“Eh? No, I ca... can, but I don’t have one.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Then I shall prepare one. You should be armed. So far this was merely a detective war with the killer, but from here on our lives are on the line. You should be ready for anything, Misora,” Ryuzaki said, biting his thumbnail.
✦ ✦ ✦
And so...
✦ ✦ ✦
With any number of inconsistencies and anxieties, Naomi Misora spent the night in a hotel in West L.A. She called L from her hotel room and asked him for financial backing, and to check up on all the evidence they had uncovered. She wondered if L would suggest that lying in wait was too dangerous, and they should make the safety of the potential victims their first priority, wondered if he would oppose the strategy Ryuzaki had suggested, (part of her had hoped he would), but L seemed to be quite in favor of it. Misora asked him two or three times if she could really trust Ryuzaki, but he said again that there was no harm in letting him proceed. But of course, by the 22nd, everything would be resolved...
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“Please, Naomi Misora,” L said. “Whatever you do, please catch the killer.” Whatever you do.
✦ ✦ ✦
Whatever.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Understood.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Thank you. However, Misora, while it is true that we are unable to ask for help publicly from the police, I can supply some private backup. I plan to station a few individuals working directly for me in the area around the condominiums. They do not need any solid proof to activate, Of course, they will keep their distance, but...”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Okay, sounds good.”
✦ ✦ ✦
When her conversation with L was finished it was past midnight—it was already August 21st. She would have to spend the entirety of the 22nd in Pasadena, which meant she had to arrive early on the evening of the 2 1st. With all that in mind, she knew it would be a struggle, but she climbed into the hotel bed, hoping to get a good night’s sleep.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Wait,” she murmured.
✦ ✦ ✦
As cobwebs formed over her mind, she murmured, “Now... when did I tell Ryuzaki about the Capoeira?”
✦ ✦ ✦
She didn’t know.
✦ ✦ ✦
And there was one other thing she didn’t know.
✦ ✦ ✦
Something she didn’t even know she didn’t know.
✦ ✦ ✦
Something that she was never to know. No matter what she did, she had no way of knowing. That this killer, Beyond Birthday, could tell someone’s name and time of death just by looking at their face, that he had been born with the eyes of the shinigami—she had no way of knowing that fake names were useless with him, completely and utterly pointless.
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How could she have known?
✦ ✦ ✦
Even Beyond Birthday himself could not explain how he had been born with the eyes of the shinigami, how he could use them with no payment, with no arrangement. Neither Misora nor L knew why, and, obviously, neither do I. The closest thing to an explaination I can offer is that there are shinigami stupid enough to drop their notebooks in our world, so there might well be shinigami stupid enough to drop their eyes. Either way, it was completely absurd to expect humans who had no idea shinigami even existed to be on the lookout for their eyes.
✦ ✦ ✦
Even so, even with that in mind, she might have guessed. After, B looks like thirteen, and thirteen is the number of the tarot card named Death...
✦ ✦ ✦
And so.
✦ ✦ ✦
With any number of inconsistencies and anxieties, and one significant failure... the story’s climax arrives.
✦ ✦ ✦
Case study.
✦ ✦ ✦
I had originally intended to keep the reasons for Naomi Misora leave of absence (which was effectively a suspension from duty) out of these notes—had planned to remain vague about all the details. If I could, I absolutely would stick to that plan. I mean it. Like I said before, she was the single greatest victim of the fallout from Wammy’s House, and intruding on her private... or at least personal issues is something I am very reluctant to do. Which is why I have casually avoided any specific mention of it so far. However, since I now find myself attempting to describe the look in Naomi Misora’s eyes as she grasped the gun Ryuzaki had given her in both hands (It was a Strayer-Voigt Infinity model), I can no longer skirt the issue. I can’t just fast forward to the next scene without explaining the reasons behind that look.
✦ ✦ ✦
That said, it’s not a terribly complicated story. Putting it as simply as possible, the team she worked with had spent months secretly investigating and infiltrating a drug cartel, and she had blown the whole operation—because at a critical juncture, she had been unable to pull the trigger. While she did not customarily carry a gun with her, it was different on duty—nor did she have any intention of making pathetic excuses about not being able to shoot another human being. Naomi Misora was a trained FBI agent. She did not imagine her hands were clean, or that she was above such things. But she had not been able to pull the trigger. Her gun had been aimed at a child of only thirteen years... which didn’t in any way excuse it. Thirteen or not, he was a dangerous criminal. But Naomi Misora had let him get away, and the secret investigation that many of her fellow agents had poured countless hours and an unbelievable amount of work into ended with nothing to show for it. Everything was finished. They had arrested no one, and while no one had died, there had been some agents injured so severely they might never be able to return to active duty—horrific results, considering the efforts squandered.
✦ ✦ ✦
Despite her own weak position within the organization, the fact that she had only been forced to take a leave of absence was rather lenient.
✦ ✦ ✦
Naomi Misora honestly did not know why she had been unable to pull the trigger. Perhaps she did not possess the proper self awareness... the proper resolve that an FBI agent should have. Her boyfriend, Raye Penber, had said, “I guess you couldn’t live up to your nickname, Misora Massacre,” somewhere between sarcasm and trying to cheer her up, but since she didn’t understand it herself she hadn’t protested.
✦ ✦ ✦
But Naomi Misora remembered.
✦ ✦ ✦
The moment she’d pointed the gun at him...
✦ ✦ ✦
The eyes that child had turned toward her.
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Like he was staring at something he couldn’t believe, like the grim reaper had just appeared before him.
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Like it was absurd. He could kill other people, but he had never imagined that he might be killed himself. But he should have known, he should have been ready to die the moment he first took a life.
✦ ✦ ✦
As any criminal would. As any FBI agent would. That threat hung over them all. She was part of the system. That child was part of the system too. Perhaps that had weakened their resolve. Perhaps that had numbed them to the threat. Perhaps their fears had rusted over. But so what? Given that child’s upbringing, he not only had no chance to reform, he never had a prayer of living right to begin with.
✦ ✦ ✦
What had Misora expected from someone like that? How cruel was it of her to have expected anything?
✦ ✦ ✦
She knew as well as anyone that that child was living the only way he could. He had always been doomed. But did that mean he had to accept his fate? Was there only one way to live, one way to die?
✦ ✦ ✦
Was human life... was human death all controlled by some unseen hand?
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Obviously, she harbored some resentment toward those who had used this failure as an excuse to expel her, but when she thought about the difference between the thirteen-year-old she had failed to shoot and the second victim in the Los Angeles BB murders, Quarter Queen, she began to feel like the whole affair was ridiculous.
✦ ✦ ✦
Misora did not have a strong sense of justice.
✦ ✦ ✦
She did not believe herself to be ethically or morally superior.
✦ ✦ ✦
She did not approach work with any kind of philosophy.
✦ ✦ ✦
She was where she was because her entire life had been like walking through a town she didn’t know—
✦ ✦ ✦
if she lived her life over again, she was sure she’d end up somewhere completely different. If som( one asked her why she was working for the FBI, she would ncvci have been able to answer.
✦ ✦ ✦
She was good at it, but that came from her abilities.
✦ ✦ ✦
Not her thoughts.
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“...What if the killer is a child?” Misora murmured, despondently.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Thirteen... only thirteen...”
✦ ✦ ✦
And she put the gun down beside herself, making sure the safety was on. Next to it were a pair of handcuffs, also supplied by Ryuzaki, intended for the killer. She was in condominium 1313, where Blackberry Brown lived. A two-bedroom condo, and the only room with a thumb turn lock was the room opposite the entrance.
✦ ✦ ✦
Nine floors below her, in condo 404, Ryuzaki was also watching for the killer to arrive, taking Blues-harp Babysplit’s place. He had insisted he was strong, but he seemed so scrawny and hunched over that she found it hard to believe, and was more than a little worried. He had seemed utterly confident when they had met up before taking their places, but.., she had her doubts.