"Well, now that everyone is here I have something unfortunate to tell you." L sighed and for a moment Naomi could swear that he looked vaguely disappointed.

Naomi had arrived late to L's squalid apartment. Eventually he had been convinced into getting an apartment using profits from Matsuda's hit television show. Why he didn't try to get a better permanent headquarters was beyond anyone. She was fairly certain the man next store was a heroin dealer, his name was Takeshi and he actually seemed rather nice if somewhat dirty and sleazy. Naomi figured L was still holding a grudge against Light for closing his bank account and giving the money to poor orphans and that L secretly always wanted to be a crack dealer.

Matsuda fortunately had arrived later than Naomi and thus had distracted L's wrath for a few precious moments.

Matsuda spent most of his time now writing for the soap opera and meeting with the various actors and producers. After years of being incompetent Matsuda had finally found his talent and his people, as a result he mostly bummed around Tokyo's film circle with Misa Misa as Matsui the star director and screen writer. The task force still generally considered him incompetent and useless and the group wasn't surprised when he showed up later than Naomi.

Matsuda had also taken to carrying around a yellow notebook for inspiration and writing down as well as recording conversations at the task force. At the moment he was poised, pen in hand, listening to L's every word.

"Let me guess, you got yourself a restraining order and now we have to move out of the apartment." Aizawa said, Aizawa had become quite the critic in the recent months as he slowly but surely began to realize that they were never going to solve the Kira case. He also was beginning to realize that without his afro he looked much less ridiculous and had to act normally when in the Kira case, and any normal person would want to bash L's head into a wall at any given moment.

"No." L said and sighed once again, staring at the ceiling fan for inspiration. "No, I'm afraid it's much worse than a restraining order."

The slight pause after those words was enough for the task force to imagine the rape of several children and their dead bodies uncovered from the sandbox.

"We found another Kira?" Naomi questioned, hoping that it wasn't anything having to do with L personally. L or small children.

"No. Unfortunately, it still seems as if Light-kun and Misa are going strong."

Light who had been drinking coffee and looking altogether bored out of his mind looked up at that and raised an objection, "Ryuzaki, you decided four years ago that you had no substantial evidence that could ever possibly hold up in a court in order to convict either I or Misa. I wasn't Kira then, I most certainly am not Kira now."

L didn't even bother to look down from the ceiling; he merely moved his hand slightly as if to brush off Light's comment. "Yes, yes, but you're identity as Kira isn't important right now."

"I'm not Kira."

"Of course not, Light-kun."

"If I was Kira, which I keep reminding you, then you would most certainly be dead."

"No, not necessarily. Light-kun still doesn't know my name."

"I don't need a name to kill you."

"Really? I truly doubt Light-kun is capable of killing with his own hands."

"Don't make this a challenge, Ryuzaki."

"Why not? I have nothing to live for anyway."

"There are easier ways to commit suicide."

"Yes, but this is more fun."

"No, it's not, because it's not going to work because I am not Kira!"

This argument, sadly, was one of the more exciting things to happen to the task force in the last four years.

Light had really become unmotivated in the last couple years, it must have come with the boredom of not having to worry about L sentencing him to death or raping him inside a closet at every moment. Although, L still technically could rape Light in a closet, Naomi just hadn't thought to remind him. Light had mostly taken to showing up at the task force meetings, flipping through papers and sighing, and then leaving for udon with Naomi and the unseen Ryuk before heading off to Naomi's apartment to watch Matsuda's soap opera which Light found far more entertaining than L. On his off days Light humored Misa and doodled in the margins of the reports of Kira's victims. The sad thing was that it wasn't any worse than what the rest of them were doing.

Naomi was starting to regret abandoning Duck and the television set. At least then she wouldn't have to listen to Light and L bicker like two old women. Not that it would have taken long for Light to get bored of the pretense of being a good NPA employee and ditch the meeting as well but at least then she would only have Light to deal with and not L at the same time. Light in her house she could handle, Light and L in L's sketchy apartment she wasn't thrilled with.

The rest of the task force seemed to have resigned themselves to listening to it get worse. Ide, for example, was checking his calendar on his cellphone no doubt noting his vacation days with a particularly hopeful gleam in his eye. Matsuda in the meantime was hurriedly scribbling down a heated argument between Y and Hikaru that was completely unrelated to the argument their counterparts were currently having. No doubt in the next season Naomi would be seeing this exact same scene, except instead of arguing whether Light was Kira or not they would be arguing about the Boogey Man but beneath that all the subtext would be about sex.

She could hear Duck's commentary now because of course he would pick up on the sexual tension even though he was four and he shouldn't even know what the difference between a man and a woman is much less where the stork really comes from.

Naomi sighed and decided to interrupt them before it got any worse (or Matsuda got any good ideas), "Ryuzaki, you had something you wanted to tell us?"

"Ah, yes. It appears we have been contacted by my heirs." L said offhandedly, "N has left us a video message." L walked over to his laptop and pulled up a video whose background was a giant gothic N. Naomi got a sinking feeling in her stomach.

She didn't know how but she had the distinct taste of strawberry jam in her mouth and the scent of a man burning himself alive with gasoline whilst standing on a chair. She was going to murder L.

"This better not be what I think it is." Naomi muttered.

"Unfortunately it is."

Yes, she really was going to murder L.

"You have another spurned and neglected lover." Naomi stated, "Goddammit Ryuzaki, wasn't Beyond Birthday enough for you! Now we have what, Near Necrophelia? Don't tell me, he likes jam too doesn't he?"

"Near, actually. And he likes finger puppets not jam." L interrupted.

Naomi couldn't believe it, she couldn't believe there was another one. How could one man create two sadistic insane stalkers? How was that even possible? Did L hold courses on this? Did he educate twitching awkward young men in the art of being a stalker? Was this what L created in his free time?

She could see it all before her now. Naomi would be assigned to field work as N got into motion, curiously killing people with bizarre names, L would talk to her on the phone and be absolutely useless. Light would have no sympathy. And she'd find N lighting himself on fire at the end of it after realizing that he was in love with L of all people. Naomi was not amused.

"You have heirs? Ryuzaki, I hate to be the one to tell you this but I think you take yourself far too seriously." Light leaned in towards the computer screen to get a better look at the gothic N. Naomi had looked too, and whoever N was took himself far too seriously as well.

"Yes, well. Watari didn't want to stick all his eggs in one basket." L explained with a look of exasperation.

"And this is the best he could come up with, you, Beyond Birthday, Near Necrophelia, and is there anyone else we should know about?" Naomi asked crossing her arms and just daring him to assign her to the case to gather intelligence on the enemy. She just dared him.

"Naomi, did I ask for your opinion?" L sighed, "N is my successor as he scored the best on his exams and…"

"Let me guess, he's just as socially inept as you are." Naomi interjected.

"… Showed the most promise in becoming the next L."

There was a slight pause in the room and Ide looked up from his calendar briefly and asked, "So what does he want?"

Naomi often found herself on the same side as the rest of the task force in recent days. They were the normal people who were becoming ever so slowly fed up with L and his shenanigans. Naomi had been fed up for years.

"Well, it appears he thinks I am dead and that Light-kun has been pretending to be me for four years now and has purposely been leading the case nowhere." L said this in a rush. "Oh, and he wants to take over the Kira case, because he thinks we're useless."

There was an awkward pause as the group took in the information. Naomi nodded her head and acknowledged the fact that she should have just ditched with Duck, Matsuda's soap opera was far more productive and enjoyable than learning there was a Beyond Birthday jr. who enjoyed finger puppets and who had a rather accurate appraisal of their work methods.

"And we're telling him what?" Naomi asked.

"To go screw himself, obviously." L said as if it was a no brainer, "I simply thought everyone should be prepared for when he declares war."

There was another awkward pause and Naomi sensed that everyone was thinking that maybe Near Necrophelia might do a better job with the Kira case than them but no one was willing to say it to L's face.

"Let me get this straight, Watari raised several children in competition with each other not to provide them with a better life but rather to pit them against one another like dogs and see who came out the best detective?" Light asked leaning his head back and lounging in the couch like a lazy god.

"Well there was an orphanage, it wasn't quite dog fighting."

"Orphanages are so much better. You didn't answer my question though. Was Watari really a worse person than you?"

L paused, "Yes." He answered eventually.

The sad thing was L saw nothing wrong with that answer.

Naomi again sensed the group swaying toward whatever promise NN might hold for the task force and the capture of Kira. Naomi however was too pessimistic to believe NN might be any better than L, she had the distinct feeling that NN might be even worse; best not to say that aloud though. Light looked as if he was ready to throw a fit at the realization that he now had two L's to deal with and only one of them was bankrupt and wanted in his pants.

"Why didn't you go to this orphanage and inform them that only Watari was dead, and that you were conveniently alive and still working on the case?" Light asked in the harsh tone that he usually reserved for Ryuk when he did something incredibly drastic for apples.

"I hate children." L said and shrugged, "Besides no one actually knows what I look like there, it would have been pointless."

Naomi wanted to point out the unlikelihood that L hated children since he had been all over Light in the Yotsuba investigation.

"You've never even met your successor or visited your orphanage."

"… No…"

"You bastard. Do you realize what you've done?"

L sighed, "Clearly Light-kun, you are overreacting."

"Light-kun is not overreacting! We now have not only Kira to deal with but now we've got you're successor breathing down our necks, how could this possibly get any worse?" Light appeared more animated than he had been for the past two years, he actually jumped up off the couch in order to grab L by the shoulders and shake the living daylights out of him. It was truly spectacular.

Naomi should have warned Light to never tempt the gods of misfortune, but L's obnoxious ring tone beat her to it.

"Hello, this is Ryuzaki speaking." L paused nodded his hand and passed the phone to Soichiro, "I believe this call is for you."

Soichiro took the cellphone and set it on speaker. "Go ahead." He said then.

"Chief Yagami," said one of the men who actually still worked for the normal homicide investigations, "We believe director Kitamura has been kidnapped."

Somehow even without managing to look directly at him, all eyes were on the puzzled detective L who was innocently observing the ceiling fan.

You never have told me the entire BB story

I would like to hear all of it one day

Maybe tomorrow

Author's Note: Well, there's Near for you. If any of you were (and still are) offended by the L jibes I guerentee that the Wammy jibes will be far worse. It's not that I don't like the Wammy gang (kind of like the Scooby Gang but without the drugged crackers or the talking dog) it's just that I don't see any purpose for their existance. Second season Death Note is more of a let down than any Disney sequel ever, including Hunchback of Notredame II. If you disagree with this statement leave it in the review, I'll be happy to debate it with you.

Other news: reading and reviewing. It happens and it is great. Thank you everyone. More reviews would also be appreciated, you can never have too many reviews, kind of like chocolate.

Disclaimer: Death Note does not belong to me, neither does the LABB novel.