Excerpt: Another Note: The Great Detective War

L.

The world’s greatest detective, or more accurately, the world’s three greatest detectives. Even more accurately, the single person responsible for mobilizing all of the world’s major detective agencies and law enforcement forces. The man who had lowered the percentage of criminals in the world from fifty six percent to a mere twenty two percent. A man who at the young age of twenty six gave up his life fighting against the most powerful criminal in the history of the planet. L, or as his legal name speaks, L Lawliet.

Mello, poor misguided Mello of the emotional heart. After reading his report on the BB murder cases, I feel the pang of sorrow even more clearly. He was blinded by his extreme emotions, never able to control them and use them alongside his intelligence. The second best who was unable to accomplish anything without a horde of supporters. I suppose he wasn’t entirely too different from myself. Mello, of the golden hair and turquoise eyes, the gaudy dresser who died to allow me a victory over the smug, doomed Kira.

Deathnotes, Shinigami, Kira, Mello, L…

As I sit under a faintly glowing screen, looking at the towers of cards that encase me, I think back to times when those things didn’t matter. My mind wanders back to the stories passed down to me about a time before I was even able to stand. This story that teases my mental synapses is a story that had surprised me as I heard it told. L had only been in the detective business for a measly six years and yet he had climbed the ladder of recognition almost effortlessly. At this time, only two others even stood a chance of upsetting him from the top rung and their names were Eraldo Coil and Deneuve. I’m sure that you’re probably familiar with those names, and if you had read Mello’s report you would know that L had claimed those titles for himself. You also would have had to read through his pointless yammer on the meaning of names. I apologize; he was always the wordy one.

In a sense, I suppose that I have to pick that role up now. The only two who stood a chance of replacing L other than me are dead now, nameless boys killed in Kira’s attempt at victory. Mello spoke enough for the three of us, and now that he’s gone I feel that something needs to fill the silence. There’s a gaping hole in my mentality that is uncomfortable with being empty. Even if he wasn’t always there, his presence had a way of making itself known. Unfortunately, I examined the two bodies myself and there was no doubt that two parts of my life were dead and forever gone, lost in the black abyss.

Maybe that’s why I’m writing this. Because I hate the silence, this emptiness. I know that I’m not the most sociable or even likable person; sometimes I don’t even like me. But I still feel like something is missing, that there are still some things that need to be said. Unfortunately, there is no one else to say it. Watari probably would have had he lived. L wouldn’t have ever engaged in such an inefficient and frivolous use of time, and Matt wouldn’t have been able to muster up enough energy. Again, I seem to wander off into pointless trains of thought with those faces haunting me and names whispered hotly. Names that I was never to know. Now that they’re dead it doesn’t matter. L Lawliet, Mihael Keehl, Mail Jeevas. There, said in the open. It’s in a written document that can be traced and I don’t care. They don’t care either, and that bothers me.

By now, you might be wondering if I’ll ever move on to the important stuff. Forgive my sentimentality and I promise to move on. Poor Mello never knew that those memories he held so dear were not only his. Those stories that were passed down to him were not given to him alone, and although it pains me to write like this, stomping over a thing that meant so much to him, I cannot hold it back anymore. All three of us had received the stories to be able to pass down to our successors or in the case that one of us (or more) died. I can’t pretend to know what Matt thought about all the stories that were handed down; maybe he didn’t bother listening to them because he had no intention of following in L’s footsteps. Or maybe he did, and he didn’t feel the need to mention such a thing to Mello because he valued their friendship. Mello wasn’t a rational person by any stretch of the imagination and considering the extent of his obsession with L the simple fact that he wasn’t special would have torn him apart and he would have undoubtedly gone on a rampage.

So, to make this undeniably clear, I am not writing this to one-up Mello or to compete with him in his death. I believe in letting the dead rest in peace if they can. Then again, I am not one to lie and say nice and untrue things either, so let me write it out. Mello never could have beaten me, ever. That being said, without his help I would have been hard pressed to defeat Kira with such convincing and clear evidence. I respect my fellow competitor and believe that we would have been far more successful than L had we worked together during the Kira investigation and afterwards. Now, I am all alone in the cold dark world that L had created, trapped and not willing to leave. I have decided to write this to continue something that had been left undone. My task has seemed to be to tie the loose ends that those who have passed on created. Kira is gone, all of them, but the stories that Mello began were never finished.