April 5th, 2004

Miura had spent the night sleeping like a common beggar in front of To-Oh University. She'd woken up to the school custodian sweeping around her, and—after deciding he wasn't worth eating and promptly excusing herself—made her way down to a nearby coffee shop her breakfast brew. Her wallet, which she kept in the back pocket of her jeans, had somehow survived the dimensional transition and she had enough yen to maybe last her a week if she spent frugally.

"Here you go, ma'am," the chipper waitress said with a smile, propping a steaming cup of long black in front of her.

Miura chased the steam away with her breath before tasting it. Not the best she'd ever had, but certainly not the worst either. She returned the waitress' smile. "Thank you. It's lovely."

She took tiny sips of her beverage as she watched the world around her wake up, the streets filling up with more people the higher the sun rose. With her window seat, she could see students streaming in through the front gates, many of them young and fresh-faced. After confirming the date was the fifth with the calendar across the room, Miura hummed thoughtfully. These brats must be new. Since it's the first day, I'm betting for an opening ceremony.

She sat for half an hour longer before draining the last drop of her coffee and leaving a tip. Then she scurried across the street, blending in with the crowd of young humans. Quickly, Miura made a list of things she needed to do after this—wash away the stench of blood and dirt still clinging to her hair and obtain new clothes. A proper place to sleep was also on her agenda. She wasn't too worried, though—if things came to worse, she would simply massacre everyone within her vicinity and move on to a new region.

Contrary to the typical behaviour of her species, Miura liked to mingle with humans. It was even better knowing that she would be able to snap them in half like twigs. She chorused greetings to the commencing students, pretending that she was one of them.

They got seated in the auditorium.

Her sharp hearing picked up some of the whispers being passed around the hall.

"Did you hear—"

"—yeah, I know—"

"Two geniuses—"

"Isn't that amazing?"

Two geniuses? Miura's interest swelled.

Then she saw it.

Or, rather, him.

Miura bounced her leg excitedly, not even bothering to hide her grinning. Was this a normal occurrence in this world? Was that why nobody else was reacting to the horrible eldritch being floating behind the handsome young man on the podium? Is it a ghoul? A human? Both? Something on the lines of Kanou's experiments? God! She absolutely needed to dissect him.

Her kakuhou was already beginning to tingle.


Inter-dimensionally Displaced Bride and Hungry Ghoul


Light Yagami finished his speech, garnering a hearty round of applause from his audience. In response, he offered them a politely genial smile—which was more difficult to pass off than usual considering Ryuk was poking his shoulder with one pointy finger.

"Heyy, Light. Light-o. Light!"

Ignore him. The last thing Light needed was to seem like some crazy person in front of his peers. He would placate Ryuk with an apple later.

The other top-scoring student—Is his name seriously 'Hideki Ryuga'? Who's he trying to kid?—began his own speech. It was, undoubtedly, one of the blandest, soulless things Light had ever had the displeasure of listening to. It sounded like Ryuga had just scoured the internet the night before and plagiarised off every website he could find. How had this guy even tied with him on the entrance exam?

Ryuga's speech turned out to be half as long as his, and Light took mild pleasure in hearing that the other genius' applause was nowhere near as loud as his had been. They bowed in sync before moving to descend down the stairs.

Then Ryuga began to whisper to him.

"Yagami-kun."

Light didn't answer, though he did tilt his head slightly—enough for Ryuga to realize that he had heard.

"I know that you're the son of Police Chief Soichiro Yagami. Your sense of justice must be great like your father's is."

He didn't deign Ryuga with any visible reaction this time.

"I heard that you've made numerous critical contributions to help solve crimes in the past, and... that you're now interested in the Kira case. I trust in your sense of justice and investigative skills, so if you can promise me not to tell this to anyone else, I am willing to share some critical information on the Kira case."

Light frowned. What's this? Why is he saying this all of a sudden? Maybe I should just ignore him... But he said that he has critical information on Kira. And information on Kira meant information on him. Without turning around, he uttered under his breath, "I promise. You can tell me."

"I am L."


Ryuk did lazy circles around the air, watching as Light recomposed himself and declared his admiration for L's work. L Lawliet. That was his name. How anticlimactic. He did look forward to what steps Light would take next to get a hold of this precious information, though.

But, for now, things had gotten seriously interesting.

There was a thing in the crowd. Not a human, probably, even though it wore the female skin of one. It didn't have a name or lifespan. Damn, that was kind of creepy, wasn't it? Ryuk had seen monsters before—he hailed from a world of them—but there was nothing more unnerving than a monster pretending to be human.

It—she, Ryuk supposed—was staring right at him with her hungry, hungry eyes. The same eyes Ryuk had seen in the mirror when he was undergoing an apple withdrawal. She wants to gobble me right up. Not that she would be able to, but he knew she would try somewhere in the future.

After the ceremony was over, Ryuk followed his pet human outside.

There was another brief exchange between L and Light that Ryuk only lent half an ear to, too concerned with the not-human. L said his farewells before being driven off by his own chauffeur. Ryuk saw and cackled. Light had taken the train here and would be taking the train back.

"Hey! Wait up!"

Light turned, plastering on that smile of his again as the freaky not-human raced up to them. "Yes?"

The not-human cocked an elegant brow at him. "Huh? No, not you—your friend."

Light's mask nearly slipped. "I beg your pardon...?"

And, to Ryuk's great amusement and Light's absolute horror, the not-human pointed straight at Ryuk—at the empty space that she should've been seeing. "I want... to cut you open!"