Chapter 33:
"The Final Solution - Part 2"
L strolled over to the pair of detectives. They met half way.
"Ryuzaki! You're alive!" Soichiro said, his face bursting with elation. "But…I saw you—die! The Shinigami killed you." Aizawa had not been there for that moment, but Soichiro had told him about it.
L smiled thinly. "As you can see," he said, "the rumours of my death are greatly exaggerated. I had to fake my death to make it appear Kira killed me. Things were getting too heated. I had to step back. Unfortunately, Watari did suffer an unfortunate heart attack after years of stress in helping me. His age finally caught up to him. I was so disheartened. We designed my 'death' together. I had to get away from the case. As for the Shinigami, well…" L hesitated, as if to think. "Its motives were a mystery to me."
Aizawa looked over to the chairs. "Light, and Beyond Birthday, I assume," he said. "What's going on?"
"I tracked Beyond Birthday here," L answered, "and I found them both like this. Someone from my past has decided to take revenge on them, someone whom I thought was dead."
"Alexandre Monet," Aizawa said, as he examined the chairs with Light and Beyond Birthday. "We were told by…someone else…that that is his name, but we don't know much more than that." Aizawa reached for the headset on Light's head.
"Wait!" L said, throwing an arm out. "Stop what you're doing! I discovered each headset is rigged with explosives. If they're removed, they will blow their heads off. I'm not sure why each of them have been placed inside a virtual world simulation, but as you can see by the way their muscles are twitching—their auditory-motor processes are engaged within."
Soichiro stepped over to Light. "How do we bring them out? And where is Alexandra Monet aka 'A'?" He didn't even know what the man looked like, or what "wrong" was done to him by Beyond Birthday.
"Fled, I'm afraid," L replied.
"But I don't understand," Soichiro began, and stopped just short of asking if L knew about Crusade. But he knew L would tell them in due course, if he knew. "Why did this Alexandre Monet kidnap Light? Who is 'A'? And what is his grudge? If he has an issue with Beyond Birthday, but why bring Light into it?"
"Wrong place, wrong time, I suppose," was all L said, with a shrug. "Alexandre Monet was a resident at Wammy House before he was morality wounded, shot in the head, and left to die. Everyone thought he had killed himself, because he couldn't take the pressure of succeeding L. It was designed to look like a suicide. They were wrong. Alexandre or 'A', as we call him, was slated to take my place if anything happened to me. Rue, better known by his pseudonym 'Beyond Birthday' was second in line."
"But now with you back, L, and we can all go after Kira again, together," Aizawa said excitedly.
L nodded. "We can," he said apathetically. "As you know, Wammy House is much more than a simple orphanage. It's a place where gifted children are educated. Beyond Birthday was a child of the orphanage until he turned bad—I did mention the LABB Murder Case, correct? I suspect Alexandre's death/suicide was nothing more than a ploy for Rue, I mean Beyond Birthday, to step up the ladder. He tried to kill 'A'."
"So where does Light fit into this?" Soichiro asked, still not getting a straight answer.
Aizawa sighed. "Because L suspected Light in being Kira," he inserted. "This 'A' must have not known that L absolved Light," he further said. "'A' disguised himself as Interpol agent Auric Lafayette, then proceeded to wedge his way into the Kira Case as an ally." Aizawa mused for a moment. "Maybe, he was gauging the situation and then decided to take action? But how did Alexandre know what happened? Only the Kira Task Force knows the truth about the Death Note and Shinigami?"
"The unfortunate thing about the world we live in is that information always gets leaked, rumours get spread, misinformation is labeled as fact, and then said information becomes weaponized—for the sake of mentally unstable individuals," L said, pointing to Beyond Birthday. "Rue assumed I was dead, and tried to get to 'Kira' through the task force to get revenge. There is something to be said about loyalty to one's kin, meaning Wammy House. Unfortunately, I believe, Light became his target. Much like a weapon of opportunity, Light became an opportunity to get information and the identity of Kira. "Someone on the task force must have let something slip, but let's not play the blame game."
Siochiro nodded. "That sounds plausible," Soichiro agreed. "I'm so glad you're back, Ryuzaki."
L nodded, then lifted his other hand out of his pocket, palming a small PDA to Soichiro.
"What's this?" Soichiro asked, looking at the screen.
"I managed to access Alexandre's computer systems," he said. "He has this brewery wired to the hilt with pitfalls and traps of all sorts, but I've managed to disarm a good percentage. I believe he made your son and Rue go through some sort of gauntlet before ending up here. Stages to conquer elaborate challenges, I assume. If they got here without injury, colour me impressed. Don't ask me about the jumpsuits, they may have survived whatever Alexandre dished out, but their clothes obviously didn't."
Soichiro took the PDA and scrolled through it. All the locations of the bombs were highlighted. His brow ached. "Ryuzaki is right," he said, as Aizawa leaned over to view the PDA. "This building is wired heavily. Aizawa, we need to get all non-essential persons away from the building." He then looked up and gave a small smile to the genius detective. "You are truly remarkable, L."
L smiled thinly. "Indeed, I am."
Soichiro looked back to Light sympathetically. He didn't know how to help him.
"I'll look after these two," L said, as if to grasp a father's worry. "They're safe for now, but those bombs must take priority. We'll find away to free them later. Go!"
"Right," Soichiro turned, and Aizawa followed. They returned to the stairwell.
But the moment they left and got to the adjoined landing between flights, Aizawa suddenly stopped. The second in command of the Kira Task Force looked puzzled.
Soichiro looked at him. "Aizawa? Come on! We need to call in a Bomb Squad."
Aizawa looked at Soichiro. "Something doesn't feel right. Did L seem slightly taller than you remember? And the way he passed you the PDA…you know how L handles things delicately, like they were fine China. But he just palmed it to you. And the way he referred to Light as 'your son' was odd."
"You must have be imagining things," Soichiro replied impatiently.
Aizawa shook his head, but he still appeared distracted. "Yeah, maybe" he said, "it must just be my detective's intuition. I'm just naturally suspicious. We've been trained to question everything. L is alive and I'm ecstatic, but…"
Siochiro gave him a quick smile. "As police officers, we've seen some bizarre things over the last little while," he said. "None of us knew of the existence of Shinigami or the Death Note until the Kira Case. L faking his death, keeping it a secret, and we going to his funeral, was apparently all part of some elaborate plan to create a false sense of security so Kira would make a mistake. It's a shocker, I have to admit. But we can deal with it later. We need to get to those bombs and disarm them!"
Aizawa nodded. "Right," he said, "let's go!"
And they stormed down the stairwell.
As soon as Alexandre Monet saw the two detective's leave, he smiled broadly. He had played the situation brilliantly. He had given the detective's access into the room, and convinced them L was now alive. And it was so easy. They were simpletons.
"I'll now take my rightful place as L," he said to himself. He turned to Light and Rue, seated in their respected chairs, wearing the headsets. "You are the only one's who know the truth. Sadly, you'll never get the chance to tell anyone. I've made things whereas you'll never leave this place alive. My final solution is at hand." He smirked. "You two may have beaten my slew of deadly games as a collective mind, but this is your endgame! Vengeance shall be mine!"
And Alexandre Monet laughed manically.
Ryuk had observed the entire interaction between Alexandre and the two Kira Task Force investigators. Alexandre had tricked them so easily, convincing them that he was L, the great detective still alive, but Ryuk knew the truth. In fact, he knew an even bigger truth than anyone else realized.
And he suspected Alexandre knew the Shinigami knew.
Alexandre turned to him, straightened his body, cupped his hips, and asked, "So Shinigami, how was my performance? I managed to evade detection from a pair of top notch investigators. They don't suspect a thing, and in fact, I've now established myself as the one and true L."
"You certainly were convincing," Ryuk replied. "But eventually, they'll catch on."
Alexandre smirked. "They'll be too late to expose me," he said.
"What about the others, the ones that hacked your computer systems? I bet they know the truth."
Alexandre put a hand to his chin and mused. "You may be right, and there is also problems with other Wammy House children who may know the truth. I'm just going to have to eliminate them all."
"Eliminate them all?" Ryuk gasped. "That's crazy! And how will you kill everyone that knows?"
Alexandre smiled broadly. "In one fallow swoop," he said. "I'm sure Crusade will be up to the task."
That's just plain evil, Ryuk thought.
Ryuk's hands were figuratively tied. If he used his Death Note to kill this maniac, then he would turn to dust. Despite the evils of this guy or the evils he will commit to advance his ambition—very similar to Light—Ryuk would not sacrifice himself like Rem did for Misa Amane. The world will have to just deal with an evil "L", a genius gone completely insane.
But Light's lifespan was his to take, that was the part of their contract. But he was afraid of what Crusade would do. It isn't fair, he thought.
Ryuk cocked his head at Alexandre. "You're not like other humans I've encountered," he said. "Normally, I can see their lifespan. But with you, I can't. Why is that? There's just this strange symbol floating I've never seen before above your head that I can't convert it to normal lifespan digits."
Alexandre smirked. "I'm special," he merely said with a laugh. "I was rescued within the last gasps of life by Crusade. He and I have a special deal, aligned with the providence of a unique individual who calls himself 'The Evangelist'. I've only met the man once, but the moment you enter his presence, you can just feel the power radiating off him. He's a member of an elite group of likeminded people."
Ryuk was aware of this man with ties to a shadowy organization that called themselves "The League of Darkness", who were in at war with a similar group that referred to themselves as "The Savant Society"—that Demetre Draycott, Light's friend was a member—both involved with the Death Note and Shinigami. It was a shock when he learned about them, but he had heard of other Shinigami in the past who had visited the Human World. He just didn't know they had their own cults.
Light had never met the "Evangelist", but he had had an encounter with his people on the religious cult leader's private island in the South China Seas. On the internet, in his weekly broadcast, the religious leader would preach to a collective, and he was known as a bastion of hope and prosperity for millions of his followers. The Evangelist was a famously "good" preacher, despite his clandestine undertakings.
Alexandre checked his phone. "Well, it's time for me to depart," he said. "Once my trap is triggered, that will start a five minute countdown, and this entire building will explode, killing everyone inside. My phone will alert me when it's activated. However, for Light Yagami and Rue, their deaths will be immediate. The members of the Kira Task Force, law enforcement, each death will be blamed on Beyond Birthday. I'll then emerge as L and proclaim that it was an unforeseeable and horrible incident concocted by 'Kira' himself to prevent his own capture. Kira will be hated all around the world. I'll then systematically eliminate everyone who knows about the Death Note and align myself with those with share my ideals."
"You're insane," Ryuk remarked.
But Alexandre merely smiled. "Insanity and genius are of two sides of the same coin, my friend," he said, "but ultimately, you can't have one without the other. It's all about human nature. So, I offer this only once…" He extended a hand, and added, "Forget about Light Yagami and join me, Ryuk. And together, we'll take this world by storm. And believe me when I say, you won't be bored."
Ryuk looked back at Light. The offer was extremely tempting.
From what Alexandre had designed, there was no way Light would survive this. But Light's lifespan was his, and he didn't do all this—drop the Death Note—to be denied his prize for someone else's revenge.
He had never meet another human like Light, and there was something internal that made Ryuk want to keep things as they were. He also wanted to find out if "Kira's World" could be obtained?
"Nice offer, but I'd get nothing from you, Alexandre Monet," Ryuk said. "You're not even—real. I don't know how this is possible, but I knew from the beginning that you are not what you appear."
"So, you know the truth." Alexandre shrugged. He fingered something on his phone. "It makes no difference if you know my secret. You won't be able to stop me anyhow. But be my guest, take Light Yagami's life right now, write his name in your Death Note. The moment you do, you'll begin the countdown for the building to explode. And I'll be safely away in my helicopter. But remember Crusade's warning, I'm sure you wouldn't want the wrath of an Astral God upon you."
Alexandre laughed loudly and with maddening mirth.
Ryuk let out a frustrated grunt. He felt like just cutting his loses. He could write down anyone's name and collect their lifespan, but the contract stipulated that Light belonged to him. And he wanted him.
He had to find Crusade. They needed to talk.
To be continued...
