Chapter 16: Lifetime

When Taro Kagami was twelve years old, you could almost say that his life was perfect. He had loving parents, good friends, and almost anything he could ever ask for. He was a good child, always following the rules, getting good grades and being his parents' pride and joy.

His uncle, Teru Mikami, had died four years before he was born. Insatiably curious, Taro pestered his mother for the longest time before she finally told him the story of her brother, Taro's uncle. Teru Mikami had become one of the hands of Kira, carrying out Kira's judgment when he himself could not. He had been caught at the Yellow Box warehouse during the final confrontation between Kira and the SPK leader, and had died there, apparently through suicide. Taro listened to the entire tale, wide-eyed with horror. There was no way he could ever be like that.

Months later, a close friend of his at school lost their parents in a robbery gone wrong. The boy's parents had been unwittingly shot by the robber when he panicked. Police later caught the man, but he was released due to a lack of evidence. It was then that Taro first began to reconsider his views on Kira.

Maybe Uncle Teru and Kira had the right idea! If you get rid of the bad people, they can't hurt anyone else! This was the way his thinking began to turn. And then, just weeks after he turned thirteen, something happened that completely solidified his views.

xxx

As Taro walked through the gate and up the sidewalk to his house, he noticed a white notebook lying in the middle of the sidewalk. Glancing at the driveway, he knew his mother and father weren't home from work yet. So whose notebook was it? He leaned down and picked it up, carrying it with his school stuff up to his room. As he set down his backpack, he turned around and screamed. There was a six-foot-tall blue thing standing in his room, grinning at him.

"W-wh-wh-what are you?!" he stammered, clutching the notebook without realizing it. The thing laughed, a 'hyuk' sound that almost freaked Taro out more than he already was.

"I'm a Shinigami." it said. "Name's Ryuk."

"Sh-sh-shinigami?!" Taro's eyes were wide and terrified. He backed up until he sat down hard on his bed. "What do you want with me?"

"Nothing." Ryuk said. "But that notebook you have there, the white one… It's called a Death Note. You can kill anyone you like by writing down their name and picturing their face in your mind. Once you do that, they'll die of a heart attack in forty seconds. There's rules, of course, but those are all written down inside."

"Murder notebook…?" Taro asked. "And you gave this to me?"

"Well… You seemed a likely candidate, considering your uncle and all." Ryuk laughed. "A Death Note was Light Yagami's weapon, a long time ago."

"Light Yagami?"

"Kira." Ryuk said. Taro's eyes widened ever farther. Kira's weapon, in his hands!

"But why? Why would you give this to me?"

Ryuk rolled his eyes, pulling out an apple and beginning to munch on it. "We were bored. The Shinigami realm is bleak and dull. So some friends of mine and I decided to see what would happen if we brought the maximum amount of Death Notes to the human world at once. There are five others besides yours. I'll bet if you all teamed up…"

Taro frowned. "And there's no cost? You won't eat my soul or something if I use this notebook?"

"No. It's yours now. Do with it what you like."

Taro sat down on his bed, flipping the book open to the first page and pulling out a pen. He hastily scribbled down a name: Reiji Ishimura. Glancing at his watch, he watched forty seconds tick by, and smiled.

"Who was that?" Ryuk asked.

"He killed my friend's parents, and got away with it." Taro said bitterly. "He deserved it."

xXx

Himeko Inoue and Mizuki Kobayashi had been friends since about middle school. Himeko and her group of friends had met one of Mizuki's friends, and Mizu had kind of unofficially been welcomed to the group. They had had a fight sometime during high school, and hadn't seen each other in over three years, when they met again after both moved from Hiroshima to Tokyo.

Coming to the conclusion that it would be beneficial to both of them to share an apartment and split the rent, they worked out an arrangement that way. With Mizu as a graphics designer with a moderate paycheck, and Meko as an up-and-coming entrepreneur, they needed every bit of money they could save. Though they had their fights, for the most part they got along well.

Death Notes really hadn't changed them as much as one might think. They followed Kira's philosophy, not as an idealistic goal, but with common sense. Meko's reasoning stood that, logically, if people who commit crimes are killed, then eventually people will see the pattern and stop becoming criminals altogether. Mizu never really shared her reasons, but Meko long thought that something in her past had influenced her decision, same as Taro.

xxx

They had been watching TV when the notebooks appeared, blatantly falling out of thin air onto their coffee table. Mizuki sat up looking at them curiously.

"Did those notebooks just appear from nowhere?"

Himeko looked as well. "I think so." She paused. "Touch one."

"You touch one!" Mizuki retorted. "I don't know what they are."

"Together then. You take left, I'll take right. One, two, three…" Both reached out, each seizing a black notebook, and letting out identical screams when they saw the Shinigami attached to each.

After much screaming, panicking, explaining, and questioning, both finally began to understand the power they had come into the possession of. They stared at each other, uncertain, unable to begin to consider what to use such a notebook for. They were startled out of their individual thoughts when the phone rang. Himeko answered it, saying politely, "Konnichiwa. Himeko speaking."

"I was curious…" said the voice on the phone. "Did you receive a black notebook called a Death Note recently?"

Himeko's eyes widened, and she glanced at Mizuki worriedly. "Who is this?!"

"My name is…"

xXx

Teil Miura was one of those people who hated the world.

Not even for a good reason. He just did. He was one of those who preferred to put on some music and block out the world. Or dive into a book or video game and not come out for hours at a time, liking the worlds they presented him with better than reality.

He went through school as a loner, getting decent grades and existing on as little interaction with others as possible. He had no faith, no religion or beliefs. Other than his games and his books and his make-believe worlds, he didn't have anything else. And in his opinion, he didn't need anyone else. People could turn around and stab you in the back. He watched the dramas carried out throughout middle and high school, and simply found it better not to be involved. Let other kids worry about their trivial little problems. They had their worlds, and he had his.

By the time he was seventeen, Teil had become known for his anti-social behavior. It gave others an excuse to poke fun at him, and just solidified his dislike for them even more. But then, one day something happened that gave him some kind of faith. For once, he had something he could believe in unconditionally, concrete proof real in his hands.

xxx

The notebook was lying harmlessly on his desk when he walked into his room. He didn't recognize it. It wasn't one of his. Assuming that it was his mother once again attempting to influence his tastes, he simply shrugged. Although, she could have bought a color other than black! He disliked the world! That didn't mean he was emo! He would have preferred a nice royal blue. Oh well. Walking over to the desk, he picked up the notebook, flipping it open to see what it looked like on the inside.

"Teil Miura."

He turned around, suppressing a gasp of surprise at the tall, skeleton-like figure standing in his room. It looked kind of like an Indian, one of the American kind, but more sinister in appearance. Setting the black notebook down on his desk, he asked warily, "What are you?"

"My name is Zellogi. I am a Shinigami." the thing said. Teil stared first at it, then at the notebook.

"What are you doing here?" He could only wonder. Maybe it was here to eat his soul. If it actually was a Shinigami. But if it wasn't, how had it just appeared out of nowhere?

"That notebook allows you to write down the name of a person while imagining their face in your mind, and they will die." Zellogi explained. "Six Shinigami have come to the human world, and given Death Notes to six humans. We wanted to see what would happen. What you do with the notebook is up to you."

"A murder notebook…" Teil murmured. "Starts to make you think of who the world would be better off without… If you could get rid of the bad people…"

xXx

Emi Tachikawa had seen a lot of tragedy in her life. Her uncle was killed in an accident when she was eight years old. He had been working as a construction worker on a project for a large corporation. They cut corners and neglected safety measures, and finally an accident occurred that got her uncle killed. At the time she wasn't old enough to understand why her parents and other family members were so angry about an accident, but as she grew older she came to understand what had happened. She knew then that there was corruption and bad people in the world, but was powerless to do anything about it.

Then, when she turned eighteen, a friend died in a car accident, and that was the final straw that it took to crush her. The Shinigami, looking for the six people to play their game with, saw her as someone who would take her grief and channel it through the notebook, and chose her as one of the six.

xxx

Emi curled up in bed, sobbing, unable to stop. Her best friend had been killed in a car accident, and the funeral had been that morning. Why Yumi? Yumi had been one of the nicest people in their school, one of those people who could be friends with everyone. She had never done anything wrong, and certainly nothing that deserved to be struck on the driver's side by someone running a red light.

People were the worst! The guy that had hit her hadn't even felt bad about it! His excuse was that he was late for an important meeting at his work. Emi had seen him the day he went to court. She had told him to his face that Yumi was her best friend, and he had looked at her and said, "I'm sorry."

He didn't look sorry at all. He said it like it was just another trivial thing he had to do. He had gotten ten years in jail, and treated it as just another inconvenience to himself. Emi was disgusted with him.

She picked up the pillow that had been covering her head, looking around the room blearily. Her parents had left for the evening to go out to dinner with Yumi's parents. She had been asked to go, but couldn't face it. So they had let her stay home. Her boyfriend, Drevan, had called as well, but she hadn't answered the phone. She didn't want to talk to anyone right now.

She moved over to her desk, beginning to straighten the papers and notebooks that rested on top of it. She paused as she saw a black notebook that she didn't recognize. Picking it up, she began flipping through it, seeing that every page was blank. She sighed, adding it to the top of her stack.

She turned around, intending to go fix herself a bowl of ramen or something for dinner, and shrieked. A huge bug-looking thing was standing in her room, staring at her.

"W-w-what are you!?" she gasped, backing into the desk.

It blinked. "I'm a Shinigami." it said in an almost whiny voice. "My name is Shidoh. You touched my Death Note, and now you're the owner."

"Death Note?" Emi asked, still completely freaked out that there was a God of Death standing in her bedroom.

"That black notebook. You can use it to kill people, within the rules." Shidoh explained. Then he muttered almost inaudibly, "I shouldn't have let Ryuk talk me into this…"

"Kill… people? Anyone?" Emi asked.

"As long as you know what they look like." Shidoh said.

Emi stared at it a long moment, then went over and opened it up. Before she could change her mind, she scribbled down the name of the man who had killed Yumi. Looking back at Shidoh, she asked, "What happens now?"

"He dies of a heart attack in forty seconds." Shidoh said. He drifted over, looking over her shoulder. "Do you have any chocolate?"

Emi glanced at him. Murder notebooks and Gods of Death who like chocolate. Maybe she was crazy. But it certainly didn't feel like it. She wasn't sure what she could do with a notebook that killed people. Maybe… she could get rid of other people like that guy. Criminals who didn't feel a shred of remorse for their crimes. That might make the world a better place.

xXx

Drevan Ricter was born, not in Japan, but in New York City in America. He had been born near the height of the Kira crisis, and was only three when it ended. He wasn't old enough to remember anything, but like every other terrible thing, it was taught as part of history in school. Drevan didn't particularly care that much about it. Supernatural murderers and shadowy organizations weren't his forte. He preferred math, over all subjects except gym.

As he got older, he started to notice more and more the corruption in his country. The government was full of liars, corporations treated their workers unfairly, and America itself was just falling to pieces in general. Drevan was disgusted by it. To his family's great displeasure, he decided to move to Japan, where he wanted to be a programmer. Hopefully he could secure a job at Nintendo, or one of the other video game or software companies there. He found a modest house just outside of Tokyo, got a good job, even found a wonderful girlfriend named Emi. But a few months after he got to Japan, something happened that changed his entire future, forever.

xxx

Drevan was curled on the couch, a game controller resting comfortably in his hands. He was playing the newest Mario game on his Gametriangularprism. He had tried calling his girlfriend Emi earlier, but she hadn't answered the phone. So he was stuck at home playing Mario, trying to smash the gigantic Petey Piranha that had eaten Toad. He hammered away at the buttons, finally scoring the last hit.

"Yeah!!"

He saved the game when prompted, and got up to turn it off. When he turned back around, there was a blood-red notebook in the spot where he'd been sitting on the couch.

"What the heck?" He walked over and picked it up, flipping through it absently. It was called a Death Note, and there were rules written in it. He read a few, raising an eyebrow. "The human whose name is written in this note shall die. Oh, funny. But where did this come from?"

"Drevan Ricter." Drevan turned around, startled. There was some kind of thing standing in his living room. The thing, a female by its voice, said, "You are now the owner of that Death Note, until you choose to give it up."

Drevan stared. "What are you?"

"My name is Kinddara. I am a Shinigami." Kinddara drifted over, putting her hand on top of Drevan's head. He winced, then blinked in confusion.

"What the…?" he murmured. "Wait… I understand now." He looked up at Kinddara. "Am I the only one with a notebook?"

"No." Kinddara replied. "There are five others. Taro Kagami, Himeko Inoue, Mizuki Kobayashi, Teil Miura, and Emi Tachikawa."

"Emi has one…?" Drevan said slowly. He smiled wickedly. "Kinddara, this looks to be the beginning of a beautiful friendship." He walked over to the phone, grabbing the phone book and beginning to look up names. "This should be great fun."

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Seventeen years later, gaming was revolutionized by the advent of the Gametriangularprism. :) That's my brother's and my stupid joke. I couldn't resist.

Anyway, I did my best with this chapter. The most I know about my characters is what they tell me, if that makes sense. I never feel like I'm making stuff up. It's more like someone is telling me what actually happened. ...My brother thinks I'm crazy. :)

Anyway, I'm at the end of the prewritten chapters, so updates now depend on how much time I have to write. But it gets better from here, I promise!

Love and hugs!
Li