Death Note, Vol. 2, Chapter 10 – “Confluence”

* Part 2 of 9 of Vol. 2 – “Confluence” *

Welcome to Manga Cum Loudly Presents: Death Note, Vol. 2, Chapter 10: “Confluence”! In the previous installment, Raito’s dad spills the beans about his involvement with the dangerous Kira, and that’s probably gonna be some foreshadowing with respect to his eventual, untimely, gruesome death!

The rest of the pages are filled with Raito’s scheme to milk Raye Penber with all the information that he needs to kill an entire group of American FBI agents. One of them was named Knick Staek. I immediately went downtown and changed my name to this and I’m drowning in an unprecedented amount of pussy as we speak.

So with the entire FBI squad out of the picture, Raito is certainly safe now, right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right?

Right-O! Tee hee.

Death Note, Vol. 2, Ch. 10
Written by: Tsugumi Ohba
Illustrated by: Takeshi Obata
“Confluence”

Look at the sultry lady on the cover, complete with a kickass leather jacket and a can-do attitude! “For love…she treads on.” Could this be Raye Penber’s fiancée, out for revenge? Wearing her revenge jacket? Keep in treadin’, ma’am. Keep on treadin’.

A woman speaks to a bus driver outside the front of a bus. She shows the bus driver the photo of the young couple. “Yeah, that’s him,” the bus driver confirms…sorta, “The other passengers… I really don’t remember. I’m not positive, but it’s probably him.”

Awesome testimony sir! I can jot these notes down and wipe my butthole with it, as it will be put to better use.

“He boarded alone and yelled ‘Get down!’” he claims. Yeah, get down with your bad self. The bus driver then, honestly, tells the woman that he has no fucking idea who anyone was and what anyone did. He was too busy peeing his pants to take a look at anything. He wouldn’t even know any of them if he saw any of them. Does that help?

Great. Thanks. The woman walks away. “If I’m right, Kira was one of those passengers. And if that’s the case, that may mean that on this bus route…”

Revenge it is! A dish best served cold, they say. Penber’s unnamed fiancée is doing her own little snoopy investigation. Why doesn’t this woman have a name? Gotta be kidding me here.

While Unnamed Woman is on her mission, Raito reads a newspaper at his kitchen table. He’s probably enjoying the latest Garfield strip! That crazy cat! He loves the lasagna! “Raito, Sayu, help me with the winter cleaning,” his mom says while vacuuming.

I’m sorry, the “winter cleaning”, Mother? While Jon Arbuckle is falling down on the treadmill? Go entirely fuck yourself with your less-important business.

Oh no, not Kouhaku! You can’t go up against Kouhaku! That would be Kou-razy!

It must be New Year’s Eve, because that’s when Kouhaku airs. I looked it up and it sounds like Japanese Idol, only it happens for a few hours before midnight and the winner gets to *squints* be launched into the sun with a very expensive rocket. And other stations are trying to compete with it? Utter nonsense!

Sayu wants to watch the Sun-Launching Japanese Idol Super Show. Raito tells him to tape the Kira broadcast for him. Dad’s not home because the Kira business is making him work all night at the office. Boning secretaries and eating pizza and watching singers burn up in the glowing orb in the sky

Here he is now! “We may be killed by Kira,” he says to his men. Why is this moron doing actual work right now? “The fact that members of the FBI were killed means that he will murder anyone who opposes him, in addition to criminals.”

Yeah, we know. It’s been like nine weeks of this. We know already. What are you even getting paid for?

Mr. Director Raito’s Dad allows anyone who doesn’t want to work on the case anymore to get reassigned. No penalties. No demotions. If you have family and friends BUT you’d rather be dead, stick around! I don’t blame ya.

My meeting will be about firing everyone who doesn’t want to work on the case! Ha ha ha! That’s called power!

Director Yagami walks silently, alone, to his meeting. Something is fishy here. It smells like fish and I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all. And I like fish. That’s how fishy this is.

Ok, it’s not fishy. It’s just a regular meeting. He returns to his “Get Reassigned if You Want To” room and there are only five people left. Blinky, Pinky, Inky, Clyde, and… Jonesy.

“Only five men,” Director Yagami furrows his brow meanly, “…no, five men who are willing to put their lives on the line to confront evil.”

Yeah, whatever man. This shit’s in the bag. I ain’t afraid of no psycho killer who can kill anyone automatically without even being there! Let’s get to work. Who wants some Hungry Man dinners? I’m buyin’!

“Including me, that makes six,” Yagami says, making it about him all of a sudden. But how are they going to do anything with only six people? How are the going to fudge all the paperwork? That’s an eight-man job!

Some smiley guy chimes in. “Director, if you include L and Watari, that makes eight.”

GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE! WHO SAID YOU CAN TALK?! OUT OUT OUT OUT OUT OUT OUT OUT OUT!!!

But yeah, you’re right.

“Hold on a minute,” pipes in Frowny Guy; he looks like Tony Shaloub, “L says that he trusts us, but we don’t trust him!”

Yeah, who’s this “we” business? Oh, the whole room. I mean, they’re all on board with trying to catch Kira. They’re all on board with doing what it takes to get him. They’re all on board with the grim fact that they might DIE in this pursuit. But where do they draw the line? L ordering them around without even showing his face!

And hey, I don’t know if L noticed, but there’s blood of 12 FBI agents on his hands. Not a good track record in the *checks watch* six days since this investigation began! He’s a real slut.

Director Yagami thinks his irate, incel men have a fair point. After all, L was the one who ordered the FBI here in the first place. Only he, around these parts, would’ve known who they were before they snuffed in Death Note-style! Ergo, L is a person of interest (implying that he’s at all interesting, which I do not condone).

Moe, Larry, and Curly are starting to finally wise up a little bit.

Yagami gives L an ultimatum: get the fuck out of your mother’s basement and come help them in person, or take your Doritos and Mountain Dew elsewhere! There will be no trust long distance like this. Those relationships never work!

Time for L to play his hand. He has many hands. He’s going to play one now. Here it goes! Watari, turn the laptop around. No, that’s too far. Look, man, who taught you how to spin a laptop? Does L have to go there and do it himself? Jesus.

Instead of talking, L pulls up his AOL Instant Messenger window and chats with the room: “what happens from now on must be kept between the eight of us.”

OOOOOOOOHHH, SECRETS! No one can resist a good secret! Let’s have it! Spill! The detectives in the room are simply rapt with glistening attention! Even Director Yagami is agape with anticipation, conjuring up a thought balloon with a large “?” in it.

L types out a whole novel for them to read. It boils down to this: fuck you all, I’m not showing any of you my ravishing mug unless you earn it. Keep your family and friends out of our business forever. That also means the rest of your doughnut-eating colleagues. If you can’t handle that shit, then leave. For the rest of you, let’s move on.

Later, the Stupendous Six hold their own meeting in the hallway. “I’d rather forget partnering with L and just continue the investigation independently,” says one. “Given the way he works, we may end up meeting a double instead of the real L.”

Yeah, because the real L is a goddamned 14-year-old. He’s communicating to you all through his Xbox Series X.

Because he’s in over his head on this one. A goddamned 17-year-old is besting a goddamned 14-year-old! Why are you all so dumb about this?

One dissenter believes that L is vital to their investigation. L should be involved at all costs, even if he’s on a couch jerkin’ it to episodes of Sailor Moon instead of paying attention to the lives of FBI agents, let alone pissant Japanese police detectives.

Yagami thinks and paces and hems and haws. “L has said since the start that he needs our assistance for the case,” he ponders. In fact, you might say that he orchestrated this whole situation! Just the eight of us and our little love-in, singing Kumbaya and eating S’mores. All the naysayers defected. One by one, they left. Now the TRUE BELIEVERS are left! The Chosen! The cool kids!

They all shuffle silent in either shame or boredom.

“In any case, if we’re going to work with L then I’m gone,” says one nameless loser. He walks away. Gone. And then there were seven. Sort of. Counting Watari and L. “But don’t worry. I’m not going to follow you guys or try to figure out L’s true identity,” he adds, exposing a little too much of his own hand. He’s got trip sevens. Not a very good hand at all.

The rest of the loyal team does an about-face and returns to the laptop full of juicy secret messages. It reads, missed capitalization and all, “Right now i’m in a room at the Teito hotel.”

Ooooh, sexy!

“I’ll be moving from hotel to hotel every few days.”

Ooooh, sneaky!

“From now on, the police building is only a headquarters in name.”

Ooooh, uncompromising!

“Instead, the true headquarters will be my hotel room.”

Ooooh, sexy!

It’s orgy time, gentlemen. Pack a lunch.

Here’s the final set of instructions: split into two groups and meet by midnight, before the dang ball drops. Get the room number from Watari. Precautions must be taken so that Kira doesn’t see L’s ugly, pimply face. So they mustn’t be all together at the same time. You dig?

L, meanwhile, stares wistfully out his hotel room window. Nice view. Must be a penthouse suite. Stole money out of dad’s wallet again.

“Kira… for now we’ll just say we’re getting closer to each other,” L says to no one in particular. The window, I suppose. “Only now I have a clue about you given to me by the noble lives of the twelve FBI agents you sacrificed. Fine. For the first time I will reveal myself as L.”

Yeah, ok, for the first time you’ll reveal yourself as L. Sure. You should probably check as far back as Chapter 2, nerd.

L knows Kira can’t kill him if he doesn’t know his name. He says it out loud again. We’ve been through this 100 million fucking times already. No wonder this series is 108 chapters, it’s overflowing with clutter. You could trim this down to four chapters and still be annoyed by its repetitiveness.

And, of course, L can’t convict Kira if there’s no shred of physical evidence to prove anything. An impasse!

In the Yagami household, Ryuuku is watching the Kira news reports on a really tiny TV. The TV is making sounds like “CHEER” and “ROAR” so that you know the Kira news reports are a real ruckus.

Ridiculous. This “humans are interesting” opinion is the least believable part of this whole notebook-kills-people story!

Raito thinks about inanities such as “why am I thinking of myself as a suspect these days?” and “how do I corner L into a corner?” and “what should I do next?” It’s like, do your homework you little delinquent.

“This is where the real fight begins,” he says ominously in a shadow. Oh good, I’m looking forward to a real fight. Raito will snap like a twig.

Two detectives, including Yagami, enter L’s hotel and make their way to his hotel room (where I imagine petals are being strewn about the bed as we speak). They rap on the door.

“L is on the other side of this door,” Yagami thinks, in case you forgot the path of the plot from three pages ago.

“I’ve been expecting you. Please come in,” L says, in case you forgot the path of the plot from three pages ago.

“AT LAST, THE FACE OF L!?”