爆発！« explosion »

XV

Misora Naomi

(Please skip to the end for the AN before reading.)

Es had situated himself next to L on a seat of his own by the time Misora Naomi successfully got in.

At this point, each detective was nibbling on a pancake of his own - courtesy of Watari. While Es had clotted cream and fruit compote on his pancakes, L had dolloped whipped cream, pancake syrup, chocolate syrup, rainbow chocolate rice and sugared fruits on his. Es had no idea how toothachingly sweet that would taste - he was not particularly excited to find out either, which was why he rejected L's offer to try a bite off his plate. Even if it caused no detrimental effects on his health, he feared the thing might get stuck in his throat.

"You realise that's mine, don't you?" Es asked flatly when he saw L running the wrong software - they had switched roles a few more times since the previous time, so they just exchanged their synthetic voice changing software out of convenience.

L only blinked and closed the application, opening the correct one next and joining the server.

"She's going to be upset about having to destroy her laptop..." Es muttered under his breath.

L turned on his mic while ignoring his friend's words.

"Naomi Misora," L said monotonously. "This is L."

It was not the first time he had seen L making a call, so this did not surprise him no matter how weird it was to hear him speak like that even though the voice changer already made one sound emotionless. If not for how expressive the other detective was when it came to daily life - even if his social awkwardness did not allow him to express himself like any ordinary person - Es might presume this just was how L was. However, knowing that this was but a mask made him feel like sighing at the redundancy in this.

Misora Naomi said something and, though there was no microphone, Es and L could tell that she must have said something along the lines of, "Hi."

For some reason, her laptop came equipped with a camera even though it lacked a microphone.

Then they could see her start to type: This is Naomi Misora. It's an honor to speak to you, L.

American English. Though, considering her post as an FBI agent, this did make sense. If she knew that L had been raised in the United Kingdom, it would have been stranger. Neither Es nor L was bothered by how she did not use British English anyway.

"Naomi Misora," L said expectantly, disregarding formalities, "are you familiar with the murder investigation going on in Los Angeles as we speak?"

Naomi's eye twitched as she slammed her fingers down onto her keyboard to type quite forcefully: I am not so skilled that I can keep track of every murder investigation happening in Los Angeles.

Es snorted at this. He decided that he quite liked this lady. She held herself well, not allowing L's reputation to hinder her. Her snark was admirable, considering how the person she addressed was currently the world's greatest detective - it seemed that he and L took turns these days. They have been solving other cases while they worked on puzzling out B's plans. Recently, Es became convinced that B's final act will not be murder but his own suicide. It seemed B was trying to challenge L, whom all of Wammy's children strove to succeed. Considering his motives, making the case unsolvable by killing himself was the perfect ending. The only problem was that B was not yet fated to die. Something will occur in time to thwart his plans regardless.

He would have informed his partner in this investigation about this. However, as it was mere speculation, he refrained for the time being. This could still be discussed later. They still had time until the day on which the fourth murder had been scheduled.