Go ahead, guess to your heart's content

Linhai University, graduate student apartments.

Sunlight filtered through the lush plane-tree leaves, scattering flecks of gold across the desk.

Kannazuki-or rather, "Light Yagami," as he was now known-was opening a thick volume of General Principles of Criminal Law.

He wore a simple white shirt, and the gold-rimmed glasses on his nose made him look like a model student immersed in his studies.

No one could have imagined that, twenty-four hours earlier, this body had just survived an explosion violent enough to go down in Linhai City's history.

"Light, the apples here are much sweeter than the ones at that lousy meatpacking plant."

Ryuk hung upside down from the wall-mounted air conditioner, clutching a huge Red Fuji apple and taking a large, crunchy bite.

Sweet juice splashed onto his purplish-blue lips, and he narrowed his red eyes in satisfaction.

"That cop, Chen Lei, is staring at a charred corpse and scratching his head right now. Gahahaha."

Kannazuki did not look up. His fingertips slid lightly across the page.

"Chen Lei is an excellent bloodhound, but he puts too much faith in evidence.

Once the evidence forms a closed chain of logic, his reason forcibly suppresses his instincts."

He closed the book, opened a drawer, and took out the black Death Note.

The notebook remained as thick as ever, as though the pages cut out the night before had never disappeared.

This was one of the notebook's hidden rules: its pages were inexhaustible.

Kannazuki switched on his computer. Complex dark-web protocols flickered across the screen.

He was conducting a worldwide "talent screening."

He did not need trash like Shrimp, who knew only how to vent his violence.

He needed scalpels.

"Name: Robert Vaughan. Background: former federal prosecutor in New York, United States. Current circumstances: framed for bribery and imprisoned after exposing collusion between gangsters and politicians. Wife died in a car accident. Only daughter disappeared in the slums."

Kannazuki stared at the file on the screen. Robert's eyes held a coldness like dead ashes-the embers left after losing all hope in the existing justice system.

"You'll do."

Kannazuki picked up his pen and lightly wrote a string of instructions along the edge of the notebook.

Then he brought up two more files.

Tanaka, an elite detective in Tokyo, Japan, dismissed for causing a death through negligence and now living on the streets; Hans, a doctor of law in Berlin, Germany, driven to extremism after witnessing a judge release the murderer of his parents.

Three men, scattered across three time zones, sharing the same traits: exceptional intelligence, a legal background, and lives destroyed by reality.

Kannazuki took out three black notebook pages.

On the back of each page, he wrote three lines in invisible ink:

[Justice is not charity. Blood debts must be paid in blood.]

[When you hold this page, you are judgment itself.]

[Follow the code, and the new world will crown you.]

"Light, you're playing with fire." Ryuk spat out the apple core and rolled his eyes.

"Giving this power to other people-aren't you afraid they'll turn around and write your name?"

"Ever since I learned that torn-out pages work just as well, I deliberately used them to have other people misspell my name four times."

The Death Note no longer works on me now.

Kannazuki placed the torn pages into specially made magnetic-shielding bags and slipped them into anonymous international courier envelopes.

"Besides, I know their names.

If they attempt to betray me or get caught by the police, I'll write them into my notebook myself."

He stood, walked to the window, and watched the students running across the athletic field.

"L thinks he's caught Kira.

I'll show him that Kira isn't one person. Kira is a will."

"Has Shrimp's testimony been confirmed?"

L bit his nails, his voice hoarse.

"Yes. The Linhai City police found mailbox number two near the meatpacking plant.

There were indeed signs of deliveries, but the sender avoided every surveillance camera." The suited agent stood respectfully behind him.

"What about the charred corpse?"

"The DNA was a complete match. The deceased has been confirmed as Kannazuki.

No traces of a second person were found at the scene. The preliminary conclusion is that he was caught in the accident."

L gave a cold laugh and drew back slightly, planting both feet on the edge of his chair.

"A match? Too perfect a match."

L picked up a sugar cube, but instead of putting it in his mouth, he stared intently at Kannazuki's file photo on the screen.

Based on Chen Lei's earlier analytical reports, I can be certain that Kannazuki was the mastermind, "Kira."

"A delivery worker who could hide in plain sight right under Chen Lei's nose died in an 'accidental' gas explosion while Kira was at his most active?"

"You mean Kannazuki isn't dead?" The agent was startled.

"The DNA doesn't lie. Kannazuki is indeed dead."

L crushed the sugar cube between his fingers.

Then it seems Kannazuki was being controlled by Kira, just like Shrimp.

L turned toward the enormous Gothic letter "L" in the center of the screen.

"Notify ICPO. Activate the Nameless Plan."

"The plan: select twelve top profilers and field agents from around the world.

All of them will enter a completely sealed isolation zone, surrender every communication device, and abandon their real names. Their code names will be numbers one through twelve."

"They will have only one task: rebuild Kira's behavioral model without interference from any outside information."

A glimmer of almost mad anticipation flashed through L's eyes.

"This game is only just beginning."

Three days later, New York, United States.

In a dim basement in the Brooklyn District.

Robert Vaughan stared fixedly at the black notebook page on the table.

At first, he had thought it was merely a prank by one of his enemies.

Until five minutes earlier, when he had tried writing the name of the gang boss who had murdered his wife.

[George Soros, dies of a heart attack.]

The television news was broadcasting a charity dinner live.

On-screen, the impeccably dressed gang boss, who had been speaking with easy confidence, suddenly turned deathly pale. He clutched his chest, eyes wide, and toppled face-first onto the podium.

Chaos erupted at the venue.

Robert's hands were shaking.

He could feel it: an authority that transcended the laws of physics and directly commanded life and death.

The invisible writing on the back of the page slowly emerged beneath the light: [Justice is not charity. Blood debts must be paid in blood.]

Robert fell to his knees and let out muffled sobs.

He snatched up his pen and frantically wrote a second name, then a third, on the torn black page.

At the same time, in Tokyo and Berlin.

The same slaughter was unfolding.

"Important figures" who had long escaped punishment, protected by the law, died suddenly in succession within a single hour.

The cause of death was identical in every case: heart attack.

The method was exactly the same as that of the captured "Kira."

After three days of silence, the global media once again descended into unprecedented frenzy.

[Kira resurrected! Previously arrested suspect may have been a stand-in!]

[A miracle descends! Multiple criminals die suddenly across the globe!]

[Who is the true god?]

Linhai University library.

Kannazuki sat in a corner, surrounded by his fellow students' irrepressible chatter.

"Did you hear? That drug lord in New York died too! A heart attack!"

"I told you, how could the police possibly catch Kira? That Shrimp guy was obviously a lunatic."

"Long live Kira! This is real judgment!"

Kannazuki closed his notebook and slid it back into a gap on the bookshelf.

He adjusted his glasses, the faintest smile curling his lips.

Within his field of vision, Ryuk was hugging an apple and tumbling merrily across the library ceiling.

"Light, look. The faithful are celebrating again."

Kannazuki stood, picked up his bag, and headed for the exit.

"This is only the first wave."

He murmured to himself.

"L, you must be wondering where I'm hiding right now."

"In the slums of New York? On the streets of Tokyo? Or in an apartment in Berlin?"

"Go ahead, guess to your heart's content."

"When the whole world is filled with 'Kiras,' the true Kira will be the creator of this world."

The outskirts of Linhai City, North Ridge Military Restricted Zone.

L crouched on a specially made swivel chair, his toes hooked over the edge of the seat, still wearing his slightly loose white T-shirt.

"Mr. L, the director of the Linhai City Public Security Bureau requests an audience. He's been waiting aboveground for three hours."

An agent wearing sunglasses, code-named "4," reported quietly.

L bit the nail of his left thumb without turning around, while his right hand stacked one sugar cube on top of another.

"Denied.

Tell him I don't need the local police's 'assistance.' I don't trust them."

"But..."

"No buts."

L's voice was calm, yet carried an unquestionable weight.

"Effective immediately, the military will take control of everything within a five-kilometer radius.

Detain any unauthorized personnel who attempt to approach."

The tower of sugar cubes collapsed.

L stared at a set of red data that had just appeared on-screen, his gaze instantly sharpening.

"The first-stage results of the Nameless Plan are in."

L grabbed a spoon, scooped up a large mouthful of strawberry cake, and stuffed it into his mouth.

"In the forty-eight hours following Kannazuki's death, a total of 142 people were added to or had their records changed in Linhai City's household registration system.

After excluding cases involving policy-based residency and relocation through marriage, three remain."

L tapped the keyboard, and a photo of a refined-looking young man expanded onto the main screen.

"Light Yagami. Graduate student at Linhai University's Law School.

Both parents deceased. Inherited assets overseas." L stared at the photo.

"Keep a close watch on these three."

Linhai University, campus library.

Kannazuki sat by a window with a copy of Criminal Psychology open before him.

His left hand was in his pocket, his fingertips gently manipulating a homemade infrared sensing device no larger than a matchbox.

The device's tiny indicator light was flashing blue at an extremely high frequency.

"Light, what are you playing with? Can you eat it?"

Ryuk crouched atop a bookshelf, idly swinging his long legs.

"It's a cell tower signal detector."

Kannazuki lowered his voice, his gaze still resting on the page.

"The mobile signal towers around Linhai University were forcibly taken over within the past hour.

All encrypted communications traffic is converging on the northern outskirts."

"The northern outskirts?"

"That's a military restricted zone."

Kannazuki closed the book, his eyes dark and unreadable. "L is here.

He's abandoned remote control and chosen to move within physical reach.

That means he's picked up my scent."

Kannazuki rose and headed deeper into the stacks, avoiding the surveillance blind spots, then pulled the black Death Note from inside his clothes.

He wrote a name in the notebook: [Zhang Qiang].

Identity: death-row inmate at Linhai City No. 1 Detention Center, sentenced to death for a series of robberies and murders. Execution scheduled in thirty days.

[Details of death: over the next 23 days, Zhang Qiang will log into the Eye of the Abyss forum at precisely eight every evening and publish provocative declarations in "Kira's" voice, including mockery of L's previous profiling logic.

At 8:01 p.m. on the 23rd day, Zhang Qiang will suffer a sudden heart attack in his cell and die.]

"Using a death row inmate as a mouthpiece?"

Ryuk chuckled. "You're trying to lead him down the wrong path."

"No, L won't fall for a cheap trick like that.

But he'll have to investigate."

Kannazuki adjusted his glasses.

"The moment he commits resources to investigating Zhang Qiang, his data traffic will reveal his location.

I'm not after misdirection. I'm after a fix on his location."

At two in the afternoon, in the Law School's large lecture hall.

An open lecture on "procedural justice and substantive justice" was underway.

The speaker was a nationally renowned law professor. The seats were packed with students, including several stiff-faced, sharp-eyed "auditors."

"...From a jurisprudential perspective, the Kira incidents represent a violent assault on the modern judicial contract."

The professor spoke confidently from the podium.

Kannazuki suddenly raised his hand and stood.

"Professor, I disagree."

The classroom instantly fell silent.

Several of L's informants stationed in the back rows immediately switched on their pocket voice recorders.

Kannazuki remained calm, his voice carrying an almost pathological rationality. "If the law's efficiency can no longer keep pace with the cost of crime, could Kira's emergence be regarded as an emergency response from society's self-healing mechanisms?

When procedural justice becomes a shield for evil, should the absence of substantive justice be remedied by some absolute power?"

He methodically cited the Radbruch Formula and Kelsen's Pure Theory of Law, turning a legal debate into a rigorously reasoned "defense of Kira."

His performance was too brilliant-so brilliant that he seemed nothing like an ordinary law student, but rather a god standing at the judgment bench.

The air in the lecture hall seemed to freeze.

Hundreds of students looked back and forth between Kannazuki and the professor at the podium.

Outside the windows, the wind rustled the plane tree leaves, but the sound did nothing to dispel the charged atmosphere inside.

The professor braced both hands on the lectern, his brow furrowed and his expression darkening.

"Young man, the Radbruch Formula applies only to 'extremely unjust laws.'

Using it to defend Kira is a sleight of hand with definitions." The professor tapped the blackboard.

"The modern judicial system already possesses robust mechanisms for correcting its own errors.

Kira's so-called trials bypass the chain of evidence, strip defendants of their right to a defense, and disregard public hearings.

That is murder, not justice.

It's a celebration of mob rule!"

Kannazuki stood ramrod straight. His white shirt was spotless.