Hey, so this chapter is slightly shorter than the others but there is big stuff happening in the next one, I promise! Thank you to everyone who read this and thanks to DelphiumSweets, Mika and Exogenesis Symphony Fm7 for their reviews.
Anyway, here's a new chapter, please enjoy!
Raito was concerned that something was going on behind his back, and, even more worryingly, that his own father was at the heart of it. Ever since L's death, the Task Force had been like putty in his hand, doing everything that he had said, working with him just as compliantly as if he truly were L, rather than a replacement. And that suited him just fine. If his plan as God of the new world was going to work, he needed them to do everything he said, even if it was following false trails, phony leads and spending more time at the NPA solving actual crimes than hunting down the fabled Kira. Every so often he would allow them a snippet of something actually to do with Kira, but overall, they were almost completely in his total control. Even the Director of the NPA was besotted with his charade of the perfect son and perfect detective.
"It's so good, knowing that the new L is one of us!" he man had practically gushed, like some girl's stupid fantasy. It was annoying, having to put up with the man, but that would all be over soon. There would be a new era in place, where people would never have to live in fear of crime again, that they would all be safe so long as they followed the law. Kira was not a forgiving god, but he was just. He looked after his people far better than any god that had gone before, whether they were from any existing religion or from the dead world that Ryuk had once occupied. Currently, however, the Shinigami seemed far more intrigued in the way that Raito was having the NPA running around in circles.
"You would have thought that one of them would have noticed by now," the Shinigami commented, sounding delighted as he ate yet another apple. Raito merely smiled and shook his head.
"They would never suspect me after that show I gave them three months ago." They had been so understanding that Raito was so upset to have lost his 'friend'. Even Aizawa, who was naturally suspicious of what both he had Misa were up to, had been taken in by the charade and refused to believe that Raito had anything to do with L's death. It was satisfying to know that he would never be troubled with someone as irritatingly intelligent as L, although underneath that there was an inkling of something that Raito spent more time than he would like burying under Kira.
"Your father seems happier." Raito frowned at that, glancing towards the screen that showed his father talking outside with Matsuda. His father had asked the younger detective outside for a moment, claiming that he needed to speak to him over the latest murder case that the moron was involved in. Raito had assumed that it meant that he had done something wrong, but Matsuda looked as if he were positively beaming with happiness, and he cursed the fact that he was yet to install sound on the cameras. They had been cheap, since he now had to pay rent and bills (an annoyance that he hadn't taken into account and the NPA could hardly afford to pay him what they had been paying L), but he had been putting a portion of his wages away to pay for updates in the security of the apartment every day. Soon, it would be perfect, but if he wanted to continue the charade of the perfect replacement of L, he would have to pay for the upgrades himself.
"He does…" Which was odd because lately his father seemed to have been sinking into a kind of depression. The signs of age had seemed to become ever more apparent, with his hair become greyer than ever and the lines in his face becoming more evident. Raito was also sure that he had been losing weight, compounded by the fact that his mother insisted he make sure that he was eating proper meals- apparently he had been skipping meals or not eating much when he did join the family for a meal. This sudden turnaround in his attitude seemed a little too random that there was no cause behind it.
"Want me to find out more about what they're talking about?" Raito thought for a moment on that. Ryuk was not as helpful as Rem, so he had to have some ulterior motive behind offering to help, but then did Raito really need to know more about what they were talking about? It was a good thing that his father was looking happier. His mother would stop pestering him about him and he would stop moping about like L's death had hit him harder than they thought.
"No. Matsuda's probably done something right for once," Raito dismissed, turning back to his own case- one involving a rapist and three victims, easily solved.
"Suit yourself," Ryuk rasped, gulping down the last of his apple. "But you never know. It might be something interesting." And with that the Shinigami phased through the wall, out to listen in to what the pair were saying. Raito rolled his eyes, ignoring Ryuk's attitude. The Shinigami was growing bored of the continual but slow preparation of moving into the new world order, meaning that he jumped at the chance to hold something over Raito's head. There was nothing special about one of the members of the Task Force taking Matsuda to one side and giving him a talking to, whether in praise or, more likely, criticism of something he had done and this was just another one of those meetings. There was no need to find out what the idiot had done now, even if his idiocy was greatly helpful to keeping Raito out of suspicion.
Ryuk returned a few moments later, cackling. Raito rolled his eyes and resigned himself to the fact that the Shinigami wasn't going to leave him to finish up the notes for this case after all. Technically he was still in college, but Raito had quit after gaining the role of L and the university, recognising the letter of recommendation sent in from the NPA, had merely allowed him to leave with very little resistance. They had known that he was meant for greater things than dealing with the stupid roles of the college student.
"Satisfied now?" he asked, closing the laptop. The Shinigami glanced at him, eyes aglow and smile somehow stretched wider than ever.
"Oh yes. That was… very interesting. Hyuk, hyuk!" Raito scowled at the rasping laughter but dismissed it as Ryuk being Ryuk. The Shinigami was nothing more than an annoyance anyway.
Soichiro Yagami was not sure what to expect as he stood outside the arrivals gates at Haneda airport, wondering why on earth he had agreed to pick up somebody he didn't know. L had informed him, over the phone, that he would know her the moment he saw her, or if not she would know him. As disturbing as that was, he was still confused as to why he had agreed to this. Surely the girl would know her way around Japan as well as L had? That would mean that she was perfectly capable of taking herself to the hospital but perhaps L had simply wanted police protection for her. After all, he had mentioned that she had nothing to do with his being L.
He had been waiting for the last half an hour, wondering what flight she would have been on and from which country. L had been rather vague about that- the only answer he had gotten was that it wasn't Japan. There had been two international flights which had landed in the last half an hour- one from Vancouver and the other from Paris, both possible places that L's sister may have been in. Since he didn't know anything about her he couldn't be sure what she had been doing in either of those cities, and he wouldn't get an answer from L. Then again, L might not even know since he had no recollection of the past nine months, three of which he had been in a coma.
"Mr Yagami?" The voice was soft and came from right next to him. He jumped in surprise and turned to find a girl who seemed to be the exact replica of L but female. He blinked, trying to work process that as she waited patiently, one eyebrow raised. She had the same deep, dark grey eyes that L had, same facial structure, same thick black hair and the same dress sense of blue jeans and baggy white shirt (in fact Soichiro was sure that that was just one of L's white shirts, worn with a belt around her waist to make it more feminine). There were slight difference- her lips were slightly more pronounced, her hair reached her waist rather than her shoulders, she was wearing black boots rather than trainers and of course, she was a girl with everything that entailed. He couldn't say that she wasn't pretty, there was a certain level of exotic charm to her that had seemed muted in L, and she was certainly missing the trademark bags under her eyes that her insomniac brother held, but there was still something… off about her, the same sense of wrong that Soichiro felt in the presence of L. He wondered how long she had been standing there as he took her all in and hoped that he didn't come across as some kind of creepy older gentlemen.
"Uh, you must be Mitsu," he said, trying to smile through how awkward he felt. The girl nodded her head, one hand holding on to a plain red suitcase, the other clutching at a bag slung over her shoulder.
"That's me. Ryuzaki said you would be here to meet me," she stated but Soichiro didn't bother asking how she knew. Now that L knew he could use the phone, he had probably been making several calls to who knew what kind of people, trying to figure out the last nine months. Not that he could blame him for the anxiety- now was not a good time to be without your memory when caught in the middle of a serial killer case.
"This way," he said, leading her out of the hospital. The new setup with Matsuda meant that it wasn't so suspicious if one of them disappeared for a bit every other night, but it also meant he would have to cut back on the time spent with L, especially with his sister now in tow. Soichiro didn't know whether that was a good or a bad thing. He wasn't exactly fond of L, not in the way that he was of Matsuda, but he wasn't blind to the younger man's (boy's) feelings either, buried deep down as they were. He wanted to help him, he just didn't know how.
They left the airport and almost immediately got stuck in a traffic jam. L had instructed that Mitsu be taken straight to the old headquarter building, which was closer to the airport than the hospital (the hospital being in walking distance of the building, meaning that she wouldn't need a lift every time she wanted to visit), but the route took them through the busiest parts of Tokyo and Soichiro wasn't happy about being stuck in a car with someone apparently even less talkative than L.
"Where were you coming in from?" he asked as they inched through the traffic, slow as molasses.
"Paris." She offered no further information without prompting, although Soichiro figured that with the way she was dressed, it probably hadn't been Vancouver, not with the time of year anyway.
"What were you doing there?" In honesty he was both curious and just making polite conversation but Mitsu didn't seem to want to be open to that.
"Art." There was a long silence as Soichiro wondered what he could say to that. He wasn't all that interested in art himself, but she didn't seem to care. Instead she was merely fiddling with a pencil from her bag, not seeming the least bit jetlagged although he supposed that she was probably as adept at hiding her feelings as her brother was.
"How old are you?" he asked instead, changing tact. Mitsu just shrugged.
"Nineteen." He blinked at that. Doctor Yamada had mentioned that L was nineteen and the similarities were startling but surely… surely L would have mentioned that he had a twin sister, rather than just 'my sister'. Then again, he hadn't known about Mitsu's very existence until yesterday, so he supposed that actually L wouldn't have mentioned it. He certainly didn't trust Soichiro on any level, even less than before actually, but he seemed to tolerate him on the assurances that his sister said that he was at least trustworthy. L didn't really seem to trust anybody.
It took them an hour to reach the old headquarters, a journey that should have taken them only twenty minutes. Most of the journey had been spent in silence, with Mitsu eventually digging into her bag and pulling out a rather expensive looking iPod and sticking headphones in. Unlike most teens, she either wasn't listening to it too loudly, or they were very good headphones because Soichiro couldn't even hear a hint of what she might have been listening to. Upon arrival she didn't even wait for him to open the door for her, instead flinging the car door open like it disgusted her, pulling herself out of the car and stretching like a cat with a small moan.
"Urgh, I am never doing that again. Walking next time," she stated before heading towards the boot to collect her luggage. Soichiro waited patiently for her at the doors before locking the cars and leading her inside.
"It's not as clean as it could be," he started but Mitsu didn't seem to hear him. She was more interested in the type of security there was and the way in.
"Reinforced doors, cameras are still rolling so that's good… fingerprint scanners, I wonder…" she pressed her hand against the panel and it bleeped, allowing her entrance. She beamed back at him. "Bless Ryuzaki, he thinks of everything." With that she practically bounced into the building, glancing about her as they travelled further up the building. There was never any bills sent to the building, so thankfully everything still worked, although the elevator didn't seem as efficient as before, but that may have just been Soichiro's imagination. They reached a floor that held only living apartments and Mitsu flung her bag onto a sofa before turning around. "So, what other tricks are there around here?"
"I'm not sure… The main work room has metal detectors and sensors that prevent you from entering unless authorised and there are cameras in practically every room as far as I know- even the bathrooms." Mitsu nodded like this was perfectly normal, leaving Soichiro to wonder how on earth the pair had been raised. "Other than that I would say ask L or Watari but…" he trailed off, knowing it was hopeless.
"But L wouldn't know and Watari's as dead as a doornail so we can't ask him," Mitsu said bluntly, hardly any emotion in her voice. She glanced around once more before leaving the room. "Coming Mr Yagami?" At least she had the manners to ask, rather than to just expect to be followed like her brother.
"What are you looking for?" he asked as Mitsu tapped a fingernail against the elevator panel, as if wondering which floor to head to next.
"I need to look through my brother's archives, see how much he got up to backing up. It should be up to date to the day before he died but if not…" For the first time she actually looked worried and he wondered how often her life or Ryuzaki's had been put in danger. "If not we have a problem."
"You want to take it to him to see if it will jog his memories?" Mitsu snorted as the elevator appeared and shook her head.
"Fat chance of that- most likely those are gone for good. There's only a twelve percent chance he'll get them back in time to solve the case and twenty percent chance he'll get them back at all in any capacity. Now," she paused as he entered after her, "what floor?"
"Nineteenth. There are boxes of files in there." And the one mysterious box that I didn't open. I should probably tell L about that but not her. I don't know enough about her yet to trust her with that information. He wasn't sure why he was being so cautious, perhaps it was just the knowledge that he was under constant observation once more that he naturally started to retain that kind of information.
They took the journey down to the nineteenth floor (Mitsu had chosen a room in the thirtieth floor right underneath the roof for some reason) and Mitsu began to paw through the boxes carefully, after rolling her eyes at the arduous security to even get inside the room, reading the stamps on each one and nodding to herself. Finally satisfied, she turned back to Soichiro and gave him a worn out smile.
"Everything's here as it should be. Some of these are irrelevant- old files Ryuzaki no doubt kept around a reference for any possible copycat killings." She shoved a couple of boxes aside and nodded at the rest. "These are all for the Kira case, but the last three need sorting and I'll probably have to call in a specialist to see how much footage or data that was saved on that last day can be salvaged. Knowing Watari, he put in some kind of failsafe only a Wammy's kid would know."
"Wammy's?" He remembered the brief article that had named Watari as really being Quillish Wammy, the head of an orphanage and charity for poor impoverished children- although the orphanage was designed specifically towards genius children. He hadn't been surprised- L wasn't exactly simply just smart. Mitsu didn't deign him with an answer and began rifling through some of the newer boxes.
"Hm, I think Watari put these together, they're not filed like Ryuzaki at all…" She then pushed them aside and reached for a familiar battered box that Soichiro had almost forgotten about in her side-tracking.
"Wait!" he cried, pushing her hand away. Startled, she recoiled backwards a moment before frowning.
"What?" she asked irritably. "Has he put some kind of grenade in there now or something?" Soichiro stared at her, confused and Mitsu rolled her eyes, turning back to the box. "Relax, I just want to make sure it's all here. He'll freak if something's gone missing again."
"What is it?" he asked as she carefully began to poke around inside it, careful to angle herself so he couldn't see what she was doing.
"None of your business." Satisfied with its contents she nodded and stood up, stretching to relieve her muscles from leaning over all of the boxes. "Well, I'm very tired and would quite like to have a nap before seeing my brother all laid up in hospital, so if you wouldn't mind?" She gestured towards the door and Soichiro obligingly left as she shut the door, the automatic locks engaging behind her.
"Call if you need any help setting up," Soichiro offered, pulling out his phone in order to give her his number but she just smiled and shook her head.
"Thanks for the offer Mr Yagami but I don't think I will. Besides," she said, holding a hand up, "all the numbers of the Task Force are written down in your personal files back there. I'll look them up if I need help." Soichiro just nodded, tucking his phone away. Of course, he shouldn't have expected anything less. The elevator came for him and the doors were just closing when Mitsu's hand suddenly reached out and stopped them. "Oh, before I forget," she said, her tone neutral but her eyes deadly serious. "None of this goes back to your new headquarters. It stays between the four of us. Anyone else included apart from you and Matsuda, the pair of you disappear. Quietly." With that she let the doors shut, leaving Soichiro to the cold feeling running up his spine.
I think I was afraid of the wrong twin he found himself thinking on the ride down to the ground floor and his car.
I apologise that L never made an appearance in this chapter, but Raito did! So now that we have more characters in places where they should be, things are going to get a bit complicated from now on. Just for those who might have a fit because I didn't use any prefixes, instead adding 'Mr' in front of Yagami, this is because Mitsu, while perfectly capable of speaking Japanese, is English and has not spent as much time as L studying other countries and their specific cultures. This will be explained later on, but for now I just wanted to explain why there is a difference between Mitsu and L.
Anyway, I hope that you like this chapter. I thought it was odd that L, with all his resources and nice sparkling new skyscraper wouldn't back up his files elsewhere, and I can imagine that, like in this story, he would have created hard copies, external hard-drives etc. that wouldn't have been affected by Watari wiping the system. And yes, those 'specialists' will be appearing very soon ;)
Please leave a lovely review, they help to inspire me.