Chapter 7 - Page 6: Failure

And at last, August 22nd.

The day the man behind the Los Angeles BB Murder Cases was to be arrested... but we can say that because we have history to tell us, and like all historical events, when it was happening in real time, none of those involved knew that, and the way events unfolded was hardly smooth sailing. In fact, Naomi Misora's day started with any number of inconsistencies and anxieties.

6:15 and fifty seconds.

They had managed to read that as the message left behind by the killer at the third crime scene, but was that 6:15 in the morning? Or in the evening? After they had solved the clock puzzle, Misora had searched the scene all night looking for anything that said "a.m." or "p.m." She found nothing.

"If we've looked this hard and found nothing, then maybe it doesn't really matter," Ryuzaki had suggested. "He made the victim look like an analog clock rather than a digital one, so trying to find something to indicate a.m. or p.m. might be a waste of time."

"Yeah." Misora nodded.

Regardless of whether this was true or not, they had to assume it was. She began to decipher the message both as 6:15:50 and 18:15:50. The first scene had pointed them to Quarter Queen, and the second scene to Glass Station, so what was the third scene pointing toward? Misora and Ryuzaki both turned their energies toward this problem, but it was Ryuzaki who first came up with something.

061550. The construction approval number for a condominium. In Pasadena, in the valley, a massive complex. The sizes ranged from two bed room to four bedroom, with over two hundred condos in all.

And a woman named Blackberry Brown lived in condo number 1313. Her initials were B.B., and her condo number was too.

"It must be her," Misora said. All condo approval numbers began with zero, so there was no 181550.

She had been worried about the am/p.m. thing, but now that they'd found the answer, she could relax.

As Ryuzaki had said, with an analog clock it really didn't matter. Misora was greatly relieved, but Ryuzaki himself did not look very cheerful. Not that he ever did, but even so, he seemed particularly down.

"Something wrong, Ryuzaki? We've finally figured out what the killer's going to do, and can get ahead of him! We can lay a trap for him. Prevent the fourth murder, and if we're lucky, catch the killer as well. Nah—no luck about it. We will catch him, and catch him alive."

"Misora," Ryuzaki said. "The thing is, there was another candidate in the condo. Another B.B. A man named Blues-harp Babysplit, who lives alone in room 404."

"Oh..."

Two people with the target initials. In a massive complex of two hundred condos, not everyone lived alone there were any number of people with families. Even if you downplayed that number there were easily four or five hundred people... and simple arithmetic suggested that one out of 676 people had the initials B.B. It was not particularly surprising that there were two of them in the complex. It was statistically reasonable.

"But," Misora said, "no matter how you look at it, room 1313 is our target. Thirteen is a code for B, Ryuzaki. And 1313 is B.B. The fourth murder... judging from the number of dolls, the final murder...

what better location could the killer ask for?"

"I suppose..."

"I'm sure of it. I mean, 404?"

Certainly, four was one plus three, which was B, but faced with a choice between 1313 and 404 the killer would undoubtedly choose the former. No matter who the killer was, Misora was sure he would choose the former. But Ryuzaki apparently wasn't.

"Ryuzaki, do you know how rare it is for there to even be a thirteenth floor or a thirteenth room in America? They usually skip that number. I'm sure the killer would want to take advantage of that.. .in fact, he probably chose this building specifically because it did have a thirteenth floor."

"But remember, Misora. The number of days between the murders. The crossword puzzle reached the police station on July 22nd, the first murder happened nine days later on July 3 1st, the second murder four days later on August 4th, and the third murder nine days later on August 13th, and if the fourth murder is to happen on August 22nd, that will be nine days again. Nine days, four days, nine days, nine days. But why was it nine four-nine-nine and not nine- four-nine-four? Even though nine plus four is thirteen."

"Well..."

It was Misora who had first pointed out that nine and four were thirteen. But since nothing had happened on August 17th, she had assumed it was just a coincidence. She hadn't been able to find a connection between seventeen and B, and it just hadn't seemed like that big of a problem. Misora had no idea why Ryuzaki was bringing it up now.

"We have a four. But three nines… it's so unbalanced."

"Yeah, but... alternating was…"

"Not alternating. Four and nine should be viewed as a set, and the numbers as a series of thirteens. But that hasn't happened... this doesn't strike you as odd?"

"But room number 404 gives us three fours and three nines."

"Oh..."

Was that what he meant?

"If it had been any room number other than 404, I would have agreed one hundred percent, no, two hundred percent that the fourth victim would be Blackberry Brown in room 1313, but since yet another B.B., Blues harp Babysplit, lives in a room with two fours in the number... I can't ignore that."

"Yeah... I agree."

When he explained it like that, Misora was starting to think that room 404 was actually more likely.

After all, she had been a little bothered by the gaps between the murders. Was it really okay to dismiss them as coincidence? Nothing had happened on the 17th, but that was after the fact. It had never really locked into place. But if the final murder were in room 404, it would take care of that a lot better than room 1313.

Misora clicked her tongue.

They hadn't been able to decide if the dock was a.m. or p.m., and now that they'd found a good candidate for the final murder scene, there were two potential victims… all this work, and the final piece refused to fall into place. It bothered her. She was sure they'd read the message correctly, but still doubts remained. There was every chance this would lead to some decisive mistake...

"Oh, well," Ryuzaki said. "We'll just have to split up. Fortunately, Misora, we have each other." They might be working together, but nothing further.

But this was not the time to point that out.

"One of us should wait at each of the scenes. You take room 1313, Misora, and I'll take room 404.

After all, Blackberry Brown is a woman, while Blues harp Babysplit is a man. Seems like a natural arrangement."

"And do what, exactly?"

"Just as you said, Misora. Lie in wait. Today or tomorrow, we should speak to Blackberry Brown and Blues-harp Babysplit, and get them to cooperate with our investigation. Obviously, we can't tell them they're being targeted by a serial killer. If they know too much the media might find out about what's happening and blow the whole thing."

"But they have a right to know?"

"And a right to live, which is more important. We will pay an appropriate fee, and borrow the room for the day.

"Pay?"

"Yes. The simplest means. Fortunately, my patrons are providing me with expense funds deep enough to cover the charges. If we solve the crime, they will be only too happy to pay. If this were an ordinary murder, this would never work, but these victims were only being targeted because of their initials, and there is no real reason for them to die. Their murders only have meaning if they are killed in their own room—-whether that be 1313 or 404. So if we pretend to be them, and wait in their rooms, we should be able to meet the killer. Obviously just in case, we should have Blackberry Brown and Blues-harp Babysplit stay in a safe place all day on the 22nd... put them up in a luxury suite at a four-star hotel, for example."

'And then we... I see.

Misora put her hand to her mouth, thinking. Buying the potential victims' cooperation sounded fine...

she didn't know who the patron was backing Ryuzaki, but she should be able to get that kind of funding herself if she asked L. Ryuzaki would become Blues-harp Babysplit, and she would become Blackberry Brown...

"And we shouldn't call for police backup, right?"

"Yes. We might be able to protect the victim's life, but the scale of the operation would be too large.

The killer would be more likely to escape. And our deductions are not enough evidence to make the police take action, anyway. Our reading of the killer's message is accurate at a ninety-nine percent chance, but however good it sounds, we have no proof. If they tell us it's all rootless speculation, we'd be done for."

"'Rootless."

"With nothing to support it."

She was pretty sure there was a different word for that.

But he had a point.

If she asked her boyfriend in the FBI, Raye Penber... no, she couldn't do that. Misora was suspended and she'd told Ryuzaki she was a detective. Her actions of the past week could get her in hot water if the agency found out. Even if she was really working for L she couldn't exactly admit that in public...

"The killer is presumably working alone, but, Ryuzaki, when ii comes time to arrest him there will be a struggle."

"Don't worry. I can take him one on one. I may not look it, but am quite strong. And you're trained in Capoeira, right?"

"Yeah, but..."

"Misora, can you use a gun?"

"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...

"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.

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.

Like he was staring at something he couldn't believe, like the grim reaper had just appeared before him.

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?

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.

"...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.

At this stage of affairs, Misora had absolutely no idea which room the killer, the man L called B, would come to—here to room 1313, or to Ryuzaki in 404? She'd been pondering the matter every second she could spare, but had honestly been unable to reach anything like a conclusion. And she was still bugged by the a.m./p.m. thing from the third scene... but there was no point in worrying about that now. All that mattered was to convince herself that the killer was coming here, to room 1313, to kill Blackberry Brown, and then to act accordingly. She couldn't afford to waste time worrying about other people. Or she could put it another way—B would come after her... in L's place.

She looked at the clock on the wall.

The digital display showed nine am. Exactly.

Nine hours worth of August 22nd had already passed. Only fifteen hours remained. She was not going to get any sleep today. She would have to remain awake for at least twenty-four hours. She wasn't even allowed to take a bathroom break. Ryuzaki had advised her not to stretch her patience thin... she needed to be able to react the moment someone entered the room. But now it was time to call L again. She took her phone out of her bag and dialed according to instructions. Making sure the door and curtains were closed.

"L"

"Misora. Nothing happening here. I spoke to Ryuzaki earlier, mu nothing has happened on his end either, No signs of anything out of the ordinary. I'm starting to feel like we're in it for the long haul.

"I see, Don't let your guard down. As I said before, your backup is in position around the condominium, but if anything happens, they aren't close enough to respond immediately."

"I know"

"Additionally, a few minutes ago I dispatched two people to the condo itself. I wasn't sure if they could be there in time, but the weather was on our side. We were lucky."

"Eh? But… that means.,."

To avoid tipping off the killer, they had not even put security cameras or bugs in the rooms, much less the building and the applied to extra people as well. They couldn't risk being noticed.

"Don't worry There is no chance the killer will notice. One them is a professional infiltrator, and the other one is a professional trickster. I can't tell you more, since you are an FBI agent, but specifically, a thief and a con-man. I had one posted near each room."

"A thief… and a con-man?" What was he saying? Was this some sort of joke?

"So, Naomi Misora," L said, wrapping up.

But Misora hastily stammered, "Um, er, L..." but then she hesitated, not sure if she should ask this or not.

"You know the killer, right?"

"Yes, as I said. He is B,"

"I don't mean like that... I mean, he's someone you know personally?" On the 16th, L had said he had known all along that the killer B, and she had sort of known ever since, but two days before, he had said something that changed her guess to conviction. Whatever you do, please catch the killer. The century's greatest detective, L, would never say that about some ordinary indiscriminate serial killer. And the way his name was just one letter long...

"Yes," the synthetic voice agreed.

As if he didn't mind being asked at all.

"But Naomi Misora, please keep that in the strictest confidence. The backup I have stationed near the condo, and the thief and con- man inside it have not been told what case they are working on. They are better off not knowing. Since you asked, I don't mind telling you, but generally speaking it was also something you were better off not knowing."

"I know. Either way, whoever B is, he is a dangerous criminal who has claimed the lives of three people for no good reason. But there is one thing I wanted to ask."

"What?"

"You know the killer, but you have nothing to do with him?" This was...

To Naomi Misora, this was about the same as asking if you could pull the trigger on a child.

"I have nothing to do with him," L said. "To be completely accurate, I do not even know B. He is simply someone I am aware of. But none of this affects my judgment. Certainly, I was interested in this case, and began to investigate it because I knew who the killer was. But that did not alter the way I investigated it, or the manner in which my investigation proceeded. Naomi Misora, I cannot overlook evil. I cannot forgive it. It does not matter if I know the person who commits evil or not. I am only interested injustice."

"Only... in justice…" Misora gasped. "Then... nothing else matters?"

"I wouldn't say that, but it is not a priority."

"You won't forgive any evil, no matter what the evil is?"

"I wouldn't say that, but it is not a priority."

"But..."

Like a thirteen-year-old victim. "There are people who justice cannot save." Like a thirteen-year old criminal. "And there are people who evil can save."

"There are. But even so," L said, his tone not changing at all, as if gently admonishing Naomi Misora.

"Justice has more power than anything else."

"Power? By power... you mean strength?"

"No. I mean kindness." He said it so easily. Misora almost dropped the phone The century's greatest detective, L. The detective of justice, L. Who solved every case, no matter how difficult... "I misunderstood you, L."

"Did you? Well, I'm glad we cleared that up."

"I'll go back to work now."

"Very well."

She folded her phone and closed her eyes. Whew.

She did not find herself spinning.

She had just heard a word that sounded good to her. She'd been told something she needed to hear.

Perhaps she'd just been manipulated.

None of her problems had been solved. Her confusion remained. She still lacked resolve. She felt like something had changed, but by tomorrow it would undoubtedly be back to normal. But even so, for the moment, she was not going to make a fast decision, she was not going to turn in her resignation. When her leave of absence ended, she would go back to the FBI. In that moment, Naomi Misora made up her mind. And the killer from this case might make a nice souvenir.

"So, in one hour, I have to call Ryuzaki... hope he's okay." Blackberry Brown and Blues-harp Babysplit. Two B.B.s. Room 1313 and room 404... Had there really been nothing in the third scene that could have eliminated one of them from consideration? She couldn't shake the idea that there had been. They had not been able to trim the possibilities down all the way because they had not done everything they could, they had not done everything they should...

"Oh. I see. That's why Q.Q.?"

She had hit upon something. The reason why the second victim had been Q.Q., not B.B. The reason he had turned the child over, turning b into q. To prevent the possibility of there being someone else with the same name. The type of message left behind at the first scene... a message pointing not at the place, but at the victim targeted... that kind of message always left the possibility of someone else with that name. Which is why he had chosen Q.Q.—much less common than B.B. Quarter Queen. Misora had no idea how many other Believe Bridesmaids or Backyard Bottomslashes there were in Los Angeles, but she did know that the girl had been the only Quarter Queen. Which meant they were right, and the link had been the Bs, not the Qs.

B.B.

But even though the killer had worked so hard to make sure the message could only be one person, why had the final problem allowed for two candidates? She must be overlooking some critical piece of the puzzle. There must be something she should have done...

The crossword puzzle.

She had never tried it.

Now that she thought about it, there were any number of problems she had been putting off thinking about. Not only the problem of which room. If they caught the killer, then everything would be explained, or...

"...The locked rooms. Did he really just have a key?"

In that case, he must have gone about his murders after preparing the key in advance... he must have investigated his victims for some time before the murders took place. They had done everything they could to avoid detection, but it was more than possible he knew Misora was waiting here for him...

"A needle and thread locked room.. .and the needle ended up being a useful hint at the third scene.

Even if it was just free association..."

Needle hand. Clock hand.

And she had been surprised to find that the Wara Ningyo had a practical meaning... the previous scenes had suggested they were nothing but a metaphor for the victims. But they had been counted with the stuffed animals, adding up to the numbers of the four clock sides. So perhaps some of those stuffed animals didn't belong to the victim... to make sure the numbers matched. Seemed likely.

Four, three, two... the number of Wara Ningyo was decreasing. The last one would appear at the fourth murder scene.

If there was a fourth.

"The final Wara Ningyo... I assume it'll be placed directly opposite the door? Seems most likely... most significant... but what is the significance? The first thing you see when you step into the locked room…

catches your eye before you see the body..."

Without any clear idea what she was thinking, Misora stood up and moved over to the door. Turning her back to the door, she looked around the room—it was just a room, nothing out of the ordinary. At the moment, it wasn't even a crime scene. Nothing here but the signs of Blackberry Brown's life.

"The Wara Ningyo were always nailed at about the same height... the horizontal placement was all over the place, but the vertical was basically the same. About waist height on me... so about this high..." Misora crouched down.

Naturally this meant she was sitting in a position very like Ryuzaki's habitual knee hug, but she tried not to think about that. If he was right, and this did make deduction easier, then it was even a good thing. She was alone in the room anyway. Assuming the fourth scene would follow the rule, and the Wara Ningyo was to be placed opposite the door, then from this position her eyes would meet the doll's, their sightlines at exactly the same height. Of course, Wara Ningyo had no eyes, and this wasn't getting her anywhere.

"Just because they were mixed in with the stuffed animals, there was no need for it to be opposite the door... if the placement is significant. . . the placement... or is it just another manifestation of his finicky nature... ow!"

Thinking too hard in an awkward sitting position had caused her to lose her balance and thump the back of her head on the doorknob. Rubbing the pain away, Misora turned absently to look behind her...

and...

Her eyes lit upon the doorknob, and.

And just below it, the thumb turn lock. The latch.

Misora's head snapped around so fast it made an audible whooshing noise, and she looked at the opposite wall again. There was nothing there, just an unbroken stretch of wallpaper. But Misora had just been imagining a Wara Ningyo hanging there. But a Wara Ningyo nailed at that height was not opposite the door.

It was opposite the doorknob.

The doll was directly across from the thumb turn lock.

"Oh... how did I not notice that?!"

Waist height—she had known that was where the Wara Ningyo were placed since she first saw the police file. At the first crime scene, when she had turned the thumb turn lock she had consciously noticed that the grip was at her waist height, and at the second scene she had thought clearly that the design of the apartment door was different, but it was of the same construction,, .and at the third scene she had turned the knob and opened the door while balancing a serving tray on her belt buckle. And it was easy enough to figure out that the Wara Ningyo and the thumb turn locks were at the same height.

She did not even need to open the file and corn pare measurements. But so what? So what if the Wara Ningyo were nailed to the wall at the same height as the thumb turn locks.., and the Wara Ningyo were placed directly opposite the latch of said thumb turn lock? Was there some reason for that?

She was headed for an answer she should not have headed for.

She would reach an answer she should not reach.

At this rate... she knew she would.

An answer that would overturn, uproot everything she had believed about this case.. .and she couldn't stop herself. She was past the point of being consciously capable of interrupting her deduc tions.

Assuming that there was to be a Wara Ningyo placed on the wall opposite the door at the fourth scene...

proof by contradiction. Four dolls, three, two, one!

"No, that doesn't make sense... that can't possibly be true… the locked room trick? The needle and thread locked room... the needle was at the third scene… and the thread? Under the crack in the door...

the crack... the space... no space, tightly packed..."

A locked room.

A locked room... was usually created to make it look like the victim had committed suicide. But in this case, there was nothing like that... which meant if you flipped the idea... then the locked rooms existed to make a suicide look like a murder.

What then?

What then?

"Ah..."

In truth...

All along, Naomi Misora had done nothing that Ryuzaki had not manipulated her into. There was no point now in going back as far as the similarity between q and b they had discovered in the bookshelf message, but her conclusions about the date of the murder had changed shape dramatically while she was talking to Ryuzaki, and the notion that the third murder looked like a clock... Ryuzaki had led her to that from the moment she noticed the watch was missing. He had brought up the wedding ring, he had pointed out that the head and arm and leg were different lengths, he had suggested the walls as sides of the clock... Naomi Misora had been controlled like a puppet on strings.

"Oh, right... how did he know?" But now at last.

Naomi Misora figured something out on her own.

Truth.

And justice.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaauuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugggggggghhhhhhhhhhhh hhhhh!"

Completely forgetting all notions of how she presented herself, Misora let out a howl that cracked the air around her. She jumped to her feet, leapt across the room, and grabbing her gun and handcuffs off the table, she spun around, flipped open the thumb turn lock, and burst out of room 1313.

Elevator.

No, not enough time. Emergency stairs.

Racking her brain for details of the complex's floor plan, which she had poured over the day before, Misora headed for the emergency stairs, kicking open the door and hurtling down them three or four stairs at a time.

Down.

Nine floors down.

"Damn it... damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it! Why why why why why... how can this be?!

It's so god damn obvious!"

It pissed her off.

Wasn't the truth supposed to set you free? When the truth revealed itself, weren't you supposed to feel better? But if this was how things really were, then...

The century's greatest detective, advertised as solving every case imaginable, how great must his burden be, how much pain must he go through at every single moment... past, present, and future A burden so great it would leave you hunched over.

A bitter taste in your mouth that would leave you longing for sweets.

She was going so fast she almost missed her floor and had to brake hard. She paused for just a second to catch her breath, then opened the door and checked once more to make sure she was on the fourth floor. Which way? Right? Left? The complex shifted half way up, and the corridors ran in different directions than the thirteenth floor... 417 was on her right, and 418 beyond it, so this way!

"Aiieeee!"

Someone screamed.

Misora stiffened, but it was a woman's scream. She turned to look, and a resident had apparently come out of her apartment and seen Misora holding a gun. Distracting! Misora stepped away from the resident, running down the hall.

Toward room 404.

"R-Ryuzaki!"

Right round the next corner and she was there.

The front door wasn't locked. She stepped inside. 1313 had been a two bedroom, but this condo had three. One extra room. Which room? She had no time to think. She had to start with the nearest one.

The first room—wrong. No one inside. Second room—the door wouldn't open. A thumb turn lock!

"Ryuzaki! Ryuzaki, Ryuzaki!"

She knocked... no, knock isn't strong enough, she pounded as if trying to break the door down. But it was sturdy and would not budge.

There was no answer from inside.

Ryuzaki did not answer.

"Hah!"

She half turned and kicked the doorknob with her heel. It stood a better chance than her fists, but the door wasn't breaking that easily. She kicked it again, just in case, but with no more success.

Misora aimed the gun.

Infinity.

Seven in the cartridge plus one in the chamber, a .45.

She aimed right for the lock.

"I'm pulling the trigger!"

Once, twice... she shot the lock.

The thumb turn lock and the knob burst off She threw her shoulder into the door, and the first thing that hit her eyes was the Wara Ningyo. Nailed to the wall, directly opposite the door.

And next...

She saw a man on fire, in the corner away from the door. Flailing his arms around, unable to stand the pain of the flames rolling across him.

Ryuzaki.

It was Rue Ryuzaki.

She saw his eyes through the flames.

"R-Ryuzaki!"

The heat was so intense she could barely look at it.

The fire was spreading to the room.

A blast of heat struck her skin.

She smelled gasoline.

Strangulation, blunt force trauma, stabbing... and the final victim was fire!

She glanced at the ceiling—there was a sprinkler, but it had obviously been tampered with. It wasn't functioning. The alarm had been disabled as well. Misora forced herself not to panic, but forced herself to take action. She bolted back out of room 404 into the hail, back the way she came. She'd seen a fire extinguisher on her way here. Just over... there! She grabbed it and ran back. She didn't need to read the instructions.

She pointed the end of the hose at the ball of fire, at Ryuzaki's body, burning red, and squeezed the handle hard. White foam sprayed out, coating the room, far stronger than she'd expected. She almost lost her balance, almost fell over backward, but grit her teeth and held on, not letting the hose move off Ryuzaki.

How long did it take?

Ten seconds? About that.

But Misora felt like the day was going to end before he stopped burning.

The fire extinguisher was empty... the fire was out.

The white foam began to subside.

And in front of her, a black, charred body. No, that was an understatement, soft pedaling it. A better description would be a red-black mass of flesh. It looked like the flames had burned it all the way through.

The smell of gasoline hung in the air, along with the smell of burning hair and skin. Misora covered her nose. She glanced toward the window, wondering if she should get some ventilation... no, she couldn't risk a backdraft. As if afraid that any sudden movements would cause his body to crumble, Misora stepped gingerly toward Ryuzaki. He was curled up, on his back. She knelt down beside him.

"Ryuzaki," she said. He didn't answer. Was he dead? "Ryuzaki!"

"Ah... unh..."

"Ryuzaki."

He was alive.

He was still alive.

He was burned all over and needed serious medical treatment immediately, but this came as a relief.

She heard a sound behind her and turned around. There was someone there—the woman who had screamed when she saw Misora with the gun. She must live here. She had heard the gunshots and the fire extinguisher, and timidly come to see what was happening.

"D-did something happen?" she said.

Misora thought that "What happened?" would have been a better question, but...

"FBI," she said.

FBI.

She identified herself like that.

"Call the police, the fire department, and an ambulance." The woman looked surprised, but nodded and left the room.

Misora wondered if, in fact, this woman was the thief or the con man that L had sent here, but she could worry about that later.

She turned back to Ryuzaki.

Turned back to the red and black charred body.

And slowly took his wrist, still very hot, and checked his pulse... a little uneven, and very weak. He might be done for, might not make it to the hospital, might not last until the ambulance arrived.

In which case.

She had something to tell him.

She had something to do.

"Rue Ryuzaki," she said, putting the handcuffs on his wrist. "I arrest you on suspicion of the murders of Believe Bridesmaid, Quarter Queen, and Backyard Bottomslash. You do not have the right to remain silent, you do not have the right to an attorney, and you do not have the right to a fair trial." The Los Angeles BB serial killer, Rue Ryuzaki, Beyond Birthday... was in custody

---last page…---

Nothing left but the explanation.

There's not much left to write about here, so I'll settle for summarizing the key points. My great and respected predecessor, the man whose actions were a strong influence on me personally, B, B.B., Beyond Birthday—obviously, I need hardly explain again that the murders themselves were not his purpose. So what was he doing? Again, I hardly need to explain—he was challenging the man he copied, the century's greatest detective, L.

A matter of winning or losing.

A contest.

But in this case, what would mean B's victory? How would he determine that L had lost? In an ordinary detective war, whoever solved the mystery first would win. Or if we look at the battle between L and the murderer Kira, L would win if he could prove who Kira was, while Kira would win when he killed L. But what about B and L? Beyond Birthday developed the following theory Since L could solve every case no matter how challenging, if he created a case so difficult that L was unable to solve it, B would have defeated L.

That was the Los Angeles BB Murder Cases.

He knew that the moment he took action Wammy's House and Watari would alert L, so he did not even bother trying to stop them. He could only guess at which stage of his plan L would start to come after him, so he prepared things carefully, ready for L's entrance at any point. Beyond Birthday was careful, and finicky—and when L actually stepped in, on August 14th, just after the third murder, the timing was not ideal, but not bad either.

Of course, L would not move himself, but would carefully choose a pawn or two to work for him—at most three, probably two, and if B was lucky, only one. Beyond Birthday was lucky. The eyes of the shinigami told him the pawn's name at once -- Naomi Misora. An FBI agent on a leave of absence.

But what really mattered is that she was only working for L, and not L himself Beyond Birthday was not battling Naomi Misora. He only cared about beating the one hiding behind her.

Which is why.

B approached Naomi Misora, calling himself Rue Ryuzaki. Rue Ryuzaki-- L.L.

For anyone from Wammy's House, there could be no higher goal than identifying yourself with that letter—and Beyond Birthday seized this case as his chance. Even Naomi Misora knew what had happened to detectives falsely identifying themselves as L, and B was from Wammy's House, so he knew better than anyone so this choice suggests the strength of his decision. He never once intended to survive he had made up his mind. He was ready.

And, as Ryuzaki, he had played the fool, observing Naomi Misora, occasionally guiding her skillfully, from the first scene to the third, making sure she gathered and deciphered all the clues and messages he had left behind. Compared to the challenge he had faced persuading the victims' family members to hire him to solve the case, leading Misora was undoubtedly a walk in the park. All the while testing her from this angle or that, seeing if she was worthy of serving as L's replacement...

Misora had contacted L on any number of occasions during her investigations. And she had clearly received instructions from L to allow this mysterious private detective, Rue Ryuzaki, free rein. He had expected this—he had sent the crossword puzzle to the LAPD for just that reason. If someone appeared who had the sort of internal document that only someone like L could possibly obtain, even the century's greatest detective would be unable to dismiss him lightly—even though, in fact, Ryuzaki had the documents only because he had created them in the first place.

Misora had performed much better than he had expected. Like the moon has its dark side and every coin has two sides, Ryuzaki's hints had been blatant and yet unobtrusive and any ordinary detective would never have been able to take them to their logical conclusion so effectively. She was everything he could have hoped for. The first three scenes all had clues that needed to be solved for his plan to proceed smoothly, but Ryuzaki could not be seen to solve too many of these on his own—just as L was using Misora to go after B, B was using Misora to go after L. Rue Ryuzaki could never be anything more than a suspicious private detective—not to be trusted, but not attracting too much attention from L either. As far as Beyond Birthday was concerned, the first three murders only served to set up the main act, the fourth murder. Misora had been the first to use the word camouflage, but in that sense, the first three murders were all camouflage, disguising the truth behind the fourth murder.

At the third scene, the clock had pointed to a large condo complex in Pasadena, in the Valley, where there were two B.B.s. This had not been hard for B to locate, with the eyes of the shinigami—that said, it had not exactly been simple to locate a place that matched the necessary conditions. Room 1313, Blackberry Brown. Room 404, Blues-harp Babysplit. Naomi Misora was working alone, which allowed him to avoid the need to use the backup plan he'd created in case L sent more than one person. If there had been two investigators, it would not simply have been a matter of finding a third B.B.

Misora in room 1313, and himself in room 404. Honestly, it did not particularly matter which room.

Misora was in room 1313 for no better reason than that she was a woman.

And then Ryuzaki attempted suicide.

Turned the thumb lock by hand, nailed a Wara Ningyo into the wall, broke the sprinkler system, turned off the alarm, wiped the place for fingerprints, showered himself with gasoline, and lit himself on fire.

He had chosen himself to be the fourth victim. Beyond Birthday, the final B.B. That Rue Ryuzaki was a fake name did not even require L's resources—Misora was an FBI agent, and could find that out for herself quickly, and if she dug a little deeper would be able to find out that his real name was Beyond Birthday B.B. More than acceptable as the fourth victim—and a highly appropriate end for the mysterious private detective.

Immolation. Burning to death.

Naturally, his face and fingerprints would burn as well—he had always disguised himself with heavy makeup while he was with Misora, and he had never left a picture behind, so even if someone directly affiliated with Wammy's House inspected the body, they would have no idea that Rue Ryuzaki/Beyond Birthday was B from Wammy's House. He had left nothing to connect Beyond Birthday to B. He had no intention of hiding his own identity (he wanted them to find out he was Beyond Birthday, to find out he was another B.B.), but he had to hide that he was B from Wammy's House. The reason he changed his methods of killing from strangulation at the first scene, to blunt force trauma at the second, to stabbing at the third was partly experimental, partly motivated by curiosity, but far, far more important was to make it seem only natural that the fourth murder was done with fire. And there was also the matter of the injuries done to each of the previous corpses—even Beyond Birthday was unable to damage his own body after death. It would never do to leave such an obvious discrepancy. With a burned body, it was impossible to tell if such damage had been done or not.

At the fourth scene, as I hardly need to explain, there was no message. There was no reason to leave one. B was presenting the Los Angeles BB Murder Cases to L as a case that could never be solved.

That L could not solve.

In other words, he had never prepared any clear solution to it— since the killer had committed suicide, disguised as the fourth victim, there was no longer a killer to catch, and no clues left to catch him with.

Which is why the difficulty had escalated so dramatically from murder to murder. Particularly the message at the third scene, with its deliberate ambiguities—am. versus p.m., and room 1313 versus 404. So when no message was discovered at the fourth scene, Misora, and therefore L, would believe they had simply overlooked

it. Something that should be there, but wasn't—and it was a lot harder to discover something that wasn't there than something that was. Especially if the missing thing had never been there in the first place-in that case, there was no way they would ever find it.

But how would they prove it?

A problem with no solution could only have one answer—that it could not be solved. But that answer conflicted with the fairness displayed in the first three murders. Which tied their hands. Unable to find something that wasn't there, L would have to continue searching for B—who no longer existed. The metaphor of the gradually decreasing Wara Ningyo established from the beginning that there would be only four victims, so the lack of further murders would not lead to the conclusion that the killer had passed away. L would be left chasing after the mirage of the deceased B. L would be forever followed by the mirage of the deceased B. L would spend the rest of his life trembling in fear of B's shadow.

L would lose.

B would win.

B was the top, and L was the bottom—L would grovel at B's feet.

The copy would surpass the original.

Or so he thought.

In reality this did not happen, and the dizzying amount of time he had spent preparing for his crimes was all for nothing, destroyed, blown to smithereens—because he had focused all his energies on L, and never once viewed Naomi Misora as anything more than a pawn. All his attention was on the man behind her, and he never even saw Misora standing right in front of him. Even as he believed himself to be praising her skills, he ultimately underestimated her. She had done better than he expected—that very expression is, essentially, arrogant. If you ask me, even without Ryuzaki's hints, she might well have deciphered the messages at almost the same speed.

Naomi Misora.

The key had been the locked rooms. The locked rooms. Ryuzaki had said over and over that there was no need to think about them, that the killer had probably just used a spare key, because even he knew that focusing on that point could mean trouble. Beyond Birthday had a fair idea where the weaknesses in his own plot lay.

But those were weaknesses that would be forgotten once the fourth murder happened, and if he could just hold out till then, if he could just distract her until then... then B would have won. That Misora figured it out just before the fourth murder was complete can only be described as a stroke of good luck.

At the first scene, and the second, and the third, the Wara Ningyo had been directly across from the door, and the dolls had been at the same height as the latch of the thumb turn lock—she had to notice both these things to figure it out. At the third murder scene the dolls had been counted along with the stuffed animals, which had seemed like a reasonable enough idea, but that was not their primary function. And their function as a metaphor for the victims was, again, not their true purpose.

Specifically, let us look at how the locked rooms were created. The doors were locked with a thread.

The thread from a needle and thread. Misora had suggested running a thread under the door, looping it around the latch, and pulling on the thread to make the latch turn. Ryuzaki had denied it, but it had been a close call. She had been so close, but with that method, the force would have been pulling in the room direction, applying pressure to the door itself rather than the latch. As Ryuzaki had explained, the only effect would have been to pull outward on a door that opened inward.

But she had been very close.

At what she believed to be a potential fourth crime scene, Misora had crouched down in front of the door, putting her line of sight at waist height, and looked at the opposite wall—and imagined there was a Wara Ningyo there. Pinned to the wall across from her. Of course, the doll had to be physically pinned to the wall. There was no way it could just float there on its own—that would be magic, a scene out of a horror movie. It had to have been pinned there— which means there had also been something pinning it there. The holes in the wall at each crime scene—without even looking at the photos of the dolls in her files, Naomi Misora was Japanese, she knew about them as part of her culture.

Wara Ningyo had nails through them.

Long, thin nails.

And what mattered to the killer was not the doll itself. . .but the nail. The Wara Ningyo were nothing but a dramatic bit of misdirection. The shape of the nails.. the nail's head. The thread went under the door, around the head of the nail, and from there over to the side wall, around another nail head, and finally back to the door itself, around the latch of the thumb turn lock—at the same height as the dolls.

Obviously, this is a simplified description to make it easier to understand, and the operation was actually performed in reverse, starting at the lock, then going to the side wall, the opposite wall, and back under the door, but. . . essentially, the thread sketched a big triangle in the middle of the room.

And if you pulled the string then...

The latch of the thumb turn lock would turn.

Click.

Essentially, he used the nail heads as pulleys, turning the power vectors diagonally. To be even more accurate, the Wara Ningyo was not placed directly opposite the door, or directly opposite the thumb turn latch, but directly opposite the gap under the door. This method prevented the dynamic force applied to the thread to be dispersed by the door. The thread did not touch the door, but simply passed under it, heading directly for the nail in the Wara Ningyo opposite— and all the force applied was transmitted in that direction. Then the nail head acted like a pulley, turning the direction of the force twice, and leading it to the thumb turn latch. Once the door was locked, obviously, he then had to recover the thread, so he had to use a particularly long one doubled over on itself.. .which explanation is just a bonus at this stage. As soon as he was sure the door was locked, he let go of one end of the thread and pulled on the other, successfully gathering all the thread to his side of the door. Anyone could pull this off, as long as they used strong thread that wouldn't break. If you have time, try it in your own room. As long as you are allowed to hammer nails into the walls.

Despite this tedious explanation, the exact nature of the locked room trick is completely unimportant.

Well... perhaps not completely, but to focus too much on the trick itself is to miss the real point. What really matters is that to pull this trick off, you need at least two dolls—because you need two nail head pulleys. At least two. One on the opposite wall and one on the side wall. Four dolls, three dolls, two dolls—the trick worked at the first three scenes. But at the fourth scene, where there was only one Wara Ningyo, the trick could not be used. With only one pulley opposite the door, the latch would not turn.

The thread would not make a triangle, and would simply go over and come back in a straight line. So, as I have already mentioned, the final victim, Rue Ryuzaki, turned the thumb turn latch by hand. We only know that because the locked room trick was solved before the fourth murder took place—

otherwise, the fact that the locked room had been created even with only one Wara Ningyo would simply have been dropped into the file with all the other data. The weakness in his plan would evaporate—as long as the locked room remained a mystery until the fourth murder, it would remain one forever.

Naomi Misora was just in time.

Ryuzaki himself had asked absently, "What for?" Why had the killer made a locked room that he did not need? That question. A game, for fun... a puzzle. Locked rooms were designed to make a murder look like a suicide... but in this case, the locked rooms existed to make the fourth death look like it wasn't a suicide.

To provide L with a mystery he could not solve.

Even if he could not solve it, it did not mean there was no answer.

Namely: it was unsolvable.

According to Ryuzaki's scenario, Misora would come running down the stairs when he failed to answer his phone as scheduled to find the Wara Ningyo on the far wall and Beyond Birthday burned to death—

and if she had not yet figured out the locked room mystery, then everything would go as B planned, his plot executed perfectly. Since the locked room had been created even with only one Wara Ningyo, nobody would ever think of the triangulation technique.

If the police had not taken the dolls and the nails that held them in place away as evidence, Misora would probably have figured it out faster. But this was not a matter of luck, but all part of Beyond Birthday's plan. He knew all along the police would investigate the scene first. Beyond Birthday had coldly calculated that by the time L's pawn arrived at the scene, the actual Wara Ningyo and the actual nails would be long gone. The third scene was the only one where they might remain—and in that case, they were counted with the stuffed animals to make the numbers on the sides of the clock face, which would distract her. So the only thing that did not go according to Beyond Birthday's plan was Misora's investigative ability.

No, not ability

Inspiration.

But figuring out the locked room trick, figuring out that the way the killer had locked the doors would only work at the first three scenes did not tip off Naomi Misora. Rather, she had begun to wonder how the killer planned to lock the door at the fourth scene. Or to wonder if the theory was completely misguided. Her suspicions did not immediately turn toward Ryuzaki. Of course not—she had been told no details about the connection between L and B, so it never occurred to her that Ryuzaki might have a reason to do something like that. She kept saying he was suspicious, but her suspicions had never reached any definite form. To theorize that the fourth murder would actually be a suicide required her to realize that the message had pointed to two possible murder scenes, that the two of them were lying in wait for the killer, and since one of those two people was her, the other one had to be the killer...but Naomi Misora was not proficient in the kind of mathematical deduction that was required to logically prove who the killer was.

But she had figured it out.

Because he had known.

He knew that Naomi Misora knew capoeira.

And in this case, the only people who knew that were L, who Misora herself had told, and the man who had assaulted her in the alley downtown—the killer. Misora had used a capoeira technique while fighting him. She had driven him off with her capoeira. Since the idea that Ryuzaki was L was comically absurd and completely unthinkable, then it stood to reason the man who insulted her was Ryuzaki... which led Misora to the truth.

Failure.

Beyond Birthday, Rue Ryuzaki's one and only failure. The only failure the killer who never made mistakes had made. If he had just rated Naomi Misora a little bit higher, he would never have let that shp. But it was too late. He might have been born with the unbelievable eyes of the shinigami, but he had no eyes for judging people... Probably a little too pat a conclusion to draw. A neat turn of phrase, to be sure, but that doesn't salvage it.

It is now an eternal mystery exactly how much of the truth L grasped and when. He might have known everything all along and put Misora into action based on that, and he might well have never figured anything out and been saved by heL Either way seems perfectly possible. But let us not think of such petty things. L is not someone we should speak of in such petty terms. As long as one thing is clear, nothing else matters.

B lost to Naomi Misora.

In other words, he lost to L.

Losing twice in one battle, unable to die the way he had planned, Beyond Birthday was taken to the police hospital, ending the serial killings that had begun a month before, on July 3lst...no, July 22nd, when the warning first reached the police station. Apparently B had poured gasoline on himself at almost exactly the same moment Misora had arrived at the truth. It took a full minute before Misora burst into room 404. It would not have been at all surprising if he had died of smoke suffocation before she got there, or died before he reached the hospital, before the ambulance arrived. But he did not die.

He did not die. His body was stronger than he believed, and his life went on longer than he thought.

The hardest part of killing someone is to actually kill them—if he had been able to see his own life, I'm sure Beyond Birthday would have chosen a different method. My poor, poor predecessor. Not only was he utterly and completely defeated, but he survived, driving home his embarrassment...he must have longed for death. Accept my condolences, B.

And with that, there is nothing more to be said in these notes about the Los Angeles BB Murder Cases.

If I had space left over I had intended to carry right on into the other two stories I heard from L: the story of the detective war between the three greatest detectives, all solving that infamous bio-terror case, with guest appearances by the last of the alphabet, the first X to the first Z from Wammy's House; and the story of how the world's greatest inventor, Quillish Wammy, aka Watari, had first met L, then about eight years old—the case that gave birth to the century's greatest detective, the Winchester Mad Bombings that occurred just after the third World War. But however objectively I look at things, I do not have the space or the time. Oh well. In that case, to close off the file, I will wrap things up with a small description of something that happened to Naomi Misora a few days later.

With all that had happened, Misora's return to work was put off until September. Capturing Beyond Birthday had proved to be far better for her than she had ever expected, and nobody uttered a word about her acting independently during her leave of absence. While she was not popular at work, nobody denied that she was good at her job—at least, not outwardly. It was not hard to imagine that L had pulled a few strings on her behalf. From an even more practical standpoint, it was also not difficult to imagine who was the real source of the money deposited in Misora's bank account by a company she'd never heard of before.

On September 1st, she left her house on foot, headed for the nearest subway station. When she reached her office, her superior would return her badge, her gun, and her handcuffs. The thought was a little embarrassing, and she felt a few butterflies in her stomach, but when it was over she would be back to her old life.

She had spoken to L only once after the killer was arrested. He thanked her for helping to solve the case, and told her just a little about the background of the case. That B had been a candidate to succeed L, and that the pressure of that had driven him off track. At last she felt that she could understand Ryuzaki's previously incomprehensible actions, but she also felt like she only imagined that she could.

It all boiled down to the entire case being a challenge for L and he had killed people, and tried to kill himself, for that alone... but while murders could be dismissed as simple madness, committing suicide for such a stupid reason could not. Before he became like that, if only someone had stopped him... but that just shows ho intent he was on his purpose. His own life was as meaningless as the lives of his victims, nothing but a tool in Beyond Birthday's quest t surpass L. It mattered more to him than his own life. Perhaps he was less intent than desperate. Nobody could have stopped him.

That was his resolve.

Which made him... so very strong.

Had he really been strong?

Misora wondered, remembering how he had nervously chewed his thumbnail.

Strength.

Strength Misora could never hope to imitate...

The station entrance had just come into view, and standing in front of it was an awkward, uncomfortable-looking man.

A young man, with an intense expression.

There were lines under his eyes so dark she wondered if they were actually done with makeup. Like he hadn't slept in days—or like he had never slept in his life. Like his sense of justice would not allow him time to sleep, since he had so many difficult cases to think about, battling unfathomable pressure on a daily basis.

He wore a long-sleeved white shirt and blue jeans.

His bare feet were crammed directly into beaten sneakers. She had a strange sense of déjà vu.

Like she'd seen him or met him once before.

There was something about him that reminded her of Rue Ryuzaki—of Beyond Birthday. But the resemblance was backward, like this was the original, and the other had been a copy.

"Um, have we...?" she asked, even though he was hardly blocking the entrance bodily, and she could have simply ignored him and walked on inside.

The young man instantly leapt at her.

Leapt at her? No, that's not right. He actually tried to throw his arms around her.

"Huh?! No!"

Misora instantly bent backward, brushing off the man's embrace, and moved smoothly on to the offensive. She lowered her upper body backward, spinning once in the air and raising her back legs like a scorpion, slamming both heels down onto the man's shoulders. Both blows hit hard, and the impact knocked him off balance.

With a thunderous crash, he tumbled down the subway stairs.

Whoops. A little overboard.

Certainly, he had assaulted her, but Misora quickly righted her- self and ran down after him. "Are you okay?" she asked.

He was lying on his stomach like a crushed frog.

"I see," he muttered, seemingly talking to himself. "Watching videos and seeing it for real is quite different, but now I think I understand."

"Hunh?"

What was he talking about? Had he hit his head on something? Her first day back at work, and already in trouble...

"Um... can you stand?" Misora said, reaching out toward him. The man looked up at her, his eyes in shadow, as if two holes were staring at her.

"Thank you," he said, and took her hand. Misora pulled him upright.

"Are you injured? Does it hurt anywhere?"

"I'm fine, thank you," the man said, not letting go of her hand. Even on his feet, he did not attempt to move away. They appeared to be shaking hands. Like warriors on a battlefield, exchanging a firm handshake after surviving yet another bloody fight.

"You are very kind," he said, with something like a smile, and at last let go of her hand. Then he tottered away as if nothing at all had happened, slowly climbing the stairs again.

"Ah. . .w-wait! Just a second!"

Misora had almost let him go, but a moment later she ran after him, circling around in front of him again. She was an FBI agent and could not let an assault crime go unpunished. The young man was sucking his thumb. He did not appear to be at all nervous.

"If you aren't hurt, then you'll have to come with me. Sexual assault is a serious crime. You can't go around throwing your arms around women. What were you thinking?"

"Don't just stand there. Say something. This attitude won't make things easier for you. What's your name?"

Naomi Misora had asked his name.

The young man nodded.

And answered.

"Please call me Ryuzaki," he said, unperturbed.

Just like someone else had.

And a few years after his arrest, on January 21, 2004, serving a life sentence in a California prison, Beyond Birthday died of a mysterious heart attack.