13

The rest of the month seemed to fly by as all of the members had their hands full with planning, gathering clues and moving the investigation along.

It has been very tiring, with all new developments happening at once. L was naturally socially awkward, and it has always been a challenge for him to conduct this investigation with a team who can actually see his face, who can talk to him in person, who can potentially put himself in danger, and naturally he has been so careful and put a lot of measures to protect himself. But then again, these people have different personalities, and at one point there was also a factor of their unpredictability.

The older task force members, Mogi and the older Yagami were much easier to deal with. They were easily predictable and the only time they clashed with L is when they wanted to arrest those Yotsuba executives right then and there, in order to prevent more deaths from happening. Those things were easy to handle, as L has already done. They even have their embarrassed faces after L has made them see how foolish their straightforward approach was. So at least L can have a handle on those two. No problem.

Not to mention Aiber and Wedy, who were employed by L and would follow every kind of command he would tell them, no question, even Watari.

Truthfully it was the younger members of the team which L was having a hard time with.

One of the better examples was Matsuda, when he just started going off on his own and almost put the entire investigation in trouble. It was still annoying to remember but it was really fortunate to be able to salvage that whole situation. At least he was very remorseful after that, and even agreed to volunteer himself again even at the risk of his own life, when L proposed that plan to him with Sakura TV. But L still needs to be very careful or else he might do something rash again. He has to reassure him constantly that what he was doing was important, and refrain from the habit of belittling him in from of everyone.

The second most troublesome of the group was Misa, who they used in order to get through the Yotsuba executives. They practiced with Aiber for a day in order to get things right, something L found was draining to do considering Misa's too bubbly personality not to mention how touchy she was with Light.

After her incarceration she was just happy to be able to hang out with Light once in a while, even when the other person was clearly showing signs that he wasn't interested. What was very interesting and has alerted some of L's red signals was after the meeting with the Yotsuba group, Misa seemed more docile with Light, and did not argue with him. Before that she would always force herself on Light, and constantly argue with him. It could be that she was tired from dealing with the executives, but it is something out of character for Misa to do.

What was more troubling was just a few days after that, she ditched Mogi and had a date with one of the Kira suspects, and for some reason, was able to extract a confession from him. It's not that L wasn't happy about having confirmation that it was Higuchi who was the current Kira, it just makes him wonder how she got the confession in the first place.

Finally, the most troublesome person he has to deal with was none other than Light. It was one thing to be constantly ill to the point that strong smelling food were banned from the investigation room, or the sometimes mood he puts up that the detective has to deal with. L would sometimes see him in deep thought, and when L asks him he would just say it was nothing. Maybe it was something of an identity crisis?

Of course Light was the most helpful in the investigation, even using the acting tips he got from Aiber to good use by pretending to be L and contacting one of the least suspicious Yotsuba executive, proposing a deal with him to not get into any sort of trouble in exchange for his freedom. That resulted in them being guaranteed at least one month without any of the killings from Yotsuba group, and it was brilliantly pulled off, that L had offhandedly offered Light to take his place should he meet his demise. But then Light dismissed it as some sort of test to find out if he was Kira, and it was obvious that it greatly troubled him. They even had a literal fist fight which was promptly broken off by Matsuda, who was already used to this at this point.

Despite all of this, L managed to get things fall into place, and the Sakura TV plan has gone without a hitch. Every minute they can see Higuchi's desperation as he tried to stop them from exposing him to be Kira.

Finally, as there was a good enough reason to do so, L was able to fly the helicopter again with Light on the passenger seat (but this time with Watari on the back as a sniper), in order to capture Higuchi.

The man was saying a bit of strange things at first but he admitted his crimes the minute he got arrested. He was saying that there was some sort of notebook that he was using to kill people. Yagami Souichiro looked inside his car and found the notebook, and started inspecting it. However he suddenly panicked and reached out for his gun.

"Yagami-san, please calm down. You don't carry a gun"

"Oh, right"

Mogi came to his aid and also touched the note, and also panicked.

"I think only the people who touches the notebook can see it" Souichiro concluded.

"Bring the notebook to the helicopter" L calmly said, starting to get suspicious.

The moment he touched the notebook he saw it as well, and all of a sudden a lot of realizations came to him. He was so focused on his thoughts that he did not realise that Light had grabbed the notebook out of him.

"A Shinigami….there may be two notebooks"…but then L was not able to process anymore as he heard Light suddenly scream upon holding the notebook.

"Are you alright", L asked. "Seeing the monster would scare the hell out of anyone"

Light said nothing, and started looking at the notebook.

"Ryuuzaki, I'll compare the names in the notebook to the list of victims first"

There was something about how Light said it that L found strange, he was also acting so calm, despite seeing that monster. However, Light did a double take at the monster and he looked noticeably surprised now. It seemed like the shinigami was smiling at Light, but L did not have time to ask about this as just then, Higuchi started screaming as well and died on the spot.

Light looked genuinely surprised after that, and just looked at the Shinigami all that time. L took the notebook from him after that, and tried to calm Light who he was increasingly getting worried about.

"Raito-kun, it's okay. It has been a long night"

"I-I'm fine L" he replied coldly, still looking at the Shinigami. Although still suspicious of everything, L had no choice but to give out instructions to the task force, and see through the whole operation.

But he knew he had to talk to Light after this.

….

As soon as Light touched the notebook, a flood of memories started rushing into him that he screamed for a couple of seconds, and he remembered who he was, and realised his plan was a success. He quickly looked for an excuse to keep holding the notebook, and offered checking the names written on it…the problem was, there was nothing written on the notebook at all. He did a double take on the Shinigami he saw, and suddenly got confused.

Instead of Rem, there was Ryuk, who was smiling at him, as right on cue, Higuchi dies on the spot. Everyone was panicking and started checking on Higuchi, and Light used this to asses the situation. When Higuchi died, he was still holding the notebook. It looked like his original death note, however nothing was written inside, except for the rules on how to use it, and even the ones he asked Ryuk to add later on. That was what he thought was strange.

L asked for the notebook after seeing Light's distress, which he willingly handed over. It was fine for now, since he was holding it when Higuchi died, he must be the next owner and therefore his memories will still be retained.

L looked really suspicious of him, but he was having trouble grasping the situation as well.

He had to ask Ryuk privately after all of this was over.