爆発！« explosion »

XXVIII

Grand Finale

Online netizen support of Kira, which surged during the month after Yagami Light took over the position of L, plummetted as soon as the first wave of Kira titles hit the shelves globally.

The effect was almost instantaneous.

Kira, within the minds of the populace, transformed from a god of judgement to a Chuunibyou.

Countless people started mocking him, tittering about the childish behaviour they were able to see now that they have seen Simeon Noir's writings. Even if Yagami Light itched to write these people's names on his Death Note, there were too many of them to count. Moreover, the people scorning him now were normal civilians. They were those who originally supported him for his acts of punishing all wrongdoers, including those that escape the net of the law. The same ones who had stroked his ego and eagerly urged on his exploits under the anonymity of the internet.

Those slow on the uptake or sluggish in following the news would continue to defend Kira, but they were converted soon enough by the bulk who have seen at least one of the three available versions of Kira.

The title alone was enough to draw buyers, and the author of the publication exaggerated this further.

Humans were prone to seeing the negative sides of things. Besides some die-hard fanatics who were further convinced of Kira's capability when they read the volumes and sympathisers with the same sociopathic outlook of justice, Kira lost the support of the public. No intervention was required in any country from their respective governmental agencies. All the brewing protests, frenzied worshipping et cetera swiftly dissipated, and the chaos abated within the three days following the release.

Many bookstores were now flooded with people queuing to purchase abridged and complete versions of Kira while all departmental stores sold the booklet, Kira, a Summary at economical rates, placing them near the check-out counters. The popular newsstands managed to obtain a supply for the booklets, selling them together with the headline news articles. Primary school children, attracted by the strangely plain black booklets with the striking title, purchased it with a fraction of their pocket money to show off at school.

With how widespread the titles became, it was just a matter of time until a researcher found the secret hidden within its production.

Every single Kira book was comprised of materials that were not from this realm.

The elements in the compounds detected in the paper, ink and even the cover cannot be found on Earth or, at the very least, within their plane.

After this discovery, it did not take long for other hidden details to be exposed.

One such peculiarity was that, in the entire book for every publication released regardless of language or level, only several items in Kira were written in ink from the human world. On the cover was the name of Simeon Noir and within the pages were every mention of L and the Kira investigation team. They also found the symbol of S on the cover, woven into the strange paper of the cover with black-dyed wood fibre from the inner rings of a redwood tree.

This revelation brought together the academics acquainted with Simeon Noir.

They meticulously dissected through the information inked and laid another truth bare to the world.

There were no names written on the pages. Allusions to living people were done with alternate terminology, only names of the dead having any place in the interior. Only on the cover could a name be found -- Simeon Noir.

The acquaintances of the Doctor deduced from this that the supernatural killing method of Kira was none other than a book similar to the Kira issued by Simeon Noir's exclusive publisher. This required one to write someone's name in the pages to kill the person, and names on the cover did not count. They further inferred that Kira's book was not of this world -- likely related to the "shinigami" introduced by Kira II and the Doctor's brief indication of his belief in its existence. It was also extrapolated that this book might have come from the "shinigami".