Death Note, Another Note: The Los Angeles BB Murder Cases.
Otherwise known as... 'the difficult one'.
It spawned the brilliantly maniacal Beyond Birthday, it (debatably) cleared up one of the myriad mysteries of Death Note, and it presented one of the most intensely complicated fictional murder cases ever written. It was genius, and yet...
It spawned terrible names such as Backyard Bottomslash and Quarter Queen, Mello acting as the narrator made it incredibly difficult to read sometimes, and ultimately the plot ended up asking more questions than it had solved.
Why did B have shinigami eyes? Did L know who the killer was right from the beginning? And why does it appear that so many people believe B to be a jam-loving cannibal, even though he only ever eats jam once and never eats people at all?
... Okay, maybe it doesn't technically ask the last one. But you get the idea.
This fic is born from the questions the novel has raised in my mind.
DISCLAIMER: Death Note, and Another Note, for that matter, are not legally owned by the author of this fic, which would just so happen to be me.
Page One: Prologue
Death, despite what some writers may try to tempt you into believing, is not painless. People who have survived car crashes or being shot through the lung would, naturally, tell you that it hurt quite a bit. People that have not survived these same situations would probably tell a similar tale – though, of course, they are rarely given the chance to do so.
Beyond Birthday was an expert in the field of dying.
So far, he had died twice.
His first death, he remembered, took place on August 22nd 2002. This was the death he had planned, and the one which had failed him miserably. Though his spirit may have passed away on this day, a miscalculation had left his body infuriatingly intact: charred, scarred and crippled beyond recognition, but still capable enough to keep him miserably tethered to his own existence.
His second death, however…