Exclamation mark and loose leaves

An exclamation mark.

A blurred yet unmistakable outline formed from ancient dust flashed across the notebook's cover, then scattered in a breeze that did not exist.

It was no longer a question mark.

It was an exclamation mark.

What did that mean? From questioning to astonishment? Was it some kind of... acknowledgment of my "memory manifestation" judgment? Or an... emphasis on the enormous impact it had caused? Or was it a more concise, more indisputable... warning?

I could not decipher it. The ways these ancient beings expressed themselves lay far beyond human logic.

But the change itself was information.

In the corner, Ryuk stared fixedly at the notebook's cover, now as pristine as ever, his scarlet eyes flickering with profound unease. He no longer gave that twisted laugh. Instead, like a frightened beast, he let a low, threatening growl rumble in his throat.

"Marked... it's been marked..." he rasped, his claws scratching unconsciously at the floor. "Those old things... don't like their possessions... catching someone else's eye... and they like it even less... when those possessions start thinking for themselves..."

His meaning was clear. The Deep Nest had noticed the notebook's changes and left this "exclamation mark" as some sort of... declaration of ownership? Or a warning mark?

And as the person who "used" and "fed" the notebook, I naturally fell under that mark as well.

The notebook lay quietly on the table. Beneath its smooth, warm cover, that slow, powerful pulse seemed clearer than ever. Like an ancient weapon meticulously polished after displaying its might, it gave off a restrained yet deadly cold gleam.

Eloise Finch's death and the twenty-four-hour lifting of the global memory blockade were like a depth charge dropped into the murky river of history. The aftershocks were spreading. The defenders of the old order were scrambling, and countless individuals shaken by the truth were beginning to awaken. Chaos was intensifying, but a new order, founded on truth rather than lies, might be taking shape amid its birth pangs.

But that was not enough. Nowhere near enough. Twenty-four hours was too short. Humanity's instinct to forget was too strong. A more lasting, more fundamental change was needed.

The next target had to consolidate the results of this "memory manifestation," turning a brief shock of truth into institutional change that would be difficult to reverse. I needed someone... pivotal to the old order's system of information control.

My gaze swept over the news on the screen: governments around the world taking emergency measures to maintain stability, suppress information, and arrest "rumormongers." The smoke of information warfare hung thick.

I had found him.

Dr. Richard Voss, chairman of the Global Information Purification Alliance (GIPA). A true executioner of free speech wearing a scholar's mask. The GIPA he led outwardly advocated a "healthy online environment," but in reality, it served as a platform through which multiple governments censored information across borders, enforced a uniform public narrative, and suppressed dissent. Well versed in psychology and information dissemination, he excelled at packaging censorship as "protection" and "governance." He was a sophisticated accomplice in concealing the truth.

His death ought to be... "purification" turning against itself.

I reached out and touched the notebook again.

The pulse beneath my fingertips had grown stronger, and even carried a faint... pull? As though the notebook were actively welcoming my touch.

I opened it. The pages seemed softer, almost leathery in texture. The ink of my earlier entries gleamed black, as though freshly written.

The pen tip touched down.

The feeling of writing... had changed.

It was no longer mere smoothness. It was a kind of... resonance.

My will flowed into the pen tip, and the immense energy within the notebook seemed to ripple faintly in response, forming a strange resonance with my writing. Writing became effortless, even carrying a heart-stopping sense of... pleasure. As though the notebook were no longer a tool, but an accomplice... perfectly in sync with me.

[Richard Voss]

Cause of death: logical collapse. Time: tomorrow morning, while delivering his keynote address at the opening ceremony of the GIPA annual summit. Cause of death: the entire theoretical framework of "information ecosystem governance" he painstakingly constructed to justify censorship will instantly collapse within his brain under its own internal logical paradoxes. The mental storm generated by this collapse will manifest physically: the air around his podium and within one meter of it will become as transparent and absolutely rigid as solid glass, freezing him inside like an insect in amber. Before his death, all data on secret censorship directives, sensitive-word lists, and dissident surveillance files stored in his personal terminal and GIPA's core servers will be projected in real time onto the "air glass" surrounding his frozen body for everyone to see.

Location: Speech Cage. Cause of death: trapped to death by his own theories. Confession: public disclosure of data. Outcome: becoming a living exhibit.

The pen tip left the page.

I felt no drain whatsoever. Only a cold, complete sense of fulfillment.

The notebook closed.

Snap.

This time, the soft sound carried a crisp, metallic ring.

It had worked.

But at the very instant the notebook closed-

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of,

along the edge of the notebook that had just closed,

between the pages that should have been tightly sealed,

what seemed to be...

an exceedingly fine trace seeping out,

dark red,

the color of blood before it clotted...

a thread.

That fine, dark-red thread vanished in a flash.

As though it had merely been a trick of the light.

I abruptly reached out to open the notebook again and check!

But the instant my fingers touched the cover-

the Death Note,

suddenly,

flipped open on its own!

It did not open all the way, but stopped at a particular page somewhere in the middle!

That page,

was blank.

But in the very center of that blank page,

in lettering I had never seen before, and certainly had not written,

dark red and viscous, as though freshly inscribed in blood,

a name appeared:

[L]

After the name appeared,

the dark-red letters began to writhe faintly, like living things,

then,

slowly,

seeped deep into the page,

and vanished.

Only that blank page remained,

as though nothing had happened.

But in the air,

there spread a faint,

cold,

rust-like scent of blood.

I stared at that blank page,

and all the blood in my body seemed to freeze at once.

L?

Who was that?

The notebook...

was, on its own...

writing names?!