Confrontation

Light continues feeding criminals' names into the notebook as newscasts supply their faces, telling Ryuk he must ration the work around his studies and well-being. When his sister Sayu knocks for help with homework, he hides the notebook and warns himself of Ryuk's late revelation that anyone touching it would see the death god. He keeps his composure and assists her. To guard the notebook permanently, Light rigs a desk drawer with a decoy diary above a false bottom that will torch the pages if forced open wrong, preferring a house fire to discovery and a death sentence.

The international police body convenes over fifty-two criminals dead of heart failure, and despite objections that the victims were already doomed, the gathering resolves to summon their unmatched asset once more. A young officer's question about the name draws an explanation that this figure's identity stays hidden yet solves every case handed over. Watari, the sole conduit, opens a laptop bearing a giant letter and a scrambled voice that asks for full cooperation, naming Japan as the likely home of the killer. Meanwhile the public christens the unseen executioner Kira, and a flood of admiring websites shows how many embrace him.

A worldwide bulletin interrupts programming as a suited man calling himself Lind L. Tailor poses as L and denounces the murders as evil. Goaded, Light writes the name, and forty seconds later the man collapses. The real L then taunts his quarry, revealing the feed reached only the Kanto region, which narrows the hunt and pins down the first victim. Both sides vow to expose the other, each certain he embodies justice. The episode introduces L, Watari, Soichiro, and much of the Task Force. As trivia, the Interpol nameplates bear the names of real soccer players who were active when it aired. It first ran in Japan on October 10, 2006, and in English on October 28, 2007.