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 Misora to go after B, B was using Misora to go after L. Rue Ryuzaki could never be anything more than a suspicious private detective—not to be trusted, but not attracting too much attention from L either. As far as Beyond Birthday was concerned, the first three murders only served to set

up the main act, the fourth murder. Misora had been the first to use the word camouflage, but in that sense, the first three murders were all camouflage, disguising the truth behind the fourth murder.

At the third scene, the clock had pointed to a large condo complex in Pasadena, in the Valley, where there were two B.B.s. This had not been hard for B to locate, with the eyes of the shinigami—that said, it had not exactly been simple to locate a place that matched the necessary conditions. Room 1313, Blackberry Brown. Room 404, Blues-harp Babysplit. Naomi Misora was working alone, which allowed him to avoid the need to use the backup plan he’d created in case L sent more than one person. If there had been two investigators, it would not simply have been a matter of finding a third B.B.

Misora in room 1313, and himself in room 404. Honestly, it did not particularly matter which room. Misora was in room 1313 for no better reason than that she was a woman.

And then Ryuzaki attempted suicide.

Turned the thumb lock by hand, nailed a Wara Ningyo into the wall, broke the sprinkler system, turned off the alarm, wiped the place for fingerprints, showered himself with gasoline, and lit himself on fire.

He had chosen himself to be the fourth victim. Beyond Birthday, the final B.B. That Rue Ryuzaki was a fake name did not even require L’s resources—Misora was an FBI agent, and could find that out for herself quickly, and if she dug a little deeper would be able to find out that his real name was Beyond Birthday B.B. More than acceptable as the fourth victim—and a highly appropriate end for the mysterious private detective.

Immolation. Burning to death.

Naturally, his face and fingerprints would burn as well—he had always disguised himself with heavy makeup while he was with Misora, and he had never left a picture behind, so even if someone directly affiliated with Wammy’s House inspected the body, they would have no idea that Rue Ryuzaki/Beyond Birthday was B from Wammy’s House. He had left nothing to connect Beyond Birthday to B. He had

no intention of hiding his own identity (he wanted them to find out he was Beyond Birthday, to find out he was another B.B.), but he had to hide that he was B from Wammy’s House. The reason he changed his methods of killing from strangulation at the first scene, to blunt force trauma at the second, to stabbing at the third was partly experimental, partly motivated by curiosity, but far, far more important was to make it seem only natural that the fourth murder was done with fire. And there was also the matter of the injuries done to each of the previous corpses—even Beyond Birthday was unable to damage his own body after death. It would never do to leave such an obvious discrepancy. With a burned body, it was impossible to tell if such damage had been done or not.

At the fourth scene, as I hardly need to explain, there was no message. There was no reason to leave one. B was presenting the Los Angeles BB Murder Cases to L as a case that could never be solved. That L could not solve.

In other words, he had never prepared any clear solution to it— since the killer had committed suicide, disguised as the fourth victim, there was no longer a killer to catch, and no clues left to catch him with. Which is why the difficulty had escalated so dramatically from murder to murder. Particularly the message at the third scene, with its deliberate ambiguities—am. versus p.m., and room 1313 versus

404. So when no message was discovered at the fourth scene, Misora, and therefore L, would believe they had simply overlooked

it. Something that should be there, but wasn’t—and it was a lot harder to discover something that wasn’t there than something that was. Especially if the missing thing had never been there in the first place-in that case, there was no way they would ever find it.

But how would they prove it?

A problem with no solution could only have one answer—that it could not be solved. But that answer conflicted with the fairness displayed in the first three murders. Which tied their hands. Unable to find something that wasn’t there, L would have to continue searching for B—who no longer existed. The metaphor of the gradually decreasing Wara Ningyo established from the beginning that there would be 

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