Another chapter. My lack of updates for five days has led to this chapter being nearly one thousand words longer than usual, so hopefully that makes up for my short absence. Not that it's an excuse, but I was going to update Thursday or Friday, but my step-dad wasn't at home Thursday night or Friday night so I sorta stayed up all night playing guitar.

And Guitar Hero.

Sorry! I don't mean to be so easily distracted. But on the upside, I learned "Attack of the Mad Axeman" by Michael Schenker on guitar. Wootness, anyone?

Yeah, anyway. Since I was mean and didn't update and stuff, I'll reply to my kind commenters.

Raine44354: I know, that was the irony of it. He can't die, but no one knows that yet O.O
Sparanda:
Yeah, that coding thing totally sucked, I had to go back and delete all the weird numbers and symbols and whatnot manually. All fixed, though. So was the name error. Thaat was a slight whoops, thanks for pointing that out.
Stalker of Stories: Wootness, no grammatical errors :)
Sybil Corvax: Just my suspicion coming into view. Seriously, how could Namikawa not be Dracula? He's got the widow's peak and the long hair and whole evil thing going and everything.
ThreeBooksInTheFire: My brother might be getting an actual Chinchilla as a pet soon. I'm going to steal it from him XD Ah, don't ignore the chapter :( The plot sorta has to move along sometime...
Princesa de la Luna: Thanks :)
Takun123: Also thank you

Starfire54: Wootness, I helped someone not give up on Death Note fics XD I feel important now, lol. Thanks for the review :)

Ah, and again, people, PLEASE have a look at my prequel to this story. It's called Animalistic Tendencies. It still only has one review and it's beginning to make me slightly sad. It's mostly OC to start with (the OCs from THIS story), and L is quite important in it later on. PleasepleasePLEASE look at it. Please?


In the silence that followed this, Katherine couldn't even cough to cover a laugh without looking suspicious, so she chose to go for the option of just holding her breath. When he died? He certainly wasn't going to die in the course of the Kira case – unless it was from diabetes or something sugar-related, but that would be his own fault. He was protected; everyone on the investigation team was protected, except for Pat and Don because the assholes wouldn't give her their real names. Al would still be alive if he hadn't been so stubborn about it. Even Aiber and Wedy – though she had been very much against that idea, and had rather just wanted to write her real name in the note with a description of a very painful death beneath it – were protected from death by Kira. L still had the note, hence why Wedy was still living – she had simply had him do the job for her, so she wouldn't have to worry about being tempted to kill anyone she couldn't stand. Wedy and Aiber's identities had been easy to find, in comparison to Pat or Don, who had both been training in the department of covering their tracks from the time they were ten and fourteen. Al had for even longer than that, but recklessness never paid anyone very well in the end.

"Don't say things like that," said Light in a rather annoyed manner. "We have one month to find out who Kira is now, and to get the evidence we need to prosecute him. It isn't over yet."

"Right…" L said. "However, the first to suspect Yotsuba was Yagami-kun. Perhaps you are indeed more capable than I am."

There indeed was a snort of laughter at that, but not from Katherine – everyone looked around to see a rather suspicious looking Pat pointing at Don, who was glaring in response. L went on anyway, ignoring the distraction.

"If I was to die," he said, looking at Light, "would you take the position?"

"What are you saying, Ryuzaki? As long as we're wearing this –" Light held up his left arm to indicate the handcuff around it. "– won't we be dying together?" He paused, waiting for L's response. When L was silent, Light's expression quite suddenly became rather angered – he made use of his long forgotten Kira-glare as he looked down at L, understanding the detective's apparent motives. "I see…" He said quietly. "I apologize, Ryuzaki, but I am going to tell everyone here your exact thoughts right now. You are thinking that either I am Kira and I'm pretending not to know, or I was Kira and I passed on my power to someone else, so I now have no recollection of being him. For the first pattern, you can never take this handcuff off, and I may never go free. Even for the second, you wouldn't take the handcuff off, because you believe that I was Kira at one point, and that the power will eventually return to me, and that I plan to regain that power when everyone is convinced of my innocence. You think I will become Kira if I take the position of L."

That wasn't exactly L's train of thought. He knew the answer to the question already – Light Yagami had been Kira, and he had forfeited his death note. He had seen this happen himself. However, if he was going to be playing dumb on that particular subject, he would still have to act as he would if he didn't know, if he was still under the belief that Light could be Kira at that very moment and simply be hiding it. Had that been the situation, Light would have been correct in his deductions. As only one other person knew that L was sure of who Kira had been and who he would become, the rest of the investigation team would have to believe that Light's deductions were indeed accurate.

"Yes. That is correct."

"On one had, to reach the same level as L, to be able to manipulate the police. And on the other, to be Kira. That would indeed be invincibility. With this, you know I'm not pretending."

"As in… you would not be willing to reveal your plan to everyone if you were planning to take the position of L."

"Then if L was to die and I lived," Light said, "and then Kira appeared, you would have a third party like Watari determine that I am Kira. If that's the case, you believe I have no memories of being Kira."

"That is correct. I cannot see any of the way."

"Ryuzaki." Light grabbed the back of L's computer chair and turned it around. Katherine, seeing possible impending danger because of Light's tone, slid her own chair away slightly. If L said something Light didn't like (which was likely), then there was no doubt what the result of this would be. "Do you think that after the current Kira was caught… after that, I would become Kira, a murderer? Do you see me as that kind of person?"

L appeared to give this a moment of thought – no more than a moment. He answered, unblinkingly, "I think so and I can see you as such."

Katherine moved her chair a little further away, and in good time. L and Light reacted only a second later and at the same time, Light out of utter annoyance and L out of reflex. Light's punch hit at the exact moment L's kick did. Katherine flinched slightly at the sight, as it seemed most others around the room did – the two of them would be lucky if they both got out of this without anything broken – in Light's case, his jaw, and in L's case, his nose. While everyone else stared in either confusion, amusement, shock, or a combination of the three, Matsuda apparently chose to act momentarily as a referee.

"All right, you both hit at the same time. Let's just call it a draw; it's over now."

"Y… yeah," Light agreed after a moment. Naturally, the discussion went back on track, as though there had never been a disturbance. The only sign were the rather nasty-looking bruises forming on the faces of both L and Light. "Anyway. Right now, we need to catch the Kira that is right in front of us, and that should be easy enough to do at this point. If Namikawa is Kira, the murders could possibly stop right now."

"But wouldn't it be hard to extract evidence from Namikawa, then?" Matsuda asked.

L shook his head. "Namikawa is probably not Kira. He is high in position and has some wisdom – if it was him, he probably would have acted on his own."

"If we capture these seven using the conference as evidence, then wouldn't it end without criminals having to be killed, either?"

"I apologize…. We can't say for certain that one of those seven is Kira. It could still be the case that one or two of them are merely connected to Kira, in which case arresting all seven of them would not stop the murders. If we are not absolutely sure that Kira is among those seven, then it would be pointless to capture them now."

"If you can't say for sure that one of them is not Kira, then there is still a chance capturing all of them could stop the deaths," Yagami reasoned.

"That's true," Light agreed. "There is still that chance."

"Correct, you might be able to stop the deaths of the convicts," L said slowly.

That set them off into planning mode for a moment. "Then putting human lives as our top priority, we should capture those seven," Yagami said.

"But chief, that won't be easy. The police aren't cooperating with us anymore. It would be better to get both Kira and the evidence, like Ryuzaki said…." It was a bit strange to hear Matsuda agreeing with anyone but Yagami on anything in the Kira case.

"No, what's important is stopping the number of victims, even if it's only one," Yagami disagreed.

"Actually," L interrupted, "I am going to pursue Kira on my own." L took advantage of the sudden silence to continue. "I will lend the headquarters to Yagami-san's group, and I will use it as well. If we don't investigate separately, we would only begin quarrelling. With the limited amount of time we have to find Kira before the deaths begin again, it is better that we don't waste our time on pointless arguments."

"Then Ryuzaki, you intend to capture Kira on your own by pressuring him," Yagami said.

"Yes."

"Even if we are dealing with convicts, we are still dealing with the lives of people."

"I know that," L said. "But it is still uncertain that the deaths would end upon the capturing of those seven."

"There is still a possibility that would stop it, and we should do what we can to prevent the murders before they happen."

"Yagami-san's way of thinking is mostly correct. If you wish to capture those seven, then please go ahead and capture them. I will focus only on catching Kira. If we do not capture Kira, this case will never be solved. I am not saying that stopping the deaths of the convicts is worthless. However, if everything is not made clear, then Kira will appear again. In the long run, the number of deaths would only increase. I am still against the arrest of those seven. If you are to do it, then it is Yagami-san's responsibility." L was standing from his seat now. He continued as he began heading towards the door at the other side of the room, dragging a rather unwilling Light behind him. "I will pursue Kira on my own. The time limit is one month…. It all depends upon who works faster."

"Where are you going?" Light asked incredulously from the other side of the room.

"To Misa-san's room. I'm sorry, though I know you are on your father's side, the handcuffs cannot be removed. I will have to have you tag along."

After an uncomfortable silence swept through the room, Yagami seemed to regain himself, immediately assigning research work to Matsuda and Mogi, both of whom complied. Matsuda still looked slightly uncertain about things, after having (probably for the first time in the investigation) stuck up for L's opinion over Yagami's. Katherine turned around and raised her eyebrows when the ex police chief asked her what side she was taking.

She crossed her arms. "Hmm. I wonder," she answered sarcastically. "Look, what do you plan on doing if you do find a legal way to catch those seven and they all die of heart attacks the next day?" Yagami's brow furrowed.

"That…. If that is the case, then this will have been a mistake. It seems likely that Kira is among them, however."

"And you're willing to risk the lives of seven innocent hostages if Kira isn't among them? If one of them is only working for Kira, then Kira would be very disappointed if he discovered his spokesperson had failed," she said. "Seven lives lost because Kira didn't need them anymore. If not one of those seven is Kira, then they're technically all hostages, aren't they? If that's the case, you may as well walk into their meeting room and shoot each one of them in the head, as arresting them would have the same basic effect. I'm with Ryuzaki on this one. You can do what you want." She glanced at Pat and Don. "You two?"

Don shrugged. "Highest bidder." Katherine rolled her eyes at his sarcastic tone.

"You have enough money between the two of you to buy an entire country."

"Maybe we're going for a continent. Really, we've already followed you to Japan, what's the point breaking off here?"

Katherine shrugged in response. "Just checking."

She looked back up at the monitors, at Misa's room, just as Light and L were entering it. L was already working on a plan to manipulate Light over to his side, using Misa as both leverage and a tool to gain information. That was clear enough. She wasn't completely sure of what he was planning, but it would be revealed here.

She found focusing a bit hard, however. If her thoughts on the matter were nearly right – and given how confused she was, the chances she was or wasn't were close to equal, though the wasn't side was probably weighing out the was side a bit – Kira probably wasn't among the seven Yotsuba suspects. Shinigami were supposed to follow the holders of their death notes regardless of orders, as she understood it. Therefore, she should have seen Rem by now, but she hadn't seen the shinigami floating around behind any of them. Perhaps Kira was someone from the outside looking in – Light could have told her to drop the death note for someone who could manipulate some major business, since he knew she could see shinigami. He seemed to have trusted her when she told him, when he had been Kira, that she was on his side, but… it was a reckless move, even for her. She did regret it quite a bit now, even if it had gotten her information on Light's plan. The information wasn't helping now. Ironically, it was quite hindering to know ninety percent of what was going on, and not being able to do anything about it without the few missing pieces she needed. It was frustrating, no doubt L thought so as well. Otherwise he wouldn't have broken the investigation team into two individual sides with two very different plans.


Katherine stayed up well after everyone but L and Light had gone to their flats, then even after Light, who had managed to pester L into letting him off the hook (or off the handcuff, in his case) under the condition that he would be supervised along with the other suspects. Of course he didn't need to be supervised, Katherine thought with a scowl at the laptop she was working on, having relocated to the sofa with it quite some time ago. No, he wasn't Kira, not at the moment, but he would be again. He couldn't do anything except kill those two idiot friends of hers who wouldn't give up their names no matter how much she badgered them.

She shut the laptop in annoyance and laid it on the small table between the two sofas. He couldn't kill any member of the investigation team except them. He could kill Aiber and Wedy at the moment, but Katherine had just spent the last few hours discovering their names. Old grudges or not, she couldn't let Wedy keel over from a heart attack just out of spite, and she had no issues with Aiber. A couple more years off of her life shouldn't amount to much, and she wasn't really worried about it anyway.

She would have traded whatever she had left to keep those complete idiots alive. She wouldn't be able to forgive herself if either of them died, not after dragging them both into it. Pat had been willing enough – he despised Kira from the beginning. Most criminals did. Al had just needed an excuse to leave the country before the "murders" he had supposedly committed caught up with him, and they definitely would have, had he stayed. Don hadn't been as easy to convince. Pat had about zero common sense to begin with. Al had always been better than all three of them as far as common sense went, but he needed to get our regardless of where he was going. Don had therefore been the only one to disagree. He was smart enough to see where it could all go wrong, but regardless, he wasn't going to stay behind if Katherine, Pat, and Al agreed to go. He was perfectly willing to work in the investigation now, and would no doubt gladly shoot Kira in the face if he came into direct contact with him, but he hadn't been quite so willing in the beginning. He was only in it now for retribution – he and Al had been like brothers, and he wasn't going to let Kira get away with what he had done without a fight.

A hand slid the laptop off of the table quite suddenly – it almost made Katherine jump, but she figured out who it was in an instant and managed not to. The couch sank slightly next to her, but she kept her eyes straight forward, still in a rather irritated mood. The irritation faded, and then disappeared rather quickly, giving way to curiosity when she realized there were no sounds of overenthusiastic typing next to her. There was only silence. When she glanced over, she saw she was being eyed rather cautiously. L apparently took the glance as consent to speak aloud.

"You don't seem happy." She smiled wryly at the blatant observation, and at the way he seemed to be very cautiously selecting his words.

"I'm just a little irritated with Pat and Don." Her smile became amused as she looked over at him. "Did you think you were in trouble for something?"

"No…" he said slowly, his eyes still cautious. "Am I?"

Katherine laughed. Oblivious as always. At least it cheered her up a little. "No, not at the moment. You haven't sent anymore annoying blonds to live with me and you haven't kicked me off the investigation team recently, so you should be all right for now." She reached into her pocket and retrieved the piece of paper she had written down Aiber and Wedy's names upon. She unfolded it and handed it to him. He took the page, looked at it for a moment, and the caution in his eyes turned to slight confusion. "I'm guessing you'd like to keep your con artist and your burglar for a while longer?"

His head tilted to the side slightly. "Aiber and Wedy."

"I've been researching. We don't know who Kira is right now, so everyone's in danger."

"I wouldn't think you would want to protect Wedy," he mused, folding the paper and putting it back in his own pocket. "I didn't perceive any of your feelings towards her as being remotely friendly."

Katherine scowled. "There's a reason you have my death note at the moment. I can assure you that Spy Barbie would be due to die a very painful death by now if I still had it."

"You have already sacrificed six years of your own life for the sake of keeping the investigation team safe," L pointed out. Katherine shrugged.

"A couple more couldn't hurt, then.

"You don't know how many you have left."

"Maybe I'll replenish a few after the Kira case is done with. Kidding," she added when L gave her a questioning look. "Do you think you could get that done without Light knowing what you're doing?"

"Yes. He requires quite a bit more sleep than I do."

"Everyone in the world requires more sleep than you do," Katherine said, laughing. It trailed off to a sigh towards the end. She looked at L. "If it wasn't for the fact that you're already protected by my death note, I'd say that Kira would probably be more likely to win at this point. We don't even really know if he's one of the seven in the Yotsuba group."

"And if we arrest all seven of them and none of them are, Kira could kill all of them," L agreed. "The situation isn't playing out in our favor even though we do know what is happening."

"Yeah, I know…. And I tried telling Yagami that arresting those seven could just get them killed, he wouldn't listen. Why didn't you tell him? He might have listened then."

"Both because Yagami-san is set in his ways – he thinks that he is right without a doubt – and because it will be much easier to work without worries of argument over whose method is better. I have always preferred to work alone in the past for that reason. It was mostly to protect my identity, but I also didn't want to endure arguing over anyone else's opinion when I knew my methods would work."

"So you're not going to let me work with you at all after the Kira case is over? I'm so hurt."

"Regardless of whether you are being sarcastic or not, that would not be out of the question. Your thinking patterns are rather similar to mine and you don't have to worry about protecting your identity, given that you don't have one."

"I do too!" she said defensively. "I have quite a few, in fact."

"Given that you don't have a real one," L corrected himself.

"That's a bit better." Katherine sighed and tilted her head over to rest it on his shoulder. "But quit lying to yourself." L looked down at her curiously. "You know it's only because you'd miss me too much."

He shrugged with his shoulder that wasn't being used as a makeshift pillow. "Again regardless of your sarcasm, that is also a possibility." She smiled at the awkward edge to his voice and lifted her head off his shoulder. She looked over at him and his head turned as well.

"You still aren't used to this, are you?" she asked, still smiling.

He blinked a few times, his owlish eyes slightly puzzled. "Sorry."

She shook her head, then leaned closer to him and gently pressed her lips to his for a moment. He seemed to tense slightly for half a second, but he relaxed quickly enough before she pulled away. "You don't have to apologize," she assured him, reaching a hand up to entwine it in a few of his ebony tresses. "I think it's cute." She moved his arm and shifted closer to him, then rested her head on his shoulder and looked up at the monitors of her and Misa's flat. She sighed. "Do you have any idea why she's waiting up for me?"

L also looked up at the monitors, where Misa could be seen asleep on one of the sofas in the front room. There was absolutely no doubt in whom she was waiting for, but Katherine was at a lack of figuring out why. When L shrugged, she knew that she wasn't going to figure it out unless she went up there herself. She shook her head.

"Looks like I'll be sleeping out here, then," she said. "I don't trust any scheme of hers, and she's obviously scheming something."

"It looks more like she's sleeping."

"You don't know Misa as well as I do. She can scheme in her sleep." Perhaps that was a bit of an exaggeration, but Misa had obviously been planning some sort of ambush before she fell asleep. That meant she would be sleeping rather lightly, and would pop up quite animatedly the moment the door opened. Not that there was really any chance that she could have been sleeping very heavily in a corset. Such a feat seemed impossible.

Katherine migrated to the other couch after about an hour of watching L research the Kira case and the results turn out as unsuccessful as they seemed to have been turning out in the past weeks. She could hardly hold her eyes open, and going up to her flat with Misa still on the couch was out of the question. The blonde could be quite scary when she wanted to be, and there was truly no telling what sort of ambush she would be in for if she ventured into that apartment. She shook her head at the monitors as she lay down on the empty sofa, facing its back. Sleeping out here, away from the blonde demon, would be worth the possible backache in the morning.


Yeah, Misa can be demonic when she wants to be. Don't mess with her.

Sooo. Things aren't really looking up for the investigation team(s) at the moment, which seriously sucks. Blatant errors in judgement were made and while it got more information in the long run, it's just turning out sucky-like now, which... sucks. My lack of vocabulary at the moment is due to all the makeup work I've got piled up for school for all the time I missed for personal reasons. I'm being homeschooled at the moment, so I've got extra time on my hands due to how fast I can work, it just sorta makes my vocabulary... uh, suck. Yeah. I'm no longer a living breathing thesaurus. I am when I get into writing chapters, which helps, but as just Comma, I sorta... okay, don't make me say the word "suck" again. Ugh.

And I will use this line to again whore my story Animalistic Tendencies. Have a look at it. You know you want to.

Okay, done with that.

Soooooooooo will Pat and Don stop being stubborn and give up their names?

What's to say they even remember their real names after years and years of aliases and fake IDs?

Will Misa ambush Katherine over something the next time she sees her?

Will I offer any more background info on Katherine in the next chapter? *cough*yes*cough* Wait, who said yes? *sidewaysglance*

Where exactly is Rem hiding out at?

Will ramification be the word of the day?

Why yes, it will!

And fummins is still the word of eternity. I'd rather not get roundhouse kicked in the face, so it is. And will be. For eternity.

Cactus will be the word of the week as soon as I buy a new one. I miss my old one. I named it Fluffy :) And it bit me when I tried to give it a hug :/ Then it died :( Wal-Mart should have some more in soon, though. Any ideas for cactus names? Feel free to help me out.

Ah, and Slartibartfast is still the word of the year as well, of course. I've started rereading Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy since that was reinstated. Tis awesomely amusing. I still reccomend it to anyone who hasn't read it before.