I've never written something like this before, genre-wise, and it's my first Death Note fiction as well, so criticism is welcomed. All characters belong to people both smarter and richer than I am, which I suppose gives them the right to make me write this little blurb.

Episode.01: -BOREDOM- (Allies)

Sitting in the shadows, the creature munched absently on a piece of fruit and watched with interest as the young man, hunched over at the desk, busily worked away. Months had passed since the creature's companion had engaged himself in this particular diversion, and he seemed to be making up for lost time. Though the young man did little more than glance at his computer and scribble down his findings, smirking every once in a while (the creature could not see the young man's face, but his entire body posture conveyed a gigantic smirk of sorts), the tension in the room stifled all other emotions. The creature thrived on such tension. It kept things interesting.

Leaning back at last, the young man stretched his arms out behind his head, yawning slightly. "That's it for tonight," he remarked. "Best to take things slow for awhile."

The creature stared at the object on which the young man had been writing. "That's slow?" he asked doubtfully, looking at the immense volume of "work" the young man had accumulated in the past two hours. He chuckled. "I almost pity the world should you decide to work quickly."

"Don't tease me. I'm not talking quantity here, I'm talking intensity." The young man flipped backwards in his notebook, showed the creature the first page. One name, scribbled almost whimsically, kept the pure white surface from being completely blank. "As much as I'd like to take more people like him down, his death alone nearly doomed the city. I have to strip the branches before I take out the roots."

"Whatever you say." The creature didn't care about trees, literal or otherwise, unless they produced fruit of some sort. "It's your game, not mine. I'm just a bystander."

His companion snorted, putting the notebook away. "Sure you are. I'm going to bed. Time for someone else to make the next move in the game." He gestured, and the creature got off of the bed so the young man could turn down the covers and climb in.

"Tonight was entertaining," the creature said as the young man switched off the final light and lay back on the pillows.

A low laugh drifted through the darkness of the room. "Just you wait. Tomorrow will be even more so."

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

The next day dawned bright, crisp, and cloudless, the midwinter air sharp but not bitingly cold; Judoh's climate was not given to dropping past the freezing point. Commuters packed the streets, wishing each other "good morning" with a bit more spring in their steps than usual. Sunny days have such an effect on most people, possessing for whatever reason the curious ability to endow the human spirit and mind with extra energy and vitality in nine out of ten cases.

The odd case out woke up reluctantly, plodded to his heavily-drawn window, gazed blearily out through the heavy, luxurious curtains, squinted in the light, and made the sluggish trek back into his bed. It was still twenty-two minutes before his usual waking time, and he had no intentions, sun or no sun, of spending them anywhere but ensconced between his mattress and his blankets.

It didn't really matter anyway. Nothing was going to happen. Ever since the Special Unit boy had skipped out on all his responsibilities and gone joyriding who-knew-where, the whole city had been deader than a deserted morgue. The new day could wait twenty-two more minutes to make the acquaintance of Clair Leonelli, Vampire of Company Vita. He was still tired, damn it. And what was more, he was bored.

Unfortunately, not everyone had been informed of this agreement between the young man and the universe in general. He had just dozed off again when a knock on the heavy wooden doors startled him, his heart jumping for a split second and his temper instantly rankled. Sitting up, he was about to yell at whoever had dared trespass near his private chambers before the usual time, then realized that getting up would be exactly what the intruder wanted of him. So with all the maturity his nineteen years bestowed when coupled with his position as the most powerful influence in the underworld, Clair pulled the covers all the way over his black-and-blue head and pretended he hadn't heard the knock.

The sound came again—louder this time, more insistent. Clair uncovered his head and shot a glance at his clock. Seven minutes left. He would wait them out, then appear nonchalantly in his doorway like nothing had happened.

Another knock. Whoever it was was surprisingly persistent. Frowning, Clair ran through his list of possible suspects in his head and found he could not definitively make a guess as to his rude guest's identity. Giovanni would have called through the door, and he didn't knock with his knuckles like this person was doing; he knocked with the back of his hand, which made a different type of sound through the wood. Mauro wouldn't dare approach his Young Master's room until the appointed time. To his knowledge, he hadn't acquired any new staff that would need familiarizing with the rules; the old staff stayed as far away from his room as they could get unless personally told to clean up. So then...what was going on?

"Vampire?" Finally, a voice, but not one he knew. What was Mauro thinking, letting strangers into his living wing? Clair groaned, set his clock three minutes ahead out of spite so his alarm would go off, switched off the machine after it rang a few times, and swung his legs out of bed again. Wrapping himself in his bathrobe and glancing quickly in the mirror to ascertain he looked at least half-decent, he opened a door a crack.

"Come back later," he informed the pinstripe-suited man on the other side. "Better yet, talk to Mauro. He handles all my correspondences. Now get out."

"P-pardon me, Vampire," the man stuttered—Clair smiled to himself at the thought that he'd made the man afraid of him with a single order-- "but I have orders not to tell anyone but you this news."

"It can wait," Clair decided without even a moment's pause, already heading for the bathroom attached to his sleeping quarters. "Be in the foyer when I'm ready to see you. And have proof of who sent you ready."

"But Vampire!"

Clair closed the bathroom door; the lock clicked in a most satisfactory fashion as he turned it. Turning, he pressed the intercom button he'd had installed—he'd wanted a mode of dictation available should he come up with a brilliant plan in the shower, and the device sent a signal directly to his right-hand man's cell phone. "Giovanni?"

"Vampire!" The bodyguard sounded a bit surprised. "What's wrong?"

"Who the hell is outside my door?" He turned on his bathtub faucets, considered for a moment, then clicked the plug on the bottom of the tub into place. This day was not starting well. He deserved a bath. "And how did they get that far in?"

"I've been in the kitchen helping with breakfast." Clair snorted--'helping with breakfast' likely meant 'spilling coffee and flirting fruitlessly with the kitchen maids.' "Mauro's handled all the door traffic."

"There's been more?"

"Bell's been ringing like a damn church during a wedding. You're a popular man today."

Clair groaned and shut his eyes. "Giovanni. Go out in the foyer and count them."

"Six—no, one just wandered in from your direction. I see tokens from all the other factions of the Board."

"Sit them down. I might take a while." Opening his eyes, he saw the bathtub was in danger of overflowing and switched off the faucets. Then, frowning still deeper, he turned back to the intercom. "Wait a minute. Someone came from Iwanami's group?"

"Looks it. Wearing his type of suit."

"Keep an eye on that one. Dead men don't send messengers."

"You got it. Have a nice bath."

"How'd you know I decided to take a--" But the line went dead. Clair shrugged off his bathrobe, tossed his pajamas on top of it, and stepped into the bath, already hating the day.

Then he scowled, his opinion of life's general rottenness officially cemented. The water was still cold.

O0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

Her pink heels clicking smartly against the office building's polished floor, Kyoko Milchan strode down the hallway to the office where she worked, bright and perky as the sunshine outside. Though it had barely started, she could already tell her day would be wonderful, having woken up refreshed from a long night's sleep and made a lunch-and-shopping date with her mother over breakfast. This, she had decided, would be the day. Today, this beautiful sunny day when it seemed nothing could go wrong, she would at last tell her parents how she and the young man who had accidentally joined them for a meal once, despite both their protests to the contrary, had finally admitted their feelings for each other.

Of course, such a confession would also involve explaining how said young man had gotten an exit visa and was currently on a self-run tour of the rest of the world, which she didn't feel would sit so well with her audience, especially her mother. Kyoko loved her mother dearly, but she also freely admitted whatever proper, conservative streak held up her own backbone so rigidly, she had inherited from the Yulgences and not the Milchans. Most likely her mother would demand to know why, if the young man truly loved her, he hadn't given up on his own dreams and settled down with her immediately. There really was no answer to that inquiry, save that it wasn't the sort of thing Daisuke would ever think of doing, and that frankly Kyoko wouldn't want him to; but that answer could hardly be considered satisfactory to any party. Such disapproval, however, was an obstacle she was prepared and willing to face.

Less expected, and less welcome, was the sight that greeted her as she stepped through the sliding metal door to the office and headquarters of the Judoh City Safety Management Agency Special Unit.

"What—who—what is all this?" Kyoko stammered, staring at the floor awash in puzzle pieces and scattered with what looked like toy replicas of androids. She always made a point of cleaning thoroughly before leaving—there was no reason for the place to be a mess—and honestly, what were children's playthings doing in her office?

"Good morning, Kyoko. You look cute as always," her android colleague J complimented her from his traditional position in the corner, next to the coat rack where hung his trademark black hat. "The belongings on the floor are Near's property."

"Near?" Her eyes landed on the bottom corner of her desk: sticking out from behind it, the rest of the body concealed behind the desk proper, was a child's foot covered in a dirty white sock. "Who is Near?"

"I'm Near." The rest of the boy to whom the stockinged foot belonged emerged from behind the desk, holding a puzzle piece in one hand. "It got kicked behind your desk. I apologize for intruding on your personal space." Clambering up onto Daisuke's couch, he clicked the piece into place within an already half-finished puzzle, then descended back into the disaster area to search once more. During the whole encounter he neglected to look Kyoko in the eyes, his white curly head bowed studiously over his pastimes.

Kyoko blinked and gingerly stepped around Near's scattered toys to reach her desk. "I'm Kyoko Milchan. It's nice to meet you, Near. But...pardon my asking, but..."

"You should have gotten the notice about my arriving two days ago at the latest," Near interrupted, anticipating her question but speaking without, it seemed, much interest in the complication. "L sent me as a substitute for your absent agent."

She'd been so busy filing complaints from citizens and making still more excuses for Daisuke that she hadn't had time to go through all the mail. "L?" Kyoko asked in bewilderment, then looked up at J again. "Wait, replace? J, what's going on? You're still Daisuke's partner, aren't you?"

"I am," the machine confirmed. "But a potential case has arisen that makes increasing the number of agents in the Special Unit a priority, especially after the developments of last night."

Kyoko hadn't had time to read or watch the news that morning, preoccupied as it were with her plans for later in the day. "Why, what happened last night?" she asked, sitting down and calling up a news site on her computer. Scanning the headlines, her brows furrowed in confusion. "How odd..." she mused.

"Isn't it?" Near scooped a few pieces up into one hand and added them, one by one, to the rapidly growing puzzle. "So many wanted and convicted criminals, all dying of heart attacks in a single night. Strange as it seems, the numbers are too great to be mere coincidence. That's why L sent me. He's already on another case, but can't let something like this pass either. So I'm handling this one, and you'll be assisting me."

"Can this even be called a case?" Kyoko asked, scrolling down the list of names; no one seemed willing to tell her who this "L" was, so she let the question remain unsettled for the time being. The boy's rudeness in referring to her, who officially worked for the Special Unit, as an "assistant" only also rankled, but to start off on an amiable note with the child she bit her tongue. "There's no telling why this happened."

"Actually, criminals have been dying in strange ways since a few weeks after Shun Aurora's arrest. This particular barrage of deaths coincidentally fell on the night before I joined you. L assigned me to the case with far less evidence of its validity. I have my own doubts about the cause of his phenomenon, but for now it is simplest to work with L's theory: there is someone out there making these deaths occur." Near sighed. "Unfortunately, the killer will draw quite a bit of attention to himself with this latest onslaught, which will make our job harder. He intends to make his presence known and likely expects some sort of response. And I'm afraid that, if we want to try and catch him, we'll have to give him one. Though I hate giving way to provocation." Abandoning his puzzle temporarily to pick up a toy machine, he twisted an arm until it fell off.

Kyoko squirmed uneasily at the sudden show of violence from such a passive-looking, impassive-sounding young boy. Really, the child couldn't have been more than in his early teens, and his baggy white clothing made him look even younger, sleeves dwarfing his small deft hands. "Why did this L send you?" she asked finally, watching Near stare at his half-finished puzzle as he twisted a lock of his hair around one finger.

Near looked up for the first time, honestly surprised by the question; dark eyes met Kyoko's turquoise ones, and his hand fell, the maligned lock of hair sticking out from his head at an odd angle like a tiny spring. "Because if anyone can solve this case, it's me," he admitted without a trace of arrogance: the scholar merely recited a fact. "After all, I'm number one."

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

"Clair, your wife's dead!" Giovanni banged the kitchen door open with such force that the young don jumped, nearly spilling his plate of food. "Or—I mean—oh, damn..."

"What??" Clair yelped; several members of the kitchen staff echoed his cry, then blushed and vacated the kitchen. It was bad enough that Vampire had chosen to break his fast among them this morning to avoid the crowds of thugs rapidly filling his foyer without their intruding on his personal business the way he'd chosen to force in on theirs.

Breathing haggardly and blinking to ensure he wasn't still half-asleep, Clair rephrased his query a bit more eloquently. "Giovanni. What are you talking about?"

"This." The bodyguard slammed a newspaper down onto the counter on which Clair had positioned himself; the don leaned over, still munching on his waffles, to peruse the article. "One hundred eight convicts and suspects all over the city?" he read aloud, frowning. "All at four in the morning?"

"Dead of heart attacks," Giovanni affirmed, relieving a platter nearby of an already-spread bagel and taking a large, sloppy bite. "That's why none of the Board came out in person. They're still in shock and don't want to appear in public, but they want your opinion."

"And a wife factors into this equation...how?" Clair raised a single eyebrow, a trick he'd been practicing in front of the mirror since he was a small child but which he had only recently perfected. "I don't see the connection."

"She's the connection," the bodyguard sighed heavily, jabbing a cream-cheese-smeared finger at the paper. "Lara Rinseko."

"As in Rinseko the giant on the Board?" Clair laughed shortly. "Spotface has a daughter? She must be the ugliest thing..."

"Was," Giovanni corrected wearily. "She was one of the hundred and eight."

"So we send flowers and move on. Now what could have..."

"Vampire, I didn't want to keep this from you; I didn't even know until about a month ago and it's been killing me..." Giovanni paused, swallowed a hunk of bagel and licked his thumb. "Mauro probably wouldn't want me to tell you even now. But your old man set up something you should know about."

At the mention of his father, Clair's throat constricted and he set his half-finished plate aside. Nothing that began with the phrase "your old man," "the former Vampire", or any variation thereof ever ended with conclusions he deemed satisfactory. What was worse, a sense of guilt always soured his distaste even further in such matters, nineteen years of nearly slaving loyalty to the man burned deep into his values even as his opinions shouted to be let free of the cage that had been Lorenzo Leonelli's staunch conservatism. He loved his father better than he loved himself, longed to prove himself to the man even now, months after the old don had passed away, yet he also struggled to rid himself of the feeling of constant disapproval dogging his every step.

"What did Papa arrange, Giovanni?" he asked, his voice barely a whisper as it forced its way through dry lips, around the silver ring he'd purchased much to that man's chagrin in his only great act of rebellion while his father still drew breath.

The bodyguard sighed again. "Well, he figured you'd balk, so he set it up without telling you. Ever wonder how he won the support of the others on the board?"

Clair shrugged. "Not really. Wasn't he superhuman?" The casual sarcasm lacked barbs, hitting too close to his actual conception of his father's power over others. Papa had been extraordinary...and Clair, all his life, had been below par.

"Are you taking this seriously or not?" Shaking his head, Giovanni took the plunge. "Well, nobody could ever accuse your old man of not thinking far ahead. He won Rinseko over by promising that the man's grandson would be Vampire. You connect the dots."

Clair's mind blanked, and for several long moments he gaped like a stunned fish. "And when," he eventually managed to say, "was he planning on telling me?" A grin twitched onto his face; his shoulders shook. Oh, this was just like his father. This was exactly the sort of stunt he'd fallen victim to over and over again through the years. The family came first. Everything else, like his feelings, didn't matter—no, didn't exist. "Was Mauro going to hit me over the head and take me trussed up to the chapel—like a present for his business partner--" The imagery made him laugh despite himself. It was so much easier to conjure up bizarre visions and laugh at them than deal with the actual facts. Gasping, he laughed so hard his ribs began to hurt and he had to squeeze his lilac-colored eyes shut.

Giovanni waited for the fit to pass before answering. "The night before the wedding. Which was set for your twentieth birthday. Problem is, the board still wants you to get hitched then."

"But the girl's dead," Clair pointed out breathlessly, wiping eyes he told himself were teary from mirth and not any other factor. Other emotions were beginning to seep through cracks in his armor, and he didn't feel like dealing with them at present—likely, he never would.

"That's why it's a problem." Giovanni shoved his hands in his pockets, turned away. "They want you to find a fiancee by the time you turn twenty. These heart attacks made them jumpy, and any bases they can cover in securing their futures, they want to. And keeping the Leonellis in charge looks a lot more appealing now that somebody's after criminals. Better you than them."

"That's two months," objected Clair dismissively, clamping an inner lid down on the outraged feelings of betrayal threatening to blow forth at any moment. "Even if I wanted to find a wife—which I don't—that' s not enough time. Besides, they're still crooks, and something like this has to be a freak--"

"One hundred and eight people at exactly the same time from exactly the same cause?" Giovanni countered. "And as for finding the lady..."

"I can count the women I know on two hands, the ones I like with none. End of discussion. Tell all the men out there to go home. I have nothing to say to them." Clair picked up his plate of food, now cold, and shoveled a huge bite into his mouth. The clump stuck together and to the roof of his mouth, making him gag.

Swallowing hard and staring at the plate, with one decisive motion he picked it up and hurled it with all his might at the wall, where it shattered, sending shards of china and strings of syrup crashing and splattering everywhere. "Damn it!" he yelled, kicking the drawers under the counter and not caring when his toes protested being bashed against a hardwood surface. "Damn it, damn it, damn it...how could he, how could he ever even think...using me like that...without a word...and you let him!" Grabbing Giovanni's lapels, he began to beat against the man's broad torso with his other fist, tearless sobs racking his own chest. "You and Mauro and everybody else...you aren't supposed to keep secrets from me...Vampire...you're supposed to respect me, you're supposed to care--"

"Easy. Easy. You'll hurt yourself." The tall man took his employer by the wrists, forced the boy's arms to his sides, then held him close. "I care. I wasn't in on it until a month ago. Take it easy, Vampire. I hate it too. It's not fair. But it's life. Lots of stuff happens all the damn time to people who don't deserve it for reasons no one understands."

Clair was not in the mood for platitudes, especially from his best-friend-turned-sudden-traitor. "Let me go, Giovanni," he ordered, trying to squirm free even as a part of him wanted to collapse against the man—more of a father or at least a brother to him than his blood relatives ever had been—and bawl his eyes out like a spoiled child. Papa didn't trust me...Papa kept things from me about my future...Papa wanted to be sure I'd keep the family going but couldn't rely on me...

"What, and let you set fire to the place by crashing around? No thank you. My hair's just started growing back, I don't want it getting singed off." In a bout of who-knew-what just before the military coup which had, ironically, helped return Clair to power as Vampire, the bodyguard had given himself a mohawk; his employer had given him a hard time about it ever since the city had become safe enough to afford time for jokes once more.

Brokenly Clair let himself smile. "You don't trust me, Giovanni?" he asked, innocent yet dangerous in the same instant. "Of course you don't. You still knew for a month..."

"Oh, Clair." Dropping the young don's title, the bodyguard hugged the boy to himself—to restrain him or to comfort him, Clair couldn't be certain. "Don't do this. Please. I know you're strong. You can get past all this, I know you can."

"Giovanni..." Almost plaintively, he met the man's eyes. No malice or hidden agendas stared back, and finding no enemy against which to rail Clair crumpled. "I won't do it," he mumbled, deciding the man's hold on him was a hug and thus letting himself be held. "I won't give in. I'll find whatever caused the heart attacks, but I won't get married. Not just because they want me to. I don't want some woman I barely know running around my house, poking through my stuff...moving into my space...sleeping in my...just to get an heir..."

"Admirable," came a wry, arrogant voice outside the door, and both men started. Snapping out of reverie immediately, Giovanni pushed Clair behind him and drew his guns from his shoulder holsters, cocking them. For his own part, indignant at being overheard during a moment of weakness and doubly ashamed of himself for breaking down in the first place, Clair rummaged through drawers until he found a large kitchen knife and pulled it out. He'd teach whoever had dared to trespass not to sneak up on Vampire of Company Vita.

The person outside just laughed at the sound of the two men preparing for battle; a wrapper crinkled, and when he next spoke his voice was muffled, like he too was eating something. "Relax. I'm all for everything you want—can help you with it, in fact. Didn't you wonder why Iwanami sent men today when he's been rotting for months?"

"I noticed some faces," Giovanni drawled, scowling. "Step in here with your hands up."

A low laugh drifted through the door. "I don't know about that. It sounds a little hostile in there."

"Who are you?" Clair demanded, watching the light play off the knife's blade with one eye while keeping the other fixed on the door. "What do you want?"

"I'm the only member of your Board who isn't a spineless coward," replied the trespasser smugly. "When old man Iwanami got himself killed he left quite a nice pocket for some new blood to wriggle in. Now, how serious are you about stopping the heart attacks?"

"Get in here or we'll come out," ordered Clair. "And you don't want that to happen."

"Hands up and empty," Giovanni added; the person outside the door sighed.

"You're persuasive. Fine. But only if you swear you'll help me stop the heart-attack killer. Otherwise I'll just saunter away, and one of my men might have a little accident with his firearm around your assistant, if you catch my meaning."

"You're threatening me?" Clair asked in disbelief, but all other comments died on his lips as the intruder wedged his way through the doors and kicked them shut behind him with one booted foot. Flat, jet-black eyes met Clair's underneath a curtain of blond hair, curling around a pale derisive face in an oddly feminine way; the trespasser's gloved hands were indeed in the air and empty, but to compensate for the order he had a bar of chocolate clamped firmly between his teeth. His clothes were black as his eyes and tight-fitting; a rosary swung from around his neck, and a bracelet adorned his right wrist. His entire demeanor screamed rebellion, danger, and unpredictability.

He also couldn't have been much older than Clair.