Merry Xmas!!!!

Thank you for the support so far and your comments, all 3 of them () have really motivated me. Here's my present to all of you wonderful poeple!

PS- I'd like to point out that please forgive any confusion you may experience...I may try to do some editing of chapters and maybe even some rewriting of certain parts...

I guess I'm just too unpredictable..ehheeh

----

Slowly, Light turned his head to stare and the crescent moon. He felt as if he could almost talk to it, as if some spirits which were present within the light were screaming at him while others whispered comforts or pleaded for help.

"Oi, Kira. Wake up! you always space out!"

Light flinched and looked in front of him at a man about his age, possibly older. His green eyes starred into Light's crimson ones. He was extremely tall with the face of a fox and white, spiky white hair. He wore an orange veil that wrapped tightly around his torso and hips. A black leather belt wrapped around his waist and, hanging from it, were white tassels. His black pants were baggy but tightened around the ankle and he wore sandals on his feet.

"Bullet." Stated Light with no affection.

"Aww, C'mon... You shouldn't look at me like that! We're brothers, aren't we? You should treat me with respect since I'm your elder."

Light grunted and stood up, turning his attention away from Bullet's clearly fake smile. Light wore a black, long-sleeved shirt which was ripped around the hem and at the neck. A long tear at the neck showed of his chest mildly. Also, a series of silver rings hung from the belt loops of his lean, black pants. he wore the same sandals that Bullet wore and a red scarf was wrapped loosely around his neck.

"I don't see you as any family of mine."

Bullet's smile became a frown but his eyes remained pleasant, "Kira, you've already been with us a month and yet you still haven't fully sympathized with Pantheon's cause..."

"Pantheon's cause is not even made clear." Replied Light, raising a hand to his temple. His sleeve fell a few inches as he did so, revealing a silver wrist-shackle with a single link of a chain hanging from it.

"Those shackles on your wrist..." Started Bullet,"...having those means that some lost soul has a strong connection with you. Have you figured out who yet?"

Light made no reply and instead looked back up at the sky.

"Such a connection can put a severe boundary to your prowess." Bullet grinned and laughed, "I don't see why Pantheon is so interested in you, Mr. Judgement capsule."

Light glared at Bullet with deep loathing.

"So...has Pantheon created your Death Note yet?"

"Does it look like I have one?" Replied Light with malice.

"You better get nagging to him about that...Or else your lifetime might just go rushing by!"

Bullet made a wind gesture with his hand.

Anger welled inside of Light. He wasn't sure why this guy got to him so easily but it was something in his fake smile that annoyed him deeply.

"Pardon my intrusion."

Both men turned to see Asura, in her usual attire and wearing the same melancholy expression, standing before them, her hands folded politely over her lap.

"What is it, Asura?" Said Bullet, rudely.

"Lord Pantheon is requesting a meeting with Lord brother Kira."

Light's attention perked, "A meeting?"

Bullet scoffed, "Probably wants to tell you what a boring shinigami you've been."

Light ignored him, walking to Asura's side, "Do you know what about, Asura?"

She bowed her head and eyed Bullet, clarifying that it was a private matter. Light sighed with annoyance, "Fine. Lead on."

Bullet watched as both Light and Asura headed in the direction of the cave in which pantheon resided.

"What is bothering you, Bullet?" Came a deep, male voice from the shadows on a nearby tree.

Bullet stiffened, turning on his heel. A pair of big, yellow eyes shone clearly though the tree cast a dark shadow.

"Oh...It's only you, Wildenheim."

From out of the shadows walked a tall, lean man. His skin was very tanned and his black hair was long and fell just below his shoulders. He wore a white shirt that had the sleeves ripped off and a purple veil was thrown over his shoulder and tied around his body horizontally. He also wore a pair of baggy black pants that had many buckles hanging off the waist. His feet, though, bore no footwear. In fact, his feet were not even that of a human's. Instead they were long and reptile like, with grey scaled and black claws. His arms too bore a sprinkle of silver scales along the length of them and his long fingernails were colored black.

For a short while they starred at each other.

"Bullet, are you threatened by Kira?"

Bullet's fox-like expression seemed to sneer, "That moon-loving baby is not even worth reasoning with."

Wildenheim raised one of his eyebrows, and a small smile edged the corner of his mouth, "It's rather interesting watching the capsules of judgement and death clash so recklessly."

Suddenly, Bullet laughed and walked a few steps away from Wildenheim.

"In any case, that weakling is still to caught up in his own thoughts and daydreams to ever even stand a chance against me." Bullet pointed a finger at the moon, "I don't like that red ball in the sky. All that anger shouldn't be caged in such a showy globe now should it?"

Wildenheim looked up at the crimson moon.

"I've often seen our little brother Kira starring up at it without even blinking. I wonder what attracts him so..."

"I don't even care!" Said Bullet, bringing his hand down and brushing it through his hair. For a moment he was quiet. He starred at the ground in contemplation. "One thing that really gets to me is how those shackles weighed me down so friggin' much and he carries them around as if they're nothing."

Bullet looked down at his feet and made a tight fist.

----

"W-what!?"

Light starred wide-eyed at Pantheon who sat on a throne that was constructed with bones and skulls and various gems.

Pantheon crossed his fingers over his lap calmly. He did not look like a skeleton, in fact he appeared as a man aged into his early 40's with long, red hair that was tied into a high ponytail and a pair of black eyes. "I'm sending to the human realm. As a shinigami of course."

"But I can't go back there! The SPK...The FBI! All the organizations that hunted for me when I was alive are going to be going mad if they see me!"

"Ohh? I thought you'd be happy for a chance to get back at the one who killed you."

"Ryuuk killed me. I don't care about that anyways. I lost and I can't change that!"

"But what if you could..."

"What?" Said Light sharply in a whisper.

Pantheon smiled, a pair of glistening white fangs curled over his lips maliciously and Light was strongly reminded of the vampires he would read about in books when he was a teenager.

"Kira...The human world plays greatly into my plans. I have not specified the exact to details to any of the others yet..." Pantheon's eyes darted in Asura's direction. She had been lying on her side, asleep since they had begun talking. "I plan on creating a world where shinigami can thrive alongside humans."

"Thrive alongside...humans?" restated Light, his mind racing. He couldn't possibly go back to earth. Even if they couldn't kill him...it would just be too much. Seeing all the hateful eyes, the words like blades, cutting him until nothing else could be done. Now that he was a shinigami he saw his human selfishness obviously and his previous notions of what a perfect wold was seemed flawed and so trivial now. Of course...he still believed that those who ruined lives and disrupted peace should be punished-- but to what extent? A man who goes out and gets drunk then kills his wife with a golf club could be, in Light's book, considered a reason for severe judgement. But what if the wife her self was in the habit of hitting her small child. What then? He used to believe that every selfish deed should be countered regardless of the circumstance but his own selfishness had prevented him from seeing what he had been doing to himself.

For a long while now, Pantheon had been studying Light with a small smile on his face as he observed the shinigami struggle with some sort of inner conflict.

"Kira."

No response.

"Kira." He repeated. Still nothing reacted within Light.

"Yagami Light!"

Light looked up, shocked.

"I see...so you still have a grasp of your human name. You obviously still hold some of your burden of the past close to our chest."

"The past can not be thrown away." Replied Light, his eyes shadowed by his bangs which had grown another inch.

"I wonder about that..." Pantheon brought a hand to his chin and looked Light up and down until his eyes rested on his wrists.

"Those shackles...Are they heavy?"

"Wha--oh...These?" Light raised his wrists, "They weigh nothing."

"Is that so...Kira, my son, come here."

Light grunted in objection but walked over grudgingly all the same.

Pantheon reached out and clutched one of his wrists. He fingered the shackle curiously at first. Light then watched him press the pad of his index finger against the smooth silver plate of he shackle. A small ribbon of smoke began to travel from the finger and Light watched at the metal beneath his fingers began to turn red and he felt he burn against his skin but he didn't fully mind. Pain was not a present thing for him any more.

Pantheon took his finger from the shackle and they both starred as the red spot seemed to pulse the lengthen and curve. It began to spell something and a a single letter appeared.

L

Light immediately pulled away form Pantheon just as the second letter began to form.

"Ohh? Do you know who it is now?"

Light remained silent, his eyes narrowed.

"Well, you don't have to tell me who either way."

There was a long silence between the two.

"Is it true that these shackles limit my power." Asked Light.

Pantheon raised his eyebrows then relaxed, laughing slightly.

"I'm guessing that Bullet gave you that idea...It's more complicated than that." Pantheon stood and walked around Light. Light remained still, even when Pantheon wrapped his arms around his neck and rested his chin on his broad shoulder.

"Kira, Bullet too once had shackles...they were around his ankles and they weighed him down considerably."

Light made no great reaction to this but payed attention. He had not known this about Bullet.

"When I first discovered little Bullet...He was a young man who had been dead for quite some time. He was slowly fading. When I brought him here a spirit grasped him and wouldn't let go for some time. It both strengthened him and limited him. His speed and leg strength was astonishing the day the shackles were released. In the end, those shackles turned him into someone to be feared."

"I don't fear him..." replied Light bluntly.

"I know you don't...and that is very foolish."

"Foolish..." Light repeated the word as if it had been brimming at the tip of his tongue for some time now, "But my shackles don't have any weight to them. They cannot strengthen me nor limit me. They are just an annoying accessory the way they are."

"Perhaps." Pantheon released Light and walked to the entrance of the cave, "Which leaves me to believe this spirit has no grudge against you but simply is connected to you..." Pantheon tilted his head towards Light, "...as you are to it."

"That still gives me no answers! Why do you want to send me back to earth!"

Pantheon sighed, exasperated.

"If I want to merge these two worlds then my best interest is to have both worlds in mint condition."

Light felt his heart skip a beat. What was Pantheon saying? Pantheon suddenly turned on his heel and grimaced at Light. "I need you to finish what you started on earth!"

It happened so fast, nothing could've stopped it. Light's shackles burned red causing Light to cry out. Black beams, not unlike those he remembered being enveloped in back when he was first being reborn, began to sprout and coil around his arms and legs. In an instant he lunged forward, not capable of stopping himself. At incredible speed, he grabbed Pantheon by the throat and pinned him against the cave wall. His eyes did not belong to him, the crimson of them had been swallowed by grey and they no longer had the ferocity and seriousness they had before. Now they were hollow yet burned with such rage and insight that it seemed the air around them could be freezing. Pantheon starred wide-eyed into them, seemingly lost in their depths, then he shook himself out of the initial shock.

"Aah..seems your companion does not approve."

Light barred his teeth at Pantheon.

"Asura." Said Pantheon simply. Immediately, A great force caught Light in he middle of his back.

He gasped, the crimson in his eye flickered back and he coughed up what appeared to be blood. His grip on Pantheon loosened and he fell against him limply. Pantheon caught him around the waist and pulled a large needle, tinted blue, out of his back. It had gone deep. He looked up at Asura and nodded. She was standing a few meters away, her arm outstretched with the tip of another long needle protruding from the skin of the back of her hand.

----

It was the next morning before Light awoke, fully healed. He lay on the floor of the caved, covered in a white sheet. Soft hands suddenly touched the back of his neck and he jumped and turned around. Asura knelt behind him, her hair was pulled into two pigtails and it was only now that Light noticed her similarity to Adame Misa. He looked away.

"I'm very sorry for attacking you, Kira."

"What happened?" Asked Light, brushing his bangs back with his hands.

Asura approached him and Light watched in awkward shock as she wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him, the horns on her neck seemed to move on their own so they did not pierce him as she drew closer.

"A-Asura..."

"I shot you with one of my needles...I greatly apologize, m'Lord."

"What the...Hey!"

Asura had begun to massage the back of his neck with her fingers and Light struggled to gently push her away.

"That's enough, Asura." Pantheon voice emerged through the emptiness of the cave.

Immediately, Asura released Light and drew back from him. She stood up. Just as she did so, Pantheon's image appeared in the middle of the cave. A pair of majestic wings sprouted form his back. They had no feather or skin and consisted only of bones.

Light eyes him suspiciously.

"I'm glad it didn't take you long to waken."

As he took steps closer to Light, his wings seemed to disintegrate and his face and flesh seemed to as well. When he knelt down close to him he resembled a skeleton once again.

"Will you tell me what happened?" Light said this turning his attention to his wrist shackles noticing that another chain link had appeared on both of them.

"You're annoying little companion did not approve of me. Seems it's a little protective of you."

Light laughed, "Is that so...I would say it's more like it wants authority."

"The spirit used you, Kira. It used your power against me. That is how it limits you...but it will also strengthen you."

Light's eyes darted in his direction.

"I believe that whenever that spirit gets angry it will reach into you and uncover a new thread of uncontrolled power that you have yet to discover."

"New power, you say?" Said Light a smile threatening the corners of his mouth, "Since when have I ever showed what I already know of my power?"

Pantheon laughed, throwing back his skeleton head and letting his jaw fall uncontrollably. Light frowned.

"I gave you the powers you are already acquainted with!" Said pantheon, "In order for new powers to grow within you your entire soul must start from scratch! In other words...the powers I gave you are giving birth to new powers."

Light thought about this, his eyes starring at the ceiling.

"Pantheon...Are you giving me a Death Note, or not?"

Pantheon nodded and reached into his black robe, he took out a black notebook with white letters on the front clearly saying 'Death Note' in english writing. He also pulled out a writing utensil which appeared black and coiled. He passed both items to Light.

Light turned the Death Note around his his hands, feeling the ownership of it suddenly coarse through his body. He flipped through the white, blank pages with nostalgia strengthening with each beat of his heart.

"Does it feel as if you've been given the power of god."

Light smiled, "That's a human reaction to such a weapon."

Pantheon laughed, "You truly are an interesting find, Kira."