Night 74: Records Archive (Third Floor)

[freewill]

[From here.]

After having it built up so much, the Records Archive turned out to be a rather unassuming room.

It looked much like a number of the other rooms scattered throughout the institute. There were computer consoles all along the walls, interspersed with bookshelves that held countless different volumes -- journals, notebooks, and files, all looking to have been organized and cataloged in a very methodical way. There was a table in the center of the room surrounded by chairs; atop it were a few open journals, along with one large binder. Was this what Landel was referring to whenever he mentioned paperwork?

Castiel used his flashlight to take in the whole room, noting that there was yet another teleportation pad in the corner, but it was abandoned save for them. Maybe Landel hadn't expected them to get this far...

Other than the computers, though, this was the sort of thing that Castiel was comfortable with. This was research.

He turned back toward the others. "It looks like we have plenty of work to do."

Comments

[fourstonewalls]

"Ah, Earth. And Earth, as far as I'm aware, but if it's the same one we don't know anyone in common."

The amount she didn't know about Ryuuzaki was huge -- he could know her, and have said nothing. She doubted it, but it was less improbable than half the cases that came through her office, and she'd misjudged people before. "I'm Lana, the Chief Prosecutor of the Los Angeles Central District, and all the people I've known from home were at least tangentially related to the legal system there." She paused, thinking over what else differed from home to here. "It was December 12th, 2016 when I was last there, and channeling the spirits of the dead is something that, while I've never seen it demonstrated, I have reason to believe is possible."

Spirit channeling went against all of her rational views on reality, and she'd watched Ema tie herself in knots trying to explain it as a psychological phenomenon, but Mia had been adamant, and she'd been right about almost every other cause she'd championed, from her first case to the dogged pursuit of justice that had killed her. After all, that spirits were people and people could lie was just as simple an explanation as that everyone who'd ever consulted a spirit medium had been hornswoggled. Either way, it wasn't something she'd seen mentioned here, which made it a possible identifier.

"And if you'll excuse us, I think we'll be seeing where that transport device leads." She stepped towards it, though not onto it, waiting to see what answer Ryuuzaki had for his world.

[ryuuzaki]

The left side of L's lower lip disappeared between his teeth as Lana answered Castiel's question.

It was a reasonable and useful question, and one which he would have greatly preferred to research on his own--information he didn't want to give away. On the other hand, while he didn't exactly know them well on a personal level, he had no reason beyond the usual ones to suspect that any of the four people involved would wish him any harm.

Delaying the subject with a refusal to answer wouldn't be a good idea. Defeating Landel must be possible, but he wondered what would come of the Institute itself if were to happen. What if this archive was destroyed between now and whenever he was able to find his world's designation on his own? If the information became necessary to put him back where he belonged, and it went missing, he might never be able to go home.

As he considered the problem, he pressed two upper incisors and their neighboring canine against the surface of his lower lip and listened to what Lana had to say about where she'd come from.

Spirit channelling...? He made a mental note to ask her about it. It sounded ridiculous, but not really any more ridiculous than anything that had turned up in the Kira case, nor as absurd as the things that had happened to them during their current confinement, the impossible encounters and the harrowing near-misses.

He'd take the risk of giving Castiel the requested information. He kept his voice low when he spoke.

"Yes, it's also Earth, but I doubt it's the same." A sidelong, questioning glance at Lana before he continued. "Look for mention of the Kira case... everyone I know of who has been here has been related to it in some way. Light Yagami, Misa Amane, a few others. Yagami was most likely the killer, Amane was his accomplice... the detective on the case went by L. Shinigami existed, but if they're mentioned at all, it might be as 'death gods,' or words to that effect." And if you can find the world with this information, and names are listed at all, then my full name is almost certainly listed there. The staff has always known exactly who I am. He hated this, that they had been able to easily learn something that he had spent years taking every pain to conceal.

There was no need to mention Wammy's House, or Near and Mello's real names, but--

He hesitated before continuing, and the volume of his voice dropped even lower, so that it was very unlikely that anyone other than Castiel or Lana could make out his words. "It's very important that any names listed in the files other than Yagami's and Amane's are kept private. They needed the names to kill anyone--their murder method required it. Most of the other people who have been brought here were involved in investigating the case at one point or another, and Yagami killed at least two of them. There won't be any chance of changing that if he appears in the future and manages to get that information earlier than he otherwise would have."

He left out the fact that, if what he had been told was true, he was one of the two... it hadn't happened to him yet, and none of the others needed to know about his failure. There shouldn't be any mention of Ryuuzaki in the files at all, nothing that would tell anyone which of the people involved in the case he had been. But he supposed that some of them could probably guess.

His manner shifted. He withdrew from the discussion to end it.

"Keep your eyes open. If anyone is behind us, they'll be passing through this way unless they've been sent on a different route. But they may not be the only ones to come through that door. Good luck."

With that, he looked at Lana, and they stepped onto the pad together.

[To here.]

[freewill]

Of all the people to ask about this, Castiel had been handed a good pair. The issue of Earth was a complex one here, because there seemed to be countless different versions. For that reason their explanations took some time, rather than simply handing over a name like "Sylvarant," which likely didn't have a duplicate.

But these two were detail-oriented, which was hardly surprising considering one was an attorney and the other was somehow involved in a murder case. In a way, the two could even be related, although both Ryuuzaki and the woman insisted that they were probably different Earths.

Interestingly enough, both of them also mentioned some aspect that was supernatural. It was hardly the same as there being vampires, ghosts, and werewolves making in trouble in every other small town, but even so...

Spirit channeling and death gods. It was all simple enough to remember, and so Castiel nodded, a silent return of Ryuuzaki's "good luck."

They were more interested in moving on, presumably because they had some other goal, and so Castiel chose not to keep them. "We'll give you the information when we have it, and I don't think we have any plans to widely release details about each world." All they were concerned with at this point was the coordinates.

As soon as the pair stepped onto the pad and vanished, Castiel moved back to Lloyd and Kratos.

[To here.]