Chapter Text
Mathematics class is dreadfully boring. Painfully so, despite Light trying to muster up her focus and take it seriously. Science is, unfortunately, uneventful as well. English follows without deviating from the pattern, same goes for Social Studies, and pretty much everything lately. What’s the point of learning things over and over again if she already knows them?
The bothersome repetitiveness of everyday life. Boredom is going to be the death of her, she swears it. Day to day living becomes.. dull, to put it bluntly — and while she supposes she might have a touch of burnout, her family and friends would never guess with how she keeps her grades up. Has to keep her grades up, regardless of how she feels. She’s the Yagami’s eldest daughter, expected to do great things, and she will. She’ll make sure of it.
But god, if it’s not mind numbingly boring to get there. Being the world’s best detective is practically ensured within her reach: she has a genius mind, killer intuition, excellent skills in deduction and detail management, and plenty of experience from aiding her father in his police cases.
If only she could keep her attention on the teacher or the questions on the whiteboard that she’s already answered in her head.
How on Earth can she survive another half year of this school with this mundane of a schedule? And then to top it all off, more jejune work at University! Yea, she supposes she’s excited for it - anyone would be to attend such a distinguished college - but it feels like a hassle, and not even a fun one!
It’s too simple. There’s no challenge anymore. Light has absolutely nothing to complain about, and she knows it. Her parents are happily married, her little sister has A’s and B’s in school, Light herself is well liked and fairly popular with plenty of friends, excellent grades, and an almost guaranteed future in any career path she chooses.
But the world is.. grey. So, so passionless, soulless stone shaded classrooms day in and day out. Wake up to the graceful blinding snow white sunshine peeking through the ash blinds of her bedroom, tread down the graphite streets of the insipid city she’s been stuck in, receive anemic, dove shaded homework in the pale evening hours. Solve simple minded problems, sit for hours on end with nothing but your own mind to listen to, then walk home. Again, and again, and again.
Sterile, bland, and flavourless is the view, the curtain of salvation remaining untouched, unwavering despite her prayers.
Light is a master at blending in, but her internal clock can only tick so much lame time away before she grows agitated. Something, anything, she’s begged, grab her attention! Don’t let her remain a spectator her whole life!
Sadly, when she looks around, all she sees are the same people she’s known for years. Same faces, unchanging motifs, and the lead walls she’s developing a resentment for.
There’s the loud students that like petty arguments, fights, rumours; but that too loses her attention. There’s the artsy ones, but she’s never been the type to find conviction in age old poetry or texts. The others, the hopeless romantics, dying to find “the one,” are but a flock of lost sheep. To think she’d have a “soulmate,” destined to be with her forever and the sappy, gooey slick everyone around here seems to fall for is but a mere roadblock. A distraction that would take away from her studying or her prep academy work. Such a waste of time and yet almost everyone appears infatuated with it.
The only benefit would be gaining the ability to view the world in full color, which would be nice; she’s definitely curious what everything would look like — everyone is taught at a young age how to estimate what colors are around them via the darkness, level of pigment, etc. but seeing them yourself is different, she’s heard — however, it’s a minor change. Color, no color, only one color, it’s all the same to her.
And she’s been staring out the window for the past 20 minutes. In all fairness, if the teacher wanted her attention, he should really be asking tougher questions. They are in their last year of high school after all, they’re supposed to handle harder material.
“Mh?”
Her attention is grasped immediately when she spots what appears to be a.. notebook? Ivory pages turning rapidly as it descends from the sky, the oil colored outer shell shuffling as it falls. Someone probably dropped it, her mind estimates, but no, they couldn’t have. With the distance the book is from any of the school windows plus the height at which it’s falling, if it truly was thrown, it wouldn’t be falling straight down, it would have a curve in its altitude. Regardless, this at least gives her something to do today aside from her tedious schoolwork.
The last twenty minutes of class are, surprisingly enough, filled with newly harboured anticipation. Funny how something so little can create such tension. She doesn’t even know who it belongs to, unable to read any name on the front. There’s pearl toned letters at the top, but thanks to the distance between them, there’s no way to make out what it says. If she points it out to any of her classmates, odds are they’ll investigate it for themselves and she, quite frankly, wants to get to it first.
The class bell eventually rings and she paces herself in arriving to the courtyard. Hurrying to the scene would only cause other students to follow her or join her on her way, and she would honestly prefer to examine the book herself. The chats of other students echo off the wall, emanating from the side classrooms and sitting areas in the lobby nearby.
Checking her locker to wait for the courtyard to clear out, she views herself in the portable mirror inside. Her long steel colored hair rests beautifully in place, her porcelain shirt buttoned up perfectly underneath her stone hued jacket, her silver earrings shimmering in the light. Her professional, excellently manicured look escapes her view as the locker closes, listening to more footsteps pass by her. Casually wandering into her desired area, her revelation awaits her in the moonlit veiled grass.
“Death Note,” written in a thin font in light colored ink. Whoever owns it must know English to a certain degree to prefer to write in it in their own journal. Picking the discarded sacrament up from the dewy, wet grass, her nimble fingers trace over the leather-like texture of the outer cover. No name on the front, no “property of..” or anything, so her next idea is to look for identifiers. Stickers, logos, anything that could relate to another student.
Nothing. She can’t find anything personal on the outside, front or back. It’s got some creases and some bent edges, possibly caused by the fall, but the inside is relatively intact. Watching two talkative students tread past her, she opens the book in search of the owner or anything of interest. Maybe it’s a diary, filled to the brim with mysterious secrets or codes for her to discover.
The first few pages are entirely onyx, solid vanilla shaded writing standing out in bold contrast to the rough paper.
“Death Note — How to use”
Weird name, but ok. Could belong to a group of goths. Who is Light to judge?
“The human whose name is written in this note shall die.”
That’s.. ok. Wow. A bit strong to put on the first page, but regardless, she’s intrigued.
“This note will not take effect unless the writer has the person’s face in their mind when writing his / her name. Therefore, people sharing the same name will not be affected.”
So it’s a fake cursed notebook. Ha ha, very funny. Totally original, huh? Not like it’s been done before in every other new poorly done horror movie these days..
“If the cause of death is written within 40 seconds of writing the person’s name, it will happen.”
Yea, definitely a horror movie trope, and it’s not even a clever one! It’s the same as going “ooh, you pulled a tarot card! You got “death!” Clearly it means you’re going to die!” That’s just shitty writing! The owner seriously couldn’t come up with anything better?
“If the cause of death is not specified, the person will simply die of a heart attack.”
That one came out of a left field, but ok. Way to fill in a plot hole, she guesses. At least they thought about loopholes in their prank. Did someone honestly intend for students to go crazy over this? Anyone could tell this was put together in five minutes.
“After writing the cause of death, details of the death should be written in next 6 minutes and 40 seconds.”
That’s it. The last “rule” on the first page gets Light to close the book. This is ridiculous! How could anyone expect high school students to fall for this?!
Light ended up taking the book home. Does she mention it to anyone? No. What had happened wasn’t her fault anyway. She was thoroughly examining the book to see if she could find who was responsible for this comedically bad joke when her friends came over asking about after school plans, so no, this was not her fault.
If she set the book down, it’d look suspicious. If she set it down after her friends left her alone, someone would see it, remember that Light was holding it, and then try to return it to her, figuring out for themselves what the note details.
She managed to hide the weird main title of the book under her arm when the other students saw it; however, she’s.. still bored. This is probably the most fascinating part of her day as peculiar as it is, so why not keep it? There’s more rules in here that she didn’t get to read yet, plus whoever let it fall towards its doom clearly didn’t care too much about what happened to it or where it ended up. Besides, if anyone reports it as missing, she can return it and look like a good, properly behaving student. Technically it’s not stealing if someone purposefully abandoned it, right?
Unlocking the door to her home, her mother is there to greet her.
“Light, welcome home!” The familiar woman smiles, her warm embrace encasing her daughter. In her storm toned dress, Light can’t find it in her to not hug her mother back, despite knowing she most likely wants one thing.
“Hi mom,” she responds softly, allowing her head to rest on her mother’s gentle shoulder before being released.
“Well? How did it go?”
She called it. Sighing and opening her backpack, she fishes out a sheet of graded answers, handing the packet to her parent.
“It went good. I got 100. I’m still at the top of the class,” she shrugs, her work being viewed a proud nod of approval.
”Very good, Light! Wait until your father sees this! He’ll be so proud!” Her mother exclaims, taking the pack of papers to the table in the living room.
”Yea,” Light replies with a slow nod of her own. “I’m gonna go study, so don’t bother me, please. Tell Sayu that I’m home if she needs me.”
“I understand, honey. Have fun!”
Heading up the stairs, when the teenager manages to her room, her hand snaps to the lock. Two dreary steps forwards and she’s collapsing into her bed with an exhausted sigh. Her homework was luckily short for today, followed by her prep academy and the two hours she spent there practicing problems. Give her a minute to breathe and this is where we get to the fun part.
Her fog toned eyes scan over the second page, same font, writing style, and penmanship, the only difference being the additional rules.
“This note shall become the property of the human world, once it touches the ground of (arrives in) the human world.”
So the notebook is fair game. Whoever threw this onto the ground wasn’t intending to pick it back up, and had planned on leaving it for someone else. She takes it that they won’t report this as stolen either, but still, why go through all the trouble of writing this out? Just to see how much of a fuss it could create?
“The owner of the note can recognize the image and voice of the original owner, i.e. a god of death.”
That’s wonderful. She has a book that was written by someone most likely on a horrible high. Thought they had an out of body experience, met a god of death, and then wrote an evil book about it. Lovely.
“The human who uses this note can neither go to Heaven nor Hell.”
Is that not hypocritical for the person who wrote the rules? After all, if someone made this rule and created this concept, wouldn’t the author too be damned to.. what, purgatory, in theory?
“This is ridiculous,” she mutters, turning the page and scoffing when she sees the list continue. Rule after rule, Jesus, how many did the author write? What’s the point? Tossing the useless item off her bed and onto her desk chair, she digs through her backpack and picks out one of the actual stories she’s been reading for the past week and a half.
This, she thinks, this is an example of a good book. Plot, well-developed characters, not.. whatever that was.
Okay, she might’ve gotten bored again. She’s already helped her younger sister on her algebra questions, watched some of the shoddy drama show that was playing on TV, and studied extra for her science class. Everything from biology to chemistry to tiny, minute details in each chapter of her monotonous schoolbooks.
We’re back to this dreadfully grey area of life. Her interest dies back down and now she feels empty again.
Normal people would probably do drugs. Light, however, refuses to be that counterproductive. Drugs would only take up money, time, and cause her to feel bad in the end. She could go for another walk, or..
Her gaze lands on the notebook. It’s stupid, right? She absolutely knows it’s fake and all, but still.. would be a total waste if nobody used it as intended.. not that she’s a murderer or a psychopath or anything! No, no, she’d never kill anyone! She’s a very moral person! She knows her rights and her wrongs easily, as a good civilian does!
But at the end of day, it is just a prank. Say she maybe did write a name in it like the rules state. That doesn’t make her a murderer or anything!
Oh, what is she thinking?! It’s a book! A book can’t kill anyone! God, this thing has her so wound up! She’s been going insane with nothing to do lately, and look, here something is! An answered prayer, right in her lap, a confusing miracle with no owner other than her, according to its’ own rules.
She retrieves a dark ink black pen from her coal tinted bag, clicking the end of it and thinking.
Whoever’s name she writes, in accordance to these over the top, Hollywood-level-outlandish notes, will die of a heart attack.
Think, Light. Even if it’s an idiotic attempt at a joke, she doesn’t want to write down anyone important in here. That wouldn’t feel right; it would go against the entire concept of the notebook, even if it’s a strange one.
Fine. She’ll play into it. Divine intervention seems to creep its way into her mind, her TV continuing to play the live news segment, a frantic reporter broadcasting a kidnapping. A mugshot is put onto the screen, an older man in his late 40’s with shorter length carbon hair and soot dark eyes.
“The criminal, now identified as former drug dealer and murderer Kurou Otoharada, has barricaded himself as well as up to ten children inside the daycare. Staff attendants are being told to stay calm and are advised by police to protect the children and themselves. It’s a tense arrival as more officers gather by the entrances-“
It’s like the universe wanted her to have something to do. Or to laugh at her for believing in such a silly fantasy-like notion. Either way, she firmly holds her pen and writes down the man’s name, glancing up to ensure she’s spelled it correctly.
There’s a lot of rules in this thing, ok? Excuse her for not reading the entirety of them immediately. If she’s going to keep the book, then there’s no need to frantically skim through it instead of taking her time, but by reading the very first few rules, anyone could get the gist of it. It’s fairly simple to understand in nature — scribble a name down with a face in mind, and the person dies.
She’s got a face, a name, and a magic notebook. Go on, Death Note, prove her wrong. Feel free to stop the horrible criminal on TV anytime now.
She lays back on her bed, her arm held above her face. 20 more seconds, her shiny silver watch ticks. Click, click, clicking down to 10.
Finally the last three seconds. Three, two..
…
“-cording to police, he’s refusing to cooperate and is still actively carrying the pistol he entered with! After circling the building, the officers plan to proceed with caution-“
Ah. So.. it’s fake. No duh there. She should’ve known better, honestly. Letting her arm fall onto her face with a tired groan, she can only imagine the looks of her parents if they saw what she was doing - or rather, attempting to do. It’s absurd, willingly falling victim to an inane practical joke—
“Oh, we’ve got a shocking update! Otoharada is releasing the victims, and here they come! The children are rushing to the police outside, and they look unharmed! The attendants are following, but the attacker is still believed to be inside!”
There’s no way.
“The victims are stating that the man had collapsed inside the daycare! Officers are moving in to investigate the scene..”
Light’s face twists in confusion. This isn’t possible. Even if it’s a coincidence, what are the odds-
“Otoharada is dead! The criminal appears to have suffered a heart attack on the spot!”
No fucking way.
The cameras don’t show the man’s full body, but what is confirmed is that he’s dead. No pulse, no movement, nothing. Otoharada passed roughly 40 seconds after she used the notebook. That is not fiction nor her convincing herself, it is fact. Unarguable and indisputable.
This has to be the freakiest coincidence in the world. There’s no logical way this works..
She’s frozen in shock as the reporter continues to narrate, her trembling fingers gripping the book. Did she.. was that.. her? No, no, it’s not possible. It has to be some weird one in a billion percent chance; it can’t be the notebook! Leaning against the wall, she pulls her legs up to her chest, the foreign item resting on her thighs as she opens it again.
Maybe the rules are worth reading. Maybe. After all, if she didn’t investigate further, she wouldn’t be a very good detective, would she? This is way too complicated to put down and walk away from, especially if there’s even the slightest possibility..
No. No more. This is crazy, downright insane, and Light should have no part in it! She’s a straight A student, a loving daughter, and future detective; she doesn’t need anything to do with some ridiculous murder journal! Killing people is out of the question! She can’t even believe she stopped to think about it, that she tried it with her own pen and hand! Ugh, what was she thinking?!
It doesn’t matter, she attempts to reassure herself as she carefully paces into the convenience store, listening to the soft ding of the entrance bell. She’s a teenager, they’re naturally dumb and curious, but she’s supposed to be smart. Supposed to be as gifted as her mother and as intelligent as her father, yet she still fell for something so naive. For what, exactly? A break from being bored? What a lame excuse for something so unforgivable!
Her younger sister specifically asked for these types of ramen, Light’s slightly quivering hands skittishly picking them up. The walk from home to here has helped her calm down a little, but she can only clear her head so much from such an event. If she was the cause.. would she turn herself in? Is she a criminal, was she a criminal the second she wrote that man’s name down? She still hasn’t told anyone about finding the book, let alone the suspicious rules inside, but if she tells anyone, it’ll look so outlandish..
“Hey, baby!”
Flinching at the shout, her head lifts up from her spot by the grocery isle, her postures straightening and shoulders tight. A guilty conscious weighs on her, she notes, and it isn’t helping her act as if nothing happened. She has a clear view through the frost stained glass at the front of the store, three men pulling up on their motorcycles outside, surrounding a woman that had crossed the street. The logo on the bodies of their vehicles is a skull and bones with various shades of grey — probably more recognizable colors if she could see them, but regardless, they dress like they’re part of a group. Fairly similar styles, outfits, mannerisms, and body language.
Oh, well. That’s just the local thugs for you. Nothing Light can do. It’s to be expected, really. They tend to hang out usually around the bars or the 24/7 clubs downtown, but occasionally they make their way up here to cause trouble. Police don’t bother with them, and who knows how many people they’ve truly harassed or mugged?
“Why don’t you hop on, come for a ride real quick?” One of the guys laughs, patting the back of his bike as he ogles the bright haired lady. With his visor on, it’s hard to make out most of his face, but he’s got a sharp snaggletooth and some type of bandana around his neck.
“N-no, thank you. I’m fine,” the woman replies dubiously, taking an anxious step forwards to get closer to her destination. Cut off short, the other man moves directly into her way with his engine purring, reaching forward to grab her.
“Nah, don’t be like that! Come on, girly, get on! Let’s go.”
His tone’s a little more forceful, earning more of the younger girl’s concerned attention. Slowly inching forwards, she positions herself near the cheap comics directly in front of the window, opening a new idol magazine and continuing to eavesdrop.
“No, I don’t want to! Let me go!” The lady protests, trying to yank her arm away from the older man’s hold. “I don’t know you!”
“Oh, don’t be like that! It’s just cuz you haven’t given us a chance! You haven’t met us yet, babe!” The raven haired man responds, his words drenched in condescension. “I’m Mito Ishida, but they call me Ito in the streets. I can give you the best night of your life!”
“Yea, we’re fun! We’ll handle your purse while you two get it on!” Another thug taunts, clutching the thin cord of the bag on her side.
“No!” She yells fearfully, breaking free from the thug restraining her and fighting for her purse.
When the man releases the strap of the grey bag, the woman ends up falling backwards and stumbling, catching herself right before she tumbles completely. Calling for help, she barely avoids the third member’s large hand aiming for her as he launches an obscene insult towards her. Scampering backwards, she manages to make it halfway across the street before Mito takes off after her, the cheers and jests of his friends following them.
The sound of the truck was so loud as it hit his bike.
There was a loud crunch. Whether it was the bike or the man, Light didn’t look up. Couldn’t. It felt as if she was a statue, still and quiet, like she was trying to pretend she wasn’t even there. The two men frantically shout for their friend, and as the teenager hesitantly peeks up, she can see the remnants of the once polished silver bike in the road. The woman unscathed on the other side, stands there in disbelief, weak legs threatening to crumble beneath her, a fearful look in her eyes.
For a brief second, she makes eye contact with the teen inside the store, and the young girl can’t seem to look away, a subtle tremor wracking her hands. The woman’s voice full of panic screams something about police and an ambulance, and Light gazes back down at the page of the Death Note she had opened and discreetly placed inside the idol magazine.
“Mito Ishida — Traffic accident.”
Seems like it does work.