Chapter 1

Birth

Koyuki Maki lay in the hospital bed, her head swam as she tried to focus on one thing, the window, the ceiling the many masked doctors running about. She just wanted to go to sleep now but she had to stay awake. A dagger of pain erupted through her forcing away some of the fog that in pared her consciousness. "It's crowning!" she heard one man say to the other doctors,

the words sounded like soup to her. More pain caused her to break her silence with a shriek "Ok, ok, it's alright just try to breath on three," a man said patting her hand gently in an attempt to calm her down, "one, two, three" he continued and Koyuki took as many deep slow breaths as she could as the man counted to ten, "Alright, now push!" Koyuki did as she was bid and forced pressure throughout her body in an attempt to force out the child. A few seconds later she heard a loud whining sound, it broke through all her pain, and in that moment the birth cries of her child became the most beautiful sound in the world.

If only the child's father had been there to hear it, she thought, he would have liked it. But he would never hear, he was dead, shot during a mafia gang raid, shot to death just two weeks before the birth of his child. "It's a girl," the swimming voice pronounced. A girl. And with that Koyuki Maki of Osaka, Japan, passed out.

"Miss Maki?" Koyuki stirred to show she was alive but made no other move, she was too tired to move. "Miss Maki?" What? Couldn't she get any sleep around here? She opened her eyes slowly, trying to adjust to the sudden light. She was in a typical white-walled hospital room, the curtains were open to let in the... setting sun? It had been night during the birth so how was the sun just now setting? A horrible thought occurred, it was the next night.

"How long have I been asleep?" she asked the nurse who was tending the pitcher of water on the bedside table.

"Almost a day, Ma'am." she said. A day! Koyuki didn't have any family or friends with money to pay her bills if she let something like giving birth get in the way of her work, she couldn't afford to miss any more days or she and her new daughter would be out on the streets.

"I have to leave now," she told the nurse, "Please bring me my child so we can go."

"Miss, you have only had one day to recover your strength, please wait." but Koyuki was already standing and gathering her cloths from the chair by the bed, she had redressed herself by the time the nurse had finished her sentence. She was doing fine for someone who had given birth less then 24 hours ago.

Then on her way to the door she was overcome by a wave of dizziness and would have fallen if not for the nurse who helped her to steady herself. "Please, miss you must lie back down." the worried nurse said.

"No, I have to leave now please bring me my child." Koyuki had righted herself enough to stop the room from spinning.

"But..." the nurse began but Koyuki didn't want any more arguments and had left the room. Down the spinning hallways and through a double doors, she went into the room where the newborns were kept with the help of a thin pale woman she found which child was hers, and within a minute or so she had filled in the parents space of the birth certificate. But when it came to the child's name she was undecided.

"I'll come back another time with it filled out but I can't think of a name right now," she told the woman.

"Alright but make sure you bring the certificate back within the next few days." Koyuki swayed noticeably, "maybe, you should take a cab?" the woman offered.

By the time the cab had arrived it was dark, the driver was a plump man with black hair and a black stubbled beard, in his right hand he held a cigarette, in his cup holder, a can of bear. Koyuki got in the cab placing the hospital baby carrier on the seat to her left. The driver turned to her, "Where to?" he asked. His breath stank of alcohol and smoke.

"Um... two blocks down and then turn right," she said trying to store up fresh air in her lungs before the door closed.

"Kay," the man said. The baby girl had woken from her sleep with a cry, if she had been older it would have been one of fear, but her mother didn't understand what she meant to say. "Hey lady, keep your kid quiet, ok?"

Koyuki resisted the urge to glare at the cabby, as she worked to hush her daughter. The cab neared a stoplight, the child began to whine and Koyuki attempted to quiet her again. The cabby's limbs seamed to relax suddenly, then tensed as he let out a scream of pain. Koyuki felt the cab lunge forward into the busy intersection, she grabbed her daughter from the carrier as the cab was hit from several angles at once.

The sides were all crushed and Koyuki felt her side smash into something sharp, she let out a scream of pain. It was then that she noticed something her child had been silent since the cab was crushed, Koyuki lifted her head to look at her child, the girl stared back with steel grey eyes. Her eyes were different from other newborns, a cold silver-grey as opposed to the normal blue that all babies had at birth, they weren't Koyuki's eyes or the girls father's.

Something warm dripped down her side.

She smiled at her daughter.

She could almost hear her heart slowing. She removed the large silver heart necklace she had received from the girl's father.

She became aware of a hissing noise.

The pendant alone was probably solid silver and probably worth a lot.

Her side bleed more of her lives blood.

She had never considered selling the necklace even though she needed the money.

The pain was unbearable.

She placed the necklace around the girls neck.

The gas tank exploded as Koyuki clutched her daughter close.

The smoke cleared but a fire still burned, all the observers and all the other cars in the wreck had either died or fled the explosion. A lone man walked slowly though the wreckage, he stopped by the cab driver and kicked his limp foot, checking to make sure he was really dead. The body didn't move. "That's what you get, you stupid bastard." the man said and turned to leave. He was taking his first step back across the wreckage when a small noise caught his attention, he turned and walked toward it, a smarter man may have fled the scene of a murder he had caused, but the man wasn't worried.

The sound had come from beside a piece of metal, part of the cab no doubt. Upon closer inspection, the man found a woman's body, in one bloody fist she had crumpled a birth certificate, in the other arm she supported a baby. The strange thing was the baby not only lacked any mark of the accident, but also it was starring right over the man's shoulder and cooing gently.

Reaching for something, but there was only one thing behind him: his shinigami, and of course there was no way the child could see it, much less reach for it. The man suddenly had a strange urge, he bent down and pried the birth certificate from the woman's hand. The parent was Maki, Koyuki, date of birth: September 18th 1980, name: ..., wait there was no name, the man turned a fraction of an inch to his left, suddenly deciding to test a theory. "Kyu, what's this child's name?" he asked the shinigami behind him.

"You know I can't tell you peoples names," Kyu answered, "besides you shouldn't need the death note to kill a baby,"

"I'm not going to kill it, I just wanted to know if you could see it's name with your eyes," the man said back. The shinigami focused for a second, then turned away from the child's grey eyes,

"I cannot see the child's name, for it has none," Kyu said.

"Thought so" the man said to himself, so if the child had no name, then the death note couldn't kill it. He thought for a moment then reached down and picked up the child.

"What are you doing?" Kyu asked.

"If there are people in the world that the death note can't kill, then I want to make sure they're not a problem for me," the man answered. "If I gave the child a name would I be able to kill it?" he asked.

"No," Kyu answered, "only a name given to someone by their parent can be used as their real name."

"Right then, well, I guess I'll just have to watch this girl then."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Six years later, a young black-haired girl ran down the street, she wore a short shirt colored with purple dark brown and turquoise in a striped pattern with the faded colors crossing each other in thin streaks, a white button up shirt that had been stained with patches of brown from dirt and wear. Around her neck was a large silver heart necklace on a silver chain, she stopped at a street corner and looked around for a moment, before taking out a piece of red colored taffy and putting it in her mouth, she chewed it until she was sure the inside of her mouth had turned red, then tucked it under her tongue.

With that done, she ran up to a woman with a large, full-looking, purse. She made to run past, but her timing was right on and she reached her just as the woman stuck her foot out to take a step. The girl's foot caught on the woman's and she fell forward, caching herself on her hands as only years of practice had taught her how to do without looking like it, as she quickly lowered herself to the ground in order to look like she had fallen hard, she coughed out some of her red dyed saliva onto the ground in front of her. It had worked. The woman turned to the fallen girl.

"Are you alright?" she asked in a worried voice, "I'm so sorry." the girl chewed the red taffy some more before pushing it back under her tough and getting to her knees. The woman laid a hand on her back. "Are you ok?" she asked again.

"Ye-..." the girl started then coughed out more red. The woman was worried, the girl could tell without even turning around.

"Oh my," the woman said, "I am sorry, please let me help you up." the woman said as she began to move. Now.

"No, I'm fine." the girl said and tried to get up while moving forward, she slipped and knocked over the woman's purse as she tried to regain her balance. She coughed up some more red as she use the hand that had grazed the woman's purse to cover her side and ran off. The woman got to her feet, as she watched the girl's retreat. Then she picked up her purse and walked away.

The girl ran to the next corner then right after she turned around it she ducked down a side ally, ran to the end and just as she was about to hit the wall of the dead end ally, she turned right and sprinted down behind a street-front house. As she came to another wall a latter came into focus, she leapt on to the third rung up and climbed to the top without a break in momentum. At the top was a broken window, the glass had been removed completely after it broke so she didn't cut herself climbing in an out, inside, she took a second to adjust to the dim light, all the windows were boarded up with the exception of the one she had climbed through.

A man sat in a wooden chair on the other side of the room, he had brown hair and brown eyes, a scar stretched across his left eye. He was tanned from hours in the sun, and wore jeans and a white t-shirt under a black leather jacket. "Anything?" he asked her.

"Yep," she answered proudly holding up a brown leather wallet strained to the point of ripping by its contents. "I got lots, lady on the street was a real softy, probably hasn't missed it yet." the girl swallowed her taffy.

"What's in it?" the man asked her.

"Lets see," the girl said opening the wallet and ruffling through its contents. "Checks, 'bout hundred fifty bucks cash, credit cards, pictures with names on the backs, driver's license, and a photo id." she finished.

"Give it here." the man said and the girl slid the wallet across the floor to him.

"Anything else?" the girl asked.

"Nope, not now." the man answered. The girl saw how absently he had answered her so she just went over to sit by Kyu the shinigami.

She was quiet for a while then, "Are you gonna kill her?" she asked sounding a little worried, "I mean, she was real nice to me." she finished, even though she had been living with the man and his shinigami all her life, the killing of some targets still bothered her a lot.

"No." the man said and the girl sighed with relief. He never killed people she stole from off the streets, just people in house jobs. And even then it was rare.

"We have a job tonight." he announced after several more minutes of silence.

"Really, where?" she asked.

"Some uptown joint, borrowed money from me and hasn't paid me back." oh, another collection She thought, people in those jobs almost always died.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

That night the two of them got ready for the job to come. Neither went armed, it wasn't necessary with the death note. They took a cab up to some place in a gated community, it was near midnight when the two arrived at a large white mansion-house on a street surrounded by other large mansions. They were close to London she could tell, there was just a smell in the air that told her they hadn't gone far from their hideout in central London.

They got out of the cab and walked up to the front door of the house, the building seemed to loom over the girl, casting dark shadows even at this hour. "So, how long until he dies?" she asked, she new he had already written his name it the death note, she could just tell. There was something about the death note and the victim that she could sense from a great distance, it was like a red aura that surrounded the death note when it was being used on someone, and the person it was being used on. She could feel it from several miles away any time between when the name was filled out and when it took affect, but she couldn't tell when it would take effect.

"3, 2, 1, now." the man said in a hushed tone as the aura intensified, then went out. There was a scream from inside that knotted the girl's stomach as it faded.

"Thirty-four." she whispered to herself.

Then there was a disturbance at one of the lacy windows. Something was wrong, but before she could say anything the door was open and a team of policemen came running out. The girl didn't wait for instructions, she just ran off to her right and into the shadows of the decorative garden. She crouched behind a rose bush and listened. None of the police had seen her and the man wouldn't give her away... or would he? As she watched he was confronted by the police. He was told that he was believed to be the burglar who had killed many people and stolen a number of valuable items. There were thirty-four victims in all. "Yes, I did it." he said, was he insane? But then he did something else, something that was not as crazy. He took the death note out of his bag, causing a noticeable reaction from the policemen, then he threw the notebook in the general direction of where she was hiding. It crashed through the bushes and landed a few feet away on the surface of the properties immaculate lawn. Two or three policemen followed the object, but the girl had already taken it and was running across the lawn at top speed.

She had crossed the lawn and was splashing through the small manmade stream by the time the policemen had passed the bushes, she was out of sight. She only had enough time to hear the man, her only father figure in the world say, "I relinquish ownership of this death note!" before she was on the highway that wound around the back of the property.

She ran until she reached a road sign that proclaimed "London 5 miles" she was out of breath and needed to do some thinking now. So she slid down the steep bank by the sign and sat in the ditch, it had lots of garbage in it and smelled kind of weird but she needed to rest.

She took out the last piece of taffy she had and chewed it thoughtfully, the sugar cleared her mind and two things became instantly clear to her. 1) the death note was now hers, and 2) she was all alone. She opened the black book and looked at the last page that was filled out, this page had ruined her life. She thought, as she ripped it from the book and through it in a muddy puddle. Kyu would probably show up tomorrow, but then what? She had nothing left. She would go to London, she decided as her consciousness slipped away, just as the sun rose.