((Author's Note)) I have returned once again my beautiful little flowers!
And along with my return comes the next chapter. Less originality since I'm returning to the Main storyline, but it shouldn't be too much of a bother.
So, here you go.
Chapter 17-Glare
I sat in the airport, I was curled up in the chair, my eyes glued shut, so as to not see the countless numbers around me.
Numbers...the one thing I hated more than confined spaces...the one thing that drove me into confined spaces for comfort. For the first few weeks at Wammy's, I was in an unexplainable state of fear between the tight spaces and the numbers.
I tried to block them out the way BB had taught me years ago, by ignoring all but four numbers that were significant to my life. 1, 4, 13, 13.
I muttered those numbers under my breath, but kept my eyes shut as I curled around the box of BB's drawings.
"Yugi." My exposed ears turned to Watari's voice. "Time to go."
I reached out for my luggage and he handed it to me before taking my other hand and leading me to the car.
"Are you alright, Yugi?" Watari asked, glancing at the mirror with a look of concern.
I nodded. "I'm fine," I replied quietly. I allowed my eyes to open, but they remained downcast so they wouldn't see the numbers that would surely haunt my vision.
We made it to the hotel and promptly went to the designated room. Upon entering, it was dark and the only light in the room came from the TV screen.
I easily saw the sillhouettes of L, Equal, and the task force. They turned upon hearing the door open.
L gave us his usual blank look, an ice cream cone was in his hand. "You've returned just in time," he simply stated. "We have just recieved the surveillence footage from the train station the day that Penber died." I nodded in understanding and moved to sit on the couch next to him. "Let's see the following scenes again. Raye Penber passing the ticket gate on his way in, then him boarding the train, and finally the part where he dies on the platform."
Quite rudely, I veered away from the couch and walked toward the bedroom and shut the door without a response to L. Dropping my luggage, I crawled onto the bed and curled up into a fetal position.
Equal's POV (3rd Person)
Equal glanced at the closed door confused as Aizawa and Matsuda went through the tapes.
"Let's see," Aizawa muttered, picking up a random tape and looking at the label.
Matsuda pointed to a different tape. "I think it's next to that."
Equal stood up and walked toward Yugi's door and knocked.
"Here it is," Azawa muttered, putting the tape into the player.
"Yugi?" Equal asked.
"Go away!"
Matsuda began reading the records that described the incident. "Raye Penber comes through the West entrance of Shinjuku station at 3:11 pm. Then at 3:13 he boards a train on the Yamanote Line."
"Yugi, what's wrong?"
"I said Go Away!"
"Then at exactly 4:42 p.m., um, oh thank you very much, Watari," Matsuda interrupted himself when Watari had given him an Ice cream cone like L's. "Umm, and at 4:42 p.m., he exits the train at Tokyo station and dies on the platform."
"It's quite strange, don't you think?" L asked dully as Watari handed Yagami and Aizawa each an Ice cream cone as well. Equal had given up on trying to talk to Yugi and took a seat next to L, wrapping her arms around herself in a comforting matter. She was getting really worried about Yugi.
Yagami was confused about L's statement. "I'm sorry. What do you find strange?"
Matsuda looked up from the papers in his hand. " Yeah. What is it? Did you notice something?"
"We know that Raye Penber got on the train, and then an hour and a half later he got off and died on the platform," L explained simply, "But Yamanote line only takes an hour to complete its circuit...And more importantly, there's the envelope." Equal turned her head from Yugi's door and went toward the tv screen that L was looking at.
"Um, what do you mean?" Aizawa wondered, looking at the screen for said envelope.
Equal trained her eyes onto the screen and sure enough, there was a manilla envelope under Raye Penber's arm.
L basically had to point it out to Aizawa for him and the others to see it.
"Oh, you're right! It's there under his arm...But in the footage right before his death, it's gone!"
"Shall we give you a prize?" Equal asked, managing a smirk to crawl on her face briefly.
"Could you please take this seriously?" Aizawa asked, annoyance laced in his tone, dulled from lack of sleep. "Honestly, you're almost as bad as that girl."
"You need to loosen up a bit, Aizawa."
"I don't see an envelope on this list of his personal effects," Yagami interrupted the small spat.
"Which means it was left on the train," L said. He then fast forwarded the tape slightly, showing the image of Penber the moment he died. Equal looked back at the closed door once more. "If you watch closely the very end here, it seems like he's straining to look inside the train before the door's close."
"If that's the case, do you think it could mean something?" Yagami asked.
"Wouldn't it be interesting if Kira was on that train?"
"That's impossible."
"Actually it isn't," Equal said, getting back on task. "It's hard to believe since there doesn't appear to be a reason to come to the scene of his own crime when he can kill from a distance; but he might have been counting us to make that assumption and figured he could get away with such a bold move. For all we know, though, he might as well have had a reason to be there."
"What do you mean, Equal?" Matsuda asked.
The brunette tilted her head slightly, her grey eyes were closed in though. "Let's say Kira was at the train station that day. Say, he made contact with Penber and had him do something that involved puting something into the envelope, or possibly taking something out of it. Perhaps whatever was in the envelope was Kira's weapon. He might have threatened Penber with his life if he didn't cooperate with his plans...But then again, it's just a thought. For all I know, I could be completely wrong. Maybe We're just getting desperate."
A phone suddenly rang and Watari answered it. "Yes?...Yes would you please hold for a moment?" He turned to L, who had stood up. His seat was now occupied by Matsuda. "Ryuzaki, it's Ukita at the NPA. He says he's on the phone with someone from the tip line who has information for us."
L nodded. "Right. Then give Ukita the number for line 5 and ask him to have the informant call that line instead, it will be safer that way."
"Matsuda," Equal got the officer's attention. He looked at her. "You can go ahead and turn your phone on now."
"Uh, okay." Matsuda pulled out his cell phone and turned it on. Almost immediately it began to ring. L took it out of his hand and answered it. Matsuda had a slightly annoyed look on his face.
"Yes, this is Suzuki, head of Kira's investigation public information division," He drawled in a bored tone.
I heard Yugi's door open slightly and saw a golden eye glowing in the darkness of the room it came from, clear as day, although not looking at anyone.
"Naomi Misora," L voiced out loud. The golden eye flashed red as Yugi hesitantly poked her head out, her eyes still downcast.
"Apparently she's been missing since the day after her fiance died," L stated, hanging up the phone and returning it to Matsuda.
"I'm sure that anyone in her situation would be pretty depressed," the youngest of the task force commented. When he said that, a pang of guilt hit my chest. "Was it..."
"Suicide?" Aizawa finished.
"No, she wouldn't have done that," Yugi denied softly from the doorway. "She was strong."
"Not to mention, she was also an excellent agent," L said. "If anything, it's more likely she'd be trying to catch Kira."
"Sounds like something she'd do," Yugi stated. "If she came to Japan with Penber, it's possible that she may have found a lead."
"If that's the case, did Kira manage to get to her first?" Equal glanced at L as he made a quick, mental decision.
"Everyone, at this point I'd like to focus our investigation on only those people who Raye Penber was tailing," he announced. "In particular he was assigned to two police officers and those closest to them."
Equal looked at Yagami, who looked willing to go with anything that L decided. He must also be desperate to catch Kira. "Very well. Who are these two individuals he was investigating?"
L gave a small smirk as he replied, "Deputy Director Kitamura..." he then turned to look at Yagami over his shoulder, "along with Detective Superintendent Yagami and their families." Yagami's expression turned into that of shock. "At this stage, I'd like to place wiretaps and surveillance cameras in both households."
The task force members began to argue with L and all the shouting gave Equal a headache. Getting annoyed, she stood up and announced her departure.
"I'm going to the bakery!"
"Please get some cupcakes while you're there," L called back before continuing the argument. Equal nodded before glancing toward the wolf girl, preparing to offer her to come with, but Yugi had returned to her bedroom.
Sighing, Equal left the hotel room and closed the door behind her.
L's POV (3rd Person)
After settling the agreement between the task force, they began looking over more of the station footage.
All of a sudden, a loud wail came from Yugi's bedroom. Out of parental instinct, Aizawa ran to the room and knocked on the door.
"Yugi, open the door, please," he demanded.
The wailing continued as the other task force members gathered around the door. Matsuda tried the doorknob.
"It's jammed!" he exclaimed.
L stood from his position on the couch and calmly walked toward the door. "Stand back," he told everyone.
When they were out of the way, L spun and threw a hard kick to the door, breaking it down easily.
The room was dark, and when Mogi turned on the light what they saw was shocking.
The room was a mess, as if a tornado went through it. Papers scattered on the floor, and the bed was nothing but a pile of wadded up sheets.
In the middle of the floor, Yugi was sprawled out on her back, her chest moving rapidly as she breathed heavily. L noticed a sheet of sweat on her pale face.
Aizawa ran up to her and kneeled down to touch her brow. "She's burning up," he stated.
"We need to get her to a hospital!" Matsuda exclaimed.
"Mogi, call an ambulance," Yagami commanded.
"No."
Everyone looked at L as he slowly walked over to Yugi and knelt down next to Aizawa, touching his fingertips to her face for confirmation of his assumptions.
Her skin was hot to the touch, just as Aizawa said, but the rest of the symptoms that L could see easily let him figure out what was wrong.
"One of you go get Equal and tell her what's going on," I commanded. "She'll know what to do about this."
Yagami and Mogi ran out the door to go find her just as Yugi let out another scream. Her hands dug into the carpet as her skin started to grow mass amounts of dark teal fur and her face took a more angular shape.
"Uh, Ryuzaki, what exactly is going on?" Matsuda asked.
"Her body is desperately trying to lower its temperature, but it's putting her in a lot of stress," L explained. "Aizawa, when she starts to get violent, I want you to hold her down any way you have to."
"Er, okay, but I still don't understand what's causing this."
L sighed in annoyance. "Yugi wasn't born like this. She was born a regular human being."
"I remember her mentioning that once…" Aizawa thought aloud.
"Her father, the genetic scientist she's looking for, Ukyo Akiteru, turned her into this," L continued. "Ever since then, she's had to go through cycles on account of her animal genes 'fighting' her human genes. This results in a spike of her body temperature that she can't handle. When she's under high levels of stress, she gains a more wolfish appearance."
Aizawa nodded in slight understanding. "So why does she get violent in these episodes?" he asked.
L looked at him and then at Matsuda, who was also curious about that fact. He opened his mouth to answer. "Sexual aggressiveness."
"Sexual aggressiveness?!" Aizawa exclaimed.
"In simpler terms," L said, "She's gone into heat."
Suddenly, Yugi lunged at L. Aizawa pulled her back and pinned her to the floor. She snarled as she thrashed around, trying to get out of the man's grip.
"Matsuda!" Aizawa yelled, "help me hold her down." The younger officer ran up did as he said, eager to help in some way. It wasn't long, though until he also had a hard time holding her down.
"Oh man, I hope Equal gets here soon."
((Author's Note)) Sorry for the extremely late Re-update. As of late, my life has gotten extremely out of hand and I haven't been able to get the time to finish editing and adding to this chapter.
As you can see, I've changed this chapter a lot. I did this to make it seem more realistic to what I had originally planned.
I'll try to get the next chapter re-edited faster I did this one, but I make no promises.
OH also, for those who don't know, I've also moved the beginning of the little game I made to this chapter.
The game goes like this: I want you to figure out the significance of the numbers that Yugi mentioned at the beginning of the chapter; 1, 4, 13, 13.
You can enter as many times as you want, and the winner gets a One-Shot with any Death Note Character doing anything they want with Anyone they want. This will be discussed later when the winner is announced.
I had also revealed a hint and I'll put it here as well.
Hint: It is a Person, a Place, and a Thing
This contest is ongoing until the answer is revealed in the plot and that is when the winner will be announced.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter.
And until next time...
-Garden