Disclaimer: I don't own death note.

Chapter 53

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Raito must have hated the situation.

After all, L had been in danger of being killed which was what he had wanted from the beginning, but then in order to keep himself clear of suspicion, Raito had needed to save his life... if I wasn't so worried about the second Kira I would have laughed.

"Ryuzaki! we've received a reply from the second Kira." Watari said through the computer.

"What?!"

"Already?!" the task force exclaimed in disbelief, it hadn't been more then a day.

"Judging by the envelope, tape, the way it was sealed, handwriting, and visual quality, there's little doubt it's from the same person. The materials are on the way to you but... I will now send you a copy of what's on the tape." Watari explained and a minute later the laptop received the video feed.

"Kira, thank you for responding." the dubbed voice said through the screen which now displayed the hand written Kira letters. "I will do as you say."

"Yes!"

"Oh!"

Matsuda and Yagami seemed quite happy about this, but Ryuzaki, Raito and I all remained silent.

"I want to meet you, Kira. I don't think you have the eyes, but I wont kill you. Don't worry."

That was interesting, this person was obviously stupid if they would talk about the eyes– shinigami eyes, obviously– on a video meant for the general public. Raito looked positively horrified at this development but I wasn't nervous, 'the eyes' could mean just about anything.

"Having the eyes..." what does that mean?" Aizawa asked.

"Please think of a way we can meet without the police knowing." so, this person knew that the real Kira was smarter then them. "We can confirm each other when we meet by showing our shinigami."

Oh-wow this person was stupid, if Raito wasn't having a heart attack just watching this video, then that would do the trick–

Crash

Ryuzaki's chair fell over with a loud thud. The whole task force had moved to his side in a few seconds but I was faster, I had already dropped to my knees next to him.

"Are you ok, Ryuzaki...?" Matsuda asked, worried.

"Shinigami...? are we suppose to accept the existence of such a thing...?" Ryuzaki asked to no one in particular.

"Shinigami? No way..." Matsuda tried to answer.

"You klutzy idiot, I thought you were dying or something..." I muttered under my breath.

"You're right, Ryuzaki. Shinigami can't possibly exist." Raito said. Ryuk watched us from behind him.

Ryuzaki turned around to look at Raito. "Kira also made a prisoner write something that seemed to suggest the existence of shinigami..." he said.

"Then should we assume this is the same Kira? The same person using the same word?" Yagami-san asked.

"That's not possible, Dad." Raito pointed out, "if this is the same Kira, then there's no way he'd reply to our video tape. Why would Kira go along with our plan and stop L from going on tv?"

"Then the real Kira and second Kira have joined forces and are trying to confuse the investigation with the word "shinigami"?" Aizawa suggested.

"That's also not possible." Ryuzaki stated as I helped him up, once he was on his feet he picked up his chair, "as Raito-kun said, if they were working together, then they wouldn't stop their plan to kill me. The second Kira is working from his own feelings, and not Kira's ideals. It's not related to Kira's goals of "punishing criminals to change the world and killing anyone who gets in my way"."

"The second Kira's own feelings...the desire to meet Kira." he said, as he sat back down. I moved away from him.

"That's right, the second Kira isn't acting out of a sense of changing the world. He's merely interested in Kira." Raito agreed, "maybe the "shinigami" term is describing the ability to kill? "Confirming each other by showing our shinigami." we could think of that as meaning that they will show each other their abilities to kill people." he suggested.

"Yes... at the very least, we know that the word "shinigami" has some kind of meaning between the two of them. We can try to set things up in order to learn more about this." Ryuzaki said.

"Then we'll send another message? If we fish around too much without knowing anything, we'll reveal that we're not really Kira." Raito mentioned.

"No, from now on we'll let Kira and the second Kira handle everything." Ryuzaki said.

"Let them...?" Aizawa wondered.

"We can assume that the second Kira is very happy right now after receiving a reply from Kira... even if he knows it was created by the police. He's succeeded in getting Kira's attention. And he's used terms only the two of them would understand. We'll run this reply on tonight's six o'clock news on Sakura Tv. Obviously Kira must be paying attention to this back and forth between the second Kira and the one we have created." Ryuzaki explained.

"From Kira's view, he'd definitely want to avoid the second Kira getting captured by the police. Kira may start worrying about what will happen if he doesn't intervene. It's possible that the real Kira may send a reply next time."

"And with these circumstances, he'd have to use Sakura Tv. The internet is full of irresponsible claims about Kira and L's identity, it would be impossible to verify. And most importantly, judging from the second Kira's video message, it seems likely that he is bad with machines, and not particularly diligent."

"I've also been thinking about what the second Kira will do if no reply comes from Kira... the second Kira will probably release more information to the police and media that Kira wants to keep secret, in order to pressure Kira into meeting him. That would be very interesting."

"Indeed." Ryuk agreed, though no one but Raito and I could hear him.

And it would be even more interesting if Kira sends a reply in order to avoid this. If that happens there's a chance we could gain some physical evidence against Kira. Closely examine every piece of mail sent to every tv station. If they do receive something from Kira or the second Kira, I will decide whether they can broadcast it or not. For now lets gather all the evidence we can on the second Kira." L finished.

"Ryuzaki, based on the video tape's manufacturing number and date it was sold, we've narrowed it down to..." Aizawa listed several places that the tape could have come from, but I had already lost interest.

The night continued like that the task force volunteering theories on different things, after a while I walked over to the fridge. It was empty again.

"I'm going shopping." I announced as I grabbed my bag, I noticed Raito glance at me as I left the room.

I had made it around the corner by the time he caught up with me, I wondered what he wanted and how he had gotten away from the task force without looking suspicious, no doubt if I didn't come back, Ryuzaki would up his percentage of being Kira.

"Do you know who the second Kira is?" he asked me as I stopped walking to wait for traffic to pass.

"How would I know that?" I asked him back, he wasn't stupid.

"You found me after the first week." he replied.

"Oh, well this is different," I said as we crossed the street, "this Kira, doesn't use the death note constantly, I can't find them until they use it, and even then you might cover it up."

"What do you mean?" he asked.

I stopped walking and leaned against a building. I wasn't sure if telling him was a bad idea or not.

"Well... I can sense death notes." I said flatly, he was bound to ask me sooner or later, and if I answered him now, he wouldn't ask again.

"You... what? How?" he asked.

Sigh... "It's like a red mist– kind of– that surrounds death notes, and the people they're killing at the time. I can also see shinigami without touching a death note first." I wondered what his reaction would be.

"So, that's how you found me?" he asked, "is there anything else you can do?"

I knew what he meant. "Don't worry, I can't stop what's already written, and even if I can, I don't know how."

"Fine, so why don't you just sense the second Kira's death note?"

"Why? Because you use yours so much that I get a headache from all the auras! Even if this Kira did use their note book I wouldn't be able to tell it was them unless I could see them, plus I can't sense a note unless it's being used and this Kira isn't killing all the time like you are." I answered.

"Well what if I found a way to tell the second Kira to kill someone and then didn't kill anyone that day? Would you be able to–" I cut him off.

"Yes, I would, but you seem to assume that if I find this second Kira, you'll be the first to know, but you wont! If I find them I wont tell you until you run into them yourself, if I'm going to tell you at all. I'm not on your side." I told him, pushing away from the building I had been leaning on and walking away down the street.

He caught up to me again. "Wait, isn't there anything I could do to make you help me find the second Kira? You said before that you don't want L to know about the death note, so if you help me find this other Kira he wont get caught by L." Raito tried to reason with me.

"No, besides, don't you think L would notice if criminals stopped dying for a day and I disappeared at the same time?" I asked.

No answer, obviously he hadn't thought of that.

"Listen, if you want to meet this second Kira, then why don't you send a video to Sakura and suggest a way to meet?" I asked, it seemed like the easiest way.

"I can't." he said as we walked into the store, "I wouldn't be able to sneak a tape past Ryuzaki, no, even if I do get a tape through, it would be impossible to find a way for us to meet that wouldn't be too obvious."

"Guess you're right, hey, strawberry or chocolate?" I asked, as I tried to choose between two ice creams, "no, I'll just get Neopolitan." I decided.

"Hey, are you listening?" he asked annoyed at my sudden distraction.

"No, not really." I answered truthfully, I didn't care about this right now, especially if all he was going to do was ask for my help finding the second Kira.

"Hey, wont your Mom be worried if you're not home in about ten minutes?" I asked after several minutes of him asking for my help and me standing in an isle asking him to help me choose between five or six different flavors of cake and two or three different syrups.

I had given up and bought them all.

"Goodnight!" I called as he walked off in the opposite direction with Ryuk while I began my trip back to the hotel. "Probably mad at me..." I muttered under my breath. Not like it mattered.

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author's note: dang, late again, ok, tomorrow I will start on time! Thanks for reading and thanks for the reviews!