Imagine that you were going to kill someone. What do you think would be the most difficult part?
Three, two, one... time's up! The correct answer: killing someone. Now, now, calm down—I swear I'm not making fun of you, or playing linguistic tricks here. I'm completely serious. People, in other words, humans, have not been designed to die that easily—at the least, people almost never grunt or moan and immediately fall over dead. Strangulation, blunt force trauma, stabbing—none of these kill people easily. Humans are surprisingly sturdy creatures. Additionally, people have a tendency to resist being killed. Nobody wants to be killed, and there's a good chance they'll try to kill you back. Physical strength in humans doesn't vary that much, and in a one-on-one fight, winning can be rather difficult.
From this point of view, the ability to kill someone just by writing their name in a notebook is a flagrant violation of fair play, as I'm sure you can imagine.
However.
When Beyond Birthday went about committing this series of murders, he did not have any difficulty killing his victims. After all, the murders themselves were not his purpose, and he had no intention of expending undue effort on them—but even so, it was not easy to see exactly how he had avoided trouble. Certainly, he was using weapons and drugging his victims, but at this point all three of his victims had been killed without showing any real sign of resistance. In most cases, defense wounds are a key element in identifying the killer, but in this case the victims had all died as if it were only natural for them to have done so. The FBI Agent Naomi Misora never did understand why, and even the century's greatest detective, L, did not manage to create a working theory until several years after the case had ended.
But enough buildup.
Let me explain.
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.
Killing people was, for him, normal.
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.
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.
He knew your name before you said it.
He knew the time of death of every person he met.
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.
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.
He was B.
The second child in Wammy's House.
"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.
"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.
Kya ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
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.
Beyond Birthday remembered how he had attacked Naomi Misora three days before, on August 16th, in the alley downtown.
Of course, he had known when she would die—had seen how much life remained. Naomi Misora's life.
It was not that time, on August 16th, but much, much later.
Which meant...
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.
"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."
She had passed the test, so far.
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.
That was good.
Only then would the competition begin.
Only then would the real game start.
The competition between L and B.
L and B's puzzle.
"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.
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.
So, August 19th.
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.
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.
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.
"Where is Ryuzaki?"
She glanced down at the silver wristwatch on her left hand, and saw that it was already two thirty in the afternoon.
They were supposed to meet at two.
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.
She bit her lip, annoyed that she had been unable to figure anything out without Ryuzaki around.
Then the phone in her bag rang. She answered quickly, assuming it was L, but it was her boyfriend and coworker, Raye Penber.
"Hello? Raye?"
"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."
"Oh, thanks."
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.
"So?"
"Basically? There is no private detective named Rue Ryuzaki."
"So he's unlicensed?" An unprivate detective. He had said so himself
"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."
"Oh. He speaks Japanese like a native, so I thought he might he from there... so it's a fake name?"
"Presumably." Raye was silent for a moment, but then blurted, "Naomi! What are you doing?"
"You promised not to ask."
"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?"
"I haven't thought about it yet."
"I know I always say this, but..."
"Don't. I know what you're going to say, so don't say it."
"I don't have time. I'll call again."
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.
"Next week already? Nah focus on the case at hand." This might be running away, but since Ryuzaki still wasn't here...
(She'd suspected the name was fake from the moment she met him, so she didn't particularly care...
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.
First, the message left by the killer downtown, at the second crime scene, Naomi Misora had figured it out about an hour after they had found the missing link, that the victims were all connected by their initials. It was the eyeglasses the victim, Quarter Queen, was wearing. While she never got down on all fours the way Ryuzaki did, Misora had checked the room over from every conceivable angle, until her eyes ached from looking—without finding anything. Then she wondered if there was something on the victim's body, like the cuts on Believe Bridesmaid's chest, and had looked at the photos of the body again, but there was nothing there by the little girl lying face down, with her eyes crushed in...
When Misora was at her wit's end, Ryuzaki had said, "Maybe the damage to the eyes is a message." It sounded reasonable... in fact it seemed like the only possibility. Which meant... her eyes?
Misora had gone back to the cabinet and taken out the album of photographs again. She looked through them once more, checking every picture of the little blonde girl.
And realized...
that there was not one picture of her wearing glasses.
The only picture of her with glasses was the one of her dead. Not because there wasn't a problem with her eyes—her chart was in the file, showing her right eye at 0.1 and her left at 0.05—but that she almost always wore contact lenses. After her death, the killer had put the glasses on and taken the contact lenses away They were disposable lenses, so the investigative team had not noticed them missing. Misora had contacted the victim's mother, who had confirmed not only that Quarter Queen almost never wore glasses, not even at home, but that the glasses she was wearing in the crime scene photograph did not belong to her.
"Surprisingly hard to notice... who would ever think to ask if the glasses a murder victim was found wearing belonged to them? Literally a blind spot... perhaps that's what the crushed eyes mean?" Ryuzaki had said. 'And the glasses looked so natural on her... making it even less likely that the police would notice. She never realized that she was meant to wear them."
"Urn, Ryuzaki... that's getting a bit facetious."
"I was joking."
"That's what being facetious means."
"Then I was serious."
"Still facetious."
"Then I was deadly serious. Look! Don't you think she looks better?"
"W-well... I suppose..."
Facetious.
The mother had first seen her daughter's body in the morgue, and the glasses had already been removed. Which was probably all according to the killer's plan... by this point in time, what else could they think?
"The third murder happened in West L.A., near Glass Station— glasses. Very literal. But this doesn't give us the address, only the neighborhood..."
"No, if you narrow it down that much, then you can probably narrow it down all the way, Misora. All you have to do is look for someone in the area with the initials B.B., and you can fix on the address. In other words, the killer has assumed that by the time the second murder occurs, we would have figured out the missing link."
"Oh? But... we were only able to figure out that Q was actually B because the third murder had already taken place. At the time of the second murder, how could anyone have worked that out?"
"You don't need to. I mean, even at the third murder, there's no real way to tell if B is the main letter and Q the reverse, or the other way around. The fourth murder could be another child with the initials Q.Q. and flip the idea. It's possible he's mainly killing children, and is really after Qs. From our current data, we have no idea why he's aiming for B.B.s, or why he's after Q.Q.s. But that doesn't matter. All you have to do is find everyone with either set of initials."
"Oh... oh, right
But on August 16th, they were speaking in hindsight, they were much too late, and the third murder had long since happened. Just to be sure, she had checked, and within five hundred meters of Glass Station there was no one with the initials Q.Q., and only one person with the initials BR. the third victim, Backyard Bottomslash.
The eyeglass message was very simple compared to the book shelf message at the first scene, but they had only been able to solve it because they already had the phrase Glass Station in mind—otherwise, who would ever be able to figure out that putting glasses on a corpse was a message from the killer?
The very simplicity of it was exactly what made it even more difficult than the first murder. Now Misora had to stop the fourth murder, but would she be able to figure out the message left at the scene of the third? She was more than a little worried. Once again, it was Ryuzaki who had brought up the topic of the victim's crushed eyes, it was Ryuzaki who had suggested she look at the photo album carefully—without him, she would not have figured it out. Or at the least, it would have taken a lot more time. At this point, it was noon, so they decided to get some food and figure out how to move next. Ryuzaki invited Misora to eat with him, but she declined. There was no telling what hideous sweet or poison he would foist on her, and she needed to speak to L. The mysteries they had uncovered had reached a level that demanded reporting. She moved well away from the apartment, looked around her carefully, leaned against a wall, and dialed.
"This is L."
"This is Misora."
She was getting used to the synthetic voice. She quickly explained what had happened that day, and what they had figured out, wasting no words. She felt herself getting a little worked up when she was explaining why the victim had been lying face down, but repressed it. At least, she thought she had.
"Okay. I understand. I was right to pick you, Naomi Misora. Honestly, I did not expect such impressive results."
"No... not at all. I don't deserve the compliment. More importantly, about what I should do next. . . any thoughts? We don't know when the fourth murder will occur, so I thought maybe I should head right over to West L.A. now
"No need," L said. "I'd prefer that you secure your footing. Based on your report, there is plenty of time before the fourth murder occurs."
"Eh?"
She hadn't said anything like that... had she?
"The killer will take his fourth victim on August 22nd. You have six more days."
"Six days?"
That was nine days after the third murder. Nine days, four days, nine days and nine days again? What was he basing this assumption on? Misora was about to voice this question, but...
"I'm afraid I don't have time to explain right now," he said. "Please try and work it out for yourself But the next murder will occur... or the killer will make his next attempt on the 22nd, and I would have you act on that assumption."
"Understood."
He didn't sound like he was in the mood for arguments. But August 22nd... come to think of it, the LAPD had received the crossword puzzle on July 22nd. The same day of the month. Was that a connection?
"In that case, over the next six days I will make careful preparations and investigate the third crime scene."
"Please do. Oh, and-—Naomi Misora, do take all precautions for your own safety. You are the only person who can work for me on this case. If you fall, there is no one who can replace you." He must be referring to the fight in the alley. She was caught off guard by this. No one who could replace her? For L it might be a very casual pronouncement, or just an outright lie, but Misora found it hard to believe it was even being applied to her.
"Don't worry. I wasn't hurt."
"No I mean, take care not to place yourself in a situation in which you might be attacked. Avoid back roads, alleys, and other deserted areas. It might take longer, but stick to crowded areas and busy streets."
"I'm fine, L. And I can take care of myself. I've trained in martial arts."
"Have you? In what? Karate? Or judo?"
"Capoeira."
Even over the scrambled line, she could tell L wasn't sure how to respond. She admitted Capoeira was an unusual choice for a Japanese FBI agent. Misora felt a moment's gleeful pride, as if she'd outsmarted L—though she knew she had done nothing of the kind.
"Yeah, I thought it was crap till I actually started it, but I got involved in street dancing in college and joined a Capoeira group as an extension of that. It's actually a really effective form of self defense for a woman. The basic techniques all involve dodging your opponent's attacks, which means it isn't possible to overpower a block like it is in karate or judo. We can never match a man for power. And the acrobatic, tricky movements in Capoeira give you time to get a good look at your assailant."
"Really? That makes sense," L said, sounding impressed.
Genuinely impressed, not just saying so.
"Your description makes it sound interesting. If I have time, I will have to look at some videos... but however confident you are, if they have a gun, or outnumber you, the situation changes. Take all the precautions you can."
"Of course. Don't worry, I always do. Um, L?" Misora said at last.
'What is it, Naomi Misora?"
"I was wondering... you've figured out what the killer's goal is, right?"
"…Yes," he said, after a long pause.
Misora nodded. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been so sure when the fourth murder would occur. But he had told her to figure the reason out for herself. Which meant he had enough information to identify the killer now? Just as this thought crossed Misora's mind, L destroyed her chain of thought with a single phrase.
"To tell the truth, I always knew who the killer was."
"...Eh?"
"The killer…" L said, "…is B."
We were raised at Wammy's House in England, in Winchester, as L's successors, as L's alternatives, but that does not mean we knew anything more about L than anybody else. Including myself, only a few of us ever met L as L, and even I know nothing about L before he met Watari—Quillish Wammy, the genius inventor who founded Wammy's House. Nobody knows what's going on in L's head. But even so, I know how Watari felt. Looking at L's incredible talents from the perspective of an inventor—of course he wanted to make a copy, of course he wanted to create a backup. Anyone would feel the same.
As I have already explained, L never appeared in public. L knew that his own death would increase the crime rate all over the world by a few dozen percentage points. But what if they could copy him? What if they could make a backup?
That was us.
L's children, gathered from all corners of the world.
Children gathered together, never told each other's names.
But even for a genius like Watari, creating a fake L was easier said than done. Even for Near and I, who were said to be the closest to L. . . the more we tried to be like him, the closer we got, the farther away he was, like chasing a mirage. So I hardly need to tell you what it was like when Wammy's House was first founded, when he was still experimenting. The first child, A, was unable to handle the pressure of living up to L and took his own life, and the second child, Beyond Birthday, was brilliant and deviant.
B stood for Backup.
But B tried to surpass L, not become him... no, that might not be right. I have no way of knowing the inner workings of his mind. He... their generation was not like the fourth generation, with Near and I, all the children bound only to the one with the serial L. They were prototypes, never even given the L
code, expected to fail. I prefer to refrain from idle speculation based on my own experiences, but, well, Beyond Birthday may have thought something like this:
As long as there was L, B would never be L. As long as the original existed, the copy was always a copy.
The Los Angeles BB Murder Cases.
L.A.B.B.—L is After Beyond Birthday.
This reading is why I think this name is so much closer to the killer's intentions than the Wara Ningyo Murders, or the Los Angeles Serial Locked Room Killings. I wasn't talking about the names on a purely stylistic basis. Whether Beyond Birthday had put that much thought into it I have no idea, but if he had a specific reason for choosing to commit his murders in L.A., then that is probably why. I am sure he had a much more personal obsession with L as an individual than Near or I ever did. I can understand why someone would become a criminal in order to fight against a detective, which is why I can write about it like this, but even so. What did he hope to accomplish by killing unrelated people?
Or perhaps B simply wanted to meet L. Then he could use the eyes of the shinigami he'd been born with and see L's real name, see when L would die. He would be able to find out who L was. Beyond Birthday had never told anyone that he had the eyes of a shinigami, and it would not surprise me at all if he believed himself to be some kind of shinigami.
So this all boiled down to a strangely shaped battle of detection between L and B. It was not exactly the same as the detective wars L had waged with Eraldo Coil and Danueve, but just as the greatest of detectives makes the greatest of criminals, a specialist in investigation is also a specialist in murder.
From this perspective, this was nothing but a detective war.
Beyond Birthday challenged L.
And L accepted the challenge.
To put it bluntly, the Los Angeles BB Murder Cases were nothing but an internal struggle, a civil war within our home, sweet home— Wammy's I-Inuse Unfortunate for the victims that got mixed up in it, but even if Beyond Birthday had not killed them, all those victims were fated to die that day, at that time, for some other reason, so logically and morally, their deaths were unavoidable. So in the strictest sense of the word, the only one who really got mixed up in their war was Naomi Misora.
"Mmm… mm... mm-hmm-hmm hmmm... mm, mm, mm... Zo zo zo zo... no, that's a horrible laugh...
henh henh henh."
He was ready now.
He cracked his neck...
And Beyond Birthday began to move.