Poker was getting old.
And yet, across the circle of disinterested shinigami, Yuu couldn't keep his eyes off Ryuk. He was dying to ask. Ryuk would know better than anyone how to do it. But he would have to be subtle - the guy didn't take kindly to interruption. He looked over his cards with indifference. They all did. Nothing interested them anymore. When Gouki, a shinigami with the look of a corpse thrice burned and lastly drowned, got a flush, even he seemed disappointed as he took his cut of worthless bones.
"Say, Ryuk," Yuu said at last. His voice was like the unwanted touch of a suede glove. "Did you -"
"Oh, for god's sake, Yuu," Ryuk barked back. "Yes. We found a human for you. Hisako Matsuo. Twenty. Tokyo. Seiko building. Go."
Yuu was taken aback. He'd been waiting so long - such a long, boring time, and Ryuk hadn't bothered to tell him when his suffering could have certainly been staved off? "Why didn't you tell me earlier?" he demanded.
"Because it wasn't convenient earlier. For us or you. Or her." Ryuk looked over his cards again, made a face, then laid them face down on the gray, dead earth. "I fold."
"Didn't pawn me off with a dud, did you?" Yuu asked, suspicion tainting his words like bitter poison.
"Nah." Ryuk stood up. The other shinigami watched him with distant interest as he stretched his wings, throwing glances in his direction as if awaiting his reaction. "Here's hoping you fall in love and get yourself killed like Rem, moth boy."
And then he was gone. A few of the shinigami still involved in the game chortled at the insult, watching Yuu as his face contorted with frustration and embarrassment. God, he hated it here. In the shinigami realm, popularity could go both ways - endless acclaim or hopeless jealousy. Yuu would take either one. At length, he stood up. The weight of the Death Note in his feathery hand was sheer perverse, but to a shinigami, that was merely comfort. It told of things to come. "To hell with you guys," he spat, then flew off, the parting words of the others trailing him like the ghosts of all those he'd killed - certainly there, but not quite audible or tangible. He ignored them. He had more important things to do. The portal was directly below him.
Without a moment's hesitation, he plunged down, down.
Into the human world.
~
When Hisako went to work that morning, she knew she was ill. She shook and sweated and, right before she left, vomited. But she couldn't afford to miss days. Not during her training. She wasn't fortunate. There was no such thing as luck. There was only hard work and what came of it. Something had come of Hisako's work, but it wasn't enough. Not as long as she could go further. And thusly she walked to the Seiko building overcome by aches and chills and a fever that wouldn't quit. She dutifully ignored it all until she arrived at the Seiko building, where she spent part of the time before her shift sitting in a bathroom stall, huddled against the plastic wall. Her office was air-conditioned against the heat of the Japanese spring, but for once, she wished it was heated. She shook all over as she signed papers and checked statistics and answered calls. But she took care to conceal it as best she could, for she couldn't let weakness show. Not here, not now, not ever. She'd be going places one day, and that day couldn't come soon enough. Strong. Efficient. Smart. That was her, and she had to stay that way, or else she wouldn't go anywhere. If she so much as -
"Good morning, Miss Matsuo!"
Hisako shot a piercing look at the doorway, but it faded slightly when she realized who it was - their newest intern, Akio, with the beaming young face and the cheap but very clean suit. She offered him a curt nod and returned to work, but out of the corners of her eyes, she could see he hadn't left. "Say, Miss, you don't look so well," he said.
Hisako didn't look up. "I'm fine."
"You so sure about that, Hisako?" Another voice, deeper and older and painfully familiar, sounded just behind Akio. This time, she looked, her fevered eyes burning with vexation. Leaning against the door frame, Hideo was tall and spiff and haughty. He was always smirking, always smelling to high heaven of expensive cologne. "You look pretty sick. Go home and give the rest of us a chance."
"That's Miss Matsuo to you, Hideo. I. Am. Fine." And she resumed working with a renewed vigor and renewed desire to pull a blanket over her head and sleep for a year. He heard Hideo whisper something in Akio's ear before leaving with the unwilling intern in tow. And so she continued working, the various aches in her body fading in and out of her consciousness, her fever rising and falling and rising again. Working and focusing was getting progressively harder, but harder and harder she forced herself until she heard a voice which she recognized immediately.
"How are you feeling this morning, Hisako?" The door frame was filled by an older man, with a soft, kind face full of concern - Mr. Kobayashi, the executive director. Behind him, Hideo crossed his arms, leaning casually against Akio, who was looking a bit uncomfortable. A bit guilty. It was no secret that Hideo was after her position - he'd take any opportunity he could find to get her out of the way, even for only a few days. Mr. Kobayashi rarely paid any attention to him, but if Hideo told him about her condition, he probably would have made an exception. Mr. Kobayashi was a caring man, a kind man. He knew just how to treat every one of his employees, including Hisako, in the way which made them most comfortable, and therefore most efficient. A smart man, that Kobayashi.
Hisako stood at attention, swaying slightly. "Fine, sir."
"Hideo and Akio tell me otherwise. Come here, please." Suppressing a sigh of defeat, she stepped forward. Over his shoulder, she could see Hideo smile smugly, and Akio mouth the words sorry, miss. Poor kid. He wouldn't last. Mr. Kobayashi put the back of his hand to her forehead, a gesture she would have never submitted to by the hand of Hideo or Akio or anyone below her. She heard him give a small, sympathetic sigh. "You're not fine, Hisako. You're burning up. Please, go home and rest."
How badly she wanted to worm her way out of this one. She couldn't give Hideo the satisfaction. She couldn't. "With all due respect, sir, I can continue in my present condition."
Mr. Kobayashi shook his head. "I'm afraid I won't allow that. I have no doubt you could manage a full day's work, Hisako, but you're clearly miserable, and I wouldn't want the rest of the office catching the bug. Go home, Matsuo."
Hisako's jaw clenched. "Yes, sir."
As she started for the door, where Hideo had pulled Akio aside to let her leave, Mr. Kobayashi said to her back, "If you like, I could give you a ride home. You're not well."
"I can manage, sir." Hideo was well out of her way, but she still found an excuse to shove him aside as she left.
Halfway back to her apartment, Hisako had to stop. She was terribly nauseous, and it had begun to rain bullets of freezing water. Though the coolness was blessed relief against her burning skin, she was shaking too hard to go any further. Even as she stopped by a long-abandoned chain link fence to sit against it, her suit drenched and teeth chattering, she did not regret turning down Mr. Kobayashi's offer. Helping him avoid unwanted distractions made her look good. But as she sat there, drenched and fevered and miserable, she was tired of powerlessness. So very, very, tired.
So she looked up into the driving rain and found her answer.
A black dot, out of place in the torrent of gray rain, hovered over her head, far up in the sky. As she watched, it slowly grew like a black snowball. Gaining definition, it became a rectangle rather than a dot. Falling. Faster, faster. Growing, growing. Then, at long last, landing in a flutter of paper, right in her damp lap. She picked it up with a gloved hand - the rainwater ran smoothly from its leather front in rivulets over a title written in silvery bones. It read Death Note.
Hisako looked up for any sort of explanation - a high-rise apartment, a drone, anything. But there was no rhyme nor reason to the morbid thing in her hands. Her interested piqued, she opened it.
The human whose name is written in this note shall die.
Strange. Creepy. Not the sort of thing Hisako would invest her time in. But interesting, certainly. Perhaps a novelty of some sort.
This note will not take effect unless the writer has the person's face in their mind when writing his/her name. Therefore, people sharing the same name will not be affected.
If the cause of death is written within the next 40 seconds of writing the person's name, it will happen.
If the cause of death is not specified, the person will simply die of a heart attack.
After writing the cause of death, details of the death should be written in the next 6 minutes and 40 seconds.
As she skimmed the rules, Hisako felt strange. Childish. Who would buy such a useless novelty item as this? Garbage. But as she stood up to leave, she tucked it into the folds of her suit, holding it close as she hurried home.
As soon as she reached her apartment, she tore away her suit and sank into her couch. The apartment was warm and dark and safe, but as she pulled a thermometer from her medicine cabinet, and lethargically putting away her drenched suit, and rummaging for acetaminophen, she found herself glancing at the strange notebook left on the counter. It simply drew her eye. She balanced the thermometer under her tongue, meaning to hold still for the advised two minutes, but was forced to get up again. Why? The notebook. She brought it back to the couch with her and sat staring at it for the entire two minutes. When the thermometer beeped, she took it out - 39 degrees celsius. Burning up, indeed. She wasn't going anywhere. Not for awhile.
She had time. Time for indulgent foolishness.
She picked up a pen.
Who did she want dead? Perhaps her head was a bit muddled, but she immediately thought back to her childhood. Her mother had never been around - a french woman, supposedly, thus explaining her hair, but she'd never once met her. The only person in her little world was her stupid, stupid father.
Stupid. The stupid were what held the human race back. Stupidity disgusted her. She wished that Kira had cleansed the world of idiocy rather than injustice. She would do just that, given the opportunity. For all her time spent in the Seiko company, the secondary fruits of her labor always went to the least deserving. The lowest common denominator. Because companies had to cater to society, but a society was only as strong as its weakest link. Every time the greatest idiot in the world died, the world got a little stronger. Too bad that didn't happen every day.
That was it, then. She wanted the world's greatest idiot dead.
Kenji Matsuo
The name fit nicely in that little book, suited to such consequences. It would do nothing, but it was certainly nice to look at. Brought a small, rare smile to her face. Worthy of framing. She closed the book, set it aside, then retired to her bed.
Several hours later, the ringing of the phone by her bedside jolted her awake. She groped into the darkness, her hand falling upon the plastic shaft of the phone, and she raised it to her ear. "Hello?" Her voice sounded awful, sandpapery, befitting someone as ill as she was. A little irritated, even.
"Is this Hisako Matsuo?" The woman's voice on the other end was low and desolate. Worry struck Hisako like a bullet as she gave her confirmation. "Miss Matsuo, we at the Kawaguchi Police Department regret to inform you that your father, Mr. Kenji Matsuo, has been found dead in his home. We believe the cause of death was a heart attack, but we are investigating matters further. Sorry for your loss."
Hisako couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. "Oh my god..."
"Ma'am, if you'd please -" Hisako hung up the phone, and suddenly decided she'd slept enough. Throwing away the covers, she rushed to the living room, fighting dizziness all the way. Upon arrival, she found the Death Note sitting, unassuming, on her counter, but she filled with dread at the sight of it. This book - it killed people. It took lives. It might as well have been covered in the blood of her father - no. A coincidence. It was a coincidence.
"A coincidence." She repeated to herself, and it sounded more real. More reasonable.
"It was no coincidence, I'm afraid."
If chloroform or a hundred sleeping pills had a voice, she imagined that would have been it, that voice - she spun around, and wished she hadn't. There, floating in midair, was a moth the size of a man, with feathery arms and eyes that glowed red. He breathing grew ragged with the effort of holding down a scream. "I see you found my Death Note."
"What are you?" she demanded. It seemed a more fitting question than just who he was.
"I am a god of death - a shinigami, if you will. You can call me Yuu." He floated a bit closer. Hisako backed into the counter. "Now, now, don't be afraid. I'm only here to make sure you know just what you're dealing with."
Hisako glanced at the notebook, then back to Yuu. "Go on."
Yuu began floating back and forth, as if pacing. "As you probably know, any person you record in this book shall die. You've read the rules. But there are some technicalities that you should be aware of, see. First off, you're not going to hell, so don't worry your sick, pretty little head over it. Second, you're not going to heaven, either, so get back to worrying. The user of the death note cannot go to heaven or hell, but you're free to use the note as you please while you're still here. I can't help you or work against you, but I can cut you a deal for some pretty nice things. Things that'll help you advance your cause, see? It'll only cost you half your lifespan -"
"Not for sale," Hisako replied curtly.
Yuu shrugged. "It's on the table. Whatever. Shinigami eyes, friend. You can see anyone's name and lifespan just by looking at their face. Useful, considering you need a name."
Hisako picked up the note again, looked it over. So much power. The power of Kira. "This was what Kira used, wasn't it?"
Yuu scoffed, inspecting an apple from a bowl in her kitchen. "Yes, smart girl. This was the source of Kira's power. Not to mention Zero."
"Well, toss me a pen, Yuu." For a moment, Hisako thought she could see a smile form in the folds of fluff Yuu called a mouth before he threw her the pen that may as well write in her father's blood. He followed her back to her bedroom. "I can be better than either of those fools."
Yuu watched her settle back into her bed and begin to write names - names upon names - into the book. A sound like a purr reverberated from his moth's mouth. "That's big talk for a newbie."
"Please, Yuu," she dismissed him. "I know what I'm doing."
and watching the activities of humans appeal to them. And in mass defiance against the Shinigami King, a vast number of Death Notes have fallen into the human world through a dark portal. These wicked notebooks have the power to kill, only by writing the name of any human inside them. It was this very kind of weapon that Kira had used to forge his perfect world. However, it came with a price.
