In the third volume, L continues his investigation into the mysterious deaths linked to Kira (Light Yagami). He suspects that Kira might have access to the police investigation, so he orchestrates a plan to reveal some fake information about the case to mislead the real Kira. Continuing from the previous volume, L had installed hidden cameras in Light’s room as he was under suspicion of being Kira. Light knowing this information with the help of Ryuk, secretly is still able to writes names in the Death Note by placing small hand held tv’s in his bag of chips to watch the news about criminals. As criminals keep dying while not knowing about Light’s methods, L decides to remove the cameras from Light’s home.

To add to the surprise, as Light is taking his competitive exams for college, he notices a strange person behind him looking right at him. The results for the tests come out, and the toppers are Light, and this mysterious person, called Hideki Ryuga, who is actually L. Afterwards, L and Light are caught up in an intense game of tennis, in which both are neck and neck, but Hideki comes out on top. Hideki invites Light to a café to have a chat. L talks about the Kira case, and tries to recruit Light, but asks him questions about the case to try to get Light to slip up and give himself away. L still suspects Light but allows him to join the task force to take down Kira.

After the conversation, Light gets a phone call saying that his father was in the hospital from a heart attack. Light and L rush to see him. Shortly after, the Kira task force gets a message saying that Kira wanted his message broadcasted on TV and he kills two news anchors live on the news. Outraged by this, a member rushes to the news tower, and tries to forcefully enter the office, but dies of a heart attack right outside the building. Light’s father escapes the hospital and heads to the news tower, and crashes his truck into the building and gains access, by covering his head with his coat. He approaches the director at gun point and demands to handover the tape and stop the broadcast. Outside, a mysterious person in the opposite building disappeared.

After receiving the tapes, Kira had sent a message asking for the names of criminals to be broadcasted along with L giving a speech for ten minutes without any tricks. As Light and the task force members discuss, Light reveals that there must be the existence of another Kira who is doing the killing as the patterns are not the same, setting the stage for Misa Amane to make her appearance in the following volume.