he had been born with the eyes of the shinigami—she had no way of knowing that fake names were useless with him, completely and utterly pointless.
How could she have known?
Even Beyond Birthday himself could not explain how he had been born with the eyes of the shinigami, how he could use them with no payment, with no arrangement. Neither Misora nor L knew why, and, obviously, neither do I. The closest thing to an explaination I can offer is that there are shinigami stupid
enough to drop their notebooks in our world, so there might well be shinigami stupid enough to drop their eyes. Either way, it was completely absurd to expect humans who had no idea shinigami even existed to be on the lookout for their eyes.
Even so, even with that in mind, she might have guessed. After, B looks like thirteen, and thirteen is the number of the tarot card named Death...
And so.
With any number of inconsistencies and anxieties, and one significant failure... the story’s climax arrives.
Case study.
I had originally intended to keep the reasons for Naomi Misora leave of absence (which was effectively a suspension from duty) out of these notes—had planned to remain vague about all the details. If I could, I absolutely would stick to that plan. I mean it. Like I said before, she was the single greatest victim of the fallout from Wammy’s House, and intruding on her private... or at least personal issues is something I am very reluctant to do. Which is why I have casually avoided any specific mention of it
so far. However, since I now find myself attempting to describe the look in Naomi Misora’s eyes as she grasped the gun Ryuzaki had given her in both hands (It was a Strayer-Voigt Infinity model), I can no longer skirt the issue. I can’t just fast forward to the next scene without explaining the reasons behind that look.
That said, it’s not a terribly complicated story. Putting it as simply as possible, the team she worked
with had spent months secretly investigating and infiltrating a drug cartel, and she had blown the whole operation—because at a critical juncture, she had been unable to pull the trigger. While she did not customarily carry a gun with her, it was different on duty—nor did she have any intention of making pathetic excuses about not being able to shoot another human being. Naomi Misora was a trained FBI agent. She did not imagine her hands were clean, or that she was above such things. But she had not been able to pull the trigger. Her gun had been aimed at a child of only thirteen years... which didn’t in any way excuse it. Thirteen or not, he was a dangerous criminal. But Naomi Misora had let him get away, and the secret investigation that many of her fellow agents had poured countless hours and an unbelievable amount of work into ended with nothing to show for it. Everything was finished. They
had arrested no one, and while no one had died, there had been some agents injured so severely they might never be able to return to active duty—horrific results, considering the efforts squandered. Despite her own weak position within the organization, the fact that she had only been forced to take a leave of absence was rather lenient.
Naomi Misora honestly did not know why she had been unable to pull the trigger. Perhaps she did not possess the proper self awareness... the proper resolve that an FBI agent should have. Her boyfriend, Raye Penber, had said, “I guess you couldn’t live up to your nickname, Misora Massacre,” somewhere between sarcasm and trying to cheer her up, but since she didn’t understand it herself she hadn’t protested.
But Naomi Misora remembered.
The moment she’d pointed the gun at him... The eyes that child had turned toward her.
Like he was staring at something he couldn’t believe, like the grim reaper had just appeared before him. Like it was absurd. He could kill other people, but he had never imagined that he might be killed himself. But he should have known, he should have been ready to die the moment he first took a life.
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