Disclaimer: I don't own many things, but at this point I think I can safely claim ownership of this ridiculous plotline.

A/N: So, the Twin Peaks revival has begun. If this story starts veering off into surreal, nonsensical territory, you can probably blame it on that. :P

I also just finished watching the Death Note tv drama, and holy crap I love it. It's so, soooo different, but brilliant in quite a few aspects. (It's on CrunchyRoll btw!) It may already be influencing some small details here, hehe.

Chapter 10: Puppy Power!

There were exactly three bobby pins in her hair. She'd been laying on the ruins of her hairdo for hours now and could feel every one of them. The rest had fallen out during the chase, or when she was snatched up, or when she was forced to change clothes.

It didn't matter, really. One would be enough.

Daphne hurled herself up into a sitting position, hands cuffed uselessly behind her back. Rubbing her head against that lumpy abomination of a pillow hadn't worked at all. She'd kept trying that for a while just to avoid the risk of slinging them out of reach, but it seemed she had no choice. There was no telling when Kira, or whoever he was, would be back.

He'd left shortly after dawn, two hours ago by her estimation, and she hadn't heard a sound from inside the building since. Not much outside either, for that matter. The place looked like a warehouse, but was half-rusted and near empty. She assumed it wasn't the only abandoned building around. If this was a functional warehouse district, a dock, or an industrial compound, she'd have heard workers milling about by now. This place didn't exactly seem sound-proof, after all, and yet her captor hadn't bothered to gag her. He couldn't have been too concerned with there being anyone around to hear her.

Leaning over the ratty cot to catch any flyaways, Daphne flung her hair forward. Despite the hours and the matting from the pillow, it didn't move much. Good quality hairspray was a double-edged sword. Frustrated, she tried again and again, putting the most dedicated of headbangers to shame, until finally a sizeable section of hair fell across her face. The prize lay within it – a nearly invisible black pin buried in what had been gorgeously styled red hair last night, before her dinner was so rudely interrupted.

As carefully as she could in her current clumsy, armless state, she leaned forward into the cot, pressing her face into the hair, and dug the pin out with tongue and teeth. Expensive as her hair products were, she somehow expected her hair to taste better than it did. No time to be fussy, though.

Once it was free, she sat up and laughed triumphantly around the tiny bit of lacquered metal. She flung her hair back out of her face, then looked as far over her shoulder as she could and dropped the pin near her hands. Her fingers found it easily enough.

"Alright, Daph, you can do this," she told herself, and set to work picking the handcuff lock.

"It is my wish to foster goodness in this world, and punish only the wicked..."

"Bullcrap."

"Mello..."

"What? All I said was crap."

"Quiet, Mello," Velma hissed.

"...but the police and L have forced my hand. It is they who have allowed the innocent to suffer, because they are too stubborn or too afraid to join me."

"This is indeed bullcrap."

"You're not helping, Ryuuzaki."

"Do we not have the same goal? If you continue to fight me, more innocents will die."

"This has to be fake. It sounds like it was written by a 14-year-old – oww!" Light received a swift kick in the shin for his comment. Nobody chastised Mello this time.

"I will give the Japanese police three days to decide: acknowledge Kira or watch your country suffer."

"Ooooh, that Kira! Lemme at 'im, I'll sssplat him!"

"Rappy, be riet."

"As a token of your cooperation, and to ensure the safety of your citizenry, you will offer up L as a sacrifice."

The room stilled, with the exception of Mello, who rushed to L's side as if to protect him.

"Give me L, and not a single innocent will die." The video stopped with that, and returned to the newsdesk, minus one presumably dead anchor.

"A single innocent?" Fred repeated, stepping up from the back of the group. "That wasn't a fake video. He was talking about Daphne."

"At least if he's threatening her life, that means she's still alive," Velma said. She wrung her hands nervously in the hem of her sweater. "It means he'll keep her alive for three days, until he gets his answer."

"Earlier in the broadcast, did they not speak of tapes, plural?" L asked no one in particular.

"Yes! That is, I think so," Matsuda offered.

L ran his thumb thoughtfully over his bottom lip. "Then... the additional tapes may be prerecorded responses, meant to be played after the police have made their decision."

Chief Yagami steeled himself and marched toward the door. "Mogi, Aizawa, let's get those tapes."

"Yes, sir!" both cried out, hopping to attention.

"Yagami-san," L said, halting them. He was tempted to stop them from going entirely, though he knew someone would have to do it. Instead he merely asked, "You have the masks Watari gave you?"

Yagami and Mogi patted their pockets. Aizawa pulled his mask partway out from under his jacket. L nodded, and they went.

L turned back toward his desk, plodding along slowly, lost in thought. Mello tagged along, catching his sleeve. "Ryuuzaki-sama, there's no way you'd go along with that, right? You wouldn't just give yourself up, right?"

L stopped in his tracks and regarded his protégé. He didn't have the heart to tell Mello to drop the ridiculous honorific this time. He didn't want to lie to him either, though it would've been the easier thing to do...

"He won't have to!" Matsuda chimed in, appearing at L's side. "The Japanese police, no, the Japanese people aren't so cowardly as to give in to Kira's demands!"

Light joined them as well, clapping a hand on his countryman's shoulder. "That's right, Matsuda-san! Don't worry, Ryuuzaki, Mello-kun. We'll find another way."

L sighed. He was somewhat grateful for the interruption, but... "Still, Light-kun, if it comes to that..."

"We won't let it come to that," Light said firmly. L sighed again. The innocence and determination on Light's face was enough to wound.

"We no longer know what Kira is capable of, or how far he is willing to go." L placed a hand on Mello's bony shoulder and met his worried blue eyes. "Mello, I have no wish to be a martyr, but there are more important things at stake than my own life."

Mello's lip trembled, and he squeaked out, "Not to me."

Instinctively, L began to look for an escape route. He seemed to be developing a terrible talent for upsetting people as this case drug on.

Pi pi pi! Pi pi pi!

Light whisked the phone from his pocket, mumbling apologies as he silenced the noise. L found himself reevaluating his distaste for cell phones interrupting conversations, though he had a feeling this particular conversation would be back to haunt him soon enough.

"It's Misa," Light announced before answering it. The model's ear-piercing squeals could be heard on the other end before he could properly greet her. He took a couple of steps away from the others, but all ears were on him anyway. L realized with a bit of relief that Mello, too, was now too focused on Light to remain upset.

"Misa? Are you all right? What..."

"Wasn't she the other suspect?" said Near, suddenly standing behind L. "The one you were trying to investigate at the restaurant?"

"Yes, Misa, I saw it too..."

"She was never officially a suspect," L told him quietly, "but yes, she's the one."

"Not officially?"

"There was never any evidence of her involvement," Fred said stoically, joining them. He pointedly avoided looking at L.

"What? But Misa..," Light was saying.

"Evidence?" Mello hissed, eyes wide and wild. "L's word isn't evidence enough for you people?!"

"Of course not!" Fred hissed back. L winced, and his toes started fidgeting on the floor.

"We can't simply make arrests without proof, Mello-kun," Matsuda whispered, wearing a placating smile as he placed himself between the two blonds.

"Okay, Misa, but just..," Light was saying, rubbing at his temples, "please don't do this kind of thing again, okay?"

"L is the one person whose very word is worthy of our respect," Near stated, as if it were unshakable fact. "Proof or not, if he was willing to put himself and others at risk for it, he must have had good reason for suspecting her."

Fred clearly wasn't satisfied by that, but didn't have a comeback for it, either.

Mello grinned at the statement. He even tried for a fistbump with Near, though the pale boy only stared at the hovering fist until Mello rolled his eyes and withdrew it.

"Okay, yes, I'll see you in just a minute." Light snapped his phone shut.

"You'll see her?" L immediately questioned.

"She saw the broadcast, and I guess it must have freaked her out a little, after yesterday," Light said. He stretched his arms out for an exaggerated shrug. "She says she desperately needs to see me."

"How romantic!" Matsuda wibbled. "Light-kun is like a knight in shining armor!"

"Like maaan, if you'd been chased around haunted castles by as many crazy guys in armor as we have, you wouldn't think knights were so romantic," Shaggy chimed in. At some point he, Scooby, and Velma had wandered off to join Matt and Scrappy at the team's work table.

"Reah, rot romantic rat all," Scooby agreed, teeth chattering at the reminder.

"This really isn't the time to be going off for a date, Light-kun."

"That's the thing, Ryuuzaki, she's already here."

L nibbled his thumb through a frown. He really shouldn't have let her meet him here before, but Light hadn't wanted to go out in public with them handcuffed together. Of course he didn't seem to care about that at the restaurant yesterday...

"As I said, I think that Kira video just scared her. I'll try to reassure her and then send her on her way."

L simply grunted his consent. There was really nothing else that could be done about her anyway, and at least here the security cameras would record any suspicious behavior.

Light grabbed his jacket from the couch, where he'd folded it into a pillow to sleep on, and stepped out through the double doors. Mello stared after him, mouth gaping open.

"You're just letting him go? Unsupervised?"

L snuck a wary glance at Fred and Matsuda, who'd begun chatting a few feet away. Even without Aizawa or the elder Yagami present to protest, his hands were tied. "I have no real evidence against either of them, Mello."

"But, but..," Mello sputtered.

"Daphne was alone with Misa for a time too, isn't that right?" Near suddenly asked, before Mello could put a sentence together.

"She followed her into the bathroom, yeah," Velma confirmed, hopping up from her spot at the table. "I didn't notice anyone else come out, so I'd say they were alone in there."

"And did she observe anything unusual? Or did she act unusual herself, once she'd exited the restroom?" Near pressed, twirling a lock of hair between his fingers.

"I... I don't think so." Velma rubbed at her chin, considering. "But by then it was all chaos..."

"Wait a second! There was something!" Fred said. "Before she was abducted, she did say she saw a clue, but she never got a chance to tell us what it was."

Velma snapped her fingers. "That's right! She tried a couple different times to tell us, but that monster kept showing up..."

A devious, unnerving little smile lit up Near's face. "Why would she be so desperate to tell you right away, unless it was a clue that only she could have possibly seen?"

"And why else would the shinigami abduct her, specifically?" Mello added, blue eyes afire with inspiration.

"I'm not sure how much purpose there was in that. It also attacked me personally, for no clear reason," Velma said, pulling up one of her sweater sleeves to reveal still-red scratches from the shinigami's claws.

"And besides," Fred said gravely, "if Daph saw something so vital, why abduct her rather than kill her?"

"Mello," Near said in his flat, unquestionable tone, ignoring the adults' comments. Mello met his eye and grinned.

"C'mon, Matt!" he called out, turning and running for the door. "You too, runt!"

As soon as the elevator doors closed behind Light, it dinged and ascended back toward headquarters. He briefly wondered if something had happened – all the more reason to get rid of Misa quickly.

He strode through the wide open false lobby toward the building's false public entrance, where Misa stood peeking through the glass. The room itself was kept moderately lit, for appearances' sake, but the sun streaming inside completely negated the artificial lights. The entire frontage was glass, save the thin window and door frames, and in the morning hours it took the sun's full brunt. Light was bathed in his own namesake and shone like a golden god by the time he reached the door. He put on a smile for her, and let her inside.

"Light!" she squealed, attacking him with affection as soon as the door opened wide enough to allow. He maintained his smile and tried to ignore how her bulky purse, wedged between them, felt like it was bruising his ribs.

"Good morning, Misa," he said, gently prying her off of himself. "Listen, I'm afraid I can't visit for very long."

"What? Why not?" Misa pouted her red-painted lips for all they were worth. Light sighed. Wasn't it obvious?

"We're still investigating what happened at the restaurant last night, Misa." He spoke like he was placating a child, as he often felt he was when dealing with this infatuated girl. With great effort, he kept a patient smile.

"Oh, right," she said quietly.

On the dark side of the false lobby, where the sun couldn't reach, the elevator dinged open again. Light expected it would be Ryuuzaki, come to fetch him; instead, it was two of Ryuuzaki's teenage oddballs that came sprinting out of the dark. The even odder talking puppy ran right behind them, up on his hind legs like a person.

"Hey, Yagami-kun!" one of them yelled as they traversed the shadow-striped field of yellow sunlit marble. "Can we meet your girlfriend?!"

"Oh my gosh, are you cuties fans of Misa-Misa?" Misa gushed when they were close enough to be seen clearly.

"Definitely!" Matt declared, wearing a doofy grin beneath his orange goggles.

"Yeah, we totally are," Mello agreed, though he didn't sound nearly as enthusiastic about it.

"Wow, you're even prettier in person..," Matt said in awe, still grinning his head off. Mello elbowed his side while Misa giggled.

"So hey, do you like puppies?" Mello asked, adopting a wolfish grin himself as he scooped up Scrappy to show to her.

"Oh my gosh he's adorable!"

"Rrrr, I'm not adorable!" Scrappy protested, wiggling in Mello's grip. "I'm rrrough! And tough! And—"

"And he talks?!" Misa squealed, snatching him and trapping him in one of her vice-grip hugs.

Light just stood and gawked for a moment, wondering how she could accept the whole talking dog thing so easily, even as simple-minded as she was.

"Ah, Misa? Wasn't there something important you needed to see me about?"

"Oh, right!" Misa awkwardly shifted the wriggling puppy under one arm and dug into her unwieldy bag with the other. She pulled out a red and black wrapped gift box, her phone and a couple of makeup tubes falling out of her bag in the process. "This is for you!"

"A gift? That's what this was all about?" Light had to try very, very hard not to let disdain into his voice. Not that Misa was ever very tactful, but it was a highly inappropriate time to call him away from the investigation for her trivial girlfriend nonsense.

"An important gift!" She was pouting again. Light looked the gift over to placate her. An elaborate red lace bow was tied around it, miraculously not crushed out of shape despite having been crammed in her bag. He sighed and began to pull at it, but suddenly Misa's free hand was waving wildly in his face.

"No no no! Don't open it right now!" she insisted, looking curiously distressed over it.

"Why not, if it's that important?"

"I mean, um..." Misa leaned in closer to Light. "It's not appropriate to open with these kids around..."

"Yagami-kun, you dog you," Mello snorted. Misa giggled. Light looked the gift over more closely, as if wary of it now.

"Pretty pathetic excuse for a dog, if you ask me!" Scrappy said, fighting Misa's arm. She just reshuffled him into a hug again.

"So cute!"

"Wow, Misa-san, this is a really fancy cell phone! But Misa-san doesn't look like much of a tech geek..."

Light looked down at Matt and scowled. The kid was sitting in the floor fiddling with the sizeable smartphone that had fallen from her bag.

"Oh no, I'm not techie at all!" Misa declared, rubbing her cheek lovingly against a still-wiggling Scrappy. "The salesman just talked me into buying it, he said it was the best one."

"It's rude to snoop at other people's phones, Matt-kun," Light said. Misa looked down at the redheaded teen curiously.

"Matt-kun?" she mumbled.

"Oh yeah, we kinda forgot to introduce ourselves. I'm Mello, and that's Matt, and the little guy you're holding hostage is Scrappy." He struck a pose, one hand on his hip and the other extended for Misa to shake. She shook it, but still looked a little thrown off.

"Nice to meet you, um, Mello-kun..."

"They're foreigners, Misa. Kids of some of the Interpol officers working with us," Light quickly lied. "That's why they have funny names."

"Oh! Well, you both speak Japanese really well. You must study really hard!"

"Harder than you could imagine," Matt laughed, pushing himself off the floor. "Here's your phone."

"Thank you, Matt-kun, you're such a sweetie," she cooed, batting her eyelashes in a way that made him blush.

"Misa, if this is all you wanted to see me about..." Light held up the gift. "I should really be getting back to work now."

"Oh, right," she said. Her cute pout seemed to have more effect on Matt than on Light, as he immediately dropped back down to the floor to gather up the smaller items that had fallen. Misa left a big red kiss-stain on Scrappy's cheek before handing him over to Mello, who simply dumped him on the floor.

"Eee-yuck!" the puppy complained, trying to rub the kiss off.

Matt popped back up to give Misa her things, earning him a kiss on the cheek as well. Between his hair, the lipstick mark, and his furious blushing, Matt became an entirely literal red-head.

Misa giggled, resettling her bag on her hip as she reached for the door. "Just remember, Light, don't open that until you're all alooone..!"

She gave him a wink over her shoulder as she left, and they all stood for a moment, watching her through the glass as she skipped happily down the walkway and toward the streets.

"Wow, Yagami-kun, you're so lucky to have a girlfriend like that," Matt marveled. Mello grabbed the strap of his goggles and started dragging him toward the elevators, scowling and grumbling something under his breath that definitely wasn't Japanese. Scrappy bounded along behind them, and Light followed, chuckling as he tossed his mystery gift from hand to hand.

"This one has appeared on these programs before, has he not?"

"Huh?" Matsuda looked up from his laptop. The most L-like of L's little protégés stood between his seat and the television, compulsively shuffling and reshuffling a deck of playing cards. His big black eyes never spared a glance for the cards, instead glued to the broadcast – one of Sakura TV's sensationalistic Kira-worshipping programs. They apparently hadn't had the good taste to cancel it, even with Kira killing one of their news anchors less than an hour ago. A line of fanatics had queued up in front of the studio audience, waiting for a chance at the microphone. The second one in line did look familiar, in fact – stoic, businesslike, with smart glasses and long hair.

"You mean the guy in the suit there?" Matsuda pointed. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure I've seen him a few times. He's usually the only one in the audience dressed so nicely."

The man in question stepped up the mic. The show's host began to ask a question, but the man started speaking over him.

"Lord Kira, give me your words," he said seriously, directly into the camera. "We mere mortals can only presume to know what you wish of us. Without your guidance..."

The host, taking offense at the man's rudeness, was attempting to steal the microphone away from him. The man's stoicism broke, his eyes wild as he shouted to finish his statement.

"...we can only do what we think best, and pray that you approve!"

As the studio security guards drug him away, he could be heard yelling "Speak to me! Kira!"

Near turned toward Matsuda with an unnerving smile on his face. Matsuda gulped. This kid would be a shoo-in to play a ghost in the next Ju-on movie.

"Wouldn't it be interesting," he said, slowly thumbing the corners of his card deck, "if he really was speaking directly to Kira?"

"Um... I'm pretty sure he thought he was."

"I meant, using these foolish television programs to communicate with Kira, as his accomplice."

Matsuda balked. "You mean... You think that random nutjob on TV could've been Kira's accomplice?!"

Near shrugged his shoulders. "Why not? I doubt Kira has been carrying out all this shinigami business on his own. We may reveal his potential accomplices by investigating 'random nutjobs' like him."

"But... well..." Actually, Matsuda couldn't think of an argument against that. He looked helplessly to his superiors, who'd just gotten back a few minutes ago and had been talking with L ever since.

He found that the whole room had gone silent, and all eyes were on them.

"Near-kun," Chief Yagami spoke up. "There are hundreds, if not thousands, of Kira supporters in this city. Even if we limit it to only those who've appeared on these pro-Kira shows, we don't have the manpower to identify and investigate them all."

"I'm not suggesting we investigate all of them. I'm suggesting we profile them and investigate the ones that stand out," Near said in a cold monotone, smile gone, cards still.

"That's easier said than done..."

"I just did it."

"We need defined criteria and probable cause!" Aizawa exclaimed. "We can't just start invading people's personal lives because they happened to say something stupid on TV! That's just grasping at straws, like Ryuuzaki's been doing all along. And look where that's gotten us."

Near's eyes seemed to flash. Matsuda winced and instinctively sank down in his seat.

"If we make an incorrect assumption," he deadpanned, "we can simply apologize and move on."

Finally, L stood up with a long-suffering sigh to join the argument. "Near, it's not so simple in this case."

Near's blank expression was broken with a pair of blinks. Matsuda was certain it was the first time he'd blinked since they'd begun talking.

"It's how you operate. It's how you've taught us to operate."

"Yes. And I may have been wrong."

The room was stunned into silence, except for the flutter of playing cards falling to the floor.

"However," L continued, toes fidgeting, "I have been considering the possibility that Kira has recruited as many as three accomplices, and it is entirely possible that he is using these pro-Kira spectacles to find good candidates."

"Three additional culprits, Ryuuzaki?" Yagami said, aghast. "Why haven't you mentioned this before now?"

L frowned, and plodded back toward his desk and his lukewarm coffee. "I haven't kept this theory entirely to myself. However, I have no direct evidence to support it, and lately my theories aren't taken seriously without evidence. Why bother to mention it, when it would only cause arguments?"

Near scowled and sat in the floor, carefully gathering his cards up. Matsuda scooped up a few that had flown his way and passed them over. He felt like he sat on the sidelines of this investigation most of the time, but when all these heavy-hitters and certified geniuses started arguing, the sidelines didn't seem like such a bad place to be.

"Ooooh, nobody ever believes me!" came a flustered little canine voice from the hallway. The double doors opened a second later, and Light politely held one open to let the two teenagers and Scrappy Doo go in first. Matsuda waved to him, but he only acknowledged him with a nod and went on to find Ryuuzaki.

"I'm tellin' ya, she was up to something!" the pup continued, punching the air as he spoke.

"Just because you don't like her doesn't make her suspicious, Scrappy."

"And just because you've got a damn crush doesn't make her innocent, Matt," Mello countered, jabbing him in the ribs with an elbow for at least the fourth time that day.

"Ahem," Velma loudly cleared her throat. Even from across the room, Mello was loud enough for anyone to hear.

"Yeah yeah, language, I know." He rolled his eyes and steered toward where Near and Matsuda sat, in the circle of couches by the television. Matt followed, a more obedient heeler than Scrappy would probably ever be.

"Scrappy, what were you talking about?" Velma asked. The pup pumped his little legs as fast as he could over to the work table where she and the rest of their gang were gathered.

"That Misa girl!" he barked. "I just know she's up to something! I could smell it on her!"

"That's not very descriptive, you know," Velma sighed.

"Yeah, like, what'd ya smell exactly?" Shaggy asked. "Gunpowder? Gasoline? Smoke? Maybe charcoal smoke? Maybe like, some ribs and barbeque sauce?"

Scooby hopped to attention. "Roooh, rand rielbasa rand reak rebabs!"

"And like, a fried apple pie with mustard for dessert!"

The two chowhounds melted into their chairs, eyes closed and licking their lips as they reveled in their food fantasy. Velma and Fred rolled their eyes and ignored them.

"Oooh, I don't know what it was!" the pup cried in frustration. "I can't put my paw on it, but something definitely smelled wrong, like... like there was an extra person hanging around or something."

Scooby jerked out of his daydream immediately, and managed to turn pale despite having a face covered in fur. "Rike a r-g-g-ghost?!"

"Exactly!" Scrappy declared, snapping his toe-fingers.

"Like, maybe the same ghost that ate that apple in the kitchen?!" Shaggy wondered, voice climbing higher and shaking worse with each word. "I just knew it, man! Every place we go is like, haunted!"

"Rikes!" Scooby tackled Shaggy, and the two of them held onto each other for dear life.

"Scrappy, don't scare your uncle," Fred sighed. "Besides, since when do ghosts have a smell?"

"Oh... right," Scrappy pondered, resting his chin on a paw as he thought hard.

Overhearing, Light sauntered over toward them. "Scrappy, your senses were probably just confused by her perfume. She does tend to overdo it."

"Well, maybe it could have been that..."

"Yagami-kun, what is that thing?" Velma asked, pointing at the red and black box tucked under his arm.

"Oh, it's just a gift from Misa – and the whole reason she wanted to see me so badly, apparently." Light made a belabored sigh and held it up for them to see better. The ribbon had been crushed a bit from the way he carried it. "It seems terribly inappropriate to be worried about gifts right now, though. I think I'll go toss it in my room before I settle back into work."

He nodded politely to them before leaving, skipping quickly up the glass stairs. Fred turned back to his own work, but Velma stared after Light, wondering.

Near was picking up his last few cards when Mello trounced up to him. He stopped and stood with one foot on top of a card, just to spite Near. Near didn't react, or even look up at him when he spoke, just to spite him back.

"Did it go well?" he asked, in Polish. He placed his 51-card deck on the coffee table behind Matsuda's laptop and observed the odd look on the man's face. He switched back to Japanese. "This conversation is not for you." Matsuda jumped and turned his face pointedly back down at his laptop.

Mello snickered, and switched to Polish himself. "Yeah, no thanks to you, creampuff."

"It was my idea."

"Like hell it was! Me and Matt did all the legwork and had to come up with a plan on the fly!" He jerked a thumb toward Matt, who had sprawled out on the couch beside them and was casually messing around on a phone.

"Meaning, Matt did it all."

"Hey shut up, it was mostly my idea," Mello insisted, glowering. "Plus I provided the distraction. And I supervised."

"Quiet, Mello. I doubt any of the rest of them would understand us, but we don't want to attract L or V's attention." Near turned toward the couch, leaving Mello to stew silently. "Matt, I assume you've got a tracking device on her now, at least?"

"Better." Matt rolled onto his stomach and held out his phone for Near to see. It displayed a GPS map with a moving, blinking beacon. "I got ahold of her phone for a couple minutes, so I got a tracer and a bug program going. I can track her to within a hundred feet or so, depending on how good a cell signal she's got, and any calls or texts on her phone will clone over to mine."

"Good. That's exactly what I expected you would do." Near smiled deviously up at Mello.

"You are such an asshole," Mello huffed. Near just shrugged. Mello kicked the playing card out from under his foot. He was sorely disappointed that it didn't fly up high enough to hit Near in his smug face.

Near was reaching for the card when he saw Light ascending the stairs. He froze in place. "Mello, what is that package in his hand?"

"Huh?" Mello looked over his shoulder. "Oh yeah, Misa brought him a present. Said it was private—" he wiggled his fingers to emphasize the word "—and wouldn't let him open it in front of us."

Near's eyes flashed with annoyance. "Why would you omit such a thing? That could be evidence, or secret communications..."

"Or nudes, more likely. This chick was a ditz, Near, I doubt she could pull off anything covert."

"It's still suspicious. You should have informed me."

It was Mello's turn to shrug. "Not my fault you didn't come and profile her yourself. Besides, it doesn't seem like L even thinks it's anything important."

Near frowned and fingered his hair. "His hands are tied, Mello, you've seen that for yourself. Otherwise you know there's no way he wouldn't inspect that gift, private or not."

"If it's nudes, I volunteer to inspect it!" Matt declared. Mello wiped the grin off his face with a warning punch to the kidney.

Near finally retrieved his final card from the floor and studied it: the jack of spades.

"These people are holding L back, and he has let their doubts weaken his resolve." Near placed the jack face up on the table, apart from the rest of the deck. "We must act on our own in order to truly help him."

Matt and Mello both looked on, solemn now.

"What can we do, though?" Matt asked. "We can't leave the building, and Watari will know if I try to trick the security cameras again. Plus, we invade Yagami's privacy, and we'll get the same treatment as L."

"We look for an opportunity, and make our move the second we get one," Mello said. "That's what we do."

As luck would have it, Sakura TV had made copies of the tapes. Not only did it save them the time of duplicating the recordings themselves, but it meant that the originals could be rushed off to the crime lab right away, hopefully with no more than a couple of extraneous sets of fingerprints from the TV studio's employees.

When L listened to the copies, however, things seemed far from hopeful.

His instincts had been right about one thing: the tapes, as originally labeled, were in fact reactions meant to be given once the police had responded to Kira's ultimatum. And yet...

After listening privately, he gathered everyone around to listen. For once, he doubted there would be any arguments over what it all meant.

"This one assumes the police refuse to accept Kira," he prefaced, gingerly pressing the play button.

"How disappointing that you place so little value on the lives of your friends and countrymen."

Everyone stood silently waiting, listening to the crackles of soft static for a solid ten seconds, before someone finally asked, "Is that it?"

"Oddly, yes, Light-kun. The other message is just as short." L pressed another button and swapped the tapes out.

"Good. I will contact you directly very soon with instructions for our exchange."

"Directly?" Velma wondered. "As in, by different means than this?"

"So it would seem."

"These messages..," Light said, tapping a finger on the side of his face. "These were never intended to air at all, were they? Kira knew that the police would confiscate the tapes."

"My thoughts exactly, Light-kun. These messages were intended for us, and us alone."

"So what? We're meant to just sit around and wait for a kidnapper to call about their ransom?" Aizawa said.

"Sounds like it," Velma said. "We've had no luck in finding his hideout so far. An actual exchange set up by Kira is almost sure to be a trap, but it would still be our best shot at getting Daphne back."

"Not to mention our best shot at catching Kira, or one of his accomplices at least," Light said.

"Indeed," L nodded. "Yagami-san, you and your people should keep your cell phones on."

"Ryuuzaki, you really think Kira will call one of us directly?" Matsuda gasped.

"It is possible, though it's more likely he will try to contact your department, or even the police's tip hotline, in which case anyone with sense would patch it through to one of you."

Suddenly, Yagami's phone began to chirrup in his pocket. He quickly fished it out, and paled as he stared at its tiny outer screen.

"A blocked number," he choked, holding the phone at arm's length, as if the chirruping was the snoring of a slumbering beast he feared to wake.

"Answer it!" L leapt from his seat and was at the older man's side in an instant, pupils wide as dinner plates.

Yagami flipped it open and touched a button, frowning as he brought the device to his ear. "This is Yagami."

A distorted, scrambled trill of laughter greeted him before the words. "This is Kira."

"K-Kira?!" the chief gasped, staring L in the eye. The entire team, adults and minors, humans and canines alike, stood frozen all around them. L too remained rooted to the spot, but stretched an arm out behind himself and snapped his fingers twice. With the first snap, Velma blinked back to life and practically tackled the microphone at L's workstation, pressing a button on it to hurriedly whisper at Watari in his far-away control room. With the second snap, Matt hopped on a computer, tugging Mogi along and quietly drilling him for Yagami's phone number and any access codes he might know. L swept his hands through the air, motioning for the chief to keep talking.

"I thought we had three days to respond to your message," Yagami said, trying to keep the nervousness out of his voice.

"A show for the public. Neither I nor your pretty American friend can really afford to wait so long."

"Is she safe?"

Velma tapped L on the arm and shoved a headset into his hand the moment she had his attention. He put it on and heard the voice of Kira, scrambled.

"For now."

His own voice must have sounded like this to most people, L realized, until this case had forced him to reveal himself in person. Strange, how unnerving and inhuman it was...

"What is it you want?" Yagami asked.

"Didn't you pay any attention to my message? I want L."

"What makes you think we would betray him so easily?"

"I know I can't rely on the police to hand him over, but perhaps a single policeman, given the right motivation..."

Looking around, L saw that almost everyone was listening in by now, though several of them had to stand in pairs and share headphones.

"And what motivation would that be?" Yagami said gruffly. His moustache twitched as his mouth twisted in worry, and he kept looking to Mogi, who would only gesture for him to keep talking, and to Matt, who wasn't even listening in on the call. His orange-hooded eyes were glued to a monitor and his fingers flew as if playing a manic piano solo.

"Unfortunately I don't know what your connection to this girl is, exactly. She might not be worth trading L for. But there are other girls you might be more inclined to save..."

"Other girls?" Yagami repeated, if only to draw the call out longer. In his gut, he already knew.

"Your daughter is a pretty little thing, isn't she?"

Yagami's composure shattered; he gnashed his teeth and practically foamed at the mouth. "Bastard!"

Yagami's subordinates winced; even Light was startled. None of them could recall a time Soichiro Yagami had yelled quite like that before.

Distorted sneering laughter rang through all their ears at once.

"Bring me L and it won't come to that. Tomorrow. Noon. YB warehouse. No tricks now, Yagami."

The line clicked dead, and Matt swore up a storm in a language most of them couldn't even identify. Those that could didn't offer any reprimands.

"I'm sorry, Ryuuzaki-sama, Velma-san... everybody," the boy said, hanging his head low. "I could only narrow it down to about three square kilometers. He must've had some kinda signal blocker or something..."

"Matty, you idiot." Mello laughed and tossed aside the headphones he'd reluctantly been sharing with both Near and Scrappy. "He named the location anyway!"

"Wait, really?" Matt looked up, hopeful. Mogi clapped him on the back and nearly knocked the skinny teenager over.

"This confirms it," Mogi said, and pointed at the map displayed on the monitor. "There's an old warehouse district overlapping this range."

"Then this YB warehouse is probably his hideout, and not just the exchange site!" Fred said excitedly.

"So the question now is, do we play along with the planned exchange tomorrow or just storm the place now, since we know they're there?" Aizawa asked.

"No." Yagami finally flipped his phone closed and pocketed it. He'd been staring at it in his hand since Kira had hung up. "We only know that Kira – or Kira's accomplice – is there. Kira's hideout, and his hostage, may be someplace else entirely. He may have purposely gone to the exchange site to call, knowing we would attempt to trace it." He looked around the room, eying the other investigators solemnly. "Kira does not give away true leads for free."

"You're right," Velma sighed. "If we try anything before noon tomorrow, we may not only lose our chance to nab Kira, but any hope of getting Daphne back."

"And we risk him making good on his other threat, as retaliation," Light said, meeting his father's eye.

"That creep really has a thing for kidnapping girls, doesn't he?" Mello grumbled.

Scooby whimpered, cowering under the desk. L crouched down on the floor beside him and rubbed his ears to quiet him.

"So like, we wait until noon tomorrow, and then what?" Shaggy said. "If a whole bunch of us show up, man..."

"He'll know we're up to something," Fred concluded. "And he's probably got eyes around the exchange site already, so it may not be possible for us to have reinforcements outside without him knowing."

"It seems we have no choice but to comply with Kira's arrangement," L finally said. He didn't, couldn't, look up at the people he spoke to. He didn't even look at Scooby, because his words made the poor dog whimper anew. He settled for staring at his knees, and his own fingers drumming on one of them.

"Comply?" Light scoffed. "As in, we just hand you over like a human sacrifice to some vengeful god?"

"Yagami-san," L addressed his father, ignoring Light, "in the meantime, if you wish, Watari can make arrangements for your wife and daughter to stay here, for their own protection."

Mello, on the other hand, was paying a great deal of attention to Light. He marched up to him and stared at the older teen's all-too-innocent face with blue fire blazing in his eyes. "Oh yeah, I'm sure you'd hate to see that happen, mister prime suspect," he snarled. "Should we even be discussing this with him around?"

"Light-kun's been cleared already, Mello-kun," Matsuda quietly suggested.

"That's not the way I heard it," Mello challenged, still studying Light, who crossed his arms and glowered right back.

L ignored the staring contest between the two and continued. "Aizawa-san, you also have a family. If you feel it necessary, we can arrange to house them here as well."

"Who's to say any of them would be safer here, with him around?" Mello demanded. "He's probably orchestrating this whole thing right under our noses."

"Ryuuzaki himself has witnessed Light-kun's alibis," Aizawa said. "Before you kids got here, he was even under personal surveillance, but Ryuuzaki let him go because there was no reason to suspect him anymore."

"The hell he did!" Mello yelled, making damn sure everyone could hear him. "The only reason he's not still chained up is because you people backed L into a corner!"

Matsuda turned puppy-dog eyes on L, still crouching in the floor beside one of the actual puppy-dogs. "But... how can you still suspect Light-kun at all, Ryuuzaki? Do you really think he would threaten his own family like this? Or even you, his friend?"

L sighed and finally looked up from his knees, though not at Matsuda. He looked first to Light, who was indeed his friend, in spite of all suspicions. "No, I don't think Light-kun would do such a thing. Kira, on the other hand..."

The room fell quiet, implications hanging heavy in the air. The shuffling of socked feet eventually broke the silence.

"I propose we go ahead with the trade," Near said, standing now in the forefront, "with Light Yagami posing as L."

"B-but, he'll be killed!" Matsuda gasped.

"And exonerated," the albino added, a smile warping his face. "After all, if he is Kira, his accomplices wouldn't kill him."

"And if they don't know him as Kira, they'll have no way of knowing he's not the real L either," Mello jumped in, snapping his fingers just as the idea snapped into place. "So if they don't kill him, or if they realize right away he's not L, it incriminates him!"

"What is this, the Salem witch trials?" Fred stepped forward. "The only way to prove a suspect innocent is to let him die? What kind of solution is that?"

"An imperfect one, but they do have a point. I'll do it."

"Light!" Soichiro admonished, the others around him similarly shocked. Light simply stepped toward the desk, toward L.

"Ryuuzaki, I'm sure we can come up with some kind of plan along those lines that's less suicidal on my part. What do you say?"

L unfurled himself, stood, and met Light's shining brown eyes. "No."

Light balked, his jaw moving with words he couldn't quite form.

"I am done risking others' lives," L continued. "I am responsible for this situation, and I will rectify it."

"By forfeiting your own life?" Velma demanded, marching up and putting herself indignantly between the two of them. "How would that make anything right? How is that an acceptable risk?"

"I have three replacement L's waiting in the wings," L said flippantly, waving an arm in the direction of said replacements, who stood staring at him in varying degrees of shock and horror. "Most of the world will never know the difference."

Velma slapped L with all the force her short body could muster. It echoed through the room and left an angry red mark on his cheek.

"You idiot!" she screeched, gripping a fistful of her sweater's hem in her stinging hand. "You're not just a damn title, L! You have people that care about you and look up to you – you!" She poked a finger in his chest, tears stinging her eyes worse than the slap had stung her palm.

"That's right! You don't get to give up just because you made a mistake!" Mello chimed in, suddenly clinging to L's side.

"And giving Kira what he wants is definitely unacceptable," Light added, smirking at him.

"As is trading one life for another," Soichiro said, putting a hand on his son's shoulder.

"Not to mention that handing one of us the reins prematurely would be highly inadvisable," said Near, unmoved from his spot.

"We'll find a better way, L," Velma said with a trembling smile. Her hand still hung from his shirt, clutching the cotton where she'd poked at it. L enveloped her small hand in his own. They would have to have a talk about her habit of dropping the Ryuuzaki alias for dramatic effect, but it could wait.

"We will find a better way," he echoed, and smiled back at her, just a little.

Fred snapped his fingers, grinning. "And I think I've got one, gang!"

A/N: This one actually came together surprisingly quick, despite being so long. That last scene was the one that took forever, but I didn't want to push that into the next chapter and bog it down. You can probably guess what the next chapter will be about! ;)

Also, if it's not obvious, this story is big and unwieldy (as is the ensemble cast, yeesh). I'm obsessive about details, but there's a lot of room for inconsistencies and tiny plotholes, and the only editor/beta here is me. :P So if you ever think you've found a mistake/contradiction/etc., definitely let me know!