Chapter Seventeen:

CONTENT WARNING: Sensitive material?

Erin was hanging upside down over the edge of the bed, all the blood rushing to her head, and one long monotonous note droning from her throat. Perhaps it wasn't the best way to think, but the steady sound did seem to be helping relieve the tension in her chest, and every so often she was forced to take deep breaths, which she figured was at least better than constantly hovering of the edge of hyperventilation. The strange position was entirely incidental, and she was beyond caring how strange she might have looked.

Mostly she was trying to think through the entire sequence of the anime, because it was aggravating having L complain about how stupid she was.

Well. He hadn't actually said that she was stupid, and she was probably just being overly sensitive. It really shouldn't have mattered what L thought. But blaming him for making her feel like a fool was better than blaming herself for the people that had died.

Her phone rang, and she fumbled for it blindly, smacking her hand against the twisted and tossed about covers that surrounded her until her hand smacked down on it. With a snap, she flipped it open "Best Pies in London Funeral Services! Do you want the hearse now, or after rigor mortis has set in?" She quipped blandly and with little sense. Her brain and her inhibitions had been melted by exhaustion, the weight of it drowning her usual compunction and leaving her feeling strangely light and floaty in its absence.

L was not even slightly fazed. "Watari will be arriving shortly give you your medical check. Please accompany him after you are finished."

She had to wonder what the point of telling her that was. Seemed like a waste of time since she would have figured it out when Watari showed up at her door, and he could have delivered the message himself. She scowled at the wall. "Is this you telling me that you have back up so to not try anything funny, because I'll be entirely honest: Right now Watari is probably my favorite person on account of providing me with food and entertainment. I'd rather die again then inflict violence on him. Wait, you want me to leave with him? Where?"

"While I wish to maintain surveillance of your previous room to study the phenomena which occurred there, now that any clues are gone, I concluded it might be best to maintain my schedule of relocating. Given that we are keeping a closer eye on you for potential side effects or other incidents, I concluded that it would be best for you to accompany me, so that we may act immediately if you begin to behave abnormally again."

"Um. I guess you might want to warn the hotel staff about butterfly weirdness then?" Erin asked distractedly, her mind running after a thought she could not yet quite see. When it did catch up, she sat bolt upright. "Potato chips! That's it! You're spying on Kira, and pull off the whole 'haha, we have summoned a whopping ton of special agents to hunt down Kira'. Like, fifteen hundred or something, and you're spying to see how he reacts, and Light's all, 'ha, that's not likely, or why would they announce it?' And then he uses like, a mini camera hidden in a bag of chips to kill off some criminals, and then everyone is convinced he can't possibly be Kira because you guys literally watched him, and he couldn't have! But you're still suspicious because they were only petty criminals, which didn't fit with Kira's profile, and then you decide, because by that point you'd decided Light was interesting or whatever, to go spy on him in person."

The last part she had remembered easily, but she relayed it alongside the whole diatribe about Light and his potato chips because by then she was on a role.

"I see. The goal was the simultaneously aggravate Kira into acting, while also observing to see if there were any fluctuations in Kira's killings while Light was under observation. I assume he became aware that he was being observed, based on what you said." Honestly, it was pretty impressive how the detective never seemed to show much in the way of confusion at her disjointed thought patterns.

"Yeah. Like I mentioned; he has his door trapped. And he made his Shinigami find every single camera for him by bribing him with apples—they'd vanish on camera if he ate them."

She could hear the clacking of computer keys crackle over the phone as L replied. "I will make a note to look for that. Small discrepancies like that are likely to be overlooked by the investigation team."

Erin paused and frowned. "Wait, so you're still going to do the same thing?"

"For now, yes." L returned thoughtfully, in a ponderous sort of tone that made a strange unease settle in Erin's stomach. "I cannot act upon the information you are giving me, only use it as a possible lens through which to view the information I gather."

He had said something to this effect several times, and it was imminently frustrating every single time. To Erin it was so clear who the killer was, what L needed to do—not step by step, no, but near enough. If he just swooped in and snatched up Kira without giving the megalomaniac any warning, then everything would end so much faster. Logically she knew why he couldn't rely on her information alone—even if her words had been given some credence by the actual blatant weirdness that had happened around her, that did not mean that L could count on what she told him to truly line up with what was really happening. She said she knew what was going on, and Ilmort wouldn't have made such a blunder that he took her from a reality where the events of Death Note did not reflect the events taking place in this reality, but L had to be careful about where he laid his bets. All he had was her word, some bizarre video footage that didn't even show anything, and some disintegrated butterfly ash. No matter how freakishly accurate her information as he couldn't just tart taking for granted that it all would be right. He had to be thorough. She knew that about him.

But it was never easy to weigh thoroughness against a clock.

"Hey," her thoughts fell down a rabbit hole of wondering how exactly L worked within the law, and how an international case about an underage killer would even be managed, and somehow, she ended up thinking about consequence, and fanatism. "I remember Kira had a bit of a cult following. Misa was a fan, and that other Kira guy. And there was a fan page. Plus, there were people claiming they were Kira. Has there been an upswing in vigilante justice? Like, are people targeting criminals and their families and stuff?"

There was pause, and Erin was certain that she heard chewing over the line.

"Is there something you know?" L asked, vague hints of curiosity blending with wariness.

"No! Not, not really. I mean, there may have been stuff mentioned in passing, but it wasn't much of a focus. I know the first time Kira gives up his Death Note it does end up in the hands of a bunch of businessmen who use it to take out their competitors. You ended up using Misa in a sting operation against one of the dudes. That was how she got her hands on the Death Note again and set Light up to get his memories back. They have to touch it again after giving it up, and they remember everything. But that's not what I was talking about. Those were people who used the Death Note. The populace stays entirely ignorant of that. So, I wondered if there are people forming actual lynch mobs and going on witch hunts… I figure there are tons of people who are lobbying for Kira to enact justice against so-and-so, or someone who wronged them, or someone who was in the news for getting off smelling like roses because law. Because they don't want to do it themselves, and it's easy to throw out names, but there will always be people who get fanatical and take things too far. Or people who want to try and figure out how Kira does it, and then post theories, and some crazy fool goes and tests it out, and then gets it in their head that they're showing Kira loyalty or whatever and he'll grant them. I dunno. Clemency? A place at his side in the new world order? I mean. You thought I was on the run from something right? You must have thought there was, like, a Kira cult." During her rant, Erin slid off the bed and padded over to the window to press her face against the cool glass, though her eyes were closed.

"An organization did seem the most plausible way that Kira was implementing his kills," L asserted, infinitely more succinct than she could mage to be.

The tired girl almost felt bad that he had to sit there and parse her tangents that wind milled about and dropped information that she'd not given him context for. Had she even explained how giving up the Death Notes made people lose their memory of it? She couldn't recall, but she assumed that l had pieced together what she was on about by the fact that he had not asked her. No doubt he had a special ping in his head for whenever she name-dropped the Death Note, so there was no way he'd miss even a single factoid. Still. When she got the chance, she told herself that she would have to write down all the rules she remembered. Just in case.

"Right. Because otherwise it's like magic," she scoffed. "It so weird. I mean, is what you do technically vigilante justice? I guess not, private detectives do exist, and you are clearly shown to be affiliated with different organizations around the world, so they must sanction what you do. But, like, who holds you accountable? To whose rules and systems do you abide? I mean, justice systems across countries are all vastly different. Does it depend on which country you're in? I guess technically you only take on specific cases… and who will get to decide what happens to Kira anyway? They avoided that in the story by having Ryuk kill him, and keeping it super-secret what happened to avoid mass hysteria, I think. I guess that'll probably be what happens anyway, unless you somehow swing things so Ryuk also dies? But he'd have to actively save a human, and Ryuk… that's not the type of Shinigami he is. Maybe Ilmort will drag him off. That's off topic though. It's just. When it was only a story there were so many things I just ignored because it was fiction and suspension of disbelief and all that. But now it is real, and there is a societal structure operating around and within this case. It must have a… Well. A butterfly effect…"

"Mm," L began as if he was beginning a well-rehearsed presentation that he'd done many times over. "To answer your first question, detective work is inherently different than actively dispensing justice. I collect evidence to present that to the client, or appropriate law enforcement. Likely your perception of how I operate is affected by the abnormality of this case. Hence why it is difficult to implement what information you have given me. You have briefed me on several areas where I can collect evidence, but—"

"—that would require my testimony to also be submitted as evidence, and how are you supposed to do that when I am the way I am. You can prove the Death Note, technically," Erin interrupted, and a frown scrawled deeper into her face. "But there is no way to prove me. Maybe have Ilmort testify? But then you would end up with an entire court made aware of Death Notes which could be disastrous. Even then, could you trust the testimony of an extra dimensional entity of death? It's not like you can make them swear to uphold the truth in front of king and country, or whatever. They don't care about how our mortal systems operate. My god it'd be stuck in trial for years. Decades. And Ilmort doesn't care about Kira being persecuted before the law. He just wants him stopped. Although, I suppose if Kira was in custody, that would stop him. But he's like a cockroach unless Ryuk decides he's done for good, show's over." She cut her hands through the air like she was a director at a film shoot.

"What it comes down to is your goal—do you want Kira to be held accountable before the law, or do you corner him and let Ryuk handle the rest?" that last bit sounded brutal because it did imply that they were setting up Kira to die, and did that really make them any different from him? Certainly, L had shown no compunctions about execution, using Lind. L. Taylor in a deadly experiment.

She shook her head, frustrated. It didn't matter what L's intentions for Kira were. Not really. He was going to die when Ryuk got bored. "What even is justice?" She queried melodramatically and turned away from the window to slump on the bed. "You and Kira talk about it like it's a solid, tangible thing. But justice is based on a culture's beliefs and values. Its deeply subjective across time and space. Back in the day if you talked smack about your leaders, you could be strung up for treason. Now people lobby outside their offices and on social media. Well. In some places. In others you'll get knabbed and locked up underground or whatever. Again, it's so subjective… And in your case, I guess it still comes back to what cases you decided take on. Except, you're not just the world's best detective, you're all three, right? One takes on crimes that interest you, one will take on crimes based on money… and the other one I think was set up to look like he had a rivalry with the others? Can't remember for sure. So, you have even less criteria. You have a whole net, and your, like, trawling for cases under different masks."

"What would you consider to be justice?" L pried in return, nimbly avoiding all the insights she'd levelled at him.

Erin grimaced. "I'm not a great person ask in case the whole 'I'm not telling you that you're gonna die because I'm having a crisis' bit didn't give it away. I suppose at the very least it's not Kira's sense of justice." She stopped and thought over why, and how to explain that. It went beyond her dislike of Kira because it was a philosophy. "Maybe when I was younger, I might have considered the debate about whether what Kira is doing can be considered just. But I also come from a country where there is no death sentence, and I have the luxury of having had no crimes done against me. For all my" She waved her hand dully through the air, "contrariness, I have room for compassion. Or indifference. Who's to say? And somewhere along the way I started thinking its not my business to decide what justice a person should face when their crimes did not affect me. The victim should decide if there should be forgiveness or not. But that's fallible too, which is why a system exists, on the premise that everyone is equal and should have the same rights. Which. I mean. Well. We all know what a farce that is. It's flawed. As flawed as the humans who created it are."

He young woman sighed and shrugged. "I'm not sure there is an answer. Just people doing what they believe in. In a distilled, hypothetical discussion I'd say that Kira is doing what he has to do as compelled by his values, and with that comes consequences that he has to face. IE: You. Because you have your own justice, and it contradicts his, and so you duke it out, and it's not that the winner is right and the loser is wrong, it's just that one of you must face the consequence that comes with failure. In the case of the story it you was you failed, kind of, but Near and Mello confronted Light, and that time he fell. And that's all there is to it."

Erin paused in her long-winded speech and gnawed on her lip. "Look, there's a reason I am who I am, and you are who you are. You involve yourself with these things, and up until now I just stayed home and minded my own business. I mean. As far as I'm aware there are no great, world-renowned detectives where I'm from—could be wrong. Pretty sure the average civilian doesn't know about you in this world. Which means there could be some crazy Sherlock Holmes operating behind the scenes in my world that I'm just not privy to the knowledge of. But for the most part, that kind of thing is, well, fictional. My brain is hardwired by cultural norms to believe that you and Kira are impossible hypotheticals. The concept of absolute justice can only be discussed as a theoretical. Maybe that's why I have such a hard time with Kira. This idea of being some god of justice is just so wildly hysterical to me. It's the deeply absurd notion of a child. I know he's supposed to be very clever, but there's a difference between wisdom and intelligence. At least by comparison you operate under the means of a human. You are still fallible, and that allows for your sense of justice to seem more grounded in reality to me."

"You mean to say that in the absence of true justice being possible, it is better to maintain the fallibility of humans?" L asked, his tone thoughtful. "Even if it might result in worse harm in the future?"

Erin shrugged. "I'm honestly not even sure. And this is all based on the idea that what Kira wants is actually justice, which I don't think is true. I think his ego gets in the way. I think he has one very simple idea of justice, and it's terribly naïve. And not in a forgivable way, because innocent people end up dying over it. Which. If he truly believed in justice, I don't think he would have put himself and his goals before the lives of innocents. By contrast… Oh no. This is going to sound so messed up. But. By contrast, I think the fact that you died ended up cementing the idea that you did not value yourself or your ideals over the lives of other people, even if you were willing to use other people to a degree. If that makes sense." She winced and wondered if that was some left over hero-worship leaking into her opinions. Not that hero worship was completely accurate, but she had thought of L as the "hero" character.

"Then do you believe that justice is fundamentally related to martyrdom?"

This made her shake her head slowly. "I don't have a deep understanding of martyrdom as a concept, beyond a few dying strands of religious ideology in the older generations of my relatives. But if I did think that, then Kira dying would have made what he did just, right? Which I didn't think. Then again, he did not go willingly, so maybe that wasn't martyrdom."

And what a messed-up idea that was to have. Because from a certain angle that theory could have supported the idea self-destructive tendencies indicated moral uprightness. And she, as something of an expert on self-destructive behavior, did not agree with that by any means. Hurting oneself or leaving oneself in danger intentionally did not and should not ever be used to prove a point. That was horribly unhealthy.

"Woah, this shit is too heavy when I'm this tired," she groaned. "Basically, I felt that you knew where to draw a line better than Kira did. And you lock people up in straightjackets and dungeons, so that's saying something. Besides, these are only two examples of justice. I'm sure Chief Yagami has a different ideology, and the other Kira guy was even more extreme than Light, and Misa's beliefs are different, and the government is different, and who are a million people to say that a million people are wrong? I'm stopping now before my brain literally melts. How did we end up on this topic anyway?"

"You were trying to determine what my intentions towards Kira were, when I already had informed you that my goal is to provide evidence of who Kira is and how he kills."

"Wow. I spiralled that bad huh?"

"I did inquire what you thought would be the most just thing. In summary I have discovered that you yourself are not sure and are more likely to match your sense of justice to someone else's."

"Well sure, but doesn't that mean I do have one? It's just a bit less well formulate than yours?"

L hummed thoughtfully, the sound crackling over the phone, and it sounded as if he was moving about. "It is not that you are apathetic, so much as you seem ambivalent. You do not lack particular feelings" he went on to clarify, "as you have varied and conflicting emotions on the matter. As evidenced by your struggle to tell me the truth previously."

She nodded. "Yeah. Sounds about right. And more often than not I really don't know what my thoughts are or how to navigate them." She scrubbed a hand over her face. "It's always so much easier to look at things outside of yourself. Can't see the forest for the trees, as the saying goes."

"Indeed," L agreed absentmindedly, just as a knock sounded on Erin's door.

She blinked and turned, hanging up the phone as she went to answer the door. It was Watari, and she realized she'd almost completely forgotten he was coming during her chat with L. Then she took a moment to carefully consider the fact that she had just regarded her encounter with L as a chat, rather than an interrogation. Maybe it was human empathy taking the fact that he was no longer a disembodied, distorted voice over a speaker, and applying normal feelings and connections to the completely mundane way she had been talking to him via a cell phone, as if he were any other person in her life, calling for a catch up.

She shivered, and stepped aside to let Watari in. "Anyone ever tell you how weird your boss is?"

He smiled at her with something that looked an awful lot like exasperation.

X.x.X

When Erin stepped out of the elevator into the main foyer of the hotel, she felt her stomach drop out from under her feet. The sensation was unexpected and drew her to an abrupt halt. She was caught be the bizarre feeling that she had forgotten something or walked into the wrong room alongside a mild vertigo that made the floor feel a little too far away even though she was standing on it.

Also, there were way too many people.

"Hoo boy," She breathed quietly, digging her fingers into the back of her neck.

Watari turned to face her, expression politely inquiring beneath his hat. He was not dressed up in full disguise, as that would likely have only drawn more attention to him. Instead, he simply looked the neatly dressed old gentleman. "Is everything alright, Ms. Harker?"

Honestly, she wasn't sure. How many days had she been sealed away? She didn't think it was long enough for her to be feeling this weird, but apparently that was not true. She rolled her shoulders forward and sunk her head into the collar of the winter coat that she had been provided with. "Fine? Sorry. Just." She breathed out slowly, and glanced around the room nervously, eyes flitting over the figures of the people milling about, over the far walls, and the lights. "Let's go."

Moving across the lobby felt like the longest walk of her life, and she kept having the intense feeling that she wanted to put a wall at her back.

Outside was even worse. It was just so loud. The last time she'd been outside had been during her brief flight from the hospital, and she had been too consumed by panic to really take heed of her surroundings. She remembered it had been late, so late it had been early, so it hadn't been quite so overwhelming. Now though, it was evening—maybe the late dinner rush—and the city felt like it was overflowing with acticity. There was chatter, and honking, and sirens, and lights, and Erin almost turned right back around and went inside.

Watari took her gently by the arm, folding her hand in the crook of his elbow, and guided her to a car parked directly in front of the hotel. She stumbled along behind him, planting her eyes firmly on the ground and wishing she had ear plugs. Then again, not being able to hear what was going on around her might have only served to make her jumpier.

When the door of the car swung open, she heaved herself in with great haste, eager to be out of the open.

L sat in the other seat, crouched in his usual attire, despite the January chill. There were a pair of canvas sneakers discarded on the floor.

The door thudded shut behind her, and Watari moved around the front of the car to the driver's side.

Erin bundled into her seat and scrabbled for the seat belt, already hyper aware of the quiet. "If someone told me a year ago this would happen I… well I wouldn't have done anything because it would be too ridiculous to even entertain."

"Have there been any changes to her health?" L directed the question at Watari.

"No butterflies," Erin answered instead "mark is the same. I remain 'alive' against literally all odds. Or whatever it is I can be classified as."

"By definition, you do count as alive."

"Yeah. Well. Tell that to the Grim Reaper. Where for art thou Ferry Man, where for art thou?" Erin flicked her hand towards L flippantly, though quietly she tucked away the idea that she was, in fact, alive. She would have something to cling to the next time she got morbid. "Actually, that reminds me, what are your thoughts on Mr. Butterfly and his whole quest to give back the deaths I've 'stolen'? Because I think yours is definitely on that list… Hopefully. And Ukita's. And Everyone else'? If it's your deaths that it wants, then that could happen anytime, but if it's the specific death that happened in the story, then you've still got time. Hey, are you having a skyscraper built? Or bought?"

She intentionally spoke in a tone that waws as blasé as she could manage.

L spoke in a voice which sounded as unconcerned as hers, though she tried to tell herself his was less of an act. Someone needed to be calm out of the two of them. "Currently there is very little I can do regarding my death if a being beyond my understanding is targeting it. I am inclined to believe that it will try to emulate the deaths which your presence has offset, but to be certain I would need to speak with a Shinigami, and there is a chance they will not be able to provide me with the information I need either."

"Have you looked into what it could be though?"

"Butterflies hold some symbolism of death, often because of an association with the concept of reincarnation. The larvae will dissolve itself in enzymes before the Imaginal disc fuels the growth of what we know as the butterfly, which people equate to dying and being reborn. Thanatos, the Greek God of Death has also been depicted carrying butterflies, which are interpreted to be symbolic of souls."

Erin glanced towards L curiously, trying to read the emotion on his face. Was he really looking into mythology now? He made it sounds so logical, even perfunctory. As if this kind of thing came up on cases all the time. Well, maybe it did. There were all kinds of strange criminals committing absurd crimes out there. But she doubted it had ever been quite as literal as this. For all that, L's face was, while not emotionless, only laced with an easy sort of concentration.

"Thanatos, huh?" She paused and turned it over in her head. "Well, far be it for me to argue. I come from a different dimension, so really anything is on the table."

"And yet it seems you have some doubts."

To this the young woman shrugged. "In Death Note—ah, that was the name of the story. In the story there were only signs of the Shinigami as I have explained them to you. The Shinigami, the Shinigami Realm, The Death Note, the Eyes, and the Names and Lifespans. These are the things which I know to exist within this reality, and while there really was a lot of, like, symbolic metaphor, that's all it was. Like, the apples and… church bells. And some of the artwork showed Light with, like wings, and had crosses, and like, the big reaper style scythes. I think it was mostly aesthetic. Like, trying to encapsulate a goth or punk type of feeling people associate with things that talk about death. Anyway, my point is that it would feel weird for that to be cross contaminated by other mythologies, you know? Like, yes, anything could be possible, but… how probable is that?"

"At this point it would be negligent to discount any possibilities." L's voice was dry, edging on humored as his fingers tapped out a nameless rhythm on his knees.

"Fair point. Too bad you can't stage a whole broadcast to narrow things down for this," Erin agreed solemnly.

L hummed in consideration, and while she did not think the detective was actually considering what she had said, Erin could imagine him before a mental chess board, plotting all his strategies out, knocking pieces off the board when he saw them fail. She wondered if he knew Go. He seemed like he would. She'd always been curious about how that game worked.

"Oh," she said, and smacked her hand down on her leg for emphasis, causing L's attention to flick towards her sharply. "Maybe we're looking at this the wrong way! You know the Death card in Tarot?"

L blinked at her with his discomfiting owlish eyes.

The young woman smiled wryly. "Not a fortune teller, no. But I know a bit about it because I had a phase when I was younger. Shocking, I'm sure. Anyway, that's not the point. So, everyone always assumes the death card is a really bad omen, right? It's very dramatic, especially in cinema. Someone flips over the death card, like bam! You're doomed! But that's not actually how it is, really. The upright Death is more about, like, the conclusion of something, and change and what not. It's more positive than most people might think. The old giving way to the new, sort of. What if it is like that with the butterflies? What if they don't symbolize this whole 'justice' entity thing? You said they were supposed to be souls with the Thanatos lore, right? What if they represented the deaths I stopped-the lives that Kira doesn't cut because I'm here?"

L pressed a thumb to his lip, and she could see him mull the idea over, his gaze drifting slightly passed her shoulder. "You mentioned the butterfly in the sky tore away, and there was a hole behind it, in your dream. And then the voice spoke. Did it come from the butterfly, or the hole?"

"Hard to say, and in the first dream, the voice came from the butterfly," she chewed on the inside of her cheek, discouraged slightly. "Although it was still mimicking your voice at the time."

"What happened to the butterfly when the hole was revealed?"

"I don't know. I got distracted by the wound in my—oh hell, how did I not make that connection before? What if the state of the sky was reflected by me? When the tear appeared in the sky, my heart vanished as well. It could have been one of those, you know, metaphorical projecting the internal externally or vice versa dream sequence things!"

The detective tilted his head to the side, in something like a nod. "That could also be a possibility." He was silent for a moment, as if he was taking the time to file this new thought away in whatever complex archive, he had going on in his head. "Hm. For now I have sent what was left of the specimen Watari had collected to a lab for testing. That should tell us more."

Erin settled back in her seat, troubled as always. "And in the meantime, you're doing whatever it is you need to do to catch Kira." She nodded sharply. "Right. I guess. That's all there is to it."

"Yes. Often finding answers requires long period of waiting."

She huffed. "I'd probably go mad if I were you. Or maybe you have gone mad." It was a careless joke, and the minute it left her lips she found herself worrying that she had grown overly familiar with L. It had not been very long, and she found herself deeply uneasy with how frank she was with him now. She'd gone from keeping everything as carefully tucked away behind a mask as she could manage to being excessively real about almost everything. Every time she realized that she'd been doing so she felt embarrassed, and a little defensive about it.

In an effort to hide the creeping awkwardness the young woman felt she focussed back on the streets passing by. "Appreciate the luxury travel by the way. The whole dark hood thing is actually hella freaky. Also, the drugging. You get pretty freaked out waking up in places you don't remember going to, especially when it's via the whims of others. Don't recommend it."

"It was necessary for the—"

"—Investigation. I know. Gotta be safe. I know why it was necessary. But it doesn't make me feel better about it." She grimaced. Hadn't she been trying to get away from being overly candid with L about feelings and what not?

A deep yawn stole her sheepishness away, and the misplaced soul pressed her hands to her eyes.

"Watari informs me that you might do well with something to occupy your mind, since he believes being forced to spend long periods of time without distraction may hinder your stability."

Erin blinked at L, nonplussed, and once again blown away by his lack of subtlety. "Oh. Well. Yes? I only got part way through the Shakespeare and now I guess its evidence or something because it got covered in butterflies."

"The inclusion of the supernatural in this case adds a new avenue of research which must be done, one which would require a long explanation to the investigation team. They are also already busy with the tasks I have given them. It would make the most sense to delegate the task to you."

"What?" Erin asked, voiced pitching up several notes. Was he crazy? Did he really just imply that he wanted her to work with him on the investigation? Technically she already was, but more as a witness, less as an active participant. The sudden shift was mind boggling. Although, to be fair, he had included Light, the actual suspect for Kira, in the investigation. Maybe there was some strategy to this beyond what she had realised so far.

"You would not need to be included in the majority of the investigation, at least not for now. However, it would be useful if I had someone to analyse different mythologies and cultural superstitions. If there is a connection that can be found, or information on the Death Notes, I want to know it. As for the butterflies and this aspect which you have interacted with, I want to be a prepared as possible. Speaking to Ilmort or another Shinigami would be the most helpful, but there must be some clues if they have had interactions with humans before. At this point you are the most aware of your own situation and are the most suitable for the task."

"Really," she asked, on account of the fact that he still had no real reason to believe that everything she said was true, and that her words might be tainted by her bias and preconceived notion about what was going on. "What happened to not telling me about your investigation methods?"

"The potential benefits currently outweigh the costs," L said with a miniscule twitch that likened itself to a shrug. "And again, your involvement will be limited to specific research."

Well, that wasn't the most resounding of endorsements but… "Sure, I guess. If you think it won't do any harm, I'm not going to complain about doing a bit of folklore study. At this point I'd take just about anything."

"Yes. You have been displaying some concerning symptoms regarding your mental well-being. Can you describe a particular reason why you've taken to putting yourself in small spaces?"

Her shoulders pulled up around her ears defensively. "I dunno. Probably because I constantly feel like I'm being watched?"

"Hm," L responded noncommittally, likely thinking the same thing as she was: she was being watched. Namely, by him.

"Anyway, it just makes me feel more at ease." In fact, she had to wonder why he asked at all. The idea of having a wall to your back so that you knew you couldn't get jumped from behind had to be a pretty basic stress response, right? The young woman turned the thought over and over in her head, trying to match it up with what she knew of L. Eventually she narrowed her eyes at him. "Can you describe a particular reason why you're trying to play counsellor?"

She thought she might have seen the edge of a smile peek across his face, but it may have been a trick of the passing streetlights.

"It benefits me to know what state your thoughts are in. Is it that you feel you are going to be attacked? Is it that you feel you need to be ready to attack? Is it that you are trying to hide? Any of these will shape how you respond to something." L droned in the way he might have explained something to Matsuda, laying out his reasoning like he was laying out cards on a table.

Erin responded by thudding her head lightly against the car window. "I spent so much time avoiding attention, and now I'm living under a god damn microscope. I think I might be cursed. And don't try to say that curses don't exist. We literally can't know that anymore. Hey, do you think I should focus on Japanese mythology under the basis that that's where the story was written, or is that a flawed idea?"

"I would recommend starting with topics about death, books, and the concept of predetermination."

"Fate. You mean fate, you just didn't want to say it because it'd sound stupid," Erin groused at him, not knowing if that was true, or if predetermination was what L had really meant. Certainly, it seemed more accurate. If people had set lifespans, but they could be stolen, then that may have suggested they were fatedto have their life span stolen, or it may have suggested that their fated death was being stolen. In which case, fate became a nebulous concept in and of itself. Predetermination felt less weighted in theology, and therefore less likely to become a tangent—more objective.

She stared blankly for a second, her thoughts racing. "Hm. It's a tangent from the Ancient Greek stuff we were talking about, but is there any proper mythology about the Book of the Dead from Egyptology, or was that just a Hollywood McGuffin?"

"I will have Watari bring you some materials."

"Oh, should I approach this from the base thought that the authors created this world by writing the novel, or that this world already existed, and the authors just somehow lucked into writing a story that lined up with how things go here? Should I look into multiple dimension theories as well?"

L did a weird thing with his face that she didn't quite catch.

"Or should I just, um, like pretend for a moment that I'm from this reality?" she asked uncertainly, trying to figure out what was going on with the detective.

"I doubt that will work," he returned, "we are almost there. I will contact you via the phone when I need to speak to, and I suggest you make use of the texting function if it is important during the day. If it comes down to it, I will inform the investigators that I am in contact with an outside source."

She took that to mean he would not be introducing her to the rest of the team, since Shuichi Aizawa and Chief Yagami would recognize her and likely have a lot of questions. Then again, they were probably going to be pretty baffled if L still took the route of having Light on the team. It likely spoke a great deal as to their willingness to work with L that they didn't make a particularly big deal out of that. That, or they thought it too unlikely for Light to be Kira.

Their mistake really, one they would pay for in lives.

She wanted to press L for answers on that, demand he lay out his step-by-step plan to act on her information and corner Kira. He had to have something going on in that over-hyped noggin of his beyond just taking the things she said under advisement and proceeding as before. He wasn't a fool. He had to be cooking something up, laying in extra fail-safes and traps. Something.

Still, the young woman bit her tongue against. She had to trust that L knew what he was doing. And, at the end of the day, all she had to do was tell him everything she could. It was not the fastest or most clear-cut route to stopping Kira. Weel. No, technically killing him would be the most direct path she figured. But Erin wasn't a killer. If that was what Ilmort had wanted, he should have picked someone else. Then again, they had wanted her to show up and nab the book from Light before he got his bloody little fingers all over it.

Which begged the question of how she'd been supposed to find the book in the first place. It's not like she could navigate a fictional representation of a city she'd never been to. It would have been faster for Ilmort to just hop on through to the mortal coil and get it himself.

Actually, that was a good point. Why hadn't he?

She gnawed on her lip, trying to figure it out, when something so obvious it might as well have been a billboard hit her. "Oh! That's it! Ilmort! He's from another timeline! He's from the timeline where you died, and Kira had years to reap the criminal populace! That's why—I thought it was strange how he only manifested like some sort of weird projection, whereas Ryuk and the others were way more tangible! Oh my god, that's so weird! Does that mean there's a different version of Ilmort in this timeline? What the actual shit?"

L stared at her. "Are you proposing that time travel is also evident, because there are several reasons why that should be scientifically impossible."

"Well sure, but what if timelines are actually just different multiverses? So technically he's from a parallel reality that's, like, slightly ahead of this one! Oh! Actually, maybe that has to do with the time discrepancy between the anime and the manga! Because technically the manga took place in, like the early 2000's, and then the anime was three or four years later. Which begs to question what's going to happen to the film series… Oh shit, they're not going to dump me over there once I'm done here, are they? Oh god, oh shit, if I have to go through this whole shit show again, I'm gonna to lose my actual mind."

"This is something which I would like to ask the Shinigami, since baseless conjecture at this point could lead us away from the truth."

"I have so many questions," Erin breathed, feeling her mind begin to liquify a little bit. "I'm telling you right now, if I have to convince you the supernatural exists all over again—well actually I never watched the film series, so I don't know how different it is. That might be difficult."

"I recommend that if that is the case, you try to convey the truth as quickly as possible." There was something about the detective's tone of voice that made her think he was humoring her., but she couldn't be bothered to find out for certain when her mind was awhirl.

"Oh definitely. I'd rather not go through the whole mental warfare thing again. First thing I'm doing is finding the Kira hotline and spamming everything I know into it. Unless I end up in another coma. Which, knowing my luck…" She twisted her face up in an expression that best resembled what she thought of that. "You should give me a sealed document with something only you'd know so I can convince you to listen better. Or. I dunno. Just tell yourself what you need to know. You'd believe you, wouldn't you."

"That depends under what manner the information was presented," the detective mused.

She scoffed. "Of course, it would—that's not an insult." And then she wanted to slap herself because L wasn't going to care about her snark, and she really shouldn't either. "Oh man, if they make me run every timeline to stop Kira… technically that could be an infinite amount and I—" it seemed horrifying when she stopped to think about it. An endless battle, hunting down some terrible teenage killer, stopping him, and then having to do it all over again? Again, and again, and again? A cold chill ran down her spine. "I'd never get to die."

A/N: * Bursts into the room, out of breath and with papers flying everywhere. * I'm late! I'm late but I'm here! And. Wow, you know. Younger me had no clue when she started this, and now I'm here, uncovering one plot hole after the next. I'm doing my best, so hopefully it's okay but. Well. It's an imperfect story. Also, oh my gosh they talk and think so much these two. I get so worried I'm being repetitive. Has Erin already talked about what she thinks of justice? Worse, was it different? Did they already talk about x? Did I say something else, and now I'm rehashing the same idea, but giving you all something that doesn't match up? I literally have no idea what I'm doing. So irresponsible of me. Alas. Also, I am so sorry; I think this chapter gets pretty long winded. Now that Erin has someone to talk to, she is rambling hard core. She's also awkward and is struggling with long gaps in conversation because she feels so out of her element. (That's a lie, I just have a bad habit of thinking things through while I'm writing and not cutting anything down at all, I'm SORRY). Anyway, good fortune be upon you all. Hold tight to the spark that keeps you going, whatever it might be.

Guest: Thank you so much for saying so, that really means a lot to me. I feel like I'm doing something right! Especially when I get nervous about what weird new plot threads I'm dragging into our beloved Death Note story line.