The hum of the computer tower was the only sound in the room, a low, monotonous drone that seemed to vibrate against Light Yagami's skull. He sat at his desk, his posture rigid, his hands resting on the keyboard with the stillness of a pianist waiting for the conductor's cue. But his fingers were cold.
On the screen, the encrypted chat window remained open. The cursor blinked.
Objective: Meet Chris Walker.
Location: Shinjuku Station, East Exit. Locker 104.
Time: Now.
Light stared at the name. Chris Walker.
A tremor, barely perceptible, ran through his left hand. He clenched it into a fist, digging his fingernails into his palm until the sharp pinch of pain grounded him.
"This is a joke," Light whispered, his voice dry. "It has to be."
"Heh," a gravelly voice drifted from the ceiling. "You look like you've seen a ghost, Light."
Ryuk was floating upside down, his spindly limbs dangling like a broken marionette. He crunched loudly into a red apple—a fresh one, part of the new shipment Light had bought to keep the monster placated.
"Shut up, Ryuk," Light hissed, not turning his head.
"Chris Walker," the Shinigami mused, chewing with his mouth open. "Wasn't that the FBI guy? The one with the nice suit? I haven't seen him around lately."
"He's dead," Light muttered, the words tasting like ash. "I killed him. B.B. knows I killed him. This... this message isn't a task. It's a taunt."
Light pushed his chair back, the wheels rolling silently over the carpet. He stood up and walked to the window, peering through the blinds. The street below was quiet, bathed in the artificial orange glow of the Tokyo night.
"I would sell my soul," Light murmured, his breath fogging the glass, "just to know that bastard's name. B.B.... The Artist... whoever he is. If I had his name, I would write it in blood."
Ryuk stopped chewing. He flipped himself upright, his large, bulbous eyes widening.
"Are you serious?" Ryuk asked, a strange, predatory edge entering his voice. "Because you know, Light... the deal is always on the table. Half your remaining life. That's the price of a soul."
Light stiffened. For a second, the temptation washed over him like a tidal wave. The Shinigami Eyes. He could look at a photo of B.B.—or whoever was behind that screen—and end this nightmare instantly. No more games. No more puzzles. Just victory.
But then, the rational part of his brain, the fortress he had built around his ego, slammed the gate shut.
"Don't be stupid," Light snapped, composing himself. He adjusted his collar, smoothing out the wrinkles. "I don't need your eyes. I am a God. Gods do not bargain with death; they command it."
He turned back to the room, his eyes scanning the corners.
The air conditioner hummed above the door. It was working perfectly now. Yesterday, it had rattled. His mother, bless her naive heart, had called an electrician.
An electrician.
Light's lips curled into a sneer. The man who had come was wearing a jumpsuit that was a size too small, and his tool belt looked brand new. He had spent forty minutes "fixing" a loose fan blade.
Rats, Light thought venomously. Filthy, scurrying rats.
He knew they were there. The cameras.
A few days ago, Light had enacted a subtle, calculated test. He had withheld apples from Ryuk. He had ignored the Shinigami's withdrawal symptoms, his twisting and turning, until Ryuk was practically begging. Then, Light had offered a deal: Find the lenses. Point them out.
Ryuk, desperate for the sucrose rush, had complied.
There were sixty-four cameras in the house. Four in his room alone. One in the smoke detector. One in the electrical socket. One inside the AC unit. And one pinhole lens drilled through the wall from his parents' bedroom.
But there was a blind spot.
Because the "electrician" had been wary of the large window, the angle of the camera in the AC unit was tilted slightly downward to avoid the glare. It captured the bed, the door, and the center of the room. But it missed the immediate space in front of the desktop monitor if Light leaned forward.
Light sat back down, shielding the screen with his body. He typed a reply to B.B.
I cannot meet a dead man.
He hit enter.
Then, he closed his eyes. The name Chris Walker echoed in his mind, dragging him back. Not to the present, but to a week ago. To the day his hands—and his soul—had been stained with something far harder to wash off than ink.
One Week Ago.
Shinjuku District.
The heat was oppressive. It was a humid, sticky afternoon where the air felt like soup and the noise of the crowd was a physical assault.
Light Yagami was walking home from cram school. He was supposed to be studying. He was supposed to be the perfect son.
He saw him by accident.
Standing near a ticket booth, checking his watch, was a man in a black trench coat. He stood out. In a sea of salarymen in grey and students in navy, the black coat was a void.
Light recognized him instantly. Chris Walker.
He was the agent who had come to the NPA headquarters. The one Soichiro Yagami had introduced nervously. The one who looked at Light with eyes that were too sharp, too analytical. An FBI agent.
He's investigating me, Light realized, a jolt of adrenaline spiking his heart rate. He's tailing Father. Or maybe he's tailing me.
Light had the Ultimatum Note tucked inside his chemistry textbook. He had the power. But he had a problem.
He knew the alias: Chris Walker. He had heard his father say it.
But the Ultimatum Note was finicky. It was an evolved tool, stricter than the original.
Rule VII: The Rule of Ambiguity.
Unlike a standard Death Note, this note allows for a kill to be executed if the user possesses either the subject's full name or a clear image of their face in their mind.
- If a name is written without a face in mind, all individuals with that name will die.
- If a kill is attempted using only a face, without knowledge of the name, the user must be absolutely certain of the subject's uniqueness. If there is any ambiguity (e.g., an identical twin, an impersonator, or a simple misidentification), the death will fail, and one year of the user's remaining lifespan will be forfeit as payment for the attempt.
He needed a face.
Light pulled out his smartphone. He pretended to be texting. He angled the phone, using the reflective glass of a shop window to aim the lens behind him.
Snap.
The shutter sound was fake—Light had disabled it—but the movement was noticeable.
Chris Walker turned.
His eyes locked onto Light's phone. Then onto Light.
There was no cinematic chase music. No shouting. Just a sudden, terrifying shift in the atmosphere. Walker didn't run; he simply began to walk. Fast.
Light pocketed the phone and turned. He didn't run either. To run was to admit guilt. He walked.
He saw me, Light thought, panic fluttering in his chest like a trapped bird. He knows I took a photo. If he catches me, he'll confiscate the phone. He'll see the picture. He'll know.
Light merged into the crowd. He needed to develop the photo. He couldn't just use the digital screen; the glare was too high, the resolution too grainy for the Note's absolute precision. He needed a hard copy to trace the features with his mind while he wrote.
He ducked into a small, dusty shop: Kodak Express.
"I need this developed," Light said, thrusting his SD card at the old man behind the counter. "Now. It's an emergency."
The old man frowned, slotting the card into a reader. "The file is corrupted, son. The lighting is terrible. I can't get a color print."
"I don't care about color!" Light snapped, looking over his shoulder. Through the glass storefront, he saw the black trench coat bobbing through the sea of heads. He was fifty meters away. Closing the gap. "Just give me something! Anything!"
"I can do a high-contrast outline," the man grumbled. "Like a sketch. It strips the data down to edges."
"Do it."
The printer whirred. It was agonizingly slow. Whirrr-clunk. Whirrr-clunk.
Light watched the street. Walker was stopping people. Showing a badge. Asking if they'd seen a student.
"Here," the man said, sliding a warm piece of paper across the counter.
Light grabbed it. It was garbage. The contrast was too high. The face was half-missing—just the jawline and the left eye were visible. The rest was white space.
It's not enough, Light thought, terror gripping him. The Note won't accept this. It's too ambiguous.
He threw a bill on the counter and exited the shop, turning left into a narrow maintenance alley behind a construction site.
He heard footsteps behind him. Heavy. Purposeful.
"Hey!" A voice barked. "You! Student!"
Light froze. He was trapped. The alley ended in a chain-link fence.
He had ten seconds. Maybe less.
He pulled out the Ultimatum Note and a pen. He slapped the unfinished photo against the brick wall.
I have to finish it, Light screamed internally. I have picture-perfect memory. I saw him. I know his face.
He put the pen to the photo. His hand was shaking violently.
Draw. Just draw.
He sketched the nose. The sharp curve of the nostrils.
Step. Step. Step. The footsteps were loud now.
"Stop right there!" Walker's voice was close. Twenty feet.
Light drew the right eye. He shaded the pupil. He forced his brain to vomit the image onto the paper. The scar on the chin. The receding hairline.
10 seconds.
"Turn around! Hands where I can see them!"
5 seconds.
Light didn't turn. He was hyper-focused. The world narrowed down to the tip of his pen. He connected the jawline to the ear.
3 seconds.
He could hear Walker's breathing. He could hear the rustle of the trench coat as the agent reached for something—a gun? A badge?
2 seconds.
Done.
The face stared back at him from the paper. It was rough, crude, but it was him. It was Chris Walker.
Light slammed the pen onto the Death Note page.
C... H... R... I... S...
"I said turn around!" Walker yelled, his hand grabbing Light's shoulder.
...W... A... L... K... E... R.
Light finished the R just as Walker spun him around.
Light stumbled back, clutching the notebook to his chest. He looked up into the face of the FBI agent. It was the face he had just drawn.
"You're coming with me," Walker growled, reaching for handcuffs.
Light waited. Forty seconds. It takes forty seconds for a heart attack.
But Light Yagami was not calm. He was not the God of the New World in that moment. He was a teenager who had just been chased down an alleyway. His heart was hammering a frantic rhythm of pure, unadulterated fear. He was terrified of being caught. He was terrified of his father finding out. He was terrified of dying.
He didn't know the rules had changed.
Rule XI: The Rule of Temperament.
If the user writes a name while in a state of extreme emotional duress (e.g., rage, fear, grief) rather than cold calculation, the specified death will fail. The victim will instead die of a heart attack, but the moment of their death will be marked by a chaotic, unpredictable event in their immediate vicinity, reflecting the user's own inner turmoil.
Above them, the skeletal frame of the construction site groaned.
It wasn't a heart attack. Not yet.
A cable, stressed beyond its limit, snapped with a sound like a gunshot.
"What—?" Walker looked up.
Light looked up.
A steel I-beam, tons of industrial metal, was plummeting. It wasn't falling in slow motion. It was falling with the terrifying velocity of gravity.
Walker didn't even have time to scream.
CRUNCH.
The sound was wet. It was the sound of a watermelon being dropped from a ten-story building, amplified a thousand times.
The beam didn't just hit Chris Walker; it erased him.
One moment, the agent was standing there, reaching for his cuffs. The next, he was a red mist.
Light was thrown backward by the sheer force of the impact. He hit the ground hard, scrambling away on his hands and heels.
Then, the rain came.
But it wasn't water.
Thick, hot, viscous droplets splattered across Light's face. A chunk of grey matter, wet and slick, landed on his white school shirt. Blood—so much blood—sprayed the alley walls, coating Light's hands, his face, his lips.
The silence that followed was deafening.
Light stared at the carnage. The steel beam lay embedded in the asphalt. Beneath it, protruding from the sides, were only the black tails of a trench coat and a single, polished shoe.
Light Yagami, the top student in Japan, the genius, the judge of humanity, opened his mouth.
He didn't pontificate. He didn't laugh.
He screamed.
"AAAAAHHH! OH GOD! OH GOD!"
He scrambled backward, wiping frantically at his face, smearing the blood into his eyes. He vomited, the bile mixing with the gore on his shirt. He was shaking so hard his teeth clattered together.
I killed him, his mind shrieked. I didn't just stop his heart. I crushed him. I squashed him like a bug.
It was messy. It was barbaric. It was... human.
Present Day.
Light opened his eyes.
He was back in his room. The air conditioner hummed. The carpet was clean.
But he could still feel the phantom warmth of the blood on his skin. He had burned the shirt. He had scrubbed his face until it was raw. But the stain remained on his memory.
That was the moment Light realized the Ultimatum Note was not a toy. It was a mirror. It reflected his composure, and when that composure cracked, the world cracked with it.
He looked at the screen again.
I cannot meet a dead man.
A new message appeared instantly.
From: Anonymous [UID: 7h3_4r7157]
To: KIRA
Oh, I know he's dead, Light. I saw the police report. "Construction accident." Very messy. Very... passionate.
But that's not why I want you to go to the locker.
I didn't say Chris Walker is IN the locker.
I said meet him.
Go to Locker 104.
Open it.
There is a gift inside. Something Chris left behind.
Something that proves who he REALLY was.
Light stared at the text.
Who he really was?
Chris Walker was an alias. Light knew that. But if B.B. knew the real identity... and if that identity was in a locker in Shinjuku...
"Ryuk," Light said, standing up. His voice was steady now. The fear was gone, replaced by a cold, sharp resolve.
"Yeah?"
"We're going out."
"But Light," Ryuk whined. "What about the electricians? What about the cameras?"
"Let them watch," Light said, grabbing his jacket. "I'm just a student going to buy a reference book. And if I happen to stop by a locker..."
He turned off the monitor, leaving the room in darkness.
"...then maybe I'll finally learn the name of the man I killed."
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Hey guys author here, just saying to comment on how you felt this chapter, I put a lot of thought into it and I'm open to criticism