A/N: Well, hi. It's been, what, three years or so since I updated? Yeah, sorry about that. For the most part, I'd given up on this story because I couldn't think of anything, but I was looking at the past chapter for no real reason, and also because I'd recently started re-watching Death Note and was feeling the 'vibes' from it, I was like, hey, why not. And so this happened. So, to answer your question, though one year later, yes, Sarafinja, I haven't abandoned this story yet. Hopefully, I'll continue to update. I'm not sure how often or anything, but I plan to try.

Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note, but man, do I wish I did.

Boredom

"Ahh, this is so boring!" Mary Carsh exclaimed, falling heavily against the couch. It had become annoyingly apparent early on that working with L meant staying locked up in the hotel room all day, because going outside could "endanger you." It also became apparent to the other members of the task force that Mary had some sort of attention deficit disorder: the girl seemed to bore easy and flited from one activity to the next with no real sense of focus.

The hotel room was currently filled with silence. Both Matsuda and Aizawa-san were asleep in the other room; Mogi-san and Yagami-san were running errands or something for L, and Light-kun was who-knew where. L himself was reviewing/creating the fake message from 'Kira.' He was the only one within hearing distance of Mary's complaints, but paid her no real attention.

"Why am I still even here?" she mumbled to herself, glaring up at the ceiling. "I mean, sure, Kira's a psychopathic dick-face and should be caught, but I'm about as useless as a shounen heroine at the moment. I could totally get murdered by Kira, and I'm not doing anything." She sighed. "Maybe I should have just stayed in L.A. No, but then I'd be even more bored than right now. Can't even freaking go anywhere. Stupid panda-kun." Now her ramblings were filled with utter nonsense.

Part of her was just complaining because she wished for attention or suggestions that could quell her boredom, and the other part was because she had the ability to complain about anything and everything and did so frequently. But L barely spared the girl a glance; his thumb pressed against his mouth, he seemed glued to his computer screen. Mary had wanted to help with creating the message, but apparently making Light 'Kira' was a far better decision. And of course, L was right about that.

Light was weird. Okay, maybe not weird per say, but she didn't really like him. At all. He seemed like your average teenage, albeit a brilliant one, but that was the thing. He seemed like one; she didn't know if he was actually one or just an excellent liar. It was also due to the fact that, that shinigami hovered around him like a gnat whenever he was around. That was just downright freaky—and if she'd been allowed outside, she'd have better access to information about those gods of death. All she had was a shitty Wi-Fi connection and google, which only ever lead her to cult sites and other useless websites. At least she had her aunt, who Mary knew had a little knowledge about them, but who was also too "busy with work right now to talk."

So for the time being, Mary was stuck, bored, in a hotel room with a bunch of police officers and L, about as useless as a shounen heroine.

"You are not useless, Mary-chan," L said, interrupting Mary's monologue about her boredom.

She blinked, sitting up. "Huh? I make you cakes, Ryuzaki-kun. Cakes. I literally do nothing else but make you cakes, and sure, they're not really cakes cause they're made from splenda, but that's also all your fault for stealing my strawberries. And until you apologize for that, 'fake' cakes are all you're gonna get."

"They're delicious cakes, Mary-chan," he said instead of the apology she wanted.

"Still useless. Why can't I go outside again?"

"Too dangerous."

"I'm calling bullshit on that one, Ryuzaki-kun. I'm in no more danger outside than I am in here with who could be a potential serial murderer," she pointed out. "Actually, I'm really in more danger here."

L took his eyes from the screen, though he was still biting his thumb. "I'm surprised you suspect Light-kun as well, Mary-chan."

Mary rolled her eyes. "You really shouldn't be. Not only is it glaringly obvious that, that boy is probably the best actor I've ever met, the evidence makes him too…suspicious."

"You believe he's acting?"
"Hmm." She shrugged, pulling herself up into a position similar to his and seating herself on the arm of the couch. "Plus," here she leaned closer to where he sat, "my eyes are telling me something." This last part she whispered.

L, for his part, didn't react. The young man merely nodded and accepted her reason as a statement of fact. It wasn't like he himself found her explanations for most things to be all that plausible. In fact, he dismissed almost everything she said because he knew most of it didn't hold any real worth. The girl liked to make up elaborate stories that may or may not hold some truth, and for the most part, knew what she was talking about when she was explaining something.

It was also, of course, because L knew, at least to some extent, about her 'eyes.' He'd compiled a theory over the years about them based off the comments she said about them and what she saw. He wasn't one hundred percent certain—maybe only one percent certain—but he thought he knew enough.

Besides, even if what she said was nothing but nonsense, it helped to have someone else aware of who Light may or may not be.

The Fake Message

L's computer screen blinked to life and a gothic W that signaled it was Watari appeared. Mary saw it seconds before his voice came through the speakers, and she bounced to where it sat.

Finally, she thought. Something new.

"Ryuzaki, we have a reply from the second Kira," he said.

The task force startled to attention, focusing in on the laptop.

"I'll be bringing in the tape we received but in the meantime, I'll stream a copy here so you can view it on your end," Watari explained as the other members gathered around the computer, L settling into the chair in front of it. Mary perched on the chairs' arm.

The screen changed from the W to the name Kira, and a computerized voice began:

"Kira, thank you for your reply. Please do not worry, I will follow orders and do as you say."

"Ooh," Mary mumbled.

"Wow, it actually worked," remarked Matsuda.

"I really want to meet you," continued the second Kira, "I don't think you have the eyes."

Mary's eyes widened and she started so violently she almost fell off the chair. The eyes? No way. Does that mean what I think it means? But what the hell would the eyes have to do with this? Mary's gaze seemingly unconsciously roamed to where Light-kun stood behind her, to the shinigami hovering beside him. Unless…

She looked back to Light-kun, to see that he also had reacted somewhat. Her eyes narrowed. Huh, interesting. Well, Light-kun, that's one more point for suspiciousness. Before anyone could notice her attention was on something else—before the ever attentive L could—she refocused on the message.

"But you don't have to worry, I would never try to kill you," the second Kira said.

How would you do that anyway?

"When we meet, we can confirm our identities by showing our shinigami to each other."

"No freaking way," Mary whispered as quietly as possible, but it didn't seem to matter as L's reaction covered it all:

He shouted "Ahhhh," and then tipped over the chair. Mary fell face first to the floor, L landing hard on top of her.

"Damn, Ryuzaki-kun, what the hell?" she hissed, her mouth shoved against the carpet, as Matsuda and Yagami-san rushed to help them up.

"Shinigami," L mumbled. "Am I supposed to believe they exist?"

Mary inwardly sighed, still stuck under L's bony frame. Oh, panda-kun, if only you knew.

Finally, Freedom!

She practically broke out of the hotel room the next day, if one could break out of a hotel room. She woke early, waited until L fell asleep, crouched in that peculiar way of his in a chair, and then slipped out of the room before the others noticed. Endangered be dammed! Mary needed the fresh air. She'd barely glimpsed the city when she first arrived, knowing how L would have been such a pain in the ass if she'd been late, and so she hadn't wasted any time arriving at the hotel.

But now that she was free, she decided to do the whole tourist thing. Despiser of crowds or not, she was going to properly explore the city. She wasted the day away, ignoring all phone calls from L, instead only shooting Watari a quick text stating that she was okay and was spending the day by herself. She found several different cafés that served a tasty coffee or pastry, spent almost all the pocket money she had on her on sweets or manga, and ended the day sitting in a restaurant, watching the people who walked by. She couldn't help but notice—and feel slightly depressed at times—when she saw a young child or even someone her age whose lifespan was close to extermination. It was always terrible to come across a kid who was going to die soon, and those people were usually the ones who would die in a tragic accident. But because she'd been dealing with it since she was a child, she was condition to take it in and then dismiss it seconds later. She didn't want to deal with these emotional attachments to strangers—if she had, she probably would have fallen into some sort of depression a long time ago. So being almost apathetic was ideal.

By the time she got back to the hotel, night had already fallen. The task force members, plus Light-kun, were gathered around L, who was reading off a paper in his hands. She didn't bother to apologize for her absence—if L wouldn't for stealing her strawberries, then she sure as hell wasn't going to for going outside—and was soon caught up on where they were on the case. The second Kira had sent a diary this time, and they had planned on sending Light-kun and Matsuda to Aoyama as well as stationing police at Shibuya.

"Mary-chan, since you seem to feel useless at the moment, why don't you go to Aoyama as well," L suggested, much to Mary's irritation. But she was glad for the chance to do something, no matter how small it may be, so she agreed anyway.

"How was your day out?" L asked her sometime later when the two were, for the most part, alone.

"I wasn't bored for that long," she said, sipping at a coffee that had gone stone cold and had too much milk in it. "Oh, yeah, I almost forgot. I bought a whole bunch of candy at this store in Shibuya, I think it was. I didn't really pay any attention to street signs or directions in general. You don't get any," she said pointedly, watching him closely. He didn't seem to react to it at all, but Mary knew he was somewhat peeved.

"And, ya know, I came back in one piece, so I didn't…there was something," she trailed off. Despite having perfect recall, when Mary became distracted by something, such as sweets or her new obsession of manga, she often forgot her original intention for doing things. And what she had forgot, though she had as of yet to remember it, was that she had meant to find out more about shinigami.

Bing!

It was as if a light bulb went off in her head—and suddenly she remembered.

"AHHH! Dammit, I can't believe I forgot something so important like that!" she exclaimed, smacking herself in the forehead. "I wonder if Amy's not so busy right now," and she was off on her nonsensical rambles, having forgotten, apparently, the sixteen hour time difference, and that her Aunt was probably just getting ready for bed.

L, as he always did, when Mary-chan started on her monologues, ignored her completely, putting more attention on his cake than he did on her.

A few days later, and a grumbling Mary was seen walking the streets of Aoyama with a group of Light-kun's friends. As said before, crowds were not good to Mary, and already she was beginning to get a headache. Her eyes really could be a pain in the ass.

Light-kun's popularity only seemed to make the young girl even more suspicious. To her, it was further proof that the boy was a world-class liar. Well, at any rate, she mused, staring at the back of his head, he'd make a damn good con-man. Or maybe he's some sort of sociopath? Hmmm.

To her dismay, nothing truly exciting happened during their time at Aoyama. She could say that the only interesting thing that happened was the spotting of another shinigami. It was by pure chance that Mary saw the god of death. She'd glanced away from watching Light-kun at exactly the right time, just so happened to look through the window of a café called Blue Note, and saw a massive white creature hovering behind a geeky looking school girl. One shinigami was weird enough, two was certainly no coincidence. But she still didn't know enough about them to provide a working theory as to why a god of death would be residing in the human realm.

Mary's eyes narrowed a fraction and she stopped in her tracks, staring now at the girl. There's no life span… That was new. Never before had she encountered someone without a life span. Unless she counted her mother and her Aunt, but with that, she'd just assumed it had to do with blood relatives because neither her mother nor Aunt had the eyes. She didn't know how to handle this new information, but she knew that standing there on the street staring at someone wasn't the best idea.

The others weren't that far ahead of her, and neither, it seemed, had the girl or the shinigami noticed her gawking, so Mary shook herself mentally and jogged to catch up with the others.

Now I really need to talk to Amy.

Any Info Will Do

"I'm happy to say that I have found Kira. Thank you to all the people at the television station and the police department."

When? It had to have happened in Aoyama, Mary concluded, absorbed in her thoughts about what she'd seen there. I don't know how, but it did, and that shinigami was involved. She decided right then and there that it was imperative she talk to her Aunt, and now.

Ignoring the others, she whipped out her phone and dialed Amy's number, knowing and not caring that she was probably still asleep.

"Hello?" yawned a sleepy Amy after the third ring.

"I need to know about shinigami," Mary said in German, her Aunt's native tongue and so no one except maybe L—who she was sure knew at least more than three languages—would know what she was talking about. Like she thought, L glanced at her, but otherwise didn't comment.

"Mary? You do realize it's three in the morning over here. What did you say you needed that's apparently so urgent you had to wake me up in the middle of the night?"

"Shinigami," Mary repeated, retreating to the far side of the room. She suddenly didn't want L to hear; there was only so much she was willing to tell the man.

"Shinigami?" She heard a rustling sound, and guessed that her Aunt was getting out of bed. "You know I don't know much about them. And what exactly are you doing over there that you need to know about them?"
Mary sighed. "It's complicated," she said, "but long story short, I've seen two of them in the two months I've been here."

There was dead silence on Amy's end. "You've seen them?" she whispered after a moment.

"Yeah. That's a bad thing, isn't it?"

Her Aunt heaved out a shaky breath. "Not necessarily, but I do know for sure that it can't be a good thing. They're gods of death, Mary."

"And I have the shinigami eyes," Mary said, nodding to herself. "I know. I also saw a girl whose life span I couldn't see."

There was another sound on her Aunts' side, one that sounded like she was opening a door. "That I may be able to tell you something about."
"Really? What?"

"Well, according to what your father once told me, those like you aren't able to see each other's life span. I'm not sure why, and if he did, he never told me."

Mary was practically bouncing with excitement now. "So you mean there are others like me? I mean, I figured there had to be somewhere in the world, but I never entertained the idea of it before."

"Yes, Mary, there are others," Amy laughed. "I can't tell you much, though. Your father never explained much to either of us, sadly. Do these shinigami you've been seeing have anything at all to do with that Kira person L's investigating or is this merely curiosity on your part?"

"Possibly both," said Mary, glancing toward the others, specifically at what she'd now dubbed as Light-kun's shinigami. "I haven't really figured that one out yet. I'm working on it. Is there anything you know about them though? I remember you having books on it?"

"One book really," Amy said. "I can't really even decipher most of it. I'm not sure why your father even gave it to me and not you…"

"Can you send it to me? The only thing I remember about them is what mom told me. The whole 'you share the same eyes, they're not dangerous to people like you—though I still don't have any idea about how that's even possible—and that thing about a Death Note.' Whatever the hell that is," she said.

"Death Note, Death Note," her Aunt mumbled. "I know I've heard that before, but I can't remember where."

"Ah, must be your old age," Mary joked.

"Ha. Ha. Ha," Any deadpanned. "Very funny, Mary. But I suppose I could send it. I'll try to run by the post office sometime this week. I've got to send off some invitations anyway, so I'll do it then."

"Danke. You seriously have no idea how bored I've been lately. All L's been having me do is make him cake! And while I'm all for that, I can't just sit around all day, doing that. Well, I have seen those shinigamis and that no-life-span-possibly-someone-like-me chick, but otherwise, not much."

"How are you doing, Mary? Be serious," Amy said, as if she hadn't just told her how bored she'd been. But her Aunt had that motherly instinct of always knowing when something was wrong just by the sound of her voice.

Mary sighed. "Alright for the most part. Like I said, really bored. And apparently I could die going after Kira as I am at the moment. I suppose L has a point, but I know I'm not about to die anytime soon, so that's not something I'm really going to worry about at the moment. Otherwise, I've only had a few headaches and an annoying cough that doesn't want to leave. And sure, people watching isn't healthy for me, but I only saw a couple of kids whose lives were ending soon, and I got over that pretty soon anyhow."

"And how much sugar have you been consuming?"

"Way too much, but I expected that, living with a guy whose diet consists of only sweets. I'm alright, Amy, really," Mary reassured, "Don't worry so much."

"I only let you go to Japan because I know you were getting bored with me. That and frankly you were beginning to get on my nerve about that—"

"Ha, ha," Mary interjected dryly.

"—and because I figured with L you'd be fine. But I don't want you to do anything stupid or dangerous, Mary."

"Hai, hai," Mary said, switching back to Japanese for no other reason than because she was beginning to bore of using German. "I'll be fine. Thanks again, Amy. I'll call you later."

Amy sighed. "I'm serious, Mary."

"I know."

She hung up after that, and Mary clutched the phone to her chest, sighing loudly. Well, at least now with new information about shinigami coming, she wouldn't be bored anymore.