Lupercalia Horror
L frowns, annoyed at having incomplete information. "Watari."
Watari comes up behind him with the light steps of a wolfsbrother, though his partner died before the two of them met. "Sir?"
L doesn't bother to look around. "Make preparations for travelling to Japan. Yagami is hiding something that relates to the revenge murders, with the cooperation of his department. We need to find out what."
"Very good, sir."
'Probability of it being related to Yagami's prodigal son, Light? Given how thoroughly he's been excised from the family...' L's frown deepens. There is no date of death recorded for the boy. In fact, from his midteens onwards, there has been absolutely nothing recorded about the boy. For the past three years and seven months, Yagami Light officially has not existed.
Normally, L would expect this to be from kidnapping, whether criminal or government. This seems different, though; the complete acceptance of this shown by the Yagami family and their friends doesn't fit. Something happened. Something that everyone with even the faintest connection to the family has agreed to completely bury.
In L's experience, when something is that deeply buried, he needs to unearth it to make sense of a case.
***
The revenge murders came to L's attention by chance. The first death seemed a random act of insanity - someone attempting to summon a demon or similar creature with a human sacrifice. L would have dismissed it completely, except for the pawprints.
Size and shape combined proved that a bondwolf had been at the murder scene.
Bondwolves are and have always been banned from Japanese soil.
There hasn't been so much as a whisper of a bondwolf disobeying that law since an infamous case somewhat more than three years ago, which led to the bondwolf in question being executed without her pack ever claiming her - though reading between the lines, L is sure they never had a chance, if they even knew of her presence there. Some more enterprising than usual criminal ring managed to find and kidnap a single bondwolf bitch, brought her to Japan, and... well.
Looking into the history of the victim, L found that he'd been part of that gang. The pawprints seemed to be explained as an attempted misdirection.
Then the next two bodies were found. One had been part of the ring, the other had possibly done some minor jobs for them.
There were prints at that site, too.
The third site had more prints and another body, this time a fairly low-ranking police officer. Looking into his financial history, L found unexplained payments which fitted far too well with the criminal ring's movements.
The fourth, fifth and sixth sites: three more members of the ring.
The seventh site: the judge who'd sentence the bondwolf to death by electrocution, another dirty officer, and another part-time connection, this one a chemist known for creating and providing illegal drugs.
That was the point at which the Japanese police realised this was serious and officially asked for L's help. He didn't bother to mention that he'd already been looking into the cases when he accepted. He was too intent on seeing whether the police would admit they were connected, or try to prevent him from finding out how.
More deaths, more bodies, more prints, and yet L still hasn't found that vital link - but he has found that the police are aware of it. Specifically, the Chief of the NPA is connected. Personally.
L wonders what he's done that ties to these murders.
***
L goes to personally inspect the latest crimescene, curious to see whether the police will actively hide things from him.
His eye catches on a handsome face among the bystanders. It's vaguely familiar, somehow.
***
He's humiliated to only recognise hours later that the face could well belong to an older version of the missing boy he's been studying photos of.
***
He goes to an older crimescene. The circle is still there, carved into the ground, but the symbols he remembers from the photographs have been cleaned away.
A familiar face passes him on the street as he leaves. L promptly turns and follows.
They end up in a small coffee shop, L following the teenager into a booth in the corner of the room. The young man doesn't seem concerned at being followed by a complete stranger. He just looks at L, calculating brown eyes analysing every facet of L's appearance. "Hello."
L decides to be blunt. "Are you Yagami Light?"
The teenager flinches. "Just Light. I don't have a right to a second name."
L stares. Familial exile? Almost unheard of -
His mind pulls the facts of the case together. A criminal gang kidnapped a lone wolfbitch, one with no partner; a shady chemist who could have provided drugs to cause false heats - or widen a person's openness to bonding - or both; a beautiful teenage boy who disappears from all legal records at the same time as a bondwolf is executed for crimes including multiple instances of rape... a boy who has somehow shamed his family to the point they deny his existence....
L is sat with the murderer.
Light sees his understanding, and smiles coldly. "Catch me if you can," he murmurs, and leaves without drinking the coffee he's paid for.
L's eyes hood as he glares at the innocent coffeecup. He has to track down the people involved in Light's kidnapping and subsequent assault, protect them long enough to use as bait to draw Light out so he can capture him. He's fairly sure there are still some; nothing about these cases suggests Light to be the type of criminal who randomly visits the scenes of his past crimes, so he has to have been keeping watch for investigators, and the most likely reason is to take advantage of them to find the people he hasn't.
***
It's easy for L to find the last two people Light is looking for - one who recorded what happened while Light was captive, one who participated.
L ignores their blustering attempts to deny responsibility for what they did or claim it wasn't really a crime. His only interest is catching Light.
***
Light catches L first.
Watari comes up behind him with the light steps of a wolfsbrother, though his partner died before the two of them met. "Sir?"
L doesn't bother to look around. "Make preparations for travelling to Japan. Yagami is hiding something that relates to the revenge murders, with the cooperation of his department. We need to find out what."
"Very good, sir."
'Probability of it being related to Yagami's prodigal son, Light? Given how thoroughly he's been excised from the family...' L's frown deepens. There is no date of death recorded for the boy. In fact, from his midteens onwards, there has been absolutely nothing recorded about the boy. For the past three years and seven months, Yagami Light officially has not existed.
Normally, L would expect this to be from kidnapping, whether criminal or government. This seems different, though; the complete acceptance of this shown by the Yagami family and their friends doesn't fit. Something happened. Something that everyone with even the faintest connection to the family has agreed to completely bury.
In L's experience, when something is that deeply buried, he needs to unearth it to make sense of a case.
***
The revenge murders came to L's attention by chance. The first death seemed a random act of insanity - someone attempting to summon a demon or similar creature with a human sacrifice. L would have dismissed it completely, except for the pawprints.
Size and shape combined proved that a bondwolf had been at the murder scene.
Bondwolves are and have always been banned from Japanese soil.
There hasn't been so much as a whisper of a bondwolf disobeying that law since an infamous case somewhat more than three years ago, which led to the bondwolf in question being executed without her pack ever claiming her - though reading between the lines, L is sure they never had a chance, if they even knew of her presence there. Some more enterprising than usual criminal ring managed to find and kidnap a single bondwolf bitch, brought her to Japan, and... well.
Looking into the history of the victim, L found that he'd been part of that gang. The pawprints seemed to be explained as an attempted misdirection.
Then the next two bodies were found. One had been part of the ring, the other had possibly done some minor jobs for them.
There were prints at that site, too.
The third site had more prints and another body, this time a fairly low-ranking police officer. Looking into his financial history, L found unexplained payments which fitted far too well with the criminal ring's movements.
The fourth, fifth and sixth sites: three more members of the ring.
The seventh site: the judge who'd sentence the bondwolf to death by electrocution, another dirty officer, and another part-time connection, this one a chemist known for creating and providing illegal drugs.
That was the point at which the Japanese police realised this was serious and officially asked for L's help. He didn't bother to mention that he'd already been looking into the cases when he accepted. He was too intent on seeing whether the police would admit they were connected, or try to prevent him from finding out how.
More deaths, more bodies, more prints, and yet L still hasn't found that vital link - but he has found that the police are aware of it. Specifically, the Chief of the NPA is connected. Personally.
L wonders what he's done that ties to these murders.
***
L goes to personally inspect the latest crimescene, curious to see whether the police will actively hide things from him.
His eye catches on a handsome face among the bystanders. It's vaguely familiar, somehow.
***
He's humiliated to only recognise hours later that the face could well belong to an older version of the missing boy he's been studying photos of.
***
He goes to an older crimescene. The circle is still there, carved into the ground, but the symbols he remembers from the photographs have been cleaned away.
A familiar face passes him on the street as he leaves. L promptly turns and follows.
They end up in a small coffee shop, L following the teenager into a booth in the corner of the room. The young man doesn't seem concerned at being followed by a complete stranger. He just looks at L, calculating brown eyes analysing every facet of L's appearance. "Hello."
L decides to be blunt. "Are you Yagami Light?"
The teenager flinches. "Just Light. I don't have a right to a second name."
L stares. Familial exile? Almost unheard of -
His mind pulls the facts of the case together. A criminal gang kidnapped a lone wolfbitch, one with no partner; a shady chemist who could have provided drugs to cause false heats - or widen a person's openness to bonding - or both; a beautiful teenage boy who disappears from all legal records at the same time as a bondwolf is executed for crimes including multiple instances of rape... a boy who has somehow shamed his family to the point they deny his existence....
L is sat with the murderer.
Light sees his understanding, and smiles coldly. "Catch me if you can," he murmurs, and leaves without drinking the coffee he's paid for.
L's eyes hood as he glares at the innocent coffeecup. He has to track down the people involved in Light's kidnapping and subsequent assault, protect them long enough to use as bait to draw Light out so he can capture him. He's fairly sure there are still some; nothing about these cases suggests Light to be the type of criminal who randomly visits the scenes of his past crimes, so he has to have been keeping watch for investigators, and the most likely reason is to take advantage of them to find the people he hasn't.
***
It's easy for L to find the last two people Light is looking for - one who recorded what happened while Light was captive, one who participated.
L ignores their blustering attempts to deny responsibility for what they did or claim it wasn't really a crime. His only interest is catching Light.
***
Light catches L first.