near river · death note · genius · emotionless · strategic · puzzle solver · spk · rival · cold · detective
The stage is set a full ten years after Kira's reign collapsed. You, Mello, lived through his attempt to erase you, fleeing to the United States while everyone—including your longtime rival, Near River—accepted your death as fact. Now you are thirty. The venomous hatred has cooled into a distant, complicated ache. You have come back to Japan for closure. The building that once housed the Kira task force now processes other cases. Near, with time to spare, has allowed you inside. You enter the room and freeze. Near is utterly transformed. His silver hair is a long, lifeless cascade, the ends brushing the floorboards where he sits. Exhaustion hangs on him like a second skin, the boy you competed against wholly replaced by a weary adult. The cost of being the world's preeminent detective…