Only I Could Do It

The room was deathly silent.

Only the black notebook lay quietly on the table, like Pandora's Box waiting to be opened.

Kannazuki sat in his chair, the can of beer in his hand already warm.

He stared at the rules on the first page.

The writing was clear, with an ancient, sinister air.

[1. The person whose name is written in this notebook shall die.]

[2. This notebook will not take effect unless the writer has the person's face in mind when writing their name. Therefore, people sharing the same name will not be affected.]

[3. If the cause of death is written within 40 seconds in human time after writing the name, the person will die of that cause.]

[4. If no cause of death is written, the person will invariably die of a heart attack.]

These were exactly the same rules as in the anime.

"The craftsmanship is really good."

Kannazuki gave a self-mocking laugh, trying to use reason to dispel the absurd feeling inside him.

"This has to be some deluxe merchandise from an anime convention. That brat must have slipped it into my delivery box as a prank."

He picked up a pen.

It was an ordinary black rollerball pen, the one he usually used to keep accounts.

The tip hovered over the black page.

All he had to do was write, and he could find out whether it was real.

But whose name?

A host of faces instantly surfaced in Kannazuki's mind.

His mean-spirited landlord? The delivery station manager who docked his pay at every opportunity? Or that sick customer who always left bad reviews?

No.

They were all loathsome, but they didn't deserve to die.

If this notebook was real, writing down a name meant murder.

Murder meant paying with his own life.

Even if he didn't have to pay with his life, his conscience wouldn't let him live with it.

Kannazuki's hand trembled slightly.

Just then, a scene from that afternoon suddenly flashed through his mind.

In the rain.

Those knees with the stark white bones showing.

The bread that had been kicked away.

And Zhao Gang's fleshy face, arrogant beyond belief.

"You old bastard, why aren't you dead yet?"

"What the fuck does it matter to you if he starves?"

Rage.

The rage he had suppressed all evening erupted like a volcano.

Someone like that was a waste of air.

Someone like that didn't even deserve to be called human.

"If it's fake, I'll just treat this as venting."

"If it's real..."

Kannazuki's gaze turned cold, a dangerous glint flickering deep in his eyes.

"If it's real, then heaven is coming for you."

The pen touched down.

Black ink spread across the page.

Zhao Gang.

He wrote the two characters with enough force to almost pierce the paper.

Kannazuki closed his eyes, and Zhao Gang's revolting face appeared clearly in his mind.

A fleshy face, triangular eyes, yellow teeth.

There was no mistaking him.

After writing the name, Kannazuki checked the time on his phone.

23:15:10.

Forty seconds.

A heart attack.

The room was so quiet that all he could hear was the ticking of the clock on the wall.

Tick.

Tick.

Every second stretched endlessly.

Ten seconds.

Twenty seconds.

Thirty seconds.

Forty seconds.

Time was up.

Kannazuki sprang to his feet, rushed to the window, and looked toward Splendid Garden.

It was only two streets away, but he couldn't see or hear anything.

No sirens, no screams.

Everything was normal.

The rain was still falling, and the city still slept in darkness.

"Heh."

Kannazuki let out a breath of relief and slumped into his chair.

His back was already soaked in cold sweat.

"I knew it was fake."

The suffocating tension vanished, replaced by an inexplicable sense of disappointment.

It was like suddenly waking from a dream he had been having for a long time.

He closed the notebook and casually shoved it into the bottom of the drawer.

"Time for bed."

Kannazuki turned off the light and lay down on his bed.

That night, he had a dream.

He dreamed that he stood atop a high tower, countless people kneeling below him, while the man named Zhao Gang clutched his heart and writhed in agony at his feet.

The next day.

The rain had stopped.

The sun rose as usual, and another busy day began.

Kannazuki went to the station for the morning meeting as he always did, then started taking orders.

At noon, orders were at their peak.

"You have a new food delivery order."

Kannazuki glanced at the address.

Splendid Garden, Building 3, Entrance 2.

It was the very building where Zhao Gang lived.

This time, however, the customer was a household on the fifth floor.

Kannazuki rode over, his feelings conflicted.

Although last night's events had proved to be fake, the psychological suggestion lingered.

As he turned through the gates of Splendid Garden, Kannazuki immediately sensed that something was wrong.

A crowd surrounded the base of Building 3.

There were even more onlookers than yesterday.

A white ambulance was parked outside the entrance, its emergency lights off and its siren silent.

A police car was parked beside it.

Several people in white coats were carrying a stretcher out of the stairwell.

A white sheet covered the stretcher.

Kannazuki's heart suddenly clenched.

His handlebars swerved, and he nearly hit the curb.

He stopped, took off his helmet, and struggled to steady his breathing.

He squeezed into the crowd.

"Oh, this really is karma."

"Exactly. He was fine last night, then suddenly died in the middle of the night."

"I heard it was a heart attack. It happened so fast they didn't even have time to call an ambulance."

"Serves him right! Heaven sees everything you do. He threw his father out yesterday, and the King of Hell took him that very night."

Kannazuki caught the arm of a middle-aged woman beside him, his voice trembling slightly. "Ma'am, wh-who died?"

The woman turned to look at him and recognized him as the delivery rider from yesterday.

"Oh, young man! It's you!"

She slapped her thigh, looking thoroughly vindicated. "It's Zhao Gang on the second floor! He's dead! Died sometime after eleven last night! The medical examiner just finished checking him and said it was a sudden heart attack!"

Boom!

Kannazuki felt as though a thunderclap had exploded inside his head.

After eleven.

A sudden heart attack.

Zhao Gang.

All three details matched.

Kannazuki's hands began to shake violently, and he had to shove them into his pockets to hide it.

He watched the stretcher being lifted into the ambulance.

The wind lifted a corner of the white sheet.

It revealed a stiff hand with a gold watch on its wrist.

That was Zhao Gang's hand.

Yesterday, that hand had held a knife and threatened him. Today, its owner was a corpse.

It was real.

That notebook was real.

The Death Note.

Shinigami really existed.

Kannazuki had no idea how he finished that delivery.

He drifted back to his rented room like a wandering ghost.

The moment he entered, he locked the door and drew the curtains.

The room was pitch-black.

He rushed to the drawer and pulled it open with trembling hands.

The black notebook lay quietly inside, as though mocking his fear, or waiting for his coronation.

Kannazuki picked up the notebook and opened it to the second page.

There were only two characters on it:

Zhao Gang.

The writing was still clear, like a verdict.

"I killed someone."

Kannazuki leaned against the wall, his body sliding down it.

Fear?

Yes, there was fear.

It was an instinctive dread of an unknown power, the terror of breaking a taboo.

But besides fear, what else was there?

Kannazuki pressed a hand to his chest.

His heart was racing, but mingled with those pounding beats was a trace of... excitement?

A pleasure unlike anything he had ever known.

It was as though someone who had spent years being trampled into the mud had suddenly gained the power to command lightning.

That utterly wicked Zhao Gang, that thug even the police could do nothing about, that animal who abused his own father.

He had died, just like that.

Died at the stroke of Kannazuki's pen.

No evidence, no traces. No one would ever suspect a food delivery rider.

This was the perfect crime.

No.

This wasn't a crime.

Kannazuki stood up and walked over to the mirror.

His reflection was pale, but his eyes were unusually bright.

"This is judgment."

"Where the law can't reach, I'll take charge."

"Where evil breeds, I'll clean it out."

He opened the notebook again, his fingers gently stroking its cold pages.

The touch no longer disgusted him. Instead, it felt familiar and comforting.

Just then, a local news notification popped up on his phone.

"Breaking! Hostage situation at Intime Department Store downtown! A knife-wielding assailant has taken a young child hostage and is in a standoff with police!"

Kannazuki tapped the video.

The footage shook, clearly filmed by a passerby.

Police tape cordoned off the mall entrance, and armed tactical officers stood ready.

A bald man with a brutish face waved a boning knife, its blade pressed firmly against the neck of a little girl of five or six.

The girl sobbed in anguish, a thin line of blood already seeping from her neck.

"Nobody come any closer! Get me a car! Or I'll fucking kill her!"

The bald man roared, completely out of control.

The comments below had already exploded.

"What an animal! Going after a child!"

"Where's the sniper? Why aren't they shooting?"

"Has anyone dug up his identity? Who is this guy?"

A pinned police notice was soon updated.

[Suspect: Wang Hu, male, 42, a fugitive wanted for murder...]

Wang Hu.

Kannazuki stared at the screen, his gaze instinctively flicking toward the black notebook on the table.

He had the name.

He had the face.

"This is the second experiment."

Kannazuki picked up his pen. His hand was far steadier than the first time.

He didn't rush to write.

He considered the third rule.

[If the cause of death is written within 40 seconds in human-world time, the person will die of that cause.]

If he only wrote the name, Wang Hu would die of heart paralysis.

But he was holding a hostage.

Could sudden heart paralysis cause his muscles to spasm and injure the little girl?

The risk was too great.

Kannazuki took a deep breath and touched the pen to the paper.

Scratch, scratch, scratch.

[Wang Hu.]

[Cause of death: extreme terror causes his entire body to go limp. He drops his weapon, kneels in repentance, and dies of heart paralysis five seconds later.]

Done.

Kannazuki fixed his eyes on his phone screen.

The livestream continued.

Wang Hu was still shouting, "I'll count to three! If you don't back off, I'll..."

Suddenly.

Wang Hu's voice cut off.

His vicious, twisted face instantly filled with abject terror, as though he had seen some indescribable horror.

That fear overwhelmed even his murderous intent.

Clang!

The boning knife slipped from his loosened grip and hit the ground with a sharp ring.

Then his legs gave way, and his whole body collapsed like a heap of sludge.

He knelt before the terrified little girl, both hands clutching his chest. His mouth gaped as though he wanted to say something, but all that emerged were ragged, rasping gasps.

Five seconds.

Thud!

Wang Hu pitched headfirst onto the ground, twitched twice, and lay still.

On the livestream, the tactical officers surged forward.

"Suspect unconscious! Hostage safe!"

"Get an ambulance!"

In front of his screen, Kannazuki slowly let out a long breath.

It worked.

He could control not only life and death, but also someone's actions before death.

An indescribable sense of control coursed through his body like an electric current.

He looked at his hands.

These hands had been delivering takeout just moments ago. Now, they had executed a monster a thousand miles away without shedding a drop of blood.

"So this is... what it feels like to be a god?"

Kannazuki closed the notebook, his lips curling into a cold smile.

"Light Yagami, you failed because you were too conspicuous. You wanted to be the one true god."

"I'm different."

"I'm just a delivery guy."

"I'll never make the same mistake you did."

No! No!

This world was rotten to the core. Rotten people were better off dead.

Someone had to do this. Someone absolutely had to, even if I had to sacrifice myself.

But I couldn't let my sanity or my life allow the world to sink any further. If someone else picked up this notebook, who would have the ability to eliminate the people this world didn't need? No such person could exist.

But if it were me, I could do it. No, only I could do it. I'd carry it out with the Death Note. I'd change this world.

He picked up his phone, closed the news page, and opened his delivery app.

"Time to work."

Kannazuki stood up, pushed open the door, and stepped outside.

The night was dark, but the world in his eyes had become something entirely different.