Welcome to Manga Cum Loudly Presents: Death Note, Vol. 2, Chapter 9: “Slots”! In the previous installment, Raito foils L super hard this time. He kills a bunch of FBI agents, which freaks out the FBI boss, which causes the FBI boss to pull out of the Kira investigation completely, which causes the Japanese police to start distrusting L, which causes L to start losing his cool a little bit.

Raito kills Raye Penber. We all had a good laugh there.

Death Note, Vol. 2, Ch. 9
Written by: Tsugumi Ohba
Illustrated by: Takeshi Obata
“Slots”

L’s standing at his balcony mourning the death of some guy he worked with. Maybe because it was definitely his fault! He didn’t just die, though. He was murdered! Like, killed by a kid with a piece of paper and a pen! How do you like them apples?

“Each of the twelve investigators had documents with their names and faces on them. If Kira can control the victims’ last actions, then he must have known…” L ruminates.

Ok, sidebar time. Are manga fans so dense that they need their characters to constantly speak about events that have already happened? Is this really the only way to show that L is understanding more and more about what’s going on? By condescending toward their dense audience of hyperactive pre-teen girls who like to go ^_^

End sidebar. L keeps fucking talking and I’m bored reading about it over and over again. Kira manipulated his way into getting information and used it to kill a whole bunch of FBI agents. Sounds like a federal crime! Good thing he’ll never go to the United States where he’d be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law! (a cop killing him with a knee on his neck)

“The important thing isn’t what order they died in, but the order in which they received the file…” A lightbulb goes off in L’s head. This doesn’t sound like an important thing to me at all. It sounds like another red herring that will lead to 400 more people dying by tomorrow while Raito eats a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch and jerks off to some of his mom’s Nordstrom catalogs.

Did everyone get their family-meeting cups of eggnog? Good, good.

Speaking of Raito, at the Yagami household the family all sit at their dining room table. Ryuuku is not part of the family, but he stands behind Raito with a hungry, elated look on his clowny face.

“Why are we having a family meeting?” Raito’s sister, Sayu, asks happily, leaning over the table with her hands on her chin, “There’s only three days before the New Year.”

Ah, certainly, family meetings are rare right before the New Year! Everyone knows that. What a weird family doing it now. “I don’t want to tell you this, but you’d find out sooner or later anyways,” their father explains, speaking like a ten-year-old, “I am currently the head of the Kira case.”

Sayu thinks that’s pretty gnarly. Mr. Yagami tells her to cork it; this is serious business! Serious police-like business! Twelve people DIED yesterday. FBI guys! A serious criminal offense…as far as he’s aware. *shrug*

Raito smirks. He looks like he badly wants to take credit. “It seems that anyone who chases Kira will lose their lives,” the Yagami patriarch continues, aware that his family isn’t really letting the point sink in. Detectives who answer to him are resigning left and right. Seems they don’t want to die, for whatever reason. It’s odd. BUT, Mr. Yagami realizes that these guys have a point. Nobody wants to die at their job! At least not by accident.

Sayu panics and tells her dad to quit too. She doesn’t want him to die! Mrs. Yagami agrees with her daughter and urges her husband to resign immediately. Raito’s kind of indifferent about it.

And if anyone tries to make me step away from crime, I will face God and walk backwards into Hell.

“No, I’ll never give up,” he says, humorlessly sipping his cup of super-thick eggy eggy eggnog, “I will not back away from crime.” How very noble of you, moron. Raito doesn’t even love you. Remember when Raito was five years old and he stole a cookie from the jar before dinner? Mr. Yagami caned him until he was permanently paralyzed from the buttocks down! You don’t forget a thing like that!

“If anything happens to you, I will personally put an end to Kira,” Raito tells his father as he starts slinking out of the dining room. Pops eyeballs him with suspicion. Raito really isn’t very smart.

“Nice acting, Raito,” Ryuuku lies as they both head up the stairs. He also makes a point to let his human buddy know how impressed he is that he slaughtered twelve FBI agents with a stroke of a pen. That takes finesse! Raito doesn’t seem too big on celebrating right now, possibly because he knows that he’ll need to kill his own father in about fifteen chapters.

Let’s take our minds off of that unpleasantness for the time being, as much as I personally relish the thought of Raito writing “MR. YAGAMI – EATS HIS BOOGERS TO DEATH” in his notebook. He and Ryuuku mosey over the underground mall where they do some people-watching.

“Let me show you the results of the experiments I’ve done in the past six days,” Raito says, eyes looking shifty, head buried under a stupid winter hat. “Experiments?” Ryuuku says deliciously, like the word was so much lovely honey, his eyeballs pointed in two different directions sort of. Yes, experiments! Raito found new ways to kill people! Let’s watch:

“First I wrote the date, time, and cause of death…” explains our “hero”, “…the results are the same even if I write the name last.”

“Oh…interesting…” responds Ryuuku like he hasn’t been using the Death Note himself for the last 700 billion years already. Also, this is objectively NOT interesting.

Raito sees his mark. It’s Raye Penber, back from the grave! OR, I’m stumbling upon some non-linear storytelling. MORE LIKELY he’s a zombie.

Keep an eye on the guy the with bright, blinding halo around his head. You might miss him if you look away.

Time for action. Check this shit out, you dumbass death god: Raito pulls his hoodie over his head and approaches Penber from behind. “I am Kira,” he mumbles, probably in the exact same voice he had used to talk to Penber on the bus, “if you turn around or put your hands in your pockets, I will kill you on the spot.”

Penber goes BBBRT!! HRRRNTT!! and immediately recognizes the voice…but FROM WHENCE? From whence indeed…

Raito is going to prove he’s Kira by murdering someone twenty feet away just by looking at him. Penber urges him to reconsider doing a murder, but Raito goes NO! I’LL KILL ONE TRILLION PEOPLE TO PROVE MYSELF! WATCH: *smite*

Don’t worry, dearest Penby, the man in question has committed a real smorgasbord of rapes over the last 40 years! Kira’s just ridding the world of serial rapists, among other unseemly individuals…like FBI agents, perhaps? Hee hee hee. Who’s to say they’re not rapists as well?? I’ve seen Fox Mulder in Californication; that guy couldn’t keep it in his pants to save his life. Especially the rape victims! Where was I?

Anyway, let’s cut to the chase, Penber. If that IS your real, awful, wiener name. Your fiancée? Kira’s gonna kill the shit out of her if you don’t cooperate, you dig? Her, you, your family, your dog, everybody. Your high school bully, your other FBI friends, your FBI bullies, and Agent Skinner! Don’t test him.

Raito asks Penber if he has a file on his laptop with a list of all the FBI agents in Japan. Penber is like HELL NO THAT’S REALLY STUPID. So Raito passes him an envelope and tells him to take out the transmitter and earphones and put ‘em on.

Is your refrigerator running?…

SO, Penber’s gonna get an earful of this 17-year-old child’s directions or he’s going to write RAYE PENBER DIES FROM A DIARRHEA VOMIT and that will be that. Raito tells him to get on the train and sit near a window. Look at the clouds for a bit. Relax. Also do what he says or else! But relax… but he had better listen or it’s diarrhea mouth! But take a load off…

The questioning commences! Cue the trumpets! How many FBI agents are there? Twelve! DING! So call one that you outrank and tell him you need all the names and faces of all the FBI agents traipsing around Japan. Just be like “yo, I have a stupid request for you that sounds extremely suspicious,” but better than that. Be imaginative!

So it happens. Penber is instructed to write all the names on a type of hanging chad piece of paper from the envelope. He complies and writes down some kickass names like “Freddi Guntair” and “Arire Weekwood” and “Lian Zapack”. Some real salt of the earth, heartland of America type people! Real Pluggers.

All done writing these names? Good. Stick it up your ass! Ha! Gross! Just kidding. Wait 30 minutes and then put it on the luggage rack above you. Then wait until the coast is clear. Then get the hell off the train.

THE CLIMAX! THE TWIST! OHHH, THE HUMANITY! Penber disembarks and immediately clutches his chest. Collapsing on the platform, sweating like John Belushi after an evening of speedballs, the last person he sees before the train doors close is that snot-nosed dweeb from the hijacked bus! Good god, man! ARRRRGGHH! FOILED! You little scamp! You’re gonna get such a noogie!

I am SO gonna beat the shit out of you when you get down to Hell.

With his packet of juicy, juicy information secured, Raito runs home and cracks open that bad boy at his bedroom desk. Tee hee, time to get out the murder book! The penis mightier than the sword, my friends.

Other fantastic American FBI names are as follows: Halley Bell, Knick Staek, Bess Seklett, and Frigde Copen. Simply beautiful.

Anyway, they’re all dead. Final Thoughts time.

Final Thoughts

Here’s a final thought for you. I’m going downtown tomorrow and legally changing my name to Knick Staek.