Chapter 22
L awoke when he felt the sun's warming rays on his face. He looked towards his left half expecting to see Christine there and was disappointed when all he saw was the phone instead of disarrayed red hair. He sighed, rubbed at his eyes and sat up. Then it hit him that he had slept all night. He shot out of bed and grabbed his clothes, thinking he'd shower and change after he checked on Light and Watari. He certainly hadn't meant to sleep all night, what if something happened? He grabbed Watari's phone and ran out of the room. Bursting into the next room not knowing what to expect. One thing he didn't expect was to find Watari having his customary tea and Light having breakfast by the bed. Watari looked up and smiled.
"Good morning, L. I trust you slept well?" The deviousness of his smile told L that he'd had an idea of how well his evening did go.
"Yes, thank you Watari." He turned attention to the youth sitting on the bed, still handcuffed to Watari and spoke in Japanese.
"Good morning Light-kun." The boy smiled and nodded his mouth still full of food. L felt that familiar sadness he always felt when looking at Light lately. Since his "change" during his captivity, L liked this Light, he liked him very much. It pained him to think that underneath this very likable, brilliant youth was a serial killer of the worst degree and that he had to bring him down somehow. He felt the depression over the situation begin to creep back into his mind.
"Light-kun accompanied me to the kitchen this morning as I prepared the trays for you and the task force." Watari also spoke in Japanese.
"It's not as if I had a choice." Light said raising his arm with the handcuff on it.
"You have to admit it was a change of pace, Light-kun. If you would excuse me for just a bit more, I need to shower and get clean clothes."
"Then when you're done we need to head downstairs to the work room, because I think I have an idea on this new Kira but I have to run a couple of more programs before I show you." Light said to him excitedly. L stopped to look at him as he walked past on his way to the bathroom.
"Really? It sounds as if you feel you have hit upon something?"
"Well I have to get you out of that funk have been in for months and I think I may have found it. Now go shower so we can get downstairs!" L nodded and walked to the bathroom. He stopped when his hand hit the doorknob and he turned, walked back to Watari and pulled his phone out of his pocket.
"Watari, I need to…" he began handing Watari his phone. Watari stopped him by raising his hand.
"Nothing more needs to be said about the matter. I am simply glad you got some rest." L smiled gratefully and went in to shower. Light looked from one to the other in slight confusion, shrugged and went back to his breakfast.
L sat staring at the information Light had just shown him on the screen, thumb at his mouth and digesting it all. He was thrilled by the new direction that Light had shown him, and at the same time aggravated that he hadn't thought of it himself. But he put that down to his not paying that much attention lately and not really caring for a while. Still it was brilliant that Light had put it together that this new Kira was a member of the Yotsuba Corporation and it made perfect sense. He looked at Light again; his big amber eyes looking excitedly back at him.
"How about now, are you ready to get to work?"
"Y..Yagami-kun.." L started…and then listened as Light explained how he got the information from accessing public, media and police data and comparing them. Then noticing that certain deaths gave Yotsuba more business and made their stock rise. It also made him realize that Kira could kill in other ways than heart attacks.
"Then you think Yotsuba hired Kira to kill for them?" L snorted at the question.
"Kira being hired would be unthinkable. That would mean the company found Kira before I did and that's not possible.. A better theory would be that someone in Yotsuba is Kira or somehow has gained his power."
They had begun discussing how to infiltrate Yotsuba when Chief Yagami returned from a meeting letting them know that Kira was bribing the government and now the police were being told to no longer go after Kira. If they wanted to continue to investigation, they would have to quit the police force.
L never thought the police would succumb so quickly or so completely. He looked away from them and back at the computer.
"I think you should all go back to the police force," he said quietly, "I was all alone in the beginning. Almost every police officer turned their backs to me when the threat of losing their lives became a reality. With the support you have given me until now, I'll be able to continue this case on my own and I swear to return to see you guys one day with Kira's head." Although he meant every word, he wondered if they would agree or if what he'd said would make them want to stay in spite of losing their jobs. He would not tell them that he had already set aside money for each of them and their families if something should happen. He needed to know just how committed they were to finding Kira, with no strings attached.
He listened as they debated back and forth. Shot down Aizawa's suggestion he go back to the police and work with him on his free time, and heard him agonize over whether or not he should leave or go back to the force and his family Still he said nothing, except to reaffirm that it would not be possible to continue working with him if he decided to stay with the police force.
Watari could also hear at his post in front of all the screens. He waiting for L to say something about the trust funds. He understood that L wanted to make sure that those who worked with him were truly committed, but he felt L was being a little too cruel to Aizawa He sighed as he put his finger on the intercom button, he knew he was going to catch hell for this but he could not let it continue.
"Ryuzaki…" L looked towards the screen and pushed the intercom button
"What is it Watari?" he asked
"In the beginning you had me make preparations so that everyone on the task force and their families would be financially secure no matter what happened, including if they were fired from their jobs. Why are you not mentioning that?"
Fury filled L's eyes as he snapped the intercom again.
"This is NOT the time Watari!!"
"I am sorry, but just couldn't bear to hear any more". Watari answered and signed off. L braced for what he knew was coming, and he was right. Aizawa accused him of just waiting to see if he'd leave or not, and L agreed he was. With that Aizawa quit, storming off telling L how much he disliked him. L listened and only replied he was sorry because he did like him, and with that Aizawa stomped out. L sighed deeply and went back to work on how to infiltrate Yotsuba. Perhaps it was time to contact Aiber and Weby.
Christine awoke to her alarm screaming at her and quickly shut it off. She smiled thinking of the previous evening and wishing she could have seen just how deep the blush must have been on L's beautiful porcelain skin once he realized what she had in mind. Happily though he didn't fight it and went along with it a lot easier than she had thought. Poor baby must have definitely been hurting. She giggled to herself as she crawled out of bed. She didn't remember this being on her job description as Whammy's Resident Doctor. But then she hadn't met L yet. How easy it would be to fall in love with someone like L if you let yourself. She shook her head as she started the shower. Talk about a disaster waiting to happen. She couldn't live with him 24/7 any more than he could probably live with her. The good thing about this relationship was that they had their prospective apartments and could escape each other when necessary. Sometimes he was such a child that she wanted to spank him..she stopped her train of thought as a blush started to creep up her neck. That's NOT what I meant, she scolded herself and buried her face in the cascading water.
After arriving at her office, she flipped the calendar over on her desk and sighed. It appeared that L was going to miss his birthday again, and unless he called she had no way of at least wishing him a happy birthday. It was the 28th of October, and unless a miracle happened he wouldn't be here in three days. Now she had to hope that he'd be around for Christmas this year. She couldn't believe he'd been on the Kira case for a year. No case had been like this, ofcourse no case was the Kira case. She couldn't think about it right now, too many things to do. She was expecting a shipment of flu shots which had to be administered to the staff and kids and she had to make sure she got what she ordered. Then she'd have to set everything up and start giving inoculations. She had a busy day ahead of her and that wasn't even counting what these kids could come up with on a daily basis. She mentally rolled up her sleeves and got started.
L ran over everything that had happened in the past few days as he started the helicopter. They were now on their way to capture the current Kira, Higuchi. They had determined he was the one member of Yotsuba most likely to be Kira and he had his contact Wedy put bugs and cameras in their building. After getting the information they needed, if inadvertently from a bungle Matsuda pulled from which he had to dress up like an ambulance driver to help get him out of, Misa had managed to get a confession out of Higuchi while out with him after securing a position representing the company in commercials, with the help of Aiber And now they had managed to trick him into action by thinking his identity was going to be announced over the air on television. He hoped this would bring an end to this Kira, find out how he kills and perhaps lead him to how Light and Misa had done it, and why they didn't remember it now. He watched as Watari got into the helicopter, carrying a high powered rifle and dressed for duty. He looked over at Light who was sitting next to him. He sighed deeply again, what happened now would not only end this Kira's reign, but could quite possibly bring the original back again. He looked down at the controls and started the engine.
