(Thanks for the actuall ages of Mello and Near Red. They are both younger and older than I thought.
Commas seem to be the bane of my writing world. They kind of have a mind of their own and jump in when they feel like it. I'll have to watch that.)
#---
The sunlight pierced the pupils of the man wearing the brown cloak like a dagger as he strode down the side walk; it sliced his eyes every time he looked up.
So, naturally, he looked down as he walked.
He stepped in between two black poles acting as a makeshift gate and walked into a tropical oasis in the middle of a technologically advanced but necessarily unaesthetic culture.
L looked up; sheltered from the sun by the shade of the hundreds of trees which hugged the path as if in protecting it from the greedy eyes of the outside world.
Flowers were in bloom everywhere in an assortment of colors. It was a modern day garden of Eden.
This single path oasis had a black bench sitting in the direct middle. On the opposite side of this bench walked an old man, his white hair hanging limp on his head. His body was wrinkled like a walking prune and he took small, short steps as he made his way.
He looked harmless. It was the eyes, though, that gave him away. As if the age and skin was nothing but a suit the eyes shown through with a blazing clarity unaffected by time; a witty knife not dulled by the years.
L slowed his pace up. Both he and the old man sat down at the same time.
"What do you want from me?" L asked.
"Straight to the point," The old man's voice was sandy and scratchy, "Are you sure you don't want to shoot the breeze a little? After all, this may be your last chance to chat."
A particularly curious red flower was hanging over the benches back. L turned to look at it and plucked it. He eyed it with a front of wonder, "It won't be."
"And how do you know that?"
"Because you want something besides my death."
"Maybe I just want to see you suffer."
L reached up and plucked one of the petals off of the flower. He let it go. In this place, free of the wind, the petal floated unhindered to the walk way.
"Then go ahead and tell your men to invade the building. Kill every last person in there. Then kill the one's you have in your possession." He plucked another petal.
The old man watched this petal fall to the ground. As he eyed L the detective couldn't help but get the feeling that he was being scrutinized; being looked over and compared to some standard the man held in his head, "What is it? Is the place set to explode? Are the very floors and walls coated with aconite?"
Pluck. The petal fell to the sidewalk again.
"Or is it…" The old man continued, now seeming to talk more to himself than to L, "That you are really that cold hearted of a bastard?"
"None of the above actually: I'm not a big fan of explosives, you didn't give me enough aconite to actually coat the walls and floors, and if I was intent upon having everyone dead I would have simply had you arrested right here and let the consequences follow."
"Then why did you show up?"
"Because you wanted me to."
"Why would I want that?"
"Because this is personal."
L picked the last petal off of the flower. It floated to the ground on top of its fallen brethren. A gentle breeze then came and took all the pieces of the flower away on some unknown journey.
Shifting his eyes from the spot where the petals were to the man, he saw in those pitch black pupils that the man was laughing inwardly. A smile slowly crept its way onto the "gentleman's" face and made it look like one gigantic pink wrinkled rag.
"You're father would have been proud."
Father? His heart tried to leap in his chest but L forced it down. A game-that was all this was to this man. In a game of logic and reason emotions lose.
But if this man did actually know his father then all the pieces of the puzzle slipped perfectly into place.
"I see it in your eyes. You have the whole picture now, don't you Lawliette?"
L let the center of the flower he had been holding to be caught by the wind and carried away, down the path and out of this lush oasis.
#---
"What do you already know?" The old man asked.
This was the part where things became serious. Each man had already set up their final pieces. This was the part where they each set into motion their final gambits.
L was short a few pieces. Yet he also knew one rule in this game that the old man had seemed to neglect to notice.
"I know that the Aconite killer is not the Aconite killer at all, but the Aconite killers. I used to think that they were under the leadership of one man, you. That's not true. They are under no leadership at all. The order of the killings are too chaotic, too random for it to be by one man. I think it is done by many people operating under the principles of a loose guideline ordained by one group."
"Impressive." The old man said.
"I also think now that you aren't a welcomed part of the group. You killed like you were a part of the group but you killed for your own agenda; to get me to come and investigate the case. I think now that you did know my father, but it wasn't on a friendly basis. You knew him…and you killed him. Now you, for some reason, want to test me. Maybe it's some unfinished business or an anti-climatic conclusion to your bout with my father; it doesn't matter. I think you just want to see if you can beat me in a game."
"Oh," The old man chuckled. It was a hideous, wheezing laugh that sounded like two torn and decomposing air bags deflating, "I already have won our game."
"Then finish it."
The old man reached into his black pocket and pulled out a small, square black device. It was one of those old time push the button on the side radios. He turned it on and static saturated the air.
"Are you sure you don't want to prolong this?" The old man asked L.
"For what purpose? The pieces are already set up."
The old man clicked the radio and spoke a few short orders into it. Then he looked back up at L, "Check mate."
The radio cackled into the air, taunting the loser of this chess match. It continued to cackle-cackle and cackle until the old man couldn't take it anymore. He spoke into the static once more, "Is it finished?"
This time a voice replied, "Mr. Vengo, if you would do us a favor and please refrain from using our secure line for your little games we would be most appreciative."
His black eyes widened in a curious horror. He looked up at L who only looked back, his eyes wider, curious as to the actions a prideful man would take in defeat.
"What do you mean my own little games? We were in this together! We all had our part to play! Mine was to kill the detective."
"Yes," The voice responded. He sounded young, too young to be involved in this sort of serious matter, "Kill. You toyed with him for too long. Because of you we had to move our training grounds and find a different place to stash the Aconite. You cost us too much money and time for our patience to last."
"B-but!" The old man stammered; the enjoyment and relish now absent. All pridefully selfish men who were a slave to their emotions, L now supposed, were the same when their petty notions of revenge or success are taken away from them. They are childish, unable to accept defeat, "At this rate, h-he'll win! He'll catch us all and all of it will be for nothing!"
"Will he? He will try. But he already knows that if he continues in his pursuit of us we will kill him. We have already spoken on such matters."
The old man looked up at L for confirmation. The detective nodded.
Recognition donned in his eyes like a man who had finally witnessed the final curtain of what lay behind reality itself, "You went to them! You went to them and had me cut off! H-how!?"
Like a train building up steam this selfish man who had lost his way was slowly "thinking he could" straight into insanity.
"You know what? I don't care. Kill him!"
His head snapped to the bushes behind the bench. L followed his line of slight. No one came out.
"God! Did they take everything!? Do I have no support left!?"
A gun did protrude from the bushes then like a prayer answered. Only this time, it seemed, God had a twisted sense of humor for the gun did not point at L, but at the old man instead.
L pulled the hood of his cloak over his head and bent his head low as he stood up.
"Misora, please be kind and take this gentleman to your headquarters."
Naomi Misora stepped out from behind the cover of the trees and flowers.
"That's not possible. You were detained. This game was supposed to be between me and L!"
L turned his back to walk away.
"Wait! L! How did you do it!?"
"Simple," The detective responded, "I moved my pawn to the other side of the board."
Then he heard the rattle of hand cuffs and the reading of the rights.
This game was over. Check mate.
#--
It was later, at the orphanage, when all the children were back and both Watari and Roger were making sure things were in order that L was talking to Naomi over the phone.
"Thank you for the help." He began.
"No problem. Once you got me released it was the least I could do. But how did you do it?"
L shoved a handful of multi-colored chocolate coated candies into his mouth. He munched on them in contentment, for sweets always gained flavor after victory.
"I bribed a few men that the killer had stationed outside of my headquarters to allow me to talk to their boss's. Once I figured out that the Aconite killer was working within a group, and the group wasn't going to benefit from one man trying to toy with a detective, I felt there was a high percentage chance that the men stationed outside of my headquarters were not the Aconite killer's men but the group's men. So money was more than enough to cause a betrayal."
"Out of curiosity, why did they release me to begin with?"
"I'm not sure exactly. I can only assume they wanted the same thing as I did at that time: the capture of the one posing as the Aconite killer."
Normally L would not bother himself with such trivial question and answers. Once something was done it was finished. This time, though, he relished in the victory, but more than just that trivial emotional matter, he still required Miss Misora's assistance.
"What will you do now, L?"
"What you will hopefully do. Go after and stop the group behind the Aconite killings. Please, Miss Misora, if you would lend me your assistance again interrogate Mr. Vengo and find out all the information you can."
After they hung up the phone L called for Watari.
As he sat there waiting for the man his mind wondered briefly if he could have sacrificed those captured if it allowed him to obtain justice against one who would kill many more.
Then he pushed such thoughts away.
It was night-a time to work, not to dream.
And for L night time never ended.
(Thank you for reading that chapter. It seemed to write itself mostly, I just had to tweak it. I'm a little surprised that the aconite killer was a renegade, but as I wrote it it just seemed to fit.)