A/N: Here comes chapter eight! I hope all of you enjoy it. Sorry it took me so long to finish it and post it. My life has been fairly complicated as of late, but I'm trying to get on a more regular update schedule with all my stories. I don't know how well I'll be able to manage all of them, but I'll give it my best effort. Endless thanks to my supporters. You guys are the best!

Disclaimer: I do not own the brilliance that is Death Note.

Warnings: Exposition and general filler chapter goodness ahead. You've been warned.

Chapter 8

The Birth of Kira Part 5

As soon as Light locked the door to his room, he glared at the Shinigami hovering over his bed. He was happily munching on an apple, not oblivious to but completely ignoring the ominous aura of anger that surrounded the brilliant high school student. The kid was really proving himself to be great entertainment for the permanently bored Shinigami.

After finishing his apple, Ryuk finally set his eerie yet cheerful gaze on Light. "Do you have nothing better to do?"

Light's eyebrow twitched in visible irritation as he roughly set his school bag down on his desk. "Ryuk, you know that girl, don't you."

It was a statement, not a question. Ryuk picked up on this and chuckled. "Yeah, I know her somewhat. She was the previous owner of the Death Note."

Now Light's eyebrow had lifted to his hairline. "So then...the Death Note I picked up was hers?"

"Yep."

Sitting down in the desk chair, Light narrowed his gaze on the Death Note peeking out of his bag. Ryuk's testimony had revealed one answer but had also opened the door to many more questions about a girl he never thought he'd take any interest in. Of course, with Light's plan to become god of the new world underway, he needed to take precautions about what was happening to her. Clearly his use of the death note was affecting her and he needed to know why.

"Are Crystal's symptoms common of someone who has previously owned a Death Note?" Light questioned.

Ryuk shrugged. "The Death Note isn't present in the human world often enough for me to know if humans are affected by someone else using the notebook after they give up possession aside from losing all the memories connected to the book. Of course, in this situation I'm not sure if the girl was purposely giving up her ownership of the notebook or not."

Once again, Light's eyebrow rose toward his hairline. "And how would you know that detail Ryuk? How much contact did you have with Crystal Makano?"

"My you ask a lot of questions," Ryuk muttered, rolling his eyes, "but I don't feel much like going through an interrogation...that is unless you get me a couple more apples."

Light crossed his arms in front of his chest with a pointed look on his face. "Answer all my questions now and I'll buy you a cart full of apples."

Ryuk thought it over for a moment. "How many apples are we talking?"

"Ryuk!"

"Alright, alright fine," Ryuk muttered, once more rolling his eyes. "Geez you're a kill joy."

Light wasn't fazed by the comment. "How much contact did you have with Crystal Makano?"

"Minimal," the Shinegami answered. "I gave her the Death Note when she was a child. She's had it for about thirteen years give or take.

Given Crystal's current age, Light quickly deduced that Ryuk had given Crystal the Death Note when she was only four years old. The next question that entered his mind slipped from his lips involuntarily.

"Why would you give a four-year-old a Death Note!?" There was clear disbelief in Light's tone. Ryuk outright laughed at the surprised expression on the boy's face.

"I thought it'd be fun to watch," he responded, still chuckling a bit. "she's got a rough background. I thought she'd go on a killing spree."

Light wasn't buying it. "Is that really the reason?"

"She had the potential to be exceptional entertainment," Ryuk stated, "and while she surprised me, she didn't entertain me."

"What do you mean?"

Ryuk, lifting a bony finger, pointed at the Death Note. "When you found the Death Note at school, were there any names written in it? Even one?"

Light's eyes widened as he thought back on his first use of the notebook. The pages had been completely blank.

"She had the Death Note for thirteen years and never wrote a single name," Ryuk finished, lowering his hand. "It was rather disappointing to me. To make things worse, she wouldn't relinquish ownership of the notebook when I asked for it back. She said she couldn't let it fall into the wrong hands."

Light contemplated for a few minutes without responding to Ryuk's words. Truthfully, he was surprised as well. Just holding something that said, "Death Note" had compelled him to write a name, even if he thought he knew it wouldn't work. He knew the otherworldly nature of the book had the ability to call on a person's curiosity. The "what if" scenario the notebook presented to a new user was a compelling force, one Light didn't try to resist and he was seventeen.

But Crystal...she was only four when she received the notebook. How is it that she could resist at an age where curiosity probably dictated so many of her actions. Plus, most children will believe anything an adult...or creature in this case...tells them. It was unfathomable to think she even knew what death was at that age. Most children didn't.

Then again, Crystal Makano had proved herself extremely intelligent. After all, on the international exam, she only scored one point below him. No one else had even come close to matching the two of them on the test. And aside from that, thirteen years had passed since her initial contact with the notebook. It was more than enough time for her to learn and understand the concepts of death and the rules of the Death Note.

So the fact that she never wrote a name...it says a great deal about what kind of person she is. After all, Light understood that in the time she held the notebook, she must have been tempted to use it at some point. She probably came close to using it many times.

Needless to say, Light Yagami suddenly respected his annoying classmate much more. However, now that the notebook was in his possession, her presence in his life posed a big problem. It wouldn't have mattered if the notebook weren't affecting her, but the cold reality is that it was.

Ryuk had proved useless in providing him with the information he really craved in those moments. Despite this, the small bit of insight on Crystal's true colors lifted his mood a little. He was most definitely intrigued, but he understood that he couldn't afford to act too hastily around her nor could he afford to stop using the notebook as he had been. It wouldn't be much longer before the police figured out that the simultaneous deaths were acts of homicide, of course by then the people would have started rallying behind him.

Until then...he would just have to continue killing criminals regardless of what happened to Crystal Makano.

Meanwhile

"Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh!"

Crystal lay face down on top of her bed with her face buried against the fluffy pillows she'd stacked on the foot of the bed. She still wore her school uniform, save for the black loafers that were mandatory to the uniform, leaving her feet clad in knee-length black stockings.

David Makano slowly entered her room, shook his head, and chuckled to himself upon seeing the horrible shape she was in. When he had brought her home more than two hours ago he was sure he had tucked her in under the covers with the pillows against the headboard. Now she was laying upside down and groaning every few minutes.

With a loud groan she mumbled, "My head is literally killing me David. Please, just shoot me now and be done with it. The suffering is just too much for this weak little woman."

"Now don't talk like that sis," David replied cheerfully as he sat down next to her holding a glass of water in his one hand and two small Advil pills in the other. "Here take these..."

Crystal mustered the little strength she could to push the hand holding the pills away. "I'm not taking any drugs from you brother."

David rolled his eyes. "Crystal, it's just Advil. It'll help with the headache."

"The so-called 'headache' feels more like a sledgehammer being rammed into my skull over and over," Crystal fired back softly, barely turning her head against her pillow so she could look up at her adoptive brother. "It's hindered all reasoning skills by more than seventy percent."

"Quit being dramatic and take the pills."

Crystal hesitated, genuinely worried her brother would attempt drugging her...again.

Seeing an opportunity to get back at Crystal for lecturing him all the time, David leaned his head right next to her ear and screamed, "ADVIL IS A MEDICATION FOR HEADACHES!"

Shrieking loudly, Crystal turned away from her brother's voice as he continued screaming that he wasn't trying to drug her.

"Alright!" Crystal replied after a minute of non-stop screaming had passed. "I concede! You win! Stop screaming at me, please!"

David couldn't help but laugh at that. "Wow, you're really feeling badly aren't you. That was way too easy."

"I swear he never stops looking for ways to torture me," Crystal thought, burying her head further into the pillow.

"Tell you what," David continued, purposely oblivious to Crystal's disdain at his presence, "if you be a good girl and take the pills I'll go out and buy you a can of cashews on the double."

Crystal perked up slightly unable to stop herself from glaring at her brother for using her weakness against her at such an inopportune time. A part of her wished she had the strength to leap off the bed and strangle him.

But alas she didn't, and so she offered her outstretched hand as a response. David placed two pills in her hand. Throwing her head back she popped the two pills in her mouth before reaching for the glass of water. After taking a long gulp, she gave him the glass back.

"I expect my can of cashews to be in my hands within twenty minutes," Crystal whispered, laying back down. "Don't disappoint me."

Laughing he began retreating from the room. "Wouldn't dream of it." Stopping in the doorway he gazed at her over his shoulder. "Get some rest while I'm gone."

"Fine," she drawled out, once more burying her face into the pillows.

"Oh, and before I forget," David added, "Nagisa is going to be spending the night tomorrow."

Crystal lifted her head slightly, somewhat perplexed by the news. "Why? What happened?"

"Nothings happened," he answered, his gaze shifting toward the lamp on the nightstand. "Her mother just wants us to take her in for a night. I'm guessing it's because the local shelter has been filling up more quickly during the day. Either that or she believes she won't make the cut off time."

"I see," Crystal muttered, lowering her head. "Did you talk to Mom and Dad about it?"

"Why bother? You already know they'll say yes," David stated, turning away from her with a serious expression on his face. "This isn't the first time Nagisa has had to stay with us after all."

The pounding in Crystal's skull had intensified by the time David finished speaking. She really didn't have the energy to carry on a conversation, but doing so was pivotal for the sake of getting her precious cashews. Still, the news of Nagisa coming to spend a night didn't sit well with her, mainly because it meant her mother would be off somewhere getting high with the drugs David had given her himself.

When first arriving in Japan, David took Nagisa's mother, thirty-one year-old Hinata Miagi, as his first Japanese contact and customer. Two weeks before they met, Mrs. Miagi, with her daughter Nagisa in tow, escaped from Okinawa where she had lived with her abusive and mentally unstable husband. Barely having enough money to travel from Okinawa to Tokyo, Mrs. Miagi immediately sought job opportunities. Unfortunately, the woman's skills were limited and the added bonus that she needed to work in an establishment that provided daycare for Nagisa left her without much hope for finding honest work.

That's where David came in.

He found them both in an alleyway just as a thug was attempting to rape the mother in front of her child. David beat him brutally in response to the sight and from that moment on, Mrs. Miagi and David have been allies. He gave her work selling cases of Heroin near the homeless shelters where she and Nagisa had been forced to take residence. In return, whenever she went to carry out her duties, David agreed to let Nagisa stay in their apartment periodically, providing food and clothing that Crystal's mother bought for her. Since Nagisa couldn't enroll in school, it fell on Crystal to cram in some tutoring when she stayed over.

Crystal's father is aware of the visits taking place, but thanks to the craftmanship of his wife's lies, he's under the delusion that Crystal is part of a small peer program where she acts as an older sister to a younger student for extra credit, something Crystal obviously didn't need which could have been cause for suspicion on his part. However, given that Nagisa stayed with them two to three nights every other week and that Crystal actually treated her as a little sister, the excuse was good enough for him to believe.

Unfortunately, a little over a week ago, around the time Crystal's headaches had started, Mrs. Miagi had started using. Her sales started dwindling, the clients ended up with less product than what they ordered for the same price, and worst of all she was taking Nagisa along with her everywhere she went, including places like drug frat houses and strip clubs where some of David's more dangerous clients were likely to appear.

None of it sit well with Crystal mentally and if not for the issue of her headaches and the fact that some nutcase was using her Death Note to systematically kill all known criminals, she would have grilled David about how Mrs. Miagi's declining health and concern for her five year-old daughter was partially his fault. Even if she couldn't have mustered up the nerve to say that, she would have told him that he needed to fire Mrs. Miagi so she wouldn't be able to get her hands on those drugs, but instead of doing so she simply nodded her head in submission and said bye when he left the room.

"He wouldn't have listened to me anyway," she thought, watching him close the door behind him. "Besides, if Nagisa's mother is going to be selling and using, it's better for her to stay with us anyhow. Still..."

Crystal hadn't paid much attention to the news due to her headaches taking over her mind, but she had seen enough to calculate the pattern of the heart attacks. Even a complete idiot would be able to see that the heart attacks weren't a natural occurence caused by some widespread airborne disease at this point. The deaths were isolated to criminals, people whose names and faces appeared on the local and world news. If this kept up and Mrs. Miagi ended up caught somehow...

"Whoever has my notebook wants the world to know what they're doing." Narrowing her gaze she turned on her side, facing away from her bedroom door. "They want the people to think that they're distributing justice to the wicked. If the world hasn't figured out what's going on yet, they will soon enough."

Sighing, Crystal closed her eyes, trying desperately to quiet the worries piling up in her pounding head. "It isn't anyone's place to play God...but..." trailing off she exhaled a soft breath. The pain was beginning subside, but the pain subsiding meant she was falling asleep and falling asleep meant being plunged into nightmares about a realm she had never seen yet felt too familiar to her.

"I must be losing my mind. I can't make sense of anything anymore." She chuckled softly to herself, a tiny smile lifting the corners of her mouth. "L would be so disappointed in me...I miss you L..."

She fell asleep thinking about her childhood friend, never knowing that the time they would reunite was quickly approaching.

In the United States of America

Los Angeles~5:37 a.m.

A torrential downpour descended from black clouds as the morning light began to show through them, covering the sky and the quickly waking city of L.A. in a hue of grey.

Within one of the skyscrapers that graced the skyline of the city, a lone figure stood in a slouch, staring over the city and at the rain cascading down the windows with vacant dark eyes heavily bagged in dark circles from a lack of sleep and proper nutrition. His skin was deathly pale and the simple clothes he wore were wrinkled, giving off the illusion that he had worn the ensemble for days on end.

The sound of the rain was soothing to the man, so much so that he felt his eyes drooping somewhat as he stood watching it. However, he knew that he couldn't rest yet. It was a shame given that the man had just gotten through solving a very personal and difficult case in which memories of his past were brought to the forefront of his mind. All of it was very unpleasant and left a bitter taste in his mouth that even copious amounts of strawberry shortcake couldn't quite expel from his taste buds.

And now, without much time to recover, another interesting case had started to loom over his awareness. Many others had presented themselves, but he could tell instantly that this one was special, especially given that the agents of Interpol had failed to pick up on it right away. Of course, the twenty-four year old detective was well aware of the clock ticking, how each second that passed was another life lost, though to many those lives were irrelevant, unimportant to the common, hardworking man. The victims of these murders were hardened criminals, the types of men and women civilians would be happy to see gone for good. Even the police wouldn't feel inclined to respond immediately, no matter how quickly they realized the pattern between all the deaths. They would assume they were all from natural causes until it became outright obvious that the deaths were isolated to those in prison.

The reasoning for these murders was nothing the detective hadn't seen before. It was no different from a vigilante working outside the law to distribute justice. As a means to an end, even he had gone down that road of working around the law.

However, there was a fundamental difference between most vigilantes and this unknown killer that made the situation dangerous for more than just criminals.

A sudden click of the door filtered into the hotel room. The detective didn't turn around to face the newcomer, already aware of who was there.

"I'm assuming your arrival means you've booked our flight to Japan?"

The new presence in the room, a much older man with grey hair wearing a black suit and glasses nodded. "The plane is scheduled to leave tomorrow morning. It was the earliest flight I could schedule due to the weather conditions."

"Yes, a storm is most definitely brewing," the detective muttered, his eyes still on the rain as the low sound of bells softly echoed in his mind. "Are you prepared to brave such a storm Watari?"

"I could ask you the same thing," Watari replied, a small smirk threatening to lift the corners of his mouth. "Will this case be one of the more complex?"

Detective L Lawliet finally turned his stance and his gaze away from the window. His head of unruly, spiked ebony hair shifted slightly as he moved.

"That all depends on what we find once we reach Japan," he stated, "but should the situation be what I think it is...then yes, it will be."

With a small bow, Watari made his way toward one of the adjacent rooms. "Very well, I shall start with the packing then sir."

L watched him leave and continued staring at the door Watari disappeared behind for a few seconds before turning his gaze to the rain once more. The sound of bells in his head had grown louder.

"This case could very well kill me," he thought, frowning. "However, cracking the code on how this man kills using heart attacks will prove to be a very entertaining game. I look forward to my victory over him."

However, even as L thought this, he felt a drop in the pit of his stomach as he contemplated the man slowly being dubbed "Kira" by the internet.

A/N: And that my friends is where this filler chapter ends, although you guys ended up getting quite a bit of exposition on Crystal, David's life as a drug dealer, and a sneak peek on how I'm going to write L...yeah I'm not sure how well I did with that. Constructive criticism is welcome because quite frankly writing L (while not necessarily difficult personality wise) is tough because he's a GENIUS and though I am a very intelligent person, genius level is something I'm still working toward. I mean, I can't eat tons of sugar and burn off all the calories with my mind. That aside, thanks for reading everyone. Please review! I love reviews like L loves cake!