I Have the Right to Destroy
Chapter 2: Rebirth
(The Killer)
If there's one thing I've learned in Whammy's House, is that your true name only has value because people can use it to destroy you. Think of how much damage a DNA sample in the wrong place can cause a perfectly apt criminal, or how your family name preceded and all your achievements. Your name is a weapon, or else an unnecessary label. Therefore, there is no use of keeping it.
If you only go by a symbol—a penname, a Jack of Spades, a straw doll, a singular letter like L—then you are excused to do all the notorious things you want. That is how the greatest criminals in the world operate. They make the world lose their identities. They keep their true selves to themselves. In that way, their lack of identity becomes a weapon against the world—without a name, all is allowed.
They even made themselves safe from me. The Killer. The most powerful human being on the face of the earth today.
I know the power of names and the power of appearances. Thus, I have to hide behind this ridiculous alias—Kira, the Japanization of the word, Killer. One of the first nicknames given by the shiny-eyed humans who was saved by my power.That was how L and the idiot Tailor addressed me in the broadcast, wasn't it?
But before that, I already hid behind a false name. I am, after all, a resident of Whammy's House. Everyone here prided themselves with anonymity as much as they did with their intellect. So, who am I among those who dream of becoming the next L?
I am recognized as one of the smartest among the fifty children in Whammy's House—one of the top three, to be more specific. There is no need for you to know which one, absolutely no point. You don't deserve to know since you don't know what it's like to have the number hanging over your head, after all.
The numbers barely mattered to the other children. It's always a popular debate amongst them: who, really, is the smartest among the top three?
Even then, for the three of us, the numbers always mattered. Not because of the prestige attached to them, but because it was L himself who assigned the rankings.
Yes, L. A nameless, faceless character. Nevertheless, the person loved by all the children in the orphanage—including me, I have to admit.
The person whose death will become my greatest victory.
How I gained my power to kill people with heart attacks is, surprisingly, not very impressive.
It happened during Physical Education. We were given exercises on how to use maps and compasses. So the activity for the day was a treasure hunt, of some sorts. Individual maps, individual paths. A race with some form of reward at the end. A fun activity for many of the children—everyone was talking about it the day before.
I am not a fan of the great outdoors. The whole thing was worthless, in my opinion. However, I had no choice. I was led to one of the woodsy areas of the enormous backyards of Whammy's House. And this is where I found it:
Lying on some grass and mossy earth was a black notebook. On its cover was shiny, metallic ink, with curious handwriting: Death Note.
If you consider my personality, it was unlikely that I'd pick up the
notebook when I was busy with the race. Some of the other children must have
brought the notebook with them in the race, and must have dropped it there. I
certainly wouldn't be bothered picking up the notebook for whoever lost it.
But something inside me told me that it was… unnatural. "It should be taken away from this place… hey, it's perfect for you. Don't show it to anyone else. Keep it, open it, and do what you will with it."
And so…
Ignoring the mess of children around me, I picked up the Death Note.
Death Note. It had an… interesting ring to it. I had a suspicion that it was a suicide note of some kind, or at least a record of suicidal thoughts.
One idea that came to mind when I stared at the cover was A—could he had been the owner of this notebook? Then, it would be something that I wanted to study on my own first, without the other kids rubbernecking while I read it.
However, if it turned out that the person who owned it was still alive and was a resident of the orphanage, then it would not be a good idea to just wave the notebook around the other kids.
Alone in my room. It was around an hour before dinner time.
Sitting in my trademark way at the edge of my bed, I pulled out the notebook from the inside of my shirt. Carefully, I examined the cover: it seemed that the words 'Death Note' was handwritten, carved in the leather with some weird ink filled in. I turned it over and over and noticed that there was no manufacturer's label on the cover. When viewed from the sides, it was apparent that the first fifty pages of the book was black paper, while the rest of the notebook was classic, cream-coloured writing pad.
So this notebook was custom-made? It was unlikely for the residents to have the means to have a notebook custom-made like this. Then, could it be one of the adults? One of the former residents of the place before it was called Whammy's House? Or, dare I say it, L or one of his direct subordinates?
The chances of the notebook belonging to L were really small, but I couldn't help but be intrigued at the possibility. L having suicidal thoughts was pretty interesting. My hands shook in excitement as I imagined how his personal thoughts would sound like…
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and opened the notebook to its first page.
What greeted my eyes was not what I had expected.
Death Note: How to use it
1. The human whose name is written in this note shall die.
2. This note will not take effect unless the writer has the subject's name in his/her mind when writing his/her name. Therefore, people sharing the same name will not be affected.
Mindlessly, I browsed through all the obsessive, handwritten rules of the Death Note. The person who wrote these rules certainly didn't want room for questions, although there were references to Gods of Death, which sounded to me just a little bit too fantastic. All in all, there were 66 rules (minus the sub-rules) in the Death Note.
And the intentions of the person who made this notebook were clear: this notebook was created as a tool for killing human beings. One name and face at a time.
So much for suicide.
"Curiouser and curioser." I couldn't help but remark that to myself.
When I finally reached the first writing page, I paused. The notebook seemed to be unused.
I closed the notebook. Fun's over. For what it's worth, it was an entertaining read. A notebook that kills people sounds like a good horror story. It might have been created by one of the nerdy kids who wrote fantasy stories in their spare time. Good effort, I have to say.
Fifty minutes to go before dinner time. I read, re-read and processed all sixty-six sections within ten minutes. Now I have nothing left to do.
I carried the notebook with me and threw it on my computer desk. Then I started surfing the Internet.
Computers in our rooms were very limited, in that there were firewalls and other such programs that disabled us from entering certain websites. We were prohibited from entering into private sites, questionable sites, or even signing up for free email. Among the few sites that we were allowed to visit, I go to a page where both major and minor news from around the world can be read. Was L saving the world, like we all believed him to be doing all this time?
Three small crime stories I saw there answered the negative:
Rapist flees from London precinct—Dinn Grey, 24, who is recently charged with rape offences, escaped yesterday afternoon from… (Read More)
1 killed, 6 wounded in Tokyo, Japan—In a fit of blind rage, Otoharada Kurou (????), 32, stabbed a man to death and wounds six others in Shinjuku... (Read More)
Murderer of 4-year-old escapes death penalty—Lia Mariuss, 32, given the guilty verdict for killing her 4-year-old son Lio, was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole… (Read More)
Same old, same old. Small time killers are still running around, polluting the world like rats.
I stared at the clock: twenty minutes to go before dinner time. Not enough time to go to the playroom to play a decent game. The other kids were all probably hanging out there anyway, and it would be annoying if I had to mingle with them when my bottom's bruised up like this.
I picked up the notebook and stared at its cover. Maybe, maybe I should try it out…?
Unfortunately, it was one of those rare moments in my life where I didn't bother to think. I opened each article, browsed through the articles and photos, took a pencil, and wrote:
Dinn Grey
???? Otoharada Kurou
Lia Mariuss
It was a struggle to write Otoharada Kurou's name, but I managed to copy the Kanji neatly onto the notebook.
I closed the notebook. For the fun of it, I watched the clock, counting the seconds that passed.
Bang. Farewell, Dinn Grey.
Bang. Sayonara, Otoharada-san.
Bang. So long, Mrs. Mariuss.
Dinnertime. It was one of those rare evenings where we were allowed to watch TV while eating. As expected from Roger, we were made to watch an international news network. Most of the children found this useless and boring, and chose to just eat their food.
Around thirty minutes ago in the city of Winchester, the police located Dinn Grey, who was recently charged with rape and who escaped from London yesterday after his arrest. He had with him a 13-year-old girl from the area, whom he used as a hostage.
"Oh, God," whimpered one of the adults as she watched the screen with frightened eyes, "that place is just a few minutes from us."
On the screen, the man was screaming, "Don't come near me! I'll kill her!"
When it looked like it was going to happen, however, something unexpected happened: The man crumpled on the floor, clutching his chest in pain. The terrified girl screeched and ran towards the awestruck police. After frothing in the mouth for a few moments, the man's body twitched terribly and died.
Some of the children gasped at this scene. That was probably the first death that any of us had ever seen.
Unexpectedly, Grey suffered from a heart attack. The police, upon further examination, confirmed that he was dead. A full autopsy has not been conducted yet, but they concluded that the sudden heart attack is most likely the cause of his death…
"Tsk, the old man probably got too excited," one of the boys near me muttered with a tinge of awe in his voice.
In other news, this just in: while being escorted to the New Jersey State Prison by the police, Lia Mariuss suffered from a heart attack and died before the paramedics arrived. The 32-year old Mariuss was recently sentenced to life in prison for the murder of her 4-year-old son…
I tried not to react as I bit into a potato.
Sitting not too far from me, Linda remarked, "Another heart attack? Scary coincidence…"
"Both of them happened at the same time, huh…" one of the other two said with a bored voice. "What are the chances?"
"People die from heart attacks all the time. It just seems out of the ordinary because they reported it one after the other."
"I guess you're right," said Linda, after listening to the two of them. She stabbed a piece meat from her plate and told me, "Wouldn't it be crazy if entire populations started dying from a heart attack pandemic?"
I shrugged at her. It was all I could do to keep myself from trembling and yelling.
Did I just kill them?
That night, I locked the door to my room, ran to my bed, and screamed into a pillow. I did this until my throat was sore.
(I never had to scream before in my life.)
I couldn't sleep that night. My hands trembled ceaselessly. My pajamas and beddings got immersed in my sweat. When I closed my eyes, the image of Dinn Grey's dead face took its place inside my head.
That one, unmoving, dead face. The colours did not change. The name that I wrote hung heavy on the air, flashing with the police lights and the shaking news cameras—it suffocated me. It was worse than any nightmare I could imagine.
That was the first night.
The next day, I went to the classrooms with everybody else. My scores from the last biology exam were phenomenal. The teacher smiled at me and said, That's why you're fit to become the next L.
I smiled at her and said, tell that to the other two.
I went up to my room, locked the door, and logged on to the Internet.
With small handwriting, I filled ten pages of the Death Note with names of criminals from all over the world. (Thus, I didn't get any sleep that night.)
The next morning's news headlines were phenomenal: Hundreds of criminals die inexplicably from heart attacks. The newspaper I saw wrote around ten stories about it, all displayed on the front page. The photos showed dead criminals on the floor, the faces of witnesses, nervous-looking detectives explaining things to groups of fierce-looking journalists.
I killed them…
I smirked.
That night, I wrote more names into the Death Note. And then I slept peacefully afterwards.- Chapter 2 end -
Notes: It was a big struggle to write this chapter. I kept typing things, then removing them from this chapter, and then deleting narrations because they made the identity too obvious, and most of the time it's just mixed nuts. Hell, I even rewrote the entire thing after publishing the draft here! How do you develop a character while hiding his identity?! I wish most of this would be narrated by L, but alas, that is not the case here! Ah, I got myself into a fine mess, all right. But whatever. I'll write what I can and what I feel like, and I'll see how that goes.
I thank the heavens that death god dot org exists. I needed to cross-check a lot of facts from there, whoa.