𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐓𝐋𝐄 𝐆𝐀𝐌𝐄

二十二 | 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐂𝐔𝐑𝐄𝐃

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𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐖𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐘 𝐓𝐖𝐎
𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐂𝐔𝐑𝐄𝐃

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"What!?" Aizawa snapped his head up after hearing exactly what Near was suggesting, his mouth dropping agape as he stared at the man. "Y-You want the girl that was proven to have murdered multiple people and who you think is also Kira... to work on the case? Together?"

"Yes," Near answered curtly, twirling a lock of his white hair around his pale finger, playing with a toy car and track. "That's exactly right."

A stifling silence befell the two. The other members of the task force could only look on warily, finding that the predicament they were in eerily similar to Light's case. In fact, it was almost baffling the similarities between the cases. Near tilted his head as he stared at the floor, a thought he was pondering rolling around in his head.

Honestly...

I wasn't even going to consider bringing (Y/N) in at all, but...

I felt like I had too.

Near hummed indistinctly as he continued letting the small, brilliant-colored cars zoom down the racetrack and crash at the very end into a small pile of vehicles very much similar to itself. It never failed to amuse him how easily things could pile up on one without them even noticing, without them even thinking such an outcome could possibly happen until it was right in front of them.

Heh...

What if it's the same, then?

(Y/N)(L/N) and Light Yagami...

Everything that's happened being interwoven and crushed down onto our shoulders...

"L?" Commander Rester spoke up, regaining Near's attention to the moment at hand.

"Yes?"

"Gevanni and (L/N)have arrived," he announced as he let his hand drop from his ear, a small black phone clutches tightly between his gloved fingers. "To clarify... you're sure that you want a... murderer on this investigation?"

"Of course," he answered smoothly, looking up at the man and giving him a rather wry smile. "To catch a murderer, we need to think like a murderer."

The doors to the elevator pinged open, and everyone's head—save for Near's own—swiveled around to look upon the one person whom they knew for a fact was a killer. (Y/N) smiled in a sickly sweet fashion at them all, watching with almost unfiltered amusement how they all dropped their eyes to the floor. She then shifted her gaze to the crouched man sitting smack in the center of the room, a variety of toys in all shapes and sizes surrounding him.

"You know..." (Y/N) started, glancing toward Gevanni and giving him a mocking smirk. "It's not very nice to say that about someone behind their backs now, is it?"

"I do apologize for our discourtesy in bringing you into this investigation, (L/N)," Near turned around, his dark eyes clashing with her own. "However, we do know when to protect ourselves when need be. I assumed sharing that information with the rest of the Task Force would be quite useful considering your occupation."

She raised an eyebrow.

Now...

Is he... L?

Or merely a decoy used to avert my attentions somewhere else?

In that case...

"I assure you," he spoke again, turning his head away to face his arrangement of entertainment. "I am by no means an impersonator, or a false identity. I am L."

"His successor," she pointed out, to which his hand stopped in midair from placing a car on one of the orange tracks.

Mastuda and Aizawa exchanged a brief glance as they felt their hands that were resting on their laps curl into fists, the skin straining against bone and making their skin appear even paler as it was pulled taut. Seeing this interaction between criminal and detective—it was something that was entirely too familiar, and hit far too close to home.

"Aren't you also Kira's Successor?" Near proclaimed boldly, his eyes flashing when noticing her smile lessen. "I would be surprised to find out if you thought you were not suspected."

LOf course I knew," she scoffed, raising her hands as her shoulders too raised into a shrug. "What can I say, though? Being accused of being able to murder hundreds of people with merely... a thought, I'm assuming? No... maybe a wish? Like being a deity? A God? Whatever it is, having that power... it honestly makes a fellow murderer want to smile, no?"

Edu, who was beside her, a God of Death himself, chuckled at her statement, the irony of the situation so thick it was as if she dipped her words in syrup and slapped it in their faces.

To think...

Two successors facing off against each another like this... it's just as (Y/N) said.

This is very entertaining

"Yes, but you aren't just 'another fellow murderer,' as you described, are you?" Near pointed out, finally standing up from his rather comfortable position on the floor to approach her, staring into her eyes with nothing but a blank expression—a canvas that she couldn't help but want to see written upon. "The people you've killed... they are just the type that fit into Kira's Successor's criteria. So... wouldn't you also be most likely to understand their ways of thinking? How they pick their next target? How they do what they do? ...why?"

"Don't you all know this, though?" She questioned lazily, leaning forward so that she was practically nose to nose with him. "I mean, honestly? Do you take me for a fool?"

"Seeing as how I caught you... yes."

(Y/N) blinked at him.

Then, she leaned back to let out a burst of laughter that made all in the room furrow their brows—shooting her strange and questioning stares.

"I don't believe he meant that as a joke," Agent Lidner stated, folding her arms over her chest.

"I didn't take it as one," (Y/N) waved her hand in the woman's direction, shaking her head. "Who knew you'd have a sense of humor?" Feeling her lips slowly pull downward as her smile receded, she once again leaned closer to Near, and with an almost mocking tone to her voice and a glint to her (E/C) eyes, uttered lowly, "L, be honest with me. Do you really think I'm Kira's Successor? Because, if you did, that's mistake number one."

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To be continued...