Untitled, as of Yet
Please, if you have an idea for a title, let me know. I'm terrible with those.
DISCLAIMER:
Ok, fine. I know the Death Note characters are not mine. However. Kari and her friends are so I'd be happy to lend them to you, but don't steal them. And I'm going to marry L. Just so you all know.
I watched it all the way through three times. Just to make sure there were no clues, besides the name Kari, that might link it to any of us or even our specific area. Obviously, we were narrowed down quite a lot, simply by what we were proposing, but we had been ready to deal with that from the beginning. All that was left was to seal it and send it from somewhere else.
"So, where are we sending this from?"
"Well, Sukiyo mentioned something about a trip to Kyoto with her little siblings tonight. I guess they're spending the night there for her step mom's birthday or something and coming home late tomorrow. She said she could mail it then."
I nodded and then opened my mouth to ask a question. Mi preempted me.
"The envelope is being kept in a sterile plastic bag and Nanami has it soaking in chemicals that will purify the paper and somehow keep it from absorbing DNA or retaining fingerprints."
I must have looked skeptical. He shrugged.
"I can explain it to you with enough time and demonstration."
I put my hands up.
"It's ok, Mi. I trust you and Nanami completely. This is you field of expertise; I won't interfere. I'm just lucky to have such amazing friends."
Jin interrupted the nice moment.
"Damn right you are. And I wish you'd think of that appreciation the next time you go to smack me."
"Yeah woman! You've got quite the temper there!"
I rolled my eyes and they laughed. We settled down to wait on everyone to wake up.
A week later
I was scared. Not that I'd ever admit it to anyone for anything, but I could deny the fact that my heart rate was high above normal. And all I was doing was crouching behind the corner of a building, staring intently at the tiny screen of my ipod.
As I peered, it really struck me how clever Eina was. To be able to completely rewire an ipod so that it showed pictures from our cameras stationed all over the place and then for it to still be able to place music. I was listening to Prayer of The Refugee by Rise Against as I waited impatiently for...ah. Here we go.
I wiped my sweat palms on my velour track pants and stood abruptly, my knees aching from being bent for so long. I began to jog out along the path I'd rehearsed in my mind a million times. Except, this time was for real. I was jogging slowly and knew that the man I was apprehending was just around the bend. It crossed my mind that, at this moment, Sukiyo, Ryn, and Inari were out doing the same thing I was. I felt the drenched cloth in the bag that Nanami had specially made for these kinds of missions and then all the fear left. I was left with a sense of exhilaration as I jogged ever closer to my victim.
A couple of hours later, outside the police station
I was sweating lightly as I circled the parking lot, searching for a spot. My job had actually been the easiest when I thought about it; no room for error. I had to just knock out my guy, get him in the car, get to the station and drop him off. The others had to use less powerful mixtures with different agents to persuade their victims to come with them because, none of them could drive. Taking drugged criminals on the subway or buses with me was not something I envied them for.
I pulled in and discovered I was the first one there. I got worried, but not for long. 10 minutes after I arrived, Inari came. He was quite punctual; I'd gotten there early. We waited and it wasn't long before we'd amassed 5 very bad guys. We tied them up and left the clean note with them in front of the station and snuck away. We were all delighted and we went back to the house to celebrate with pizza. Over a couple of slices we talked it over.
"So what's going to happen now?"
"Yeah, I mean, besides what we've already done?"
"Well, it'll be up to Kira now."
"We sent the thumb-drive in."
"And it wasn't aired on Sakura TV..."
"It's true, but the police saw it and that's all that really matters."
"Why?"
I shrugged. This was a hunch.
"If it was so easy that a pack of teenagers could hack into police files, I'm sure Kira must have at least hacked L's. I'm sure Kira is well aware of Kari by now and even if he, or the police, thought it was just another hoax, well, they'll sure be surprised when they find our criminals waiting for them, bright and early, just like Kari promised."
Then I grinned at Sakura who knew what I meant and grinned back. The others demanded to know what was so funny.
"Well, I wanted to find something that would really shock them, meaning the police, into seeing that Kari wasn't messing around here."
Sakura continued.
"We searched through Matsuda's entries to find some word of importance, something distinctive..."
"Shinigami."
I smiled at Ryn and nodded. Everyone else just stared. It was pretty obvious that Ryn, Eina, Sakura, and I were the only ones who had read all the entries, but that was ok. Sukiyo questioned me next.
"Like death gods?"
She was a mythology buff like me. I hurried to clarify.
"In Matsuda's Diary we found a strange mentioning of the second kira. early on, in one of Misa's videos, she mentions 'showing our shinigami' to prove that kira was kira to her. Also, in her fake diary she sent in to the police i guess she mentioned the shinigami because Matsuda noted it twice."
I paused to cough a little.
"But what caught Sakura's interest was the word 'showing' like shinigami was maybe code for an object, probably having to do with how Kira and the second Kira murder people."
Ryn applauded for Sakura.
"What caught my interest was what Matsuda said L, or rather Ryuzaki's reaction to the word shinigami. Apparently he flipped out and fell off of his chair screaming. It was in Matsuda's words 'I was sure he was afraid and I'd never seen him scared before.' I just figured that shinigami would have meaning to Kira and Ryuzaki so in my note I just said
'Hey Kira, don't make it bad. Take a sad song and make it better. Remember to let me into your heart, then we can start to make it better. Bring all your shinigami and we'll win together. Kari'"
Mi laughed and high fived me.
"Yes! Beatles!"
"Yeah well, had to have some of that."
Everyone was pretty pleased with the turn of events. All of our targets had been effectively taken care of and by now, even if Kira was not aware completely of Kari, the police and L were, at any rate, and it was getting to the point where that was just as good for me. I was taking quite an interest with L, Ryuzaki and I wanted him to be just as in the know as I wanted Kira. Ryuzaki seemed quite a smart person and an interesting person and I have always had this childlike obsession with attention.
I suppose you might say I never matured past 10 or 11. Old enough to understand certain things were right and wrong, old enough to get crushes on guys, and old enough to appreciate learning. Mentally, my intelligence far surpassed that of my friends, in general, which was originally why they elected me as their leader.
However, I was still young enough to fantasize about a perfect world, a utopia. Even though I wasn't religious, Kira was my Jesus of sorts. And while I was dreaming about being there by Kira's side in the new world, I was still too young emotionally to dream about love. Crushes, yes. Commitment, not for me. I was too flighty, too afraid that love would make me become someone I wasn't. But I loved unconditionally, when I chose to love.
So, as I grew to like this other larger than life person, L, Ryuzaki, I wanted him to notice me. To acknowledge my existence and appreciate what I was doing here. At the moment, however, I was more concerned about shinigami. After we went home that night, I pulled up the internet and sat down to research everything about shinigami.
They were Gods of Death, they lived in their own realm, they watched humans from above, they most likely had been, at one point, human themselves because they could not reproduce with each other. They killed humans to lengthen their life span and when they looked at humans, they could see the human's true name and life span above their heads. They loved apples.
That sentence hit me with a start. I remembered vividly the night with the floating apple. And then seeing the shinigami. Now, thinking about it, how was I so positive that what I had seen was a shinigami? I was following one of my many hunches and I wasn't about to stop here. This was feeling like a big lead and I had never been one to not follow a hunch. Never had my instincts betrayed me before.
So I searched throughout internet sites for other people like me who had seen them, however, I couldn't find another case of someone walking through one and then being able to see them. Maybe I was unique in that aspect. But why? I searched and slept in intervals.
Then, finally, I found something interesting. This website was different. It wasn't particularly well made, it looked old. Maybe from the days when the internet was young. I read the strange writing carefully. It was all about something called a death note. What the hell was a Death Note?
"Honey, come on! You have to go to competition today! Put on your Jump The Track Costume!"
I sighed and bookmarked the site. I struggled to get up and start putting on the tights and fishnets. I had to align my seams perfectly, it was just something I was particular about. As the day wore on, I became weary and forgot all about the shinigami website or whatever that bizarre thing called the Death Note was.
Two weeks later, in the house
I sat, munching Hershey's kisses with all my friends. Everyone was sitting in thought. We were unusually quiet after this mission. We had rounded up 20 more criminals since we first wrote the note to Kira. When we had dropped off the criminals today there was a note for us, apparently from Kira. However, I had my suspicions that L had made up the note for me himself.
I hadn't actually read the note yet. I'm not sure what I was waiting for, but somehow I didn't quite want to read it. But, I overcame this strange feeling and unfolded it carefully. It was a typed note and I was opening it with latex gloves on. Mi made sure of that. It read
Dear Kari, While I am very appreciative of your help in my judgment of criminals, I am confident I can handle this myself. Please stop rounding up criminals in an attempt to help me.
Kira.
After reading it twice I handed it to Mi without a word. Ryn tried first.
"Are we gonna stop?"
"Hell no!"
I snapped at her and then felt bad. There was no need for such anger. I just felt ignored. Put to the side. There was almost no other feeling I hated as much as that. I was angry. But I quickly got control of myself and resumed control.
"We will continue catching criminals. I am confident that L was the one who wrote that, not Kira. I am sure he just hasn't had enough time to respond to our efforts. He is busy after all."
Everyone nodded encouragingly. Suddenly, Tomoyo ran in. I felt guilty; I hadn't even noticed she was missing from our gathering. She was flushed and jumping up and down in excitement.
"Guys! Guys! Lookie!"
She brandished a newspaper article. I grabbed it and scanned down the page. She pointed to an article on the left column. The Kira update column.