"Misa-Misa sure is late." Matsuda said a few hours later, shortly after my game had died and L refused to move so I could get the charger.
Just after he said that, the elevator door opened and in walked Mogi and Misa.
"They're back!" Matsuda said.
"Hey!" Misa said energetically before letting out a tired sigh and walking over to me. "I'm exhausted." I stood up so she sat down on the chair instead of on me.
"How did it go?" L asked.
"Yotsuba agreed to hire Misa on as their spokesperson for the new ad campaign." Mogi said.
"I see. That's good to hear." L said.
"And I made sure to give them my cell phone number. Would you believe three out of seven guys already messaged me asking for a private date?" Misa asked, showing me her phone.
"What?" Matsuda asked.
"So now I accept their invitations and investigate them, right? It's going exactly as I planned!" Misa seemed proud of herself.
"No, the plan's getting cancelled right now." I said, hating to be the one to deny her.
"Huh?" She looked at me in confusion. "But why? Everything's been going so smoothly up until now."
"If we go any further, you'll be in danger." I told her as she stood up. "You can still appear in their commercials, but from now on, you should deny that you were suspected of being the second Kira and were detained by L. Mogi will continue being your bodyguard, but you'll be working solely as a celebrity." I said, sitting down on a nearby chair and bringing my legs up to sit on it in a cross-legged position as she gasped and looked disappointed for a second.
"If that's what you want Light, then that's what I'll do." She responded, and L turned to look at her. "Oh well, I'm feeling pretty tired. Tomorrow's shoot is bright and early, so I better get some sleep." She said, waving and walking away with a giggle. Then, once she was in the elevator, she half-hid inside it and called in a suggestive tone, "Hey, Light, have fun with Ryuzaki tonight."
I removed my legs from the chair and sat normally as I turned to look at her fully with confusion as she laughed. "What are you talking about?"
"Just kidding! You're saving it for after we catch Kira, right? You don't have to be shy about it!" She said, stepping back in the elevator as the doors closed.
"Yes, Light. There's no need to be shy." L said.
For some reason, there was a different kind of vice gripping my heart upon hearing that from him and I turned to stare at him. "I'm not being shy!" I snapped defensively, although I had no idea what exactly I was being shy about.
"No need to be so serious either." He responded.
I ignored that and looked back at the elevator. "What exactly was she even implying about anyway?" I muttered in confusion.
. . .
"I'm Kira. And in order to make you trust me and prove that I'm him, I'll stop killing criminals for the time being, then, once you're fully convinced I'm the real thing, you and I can get married." Higuchi's voice said as Misa played the recording on her phone when she actually returned.
"And so, based on what he said, Higuchi is Kira." Misa stated as we all stayed quiet.
"Now, we not only know Kira's identity, but all those deaths that were worrying the chief are gonna stop! That's amazing, Misa-Misa!" Matsuda seemed excited for her and she threw up a "v" for victory as I looked to L.
Misa approached me, but I couldn't face her. God, I was a mess of emotion at this point. I was worried about her when Mogi had said she had snuck away and gone on a date, but I was angry she would take this kind of risk. In part, it was because things were no doubt going to start changing from the male version of myself's story at some point. I just didn't know when or how.
"Hey, I don't want to talk about this." I said to her quietly, desperate to escape her description of the "date" to me. "Can I ask you something unrelated instead? What did you mean before?"
She gave me a disbelieving look. "You mean you don't know?"
I just shook my head and stared at her with my best puppy eyes. She leaned over to whisper in my ear so the others wouldn't hear.
"You're in love with Ryuzaki, aren't you?"
"W-What?! B-But that's-That's-" I sputtered, although I couldn't bring myself to actually deny it for some reason though. "H-How did you come to that c-conclusion?"
"It's totally obvious! I would be surprised if even he hasn't already noticed." She kept her voice quiet, but glanced at the back of L's head from the corner of her eye.
"Huh? How could he notice something that even I wasn't aware of?" I muttered back, following suit and looking out of the corner of my eye at the mess of black hair.
She sighed, then smiled teasingly. "You really aren't very good with that sort of thing, are you, Light? You're more like a boy than a woman."
"Sh-Shut up. Maybe you're just imagining things." I snapped back, although I felt heat rushing up to my face and lowered my head to hide behind my fringe. Now I just wanted out of this topic. So, I regained my composure and looked up seriously. "Misa, how did you get Higuchi to confess?"
"Easy. That guy's totally in love with me." She responded, apparently picking up on my reluctance to continue talking about it here. "All I had to do was tell him I'd marry him if he was really Kira. Plus, I managed to convince him that I'm the second Kira."
"Misa." I said harshly. "Didn't I tell you to deny all that?"
Watari rolled a cart of sweets past us to stop at L.
"But now we know that Higuchi's Kira, right? Can't we just catch him?"
"I suppose this is what you would call a victory, right, Matsuda?" L spoke up.
I turned to watch him pull sweets from the cart and place them on the desk. "But right now we still don't know how he kills his victims, do we?"
"Yes, that's what I was thinking. Before we move to arrest Higuchi," He flicked one of the three macarons he had set up, knocking it into the other two.
"If the criminals stop dying, we won't be able to figure it out. Unless we come up with another idea. Isn't that right?" I asked.
"Yes. At any rate, even if we do arrest Higuchi, we're not going to do it until we're certain that criminals have stopped dying. Let me think about this for a moment." He paused for only a few seconds before he pressed a button on the computer and a "w" different from Watari's showed up. "Wedy,"
"Yeah?" Her voice answered.
"An update on the current situation please."
"Everything's going smoothly. We should be able to track seventy precent of their movements using our cameras inside the office building."
"What about outside the office?"
"That's not going to be possible with just Watari and me."
"What if we focus solely on Higuchi?"
"Higuchi? I've only been able to enter the houses of five of the men so far, but Mido, Namikawa, and Higuchi all have super high-tech security systems. Especially Higuchi. He recently constructed a dampening room that shuts out any electronic waves. It took me two days just to break into the place."
"This guy sure does sound suspicious." Matsuda said.
"Alright, then begin installing microphones, trackers, and cameras, but not in the house. Instead, just put them in every car." L said.
"What? After getting this far? Do you know how difficult it is to break into someone's house? Besides, do you have any idea of how many cars this guy has?" Wedy responded.
"He has six." L said, reaching for another snack to shove in his mouth.
"Fine then. I just have to install them in all his cars, right?"
"Yes, thank you." L said, licking his fingers, then moving on to holding the macarons. "Light, I'm sorry to keep coming back to this topic. I'll just get right to the point."
"What is it?" I asked tentatively.
"Do you remember? Killing anyone, I mean." He looked at up at me where I was standing near his chair.
I just stared at him silently, honestly trying to remember.
"Well, do you remember?" L pressed.
"No. I don't." I replied.
"Misa, what about you?"
"I don't remember. How could I? 'Cause I'm not Kira!" She responded, a bit defensively.
"Look, Light, please listen to what I'm about to say." L said, but I just stayed silent and continued looking at him through my blank mask. "I'd like you to throughly analyze my current theory. This could determine the way in which we end up catching Kira. Light Yagami used to be Kira. Kira's power has somehow passed on to another person. Light Yagami now has no memory of ever being Kira. I need your analysis based on these assumptions. Do you think you can do that for me?"
"Yeah, I'll try." I took a deep breath through my nose and closed my eyes for a second.
"Light Yagami used to be Kira. Kira's power has somehow passed onto another person. Was that because Light Yagami wanted it to happen? Or was there someone else in control of Light, lurking in the background, who gave her the power? Was it that person that passed Light's powers to someone else?"
After a second, I opened my eyes and looked at him, dead serious. "Given your premise, it would be my will."
It was silent for a few seconds before L turned back to facing forward. "Yes, of course. If there is a third party with the ability to bestow or transfer Kira's power, they didn't want their method to be discovered. Makes no sense that they would wait so long to transfer it from you to the next Kira. If we believe that this is the work of some being watching us from above, then we'd have to accept that they are impossible to catch. Not to mention, I'd already be dead. Or at the very least, I'm being made to be a fool by eternally dancing in the palm of someone's hand. It's highly unlikely that such a being exists." He turned to look back at me after pausing to eat the crushed sweet in his hand. "Thank you, Light. I can now say that I feel ninety-nine percent better."
Watari walked in with a tray to set down near L.
"We'll create a situation where Higuchi will not be able to pass on his power to anyone else. We'll have him show us how he kills." L said.
"So, what're you gonna do?" I asked.
"I'm going to trick Higuchi using Sakura T.V."
"Like a hidden camera show!" Matsuda said.
"What?" Misa responded, but both were ignored.
"We'll use the Kira special that Demigawa airs every week. We'll book a three hour time slot. It'll be announced that Kira's identity will be revealed near the end of the special." L explained.
"Would anyone actually buy that though? This is Sakura T.V. after all. For all we know, Higuchi might not even watch that program." Matsuda said cluelessly.
"We'll get Namikawa to call him and say, "This is bad. Turn on your T.V." That should be enough to get him watching." I said. "Higuchi will buy it once he realizes that the special guest on T.V. is someone who knows his secret."
"Oh, I get it! So we'll be using Aiber then! He'll reveal that he was a spy all along!" Matsuda missed what our intention was.
"No, I'm afraid you're incorrect. We will not be using Aiber." L said as Watari wheeled out the cart. I swiped a couple macarons on his way past though. "Whoever appears on the show," L paused to swallow. "Has to be someone who Higuchi believes he will be able to kill. In other words, it has to be someone who's name he could look up easily."
"But we're never gonna find a person like that, are we?" Matsuda asked as all of us were looking at him.
"Sorry, Matsu. You're the only one that can do it." I told him.
"Matsu!" Misa agreed.
"Matsuda." Dad also agreed.
"Higuchi probably thinks that you were listening in on their meeting and overheard their plans to kill people. It would make sense that Misa's manager, who he thought was dead, is the one revealing his secret." I stated as Matsuda looked like he might start panicking soon.
"That's right. We'll have Sakura T.V. use a voice filter and frost glass to protect your identity. Higuchi will probably realize from the announcement and the silhouette that it's the manager, Taro Matsui, and just to make sure, we'll have the studio mess up and accidentally reveal your face from behind the frost glass." L said.
"Wow! Sounds exciting!" Misa said.
"Until the show ends, the announcer will keep saying he'll reveal the full name of each who's acting as Kira."
"Higuchi would feel cornered. He'd have no choice but to find out the manager's name as soon as possible and we can anticipate what actions he'll take." I continued.
"We'll witness his killing method. After that, we arrest him." L said. "There is one potential problem with this plan. If Higuchi can kill by simply looking at someone's face, just like the second Kira," He squished the sweet he was pinching so the inside oozed out. "Matsuda will die."
"But, considering the fact that you're still alive, and how he's pursuing Misa, I doubt that's the case." I said, seeing how scared Matsuda looked.
"At any rate, we're only going to do this once criminals stop dying. We'll have to wait for two or three days to see whether or not that happens. In the meantime, Matsuda will have to decide if he wants to go through with this plan." L said.
It took a second, but Matsuda walked forward a couple steps with a determined look on his face. "I don't need three days to decide. I want to do this."