Hello everybody! It seems like not that many people are writing The Dark Knight fanfictions anymore. I guess it is to be expected, since that movie came out like two years ago, almost. Oh well, my story still has places to go, things to do, if you're willing to join in and read again.

I'm just going to recap what happened in the preceding chapters before I continue.

Okay, so these three shinigami (otherwise known as death gods) are in their shinigami world and decide to make a bet. They'll each drop a Death Note (a notebook used by the shinigami to kill humans at their appointed time—or ahead of time if the shinigami sees fit) into the human world, into a place called Gotham City. They'll pick the human which will receive the Death Note. The shinigami whose human kills the most people via the Death Note will win the bet. The prize for winning the bet is receiving a payment of 100 years from the lifespan of the two losing shinigami.

The three shinigami are:

Izanami: She is the solicitor of the bet. She is crafty and confident, with a remarkable aptitude for behaving icily. With her liquid blue eyes and seething black tentacles for hair, her gorgon-like appearance seems to amplify her grace. She wears little skulls for jewels and wispy black robes for clothes.

Tetsuo: Serious, reflective and cautious. Seems wary about the bet, but joins in anyway. He has blue-green eyes, long, straight white hair, and a more humanoid appearance than most shinigami. Displays a sort of gothic and grotesque grace with bones protruding from his elbows and spine, and black bandages for clothing.

Toru: Indifferent and bored. Enjoys a good game, very excited about the bet. Looks like a praying mantis head on top of a centipede body with dragonfly wings and grasshopper legs . The insect-like appearance contributes to pronounced physical awkwardness.

Toru goes first in picking a human. The human he chooses is a young man called Ryan as he's sitting in his car in his high school's parking lot. And he just happens to be readying himself mentally to barge into his school with guns blazing. His plan is to kill everyone and then himself. Well, that doesn't go too well when Toru drops the Death Note from the shinigami world onto the roof of his car. Ryan aborts his plan to wreak death and destruction, but when he's in class, he writes the name of one of his most hates nemeses – Frankie Pierce – down in the Death Note. Forty seconds later, Frankie's dies abruptly of a heart attack, just as the Death Note promises.

Class is interrupted and Ryan runs home in a panic. He scrambles to dispose of all the evidence he has that proves he was planning to shoot people at his school. He tries to dispose of his evidence at Roger's Yacht Basin. Because there are too many people around, he chickens out and tosses his weapons and gear into a large well in some industrial area of Gotham. He goes home to burn the rest in his fireplace, like video tapes and receipts and any journal entries he might have. While he is doing this, cops arrive at his home to question him about the strange death in his classroom. The cops also want to ask him why he did not remain at school like the other students or call his parents. Turns out, the school already contacted his mother, and she arrives in a fluster, and gives the cops permission to search his room. Ryan's protests go unheard as they march to his room as a group and open the door. To his utter shock, Toru, the hideous insect shinigami, is waiting for him in his room.

The next person to choose is Tetsuo. In Gotham City that night, there is a jewelry exhibit taking place in downtown Gotham. There, the organizer of the event, Victoria (otherwise known as Tori), is about to give a speech when she realizes that she forgot her speech notes in the dressing room. She excuses herself to go get them. By the time she returns, there is a horrendous explosion that shakes the very earth, destroying the majority of the building. But because she was not in the main hall, she survives the explosion – albeit barely. There she meets the Joker, who is robbing the jewels from the exhibit. While he finishes the job and leaves Tori to the ravages of fire closing in on her, Tori prays and pleads with God for someone to save her. As though in answer, a black shadow like death appears through the writhing flames. But it is not a dark angel there to snuff her life, but Batman.

After a long spell of unconsciousness, Tori wakes to find that she did not fully escape the explosion. Her right leg and arm are gone, and she is covered in severe burns. As she agonizes over her injuries, restless with torturous thoughts of her boyfriend abandoning her and the long road to rehabilitation without recovery, something drops on the table beside her hospital bed. It is a Death Note. She looks through it, and learns that it is a notebook used to kill. She considers it a foolish fantasy, perhaps even a cruel joke that someone is playing on her, but she muses about using it to kill the Joker for what he's done to her, and countless other people. But because of her Christian morals – and common sense that no one's real name is Joker – she puts the book aside. Then to her horror, there is a bony shinigami standing still as stone beside her bed. After a nurse enters and forces Tori to quickly gather her wits and calm down, a small discussion ensues, with her coming to the firm decision that she will not use the Death Note, or forfeit ownership of it. That way, she thinks, this Death Note cannot be used to kill. She bids Tetsuo to get lost, and he leaves her be.

Izanami goes last. She selects a disturbed young man named Paul. Paul is a schizophrenic with delusions of religious grandeur. Paul believes he is a prophet of Eris, and that he and the Joker are connected telepathically, and that he receives messages from both—Eris sends signs from the sky and the Joker sends messages through the television. Part of the ritual of him dressing up like him lends more strength to his powers of telepathy and divination.

He believes the Joker wants Batman dead, and that it's his destiny to kill him, according to the will of Eris. Paul is certain the Joker will equip him when the time comes. But he knows that he must meet him in order for that to happen, so he's put in a job application at Arkham Asylum.

He lives with his mother. She's senile, suffering from dementia, and is about seventy years old. She had Paul when she was well up in age, about forty-five. She frequently verbally abuses him, calls him worthless, pathetic and not a real man.

Since Paul is mentally ill, he isn't able to keep up a steady job, and therefore is fired from his job as a construction worker. He threatens the life of his boss. That night he discovers the Death Note. So, still fuming with anger, he writes down the name of his boss.

Thirty-five seconds later, Paul's boss wakes up at his home with chest pains. Five seconds later his wife wakes up beside him, finds him dead, and starts screaming.

Paul has no idea if the Death Note worked or not. That is, not until the police come and take him to the station for questioning, because he made terroristic threats. But they find that there's no evidence against him, and release him. When he gets home, he finds a letter in his mailbox accepting him as a custodian at Arkham Asylum.

One last person to mention. Bruce Wayne is on his luxury yacht having a party. The yacht is floating offshore in Roger's Yacht Basin on the same day that Ryan tries to get rid of his evidence there. Bruce does not see much, only that the young man walks to the end of the crowded dock, dressed in all black attire on a hot summer day, and then turns around and leaves without doing anything.

Hope I touched on all the important stuff. If I missed something in the summary I'll mention it as I go along. Here is the next installment.

Chapter 10 – Reconvene

Gotham City

Day 1.

The Nelson residence.

"Thank you very much for letting us look around," the male detective said after a few minutes of rummaging through my things. The female detective nodded and continued to glance around my room. I only hoped she wouldn't notice one of my posters stapled to my wall. It had way too many staples than it needed. That was because behind the poster was the Death Note. I had slipped it back there to hide it, and stapled the poster a bunch of times to keep it from tearing under the weight.

My anger from mere moments ago had disappeared completely. I must have looked like I was going to hurl because the detective frowned when our eyes met. "Are you all right?"

I swallowed nervously. It took all of my will power not to look at the thing in my room. Nobody else could see it. "I'm fine."

"Are you sure?" The detective asked, turning once more to my desk, the last thing he searched. I was sure he was wondering if he was close to something and that made me nervous. Even if I wasn't officially a suspect, he was suspicious of me. That's what I got for looking the way I looked, keeping my room the way I did. My black clothes, tired face and greasy brown hair did nothing to make me look less suspicious. My wimpy body made me look like some geeky douche bag that belonged behind a computer screen all day long. I was all jittery and nervous and I looked like I had just killed someone. I mean, I had, but that was beside the point. I actually looked it.

"I'm sure. Are you done looking around?"

My mother came over and pressed her palm to my forehead. Either it was an attempt to show she was some sort of a good mother to these two cops or she was really upset with me. She didn't really care if I was sick. I slapped her hand away, able to get caught up in the normalcy of it. "Get off me, Mom."

The cops turned away as they shared a chuckle and they walked out of my room.

My mother turned quickly to me and said in a hushed voice, "We're going to talk about this."

"Yeah, right. I don't recall hell freezing over."

She rolled her eyes and followed quickly after the cops.

With a sigh, I shut the door after her and locked it. Bracing myself, I looked over my shoulder. The creature hovered there, insect legs folded awkwardly under it. I felt my lip curl in disgust. That was one fucking disgusting thing. It was bad enough having to look at bugs now and then. But up close? And fucking gigantic? Made my skin crawl.

"My name is Toru. I know your name. You're Ryan Nelson."

Careful not to raise my voice, I whispered, "What are you?"

He hovered more, and his wings twitched. He wasn't flying. He was just hovering, as though his body did not obey the laws of gravity. If he was using his wings to hover I was sure it would have sounded like a helicopter's blades. "I am a shinigami, or a death god." His segmented, glossy belly practically undulated when he talked. Now I really felt like I was going to puke. "Dude, you're fucking nauseating to look at."

The thing tilted its head slightly, and its antennas quivered. Its praying mantis head bobbed a little, its beastly eyes the stuff of nightmares.

I closed my eyes. "Just tell me what the fuck is happening," I said finally, when I thought I wasn't going to let fly the scant contents of my stomach.

"You picked up a Death Note. You see, I dropped a spare one into the human world by mistake. I came to get it back, but now that you've touched it, you have ownership of it. So, I can only get it back if you give up ownership."

"And Frankie dying—did you do that?"

"No. The Death Note did it. Because of you."

I sighed shakily and sank down into the chair at my desk. I swiveled around slightly, sagging down into the soft cushioned seat. "So I did kill him."

The death god nodded clumsily, its head bobbing up and down. "Yes. May I ask you something?"

All right, I needed a goddamn minute to collect my thoughts. I felt so dizzy from all this. Could all this really be happening? Was this fucking thing for real? Did I breath in some toxic fumes at those wells? Did I already do everything I planned and kill myself too? Did that explain this bizarreness? Reality couldn't possibly include things like death gods or shittygami or shorigami or whatever the fuck they were called—

"I want to ask you something," the thing interrupted me.

I almost winced. "What?" I asked quietly.

"Why did you choose to kill that human?"

Human. Like it was a different species. Whoa. A different species of intelligent creatures. What if he was an alien? Wait, was it a he or a she? I couldn't even begin to imagine where its genitalia were, under those hideous, tattered clothes. And even if I could get a good look at it, how the hell was I supposed to tell the difference between a male and female centipede or grasshopper or whatever the fuck hybrid insectoid monstrosity it was? Not to mention I had just managed to suppress my desire to vomit, and then there it was again. I swallowed sickly. "What did you ask me?"

"I asked," it began patiently, "why did you kill that particular human? There were many all around you."

I thought back to the event, reliving the way that Frankie doubled over and moaned in pain from his

belly, a deep, wrenching moan like someone had crushed his stomach in a vise from inside. If I hadn't been in such a panic, maybe I would have enjoyed it. I was enjoying imagining him dying. It was one thing I swore never to forget. I would think about it again and again and again until it was a memory so clear in my mind it was like a movie on Blue-ray. "Because I hate him."

The thing's antennas rippled. "I see. And are there other people that you hate?"

"Of course. There are lots of people I hate. I pretty much hate everyone."

The thing nodded in a way that I decided was thoughtful.

"Why are you asking me that?"

"Oh. I was just curious about what makes a human kill."

The Shinigami Realm

Day 2.

The clouds swirled like mist high above the three shinigami. As they sat around the blue fire, wisps of smoke wafted up in strands. It would have been peaceful setting, had Toru not been cackling at Tetsuo. Izanami sat there with her fingers pressed to her lips, smiling only slightly to show her amusement. Tetsuo, for the first time, showed a glimmer of emotion, his jaw set and his eyes glaring at Toru.

"Excellent choice Tetsuo!" Toru choked through his laughs. "Will you be giving me those one hundred years now or later?"

Izanami chuckled. Tetsuo turned to her, about to speak. She shook her head before he even took a breath. "No second turns, Tetsuo."

Tetsuo closed his mouth and sighed to calm himself. He could either accept defeat or whine about it. "I am willing to split my one hundred years between the two of you, since the wager has not truly begun."

Toru interjected quickly. "No, no. Ryan Nelson has already killed. At this moment, I am winning this wager. I want the one hundred years. Every last one."

Izanami glanced smoothly over to Toru. "No one will pay out years yet. The wager still stands. There are eighty-eight days left." She looked at Tetsuo. "Perhaps she will change her mind," she said, even though her tone clearly indicated she believed nothing of the sort would happen.

"Am I to be bound to this campfire until the wager is over?" Tetsuo asked, disheartened and ashamed at his poor choice of human.

"Not at all. We shall meet periodically, say every seven earth days. You are welcome to accompany your human if you wish, or leave her alone. Remember, we cannot persuade or dissuade the killing of another human." She tossed a tendril of slithering hair over her shoulder. "And one more thing. We are not to mention the wager to the humans."