Yeah, I know, I said this wasn't getting worked on until after I finished with SL5DH, but I ran into a concrete roadblock of writer's block on that. So, I decided to go back and start working on Rewriting a bit.
Disclaimer: I'm fairly sure that if I owned even one Death Note, the world would be screwed so badly, it isn't even funny. Let alone if I owned a whole franchise. Be grateful.
Chapter 1 - Rebirth
(Also known as "A Shinigami, I presume?")
Raito stared out the window, idly tapping a pencil against the notebook he was writing his story in, giving off no outward indication of how agitated and annoyed he was with his mind at the moment.
Sure, he thought spitefully. I can do rote memorization and math at late college level in high school, but writer's block defeats me? How pathetic am I?
Suddenly his eyes caught a flash of movement from outside the window. A slight frown wrinkled his forehead. A black notebook with white words on it had just been thrown off the roof. Death Note, he caught. In English, a language he just so happened to be proficient in due to his mother being half English. What?
"Yagami-san?" the teacher asked. "Can you translate the sentence on the board?" A vicious smirk graced his face. The teacher hadn't taken kindly to Raito outright ignoring everything he taught, and still being the best in the class and had made it his personal mission to catch Raito in a slip-up. So far he had been failing spectacularly.
Raito sighed. Those two words had given him an idea for a new story, about the ancient idea of Shinigami, and effectively ended his writer's block. From the look on his teacher's face, he knew full well that Raito had just had an idea. Still, rather than argue, Raito just stood up and translated effortlessly. That was what they got for not letting a raised bilingual student drop his secondary languages class. Honestly, it was so annoying. Raito sat down and began scribbling on his battered and beaten-up notebook of ideas. Pretty soon he forgot about the notebook that had sparked it all in his joy at having beaten his two month long writer's block.
After school, the notebook was brought back to the front of his mind when, on his way home, he spotted the black notebook lying cover-down on the wet grass of the lawn. Figuring that if, by five hours after he had seen it be thrown, no one had picked it up, no one would mind if he picked it up and took a look at the story someone had, presumably, abandoned. Perhaps he could find a way to blend it in with his own as a tribute to the creator? Who knew?
So, Raito crossed the lawn and picked it up to bring home and take a look at.
Raito entered his house with his usual flair. "TADAIMA!" he yelled while running up the stairs as if the Grim Reaper itself was after him.
Sachiko stuck her head out of the kitchen, looking up at the ceiling, shaking her head and exasperation.
"Kids these days," she sighed, before going back to making dinner, American chili.
Raito swung his backpack carelessly over the footboard of his bed before swinging around and sitting down at his desk, excited to see what exactly the story with the title that had killed his writer's block was about. He opened it and found... a bunch of rules in English? Intrigued, he read on, with growing exasperation. Didn't this author realize how badly he was constraining himself with all these oddly specific rules? And the subject matter...Raito could imagine some more gruesome ways to die. As far as he could tell, this was written by some wannabe horror writer, most likely only in middle school given the mildness but homicidal intentions behind these rules.
He rather thought the death by heart attack thing was good enough, though. More painful than some, less painful than others.
Raito sighed in exasperation, grabbed a pen and began crossing out rules here and changing others there. He had no idea what sort of havoc he was causing in the Shinigami Realm. He was the first human to ever try changing the rules, and apparently, it could be done. Every Shinigami's Death Note was getting changed to reflect the changes in the rules Raito was making.
At the end of the rules, Raito expected to find a story that had been begun, but instead found absolutely nothing, just a bunch of blank pages.
"What the hell?" Raito asked. "Someone goes to all the trouble of creating all those rules, only to kill the story before it gets started? Do they have no pride as a writer? Oh well. Just gives me more leeway."
He inspected both his old, battered notebook and the slightly water-marked black notebook. He supposed he could transfer his story, and not have to change it too much to fit the newly modified rules he had made.
Ayame, the god of the gods, original creator of life, was going to have to drop her Rebirth Note, and guide the finder of the Note to help her create more Gods of Life and Death. Ayame could kill any human or animal on Earth, but only a human killed by another human using her Rebirth Note could create a Shinigami or a Seigami. With a heavy heart and a feeling of ominous foreboding that this was not going to end well, Ayame hovered over the portal to the Human Realm and dropped her notebook. the bejeweled black cover twinkled as it fell, spinning slowly like a spider on its thread...
With a sigh, he grabbed a pencil, and started writing out the beginning of his story in the named notebook.
Ayame sighed as she surveyed her domain. Or rather, her former domain. The recent civil war between the Shinigami and the Seigami had completely and uttered destroyed her realm. There was no place left for the evenly balanced souls to go anymore. She had no choice. She was going to have to use the Last Resort.
A few days later, Raito would realize exactly how lucky he was that he never used names of people he actually knew.
Five days later
A storm was raging outside while Raito was writing again and listening to the news. He had found it helped him to get inside the head of the insane Marquis Erebus Malibon, the French nobleman from around the 1750s, who found the Rebirth Note that Ayame had dropped. Erebus had yet to listen to Ayame, who was getting quite angered at his constant refusal to listen to her. At present, Erebus had yet to notice that his wife through an arranged marriage was growing more fearful and closer to her breaking point. She had a hidden streak of violence that was growing closer to the surface the more Erebus beat her. Raito quite frankly was slightly scared of his own imagination, something that he quite often rediscovered while writing this gory, horror novel that was quickly becoming his focus.
As a flash of lightning flashed across the sky, a dark chuckle filled the room, startling Raito out of his trance of writing a story of betrayal, insanity and murder in the French Royal Court.
"You've taken quite a liking to it," a raspy voice sounded from the back corner of Raito's room.
Raito looked around, calmly, quite used to random characters from his stories appearing in his room. Though, they had said that his medicine would last more than a month before becoming ineffective, but then again, they'd been wrong about his body's resistance before. In the corner stood an inhuman figure.
Tall and emaciated, wearing a black leotard with a fur kilt, with an inhumanly long face stretched into an unholy grin and black wings sticking out of it's back, the creature didn't look quite like how he had pictured any of his characters, but the voice was almost indistinguishable from how Raito had pictured the Shinigami sounding before the civil war destroyed them all.
Raito spun his chair around, not bothering to get up from his chair. "A Shinigami, I presume?" he drawled, always liking the first time he met a new race outside of his head. They were always so amusing!
"W-what?" Ryuuk faltered, having planned out exactly how he was going to meet this human who had caused so much havoc in the Shinigami Realm. He was expecting a teenaged brat who thought he was going to become some sort of god, given how he had changed the rules, and was rather looking forward to scaring the snot out of the kid. He was most definitely not expecting a confident young man who did not look startled at all to meet him.
"You heard me," Raito smirked. Apparently this one was one of the ones who preferred to act surprised when he wasn't startled at their presence. it was really amazing how diverse his mind made them. "I said, a shinigami, I presume? What is your name and ranking in the court of the Shinigami? Tell me, if you don't mind, and I'll write you in as the last survivor, one who hid away. Perhaps you will give a Death Note to Jaquelyn, and allow her to kill Erebus, letting Ayame find a better ally?" Raito asked, gesturing towards his story on the desk.
Ryuuk stared, not that you could tell. This human wanted to write his name on the Death Note? And who was Jaquelyn or Erebus or Ayame? It would be just his luck if he had dropped his notebook only to have an insane human find it. However, something in the kid's voice reminded him of the Shinigami King's voice when he was commanding something, so Ryuuk replied automatically.
"I am Ryuuk, the Shinigami to whom that Note used to belong," He gestured at the desk. "and I am the next in line for the throne of the Shinigami King."
"I see," Raito mused. "So, you're saying that this notebook...the rules weren't just the beginning of a story that I altered to fit my needs, they're actual rules for a weapon of mass destruction?"
Ryuuk nodded, beginning to laugh. "And you have caused quite a stir in the Shinigami Realm! Never before has a human actually attempted to change the rules. Therefore there were absolutely no rules preventing humans from changing the rules of every Death Note in the universe! Every change you made to my Death Note, is now a real rule governing killing humans! It's so amusing!"
Raito nodded, thinking fast. Even his body had never managed to completely overthrow the drugs in only a month, so there was a large chance that this Ryuuk was real and actually telling the truth. On the other hand, he had been so elated to have finished with writer's block that he had forgotten to take his medicine for the past couple of days. There really was only one thing to do in order to be sure whether or not his new story notebook was really the most potent weapon ever not known to mankind or just a notebook. He stood up.
"If you'll excuse me Ryuuk, Shinigami Prince, there is something I must do in order to be sure as to whether you are just a figment of my rather odd and disturbing imagination, like Dysna was, or an actual Shinigami and telling the truth. I will be right back. Can humans see you now? I cannot recall whether or not I changed that rule."
Ryuuk picked up the notebook and flipped back to the beginning from the page Raito was working on at the moment. It took almost a full minute.
"Damn, kid!" Ryuuk muttered, surprised, "You really like to write, doncha?"
Raito smirked. "Of course I do. After all, one meets such interesting characters when one is a writer with my mental disorder."
Ryuuk stopped flipping through the Death Note and looked up, surprised.
"Mental disorder?" Ryuuk squeaked. The owner of his Note was insane? Great, just great. Last time a Shinigami Note found its way into insane hands, the 'Black Plague' of Europe got started!
Raito shook his head, noticing with amazement how expressive the nearly immobile face of the Shinigami was. "Don't worry, it's just a sensory disorder where my mind takes information from my detailed imagination, and turns it into actual sensory information. There is medicine for it, but I have forgotten to take it for a while. If I take my dose and you're still here, well, I'll know that you're for real."
Ryuuk began to cackle as Raito left the room to hunt down his medicine. A Death Note was in the hands of a writer who could, apparently have conversations with himself and never get bored. This was already getting rid of his boredom!
In the background, on the TV that Raito had left on when he left to get his medicine, a news story about the unusual rate of criminals who had been dying of heart attacks played. By the time Raito came back, the story had ceased playing.
Raito returned, carrying a few apples to placate his mother about how he 'never ate anything healthy for a snack, only those potato chips, and you know that you can't take your medicine on an empty stomach, Raito!' And of course, a glass of water and his pills.
Staring at Ryuuk, Raito very deliberately placed a pill in his mouth. Raising his glass in a half-toast to the Shinigami, he downed the water and the pill. Raito contemplatively picked up an apple.
"...You know, I really don't feel hungry right now. Hey, Ryuuk. As a quicker way to prove to me that you actually exist, you want to try this apple?"
Ryuuk tilted his head to the side. "Sure. I haven't tried hamun-world apples before, but they look loads better than the ones from the Shinigami Realm." And Ryuuk reached out his claw-tipped hand to catch the apple when Raito threw it towards him. He took a large bite and groaned in pleasure.
"Mmm... Human-world apples are juicy!"
"Okay." Raito said, taking the apple back from Ryuuk to examine it closely. Ryuuk whined in displeasure. Raito ignored him and held it up to eye-level, feeling the deep crevasses left by Ryuuk's jagged teeth.
"Well, congratulations, Ryuuk. I do believe that you are real, as opposed to being a figment of my imagination."
Ryuuk snatched the apple back from Raito and devoured it. "Well," he said between chews, "I coulda told you that."
"Yes, you could have," Raito nodded serenely. "However, most of the creatures of my imagination do say that, so I had to check myself. Precautions you see. I do not wish to end up a killer, and if you are real, then it stands to follow that the Death Note too is real. This way, I can be careful not to write anyone in real life into my story, as I will inevitably end up killing any who I attempt to do so to."
Ryuuk stared. "...you got some complicated thinking, kid."
Raito's eyebrow twitched, but that was the only outward response he gave to such a demeaning nickname.
"May I ask if you intended for any specific human to pick up the notebook?" he asked.
Ryuuk shrugged. "Not really. Just bored."
Raito raised an eyebrow, glaring slightly at Ryuuk. "So... you released what could possibly have ended up being the worst killing weapon to ever damn the earth with its presence, simply because you were bored?"
Ryuuk shivered slightly at the frigid tone of voice that Raito was using. Somehow, this human, who didn't even have the ability to harm him, was making him fear for his life! Him, a Death God!
"Then again," Raito continued, turning away from Ryuuk and gazing pensively at the notebook sitting so innocently on his desk. "I am the one who found it, and possibly the only human who feels no need to try out the Death Note, so things could have turned out a lot worse."
Approximately twenty miles away, a black-haired man was smirking at the TV. "Yes," he purred. "That's right. Criminals are being judged, and found guilty. Kami-sama granted me this Death Note for a reason, and I will use it to judge the scum of the earth and make the world a better place. And I will be the god of the new world!"
The man began to laugh as the newscaster moved away from the story about dying criminals towards a story about the upcoming release of the translated version of Harry Potter ad the Goblet of Fire.
Yeah, I made it longer, and added a bit of Raito's pride in there. What's the point of a DN story without at least a little ego-inflation on Raitos part, deserved or not? And yeah, I stuck the actual Kira in here too. Seemed like a good idea.
On another note (heh), each chapter is going to be following an episode in the actual anime. But I will also be diverging fairly significantly at about... oh... Raito being held in solitary, I'd guess? Till then, it should seem similar to canon at first glance. Down to the Misa-adoration.