If we can reach 120 power stones I'll drop another chapter today.
-----------------------------------------
L stood with Matsuda outside the Yagami residence and they rang the bell.
A moment later, a young man with brown hair opened the door. His younger sister stood just behind him.
"Welcome," the young girl said with a polite smile as she greeted the guests.
Light stepped aside and led them inside.
Behind him, Ryuk the Shinigami floated silently, staring at the two visitors. The moment his eyes landed on Matsuda, he frowned, and his ugly face twisted in displeasure. Matsuda didn't seem to see him.
Light noticed Ryuk's reaction, but he did not show any response.
"My name is Light Yagami," he said calmly. "You must be my father's associates. I wanted to thank you for the work you've been doing."
L gave a small nod. "Your father has been a great help."
Matsuda said nothing.
"May I ask your names?" Light asked as they entered the small living room. Dinner had already been laid out on the table, where Chief Yagami was seated, waiting for the two of them.
"Ah, welcome," Chief Yagami said as he stood to greet his guests.
After exchanging greetings, everyone took their seats. L sat in his usual strange posture, crouched on the chair, while Matsuda sat beside him in a much stiffer manner.
Ryuk did not remain with them. He drifted upstairs and disappeared onto the second floor.
"This is the detective I told you about, Light," the chief said to his son.
"Oh… so it's him? Really?" Light looked at the pale young man before him with clear interest.
Then Light's gaze shifted to Matsuda, silently asking for his name.
"This is Touta Matsuda, a rookie officer who joined us this year."
"Yes," Matsuda said quickly. "Chief Yagami has been very kind to me."
The two guests and the Yagami family then shared dinner together. L ate in silence, focused entirely on his food, while Matsuda chatted nervously with the chief and the rest of the family.
Once dinner was finished, Light excused himself, saying he needed to study. Soon after, the young girl and Chief Yagami's wife also excused themselves.
Tick! Tack! Tick! Tack!
The old clock on the wall echoed through the room as the three men sat in tense silence, watching one another.
"So… I assume there was something private you wanted to discuss," Chief Yagami said, his eyes fixed on L.
L glanced at the clock on the wall. "It should happen any minute now."
"What?"
BOOM!
The sound of something breaking came from the floor above. All three men instantly looked toward the ceiling.
Then Matsuda's body began to tremble violently. A second later, his face slammed onto the dining table. His body started to slowly break apart, crumbling as though it were turning to dust.
Chief Yagami's eyes widened in horror.
L, however, only smirked. He suddenly shifted from his usual crouched posture and sat normally, resting his cheek against one hand. "So, I see he forced him to choose that option. Not that it matters. It was checkmate either way."
"What is happening!?" the chief shouted, his body shaking as he stared at the scene before him.
L spoke in the same calm tone.
"Hmm? Your son is Kira… and he just killed this man right here."
"What are you talking about!? and why is he turning to dust?"
"Exactly… why is he?"
L—or rather, Adrien—slowly rose from his seat.
Before Chief Yagami could react, Adrien stepped forward and struck the side of his neck with a sharp chop, knocking him unconscious instantly. The chief's body slumped forward, collapsing onto the table.
Without wasting a second, Adrien took out a phone and called the police, speaking in a calm and controlled voice. After finishing the call, he returned to his seat at the table.
Then his entire demeanor changed.
Still wearing L's disguise, Adrien began to tremble violently, like a man overcome with fear after witnessing something horrific. His breathing turned uneven as he stared ahead, preparing for whoever would come next.
Suddenly, three Devils entered the house through the front door. Each of them had one pair of black wings. The moment they stepped inside, their eyes swept across the room and landed on the pale man trembling in the chair, facing the other way.
Without saying a word, they moved through the first floor in complete silence, then started going up the stairs.
The moment they were gone from sight, Adrien's trembling stopped. He returned to normal, and with a faint smirk on his face, he vanished from the room.
--<>--<>--<>--<>--<>--<>--<>--<>--<>
Adrien appeared in a vast underground chamber stretched farther than any normal house should allow, carved from polished concrete, steel, and black stone. Cold white lights were built into the ceiling in long clean lines, casting sharp reflections across the smooth floor.
Sitting behind a large PC was an old butler dressed in a perfectly tailored black suit. His hair was completely white, and a long white mustache rested above a calm, unreadable expression.
"Watari, the mission was successful," Adrien said as his body slowly returned to its normal appearance.
"I see. Good, then, my lord," the old man replied smoothly.
Watari was Adrien's personal butler. To put it simply, he was Adrien's Alfred.
Unknown to everyone else, the elderly butler was the one helping Adrien carry out many of his schemes from the shadows.
The truth was that Watari was a Youkai Adrien had met in Italy years ago. He was not a fighter—only a butler. Because of that, his presence carried no threatening aura and was almost impossible to notice, making him the perfect ally for Adrien.
"My lord, may I ask how you figured the boy out?" Watari asked.
Adrien dropped onto the sofa, and a KitKat bar appeared in his hand.
"Like I said in the broadcast, the first victim was in Shinjuku, and it was only shown in Japan. I just happened to be watching TV at the time, and the guy's death felt weird to me. What were the chances of him just dropping dead from a heart attack like that?"
He took a bite from the KitKat before continuing.
"When the death toll got even bigger the next day, I knew this shit wasn't normal. It had to be connected to the supernatural. I got interested in the case, so I decided to handle it as L. Light is just a high schooler with a god complex. He made way too many blunders."
Adrien smirked.
"The first was the number of people he killed. He murdered more than two hundred people in five or six days, and all of them died from heart attacks. That immediately alerted every faction. Like, you saw a fucking creature floating in front of you that looked like absolute shit, and it never crossed your mind that there might be others like it?"
"The second mistake he made was the timing of the deaths, he didn't think ahead. At first, the deaths happened during the hours when students are usually free, so I immediately considered that he might be one himself. Then he changed the times of the killings. That told me he knew we were catching on. So there were only two real possibilities: either he had an insider inside the police department, or he was obtaining the information himself."
Adrien crossed one leg over the other. "When I was at the police station, I watched everyone's expressions and body language. No one looked like they were hiding anything… except Matsuda. But Matsuda was a Devil. The higher-ups must have placed him in the Kanto region, just like they do all over the world."
"Anyway, that meant he was getting the information himself. No one other than the chief and his closest subordinates had access to those files. There were only about twelve of them. So I just thought, which one of them has a family that fits the description? The closest match was Chief Yagami.
As for how he was doing the killing, I didn't even need to know. I could just leave that part to Sirzechs and Azazel. But I didn't want anyone finding out about L, so I took Matsuda to their house. That guy was the checkmate. The Shinigami couldn't leave him alone, because Matsuda would definitely report seeing him. The Shinigami probably didn't know Matsuda was being watched… or maybe he did. Either way, he didn't have a choice."
"Wouldn't the Demon King figure out that you were the one who led them there?" Watari asked.
"He might," Adrien said, sounding unconcerned. "But it doesn't matter. He has no proof. They'll probably reconstruct the chief's memories, but I doubt they'll be able to erase the whole planet's memory of the incident. So in the end, they'll most likely just say that L solved the case and never speak about it again."
He shrugged lightly. "This whole thing will probably end up becoming one of those weird incidents people talk about for years. The kind they blame on the Illuminati or turn into some creepy story to scare kids at night. Like, if you don't behave, Kira will come for you next. Something like that."
Watari chuckled softly. "The older I get, the more I think serving you was a good choice, Lord Adrien. At least I got to have a little fun before I die."
"You'll live for at least another three hundred years," Adrien said dryly. "Stop talking like you're dying tomorrow."
Watari gave a small smile. "Time passes quickly, my Lord."
--<>--<>--<>--<>--<>--<>--<>--<>--<>
Inside the shrine's main hall sat Akeno, Issei, and a third man.
He was handsome, with long blond hair and green eyes. Twelve golden wings grew from his back. He wore a red robe over a white alb with a golden cross on the front. Golden shoulder plates rested on his shoulders, a white sash hung across his body, and a glowing golden halo floated above his head.
"I wanted to give you this, actually," the archangel said.
Issei turned to where Michael was pointing and saw a sword hovering in the air, radiating a holy aura.
Before Michael could speak again, another blond man suddenly appeared in the middle of the shrine. He was dressed in an all-black outfit and wore sunglasses. Adrien looked around the shrine, calmly watching everyone's reaction.
"Hm, am I interrupting something?" Adrien asked.
Akeno stared at him with wide eyes. It had been a week since he vanished after confronting the Vanishing Dragon, and now he was back in the most Adrien way possible.
"Where the hell have you been, dude?" Issei asked. "The girls were seriously worried. If I were you, I'd never disappear like that with so many beautiful girls around me. Damn it, now I'm getting annoyed just thinking about it."
Hands wrapped around Adrien immediately. He looked down and saw Akeno clinging tightly to him, her head pressed against his chest.
"Hey, you good?"
"Shut up! Don't say anything!" Akeno's muffled voice came from against his chest.
"You got her too!? Argh, for fuck's sake! I already lost Akeno!"
Michael could only stare at Adrien with wide eyes, his pupils trembling. "Impossible…"