FoxesThe late morning light filtered through the heavy velvet curtains of Miss Marple's suite, casting long, dust-mote filled beams across the Persian rug. The room smelled faintly of lavender water and stale hotel coffee, a strange olfactory collision between the English countryside and the frantic modernity of Tokyo.
Isabelle Dubois sat on the edge of the stiff, brocaded armchair, her posture rigid. She looked less like an elite FBI agent and more like a schoolgirl called to the headmistress's office, her hands clasping and unclasping in her lap. Opposite her, Jane Marple sat in a high-backed chair, her knitting needles clicking with a rhythmic, hypnotic cadence. She was fashioning something in a soft, pastel pink wool—a scarf, perhaps, or a shawl for a niece.
"It is a mess, Miss Marple," Isabelle said, her voice tight with suppressed frustration. "A complete and utter mess."
She had come to the older woman not for orders—those came from Near, who was currently a disembodied voice in her earpiece and a silhouette on a screen—but for something Near could not provide: comfort. And, perhaps, wisdom that didn't rely on algorithms.
"We have him," Isabelle continued, leaning forward, her voice dropping to a whisper. "Near is certain. The bait with the prisoner 'Hayashi Rin' worked perfectly. Light Yagami accessed the file. Three minutes later, the prisoner died. It is a direct causal link. Cause and effect. Input and output. Light Yagami is Kira."
Miss Marple paused her knitting. She adjusted her spectacles and looked at the young woman with eyes as clear and blue as a summer sky. "And yet, my dear, you do not look like a woman who has just solved the crime of the century. You look like a woman standing on the edge of a cliff."
Isabelle let out a long, shuddering breath. "Because we can't touch him. That's the nightmare. We have the logic, we have the digital footprint, but we don't have the weapon. We don't know how he kills. And without the murder weapon, without a confession, all we have is a coincidence. A very strong coincidence, but a coincidence nonetheless."
She stood up and began to pace the small room. "And then there is his father. Soichiro Yagami. He is the Chief of the NPA. He is a man of immense honor and influence. If the FBI arrests his son—a straight-A student, a model citizen—based on 'suspicious internet history' and a heart attack that happened miles away... the Japanese public will riot. The police force will turn on us. We will be kicked out of the country before we can even get him to an interrogation room. Near calls it a 'political dead end.' I call it a disaster."
"Ah," Miss Marple murmured, resuming her knitting. "The problem of the reputable family. It is always difficult when the wolf is born to the shepherd."
"Near wants to push," Isabelle said, stopping by the window. "He wants to leak the information anonymously. To force Soichiro's hand. But I'm terrified it will backfire. Light is smart. He'll have an explanation. He'll say he was hacked. He'll say he was just curious. He'll spin it."
"He likely will," Miss Marple agreed. "He sounds like a very clever young man. Too clever, perhaps. Like young Simon Clode back in St. Mary Mead."
Isabelle turned. "Simon Clode?"
"Oh, yes. A brilliant boy. Top of his class at university. Everyone said he would go far. His father was the local magistrate—a very stern, upright man, much like your Mr. Yagami, I suspect." Miss Marple smiled swiftly at a memory. "There was a terrible incident in the village. Mrs. Bartlett's prize-winning dachshund was poisoned. Strychnine. A nasty business."
Isabelle blinked, caught off guard by the sudden shift in scale. "A... dog?"
"Please, dear, do listen. It is all the same, really. Dogs or detectives. Wickedness is wickedness." Miss Marple counted a stitch. "Everyone knew Simon hated that dog. It barked incessantly while he was studying. And Simon had access to the poison cabinet in his father's greenhouse. The circumstantial evidence was overwhelming. The village gossip was fierce. Everyone wanted the Magistrate to arrest his own son."
"And did he?" Isabelle asked, drawn in despite herself.
"He couldn't," Miss Marple said. "Because while everyone was watching Simon, Mrs. Bartlett's cat was found dead. Bludgeoned. And then her windows were smashed with stones. And finally, her greenhouse was set on fire."
Isabelle frowned. "So Simon escalated?"
"That is what the police thought. They thought the boy had gone mad. But you see, it didn't fit. Simon was a cold boy. Calculating. He used poison—a quiet, clean weapon. He liked to sit in his room and read. Bludgeoning? Smashing windows? Setting fires? That is messy. That is emotional. That is loud."
Miss Marple stopped knitting and looked directly at Isabelle. "It turned out, my dear, that Simon did kill the dog. But he didn't do the rest. The rest was done by the gardener's boy, who had a grudge against Mrs. Bartlett and saw a convenient opportunity to strike while everyone was blaming Simon. He was mimicking the chaos, but he couldn't mimic the method."
Isabelle stood frozen. The room seemed to tilt slightly.
"You're saying..."
"I am saying," Miss Marple said softly, "that you are looking at a series of murders. Heart attacks. Suicides. Gruesome art pieces by this B.B. fellow. And now, perhaps, other things. You are assuming they all flow from one source, or perhaps two rival sources. But are you certain, truly certain, that you are not dealing with a mimic? Or a partner who does not share the same... refinement?"
"A Second Kira?" Isabelle whispered the words, and they hung in the air like smoke.
"If Light Yagami is as intelligent as you say," Miss Marple reasoned, "would he leave such a clumsy digital trail? Unless he wanted to be found? Or... unless he is under duress? Or perhaps, he is protecting someone? Or maybe, just maybe, the person killing the criminals on the television is not the same person killing the people in the shadows."
She picked up her knitting again. "In my experience, my dear, when the evidence points overwhelmingly to one person, but the nature of the crime seems to shift... one should always look for the shadow behind the suspect. You have your wolf. But I wonder... is there another fox in the hen house?"
Across the city, in the polished, sun-drenched atrium of a high-end café in Ginza, Hercule Poirot was delicately dissecting a mille-feuille with a silver fork.
"It is a matter of geometry, Hastings," Poirot declared, dabbing the corner of his mouth with a linen napkin. "The criminal mind, it is like a shape. It has edges. It has a center. Once you define the edges, you can find the center."
Captain Hastings sat opposite him, looking vastly relieved. For the past few days, Poirot had been a shadow of himself—sullen, morose, speaking of defeat. To see the little Belgian back in his element, preening his moustache and lecturing on psychology, was a balm to Hastings' soul.
"And you think you've found the center, Poirot?" Hastings asked, pouring more tea. "Even with L... well, with L gone rogue?"
"L is a complication," Poirot admitted, waving a hand dismissively. "A tragedy of the intellect. He allowed the abyss to stare back into him. But Kira? Kira is different. Kira is arrogant. My little experiment with the 'blind spot' in the warehouse district... it was risky, oui. But it has yielded fruit. By analyzing the traffic patterns and the police response times, I have narrowed the radius of his operation significantly."
Poirot leaned back, his eyes twinkling. "He thinks he is a god, Hastings. But a god does not need to hide. A god does not need to watch the news to know who to kill. He is a man. A man with a very specific, very petty psychological profile. And I, Hercule Poirot, have his measure. We have him in a—how do you say—a chokehold."
"That's the spirit!" Hastings beamed. "I knew you'd crack it. Holmes is off chasing his computer passwords, but I've always said, you can't beat the little grey cells."
"Precisely," Poirot purred. "We simply need to wait for him to make one more mistake. One more slip of the ego. And then—"
He was cut off.
Not by a person, but by a sound. A high-pitched, digital screech that tore through the polite ambiance of the café.
It wasn't just there. It was everywhere.
Outside the window, on the massive, building-sized screen attached to the department store across the street, the advertisement for luxury watches flickered and died. It was replaced by static. White noise that roared like a waterfall.
Inside the café, every smartphone began to buzz simultaneously. The television mounted above the bar, usually tuned to a silent news channel, turned black.
"What on earth?" Hastings stood up, looking around. The other patrons were murmuring, holding up their phones.
Then, a symbol appeared on every screen. A Gothic, stylized letter 'K'.
"Poirot," Hastings said, his voice trembling. "Look."
A voice boomed from the speakers—not the mechanical, filtered voice L used, but a voice that sounded synthetic yet strangely melodious. A digital choir.
"Citizens of the World. I am Kira."
Poirot dropped his fork. The clatter was lost in the noise. He stared at the screen, his face draining of color.
"For too long, the forces of obstruction have tried to stop justice," the voice intoned. "They have sent their detectives. They have sent their spies. They have even sent monsters to mimic my judgment."
The screen flashed a single, subliminal image—a smear of red jam, a reference to B.B. that only the initiated would understand.
"But today, I declare a new era. The entity known as B.B.—the false artist, the chaotic stain on our new world—has been neutralized. His reign of messy terror is over. I have removed him."
"Neutralized?" Hastings gasped. "But... we thought..."
"And to the police," the voice continued, rising in intensity. "To L. To the FBI. To the task force. You have failed to protect the innocent. You have protected only the guilty. From this moment on, anyone who attempts to stop the cleansing will be judged as a criminal. I am no longer hiding. I am inevitable."
The broadcast cut as abruptly as it had begun. The luxury watch advertisement returned, ticking away the seconds of a world that had suddenly become much more dangerous.
Poirot sat frozen. His hands were shaking.
"He... he claims he has killed B.B.," Poirot whispered. "He claims victory. He is challenging the police directly."
"Is it true?" Hastings asked. "Did he get him?"
"I do not know," Poirot said, and for the first time in an hour, the smugness was entirely gone. "But this... this is not the behavior of a man hiding in the shadows, Hastings. This is a declaration of war. And a man does not declare war unless he possesses a weapon we have not yet seen."
Light Yagami stood in the center of his bedroom, the remote control gripped so tightly in his hand that the plastic casing was beginning to creak.
His television screen was back to a variety show, comedians laughing at a skit, but Light saw none of it. His chest was heaving. His teeth were ground together.
"Who..." he hissed, the word escaping him like steam from a kettle. "Who the hell was that?"
Ryuk, floating upside down near the ceiling, cackled. "Hyuk hyuk! Nice speech, Light. Very dramatic. I didn't know you had a choir voice."
"Shut up, Ryuk!" Light snapped, spinning around. "That wasn't me! I didn't send that broadcast!"
He paced the room, his mind racing at a million miles an hour. Someone is impersonating me. Someone is using my name. 'Neutralized B.B.'? I haven't touched B.B.! I was planning to, yes, but I haven't made a move yet!
Was it a trap? Was it L trying to flush him out? No, L wouldn't use the Kira persona so brazenly; it would legitimize the cult. Was it the police? Impossible.
"A Second Kira?" Light muttered, stopping at his desk. "Is there another one? Like the rumors said?"
If there was another Kira, they were reckless. Declaring war on the police? Openly threatening law enforcement? It was suicide! It went against everything Light was trying to build. He was trying to be the God of the New World, the righteous judge, not a terrorist holding the city hostage!
Whoever this is, they are ruining my plan. They are making me look like a monster.
A soft ping from his computer drew his attention.
Light froze. He looked at the monitor. It was the secure, encrypted channel. The channel he had used to communicate with him.
The sender ID was familiar. UID: 7h3_4r7157.
The Artist. B.B.
Light felt a cold sweat break out on his forehead. The broadcast just claimed B.B. was neutralized. Dead. Gone.
He sat down and clicked the message.
From: Anonymous [UID: 7h3_4r7157]
To: KIRA
Subject: Fake News
My, my. Someone is eager for the spotlight, aren't they?
'Neutralized'? Me? Oh, Kira. You really shouldn't believe everything you see on TV.
That broadcast... tacky. Lacking in soul. A poor imitation of divinity.
I am still here. I am still painting.
And to prove that I am very much alive... and that I am the one truly holding the brush... I have a gift for you.
A little still life I arranged.
Light hesitated. His finger hovered over the attachment. The file name was The_Detective_Hanged.jpg.
L, Light thought. He's talking about L.
He clicked.
The image filled the screen.
Light Yagami had seen death. He had caused death. He had written thousands of names. But he had always been detached from the physical reality of it. A heart attack was clean. A slump. A silence.
This was not clean.
The photo was taken in a dark, cavernous space—a warehouse, perhaps. A shaft of moonlight illuminated the subject.
It was L. There was no mistaking the messy black hair, the white shirt, the hunched posture.
But L was not sitting.
He was suspended from a steel beam by a thick chain wrapped around his torso. His body was limp, his head lolling forward.
But it was the details that made bile rise in Light's throat.
L's skin had been painted. Crude, white greasepaint covered his face, turning him into a pale, ghostly mask. A smile—a wide, red, jagged smile—had been drawn across his mouth in what looked like lipstick, or perhaps blood.
And pinned to his chest, with a large, rusted knife driven straight through the sternum, was a piece of paper. On it, scrawled in dripping black ink, was a single letter.
K
Below the image, there was one final line of text from B.B.
I tried to make him look like you. Do you like it?
The police think you did this. The broadcast thinks you did this.
But we know the truth, don't we?
Your move, God.
Light stared at the grotesque mockery of his rival. He stared at the red smile. He stared at the chain.
For the first time since finding the Death Note, Light Yagami felt a sensation he thought he had discarded long ago.
He was afraid.
"Ryuk," Light whispered, his voice trembling.
"Yeah?" the Shinigami asked, peering at the screen with interest. "Ooh. That's nasty."
"This B.B..." Light gripped the edge of his desk. "He's not an ally. He's not a pawn."
Light looked at the dead, painted eyes of L in the photo.
"He's the Devil."