I hate this disclaimer job. Telling everyone I don't own Death Note shouldn't be something that I, the author, have to double up on jobs as. I can't hand it off to the story characters without breaking the fourth wall and completely ruining the story's tone, the official disclaimer is currently in hiding, and no one is lining up to take the job as its replacement. What am I supposed to do?

"Okay, so, what do we know so far? Don't be afraid to state the obvious, we need to be absolutely clear."

The police chief had set most of the department on gathering and compiling as much information as they could on the victims of The Fates- times of death, causes of death, possible background connecting the criminals together, and anything else Soichiro could think of that might be important to helping them find the perpetrators of their deaths. While they already had most of that information, it wasn't very well organized at the moment.

Meanwhile, he had gathered a meeting of those under his command who seemed to know the most about The Fates, so as to get a better idea of what they knew for certain about the criminal group. However, this was not, as he had expected, the heads of each division within the Criminal Investigations Bureau, but rather the people who had been monitoring the news and Fates killings most closely, either out of determination to solve this case, or simple interest in it for one reason or another. It seemed they were clearer on the information available than the majority of the department was- clearly Soichiro had been right in his intervention if watching the news made you better informed than working within the police force, even if only in this case.

This had led to a rather odd situation- the one Soichiro was currently in, in which he was currently holding a meeting where Shuichi Katakoto, head of the Organized Crime Department and authority to many of the people working on this case, was on functionally equal footing with Touta Matsuda, who of all the people in the room looked the most like he didn't want to be there. Soichiro put that up to nerves rather than disinterest, given the way the young officer's eyes were darting around the room like a caged animal's, and the fact that he himself had volunteered his knowledge of this case. Apparently he'd been voraciously watching and reading news about The Fates in his efforts to be of some use, and even had copies of the papers he had gotten the information from. Soichiro almost wanted to tell him to take it easy; with that kind of work ethic he'd burn himself out before he even hit 30.

Katakoto was the first to speak up. "Well, we know The Fates can kill in a variety of ways, some of which are, to be blunt, just plain bizarre. It's possible that they get some sort of kick out of making the cause of death as strange or implausible as possible, as I don't see any other possible reason to kill this way."

"It does make them near impossible to trace. Hard to get many clues off a bug." Someone interjected.

Katakoto shook his head in disagreement. "Yes, but since they can apparently kill via heart attack too, it doesn't seem like they'd need to use all these different ways unless they garnered some sort of enjoyment from it."

"What if they can only kill certain people by heart attacks, which is why they have to kill the others differently?" Someone else butted in. "If their powers are supernatural, then it's entirely possible there's some sort of limit we don't know about."

Two voices spoke out in tandem.

"I don't know about you all, but I think-"

"Their power almost has to come from-"

Soichiro cleared his throat. "We're getting off topic. Let's refrain from speculating for now and focus on what we know for certain. The Fates can kill in many, seemingly untraceable ways, heart attacks included, and we haven't gotten anywhere trying to monitor the deaths when they happen. What else?"

Katakoto cleared his throat and began again. "Right. Everyone currently killed by The Fates, at least so far as we know, was a criminal convicted of serious crimes. Since the death rate for the civilian populace hasn't gone noticeably up or down, and it doesn't seem The Fates kill without reason, I think we can assume they aren't killing normal people."

Matsuda finally found a place to contribute to the conversation. "Um, if they're doing it at the same rate they've been going at the criminals with, how would we even know unless the deaths were as bizarre as the criminal ones? Three or four a day isn't all that much when you consider how many people die per day. They might just not find civilians 'worthy' of more flashy deaths, so they make those killings look like normal accidents..." He trailed off, sinking back down into his chair.

One of the senior officers stood up to talk. "Look, we can't worry about what ifs right now. If it's happening, we can't stop it, since we probably wouldn't even know if someone's a victim or not. We do know about the criminal deaths, so let's focus on those, and if civilians are being killed by The Fates, they'll stop once the group is caught anyways."

A small voice issued from the back of the room. "Yeah... hey, I was thinking, do we really even need to stop The Fates? All these criminals were horrible people. They were in prison for a reason, so is it really so bad that-"

The police chief cut the statement off before it could go any further. "Stop that. This is a crime spree no matter how you look at it. The victims are irrelevant- murder is still murder."

Light scowled at his computer. 'Damnit. I don't know how to go any further without more information...'

He was well and truly stuck. Even a genius like him couldn't make theories when there was nothing to go off of, and while there was plenty of information on the prisoners and deaths, Light needed to know where to look. "Japan" was obviously far too wide a range, thus a general place of "headquarters" needed to be narrowed down. If it was only one person, as Light's mind seemed to insist upon, then it should be even easier. But there was seemingly no range limitation to the killing method that he could see, at least not inside of Japan itself, so the locations of the deaths didn't help. The times of death were sporadic- there was seemingly no pattern, so he couldn't even make a guess as to when the Fates had free time and thus theorize on their job or jobs, assuming they even had any. The most he could guess given that information was that The Fates were either homeless, jobless, at home workers, self employed, in the entertainment industry, part of the mafia... the list went on. That was hardly narrowing it down at all. If it really was more than one person, he couldn't even count on that deduction. Not to mention, if the were smarter than they seemed, the varied times could just be to throw anyone trying to find them off track.

Light leaned back in his chair, his fingertips pressed to his forehead. His eyes were tired of looking at the computer screen. The Fates hadn't been exactly covering their tracks given how obvious the deaths were, but since they left nothing behind, it could be said they didn't even need too.

'If I could just find out what the police know... though it's not as if they know much either. I know Dad's been working on this case, and he's still been coming home with that same tired look on his face every day. If the NPA had made some sort of big leap with what they had to work with, he would have come home in better spirits than that at some point, like he does every time a breakthrough in a tough case is made. Still, the information the police department has could still be useful. If only I could... could...'

Light was suddenly struck by a pang of conscience. What was he doing? Researching a criminal, or criminals' crimes, so that he could go join them in committing them? What was he thinking? If he was caught-!

'No. No, I won't get caught.' He wouldn't be so cocky as to say it out loud, but he was too smart for tha-

Light immediately broke off that train of thought. No one was perfect. You couldn't foresee everything, and thinking you could was the hubris that led to many a cartoon villain's downfall. Not that he was the villain in this situation, but the point still applied. Perhaps he hadn't truly considered how everyone else would view his actions if he ever WAS caught. So, steepling his hands, Light thought about his options.

A few minutes later, he had a rough mental map of what he could do from this point in time.

Option one was of course to simply drop trying to find The Fates, and go back to being a normal high school student, albeit one with an outrageously high IQ. Sure, it would make his work up until now pointless, but he wouldn't have to be worried about any of this. Still, there was a reason he'd begun doing this in the first place, a fruit that had tempted him too greatly for him to turn his back on it- the ability to dispense justice upon those who had shown themselves to be scum, those who contributed to the worsening of society like an incurable pestilence. Harsh descriptors, yes, but those who did such terrible things deserved nothing more. If there was a possibility of obtaining such an ability, he couldn't turn away from it, whether the law saw it as right or not.

That narrowed down his possibilities quite a bit, which made calculating the best course of action a lot easier. From a logical standpoint, the options available if he kept going on his current path were simple. When he found The Fates, he'd first test their motives and discover their method of killing if he didn't already know it by then. If their method of judging the already-condemned was supernatural, and they truly were doing this in the pursuit of justice as it seemed, he could go along with his original plan of helping them carry things out in a smarter way, as well as help keep them from getting caught. It would be dangerous, but it would be right. So much the better if The Fates turned out to be only one person; they would be much easier to help keep from being discovered, as well as easier to convince of what he thought could be done to improve their "work".

However, if they weren't actually interested in the pursuit of justice, and/or were simple criminals whom were just amazing at remaining unseen, Light could turn them in and claim he simply couldn't stand idly by and watch them get away with murder, and had so undergone his own personal research so as to catch them before anyone else was killed. It was so obvious a backup plan that Light couldn't believe he hadn't thought of it before now.

Yes, finding them should still be his goal. This was for a just cause. A righteous one. He was on completely pure moral grounds in attempting to assist The Fates, no matter what the law said, because they weren't killing for their own selfish ends. They were doing the right thing. HE was doing the right thing. He just wanted to see if he could help them use their power with a bit more... efficiency. This was what he should be doing.

Right?

Light shook his head, an action he'd been doing an awful lot recently. Thinking like this was getting him nowhere. Hesitation would lead to inaction, after all, and he had already committed himself to this. He had a plan on what to do when he found The Fates, now he just needed to know HOW to find them.

Maybe he was just going about this wrong. If he couldn't yet find their location, he would have to wait for more information. But if it he waited for that to outright be discovered, he'd either be waiting forever, or the police would find them long before he could.

However, location could be inferred or discovered from other bits of data, if you could put them together. To find the culprit of a crime (or "deed", which Light supposed applied better in this case), you researched everything about them, including their method of killing. Supernatural or not, these Fates clearly weren't all powerful or all knowing, or the deaths would have happened all at one time, like a heavenly bolt of judgement striking the world with the fist of God. Since they hadn't...

Light smirked, a new plan of attack in mind. It was time to figure out just what the limitations of The Fates were...

-One hour later-

Light could have laughed aloud. Well, that had been less work than he'd anticipated. And here he'd almost skipped checking this, in favor of immediately moving to the more obscure possibilities. What a surprise to realize the answer was so childishly evident.

The Fates couldn't have made it more obvious where they were getting their information from. A quick cross reference of all the dead criminals so far showed that they were all reported in popular online newspapers within the timespan The Fates had been active. And it stood to reason that if they were getting their information from newspapers, they probably needed some portion of the information on the criminals listed to kill them. At the very least, it was how they were initially deciding who to kill. What a joke. And here he'd been prepared to start trying to figure out how to hack government websites and databases, or begin researching supposed supernatural ways of gathering information.

In hindsight, he had vastly overestimated just how well informed The Fates were. Now that Light really thought about it, it actually made more sense for them to do it this way- you couldn't trace someone through the widest source of information available, at least not if they did nothing but read off of it. But in that case, how had the public not yet noticed this? Surely he wasn't the only one to put this bit of detective work together, it was the first thing he'd checked! If the NPA had noticed, they probably could have even temporarily shut down that portion of the papers- and obviously, they hadn't.

Was it that people were scared to talk about The Fates and were unwilling to speak up about something that could possibly lead to their death? Or did they just think that this wasn't important? Because if it was the latter case, they were wrong. It was very important. News could be tampered with, quite easily, and where a group like this was getting their facts from was a critical thing to know. Although, then again, gossip only traveled if it was interesting, and perhaps it was only natural that something people would find self evident after it was said like "The Fates get their information from public newspapers." wouldn't go very far.

It had worked out for the best anyways that this bit of knowledge either wasn't known, or wasn't often talked about. By forcing Light to look in to it himself, the initial discovery had actually led to another- while cross referencing the dead criminals, an odd discrepancy had become apparent. The very first criminal suspected to be a victim of The Fates- and the first of the occasional heart attack deaths- had NOT been reported in any recent news. There had to be something important lying within that fact, and Light was determined to find it. Plus, it seemed the man had been a robber, arrested for a single incident, but tried for a robbing and murder previously and found not guilty. His culpability for the previous incident was never proven, thus his only absolute crime was for a much less severe offense than The Fates usually inflicted punishment for. In addition to that, they had been the only criminal in a Japanese prison to die that day. THIS was a point of interest Light could definitely work with. Was the robber simply a test for their abilities? Or perhaps something more?

Well, it wouldn't be that hard to look in to it...

-One hour earlier-

Soichiro sighed as he opened the door to his house. The meeting had gone less well than he'd hoped. While they had definitively established the basic facts of everything they knew so far, the department still had no idea how to proceed. Moving prisoners to more secure locations had been difficult to get authorized, and hadn't helped even when they'd managed to do it, especially since who was going to be killed was so hard to predict. Watching prisons to discover The Fates' method of killing hadn't worked either, and had done nothing but spread manpower thin, while the few that saw a death in action gaped helplessly when the crime group struck. There was nothing he could think of that the NPA could do to draw them out, and they couldn't call in outside help from another country or a private detect-

Wait.

Greeting his wife and daughter as he walked in, Soichiro quickly set down his things and made his way to his study. The idea he'd just had could be highly beneficial, but it certainly was not something he had no qualms with doing. He would have to think about this.

But with things as they were...

After mulling over his options for around an hour, Soichiro made his decision, and trudged upstairs.

Light was just exiting his room, having decided he could leave researching the robber until tomorrow, when his father stopped him in the hallway.

"Oh, welcome home dad. I didn't hear you come in."

Noticing his father's stony expression, Light felt compelled to ask the obvious despite already knowing the answer. "Is something wrong? Did you make any breakthroughs on this whole 'Fates' case?"

Soichiro shook his head. "No, we haven't. To be honest, son, the department has no idea what to do right now- I managed to stop us from running around in circles, but we've hit a brick wall since then."

Light mentally frowned. That was... odd. The police chief usually wasn't so free with information, even with his own family. Criminal case information was classified, after all.

The answer to the mystery quickly became clear as Soichiro continued. "Actually, that's what I wanted to talk to you about..."

Light was not prepared for what he heard next.

"...Light, I'd like to bring you in on The Fates investigation."

...

A small smile began to stretch across the police chief's face after the pregnant pause was broken by Light's slow, considered, and affirmatory response. He never noticed the small glint in Light's eyes, nor the slight twitch his son's mouth made upwards.

AN: STILL no L. His canon position will presently be "filled" by Light. Everyone okay with that?

Soichiro, you poor man, you just violated your own rule. Sure, your son isn't technically a private detective, and he isn't going to be able to do everything on his own, but what happened to "this is our problem and no one else's"? Decided solving this case is more important than your department's overall work ethic, have we?

Oh, and, hehe, trying not to add many OCs, but since the police department didn't give up immediately this time and I can't find any minor character names, it was inevitable that I had to at least "make" one or two. Hopefully that didn't annoy you, and if it did... well, I can't imagine Shuichi showing up much more, so I wouldn't worry.

Not much else to say here, besides, as always, follow, fave, review? That last one especially, please, since I always somehow end up writing more of this after I get one. Yep, it's briiiiibery! ^u^