AN: Edited 2020 to 2004, as they should be. Thanks, RavenclawGryffindor35!
Note: if Rui speaks, if Watari or L speaks to her, it's in English. If the task force members speak, or if Watari or L speak to the task force members, it's in Japanese.
If Rui speaks Japanese, I'll indicate it with an asterisk and footnote.
Chapter 7: Repression
"Yumyumyum~ Definitely, home-cooked food is the best!" Mother exclaimed, larger than life as always. "Don't you think so?" she asked, turning to Rae with an almost childish delight.
"Right, right?! Thanks, Roman!" Rae mirrored her mother's enthusiasm, clapping her hands against her mother's open palms enthusiatically. The cook in person beamed smugly at his self-proclaimed (but completely deserved) 'mad masterchef skillz'. The year 2020 had started out fine, but then COVID-19 happened, and they were forced to quarantine themselves at home. That was the first time in a long while that Rae, her mother, and her brother had interacted in such close quarters, and it had brought them closer together.
Division of labor was key: Mother and Roman took turns on grocery runs and on cooking meals, while Rae was in charge of housework. She could cook, but her food was the least tasty of the three and so they unanimously voted her out of the kitchen, to her unholy glee (she hated cooking).
"Better wear a mask when you go out later, okay boyboy?" Rae teased her brother, pinching his nose as he whined. The pandemic struck fear all around the world, of course, but among the three of them, a sense of peace and wellbeing suffused the once-vacant house.
Rui jolted awake, tears running down her cheeks. Huh. She pushed down the perpetual ache in her chest that sometimes made itself known at the randomest of times. Perhaps she had dreamt about her family again, but the dream sequence flitted elusively at the edges of her memory no matter how much she tried to pull it into her conscious thought processes.
April 18, 2004; 16 54
It had been a long day, made even more tiring from lack of sleep. Her head had swum with images of structured jackets, chiffon and silk blouses, cotton collared shirts, twill and wool dress pants and fitted jeans in such colours as black, white, navy and pinstripe, to be paired with loafers and oxford shoes. After that three-hour-long clothes selection process for her work wardrobe, she had waited on the task force members for a bit, brewing copious amounts of coffee. Watari had then sent her out on a giant cake run for L's dinner afterwards, both to the hotel's patisserie downstairs, as well as to the nearest premium bakery.
She got back in time to note that L's discussion with the task force ended up going much the same way it did in canon, except that he didn't insist on looking for Misora Naomi after Matsuda's suggestion to give up on her search.
At that moment, Watari entered the room, looking uncharacteristically agitated. "Ryuzaki."
"What is it?"
"Sakura TV… Something big happened," he replied gravely, turning the television on.
Sakura TV announced, with great fanfare, that they were being taken hostage by Kira. "It is now 5:59. The broadcast will now begin."
All watched, agog, as a clearly amateur-made video with 'KIRA' spelt out in gothic letters, was aired, and viewers were told to change the channel to Taiyou TV. Ryuzaki demanded tersely for this to be done, just in time for everyone to see the news anchor collapse where he sat between two other hosts.
"Please move one… no, two more televisions to this room," Ryuzaki requested of Watari. That was Rui's cue. Watari called up the hotel's reception while Rui raced down to the hotel lobby to supervise the movement of the TVs.
"Channel 24," Ryuzaki requested firmly, as soon as the TVs were installed, only to see the collapse of another TV anchor. "Kira is directly manipulating the mind of the public," he observed. "It may be troublesome if we don't stop the broadcast soon."
Ukita, true to form, stepped up as all tried, in vain, to contact Sakura TV. "Da… Damn it! I'll go stop them myself!" he snarled, running out despite the others calling him back.
At least two different broadcasts were playing simultaneously: Kira's megalomaniacal message to the public, and a live broadcast on in front of Sakura TV. "This is a live feed from the front of SakuraTV station! We do not have a correspondent at the site but what you are seeing is a live feed from the front of Sakura tv! This just in, there is someone lying in front of Sakura TV station's door!"
Rui had expected this, but it did not lessen her shock and dismay at witnessing the death of someone she knew, even if in passing. Ukita had been abrupt in manner but she could tell he had been one of the most duty-bound members in the task force. People like him were few and far between in the worlds she had been in.
"UKITA!" Aizawa roared, in grief and rage. "DAMN YOU KIRA!" He impulsively got up and started heading for the door, much like Ukita had done.
"Aizawa-san, stop. Where are you going?" Ryuzaki called out.
"To where Ukita is! I'll retrieve those tapes myself," Aizawa snarled, gritting his teeth at the thought of his dead friend, lying there so ingloriously.
"If you go now, you'll die too," Ryuzaki replied calmly.
"Ryuzaki… Are you telling me to sit and stare at the TV doing nothing?" Aizawa asked, his voice cracking in desperation.
"I'm telling you to calm down. I, too, want to stop the broadcast right now. We may find crucial clues if we can get our hands on the original video cassettes that Kira mailed in. However, if Ukita-san was killed by Kira, then anyone else who goes there now will suffer the same fate," Ryuzaki explained calmly.
Oh, Ryuzaki, Rui thought exasperatedly. He meant well in this case and she could totally see his point, but he would've done better to appeal more emotionally to someone as passionate as Aizawa. The other party unsurprisingly didn't take this well.
"If we know where Kira is now, shouldn't we go and arrest him?" Aizawa demanded.
"Like I said," Ryuzaki stated flatly, "charging in there will get us killed. Please try to understand."
That was too much for Aizawa, and he grabbed Ryuzaki's shoulder in agitation. "UKITA DIED! Didn't you say that you would risk your life to arrest Kira?!"
Ryuzaki froze, his dark bottomless eyes wide with a look none present could understand.
Unbidden, a panel from one of the Death Note offshoots* popped into Rui's head. When L was but a nameless child, he had been taken into Wammy's orphanage, and within an hour, had started causing trouble. L had said, 'After saying " A new face! Let's cuddle him," they employed violence against me. They are the ones who started it. I am justice.' The children who had tried to cuddle him lay on the ground, groaning in pain from L's acts of self-defence.
What kind of child equates cuddling to violence? That perpetual ache in her chest briefly made an appearance, but she quashed it firmly.
Setting her jaw, Rui pushed herself in between the two men. "Let go!" she demanded in stilted Japanese**, glaring determinedly at Aizawa. Surprised, he immediately did so, stepping back quickly.
Ryuzaki's eyes remained flat, but he had gripped his shins tightly, curling up into a tighter ball.
"You're Ryuzaki, most famous detective in the world, and Kira's greatest opponent," Rui said neutrally, staring calmly at his fixed gaze as the others looked on in confusion. Only Yagami senior knew a little bit of English, and he wasn't here now. "You're strong now."
They watched steadily as he looked down. "Risking my life and throwing it away are two very different things," Ryuzaki began lowly, not appearing to acknowledge her words. His taut hands were visibly trembling now, but he met Aizawa's baffled gaze. "I feel the same way as you, but you must stay calm. It is too late for Ukita-san, but if Aizawa-san dies as well…"
The air around them was heavy and awkward, until good old Watari defused the tension with a pot of fresh coffee for everyone.
Rui startled and split the coffee she had been pouring as Yagami Senior's armoured vehicle crashed into Sakura TV. Ryuzaki, on the other hand, seemed to be expecting this.
BI BI BI! Watari's phone sounded. Yagami Sr. had used the distress signal.
"Watari, hit the return button and give me the phone," Ryuzaki requested. "It's me, Yagami-san. So you were the one in the armoured car?" He listened, then continued, "Yagami-san, please rest for half a minute and then boldly come out from the front entrance."
Something was strange about this. She had the feeling that some other things had happened before Ryuzaki had asked Yagami Sr. to evacuate. Wasn't he supposed to have called Vice-Director Kitamura for the police barricade? This time, it was almost as if-
Ryuzaki knew. He had made prior preparations for this. He hadn't fully believed her until Ukita died, but he'd made the necessary preparations anyway. Guess there's nothing like death to make people take things seriously, she thought ruefully. He knew Ukita was going to die, but he had to see, huh?
She hastened to hold the door open as Watari helped Yagami Sr. into the hotel room. "Ryuzaki… I am sorry for acting so brashly. It seems that I got a bit too emotional," he panted.
"It's fine," replied the man in question.
"The envelopes and tapes that Kira sent are all in here," Yagami Sr. continued, passing Ryuzaki the paper bag he'd been holding.
Gingerly examining its contents, the detective finally nodded to himself, before requesting for Aizawa to analyse the evidence while he himself analysed the copy tapes.
Ryuzaki took no dinner that night.
*L ~ The Wammy's House, from L FILE no. 15
**Here, she says simply "hanashite (はなして)!"She can understand roughly what they're saying, but still finds it difficult to formulate a complete sentence in Japanese. She gets confused with all the particles, the verb forms, and the sentence structure.
AN: LOL, perhaps I was reaching too far ahead, but can you tell how ready I am for the end of COVID-19? I am so ready that I wrote a fic set just after the end of COVID-19. Let's do our best, guys!