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Chapter 5: Forgery

"So, to conclude," Aoi said. "I think a noncombative criminal justice system is the only kind that will every find true justice. It's ridiculous to think that two heavily biased parties will somehow cancel each other out."

Haruko nodded. She hadn't really known enough to contribute much to the conversation, but it was always worth hearing Aoi talk about the things she was passionate about.

"Hey, how come I've never been to your apartment?" Aoi asked.

They had been going on coffee-type dates for a few weeks now. In the beginning, that had been to discuss their assassination plans, but that excused had faded now that they had the compound plans and Michika promised to get them weapons.

"It's around here, isn't it?" Aoi asked.

Haruko looked around. A giant image of Kira's face was painted on a white wall on their right, so that must be the grocery store. They were about halfway between Haruko's apartment and the SLA office.

"Yeah," Haruko said.

"We should go there, then," Aoi said. "No sense in standing around out here."

Michika had told them that people used to do that. Spend time outside. Since there were fewer abandoned houses waiting to be filled, people used to not have homes at all and just lived outside. Similarly, people actually sat at those tables in the parks and conversated with each other, not feeling like their every move was being watched by an anonymous eye through a red-lighted camera. "Yeah," Haurko said. She took Aoi's upper arm and started to lead her down the road.

Aoi pressed the button next to the elevator door.

"It's broken," Haruko said.

They both sighed.

At the top of the stairs, Haruko paused before opening the door. "You should know …"

"What?" Aoi asked. "You collect porcelain figurines or something?"

"No," Haruko said. "I collect …" How the hell was she supposed to frame this? "propaganda."

Aoi didn't react.

"I mean, my apartment walls are covered in it," she said, then bit her tongue. Way to sound crazy, Haruko.

"I guess that's cheap decoration," Aoi said.

Haruko nodded. "It's free," she said. "I mean—if you look for it in the right place." She paused. "I just think it's funny, you know."

Aoi nodded.

"I mean, all of the different types," Haruko said. "All of the different types of propaganda. And how they change models every couple of years."

"Sure," Aoi said. "I mean we have to understand our enemies, right?"

Oh, but that wasn't it. Haruko unlocked the door, figuring the damage would be done as soon as Aoi saw her room. She stepped forward and turned the lights on.

"Oh," Aoi said, all of Kira's eyes meeting hers. "OK … well … this is a lot."

Haruko smiled, hoping Aoi would remember why they were seeing each other in the first place. "I—well, if I can be perfectly honest—it's the power," she said, mumbling the last few words.

"Huh?" Aoi asked.

"I just—for a long time, I wanted to be closer to Kira's power," she said. "And having him here feels that way."

"I guess," Aoi said. She strutted across the room and sat herself down on Haruko's futon. "You steal them from the alleyways or something?"

Haruko nodded. "It's a little bit illicit, I guess," she shrugged. "Kind of a weird rush."

"Well, I can't blame you," Aoi said. "There's nothing like that anymore—nothing that will give you a shot of adrenaline without killing you."

Haruko nodded, careful. "Do you want something to drink?"

"Sure," Aoi said.

"I only have water," Haruko said, filling up a glass from the sink.

"Whatever," Aoi said. She was leaning against the wall now. "God, there's really a lot of them."

"All of the Kiras that have been posted since I moved to Tokyo," Haruko said with a note of pride.

"So, where did you live before here?" Aoi asked.

Haruko shrugged. "Moved around a lot. Lot of different places." Then, she paused. "Do you want the real answer?" she looked over at Aoi.

"There's a real answer?" Aoi asked.

"I don't like to talk about it," Haruko said. She was really making herself say all of this, wasn't she? "But I was part of the resistance for a little while," she paused. "In England."

"You were?" Aoi asked. "Why did we have to convince you, then?"

Haruko sighed and leaned against the wall. "That's exactly why you had to convince me. Things went south." She paused. "One of us—we were all just kids, basically, and he was my first kiss—turned us in to the SLA."

"Everyone?"

"Everyone."

"But you survived because of your weird name thing," Aoi said.

Haruko nodded.

"Your name is such a power move," Aoi said. "On the part of your mom, I mean."

"How do you know it was my mom?"

Aoi shrugged. "That's a mom move, not a dad move," she paused and turned to look at Haruko. "Your parents—what did they do? Resistance?"

Haruko shook her head. "They worked in Kira's house. As housekeepers, I mean."

"So, how did you—"

"I'm not sure. My mom worked hard to smuggle me out." Haruko paused. "She—she died, in the process." And wasn't that an image stamped across her memory—her mom, sprawled across the grass, mouth and eyes wide open.

"Hmmm," Aoi said. "That's interesting. I, mean, I guess Kira keeps his servants on lockdown—he must, or else we could have gotten the plans from them."

Haruko nodded. "That was how I ended up with Oba-chan."

"Your aunt?" Aoi asked.

"I'm not sure," Haruko said. "She just told me—and all of the other resistance kids—to call her that."

"I wonder if you have any family," Aoi said. "Here, I mean. If your parents worked in Kira's house, they'd probably live in Tokyo."

"I don't know," Haruko said. Aoi's eyes were pretty from this angle, and so close. "I've never looked into it."

"You could, you know," Aoi said. "The records place is right here, just a couple blocks away." Haruko knew the building—a beige monstrosity with no windows. Right by the SLA's office, naturally. "If we're going to be living under this …" Aoi gestured at all of the posters, "We might as well take advantage of it."

Haruko nodded and leaned back. Aoi reached over and grabbed her hand, and Haruko leaned into her. "I'll do it," She muttered into her shoulder. Aoi leaned over and pressed a kiss into her mouth.

And that was why, three days later, Haruko found herself standing in front of that beige monstrosity.

"Hello," the receptionist said as Haruko walked in.

"I have an appointment," Haruko said.

"Yes," the receptionist said. "I see your name here." Haruko flinched but tried not to show it. "You're going to have to wait a couple of minutes, for us to get your records ready." She smiled, then went back to looking at the computer.

Haruko sat down in one of the cushioned chairs in the foyer. There were large windows there, frosted as to only give off a soft, dim light.

A few minutes passed as Haruko studied the room. A chandelier was above them, unlit, opulent and simple at the same time, and covered in a few centimeters of dust. The newest magazine on the coffee table was from the end of the previous year.

An older woman opened one of the wooden doors on one side of the hallway. They were the same type of material as the wall itself and blended into it. Her heels clicked across the cement floor as she walked over to Haruko.

"Ms. Yagami?" She asked.

Haruko sat up, a little surprised to hear her last name. "Y—yes," Haruko said.

"We have your records," she walked in front of Haruko, leading her back into a windowless room with a metal table and a box of paper on the floor.

Haruko sat down at the desk. She scooted the box towards her, then took out the top paper. It was her birth certificate. Her name was printed at the top, Haruko Yagami, followed by her parents. Misa Amane and Light Yagami.

Amane. So that must have been where—

Haruko bit her lip. She was in the habit of not thinking too much about her true name, mostly in case Kira developed some kind of mind-reading technique.

Everything else on her birth certificate wasn't surprising. Oba-chan did have her birthday right, she supposed, and her place of birth was Tokyo.

Haruko moved on. Her mother's occupation was as a model and an actress, and, for some reason, the records department had acquired some of her clippings. It was odd, in a way, to reconcile that beautiful, made-up face with the distressed one that Haruko had so often seen during her childhood. And the dead one on the night of her escape.

Pictures of her father were rarer. One picture had both of them in it, standing by each other, each looking off in a different direction. Her father's eyes met the camera, and it occurred to Haruko that she had the same eyes as him. The same gaze, as well, intense and unrelenting.

And, brown-haired, Japanese—he looked a lot like Kira, too.