The first thing Ryomen Sukuna noticed was the silence.

No bloodcurdling screams. No lingering traces of cursed energy. No sorcerers hunting him down. Just an unnatural stillness, disturbed only by the rhythmic ticking of a clock in the distance.

He opened his eyes. The world before him was foreign—steel-gray buildings stretched high into the sky, lights flickering behind closed windows. The air was thick with an eerie sense of normalcy, devoid of the spiritual energy he had always sensed in the world he once ruled.

Then came the voice.

"Well, well. This is interesting."

Sukuna turned sharply to his side. A creature unlike anything he had encountered before hovered lazily in the air. Its skeletal frame and wide, bulging eyes radiated something unnatural, yet it did not exude cursed energy. The creature grinned, revealing jagged teeth, as if savoring some unspoken joke.

"You're not from here, are you?" Ryuk asked, tilting his head curiously.

Sukuna smirked. "Neither are you, I take it."

Ryuk chuckled, his amusement evident. "True. But you—you're different. You don't belong to this world. And yet, here you are."

Sukuna ran a hand over his chest. His immense power had been stripped away, leaving behind only a fragment of his former strength. He could no longer summon his Domain, nor could he tear through flesh with a flick of his fingers. But intelligence? That remained. And intelligence was more than enough.

"Where am I?" Sukuna finally asked.

"Japan, of course," Ryuk answered, eyes twinkling. "But not the one you knew. Here, there are no curses, no sorcerers, no exorcisms. Just humans. Humans... and a notebook."

Sukuna followed Ryuk's gaze downward, where a single black notebook rested on a desk in a dimly lit bedroom. A young man sat beside it, pen in hand, golden-brown eyes glowing with determination. He muttered something under his breath as he scrawled a name onto the paper, and mere seconds later, the television in the corner of the room broadcasted the death of a wanted criminal.

Sukuna's smirk widened.

"Fascinating."

Light Yagami frowned.

He felt it—an unsettling presence lurking just beyond his perception. Something had changed in the room, a shift in the air that had not been there moments before. He set his pen down and turned his head, eyes scanning the dimly lit space.

"You sensed it, didn't you?" Ryuk's voice held amusement.

Light's fingers twitched slightly, though he remained composed. "What do you mean?"

Ryuk grinned. "We have a guest."

The shadows shifted, and then he appeared—an unfamiliar figure stepping forward with regal arrogance. His sharp, inhuman features bore a confident smirk, and the sheer presence he exuded sent a chill through the air.

Light narrowed his eyes. "Who are you?"

Sukuna chuckled. "An interested party. Let's just say I have a talent for recognizing potential." His gaze flicked to the Death Note, then back to Light. "And you, boy, have plenty of it."

Light's mind raced. No human could simply appear out of nowhere, much less emit such a suffocating aura. If he wasn't a Shinigami like Ryuk, then what was he?

"Why should I trust you?" Light asked, his tone calculating.

Sukuna laughed. "You shouldn't. But you will."

L tapped his fingers rhythmically against his desk.

The Kira case had taken a strange turn. In the last few days, something had felt… off. His instincts, honed by years of solving the most complex mysteries, told him that a new player had entered the game.

"Watari," L murmured, his dark eyes locked onto the screen before him. "Increase surveillance on Yagami Light. Something tells me our battle is about to become even more complicated."

Watari nodded and left the room. L continued staring at the data on his screen, his lips pressing into a thin line.

Somewhere, in the heart of this intricate war, an unknown force had emerged.

And L did not like unknowns.