CHAPTER 45:
"A Conscious Decision"
He watched the CCTV video of the two detectives standing in a corner of the outer office on his laptop. They had just left and were now standing just beyond his office door which locked behind them, designed to do so.
Detectives Touta Matsuda and Shuichi Aizawa thought they were hiding and speaking in quiet tones, and away from the others, the NPA officers they brought with them, but they were wrong. As he watched, he also listened with clarity.
With a warrant, they were hoping to find some incriminate evidence of a possible connection with aiding and abiding a drug cartel associated with the Yukaza, but he knew they had come in search of items related to something else.
But they had found nothing. Geist had taken everything away and hidden it.
Matsuda said, "Did you hear me, Aizawa? We have to search again and get another warrant, we missed something. Jasper and Raye didn't find anything either, but that doesn't mean there isn't something to find. And where is Demetre Draycott, his assistant Honda/Geist, and that Hiro Yamamoto kid? We managed to question Ritchie Hayward, Shinto's personal driver and bodyguard, but he said he knew nothing. That he was just Shinto's driver, nothing more."
"No, Matsuda," Aizawa rebuked, "we're done here. And if we invade Izanagi's office again, we'd be causing embarrassment for the NPA. As is stands now, the media may have a field day with us because we found nothing. I know that isn't the real Shinto Izanagi, but he just showed us his face in front of other witnesses. No one will question his validity now, and if we call him a lair, and claim he's wearing a disguise under his mask, it will throw the courts into a tailspin with a major lawsuit against the NPA, and us, personally. The warrant protects us, Matsuda, defamation won't. We have no more cause here. I don't like it either. We'll go tell the others to keep a close eye on Mr. Shinto Izanagi, but we have no more cause to be here. Let's meet up with Jasper and Raye and compare notes."
Matsuda protested, but then they left, and entered an elevator.
Shinto Izanagi smiled under his mask.
He then switched cameras and watched the pair in the elevator until the two got to the main lobby, then he watched them further when they met up with two uniformed police officers. He zoomed in on each one of the cops, and saw that they were indeed Jasper Yuta and Raye Penber disguised.
He pressed a button on a control box on the desk and dark shades completely blacked out the windows in the office, nothing could see in now, not even with high-tech telescopic equipment. He pressed something in his right ear, felt and heard a click, and his form changed. He was no longer Shinto Izanagi, but himself—Demetre Draycott.
Thanks to a device found after his encounter with Raye Penber and Jasper Yuta, something that looked like a small hearing aid, reprogrammed and adapted for his needs, he was able to deceive Matsuda and Aizawa into believing he was Shinto Izanagi. It was the same device Penber and Yuta used in an attempt to deceive him when they entered the building pretending to be representatives from Lucky Dragon Industries to disguise their real identities—most likely Quindecim technology.
He used computer-generated technology adapted with artificial Intelligence and facial recognition algorithms to project a fake persona, programmed into the alien device. That of Shinto Izanagi, down to the white hair, acid facial burns, and damaged vocal cords. It was so perfect, that it would fool even the most sharpest person.
The mask was real, left in the back of the dark Sedan when Light left to confront L.
He didn't remember much after he was shot and had his hand explode from a rifle shot, Geist had told him. When he awoke, he found himself in a medical bed and connected to wires and tubes, with a mechanical right hand, surgery performed on him when he was unconscious.
Dr. Lovecraft, amongst her many expertise, was a specialist in neuroscience and bio-mechanics. She performed the surgery to give him a new hand. And he found it was better than the original. It used smart, even futuristic technology, wired directly into his neuropathic system and brain. It was remarkable just how quickly he was able to use it. It even had artificial skin to make it appear real. It's servos and joints moved instantaneously, pliantly with his every thought, and interacted with his neurological pathways with ease. He was very impressed and happy with it.
Removing the mask, he placed it on the desk.
Geist suddenly manifested through a blocked out window, his wings spread wide. They retracted as soon as he was fully inside. The Shinigami don similar clothing he had worn before. If a look worked, keep it.
Around his shoulder and hanging at his right hip was a large satchel. It was all the Death Note material Geist had hidden away and now brought back.
Geist reached in and gave Demetre his Death Note and the black case with the Alpha Guard. Demetre took both. He put the Alpha Guard back in the fingerprinted drawer in the desk. Light had used all of the mouthguards, but with Geist's help, he could manufacture more. He knew the Death Ring was gone, Geist had told him.
Light's Death Note was mysterious gone.
He opened his Death Note and scrolled to an old page, one of the very first—but not the first. The first page had the man whom he had killed when he first picked up the Death Note, who he killed in self-defence. On another page was his friend's name, minus the last two letters: L-I-G-H-T Y-A-G-A. (Ref: My Death Note Novel: The Draycott Factor)
When he first discovered Light was Kira, he was angry that Light had murdered his grandfather with the Death Note. Later, he learned his grandfather was keeping a deep secret and that he had terminal cancer. It would have been a slow and painful death. His grandfather was falsely accused of embellishment from the company he worked at.
His grandfather was only in his fifties, but looked much younger, and had children when he was young, so he was able to work for a financial firm without age-prejudice. But Kira/Light killed him by a heart attack without getting the facts of the so-called crime he was accused of.
At first, Demetre had a grudge against Light. But then he thanked him for giving his grandfather another way out, one without pain and suffering.
This is what Demetre thought about now. Wherever Light should he given the same curtesy? He could make it happen, he knew different tricks of the Death Note that not even Light knew.
However, he snapped the Death Note shut. No, he thought, not now.
"You've really come up in the world, eh, Demmy?" Geist said. "Took your best friend's job, his power, his money, and now you're Kira. Congrats on all your new appointments or should I say promotion?" The Shinigami chuckled.
Demetre looked at Geist, then brushed a hand through his hair, pushing back a stray strand.
"A position that needed filling," he said simply. "I will not let Light's goal to build a new utopia fall by the wayside. The Grand Agenda will need to be put on the back burner for now, however, because L and Near will be watching everything I do. But it isn't over. L has Light somewhere and I'll find him."
Geist reached into the satchel again and brought out one of two Probable Orbs. The other one had been taken from the kid at Wammy House. Demetre was handed the Orb.
Demetre looked into its dark abyss. "Ryuk is with Light right now and he has one of these, so wherever he is, you can find him, correct?"
"I've tried, it's not working right now," Geist said. "But I'll keep looking."
Demetre put the Orb on the desk. To anyone else, it was simply a decorative item. "The battle between Kira, Near, and L will continue. I'll continue Light's work, use the Death Note, but I'll use it in such a way that will confuse and confound The New Kira Task Force. The Death Note with its rules and tricks will give me the advantage I need."
"Why not just kill them all now?"
"That would be too easy, Geist," Demetre said with a broad smirk. "You want to be entertained, right?" Geist nodded. "So, you shall be. And I always keep my promises."
He reached under the desk and pressed a button, a call button.
From the penthouse suite adjacent to the office, the door opened, and those Demetre nicknamed Kira's Acolytes emerged: Asumi Samou, Hiro Yamamoto, Ritchie Hayward, and Dr. Xena Lovecraft. They knew everything, and about the Death Notes. They had been told everything in secret, and hid it well, under Light's nose, and they were all okay with it. In fact, their values aligned with Kira's ideology. They all wanted a perfect world under Kira's hospice.
And all agreed to serve Demetre as they would Light. Asumi was the exception, because she was his lover.
Geist then handed Demetre a final item, it was a sheet of white paper. On the paper were each of their names in full. In fact, this was a page of the Life Note that Morph had given Light years before. Light had revealed it had been given to him just after the events of the "Yukaza Incident", and when he first encountered Morph. With it, whoever's name is written on it cannot die if attacked by a Death Note, and with the Infinity Rule, all are basically immortal.
He also wrote his name on the page, as well, just in case Morph attempted anything foolish like erasing his name in the Life Note, wherever the Imp was…
They had been hiding in a hidden room in the penthouse suite. Light had built and it contained many of Light's personal items, like photo albums, nicknacks, and an assortment of other items from Light's past. It also had secret pictures Light had others take of his family in secret after his resurrection.
There was even a few pictures of Light's mother and his sister Sayu at the family cabin just recently, playing with a new family dog. He recognized the place, as the same he and Light, with Light's father, went to for an annual "Survival Training", but it mostly a man's vacation. But Light's father did teach them a lot about fishing and hunting.
There was even a picture of himself and Light just after Light had won the Japan Singles Invitational Junior Tennis Championship. Demetre remembered cheering Light on and then they took a picture to commemorate the event. He had his arm around Light's shoulder for the picture with Light holding his winner's trophy.
Light was a sentimental fool. The past always had a way of catching up to a person. Case in point, L. This was why cutting ties with everyone was most important if Kira's dream was to become a reality.
And yet, around his own neck hung a crucifix, a symbol from his own past.
He reached inside his shirt collar and ripped it off. He dropped it into the desk. It clanged, and then the heaviness of the chain caused it to fall to the floor, to disappear from sight.
He made a conscious decision. As of this moment, Demetre Draycott was dead. And he would fully devote his life now in being Shinto Izanagi and act as Kira in Light's stead, punishing the wicked to make the world a better place.
And the world will love Kira/him for it.
To be continued...