The bullet misfired.
Three words. They carried a cold, almost palpable sense of defeat, and even... a barely perceptible trace of self-doubt.
He had admitted it. Admitted that the physical threat he had tried to launch-that "bullet"-had failed to fire before my judgment, becoming a pathetic dud. Rex's "loss of strength" had been like a bucket of ice water, extinguishing the flame of armed resistance he had just kindled.
Defeat. An emotion more precious than terror. Terror came from the unknown; defeat came from disappointed expectations. It meant he was beginning to form specific expectations of me, expectations I could shatter with precision.
Ryuk, in the corner, seemed immensely pleased with the "misfire." He let out a laugh like a rusty hinge turning. "A misfire! Hahaha! I told you that hunk of iron was useless! Even my apple core would do more good!" He smugly waved the rotten fruit.
I ignored him. My fingertips tapped lightly on the desk, their rhythm no faster for his defeat.
Press the advantage, but change direction. Continuing to apply pressure through "force" might only provoke him into a more extreme physical counterattack. What he needed now was not further defeat, but a... way out? An excuse to put down his revolver for the moment and return to the field he knew better?
No. I couldn't give him a way out.
I needed to steer that sense of defeat toward something more far-reaching, more unsettling. Something that would make him begin to question the "legitimacy" of his entire operation.
If his "bullet" had misfired, who had given him the "gun"? Who had authorized this "hunt"? Was the higher will concealed behind "SRO-7" equally worthy of "judgment"?
The next target had to be someone who bridged the "Mentor" and the system behind him. Someone who did not directly commit evil, but supplied legitimacy, resources, or critical technical support for the entire "cleanup" operation. A guardian of the "system," rather than a mere operative.
A target... who would make it impossible for him to keep excusing himself with "I was following orders."
My gaze deepened, as though probing dark waters for the invisible pillars that kept agencies like "SRO-7" running. Budget approval? Legal counsel? Internal auditing? A critical technology supplier?
Found him.
Archibald Winters. The veteran chief of staff of an important congressional appropriations committee, an old man who never appeared in the public eye but wielded enormous influence over budget allocations and compliance reviews for black projects like "SRO-7." He was neither a soldier nor an agent, but a calculating bureaucrat, a "guardian of the system" who greenlit covert operations through official directives and budget reports. He ensured that the flow of money remained untraceable and that operations stayed "technically compliant" within legal gray areas. He was one of the prerequisites that allowed the "Mentor" to act.
His death should be a... compliance review. A ritual that used the strictest, most rigid bureaucratic procedures to utterly repudiate his life's "work."
I walked to the desk and opened the Death Note. My pen touched the page with a cold, almost clerical precision.
[Archibald Winters]
Cause of death: procedural death. Time: ten o'clock tomorrow morning, in his office on Capitol Hill, while reviewing the classified annex to the National Defense Authorization Act for the new fiscal year. Cause of death: he will suddenly suffer an extremely rare acute allergic reaction, triggered only by volatile substances in a particular specification of ink used to print government documents, resulting in suffocation from laryngeal edema. Before his death, all printers in his office must activate simultaneously and print every detailed budget allocation and compliance waiver he has approved for "SRO-7" and related black projects. In the approval signature field on every page, he must use his own blood, from mucosal bleeding caused by the allergic reaction, to leave a fingerprint stamp bearing the word "REJECTED." Once all documents have finished printing, they will automatically be sent through the internal office system to the public email addresses of every member of Congress and their principal aides.
Location: the heart of political power. Cause of death: an allergy to document ink-the ultimate irony. Confession: bureaucratic paperwork plus bloody "REJECTED" fingerprints. Recipients: every member of Congress.
Let him die amid the paperwork he knew best, killed by the ink he knew best, and use the form he knew best to repudiate his entire life.
Mentor, your bullet misfired.
Now, watch the man who funded your gun
get...
written off.
The next day, at precisely ten in the morning.
Capitol Hill, Winters's office, piled high with documents.
Wearing reading glasses, he was carefully reading a document marked "Top Secret," his fingers tapping absently on the desk.
Suddenly, he flung the document aside and clutched his throat with both hands, his face rapidly flushing red, then purple! His mouth gaped open, but no sound emerged except a dreadful, suffocating hiss!
The printer on his desk and the copier in the corner suddenly activated on their own, simultaneously! The clatter of printing instantly filled the room!
Sheet after sheet emerged, covered in complex budget codes and project numbers, each pointing to operations that never saw the light of day. In the approval signature field on every page, a bright red, crooked fingerprint stamp bearing the word "REJECTED" spread into clear view!
Winters collapsed onto the carpet, his body convulsing violently, his eyes fixed on the documents pouring out, each stamped "REJECTED" with his own bloody fingerprint.
The printing stopped.
Then the notification chimes of the congressional internal office system began sounding in countless offices, one after another...
In my room, the screen showed breaking news of a veteran congressional chief of staff's sudden death from an acute illness, along with a flood of irregular classified documents mistakenly distributed by the internal system. The ensuing chaos and panic far exceeded anything before.
Ryuk tilted his head at the densely packed document scans on the screen, seemingly trying to understand the numbers and words. "...Paper... killing someone with paper? And stamping it, too? You humans... really can turn anything into rules..."
I waited.
Waited to see how the man who had just suffered a "misfire" would face this "procedural death" aimed at his "source."
This time, the response came exceptionally quickly.
Almost the instant the news broke.
My phone screen lit up.
There was no text.
No image.
Instead, an extremely brief, cold, synthesized electronic voice repeated a single sentence, like an automated system notification:
[Error: command source invalid. Recalibrating... Error: command source invalid. Recalibrating...]
It looped three times.
Stopped.
The screen went dark.
Dead silence.
Holding the phone, I narrowed my eyes slightly.
Error: command source invalid.
Recalibrating.
He no longer expressed emotion, no longer showed his surroundings, no longer even attempted to communicate.
He had retreated into the state of a pure machine reporting an error.
Had Winters's death severed some important "command source" of his?
Or was this merely a metaphor? A declaration: you have destroyed part of the basis that legitimized my actions, and I need time to "recalibrate" my rules of engagement?
Either way.
"Mentor,"
you seemed
to be losing your way.
Then,
while you "recalibrated,"
my judgment
would not stop.
Before you continue