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Imagine that you were going to kill someone. What do you think would be the most difficult part? Three, two, one... time’s up! The correct answer: killing someone. Now, now, calm down—I swear I’m not making fun of you, or playing linguistic tricks here. I’m completely serious. People, in other words, humans, have not been designed to die that easily—at the least, people almost never grunt or moan and immediately fall over dead. Strangulation, blunt force trauma, stabbing—none of these kill people easily. Humans are surprisingly sturdy creatures. Additionally, people have a tendency to resist being killed. Nobody wants to be killed, and there’s a good chance they’ll try to kill you back. Physical strength in humans doesn’t vary that much, and in a one-on-one fight, winning can be rather difficult. From this point of view, the ability to kill someone just by writing their name in a notebook is a

flagrant violation of fair play, as I’m sure you can imagine.However.

When Beyond Birthday went about committing this series of murders, he did not have any difficulty killing his victims. After all, the murders themselves were not his purpose, and he had no intention of expending undue effort on them—but even so, it was not easy to see exactly how he had avoided trouble. Certainly, he was using weapons and drugging his victims, but at this point all three of his victims had been killed without showing any real sign of resistance. In most cases, defense wounds are a key element in identifying the killer, but in this case the victims had all died as if it were only natural for them to have done so. The FBI Agent Naomi Misora never did understand why, and even the century’s greatest detective, L, did not manage to create a working theory until several years after the case had ended.

But enough buildup. Let me explain.

Beyond Birthday had the eyes of a shinigami congenitally. It was not particularly difficult for him to track down people with the initials B.B. or to find people who were fated to die on a certain day at a certain time. After all, there are over twenty million people in Los Angeles.

Killing people was, for him, normal.

Killing people who were fated to die anyway was no effort at all. Mmm, I guess I should explain the idea of the eyes of a shinigami. The phrase is only too familiar to me, but if I don’t explain it, some of you will cry foul. The eyes of a shinigami. These eyes could be given out by any shinigami in return for half the recipient’s remaining life. They allowed the recipient to see people’s names and remaining life. Normally contact with a shinigami was a prerequisite for acquisition, but Beyond Birthday had traded nothing—he had seen the world through those eyes since before he could remember.

He knew your name before you said it.

He knew the time of death of every person he met.

I hardly need to explain just what effect this would have on his personality. You might think they would hardly be useful without a Death Note, but that is simply not the case. The ability to see someone’s remaining life is the ability to see death. Death, death, death. Beyond Birthday lived his life

unceasingly reminded that all humans would eventually die. From the time he was born he knew the day his father would be attacked by a thug and die, knew the day his mother would die in a train crash. He had these eyes before he was born, which is why he called himself Beyond Birthday. Which is why a child as strange as he was taken in by our home, sweet home—Wammy’s House.

He was B.

The second child in Wammy’s House.

“If only I could see the death of the world,” Beyond Birthday murmured, on August 19th at 6 a.m., just as he woke up. He was lying on a simple bed on the second floor of a prefabricated storehouse borrowed under the name of a dormant company, in the suburbs of the west side of town. One of many hidden lairs located across the country, around the world. Why West L.A.? Because on that day, Naomi Misora, the suspended FBI agent fronting for the century’s greatest detective, L, was going to be there. “Naomi Misora. Naomi Misora. L’s hands. L’s eyes. L’s shield. Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! No, that’s not right... I should laugh more like this... Kya ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Yeah, that’s better.”

Kya ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Kya ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Laughing wildly, Beyond Birthday got out of bed. A harsh, cruel laugh, but an unnatural laugh, a phony laugh. As if laughing was just another task he had to perform.

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Beyond Birthday remembered how he had attacked Naomi Misora three days before, on August 16th, in the alley downtown.

Of course, he had known when she would die—had seen how much life remained. Naomi Misora’s life. It was not that time, on August 16th, but much, much later.

Which meant...

If he attacked her with intent to kill, he would absolutely fail. He knew that he would. Ensuring his path of escape was far more critical. Naomi Misora was nothing but L’s servant, and if she died there would be dozens of replacements—from the FBI, the CIA, and the NSA—even the Secret Service. So he had only been testing her. Seeing if Naomi Misora was capable of being L’s substitute.

“Hmmm... mmmm... hmmm... Huh huh huh huh... no, hee hee hee? I could go with ho ho ho ho, but that’s a little too jolly… anyway. Oh, Naomi Misora, you are pretty good. A shame to waste someone like you in the FBI.”

She had passed the test, so far.

Today she would visit the scene of the third murder, and she would most likely find the message Beyond Birthday had left for her. Then she would try to prevent the fourth murder, the victim Beyond Birthday had selected.

That was good.

Only then would the competition begin. Only then would the real game start. The competition between L and B.

L and B’s puzzle.

“If L’s a genius then B’s an extreme genius. If L’s a freak, then B’s an extreme freak. Now it’s time to get ready. There are things I must do before B can surpass L. Henh henh henh henh.”

This thought was the only thing that made him laugh without needing to think about it. And those that know will recognize the laugh of the shinigami.

Still grinning to himself, he faced the mirror, brushed his hair, and began applying his makeup. The reflection of himself in the mirror. Himself. As always, he could not see his own time of death. No more than he could see the death of the world.

So, August 19th.

Naomi Misora was in the west side of the city, in the townhouse where the third victim, Backyard Bottomslash, had lived. She had shared the place with a good friend of hers, but she had been killed while her friend had been out of town on business. Like the second victim’s mother, the roommate had moved back in with her parents after the murder.

Backyard Bottomslash’s bedroom was on the second floor. There was a thumb turn latch just below the knob. And two holes on the walls where the Wara Ningyo had been. One on the far wall, directly opposite the door, and the other on the left hand wall. The floor was covered in a frankly bizarre number of stuffed animals for a twenty-eight-year-old, and the entire room was ornately decorated. There were stuffed animals piled against each wall. In order: two, five, nine, and twelve. Twenty-eight in all. While the room had been cleaned, it still smelled faintly of blood, which destroyed the effect of the decor.

“Where is Ryuzaki?”

She glanced down at the silver wristwatch on her left hand, and saw that it was already two thirty in the afternoon.

They were supposed to meet at two.

Misora had been here since early that morning, checking the place out in advance. She had searched the entire house, not just this room, but five hours later she had completely run out of things to do and was rather bored. And she had failed to uncover anything of interest, which had left her feeling frustrated. She bit her lip, annoyed that she had been unable to figure anything out without Ryuzaki around.

Then the phone in her bag rang. She answered quickly, assuming it was L, but it was her boyfriend and coworker, Raye Penber.

“Hello? Raye?”

“Yeah... let me speak quickly, Misora,” Raye said, in a low voice. At this time of day there must be other people around him. “I checked up on what you asked me.”

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