Last time on No Matter What...

Puzzled, she got up from her desk to see what was causing the commotion. As she entered the crowd that had gathered near the man's desk, she heard people say, "He's done it now." And "How did he know?" Intrigued and heavily mystified, she ducked under an opening to see the papers on the desk clearly. She squinted to see the title and gasped in shock.

How is this possible?! How is Kira killing off criminals by the hour?!

3 DAYS LATER

"What?! T-there were another 23 heart attack victims yesterday?!"

"Yes Chief."

The Chief looked absolutely shell-shocked as he said, "The day before, there were another 23 victims. One at every hour..."

One of the reporting officers nodded. "The fact that this has continued for two weekdays straight..."

"...means that our sketch of the culprit has become doubtful." The other finished.

Sunny could hear everything from where she was positioned at. 'No, that's unlikely. The culprit is still most likely a student. And even if he isn't, at least we found out that he can manipulate the time of the victims' death. No human being could stay up that long without almost collapsing from exhaustion, and Kira wouldn't want to be caught by the police so early...'

"No, anyone could skip school for two days..." It seemed as if even the officers sitting at their desks had joined the conversation.

"That's not it!" Sunny whirled around, and when her eyes found what she was looking for, she smiled.

'Ryuu...' He sounded angry. Sunny furrowed her brows in puzzlement. What could he be angry about? The loss of life? It had never bothered him before. The fact that their theory had holes? No, he had dealt with worse on other cases. So what was it...

"It does appear less likely now that Kira is a student..."

'Um, not really. He only changed his times after the meeting 3 days ago. That's pretty suspicious, don't you think, Ryuu?'

"...but that's not the message Kira's trying to send at all!"

The whole room went quiet under a tense, electrified silence. Everyone had tuned their faces towards the man in black and the small laptop he held.

Taking this as a good sign, L continued. "Why one every hour? And why are all the victims in prisons, where they can be easily found? Kira is trying to say that..."

The room leaned in closer, each daring the other officers to breathe.

"...he can freely control the time of death."

It was like a bomb had gone off in the room. A bomb of shock, silence, fear, and awe. In its wake, it left the officers speechless and wide-eyed, each for different reasons.

Sunny smiled yet again. 'Ryuu, I bet you're insulting their intelligence levels in your head now, aren't you?' Her face became serious again. 'However...'

"However, something's not right. As soon as we began to suspect that Kira was a student, the timing of the killings changed as if to contradict our theory. Is it a coincidence? No, the timing is too convenient. Does that mean Kira knows what the police know?"

The Chief spluttered. "A-are you saying there might be a leak? That one of us might be helping Kira?"

Sunny rose immediately to say what was on her mind. "Chief, I don't think that's it. All of us in here are genuinely trying to catch Kira. Here are two things that could've happened: A) Kira is just a brilliant hacker or B) Kira is close to one of the officers in here, close enough so that the officer might have accidentally said something crucial in their presence simply because they felt relaxed with that person."

The Chief narrowed his eyes in disbelief. "They felt relaxed with that person?" He repeated skeptically.

Sunny swallowed unnoticeably as she realized everyone was looking at her. 'Agh! Stupidmouthstupidmouthstupidstupidstupid!' She took a deep breath and lifted her chin up a bit more. 'I won't go back though; I'll stand by what I just said.' "Yes. It's possible. You always feel more relaxed with people close to you. Perhaps the officer didn't even realize what he or she said until now. "

The whole room was silent again, until L spoke up. "That's a viable option Kobayashi-san. Thank you." Sunny bowed slightly in the direction of the computer and sat down with an inaudible sigh of relief. 'Phew! That was dangerous; I just questioned the integrity of the police force! It's all thanks to Ryuu that they didn't tear me apart right then and there.'

L now spoke to the rest of the room. "In any case, we need to find out who or what has been giving Kira information about our doings. If we find that link out, we may be that much closer to finding Kira."

The Chief seemed to accept this explanation, for he said. "Alright L, we'll look into it. In the meantime, I do believe it's time to go home. Good work everyone."

"Good night Chief!"

BACK AT THE CONDO

L looked through the evidence that Sunny and Watari had given him. Most of it was just information that backed up his theory while others contradicted him entirely! He'd have to have Sunny double check the credibility of these sources later.

He clicked on the student page that he Sunny had been looking up 3 days ago. He had told Sunny to make a profile for each of the first 50 in the Kanto region. Well, actually, he had asked her to make it. He knew how tired she was these days.

However, Sunny had taken up the ordeal. Of course, she hadn't gotten around to it, but she would, he knew she would. Until then, he was stuck with what he could figure out.

His dark, sleep-glazed eyes landed on the first name on the page. Light Yagami.

"This Light Yagami isn't just anybody; he's the Chief's son!"

L gave him a look over and then decided he would look him up himself. One less person for Sunny to profile, and besides, he was really curious about this Light Yagami.

He typed Light Yagami's name into the computer, and the results left him wide-eyed and thoroughly interested. As he scrolled through the search results, he couldn't help but think, 'Light Yagami, who exactly are you?'

SOMEWHERE IN AMERICA...

"Hello?"

"Is this the residence of Raye Penber?" The man in question looked at the phone in confusion before answering with,

"Yes, what do you want?

"I need your help with the Kira case. You and eleven other FBI agents will be sent to Japan this week to spy on the families of the Japanese police force. Do you accept?"

The dark-haired man gripped the phone tighter and said, "I'm in."

BACK IN JAPAN

Sunny walked home tonight. She had told Watari that she was going to go pick up a few things and that she'd be able to get home on her own. Watari had protested against it initially, but when he saw how determined Sunny was, he let her go reluctantly.

After Watari had driven away, Sunny started walking home, enjoying the cold air and the snow that was softly falling over the city.

She had wanted to get L that sugar pot she had seen a month ago. It was big enough to hold his sugar intake, and it was of an extremely durable material. However, the best part had to be the dragons that curled themselves around the pot.

Whereas the pot itself was whiter than the snow she was walking through, the dragons were blacker than the night sky in the countryside, and the gold decorations on them burned like fire when held to the light. The bigger dragon circled around the bottom of the pot, and his head rose up majestically, almost as if it were guarding the tea. The second dragon curled protectively around the rim of the lid, like a miniature version of the 1st dragon.

Sunny smiled at the thought of it. She had never told Ryuu about that pot because she wanted to get him the pot for Christmas. And since it was now just around the corner...

She stepped into the shop and was greeted by a sweet cinnamon-and-ginger scent. She breathed deeply and sighed. She would've loved to stay in here and just breathe in the scented air, but she had a job to do.

She moved quickly through the aisles, not bothering to look at anything else, and searched for the pot. If she was correct, it would be right there in the back with all the other sugar pots.

When she got to the back, her mouth dropped open in shock. The store had gotten more sugar pots than when she was last here! All around her, she saw pots of all sizes and colors. Most of them were the traditional white, but there were some that were blue, green, and red. There were even some that were tie-dyed!

Sunny began to despair. Watari and Ryuu expected her to be back soon, probably in around 15 minutes, and she still had 10 minutes of walking time left! How was she ever going to find the pot in all this mess?!

As she gazed around the shelves again, she saw it: the sugar pot she was looking for. It was on an upper shelf, and it was between a blue sugar pot and a red sugar pot. She breathed out a sigh of relief. Now the only problem was being able to reach the sugar pot.

She moved closer to the shelf and outstretched her hand. It fell short. She stood on her tiptoes. It fell short.

Huffing in frustration, she looked around for a chair or stool she could stand on. Finding none, she turned back to the pot, and sighing, tried again.

As she reached futilely for the pot, a shadow came behind and easily took down the pot she'd been trying so hard for.

"Here you go Miss," she heard as she turned around. In front of her stood a well-polished student. He had carefully combed brown hair, warm brown eyes, and a polite smile on his face. He was offering her the pot he had taken down from the shelf earlier.

"T-thank you!" she exclaimed. She took the pot from his hands and gingerly held it, cradling it almost. It was as perfect as she remembered. A beautiful, creamy white, a gold-topped handle, and the two dragons curling protectively around the pot. 'Yes,' she thought, 'Ryuu would love this.'

"Miss, if you don't mind my asking, why did you decide to go for that particular pot?"

She looked up to see a quizzical glint in the boy's eyes. "Well, I'm buying this for my friend as a Christmas present. He loves dragons almost as much as he loves sugar!" She shook her head and grinned in amusement. "Really, he's like a little kid!"

He chuckled at that. "Sounds like an interesting person!"

She sighed briefly. "Yeah, he is."

Just then, her phone rang. Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion. She pulled out her phone, and her eyes widened slightly. 'Ryuu?! Why's he calling me?! He never calls!'

She looked back at the student apologetically and said, "Sorry, I'll have to take this call."

"No problem," he said smoothly.

She walked away from the boy and positioned her back to him before picking up the phone. "Hello?"

"Sunny, where are you?" Even in his blank voice, Sunny could hear the worry.

"Gah! Sorry, Okaa-san! I was just trying to find something in that shop Obaa-chan and I used to go to. I'm nearly done, so don't worry, I'll be home soon!"

The line on the other was silent for only a minute. Then he said, "Get back quickly, I have something to tell you. Don't fall back on your way here, understand?"

Sunny mentally scowled. "Of course Okaa-san! I won't, I promise. Bye!" She clicked the end button.

"Sounds like your Okaa-san must be worried about you."

She turned around, heart pounding frantically. Had he heard Ryuu's voice?

If he did, he gave no signs he had. "Ah, yeah. She gets overly worried at times." Sunny looked at her watch. 'No wonder Ryuu's worried! It's been 20 minutes since I last talked to Watari!'

She looked back up at the boy and said, "Well, it was nice talking to you! Ah, I almost forgot! I'm Sanako Kobayashi." She bowed in greeting. "Nice to meet you..."

She looked up and watched as the student bowed and stood back up straight. "It was nice to meet you Kobayashi-san. My name is Light Yagami."

AN- Hey guys! I'm so sorry that this is late; first I had All-State the week after I posted chappie 2 and then I had make up work to do (and yes, the rhyming was intentional). Just know that I will announce if I am going off into a hiatus (I'll define a hiatus as 3 weeks or more); otherwise, the story should be posted either every week or every other week.

And since we're on the subject, I might as well give you a heads-up now: when exams start, I will not be updating any stories or posting any one shots. Exams start in mid-April, so I should be able to get 3-4 more chapters in. For those of you who read these Author's Notes, you will know when I get on hiatus because I'll say it in the last chapter before exams. I WILL be back with more chapters after exams end, approximately in mid-May, so please bear with me!

I must also apologize for the length of this chapter. I was originally going to make it longer, but when I added the other parts, it just didn't flow the way I wanted it to. So I cut out that part, and it is now the beginning of chappie 4. You know what that means...

I'd like to thank my beta-reader Codename Jellybean for all her hard work; if it wasn't for you, this story would not be as good as it is now.

I think that's all; please remember to review: questions, suggestions, anything is welcome!

Bye for now!

Rafa-chan

P.S. Ryuu means dragon in Japanese, and since L always calls himself either Ryuuga or Ryuuzaki, I always thought he liked dragons. (shrugs) Maybe it's just me.