Prologue- Into the Wrong Hands

The world of the Shinigami can be a very dull place.

There were tales, of course, of those who tried to make it more interesting, and the Shinigami who played games with the humans they espied, an attempt to entertain an eternity of being nothing but monochrome ill-contents. There was the legend of Ryuk, and his human Light. Kurik knew Ryuk, and he thought that the legend either grossly exaggerated the Shinigami's character, or Ryuk had changed over the centuries.

In any case, Kurik was bored, and that meant he would, inevitably, pay a visit to Ryuk.

"Busy as usual?" Kurik smirked, drawing up behind Ryuk. The Shinigami had been writing down several names of humans.

Ryuk looked up and smirked back. It was a twisted sort of smile, a smirk, that looked malicious even on humans- but on Shinigamis, it was even worse. "As usual," he said. "Lazy as usual, Kurik?"

Kurik chuckled and answered, "As usual." It was their routine, a banter that went between them. Kurik could not say he was Ryuk's friend- Ryuk had no friends, and Kurik didn't want any- but they associated, and spoke to each other on a basis more frequent than once a couple centuries (which was quite often, considering there were Shinigamis Kurik and Ryuk hadn't so much as looked at in millennia).

"Something up?" Ryuk asked, shutting his Death Note with a loud smack.

"Nothing," Kurik shrugged, "and that is the problem."

"Ah, I see. You're bored," Ryuk nodded.

"Very."

"Drop your Note somewhere," Ryuk said, which was exactly what Kurik thought he'd say.

"I need someplace interesting, spicy," Kurik explained, "someplace to give me as much satisfaction as possible. Humans are fine and all, but a human country where just the right one will find it."

Ryuk gave him a questioning expression. If he was human, it would have been described as 'raising an eyebrow,' but Ryuk did not have eyebrows. "You want me to tell you a place where you're guaranteed the perfect person will find it?"

"The next Kira. The next psychopath with enough self-righteousness and a god complex to use the Death Note to no end," Kurik confirmed.

"Impossible," Ryuk scoffed. "Some things are left to chance. I just struck it lucky. Unless…"

"Unless what?" Kurik demanded. Ryuk better not hide anything. Kurik was not a bully, but he used force when needed, and Shinigami were not impervious to pain.
At least, not totally.

"Well, sometimes there are other worlds… they're difficult to get to, but there are humans there. Or things close to humans, anyway. If you feel it is worth a try… I know some ways to get there."

"Why haven't you dropped any Notes there, then?" Kurik challenged. As far as he knew, there were just the human and Shinigami realms. He wasn't sure he trusted Ryuk enough to take his word on something so preposterous.

"Because," Ryuk said, his smirk widening unnaturally, ear-to-ear literally- that is, if Ryuk had ears, rather than ear-like protrusions on the side of his head. "It'd be far more interesting to see someone brash do it, someone who'd handle things differently from me. A Shinigami with interesting ideas and meddlesome qualities… even I bore myself, sometimes."

It was raining, as usual. The tower was getting taller, as usual. Lord Sunday tempted her, as usual. Piper's Children and Rats got on her nerves, as usual. Guilt over Wednesday and irrational fear of Wednesday leaping out of puddles to exact gnawing, biting revenge- the Border Sea touched any water, puddles or not, and Wednesday did not view her with happiness in her heart- tormented her, as usual. The Attendants brainwashed immortal beings to keep their minds permanently in the state of that of children, the Artful Loungers sat around all day, the Sorcerous Supernumeraries moped at their bad luck, and the rain kept drizzling. Her plots were working, but ever so slowly, some Rightful Heir had taken Monday's position, and he was already being dealt with; it was so easy to entice Tuesday to do something with the right loopholes (she had, of course, finished law school, so finding that particular loophole was a cinch; she had a loophole for every single one of the Days stocked up if need be, except for herself, which was the annoyance).

In short, life was hum-drum, hum-boring.

One would think power would be enticing and interesting, but absolute power corrupts absolutely, and it was hard to find someone more corrupted than she (though perhaps the hopeless greenie above her in the Gardens might qualify). One might decide that a Rightful Heir showing up after millennia would be enough of a wrinkle in the set pattern, the rut she was finding herself in, to shake things up, but truth be told, when the plan to deal with the Rightful Heir was decided upon just as long ago, the execution wasn't all that interesting, and so early in the game, this Pretender hadn't done anything to really garner her attention save a cocigrue or Spirit Eater here or there.

Superior Saturday sighed and looked out her window. Most of the Tower did not have windows, or even walls, but she was not one to stand being drenched in the drizzle when she had the opportunity to be enclosed in warmth; thus, her quarters, which were always on the top of the Tower, were the only parts of it to have actual walls and windows. The pitter-patter of the drops of water on the windowsill was getting on her nerves, as it had every day for the past ten thousand years, but she was so used to the bother it merely tickled her subconscious.

Saturday was actually working. She had a million regulations to pass, twice as many to veto, and three times as many technically-illegal-but-no-one-would-know-and-thus-no-one-would-care things to quietly set into motion. She didn't often look out the window, because the sight of the rain reminded her of Wednesday and the Will, and those inadvertently set her thinking to the Architect, which led to Lord Sunday, which led to the irresistible desire to look up.

But today, she'd spilled some ink over her desk in a careless motion that in itself was a sign that the eternal irritation she felt resigned to was becoming akin to eternal frustration. Clicking her tongue in disgust at her own lack of guardedness, she rescued a stack of papers from the oncoming mass of deformed black ink and laid them on the inner windowsill. Her gaze drifted outside for a second, up.

As usual.

Saturday saw the ceiling of the Upper House part, and the tantalizing underside of the Gardens shown through, so infuriating, so loved. She hated these glimpses. She craved them. Then something blemished the rim, a small speck of irregularity that angered her almost as much as seeing the Gardens themselves. It took her a moment to see it was a small, miniscule notebook, and it was falling at a quick rate.

Despite herself, she was curious. So she found her gaze tore itself away from the rich, heavenly emerald of the Gardens to follow the ugly black notebook, and she found herself leaving the tower with her blue umbrella poised over her head to keep the rain- or bits of the Will, same thing- off her gorgeous hair as she strode to where she'd seen it fall.

There was absolutely no logical reason for her to want that notebook. She had millions of them, or billions, all filled in with records of mortals living in infinite worlds, crammed into her tower. She had just as many blank ones, quivering with anticipation of being filled with words, becoming the life story of someone who just might be extraordinary. She had no need of notebooks, and the ones she had were far better looking than this.

Yet she bent over and picked it up, wiping some rain off the cover. It didn't seem to be water-damaged, either because it was magical, which she didn't doubt for a second, or because she'd gotten to it in time, which was less likely, since her tower had at least sixty flights of stairs.

No one else paid her any mind, all the Denizens scuttling past not sparing her a look. Had no one else seen the notebook? Strange.

She turned it over and glanced at the cover. It was in the language she recognized as English, not her native language, for she was far too ancient for that, but a language she had learned. One learned many things when all one did for eternity was watch mortals, record their actions, and scheme, though lately her plans involved more scheming and less watching and recording.

"Death Note," she said, the words strange in her mouth. Saturday did not usually speak English aloud; there was no real need. Everyone in the House spoke its own ancient language, not as inimical as the words of the Architect, but just as incomprehensible to mortals. And the mortals? The Piper's Children? They heard a variety of tongues, English, Spanish, Polish, Romanian- whatever- and they may have spoken it, but the House instantly translated it. "Death Note," she repeated again, savoring the foreign, exotic taste of the sounds. "What a strange name." She tucked it under her arm and went back into the Tower, not looking up this time, because she was looking down at her feet, deep in thought.

Which was a shame, because if she had looked up, just this once, she would have seen two Shinigami, laughing side by side.

They'd planned a human to find the Death Note, not a Denizen. They weren't even guaranteed it'd work for her, since no one had ever heard of anything inhuman other than a Shinigami using one.

But it was amusing nonetheless.