The tears streaming down her face are tangible, and that's Rem's first realization when she feels hands under her body lifting her up, small arms flailing. She can't see anything; it's the opposite of darkness but that never made a difference to Rem before, discerning eyes always able to make sense of her surroundings. Now there's nothing but the sound of foreign voices, drowned out by her own cries.

She was ugly as a shinigami; gel oozing from her head that Misa once referred to as hair, as though anything of the human world could be flippantly applied to a shinigami without a second thought. The tall body of bones made Rem look as though she'd cobbled herself together from the spoils of a shinigami gamble, held together by swathes of grey like a corpse. The pink of her lips and face, the necklace and earrings she'd found and attached to her form, seemed only to mock her for her efforts. But everything about her now is soft, skeleton cushioned in flesh and smooth skin, and the person holding Rem breathes, "beautiful," as she hands her to another human, a word Rem never imagined could be used to describe her.

The human woman says her name is Jihyun, and from then on everything is different.

Rem's first urge is to find Misa, but this body is limiting, small, its motions awkward and imprecise. Rem has never had to learn to maneuver herself before; she doesn't remember how she came into existence in the shinigami world but she's sure if floating were so arduous a process as dragging a tiny hand up to form a gesture is she wouldn't have forgotten. Every human she's come into contact with is large, so much larger than she is, only able to feel out fractions of them with her fingers where once she towered over them all, watched them from above instead of far below. She doesn't cry much, and her parents note how quickly Jihyun goes quiet once he's been provided with any sustenance he needs, sobs serving only as an unsophisticated venue for communication because he can't yet form words. The need for any sustenance at all is another new experience; Rem can recall with detail in her mind answering the detective's question about it by saying shinigami don't need to eat food, but now she can hardly get enough of it, and still longs after it even when her small stomach is full. Sleep is worse, though—she dreams every night and always of Misa, the fair-haired girl who thought she could be close to God, lost and wandering and potentially in danger without Rem to protect her. Rem doesn't know what other humans dream of, but if theirs carry this much weight as well she doesn't know how they can bear it.

Jihyun's parents are concerned about what they dub "insomnia" and debate taking him to see a doctor, but the plans to do so are never realized, as many of their plans aren't. His mother is a painter, and his father sits very still with Jihyun in his lap while she recreates their likenesses on canvas, commenting every so often that Jihyun is a more patient model than his father is. Rem is uncertain that patience is an appropriate quality to ascribe to her, but in the shinigami world it's not unheard of for one to sit still for hundreds of years, so in some capacity she understands.

What's stranger than that is being called a model. Misa was one, and a popular one at that, though Rem doesn't remember ever seeing someone paint her. People called Misa beautiful—angelic, even—and she was, or as close to the human concept of angels as possible anyway. Only Rem got to see her in her private life, exhausted from standing for hours for photos, her hair splayed out around her on the bed. It was blonde like no colour Rem knew in the shinigami world in all its mute darkness. Misa screamed the first time she saw Rem, terrified to be in the presence of a monster so hideous, so inhuman. Now people squeal when they see Jihyun, cooing over him in his mother's arms and remarking on how he's already so handsome. His eyes receive the most compliments, as well as his soft and fast-growing dark hair, and his parents are told that his skin seems to glow, the picture of health and youth. Rem is flustered by the attention but tries to receive it with grace, though it feels misplaced, like it's not meant for her at all… and perhaps it isn't. After all, what purposecould there be to her resurrection? Rem fully anticipated to die for Misa, watched her body flake away into the same glittering substance she saw Gelus crumble into in the shinigami world. Rem doesn't know if Gelus returned to life as well, in the form of a human or otherwise, and with no way of identifying him it'll be close to impossible to find out even if she tries. As for Misa… Rem knows when Misa's death was set to occur before she killed the detective, but it's difficult to say what number of years was added to Misa's lifespan after Rem's sacrifice.

Becoming attached to Misa and breaking the laws of the shinigami to save her made Rem a failure to her purpose, and indeed to her own existence. However, living now as a human child in the human world, Rem no longer knows what her purpose is. If Misa is still alive, Rem may have been resurrected to protect her once more. In this state, though, Rem is much weaker than Misa, and considering Misa's short lifespan prior to Rem's death and the fact Rem hadn't killed many people in her final years, by the time Jihyun becomes strong enough to protect her Misa could already be dead.

Despite her clumsiness in mastering the human tongue, Jihyun's parents are surprised with how quickly he learns to speak, and impressed again by his ease in learning to read before he's even entered school. He's not necessarily extraordinary for a human his age, but he's certainly ahead of other children in these respects. Writing, though, is another matter entirely. Of all the skills that humans learn, Rem expected this would come the most naturally, but as if by some cosmic joke for her failure to use the Death Note correctly, she can hardly write. Her hand shakes, the pencil refuses to steady, and no matter how carefully she scrutinizes a character to copy it, the symbols are indiscernible. Typing is easier, and as soon as Jihyun has learned to type, his parents give him free rein to peruse the Internet, leaving him alone in the living room with what they call a tablet (and what, by Rem's knowledge of the human world, is decidedly nothing like what she knows a tablet to be) to entertain himself while they attend to their personal affairs. Misa once described the Internet as scary, filled with information that can be damning, but Jihyun's parents don't seem concerned, and Rem can carefully press the name of the one she fell for into a search bar, her own human heart pounding in her chest.

Misa Amane.

She touches enter, and the first things to appear are small photos of Misa's face across the top of the page. In almost all of them she has a sweet smile across her lips, energy in her eyes that are as blue as Jihyun's in these photos, though that isn't Misa's real eye colour. She's exactly as Rem remembers her, and she feels her throat tighten when she realizes she even remembers being there when at least one of these were taken.

Only one thing about Misa has changed, and that's that, for the first time ever, Rem can't see her lifespan. The red floating characters and string of numbers above Misa's head were always a constant, a reminder that no matter what Rem does she can only delay Misa's death, not stop it. Now there's nothing but Misa and her bright expressions, Misa and her beauty untainted by the reminder of death, as though she might live forever.

Rem's hand wavers a moment, tempted to look at more photos, to see if there are any where Misa looks older than she was when Rem left her, but she tears her eyes away from them. There is something she yet still must know, and Rem learned well from watching Misa the dangers of deluding oneself in love. Misa could never be eternal, but with Rem no longer a shinigami, that Misa at least survived is her only hope for meaning in this life.

Rem clicks on the article and holds her breath as the page loads, a foolish and whispered plea dying on her lips.

Misa Amane (弥 海砂, Amane Misa, born December 25, 1984 – died February 14, 2011) was a Japanese fashion model and actress.

The tears streaming down her face are tangible, and that's when Rem first realizes she truly has become human.

A/N: This was inspired by AUs where Light becomes a shinigami after death, the argument being that his use of the death note during his life makes him essentially shinigami in function. I'm taking that argument and applying it to shinigami who fail their purpose, extending the life of a human instead of shortening it. Such shinigami are humanlike in their attachment to a human life, so if we're following the rule that a death note user becomes a shinigami in death, why not extend that to shinigami and have them become human in death?

As for Rem reincarnating specifically into V, on my last rewatch of Death Note I found myself continuously drawing parallels between the two characters, and thought it might be interesting to recontextualize V with this in mind.

Right now, the fic is more heavily focused on Rem's past life, but this chapter is a prologue and the focus (and naming and pronouns) will shift to be more centered on V's life soon.

The rating on this fic is subject to change.

I know the concept for this is pretty out there, but I hope it interests a few people. Thank you for reading, and reviews are always appreciated.