AUTHOR'S NOTE: So I'm pretty sure a lot of people who once read this, now don't give a shit but I recently got an email that told me someone had added BLCM (By the Light of a Crimson Moon) as one of their favorites so I reread what I had done and was SHOCKED AND APPAULED by the grammar mistakes/ punctuation mistakes/ vocabulary issues. Not to mention the lack of paragraphs and of any determinable flow. It was just one big, choppy mess.
If you are one of the people who read this when I first posted it, I am deeply, deeply sorry.
I hope my rewritten rendition (no major changes made) clears up any confusion you may have had before. And do not worry, I will be rewriting every single other chapter and then continue on from their so it's worth your while. I can't believe all the good reviews I got. I really did not deserve them at the time.
***Also, I got bored of the pen name Lord Farron Jay so I have changed it to Sangria Persimmon, as I'm sure you are well aware. It just sounds tastier.
***To be honest, I haven't watched or looked at anything Death note-ish in a while but if things go well, I may look it up again in order to get my story facts right.
Anyways, I'm sorry for all of you who have waited, and I send out a warm thank you to Snakeofdreams who encouraged me to pick up on writing this fanfiction again by adding it to her favorites list. I am sure this person is super sexy and can do back flips while charming rampaging bulls to sleep through the gift of song.
Enjoy!
...
Darkness. Perhaps that's what surrounded him...he wasn't exactly sure. But at the same time he didn't care. He stared blankly into a large ovular disc: the surface of which flickered with what appeared to be static such as you'd see on a TV screen.
Was he standing? He couldn't feel ground beneath his bare feet. His naked skin felt no air, felt no chill, nor any warmth. All he felt was nostalgia as he stared at the pictures of what appeared to be memories of the life that inflicted a great weight on his soul rather than his mind, for he didn't think or ponder on any one subject. He simply acknowledged every fleeting recollection, question, observation and inquiry that passed by.
The ovular mirror, about the same length as our subject, aired soundless pictures and scenes. One scene in particular continued appearing. He saw himself, sopping wet after having been caught by rain, and toweling his brown hair on the steps of some unknown building. Another individual stood to one side of him. This young man was tall and unhealthily slender, with dark circles surrounding his grey eyes, already partially covered by black, stringy tendrils of wet hair. Such as himself, this man's baggy clothes were drenched.
Our subject watched as the raven-haired man's lips moved as he sat down next to our subject's 'reflection'. Then he did something unexpected which caused another fleeting thought to run through our carefree subject's mind as he observed the raven-haired boy kneel at the feet of his 'reflection' and begin to dry them off. For some reason this angered him, but as all emotions were, this feeling of anger was fleeting. As it appeared, his 'reflection' seemed to object then relax awkwardly. Our subject's eyes widened in interest as he saw himself reach over and dry off the raven-haired man's bangs with his towel. The scene ended with a flash of static and the thought process was gone.
"I see..."
A voice.
"So you've literally hypnotized yourself in this dimension of nothingness. Impressive..."
Interest did not perk within him. Not a single thread of curiosity could urge our subject into moving the muscles of his neck to turn to glimpse at the ghostly, skeletal figure that loomed behind him.
"Ryuuk was right to be fond of you." Said the presence as it moved to be within an inch of the skin of its prey's back, "Yagami Light...I am the king of the Death Gods or, as your language translates, Shinigami."
Something within our subject, named Yagami Light, flared. "Sh-ini-ga-gami?" He said, stuttering for what he believed were words—not a great tool for him in this world.
The presence continued his inspection of our subject; "You have preserved your human appearance by not allowing your soul to devour your being." A skeletal palm wrapped around Yagami Light's chin and tilted his face towards him, "I envy your beauty, Light," he said, "and, if I deeply wanted to, I could possess it simply by absorbing your soul into me. But no..."
Yagami Light's eyes seemed to widen but still held little emotion.
"No, Light. What I so need from you is your mind, and your potential. Light..." His hand moved up over our subject's chin and spread across his face, eyes peering between the bony fingers with evidence of fear beginning to show in them, "...I am about to make you like me."
With that, an explosion of black beams shot from the skeletal palm and began to wrap themselves around our subject's head. The skeleton released Yagami Light immediately, watching his victim continue to be cloaked in the darkness.
Our subject, who will now be referred to as Light, screamed a partially muffled scream, begging for aid; for some hand to reach out and save him from the agony. This agony that burned his brow and his chest, the white pain that made his feet feel like he was standing in boiling water. Was this really his fate?
Then all was blank.
If you've ever experienced waking up from a dream within a dream, then you'll know that insecurity weighs the mind and you are never sure if you are awake or asleep, seeing or not seeing.
To force yourself awake is nearly impossible due to the fact that gravity feels as if it has some sort of grudge against you to the extent that even your eyelids could potentially be the weight of lead. This is what our subject, Light, felt as he beat against the walls of his labyrinthian sub-conscious.
Eventually, as if he had never been asleep, he gained back his consciousness—as unwilling as it was—and felt a tepid breeze of air tingle the skin of his chest. His fingers twitched against gravelly earth. He opened his eyes: slowly. Blurred vision welcomed him. Sorely, he brought himself into an awkward sitting position and rubbed his eyes with a partially limp arm.
"You're awake..." Came a feminine voice, the tone mingled with a slight Parisian accent.
Light groaned and raised his head, his eyes adjusting to the light. There, he saw kneeling beside him was a young woman, her golden hair wrapped into a braid that fell the length of her spine. She sat in a kneeling position and her eyes appeared melancholy and ringed with dark circles that indicated lack of sleep. She wore a simple black dress with delicate red stitching adorning the sleeves and hem. Her orange-red eyes studied him inquisitively as if he was a newborn baby being looked at by a small child, unaware of the mysteries of new life. Besides everything else, what intrigued Light most were the blade-like thorns that seemed to start from the woman's collarbone and continue until they lined the base of her hairline at the back of her neck.
"My name is Asuras, I am the Hell capsule for His Lordship."
"What? Where… am I" Asked, Light, his voice tingling the lining of his throat.
"You are in the world of the Death Gods. His Lordship has since turned you fully into one of us."
"I'm...a Shinigami?"
She nodded, the horns moving with her like thorns of a porcupine.
Light remained silently in shock. He had not considered this fate.
"Hell embodiment you say? I don't ever remember hearing about that kind of thing from Ryuuk..."
"His Lordship has emphasized to the public that no mention of us should ever leave this realm."
"Us? There are more people like you?"
She tilted her head to one side and smiled, "Not necessarily more like me...but yes...there are others with similar attributes."
"Asuras is your sister, Light." Came a familiar voice, deep a rich so that no person would be able to forget.
Light whipped his head around to one side to see the familiar figure he remembered as declaring himself as the King of the Death Gods.
"You..."
The skeletal King sighed, "Yes...me." He replied, "I apologize for the pain you felt but your mortal body was so intact that it couldn't be helped."
Asuras crawled to the King's side, clutching the hem of his long jacket, "I have not touched him, father..."
The skeleton looked down at her and nodded, "You did well, Asuras. You may leave now."
She bowed her head and rose to her feet, walking away from them.
Light looked about him once more; he sat beneath a tall, dead, black tree, whose branches sprung outwards such as the fingers of a hand. Everything around them appeared to be dead apart from him and whatever this 'Shinigami King' was. Bones covered the grey earth and the only light that could be seen was that of the over-hanging moon which was full and tinted red in the sky.
"The moon is beautiful here, don't you think?" Asked the King.
Light merely gazed up at it and admired how the crimson light illuminated the branches of the over-hanging tree.
"You are drawn in by it because you have killed. The moon here is tinted by the blood of the murdered and suffering: The realm of the Lost."
Light remained silent, starring at the supernatural phenomenon.
"Do you want to know why I saved you?"
Again, our subject said nothing.
"I plan on recreating this world. So you see, our goals in life are similar."
"Were."
"Hmm?" The King tilted his head to one side.
"They were similar." Said Light, emphasizing his statement. "I am no longer alive as a human in the human world, therefore it is not my world and I can no longer make a difference in it."
The King laughed a dry, hoarse laugh, "But you can Light." He said, "You are so capable of so much that you can't even comprehend."
Light turned his face away from the moon and looked to the ground.
"Well...You are my son-"
"I am not your son."
"-and I must give you a name."
"I said I am not our son!"
Light attempted to stand up, his muscles shaking as he became aware of his joints for the first time. The King turned his back to him, and paced a few steps to the right.
"Hey! I am definitely not..."
The King turned on his heel sharply, "Yes! You are!" he said angrily, his black cape whipped around him with a sudden gust of wind, "Despite what you think, I am the bringer of your rebirth..."
"I never asked you to..."
"Listen!"
Light glared at him.
"Now...Since I am your father, just as Asuras is your sister, I must give you a name."
"I have a name."
"I will name you Kira."
Light's eyes widened. He felt something begin to tingle his wrists.
"You don't like that name?"
Light looked away from the skeleton, "I am no longer the person who embodied that name."
"No you are not. You are evolved which is why it was obvious to me that I must pull you in." The King took a few steps closer to Light and stopped at his side, looking down at him, "Let me tell you something that I don't usually tell my children until later on...You, as well as I, are not really Death Gods."
This peaked some interest in Light but he said nothing.
"We are, I guess you could say, divine monsters. Not devils, not angels, nor gods. We are superior to Death Gods and may possess the power of both devils and angels."
Light made no major reaction but tilted his head slightly. The tingling on his wrists had turned into a dull burning sensation, "Why does Asuras have those...horns on her neck?" He said, finally giving in to curiosity.
"Well in many case when I've saved a soul from the realm of the Lost they have already begun to...devour themselves."
"Devour?"
The skeleton King nodded, "The soul begins to rot and in a desperate attempt to save itself it begins to devour itself, at the end, if the soul is still thriving it will become a Death God which is why most look the way they do."
"If you're not a Shinigami, then why do you seem thus?"
"This is not my true form...As the body you have now is not your true body."
Light looked down at his chest, just now realizing he was still naked, "I need...clothes." He said matter-of-factly. Suddenly his wrists flared with the burning of hot metal and he cried out in pain causing the King to take a step back. The sensation slowly died and when it was gone, Light stared at his red, burnt wrists in shock.
"Ah, it seems someone feels they are connected to you."
Light flinched, "Connected?"
"Do you have any idea who?"
Silence. Light's eyes welled with something similar to fear but closer to thought.
"Well, I'm sure you'll find out at some point."
Light bowed his head and rubbed his aching wrists.
"Shall I tell you my real name?"
No response.
"It's Pantheon."