A/N: Inspired by The Prince of Death by K. Kotone. Go read it because it's very good. I don't know how many times I've read through this and edited it and changed it and run it through the shredder then started all over again, so don't ask. I want to know if this is worthy of being continued. Please give me feedback. Also please point out any mistakes you find. Thank you.
Disclaimer: Taro, Ryuk, and Light do not belong to me. Incase you didn't know, Taro is from the pilot manga. Go read it. Nok however, is completely mine. Don't steal her.
/)347/-/V073
"At last Kira, I have found you," said Taro.
The Shinigami hovering behind him hissed in laughter. "What are you going to do Taro?" she questioned. "Are you going to kill him? Or join him perhaps? Please tell me!"
Her muscular, reptilian body quivered in delightful anticipation. Her slimy, thick blue tongue darted out of her viper's head, careful to avoid her fangs, to wet her scaly lips. Her yellow, snake's eyes stared unblinkingly at her ward, but Taro wasn't unnerved like many would be. He had gotten used to her dead gaze.
"Hush, Nok. You don't want to alert Kira's Shinigami, do you?" Taro chided. "We will approach him, and I will judge him."
"On what? What are you planning to do?" she whined. "Tell me! Is it a test? Are go gonna torture him? Make him scream; maybe bleed?"
"Not now, Nok," Taro waved his hand dismissively at her.
The young man approached the door and rang the cheery bell, confident that Kira was there and would answer the door, if not then one of his family members would.
"I'll get it!" he heard a young female voice call. It seemed that Kira would not be answering the door as he had hoped. Oh, well.
The door opened to reveal a cute young girl with a bright smile and round cheeks, her silky, black hair pulled back in a ponytail.
"Good afternoon," said Taro. "I'm Light's friend. I apologize for intruding like this, but I have an issue that must discuss with your brother."
"With Onii-chan?" she questioned. "Come in. Light's room is at the end of the hall on the left."
She was his sister then. He'd guessed right.
"Thank you. I'm sorry again for intruding," Taro said as he slipped off his shoes.
"It's no problem. We never get to see Onii-chan's friends so we're glad to meet one at last." She smiled happily up at him. "I'm Yagami Sayu, Light's little sister. Nice to meet you."
"Kagami Taro," he replied with a small smile, which made her blush. "You have your brother's smile." Which wasn't true of course. If anything, Light's smile was more of a triumphant, evil smirk. But then, had anyone ever seen Light truly smile? Taro wondered.
Nok hissed amusedly in the background. "Ever the charmer, Taro. I thought that I was drowning in males. Yet you've both men and women kissing and licking the ground you walk on."
Taro ignored his shadow and made his way to the unsuspecting murderer's room. He knocked on the door twice and waited, giving his "friend" some time to hide his note.
"Yes? Sayu?" came a smooth voice through the door. "Do you need help with your homework again?"
"Kagami Taro. I'd like to speak with you. I know something that you might not want me to know about," Taro said, the door opening half way through his third sentence. "I need to talk to you, Yagami-san."
Light's chocolate eyes were narrowed with suspicion. "Come in."
The teen shut the door after Taro entered and locked it. "Who are you? Want do you want?"
"I know that you are Kira," Taro said. "I also know that you cannot and will not kill me."
Light didn't look startled. "Kira? That's ridiculous!"
"Don't be smart about it. You know, I know, Ryuk and Nok know," said Taro.
"Nok?"
Taro only handed him a scrap of blank paper, and Nok appeared before Kira, her long tail swishing back and forth restlessly.
"Yagami-san," said Taro, "meet Nok. She's my shadow. A babysitter, if you will."
"Kira-sama," she hissed. "How nice to meet you."
"Nok," Light said and tilted his head arrogantly. "How did you know?" he asked Taro.
"I have my ways," Taro said with a cattish smirk. "I am a Shinigami Prince after all."
"Shinigami Prince?"
"That's right. Nok advised me on how to become a Shinigami when I found my own notebook not even a year before you obtained yours. I recieved mine when I was thirteen."
Light opened his mouth to question this, but Taro held up his hand for silence. "Let me explain. I found my notebook. Things happened, and it was burned. Nok stayed with me for a while, and as bored as she was, revealed to me how to turn into a Shinigami. I'm not going to explain the whole ritual now because it takes a while, but suffice to say that I did it and it worked. What I didn't plan on was the fact that I was still, let's say 'innocent', if you get my meaning. It preserved part of my soul while the rest me was wrenched and torn apart during the process resulting in my princedom.
"It took time for me to recover from it, as it does for all fledgling gods, and my left over soul subconsciously built my new body the way it remembered my former one being and not in the strange and twisted way that I was supposed to be reborn. The sliver of soul that I have left also retained a few of my memories. The ones of the Death Note, my first crush, and a few other little things, but I know nothing of my friends, family, or anything along those lines.
"The Shinigami change didn't reform me like it was supposed to, but it did give me a few things. Powers as one of them. It also aged me to the point where, had I been alive, it would've been the most terrible time of my life. What I look like now is what my body would've looked like during the point in my life when I was the most miserable. Isn't that pleasant?"
"What kind of powers do you have?" Light questioned.
"Ah, ah, ah!" Taro scolded. "That's for me to know and you to not!"
Light scowled at the other male, who smirked cattishly at him. "Then what are you doing here? What do you want with me?" he reiterated his earlier questions.
"I'm here to test you. I want find out if you're worthy enough to become a Shinigami Prince," Taro gave another cattish smirk.
Nok licked her scaly lips. "This is going to be fun!" she exclaimed.
