The Cake Is A Lie

The past few days had passed by with relative uneventfulness, much to L's dismay. The only real initial plan of action the investigation team had had was to interview random people who claimed to know about the jellyfish. Doing such would have been a total waste of time though, and there's only so much random citizens (eg. manga authors who never leave their house, manga artists who were finally able to watch that stack of DVD's after completing a series...) could possibly know about this. The best information available came straight from the 6 o'clock news, but that really wasn't much better.

The likelihood of Kira having anything to do with the cnidarians had not raised a single percentage point, and the young detective was getting rather antsy and annoyed. He was much more snappish than usual, something strangely out of character for him as he always kept his cool under pressure. Matsuda, trying to boost moral and possibly inspire L to think up an answer, bought him a bar of chocolate one day. Unfortunately, the logo printed on the wrapper clearly indicated that this specific bar of chocolate was meant for moody woman. It said in bright gold letters "PMS BAR", and caused L to verbally lash out at the young man. Though it had only been a mistake on Matsuda's part, L did an excellent job proving just how appropriate it was for describing his situation and mood swings. Men can PMS too, it's not unheard of.

After four days of fruitless searching and adult tantrums, there finally came a lead. Aizawa was the one to announce it.

"Ryuuzaki, we just received a report of a dozen criminals dying of heart attacks today."

"Kira, of course." L was pretty calm right now, lucky for Aizawa. He pressed onwards as the raven haired man before him sucked on some pink hard candy .

"This will probably interest you. According to the report, the twelve prisoners were each followed by a jellyfish 24 hours before their murders. And three of them left behind notes before dying."

L stuck his tongue out and the candy slid off onto the carpet below. The news came as somewhat of a shock and blessing to him.

"Let me see the report Aizawa-san." The fro'd man handed him a stack of paper which included the full police report, several photos, and copies of said notes. All in all, the stack was about, oh, I'd say the same amount of paper as a high school student receives every night as homework. So a hella lot of paper. (If I remember correctly, there was this sign that said "Save a tree; go to school" somewhere. Kind of contradicts itself, even if the school recycles. 90% of those Cornell notes, review sheets and practice tests never make it into that blue bin...tsk tsk tsk.).

Analyzing the notes for any possible message, L stumbled across something that was eerily familiar to him. If he read just the top line of each note, it spelled out a message. All three formed a taunt of sorts which brought L back to several months earlier.

L...

Do you know...

Shinigamis keep jellyfish as pets?

For Kira to leave such an obvious message, in exactly the same way as he had back in December, meant he was surely up to something. L bit his thumb and thought things through (By which I mean he overanalyzed every detail like the OCD nerd he was.).

Kira is definitely involved in this, there's no doubt about that. The jellyfish being involved could mean he's working with them, and the note he left states an obvious clue that he knows something about these jellyfish he's not telling. However, knowing Kira he would never openly say that he and the jellyfish had joined forces. Which leads me to believe that this note is fake and he's bluffing. The fact that it was presented in exactly the same manner as before must mean he wanted me to figure it out easily.

He picked out another candy and stuck it in his mouth before continuing his mental rant.

But...that would mean Kira probably left the note fully aware that I would completely dismiss it. For him to come to such conclusions, it is likely he set it all up knowing I would think this. He must have left the note as an attempt to confuse me and convince me that it IS all a lie, which only serves to strengthen the idea that he and the jellyfish are indeed working as a single unit. The notes are just to fool me, but it's clear that Kira intends to conspire with these creature for his own purposes. You manipulative bastard! It only makes sense he would use them to target me at my weakest points, Kira wants me dead at all costs. You're obviously working with the jellyfish!

Leaping to his feet with awkward grace (What, he took ballet when he was ten. Big deal.), he faced the startled Aizawa with extremely wide eyes.

"...What is it Ryuuzaki? Have you figured something out?"

"..."

"Ryuuzaki?"

"..."

"Are you ok?"

Without warning, the detective threw his arms into the air.

"THE CAKE IS A LIE!"

All Aizawa could do was stare. Ignoring the look the afroman gave him (Akin to the 'multiple head stare' or "Are you out of your fucking mind?" face.), L took out his phone and called up Mogi, who was the only member of the task force not present. Well truthfully, only Aizawa was in the room with L, but everyone else including Watari was there working on the case in another room. They had kept their distance the past few days because they didn't want to deal with L being bitchy, and today was no exception.

"Mogi-san, I need you to keep an eye on Raito-kun for the next few days. Report anything suspicious you see to me. Thank you." He hung up and shoved another candy into his mouth, biting down hard rather than sucking on it, then spun around and ran into the other room.

"Watari! I need a cup of black tea and a dozen maple bars..."

In the other room, Aizawa sat down and face palmed, thinking something along the lines of "PMSing L is even weirder than normal L. I didn't know that was possible..."

I would have posted something sooner like I promised I would, but I've been having trouble writing this past month. Stupid funk got me down. I'm mostly better now though :)

Next chapter should hopefully be out within a week. I will try hard to keep this promise!

EDIT: K, peoples, maybe I'm just being impatient, but it seems to me that the majority of you have either forgotten how to review or are just saying 'fuck it all' to the entire act of doing so. Reviews are important to writers! Just because I don't put a little note that says "Please review bitch!" doesn't mean I don't appreciate feedback. Even if it's just "I lyk ur story", or even if you hate it, please do let me know. The species Psychous authorus subsists primarily off of reviews and caffeine, so if you you could be so kind as to leave a note, I would be most happy :3

C. Vincenti