1. Rebirth (新生

The opening starts with a fly past an old, barren, desert-like plain, moving through a tunnel-like struture of, presumably, bones. As an eerie soundtrack of coral oohs and aahs. Ryuk is sitting on the edge of a hill, overlooking the Realm of Shinigami. Shinigamis are gambling with skulls, and two (skulls) fall on their sides. One of the Shinigami asks Ryuk to join them in their game, but he refuses. Light is seen bored in class, and other students are chatting among themselves. The teacher requests Light to translate an English sentence to Japanese, and Light does so with perfection. As Lights walks home, news is being heard to be reporting about a death of a woman in her thirties and an arrest of a 35 year old man for rape and murder. Then both Light and Ryuk's face come together, agreeing the world is rotten.

Light, again, bored in class, then sees a book drop from the sky to land on the floor. After school ends, Light walks past the place the book dropped at and hesitates awhile before going to get it. He sees the book with a title written as Death Note. He opens it, reads the instruction on it, and laughs at "The human whose name is written in this note, shall die", thinking it stupid, sick and juvenile. He returns the note to its position and walks off, then after a while, looks back. He then crosses a road to go home, and the note is seen in his bag. He reaches home and reads the full list of instruction on the note in his room, still thinking it was a well thought-out prank. He goes to lie on his bed then suddenly getting up to attempt to write something on the note, then pauses, thinking that if someone died, he would be a murderer.

The news on the TV reports a man holding teachers and students of a school as hostages. They showed the face and the name of the suspect. Light wrote the suspect's name and waits for forty seconds. Just before he switches off the TV, the news reports students and teachers rushing out of the compound and the suspect is dead. Light is shocked and reassures himself that it is a coincidence. His mum then calls him to prepare to go off to prep course. Light thinks that if Death Note is real, he should test it again on a criminal that wasn't too important. He sees his classmate, Sudou, threatening another, Ryu-ji, for money, and thought about killing him, but decides not to touch someone he actually knew. As Light walks off after class, he mused about how the world is filled with people it’s better off without. He sees and hears a man, with his group of friends, harassing a lady. The person’s name is Shibuima Takuo. Light enters a bookshop and writes on the note, different spellings of Shibuima Takuo and the reason for his death to be by accident. The lady escapes and Taku chases after her by motorbike, crashes into a large lorry and dies. Light is stunned but finally realizes the note is real.

Ryuk, in the Shinigami realm, says it’s been five days since he dropped his note to the Human realm and should be about time for him to leave. The Shinigamis are surprised he dropped his note and even more so when he said he dropped it to the Human realm. Ryuk walks down a long staircase to the entrance to the Humans realm, spread his wings and disappeared. Light returns home and passes his result booklet to his anxious mum, who was overjoyed to see her son getting first in examinations, and asked if Light has anything he wanted. Light replied no, because he had gotten what he wanted. As he looked at the names he has written on the note, Ryuk arrives and scares the hell out of Light. Light told Ryuk he has been expecting him. Ryuk is surprised that Light has done so much in only 5 days. Light asks if Ryuk is here to take his soul, and Ryuk tells Light that the note is now property of the Human realm and is now Light’s. If Light should give it to someone else, then Ryuk will erase all his memories of it. There is no penalty for using the note, just that the user may experience torment it may bring and the user can neither go to heaven nor hell. When Light dies, Ryuk will be the one to write Light’s name on the note.

Light’s mum calls to bring up apples for him and Ryuk tells Light that only a person who has touched the note can see and hear him. Ryuk emphasize that he did not choose Light but it happened to land somewhere here and thus the instructions where written in English, the most popular language in the Humans realm. Ryuk also says that he dropped the note because he was bored. Ryuk then goes on to tell Light that Shinigamis nowadays don’t have much to do except to sleep and gamble. If a Shinigami was seen to write a human name on it, they would be scorned at and Shinigamis don’t die even if you write their names on it. Killing humans while in the Shinigami realm is of no fun at all and so thinks its more fun to be in the Human realm. Light says that the best thing about the note is that it kills people with heart attacks if the method is not specified and he has killed the most vicious criminals, attributing it to the drop in rates of atrocity. Soon people all around the globe will know that someone is passing sentences on the bad guys. Light was bored, therefore he killed the criminals and wants to accomplish the task of eliminating evil doers from earth, himself being the god of the new world. Ryuk finds humans interesting.

2. Confrontation (対決

The episode starts with a reminder of the past scenes of Rebirth, they are the parts where Light uses the Death Note for testing and the encounter with Ryuk, the Shinigami. The actual parts of the 2nd episode begin after that. Light is in his classroom, other teenagers talking between themselves. Light writes in the Death Note that is hiding under his school books. The teacher asks him to translate a sentence from English to Japanese, and complements him for his excellent work, calling it "a perfect answer, as expected from Yagami-kun". Light walks ahead and Ryuk calls him. In the school's yard, Light tells Ryuk not to converse with him because others can hear his voice if he speaks. Ryuk finds it boring. A classmate invites Light to something but he cuts him off, saying that he is busy. Ryuk tells Light that he isn't busy, and asks if he isn't going straight home as always. Light answers, saying that he is busy with something very important.

In his room, Light is writing names in the note with his TV on, showing the news, while Ryuk lies on the bed, eating an apple. Ryuk comments that Light is working very hard, to which he answers that he couldn't waste time, that he could only write names on the note for a limited time each day, and still has to keep up his studies to produce top results, without sleep deprivation. Just then, Light's only and younger sister, Sayu, knocks on the door, asking him to help her with her math homework on quadratic equations, and Light accepts. Ryuk warns Light that if anyone touches the note they will be able to see Ryuk. Light is momentarily stunned but recovers and continues to help Sayu.

At ICPO, a briefing session was going on. 52 criminals have died from heart attacks this week and the conservative count of the total number might be around a 100. A comment was made that the criminals were on death row so it didn’t really matter, which sparked up a debate. They conclude it was murder by a large organization but had no idea of who might have done it, and decides to call upon the help of L, a mysterious genius who has solved many unsolvable cases world-wide. Watari, the only person who can contact L, then walks in to set up a laptop to connect to the people in meeting, so that they might hear what L has to say.

The scene then jumps to Light, at a secluded place, preparing a flammable liquid. He tells Ryuk that since anyone who touches the note can see Ryuk, he had to be very careful and if somebody from his household found the book, he might be forced to kill them. Then back at ICPO meeting, L says that this case is one of unprecedented scope, an atrocious crime of mass homicide that can only be solved with the help of the world’s investigation agencies, especially the Japanese police department. L has already concluded that the killer is, of a very high chance, in Japan.

Back at Light’s room, he explains to Ryuk that he has hidden the note in the drawer, beneath the false base, only leaving a normal diary on top to mislead people. Light then takes a normal ball-point pen, unscrews it and pokes the cartridge through a small hole at the bottom of the drawer, thus lifting up the false base to reveal the note. The cartridge, as well as a wedge stuck to the underside of the false base, acts as an insulator to prevent current from flowing in the wires, surrounding the note, to ignite the flammable liquid in a capsule. If someone removes the base by force, then the circuit would be triggered and the note burnt. Ryuk then tells Light that most people have trouble hiding the book and Light is the first to go this far in hiding it.

On the streets of Japan, people are all praising Kira for killing of the bad guys. Light entered one of such websites that is dedicated to Kira and showed them to Ryuk, feeling triumphant. Light tells Ryuk that even though the papers are reporting felons’ deaths as mysterious deaths, people in the world already feel that someone is passing righteous judgment on them. Light then tells Ryuk that humans are hypocrites, and if they were asked if killing criminals are fine, humans would always pretend to be good and condemn the act, but in fact they are all happy and praise it. Then an international broadcast from ICPO flashes on the TV screen.

A person by the name of Lind L Tailor, faking as L, appears on screen to address and calls the mass homicide the worst crime in history and that Kira is evil. Light has expected this and coolly flips open the note to write “Lind L Tailor” in it, and sits back to wait for 40 seconds. Tailor dies and is carted off. Then a computer-equalized voice of the real L speaks, calling Kira impressive as he can kill without touching the person. L also says that Tailor is a convict, not the real L and taunts him about trying to get him killed. L knows Kira cannot do so and gets another hint from there. L also says that the broadcast wasn’t international but only in the Kantou region and told Kira that he would send him to his execution soon. L used this to prove that Kira is in Japan and the mysterious deaths are murders. Light looks slightly fazed now. Ryuk looks amused and reiterates that humans are interesting! Light composes himself and swears to expose L's identity before killing him. L vows to bring Kira to justice by any means necessary. The episode ends with both shouting "I am Justice!".

3. Transaction (取引

The episode begins at a meeting of NPA, where the police authority discusses recent observations relating to KIRA. Some of the observations include counts of reports from individuals who claim they knew, seen or that they were KIRA, the times in which KIRA had probably killed the criminals which concluded that during weekdays, deaths occured during 4pm to 2am in which 68% were betweeen 8pm to midnight, during Saturday and Sundays, there was a balance in the death patterns from 11pm to around 2-3am. L requested the latter information and hence concluded that KIRA may be a student. The justification he uses for this assumption is that the times suit the free time of school stuents and that victims of KIRA are criminals, and so suggesting that KIRA was trying to bring justice, an ideal of naive mentality. L then requests all to remove personal bias that it cannot be an act of a student and must accept all possibilities. Shortly after, Matsuda puts foward the fact that crime rate has decreased since the appearance of KIRA (especially in Japan). The meeting ends with L's request to the NPA to research how the victims of KIRA were publicised. i.e. by internet, TV news etc.

After the meeting, Matsuda and Soichiro have an encounter in which Matsuda apologises about the information that he put foward about how crime rates were decreasing. Soichiro stands up for Matsuda and commends him for his courage to report and not discriminating the facts. At home, Light helps Sayu with her homework, in which this time their father comes home earlier than usual. Ryuk asks Light how he can manage to waste time helping with Sayu's homework. Light replies with confidence that he can gain insight to the movement of police. We shortly find out that the father is Soichiro. Ryuk understands the Light's reply moments ago as Light hacks into his father's police files and soon realising that the police has made an assumption of KIRA as a student. Over the next two days, Light kills a person every hour, killing 23 a day. This has prompted the police to re-examine the suggestion where Kira is a student. However, L still keeps to his assumption and suggests to the police that Kira is saying "I choose the time in which I kill freely".

There is a transition of scenes in which L becomes suspicious that Kira has access to the police and Light tells Ryuk that it's not him that will find L, but the police (as L and police work together to find Kira) and that Light will merely get rid of L with the help of police. Three officers resign from the department fearing that they may fall victims of KIRA unlike L claiming that L is the safe one because Kira doesn't know his face or his name. Whilst in college, Ryuk notices a stalker and there is a voice-over of Watari telling L that FBI have arrived since 4 days ago, suggesting that the stalker is FBI. Watari has also given reasearch files to L of the NPA (done by FBI) and their details.

Whilst walking home, Ryuk tells Light that he is neutral to the situation and that he will remain so. However, he will tell Light one thing only because it is also making him feel uncomfortable, that there is a stalker. At home, Light starts to ask himself and tries to reassure himself that L could not have already tracked him down. Nevertheless, Light is planning to rid of the stalker. Ryuk tells Light of two differences between humans and Shinigami. Firstly, the reason why shinigamis' kill humans is to extend their lives. i.e. Shinigamis add to their lifespan equal to the amount that they have taken from a person who might have not died otherwise. This does not apply to humans who write on the death note. Secondly, shinigamis have eyesight which can see the true names and the lifespan (different to that of human calendar) of anyone they see. Ryuk also tells Light that he can trade half his remaining lifespan for the eyes of shinigami. Light is tempted to make the "transaction" and he is left in dilemma. The episode concludes with the stalker observing the Light's house.

4. Pursuit (追跡

Presented with the Shinigami Eyes deal, Light tells Ryuk that it is out of the question. He explains that he’s trying to create an ideal world with no criminals, and as the god of such a world, he has to reign for a long time. Light claims that he would consider a deal for wings, but he’s actually joking. He amusingly says that if he made those kinds of deals, he’d be made into a real Shinigami before he’d know it. In response, Ryuk tells Light not to worry because he feels that Light is already a splendid Shinigami. Light, however, doesn’t want to be put together with Shinigami because he is using the Death Note as a human for the sake of humans. Flipping through it, he suddenly comes to a realization that he thinks will allow him to learn the name of the person who’s following him. But first, he wants to test out the extent to which he can dictate the details of a death.

The next day, Light’s father gets a call at work that reports six new deaths. However, three of them were strange: one drew a pentagram in blood before he died, one wrote a note, and the final one escaped, but went to a restroom and died. After learning of all this from Watari, L thinks that tells the police not to announce anything on these aside from the usual heart attack. However, Kira already knows the results because he’s able to access his father’s computer and thus the police records. All of them had died just like he wrote down for in the Death Note. However, there were the other three criminals too, and Light had given them all unreasonable death conditions, such as dying in front of the Eiffel Tower when the person was in a Japanese prison. From them, Light learned that the Death Note cannot do the impossible, but can do whatever is humanly possible for the criminal. As for the pentagram and the dying message, those are both things to throw L and the police off his tracks. Indeed, L is at that moment noticing a hidden line formed by the first character of each line of the dying message.

As for Light’s real plan, it involves a man who failed to rob a bank and ended up shooting people before escaping. It also involves a phone call to a girl that Light knows. Ryuk finds out later that Light is going on a date with that girl, named Yuri, to an amusement park. Watching from the shadows at the bus station, the man following Light thinks that Light is normal and not suspicious. In any case, he’s not going to be doing this anymore after today, and so he boards the bus, sitting right behind Light and Yuri. At a stop further down the road, they pick up a seedy looking man who is the failed bank robber that Light saw on the news. As expected by Light, the criminal pulls out a gun and holds the bus hostage, ordering the driver to call the amusement park and demanding their sales money. While everyone else is being afraid, Light writes a note to Yuri saying that he’ll take on the hijacker. When the man following Light sees the note, he tells Light not to do it and decides to take action himself. Light first questions the guy for proof that he’s not an accomplice since there have been cases where a second criminal acts as a lookout from the back for the first. To prove who he is, the man hands over his FBI credentials to Light, which show that the man’s name is Raye Penber. Since Penber has a gun, Light decides to leave it up to him.

Just as Penber is realizing that the person holding them hostage is the one who was on the news, Light drops a piece of paper. Penber panics because he thinks that it’s the note that Light wrote to Yuri earlier, but when the criminal notices and picks it up, he finds out that it has only got Light’s plans for the date written on it. Suddenly, however, the hijacker is able to see Ryuk. At first, Ryuk is confused, but he soon realizes that Light had dropped a piece of the Death Note, and by touching it, the hijacker is now able to see him. The scared robber empties his gun into Ryuk, but all the bullets fly right through and hit the back window of the bus. Ryuk remembers telling Light that a person touching the Death Note allows him or her to see Ryuk, that Ryuk would always be behind him, and that the Shinigami won’t die from getting shot by a gun. All of these things have come into play here and have allowed Light to use a hijacker to figure out the name of the person who was following him.

Out of bullets and with Penber after him, the hijacker stumbles off the bus and right into the path of an oncoming car. Checking his watch, Light notes that it’s 11:45AM, exactly the time when the hijacker was supposed to die. Everything that had happened had gone according to what Light had written in the Death Note earlier. And next is Raye Penber's turn…

5. Bargaining (駆引

In the aftermath of the hijacker’s death, Raye Penber wants his involvement in all this kept a secret because of his own mission. Fortunately, this works just as Light had planned because he doesn’t want his father or L to know about it either. Raye returns to his hotel room where he tells his fiancée, who used to be an FBI investigator, about the incident. She’s worried that it wasn’t just a coincidence, but he doesn’t want her to play the part of the investigator anymore because she’s his fiancée now. Light meanwhile still hasn’t written down Raye’s name in the Death Note because he doesn’t want to arouse suspicion so soon after meeting the agent. For now, he decides to send L another message through a prisoner. L immediately notices that the top line of the new note continues with a sentence about the Shinigami.

It is on December 27th that Light enters a crowded underground shopping area with Ryuk. He’s been conducting some experiments which have taught him that you can write the circumstances and cause of death in the Death Note ahead of time. It will still work when you fill out the name later. As Ryuk is thinking that he didn’t know this, Raye appears, so Light hides himself. Light’s plan starts when he gets behind Raye and introduces himself as Kira. To prove who he is, he kills what seems to be a random employee from a nearby store, though Light later explains that it was a rapist who was never convicted because of insufficient evidence. Light suggests that there’s someone important to Raye that he can take hostage, making Raye think of his fiancée.

After he gives Raye an envelope that contains a transceiver, Light walks off so that he can communicate from a distance. He has Raye get on a train and sit in a seat by the door where he then interrogates Raye about the other FBI agents in Japan. Light has Raye write down all the agents’ names on special sheets of paper, before giving the instructions to leave the envelope with papers and transceiver on the train. As soon as Raye disembarks the train, he gets a heart attack. Raye turns around to see the door closing on Yagami Light, but this realization comes too late. At home, Light inspects those special sheets of paper, which were actually pages of the Death Note. Raye had filled in names into the right slots, but what were hidden from him were the descriptions of death circumstances.

The news of the FBI agents’ deaths soon reaches L, who gets a call from the head of the FBI. They are pulling the plug on their investigation in Japan, and the head also inform Light’s father about it all. Given the lack of trust with L and with the deaths of the FBI agents, the Japanese detectives on the case are getting uneasy about their involvement. Around this time, L is notified of another note that a prisoner left. This time, the hidden message talks about only eating apples. As Light knows, the entire sentence put together is asking if L knows that the Shinigami only eat apples. At home, Light’s father tells his family about his involvement in the dangerous case. His wife and Sayu are very worried for his life, but he vows not to give up on it. Light declares that he’s proud of his father and says that if something were to happen, then he’d personally send Kira to his death.

The next day, after having grieved over his death, Raye’s fiancée interviews the bus driver from the hostage incident. However, the driver doesn’t remember anyone other than Raye, leaving his fiancée little to go on other than her suspicion that Kira was among the bus passengers. Light’s father meanwhile is giving all of his men the option to leave because of the danger of the mission. In the end, only five of them stay - six if he counts himself. L believes that only they have a strong sense of justice, but the men still don’t trust in L. Light’s father suggests that L come to the police headquarters, but L has a different plan. Since he only trusts them, he types them a message on Watari’s computer. In it, he asks them to keep what happens from now on a secret. He is considering meeting them, but he wants them first to go and decide if they can trust him or not.

In their discussion outside the police building, Light’s father suggests that L has been waiting for it to become like this so that he could have a group that he could trust. However, one of the remaining five doesn’t want to work with L and decides to leave. After Light’s father and the other four return to Watari and the computer, L tells them the hotel that he’s at. He wants his hotel room to be their true headquarters, and asks them to come in two groups. From that room, L thinks about how this will be the first time he’s shown himself to people. If Kira finds out, he’ll get closer, which is what L is hoping for. At the same time, Light is thinking about if he had any mistakes with all the moves he’s made these past few days and what he should do next. The real battle begins from this point forward.

6. Open Seam (綻び

A bit surprised by L’s appearance, the police group introduces themselves, but L warns them to be more careful in giving away their names since Kira can kill with a name and a face. In order not to be interrupted, L asks them to turn off their phones and put them aside. He also insists on being called Ryuuzaki instead of L. Matsuda suggests that they just not release information about the criminals, but L thinks that Kira would then kill ordinary people since he feels that Kira is a childish person who hates to lose. L admits to being the same way and recounts how Kira killed the initial fake L on TV after being challenged and how Kira’s killing patterns are as if he were responding to their moves. He thinks that Kira would just hold the world hostage while blaming the police for withholding criminal information. Instead of going with Matsuda’s idea, L suggests that they announce the killings of the FBI agents causing 1500 additional international investigators to come to Japan, even though it’s not true. He hopes that this will pressure a reaction out of Kira.

L then reveals a few more things he’s figured out including how Kira is acting alone and how Kira can manipulate a person’s actions before death. He pulls out a pen and starts writing days, outlining what happened between when the FBI agents entered the country and when they were all dead. This time line includes the people Kira killed to test the extent of his power, and L concludes that Kira must be someone the FBI was investigating. The police group is quite impressed by all this, though Light’s father asks L if revealing himself is an acknowledgment that he failed against Kira. L does indeed feel that way, but he also thinks that he and justice will definitely win. Around this same time, Light is at home going over what he did on those same dates. Both L and Light know that it would only take one mistake for things to turn against Kira.

Confident that he hasn’t made any mistakes, Light offers to take a change of clothes to his father at the police station for his mother. Just in case, he brings with him a piece of the Death Note. When he gets there, he sees a woman at the front desk who is asking about speaking to the investigators on the Kira case. After he hands over the clothes to the receptionist, Light reveals that he is the son of the head of the investigation and offers to let her talk to him when his father calls. The two go outside where Light starts discussing Kira, but then realizes that he doesn’t know the woman’s name. Light intentionally introduces himself with his full name, including how it’s spelled out in kanji, which prompts her to tell him her name - Maki Shouko - in the same way.

Armed with that knowledge, Light pretends to have a theory that Kira can control someone before he kills them. Maki had the same idea and also thinks that Kira can kill people with ways other than heart attacks. As she reveals that she had an FBI agent fiancé who probably met Kira, Light realizes that she’s talking about Raye Penber. Her own investigation has led her to link the bus hijacking with the deaths of the FBI agents and her belief that Kira’s killing methods are not limited to heart attacks. She’s sure that the hijacker was controlled before he died because Raye had told her that he had to show his FBI ID to someone on the bus, thereby leaking the existence of the FBI in Japan.

Light tells her that these thoughts might allow them to capture Kira because the person who saw Raye’s ID has to be Kira. Thinking to himself, Light realizes that it would have been dangerous if she had gone to the police with that, but he feels that there’s a god who’s not a Shinigami helping him.

7. Temptation (曇天

Knowing that he has to deal with Maki Shouko or else she’ll lead the police towards finding out who he really is, Light decides to pretend to take notes about the bus hijacking so that he can write on the piece of Death Note that he’s carrying with him. Ryuk starts laughing as Light is writing out the circumstances of her suicide starting at 1:15PM, and much to Light’s surprise, nothing happens when that time comes and goes. He knows that just writing suicide on the Death Note works because of the tests that he conducted, but since nothing is happening to her, something must be wrong. It is because of Ryuk’s continued laughter that Light soon realizes that Maki Shouko must be an alias. He concludes that she must be using this name because of how Raye died after he showed his ID, but Light’s problem now is how to learn her real name. He can’t just ask her for it without arousing suspicion since she already told him a fake one.

The woman then suggests that they return to police headquarters in case someone came back. As Light panics a bit and examines his options, Ryuk reminds him that there’s still the Shinigami eyes trade. However, Light still doesn’t consider that a deal he can make. When she stops and suggests that she can go to the police station on her own, Light knows that he has to make a move quickly. He decides to tell her that it’s impossible to directly talk to the people working on the case at headquarters because they’re concealing themselves to prevent what happened with Raye from happening again. As for why he knows this, Light pretends to reveal that he’s a member of the investigation that is being led by L. The woman still wants to talk to the police and to L, explaining that she’s worked under L before on a previous case. Upon learning that she used to be in the FBI up until three months ago, Light pretends to offer to let her onto the team. He notes that the three conditions are that she has some sort of ID, a recommendation of someone already on the team, and L’s personal approval. Drawing her into the idea, Light suggests that since he can recommend her for the team, all of this is due to fate.

Around this time, L is still in the meeting with Light’s father and the other detectives. He introduces them to the real Watari, who is actually an elderly man. Watari has brought special badges for each of them to use as fake identification so that Kira won’t find out who they are. He also provides them with special belts equipped with transmitters to allow L to know where they are. In addition, pressing the buckle twice will call Watari’s cell phone. L then suggests that they should keep someone in the main headquarters, so Light’s father sends Aizawa back. Because it’s snowing outside, Aizawa opens his umbrella, obscuring his vision and making him not notice that he’s walking past Light and the woman.

Light convinces her to join the team and hand over her ID for him to see, which she does after apologizing for not using her real name earlier. The driver’s license she gives him identifies her as Naomi Misora, which Light writes onto a scrap of the Death Note. When Naomi notices him checking his watch again and asks him about why he does it, Light calmly replies that it's because he is Kira. Naomi quickly realizes what this means, but it’s already too late. Her eyes lose their color and she starts walking away slowly, claiming that she doesn’t have anything to say to the police anymore. Light says his final farewell to Naomi and continues to watch as she walks towards the imaginary gallows that await her.

8. Gaze (目線

While piecing together the clues from security camera footage of Raye Penber’s fated train ride, L notices that the envelope Raye was carrying disappears sometime from when he got on the train to when he got off an hour and a half later. L also sees how Raye is looking at the train when he’s dying, which could mean that Kira was aboard. As morning approaches, L gets a call telling him about Raye’s fiancée disappearing. The others think that it might have been a suicide resulting from of Raye’s death, but L thinks otherwise. Her name sounds familiar to him because he worked with her on an FBI case in Los Angeles, and the Naomi Misora he knows is an excellent FBI agent with a strong heart. This leads him to decide to narrow the search to the families that were being investigated by Raye Penber: Light’s father’s and sub-chief Kitamura’s. For these two families, L wants wiretaps and surveillance cameras installed. The detectives are worried getting in trouble for violating civil liberties, but L points out that they’re already putting their own lives on the line for this investigation. When Light’s father asks for the possibility that Kira is one of the families, L thinks that it’s around 5%. The others feel that 5% is low, but Light’s father believes that they’d have to investigate if there were even only a 1% chance, so he agrees to have the surveillance put in.

Back at home, Light has been busily spending his time writing names into the Death Note for future weeks so that people won’t notice the lack of deaths of criminals if he gets hospitalized or something. He then gets to making sure that no one can trace what he’s done with his computer. Light also cuts up pieces of the Death Note and hides them in preparation. It’s not until he returns home from school sometime later that he notices something strange. By this time, L and Light’s father have put the house under camera surveillance and see Light go to his room. Ryuk tries to talk to Light, but Light has stops responding. After lying on his bed for a moment, he goes back out, remembering to reset the paper slip trap on his door as he leaves. Light’s father wonders if his son is hiding something, but L finds that that kind of behavior normal for a 17-year-old.

With Ryuk still pestering him to respond as he walks outside, Light first checks to his clothes to make sure they’re not wiretapped. After he’s confident that they’re not, he tells Ryuk about the surveillance. Ryuk remembers that the door was trapped with the piece of paper to indicate that someone opened it, but that trap hadn’t been sprung until Light entered his own room moments earlier. Light, however, reveals that that piece of paper was only a fake - the first real trap had been the door knob. Light explains that he purposefully keeps the handle about 5 millimeters lower than it normally sits. When he got home earlier, he noticed that the handle was sitting in its normal position. However, that alone isn’t enough to determine that someone entered his room. That’s why Light also has a piece of mechanical pencil lead hidden on the door’s hinge that would break when the door opens. He would normally take this out before opening the door, but today it was already broken. Ryuk then suggests that it might be Light’s parents who entered his room, but Light refutes that because neither his parents nor his sister would have noticed the slip of paper and purposefully put it back. Having made this conclusion, Light is now going to buy books on wiretapping and surveillance.

On the way back home, he reminds Ryuk that the Shinigami won’t be able to eat apples anymore because of the cameras. Unfortunately, apples are to Ryuk like alcohol or tobacco are to humans, and Ryuk claims that his body will get screwed up without them. For Ryuk to be able to eat apples under the current situation, Light says that they first need to locate the positions of all the cameras because there might be a blind spot. Ryuk agrees to find the cameras, saying even that it’s another interesting thing to do.

That night, Light pretends to look at magazines while Ryuk searches through the room. With Ryuk discovering cameras in multiple hidden locations, Light thinks that L must be behind all this and suspects the people Raye Penber was investigating. But Light also assumes for now that he’s the only one being suspected. He then goes downstairs for dinner where his sister reads out a TV bulletin saying that the ICPO is dispatching 1500 agents to Japan because of Kira. Knowing that L has the living room bugged, Light says out loud that this announcement has no significance because a real investigation would be conducted in secret. He reasons that all the police are doing here is exaggerating a report to scare Kira. As he watches all this, L remarks to Light’s father that Light is clever. In any case, Light brings a bag of potato chips upstairs with him after dinner as a study snack. In his room, Ryuk has finished the search and has found all 64 cameras.

Since the entire place is covered, Light enacts a plan where he has hidden a tiny television and a piece of the Death Note inside the potato chips. Using his body to shield the TV from the cameras, Light is able to get see the criminals and write them down, all under the guise of snacking while studying. Once Light is done, he simply throws the bag of chips - with the TV in it - into the wastebasket.

At the hotel, Watari reports of some new deaths of criminals who were featured on the news. L had seen Light’s mother and sister watching a drama and then turning off the TV, and he saw Light studying all night. Since Kira needs a face and a name to kill, then those who didn’t watch the news can’t be Kira, or so he reasons. Light’s father thinks that this clears his family, but L finds it strange that today’s Kira killed minor criminals fairly quickly and that the Yagami family was cleared on the first day the cameras were used. The next morning, as Light’s mother takes out the trash with the potato chip bag still in it, Ryuk comments on how the small LCD TV cost Light 39800 yen($360 US)

9. Contact (接触