Changing The Future (Overhauled Version)

Chapter 4: Investigation

Police Department

"Alright, let's start with the tip line," The Chief from the ICPO meeting suggested.

"Yes, sir." An officer agreed." Up till this point, we've received 3029 responses about the murders via telephone and e-mail.  Most of these have been curious citizens and prank calls, but there are fourteen people who claimed to either know Kira or who have seen them. All fourteen accounts were followed up on and carefully documented, however, nobody could provide any information that wasn't already publicly available. Lastly, this week, there were an additional twenty-one people who called in claiming to be Kira. We didn't want to rule anything out, so we followed standard procedure and created files for all of them."

The Chief sighed.

"Alright, on to the victim reports," The Chief decided, turning to another officer.

"Of course, Chief Soichiro." A second, female, officer stated." Upon further investigation, we have confirmed the information about the heart attack victims was, in fact, made publicly available in Japan immediately prior to their deaths. Also, concerning L's request that we investigate the times of death for each victim, we found that all of them occurred between the hours of four p.m. and two a.m. on weekdays local time, with sixty-eight percent of them occurring between eight p.m. and twelve a.m. Weekends and holidays appeared to be the exception to this rule as the times of deaths vary much more widely than the week."

There was a moment of silence before L spoke.

"That information is extremely relevant for us, it suggests that given the times of the deaths, our suspect could very well be students." L deduced." Also, based on the fact Kira is only killing criminals, I think it's safe to assume he is driven by a very idealistic notion of justice. It's highly possible Kira may even aspire to be some sort of godlike figure, we're dealing with an individual who has a very childish concept of right and wrong."

There was silence for a second, and then the world's greatest detective continued.

"Of course, this is mere speculation at this point, but still, I recommend you reexamine any assumptions you've made as to whether or not our suspect could be a student." L urged." We must consider every possibility, I believe that is the shortest route to finding and arresting Kira. Now, please continue with your report."

Soichiro cleared his throat before speaking.

"Alright, does anyone else have something they'd like to add?" Soichiro asked the room and for a moment, it seemed no one would speak up.

Then the younger man from the ICPO meeting stood up, his expression revealing nervousness.

"I have two things to say," The young man stated and Soichiro gave him a fond, yet slightly annoyed look.

"What is it, Matsuda?" The Chief asked and Matsuda gave a nervous smile.

"Um, w-well, I'm not saying this to s-support Kira, or to c-condone the murders, but in the l-last few days throughout the world, but especially here in Japan, we've observed the d-dramatic decrease in the number of v-violent crimes committed," Matsuda pointed out, clearly uncomfortable by the amount of people staring at him.

Soichiro frowned for a moment before responding.

"Well, I suppose it makes sense." Soichiro admitted reluctantly." We've suspected something like that would happen. What about the second thing you wished to say?"

Matsuda looked even more unsure of himself this time.

"Not long after the heart attacks had started, there have been numerous accounts of people coming back from the dead." Matsuda started shifting where he stood." So far, hundreds of people in hospitals and even morgues have started waking up, even after several hours or even days of being dead. I was wondering if Kira was killing people and somehow transferring their lives to dead people, I don't know if something like that is possible, but..."