To get a manga serialized, it had to pass the editorial department's serialization meeting.
The author would complete storyboards for the first three chapters so the editors could judge whether the work had commercial value.
Generally, there were three outcomes: accepted, rejected, or pending.
Kai had started drawing the first three chapters of Death Note before the Tezuka Award results were even announced, all to lock down a serialization as quickly as possible.
'He's certainly full of confidence.' Heishi glanced at Kai, keeping the thought to himself.
...
"One chapter is plenty."
Heishi pulled out the storyboard for the serialized version of Death Note and gave it a look. What he saw genuinely surprised him.
'Has he really improved this much in just over ten days?'
Kai's storyboarding ability had taken a clear leap forward.
The protagonist, Light Yagami, discovers the Death Note, picks it up, and slips it into his schoolbag to take home.
That entire sequence was laid out cleanly across just six panels. The motion was fluid and the information density was solid.
Compared to the Death Note one-shot Kai had drawn before, the presentation was on a different level.
The panel sizes varied too, giving Heishi a sense of real, deliberate progression.
He looked up at Kai, his mind racing. 'What an insane growth rate. Fujin might actually be the one to save Jump.'
'He might even surpass the Oda kid that Sasaki-san thinks so highly of.'
To hide the excitement building inside him, he adjusted his glasses and turned his attention back to the story.
Ryuk the Shinigami, bored out of his mind with life in the Shinigami realm, deliberately drops a Death Note into the human world.
High school student Light Yagami, equally bored with his own mundane existence, finds the notebook.
After testing it and watching someone actually die, and then meeting Ryuk, who has come looking for his lost notebook, Light becomes convinced the Death Note is real.
He resolves to use its power to eliminate criminals, build a world without crime, and become the god of the new world.
"This is exactly what I wanted to see!"
Heishi couldn't help himself. He slammed his hand on the desk and stood up.
His original idea for Death Note had been to make the protagonist a detective, someone who investigates a string of mysterious deaths and eventually uncovers the truth behind the notebook.
But Kai went a step further and made the protagonist the villain himself.
That's right. A Jump protagonist could also be the bad guy.
That was precisely the charm of Death Note.
'It's sharper and more compelling than anything else out there.'
The title of the first chapter of Death Note was "Boredom."
In other words, Light Yagami's entire motivation for using the Death Note came from nothing more than boredom.
He chose someone unimportant as his test subject, someone he had no connection to and no attachment to. It could be a thug, a delinquent, or a violent criminal. It didn't matter.
In just five days, Light Yagami had filled the Death Note with dense rows of names, asserting his existence through sheer volume.
'Rather than becoming a hero, Light Yagami wants to become the god who rules the world. This is exactly the kind of protagonist Death Note needs.'
Heishi continued to marvel at it.
Kai had once again given him the feeling of discovering buried treasure.
"Just keep drawing like this. I won't offer any suggestions. I'd only end up getting in your way."
"You've already gone beyond the framework of Jump. I shouldn't try to constrain you."
"Understood." Kai nodded. He carefully slipped the evaluation sheet into his pocket, packed up his storyboards, and got ready to leave.
Before he went, Heishi asked for his bank account details.
The prize money for the Tezuka Award would be wired to him directly.
...
After Kai left, Heishi carefully closed the door to the reception room.
The moment it clicked shut, he couldn't hold it in any longer. He threw his fists in the air and cheered.
"With Fujin! With Death Note! I'm... I'm actually going to make team leader!"
"Haha!"
He pumped his fists and bounced on his heels.
"This is amazing!"
Right then, someone knocked on the door.
Heishi spun around, straightened his clothes, cleared his throat, and said in a perfectly composed voice, "Come in."
The person who walked in was the Editor-in-Chief of Jump: Kazuhiko Torishima.
He had a peculiar look on his face as he studied Heishi from head to toe.
"You're certainly full of energy. I could hear you all the way from the hallway."
Heishi wanted to sink through the floor.
"I'm sorry, Editor-in-Chief. I got carried away."
"Hmm..." Torishima drew out the syllable and slowly raised his chin. "It seems Fujin has really made an impression on you."
"He has," Heishi replied. "He brought the storyboard for the first chapter of Death Note. It's a wonderful story."
Torishima considered this for a moment. "Come up to the editorial department later and tell me about it."
After saying that, he put one hand in his pocket and pointed at the glitter scattered across the floor with the other.
"And clean this up. Don't make problems for other people."
Then he turned and walked out.
Heishi bowed deeply to his retreating back. "Yes, Editor-in-Chief."
He stayed there for a while, waiting until Torishima's footsteps had completely faded before standing up and muttering to himself.
"It seems the Editor-in-Chief really does value Fujin. He's keeping a close eye on him."
"That's correct." Torishima, who Heishi had been sure was long gone, appeared again.
He poked his head in from the doorway, his lips pressed into a thin, flat line.
Heishi nearly jumped out of his skin. His heart shot straight into his throat.
Torishima didn't seem to care in the slightest. He simply explained, "I'm considering publishing the Death Note one-shot in Akamaru Jump."
"It would be a real waste to use it only as a Tezuka Award entry."
...
After saying goodbye to Furuta, Kai walked out of Shueisha.
The next time he came here, it would either be to deliver the completed storyboards for the first three chapters of Death Note, or to attend the Tezuka Award ceremony itself. He wasn't sure which would come first.
After getting on the subway, Kai didn't sit down. He leaned against the handrail with his head bowed, thinking.
Now that he'd won the Tezuka Award, spending most of his time at the restaurant was a waste. Pushing his drawing skills forward and finishing the Death Note storyboards was what mattered most.
He still had 100,000 yen in savings, which was enough to get by until the two-million-yen prize money from the Tezuka Award came through.
'Tell the manager I'm done at the restaurant. Move to a new place. Buy what I need: a proper drawing desk, a computer, a printer, a fax machine…'
Kai ran through his next steps in his head, and before he knew it, the train had brought him back to his neighborhood.
He didn't even go home first. Instead, he went straight to the apartment manager's office to request a lease termination.
"Take all your belongings, clean the room from top to bottom, and report any damages as soon as possible so I can get someone in to assess." The manager rattled off the requirements without even looking up.
He'd handled lease terminations more times than he could count.
In his eyes, Kai was just another sorry case who couldn't hack it in Tokyo and was slinking away in defeat.
In a city like Tokyo, the people who tried the hardest were often the easiest to break, while the ones who just drifted along tended to stick around forever.
"I'll still be living here for a while," Kai explained. "Until I find my next place."
________________
TL Note: Akamaru Jump is a special supplementary issue of Weekly Shonen Jump, published a few times a year. It's used to run one-shots, pilot chapters, and works by promising newcomers.