Who else could have done it?

Prompts:

day 1: death's beloved / rose

day 2: watchful / eye deal

day 3: bone and dust / everlasting

day 4: fashion / break all the rules

day 5: pretty lies / inked

day 6: murderer / all the way alive

day 7: borrowed time / happy ending

Soichiro goes back to the HQ and relates this to them. Mogi and Soichiro have already decided to remain, they resigned, so there isn’t any actual reason to test them. Matsuda and Aizawa are the only ones who aren’t sure.

Still, L wants all of them to go back to the police force – they should, despite Mogi and Soichiro being unable to do so at this point – and says that he swears to return and bring them Kira’s head one day. There’s an emotional element in this statement, which shows up again, after Soichiro tells him that he should consider their feelings and the time spent on the case, so the decision should be theirs, and not because it’s not beneficial at the moment to work with civilians or that he doesn’t like the police.

L agrees and, to me, this shows that he does care about their personal feelings, at least about the case. He’s not indifferent, and he knows better than anyone that Aizawa is the one who may feel more strongly than the others about it, given that, when Ukita died, he had to stop him from getting killed.

Matsuda gets convinced by Soichiro. Aizawa offers to work in his free time on the Kira case, while still being a police officer, and L turns it down, because anyone who works with the police is the enemy (but still, if they were all to go back to the police, he will still reach out to them at the end of the case, because despite working with the enemy, he knows they will not turn their backs on him).

Aizawa insists that L knows that he won’t reveal anything to the force and that he would likely be seen as his spy, but L doesn’t budge: he can still work on his own time on the Kira case and share the information with Soichiro, but they won’t share anything they find with him. Aizawa acknowledges that is a lame question and says that he’s sorry for offering.

L then says that he has nothing against a detective risking his life to catch Kira, but it’s not a correct decision to lose one’s job and cause suffering to one’s family for the sake of it. Besides, dying while unemployed is stupid.

Was the test for everyone?

If it were a real test for the task force as a whole, it’s deeply flawed and badly applied. I’d say, pretty uncharacteristic for L.

First, because from the very beginning, Mogi and Soichiro can’t actually choose. They already left, but L still pushes them until their personal feelings are concerned. So, the “working with civilians being useless” argument is being invalidated immediately, because of what they feel about the case.

Second, L knows that Matsuda will fold easily, especially if Soichiro wants to continue working, but he also doesn’t even try to argue against him remaining. Matsuda brings up his employment as Misa’s manager, but that is a temporary position, so why didn’t L say that it’s not sure that he will be working as that for all the duration of the case? Feels like something he should’ve mentioned if the test was for everyone.

So, the situation now is:

Soichiro is already unemployed, and L has met most of his family, so he can picture them mourning his death and suffering a great deal, especially financially. Still a big loss, but his dedication is enough to let him to stay.

Mogi’s family is never brought up and he is already unemployed. Not a big loss, so he can stay.

Matsuda mentions his dad. That doesn’t seem important either – the fact that he has parents that will mourn him, because it’s more about the family someone has to take care of. In this case, even though it’s not L to bring it up but Matsuda himself, he’s also Misa’s manager. Not a big loss, so he can stay too.

There’s no reason to test them further, or even at all from the very beginning, if L’s two final core arguments are the one about losing the job and cause their family to suffer.

So, who was the test for?

Then, it leaves the possible hypothesis that it was meant only for Aizawa, because he is the one who has the most to lose.

From the moment L focuses on him, I must admit that his test loses me a bit, because his final blow is that: “dying while unemployed is stupid”. Mogi and Soichiro fall under that, but it is not brought up before, as maybe even the main argument against them staying. Only when Aizawa is the only one left.

(Even the “civilians” angle is a bit weak in my opinion, because he does work with Wendy and Aiber, but this obviously comes after and at this point in the story, we don’t know about them.)

L seems to start throwing everything he can at him just to provoke him into leaving, because saying those things before would’ve made much more sense from a logical standpoint, but it could’ve also changed the others’ mind. He just needed those to be directed to Aizawa.

What’s the point of the test, anyway?

The stated reason is L wanting to see if he would choose the task force or not, which makes no sense.

Aizawa has done that since the very beginning, even when the stakes were higher than this, e.g. when the Second Kira appeared. They knew nothing about them, and they have seen that one step outside and they could get killed. L had also to stop him. Talk about losing one’s job and causing one’s family to suffer when risking getting murdered by an unknown force that kills like that.

Aizawa even here tries to choose the task force every single time, giving as many solutions as possible to this situation, but L is unconvinced because first the police is the enemy, second because he shouldn’t lose his job and cause his family to suffer, and third dying while unemployed is stupid… But these are reasons to be unconvinced, not what he is unconvinced about. So, what’s that? Him not wanting to choose the task force? Not caring about the Kira case enough? His wife beats him up for that. 

“If”:

Aizawa has one last outburst about this situation, which is also the only time L turns to look at him.

But the thing is… Aizawa didn’t actually choose at this point what to do. There’s a “if I quit now”. Not “I quit. I go back to the force.”

He was leaving, of course, and leaning towards it, as he says after, but it’s not a final call and he’s impulsive. He might have changed his mind after a few days or hours and gone back to them.

But in my opinion L wouldn’t have accepted him at that point, even if he had decisively chosen the task force. He would still be unemployed, cause his family to suffer in case of death, plus L would surely say that, if he spent even a few hours and got in contact with the force (maybe it didn’t happen, but L can’t be sure it didn’t), he could now be their spy and cannot be trusted.

He only accepts him back when they "catch" the Yotsuba!Kira and have his murder weapon, so it’s a more controlled and seemingly predictable situation. Not as volatile as before.

I am also thinking… If Aizawa had left before Watari intervened and not gone back to them, would L have said it was a test to the other task force members? Would he have laughed it off like a villain and think, “yeah, exactly, leave, that’s all according to my plan”? What plan? L doesn’t do tests for the sake of it.

Proving their loyalty when, even during the most fucked up parts of the case, they were still standing by his side has no purpose.

Unless his plan is to lose a capable asset, which is stupid. The reason why he showed himself to them, why he risked so much, was to keep this relation going, because he needed as many people as possible, so he’s now willing to lose a hand for what? All of these hands at the beginning, for what? What's the logic behind this?

“Test” as a flimsy post-hoc excuse

So, based on his stated reason, the test is meaningless, because he already knows how much Aizawa is willing to risk, and “it was a test” feels just like an excuse in extremis to get him out of there, because how much Aizawa is willing to risk for the case.

That’s also why Aizawa is not even allowed the “emotional” choice: he would've chosen the case and that’s not the correct decision, because nothing will ever compare to a family.

(And the orphan L knows that too well.)

When Aizawa screams at him that he doesn’t like the way L works, L replies saying that “that’s a normal reaction”, meaning that he was expecting it. He is doing everything to make him leave.

So, yeah, I think L tried to get those who risked the most out of there – in this case, only Aizawa, because he was never actually given a chance to even try to choose.

L’s money

I have to add that it’s also weird that, while being in the biggest building ever, the task force have never questioned the possibility of L paying them, that he might have enough money to support them. Especially because Misa has her own floor, so I think it’s fair to assume that each one of them had (I don’t remember if this is stated in the manga).

I know it’s rude to assume that, but at least, they could’ve brought up the possibility of him employing just Aizawa, who will run other errands if needed to get that bread.

Finally, wouldn’t Watari know it’s a test?

Watari intervening like that because it was getting hard to watch means that he didn’t know it was a test, which I feel is deeply uncharacteristic of their bond. They have been working together for ages at this point and Watari should know better than anyone else when L acts in a way and why.

Here, it means that he didn’t realise it or couldn’t find the reason for such a “test” - probably because it wasn’t.