Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note

Characters: L, Raito and Misa

Pairings: RaitoxMisa and LxRaito

A/N: This story is extremely AU. Raito is NOT Kira, it'll be obvious in the story. And the characters may a bit off. Specially Raito since I'm trying to follow him as he is when he has no recollection of the Death Note.

Impression

Chapter 1: Hotel

"I'd like you to accompany me on this investigation."

"…Alright."

"I'm not sure I want-"

"Outo-san don't worry. I'll be fine."

"And I think it would be less conspicuous if we brought along Amane-san."

"…I'm not so sure that's a good idea…I don't want her to get hurt."

"Please?"

"Fine…"

7:35pm Friday evening

The doors closed behind the three young people. The slouched figure with the bare feet kept his gaze on the door. The tallest of the three frowned in annoyance. There was silence for some time before the dark haired man with the horrible posture moved away from the door. His feet slapped against the cold marble floor. The large hotel suite had more than enough room for the three of them, even with the increasingly wearing relationship between the two brunets. The blonde girl huffed uncharacteristically and sat on the large queen sized bed, falling onto her back with a thump.

The neatly dressed young man eyed her quietly but he was frowning not smiling as he usually did at the sight of her form. Instead of addressing her he turned his gaze to the slouched man who was currently analyzing a bunch of papers on a nearby computer desk. A laptop sat atop the brown desk and beside it lay a large stack of papers in several manila folders. The obsidian orbs turned to face his companion.

"Yes, Raito-kun?"

It took a moment for Yagami Raito to speak. He had moved beside the older man to look at the papers along with him. People were listed, profiles and pictures all stacked upon each other. Some profiles had more pages than others. Personality descriptions, body descriptions down to whether or not they liked the color blue. It was all alphabetical. There was another sheet with all the names of the people currently in the extremely expansive hotel.

"What…is all this?" Raito looked horrified.

"Information on everyone in this building, Raito-kun." replied the odd male with the tip of his thumb between his teeth.

There was rustling from the place where the blonde had laid. Her boots sounded on the floor. She looked curious and startled at Raito's expression. Straightening out her dress, the ditzy blonde looked over at the files. Arching a brow, her lips formed into a pout.

"Are we going to have to read all this?" she inquired. "I thought you said this was like a vacation, Raitoo!"

"Don't worry, Misa, Ryuuzaki and I are going to handle all of this."

Ryuuzaki's large owlish eyes stared at Misa as she walked back towards the bed and sat back down. The girl seemed slightly dejected but lay down again. Raito snapped his fingers which caught Ryuuzaki's attention. The warning look he gave earned him a sheepish smile in return. Turning back to the pages Raito flipped through it only to see his own face smiling back at him. It was a recent picture. One he had been taken while with Misa at the amusement park. Peeling his eyes away from his partly smiling face, Raito looked down the page. His age, date of birth, the day he had been admitted to the Task Force, everything was here. Raito took a deep breath. He could feel the fingers of panic reaching out to embrace him.

"Ryuuzaki, this was a bad idea."

L looked up at him from beneath his dark bangs. His large panda eyes calculated everything on the younger's face but he didn't comment. He merely gave a slight nod, but it wasn't in agreement. Raito knew the man too well. L flipped through more pages and shook his head slowly.

"Maybe…"

Raito stared at him for a while longer before sifting through his pile of papers. He was looking for Ryuuzaki's. If there was so much information on himself, then there had to be something on L. He nearly passed it with how fast he had been looking. His fingers stopped on the paper clipped picture. He pulled out the page and folded over the first paper. L's face was clearly younger in the picture but that's not what Raito was looking at. The name at the top of the page was Lawliet. Raito stared at it for a minute before scanning the rest of the page. The amount of sugar intake was written by his weight and Raito had to wonder how the man managed to be alive.

"Your name is Lawliet?"

Ryuuzaki froze in the middle of lifting a page from the desk. His head slowly turned towards Raito and the brunet turned the page towards the detective. His eyes widened even larger than Raito thought possible. His lips were quivering slightly before he turned his gaze back to Raito's face. He was at a lost for words for a moment, it was obvious. Ryuuzaki snatched the paper from Raito's hand between his index and thumb. Taking a look at the profile, Ryuuzaki frowned.

"I'm afraid you're right, Raito-kun, this was a bad idea. We may be in some trouble…"

Just as Ryuuzaki put down the paper, the television in the corner of the large room turned on. All three of them turned towards it. A cloaked man, with his face half covered in shadow, grinned at them from the screen. His perfectly straight white teeth glistened in the light cast on the uncovered part of his face.

"I'm sure you are all wondering why you are here and more importantly why we have documented information on the each of you." The anonymous man spoke in a deep voice which carried a slight accent in his Japanese. "All of you have been put in groups of three and have a copy of documents on the desk in each room. You have been given one laptop with limited internet connectivity and some have been equipped with a web cam."

There was a pause in his speech. The man pulled down his hood to reveal his face. Dark locks of black hair fell around the mans slender face. He looked to the side for a moment before continuing, once again facing a head.

"My group and I have been conducting tests on different groups of people from different countries. You all are test number 5." He paused for a moment. "None of you are allowed to leave your rooms. You will be given three meals a day with whatever else you request by room service. You shall be given one Death Note promptly at eight o'clock in the morning and they will all be collected at ten pm. Only one group will come out the victor."

The television set was shut off immediately after. Raito frowned, processing the information quickly. What had they meant by a Death Note? And why were they being held prisoners in the hotel room? Nothing made sense. The whole reason this investigation had been taking place was because the police were unable to find out what had happened to a mass number of people. They had all disappeared. These occurrences were world-wide, happening in multiple places at multiple times. It had attracted Ryuuzaki's attention from the beginning. They had been getting close to finding a suspect when suddenly the trail went cold. Raito had not suspected Ryuuzaki to take such a plan of action and go in himself, but he supposed it was the seriousness of the investigation. After all, Ryuuzaki concluded that Kira might be connected to this case as well.

"Ryuuzaki what did he mean by a Death Note?"

The panda eyes turned on Raito and for a moment he was silent. "If what he says is true, than we shall see soon enough, Raito-kun."

Raito nodded and glanced over a Misa who was frowning at the television set. Her pouty expression made him relax a little. Maybe explaining everything to Misa would help him get some ideas of his own. He was at a loss. He could not connect what was going on with what they had investigated before. However what the man had said about their group being the fifth test clicked. There had been several disappearances in the United States and then in Great Britain. The following months after had been quiet but then they started up again in Russia and China, finally coming into Japan. Ryuuzaki and Raito could not pin-point what group could possibly be doing something so massive. It was just like the Kira case, except now they had some more clues to work on.

"Raito, who was that man? And what was he talking about? Only one victor?" Misa's questions were the same ones going through Raito's head. He had no answers for her. Ryuuzaki was silent by his place at the files. This was definitely bad.

"I'm craving cheesecake. Would you like some Raito-kun?"

Raito blinked as his gaze quickly snapped to the dark haired male. The dull panda-eyes stared at Raito just as they always did, but Raito could see the odd tenseness in the older mans shoulders. He was afraid. Raito had never seen L this way before, maybe it was because people knew his name now. Raito was unsure. He shook his head in reply in which Ryuuzaki only shrugged and made his way to the small mini refrigerator in the corner of the room by the large windows. Raito made his way towards them, looking out on the expanse of the hotels grounds. There was nothing amazing about them and he didn't see anyone outside except for several guards at the very front gates. He could see the small black car which they had drove in a block away. The clink of a fork caught Raito's attention and he turned away from the window.

"Anything interesting, Raito-kun?"

"Were those guards there when we first entered the building?"

Ryuuzaki turned his gaze towards the window, lifting himself slightly where he sat. A slight frown creased his eyebrows and he shook his head. "No, it seems that they are taking extreme measures to keep their guests in this hotel."

Raito turned back to the computer desk. He fixed up the papers and sat down at the laptop. Sliding the lock and lifting open the Dell, Raito turned it on. It took a moment for the laptop to fully load but when it did, there was a password confirmation. He stared at it for a few moments. Each room was assigned a laptop, with or without a web cam. These laptops were probably matched to suit the guests staying in the room. With a frown, the young genius typed in his name. The red letters popped up above the white box asking to "try again". His frown deepened and he typed in Ryuuzaki's real name. He pressed enter and the screen loaded into the desktop.

"Aah!" Raito yelled toppling over his chair. The wallpaper was a picture of a painting. The grotesque face was smiling, an eerie smile that did not bode well with Raito at all. Ryuuzaki and Misa were by him in a few seconds. Misa gave a small giggle and Ryuuzaki simply stared at the monitor.

"He suuuure is ugly." Misa giggled again, smiling down at Raito. The brunet gave a scowl and stood up, refusing the hand that Ryuuzaki held out for him.

Brushing himself off, Raito sat back down staring directly into the yellow eyes of the blue demon. Directing his attention to the start button at the bottom left hand corner of the screen, Raito pulled up the documents on the laptop. The files were mainly cases that Ryuuzaki had solved himself. There was the ongoing Kira case in a separate folder from the others. Raito clicked on this one. There were several video clips and documents that Raito knew the police had access to. He recognized them well, he had gone over them himself millions of times before.

Pulling out from the file, Raito noticed there were several user files as well. He clicked the one with his own name on it and was shocked. There were all his school records, report cards, pictures he had taken. There were even newspaper photos as well as an article he wanted to never see again. He deleted the document, looking over his shoulder to make sure Ryuuzaki and Misa were not looking. There were similar files in Ryuuzaki and Misa's folders. He found it much easier for them to find all of Misa's information, seeing as she was a popular model yet Ryuuzaki's information he really wondered how they obtained it.

By the time Raito shut down the laptop, Misa had retreated to the second room in the suite. Ryuuzaki was flipping through channels of static on the television set. Several of them came on but none of them had the news. He shut it off and took a bite of his cheesecake. Raito watched him for a few moments before sitting down next to him with a sigh.

"Is there something wrong, Raito-kun?"

Raito shook his head, but didn't turn to face the detective. The young man beside him took another fork full of a cake. Fascinated for some odd reason, Raito watched the fork lift from the small plate up to the mouth. Ryuuzaki noticed this and paused to stare back. Raito blinked a few times and looked away. He was slightly embarrassed to have been caught staring but he couldn't help it. The way he held his fork and cut into the dessert was rather amusing. Even though he had known him now for nearly four years, Raito was still somewhat fascinated by him. His odd quirks still amused the younger man and annoyed him at the same time. Ryuuzaki was hard to get along with at times.

"If Raito-kun wanted some of my cheesecake, he could just ask."

Raito laughed a little. "No, I'm fine thank you." He let the rare smile linger on his lips for a few moments before resuming his usual stoic expression. "What do you make of these rules we're required to follow, Ryuuzaki?"

"They are unimportant, what you really wish to ask me is if I have any ideas on the Death Note, correct, Raito-kun?"

"Right as always…" Raito nodded briefly.

"I cannot say much on this "Death Note" except that I wish to see it for myself."

There was nothing else to be said on the matter and Raito felt a little annoyed. Taking a look at the clock ontop of the television set, Raito decided to head to bed. It was 2 o'clock in the morning. Nearly 6 hours since they had arrived.

8:30am Saturday morning

He had been awake for more than an hour. The black book that lay on the computer desk in the back of the room facing the door was the Death Note. He was unsure on whether or not to check it out. He was a cautious person and he was wary of the black book. Raito had a bad feeling about it. Ryuuzaki was examining the cover of the book, but he did not touch it either. Not yet. They were waiting to see if the television would turn on like the day before. However Raito was just about done waiting. He stepped up from his seat at the dining table and snatched the book from the computer desk. It felt like an ordinary notebook in his hands. The cover felt old and decrepit. He opened it, scanning the front page. It was back just like the front cover and hand written in something white were rules. Written in English. Ryuuzaki blinked and looked it over, holding his hand out for Raito to pass it over. Raito did and Ryuuzaki held it up to his eyes holding it by his index and thumb.

"The human whose name is written in this Note shall die." Ryuuzaki's dead pan voice sounded ominous.

"This has to be some sort of joke." Raito snorted as he took the notebook back from Ryuuzaki. The panda eyes stared at him and Raito knew Ryuuzaki was thinking the exact same thing. "From the looks of it, I own this Death Note."

Ryuuzaki looked over Raito's shoulder to examine the print. "Whoever's name you write in this Death Note shall die of a heart attack unless other wise specified…" Raito went along summarizing each rule the same way. "Any number of Death Notes may be in the human world at once."

"This seems like a very complex joke, Raito-kun." Raito had to agree with Ryuuzaki's statement.

Raito put down the Death Note and walked away from it. He paced for a few moments, thinking of the whole situation. Grabbing a pen from the desk as he walked back towards it, Raito opened up the notebook. He flipped the page with the rules and came to a blank white page. Frowning slightly he grabbed the files to the side of the table.

"So, if I were to write a name from these files here, that person would die?"

"According to the rules, Raito-kun."

"So lets say I wrote Misa's name into this, she would die of a heart attack in 40 seconds?"

"Assuming this is real."

Raito nodded. He had no intentions of putting Misa's name into the notebook. He had no intention of putting anyone's name into the Death Note. This was absurd. There was no possible way this was real, and if it was who in their right mind would use it? Raito put the pen down and shut the notebook again. There was a knock on the door and a female voice calling 'room service' from beyond it. The door opened and shut as soon as the woman walked through. She set the trays on the dining table and gave a polite goodbye. It was much too early to eat breakfast but Raito sat down with Ryuuzaki anyway.

12:30pm Saturday afternoon

Misa woke up at eleven and sat down at the table to eat. By eleven thirty she had decided to take a shower. She was finished by twelve and back in the main room with Raito and Ryuuzaki. Raito sat down next to her with the laptop on his lap. He was toying around with a connection to another computer in the building. The hacking was going well and he was sure that not many other people would be able to know how to deal with his hacking ability. He had on more than one occasion hacked into the Task force database for information on cases. He had not been successful in finding any computers with web cams and it was starting to get on his nerves. Raito had planned to keep tabs by using the web cam to look in on the occupants of each room. Very few computers seemed to have any sort of device connected to it. He had found a router in one room and had checked the files of that computer. The entire computer was absolutely empty. Raito finally took a break, shutting the laptop and placing it back on the computer desk. He stretched and made his way back to Misa. She smiled at him and wrapped her arms around him.

"Raito You're much too busy! Why don't you relax with me for a bit, hmmm?"

The suggestion was tempting but he had to refuse. The blonde pouted for a moment before her features suddenly froze. A hand reached up to her heart and she gasped. Her eyes were wide with fear, as she tightened her grip on her fiance's form. "R-Raito…!"

She went limp in his grasp. Raito was in shock. He didn't know what to do. His eyes looked over her still form. Her eyes stared up into space, glazed over. Placing her down on the floor, Raito tried to rememer the class he had taken for CPR. He pushed against her chest several times, franticly trying to revive her. One, two, three, breathe in, one, two, three, breathe in. The pattern went on for a few moments but she did not move. She didn't budge. Her eyes still stayed in their place staring at the ceiling. Raito stared down at her, his entire body in shock. His hands half-heartedly pressed against her chest but their movements slowed to a stop. Ryuuzaki had at some time came before him and was saying something but Raito didn't hear him. He stared up blankly at the older detective, watching his lips move but unable to hear the words. He was going down, he felt his body begin to shut down, escaping the reality which had suddenly turned against him.

They were going to get married. They had been engaged to get married in two months. But Amane Misa was dead and there was nothing Yagami Raito could do. Instead of his mind trying to rationalize anything it shut down.

"Raito!"