Grandfather was happy with her decision—she could tell. He looked fulfilled, appeased, like his hard work had finally paid off after many, long years. Finally, someone other than himself would have a respectable life in the Matsumoto family.
She first attended a University for two years for her generals and a few classes on law. After that, she transferred to the Police Academy.
Boot camp was difficult, but Kaho was probably better off than most of the other trainees. Her muscles were strong and her balance was solid from years of conditioning and throwing others around. Running and other cardio activities forced her to push herself, but completing each demand gave her a gratifying sense of accomplishment.
She had very little qualms about cutting her hair short, a style she had actually donned in her old life. It was actually a refreshing change from her waist-long hair that she had in high school. Some of the other woman applicants were, understandably, hesitant about the cuts. Of course, their future careers won out over their fashion sense, and the promise that they could grow it out once they made it through the academy softened the blow. Most women didn't do much field work, so having long hair wasn't typically a dangerous choice.
Kaho wasn't exactly trying for field work herself, although she felt she may have been suited for it. She was aiming for the investigation taskforce.
Kaho thrived in the Academy. She received top marks in physical training, in obedience, and on field simulations. During the self-defence training, no one could touch her. The other trainees didn't have her advantages. After all, she had a good forty years on all of them. Although, the ten years of Judo in this life helped, too. She also had specific goals and priorities.
She was determined to excel.
She was determined to work under one Mr. Soichiro Yagami.
It was for purely selfish reasons, and she wasn't sure if her presence could actually change any outcomes, but with her knowledge of what to come involving the Kira case must have been priceless. She had a vague plan of what she wanted to do and what she wanted to change, but she had no way of knowing what methods would actually work. Maybe nothing would work, and she was scheming against fate. And even then, she had no way to guarantee that the events depicted in Death Note would play out at all. It'd be just her luck that she ended up in a world where fictional characters existed, but their lives were completely different than their stories.
Kaho scolded herself. Yes, she had known these people as characters, but now they were real. She had seen Soichiro Yagami in person, had realized he had an actual family, had thought about how he lived out every day, just like her, even when he wasn't in a scene of a show. He was a real person.
And so was Light.
And so was L.
And all she could think about was Sam and how awesome she would think this would be, a chance to meet Soichiro Yagami, a father, a police officer, and an anime character, unbeknownst to him. He was someone Sam had admired deeply. She had cried for hours after his fictional death.
And she had cried for weeks after L's.
And anything that made Sam cry was unacceptable.
Kaho opened the door to her grandfather's house, her suitcase in her hand.
"Tadaima," she called quietly. Grandfather was sitting cross-legged at his table, a steaming cup of tea in his hands.
"Did you pass the exam?" were his first and only words. There was no 'Okaerinasai' in this house, she remembered. She didn't know why she thought two years of no contact would change anything.
"Yes," she answered. After a thoughtful pause, she added, "I graduated first in my class at the Academy." After the words came out, she realized there had been no point in saying them. Grandfather was silent, only sipping tea, so Kaho hoisted her suitcase to her side, slipping through the front room to enter her bedroom.
"Congratulations," he nodded at her in approval. It gave Kaho enough reason to pause.
"Thank you," she replied, disappearing into her room.
Her job interview was admittedly much less exciting than her two years at the academy. The station's Head honcho—the Director—was a traditional man. He probably noticed that Kaho was young and fresh out of training before he saw her grades. He asked her easily answerable questions, and never got personal until they were nearly finished.
"Why do you want to become an officer of the law, Matsumoto-san?"
Kaho put on her mask and smiled politely, pausing for a moment like she needed to think. In actuality, she had figured he would ask something like that. She had planned out her response in her head, and now she had to put all that preparation to use.
"When I was still in highschool," she started, "my school received a visitor from this station to enlighten us students on the duties and responsibilities of a police officer. I saw how proud and respectable this man was, and hoped that I could one day be as dedicated and righteous as he was. I've wanted to become an officer ever since that day, and I've never doubted that feeling." It was a text-book answer, but it was for a text-book man. The Director didn't show any emotion at her words, and then he excused her presence. He wasn't easy to read, but she could tell she was being considered and taken seriously. He was a man that respected others, and made others respect him.
One month later, she was moving into her new desk. She was provided with a desktop, registered into the computer system as an official officer, and sent into the real world.
Mr. Yagami, as Chief of Police, welcomed her on her first day. It was very exhilarating for her, although probably not so for him, but she was giddy with excitement for quite awhile afterwards.
"Welcome to the force, Matsumoto-san," Mr. Yagami said, fatherly and distantly at the same time. Kaho bowed, genuinely worried about what this man thought of her. She was not so used to the feeling.
"Thank you, sir. I'll do my best," she promised.
"See that you will. Mogi," he turned to a man sitting at his desk nearby. Kaho froze at the familiar name. This new man was tall and thick, with warm eyes and a friendly face. "Would you mind showing Matsumoto-san around the station? I have an important meeting in five minutes."
"No problem, Chief." Mogi smiled.
"I'll leave you to it, then." Mr. Yagami bowed in farewell. Kaho bowed back before he turned on his heel to power walk away. She then turned to the now standing Mogi and bowed again in greeting.
"It's a pleasure to meet you," she said.
"Likewise. How about I show you around and then introduce you to the other guys?" he asked, setting a light mood. Kaho let out a small smile.
"Sure."
The station was mostly white and busy, and it smelled like ink and fresh paper, but it had a contradictory atmosphere. She couldn't tell whether it was business-like and serious, or homey and comfortable. It would take some getting used to, that was for sure.
Mogi was kind and reserved, but comfortable in his own skin. He didn't treat her like some passing trend, but like a co-worker and future comrade, someone who was there to stay. She appreciated that.
He introduced her to the other officers. There were quite a few new names to recollect, but they all seemed nice enough. The famous and familiar Aizawa was there as well. He was sarcastic and not quite as welcoming, but he wasn't fake.
"Just out of the academy, I heard," he teased her, shuffling a stack of papers. She couldn't tell if he was simply speaking his mind or trying to scare her. "Be careful, or you might get eaten alive in here. Don't piss anyone off," he warned with a smirk.
"Watch the language, Aizawa," Ukita, who she had been introduced to a mere two minutes before, interjected. Then he turned to her. "Don't listen to him, he just thinks he's funny."
Meeting everyone was fun, but it also took quite a lot out of her. She wasn't all that sociable in either of her lives.
She had met everyone in the offices, but there was still a nagging in her mind.
"Was there anyone not here at the moment that I still need to meet?" she asked Mogi just before he was about to leave her to her own devices. He thought for a brief moment.
"Hmm, well, Watanabe and Kawahara are doing an investigation right now. They should be back later today," Mogi answered.
"I see. Thank you for all of your help, Mogi-san," Kaho bowed again. Mogi grinned.
"Just call me Mogi. The only ones around here who really care about honorifics are the Director and the Chief."
"I'll keep that in mind. Thank you, again."
She already felt like a full-fledged detective sometimes, when she discovered new things, such as her discovery that, if he even existed at all, Touta Matsuda was younger than she was. He hadn't even been hired yet.
That meant she would have to wait for Ryuk to act. And that was okay. Now she had time to establish herself, to prove herself. She needed some experience under her belt before the case of the century.
Her first months were beginning to drag on. As the youngest and newest, Kaho was typically given the tasks that—to be put bluntly—no one wanted. Sometimes, she was even asked to fetch coffee for everyone.
"It won't be forever. I used to be the Coffee-runner when I first started, too." Mogi comforted her. He laughed at her forced smile.
"I don't mind," she fibbed, rather obviously. Mogi chuckled.
Eventually, things began rolling along in a more desirable direction. Kaho moved out of her grandfather's house and into a small, single bedroom apartment. She didn't speak to him, and she frankly didn't care if she ever did again. She made connections with her coworkers, made friends, and gained respect. She was even picked to work on a case—Aizawa's doing, she'd discovered—although her contribution was smaller than she would have hoped. She even made some arrests.
She was very excited when she received her own case to investigate. It was a small one that only really needed one person to work on, but it was better than fetching coffee. It was about an armed robbery at a convenience store. There was a security tape and fingerprints everywhere, so catching the perpetrator was so easy that it almost wasn't even funny.
After she made the arrest, she returned to the station. It was late, and all she wanted to do was clean up her desk so she could go home. She found that the lights were out, which was strange, because there were always at least a few who stayed until dawn when the morning shift came in. Something was going on.
She didn't really know what to do, but not checking it out wasn't an option. So she slipped around the door and circled around the room in the hallway. She snuck up to the second entrance—it was never a good idea to leave only one way out of a room where people that put vengeful prisoners behind bars worked. That left little chance for escape if someone were to burst into the room with a gun.
Kaho's eyes took a second to adjust in the darkness, but once they did, she saw a man crouching at a desk. Then she saw another, and another, and she realized that they were all wearing suits, and one of them had an afro. Her coworkers were crouched behind desks, waiting with baited breath.
She tiptoed up to Aizawa and crouched behind him.
"What's going on?" she whispered, eyeing the room's entrance like the others. Aizawa jumped, saw her next to him, and swore.
"Goddammit," he cursed, rising to his feet.
"Aizawa? Sit down!" someone called from across the room.
"There's no point! The whole thing is ruined now!" he yelled.
"What?"
"What's happened?"
The lights flicked on. Kaho was found standing beside Aizawa, confused to the point of speechlessness. All of her fellow officers were in the room, rising to their feet from behind their hiding places. The only one not there was the Director. Some looked amused, some flustered, and others disappointed.
"What's going on?" Kaho managed in her stupor.
"Geez, why can't you be normal and go through the front way like everybody else?" Aizawa griped. He didn't seem genuinely mad, but his fiery words were just how he was.
"I noticed the lights were off, and thought something was wrong," Kaho defended herself.
"Don't listen to Aizawa." Mr. Yagami waved him off. "The surprise wasn't that important."
Kaho blinked. For the first time, she noticed the banner hanging at the front of the room.
'Congratulations'.
"We just wanted to congratulate you on your first case's success," Mr. Yagami explained, placing a warm hand on her shoulder. "And we needed to properly welcome you to the station. We've all been so busy these six months that I don't think it was ever properly done."
If he thought they were busy then, she wondered what he would think in a couple of years.
"Thank you." Kaho smiled. "You've all been so kind."
"No need to be so polite, Matsumoto," Ukita teased. "You're one of us, and, if you don't count the Chief, we haven't been very nice at all!" Some of them chuckled at the joke. Kaho's meaning of nice and Ukita's meaning of nice were pretty distant from each other.
"Speaking of which—" Mogi appeared behind her, grinning mischievously. "I could go for some coffee right about now. I have night shift."
"Ha, ha." Kaho playfully rolled her eyes, something she had to force herself to do. Trying to be 'less polite' was a work in progress. Ukita smiled at the effort. Mr. Yagami led her to a table where punch had been set out. It wasn't much of a party, but it was the thought that counted.
"...I was being serious," Mogi muttered.
Touta Matsuda was a nervous wreck. He fidgeted often, and followed orders like a puppy. Kaho wondered why he was so nervou. He scored first in his class at the academy. A little confidence would have done him some good when he actually had the goods to back it up. And Kaho didn't think that about people too often.
"What do you think of the new guy?" Aizawa asked during their lunch break. She often ate with him, Mogi, and Hideki Ide, a brash and honest man.
"He doesn't seem serious enough to me." Ide scowled. "I don't think he deserves to be here."
"He's just young," Mogi mediated. "I think he's got some spunk."
"I think he's a fool," Aizawa took a large bite of his rice.
"I'm just glad I'm not the rookie anymore." Kaho smiled dreamingly, taking a sip of tea. "Matsuda can get you your damn coffee now."
"I'm actually trying to wean myself off of it," Mogi admitted. "I've been getting the jitters lately."
Kaho scowled. "Why couldn't you get the jitters a year ago?"
"I think he started to drink coffee a lot more often after you started working here," Aizawa informed her with a smirk.
After a lunch of teasing and pleasantries, Kaho returned to her desk. Mr. Yagami was there, waiting for her.
"Ah, there you are. Come to the conference room. You've been picked for a case." Kaho nodded. Whenever the conference room was used, that meant the case was big; big enough for a team. She followed her superior to the larger room. In it, a long, intimidating table. Mr. Yagami took a seat at the end, and opened his laptop. Aizawa, Ukita, and Ide, as well as two others, Kobayashi and Hashimoto, were seated around the table. Kaho took a seat as well, between Ide and Aizawa. She turned to the Chief expectantly.
"Right, now that everyone is here, I'll get straight to it." Mr. Yagami pulled up a window on his computer, which Kaho assumed had the case details. "This morning, we received an emergency call. A woman was found dead in her home from a gunshot to the head. Her husband is currently missing, and there are signs of a struggle throughout the entire house. There are also signs of a forced entry."
"Was it a burglar?" Ukita wondered.
"That wouldn't explain why the husband is missing," Hashimoto debunked him. "Unless he was somehow involved with whoever did the breaking and entering."
"That's unlikely," Mr. Yagami interjected. "An unusual amount of blood found in the house belongs to the husband. It wasn't enough to confirm a death, however, and the forensic team believes he is injured, but alive."
"How would a burglar manage to lug around a full-grown, bleeding, adult male through the front yard by himself? There's got to be more than one bad guy," Aizawa speculated. Ide stretched his long legs underneath the table.
"There's gotta be. Assuming the husband was unconscious—because if not, he'd be screaming up a ruckus in an active neighborhood, and someone would have heard him. Carrying someone's full body weight isn't easy."
"He could've held a gun to his head and threatened to shoot him if he made a peep," Kaho suggested. "Then he could've just walked him to a getaway vehicle."
Kobayashi placed a hand under his chin in thought. "I think a gun would have been too noticeable, and too hard to disguise. There have been no reports about a gun sighting in the area."
"Whatever may have happened—" Mr. Yagami said, closing his laptop, "it's too early to make any assumptions. Let's get down to the crime scene."
Kaho followed her colleagues underneath the yellow police tape. The crime scene was on the larger side of the scale for houses in Japan, and on a safe street. Kaho imagined that, although it was busy, not much night activities took place there, which made the fact that no one had really heard the gun that killed the wife go off less plausible. It was Japan's equivalent to a suburb
Men and women in lab coats and gloves were still crawling in and out of the house like ants. When they noticed Mr. Yagami, half of them ceased their busywork to salute him. One man asked them to follow him further inside. Kaho felt a little second-hand power from just standing near the man.
The wife had been killed executioner style; forced to sit on her knees and shot from behind in the back of her head. Her hands had been bound behind her back. Kaho tried not to imagine a pretty young woman being startled awake in the black of night, all of a person's worst nightmares coming true. This woman—a girl, not even thirty—had probably been terrified.
A forensic investigator approached Mr. Yagami with a plastic bag in his grip. "This is the only bullet shell in the house. We've looked high and low all morning, and I see no evidence that the husband was shot as well. If he was, the bullet must still be inside him."
Kaho saw the golden cylinder suspended in its plastic cell. "That's for a .45 AMT Hardballer," she identified. Not just anyone could get their hands on a gun in Japan, but if a gun were common, that would be it. "I get the notion that this guy was a surface dweller in the weapons-trading business."
"Probably so," Mr. Yagami agreed. The team began examining the house, searching for evidence. Everyone was in 'Quiet-Mode'. The tone was serious and urgent, and the pace of discovery too slow.
And then the crazy stuff began.
Ide received a phone call. He answered it, allowed some information to soak into his brain, and then called to Mr. Yagami. "Chief," he said urgently. "The husband—"
"What's up?" Aizawa urged.
"The husband is alright. He's been treated at the hospital, and it sounds like his wounds weren't too serious."
"Good," Mr. Yagami sighed. "Ide, Kobayashi, head to the hospital immediately for interrogations." He turned to the scientist. "We'll take this to evidence."
Like a boulder rolling down a hill, the case gained some momentum. Mr. Yagami ordered Hashimoto and Ukita back to the station with the baggy; not only would they need its database to immediately begin searching for a suspect the moment Ide and Kobayashi could give them a call with some clues, but the press would be an issue in and of itself. Especially with a case from such an affluent neighborhood.
Finally, Mr. Yagami addressed the remainder of his team. "Matsumoto, Aizawa, and I will continue investigating here. Please hurry, everyone."
"Yes, sir," was the echoed response.
Kaho watched the others leave. This case was getting her blood boiling—in a good way. She didn't remember ever feeling such passion in her old life.
"I just don't understand." Aizawa rubbed his head in deep thought. "We've already determined that there had to be at least two kidnappers. How would he get away from them with an injury like that?" he gestured wildly to a large puddle of red at his feet. It was too far away from the wife to have spilled from her body.
"Maybe they got what they wanted and let him go," Kaho theorized.
"hmph, I'm pretty sure I know what it is they wanted, at least, but I don't know if they got it. It's all still here." Aizawa glared at a large china cabinet with delicate platery encased inside. Next to it was a giant TV and the newest model of Kotatsu. "Money, what else? Maybe the husband was taken for a stroll to the bank."
"Keep your eyes open for anything suspicious," Mr. Yagami half-scolded.
"Yes sir," she and Aizawa responded, almost simultaneously.
It took the trio a solid two hours to cover the front room and the bedroom. They were so thorough that Kaho's back began to hurt from crawling on the floor for so long. She also had to be careful about tampering with the scene too much, but finding any incriminating evidence while smudging some blood took priority over leaving some stones unturned and failing the case. There were already pictures. She went as far as going through the poor woman's jewelry, and even her photographs.
Kaho was the first of the three to move onto the kitchen. Supposedly nothing had conspired there, so she wasn't expecting to find much. Still, good officers checked everywhere.
And she did find something. It was small, but it was something.
She had to check out her hunch, first, before she pursued it too far. She reentered the bedroom. After a brief scan, she found the woman's belongings. Stepping around the blood stains and body tape (the corpse had thankfully been taken for investigation, and then for funeral preparations), Kaho opened a furnished wooden box for the second time.
She went into the living room to find Aizawa and Mr. Yagami just finishing up. They gave her their attention when she entered the room.
"Chief, there was an earring on the kitchen floor. And it didn't belong to the wife."
Thank you for reading! I appreciate all the follows, favs, and reviews!
To be honest, when I tried to research how the Japanese police academy worked, not much of the information I was looking for came up. What came out was speculation and assumptions. I hope that it was realistic enough.
Also, I have no idea if Matsuda was really first in his class, but I felt like, besides his total lack of experience and confidence, he would've been a great cadet. And he is so young to be a investigative police officer, I think that it makes sense.