"It is easier to commit murder than to justify it." -Aemilius Papinianus
-o-
Whatever Soichiro Yagami had been expecting upon opening the door, it wasn't what he found. The person on the other side was just a kid. True, he looked a bit too tired and drawn for someone so young, but he was young regardless. Under different situations, he might have passed for a transient. He dressed blandly, in utterly unremarkable clothes, hunched over with his hands in his pockets.
"I am L." He said to them.
The task force filed into the room, where they also got a chance to look at L in full. Upon stepping in further, it was apparent L was not alone. A young woman was getting to her feet on the other side of the room. She was wearing a sweatshirt with the name of Tōō University on it. Her hair was pulled over one shoulder; she ran her fingers through it habitually.
"I'm Yagami of the Tokyo Task Force." Soichiro stopped observing the pair and pulled out his ID.
"Uh, Matsuda."
"Aizawa."
"Mogi."
"Ukita."
The members listed off their names down the line, taking out their IDs in succession. After, the girl bowed and smiled to show off prominent dimples. "I'm Shika."
When they were done with introductions, Yagami spoke up again. "I'm very sorry we're late. As of this moment the five of us are…"
L held up his hand like a gun and pointed it at Yagami. "Bang." He said.
The officers were stricken. "What was that?" Aizawa asked, disturbed.
"Hmm. If I were Kira, you would be dead, Soichiro Yagami of the NPA. Kira needs a face and a name to commit murder. But I'm sure you've already figured that out, haven't you?" He stared at them. "Please do not give out your name so carelessly. Instead, let's value our lives."
"B-But what about her?" Matsuda pointed to Shika accusatorily.
"She's using a fake name already." L turned and walked into another room of the suite. "That's enough small talk for now. Please leave all cell phones, handhelds, and other communication devices on the table there." He indicated a coffee table next to them.
"You think we're gonna be using our cell phones during this meeting to leak information?" Aizawa asked indignantly.
"It's all right. Just do as he says." Soichiro said.
Shika set her cell on the table along with the others. "I realize he's been cautious from the beginning," Matsuda whispered skeptically. "But I still can't tell if he trusts us or not."
"No, I just find it distracting." L said, apparently having heard him. He clambered into an armchair in the same style as at the park, crouched. "I can't stand it when people's cell phones are ringing when I'm trying to talk. Let me start by saying that nobody takes notes on anything that's said during these meetings. Please, make yourselves comfortable."
"R-Right." Soichiro said. The Task Force took the couch and the two remaining armchairs, while Shika calmly took the potted plant and lamp off a sturdy end table and hopped up.
The whole group of them watched silently as L served himself tea. The water poured, filling a simple teacup. The atmosphere was some perverted cocktail of awe and confusion, with a trace of impatience. L took a sip of the tea, made a face, and began putting sugar cubes in by the pair.
"E-Excuse me, L—" Matsuda started, but was instantly cut off.
"Mm, and from now on I'll have to ask you to stop calling me L. It's Ryuzaki now, just to be safe." L—Ryuzaki—didn't stop putting sugar cubes in his tea as he talked.
"Uh, okay, Ryuzaki. But if Kira needs a name and a face to kill, can't we cut down on the number of killings by keeping criminals' faces and names from the news?"
"If we do that, we'll only be putting the general public at risk." Ryuzaki stopped stirring his tea. "Kira is childish, and hates losing."
"Just what do you mean?" Soichiro asked.
"Well…I'm also childish and I hate to lose. That's how I know." He drank the tea.
"Ryuzaki, would you mind being a little more specific for us?"
"Hm. Early on in the investigation, I tried to provoke Kira with that broadcast. At first we thought Kira would only go after criminals, but as you witnessed, he didn't hesitate to kill my stand-in. Also, as soon as I said we knew he was in the Kanto region, in defiance he made sure his next victims died within Japan, as if to say, 'What are you gonna do about it?'"
Ryuzaki took a sip of tea and set the cup back in the saucer. "He's met all of my challenges head-on, and he's never missed an opportunity to return the favor. Now what do you think would happen if we used media restrictions against him?"
Matsuda hesitated. "I guess…"
"'If you choose to withhold the names of your worst criminals, I'll kill petty criminals or the innocent. I'm holding the whole world hostage, so who's it gonna be? I'm not the evil one here but all those who oppose me by withholding criminals, you are truly evil.'" He took a breath. "That's exactly how Kira thinks. In any case, let's look at another way we can use the media to draw him out."
"But how?" Aizawa asked.
"How about something like this: death of FBI agents infuriates the US, latest killings anger the international policing community, nations agree to send 1,500 investigators to Japan. To Kira, this will be way beyond what he faced with the FBI. He'll see everyone as a potential threat. Psychologically, he'll begin to feel cornered, and that will cause him to take some kind of drastic action."
The Task Force rippled with pleased sounds of agreement. "That's…not bad!" Ukita exclaimed.
"So he'll think there are 1500 when there are really only eight of us." Aizawa grinned. "And since none of these investigators exist, Kira won't be able to kill them."
"It just might work!"
"Well, before we celebrate, I'll tell you the rest of my thoughts on the Kira case." Ryuzaki said. "Kira works alone. He had access to all our classified information."
"What evidence do you have that he's working alone?"
"Hold on, Aizawa," Soichiro interjected. "Let's listen to his whole theory before asking questions."
"We know he needs a name and a face to kill." Ryuzaki went on, unimpeded by the interruption. "And to some extent he can control their actions and time of death. We already know that much; please keep that in mind and listen carefully to what I have to say next." He uncapped a marker and began drawing on the coffee table as he talked.
"On December 14th, twelve FBI investigators enter Japan. Here we are on December 19th. Using prison inmates, Kira manipulates his victims' actions before they die. In other words, in this window of only five days, Kira became aware of the FBI's presence and obviously felt threatened. Because he didn't know any of their names and faces, he was at a disadvantage. He needed to know how much control he had over his victims before he used it against the twelve agents. And as we all know on December 27th…"
"He killed the agents." Ukita said solemnly.
"Yes. During this period, at least to our knowledge, twenty-three individuals died of heart attacks. But these victims were different from Kira's previous targets: they were all on trial, ex-convicts or suspects in ongoing investigations so legally speaking, they were innocent."
"That's true." Yagami said.
"What this indicates is that Kira had to manipulate those lesser criminals in order to kill those FBI agents. He killed that many people so we'd be unable to tell the decoys from those who were actually used. In truth he probably only needed a few. In eight days, the FBI could investigate other suspects, so there'd be no timeline linking him to their deaths. I suspect Kira had to be one of the people being investigated by the FBI between the 14th and the 19th of December. In fact I have no doubt." He drew a little X over an arrow on the table.
Ryuzaki picked up a stack of papers. "These are files provided by the FBI containing information you might find useful. For obvious reasons you're not permitted to take these out of this room, but…"
"Amazing!" Matsuda exclaimed. "There may only be five of us, but with this much information we could cover a lot of ground!"
"We'll split into two teams: one team traces the FBI investigations, and the other team traces the heart attack victims." Aizawa said, also excited.
"There weren't many people who had access to information from Headquarters, and of those only a small group in the first five days."
"Yeah…!"
"So, does anyone have any questions?" Ryuzaki interjected, clearly annoyed at being yet again interrupted.
"Yes." Shika raised her hand. "It's not really a question, but I wanted to let the police know what I'll be doing."
"All right." Ryuzaki acquiesced.
The girl turned to the task force. When she spoke, she looked them all in the eyes. "I'm the best computer hacker and security professional east of London and I'm here to defend anything that can be plugged in. I've been informed by Ryuzaki that Kira is getting his information from the police HQ, right?"
"That's true."
"In that case, I'm going to need access to all your computers, and a way to get into HQ, simple as that."
"Wait, how do we know you're not Kira stealing that information?" Matsuda asked suspiciously.
Ryuzaki spoke up. "I can assure you, there is a less than two percent possibility that she is Kira. And if she is, she wouldn't be stupid enough to throw herself to the wolves this way."
Shika beamed. "Thanks." She looked back down at the investigators. "Are those acceptable terms? I understand trust doesn't come easy, but I'm willing to work."
"I guess I don't see why not…" Aizawa hesitated. "What do you think, Chief?"
"I think we can find a way to make that work. Welcome aboard."
The girl bowed from where she sat. "Thank you very much."
Soichiro turned to Ryuzaki. "I do have one question for you, Ryuzaki, and it pertains to what you said to us earlier about how you hate to lose. Does the fact that you've shown us your face mean that you've lost? By just being here are you admitting defeat to Kira?"
"That's right." Ryuzaki said softly. "By showing my face to you now and by sacrificing the lives of twelve FBI agents, I have lost the battle." His voice became stronger. "But I'm not gonna lose the war. 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."
Ryuzaki smiled, a sudden and rather endearing smile that completely altered the solemn set of his young face. "And that justice will prevail no matter what." His smile dropped. "Before we go any further I need to make completely sure none of you are Kira." Ryuzaki said, quieting the excited murmuring. "So I need to speak to each of you individually before you leave today." He stood from his chair and went across the suit to stand in front of the large window overlooking the city, leaving the rest of them to talk amongst themselves.
"Hrm." Aizawa grumbled. "What's the deal, he still doesn't trust us?"
"No." Yagami said sternly. "I think it's a fair request. Try to see it from his perspective: Kira's been getting information from our Headquarters from the very start, so there's a good chance that he's one of us. It's a wise move to bring Miss Shika into this investigation if she's as good as he says."
"Yeah…he did take a big risk meeting us here in person." Matsuda admitted.
"He risked his life to be here." Aizawa agreed.
"For what it's worth, I don't think any of you are Kira." Shika contributed. "But I think the least we can do is assuage any doubts Ryuzaki might still have."
Ukita nodded. "She's right. We owe it to him."
A phone rang in the other room, chiming and buzzing away on the table. Shika chuckled. "Sorry. That's mine. My friend thought I was going to get kidnapped by Kira."
"Feel free to answer it." Ryuzaki called over. "You're last in line for questioning."
"Oh! Thank you. It will only take a moment." She disappeared into the other room. When the ringing stopped, the muffled high-pitched squeaking of the person on the other line could be heard through the whole hotel room.