Chapter 49

Rester walked into the main room to find Near on the floor as usual, opening up a case of toy figures, a black marker in his hand. Lindner and Gevanni were on the screen waiting for Near to begin.

"Let's begin with what we already know," he started and removed one of them. "Light Yagami is L and he's also Kira" he said and marked Kira on the figure, "For now we will call him L-Kira. There is another, one who has the notebook and is currently using it. We'll call him X-Kira." And so marked as black colored figure as such. Judging by the pattern of killings he has definitely made the deal and has acquired the shinigami eyes. L Kira and X Kira cannot communicate directly, so they must be planning to use Takada as a go-between. So, given the situation as it stands there are two ways to win against Kira." He reached over and pulled up a toy gun with cork in the barrel.

"One is the simple way," he pulled the trigger and shot the two figures with the corks, "Kill L-Kira and X-Kira and confiscate the notebook. But no matter what happens we will never resort to that. "

"Why not?" Rester asked him. It seemed like a perfectly viable plan to him.

"That's not the way we work, Commander. "

"We", sir?" he asked.

"That's right. We kill them both and the murders stop. Such ex post facto justification will not be tolerated. That is not the way L and I do things because that would be an insult to him. Don't forget, L entrusted this case to those who came after him and I will do it his way. Therefore, if we do end up killing them both, it won't be until we have rubbed their faces evidence, and make them taste the misery of their defeat. It is out of the question to kill them before that. So we will get solid proof."

"And how are we going to do that?" Rester asked him.

"By getting him to use the notebook and arresting him on the spot." Then Near smiled

"I'm not quite sure how yet, and if we meet, mine will be the first name he'll want to write so I have to work this out carefully. But I will…"

Matt smirked at Mello when he walked out of the terminal; yet again he was astride a black motorcycle. How many had he bought and just left sitting somewhere as they ran off to another destination? He shrugged, L had left him the money to use as he saw fit, and he saw fit to give it to Mello when he needed it. If only he could get Mello to get his, to look at the message L had left, but Mello was still so stubborn about it. He needed to see the message though, Matt would figure out a way.

"Hey," he said as he reached where Mello was waiting. Mello flashed him a smile that always managed to make his knees weak.

"Hey yourself," Mello answered back and grabbed him by the back of his neck, pulling Matt forward and kissing him roughly. Matt was embarrassed at how easily Mello could get a moan out of him, sometimes the rougher he was the more Matt liked it.

"It's about time you got your scrawny ass here." Mello told him when he finally released him. Matt blinked and looked Mello up and down.

"And you have the right to call ME scrawny how?" he asked and burst out laughing.

"Shut up and get on." Mello growled at him and that made Matt laugh harder.

"Oh look, a black motorcycle, how chic!" Matt said as he climbed on.

"I love the power and maneuverability." Mello explained grabbing his helmet. Matt leaned forward and whispered into Mello's ear.

"I thought you already had plenty of power and maneuverability between your legs." Mello stopped putting on his helmet and looked back at Matt, his smile predatory.

"Statements like that will get you raped." He said dangerously and Matt lifted his goggles long enough to bat his eyes back at him.

"Promises, promises." He laughed as Mello growled at him again and kicked the bike into life, taking off with a squeal of tires…

Near could barely be seen behind the wall of discs he was currently looking through. They had been accumulating copies of the old "Kira's Kingdom" show and anything else that would showcase Kira supporters. Behind him, adorning the walls, were pictures, hundreds of other known vocal supporters. Somewhere in this mess was X-Kira and he would find him or her. He looked up at one of his broadcast screens as an announcement was being made about Takada's new female body guards, one of them being Halle Lidner. He smiled, he knew one of them would find a way. Takada came onto the screen, giving more statements about what Kira would tolerate and what he wouldn't. He picked up the X-Kira doll and stared at it as an idea began to burn brightly.

Takada was chosen because she was a strong supporter of Kira. X-Kira would have to be someone who knew Takada was a Kira worshipper before he chose her, as L-Kira knows he's being watched and couldn't do it himself. Someone with a close relationship with her before her selection, he reasoned and then it began to happen. Facts racing through his mind at an unbelievable speed. In all of those discs there was one face that kept coming through, and one who seemed to be everywhere Takada had been; televised meetings of how the best way to reconstruct Japan under Kara's tutelage, panels on the meaning of Kira's actions, roundtables on how individuals could best serve Kira in his effort towards world peace; and at practically every taping of Kira's Kingdom, one very vocal and loyal Kira supporter. Near dug through the discs, flinging them in all directions until he found the ones he was looking for. He set them up and began to watch them one by one. He stood up staring at the screen, the X-Kira doll in his hand. L-Kira was Light Yagami, could X-Kira be prosecutor Teru Mikami? If so, then everything falls into place.

He turned to Rester and Gevanni who had both been working on other possible candidates until discs had started flying.

"You can stop looking, gentlemen. I believe I have discovered X-Kira. I need you to begin investigating him right away." Rester looked at the screen and nodded.

"Definitely sure about him, Near?" Near looked away and shrugged.

"If I'm wrong we merely start again. No harm done." He answered and began playing another disc, "This is Teru Mikami…"

Matt whistled as they pulled up to a hotel, Mello finding a place to park down the street.

"A hotel instead of one of your usual dumps? What's the occasion?"

"Only because I haven't had time to look yet, but don't get comfortable. I feel very vulnerable here, anyone could be watching." Matt snorted as they walked in.

"Yea all that leather and blonde hair does kind of stand out." He laughed.

"Oh yea like that bright red beacon is so much subtler." Mello countered and they both laughed.

Once in the room Matt flopped on the bed and began to set up his laptop. He became aware that Mello was agitated about something. He couldn't seem to sit still and he was going through candy bars faster than usual.

"Mello? What's up?" he asked finally. Mello looked at him for a minute and then jumped onto the bed in front of him.

"We're finally here, Matt. It took 6 damn years but we're here!" Matt nodded finally understanding. Everything Mello, actually ALL of them had been doing was to just get to this point. To be in Japan and finally take down the man who had taken L from them and taking over the world. They wouldn't leave until it was done. He had to admit to some excitement about it, but there was sadness too. He set up the laptop and then climbed from the bed walking over to the window. He wondered if L had seen a similar view to what he was looking at now, where exactly had he been while working here, before he…

"It's where L died too." He said quietly staring out. Mello stared at him and felt the familiar ball of hate in his chest he always felt when thinking about L's death.

"It's where he left us behind, you mean." He nearly spat out. Matt turned and stared at him. His own anger beginning to rise.

"You say that as if he just jumped on a plane and escaped to Mexico! What the hell Mello, you act as if he died on purpose just to spite you!" Mello stood up from the bed and faced Matt, his eyes flaring.

"That's practically what he did! He did something so stupid, that he's NEVER done before and got himself killed. He didn't try hard enough to stay alive for us!" Matt moved closer to Mello, till he was practically nose-to-nose.

"Why are you being so stupid? He was in the middle of a case that was nothing like he'd ever been involved in before! Shinigami's, death notes, a task force that was too stupid to believe AND an adversary that was so damned brilliant he was able to stay one step ahead of him. You think somewhere in the middle of all that he thought, "Well I better not try this it might get me killed and leave the boys behind?" Stop being stupid, he was L for Christ's sake, he couldn't afford to think like that!"

"He knew there was a damned notebook, we know he knew!"

"He didn't know until right before Kira killed him! He didn't have time to work on it like we did AND we know from Halle that he was thwarted almost every step of the way by the task force! Mello stop trying to blame L's death on L and just face up to the fact that he's gone and you have to deal with it without hating him for it!" Tears began to fall down Matt's face, he hadn't really let himself think about L much either lately, only about how they'd catch his killer. His own deeply buried but still brutally real pain came back up to the surface as he grabbed Mello's shoulders.

"Just stop blaming L for your pain to try to hide from it, Mello. He doesn't deserve it, not from you, not from any of us. He loved us Mello, you know that." He walked away from him and hit the play button on the computer. L's face appeared and he heard Mello gasp.

"You need to listen to him, to watch him. He knew he was in danger of dying and he didn't want to leave us without saying good-bye." Mello's eyes grew almost impossibly wide as he stared at the screen, at the face he hadn't seen in six years. He backed away from it.

"No..no turn it off, Matt turn it off!" he cried, his own tears finally falling. Matt shook his head, got up and grabbed Mello, dragging him to the bed.

"NO! You've run from this long enough! Mello it will help you, L knew it would help us. I'm not letting you run any longer." He could feel a tremor run through Mello's body as he stared at the screen like a deer in headlights. He sat him down and began playing the message. When L started talking, Mello covered his ears with his hands, crying in earnest. Matt gently removed his hands and made him listen, he had to listen.

"I am recording this message, because I feel certain events make my death almost inevitable as I believe Kira will use his reacquired powers against me unless I am able to discern how to stop him. I know how he kills; I just don't know how he's going to use it against me, although I know he will now. I know his instrument of death, and yet I cannot legally prove he is the one orchestrating this." L told them from the screen.

""L…why didn't you just leave and come back home if you knew this was going to happen, why did you stay?" Mello cried, one hand reaching towards the screen, his fingers tracing L's face. Matt stopped the video for a moment and touched Mello's face.

"You know why, Mello. You wouldn't either, if you knew your death was assured but you knew it was the only way to stop Kira, you wouldn't stop either, would you?" Mello stared back at him and shook his head. Matt smiled at him and restarted the video.

" I truly apologize to you for failing to bring him to justice as I promised, but there is a piece to this puzzle that I have not been able to disprove as of yet, and I am sure that you will be able to. I am so very proud of you all, Matt, Mello and Near. If this does come to be, I am comforted knowing that either all of you or one of you will become L. You have proven to me time and again that my trust in you is not misguided; and personally, you have brought me great joy and I care deeply for each of you."

Matt stopped the video again and looked at Mello again. His whole body was shaking with the force of his sobs, yet he couldn't take his eyes away from the screen. When Matt had stopped the video this time he jumped, reaching forward again to the screen as if that could make L talk again.

"Do you understand now, Mello? You know how he was, you know how hard that had to be for him to say to us, to even do this knowing it probably was the last thing he would do for us?" Mello's eyes moved quickly from L's face to Matt and back again.

"He'd left a personal message to Dr. Thompson here and I edited it out, it wasn't for us to hear. He tells us about the money he left for all of us, even Dr. Thompson, and then he finished with this." He said restarting the video.

"And now I must go. All of you please remember what I've said, and don't worry. I will know when you have caught Kira. Good-bye." Mello watched L smile at him through the screen one last time and then it went dark. He screamed then, all of that hate he'd been holding on to, his anger at L for leaving him fell apart leaving only the intense pain of loss. The pain he had buried as a child, sleeping in a cold barn, promising himself he'd never feel or cry over L again. He was fourteen again, all that pain rushing over him in a wave he couldn't control. Matt jumped over to him and held him tightly against him, stroking his hair, letting the past six years flow out of Mello as his own tears of loss fell. He'd been carrying that video with him since he left Whammy's, waiting for the right time to make Mello watch it. He'd had it reinforced when Mello had come back from talking to Near in tears, he knew Mello was holding on to some serious baggage and he had to let it go or he'd never get past it.

"I didn't…didn't say good-bye Matt, and he probably hates me now, I'm a murderer, he never killed."

"It's alright, Mello. L could no more hate you than I can. I'm not saying he might not be a little annoyed, he'll give you that big bad stare he used to give us when we pissed him off." Both he and Mello chuckled at that memory.

"Dr. Thompson had both he and Watari buried at Whammy's. When we get back you can visit his grave, talk to him there. Dr. Thompson does quite often. She's sure he hears her, and I believe her." He felt Mello nod and let go of a few more shuddering sobs before he finally quieted down. Matt held him a few more moments and then looked down at him, to realize he had fallen asleep. He laid him back against the bed and moved some of the hair out of his eyes.

"I'm sorry I had to hurt you like this, but you're gonna feel so much better when you wake up. I love you, you know." He said smiling and then lay next to the sleeping Mello, his head on his chest. It had been a long trip from LA, and this was just as exhausting, he could do with a nap as well. He kissed Mello's cheek and then closed his eyes…

Near had Gevanni connect with L2, he had a very important question to ask – and not to L2 either.

"L, this is Near. I have a small request. If Mr. Aizawa is there, would it be possible to speak with him for a minute." He heard shuffling around the microphone and the Aziawa spoke.

"Near, this is Aizawa, what is that you want?"

"I have a question about your surveillance of L's and Takada's conversations. Are you recording both video and audio feeds?" Near already knew the answer, but he needed to verify it.

"Uh, no only audio feed right now." Near smirked at the screen.

"I see. So, you're only using audio wire taps. How interesting." He said and broke the connection.

"If they're only using audio wiretaps then it's safe to assume that L-Kira and X-Kira have found a way to communicate by using Takada. It seems Lindner could be in more danger than we first assumed."

"We knew the risks when we first got into this. To be blunt, we have to hope that L-Kira puts all of his attention on Takada and Lindner. In the meantime, we'll spend the time getting closer to Mikami." Rester nodded and turned towards the microphone.

"How is it going Gevannni?"

"Well, its ridiculously easy, "Gevanni answered back, "He's not even trying to hide. He's lived at the same place for the past four years, he's very dedicated to his position as prosecutor. I'm beginning to think that he can't be X-Kira."

"No. There's a high probability that Mikami is X-Kira. Please be very careful." Near warned. Gevanni agreed to and signed off. Near turned to look at the Christmas Tree that Rester had put up for him and hung up the two figures of X-Kira and L-Kira.

"Soon, I'll be doing this for real." He said to himself and smiled.