The world, for Beyond Birthday, was a stage, and all the men and women merely puppets, their strings dangling down from the heavens, waiting for a master with the wit and the will to grasp them. He sat in the chaotic throne room of his own private kingdom—a darkened apartment that smelled of sugar and decay—and he watched the play unfold.
His laptop was not tuned to any public news channel. It was not displaying the frantic, internal chatter of some hacked police network. The feed on his screen was a private broadcast, a high-definition, encrypted signal from a single, perfectly placed camera. It was his personal theatre, and the performance for the evening was a tragedy of his own subtle design, titled: The Futility of the Great Detectives.
He watched them, these legendary figures, as they wandered through the cavernous, empty warehouse. He saw the old Belgian, his magnificent moustaches seeming to droop with every fruitless step. He saw the tall, hawk-like Englishman, his famous energy curdling into a bitter, caged frustration. He saw them all, these supposed geniuses, reduced to tired old men searching for a ghost in a tomb. It was a beautiful, pathetic sight, and B.B. savoured it like a fine wine, a small, cruel smile playing on his lips.
He watched them gather in the centre of the room, their collective defeat a palpable thing, even through the screen. And then, he saw the look pass between the one they called Ryuzaki and the sleek, unnervingly calm man named Connor. It was a flicker of something, a silent communication that made B.B. lean forward, his interest suddenly piqued. The play was taking an unexpected turn.
What followed was not theatre. It was a violation.
B.B. watched as Ryuzaki, the quiet, logical centre of their entire operation, produced a pistol and, with a calm that was more terrifying than any scream, executed his own subordinate. The two gunshots were a brutal, percussive shock, even through the laptop's small speakers. He saw Connor's body fall, a puppet whose strings had been violently, irrevocably severed. He saw the horror, the disbelief, the pure, uncomprehending rage on the faces of the others.
He saw the old doctor and the Englishman draw their own, antiquated weapons and return fire. He watched Ryuzaki, this creature of pure intellect, move with the impossible, fluid grace of a dancer, dodging one bullet and taking another in the shoulder without breaking stride. And then, he was gone, a phantom swallowed by the shadows he seemed to command.
B.B. remained perfectly still, his red eyes wide, his mind a silent, churning vortex. The broadcast continued, now showing only the frantic, horrified reactions of the remaining detectives as they rushed to the side of their fallen comrade.
He did not understand.
For the first time in a very, very long time, the great artist Beyond Birthday, the master manipulator, the man who saw the strings on every soul, did not understand.
Why? The question echoed in the void of his thoughts. Why the betrayal? It made no sense. This Ryuzaki, this L, was a creature of logic. A being of pure, cold reason. He was the ultimate chess master. And a chess master does not, in the middle of a game, suddenly pick up his own queen and smash it to pieces for no reason.
A trap? The thought arose and was just as quickly dismissed. No. Impossible. A trap implies a desired outcome, a calculated risk. But this? This was an act of self-immolation. L had not just killed a man; he had annihilated his own position. He had turned his allies into enemies, made himself a fugitive, and destroyed the very foundation of his own investigation. To gamble a literal human life, the life of a key subordinate, on the fleeting, infinitesimal chance of luring out an unknown enemy… it was not the move of a grandmaster. It was the move of a lunatic.
It was then that the video feed flickered, replaced for a moment by a cascade of raw data. An audio file, encrypted with a complex, multi-layered cipher. B.B.'s fingers danced across his keyboard, a flicker of amusement returning to his features. A puzzle. A little treat. He peeled back the layers of code with the casual ease of a man unwrapping a candy bar. The decrypted file played, not through the speakers, but as clean text across his screen. It was a message, spoken in that same, familiar, monotone voice.
> TO THE ONE WHO CALLS HIMSELF B.B. THE ONE WHO IS WATCHING THIS BROADCAST. YOU HAVE SEEN MY ACTION. YOU UNDERSTAND, I AM SURE, THAT I HAVE SEVERED MY TIES WITH THE OLD WORLD AND ITS FAILED METHODS. I CAN NO LONGER OPERATE WITHIN THEIR RULES. I WISH TO OPERATE WITHIN YOURS. I REQUEST A MEETING. I WISH TO JOIN YOU.
B.B. stared at the words for a long, silent moment. And then, he began to laugh. It started as a low chuckle, a tremor in his chest, and then it grew, bubbling up into a wild, hysterical, and utterly joyous peal of laughter that echoed through his dark, lonely apartment. He threw his head back, tears of mirth streaming from his crimson eyes.
Oh, you clever, clever little man! he thought, gasping for breath. Such a cheap, little, fucking trick!
It was so obvious! So beautifully, transparently pathetic! L, the great logician, cornered and beaten, was now resorting to the most primitive of snares. A clumsy, desperate attempt to feign madness, to pretend to defect, all in the hopes of luring B.B. out into the open. It was the ploy of a child, and the sheer, insulting simplicity of it was the funniest thing he had seen in years.
As his laughter began to subside, a new line of text appeared on the screen, as if in direct response to his own unspoken scorn.
> I ANTICIPATE YOUR DISBELIEF. WORDS ARE MEANINGLESS. THEREFORE, I WILL PROVIDE A DEMONSTRATION OF MY SINCERITY. A TRIBUTE, IF YOU WILL. IN THE COMING DAYS, I WILL PROVE THAT I HAVE EMBRACED A NEW PHILOSOPHY. I, L, WILL COMMIT THREE, GRUESOME, PERFECT MURDERS.
The laughter died in B.B.'s throat, replaced by a sudden, sharp intake of breath. He stared at the words, his mind suddenly, unnervingly still. The arrogance, the certainty, the sheer audacity of the promise… it was no longer just a clumsy trap. It was a challenge. A gauntlet thrown down with such force that it shook the very foundations of his own self-concept.
He let out a short, nervous chuckle, the sound thin and uncertain in the quiet room.
This was… unexpected.
Aight, he thought, a slow, predatory smile returning to his face, a smile now tinged with a flicker of genuine, nervous excitement. We'll see. We will see if the great detective L has finally gone mad and is blabbing nonsense…
His crimson eyes gleamed.
…or if he has finally, after all this time, become a viewer. No. A fan of my art.
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Three days later, B.B. was monitoring the morning news feeds, his attention divided between a half-dozen different channels. Most were still filled with speculation about the American task force and the hunt for Kira. But then, a small, local news report from the city of Kyoto caught his eye. It was a minor story, given only a few seconds of airtime.
The reporter spoke of a bizarre and gruesome discovery in a traditional Japanese inn. A woman, a reclusive heiress, had been found dead in her room. The police were baffled. There was no sign of forced entry, no murder weapon. The cause of death was asphyxiation.
She had been hanged, the reporter concluded, her voice clinical and detached, by a rope woven meticulously from her own long, black hair.
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Hey guys! Writer here. Just here to say sorry for delay of chapter updates. I ran outta ideas.
Also, since this book is ranked 2nd in death note fanfics, I wish a present from you guys.
Comments! Anything. Criticisms, art posts, praises, questions anything!