When the Kira crisis broke out, she had been in Japan for only a few months. Everyone knew she was a foreigner, from her strawberry blond hair and the amber of her eyes, to the even tone of her skin, no longer easily burnt after hardening it against the sun in Texas, good ol' Texas.

Maybe the Japanese folks thought she was Kira – the name had originated from the English word 'killer', hadn't it? – and from the looks she received from passing citizens on the street, she assumed that was the case.

She can still recall the day she became interested in the whole crisis, the day she began making her presence noticed instead of hiding in the shadows like she had done since her arrival in the island country.

If the condescending assumptions of the citizens didn't give her enough reason to prove she wasn't the infamous killer, then it was certainly because she saw that broadcast.

From that man.

L.

He interested her. She had never seen a man that clever, that ruthless. He had a man murdered on live television just to taunt Kira to come out to play. He revealed his plan to those who were watching to make his prey feel small and ashamed after he fell into it. That man was cruel.

He was Godless.

So she became an identity of her own. The skills she learned working as a government official, the things she had learned from doing the occasional small hacking-job on the side while in Japan, the information she had gathered from breaking into the files of the divisional police team set on the case... Everything she had done played a part, created her solid background in the fight against Kira.

But then someone grew anxious. It was a man who had been watching her for weeks and weeks, someone she knew the presence of but ignored because she thought he was no man of action. She knew he was hostile, knew that man watched her with angry, accusing eyes, but knew she could take him.

He approached her on her walk home, in the middle of an abandoned parking lot where her truck was parked. Held a knife in his hand, stared at her with nothing but disgust.

"You're Kira," he stated without remorse. It was something she respected, that tone he used. He wasn't weak, but his stupid assumption discredited any respect he had gained from her with that discovery. "You killed my wife!"

"Funny," she responded, and gave that smug grin that consistently got her in trouble, "Kira only kills criminals. Your wife must have been a bad, bad woman, hm?"

Ryan never cared who she hurt with her words. She had no God to please; she had no rules to follow, no limitations on what she could and could not do. She didn't care for petty things like denying or acknowledging when people accused her of things. There was no need for a "yes" or "no", or even a futile refusal of being the killer he claimed she was. She knew there was no changing an opinion, no creating a false set of truth to bring denial to something you thought to be reality. He believed she was Kira, and that was it.

So when he rushed her with tears in his eyes, she did not hesitate for a moment.

She raised that gun from her side, shot him – once, twice – watched mercilessly as he fell to the ground, his frantic eyes wide, a bullet in his brain, another to his heart.

Years and years of seeing reports of dead men, of hacking in and discovering plans of mass genocide, of being secluded and alone, had made her hardened. She was a government employee, at one point. She thought in forms of numbers and crooked moralities - She was not a child of God.

Ryan didn't let the nameless man bleed out, she did not leave him there. No, she piled his dead body into the back of her truck bed without a thought, covered it with a tarp, drove to her cabin a little ways out of the city.

And she dug a hole, put the man in it after catching his name – Hashiro Ryuu – and burying him.

No, pa, we ain't.

She wasn't a coward.

She would kill if she needed to, if that's what it took to stay alive. No man threatened her, even Kira didn't scare her, though he should have.

Though he eventually would have.

…

It's a day like any other, and her hands are quick against the keyboard of her laptop. Looking down at the sleek design of the Apple computer before her, she sighs. Damn, times have changed. Her first time, they had been large, booming keys on a computer barely able to keep up with her nimble digits. But now that computer was able to obey and fulfill in the matter of seconds. And how small they now were! Just amazing.

A week had past since she had buried her latest victim. She was not afraid of being found out for murder, never. She walked around with her held high like usual, still visited the cafe she frequented daily, still ordered her medium vanilla latte with a shot of espresso. The only thing different in her life was the empty space where a man had once followed.

You see, she made him disappear from the world. She hacked the government files like she always used to, deleted every record of a Hashiro Ryuu that may have ever existed. He was an unremarkable man with nothing special to make him noticed – the job had been done in the matter of hours. She wasn't worried, despite knowing the cold truth of it all: Even if she deleted a man from existence within a computer, within the most well-kept files, she could not erase the memories – the files – inside people. Ryuu would be remembered by those who knew him, they would wonder where he was, and one day he may be discovered. But by then she would be long gone, with a new identity, a new cover story. This was a game she was used to; it was a game she played well.

So she destroyed her truck, burnt it to bits in the middle of nowhere, walked hours from her second home to get back to Tokyo. She sold her cabin to the government for a future building site. It didn't bother her if they dug it up, found the body; the name it was under had been fake, someone she created out of her head and forced into the system. Everything about her existence was a scam. Working with the government for so long, she learned it was safer to be a lie then a truth.

In her mind, she remembers what she had once told her pa over the phone as he questioned her on things she was unable to answer, working for the President.

You know, pa, a man with no secrets is no man to be trusted.

…

Since the day she had seen that broadcast, seen the relentlessness of the one everyone called L, she had spent her days attempting to find his source. She wanted to hack in, get his attention, attain everything he knew. She found out small bits of useful information from the Japanese task force she had hacked, but it wasn't enough. It was just an inkling that narrowed her search down to a few million sources.

Sometimes, she missed the days where computers weren't widely used, where she could be in and out of a computer with the easiest form of effort in such record time.

In the middle of writing a code to narrow down the search, a joyous tone rang through her speakers. Exiting her program, she stared at the screen, at the usual Skype pop-up that became her only form of distraction nowadays.

Moving her laptop's cursor over the accept button, she saw the picture of her family pop to her screen, a moving image as their webcam activated. Hers quickly followed after, showing them her appearance.

"Ah, Ryan!" her ma said in a joyous tone, speaking her English with the southern drawl Ryan still possessed, even being in Japan. "You look gorgeous, my girl. You curled your hair today?"

Unconsciously, Ryan reached to her blond locks, all well-done in loose romantic curls. Shit, she forgot she had done that when she went to the club last night...

"Yeah, decided to try something different, ma," she lied with that arrogant little smile, speaking the Texas-touched English instead of the Japanese she was becoming accustomed to.

"It looks good, Ryan. You look real good! Caught yourself a man yet? Ya gonna bring him back to us?"

Ryan laughed, shook her head, but it was forced. Her ma always asked that question whenever they Skyped, always feeling the need to get into her love life. She could almost hear it coming, her ma sighing like she always did before saying, I want some grandkids, y'hear?

"Naw, ma. Not yet."

And then there it was, her ma's sigh, shortly followed by the signature, "I want some grandkids, y'hear?"

"I know, ma. I just haven't found no boy I wanna marry yet."

"Oh, I know, love. You know the Lord has someone for you out there, right? The Lord knows you, he'll take care of ya, my girl."

Inwardly, Ryan cringed. Lord this, Lord that, it was all her ma seemed to mention. But to them, their God was their saviour, and Ryan was still a catholic girl; she doesn't cuss, she doesn't smoke or drink alcohol. She hasn't had sex with a man, not until marriage like the bible says.

"Yeah, ma, I know. I'm waiting for that one to find me, I don't wanna go against the Lord's plan." She knew it was a gigantic lie, but she had become so good at lying, it came out almost on its own.

She could hear the excitement on the other side of the world, her laptop emitting the happy voices of siblings eager to speak to their eldest sister.

"Ma, is that Ryan? I wanna talk to her!" little Mary cried, rushing to the screen and standing behind her ma. God, Ryan thought, her sister was every bit as beautiful as she remembered her being when she grew up, only being able to see that little girl grow to be eleven before the rest of her was seen only through computer screens and pixels. Her hair was short and sun-bleached a striking blond, skin tanned with freckles on her face like a normal country girl, yet she possessed a beauty that captivated and charmed, but did not blind. Her sister was beautiful, she'd have no problem finding a man when she grew up. And one day she'd marry that man, and have that physical intercourse... "Hey, sis! How's life there?"

Ryan gave her cocky grin once more, shrugging, moving herself out of the frame to show the spectacular sight of Japan's center area. In the early morning, the city was bustling with sound and motion. It was much different from that tiny town she once lived in. "Ah, you know, it ain't really too glamorous or nothin'. Just some lights and some stuff. No different from home."

"Ah, don't lie, sis!" Even Mary's laugh was cute and attractive. It made Ryan smile with fondness. Yeah, she loved her siblings despite not being there as much as she should have been. It was a different kind of a love, a supportive, back-level love, such as she imagines a teacher might feel for her most fond pupil. Ryan watched as her ma waved her goodbye and allowed Mary to sit in the chair before the computer, becoming the center of her laptop screen. "So how's work going, huh?"

"It's..." She paused, thinking on how to answer. She had become closer to figuring out what address belonged to L, but she was still so far away... "Goin' places. Still got a bit of work to do, but it'll get there." She sighs then, shakes her head. "How's school goin', kid?"

At that her sister's face lights up brighter than it already was, and she rambles on and on about things only they two speak about, such as the town boy Mary has been in love with since her fourteenth year, the boy who – apparently – she is going to go out with a week from then.

"And I think, sis, that I'm gonna kis-" Mary began to say, only to be cut off by the rough and tough voice of the eldest of the three still at home.

"Let me talk to Ryan, kid," it says as a toned body stands in front of the webcam, nothing but a tanktop covering up the man's torso. Despite being his sister, Ryan could never help but think he was gorgeous. They talk often, more than anyone else in their family, she and Mark. He told her everything, like how all them catholic girls in town wanted to marry him, how they all hoped he'd put a ring on their finger and let them have his children – Lord knew all they wanted was his Texas-toned body and southern charm.

In the privacy of his truck – which, as she could see by the blurring scenario from the webcam on their end, he was going to – they spoke of darker things, like how he was losing faith in their god, how he didn't want no marriage, how he longed for something more meaningful than a farm boy's chores.

"Hey," he says after propping the laptop up on the dashboard on his car, reclining the passenger seat so his face was in the frame. He was a gorgeous boy, with a strong jaw, kind, stern eyes like she remembers Joe had, the scruff of a beard poking its way out around his lips, giving him a manly look to him, though he was all country boy.

"Hey," she responds, nodding slightly in acknowledgment.

"Uh, how are ya, sis?"

"You know." She shrugs, closes her eyes as she does. "Survivin'. How're you holdin' up there?"

"'Bout the same." For a brief second there's a laugh, a pathetic little attempt at humour, though all Ryan can hear is the sadness kept within it; it's deprived of anything joyful, almost painful. She doesn't question him about it, instead just waiting patiently until he thinks it's alright to talk. "So, I've been really thinkin' 'bout things, sis. I think... I think I wanna join the army."

"Naw," comes her swift response. "You ain't gonna do nothin' like that, boy. You're gonna stay in that town and take care of ma and pa, y'hear?"

She sees the anger in his face before she hears it in his voice, but she knows it's misdirected. He's not angry at her words; he's angry 'cause she's right. "But...! Ryan, you can't think to keep me here! I'm like you, I ain't got a God no more!"

"You ain't nothin' like me, Mark. Don't ever say nothing like that again." And she realizes she's more mad than she should be by the tone of her voice as it leaves her lips. With a shake of her head, she silences any words bound to exit her mouth, tries to soften her expression, and continues. "You gotta do what I can't, a'ight? Ma and pa rely on you to help 'em, more than you know."

"But they have your money, you and 'em don't need another expense!"

"You shut your mouth," she exclaims, just a little too loud, turning heads of those already curious of her foreignness. Lowering her voice and disregarding their scowls, she continues, "I got more money then I know what to do with, so ya'll just shut up and live well, a'ight? I ain't wanna hear any of this talk again, understood?"

There's a long moment of silence between them, and she sees his eyes fill and empty of anger in seconds, avoiding them from hers on the screen.

"Yes, ma'am."

Then the connection ends.

With a sigh, she collapses back into the chair, unaware that she had ever been sitting up straight in the first place.

Damn that brother of hers, making her react like that. Over the years they had kept in contact through video chats, once or twice a week, always checking in to make sure her latest amount of money made it to them, that they were doing alright without her there. She and Mark were closest of all the siblings; he was the only one in her family who knew she feared no God; who knew she smoke and drank and occasionally he heard her cuss (though she tried to avoid it in front of him, knowing the words were still too harsh for his catholic-raised ears).

For him to proclaim he wanted to join the army was absurd. That meant fighting, that meant the potential of death.

Like hell she was letting him do that to himself; she had seen too much firsthand herself to ever allow someone she loved to go through that type of harrowing.

Though, looking at the progression of things on her laptop, searching for L, she realized that what she was doing was no less dangerous as what he wished to do.

Both events could lead to death.

Both were reckless and frightening, leading to so many unknown situations and variables.

But as her computer screen flashed up a list of three or four matching results, she realized they were different in only one way.

Her danger would happen; his would not.