Good afternoon my dears!
Finally I've completed the seventh chapter :D
Things are heating up and the Aka Sora are getting ever closer to their goal, but will they achieve it in this chapter? :O
You'll just have to read in and find out!

Disclaimer: Death Note belongs to Tsugimi Ohba & Takeshi Obata, but the OC's are mine!

Chapter 7 – The Countdown

"Tsuki. We have something. Please come to the hotel and have a look." L's voice sounded over the phone, and even though her heart rate was already racing from working out and keeping up with her training, it still managed to skip a beat and get faster and she ran around the room after hanging up the phone and grabbed everything she would need.

She quickly locked her house up and ran to the car in the rain, got in the driver's side, and stuffed all the clothes and whatever else she had in the bag that was innocently sitting on the passenger's side seat and had been since she got home four hours ago.

It took her less than half an hour to get there, and she was speeding most of the way as well. How annoying that they had to get something just after she had left to do some seriously overdue training and get some food for Hisuiro which was currently running around in a tiny plastic enclosure with a green lid sitting on the back seat of the car.

As per usual, before she got out the car, she put her hood on and wrapped a scarf around her face to hide as much of it as she could, but not too much as to look suspicious. She slipped into the elevator, glad that no one else was in it and pressed the number 5, then waited until it reached level 5 and stepped out, only to nearly run straight into a staff member who was pushing a room service tray.

Quickly, she apologised very politely and crinkled her eyes as if she was smiling apologetically and continued walking down the hallway until she reached the correct room. Again, as per usual, she did the special knock which changed every time they changed hotels.

Ame opened the door for her, and nodded, but the expression on his face was grim. She expected that she would be told that more people had died and she struggled to compose herself and keep a hold on her temper as she briskly walked into the room and straight over to where L was crouching in his normal position on the lounge.

"Several of the lower level Sora Ops agents have been killed in their homes. Taiyou will be here any moment with the identities of the agents." L explained simply, and seemed to not realise the gravity of the situation.

Whoever the Aka Sora was, they knew who the Sora Ops agents were.

At that moment there was a knock on the door, the special knock, so without a doubt it was Taiyou. Tsuki nearly ran to the door, opened it, and before she even looked at him or acknowledged his presence, she took the briefcase from his hands and slammed it down on the nearest table.

Taiyou just didn't bother stopping her, guessing that Ame or Kumo would have wanted to do the same. He wondered whether she knew the combination, not that it would stop her from getting into the case, but he would prefer her not to break it. Everyone was standing around the table, waiting to see what Taiyou had brought.

The sound of a small click answered his question and the briefcase opened to reveal several files, five in fact. She lifted them out and spread them across the table, then opened them, one by one, looking at the names of the agents who had passed. They were all the lower agents that had potential to be promoted.

"These agents, they were potentials. They'd all been with us for at least a year. I had hoped that one of these people would replace Arashi...and now Hoshi." the woman said quietly, her blue eyes looking at the names and photos of the agents. She was not happy about this.

As per usual, L took close notice of Tsuki. The shadows on the black cloth mask she always wore made it look like she was biting her lip underneath it. He had noticed this several times before, usually when she was stressed or frustrated. Also, he noticed that her voice wavered a little when she mentioned 'Arashi', who he assumed was a former agent. More than likely, what he was about to do next wasn't the right thing to do, but his social retardation prevented him from analysing it too much.

"Who is 'Arashi'?"

The moment the question reached Tsuki's ears, her head snapped towards him and her eyes were narrowed. Taiyou was the next victim of her glare, as she heard him take a breath, as if he was about to speak. He wasn't phased by it, and began to speak.

"Arashi was a former Sora Ops agent. He was the only other agent in the history of the Sora Ops to ever advance to the top ranks within a year. Unfortunately, he was killed roughly 8 months ago, just after Ame had been promoted to his current position." he informed calmly, knowing that Tsuki absolutely hated hearing about it. It had torn her apart nearly as much as her parents death.

"I see. So these agents were soon going to be promoted?" Ryuzaki asked, also looking at the five files laying out on the table.

"Yeah. I was training two of them. Hoshi was training the other three." Ame responded first, since no one else had decided to speak.

"Alright. At this point , we don't have a choice but to place every Sora Ops agent in protection as well as mostly any one in the police force that we have worked with." Tsuki finally spoke, the wavering in her voice completely gone, and nothing but the normal, unrevealing tone was left.

"I agree, but the Sora Ops agents won't take to that too well. And going through all our old case files to find who we've worked with directly in the past would take hours." Taiyou concurred, also realising that this was getting incredibly serious and the death toll was already too high. 31 people had been killed at once in the explosion at the police station as well as all the others. And now, it was confirmed that Hoshi being killed wasn't just because he was at the crime scene.

They were now being targeted directly.

"Actually...I believe I can help with that." Kumo said, with a slight hint of knowing and slyness in his tone.

L was about to speak, and say exactly what he just realised Kumo could do, but he was beaten to the punch by the only woman in the room, who seemed to be getting smarter by the day.

"You could make some sort of database that checks everything about the victims, as well as everyone else in the police force. It would be much quicker, and we'd be able to compare and contrast all the information much easier than going through everything manually." Tsuki said, walking over to the computer with Kumo and pulled up a seat next, that just so happened to be the seat that L sat in.

She had one knee pulled to her chest, while her other leg dangled off the chair and she assisted Kumo in making the database. Why they hadn't they thought of doing this earlier?

Within two hours of hard work, many changes and frustration, they had completed the database and Kumo was just finishing putting all the files into the database itself. When he was finished, he pressed 'Enter' and it was done.

"It's going to take a while to process all the information, since we haven't overlooked even the smallest thing, but when it's done in a few hours, we'll be able to look at all the things the victims have in common to try and find a pattern, and also maybe see if we can predict the next people to be targeted." Kumo said, very pleased with his work. It had been a while since he had made up something so complex.

"For the mean time, let's check out the crime scenes. I assume they haven't been touched yet since we haven't inspected them?" Tsuki asked, directing the question and Taiyou, who nodded once and spoke.

"The only people who have been there is our forensics. They'll be able to direct you to anything that we need to pay attention to when you get there." he answered and looked between her and Ame. "Move out."

They quickly armed themselves, and changed into their proper clothes, instead of the casual ones that they had been wearing around the various hotels. As per usual, they managed to sneak out of the hotel unnoticed, all credit to their hard-earned skill, and made their way to the first crime scene.

All of the victims had been killed in their homes, and had the same characteristics as the other murders. The murder weapon was the same, and 'A.S' had been painted on the body in red again. So far, there hadn't been any notes found at the scenes, so it was time that they got back into it and cracked down to find these bastards.

When they arrived at the first crime scene, there was already a car out the front and the lights were on in the house. The car belonged to one of the forensic agents, and Tsuki guessed that Taiyou had posted one at each crime scene since they had five.

She knocked on the door, and a few moments later, a male of about 30 years with messy, short brown hair named Haruto opened the door. He welcomed them both and let them in, warning them about being careful as he still had a few things to look at in the house. They walked in cautiously, and over to the body which was slumped against a wall in the kitchen.

This first agent was one of the ones that Hoshi had been training, and he had become Hoshi's apprentice in the area he had specialised in, breaking in to the most difficult places possible and not leaving a trace of evidence.

Tsuki remembered when he was first accepted into the Sora Ops and that he had been one of the most dedicated and serious men she had seen in the ranks. She had already expected that he would do well, and it was absolutely terrible that such a promising agent had been killed by those down right fucking ass-holes in the Aka Sora.

While the forensic agent finished off his collection of samples, which he would be analysing at the lab when he arrived back there, both Tsuki and Ame did their own personal investigation of the crime scene, looking around for anything that could even in the slightest chance help them with the case.

Haruto called them over, now ready to show them what he had found. They all regrouped in the kitchen, around the body and Haruto switched off the lights and got out his Luminol, which makes blood easier to see because of the blue glow it gives off.

The spray showed up the tiny splatters of blood, as well as other things that didn't seem to be of any interest to Haruto, so Tsuki assumed it was nothing since he was undoubtedly one of the best forensic scientists she had ever worked with.

For the next few minutes, Haruto walked them through everything that he had found and Ame was taking photographs of the evidence to take back to the hotel and show everyone. They didn't feel much need to be using their headsets so they just made sure that they brought their mobile phones in case one group needed to contact the other.

They would have to wait for the pathologist to examine the bodies before they could know the time of death, so instead of waiting around for the pathologist to get there like they usually would if there was only one scene to investigate, they went to the next crime scene.

In the Sora Ops, they went to impressive lengths to try and keep their agents well looked after, and unfortunately, this was one of those times where all the time and effort they had gone to went to waste.

All five agents that had been killed had lived very near each other, and every agent had a tracking device surgically implanted inside them as well as a small device that sent a distress signal to the closest agent when the button on it was pressed. It seemed that all five agents would have had to been attacked at the same time, since it was impossible that if one of them wasn't being ambushed, they could have easily gone to one of the other agents houses and helped out so that maybe they could have lived.

But that wasn't the case. They had all been killed.

Instead of dwelling on it, Tsuki and Ame pulled up at the next crime scene, and the forensic agent had already finished their examination of the crime scene. She showed them the small blood splatters and everything else they needed to know, as well as told them about every sample she had taken that would be analysed later on.

The next three crime scenes were exactly the same and after they had taken every photo and gotten all the information that they could for the time being, they headed back to the hotel. When they got up to the room, they briefed everyone on what they had found out, and showed them the photos that they had gotten from the crime scenes, showing the body, blood splatters, and anything else of relevance.

Hopefully the lab would be finished with the results of the samples from the scenes soon, so that they could input the new data into the database and maybe, just maybe, they might be able to get somewhere with this case.

It had been five days since they had heard about the death of the five promising Sora Ops agents who had been murdered in their homes. They had input the data in the database after the lab had finished with the various different samples of what had been found at the crime scenes and had only come to the conclusion that it was the same murder weapon being used, the blood splatters were only of the victims, not the attackers, and there had been no footprints or fingerprints, no hair strands, no clothing threads.

Nothing.

Absolutely. Nothing.

Tsuki was on her last nerve. They had analysed the distress signals from the devices and had been checking the tracking devices on every agent ever since the five agents had been killed. Kumo had also changed the devices so that it would notify all the Sora Ops agents, even the non-field agents if the button had been pressed.

So far, they hadn't received any distress signals which was a good sign, and they just hoped that they wouldn't receive any since they had moved all the agents to different locations that were supposed to be completely secure.

They had gone so far as to not even record on file where they were moved to, instead just following them on the tracking map that Kumo had made several years ago upon his promotion to 'Kumo'. Without him, the technological side of the Sora Ops would be nothing, let alone exist and work as well as it does.

On another note, as much as L didn't want to admit it, he was stumped. It was almost impossible to get closer to solving the case when there was no evidence, no leads and nothing to go off whatsoever. Not even an educated guess or estimation.

Suddenly, the sound of a mobile phone ringing started, standing out shockingly in the silence of the room. Tsuki felt the vibrations from the phone on her leg, and pulled it out of her pocket, and answered it. L, Ame and Kumo noticed the widening of her eyes, before her head turned towards the computer Kumo was sitting in front of.

Then, as if on queue, four different distress signals sounded, and alerted them all that another attack was occurring right this second. Throwing caution to the wind, Tsuki grabbed her pack with one of the other cameras and sprinted out of the room, and all the way down to her car. Ame immediately followed, and they both left L and Kumo behind to hope that they got there in time.

Kumo immediately knew what Tsuki wanted him to do, and he swiftly dialled her phone number off his own mobile phones and waited for her to answer. As soon as she did, he could already hear the loud revving of the car's engine and he quickly recited the closest address a few times before hanging up and reciting the next closest to Ame.

It was times like this that he wished that he didn't have to watch the computer and be the field agents connection to finding out anything they needed while they worked, so that he could go out in the field and maybe save a life, especially the life of a comrade. He was fully trained for field work and could fight just as well as Ame, despite his appearance. Maybe it might be an idea for him to teach L to do his job so he could go out in the field.

The minutes went by slowly, and tensions were running high until they finally got a call from Tsuki, but she only had bad news for them.

"I was too late. He died of blood loss just after I got there. There's no one in the surrounding area either. Let the forensics and the pathologist know. The way this case is going, we should hire a few more of each." she said pessimistically, feeling helpless at this point in time.

Her motivation for knowing that she could find the Aka Sora and stop them was failing, and fast. This case had started out like so many others. Someone or some people would kill some other people, and they would eventually slip up and be found. But the Aka Sora hadn't slipped up once.

Kumo told her the address of where the next distress signal had come from and as soon as he hung up, he got a call from Ame saying the exact same thing as Tsuki had. He gave Ame the last address so that Tsuki could finally give herself a break and come back to the hotel while Ame checked out the last one.

He had noticed that she had been so stressed out lately, that she had forgotten to feed her snake or even acknowledge it's presence. Basically, she was driving herself insane, and he just had to try and get her to slow down for a few minutes so she didn't completely lose her mind.

An hour later, she arrived back, kind of annoyed that Kumo had told Ame the last address and refused to tell her. However, when she walked back into the hotel room, she saw that he had brought out the rat that she had planned on feeding to her snake several days ago but never got around to it.

L watched the exchange between them idly, and again noticed that the shadows on Tsuki's cloth mask seemed to give away what her mouth was doing. A hint of a reluctant smile seemed to be the current involuntary choice and she thanked Kumo with her gaze before giving him the camera and picking up the small plastic cage the rat was in and strolling into the bedroom where Hisuiro was.

She got him out, and L just saw from his usual seat in the big room that she had lifted her cloth mask down to reveal her face and the snake's nose and her own were touching and he actually saw a genuine smile flash upon her face and disappear just as quickly. He knew that sooner or later, she would end up knowing that he was looking at her and catching him, but he didn't really want to look away at the moment.

He couldn't really understand why, but she didn't seem to be very stressed out while she was bonding with the green reptile. It was almost as if she didn't want to allow herself to think of anything negative whilst being with her beloved pet. Her time spent with Hisuiro was time where she could forget all other things, and all her problems.

Seeing the sudden change in her, he found himself almost wanting to smile. That in itself was nearly as insane and unorthodox as the idea of Tsuki, the usually cold, calculating and emotionless agent, smiling as if she was happy.

L was broken out of his reverie by who he guessed was Ame knocking at the door. Kumo got up and opened it to reveal the black-haired man, and he quickly glanced back to Tsuki, who had pulled her mask up, replaced her blank facial expression and was putting her snake back in his enclosure.

Before things got even more weird, he looked back towards his own computer screen, and continued looking at the database that Kumo had copied to his computer. Tsuki came back out a few minutes later, the small plastic cage no longer containing the rat, and he resisted the urge to shudder at the thought of what was happening to it right now.

Ame walked over to the computer desk and handed him the camera he was using so he could upload photos from the other crime scenes. Kumo thanked him, and the photos were copied to the computer in minutes.

They all looked at them, Tsuki analysing Ame's shots, Ame analysing Tsuki's, Kumo and L analysing both. There wasn't much they could do until the forensics checked for trace evidence, biological evidence, footprints etcetera and they got their full report, as well as the pathologists report on the cause and time of death, and any other relevant information.

Yet again, it was just a matter of time.

They had just received the results from the pathologist and from the lab and Kumo was currently inputting the data in the system. Because they couldn't risk any sort of information leaks, they had made sure that the results were not recorded on any computer aside from Kumo and L's personal ones and that the data was hand-written by whoever did the appropriate research.

When Kumo was finished, they waited a while until it was finishing processing, and unfortunately, they found nothing again. It could only be assumed now, that the Aka Sora had been cleaning up the scene thoroughly after they committed each murder.

Aside that, they were all only just starting to realise what they were up against. It was an organisation to rival the Sora Ops. They were organised, smart, quick, strong, and they knew the way things worked in the police force, and the Sora Ops.

It was highly likely that the people involved with the Aka Sora had some sort of experience with or in the police or some other justice enforcement agency.

Everything was just becoming too much. Everyone's stress and anger levels were at maximum, motivation was low, and fatigue was so strong that all of them were struggling to stay awake, even L was having problems.

Just as if things couldn't get any worse, Kumo said that they had nothing out of the blue, and pulling everyone a little further down into depression. They just all felt hopeless. They couldn't save their comrades and it may end up that they couldn't even save themselves.

The Sora Ops, had met their match.

3 Days After The Last Murders

Everyone was sprawled out on a lounge, or seat, or even on the floor. L had given up his usual crouching position to actually sit down, and he was currently drinking a cup of overly sugared coffee. Tsuki didn't even feel like coffee was worth her time of day at the moment, and she could only imagine that Ame and Kumo felt the same.

Taiyou hadn't been around too much, even though they gave him daily reports, just because he was working so hard to find secure locations for all the agents. He'd also decided to hide their scientists as well, since they were also trained to defend themselves very well and could be considered a threat to the Aka Sora because of their scientific intelligence and strength and even more so because there wasn't really anyone else left.

No sooner after Kumo had sighed loudly in hopelessness, three distress signals started and immediately Tsuki, Ame and Kumo got up and ran out of the hotel and downstairs. Kumo had gotten his wish to help out in the field while L was their connection to technology. And Watari was always there to look after L if they weren't.

3 separate cars sped off into the night and one by one the world's number one detective swiftly contacted them all, giving them an address each and was left to hope that they got there in time, or at least one of them did.

Again, unfortunately, they didn't make it in time. Even more so because this location was further away than the last ones, and no matter how much they sped, or how good a driver they were, they didn't have much of a chance to get there in time to save the life of an agent, and maybe bring someone to justice and finally get a lead on these bastards.

This happened again two days later, and it was time they figured out why the number of victims was decreasing and the days between it was as well, and also how the Aka Sora kept finding them. They had also figured out that 31 people died at the police station then exactly a month later, they had more deaths.

"Well, we had 31 people die in the police station explosion. Then a month later, five agents were killed, then four days later, four were killed, three days later, three were killed, and two days later, today, two were killed. Could we assume that in one days time, one person will be killed?" Kumo went over what had happened and asked the question that no one really wanted to know the answer to.

"I don't know why they would change the pattern now, but the thing I'm worried about, is who is the one person they will kill? Surely it won't be a cannon fodder rookie. I reckon that now they'll start trying to fry bigger fish." Ame answered wisely. He certainly was learning quickly in this case.

"Basically, there isn't really many of us left now. There are seven agents working overseas and our team of 10 scientists. The only way to go is up. I think that they're going to come after Taiyou...or me." Tsuki said, her voice unusually emotionless, compared to lately where she sounded tired and sick of everything.

"Taiyou is the top of the top, but he does work with a lot of other agencies as well, where as you are Sora Ops, through and through. And to be honest, you've got more leeway with us than Taiyou does. If I was Aka Sora, I would go for you. You've been doing this since you were a kid and your the real power in the Sora Ops." Ame answered, not really wanting to be so rational about this since it might mean that their enemy was thinking the same way, but knowing that he had to say what he thought.

"Kumo." L said suddenly, after he stopped biting his thumb and looked up at the man he was speaking to. "Please tell me how do the tracking devices work exactly?"

"Um, well, my computer sends out a frequency which tracks down the devices which have a matching frequency. Kind of like a walkie-talkie, you have to be on the same frequency to talk." he explained, wondering why L was bringing this up all of a sudden.

"Would it be possible for an external source to replicate the frequency and be able to track down the devices from their own computer?" the dark, messy-haired man asked, feeling like his revelation would be correct.

"Yeah, but it would be almost impossible to do so...unless, they used the tracking devices frequency to reverse the effect! That's it, that's how they've been finding us! Except that is also nearly impossible to do, unless your me." Kumo exclaimed and just hoped he was wrong, but he had a feeling that he wasn't.

"So, in other words, we have to switch off all tracking devices, which also means sacrificing the easiest way to track our agents down. But if we deactivate them, theoretically, they won't be able to find us, correct?" Tsuki spoke up, after taking in all this information.

"That's correct. From their end, it's impossible to activate them since I made them to completely stop working entirely if they were deactivated. I'll get on it immediately."

"Now, we've got that sorted out, let me ask you all one very important question. Should count one day as the very next day? Or will it be tomorrow?" Tsuki contemplated, wondering if the Aka Sora would wait for a whole twenty four hours after their previous attack, or whether they would count that twenty four hours would be that day.

"I hate to admit it, but I just noticed that it has been a whole twenty four hours since their last attack." Ame said quietly, and with a lot of concealed worry.

Simultaneously, they all looked at the nearest clock. It was true. They hadn't realised it, but it was a whole twenty four hours since the last attack. If their deductions were right and it was Tsuki they were coming for, would it be now, or in another twenty four hours?.

Abruptly, all the power went out in the building, and fire alarms began to go off, deafening them slightly.

Their question was answered.

DUN DUN DUUUUNNN!
Well, didn't I leave you with a right cliffhanger!

Sorry, but I've got to keep it interesting!

Til next time!