Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note.

He was within seconds of absolute victory, and then he was falling face-first into the rain-swept sidewalk outside a video arcade. Somewhere nearby, an ambulance blasted past, filling his head with sirens. It was night, somehow. It had been afternoon less than five seconds ago.

Light pulled himself painfully to his feet, and brushed the grit from his lips. He tasted blood. He swayed, and felt sick.

What the hell was this? He was alone, in a city, in the midst of an exceptionally frigid night, but he could still feel the warm breath of the SPK Building's air conditioner on his skin.

Beside him, there was a sound.

L pushed himself up into a fragile crouch, and stared up at him dispassionately. "You will notice, Yagami-kun, that it has been more than one minute since Rem wrote my name in her note, and I am still alive."

Light only stared.

"I wonder how you would account for this," L continued. He managed to get to his feet, and then they were side by side.

"You," Light growled. "You did this."

"Yagami-kun, you should know by now that I am not capable of teleportation. Moreover, I fail to see what I would hypothetically achieve by teleporting myself into a puddle."

"Liar! You cheated the Death Note. The note has failed because of this — you did this to save your skin."

L refused to fight back. "Your theory intrigues me, Yagami-kun. What is "this"? What has happened to us?"

Light deflated a little. "I don't know." The bile rose again. It was never far away. "But it doesn't matter at all. Not in the slightest. Rem will write your name again if necessary. She has no choice but to kill you, no matter how many extra lives you may have. I have seen to everything."

L shrugged. "That does not appear to be true."

"I beat you!" Light's eyes bulged. "I won, you bastard."

For a second he saw himself stepping forward, gripping L by the shoulder and jaw, and tearing him apart like a gutted fish. The skin would stretch and split, the arteries would spill and it would finally be finished. It would be easy. Why couldn't he ever do it that way, instead of writing names into a notebook? Wasn't it the same thing, in the end?

L sighed. "Do not be tiresome. I am aware that you are a hot-blooded type of person, but it is long since time you realised the most important facts of our current situation."

"What are you babbling about?"

"We have both been transported. We are both still alive."

"And?"

"It means that if a person did this, they favour neither one of us over the other. In other words, we have a common enemy. One who has decisively outsmarted us."

This, above everything else, stung Light.

"Outsmarted?" he laughed, his voice trembling slightly. "Hardly, Ryuzaki. To take us off guard is not the same as outsmarting us. If I punch you in the stomach, am I outsmarting you? Please, I want to know."

He really did. Punching L in the stomach had become an earnest ambition in the last four seconds of his life.

"Yagami-kun, do not feign ignorance. You know we both make a point of never being caught off guard. It is our goal to anticipate all potential obstacles, yet despite this we have been obstructed. My instinct tells me we are in serious trouble."

"Hah! Serious trouble? My own instinct tells me we are in Tokyo, less than four miles from your personal skyscraper. Your terrible enemy has moved us all of a thousand yards. Horror of horrors! Such a mystery! Where does the great detective L intend to start his investigation?"

"First I will consult a standard map of the area and compare our positions before and after the incident," said L, ignoring Light's tone of voice.

"Indeed!"

"Following that, we will either uncover a pattern, or a lack of pattern. Either will be sufficient to establish my first idea of a motive."

"Excellent!"

"In the interim, I will have Watari prepare my files on teleportation, and use this information to guard against further disruption from our new enemy."

"Well thought out!"

"And finally, we will establish an identity and the arrest will be made."

"An excellent plan." Light made no attempt to hide his scorn.

"Thank you," said L flatly.

Light smiled callously. "Ryuzaki, it concerns me that you are so calm. Perhaps I should remind you that you just recently escaped being murdered at my hands?"

L's expression and habitual slouch remained the same, but Light felt an immeasurable contempt behind his eyes. "Do not trouble yourself, Yagami. I will always remember that you are, and were, a murderer. I intend to write it down in the near future."

A vision of the spare Death Note in the SPK Building passed before Light's eyes.

He smiled, though. "Provided you have a near future, hmm?"

L turned, and stared at a road-sign. "I believe I have as much as I need." Having identified the street — which was indeed Tokyo, so close to his headquarters and yet somehow so unfamiliar — he started walking away.

Light was genuinely confused. "What are you doing?"

"I am leaving, Yagami-kun. Goodnight."

"You can't leave," he said bluntly.

"That is untrue. I have many things to do. I must solve the mystery of our teleportation, explain the inconsistency that the Death Note has shown, and give my account of your crimes to your father."

"Wait!"

L did not wait. He crossed the mouth of a street that sloped sharply downwards, leaving a looming expanse of the skyline at eye level.

Light hurried after him, and, from the corner of his eye, saw something impossible.

He came to a halt, and stared.

"L?" he said.

L turned around, paused at a pedestrian crossing. "Yagami-kun, I have asked you not to call me that."

"I... don't think it matters any more." Light laughed giddily.

L turned to him. "What do you mean?"

"Come over here and look at this."

L returned to the sloping street and followed Light's gaze.

"I..." His voice faltered.

Below them lay Tokyo. The moon and the city lights shone brightly across the empty space where the SPK Building should have been.

When Light looked away, L was looking at him with a puzzled expression.

"Yagami-kun, you appear to have a red envelope stuck to your back."

Light reached behind him and found a hard rectangle. He pulled it off. It was addressed to them both, by names no one should have known.

Kira, and L

Dear sirs.

Do not try to find your homes: you will find nothing. You have been removed to another world. For the purposes of this event, it is the New World. At the present, it is a world without guidance.

The transport you recently enjoyed is called the Warp Note. As you might have guessed, it moves a person into a parallel timeline — a world in which they do not exist. Unfortunately for you, it is irreversible. You are here at our pleasure, to undergo a test we have arranged. Be aware: you are our first guests, but your opponents will be arriving shortly after you, whereupon they will be given the same information as you. From the moment they arrive, you will be in mortal danger. The games will begin.

There are five of you. You will fight until there is one. The victor will receive everything, both literally and figuratively.

You have, every one of you, aspired to godhood. We are not inclined to neglect the ambitious.

—The Management

PS. Kira and L, you are an exception to our oldest rule. We have judged that you are equally corrupt, so you will play the game as a single contender. For this game, you are one person. Neither one of you is permitted to kill the other. The penalty, naturally, will be death, and disqualification.

Your first opponent arrives in one hour. He will have the same information as you. Prepare yourselves.

Having called an uneasy truce, they slunk, shell-shocked, into a neon-bathed fast food chain. Neither of them could think of much to say.

L spoke with what remained of the restaurant staff, who were clearly not expecting customers this late, and had to switch several of their bizarre machines back on. Light chose a table.

As he sat down, he felt, in his inner pocket, a very familiar shape.

It couldn't be.

He didn't check immediately. He ordered a bottle of mineral water, and read the menu twice. He listened to three songs going by. Then, when he had read the menu one last time, carefully scanning the fine print at the very end, he casually reached inside his jacket and touched it.

It was real. He still had the Note.

He still had the Death Note.

Lights seemed to flash in his eyelids. He fought back a glorious smile.

"Yagami-kun?"

He looked up into L's deadpan eyes.

"Huh?" he managed.

"Your opinion is sought on the matter of fries."

Light blinked. "What?"

"As I understand it, fries may exist, or may not exist, depending on your response."

The waitress sighed inwardly.

Light shrugged. "Sure, I'll have fries."

"Thank you very much."

They sat facing each other over a table beside the window, alone in a roomful of squeaky white tiles. A miniature monsoon had developed outside, and the people on the sidewalks were hunching their coats over their heads.

"What we need," said Light, without waiting a moment longer, "is a plan of action."

"Clearly."

"What we need is to beat this game, kill whoever's running it, and get back to the real world somehow."

"Ideally." L ate a single fry, with painstaking movements.

"But a problem arises." Light toyed with a salt shaker, oblivious to the grimy surface of the glass. "We don't know who is responsible for this, or how to find them. They have alleged that escaping the game is impossible, and it is extremely plausible that they were right. Without knowing exactly has happened, we have no way of proceeding."

"Well summarized."

"Furthermore, we must contend with the other people they've ensnared, and we are expected to fight them to the death. However we react, we will be in mortal danger for extended periods of time."

"Indeed."

"I'm aware that you're not listening to me, L."

"Of course."

"I'll just drink your coffee, then, shall I?"

L silently moved his coffee out of reach. Well, it was swimming with sugar anyway. L had ordered a coffee, a strawberry milkshake and two different sodas. Their table was a forest of paper cups.

Light sighed, and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Do you have anything to say about our situation at all?"

"I find it irritating."

"A masterful deduction, if I may say so."

"I think we are going to die."

Light frowned. "I wouldn't go that far."

"It seems undeniable," said L gnomically. "Neither of us are well equipped to overpower and kill other people. It is likely that we will be killed instead."

"We won't have to fight anyone," said Light, somewhat annoyed. "Either of us on our own could run rings around the rest of the world — I'm sure you won't deny that. Now that we are loosely on the same side, how can anyone at all hope to stand against us? L, the idea is absurd. You are too intelligent to contemplate such base things."

"You think we're going to win." L seemed more distant than usual.

"Yes. We are going to win. Put it in your diary: it's happening."

There was a long pause.

"They said we were equally corrupt," said L.

"Yes," said Light.

L's milkshake hissed quietly. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

Light considered this. "Is it anything to do with taking over the world?"

"No."

"Is it that the Management of this game must be gods?"

"Yes." L unwrapped his cheeseburger and devoted two minutes to removing the cheese.

"I can see your point." Light gave a business-like nod, although he knew L wasn't watching. "That would be a reasonable assumption. When Kira and L were at their greatest, the only people who supported neither one of us were the Death Gods. It seems plausible that the supposed neutrality of this "Management" is a similar case. And it becomes even more probable when you consider the supposed existence of this "Warp Note". It is by no means certain, but I can see no other explanation at the moment. Can you?"

"Regrettably, no."

"Regrettably?"

"I have no wish to investigate any more gods," was all L would say.

He was already getting to his feet. "I am ordering some more food," he explained. "The amount of money I have with me is sufficiently large to cover this. I have enough for two weeks food, and I believe I can secure a place for us to live while we find another source of income."

"I'm fine." Light waved his hand. "I'm a light eater."

"Nothing?"

"Hm. Perhaps just a lemonade, please."

L returned with six new drinks and a tray that was solid with red and white cardboard.

"Thanks," said Light, doubtfully.

"If you become hungry during the time taken for me to eat these things, you may feel free to eat some of these fries." L indicated a specific packet of fries. "You will find the others disagreeably sugary. Likewise, you should not try to sample any of my soft drinks."

"You shouldn't exist on fast food," said Light, yawning ambitiously.

"I find it pleasant."

"You will develop a poor metabolism."

"I've never heard you mention this before," said L gravely.

"Well, I was an international fugitive. Then I was in solitary confinement. Then I removed my memories. Then we were handcuffed together for a while. To be perfectly frank, I had a lot on my mind."

"So many new things I am discovering about Yagami-kun," L told his food.

On the street, as L dialled a payphone, Light paused at a dark corner, and watched rainwater pouring into a grating.

"Hello Ryuk." He said, to empty space.

A tangle of black drifted down from the guttering. It was grinning.

"Hello Light. How are things these days?"

An apple changed hands and disappeared swiftly into the shinigami's jack-o-lantern mouth.

"Quite fair," said Light, sipping from his can. "I have recently identified a way to kill L."

END OF PART 1

Afterword: this is only a first draft, but I quite like it. I have solid planning for 29 chapters of this story (mostly longer than this one, especially in the grand finale, but some are shorter also) and it's fun enough to write, so I could continue it without much effort if I wanted to. But it's a bit strange in parts, so if no one likes this chapter I'll probably keep the rest to myself.

If you did like it, or even if you didn't, please leave a review. I always enjoy reading what other people think about Light and L as characters, and about Death Note in general.

In particular, I'm very interesting to see if reading this chapter made anyone else as hungry as me. x_X