

When L captures Misa and Light puts himself in prison and gives up the death
note, L and the task force suspect that both of them have 'Kira powers'.
Murders stop, which makes them believe Misa and Light were the only ones with
Kira powers.

When murders return there could be three reasons:

  * Light and/or Misa were not Kira
  * Powers were transfered
  * There are more than 2 kiras.

However, they don't consider the third option.

I can see there's a leap between thinking of a single Kira and multiple Kiras.
However, given they were already working with the hypothesis of 2 Kiras, why
not consider the option of a 3rd Kira (without any power transfer)? This
wouldn't discard Light and Misa of still having powers and thus keeping them
in custody.


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question
death-note
Why not consider possibility of 3rd Kira when Misa and Light in prison?


While it was never explicitly stated (to my knowledge) why they discounted the
possibility of a 3rd Kira, I can come up with some educated guesses.

First, there was no evidence of a 3rd person acting as Kira while the first
two were active.

Remember that the investigation started by looking into a single Kira. The
second Kira was discovered when Misa sent the video broadcasts as a way to
contact the first Kira. It was also further cemented that the second Kira was
different from the first in the way they acted. The second acted more
recklessly (with less well thought out and deliberate actions), killed people
that the original Kira would not have and was also shown to be able to kill
without a name. The only way they found out there was a second Kira is because
the evidence showed there were two people independently acting as Kira at the
same time.

The "3rd Kira" (Higuchi) acted in the same way as the first Kira. This was
intentional. Light wanted to use this to alleviate suspicion that he was Kira.
By having Higuchi act the same way, there was no reason to believe that he
wasn't the original Kira. Meaning that when Higuchi was caught, Light should
be (theoretically) cleared.

Second, L already had a plethora of evidence that implicated Light as Kira. As
far as L was concerned, Light was Kira. He just needed a few more details (how
Light was killing people, for instance) before he could arrest Light.

Then Light comes up with the prison scheme. L is immediately suspicious. Light
was trying hard, almost too hard, to prove his innocence. And L obviously
couldn't take any evidence Light offered at face value. So even while Light
was in prison, L was working on the assumption that Light was Kira. And when
Light's personality underwent a drastic change when he gave up the notebook,
it threw a wrench in L's theory. Light when from a calm denial of being Kira
to having a fanatical, emotional denial. This evidence contradicted the Light-
is-Kira theory.

L is now stuck between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, everything
points to Light being Kira. On the other, Light's behavior along with the
continued killings seemed to exonerate Light. And since the behavior change
coincided nicely with the killings resuming, the idea of the power transfer
was born. And given that theory, why investigate a 3rd Kira that may not exist
(and of which there was little if any evidence of)?

Third, let's play devil's advocate and assume L considered that there was a
third Kira. How did this person get in contact with the first two Kiras? As
far as the task force knew, there would be no special way for one Kira to find
another (as evidenced by the second Kira needing to send the broadcasts to
locate the original). Also, how did they communicate and coordinate with Light
and Misa? Light and Misa had been under surveillance for quite a while. Surely
something would have come up that would have raised a few eyebrows, especially
given the nature of Misa's messages when trying to find Light? Additionally,
if there was a third Kira, why did he show up now? Why would he just resume
what Kira was doing without making any changes? (Remember that the connection
between Kira (Higuchi) and the Yotsuba group hadn't been discovered yet.)
Every person is different (especially in their values, thinking and
reasoning), so there should be at least some subtle differences between two
Kiras. And none of that showed up (yet).

Given all of this, there was no reason to assume a third Kira existed.
Investigating every anomaly by assuming it was a separate person would have
led L on a hundred wild goose chases. L was the best detective in the world.
His experience and knowledge would tell him that something else was going on.
Given that he knew Light and how smart Light was, he could very easily presume
that every inconsistency could be Light's doing. And until proven otherwise,
that's what L did. You don't throw out everything you know to be true because
the accused offers an (unverified) piece of evidence of their innocence. And
given the mystic powers of Kira, anything was possible, and equally difficult
to verify as being impossible.


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