Death Note – Light's Legacy
Chapter 4: The third-generation L
Pawn to E3. The board was turned. Grey eyes stared down upon the field of black and white. Within his castle of playing cards, Near remained unmoving, one part of his brain focused on the move he should make with the black side of the chess board, another upon the very same thing – but from a very different perspective. Every detail of the Kira case went through his head. It had been several years since Yagami Light had been revealed to be the culprit and Mikami Teru and Amane Misa as his accomplices. Near had barely made it out alive that day and Light, the second-generation L, may have even achieved victory after all, if it wasn't for Mello's and Mr. Matsuda's actions. And yet… Near was getting the impression that he and the real L were trying to solve a never-ending case. Or perhaps it was his own imagination; the power of the Death Notes haunted his mind, clouding it with baseless fear. Near let a black pawn take a step forward aswell, mirroring the actions of the white side. Or was it such a 'baseless fear'? The young man sat up for a moment and glanced at his watch. November 29th. Today was the day. The one he had set up for himself. Starting 23 days ago, police agencies and other organisations of justice all over the world had been starting to get extremely lucky… Many known criminals and terrorists were getting caught or killed, one by one. Every circumstance had seemed entirely plausible. To people around the world, it must seem like strange but fortunate coincidences; not like Kira, who ruled with fear and force, making the world obviously aware of his existence by killing all his victims with heart attacks. But to Near, who knew of the potential of the Death Note, this was getting too odd to ignore. There was also the case of the President dying. It was too bizarre for his liking. That's why he had been looking forward towards this date: the maximum time a Death Note user could manipulate his victims and the circumstances of deaths was believed to be 23 days. If a substantial amount of the criminals died today, then Near would assume that another Death Note had been brought into play, as had been the case with C-Kira. In that case, then delivering proof who was Kira and taking the notebooks alone would never be the end of it… As long as some Shinigami had a spare notebook and wanted to have some fun like Ryuk, catastrophe could strike again and again. In fact, it was possible that Ryuk's example had spurred on other Shinigami's… Not only would this concern the world of humans – it would literally become a case to move heaven and earth. Near turned the board once more. He had no proof that there was a Death Note involved just yet, but his feelings made him sure of it. Just as he was sure that this new Kira had already made the opening moves and he had little choice but to respond. But how would this Kira react? If his suspicions were correct, then Near was sure that they were dealing with a Kira that was acting far more cautiously than Yagami Light. When Near looked at the entire case in retrospect (combining his own experiences with the data the first-generation L had shared), then Light's moves had always been aggressive… Killing Lind L. Tailor immediately, getting rid of the FBI agents investigating him as soon as he found out, constantly manipulating others… Some of them were achieved by incredible strategies, but they were nonetheless offensive maneouvres. This Kira was most likely different. There was always a chance a Death Note had fallen into the hands of a moron, but it was wise not to assume that. One mistake in this game and Near could be dead… No… Everyone who had worked on the Kira case and had knowledge of the notebooks could die. And if that happened, he didn't even want to imagine the results. With some luck, this new Kira could go further than Yagami Light. Near continued staring at the chess board, before a brief alarm went off at a computer monitor. 00:00. Near had given it enough time. He grabbed the headset laying about and spoke into the microphone as he played with some of his white, curly hair.
"Commander Lester… What's the news?"