A/N... I do not own Death Note
My skirt billowed around my calves as the train rushed by. Arriving in the town was like stepping into another life. It was a quaint town, pleasantly different from life in Tokyo. The atmosphere reminded me more of the towns closest to Wammy's House. As I walked through the town, a hazy sense of familiarity settled over me.
"Excuse me," I addressed an elderly woman wearing the station's uniform. "I'm trying to get to this address, would you be able to help me?" I extended the scrap of paper bearing the address.
"Of course, dear," the woman smiled and took the page I offered her. As her eyes scanned the line, her warm smile faltered. She glanced up at me with questioning eyes before looking back down at the torn corner to ensure she was reading correctly. "That's a bit out of town. You'll have to ask a cabbie to take you, but there's not much out there. It's just an old house. The local hooligans use for their parties and say it's haunted. All silly things. Now, you don't look like the type to cause a ruckus. May I ask what brings you up there?"
"I'm interested in the property," I said to her in just the correct tone to communicate wealth. Not the wealthy party, of course, but perhaps an employee tasked with surveying the object of interest. "I need to take a look at it first hand to survey the damage." She accepted my answer with little suspicion and wished me well. I waved down a taxi and provided the address.
We drove through the town, out of the town, into the woods, out of the woods, and to a large iron wrought gate. I thanked the driver and waited until he drove away before I fully took in the scene in front of me. Weeds protruded from the cracks in the concrete just below the bottom of the gates, overgrown and clearly indicative of neglect. The heavy chains had rusted over time, and the padlock had been snapped. Unwinding the chains, I pushed open the heavy gate just enough to slide through. The path leading to the cottage was decrepit, but despite the corroded cobblestone and jungle of weeds, walking through the property touched something deep in my memory.
The house itself had suffered from abandonment. Wooden boards barred the windows, and ivy trailed up the walls. Flakes of paint had chipped off the exterior, and the stone suffered deeply etched cracks. The doorframe had been splintered, leaving the door permanently unlocked. It was a shadow of the splendor I had known as a child, but it was the Birthday family home. I took the first step, preparing myself for what I could find inside.
Numbers. Scrawled into the walls of the dusty, unfurnished space were series of numbers. I took a step into the foyer. Light filtered into the cottage from the spaces between boards set across windows. No. Not numbers. Dates. I moved closer to the walls and traced the numbering. I knew that handwriting. I had read my name written in that handwriting. I knew this place. I had grown up in this place. My brother and I had grown up in this place. This was home once, long before Wammy's. It was once. We had a family. Beyond. He had been here. When? When? When? When? When?
"I bet L never told you about this," Beyond's voice sounded. I turned and found him in the center of the room.
"What is this?" I asked uneasily. I was looking at evidence of my brother's madness. The numbers. The eyes. This was what it brought him to. How had it come to this for him? Beyond had always been a strange character, but this was sheer madness.
"I hadn't known," Beyond stated in a low voice. "When I began to see, I hadn't known what the numbers meant. This was the first place I went to after leaving Wammy's."
"L would've searched here," I noted. It was the first place he'd have searched for Beyond. In fact, it was the first place he had tracked Beyond to. He had told me that Beyond never went to the house. I felt the bitterness set in. That anger I had let go of so long ago had boiled back to the surface. He had lied to me. Back then. L had lied to me.
"He never told you," Beyond snickered, and he glanced around the immaculate living space. Paintings hung on the walls, and mismatched furniture that somehow appeared aesthetically pleasing. "But, that's not what we're here to talk about. This place, Essie, is our place. Just you and me. The Birthdays' place." He spread his arms out dramatically, as if his declaration had been some grand revelation. "What do you think, Essie? Are you ready?"
Ready? Ready for what? Did it matter? There was no point in asking anymore. This wasn't the place to be asking those kinds of questions. He was right, after all. This was the Birthdays' place. This was the home of answers. "I'm ready."
{E.B.}
They had already been separated twice when Wammy found them. They were an odd pair, only nine and six, but already, they stood out from the crowd. When Quillish Wammy found the boy, he had distanced himself from the his housemates and evaded trouble by disguising himself as the other children when he stole jam from the kitchens. The girl, three years her brother's junior, set herself apart in a different way. She disappeared in the crowd, despite her bright, aqua eyes, and when she reappeared, it was clear that she knew what she had done.
They kept to each other at first and, even after they grew accustomed to the environment at the House, maintained their preference for the other throughout their stay. Escallonia, who had taken the name Everest, interacted with the other children more openly. Her brother, on the other hand, had a tendency to keep to himself, not unlike many of the home's inhabitants.
They knew why they were in that place. Beyond was brilliant, and they both knew it. None of the children in any of the other orphanages were ever as clever as her brother. They couldn't process information the way Beyond could, and they couldn't think critically the way Beyond could. Escallonia had known from a very young age that her older brother was a genius.
It wasn't until Quillish Wammy found young L peeking into the room harboring a complex numerical code vital to a major cyber crime in which L was tracking the hacker who had expertly stolen more than ten million U.S. dollars from a single bank that they realized.
"L?" Wammy asked, approaching the boy.
The boy shushed his guardian and shifted to gain better access to the slim opening in the doorway. Wammy moved to look into the room over L's head, a movement the boy didn't protest to. Inside, Escallonia sat in the center of the room amid a sea of parchment marked by various digits. The girl twisted a strand of her short bob, her eyes illuminated by the screen.
"She's figured it out," L remarked blankly, drawing away from the door. "Mr. Wammy, who is she?"
"That's E," Quillish Wammy responded, "You met her brother, B, in May. Would you like to say hello?"
"Hmm?" L blinked slowly and looked up at his guardian, "No, not yet, Mr. Wammy." And he continued to shuffle along, disregarding the undidentifiable boy who strode past him with his dark brown hair neatly combed and his clothes neatly presed. L didn't bother taking notice, but the other boy's deep blue eyes were laughing.
{E.B.}
"How'd you solve it?" an eight year old E asked a boy a few years her senior, her eyes shining with intrigue. In three nights, he had dismantled an entire crime syndicate in Italy. The other children gathered in the room as well, eager to hear the story of how A had made a very L like accomplishment.
"There's always a weak link," A informed the third generation of children. C, D, and E sat around him like three kittens gathered around their mother. "One of their subordinates left a money trail, and you follow those purchases like little breadcrumbs until you get to the bigger fish."
"Your analogy doesn't make sense," B pointed out from his crouch at the window. "Breadcrumbs won't lead you to a fish."
A smiled pleasantly and chuckled with embarrassment, "Oh, is that so?"
"You're really smart, aren't you, A?" D asked the boy.
A flushed modestly at the boy's admiration, "We're all smart, D."
"No, we're not," C protested, "not like you and B!"
"Yeah, there can only be one L if something happens to this one!" D added with a nod. They were still just children, and they didn't fully understand what succeeding L meant for the current title holder. Funny how children, even genius, orphan children, couldn't grasp the gravity of death.
"Is it gonna be you, A?"
"No, it's gonna be B!"
The two children began an intense debate, raising their voices to such an excrutiatingly high volume that Roger threw the door to the playroom open and scolded the younger children, sending them to the kitchen to help with dinner. E retreated to the play mat and busied herself with dismantling a rather large ball of rubberbands.
"You didn't tell them," B sang, casting a knowing smirk at his rival.
A's expression darkened as he observed E tugging at the collection of rubberbands. They knew the younger girl was listening despite her apparent disinterest in her surroundings. That was her skill, A knew. She could disappear in plain sight if one looked away from her for a second. "In causing the syndicate to implode, you nearly caused the collapse of southern Italy's economy and exposed three political scandals. Was that intentional?"
"They're just kids," A replied.
"No, we're not," E spoke up, her voice rang out clearly despite the softness with which her words were spoken. A startled at ther comment. She hadn't even raised her eyes from her toy. He supposed she was correct. They weren't just children. They were experiments, prototypes for the production of more Ls. They all understood what they were, but none of them seemed to complain. This was, after all, the norm. It was the accepted challenge posed to all Wammy's kids. One day, the short haired girl in front of him would compete with the other two children in the kitchen for the honor of succeeding L. She may even compete with B and himself.
A's expression softened, and he approached the younger girl, taking one of the rubberbands and twisting it into a star, using his fingers as anchors for each of the points. Her eyes lit up with glee at the demonstration. It was such a little thing, something he knew she'd be able to recreate herself in only a few seconds, but her excitement at such a small display of mundane creativity lifted the burden on his shoulders for just a moment.
He ruffled her short hair, and she paused to look up at the first ranked in the House. He was smiling, "Don't ever grow up. Okay, Ever?"
She sounded her response and nodded once, confused as to why the smartest child after L would ask something impossible of her.
{E.B.}
Much had changed from the time they were children to the time they reached their teens. More children had come to the house, most notably Mello and Near. E had solved the London Terror case the previous year, determining that the serial killer had been not just one murderer, but an entire society of killers targeting mistresses of their prominent husbands. She had made quite the name for herself. She surpassed both C and D, the children who had been predicted to come closest to A and B. In fact, she was almost as good as her brother. It required a great effort on her part, developing the particular skills she needed as a detective. It set her apart from the others in her generation. They were all exceptional children, but E took the care to foster the skills she lacked and carefully hone the skills she possessed naturally. Watari had even taught her how to shoot at her request.
L finally approached her after completing a case in Romania. He spent such little time at Wammy's those days. Mr. Wammy often accompanied L, leaving the orphanage to Roger and the older children. L heard the rumors, that E had filled the role Watari left at the House, and he had followed her progress.
"What're you reading?" L asked the girl sitting under the large tree on Wammy's property. He had never approached the other children directly. She looked up from her book and slowly trailed her eyes over him. He disliked it. The careful scrutiny of bored, electric blue eyes. This was why he never revealed himself.
"L'Étranger," she replied after taking in his appearance.
"The original French?" he questioned. Of course it was. Wammy's encouraged developing skills in all respects.
"Not quite," she replied, surprising him slightly. "It's encoded."
"That's an odd way to read a book." He remarked and stretched his hand out, "May I?"
She closed the book and drew it further away from him, "I'd prefer not to. I've never met you."
"I'm new."
The corner of her mouth turned up in a small smirk, "Lying monsters are a real nuisance."
L dropped his friendly demeanor and adopted his usual flat expression, "You weren't there for that broadcast."
"I hacked the transmission."
"So, you're E."
"And you're L," she responded in kind. She was entirely unimpressed. The other children regarded him as if he was on some kind of pedestal, but she didn't care. He was the legend of Wammy's, but E had grown tired of the never ending praise he received from her house mates. L was very much like santa claus in the House. The younger children admired him, and the older residents scorned him. E was no exception to the norm.
"I am," he confirmed. "You seem underwhelmed."
"I'm not whelmed at all," she replied without interest. "Besides, you're not exactly impressed."
"On the contrary," he drawled. It was an odd interaction for both of them. Everest was used to A's brotherly affection and B's playful maliciousness. L was used to the ordinary reactions – annoyance, discomfort, admiration – anything. Neither of them was used to the neutrality they found in the other, and neither of them enjoyed it.
{E.B.}
A killed himself. The loss of the brilliant young man had left solemn cloud over the residents of Wammy's House. Even B kept to himself more than usual. Everest isolated herself in the library surrounded by transcripts and ciphers. He found her in a sea of loose papers. Her hair was clearly unwashed, dark shadows formed under her eyes, and her loose clothes indicated that she hadn't changed in three days. She hadn't eaten. Watari had told him that.
"Here," he said to the girl and extended the ice cream cone in his hand. Slowly she blinked at him, refocusing her gaze on the person before her. She took the cherry cone and smiled at him with such brightness that he was taken off guard.
{E.B.}
Shortly after A's death, something had changed for Beyond. Death attracted him. He attributed the A's death as the source of this change. Death haunted his dreams. A shadow with mismatched eyes lurked in the darkest recesses of his mind like a strange memory. The line between reality and imaginary blurred. His head felt as if someone had taken a cleaver and slammed it into his skull. Essie worried about him, and Wammy worried about him.
Beyond searched. He read through the books about the human brain, and in his research, he found himself fascinated by the functions of human anatomy. The more he read, the less he understood. Nothing alleviated his symptoms. Until his brain felt like it would explode, and he squeezed his eyes shut in agony. When he opened his eyes, the world was tinged with red. He looked at Essie, whose face was twisted with concern, and he saw her in red. Numbers hovered abover her head, a strange sequence he hadn't understood at the time. Nothing made sense anymore. Nobody else saw the figures, and he fully believed he was losing his mind. He wanted to know why it had happened to him. It was dead end after dead end. Until he came across a story that didn't quite seem right. A woman in Wales who died in a train accident, and a man who had been attacked by a thug late at night. The parents of two children, but the story hadn't settled comfortably with him. The more time he spent at Wammy's the more frustrated he became. The distress of his deteriorating mind and the growing resentment of L…
He snapped. Enough was enough, and he left Wammy's. The first place he went to was the Birthday household in Wales. The dilapidated house was littered by needles and spray paint. Dust settled on the surfaces. Beyond spent days speaking to the locals, asking about the former occupants of the house. The woman, apparently, had been cursed. The man had been conned into a marriage with the ill woman. She had taken up with death, so they said. And from that union, two unholy children had been born.
He spent days in the abandoned house. Scrawling the numbers in the walls once he ran out of parchment. Codes were Essie's specialty, but he could manage well enough, but nothing fit with the numbers. There was no hidden meaning, but he couldn't determine why he was seeing such a random collection. He didn't know, and it was driving him mad, if he wasn't already raving mad.
Then, he finally came across it. The hollow section in the wall. He carved through the surface and peered into the cavity. It contained one item. He picked out a thin, black bound book, and turned it over in his hands. The words were written out in white, a script he didn't recognize.
Death Note.
He flipped through its pages and found characters for a language he had never seen before, but somehow, he understood perfectly.
Names. Hundreds of names written in the first few pages. Then, a greeting:
{E.B.}
To my children,
I never thought it would be possible to feel such remorse. In giving you life, I have condemned you to the worst existence, neither human nor shinigami. Should a shinigami contribute to the creation of life, the span of the half-human's life shall be taken from the shinigami's. You will be without a father, and, likely, without a mother. My kind were designed to take life not extend or create it. Shinigami are selfish creatures, my children, and it was not until your mother came to own my Death Note that I first understood what it meant to care for another being.
You deserve to know your ancestry, and as your sire, it's my responsibility to share our history with you. Shinigami exist in a dimension connected to your own. We are a race that survives by taking the lives of humans in order to extend oue own lifespans. In order to do so, each Shinigami possesses a Death Note. I've accepted the inevitable and have taken these last few pages to explain myself.
I grew bored in the world of shinigami with its decay and darkness. So, I dropped my Note in the human world. It was picked up by a human woman who was as beautiful as she was brilliant. Your mother and I formed an understanding that ran deeper than the laws of shinigami and humans. What we share is what I would call the closest experience of love either of us could know, and the day your mother discovered she was pregnant was the first day I have ever seen her truly fall in love.
I hope that with the time she has left will be spent with her children and you will get to know your mother. I'm sorry to say, my children, that you will never know your father. Not much is known about the spawn of shinigami and humans, but I doubt your shinigami heritage will come through until you reach maturity. Until then, your human eyes will be incapable of seeing me, but, I assure you, my children, I will be there to watch you grow for as long as I can. As shinigami, your nature will contrast with the humanity you will grow to know. I cannot say for certain, but I presume you will inherit the shinigami eyes - the ability to see the names and remaining lifespan of humans once we see our prey's face. Death will haunt your minds and lives. You will crave it, perhaps for yourselves, perhaps for others. I urge you, do not resist the demands of your nature. It may not be what you believe as humans who revere this so called sanctity of life. For your own sakes, nurture your lifespans. As shinigami, you have the potential to extend your lives beyond that of humans.
I wish you long and happy lives, my children. Do not let the human world be your undoing. The human world has shown me only a fraction of what it has to offer, both magnificent and contemptible. I leave you with this, a lesson only a shinigami can impart to others of his kind, you are gods among worms. This Death Note will be without an owner once your mother and I meet our natural ends. So, in addition to this letter, I leave you these pages. The Death Note I kept for myself, andeventually, the Death Note I gave to your mother. Use them as you see fit.
Embrace this reality we've cursed you with, and you will be more marvelous than any creature to have ever existed.
Your father,
Rue
{E.B.}
They sat across from each other in the remnants of their childhood home, blue eyes boring into the other. Beyond and Escallonia. Two abominations – so very similar, yet so very different.
"Impossible," she stated flatly.
"You've seen the evidence," he countered.
"Shinigami cannot reproduce."
"Because it steals from their lifespans," he corrected.
"You died."
"Apparently, he didn't have a very long lifespan."
"You had a Death Note."
"I never used it."
"Why?" she asked suspiciously. He had the ultimate killing device in his hands, his by birthright, but he didn't use it – the one thing that may have actually extended his life.
His mouth twisted into a sinister grin, monstrous by all human accounts, natural by those of the shinigami. Why? "I'm also human," he responded.
Yes, he was human. He was a human born to kill, designed by all supernatural elements to take the lives of others. The mechanic function of his kind distorted his humanity and bred a perverse desire to take the lives of others. Death. Death. Death.
After all, he was a god of death.
"You dislike apples." The scene shifted, and they were no longer in the worn down old house. It was the exact scene he had created for her. E? Did you know? Gods of death love laughter. The words were written across the board in English, not Japanese. He hadn't changed the scene.
His grin widened. She had taken control of the dreamscape. "You dislike strawberries."
"I dislike murder."
He laughed like a maniac. And perhaps he was. Perhaps he truly was insane, or perhaps he had simply found himself. When it came down to it, he wasn't entirely human, so why did he have to act like one? "At one point, you did." It ran in their blood. Their father had taken more human lives than any known serial killer, and there had never been a human who could resist using their Death Note. Not even their mother. It was encoded in their DNA.
She didn't deny it. "This doesn't change anything."
"It changes everything."
"They killed you."
"So what?" Beyond hummed, his eyes gleaming as Escallonia came closer and closer to the point.
"So, when this is over, L and Kira will die," she said it as simply as she would have read a book cover.
"Why?"
"Because they killed you," she grit out, losing her patience, but not raising her voice. She needed to be pushed or she wouldn't reach it. She wouldn't reach the relief that came with realizing because she clung to that humanity. She had never been as dynamic as Beyond, as willing to cross the lines. That was why she never surpassed him. It was why she never surpassed L, and she would never surpass L this way.
"But what do you want, Esca?"
She didn't answer immediately.
What did she want?
She wanted to avenge her brother's death, and to accomplish that, L and Light had to die.
What did she want?
She wanted to avenge her brother's death, but did L and Light really have to die? Yes. They had to die, and it wouldn't be because of her. They would kill each other regardless. Light wouldn't stand for L's interference, and L would never risk losing.
What did she want?
She wanted L and Light to die. They were the reasons why Beyond's life span had been ended. She could stop it. If she wanted, she could save one of them. All she had to do was choose, but that's not what she wanted. She wanted them to die.
"Why?" Beyond's voice drifted across her mind.
Because…
Because…
Because…
Because…
Because…
Death.
Death.
Death.
She started to laugh. It was like a chime. A sweet, tinkling sound filled the air, but there was a madness to it. An uncontrollable fit of laughter as sweet as an overripe cherry.
She wanted the death.
She craved it. How she felt about them didn't matter. It was death she wanted. It didn't matter who or how. She wanted them to die.
After all, she was a god of death.
Beyond howled, and his hysterical laughter joined hers in the run down house that was a den of killers, "That'ta girl, Essie."
A/N... I'm so sorry for the long wait! Here it is! The big reason why Ever sees shinigami! I'll definitely go into it more as the story progresses, but I'm just so happy to finally have the origin established!
Thank you so much for the support, and I'm really curious as to what you think of this chapter! I'll answer any questions because I know it's not canon for shinigami to reproduce, but I think the way I'm playing with the idea makes sense. Also, this marks a huge turning point in E's character.
I hope you enjoyed! Stay tuned for the next chapter!
