head, swinging it between two fingers, "You know, the more you act like you want something someone has, the more that someone is going to try to extract things from you before you get it back. You should bite back on your emotion." He said, but even more than saying that to the kid, he felt like he was talking to himself.

"Yeah, well, you should bite back on being a cold hearted jerk who steals the reading rooms and the reading materials of children."

A cold hearted jerk? Well, L supposed he would have to be in order to meet with the Aconite killer. If he really did snag Roger and the other kids that would make this meeting more difficult.

In the end could he refuse to help those to whom he felt some form of emotion for? It was for the sake of many more people, true, but it was people to whom he felt nothing personal for at all.

But emotions were useless. The choice was easy and logical.

The child stood in the middle of an anarchic storm, and he was the eye.

…

A black haired man lay on his desk, blood trickling down the side of his mouth.

"The mind is a funny thing, bringing up such useless and illogical images now." He mused to himself.

"Hey! Don't phase out on me. Give me back my book!"

L flipped to the front cover of the book, opened it and then read the name on the inside, "Take it, Ender."

Ender fumbled with the book as L tossed it to him. After a few moments he secured it under one arm and looked up at L, his face saturated with emotion, "It's from a book." He said in defense before opening up the thing. Instantly all emotion from his face was drained like a plug had been pulled, drying up the turbulent waters in his heart.

L watched the boy as he strode from the room, then turned back to the terminal and the death trail that had been left for him.