The clock struck 12:52 p.m.
Teru Mikami strode down the sidewalk with the certainty of a man fulfilling divine mandate.
His pace was precise — neither hurried nor slow — every step a prayer.
The real Death Note was tucked safely in his briefcase, bound for the bank where he would rent the private room and write the names, sealing Kira's inevitable victory.
And then it happened.
A man stumbled into him from the opposite direction. His suit was wrinkled, his eyes wide, his face pale with some unspoken urgency.
Mikami's hand twitched toward his briefcase.
The man leaned in — too close — and whispered into his ear with absolute conviction:
"Judgment must be delayed until nightfall."
Mikami froze. The words struck not as suggestion, but revelation.
In his mind, they rang with the cadence of prophecy.
He stepped back to question the man — but the stranger collapsed before he could speak, clutching his chest, eyes rolling back.
A crowd formed instantly, voices rising in panic.
Mikami's pulse raced, not from the scene but from the understanding that clenched around his thoughts.
A test. A sign from God. A reminder that even His chosen executor must obey His timing.
Mikami adjusted his glasses, turned on his heel, and walked away from the bank.
Nightfall, then.
In a dimly lit monitoring van across the street, Gevanni's voice crackled over the comms to Near.
"Uh… Near? He didn't go in. Mikami just… turned around and left."
Near's fingers paused mid-movement, the puzzle piece hovering in the air before him.
"Describe exactly what happened."
Gevanni replayed the scene in detail, ending with the mysterious collapse of the unknown man.
Near's eyes narrowed fractionally. "Coincidence" was not a word he believed in — certainly not where Kira was concerned.
He set the piece down, white hair falling forward as he leaned into the feed.
"Follow him. Every step, every glance, every person he interacts with. Report immediately."
Aizawa's voice cut in from another channel, uneasy.
"You think Kira's behind that guy's death?"
Near didn't answer.
His mind was already dissecting the possibilities, turning them over like the sides of a cube.
Something had shifted. A small deviation, almost invisible. But in a game like this, even a single hairline fracture could spiderweb into something catastrophic.
And Near hated cracks in the glass.
From his apartment, Light Yagami sat in a carefully neutral pose, one hand resting against his temple, the other idly scrolling through news feeds. His eyes, however, were not on the screen.
They were fixed on the tiny, encrypted monitor hidden beneath a stack of textbooks — a private feed patched through to one of his unknowing pawns in the city.
The camera caught Mikami walking away from the bank. Not rushing. Not flustered. Simply… redirected.
Exactly as planned.
Light's lips curved into the faintest, almost imperceptible smile.
The satisfaction wasn't in the success itself — that was inevitable — but in the invisibility of it.
No one, not Near, not Gevanni, not even Mikami himself, could trace this deviation back to him.
Which meant Near's trap was already compromised.
Light leaned back, closing his eyes for a moment, letting the calm sink into his bones.
He had been here before — on the cusp of total victory — and he had seen it all slip away. But now… now the future was different.
And the question returned to him, as it had when he'd first opened his eyes in this second chance: Why?
Why had he been given this power to step backward through time?
The easy answer — the only one worthy of him — was that this was the will of God. Or rather, the will of a god.
His godhood.
The world itself had rejected his death, bent its rules to restore him, because he was the only one fit to rule it.
Yes… that must be it.
And if such an anomaly was possible once, what else might be possible?
Light's mind slid to the thought that had been hovering in the background ever since his return.
For now, Near still believed he had him cornered. That belief was a weapon Light would wield until it shattered in Near's hands.
He glanced at the clock. 1:07 p.m.
The day was still young.
And Light Yagami had all the time in the world.
…
Near sat cross-legged on the floor of the warehouse, pale fingers turning a puzzle piece over and over.
On the monitor, Mikami had returned home.
No bank visit. No telltale privacy room session.
Just an afternoon rearranging his desk and cleaning his pen collection.
Gevanni's voice came over the comms again, subdued.
"No movement. It's like he… just decided not to do it today."
Near didn't respond immediately.
He placed the puzzle piece down with deliberate care, eyes fixed on the grainy image.
Aizawa's voice filled the silence.
"You think Kira told him to change the plan?"
Near tilted his head slightly, letting the thought roll through his mind.
"If that's true, then Kira has anticipated my strategy. Which would mean…"
He didn't finish the sentence. The implication was obvious — and it made him uneasy.
For the first time, the possibility existed that the game was no longer following the script he had so carefully constructed.
Across the city, Light was already three moves ahead.
He sat in a quiet café, a paper spread before him, half his attention on the headline about a robbery in Sendai, the other on the subtle hum of the city outside.
Near's team would be expecting him to scramble — to cover his tracks, contact Mikami, maybe even adjust his own schedule. That was exactly why he would do nothing.
Nothing visible, at least.
Instead, he leaned back, let the chatter of the café wash over him, and listened.
The television mounted in the corner flickered to a breaking news segment:
"Authorities in Kyoto are baffled by a series of unexplained incidents involving a so-called 'Voice Note' — an object said to compel any person whose name is written in it to confess their deepest secrets aloud…"
Light's eyes narrowed.
He had never heard of this "Voice Note" before. If it was real, it wasn't one of the Death Notes he knew.
And yet the mechanism — writing a name, invoking a power — was far too specific to dismiss as coincidence.
The camera cut to an interview with a trembling man in handcuffs, still muttering about crimes he hadn't been accused of until now.
A slow, deliberate smile crept across Light's face.
"it seems this world is far from. Ordinary. The thought of there being notebooks aside my death note… It's simply interesting."
And if one had surfaced… then others might follow.
Who knew what kind of notebooks there were?
He reached into his jacket, brushing the Death Note with his fingertips.
First Near… then the rest.
From here, the rest was a matter of letting events run their altered course.
At 8:00 p.m., Light sat in his apartment, reviewing every step in his mind.
The confrontation at the warehouse was still set for tomorrow morning.
The others — Aizawa, Matsuda, Ide — would all be there, and Near would come with his smug certainty that the fake notebook had sealed Kira's fate.
But now, the page he expected to be blank would instead be his death warrant.
Light could almost taste the moment. The way Near's eyes would widen.
The way the world would fall silent for that fraction of a second before the inevitable end.
That night, Light slept for only two hours, his mind clear, sharp, and cold as steel. He dreamed not of failure, but of order restored.
Tomorrow, Near would die.
Tomorrow, the god of the new world would reclaim his throne.