The Kira Task Force has bugged the Yotsuba conference room, and are listening to one of their meeting. The Yotsuba group are planning their next killings, providing more than enough evidence to arrest them all, but a disagreement is born between L — who wants to keep investigating until they have found Kira's identity — and the rest of the Task Force, who want to arrest Yotsuba there and then to stop the killings.
Light manages to work out a compromise. He calls one of the Yotsuba — Reiji Namikawa — under pretense of being L, tells him they're being investigated, and promises he won't be arrested if he manages to postpone the killings for a month. Namikawa agrees, after being reassured that this is the only thing he'll be asked (he'd risk his life working against his group), and convinces the rest of Yotsuba to give Eraldo Coil one more month to discover L's identity before they risk more killings. Light has successfully bought the Task Force one month's time to investigate before the next murder.
However, the incident has convinced L that his methods and his teammates' are too different, and they should work separately from now on, though the rest of the Task Force is welcome to keep using the headquarters. Afterwards, L talks Misa into helping the investigations by becoming a model for the Youtsuba — which emotionally blackmails Light into joining the L/Misa team instead of his father's like he intended.
Tropes used in this episode:
- Brutal Honesty: After the Secret Test of Character (see below), Light asks L if he really looks like the kind of person who could become Kira. L answers, very matter-of-factly, "Yes, you do". At which point the two start fighting and Matsuda has to split them.
- Legacy Character: Invoked, L proposes Light to become his successor. It's unclear if was really an option, though, since it was another of L's tests (see below).
- Secret Test of Character: L says he's impressed by how Light bought them a month, and proposes him to become the next L if he were to die. That's just another of L's tests — if Light were Kira and had transferred his powers to somebody else, he'd jump at the chance to become the next L, recover his powers and restart his project with vast resources at his disposal. However, Light figures out what L is thinking before he gives an answer.
- Refuge in Audacity: Light derails Youtsuba's plans by calling one of them on his mobile phone and talking to him while the others keep planning.
- Take a Third Option: Most of the Task Force want to arrest the Youtsuba as soon as possible; L wants to examine them until they found Kira's identity, since the few lives saved now would result in more deaths down the road. With a phone call, Light manages to postpone the deaths and buy another month for the investigations. This does not completely fix the split, however, since L concludes that he has too many fights with the rest of the task force, and they should work separately.
