Page 42

“No, I mean, he’s so obsessed with the letter B. Maybe that very obsession is part of the message, and the killer’s initials are B.B. as well.”

“Or maybe they’re Q.Q. Like you said, a lot of elements of the case do point to B, but it’s also possible we simply haven’t stumbled across the signs pointing to Q.”

“Yeah...I suppose so”

“That said, I do think B is more likely than Q as well. More than ninety-nine percent,” Ryuzaki admitted.

Essentially retracting the last few minutes.

“There’s a good chance the killer’s initials are B. The victims are all B.B., and the killer is too... things are getting interesting.”

“Interesting?”

“Yes. Anyway, be careful next time, Misora. If you agree with something, you must have sufficient reason to agree with it. If you disagree with something, you must have sufficient reason to disagree with it. However accurate, a deduction based on a fallacy means you have not defeated the killer.” “Defeated? Ryuzaki, is this really a matter of winning and losing?”

“Yes,” Ryuzaki said. “It is.” Because this was war.

L was said to never move on a case unless there were more than ten victims or a million dollars at stake. The only exceptions to this were cases at difficulty level L (extremely fitting), or when L had personal reasons compelling him to get involved. The Los Angeles BB murders were both of these. I hardly need to point out the difficulty by this stage of the story, and L was essentially fighting his own dead copy. The current head of Wammy’s House had told Quillish Wammy/Watari, who had told L about B’s disappearance in May, and ever since L had been looking for him even as he solved his other

cases. Wammy’s House only knew him as B—they did not know his real name, Beyond Birthday, so this search was near impossible, but L at last picked up his trail when the murders started—which is why L knew who the killer was. He had not been looking for a killer so much as he was looking for a case. L had been waiting, expecting Beyond Birthday to do something to challenge him. L could move any policeman in the world, but in this case, he did not ask anyone for help except Naomi Misora... more than likely, for this reason. I don’t think L really put that much stock in honor, but everyone is embarrassed by their own sins, and nobody wants those missteps to become public knowledge.

L was the goal of everyone in Wammy’s House. Every one of us wanted to surpass him.

To step over him. To step on him.

M did, N did, and B did.

M as a challenger, N as a successor. B as a criminal.

“Ryuzaki, did you find anything new?”

Now that they had finished debating the matter of dates, Misora took a breather, went down to the kitchen on the first floor, made two cups of coffee (with normal amounts of sugar, obviously) and carried them back up to Backyard Bottomslash’s room on a tray. She was holding the serving tray in both hands, which made opening the door rather tricky. Since the handle was at waist height, she was able to reposition herself a little bit and hook the tray on her belt buckle. She found Ryuzaki lying in the middle of the room, flat on his back, with his arms and legs flung out to the side. Misora froze in the doorway.

“Find.., something?” Misora repeated, for no reason at all.

He wasn’t going to make a bridge and start crawling around with his back to the floor, was he? Like something out of a horror movie.. .Misora gulped nervously, but to her great relief, this was apparently too weird even for Ryuzaki. But what was he doing?

“Urn, Ryuzaki?” “I’m a corpse.” “Hunh?”

“I have become a corpse. I cannot answer. I am dead.”

She understood this. The word ‘understand’ has a connotation of acceptance, which she sincerely wished to avoid, but it seemed clear that Ryuzaki had adopted the same pose as the third victim. Obviously, his left arm and right leg remained attached to his body, but with that in mind he did match the pictures of Backyard Bottomslash’s bitter end. Prom a practical standpoint, Misora could not see any point to his 

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