I Have the Right to Destroy
01: Confrontation
(L)
Do you know who Kira is?
"Kira" is the word used to identify the one responsible for a very strange thing happening to many nations in the world: criminal death by heart attack. Among the many experts existing in the world, not one of them can give an explanation as to how this can be done by a human being, or even an efficient group of human beings.
(Heck, even I can't explain how this could happen. That will change soon, hopefully.)
People have differing opinions of who or what Kira is. Supporters of this person call Kira a god. A blessing. An angel of justice who will save human society from evil. It is easy to think of Kira this way. After all, after his movements are determined by the world, it seemed to become a quieter place. Crime rates lessened dramatically. Populations decreased, and everybody became more conscious of rules and laws. Kira also affected the people personally: there are those families with weights lifted off their shoulders after seeing the people who ruined their lives fall to the ground with their hearts stopped.
In his world, where there is death, a new life begins.
For others, Kira is a curse, a virus, or else a disease. From the very word itself, Kira—a Japanization of the word Killer. No matter how you look at it, the Killer is a murderer, a serial killer with malicious intentions towards his fellow human beings. How real are his 'achievements,' anyway? Crime rates have nothing to do with it. Rules are being followed out of fear. People use his name to scare each other: do this to me and I will ask Lord Kira to kill you.
In his world, where there is silence, there is disorder.
Therefore, Kira must be stopped.
On the onset, I was interested in the case for two reasons, both of them selfish. First of course was the fact that it was the hardest puzzle in the world to solve. Second, many governments will pay me huge sums of money if I got rid of the person. Considering the power held by Kira, many of them were afraid that this person will take over.
(Ah, but they don't understand. Kira is already taking over the minds of human beings, more than they ever did. Their fear proves it.)
Needless to say, back then, I was not concerned in setting Kira straight. All I wanted to do was to solve the puzzle. Nothing wrong in pursuing a hobby.
The first thing to do was to pinpoint Kira's location. The very first victims were scattered among three nations: Japan, United States, and the United Kingdom. The times were different, of course, given the time zone differences, but one thing was clear:
It seemed that the very first victim of a heart attack death was a first-time rapist from London. The times were close: he died a mere twelve seconds before the Shinjuku killer. Before his death, the name and face of the criminal were cited on local newspapers and on a few Internet articles.
Upon confirming this fact, it was logical to think that Kira was most probably from an English-speaking nation. However, among the three nations involved, two of them had English as their national language. Given that I wasn't moving with a hundred percent conviction, it was a leap of faith for me to assume that the United Kingdom was the home base of Kira, and even more of a leap of faith to choose England and disregard Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.
Using a notorious, but not well-known American criminal by the name of Lind L. Tailor, a so-called World Wide TV Broadcast of L's challenge to Kira was aired on all of England's television sets.
As many of you would guess, it was a success—Kira took the bait. Lind L. Tailor, a serial killer from Texas already on the death row for his crimes, died approximately two minutes after he appeared on air.
After that, it was the true L's turn to make his entrance.
"Kira, among the many nations of the world, you are located within the United Kingdom. Moreover, you are currently in England." Normally, I would not be satisfied with such a proclamation because England is a big place with many suspects. It would still be a challenge to pinpoint his or her exact location, and considering that the person can freely leave the country without suspicion, the situation gets trickier.
But this information would do for now. It was actually more than enough for ICPO, who were desperate for any sort of clue.
"Go on, try and kill me!" This proves it. He needed a name and face to kill off criminals. Unabashedly, I mentioned this in my challenge. I could feel his disappointment as my scrambled voice rang out mockingly for all of England to hear. And why not? Lind L. Tailor's death was a blunder. And the public now knows how to avoid death by Kira.
I was genuinely glad at that moment—for the first time, Kira was outsmarted. He had two options after that: to run away and quit the killings, or to accept my challenge and set the stage for the chase. Even though it must be selfish of me to say so, I wished he would choose the second option, for one reason only:
I must know how he kills.
I have to solve the puzzle.
And as expected of a cunning man, Kira accepted my challenge.
But after I learned of his decision, I almost regretted ever issuing my challenge in such a manner.
Because five minutes after L's Challenge to Kira was aired, my honourable assistant and teacher Watari dropped dead on his station.
The cause of death was a heart attack.
Death is the moment where the human being ceases to be. From a breathing creature with a rational mind, he turns into a thing, and nothing else other than a thing. This is an inescapable truth in human societies.
In my profession, it is not surprising to see death on ordinary days. It is a malevolent wish, but humans wish for others to 'cease to be' before their times are up. Some would say that this wish for destruction—destruction of others, or even self-destruction—means that there exists in humans an inescapable, inherent evil.
This evil, it is why there are such things as 'criminals'. As humans, we inherently know that we have to avoid it. Besides self-preservation, is there another reason for avoiding evil?
This evil—this is the same evil that killed thousands of criminals in the past few months. This is what made ordinary people rely on a force called Kira to solve all their problems.
This evil killed Quillsh Whammy. Sadly, this evil revealed a hideous truth to me:
Kira is one of the children who is going to be L someday.
…
I never cared much about philosophical debates regarding good and evil. Before, getting rid of evil was never my motivation to become a detective. Solving difficult puzzles was my only reason.
After Kira answered my challenge, I understood why evil must be avoided.
I thought of Kira, whoever he may be. Three young men, sitting in a circle. Three scenes: a young blond boy uttering a curse and sending a man to the grave; a small, white figure pointing his small, child's finger towards a man, frothing at the mouth from a heart attack; a young boy in goggles, pressing a magic button that swept the nation free of hardened criminals.
One by one, they stare at me. Wide eyes, closing and opening. Mouths like gasping goldfish, saying words that I will never understand.
L…
Kira left me alive, healthy. But all data is deleted. Nothing else is left but me and my writhing stomach.
An abnormal thing was happening to the world.
And I wished to get to the bottom of it.
Note: Ack! That's a major change from the first thing I uploaded here. That's because I re-read the entire thing, and I found it wordy and hard to read. Sorry about that :D I decided to just go with Kira because it makes things simpler. I hope this one is improved from the previous version.