A pretty face can hide an evil mind

Well, Mina-kun! Here’s the late-as-usual addiction to my little fic!
And I can tell you this much, being a law-student is HARD work.
I should soooooooooo be studying right now ><

Speaking of education. I am going to be a really REAL detective! Once I finish my law studies, another 2 year long education shall groom me for the life of an official police-trained detective! Believe it or not! Several people who finished this same education ended up working for none other then INTERPOL aka ICPO! I can’t wait to see where this little adjustment in the coarse of life will lead me!

Not to mention, I moved!
To a gorgeous new house to be exact!
We have a HUMONGOUS garden there people!
Oh well, you guys aren’t here to listen to stories of my personal life anyways ;p

Anyways, the previous first reviewer was granted the first few clues I left within the Prologue to this fic. Be sure to search them out people! Otherwise you’ll miss out on the actual plot!
Call it a little interactive quiz with the plotline as it’s answer!

For example!
Who is/will be Kira?
Even though most of you are betting on Taro right now, please take note of his usage of ‘Yagami-kun’ and his black hair/eyes. This is an obvious hint to something that will happen later on! There’s several others hidden, even a few in which you’ll have to look closely!
Especially now that he actual story is starting (a lot earlier then I originally expected)!

IMPORTANT! READ!
Within the chapter itself, the occasional riddle is presented.
Due to this being the first chapter, I’ll help you this time.
The number-codes actually MEAN something! These are the early chapters, therefore they’re easy! Be sure to keep up the pace ;)

SIDE-NOTE!
I for one am not religious. Therefore this chapters contents does little to nothing to me. In fact I am mostly of the same opinion. I do however respect religion and the decisions of other human beings to believe or not. As a matter of fact, a close friend of mine is a Christian, another is a Muslim. Please do not take offence to any and all statements within this chapter! They are not meant to be insulting! My sincerest apologies however if you do feel insulted! Also, please refrain from starting a discussion on this subject. I will most likely be tempted not only to respond to comments regarding religion, but I defend my viewpoints harshly if not brutally. But as this is a fan-fiction of my creation rather then a topic up for discussion, please indulge me :)

Thank you!

Good luck and enjoy!
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Chapter 1 “Beginning”

The 17 year old Yagami Raito was nervous.
From the moment he had waken up he had felt this nagging sense of ‘wrongness’ in the air.
It was almost as if his instincts were telling him to run and head for cover until the feeling dissipated. However, being the number one ‘most brilliant student’ in Japan he had a certain reputation to uphold. Running and hiding were not the kind of actions with which he could set an example.

So therefore he suffered in silence – in more then one way due to their sensei going on and on about this theory of his, which Raito had already proven to be wrong in three different manners over the past forty minutes – as his thoughts once again drifted back to the dream he had mere hours ago.

“I shall call for you when I need you, be ready for that day.
The price of your life is your life itself…”
A smooth hand caressed his cheek, a smile on the persons face, a gentle touch to his lips.
A second pair of lips pressing against his.
“I love you…I’d never hurt you…”
His heart was beating fast, or was it the heart belonging to the other? With their chests pressed together like this it was hard to tell…
“I did it to show you. To show you how far I’d be willing to go for you. I’d die for you and I’d kill for you.” He swallowed the forming lump in his throat as he looked up into the loving eyes belonging to the one in front of him. “I-”

“Yagami-kun, are you paying attention? I’d like you to translate the first line on page 25 into Japanese.”

“Yes sir. ‘With the loss of his dearest daughter Annie, Darwin lost all faith in a beneficent God and saw Christianity as futile.’ ”

“Excellent as always.”

Once again a hopeless discussion on something as ridiculous as religion. He had never been one for such trivial matters. The only power a God had in his opinion were the ones bestowed upon these beings by the people who made them up in the first place. Their sensei was an avid believer and lived his life by ‘the one book’. A book that held all the answers in the world to some, questions to answer their questions to most. To Yagami Raito religion was nothing more then a farce. True it was admirable how far some people were willing to go to express their faith and he truly was amazed at how one mere book played a part in the greater part of the world history, but to him it was just that. A book.

And like any man-written bundle of papers it was flawed. The ideas represented within this book were outdated and the supposed facts had been proven untrue so many times before one would think that people would get a clue. It wasn’t that he was the kind of guy who refused to believe in something that hadn’t been proven – also this was pretty applicable – quite the opposite. He however did find it hard to believe in something after cold hard fact had already proven that ‘something’ wrong. True, even Darwin’s theory had several holes in it to give any sceptical being doubts, but at least there were pieces of evidence to back it up and solidify the theory somewhat as apposed to the people of Mozes for example, who had been rumoured to have travelled around a desert for several years without as much as leaving a trace. It was only common sense that when a large quantity of people travelled through a location for a long period of time, some traces of an albeit temporarily civilization should have been found. Especially within a desert where possible items like these would have been well-preserved within the cruel desert sands.

However to most the idea of the human life-form originating from a primate seemed ridiculous, about as ridiculous as the land-based organisms having once been aquatic life-forms. For some reason the complete obvious fact that human embryos took shape within fluids provided by the female body completely eluded their grasp. Even if the previously mentioned substance could not exactly be identified with water, the fact that newborns have the capability of breathing in water in the first few moments of their life before their lounges develop to their intended functionality clearly meant nothing as well.

‘How nice it must be to be completely oblivious to common sense sometimes…’

Yagami Raito was bored. Bored with the people around him, bored with his education and just plain bored with life. Even though for some reason a strange feeling was nagging at him that this day would be different from other days, this day seemed to be nothing other then just plain dull. As the bell rang to indicate the end of yet another boring school day Raito got up and neatly placed his books within the slightly worn-our brown bag at his side.

He would have rather left this dull reading material in his desk if it weren’t for cram school later tonight. He never really did see a need to attend, however his mother found it very important for him to keep up his grades. Regardless of the fact that he memorized over half of that information when he was a child. If anything he would have rather advanced several classes. But no, his mother deemed that being acquainted with ‘kids of his own age’ would be good for him. So he was left to suffer in the hell that is repetitive and mostly redundant information given to him and his peers by people who each seemed to think that their subject was the most interesting one in all of Japan. As if their guiding hand would eventually make a difference in the way their students would live out their lives.

As if Raito’s life hadn’t been lined out for him already. As a young boy Raito had wanted nothing more then to be a great detective like his legendary – albeit fictional – heroes.
Names like the timeless Sherlock Holmes, C. Auguste Dupin and Hercule Poirot were not at all unfamiliar with him as a child. Alas his parents disagreed with the idea of their son involving himself in such a dangerous profession. Especially since he more then had the capability to get ‘further’ in life. So when his parents decided to humour him so to speak and indulge his childish curiosities, they decided their child should become a lawyer. So as is natural, young Yagami Raito would go to Touou University – otherwise known as Toudai – in order to further his steps to becoming an honest representative of the law.

Woo-hoo.

His younger sister however was allowed to make her own decisions based on her likes and dislikes. He was the older and responsible one, she was the carefree younger one. Regardless of the fact that Raito fulfilled the role of the ‘perfect offspring’, he had always known that his younger sister had been their favourite. Favourite because she had this adorable laugh, Raito on the other hand was serious and studious. Favourite because she brought home her friends and spent hours on the phone with them. Raito preferred the company of books rather then have another living being in the vicinity. Favourite because unlike Raito, she was flawed and therefore appeared human…

If only his parents knew the truth…
The truth of how imperfect their precious son could truly be.

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After turning on the TV in his bedroom, Raito lay back on his bed. He switched to a different canal upon discovering that Sayu had been watching anime in his room again. Generally he only watched the news and the occasional educative program.

“As the local residents have stated earlier on, the man had been behaving strangely over the past few weeks. None however suspected that something like this would actually happen.
A hostage situation in this local kindergarten – I repeat kindergarten is threatening to escalate.”

Apparently some armed lunatic decided it would be a good idea to take shelter from the police by holding a couple of brats hostage. For some reason Raito wouldn’t be surprised if the guy went and died from stress overload, compliments of a bunch of diaper-wearing rug rats.

“Wait a second! The hostages can be seen signalling for some reason! The suspect seems to have fallen to the ground and has remained motionless! The police are entering the building as we speak!”

‘What in the-‘

“This is unbelievable people! The suspect collapsed and died! Is this the work of none other then God?”

No way. There was no way whatsoever that this had been some holy intervention. Still, the irony of the situation did not fail to make itself known as the young children evacuated the premises and the now deceased suspect was carted out while covered under a glaring white piece of cloth.

The room seemed awfully cold all of a sudden…

Raito was forced to turn his attention away from the TV-screen as his cell phone interrupted his thoughts. Normally his caller-ID would be able to give some clue as to who was calling.
In this case it proved to be useless.

Raito pressed the ‘accept’ button and answered in a polite hello.

“We’re you watching?”

Somehow this sentence wouldn’t have nearly sounded as strange regarding the events that had taken place mere moments ago. What did seem out of the ordinary however was the fact that the voice had been mechanically altered…

“Who is this?”
“No one you should be familiar with right now, but will be familiar with all too soon.”
“Excuse me? Is this some kind of joke?!”
“No, jokes would be quite the waste on someone like you. Wouldn’t you agree Yagami Raito?”

Not only did this person know his name, how the guy – or girl – got a hand of his cell phone number was beyond him.

“Switch to channel three if you’d be so kind…”

Another news bulletin. Some big story about a serial-rapist being released from jail due to lack of evidence.

“I don’t see how this is-”

The man dropped dead, causing chaos amongst the crowds.

“How did you know he was going to die…”
“Very clever Raito-kun. Let’s just say that I had a hand in this criminals demise.”
“What do you want.”
“Straight to the point then? Alright. What I want is for you to assist me in a personal mission. A divine mission so to say.”
“Devine mission?”
“I wish to purge this wicked world from all criminals. Imagine, a world where no one would have to fear death by the hands of another ever again.”
“And how would you accomplish this?”
Was this guy crazy or something?
“A weapon capable of suiting my needs of course. What else? However, even the most powerful of weapons cannot be useful in every situation. Hence why I need you.”
“Need me?”
“You see dear Raito-”

He for one did NOT like the familiarity in which this person spoke to him.

“-even though I now possess the means to accomplish my goal, the capability of eluding those of higher intelligence might be difficult.”

Higher intelligence? What in the world was this guy going on about?

“I believe you’ll agree with me when I say that criminals dropping dead like flies would attract the attention of many a person. The police of course included. The police I can handle. There is one factor I’m worried about however.”

“Which would be?”
“L.”
“And you wish for my help to get rid of this ‘L’?”
“Precisely. I knew you were clever.”
“Flattery is nice and all. But I doubt flattery will sway me into doing you this favour.”
“One year ago. Add two months. Subtract three days. Do you remember?”

He knew he should have listened to his instincts about this being a bad day.
“What do I need to do…”
“I’m glad you could see it my way.”
“I’m sure you are…”
“Now now. Please don’t be cross with me. Especially since you know exactly what’s at stake here.”
“……….”
“Good boy. Now tell me. What goes up, but at the same time goes down, up to the sky and down to the ground, my present tense and my past tense too, lets go for a ride just me and you...What am I? Your present awaits there. Goodbye Raito-kun.”

It goes up and down at the same time and it’s a ride for two people. Present and past are tense. A see-saw. There was a see-saw on the old playing ground near his school…

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So this is where his ‘present’ was supposed to be at? He easily spotted the brown paper bag. Easily due to the fact that he knew where to look. The decrepit old see-saw was not exactly a crowd-drawer so to say…

Raito opened the bag. Within it there was a cell-phone and a black note-book.

“Death…Note?”

The cell-phone started to buzz. Two messages received…

Raito opened the first.

“This cell-phone will be our means of communication. The code used in this phone is as followed……”

Raito memorized the code before deleting it and opened the second message.

“5-3,3-2,8-1,-,8-1,4-2,3-2,-,4-1,2-1,6-1,3-2,7-4,-,2-2,3-2,4-1,4-3,6-2.”

TBC