CHAPTER ELEVEN
"Memories"
Soichiro Yagami paced in the living room of Light's apartment which also doubled as the Kira Task Force de facto headquarters. It was the walk of a worried father.
Matsuda leaned up against a back wall sipping on a soft drink, watching the former chief of the NPA pace. The stress of where Light was was obviously weighing heavily on him. Aizawa and Mogi had tried to hack into Light's sophisticated computer system, but after thirty minutes they stopped trying. Light had password protected the system from outside hackers. They were hoping to find some clue as to where the Yukaza had taken him after the botched raid on a matinee in a dilapidated part of town. The only information they had, however, was what Misa provided them, and that ended with Light's disappearance.
With the scene cordoned off for investigation, the task force members weren't allowed to assist the forensics team. The Yukaza had conducted a thorough job in cleaning out the site, but the Director of the NPA still wanted more checks. So, the task force had to settle with the waiting game back at Light's apartment.
"Chief, settle down," Matsuda said, "or you'll wear a hole through the floor."
"I'm not your chief anymore, Matsuda," Soichiro said in his gruff sounding voice. "How many times do I have to tell you?" Soichiro temporarily stopped and brush back some strains of hair that had fallen over the front of his glasses. Since the Kira Case began, the man had had a heart attack due to the stress of the case and his hair had been turning grey rapidly.
"You'll always be the chief to me, sir. You're the glue that holes this task force together. We're all worried about Light, so please sit down, or you'll give yourself another heart attack."
"He's right," Aizawa said, sitting at the computer work station. He stood up and gave the seat to Soichiro, but he refused it. "All we can do is wait." He looked at Mogi, the big man shook his head. "And it doesn't look like we are going to get anywhere with Light's set-up. We may have to wait for a ransom note from the kidnappers. Matsuda, any word from Ide?"
Matsuda shook his head. "Nothing," the young detective said. "He's helping out the NPA, but there is little information. But he did convey to me when we talked, but he didn't say this to anyone else, is…he suspects it may have been an inside job. The raid a set-up."
"To kill cops?" Aizawa asked.
Matsuda shrugged. "He doesn't know, but not one member of the field teams survived the onslaught. And Light was kidnapped. He thinks Yukaza agents kidnapped Light to interrogate him for police information. A kidnapping of opportunity. And he did try to fight back."
Soichiro gasped. "And since he's a member of the Kira Task Force…"
"Perhaps question Light about information on the Kira Case?" Mogi added. "And once they get everything they need out of him…"
Matsuda looked at Aizawa with a disheartened look. In these sorts of circumstances, a ransom note had a very little chance of happening and there was a strong possibility Light may be dead. Modi just put to words their greatest fear.
"But I don't think so, sir," Matsuda quickly said to Soichiro, who looked like he was about to panic. Siochiro looked at Matsuda curiously. "Light is a fighter, and I'm sure right now, he's formulating a plan to escape his predicament."
Aizawa gave Matsuda a grateful nod. "He's right! And right now, we need something to distract ourselves. The NPA is on the case, and the Director will pass on any information in the meantime," —he looked to Soichiro— "so, sir, tell us about one of your favourite cases."
Soichiro was taken aback. He gave a look to Aizawa as if saying this was not the time. He wanted to know where his son was. However, Aizawa was right. There was nothing he, nor any of them, could do at the moment. There was only the task force in Light's apartment. Misa was worried, but she had a movie shoot, and she thought the distraction would help her deal with Light's disappearance, so she went to it instead of waiting aimlessly at home.
Soichiro heeded that advise. He mused, recalling some old memories, trying to push away his worry. It was difficult, but he was able to remember one case in particular.
"Well, it's not necessarily one of my favourites, but it was one of my most intense, as a cop and as a father," Soichiro began. "And it involved Light. Light was only ten years old at the time, kidnapped by the The Child Butcher of Japan…"
After reciting the case, in the end, it left the entire task force stunned and silenced.
Matsuda and Mogi already knew about it, but Aizawa had not been with them at the time when the entire affair finally came to a conclusion back when L was alive.
It was a case everyone agreed to label: "The Case of Jasper Yuta*".
(*Read my novella: "The Case of Jasper Yuta")
That evening, being punctual, Light and Asumi were escorted to the Dining Hall, not by an armed guard but by a servant dressed all in black, who said nothing but indicated to follow him through basic looking corridors. Light dropped trying to figure out the set-up of the underground complex, there was just too much to remember.
Light wore a dark grey suit with a white dress shirt and and dark, everything provided by a vast selection of clothing within Terrance Claw's stores, tailored to size. Light had been granted the privilege to pick something out. This spoke volumes to Light, it meant the leader of the Dragon Sect was ready to discuss terms.
Asumi wore another, yet stunning black dress, adorned with jewelry to match.
The moment Light stepped through a set of double doors, gestured to enter by the escorting servant, he stood in awe at the opulence and richness of the stately decorated Dining Hall with its buttress ceiling and grandiose decorated walls. It had aspects of the Sistine Chapel in Italy, in Vatican City, but painted with images from ancient Japanese culture. And two walls had large murals depicting a captured moment in time from two ancient Japanese eras. Light had a near-perfect eidetic memory, but he had to search his history to identify markers of which era each represented. Within moments, he identified each one. The artist or artists were extremely good and captured a Renaissance-like quality with both. Light was impressed.
Light and Asumi came to stand next to seats at an dark stained, elongated, oak table, but neither one sat down. Within moments, Terrance Claw entered through another set of double doors from the other side of the room and greeted them cordially. Nazareth, the enforcer, was with him. Every powerful man needed a powerful follower. Nazareth was dressed in clothes associated with his station. Light and Asumi were offered to sit and very quickly servants in white jackets began to occupy the table with the nights' delicacies.
After the usual starters and dinner conversion, drinks, and complements to the chef, an hour had past. Light thoroughly enjoyed the meal. He had never enjoyed such rich food. The head of the Dragon Sect lived well in his underground complex far away from the troubles above. They spent the hour discussing world events, politics, and even some sports. Apparently Terrance Claw had an fascination with baseball. Light wasn't a sports enthusiast, but he did discuss the time he had been the Japanese Junior Tennis Champ in in his junior high.
"Thank you for your hospitality, Claw," Light said, respectfully.
Claw nodded, wiping the corner of his mouth with a napkin. Placing it down on the table. "Intelligent conversion is difficult to find," he spoke blithely. "I especially enjoyed the highlights about your young sports career. I once saw a promising young man play who was from Britain who shared a similar youthful tennis career. When interviewed once on television, he said he was a member of a gifted orphanage in Winchester. I don't remember his name, but he was eccentric looking, and always had dark bags under his eyes. I was memorized by his style of play. He suddenly gave it up like yourself to go into more enticing pastures."
Light's eyes widened slightly. British Junior Champion, a member of a gifted orphanage…Had Terrance Claw seen L play? L did mention he was the British Junior Tennis Champion just before he and Light played a friendly game on his university grounds.
A door behind Claw opened slightly and someone spoke to Nazareth quietly and out of sight. The enforcer than approached Claw and spoke softly into the leader's right ear. Claw's expression changed—and if Light had to label it, that of disenchantment—but he tried to hide it. He nodded to the enforcer and Nazareth stepped back to his normal spot near the wall. He turned back, and smiled.
"I've just been informed that the information you provided on NPA and DIET operations has proven to be genuine," Claw said. "It was verified through dinner. You have endeavoured to provide us with excellent Intel, my dear boy. You will make a worthy addition to us."
Light nodded and gave a thin smile, but he wondered if Claw was lying. "You are quite welcome, sir," he said.
Light had given the Dragon Sect leader information during dinner to prove his loyalty, since he said he wished to join the Yukaza. Too bad it was fake and it would lead to a secret NPA server that would immediately trigger a red flag to the authorities, and if they had someone intelligent to look at the intrusion, they would be able to trace the access point back to Claw's lair. However, after what he witnessed after Nazareth spoke to Claw, Light wondered if his ploy was caught, and the leader was just playing to Light's game.
Terrance Claw took a drink from a wine glass.
Light sipped slowly from his own wine glass, not one to drink, it was filled with water. "I was serious when I said I wanted to join the Yukaza," Light said. "And when I say something, I don't go back on my word. That's the kind of person I am. My word is my bond."
Terrance Claw laughed. "How times have changed. In the many wars our people have fought, you being the police, those who fight for justice are zealots beholden to marauders who hide behind shields. In the past, to dishonour yourself would be a grievous sin against one's own morality. But now, in this brand new world, loyalty is not absolute. Much like Kira, I suppose. He now rules the world with an iron fist under the guise of fear. People fear for their own lives, selling out others so they may eek out some redemption for Kira to take pity on their sins."
Light could not let that pass. "Some would say Kira brings order from chaos. There are some people who oppose Kira, but there will always been those that will never follow society's rules, so, I suppose Kira had to step in, seeing how rotten the world had become."
Claw's eyes narrowed. "Do you honestly believe that?"
Light had to be careful. "Forgive me, as a member of the Kira Task Force, I often have to get inside Kira's head, to figure what he may be thinking so I can be one step ahead."
"So, Kira's desire is to cleanse the world of the rottenness he has seen? Then he has quite a task ahead of him. Many a despot have tried and failed, temporarily succeeding, only for society to revert back to its previous ways. Kira may not win."
"Then you don't know Kira," Light blurted out, then immediately regretted it.
Claw merely smirked.
Light seethed inside as he took another sip of his wine glass. Claw had manipulated the conversion, tricking Light into giving away something important about the Kira Investigation.
With dinner at an end, Claw went to stand.
"By the way, I wish to make a request," Light said. "My watch. I was told it was taken with my other gear before I was taken for 'questioning'. Could I have it back? It was a gift from my father and it has sentimental value to me." It also had a piece of the Death Note inside.
"Ah, yes, I had almost forgotten about it." Claw held up a hand, and Nazareth handed him the watch, removing it from a pocket. Light was curious why the enforcer had had in his pocket this whole time. "It's an interesting time piece, and when we examined it, quite revealing. We found the hidden compartment within and a small blank piece of paper with a tiny needle."
Claw demonstrated its secret, four quick pulls of the side dial in less that a second. The hidden compartment opened and the criminal leader took out the paper. Little did he know that it was a torn piece of the Death Note. It was a piece of Rem's old notebook that Light took and hid away after the Shinigami killed L from the task force building's Server Room.
The Death Note had no Shinigami attached to it at the moment, so the Dragon Sect leader would not see a god of death. However, it still killed when a name was written on it.
"Why do you hide a scrap of paper in your watch? Does it hold any value?" Claw asked.
You have no idea how truly valuable it is. "Exactly what it appears to be, a scrap of paper. When your notebook is unavailable, anything will do to write down notes," he lied. Terrance then held up a small needle. That was a little more difficult to explain.
Light had used another scrap of the Death Note to kill Higuchi Kyosuke—one of seven board members (now all deceased) of a corporation known as the Yotsuba Group—after the task force had cornered him, accusing him in being the Third Kira. Light managed to hide his kill from L, writing down the man's name with the paper hidden in the watch. The watch had been a graduation gift from his father, replacing another watch Light often wore, but Light had modified it for his own, insidious purposes. Ryuk had once remarked Light was good with his hands, and the clownish Shinigami had been true. The hiding place in the watch was better than his wallet. However, due to the man's revealing the existence of the notebook, Kira's method of killing had finally been revealed. Higuchi had to be killed to prevent any more information from being exposed and to allow Light to obtain new ownership of the Death Note.
"And the needle, a piece of scrap I suppose," Light said with w shrug. It had been a piece of one of his mother's broken sowing needles. He thought it was perfect at the time.
"Makes for a good writing instrument when you don't have a pen handy," Claw said bemused. The Dragon Sect placed each on the table before him. Claw then suddenly pushed the watch forward and it slid across the table. Light caught it. "I will keep the other things."
Light withheld a frown, and he was pissed off inside as he clasped the watch back on his left wrist. The truth of it was, the watch meant nothing to him—it was the piece of the Death Note that mattered.
Claw snapped his fingers and Nazareth then produced Light's gun and baton, which he placed on the table. The gun had no magazine in the chamber. "I am returning your personal items, Yagami," Claw said, "now that you're one of us…"
Claw stood unmoving for a moment, looking down at piece of the Death Note and needle. He then took the scrap of paper and put it in his pocket and picked up the needle, eyeing it.
Light felt uneasy, and glanced over at Asumi, who had barely said two words through dinner,
Asumi said, "Are you alright, Master?"
Claw looked up from the needle, the tip so sharp that it pricked his thumb. "My brother was a practitioner of Vampirism when he was a teenager and this needle has stirred up old, unpleasant memories for me." Claw looked dejected. "My brother was so enamoured with the practice that he bleed to death one night from it. I found him covered in his own blood in his bed one fateful morning. I found out later that he was member of some strange cult that engaged in blood drenching orgies. I haven't thought of it in years, but this has stirred it to the surface." Claw turned. "Please show yourselves out."
The Dragon Sect leader left the Dining Hall with a quick step.
Light and Asumi bowed respectfully to Terrance Claw with Nazareth watching, and then they both departed. Light didn't care about Claw's family problems, but now he had no way of imposing his will here with the piece of the Death Note removed—his plans in ruin.
Light had to think of another plan, but he knew he was running out of options.
To be continued...