((Author's Note)) First order of Business, apologizing.
I'm sorry for not updating the past couple of weeks...my brother was graduating and a lot of family had come up from all over the place.
Second order of business...Enjoy this next chapter.
Edit: no big edits, just some grammatical fixes.
Chapter 12
"Amazing!" Matsuda exclaimed as I exited my room after reporting to Near and Mello. "There might only be five of us, but with this much information we should be able to cover a lot of ground."
"We'll split into two teams," Aizawa decided, "one team traces the FBI agents. The other looks at the heart attack victims."
I huffed, "Wow, Aizawa, you perked up pretty quick." My notion was ignored, however.
"There weren't that many people who had access to information from the headquarters, and of those the FBI only investigated a small group in the first five days," Matsuda continued.
I looked at L, who seemed a bit ticked off. Someone must have interrupted him, I thought.
"So, does anyone have any questions?" the detective asked, the agitation laced in his words. The other investigators seemed a little shocked...as if they had forgotten that he was there.
Yagami raised his hand slightly, gaining the attention of the rest of the task force. "Actually Ryuzaki, I do have one question for you," he stated, "And it pertains to what you said to us earlier about how you hate to lose."
L nodded slightly, permitting Yagami to continue.
"Does the fact that you've shown your own face means that you've lost?" he asked. "By just being here are you admitting defeat to Kira?"
L thought for a brief second before replying. "That is right." I looked up at him from the doorway I was still standing at. "By showing my face to you now and by sacrificing the lives of 12 FBI agents, I have lost the battle." And Three...Two...One... L looked away from his toes, which he had taken a small interest to for a miniscule moment and showed determination on his pale, panda face. "But I'm not gonna lose the war." Not sure if I've used this line, but Bingo was his Name-o.
I smirked as L went into Monologue mode. "This is the first time I've ever put my life on the line. I want to show Kira that we're all willing to risk our lives if that's what it takes," He took a small moment to munch on a leftover donut ball (love those to death, by the way) before continuing, "and that justice will prevail no matter what." He then gave an uncharacteristic smile that looked super wierd to me. If this was a TV show, a lot of fangirls would have gone crazy over it.
The taskforce spoke their agreements before L dropped a huge bomb on their heads. " Before we go any further, I have to be absolutely sure that none of you are Kira. So I need to speak with each of you individually before you leave today."
Aizawa was the first to speak out. "What's the deal? He still doesn't trust us?" he burst out, but Yagami calmed him down.
"I think it's a fair request," He told him. "Try to see it from his perspective. Kira's been getting information from our headquarters from the very beginning. So there is a good chance that he is one of us."
"Chief's right," Matsuda jumped in. "Working this case has given us a chance to see him in person."
Aizawa sighed. "He's risking his life to be here."
I couldn't help but speak out, "Good God, Aizawa, are you with him or against him? You're like, contradicting yourself over there!"
Aizawa shot a glare my way while L gave me the look that can now be labeled as specifically for me, which I completely ignored both.
As L began interviewing each of them, I decided to sit on the couch next to Matsuda.
"You really know how to make someone mad," he pointed out while L was interrogating Aizawa.
"I sure do," I told the youngest task force member as I stretched out. "His attitude is fairly simmilar to Mello's when you think about it. And since I've been pushing Mello's buttons for two years, it kind of comes naturally to piss a guy like that off."
"Who's Mello?" Matsuda asked.
"Nobody important," I replied quickly, "Just a kid I grew up with."
There was a small silence between us before Matsuda asked, "are those real?" He pointed to my ears.
I nodded. "of course. Although I consider myself half of the species known as Cannis-lupis, I am in truth roughly ten to twenty percent wolf; which consists of my ears, tail, and hightened senses of sight, smell, and direction."
Matsuda looked confused. "So..."
I sighed. "Yes, my ears are real." I honestly don't know if he's faking his stupidity, but either way, he's way too naive to be Kira. I tilted my head closer to him. "You want to touch one?"
Matsuda blushed, "Uhh..."
"Come on, Matsu," I prompted, "It's just like petting a dog." I took one of his hands and placed it by my ear. "It's not like it'll make my nose bleed or anything."
Reluctanly, Matsuda began petting my ear as if it would hurt him. When he was confident in the fact that my ear was harmless, he smiled a bit. "It's surprisingly soft," he commented.
"Wash it like I wash my hair," I told him. His hand left my ear when the door to L's room opened, revealing the messy haired detective and the bipolar police officer with his head stuck in the 80s.
"Looks like your turn, Matsuda," I patted his shoulder. "Good luck."
Matsuda nodded before standing up from his seat and joining L for his interrogation. Aizawa took his seat next to me.
"How did a kid like you manage to wind up in this case, anyway?" he asked after a while. I shrugged.
"I'm not here for the Kira case. My mission just happens to be in the same place at the same time," I told him. "I just decided to kill two birds with one stone."
Aizawa didn't appear to completely understand, but didn't push the subject. He was trying to be as civil as he could, I could tell, so I decided to try as well.
"Of course L wasn't too happy at first."
"Huh?" Now he was curious.
"Being one of his top three successors, he came to us at the beginning of the case," I told him. "He knew this case would be the most difficult. He told us that we would exchange research over the computer, so that he wouldn't have to risk more lives than necessary."
"Then why...?"
"An incident..." I continued, "More like a memory...in the form of a dream... made me want to know more of how I became this," I gestured to myself. "I know I wasn't born half wolf. That isn't naturally possible.
"Before L left for the airport, I did as much research I could on what I saw in that dream. It led me to the name of a Genetic scientist who might have been involved in this situation. He had a lab here that burned to the ground a few years back. In my dream/memory, I was in a burning building. It was the closest lead I had, and naturally, I followed it.
"So, I stowed away in L's car, managed to get a ticket to Tokyo using my totally awesome acting skills, and here I am," I concluded.
"Are you always this proud of the things you do?" Aizawa asked, "Just to get the answers you want?"
"No," I replied honestly. "In fact, I've had to do a lot things that I'm not proud of; and because of that, my only friend is behind bars on the verge of getting killed."
L and Matsuda returned before the conversation could continue. I noticed that Matsuda was flushed with embarassment, as if he felt that he made a fool of himself.
" I apologize for questioning all of you like that," L said as he sat in his usual crouch on his chair, "but I'm afraid I had no other choice. I've determined that Kira is not among us." Everyone sighed in relief.
"Ryuzaki," Yagami questioned, "how can you be certain that we are all innocent?"
L didn't look at him in the eye when he answered, "Well, to be honest, from the beginning I set a number of traps that would reveal if any of you was Kira, but after speaking with you one-on-one, I don't feel the need." His cellphone then rang, slightly startling the japanese officers. "Excuse me."
Matsuda had a slightly dirty look on his face and I sighed. It's obvious they still don't trust us.
"Understood, I'm just about finished here anyway," L said, holding his phone with his fore finger and thumb up to his ear. "You have the key, so let yourself in." He then hung up and once again adressed the task force. "Watari and Equal are on their way."
((Author's Note)) I think I'll end this chapter here. Once again, I apologize about the past two weeks and hopefully you, my faithful readers, will be so kind as to forgive me.
Until next week...hopefully,
-Garden Of Time