Disclaimer: Yeah, I don't own Death Note or Slayers. Poo.

Also, tons of DN spoilers here!!

Zelgadiss was startled, to say the least. It wasn't every day a book fell from the sky. But he figured that maybe some passing flying sorcerer or someone had dropped it. Except he couldn't see anyone in the sky. So of course, he did the only logical thing to do. He walked over and picked it up.

He couldn't read the cover, to his dismay. It was in some language he didn't recognize. Opening it up, he found more unintelligible marks on the inside cover. But the lined pages inside were blank. In the back, there was a scratched-out box. Beneath it were these sentences written in common:

Death Note

How to Use It:

The human whose name is written in this note shall die.

This note will not take effect unless the writer has the subject's face in their mind when writing his/her name. Therefore, people sharing the same name will not be affected.

If the cause of death is written within 40 seconds of writing the subject's name, it will happen.

If the cause of death is not specified, the subject will simply die of a heart attack.

After writing the cause of death, the details of the death should be written in the next 6 minutes and 40 seconds.

Zelgadiss' eyes flitted over the page. No way. This had to be some sort of a hoax or something. Something like death couldn't be that easy. On the other hand, he'd heard of death spells, but the caster still had to be in the vicinity of the person he was casting on. And it could be countered. Could this be countered? He had no idea. He glanced around, but of course no one was wandering down this back road today, other than him. He quickly hid it in his pack and sprinted to the next village.

He secured himself a room in a shady inn and took out the book. The human whose name is written in this note shall die... Note, huh. It looked like an expensive journal to him. People usually wrote on parchment unless they were rich. He flipped through the pages... yes, all blank. Just making sure.

So... how to test it...

He had to find out immediately if it worked. So that meant, it had to be someone in this inn. He'd seen plenty of shady figures around that he was sure the world would be better without, but he didn't know any of their names. The only name he knew was that of the innkeeper. Sure, why not. He'd been rude before, and it wasn't like anyone would be able to trace his death back to Zelgadiss.

So he wrote the name. "Tandis Wher." Should he have him die of a heart attack, or something more specific? More specific. He didn't like to leave anything to chance. "Stabbed by one of the guests in his inn. Screams as loud as he can, then dies."

Six minutes and forty seconds later, he heard a scream downstairs, and some shouts. Zelgadiss' mouth dropped. No way... No way. This was real!

Then... he'd just killed an innocent person. A sadistic grin began to spread across his face. Yes, he'd just killed someone, and all it took was a few scratches on a page. Think of what he could do with this power! Maybe he could find a way to use it to find his cure. No, better! He could use it to... Nah, he didn't really have any desire to rule the world. It was too full of filth anyway. So what should he do with it?

He shrugged. But wait... what about the sorcerer who'd dropped it? No doubt he or she would be after it. He had to get out of here, and now. He snapped the book shut, packed up, and levitated to the ground. He had to get away from here, as fast as possible. So he sprinted down the road as fast as he could.

"Oi, what're ya runnin' from?" A voice behind him. Zelgadiss whipped around to find, right in front of him...

A demon. Sure, he'd met tons of demons before, but this one took the cake. His huge, unblinking eyes stared at him, his wide mouth was grinning. But if there was one thing he'd learned about demons, it was that the uglier they were, the less power they had. So he'd make quick work of this one. He started chanting.

"Eh? What're ya doin'? Chantin' a spell? Heh." The being chuckled a little. "What're ya doin' that for?"

"RA TILT!" Zelgadiss unleashed the spell, enveloping the demon in white flames. Btu something felt wrong. When you cast a spell, you cast it on a target. And this time... he felt like there hadn't been a target to begin with. A hallucination?

The being laughed out loud. "Really. Something like that ain't 'nough ta hurt me. But at least yer not screamin' yer head off or anything." He held out his hand. "Nice ta meetcha. I'm Ryuk."

Zelgadis didn't take the hand. "Ryuk. All right Ryuk, what are you? An overworlder?"

Ryuk laughed. Again. "Heh. I guess you could say that. Not quite, though. I'm a shinigami."

"A shini...gami?" Zelgadiss blinked. "Are you here to kill me or something? Because if you are, I won't—"

"Heh, you got spunk, Zelgadiss. I like that. But there ain't nothin' you can do to a shinigami. But don't worry... I'm not here ta kill ya. Yet, anyway."

"Really. Then why are you here?"

"'Cuz. That's my notebook you've got there." He pointed at the spot where the notebook was hidden beneath Zelgadiss' cloak.

"Really," Zelgadiss said. "Are you here to take it back?"

"Nah, it's yours. Soon as it landed in this human world, it belonged to the human world. And now, it belongs to you." He pointed a long fingernail at Zelgadiss.

"I see. Then what do you want?"

"Heh heh. Simple. While you've got that notebook, I gotta follow you around."

"Terrific. So I'm going to have this huge shinigami following me around. Not suspicious at all..." Zelgadiss said half to himself, rolling his eyes.

"Ah, don' worry 'bout that. No one can see me. 'Less they touch the notebook, 'course."

"Oh. Well, that's good." Zelgadiss said. "So no one's after this notebook?"

"Nope."

"Then I can use it freely without worrying about getting caught..."

"Well, I dunno about that. Humans can be pretty smart, ya know."

Zelgadiss smirked. "I can be pretty smart, too. So, anything else I need to know?"

"Yeah, tons. To start... let's see... oh, I might as well tell ya, it might make things more interesting for me. You can control the victim's actions for 28 days before he dies. That's the notebook's limit." His grin widened a little. "The last owner found that one out for me."

"Okay... Who was this last owner?"

"No one you know, I promise."

"All right. What else?"

"Well. If you use this notebook, you won't be goin' ta heaven or hell. But you'll figure out that after you die."

"Great. Would've been nice to know that before I used it... What else?"

"Well, in the end, I'm gonna be the one to kill ya. With my notebook." He patted the notebook strapped to his thigh.

"Hmm. And when will that be?"

Ryuk chuckled. "Same as it was for the last guy, Zel. When I get bored."

"I guess I'll have to keep you interested then."

"Yeah, I guess so!" Ryuk looked like he was having a blast.

"Anything else?" Zelgadiss asked.

Ryuk shrugged. "Don't get greedy. I already told you plenty."

Zelgadiss half-growled. "I said, anything else?"

Ryuk snerked. "Persistent, aren't ya. I'll make you a deal. I've got a hankering for apples. Find me ten of 'em, and I'll tell you more."

"Fine, fine," Zelgadiss sighed. Where was he going to get apples? He doubted there would be an orchard just lying around. "You'll have to wait until we get to a city, though."

"Fine wi' me. Just hurry up."

"Fine." The sooner he found the apples, the sooner he got his answers. So Zelgadiss sprinted as fast as he could down the road, the shinigami keeping pace with him in the air.

Zelgadiss covered himself up when he entered the city, which made the shinigami laugh again. "Aw come on, yer not that ugly. Actually, compared with most humans, I think you look purty interestin'. Most of them look soo boring."

"Gee, thanks," Zelgadiss mumbled through his white mask.

"Naw, really. I mean you're still purty boring and dull lookin', but at least you don't have that ugly pale or brown skin most humans have. So dull."

Zelgadiss didn't even dignify that with a response. This was going to be hell, wasn't it, listening to this shinigami for the rest of his life...

But Ryuk didn't take the hint. "The last guy I was with looked really boring. Lotsa girls seemed ta like him, but I don't get what was so special about how he looked. He looked just like everyone else. Luckily his brain was interestin'. Got all these weird ideas about purifying the world and stuff... He failed, of course, heh heh. Death Note owners don't tend to last very long in the human worlds... Didn't really expect it to happen like it did to Light, though. That was his name, you know. Light. He was damned interesting... Once he died, it got pretty borin' for me, ya know. So I went ahead and dropped the notebook in your world instead. Oh, yeah, in case you were wonderin', the other guy was in a different world. You'd know it if it was yours. He really changed that world all right... for the better, I think. More interesting. Everyone was really afraid and stuff... oh, but only a little after he died, it changed right back. Oops, too bad, I thought. Then some a' my friends decided to see what would happen if they continued Kira's work. That's what they called Light, you know. Kira. But they got bored and stopped, and that was the end of it."

God, ramble, ramble, ramble. All this guy did was ramble on. Zelgadiss sighed.

"Not chattin' with me? Oh well, I get the idea. Don't want to look weird—well, any weirder than ya already do, right! Heh heh!"

Zelgadiss' eyebrow twitched. Ah! There! Apples! Finally. He bought twenty. Ryuk kept silent for the next thirty seconds drooling over them, to Zelgadiss' satisfaction. But then he started right up again.

"Well, s'all right. Light did the same thing, ya know. Heh heh. Damn, those were good times. I hope you keep me as interested as he did, Zel!"

Zelgadiss found a suitably cockroach-infested inn and rushed up to his room, where he slammed the door shut. He glared at the shinigami, eyebrow twitching.

"I suppose that maybe," Zelgadiss began, "It would be too much to ask for you to keep your big mouth shut?"

"Aw, that's not very nice..."

Zelgadiss took out an apple from his pack. Ryuk drooled. "Let's just say I'll be more inclined to give you these if you keep quiet once in a while."

"Heh... all right, you're the boss..." Zelgadiss tossed him an apple, and he ate it whole.

"All right then. I got you the apples. So tell me. What else do I need to know?"

"Well, it wouldn't be any fun to tell you everything at once..."

"Really, Ryuk," Zelgadiss said. "Wouldn't it be more fun to watch me use the Death Note to the best of my ability?"

"Eh, I guess..."

"Then tell me. What else do I need to know?"

"Well," Ryuk said, lying down on the bed, "There's the eye deal."

"What's that?"

"You give me half your lifespan, and I give you my eyes."

"Half my lifespan...? Hm... What do your eyes do exactly?"

"Heh." Ryuk chuckled. "With shinigami eyes, you can see a person's name and lifespan by looking at their face."

Zelgadiss' breath hitched a little. That was the hardest part about using the Death Note: you had to know a person's name. But if he had the eyes... he'd be practically unstoppable. "Half of my lifespan... that's a lot, Ryuk." So that was how Ryuk had known Zelgadiss' name in the beginning. He'd wondered a little about that.

"Yup, sure is. But don't bother asking me how much lifespan ya got. I can't tell ya. Against the rules."

"The rules?"

"Yep. Shinigami have ta follow rules. But I'm not gonna tell you what they are, so don't ask."

Zelgadiss sighed. "Fine, fine." But without the eyes... the Death Note was practically useless. With them... he could do anything. Almost. But half his lifespan... Well, he'd worry about that later. "One more thing. How far can you control people's actions before they die?"

Ryuk shrugged. "Pretty damn far. You can't make 'em do the impossible. And you can't make 'em do something they normally wouldn't be able ta do. Like Light... well, he tried to see if he could get someone to write something they didn't know. He couldn't." Ryuk looked at Zelgadiss, and grabbed the apples from his pack. "But that's the last freebie. Yer gonna hafta figure out the rest yerself." To Zelgadiss' disgust, Ryuk then began shovelling the apples down his throat. Zelgadiss looked away.

"Only ten for now, Ryuk. That was the deal."

"Aww, but..."

Zelgadiss took the pack and put it under the bed. "More later."

"Eh... all right I guess... So what're ya gonna do wi' the Death Note? Something interesting, I hope."

"Yes, Ryuk, I think you could say that."

"Then what?"

Zelgadiss grinned. "I'm going to find my cure, of course." A plan had already begun forming in his mind.

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A/N: Like? Love? Hate? Tell me! Pwease? Pretty pwease?

Oh, and let me know if I've gotten a fact wrong somewhere. XD And if I should post this somewhere else. I couldn't find a crossovers category...