June 7, 2004. Day seven of confinement. Up until a moment ago you'd felt a grim resignation, an unshakeable purpose. Up until a moment ago, despite being chained hand and foot in a windowless cell, you'd felt in control.

"I know I must look pretty bad in here, but this useless pride… I'll just have to… get rid of it!"

You'd said it like a vow, like you knew exactly what you were doing.

But actually… (the thought hits you in a flash) you've made a terrible miscalculation.

« April 7, 2004. You walk back from the hospital, Ryuk floating easily behind you. It's late, and there's a soft quiet about even the night; the moon casting its pale silvered threads over the world. "Guess it's a good thing L didn't take you up on it, huh?" he asks.

"You mean the idea of putting me under observation for a few months?" You hike your schoolbag a little further up your shoulder. "I was entirely serious, Ryuk. It's the one way I can prove without a doubt that I'm not Kira. The cameras and bugs placed in my room were meant to catch someone who didn't know he was being observed, but no one was following me outside, or in school. L knows that. And if he's really settled on me as one of his suspects, he's going to wonder whether I noticed the cameras and just didn't let on. But if I'm being observed in complete seclusion, no one will be able to argue with the facts when Kira keeps killing."

"I don't get it. Wouldn't you have the same problem as last time? No matter how many deaths you schedule, L will still notice that new criminals aren't being killed," Ryuk says.

You laugh. "But that's the genius of it—new criminals will be being killed."

"Huh?"

"I've got a plan for that, too," you say. "But I'll tell you the details once I have to implement it. It's not all ironed out yet, it'll depend on what exactly happens from here on out. I can't do it right away, anyhow—I'll wait until I've worried sufficiently about my father, and have gotten onto the task force. I can get really concerned then, and say something like, 'I know I thought this was a good idea, but I feel like I have to prove my innocence before I can continue to help you guys out,' and even if L doesn't want to use the method I came up with, I'll be able to convince the others."

"Well, I guess that sounds like a plan," Ryuk admits. "But are you sure it'll be okay?"

"What are you talking about?"

"I just mean humans don't tend to do so well in solitary confinement. Remember those reports from Amnesty International you were reading?"

"I didn't know you paid attention to those."

"Eh, I was bored, so I skimmed 'em."

"Well, that's totally different," you say. "I'm talking about house arrest, not white torture—my father and the other NPA officers would never allow L to do something like that."

The report on Amir-Abbas Fakhravar (امیرعباس فخرآور) discussed the inhuman treatment the journalist had been subjected to in Iran: a windowless cell, entirely white; white clothes for him to wear, and white rice for him to eat on white paper plates. Forbidden to speak, and in complete silence, he'd suffered there until this past March. The image had struck you with an incredible force—something about its benign but quiet uncanniness, a cruelty that would sound made-up if you didn't know any better.

"I guess you're right," Ryuk says. "But you'd still be alone for a while…"

You shrug. "Being alone is no big deal. I'll just think of it like I'm some kind of monk going to the mountains." »

« June 1, 2004. Day one of confinement.

"Shoes off. Socks, too."

"Come on, Aizawa-san, is this really necessary?" you ask. You've stepped inside the empty cell that will be your prison for the forseeable future, and it doesn't inspire great thoughts.

"Ugh, what a boring place," Ryuk says, poking around at the walls and peering under the bed. "Not even any apples."

"It's L's orders," Aizawa says uncomfortably. He's already taken back the blindfold and noise-cancelling headphones, and he's holding a leather strap for your feet.

You don't want to push too hard. After all, you're the one who put yourself here, and you need to act like it.

"Okay, I get it," you say. You lean down, take off your shoes and socks, and then step back while Aizawa tugs the strap closed around your ankles. When he stands up, he grabs your shoes and socks with one hand, and steps back toward's the cell's open door.

"Look, Light-kun," he says after a second. "I'm sorry about all this. I don't think you're Kira, and I know you and L have decided this is the best way to prove it, but… that doesn't mean any of us have to feel comfortable with it."

"I understand," you say, with a reassuring smile. »

June 7, 2004. Day seven of confinement. What am I doing here…? Had you really ever thought, 'I might be Kira'? No, of course you hadn't. Despite the flashes of doubt L had been able to instill in you, you'd never believed that. If it hadn't been for Misa, you wouldn't even be here. It had all seemed so terribly clear, though: how you had to act swiftly before she revealed the source of the kiras' killing power to L and—worse—perhaps named you as an accomplice. The shock from her arrest must have made you lose your mind, but now, again, you can think clearly… "Ryuzaki," you say, your mouth dry, and you turn your face toward the camera above you, staring it down, "it's true that I suggested the confinement idea and chose this for myself… but… I just realized that this is pointless! That's because… I'm not Kira! Let me out of here!" you're trying to sound composed, determined, but there's a note of panic in your voice that you can't hide. L had nothing on you, nothing, but you'd handed yourself to him on a platter… is there really any way he'll just let you go, no matter how much sense you make? No. No, he'd thought you were Kira from the first…

"I can't do that," the camera replies. "I promised you I wouldn't let you out until I determined whether or not you are Kira. That was also what you wanted."

Damn it. Damn it! He's using your own words against you… how could you ever have told him a thing like that… "I did say that," you admit, "but… something was wrong with me then! Do you really think Kira could do such things without being conscious of them? I don't know what kind of power Kira has, but he definitely exists and has committed these acts of his own free will! I have no consciousness of such acts, so I can't be Kira!" It's irrefutable proof of your innocence… the problem is, it's proof L can't see… there's no way he can actually look inside your head and verify your story. The circumstantial evidence against you is still there, all you have to defend yourself with is a logical argument and for him to believe you, he'd have to believe you weren't lying…

And can you tell him the truth? Do you dare to tell him about Misa showing up—threatening you—on the very day the kiras were supposed to have met? How afraid you'd been that she might speak—confess—tell L everything about how Kira kills? No, you can't. If you were Kira, you would also have been afraid of that… the circumstantial evidence against you is bad enough… if you admitted to lying about anything at all, you'd dig your own grave…

"I too do not believe that Kira had no awareness of his actions," Ryuzaki admits. "But if you are Kira," he adds, in a harder voice, "everything still fits if we assume you just can't accept the fact that you're Kira. The killings stopped immediately after you were confined… I believe that you are merely hiding the fact that you are Kira!"

If you were Kira, of course you'd be lying about it… but… "Ryuzaki… listen carefully… I swear I'm not lying… I'm not Kira!" you repeat. It's true that the killings stopping after you were confined is bad, really bad. If L didn't have anything on you before, now he has just about everything. It's too precise to be a coincidence… not in a case like this, with an enemy like this…

You'd been sure that your coy half-confession of 'I might be Kira' would take care of everything… enough doubt that Ryuzaki would have to lock you up, but without your admitting to any guilt, only an understandable fear that any young man might feel in your situation… then, you'd thought, all I have to do is wait; he'll see that Kira keeps killing; he'll see it can't be me. But it's been seven days and Kira has not killed, and suddenly it is blindingly clear. Misa's appearance in your life wasn't a coincidence. She had met Kira. She'd met you, too. Somehow, Kira had arranged for both things to happen on the same day… and then, once you'd gone into confinement, he'd stopped killing… you'd never even considered that such a thing might happen. Misa and the First Kira could not have been in contact with each other once she was confined… the killing power did not include communication across a distance, that had seemed so damn obvious, after the Kira tapes… surely he would kill again, surely he would not stop the moment you put yourself into confinement, because there's no way he could know what was going on, and that you had as good as confessed, unless…

"I must have been framed," you say. "I can think clearly now, and that has to be it." That would explain it all—the circumstantial evidence, the fact that Misa, the Second Kira, approached you… all of it. Hadn't it even crossed your mind, once, that she was picking you for a fall-guy? Of course, she wasn't smart enough to come up with something like this, you had assured yourself… but the First Kira…

"Framed?" L says, not hiding his skepticism. "Listen, Light-kun, the only people who know you are being confined are the ones in this room. The killings stopped as soon as you were locked up…"

"Then somebody there is Kira!" you shout. "I'll help you investigate. Let me out! Hurry and let me out, we're wasting time!"

But the answer of the camera is pitiless. "No. I cannot let you out."

You're sure your sudden overwhelm must be captured on the screen; the way it's just now hitting you how much you've screwed up, how bad a position you're in. You lean your head down to your knees, hiding your face with the curtain of your hair to give yourself the time to take in a few ragged breaths without feeling so put on display. "Damn it…" you say to yourself. "Why is this happening…?"

June 17, 2004. Day seventeen of confinement.

Your scope of movement has been greatly reduced, not just on the large scale but on the small scale. Standing is possible, but walking is impossible—you can barely manage a shuffle with your legs pressed together. You can't lie down on your back because of your arms being cuffed behind you, during the day. During the night, those handcuffs are replaced by a leather strap like the one around your ankles, but with your arms behind your back the only way to attempt sleep is lying on your stomach or your side, and you rotate between the two during the night, never able to get completely comfortable.

There's not a lot of exercise you can do in this situation, but you quickly figure out what's possible within your limitations:

You can sit on the floor with your legs outstretched in front of you and bend forward and then back into a sitting position as many times as you are able.

You can sit on the floor with your legs outstretched in front of you and then bend them toward your chest, and then unbend your legs to their starting position. Repeat.

You can kneel and bend forward till your chest is lying on your knees, stretching your arms and shoulders up behind you.

You can stand on your tip-toes, and see how long you can balance.

You can hop.

You can stand up, and then bend down so that your head is near your toes, trying to keep your balance, and then stand back up again, repeating the motion as many times as you want.

Your cell is a bare, rectangular, empty place, and there's nothing to look at besides the bars and the blank corridor beyond them. You don't know where you're being held. Outside the bars, you can see the camera lens that is all that connects you to the rest of the world. It surprised you the first time you woke up from a nightmare where the camera had somehow been taken away, and you knew that nobody would ever come back for you, but upon reflection, it's a perfectly ordinary psychological response to your situation.

When you need to use the toilet on one side of the room you have to struggle to pull down your slacks with your hands cuffed behind you. There's a bidet but no sink to wash your hands, and because of the cuffs you have to use it sitting, anyway, like a child.

It's a good thing you'd dressed in something loose and comfortable when you went to L and asked him to lock you up, because you haven't gotten any other clothes, not even a prison uniform. It's something you'd half-suspected, which was why you'd chosen so carefully.

In the morning, the afternoon, and the evening, Aizawa comes along with food, which he leaves you to eat on your own—a small kindness at your request. When he comes in the morning and the evening he brings along a toothbrush that he brushes your teeth with, and in the morning every few days (you don't need it more often than that) a safety-razor so you can shave.

The first time the subject had come up he'd offered, awkwardly, "Light-kun, if you'd rather not shave there's no need… I mean, it's not like you have to look good in front of anyone in here."

"Only the cameras," you'd joked, and Aizawa had smiled in a strained manner.

"Yeah, only the cameras," he'd agreed tiredly. So he'd covered your cheeks with shaving cream and carefully scraped down with the razor. "Sorry if I nick you a bit, I'm not used to doing this for someone else," he'd said quietly. "And I usually use an electric one."

"Yeah, me too," you'd answered, as he stopped to shake it clean over the toilet.

He comes with a bucket too, after the first few times, filled with clean water, and a hand towel and a bar of soap. It's the closest to a shower you're going to get, and you can't even take your clothes off fully for it. Again, this is Aizawa's job. It's not something he signed up for, and the first couple days of this are awkward. "Sorry you have to go through all this," you'd told him.

He'd laughed sharply. "You're sorry? Damn it Light-kun, you're the one locked up." But even then he'd looked perturbed, a little more uneasy in your presence. Even by the fourth day, it had been clear that Kira's kills had stopped the moment you were put into confinement. "Anyway, this isn't so bad. It's kind of like having another kid," he'd joked.

"Yeah, I guess so," you'd agreed, as he brusquely swiped the soaped-up towel across your skin.

It's your own fault—all of it. You asked for this, and you have no one but yourself to blame for your humiliation.

And Kira.

You spend quite a few hours each day inventively cursing him out for this mess.

In the morning, or what is presumably the morning, the lights turn on, dragging you from whatever uneasy rest you've managed to snatch during the night.

In the night, the lights turn off suddenly, even if you haven't gotten into bed yet.

There's one thin mattress on the bedframe, which is bolted to the floor, and one flat pillow, with a sheet that quickly becomes twisted uncomfortably. Even if you manage to tug itself over you, it cannot hide you from L… awake or asleep, you're in the frame of his camera-eye, helpless.

You've heard stories of people who survived for years in solitary confinement. They exercised, and did creative things with whatever they had on hand.

This can't last years.

If anything else, your father wouldn't let L… but. What if L wasn't lying when he said the murders had stopped, and are still stopped?

No one, in good conscience, could ever let you out in that case.

But you aren't Kira. Even if Kira's trying to frame you, he won't stop killing for years just to do so. Kira's basically addicted to killing; he thinks it's his mission. Even if he can disappear quietly there's no way he'll take that easy out.

So all you have to do is outwait Kira, if Kira isn't killing; or the task force, if L is lying to you about Kira not killing. L might have infinite patience, but the rest of the task force doesn't. Something will move.

It has to.

.

.

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