The disclaimer, as it is not human, was not consigned to MU upon dying last chapter. Thus it has been reincarnated in its current form. Let us hope it stays that way, so as to continuously remind those of us with short term memory that I do not own Death Note.

The next day, Misa had had her agent cancel her modeling appointment, citing that she "wasn't feeling so well after the last shoot". Though she had tried to wave off his concerns, her agent had all but insisted on sending someone to watch over her and cater to her needs to make sure she got better. An argument had ensued, and it had taken over 30 minutes to get him to drop it (during which a few items had been thrown), but she finally had the rest of the day to herself.

"Misa, what do you plan to do with the notebook now that you know that it works?" Rem asked from out of the blue.

The blonde teenager wasn't quite sure how to respond, as the question had come out of nowhere. They hadn't even been talking, Rem had been silent all morning up until now. Then again, deciding what to do WAS part of the reason she'd taken today off, so she thought about it before responding. "Well... I don't really NEED it... I'm definitely not giving it up though. Let me think about it..."

About twenty minutes later, Misa had come up with an idea. "Okay, I think I have something. There the obvious first option, which is that I just don't use it. I can do that, right?" Misa looked up questioningly, to which Rem body-nodded.

"Correct. You have no obligation to use it, though I still must follow you until you die, as you will remain its owner until then."

Misa nodded, having expected that. "Right, I know, but I think I've got a better idea. Good prevailed over evil last night, right? I got revenge against the man who killed my parents, and I kept him from robbing or killing anyone else ever again. And the world is better off now because of it. But justice doesn't always come through in the end in other cases. Most prisoners sit in jail, never repenting their actions. Some are even let out, and then just do the same thing they were imprisoned for in the first place! And that's if they even get put in jail to begin with... criminals make everyone else's lives worse. But... what if I changed that?"

"...what do you mean?"

"I mean, what if I got rid of more criminals? With this Death Note, I could make the world a better place! I mean, it wouldn't happen overnight or anything, I know, but I just feel like this is what I'm meant to do!" The young girl was practically bouncing in her seat at the thought. She could be like some sort of superhero, bringing justice to the masses when the government would not!

Rem considered this for a moment before responding. "I do not find that course of action wise, Misa."

The model swiveled in her chair, surprised. "Wha? Why not? I could make lots of people's lives better and make sure criminals never hurt anyone again! What's the problem?"

Rem lowered her head slightly to get closer to Misa's level. "Misa, I know little of the human world, but I know that none of you are perfect in your judgement. Even we Shinigami are not all knowing, and humans are far less so than we. From the limited amount of this world that I have seen from the Shinigami Realm, it seems likely that many of your kind have been accused and imprisoned on false charges. Tell me, how would you be able to tell the difference between the truly guilty and the protesting innocents?"

Misa bit her lip. That was... a legitimate point. "Yeah, okay, I get that some people in jail might be innocent, but I can't just do nothing! You gave me this notebook to protect myself, right? Well, if I can use it to protect others, why shouldn't I? I have to use it to help somehow!" She punctuated this last point with a small fist to the top of her desk.

Rem backed away, not wanting to appear threatening. "Misa, you are free to do as you may with the Death Note. In the end, how it is used is entirely up to you. I am not forbidding you from anything- it is your Death Note, and your decision."

The room was quiet for a moment. Rem's shadow loomed over the majority of the room. Idly, Misa wondered how light could be blocked by a Shinigami at all when they were intangible beings. How did that work?

"I guess... maybe if I make sure to research every criminal for absolute proof of their crimes before I kill them?" Misa's statement was phrased more like a question than anything else. "It'll be slow, but I guess it's still something, and it'll keep me from killing anyone who might be innocent... and if I'm unsure, I'll just skip over them." Yes, that sounded like a safe enough course of action.

Misa made her way over to the couch, near where the Shinigami was standing. The model noted that she had never seen Rem sit, for some reason. A question suddenly popped to the forefront of her brain. "I don't suppose there's some special Shinigami power that can tell me if someone is guilty or evil, is there?"

"No." The response was short and swift.

Misa sighed and flopped down on to the couch. "I didn't think so..."

-Two hours later-

"There, that's enough for now." Misa said as she put down her pen. Yawning, she stretched languidly in her seat. "Phew! This is a lot of work. It took foreeeeeever to research those guys... I think I'll only do a couple a day from now on, I don't get that much free time! It's a good cause and all, but there's only so much I can do per day..."

Misa spun her chair to look at Rem, who hadn't moved since they'd last spoken. "Hey Rem? Do you think that maybe if I vary the cause of death, it won't be so... boring?"

Rem did not move, nor did her expression change. "Do as you wish, Misa."

"Hey, have you heard? Five prisoners over in the Kansai region just up and died of heart attacks a couple of days ago!"

"Yeah, I know, and a couple died over in Hokkaido too! Same day!"

"I think a few died yesterday too, some sort of weird escape attempt accident. Did you see it on the news?"

"This is freaky..."

Light ignored the chatter going on around his desk. He had heard most of this yesterday, save the part about the escape accident. He had to admit, it piqued his interest more than a bit.

'A single incident can be written off as a coincidence, especially given that it took place in a single prison. But simultaneously, from heart attacks? And the same thing happened, on the same day, in a different part of the country altogether? Something strange is going on.' Light thought to himself. '...I wonder if this will continue? There's no way these incidents are just sheer chance.'

The genius cocked his mouth up into a smirk. 'Someone out there is killing criminals, and they're doing it all over the country. I wonder if it's some sort of group...' It would only make sense, unless they had somehow gotten from Kansai to Hokkaido in less than half an hour. 'Shame that they'll probably get caught eventually...'

Light shook himself. Where had THAT thought come from? Sure he had no problem with the end results as they stood, but murder was still murder.

-The NPA Headquarters-

Soichiro Yagami sat at his desk, trying to understand the files that were being placed in front of him.

"So, we've got five prisoners dead of heart attacks in Kansai, and two dead of the same over in Hokkaido? What exactly makes this police business?"

Matsuda nervously swallowed and stood straight, trying to look and act his best in front of the chief. Why had HE been picked to deliver and explain these? "I'm not entirely certain, sir! It seems some people think that the heart attacks were caused by someone deliberately, and they want us to investigate for murder, sir!"

"Did their blood tests come back clean?"

"I'm not sure! You will have to check the files, sir!"

"Matsuda, please stop yelling in my office. And it's chief, not sir."

"Of course, si-! I-I mean, yes, chief."

That taken care of, Soichiro took to examining the autopsy reports. After a few minutes, the chief of police scowled.

"Well, their blood came back clean, and they didn't have any injuries or holes that indicate lethal injection. Unless I missed the memo, I don't think we've developed anything that leaves no trace on the body or in the blood that can cause sudden heart attacks. I'm not seeing any motive to this either, unless our initial checks missed some sort of connection between these seven. This did go through others before it made it all the way up to me, right?" Soichiro looked up at Matsuda for an answer. Matsuda nodded in lieu of yelling and embarrassing himself in front of the one person he needed to impress... again.

The chief sighed. "I think people are just reading too much into a coincidence. It does seem rather odd, so I don't blame them. Let's keep these files around, but I don't think we need to look into it too hard unless some sort of trend develops."

The door opened and Ide stuck his head in. "Chief?"

The police chief looked up. "Yes?"

"Just thought you should know, we just had three more prisoners over in Hokurika die in an escape attempt."

"And, why exactly am I being told this?"

"I'm not sure. Someone thought it should be added as supplementary material to the prisoner heart attacks files."

Soichiro sighed even harder than before. "Now we're getting reports of escape attempts? Just because the deaths are criminals doesn't mean they're all necessarily connected. Why is this being brought to me...?"

A hand reached up to rub wrinkled temples. He had an obligation to look into it, no matter how unlikely anything actually going on was, so he couldn't just ignore it... and he had to admit, so many prisoners dying within a three day proximity DID seem a little odd to just be a coincidence.

"Alright Ide. Just add the files to this folder, and we'll go over it later..."

-Two days later-

Light was sitting in class, his teacher droning on about concepts he'd learned three years ago. As a result, his mind was anywhere but in the classroom. Instead, they were directed towards a different source- namely, the recent prison deaths. Apparently, prisoners were no longer dying of heart attacks, but instead by bizarre accidents. A man had been knocked off a makeshift ladder while trying to escape by a bird flying into his head, crushing his two partner's necks beneath him as he fell. Another escape attempt over on the other side of the country had involved a prisoner attempting to hack his way through a wall with a knife, and somehow ended up slitting both his and another man's throat in the process. Then there was today's, in which a prisoner in Shikoku had managed to choke on an insect that had been lying in their food, only to overturn the table the prisoners were eating on before collapsing, flinging scalding hot soup into the faces of two others and killing them as well.

'No group could do this, they couldn't possibly control a bird or an insect of all things, not in the way they caused those deaths. What IS this?!' This was ridiculous. How were they killing people through such... bizarre means?!

'I think I liked it better when they were killing by heart attack... but how are they doing this in the first place?' There seemed to be no logical explanation to how any person or group could manage such convenient "accidental" deaths and leave no trace whatsoever, at least not that Light had heard of.

'And now, prisoners all over Japan are dying, at an average rate of around three or four a day, if the pattern continues...'

Light smiled thinly. It was almost as if whoever was doing this had some sort of supernatural ability to kill without even being there, instead choosing to literally manipulate reality in their favor, and sit back as their victims died at their leisure. There was so much that could be done with that sort of power...but of course, it almost certainly was something more mundane. But what...? Even he, in all his genius, had no idea.

Though Light was loathe to admit it, he wished HE was the one doing this. People could say whoever was perpetrating these deaths were murderers all they wanted... but in all honesty, he completely agreed with what they were doing. He couldn't see whoever was doing this as murderous- in fact, their deeds were downright heroic. Criminals deserved to die before they could pollute the world even further, and a quick check on the dead criminals' backgrounds had determined them all as extremely, definitively guilty. If he had the ability to do this, he would have been doing the exact same thing, if not more. Light knew, with all the certainty that the sky is blue, that he could make even better use of such a power.

His thoughts wandered back to how anyone could possibly be doing this once again. Could the animals have been electronic? 'No, they would have discovered that upon investigation of the insect, even though the bird flew off.' Was it some sort of elaborate conspiracy? Perhaps the deaths weren't even real... 'My mind must be working at half capacity. That's ridiculous.' For what purpose? Certainly none that he could think of...

Could... could it really be something supernatural in nature?

Light couldn't shake the feeling that the deaths had not been carried out by normal human means. It was a ridiculous conclusion, but...

'Conclusions can wait.' Regardless of how this person or group was doing what it did, the brown haired genius wanted to be a part of it. As a point of fact, his mind had thought of little else for the past few days. This power, this ability to cleanse and remake the world, whatever it was... he wanted it. No, he needed it. He felt almost... empty, knowing that someone else was enacting justice upon the scum of the world, and he wasn't included or even involved.

Yes, Light thought to himself, smirking as he did so. He knew exactly what to do. It was time for him to figure out just who was doing this. Once he did, he would find them, along with their source of power... and take a piece of that power for himself.

For the greater good.

AN: I know absolutely nothing about the police system. I'm sure that scene is entirely, entirely wrong. Sorry about that.

For those that have forgotten, Misa is not stupid. Obsessive, yes, and certainly not on L or Light's level of smarts, but not stupid. She came up with a plan to figure out who Kira was, and it worked. She made a coded message to get Light to come to her, and it worked. She made a disguise to protect her identity, and it worked. Hell, she wouldn't have even been caught if she hadn't left traces of her hairs on the envelopes, and that's a pretty small detail considering how much else she covered. Though, eventually her behavior towards Light would have gotten her caught anyways, and that's her major problem- her dedication to Light/Kira, which caused her to make rather stupid mistakes. I'm putting her at the level of hard-to-catch criminal smarts right now, so she's smart, but not gambit-on-top-of-gambit smarts like Light or L.

No L yet, sorry. He'll be showing up a bit later.

Oh, and, as much as I hate to do this, reviews are far more motivating to keep writing than follows and favorites even if those are nice too. So even if it's just a "good job" or "bad job" (preferably with why), could you drop one on the story? Please?