Note: I based Raito off of this picture (Only with lighter colored hair [but darker than his human form): http //i72 . photobucket . com/ albums /i195/ FallenPhantem /additional . jpg Delete spaces. Image from Blanc et Noir art book, images from which can be downloaded from deathnote7 . com.

-----

No pain, but, in general, he could feel nothing at all. It was dark--or were his eyes closed? He thought he might have called out, but wasn't quite sure if he actually made a sound, as he hadn't heard anything, and hadn't felt his mouth move. His senses, which always before had been razor sharp, weren't even registering anything in his awareness. What little there must be left, if he could not even divine whether he had a body to use or not. He felt--much as he could feel--that his body had been cut away from his soul, and that was all that was left. He could even imagine it. Like in most anime and manga he had ever been forced to watch with his sister, his soul would be a small ball, bluish white, with a tail trailing behind it, swimming like a fish through eternal darkness.

That was even a kind of reassuring thought. It may get boring, but it would be peaceful, and he wouldn't be held down by any earthly restraints: hunger, lust, the extreme need to take a piss.

But damn, would it get boring. And of course, Raito hated boredom. He struggled for feeling, waving ghost limbs like amputees sometimes do, as they imagine their limbs are still attached to their body, but there was no response that he could speak of. ...Hahah. He couldn't speak anyway. He cracked himself up. Still he made attempts to open eyes that might or might not be there, speak through imaginary lips, hear a voice, a noise, anything!

And then there was a noise. It wasn't his mind playing tricks on him, because in the thick, black silence that seemed to crush without using pressure, there was nothing else to make a sound, not even himself. He couldn't pass it off as cloth shifting against cloth, or harsh breathing, or the churning of his stomach. None of that existed here, apparently.

Except the noise, that seemed to swell suddenly, and fill everything with an annoying buzzing. This odd buzzing seemed to jar something in him, a memory, and he realized what he should have seriously considered before.

The gun was in his face now, and he was staring down the barrel.

Well shit, he thought. I'm really fucking dead. But in this place, emotions didn't seem to escalate beyond the level 'mild.' The buzzing was a mild annoyance, he only felt mild contempt toward the thought of boredom, he was only mildly panicking at the fact that he was dead.

It was more as if he had just stopped caring. He did want to know what had happened to Ryuuzaki, though. And his family. And the Kira case. How much time had passed here? Or was time an option? Did that mean time didn't exist? Or what? How long had he been dead? Couldn't be long, as he was still getting used to the whole being dead thing. How could he get out of here?

Call it mild curiosity.

The buzzing--which he had started to ignore--was swelling again, as if trying to force him to remember something else, but whatever it was, he wasn't remembering. It continued to grow louder; he attempted to block it out, focusing his thoughts elsewhere. On Misa, his sister, his father, his school, the Kira case, Ryuuzaki, anything! It became unbearable, and he wanted to press his hands to his ears, but neither where there to be commanded. As it finally seemed as if his mind or soul or whatever would explode, the buzzing yielded, quickly dissipating. A mental sigh of relief was all he could manage.

Without warning, fiery pain ripped through him like a whip, and he found he did in fact have a body, albeit one that was unresponsive to an extreme degree. Even as the pain registered in his mind, even as a scream tried to escape his throat, his naked body didn't move, his eyes didn't open. He looked for all the world like he was asleep. Ripping noises--like damp paper--registered in his mind.

With an imagined lurch of the stomach, he realized that his skin was tearing apart. For the moment, he was glad he couldn't open his eyes.

A voice that was not his own floated through the haze of pain engulfing his mind. It was familiar, in a way, but his mind was too focused on the pain to care.

"Don't think that any human who's used the Death Note can go to Heaven or to Hell"

Hahah, what note? he thought.

And then the darkness, which had so claimed his body, overtook his mind.

-----

"Tell me, Yagami Raito--do you know where you are?"

"Huh-Hell?" he muttered as he struggled to stand. The terrible pain from before was gone, as was the darkness, but his body was still incredibly numb--probably after affects of... whatever the hell it had been.

There was a wheezy chuckle from somewhere behind him, so he turned, swaying, to come face to stomach with some huge, flying, thing.

"wow, were you beat with the ugly stick as a child, or what?" he said, his thought process in a train wreck. He slapped a hand to his mouth immediately, staring up at the ugly, stretched face that belonged to this otherworldly being. But if anything, the thing seemed to be amused at his words, not angry to be insulted. It started to laugh. Which was odd. Because it sounded more like it was trying to vomit up a dying puppy. Raito made a face. Sick.

Finally, the monster calmed down, and said, "It's about time someone interesting came around. The last human we got here was weeks ago, and he nearly pissed himself when he saw me--not that he could. Kept trying to run away, crying and screaming his head off." The thing laughed again. Raito felt he understood exactly why the man had done that. If he had been anyone else, he would have done it too. But damn it, this thing, besides being on the butt-ugly side, was awfully familiar.

"So..." he began when it had stopped. "Where the hell am I and who are you?"

"You are in the Shinigami Realm, in my palace. I am the Shinigami King." Raito looked around. Looked like the inside of a giant rotting carcass. The walls of the tunnel like place they were in were slimy and faded red, and far above, he could make out the shapes of graying bones that looked like they might crumble any second. Farthest thing from a palace ever.

"Well, why am I here? I'm a human, like you said--the first one here in weeks--so don't I belong in wherever humans go after they die?" he asked.

"Well, ordinarily, a human who dies goes to MU, or nothingness. But you're different." The Shinigami King fell silent. These was a clicking noise in the back of its--his--throat. A look of reluctance passed across his reptilian face, his yellow eyes lighting up eerily as an idea evidently came to him. A shudder racked Raito's body.

" 'The human who uses this note can neither go to heaven or hell;' do you remember that?" Raito shook his head, but something in the back of his head said yes.

"What does that mean?" he asked, thinking of the voice he had heard in that previous darkness, right before he had blacked out. It had said something similar to that.

"Well, I would tell you, but..." The Shinigami King scratched it's chin, where the scaly skin was peeling away to reveal bone underneath. "But, where would be the fun in that?" The King laughed it's vomiting-up-a-puppy laugh. "Here. Maybe you'll understand, maybe you won't. You gave up Ryuuku's, so it's no surprise you have no memory." He was handed a black notebook, a pen that looked like it belonged to a goth, and a tightly rolled up scroll with a red ribbon holding it close.

"What is this stuff?" he asked, staring at it blankly, then at the King.

"That" -he pointed at the black notebook- "is your Death Note. I suggest you don't lose it. The scroll is a copy of all the rules about the Death Note. The pen, well, you can guess."

"Wait!" he said as the Shinigami King turned to leave. The hunched body stopped, but didn't turn. "Why am I Shinigami!? Shouldn't I go to that MU place?"

"Sorry, but I don't really have to answer you, now, do I? I am the Shinigami King. Listen, I don't care what you do with your time here. You can go to the Human World, or gamble like all the other lazy ass Shinigami-" his voice was filled with scorn and disgust "-but whatever you do, don't bother me much. The doors are that way." With one clawed finger, he pointed to Raito's left. Then said, "Besides, I bet you'll provide some more entertainment." With that, the Shinigami King faded into the darkness, leaving Raito alone.

"No!" he shouted. "Come back! Why am I a Shinigami!? You know, so tell me, damn it!" Only silence answered him. He huffed angrily, then turned in the direction of the doors.

The hall-like place was surprisingly long, and he had enough time to contemplate the conversation and mentally berate himself. He could have handled that better; now that it was past, though, there was nothing he could do to help it. Besides, he felt he didn't really care what anyone thought of him now. He was dead.

When he reached the doors--large, looming monoliths made of bleached skulls that seemed ill fitted to the frame around them--they opened on a large, gray, depressing, rocky wasteland, twisted, dead-looking trees dotting the ugly landscape. His stepped onto the ground reluctantly--it looked warped, hazardous--and for the first time, he realized that the only thing he was wearing were pants. Tight, black and red, bondage-like pants that appeared as if they had been melted and then reformed. Strips dangled off, and there was a kind of holster attached around his waist, with a large, grinning skull melted onto it. He placed the Death Note into the holster, and it fit perfectly. The pen he stored next to it in a similar sheath.

Looking away from his new pants, he inspected the rest of his body. His hair was darker, but still close to his hair as a human. His body, however, was a different story. It was composed of stitched strips of milk white skin, blue skin, and his human skin. A blue patch and a white patch stretched from one hip down into his pants, half-assed stitching holding them together. Curiously, he unbuttoned and unzipped his pants, and looked down them. There was only skin, smooth and blue, were certain body parts should reside.

Damn. he though while he zipped his pants up (Now he understood what the King meant when he said the previous guy couldn't actually piss his pants). He also discovered that he had a bracelet and a ring on his right arm, and his hands ended in pointed, dark nails that looked like that of a person suffering from frostbite. He could gather noting about his face, though, because there were no reflective surfaces that he could see around the Shinigami Realm, so he just decided to be happy with the fact that at least there weren't stitches marring it.

Finally finished with his thorough inspection, he sat down, put the ribbon on the scroll around his left wrist, and began reading the rules of the Death Note.

-----

So, yay or neigh? Not like it will matter, because I'm not changing it.