The rain in Berlin seemed as though it would never end.
Kannazuki picked up the stone-cold black coffee on his desk and drained it.
"Gahahaha!"
Ryuk approached Kannazuki, tossing the apple in his hand.
"Your methods are something else."
"You squeezed every last drop of usefulness out of him."
"You forced him to smash his own equipment and burn the evidence himself, then made him die in the foulest sewer imaginable."
Ryuk took a huge bite of his apple.
"Kannazuki, you're an absolute animal."
Kannazuki's slender fingers tapped across the keyboard, clearing the last access logs.
"Do you care if I'm an animal?"
Ryuk erupted into laughter so wild it nearly blew the roof off.
"Of course I don't!"
"Shinigami are only here for the entertainment!"
"Human morality isn't worth a rotten apple to me."
Ryuk stopped laughing, an unusual glint flashing in his yellow eyes.
"But the speed with which you kill people once they've served their purpose gives even a monster who's lived for thousands of years the chills."
Kannazuki stopped what he was doing.
He stood, walked over to the balcony, and yanked open the heavy blackout curtains.
The first pale light of dawn had just touched the skyline.
Cold rain fell on the street below.
A sanitation worker in a shabby raincoat hunched over a broom, sweeping with a soft scraping sound.
"I was born at the very bottom of society."
Kannazuki stared coldly at the figure out in the wind and rain.
"Ryuk, a monster like you who passes the time eating apples has no idea what life is like for humans at the bottom."
"It's a cesspit without logic, full of lies, where people are treated as disposable supplies."
Kannazuki turned to look the shinigami straight in the eyes.
"The people at the top