A man with dark, unruly hair and eyes the colour of drying blood walked out of a convenience store, the small plastic bag in his hand crinkling with the promise of sugar. He popped a strawberry-filled bonbon into his mouth, the sweetness a delightful counterpoint to the city's grimy air.
So easy, he thought to himself, a wide, almost feral grin spreading across his face. So beautifully, pathetically easy.
The elimination of Takada Kyosuke had been a masterpiece of efficiency. He hadn't even needed to use that . It was, to him, a tool of unnecessary brute force and predictable. What he had used was so much more elegant. He had used a scalpel, not on the man's body, but on the soul of another.
He chuckled, a low, guttural sound. The human mind. It was the most gloriously flawed and malleable substance in the universe. Everyone believed they were a fortress, but they were all just houses of cards, waiting for the right breath of air to send them tumbling down. Kido Kiyomi, the iron-willed Deputy Director, a woman who had built a facade of pure, cold steel around herself. Who knew she was so exquisitely vulnerable inside? So terrified of the weakness that had destroyed her father?
Oh yes. Only he knew.
FLASHBACK
A week earlier. A sterile, echoing mall restroom.
The man was washing his hands, meticulously scrubbing each finger, his face obscured by the deep hood of his sweatshirt. The door to the women's restroom opened and Kido Kiyomi emerged, her expression a mask of professional annoyance. Her eyes landed on the hunched figure.
"L?" she said, her voice sharp with surprise. "What is the meaning of this? Why did you summon me here?"
The man in the hoodie turned off the tap, his movements slow and deliberate. He did not look up. "Something has come to my attention, Deputy Director. Something that cannot be discussed through official channels. The walls have ears."
He spoke of Takada Kyosuke. He laid out the facts of the man's data-brokering, the sheer scale of his treason. He painted a picture of a cancer deep within the NPA, a rot that threatened to bring the entire organization, the very one she had dedicated her life to building, crashing down.
"The official procedure would be an arrest, an inquiry," the hooded man murmured, his voice a low, hypnotic hum. "It would take months. It would be leaked to the press. The NPA's reputation would be shattered. Your reputation, Director Kido, would be shattered. Another scandal, just like your father's. A failure of leadership. A sign of weakness."
That was the first bullet. Kido flinched, a barely perceptible tightening of her jaw.
"Kira acts with impunity because our system is slow and weak," the man continued. "Takada is a symptom of that weakness. A flaw that must be purged. You understand this, do you not? You, more than anyone, understand that the flawed and the weak must be removed for the system to survive."
That was the second bullet, aimed directly at the core of her entire being.
"Chief Yagami is a good man, but he is sentimental. He will not act with the necessary resolve. He will follow the rules, and the rules will lead to ruin." He finally looked up, his eyes, hidden in shadow, seeming to pierce right through her. "This is a test. A chance to prove that you possess the strength that others lack. A chance to do what is necessary. Eliminate Takada Kyosuke. Purge the weakness. Do it for the good of the nation. Do it for your family's honour."
PRESENT DAY
The man in the street threw his head back and laughed, a loud, hearty, and utterly unhinged sound that made a passing couple hurry away from him. The light from a nearby billboard caught his face, illuminating the wild joy in his crimson eyes and the predatory, wide-eyed grin.
It was the face of B.B.
The conference room at the hotel was in chaos. Kido Kiyomi, now in custody, was being held in a secure interrogation room at the NPA headquarters, but her screams could be felt even here.
"She's confessed to the murder," a distraught Soichiro Yagami explained to the assembled detectives. "But she insists she was acting under orders! She keeps screaming the same thing, over and over."
"And what is that?" Holmes asked, his expression grim.
Soichiro looked directly at the real L, his face a mask of utter confusion. "She says you ordered her to do it. She keeps screaming, 'It was a test! L told me to do it!'"
A stunned silence fell over the room. L, who had been listening from his crouched position on the sofa, slowly uncurled. His face, for the first time, was a canvas of pure, unfiltered shock. He had never spoken to Kido alone. He had never given her any such order. Someone was not only murdering in his name, but was now impersonating him.
Miles away, in the quiet solitude of his bedroom, Light Yagami was reviewing the day's news, a faint, satisfied smile on his face. The fall of the Deputy Director and another high-profile criminal was a victory. It was a chaotic, messy victory, not of his own design, but a victory nonetheless.
Suddenly, a notification pinged on his encrypted messaging application. The sender was anonymous, the routing untraceable. The message was short, and the words made the blood in his veins turn to ice.
Kido Kiyomi is a loose end. She has been screaming about an order from 'L'. She believes L is connected to Kira and is about to tell the police everything she suspects about the task force, including her theory about Chief Yagami's son. Silence her. You have 24 hours, or she will leak your identity.