Shinigami Yagami Raito
Summary: The moment Yagami Raito killed his first victim with the Death Note, he died. Only problem; he never noticed that.
Pairing/s: None.
Warnings: Totally different story. Raito out of character, Ryuuku different, many things different.
Disclaimer: Don't own Death Note. If I had owned Death Note, L would never have died, and neither would Raito.
-
Chapter Two
Raito opened his eyes to hear screaming, moaning and blinking lights. He sat up slowly; his head was swimming and his hands were oddly sore. He looked down at them to see what was wrong; his eyes widened, and he had the sudden urge to scream right out.
Three of his fingers on his left hand were missing, and the tips were bleeding heavily. On his other hand he had no fingers left except for a part of his thumb. He looked further down on his body and started to hyperventilate. This was not happening. This was not happening.
His legs were missing; they were ripped off and scattered a few feet away. His shirt was torn and he saw a rib sticking out of his skin, white cutting itself against pink skin. Blood had gathered all around him, forcing him to inhale the coppery scent. To his surprise, he found nothing hurting. He looked around himself but there was no one close by. He felt scared and alone. His body was broken and blood dribbled down his mouth. What was going on? Why was he not feeling pain?
"You're dead, kiddo."
Raito whipped around, making his neck crack and saw a stranger looking at him. The yellow-red eyes swept over his body and then up at Raito's face again. The man had spiky, black hair that travelled down his back and a long trench-coat. He came closer and the teen got out:
"Dead?" He sounded close to tears.
"Yep, but not in a human way," the man replied. "You've been dead for days."
"What?" Raito said in disbelief, the blood dripping off his chin. The man came closer and said:
"Remember the first guy you killed with Death Note?"
Raito froze. The man crouched down, wiped some blood off Raito's cheek and continued:
"Ain't blaming you, kiddo. Just wanna explain so we can piece you back together. Or I can do it right now, since humans tries to get inside."
The man picked up the remains of Raito's left leg and connected it with the rest of his body. To the teen's fascination and horror the leg grew right back together. He started to hyperventilate again, although he did not feel his heart beat any faster. Was his heart beating at all? The man put a hand on the teen's shoulder, calming him down.
"Nothing to be surprised over," the man said. "I got my head chopped off a few times, and see? Not even a scar after that."
"Who are you?" Raito asked.
"Name's Ryuuku," the man said. "And I'm a Shinigami."
-
"A new killer in Japan? Please explain why, L."
Yagami Soichiro was less than happy. A mass murderer in Japan? This was outrageous. Nonetheless did he listen to the famous detective L's reasoning and found it plausible. Even if he did not like it.
So many criminals had died of the same cause. Some said it was good, some said it was bad. Soichiro felt it was not right, even if it was done to the right people. But killing someone makes you a killer, whoever it is. And this new killer would not get away with this.
-
"See, all nice and wrapped up now."
Raito looked at his body in wonder. He was healed. He moved his fingers and studied them.
"What happened to me?" the teen asked the Shinigami.
"You used my Death Note," Ryuuku said. "Which makes you to a Shinigami yourself."
"Eh?"
"Lemme take from the beginning, alright?" Ryuuku asked with a sigh. At the teen's nod, he continued, "Okay. There are two different kinds of Shinigamis; low-levels and high-levels. I'm a high-level but I was currently residing in the low-level world to keep a watch on them. Boring as hell, but that's beside the point. We high-level Shinigamis are different than the low-levels. If a human or Shinigami use our Death Notes, they die. Like you did. They also automatically become a high-level Shinigami, but it's my bosses who decide if you're gonna be one. Though if they didn't want you to be one, they would've taken you away the moment you killed that first guy. So it means you're my newest partner and I ain't in trouble. Hallelujah for that."
"So I have to go away from here?" Raito asked.
"Nah," Ryuuku said. "You see, if you had been my newest partner this very instant and they wanted us to work this very instant, we wouldn't be here. You'd been taken to their heaven and they would've chased my ass down. This means they wanna watch."
"Watch what?" Raito said.
"They wanna watch the game you're playing."
"Game?"
"Yeah, your little killing-game. They are a bit morbid if you're wondering. I wanna see it as well if I'm honest. And yes, I might be a bit morbid myself but so are you. So, how're you gonna kill whoever you wanted to kill?"
Raito stared at him. Ryuuku chuckled and said:
"Don't look so shocked; with that rage of yours that's the only thing I could think of."
"How did you know?"
"I can trace my Death Note," the man said. "And with that, the emotions the user is feeling. I found you because of that rage. When it vanished I got a bit worried and then I saw my cute partner all chopped up and bloody! That's not a nice way to introduce yourself to your elders!"
-
Soichiro rubbed his eyes tiredly as they travelled back to Tokyo after the conference. This was just great. His young co-worker Matsuda Touta sat next to him, going through the material they had been given.
"Two hundred deaths," the young man mumbled, eyes wide.
"Yeah," Soichiro said. "Two hundred deaths, all caused by cardiac arrest within a week. Unbelievable."
"And we're going to work on this together with this L?"
"Yes. Hopefully we'll catch this new killer fast. Even if the victims are criminals, it's not right. This killer is no better than his victims."
-
Raito, to be honest, was not even upset he was dead. He did not look dead, or feel dead. Ryuuku had explained the best he could about their powers. They could fake heart beating, and pulse. They could make it look like their organs worked when they really had no use for it. The teen felt a bit funny, but Ryuuku said he would get used to it.
They had caused quite an uproar when they emerged practically uninjured. Ryuuku had let a few scratches still be on Raito, and put a few nice scratches on his own face and body along with dirt and blood. Raito looked quite ill, but that was because his clothes were bloodied and torn. They were treated at sight, and declined going to a hospital. Raito was given some other clothes and he put the bloodied and trashed clothes in a paper-bag before they left. Against the other people wishes, but they were fine and Ryuuku did not like hospitals. He claimed the smell was what made the people really sick on hospitals.
Right now the two of them were walking towards Raito's house. It was near midnight, and the teen was wondering if his mother was still waiting up for him.
"How are you going to come inside without anyone noticing?" Raito said.
"The wonders of being dead and a Shinigami of the best sort," Ryuuku said and snapped his fingers. "Now no one can see me, except for you and the people who touch that little note."
"So I have to keep this hidden from everyone?" Raito asked, indicating to the Death Note.
"Unless you don't want them to see me."
"I don't want them to see you."
"Why not?" Ryuuku said. "Good way to scare people to death. Or you can get involved in one of those accidents again and scare me to death."
"You're my friend, right?"
"Yeah, sure."
"I don't want anyone to take you away."
The Shinigami looked over at his young partner. Raito's mouth was in a tight line, his eyes hard and his grip on his bag made his hand white.
"Whoa, calm down, kiddo," Ryuuku said. "Never had a friend before?"
Raito stopped and looked at the man. He stopped as well. Raito then said with a soft voice:
"No. I have never had friends before."
"Why not?" Ryuuku was surprised; he was sure Raito had friends.
"Because I don't like anyone," Raito said with a shrug. "They are annoying, loud and demands too much."
"Sounds like you're quite boring."
"As long as I'm boring, no one will bother me. I'm fine with that."
The teen continued walking, leaving Ryuuku behind to stare at him. After a while the Shinigami got out from it and shouted:
"Oi! Don't leave me here, Raito!"
-
"Raito's not home?" Soichiro asked, confused.
"No, he said he was coming home late from a friend's house," Sachiko said. "Though it's been too long; even though it's Saturday tomorrow he is always home by eleven or earlier. Oh, hello, Matsuda-san."
"Sachiko-san," Matsuda said with a smile.
Soichiro and the young man got off their shoes and went into the living room. Sachiko stayed by the door if Raito was coming home soon. The two men spread out the papers on the coffee table and after a few minutes Sachiko returned to the kitchen to prepare a very late dinner. She could hear the door open from there, so she could as well do something useful while waiting. A little while later, the door opened again and Sachiko went to see who it was.
"Where have you been, Rai--? Raito, you're covered in blood!"
Soichiro and Matsuda looked at each other, then flew up from the couch and into the hall. Raito took of his bloodied shoes and looked up at them. The two men stared along with Sachiko. The teen's normal light brown hair was streaked in blood, and so was his face. He obviously had some other clothes, because they saw his ripped school clothes in a paper-bag. There was some stitching at his temple, nearly hidden by the hair.
"I'm fine," he said quietly. "It was an accident."
"Accident? What kind of accident?!" Sachiko shrieked.
Raito flinched away at her tone. None of the humans noticed but Ryuuku noticed.
"A bus and a truck crashed into each other," Raito replied nonetheless. "The blood isn't mine; I just got a few scratches. Mom, I would just like to have a shower and then go to bed."
"And they let you go?" Soichiro asked, eyes taking in the looks of his son.
"There were people who had no legs anymore, dad," Raito said and looked away. "They said if I felt bad in the morning, I should go to the nearest hospital right away. Mom, really, I'm fine."
The noise had woken up Sayu, and she screamed when she saw her brother.
"I'm fine, Sayu," Raito said, succeeding flashing her a quick smile. "Please, can I just get a shower?"
"Of course," Sachiko said worriedly. "Want me to tap a bath for you?"
"No, no," the teen said. "Just a shower. Maybe you can call the school tomorrow and say I need new school clothes?"
"Of course, I'll do that," the woman said. "Go and take a shower. Sayu, go back to bed now sweetie."
"You alright, brother?" the girl asked.
"Yeah, I'm fine. You should've seen the other guy," Raito said sarcastically, getting a smile out of his little sister. "Go back to bed."
The girl obeyed and Raito set off to the bathroom. Ryuuku followed, noticing the teen did not let go of his bag with the note inside. Good.
As Raito locked to the bathroom, he drew a sigh of relief.
"Don't like people worrying about you?" the Shinigami asked.
"Don't like people in general," the teen muttered.
"You seem to like Sayu."
"She's my sister."
"But just because your parents were your parents, you didn't seem happy to see them."
"That's different."
End of discussion Raito's eyes supplied as the teen stripped and stepped underneath the warm water. But Ryuuku could not help it:
"Why don't you like your parents?"
He heard his partner sigh deeply, but Raito did answer:
"Because they don't like me."
"Sure they do."
"They don't care. Because I'm a straight A-student, they don't care anymore."
"I got the feeling you didn't like when people care."
"I don't. It's just, at first I tried to be best so that they would notice me. But nothing changed, so I just went along with it. I hated it, because I wanted to have someone who loved me. Now it doesn't matter that much."
Ryuuku was silent for a while, then he shone up, even though the teen would not be able to see it, and said:
"Hey, you got me!"
Snort.
"Right, I got a Shinigami." Raito sounded amused, and Ryuuku liked the sound of it. The kid was depressed enough as it was.
"You are one as well," Ryuuku accused.
"Bla, bla, bla…"
"So how are we gonna kill this brat you hate?"
"You'll know all in due time, Ryuuku. Now can you hand me the shampoo? I rather not look like this for the rest of the weekend, not to mention I would give someone a heart attack if they saw me."
-
Ryuuku floated around in Raito's room around one-thirty that night. He had checked every inch of the room, and found it very boring. Nothing here made the room personal. Not even the kid's computer. Everything was cold and boring. The Shinigami looked over to his partner, whom he found not quite so cold and boring as the room.
Raito looked much more like a child when he was asleep. The bored look he always wore had melted away and given way to a more childlike appearance. Ryuuku floated down to look at him more closely. The teen's breaths, fake ones since he did not need breathing, were sent like small puffs into the Shinigami's face. He sighed as he continued to look.
"Just who the hell are you?" the Shinigami asked quietly to the sleeping Raito.
-
Raito woke up the next morning feeling much better than he had ever felt before. He realized why. It was quite disturbing knowing you were happy because you knew you were dead. The teen shook his head and sat up.
"Awake?"
He looked over at Ryuuku and nodded.
"Any dizziness?"
The teen shook his head.
"Good. Got school today?"
"No, it's Saturday," Raito said.
"Okay," the Shinigami said. "Then I got time to explain some more things, and you to tell me about your plans."
"I thought I just said all in due time…" Raito sweat-dropped at seeing the happy grin on his partner's lips.
-
Soichiro felt a headache coming. More and more deaths of the criminals. And now this! A student was Kira?! Insane!
Yes, they had named the new killer to Kira for the lack of anything else. The deaths had, when checked over, occurred only when a student was free from school, and they had begun suspecting it was a student. This was outrageous!
And the suspicion of Kira's identity was not the only thing he worried about; he was worried about his son. It was Tuesday and the teen had gone to school as usual. But Sachiko had called her husband and said Raito was stumbling, holding his head right after he had straightened up from the position when he got his shoes on. It had happened both this morning, and yesterday morning. It was clear his son was unwell, but the teen just kept on moving. Raito had a strong will, and Soichiro was proud of his son. Very proud, and therefore he did not want anything to happen to Raito. He decided to call Raito, just to see how he was doing.
"Dad? It's rare that you call."
"Sachiko told me you looked a bit wobbly earlier today."
"I rose up too fast, that's all. It happens from time to time."
"You sure it's not because of the accident?"
"They said I would probably faint, not just feel dizzy, so it's okay," came Raito's voice.
"You sound tired," the man commented and frowned.
"Yeah, I took it a bit easy this weekend and pulled an all-nighter with my homework," the teen said, and Soichiro could hear him cover a yawn. "I just go to bed early today."
They finished the call, and Matsuda looked at him.
"Is Raito alright?" the man asked.
"Yeah," Soichiro replied. "He's a motivated young man about his grades, and I like that but I wouldn't mind him staying home a day or two from school after something like that."
"Chief!"
Soichiro turned to the speaker, who called out:
"23 deaths!"
"Again?" the man said weakly and slumped back in his chair. "One hour between each one?"
The speaker nodded. The whole group of investigators began mumbling around in the room, maybe they were wrong about Kira being a student, until L's voice broke in:
"Calm down! That isn't it."
"What?"
"It's true he might not be a student, but that isn't what Kira's trying to tell us. The questions are why an hour apart from each killing, and why the victims were only inmates? We would know instantly of who died. What Kira is trying to tell us is that he's free to manipulate the time of death as he pleases."
Gasps of shock. The men stared onto the screen with Watari, the man that was the closest contact to L, watching them silently.
-
Raito leaned back and watched the TV. He did not know why he needed to prove to L that he was not controlled by something as trivial as time, but he sure loved it.
"You're too arrogant," Ryuuku supplied as he munched away on an apple. "You're gonna get caught."
"That's fine," Raito said. "I won't tell anything, and I trust you will be long gone with the note by then."
"Hell, I'm not leaving without you. We'll figure something out."
Raito was left thinking. L would start suspecting the police, or most likely he would do that. That meant maybe his dad and his family would come under surveillance. Raito needed to keep a low profile and everything would be fine. He did not want to kill anyone else beside criminals. And Kato, but that was another story. He deserved death according to Raito. Kato might look like another bully, but it had been rumours that the teen had been involved in some of the gang-killing lately, and the raping of a young girl who later killed herself. Kato was a monster. Well, so was Raito now but he was already dead.
He looked over the rules again. Playing around with L maybe was not such a bad idea; it kept him entertained to no end.
'Let's see how far I can go with the details of death,' he mused and put a pencil to paper.
-
The next day
"Six criminals died?" Soichiro said. The men turned to look at him. "Cardiac arrest? That's Kira… What? Three of them were different?"
Matsuda looked at him. They did not notice as Watari called L.
-
"What is it, Watari?"
"Three unusual cardiac arrest victims."
"Unusual?"
"I'll send you the images of the pictures and note."
"Do so."
Three images showed up at the screen, and L leaned closer to watch them. A strange painting on the wall, made by the inmates' blood, a note and one who escaped to a public toilet only to die there.
'This could be their own actions. But in the same time, Kira could manipulate death so why not their actions before death as well?'
He scanned the images for a few more moments, until he saw it. The real message of the note made his eyes widen. The other two pictures did not matter. The note was something akin to a suicide note, but it was the sentence the stray words created at the top that interested the detective. The real message, he was sure of it!
"L, did you know…" the man mused to himself. "L, did you know what? What are you trying to say, Kira?"
Out to the others however, he said:
"Chief!"
Soichiro looked at the screen.
"Regarding the latest victims," L began, "please tell the media the deaths were caused by cardiac arrest, and nothing else. There is a possibility he used these victims to test something. We don't want him to know if he succeeded or not."
"I understand," Soichiro said and sat back down from where he had flown up from the chair.
"Use them to test what?" one man said, disgusted.
"That's sick," another man said.
"Treating human lives as a game," Soichiro ground out. "Unforgivable!"
'What does he want? What is he planning?' L thought.
-
"That probably set their brains going," Raito said with a chuckle.
"Eh, why?"
"I practically sent them useless things, except for a little fun note I gave L," the teen said. "They maybe will appear like tests, but in reality they are nothing. They are just there to distract them."
"Fun note?"
"Yeah," the teen said. "I'm going to give L the great detective clues of who Kira is."
Tbc…
Chapter two done!
Chapter three: Kato dies. Raito continues to play around with L, and finds out he's under surveillance. He's the ever curious Raito and wants to know who and scare him a bit!
Until later,
Ja,
Tiro