Light Yagami

Light Yagami was the ordinary (except for his unusual name) son of a police chief until one day during highschool, he finds a "Death Note", a notebook belonging to a death god or Shinigami which can kill anyone whose name is written in the book, provided the user can picture the face of the person in their head as they write. Yagami uses the book to kill criminals, eventually catching the attention of the public, becoming known as Kira, a Japanese corruption of the word "killer". Yagami's actions attract the attention of the police, and a genius detective known only as "L". Yagami and "L" battle it out in a match of wits until "L" is killed, however, Yagami eventually joins him in his fate, being caught by an apprentice of "L"'s an dying of a combination of gunshot wounds and the shinigami who gave him Death Note in the first place writing his name in his Death Note.