Disclaimer: I don't own death note.
Chapter 28
Gap
Yumi was twenty-three years old.
She was living in the Kanto region of Japan and had been living there for almost two years now, it was around noon on November twenty eighth 2003 and she was walking through a back ally.
Two years ago, she had been a completely different person from who she was now, and before that...
Yumi refused to remember her life before that day to years ago, the day when she had woken up on an LA back street her face covered in tears.
It was colder when Yumi woke, and there was a slight breeze that hadn't been there before, but before she registered either of these things she cried out at the hard object that collided with her stomach.
"Hey, You homeless?" a voice asked her, she didn't recognize it at all but she wanted to know what had hit her.
She uncurled herself and looked up into the face of a young man, he was about her age maybe a little older, and he had clearly kicked her in the stomach.
Yumi rubbed the bruise on her ribs then looked the man over more closely, he wasn't tall, but he seemed well built, and he wore a red t-shirt and a pair of blue jeans, his eyes and hair were brownish red, and he seemed to be waiting for an answer.
"I asked are you homeless." he said, he seemed to be losing his patience with this girl, and Yumi didn't want to be kicked again.
It was then that she realized she didn't know how to answer, she didn't have a home or any money to buy one, but what would he do if she told him that?
"Yeah, I guess I am." she said deciding it was better then lying to him.
"Oh, well what are you going to do then?" he asked her.
"I don't know." she admitted, it had been a while since she had needed to think about supporting herself.
"Well, you have any skills?" he asked her.
"What kind of skills?" she asked, "wait who are you?" she sat up and brushed herself off.
"I'm Sam, and I mean life skills, stuff you need to know how to do in order to survive." he said.
"Oh, those skills, I have some I guess, and I'm Yumi." she said as she got to her feet and stood at eye level with Sam.
"Like what?" Sam asked.
"Uh... I can cook," when it was for L.
"And, um... I'm good with security stuff," she had helped Wedy with a few jobs.
"Oh... and I can hack into some of the best computer systems," she remembered.
"Oh? Well that's interesting, you're a hacker?" he asked.
"Yep, and I'm good at puzzles and things, and code breaking..." in truth, Yumi had been solving cases for so long, she really didn't know what basic life skills were, she knew cooking was one but...
"You break codes?" he asked, now he seemed interested in what she could do.
"Yeah, all the time, banks have code locks, and a lot of police computers do too, and security cameras are code locked sometimes..." she didn't know what Sam was so interested in but it felt nice to talk to someone.
"You hack banks?" he asked, now he seemed completely enthralled in her skills.
"Sometimes." she said, and it was true, she was always in charge of putting money into the bank accounts of agents that help on cases.
"Hey, you staying anywhere tonight?" he asked her.
"No... probably not." Yumi answered.
"Well why don't you stay with me a few days? I can get you a job and help you earn some money." he offered, it sounded good but Yumi wasn't stupid.
"Why?" she asked.
"Well, because I feel generous... and because I need some help with my job, I think you could help." Sam answered.
"What job?" Yumi asked, she had already decided to help if he would take her in for a few days, but she wanted to know how many laws she would be breaking in this activity.
"Listen can you just follow me, I can't talk here and I'll be late if I don't move fast." he said.
That cleared it up, he wasn't doing anything legal, but she still decided to go with him.
"Ok, but you do have to explain soon." she said to him and then they began to walk towards the main section of Los Angeles.
Yumi turned a corner and stopped for a second to adjust the strap of her purse, there was a Japanese gun ban, so she couldn't keep one in plane sight.
Having a gun in her purse made her nervous, and she was constantly adjusting the strap to check if it was still there. She hadn't used it before and probably wouldn't have to, but she still kept it with her just in case.
She wore a pair of loose blue jeans and a white t-shirt, her hair was waist length and her silver heart necklace was heavy on her chest, she wore a silver bracelet on her right wrist, though she wasn't sure where it came from.
Her feet were bare and she moved with the speed and silence of a criminaleven though she had only committed an actual crime once.
Two years ago in America, she had help organize a mafia raid, then took her share of the money and bought a ticket to Japan.
She had lived there ever since, in a small apartment.
The gun was a precaution, she would never really shoot anyone, and she hadn't ever been in a situation where she would need to.
She hopped a fence and left the ally.
Her bag was brown and sturdy, the strap was on her left shoulder and the bag itself was bouncing against her right hip as she ran to catch a train across town.
It was the exact moment that she stepped on the train that she felt it.
When a death note is being used the aura can be felt within a five mile radius of the notebook and the target until the target dies.
With the shinigami eyes, she would have to look at the person from a distance of no more then thirty feet, and it couldn't be sensed even then.
But when a death note enters the human world for the first time and becomes a part of the human world, the aura could be felt from Japan to America.
The red aura pulsed vibrantly, and the shock caused Yumi to scream quite loudly from the train's platform.
Then the aura faded slightly but it wouldn't go out completely until the note was picked up by a human or the shinigami recovers it.
Yumi turned around in a rush and sprinted back the way she had come, people stared at her as she passed and shouted at her to watch her step but she couldn't stop, she had to reach the death note.
Half an hour later she entered the campus of a highschool, she hadn't bothered to read the name, she was in too much of a hurry to notice it.
But in spite of her haste, the death note had already been taken by the time she got to where it had fallen.
"Oh, great." she grumbled to herself, in cases like this she had to track down the owner, then make them give up ownership of the notebook to her, and destroy it.
Most of the time, people who find death notes give them up as soon as she asks them to, because they either take it as a prank or are afraid of their power.
The problem, though, was finding the owner.
Because the notebook had fallen at a highschool, Yumi could assume the owner was a student, but that didn't narrow her search down by much.
She walked back towards the train station, her things were in the apartment on the other side of town, which meant that she would have to move again.
Dang. If she had only been faster.
On her way back from her, now old, apartment, Yumi passed a large crowed of people, confused by the gathering, she pressed in to watch as a news crew broadcast from what they were calling the "scene of a hostage situation" Yumi asked around in the crowd and found out that, there was a man in the building who had taken several children and daycare workers hostage.
Yumi felt bad about the situation, but there was nothing she could really do, the special forces were there and all she had was a hand gun, even if she wanted to help, she couldn't do much.
She sighed and wished the best to the hostages before reluctantly moving away from the scene.
She hadn't made it far, when the red aura pulsed to life a few miles away, then a second aura appeared inside the building.
The death note, was the owner killing the attacker? His name had been announced but... would someone really do that?
It had been a little over forty seconds when she got her answer. The hostages all came running out of the front door, they all seemed fine.
Yes, Yumi decided, someone would do that.
"...the special forces are taking action, they're moving in!" shouted a news anchor into his microphone.
Yumi began to move towards the first aura, the aura of the notebook itself.
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author's note: I'm not being lazy! I decided to write as much as I can this weekend instead of laying in bed or reading manga, I'm going to write more! Thanks for reading!
