Page 24

If we must discuss why L so adamantly refused to reveal himself, we can explain it very simply: doing so was dangerous. Very dangerous. While the world leaders should make efforts to ensure the safety of all the finest minds, not only for detectives, the fact is that tile current societal systems do not allow for this, and L believed he had no choice but to protect his mind under his own power. By simple arithmetic, L’s ability in 2002 was the equivalent of five ordinary investigative bureaus, and seven intelligence agencies (and by the time he faced off against Kira, those numbers had leapt upward several more notches). This is easy to think of as a reason to respect and admire someone, but let me say this as clearly as possible: that much ability in one human is extremely dangerous. Modern danger management techniques rely heavily on diffusing the risk, but his very existence was the exact opposite. In other words, if someone was planning to commit a crime, they could greatly increase their chances of getting away with it by simply killing L before they began. That was why L hid his identity.

Not because he was shy, or because he never left the house. To ensure his own safety. For a detective of L’s ability, self-preservation and the preservation of world peace were one and the same, and it would not be correct to describe his actions as cowardly or self-centered. While I don’t personally relish the thought of comparing them, if Kira had had the ability to kill someone by writing their name in a notebook only then he would hardly have publicized that fact for exactly the same reasons. The most intelligent people disguise the fact that they are intelligent. Wise men do not wear nametags. The more people talk about their own skills, the more desperate they are—their work should speak for itself. So whenever L was working, he would usually have someone else as his public face—and in this particular case, the FBI agent Naomi Misora was filling that role. Misora understood this right from the very beginning. That she was L’s shield. And just how much danger her direct link to L put her in... Misora tried many times to figure out Ryuzaki’s true nature, but no matter how optimistically she viewed the situation, she was never able to view it as anything better than, “He probably didn’t hear much of the conversation,” and that supposition never felt very secure. If Ryuzaki had noticed the connection between Misora and L, and he leaked that information in the right places, then she would be in grave danger before you could say... before you could even think of saying anything, and the thought of that made even Misora nervous. And given Ryuzaki’s obvious deductive abilities.., a day after they had solved the message hidden in Believe Bridesmaid’s bedroom, Misora had begun to wonder if her own deductions had not been guided by Ryuzaki’s skillful lead. At the time, she had felt like it was all her doing. But thinking back on it, the page numbers, the laps around the book—she had only noticed it because Ryuzaki had laid the groundwork. Had there been any real reason for her to go through the book herself, reading out each word? She couldn’t dismiss the idea that this had all been a performance to make Misora feel like she was taking part in solving the riddle, and that he had neatly allowed her to make the final breakthrough after carefully solving everything else for her. All this might be nothing

but paranoia brought about by the pressure of having L backing her... but discovering the name of the second victim on Believe Bridesmaid’s bookshelf was a big score for her investigation. She had checked afterward, and the second victim was the only person in the entire Greater Los Angeles area named Quarter Queen but this came as no relief.

August 16th.

Naomi Misora was downtown, on Third Avenue, visiting the scene of the second murder. She did not know her way around the neighborhood, so she had to puzzle over a map to find her way here. Without knowing when a fourth murder would occur, part of her Ii.id wanted to come straight here from Believe Bridesmaid’s, but she had other things to check up on first, so much evidence to sift through, and given the problem of transportation, she had ended up waiting till the next day. It was now three days since

the third murder—nine days, four days, nine days, and if the killer planned to kill after four days again, then the next murder would happen tomorrow, but she had no other choice. No way to prevent it from happening. So she did the only thing she could do. Search for evidence that would allow her to take on the approaching crisis.

According to L’s investigation, a detective named Rue Ryuzaki had actually been hired by Believe Bridesmaid’s parents—and not only them, but relatives of the second victim, Quarter Queen, and the third victim, Backyard Bottomslash, had asked Ryuzaki to investigate the matter as well. This was a 

<< PREV           NEXT >>