A/N: Bad news is that this is mostly filler. Good news is that I've finished writing the last chapter, and now I can't sleep because of it. Holy fuck I just looked at my clock, it's nearly two in the morning. Last time I looked it was midnight. Oh, how time flies. The other good news is that I'm posting another chapter tonight (this morning?), because I won't leave you with just filler.
-DW
Chapter Twenty-Two - Alone
In the air,
In the sky.
Through the clouds,
On the Horizon.
Past the birds,
Over the mountains.
Towards the future,
Free from our bonds.
L's gaze slowly moves from the screen that they had been glued to, to the page that I had unceremoniously dumped on the spot in front of him. He stares at the page for a few moments.
Everybody else in the room is pretty much freaking out at my declaration. After all, it's not every day that you're accused of murder (Light doesn't count). I'm not accusing him of anything, I just find it highly suspicious that this 'Beyond Birthday' (which is obviously a fake name) shares the alias 'Rue Ryuzaki' with L, and apparently they look the same.
"L's a murderer?!" Matsuda exclaims in shock.
"Quiet, Matsuda!" Aizawa scolds.
"Come on Kurai, I mean Niiro, there are probably a lot of people who look similar to him. It's just a coincidence," Light says, raising his eyebrows. I shake my head.
"It says he went by the alias 'Rue Ryuzaki' and it even describes his habits!"
"It is no coincidence," L says finally, and we stare at him incredulously. "However, the person being described is not me."
Everybody in the room relaxes, except me, "Then who the hell is it?!"
"He is B."
Silence.
"B?"
L nods, "He is currently in a state prison in America. Somehow he was able to find out what I looked like and my habits. I tracked him down and using Naomi Misora we were able to prevent him from committing suicide," he quickly explained, still staring at the page. I blink. So this is the case that he had been working with her on?
To track down B, and put him behind bars.
Who was he really?
Why was he so important to L?
L probably won't answer those questions, so I don't ask.
But wait a moment, people kill themselves somewhere symbolic. This made her career.
The lack of information on the case … she could have found a spot to kill herself …
It's in LA, and that's a pretty big city.
"That's it!" I exclaim, and everybody looks at me. "This B person, he would need a place to lie low, to plot and experiment, hide his weapons and other things that could give him away. What if she found one of these places, and because he was already caught didn't report it?"
L looks at me, thinking it over, "It's possible."
"Killing herself in a place only she knows about is unrealistic. It's pretty damn likely that at least one other person knew about the spot she'd kill herself in. A killer's hideout would be extremely well hidden. Especially in this case …"
"Kurai, are you alright?" Light asks, trying to break me from my rambling. I'm muttering under my breath, so they can hardly hear me. Not only that, but I'm pacing back and forth.
"She was pretty damn thorough in her reports … except this one. She was working under L, and they only cared about catching him. It's symbolic to her, combined with the lack of information …"
"Kurai?" Light gets up from his seat and stops my pacing by putting his hands on my shoulders. I look up into his face and then over at Ryuzaki.
"I need a flight to LA as soon as you can get it for me," I say to him.
"What?!" Light exclaims.
L swivels his chair around so that he can look at us face-to face, "That can be arranged."
"You can't be planning to go alone!" Light protests, shaking my shoulders. I look at him with an annoyed expression.
"That was my intention, Light."
"Then let me come along. I can speak English, so it wouldn't be too difficult for me," Light says with that angry glint in his eyes that makes my skin crawl. Of course he would want to come along. He's making it look like he's just a worried friend, but in reality he wants to come along to harm my progress. Damn. Both he and I know about the notebook, so he could act anyway he wanted to, and he would know that I wouldn't let anyone know. Dammit! Wait … to avoid this I would need …
… I would need a third party to tag along.
"That's hardly appropriate Light. I mean, you are our top suspect," I say, not even moments after he finishes talking.
"I'm also your boyfriend. I don't want you to get hurt," I felt my eye twitch.
"Matsuda should come along with us then," I say, "He's a police officer to, so he's technically more qualified than you."
"Really?" Matsuda pipes up, looking excited. I nod.
I give a small smile, "You'd look the least suspicious."
L is studying me closely, thumb up to lip. Honestly, I bet he has an idea of why I asked Matsuda to come. You can't hide much from a person like that. He nods slowly, "I don't see a problem with that." He looks over at the Task Force. "Mr. Yagami, does your son have your permission to leave the country?"
"I don't have a problem with that if he wants to," Mr. Yagami says with a small sigh.
"It's settled then. I'll get you a flight for tomorrow, and I will arrange for someone to pick you up at the airport."
"Thanks," I smile. Light releases his grip on my shoulders, sighing.
I'm going back to America.
A few hours later I'm busy packing for our trip. It's not actually taking me that long, since I don't have many things. It's just harder to fish them out of the most unlikely places imaginable. I have no idea how my socks got under the couch.
Anyway, at the moment I'm in my bedroom folding clothes so that everything will fit well enough with the addition to a bunch of the case files. Disguised as paperwork of course, or maybe homework? I wasn't really paying attention when it was being explained to me.
So, the plan is for Light, Matsuda and I to pose as three friends going to meet relatives in America. We were going to have aliases, of course, but with our first names the same (except in Matsuda's case, we were going to switch his last name with his first) and our last names were to be invented. The reason behind this is that if we kept our first names, it would be less likely that we would mess up. Earlier today was a perfect example, Light had called me Kurai instead of Niiro.
L is having someone meet us at the airport, someone who he called 'Aiber'. That was obviously an alias as well. I'm not sure their connection, but I bet that I'll find out when we get to LA.
There's a short knock at the door, "Come in." I hear the door open and close behind me.
"Hey," Light says in greeting. I pause, and look back at him.
"There are no wiretaps or cameras in this room. You can say what you wish."
It's Showtime.
"Is this really what you want?" Light asks quietly, probably still suspicious about hidden microphones.
I hold his gaze, "Naomi's body needs to be found. I promised her family that I would find her."
He comes up to me and folds me into an embrace. I fight off the urge to punch him in the gut and let him hold me.
"Maybe she didn't want to be found," he hisses quietly. His fingers dig painfully into my skin.
That was definitely a threat.
"Bye Kurai!" Kakushin whines, hugging me fiercely. I smile and peel her off of me.
"I'll see you later. Don't blow anything up," I say, referring to that one time in third year Chemistry where she blew up the test tube. She laughs.
"You're never going to let me live that down!"
"We should go now," Light says. He has his hands in his pockets and is frequently checking his watch. He just wants to get on the plane.
"Yeah, we might miss the flight," Matsuda pipes up. I chuckle lightly.
"Nah, we won't miss it, but we should get going. Bye guys," I say to Kakushin and Makoto. We make our final farewells before heading off through security.
The entire time I half expect someone to stop us and arrest us for using fake names and such forth. Another reason I suck at undercover work is how paranoid I'm getting. Seriously, Light ended up having to come up with a story about how I'm a nervous flyer just to get rid of all suspicion.
Matsu tries to cheer me up, making jokes and otherwise being the most laid back out of the three of us. His optimism is contagious, and I find myself calming down eventually, although, I can only calm down completely when we are on the plane. On the other hand it's roughly an eleven and a half hour flight. Not only that but there's a seventeen hour time difference. We board the flight at 7:00 AM, and we'll land in America at around 2:00 AM.
So I'm a little grouchy, especially since I didn't sleep last night.
I know, it was a bad idea to do so, but I've been having trouble sleeping. My body has gotten into the pattern of staying awake for long periods of time (plus coffee). Kakushin keeps teasing me about my Panda-Eyes. My mind won't stop working. I can't tell what Light is going to do next. He's biding his time, or waiting for the right moment. I need to know.
I'm all fidgety on the flight; I can't sit still. It's not because I'm nervous, it's just that I don't have anything to do. All my files are in my suitcase, so I can't do any reading up on them.
I am utterly, completely, mind-numbingly bored.
"Are you feeling okay?" Light asks me as I glance down the aisle yet again.
"I just need something to do."
Light thinks for a moment, "Don't you have any games on your IPod?"
"Uh … Chess?"
"Want to play a game?" Light asks. I give a small nod before taking out my IPod and setting the game up on the plastic fold-down tray.
"You go first," he says. Oh, a big mistake Light.
I win the first game, leaving him grimacing with annoyed eyes.
"That was luck," he defends himself, and we start another game.
He wins this time. I feel a little smirk spread across my face. He is so going down.
He wins again.
"I bet you cheated!" I laugh.
"It's your IPod!" he protests.
I win the next one, to my satisfaction.
I can't help but thinking of L and Light's Tennis match. Ryuzaki may play Tennis, but I'm not a sports kind of person, never was. This is the kind of game for me: Chess, checkers, and various card games.
Both Light and I are very competitive people. That much is obvious through this game. L used a Tennis match to see if Light is a competitive person, which he is. That's a Kira quality. Then again, we're competitive people too.
By sacrificing my Queen, it leaves his King wide open for my Rook to take him.
"Checkmate," I say with a grin. The screen flashes and digital confetti rains down, declaring my victory.
"Yeah, good game," he laughs.
Still trying to be a gentleman I see. I doubt you'll be this polite as soon as we're alone.
Eventually I end up passing out due to sheer exhaustion and or boredom. Next thing I know Light's shaking my shoulder and telling me to wake up. I blink a few times to rid myself of sleep, and then realize that the plane has landed.
We're in LA.
With a groan I get to my feet and collect my stuff. On the other side of the aisle Matsu is getting his stuff together.
"Long flight huh?" he asks me in Japanese.
"Very long flight," I give a nod and sling my bag over my shoulder. There isn't much pushing as we get off the plane. My legs are all jelly from sitting like that, and I have to lean on Light just to stay upright. Matsu keeps laughing about it, but soon stops when I glare at him.
We go through security and collect our luggage, just like normal people. The agitation sets in again, especially being in this country. I had to hide my double citizenship as part of the cover story, so I feel a little jittery.
Normally I'm okay on airplanes. After my Mother passed away my Father and I would take a flight over to visit relatives, so traveling is nothing new to me. It's just I'm pretending to be someone I'm not. It makes me nervous. Also, my relatives are on the other side of the country. Come to think of it, I haven't talked to them since before my Father was admitted into the hospital.
I stamp that thought out before it leads me to remember more.
Light and I talk to the people in English. None of them really speak any Japanese. Poor Matsu looks really confused, with all the English signs and such. So we have to constantly translate for him. It's not too bad though, he just kind of follows along like a puppy, even if he's apparently the oldest out of the three of us.
We come out of customs and into the main lobby, where there are people waiting for family or friends to exit the flight. I look around for a person with a sign with our names on them.
"Is that him?" Matsu asks, motioning to a guy towards the back of the crowd. We make our way over, and it really is him.
He's holding a small sign with our names on it. He's got slicked back blonde hair, a bit of stubble on his face, sun glasses on the top of his brow, a charming smile, and classy clothes. This is Aiber. I glance above his head quickly. His real name is Trierry Morello. Italian.
"Aiber?" I ask.
"Yeah, you must be working with Ryuzaki then, nice to meet you," he says in Japanese and holds out his hand. I shake it.
He shows us to his car, and we load our luggage into the back. We'll be staying in a hotel with him and Panda-Face said something about us being able to 'use his services'. I wonder what he can do.
I find this soon enough when we're all tucked safely into the car, away from prying eyes.
"Let me introduce myself for real," he says as we start moving. "I'm Aiber, a professional con-man. I've been working under L for several years now."
I give a small laugh, "A con-man? I can't say I didn't expect something like this."
"You work outside the law?" Light asks.
"Yeah, I've never been caught though," he flashes us a smug grin.
"Then why work for L?" Matsuda asks.
"It suits my purposes," Aiber shrugs.
"Aiber, you know about the case that I'm investigating, don't you?" I ask him.
"Yeah actually, never actually saw the guy or Naomi, but I was in the area." Huh, cool. I smile.
"So you can direct me to places important to the case?"
"Yes I can. You're very to the point, Detective Red, correct?"
"Yeah, that's me."
"Nice to meet you."
"Likewise."
Alright, I have what I want.
It's time to get to work.