I decided that if I was going to play a game with L, I was going to do it in the most sadistic way possible. Every death, every clue, every aspect was going to somehow be used to rub it into L's face. I would make sure that everything I did made him suffer. The same way he had made A suffer.
It was not an easy process planning the murders out. Every detail from the location to the timing had to be planned out well in advance. After all, I could not just find some random person and kill them. Any target I chose had to already be fated to die.
So I sat around parks and cafes, taking note of anyone with BB as their initials until I found 2 people with close enough death dates. The third person was harder to find. As I was starting to run out of time, I found a solution in little Quarter Queen. As long as I was willing to get creative with things, I could claim that "qq" was an upside down and lowercase version of "bb." With the days flying by, it would have to suffice.
The truth is that most of the clues were born that way. I tailored them to my needs, instead of the other way around. For instance, I knew that in the end I was going to die, so I needed a situation where I could be mistaken for the target and where Misora would be elsewhere. The first thing I found was a location where two people with the initials BB lived. From there I built a clue that could point to both of them.
The need to mask the suicide was the reason why I got so creative with the murders. I figured if each murder was different, then I would have more leeway in what I eventually did to myself. The main problem with these creative murders was the torture involved. Believe it or not, the thought of killing people has never appealed to me. The thought of hearing their tortured screams appealed to me even less. Eventually I decided that, even if it created a common thread in all deaths but mine, I would sedate each victim before I killed them. That way at the very least they wouldn't feel any pain before they died.
Go ahead and call me a hypocrite or a liar. I don't mind. I know that after everything I did, I have no right to claim I have a human heart. It's not fair for me to act like I felt any sympathy for my victims or even really viewed them as humans anymore, yet the truth was that the idea of torturing someone was just too much for me.
As twisted as it sounds, apart from the murder part, the game itself was fun to play. Naomi Misora was an excellent intermediary between myself and L. At first I was annoyed that she was there. I knew L would send somebody, yet it still stung a little to think that L still wasn't taking me seriously enough to face me himself. Yet for some reason I couldn't explain she began to grow on me. There was something about the way she talked about the case and something about the way she looked at me that I liked. It was clear that she found me to be a freak, yet there were times when she looked at me with so much kindness in her eyes. It both frightened and comforted me.
However, despite all of the credit I did give her, I never really stopped seeing her as L's puppet and in the end, that was why I failed. I never accounted for her independent action. I didn't realize just how brilliant she truly was, or how kind. It was not until those final moments, when she burst through the door, put out the flames, and arrested me, that I finally realized why I had grown to like her. She reminded me of A.
As Misora stood there next to me waiting for the police and ambulance to come, I felt a sense of relief. It was like that breath I had been holding ever since my days at Wammy's House was finally released. I had planned for my release to be the sweet embrace of death, yet for the first time, I had been unable to see how a death would turn out. Even if I had no power to alter a person's lifespan, Misora did. She was the reason why I was still alive and the reason why I had failed to defeat L.
And she had solved the case when L had not. Somehow, in some twisted way, despite all that had happened, I felt like I had won. Well, I suppose "won" is not the correct word. It's more like I felt that L had lost. The real victor in this battle was the third player I never meant to invite.
After that there really isn't much more to say. I survived the incident and was sent to jail. By this point I was in constant pain. I longed for death, yet I could not kill myself. The cruel irony of my curse had come full circle. The same way I could not prevent the death of a loved one, I could not cause the death of such a pitiful and pathetic creature. So I accepted it. I lived with the pain, the shame, and burden of what I had done and the pain that I had caused.
In all my life there were exactly two people who had looked at me with eyes like that. Even though A was dead and gone, Misora was still alive. Even if I would never see her again, and even if she hated me for the rest of her life, I was glad that she had won. When death finally came to claim me, I was ready. There were so many ghosts that I would need to face in the afterlife, yet I was not afraid. My eyes would no longer matter there. And even if he hated me, I would never have to fear losing him again. As my life slipped away, I remember closing my eyes and seeing his staring back at me.
