What if Ayanokoji tried to solve the Kira case?

Shadows in the Mirror

There is no greater terror than the quiet. No greater madness than stillness. In the absence of movement, of noise, of distraction, the human mind begins to turn inward, to gnaw at itself with questions that it cannot answer. And it is in this silence, this stillness, that the true self is revealed.

Ayanokoji sat alone in his room, the darkness surrounding him like a cloak. His face was devoid of emotion, but his mind was a battlefield. Every thought was a soldier, marching relentlessly toward the same conclusion: the identity of Kira. His mind had been trained to operate on multiple levels, to see all possible outcomes simultaneously, but now, as the pressure mounted, Ayanokoji felt something he hadn't expected. A sensation unfamiliar and foreign to him.

Doubt.

Not doubt in his abilities, nor in his eventual success, but a deeper doubt—a philosophical doubt. It wasn't that he doubted whether he could win against Kira. He knew he could. The doubt was in the meaning of the victory itself. If he destroyed Kira, if he dismantled this twisted god who controlled life and death with a flick of his wrist, what then? What would remain?

Was it even worth it?

The question gnawed at him in the silence. And as he sat there, staring into the void, he thought of Franz Kafka's The Trial. A man condemned, not by any individual, but by the sheer absurdity of existence itself. Kira was the court, the judge, the executioner, and the world was the accused. And here was Ayanokoji, not fighting to save it, but to understand it. To confront the absurdity, to test it, to manipulate it, and to bend it to his will.

But what would he gain by unraveling Kira's existence? He was not motivated by justice like L had been. Justice, in its purest form, was as irrational and absurd as Kira's godlike power. Justice, Ayanokoji knew, was nothing more than a construct, a mask worn by those who wished to justify their own moral superiority.

No, Ayanokoji sought control. But control, like Kira's power, was elusive. Fleeting.

He closed his eyes for a moment, his thoughts drifting toward the figure of Light Yagami. The boy who fancied himself a god. The boy who played with the lives of others like a chess master moving pieces across a board. There was something almost tragic about it, Ayanokoji thought. Light was a man who, in his pursuit of ultimate control, had lost his own freedom. The chains Kira used to bind the world had ensnared Light himself.

He was a prisoner of his own creation.

And yet, he continued. The madness grew, the power consumed him, and Light had not yet realized it. But Ayanokoji could see it. He could see the cracks forming in Light's mind, the subtle tremors of doubt that had begun to surface.

It was in that space—the space between certainty and despair—that Ayanokoji would strike.

Light Yagami's Bedroom

Light stared into the mirror, his reflection staring back with the cold, unfeeling eyes of a god. Or at least, that's what he wanted to see. But lately, when he looked into the mirror, he saw something else. A shadow behind his own eyes. A flicker of doubt.

His reflection remained still, but Light's mind whirled with thoughts, each one more frantic than the last. Ayanokoji. He had underestimated him. The man was no ordinary opponent. He wasn't like L, with his sense of justice and righteousness. No, Ayanokoji was something far more dangerous. He was calm, methodical, and utterly detached. Ayanokoji wasn't playing this game to catch Kira.

He was playing to win something deeper. Something Light couldn't yet understand.

Light knew he had the Death Note, a power that made him invincible in the eyes of mortals. But for the first time, he felt vulnerable. Not because of the Death Note's limits, but because of his own. The more he tried to control, the more he felt the universe slipping away from his grasp.