Chapter 3 – Bring out the canon cannon!

It was four thirty-six, in-universe time, world DNT000989. Tokyo. The Yagami household seemed deceptively peaceful at first glance, but I knew better. There was a class seven UMS lurking inside. A hijacker.

The Canon Enforcement Bureau detected him quite early, and while he appears to be relatively harmless for the time being, it’s best to nip him in the bud before he becomes a headache in the future. I have seen class sevens get drunk on their power and climb up to class four in record time. It wasn’t pretty. I had to spend an eternity on Namek in world DBZ003978 to clean up that mess.

I glanced over the house one more time and checked my equipment.

Canon enforcement tools? Check.

Subduing equipment? Check.

Protective duster? Check.

Sweet hat? Check.

It appeared that I had everything in working order. I ran thought a few possible applicable strategic approaches in my head and decided on a direct method. As such I walked up to the door and rung the doorbell. Sometimes the simplest plans are the best.

It only took a few seconds for the door to open, revealing a young, brown haired girl. She was short and about high-school age.

“Hello.” I said with a neutral smile. She looked me in the eye, which meant she had to strain her neck quite a bit. I was about three heads taller than her.

“Um… Can I help you?” She answered with an unsure expression.

“Is your big brother in?” I asked with a roughly 35% warmer smile. You have to be precise about these things. She blinked a few times while thinking and slowly shook her head.

“N-No… Are you a friend of his?”

“Something like that,” I said after quietly clicking my tongue. “Do you know when he would be back?”

“He went to the grocery store, so he should be back soon.”

“Great,” I heaved in relief. I might not have managed to corner him just yet, but this way I should at least have some time to scout out the area of engagement. “Could I come in?”

The girl seemed to be in a conundrum. “Um… I am not supposed to let strangers in…”

“Tch,” I clicked my tongue again. In retrospect that much was obvious. She was a teenage girl after all. I considered my options and decided to alter things a little. It’s one of the perks that come with the job. I closed my eyes and ran through the necessary details. By the time I opened them, the girl in front of me was already blushing.

“W-Well… You can come in if you want… I mean, you look good…” She suddenly covered her mouth and added, “I mean, you don’t look bad! A bad person, I mean! Come on in.”

She gestured for me to enter. I felt a little dirty for doing something like this but it was for the greater good. Not to mention this alteration will be erased along with all the others once I’m done here, so it’s not like it really mattered. After calming my guilty conscience like that I entered the building.

“I’m Sayu. Sayu Yagami. Nice to meet you,” She said while still blushing.

“I know, your brother told me about you.” That was a lie, of course. I actually read her name in the case report. “I’m Wilfred Troy, nice to meet you.”

“Wow! Your name is pretty cool!”

“Thanks.”

“I like your hat too…”

“So do I,” I answered again, this time with a bit more enthusiasm. “Now then, could I ask you a few questions about your brother?” I asked while Sayu directed me to the living room.

“Why? Didn’t you say you were friends?”

“Yes, but I am curious how you see him. It would make me really happy if you gave me your opinion.”

I could practically see her eyes sparkle as she sat down as well and began talking. “My big brother is awesome! He is a top student at his university, he is athletic and he wants to become a great detective like dad!”

This far the description matched that of the original Yagami Light. According to the record he was already on the level of a class ten CMS even in the original canon. Not that it mattered to me. Such things are outside my jurisdiction.

“… and he speaks fourteen languages and he knows kung fu and he is dating L who is actually a girl and…”

Ah, now we are talking. These details are most certainly not canon. It appears that the UMS in question only focuses on tweaking the original character and his immediate acquaintances. I had to make sure though. “Sayu?”

“Yes?” Chirped the girl with a smile.

“Have you heard anything about something called a Death Note?”

Sayu immediately shook her head. “No. What is that?”

“Nothing important. Just checking,” I told her after exhaling in relief. It seems like she doesn’t know. That means the UMS didn’t break that part of the canon. I was actually getting a little disappointed. Was this really a class seven? As far as I could tell he barely sounded more than a class nine…

Just then I noticed the distinct sound of the front door opening, accompanied by lithe steps. I glanced back and my eyes met with those of a young man holding a grocery bag. He was pale like the moonlight, though I presumed it had more to do with my appearance than his natural complexion. I stood up and gave him a nod.

“RyukFrvr98, I presume? Pleased to meet you.” I said as I slowly tugged on my gloves.

“who th hell r u!?” He exclaimed while the grocery bag fell from his hand. Ugh, he was one of the illiterate types. Marvelous.

“Wait, didn’t you say you two were friends?” The girl was understandably confused at my side. “And who is that Ryuk whatever you are talking about?”

I sighed and lightly tapped her on the forehead, “Please take a nap now.” Just like that she collapsed onto the sofa in a light sleep. It was another minor alteration, and a mostly unnecessary one at that. Still, this was the least I could do for her. When she wakes up her world will be back to how it was supposed to be and she won’t even remember a thing. I turned back to the young man still frozen by shock and introduced myself. “I’m Colonel Troy, Canon Enforcement Bureau, Special Enforcement Division. We need to talk.”

At first he just kept staring at me, but then he suddenly threw me a typical slasher-smile and began laughing. “hahahaha1!1 I haave no idae what u r taking abuto, but I have to tank u 4 placing my sister to slep! Now I heva no reasone to hold bak!” He raised his hand and pointed at me with a triumphant face. “King of shinigamys, RyukOmega! kil him!”

Following his words the ambient light of the room suddenly took a nosedive as a grotesque monster materialized itself out of thin air right in front of me, ready pounce. It was a vaguely humanoid creature except with elongated limbs, black wings and a bunch of completely pointless spikes. He also seemed to be on fire, which was a little baffling in retrospect.

“Amateur…” I sighed as I pointed at the creature. “Objection!” I yelled and in the very same moment color escaped from the world and the fake shinigami froze mid-flight in the air.

“what?”

“Tch. Seriously? You know nothing about how the Canon Enforcement Bureau operates, do you?” The man didn’t open his mouth, but that lack of words was answer enough. It was time for a demonstration. I could feel my canon enforcement tools brim with charge as I exclaimed, “There exists no such character in this world!”

There was a high-pitched whistling sound as a single, shimmering crack of blue appeared on the fake death god suspended in mid-air.

“what r u talkling a boot!? he is right fronts of u!”  Shouted the man in confusion as he was trying to comprehend what was happening.

“Yes, and he shouldn’t be.” There was another small crack. “Also, you cannot command him like that; he wouldn’t obey you directly; he is supposed to be invisible and intangible, so I shouldn’t even be able to see him; he should not be able to touch me, let alone kill me, without willing it on purpose, which would mean he would be immediately punished by death by shinigami law and being on flame like that is just stupid.”

The number of cracks practically exploded on the death god with a sickening noise reminiscent of an entire truck’s worth of plate glass falling off a cliff and it crumbled into dust.

“riuk!!!!!!!!!!!!” The man shouted only for a new creature, similar to the previous one show up. He still looked grotesque but he was much less over the top.

“What is it?” He said with an oily voice. I sighed and pointed at him again.

“As I said, I am not supposed to be able to see you.”

“Oopsy,” He answered and then promptly disappeared from my point of view. The UMS on the other hand seemed to be able to still perceive him and he was completely shocked.

“how??????????????????” He was gasping for air as his eyes kept jumping back and forth between the now invisible real shinigami and the steadily disintegrating remains of ‘RyukOmega’.

“Now then,” I said while theatrically dusting my sleeves. “As I said, we need to talk.”

For a second he seemed to be entertaining the thought of ceasing hostilities but a moment later he suddenly dashed up the stairs. I hung my head a sighed. “Of course you would resist. Why do you guys always resist…?” I mumbled while following after him. By the time I reached the first floor he just slammed a door behind him. Probably his room, I figured.

I went up there and knocked. “Listen, this leads nowhere. Just come with me quietly and-” I got this far when I suddenly noticed a small metallic sound and dived to the left. A second later there was a loud bang followed by an equally loud impact coming from the door. The bastard had a gun. I sighed, stood up and dusted my sleeves again. I faced the door once more and kicked it right off its hinges while shouting “Objection!”

The world once again froze into monochrome as I stepped through the now open doorway and thundered at the man, “Yagami Light would never use a gun like that! It leaves too much evidence! He wouldn’t even have a gun in his room!  It’s way too conspicuous!” Following my words the gun cracked in half and disintegrated into grey dust. On the floor. For a moment I was genuinely surprised, wondering why he would throw his weapon away like that, but then I remembered what this word was about and focused my attention to the desk by the wall.

The UMS was there as expected, right in the middle of scribbling into a thin black notebook. He drew the last line and looked at me with glittering madness in his eyes. “i gut u a-hole!!!!!!!! U r dead!!!!!!!!!”

I squinted. This is going to be tricky. “Conceptual Recognition Overlay.” I gave the order. A moment later the entire previously monochrome world got tinted neon green. Ugh. I can’t believe the R&D guys still couldn’t get rid of the effect. Anyways, I focused on the notebook on the writing desk beside the grinning man. Right there was a whirling mass of red lines with barbed ends made visible by the overlay, slowly advancing towards me like a swarm of angry wasps.

I pointed at it and once again declared, “Objection!” The red swarm stopped on its tracks. “You do not know my full name; therefore you should not be able to use the Death Note.”  The lines immediately withered like wilting wines on fast forward.

“No!!!!!” The UMS exclaimed with a triumphant smile. “ths is the Deth note of th shynigamy King! it can kil u wihtout ur nam!!!!!!11!!”

In response to his rebuttal the swarm of red started advancing towards me again. I clicked my tongue in frustration. Now that I cornered him he seemed to finally put up a resistance. Not that it will do him any good.

“Nonsense! Ryuk is not the Shinigami King, therefore you have no access to such a thing! And even if you did, no such ability is established in this world!” My changed angle seemed to work pretty well, as a number of cracks appeared on the notebook itself as well as the swarm of death closing in on me.

“who cars aboot what is esatbilishd!?!?!?!!!! This the death Noote the king & ur gong to dye!!!!!”

“Oh boy…” I exhaled. The logical resistance only lasted this long, huh? Not that I was complaining. It spared my time, as at this point I only needed a single stroke to end this. “Are you saying this is your own continuity?” I asked with a small smile as I made sure the glove on my right hand was properly secured.

“yess!!! thats xactly wht i mean!!!!!!!!!!!” His words were like and explosion blowing away all my previous objections. The world suddenly regained its color, though from my point of view it was still tinted neon green. The previously invisible death god at his side also immediately popped out of existence and got replaced with RyukOmega in all his stupid spiky, flaming glory. I couldn’t help but smile as I pulled back my right hand crackling with a bright azure light.

I drew in a deep breath and calmly said, “By the authority of the Canon Enforcement Bureau, I deny your reality.” Before he could say a word more my fist already lashed out. It passed right through the mass of red lines about to reach me and instead embedded itself into the very concept of this permutation of this word. It was incredibly fragile, so much so that my single punch was enough to conceptually deny its entire existence.

In the blink of an eye the entire world got covered in thin cracks, then bigger cracks, and in less than a second everything exploded around us at the speed of light. When I opened my eyes again everything was back to normal.

The world was in its original color. Yagami Light was sitting at his desk and eating chips while writing his notes. Ryuk was also in the room but he went invisible to me the moment I switched off my CRO, just as he was supposed to. Finally there was a monochrome man sitting under the window with utter shock on his face.

“what hapened?????? WHAT HAVE u DOOOOOOONE!??!?!1??!!!” He yelled at me while staring at Light. He naturally didn’t take note of him, or me if we are at that. After all, we did not exist in this world…

I walked up to him and cuffed him while he was still in shock. “You are under arrest for one count of illegal canon invasion, one count of resisting arrest and about a million counts of horrible grammar. Do you have anything to say in your defense?”

“Fuk u!!!1”

I sighed. “Go figure,” I said while retrieving the gag from my belt and placing it into his mouth. It was a small device designed to for class 3 UMSs and up, since they are generally dangerous enough that just letting them speak could allow them to force new continuities into existence, but it worked quite well for just keeping guy like him silent as well. I grabbed him by the collar and tapped on the communicator in my ear. “Ready for extraction.”

“Roger,” Came the voice from the other end of the channel. I only had to wait for a few seconds for the shimmering portal to form on the very tapestry of this reality and for my assistant, Lieutenant June McNamara to enter into the world.  She was lean woman with a bubble cut and thin glasses. She had a sort of klutzy, girlish charm to her that even her neatly ironed uniform couldn’t hide. In fact she could easily pass for a high school girl even though…

“Sir!” She interrupted with a scowl. “Please don’t narrate about me! It’s embarrassing!”

I let out a small chuckle. “Sorry, force of habit.” I said as I removed my narrative override device from behind my other ear and turned it off.

“No it’s not! You are always teasing me like that!”

“It’s every man’s privilege to tease girls.”

“And that! Why do you always have to be so unrepentant about it!?”

“Hehe. Sorry, sorry.”

“We really don’t have time for this! There is a situation brewing in HRP007806.”

“HRP007806? Wasn’t that an approved continuity?”

“It was, but now we need to move in there.”

“What? I literally just finished this job and they need us again? What happened?”

“We had a serious spike a few hours ago and since then we are detecting three canon intrusions of unknown level.”

“Wait, did you say three? And how big of a spike are we talking about?”

“At least level 3, but then he disappeared from the radar.”

“Tch… Let’s get moving then. I have a feeling this is going to be a pain…”

 _,.-'~'-.,__,.-'~'-.,__,.-'~'-.,__,.-'~'-.,__,.-'~'-.,_

Yeah, I know. This chapter came out of the left field, didn't it? 

It was necessary though, for many reasons. First of all, the introduction of the Canon Enforcement Bureau and Colonel Winfred are both very important, namely that I really, really needed to show it how he operates under normal circumstances. Why is that important? Well... Let's just say you will have to read the following few chapters to truly appreciate it. :P

As for the CENB and related matters, my inspiration came from a phenomenon called the Mary Sue Hunter fics, which simply fascinated me as a strange and unexpected way counter-culture and criticism gained form. Of course I will inevitably deconstruct the hell out of the very idea, but I wouldn't be the first one to do that either... Oh well, there is nothing new under the sun, I suppose.