Days had already gone by since K first joined the Kira investigation. This particular day, it was nighttime, and the young woman was walking back to her apartment by herself. The streets were silent, until there was a loud crash in the bushes behind her, as if something fell. K jumped slightly and turned around, alert and in a fighting stance. But there was nothing there. The only sign that the silent peace had been disturbed was a small dent in the symmetry of a bush. Curiously, she walked to the scene to find…
"A notebook?" K asked aloud, holding up the black notebook to get a better look at it. "Since when do notebooks just randomly fall from the sky…?" She looked up, feeling that the theory that someone from a few stories above her had dropped it deserved to be tested. After realizing that it was a stupid idea, she looked back down at the notebook.
"It's called a Death Note." The sudden gruff voice behind K caught her off guard, and she jumped, and spun around.
"You really shouldn't sneak up behinf peop- WAAAAH!" She stopped in mid-sentence (and mid-turning) to see a terrifying creature who owned the voice that spoke to her. K fell to the ground in shock and stared at the creature with wide eyes. She started shaking a little.
"Well, that was rude," the creature muttered. It looked like a walking skeleton, though it was probably a foot or so taller than any average human (with K's height, he would be almost two feet taller) and was wearing an open dark brown jacket with black pants. It had a head of brown hair, which was spiked up, and had a thick ribbon the color of deep red tied around his forehead and hairline. In its dark, empty-looking sockets of eyes it had red pupils that faintly glowed. Strapped to the creature's back was a club or staff of some sort that looked as if it was made of vertebrae, and was probably around five feet long.
K gulped and tried to calm herself a little. "Who…. What… are you…?"
"My name is Yizumi. I am a Shinigami. That Death Note you have there… It used to belong to me, before I dropped it here," the Shinigami Yizumi told her.
"Sh-Shinigami…?" K looked down at the notebook. Death Note…? Was this… was this the murder notebook she was told about? It's connected to a Shinigami… It has to be. She took a deep breath and pulled herself onto her feet. Though she was still a little shaken, she looked right into the Shinigami's eyes. A bit of a nervous smile showed, but she made it look confident.
"Death Note, huh? I've heard of something kind of like that. A notebook that kills people when the victim's name is written in it, right?"
The Shinigami looked a little surprised. A human that already knew about Death Notes…? That was rare. It made him curious to know how this was going to go. He answered with a reply simply of "Yeah."
"Are you down here to get it back, or what?" K looked up at the sky. "How'd you drop something like this, anyway? And how could you, so carelessly?"
"I can't just take it back. It's yours now," Yizumi replied.
"…Huh? What do you mean, it's mine now?"
"When a Death Note is dropped in the Human World, it belongs to that world. So when it fell, it belonged to no one. When you picked it up, it became yours."
"So why are you here?"
"As the Shinigami who dropped the Note, I'm obligated to stay around the human Owner 24/7. Don't ask me why; I don't write these rules."
"You didn't answer my question about why you dropped it."
"I saw all this stuff going on in the Human World because a human found a Death Note, so I decided to try it for myself. I thought it'd be fun."
K looked at the notebook, then around her. Because of her scream, people were starting to try to figure out what had happened. She hugged the notebook to her chest and started to walk quickly away from the scene to home, and Yizumi followed with a slightly alarmed expression.
When K was inside her apartment, she made sure Yizumi was inside before checking the hallway and locking the door.
"Alright, Mr. Shinigami. I've got some more questions for you." K looked up at him with full confidence now, ready to get answers.
"Eh… Ask away, I guess…"
K walked into the kitchen and set the Death Note on the counter, then went into the refridgerator and pulled out a package of strawberries. As she cut them up, she started her interrogation.
"So, how exactly does the ownership deal work?"
"The only part of it that you don't know is that if you give up your ownership of the Note, you lose your memories. Oh, and as the Owner, only you can give the notebook to other people. I can't."
"Interesting… What purpose do Death Notes have in the Shinigami World, anyway?"
"Shinigami survive by killing humans. The remaining lifespan of the humans they kill go to the Shinigami. And we're only allowed to kill humans using the notebooks; If we kill a human any other way, we'll be punished severely."
"If you need a name and a face to kill a human, how do you find that out? Do you use tactics like this?" K motioned at the notebook.
"No, but it does seem like a fun way to find a victim. I kill you any time I want, after all." Yizumi leaned in close to K's face. "It's all in the eyes. A Shinigami's eyes can see a human's name and lifespan. We're able to look down on the Human World from the Shinigami Realm and find a human, see their name, and find out how much of their lifespan we can get from it. You know, you can also perform a trade with a Shinigami to get the eyes."
K paused from her snack-cutting to look up at him.
"There's a way for me to gain the ability to see someone's name and lifespan, eh? But you said a trade. What do I have to give you?"
"Half of your remaining lifespan."
Almost immediately, K snorted at the idea, and she started to put the cut up strawberries into a bowl.
"Give up half of my life for that? As nice as it would be to see my employer's names, I really won't have much of a use for it other than that. A waste of life on my part, if you ask me."
"Eh? Alright. Just keep in mind that the offer's always open." Yizumi leaned away and followed K as she took the bowl of strawberries and the notebook into the living room and sat down on the couch. As she started munching on her snack, Yizumi looked at the bowl curiously.
"Can… can I try that?" he asked. K blinked, then nodded and held the bowl up to him. He took a slice of the red fruit and popped it into his mouth. There was a pause, then he reached for another slice. Then another. Then another.
"These fruits, they are… delicious! So… sweet! And juicy!" K couldn't help but to smile a little at this.
"So you like strawberries? Well, help yourself. We've got a long night of questions ahead of us.."