2 months later...

It was a slow day at Anteiku, and currently there were no customers present in the shop. The few staff members present occupied themselves with cleaning or simply standing around. It was raining outside and it didn't seem like it was going to stop any time soon.

Kaneki had decided to sit at a corner table reading one of his books. It was The Judgement by Franz Kafka- not his favorite or most treasured, but one which he could read over and over again without complaint. The book follows Georg Bendemann and his antagonistic father. Kaneki did not remember his father, but this was one of the books he'd left behind. Georg's father had continuously verbally abused his son, calling him selfish and accusing him of wanting him dead, even though Georg had no such intentions and cared for his father. The story ultimately ends with his death- after his father sentences him to 'death by drowning', and Georg, with his mind full of his father's harsh words, plunges into a stretch of water from over a bridge.

In Kaneki's mind, he takes the role of Georg; thus making the father...

"Mrs. Fueguchi!" Touka's alarmed voice pulls him out of his reverie. He turns lifts his head from between the pages of the book and looks up to see a drenched pair of Ryoko Fueguchi and her daughter, Hinami.

He stood up and rushed to get some towels. He came back, towels in hand, and handed them over to both the mother and the daughter. The latter gives him a look of despiar and Kaneki's eyebrows shoot up in curiosity and worry.

"Hello, Mrs. Fueguchi, Hinami," he greets them.

"Nice to see you again, Kaneki,"

"Hi, big brother..." Kaneki frowns at Hinami's somber voice.

"Uh... What brings the two of you here?"

Suddenly, the mood became tense. He felt a little guilty for causing that.

"They... They took him," Mrs. Fueguchi answered, looking down. Hinami hid behind her mother.

"W-what?" Touka stuttered.

"Aogiri Tree," she spoke up, "they took my husband."

After his morning classes, Hide joined Near for lunch. As usual, the white-haired boy had been sitting alone, eating nothing and solving a blank puzzle.

"You really should eat more, you know," Hide started, "you're already so pale."

"I'm not hungry," Near answered.

"Tsk! As if I'll have any of that," The blond took the apple from his tray and placed it in front of Near. "As your friend, I shall take on the task of restoring you back to health!"

"...I'm not sick either, Hide,"

"That doesn't mean you don't need to eat. Seriously, when do you even eat?"

Near was silent for a few moments, and then spoke, "In order to collect more information, we will have to access police files. I do not plan to illegally hack into them, so I think it'd be best if we begin our detective career."

"Ohoho, now you're changing the topic. Very well, I shall excuse you since we are in the process of catching a serial killer," Hide imitated a terrible Winchester accent. Returning to his normal Japanese accent, he said, "Alright, but what do you plan on the name we're going by?" Of course, they'd be a pair of anonymous detectives. He grinned, "N? H?"

"We can think of these things later. For now, I'd appreciate it if you finish your lunch and we can get back to discussing the timelines."

"Eat the apple first." Cue intense staring contest.

Surprisingly, Near gave in and sighed, taking a bite out of the apple. Hide smiled cheerfully. "The fruit of knowledge, if I remember correctly. Who knows, it might help us obtain some ourselves!"

Soon, lunch had ended and the pair ended up in their usual investigation room, which had been provided for them, courtesy of Roger. The room was stacked with lego towers almost reaching the ceiling and a pile of dominos stashed into a corner. Besides the toys, the room also had a computer sitting on a desk which had files and papers strewn across it. Lastly, a box containing video tapes sat beside the desk.

The white-haired boy plopped onto the floor in his usual strange position, while the blond picked up a filed titled simply 'Timeline' off the desk and flipped through it. "On December 10th, Kira's pattern had a noticeable change. When he'd first become active, criminals were killed in specific times of the day, namely between 4 p.m. and 2 a.m. on weekdays and 11 a.m. till the middle of the night on weekends," Hide scanned the notes written beside it, "apparently, the ICPO transcript also mentioned that L deduced Kira was a student, and that was when his schedule suddenly changed into killing a criminal per hour." he joined Near on the floor, crossing his legs, "If you ask me, I'd say Kira had, and perhaps still has, access to police records. The thing is, if he was smart enough to get rid of L, why'd he change his schedule to make it even more obvious that not only was he a student, but he also had access to the police and reveal that he had complete control over when the criminals die?" he frowned, "This kind of makes him seem like he just wanted to play a game by challenging L... It only supports the idea that Kira was not fully pure in his intentions. He was taunting L."

"Exactly what I thought. He's a human using the power of a God. Please skip to the incident with the FBI agents."

"Right. Twelve FBI agents arrived in Japan on December 14th to investigate members of the police. They were all killed by Kira on the 27th." Did he fear discovery or did he simply want the police to lose their trust in L to put him in a tight position? "Why do I get the feeling that we're missing something important here...?"

"Because we are." Near walked up to the desk, pulling a chair to sit on and brought up a Japanese news website. After a few clicks, Hide saw that it had the headlines of criminal deaths taking place on December 19th at 6 p.m. There were six criminal deaths on the list, all deaths by heart failure. "This. I compared the news reports with the prison's information, and I found the deaths of three specific people to be quite different from the rest of Kira's victims." He then pulled up a downloaded file.

6 p.m., 12/19/2003

Masaaki Shirami cut off his own finger and used the blood to draw a pentagram inside a circle on the wall of his cell, dying of heart failure afterwards.

Ken Yadanaka writes a strange 'suicide note' before dying of a heart attack.

Tasayoshi Yoda manages to escape from prison, finds a local public washroom and dies of a heart attack right there.

"The rest of the three died as usual. But as you have seen, the media reported all of them to die of an ordinary heart failure. This means the police had covered up the abnormalities in their deaths, presumably because of L's orders. Which means that he had deduced the fact that-"

"Kira had used these people as experiments," Hide breathed.

"Precisely,"

"And it also means that Kira had discovered the FBI was involved somewhere between the 14th and the 19th! That makes Kira one of the people being investigated in those four days. We can now narrow down the suspects and correspond them with who'd be able to imitate L so perfectly. I'm sure the person with that capability would stand out."

Near gave him a somewhat creepy smile. "I see I wasn't wrong in asking for your help. But please do not take my lead as a fact- there's still a 7% chance of it not being true, we wouldn't want to bias ourselves, would we?"

Hide snorted. "As if we don't have enough proof already,"

He could've sworn he saw Near rolling his eyes.

"Light, can we play Mario Kart now? I'm so boooored," whined a raspy voice.

"Not now, Ryuk. I gotta catch up on all this college work," Light groaned, staring at the pile of work he had to do. Of course, he was planning on finishing college. "so go entertain yourself by reading manga or something."

"I already read every one you have! You have to buy me some new ones... along with more apples too,"

The brunet let his forehead hit the table. Pretending to be L, keeping up his perfect student persona, fooling the taskforce, doing college work, handling Misa and Ryuk was starting to take a toll of stress on him. And then there was Kaneki and his shop full of enigmas. Just thinking about all his problems made him even more demotivated.

He sighed, raising his head up. He knew this was very unlike him. No matter the stress or workload, he had somehow always managed to break through- not only satisfying expectations but exceeding them.

Oh, and his hair was starting to fall out more. Perhaps he could use that excuse to motivate himself to get rid of all this stress as soon as possible. Maybe I should visit a counselor... he thought, smirking afterwards. Nah.

"Go watch some TV downstairs with Sayu then. I'm busy," Fortunately for Light, the shingami left with a grunt.

"I don't want to! All your sister watches are those mind-numbingly stupid TV dramas... And I think they're ruining my brain because I can't help but wonder if Tsukushi would dare pick Tsukasa over Rui,"

"Idiot. I think it's obvious a girl like her would go for Tsukasa, the arrogant bad boy. Rui would probably end up having to admire her from afar."

"...Wait, even a guy like you watches girly TV dramas-"

"Like I ever have a choice! You've seen how Sayu hogs the TV at dinner! Now let me finish this work,"

"Okay, fine,"

Thankfully for the college student, Ryuk finally left his room.

Light groaned for the millionth time, stretched, sighed and resumed his work.

Usually, when people try to concentrate on a certain task, their mind often drifts into meaningless thoughts. Light had never sufferred from the curse of being easily distracted, but somehow a single thought managed to slip into his mind.

Why was a 13 year-old so... ripped?

One month later...

"...And so, I think that the thefts were just cover-ups for the disappearances. Although they're widely spread apart, the reports all have a common victim type, which is young adults around the age of twenty, and it's pretty much clear that if the thieves were actually going for the money, they would've entered the house when the lone resident wasn't present. It's obvious now that this wasn't just a couple of thefts which took coincidentally took place after the victims disappeared- the reason why the police didn't catch on is because all of them took place at seemingly random locations spread out over the country. They only began getting suspicious at least a year after when these disappearances began happening more often. It's highly likely that the group committing these crimes realized this and immediately stopped."

Hide paused.

"What's the matter? Continue, please," said Near.

"Why are you investigating a case like this? I think the police will be able to gather sufficient data on their own to capture the culprits,"

The white-haired boy placed another block on the tower. He mentally noted that the stability on the fifth floor was getting worse. If he added just three more blocks, the entire thirty-story building block tower would collapse. He started a new column of blocks just beside the tower to support it.

"What do you think the motive of these criminals is, Hide?" started Near, "No- what do you think the police would think the motive of these criminals is?"

"The people are being kidnapped for drug or prostitution rings, or if we hit a block in both, maybe even for illegal experimentation."

"Exactly. But think about it, the victims are not situated in a single area, and usually for all those options just a handful of people would be enough, unless the experiment requires more than that- in which case, the victims' locations would be at least a little more concentrated. But no, there's only one victim from each city. That, and in cases of kidnapping, the victim is usually abducted outdoors, not inside their houses. So why?"

"Maybe it really is for illegal experimentation... If it is, then it must be a truly horrible experiment,"

"That's the thing, it just can't be for that reason..."

"Why not?"

"I just have a feeling it isn't. Is suppose we can confirm it later,"

"Is it because every victim was too unsuitable for most kinds of experimentation?"

Near made locked his eyes onto Hide's and spoke, "Why must you always go the extra length and access prohibited files without permission?"

"You do realize that you just admitted doing the very same thing by revealing that my discovery was recorded in those prohibited files?"

The white-haired boy let out a sigh and turned back to his building blocks. Hide... Something had changed in him within the past two months. Is our friendship improving? Is he just becoming more open with me? He doesn't have nightmares anymore either... As a friend, I suppose I should be happy about that, but something is just wrong here.

"Near? You listening?"

The boy blinked out of his thoughts.

"I'm sorry, could you repeat what you said?"

"Haha! Gotcha! Didn't say anything. Just noticed that you changed the pattern of your blocks,"

"Really now,"

"Yep! You always go white, yellow, yellow, orange, red and then use blue for breaking the sequence- it's similar to the Fibonacci sequence, except you "add" colors instead of numbers, even thought it doesn't work that way..."

"I'm trying to find a way to fit in the green blocks, I do not want to waste them,"

"Why not try repeating the sequence vertically up the building as well, and when you run into a gap, use green?"

"...Good idea, thanks, Hide."

Hee-dey.

The blond's eyes widened in shock, before he regained his bearings.

Only the walls and floor of the room basked in the afternoon sunlight saw the secret smiles which both boys refused to share with each other.

God, how did he land himself in this situation?

"Mello... I'm sorry, but did you really think things would go according to how you thought they would?"

The blond orphan coughed and spat out blood.

"Fucking traitor...! I thought you were my friend, damn it!"

"I... I wanted to be friends with you too!" The eleven-year old kid standing opposite to him had started tearing up, his voice almost becoming hysterical, "But..." he wiped his tears away,

"Only the strong survive in this world."

There was a deafening silence. Mello coughed up more blood, and glared at Ayato.

"Don't you try to be all fucking cool, kid. I haven't given up just yet,"

The blue-haired boy turned his back on the older boy, and in a trembling voice, he whispered: "Please... Please survive and get out of here!"

Mello grinned as Ayan Kougar left the room... And another man entered. Mello shifted his eyes to look around the room. He didn't want to see that.

These people are not human.

"Boss, I am here, trying to carry on your work! Please come back to me, Boss!" wailed the platinum blond man eith huge bags over his eyes. He was holding the pliers.

Mello had been tied to a chair for the past three days. For the first two, he was left to starve with a single glass of water each day (he only had a rough idea of the time that had passed as Ayato was kind enough to inform him). Earlier today, he had been stabbed through his stomach with his torturer's... extra limb and was still coughing up blood even after his friend did a somewhat decent job of disinfecting and stitching him up according to his instructions. Without any anaesthesia, of course.

Lucky for him, the wound hadn't been fatal and missed his vital organs by just enough distance to recover. The first thing Mello would do once it got out of this damn room was get some proper medical treatment, because relying on an eleven-year old kid was too much. Even though him being alive did somewhat prove Ayato had done a good enough job, his wound was still hurting like hell.

After that, Ayato had convinced Naki to keep him alive for as long as possible, since Naki's boss, from whom he gains oh-so much inspiration from, liked to do the same. Apparently, at first he was going to get his fingers and toes cut off, but once again, his savior advised Naki against it.

It seemed that after being physically tortured, Mello had developed a dry sense of humor as a coping method.

Hm, if he remembered correctly, Matt had a rather dry sense of humor too.

Thank God he had been blessed with endurance.

"Hm? You need something, kid?"

"Yes, in fact, I do."

"H-hey, Banjou, this kid's from Aogiri... Don't you see the insignia?!"

"Relax, Ichimi. What could a kid like him do?"

No one saw Ayato's leg move. But it did.

Luckily, it stopped right before it hit Banjou's face.

"That kick could've knocked your head off, Banjou! I'm telling you, even the kids from Aogiri are-"

Ayato shot a glare at the gas-mask ghoul.

"I need your help."

"That's a... Unique way to ask for help,"

"Are you and your 11th Ward pussies willing to lend me a hand, or should I just kill you all right here?"

"It was nice negotiating with you, so what exactly is it that you need help with?"

"Ichimi! Do not be such a weakling!"

"I don't wanna die, Banjou..."

"Hah... Anyway, how can we assist you?"

Unfortunately, that's all for this filler, pathetic excuse for a chapter which I completed after almost one year of an update, and it's less than half the length of regular chapters...

I'm sorry, life is being a bitch and things aren't too stable at home. I really do wish I could be more determined and have better willpower as an author, even if writing is just a hobby- since now you guys are here, enjoying something I've written.

I'm just really tired. I'll work harder for the next chapter. Please excuse any grammatical/spelling errors and feel free to inform me of them, since I'm trying to improve my proof-reading abilities but I always seem to miss stuff and I still have to update small errors every now and then for chapters I posted months ago.

See you guys next time, and thank you for those who reviewed and those who gave this fic a chance even after seeing how long it hadn't been updated for.

P.S. Please try to ignore the fact that I used a fucking Boys Over Flowers reference. I couldn't help myself.