L11 News

"Professor Kishikawa of Tohoku University...and he would be able to produce the antidote?"

"Probably. My father was in contact with him."

"Tohoku University should have the necessary equipment to do it."

L and Maki were on the Yamanote Line train. L had kicked his shoes off and was crouched atop the seat as usual. As unsteady as this posture was, he skillfully kept his balance on the rocking train with a Chupa Chups in one hand. The young man sitting opposite them shot him a dubious glance even as he played with his cell phone indifferently.

"Then let's head for our destination. Just the two of us, without anyone else's assistance." L held up the Chupa Chups as if it were the destination to which they were headed. Maki stared at him as though she had laid eyes on a strange animal.

"Why are you doing all this for me?"

"It's because this will be my last job."

"Last...what do you mean?"

He looked at Maki with the lollipop bulging in his right cheek. He seemed to smile behind the black-rimmed insomniac eyes.

"I wrote my own name in the Death Note in order to end my battle with Kira," L said in his usual monotone. "I have eleven more

days to live. It's the very same length of time you have."

Maki's eyes widened. "Aren't you afraid to die? I am. I'm terrified." Maki shook her head as if to shake off the fear. "Why are you trying to save me and the world when you only have days to live yourself?"

"I will continue to do what I must until the very last moment. That's all."

"Those are the same words..." Maki thought she saw her father in L's profile. "It's what my father used to say all the time. He used to say never to lose sight of what you have to do, no matter what troubles come your way. He used to worry if what he was doing was really helping people. But as long as there were people suffering and dying, he told me that somebody had to do the job."

"He sounds like an extraordinary man."

Maki nodded shyly.

L looked out the window as if to recall feelings he himself didn't know he had. "I never knew my parents. But recently, I've come to know someone whom I've grown to respect as a father. Your father must have been that kind of man. I would have liked to meet him."

The figure that came into L's mind might have been that of Soichiro Yagami, who had believed in his son's innocence, yet stuck to his principles and protected the law in deciding to arrest his son as a serial killer.

"What I have to do..." Maki murmured as if to convince herself of something.

The young man sitting across from them continued to fiddle with his cell phone. He glanced idly at the breaking-news bulletin on the news site he'd been watching to pass the time.

—A girl suspected of being infected with a new strain of virus has escaped the hospital Anyone who has seen this girl is being urged to notify the police immediately and to be checked at the nearest hospital to see if they have been infected.—

The young man's eyes drifted above the phone screen to the pair sitting before him. The girl in the picture and the girl sitting in front of him were one and the same.

"No way..."

The businessman next to him looked over the young man's shoulder at the screen. After eyeing the girl's picture and the words "New Virus Outbreak" scrolling beneath it, he looked to where the young man was now staring.

"Oh God!" the man shouted as he shot to his feet. He barreled past the other passengers into the next car. The passengers began to stir.

"No way. No frickin' way!" the young man repeated and dropped his cell phone. L saw the picture of Maki on the phone, which tumbled his way, and immediately understood what was happening. Picking the phone up off the ground, Maki stood up to hand it back to its owner.

"Get away! Get away from me!" The man cried and flopped to the floor in a panic when Maki took a step in his direction. He practically crawled out when the train stopped and opened its doors at a station; his cell phone and belongings remained where he left them. Confused, Maki noticed the picture of herself on the screen and went into shock.

"We can't use public transportation anymore. Let's go." Taking Maki by the hand, L got off the train at Shibuya Station and descended the stairs. As they navigated the intersection swarming with people, L noticed that Maki had slowed her pace. When he looked behind him, she was staring up at something in a daze.

Her face was being displayed on a JumboTron on the side of a building.

"Try to keep your head down, Maki." L tried to cover her face as he grabbed her hand and started running again. "This country has a manual for dealing with these things, but they're usually so busy assigning blame that their response comes much later. This time, however, their response was unexpectedly fast. It seems I underestimated Dr. Kujo."

The look on Maki's face remained vacant as though she had not heard him. Her head was filled with the cruel reality that even now the deadly virus was multiplying inside her body in preparation for the onset of the symptoms. Maki was aware of how people infected with a hemorrhagic fever virus died. Along with developing a fever, their entire body became covered with pustules until finally, they died, spurting blood out of every orifice. It was a picture of hell.

"Am I going to die?"

"Don't worry. I'll protect you."

L took out a Chupa Chups from his pocket and offered it to Maki. They ran under the rail bridge and continued on down a narrow side street.