January 31, 2011
5:34 AM

Mido was curiously observing his patient. The man had wanted tea and lots of sugar, so he had gone and gotten a cup of tea and seven or eight sugar packets. Upon his return, the patient poured all the sugar into the single cup of tea. Mido also noticed that while he wasn't actually complaining, his patient kept on making subtle faces, as though he thought the tea still wasn't sweet enough.

"So, you have a sweet tooth, do you?" Mido asked.

"Meaning a tooth that is made of sugars?" The man glanced up at Mido with his huge eyes. "No, I have no such thing."

Mido wasn't quite sure how to respond. "Its a figure of speech," he answered.

"Ah."

"It means you are fond of sweets."

"Oh! In that case, I have an entire mouth full of sweet teeth."

Mido almost laughed out loud. This man took things too literally. "Well," he said, "I honestly have very little idea of who you are. I didn't know you liked sugar."

The patient cocked his head, studying the doctor. "What an odd thing to mention."

Mido assumed he was refering to the fact that this feeling was not one-sided, and that he didn't know Mido either. "I suppose we might as well start with foods."

The patient drank some tea. "That is not what I was talking about," he said softly.

Mido frowned. "What do you mean then?"

The patient took another sip. "I died. Then I woke up here. Our tastes in food is hardly an important detail."

He said it so calmly. At best, Mido had figured that the man would have been slightly paranoid about the situation. But no, he was perfectly calm and not talking with the slightest hint of fear in his voice.

"You are very... I don't know...?" Mido couldn't think of a good word to finish the sentence.

The patient had more tea. "I believe 'composed' is the word doctor is looking for."

"Perhaps." That reminded him. "My name is Takeshi Mido."

The man didn't even look up as he said, "And now Mido-san will have a heart attack."

"What?"

"Kira kills with only a name and a face. If I were Kira, you could be dead by now."

"Oh." Mido thought that was a rather morbid way of looking at it, but he didn't argue. "You were killed by Kira, you know."

The tea was gone by now. The patient was staring dead ahead with his huge eyes looking at the wall oposite the bed. "Yes," he simply answered

"And... That doesn't make you worried? Or scared?"

"I believe Mido-san told me Kira had stopped killing people."

Mido frowned. "Did I?"

"Yes."

"Ah. Well, I suppose that makes sense." Mido felt the need to add something, so he said, "Why be scared of something that isn't there?"

At what seemed to be a random point in the conversation, the patient changed the subject. "May I borrow a laptop?"

The doctor was rather startled by this sudden request. "Um, no. I'm sorry, but no electronics are allowed here. This hospital can not take the chance of being discovered."

"Hmmm." The man began biting his thumb, lost in thought. "In that case, may I have more tea and a newspaper?"

There didn't seem to be any problems with that. "Sure. Just a moment." Mido turned and left the room.

Its a shame, L thought. Looking this up on the Internet would be so much easier.

By now, he was completely certain they were in Tokyo: the doctor had a slight accent that he placed from that approximate region. He also felt very slight tremors coming from around him, so he was also 100% certain that this was, literally, an underground hospital.

Now he needed to learn what happened to Light. With any luck, he would be mentioned in the newspaper... if he was still alive. Of course, he'd already determined there was a 94% chance Light had died... It was a long shot, but from a hospital where no electronics were allowed, there wasn't much else L could do. He couldn't even call anyone for answers.

Mido-san came back with more tea and a newspaper. L wryly noticed that he had three times as many sugar packets in his hand. Good.

Of course, the tea came first. L added all the sugar and took a sip. Ah, yes.

"Better?" Mido-san asked.

"Yes. Much better." L took a big gulp. This burned his tongue slightly, but he didn't care. Sugar sugar sugar.

Then he looked at the newspaper date.

All things considered, his reaction was rather mild. But for someone as composed as him, it showed that he was taken completely by surprise. He automatically spit the tea across the room. "How recent is this paper?!" he demanded.

Mido-san winced at seeing the tea on the wall. "Its yesterday's."

"What?! Its 2011?!"

"Well...yes."

L sat quietly for a moment. "I was dead for six years, two months, and twenty-six days." Actually, he had a good idea of how many hours, minutes, and seconds it was also, but he figured the information would be lost on Mido-san. "Why now?"

"...I'm not sure I understand what you're asking."

"Why did you wait so long? Why wait six years?"

"Well, what if Kira learned you were alive?"

L thought about that. If he was discovered alive--which would have happened at an 11% chance, but anyway--if he was discovered alive, Light would have just killed him again. Chances of that were no less than 100%. "A year since the heart attacks stopped," he muttered to himself. To Mido-san: "How many other people have you... revived?"

"Just you."

Just me? "Are there any other current patients?"

"...I don't think you're authorized to know that information."

Damn. But that made L think of another important question: "Where exactly do you get victim's bodies?"

Mido-san visibly stiffened. He also raised an eyebrow. "What makes you think I've ever studied any sort of--"

"I believe the word is 'logic', Mido-san. Surely I was not the only deceased man you have studied?"

The doctor looked as though he would argue at first, but he realized L had made a good point and chose to answer the question instead. "I have a...connection in the police department that used to get me corpses that had been killed by Kira."

"Who is this connection?"

Mido-san was clearly beginning to be annoyed by all these questions. "I can't tell you that."

Slowly L nodded. "Alright Mido-san. I have one more question then."

The doctor sighed. It wasn't an exasperated sigh, or a weary one. He was slowly exhaling his annoyance. "Alright then."

"Where did you get my body?"

Mido thought long and hard for about thirty seconds. Finally he replied, "It was donated, specifically in hopes of eventually stopping all of Kira's heart attacks."

In truth, that response brought more questions to L's mind, but as promised, he didn't ask any out loud. "Alright. Thank you."

For a moment, there was obvious surprise shown on Mido-san's face. He had apparently not expected such a blunt statement of gratitude. But his surprise quickly turned into a smile. "You're welcome." He left the room.

L looked down at the newpaper that was still sitting on his lap. Slowly he picked it up and began reading.

Not even thirty seconds later, Mido-san came back. "I just realized that I never learned your name."

L smirked.

"Call me Ryuzaki."