Welcome to Manga Cum Loudly Presents: Death Note, Vol. 1, Chapter 4: “Current”! In the previous installment, it is revealed that Raito’s father is the Director of Scary Homicide Murders and is heavily involved in the Kira case, which means Raito’s going to have to kill him by, like, Chapter 6.

Raito also learns that his menacing leather daddy, Ryuuku, can become visible to a person once that person touches the Death Note. That could be a big problem! He has to figure out how to properly secure the notebook.

My advice is to store it in his butt.

Death Note, Vol. 1, Ch. 4
Written by: Tsugumi Ohba
Illustrated by: Takeshi Obata
“Current”

For some thus far inexplicable reason, Raito and Ryuuku are hanging out in a dilapidated hovel. I don’t think Ryuuku is having much fun here!

“Anyone can see you if they touch the Death Note, right? I can’t let that happen,” Raito says as he squats sullenly on the filthy floor. “My little sister would have a heart attack if she saw you.”

That’s kind of mean! Ryuuku doesn’t know what to say to that. He’s gonna start crying at any moment. Oh jeez, I don’t want to see that, let’s move onto something else!

L is similarly squatting in his own dwelling. Just a huge room with endless, empty floor. They keep hiding his eyes while showing literally every other part of him, and he looks like a 17-year-old. Make a note of that, he’s probably some pants-wetting high school senior.

This so-called master detective ruminates over Kira’s decision to start killing people outside of school hours. As if to throw him off the trail. As if to mock him. 46 people dead in two days, one every hour! Like a Big Ben clock of murder. BONG! *dead* BONG! BONG! *dead* And so forth.

He wonders if he’s been tricked. Maybe the whole student angle was a red herring, or, perhaps, THIS is the red herring! What a conundrum! And the real problem is that Kira seems to be getting some of his information straight from headquarters, almost as if his father is the Director of Murder Homicide Naval Criminal Investigative Services! “Why is he letting me know so much? What is he up to…?”

No no no…leave the vaseline here…

At any rate, drastic times call for drastic measures! He contacts Watari and tells him to get somewhere safe, somewhere where nobody will be able to observe him, and then arrange to get L in touch with the Director. They’re gonna have a little pow-wow session. A frank conversation between two men. And so forth.

Meanwhile, Raito and Ryuuku hang out at the mall! Spencer’s Gifts! Hot Topic! Claire’s! PacSun! Raito needs to get some supplies to help him hide the notebook, such as, uh, maybe a camouflage trapper keeper. Or a hollowed-out bible. Or a toilet.

“I have to hide it somewhere easily accessible and somewhere my family would never look,” he contemplates, ruling out the earlier idea I had about lodging the thing up his butt.

Laughing, Raito says that if L is going to catch him, he’s either going to need to find the Death Note or his confession! And he’s not writing a confession! LOL!!! LOLOL!!

Wait until you see the imaginative kind of porn we’ve come up with! Spellbinding.

Presumably, Raito finds something suitable and proceeds to check-out. Ryuuku is still very curious about Raito’s confidence. He keeps bringing up the confidence thing. Raito must look like a pimply-faced wet-mouthed vagina repellant, in no position to possess even a modicum of confidence.

In this particular case, with this particular situation, Raito’s confidence comes from his ability to hack into his dad’s work computer and constantly keep tabs on the investigation! Also, he’s been rubbing a lot of “confidence cream” on his arms. Maybe that’s helping.

OK, Confidence Man, then why are you teasing L with leads? Answer me that one, Smartypants McSmartGuy. To this, Raito’s like “go fuck yourself and let me handle this”. It’s his plan to draw out L so he can, and I quote, “hunt down and destroy him”. Better than hiding!

Raito starts schooling his deathrock scene friend on human behavior. You see, Ryuukukuku, my dear, human beings find it difficult to trust one another. That’s because there’s a lot of backstabbing and lying going on when it comes to such a delinquent species. Even among professionals. Even among authorities. Especially between the police and L. “There was hardly any trust in their relationship in the first place,” Raito states, considering himself an expert on the relationship I guess.

“Even if it looks like L and the authorities are cooperating to capture me on the surface, chances are that L is investigating them in private. And they, in turn, are investigating L.”

INTERESTING! THE SNAKE IS EATING ITSELF. So all Raito has to do is sit back, relax, eat some Cheetos, play hours of Superman 64, and wait for the police to discover L’s identity. After he’s outed, Raito will move in for the kill! As long as he can find his pen.

So, where does my confidence come from, you piece of shit? It comes from the undeniable fact that the police will figure out who L is before they figure out who Kira is! Now where are those Cheetos?

I’ve got a couple of letters for you as well, gentlemen: F and U.

Three men, who are each of identical heights and builds, stand up all at once (solidarity!) and ask to be reassigned. If the Director can’t find another assignment for them, then they all quit! You have exactly seven seconds to decide…

The Director is irate! Why are you quitting? This is the easiest job in the world! Wear a suit and sit in the room, that’s it! That’s all! Give me a reason!

“Why? Because we value our lives.”

Ah, ok. That’s a pretty good reason, actually. Per L’s extensive research, the killer has SCARY PSYCHIC POWERS that can kill anyone without even laying on a finger on them. Sounds like voodoo hoodoo, and we’re not on board with that. Isn’t there a serial killer running around who chops off little baby dicks? That seems more our speed.

“If I were Kira, I’d kill every man after me,” says Indistinguishable Detective #1.
“After all, if we caught him he’d be executed,” says Indistinguishable Detective #3.

I mean, it was weird enough the L was taunting this maniac into killing him, right? Easy for him, L’s identity is still a secret. However, all of us, employed by the government, easily searchable on government-agents-full-list-also-sex.com, so fuck that noise! “He could hit us at any time. So we request that we be moved to a new department, sir.”

“Sir” is still pissed off. This comes with the territory! This is dangerous work! Take one for the team! He doesn’t even say a word, they can see it all over his face. “Thank you for your consideration,” they say, and start walking away.

L, observing all this through his computer, makes the leap that Kira needs to know the target’s face in order to kill him. I certainly don’t think that sounds true at all! I have no idea why he thinks this! Sounds like a stupid thing to think!

“If you think about it, those guys might be right,” says another detective in the room. Salient points were made. “L is safe behind a computer somewhere,” says yet another detective, “while we’re putting ourselves in danger.”

A mass exodus is in the making here. I wonder if the Director is going to go home after work and start smacking around his family about this!

Speaking of the Director’s family, Raito spends about six pages explaining the Rube Goldberg device he has set up to hide the notebook.

I make all my hidden compartments out of walnut. None of that cedar or cottonwood shit.

In short, in a locked drawer he keeps a normal diary. If they find it, they’ll think they found something that was supposed to be hidden and stop right there. He’ll write things in there like “jerked off again” and “spent some time jerking off” so that his sister can giggle and laugh and not kill anyone by accident. The real notebook is here under a secret panel that is locked by a secret long key that Raito is keeping in a secret pen cartridge that is all hiding in plain sight!

We’re not done yet! Even if the secret compartment is noticed and infiltration is attempted, an electrical circuit is rigged to ignite a hidden bag of gasoline that will set the whole neighborhood on fire, destroying the notebook in the process! You just have to make sure you stick this piece of plastic right in this little spot so that the circuit isn’t completed while opening the compartment. There’s no way I won’t accidentally set this shit off in Chapter 71. Flawless planning! Now, to celebrate with a nice, tender jerkoff session…

Ryuuku is quivering with orgasmic delight. Again. “I’ve heard of humans who have held the notebook being worried over where they kept it. But you’re probably the first one to go this far, Raito.”

Of course, Captain Death God Obvious has to put on his captain hat and declare the obvious: Raito’s gonna get fucked up if he makes a mistake. It’s super dangerous! Hey, stop jerking off for one second and listen, man!

“Dangerous? That’s an odd thing to say, Ryuuku,” Raito gently tells the fucked up clown demon, looking quite hurt, “This whole business has been dangerous from the start. But that danger is what keeps me safe.”

Airtight logic here.

“Which would you prefer? The house being burnt down? Or being executed?” Raito posits smugly. Ryuuku grins. It’s all he can do.

We end with L calling a representative of the American FBI agency. They are to spy on the Japanese police, especially those working on the Kira case. L is now certain that one of the investigators is Kira himself. The FBI douchebag doesn’t want to, but L tells him that Kira has killed 327 criminals in America alone. More than any other nation.

Fine, he’ll do it.

Final Thoughts

Raito is going to start an international conflict with allied powers. He’s gonna blow up his house and all of his pornography. And he’s going to be sad. The end.