The silence that followed Kira's public evisceration of their efforts was a new and terrible thing. It was not the silence of contemplation or of shock; it was the hollow, ringing silence of absolute defeat. The greatest deductive minds of a century had been reduced to spectators, their most ingenious plans turned into fodder for their enemy's triumph. They were children who had tried to build a sandcastle to stop a tidal wave, and now they stood, dumbfounded, in the ruins.
L let out a long, slow sigh, a sound that seemed to carry the weight of a lifetime of intellectual combat. He pushed himself up from his crouched position on the floor, the first in the room to show any sign of movement. He looked not at the stunned faces of his human colleagues, but at the one member of his team who operated beyond the realm of emotion.
"Connor," he said, his voice a low, almost weary murmur. "A word. In private."
The android, his expression as placid and unreadable as ever, simply nodded and followed L into one of the adjoining bedrooms, the door clicking softly shut behind them. The remaining detectives did not stir. They were each lost in their own private hell of failure, the bonds of their strange fellowship momentarily dissolved by the sheer, crushing magnitude of their humiliation. Holmes stared into the middle distance, his mind clearly racing through a thousand impossible calculations. Poirot sat with his head in his hands, a picture of Gallic despair.
After what seemed an eternity, though it was likely no more than five minutes, the door opened and Connor stepped out alone. He surveyed the devastated group, his LED cycling a calm, steady blue.
"L has received new intelligence," the android announced, his voice cutting through the funereal atmosphere with its usual, dispassionate clarity. "A potential hideout has been identified, a disused industrial warehouse in the Ariake district. It is a location with a high probability of being a temporary headquarters for either Kira or B.B. The team is to mobilize and inspect the site immediately."
He then turned his gaze to Miss Marple, who was looking older and more frail than anyone had ever seen her. "L has stipulated that you are to remain here, Ma'am. The location is deemed too hazardous."
Miss Marple looked as if she were about to protest, a flicker of her old, indomitable spirit returning to her eyes. But it was her assistant, Isabelle Dubois, who spoke for her, placing a gentle hand on the old woman's shoulder. "He is right, Ma'am," she said softly. "You should rest. Please. Let us handle this." Miss Marple looked from Isabelle's concerned face to the grim, determined expressions of the men as they began to stir, and for once, she relented with a small, weary nod.
As the others began to gather their things, L emerged from the room. He moved with a strange, quiet purpose, his usual eccentricities stripped away, replaced by a cold, hard focus. Unseen by the others, he opened a locked case under the main console and retrieved a sleek, black Heckler & Koch P30 pistol, tucking it securely into the back of his waistband beneath his loose-fitting shirt.
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[From the journal of Dr. John H. Watson]
The journey to the warehouse was a somber, silent affair for the most part. I found myself in the back of one of the vehicles with Hastings, and for a time, we simply watched the alien landscape of Tokyo slide by.
"It reminds me of the war, in a way," Hastings said suddenly, his voice low. "The long periods of waiting. The sense of an unseen enemy who could strike at any moment. You feel so utterly… powerless."
"At least in the war, you could see the shells coming," I replied, my own voice heavy. "You knew the direction of the threat. This… this is like fighting a disease."
In the vehicle ahead of us, a similar, though far more philosophically charged, conversation was taking place.
"I felt for him, you know," Poirot murmured, his gaze fixed on his own reflection in the window. "That yakuza man. Tanaka. The fear in his eyes. The desperation. He had done wrong, yes, but at the end… he was just a father who was afraid for his child. To see him die, to know that our actions were, in a way, responsible… it has left a most bitter taste in my mouth."
Holmes, who was staring intently at the passing cityscape as if trying to memorize every brick and stone, gave a short, sharp sigh. "That, Poirot, is precisely the problem. Your emotional response, however noble, is a catastrophic blunder in an investigation of this nature. To feel pity for the bait is to lose sight of the beast you are trying to catch. We are not here to weigh the sins of men. We are here to stop a monster. Sentiment is a luxury we can no longer afford."
At any other time, Poirot would have objected with a passionate defence of the human element, of the importance of psychology and the little grey cells. But now, he said nothing. He simply continued to stare at his own troubled reflection, a silent admission that in this new, brutal world, perhaps Holmes's cold logic was the only weapon that had any worth.
The warehouse was a vast, decaying cathedral of rust and concrete. Light streamed in through grimy, broken skylights, illuminating swirling motes of dust in the dead, still air. The team fanned out, their footsteps echoing in the oppressive silence. They found nothing. No signs of habitation, no discarded clues, no hint that this place was anything other than a forgotten relic of a bygone industrial age. It was another dead end, another source of crushing frustration.
They gathered in the centre of the vast, empty space, the futility of their situation pressing down on them. It was then that I saw it. A look, passing between L and Connor. It was a subtle, almost imperceptible exchange, a flicker of understanding that was over in a fraction of a second.
L nodded, a single, sharp gesture.
And then, in a moment that will be forever burned into my memory, he drew a pistol from the back of his waistband, raised it with a calm, steady hand, and shot Connor twice in the head.
The sound of the gunshots was a deafening, visceral crack that ripped through the silence of the warehouse. Poirot and Hastings screamed, a raw, ragged sound of pure, uncomprehending horror. Connor's body, his LED flickering wildly for a single, final second before going dark, crumpled to the concrete floor with a dead, synthetic thud.
For a moment, we were all frozen, paralyzed by the sheer, insane violence of the act. Then, instinct took over. Holmes, his face a mask of cold fury, drew his own, old-fashioned Webley revolver from his coat. I followed suit, my own hand shaking as I levelled my service pistol.
I saw the look on Holmes's face and knew that he, like me, was beyond reason. He was an avenging angel, a man of logic confronted with the ultimate act of illogical betrayal. He fired.
A gun is a gun, and it fires bullets. L moved with a speed that was utterly inhuman, a blur of motion that seemed to defy the very laws of physics. The first bullet whined past his head, ricocheting off a steel girder with a high-pitched scream. The second, however, caught him. It tore through his left shoulder, the impact spinning him around with a grunt of pain.
He did not falter. He did not cry out. He simply clutched his bleeding shoulder and ran, disappearing into the deep, labyrinthine shadows at the far end of the warehouse like a phantom melting into the darkness.
....I can't write anymore
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High above, nestled in the rusted rafters of the ceiling, a small, black camera with a single, unblinking red light was broadcasting everything. It sent its signal out, not to the internet, not to a satellite, but to a single, specific, and heavily encrypted frequency, a private channel for an audience of one.