A/N – I don't own death note.

Just a tiny bit more back story but I promise the next one is long and exciting. It's a Matt chap, so keep reading and reviewing. This chapter is introducing my first OC!

Haruka Sato

Haruka Sato stood on the train to NHN, jammed between a slightly hefty man, who was sweating profusely, and an old woman with incredibly spiky elbows and a personal space issue, while clutching onto a railing to prevent herself falling headlong down the carriage. On any other day, this would have been infuriating, but today nothing could bother her. The opportunity she had been praying for, ever since she had received that first, crushing rejection, had been presented to her on a silver platter. Finally, a chance to prove herself to Kanto Police Academy, become a cop and get the justice for the crime which had torn her family to shreds. If impersonating Kiyomi Takada, to lure out stalkers, was what it took, then that's what she would do.

Every term she applied to the police academy to get the required training for her to achieve her goal, and every term she received the same reply: "We are unable to consider your application at this time due to your lack of experience…please feel free to reapply next term." Of course, it was only an excuse. She had more experience than some qualified police officers but the academy would never accept a student like her.

Haruka had soared through her exams and completed three months work experience at a police station in Tokyo. After her first letter of application she'd even been invited in for an interview. If she had impressed them that much on her first chance, what was different now? Why was she not worth a second chance? There was another reason the people in charge kept rejecting her from school. The sad thing was that she had no-one to blame but herself.

An eighteen year old Haruka was a whirling mess as she circled her kitchen, stuffing things into her handbag. Purse? Check. House keys? Check. Phone? Check. An irritating itching in her mind told her that she needed something else, something very important.

"Of all the days you could have picked be quiet!" the angry girl cursed at her alarm clock, which had today decided that it was not going to shatter her eardrums with some tediously cheerful song at six in the morning and left her racing against time to be ready and out the door. She racked her aching brain for a moment and sighed. Whatever she had forgotten would have to wait. If she missed her train, then she missed her interview, and then she missed entry into the Kanto Police Academy, which was the target she'd been aiming for ever since she could remember.

Haruka grinned, remembering the time she'd fake-arrested her older brother when she was nine and had caught him stealing sweets from the jar on the kitchen counter. Then she sobered, she didn't want to think about her family, not today, she needed to get out that door! This was an opportunity she couldn't afford to throw away. Practically flying out of her apartment, she ran right past the little white bag on the table with a red cross and the words Medical Emergency scrawled across the material.

After arriving just before her name was called, Haruka breezed through the intense interview and the podgy, balding man, who was asking the questions, was stunned by the passion and knowledge that she demonstrated. In his mind, there was no doubt, this girl would certainly be joining them at the academy in the following months and she would do exceptionally well. Everything about her said, "I am going to the top!"

They shook hands after a half hour of talking and Haruka turned to the door feeling satisfied when the interviewer called out to her.

"Oh Miss, before you go, I forgot to tell you, you have to go to room 303 next for the finale part of the process."

Haruka turned back confused, "Um…excuse me, Sir, what final part? I thought I had finished the interview."

"Not quite yet," he replied, surprised, "I thought you knew, the academy insists on all its students being in good shape. It'll just be some routine fitness tests, you know, strength, stamina…nothing too difficult. Um…Miss are you alright?"

"Fine, thank you. Goodbye." Haruka's face had turned chalky and she gritted her teeth.

Here was the event she hadn't even considered. She'd had these kinds of fitness tests in high school and they always ended in the same way; her lying on her back in the nurses office gasping like a fish out of water, or clutching an oxygen mask to her face a her lungs cried out for air in a crowded ER. "Calm down", she thought to herself, "things haven't been so bad since you got an inhaler, you'll be fine, you'll b-," her reassurance was brought to an abrupt end by the images in her head: Her getting up that morning, running around the apartment looking for her things, running out the door…and the inhaler, in its bag, on the table, in her apartment. It was still there!

Haruka sighed; remembering all of that was like having a bucket of cold water dumped over her head; the last thing she wanted to do was make the pain worse by reliving what had happened next. Suffice it to say that she had ended up being driven to the emergency room by the academy sports coach and received an excruciating lecture from him, later, in the hospital.

"I just don't get it. Why didn't you just say you were asthmatic? We could have made other arrangements. It was extremely stupid of you to go ahead with the physical with no regard to your health. The fact that you endangered yourself by withholding important information like this is bad enough but the fact that you forgot your inhaler in the first place shows a very irresponsible attitude. You must realise that I can't possibly recommend you for a place at the academy now…"

The ranting had gone on and Haruka hadn't been able to find the strength to do anything but hold the oxygen mask over her mouth, as the sneering coach looked at her pityingly. The excuses she could have made, any attempts to defend herself were left unsaid and she felt a pain in her chest that had nothing to do with the asthma attack, which had been triggered by the intense workout. The acid on the paper cut had come the next day with the rejection letter. "We are unable to consider your application at this time due to your lack of experience…please feel free to reapply next term."

Haruka knew why she had failed. It wasn't because of her lack of experience. It wasn't even because she had forgotten her inhaler or tried the physical anyway, stupid as it had been. The coach had been angry about that, but it was well known, by Kanto Police Academy applicants, that he was a man, who saw it as his duty to make sure that any students, who he deemed unsatisfactory, could never become police officers, and now that he had seen her crumple like a piece of paper and fail so miserably, he couldn't let her become a public protector. After all, if she couldn't run a mile or do a hundred star jumps, how could she be expected to fight the bad guys? In his eyes, her asthma made her a weak link and he would pull any string he could to keep her out of the chain, permanently.

At the time, the rejection felt like the end of the world. Haruka had let herself down and even worse she had let him down. However, after weeks of lying at home, feeling sorry for herself, she clambered out of her pit of depression and got back on track. She hadn't failed, she'd stumbled on the track but she had the whole rest of the race to make it up. All she'd ever wanted was to be a police officer. To bring the hand of justice down on the murderers of the world, especially, Kira, who's killings had cut her deeper than any asthma attack or rejection letter.

Firstly, Haruka took a few jobs associated with policing, even ones as menial as making tea for qualified officers. If she could stick with these, the academy would no longer be able to use the, "no experience," excuse to keep her away. However, the rejections kept on coming, when she complained she was told that her work so far didn't count as experience because she wasn't dealing with criminals. Furthermore, her constant battle had hardened her, made her bitterer than she had been. She always lost her job within weeks of he first day, due to some angry outburst or scathing remark she'd let out. Finally, she landed a secretarial job at a police station in Kanto, hoping to use the work there as, "police experience".

Haruka had all but given up her life's goal when her prayers were answered. Here was a chance. All she had to do was spend an afternoon undercover, posing as a Kira's spokesperson Kiyomi Takada to try and help catch the stalkers, who followed the news reader like adoring puppies.

Takada was one of the most important women in the country, everyone knew that. With anything associated with a person that influential stuck on her CV, Kanto Police Academy wouldn't be able to turn her away…or even want to. Whatever, arguments the sports coach made would fall on deaf ears.

Tears started to glimmer in Haruka's eyes as a the memory of an ever present face pushed it's way to the front of her thoughts, but then a sad smile broke out before turning into a full blown grin. Next she felt laughter bubbling up inside her for the first time in a long time. This earned her some weird glances from sweaty-man and spiky-elbow-woman, which she ignored.

"No tears," Haruka told herself, firmly, "This is something to be glad about! If this afternoon goes well, I'll be one step closer to catching Taichi's murderer. Kira will pay."