The Vigilantes

The Collision

Darkness. Anticipation. Fear.

The hunger was growing stronger.

Perfect precision of dustless blades, gleaming in the dark. A single gloved finger runs from the tip of the glistening knife to the hilt and joins its companions in a firm grip on the handle. A perfect calmness washes over the dark figure; one that he rarely knows in his life; except in moments like these. A wave of satisfaction quenches the starvation of blood as the knife drops to the man's side and a smile plays at the corners of his mouth.

Dexter's eyes flick away from the knife to that of his victim. The man is lying still and quiet; yet alive.

The chest of the victim rises and falls in a steady pattern and the squirm of the internal jugular vein within the carotid sheath confirms life in the gloom.

A cold echo bounces off the plastic as Dexter approaches his victim. It had been weeks, perhaps even months since his last kill, but the dark passenger will get his feast.

For a moment he looks up at the carefully prepared photos of the 18 victims laid out lovingly on the walls of the kill room. All women, all with a single discolouration under their chin where the victim had finally snapped their hyoid bone allowing their tongue to fall back into their pharynx and starve their brain and body of oxygen. It didn't seem right to think of him as a victim now, but if not for Harry then what would have held Dexter from a similar path. At this he shudders and runs the heal of his hand not bearing the knife hard across his chest, down to his side. The thought that he could ever have been like his victim disgusts him.

"Odd," he muses, "a monster with standards. But is that really all I am?"

Finally the time has come as the man on his table slowly and groggily begins to open his eyes.

"Where am I?" The man mumbles in a confused, unsuspecting voice.

Dexter merely waits and watches as the effects of his drug wears off. The man on the table appears calm at first but that soon begins to change as fear and anxiety build. Eventually his eyes begin to flicker around the room in disbelief and the fear turns to pure terror.

He is yet to see Dexter's cold, merciless eyes watching him but he will soon. He will recognise him from the trial that got thrown out because partial prints and hair DNA evidence on multiple victims is for some reason considered inconclusive in Miami. He wont understand what the blood spatter analyst from the trial is doing there at first but Dexter will be sure to swiftly fill him in.

Finaly the certainty has mounted to an unimaginable level. Just as Dexter is about to open dialogue with his newest victim the confidence is shattered in one word: "Kira."

Now the confusion is Dexter's as his victim very certainly begins to scream "Kira".

"Help me, please, no, I'm done, how did he know, how did Kira find me, how did he know of me?" The man yells in an increasingly panicked tone.

Dexter frowns. Who the hell is Kira?

Either way it is not good practice to have the man screaming and drawing attention so in a swift movement he draws his knife down into the victims chest and notes a surprised look in the mans eyes as he looks into Dexter's firm gaze as the knife cuts through the left and right ventricles of his heart.

Now that was weird!


Confusion

Quickly and expertly Dexter cleans his tools and disperses the contents of the crime scene into 9 separate black bin liners. The whole time only one question on his mind: "who is Kira?"

The mention of a name frightens him slightly. Who is this other person ("or group" says a critical voice in the back of his mind).

He is not overly concerned at the prospect of being caught as this "Kira" intended harm to his victim anyway. Even so, he is thrown off.

This time he decides he needs to dispose of the body differently, although he doesn't fear harm from "Kira" his past experience has lead him to avoid picking up "friends."

He drives with the bags in the boot of his car to a lake in the middle of a deserted forest.

"Remember what happened the last time you left your victims in a place where their bodies could be found" mutters the critical voice again.

"Shut up!" Growls Dexter, "What other choice do I have?"

***

After returning back to his flat Dexter flicks on his laptop. Quickly he snaps up a search for the word "Kira". What he sees only raises more questions.

Multiple web pages, the majority - but by no means all - needing translated from Japanese. As he scrolls down he sees just how big this "Kira" is. A vigilante, as he is called online, who can kill his victims without being present and who has the infamous detective L on his back. This guy seems dangerous and unpredictable and that is by Dexter's standards.

"Are you sure you want to get involved with this?" Quizzes the voice in Dexter's head.

"No," he replies to himself.

"This man seems risky, perhaps volatile, he is different from you Dexter."

"I know, that's why I need to find out more."

"It isn't too late to ignore this yet."

"I need this though, this is different!"

With that the voice is silenced and Dexter faces his biggest challenge yet: finding Kira!


The Search


At the station Dexter uses the computer in his lab to search for any further clues to Kira's whereabouts. From what he manages to find on the "Kira fan pages" it is clear that, whatever or whoever Kira is, they are located in the Kanto region of Japan. It is also clear that they were spooking the Japanese police as the detective L had been called in. From the knowledge Dexter had on L he didn't seem like the sort of person to manipulate. He had a way of knowing things which was far more powerful than anyone else appeared to be capable of and had put away some of the biggest cases in recent history, including the bizzar "LosaAngeles BB Murder Cases." The man was a ledgend to be respected as although he had no need for killing he had a strong sense of justice; in a way he followed his own code.

He put some consideration into hacking for police files on the Kira case but L was as careful about detective work as Dexter was about his kills therefore the chances of finding anything helpful were low and the chances of getting caught were high.

Just as he opens up a search on the name Kira, Deb walks into his lab.

"Do you ever knock?" He says with an element of seriousness in his voice.

"You're my brother, why would I need to," she replies defiently back, "besides, you are going to fucking love this news!"

"What is it?"

"The FBI called and they're giving us back the Trinity case!"

"That's... um... good," Dexter says. Deb still thinks he should have unfinished business with Trinity, she had no way of knowing he sailed off down the gulf stream and was burried at sea by her own brother. "Why the sudden change of mind?"

A quick thought crosses his mind: perhaps they have somehow found Trinities body and traced it back to miami, but that was impossible, he was so careful.

"Something to do with the Kira case, I think they had a set back and now they are handing all the cases back to the local police departments," Deb says with a smile. She looks at Dexter expecting recognition.

He decided it's best to keep his private investigation into the Kira case to himself. After all it would be kind of awkward to explain the circumstances under which he found out about it.

"What's the Kira case?" He asks, faining innocents.

"You totally need to watch the news, we have another fucking vigalante on our hands!" Deb sounds excited. Dexter thought he would find her new taste for blood comforting; however, in reality it was anything but. "Some one in Japan has been picking of criminals all over the world one by one and he doesn't even need to be there, fucking ace."

"Sounds risky," Dexter says carefully. "Why haven't I seen any of his crime scenes."

"That the thing," says Deb in a curious voice, "there is no blood, all the victims died of heart attacks!"

This still didn't explain why his last victim thought Kira was trying to kill him. Not unless this was common knowledge, if it was then how had he not heard about it?

"That's not all," Deb says sounding increasingly more excited, "apparently the officer who helped L on the "LosAngelas BB Murder Cases" has comitted suicide and her fioncee was also a victim of Kira."

"She was engaged to a criminal?"

"No, this is where it gets interesting, fucking FBI agent, no priors, and he wasn't the only one."

***

This is bad, whatever Kira is they aren't afraid of hurting the innocent.

"They fit the code Dexter," the voice in his head chippes in.

"You told me to kill innocents if they got in my way!"

"But you didn't, and I'm proud of you for that, this person is a monster Dexter."

He is really unsure of what to do now. This Kira can kill with only a name and a face and he can't even tell if he agrees with what they are doing or not. He needs to find out more information but what way is there of doing it without someone knowing what he is up to?


Excuses

Dexter spends days trying to find any more evidence on Kira but whoever is involved is good and they aren't letting many clues slip. They must be since they have real life Sherlock Holms on their tail, but how are they killing without needing to be present? Everyone knows that the only way to avoid being caught by L is to be actually innocent; how is this Kira keeping up appearences?

He is running out of time. He only has another month before Aster, Cody and Harrison are back with him for the summer and he can't see himself catching Kira before that; especially not before L does. Then finally something clicks, they will go on holiday to Japan, the Kanto region to be precise.

***

Convincing the police department to take holidays will be one thing but how to pursuade Aster and Cody to go with him to Japan? Without them he will have no alliby and they will have no where to stay.

"I thought you said you would never use your children like this Dexter," the critical voice nags. He dismisses it and continues trying to think of a way to pursuade his kids to go to Japan.

Last time he tried to pursuade Aster and Cody to take up an activity it failed misribly, and Aster is older now, she is almost 14 and is very defient on not being pushed around, even though she has warmed to Dexter over the recent year. Harrison is easy, why do children need to grow up?

Eventually he decides to find a Bleach convention, that should do no?

***

Dexter enthusiastically explains his idea to Aster and Cody of going to Kanto in Japan and to go to some anamie conventions while they are there.

"That is so cool," says Cody, a big grin spreading across his face.
"Urg, anime, yuck," says Aster.

His master plan may need some work.

***

Begrudgingly in the end Dexter allows Aster and Cody to stay with their grandparents again. Since when did kids become so inconvenient.


Japan