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Quaillish Wammy knew when the matron of another orphanage brought the small child named Hariel over that he would be unlike his other residents. He knew from listening to the woman babble about how the child spend all of his time reading, not socializing with the other kids, and doing complex math and science equations she didn’t understand that this Hariel would meet the Wammy intelligence requirements, even at the tender age of three. Still, when the small little boy looked up at him with impossibly green eyes that were just so ancient and world worn, filled with a knowledge and understanding that most don’t gain until they’re old and decrepit, Wammy knew this child was different, beyond anything he knew yet.
L knew it to, the sixteen year old barely having taken one look at those haunting emerald eyes through the camera before he sat up in a straighter than his normal slouch, “His letter will be H when he enters the race.” There was no hesitation in L’s voice as he said this, L knew without a doubt that Hariel would be a contender for his name.
It was almost an hour later before L gave the boy a name, “Inform the child his name is now Angel.”
Looking up from where he was serving L tea, Quallish couldn’t help but ask L why the name Angel. Admittedly, he was concerned, L tended to choose names in adverse to the person’s personality, Mello being very high strung, Matt being about as much as a push-over as a brick wall, and Near hating to be in the vicinity people. Wammy did not want a demon running around his school of genii.
L’s eyes were almost sad when he looked at Wammy, “Because only and angel could look that many demons in the face and still walk away with the purity his name represents.”
At first, Wammy didn’t understand, but as Angel settled in and started attending classes and interacting, he thought he might see what L meant. The ancient look of lifetimes past never left the child’s eyes, but he was still more patient and understanding with the other children then most adults. He would always stop and give each his undivided attention when they were speaking to him, he would reply with small wisdoms, but never asked for their attention.
Angel always sat with perfect posture, he walked with his shoulders back and his back straight, but he never seemed stiff. At first Angel struggled, but as years passed he became the perfect example of seemingly effortless grace and flawless posture. He never held himself in a lazy or arrogant manor, he never let his happiness or anger pass through his limbs, but his eyes told all his emotions.
Wammy thought his heart would stop when he found out Angel was researching into witchcraft and arcane cults. His fear of L truly naming the child ‘Angel’ because he was a little ‘Demon’ coming back. He allowed it though, because he had yet to deny any of the other children of Wammy’s house. His fear of devil worship was wiped away one day, when Angel showed him magic, undeniable proof of true magic one day. It was that day that ‘H’ was born and Angel both entered and exited the race for the letters. He stated outright that he did not want to be a detective, although he, like most Wammy kids, would lend his knowledge to L if there was ever the need. Instead, Angel insisted he wanted to research the mystic arts, and with Wammy’s permission, apply to ‘The Library’ as an student and begin his full time study in the arcane.
Overwhelmed, Wammy dumped Angel off on L, returning over an hour later (with cake) to find Angel sitting primly on the floor next to L’s slouched form. Both were still deep in conversation, but L looked up at him with wider than normal eyes, “Did you know that ‘the library’ he wants to study at is THE Library of Alexandria? Apparently it’s been hidden by magic this whole time, the mystics fearing the non magical war and removing it to a secret location. It can only be accessed by those with magic, and even then by an extreme few. The knowledge we could have access to if Angel went.”
And so it was decided, and Angel transferred away from Wammy’s house, coming home only for Holidays and the once-annual cleaning of the library.
Over time, however, L grew weary of the magical side of the world, intimidated by the impossibilities that were no longer so impossible, and the strange foreignness of the arcane. Because of this, L hardly ever spoke to H, and never asked for his help on a case.
So, it had Wammy exceptionally worried when L looked up from the pictures of prison cells, where Kira’s victims had written messages and whispered, “Watari, contact H. Ask him to get me all the information he has on Shinigami. Kira wrote us a message, it says, “L did you know that Shinigami love apples?””
More than a little shaken that L wanted to call in help from H, Wammy passed on the message, knowing that it would take a while for it to get to H, then him gather the research and pass it back.
It took so long, in fact, that Wammy had forgotten about the incident by the time the results of that request got back to L.
----
The entire task force, Light included, were together, arguing about the second Kira videos when a polite knock sounded on the hotel door during one of the quieter moments of the argument. The entire task force silenced immediately, half of them trying to figure out who was out there, the other half trying to figure out how their hideout could have been compromised. Before anyone could respond though, the door opened and Angel stepped through. It had been a few years since Wammy had seen the boy in person, but the pre-teen walked with a smooth, nearly inhuman grace that was signature to him. Those ancient emerald eyes had not grown any younger or less intimidating over the years either; the young man examined everyone in the room before he spoke.
“Greetings, Master L, Master Watari. Long time no see. To everyone else in the room, you may call me H, Master L asked for me to do some research for him several months ago, I have compiled all of the knowledge and brought it personally, as The Library would not let some of the contents out of the sight of one of their personnel.”
L grinned, an almost manic, BB quality grin. Angel noticed, and made a face, which amused Wammy as he knew the cause. Motioning to an empty chair, L waited for Angel to pull it up and sit near him. Angel did so, setting a large bag near his feet and reaching into it and pulling out a very large stack of papers and books. “Where would you like me to start?”
L eyed the papers hungrily, his fingers flipping through the first few sheets as his eyes skimmed over the information, “Start wherever you want, Angel.”
Angel, his posture as perfect as ever, nodded, “Very well. I will start with Shinigami. The phrase Shinigami is actually a bit of a broad term, and encompasses several different kinds of Death’s servants. For starters, there are Grim Reapers who take the lives of those who should have died but for whatever reason didn’t, Soul Reapers who guide the souls that have gotten stuck on Earth instead of passing on after Death, Death Dealers who keep the balance between the living and the dead by taking lives early, and Death Bringers who extend the lives of those who would die too soon. It was not until I asked N to forward me some information on your case that I narrowed down the type of Shinigami that you were dealing with, I did bring some information on the other three species of Shinigami, plus a couple subspecies, but most of the information is on Death Dealers.”
Opening a folder full of loose papers and photographs, Angel pulled out several photo’s, one of them had a picture of a Death Note that Light secretly noted as nearly identical to his own, others had notebooks in different colors, some had black rolls of parchment or thick sleeves of hide. “These are different ‘Death Notes’ that have been dropped to Earth, some of them contain ‘rules’ to guide their earthly owners, many of them do not. Of those rules, there are some that are repeated in every ‘note,’ they are as listed in detail in this document.” Angel separated a folder from the pile, “I have also sorted through the rules and listed them by how frequently they appear and any that I found to be proven untrue.”
Glancing around the room, Angel saw the confusion spread across the many faces of the task force. He paused on Lights face, examining the surprise and… was that panic… in the teen’s eyes. “Ah, a Death Note.” Angel lifted one of the images, “A Death Note is the tool of a Death Dealer type Shinigami. The first rule explains it’s function rather well, “The Human who’s name is written in this note shall die.” There are conditions that must be met, but the basis is, the writer must have a face and name, they must specify the cause of death within 40 seconds, or the victim dies of a heart attack, if they specify the cause of death in that time, they have an additional six minutes to write out details.”
L’s eyes widened and he snatched the folder from Angel’s hands. The boy didn’t even flinch, simply dropping his hands into his lap as if that had been his intent from the start, “Of course, Master L, all documentation on all true and untrue rules and how they were uncovered are organized as you prefer.”
Turning back to his pile, Angel lifted another folder, “These are my notes on all incidences of Death Note usage I could dig up. It dates back well over 3000 years. I have included the cases, but also details of the users and any information on their Shinigami. Also, there are several interesting facts about the Death Dealer breed of Shinigami.”
Ignoring L, who was going through the bag that Angel brought, pulling out so many more documents and files than the bag should reasonably hold, Angel motioned to the screen where they had been playing the tapes the second Kira had made. “May I?”
L waved a distracted hand at the boy, who slid into a seat and hit play, he played through the video, the entire task team perking when the journal entry came up and Angel read out the line, “And my friend and I met up and shared notes in Akiyama,” Angel himself hummed softly, “Well… that’s a bit of an obvious clue. With the eyes though, that puts the real Kira in an interesting position.”
L looked up from his notes, “Eyes?”
Turning, Angel motioned to the stack of papers, “Page 214 of file 5 details the eyes. The owner of a Death Note can sacrifice half their life span for the Shinigami eyes. The eyes allow them to see the names and remaining life span of every human on the earth, with few exceptions. The owners of the Death Notes have no visible time of death, which keeps them from knowing their own expiration, but it would also allow the second Kira to find the original Kira, as they will be unable to see their life span. A few other exceptions exist, there are those who are born with the eyes, or acquire other shinigami features through other means through life. It is unclear if their times could be seen. I would assume, with our shared experience with someone who was born with the eyes, that, at least in some cases, their timelines could not be seen.”
L frowned, “Who did we….”
Angel interrupted, “A Shinigami’s eyes in a human always reflect red.”
“Oh…” L’s eyes widened a bit, “That make’s so much sense.”
----
Inside, Light was panicking, his perfect plan was falling to pieces. He had just met Misa Misa last night as she did exactly what this child had implied. How on earth did this boy get so much information on the Death Note? Where did he come from? Who was he?
Lights head was spinning as he desperately tried to come up with a new plan, could he kill this Angel off now? Would that solve anything? How could he resolve this? Should he make the eye deal and kill everyone present? That would make things suspicious if he were the only survivor, but he wasn’t officially ON the team, so would a new team even know to suspect him? He could erase all the video footage of himself, but what if L had backups he didn’t know about. What is he thinking, of course L would have back-ups. Would Ryuk be willing to finally give him the names of L and Angel? Thinking of which, where WAS Ryuk?
Glancing around the room, Light tried to find his missing Shinigami. Where was he? Panicked, Light started to stand, only to come face to face with Angel, “Did you know, that each rank of Shinigami has a king or queen? A monarch that rules over their sector?”
Light fell back into his chair startled at how close Angel was to him, and how those green eyes seemed to look directly through him. “What?”
“Each of these monarchs answer to Death itself, but in general they are left alone to manage their own domains. Death is a busy being, after all. From what I understand, the King of the Death Dealers is a pretty laid back and lazy king, not much of a surprise if you look at the realm overall. The Death Dealer king doesn’t do much unless he begins to fear that something may draw the attention to Death, for example, a Death Dealer stealing a second Death Note and dropping it into the human world where a ambitious soul picks it up and kills 3,497 people in several months.”
Those supernatural and ancient green eyes seemed to glow at Light, “The king of the death dealers may get upset and punish his Shinigami, but Death… well, Death has special agents for cases such as Kira. It does state in the Death Note that ‘he who writes a name in the Death Note shall go to neither Heaven or Hell.’ I wonder where Kira’s soul will be sent?”
Light scowled, trying to remain calm, “And why are you telling me this? Did L tell you he thought I was Kira and you think you can accuse me too?”
A soft smile tugged at Angel’s lips, “No, Light Yagami, in the past five years L has communicated with me one sentence, it stated: ‘Angel, gather all the information you have on Shinigami for the Kira case.’”
Standing, Angel moved to the door, giving a small bow to both L and Watari as he passed them. Grabbing the door handle, Angel was stopped by Light’s father, “Where are you going?”
Ancient eyes, older by far than the body they were housed in, turned to stare at the detective, “To stir things up a bit.”
Chief Yagami frowned, “What do you mean?”
Glancing at L, Angel smiled, “I told you there were exceptions to the shinigami eyes, well, it turns out, things become quite interesting when one with the eyes looks upon those that have already died. I wonder what the second Kira will do upon seeing what floats above my head.”
With a graceful twist, Angel was gone from the room, leaving Light with a dreadful weight in his stomach. His stomach seemed to drop through the floor when Mogi commented, “How did he know Light’s name? We never introduced ourselves.”
Feeling faint, Light turned to L, desperation flooding his veins as he focused on the gleeful way L was looking at him.
Who was that child? What was that child? How could Light FIX the utter shit his plan had turned into?
---
Angel, being the Master of Death, could sense the location of all the Shinigami if he so felt the need, so it didn’t take him long to position himself near the second Kira. Ending up at a film studio, he had no trouble getting in, magically conjuring a resume and pretending to be an auditioning actor/model. He had the looks and the grace, or would if he could soften the impact of his eyes, but the staff let him in eagerly, offering to give him a tour, which he accepted.
A flitting dance around the studio brought him into the same room as Misa Amane was doing her photoshoot. He knew he’d caught her when he saw her do a double take out of the corner of his eyes. Minutes later her and her Shinigami darted from the room as she shouted she needed to use the restroom.
Misa turned to her Shinigami just outside the studio door, “Rem, what was that? And what was that weird symbol where his lifespan should be?”
Rem would have paled if she weren’t already bone white, “That symbol, Misa, was that of an Immortal. That young man, Misa, is as close to a god as you will ever meet. He is more powerful than a Shinigami. Misa, please be careful.”
Misa cheered up, “Is he like a real Kira?” Bouncing back into the room, Misa ignored Rem’s calls of concern as she run right up to the boy who’s name appeared as M.O.D. “Come, do this photo shoot with me!”
Angel let Misa manhandle him onto the stage for the photoshoot, soon he was part of her advertising and being hounded by agents who wanted a contract for him. Misa was rapidly talking about how she had some sort of TV spot next and how great it would be for her to do it with him.
Angel smiled, yes, let Light panic more when he appeared on screen with the second Kira.
L had everything he needed to solve the case, and Angel could clean up the mess the rouge Death Dealers created.