Disclaimer: Me no own Death Note. You no sue. Got it?
Chapter Six Curiosity
It was yet another magnificent morning at the station. Of course I'm not being sarcastic in the slightest. It's wonderful to spend your day attempting to find a deranged killer. Absolutely wonderful. I sighed despondently; mere hours after we come up with our student theory, Kira breaks the pattern, instead deciding not to kill within his normal time period but to kill an incarcerated prisoner once every hour. And my "esteemed" colleagues were more concerned with the fact that L's theory might be wrong and were spending all their energy on creating scenarios that allowed his conclusion to remain plausible instead of noticing the critical information this provided for us. L cut in over their inane chatter.
"You're missing the point. It does appear less likely now that Kira is a student, but that's not the message he's sending by doing this. Ask yourselves, why every hour? And why are all these victims in prisons where they're sure to be discovered immediately? Why not other criminals like before? I believe Kira is telling us that not only can he kill from a distance, but he can also determine the time of death." There we go, give the man a prize. And judging by the current silence from L, he was deducing, like I had, that somehow Kira had gained access to classified information from the task force. Which meant that now L was going to have to investigate every single one of us here. I suppressed a groan. Great, so much for remaining under L's radar.
But it made me wonder if L could see Kira's motivation. Kira was definitely smart; he had proven that by being able to somehow hack our database. He had most likely thought ahead and knew that L would plan on investigating the police. L wouldn't be able to hide this forever and then the investigators would begin to lose the little trust they had in L. In turn they would probably attempt to investigate him. Kira was probably counting on them revealing L's identity for him…but that wouldn't work. Kira was clearly underestimating L. I had been researching him for years and had turned up very little, minus his little detective war with Coil and Deneuve.
Was L counting on Kira reacting this way? Did he want the other officers to distrust him? At the moment, that seemed to be the case. If L truly wanted the task force to trust him, he would tell them about the leak and give them instructions on how to secure their computers, not keep it secret. That was the only conclusion; L didn't want the task force's trust. Or at least he didn't want all of it. Once they discover L had been investigating them, a majority of them are going to leave; only the truly dedicated ones would stay… Ah! I'm such an idiot! That's it! L wants to weed out anyone who isn't one hundred percent dedicated to the case and him. It really shouldn't have taken me so long to figure out, but then he was L. If it was easy for me to understand his thought process, he would be out of a job.
And more pressing to me, I actually felt happy knowing all this. Don't get me wrong, I hated Kira and everything he stood for, I was completely exhausted, working myself to the bone finding conclusions I knew L had already made, and I was still having terrifying nightmares about it all…but I was happy. I was being challenged, something that hadn't happened in who knows how long. There were no simple solutions here, I was being forced to use every cell I had of brain power to even stay close to L's level, and I was happy about it. If I had the energy I would be completely disgusted with myself. I didn't sigh this time, but exhaled loudly, blowing my bangs out in annoyance with myself. This earned me a glance from Watari.
Speaking of Watari, strangely enough I had began to enjoy his company. He at the very least understood my plight now. I gave him a curt nod to let him know I was fine and then continued on with my research. Everything was calm (for once), until three gentlemen made their way to my father's desk. Each carrying what looked like a form of some sort. This couldn't be good.
"What's this about?" Dad nearly shouted. I blinked in surprise, Dad wasn't usually so brash, the stress of it all must be getting to him.
"With all due respect, Chief, we're resigning." Resigning? What? How could anyone even think about backing out on a case this important? As it was we barely had any men. I ground my teeth in annoyance. "We demand that you assign us to a different case, or you can have or badges right here and now." Cowards.
"Why?" Dad asked, obviously confused. "You're good cops." We were then treated to what was basically a giant anti-L rant and how it wasn't fair that they were on the front line, without any cover or protection whatsoever regarding their names and faces. All of it was utter nonsense. They could die on any case, and they were backing out just because they didn't have the same level of protection as our best chance at catching Kira? All of it was utter bull. I spent the rest of the day practically throwing myself into work; I was not going to allow us to be put behind by three idiots running away, while also praying for the day to be over so I could rant about it to Watari.
Finally, when the day was over, I made my way towards Watari sitting in an empty seat near him. I heard a faint beep as he, well I assumed, shut down the laptop.
~L's POV~
My laptop beeped loudly, Watari was contacting me. I frowned. The task force would have just been leaving; he shouldn't be contacting me yet. I crouched down on the floor, and held a button in to answer him.
"Yes, Watari?" I waited hearing no response. Frowning again, I checked the settings on the laptop, everything was working properly, he should be able to hear me. Looking at the settings on the laptop he currently had, I found the problem. The speakers on his end we're off. I reached forward, about to rectify the problem before I heard him speak.
"Good evening, Rei." Rei? Who was Rei? My mind immediately supplied the answer. A member of the task force, obviously. What was strange was that Watari was greeting "Rei" so informally and that he thought I would want to hear the conversation at all. Watari was far too good at his job to have contacted me and then conveniently have the speakers on his end turned off. He clearly didn't want to inform the other member of the conversation that I was listening in. Could this be the mysterious gift giver? It would be plausible. Watari had mentioned the fact this person had deliberately sat in my camera's blind spot so I would be unable to see them, it would make sense that would be reluctant to speak in front of me too.
"Hey, Watari," came the tired reply. It was female and sounded young. There was the solution as to why she didn't want me to know her identity. She assumed that I might be unwilling to have a young woman on the investigation team. It was a slightly prejudiced view point, but I could understand her concern. Many men still had a difficult time understanding that women could be competent in all fields of employment. I myself had no qualms towards women being members of my investigation teams; in fact I found that they did their assignments almost better than their male counterparts. Naomi Misora, for example, of the L.A.B.B. murders case had preformed excellently in my stead. I leaned forward and turned up the volume on the laptop, wanting to hear more of the conversation.
~Rei's POV~
"Good evening, Rei," Watari said, fiddling with the papers in front of him, condensed reports of the day's findings.
"Hey, Watari," I answered tiredly. Well that was no good; I didn't want to appear tired. That made me sound like a little kid who had been up to late. I wanted to be angry and whiny for once.
"I trust you had a good day?" Now he was looking through the papers, carefully making sure everything was in place.
"You should know," I shot back. "You were watching me." Now I sounded testy, which still translated as being tired, just choosing to be grumpy rather then subdued. He chuckled lightly under his breath.
"I was." He then chose to look up at me, taking in my unhappy face and slouching posture. "You are upset by the men who resigned."
"Of course I am!" I blew up. "How could they be so selfish? It wasn't like they haven't risked their lives on a case before, and this is probably the most noble cause they have to risk their lives for!" Watari waited patiently for me to finish. "I'm sorry," I apologized softly. "It just bothers me that these people still don't trust L. I admit we could be doing a bit more to protect our officers, but we can't grant the same level of security to all of us. L should be the priority. While I know I sound heartless by saying this, we're expendable, L isn't."
"Rei," Watari chastised, "you are not expendable." I snorted.
"At the moment, I am. All I'm doing is coming up with conclusions, the same ones L is drawing up actually. My job is to see all possible outcomes and now that L has left one out, I can't help but think he did it purposely." Watari remained silent for a moment before responding.
"I'm not sure what you mean, Rei." I smiled at him and then looked away.
"How do you think the other officers are going to react when the discover L's been investigating them?" Watari said nothing, though if I had to guess, I would say he was gaping at me. "Come on, Watari. We obviously had a leak; you can't tell me that L's not curious to how it happened. Because he didn't say anything to the other officers, I'm guessing he's hoping they'll react badly and leave. Then only the truly dedicated investigators will remain right?" Watari kept quiet. I sighed quietly, "I guess that means I shouldn't be so mad about those three officers then. They would have left anyway." Watari chuckled then, gradually growing louder before full blown out laughing.
"Extraordinary," he said once he was done laughing. "I had a feeling you'd give L a challenge. He's been asking about you." I raised my eyebrows skeptically.
"He has?" Watari nodded.
"He's extremely curious to know exactly what drove you to give him that pie." I could feel heat gradually creeping into my face, despite my efforts to suppress it. "He was extremely disappointed when I told him you were hesitant to show yourself." Crap, I could feel my face getting pink. "He was even curious to know what bakery you bought the pie from." Damn it. Full on blush. I was so glad L couldn't see me now.
"I-it was just a silly wh-whim." And now I was stuttering. Just perfect, I hated this. I never liked being put on the spot. I sighed getting serious. "And I don't want to show myself and risk a bad impression and then get thrown off my case." Watari was looking at me intensely now.
"Your case?" he questioned. Crap.
"Yeah mine." I decided just to go with the truth. "I was the first one in the office to suspect that Kira was murdering people. I was the first one to suspect all of it actually. The name and face theory, the Kanto region theory…everything."
"I didn't know that," Watari mused softly. "Though it certainly explains why a young girl such as yourself was at the ICPO meeting…" he trailed off. "But you didn't answer one of L's questions." My eyes widened in surprise.
"I didn't?"
"No. You have yet to inform me where you obtained such a magnificent apple pie." At this, I broke down laughing.
"Ahaha, no I guess I didn't. Here I'll write down the address." I grabbed a piece of scratch paper and quickly jotted down the information. Watari quickly read over it, before stuffing the scrap into one of his many pockets. "I get the feeling that underneath all that genius, L's just like a little kid" I gasped suddenly realizing what I just said. "I'm sorry what I meant was, umm, uhh…" I slowly babbled into silence.
"Hmmm," Watari muttered thoughtfully. "I do believe you're right on that account." Watari then turned on his heel and begin walking towards the exit, leaving me gaping openly behind.
~L's POV~
I shut the lid of my laptop, a thoughtful expression on my face.
Well that was certainly…interesting.
No, not interesting. That wasn't the right word, more like, enlightening? Yes that was the meaning I was striving for. That was enlightening. Absently I scratched my head. It had certainly answered all my questions and then some, but it also created more. I pulled my knees in tighter to my chest, wanting my deductive skills at full potential. Ideally I'd also be eating some type of sugar, but Watari was still presently away. But back to the matter at hand.
I now knew this girl, Rei, was extremely young for this line of work. She had reached many of the same conclusions I did, a few even before myself, due to her proximity to the first murder. Obviously she was intelligent. She was also humble, not hiding her face out of mistrust, but out of worry that I would throw her off the case if she happened to make any kind of blunder while I was watching. She had given me that pie because she was still new to police work and not completely desensitized to the treating of humans more like machines than individuals with feelings. She also seemed to be extremely loyal to me, hinting that she had been aware of my past investigations. And somehow, she had managed to deduce my movements before I had even had time to arrange for the officers to be tailed. It was to say the least impressive. All in all she seemed like an intriguing young women.
I'll have to ask Watari to take note of her for future Japanese investigations.
Then I frowned, remembering Watari's earlier agreement to Rei's observation that I was like a young child. It was good thing Watari was irreplaceable…
~Rei's POV~
It had been some time before the task force finally figured out L was having them investigated. Idiots that they were (I mean honestly what kind of training did they have back then?); they had only became aware of the agents following them, which I now knew had been FBI, after they had died. And now, to put it simply, all hell was breaking loose. Dad then suddenly managed to stop all the commotion and decided to address us all.
"We now know that Kira doesn't just target criminals. He'll kill anyone who opposes him. It's quite possible that we all may be killed by Kira. Think of your own lives, your families," at this he glanced at me, "and all the others you'd be leaving behind. If anyone wants to leave the investigation, now is the time. You won't be demoted if you choose not to stay. You have my word. But if you're not absolutely sure, then we don't need you. You have to be willing to fight against him even if that means making the ultimate sacrifice. That is all." I bit my lip softly.
Dad…
It was killing him to do this. His own morals wouldn't let him back off the case, and he sincerely hoped no one else would either, but deep down he knew the truth. That Kira was, at the very least, terrifying and that if people were given the choice to possibly be killed by a delusional murderer or be able to stay safe, to stay with their families, and have the burden of searching after Kira lifted from them, who could blame them for choosing the later? Well, I could, but I was the exception. I hadn't lived long enough for there to be anyone truly important. I loved Mom, Light, and Sayu, but they would learn to manage without me. I was sure Light would be able to fill any hole I left behind. And I knew from past experiences that you could die at any time at any age. If I had to die I was going to do it with a bang and for a noble cause.
During all my mental ramblings, all the unwilling officers had crept from the room. I looked around, curious to see who was left. My father (of course), Matsuda (which made me feel extremely proud of my young friend, despite the fact he was older than me), Aizawa and Mogi (who were once again proving their loyalty to my father), the two men who had taken care of Minagawa who I now knew were named Ukita and Ide (which was surprising, I hadn't been at all sure of their thoughts), and finally myself. Altogether we made a rather ragtag team.
"Six men, huh?" Dad muttered. Then he spoke louder intending for us to hear his next words. "Well seven, including myself. Still I'm grateful to see that there are as many as six of you willing to risk your lives to face evil." He looked at me, his eyes strong and focused. He was giving me one last chance to back down, to become the perfect little student again with Light and forget all this Kira nonsense. I met his stare not looking away until L spoke.
"The fact that you have chosen to stay means you have a strong sense of justice. I trust all of you," he stated in his usually garbled voice. And he must have. Dad had said there were seven of us, yet L could clearly not see me from the current positioning of the camera. Watari had told me that he informed L I did this, but the fact that he wasn't demanding to see me emphasized that he did mean what he said. Either that or he trusted Watari's trust in me.
Aizawa then cut in, "Hold on a second. L just said he's decided to 'trust us' now." I could almost here the air quotes around, trust us. "But honestly what reason do we have to trust him?" If I hadn't been worried about drawing L's attention to me I probably would have said something along the lines of, "Um, because he's freaking L?" That was hardly appropriate for the situation though.
"Look L, all of us have agreed to put our lives at risk to bring Kira to justice, so I hope you understand what this means." Ide chimed in, agreeing with Aizawa. "We're really sticking our necks out here." So cynical.
"But you never have to show your face do you? You just give the orders," Aizawa complained. I felt myself stiffening slightly out of irritation. L was our best chance at catching Kira. When you're a cop you make sure to protect you're best possible way to solve a case. Why couldn't these people understand that logic? I was overreacting again; it was just like when those three officers resigned from the case. At least Aizawa was willing to stay. He just needed a little symbol of trust from L. "I don't see how you can expect us to work alongside you under these conditions," Aizawa finished.
"L," Dad started to say, "if all of us are going to work together on this investigation, and if you truly meant what you said about trusting the six of us, could you come here so we could all meet in person?" The request wasn't completely unreasonable, and I was at a loss to know how L would respond. L had never been willing to show his face before on a case, and do so now when one's face was extremely important was dangerous. But, L had said he trusted us, and to have purposefully antagonized members of the task force into leaving meant he must have had something special in mind for the few of us that decided to stay. I held my breath, waiting for the world's greatest detective to answer.
"The thought had already crossed my mind. After all, I did say that I trusted all of you." Watari then turned the laptop so the screen faced outwards, where instructions began to appear.
We were standing outside of headquarters, waiting for it to be close enough to eleven o'clock so that we would arrive at the hotel at the specified time. The wind blew through our clustered little group and I shivered, pulling my coat tighter around me. We had been standing in silence for a while now, letting the reality that we were going to meet L, sink in.
"Why is he seeking our help now?" Ide blurted out, disrupting the previously quiet atmosphere. "There's only seven of us. He's solved all these difficult cases by himself in the past, so what makes this one different?"
"What about the fact that our target has some sort of power that allows him to kill with a heart attack?" I asked sarcastically. Ide's constant mistrust was becoming extremely grating. All I wanted right now was to enjoy the high that meeting my idol was providing me with. He ignored me and continued.
"The way L's been conducting things so far, odds are he's gonna send a stand in or proxy of some kind instead of coming himself. It's not like we'd ever now," he practically sneered. I frowned at him, feeling my previous irritation with him returning.
"A proxy, huh?" Aizawa pondered. "Well it is possible." Ugh, not Aizawa too.
"I believe L. I think we can trust him. And besides, I don't really see how we can solve this case without his help," Matsuda offered, not wanting his opinion to go unheard like many times in the past.
"I agree," Mogi added. Thank God for Mogi and Matsuda.
"As do I," I stated firmly, shooting Mogi and Matsuda grateful looks. Mogi nodded back, while Matsuda grinned like a school girl, a look which on him, was extremely endearing.
"From the beginning, he's been very upfront about the fact that he would need the help of the police on this case. Perhaps we should think of it like, he's been waiting for this to happen all along," Dad deduced. Perceptive. Well, Light and I had to get our intelligence from somewhere.
"Why would he do something like that?" Matsuda asked, honestly curious.
"There were a number of people on the task force who distrusted L before this investigation began. And once we got started we had detectives resigning left and right. Following that, classified information was leaked, so I'm not surprised that he didn't trust us."
"In other words," Matsuda said slowly, like his brain was translating what Dad said into another language. Well, in a way he was. Matsuda language, which most people could understand. I myself was fluent in it. "He was waiting for the task force to get narrowed down to only those of the investigation he could trust. And to do that he needed to weed put anyone that wasn't totally committed." I felt a surge of pride for both my father and Matsuda. While it was a little late now to make sense of L's past movements it was still impressive that they had managed to figure it out at all. I decided to keep quiet about knowing L's strategy before he even put it into place. Let Dad and Matsuda have their super hero moment.
Ide gritted his teeth and the burst out, "If we're working with that guy, I'm leaving the task force. You don't have to worry, I won't try to follow you, I'm not interested in finding L," he said with disdain. He quickly left not making eye contact with any of us. Ukita frowned slightly and looked at the ground, before adding.
"Well I think we can trust L, so I'd be willing to cooperate with him on this investigation." That seemed to be all the encouragement Aizawa needed.
"Count me in," he said. We all then prepared to meet the world's greatest detective.
~L's POV~
This was absolutely impossible. Watari had finally given me the full name of the mysterious "Rei" so I could be adequately informed of her past investigations and possible criminal records. I had managed to gather information about every remaining member of the task force except this, "Rei Yagami." Initially, I had searched her name through the files the police had on their employees. Unfortunately, this had turned up very little except that she was the Chief of the NPA's daughter and that she was not even an official employee of the police, but an intern of some sorts. Because she was an intern she was not required to have a police ID therefore there were no pictures of her at the station.
A little more digging had revealed that she was seventeen years old and had a twin sibling named Light Yagami. Using the information I had found about Light Yagami, I had been able to find her previous school which she had apparently graduated a year early from. However when I had requested the files on Rei Yagami from the school, they refused to voluntarily offer up the information because of some privacy policy they had about past and current students.
My next move had been to hack the school's main frame, but surprisingly, this too was fruitless when all attempted hacking failed because of some ridiculously advanced security system they had specifically made when two students had tried to alter their grades. Whoever had created the system was a master, and I would have to remember to send the site to Matt to see if even he could break through the complex firewalls and other defenses. I, unlike my successor, had focused my mental abilities simply on detective work and reasoning skills. While I was a fairly good hacker, I was not familiar enough with programs such as these to confidently attain the information I wanted without possibly crashing my laptop or leading someone to my present location.
I frowned in annoyance. From the start this Rei Yagami had been an enigma, and now I was going to meet her blind. This was something I couldn't come to terms with. Since I had begun my career as a detective, I had never once had to go into a situation without knowing every possible variable that could occur. It was extremely uncomfortable not knowing what this one unknown might cause to happen. And underneath my irritation I was also, against my will I might add, slightly fascinated.
It had been quite a while since anyone had provided a challenge for me that did not involve some huge stake, whether it was lives or money. True she was involved with the Kira case, but my interest in her lay outside of my duties as a detective. To put it quite bluntly, I was eager for our meeting so I would be able to reach some conclusion and then focus once more on the Kira case. I was hoping once we met face to face I would be able to classify her in some category and then get on with the case. While she had not been a huge distraction, in the moments I was not working, referring mainly to when I was waiting for some new batch of information, my thoughts had drifted towards her, something that was not acceptable.
I turned from position by the window when a faint knock sounded at the door. Ignoring the other members of the task force that had arrived first, I called out for them to let themselves in. Time to put an end to all these questions.
~Author's Note~
AWW CLIFFY! Yes that was definitely a cliffhanger. Finally figured it out. Well L seems awfully interested in Rei now doesn't he? They finally meet next chapter. Sorry to use the plot for all it's worth, but most people skip over the beginning and just go straight to meeting L. But I wanted to be different; I wanted to make you all wait! HAHA I'm evil aren't I? I assure you, all stalling was needed for plot purposes. I mean I wanted L to be interested in Rei when she first shows up so I was wondering how to do that. And then I thought, L is interested in things he doesn't understand, so let's have Rei unintentionally spark up his interest. Now that's set up and their relationship can progress all the faster. And yes, I am fluent in the language of Matsuda.
Who caught the Timekeeper101 tribute? It's, "Um, because he's freaking L?" I also slipped in a B tribute. The mention of the LABB murders. Yeah, that's all he gets. Sorry BB fans! I love him too, but if he was in this he would kinda take over…But I am doing a B story after this! It'll be full of blood and gore and all that fun stuff! Matt got a small mention too. Because I loves him as well. Please ignore my atrocious grammar.
I'm such a retard. I stabbed myself (ACCIDENTALLY!) in the finger with my pencil. Hard enough to make myself bleed. Now it's bugging me….
To all my wonderful reviewers I give virtual banana muffins, which means I made real muffins today. Because your reviews amuse me and make me want to respond (And because I still don't know how to PM people…) I will respond!
snowXgem: Good! I'm glad you liked it. You're comments are always so nice and positive. They're an awesome pick me up. Thanks for acknowledging Shou's awesomeness. He thanks you, from wherever he lives deep inside my head.
gnarley-: Haha yeah, that was probably one of my more fun disclaimers. This one is just grammatically incorrect. XP. I'm not saying nothing about anything!
RenKun-Sensei: Oh my gosh…I've just been glomped. O.O My first glomping ever! I'm so happy! And I love Rei too. She kicks major Kira butt. Hear that IMAGAY? I think he hears me.
Lt. Sarcasm: I've been chibi tackled! The firsts just keep coming today…And yay more L POV! Hoorays and whatnot. If you did live in Santa Monica I could visit you. I live in Huntington Beach. It's the real surf city capital. Not Santa Monica. Santa Monica lies. I agree with you on the strawberries, but that's about it. I'm not really in to tropical fruits. Apples are my fave, though I've never had apple pie XP. I reference it every five seconds yet I've never had it….
XxMichyBabyxX: Thank you! Here's more for ya!
theawesomesarah: Don't worry, I won't stop writing, unless the carnivorous dolphins get me…then I might be forced to stop. I'm glad you like Rei. I'm horribly worried she'll become a Marysue. And we cannot let that happen. Your pie is in the mail.
Rat300: Did you just call me a genius? ^/^. Aww shucks I'm blushing. Stop it. No seriously. I don't like blushing. That is where Rei's reaction came from. But I'm glad this story made your day. It's always nice to find an awesome story when you're feeling down. I would know. And just out of curiosity, does your name come from Fruitsbasket by any chance?