Hi everyone! I didn't think I'd be back with a story so quickly, but some tales just demand to be written. This is my first crossover ever. For those of you who have only watched The Dark Knight (I'm guessing everyone) I'll explain a little bit about Death Note. It's really very simple. Shinigami are what are known in Japanese mythology as death gods, sort of like the Grim Reaper. In the series, every shinigami has his or her own personal Death Note. They either kill people at their destined time of death by writing their name in the Death Note, or kill them ahead of time, so that the shinigami obtain the remaining lifespan of the humans to add to their own lifespan. This way, they can live forever.

If a shinigami kills a human to extend the life of another human, the shinigami dies.

If a human writes the name of someone in a Death Note, that person will die. For the Death Note to work, the person doing the killing must know how the victim looks and his or her real name.

It's pretty basic.

If you watch the series you'll really fall in love with it. It's dark and intelligent and really thought-provoking.

Thanks once again to J-Horror Girl for telling me about Death Note. I wouldn't have come up with this idea if she hadn't told me about it.

Prologue - The Wager

The dark land rolled with swirling mist and gray fog. The earth shifted as silent earthquakes moved the plains. Jagged mountains stabbed the black skies as they bled silent tears. Shadows loomed everywhere as a eclipsed moon shone its weak light down on the realm of the shinigami.

At the top of one precipice, around a blue fire, sat three shinigami.

"Okay. I found it. I have a second Death Note. I had to wait thirty-seven days for him to fall asleep. No good, lazy lout. Now what's all the fuss about?" This shinigami was bored and wanted to go back down to the land. This precipice was cold and windy and the fire was almost going out. He was a sickly green color with torn gray rags and two antennas in place of hair. His body was segmented like a centipede, except for his head which looked like a praying mantis. He had wings like a dragonfly and legs like a grasshopper. But his hands were like a thin man's, long and slender. Sharp red nails scratched his outer shell whenever he was molting. He flapped his wings to keep from being blown off the precipice. His name was Toru.

"Welcome, Toru," said Izanami gracefully. She was warming her bony hands at the fire. She held two Death Notes to her chest. "I'm glad you could come join us. Tetsuo has been here for quite some time. Isn't that right?"

"Yes, that's right," Tetsuo replied seriously. He was also holding two Death Notes. He looked at Izanami. She was always elegant, since she wore those long wispy robes of black. They fluttered in the slightest breeze, and now they whipped around her bony body. She wore small skulls around her neck, skulls of some primate perhaps. Around her wrists were serrated teeth, perhaps from sharks. She glanced at Toru with big, blue eyes. They looked like sapphires in water. "Where is your other Death Note?"

Toru slid two out from under his ragged, dark green robes, and he looked neither elegant nor graceful. He looked clumsy, like a drunken insect. He shuffled on his long, powerful grasshopper legs. "I have them both here. I wonder how long he'll be sleeping. He's not going to be happy when he finds out it's missing."

"He won't find out," Izanami replied evenly. "This is only going to last ninety days." She looked at Tetsuo. He sat quietly, staring into the fire. His long white hair fluttered in the breeze, wrapping around his arms and neck. His skin was a deathly pale blue, and he had bones protruding out over his spine, elbows and knees. His body was wrapped with black bandages. His lips were full, like a human's, but were black and shiny. His long, narrow eyes were circled with black ink and they shone a greenish-blue in the fire. "Are you afraid you might end up like Hideki?" She asked, her tone a little sly.

"Who is Hideki?" Toru interrupted.

Tetsuo didn't answer, but instead looked down at the Death Note that was not his own. It was old and worn, and had not been used for many, many years.

Izanami smiled slightly. Tetsuo looked up. "Don't."

"Hideki is-was, a friend of Tetsuo."

"Izanami, enough."

She pressed on. "He fell in love with a human. That's his Death Note."

"Oooh," Toru drawled. Then he blinked his large, vacant eyes. "How foolish."

Tetsuo sighed. "He was a good friend."

"If you're afraid of falling in love with a human, Tetsuo, you may leave now. I designed this wager for bettors who are not so forlorn as you."

"I have nowhere else to go." Tetsuo replied flatly.

"Me either," Toru replied with a raspy laugh. "So what's this wager you speak of?"

"Well, I have chosen one city in the human world. Have you heard of Ryuk?"

Toru shook his head. Tetsuo did not reply.

"Ryuk dropped a Death Note in a land called Japan, in the human world. This was some years ago. Anyway, he gave me the idea for this wager, but I didn't want to use Japan again. People probably still remember everything that happened. That would ruin the fun right away."

Toru nodded and Tetsuo turned to look at her as she talked. She had red, shiny lips, and she wet them before talking again. She waved her hand over the blue flames, and they cooled and turned into a smooth, glass orb. As she talked, images appeared in the orb. "I chose this place. It's called, Gotham City, and it's on the other side of the world from Japan, in a land called America. The rules of the wager are quite simple, I think. Each of us picks one person in Gotham City who will find our spare Death Notes. And well, that's the part of the wager where we really have the control. After that, it's all just chance. See, whoever picks the human that kills the most people in ninety days, wins one hundred years from each of the losers. That's two hundred years more of life for the winner. So when you pick your human, make sure you pick someone you know is going to kill people."

Toru and Tetsuo thought about the wager for a few moments. "Well, that sounds interesting," Toru remarked at last. "Earn two hundred years of life and have fun doing it."

"Exactly," Izanami smiled. "Would you like to play, Tetsuo?"

"All this just to swap a few years of life?"

"Oh, come on, don't spoil it," Toru scoffed.

"Just seems pointless to me."

Izanami put a hand on Tetsuo's leg. "It's just for fun, Tetsuo. They're just humans. They all die anyway."

"Well, I suppose that's true."

"And you've already waited here for so many days. Do you want to have waited all that time only to turn away at the moment when the wager is going to begin?"

"I suppose not. I just don't see the point, that's all."

"It's for fun. Do you even know what that is?" Toru demanded. "Let's get on with it. I want to win!"

"Okay. Let's begin. First, some basic rules. We each pick only one human. If that human forfeits the ownership of the Death Note before killing anyone, you may pick another human. But if the human you pick forfeits ownership after killing someone, then that is the number of people your human has killed. You may not pick another.

"Once the human has the Death Note, you may not use that Death Note to kill anyone.

"The wager will go on for ninety days. At the end of ninety days, who ever picked the human that killed the most people, wins the bet.

"All our laws are standing orders of course. No influencing the human either to kill or not to kill another human. No sexual relations with the human. Those are all the rules for this wager that I can think of right now. If something happens later on that we didn't foresee, we will decide on a rule at that time. Is everyone agreed?"

"Yes!" Toru barked and laughed, his voice echoing away.

Tetsuo nodded.

Izanami smiled widely, showing her sharp white teeth. Tetsuo noticed they looked just like the teeth she wore around her wrists. "Let's go to the desert and choose." She looked at the glass orb that had once been the blue flame. "Gotham City looks beautiful, like jewels in the night."