"Because of what I'm about to tell you, I cannot tell you my name." Her beautiful blue eyes sparkled as she said those words, but the next ones changed Katsu's life forever, "This book is yours."
He picked up the black notebook in front of him and read the two words on the cover. He opened it to find the first few pages filled with a few names scribbled down in neat cursive handwriting, mostly in green ink.
"Death Note? What mockery is this?"
He was infuriated. This girl had devised a cunning plan to get him alone and her intention was to give him a book? He threw the book down in anger.
"It's a book... That kills whoever has their name written down in it."
Confused about what has happened? Wondering who these two characters are? If I told you this happened on a Wednesday evening, would you mind if I backtracked back to the morning of the previous Monday? Good. I will. Before you wonder who I am, please, do not fret. You will meet me soon in this tale. I will reveal everything at the end.
Katsu woke up. His black hair dye was the first thing he saw that morning. He knew that it was Monday the second he saw it. The day he had to dye his hair. Despite his green eyes, he did not like his natural appearance. Purple hair does not suit someone like him.
He got out of bed and took a shower, dying his hair, brushing his teeth and getting dressed, it was the same every Monday. He found it boring.
Little did he know that he would find a way to escape this boredom within the week.
He left the room dressed in a T-Shirt which featured his favourite band. His classmates said that his choice in music was rubbish. He did not care. As he was walked out through the main hall, he heard the soft voice of his sister behind him.
"Katsu! Makoto's looking for you!"
And with that, the purple haired university student ran off, the echo of her footsteps rebounding off the paintings that hung in the grand hallway. Katsu was never sure if living in such a grand estate was a blessing or a curse, as it always seemed empty.
Katsu walked towards the dining hall. He did so every day. The maid, Makoto, made him breakfast. She was only hired a year before but she was irreplaceable in his life as his sister was. Secretly, it was one of the few things that made him happy.
"Good morning master Katsu, breakfast is on the table."
A girl in her early twenties wearing a maid uniform had opened the gold trimmed door. The regal pattern on the wood and smile upon her face were two of the things Katsu woke for every morning. Makoto Hanari was always like that, always smiling.
After breakfast, Katsu began his walk to School. He left the manor grounds and began the twenty minute journey to Shokazu's house. Katsu hated the green uniform he was forced to wear, but he knew that he had to attend school.
Walking through town, he saw many people in the same uniform as him smiling and chatting together. They were happy. He did not mind that. They were idiots in his view. If he was not so focused on the crowds, maybe he would have noticed the girl who had been following since he left the manor.
Knocking on the door, he heard a familiar voice call down to him.
"Just a second!"
Shokazu was a kind person. Katsu liked him because he was one of the few people who ever gave him a challenge. The girl not in uniform who passed by the house and bought a newspaper would be the second to give Katsu a challenge.
Shokazu opened the door. He had bright blonde hair and wore his school jacket without the sleeves. People would have called him crazy if he was not so cheerful looking all the time. Shokazu was a kind person, always stopping to help others. He once skipped class for a week so that he could nurse a cat back to health. Katsu skipped that week for different reasons.
"Hey Katsu, isn't it nice to be so carefree?"
Shokazu was the kind of person who loved life. Many girls lusted after him and many boys envied him. He only let Katsu know where he lived, however, as only Katsu shared his view on the world.
"This world needs more heroes to unite us all. It doesn't matter how happy we are if the world around us crumbles."
Katsu responded with the dark side that the two of them shared. The world needed more heroes. He said this every day to Shokazu. Today, someone overheard him. She smiled from behind the newspaper as he confirmed her thoughts.
Katsu chatted with Shokazu on the short journey to school. He did not notice the girl walk past him nor did he notice the memory stick she had dropped into his bag. She had started with her plan. The girl walked down a completely different road from them a few seconds later. She did not need to follow Katsu any more.
The two boys arrived at school. They first had tutor meetings, which was a boring time for Katsu. He did not listen to a single word the class representative said. After tutor, Katsu and Shokazu walked over to the computer block, where he was to attend a lesson of coding. Shokazu sat on Katsu's left. The seat to Katsu's right remained empty.
When the lesson was almost over, Katsu reached into his purse-like bag and grabbed what he thought was him memory stick. As he plugged it in to the computer, the girl who was waiting for that moment smiled. With her right hand she turned on the computer to Katsu's right. With her left she moved the cup of coffee she had purchased to her lips.
Katsu saved the information onto the memory stick and left the room. He did not notice that the computer next to him had been hacked. Shokazu was in too much of a rush to notice it also. When the girl had added the coding to the school system, she packed up, paid her bill and left Cuppa C. She had one more day until the meeting. She could not mess this up.
The final bell rang. Katsu woke up. He knew that Literature was boring but this was ridiculous. Shokazu had covered for him as he took a kip. Katsu grabbed his bag and left for the Chess Club's room.
Katsu and Shokazu played a lot of chess. While Shokazu played like an amateur, Katsu was the Club Captain, holding an impeccable record. Katsu was known for playing chess with one hand and a hand-held game with the other. Last week he played a fighting game. This week, he decided to play a shooter.
"Checkmate."
Katsu nearly laughed as he said the word. His opponent had been studying all his moves for a week and thought he had Katsu figured out.
"Tom, next time you wish to spy on me, be less obvious. I've played a completely different style for a week just to throw you off."
Katsu was good at detecting the flaws of others. He went back to the shooter, however, as his sentence had caused him to take a wound to the arm. A few minutes later, Shokazu asked for his help. Katsu paused the game, looked at the board for twenty seconds and responded.
"Rook to K5. Next turn, Queen to QR8. You should be able to win easily if you do that."
Katsu spoke in a deadpan style when it came to chess. When he found it to be fun, however, he spoke with enthusiasm. He returned to his game and heard Shokazu cheering a few minutes later. A smiled graced Katsu's lips.
After Chess Club, Katsu walked home. 30 minutes is a long walk if you are not with anyone. Fortunately, Shokazu decided to chill at the manor. Katsu bought a newspaper from the same stand that the girl had bought a newspaper from. The headline of the day was 'Woman kidnapped. Police baffled.'
At the manor, the help welcomed him in and presented Shokazu with some robes to wear. Katsu threw his bag on the table in the grand hall and headed to his room. A few minutes later, Shokazu emerged wearing a robe that was a little too big for him. Katsu dropped the Manga and looked at his friend and the awkward appearance.
"Hey Katsu, do you think that the person who rescues the girl from the kidnapper will be a hero?"
Shokazu had seen the headline of the paper on the floor. For a manor, the room was very messy. The floor was littered with Manga and game guides. Shokazu picked up a Manga from the pile and began to read it.
"Maybe we should become the heroes. It's a shame that the police have no leads though."
Before Shokazu could respond, a knock was heard on the door. Katsu dropped the Manga and Makoto came in the room.
"Katsu, Shokazu, you are wanted in the study,"
The study was not just a room of the manor, it was one of the wings. The amount of businesses that was owned by KamiKorp was tremendously high. Teru Mikami, the owner of the estate, was the leader of those businesses. He was in the top ten most valuable men in the country. Katsu and Kyoko, however, called him Uncle.
Katsu followed Makoto to the third room of the wing, a room which had the local chief of police in and a few detectives. They fell silent as Katsu walked into the room. Katsu looked ahead at the man in his thirties who had black shoulder-length hair and glasses that cover his entire face sitting behind the desk.
"Here he is, the one who may figure out this problem."
Teru spoke with a calm voice. He expected great things from Katsu. Shokazu, in his eyes, would be a great friend for Katsu. Shokazu was destined for great things. Katsu walked up to the desk and picked up the papers on it.
"This is the genius we have heard so much about?"
There was a lot of muttering coming from the place where the detectives were sitting. Katsu did not care. The case was a kidnapping, the very kidnapping he had read about earlier that day. Katsu looked at the list of suspects, the list of Alibi and the details of the case. Shokazu also tried working things out.
"Are you sure that this has baffled you guys?"
Katsu finally spoke. He smirked with the sentence. Shokazu was beginning to connect the pieces of the puzzle together.
"While it does seem like this man," Katsu pointed to a suspect, "Had the most reason to do the kidnapping, I think it's more likely that another person is the real kidnapper."
Shokazu smiled and rushed to his friend's side.
"Katsu's right, it is another person. Takeshi Obata!"
"He's right." The police were shocked with what they had heard. "Lieutenant Takeshi Obata did this. He was the one who made the arrests and the reports have him announce the kidnapping at 8:30. The same time the girl went missing."
"He made the suspects lie about where they were so they would be incarcerated. He would have gotten away with it too, but he forgot about the fact that he had been added to the list of suspects as well."
"So, raid his house tomorrow and you should find the girl. Just one question though," Katsu turned to face the police chief, "Why is the girls name not included in this report?"
The police chief was confused for a few seconds. He had his best guys working on this case for a week and then these two teenagers walk into the room and solve it in an instant.
"The girl was only identified by a nickname. We couldn't trace her back to where she lived or anything."
Katsu discarded his smile. He turned to face Teru.
"Uncle, you knew all along who did it. Ever since the case was brought to you this afternoon, you had known the culprit. Why were you testing me?"
Teru let loose a snide smile, his handsome face tainted by the evil behind it.
"Because Katsu, I know you. You would find this case as easy as I did. I needed to check to see if you were still the same genius as you were the day I met you. And yes, you are the right type of person to succeed as the head of KamiKorp."
Katsu did not respond. He merely turned and left, Makoto and Shokazu following him as he left. Katsu knew that all Teru wanted to do was to prove to his friends that a nobody like him can be the rightful successor to the company, despite not being a blood relation.
As Katsu walked down the grand hall, he saw his sister. Kyoko was a cheerful girl, three years older than Katsu. She had her friends round. While Katsu had forgone his purple hair, Kyoko embraced it, using it to stand out in a crowd.
"Thank you for everything Katsu!"
Not a day went by without Kyoko thanking her brother. When their mother died back when they were little, she had to do all the work around the house and brought up Katsu on her own. Ten years ago, Teru walked into the orphanage and saw the two of them playing chess. Teru told them that if they could beat him, he would adopt the two of them. Kyoko and Katsu won. Kyoko remembers that she did not even remotely help in the game.
Katsu and Shokazu continued walking to the room. A few hours past and Katsu waved goodbye to his friend. They would see each other the next morning. Katsu jumped into bed, still in his uniform, and fell asleep.
The girl followed the two schoolboys again the next day. She had a few more things to do before she could start her plan. She walked into a crowd of girl going to school and began to chat to them, using them for cover. She needed Katsu to trust her. If he got suspicious then her plan would crumble.
When Katsu arrived at school, he reached for his timetable that he kept in his shirt pocket. He could not find it. He assumed he must have lost it in his sleep.In reality, he had lost it the previous afternoon, when a girl had spilt some of her milkshake on his top and she had cleaned it.
The lesson after lunch and before the end of school, Katsu was asleep again. He hated Literature. It did not excite him. The teacher noticed him sleeping and decided to ask him a question about the text.
"Katsu! From what play is the following line from: 'Alas poor Yorick! I knew him well.'"
Katsu woke up with a grunt, checked the time and considered going back to sleep. The girl in front of him was eager to answer the question but Katsu stood up anyway.
"None. The line is a misquotation of a scene from Hamlet. 'Alas poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio.' is the correct quote."
Katsu did not have to pay attention to be top of the class. Makoto had read some of those plays to him the year before. He began to wonder why he even bothered to turn up to lessons anyway. A girl walked by the classroom, confirming that he was in that class.
The girl had walked into reception and received a timetable and a student ID card. She had changed the school database and so now was accepted as a student. The perfect disguise.
I have not revealed her appearance yet. Katsu hasn't noticed her yet. Why would I describe something so important so early?
Dinner that evening was chicken. The dining room was illuminated by the candles and the many people who turned up were chatting. It was a meeting of all the important business partners and project leaders of KamiKorp. Not too interested in the conversations were two schoolboys in school uniform.
Katsu saw his sister chatting with a newspaper company. She was that kind of person. She never stopped relaxing, even when at such a formal party. Shokazu was talking with the head of a hospital, trying to get a job there. Katsu was listening but not caring about the situation, occasionally getting told that he was as handsome as Uncle had said.
The time to eat had come. The guests all had their seats chosen for them. As usual, Katsu was placed next to Uncle, with Shokazu sitting next to both Katsu and Kyoko. Once the guests all fell silent, Teru stood up and began his speech.
"Ladies and Gentlemen. I invited you all here today for two reasons. The first is so that we can all work together and shape a better future. The second is to introduce you all to my right hand man. Please stand up Katsu."
The whole table applauded Uncle as he finished the speech. Katsu stood up and turned to face the table of people. If it was not for his sister being so out of place in her jeans and T-Shirt, he may have panicked.
"I applaud you all in your desires to work with this company. Together, we shall shape the future into one which is perfect for us all. We shall make perfection not an idea but a reality. So all of you, I declare you to be my friends. As friends, we shall always be there for each other and make the impossible possible."
He sat down to a massive applause. Even Uncle thought the speech was brilliant. It was obvious that Katsu was going to inherit the company, even to strangers. Kyoko was proud to be his sister and Shokazu, the envy of many, respected him. It looked like his life would be perfect.
And with that, we skip to the next day. To the morning of the evening that opened this story. At this point, our tale truly begins.
They almost noticed her today. She walked behind them and look anxious. She was wearing the uniform like everyone else but was trying to get noticed... Even if only slightly. Today, she had to become more than a hacker and a thief, she had to become an actor.
She arrived in school with a nervous look on her face. She was approached by two girls from the drama club.
"Hey, why are you so nervous?"
Exactly as she had planned. Two girls from her class had walked up to her and tried to comfort her. She had planned this out to the nearest centimetre. She knew when these girls arrived at school, what lessons they took and how to make them like her. She almost smiled knowing that the past two days had not been wasted.
"I-I-I..." The timid act was easy to pull off, "I've been ill and couldn't attend lessons until now. I'm in class 2B, will you please show me where to go?"
The girls walked with her. Shokazu, who was sitting on a nearby bench, was watching her slightly. He wondered who she was and why she was so nervous. Katsu, who was sitting next to him however, did not care.
"She's better off not having a boy like you approaching her. Someone as handsome as you would make her even more nervous."
Blunt and straight to the point. He should have recognised her as being the girl who spilt milkshake over him two days before, but he was not caring enough to pay that much attention. They stood up and went to class 2A, their class.
He noticed that the girl was in the first two lessons with him. She sat behind him in Literature and two in front of him in Maths. Every now and then, she would turn around and upon seeing him look at her, quickly turn away. If Katsu had been paying attention to her over the past week, he would have spotted the obvious ploy.
But he always made that mistake. He never paid attention to others unless they interested him. Katsu may have been a genius but he was an idiot. That sounds odd doesn't it?
At break time, Katsu went to the study centre and napped as he always did. Shokazu was busy studying for the text next lesson but Katsu just fell asleep. Some people looked at him like he was an idiot but the staff members knew that waking Katsu up would be idiotic. Katsu was top of the class in every subject, after all. They knew he needed sleep.
The girl was also studying but with the two friends she had made earlier. She was making her intentions clear by gazing out and staring towards Katsu every now and then. Deception and timing was everything in this game.
The next few lines are lines of dialogue between the girls. In honesty, I hate this style of writing as much as you would hate listening to it in reality. If it wasn't needed, I'd cut it out. Stupid girls.
"Hey," the girl spoke up and pointed towards Katsu, "who is that guy?"
The other girls looked towards the table and a few of them swooned, Shokazu looked really handsome in the light and he looked so studious that the girls wished they were there with him.
"That's Shokazu Kyota, the class rep for 2A. He's famous around here."
"Yeah, and his beautiful skin makes him so dreamy."
"I heard he once rescued a bird and nursed it back to health."
"How dreamy."
"Why does Katsu always get the chance to hang out with him?"
"Did you hear? Katsu is always in the top ten for his exams."
"Yeah, so am I."
"No, not in class, in the country. He seems to know all the answers without even trying."
"I don't believe you."
"My Dad is the manager of a hospital. Last night, he went to a business party at Teru Mikami's house. Teru practically announced Katsu as his successor there!"
"Wait, so that sleeping person next to the man of my dreams in going to become the head of a multinational business?"
"I wish I was in 2A."
And so on. Sorry for subjecting you to that torment. You are the true hero for bearing that tirade of hell that is the life of teenage girls.
The girl was not in any more of Katsu's lessons. If she was then Katsu would get suspicious. She was lucky that he had partied too hard the night before and was too tired to pay attention. A professional chess player like him would notice something wrong in a heartbeat under any other circumstances.
At lunchtime, she walked over to class 2A. This was the moment she needed. The time where her plan came together. She waited outside the door of the class and peered in, waiting for one of the girls to ask her what she wanted. Looking nervous was needed.
"Hey, what are you doing here?"
A girl from the class approached her. Katsu turned to face the door, slightly intrigued by the new girl. Finally. Some description of this girl. Maybe even a name! She had light brown hair and beautiful blue eyes. Her face looked timid by it was coated with a virgin skin, safe from blemishes. He hair was nearly hip length and was as straight as two rulers.
"I'm... I'm," The timid act suited her, "I'm here to talk to him!" He gestured towards Katsu, who moved the Rook into position and declared Checkmate against the flabbergasted Shokazu.
"You mean Shokazu? Right?" Nobody was a friend of Katsu. Very few people found his intellect possible, the rest were afraid of what he would do if he was angry, as he was known for having a lot of money.
"No! I mean Katsu! Katsu Aoki!" Everyone in class was shocked. Even if Katsu was slightly handsome, next to Shokazu he was unnoticeable. He was just a lazy rich boy in the eyes of many.
Shokazu nudged Katsu twice and winked at him. Katsu stood up and walked over to the girl. He could feel the whole class watching him as he walked over. He did not care. When a girl asks for you instead of your best friend then you go and talk to her.
The two of them looked at each other. She looked in supposed awe while he looked at her in a way which asked: Why? She knew that this was the moment she was waiting for, the reason she came to the town. She could not mess this up.
"Katsu," Her shyness went away instantly, "I cannot stop thinking about you. Do you want to meet up after school?"
Two questions instantly arose in Katsu's mind. The first was 'Who is this girl?' the second was the questioned posed. Katsu considered it briefly and responded with.
"Sure, I'll meet you at the gates after school," He then took her hand, something that she could not predict, "You have skin like an angels, please may you bless me with your name oh sweet maiden?"
That surprised everyone. While Katsu did not seem like it, he was a master of poetry and plays. He secretly and anonymously submitted the script for the drama club play last year. He also volunteered Shokazu to be the lead, just as a joke.
"I'm, I'm, I'm," Timid again. She had no idea what to say. The green eyes looking into hers were supposedly too captivating. "I'm Sakura, like the trees."
"My sweet Sakura, you have a good name. You have beauty beyond that of the spring and charm beyond that of an angel. Gazing upon you is like a dream forevermore from which I do not wish to ever wake up from." She did not know it but that was a line from the play. "My name is Katsu, but you already knew that."
He thought that this girl had fallen in love with him at first sight. In a way, he was true. He was everything she desired. The class thought her to be a gold digger and after she left, they communicated such thoughts directly to Katsu, who did not give a response.
At the end of school, Katsu picked up his bag and told Shokazu to tell the chess club that he was busy. He met up with Sakura at the gates and walked into town with her. He sealed his fate that day.
The date went as any day would go, they went to the movies, they went to Cuppa C, they took a walk in the park. I'll skip the details. She seemed like she was happy but it was all fake. He was just killing time. In the park together, at around 7. The Sakura petals on the ground graced the two of them with a blessed appearance.
"Katsu," This was her final act. When this was over, she could become who she really was, "I think we could finish of this date in a wonderful way." She brought her lips close to his ear, he could feel her breathing and found it to be truly magnificent. "How about we go back to your place and have some fun."
If it was not for the brilliant acting and the natural instincts Katsu had, after all, he was a teenage boy, he would have declined. But Sakura was a brilliant actor and so he fell for it. He led her back to his house.
"Because of what we're about to do, can you not tell anyone I'm here? I'll like to keep this a secret from your family."
Sakura needed the privacy. If she was known to be in the manor, the whole plan would fail. Katsu grabbed her hand and snuck into the manor. They went up to the room and she sat on the bed, took off her jacket and picked up the Manga Katsu was reading a few days before.
"So Lelouch got himself a new Knightmare? Awesome!"
She seemed not to care about the reason she came up to the room. He could not think of a response to what she had said.
"Sakura? What's going on?"
Sakura looked at Katsu from the bed, giggling at a joke in the Manga. She reached into her bag and took out a Black Notebook and threw it onto the bedside table. She then grabbed the hair dye remover and stepped into Katsu's private bathroom. As he heard the shower running, he heard her call out to him.
"Don't call me Sakura anymore unless I turn up at school. From now on, I'm..."
"What?"
Katsu was outraged at what he had heard but waited patiently when he realised that there was a partially naked girl alone with him in the room. She emerged a completely different person, her hair bright green and her expression blank and serious. She was wearing some of Katsu's clothes, a black T-Shirt and some blue jeans.
"Right, I'm ready now. That was an annoying day, pretending to be a girl named Sakura." She jumped onto the bed and took something out of her bag. She hid it from Katsu's view. "I can't believe you didn;t realise that I chose that name based on your hair colour!"
Katsu stood up, he walked to the desk near the table where Sakura had thrown down the Notebook. He was tempted to pick it up but something stopped him. He turned towards this strange girl who had caused him so much trouble.
"If you're not Sakura, what is your name then?"
The girl looked at him and stared into his eyes. Blue and green combined in mid air but eventually, she smiled.
"Because of what I'm about to tell you, I cannot tell you my name." Her beautiful blue eyes sparkled as she said those words, but the next ones changed Katsu's life forever, "This book is yours."
He picked up the black notebook in front of him and read the two words on the cover. He opened it to find the first few pages filled with a few names scribbled down in neat cursive handwriting, mostly in green ink.
"Death Note? What mockery is this?"
He was infuriated. This girl had devised a cunning plan to get him alone and her intention was to give him a book? He threw the book down in anger.
"It's a book... That kills whoever has their name written down in it."
Katsu looked at the writing, the first name on there was 'Ken Gray' and then a few blots of green ink. He looked at the other names and stopped when he read one of the last names written down, succeeding a long paragraph of text. 'Takeshi Obata.' The same guy who was responsible for the kidnapping a few days before.
"You're kidding? A book that kills people?"
He could not believe this. A book that kills people. Who would believe that?
"I didn't believe it at first but seriously, write down a name while imagining the persons face and they will die of a heart attack 40 seconds later." She took something out of her bag, a small leaflet, "This explains the rules in detail. I wrote it after coaxing the God of Death into telling me everything about it."
He started reading the rules, they seemed like a practical joke. Someone was messing with him. But... He knew something was odd. This girl had obviously done a lot of planning with this. He grabbed the TV remote and turned on the news. He hated the reporter. He pulled out a pen and almost wrote down the name. He stopped for a second and looked at Sakura.
"So, you're telling me that if I wrote that persons name down in this book, he would die less than a minute after I do the deed?"
Sakura nodded. She revealed the gun from behind her back. She held it to her head. The silver Beretta 92 in her hand was pointed to a vital point on her head.
"Katsu, write down a name of someone, anyone, on live TV. If they're still alive a minute after, I will pull the trigger. If you don't want me to pull the trigger, tell me and I'll become your slave."
She was serious. Katsu could tell from the look in her eyes. He looked at that reporter and wrote down the name. The next 40 seconds were the longest of his life. A girl had a gun behind him and the man on the TV in front of was talking with the co-host. As the final few seconds approached, Sakura moved the gun away from her head and pointed it at the TV.
"Three, two, one." She gestured at the TV as if firing, at the same time, the man fell from his chair as if he had been shot. A heart attack. This was not a joke. "And he's dead. There. I chose my nickname. Call me Seven."
And with that, she took her gun and bag and left for the room next door, the spare room never used by anyone. Katsu fell over, his head pounding. He had killed someone. He dropped the Notebook onto the Desk and threw the Leaflet on the desk next to it.
He was a killer. He grabbed the chess pieces on the floor and set up a game. This girl had outsmarted him. But then he began to laugh, he could use this power to make KamiKorp the most valuable company in the world. He grabbed the leaflet and began to read.
He did not know when he fell asleep. He just knew that he now had the power to change the world. He knew what he needed to do.
And that ends the first part of this tale. More shall follow but for now, I bid thee farewell. Not only are we ending this part, but we are saying goodbye to the innocence of Katsu.
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