Two people can be equally brilliant and still despise each other completely. That's the entire premise this story runs on, over and over, in every direction it takes. Light needs to be right more than he needs to be good. L needs the chase more than he needs to win it cleanly. Near needs to be correct, quietly, without applause. Mello needs to never, ever come second, whatever it costs him.
None of them would call it a rivalry, exactly. They'd call it the only kind of conversation worth having.
Here's what fifteen questions about pressure, pride, and being outsmarted will actually tell you: which one of them you'd have spent your whole life failing to shake.
