Nathan does question a bit whether those had been their real names. All of Near's agents had used fake ones -- he remembers both the real names and the aliases -- so it would only stand to reason that he'd used something fake as well. But that is unimportant in the scheme of this conversation.

He keeps curling his fingers into his hair.

"L was . . . the objective." It feels very strange to say it that way, but it is an essentially true statement. "The competition was . . . to decide who would take over for him after his death."