Let me explain.
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Beyond Birthday had the eyes of a shinigami congenitally. It was not particularly difficult for him to track down people with the initials B.B. or to find people who were fated to die on a certain day at a certain time. After all, there are over twenty million people in Los Angeles.
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Killing people was, for him, normal.
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Killing people who were fated to die anyway was no effort at all. Mmm, I guess I should explain the idea of the eyes of a shinigami. The phrase is only too familiar to me, but if I don’t explain it, some of you will cry foul. The eyes of a shinigami. These eyes could be given out by any shinigami in return for half the recipient’s remaining life. They allowed the recipient to see people’s names and remaining life.
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Normally contact with a shinigami was a prerequisite for acquisition, but Beyond Birthday had traded nothing—he had seen the world through those eyes since before he could remember.
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He knew your name before you said it.
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He knew the time of death of every person he met.
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I hardly need to explain just what effect this would have on his personality. You might think they would hardly be useful without a Death Note, but that is simply not the case. The ability to see someone’s remaining life is the ability to see death. Death, death, death. Beyond Birthday lived his life unceasingly reminded that all humans would eventually die. From the time he was born he knew the day his father would be attacked by a thug and die, knew the day his mother would die in a train crash.
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He had these eyes before he was born, which is why he called himself Beyond Birthday. Which is why a child as strange as he was taken in by our home, sweet home—Wammy’s House.
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He was B.
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The second child in Wammy’s House.
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“If only I could see the death of the world,” Beyond Birthday murmured, on August 19th at 6 a.m., just as he woke up. He was lying on a simple bed on the second floor of a prefabricated storehouse borrowed under the name of a dormant company, in the suburbs of the west side of town. One of many hidden lairs located across the country, around the world. Why West L.A.? Because on that day, Naomi Misora, the suspended FBI agent fronting for the century’s greatest detective, L, was going to be there.
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“Naomi Misora. Naomi Misora. L’s hands. L’s eyes. L’s shield. Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! No, that’s not right... I should laugh more like this... Kya ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Yeah, that’s better.” Kya ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
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Kya ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
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Laughing wildly, Beyond Birthday got out of bed. A harsh, cruel laugh, but an unnatural laugh, a phony laugh. As if laughing was just another task he had to perform.
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Beyond Birthday remembered how he had attacked Naomi Misora three days before, on August 16th, in the alley downtown.
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Of course, he had known when she would die—had seen how much life remained. Naomi Misora’s life.
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It was not that time, on August 16th, but much, much later.
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Which meant...
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If he attacked her with intent to kill, he would absolutely fail. He knew that he would. Ensuring his path of escape was far more critical. Naomi Misora was nothing but L’s servant, and if she died there would be dozens of replacements—from the FBI, the CIA, and the NSA—even the Secret Service. So he had only been testing her. Seeing if Naomi Misora was capable of being L’s substitute.
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“Hmmm... mmmm... hmmm... Huh huh huh huh... no, hee hee hee? I could go with ho ho ho ho, but that’s a little too jolly… anyway. Oh, Naomi Misora, you are pretty good. A shame to waste someone like you in the FBI.”
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She had passed the test, so far.
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Today she would visit the scene of the third murder, and she would most likely find the message Beyond Birthday had left for her. Then she would try to prevent the fourth murder, the victim Beyond Birthday had selected.
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That was good.
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Only then would the competition begin.
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Only then would the real game start.
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The competition between L and B.
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L and B’s puzzle.
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“If L’s a genius then B’s an extreme genius. If L’s a freak, then B’s an extreme freak. Now it’s time to get ready. There are things I must do before B can surpass L. Henh henh henh henh.” This thought was the only thing that made him laugh without needing to think about it. And those that know will recognize the laugh of the shinigami.
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Still grinning to himself, he faced the mirror, brushed his hair, and began applying his makeup. The reflection of himself in the mirror. Himself. As always, he could not see his own time of death. No more than he could see the death of the world.
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So, August 19th.
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Naomi Misora was in the west side of the city, in the townhouse where the third victim, Backyard Bottomslash, had lived. She had shared the place with a good friend of hers, but she had been killed while her friend had been out of town on business. Like the second victim’s mother, the roommate had moved back in with her parents after the murder.
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Backyard Bottomslash’s bedroom was on the second floor. There was a thumb turn latch just below the knob. And two holes on the walls where the Wara Ningyo had been. One on the far wall, directly opposite the door, and the other on the left hand wall. The floor was covered in a frankly bizarre number of stuffed animals for a twenty-eight-year-old, and the entire room was ornately decorated.
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There were stuffed animals piled against each wall. In order: two, five, nine, and twelve. Twenty-eight in all. While the room had been cleaned, it still smelled faintly of blood, which destroyed the effect of the decor.
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“Where is Ryuzaki?”
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She glanced down at the silver wristwatch on her left hand, and saw that it was already two thirty in the afternoon.
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They were supposed to meet at two.
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Misora had been here since early that morning, checking the place out in advance. She had searched the entire house, not just this room, but five hours later she had completely run out of things to do and was rather bored. And she had failed to uncover anything of interest, which had left her feeling frustrated.
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She bit her lip, annoyed that she had been unable to figure anything out without Ryuzaki around.
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Then the phone in her bag rang. She answered quickly, assuming it was L, but it was her boyfriend and coworker, Raye Penber.
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“Hello? Raye?”
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“Yeah... let me speak quickly, Misora,” Raye said, in a low voice. At this time of day there must be other people around him. “I checked up on what you asked me.”
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“Oh, thanks.”
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She’d asked him on the 16th, and it was now the 19th, and he was a very busy FBI agent, so this was pretty fast work. When she thought about how much he did for her, she found herself wanting to thank him every time she spoke to him.
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“So?”
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“Basically? There is no private detective named Rue Ryuzaki.”
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“So he’s unlicensed?” An unprivate detective. He had said so himself
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“No. There are no records of anyone named Rue Ryuzaki at all. Not just in America, but in the records of every country in the world. The name Ryuzaki is reasonably common in your home country, but none of them are named Rue.”
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“Oh. He speaks Japanese like a native, so I thought he might he from there... so it’s a fake name?”
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“Presumably.” Raye was silent for a moment, but then blurted, “Naomi! What are you doing?”
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“You promised not to ask.”
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“I know I did. But your leave of absence will be over next week, and I was just thinking about the future... are you coming back to the FBI?”
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“I haven’t thought about it yet.”
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“I know I always say this, but...”
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“Don’t. I know what you’re going to say, so don’t say it.”
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“I don’t have time. I’ll call again.”
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Misora hung up without giving him a chance to respond. She spun the phone around between her fingers, feeling a little guilty. It wasn’t that she hadn’t thought about going back, but that she didn’t want to think about it.
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“Next week already? Nah focus on the case at hand.” This might be running away, but since Ryuzaki still wasn’t here...
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(She’d suspected the name was fake from the moment she met him, so she didn’t particularly care...
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although she did wonder why he’d chosen that name in particular. But the real problem was why the victim’s parents had hired a private detective that didn’t exist)... Misora told herself to forget about it and go over the facts they had uncovered one more time.