Author's Note: Okay, I'll admit I don't know anything about African culture or history or anything this story is supposed to be set in. I'm just going on how the idea was in my head. The story turned out pretty well despite being a little vague in some places. Please review and tell me what you think! I suppose this is a oneshot, but if I get a lot of reviews I guess I'll do another one with Rem or maybe Gelus (is that his name? I can't remember - ) Meow!
Death Note: The Living Note: Ryuk
Hundreds of years before Light Yagami became Kira… Ryuk was a human. Half a world away from Japan, in southern Africa in a time of warring tribes, Ryuk's story begins and ends very different from Light's.
- - - -
"Did you see the white men?"
"White men? More of them? Why do so many keep finding their way to our tribe."
"Or at least to our scouting parties."
"I heard this is the biggest group of them yet."
"We should eat them."
"Eat them? We're not like the barbarian Nobo tribe! We don't eat our prisoners!"
"I heard they were already dead. A jaguar attack."
"Yes. Their bodies were brought back to show the clan leaders. Maybe when they're done with the bodies they can be salvaged. If the meat is still good some of the women may cook it."
"Does the Nobo tribe really eat their prisoners?"
"Heh, of course! Everybody knows that! What they do is skin you alive so they can where it! Put your skin on right there - still bloody and freshly cut - and wear your skin around right in front of you! That's when they'll cook you. They won't even bother killing you first - just cook you as you are. Then they'll dance around your burning body and you scream all you want. They'll just dance like it's music-"
"Stop it!"
"You're lying. Mobi, don't listen to the fool. There are all kinds of rumors about the Nobo tribe. They start up every time war breaks out between our villages."
"No I'm not," the black teenager grinned. He was 17 and the oldest in the hunting party. "One of 'em escaped a few summers back. You don't remember it because you were too young. He was missing all his skin and you could see his guts! He's still alive. He's all wrapped up in cloth and all he does all day is hide in his hut."
"That's impossible!"
"You're only one summer older than me and I don't remember that!"
"Ask Ryuk. He'll tell you if it's true or not!"
"Ryuk!" Mobi called. He was the youngest in the hunting party by a few summers. He'd made his first kill - a plump old boar - that morning.
Ryuk, the only one yet to kill an animal, had been ignoring his friends and concentrating on his hunting. He'd been slowly increasing the distance between him and his friends, walking with an arrow half cocked in his bow. He looked back at Mobi.
"Why ask me?" Ryuk asked calmly. His dark eyes were staring past Mobi.
"Because you are the chief's second son. If anyone here would know it'd be you, right?" asked the 17- year-old who was named Hajik. He was grinning wildly.
Ryuk stared at him. He was tall and had broad shoulders for his age. He was two summers younger than Hajik and was already bigger than him.
He tongued the spaces between his sharpened teeth absently. All the young men in his tribe had their teeth filed to sharp points when they became of age. Ryuk had his done years ago. "Yeah. It's just a rumor," he finally said.
"You liar!" accused Mobi turning sharply on the older boy.
"He doesn't know. He's not a warrior," said Hajik with his mocking smile. But he was ignored. Now everybody could tell he was lying.
Ryuk turned away from them in time to see a shadow moving quickly roughly 200 yards away. Ryuk's reflexes were perfect. He was one of the best in the village. In the same second he saw the shadow, Ryuk raised his bow and aimed. Instinctively aiming for where the neck should be, he shot.
The shaft sailed through the air. Everyone in the hunting party watched it fly. Nobody moved until it was brought to a stop in the trunk of a tree. It was close, at the least the animal had escaped with a few less hairs on its back.
"So close," mumbled Mobi at Ryuk's side.
"There must be a spirit protectin' that animal. It really looked like you had something," muttered Hajik. His smile gone.
"Are you going to go after 'em?"
"Of course," said Ryuk. "Unless something else comes out right now."
"What was that thing? Did anyone get a decent look at it?"
"A boar, maybe."
"It could have been a jaguar," added Mobi.
"A jaguar would have attacked not run."
"Ryuk, will you be okay going after that thing on your own? We're close to the village and we each have caught our share."
"That's fine," muttered Ryuk beginning to make his way toward his arrow. He took out his knife and readied it for trouble. "I'll be back before dark!" he called over his shoulder.
The land sloped downward and Ryuk found himself slipping a few times in the mud and tripping over underbrush. Sweat dripped down his forehead and he paused at the bottom of the slope to wipe it out of his eyes. He could see his arrow not far away sticking out of soft tree bark.
That was when someone called out to him.
Ryuk looked behind him up the slope expecting to see someone from the hunting party calling to him for some reason. But no one was there. The hunting party had long gone.
"Behind you! Can you give me a hand! I've been shot by one of these humans' weapons."
Ryuk turned around startled. He hadn't heard anyone sneak up behind him. But after he saw what it was, he cried out and stumbled backwards. He raised his knife with shaking hands, dropped it, grabbed for it, and finally raised it again.
A tiny demon that hadn't been there a minute ago was pinned by his arrow to a tree. It stared at him with one tiny pupiless eye and one large red eye. Its entire body was gray and skinny. Two skeletal, black wings grew out of its back. Its head was big and there were only a few black strands of hair hanging off it. Except for its head, the creature looked shriveled.
His arrow had the demon pinned to the tree by one of its wings and the demon was reaching for it with one of his skinny arms that wasn't quite long enough. Its other wing flapped haphazardly by itself.
"Damnit all! I thought you were a demon who could give me a hand, but you're the human who shot me!"
Ryuk tried to keep his voice steady, "W-What are you? Where did you come from?" he asked standing up. His eyes shifted form side to side wondering if there were more creatures hidden somewhere.
"I'm Hanabi the Jeweled King's Note Keeper, now could you give me a hand and remove this arrow since you are the human that put it there?"
Ryuk shook his head, "No. You're a demon. Why should I trust you? I should leave you. Or maybe kill you."
Hanabi laughed, "Sorry but humans can't kill me. You're better off shooting your arrows at the sky and hoping to hit clouds."
"But I can leave you!"
Hanabi's laughter stopped, "Well… that would be a problem. I have places to be. How about I make you a deal. I grant you one wish if you free me."
Ryuk cocked his head suspiciously, "A deal? But you're a demon. Won't you try to trick me? And where did you come from?"
"Why would I try to trick you? All I want is off this damning tree!" he flapped his free wing furiously trying to keep his body level, "Generally humans can't see me. I was just flying by when your human weapon hit me. I don't know how, lucky shot, I guess, nothing like this has ever happened to me before. When I saw you coming this way I mistook you for another demon like me. I thought 'What luck! Maybe this won't end badly after all!' So I called out to you. This is the key, whenever a demon speaks to a human that human can see them. Usually, demons can see other demons easily though. Hyak! Hyak! Simple really. Now about your human weapon…"
"I don't like the idea of making a deal with you," Ryuk said.
"Then don't! If you don't want anything then just remove this arrow and I can go. Your choice. It works out better for me if you don't want a deal. Then I can-"
"I didn't say I didn't want anything! I just said I don't trust you."
"Alright then," Hanabi smiled, but his rotting fangs looked more like a sneer, "What do you want."
Ryuk sheathed his knife and folded his arms and smiled, showing Hanabi his own razor sharpened teeth.
- - - -
Ryuk was preparing the newly killed boar to take back to the village. Hanabi flapped idly and watched over Ryuk's shoulder as he readied the boar's corpse.
"So this is the rat that you were aiming at when you shot me?" Hanabi asked.
"It's hardly a rat and, yes, I shot you when I was aiming for this one."
"Have you put any thought into what you want to wish for yet?" Hanabi asked changing the subject.
Ryuk said nothing. He wasn't in the mood for talking and even less in the mood for talking to a demon. Hanabi seemed to pick up on this fact very quickly and only laughed his strange laugh, "Hyak, hyak!" For some reason it sent chills down Ryuk's spine.
Ryuk pushed the eerie laugh from his mind and tried to concentrate on his work. They didn't have much time before the sun would set and a good two miles stood between him and home. Running into Hanabi had cost him more time than he expected and they'd have to hurry to make it home before dark with the boar.
Not that Ryuk could have known, but the delay was his curse and his salvation.
- - - -
"We're going back to your home now, right?" hissed Hanabi. He hadn't said anything since they caught the boar.
Ryuk nodded assuming Hanabi could see him in the rapidly decreasing twilight.
"Your village is close, right?"
Again, Ryuk only nodded. The demon still disturbed him and he was wanting to focus all his attention on getting home before dark. They were almost there.
"Are you the type of human that builds giant fires at night to destroy stuff?"
Ryuk stopped and looked back at Hanabi thoroughly confused. "What are you talking about? Destroy stuff? Why would we destroy stuff with fire?"
Hanabi laughed to himself and scratched his bald head with one clawed finger, "You must not be that kind of human then."
"What kind of human?" asked Ryuk momentarily forgetting his urgency.
"Hyak, I don't know. I don't care a lot about the Human Realm, but every time I look down at it there're humans burning stuff. Sometime they're burning forests away, or buildings, every once in a while I'll catch them lighting each other on fire. As far as I know they're just bored. Hyak, Hyak."
"What brought all this on?" asked Ryuk still not understanding what Hanabi was talking about.
"Oh yeah, if you aren't a human that lights things on fire on purpose then what is that for?" Hanabi pointed at the sky behind him.
Ryuk turned warily in the direction Hanabi was pointing.
The sky was bright orange and red. Black smoke rose into the sky and blended in with the night. His village was on fire. They were still a good half mile away and the fire was huge. A fire that size could easily consume the whole village.
Ryuk took off running leaving Hanabi and the dead boar without a word. His mind was racing. He'd seen out of control fires before but nothing like this. Nothing this big. He became aware of Ryuk shouting at him and flying after him quickly with his great wings flapping leisurely.
Branches were slapping Ryuk's arms and legs with a stinging bite but Ryuk didn't care. His calloused feet were carrying him over the familiar terrain faster than ever before. After a solid five minutes of hard running Ryuk was home. He burst through the edge of the forest on his burning village and immediately understood the truth of the situation he was in.
Everything was flaming and people were being slaughtered. Where were his village's warriors? Were they all defeated? Emotions raged inside Ryuk willing him to do something but the chaos was everywhere. Ryuk watched uselessly at the edge.
Ashes and debris consumed the paths Ryuk had walked his whole life. Few of the villagers were about and for a while it seemed abandoned. Some small fires were burning themselves out while the wind kept the bigger ones moving.
A young girl ran out of a flaming hut. Her legs and arms were on fire and she dropped to the ground fifty yards from Ryuk. She was bleeding from a wound in her stomache and had almost no chance of surviving even without the fire. A Nobo warrior materialized to finish her off.
The Nobo warrior's prescence was like a switch in Ryuk's head. Suddenly the evidence of war was everywhere it seemed silly he couldn't see it before. It was in the blood and murdered cattle. The abandoned, broken blades and sticks. Severed limbs hidden in the high grass. Broken doors and thieves making off with items before the fires turned them to dust.
The girl was screaming now and Ryuk couldn't understand if she was calling for help or if she was telling him to run.
He could hear Hanabi laughing behind him and it was his manaical laughter that angered Ryuk to move. He swiftly turned on the demon and found he was not alone. A Nobo swordsman barring a bulky knife was upon him. The swordsman couldn't see Hanabi and was only after Ryuk.
Hanabi was laughing because he was sure he'd soon be relieved from his promise to grant Ryuk a wish.
- - - -
Consiousness came to Ryuk slowly and he was surprised to be alive. He could tell he was on his stomach and tied with thick cord around his arms, legs, and wrists. He also reconized the hut he was in as one of the elder's of his village one roomed hut. He was sharing his confinement with two women he didn't reconize. They were both dead in each other's arms.
"Hanabi," whispered Ryuk. He could feel Hanabi crawling on his back and reach one skinny, cold hand around his shoulder.
"Still alive are we? What do you want?" he hissed in a knowing voice.
"I don't… want to die."
Even though Hanabi was behind him Ryuk could still see the scheming smile spread across Hanabi's lips.
"You want me to get you out of this, your saying?" He could feel Hanabi's tiny body shifting around on his back. His clawed hands lightly pricking his skin. "Just say the word, you want me to kill the guard out front? Or I can transport you to another place. It's easy if-"
"I want to live forever."
Hanabi's prodding came to an abrupt stop. He could picture the little demon frozen in his position, perhaps one clawed hand still in the air as he questioned himself if he heard correctly.
"I can't do that," he finally said, "Well… maybe that's not entirely true. But there are conditions and you have to be-"
"I don't care about any of that. If there's a way, I'll do it! I don't care what it takes. I don't care what the conditions are. I'll do whatever it takes to escape death."
Hanabi began to laugh on his shoulder. A large toothy sneer made its way across his lumpy head. "Humans… are fun!" he finally said and leapt off Ryuk's shoulder and sat down right in front of him. Crouching down he reached out a skinny arm and lightly patted the ground in front of Ryuk twice. Ryuk strained his head to watch the little demon.
Suddenly a thick, transparent object came from the ground. Sheets of white paper were bound in a black leather cover. The words 'LIVING NOTE' were etched into the cover. Hanabi placed his hand over the book and it began to materialize.
"This is the Living Note. You and I are the only ones who can see it. All you have to do is write your name in it and it'll be done. You can live as long as you like." Hanabi chuckled to himself slightly.
Ryuk squirmed against his bonds for a second, "Writing? I don't know how to write! I know of only one person in the whole village who knows writing! And it was in a far away village!"
"What? Your village doesn't have any sort of writing?" Hanabi closed his eyes and scratched his head with one hand, "Lets see, in this situation a blood deal will apply. Just drop a little of your blood on this page here," Hanabi opened the book to a fresh page with five or so names already written in one corner.
Ryuk stared at it in amazement, "My blood…? A few drops of blood? Is that the only price to live forever?"
Hanabi began to scratch his head again, flakes of dead skin and hair fell off him, "Does that mean you're agreeing to the deal?" He said with a toothy grin breaking across his face. He stared at Ryuk through his white blind eye and his big red eye.
Ryuk nodded his head, "I'll give you as much blood as you need. Just untie me and…"
Hanabi stopped scratching himself, "Eh? Untie you? Nope. Can't do that. It's all part of the rules. I can't help you in any way sign - or in this case bleed - on the Living Note."
"What?" hissed Ryuk, "Rules? What rules? You're a demon!"
Hanabi shrugged his shoulders and ignored him.
Ryuk sighed, "I can't believe this," he muttered, "You can't bend these rules a little bit? How am I expected to sign anything if I'm tied up?"
This time Hanabi didn't even acknowledge he'd said anything. He turned his back to him and sat on his butt. Ryuk watched his skinny arm reach around to scratch his back.
Then an idea came to him, "Will you keep that book open? Keep it right there. You said no one else can see it, right?"
Hanabi nodded, "What are you going to do?"
Ryuk ignored him and began struggling to a sitting position. Then he began shouting to guard stationed outside the hut. "Hey! Hey! Nobo dog! Come in here! I want to talk to you! The second son of Chief Munagi demands you to come!"
The guard outside came in with eyes blazing. His skin was pitch black and his head was shaved. He moved quickly through the door armed with a giant spear with a dark blade at the tip. The guard obviously knew enough of their language to be insulted. Ryuk knew the guard's anger was necessary for his plan, but he had been hoping the guard wasn't in possesion of such a malicous looking weapon.
"!evila eb ot ykcul era uoy!yob lufetargnu uoy!?em ot yas uoy did tahw!?" shouted the guard. The corners of his eyes were bloodshot and his pupils were unnaturally black.
It was suicide. There was no other way to describe it. But Ryuk knew this was his only chance. His life in the village was over. By now his friends were surely dead, his mother, and especially his father would be dead or if not they would be receiving a fate even worse than death. It was best to get it all over quickly. That spear looked painful.
Ryuk shifted restlessly trying his best not to be too suspicious about it. Carefully trying to calculate how he would likely fall and how much consiousness he would have when he was falling.
"!efil ruoy ekat t'now I ebyam dna mrow lufetargnu uoy em ot ezigolopa?gniod uoy era tahw?" the guard shouted again.
Ryuk raised his head and made eye contact with the Nobo guard for the first time and last time. Ryuk took a deep breath and spat directly in his face. No words.
The Nobo guard moved faster than light. He used his spear and sliced Ryuk's chest open.
His blood was spilling out and Ryuk's body dropped to the dirt floor. Ryuk tried his best to guide his fall through the pain. He could feel all his blood pouring out of his chest and his heart eagerly and fearfully pumping it out as if to help his suicide. Consiousness was going faster than he expected and he wasn't sure if he landed right.
And then it was over.
- - - -
The guard had no way of knowing it but Ryuk would be the last person he would kill. By the next morning a strong counterattack would be launched on the Nobo warriors by Ryuk's older brother. As it was Ryuk's older brother Nahabo, first and oldest son of Chief Munagi, had taken the majority of the village's warriors to an adjacent village to set up an alliance. Upon their return and discovering their village and family had been comepletly wiped from the earth, they slaughtered the Nobo warriors and soon moved on to take the Nobo city as well. After this incident, Nahabo would live another twenty years and become a decorated hero in many battles. By the end of his life he would have five children and will die from a sudden, unexpected break of a major vein wrapped around his heart. Or more commonly, a heart attack.
The guard who killed Ryuk would die twenty feet from where Ryuk did. He would be killed by a sixteen-year-old who was to marry the burned girl Ryuk saw die by the Nobo warrior's sword. Thirty minutes after the village is won back, the boy would find his fiancee's corpse outside her home and not even recognize it for what it was.
Twenty hours after the village is won back, Nahabo would walk by the hut Ryuk was held in. He would stop and admire it as one of the few surviving examples that his people existed and then he would move on. Destined to leave forever soon after. This would be the closest Nahabo would come to find out what happened to his little brother.
- - - -
Ryuk's eyes shot open and he started to scream.
His back was being ripped open.
His first thought was the Nabo tribe was skinning him alive. They were tearing into his back to take off all his skin so they could wear it as they sacrificed the rest of him.
But there weren't any Nabo warriors around him. There was no one with him. Only Ryuk digging his fingernails into the stone ground and crying out.
Then he felt something coming out of his back. It was something scorching hot and all his flesh felt like it was burning.
That was when he saw Hanabi. He fit in nicely with the barren wasteland. Much more than the African jungle. His gray, wrinkled body almost looked part of the wasteland. Like the snakes that blend in with their habitat so well that their prey walks right across their lumpy bodies before they realized that their puny lives were over.
"Hanabi!" hissed Ryuk, "You lying demon! You betrayed me! I saved your life and what have you done to me?" Ryuk hissed. He dug his nails into the dry earth and hissed with pain.
Hanabi looked at him with his one good eye and laughed.
"Stupid human, I didn't betray you. This is what you wanted. Eternal life. The chance to live forever."
The Living Note appeared before him like it did in the prisoner hut. It was turned wide open to the page with Ryuk's blood. His blood had splattered over an entire page as well as the adjacent page and it drenched the names of previous signers who wrote on the same page. Their names could still be read easily in the peculiar ink as if they were written on red paper.
"W-What's… happening… to me?!" screamed Ryuk as the fiery pain grew. Saliva ran down his chin and tears streamed down his face.
"What's happening are the conditions you said you didn't care about. Remember now? You said something a long the lines of: 'I don't care what the conditions are. I'll do whatever it takes to escape death.' Ringing any bells?"
Ryuk let out another scream and his body twisted. He fell shaking on his stomach when at last the pain began to subside. He could feel something off his back. He couldn't tell what it was, but he could feel it was heavy and awkward. Something was also dripping off it, maybe blood.
Ryuk was suddenly exhausted. He was too weak to turn his head and see what was on top of him and even less capable of concentrating on what Hanabi was saying. He could feel his consciousness fading as his eyes began to droop.
"Condition one: You're going to have to become a shinigami to live forever. Only shinigami and angels can live forever and I can't make you an angel. And your body is gonna start changing - that's what's happening to you now - some of it will change and you won't even know it. Some of it will be more painful like those wings on your back. It's just a fact; a human body just won't keep up in the Shinigami Realm. I have no control over that, either. The second condition is this: Your Death Note. You're gonna need your Death Note to live forever, but you can find out about that later…"
Ryuk was only slightly aware of Hanabi pushing his shoulder back and slipping a flat object under his chest.
"Can't… write…" Ryuk mumbled almost incoherently. Hanabi understood him fine.
"Trust me, you'll learn. But there's plenty of time for that later. Don't worry this will become easier when you wake up. Oh… and I almost forgot! Condition three: I'm gonna have to take your memories. All of them from the human world…"
And Ryuk closed his eyes for the last time as a human. Hanabi's terrible smile coming closer and closer and he powerless to stop him was the last memory Ryuk the human had. It was also the first memory Hanabi ripped from his soul as he began the task of erasing Ryuk's memories.