an: 1) surprise! who woulda expected an update on this story at this point, huh?

2) if you notice a difference in writing style from this point on - well, it has been over 2 years. i daresay i've changed somewhat during that time.

3) just a warning: this chapter is kinda insane. it is literally longer than the entire first 14 chapters put together, and it is literally nothing but Light and L sitting in a jail cell talking. they legit just go over like all the vents in the first 5 manga volumes, and sometimes digress a bit - that is alllll this ridiculously long chaper iz. i kidz u not.

4) merry x-mas/happy holidays?

You're Now Within The Labyrinth (And You're Not Getting Out Anymore)

"So I've been here for wo weeks, huh?" Light murmured, seemingly to himself. He smiled wryly. "It feels like a lot longer."

"It does," Ryuzaki agreed, tilting his head so that his cheek rested on his knee and he was looking at Light sideways. "Let us hope that whoever one of us passed the killing power to starts killing soon, then."

Light's eyes narrowed slightly. So why haven't they, then? he wondered.

Well, there's no harm in asking Ryuzaki his opinion.

"Speaking of, though," Light segued the conversation. "Why would that take this long? Assuming that either I transferred the power to someone else before turning myself in as Kira, or that you transferred the power to someone else after I called out the fact that you were Kira—would it really take someone this long to start killing with the power?"

Ryuzaki blinked at him. It has been a while now, hasn't it? he thought.

"Many people might be scared to try it, at first," he offered after a moment. Although—

"Surely neither of us would have passed the power on to someone like that," Light said, seeming to have the same thought as Ryuzaki. "And we already decided that the transferring of the power couldn't be random."

"That's true," Ryuzaki agreed. He bit at his thumb in thought. "But if the power could be passed on, perhaps it could be passed it on with instructions to not start killing criminals until after a certain period of time had passed."

Nothing can come of this conversation, Light realized. These are just hypotheticals—we have no evidence to base these ideas on or any way to test them. All we can do here is make baseless suggestions. It's utterly useless.

Light laughed. "This conversation is starting to feel ridiculous," he said, letting his head fall back against the cell wall. "Considering the fact that we're talking about something that hasn't even happened yet."

"That's true," Ryuzaki agreed. But it's not like we can do anything else at this point in time.

"Much more of this and I'll have an existential crisis," Light said. Surely there's something productive we could do, even while locked here in prison?

"Ryuzaki," he said after a moment's thought, "perhaps we should start by going over all the facts of the case? We could compare our memories and insights on what happened. After all, assuming that one of us was Kira and then had our memories altered, it's possible that there would be inconsistencies somewhere, or at least instances where something just doesn't make sense."

It would also help us establish a common position to start investigating from when the killings start up again—assuming that they will. And it could save us time and confusion in the future by clearing some things up.

Ryuzaki considered the suggestion. "It would be an imperfect power if that were the case," he said—I doubt there would be any inconsistencies or things that don't make sense in either of our memories— "but I agree that comparing our experiences of the case may prove useful."

And it's not like there's anything else for us to do at this point. We might as well see if we can deduce anything.

"Let's start at the beginning, then," Light suggested. "With our first realizations of Kira's existence."

That makes sense, Ryuzaki thought. Going in a chronological order will keep things organized and assure that we don't miss anything. If we'll actually discover anything through this…

He chewed at the nail of his thumb. I might as well start.

"It's my job to always be aware of crimes and any unusual or remarkable circumstances involving criminals," Ryuzaki said. "Of course I noticed when such large numbers of criminals in countries around the world were reported as having heart attacks. Considering the large and ever-increasing number it was clear that it could not be a coincidence. Originally, though, I supposed that it had to be the actions of a large organization, since clearly one person or a few people could not execute criminals simultaneously all over the globe. However, given the fact that criminals were dying in high-security prisons and that some criminals who hadn't even been caught by the police were dying while on the run, I had to consider that perhaps they were being killed without any direct contact whatsoever."

"Which is where the broadcast challenging Kira came in," Light surmised.

"Yes," Ryuzaki conceded. "I'd noticed that an inordinately large number of the criminals were Japanese, and when I looked into all the criminals who'd been dying of heart attacks to try to identify the first, I discovered Kurou Otoharada, who was a much smaller-name criminal than all the rest that were being killed and who had only been broadcast in Japan—unlike the others, who were large-name criminals that had been in the news globally. I therefore concluded that the killer must be Japanese, and that they could be a single person."

That makes sense, Light thought. He looked up at the ceiling. And from my perspective…?

"To be honest, I didn't have much interest in the matter until your broadcast, Ryuzaki," Light admitted. "The deaths lined up well with my own ideals, and I didn't particularly care why they were dying."

Given that either I was Kira or Ryuzaki was playing Kira based on me, at this point it would only be suspicious to hide anything. The best tactic here is to be as honest and as forthright as possible.

Light continued, "It might've made a Believer out of me, except that it didn't make any sense why God would only start punishing criminals now, after not having done so for all of antiquity. Still, I suppose I considered it some form of karma—personally, I would have chosen 'Karma' as a more suitable name than 'Kira' for the mysterious and unaccountable cause of the deaths."

Light looked over at Ryuzaki, meeting the detective's dark gaze. "After your broadcast where you proved that a human kill, though, I became interested," he admitted. "More because of your involvement than Kira's." He shrugged—a movement which was much more comfortable with his wrists handcuffed in front of him rather than behind him.. "I hadn't heard of the existence of L before, so you were the first thing I looked into. Researching L and the cases purported to have been solved by L, I couldn't understand how I'd not heard of you. The three greatest detectives in the world—L, Eraldo Coil, Deneuve…" he shook his head. "I hadn't heard of any of them."

Or maybe I had, but I just hadn't remembered because I didn't care?

Ryuzaki looked at him. That doesn't sound like a lie, and yet—"No interest in famous detectives despite wanting to grow up to be one, Light-kun?"

Just what kind of a person are you?

Light scoffed. "As if I needed to know anything about any other detectives in order to become one." He realized, I wanted to become a detective not because I admired anyone, but rather because I believed everyone else sucked at detective work and that I could do it better, and he pointed out, "Unless you're looking through data for patterns in order to solve a case you're working on, there's no point in paying attention to other criminal cases. It's not like I could have learned anything from them. After looking into it, though…"

There was something strange I noticed. And, quickly running the math…

Yeah, I thought so.

He looked at Ryuzaki and narrowed his eyes. "Say, L. You're also Eraldo Coil and Deneuve, aren't you?" Well, that's not completely correct. "Or rather, you took over their identities," he amended.

Ryuzaki looked at him. That's true, but—"What makes you think that?" he asked. I'm curious: how did you figure that out, Light-kun?

"They're the three greatest detectives in the world, but no one else even comes close to them," Light pointed out.

The connection between them is obvious, really, when you take a moment to look at the information closely.

Looking back at Ryuzaki, Light said, "You've told me that you're about 25. That means you were born around the year 1979. When I looked up L and also discovered Eraldo Coil and Deneuve, I saw that Coil's cases date back to 1984, and Deneuve's date back to 1969. If you were born in 1979, you wouldn't have even been alive when Deneuve started solving cases, and you would only have been five years old when Coil did, and I don't believe that even someone with as genius of an intellect as you started solving criminal cases at the age of five.

"I'm assuming here of course that you weren't lying to me about your age, because there wouldn't have been any reason to do so; your age wouldn't lead me to your identity, after all, and I'm not sure why the age 25 would be any more of an advantageous number than any other age.

"Therefore, assuming that you really are around 25 and even under the idea that you could've started solving mysteries at an age as young of 12—I'm using that number because the first case solved by L was in 1994, when you would have been around 15 years old, but I'm assuming you would have been solving other cases for at least a few years before that, and I'm sure you could have started as young as 12 since I helped solve my first detective case at the age of 13—in order to have been Deneuve from the beginning you would have to be around 47 now, and to be Coil you'd have to be around 32." He looked at Ryuzaki and smiled slightly. "You certainly don't seem that old."

Light was watching Ryuzaki for a reaction, but there was none. Ryuzaki simply looked back at him with his usual blank expression and dark, wide-eyed stare.

As expected of L.

"Additionally, I noticed a difference in the cases that Deneuve and Coil have solved since the year 1997," Light continued, undaunted and with seemingly ever-growing confidence. "Statistically, the cases they took on diminished in number, narrowed in particularity, and increased in difficulty.

"It's apparently a well-known fact that L only takes on cases he's interested in, but Deneuve and Coil did not seem to have as narrow of a field in regards to the cases they'd take on—up until the year 1997, when there appears to have been something of a detective war between Deneuve, Coil and L, in which L came out victorious as the first one to correctly sole the case, ascending to the rank of the world's greatest detective with Deneuve and Coil sinking to second and third.

Ryuzaki remained staring at him unreadably, and Light held his gaze. "Despite the differences in their allegiances and the kinds of cases they solve," Light said, "—L of course taking cases for INTERPOL, the United Nations, the United States, and other prominent government organizations, while in general Deneuve deals with smaller-scale cases or cases in developing nations that wouldn't reach such organizations' awareness or interest, and Coil is more of a detective-for-hire, tendencies they have admittedly withheld even after 1997—Deneuve, Coil and L have all solved every single case they've taken on, and their methods, while originally differing, appear to be much more similar after 1997.

"It is likely, therefore, that you took over being Deneuve and Coil in that year after defeating them," Light concluded. He smiled, the expression a touch complacent. "If you'd been born around 1979, you would have been around 18 at that time when you defeated them and took their identities, and I can certainly believe that at that age you could have defeated two detectives who were much older and more experienced that you."

Holding Ryuzaki's gaze, Light continued knowingly, "It makes sense for you to have taken over their detective identities in that way. After all, it would be strategic to have more than one detective persona, because anyone trying to find a great detective like L would contact one of the world's other greatest detectives to do so, so if you were all three of the greatest detectives in the world, you would always be informed about who was trying to find you because they would undoubtedly contact one of your other aliases. Additionally, having multiple personas which take on different kinds of cases broadens the market of mysteries available to you, and would allow you to even work on multiple cases at once, should you so wish to."

Amazing, Ryuzaki thought, biting down on the edge of his thumbnail to stifle the curl of his lips that might betray his delight. Most people would never notice those differences, much less make those connections, but he laid them out as if they were obvious.

"As always, your deductions are remarkable, Light-kun," he said. "You make my strategies seem transparent."

Light broke their gaze and shrugged, as if making light of the compliment. "It's the kind of thing I would think to do, if I were the greatest detective in the world," he said.

"You could be," Ryuzaki told him.

Light blinked and looked back at him. "What?" he asked.

"The greatest detective in the world," Ryuzaki said. He held Light's gaze unblinkingly. "That's why, if it turns out I'm Kira, I would like you to take over as L."

This isn't a test—in the circumstances that I really am Kira, Light taking over as L is the only thing that makes sense, and he has to know that. However, if he's really Kira, then…

After a moment of looking at Ryuzaki unreadably, Light laughed. "Haha. That won't be happening if it turns out that I'm the one who's Kira, though," he pointed out.

You're still testing me, Ryuzaki. You still think that I'm acting… Well, I was earlier to an extent, when I was playing at being wounded and forcing him to pretend to comfort me in order to establish the appearance of an emotional connection of friendship between us for any of the members of the task force who might be watching… maybe I laid it on a bit too thickly, though.

Well, the best way to show Ryuzaki that I'm really not Kira—at least not at this moment—and really am serious about solving this case and uncovering the truth—no matter what the truth may be—is by being as honest as possible and showing that I don't have anything to hide and am not going to be hiding anything, no matter how incriminating those things may be.

Of course, the more I share, the more incriminating details are likely to be revealed, and if Ryuzaki really is Kira then letting me condemn myself is exactly what he'd want.

Therefore, in order to not seem like Kira, he'll have to share details that incriminate him to an equal extent, in order to show that he's also just as serious about solving this case, no matter if he's Kira or I am.

"To be completely honest with you, Ryuzaki," Light said, looking down at his cuffed hands and smiling wryly, "my main motivation for starting trying to solve the Kira case wasn't to catch Kira and bring him to justice—but to try to beat L to it." He laughed slightly and shook his head. "If L was going to try to catch Kira, I wanted to catch Kira first. For me, it was always a competition and a race with L."

Light looked back at Ryuzaki and smiled sardonically he admitted, "Looking into the cases L had solved, there was nothing in them that I didn't believe I could have done myself either the same or better."

Ryuzaki bit at his thumbnail. What are you doing, Light Yagami? I think I know, but…

"Your mindset matches Kira's perfectly," Ryuzaki pointed out.

"Doesn't it?" Light agreed as he laughed slightly, expression still wry. "But you know that, Ryuzaki, and you knew that—it's why if you were the one with the killing power, you would have based Kira off of me and framed me for it."

Ryuzaki looked at Light and rubbed his thumb over his lip. Saying something that raises the possibility of you being Kira one moment, and then something that raises the possibility that I'm Kira the next. That makes sense.

Ryuzaki rotated his wrist in its metal cuff to lower his hand from his mouth, resting his fingers instead over the top of his knee, the metal of the handcuffs caught between his wrists and knees and digging in slightly. Making sure that the suspicion of which of us is Kira remains even up until the point where we finally find concrete proof of which of us is actually Kira is the only way we can solve this case, at this point. Theories themselves can never prove anything—all they could do is create bias that could obscure judgment when proof is actually discovered. So in order to avoid that, our only option at this point is to explore so many different theories that every part of the case is thrown into complete uncertainty.

Ryuzaki met Light's gaze. We're in this together until the very end, Light Yagami.

"But you always felt yourself competing with L, and not with Kira?" Ryuzaki prompted.

"In a sense, yes," Light admitted, smiling wryly.

It seems that you know exactly what I'm doing here, Ryuzaki. I expected no less of you.

"I didn't have the Japanese police, the FBI or any nations at my beck and call, after all," Light elaborated. "Without that, I really didn't have any of the resources to go against Kira head to head. All I could really do was take the puzzle pieces you collected and try to be the one to put them together first. In a very real sense you were what enabled me to try to solve the Kira case at all. If you hadn't shown up, there would have been nothing I could have done against Kira."

Ryuzaki looked up at the ceiling in thought. "That's a fair point," he said.

I only ever thought of Light Yagami as being Kira. So I felt myself in competition with him in that respect only. I didn't consider him as a young and aspiring detective.

Ryuzaki tilted his head to look over at Light. "I always felt myself in competition with Kira; I wouldn't have noticed a high-schooler like you," Ryuzaki admitted. "The only reason I did was because you were related to a member of the police force and one of the individuals Raye Penber had been shadowing, and we installed cameras and bugs in your house. It was witnessing your conversations at the dinner table with your family that made me aware of your intellect and how close your way of thinking is to my own."

Light looked back at him, and Ryuzaki added, "That, combined with how perfectly unsuspicious you were, is what made me suspect you so completely even without having any evidence."

Light smiled wanly. "Unfortunately, intuition can't prove anything," he said.

"No," Ryuzaki agreed, looking back at him, "it can only lead to proof."

Light broke their gaze and leaned back against the wall, pulling his legs up onto the cot and bending them towards his chest, looping his arms around them so his cuffed wrists were resting above his cuffed ankles. "Let's backtrack a bit, in order not to miss anything; I was never aware that I was being followed by anyone, and I had no idea about the FBI's presence in Japan until I heard the announcement that Kira had killed them, nor was I ever aware of the cameras or wiretaps in my house—I only had access to the information on the police servers, after all." He looked over to meet Ryuzaki's gaze. "Could you go over all of that for me, Ryuzaki?"

Ryuzaki moved his hands from his knees and similarly to Light looped his arms around the legs he had hugged to his chest so that his hands were resting at his cuffed ankles and the handcuffs were no longer digging into his skin. That's a fair request. While as Kira he would have known about those things, if he lost his memories of being Kira he would have lost his memory of it, and if he was never Kira then he would have never known about it.

Staring out past the bars of the cell, Ryuzaki recalled, "Realizing that Kira must have access to the information on the police servers, I contacted the FBI to investigate the Japanese police and their families to see if there were any suspicious individuals among them. The twelve FBI agents entered Japan on December 14th. December 19th, Kira started using imprisoned criminals to carry out what were clearly tests of his ability to control victims' actions before they die. December 27th, Kira got all twelve agents to receive a file with their names and photographs, and then killed them all."

Whether Light was Kira or I was, those are the hard facts.

Ryuzaki looked back over at Light. Given that I might have been Kira and had my memories changed, though, the conclusions I remember drawing from those facts may be fallible. If we'll actually determine anything from going over them… I doubt it, but…

Light looked back at him, appearing patient but expectant, and Ryuzaki continued, "I concluded that the fact that all the agents received the file meant that Kira needed to conceal which agent's file he had seen, since that agent would have been the one he'd had fairly close contact with and if I knew this, it would be a clue that would lead back to him. So I needed to figure out which agent this was."

Ryuzaki's fingers tapped lightly against the cloth of his pants that was creased around his ankles, the bottoms having been folded up so he wouldn't step on them. He continued, "I determined that Kira became aware of the FBI's presence between the 14th and 19th of December and felt threatened by them, so he began using criminals to test his ability to control his victims' actions so he could eliminate the agents.

"The bodies of all the agents were found in Tokyo. Between December 19th and December 27th, a total of twenty-three wanted, former or suspected criminals in Tokyo died of heart failure, and these targets were far lower profile than most of Kira's targets up to that date. This indicated to me that in order to eliminate the FBI agents, Kira needed to kill some people, even if they weren't Class-A criminals, and that he needed to conceal which ones he actually needed to kill by killing a large number of them; he probably only needed a few. The eight-day gap between the tests and the murders was to give the agents time to probe others in order to draw suspicion from himself.

"Kira went to a lot of trouble to get the names and photos of all twelve agents, and to send that file to all the agents. Of course, he first needed to get it to one of them, which could only have been the one who'd been tailing him."

That was my interpretation, at least. I can't actually trust any of that. Ryuzaki rubbed the material of his pants between his fingers. This next part is hard facts, though.

"Three of the FBI agents were caught on surveillance camera when they died," Ryuzaki explained. "Of these three, Raye Penber's death was noticeably unusual. Penber entered a turnstile on the west side of Shinjuku Station at 15:11, which matched what was printed on the back of his pass. He got on the train at 15:13. It was unclear whether he was shadowing anyone at the time. Right before he died, he received the file with the names and faces of all the FBI agents in Japan on his computer at 15:21, just eight minutes after he boarded. He stayed on the train for an hour and a half with the file on him, and died as soon as he exited the train. When he entered the train he had a large manila envelope, but this envelope was not found on his person after his death, so it must have been left on the train. As he died, it looked like he was trying desperately to look into the train.

"On December 28th, the day after Penber's death, his fiancee Naomi Misora, who came to Japan with him, went missing. She was a former FBI agent who had worked under me on a previous case."

Those are the facts. Ryuzaki looked back over at Light. Now my conclusions, which I can't trust any more than I can trust anything Light Yagami tells me…

"The Misora I knew would not have killed herself," Ryuzaki said. "She would have been far more likely to go after Kira herself. Upon hearing the news, I assumed that Kira had somehow managed to get to her."

Light showed no reaction. But of course he wouldn't, given that he either wasn't Kira or that he lost his memories of being Kira.

Looking away again, Ryuzaki continued, "The FBI agent Haley Belle was the first person to receive the file. Penber called him minutes before that. Belle then sent Penber the file right away, so the one who wanted the file could have been Penber. Given this, Penber's strange behavior on the Yamanote line and the disappearance of Penber's fiancee, this appeared highly significant, and we narrowed down our search to those who were being investigated by Penber between the 14th and 19th. This was Deputy Director-General Kitamura and his family, and Detective-Superintendent Yagami and his family."

It almost sounds too simple, when explained like this… of course, even the most confounding of mysteries always sound simple once you explain the answers. If I was actually Kira and orchestrated all those events to play out in that way, though?

Ryuzaki rubbed the cotton of his jeans between his thumbs and pointer fingers. It seems impossible—but so does everything about the Kira case. We're dealing with an unexplained supernatural killing power, after all; there's absolutely no telling what all the facets of the ability might be. After all…

Ryuzaki looked over to meet Light's gaze again. "We installed cameras and wire-taps in both the Kiramura and the Yagami homes—naturally including your room, Light-kun—and carried out 24-hour surveillance for seven days." Ryuzaki didn't blink. "During this time, there was no suspicious activity observed in any of the individuals."

Light blinked easily. "So there was nothing but your hunch concerning me, huh?" he asked Ryuzaki.

If I was actually able to kill all those FBI agents and not reveal myself as Kira even being under such extensive surveillance? Light smiled wryly. It would be amazing, if it were true. Funny how much that makes me wish it was.

I really don't want to die, but I would like to have been Kira…

"Yes," Ryuzaki said, still holding Light's gaze. "There was admittedly no reason to suspect you in particular, aside from my gut feeling." Ryuzaki slipped his arms up so his handcuffs were no longer trapping his legs to his chest and skewed his mouth to the side with his thumb. In a way it seemed like a warped reflection of Light's wry smile. "You were too perfect," Ryuzaki said, "your innocence proved too quickly.

"We noticed that you were checking if anyone had been in your room when you're gone, but aside from that your room held nothing suspicious. Those who installed the cameras and wire-taps in your room conducted a brief search of the house, but they missed all the porn magazines you hide on your shelf."

Well, they noticed the paper in the door, but they missed the door handle and the pencil lead, Light thought. Those indicators were designed to be unnoticeable, though. And if whoever installed the cameras and wire-taps managed to miss those much more obviously-hidden magazines, it's really no wonder.

Ryuzaki slipped his arms back down to rest his hands on his ankles again. "Your behavior cleared you too quickly," he said, still watching Light for his reaction. "The very first day of observation, you pulled out one of those magazines to read, as if to say, 'Because I have magazines like these is why I check to see if someone's been in my room.'"

Light's wry smile wasn't much more than a slight quirk of his lips. It's true that those magazines aren't actually why I check to see if anyone's been in my room; I've been doing that for years, while those magazines are a relatively new acquisition.

If I'm being honest with myself, though, both developing ways of knowing if someone has been in my room and buying and hiding those magazines were attempts to help assuage my boredom…

Funny that I bought and hid those magazines partially with the hope my sister would stumble across those magazines while trying to borrow an encyclopedia and then spread gossip about me being a real teenager instead of claiming to everyone that I went straight from an innocent child to an impotent old man—and yet it was Ryuzaki who discovered them when he observed me pull one out. Even if I mostly only looked at the magazines that day because I was so bored and was idly curious if Sayu had been the one to go into my room and stumble across them—I didn't really think she would place the paper back in the door, but if she found the magazines hidden there she might have come to the conclusion that I was probably checking to know if anyone had gone into my room, and I was kind of hoping that she'd tell my parents about the magazines and they'd get all indignant and flustered.

Light almost laughed. Man, if do things like laying traps to mess with Sayu and my parents just because I'm bored, there's really no doubt that I would if I received some kind of supernatural killing power that I would used it to create some kind of excitement and ease the tedium of everyday life, too.

Ryuzaki was still looking at him, expecting a response, and Light let his wry smile slip away and shrugged. "I don't like the idea of having people mess with my stuff without my knowing," he explained.

He doesn't seem the least bit embarrassed about the porn magazines, Ryuzaki noted. Well, I already told him that all his actions at home were observed over a week's time, so he probably figured that he would have been witnessed looking at those magazines and was already mentally prepared for it. Light Yagami's not the kind of person to display any embarrassment.

There's also admittedly nothing particularly embarrassing about it.

"You're eighteen," Ryuzaki pointed out, "both disliking other people being in your room and having porn magazines are normal."

Still, though…

Light was looking at him easily, and Ryuzaki tilted his head. "You weren't very excited by the porn magazine, though, Light-kun," he said, observing Light's expression and body language.

Light's posture remained unchanged and relaxed and the only shift in his expression was another wry quirk of his lips. "Most of them are false advertising and end up just being disappointing."

I don't even understand what the big deal about porn is supposed to be, Light thought disdainfully.

Ryuzaki was still watching him, and Light fought the urge to roll his eyes. Give it up, Ryuzaki—you're not going to embarrass me with that.

"What kind of porn would you prefer, Light-kun?" Ryuzaki prodded, and Light stared at him for a moment before deliberately closing his eyes and exhaling in a controlled manner.

This conversation is annoying and unnecessary, Light thought.

"Unless our porn preferences can supply clues to Kira's identity," he stated flatly, "discussing that would be a waste of time."

Light opened his eyes and looked at Ryuzaki pointedly. "What made you think that I was Kira, Ryuzaki?"

Light didn't look embarrassed or ashamed in any way, just bored and impatiently exasperated, and Ryuzaki raised his cuffed hands back up so his forearms were resting along his thighs and he could rub a thumb over his lip. You really are a lot like me, Light Yagami.

Looking at Light and trying not to feel like he was looking in a warped mirror, Ryuzaki explained, "We ran the fake news bulletin about INTERPOL sending 1,500 investigators to Japan that first day the cameras and wire-taps were installed; it was your reaction to that bulletin which first truly intrigued me. With astonishing ease you identified both that the message was fake and that it was intended to pressure Kira."

Light looked mildly back at him, and Ryuzaki added, "You also said that it was obvious and that Kira no doubt figured it out."

Well, it was incredibly obvious, Light thought. But Ryuzaki, what you're trying to get at here…

"So you think that's something Kira would say, knowing that he was being watched and wire-tapped?" Light asked.

"Yes," Ryuzaki said without hesitation. He held Light's gaze. "Kira rose to my every challenge. And I think that's exactly what you would have said, if you were Kira; you're the kind of childish person who would let me know that you knew exactly what I was doing and that it wouldn't work."

Light smiled wryly. That's probably true.

Still, though…

"It was an obvious trick, Ryuzaki," Light said, shaking his head in a mildly disparaging manner. "And it was clear to me that Kira was incredibly intelligent; given that I hadn't been able to identify and catch Kira, Kira must have been at least as intelligent as I was—and so if I was able to figure that out, then I knew Kira must have, too."

Light paused for a moment, then shrugged. "Then again, I would never have felt pressured by such an announcement seeing as that I wasn't Kira. I was therefore able to evaluate it with a completely clear mind."

Light looked back over and met Ryuzaki's gaze. "Of course, if you were Kira," Light said, "then the actual reason for that bulletin would have been to get me to exhibit my intellect and deduction skills so that you'd be justified in saying that I had what it took to be Kira."

Ryuzaki rubbed his thumb along his lip. That's probably true.

Light blinked easily at him and smiled wanly. "But Ryuzaki, you said there was more than me not falling for the bulletin that proved my innocence, did you not?"

"Yes," Ryuzaki said, holding Light's gaze, "that first day a couple criminals who'd just been broadcasted on the news died of heart attacks while you were studying for your university entrance exams, without having turned on your computer or T.V."

Light laughed cynically. "And that made you think that I was Kira?" he asked with a wry grin. "Because I was cleared so quickly?"

That seems a little ridiculous, doesn't it, Ryuzaki? How did get the rest of the task force—my father included—to go along with that kind of reasoning?

Ryuzaki tilted his head to rest his cheekbone on his knee, regarding Light through the cell bars separating them. "The victims that day were killed immediately for relatively minor crimes," he elaborated. "And it was only the first day of observation, and yet you and your family were already clean."

That's too many factors to be a mere a coincidence, Light Yagami.

Of course, if I were Kira, I could have orchestrated all that—but the fact that it's enough of a serendipity that I would have had to orchestrate it still supports the fact that it couldn't have been a coincidence.

"Ryuzaki," Light said chidingly, shaking his head. "Don't you think that's pushing it?" He let his head fall back against the cell wall. "And why focus on me, when you said it was all of us who were clean?" He looked at Ryuzaki out of the corner of his eyes. "I'm assuming both my mother and Sayu hadn't watched those news casts about the criminals, either."

"That's true," Ryuzaki acknowledged, meeting Light's edgewise gaze with his own sideways one. "It was just a feeling I got from you."

"Ryuzaki," Light sighed, closing his eyes. "Of course you'd think that, if you were Kira and trying to blame it on me. You'd want me to be guilty, so you'd insist that even my proven innocence made me seem guilty." He opened his eyes and stared up at the ceiling. "Those accusations are completely insubstantial."

"Indeed," Ryuzaki acknowledged.

It doesn't prove in any way that you were Kira, Light Yagami, but it was enough to make me suspect you; it was all too suspiciously serendipitous.

"And later in the week," Ryuzaki added, "minor criminals died even when you were watching the news at the time." Light turned his head to look over at him, and Ryuzaki met his gaze. "It if you were trying to show that minor criminals being killed wasn't unusual and didn't only happen when you weren't watching the news, like you were trying to demonstrate that you weren't Kira because Kira wouldn't kill criminals he saw on the news while being watched."

Light closed his eyes again. "Ryuzaki," he said exasperatedly. "That's really pushing it." He opened his eyes again and held Ryuzaki's gaze. "All that kind of reasoning proves is that you wanted to prove that I was Kira."

As always, we're rising to each other's challenges, Ryuzaki noticed—except that, if Light Yagami wasn't actually Kira, then I was rising to my own challenges rather than his. That would be pretty sad, honestly.

Light's shrewd brown eyes bored into him, and Ryuzaki stared back with the same unbalking intensity. It would be preferable for both of us if you were Kira, would it not, Light Yagami? But we can't prove that it was you—and you wouldn't want to die, and I wouldn't want this case to be over already.

"Yes, Light-kun," Ryuzaki acknowledged, without without breaking their stare. "I wanted you to be Kira. You were the only one I could imagine besting me—" Ryuzaki broke off, then quickly amended, "—no, perhaps even the only person I could accept having bested me." He looked back at Light and did not blink. "Nobody else would ever have been able to to, and thus it was unthinkable that Kira could be anyone else."

Light blinked at him, and smiled slowly. "…Is that why you approached me yourself at the university, and why you went through all the effort of taking the entrance exams so we'd both be the Freshman representatives?" he asked. His smile was dry. "In order to get close to me by clearly demonstrating that we were on the same level intellectually? And then that were were on the same level physically, with that tennis game?"

Ryuzaki watched him pensively, and Light grinned back at him sardonically. "It sounds to me like you were just desperately lonely and hoping for company, Ryuzaki," he said. "As L, the only way you could get close to anyone is through a murder case and a rivalry with a criminal, after all."

A mordant observation. Still looking at Light, Ryuzaki tucked his chin in slightly so that it was his temple pressed against his knee instead of his cheekbone. I can't say that I was actually lonely and seeking out an intellectual equal, but it's certainly true that the only way I could interact with anyone closely as L would be through working on a case; though that would be more with fellow investigators than with the actual criminal, in most circumstances.

It's true that this is the first time I've showed my face to anyone as L and worked with anyone face-to-face rather than through a computer screen, and, interestingly about his accusation, he was indeed both my prime suspect and someone I sought out and brought onto the task force…

Ryuzaki's knee was bony against his temple. "…Are you just talking about if I was actually Kira, Light-kun, or are you saying that applies also if you were Kira?"

Light looked back at Ryuzaki, his eyelids lowering almost imperceptibly. "…Both," he decided. "In either case, what you wanted was a detective game with someone on your level." Light's smile was mirthless. "Were you not bored, like me?"

Ryuzaki looked back at him, phlegmatic. "Like you?"

"Ryuzaki," Light said, "before you showed up in my life—before L proved Kira's existence—I was so incredibly bored." Light laughed, the sound cracking strangely. "Even just talking with you while locked in this cell is more mentally stimulating than when I was free, before criminals started dying!"

I might be losing my mind, a little bit, Light thought distantly. The absurd laughter was effervescing in his lungs.

"You know what's exhilarating about this for me?" he asked, and laughed again. "It's that I know I'm never going to have to return to a boring, normal life; because either I'm Kira, and I'll be executed and die as soon as this is over—or you're Kira, and I'll become L and take your place." Light shook with sardonic snickers he could no longer control.

I'm actually losing it.

Light's snickers intensified. I'm really actually losing it.

And the best part? I'm not sure I even fucking care anymore.

Ryuzaki lifted his head from his knee and sat up slightly, watching Light snicker breathlessly.

Are you actually okay, Light Yagami? It's been two weeks of imprisonment, at this point, and most of it was solitary confinement…

I thought you were lying earlier about how much the confinement had effected you—and it seemed that you knew you were lying and knew that I knew that you were lying—but maybe you weren't faking it as much as we both thought you were.

A mind like yours—a mind like mine—when it has to go for long durations without adequate stimulation to occupy it…

There was a twisting in Ryuzaki's gut, and he looked away. "Being L isn't always as interesting as you might think," he said.

Light's snickers were slowing and subsiding. "Because even the great L was so bored he might've very well started killing criminals with a supernatural power in order to stave it off?" Light asked.

The convulsions of Light's laughter had caused him to curl up like a roly-poly, an impression that had been accentuated by the black pants and black long-sleeve shirt he was dressed in, but now he sat up and unfolded, unlooping his arms from around his legs and shifting forward to set his legs over the edge of the cot so his feet were flat on the floor. In comparison to his hysterical snickers, he now seemed eerily tranquil.

Ryuzaki watched him circumspectly. Was that a breakdown, Light Yagami, or are you doing this on purpose?

What's the state of your mind right now?

"If Kira can control a person's actions," Ryuzaki broached carefully, "does Kira also have a way to read a person's mind?"

"If Kira could do that," Light said, "wouldn't he have killed L already?" He turned his head and looked over, distant gaze focusing on Ryuzaki's face and eyes narrowing. "Unless, of course, Kira and L are the same person…"

Well, whatever that was, he seems recovered now, at least, Ryuzaki thought.

"We've steered off-topic again, haven't we," he said mildly.

"We have," Light agreed.

I don't know what that was, and I should probably be concerned, but thinking about it too much would probably just cause it to happen again. It's probably best to try to occupy my mind with other thoughts.

Light cracked his neck to one side and then the other, and he rolled back his shoulders. "So what happened after those seven days of surveillance, Ryuzaki?"

"No suspicious behavior was observed in any of the suspected individuals, and I concluded that if Kira were among them, they weren't making any mistakes and would not reveal themselves to us," Ryuzaki answered, even as he observed the way Light was staring unseeingly at the floor. "The cameras and wire-taps were then removed."

"My god, Ryuzaki," Light laughed incredulously. "According to you, there isn't actually any way to prove innocence." The wry grin was back on his face. "'Innocent' means nothing more than 'not yet proven guilty.'"

Damned if you do, damned if you don't—that's all this entire case is. I'm never getting out of this. And what is there after this, once we figure out which of us is Kira? If I'm Kira I'll be executed, if I'm not Kira I'll be fated to live my life playing the role of L, and what would any case be to me after this one? And what would it even mean to catch criminals here and there when, if Kira had succeeded, there wouldn't even be any? What's even the point?

And yet—if this hadn't happened, what would I have done with my life? I can't honestly say I would rather this have not happened—there was never anything I wanted out of life, it was all just empty. And now—does it even matter which of us is Kira? Either way, as soon as this case is solved I'm basically screwed—and Ryuzaki, too. As soon as this case is solved—

And yet we can't not solve it—we don't have any option, at this point. It's taken over our lives, there isn't anything outside of this case—not for us now, and not for us in the future.

The yeast of hysterical laughter was fermenting in Light's chest, starting to carbonate. What is even the point in any of it?

"Is that not the way the justice system works, Light-kun?" Ryuzaki asked, interrupting the train of Light's thoughts that had been heading towards the edge of a cliff.

Light blinked and looked over at him, expression blank in lack of comprehension, and Ryuzaki elucidated: "'Innocent until proven guilty.'"

You were going to have another breakdown, Light Yagami, Ryuzaki thought. Light had been starting to tremble with the harbingers of laughter. I'd rather that not happen.

Our fates are linked, at this point. If one of us goes over the edge, it's over for both of us.

Light shook his head as if to clear it. "But guilt can be proved, and innocence cannot?" he asked. "As in, someone cannot be proven truly innocent until another individual is proven guilty? Because until someone is proven guilty, everyone is innocent and therefore anyone could be guilty?"

The wry grin was again on Light's face, and Ryuzaki said evenly, "Many aspects of the world do not actually make sense when you reduce them to abstractions like that, Light-kun."

Some things you shouldn't think about too hard… otherwise you'll end up believing most of humanity would be better off dead…

You can't catch Kira if you realize that you agree with him. And since one of us was Kira, we're both in danger of that, aren't we?

"Math," Light said, and it was Ryuzaki's turn to look at him uncomprehendingly and Light's turn to clarify: "Numbers and numerical functions are nothing but abstractions of ideas. And yet they're used to prove physics about how the world works, are they not?"

Yes and no, Ryuzaki thought.

"One can explain the world with math," Ryuzaki stated, "but the world itself is not based on math. Abstractions come from the concrete—not the other way around."

Ryuzaki bit at his thumbnail. This conversation is heading into dangerous waters. And we both hate to lose…

Ryuzaki met Light's gaze. "But I didn't think we were having a discussion about philosophy, Light-kun," Ryuzaki said pointedly.

"No, we have indeed digressed from the point again," Light agreed.

Yeah, we should really let the philosophical discussions lie, Light thought. There would be no end to them.

For us, the only productive topic of conversation…

There really is nothing we can do but try to solve the Kira case—even if it leads to our death.

There's nothing else.

Light mentally latched onto the case like it was the only thing holding him tethered to sanity.

The thought, Is that what it's like to be L? flashed briefly through his mind before he banished it with a shake of his head.

"What did you do after the cameras and wire-taps were removed?" he queried Ryuzaki. "What were your thoughts at that point in the case?"

Ryuzaki didn't realize he'd been tense until he felt himself relax.

Focusing on a case was comfortable waters—maybe the only comfortable waters (and the only safe ones).

Ryuzaki looked over at the barred door of the cell, but wasn't really looking at it. "I still thought you had to be Kira, Light-kun," he answered easily. "Given all of the facts, Kira had to be someone from either the Yagami or the Kitamura families.

"And yet criminals had still been dying, and no suspicious behavior was observed. Even if Kira could kill someone with just a thought, any normal person would have shown some kind of reaction while killing. For them not to, their psyche must have reached the divine level."

Ryuzaki shifted his gaze from the cell door back to Light. "It almost made me want to believe that criminals really were dying from some kind of divine judgment," he admitted, "except that there was no way God would need a face and a name to kill. Additionally, while Lind L. Taylor was indeed a criminal, the FBI agents did nothing to deserve being killed."

"Unless it was a sin to question divine will," Light said, tone light and airy, clearly making the suggestion without really meaning it.

I had that thought, too, Ryuzaki recalled. But we now can determine for sure that's not the case, because we know that one of us is Kira, and we know that either you killed the FBI agents to keep from getting investigated in that way again or that I killed the FBI agents as a way to narrow the case down and frame you—so even if Kira's psyche had reached the divine level, the FBI agents weren't killed for questioning divine will, because if that were the case then the police, who decided not to work with Kira, would have been killed as well.

And Light Yagami knows this, too.

Light was smiling at Ryuzaki with dark humor. "Isn't the sin of questioning divine will the reason for many religious persecutions and genocides?"

Ryuzaki looked at Light flatly. "Light-kun," he said warningly.

We both know that doesn't apply here.

Light shrugged. "Just playing the Devil's advocate," he said lightly. "We can't say for sure that the FBI agents 'did nothing to deserve being killed'."

If you'd simply said that the FBI agents 'were not criminals,' Ryuzaki, I wouldn't have felt the need to argue against your reasoning.

It's the principle of the thing.

Or maybe I'm just feeling contentious.

It's true thought that that kind of behavior isn't going to help us any here. I should be more cooperative.

"You're right, though, Ryuzaki," Light admitted: "For God to need someone's face and name in order to kill is ridiculous."

Light paused, clearly thinking; Ryuzaki watched him, waiting.

"Or at least," Light said after a moment of considering what it would make sense for a God to need in order to kill someone, "it would be ridiculous for God to not know someone's name and face just by looking at them."

Ryuzaki stared at him, thumb between his lips and teeth biting at the edge of his nail. "Knowing someone's name just by looking at someone's face?" he inferred.

Like the Second Kira, Ryuzaki realized.

Light looked at him. "Like the Second Kira," he agreed.

Ryuzaki felt a wry smile tweak his lips. "That would make Misa God, then, wouldn't it?" he pointed out.

"No," Light shook his head. "If that Misa were a god, she would have simply made me fall in love with her. A god would be able to do that, would they not?"

"Not necessarily," Ryuzaki said. "There are many different religions, after all."

You can't prove whether God or gods exist or not, but at the very least—

"You'd think," Ryuzaki said, "that if there were really one God, then there would only be one religion, because God would simply make everyone believe in them."

The fact that isn't the case means that if any gods do exist, then there's more than one of them. Ryuzaki bit down on his thumbnail.

...This conversation, Ryuzaki realized, is ridiculous.

"But what about Death Gods?" Light said, looking at Ryuzaki knowingly.

Both Kira and the Second Kira mentioned Shinigami. If that actually means more than just the god-like power to kill others…?

"A god doesn't have to a single Christian God," Light pointed out. "Basically all ancient cultures were polytheistic and revered many gods. And those gods were all just as flawed as humans. A god doesn't have to be absolute, all-powerful or perfect. A god only has to have a power greater than that of humans and to be on a higher level in some way."

Ryuzaki was looking at him, and Light smiled ruefully. "And what is a Shinigami but a supernatural being that invites humans towards death? Is that not what Kira is?"

I can't even believe I'm making these suggestions, Light thought distantly.

Actually, I'm not even sure what I'm saying anymore. What, the Kiras are Shinigami? Or that even if it was Kira and the Second Kira doing the killings—Misa and me, or Misa and Ryuzaki—Shinigami also exist? What am I saying?

"Of course, Misa having this Shinigami power and falling in love with me doesn't mean that I did, too," Light found himself continuing. "After all, gods can fall in love with humans—that happens all the time in myths." He paused.

Wait, talking about Misa as the Second Kira being some kind of death god and falling in love with me, when I wasn't Kira and was just plain boring Light Yagami?

Light let out a brief, sardonic laugh. "It sure would rankle to be on a lower level than someone like her," he said, looking over to meet Ryuzaki's gaze.

I feel like my head is full of scintillating fog. I don't even know what's what anymore.

Light smiled at Ryuzaki. "Can be we just agree that I was the original Kira and a Shinigami?" he asked, and laughed in gallows humor. "I don't think I'd mind having that as my legacy."

Ryuzaki observed Light laughing and felt a strange clenching in his chest.

You really don't care anymore, do you, Light Yagami? he thought. He felt distanced from himself and the situation he found himself in.

Neither of us can really be trusted at this point, can we?

That's why it's so imperative that there's two of us; only one of us can be Kira, and whichever of us wasn't Kira can at least be trusted to do everything they can to unveil the truth, so only what we can agree on together can be trusted at all.

Ryuzaki found himself pointing out, "I'm afraid we can't just say that you were Kira, Light-kun. Not unless you're admitting to me that you are Kira and can carry out a murder right here in front of me. That would be the best way to prove that someone is Kira." Ryuzaki looked at Light and felt like a pumice stone floating on the ocean. "Can you do that for me, Light-kun?"

Light looked back at Ryuzaki and felt himself sinking. "No, I can't," he admitted.

If I actually could, though, would I actually do so?

Light smiled wryly. "Was wanting Kira to admit to being Kira to you and carry out a murder in front of you the reason you approached me at the university, then?"

I would never have done that, Light knew.

"It was," Ryuzaki admitted.

Or at least, it's the reasoning I remember using in deciding to approach you, Light Yagami, Ryuzaki thought. Not that that means anything, at this point… I actually doubt I could have manipulated you into showing me how you killed, anyway.

So was it delusional of me to think that I could, or was it a delusion that I ever thought that?

Either way, it seems that some kind of delusion is or was involved—I can't trust anything that I think any more than I can trust anything that Light Yagami says.

I'm not sure I have any kind of a sense of what's what anymore…

Light smiled at him, the expression just as satirical as Ryuzaki felt. "And how exactly did you expect to get me to admit to being Kira and carry out a murder in front of you after telling me that you were L?" Light inquired.

The answer was present and ready at hand in Ryuzaki's mind, as if it had always been there.

But I can't actually trust my reasoning, Ryuzaki reminded himself. The thought felt like slipping on ice and falling, falling, falling.

I've never encountered a case where I had to question or doubt my deductions and intuition… it's highly unpleasant. Getting distressed by this is making trying to solve the case exceedingly difficult.

Ryuzaki looked at Light and his mild, uncaring smile.

Maybe Light Yagami has hit on the right technique in stopping caring…

"I was going to get you show me that you were Kira by using the name 'Hideki Ryuuga', obviously," Ryuzaki said. He found that he was able to say that more confidently when he no longer cared whether it was actually true or not.

Ryuzaki held Light's uncaring gaze and feeling a lessening in the tightness of his stomach.

It seems that the only way to functionally work to solve the Kira case at this point is to stop caring which of us is actually Kira and which of us is right or wrong…

Rather than treating this like a real criminal case, it seems more functional to treat it like playing the board game 'Clue'.

"Kira needs a face and a name to kill, after all," Ryuzaki said, and now he was smiling slightly.

This could be fun, Light Yagami.

"But Hideki Ryuuga is not my real name," Ryuzaki said, "and you as Kira would of course know the idol who goes by that name, which means that if you could kill with a thought tried to kill me by using the name 'Hideki Ryuuga,' since you knew face of the idol by that name you theoretically would have ended up killing him instead, and I'd then have proof that you were indeed Kira."

Light smiled at him uncaringly. "You would have sacrificed a famous idol in order to prove that I was Kira, Ryuzaki?" he asked.

"Well, I didn't actually think you'd fall for it…" Ryuzaki admitted.

If you were Kira, you would never have actually done that, Ryuzaki thought. It was just a precaution, and to intentionally annoy and frustrate you…

Light smiled wanly. If I was Kira, I would never have done that, he knew. And you would have known that, Ryuzaki. So again, not killing Hideki Ryuuga would not have cleared me.

I'm damned simply by not doing anything. Light almost laughed again. The entire reasoning that I'm Kira relies completely on the fact that I didn't fall for any of the traps you set for Kira to expose himself, Ryuzaki—I'm suspected guilty through my proven innocence.

Is this not absurd? Whether I'm guilty or innocent, it's exactly the same.

And if that's the case, I'd much rather actually have been Kira and actually have gotten through it appearing innocent despite being guilty, than to have gone through it appearing guilty in Ryuzaki's traps because I actually am innocent.

And yet at this point, it really doesn't matter either way.

No matter how many times I have these thoughts, it's not going to change the way things are or the way they'll end up, whatever the truth is.

Is this what you would call 'learned helplessness'?

Light smiled at Ryuzaki, feeling empty. "Then what were you actually planning to do in approaching me, Ryuzaki?" he asked. "If you didn't expect that I would actually kill someone in front of you and show you how I killed."

Ryuzaki looked at him. "I was hoping that by approaching you I'd put enough pressure on you that you would panic and begin acting without thinking, eventually making a mistake that would give you away," Ryuzaki said, studying him. "But you have a very good poker face, Light-kun."

Light smiled blandly. "What do you mean?"

"When I told you I was L, Light-kun," Ryuzaki said. "You had a very good poke face; your only outward reaction was an almost imperceptible widening of your eyes." Ryuzaki looked at Light and smiled slightly. "If you weren't Kira, why would you have needed to hide your shock in such a way?"

If I treat this is a game, this is fun.

Light looked at him and laughed incredulously. "Are you kidding me, Ryuzaki?" he asked, shaking his head with a disbelieving grin. "You told me that you were L as we were walking down from the stage. Everyone in the auditorium was watching us. You really expect me to make a scene in a place like that?" Indignantly, Light said, "If standing as a Freshman representative in front of all your peers isn't a situation in which you'd want to play it as cool as possible, what is?"

"That's a fair point," Ryuzaki conceded.

Light looked at Ryuzaki flatly. "Not everyone is as oblivious to social expectations as you are, Ryuzaki," he said.

"Also a fair point," Ryuzaki conceded, lips curving behind his thumb.

I'm sure you know there was more to it than that though, Light Yagami.

Light looked at Ryuzaki smirking and fought the urge to roll his eyes. "You can't make me believe that you actually told me that as we were walking down form the stage without an awareness of that fact that we were in front of all those people, Ryuzaki," he stated. "Even if you wore a plain shirt and jeans to the ceremony, you can't be that oblivious that you would think telling me you were L in that moment would cause me to make a scene."

"I thought it would catch you off-guard," Ryuzaki said, holding his gaze. "But your self-control was just as good as I expected."

Light closed his eyes, exhaled. "So what you were actually trying to determine is whether I'd be able to murder people without showing it on my face?" he surmmised. He opened his eyes and met Ryuzaki's dark gaze. "If I were capable of being Kira without giving it away?"

Ryuzaki's thumb brushed over his curved lips. "As astute as ever," he commended.

Light closed his eyes to keep from rolling them like his sister would have. "As if either of us are surprised by that at this point, Ryuzaki," he said. He opened his eyes again and let his gaze fall the bars of his cell, giving a shrug. "You did catch me off-guard, though. Until you told me that you suspected me of being Kira, I was trying to figure out why L—or at least, someone who claimed to be L—would introduce himself to Soichiro Yagami's son."

"You really couldn't figure that out?" Ryuzaki asked.

"Why would I have any idea that you would suspect me of being Kira?" Light countered, shaking his head.

If I was Kira, then yeah, I no doubt would have figured it out immediately. But you forget that I have no memories of being Kira, so me being a suspect would never have occurred to me.

"You told me then that you told me who you were because you thought I could help you solve the Kira case, Ryuzaki," Light pointed out.

Light looked over at Ryuzaki again. "I thought you must've realized that I'd been researching the case as well. I still wasn't sure why you'd ask me, but it occurred to me that after most of the police officers dropped out of working on the Kira case with you and you were down to only my father and a few others—"

"You knew about that?" Ryuzaki interjected, thumb skewing his lip as he stared at Light.

Light regarded him flatly. "I had access to all the police files, remember? Of course I knew when the police stopped working with you. My dad had said that many of the other officers were dropping out of the case due to fearing for their lives, but that he was going to see the case through to the end—and I knew he would; that's just the kind of person he is. Still, for a time new data on the case was still being entered into the police database, but at a certain point that all but stopped…"

Ryuzaki was watching him, and Light looked back at him evenly.

He's trying to unnerve me, Light thought. But I have nothing to hide.

Think that I'm Kira all you want, Ryuzaki, but it can't be proved—as much as events might make sense in the circumstance that I was Kira, they also make sense with me not being Kira.

"I had also made the conclusion that Kira must have also had access to police files and was possibly in the police force," Light explained. "Since you're L and are the sole person with the ability to mobilize police in every country worldwide, I surmised that the FBI agents who'd been killed by Kira must've been called in by you, and that you must've had them investigating members of the police, since that was as far down as Kira suspects could be narrowed.

"I of course didn't and couldn't know how many members of the police were investigated by the FBI before Kira killed them, but I figured that you would certainly have put emphasis on those individuals who stayed on the task force to work with you in order to make sure that they weren't Kira and weren't connected to Kira, as they would have been the in positions that posed the most danger to you; therefore I assumed you'd found out about me when investigating Soichiro."

Light looked at Ryuzaki pointedly. "It wouldn't have been the least bit difficult for you to see my test scores and discover the fact that I'd assisted the police in two previous cases."

Light looked away and rolled his shoulders, saying lightly, "Of course, I didn't have any influence in the police, and I didn't think you were that desperate for members that you would go to all the effort of approaching me yourself. I couldn't figure out why, if you wanted my help, you wouldn't just have asked my dad to ask me, seeing as you were already working with him, and in order to ask me yourself you were not only endangering yourself by showing your face in public, but you'd gone even through all the effort of getting To-Oh university." Light shook his head. "It didn't make any sense.

"But," Light glanced over at Ryuzaki again, "since I myself had concluded that Kira was an affluent youth, I concluded that perhaps you might want my help investigating other students in a natural manner, while we were taking classes and pretending to be normal college students."

Light smiled wryly. "And then when you next approached me, you didn't even mention anything about Kira or me joining the task force; you simply asked me to play tennis." Light laughed. "During that entire game I was trying to figure out why you wanted to play tennis with me, Ryuzaki—I finally concluded that it was because neither of us had brought up the Kira case, since it would be weird to have done so when we didn't even know each other, so the tennis game just a pretext for us to say 'Now we're friends' so that we could then talk about the Kira case.

"Of course, I planned to ask you to take me to the task force headquarters and have my father confirm that you were L, because I couldn't just take your word for it and start discussing the Kira case with you without any proof—What if you were Kira, and were trying to use me in order to get to L through my father?"

Ryuzaki's thumb brushed over his lip. "If Kira had been someone aside from one of us," he said, "that would indeed have been a clever move on their part."

"Except that I would have figured them out," Light pointed out.

"That's true," Ryuzaki smiled behind his thumb. "In that case, it would have been a stupid move on their part."

What are you playing at, Ryuzaki? Light thought, narrowing his eyes. It's like you're messing with me just for fun…

Well, whether I was Kira or you were Kira, I suppose you've been messing with me the entire time.

L only takes on cases that interest him—you're only in this for the thrill, aren't you, Ryuzaki? Whether you're Kira or not, this is all just a game to you…

You seem to be holding up better than I am, though; maybe I should stop caring so much about what the repercussions of the case will be and treat it like a game, too.

"In any case," Light decided to continue, smiling genially, "you saying that you suspected me of being Kira really surprised me, Ryuzaki." He laughed brightly. "Why would I be suspected of being Kira? I'm a model student and member of society."

Light looked at Ryuzaki, smiling. "Of course, at the time I didn't know anything about who the FBI agents had been investigating or any of those details not entered into the police database, so I did not perceive myself to be the least bit suspected."

Light's smile faded and he took on a more serious expression. "That accusation did, however, make me think that you were probably more likely to be L than Kira, Ryuzaki," he said. "I mean, if Kira wanted to get close to L through me and my father, why would he tell me that I was suspected of being Kira?" Light shook his head. "Unless he was planning on having me—in attempting to prove my own innocence—reveal details about the Kira case.

"But since I wasn't on the task force and only had access to the police database—which would have been the same for Kira himself—that didn't really make any sense; not unless he suspected that, due to my history of having helped the police solve difficult cases in the past before, my father was sharing details of the Kira case with me." Light's lips twitched. "In that case, though, he would've been truly misjudging the kind of man my father is."

Light's moved back to the middle distance between the bars of his cell. "Your accusation that I was Kira made me even more wary of you, Ryuzaki," he admitted. "If you were L and truly suspected me of being Kira, I couldn't ask you to take me to the task force headquarters, since that would seem like I was trying to get in in order to kill all of you—and if you were Kira, you wouldn't have been able to take me to the task force headquarters, and you would have used suspecting me as Kira as an excuse for not doing so."

Light glanced back over at Ryuzak and smiled wryly. "That tennis match really increased our notoriety around campus, though," he remarked. "Whether you were L or Kira, that kind of popularity can be a good cover; on top of that, it would give us even more reason to hang out together and for no one to find that suspicious."

This really is more fun when I think of it as a game and consider explaining my viewpoint as just messing with him, Light thought.

"And whether you were L or Kira," he continued to Ryuzaki, "it only made sense to play along with you saying that you were L and that I was suspected of being Kira, so as not to raise your suspicion that I doubted you and suspected you of being Kira—and if I were Kira being approached by someone who claimed to be L, I of course wouldn't be wondering whether that person was actually Kira, but whether that person was actually the real L or a fake sent by L."

Light smiled. "Since I wasn't Kira and didn't understand why I was supposed to be suspected of being Kira, I thought it was an extremely low chance that you'd be a fake L sent by the real L; you were clearly on my level of intelligence, and as thus, you would have had to be not a subordinate but the real L—or the real Kira.

"But if you were Kira, then I couldn't let on that I suspected that, because then you'd find a way to kill me—but if you were L, then you were falsely suspecting me of being Kira, which meant that the real Kira was winning, and I didn't want to say anything that would deepen your false suspicion of me, because if you were focused on me then you wouldn't be getting closer to the real Kira."

Light's smile twisted wryly. "In either case, though, while you'd be trying to trick information out of me, I thought I might be able to trick information out of you in return: like the fact that Kira needed not just a face but also a name to kill…"

Light looked at Ryuzaki, admitting, "Whether you were L or Kira, it surprised me that you just told me I was right like that, though I maybe played it up to try to not seem suspicious of you.

"When you pulled out the list of the names of the FBI agents and the time they received the file—which I obviously hadn't seen before since it hadn't been entered in the police database—I thought that, if you were Kira then you were trying to see how much information from the task force I had, while if you were L then you really were trying to see if I knew information that only Kira could know.

"Then the photographs of the notes from Kira…" Light held Ryuzaki's gaze. "Those had been entered into the police database, so of course I'd already seen them and found the message to L in them. But I of course didn't want either L or Kira to know that—L because he'd falsely suspect me even more; Kira because he'd think he could get to more police information through me and use me in some way, and I didn't want Kira to control me in such a way as to get that information out of me and then kill me."

Light looked away, rolling back his shoulders. "Of course, if you were indeed L," he said, "then I did want to assist you on the case—so I did need to demonstrate some deductive ability. And I figured that even if you were Kira, demonstrating deductive ability wouldn't be inherently dangerous—only demonstrating that I had more access to information on the case than the general public."

Ryuzaki looked up at the ceiling. During all our interactions, I only remember thinking about how you'd react if you were Kira, Light Yagami… I really didn't think of where you would have been coming from if you weren't Kira…

Even at the hospital after visiting your father, you were the one who had to remind me that it would feel awful to be accused of being Kira, Light Yagami. I simply hadn't thought of it, since even if I said my suspicion was only at one percent, I already felt that it had to be you…

But if you actually weren't Kira…

"You must have been very stressed," Ryuzaki realized, "trying to negotiate an interaction where you were either dealing with Kira or someone who suspected you of being Kira." Ryuzaki tilted his head to look back over at Light. "You held up incredibly well, all that considering."

Light smiled at him dryly. "It's not like I wouldn't have been in any less of a stressful situation there if I had indeed been Kira being questioned by L," Light pointed out.

Ryuzaki skewed his lips to the side with his thumb. "And yet if you weren't Kira, you still had to think of what you as Kira would have done in that situation, too, since that was what I was asking you to do."

"Yes, in order to play along," Light agreed. He gave a small shrug. "But I knew I couldn't actually reveal any information that only Kira knew, at least—I only had to not let on that I could hack into the police database." Light's lips quirked, derisive. "The print numbers on the backs of those photos was a simple trick."

"Yes, you didn't fall for that," Ryuzaki acknowledged. He regarded Light, adding, "But the fact that you already knew about the three photos from of Kira's messages from the police database was why you didn't come up with the idea that there could be a fourth."

Light's smile was conceding. "Yes, I suppose so," he said. "But honestly, Ryuzaki," Light exhaled, shaking his head, "what kind of a trick was that? Anyone that someone calling themselves L gave those photos to would assume that L had given them the full information—Why would anyone think that L was keeping some of the evidence from them?"

Well, that's fair I suppose, Ryuzaki thought.

"But if you were Kira," he said to Light, "then you would have known that there was no fourth note, so you would have likely gotten pissed off about the fake note."

Light looked at him flatly. "Ryuzaki," Light said, "who wouldn't be annoyed if you told them you'd withheld information from them? Of course, I did actually know that there was no fourth note—and I knew the order that the photos had been written by criminals because of the dates they'd been entered into the database—but I didn't write those notes, so it's not like I would have any reason to insist on my interpretation of them."

Well, it did still piss me off that you were making it so blatant that you were trying to prove that I knew more information than I should, and that you would have used that to support your accusation that I was Kira.

Light shrugged it off, smiling slightly at Ryuzaki. He continued, "When you said I was brilliant, that you therefore wanted my help on the investigation, that your suspicion of me being Kira had increased, and that you weren't the only one going around as L—if you were Kira, I figured that was a good defense to keep me from telling my father about you and making it so I wouldn't be suspicious if someone else came up to me saying that they were L, who might to actually be the real L; and if you were L and truly suspected me of being Kira, then that was of course a way to keep me from killing you.

"Of course," Light said, looking away and shaking his head slightly, "since I'm not Kira and it was seeming more and more unlikely to me that the real L would actually suspect an innocent person of being Kira, I was concluding that you were more likely to be Kira—and I was getting real sick and tired of being jerked around under false accusations; and I figured Kira couldn't honestly expect me to work with him just because he said he was L, if he couldn't actually prove that he was L."

"Didn't you think that would've pissed Kira off?" Ryuzaki asked.

Even if these memories of Light Yagami's are fake, Ryuzaki thought, they're fascinating to hear; I hadn't thought about the case from this angle before, and Light Yagami really does think in the same way as me—and the fact that his memory of events make just as much sense as my own…

It really is like a game of Clue, where we're both trying to identify the murderer among us without either or us having any idea whether it's us or not.

Light shook his head. "No, I wasn't worried Kira killing me out of anger; if Kira was the kind of person who killed anyone who angered him, he would've been caught already by that point."

Well, that's true, Ryuzaki thought.

Light continued shruggingly, "I figured if I didn't get entangled in his web, Kira wouldn't have any reason to use and kill me. And besides, if I didn't insist for proof, it would have made him suspicious, because asking for proof that someone who claims to be L is actually L is what anyone with any intelligence would do. If I went along with him without proof, he'd no doubt figure out that I suspected him."

Light smiled humorlessly and looked back over at Ryuzaki. "And then I got the call that my father had a heart attack, which is what made me think that you really weren't Kira: one, because you got a call about it even before I did, which meant you'd gotten a call from someone working with my dad—which you of course wouldn't have if you were Kira—and two, because you seemed honestly surprised and shocked by the news, and you even came with me to the hospital to see my father, which you definitely wouldn't have done if you were Kira, because I could assume that if you were actually Kira then my father would have known that you weren't L, because if that weren't the case and you were actually Kira trying to get to L through the investigative team, then you would have gone straight to my father instead of to me."

Light's smile took on a slight trace of wry humor. "So by the time we were at the hospital I was basically convinced that you were L, and then my father confirmed it; so that was the end of my suspicion that you were Kira."

Light's smile became even more wry and he looked down at the floor of the cell between his knees. "Of course, that was all under the assumption that you were either L or Kira—I hadn't thought of you being both, at that point." He looked at Ryuzaki out of the corner of his eyes and through his bangs that had fallen over his face. "If you were, though…"

"Yes," Ryuzaki agreed easily, "if I were both L and Kira, then I would've known that you had access to the police database and I would've carried out that questioning in order to see if you'd reveal that and make yourself more suspicious—and also just to mess with you and further set the stage for framing you."

Ryuzaki tilted his head, thumb pressing to his lips. "I guess the interesting thing about if I was both L and Kira," he said consideringly, "is that I would not have had anything to be afraid of from those bold actions—revealing my face and identity as L to you, getting a reputation on campus, questioning you… there would have been no risk of death for me in that."

Ryuzaki stopped skewing his lip and lowered his arms back around his legs so his cuffed hands were resting over his ankles. "If you think about it like that, my actions would be much more in line with my character if I were indeed Kira," he said. "As L, I've always solved cases from behind the scenes—I've never once put myself in any direct danger."

Ryuzaki looked down at the cotton sheet of the cot creased beneath his toes. "I'm not the kind of person who is thrilled by near-death experiences; I just like solving riddles, setting traps, seeing everything come together from safety behind the scenes—I admit that." Ryuzaki glanced over at Light, unblinking. "And if I were indeed Kira, then that fits exactly to my character."

Light looked back at Ryuzaki easily. "That may be true," Light acknowledged, "but if I was Kira, then I would have been taking a great many risks—which fits exactly to my character, because taking those risks for something I wanted to achieve is exactly the kind of thing that I would do." Light smiled ironically. "So whichever of us was Kira, we were exactly the kind of Kira that fits to our characters."

This is becoming kind of amusing, at this point, Light thought. There really is no way to prove anything; it's practically the same thing as having a theoretical conversation about what you'd do if you had super powers, like those inane conversations middle schoolers have.

The only difference here is that we have to consolidate the theory of having supernatural killing powers with our memories—instead of considering what we would do if we fantastically ended up with such a power which we knew didn't actually exist, we're considering what we would have done if we'd actually had a power which we know existed.

Light gave something between a scoff and a laugh. If this can actually be considered working on the case, at this point? Or is this really nothing more than a way of killing the time?

Well, I suppose something might still come of it…

Ryuzaki was looking at the cement floor of his cell between the cot and the barred door, mulling. If I was Kira, but just don't remember it… then all these memories that I have…

"What strikes me looking back at my memories of this case," Ryuzaki said aloud, "is how much risk I've taken and how terrified I've been… I've felt alive, in a way I never have before." His fingers clenched around his ankles. "If all of that fear for my life was a lie created by fake memories? I think I'd feel a little put-out. It hasn't at all been pleasant, but…"

I'd still feel cheated.

And the ironic thing is that I would have been cheated by no one other than myself, since if I were Kira then I would have willingly given up my memories, knowing that this would happen.

Watari has always said that I'm my own worst enemy…

Though if Light Yagami really is Kira, and he willingly gave up his memories knowing that this would happen, he's truly succeeded in confounding me. No one else has ever gotten me to doubt myself like this.

If I think of it like a game, though…

Ryuzaki glanced up at the ceiling for a moment, then looked back over at Light. "Well, let me at least explain to you what I remember, Light-kun," he said, "though I'm sure you already figured out most of this yourself."

Light glanced over at him, and Ryuzaki held his gaze easily.

"Another member of the task force was indeed playing L in interacting with Kitamura's daughter, because I could not rule her out," Ryuzaki delineated. "But I was the most suspicious of you, and I knew that if anyone was to approach you as L, it would have to be me; with your intellect, you would have undoubtedly figured it out if a fake came to you as L.

"The intention in coming out to you as L was indeed to put pressure on you if you were Kira—and because I believed you could not kill me without my name, which would have been impossible for you to find out. As you already concluded, Light-kun, I indeed took the entrance exam to get into To-Oh university in order to get your attention and to create a situation in which we could interact naturally, and the tennis game was indeed mostly a pretext for allowing us to interact as friends."

"Mostly?" Light asked.

Ryuzaki's lips curved slightly. "It was also a character profile, since Kira likes to win and hates to lose…" he said.

Light looked at him flatly. "Ryuzaki."

Ryuzaki gave a small shrug of his shoulders. "That profile admittedly couldn't actually raise the percentage of your likelihood to be Kira, since most people would want to win a tennis game," he admitted.

"Everyone would want to win a tennis game they were playing, Ryuzaki," Light said, spreading his hands as far as the cuffs connecting his wrists would allow. "Thus, only if I had lost on purpose in order to try to not seem like Kira would that have raised the likelihood of me being Kira—if I wasn't Kira, I would have had absolutely no reason to intentionally forfeit the game."

"Correct," Ryuzaki said.

Light's eyes narrowed at him. "Of course, if I were Kira," Light said, "I would surely have realized that." He snorted slightly. "And I would have wanted to beat you at tennis, anyway."

"Also correct," Ryuzaki smiled.

Light glared at him in pique for a moment, but then looked away and sighed. "So like the tests at the cafe, you were essentially just testing to prove that if I were indeed Kira, I would not make any stupid mistakes," he deduced. "Someone who could get through the tennis game and those tests could be thought to also not have given themselves away during seven weeks of being video-taped and wire-tapped."

"As always, you're reasoning is incredibly fast and precise," Ryuzaki commended.

Light looked over at Ryuzaki, lowering his eyelids. "Yes," he said, "luckily for you there seems to be no chance of me proving myself too stupid to be Kira."

Well, that's true enough, Ryuzaki thought.

Although…

"When your father got a heart attack, I also thought that you might not be Kira," Ryuzaki admitted, looking at Light seriously. "Your shock was genuine, and your interactions with your father were too corny to be an act."

Light looked at him. "When I said that if anything happened to him, I would make sure that Kira got the death sentence?" Light guessed.

Ryuzaki held his gaze easily. "Yes."

"I meant it," Light said.

Ryuzaki just looked at him. "Do you still mean it?" Ryuzaki asked.

Light narrowed his eyes. "You can't doubt that I would make sure you got the death sentence, if it turns out that you're Kira," he said. "So you're asking if I would make sure that I myself got the death sentence, if it turns out that I'm Kira?"

"Yes," Ryuzaki said.

Light gave a wry laugh. "I'm doing everything I can to assist in our discovering the truth, am I not?" he pointed out, smiling sardonically. "I'm telling you everything I know and everything I'm done—including that I could hack my father's computer and get access to all the police information; I'm telling you all this knowing that it could help condemn me as Kira."

"But you didn't admit that until after it became a possibility that I, too, could be Kira," Ryuzaki pointed out, holding Light's gaze. "Since I also had access to the police database—and much other information besides—that was no longer a condemning fact; it was just a fact that brings us to the same level." Ryuzaki looked at Light, unblinking. "If you found actual, concrete proof that you were Kira, would you bring it out?"

Light stared phlegmatically back at him for a moment, and then closed his eyes. Would I, in that situation?

I don't want to die, but…

"...If it was something that I knew that you would find out eventually, then yes," Light decided finally.

I would never try to hide something that I didn't think I'd be able to get away with hiding.

Light opened his eyes and met Ryuaki's gaze again. "I would condemn myself before I let you be the one to condemn me," he said with certainty. "I going to win this competition to be the first to prove which one of us is Kira, even if it kills me."

He gave Ryuzaki a sly, conspiratorial smile. "Are not the same, Ryuzaki?"

Ryuzaki looked back at him, feeling again the uncanniness of seeing his reflection in a distorted mirror.

For someone who had spent all twenty-five years of his life feeling unalterably misunderstood, it was like being splashed with freezing cold water.

Ryuzaki found his voice unexplainably lowered as he admitted, "If I discovered something that condemned be as Kira and knew that you'd also discover it presently, then I, too, would prove my own guilt and sentence myself to death before letting you do so."

I want to solve this case far more than I want to stay alive, Ryuzaki knew. Solving cases is the only thing I live for…

I'd never let you beat me, Light Yagami. Not even if it kills me.

Light smiled at him knowingly. "I guess we're both avoiding asking the question of what we would do if we discovered something that condemned us as Kira but that we didn't think the other would be able to find out," Light remarked. His eyes glinted. "If we would actually let that condemning fact lie in order to stay alive."

"I find that situation hard to believe," Ryuzaki said. He skewed his lips with his thumb, holding Light's gaze. "No secret can stay buried forever; the truth will be found out, eventually."

Light smiled sardonically. "Unless we manage to kill the other, first."

"But then it would be obvious that the one alive is Kira," Ryuzaki pointed out.

Light grinned wryly. "Here's an idea," he said. "What if one of us, upon realizing that we're Kira, uses the killing power to kill ourselves, so that the other one of us is seemingly proven as Kira?"

Ryuzaki's thumb moved fully over his lips so that they returned to an un-skewed position. "Would Kira actually kill themselves like that?"

"If you were going to be killed anyway, why not kill yourself and take down your enemy with you?" Light pointed out, giving an airy shrug. "Only you lose, or you make sure everyone loses? That doesn't seem like much of a decision to me."

"Kira is childish and hates to lose," Ryuzaki agreed.

I'd certainly still openly convict myself of being Kira before killing myself in order to make you seem like Kira, Light Yagami, Ryuzaki thought. And I'm guessing you're the same.

"Right?" Light said, and laughed.

Of course, Light thought, neither of us would actually do that, since we'd want to be there to witness it when we rubbed our victory in the other's face; and no matter which one of us is Kira, we'd definitely want to take credit for it rather than passing it off on the other and making ourselves out to be the victim.

We both want to win—and the one who wins here is neither the one who lives nor the one who gets the other killed, but the one who ends up being right and proves their superiority of the other intellectually.

Ryuzaki looked up at the ceiling. "But by saying all of this aloud, we're essentially protecting against it happening," he pointed out. "Everything condemnation we conjecture is also a protection."

Now, even if one of us were to die, Ryuzaki thought, we couldn't say that it obviously meant the other was Kira…

He looked over at Light, meeting his gaze. "By the end of this, no matter which one of us is Kira… neither of us are getting out, are we?"

Light shrugged blithely. "If you can't climb out of the grave, you might as well dig it deeper," he said, and smiled at Ryuzaki. "Maybe you'll come out on the other side of the Earth."

You're really quite the positive thinker, Light Yagami, Ryuzaki thought. Because on the other hand—

"Even if you came out on the other side of the Earth," Ryuzaki pointed out, "you'd probably drown, since the ocean covers 71 percent of the earth's surface."

Light closed his eyes and let out an extended exhale through his nose. Always so negative, Ryuzaki.

Or else you were just taking the metaphor literally and messing with me.

"Ryuzaki," Light stated, "if we're being literal rather than figurative, then you'd be crushed by the water pressure before you'd drown—and you'd be killed by the heated magma of the earth's mantle long before you got to the other side."

Well, Ryuzaki thought, I only meant it somewhat literally…

Ryuzaki brushed his thumb along his lip. "I see we've digressed again," he observed.

If we continue with that kind of conversation, Ryuzaki knew, it'll just be useless.

Light exhaled again. Obvious, much? he thought, opening his eyes and looking out past the bars of his cell. Though of course, pointing out the obvious is what allows us to address it and pull ourselves back to the point without digressing further; if you let the obvious lie, it just turns into a problem that will exacerbate itself.

Still—

"Could anyone blame us for digressing?" Light pointed out, gesturing as much as his handcuffs would allow. "We're stuck in prison with nothing to kill the time with except for talk. We can afford a few digressions."

"True," Ryuzaki agreed.

Digressions are natural, and we're both frustrated and bored being locked up here, Ryuzaki thought; which is exactly why we need to keep directing ourselves back towards a clear goal so we don't lose our minds here.

Ryuzaki continued, "Reeling back in from our digressions, though, we were talking about Yagami-san's heart attack—which turned out to have not been an attack by Kira, and so both of our shock at the news was completely genuine, even for the one of us who was Kira; to exclaim 'Kira!' at the news would of course be the obviously natural cover, since Kira kills with heart attacks.

"In any case," Ryuzaki glanced over at Light, "we fortunately don't have to try to determine whether I'd be more likely to kill off a member of the task force or if you'd be more likely to kill off your father."

The corner of Light's lips curled mirthlessly. "Yes," he said, "that's a debate we can count ourselves fortunate to be able to skip out on."

Ryuzaki's slipped his arms down around his legs and wrapped his fingers around his ankles through the fabric of his baggy pants. "Independent of the fact that Yagami-san's heart attack clearly wasn't a murder attempt by Kira, your interaction with your father made me think you might not be Kira, Light-kun," Ryuzaki said.

Light glanced over at him, but Ryuzaki was looking down at the floor as he spoke. "Not only did you fervently swear to him to make sure Kira received the death sentence," he continued, "your profile of Kira being an affluent child matched mine perfectly—aside from your description of Kira as having a 'purity' to him.

"That part made me think that you might actually still indeed be Kira. 'Pure' is something Kira would think of himself—not something someone else would think of Kira; or at least, certainly not something someone would admit out loud to thinking, in any case, since it could make you sound too much like a Kira supporter."

"I don't agree with that, Ryuzaki," Light said. He looked at Ryuzaki, who wasn't looking back at him. "While I don't necessarily agree with Kira's actions—at least not all of them, but we've already discussed how similar Kira's ideals are to my own—I have still always believed Kira's intentions were pure.

"But by 'pure' I mean that Kira truly seemed to believe he was making the world a better place, rather than garnering money, power or fame. None of it was to his own personal benefit; he seemed to be doing it purely for what he believed to be the benefit of humanity.

"'Pure' does not necessarily mean 'good,' Ryuzaki. 'Pure' means 'without adulteration; untainted'—which, in Kira's case, I mean as in 'without ulterior motives driven by selfishness or greed'."

Ryuzaki finally glanced over to meet Light's gaze. "I suppose the interesting thing in this instance," Ryuzaki said, "is that you felt that Kira was pure, while I did not—and if you were Kira, you would indeed be killing out of the pure intention of making the world a better place, whilst if I were Kira, I would be killing in order to frame you and ease my boredom, which would have been a selfish motive."

Ryuzaki moved his arms back up over his from around his legs and brushed his thumb over his curving lips. "Ironically, rather than profiling the kind of Kira the other would be, we both profiled the kind of Kira that we ourselves would be."

Light blinked at him, then looked away. "That makes sense, when you think about it," Light said after a moment. "Being able to figure out someone's thinking requires empathy, which requires putting yourself in the other's place; it's only natural we would both identify closer to what our own values as Kira would be."

Ryuzaki moved his thumb thoughtfully over his lips, which were no longer curved in a half-smile. "And yet, if we go the other way, those values are switched," Ryuzaki said. "Because if I were not Kira, then my intentions in hunting down Kira were purely to catch him in order to solve the mystery and bring Kira to justice, whilst your intention was to win esteem by beating the renowned detective L in doing so."

Light laughed. "Haha, that's true," he admitted. "So the more pure scenario—which would paint us both as better and more selfless people—would be if I were Kira and you were not; while if you were Kira, then we're both selfish and despicable."

Light looked over at Ryuzaki and smiled sardonically. "Should we just execute me for being Kira and be done with it?"

Ryuzaki looked back at him expressionlessly. "You know we can't do that, Light-kun."

Ryuzaki tilted his head slightly, but his expression didn't change. "I did also note, though," he broached, "that Yagami-san was vehement that Sayu could not be Kira, while he did not express the same for you."

Yeah, I noticed that too, Light thought, and smiled wryly.

"Well, Sayu is indeed the kind of person who would kill someone she didn't like and then cry her head off about it," he said with a shrug, "and I am indeed the kind of person who would use such a killing power to eliminate criminals with the broader goal of making the world a more safer place full of kind-hearted people. It's only natural that a father would know his own children in that way."

"It didn't bother you, Light-kun?" Ryuzaki asked, looking at him.

Light shook his head. Not really, no.

"I would have found it far more insulting if he'd insisted that I was also the kind of person who would kill someone I didn't like and then cry about it," Light said with a dry smile. "The fact is that if I ever did receive such a killing power, I would have used it exactly as Kira was; I can't find any fault with my dad for understanding that on some level as well. My similarity to Kira was something I'd already accepted within myself."

Light gave an airy shrug. "Of course," he added, "the other fact is that, as far as I know, I never received such an ability." He looked over at Ryuzaki with a small smile. "Do you not feel the same, Ryuzaki?"

Remember, you don't actually want me to be the prime suspect here, Ryuzaki; this is an intellectual tennis match, where we want to keep hitting the ball of suspicion moving continually between our courts so that our spectators won't be able to form any bets about which court it'll end up hit out on.

In a way, just like sports, this is both a game and a performance for an audience.

Ryuzaki placed his hands over his knees and leaned his head down so his cheek resting against his fingers. "Do I feel the same about my relation to Kira?" he said. "Yes and no—if I did receive such a killing power, I would also have used it to frame someone else and tried to create history's most elaborate and devastating murder case, and yet I also, as far as I know, never received such a power; I also have no memories of realizing or accepting any similarity between myself and Kira aside from our intellects, though; but since if I was indeed Kira, I would have based Kira's values on yours rather than on my own, that's a moot point."

"Then we both have the potential to be terrible murderers and the cause of single-handed mass genocide," Light stated, and smiled ironically. "If we were to determine Kira based on the potential to be Kira, we'd both have to be killed."

You're good at this, Light Yagami, Ryuzaki thought. This conversation isn't just for us, but also for the task force members who have to be watching this, as they are going to have to work with us both on this case us being the prime suspects and their opinions will have a say in deciding the fate of Kira once we figure out which of us it is.

And if they happened to decide that Kira is a great enough evil that it would be best to just execute the both of us to be safe, that would be obviously be in neither of our interests.

Still leaning his cheek on his fingers, his face not able to be seen by the camera in the corner of his cell, Ryuzaki pointed out, "But if we were both killed, Light-kun, then who would be there to solve the terrible murder mysteries in the future?"

Well, there's the orphans at Wammy's House, Ryuzaki knew, but only Watari knows about that…

Light closed his eyes and looked down slightly so that his hair obscured his face. As expected of you, Ryuzaki.

Well, not that you have much choice—neither of us do. We have to team up and work together on this as accomplices, or we're both screwed instead of just one of us.

Ryuzaki was close enough to see the small quirk of Light's lips, but the cameras probably didn't catch it.

Since one of us is Kira but we don't know which of us it is, we're essentially allies and on the same side, Ryuzaki thought, since at this moment in time neither of us are Kira, we're both trying to catch Kira, and we both have to defend ourselves against being singled out by the others.

Light spoke up, "Yeah, it doesn't make sense to kill L along with Kira," gesturing airily despite the handcuffs. "And really, almost anyone who received such a power is bound to become a murderer—even someone like Sayu." Light opened his eyes again. "If someone received the power to kill anyone in the world whose face and name they knew with merely a thought, who wouldn't use it at the very least once?"

Almost any human would be tempted to at least try it, Ryuzaki agreed. If there's anyone though who wouldn't…

Ryuzaki looked over at Light meaningfully. "Your father, perhaps."

Light laughed. "Haha yeah, probably. He's like the personification of justice."

Far more than you are, Ryuzaki; but you're fully aware of that.

Light looked down, sobering. "My father said that the real evil was the power to kill people itself," he said, more subdued, "and that whoever received such a power, no matter who they are, would be an extremely unfortunate person, in that the possessing of the power itself would cause them to become a murderer."

I don't think that I would consider myself unfortunate to have received Kira's power to kill, though, Light thought; and I doubt Ryuzaki would, either.

Ryuzaki watched him. I doubt you would have thought yourself unfortunate to receive such a power, Light Yagami; I can certainly say pretty safely that I wouldn't.

As Søren Kierkegaard pointed out, boredom may very well be the root of all evil…

Light looked back at Ryuzaki and smiled mirthlessly. "That would mean that if we were to execute everyone who would use such a power if they received it, we'd basically have to kill everyone, since every human has the potential to be a murderer in the right circumstances."

Ryuzaki lifted his head from his knee and brushed a thumb over his slightly curving lips. Well done, Light Yagami. You've now even further prevented the possibility that we could both be executed due to the fact that we are both fully capable of having been Kira, should anyone have come to the conclusion that since Kira is evil, one must be evil in order to have been Kira, and that since we're both must therefore be evil, we might as well both be executed.

Not that I think anyone on the task force would come to that as a decision—maybe as a passing thought—but it's still much better to preemptively defend against the possibility.

But if we're talking about every human having the potential to be a murderer in the rich circumstances, then Kira's goal of creating a world of good, kind-hearted people…

Ryuzaki looked over at Light meaningfully. "Hence Kira's method of preventing murders by murdering murderers, so that those who might otherwise commit crimes, in order to save their own lives, would refrain from doing so, and subsequently remain kinder in their actions?" he said.

Light glanced over at him, blinked and smiled slightly. Good call, Ryuzaki; since we're talking about everyone being capable of committing terrible crimes, and one of us was Kira, who killed people who committed terrible crimes, it only makes sense to clear up Kira's values and motive in regards to this.

"If we're talking about my own values as being Kira's—whether instigated by myself or by you—then yes," Light agreed, "that would be it exactly: every human is capable of evil, and therefore it would be necessary to force people to be good and kind to each other; and since what is enacted enough in actions—whether evils or kindnesses—will reflect into people's hearts, in being forced to be kind, people would end up becoming genuinely kinder."

"If that's the case, then the only horrible person left in the world would be Kira," Ryuzaki pointed out.

"Someone has to be the one to take responsibility and make the necessary sacrifices," Light shrugged. He smiled dryly. "That's the case for all great leaders in human history."

Ryuzaki looked down at the floor, brushing his thumb over his lip. "Then Kira really is more human than god," he said. He looked back up to meet Light's gaze. "Whether or not any exist, no god has ever taken responsibility for humanity."

"Yes," Light smiled, "I suppose Kira could be considered more of a heavenly sovereign than an actual god."

Perhaps a reason why, if you were Kira, Ryuzaki, you chose someone from Japan to frame for it? Light thought. I was wondering how, out of all the people in the world, you would have managed to narrow it down to me… but if you'd narrowed it down to someone from Japan first, and then—since you needed someone both young and intelligent—decided to use the student who scored highest in the international exams, then it makes complete sense.

Ryuzaki looked at Light, also thinking. Indeed, I also had the thought that Kira was acting as a kind of God Emperor, he mused. That's admittedly another reason why it seemed to make sense that Kira was in Japan.

In Japanese, the Emperor is called Tennō (天皇), which literally means "heavenly sovereign". The Imperial House of Japan is the oldest continuing monarchical house in the world; the historical origins of the emperors lie in the late Kofun period of the 3rd–6th centuries AD, but according to the traditional account of the Kojiki—finished 712—and Nihon Shoki—finished 720—Japan was founded in 660 BC by Emperor Jimmu, who launched a military expedition from Hyuga near the Seto Inland Sea, captured Yamato, and established this as his center of power. He's said to be a direct descendant of the sun-goddess Amaterasu, through her grandson Ninigi, as well as a descendant of the storm god Susanoo—truly a 'heavenly sovereign'. Although modern historians agree that Emperor Jimmu was mythical, in modern Japan, Jimmu's accession is still marked as National Foundation Day on February 11.

There aren't many monarchs in the world today. Most monarchies have been dissolved, so there are only a relative few nations that still recognize such an authoritative figure. There are also very few people who can claim to be able to directly trace their ancestry back over 2,000 years. Both of these rarities are available in Japan.

Light Yagami may not be related to that divine lineage, but the legend of Emperor Jimmu is very significant in regards to the role of the Japanese emperor. The emperor is a semi-divine figure who traces his lineage back to Amaterasu, the sun goddess, which means that the emperor is not really a political title, but rather a religious and cultural one. Historically, the emperor controlled the cultural life of Japan and was integral in ceremonies associated with the Japanese religion of Shinto.

Given this aspect of Japanese culture as well as its collectivist nature, it made sense to me that Kira would be someone who grew up in Japan, since it would be much more likely for someone with those values and ideas to come up with the idea of acting as a divine power and kill criminals in order to make the world a better place. One would be much less likely to find that kind of mentality in a more individualistic culture, or a culture where the leader of the country has less cultural influence and lacks that divine connotation.

So indeed, if I was the one with the killing power, Light Yagami, who's the highest-scoring student in all Japan, was really the only person I could possibly have framed for such a crime.

Of course, that's only if I had the thought of creating such a divine figure and, as Light says, 'pure' motive for Kira in the first place…

In a way that is indeed the obvious decision, though, since most people commit crimes for personal reasons—they kill people they hate, or people they love or are perversely attracted to, or they kill people who are in their way of getting what they want, or who have what they want—and none of that would create a 'the greatest criminal case in human history'. To have created that, I would have needed a criminal with a much larger goal, and one that would affect and interest all of humanity rather than just a few particular populations.

And since I am a detective for whom catching criminals is my raison d'être, it's only natural that the idea of killing criminals would occur to me.

And of course, it's only natural that killing criminals would occur to Light Yagami, as well—on top of his Japanese upbringing, his father is a police officer, who not only works to catch criminals, but to hold order in society and keep people safe.

And, though this might not have any relevance… the dates in February…

On top of Jimmu's accession and Japan's National Foundation Day being February 11, Emperor Jimmu is supposed to have been born February 13. Light Yagami's birthday is February 28.

Whether those coincidences could have influenced his psyche at all…

Light looked back at him and laughed slightly. "Of course," he pointed out, "it's also clear that Kira is no god, since once of us is Kira and neither of us are gods."

Well, that's certainly true, Ryuzaki thought.

"But in any case," Light continued with a shrug, "killing criminals in order to remove the worst of human society and keep anyone who might commit crimes from doing so in order to make the world a safer and kinder place is simply what I've always felt Kira's motives to be, since that's what I would have done as Kira—which is also why I considered Kira in a way 'pure'—as opposed to your opinion that Kira was evil because he was playing god with other people's lives just for fun—which is what you would have been done as Kira."

Light smiled at Ryuzaki knowingly. "Of course, you already know this," he pointed out, "and I already know it, and we're only saying for the benefit of anyone listening and so that we can say in the future that we've said it."

Since we're exposing everything, Light thought, we might as well expose the fact that we're saying all this with the awareness that at least part of the task force is listening.

"Yes," Ryuzaki agreed, "the method of solving the Kira case has gone from strategically hiding information to laying everything out in the open."

Indeed, Ryuzaki, Light thought. If we didn't also lay that out in the open, then if the rest of the task force got the feeling that we were secretly working together to manipulate them and trying to hide it they might come to the conclusion that we've been working together the entire time and planned this entire Kira thing—which would be absolutely ridiculous, not just because we could not have communicated before the case but also because I would never agree to a plan that involved framing me.

If we lay absolutely everything out in the open, then even if the task force can't trust either of us that we're not Kira, they can at least trust that we're obviously being honest.

Light's lips quirked. "Where the light shines lie no shadows," he pointed out.

Ryuzaki's lips curved behind his thumb. "Translated into English, that statement would make a terrible pun with your name," he said.

Light closed his eyes and let out an exhale. "Shut up, Ryuzaki," he said. "We're speaking Japanese, so that's utterly irrelevant."

That's right, though; Ryuzaki probably isn't a native speaker of Japanese. He mentioned being the British Junior Champion. Is English his native language? That would also be a significant advantage as L, since English is the world's most widely-spoken language and clearly the main lingua franca.

In any case, even if English isn't his native language, he has to be fluent in it. His Japanese is quite good, though. Did he also spend part of his youth in Japan?

Well, there's no reason not to ask.

"Speaking of language, though," Light said, opening his eyes and looking over at Ryuzaki again, "for someone who grew up in England, your Japanese is incredibly good."

"I only lived in England for about five years," Ryuzaki corrected, looking back at him. "And I am fluent in a large number of languages; I wouldn't be anywhere near as world-renowned of a detective if I weren't." Ryuzaki looked away and moved his gaze to the ceiling. "Learning languages also provides a welcome challenge for periods when I'm not working on cases."

No harm in admitting any of that, Ryuzaki thought.

Light blinked. That makes sense. I should have thought of that myself, really.

"How many languages can you speak, out of curiosity?" he asked Ryuzaki.

Ryuzaki glanced over at Light, then looked down and began counting on his fingers in front of him. "I know Japanese, English, Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Kazakh, Ukranian, Serbian, French, Italian, German, Dutch, Danish, Finnish, Swedish, Persian, Turkish, Arabic, Swahili, Hebrew, Hindi, Bengali…" He looked over at Light again. "About twenty-three," he concluded.

Light just stared at him. "…Ryuzaki," he said after a beat, "if that's actually the case, then I wouldn't actually be able to replace you as L. I'm not even fully proficient in English."

"With a mind like yours, I'm sure you'd be able to, Light-kun," Ryuzaki said, placing his hands on his knees and shrugging slightly. "Learning a language and understanding a culture just takes concentrated effort and diligence. I'm sure you'd find it an engaging challenge and diversion."

Light shook his head. "Even if that were the case, it would take me years to reach the same level," he pointed out.

"It took me years to get there," Ryuzaki told him. "I obviously didn't grow up speaking that many languages. Some of the languages I learned because they have the greatest numbers of speakers in the world, and being able to speak them opened up a great many cases to me; others I learned because I'd caught wind of unsolved cases in the countries that intrigued me, so I learned the languages in order to solve those particular cases."

That makes sense, Light thought. Like how he showed his face to the task force and how he took the entrance exam to get into To-Oh university just to approach me—he really goes all-out in solving cases.

He says he's never risked his life in any case before this one, but he solves each case no holds barred, as if his very life depends on it.

Light internally shook his head. Forget being able to become L simply because we think the same way—I'm not sure I would be willing to go to the same great lengths in order to solve a mystery.

Ryuzaki looked back over at him. "In any case, you woudln't necessarily need to know all the same languages as I do in order to be L," he pointed out. "Also, it's not necessary to sound like a native speaker—you just have to be proficient enough to communicate."

Light blinked at Ryuzaki. "…I'm imagining L making an inane vocabulary mistake while talking to the police and am internally laughing at you," Light stated.

Ryuzaki tilted his head. "You'd be surprised how little mistakes like that don't negatively affect anyone's image of L," he told Light. "It of course depends on the culture—for example, you'd definitely want to make sure that you can speak French with the highest level of proficiency before you attempt to solve any cases in France—however, most people and cultures are very tolerant of people learning their language and actually like it when people do so. Many feel honored that L has taken the time to actually learn their native language, since it shows how serious L is about solving the case."

Ryuzaki's lips curved amusedly. "And if you throw in a 'Pardon me, I only started learning your language a couple weeks ago,' they will be suitably impressed with L's intelligence even with the mistakes," he added.

Well, I suppose there's that, Light thought.

"Part of the most difficult part of being L, Light-kun," Ryuzaki told him, "is that L works behind the scenes, without anyone knowing his name or face—and yet L has to get people to trust him. It can be difficult to trust a digitalized voice coming out of a computer."

Ryuzaki held Light's gaze. "This is why connecting with people on an emotional level is of the utmost importance," he explained. "As L, you have to humanize yourself by showing an understanding for people's emotions and ideals, and expressing emotions and ideals yourself. Since you cannot emote with face or tone, you must include emotional and moral ideology words in your speech."

That makes sense, Light thought. I haven't interacted with Ryuzaki that much as L through a screen, but thinking back on that public broadcast he made, I understand what he's talking about.

To Ryuzaki, he concluded, "Hence statements like 'I couldn't believe that Kira could kill without direct contact until I saw it' and 'What Kira is doing is evil and something I cannot forgive'."

"Exactly," Ryuzaki said. "And, as long as you're for the most part easily understandable, small language errors can help humanize you to those working for you." He shrugged and looked up at the ceiling. "It's also not a bad thing when it brings some humor to an otherwise serious case."

Light narrowed his eyes at him. "It's like you're giving me lessons in how to be L, Ryuzaki," he realized.

Ryuzaki tilted his head to look over at Light again. "Considering that if I am Kira, you will be obliged to take on the role of L, it is only in everyone's best interests for me to do so, Light-kun."

As I said, Light Yagami: you have to show people that you're serious about solving a case.

Ryuzaki held Light's gaze. And there's nothing that more significantly demonstrates how serious I am about solving this case more than that I'm ready and willing to hand over the torch of L should it turn out that I am in fact Kira.

Light looked at Ryuzaki with narrowed eyes. It is indeed true that if it turns out that you're Kira, Ryuzaki, I will probably be obliged to take over being L. And of course, if it turns out that I'm Kira then I'll be executed, so there's no danger to you in telling me these things.

But these are certainly all things that, if I did have to become L, I would either be able to figure out for myself quickly enough or simply aren't my style—I could see you being so eager to start working on a case that you'd prioritize utility over perfection, Ryuzaki, but if I were to bother to go to all the effort of learning a different language in order to solve a case, I would make sure to learn it so well that I wouldn't make any mistakes before I would ever use it to communicate with anyone as L.

This information you're telling me about being L is of no actual use to me, Ryuzaki—you're not helping me in any way with this, and you must know that. Therefore, you're obviously not actually saying any of this for my benefit, but rather as a way to demonstrate to anyone listening that you fully intend to uncover and prove Kira's identity even if it turns out to be you.

And there's no good way for me to reply to any of that. I could point that out, but I can't see any advantage in doing so. It's probably best to just sidestep it for now.

Light broke Ryuzaki's gaze and shrugged. "Well, even if you say that small language mistakes can humanize you to others, I haven't heard you make any," he said.

So you deflected, Light Yagami, Ryuzaki thought. Well, it's true that there wasn't any better way for you to reply to that aside from seguing the conversation and orienting the focus from yourself back to me.

You also pointed out something which seems to undermine the authenticity of what I was telling you—sometimes the best defense is indeed a good offense. It'll be worth it to me to clear your point up.

"I've solved cases in Japan before and my Japanese is very good," Ryuzaki explained. "I also made certain to polish up my Japanese skills before openly taking on this case, because I thought that, in a case involving such a seemingly divine figure as Kira, any mistakes in my Japanese would do me more harm than good." Light looked at him, and Ryuzaki added, "It all depends on the circumstances."

Light closed his eyes and exhaled. Ah, I get it now.

"That makes sense," he said. "In going up against a criminal that's obviously human, you'd want to appear human as well—or at least, not like a computer—but in going up against a criminal that seems divine, you'd need to show some level of divinity as well, in order to seem to anyone like you had anything of a chance. If you couldn't even speak Japanese correctly, nobody would think you'd be able to catch someone like Kira."

"Indeed," Ryuzaki agreed.

All of this psychological analyzing, Light thought with a sigh.

He opened his eyes again, meeting Ryuzaki's gaze. Light smiled wryly. "Looks like it's fine that we're missing our psychology class at the university—we're getting plenty of opportunity to discuss it here."

Ryuzaki's lips curved. "So it seems."

A thought occurred to Light and he narrowed his eyes. "But L, Lind L. Taylor obviously wasn't Japanese," he said. He regarded Ryuzaki dubiously. "Are you telling me you happened to find a criminal that not only had never had any information on him publicized and had an 'L' as part of his name, but also knew Japanese well enough to give that broadcast?"

Ryuzaki's expression was one of obvious amusement. If you can't figure out the answer to something as simple as that then you must be quite tired, Light Yagami.

"That was a very simple trick, Light-kun," Ryuzaki said. "Have you ever heard of 'dubbing'? With a little effort, it is completely possible to create a voice-over that both shares the meaning of and matches the mouth movements of someone speaking in another language." Ryuzaki's smile behind his thumb was complacent. "I believe it's done to Japanese anime all the time."

Light looked at him flatly. Damn you, Ryuzaki. You're obviously mocking me.

"The only dubbing of anime I've seen was in English," Light stated, "and it was so terrible it made me want to wretch."

"English dubbing is notoriously bad," Ryuzaki shrugged blithely. "There are other countries that have better dubbing industries—for example, the dubbing industry in Germany is highly developed. Perhaps not the extent of voice-acting in Japan, but certainly close." Ryuzaki looked at Light, thumb brushing over his curved lips. "Fortunately Kira appeared in Japan, because the dubbing and voice-acting industry here in Japan was more than capable of the job of creating a Japanese dub for Lind L. Taylor."

Light closed his eyes and sighed. Another reason why, if you were Kira, you chose Japan as the setting? Since you would have had to have had the Lind L. Taylor incident planned out from the beginning, I wouldn't put such considerations past you.

Still, though—

"Unless you once solved a case involving Germany's dubbing industry, Ryuzaki, then you must have an extensive amount of time to kill in between your cases if you know such random things," Light stated.

Ryuzaki brushed his thumb over his lip and thought, You really do hate to lose, Light Yagami.

"Yes, the time in between cases is maddening," he admitted easily. Light opened his eyes to look at him and Ryuzaki met his gaze significantly. "Enough to drive me to use a killing power, should I have acquired one. As I believe we've already established."

Light's lips quirked. You really do hate to lose, Ryuzaki.

"We have indeed established that, but that was a nice segue back to the topic of Kira," Light said. "Which we digressed from yet again."

Ryuzaki's thumb skewed his lip. We really did stray off topic there, didn't we?

Although, as Light pointed out earlier, it's not like we're under any time constraint here…

Light rolled back his shoulders. "I believe we were talking about when my father got a heart attack from overworking himself?" he said.

"Yes, as I recall," Ryuzaki agreed.

Returning to examining our actions…

Ryuzaki lowered his hand to his knee and looked up at the ceiling. "As we were leaving the hospital, you asked me if there was any way to clear yourself of the suspicion of being Kira, Light-kun," he recalled.

Light nodded, staring out past the bars of his cell. "After my dad confirmed that you were L, I no longer had to conduct myself as if there were also a possibility that you were Kira and lying to me about my being the Kira suspect. And with the confirmation that you were L, the true impact of being a Kira suspect hit me."

Light glanced at Ryuzaki and smiled wryly. "As I'm sure you are now intimately familiar with, it's not the best feeling to have people believing you to be a mass murderer."

Ryuzaki tilted his head and looked to the side to meet Light's gaze, and Light looked away again, moving his gaze down to the floor.

"On top of that," Light said, "it pained me greatly at the time that the real Kira was out there carrying out his crimes while the great detective L was derailed from the trail to catching him by falsely suspecting me. At the time, I thought it would be ideal to clear the suspicion from me as soon as possible so that we could hunt Kira down in earnest."

"Yes, that makes sense," Ryuzaki said, still looking over at him. "But most people, knowing that they weren't Kira, also wouldn't be worried about being suspected as Kira, because they'd know that there would never be any proof that would actually lead to them in the end."

Light snapped his head up to glare at him. "Don't give me that, Ryuzaki. People are falsely condemned for crimes they didn't commit all the time—there is always a large margin of human error, and the justice system is not perfect."

"Maybe with the judges and juries, and other detectives," Ryuzaki said, holding Light's gaze, "but I'm L. I'm never wrong."

Light looked at him flatly. "And because you've never been wrong, if you were to decide that I was Kira, no one would question you, and I would be screwed," he pointed out. He spread his hands as much as the metal cuffs would allow. "Just because you've never been wrong in the past does not actually mean that you won't ever be wrong in the future. It just means that the less people will question you, because people project past patterns into the future. But the world doesn't actually work that way."

"Light-kun," Ryuzaki said composedly, "do you honestly think Kira could be condemned without proving how they killed?" He held Light's gaze unblinkingly. "If you were not Kira, you could never have killed with such a power, and as such you'd never be able to demonstrate that and would never have been condemned as Kira."

Light glared at him for a moment and then looked away. "Okay, that's a fair point," he said, chagrined, "but if you knew that you weren't Kira but were being suspected of it, would it not also greatly frustrate you that that suspicion and attention was turned on you instead of on catching the real Kira?" He looked back at Ryuzaki challengingly. "Is that not a normal thing to feel in that situation?"

Ryuzaki regarded Light expressionlessly. "Okay, that's also a fair point," he admitted after a moment. He lifted his hand to his mouth and skewed his lip with his thumb, observing somewhat bitterly, "Although one of our memories is false, we both seem to be getting worked up about things."

"So it seems," Light agreed, sighing and looking away again. "I get the feeling we're really not going to find any discrepancies or things that don't make sense in our memories—assuming that whichever of us was Kira and had their memories of it replaced, it would be an imperfect power if it did not replace it with memories that made complete sense. Along with all the emotions to go along with those memories."

"Would you like to stop, Light-kun?" Ryuzaki asked him.

Light sighed and shook his head. "No, there's still nothing better to do," he said. "And we might find something when we get to the events involving Misa… though it would be better if we could question her at this time as well. I mean, assuming that the power would replace your memories of the killing power with memories that made sense to you and that you yourself would never question, that doesn't necessarily mean that those memories would make sense to others—and Misa is probably not the kind of person who would analyze herself so closely."

"That's true," Ryuzaki agreed. "When I questioned her after she lost her memories, she admitted freely that she couldn't remember how she knew your name after seeing you in Aoyama." Ryuzaki slipped his arms around his legs hug them even closer to his chest and laid his cheek on his knee. "It certainly seemed like that fact didn't matter to her."

Light snorted. "Yeah no, I can't see her questioning something like that," he said. He shook his head exasperatedly. "She believes in love at first sight, so she probably also believes in 'Fate' and other such ideas about things happening the way they're meant to be without any other reasons or explanations." Light spread his hands as much as the handcuffs would allow. "Though that fact will probably also make it so that questioning her further won't lead to anything, either," he said, letting his hands lower back to his lap and interlacing his fingers.

"Yes, I also doubt that we'll be able to get anything useful from questioning her," Ryuzaki agreed.

"How is she doing, by the way?" Light asked, looking over at Ryuzaki. "What have you been doing to her?" His lips curled without humor. "Nothing that violates too many human rights, I hope."

Ryuzaki, his cheek still resting on his knee, looked at Light sideways. "She was the Second Kira, Light-kun," he stated. "She's fully restrained with her eyes covered, and we did what we could to try to make her speak when she refused to." He held Light's merciless gaze. "Then she passed out one day, and since waking up she's been significantly more loquacious and didn't remember that she'd been arrested under suspicion of being the Second Kira. She is convinced that she's being restrained by a stalker and that you'll rescue her."

Light's lips curled, humorless. "Well, before we question if you would have gone to those extents to make her talk if you were actually Kira," he said, "let's try to move in chronological order so we don't get too confused or accidentally miss anything." He looked at Ryuzaki pointedly. "Which means that now my current question for you is: If you were Kira, would have told me what you did about thinking I might not be Kira after witnessing me with my father?"

Ryuzaki looked back at him unperturbedly. "It would certainly have been suspicious if I hadn't, would it not?" he pointed out. He raised his head and shrugged, cuffed hands sliding up from his ankles to rest over his knees. "Anyone would've been moved by such a touching scene between father and son; to insist that that had made you more likely to be Kira or even hadn't so much as lowered the probability would have been suspicious by any account."

Ryuzaki turned his gaze away, looking up towards the ceiling. "And besides, Light-kun, my goal in framing you, wouldn't have been to convict you as soon as possible—if I did that, then the case would be over and I'd be bored with nothing to do again. Therefore, I would have wanted to drag the case out as long as I could, and it would thus have been perfectly ideal to acknowledge that the possibility of you being Kira lowered."

Ryuzaki tilted his head and looked back over at Light. "In fact, I might've even found it exciting; the more likely to be innocent you seemed, the more challenging it would be for me to frame and convict you."

Light looked easily back at Ryuzaki. "Yes, I could see you thinking that way," he conceded. He smiled wryly. "I'm presuming that the Second Kira would not have factored into either of our plans as Kira, though."

"Yes, I agree," Ryuzaki said, unblinking. "The appearance of the Second Kira was an unexpected factor that would have greatly endangered either of our plans."

"Yeah, the fact that someone far less intelligent had the same killing power who could be much more easily caught and likely reveal the secret would have been devastating to Kira," Light concurred, closing his eyes and shaking his head slightly. "And yet, the fact that the Second Kira's killing power was greater than Kira's evened the score—such that even either of us, as Kira, would have had our own lives endangered by her despite her lower intelligence." He opened his eyes and gazed out past the bars of his cell. "Given that she was not killed by Kira, despite the obstacle she posed to him, there must have been a reason that Kira could not kill her."

Light shook his head and smiled dryly. "But we're getting ahead of ourselves again—let's start at the Second Kira's first appearance on Sakura TV."

He glanced over at Ryuzaki briefly. "I actually missed the first part of the original broadcast," he admitted, and shrugged, looking away again. "I never watch Sakura TV. It wasn't until NHN started broadcasting the events taking place outside of Sakura TV that I tuned in. I later watched the full video uploaded online. And I of course didn't see the video tape viewed only by the TV station until you showed it to me."

Light rolled back his shoulders. "I basically already told you my thoughts about the videotapes," he said. "But just to rehash, on the chance that what you remember me telling you previously is different from what I remember telling you: viewing the video aired by Sakura TV, I immediately got the feeling that the tap didn't seem like Kira, due to the shoddy quality and the way it completely ruined the image Kira had seemed to be trying to create.

"Kira's tactics had focused on acting like a divine enactment of justice and karma; Kira as I'd understood him would never have killed innocents—whether the newscasters or the police who tried to storm Sakura TV.

"Then of course there were the police that were killed, though Kira couldn't have known their names. While it could have been possible that Kira's powers had changed, if that were the case then Kira would have killed the major criminals whose names he hadn't been able to find out, and that didn't happen.

"On top of that, the video you showed me that had been sent to Sakura TV completely cemented the hunch that this Kira was different. I mean, the deaths that were used to prove that they were Kira which were just too starkly different from Kira's usual victims, which must have been purposeful in order to avoid them being killed by Kira before the Second Kira could kill them at the predicted times."

Light looked down and smiled dryly. "I must admit to being torn whether to be disgusted by the Second Kira, or excited at the prospect of their capture leading to the identification of the real Kira."

Yes, Ryuzaki thought, watching him, I also recall having the same conflicting feelings. Which is no surprise, since we have such similar ways of thinking.

Though that of course means that anything that makes sense to one of us is almost assured to make sense to the other, so it's also practically certain that we won't be finding any discrepancies or oddities in either of our memories.

Light glanced over at Ryuzaki again, continuing on, "When you showed me the unaired video though, Ryuzaki, I found it highly suspicious that none of you explained anything about it to me; someone had given explanations for all the other evidence." Light's eyes narrowed pointedly. "And the way you asked me if I noticed anything about the video made me certain that you were testing my deduction abilities."

Light smiled mirthlessly and spread his cuffed hands as much as the short chain between them would allow. "To be honest, I was pretty irritated by the entire thing; even though you'd asked for my help on the investigation, you were still just playing games with me rather than treating me seriously as a member of the team."

"Yes, Light-kun," Ryuzaki said, looking back at him, "I was testing your deductive abilities when I asked you about that video." Ryuzaki held Light's gaze unwaveringly. "But I already believed your skills of deduction were exceptional, and so I was moreso testing to see if you were Kira." Ryuzaki brushed his thumb over his lip. "If you were Kira, I thought that you wouldn't mention the idea of the video being sent by a Second Kira, since you would have wanted me dead, and if you hadn't said anything I would have been due to die in a few days."

Light smiled sardonically. "That thought actually hadn't occurred to me at that time," he admitted, "though I did realize that fact when you forced me to play the rule of Kira in writing the response." he made a conceding gesture. "But that does make sense about testing if I were actually Kira in that way. Though of course, if I'd actually been Kira, I probably would have figured that out and claimed that it was a Second Kira anyway."

Light smiled, humorless but mild. "Or else I might've been so disgusted by the video degrading what I'd been trying to accomplish that my pride might not have let the tape be attributed to me, even if I wanted you dead." He shook his head and spread his cuffed hands indifferently. "I'd probably have preferred to kill you myself anyway, rather than let someone like the Second Kira do it for me."

"Yes, I could see you thinking like that," Ryuzaki agreed, speaking against the thumb he had resting against his lips. He watched Light with unblinking eyes. "Though I thought your desire for my death might beat out your pride."

"I find that unlikely, honestly," Light said with a shrug. "As we've established, I'm childish and hate to lose—I would have hated to lose to the Second Kira when it came to beating you." He looked aslant at Ryuzaki. "And as Kira I would have wanted to change the world, which could only be a slow process met with significant resistance—the Second Kira's degrading of Kira's image would have been inestimably detrimental to that goal."

Ryuzaki held his gaze, thumb brushing over his lip. "But you would have been directly confronted with my suspicion of you, and the fact that the Second Kira could lead me to you," he pointed out. "That might have put enough pressure on you that you'd believe it would be a safer and surer route to first let me be killed, and then go about repairing the damage done by the Second Kira afterwards."

Light snorted softly. "It's hard to imagine being that scared of you, Ryuzaki," he said, smiling wryly but fleetingly, "though I suppose that's certainly possible." He shrugged. "Still, even if I were Kira, I clearly didn't let it slide by that the tapes were sent by someone else, no matter what reasoning I might have used for making that decision."

"That's true," Ryuzaki admitted. He lowered his hand from his lips and rested his fingers over his knee. "But what you said about not being scared of me indeed another difference here: If you were Kira, you would have had far more reason to have feared me than you can remember feeling—while if I were Kira, I would have had far less reason to fear you than I can remember feeling." He looked at Light meaningfully. "It seems we truly can't trust our memories, not of events nor of feelings."

"So it seems," Light agreed mildly.

Ryuzaki observed Light for another moment, then shifted his gaze away and looked up at the ceiling. "Whether I was Kira or not, though," he said, "your opinion that the tapes were sent by a Second Kira were certainly beneficial to me in convincing the rest of the task force of that fact, Light-kun. If the task force had doubted me, it would have made it far more difficult to avoid having to appear on television, since if I hadn't been able to convince them that the tapes had come from a fake Kira they wouldn't have gone along with creating a fake tape from the real Kira."

"That makes sense," Light said, looking at Ryuzaki discerningly. "So either way, whether I was or wasn't Kira, you would have been banking on my support in the theory in order to save your life from the Second Kira."

Ryuzaki shifted his gaze from the ceiling, tilting his head slightly and obliquely met Light's gaze. "Yes," he agreed, unblinking. "Whether I wasn't Kira or was, in either case I was in danger of being killed by the Second Kira and needed your support in that theory."

Light smiled slightly. "You have an awful lot of faith in me, Ryuzaki," he said, gesturing with a cuffed hand. "I mean, if you were banking on my support for that, then that means that in the case of me being Kira, you knew that I would be able to figure out that you were testing me and that I would therefore corroborate your theory of the Second Kira rather than going along with the Second Kira's plan to have you killed—while in the case of you being Kira, you would have known for sure since as Kira you would have known that you hadn't sent the tapes, but I obviously wouldn't have known that since I wasn't Kira, and therefore you would have been betting on me figuring out that the Kiras were different."

Light smiled mildly. "So in either case, you were betting your life on my deduction skills, Ryuzaki."

"I have every reason to have that amount of faith in your abilities, Light-kun, no matter which of us was Kira," Ryuzaki said, holding his gaze with unblinking dark eyes. "If you were Kira, I knew that you were on the same level as me because you were the one I'd been going up against and hadn't been able to catch; and if you weren't Kira, then you were still the one I was basing Kira on, and I would obviously have already gone to the necessary extents to be fully convinced of your intellect since you being on the same level as me was the entire basis of framing you."

"Haha, I suppose that's true," Light laughed easily. He gestured with a hand, metal cuffs and chain clinking lightly, his eyes glinting and his smile wry. "And in either of those cases, bringing me in to corroborate your theory on the Second Kira would have confirmed the opinion you already had of me:

"If I was the one who was Kira and you weren't, you couldn't have known for sure that the Kira who sent the tapes was a different one from the one you'd been facing, but you believed that the one you'd been facing had been me, by having me confirm your theory that the tapes claiming to be from Kira were from someone else, since as Kira I would have obviously known that the tapes had to have come from a Second Kira since I wasn't the one who'd sent them, it also would have helped confirm your theory that I was the real Kira."

Light shook his head slightly, smile dry. "And if you were Kira, then having me figure out that there was a Second Kira without being able to know for certain that it was true would have confirmed to you that you'd be able to frame me for being Kira."

"Indeed," Ryuzaki said, still watching Light obliquely, a thumb brought up to his lips.

Light smiled blandly. "But what were your thoughts on the tapes, Ryuzaki?"

Ryuzaki brought his hand back down to his knee and shifted his gaze to look at a point on the floor in front of him. "The tapes made by the Second Kira were obviously recorded on a home video camera, and the poor quality of both video and audio along with the hand-written Gothic font imitating my own broadcast made it seem exceedingly childish."

He glanced at Light again. "At first I thought that might have been intentional, but as the video continued to play it became increasingly clear to me that it couldn't have been sent by Kira." Ryuzaki's lips curved impishly. "Not only due to the shoddy quality, but also the fact that if Kira had been going to spread their influence in that way, they would have done such a broadcast at the very beginning."

Ryuzaki looked up at the ceiling, a finger thoughtfully to his lip. "They would have said something like, 'The world has become rotten with crime and acts of evil. This cannot stand. The world should be a good place filled by kind people. This is my promise to you, citizens of the world: If you are a criminal, I will enact judgment upon you and kill you, no matter where you may be; If you are a good, kind-hearted person, I am going to make this world a safe place for you and all your family and friends to live a life of happiness.'"

Ryuzaki glanced over at Light again. "And then Kira would have started killing criminals after that," he said. He lowered his hand back to his knee. "However, as you pointed out, Light-kun, making such an announcement at all would never have been Kira's style—no God, whether one exists or not, has ever made a newsbroadcast." He held Light's gaze. "And the intention of Kira, as you said, was to appear as the simultaneously nonexistant and yet omnipresent presence of a righteous God."

Ryuzaki's lips curved with amused irony. "When you think about it, it is somewhat strange that the original Kira's powers were less god-level than those of the Second Kira, since Kira needed a name and the Second Kira did not."

"It is indeed ironic," Light agreed blandly. What are you looking so gleeful about, Ryuzaki?

Ryuzaki was still looking at him impishly, a thumb to his curved lips. "If you were Kira, I can imagine that pissing you off a great deal, Light-kun. You would hate that someone else had a greater godly power than you did, and if you'd been able to kill with just a face it would have solved a great deal of your problems." Ryuzaki's thumb brushed over his childish smile. "Such as killing me, for instance."

Light looked at him flatly. "Even if you weren't Kira and framing me for it, Ryuzaki, it seems that you just really enjoy messing with me," he intoned. He gestured indicatively. "You could definitely be Kira."

"We've already established that, Light-kun," Ryuzaki said blankly.

It is true though that I enjoy messing with you, Light Yagami. But that's because the control you have of yourself is so steadfastly phenomenal, and I'm trying to see if you'll slip up.

Since I thought you were Kira, I was hoping that you might let some evidence slip if you got irritated enough… I suppose if I was Kira then I would have just been testing your character.

Ryuzaki watched Light unblinkingly as Light analyzed him with narrowed eyes.

Now, though, Light Yagami-kun, I'm just curious to see how you react.

Damn it, Light thought, it's like a cat playing with the tail of a dog and trying to see if the dog will finally get angry and snap at it.

But if I let him irritate me, he wins.

"In any case, Ryuzaki," Light intoned, "if I was Kira, being able to kill with just a face would not have allowed me to kill you." He looked at Ryuzaki pointedly. "If I'd been able to kill with only a face you would never have shown yourself to me in the first place."

Ryuzaki's thumb brushed over his lip. "That's true," he acknowledged.

You're incredible, Light Yagami.

Light glared at him for another moment and then finally broke their gaze, shrugging. "Well, we can say that you definitely have the potential to be Kira because you obviously delight in messing with me and as Kira that is exactly what you were doing literally the entire time," he said. "And we can say that I definitely have the potential to be Kira because I admire both his ideology and strategy, since his ideology matches up almost exactly with my own and his strategy is exactly what I would have done."

"Which means that you admire yourself, Light-kun," Ryuzaki pointed out.

Light shot him another glare. "See?" He gestured accusingly. "You're just messing with me, Ryuzaki, and you're amused by it."

Ryuzaki's lips were curved behind his thumb and Light looked at him flatly.

"But if I was Kira, then yes," Light stated drolly, "I would essentially be admiring myself." He smiled without humor. "But if I wasn't, that would mean that I admire you, Ryuzaki."

Light Yagami, Ryuzaki mused, you are exceptionally entertaining.

Light broke their gaze and shrugged.

There's nothing I can do here aside from to keep moving the conversation along. Since Ryuzaki keeps messing with me, we keep getting stalled.

Either this is exactly why he wanted to be locked up here with me, or he's just bored out of his mind.

"In any case, though," Light continued, "since even if I was Kira I of course don't remember it, what I do remember is feeling indignant and insulted while watching the tapes sent by the Second Kira due to the fact that the Second Kira was tarnishing those ideals and strategies of Kira which I respected.

"Of course, even if I say that I remember admiring Kira, I also did still want to catch him." Looking at the floor, Light smiled sardonically. "There's something about going up against a great adversary whom you respect that enhances your own self-esteem—something similar to fighting for an idea you believe in, I imagine, as I would admittedly have been doing if I were Kira. In either case, to see that adversary degraded—or, I imagine, that idea undermined by insincerity—feels like a personal blow."

"Yes, I remember feeling the same," Ryuzaki acknowledged, looking at Light sideways. "I'd been risking my life and giving my all going up against this brilliant mastermind of a supernatural killer, and here this cheap fake was making a mockery of everything."

"Haha," Light laughed, throwing back his head slightly and grinning wryly. "Ryuzaki, you really have a way of making me wish I could confess to being Kira."

"If flattery was all it took, I should've tried it earlier," Ryuzaki said.

Light glanced over to find Ryuzaki watching him. "Well, if I were actually Kira," Light said easily, "I probably wouldn't have fallen for it." He shrugged and shifted his gaze away. "I can only admit that I'd like to be Kira since I'm not Kira; at least not at this present time, at any rate." He glanced up at the ceiling. "Continuing though with what your actual memories regarding the tapes and the storming of Sakura TV are, I'm very curious about this part." He looked back over and met Ryuzaki's gaze. "I wasn't part of the task force at the time, so I missed all of that."

Well, that's true, Ryuzaki acknowledged.

He tapped a finger to his lips and looked up at the ceiling, recollecting. "The newscasters at Sakura TV, before airing the video, said that Kira was sending a message to people all over the world," he said. "I was convinced something terrible was going to happen if the broadcast continued. I had not, at that moment, realized that it was a different Kira; under the impression that it was the same Kira I'd been going up against, I believed there was some intentionally manipulative reason for the childish video which would likely endanger my life and jeopardize the case."

He glanced at Light again. "I suppose if I were Kira, though, I would have known it was someone else and feared that the tape would ruin my plans for framing you.

"In any case, though," Ryuzaki looked away again, this time down at the floor, hands sliding down to close around his ankles, "Ukita, one our other members, rushed out to Sakura TV to stop the broadcast and was the first police officer killed."

"So the first policeman to die was a member of the task force, huh?" Light said, watching Ryuzaki. "Were the following two as well?"

"No," Ryuzaki said, glancing at him, "the following two policeman to be show up and be killed were not part of the task force."

You should know that I wouldn't make the same mistake twice, Light Yagami.

Light smiled wryly. "That's fortunate that those officers showed up, then; if they hadn't, we wouldn't have been able to rule out the possibility that if you were Kira you could have killed them, knowing their names, and as thus we wouldn't be able to say for certain that the Second Kira could kill with only a face." Light's sardonic smile widened. "Or that you hadn't framed her as well."

Ah, Ryuzaki thought, looking at him, so that's what you were getting at.

"There's the fact that the Second Kira asked for L to appear on television, though," Ryuzaki pointed out.

"That's true," Light agreed reasonably. "If the Second Kira had needed a name, Misa would probably have asked for L to appear on television and for his real name to be displayed." He shrugged and smiled dryly. "Still, that wouldn't have been the same kind of concrete proof as those officers being killed when they went to Sakura TV, and it would be one more uncertainty to complicate matters."

Light looked at Ryuzaki, his smile stretching into a sharp, sardonic grin. "Here's a theory, though," he said. There was a light in his eyes that was empty like a reflection. "What if you, as Kira, could always kill with just a face, but as part of your plan for framing me you made it so it seemed like Kira needed both a face and a name—but part of your plan was also to frame someone else, and you chose Misa because she fit the profile you were looking for, and you used your power as Kira of controlling your victims actions before they die to make Misa fall in love with me and approach me, further framing me of being Kira?

"If you were Kira, you would have conducted all those tests on prisoners to see how much you could control their actions, after all—with that information, you could have controlled Misa. You could even had her send the tapes, and you could have controlled the way she reacted after being caught, like the way she didn't speak at first and then appeared to lose her memories. And since you could kill with only a face, you could have killed those other police officers, in order to give this Second Kira of yours a distinction from the first.

"The entire thing could have been part of an elaborate setup you created. Even having the Second Kira ask for you to appear on television—if you were controlling that, you would have known for certain that it would never actually happen.

"Additionally, having the Second Kira ask for you to appear on television as L and faking fearing for your life would even further prevent anyone from ever suspecting you of being Kira."

Ryuzaki stared at him, feeling a sense of falling. Light looked like he was on the verge of emptily laughing.

"...That seems extensively elaborate," Ryuzaki said finally. He felt sinking dread.

"But this is you we're talking about, Ryuzaki," Light pointed out. "You would certainly be capable of creating such an elaborate plan, would you not?" He gestured with his cuffed hands. "We already agreed that whichever of us is Kira gave up their memories and orchestrated things so that someone else will start killing, and that the power will eventually return to us, which is also quite elaborate."

Light grinned sardonically. "And if you think about it that way, you could even have given the killing power to Misa so that she actually was the Second Kira, but you were controlling her the entire time."

Ryuzaki stared at Light, unblinking. His fingers were gripped tight around his ankles.

Is there any evidence that disproves any of that?

...But no. No, there isn't. There's only…

"…I guess we can't rule it out," he relented finally. He unclenched his hands and slide them up to brush a thumb over his lip. "Except for the fact that Misa's still alive, and Kira's victims have always died after he controls them." He looked at Light significantly. "If they didn't die, that would be far too godly of a power, because that would mean Kira could control everyone and anyone and make them do anything."

"Yeah, and we already decided that Kira is a human," Light said. "Who somehow received a godly power. Which is insane in and of itself." He smiled, shrugged. "Still, even assuming from current evidence that Kira's victims always die after he controls them, we don't know what the period of time that Kira can control a victim's actions for is."

"That's true," Ryuzaki admitted, glancing down. "So if Misa dies from a heart attack, we won't be able to say for sure that she was actually the Second Kira and wasn't just framed by me." He looked at Light unblinkingly. "I highly doubt it though, Light-kun. Her love for you seems very genuine."

Light smiled. "The extent of her love for me seems supernatural," he said. His smile widened. "Just like Kira's power."

Ryuzaki stared at him. "...Okay, I guess that's true," he relented finally. He looked down at the floor, placing his hands over his knees. "That just means that now, not only do we not know which of us was Kira, but we can no longer even say for sure that Misa was acting as the Second Kira. None of the evidence means anything anymore, since I could have set it all up."

"Which means that we really don't know anything," Light summarized. He gestured with the handcuffs clinking around his wrists, laughed. "We can't prove anything. What we're doing here is like trying to calculate the depth of a well by continuously throwing rocks down and trying to listen for how many seconds it takes them to hit bottom, but never hearing them hit. It's like throwing rocks into a bottomless abyss."

He smiled grimly. "I mean, even the current restrictions we've concluded about the extent of Kira's powers may not be correct, because if one of us was Kira, there would probably have been aspects of the power that we would have kept hidden as an ace up our sleeve."

Light was starting to look slightly hysterical.

This is insane, he thought distantly. This is absolutely insane. When you start questioning everything like this, there's simply no end to any of it—

"For example, it may not be the case that everyone Kira controls dies, or that Kira can only kill with heart attacks, or that Kira really needs a face and a name—if we consider the extent that one of us as Kira could have manipulated things, we really don't know anything. We can't say anything for sure. Like in the beginning of the case, when it seemed like Kira was a student given the hours that criminals were dying at, but then Kira changed to killing criminals every hour on the hour, showing that he could control the time of death, and therefore that he may have just been leading the investigation team to believe that he was a student."

Light laughed, the sound darkly humorous. "We don't know a single damn thing about Kira's power. There is literally no way to prove anything." He shook his head, smiled, grim. "This is absurd."

Ryuzaki watched him, his gut twisting.

You're splintering, Light Yagami.

"Would you like to continue fruitlessly throwing rocks into the abyss, then, Light-kun?" he asked softly. "Or would you like to give up?"

If you give up, Light Yagami…

(this case really will remain forever unsolved.)

Light laughed at him."There's nothing else to do here, is there?" He gestured with his hands, as much as his cuffed wrists would let him. "There's nothing else we can do." He looked at Ryuzaki, smiled almost sheepishly. "Continuously trying even when you know it's useless has to still be better than letting the useless defeat you and not trying at all, right?"

Damn, Light thought distantly, bitterly, it's like I've lost all confidence in myself. Questioning everything like this. Even without proof, I should be able to trust my thoughts and feelings with more certainty. Is this doubt and questioning the effects of being locked up for this long? I feel like my mind is going.

"Yes, I agree," Ryuzaki said, watching Light in front of him try to pull together his fracturing pieces before he splintered completely. "Even in the face of futility, perseverance is paramount."

Solving cases is all that I live for, Ryuzaki knew. This is, essentially, all that I'm living for.

And you, Light Yagami…

If my hunch is correct, you live to win.

(And before this, you've always won everything against everyone so easily.)

"To give up is to be as good as dead," Ryuzaki said. He glanced up at the ceiling, said, "Let's continue on, then," looked back at Light and added, "I think that, even if I was Kira, I definitely didn't frame Misa, though."

Light smiled at him mildly. "Why's that, Ryuzaki?"

"She was too easy to catch," Ryuzaki said, dark gaze holding Light's own. "The case would have been over too soon."

And I certainly wouldn't have wanted to end it that quickly. I would have wanted to prolong the case as long as possible. That would have been impossible with Misa—therefore, while I can't say for sure that I wasn't Kira and framing Light, I can definitely say for sure that if I was Kira I did not frame Misa Misa.

Light smiled at him, vacant. "But the case isn't over," he pointed out. He gestured to their cells, handcuffs biting against the outsides of his wrists where the skin was starting to look rubicund. "Now we're here. Working on the case together, on the same side." He met Ryuzaki's gaze, smiled a smile that didn't mean anything. "Maybe that's exactly what you wanted to happen."

To give up is to be as good as dead, huh? Light was thinking distantly. I get the feeling you meant spiritually dead, Ryuzaki, as in no longer having anything to live for. But in this case it's actually quite literal, isn't it?

Since either one of us could be Kira, depending on how you interpret the evidence, the one who wins will be the one who tries harder. Because whoever discovers the truth first, even if they are Kira themselves, will be the one in control of the evidence. If Kira discovers the truth first, they'll have the chance to get out of being killed, and even manipulate things so the other dies; if the one who isn't Kira discovers the truth first, Kira won't have that chance to get away from the fate of being executed.

The one who lives is the one who wins, and the one who wins is the one who most wants to live. If I gave up, Ryuzaki would definitely win, and I would definitely die.

I'll be the one to win, Ryuzaki. If you're Kira—and even if you aren't, and I'm the one who's Kira—I'll make sure that you're the one who dies.

After all, solving the case is all that matters to you; you could care less if you live or die. But if I were to die, then this case would be over. And since you wouldn't want this case to end, given that cases are all that you live for and you'll never have another case like this after this one's finished, you might balk at the very end.

That moment where you're going to hesitate, Ryuzaki—that's where I'm going to overtake you. Because you don't actually want me to die and you don't care if you live, while I want to live and don't care if you die.

Our interests are perfectly aligned, Ryuzaki. But you won't even realize it, and so when the time comes to bring the case to a close you'll be frozen. You won't be able to make the finally move.

So I'll be the one to make sure we both get what we want in the end.

Light smiled, and Ryuzaki watched him.

Light Yagami, do you really think that if I was Kira, I would have framed Misa just so she'd be caught, so that you'd turn yourself in and be locked in a cell, eventually figure out that I could be Kira, and create a situation where I was under the same suspicion as you and we could both work together to go after another Kira I set up, just to prolong the case and be able to work with you, since we have the same way of thinking?

"I don't think I was so lonely that I'd go to those extreme lengths just for your company, Light-kun," Ryuzaki said.

See? Light thought. You don't even realize just how much you're enjoying this. You don't realize that not wanting the case to be over means that you don't want me to die.

Light shrugged, smiling acquiescently. "Well, it would certainly be an absurdly complex plan, if it were true," he said blithely. "Framing both me and Misa might be too much to credit you for being capable of." He held Ryuzaki's gaze. "Every human has limits; even the great L."

Ryuzaki just looked at him. "Now you're the one messing with me, Light-kun," he said.

"Then consider it retribution," Light shrugged easily, shifting his gaze away. "In any case, I don't think we need to pursue the theory of you framing Misa unless it turns out that you actually are Kira. Until then, we can just let it sit at the wayside and not think about it, since it's relatively implausible and doesn't really matter at this point, since there's still an equal probability that I was Kira, and if I was Kira then Misa was definitely the Second Kira and acting completely by her own will. If we discover that you were indeed Kira, we can examine the possibility of you having framed Misa later."

Interesting, Ryuzaki thought, looking at him consideringly. I didn't think you cared about Misa at all and that she greatly annoyed you, but by proposing the theory of my possibly having framed her, you've just saved her from being executed under the conviction that she was the Second Kira.

Ryuzaki brushed his thumb over his lip. Did you say all that in order to save her, Light Yagami? Or did you say it just to further unravel any faith the task force might have had in me and my deductions?

I'd bet on the latter, but I probably shouldn't jump to the conclusion that just because if you were Kira you would have had no problem killing criminals and would have been willing to sacrifice even your family in order to accomplish your goals means that you aren't actually capable of caring for people.

Additionally, Kira didn't kill innocent people—aside from the FBI agents, though I suppose it's debatable whether FBI agents should be considered 'innocent'—and if Light was Kira, then he was killing criminals in order to make the world a better place. Which means that if Light was Kira then he does care about people—and that if I was Kira, that I was confident in that fact.

While I do believe you'd voice the theory of me framing Misa just to sabotage me, I can't rule out the possibility that you also don't want her to die.

It's just that the control you have of yourself even under extreme pressure and the way you're able to manipulate people around you reminds me of psychopaths I've caught, Light Yagami. Something about you makes me think that you really don't care about anyone.

But if you were actually a psychopath, you would undoubtedly have used Kira's killing power to advance your position in society, rather than try to make the world a better place. You wouldn't hate criminals because you wouldn't care about others and so wouldn't care if people were killed.

No, Light Yagami—you're no psychopath. If you're anything, it's that your intelligence and clear sight has made you cynical and jaded. Someone like that, with Kira's killing power…

Well, a supernatural power like Kira's could turn most anyone into a cold-blooded killer, myself included; once you have a power that gives you the ability to kill and control other people, playing with their lives like a god, you're going to think you're better than everyone and lose sight of the value of human life. Once you reach that point, you'll sacrifice anyone for your ambition.

As you said earlier, Light Yagami, 'power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely'. If you were Kira, I'd say that your psyche was already reaching that level where you stopped actually caring about people, even if you started the whole thing entirely because you did care—but even if you were Kira, you're not Kira now, which means that there's no reason why you wouldn't care about people at this point.

Even if I was Kira and all my memories were altered, I'm so used to thinking of you as Kira, Light Yagami, that it's difficult to think of you now as someone who actually does care about people's lives.

Ryuzaki had been looking unseeingly at the floor, but now he glanced back over at Light. Well, not that that will matter any once we solve the case, since one of us will be dying anyway.

Light was looking at him expectantly. "So what happened after Ukita was killed, Ryuzaki?" Light asked.

Ryuzaki moved his thumb away from his lip and lowered his hand back to his knee; like Light, his wrists were becoming roseate from the chaffing of the metal. Displacing his emotions associated with the scene so that he could speak the events impartially, Ryuzaki said, "Aizawa wanted to go after Kira, but I prevented him from doing so since it just would have gotten him killed as well."

Meeting Light's gaze, Ryuzaki admitted unemotionally, "If he'd been killed, that would have been a large blow to me both if I was Kira and if I wasn't, since in either case I needed to stop the Second Kira, which would have been much more difficult with less task force members."

Ryuzaki shifted his gaze away again, looking down from his perch on the bed to the center of the cell floor. "I'd already lost one agent to the fake Kira, which I hadn't expected since I'd assumed that the Second Kira, like the real Kira, needed both a face and a name in order to kill someone, but since Ukita was killed when there would have been no way of the Second Kira knowing his name, I was forced to come to the conclusion that this Second Kira could kill with only a face.

"Since Ukita was killed before the other networks started reporting from in front of Sakura TV, I concluded that the Second Kira must have been either inside Sakura TV, somewhere where they could see people entering, or have installed security cameras there in advance, and it was therefore not safe to approach."

He glanced back at Light. "And then your father figured out how to get around that dilemma," he said. "I certainly would not have come up with the solution of driving a truck through the doors, but it was decidedly effective."

"Yeah," Light laughed slightly, "I can't see you coming up with a plan quite that haphazard and ostentatious." His eyes were knowing as they settled on Ryuzaki's face. "How my father was able to get out of Sakura TV unscathed was all your doing though, I'm sure."

"Yes, the police barricade was my idea," Ryuzaki confirmed. He elaborated, "I had Aizawa call Deputy Chief Kitamura and then told him my plan." Looking at Light, he admitted, "I suspected it was your father who had driven that van into Sakura TV, but I didn't know for sure until he called the task force."

"Yeah, I suspected that was my father, too," Light smiled wryly. The knowing glint had not left his eyes. "I doubt any other police officer would do something so crazy. But my father definitely would, even if he had to break out of the hospital and was still recovering from a heart attack."

Ryuzaki held Light's gaze. "Yes, your father's passion for justice is truly phenomenal. He stormed Sakura TV, put a stop to the broadcast and confiscated both the original tapes and the copies that Sakura TV had made."

Ryuzaki shifted his gaze away again, staring at some indistinct point through the bars of his cell. "Forensics analyzed the originals while I watched the copies," he continued. "The tapes had been sent from Okinawa, but I didn't think it worth looking over footage since Kira could control people's actions before death and could have used anyone to send the envelope. It wasn't until I watched the unaired tape that I became convinced that it couldn't have been from the same Kira and must have been a second, for the same reasons that you identified."

"Why did you give Sakura TV permission to air the video for Second Kira's conditions for the police refusing to cooperate, Ryuzaki?" Light asked, looking at him keenly. "After all, part of the conditions were for either you or the Director-General of the NPA to appear on live TV, and the world leaders would of course have had to choose you."

"Yes, and that was both the right and the reasonable decision for them to make," Ryuzaki said, glancing over to meet Light's gaze. "They of course could not cooperate with Kira, and between the Director-General and L it would have course have to be L, as I was the one who challenged Kira and said I'd capture him."

Unblinking, Ryuzaki said, "Whether I was Kira or not, I was still the one who started the face-off." He held Light's gaze. "You watched the video, though, Light-kun; you should know why I allowed Sakura TV to air it."

You only blink when you're not looking at me, Light thought at him. It's like you don't want to miss anything when you're observing me—as if my expression might flicker for a split second and you'd miss it if you closed your eyes.

What Light said to Ryuzaki was, "You let Sakura TV air the tapes because if you hadn't, the Fake Kira would have simply killed off police chiefs worldwide as they'd threatened to in the video, in retribution for it not being aired." Light smiled dryly. "No—the Second Kira would probably would have gone even further than that. They would have just kept killing until you aired it."

"Indeed," Ryuzaki agreed. His eyes didn't leave Light's face.

Don't your eyes water when you keep them open that long? Light wondered. He blinked at Ryuzaki easily.

"Watching that broadcast, I never believed that you would actually appear on television, Ryuzaki," Light said. "Given the Fake Kira's sloppiness, it seemed certain that you would find and catch them—and if that happened, you'd be ahead of me, and I'd never beat you at catching Kira."

Light smiled wryly. "I'd been planning on seeing if I could get onto the task force when you called me asking me to come in." He shrugged slightly, lips still curved. "Of course, if I'd been Kira, I would also have wanted to be part of the task force in order to try to catch the Fake Kira before you as well—but for the purpose of keeping you from discovering the secret of the killing power rather than simply beating you at your own game.

"Well," Light laughed slightly, "I guess my goal was to beat you at your own game either way." He smiled at Ryuzaki. "Whether I was Kira or not, I didn't want you to catch the Fake Kira without me." His wry smile broadened. "My dad called me saying that you wanted my help on the investigation just as I'd been trying to figure out how to get in."

Ryuzaki looked back at him. "Yes, I told the task force that you had very good reasoning abilities and that I thought you'd be a valuable asset to us in apprehending the Second Kira, and I asked them to keep the possibility of a Second Kira a secret from you."

Ryuzaki looked away, blinked at the floor. "The other members of the task force knew that I suspected you of possibly being Kira," he continued to Light, "and I told them that if you said that there was a possibility of the tapes being from a Second Kira, the likelihood of you being Kira would be reduced. However, I had many reasons for testing you in this way."

He glanced back at Light. "Aside from the one that we already discussed," he said, "I also wanted you to demonstrate your reasoning abilities to them." He tilted his head, holding Light's gaze and brushing a finger over his lip. "You are, after all, just an eighteen-year-old, and they hadn't witnessed your amazing reasoning abilities would not have trusted your input the way they trusted mine. But by letting you demonstrate that you had a mind capable of coming to the same conclusions as me, it allowed you to integrate much faster as a trusted member of the team."

Ryuzaki glanced up at the ceiling and blinked. "Or well, as trusted as someone with a five percent chance of being Kira could be," he amended.

Well, that's a fair enough point, Light thought.

"I see," he said aloud. "That makes sense." He stared out ahead through the cell bars, said, "I'm sure you didn't feel that you actually needed my assistance to catch the Second Kira, though, Ryuzaki.

"Rather, by having me on the team it would allow you to monitor my movements—which, if I were Kira, would allow you to have more chance at catching me while keeping me from getting to the Second Kira first; while if you were Kira, it would allow you to have more chance at further framing me, and possibly using the Second Kira to help do so."

Light looked back over at Ryuzaki and smiled knowingly. "For one, by having me join the task force you were able to have me play the role of Kira in our fake broadcast," he said. He laughed slightly. "Although, considering the fact that one of us was Kira, that 'fake' broadcast was technically actually in part from the real Kira, now wasn't it?" Light grinned wryly. "Kind of ironic, that."

Ryuzaki looked at him. "It is," Ryuzaki agreed.

Light shook his head slightly, tendrils of his bangs falling over his closed eyes. "Having me write that message—whether I was Kira or you were framing me to be Kira, either way my ability to step into Kira's shoes for that role proved that I was capable of thinking in that way."

Opening his eyes, Light glanced at Ryuzaki again. "While you could never have used that as concrete proof in and of itself, you could certainly always draw on that as support after finding—or creating—something concretely condemning. That way, after having me play the role of Kira accurately enough that the Second Kira clearly easily believed it was real, nobody on the task force could say, 'There's no way could someone like Light be Kira!', even if I conducted myself as a beacon of justice just like my father."

"Indeed," Ryuzaki agreed, a thumb to his lip as he looked up at the ceiling. "And on top of that, none of the other task force members would have been able to write a message that would sound convincingly like the real Kira. Which meant that if you didn't write it, I would have had to write it—and whether or not I was actually Kira, me being the one to do that would have been detrimental to the trust the other members of the task force had in me."

He looked over at Light, dark eyes unblinking. "In order to not be killed by the Second Kira I needed that message written, but I needed someone else to write it—and that person could only be you."

Light smiled assuredly. "So your plan to create a message from Kira to the Second Kira was the primary reason you invited me onto the task force," he said.

"Essentially, yes," Ryuzaki agreed.

There were other reasons for wanting you on the task force, of course, Light Yagami. But requiring you for the part of Kira in the fake broadcast was the only reason why I actually needed you on the task force—and therefore the reason I didn't really have a choice.

Light nodded, seemingly mostly to himself. "That makes sense," he said. He glanced over at Ryuzaki and shrugged slightly. "Well, once I joined the investigation team, we basically shared most of the experiences regarding the Second Kira, up until Misa approached me." He held Ryuzaki's gaze. "Is there anything before that that we need to clear up, though?"

"I don't think so," Ryuzaki said, thumb brushing over his lip. "We've already established that no matter which of us was actually Kira, in either case for both of us—whether we were Kira or weren't—you would have had your reasons for trying to catch the Second Kira before I did, and I would have had reasons for trying to keep you from coming into contact with the Second Kira."

"Yes," Light agreed. He looked down at the floor in front of him. "And if there were any secret messages in any of the Second Kira's reply videos, whichever one of us was Kira wouldn't remember what it was, at this point."

Light lifted his gaze again, rolling back his shoulders. "Well, let's go over the videos anyway," he said airily, "just to be sure we don't miss anything." He looked at Ryuzaki astutely. "The Second Kira's first reply revealed that she wanted to meet Kira, that she didn't believe Kira had the 'eyes,' and that they would confirm their identities by showing each other their 'Shinigami.'"

Light shook his head, gesturing constrainedly with his hands."I'm still more inclined to believe 'Shinigami' means their killing power, rather than that Shinigami actually exist," he said. "I mean, we've already decided that the Kiras are human and not gods. If actual death gods existed—what, would they just stand idly by while humans played at being gods?" Light snorted. "That seems ridiculous."

He gesticulated dismissively. "Or else, what—'show each other their Shinigami'? How would they have an actual Shinigami, anyway? What—were they were each possessed by one or something?" He shook his head disbelievingly, his tone contemptuous. "That also seems ridiculous."

He glanced at Ryuzaki, eyes bright and mouth quirking wryly. "I supposed it would kind of amusing, though, in a droll sort of way, if Kira could be cured with the performance of an exorcism."

That it would be, Ryuzaki mentally conceded.

Meeting Light's gaze, what Ryuzaki said was, "I also agree that it seems more likely that 'Shinigami' means that they themselves are playing at being death gods with their supernatural abilities to kill than that Shinigami actually exist and are possessing them." He looked at Light with unblinking eyes. "I can't see you being possessed, Light-kun."

Light smiled mildly. "I can't see you being possessed, either, Ryuzaki."

"Thanks," Ryuzaki said. His lips were curving behind his thumb and his eyes were wide open. "What interests me now, though, is what we discussed earlier about the Second Kira having a god's eyes: namely, that they didn't need a name to kill someone, only a face, and how it might be possible for them to know someone's name by looking at their face, and in that case still need the name to kill."

Ryuzaki brushed his thumb over his lip. "If we think about the ability like that, and that the Second Kira's phrase, 'I don't think you have the eyes' means the 'Shinigami' eyes that allow them to know a person's name by looking at their face…" He looked at Light meaningfully. "Then the broadcast and both Kiras' abilities make sense."

Light held his gaze for a moment and then broke it, laughing slightly. "Haha," he said, gesturing with his cuffed hands and smiling sardonically. "If that's the case, whichever one of us who was Kira must have been inestimably freaked out watching that tape and realizing what an idiot the Second Kira is to have said that on a public broadcast."

Still smiling, Light met Ryuzaki's gaze again. His look was knowing. "After all," he said, "if 'I don't think you have the eyes,' means 'I don't think you have the Shinigami eyes which allow you to know a person's name just by looking at their face,' then that suggests it's an addition to the killing power that can be acquired in some way—and the Second Kira's assumption that the vague and cryptic wording would be understood by Kira means that it must have been something that Kira, just by virtue of having the killing power, should have known about."

"That's true," Ryuzaki agreed. He lowered the cuffed hand that had been brushing its thumb over his lip back down to his knee, looked at Light unblinkingly. "But in the Second Kira's defense," he said, "they wouldn't have had any idea how far the Kira case had progressed, or that the real Kira and someone with the mental capability of catching them—whichever of us was playing whichever role—were in such close proximity."

Ryuzaki held Light's gaze easily, pointed out, "The Second Kira wouldn't have realized they needed to be so careful with something so supernatural it wouldn't seem to them that anyone else would be able to discern its meaning or make anything out of it."

Light looked at him for a moment. "I suppose that's true," he conceded, glancing away and shrugging. "After all, for most of the case the public has been under the impression that L is useless and can't solve the case." He glanced at Ryuzaki out of the corner of his eyes, his lips quirking slightly.

Did you do that on purpose, Ryuzaki, or does that kind of thing simply not matter to you?

(It must be the latter; there's no advantage for you in having the public think that L is useless—but there's also no disadvantage, either. And all you actually care about is solving your cases; if doing something won't help you solve a case, you won't do it. You aren't L for the fame—I didn't even know about your existence until that public broadcast you made at the beginning of the Kira case, and I'm sure most people are the same.)

(On top of that, you haven't even gone out of the way to make the members of the task force like you. They respect you, certainly, but they also find you off-putting, and you don't make any effort to reduce that; you clearly don't feel like you need to.)

(As long as the police respect you enough to work under you and obey your instructions, you clearly don't care what anybody thinks about you. Whether the members of the task force or the public.)

In any case, the public thinking that L is useless certainly coincidentally worked in your favor in regards to the potentially important information the Second Kira let slip if I was indeed the real Kira—but if you were the real Kira, then that coincidentally worked against you.

Light summed up, "There's no way the Second Kira would have been able to know the danger they were putting Kira in with their actions, whichever of us that was." He smiled wryly. "I bet at the time whichever one of us was Kira didn't think about that, though."

He looked at Ryuzaki knowingly. "You falling out of your chair could either of been from the shock of the idea that Shinigami could exist—which I'm guessing is what you remember it being—or else, if you were Kira, you might have fallen out of your chair in horror that the Second Kira had revealed such a detail, and then passed it off on Shinigami's possible existence."

Light was smirking, and Ryuzaki looked at him with his usual watchful but expressionless countenance. "And you're assurance that Shinigami can't possibly exist, Light-kun, could have been—as you probably remember it being—you trying to assure both yourself and I of that fact, while if you were Kira you might have said that in order to try to smooth over the Second Kira's blunder and cover up whatever important detail the use of that term might reveal."

"Indeed," Light relented, and laughed slightly. "It's pretty funny, when you look back at your memories and realize that all we ever see of each other is our words and actions, and that any given words and actions could have any myriad of possible intentions and feelings behind them." He smiled at Ryuzaki sardonically. "I suppose that's what makes lying so possible, and so easy."

Indeed, Ryuzaki thought, watching him; And you would certainly know that better than most anyone, wouldn't you, Light-kun? All other things aside, whether you are or aren't Kira, you're a pathological liar and manipulator.

But then again, we both are.

Light smiled at him knowingly. "On top of that," he continued, giving a wry shrug, "with each other we can try to rationalize our memories, intentions and possible-intentions since we're both rational individuals who try to always act in the way we believe to be most logically advantageous.

"But such analyses are not likely to work on someone more rash and emotional like Misa, as she does not act with the same kind of consciousness or her actions and the consequences of those actions. We won't be able to understand her actions using such reasonings, and she isn't going to have memories that hold up to this kind of extensive analysis.

"However, since we both analyze all our actions—both of ourselves and of others—in this manner all the time, we can analyze our memories in this way—but it also means that we're undoubtedly going to have memories that can hold up to it. It's unlikely that we'll find any gaps or circumstances that don't make sense to us, since we're not the kind of people who ever do anything that doesn't make some kind of rational sense."

Light looked down so that his bangs obscured his face, his lips quirking. "All of that phrased more briefly," he said, watching Ryuzaki from the corner of his eyes, "you and I are too similar to be able to find any idiosyncratic flaws in each other; we share both the same weaknesses and the same strengths."

"Indeed," Ryuzaki agreed, looking back at him consideringly.

Sometimes, Light Yagami, it feels like you can read my mind.

But that goes the other way, too.

"Anything that seems to make it more likely that one of is Kira makes it just as likely that it could be the other," Ryuzaki said. He looked away from Light and up at the ceiling, dark gaze unblinking. "With each piece of evidence and each matter we discuss, the scales are being stacked equally against both of us."

"Now, if there were any evidence that Kira either liked or disliked sweets," Light laughed, "that might lead to actual proof of which one of us is Kira."

Ryuzaki tilted his head to glance back over at him, and Light met his gaze and smiled archly.

"After all," Light continued, "all you eat is sweets, Ryuzaki, while I dislike them and avoid eating them unless I'm socially obliged to do so." Light looked away and shrugged. "The exception being fruit, which most of the time I don't mind."

Gazing out past the cell bars, he said more seriously, "Potentially interesting, in this line of thought, though, was the message from Kira that said that 'Shinigami love apples.'

"If we think about 'Shinigami' as the killing power, that Kira was playing at being god and therefore the idea that Kira considered themselves in a figurative way to be a Shinigami—or at the very least akin to a Shinigami—and that Kira wrote that message as a useless taunt to distract from what they were actually doing with the prisoners…"

Light spread his hands slightly, metal cuffs clinking around his wrists. He admitted, "Well, apples are one of the fruits I prefer over others—but I don't love them, so I might have simply skewed that a little to use it as a taunt that couldn't actually lead back to me."

He glanced over at Ryuzaki. "Of course, you also eat fruit, and while I haven't seen you eat any apples and I'm sure none of the task force has, either—that could very well have been a precaution on your part, if you were Kira, so the message about Shinigami loving apples wouldn't be able to be traced back to you.

"Also, if you were framing me, you could have observed that the fruit I tend to buy for myself for snacks is apples, and simply used that at the end as something to maybe tag on as a little bit of bonus material for my conviction."

Light shrugged, concluding with a wry half-smile, "So in the end, I don't think the apples or the connection between a Shinigami being mentioned by both Kira and the Second Kira can lead us to anything in that regard."

Ryuzaki had a finger at his lips, staring thoughtfully up at the ceiling. "Yes," he said, "if Kira had written, 'Shinigami love cake,' that might skew the likelihood of being Kira to me. Though I would never have written something like that that could lead to me so easily." He glanced back at Light. "I might indeed have used 'apples' for something like that, though," he admitted.

Light gave a droll smile. "You know," he remarked, "if Kira actually had been someone else—a third person who wasn't either of the two of us—could you imagine what he might have thought about our fake Kira message?" He shook his head, grinning. "They would surely been laughing their ass off seeing us use that fake message to save the life of L and other members of the police and newscasters—while also essentially condoning their killing of criminals and acknowledging the pure intention of their attempt to make the world a better place."

Light laughed, and Ryuzaki just looked at him—his dark eyes, as always, wide and unblinking. "...Yes," Ryuzaki said, "that would have hilarious for Kira, had Kira been someone who wasn't either of us. I admittedly didn't think of that, since I was convinced that you were Kira."

Light shrugged and grinned wryly. "I didn't think about it, either, since I was so focused on catching the Second Kira and saving the lives of you and other police members like my father—and creating a convincing message that sounded like the real Kira was the only way to do that." His smile was sharp and his eyes glinted. "Seems like a strange thing for both of us to have not even thought about, though." He broke their gaze and shrugged again. "But of course, no matter which of us was Kira, knowing that we were Kira we also wouldn't have thought of what that would seem like to a Kira that wasn't us, either."

"We considered it after receiving the reply from the Second Kira, though, when your father suggested that the two Kiras were the same because they'd both used the word 'Shinigami,'" Ryuzaki pointed out. He was looking thoughtfully up at the ceiling, thumb brushing over his lip.

"Yes, because if it were the same Kira, they would not have replied to our videotape of the fabricated Kira, and would not have gone along with the plan not to kill L," Light agreed. He gesticulated dismissively. "But that was addressing the idea that the two Kiras were the same—not about what the original Kira might have been thinking about all this."

"After that we did, though," Ryuzaki said, looking over at him blankly. "My plan was to let the original Kira and Second Kira handle matters after that rather than replying to the Second Kira again, since I assumed that Kira would be paying attention to the back-and-forth between the Second Kira and the one we created, and that from Kira's view, he'd want to avoid the Second Kira getting captured by the police, and thus might send a real reply the next time.

"With the circumstances, though, he would have had to use Sakura TV. With the internet full of irresponsible claims of about Kira and L's identities, it would be impossible to verify. However, if no reply came from Kira, the Second Kira would probably release more information to the police and media that Kira would want to keep secret, in order to pressure Kira into meeting him, which would have been very interesting. Though it of course would have been even more interesting if Kira were to have sent a reply in order to avoid that happening, since in that case I thought we might have been able to get some real physical evidence against Kira."

Light closed his eyes and shook his head, letting out an exasperated exhale. "That's exactly what you said at the time, Ryuzaki," he stated. "But what was it you were actually thinking?" He opened his eyes and looked at Ryuzaki pointedly. "As you remember it, being under the impression that I was Kira."

Still can't slip anything by you, Light Yagami, Ryuzaki thought, lips curving slightly behind his thumb.

"Believing that you were Kira, I sought to manipulate you with what I said," Ryuzaki admitted. He removed his thumb from his lips once his expression had sobered again, lowering his hand to rest over his knee. "I believed you would have had to have been very desperate indeed to have sent your own reply, and so I didn't think you actually would; if you had, it would have been very difficult for you to have done so without revealing any physical evidence, and it would also have complicated matters greatly in regards to catching the Second Kira.

"I wanted you not to send your own video, and so I said that in order to definitely prevent you from doing so. I didn't want to die, and I was sure that, if you did send a video, you would have definitely told the Second Kira to kill me.

"By pointing out that and suggesting all the reasons why it would be a strategically terrible idea to send your own video in reply, I hoped to both prevent my death and to allow the Second Kira to reply again—which I didn't doubt that they would—and to focus on capturing them first, with the plan of getting information from them about the killing power which would help me find proof that you were the real Kira."

Ryuzaki glanced over, meeting Light's gaze and holding it undauntedly. "I hoped," Ryuzaki said, "to trap you in a situation where you couldn't act in any way that was beneficial to you."

Light smiled wryly. "Which you admittedly succeeded at, Ryuzaki, had I indeed been Kira," he said. He shrugged, a smirk toying latently in the curve of his lips. "If you were Kira, though, you certainly weren't in a position to send your own video. In which case, by saying that and pointing out why it would be the best tactic on Kira's part to not send out their own video, you would in a sense have been protecting yourself from needing to do so, since otherwise the rest of the task force might have otherwise been suspicious at Kira's lack of response."

He shrugged lightly. "Additionally, by focusing on capturing the Second Kira rather than on framing me, you'd be focusing on preventing the reveal of your own guilt, which would of course be a much more pressing matter; as long as you could prevent any suspicion from falling onto you, you'd have had all the time in the world to frame me as Kira."

"Indeed," Ryuzaki conceded easily, watching Light with unblinking eyes. "But what were your thoughts on the matter, Light-kun?"

As always, Light was undaunted by the urelenting stare and blinked normally. "Not much different, to be honest," he said shruggingly. "It didn't really matter to me whether the real Kira or the Fake Kira sent a message first, though—either way, it would lead the investigation closer to uncovering their identities.

"However, I did also believe that the Second Kira was far more likely to send another message than the real Kira was likely to send their own." He looked over and met Ryuzaki's gaze, smiling mildly. "Since I was not the one who would have been called onto television to show my identity, I was not particularly concerned about whatever happened. If you had to go onto TV and be killed by the Second Kira—which I didn't think you actually would, since, knowing you, I was sure you'd find a way out—then that would have been your own failure, and I'd catch Kira in your stead."

Light shifted his gaze away, rolled back his shoulders. "If I had been Kira, though," he postulated, "I would no doubt have been incredibly concerned by the entire affair, and would probably even have been agonizing about what to do about it.

"After all, even if I'd sent a video as the real Kira, you had the task force was monitoring all the mail of Sakura TV and every other television station, and you would never have let it be aired if it were not beneficial to you in some way; and if I'd made it beneficial to you in a way that Kira wouldn't have been able to had they not been a part of the investigation team, that would have significantly supported your suspicion that I was Kira."

Gaze down and obscured by his bangs, Light smiled wryly at the floor. "As such, I would have been in a real bind and not have been able to do anything but hope that the Second Kira wasn't so stupid that they would reveal something vital."

Indeed, Ryuzaki thought. That's what I believed, too.

Ryuzaki looked up at the ceiling, dark hair falling away from his dark eyes. "If I were Kira," he proposed, "I would no doubt also have been very concerned; but since I had control of the investigation and could decide what was and what wasn't aired, I suppose I would have felt more sure in my footing than you would have at that point in time, had you been Kira, Light-kun. Secure enough to let the Second Kira send their own next response out of impatience, at any rate."

Ryuzaki glanced back over at Light, dark bangs falling back into his face. "We'd determined that the Second Kira's true intentions were not those of changing the world, but of meeting the real Kira," he continued, "and as such I would have been at something of a disadvantage since I almost never left the task force headquarters, except to attend university for the sake of investigating you. As such, it would have been highly suspicious had I gone out for any other reason.

"I would thus have never been able to find the Second Kira on my own without the task force's participation, and would have had to rely on the task force catching the Second Kira and then simply manipulating the interrogation so they didn't reveal anything that would have been detrimental to me."

Light met his gaze and smiled wryly. "Yes, if I were Kira I daresay I would have had an advantage there," he said, "since I could come and go from the task force headquarters as I pleased and had my own life outside of it and separate from it." He shrugged, lips still curling as he added, "Though of course, I could only have gotten information on the Second Kira through the task force, since you had the power and influence to have all the mail to all the TV stations intercepted."

He looked at Ryuzaki discerningly from behind his bangs. "I'm almost surprised that you let my father call me in when the Second Kira sent in that diary page," he said lightly, "if you believed that I was Kira.

"I mean, if I were Kira, I might have seen some hidden message that you wouldn't, which might have allowed me to meet with the Second Kira without your knowing; and if Kira had joined forces with the Second Kira, that would have been a grave danger to you. So I'd thought that, in order to stay safe, you'd want to keep me away from you, even if you said you believed there was only a small chance that I was Kira."

Light smiled at Ryuzaki mildly. "On the other hand, if you were Kira, you would have seen the diary before my father called me in. So you would have known if there were any secret messages there for Kira and whether or not anyone else would have been able to figure them out, and you would have determined that it was safe to show me."

Ryuzaki rubbed a thumb thoughtfully over his lip. "In my memory," he ventured, looking back over at Light, "it was especially because I suspected you of being Kira that I wanted you to see the diary entries. I wanted to see your reactions to the contents." He held Light's gaze. "If the Second Kira had included a message that only Kira would understand, I would not have been able to figure it out myself, but I might have been able to get a clue from observing you."

Light looked at him and laughed airily. "Did you really think that, if I were Kira, I'd let something like that slip?" he asked, disbelieving. His smile was sardonic.

"No," Ryuzaki answered, holding Light's gaze phlegmatically, his dark eyes unblinking. He commended, "Your poker face and acting ability are exceptional, Light-kun."

Oh? Light thought, smiling back at him easily, affectedly. Is that your way of accusing me of acting right now, Ryuzaki?

You're no different from me I that respect. And you know that, and I know that, and you know that I know that, and I know that you know that I know that. Which means that this is just another acknowledgment of our similarities, and why either of us could have been Kira without anyone else suspecting. No one else aside from each other.

Light's easy smile was affected, unwavering. It takes a monster to catch another monster, huh? He was still holding Ryuzaki's gaze.

Ryuzaki was watching him, continuing, "But since I could get nothing from the diary myself, I wouldn't have had a choice but to call you in and see if you could get anything from it, Light-kun. And I didn't have enough evidence against you to justify keeping the diary from you; I had to risk the possibility of you figuring out a hidden message from the diary and meeting up with the Second Kira."

Ryuzaki's lips curved slightly, impishly. "That wouldn't necessarily have been a bad thing, though," he said. His eyes on Light were like a jungle cat's. "Given the Second Kira's sloppiness, if you as Kira did meet up with them, it could have led to evidence that I could use to convict you."

Light looked back at Ryuzaki for a moment, his gaze like that of a fox, then he closed his eyes and exhaled. "I see," he said mildly. "And that would have been the case not just for if I was Kira and you were trying to catch me as well, but also if you were Kira and trying to frame me."

He opened his eyes, meeting Ryuzaki's gaze again. "I certainly didn't notice any hidden messages in the diary entry, given that I have no memories of being Kira—and the same is true for you, I'm sure—but I figured there must have been one, since the note about 'confirming their Shinigami at the Giants game at the Tokyo Dome' was far too obvious, even for the Second Kira." He closed his eyes and shook his head. "It couldn't possibly have been the real message."

"I agree," Ryuzaki said, brushing his thumb thoughtfully over his lip. "And since Misa apparently saw you in Aoyama, the hidden message must have been that about showing the off notebooks." Ryuzaki skewed his lips to the side. "Notebooks of what—the people that they killed?"

Light snorted. "I don't know about Misa, but I can't see myself as Kira keeping a record of the people that I killed. First of all because I wouldn't care—and second of all because if it were found it would be far too easy to use to convict me." He shook his head derisively. "I would never keep such a condemning piece of evidence."

Ryuzaki was looking up at the ceiling. "Me neither," he agreed. He was rubbing a thumb over his lip. "But if the hidden message was the notebooks, the Second Kira clearly assumed that Kira would have one…"

"Not necessarily," Light countered, and Ryuzaki glanced over at him.

Light met his gaze, and continued, "In researching Aoyama before going there with Matsuda, I discovered that there's a cafe there called the 'Note Blue.' I thought might have been the intended meeting place, and that therefore 'showing of their notebooks' was an oblique a way of specifying the location."

Ryuzaki stared at him. "That is indeed a possibility," he admitted, thumb at his lips and thumbnail at his teeth.

Light stared out past the bars of his cell. "Of course, I kept an eye on the place that day in Aoyama," he said, "but I didn't actually see anyone suspicious there… I didn't even see Misa there." He shook his head, amending, "Or at least, not that I remember. Admittedly, I wasn't profiling Kira or the Second Kira as a beautiful young idol, so I may have simply not noticed her."

"You didn't notice a beautiful young woman?" Ryuzaki questioned, looking at him unblinkngly. "At your age?"

Light shot him a glare. "Shut up, Ryuzaki," he said. "I was looking for Kira and the Second Kira. Girls and romance were the farthest things from my mind." He shook his head. "And I wouldn't have noticed her while looking for possibly suspects, since I was profiling Kira as an older student around high school age, and assuming the Second Kira was younger, maybe a middle schooler. And I had it in my mind that both were male… an oversight, on my part." Light smiled dryly. "I shouldn't have assumed that the Second Kira couldn't be female."

"Indeed," Ryuzaki said, looking at him. He lowered his hand from his mouth back to his knee. "That is part of why female criminals can tend to get away with far more without being caught—since the majority of criminals are male, people will go after a criminal assuming that they must be male, and will never think to consider that they could be female." He looked at Light pointedly. "I have solved several criminal cases where the perpetrators turned out to be females. You need to keep your mind open to all possibilities and not be blinded by stereotypes, Light-kun."

Light closed his eyes and exhaled. "Yeah, I know that now," he said exasperatedly. "You don't have to tell me."

"Perhaps I should have told you earlier," Ryuzaki said, gaze unblinking. "Before you went to Aoyama."

Light shot him a look. "Perhaps you should've," he said flatly. "In any case, though," he shifted his gaze away and shrugged, "we really can't know for certain whether 'notebooks' was the real key to the Second Kira and original Kira's intended meeting—whether it was specifying the location, or if carrying notebooks was just supposed to be a way for them to recognize each other in the crowd, or if it really was somehow about kept records of their kills. There's even a possibility that Misa, like us, considered all the locations mentioned in the journal entries to be potential meeting places, and also planned to buy summer clothes in Shibuya on the 24th, in hopes that Kira would be at one of the mentioned locations on the mentioned dates, without knowing for sure which Kira would choose. Maybe she was giving Kira options."

Light spread his hands, the short chain drawing taught between them and clinking. "I mean, even though Misa met purportedly saw me in Aoyama, she didn't think that I was Kira—or at least, she didn't approach me as such." Light lowered his hands to his lap, lightly interlacing his fingers. "But then again, maybe I just don't remember her approaching me as such; given that if I were Kira, I would have lost my memories of everything regarding being Kira, we of course can't trust my account of that. But it's not impossible that she could have seen me and fallen in love with me at first sight even if I weren't Kira."

Ryuzaki looked at him blandly. "You have a very high opinion of yourself, Light-kun."

Light shot him an unimpressed look. "When you've had girls clamoring to go out with you for years, it's hard not to, Ryuzaki," he said. He looked away, shrugging again. "In any case, I'm just saying that just because Misa approached me doesn't prove that I was Kira.

"As for how she knew my name and was able to find where I lived," he gestured indifferently with his cuffed hands, "we've already hypothesized that the Second Kira might have been able to know someone's name simply by seeing their face. Under that presumption, we could assume that she knew my name just by looking at me."

Ryuzaki brushed a thumb musingly over his lip. "That would make sense why she wouldn't be able to remember how she knew your name," he said, "her having lost all her memories of being the Second Kira."

"Yeah," Light agreed. "And if she had my name due to her killing power, but then instead of killing me looked up my name on the internet, it probably wouldn't have been that hard for her to find information on me. My name is rather unique, so there would have been no chance that it could have someone else."

Looking over at Ryuzaki, Light admitted wryly, "I've also apparently managed to unintentionally garner something of a reputation; according to my younger sister there are even fan pages about me."

"There are," Ryuzaki confirmed, looking back at him. "I found a few of them myself when I was looking into you as a Kira suspect."

Light smiled dryly. "Is that how you found out I was the junior tennis champion during my middle school years, and why you decided to challenge me to a tennis game?"

Ryuzaki removed his thumb from his mouth, where he'd been biting at his thumbnail with his teeth. "I would have discovered that fact about you even without the fansites," he said.

"Fair enough," Light agreed easily. "But that does tell me that that kind of information can indeed be found there, which means that there's probably even more information on me available.

Light rolled back his shoulders, exhaling. "The existence of the fansites is kind of disturbing, so I usually try not to think about it too hard…"

You say it disturbs you, Light Yagami, Ryuzaki thought, watching him, and yet you knew about the websites and allowed them to exist, even though with your hacking skills it would have been easy for you to take them down. And the way you talk about girls clamoring over you and Misa falling in love with you just because of your looks…

Light Yagami, you're used to being renowned—and you like it.

Even before becoming Kira—or even if you weren't Kira—you have exactly the mentality necessary to develop a god complex. Not that that means anything, at this point, since we already know that you were either Kira or I based Kira off of you and framed you for it.

But if you were Kira, Light Yagami, I will definitely catch you—because even if this is all part of your plan, someone like you will always lose in the end; you're too arrogant, and the oversights you make in your arrogance will cost you.

Light was looking at Ryuzaki and smiling dryly. "Since my father is a police officer, and I always made sure to never go out with any girls who had other boyfriends, I never figured that I was in any danger from anyone."

See, Light Yagami? Ryuzaki thought. In your arrogance you allowed those websites to remain when you could have taken them down, and in doing so you gave Misa the means to find you.

Light shook his head, bangs brushing over his face. "The fact that you can find people's personal information online is rather twisted, though, isn't it?" he asked.

Cuffs clinking slightly with the movement, Ryuzaki moved his hand back to his mouth to brush his thumb over his lip. "Misa said basically the same thing," he mentioned.

"Did she?" Light said lightly. He gave a shrug. "Well, we've already established that she agreed with Kira's morals—and that Kira's morals whether I was Kira or you were, were based on my own morals—so that's not exactly surprising."

No, indeed it isn't, Ryuzaki thought, looking at him unblinkingly. It's clear enough that Kira and the Second Kira were trying to change the world not out of care for humanity, but out of misanthropy.

Light continued, "I think we can be certain, though, that whether I was Kira or not, I did not make contact with Misa in Aoyama.

"Not just because I don't remember coming into contact with her—given that if I was Kira I lost all my memories regarding it, we can't exactly trust my memory—but Matsuda was with me the entire time, and I was also with a group of acquaintances from the university whom I invited so me and Matsuda would appear less suspicious while investigating, and even if you questioned all of them they'd probably confirm the same.

Light looked at Ryuzaki knowingly. "There were also all those extra security cameras we'd had set up that day, and I'm sure you've watched all the footage a few times already and not seen me come into contact with her."

Well, you got me there, Ryuzaki thought, skewing his lips to the side with his thumb. But we both knew all this already, and I also believe that even if you were Kira, Misa did not make contact with you in Aoyama when she found you.

So why are you going over all this, Light Yagami? It can't just be because you're determined to be thorough. You're purposefully steering this conversation towards something.

(But what?)

"Additionally," Light continued easily, unfaltering beneath Ryuzaki's intense gaze, "the Second Kira's next video claimed that they 'found Kira,' which makes it clear that she didn't actually come into contact with Kira." He shook his head. "After all, if she'd come into contact with Kira by that point, then Kira wouldn't have let her air something like that."

Looking at Ryuzaki, Light smiled mirthlessly. "Admittedly, though, the fact that she 'found Kira' after apparently also seeing me in Aoyama does seem to point to my being Kira."

Well, Ryuzaki? Light thought, suppressing the urge to smirk. If we leave things at that, we could draw the conclusion that I must be Kira. But if we draw that conclusion, who would trust it at this point? If you agree with me on it, at worst it'll make you look suspiciously like you're eager to pass the suspicion onto me, and at best it'll make you look like a fool for not having thought of that fact before and having let yourself be locked up with me.

So Ryuzaki. How will you respond?

Ryuzaki looked at Light and thought, Ah, so that's what you're doing.

I don't have any choice here but to reconsider the evidence and the conclusions that can be drawn from it.

And when I think about the evidence analytically, without immediately jumping to the conclusion that every association, whether large or small, increases the likelihood that Light Yagami is Kira…

If Misa Amane took all those same actions, but Light wasn't Kira, and Misa knew that…

"If you were Kira, though, Light-kun," Ryuzaki realized, "and Misa found you in Aoyama, why would she send in that video before contacting you?" Ryuzaki removed the thumb that had been skewing his lips and lowered his hand back to his knee, looking at Light significantly. "If you think about it, the fact that she messaged saying that she 'found Kira' seems to suggest that she wanted the the public to believe that she had, but she actually hadn't.

"What she might have actually found was simply you, you not being Kira, since, despite the fact that she admits to admiring and being grateful to Kira, she clearly cares more for you than she does for Kira; there's no competition at all. Between Light and Kira, she chooses Light. If you were actually Kira, one would think it would be the case that in her mind you and Kira would be equal and equatable—but you're not."

Ryuzaki's gaze did not leave Light's own. "She might have simply found something she cared about more than she cared about Kira," he said, "and therefore sent in that video as a way of backing out of the search for Kira in a way that would be obvious to Kira while still scaring the police by making them think that the Kira were teaming up."

So you identified the flaws in your previous reasoning, Ryuzaki, Light thought. I expected no less of you.

For all that Ryuzaki was watching, there was no change in Light's phlegmatic expression. He remained utterly unreadable.

"That's true that if she'd actually found Kira it doesn't make any sense for her to have sent in that video saying that she had, before actually having contacted Kira," Light agreed. He closed his eyes, shaking his head. "She's an idiot, but in some aspects she's not completely clueless. The Giants game was an obvious mislead, but it was the intentional use of mislead nonetheless." He opened his eyes again, meeting Ryuzaki's gaze. "On top of that, the fingerprints on the tapes weren't hers, right?"

"Indeed," Ryuzaki confirmed. He raised his hand from his knee to brush his thumb over his lip. "She did clearly put some foresight into some of her actions."

"Still," Light gave a shrug, "given the unpredictable selectivity of her foresight, it's impossible to guess if she really is so much of an idiot that she'd send in that tape after finding Kira but before confronting him."

Ryuzaki turned his gaze up towards the ceiling. "Yes," he agreed, brushing over his lip with his thumb. "Once again, the scales against both of us remain stacked equally."

"So it seems," Light said mildly. He spread his hands in a shrugging gesture, letting out a sigh."When it comes to Misa, I doubt its possible to rationalize a logical explanation for any of her actions."

Ryuzaki glanced back over at him. "She is indeed a rather illogical person," he conceded.

"On top of that," Light said, "her emotions—which she seems to be ruled by—are mind-boggling. I mean, she fell in love with me at first sight? Seriously?" He shook his head, disbelieving and disparaging. "And deciding that the best way to become my girlfriend would be to stalk me and show up unexpected at my house?"

Ryuzaki regarded him, rubbing his thumb over his lip. "We can acknowledge, in any case," he said, "that even if you didn't see her, Misa was there in Aoyama on the 22nd, and that she saw you there. But it doesn't seem like that's going to lead us to which of us was truly Kira."

"Indeed," Light said, opening his eyes again. He looked ahead through the bars of his cell. "Though if I were Kira and she were somehow able to determine that, it would make more sense why she fell in love with me, rather than it just being my looks. Though," he shrugged, "looks are all most girls care about, anyway. Along with prestige."

Light Yagami, Ryuzaki thought, you really are jaded.

Of course, now even if we prove that you match Kira's profile 100 percent, it doesn't actually mean anything…

"That aside, however," Light said, looking back over at him. "If I wasn't Kira, but you were, Ryuzaki, it would have been incredibly serendipitous for you that she found and fell in love with me, as it would have given you more significant grounds for founding your framing of me."

Ryuzaki's thumb skewed his lip. "It would also have posed a grave danger to me as Kira, though," he pointed out, "since in getting close to her it would likely have been very possible for you to discover the secret of her killing power."

Light smiled blandly. "Hence why you would have had her arrested, both if you weren't but also if you were Kira," he said.

"Yes," Ryuzaki agreed, lowering his hand from his mouth and slipping his arms around his legs. The chain was pulled taught between the cuffs around his wrists as he closed his fingers around his ankles over the material of his baggy pants. "If you were Kira, and you had teamed up with Misa who could kill with just a face, then your closeness would have posed a grave danger to my life; while if I were Kira and you were therefore the only one who might be able to eventually discover me, your closeness to the Second Kira and subsequent opportunity to manipulate her into revealing the secret of Kira's killing power would have posed a nearly equal danger to my safety."

Ryuzaki was looking consideringly up at the ceiling. "Assuming that you were Kira, it was in my best interests to separate the two of you, and to use her to try to discover the secret of the killing power which could lead me to the evidence I'd need to convict you; and assuming that I was Kira, it was in my best interests to separate the two of you and have control over the questioning of the Second Kira so I could make sure that she did not reveal anything that would endanger me—or else at least better counter it by finding a way to use it to condemn you instead, which I of course would not have been able to do had she remained at large."

"That makes sense," Light said. His gaze rested on the floor. "Well, we can probably safely assume that when she sent the tape about 'finding Kira,' she hadn't come into contact with him. But when she sent the tape saying she wasn't going to contact Kira, but rather pass judgment on criminals Kira hadn't yet in order to gain his acceptance, we can assume that she had somehow come into contact with Kira, since otherwise, why wouldn't she have done that from the beginning?"

Light shook his head, lips curling sardonically. "And that was after she came into contact with me, while she did not come into contact with you at all—so if she did come into contact with Kira, then Kira must be me."

Well, Ryuzaki? If we're going to start this case anew, we need to first undo all your past conclusions that seemed to condemn me. And since they were your conclusions, you should be the one to undermine them.

Ryuzaki tilted his head, looking over at him. So, Light Yagami, you're leading me to rethink all my conclusions that pegged you as Kira.

Well, that makes sense. And it's more advantageous to both of us if I'm the one to do so, since it better evens out the playing field and places us on the same ground, with the two of us working together on this case to discover the truth rather than attacking each other as if, instead of being dedicated to uncovering the truth, we're just trying to make sure the other gets blamed for being Kira. If that were to happen, we'd seem inherently dishonest and the task force wouldn't be able to trust anything that we said, and we'd never get anywhere.

"I did say that the Second Kira's message about passing judgment on criminals Kira hadn't yet in order to gain Kira's approval seemed to indicate that they had joined forces," Ryuzaki admitted. "And if you were Kira, Light-kun, then that would certainly fit."

He lifted a finger pointedly. "But if I were Kira, I might have proposed, after viewing that tape, that the Second Kira had met Kira, in order to prepare for framing you as Kira while further keeping suspicion away from myself.

"If you recall, Light-kun, you did not voice the same opinion of the video, which is suspicious in itself, since we usually come to the same conclusions—whether you didn't voice the same opinion because as Kira you'd come into contact with her and were trying to keep suspicion off yourself, or because you weren't Kira and correctly didn't get the sense that she'd come into contact with Kira, the fact remains." Light looked over at him, and Ryuzaki held his gaze, concluding, "Whichever one of us was Kira must have lied in that instance."

"I see," Light said. He spread his hands, smiling grimly. "In that case, we really can't know which one of us that was."

"Indeed," Ryuzaki said. "If you weren't Kira, Light-kun, then Misa might have sent in the video truly meaning that she was no longer seeking out Kira, since she'd found you instead and cared more for you than she cared about finding Kira. In wanting to have a relationship with you, she may have reevaluated her priorities and actually taken the police warning to heed, while nonetheless wanting to help Kira make the world a better place for you, who she loves deeply and would want to help at any cost."

Light interlaced his fingers, shaking his head. "But if I were Kira and had told her to say that, she would have said it—since, as you said, she would have jumped at the opportunity to assist me in any way."

"That's true," Ryuzaki conceded. "Again, we can't know." He looked up at the ceiling, posing the questions, "But if you were Kira, Light-kun, and Misa had approached you, why would you not have killed her? And why would you have asked her to send a note that made it so obvious that you were working together?"

And now the ball's back in your court, Light Yagami.

Light shook his head. "We already discussed this at the time, Ryuzaki," he said. "If I was Kira, then I must have not been able to kill her for whatever reason, and might thus have been feeling pressured and was probably acting without thinking." He shrugged, lips curling slightly. "Or, an alternative theory is that maybe I wanted to make it clear to you in order to put pressure on you, while not having it be clear to the rest of the populace, so that I could kill the Second Kira after using her to kill you, since she would have been able to do so after simply seeing your face, while I would have needed your name—which is probably impossible to find out by anything less than supernatural means.

"As we also already discussed at the time, when you tested me by saying if I were Kira I would have had the Second Kira send in a tape saying for L to still appear on television, even if I was Kira I wouldn't have done that because if I were Kira I know your personality and would know you would find a way to get out of it. So my goal wouldn't have been to have you appear on television, but to find some way for you and Misa to meet."

"Yes, if you were Kira then that makes sense," Ryuzaki conceded, glancing back over at him. "But if I were Kira, then I would have actually not have come into contact with the Second Kira, and she would of sent in that tape of their own accord. In which case she must have reevaluated the situation after finding you and changing her priorities.

"At the time I said it was suspicious that the Second Kira said they would judge the criminals Kira hadn't yet in order to gain their acceptance, when they hadn't seemed o have thought of doing that at the beginning. But if her original intent was, as we determined, to meet Kira, then her original intent was not necessarily to gain Kira's acceptance but to pressure Kira into meeting her—while if, due to valuing her life with you, she no longer had the desire to meet Kira in order to thank him for killing the criminal who killed her parents, she may have decided to simply thank him by killing the criminals he hadn't instead.

"Since her intent would have changed, it makes sense that her strategy would have, too."

Light glanced over, meeting Ryuzaki's gaze and smiling sardonically, "It would certainly be ironic if you were Kira and yet she fell in love with me, while idolizing Kira, given that if you were Kira you would have been basing Kira's personality and killings off my own ideology." Light laughed wryly. "She would then have fallen in love with not the one doing the killings themselves, but the one whose beliefs matched the killings most closely."

Light shook his head, spreading his hands and grinning ironically. "And yet, she didn't fall in love with me because of my personality—it was all my looks, since she fell in love with me just by seeing me and hadn't even talked to me."

He looked back at Ryuzaki, said lightly, "I'm sure that if you were Kira looking for someone to frame for it, my looks wouldn't have factored into that…" Ryuzaki looked back at him, and Light's eyes narrowed slightly. "Or actually," he reconsidered, "they probably would have.

"I mean," he gesticulated, "if you want people to be more likely to believe your accusation, you'd want someone who would look the part of what you were trying to convict them for: if you were creating Kira to seem like a horrible, immoral monster, you would want someone who would look like that—but as you would have been creating Kira to be someone with the pure intentions of making the world a better place, you would want someone who would embody the part in every aspect," he looked at Ryuzaki pointedly, "including appearance."

"Yes," Ryuzaki said easily, holding Light's gaze, "I would have factored that in. You're not the only genius in the world, after all."

Light smiled wryly. "Just one at the right age who happens to be attractive and the son of a police chief?"

"Indeed," Ryuzaki agreed. He looked back at Light with dark, wide eyes. "Though you are also very arrogant," he said.

"But that fits too, doesn't it?" Light said. He laughed mirthlessly. "You'd have to be arrogant to believe you could play God—you have to be arrogant to a certain degree in order to believe you can do anything better than anyone else." He looked at Ryuzaki with vulpine eyes, pointed out, "You're arrogant as well, Ryuzaki; you would never have been able to solve all those cases if you weren't."

"I never said that I wasn't," Ryuzaki said easily, holding his gaze.

Light smiled. "I was just saying," he shrugged. Looking at Ryuzaki from behind his bangs, he segued, "In any case, though, if you were Kira, your reaction to the Second Kira's last tape…"

The ball's back in your court, Ryuzaki.

Ryuzaki regarded him for a moment, then turned his gaze up to the ceiling. "If I was Kira," he said, "I would obviously have known that the Second Kira hadn't made contact with me. Seeing the Second Kira's sudden change in priorities, I would likely have lied about the Second Kira and original Kira joining forces in the hope of using your contact with the Second Kira to frame you.

"While I did not know that you had already met Misa at that time—I didn't know until Misa approached you while you were on your way back from the task force headquarters later that day, as I'd asked one of the task force members whom you hadn't met and didn't know to tail you—I would have known that you would be doing your utmost to find the Second Kira on your own time. Since I could not leave the task force headquarters and could not have found the Second Kira on my own, I would surely have planned to let you find the Second Kira for me, and then to use that to frame you.

"In setting the stage for that, I would have posed the hypothetical that if you were Kira you would have told the Second Kira to kill me, no doubt knowing that you wouldn't let something like that slide, and that you'd admit that if you were Kira, that isn't what you would have done—something which I would later be able to use against you."

Ryuzaki glanced over at Light again. "Of course," he added, "if you had let it slide, I would have used that against you, as well, by saying that the reason you let it slide was to try to reduce the suspicion of you being Kira…

"Although, if my memory is actually correct and I wasn't Kira, the reason I posed that question was because I knew that you wouldn't have done that if you were Kira, but was testing to see if you'd let it slide in order to go along with the theory of it reducing the fact that you were Kira.

"If you'd let it slide, I would have had more reason to believe that you were Kira; however, in getting you to admit that that wasn't what you'd do if you were Kira, that would also aid me in convicting you in the long run."

Ryuzaki shrugged, turning his gaze back to the ceiling as he admitted, "So whether I was Kira or not, my reasons for that question would have been essentially the same."

"Yeah," Light concurred, "and it didn't matter how I replied to that, whether I was Kira or wasn't." He spread his hands, shaking his head. "As far as proving my likelihood of being Kira, it was all the same in the end."

He looked back at Ryuzaki, gaze like a glacier: cold, impenetrable, seemingly flat and yet inestimably vast. "So of course, whether I was Kira or wasn't, I wasn't going to let you insult my intelligence in that way." His gaze, glacial, didn't leave Ryuzaki's own. "You seemed quite happy," he remarked, "when I didn't let the falseness of that hypothetical slide, Ryuzaki."

"I was," Ryuzaki said easily. "I was hoping that you wouldn't." His eyes were like coals: seemingly dead, burnt and black, but internally alight. "To be completely honest with you, Light-kun, it has always delighted me that you never fall for my tricks. You're always able to figure out exactly what it is I'm doing, and even at the risk of raising the suspicion against you, you always meet my challenges rather than backing down." He held Light's gaze as if he could melt through the ice and see what was on the inside. "I've never been pitted against such an equal opponent," he smiled like a flicker of flame, "and it's more thrilling than I ever could have imagined."

The ice of Light's gaze remained frozen and unmoved in its imperceptible but unstoppable course. "So when you said that I was your first-ever friend…" Light smiled like sunlight kitten-pouncing off powdered snow, claws unsheathed, "did you actually mean it?"

Ryuzaki's dark eyes were like the undying heart-coals of fires, always ready to rekindle to life with the slightest breath, the slightest sigh. "Yes and no," he said, holding Light's gaze like flame held a log. "You're my first equal, Light-kun, and so if equality in a relationship means friendship, then you're my friend. Engaging with you thrills me, but since you're my equal and my opponent you also scare me, for I've never met someone I thought could actually defeat me…"

The only thing I can do here is be honest, Ryuzaki thought, and hope that when it's Light Yagami's turn he's just as honest as I'm being and finds it just as unsettling.

He probably won't, though.

"I don't know what one would call that," Ryuzaki concluded, watching Light's impassive features, "so I don't know what you actually are to me. I feel that this stands true, whether I was Kira or not."

That makes sense, Ryuzaki, Light thought. And it certainly feels like the truth.

(As if either of us would be able to get away with lying, here. And there's no advantage in doing so. Being frank about our feelings is the best thing we can do for laying the groundwork for the dynamic of this new relationship, now that the scales have equalized.)

Holding his gaze unwaveringly, Ryuzaki asked, "When I said you were my first-ever friend, Light-kun, did you believe me?"

Light smiled slightly. "Yes and no, Ryuzaki," he said honestly. "I believed that I was your first equal and therefore the first person you truly enjoyed engaging with, but since you were obviously still trying to prove that I was Kira, I wouldn't exactly call that friendship…"

He shook his head. "No matter which of us was actually Kira, we were never on the same side, and I couldn't believe that someone who believed I was Kira could actually consider me a friend. I consequently assumed you were saying that in order to analyze my reaction, and I went along with it because I was hoping that acknowledging you as my friend would help get you to trust me and believe I wasn't Kira…" He met Ryuzaki's gaze again, smiled faintly. "I did not think you were actually my friend, Ryuzaki, but I hoped that we would become friends."

Well, Ryuzaki thought, watching him, that certainly seems true. Although—

"Though of course, if I was Kira," Light said, spreading his hands, "I would have known we could never actually be friends, but would also have gone along with it in order to try to get you to trust me, no doubt believing that if I could get you to actually think of me as a friend then I would be able to defeat you."

It's like he was reading my thoughts again, Ryuzaki thought, bring up his hands to slide a thumb over his lip.

Light looked at him. "When I said that you were a good friend to me as well, it was partially true, but also partially false," he said. "Like you, I have very mixed feelings regarding our relationship. If, as I remember it, I wasn't Kira, then being accused of being Kira by you greatly frustrated and distressed me—and of course, if I was Kira, then I would have been trying to kill you in order to create a world without crime…" Light shook his head, smiling wryly.

"But in either case," he continued, meeting Ryuzaki's gaze with a less guarded look than normal, "what I said about missing you at the university and not having anyone else on my level was true. Even what I said about playing tennis, since you're my only equal I've encountered there, as well—although," he laughed slightly, "maybe if I was actually Kira I wouldn't have meant that part, since I would have wanted you dead." He grinned wryly.

"But in either case," he looked away and shrugged his shoulders, "before you came into my life with the Kira case, I was incredibly bored…" His smile soft, ironic. "Even though you suspected me of being Kira, Ryuzaki, these past few months have been the most pleasantly exciting and mentally stimulating of my life."

Yes, Ryuzaki thought, watching him, that goes for me, too.

He bit at his thumbnail. We're like arsonists playing with fire, aren't we?

Light looked at him, eyes narrowed again, smiled knowingly. "So did you mean it when you said that you hoped that I wasn't Kira?"

"No, that was definitely a lie," Ryuzaki said. He lowered his hand to his knee, held Light's gaze evenly. "I want you to be Kira, Light-kun.

"Certainly if I wasn't Kira myself, I would only be satisfied with you being Kira; I don't believe there's anyone else who could have pulled it off, and your mind delights me so greatly that I want to have been going up against you this entire time.

"I therefore, as I remember it, did indeed say that in order to gauge your reaction; although," Ryuzaki glanced up at the ceiling, "if I was actually Kira, I suppose I would have said that in order to ease any displeasure against me for my insistently suspecting you of being Kira…"

He tilted his head, moving his eyes to the side to look at Light again. "If you weren't Kira, then what you said about wanting to see me at the university and playing tennis with me again would have an innocent admission," he said, "but if you were Kira, you no doubt said that in the hope of getting me to show my face in public so you could have Misa see my face and kill me."

Light smiled wryly. "Yes, that's probably what my intentions would have been, if I was indeed Kira," he agreed. His eyes were knowing on Ryuzaki's face. "And that's why you admitted that you were afraid to show your face in public and were thinking of going back into hiding, I take it?"

"Yes," Ryuzaki confirmed easily. "As I remember it, I really did believe that you had come into contact with the Second Kira, and with you being as brilliant as you are I seriously feared for my life."

Ryuzaki, Light thought sardonically, you really wouldn't want me to die. That fact is definitely going to lead to your loss.

Don't get too arrogant just because I'm complimenting you, Light Yagami, Ryuzaki thought, observing him. Your arrogance is definitely your fatal flaw.

"I also said it knowing that it would put pressure on you," Ryuzaki continued, "and in your urgency to try to kill me you might act rashly and make a mistake that would let me catch you."

He reached up to brush his thumb over his lip, glanced down. "If I were Kira, though, I suppose I would have said that simply to play the part of fearing for my life in order to bolster the legitimacy of my lie about Kira and the Second Kira having joined forces." He looked back up at Light through his dark hair. "You really didn't get the same impression from the Second Kira's last video, I take it?"

"No, I didn't…" Light said, looking away, shrugging. "After all, in our fake Kira broadcast, we had Kira essentially condemned the Second Kira for killing innocents and threatened to pass judgment against them, and then we had the police send out that warning about Kira being likely to kill them—so it didn't seem strange to me that the Second Kira might've actually taken that to heart and reconsidered."

Light closed his eyes, shaking his head. "What you said did make sense, though—aside from the fact that it didn't seem like Kira to have acted without thinking in that way, and the idea that the Second Kira had something against Kira that could prevent Kira from killing them seemed a little far-fetched…"

Light opened his eyes, but kept his gaze on the floor, smiling bitterly. "As much as I want to believe that I'm your equal, though, Ryuzaki, you are the world-renowned detective L and have far more experience than me and are several years older, and I must admit that the fact that for the first time you came to a different conclusion than me in that matter made my confidence waver…"

Light Yagami, Ryuzaki thought, are you telling the truth?

You're so arrogant, it's hard to believe that your confidence in yourself would waver.

Still, you are, admittedly, only eighteen…

It hurts to admit, Light thought, but Ryuzaki really is leagues ahead of me. I'll overtake him in the end, but as of now…

Well, if he was Kira, then I'm catching up to him, and I'll catch him—but I'm definitely still far behind.

If I was Kira, though, then we're basically equal…

Light smiled wryly. How much this makes me wish I was Kira…

(But do I wish to be Kira enough that I'd willingly die for it?)

Light shook his head, still smiling, albeit it more grimly than anything. "If I was Kira, though, I might have said that I hadn't thought of Kira and the Second Kira teaming up because I didn't want to help support your theory, since in that case it would have been correct, as I'd encountered Misa and clearly, if I was Kira, I didn't kill her.

"Although," Light's eyes narrowed slightly, "why that would have been the first case that I didn't admit to having the same feeling as you, when I had done so for other instances such as the tapes being from a Second Kira… it would have to have been because I actually was feeling pressured by not being able to kill Misa for whatever reason, and would actually have acted without thinking." Light shrugged. "I would thus have been unprepared for you to deduce that I'd already come into contact with the Second Kira, when my intention with having told her to say what she did would have been to try to make it seem like the Second Kira and Kira hadn't—and would never be—meeting."

"Yes, it's admittedly rather difficult to imagine you getting into such a situation where you'd have had your arms tied in that way," Ryuzaki admitted, watching him.

Why wouldn't Kira be able to kill the Second Kira? Ryuzaki wondered. Even if the Second Kira could kill Kira just by seeing his face, Light as Kira would have known Misa Amane's real name, and should have been able to kill her.

"Yeah, the idea doesn't sit well with me," Light admitted. He shrugged: "But we can't rule it out."

Was there a reason Light Yagami as Kira would actually want to keep Misa Amane alive, despite the danger she posed to him? Ryuzaki thought. Or could he do absolutely nothing, since I was the one who was Kira, and he had no power with which to face Misa?

Light was looking at him with narrowing eyes. "It occurs to me now, though," Light said: "haven't we overlooked something?"

Ryuzaki looked at him. What did we overlook?

Light was internally reeling, since he was realizing: "Didn't the Second Kira also in their last video say that they would spread the killing power to those who deserve it?" He shook his head, utterly uncomprehending. "I don't think we discussed that at all—which, now that I think about it, seems strange, since that's a rather alarming proclamation."

Why would we both ignore that? Light wondered. Even if it wasn't true, only one of us was Kira and would know that… but if it was true, then why didn't Kira draw attention to it in order to scare everyone? If it was true, then sharing the power must have been part of Kira's plan.

The only explanation is that it WASN'T true—in which case it was either a bluff by Misa, or Misa didn't know that it actually wasn't possible.

Or Misa knew it was possible, but Kira thought it wasn't…

But even then, what of the one of us who wasn't Kira? Why wouldn't we be alarmed by that?

Ryuzaki was having essentially the same thoughts, and he admitted slowly, "...Yes, that is strange that neither of us addressed that part of the message, isn't it?" He rubbed his thumb over his lip, thinking.

"Since the Second Kira appeared," Ryuzaki said, "it's clear that the killing power is not limited to only Kira, and therefore it could very well be possible for it to be shared. It seems unlikely that we would overlook such a detail, when the appearance of many killers would have caused a great deal of trouble for us."

Ryuzaki looked up at the ceiling. "It's possible," he said, echoing Light's thoughts, "that the one of us who was Kira would have overlooked that detail due to knowing it somehow wasn't possible; what's more strange is why the one of us who wasn't Kira wouldn't have payed more attention to that statement." He glanced at Light. "If you were Kira, Light-kun, it's likely you would have told the Second Kira to say that in order to make me panic, even if it was a lie…"

Ryuzaki skewed his lips to the side with his thumb. "I didn't given the statement much thought," he said, thinking back, "because I assumed that you were Kira, and that that lying about that was exactly what you'd done, since I assumed that if such a thing were possible you would have done so already."

Light laughed at that. "You really think I would willingly entrust the killing power to anyone else, unless I absolutely had to?" he asked, smiling sardonically.

There's now way, he thought. Even if Kira's killing power could be shared, I'd never do that.

"That's true," Ryuzaki conceded, looking at him discerningly. "You seem very much like the kind of person who would want to keep all the power in your hands, and would not willingly share any of it." Ryuzaki's eyes were dark and unblinking. "You also seem like the kind of person who would remain acting alone rather than creating a network of followers to operate under you."

Light's lips quirked. Sometimes, Ryuzaki, it's like you see right through me…

(Too bad for you that I can see right through you, too.)

"Yeah, I agree with that," Light said. He held Ryuzaki's gaze. "But if you were Kira, Ryuzaki, and you had overlooked that part of the Second Kira's message…" He smiled, wry as the expression was. "That means that either it isn't possible to share the power in that way, and you knew that—although it's hard to believe that Misa would come up with a lie like that on her own, so either I was Kira and told her to say that, or, if you were Kira and Misa did come up with that on her own, it must either be possible, or at the very least she must have believed it was possible—or else you believed that you would be able to catch her before she would have the opportunity to do so."

"Probably," Ryuzaki agreed, holding his gaze. "Though again, it's impossible to know." Ryuzaki looked away, up at the ceiling. "While I did not at the time know that you had come into contact with Misa, Light-kun, I had by that point received word that the forensics team had found conclusive concrete evidence from the original tapes. I might have believed that that evidence would allow me to catch the Second Kira before she could spread the power, if such a thing were possible."

Ryuzaki rubbed his thumb over his lip. "The way that we actually discovered that the substance traces in the adhesive envelopes sent by the Second Kira matched that of substances in Misa's room," he said, "was because I believed you were Kira, and that you'd come into contact with the Second Kira; I therefore had people checking the homes of all the people you came into contact with—including Misa Amane, once you were seen coming into contact with her."

He glanced over at Light with round, dark eyes, accentuated by the purple half-circles of sleeplessness beneath them. "If I were Kira, though, I no doubt would have been doing the same thing," he admitted, "since I would have been letting you find the Second Kira for me." His insomniac gaze was unsleeping, unblinking. "I do have a very high opinion of you, Light-kun; it could very well be that I fully expected you to find the Second Kira before they would have the opportunity to spread the power."

Light looked back at him, smudges of sleeplessness beneath his own eyes that, although lighter than those on Ryuzaki, seemed to weigh heavier on his countenance; their bruise-red color brought out rufescent tones in brown irises, making the burnt-umber appear more blood-amber—if Ryuzaki looked like a ghoul, then Light looked like a vampire.

"What you said about what the circumstances likely were if I had been Kira seem very plausible," Light said, smiling tiredly. "In my memory, though, the reason I didn't pay much attention to that part of the message was because you didn't." Light shrugged, lips curved. "I really do admire you, Ryuzaki, and I wanted to solve the case before you because I believed you were better than I was and I badly wanted to surpass you…"

He shook his head, smile wry. "I had been alarmed by the message and the Second Kira's announcement about sharing the power," he said, "but when you said that the message made you think that the Kira and the Second Kira had joined forces—which I hadn't sensed—that distracted me and derailed my thoughts…

"I was then further distracted by your hypothetical about me being Kira, and by needing to correct you on that—and then I was even further distracted by your statement that I was your first friend.

Light shrugged again. "The Second Kira's proclamation about sharing the killing power simply completely escaped my mind," he admitted.

He looked at Ryuzaki, eyes narrowing. "It's possible," he suggested, "that if you were Kira, you may have done that purposefully, and that part of your intention may have been to distract us from the fact that the killing power is shareable." He spread his hands, adding, "In which case, that might be a flaw in the killing power: if, in some way, it isn't completely limited to a given individual."

"That is indeed possible," Ryuzaki said, looking at him. "We have no idea how either Kira received their killing powers—and certainly they did seem to 'receive' them, all at once, in some way, since the killings began so suddenly."

Ryuzaki looked up at the ceiling, brushing his thumb over his lip. "In that aspect, the killing power seems not so much like an inherent, inborn or ingrained trait, so much as an object which one either possesses or doesn't possess," he said. "And if the killing power were tied to an object, that would then make sense how it could be shared—or passed off to another individual, as we believe each of us would have done if we were Kira."

He glanced at Light again. "Also the fact that we would have passed it off to someone else with the intention of it eventually coming back to us: that also makes it seem like perhaps the killing power is connected to an object." His eyes were dark and unblinking as he held Light's gaze. "Do you remember encountering any strange objects, Light-kun?"

"No," Light said, shaking his head, bangs brushing over his face. "And I don't you do, either, Ryuzaki—given that all our memories surrounding being Kira seem to have disappeared, whoever out of us possessed those memories, it seems highly unlikely that we'd have any memory of the object it was attached to."

"I was just wondering," Ryuzaki said, shrugging. Still watching Light, he lowered his hand back down from his mouth, closed his fingers around his knee. "I'm also wondering about your interactions with Misa Amane," he said, unblinking, "and what you remember about that."

Fair enough, Light thought.

He turned his gaze away, out past the bars of his cell. "As I already mentioned, I don't remember encountering Misa in Aoyama on the 22nd," he said. "The video where the Second Kira said they found Kira was sent on the 23rd, which means that if that was really true and Misa really did encounter Kira, it must have happened on the 22nd in Aoyama." He looked over to meet Ryuzaki's gaze and smiled wryly. "Is that not actually proof enough that I and not you am Kira?" he said. "After all, Misa would have had no way of finding you or encountering you in any way—therefore, if she met Kira, then Kira must be me."

"That's only if she actually did find Kira, though," Ryuzaki pointed out, holding Light's gaze. "She could have been lying."

Light shook his head. "Do you really think she'd intentionally lie about that?" he said. "I don't think she's clever enough to have made such a decision; rather, saying that she found Kira seems like something she'd send out of excitement." He looked at Ryuzaki pointedly. "Maybe there was a way for her to determine that I was Kira," he said.

He spread his cuffed hands, continuing, "That certainly seems far more likely, than that there could have been any way for her to have mistaken me for Kira if I actually wasn't."

"But as we pointed out before," Ryuzaki said, not taking his eyes from Light's face, "since if I were Kira I would have been basing everything about Kira on you, your appearance matches with Kira's personality perfectly."

Light shook his head, dismissive. "There's no way she could have determined that someone was Kira just by looking at them," he said flatly.

"And yet, even if you were actually Kira, that's exactly what she must have done," Ryuzaki pointed out. "So how if we can say that she could come to believe you were Kira simply by looking at you, then that applies to whether you were actually Kira or not."

"But if she thought I was Kira, and I wasn't Kira, she would have told me that she was the Second Kira," Light countered.

"And she didn't?" Ryuzaki asked.

Light shook his head. "No, she did not tell me anything about being the Second Kira," he said, "nor did she ask me if I was Kira or make any insinuation that she believed me to be such." He looked back over at Ryuzaki, adding, "Or at least, I don't remember her doing so, and we can assume that if she did and then I was actually Kira and lost my memories of it. But if my memory holds true and I wasn't Kira, then she didn't, because I wouldn't have lost any memories and would certainly remember if she made any such indications."

Light smiled wryly. "I first met her when she knocked on the door of my house," he explained, holding Ryuzaki's gaze. "If she was able to find that kind of information about me, it's very possible she was also able to find out that my father is a police chief—that might have made her be more careful." Light looked down, running his tongue over his dry lips to make it easier to speak.

"If I wasn't Kira," he said, "and she knew that I wasn't Kira but still fell in love with me at first sight—that might explain why she hid it from me." He shook his head again. "But that doesn't explain why she'd send in a tape saying that she found Kira." He looked at Ryuzaki pointedly. "Again," he said evenly. "I can't see her sending in a lie like that in order to try to make L panic, since she as part of the public would have thought that L was incompetent and would never be able to solve the case."

Ryuzaki just looked back at him, features expressionless and unchanging. "On what day did you first encounter Misa Amane?" he asked simply.

"It was the 25th," Light answered, easily and immediately, holding Ryuzaki's gaze. "The same day that the police aired their message saying to stay away from Kira." His lips quirked sardonically. "She showed up at my house claiming to be a fellow student from my university."

Ryuzaki looked back at him, tilted his head. "Kira is her idol, right? Maybe she saw you and thought that you were Kira, up until she looked you up and saw that you were the son of a police chief, and she then changed her mind about you being Kira but couldn't change her feelings of love for you." Still holding Light's gaze, Ryuzaki lifted a finger, suggested, "It may be that she claimed to have found Kira in error, in that case—or else, maybe when she said that she'd found Kira it really meant that she'd found her idol, which may have simply switched from Kira to you."

Light snorted derisively. "How is that supposed to make sense?" he asked, shaking his head.

"Sense?" Ryuzaki repeated, watching him. "It's not; but we've already agreed that Misa is not a logical person, and that she is ruled by her emotions." It seemed like forever since Ryuzaki had blinked, as he pointed out with wide, round black eyes, "Emotions don't make sense: it's therefore not possible to attribute sensible logic to her actions—and her actions therefore cannot be considered proof of either your guilt or innocence."

Light looked at him, red-tone-umber eyes narrowed. "There's no way that, if you were Kira, she would have been able to have determined that L was Kira, right?"

Ryuzaki looked at him, looked up at the ceiling, blinked, looked back over at him, said, "…I highly doubt that that would have been possible."

"Then if she 'found Kira,' who she found was me," Light said, spreading his hands decidedly, shaking his head. "And therefore I was Kira."

"No," Ryuzaki countered, holding up a finger, keeping his gaze on Light's face, "if she 'found Kira,' then yes, who she found was you; but it's impossible to prove whether she found the real Kira—or whether she simply found the person who Kira's values and personality were based on."

Light looked over at him from behind the bangs slanting sharply into his face, said, "But in either case, Kira's existence was because of me: either because I was Kira, or because I was the inspiration for Kira's character." Light laughed lightly, wryly, the sound almost mirthless; what little humor was there was darker than night: "Either way, Kira's existence was my fault."

Ryuzaki looked at him through bangs that were longer, darker, sharper. "But in either case," he stated, "the reason anyone believed that a Kira actually existed was because of me: either because I was Kira and set up the whole thing, or because I was the one who proved Kira's existence and pushed you into taking all those actions—such as killing the FBI officers—that you wouldn't have had to otherwise."

Ryuzaki tilted his head, watched Light unblinkingly, observing. "It almost seems to me like you want to die, Light-kun."

Light looked at him sharply. "I don't," he said evenly.

"But you seem to want to be Kira," Ryuzaki pointed out, cuffed hands sliding down to his ankles and head tilting to lay against his knees, "and since Kira will be executed, it means that you'd die."

If you want to be executed for being Kira, Light Yagami, and that's what ends up happening—does that mean that you win?

"On the contrary, Ryuzaki," Light said, and he laughed, grinning sardonically, his eyes bright: "I want to live forever." He looked down, bangs hiding his eyes, smiling drolly down at the floor. "I want to leave behind a legacy that outlasts me.

"I'd leave a much longer legacy as Kira than I would as someone who took over the place of L without anyone knowing. And I…"

He looked back up, met Ryuzaki's gaze with blood-amber eyes underlined in smudges of sleepless red: "I want to be your equal."

He smiled, bitter and wry. "Kira and L were equals—either because they were the perfect opponents, or because they were the same person." He laughed, empty. "If you were both Kira and L, then I was just a nobody who got caught up in it all—I didn't even think of the possibility that L could be Kira until I was already locked up in prison, having turned myself in because I believed that you must be have been right when you determined that I was Kira."

He looked at Ryuzaki from behind his hair, felt rotten to the core. "You're L, after all; how could I trust my own memories more than I could trust the great L's deductions?" He laughed, mirthless, shook his head. "You keep praising me, Ryuzaki—but I can't help feel that you're lying and somehow mocking me."

If you were Kira, Ryuzaki, then you were only praising me for my deductive abilities so that you could frame me, each compliment nothing but another excuse to raise the percentage of my probability of being Kira.

If you were Kira, Ryuzaki, even if you mean your praises now, it's only because you don't remember being Kira and that I was nothing but your plaything that you were manipulating.

The only way I'm actually worthy of any of your compliments is if I actually was Kira—because only then would I have been equal to you; only then would I have challenged you, confused you, scared you—been capable of defeating you.

He looked at Ryuzaki, smiling bitterly, bitterly, a foul taste in his mouth. "I desperately want to be on your level, Ryuzaki," he confessed, "but I can't help but feel my inferiority—that's why I hope and wish that I was Kira, who would have been the other chess player on the board, playing against you, instead of simply being Light Yagami, who would have been nothing more than another one of your pawns you were moving around as you pleased."

Light laughed, hollow, bitter, empty. "That's why execution would hurt less than exculpation: if we uncover the fact that I was Kira, I'd lose to you proudly—if we discover that you were Kira, I'd win against you despondently."

Ryuzaki looked back at him, and he desperately craved cake to wash away the bitter taste on his tongue. "...I'd also rather have gone up against an opponent as brilliant as you, and have actually risked my life in trying to beat you, than to have it turn out that it was all a game I was playing against myself," he admitted. He bit at the too-long nail of his thumb, and it tasted of nothing and bent between his teeth like water-bottle-plastic. "Losing a game against myself would, after all, be a rather sad way to die."

He held Light's gaze, the words bitter in his mouth like black coffee: "But we can't just decide that the truth is what we want it to be, Light-kun." Damn it, he was craving sugar. And entire cup full of cubes of pure, white sugar. "Whichever one of us was Kira…" He bit at a hangnail on his thumb, pulled at it with his teeth, tasted the slight salt of a drop of blood; later it would become infected. "We can't prove it either way until we have hard evidence."

"Which we won't be able to obtain until—or unless—the killings start up again," Light recapped, looking down and closing his eyes.

It was dark behind them; red because of the lights shining through the thin skin of his eyelids, but dark red nonetheless.

"Yes," Ryuzaki said.

Black coffee in his mouth; it coated his tongue and made it hard to swallow, hard to speak. He looked away from Light, down at the floor from between his bent-up knees. The tiles were a strange gray-green.

"And in the meantime," Light said offhandedly, "we have nothing to discuss but hypothetical situations, which cannot only not be proven right, but can't even be prove wrong."

Ryuzaki did not, could not look over at him. "Yes," he said again, gaze on the floor.

"Damn everything," Light breathed out, and laughed, ironic and empty. "Well," he said smilingly, and when Ryuzaki looked over at him the smile was more of a rictus than anything—a fixed grimace: "we might as well finish what we started here." A shrug, the rictus-smile remaining fixed in place. "Not like there's anything else to do, after all."

"Yes," Ryuzaki said yet again.

He was desperately, desperately craving sugar. His mouth itched and his stomach ached, drove him nearly to distraction.

Light rolled back his shoulders, glanced at Ryuzaki, turned his gaze to look out through the bars of his cell and said in a steady, even, impartial, detached, matter-of-fact voice: "Misa showed up at my front door on the evening of the 25th, claiming to my mother and sister to be a fellow classmate who was there to return a book I'd left at the university."

Light Yagami, Ryuzaki thought, watching him, you really are quite the determined optimist. You keep moving forward even when the situation seems useless, convinced that you'll eventually find a way out. Even when the situation seems useless, you don't lose hope or your faith in yourself.

If it weren't for you, I'd be sitting here completely depressed, doing nothing but brooding and waiting, believing there was nothing I could do till something happened.

You match so perfectly to Kira, Light Yagami… and yet that doesn't mean anything…

How are you not completely depressed? You keep smiling, and even laughing. How do you continue to find humor in this situation?

All I want to do is go to sleep and not wake up until the killings start up again—assuming that they do. I want nothing more than to shut my brain off.

And yet you, Light Yagami—you keep talking; you keep thinking.

If I would actually have the same conviction necessary to be Kira…

(Would I not, rather, have just given up?)

(But no—if I had received such a killing power as Kira's, that would have changed things…)

(But Light Yagami, the way you conduct yourself, even locked up with nothing to do—you really are amazing.)

"That was suspicious to me," Light was saying evenly, staring out past the bars of his cell, "because I knew for certain that I had not left any books at the university. I was curious what the whole thing was about, so I came down to see who it was and what they actually wanted, and I found her standing at the door dressed up in some kind of a Gothic Lolita outfit—which is certainly not what you'd expect from someone claiming to be a To-Oh student. I could therefore only assume that that and the part about the book were lies.

"She introduced herself to me as Misa Amane, saying it was 'nice to meet me finally.' She was stuttering and acting kind of shy and coy the way many of my female admirers tend to. She said that I was probably wondering what this was about but she had something she just had to tell me.

"Out of curiosity and because I didn't want to cause I scene, I invited her up to my room so we could speak privately. Once we were alone and seated I asked her why she was there, what she wanted, how she'd found my address. She apologized if what she was going to say came off as 'creepy', but said she'd seen me in Aoyama and had fallen in love with me at first sight, and that she'd then looked up my address online, claiming that it wasn't her fault that people were twisted enough to have posted that kind of information about me." Light snorted slightly, closing his eyes and shaking his head. "Even if it's exactly people like her who want to know that kind of stuff."

My memories of this are perfectly clear and are coming easily, Light thought. If I was actually Kira, and in giving up my memories of it these memories were fabricated in my brain, then that is a truly incredible power indeed.

But then again, if Kira's power can control a victim's actions before death, even enough to make them encode secret messages in what they write without even realizing it, why would the power be able to manipulate my mind—or Ryuzaki's, whoever of us was Kira—to a similar extent?

A god-like power, indeed.

Continuing along with his recollection of his first meeting with Misa, Light explained, "The fact that she'd seen me in Aoyama when I was there looking for the Second Kira was not necessarily a sign that she was the Second Kira—there were a great many people in Aoyama that day, and most of them, after all, were not the Second Kira—assuming that the Second Kira had even been there that day.

"But what was suspicious to me was that she hadn't approached me in Aoyama, but had apparently waited and looked me up online. If she'd fallen in love with me at first sight, why had she waited, instead of approaching me and hitting on me there? Then again, I was admittedly walking with a group of friends that day, and girls can be weird about that kind of thing.

"Still, she'd somehow managed to learn my name even without talking to me. So I asked her how she'd known my name. She kind of stammered at that point and said that she'd heard it, which certainly wouldn't have been impossible—the group of friends I was with from he university were certainly calling me Yagami-kun, and Matsuda was playing my cousin and is used to calling me Light anyway, so it wouldn't have been difficult for her to overhear that and piece together my entire name."

Ryuzaki interrupted at this point, looking at him seriously. "You're the only one out of the task force who can't go by a fake name in public, due to being enrolled at the university," he mentioned. He watched Light's face. "Has that never concerned you?"

Light looked at him, lips curving slightly. "Well, it obviously wouldn't have if I was Kira," he pointed out, gesturing airily. "But no," he lowered his cuffed hands back to his lap, shaking his head, "it didn't concern me because nobody would expect a normal university student like myself to be part of the Kira investigation." He met Ryuzaki's gaze. "It would have been far more dangerous for me to go by a fake name," he pointed out, "as that would have made it obvious that I had something to hide."

He broke Ryuzaki's gaze easily, shrugging. "Therefore, even while perusing the streets of Aoyama looking for anyone who could have been either Kira or the Second Kira, I didn't feel in any danger. I was just a university student hanging out with a group of friends."

"Hence why you invited the others along," Ryuzaki said, still watching him.

"Exactly," Light said. He gestured with his hands, metal cuffs rattling at his wrists. "And that of course no doubt applies for if I was Kira, as well." He looked over at Ryuzaki, eyes narrowed. "But also," he added, "the thing about the names only applies to Kira—since the Second Kira only needs a face to kill, Matsuda was in just as much danger as me investigating Aoyama that day."

Are you testing me, Ryuzaki? Or did you really forget that?

Ryuzaki held his gaze. "That's true," he said, thumb rubbing over his lip. "What Matsuda-san lacks in cunning he certainly doesn't lack in courage."

Light's lips curled wryly. "He could be listening to us right now, you know," he pointed out.

"So?" Ryuzaki asked, expression blank.

Light fought not to roll his eyes, and closed them instead.

Are you really that uncaring about the impression you make on other people, Ryuzaki?

Well, not that it matters if Matsuda feels slighted; he's the kind of person who'd stay on this case, anyway.

"In any case," Light decided to continue forward, "while it's completely possible that Misa could have heard my name in Aoyama—even if she didn't hear it from Matsuda and my university classmates, there could have been people who recognized me and were exchanging gossip or something—she still had a nervous and guilty demeanor as she was saying it, and I felt that she was lying."

Light opened his eyes, gazed again at the bars of his cell. "Her dodginess made me suspicious, but I thought perhaps I was just being paranoid in thinking that she was the Second Kira, since I couldn't actually think of a single reason why the Second Kira would approach me."

"Unless you were Kira," Ryuzaki pointed out.

"Yes," Light exhaled, closing his eyes again, "but we're talking about my memories here, Ryuzaki, and as far as I'm aware of I was never Kira."

Well, that's fair, Ryuzaki thought. Very well, Light Yagami—I'll hear you out. What exactly is it that you remember?

Light opened his eyes and looked over to meet Ryuzaki's gaze, stated forthrightly, "I asked Misa why she'd approached me and what she wanted, and she looked me straight in the eyes and told me to make her my girlfriend."

Ryuzaki pressed his thumb so hard against his lip it slipped over the smooth skin and caught at the corner of his mouth. "Pfft," he exhaled, like he was stifling an astonished laugh.

"Right?" Light said, shaking his head, equally incredulous. "I told her that I couldn't just make some girl whom I'd never met before and didn't have any feelings for and who had basically stalked me into my girlfriend, but she was insistent and said that she loved me and wouldn't be able to stand it if I dated any other girls, and that if I dated any other girls then she'd kill them."

Light looked at Ryuzaki seriously. "Now that made me think she might actually be the Second Kira," he said. "Sometimes girls say that kind of thing, but you know they don't really mean it—but something about the way Misa said it gave me the feeling that she really would kill them." He spread his hands, said, "At that point, I had to suppose that I might've gotten tangled with the Second Kira—"

"It never occurred to you that she might be the first Kira?" Ryuzaki interrupted.

"No way," Light said, shaking his head. "Kira would never kill someone for dating someone they liked, and Misa obviously wasn't as intelligent as Kira obviously was—she didn't match Kira's profile at all.

"But she perfectly matched the Second Kira's." He looked at Ryuzaki soberly. "So after that, I decided I had to be careful.

"I did ask her, though, if she was aware that what she was essentially doing was coercing me into being her boyfriend, and that something like that could never be real." The shake of Light's head was uncomprehending and the shrugging gesture of his hands was helpless, "But in response she just said that she didn't mind if I only pretended, and that she'd be sure to make me love her for real eventually."

She's crazy, Light thought. I mean, who thinks that kind of thing would actually work?

Although, the strength of her irrational love for me is something I should be able to use to my advantage, as long as I play my cards correctly…

Now I am very curious to question Misa Amane, Ryuzaki was thinking. Not that it's likely to be very productive, but…. If her memories changed—which they must have done if she was indeed the Second Kira, which it's almost certain she was—does she remember these events the same? And if she does, is that more likely to mean that what Light Yagami remembers it true and he really wasn't Kira, or that he was Kira and had his memories changed as well, but the Kira powers made their fabricated memories coincide?

Also, though, how can she really love Light Yagami so much?

Misa Amane—she doesn't make any sense.

Ryuzaki looked at Light with unblinking eyes, watching him. "If you really weren't Kira," he said, "that sounds like a very scary experience, Light-kun."

Light snorted slightly. "Even if I had been Kira, it would have been highly alarming and worrying," he pointed out, looking at Ryuzaki unimpressedly. "Kira kills with heart attacks, after all—there would have been no way for me to kill her without it being suspicious and leading back to me."

Are you trying to cast doubt on the credibility of my emotional response, Ryuzaki? Or are you actually honestly trying to express sympathy, as poor as that attempt is?

Not that it matters—there's nothing unbelievable about my memories of my interactions with Misa believing she was the Second Kira when you also have memories of interacting with me believing me to be Kira; and if you're trying to express sympathy, I don't need it nor do I want it—you won't get anywhere with me with that, and you're still a fucking hypocrite anyways.

Ryuzaki observed Light's derisive expression. You say that there wouldn't be any way for you as Kira to have killed Misa Amane without it being suspicious and leading back to you, Light Yagami, but…

His thumb rubbed over his lip, and he thought aloud: "Kira managed to make Naomi Misora disappear…"

Light looked at him unreadably. "That was the FBI agent's fiancee, right?" he asked.

"Yes," Ryuzaki confirmed, looking back at him.

"Do you know that for certain that Kira killed her, though?" Light inquired.

"No," Ryuzaki said, holding his gaze, "since her body was never found…"

"Exactly," Light said, shaking his head and spreading his hands, eyes closing. "So you can't say that for sure." He opened his eyes again, gaze keen. "Though, since Kira could control other circumstances of death, I suppose he could have had her go somewhere where she would never be found, and then have a heart attack and die there…"

Light was looking at the floor, eyes narrowed, and he shook his head again. "Well, even I was Kira," he said lightly, "it would probably have still been far too suspicious to do something like that with someone who was an up-and-coming model." He shrugged. "I don't pay attention to women's fashion magazines, so I didn't know that about Misa until I looked her up online later after she left, but if I were Kira I probably would have done at least that much before deciding whether or not to kill her," he looked at Ryuzaki pointedly, "and I also would no doubt have had hopes of using her to kill you."

Ryuzaki looked back at him expressionlessly, and Light looked away again, shrugging. "But, since as far as I know I wasn't Kira, what I remember is that Misa insisted on being my girlfriend and said I was everything to her." He spread his hands, cuffs clinking. "I asked her how she could say that when she hadn't even talked to me before this—pointing out that she must have family and friends—but she became depressed and said that her parents had been murdered in front of her eyes, and due to her job she'd recently moved to Tokyo and didn't know any one here."

He closed his eyes, and his voice was affectedly light as he continued, "She claimed she'd been wondering if it was even worth it to live anymore, and was seriously contemplating committing suicide up until she'd seen me and fallen in love with me, but that she now wanted to live in order to be with me and to live her life for me."

Opening his eyes again, he turned his head to look at Ryuzaki, eyelids lowering slightly. "She said she was sorry about stalking me, but that it was the only way she could think of to let me know of her existence…"

I'm trying to keep a lid on my emotional reactions, but even now, recalling this still sends me reeling.

Light shook his head. "Honestly, she's crazy," he said, gesturing helplessly. "But what could I do in that situation, Ryuzaki? Here was this girl, who I'd only just met and who was quite possibly the Second Kira, and she was crying and begging me to be her boyfriend because she loved me more than anything in the world and I was her only reason for living."

Ryuzaki was observing him, noting Light's defensiveness, the carefully veiled traces of emotional distress. So, Light Yagami, he thought, you really do have a heart, after all. He brushed his thumb over his lip.

I knew that, but…

Watching him, Ryuzaki asked evenly, "So what did you do, Light-kun?"

Light closed his eyes and looked away, spread his hands and shrugged helplessly. "I hugged her and told her that I couldn't become her boyfriend, but that I could pretend that I was," he said, keeping his tone light, airy. "She then thanked me and said that she'd work hard to make me love her."

Light Yagami, Ryuzaki thought, you're very good at pretending that you don't care.

The problem with that is when you're so good at it that you convince not just everyone else, but also yourself.

"By this point, though," Light continued, "I definitely suspected her of being the Second Kira. So I couldn't just openly make her my girlfriend—especially since you suspected me of being Kira, Ryuzaki, and if you discovered that I was going out with someone who turned out to be the Second Kira, I thought for sure that it would be over for me.

Light spread his hands, shaking his head. "I thought that my only option in that situation was to become her boyfriend in order to investigate whether she was the Second Kira or not myself, and then turn her in once I had enough proof. I thought that that would help convince you that I really wasn't Kira."

He glanced over at Ryuzaki. "The bind I was in, then, was that I had to be her boyfriend, but I couldn't openly be her boyfriend, and I needed to remain in touch with and have contact her without you knowing."

"Hence the second phone," Ryuzaki deduced, looking back at him.

"Yeah," Light said. "Misa had three phones, so she gave me one." He shrugged. "I couldn't have her calling my phone, since I was sure you'd tapped it, but I also couldn't tell her that my phone was tapped because I was suspected of being Kira. So I'd told her instead that since my father was a police chief and there was always a danger that a criminal he was chasing might try to kill him or his family, my phone was wire-tapped in order to ensure my safety, so that if I received any suspicious or threatening calls the police would know and could send help immediately."

Light gazed out past the bars of his cell. "I figured that with that explanation, it wasn't something she could kill anyone to put a stop to—aside from killing more criminals.

"If she really was the Second Kira, then I had to assume that Kira punished the criminal who had killed her parents, and that that was why she'd wanted to meet him and help him. However, I had no idea how that might change with her apparently switching her focus to me, and I wouldn't have been able to get proof of her being the Second Kira if she stopped killing. So by saying that I was in danger of retribution from criminals since my father was a police chief, I was hoping that, if she were the Second Kira, she would keep killing criminals as a way to, in a way, keep me safe.

"Also, I was hoping to catch Kira myself. Misa came to see me shortly after the police had aired their message to the Second Kira to stay away from him and to turn him in if she found him—I thought it couldn't have been a coincidence that, if she was really the Second Kira, the police message may have spurred her to see me somehow."

Light shrugged. "If I was Kira, then it would make sense why it would have spurred her to see me, since she'd have wanted to assure me that she wouldn't turn me in; but since in my memory I wasn't Kira, what I remember thinking is that the police message may have made her reevaluate her priorities and she'd approached me in order to cement them."

"If that's the case," Ryuzaki considered, glancing up at the ceiling and then back over to Light, "then perhaps what you told her about being in danger from criminals due to your father being the police chief was the reason she said in her next message that she would start by punishing the criminals that Kira hadn't yet."

Light looked down, hair falling into his face. "Perhaps, yeah," he acknowledged, lips curving just slightly. "That's what I thought watching that message, at any rate."

"And therefore also why you didn't get the sense that Kira and the Second Kira had teamed up from that video," Ryuzaki realized.

"Yeah," Light confessed, glancing over at him, then away again. "Of course, some of her other stipulations were tougher to get out of, and admittedly didn't even really work…"

He shook his head. "She wanted to go on at least one date a week—but since I was sure you were probably having me followed, I couldn't risk that. So I tried to make it out like my father's involvements with catching criminals made me and the rest of my family really in danger of suffering from retaliatory attacks, and so if I got too close to anyone, that person would be in danger, too…"

Light smiled wryly. "Not the best excuses, I'll admit, but I was feeling pretty pressured and had to come up with something on the spot." He spread his hands. "And of course, she just told me that I was more important to her than her life—and I also realized belatedly that if she really was the Second Kira, she could just kill anyone who tried to kill her, so she wouldn't even be afraid of that…"

He shook his head again, as if exasperated and abashed at what he was recalling. "I tried to convince her that I, at least, was afraid of that and didn't want to put her in any danger—to try to get through past her stubbornness I had to really up ante and say that even though the world was safer now that Kira was killing criminals, there were still criminals that Kira didn't know about because they'd never been caught, and that maybe once the world was even safer we'd be able to go out together, but that at the moment I was still in so much danger I had plain-clothes police secretly shadowing me and making sure no one suspicious approached me—which I made sure to emphasize that she would count as—and that they might arrest her and question her thinking she posed some kind of threat to me."

Light laughed embarrassedly. "I was kind of grasping at straws, and banking on the hope that she wasn't clever enough to see through it and that if she was really the Second Kira that possibility might make her rethink." He shook his head. "I don't think she saw through it, but it didn't seem to cow her any—she just insisted that she'd never do anything to harm me and seemed insulted and distressed at the very idea.

"I tried to get her to listen to me, but my mom interrupted because it was late and the trains were going to stop running soon; so Misa and I weren't able to finish the conversation."

Light glanced over at Ryuzaki, lips quirking minutely. "I told my mother and sister the next morning that Misa was the girlfriend I'd been telling them about—I'd been using having a girlfriend as an excuse for why I was coming home late from the task force headquarters—and to keep it a secret from my father because she was an up-and-coming model and not allowed to have a boyfriend." He laughed slightly. "And my dad's too stubborn to have accepted a girl like that anyway, so. My mom and sister completely understood."

Ryuzaki looked at him. "Didn't you still go out with Takada-san, and a few other girls as well?" he pointed out.

"Yes," Light acknowledged, closing his eyes. He exhaled through his nose, then began explaining, "Takada asked me out, and there was no way I could have turned down Miss To-Oh without the entire school ending up hearing about it and being in an uproar…"

He opened his eyes, shaking his head. "The other girls also asked me out, rather than the other way around, and I said yes because I hoped would make it less suspicious if Misa approached me. If I only started seeing one girl around the time when you suspected that Kira and the Second Kira had teamed up, that would certainly make it seem like that girl was Kira; but if I started seeing several girls around the time, then the correlation to the event wouldn't be so pronounced, and it would be easier to pass off as me just becoming a playboy now that I entered college, or something."

"You would willingly tarnish your spotless reputation in that way?" Ryuzaki asked.

Light turned his head to look at him, eyelids lowered. "If my reputation had to be tarnished, Ryuzaki," he said, "I'd say that being believed to be a playboy would be preferable to being believed to be Kira."

"Fair enough," Ryuzaki acknowledged, thumb sliding along his lip. "But didn't Misa also say that she'd kill any other girls you went out with."

Light closed his eyes again. "I hoped that if my interactions with other girls were kept for the most part to campus that there would be no way Misa would find out about it," he stated. He made an exasperated gesture. "Of course, Misa kept approaching me without a care, no matter how insistently I told her not to…"

Opening his eyes, he met Ryuzaki's gaze again. "She approached me later the next day, after our task force meeting in which you claimed that Kira and the Second Kira had joined forces, because she 'just had to see me'.

"Given that you believed that and that you believed that I was Kira, Ryuzaki, while I believed that Misa was the Second Kira, I had even more reason to want to keep my interactions with Misa as sparse and as secret as possible. But she found me on my way home, and I had no choice but to invite her into my house."

Breaking Ryuzaki's gaze, Light turned his head away and looked down at the floor, bangs hiding his gaze. "It was actually that second day that I accepted Misa's phone," he admitted, "but I told her I'd be keeping it off unless I needed to contact her. Otherwise she would have been calling and e-mailing me all the time; she was incredibly excited about having 'love-chats' with me."

Light's hands, clasped around each other, tensed slightly in his lap. "She was really annoying me by this point," he confessed, "and I couldn't exactly investigate whether she was Kira or not at my place—I needed to get her to invite me to her place so I could investigate her room, and do so away from my family.

"While that in itself would have been easy enough, I wanted to figure out a way to do so without being found out and without having to go on a date or have sex with her—which she would no doubt have been expecting and wanting, and I was not about to have sex with some girl I'd just met, much less one who was almost definitely the Second Kira."

Most young men your age probably wouldn't care about that and would be more than willing to take advantage of the situation and have sex with an attractive model like Misa Amane, Ryuzaki thought, watching Light. But as often as you go out with girls—and the rather large number of girls of that—you really don't seem interested in them at all. You date girls like it's an expectation and therefore an obligation.

(You've never once in your life disappointed the expectations of anyone, have you? You're so carefully, affectedly perfect.)

Light closed his eyes, exhaling. "The only way I was able to get her to leave early that night was by kissing her before telling her to go home," he admitted. He opened his eyes again, gaze on the floor. "She left in a daze—apparently satisfied, and seemingly on cloud nine."

"You seem to be used to being popular with the ladies, Light-kun," Ryuzaki remarked.

Light looked over at him, eyelids lowered. "As if you didn't know that about me already, Ryuzaki," he said flatly. His gaze was unimpressed. "You did your research, did you not?"

"True," Ryuzaki admitted, watching him. "But I wanted to see your reaction."

"And?" Light said, gesturing with his hands. He shook his head. "When you're that popular, it's impossible not to become jaded by all the attention."

"Well," Ryuzaki said, looking at him, "I wouldn't know."

Light let out a snort, lips quirking. "Fair enough," he conceded. He glanced up at the ceiling through his bangs. "For the benefit of the people listening to this who have no experience with being popular, then, I was hoping that by kissing Misa she would be happy and lovestruck enough to listen to me and not approach me until I called her."

He glanced over at Ryuzaki again, said, "But she showed up the next day while I was talking to you at the university." His eyes were canny. "I'm assuming there was a reason for your appearance there that day, Ryuzaki."

"Yes," Ryuzaki confirmed, looking back at him expressionlessly. "There had been significant evidence gathered from the Second Kira's tapes, such as hair and snack crumbs; believing that you were Kira and had made contact with the Second Kira, I had the feeling that they were going to match up with those found in homes of one of the people whom you were coming into contact with. The main suspects of which were Kiyomi Takada, Misa Amane, and the two other girls you seemed to have started seeing—all of whom appeared to be your girlfriends, according to the task force member I had following you."

He held Light's gaze, unblinking and steady. "To be quite honest with you, Light-kun, I was terrified of losing my life; even if a third and fourth Kira appeared, the only ones who knew my face were the task force members, the individual I had acting on the outside as another L," his eyelids lowered slightly, "and you, Light-kun."

Light looked back at him, phlegmatic, and Ryuzaki confessed, "I considered cutting off your access to the task force headquarters or going back into hiding; but I thought that, even under the assumption that you as Kira could now kill with only a person's face, I should not fear death, but rather concentrate on what I was able to do.

"I therefore decided to risk going out in public in order to confront you, and I told your father that, if I was killed in the next few days, then you were Kira." He looked at Light stolidly. "I told him this because if I died, the only one who would be able to get anything from Kira—meaning you—would be him."

Light's lips curved wryly, and Ryuzaki continued, "Your father was of course rather upset by this, pointing out that when you were around I claimed that you were mostly cleared, and asking just how deeply I suspected you…"

Ryuzaki was finally the one to be the first to break their gaze, turning his eyes to the floor, fingers closing over his bent-up knees. "The honest answer was that I couldn't be sure what I felt," he said. "Such a thing had never happened to me before… if Kira and the Second Kira were working together, then I was in big trouble, and I could not feel certain that I was thinking things through calmly."

He glanced back over at Light through dark strands of hair, eyes equally dark. "Logically, my suspicion of you was a very low percentage, but there was no other suspects… so if I was killed, then you had to be Kira."

He looked away again, bringing a hand up to rub a thumb over his lip, bite at his thumbnail. "I don't like using the same method over and over," he confessed, "but in that instance I didn't have a choice. It was a gamble, at that point; the information from the task force member I had following you was intriguing, and I had my L substitute following up on it—but I wanted to see your movements for myself."

Light smiled easily. "Hence approaching me at university and telling me that you realized you'd be fine as long as I wasn't Kira, and that if you were killed in the next few days you'd told the task force and the 'other L's' to assume that I was Kira," he deduced.

"Indeed," Ryuzaki glanced at him. "I was hoping that, if you were Kira, knowing that you'd be suspected if I were to die would keep you from killing me…"

Light's smile twisted wryly. "I figured you were messing with me," he said, "when you mentioned the 'other L's' and said 'Let's just say that L is a whole group of investigators'—as if there was anyone else who could hold up to you intellectually." He snorted, looked at Ryuzaki with low-lidded eyes. "It really pissed me off that you seemed to suspect me so much; I wanted so badly to prove you wrong."

"And I wanted to be proven wrong about you…" Ryuzaki said, holding his gaze.

Yeah right, Light thought derisively, eyes narrowing further. Don't give me that shit, Ryuzaki; whether or not you were Kira, you wanted to find a way to prove that it was me.

Looking back at him, Ryuzaki amended, "Or at least, I really didn't want to die, if you really were Kira." He held Light's gaze, asked frankly, "If you were Kira, you would have killed me at that point, would you not have?"

"Probably," Light admitted, shrugging. "I'm sure that if I was Kira, I would have tried to kill you at the first opportunity; and if that were the case, I would probably have figured that your telling me that you'd told my father and the rest of the task force to assume that I was Kira if you died would be in order to prevent me from killing you, and therefore that if I didn't kill you I'd be doing exactly what you wanted; so I might have, in that situation, gone along with killing you anyway."

Light smiled wryly, holding Ryuzaki's gaze with glinting eyes, red-toned like the bags of sleeplessness beneath them. "While I bet that the ideal plan, had I been Kira, would have been to make you trust me and then take my time killing you once the Kira case ran out of steam, my contact with Misa—her being the Second Kira and me no doubt having been sure of that, had I been Kira, since she would no doubt have told me in that case—might have driven me to believe it would be best to kill you as early as possible in order to avoid you catching her when she inevitably made a blunder, as I would probably believe that, while I wouldn't be able to convince you that I wasn't Kira, I'd be able to fool the rest of the task force if you weren't there."

"Yes, I could see that," Ryuzaki agreed, thumb sliding over his lip. His eyes were dark, pupils indistinguishable from his irises. "Of course, if I were Kira," he said, "I either would have been afraid that you would be able to figure something out through the Second Kira that would lead you to suspect me of being the real Kira, or else I would have been so excited by the prospect of framing you as Kira through your finding and interacting with the Second Kira that I wouldn't have been able to or have wanted to wait—or possibly a combination of both of those things."

Ryuzaki lowered the hand at his mouth back to his knee, brushed his fingers over the fabric. "I no doubt also would have felt pressured by Misa's existence—given her clear ineptitude and her contact with you and status as your girlfriend—so I would have believed it would be in my best interest to secure my framing of you as Kira before you could figure out anything of the truth."

Light looked at him discerningly. "So you didn't expect me to actually suspect myself of being Kira," he inferred.

"No, I didn't," Ryuzaki agreed, holding his gaze easily. "And I doubt I would have if I were Kira, either—if I were Kira, knowing that I was Kira and therefore that you weren't, I surely wouldn't have believed that you would come to doubt yourself in such a way."

Light smiled wryly, and Ryuzaki, watching him, continued, "As I remember it, though, I believed that you were up to something—but that it wasn't that you suspected you might be Kira, but that you knew you were Kira, and you were trying to get out of a death sentence by claiming you were Kira subconsciously."

Light laughed slightly, at that. There's no way I'd do something like that thinking you'd believe it; also, that would have meant I'd have to permanently give up being Kira, and I would never do that. If I was Kira, I'd definitely find a way to continue to be so.

"Still," Ryuzaki acknowledged, analyzing him, "giving up like that didn't seem like something you'd do."

"Yeah," Light smiled sardonically, "I can't see myself giving up like that, either. I would have been determined to beat you."

"Indeed," Ryuzaki said, looking at him. "Therefore, I suspected that—as when there were cameras and wire-taps in your house and criminals were dying even when you should have had no knowledge of them—that that would have continued while you were imprisoned, and that you'd therefore have to be declared innocent under those circumstances and force me to accept that you couldn't be Kira—or at least," he held Light's gaze, "to not be able to suspect you with any justification, since I doubt even such seemingly concrete proof of your innocence would be able to erase my gut feeling that you had to be Kira."

Light smiled at him wryly. "And yet," he said, "the killings did stop once I was incarcerated."

"Indeed," Ryuzaki affirmed, bringing his hand back up to his mouth and twisting his lower lip between his thumb and forefinger. "That surprised me; I didn't think you'd let the suspicion against you be confirmed in such a way, and so I was forced to consider the possibility that you really were Kira subconsciously…"

Light spread his hands. "And yet it doesn't seem like Kira should have been able to be Kira without being conscious of it, now does it?" he pointed out.

"No, it doesn't," Ryuzaki agreed, looking at him with dark, penetrating eyes. "But if you had a separate personality…"

Light smiled at him mildly, impassively, and Ryuzaki bit at his thumbnail as he regarded him, finishing, "It's not impossible." He lifted a spidery finger, pointed out, "Multiple personalities can be present within the same person, without necessarily knowing of each other's existences."

Light looked at him evenly. "I don't think there's any evidence of me having an alternate personality…"

"Well, no," Ryuzaki agreed, tilting his head, "because if you did have an alternate personality that was Kira, it would have been completely hidden from you as well…"

Light held his gaze for a moment, then turned his head away, looking down at the floor of the cell. "…That idea greatly disturbs me," he said slowly, "but I guess it can't be ruled out." He gestured as airily as the handcuffs around his wrists would allow. "And if that were the case, it would make sense why I have no memories of being Kira," he added. "Certainly it would make more sense than some kind of supernatural explanation for such a loss of memories."

He glanced over at Ryuzaki through his bangs. "And yet," he mentioned, "so much about Kira's power is supernatural already, that a little bit more supernatural quality can't be considered out of the question."

"Yes," Ryuzaki concurred, looking back at him. "It really is impossible to know, at this point."

"It is…" Light reiterated, though he was looking at Ryuzaki with narrowing eyes. "Ryuzaki," he said, "Having a separate personality as Kira is a possibility for me—but it's not for you, is it?"

Ryuzaki remained looking at him for another moment, then turned his gaze up to the ceiling. "…No, I don't think it is," he agreed. He brushed his thumb along his lip. "While I'd say it's probably possible that I could have become so bored that I developed a dissociative personality that might have created the Kira case for me, I don't think that I could have a second personality that would have gone unnoticed, as closely observed as I am." His thumb pushed harder against his lip, skewing his mouth to the side. "I think I would have had to have been aware of being Kira in order for it to work…"

"But that doesn't apply to me?" Light asked lightly.

Ryuzaki looked over at him. "Even when your house was bugged and wire-tapped, Light-kun, you weren't as closely monitored as I am."

Light's eyelids lowered. "And why are you so closely monitored, Ryuzaki?"

Ryuzaki held his gaze for a silent moment, and then said slowly, "…Because I'm not a functional human being, Light-kun."

He moved his hand away from his mouth, made what small, flippant gesture he could with his wrists cuffed together. "As I'm sure you know, I basically never make contact with anyone myself; someone known as Watari acts as my go-between with any governments or organizations. I can't be bothered with that kind of thing…"

Ryuzaki rested his hands over his knees, looked away and down. "I can't be bothered with a great many things," he said, quieter. "This world bores me… and even sickens me. If it wasn't for the fact that Watari brings me sweets, I probably wouldn't eat anything; if it wasn't for the fact that my body eventually reaches a point where I pass out because I physically cannot stay awake anymore, I probably wouldn't sleep…" He glanced over at Light from behind long, dark bangs. "You can't expect someone like that to actually function without being maintained, now can you?"

'Maintained,' huh? Light thought, looking back at him. Like a machine.

Your mind might be a weapon, Ryuzaki, but it's clear that someone else has control of the aim and keeps the cogs oiled.

I'm guessing this 'Watari' had some reason he wants you solving cases, doesn't he? And I doubt it's because he simply doesn't want you to be bored.

This Watari is probably a philanthropist. And on top of that, he's clearly rich and has a great many connections. To have all that, he's probably fairly old.

(Haha, what does it matter to me, though? I'm not Kira, so I don't need to know his identity because I don't need to kill him. All this 'What would I do if I was Kira?' theorizing has me starting to automatically think like him…)

To Ryuzaki, he asked pointedly, "If you were already so closely monitored, Ryuzaki, then why are you here in prison with me?" He smiled wryly. "It sounds like you were already a prisoner the way that you were."

Ryuzaki looked back at him unaffectedly. "I'm here because, like you, I want to solve this case, no matter what," he said. He tilted his head, resting his temple against his knee. "As monitored as I was, this is still the best way to make absolutely sure that, if and when the killings start up again, it isn't being done by me."

He held Light's gaze. "I didn't have anywhere near as much freedom of movement as you did, Light-kun, but that doesn't mean I was being video-taped every second without a moment's privacy, like we are here. Besides," he lifted his fingers to gesture slightly, "if we're doing this as equal suspects and equal investigators, we need to start on an equal playing field."

Indeed, Light thought. I knew you were on the same page as me about that, Ryuzaki.

As for how closely monitored you've apparently been…

Light's smile was wry. "I suppose I'm the opposite of you in that regard, Ryuzaki," he said, looking away, resting his gaze on the floor but not actually seeing it. "You're clearly an adult, and yet you're apparently even more maintained than most children; in my case, though, when most children were still being directed by their parents, I was already far more independent, as I did not need my parents' help with most things.

"In one sense, you could say that, due to my intelligence, I was trusted a great degree more than most parents trust their kids; in another sense, though, you could say that my parents' trust in my character might not be as certain as that of most parents, since I've always been so independent that they probably couldn't say they really know me—and therefore not even they can vouch for my character without being uncertain that there's a hidden side of me they might not know about."

Light glanced over at Ryuzaki, meeting his dark gaze. "That's no doubt part of why my father can't say for certain that I'm not Kira, the way he can for Sayu."

"That makes sense," Ryuzaki acknowledged. "In my case, if I was Kira then it was because I was bored, and Watari knows how I can get when I'm bored, so even though he knows me very well he couldn't honestly say that fabricating the Kira case is something I wouldn't do."

"That makes sense," Light acknowledged in turn. He looked at Ryuzaki with the beginning of a smirk playing at the corner of his lips. "Say, though: were you actually a fan of Misa's since the March issue of Eighteen, as you claimed to be when you saw Misa at To-Oh?"

"No," Ryuzaki said. "That was a lie." He held Light's gaze unremittingly. "I'm not interested in anything that doesn't have to do with whatever case I'm working on. I didn't know anything about Misa Amane until I discovered that you were seeing her and first looked her up online. After discovering that she was a model, I then looked up the magazines she featured in."

Light smiled wryly. Knew it. That was too obvious; fashion magazines are obviously not something you pay any attention to, Ryuzaki.

"So why the March issue of Eighteen?" he asked.

"It was May at the time," Ryuzaki said, looking back at him easily. "April would have been to early, and any previous month would have been too much; as you mentioned, she was an up-and-coming model, not an established one." Ryuzaki lifted his head from his knee, turned his gaze up to the ceiling, brushed his thumb over his lip. "Also, in the March issue she was featured in a Lolita cupcake outfit…"

Light snorted. "Figures," he said. He looked at Ryuzaki with lowered eyelids. "So what were your thoughts when Misa showed up on campus?"

Ryuzaki tilted his head to glance over at him, then turned his gaze back to the ceiling. "We'd discovered physical proof that Misa Amane was the Second Kira, so I was certain that you were Kira," he said. "I just needed to uncover evidence, and make sure not to get killed in the meantime…"

"Hence stealing Misa's phone so I that—assuming that I was Kira—I couldn't call her and ask her to kill you?" Light gathered.

"Exactly," Ryuzaki agreed, glancing back over at him.

Light returned his gaze, analyzing. "But assuming that you were Kira…"

"Then there might have been some way for the Second Kira to tell I was the real Kira, whether that would be immediately or after some amount of time," Ryuzaki answered. "I would also certainly have been delighted that you'd made contact with the Second Kira—as I no doubt would have expected you would have—as that would have worked perfectly with my plan to frame you as being Kira."

Ryuzaki glanced back up at the ceiling. "Since I don't remember being Kira, though, what I remember is being terrified by Misa seeing me; the only thing that kept me from panicking being the fact that I planned to have Misa arrested anyway, and I hoped that while restrained and blindfolded she wouldn't be able to kill me."

"Even if all Kira had to do to kill someone was to think it?" Light asked pointedly.

Ryuzaki met his gaze again, said, "Well, I assumed also that she wouldn't kill me until you gave her the go-ahead." His eyes, as always, were dark, inscrutable and unblinking. "But what about you, Light-kun? What were your feelings when Misa appeared on campus while you were talking with me, despite you having told her not to?"

Light exhaled, shaking his head. "I didn't understand Misa then, and I still don't," he said. He closed his eyes, gesturing. "Even though she says she loves me more than anything and claims she wants to live her life for me, she went against everything I told her…"

Yes, Ryuzaki thought, watching him, because love does not mean worship and obedience as if unto a god, Light Yagami.

If there's one thing I've learned about love from criminal cases, it's that love is highly selfish and self-interested—it makes people willing to break all the rules.

Light opened his eyes again, meeting Ryuzaki's gaze. "I was highly distressed by you seeing her," he confessed, "since I assumed that, if you found out she was very likely the Second Kira, it would only serve to prove, in your view, that I was Kira."

Well, Ryuzaki thought, that's true.

Light looked at him knowingly. "If I was Kira, I would probably have felt the same—except I would also probably have realized that her meeting you meant that I would be able to kill you, Ryuzaki, since she would have only needed to see your face rather than needing to know your name as well."

He laughed lightly, tossing back his head slightly. "If I was Kira, I might've actually felt like I'd won even despite you seeing her, not knowing that you already had evidence that she was the Second Kira, and I might've planned to kill you…"

Light smiled wryly at the floor, shook his head, looked back over at Ryuzaki and sobered, shrugging. "From what I remember, though, when you started laughing I thought for sure that you knew and were about to declare that I was Kira. So I was surprised when you said you were a fan of Misa's, since I would never have pinned you as someone who payed attention to magazines like Eighteen, and I certainly expected you to be suspicious of any girlfriend I might have.

"When you said you were jealous…" His lips twisted wryly. "You really confused me, to be honest, Ryuzaki. I was, frankly, confused and panicking." His tone was light despite his words, and he gestured flippantly. "I didn't want to be falsely incriminated as Kira, and I hated that I wasn't able to beat you and prove to you that I wasn't Kira…"

Light Yagami, Ryuzaki thought as he watched him, even as you admit to the emotions you were feeling, you're emotionally distancing yourself from it, as if none of it matters to you anymore.

But you're childish, and you hate to lose; you're not the kind of person to just let things go.

"What did you call Misa for, Light-kun?" he asked. "If you weren't Kira and weren't calling her to ask her to kill me."

Light smiled at him wryly. "If I was Kira, that is probably indeed what I would have been doing," he said. He shrugged, but held Ryuzaki's gaze. "In my memories of not being Kira, though, I was calling her to try to set up a plan for meeting with her which she'd hopefully be satisfied enough with that she wouldn't go surprising me showing up at the university like that and compromising my position—in terms of the Kira case as well as with the To-Oh girls I was seeing."

Ryuzaki rubbed his thumb over his lip. "I see."

Light looked at him. "I can see why, if you believed I was Kira, you would have stolen Misa's phone and been delighted when I called it," he said. "But what would your thoughts and feelings have been in that situation if you were Kira?"

Ryuzaki looked back at him, lowered his hand from his mouth back to his knee, fingers of both hands splayed over his kneecaps. "No doubt I would have felt extreme pleasure that you'd found the Second Kira for me and fallen into my trap," he said. "Knowing that I was Kira rather than you, but that you'd be trying to discover the identities of both Kira and the false Kira, I would probably have assumed that you were calling Misa to set up a date to see her later; and, believing her to be the Second Kira and knowing that I was about to have her arrested, I would have no doubt believed that, unless she'd received a phone call from you asking for a date—which she wouldn't want to have missed—she would have gone along willingly."

He held Light's gaze. "So it was certainly in my best interest to keep her from receiving your call."

Light looked at him with lowered eyelids. "It seems that, despite having remained behind the scenes for every case you've solved as L, you have experience in pick-pocketing, then," he prodded.

Pick-pocketing like that isn't something you can just do right off the bat without practice—he wasn't perfect, because Misa did feel him touch her, but he managed to pick-pocket her even with all those people watching, and the way he so easily distracted everyone from it with his eccentric antics was far too practiced for someone who supposedly has lived most of his life hiding behind a computer screen without interacting with anyone.

(With the task force, as well, despite seeming socially clueless he's very good at manipulating them. He clearly has far more experience with people than he wants anyone to know.)

Ryuzaki looked at him. Light Yagami, are you really not Kira?

You can't be—at least not at this point—but the way you're forcing this information out of me…

(I have to provide some explanation. Just not enough for my identity to be derived from it.)

Ryuzaki looked away, Light noting the way his fingers tensed slightly over his knees. With clear reluctance, Ryuzaki admitted, "I may have spent a portion of my youth in a situation where pick-pocketing unquestionably came in handy…"

Light's eyes narrowed slightly. "What, were you an orphan living on the streets or something?"

"No," Ryuzaki said, looking back at him.

That's not even a lie; I was an orphan, but I never lived on the streets. But the streets aren't the only place where pick-pocketing is useful—it was useful at the orphanage, too.

But I can't let you learn anything that could give you hints to my identity, Light Yagami; you're too intelligent, and too dangerous.

Ryuzaki brushed a thumb over his lip, smiled like a smug, mischievous child. "But," he said, "when someone's trying to conceal sweets from you…"

Light's eyes on him remained narrowed.

You're being purposefully misleading, Ryuzaki.

"Isn't it more likely that someone would have money on them that you could use to buy sweets?" he pointed out, penetrating gaze not leaving Ryuzaki's face. "Unless you were under close surveillance in your youth as well and couldn't get to a candy store on your own."

Well, it wasn't like I was actually going to be able to mislead him without him realizing it, Ryuzaki thought. But at this point, Light Yagami, if you push too insistently it'll be too suspicious. You'll have to back off.

He skewed his lips to the side with his thumb. "I might have been, but I also might not have been," he said noncommittally.

Light looked at him with narrowed eyes. Ryuzaki, you're being obviously evasive. Obviously, there's information about your past and childhood that could potentially lead to the discovery of your identity.

Well, where and how you learned how to pick-pocket doesn't actually matter, and if I push too much trying to discover information about you it'll just seem like I'm actually Kira and trying to discover your name so I can kill you.

In any case, my intention in pushing the matter as much as I have was just to point out and demonstrate to the members of the task force watching that Ryuzaki really isn't as socially clumsy or clueless as he seems, so that they don't come to the conclusion that I must be Kira simply because, out of the two of us, I'm the only one who could have acted the part of being innocent; Ryuzaki clearly has the same kind of acting and manipulation skills, even if he uses a different technique for his affected persona—now that attention's been brought to that, as well as to all the secrets about himself he's keeping, my goal has been accomplished, and I can let the matter drop.

Shrugging and looking away, Light said dismissively, "Well, none of that matters to the Kira case, at any rate." He met Ryuzaki's gaze again. "Returning to what we were discussing, the reason I called Misa after she left and I told you to go ahead to the cafeteria was because now that you'd seen her with me I knew she was in danger of being suspected and arrested by you, and I was planning on berating her for coming to see me so openly in public and also telling her that she would need to be extremely careful from that moment on and take precautions."

Looking at Ryuzaki, Light smiled wryly. "I assume that, if you were Kira and knew that she was the Second Kira after having her room inspected, Ryuzaki, that you would have stolen her phone because you knew I would call her and planned to incriminate me with that." He spread his hands. "If Misa was the Second Kira, who you claimed had come into contact with the real Kira, and the only new person she'd started coming into contact with during that time was me and I even had her cellphone number and could call her at any time, how could I not be Kira?"

Ryuzaki rubbed his thumb over his lip. "I would still have needed concrete proof before I could have actually convicted you, though," he pointed out. His gaze holding Light's, he continued, "Believing you were Kira, I stole Misa's phone hoping that you'd call her and say something incriminating…"

Ryuzaki smiled slightly. "Of course, this was you and not anyone else, Light-kun, and so you quickly took initiative and called her before I was more than a few yards away." He shrugged his shoulders slightly. "And again, since this was you, you no doubt would have waited to confirm it was Misa on the other line before you would have said anything incriminating, anyway."

There you go complimenting me again, Ryuzaki, Light thought. He smiled wryly. Well, not that what you're saying is incorrect.

"If I was Kira, I definitely wouldn't have said anything about killing you if it wasn't confirmed to me that Misa was on the other end of the line," he agreed.

He looked at Ryuzaki and smiled knowingly. "If I was Kira, you would probably have thought you'd gotten me good with that…. The only thing I would have had going for me in that situation was that you couldn't convict me of being Kira with suspicion alone—you would have needed hard proof, and you had none."

He gestured airily, said lightly, "Of course, if you were Kira and framing me, it should have been easy for you to create some…" He looked at Ryuzaki with narrowing eyes. "Yet I turned myself in four days after Misa was arrested, and—whether or not you were Kira—you didn't have any evidence against me even by then."

Ryuzaki looked at him. "The goal was to get Misa to talk and confess, but she wouldn't," Ryuzaki said simply, holding his gaze. "She remained resolutely silent—until on the third day she asked for us to kill her and then finally passed out. When she woke up, she was talkative and under the belief she was being trapped by a stalker."

"So obviously that was when she lost her memories," Light acknowledged. He looked away, gazed out through the bars of his cell, said contemplatively, "I turned myself in shortly after that, right? It's possible, then, that if I was Kira, I may have lost my memories around the same time and then turned myself in at that point once I was able to look a that facts that all pointed to me and, not being Kira, not have had any reason not to turn myself in."

"That could be," Ryuzaki conceded, looking at him. "If you were Kira, you either gave up your memories of being Kira and then turned yourself in—or you turned yourself in while you were Kira, as part of a grander plan, and then gave up your memories while in confinement—which would have to have been before you accused me of being Kira, since that was the only change in your behavior during that time."

Ryuzaki bit at the nail of his thumb. "We don't know how the Kiras' killing power worked at this point, but it doesn't seem like they should have had to disappear at the same time," he said. "They certainly didn't receive the power at the same time, and Kira clearly didn't know about the existence of the Second Kira until that tape was sent in, so I think it's safe to presume that their powers were received individually and not linked to each other in any way. So one Kira giving up their killing power and memories shouldn't have caused the same to happen to the other."

"Yeah," Light agreed, still looking thoughtfully out the gaps between the cell bars, "if the Kiras' powers were linked in that way, it would seem like it should be the case that they should have been able to sense each other or have some kind of psychic connection, which—given the actions taken by the Second Kira to get Kira's attention and the inability of Kira to do anything about it—certainly doesn't seem like the case."

He gestured indicatively. "Taking that as the assumption, I would have given up my memories in one of those two instances you named: either before turning myself in or before suggesting that you were Kira."

He looked over at Ryuzaki. "But if you were Kira," he said, "then we can probably assume that the moment you gave them up was definitely after I accused you of being Kira. Probably not directly following my pronouncement—since you probably would have done all you could to think your way out of it—so it probably would have been the moment when you realized you couldn't, and were forced to come up with a plan in which you gave up your memories and killing power so that I wouldn't be able to extract anything from you, and then had yourself be locked up as well.

"In which case," he gestured, "it would have been the same for you—you either gave up your memories, and then had yourself locked up, or you had yourself locked up and then gave up your memories, maybe on the trip to this incarceration facility before you came face-to-face with me.

"You might even have gotten the inspiration from Misa, assuming that she must have given up her memories of her own free will—" Light's dialogue broke off slightly.

Wait, he thought, his eyes narrowing.

"But if that's the case," he realized, "then why did she wait four days before doing so? And if you were Kira and knew that it was possible to give up your memories in that way, Ryuzaki, wouldn't you have done something about it?"

Light shook his head, trying to clear it. "But if I was Kira, how would I have known that Misa had given up her memories? There shouldn't have been any way for me to do so—which means that if I was Kira, either Misa and I both gave up our memories completely separately, without any knowledge of the other's actions, or our killing powers actually were linked in some way.

"But if they were linked…" He shook his head again, said suddenly, bitterly, "None of this is making any sense."

His gaze on the floor, his lips curled mirthlessly. "I'm starting to get the feeling maybe we're completely off the mark about all this," he said. He gestured in vexation. "How does it even make sense as a theory that Kira could give up their memories anyway? And then somehow get them back?" He shook his head. "I can't even remember anymore."

His fingers, laced together, tensed enough to turn the skin white where his fingertips pressed the backs of his hands between his knuckles. "But if we're wrong about the theory, then the killings will never start up again, and we'll never get out of here…"

Ryuzaki, watching and listening to him, felt like everything was spinning.

It's true that we're just tossing around baseless theories and making presumptions based on only what we believe could make sense, he thought, which means we could indeed be completely off the mark. On the other hand, if we theorize enough, it's likely that we'll hit upon some truths somewhere—but we'll have no way of knowing it. We can only say what we believe more likely to be possible—

But one of us was also Kira, and lost their memories of it—presumably, unless Light Yagami really is Kira and this is all a complete act, but—no, I can't believe that. Part of being a detective is intuition; even when it can't be explained, you can have a sense of what's true and what isn't. I can't ignore that fact, no matter how confused and doubtful Light Yagami himself becomes.

But one of us was Kira and lost their memories of it—would they then have a subconscious intuitive feeling for the true events, or would their memory loss be so complete as a protection against remembering being Kira that they would actually intuitively believe false events to be correct, and be unable to believe the real ones?

Who here is more deluded—me for my certainties, or Light Yagami for his doubts?

Meanwhile, Light was thinking aloud, "I'd say it seems more likely that maybe Misa couldn't no longer psychologically hold up to whatever you were doing to her and her mind split and forgot in order to protect herself—but then, to say that that happened for Kira as well—"

He shook his head again—feeling, by that point, liable to get a headache. "That doesn't make sense, either, that that could happen in two separate individuals; either giving up memories really is part of the power, or else Kira really is a separate personality in one of us who decided to retreat for a time."

He glanced over at Ryuzaki, needing some kind of response. "And in the latter case," he mentioned, "we've already decided that a separate personality is more of a possibility for me than it is for you."

"Maybe not," Ryuzaki said, brushing his thumb over his lip. He looked calm and untroubled even as he said, "I know I said earlier that I didn't think it would be possible for me to have a separate personality that could have gone unnoticed, but that doesn't mean it's impossible."

My intuition says that if I was Kira, I definitely didn't have a separate personality, he thought, watching Light, and if I can't trust my intuition, than I really can't trust anything. But unless we trust in something, even if that thing is wrong, we'll never get anywhere; in a maze, you'll find your way out sooner if you take wrong turns and hit dead ends than if you stay standing at an intersection and never take any of the paths simply because you don't have any idea which one is correct.

I am therefore inclined to go along with my intuition, and follow it until the point where it's proved wrong—at that point, I can always turn around if need be. But I'm not going to not make any assumptions out of a fear of being wrong.

But Light Yagami, if you can't come to that conclusion on your own then I'm not helping you.

(You'll figure it out eventually, I'm sure. I guess realistically you can't be blamed for your doubts, given that you are only eighteen and have had far less experience solving criminal cases than I have. As amazing as your powers of deduction are, you're only human, and you have flaws.)

(It's interesting, though, that one of those flaws seems to be that of doubting yourself, when you're also so arrogant… you never doubted yourself like this before you turned yourself in for possibly being Kira…)

(Could all this doubt be an effect of losing your memories of being Kira? A way for your mind to prevent you from realizing the truth?)

Light was laughing humorlessly. "I'm so confused at this point," he admitted, eyes bright but empty. "We really can't conclude anything, can we?" He gestured helplessly. "When you have all these possibilities, and no proof of any of them, how can we really say what's more likely to be possible of being true? This is ridiculous."

Ryuzaki regarded him. Light Yagami… are you really just an insecure teenager who's been completely shaken by my conviction that you're Kira (it is, after all, possible to brainwash people into believing and doubting things through sheer insistence, especially when done under duress), or were you actually Kira and this is this your mind preventing you from thinking clearly so you can't betray yourself?

(Either way, you're clearly in mental distress right now, and like this you're not very helpful. Whichever one of us was Kira, I'm going to need your mind to help me solve this case, so it's only in my best interest to help you out right now.)

Ryuzaki exhaled inaudibly, moving his thumb from his lip, resting his hand back on his knee. "As you pointed out, Light-kun," he said, "there's nothing else for us to do in here." When Light looked at him, Ryuzaki held his gaze significantly. "So even if it's useless and doesn't lead us anywhere, there's no reason not to consider all the options anyway."

Light looked at him vacantly for a moment, and then his lips quirked. "Heh," he said, glancing down, "I guess that's true." He looked back up to meet Ryuzaki's gaze, said with a kind of relieved resignation, adding, "And since we've already come this far, we might as well finish it."

That's right; if I think about the uselessness and the consequences to much, I really will lose it, Light thought to himself. This is just a game, remember? I need to treat this like a game and not get too worked up about it.

"Since we're discussing all this," Ryuzaki said, watching him, "we should be as thorough as possible, and we skipped part of the chronology." He prompted (carefully): So why don't you tell me what your thoughts were when I told you that Misa had been arrested under suspicion of being the Second Kira due to evidence found in her room, Light-kun?"

If we focus on talking about what we actually remember, rather than coming up with various theories, you should be okay, Light Yagami. We should stick with the concrete for now.

Light closed his eyes, exhaled through his nose. These are my memories; it's fine—even if I can't say for sure that any of this truly happened this way, I can at least say for certain that this is what I remember.

He opened his eyes again, readily met Ryuzaki's gaze. "I was shocked to hear that you'd already suspected her and had already carried out a search of her apartment and fond forensic evidence," he began. "I immediately felt like an idiot though for not realizing it sooner, since of course that was the only reason you knew about her as a model and were able to say that you'd been a fan of hers since the March issue of Eighteen."

He shrugged, looking away. "Then I was pissed off," he said, "because you'd beaten me and because you were obviously going to think of this as proof that I was Kira, and you were being all smugly faux-comforting like you were trying to cheer me up, saying that it was surely emotional for me discovering that my girlfriend was the Second Kira and that you were going to use it to convince everyone that I was the real Kira. Especially since I'd just called her, which would only work against me."

And yet—

Light smiled wryly. I can't help but think through all of these events as if I were Kira, too.

(Is this what you've done to me, Ryuzaki? Insisting that I'm Kira until I internalize it—until I not just believe that I might be Kira, but really start to think as if I am.)

(Am I really so mentally weak as to be manipulated like that?)

(And yet—this is the game, isn't it?)

He looked at Ryuzaki, smiled. "If I was the real Kira, though," he said evenly, "I'd probably have been furious that Misa got herself caught so quickly, noting that instead of going into hiding like you'd proposed, you managed to protect yourself against getting killed by being close to me. And of course realizing that with Misa's arrest as the Second Kira your suspicion of me being Kira was no longer a suspicion but practically a confirmed fact in your mind, and that if Misa spoke it would have been all over for me."

He shrugged. "I'd think, in that situation, I would have killed Misa, in order not to let that happen. I knew her name and face, after all, and should have been able to do so; her dying of a heart attack in confinement couldn't have been used as evidence against me particularly, and it would have been easier to get out of than if she talked and admitted something."

His smile, as he looked at Ryuzaki, was sardonic. "No matter how much she claimed to love me, I don't think I could have trusted her enough to trust that she wouldn't condemn me no matter what. The fact that I didn't kill her would have to be either because I quite literally could not—for whatever unfathomable reason—or else I did not want to, because her getting caught was actually part of my plan—the same way turning myself very well might have been."

He looked at Ryuzaki with lowered eyelids, expectant and distantly, disconnectedly pleased. Your turn to hit, Ryuzaki; this is a game.

Ryuzaki rubbed his thumb over his lip, regarding him. Light Yagami, you keep slipping and falling, but with the slightest touch you bounce right back like a ball.

"I think if Misa getting caught had been part your plan, your expression would have been perfectly blank and unreadable," he said, holding Light's gaze, dark eyes penetrating, words like a jab: "You're unreadable when you lie, Light-kun. But you were looking rather pissed off as I was talking to you about Misa being arrested."

Light's smile was wry, but his eyes were utterly impassive. "I certainly remember being pissed," he said. "If you remember that, too, Ryuzaki, then I suppose we can assume that I indeed was—after all, whichever one of us was Kira was the only one of us who lost their memories; so if we both remember that detail being the same, then we can assume it was indeed true." He shrugged, still smiling untouchably. "Though because we both remember it, it doesn't point to whether I was Kira or not, just that whether or not I was, I wasn't happy about Misa getting arrested."

His eyes left Ryuzaki's easily, face turning away, chin lifting as he looked up at the ceiling, eyes hidden by his hair but smile visible on his lips. "You'd think, though," he said lightly, "that if I wasn't Kira then Misa should have had no problem talking about me, right? She could have admitted to you that she was the Second Kira, but that she really hadn't met Kira and that I definitely wasn't Kira." He gestured casually. "The fact that she remained silent about me like she was trying to protect me seems to point to the likelihood of my guilt."

It doesn't matter what I say; no matter what it is, you're going to have to dispute it, Ryuzaki.

"That doesn't necessarily point to your guilt," Ryuzaki countered, looking at him.

Light Yagami, you keep trying to insist that you must be Kira like you're challenging me; forcing me to rip all my previous theories apart at the seams; moving to the edge of a cliff and daring me to become the monster by pushing you over, forcing me to pull you back to safe ground and take your place on the edge, only for you to dance us around again.

(Are you aware of how completely you're purposefully controlling this discussion, despite the fact that you seem to be so genuinely on the brink of involuntarily falling apart?)

(But that's fine—I'll continue playing your unwitting game, no matter which of our ends it leads to.)

Lifting a finger pointedly, Ryuzaki explained, "Staying silent was the best tactical move on Misa's part after being captured, since anything she said would and could have been used against her—and against you. She might have rightly assumed that her being the Second Kira would cause trouble for you, even if you weren't Kira and didn't know she was the Second Kira, since anyone associated with her would have been in danger at the very least of being thought an accomplice."

Misa may be somewhat foolish, acting on her emotions and not thinking everything through rationally, but she's clearly far from an idiot.

"She might also have rightly assumed, that even if she admitted to being Kira and claimed that you weren't Kira and begged us to spare you, it's unlikely that she would have been believed," Ryuzaki continued. "And she no doubt could have realized that her saying that she went to Aoyama looking for Kira but gave up after finding you instead would only make it seem like you were indeed Kira.

"Additionally, you apparently told her that you were in danger from individuals who had it out for your father, and that she'd be in danger by being close to you and that her getting caught would be a danger to you as well; her believing that she failed you in that way she might've made her determined not to cause any further trouble for you."

Light had looked over at him again, and Ryuzaki held his gaze. "Even someone as foolish as Misa could have come to those conclusions," he said pointedly. His dark eyes were unblinking. "Her love for you really is incredible, Light-kun."

Light closed his eyes, looked down. "I see," he said, voice lowered.

Damn it, he thought, Ryuzaki says her love for me is incredible, and he really seems to believe it—and seeing how she acted with me, I have to think it must be true—and yet…! Why? Why the hell does she love me so much, when I never did anything to deserve it? At least with the girls at school it makes sense why they like me, since they know my reputation—but Misa just looked at me, without even knowing me at all or talking to me, and decided that I was her reason to live? Why?

(Why the hell make me responsible for her life like that? Damn it! I didn't ask for her to be love me!)

She claimed she wanted to live her life for me and give me her everything, but there's nothing selfless about that at all—how completely, utterly selfish do you have to be, to love someone and ask for them to love you in return for this love that they never asked for?

Light exhaled through his nose. Damn it, it doesn't matter.

He opened his eyes, looking back at Ryuzaki. "So what about you, Ryuzaki?" he asked impassively. "Believing me to be Kira, after arresting Misa and after my incriminating phone call, you must have believed that you'd gotten me good and it wouldn't be long before you'd have your proof that I was Kira."

"Yes," Ryuzaki agreed, watching him. "But I didn't bank on the abnormal strength of Misa's love for you—there was no way she'd ever have admitted anything that would have condemned you." He rubbed his thumb along in his lip, regarding Light unblinkingly. "It made me think that you must be quite the womanizer…"

You're not, though, are you, Light Yagami? At least, you don't play women for the reason that most womanizers do—you don't seem to enjoy it, but rather seem to play the girls that ask to date you merely as a way of avoiding hurting or disappointing anyone.

Holding Ryuzaki's gaze, Light said frankly, "I'll admit to being popular with girls, Ryuzaki, and I like to think I'm good at dealing with them—but the strength of Misa's love for me has absolutely nothing to do with anything that I did…" He smiled sardonically. "Aside from walking around Aoyama on the 22nd and possibly being Kira."

"Yes, I believe that," Ryuzaki conceded, looking at him.

Light Yagami, from Matsuda's research into you, unless you were Kira and murdered all those people, you've never done anything to hurt anyone in your life, and in fact have always done everything you can to prevent people from getting hurt—and if you were Kira, you became Kira in order to prevent innocent people from being killed or otherwise being harmed.

Light Yagami, you clearly feel responsible to people—you're a responsible son, upholding your grades, doing your chores and helping out your parents however you can; you're a responsible brother, your sister claiming that you're her hero, always helping her and the kindest person she's ever met; you're a responsible friend, helping to tutor your peers in subjects they struggle in; you're a responsible boyfriend, going out with the girls who ask you and making sure they enjoy it, you don't take advantage of them and even when you turn them down, you've always managed to do so in a way where not a single one of them is bitter about it, and they all consider themselves on good terms with not just you but also all the other girls you've gone out with.

Light Yagami, you try your very best to be perfect to everyone; even with me, you're clearly trying to uphold all the expectations I have of you—even to the extent of possibly being Kira. If you were Kira, you made yourself into my perfect adversary—if you weren't Kira, you tried to make yourself into the perfect detective and perfect friend.

Even now, you're fulfilling my every expectation.

You have a psychopathic emotional intelligence in the way you manipulate people and give them everything they want—and yet you're completely different from a psychopath in the way you don't do it for your own gain in any way; the way you do it so as not to hurt anyone.

Light Yagami, you're exactly the kind of idealistic person who, so jaded by the violence of the world and the baseness of humanity, would become a monster in order to fight monsters; the kind of person who would feel responsible to the world, and take it upon yourself to fix it; the kind of person who, after receiving Kira's killing power, would manipulate people cruelly like an actual psychopath for your own ends.

Ryuzaki rubbed his thumb over his lip. Well, the criminal psychologists who have suggested that L is Kira have pegged me as a bipolar narcissist, and if I actually was Kira, then I suppose that diagnosis fits pretty well, since I would have become Kira after a period of intense depression, would have become Kira for narcissistic reasons, and killing people as Kira and setting up this whole fake case would certainly be a contrasting period of mania.

A killing power like Kira's is bound to bring out the latent psychological problems in anyone.

And with Misa—

"It seemed that Misa was not going to talk, except to ask us to kill her—and then she passed out and woke up acting as differently as if it were a completely different personality who knew nothing of the other…" He looked up at the ceiling consideringly. "It is admittedly possible for the human brain to create split personalities under great duress, as a means of surviving traumatic experiences… the change was much different in her than it was in whichever of us was Kira and lost our memories."

He glanced back at Light. "Despite what I said earlier about there being no way that Kira and the Second Kira's powers could be linked, it is admittedly noteworthy and potentially suspicious that you turned yourself in later the same day that Misa started acting differently—it could just be coincidence, though. Given that Misa completely forgot not just that she was the Second Kira, but that she'd even been suspected of it and arrested for it is so different from one of us losing our memories of being Kira but not of anything else, that the two phenomena might not even be the same."

Light looked at the floor, gaze thoughtful. "That certainly seems possible," he conceded. "That would also clear up the issue that was troubling me earlier about the connection between the two Kiras' powers." He shrugged, giving an airy gesture. "In any case, though, we can't know at this point."

I'd rather not get stuck in that pointless theory loop again; it's not going to help us any.

He looked at Ryuzaki, seguing, "But I suppose your tactic in arresting Misa wouldn't have been much different whether or not you were Kira."

"That's probably the case," Ryuzaki agreed, easily going along with change of topic. "Since if I was Kira I would not have come into contact with Misa and she should have had no way of knowing that I was Kira," he extrapolated, "whether or I was Kira or not, my plan would have been to use whatever Misa said about you to convict you as being Kira, since questioning her couldn't be of any danger to me."

He looked at Light, hands clasped over his knees. "Even if I was Kira, in order to convict you I'd have to expose what the killing power was, how it was used, and how you could have used it in all those inexplicable instances; so her revealing details about the killing power also wasn't any danger to me, and could only have been beneficial."

He glanced up at the ceiling. "Because of that, either way I would have been frustrated about not being able to get any information out of her."

Light looked at him, smiled conspiratorially. "Given all of this regarding Misa Amane, though, it really seems far more plausible that I'm Kira than that you are, Ryuzaki," he pointed out.

"That's not true, Light-kun," Ryuzaki said, glancing at him.

Light smiled at him inexpressively. "Why not?"

"Because of the FBI Agents who were killed, and especially Raye Penber and his fiancee Naomi Misora," Ryuzaki stated.

This is the part that makes me most believe I might actually have been Kira.

"As L, it would have been far easier for me to kill them than for you to do so, Light-kun," Ryuzaki explained, holding Light's gaze. "If I was Kira, I would have known about them from the beginning and could have very easily completely orchestrated all of the events and evidence surrounding their deaths to make it point to you.

"If you were Kira, though, you would have had to realize that you were being followed, then somehow uncover the identity of the FBI agent following you, and then somehow find a way to kill them all without being caught…"

Light looked back at him with a smile frozen into a rictus, and Ryuzaki offered, "Not that you couldn't have figured out some way to do it, I'm sure—but if I we're talking about plausibility it would have been more plausible for me to achieve all that."

You make me want to have been Kira so badly, Ryuzaki, Light thought, internally laughing at himself. Is this not actually part of your plan, too?

"Fair enough," he conceded, forcing himself to shrug and smile easily.

There you are again, Light Yagami, Ryuzaki thought, watching him—always wanting to live up to my highest expectations of you, no matter how terrible they might be.

Even if I offered you an easy way out, you certainly wouldn't take it. You'd walk yourself to the gallows just to prove that you're everything I believe you can be and more.

Ryuzaki moved a hand up to brush his thumb over his lip, pointing out sensibly, "Another reason the disappearance of Naomi Misora especially raises the plausibility that I'm Kira rather than you, Light-kun, is that I worked with Naomi Misora before and knew that she had been an FBI agent; I therefore would have known that she was a danger who needed to be taken out after Raye Penber's death."

He looked at Light from behind his hair that was falling over his face. "Unless you somehow saw Raye Penber and Naomi Misora together and heard them discussing the case, I don't know how you would have known that she used to be one or why you would gotten rid of her, given that she was no longer an agent…"

Light shook his head. "But we don't know for sure that Kira got rid of her, Ryuzaki," he pointed out reasonably, gesturing with his cuffed hands. "You say that the Naomi Misora you knew wouldn't have killed herself, but she still could have. People and their circumstances can change, after all." He met Ryuzaki's gaze. "Or maybe, if she's as good of an FBI agent as you seem to think she is, she could have gone into hiding and still be researching the case…"

Ryuzaki looked at him evenly. "If I was indeed Kira, then she would definitely be dead, even if her falling below the radar in order to research the case was the original cause for her disappearance," he stated. "Upon hearing that she disappeared, if I was Kira I would definitely have killed her to make sure she wouldn't ruin my plans."

Light smiled dryly. "So you would kill someone you worked with, Ryuzaki?"

"If I was Kira, then yes," Ryuzaki said unhesitatingly, holding his gaze. "If you were Kira, would you not have done the same, Light-kun, if a member of your family had discovered that you were Kira?"

Light regarded him silently for a moment. "...Okay, that was mean," he said finally, turning his gaze away, hair falling over his eyes. His fingers were carefully clasped in his lap. "But if I was Kira, then yes," he confessed lowly, "I probably would have."

"Exactly," Ryuzaki said, looking at him without judgment or accusation. "The power to kill changes people from how they'd otherwise be…" He shrugged, turning his gaze up to the ceiling. "In any case, we've already seen that we can't determine which of us was Kira from simple plausibilities and assumptions. Kira can't be convicted until there's hard proof."

Light looked at him, smile slight and wry. "That is indeed Kira's advantage in this case," he said blandly.

Ryuzaki glanced over at him. "Indeed."

Light smiled dryly. "Still," he said, "not knowing the details about Raye Penber and Naomi Misora, but knowing about everything regarding Misa and how all the other details of the case pointed to me being Kira…" He shrugged, pointing out, "After you arrested her, you also didn't invite me back to the investigative headquarters—which you of course wouldn't have done, believing me of being Kira or pretending to believe me of being Kira. So I couldn't do anything but wait in complete ignorance, and dwell about how I could possibly prove my innocence.

"Upon realizing that I had no proof that I was innocent—aside from my lack of knowledge of being Kira, which nobody would have any reason to believe—it seemed to me that I must be Kira; because if I wasn't then how the hell was it that all of that evidence could point to me?"

Light shook his head, smiling sardonically. "I had to turn myself in as being Kira; it was either turn myself in, or wait for you to arrest me, after all—and if you arrested me, then my waiting would only be even more evidence against me."

Looking down, his eyes were hidden from view by his bangs. "Since I didn't remember being Kira, I knew that if I was Kira then I was Kira without realizing it, and must be acting as Kira subconsciously in some way. I figured that at least if I turned myself in, if it turned out I really was Kira without realizing it, I'd have beaten you to the punch—and if it somehow miraculously turned out that even with all that evidence pointing to me I actually wasn't Kira, then turning myself in and being locked up would be the easiest and quickest way to clear that."

He looked up at Ryuzaki through his hair, lips twisting wryly. "I couldn't live with the anxiety of not being able to trust that I wasn't Kira, Ryuzaki," he said quietly. "Nor could I live with the idea of the shame I'd experience if you arrested me and it turned out I really was Kira, despite having insisted that I wasn't…"

He shook his head, laughing slightly, humorless as the sound was. "Of course, that's just my memories," he pointed out dismissively, "and if they're true then I actually wasn't Kira. But if I actually was Kira, we already decided I must have been conscious of it—so I of course wouldn't have been having those thoughts until I gave up my memories of being Kira, at the point when I knew that all the evidence pointed to me and there'd be no other way to get out of it."

He shrugged lightly. "I probably would have guessed that without my memories of being Kira I would have looked at all the evidence that pointed so directly to me and realized that I either must be Kira, or that I'd been perfectly and intentionally framed for it, because that many coincidences just shouldn't be possible." His smile was perfectly wry. "Also the fact that Kira's ideals lined up so perfectly with my own beliefs…"

This hurts to admit, Light thought, closing his eyes. But I don't have a choice; it's bare my feelings for everyone to see, or die for my pride and somebody else's lies (whether Ryuzaki's or mine).

I have to remember, too, that being honest about my feelings will actually make people think better of me, even if it's things that make me feel pathetic and weak; people prize honesty over anything else when it comes to trusting people.

Additionally, my honesty will force Ryuzaki to be honest, too. And what his honest will bring…

"Yes, I can see all that," Ryuzaki conceded, regarding him with a thumb brushing contemplatively over his lip.

You don't seem particularly comfortable with this, Light Yagami—someone who tries to be perfect as you do can't possibly be comfortable admitting to weaknesses and insecurities—but you clearly pushed yourself through despite that, without even needing to be prodded.

I can do no less than the same.

(And you knew this, didn't you?)

"As for me," Ryuzaki started, steadily holding Light's gaze when Light looked over at him, "I believed you to be Kira, though I had no evidence. I was indeed planning on calling you in to question you."

Ryuzaki rubbed his thumb along his lip, admitted, "When you turned yourself in, Light-kun, I thought it wasn't because you believed you 'might' be Kira, but because you were Kira and were up to something." He looked at Light stolidly. "You said that you must be Kira because I had concluded that you were Kira—but I was convinced that I concluded you were Kira because you were Kira; not the other way around."

He lowered his hand from his mouth, slipped his arms around his legs, gripped his ankles. "Then you said that you thought you were Kira without being conscious of it, Light-kun, and I thought that you might be trying to get out of a death sentence with that excuse, though it gave me a perturbation because giving up in that way didn't seem like you at all."

Light was still observing him, analyzing, and Ryuzaki fought down the urge to look away, up at the ceiling. "I thought you were trying to get yourself exonerated," he said, "since if you were detained under 24/7 surveillance without any access to information and criminals kept dying then you would have to be cleared."

Light's lips curved wryly at that, and Ryuzaki pointed out, "If you were Kira, you'd already essentially done that when your house had been bugged with cameras and wire-taps." He shrugged. "If that was possible for you, I figured that, if you were Kira, even when you were detained the criminals would not stop dying."

Light gave an incredulous laugh. "I had no idea that there were cameras and wire-taps in my room," he said, shaking his head. "There were a couple days about a week apart when I came home and it was clear to me that someone had been in my room who hadn't been my mom or sister—but since I knew that the police and their families had to be under suspicion from L due to the leakage of police information, I thought that my room had simply been searched as part of that, and that it had just been a routine procedure." He grinned sardonically. "Now that I think about it, though, those days must have been when the cameras and wire-taps were installed and then removed."

"Undoubtedly," Ryuzaki agreed, watching him.

Light Yagami, if you had a way of knowing someone had been in your room, did you really not find any of the cameras and wire-taps?

But if you did, there's no reason for you to not be honest about it at this point…

Light's grin was like a butterfly landed delicately over the bud of what was destined to unfurl into a bloom of incredulous, sardonic laughter. "So you believed that if I was Kira, then the criminals would keep dying even when I was locked up?"

"I did," Ryuzaki said, with thoughts in his mind like raindrops falling into pools, spreading ever-expanding circles within ever-expanding circles of their surfaces. "I thought that you being locked up was obviously what you wanted to happen, and that you'd get out of it because you knew you could kill even in such a situation; but since I'd determined that you couldn't kill without a face and a name, even I would be forced to acquit you if criminals kept dying while you were incarcerated…"

He looked at Light, toed the edges of shadows in his mind as he granted, "Admittedly I did wonder if it was thinking too much to assume that that was exactly what you wanted to happen, and that perhaps you were really afraid of your own suspicion of being Kira… "

Light's smile grew like a butterfly spreading its wings. "And the criminals stopped dying as soon as I was detained."

"They did," Ryuzaki confirmed, looking at him with eyes as dark and inscrutable as a night sky covered horizon to horizon with cloudcover. "So I then thought that perhaps you did that on purpose and were trying to get away with it by pretending like you weren't aware of it…"

He looked at Light with eyes as unblinking as the orb of the moon. "It really seemed that you being locked up was exactly what you wanted to happen; I thought it must've been part of your plan and wondered just how far ahead you'd prepared…"

Light's sardonic laugh was the night-bloom of an evening primrose, his wry smile the fluttering of a nocturnal sphinx moth. "Perhaps this, too, is then I what I wanted to happen: for you to be manipulated into a situation where you couldn't prove I was Kira and were cast under doubt yourself, so that I would not be convicted and executed before the power had a chance to return to me."

"Perhaps," Ryuzaki conceded, dark eyes meeting Light's red-hued gaze like the night seeped into the coal-glow of the sunset. "If you were Kira, you certainly had a plan that went beyond getting yourself locked up."

Light smiled at him with the everlasting perfection of a pressed flower: eternally in full bloom and unfading in color, but ultimately dry and dead. "But if you were Kira, the same must be true for you."

"Indeed," Ryuzaki agreed, with the weight of a comprehensive dictionary. "If I was Kira, then I would of course have stopped the killings as soon as you were locked up, since I was framing you and a situation like that would have been perfect for proving your guilt." His shrug was a breezy flipping of pages. "I'd only need to then figure out to prove the killing power and that you had it."

Light's laugh was a swirl of dead petals. "And yet the fact that you had the cameras and wire-taps in my house would have made that more difficult for you, because it would have been proved, as you pointed out to me, that I wasn't Kira while I was asleep, or anything like that."

In the jail cells they occupied, the electric lights illumed industrial-white 24/7, evaporating all shadows except for those staining the skin beneath their eyes and erasing all sense of time; the only only darkness—was within their minds.

"Well," Ryuzaki said, finally turning his head away, "I certainly wouldn't have wanted it to be easy; it wouldn't be any fun, that way." He looked at Light sideways through his hair; a bony coyote's jaundiced stare. "I would probably have been rather annoyed that you'd beaten me to the punch the way you had, and that you were making it so easy for me to prove your guilt."

Ryuzaki, Light thought, I can see right through you.

"Hence why you would have waited long enough to give me a chance to accuse you of being Kira?" Light asked, pointed like thorns with a flower-petal smile. "You couldn't have thought that I wouldn't come to that conclusion eventually; and it would have made it more exciting for you, for this to happen." In the harsh white light with the bruise-red bags beneath his eyes, the glow of his irises suggested the gules shade that heated the first exhale of a sunrise. "Perhaps this here is exactly what you wanted?"

"Perhaps," Ryuzaki said. "It's certainly drawing the case out. And if I was bored enough to create this case just to have something to do, I certainly wouldn't want it to end too soon…" His gaze looked dark as death and just as sleepless. "What ever would I do afterwards?"

"Kill yourself?" Light smiled.

Ryuzaki's expression was as expressive as the face of a stopped clock. "...Maybe," he said finally, after uncounted seconds of silence.

Tik.

There was a countdown in Light's head.

Tok.

He couldn't help but laugh. "So if you're going to die either way," he said, gesturing airily, "you might as well just admit to being Kira." His tone was light, flippant, his eyelids relaxed and gaze insouciant.

"I can't," Ryuzaki said simply, holding his gaze with asphalt eyes, "since I have no memories of being Kira and can't prove the method of killing."

Light shrugged; his smile, bright and soft, was all white lilac, his voice a lilt of breeze. "So we catch the next Kira who turns up, discover the killing power, figure out you were Kira, and then you admit everything."

"Or," Ryuzaki intoned, with eyes like tar pits, "we catch the next Kira who turns up, discover the killing power, figure out you were Kira, and then you admit everything."

Light Yagami, he thought, are you taking the case seriously at all anymore, are does this mean you've completely given up on caring?

Light laughed like bells. "But I'd never do that, Ryuzaki," he said, and his smile was all lilies of the valley. "If I was Kira, then I wanted to rule the world, and would definitely find a way out of it because I'd want to live and would have a goal to live for—but if you were Kira, then you were just trying to stave off death by boredom for a little longer, and after the case was over you wouldn't have anything more to live for." His eyes, rufous, were desert-empty. "Your only next step would choosing your preferred means of death."

Ryuzaki looked at him and thought, Is that a warning, Light Yagami? His mind was filled with shadows, which danced.

Ryuzaki's lips curved. "…Then I also hope that you're Kira, Light-kun."

Light laughed, his smile rose and his words all thorns. "So that your means of death would be getting killed by me?" he asked, grinning wryly. His shrug was flippant, his eyes darkly amused. "I mean, once you caught me, would you have anything to live for then? You'd never find another case like this one." He laughed again, said conspiratorially, "Unless you created the next one…" His smile was sharp and his eyes glinted, callous.

You broke, Light Yagami, Ryuzaki thought, watching him, feeling a sense of surrealness creep over him like a fog. You're now treating this all like nothing more than a dark, cosmic joke.

Well, that's fine—if you're going to take a flippant, devil-may-care approach to solving this case, I can just do the same.

He tilted his head to rest his cheek against his knee, regarding Light at an angle. "You're obviously Kira, Light-kun," he pronounced flatly: "You're truly evil."

Light grinned at him, unaffected. "Or maybe I'm just going insane being locked in this cell," he suggested. He shook his head, grinning emptily, sardonically. "How long has it been now? Still fourteen days? Or with that conversation did we manage to make it to the fifteenth?" He laughed. "We didn't miss anything, did we?"

I really am losing it, he thought distantly. Or else I've already lost it. What does it matter anymore? There's no way to stay sane, in a situation like this. I might as well give it up and embrace the freedom of this.

"I don't think we missed anything," Ryuzaki said after a contemplative moment of staring at the ceiling, looking at him as if there was nothing wrong with him. "I'm pretty sure we covered everything, and more besides."

Ryuzaki—am I not crazy, after all, or does it simply not bother you because you've already lost it, too?

Light laughed, feeling it tickle deep in his chest. Well, I guess it only makes sense that we'd be in the same boat in regards to sanity—or the loss of it—too, given that we're in the same boat in regards to being equally likely to be Kira. Was it not the goal of this conversation to level the playing field for both of us? Maybe we've lowered ourselves six feet below ground already and are still digging.

I'm going insane in this cell.

"So now what?" he asked, looking at Ryuzaki through his hair, which fell limp and oily into his face. "All of that, and we still don't know anything." He smiled, feeling on the verge of laughing again. "And now we have nothing to do."

"As always," Ryuzaki said, looking at him soberly, "you ask excellent questions."

Light laughed. Ryuzaki, he thought, you've lost it.

He laughed harder. I've lost it.

Ryuzaki's was watching him, his lips curving upwards against his will.

Laughter might actually be a disease, he thought distantly, pressing at thumb against his lips. It's contagious.

I might throw up.

His stomach squirmed and gurgled.

I want cake.

Ryuzaki's stomach had rumbled so loudly that Light heard it, and it made him laugh harder.

Ah, he thought, suddenly hyper-aware of the ache in his gut behind the aching of his abs, I'm hungry, too.

"Uh, Ryuzaki, Light-kun…" came Matsuda's hesitant voice over the speaker. "I think I should tell you…"

Light's laughter subsided and he took deep breaths, listening, and Ryuzaki looked over at the camera in the corner of his cell and said, "Yes, Matsuda-san?"

There was a pause, and then: "The Kira killings have started up again."

Ryuzaki's smiled so suddenly his thumb slipped and shoved it right back off his lips, and Light grinned down at the floor, looked up through his lanky hair that was itching his face and said, "It's about damn time. Can I finally take a shower now?"

an: in regards to matters ppl might have some interest in or curiosity about or whatever:

1) i am not Japanese, so all the information on Japanese emperors and on Emperor Jimmu was taken from Wikipedia and Study (dot com), not from my own knowledge or experiences or anything. so i can't vouch for it.

2) stick hyper-active minds in a cell with nothing to do but think, and they're gonna start to have problems.
add the entire existential crisis of this "either one of us could be Kira" situation on top of that, and, well. something's gonna give.

3) apparently this is the shit that happens when Light and L are agnostics - or, in other words, what happens if you don't make leaps of faith in things you can't prove.
probably why a lot of existentialists eventually ended up at religion - it gets to a point where the choice is either go insane, commit suicide, or convert to some religious belief.
(my preference is leaning towards insanity, myself - but ja, that's just me.)

4) in case anyone managed to hold onto their thoughts throughout this chapter enough to be wondering about this: since Light lost all his memories regarding the Death Note, he also has no memories of having learned Raye Penber and Naomi Misora's real names, and doesn't know who they are. though if he saw pictures of them, he might recognize their faces and remember that he met them... but he still wouldn't remember having ever learned their real names. maybe that'll come up later eventually.

5) for the record, the killings didn't actually only just start up right there at the end of this chapter perfectly-timed like that, lolz. the task force had known for at least a few hours or something - but they were too afraid to interrupt Light and Ryzaki's conversation lolololol...
which we will see in the next chapter - when/if there is one...

6) considering it was two years before this update, i can make legit no promises about when the next chapter of this story might be... although I did write this entire 66,000-or-so-word chapter in under two months... *cue insane laughter*

7) how long it is before the next update - or if there ever is a next update - will probably depend on you guys, tho. so if you're interested in seeing more of this story, maybe try not to complain too much? complaints really piss me off haha. it's not like i have to write this story or anything; there are legit a zillion other things i could be doing with my spare time, i mean srsly.
(ok so ppl complaining about various aspects of this story was a rlly significant part of why i stopped writing on it for so long and i'm still rlly bitter and sensitive about it, fucking fight me).

8) how do u like me now after all this shit, huh?
guyz it's ur own fucking fault for reading this tho, cuz u coulda fucking stopped - nobody but u made u read this shit i mean rlly
(i hate being this pathetically human lmfao)