Chapter One
Years after the death of Kira, Sayu Yagami and Touta Matsuda have had two children. Seventeen-year-old Hayate Matsuda and Chika Matsuda. Hayate is a ladies man, with the looks but not the brains at all. Chika is only twelve, she's a very shy, polite and quiet girl. The siblings have been brought up to believe that their uncle, Light Yagami, died trying to solve the Kira Case. Matsuda has hidden the fact that Light was Kira from both Sayu, his mother in law and his children, as well as the fact that he shot him.
Shuichi Aizawa has one son, named Ren. His wife died and his daughter is at college now. Ren is also twelve and goes to school with Chika. Aizawa and Matsuda are still in contact, and they also work on some of the most dangerous investigations the Japanese police faces nowadays.
Light Yagami, Kira, is ofcourse, dead. Following his death, Misa Amane committed suicide. Ryuk the shinigami returned to the shinigami realm. Near has been occasionally selecting interesting investigations to take part in, just as L used to do.
Our story begins in four different places, though. Chika and Hayate Matsuda's home, Ren Aizawa's home, the Wammy's House orphanage in Winchester, England (where Near and Mello were brought up), and a school in Basingstoke, not too far from Winchester.
It was an average Friday for Junior High School student Chika Matsuda. She was bored with class, and was busy staring out of the window, rather than listening to her teacher. Her friend, Ren Aizawa, tried nudging her, but it got him nowhere. Chika was engaged in an in depth staring contest with the patterns of the clouds.
"Ren!" The teacher shouted. "Would you stop pestering your girlfriend and pay attention?!" The class all laughed.
"Wh-whaaa?! She's not my girlfriend!" Ren stuttered, completely embarrassed. This was shown by his face, which had just flushed red. Chika shook off her teacher's comment and just continued daydreaming. Her life was boring. In all her life, she had never had something exciting happen to her! Deep inside, she was wishing to be part of a dangerous investigation like her father took part in. She loved listening to Matsuda's old stories of the Kira case, though he never seemed to tell a whole story. He never told her who Kira was, how Kira killed people, or even how it all ended. Sometimes, Chika angered herself by wondering if maybe her father told her brother about it. Her brother wasn't exactly smart though, so she was always quick to erase those thoughts. You see, Chika wasn't a terribly emotional person. She was always good at hiding the expressions that she constantly desperately wanted to show. Like at this time, for instance, she wanted to blush as Ren had, but she didn't. She was cool, calm and collected Chika.
"Now, Miss Matsuda. Could you translate this sentence into English?" Her teacher asked. She stood, and read out her sentence.
"The cat sat on th-" Something interrupted Chika's tediously easy translation into English. Something caught her eye. A book, falling from the sky.
A white-haired man in pyjamas stepped out of a sleek black car, onto the street. He traced the lettering on the sign that read "Wammy's House" with his fingers, slowly.
"...It's been a long, long time." The man mumbled, as he forced the gates open of the orphanage. Wammy's House was one of many orphanages founded by Quillish Wammy (better known as Watari). But this one, located in Winchester, England, was special. Wammy's House was set up for "gifted children". Near and Mello had been brought up there to become L's successor. Children there used to compete to, not just become like L, but to become L. Many of the children who came out of Wammy's House had severe social and mental problems, some even committed suicide. One, codenamed B, became a serial killer. But since Near had succeeded L, Wammy's House was just an orphanage for gifted children. No competition.
"N-near? Is that you?" An elderly man asked, in a shocked voice.
"Yes, Roger." Near replied, emotionlessly. Near was slightly surprised, as he always had remembered Roger as someone just as unfeeling as him (and someone twice as boring).
"You've grown big, but you still seem so young!" Roger shrieked.
"Well, people do tend to grow." Near said. "How have things been back here?"
"Absolutely fine, Near. But... What brings you here?" Roger interrogated. Near sat on the playground floor of Wammy's House and got out a toy plane. He started flying it about. "Near?"
"Oh! Yes, I don't know why I'm here. I guess I just felt like it..." Near trailed off.
"Felt? This is cold, logical Near!" Roger joked.
"And this is boring, old Roger. Except you've got less boring and more old." Near insulted. Roger piped down. "Is it alright if I just chat with some of the kids?"
A teenage boy and girl slumped down into their chairs, and got their files out of their bags. It was a statistics lesson, and they had to put their information into a spreadsheet on the laptop assigned to them.
"I don't think I've ever enjoyed maths this much in my life!" The girl, Bethany, giggled.
"Yeah, it is pretty easy." Joe, the boy, replied. They were fourteen-year-old students at a school in Basingstoke, Hampshire, England. Neither of them were particularly well educated in the history of Kira, because it happened before their birth. Little did they know that soon they would be involved with Kira. It was only a matter of time.
"This is so easy!" Bethany sulked. "I'm bored."
"Come on, you're usually hyper in these lessons!" Joe chuckled.
"Only because you're a bad influence." Bethany insisted.
"Me?! Whatever." Joe said with a laugh. The two friends were just average teenagers, rather smart, fond of animé, they wrote a lot, sometimes hyperactive, sometimes ridiculously depressed. That was who they were. They would have said that they weren't really anything special, if you asked them. But apparently someone else had another idea.
It was the end of the lesson for Ren and Chika, so Ren decided to approach his friend.
"Hey, are you coming round my house, Chika?" He asked expectantly.
"I have business to attend to." She replied coldly. "But tell your dad I say hi." For the majority of Ren's life, Shuichi Aizawa had brought him up alone. Ren's mother died shortly after giving birth to him. Sayu had always treated Ren as one of her own whenever he came to the Matsuda's home, so Aizawa returned this respect to Chika and Hayate. Chika always made sure to be nice to Ren and his dad, just for the sake of being polite.
"Will do..." Ren sighed, as he watched Chika run out of the classroom in a different way to the way they usually went.
He decided to take a casual stroll down the stairs, out onto a pathway, then along a road, and eventually, towards his house. He shut the front door behind him and hung up his school blazer.
"Dad! I'm home!" He announced, before walking into the kitchen.
"How was your day?" Aizawa asked, cooking for his son.
"It was okay, I guess." Ren replied.
"Wait... Where's Chika?" His father interrogated, knowing that his co-worker's daughter had originally supposed to come to their house.
"She said she had something to do..." Ren sighed. Aizawa turned to face his son.
"What happened at school today?" He asked, concerned.
"Well, the teacher said that Chika was my girlfriend and embarrassed the hell out of me... I felt like shouting out 'I wish!'... It was so annoying." Ren mumbled.
"...You wish?! Oh god, just wait until I tell Sayu and Matsuda!" Aizawa giggled.
"Dad! Damn it, I knew I shouldn't have told you!" Ren screeched.
"Alright, alright! I can tell your sister though, right? She misses a lot while she's at college." Aizawa bribed his son. He was desperate to tell someone about Ren's crush. Ren was a nice guy, he stood up for his friends and had a strong sense of right and wrong. But Chika was quiet, smart, polite and private. They weren't exactly the perfect couple, but twelve-year-olds are twelve-year-olds.
When Chika left, quickly rushed down a flight of stairs to find the book she had seen earlier. She had blown off her best (and probably only) friend to see what this book was, her curiosity was taking her over. It wasn't very often that Chika found something worthy of her interest, but something that day told her that it wasn't just any book. And of course, it wasn't.
"Death Note?" She read. "...As in... A notebook of death?!" She opened the front cover. "Rules... What is this thing?!" It read:
The human whose name is written in this note shall die.
This note will not take effect unless the writer has the subject's face in their mind when writing his/her name. Therefore, people sharing the same name will not be affected.
If the cause of death is written within 40 seconds of writing the subject's name, it will happen. If the cause of death is not specified, the subject will simply die of a heart attack.
After writing the cause of death, the details of the death should be written in the next 6 minutes and 40 seconds (400 seconds).
Chika was freaked out, but for some reason, she wanted to keep the notebook. She placed it in her schoolbag and walked home. Her mother was right there as always, ready to welcome her home.
"How was school, Chika?" Sayu Yagami (Sayu Matsuda) asked.
"Fine, thanks. I'm gonna go up to my room to study!" Chika shouted, already half way up the stairs. She slammed her bedroom door behind her.
"...I've been expecting you." Somebody said.
"Who's there?!" Chika shrieked.
"Calm down, calm down." The voice ordered. "I hope you don't mind, but I had one of your apples." Ryuk smirked, emerging from the shadows of Chika's lightless room.
"...What are you?" Chika asked curiously.
"A shinigami!" Ryuk cackled.
"Shinigami? God of death?" Chika mumbled to herself. She picked up the Death Note. "So this is yours? I guess you want it back then." Ryuk knocked Chika's hand away from him.
"It's not mine. Even if it was, I wouldn't be allowed to take it back." Ryuk sneered. "The damn Shinigami King hasn't allowed me to have one anymore... Not after I stole Sidoh's Death Note."
"What a jerk!" Another voiced squeaked. Chika peered behind Ryuk to see a smaller figure. This Shinigami had a head similar to Ryuk's and a body similar to a ten-year-old boy's, with the typical grey Shinigami skin. It had human-like hair that was black and a long side-fringe, but most of the hair was covered by a red and black striped beanie hat. The shinigami had yellow eyes with red irises, and small black wings, black boots on his feet and red tribal marks down his arms and hands. It was wearing black sleeveless shirt with a small red swirl on it and skinny jeans. The small Shinigami had a lip ring, too.
"W-who are you two?!" Chika questioned. Ryuk took another bite of his juicy red apple.
"I'm Ryuk, and this is-"
"The name's Deck." The smaller Shinigami interrupted. "And that's my note you've got."
"Well you may have it back if you like." Chika offered. Ryuk cackled at her suggestion.
"It's hard to believe you're the niece of Light..." He hissed.
"You know Uncle Light?!" Chika shrieked, followed by Ryuk passing her a note. He had obviously pre-written it. It read:
Dear realative of Light Yagami,
I'm writing this now as I leave the human world to return to the Shinigami realm, understanding that soon enough I will be bored again and return. I'm writing this just after I have written Light's name in my Death Note-
"You killed Uncle Light?! You were working for Kira, weren't you?" Chika accused.
"Read on, Brat." Deck ordered. Chika did as she was told.
He has just been defeated by Near, L's Successor and shot by Matsuda, after it was revealed that he was Kira.
"Uncle Light? Kira? You're kidding." Chika chuckled at the thought of it. "This whole thing is ridiculous. My father didn't kill Uncle Light-"
"Matsuda's your father? Oh, this will be interesting." Ryuk beamed. "Now read on."
My time in the human world has been ever so interesting, but as I mentioned before, I'm bored again. If you're of any relation to Light, I would hope that you use that Death Note wisely.
Chika threw the note on the floor and stamped on it. First of all, she found a notebook that could kill people, then she found two death gods in her room who told her that her dead uncle was a mass murderer of criminals and that it was her own father who murdered her uncle in the first place! She passed Deck his Death Note.
"Here. Take this back and never come near me again." Chika ordered. "Especially you, Ryuk!"
"You remembered my name?" He replied, clutching his chest in a patronising way. "How touching!"
"Lay off a bit Ryuk, we're here to have fun, not tick off little girls." Deck reminded his fellow Shinigami. "Plus, this girl doesn't even know that she's supposed to be the next Kira."
"...Next... Kira?" Chika mumbled. She froze. These two Shinigami had arrived to force her into being the next Kira? She was shocked. Luckily, Chika was a rational thinker. She soon remembered that she had always had a slight leaning towards Kira's version of justice, she had even been on a Kira Fans website once or twice out of curiousity! Perhaps being Kira wasn't a bad idea... "Can I get a few things straight?"
"Go ahead." Ryuk said, though it was muffled by the apple he was eating.
"Uncle Light was Kira." Ryuk nodded. "He used a Death Note to kill people."
"My Death Note, for future reference." Ryuk added.
"But Near and the Investigation Team found him out and-"
"Your father shot him." The taller Shinigami finished for her.
"Hm... It actually kind of makes sense." Chika realised, sitting down at her desk. "So you two want me to be a new Kira using Short Stuff's Death Note?"
"First of all, the name's Deck! Second, Ryuk wants this, not me. He's just bored and I'm just helping him." Deck explained.
"So that's why I've got your Death Note. ...This is pretty confusing, and I'm top of my class..." Chika muttered.
"You'll get used to it. I'll be watching from the Shinigami Realm while Deck here will accompany you to see just how interesting some humans can be!" Ryuk sneered. "But first, I need to establish some ground rules."
"Rules? There are already enough rules for me to remember in this book of your-"
"It's MY book, kid!" Deck spat.
"There are only a couple of things. First of all, as I said to your Uncle, when the time comes, it will be Deck's responsiblity to write your name in his Death Note." Ryuk revealed. "Also, you may gain Shinigami eyes that can see anyone's name above their head, but that comes at a price."
"And that price is?" Chika asked.
"Half of your remaining lifespan, kid." Deck explained.
"That would be a stupid idea, wouldn't it!" Chika giggled. "If I'm going to clean up crime like Kira did, perhaps become the god that he did, I want to live for as long as I can! I mean, I'm only twelve as it is." Ryuk let out a cackle.
"You're more like your Uncle than you think, Chika." He said. "So I think I'll leave you to let the situation unfold now." Ryuk flew off into the sky with his Shinigami wings
"So... Let's get killing, kid!" Deck ordered.
"All in time, Short Stuff." Chika smirked.