The metallic tang of blood was the last real thing he tasted. The cold of the concrete stairs was the last thing he felt. Light Yagami's world, once a grand chessboard he commanded, had shrunk to the space between one ragged breath and the next. The symphony of approaching sirens was his funeral dirge.
It wasn't supposed to end like this, he thought, his own blood pooling beneath him, a dark mirror reflecting the grey sky. A perfect world... my perfect world... slipped through my fingers like sand. He saw a flash of Ryuk, the bored god of death, writing his name with casual indifference. The final betrayal. The ultimate checkmate.
He didn't want to die. Not truly. He wanted to win. But if this was the end, he had one final, desperate wish. A monologue to an audience of none. If I had another chance... I would do it all again. Better. Smarter. I wouldn't make the same mistakes. I would build a utopia that would last for eternity. I just need... one more chance.
The light faded. The sirens ceased. There was no pearly gate, no fiery pit. There was only dust and silence.
He opened his eyes.
He stood in a monochromatic wasteland under a bruised-purple sky. The ground was a carpet of bone dust and desiccated, unidentifiable things. Around him, grotesque figures lounged and gambled with bones, their forms twisted parodies of life. Shinigami. This was their realm.
A low, grating laughter echoed around him. It wasn't just one of them; it was many. The sound of stone scraping against stone.
"Look at this one," one cackled, its form a jumble of limbs and leather.
"The human Ryuk was so fond of," another rasped. "The one who made things... interesting."
Light Yagami, stripped of his power but not his pride, stood his ground. He felt a presence descend upon them, a weight that silenced the others instantly. An ancient, powerful being, the Shinigami King, regarded him not with eyes, but with an overwhelming sense of scrutiny. Its voice was not a sound, but a thought pressed directly into his soul.
YOU AMUSED US, LIGHT YAGAMI. IN A MILLENNIUM OF BOREDOM, YOU WERE A FLEETING, BRILLIANT SPARK. A CURIOSITY.
The collective thought of the assembled Shinigami washed over him. They had watched his seven-year reign with the detached fascination of gods watching an ant farm. And they had found it to be the greatest show in eons.
WE HAVE VOTED. AN UNPRECEDENTED OCCURRENCE. YOU WISHED FOR A SECOND CHANCE. WE ARE INCLINED TO GRANT IT.
Hope, an emotion Light thought had died on those stairs, flickered within him.
BUT THIS IS NO GIFT. IT IS AN ULTIMATUM. WE WILL RETURN YOU TO THE MORTAL COIL, INTO A NEW THREAD OF TIME, UNTOUCHED BY THE LEGACY OF 'KIRA'. YOU WILL BE REBORN AS YOURSELF, AT THE PRECIPICE OF YOUR POWER. The King's presence intensified. YOU WILL BE GIVEN A DEATH NOTE AGAIN. ONE OF OUR OWN CREATION—MORE POTENT, WITH... ADDITIONS. BUT YOU WILL HAVE NO MEMORY OF THIS, OR YOUR FORMER LIFE. ONLY AN ECHO. A DÉJÀ VU THAT GNAWS AT YOUR SOUL.
Another collective thought, this one sharp and predatory, joined the King's.
YOU WILL NOT BE ALONE. YOU WILL HAVE AN ALLY, ONE AS FIERCE AND UNPREDICTABLE AS A WILDFIRE, POSSESSING A POWER TO RIVAL YOUR OWN. BUT KNOW THIS, LIGHT YAGAMI... WHERE YOU HAD ONE GREAT RIVAL, YOU WILL NOW HAVE MANY. MORE ENEMIES THAN YOU CAN FATHOM, DRAWN TO THE CHAOS YOU WILL UNLEASH. PROVE YOURSELF AGAIN. BECOME THE GOD OF YOUR NEW WORLD, OR BE ERASED FROM EXISTENCE ENTIRELY. AMUSE US ONCE MORE.
Before Light could process the terms, the world of bone and dust dissolved into blinding white.
Tokyo, Japan. A New Timeline.
Light Yagami was bored.
He was the top student in Japan, effortlessly brilliant, handsome, and admired. Yet, a strange hollowness pervaded his perfect life. A constant sense of déjà vu haunted his waking moments. The phantom taste of an unnaturally juicy apple. A flicker of a shadowy, winged figure in his peripheral vision that was never there. The shadow of a name that danced on the edge of his tongue... L.
He felt a profound, instinctual contempt for the filth of the world he saw reported on the news every night. Criminals walked free. Injustice was rampant. It felt… wrong. Unbalanced. As if it were his personal responsibility to fix it.
One afternoon, as he stared out the classroom window, something dark fluttered down from the sky. It landed in the courtyard with a soft thud. A black notebook.
Later that day, sitting in his pristine room, he held the object. It was bound in something smoother than leather, darker than obsidian. There were no words on the cover. He opened it. The first page read:
HOW TO USE: ULTIMATUM
I. The human whose name is written in this note shall die.
II. This note will not take effect unless the writer has the person's face in their mind when writing his/her name...
He read the rules. It was a prank, of course. A sick, elaborate one. But that gnawing echo in his soul, the feeling that he'd held this power before, compelled him. That night, watching a hostage situation on the news, he wrote the criminal's name down.
Forty seconds later, the news anchor announced the man had collapsed, dead from a sudden, inexplicable heart attack.
A slow, cold smile spread across Light Yagami's face. It felt like coming home. The name for his crusade came to him in an instant, a whisper from a life he couldn't remember.
Kira.
One Month Later.
The world was in a panic.
A ghost was haunting the criminal underworld. From cartel leaders in Mexico to human traffickers in Eastern Europe, villains were dropping dead from inexplicable heart attacks. The sheer scale and efficiency were impossible. Interpol was baffled. The public was terrified and enthralled. The name "Kira" was being whispered on every corner of the internet.
But in Japan, something different was happening.
Alongside Kira's clean, almost surgical heart attacks, a new pattern of death had emerged. These were not quiet. They were grotesque, poetic, theatrical. A corrupt politician was found crucified by office supplies in his own penthouse. A yakuza boss was discovered in a warehouse, his body arranged into a gruesome parody of Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man, surrounded by a perfect circle of his own blood.
It was a different artist at work. One who didn't want to just punish, but to perform.
At the latest scene, Interpol agents cordoned off a lavish hotel room. Inside, a notorious loan shark hung from the chandelier, his limbs positioned like a marionette. Agent Jean-Pierre Francis , a veteran from the French headquarters, surveyed the scene with a grimace.
"This is not Kira," he stated, his voice firm. "Kira is a whisper. This... this is a scream."
His younger Japanese colleague pointed a gloved finger towards the victim's chest. Pinned to the man's expensive suit were two objects.
The first was a small, straw-woven object, almost like a handmade doll or a talisman. It was eerie, radiating a sense of ancient malice.
The second was a small, immaculately clean piece of laminated cardstock. Printed on it in a stark, gothic font were two simple, crimson letters.
B.B.