Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note.

A/N: Hello! :D Sorry about the downtime. I'd like to promise that it won't happen again, but... yeah, it probably will. XD I have like twelve different writing-related things going on and it's madness. I love it. XD

Regardless, here's chapter 4!


I woke up screaming and entirely unsurprised that I was screaming. After all, someone like me... they should have nightmares, right? Didn't I deserve them? Didn't I deserve to see the disembodied faces of every man and woman I had killed to satisfy my own ambition? Should I not be forced to relive Mac and all the things that spending time with a big, meaty guy with that name implies? It was only right that every night I sweat through my sheets, that by the time I woke up they were so twisted that sometimes there wasn't even any cloth left on the bed- sheets in crumpled piles on the stained carpet.

It was only right.

Besides, it worked on the bags under my eyes which, once again, did nothing bad for my image.

I had only slept for an hour, but Ross had ordered me back at base at five. I showered (so much sweat) and dressed in my leather, which would someday be infamous. Someday, people were going to run in the opposite direction when they saw me coming. Someday people would drop to their knees and beg for their life if I so much as frowned.

It was an enticing thought, and it carried me through a quick breakfast (chocolate bar) and all the way to the grungy underground hellhole.

Jose, to whom I was supposed to report, was already there. So I walked up to him. "What's the plan?" I asked coolly. "More of yesterday's bullshit or are you going to actually let me do something?"

"It's real, all right," he replied. He was a thin, nervous-looking man, but he had that crazy-looking glint in his eyes, and I instantly liked him. Crazy works and hey, I can relate. His voice was kind of nasally, but still intimidating. Or, it would have been, if I was capable of fear. "This one's hard," he continued. "Not as hard as the last one, since that was a test, but it's hard. You got lucky last time, newbie. This time, you won't be so lucky."

I rolled my eyes and sighed. "Whatever. Give me the file, Jose."

I reached for it, but he snapped it out of my hands. "Call me sir," he said dangerously, taking a step towards me. He was so close that I could feel his stinking breath. Drug addict; I recognized the teeth.

I rolled my eyes again and laughed in a rush. "I don't think so. And, as a side note, if you disrespect me again, I'll kill you."

He didn't believe me. Not at first, at least. Then he took a good, long look into my eyes and saw that there was absolutely no humor there. I wasn't kidding, and I saw the change in his posture when he finally figured that out.

All the better for him. Maybe he would actually survive my ascent to the top of this pathetic branch.

Most likely not. I didn't like him so much anymore.

Without a word, he handed me the file, then turned around and disappeared.

Right, bitch. Run away. I almost said it aloud, but decided it would be in bad taste as I opened the file. I skimmed it, noting the location. I'd wait for that night.


It was another disgustingly easy one, as it turned out. Grave robbery just isn't brain surgery. I was glad I hadn't joined the Mafia for the 'challenge' because I would have been very disappointed if I had. No, I could challenge myself by finding Kira before Near when I had all the power, I thought as I walked up the stone steps to the mausoleum I was to break into.

It was dark, but the cemetery was far enough away from the city that I could actually see a few stars. Matt and I used to look at the stars together. I would drag him out in the middle of the night- he was wide awake anyway- and we'd lie on the grass, and I'd hold him, and we'd look up at the stars. He had been taking astrology one time and he'd pointed out dozens of constellations to me, proving just how good his memory was because he sure as hell hadn't studied. I had pretended not to see them just so that he'd trace them on my chest, knowing that I was lying, his hair brushing my cheek as he leaned in for a gentle kiss and...

So, anyway, the nearby streetlamps gave me almost enough light to navigate by, and I managed to not trip over any gravestones. The dirt was sandy under my boots, and the strange sinking but gravely feeling, accompanied with all the tiny insects that hopped around, reminded me of when I had buried my parents, good riddance. It was eerily silent, and I couldn't help but glance over my shoulder at the guard stand. The guards must be asleep- I had walked right on past them and the cemetery was supposed to be closed for the night.

This was yet another pathetic excuse for a mission. Maybe they thought the dead bodies would freak me out, maybe they really just wanted that urn, but it didn't matter. There wasn't even an excuse to shoot, after the initial blowing up of the crypt's entrance. I walked in confidently as the dust and debris cleared, ignoring the spider webs that collected in my hair as I brushed past them, and picked up the correct urn, putting it under my arm for safe travel. There were probably ashes in here. Huh. Maybe they were the ashes of an ex-member. Or, and this was more likely, the urn had coke in it. I tried to decide if it was disrespectful to transport drugs in an urn intended for dead people, but then I remembered that I didn't give a fuck.

Suddenly, I heard an alarm going off. Damn they reacted slowly to explosions around here. I put the urn safely down behind a tombstone and got out my gun. Waiting.

Four guards, 'normal people' in every sense of the word, appeared from around the corner, running towards me, shouting. They were barely armed because, I mean, who the fuck robs graves nowadays? Stomping around, they shattered the chilly night silence, which pissed me off.

They slowed down when they saw that I wasn't bolting, although they gave me a suspicious once-over. I wasn't acting like a hood. Maybe I was just a random necrophiliac? One of the guys was staring at where my tits would be if I were a girl. I suspected that he thought I was.

Just to crush his dreams, I used my lowest, sexiest, manliest, deadliest voice. "Hello, fuckers, like what you see?"

Normally it was against my policy to hold unnecessary conversations with those who were about to be my victims (it gave my nightmare images accurate voices to scream in, to plead in, to weep in), but I just couldn't resist seeing the disappointment on the guy's face.

"Drop your weapon," one of the guards said carefully. "Please," he added.

Ah, now I understood why the case was 'hard.' Innocents. Maybe that would have bothered a lesser man than me. Well, as far as I was concerned, no one was 'innocent' and either Kira would kill them or I would.

"I don't think so," I said politely, and I shot him.

His buddies shrieked and dropped their guns as they spun around and ran. I didn't feel like running after them, so I simply shot each of them from behind with the frightening marksmanship Wammy had taught me 'purely for self-defense, and only in emergency situations.' Yeah right. Like he hadn't known what I would become.

They crumpled and fell forward. One guy's skull hadn't exploded quite as thoroughly as I would have liked, so I picked up the urn and made my way over to him. Double-tap, right, Columbus? Right. I shot him in the head again, just to make sure. No survivors. Where Mello walks, no one lives.


When I got back to the base, Jose took the urn from me and smashed it against the table to reveal dozens of little sandwich bags of white powder. Was I right or was I right? Although why they had stored it in a mausoleum was beyond me. When I was in charge, we wouldn't do stupid things like that. It's called streamlining.

I booted the two people who were screwing on the couch where I wanted to sit (same guy, different whore) and watched Jose as he examined each bag for tears, crossing my ankles on the coffee table. I caught Jose glancing at me out of the corner of his eye for just a little too long.

Interesting.

He sent me home when he saw that there were no bags missing, and he stared at my ass my entire way out the door.


I got all the way to my front door before I realized that I absolutely couldn't face walking into that room. I even had the door open, my hand on the knob, my toes at the threshold. I stood there, stared at my living room, and could not do it. I couldn't take another step in that direction.

Which left only the other directions.

Tearing down the hallways, I ran to my motorcycle, my hair flying out behind me in the bitter cold night air, and tossed away my helmet as I climbed on. It landed with a clatter behind me as I took off at speeds that were legal nowhere but that one highway in Germany. Maybe I'd crash into something and die.

For now, assuming I survived the ride, I was going to go somewhere and do something wonderfully illegal.

Just had to figure out where.