Marionettes: (by timydamonkey)
Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note, nor am I making any kind of profit from this. I'm writing as a fan, nothing more.
Author's Note: I wanted to try my hand at writing a Ryuk point of view to see if I could make it sound sufficiently... not human, I suppose. I'm not sure how well I succeeded. First time writing Death Note fic, I'd appreciate feedback if you have the time. :)
It's monotonous. The Shinigami Realm is barren, and his companions are dull and obsessed with their gambling at a game Ryuk can't keep up with. Ryuk loves to play, but they're his own games, not man-made ones. Writing names is a boring necessity, and while he knows what happens to humans whose name he writes, he sees nothing of it. He just knows it happens.
So Ryuk takes the boredom into his own hands, 'accidentally' drops his notebook and goes to hunt it down. It takes less time than he would have liked; he hates ending the game so soon, but it all works out in the end as it leads him to meet Light Yagami.
Ryuk wonders, for a while, if he did the right thing. The boy's reaction to meeting him entertains Ryuk for days, but he sobers up, and, for a while, it seems almost the same as normal. The boy writes a lot of names, more than he'd thought possible from what he's heard about humans and consciences, but he doesn't kill anyone in front of him. The view is no different from the Shinigami Realm.
But, Ryuk learns, what Light Yagami brings with him is intelligence in abundance. His lack of subtlety, too, grabs attention, and it takes Ryuk staring at the screen with a giant "L" on it and Light fuming before Ryuk can conclude that being the spectator to a situation he's inadvertently set up is possibly the most interesting thing he'll ever see.
Ryuk can't follow Light's machinations. He's incredibly quick witted and doesn't always explain his plans, and when he does they're often inexplicably extreme. Ryuk doesn't mind, mostly finds himself thinking of the fun value in such extremities, weighing them up against eachother.
Ryuk isn't stupid, he just isn't as capable as Light or this L character.
His hastily scribbled notes aren't treated like a bible, instructions to revere and follow to the letter. Ryuk is barely convinced Light follows them at all, had he not heard the boy quote them, because he follows the words between the lines, what isn't said, more than what's written there.
Light seems to take even more pleasure in manipulating the Death Note than Ryuk does from watching it. Human names are meaningless to Ryuk, their lifespan so far under his provided he uses the Death Note that it's laughable, but there are three names he remembers. Light Yagami, the human providing his entertainment. L, which is surely an alias, and his ability to keep up with Light's scheming. (He hopes to see L, one day, because Light's frantic search for the man's name while he stares at it without effort seems hilarious to him.) Naomi Misora, who is by herself unimportant, but it's the first time he's seen Light play with lives like a marionette, as if they're beneath him.
Light, he suspects, would make a good shinigami.
Ryuk finds the way Light manipulates the people around him fascinating. He gets the girl's name, even through her suspicion, with charm and a smile. He smiles, and when his writing on the paper from the Death Note begins manipulating her alongside, she moves so much like she's being moved by invisible strings that Ryuk finds it interesting.
Man, he thinks, the shinigami should have been doing this sort of killing for years. Maybe they'd stop dying off as there'd be some entertainment in name-writing. He can't think of any colleagues known for their lateral thinking, though, to be able to work this out. It has taken a human, and Ryuk laughs at the irony.
Light tests the rules, day by day, baiting L as he goes along. Ryuk's sorely disappointed when people die of just heart attacks, but then Light explains: maybe he's written for somebody to go tapdancing on the moon and gotten nowhere, and the look of his eyes shows calculation, as if he's decided it might be a good idea to try the same thing with an astronaut, and Ryuk laughs and laughs and laughs.
The man calling himself L is strange. He doesn't act like the people that Ryuk's seen so far, seeming to deliberately defy all human convention. He watches an enraged Light for the first time after their meeting (even that TV programme had never provoked this sort of reaction), and is surprised to see the boy appear so… human.
Light explains L's thoughts processes – two geniuses in a war on the other's brain – and Ryuk learns that he's as ruthless as Light in his own way. Two takes on the same idea.
And when the mind games grow and grow, and leave Ryuk way behind somewhere, unable to understand what's going on, he can still enjoy it because he knows the stakes of this game. He knows it more than anyone.
Humans and shinigami are completely different beings. It's something Ryuk's always believed, and not just due to their short life span. He's heard stories in the Shinigami Realm, of humans and their expectations of morals, as if shinigami played by their petty, silly rules… Their emotions hold them back in everything they do, their lack of appreciation at power like the Death Note.
But Light isn't like that. For a while, Ryuk wonders whether he'd always been misled about the nature of humans, but then Light meets Misa Amane.
Misa kills people, like Light does. Light claims to be led by some sense of divine justice that amuses Ryuk to no end, but Misa isn't like that. She's resourceful enough to find Light herself without rousing suspicion – at least initially – but it's her desperation to find Light that brings them both down. It breeds carelessness.
Misa says she loves Light. It's not something that Ryuk understands. Light tries to explain, but Ryuk gets the impression he doesn't understand either: all he really gets from it is that it's making her be exceedingly irrational, which at least makes her easy to manipulate.
Or it would, at least, if Rem couldn't see through it and offer threats in turn.
Ryuk doesn't know Rem. Like humans, not all shinigami know eachother, but she seems to be almost human in her actions, like Light is almost a shinigami in his own. He finds it hilarious.
"I will not allow that boy to harm Misa," Rem tells him privately, and he just laughs more. Ryuk is an amused observer, whereas Rem is a stalwart protector. He wonders which of them would be a bigger disgrace to those in the Shinigami Realm.
It turns out that really, they should have all been more worried about Misa harming Light. She'd never deliberately hurt him, but that carelessness was going to get Light caught. Privately, Ryuk thinks that maybe if Light hadn't been so flashy with his abilities, then it wouldn't have happened, but he doesn't voice that thought. It'd have made things very boring.
It's the first time Ryuk's been involved so intricately in Light's plans, knowingly there. It sounds really dull at first, but then Light mentions apples and he's suddenly sold on the idea. He can find something else to entertain himself with – besides, he'd be disappointed if Light's plan was to backfire.
From the makeshift cell at Headquarters, Light gives the cue, and Ryuk grins.
He doesn't say "see you later", but he knows he will anyway.
It's probably wrong of him, but Ryuk visits Light one more time. It's quite startling to see the boy, handcuffed to the man who had called himself L, and looking frustrated, but also truly human. Ryuk hasn't seen him look like that since that terrified face, long ago, as Ryuk loomed over him, and it had barely lasted. The chains clank as L moves and the chains move with him, shifting Light at the other end.
He watches Light, propelled like a marionette himself by these all too visible strings, and chuckles. Nobody can hear him.
"You're never boring, Light." Ryuk smirks and leaves the strange building, oddly reluctant but not wanting to test Light's orders too much as he'd never know how it would have worked, otherwise. He'd get to see all the fun later, he was sure. He knew how much humans, and especially L, loved those tape recorders.