What if Light Yagami and L had met in a world where Kira never existed?

Imagine an alternate universe where the Death Note was never found, no Shinigami ever interfered with the human world, and Kira never existed.

Light Yagami is still a brilliant, ambitious, highly intelligent student with an extraordinary understanding of logic, strategy, and human behavior.

L is still the world's greatest detective.

But this time, they do not meet because of Kira.

They meet because of another case.

A case so complex that even L cannot solve it alone.

Light, known for his exceptional intelligence, becomes involved with the case and reaches conclusions that are almost impossible for anyone else to find.

For the first time in his life, L encounters someone who can genuinely challenge him.

And for the first time in his life, Light meets someone who can see through his reasoning.

At first, they are rivals.

They compete.

They argue.

They constantly try to prove that they are smarter than the other.

Light may be slightly better at strategy, manipulation, and understanding people.

L may be better at deduction, observation, and seeing patterns that no one else can.

Neither of them is perfect.

But together, they may be unstoppable.

Over time, their rivalry slowly becomes a friendship.

No Kira.

No Death Note.

No Shinigami.

No supernatural powers.

Just Light and L solving impossible cases together.

The greatest rivalry in Death Note could have become the greatest detective partnership instead.

What if Light and L had never been enemies?

What if they had met because of a mystery instead of a murder?

For a long time I’ve wondered why Roblox doesn’t have a real open world game dedicated to Death Note. The only existing game in roblox is a murder mystery and that made me think of the idea of a living, complex world where the notebook becomes an investigative and psychological element. Almost a narrative sandbox where every player can become part of a story.

Explanation of Terms

First of all i will explain what these terms mean so that anyone reading does not get confused. L is a Wammy’s Boy who becomes a detective and receives benefits such as police support, access to investigations, and sometimes questionnaires that give him vague but useful clues to help him find Kira. Kira is the main owner of the notebook, but he can have accomplices to whom he gives notebook pages so they can kill remotely.

World structure

The game world would be divided into six major countries inspired by continents, each with three regions modeled after real nations: Europe (with France, the United Kingdom and Italy), North America (with USA, Canada and Mexico) South America (with Brazil, Argentina and Colombia) Asia (with China, India and Japan) Africa (with Nigeria, Egypt and South Africa) Oceania (with Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea).

Each country would have cities, schools, universities, jobs, crime, police, organizations and social networks. In each server only a few Death Notes can exist (if you try to enter a server with too many notebooks and you already own one, you cannot enter, so you must switch server or wait for a notebook holder to leave), scattered randomly and reassigned every time the owner dies or loses ownership. Some players may spawn with Shinigami eyes (which would be rare), others may obtain them through the trade, accepting a predetermined future death.

Life system and death date

When you spawn into the world, no one has a predetermined death date. Life is potentially infinite until you come into contact with a Death Note.

The moment you become the notebook’s owner and commit your first murder, the system generates a random death date that represents the spiritual price of using the notebook. This date is not fixed: it can improve or worsen depending on the player’s actions. If Kira kills detectives, investigators or in general players whose job is to catch killers, he gains years of life, being rewarded for eliminating those who threaten his mission. On the contrary, if he only kills criminals without ever actively countering the Wammy's Boys or the detectives, his life shortens, making him more vulnerable and easier to capture. This creates a moral and strategic balance that forces every Kira to choose what kind of killer he wants to be and how much he is willing to risk to survive.

All of this would create an open‑world game where every choice has consequences and where tension doesn’t come from combat but from the fear of being caught.

Death Note ownership and Shinigami roles

Whoever finds a Death Note can choose whether to use it or not. If they decide to write, their life changes forever. Upon the owner’s death, the player can reincarnate after a period of void or become a Shinigami, generating a new notebook and choosing where it will fall. Shinigami players must remain impartial (to avoid ruining the experience of players), otherwise they die and end up in the void as well. To extend their life they must complete missions against NPCs remaining invisible to anyone who hasn’t touched their notebook.

Kill mechanics, information gathering and prisons

Death Note owners can tear pages and create squads of accomplice killers, but killing is not simple, you need to know name and face, and in a world where everyone can disguise themselves, change identity or hide their face, obtaining information becomes a mental game.

Prisons become places of tension, because captured criminals will have their full name exposed and can be manipulated by the notebook or forced by law enforcement to become bait to lure Kira (if they die they will have the chance to reincarnate and start a new life, or if they manage to stay alive they can obtain benefits from the police and a reduced sentence, therefore freedom).

Police officers must maintain order, some may have fake IDs if they work with the FBI or with L (Wammy's boys who choose to be detectives), while civilians can obtain disguises and weapons, but civilians will still have to work to pay taxes and food, so being a vigilante indefinitely without it becoming a profession will not be easy.

Notebook distribution and theft dynamics

Each country hosts about three notebooks, but finding them is extremely difficult. If you manage to identify the notebook owner (Kira) without being discovered, you can blackmail him to obtain pages or even the notebook itself, but the Death Note keeps the category chosen by the previous owner: if he only killed criminals, you must do the same until he dies with the notebook in hand, resetting it.

Free criminals (civilians who choose to become simple criminals to earn more money) can steal the notebook, forcing Kira to hide it with traps (like Light’s drawer trap) or carry it with him at all times, risking police checks. If a player doesn’t log in for too long, he loses ownership and dies, while the notebook is relaunched into the world.

Shinigami players and NPC Shinigami

Kira can choose whether to have a Shinigami player (usually those who have a Shinigami friend can choose this option) or an NPC Shinigami.

The Shinigami player is bound to the owner and must follow him everywhere. If he gets tired (in case the player doesn’t have a strong bond with their Shinigami, this bond can be established by giving apples to the Shinigami) he can kill him by writing his name but if he kills someone to protect him while the owner is physically or psychologically injured, he dies as well.

NPC Shinigami are more detached, similar to Ryuk and can perform small missions in exchange for apples.

Moral system

The moral system is central. Every player starts with neutral morality, but criminal actions lower it. Kira sees his morality decrease with every murder and when it drops too much L (the Wammy Boys) can detain him even without evidence. Morality returns to normal only if the notebook is handed over or if its existence is completely forgotten. Handing over the notebook is not enough to be innocent in the eyes of Shinigami, while forgetting it is.

Role of detectives and Wammy Boys

Detectives and Wammy's Boys have a fundamental role. Wammy Boys start as gifted children, they must train their deductive skills inside Wammy’s House and can choose whether to stay until 18 (with a gamepass you can leave at 14 like Mello did) or go out into the world, becoming investigators (L), criminals, scholars (that will help you get a degree and become a CEO) or even serial killers like Beyond Birthday.

Each country has three regions where Wammy's Boys that choose to become investigators can broadcast livestreams to threaten Kira, block transportation and narrow the search area. L receives questionnaires with clues to deduce Kira’s age, job and experience, and can tail suspects with the help of Shinigami players by placing Near’s shinigami face recognition software (which can be bypassed simply by going underground) or if he has touched the notebook of that specific Shinigami.

A living and dynamic world

The world is composed of companies, universities, criminal organizations, mercenaries, scammers, international police. Kira can infiltrate anywhere, but being part of a large group means leaving more traces for L. Identities can be falsified, detectives can pretend to be L and underground criminals can be hired by anyone, even Kira.

Roleplay Features and Civilian Careers

Civilians will also be able to work as journalists or TV hosts (playing with information and choosing whether to obstruct Kira or indirectly support him), police officers or detectives (but they will not receive questionnaires or clues, nor the ability to use media to track Kira; instead, they will have to personally dive into the hunt for him, while regular police officers will deal with classic criminals and occasionally take part in missions against Kira, such as searching houses or buildings). They can also become CEOs and create companies or be part of them.

Money will be extremely important for anything a player wants to do; the more money you have, the more choices you have, including whether to obstruct the police or not. There will also be normal jobs like barista, shop clerk, teacher and many more to give the game a roleplay aspect. If you happen to be a police officer, you technically have a higher chance of finding a Death Note while searching a house, and you are not obligated to report it to your superiors so you can choose to keep it for yourself. Kira can be any one of these professions, so no one should ever trust another player blindly.

Shinigami gifts and biometric powers

There is also a system of Shinigami perks that players can obtain through gamepasses or by sacrificing years of life and after a certain number of kills. Eyes, fingerprints, ears, wings and other biometric powers allow players to identify people through physical, vocal, olfactory or tactile analysis.

The wings, create a suspended shadow and distort gravitational fields, generating unsettling luck (hindering detectives’ investigations) and a void around the owner that allows interference with electronic devices.

Fingerprints allow reading palm lines and muscle tension to deduce identity,

ears analyze pronunciation and oral structure to understand if a name is false,

the sense of smell recognizes unique chemical imprints and leaves a trail.

Additional info

Shinigami players can also exchange ownership of their notebooks, but this can only happen with another Shinigami player and never with an NPC.

In the game, players will be able to speak quietly or privately to avoid leaking information, and there will be a specific number of Wammy Boys starting from A to Z. If two people choose the same letter, the first will be J and the second JJ, with a limit of two; after that, the player must choose another letter.

A Death Note can be handed over up to six times; after that, morality will always reset to normal and the player will no longer receive the same advantages from NPC Shinigami.

Players will be able to create companies if they have money and enough experience but if Kira is an employee he could damage the company’s reputation. There will also be assassins or L’s accomplices with fake IDs who pretend to be him and infiltrate groups to locate Kira. If Kira is being investigated by L, he can change his victim category and kill anyone he considers dangerous.

A Kira who is part of large organizations such as Yoruba, the mafia, or the police will give more information to L simply because he operates in a wider field, but at the same time Kira will be advantaged because he belongs to a large group that benefits from his actions and tries to protect him.

For now, this is everything. Let me know your opinion and what you would change or add.

i was planning to also add the white fabric thing but i lost the motivation. im open to criticism!!:D

Its been confirmed the appearence of a death note matches the human era its in, so would a 23rd century one be a datapad or a subnautica pda?

i only bought one pull for funsies and got A tier! she's so pretty i can't wait to display her 🥹

A friend of mine from college, Bella, checked out my Death Note fanfic, The Price of Freedom, and drew a Jasmine/L fanart for me! Aren’t L and my OC cute together?

When i see people talk review death note its always “it was such a masterpiece until L died” or something along those lines. Ill be the first one to admit (from what i’ve seen) that post timeskip death note was honestly just as good as, if not better, than pre timeskip (in the manga, the anime rushed it as we all know).

In my opinion, the Yotsuba arc (which takes up half of Ls arc) is the least interesting part of the story. I see people say that Near and mellos arc didn’t have the tension of Ls arc but they weren’t even investigating light in the yotsuba arc so there weren’t any real stakes.

I do love L but i really like Mello too, and the introduction of more characters and factions like the spk, mafia, x kira, kira’s spokesperson, and more spices up the plot more than enough to where it can make up for losing that dynamic between light and L. The plot in post timeskip is more complex, you get to see lights new world almost fully in effect, there’s a lot more action and exciting moments, the tension buildup to 1/28 was great. plus if you ask me the yellow box warehouse scene is one of the best, most unforgettable sequences of any story i’ve seen and Ls arc was never able to hit that same high. seriously, even on rewatches i am on the edge of my seat during the last 2 episodes.

All in all though, i think post timeskip death note is seriously underrated/overhated, and while Ls arc was great it wasnt all that people say it was.

What a ride!

There was alot of silly things they expect us to overlook.

Misa being help captive for 50 days and there's no one looking for her?? Lol shes a celebrity. Where's here lawyers and family and friends????

The back and forth between Light and L got a bit repetitive at times. After Light was imprisoned and then threatened by his dad while Kira was still killing, he should have been released. L had good reason to still be suspicious of Light but there was no basis to treat him as your prime suspect anymore and yet L ends up handcuffing Light to himself lol.

I found these two events in the show to be amusing. However my biggest gripe was how Near and his team were able to duplicate the original Deathnote in such a short period. They only became aware that there was a fake after Takada was killed which did not give them much time to filled out all the pages and recreate every marking on the notebook. It is possible that Mikame could have missed it due to his eagerness to help out Light and the fact that Light already made him aware that the task force was going to tamper with the fake notebook and he would have no reason to suspect them of having access to the real one.

My first time submitting my artwork here ❤️ I decided to draw a picture of Misa today. She's carrying a Kira ita bag that has repeat pins (to showcase her love for Light) and an iced coffee! I didn't know what outfit to give her so I settled with distressed jeans and a crop top. It was nice to depict her enjoying a simple moment in time.

I still have enough space on the other side of the page to add someone else. But I'm unsure who yet 🤔

I think one of the most remarkable examples of his luck is the fact that the Death Note fell in Japan, out of all the countries in the world, and that he happened to be the one person out of billions who picked it up.

Death Notes do not seem to fall into the human world very often, so I wonder how much time usually passes between one human owner and the next. On top of that, the second Kira also appeared in Japan and happened to be one of Light’s supporters, someone willing to follow him blindly. The chances of another Death Note appearing on Earth, in the same country, and ending up with someone devoted to Kira seem incredibly low.

I also think Light was very lucky that Ryuk was willing to write fake rules for him. There are probably several other examples, but these are the first ones that came to mind.

I made this is a while ago and found it again and felt the need to share it with the subreddit :3 I mean just look at these sweethearts

I would love it if they rebooted Death Note, either by bringing Light and L into our modern era and changing the course of events, with better animation, etc...

Or by creating a completely new story with new characters, new rules, or changes to the notebook's rules to explore new facets of the plot.

Was Light Yagami dying be considered an easy way out for the innoncent people he killed?

If he's nothingness, it would be a time skip for him?

Or he'll become someone else completly different?

Ryuk states that one of the rules of his notebook is that he will eventually write the name of whoever he gives a notebook to down in his own book. In other words, if Ryuk is your Shinigami, he will eventually be the one to “kill” you. Well, at one point, he was Misa’s shinigami but she ended up committing suicide.

So:
1. Does committing suicide negate that agreement and she ended her life earlier than she was supposed to? Or…
2. Did Ryuk actually lead Misa to her death?

With computers and CIA looking at what we are doing with cameras, as well as tracking our locations, is it easy to stop someone who would be using the Death Note criminally?

I'm rewatching Death Note as an adult after watching it as a kid. Back then I loved it but didn't understand most of the mind games. This time as an adult I'm following everything much better, but one thing in Episode 21 confused me.

When Misa disguises herself as a nurse, meets Higuchi, and secretly records him admitting he's Kira, she later gives the recording to L. What bothers me is that L never seems to question how Misa knew Higuchi was Kira in the first place.

Earlier in the episode, Rem gives Misa a piece of Higuchi's Death Note. After touching it, Misa can see Rem again, and Rem basically tells her she'll stand behind Kira so Misa can identify him by simply looking at the guy in front of rem. That's the only reason Misa knows Higuchi is Kira with absolute certainty.

From L's perspective, Misa suddenly runs off (despite Mogi trying to keep an eye on her), goes straight to the correct person, records a confession, and comes back with proof. Wouldn't L immediately ask, "How did you know that was the right guy?"

It seems like Misa's actions should have made L suspicious that she had information no one else had.

If you have any thoughts please feel free to share them in the comments and thank you for reading

Hi :-)

This may be a little long-winded, so bear with. I want to get every thought I have down in as concise a manner as possible. If this is a stupid question, I’m sure someone will let me know lol

Could a full name be written in the notebook, with the author knowing that person’s face, but the person would not die? For example:

If you were to write “Jane Doe dies in a car accident on her way to a Taylor Swift concert at 6:00 PM.”

The subject of that sentence, the target, is Jane Doe. She is the one you have the intent to kill. But you’ve also included the full name (presuming it’s not a stage name, Taylor Swift is just an example) of an individual who you also know the face of. So even in the inclusion of the singer’s name was just a descriptor of Jane Doe’s circumstances, would Taylor Swift also die? You’ve written her name, and envisaged her face while doing so.

How necessary is it to write in the notebook with intent? Does the subject of a sentence written within the Death Note matter, or is it just any name written and any face envisaged?

L using the alias of Hideki Ryuga (and it actually protecting him) implies that it is possible to accidentally kill someone whose face is likely to enter your mind. But, if Light were to write ‘Hideki Ryuga’ in the book, there is no debate as to who he is targeting there.

Also, we see that Raye Penber was manipulated into using a Death Note (albeit unwittingly) to kill off his fellow FBI agents. He had no intent to kill them, of course, and was just writing their names down, with their faces in mind. But they were still the sole ‘subject’, if that makes sense.

I hope I’ve explained myself well enough. I’m not looking for a concrete answer, really. Idk if there is one. But Death Note is my favourite manga/show and I like discussing it with people!! Lmk what you think

In the volume 13 Near's emotional strength is shown to he very high, but he is also described as a sensitive person, which I've been thinking about.

I can partially understand how the two qualities can go together, if I was to account his emotional stuntedness as a defence mechanism. I understand how people can shut down emotionally, resulting in events you encounter not fazing you much, which is what I think Near's deal is.

I want to know what other people think though, and if there are any other possible explanations.

idk ive been having alot of interests in the light theme B it sooo perf and clean, just so good to hear about so i would like to know yall fav ost of death note

So, I just finished Death Note. Yes, I binged it in 3 days. My fanfic making mind is already going 100 miles an hour. I'd like to go over what I think the pros and cons of it were. Firstly, I loved the plot, I really like the art style and direction, as well as the music. The plot twists also hit hard. I didn't like Near or how he was handled. I feel like there should've been a gap between L's death and Near's introduction.

I get that in universe there was a time skip but since the episodes are back to back, you don't necessarily feel it. He also in a way felt like a better L that we didn't get to properly see. It kind of feels like L ran more then halfway and was then replaced with Near at the finish line.

Another reason I liked it is because I usually like seeing action movies or series. So to see a series where the majority of that was psychological was a nice change of pace. Though I didn't understand why when caught, Light didn't give up ownership of the Death Note.

I also disliked the ending for a few reasons. Firstly is because the start of it was somewhat predictable. I wasn't sure exactly how, but I expected everyone to live after the 40 seconds. I didn't like what happened to Light in the end either. I feel like there should've been a way Light could find a way out. It would've been really interesting to see a new world under Light as Kira.

I wish Misa played a bigger role. It just felt wasted that she never had the chance to remember again. I was hooked the whole show though.

Overall, it's amazing, 9.8/10, but that's just my opinion. Do you agree with mine? Do you disagree? What's your opinion?

I love Mello's eyes, so much, so so so much <3
I think I never drawn something this good on phone 💢

In the Death Note anime, many of the main cast are depicted with one specific color during certain sequences. Most notably, Light is potrayed in red while L is potrayed with blue.

A lot of times, red is used to depict evil, while blue is displayed for innocence and purity. An example of this is how depictions of the devil are red while the skies in heaven are blue.

But red can represent more positive aspects: passion, luck, power, etc. And blue can represent sadness, loneliness, depression, etc.

In a way, the colors and their meanings convey how we as the viewers see the character's actions. Some may view Light's actions as wrong while others agree with them, just as how some cultures use red to represent evil while others use it for celebration.

It is all based on our interpretations, which are influenced by the events around us.