AN: HOLY CRAP!! I checked out my traffic page the other day and I was freaking amazed!! For the month of August 2009 I got a total of 929 FREAKING HITS AND 402 FREAKING VISITORS!! (Sorry, none of you are "freaking" or whatever. I just use that word a lot is all.)
But SERIOUSLY!! For me that is a HUGE deal!! Thanks a bajillion to everyone reading this!!

And now, without further ado...!!

February 14, 2011
6:27 AM

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU'RE LEAVING TODAY?!" Mido practically shouted. No, wait, not practically. He nearly blew L's eardrums out.

The said detective responded by shifting his weight and looking indifferent. "I simply have no more reason to stay here, Mido-san. Surely you didn't expect me to stay here forever?"

The doctor seemed taken aback. "Well, no... but today?! You've only been alive for two weeks!!"

L cocked his head. "...And by that you are implying...?"

"Ryuzaki!! In theory, you shouldn't even be walking yet!!"

"Mido-san, remember I did that last week. Besides, you've given me every single test on the planet to determine physical and mental strengths, and they all turned out normally--"

"Except the IQ test."

"...Well, yes, but isn't it acceptable to have an above-average level of intelligence?"

"Above-average?! Good God, I think you broke a world record!!"

"Which," L pointed out, "is not an acceptable reason to force me to stay here."

Mido sighed. "Is it considered irrational to worry that you'll be killed again?"

L pretended to think a moment. "No."

"So my reasoning is justified!!"

Mido seemed truly concerned, but L wasn't giving in to such a stupid excuse. "No, Mido-san, because I am quite certain that by 'being killed' you are referring to Kira--"

"What percent would that be--?"

"Ninety-nine-point-nine percent certain."

It was an instantaneous answer.

"It is not irrational," L continued, "to worry about my general health and safety; it is, however, irrational to worry about a serial killer that has been missing for more than a year."

The doctor sighed. "Fine."

"...So, I may go?"

Mido's nose twitched. "Oh, I almost forgot."

"...Forgot what?"

"There is one area that I neglected to test you in. A vitally important one."

It sounded like Mido was playing his trump card. "And that would be...?"

"The art of defending oneself from physical attacks."

Is he kidding...?!

L stared. "You are worried about my self-defense skills," he said flatly.

"Frankly, yes. After being dead for several years, I wouldn't think that my reflexes would be at their best."

Hmm. When Mido phrased it that way, it was a plausible excuse. He almost had L for that one: hook, line, and sinker.

But, to his benefit, L was 100% certain Mido wasn't expecting him to take the bait.

"Alright," L said with a smirk. "Try punching me."

The doctor did a double take. "WHAT?!"

"You heard that correctly. Try punching me."

Mido stared. "For God's sake Ryuzaki!! I'm a doctor!! Assaulting people is the exact opposite of what I do for a living!!"

"Well then," L said with a small grin, "you'll just have to believe me when I say that I can defend myself."

A sigh came from Mido. As much as he was trying to hide it, L could tell that he was sorely tempted by the offer. And really, L didn't blame him much: they hadn't been the best of friends for the past week because L refused to tell Mido more about the building and Kira Investigation Team.

But then, after a minute, the doctor seemed to give it up. "Ryuzaki, it's not that I don't believe you. It's just that... that--"

Temptation won out, and just as L had begun to let his guard down Mido attempted to sock him in the jaw.

Ahh!! He's fast!! Barely in time, L ducked and missed the punch by a hair's width. Swiftly, he turned the tables and, with a move that barely existed he bent to the floor and delivered a kick to the doctor's chest...

And missed.

But it was probably just as well: he had only missed because Mido had leaned backward to avoid it, and in the process lost his balance. He fell to the floor with an audible thud.

L stood over him. "You know karate."

It was probably the most obvious sentence that had ever come out of his mouth. Mido picked himself up. "You know capoeira," he retorted.

L was impressed. Not many people had heard of that particular fighting style. "Indeed."

"You could have gone a bit easy on me you know!!"

L briefly considered admitting that he had gone easy on the doctor, but that wasn't his style. "Mido-san, I think I might point out that I'm not a doctor who goes around punching his patients."

Mido glared at him. "Then let me point out that I haven't DIED before."

L blinked.

There was no good reply to that.

"...Touché."

8:16 AM

Unfortunetly for Mido, he really couldn't find a good reason for L to stay around anymore. After a long argument, he finally let it go after giving L 5,000 yen and making him promise to come back the next week. (L didn't know if he would end up keeping that promise; if he hadn't known better, he would have guessed even Mido knew that he might have been lying.)

L stepped outside for the first time in more than six years and took in the city around him. It was so different, yet so much the same... his photographic memory was able to look around and analyze many so different details at the same time it almost put his brain on overload.

Under normal circumstances, before he had died, he would have called Watari to pick him up. But Watari was dead, so that wasn't an option. He could have called a taxi, ridden a bus, or taken the subway. He briefly considered all of these options, and his final decision actually surprised him quite a bit.

He was simply going to walk.

He knew exactly where he had to go, and it wasn't too far away from the old investigation headquarters. As a bonus, there were no cameras to photograph his face outside. Even more of a bonus: he hadn't walked anywhere since he'd died, and now was the perfect opprotunity to actually get some exercise.

He started heading down the street. At this point, he was wearing his normal outfit of a white shirt and baggy blue-jeans. Mido had gotten him a pair of tennis shoes that, of course, felt very uncomfortable. The doctor had also given him a jacket, because the delivery man had said that it had been snowing recently. Most of this snow had melted, leaving piles of slush on the sidewalk and streetcorners.

As L trudged on, his thoughts went back to Watari. He wasn't quite sure how he felt about the old man's death... True, Quillish Wammy had been the closest thing to a father L ever really had, but at the same time he knew that fathers were not supposed to turn their sons into great detectives for fun. But as a person, someone to talk to, L certainly would miss his company.

But L had made other connections. Aiber. Wedy. And the Kira Task Force.

How many of them are still alive?

How many died because of Light?

Then he had a strange thought. What if I could contact one if the old investigation team members? That is, assuming they're still alive, of course. I would scare them half to death... ha ha, I would give Matsuda a heart attack! But who else could I reveal myself to...? Rodger? Maybe...

Or one of my successors.

L stopped in the center of the sidewalk. The task force had probably kept his death a secret (at a 98% chance), meaning that one of them would have had to have played the part of L. And it was most definetly... Light. He was the only logical choice for a successor out of the six of them. L shuddered at that thought. How he wished he hadn't made that comment about Light taking over after his death...

But perhaps that hadn't happened. One of the children at Wammy's could have taken over, or at a 96% chance Rodger had at least told the others of his death. If not, someone there must have known that the new L was an imposter. And if they dug deep enough into the Japanese police records, they probably would have learned of the Death Note...

But who?

Nate?

Miheal?

Or perhaps even Mail...?

But it was pointless to think of these kinds of things. L was, in a sense, walking to find these things out right at that very moment..

While L had been chained to Light, he had been unable to use his computer. From the way it was programmed, if he didn't use his computer for a period longer than twenty-four hours, then a countdown was supposed to start. At the end of the countdown, Rodger was to receive a text message with a simple, straightforward meaning.

L is dead.

Because L wasn't able to use his computer while around the investigation team--and being chained to Light had added a whole new level of difficulty to that as well--he instructed Watari to use it at regular four-hour intervals whenever possible.

Meaning that the computer had to go wherever Watari went.

Fortunetly for L, Watari had taken the time to rent out a room under one of L's aliases from a... less than honest man. He was suspected on a number of drug charges, and he had seemed willing to lend out his building as a place to do deals or hide things. An exceptional amount of money on L's part was able to both completely buy the floor and the man's silence. Every day, Watari had gone and used the computer like L had instructed.

Until the day he had died.

L was nearly there half an hour after he had begun his walk through the downtown. Almost everything he could have bothered to think about had been examined, and he had maybe ten minutes left until he got to--

Abruptly, the peace of the morning was shattered by a scream.

AN: Hahahahaaa! Cliffhanger!! I know how much you guys hate these, so I'll try to keep the updating regular and not prolong it any more than need be. :-P

Happy Labor Day to all the Americans out there!!

(Oh, and BTW, the title of this chapter is a shout-out to... someone... ha ha ha...)