Ryuzaki's Chapter: Dying Wish

The middle chapter of the three-part prequel follows Ryuzaki, who operates under the inherited alias L, as a fresh wave of notebook killings pulls him back into action. Across the episode he juggles contact with Near, who relays the Japanese task force's plea for help, and J, a fellow Wammy's House member who feeds him leads. The story charts his shift from indifference toward the case, which he believes the original L already settled, to a firm vow to seize every Death Note in circulation.

Ryuzaki first cracks a locked-room death in Hong Kong, exposing it as a suicide that an assistant, Lester Klan, disguised as murder to spare his employer the shame of a dishonorable end. Soon after, J flags a disturbing online video in which a girl abruptly switches songs, blurts a strange line, and wanders off as though under another's control. Ryuzaki reads her words as an anagram declaring that someone else now holds a notebook, pinpoints the broadcast's location, and flies to Japan. Donning L's mask in case a notebook owner with the shinigami eyes might spot him, he breaks into the victim's apartment, finds Karin Kanatomo dead, and concludes a fan killed her over an insult to a band.

He baits a recent commenter, unaware she is Sakura Aoi, who toys with him and confesses while denying she is the real Kira. When an unseen figure reactivates the apartment's camera feed, Ryuzaki recognizes that this hidden party is also chasing the notebook owner, and he agrees to join the investigation. Updating Near, he confirms two separate notebooks in two hands; Near warns that a killer without ideology is the graver threat and that nations will scramble for such power. Ryuzaki resolves to gather them all, though he dismisses his own standing as merely L's backup. Refusing J's offer to serve as his Watari, he insists on working alone, determined to outlast the mentor whose dying wish he means to honor.

The chapter widens the new cast considerably, marking the first appearances of Ryuzaki, the Wammy's House operative J, and the indiscriminate killer Sakura Aoi, while threading in the shinigami Bepo who shadows her. It also deepens the lineage left by the original detective, framing Ryuzaki's bond with Near and his unresolved feelings about Mello as the emotional core that carries into the feature film.