After witnessing her father's death at the hands of Kujo, who was in fact, the leader of the bioterrorist group who created the virus that destroyed a Thai village, Maki fled the laboratory with the virus sample and antidote formula her father inexplicitly entrusted to her to pass to Watari, and eventually she reached L's headquarters and sought refuge from him. Soon after, Kujo and her associates reached L's headquarters, having traced Maki's whereabouts and there, Maki faces them alone in a corridor. Filled with hatred towards Kujo for causing her father's death, Maki injected herself with the virus and was about to kill Kujo (and herself was going to get shot too) when L rescued her, taking her and Near out of the headquarters and managed to flee from the terrorists with the help of FBI agent Hideaki Sugura. Somehow, Maki did not show any symptoms even after she had injected herself with the virus; this led to the terrorists to speculate that Maki may have the antidote injected inside her (later on, when L met Dr Nikaido's lab partner Koichi Matsudo, Matsudo tested Maki and reasoned that Maki's apparent immunity to the virus was due to her low blood sugar, and this made the virus to not have sufficient energy from infecting her).