Special Provision for Kira

The Special Provision for Kira, or SPK, is a group of "elite" anti-Kira Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) members headed by Near. Membership of the group remains small to preserve secrecy, and the group works separately from the Japanese Task Force.

Overview
A little over four years after L dies, in March of 2009 (2012 in the anime), Near meets with the President of the United States (David Hoope in the manga, and George Sairas in the anime) to discuss Kyosuke Higuchi and the Death Note. Near tells him that the Japanese police possess the notebook and that the real L is dead. With the support of the President, Near creates the Special Provision for Kira.

Plot
On one particular day after the mid-series timeskip, Light's father, Soichiro Yagami, learns that the director of the police, Kanichi Takimura, has been kidnapped and is being ransomed for the Death Note still in Task Force possession. Soon after, Soichiro is visited by an FBI agent who asks for the notebook. Soichiro assumes that the FBI were the ones who kidnapped the director, but as Near—who is listening in on the conversation through the agent—soon figures out, there’s another faction at work.

Near quickly infers that Mello—the older of L's two successors raised in Wammy's House—is behind the kidnapping. Four years earlier, when Mello gave the title of L's successor to Near and the two rivals separated, Mello decided to find Kira his own way. He eventually joined the Mafia, whose leader trusts his judgment. The Mafia obtains the Task Force's Death Note after Mello's kidnapping plan works flawlessly. Though Near tells Light that he could not have done anything to stop Mello even if he had counterattacked, this unexpected mistake leaves many of the members of the SPK dead when Mello's crew writes their names in the notebook. Only Halle Lidner, Anthony Rester, and Stephen Gevanni are left alive. In the Death Note Relight 2: L's Successors version of events, the Mafia plot is excised, and Light instead has Kiyomi Takada and Teru Mikami kill the SPK members.

To get the Death Note back, Light sets up a raid that leaves his father fatally injured and Mello badly scarred. During these events, Near and the SPK watch without taking action, possibly so that he can better examine the actions of the "new" L.

Needing to be closer to the case, the SPK arrives in Japan. Near determines that "L Number Two" and the leader of the Japanese Task Force are one and the same: Light Yagami. Understanding that a second Kira, X-Kira, is at play, Gevanni is tasked with following Teru Mikami to determine the location of the notebook, while Lidner is assigned to the bodyguard detail of Kiyomi Takada, who has been named as Kira's Spokesperson and is the one truly behind the killings of X-Kira.

The big break in the Kira case is made by Mello, who acts with information leaked to him by Lidner. Understanding that the only way to reveal the true whereabouts of the notebook would be to force X-Kira's hand, he kidnaps Takada. Unaware that Light had taken care of Takada and all evidence left by her, Mikami breaks his normal routine by going to the bank to write Takada's name in the real notebook. Gevanni, still on Mikami's tail, is able to confiscate the real notebook and replace it with a forged duplicate. This permits Near to arrange a meeting between the Task Force and the SPK. Though all members of both groups are present, the confrontation is truly a battle of wits between Light and Near in which Near ultimately exposes Light as Kira.

Notable Members

 * Near (real name: Nate River) - The first in line to succeed L and the mastermind behind the group.
 * Anthony Rester (real name: Anthony Carter) – The second-in-command of the SPK and former special ops squad captain.
 * Stephen Gevanni (real name: Stephen Loud) – A skilled lock-picker, forger, and investigator, he is described in Death Note 13: How to Read as a "good-looking hotshot" who received an invitation to the SPK for his skills. He is tasked with following Teru Mikami and replacing the real notebook with a fake.
 * Hal Lidner (real name: Halle Bullook) – A former Secret Service and CIA agent who states she is on neither Mello nor Near's side and only wants to capture Kira, though she often leaks the SPK's gathered information to Mello. She was assigned to infiltrate the bodyguard unit that protects Kiyomi Takada. In order to gain her trust, Lidner acted out the role of a diligent handler while covertly trying to uncover the connection between Takada and Kira. Her motivation in wanting to catch Kira is due to the death of a loved one of hers at the hands of the Yotsuba-Kira Higuchi, as Death Note 13: How To Read revealed.

Conception
Ohba said that, in terms of visual character design, he wrote descriptions such as "Commander" and "Spy" in rough drafts. He let Obata create the rest of the details. Ohba said that he considered having all of the Task Force members die "in a heroic way."

Obata said that he drew the SPK "without thinking too much" when the group first appeared in Chapter 60. Obata heard that Mello sent a spy, so he tried to make a character appear "suspicious looking." Obata said that he had to "work hard" on all of the characters since he did not know which ones would survive, and he believes that his drawing skills relating to "foreign characters" are poor; he stated that he imagined the characters being "from so far away" and that he forgot how to draw them.

SPK