A/N Hey there! First of all, I must thank profusely the perpetually talented, wonderful and gracious True Colours for betaing this for me, even in lieu of the mini-breakdown I had about the terrible mess I thought the plot of this fic was. In her greatness she reassured me that it wasn't quite as bad as I thought and helped me fix up most of the confusing parts. Thank you again True, you are lovely. *hug*

As indicated by the summary, this is my entry for Zenaga the Sea Serpent's AU contest. I was trying to think of another series/story I knew a lot about and wasn't magical girl (that was one of the contest rules), and the best I came up with was Death Note. x3 So, this fic is set in the Death Note universe. If you aren't familiar with Death Note, there will be things in this fic that don't make sense to you. I've made a list of explanations/definitions in the A/N at the bottom (so as not to ruin the plot) for such people. I've tried to explain everything that needs to be explained in the natural course of the fic, though, so hopefully most of it will make sense.

Consequently, some details about the characters have changed. The Mew Project never existed, so Ichigo was never a Mew. I like to think the all the Mews would have met and become friends even without the Mew Project bringing them together, so Ichigo still knows Mint, Lettuce, Pudding and Zakuro. The aliens are non-existent, as aliens do not exist in the Death Note universe. Ichigo and Masaya still met at the age they did in the canon, and their relationship progressed in as much the same way as is possible without all the Mew stuff.

Despite True's amazing betaing, I'm still not sure if this comes off as Masaya-bashing. D: I tried to explain everything so it seemed semi-reasonable, but I'm not sure how I did with that. Just let it be known that I have nothing against Masaya, or MasayaxIchigo as a pairing, and if there is any Masaya-bashing in this fic, it is not intentional. Just withold your judgement until the end of the fic. xD;;

One more thing: shinigami = God of Death (lit. death god); we call them Grim Reapers

Aaaaand here's the fic.

She could see the terror in his eyes when he beat her. That was the worst part – the complete lack of anger, or hatred, or passion. There was none of that, no trace of any other emotion - just the black, all-consuming, almost inhuman fear. Crying did nothing, she had come to realize, and screaming only served to terrify herself as well as him; the plaintive, agonized sound was always, always met with utter and complete silence that pressed against her eardrums despite her cries and magnified the expression on his face. He was lost to her when he looked like that.

All this because of Kira. Kira did not discriminate - he instilled terror into everyone equally. Those who broke the law, those who harmed others, and especially those who harmed the planet died of heart attacks if Kira heard about them. Those who disobeyed him were killed, just as swiftly and indiscriminately and mercilessly as if they were smote down by some divine power, some higher judgment, as though they had angered a deity.

Kira was god.

It seemed ironic to Ichigo that her personal god, her sweet Masaya, had fallen so far from her own grace, yet risen anonymously into the highest, fearful esteem of the rest of the world.

And maybe the worst part wasn't the fear after all. Maybe it was the fact that she couldn't bring herself to leave him.

oOo

Aoyama Ichigo sat in her living room. Mid-afternoon sun filtered through the window, glaring harshly where it fell directly on the pale carpet, cutting out into abrupt shadows that stretched across the floor where it was blockedby the soft white curtains. One such block of light and dark fell across the coffee table that occupied the space in front of her, leaving dark splotches across her field of vision whenever she shifted her gaze.

The flowers rustled, and the silken sound almost made her smile. She stroked the soft petals as her fingers brushed past them to grasp at the stems, delicately adjusting their positions into the most comely arrangement she could manage. Placing and replacing them, she considered size and shape and number of leaves as each flower sank slowly into the water-filled vase before she plucked it out again and shifted it to a new spot.

At length she sighed, the light going from her eyes as she leaned back and abandoned the arrangement of vibrantly coloured flowers. She gazed at them, sitting serenely in their crystal vase, the only spot of colour in the room. It seemed a mockery of her situation that the only hint of beauty she got to see these days was the bouquet he brought to her every day. Sweeping through the door, flowers in hand, kind smile on his face and brown eyes warm and sparkling, it was almost as if he was the same person he'd been when they'd first started dating all those years ago.

Leaning in for the habitual welcome home kiss, she could almost believe that nothing had changed, that the notebook with the black cover wasn't tucked away in the very back of his locked desk drawer, that he wouldn't be having his usual late-night conversation with thin air. But these things just were, just like they'd been since he'd stumbled through the door two years ago – just six months after the original Kira had been killed, just one year after they'd gotten married – clutching the black, leather-bound book, a look of terrified awe on his face. At least, she assumed it was leather-bound. He'd never let her touch it. Despite the fact that he'd never said a word about it, she had eventually figured out what it was.

"It's terrible Masaya, isn't it?" she said to him. "And they say he's in Tokyo – he could live right next door and we wouldn't know." They were cuddling on the couch, she on his lap, his arms wrapped around her shoulders. They were watching the news, the latest on the mysterious serial killer, Kira. She turned away from the broadcast to face him when she realized he hadn't answered her. "…Masaya?"

"Hm?" his eyes met hers and focused slowly as he came out of some kind of reverie. She put her hand on his face questioningly.

"What is it?"

"Nothing, really," he replied, smiling gently, placing his hand over hers and holding it to his cheek. "I just was wondering why Kira does what he does."

"It makes you feeling like crying, ne?" she whispered, grasping his hand tightly and moving it to her lap, turning back around to watch the TV with a morbid interest that prevented her from noticing his second failure to reply.

Slow changes. That's all she remembered thinking when she discovered the truth – the reclusiveness and tight smiles, the small lies he'd tell to get her out of the house, the hours he would spend locked away in his study. Still as sweet as he'd always been, just as caring and compassionate as the day she'd met him, she was always able to write off her misgivings. He's having a hard time at work, she'd tell herself. That or he was worrying about money.

Eventually the sudden re-appearance of the supposedly dead Kira – who had a new fixation on people who damaged the environment, criminal or not – had tipped her off. She'd locked herself in their bedroom for a week when she put two and two together and realized what was really happening.

"Ichigo, please let me explain?" He sounded scared, as scared as she was. So why was he still doing this? Why had he even picked the thing up? She placed another pillow over her head and covered her hands with her ears, humming loudly and hysterically to herself through her tears to drown out his voice and his persistent knocking. "I'm only trying to help, Ichigo! The planet can't continue on this way by itself. There are terrible people out there, Ichigo-chan. Please understand. Someone needs to protect the Earth -" His voice became too muffled to make sense of as she burrowed beneath the covers. She willed herself to fitful sleep eventually, clutching the key to their bedroom door tightly to her chest.

Ichigo leaned back even further, resting her head against the sofa cushions and spreading her palms flat on the scratchy carpet, willing the swirling thoughts and memories to leave her head. She found it easiest not to think about those things – it was comforting to cling to the false feeling of peace that settled upon the small apartment when he was gone, easier to forget the forced-calm way he'd explained his reasoning to her when she'd finally come out of the bedroom, easier to deal with the knowledge that she wasn't strong enough to leave him, wasn't willing to accept the fact that the Masaya she'd known was dead. Ignoring the truth was easier by far than paying any attention to the fact that she was terrified of him.

She started as a key rattled in the lock and the door swung open. "Ichigo." She looked up at him. No flowers today – the last bouquet was still fresh. She smiled at him, internally wary, and rose, crossing the small space to the door and wrapping her arms around him.

"How was work?"

"A little stressful, as usual," he murmured, tucking her head under his chin and pulling her into a hug. She tried not to stiffen as his arms encircled her. She could never tell when it would come; the blind terror that put a wall between them and triggered the violent beatings was impossible to predict. She exhaled as he released her and smiled, kissing her forehead before heading to their room. She found herself following him and not knowing why.

"How was your day?" he asked, throwing his jacket on the bed and beginning to undress.

"It was nice," Ichigo lied, smiling even though his back was turned. "I ran a few errands and then hung out here for most of the day."

Silence, for a moment, then the reply: "Did you go out with anyone?" The edge in his voice was barely perceptible. Ichigo backpedaled.

"No no, I just got some groceries. I wasn't feeling up to seeing any of the girls today." They were both well aware that she didn't see any of her friends anymore. Mint, Pudding, Zakuro, even Lettuce had stopped calling her eventually – her perpetual fear of the outbursts was enough to keep her from returning their calls. She gazed fearfully at the back of his head, waiting for his reaction. Her heart pounded in her ears.

"We'll go out sometime soon, Ichigo-chan," he said at length, turning around finally. "I know you're stuck in the apartment a lot." He smiled as he finished pulling on his 'at home' clothes. Ichigo felt her knees wobble. "You can pick where we go, ne?" She smiled at him, even though she knew he wouldn't be taking her out any time soon.

"I have some work to do still," he said, moving past her and out of the room. Again, she followed. "Will you be alright on your own?" A note of concern crept into his voice.

"I'll be fine, Masaya," she told him, knowing he'd go in eventually even if she asked him to talk or watch TV with her. He smiled, reassured by her falsely cheery expression. He was too preoccupied with the notebook these days to notice when she wasn't doing a very good job of pretending.

Ichigo sank down on the sofa again, picking up a magazine from the side table reluctantly and pricking her ears to the sound of him settling into his office chair behind the now-locked door. She knew what he was doing. Of course she did. And he knew she knew. It was easier for both of them to turn a blind eye these days – easier for him to keep killing people, easier for her to ignore it, easier for the two of them to carry on the rest of the time as though nothing was wrong. Sometimes she wondered at both of their mental states instead of just his. She focused harder on the magazine when she heard him begin to talk to the empty room.

oOo

His hand shook and he dropped the pen. This is right, this is right, this is right, he told himself, fighting the waves of nausea and terror that were crashing over him. The TV was still on and blaring the news, and his laptop was sitting on the desk, the search engine still open.

He slumped over, shuddering, and tried not to heave. But what I'm doing is right, he thought again. He was helping to save the Earth from the careless humans that were killing it, doing his duty, making use of the gift that had been bestowed upon him.

It's alright, it's alright.

His stomach lurched and he leaned to the side, retching over the garbage pail. The contents of his stomach stayed where they were. He retched again, throat dry. He glanced up, coughing, at the figure floating mid-air beside him. The shinigami smirked but said nothing. Ignoring the creature he turned back to the notebook lying open on the desk before him, still coughing wildly. The terror was coming back, gnawing at the edges of his mind. Another bout of coughing brought tears to his eyes.

A knock. "Masaya?" It was always her that triggered it. Her sweet, loving eyes boring into him, silently judging, secretly terrified. Her voice, her face, her whole self the embodiment of the innocence he'd destroyed in himself. She was the loveliest thing he could possibly dream of, the very best the doomed world he was trying to save could conjure. The contrast between her and himself – between the battered shell she was now and the person she used to be – terrified him, made his whole body freeze up, made him want to run away. In moments like this his mind shifted, warped, tried and failed to see reason as his body lurched to life, flailing wildly in the direction of the only thing in the world he loved, and the one thing that made him hate himself more than anything.

Another knock. He stood, knocking his chair over, stumbling to the door, world already tilting and fraying at the edges, blind terror filling every part of him. He could no longer feel his hands on the handle, hear the hinges creak as the door opened. He could see, though, and the terror in her wide brown eyes as she beheld him pierced him right through.

oOo

Ichigo lay face down. She was vaguely aware of the sound of television static, a warm body pressed against her side, a hand stroking her back. Her perception grew fuzzy for a moment and she struggled to regain consciousness.

Something warm was sticking her cheek to the floor. She wondered for a moment at the sensation of wood beneath her rather than carpet before realizing they must be in the study. She opened her eyes slowly. Paper littered the floor around her and underneath her – the desk had been overturned. She couldn't remember how. The chair was lying across one of her legs.

She closed her eyes again and began to feel a dull throbbing, spiking into real pain in places all over her body. Bruises. There would be more this time, she postulated, blinking stupidly. Shoulders, legs, arms. The ones near her collarbone were always hard to hide; the ones she could feel blooming on her cheeks would be near impossible.

A drop of something warm landed on her shoulder. She turned her head. "I'm sorry," he whispered. His voice was low and thick, stunted in the way that it was when his self-hatred ran rampant. "Ichigo, I'm so sorry. Ichigo… oh God…" he trailed off, bending his head over her prone form and shuddering with silent sobs. She wondered whether she should answer, or whether there was more to come. Sometimes that happened. "It's okay," she tried to say, hoping to soothe the fear she could still hear in his voice.

She stopped as her head protested, trying to think past the haze that was clouding her thoughts. She wondered how long she'd been unconscious. Warm fingers brushed her matted hair tenderly off her forehead and she relaxed. The outburst was over if he was aware enough to do that; he was okay. His arms wrapped around her shoulders and she felt herself being lifted from the floor. The throbbing dulled again and her thoughts dissolved as the darkness came back to her.

She half-woke to cool water running over her face. Gentle fingers wiped the blood from her cheeks and lips with a washcloth, and places on her arms and legs had ice on them. She felt his shirt and pants on her bare skin and assumed he'd already disposed of her clothes. He wasn't crying anymore, she noticed, and slipped back into unconsciousness.

oOo

The tension was hard to ignore over the next three days. He took time off from work to watch over her. The self-hatred was always present in his eyes, contrasting his oddly gentle expression sharply. He spoon-fed her soup, and when she was feeling up to bluffing she giggled and joked with him like her self-from-ten-years-ago, talking about anything that came to mind, relaxing a little bit inside every time he responded in kind like nothing was wrong. She slept in his arms through the nights, wishing to feel fraudulently safe rather than terrified to the point of insanity, wanting him to feel the same way. She cried whenever he wasn't close enough to hear.

On the fourth day he left, needing to return to work or lose his job. He went reluctantly, and only with much perverse reassurance from Ichigo that she was fine, that he shouldn't worry about her. She thought there was something different about his expression this time, something she couldn't place. She didn't feel like trying, didn't want to think or feel.

She cried again when he was gone, turning around and leaning against the door and sliding down it, hating herself, wishing she could hate him enough to leave. She pulled her knees up to her chest and hugged them, trying not to sob too loudly lest the neighbours hear her through the walls.

"Why so sad, little human?" She looked up and screamed. The figure in front of her placed a pale hand over her mouth. "If you yell they'll be suspicious." Ichigo stared at the creature's face, her tear-filled eyes bugged wide, too shocked to continue screaming or try to get up from her position on the floor. "I'll take my hand off if you keep quiet," the androgynous, black-clad thing continued, its blazing yellow eyes boring into hers. She nodded feebly and it removed its hand.

"What are you?" Her voice quavered.

"I'm a shinigami." Ichigo bit back another scream and clasped her own hand over her mouth, backing up against the door. The shinigami regarded her skeptically and smirked, arms folded. Slowly she removed her hand from her mouth and relaxed.

"Are you here to kill me, then?" she asked. She realized with bleak acceptance that were her life to end at that moment, she would not be afraid. She would be grateful.

"No, probably not," the shinigami replied flippantly, flapping its scraggly black wings lazily a few times and leaning back in the air. "Besides, your boyfriend has my Death Note."

"He's my… husband," she whispered, casting her eyes to the floor. Then the shinigami's words sank in and her eyes snapped to its unconcerned face. "He has your what?"

"The black notebook he's always writing in. The one that kills people?" Ichigo blanched. "Yeah that one," it continued. "One of the other shinigami in the Shinigami Realm decided to be funny and threw it through one of the gaps. It landed near here and he picked it up before I could grab it, so I have to stay here until he relinquishes it."

"I don't understand." Ichigo's brain didn't seem to be working properly. It had been so long since she'd encountered something new – the novelty of this moment was stupefying, drug-like. She found she was having a suspiciously easy time accepting the fact that shinigami were more than just mythical creatures, and she had a creeping feeling that she should be absolutely terrified. She couldn't bring herself to feel more than numb.

"Look. I'm not going to explain all the rules to you. All you really need to know is that the Death Note kills people whose names are written in it. Only shinigami use them usually – that's how we kill people – but sometimes one ends up on Earth. How and when the person dies is up to you, but you can't make someone else kill them, or extend their life, and you have to know their name, how to spell it and what they look like. And, most importantly, once a name is written down it cannot be removed. Even destroying the notebook won't reverse the effects." Ichigo shivered and clutched her sides, throat constricting. So much power in that thing, so much death and destruction and evil, in that thing that had been in the hands of her husband, her Masaya. He had used it.

She balled her hands into fists and shut her eyes tight, recalling the bleakness of the bare tabletop that had separated her from him. His eyes were strange, his demeanour overly formal as he explained to her what the thing sitting on the table in front of him was. Not so much explaining, Ichigo recalled, as letting me know it let him kill people. He had told her he'd seen it on the ground and picked it up, and upon learning what it could do – she realized he had never explained to her how he had learned – decided to keep it to prevent others from using it. And then he'd told her of his vision for the world, as calm as if this wasn't the first time she'd been out of the bedroom in days, as if tears weren't streaming down her cheeks. He wouldn't say anything else, and they never spoke of the notebook again.

"Are you listening?" She opened her eyes again, wondering if she should even want to hear what this thing was telling her. The shinigami was regarding her in irritation; its wild, dark hair framed its angular, almost predatorial face and made its skin look even paler by comparison. "Only people who touch a Death Note can see and hear shinigami," it continued.

"Wait." Ichigo looked up suddenly, staring the thing in the eyes. "Why can I see you? He's never let me touch the Dea… it." The shinigami smirked again and crossed its legs in mid-air.

"Maybe you don't remember. During your little… escapade the other night, your boyfriend knocked his desk over in his… excitement. The Death Note was lying on the desk and fell on you. You were on the floor," it added, a hint of malicious amusement creeping into its voice. Ichigo stared hard at the carpet, willing herself not to go back there, afraid of what might happen if she thought about it for too long.

"Your boyfriend has possession of it right now," the shinigami continued, "since he was the first human to touch it, so I have to follow him around." The shinigami pulled a face. "He's boring, you know," it said, changing position in the air so it was floating upside, face at her eye level. Ichigo shifted her weight to one foot.

"Please go on," she said finally, voice tightly controlled, ignoring the pricking that was starting behind her eyes.

"The interesting part is that you don't have to have possession of it to use it." Ichigo froze. The shinigami's face lit up slightly at her reaction. It opened its mouth to say something, but Ichigo cut in.

"Why are you telling me this?" The shinigami seemed taken aback at her interruption, but a grin quickly spread over its face as it flipped back to a sitting position in the air, a shadow of something sinister creeping into its eyes.

"Like I was saying before, your boyfriend is boring. Even all the beatings are starting to lose their charm." Ichigo blinked and took a half-step backward, hand moving to touch the still-healing bruise on her cheek. "I figure if I'm stuck on Earth I may as well have fun," it continued, licking its lips, pleased by her discomfort. And all of a sudden it was gone. Ichigo stared, spinning around in a circle, trying to figure out where it could have possibly gone.

"Over here." She turned and nearly screamed again; the shinigami was floating through the wall of Masaya's study. She gaped dumbly as it returned to its position in front of her. "I'm sure this," a pale arm extended toward her, "will stir things up." Ichigo realized, with a jolt of near-paralyzing astonishment, that she was looking at the black leather-bound notebook – the Death Note. Without meaning to, she reached out as if moving through water and took it.

The shinigami smiled wider and let go of the notebook. "Very interesting, little kitten," it said. "I didn't expect you to take it right away. You can decide what you want to do with it, but I suggest making your mind up before your loving boyfriend gets home. He might kill you next time." The shinigami smiled even wider, almost leering. "Speaking of him, I should probably get back to following him around, or he'll get suspicious." The shinigami began to flap its wings, looking as though it intended to fly up through the ceiling.

"Wait!" Ichigo's own voice scared her as she called out, and she jumped. The shinigami paused. "What's your name?" she blurted, her voice beginning to shake again, feeling she would fall apart completely once the strange being was gone. The shinigami smirked at her and licked its lips again before continuing its ascension.

"Kish," it called over its shoulder, disappearing through the ceiling. Ichigo stared after it for a moment, feeling as though someone had filled her veins with ice. She fell to her knees, gripping the black notebook so tightly her fingers turned white and her hands shook. She stared hard at it, so hard she thought her eyes might stop working. Her head reeled as she realized what exactly it was she was holding. This was the thing her husband used to kill people. This was a weapon.

Her fingers burned and she felt like she wanted to hurl it across the room or out the open window, do anything with it other than have it anywhere near her. But she couldn't bring herself to move, to do anything but stare at the cover dully reflecting the light from the window. At length she put it down, heart throbbing in her chest, blood rushing in her ears, and opened it to the first page, gazing over all the names written in her husband's neat script, and all of a sudden she found that she was crying, tears blurring her vision and then the ink as they fell to the page.

She turned another page. Full of names, nearly black with ink. Another page gripped between her fingertips, examined and turned, blurred by tears, paper crinkled. The pages slowly shifted from the right side of her hands to the left and her tears flowed freely, all the death and sadness she'd turned a blind eye to for the sake of clinging to pleasant memories laid out before her. The tears flowed freely until all the pages looked gray and her chest shuddered with wracking sobs, until at last she turned a page over and there was white.

Ichigo blinked, both in surprise and in an attempt to clear her eyes. There was, she realized, one line of writing on the page, in the middle and halfway down. She struggled to make her eyes focus on her husband's familiar handwriting, trying to read it.

'Aoyama Masaya dies of a heart attack at 4:00 pm on Friday, September 17, 2010.'

Ichigo sat in silence for a few moments, staring hard at the line like she had forgotten how to read and feeling her lungs slowly fill up with cement as the meaning filtered through her disbelief. Today. With an agonized cry she threw the book across the room. It bounced off the wall and fell back open as it landed. Ichigo leapt up from her spot on the floor, stumbling to the kitchen to stare at the clock on the stove. 4:15 pm.

Fifteen minutes. He'd been dead for fifteen minutes.

Ichigo doubled over, losing her balance and falling to the floor, trying to comprehend that her husband had just killed himself. She lay on her side, the tears returning, and sobbed, covering her face in her hands, wondering if he'd done it out of guilt or to protect her. The pressure of her hand made the bruise on her face throb and she pressed harder, wanting the pain, wanting to feel something other than hollow sadness, wanting to be shattered, wanting him to have still been someone whose departure from life would shatter her.

She cried until her throat was raw and the tears wouldn't flow anymore. At length she rolled over listlessly to gaze at the clock again. 5:07 pm. The phone rang. That was the hospital calling to tell her. She turned her head to make it stop spinning and caught the black notebook out of the corner of her eye. She sat up abruptly and stared at it hard for a moment before getting up, moving again as though through water over to it and picking it up. Her fingers began to tingle, and she thought of all the wasted lives she held between her hands and her whole body ached.

Then Ichigo turned as the phone continued to ring, walking the few steps to the small kitchen. In one fluid motion she dropped the notebook in the sink and grabbed the butane lighter from the drawer to her right. The phone stopped ringing. Numbly she lit the notebook on fire and watched it burn.

A/N Hoo boy. D: That may have been the most difficult fic I've written yet. Either this or Rain. xD But anyway. Did I fool you with the Kish-is-the-shinigami thing? I did say at the top that the aliens were non-existent, but really I meant non-existent as aliens. Saying that would have given it away, though. x3

Alright, so here are some explanations that you might not have been able to infer from the fic itself. Hopefully they will clear up any confusion. :3

-Shinigami are able to move through things (walls, ceilings, people, etc.), which is how Kish was able to retrieve Masaya's Death Note from the locked desk drawer.

-Since Masaya had possession of Kish's Death Note, Kish was obligated to follow him and remain on Earth until he lost possession of it, either by dying or by relinquishing possession. Therefore, even though Kish can still touch the Death Note and carry it around, he is unable to return to the Shinigami Realm with it or change the ownership. He's also not allowed to kill him (although he wouldn't be able to anyway, since Masaya has his only Death Note, and shinigami aren't allowed to kill humans by any means other than a Death Note).

-Shinigami are well-known to humans (think our perception of the Grim Reaper), but are believed to be mythical creatures, like unicorns or... jakalopes. x3 Therefore, Ichigo knew what a shinigami was, but was astonished to discover they existed, as Masaya had never told her much about the Death Note. Also, humans do not know about Death Notes or the Shinigami Realm (rather, there aren't stories about them), which is why Kish had to explain the rules to Ichigo. Once an owner of a Death Note relinquishes ownership of it (or if it is destroyed), they lose all their memories concerning shinigami and the Death Note. Since Ichigo never claimed ownership of it, she didn't lose her memory when she burned it.

-The first Kira (the main character in the Death Note canon) was named Light Yagami, and used the notebook to kill criminals, hoping to make the world a better place. Masaya adopted this belief a little while after discovering the Death Note (as soon as he touched it he was able to see Kish, who explained the rules to him), realizing it must be what Kira had used to kill his victims and that he could use it to save the Earth (he still has that fixation with the environment xD;;) from being destroyed by pollution.

-All of the 'rules' I've mentioned that shinigami are bound by are actually official rules set by the Shinigami King. Shinigmai who break these rules are punished by various degrees of extreme pain, with death being the highest penatly. So Kish has to follow them (otherwise it'd be against his nature to follow rules, yes? x3).

Okay, I think that's everything. xD;; PM if you have any other questions, or leave the question in a review (because I really like reviews ^^). I hope that was... readable. While you're here, I highly suggest that you read and/or watch Death Note (though you'll get a better experience from reading it). It is a brilliant series with amazing characters (like L :D) and storyline that is suspenseful and intriguing and debates more moral issues than I can even count. I'm not even doing it justice, so just go read it. x3 It's a manga/anime series, by the way, if you were wondering.

~Gypsy