Manipulation

 Manipulation (操作, Sōsa) is the sixth chapter in the Death Note manga. It is contained in Volume 1. The events in this chapter take place in episode 4 of the anime, Pursuit (追跡 Tsuiseki).

Plot
Light refuses the deal for the “Shinigami Eyes” stating that he needs to live in order to rule over his utopian world. He asks Ryuk if there is anything else he should know about the Death Note, and Ryuk says probably not.

Suddenly, Light has an idea about how to find out the FBI agent’s name. He decides to use his stock criminals in order to find out how specific the details of death need to be.

At the NPA headquarters, Soichiro gets a call that six more prisoners have been killed, but three of them did something different from the rest. All three cases died of a heart attack. However, one victim drew a picture of a five pointed star inside a circle before he died. Another victim left a suicide note. The last victim managed to escape from the prison and collapsed in a public bathroom. Watari sends this information to L, and L wonders if Kira can control the specific time of death, can he also control the victim’s actions before they die? L quickly deduces that Kira may be using these criminals as guinea pigs and instructs the police to tell the media that the victims died of cardiac arrest and nothing else. Light, however, reads the data off his father’s computer and knows that he succeeded in his experiments.

Meanwhile, L wonders what exactly Kira is planning to do next and while examining the suicide note finds out that the first words of each line contains the message “L, do you know…”

Plot Points

 * Light turns down the Shinigami Eye Deal.


 * Light does his tests on various criminals and from this learns to what extent he can control peoples' actions before they die. L himself realises that Kira can control people as well, and discerns a hidden message in the one left by Kira's victims.


 * Light sets things up in order to use gangster Osoreda Kiichiro as part of a plan to identify the man shadowing him.

Conception
In Death Note: How to Read 13, Ohba states that the name of this chapter, "Manipulation," originates from Light's experiments on the manipulation of Death Note victims.

Trivia

 * the symbol that Light has one of the criminals draw - a plain, circumscribed pentagram - is a religious symbol associated with Neopaganism (Wicca in particular). The pentagram represents the four elements and Spirit, and the circle bounds them together to create life. Other sources point it's origin to the Chinese five-element philosophy. Because of its association with Wicca, it is often associated with witchcraft. Aside from witchcraft, due to Neopaganism's perceived association with Satanism, and also because of negative societal attitudes, the symbol is most often associated with Satanism or evil (however, these assumptions are incorrect)