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Fever Dreams	By : sashocirrione Category: Death Note > Yaoi-Male/Male > L/Light Views: 2733 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note, and I do not make any money from these writings.

Chapter List
- 9
- 10
- 11
CHAPTER 10
The first set of interviews were with the Yotsuba group. Light knew these weren't the critical ones. The later interviews with the cops who'd been at Higuchi's arrest, those were the ones to worry about, but even if L got some relevant information from them, it shouldn't do him any good. Probably. Hopefully.
The interview site was a suite in a fancy hotel, and multiple views from different cameras were displayed on the big screens as the six surviving members of the Kira meetings entered. There were some attempts among them at questions and small talk, but Namikawa shushed them, saying, "We need to wait for L."
The men all looked nervous. L watched them, probably trying to read cues in their behavior as he forced them to wait. Takahashi looked the least nervous. The brash, crude blonde probably wasn't smart enough to be properly frightened. Ooi stood off to the side with his arms crossed, looking grumpy rather than worried. The other four men hesitantly took their seats, some of them unable to stay in their initial seats and switching around.
Finally, Namikawa cleared his throat and said, "L, I'm sure you've set up cameras and microphones. Why don't we start this meeting?"
L pushed a button and said, "Watari, you may enter now."
The screens showed Watari entering the suite, holding a laptop computer. He was in his disguise of a long trench coat with a high collar turned up to hide almost the entire bottom half of his face, and a brimmed hat hid most of the top half, with the part in between concealed in shadow.
Light knew that Watari was wearing some kind of fake face that completely covered up his wrinkles and his mustache, but it had been done well, and looked like a real face. The small dim part of his face that could be seen looked like a man in his thirties or forties, smooth and featureless. Watari kept his head slightly bowed so that his hat brim maximized the shadow on his face. His body seemed a different shape as well, as if he were wearing stuffing under his clothing. Nobody who had seen the real Watari should associate that person with this guy.
Watari placed the laptop on a small table and opened it, showing L's usual "L" logo.
L pressed a button in front of a microphone and said, "I hope we will get along. I will answer some of your questions, and you will answer some of mine."
Namikawa said, "L, you promised that none of us would be prosecuted for Higuchi's crimes on the premise that he forced us to participate in those meetings with death threats. This was proven by Hatori's death. None of us wanted to be in that situation."
L replied, "That promise was made for any of you who aren't Kira. There may be a second Kira among you."
There were starts and exclamations all around the room, from everyone except Ooi. Kida was so surprised he nearly fell from his chair.
L continued, "Furthermore, if there is an additional Kira among you, I have saved the lives of the remaining five by my action today. It would be a suicidal move for such a Kira to kill any of the rest of you now."
Shimura nervously glanced around and said, "But, we were sure, especially near the end when we had gathered more clues, that only Higuchi could be Kira. What are you basing this on?"
L said, "I cannot tell you everything I know about the situation, because it would compromise other parts of my investigation. However, it is virtually certain that a different Kira killed Higuchi shortly after his arrest, and a limited number of people knew about his arrest. You six are among that number."
There were uneasy, hostile stares between all the Yotsuba members.
L continued, "However, depending on the status of that hypothetical Kira, there could be a reduced punishment or none at all for that Kira. I believe those with Kira's power do not need to kill, and that it is possible the first kill or two happens by accident, before the person understands how to use their power."
Ooi said, "The second Kira killed plenty of people on television, purposely. I don't see how you can think that was accidental."
L said, "I am not talking about the second Kira. There have probably been at least three Kiras including Higuchi. I have reason to believe that anyone with Kira's power can share it with others. Any of you could have become a Kira, perhaps quite recently. It is also possible there is a time delay, of perhaps up to two weeks, before the new power becomes active, and the Kira among you might not exist yet."
What was L thinking of? Ah, yes, the two-week gap of no deaths before the beginning of Higuchi's kills. Perhaps L thought that whatever mysterious process moved the power to a new user took time to mature. He wouldn't know that was merely the length of time it had taken Rem to find a new Kira that fit Light's requirements.
In a panicked voice, Kida said, "So, any of us could suddenly start accidentally killing people until the power gets under control?"
Takahashi looked mildly pleased, as if he hoped that would happen to him. Everyone else looked terribly upset.
Shimura said, "But... that means one of us could accidentally kill the others, right?"
L said, "No. I believe there must be a clear wish to kill, not merely a dislike. If you all resolve not to wish each other dead, it should be impossible for any of you to kill each other by accident. I will investigate any death among you as if it is not an accident."
Mido said, "Why would Higuchi give his power to any of us? It would make him vulnerable. He needed a hidden identity for his own safety, and it would be best if none of the people he abused had the power to kill him. Even Higuchi wasn't that stupid."
L said, "Higuchi may have passed on his power only in his final moments, and he may have passed it on as a kind of curse upon someone he dislikes or for any obscure reason of the sort that occurs to a man who knows his life is over."
Namikawa said, "In that case, Higuchi could have passed on his power to anyone he knew, not just us, correct? And, how could one of us have killed Higuchi if he hadn't passed his power on yet?"
L said, "There are some reasons I have yet to work out, and some reasons I know but will not tell you. Be assured that there is indeed a possibility that there is or will be a Kira among you, and that it is best to cooperate so that all of you who are innocent have the greatest chance of surviving. I intend to protect you from Kira, but I can do that better with more information."
Namikawa said, "L, are you a different L than the one I spoke to before? You don't seem the same."
L hesitated, and then said, "Yes. As law enforcement agencies have suspected for a long time, L is a group of people."
Namikawa said, "Will all the L's keep the promises of one?"
"Yes, it has to work that way. I am already keeping the promises of the one you spoke to earlier. You can see I am not having any of you arrested even though I technically could, based on the video footage I have of your meetings."
Light smirked. Of course, none of those men knew that L was bluffing. The original footage of those meetings and Wedy's back-up footage had all been destroyed by Rem.
Namikawa crossed his legs and said, "That is good. We will give you our complete confidence and tell you everything we know."
L left his microphone off for the moment and turned to look at Light, saying, "If any of them die just as they're about to say something, I'll assume it was you."
L pressed the button for the microphone and said, "It is best to tell me every detail today, even things you do not consider important. If you fail to mention something that is actually a key clue to catching Kira, no matter how insignificant it seems, then if Kira is frightened enough to risk killing you despite the consequences, he'll kill you before you can have a second interview with me."
Several of the men started talking at once, but L said, "We will do this in an orderly way. There will be individual interviews shortly, but for now I need to examine some key issues while all of you are present. First, I have reason to suspect that Kira has more than just the power to kill and control. Kira can likely start fires with his mind, observe events in rooms where he is not personally present, and destroy machines from the inside without touching them, including ripping through metal that is too tough for human strength to affect, and possibly other strange abilities as well."
Light could see the sweat beginning to stand out on most of the men's foreheads, and Kida was suddenly gripping the arms of his chair so tightly his entire hands were turning white. All of them looked worried to a greater or lesser degree, and were eyeing each other suspiciously. Namikawa did the best job of hiding those reactions, but Light could tell that even he had become distraught at hearing just how powerful a Kira might be and that any of them might already have those powers or acquire them in the near future.
L continued, "If any of you notice abilities of this sort in yourselves, please contact Watari at the phone number I gave you. Also, I want all of you to think and see if you can remember any evidence of abilities like this in Higuchi."
Takahashi blurted out, "Do you really think Higuchi would show us anything like that?"
Shimura quietly said, "There was one time when Higuchi was the last to arrive at the secret meeting, and before he arrived all of us had been talking about how incompetently he ran the Division of Technology Development. He almost immediately started talking about his accomplishments and defending himself even though he couldn't have heard what we'd said."
Rem said, "Higuchi always had me fly ahead to see what the others were saying, so he could figure out if they were catching onto him or not."
L said, "Is there anything else like this? Any small detail?"
Takahashi said, "The shredder didn't always work well. It kept getting jammed."
The rest of the men thought for a while, concern and worry evident on all their faces. L had pulled a good trick. They were afraid to overlook anything or to hold back in the slightest. Anything they did remember, they would tell L, out of fear for their lives, and yet L hadn't threatened them in the slightest.
The men thought hard, spent their time mulling things over, engaged in little discussions about insignificant details, and then, one by one, they admitted that there was nothing else that seemed like it could be due to a special ability like the ones L had mentioned.
Then L asked, "Did Higuchi have any odd mannerisms, such as talking to himself? Even if you only saw it once and you weren't sure if he was really talking to himself or not, please relate the incident in detail."
This time two of the men, Namikawa and Shimura, admitted to witnessing such incidents, one in a bathroom and another while rounding a nearly-deserted hallway late at night and suddenly running into Higuchi. Each time, Higuchi shut up almost instantly and basically nothing had been heard. L questioned them about the word "Rem" but nothing like that had been mentioned.
After they had finished describing those incidents, L said, "I would like to know if there is any knowledge that seems to be missing from all of you, anything that you all knew at one point and have now forgotten. I am not talking about normal memory lapses but about some fact you were sure you knew and no longer know. Especially if you knew it before the night of November fifth."
Namikawa said, "Does Kira have the ability to erase memories?"
L said, "There have been several attacks of that kind. The details are classified."
Ooi said, "But, if we've been controlled, we'll die."
L said, "No, I believe those who have experienced an attack on their memories will live. Have there been any incidents of that sort?"
L's question provoked a very long discussion. The men were obviously afraid to leave anything out, in case Kira killed them in order to destroy that information before a second interview session could be done. L's trick was almost working too well, as the men went into extremely tedious detail. Still, L drank it all in eagerly, his eyes fixed on the screens, afraid to miss any clue of word or behavior.
L was being very thorough, but that was a sign of his desperation, of his knowledge that he needed to find something, and these men who had been the closest to knowing about Higuchi's power, they were some of the few who might have clues. Light made certain to let L see his subtle smirk, the kind of facial expression that was so insignificant only L could discern it. It really was fun to mess with L when L was nearly helpless.
The conversation wound down to a clear conclusion that there either wasn't any memory loss or, if there had been, it was some detail so subtle that nobody realized they didn't know it any more. Well, L was probing the wrong people. None of these guys had ever received ownership.
Then Shimura suddenly asked an explosive question.
"Misa Amane, could she be the second Kira? She was accused of it by you, wasn't she? And she idolizes Kira and was dating Higuchi. It all fits."
Light tried to keep his face completely expressionless as he glanced over at Rem to see how she was taking this. Rem's single visible eye went wide and started glowing a bit. As far as L's investigation went, no information these guys had on Misa could possibly harm her. But, if one of these guys leaked word of Misa being L's suspect, and if that information got to the wrong people and was seen as anything other than a rumor, Misa could get assassinated.
Light stopped L's hand as he was about to press the button on the microphone and said, "If you say she was a suspect, and if any of them panic and try to involve Interpol, it could lead to her being assassinated."
L pushed Light's hand away, moved his own hand to the microphone button and said, "Misa Amane was never a Kira suspect. She was working as my spy. However, do not hold any information back. It is entirely possible that Kira is trying to infiltrate my investigation, and even someone as unlikely as Misa could be a Kira or a tool of some Kira. If you know something, tell me."
Shimura said, "But, does Misa truly idolize Kira? If so, don't you think it is too dangerous to use her for your investigation?"
Namikawa said, "If that is true, L, then your investigation tactics make me uncomfortable. Even if Coil is your man, as I suspect, and even if his information about Misa was entirely made up, it is an unquestionable fact that the criminal who murdered her parents was killed by Kira. Even if Misa Amane claims to you that she does not support Kira, she has every reason to. It does not seem professional to hire someone who is likely to admire Kira."
Light could see everyone in the room giving L looks, as if they wanted to voice similar concerns about him having sex with his main suspect.
L said, "Misa Amane is no longer working for me. That was a one-time event based on her acting ability and a unique opportunity that presented itself, where it seemed better to use her than anyone else."
Namikawa said, "You're talking about her manager getting caught? Or, was that all planned as well?"
L said, "There were a number of plans. I will not say which events I was specifically behind, as some of them are still playing out. Please do tell me everything you know about Misa."
The men began discussing all they knew. In a few minutes, they had told everything, and there wasn't any new information except that Higuchi had been boasting that he was going to marry Misa. Good. Nothing to upset Rem or to sound like anything better than a weird rumor even if one of these men did panic and go to the authorities. There were so many weirdos and loonies constantly trying to contact all law enforcement agencies with tips about Kira that vague assertions of a pop star being the second Kira shouldn't stand out at all. Hopefully, Rem could see that.
Light looked back at her again, disguising his movement this time as stretching in his chair. It wouldn't do to have L see him glance at empty space too often. Yes, Rem did look calmer, but she hadn't completely calmed down. She probably wouldn't do that until it was clear the case had stalled for months. For these early days of the new plan, she was pretty much bound to be on edge, a trigger waiting for the wrong impulse. If only she could be more rational. Of course, if Rem were rational, she probably wouldn't be so attached to Misa, an annoying girl who obviously didn't have any love in return for Rem.
Then L announced he was done with the group interview, and he interviewed each individual alone in considerable detail, especially concentrating on events from the night of the fifth of November, no matter how insignificant. In the middle of those interviews, Ryuk drifted through a wall into the room.
Rem immediately turned to him and said, "If you cause trouble here-"
Ryuk interrupted, "When have I ever caused trouble? I'm just an observer here. Wedy started installing surveillance cameras in Misa's apartment, so I cleared out of there like you wanted."
Light kept his face neutral and refused to look at Ryuk, but he could tell that L had noticed something. Well, let him notice. It didn't prove anything. It hadn't proven anything over many meetings with L while being followed by Ryuk. Light had the habit, he knew he could avoid looking at Ryuk or Rem in L's presence, and even if he did, it was still perfectly fine.
When the Yotsuba interviews ended, the interviews of the 49 police officers who had been present at Higuchi's arrest began. This time, there was no group interview, instead each of the officers were interviewed individually. L quickly discovered that each and every one of them had a memory hole exactly at the moment of Higuchi's arrest. They remembered Higuchi saying something between the time he'd exited his car and the time he'd died, but they couldn't remember what. When prompted, most of them also remembered a moment on the fifth of November when they'd forgotten what they had been doing, many of them finding themselves inexplicably terrified at the same time. L looked as if he were putting things together in his mind, but he also looked as if he were enormously frustrated.
Then, when L got to the end of those interviews, he started interviewing the family members and friends of those 49 officers, especially concentrating on events of the critical night. Before L was even halfway through those interviews, he'd already found three people who had heard the memory-impaired officers talking to someone out of sight and when investigating had found nobody. Rem had been sloppy! But, she hadn't had much time. The only understandable words had been phrases that the witnesses thought had been things such as "Take it away!" and "I don't want it!"
L glanced over at Light and whispered, "Get rid of it. My foolish pride, I just want to get rid of it."
Ryuk chuckled and said, "I think L's putting it together pretty fast. Are you sure he isn't going to catch you?"
Rem said, "What?"
Ryuk said, "To 'get rid of it' is the phrase Light used to give up his memories the first time. He fooled L into thinking he was talking about his pride."
This was bad! Rem was looking quite worried.
Light said, "Ryuzaki, I think the biggest problem with catching Kira is finding solid evidence, don't you agree? Without that, with only speculations, you can't get anywhere."
L probed his bottom lip with a thumb and said, "Yes, you are correct. But I know the evidence is out there, or Kira would not have been so afraid as to attack us. If we are harmless and ineffectual, Kira would simply leave us alone, since attacking us can only draw our attention."
Then, nearly at the end of the interviews, L found the worst thing he could get from these guys. It wasn't too bad, since L couldn't be sure of it and he couldn't possibly do anything with it, right? Besides, Light had been half-expecting it all along. But it was still unsettling to see its effect on Rem. She needed to calm down.
A wife of one of the officers said that he'd sworn her to secrecy and had told her the entire story of Higuchi's arrest, and that officer had been close enough to hear Higuchi's words. The officer himself no longer remembered, but she remembered the story he'd told her.
When the wife calmly started telling her story, Rem panicked enough that she actually took out her death note and Light had to shoot her a glare to subdue her, a glare that was unfortunately noticed by L, but there was no helping it. What was Rem thinking? Dying here and leaving a death note behind was the height of idiocy, she shouldn't have considered it for even a second. This kind of rumor was harmful but ultimately useless to L. Suspecting wasn't the same as knowing, and without access to a death note L couldn't do a thing.
When the woman had finished telling her story, L pressed the microphone button and said, "So, you are absolutely sure your husband said that Kira claimed he killed by writing names in a magic notebook?"
The woman said, "Yes. And, a notebook was brought out from Higuchi's car by one officer who had a screaming fit, and then taken by another who screamed also, and then taken into the helicopter and there was a third scream from there."
- 9
- 10
- 11
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Fever Dreams