L felt a sudden and sharp tenseness run through him, as if everything internal had stopped for a moment. Gin was trying to get his back up, and force him into a mistake, that much was clear, and his casual sinister friendliness made that abundantly clear. Gin's mere facial expression discomfited most, although L was largely unaffected, but when he acted like this, L was aware of just how dangerous he could be.

"I prefer to minimise the loss of life where possible," L answered, his voice low.

Some deaths were unavoidable, they always were, and L accepted that, but wholesale slaughter should be avoided if it was possible; he'd learned that much.

L had made no secret of his disapproval of what they'd planned in Midgar. Gin trying to goad him into admitting to profiting from it was curious, and that he was employing his ability to be intensely creepy while doing so put L on a wary edge.