Death Note の小説・ストーリー

I made a deal with the Devil. My soul, in exchange for seven days on earth after I died. The eleventh hour after my death happened to fall on our third wedding anniversary. The moment I walked through the door, he had just come home from another woman's place. He had an anniversary gift waiting for me. A set of sapphires. But the card tucked beside them bore another woman's name. I spotted a pale lavender hair tie in his hand. Once, I would have fought him over a hair tie like that, all the way from the front hall to the study. This time, I said nothing. It was him who froze instead, staring at me like I was a stranger. "You didn't used to be like this. I almost miss the way you used to fall apart over everything." He was right. The old me would have thrown a fit over something as small as him forgetting to cut my steak. But ever since the miscarriage, my heart had been dying by slow degrees. When I found out I was pregnant, I was overjoyed. I wanted him to be the first to know. But I couldn't reach him, no matter how many times I called. I lost the baby. I hemorrhaged. That very afternoon, while I lay on the operating table, a photo of him and that woman hit the entertainment headlines. He never even knew I had carried a child. Now there was only one last thing I wanted from him. To drive me up to the northern coast, and bury me with his own hands. But when he realized I had truly vanished from this world, he came undone.

I have been dead for seven years. For seven years, a rare plague had ravaged the Silver Moon Kingdom. The new Luna, Lilith, wasn't immune either. She coughed up blood daily, her old wounds weeping anew with every full moon. Even in death, to the wolf packs, I was still the jinx. The false Luna who had beguiled the Alpha King. The cursed one destined to bring ruin to the kingdom. The entire kingdom begged Alpha King Kaelan to banish my vengeful spirit. My former mate was in the royal palace, softly consoling his current Luna, my sister. "Lilith, don't be afraid. If she insists on tormenting you with her curse even after death, then I will tear her inner wolf to shreds. You'll never be threatened by her again." But when they set foot in the Rogue Lands where I had been exiled, they found no wandering spirit of mine. Before them knelt the corpses of dozens of she-wolves, arranged neatly before my crude grave. They had all been exiled as "sinners", yet now, in death, they offered their final act of devotion. There was no trace of any spirit. There was only a small girl, about six years old, sitting beside the tombstone and clutching a photograph of me from when I was alive. Her ice-blue eyes were a perfect reflection of Kaelan's. "You're too late," she said. "Her inner wolf returned to the Moon Goddess long ago." "I've only been waiting here to get justice for my mother."

Three months after Pete took his foster sister as his mistress, I terminated my marriage, chose to die on paper, and vanished from his life entirely. One quiet morning, I handed my child over to the nannies arranged by the family and walked out of the Rizzuto estate alone. Pete didn’t chase after me that day. He believed I would come back. Once I had calmed down, I would lower my head. The following spring, I was diagnosed with cancer. Standing in the hospital corridor, I suddenly remembered years ago— Pete had taken my hand and said, “You’ll be the finest Donna this Rizzuto family has ever had.” What pulled me back was not Pete. It was a letter from Sicily. Thin paper. Cold, rigid handwriting—the kind favored by old families who had ruled too long to bother with sentiment. “The heir has begun showing signs of emotional instability.” “Recent violent behavior has caused internal concern.” “There is disagreement within the family regarding the current Don’s judgment.” In the mafia world, there is only one reason the elders would bypass a man and reach out to a wife officially presumed dead— When the family itself begins to lose balance. So I returned. To the place I had once fled with everything I had. This time, there were no illusions. I no longer placed any hope in emotion. I was there only to fulfill the obligations of the family. I knew exactly how much time I had left. And I knew exactly what needed to be done. I became a proper Donna.

On the day the SAT scores are released, the reporters track me down, the top scorer of the entire nation, in order to get an interview with me. That's when they find me fishing for a corpse by the river. When the reporters ask me who I'm thankful to the most, my mom, who's allegedly been dead for ten years, makes an appearance. She gets out of the Maybach, looking very high and mighty. "Your dad didn't remarry for ten years, and you've become the top scorer of the nation. As expected, both of you have passed my test." I can only grip my pole while staring at her in confusion. It turns out that ten years ago, Mom's adopted younger brother, Donald Ferguson, suggested to her, "Why don't you fake your death and test your husband's mettle? You should pretend to go bankrupt and jump off a building. If he can stay single for your sake for the next ten years, that should prove that he didn't marry you just for your money." Mom had laughed back then. "When we were still dating, I pretended to be poor for three years. Walter could take five jobs just to put food on the table for me. It's so evident that he loves me to the moon and back. Ten years isn't a problem; heck, he'll definitely remain unmarried for 20 years, or even for the rest of his life!" The fact that I, the top scorer of the nation, am actually the wealthiest woman, Eloise Ferguson's son, gives a huge boost to the shares of her company. The entire nation looks forward to seeing Mom and me hugging each other while bawling at the top of our lungs. Mom looks around her surroundings. "Where's Walter? I'm here to take both of you home with me." "He's dead." The pole in my hands slowly cracks into splinters as I look up at Mom and spit out the answer word by word. "Three years ago, Dad kept working his ass off day and night just to buy the best burial plot for you. That was when he died in this very river."

Four days after my death, my four-year-old daughter finally sensed that something was terribly wrong. The fridge door slammed into her forehead when she tried to get a snack. Normally, I would've been there in a heartbeat—arms open, kisses ready, whispering, "You're okay, sweetheart, Mommy's here." But this time, I just lay on the bed, cold and still.​ She didn't understand. She thought the sweet treat would make me respond. So she held the final piece of chocolate up to my mouth. "Here, Mommy. Have some chocolate..." But I didn't even blink. She climbed into my arms, clutching my clothes tightly. "Mommy... Mommy, wake up..." She waited for me to stroke her hair, to tell her that everything was going to be fine. There was only silence.​ Completely lost and scared, she found my phone. "Daddy, why is Mommy still sleeping?" she asked, her voice filled with desperation.​ In response, Oliver sent a photo of himself having Christmas Eve dinner with his childhood sweetheart. His voice was icy cold when he replied, "She's just sleeping, not dead. It's Christmas Eve, and I'm busy. Tell her to stop playing games and come apologize when she's done sulking." Then he hung up.​ But when the truth finally hit Oliver—when the coroner's report came, when the police knocked on his door right in the middle of his laughter, when he realized I'd been lying dead for four days while he toasted—he broke.

"Miss Elara, this confirms the arrangement for your 'staged death.' In two weeks, at the Luna coronation ceremony, your death will be staged." "You will fall into the rapids, and the cause will be poisoning by wolfsbane." When my Alpha mate, Aiden, abandoned me again for "urgent pack business," I found a rogue on the black market and signed the staged death agreement without a second thought. The entire werewolf world believed Alpha Aiden was madly in love with me. He certainly played the part, never forgetting to kiss my forehead every time he left. But only I knew that for the thirty-ninth time he kissed me, he had also spent the night lost in a drunken haze with that Omega model, Cassia. But none of that mattered anymore. A tainted Alpha, I was done with him. At the coronation he treasured most, I would ensure he received the most perfect corpse.

Despite dreaming of attending university all my life, I ended up stuck in my farming village. I married my brother-in-law and became my nephew’s stepmother. This all happened because my sister died trying to make money for my tuition fees on the day my results came out. I thought I had failed to secure a place at university and stopped thinking about higher education out of guilt. I married my brother-in-law according to my sister’s wishes. To pay for my sins, I raised my nephew and treated him like my own son. I made money and tutored him so that he could get into Northside University. In the end, I developed late-stage cancer. Before dying, I attended my nephew’s celebration, but he publicly accused me of being a homewrecker while my husband agreed that I had seduced him. They brought out my sister, dead for eighteen years, and made me apologize to her. It was then that I found out she had faked her death and used my university admission letter to finish her study. She had become a university lecturer after tricking me into taking care of her family. Outraged, I had a cerebral hemorrhage. When I woke up, I found I had gone back to the day my sister faked her death.

Taking his place on the throne, the King crowned his golden girl his queen. I, on the other hand, was granted two choices—retire from court with a hefty fortune or be his kept mistress in the dark. Choosing neither, I hung myself on the clothesline right outside the laundress quarters. I had been sent back twenty years in time, tasked by the System to conquer four targets. I’d just blown the last target and my final chance to complete the quest. The System notified me that following the death of my flesh, my consciousness would return to the modern world, back to the arms of my family. Just as I closed my eyes, the desperate cries of my name caught my attention.

Shortly after I married Andrew Lorne, my mother-in-law has my husband's widowed sister-in-law move in with us. She wants my husband to bear the responsibility of caring for two families. My husband says he wouldn't be who he is without his elder brother's help, so he won't let his sister-in-law suffer. And so, she and her son steal my home and my husband's love. Meanwhile, my daughter and I are banished to the countryside. On the first day of our banishment, I'm violated and murdered by beggars who barge into the house. … It takes three years for my husband to remember me. He comes to the countryside to take me home. "Come out, Jovana. I'll immediately bring you home as long as you agree to give your property to Tiana as an apology for the things you've done." As soon as the words are out of his mouth, my daughter emerges from the yard, which is overgrown with weeds. She tells him I was dead. He doesn't believe her. He allows his mother to beat my daughter half to death and berates me while he's at it. "How dare you, Jovana! You haven't learned your lesson at all, have you? These dirty tricks are all you know, and you even taught our daughter to lie! It's been years, yet you still can't compare to Tiana!"

Two weeks ago, my family and I went hiking and camping. When the storm hit and the mudslide erupted, my adopted sister shoved me into a ravine. My parents and fiance only cared about my sister. They remained completely unaware of my predicament. A week later, when the rescue team finally finds me, my parents accuse me of being selfish and malicious.—— "You clearly know that your sister is suffering from a terminal illness and is about to die, yet you still try to murder her!" they yell. "The bride for next week's wedding will be your sister. She has end-stage kidney cancer, and her dying wish is to marry your fiancé.Ethan. You have to agree to this!" "I agreed to their wedding, and for atonement. I am willing to donate my kidney to my sister, and I will also give her all the academic papers I own and the oil paintings I have collected." Seeing how sensible I was, my parents and my fiance all smiled with relief. They said, "I've grown up and become sensible. I'm no longer that willful elder sister who didn't know how to care for my younger sister." In my final three days, I will give them everything they want and leave behind a perfect image. And when I die, I hope they won't cry, mourn my death；