Just a little bit about how I'm writing this story. Everything that happens in the shinigami world is going to be in Italics. In the human world, the font is going to be normal, but thoughts are going to be in Italics. If there is anything in Bold font, that means it is written in or on the Death Note. In this chapter I go over a few of the rules regarding the Death Note. It's pretty similar to what happens in the actual series, so that later on, you're not lost in this fanfic if you haven't watched Death Note. The rules are not word for word because remember, if you've watched DeathNote you'll know that the character Ryuk wrote those rules in there himself. So a different shinigami is going to word the rules differently. The only rule I deliberately took word for word is the first one because it's already so short.

Chapter 1 - Toru Goes First

The Shinigami Realm:

Two days before Day 1 of the bet.

They left the moving earth and the jagged mountains for the rolling dunes of the desert. The desert was a vast expanse of dry sand, swirling on the breeze, stinging the eyes of the travelling shinigami. Dry, bleached bones protruded from the ground like the ribs of great animals, such as whales or elephants.

As they drew deeper into the desert, large holes began to appear on the surface. They were portals for viewing the human world. Deeper in the desert was an even larger portal, and that one would allow shinigami to enter the human world.

The three shinigami stopped at a viewing portal and seated themselves around. The portal looked like a pool of water with swirling white mist inside.

Izanami brushed aside her fluttering robes and waved her bony hand over the portal. "Who would like to go first?"

"I'll go," Toru volunteered. He crouched down on his insect legs and peered into the portal. "It is not night time anymore."

Tetsuo leaned in as well, to get a closer look. "There are so many humans in Gotham City."

All of them nodded in agreement.

While Toru searched the city, the portal's view raced through one street, weaving between cars and then swerved into another. Tetsuo and Izanami watched patiently.

"I just thought of something, Izanami," Toru said as he continued to watch for a human he preferred would find his spare Death Note.

She blinked her blue eyes at him. "Yes?"

"Should we tell the humans about the wager?"

She considered for a moment. "Well, since the humans we are going to pick have no stakes in the wager, they might be insulted if they discovered we were betting on their actions. So, no. We will not tell the humans about the wager. Does everyone agree?"

Toru shrugged awkwardly and Tetsuo nodded seriously after a moment.

"Ryuk told me that when he was in the human world, the two humans who had Death Notes contacted each other. Even if that happens with us, we will still not tell them of the wager. All right?"

"What if a human demands to know why we dropped the Death Notes in the human world?" Tetsuo asked.

Izanami had a head of glossy black tendrils that constantly flowed and moved. Now she pulled one tendril as she thought of his question. "Tell the human it was an accident."

"Three identical accidents? In one city? The chances are quite slim, Izanami."

"Just tell the human that you know nothing of the other Death Notes, and that you're simply in the human world to retrieve yours." Her voice was a little impatient.

"I think I found my human," Toru said finally, his face devoid of emotion, but his voice interested and curious.

Izanami and Tetsuo looked down into the portal.

"What's he doing?" Tetsuo asked.

"Are those weapons?" Toru questioned.

"I believe those are weapons of the human world," Izanami replied unsurely.

"Do you think he is already going to kill someone?" Tetsuo asked, looking at the other two shinigami.

"I think I'm going to win this bet," Toru laughed. "It's one of your turns to choose now."

Gotham City:

Day 1

It's going to be easy. Calm the fuck down. It'll be easy.

I sat in the huge school parking lot, looking out the driver side window. No time for hesitation. Well, actually there was. I really shouldn't have come this early. I had too much time to think about what I was going to do. My nerves were shot and I was trembling all over. I had the backpack already on my shoulders, I was ready to go. But it wasn't time yet. I looked at my digital watch. T minus twenty-one minutes. The school's security guards would shut the metal detectors off soon. Then I would go in and...

I shut my eyes at the thought. My insides lurched everytime I thought about the act.

Just take the gun and bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.

I looked in the sideview mirror at my face. My brown hair looked darker and greasier than usual. Probably because I was sweating so much. And probably because I was so pale.

Yeah, I'm terrified.

But I'm excited too.

I had no choice. I had to do it. They'd backed me into a corner more than once. Defenseless, broken, damaged forever.

But they didn't know. They didn't know that one day people backed into the corner would snap. They'd lose it and it would be more formidable than anything they'd ever imagined.

Judgment.

Justice.

Vengeance.

I looked at my watch again. T minus nineteen minutes.

I looked in the rearview mirror. There was no movement in the whole parking lot. No one knew I was here. I was not missed. No one cared. No one cared that I was missing. I would already be marked late by now. My cell phone didn't ring. My mother wasn't wondering if I was all right. My father wasn't wondering where I was. I didn't have a friend wondering why I was late for class.

I was never late. I was never missing.

Until today. And no one cared.

But they will care today. They will. They'll see me. They'll notice me. They'll scream and run. And then they'll die.

T-minus sixteen minutes.

I waited. I breathed deeply, forcing myself to relax. I had to relax. I couldn't be jumpy. I needed to be calm. My thoughts had to be clear, unaffected by what was going to be around me. There was going to be death and blood and horror. I knew it was going to be there. I couldn't allow that to stop me. I had to do what had I woken up to do this morning.

I had to do what I had been preparing to do. For months. It took months to get everything ready. All the gun parts had to be bought separately. They had to be shipping to different places. I had to document what I was doing so that when I was finished people would find it. I filmed myself, I wrote in journals, I kept receipts and paperwork. I took photos.

In life no one knew me.

But in death I'd be a legacy.

T-minus twelve-

I gasped when I heard a thunk on the roof of my car. My heart raced in my chest, my whole body pounding from the movement. For a moment I was surprised, but I immediately decided it must be a bird or something.

But that couldn't be it. It wasn't moving anymore. Birds usually walked around a little bit and then flew off again. I would be hearing more noise. I should have if it was a bird.

Maybe a bird dropped dead on my car. Who knows? In mid-flight just...dead.

I waited. Stillness. No sound at all. T minus ten minutes.

I looked around the parking lot. Not one soul.

I could risk a quick peek at the roof, right?

I looked around again.

T minus eight minutes.

Fuck, I didn't have much time left. There was really no time for hesitation or second guessing. I opened the door, reached up blindly and felt the object.

A book?

I quickly pulled it into the car and shut my door with a light slam. Hopefully no one was around to hear it.

T minus seven minutes. Shit. What the hell is this thing?

Death Note. Huh?

It was a black, soft-cover, notebook. I looked on the back. Nothing. The words were scrawled on the front in handwriting. Crooked, clumsy letters. Like a little kid wrote it.

I looked around again. Who threw this thing? Was someone watching me? Death Note. Was it a note to tell me to kill myself?

I opened it up, only to discover writing in a different language on the white pages. But wait. There was white writing on the inside of the cover. It was in English.

How to use a Death Note.

The human whose name is written in this note shall die.

It was the same handwriting at the words on the front.

T minus five minutes.

Can my work wait just one day?

I'd already waited for so many months. What's one more day?

I flipped the pages and all the words in it were in another language.

Down to the last scribbles, none of it was in English, except the inside of the cover. I turned back to it.

The Death Note will only work if the person doing the writing has the real name and image of the victim's face in mind. Otherwise, the person will not die. This is to avoid the deaths of people that share the same name.

T minus three minutes.

I could wait just one more day.

I shrugged of my heavy backpack and set it on the passenger seat. I was also wearing a vest that contained ammunition for my guns. I set all of it down on the floor of the car and hid it with the backpack on top. I didn't even have any school notebooks or texts.

I was wearing all black and a camouflage cap. I took it off and threw it in the passenger seat.

What were the chances that I'd be getting ready to kill a bunch of people and a murder tool just happened to fall to me? This wasn't a coincidence.

I untucked my T-shirt and smoothed it down over my black jeans. I untucked the legs of the pants from my boots and pulled them down over the shoes.

T minus one minute.

As I ran towards the building, I felt a sudden, incredulous thought. This can't be real!

When has writing a person's name in a book ever killed them?

What about magic? What about voodoo? What about spells and incantations? What about potions and charms and amulets and curses? Aren't those all the same thing?

I ran into the building, panting past the bored security guards and sliding on the glossy tile floors.

I had to run up a flight of stairs to get to my homeroom. I was already so late. Almost thirty minutes late for my first period class.

As I leapt up onto the stairs landing on the second floor, I slowed to a brisk walk and saw that my classroom door was open. Before walking in, I hesitated. I was going to get laughed at, I knew it.

I stepped into the doorway slowly, breathing a little hard from running all the way. The teacher was at the whiteboard, scribbling some stuff down. He looked over lazily and said, "Nice of you to join us, Mr. Nelson. Have a seat."

A low ripple of giggles spread through the room. I felt my face turning hot from embarrassment as I made my way to the back of the room.

And...I was so flustered that I didn't even notice his foot when he stuck it out to trip me.

If it wasn't for the two desks on either side of me, I would have fallen on my face. But luckily, I caught onto both sides and just stumbled instead. The people near me laughed a little louder.

I had dropped the Death Note, but no one seemed to notice. It had falled face down and looked like a harmless notebook.

"Sorry 'bout that, man," he replied, his tone telling me he was not at all anywhere in the vicinity of being sorry.

"Settle down, that's enough!" The teacher barked.

I did and said nothing, except snatch up the notebook and sink into my seat. It was at the very back, against the wall.

I palmed sweat away from my forehead.

I need a pen. Where's a pen when I fucking need it?

I patted down my pockets and found nothing. Well, except for a pocket knife I had brought in. I forgot to take that out earlier. It was a good thing I'd waited until T minus one to go inside. Otherwise...the metal detectors would have picked it up.

There was a guy next to me, who wasn't with the group of kids who had laughed when I tripped. He was usually pretty aloof and indifferent to anything that went on. Even when he saw that I didn't have a pen, he didn't offer me one. Not until I asked with a gesture. He shrugged and handed me one.

I opened up the Death Note with my left hand, carefully hiding the words Death Note on the cover.

I read the next few instructions.

If only the person's name is written in the Death Note, they will die in forty seconds of a heart attack.

If you want them to die a particular way, you have to write the cause of death within forty seconds of writing their name.

Any details of the death have to be written within six minutes and forty seconds of writing the victim's name.

I looked at my watch. 8:14:37 AM

I glanced at the guy who had tripped me. He was not paying attention to me anymore, but was taking notes.

I opened the notebook and looked at the board, for a while, reluctant to write anything in there.

The guy who had tripped me was actually one of the people I knew I was going to kill. He was already a marked man.

I glanced at my watch again. 8:17:12 AM

I wrote his name slowly in the Death Note. Frankie Pierce.

I looked at my watch again. 8:17:29 AM

I waited thirty seconds, continuously watching the board and pretending to make notes. No one was paying any attention to the fact that I wasn't actually writing anything down.

8:18:00 AM

Nine seconds left.

Eight...Seven...Six...Five...Four...Three...Two...One...

I looked up at Frankie. He had stopped writing.

I continued to stare as he twitched suddenly and uttered a loud groan and doubled over. The teacher stopped writing and turned around, an eyebrow raised in question. The rest of the class turned to look too. Frankie groaned again, louder this time, and collapsed from the chair, his hand clutching his chest.

"Oh my God," someone murmured in shock. The teacher dropped the whiteboard marker and ran over and students jumped out of their seats and came in for a closer look.

"Quick! Someone call nine-one-one!" The teacher ordered as several students whipped out cell phones and punched in the digits. Some students ran out of the room to get the school nurse. Another student pressed an intercom in the classroom and called the office's attention.

I sat rooted in my seat, and the guy next to me craned his neck slightly for a view. He was as relaxed as ever.

The teacher lifted Frankie up and another couple of students helped him back into his seat. He slumped forward, head bumping his desk. The teacher leaned his head back and some people shuddered and recoiled at the expression on his face. The teacher checked his pulse. He looked ill. I knew what he was thinking. He couldn't bring himself to say it. Not in front of a bunch of teenagers. Not in a classroom full of young students.

He's dead.