Chapter 1: The Death of a Golden Era
The scent of antiseptic was the only thing that cut through the smell of damp wool and stale coffee. It was a sterile, suffocating smell—the smell of endings.
Kenji Sato sat in the hard plastic chair of the Intensive Care Unit waiting room, his elbows resting on his knees, his hands clasped so tightly that his knuckles had turned the color of old bone. Through the glass partition, the rhythmic, monotonous beeping of the heart monitor was a countdown he couldn't stop.
Lying in the bed was Shozo Sato. To the world, he was the founder of Golden Era Studios, a man who had once produced the highest-grossing romance films of the 90s. To Kenji, he was just "Dad"—a man who looked suddenly, terrifyingly small beneath the stark fluorescent lights.
"I'm sorry," Kenji whispered, the words scraping against a throat dry from hours of silence. "I'm so sorry."
Three days. It had only been three days since the premiere of The Cybernetic Swordsman.
It was supposed to be Kenji's magnum opus. It was supposed to be the film that dragged Golden Era Studios out of the stagnation of the last decade and into a new age of visual storytelling. Kenji, a transmigrator from a world rich in culture, had tried to recreate the magic of the cyberpunk anime he loved from his previous life. He had poured every cent of the studio's liquidity into it. He had leveraged his father's personal assets.
The result?
A 12% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. A box office opening that didn't even cover the catering budget. The critics didn't just dislike it; they didn't understand it.
"Confusing," the leading critic at the Zenith Times had written. "A brightly colored mess of inexplicable terms and childish sword fights. Sato Junior has officially buried his father's legacy."
Kenji remembered reading that review aloud in the boardroom. He remembered the look on his father's face—not of anger, but of a crushing, silent disappointment. And then, the collapse. The clutching of the chest. The siren wail of the ambulance that still echoed in Kenji's ears.
"Mr. Sato?"
Kenji flinched, snapping his head up. A nurse stood in the doorway, her expression practiced in its sympathy.
"Visiting hours are over," she said softly. "He's stable for now, but he needs absolute rest. The stress... well, you know."
"I know," Kenji said, his voice hollow. He stood up, his legs stiff. "I'm leaving."
He didn't have a home to go to, really. He had a crime scene.
Outside, the city of Zenith was weeping. A cold, gray rain lashed against the pavement, turning the neon lights of the street into blurry, bleeding watercolors.
Kenji didn't hail a taxi. He couldn't afford one. He walked, letting the freezing rain soak through his cheap suit, hoping the cold would numb the burning guilt in his chest.
He had been in this world for ten years.
In his previous life, Kenji Sato was a nobody. A third-rate assistant director for daytime TV dramas in Tokyo. He was a nerd, an otaku, a man who lived paycheck to paycheck to buy Blu-rays and limited-edition figures. He was in debt then, too. But he had passion. He had the vibrant, explosive worlds of Naruto, Evangelion, Ghibli, and Gundam to escape into.
When he woke up in this parallel world ten years ago, occupying the body of a young, handsome heir to a film studio, he thought he was the protagonist of a light novel. He thought he was the chosen one.
But reality was a cruel writer.
This world was... dull. It was culturally sterile. The entertainment industry here was stuck in a loop of repetitive melodramas, dry historical documentaries, and formulaic cop procedurals. There was no concept of "Anime." No "Manga." No "Chuunibyou." No "Tsundere." No "Hot-blooded Shonen."
People here didn't dream of flying. They didn't dream of magic. They dreamed of steady jobs and sensible relationships.
Kenji had spent a decade trying to inject the "soul" of anime into this world's cinema. But he had failed. Again. And again. And again.
He stopped walking. He was standing in front of a heavy iron gate, rusted and peeling.
Golden Era Studios.
The sign, once a beacon of quality in the city, was now faded, the gold paint chipped away to reveal the dull gray steel beneath.
Kenji pushed the gate open. It creaked, a sound like a dying animal. He walked across the empty lot, past the soundstage where The Cybernetic Swordsman had been filmed. He could see the dumpster overflowing with props—plastic laser swords and foam armor that looked ridiculous in the harsh light of day.
He unlocked the main building and stepped into the lobby. It was dark. Silence hung heavy in the air, thicker than the dust settling on the reception desk.
Yesterday, this room had been full of people. Staff, accountants, scriptwriters. Today, it was a graveyard.
They had all quit. The moment the box office numbers dropped, the rats had fled the sinking ship. Even the receptionist, Mrs. Higgins, who had worked for his father for twenty years, had left a polite note and her key card on the desk.
Kenji walked up the stairs to the CEO's office. His father's office.
He slumped into the leather chair behind the massive mahogany desk. It felt too big for him. He felt like a child playing dress-up in a dead man's clothes.
His eyes fell on the document sitting squarely in the center of the desk. The red stamp on the envelope was like a bullet wound.
NOTICE OF FORECLOSURE
Creditor: Zenith City Bank
Outstanding Principal: $5,000,000
Interest Accrued: $250,000
Due Date: 30 Days.
Kenji picked up the paper, his hands trembling. Thirty days. If he didn't pay five million dollars in thirty days, the bank would take everything. The studio. The film library. The land. And his father's house—the only asset Shozo had left to pay for his medical bills.
If the studio went under, his father wouldn't just be heartbroken. He would be destitute. He would die in a charity ward.
"I killed him," Kenji whispered to the empty room. "I killed the Golden Era."
He opened the bottom drawer of the desk, his fingers brushing against a bottle of expensive scotch his father had been saving for his retirement. He grabbed it, unscrewing the cap, ready to drink himself into oblivion.
But then, he stopped.
Beside the bottle was a framed photograph. It was taken fifteen years ago. A younger Shozo Sato stood with his arm around a teenage Kenji. They were on a movie set. Shozo was pointing at the camera, explaining something, and Kenji was looking at his father with eyes full of wonder.
Kenji remembered that day. He remembered his father saying, "Movies aren't just pictures, Kenji. They are dreams. We sell dreams to people who are too tired to dream for themselves."
Kenji slammed the bottle down on the desk. The amber liquid sloshed, spilling onto the foreclosure notice.
"Dreams," Kenji scoffed, tears finally spilling over, hot and angry. "I don't have dreams, Dad. I have memories. I have memories of a world that was brighter than this one. I wanted to show them Attack on Titan. I wanted to show them Your Name. I wanted them to feel the hype of a Tournament Arc. But I'm just a hack. I can't write the scripts from memory. I can't explain the visual style to these rigid cameramen. I'm a third-rate assistant director trying to be Miyazaki!"
He buried his face in his hands. "I wish... I wish I had the tools. I wish I had the scripts. I wish I could just show them."
As his tears dripped onto the mahogany desk, a strange sound cut through the silence of the room.
Bzzzt.
It was the sound of static. Electrical interference.
Kenji looked up, wiping his eyes. The large LCD monitor on the wall, used for reviewing dailies, flickered to life. It shouldn't have been on. The power to the building had been fluctuating all day.
The screen washed the dark office in a harsh, blue light.
[System Booting...]
Kenji blinked. "What?"
[Soul Resonance Detected.]
[Target: Kenji Sato.]
[Origin: Earth-Prime (Transmigrator).]
[Status: Despair.]
Text scrolled across the screen, glowing with a retro, pixelated aesthetic that looked suspiciously like the interface of an old 90s dating sim game he used to play.
[System: ANIME LIVE ACTION DIRECTOR.]
[Activation Criteria Met: The Host has reached rock bottom.]
"Is this... a stress hallucination?" Kenji stood up, reaching out to touch the screen. It was cold to the touch. "Am I having a stroke?"
[Negative, Host. You are not having a stroke. You are being given a second chance.]
A mechanical voice echoed in his head—not from the speakers, but directly into his auditory cortex. It was genderless, flat, and sounded a bit like a GPS navigation system.
[Scanning Host's Memory Bank...]
[Detected: Massive database of Anime, Manga, and Light Novel content.]
[Scanning Host's Current Assets...]
[Detected: One failing studio. $5,000,000 Debt. Dying Father.]
Kenji flinched. "Hey, watch it."
[The System has been dormant for ten years, waiting for the Host to realize that 'Creativity' is not your strength. 'Execution' is your destiny.]
Kenji felt a vein pop in his forehead. "You waited ten years to tell me I'm uncreative?"
[You tried to recreate 'Sword Art Online' using 40-year-old actors and wire-fu. The result was... regrettable.]
Kenji fell silent. The System had a point.
[The Anime Live Action Director System provides the ultimate production pipeline. We do not ask you to write. We ask you to Direct. To Cast. To Execute.]
A new window popped up on the screen, accompanied by a cheerful 8-bit fanfare.
[NOVICE PACKAGE AVAILABLE!]
[Would you like to open it?]
Kenji looked at the foreclosure notice. He looked at the empty office. He thought of his father in the hospital bed, fading away.
He didn't believe in miracles. But he believed in plot twists.
"Open it," Kenji said, his voice trembling. "If this is a demon deal, I'll sign it. Just give me something to save this place."
[Opening Novice Package...]
[Congratulations! You have received:]
1. The God-Tier Script:
Title: Death Note (Season 1 - The First 10 Episodes)
Format: Perfected Screenplay for Live Action. Dialogue localized. Pacing optimized.
Genre: Psychological Thriller / Supernatural.
2. The Casting Radar (Rank F):
Ability: Allows the Host to see the "Soul Synchronization Rate" of individuals with specific characters.
Current Target: Light Yagami & L Lawliet.
3. The Production Fund:
Amount: $100,000 USD.
Restriction: Can only be used for production costs. Cannot be used to pay debt.
4. Special Prop:
Item: The Death Note (Authentic).
Description: Visually indistinguishable from the real thing. Induces mild psychological pressure on the actor holding it to enhance performance.
Kenji stared at the screen. Death Note.
He laughed. A dry, rasping sound that slowly turned into a genuine, manic chuckle.
Of course. It was perfect.
Why had he failed before? Because he tried to make high-concept fantasy with no budget. But Death Note? Death Note wasn't about flying robots or energy beams. It was about two geniuses sitting in rooms, talking. It was about tension. It was about a notebook.
It was a story that could be filmed in this very city, with a small cast, and still grip the entire world by the throat.
But the budget... $100,000?
"Are you kidding me?" Kenji yelled at the screen. "$100,000? That's barely enough for catering on a real movie! How am I supposed to film a season of TV with that?"
[System Reply: A poor workman blames his tools. A God of Live Action uses the budget to find the perfect Actors. The script is free. The props are free. You only need to feed the crew and hold the camera.]
Kenji took a deep breath. He picked up the foreclosure notice and crumpled it into a ball, tossing it into the trash can.
He had thirty days. He had one hundred thousand dollars. And he had the greatest psychological thriller ever written sitting in his digital inventory.
He wasn't Kenji Sato, the failure, anymore. He was the only man on Earth who knew who Kira was.
He pulled his phone out of his pocket. He scrolled past the dozens of resignation texts until he found the one name that hadn't messaged him yet.
Mike "The Lens" Wazowski (Not his real last name, but Kenji insisted on it).
Mike was a college dropout, a camera nerd who slept in the equipment room, and the only person who had actually liked Kenji's weird ideas, even if he didn't understand them.
Kenji hit dial.
It rang once. Twice.
"Boss?" Mike's voice was groggy. "I heard about the... uh, everyone leaving. Should I return the keys?"
"Keep the keys, Mike," Kenji said, his voice steady for the first time in days. "And get to the studio. Bring the RED camera. Bring the lights."
"Why? Are we selling them?"
"No," Kenji said, looking at the photo of his father. A fierce, predatory grin spread across his face—the grin of a man who had just drawn a Royal Flush. "We're not selling anything. We're going to film a murder mystery."
"A murder mystery? Who's the killer?"
Kenji looked at the System screen, where the name Light Yagami glowed in red.
"God," Kenji said. "God is the killer."