April 24, 2004. This is just what you've been waiting for all this time. Finally, L's invited you onto the taskforce and admitted he needs your help. Granted, it's taken a message from a presumed-Kira to do it, but you still feel a kind of pride at being let into this secret, this inner circle of L's. Even now, he doesn't trust you, with other Ls speaking through computers… if you were Kira, and you killed off everyone here, you'd have trapped yourself—and it's a perfect, ingenious machine.
You admire it. And even L's insistence on using fake names, despite the fact that you know most of these people's names already. "Please call me Ryuzaki here," he had said. Then the rest: "I'm Matsui," "I'm Aihara," "And I'm Asahi…" your father.
"I see," you say. And you do. "Then should I be 'Light Asahi?'" It's the perfect dig against you; Ryuga—Ryuzaki—is unmoved, as always. Light Morning Star? He couldn't get more unsubtle if he tried. Whatever. Let him think you're the devil; you aren't, and when you prove it he'll be sorry enough.
"That would be fine," Ryuzaki says. "I will call you Light-kun here."
He tests you, in showing you the tapes, though he dissembles about it being a test. And then… he wants to send a message, presumably from the real Kira, to this fake, this "Second Kira." And he wants you to play the part of Kira.
You don't doubt your innocence, so why do you feel so cornered? Perhaps it's as you told him once before, being accused of being a murderer… well, L himself admitted it feels terrible.
But you don't feel terrible. You feel resentment, and admiration for how well L is playing against Kira-Suspect-Yagami. If you were Kira, every move he made would have been correct for his part in the game. This "Second Kira" probably worries the real Kira more than L does.
It doesn't take much to come up with a script that is believably what Kira would say. You're still feeling resentful, and yet somewhat playful too, giddy at being let into the investigation, so you even add in the part where Kira says you can go ahead and kill L. After all, it's what Kira would do.
If L is going to make you play the part, you can do nothing but oblige.
If you must be Kira, you'll be the best one.
"It was just a joke," you say easily. "Fix that up as you see fit."
(You enjoy poking at him just as much as he enjoys poking at you.)
When you hear the "Second Kira's" answer, L isn't the only one terrified. The fake Kira's mention of shinigami and eyes makes you break out into a cold sweat, and you wonder, could this be for real?
After all. Gods of death don't exist. But there had been that message, that taunt for L… and something had to cause the kiras' killing power. …Right?
April 9, 2004. It's your first day in Abnormal Psychology with Ryuga, and neither of you are paying much attention to the lecture. It's mostly first day of class stuff, anyway. You're flipping aimlessly through your textbook, trying to ignore him.
"Oh, look at this," Ryuga says, with a tone of interested curiosity. You've only known him for a few days, but you can already tell that when he's actually curious, it doesn't bleed into his voice. This is an act. "Yagami-kun, I found you."
You tell yourself not to react. You're ignoring him, after all. Still. "In Abnormal Psychology?" you say, unable to keep the bite from your tone. "Let me guess. Did you find the bit about serial murderers?"
"Not at all," Ryuga says. He turns the textbook toward you and points. Your eyes latch onto the bold headings of "Narcissistic Personality Disorder" and "Anti-social Personality Disorder," and you can feel yourself scowling even before you read on.
"Narcissists and sociopaths? Cute."
"I've never mentioned it in Kira's criminal profile," Ryuga writes out on the lines of his open notebook. "Precisely because it has no bearing on his 'serial murder,' as you accurately put it. Anyway, since you're a suspect, I thought it might be indelicate."
Like that's ever stopped Ryuga before.
"Well, it doesn't matter, because I'm not," you write, on the lines of your own notebook.
"Really?" Ryuga says. His unsettling eyes are locked on yours, and just like the first time you saw them, they remind you of a black hole. You feel like you're drawing closer to the event horizon, and everyone knows that light can't exist inside a black hole. It's danger. You're in danger. "I always find that it's useful to know what someone might try to label you with," Ryuga continues, writing down the words. "After all, if you're prepared, they can't corner you with it."
"Like you're trying to do with me?" you retort, needled.
"Are you feeling cornered?"
"You said this," you write, and then gesture to the textbook with your pen, "has nothing to do with whether I'm Kira or not. So why bother bringing it up?"
"Frankly?" Ryuga says. His thumb moves to his lip and he presses it against his teeth absently. "Because I was bored, and I wanted to see what you would do."
« From over your shoulder, you can hear Ryuk chuckle.
"He really is like us, isn't he?" Ryuk says with admiration. »
You've been bored yourself. Honestly, if you weren't so angry at the fact that Ryuga considers you a suspect, he'd probably have made a great friend.
"But you obviously mean something by it," you write. "Are you trying to say that I'm incapable of caring about others? It's a short line from there to accusing me of murder, you know."
Ryuga pauses, and holds up his finger in a stop right there gesture. The tip of it is still wet from his mouth. From an unbiased point of view it's disgusting, but to be honest you're too interested in what he's about to say to let it affect you. "Not at all." He scribbles into his own book, "you're operating from the flawed premise that 'caring' is connected to being a good person, when in fact what matters is people's actions."
"So, do you consider yourself a good person?" you ask, curious.
"No," Ryuga answers. "I consider myself a necessary person. After all, if it weren't for me," he pauses with his pen hovering over the page. For a second, he looks somewhat thoughtful; "criminals I've caught would still be on the streets."
"Then you're admitting you're just like Kira!" you write. "Putting aside the murder," you add, before he can pounce on that.
"That's a rather big thing to put aside," Ryuga says. "But I agree. I never said I wasn't like Kira. I just said that it's not because you don't care that you do illegal and immoral actions—plenty of people who care deeply for others do utterly unforgivable things—but because it fits with your worldview, with what you've decided is excusable and justified. —If, of course, you were Kira."
"Of course," you say. "But Ryuga—you have no proof that I'm a sociopath, no more proof than that I'm Kira. In fact, less. Anyone will tell you—"
"That you do everything right?" Ryuga writes out. "I know. That's not the important bit. I wonder, how would you justify everything? If you were Kira."
"Obviously I'd justify it by saying I was doing the right thing. You said it yourself, you're necessary for society. I'm sure Kira feels the same way about the people he's killed."
"True," Ryuga writes. "But I search for hard evidence to convict criminals—who are still on the streets—of their crimes. Note that I say 'hard evidence.' It's not enough merely to suspect someone of a crime…" he adds. "But most of the people Kira killed were already in prison."
"Most? Plenty of them he's taking off the streets, just like you," you write.
"But without hard evidence."
"On the basis of the evidence already compiled by the law," you counter. "He's not being the judge and jury."
"But he certainly believes himself capable of it. Take the FBI agents for example. That points to something more than just 'doing what the law hasn't gotten around to.'"
"True, but anyone would defend themselves against the threat of being killed. It doesn't mean Kira betrayed his ideals."
"Doesn't it?" Ryuga asks. "If he really believed himself morally in the right—if, say, he considers himself the rightful executor for those that have been deemed 'criminal,' for whatever reason—then killing the FBI agents, no matter how valid from an emotional point of view, must be a betrayal of his ideals. Oh, I'm sure he justified it to himself. 'I'm making sure I'm not caught so I can continue my good work,' and all that. But however understandable his actions—by his own created worldview and according to his own ideals, he became a criminal like any other right then and there."
You fume. There's nothing you can say to that, you think, that doesn't sound like you're trying to defend Kira's actions. "I guess you're right," you respond at last. "But," you continue, "it's not like it matters. Kira's been a criminal since the very first person he murdered. It's not like killing FBI agents and breaking whatever code he set up for himself can change the fact that he was already a murderer."
"It doesn't matter, because he was already a killer?" Ryuga asks quietly, the sound of his voice almost hidden under the sudden swell of noise from a bunch of college students crowding to leave the room as the lecture ends. "...Interesting." He looks down at the textbook, sighs, and at last says, "I suppose you have a point. He might have thought about it that way. Still, considering that he seems so concerned with how he's perceived by others—it probably would have mattered. Eventually." He closes the text and slips it into the bag by his feet.
To you? you wonder. You're hit, suddenly, by the oddest feeling that in all these tests by L, from the very first one with Lind L. Tailor, Kira could have made another choice that… might've almost made L sympathize with him.
No. That's ridiculous. There's no way Ryuga would've actually supported Kira or even agreed with him. Or even if he had, it wouldn't've made a difference. You've created a profile of L, Ryuga, too, and foremost among it is that he likes to play games and he's particularly concerned about winning. To L, winning looks like proving though physical evidence not just who Kira is, but how he's killing. Nothing else would satisfy him. And as soon as he had physical evidence, that would be the death penalty for Kira.
"I guess it's a good thing you're on our side," you say, with a small, fake laugh. "You almost sound like you'd have teamed up with him if he'd been a little more particular with his victims."
"I may have," Ryuga says, thoughtfully. "In another world. Who can tell what would have happened, if any one of us had made a different choice, at any point in time?"
.
.
.