Assault

As the Japanese Task Force puzzles over Naomi Misora's vanishing, Watari breaks in with word that a recording attributed to Kira is airing on Sakura TV. Switching on the set, the investigators hear a distorted voice promise that a scandal-tainted anchor will drop dead the instant the words are spoken, and the prediction comes true on screen. Further broadcasters fall as the tape plays, with the voice framing the spectacle as proof of its power and a bid for public favor. L insists the transmission be cut, yet no method presents itself.

Hirokazu Ukita races to the station and is felled outside its locked doors the moment he draws his weapon, and two responding officers meet the same end. L orders the others to hold back rather than throw their lives away. From his hospital bed, Soichiro watches the crisis unfold, then slips out, commandeers an ambulance, and rams it through the entrance. At gunpoint he compels the staff to halt the feed, ending the carnage. L deduces that Ukita's killer must have seen him, able to strike without ever learning a name, and a pair of binoculars rests on a windowside table in an empty room. Light, innocent of these murders, grasps that this rival possesses the Shinigami Eyes and commits to joining the Task Force, both to hunt the newcomer and to draw nearer to L.

The culprit is unveiled as Misa Amane, a young woman infatuated with the original Kira who staged the broadcast purely to win his attention. Her Shinigami, Rem, cautions against reckless use of the notebook, but Misa feels untouchable thanks to her eyes. The episode clarifies two rules: any substance capable of leaving legible marks, including cosmetics or blood, can serve as the writing instrument, and even the death gods who first owned the notebooks understand little about them. A continuity quirk gives Soichiro's hair gray streaks once he rejoins the team. It premiered in Japan on December 12, 2006, and in English on January 4, 2008.