It had been merely eighteen months since the Kira case had been concluded. At first, everyone was frightened. They'd thought Kira was calculating how many he was going to kill next, or that he was thinking of an entirely new world and everyone was all going to die at the same time. But after six months, Kira just sort of died.

Reika Sashimaru had heard so much of the Kira case. In fact, she was the only one in school who didn't support Kira at all. She thought he was just what the name Kira meant. He was a killer. Those criminals may have been bad, but they didn't deserve to die in her opinion. They could have been given a second chance to correct their mistakes.

But that was just Reika. She was a natural born pacifist. She didn't believe in killing anybody for any reason whatsoever. She just thought killing any living thing was plain cruel and she would never ever stand for it.

But today was different.

Reika walked alongside her friend Kyoko, a blond-haired, green-eyed boy from her science class. They had been chatting happily when they spotted something in the cafeteria. It was a plain black notebook with the words "DEATH NOTE" scratched into it, like with a knife or something.

"The heck?" Kyoko asked, studying the notebook for a bit before picking it up and flipping through it. "Well, it's blank. So nobody's used it."

"Wonder what it is," Reika muttered.

"Check this out," Kyoko said, eyes wide. He read something from the inside cover. "The human whose name is written in this note shall die.'"

Reika flinched. "What?" she squeaked. "That sounds awful!"

Kyoko nodded. "There's more. '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.'"

Reika leaned forward in her seat, nodding as he continued.

"'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.'"

"That sounds like the Kira murders!" Reika gasped.

"I know," Kyoko said, his voice even. "Odd. Did Kira use something like this?"

"Maybe," Reika said with a shrug.

"'After writing the cause of death, details of the death should be written in the next 6 minutes and 40 seconds.'"

"So you could literally decide how a person dies? Like, you could write that the person will commit suicide and write the details of the death, right down to the suicide note?" Reika asked.

"Possibly," Kyoko said. "Wanna try it? Who do you wanna kill?"

Reika shook her head of long brown hair wildly. "No way! This is bad! What if it was to actually work?"

"It won't work, Reika."

"You don't know that!" Reika's blue eyes were wide in fear.

"Come on, Reika," Kyoko pressed. "There's gotta be one person who you want dead. Think for a minute. Who do you want dead?"

Reika shook her head again. "Nobody! I don't like to kill things, you know that, Kyoko!"

Kyoko shrugged. "Well, I know one. He's a real bad guy. He's been going around selling drugs to the minors. He even almost killed someone."

"What's his name?" Reika asked.

"Takata Yosuke." Kyoko's eyes narrowed as he said the name, and Reika shivered. He looked so mad.

"Well, maybe we should just put this down and leave it alone. I don't like the idea of this Death Note thing killing someone."

"Yeah...sure," Kyoko muttered, then left the book on the table.

When Reika got home that night, she decided to turn on the news. She watched the weather report for a bit, then went into the kitchen to get some food.

And then she froze.

"This just in, a hardened criminal who has been the city's most wanted drug dealer Takata Yosuke, has just died on the streets in front of a group of police officers after being chased," the news lady was saying. "We don't have details on the cause of death, but police say the victim just collapsed and died almost instantly."

Reika's heart skipped several beats. Her mind scrambled to come up with a logical solution. Maybe he tripped and fell on his head. Maybe a stray bullet caught him. Maybe…

Her brain settled on one possible solution. Maybe Kyoko used that Death Note…

Her cell phone rang, interrupting her thoughts and making her jump. Reika answered when the caller ID came up as Kyoko.

"Kyoko? What have you done?" she asked, her hand shaking.

"Can you come over?" was his response.

"Kyoko, why would you use that thing? Do you know what will happen if you were caught?" Reika was panicking, pacing back and forth across the room.

Kyoko was sitting on his bed, looking down at the Death Note he was clutching in his hands, not responding.

"If the police find out that you're responsible for this-"

"They won't," Kyoko interrupted. "How could they believe that some magical notebook just randomly, out of nowhere, killed Takata Yosuke? They'd all be questioning their own sanity! Reika, I did nothing wrong. I eliminated a bad person."

"Think about what you're saying!" Reika cried. "You sound like Kira!"

"I'm starting to think that Kira's ways weren't all that bad. He killed criminals, Reika. Kira never killed innocent people."

"What about L?" Reika tried again. "He was an innocent! In fact, he was trying to stop Kira from hurting everyone!"

"Reika, don't you see?" Kyoko looked up at her. "Kira was our god. He saved us from the bad people. L was going to take him away from us. L was the bad guy, Reika. Not Kira."

Reika stared at him. "Kyoko…"

"I'm going to try it again, Reika."

"What? Who are you trying it on, Kyoko?"

Kyoko stared at the floor, his face blank and expressionless. "I'm going to use this Death Note...on my father."