Chapter Text
Kirigiri Kyoko lived a charmed life. She was part of a family of detectives going back for generations, wildly successful, in fact her father somehow managed to be the district chief of police as well as a famous detective. They were not, perhaps, quite as famous as the new ‘Monokuma’ that had taken the world by storm, solving cold case after cold case- but they had been around much longer, and were quite wealthy as a result. She had a brother, Naegi Makoto- who, though he was adopted and had declined to change his last name, she loved dearly, and he loved her in turn. She was also incredibly intelligent, top of all her classes- she didn’t need scholarships necessarily, as she likely could get a job as a detective even without a degree in the first place, but she had as many as she could want. And, while she didn’t like to sound vain, she was quite beautiful, rarely requiring more than a minimum of effort in her self-care routine to keep herself standing out among her peers.
And she was absolutely miserable.
Let’s backtrack a bit, shall we?
Kirigiri Kyoko was born with the word ‘detective’ practically carved into her fate, with a mother who died in childbirth and a father who wasn’t even there to see it. She was raised by her grandfather, who thought taking a six year old to a murder scene was an excellent birthday present and left her alone half the time anyway. She had more money than she could ever reasonably spend, but nothing to spend it on, because hobbies were a taboo for a Kirigiri- your work was your hobby. You were a detective, or you were nothing at all.
Her brother, for all that she loved him and that he tried his best, could not fill the home that was missing everything else. He was not a Kirigiri, not a detective- she did not get to spend as much time with him as she wanted, likely would not until they had both graduated. He planned to be a police officer, so that they could work together. Sometimes she feared that what he would see on the force would burn out his endless optimism.
Every waking moment was a test. Good grades, check, nothing less than a hundred percent. Keep your best appearance in public, don’t look anything less than front-page worthy at any time- not that you should let anyone put you on the front page in the first place. Never show emotion, even a hint of weakness will be descended upon immediately- there is no place for it in their line of work, nor at home, lest you develop any bad habits. If you are not studying, you should be working, sleep is to be precisely scheduled for eight hours and if you miss any of it due to the need of completing your work you should have planned better.
All in the name of catching criminals. Because, she was taught, every criminal you don’t catch, any crimes they commit after are your own fault.
But of course, you can’t break the law yourself. That is the most important rule of all, to them, because anything acquired that way is inadmissible, and that aside, then you would be no better than the lowlives you should be catching. If you know who is at fault and cannot prove it legally- that is your failing as a detective, and you should have worked harder, and god forbid you can’t even figure out who is at fault.
So, Kyoko thought, perhaps her life was not so charmed at all.
Her life would be so much easier, she thinks, if she could simply skip a few steps somewhere- but no solution would magically drop down into her lap.
And so she perseveres. Spending her days in lecture after lecture about things she already knows or will never use or both, thinking, thinking- why must crime exist, like this? She knows, understands, motives of desperation, crimes of passion, and those who are arrogant enough to think they’ll never be caught- but then, she also knows, how many simply won’t be caught.
Or rather, won’t be punished.
That is the core, she thinks. That the law can only punish those that are desperate, and rarely those who have more heinous reasons, because money can make any problem go away.
That would be the easiest step to skip of them all. If she could skip proving beyond “reasonable doubt” with only legal methods, and punish them herself.
But she can’t. And so she waits.
Until one day, she doesn’t have to wait anymore. Because she finds an innocent black notebook, resting in her bag- where she definitely did not put it.
Death Note, the cover declares.
Kyoko lets out a single, derisive snort, and tosses the book into a trashcan on her way out the door. She’s glad she always wears her gloves- she’s going to have to decontaminate her entire bag, just to be safe. Who knows what sort of prank someone was trying to pull on her, really.
She gets home, alone as usual- Makoto has after-school tutoring, again. She checks her bag.
The ‘Death Note’ is sitting on top of her books again.
That’s physically impossible, as far as she’s aware. She double checks that her bag had been zipped, returns to the trashcan she used earlier- no sign of the book despite the one in her bag not showing any indication of being coated in trash. Nobody had gotten anywhere near close enough to plant the book on her the second time.
Whenever you eliminate the impossible…
She takes the notebook to her room, double checks her grandfather has not set up any more bugs as a test for her- it would not be the first time- and then sits down and cracks it open.
She carefully reads through the rules. Every one of the sixty-six rules, clearly handwritten- although it is, she admits, very beautiful handwriting, that she does not recognize. She commits them all to memory, although most of them say very similar things, or provide clarifications on details that are stunningly irrelevant. Why would anyone need to write a person’s name split across the front and back of a page..?
The basic details, however, are… almost staggering in their simplicity and the implications it provides. Write a person’s name, picture their face, and they will die. You can add details if you desire, or else they will simply die of a heart attack after forty seconds.
If it hadn’t appeared in her book bag from seemingly nowhere, twice, then Kyoko would call it the biggest load of shit she’s ever read in her life, if she was feeling particularly charitable, and then investigate the person behind it because they’re clearly disturbed in the head.
But.
If it were real?
There is only one way, Kyoko knows, that she could be completely sure. A test. She can almost hear her grandfather’s lecture already, on how death is never the right answer, how justice is about getting convictions and working with the legal system, but she knows that it is irreparably flawed, and some people will never be punished by it- and she already knows exactly who to test it on.
A disgusting man who had weaseled his way out of damning evidence against him by throwing his dad’s money at the problem until it went away. Who had had the gall to smirk at her as he walked out of the courtroom. Who if she had her way, would have been in prison years ago, for life, and yet who would likely never face so much as community service.
Towa Haiji, she writes vindictively, a smile tugging at her lips.
Then she tucks the book into one of the hidden compartments scattered around her room- obviously not one of the ones her grandfather knows about, but in one that Makoto does, because… because quite frankly, she would trust Makoto with it more than she’d trust herself with it, if it were real, and the goal was to have it not be used. And if he does stumble across it, she only has to tell him the truth, and she knows he wouldn’t judge her for a moment.
Not that she expects him to ever look through her room without her explicitly asking him to. He is… possibly the only person in the entire Kirigiri family to understand privacy.
“It must be the family name that causes it.” Kyoko murmurs to herself, thinking Makoto would probably laugh at it.
But the hall is quiet, and the house is empty, as she heads down to prepare dinner for the two of them. She can already hear Makoto insisting that she doesn’t need to make time for this, that he could handle it himself, but she wants to, so she will.
It doesn’t take very long to make, because she doesn’t trust herself to try anything complicated. She glances at the clock absently as she sets the table for two- Makoto should be here shortly. She had timed it correctly. Almost absently, she turns on the news, Nothing important on the channel she left it on, so she flicks through a few of her usual choices-
And she freezes, remote shaking slightly in her grip.
Breaking News: Towa Haiji found dead in his room.
…Ah. Her hand is shaking, not the remote. That makes more sense.
Carefully, she sets it down, double checks how long she has until Makoto is home- she lost two minutes to shock, unacceptable- and then returns to her room as quickly as she can without running.
The Death Note. A name that truly gets to the point, it seems. She knows exactly what she should do with it- burn it, to ash, and then scatter those ashes to be safe. She should, if she couldn’t do that, give it to Makoto, who she knows would do it for her without asking any questions. It is unequivocally murder, something that is wrong, morally and legally, and she shouldn’t have even tested it in the first place.
Instead, she pulls out one of her own notebooks, flips to the first blank page easily, and forces her hand to still so she can write neatly and cleanly. The first cypher she ever made that her grandfather couldn’t crack, because it’s the only one engraved enough in her head that she can think of it through the static in her mind.
Rules of Use:
- I will not kill innocents.
She takes a breath. Circles the rule. Underlines it. Twice. Because she cannot, will not, break it.
She is good at logic. She could justify it to herself, if she wanted to- they were in the way, they might have been guilty of something, she just hadn’t investigated it yet, a hundred little lies she could sell herself on until she forgot they were anything but truth. And if she does it once, she will do it again and again and again, until she is high on a mountain of bodies that never did anything wrong besides want something she didn’t.
So she won’t start, ever. She won’t allow herself down that slope.
- I will only kill those who I have personally investigated the evidence against, if I find said evidence to be damning.
An effective continuation to the first rule, but needs to be said as well. She can’t trust anyone else’s word, on this, because if they make any mistake- it becomes hers as well, by association, and that is unforgivable.
- I will only kill those whose crimes are significant enough to warrant a severe penalty in the justice system.
Shoplifters don’t deserve death, no matter how she itched to simply purge crime from the world- it wasn’t that simple, she knew. Never was. Genocide was in fact one of the worst crimes, and there’s no other word for what killing all criminals would be.
But she is smart enough to know that no rule is absolute, and she knows herself- she will want to break them, at some point. Or she will try to find some loophole. She will think herself out of a hundred potentially bad scenarios with a hammer, now, because the Death Note is a hammer, and she knows what that does to perception.
- If I consider breaking, making an exception to, or finding a loophole in one of these rules, I will posit it as a hypothetical to Makoto before doing so.
There. A way to keep herself from going too far.
She’s never been able to say no to her brother at peak optimism.
She takes another deep breath, and closes the notebook. Slips it back into its place in the middle of her stack of identical notebooks in a drawer. She has to go finish dinner, and be ready for Makoto.
The doorbell rings and she rolls her eyes- it’s his house, he really shouldn’t keep ringing before he enters.
“Kyoko, I’m home!” He calls, as if she’s deaf and won’t be expecting him. He never quite perfected the art of the inside voice. She blames the rest of the ‘family’ being quiet.
“Welcome home.” Is all she says in return, already moving towards the table.
He doesn’t hesitate to follow her, even if his face does shift into the faintest frown… it’s more like a pout, really. “You made dinner again? You know you don’t have to do that. Besides, I’m pretty sure I’m better at it by now.”
She knows he means it innocently, but she sees no harm in poking a bit of fun. “You don’t like my cooking?” She asks, keeping her voice as level and cool as always.
As she’d predicted, he nearly trips over himself, face exploding into crimson. “A-ah, no, that’s not what I..!” He pauses as he sees her lips twitching, and pouts again, acting like he’s a child instead of nearly her age. It’s… refreshing. “You’re mean, I don’t know what happened to the loving sister I remember.”
“She never existed.” Kyoko deadpans in response, because it’s… not a lie, really. She’s never exactly been the affectionate type. “Now eat your dinner before it gets cold. If you’d rather not, I can always eat it myself.” It’s an empty threat in more ways than one.
Makoto knows, clearly, because he just laughs lightly and sits down, taking an exaggeratedly large bite- and chokes on it, like an absolute moron. She can’t quite keep the snort from coming out, and he shoots her a betrayed look as he manages to cough it out. “I could have died! Traitor!” He accuses, except it carries no weight because he’s barely holding himself back from cackling like a maniac. “Don’t laugh! You try swallowing something that big!”
…Kyoko doesn’t even say anything to that, just staring at him until he registers it on his own.
Makoto’s head hits the table with a low groan. “...Why do I speak.”
Kyoko shrugs. “Because you don’t seem to have a sense of shame.” She offers generously, earning another groan in response. “Or maybe you just have no pride left.”
Makoto chuckles softly as he picks his head up, meeting her eyes- and oh no, that’s his Sunshine Expression. If she looks too long she’ll go blind. “That’s fine, you’ll be the brains, right? I just have to arrest the guys you find!”
Kyoko lets her eyes drift away. She… hadn’t considered a lot of the implications, of the plans she’d been rapidly reformatting around the Death Note- but this… was one that hit surprisingly close to home. “...Yeah.” She contributes, a few beats too late in the conversation.
Makoto, blessing that he is, frowns, but doesn’t comment. “So, I heard that Haiji asshole kicked the bucket!” He changes topics on a dime, and Kyoko is so caught off-guard by him swearing that she chokes mid-bite. The twitch to his lips says that was intentional. “Heart attack, of all things… I guess karma finally came around?”
Something like that, Kyoko thinks but doesn’t say. “How did you hear about that?” She says instead once she clears her throat. “It was only just on the news.”
Makoto raises a brow. “Internet.”
Kyoko considers that for a few moments. “...Where on the internet, exactly?”
Makoto coughs and looks away. “Look, the where isn’t the important part-”
Kyoko has already slipped his phone from his pocket and is opening his browser. “...Conspiracy theory boards again? Really?”
He deflates. “Look, they’re just really funny, okay?”
Kyoko rolls her eyes, but she doesn’t say anything further, simply sliding his phone back over to him. “I don’t believe in karma.” She says easily. “But if a criminal gets what they deserve, I won’t be losing any sleep.”
Makoto hums, neither agreeing nor disagreeing, and she pretends she doesn’t know that’s his version of disagreement with people he likes. She frowns slightly, not quite understanding what part he disagrees with, but she doesn’t say anything.
The rest of dinner is unusually silent.
They part ways quietly, Makoto heading to a friend’s house with a soft goodbye. Sayaka again, Kyoko assumes- Sayaka is good for him, at least. She’s nice enough.
Kyoko heads to her room, and locks the door. There are several locks, so it takes a few moments. She pulls out the Death Note again, forcing her hands to not tremble. She pulls out a stack of her old case files- the ones where she failed. Where she hadn’t gotten a conviction on someone she knew was guilty.
She’ll need to space them out, of course. Too many too fast would be suspicious at best, especially if her father or grandfather get wind of it- they both know, or at least could access, what cases she was on. She would need to do more research, more investigation- look into currently imprisoned criminals first to establish a standard… maybe use a few of them as further tests, the more heinous offenders, men like Towa.
Then she could work on current cases again.
And she could serve justice.
“So you’ve committed to using it, then.”
Her pen is stabbed into open air by the time she finishes processing the words. She turns in her chair to look… and sees someone she doesn’t recognize.
Tall, a human height but somehow all the more off for it. Somewhere around 6 feet, perhaps. Skeletally thin and acting like that’s no object at all, none of the tells of such blatant malnutrition anywhere in his body language. Long, dark hair, reaching the floor.
And her pen in his chest. Passing through it like it isn’t even there.
“Are you done?” He asks calmly, not even raising an eyebrow- completely still, a lack of reaction that is just ever so slightly inhuman. Glowing red eyes bore into hers.
Kyoko slowly pulls the pen back, setting it down. “...A Shinigami, I assume.” She says, forcing her body to still once more. She already knew the supernatural was real, but there is a distinct difference between writing someone’s name in a book and hearing they dropped dead compared to having your hand half-way into a chest without feeling a thing.
“You would be correct.” He confirms, still not moving- not making any movements aside from the bare necessity of speaking. “You need not fear me reclaiming my Note. I find the tedium of the Shinigami realm intolerable. You seemed like you would be…” Just a moment of hesitation, thought, as he looks for the right word, and it almost makes her forget that he isn’t a mortal being at all. “...The most interesting option. Without extensive observation of more humans.”
“I see.” She doesn’t, really, cannot conceive of being so bored you would throw away such power to someone just to watch the fireworks- but she can almost understand the train of thought. “...Do you have a name?” There’s no reason, she decides, to not be polite with someone- some thing - that can kill her at will.
He blinks, slowly, making her feel suddenly very aware that he hadn’t blinked before then. “...Izuru.”
She can’t be bothered to care if it’s his real name or not. “Izuru, then. Will you just be watching, or was there something else?”
Izuru tilts his head at an angle Kyoko knows would snap a human neck, eyes still unerringly focused on hers. “...Observation, mostly. I may provide… advice. If you failed too quickly, that would be… boring.”
A stunningly unhelpful answer, but that was fine. Assistance would certainly be welcomed, but it was far from necessary. “Very well.” Kyoko hums, and pulls out her phone. She carefully sets up several layers of VPNs for extra security, on top of her usual secure browser, and brings up the news.
She flips open a second notebook beside the Death Note, and grabs a second pen. Training herself into ambidexterity was a good idea.
With one hand, she writes down potential names to look into further, abbreviated and with no face pictured in her mind in case of a mix-up- not that she ever does.
With the other, she writes the names of those she knows are guilty, and dates for them to drop. Spaced carefully, already stretching several months into the future, with spaces for her to slip in other names later as well as space between the names in general, careful to not fall into a pattern- patterns were how people got caught, after all. But she wants criminals to know, and to fear, and so she leaves all the deaths as heart attacks- far too many, she knows, to be a real coincidence. Everyone would know.
And they would understand Justice.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Akamatsu Kaede considered herself pretty fortunate, honestly. She was barely into adulthood and already had a career most people could only dream of- a career she had dreamed of. Her songs reached millions of people all around the world, and she had more money than she could really ever need. It was definitely nice to have though.
The only part she didn’t like… were the fans.
She loved most of them! The feeling of knowing how much she was loved, by so many people, that her music that she’d been mocked about for years had made other people just as happy as it made her- it was a feeling that was nearly without compare, in how amazing it was.
But some of them were… a little bit weird. To say the least. The ones on the internet were, if disturbing to come across, mostly harmless, and she could usually block the worst ones. Until they made a new account. But it wasn’t that bad, really.
The ones who got weird in person were a lot harder to deal with. Security was always good, but not always good enough, and the amount of weird interactions at fan meet-ups has already reached past a countable number.
And then there were the stalkers. Plural.
The first had been… terrifying. Her memory of it was somewhat blurred, from all the terror she’d been experiencing, but she distinctly remembered the weight of him on top of her, the tip of the knife on her throat-
The relief when he gasped, fell backwards, died. A heart attack, she’d learned later. A miracle. She’d have died, if it hadn’t happened, she knew.
The second hadn’t put her in physical danger- but it had definitely been worse, she thought. Because it was the same man who’d killed her parents, and while the court case stalled out for all eternity, his bail was paid and he followed her.
And then he’d dropped dead. Heart attack.
Kaede wasn’t the smartest- but she wasn’t an idiot, and when two of her stalkers both died of seemingly natural causes- that couldn’t be a coincidence, especially when it was two heart attacks in otherwise healthy men.
So she dug around online, threw around some money to get onto some… questionable sites, because she had to know, she had to know who had saved her.
Kira.
A whisper, a rumor, someone that nobody was convinced even existed. Criminals dropping dead of heart attacks with alarming frequency, never in any sort of pattern, never with any outside cause anyone could find. The work of Kira- a ghost that could kill without a trace, across the globe.
Kaede was in love.
Finally- someone who could bring about Justice, someone who cared about her- enough to save her twice - she had to… do something. She had to find them. She had to repay them.
Her dreams are filled with a shapeless figure, but the personality is always defined, because she knows- Kira will be smart, so incredibly smart, and never falter, a bottomless well of integrity, righting the wrongs of the world…
It gives her motivation to write more songs, really.
The thing that really stumped her, of course, was how to find Kira. She could… maybe leave a few messages in her music, but publicly supporting someone who most people didn’t even know of would be both a stupid move and would crash her career instantly- and she was more useful like this, with the public’s ear in her grasp.
And how would Kira respond to her messages? She didn’t know anything that someone else couldn’t find out, anyone could claim the position- and she surely wouldn’t dare to tell Kira who to kill. It’d be like telling a doctor how to treat a patient- the height of lunacy.
“I just wish… I could meet them.” She whispers to the wind, leaning on the balcony of her too-expensive apartment.
“You could.”
The only reason she doesn’t fall off the balcony is the height of the railing and the steady hand gripping the back of her shirt.
Her eyes catch on every detail of the figure behind her when she turns around. Pale skin, just a shade too light to be natural, and just a little too… wrong to be albino. Short dark hair, framing an oddly angelic face- for someone who looked like they hadn’t eaten in years and shouldn’t even be alive right now. Not very tall- several inches shorter than Kaede, even, although to be fair she was a bit on the taller side…
Muscle. None that she could see, but clearly it had to be somewhere, because whoever this was had supported Kaede’s entire weight without a sign of any sort of strain.
The most interesting part is the clothing, though. Very emo- black and fuzzy, looks really comfortable actually, Kaede wonders if she could get something that fuzzy to wear around the house…
Oh right. She’s getting distracted again. “Ah… t-thanks? How did you get here though?” She asks, easily slipping from the girl(?)’s grip, she doesn’t seem like she was holding very tight.
“Maki.” The girl answers the unasked question before the asked one, which is… something? Kaede is pretty sure that’s her name, at least. Probably. She hopes. “And easily. Because I am a Shinigami. And this is yours.”
A black notebook is pressed into her hands, labeled “Death Note” in scratchy handwriting.
“...I am so lost right now.” Kaede admits, wondering if maybe calling the police would be easier.
Maki sighs. “Sit down. I will explain.”
Kaede sits on her bed, after making tea for the both of them out of… habit mostly. And Maki explains.
And Kaede thinks- this. This is how she will be useful to Kira.
“So, half my lifespan for the Shinigami’s eyes, right..?”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Junko was bored.
In related news, the planet was polluted, lots of criminals had guns, and there was a new crime committed in the past five minutes. All of these things were so plainly obvious and common that they weren’t even worth acknowledging, but also were things that you had to deal with at some point anyway.
She sighs, letting her head smack against her desk without comment. “Mukuroooooooo~!” She whines, and feels her sister enter the room more than she hears her. “Find me another case. I’m booooored!”
“You should sleep.” The wet blanket says, like some kind of demented fun-destroying witch. “It’s been thirty hours.”
Junko shows her one perfectly manicured nail. In the middle, of course. “I do what I want. Figure something out or I’ll just like, post that Monokuma is open for cases again.” She absolutely won’t because then her mail will be filled with garbage that could be solved by a five year old, but it’s important to get the point across.
Clearly, the waste of air understands, because she simply sighs and approaches- leaning over Junko’s slouched form to pull something up on the computer. Junko waits carefully until the perfect moment where Mukuro starts to pull back, and then snaps up to ram her head into her chin.
She has several regrets very quickly. “Owwwwwwwwww~” She whines pitifully, tears already running down her face in truly excessive amounts. Mukuro simply glances down at her for a few moments, then leaves the room.
Junko’s tears disappear in an instant. “Boring whore!” She calls after her, even though she knows she won’t be listening. She sighs, and decides to see what her sister pulled up for her.
Her gaze sharpens instantly.
“Oh, my… that’s something.” She hums, and is already pulling up more of her frequent websites. “Kira, huh..? I wonder how they’re doing it~ I can’t wait to find out~”
She pauses for a moment. “Wait, shit, did Mukuro just do something worthwhile?” There’s a long moment of silence, before Junko lets out an explosive sigh and drops another half a million yen into Mukuro’s account. “Fucking brat…”
And then her attention is back on the case, where it will be for a long time.