Hey hey hey hey hey! Here I am! Back again! Okay, so I watched a really weird television show this week and it really creeped my out, I don't know why! It wasn't even creepy or anything, but I just got scared. Too much imagination, I guess.

And… too much information, Sofia, so let's get this chapter started. Enjoy!

**I don't own Death Note. Never have, probably never will. Also, I make typos. And I am often too lazy to correct them, so if you hate reading stories with typos, you've been warned.

XxX

36. Locked

Three months ago.

'Hey Morgan,' the man behind the bars mused, staring at the wall in front of him. The wall was good. Empty. Save. In a way.

'What is it?' she asked, annoyed. She didn't like speaking with the man. Not because he was crazy, because she didn't believe that. But because he acted crazy for the sake of it.

'A wife finds her man dead in his office on a Sunday Morning. The wife calls the police, who come and question the wife and the staff. They tell the police what they were doing on Sunday morning, they tell the police their alibies. The wife says she was sleeping, the butler says he was cleaning the closet, the gardener says he was picking vegetables, the maid says she was getting the mail, and the cook says he was preparing breakfast. How can the police know who did it with this information?'

The guard sighed. He had been doing this for a while. Thinking of riddles, murder mysteries. He had started with an impossible one and told her he would give her a new one each day, getting easier and easier until she solved it.

She honestly didn't care who did it. It wasn't a real case and even if it was, she wasn't a detective, this wasn't her job. 'I don't ca—' She stopped, realised something she hadn't even tried to realise.

The criminal looked at her with hopeful eyes, knew she solved it. She might be stupid, but she wasn't that stupid.

'There is no mail on Sundays,' the woman said slowly, surprised to know that she'd actually managed it this time. She solved it.

'Which means that…?' the criminal asked.

'Which means that it must've been the maid.' She still sounded so surprised. She suddenly felt proud, too, because she did it. She'd cracked one of his stupid cases.

'Okay, well done,' he said, not really praising her. This one had been so easy, a child could've solved it. 'Now it's your turn.'

'My turn?' she asked, surprised. Her turn for what?

'To give me a mystery,' he said, trying to smile friendly at her. His social skills weren't as bad as his but it wasn't exactly his area of expertise.

The woman thought about that for a moment. Then she thought about the biggest mystery of all. The case that had even involved the famous L, but was never really solved. It just… stopped. And even though they had stated that the case was closed, she didn't believe it. They couldn't have capture the man without showing the public who it was and how it was done, that was outrageous. The police had been defeated and they had been too ashamed to admit it. 'Oh, I know a mystery,' she said with a sinister smile.

The criminal looked at her with curious eyes.

'Every heard of Kira, Beyond Birthday?'

XxX

'Well, "we" isn't really the right term. Me and Watari will be in this exact room. You are going to the prison as my decoy.'

I was silent for a while. I considered getting angry, but what was there to be angry about? I was his employee, kind of, so I had no reason to argue. But I did have a right to ask questions, or so I believed. 'What is this about Ryuzaki? Why are you so… paranoid? Even more than usually, I mean,' I said, staring at him with the intend of staring the answer right out of him. It was also easier to tell when he was lying when I was looking at his face.

Ryuzaki looked down on me and there was something in his eyes that I couldn't understand. Something close to pain. Something close to human. 'This is about a case… an older case. And a man called Beyond Birthday.'

Beyond Birthday. That didn't ring any bells, even though I wasn't sure why. If it was a criminal L had been involved in, I ought to have known.

'You won't know him,' Ryuzaki said to me, guessing my thoughts. 'But you know his case.'

'I do?' I asked, because I wasn't so sure.

Ryuzaki nodded. 'Yes. Ever heard of the Wara Ningyo Murders?'

My eyebrows rose. Of course I had. Three murders in Los Angeles, years ago already. The murderer was never found, according to the media. But the murders had stopped and the investigation was closed so quickly. I had found it strange, but it wasn't like it had never happened before. I should've known L had something to do with it.

'And I assume Beyond Birthday is the murderer behind that certain case?' I asked, trying to stay calm and composed. To be completely honest, I was kind of disappointed. Only three people dead, not a criminal like Kira. Maybe I… Maybe I could do this. We captured Kira together, didn't we? A serial killer didn't seem half as bad now, now that I know how much worse it could be.

Still, Ryuzaki's expression sort of frightened me when he said: 'That assumption is quite correct.'

XxX

'Hello, miss Doward, I assume?'

The prison manager shook my shaking hand. 'I am Victor Heirs. We are aware of your situation,' he told me, observing me with different eyes because he knew who I was. Or thought he did. Ryuzaki only told me that he'd told the prison that L would come and see for himself what could have happened, but of course, this man couldn't be sure if I was actually L, or just one of his henchwomen.

'I'll first how you the cell he escaped from,' the man began, already beginning to walk.

'Say you want to see the prison area first,' Ryuzaki mumbled inside my ear.

I startled, but only had a few seconds to react. 'Actually!' I said, way too nervous. I thought I could hear Ryuzaki sigh in the earpiece Watari had given me. 'I'd rather see the area first, if I may.' There, that was phrased and handled nicely.

The manager – Mister Heirs – blinked surprised. Then he nodded: 'Of course, miss Doward.'

'Please, call me 'Rhine' from now on,' I said, saying it exactly the same way as Ryuzaki had said it when he asked us to refer to him as 'Ryuzaki'.

Victor Heirs didn't seem to like calling me by my first name so soon, but it wasn't my first name, so I wasn't too bothered. 'Surely, miss Rhine.'

He started to walk again and Ryuzaki sighed in my ear. 'You didn't have to go that far. That seemed suspicious.'

I walked slower so I could talk back to Ryuzaki. 'You said you wanted the surveillance to pick up on that name,' I whispered without moving my mouth too much. A trick I had learned in college, though it hadn't been this necessary until now. Back then, it was just a funny trick. See me sing with my mouth closed!

When Ryuzaki had told me to be sure to drop my fake front name 'Rhine', I had been confused. When I asked him why, he answered it was to send a message. 'How then?' I had asked.

'Because Beyond Birthday knows that I prefer aliases that start with the letter 'R',' had been his answer.

'Yes, but you could've disguised it better,' Ryuzaki said here and now, talking to me through an earpiece that was black and could be easy to noticed if I hadn't worn my hair down. 'It wasn't supposed to be obvious like that. He needs to think I didn't want him to figure out you work for me.'

I rolled my eyes, but didn't really mean it. I knew how serious this situation really was. Then I looked up at one of the cameras in the long grey corridor I was walking through and stood still. 'Are you watching me?' I asked, curious, still barely moving my lips.

'Yes, I am. Now stop the suspicious behaviour. I'm probably not the only one watching.'

I shivered and it was at that moment that mister Heirs realised I wasn't following him anymore. 'Miss D— Rhine?' he asked, looking back at me with curious eyes.

I looked away from the camera, at him. 'Yes, excuse me.' I decided to pretend I was actually doing something necessary. 'Are those cameras in good shape? You said there was no footage of the criminal escaping.'

'Yes, well,' he sounded almost ashamed as he spoke. 'That's why we assumed he had help from someone, the footage that was played the day he escaped, was actually the previous month's footage.'

Smart. Not the day before, that was too obvious. Not the previous week, because the numbers showing the date at the bottom of the security screens would be noticed easier like that. But if one number was off in those numbers, who would notice, really?

Was it possible, had he gotten help from within? 'You said his name was Beyond Birthday, did you not?' I asked and I noticed that Ryuzaki had stopped breathing into the microphone.

This question was stupid, dangerous and all in all weird. Victor Heirs looked at me with a confused look in his eyes, then turned around and started walking. We went into the now empty prison cafeteria as he spoke: 'Yes, although we found several fake passports and documents in which his name was Rue Ryuzaki.'

I froze. Still. I had been right, hadn't I? No, not only that, it was even worse. This criminal that had escaped, had more ties with Ryuzaki than I'd thought. Family? I wasn't sure. Did L have any real family? Wasn't he an orphan?

So… Another orphan, then? I thought. Like Mello, but crazier? No, that wasn't the right profile, this man was too old for that, they told me he was going to turn twenty-two later this year, much older than Matt. Older than me. And Matt had been the eldest orphan, that much was sure. So, did this mean Beyond Birthday couldn't be one of the orphans that had lived there? Well, he could, he really could. It seemed like the only logical conclusion.

'Don't say things I didn't ask you to say,' Ryuzaki said, but he didn't sounds angry at all.

I just smiled. 'Hmm. I must say, I prefer that name. Beyond Birthday sounds so terribly dramatic.'

And now you're pissing him off, I thought to myself, not Ryuzaki didn't say anything in response to that. Instead he said: 'Ask him if he ate here as well, because I don't think he would.'

'Did Beyond Birthday come here to eat, too?' I asked, not bothering to write anything down. Ryuzaki could type everything he heard on his laptop, I wasn't going to go through the trouble.

Victor Heirs shook his head. 'He didn't come here often. He wasn't really… stable around people.'

'Stable?' I asked after Ryuzaki had asked for clarification.

Victor Heirs scratched the back of his head, seemed suddenly uncomfortable. 'Well, you see, after the whole incident, we assumed something like that. A man with such a past most likely has some mental issues. But it was more than it, it seemed. The man was a little… strange. Always was, of course, but around people he… well, sometimes he just went nuts. Shouting there was were way too many words and letters to even see. Shouting that he couldn't see someone death coming if all the numbers were so close.'

I frowned. That sounded… way too odd and familiar at the same time. 'You sure know him well, mister Heirs.'

Victor Heirs shrugged. 'It wasn't that hard to know Beyond Birthday well. He is very… unforgettable. And he always shouted the same thing for weeks until we stopped trying.'

'Ask if he ever attacked anyone,' Ryuzaki said.

'No, not physical attacks, no,' mister Heirs answered.

That was an oddly specific answer. 'And?' I asked before Ryuzaki ordered me to.

The man frowned. Then he sighed. He looked so troubled, so intensely troubled. I wondered what it was that this Beyond did that seemed to disturb him. And the guards, too. They looked at me with curiously, but kept their distance. Their curiosity didn't outgrow there fear for that person. 'I'll bring you the archive and show you what I mean.'

XxX

The archive was where they kept all the old camera footage and all the documents about the criminals. Both on computers and in paper. Mister Heirs showed me to a young woman named Natalia (they didn't give me a first name) and ordered her to show some footage from Beyond in his first week.

It was the cafeteria and she started playing it from the moment the guards dragged him in.

But they had to stop there.

This was weird. I had seen pictures of Beyond and he hadn't looked anything like Ryuzaki. His hair, maybe, but it was dyed black. I had seen the fake dark colour and I'd seen the brown on top, where his real hair was replacing the fake hair colour. But except for the hair, he had definitely been a different person.

But now, on this footage, he suddenly looked exactly like him. No, not exactly. But enough to be fooled if you didn't know what you were looking at. Suddenly I considered taking everything back. If this was Beyond, he and L must be related.

I stared as Beyond pulled up his nose in a way Ryuzaki wouldn't do, even though all his other movements looked very Ryuzaki-like. 'Get them out of here!' he said then and even his voice kind of sounded like Ryuzaki, although Ryuzaki would never shout like this. 'All the numbers, all the letters! How to choose? How to decide?' he laughed hysterically.

'Stop,' Ryuzaki ordered.

'Stop,' I said, much more breathless than L had said it.

They paused the video. I tried to process what I'd just seen. A person that looked like Ryuzaki, screaming crazy things and laughing like it was nobody's business. This was insane. Even worse than I'd imagined. A serial killer with only three murders on him shouldn't be like this, right?

'Are you okay, Olivia? I can't do anything for you if you get a panic attack.' And even though this was a serious situation, I almost started laughing. Of course that was this was about. Not my safety, of because he was worried about me. But because I could easily blow my cover.

'I'm fine,' I told him as well as the two prison workers looking at me. 'Show me the rest.'

I watched how Beyond Birthday got dragged out of the cafeteria, still laughing and screaming, but never happy. No, he certainly didn't seem happy.

He seemed hurt.

Natalia stopped the video. 'That was everything,' she said to her boss.

'Now show her one of his attacks on the guards,' Victor Heirs ordered and I saw how her face became faller and she swallowed before looking through the files and clicking on a video.

It was a video of Beyond Birthday, again he looked so much like L it was disturbing, and he was sitting in in the corner of his cell, on the bed. He was looking at his fingers, saw how the light of the small window played on his skin. 'Tell me something, Gareth,' he said then and one of the guards suddenly stood straighter, shocked.

'H-h-h-how do you know my—' the guard started, but Beyond held up one hand to stop him.

'Please, no questions. Your questions are so frightfully dull,' Beyond said and yes, his voice did sound like Ryuzaki. The same patterns, the same tone. The difference was in the details. Ryuzaki always sounded as if nothing bothered of surprised him, as if he was always doing math inside his head and that math was way more important than whatever was going down outside of his head. Beyond Birthday sounded like he was thinking of something funny and tragic at the same time as he spoke.

'I was wondering, Gareth, what will kill you?' he asked the man, sounding actually curious.

I couldn't see the face of the guard very well, but he sounded annoyed when he said: 'Shut your trap, filth. I have no time for your intimidation.'

A smile played on Beyond's lips. His smile wasn't right either. It wasn't a smile Ryuzaki would ever smile. 'Neither have I. I was only curious.'

'You're not trying to intimidate me?' the guard asked.

'Of course not,' Beyond answered. 'We are in a position in which it is likely impossible for me to do so.' His choice of words and the way he spoke was way, way, way too much like Ryuzaki, so I focused on the guard instead.

'Then why are you talking to me, boy?' the guard spat.

'Gareth, calm down,' the guard next to him said carefully.

There were no other criminals, or guard, for that matter, in that area. It was only Beyond and these two. If anything were to happen, only the camera could tell.

'I am talking to you,' Beyond said, ignoring the other guard, 'because your numbers have gone down quite a lot compared to when I last saw you. What happened? Booked a vacation and is the airplane going to crash? Bought a new car that's going to be the end of you? Did your wife die, and are you now depressed? Brother sliced open by the mafia? What changed your numbers, Gareth?'

Now Gareth seemed angry, but there was a strange sort of despair in his voice when he spoke. 'You have no right to pry into my personal business!'

'Quite correct,' Beyond almost immediately agreed. 'I don't have much rights at all now, do I? I apparently didn't even have the right to die.'

I frowned, my eyes focused on the young man now. Ryuzaki had send me here with little to no information about Beyond's case outside of the fact that the name the media had given it was the Wara Ningyo Murders. Had he tried to kill himself? Was he actually clinically depressed?

'You little… Shut your trap, okay?!' the guard said and I knew he felt tempted to take his gun out. I was surprised he didn't actually do that.

Beyond Birthday's eyebrows rose. 'Now who's trying to intimidate who, Gareth? But I must warn you, I won't be intimidated. I won't be submissive to you, even if you have the rights and the power to make me.' A smile that wasn't genuine at all played across his lips, as if he was remembering something tragically funny. 'It's one of the few things I can boast about.' Then he looked directly into the security camera. 'But you already know that, don't you?'

I walked back, away from the screen. Natalia pressed the stop button.

I really did not want him to, but Victor Heirs decided to start talking. 'Less than two weeks after this incident, Gareth Hartfield jumped from a bridge in downtown Los Angeles and died.'

Numbers. His numbers went down. He saw the numbers go down. Shinigami.

No. No. This couldn't be it. This couldn't be the solution to whatever this man was. This was about L, not the Death Note. This couldn't be about the Death Note.

'Miss Rhine?'

I pulled myself together and decided to talk myself, seeing how Ryuzaki hadn't said anything in minutes. 'His appearance?' was my only question.

'Ah, yes, I assumed you wouldn't ask, seeing how you gave us permission to let him,' mister Heirs answered.

I played along. 'Yes, well, I didn't expect that you would let him do it for a long period of time,' I said.

Mister Heirs didn't look surprised. 'I… we helped him with his supply. He was a hard to manage criminal and if he didn't… look like that, he was even less cooperative. We had no choice but to...'

'No choice but to…?'

'Give him more make-up and prosthetics,' Natalia answered. 'He wouldn't come out of the douche space without make-up, he refused to look into the camera without make-up. He didn't want anyone to see his face, except for when it looked exactly like that.' She gestured to the screen that still showed a paused picture of him.

'Tell them it's fine,' Ryuzaki said. His voice sounded rough, as if he was trying to do more things at the same time. 'Tell them to start telling you about his escape now.'

'His escape?' I said, way too quickly. 'I mean, there must've been a motive for him to escape after years of being… kind of obedient?'

The manager looked at his employee, seemed ashamed again. 'They shouldn't have told him, it wasn't right. Prisoners here are allowed to see the news, but because y— L had advised us not to let him watch the news because he could react in a dangerous way if the news was ever about L or anything related to that topic, we never let him anywhere near the news. It was Morgan who did something rash and stupid.'

'What did she do, Mister Heirs?' me and Ryuzaki asked at the same time.

He finally looked up to look me into my eyes as he responded: 'She told him about the Kira case, miss Rhine.'

I stumbled back even further. What was this? What was happening? This couldn't be happening. It was supposed to be over. It was meant to be over! Why? Why was all of this happening now? Did Ryuzaki do this on purpose? Did he drag me into this because he knew this case had something to do with the Death Note? But how were those two connected?

'I want you to send me all the footage of Beyond Birthday from the exact moment Morgan told him until his escape,' I ordered even though Ryuzaki hadn't. Ryuzaki was silent, but he didn't say anything as I said that, so I supposed it was fine. Maybe, even helpful. 'And I want you to bring me to his prison cell. I want you to show me where this man was kept.'

XxX

Yayy, chapter over! And a longer chapter again, finally! The story is going in a completely different direction now, but I hope you guys will like it anyway! And Beyond is hard to write, Jesus Christ! So yes, I do take a few liberties with him, mostly because we don't really get to know the real him in any form of Death Note-media. But I hope you'll like my version! ;)

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REVIEW REPLIES

Queen-of-Ice101: Precisely! The characters with the most detailed personality are hard, but I figured out now that writing without those many personality restrictions is kind of scary, too! Because you never know if people like the way you interpret the character… anyway, thank you very much and I hope you enjoyed this chapter as well! :D

Guest (My Favorite DNS): Oh. Wow. I almost got kind of teary eyed when I read your review (I'm actually not kidding!)! And hey, I did put that disclaimer there with a reason xD, because you have the people that can't handle typos, but I often finish writing a chapter at – like – 3 AM on a school night, so then I put my sleep first. But anyway, thank you so, so, so, so much! I never considered myself awesome, actually. You are really sweet and your review seems more to me than you can ever even phantom, thank you so much and I hope I won't disappoint you!

bored411: Hey, I updated! I think it is working out kind of well? I mean, she is by no means perfect, but I don't think L expected her to be, so I guess it's fine ;) We'll just have to see how it goes…

AuroraStargazers: Hahaha, thank you! Well, not much cuteness in this chapter, but that'll come, I promise! Plot and characters, trying to keep the balance can be hard ;) And hahaha, I get confused sometimes, too. And to make it even more confusing, add 'Rhine' to her list of names, too xD. Let's just call her whatever we like and hoped you liked this chapter! X-Sofia

Luna Latanya: Hihi, I hope you did love it, but dum, dum DUM! It's not done yet (duh). Hehe, and I love updating, so the pleasure was all mine. Thank you for reading! :)

chrisreader13: Thank you! I can't wait to write what happens! ;D (was that even correct English? Oh well…)

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Thank you for reading! See you next time!