A Year of Jubilee [The Death Note Fanfic]

Chapter 55

"I see," was all L said, when Jubilee told him that evening what she had instructed Wedy to do. The line over his head and cloud of colors around him stayed steady and calm, giving no indication of whether he approved or disapproved of her actions.

She swallowed, her nerves stretched taut with anxiety. Beside her Hellenos was shimmering in and out of view.

"So..." she began nervously, "I think we can stop investigating Takada and focus solely on Mikami now. Even if she is Kira's mouthpiece, he's the one with the notebook and who's doing the killing—and we know where and when he does it now."

L stuck a thumb into the corner of his mouth, mulling over her words. At last he said simply, "I disagree."

The statement was an unexpected blow to Jubilee's ego. Next to her, Hellenos flickered out.

"Why?" she demanded, with equal parts indignation at his bluntness and fear of potential reproach. "Are you saying that I shouldn't have told Wedy to replace the pages in Mikami's notebook?" Panic suddenly replaced her indignation. "Was that a bad idea? We can call her now and tell her to stop—she's probably in the middle of it right no—"

L held up a hand to cut her off. "I'm not saying that it was a bad idea. Merely that I don't agree we should completely pull surveillance from Takada." With that, he swiveled in his seat towards his monitor and proceeded to pull up grainy public surveillance footage, projecting it onto the main monitor. Jubilee looked up to see. The screen showed Kiyomi Takada walking out of Sakura TV station earlier that day.

L pointed a finger at the woman onscreen and turned to look expectantly at Jubilee. "What do you see?" he asked.

"The same thing I've been seeing," said Jubilee, annoyed. "She's just a normal woman with some issues. I mean, she's a Kira supporter, but it's probably just circumstances in her life that pushed her in that direction, and then she got unexpectedly caught up in it all because she happens to go to school with Light."

L hmmed and then switched the footage to something else. This time, Kiyomi was at a pay phone and it was nighttime. A few yards away stood five of her security guards underneath the light of a street lamp. Jubilee instantly recognized the fair-haired one as Aiber. So, the con man must have alerted Mello of this incident. Jubilee had instructed Aiber to start reporting in to the teen instead of her, now that she was focusing on Mikami and Mello was focusing on Takada. The fact that Mello had then alerted L of this incident, and that L was now relaying it to her, meant that it must have some significance. But Jubilee couldn't see what that could be, since nothing in the air around the woman looked any different. She squinted hard at the screen. In the bottom right hand corner, the timestamp read 7:25pm...only a couple of hours ago.

"What do you see now?" inquired the detective again.

"Same thing," huffed Jubilee, before tilting her head curiously at the monitor. "What's she doing?"

"Making a call," deadpanned L.

She rolled her eyes. "Your gift for deduction is staggering. No wonder they call you a genius."

L didn't laugh, but the air around him rang softly with a sound that was like gentle bell chimes. Onscreen, Kiyomi hung up the phone and exited the glass booth. Her bodyguards flanked her as she proceeded to walk down the street.

Jubilee watched her for a moment longer, but there was still no visible change that she could see. She turned to L. "Who was she talking to?" she asked.

He swiveled to face her. "Now that is the question, isn't it?"

There was a second of silence as they both just stared at each other. Jubilee waited for L to give some kind of insightful deduction.