Chapter 05

Words: 1801

 Mr Howell gulped and smoothed back his hair before knocking firmly on the door. Not only a minute later did Jim open the door and looked every one over. "L had asked that he have a private word with Mr Howell before meeting the rest of the task force." He explained. Everyone looked at each other, confused before nodding. 

Mr Howell held his breath and walked through the door that Jim held open. He continued through a narrow hallway then into a large living room with a window over looking the city. L was looking out the window, back facing Mr Howell. He could make out a mop of dark hair until they turned around, blue eyes staring into his soul.

"Hello Mr Howell."

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"PHIL!?" Howell exclaimed.

"Please keep your voice down Mr Howell." Phil sighed, running a hand through his black hair. 

"O-oh right ... I realize that this is a professional investigation. Sorry, I was a little shell shocked. Don't worry it won't happen again." Howell recovered, still eyeing Phil wearily.

"Good, it's nice to see you again. I'd appreciate it if you keep this confidential. Names are very important to keep secret in this investigation. I've never shown my true identity to anyone as L, so you are the first besides Jim. For now my alias is Ryuzaki so please address me this way." Phil explained.

"I understand. It's good to see you again ... but ... Dan ..." He trailed off. Phil hung his head a little. 

"I know." Is all he said before turning back to the window.

~

Dan walked into the kitchen with a determined look, his experiments had gone perfectly to plan and he thought they'd be useful for future reference. He grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl and chucked it to Ryuk who guzzled it down greedily. 

"So Dan, what have you planned for tonight? I've seen your experiments but I don't know how you plan on using them." Ryuk asked, curiously. 

"Nothing really. I just needed to know how far I could go with the Death Note. I checked up on the police records earlier and found the results and I have to say I'm very pleased. Tonight I'm going to write down some criminals for future reference maybe months in advance so I can keep killing criminals even if something happens to me." Dan explained, focused eyes staring at the wall. "Other than that probably being bored, playing video games, studying and missing Phil." Dan shrugged.

"You sure are close to this Phil character. Does that not make you vulnerable if something were to happen to him?" Ryuk asked, smirking.

"I suppose it does make me vulnerable but I don't plan on anyone suspecting or harming Phil. Besides I doubt the task force would suspect him, he's too innocent for his own good and is a terrible liar. Plus there's nothing that links to him so I'd say we'll be fine. I'm a little concerned though, L hasen't made a move since the TV announcement and I'm starting to get suspicious. I'm keeping my eyes open and watching my back, I just know he's planning something."

"Whatever, I'm going to go watch Television." Ryuk yawned and flew into the living room, black wings trailing behind him.

~

"I am L." 

Joe, Tim, Jack, and Alfie looked at him in surprise. He was very different to what they thought he would look like. Howell pretended to be surprised as well so he didn't look suspicious.

"I'm Howell of the NPA."

"Uh, Joe."

"Tim."

"Alfie."

"Jack." They all introduced themselves, showing police ID badges. Phil internally rolled his eyes. He lifted his right hand and made the shape of a gun.

"Bang!" He said, making the others stare in confusion.

"What the hell was that?" Tim questioned, eyebrows raised.

"If I were Kira you'd be dead Mr Hautekiet of the NPA." Phil explained, face blank. All eyes widened in realization. "Kira needs a face and a name in order to commit murder, but I'm sure you've already figured that much out haven't you? Please do not give out your name so carelessly. Instead, lets value our lives." With that Phil turned walked into the living room.

"I know he needed a face to kill someone but I don't remember any evidence that showed that he needed a name too." Joe told Howell.

"There's no way to verify this as related, the criminals who's names were never released publicly or who's names were spelled incorrectly in the media have not been targeted. We briefly went over it at one of our meetings." Mr Howell explained.

"That's enough small talk for now, come this way." Phil spoke up, gesturing into the living room.

"Oh, uh right." Joe replied sheepishly.

"Please turn off all your mobile phones and any other communication devices and leave them on the table right there." Phil instructed, pointing at a hallway table.

"What, you think we're going to be using our mobile phones during this meeting to leak information?" Tim accused.

"It's alright, just do as he says." Mr Howell assured. Tim frowned but took out his phone anyway and placed it on the small table as well as the other four agents.

"I know he's been cautious from the very beginning, but I still can't tell whether he trusts us or not." Joe mumbled.

"No, I just find them distracting. I can't stand it when people's mobiles are ringing when I'm trying to talk." Phil sighed, sitting down on the couch in the living room. "Let me start by saying nobody takes notes on anything that's in these meetings. That means when we leave headquarters any information we need is committed to memory. Please make yourselves comfortable." Phil replied, his knees tucking up to his chest.

"Right ..." Mr Howell said and all the agents took a seat. Jim poured each one of them a cup of tea but only Howell picked it up, taking a sip whilst the others just looked confused and uncomfortable. Phil took a large gulp of his tea before continuing.

"Um L-"

"Oh, from now on I'll have to ask that you stop calling me L. It's Ryuzaki now, just to be safe." Phil interrupted.

"Um ok Ryuzaki ... if we know he needs a name and a face to kill. Couldn't we cut down on the number of victims by keeping criminals names from the news?" Joe asked. 

"If we do that we'll only be putting the general public at risk."

"The general public?" Jack asked, frowning.

"Why?" Tim asked.

"Kira is childish and he hates losing."

"But how do you-" Joe started but was interrupted by Mr Howell.

"Just what do you mean?"

"Well ... I'm also childish and hate to lose, that's how I know." Phil replied, sipping his tea once again.

"Ryuzaki, would you mind being a little more specific for us?" Howell asked.

"Early on in the investigation I tried to provoke Kira with that broadcast. Up until then we thought that Kira would only go after criminals but as we all witnessed, he didn't hesitate to kill my stand in. Also, as soon as we said I knew he was in London in defiance he made sure his next victims came from within the UK as if to say 'and what are you going to do about it?' ... he's met each of my challenges head on and he's never missed an opportunity to return the favour. Now what do you think would happen if we tried to use media restrictions to hide criminals from someone like that?" 

"i guess..." Joe trailed off.

"'If you choose to withhold the names of your worst criminals I'll kill petty criminals or the innocent, I'm holding the whole world hostage so who's it gonna be? I'm not the evil one here but all those who oppose me by hiding criminals you are truly evil' ... that's exactly how Kira thinks, in any case lets look at an other way we can use the media to draw him out." Phil thought.

"But how?" Tim questioned, looking astonished.

"How about something like this? 'Death of hundreds infuriates the US. Latest killings anger the international policing community, nations agree to send 1500 investigators to the UK." 

The others look at each other, giving silent looks of agreement, waiting for Phil to continue.

"For Kira this will hopefully will be pushed into a state of unease. He'll see everyone as a potential threat psychologically he'll start to feel cornered and that will cause his to take some kind of drastic action." Phil finished.

Everyone smiled and there were some smirks about. "That's interesting." Jack thought aloud.

"So he'll think there are 1500 when there are really only 7 of us, and since none of these investigators exist, Kira won't be able to kill them." Tim interjected.

"It just might work." Jack grinned.

"Well before we celebrate, I'll tell you the rest of my thoughts on the Kira case." Everyone nodded. "Kira works alone, he had access to all our classified information this is why I think he's related to the police." Phil trailed off, squinting his blue eyes.

"But what evidence do you have that he's working alone?" Tim asked.

"Hold on Tim, lets listen to his entire theory before asking questions." Howell stated.

"We know he needs a name and a face to kill, and to some extent he can control his victims time of death and their actions before dying. He made recent victims do weird things before death. I have had some pictures back and they are suicide notes. None of the other victims had these and they died of heart attacks." Phil told them.

"It also says 'L, did you know? Gods of death, love apples?' what does that mean? Is Kira giving me a clue?" Phil thought to himself.

"We already know that much, please keep that in mind. However we already have some suspects and of course I plan on setting up cameras to keep an eye on them. Also, to make sure absolutely none of you are Kira I'll need to have a private talk with each of you today ... Maybe this announcement will show us a reaction to our possible leads." Phil took another sip, added three more cubes of sugar in the process.

"So that means Tim's and the cheif's families." Joe pointed out.

Phil's fingers tightened around his cup and he nearly glared into the brown liquid. He felt a guilt rise in his stomach.

"Yes, John Hautekiet, Adrian Howell and Dan Howell ..."

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Obviously this is different to the original so I had to change the story to fit into what I have planned! :P

~HelloAnonymousWriter~