My Little Death Note

Chapters

Dismissal
Return
Fear
Madness
Realization
Old Friends: New Problems
Another Shinigami?
Tenshura, The Blood Stallion
Secrets, or Lies?
Star of sadness
The Disciple of Death
Her beginning
Unsaid

Dismissal

“Leave me alone Ryuk, I’ve already given you another death note and I honestly can’t be damned giving you yet another if you’re just going to go ahead and lose it.”

The Old Man had gotten sick of this a long time ago, though honestly he couldn’t fault Ryuk for those times he had “Accidentally” dropped his death note into the world of the living. Even he had to admit that the Shinigami world had become unbelievably dull and boring, and he was the one who had first created it.

During the time he had existed he had been known by a great many names, though now he was only known as The Old Man. He wasn’t sure if he could even remember what he had once been called, nor could he be bothered attempting the feat. All he needed to know was those who were born in the living world.

Even now, The Old Man was using his Shinigami 'magic' to write down the names of everypony that came into existence in Equestria. It was a scheme he had developed ages ago, when he had been feared and revered as a god of divine punishment. The idea was so deviously simple that he was rather pleased he had been the first to discover it, though being the first Shinigami no doubt helped with that. All he need do was write down the names of ponies a few moments before they died and the seconds remaining of their life were his.

When applied to just one pony, it proved to be a simple waste of time. However, when applied to every pony in existence, it gave him a lifespan longer than any other being. It was a genius idea, as the other Shinigami could still write names in their death note’s and gain that lifespan, but all he would lose was a few seconds off of his. After all…what were a few seconds when you had eternity?

Though an eternity being pestered by Ryuk was not quite what he had in mind.

“Oh c’mon, it can’t be that hard to make another.”

“It can and it is Ryuk, the creation of a death note requires the souls of precisely 13,000 ponies who are not killed by the death note. I would need to stop writing names in my own death note for ages, and it would fall upon me to wander around the world of the living collecting their souls for years. To be entirely honest with you, I just can’t be bothered putting that much of my time into a death note for a Shinigami far too absent minded to be deserving of that title.”

“Oh…is that so?”

“Yes Ryuk, so you can stop pestering me for another one.”

“So you’re sure you won’t create another death note for me?”

“NO RYUK!!!”

“Then will you do it to get yours back?”

“What!?”

Curse that blasted Shinigami, the whole time he had been explaining the complexities of creating a death note, the bastard had taken his own death note from him.

“Give that back Ryuk, this isn’t some sort of game, I need that death note.”

“So do I, do we have a deal then?”

“For the last time Ryuk, No!”

“Have it your way then.”

Ryuk tossed The Old Man’s death note down into the pit leading to the living world, and before the note was out of the irritating Shinigami's hand The Old Man was already rushing after it.

“Hell damn you Ryuk.”

As the book fell through the world of the living it began to gain speed, The Old Man straining to match it’s descent. He reached out his clawed hand to grab the notebook and…Found himself smashing heavily into the earth. The death note lay right in front of him, technically in his reach, though he knew he would never be able to claim ownership of his death note again.

“Crap! When I get my claws on that Shinigami I’m going to kill him.”

Despite the impossibility of his words, the oath of vengeance made him feel alive somehow inside.

“Twilight Sparkle!”

“huh…what?”

Twilight opened her eyes groggily to find Celestia herself standing before her. Snapping awake Twilight quickly scrambled up from where she had been resting, almost losing her footing on the bright polished flooring beneath her.

“So sorry for falling asleep Princess, it’s just that with all of the advanced magic studying that I’ve been having to do since I started, and having to advance my own research into the study of healing magic, it’s meant I’ve had so little time to sleep, and-”

Twilight fell silent as she realized that she had been starting to blabber.

“Sorry Princess.”

Celestia closed her eyes and sighed to herself. She appreciated the effort that her student put into her studies, but often she would put her studies before her own needs, and having to deal with those results could get very tiring.

“Twilight, I’m not angry with you. You have to calm down and take your studies just a bit less seriously. On that note, how have your friends been, have you been keeping in touch with them?”

Twilight’s silence stretched on longer as she tried to think of an answer that wouldn’t put her at fault. She had not been keeping in touch with her friends, aside from the letter’s she sent them about once a month, she had severed all contact’s with them. She honestly wouldn’t blame her friends if they had forgotten about her. Even she was aware just how much she had neglected the world around her after her advanced studies with Celestia had begun.

In a week it would make the third year that she had been away from Ponyville. She had received numerous messages from Fluttershy asking if she was okay, but she rarely found the time to reply amidst her vast amount of work. She often heard about Rarity’s success with the Carousel Boutique or Rainbowdash’s feats with the Wonderbolt in the Equestrian Inquirer, but would rarely receive any letters from them. Pinkie Pie would frequently send Twilight her latest cooking experiments, and Twilight would always be sure to receive a whopping cake that looked more like a mountain of icing for her birthdays. Applejack seemed to have forgotten about her at least, there was very little contact between the two of them since they had gone their separate ways.

The silence had extended too long to be remedied.

“Twilight! You need to stop this, the whole reason why I sent you to Ponyville in the first place was to get your head out of the books and to make some friends. What was the point of that if the moment your back to studying again you neglect them as if they never existed?”

Twilight cringed before her teacher. Celestia wasn’t the kind of pony to speak harshly to others. Yet she couldn’t really blame the princess for the guilt she felt. She should have tried to get back in touch with them the last time Celestia had discovered the lack of communication between her and her friends. But as soon as she got back to the room Celestia had provided her in the castle, she would once again lose herself in her studies and forget about writing letters to her friends.

Twilight realized how long it had been since she had spoken.

“I’m…so sorry Celestia…I tried…It’s just…”

“No Twilight, I’m sorry. I should have known that this would happen. I know how you get during your studies, and how quickly you can escalate the smallest of your tasks above the rest of your life.”

“I promise I will Celest-”

“Twilight! I’m sorry, but you haven’t left me with any choice. You are to go back to Ponyville and resume your studies on friendship at once.”

“But Princess…”

“Enough Twilight, it pains me enough to send you away like this, but I can’t let you continue to live in such an isolation. Please Twilight, don’t make this any harder for me than it already is.”

Twilight felt the dismissal in her voice and returned to her quarters in the palace, dragging her hooves with a slow walk. As she entered her room she was greeted by a worried Spike. Though Spike had matured a lot during their time at the castle, he still retained the slow aging process that dragon’s naturally experienced. Spike now measured up to her head and Twilight had found that he could be quite useful for moving heavy objects, Though with the strength of her magic now that was hardly ever required.

“What happened Twilight?”

Spike could always tell when she was down, though at the moment the sadness she felt was almost tangible, it’s presence weighing down on her. How could she have let things come to this? She was back to square one; she was once again a loner, once again dismissed from Celestia’s care. It was almost exactly the same as when she had first come to Ponyville…only this time her old friends would be far too busy with their ambitions to greet her.

“Spike, start packing your bags, we’re going back to Ponyville.”

Return

“Twilight, when we reach Ponyville, do you think our friends will be there to greet us?”

“For the last time Spike, No. I didn’t tell them we we’re coming back.”

“But why not?”

Twilight was getting tired of explaining this to the dragon. He was a good assistant most of the time, but he didn’t quite understand the larger complexities of life. Her old friends were probably so busy with their work that they had forgotten about her all together. All except Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie; A wry smile lit her face at the thought of those last two. Pinkie Pie had always managed to juggle all of her friends with her work and she didn’t doubt that there would be any exception when she got back…Though her experimentation with cooking seemed to have become quite an obsession. Fluttershy…well she never really seemed to view her work as work. She would just care for the animals, and Twilight knew how much she hated the spotlight. There was no way those two would ever forget their friends.

“Because we’ll be going to visit them personally. Imagine how happy they’ll be once we get back there, and Pinkie always loved surprises.”

“I didn’t think of it like that…but Twilight?”

“Yes Spike?”

“Could we see Rarity first?”

Twilight almost visibly froze, she had completely forgotten about Spike’s crush on Rarity. But what reason could she possibly give to divert him from trying? There was no way in Equestria that Rarity would have any time off from her work, and she highly doubted that Rarity would chose to spend them with Spike. Knowing Rarity she would be using that time to try and start the next big thing in fashion…if she ever had any time.

“No Spike.”

“Why not?”

Those words were really annoying her today.

“Umm….Because Pinkie would be upset if you didn’t tell her first thing.”

Even to her the reason sounded flimsy, and it certainly wasn’t a solution to her problem, it would only buy her time. She didn’t want Spike to have to suffer through the emotional pain that the reality of life would bring should he realize the divide between him and Rarity.

“We’re also going to need to sort out the library once we get back; you can bet that whoever’s been in charge of it will have misfiled all the books.”

“But Twilight” Spike’s complaining warmed her somehow. She had successfully steered the conversation away from Rarity and would have time to find more things to occupy Spike.

“Sorry Spike, but it’s one of the duties of living there.”

Spike groaned, and Twilight couldn’t help but smile. Even after all the years of helping her, the dragon still hated the thought of rearranging those books. They would have to meet up with Pinkie Pie first though, she had been thinking fast when she had suggested meeting her first to Spike, but now that she thought about it Pinkie Pie considered her friends a very important part of her life; and though she doubted the party pony would be upset, Twilight didn’t want to risk offending her by giving her no notification of their arrival.

She looked out over the edge of the Pegasus-drawn carriage they were flying in. This was just like the time they had first come here.

“What’s the word for this, when it feels like something’s happening again?”

“It’s Deja-vu, Spike”

Thinking about their return to Ponyville, she couldn’t help but reminisce of when she had left there. All the town had come out to say goodbye to her, and Pinkie being the party pony she was had thrown together a farewell party. She didn’t think it would ever have been possible to make a farewell that enjoyable, but somehow the pink pony had managed it. Of course Rarity had to design the most outrageous dress to “stun all of Canterlot”, but Twilight had decided against stunning Canterlot and hidden the dress away. She appreciated Rarity’s dress and knew how much effort it must have taken her, but she also knew that she would be drawing enough attention by staying with the Princess, she didn’t need the attention such attire would bring as well.

It had been a great day, and when they she had to go she had made, or rather stuffed up, a Pinkie Pie promise to write to them. She never quite understood how Pinkie managed to shove her hoof in her eye without hurting herself. She really hoped that Pinkie wouldn’t see her monthly letter’s as breaking the promise, she knew how Pinkie got when someone broke their promise, but that was why she had still written, despite how rare the letters were.

“Twilight, we’re here”

Twilight snapped out of her reminiscing to see that her assistant was correct. They were beginning the slow descent into the town of Ponyville and as the sounds of the Pegasi hooves began to sound on the ground, the carriage slowed to a halt. Twilight hoped out of the carriage quickly followed by her assistant and, almost forgetting her manners, addressed those who had carried them to Ponyville.

“Thank you kind sirs”

The guard’s gave a snort of approval before taking off to begin their journey back to Canterlot. Twilight and Spike began their walk to the library, a silence between the two until Twilight heard a giggle behind her.

“What’s so funny Spike?”

She had intended the question to sound querying, but instead it had come out sounding strict. All of her worries about what would happen we’re starting to bear down on her. Spike’s giggling instantly stopped and he answered her seriously.

“I was just thinking that this really is just like when we first arrived in Ponyville. If I didn’t know better I would be expecting Nightmare Moon to come again.”

“Would that really be so bad?”

Twilight walked a couple more paces before she came to a halt; Spike had stopped, frozen in his tracks behind her, gaping.

“What’s wrong Spike?”

“What did you mean when you said that?”

“Oh…”

Twilight went over her previous comment in her head and saw how he must have interpreted it.

“What I meant was that when Nightmare Moon came, it gave all of us a reason to work together and get to know them as friends. If Nightmare hadn’t turned up I’m not sure I would have ever wanted to stay in Ponyville, let alone have friends here.”

Spike’s expression calmed as she explained it to him. She had been acting rather out of sorts lately, so she couldn’t blame him for his reaction. For a brief moment Twilight contemplated letting Spike simply find out for himself the separation that there would be between him and Rarity. No, regardless of how much of a burden it would lift from her, she wouldn’t let Spike feel that pain. He was her assistant, he deserved better than that.

As Twilight walked down the streets of Ponyville she was surprised to find how much the town had developed since she had gone. It was certainly no rival to the glamour of Canterlot, but it certainly wasn’t the Ponyville she had known. The streets were narrower, and she realized that they we’re actually proper streets, as opposed to well-trodden areas of earth. The sound of her hooves on the new cobblestone of the roads was rather unpleasant at first, but she found she quickly grew accustomed to them.

Shops were clustered close together around the street, and the alleys were distinctly more dark and frequent than she remembered.

“Maybe not quite as similar as you thought Spike.”

Spike kept silent as they walked through the streets of Ponyville, rather overwhelmed by the changes the place had gone through while they had been away. After having passed a rather oddly named shop she came to a T-intersection in the road that seemed to split the entirety of Ponyville. Both behind her and to her left lay the new cluster of shining buildings, but to the right of her was the old Ponyville she had come to know. As they followed the right road that path soon returned to the dirt and she noticed the vast difference between the hard stone compared to the soft dirt path.

She soon found herself at the bridge near the middle of the Ponyville she had known. Simply walking across it brought back memories of all the adventures she had undertaken with her friends. She realized that she had been staring into the water below the bridge as she stopped the flow of memories. Continuing along their path they soon encountered the old library tree where she used to stay all those years ago.

“Good to at least see some things haven’t changed.”

Twilight practically breathed out her relief with those words. The library had hardly changed a bit, the tree had probably lost a few branches and gained a couple of others, but at least this part of Ponyville didn’t seem to have changed. Twilight opened the door and turned to Spike with her very first true smile since her advanced studies had begun.

“It feels good to finally be back”

“TWILIGHT!!!”

Twilight felt herself get tackled to the ground by someone inside the library, as her vision swam into focus again the head of a pink pony with a candy floss mane stood over her.

“Pinkie?”

“Hiya Twilight, I knew that you would be here, well I didn’t really know that it was you but I knew that someone would be here and then I thought to myself who would it be if it wasn’t you.”

Twilight just lay where she was, staring at the pony before her.

“Pinkie…How did you know I would be here?”

“Oh, that’s easy, it’s Pinkie Sense.”

“Pinkie Sense can do that?”

“Yup, it’s one of the combo’s, Knee wobble, and then tail twitch, then ear flops. It means an old friend is coming back. But I didn’t know what friend it would be, but then I thought what old friends do I have? And I realized it was you because you’re the only old friend I know that would be coming back so then I figured you would come back here first as so here I was.”

“I guess that makes some sense…so what were you doing in there?”

“Talking with Star.”

“Who!?”

Twilight burst into the library, looking around for the pony that had taken her place in the town. It didn’t take long for her to find them; it was a sea green unicorn mare with an orange mane. The outline of a star lay on their flank in a deep, almost purple, blue, on the same angle that the star on Trixie’s cutie mark had been.

“Hello there Twilight.”

“How do you know my name?”

“You’re the element of magic, she who vanquished the ursa minor in Ponyville and worked with the other elements to defeat Discord and Nightmare Moon, though rumor has it that you were once quite humiliatingly frozen by a cockatrice once. Who doesn’t know about you?”

Twilight instinctively didn’t like this pony, she didn’t know quite what it was but something about this pony seemed off to her. It almost seemed as if she were hiding something, but Twilight realized that she was probably letting her fears get the best of her, she hadn’t been replaced by this pony, they had simply been filling in for her job while she was away.

“Well if you know so much about me then you should know that I used to live here.”

“Oh, did you? Well I’m sorry about that Twilight but I’m the new resident of this property.”

Pinkie broke into the conversation without hesitation.

“C’mon Star, can’t you let Twilight stay here, there isn’t enough room at my place and I don’t think she would be able to sleep knowing some of the animals Fluttershy has.”

“Hmph” Star tossed her head in the air “I supposed that we could work something out, there are two beds here so you’ll have to find something else for your pet” Spike emitted a rather annoyed “Hey!” at this. “But keep in mind that this is my place now and what I say goes.”

Twilight had never known any single pony to be this irritating, but here they were, and she decided that she may as well take what she could get.

“Fine”

“Excellent, you’ll be getting up and making me breakfast at 5:45 sharp, you do know how to cook right?”

She hated what she got.

That night Twilight found her dreams disturb by images of Spike finding Rarity too busy for him, and dismissing him from her presence forever. Rarity became that arrogant pony Star and then proceeded to literally throw them out of Ponyville, launching both Spike and her to the moon.

Twilight woke up feeling far too hot for her liking, her mane was a wreck and she was sweating all over. Twilight threw a glance at the clock and saw that it was 6:13. Twilight panicked for a short time before realizing that Star too was still asleep. Not that she wanted to make breakfast for that conceited mare, but she was the current owner of the library, and she couldn’t risk getting thrown out. She wouldn’t leave the books in the care of a pony like that.

Twilight got up and quickly groomed her mane before getting started on breakfast for both herself and the arrogant mare. She had a couple of sapphires and emeralds in the bag’s she had brought with them for Spike to eat, but once those we’re done with she would have to find some more. Fortunately she still remembered the gem finding spell Rarity had taught her. Though she doubted she would ever need to 'rescue' Rarity with it again, it was certainly useful for finding a dragon’s dinner.

Twilight just threw together a couple of hay sandwich's, there shouldn’t be any objections to such a basic meal and the less she actually tried to cook, the less there was that could go wrong with it. She sat there chewing on the sandwich while pondering on what she would do about Star. There was no way of knowing what new demands the unicorn would have for her, but it seemed as if she would have to comply with Star’s wishes for now. Maybe in time the pony would be more friendly, but Twilight seriously doubted it.

Finishing her meal she noticed that Star still hadn’t come down, deciding that the mare would only be angry with her if she found her breakfast cold, Twilight went to wake her. However, as she stepped into the bedroom she stopped, looking at the clock and through the window at the same time. The clock clearly stated to the world that it was 6:52, but it was still pitch dark outside, without a single hint of light anytime soon.

As Twilight began using her magic to check if something was wrong with the clock she quickly found the problem, someone had used magic to alter the time on the clock three hours ahead, and the magical imprint showed that it had been done recently as well. Star! She hadn’t woken up at 6:13, but 3:13. That sneaky little…Twilight left the room and went to start arranging the books to cover up any mistakes Star had made, and to stop herself before she did something she’d regret.

After what seemed like hours of sorting through the books Twilight found that some daylight was starting to seep through the windows, and Star still wasn’t up. That pony was absolutely awful at keeping the library, the book’s seemed to be in no order whatsoever and some of them had been practically falling apart. She had even needed to painstakingly repair one of the books piece by piece, as the book (A study on Transformation) had been so badly taken care of that it literally fell apart the moment she picked it up.

Twilight was putting the last book in place, which she was pleased to find was actually written by Zecora, when she noticed it. Outside of the library there was a black book, just lying on the ground. Twilight swore she was going to give Star such a lecture once the mare woke up. That mare may not have known much about books, but there was absolutely no excuse for just throwing a book away like that. However, as she trotted outside to remedy Star’s mistake she saw that this book was not one that she had ever seen before. It was bound entirely in black, except for two words written in white upon its cover.

Death Note

Fear

Death Note

Twilight spent quite a while just staring at the book, it was so strange, just lying here as if it had been thrown away. Yet at the same time it didn’t bear any of the tatters of mistreatment. The name was rather peculiar too. It would have to be fiction, the title was simply too vague for it to be anything else; yet Twilight had never heard of such an oddly named story. There was no art on the front or spine to help her find out what the book entailed nor was there any blurb. So there was only one way to find out.

Twilight sparked up the magic in her horn and sent the tendrils of magic to open the book forth. Her advanced studies had not only taught her new spells, but better control of her magic as well. She had learnt that magic was actually an extension of the unicorn’s body. The horn acted as a focusing point from which the magic could be released, and the mind shaped the magic, much as it shaped images from the eyes. The only difference being that magic was released from the body, and it took just as much energy to retrieve the expelled magic as it did to emit it in the first place. Her studies had taught her how to branch her magic, meaning that she exhausted herself less from it, and could therefore conduct complex and powerful spells with the same ease that she could teleport with.

For the moment it was simply a matter of turning the cover, and such a simple piece of magic would take less energy than a step. However as her magic made contact with the cover, a strange shiver came over her. A sickly taint hung in the air around her, making her feel as if she gasped for air. She released her magic from the book, but the feeling only intensified. She tried to take a breath, but couldn’t force her throat to take in the air. She felt her vision starting to haze around her.

“Revoke ownership of the book. NOW!”

The voice seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere, a creepy whispering voice that sent chills down her spine. She tried to tell the thing that she hadn’t claimed that the book was hers, but she couldn’t find the air in her lungs to speak.

And then, just as suddenly as it had come, it stopped.

Twilight just stared at the book, as if the whole thing had been a dream, maybe it had, some deluded fantasy she had conjured. But that wouldn’t explain how real it had felt, and she certainly didn’t feel as if she were insane. She flipped over the cover and glared at the first page, a silent dare for the book to try that again.

At the top of the page there was a picture of a strange skull surrounded by a weird circle with numerous spikes protruding from it. The words “Death Note: How to use it” were written below the skull in a rather creepy manner. Directly below that the words began to look more normal, but their message was not.

The Pony whose name is written in this note shall die.

Twilight couldn’t bring herself to read any further. Her experience with the book was already too weird, but if it really did have the power to kill ponies, then it was far too dangerous to be left outside like it was.

Twilight shut the book and carried it with her inside, intending to hide it in the basement. Hopefully the clutter of her experiments when she was last here would give her a place to hide the book, until she could find a way to dispose of it.

“Twilight, I see that you’ve made my breakfast, however It is far too cold, you will have to make it again.”

Twilight was greeted by the hay sandwich she had made earlier that morning.

“Hello star.”

The words were barely recognizable through Twilight’s gritted teeth.

“Now, now Twilight, are you forgetting who the current owner of this particular establishment is?”

Twilight silently started to prepare breakfast again for the irritating mare, unleashing the anger out on the meal before slamming it down in front of Star.

“Why are you so angry with me now, Twi?”

What in Equestria was this pony saying? They take over their place while she was gone, order her around once they’re back, and didn’t seem like they’d actually ever tried to do their job.

“I arranged the books this morning.”

“That’s good; I never really found the time to do it. By the way, you said you did it this morning. When did you wake up?”

Now Twilight got it, Star had adjusted the time forward on the clock so that Twilight would think she was late, but Twilight knew what the actual time was.

“3:13”

“You’re lying.”

Where the heck did this pony get off saying that? She knew the time that she had woken up this morning, so what was this mare trying to prove with any of this. Twilight decided to confront her.

“No, I found out about you changing the clock, when I woke the clock told me it was 6:13, but in reality it was three hours before that. So tell me Star, why is it that you did that?”

Star seemed to be taken aback by the accusation. But she quickly regained her composure and sighed as if addressing some foal.

“In order to see what kind of a pony you were. By checking the clock, you’ve proved to me that you are nothing but suspicious of those around you; though whether you plot behind their backs or not I’ll have to find out later.”

“…goodbye Star.”

“Indeed, I will be out for the day, but when I get back I expect for everything here to be just as perfect as when I left it. Otherwise I’ll know you’re the scheming kind.”

As soon as Star had walked out the door Twilight threw open the Death Note and flicked through it until she found a blank page. That obnoxious prick would be an excellent test for the book, if the book worked then she would dispose of it and the library would be a much better place. If it didn’t then nothing was lost. Twilight used her magic to levitate a quill that had been lying near Star, the surprise that there was already ink on it was quickly shoved into the back of her mind. With a flurry of the quill, Twilight wrote the first name in the Death Note: Star.

Twilight paused with the quill over the Death Note. What had she done? No matter how annoying somepony was she couldn’t have killed them, not that easily. No, the book must be a fake; she couldn’t have killed another pony. What if the book was real? She had just taken the life away from Star, just because they had irritated her. What else would she do with it? What if one day she were feeling angry with Pinkie and ended up killing her before her better judgment took hold?

She couldn’t take it anymore.

Twilight decided to write one more name in the Death Note, if it was real, then she wouldn’t have to live with the guilt of her sins. If it was fake, nothing would happen, and she could stop worrying. So she wrote down her last words: Twilight Sparkle.

Twilight waited.

She wasn’t sure what she was waiting for, all that she had seen of the book was that the pony whose name was written would die. She didn’t know how they would die, maybe it would be quick, and she wouldn’t even notice. Or maybe each of her limbs would be ripped off and she would bleed to death. Either way, five minutes had passed and the Death Note hadn’t taken effect.

Twilight took a heavy breath filled with relief. The book was a fake. There was nothing to worry about, Star would still be alive, and she wasn’t a murderer.

A small grin came over her face. To think she had been as silly as to think a book actually had the power to kill ponies. The very thought of it was ridiculous. She giggled to herself. Maybe she should read through the rest of the book. There couldn’t be any harm in it, and she had never even heard of this book before, let alone read it. She wondered what it could be about, what could have such a creepy opening. The blank pages near the back she had flipped to would no doubt be to write notes, or some sort of continuation. Maybe this was some book somepony had been writing that never got finished.

Twilight trembled with anticipation over what was contained inside the Death Note.

However before she could properly investigate the book, Spike burst in through the door, and promptly collapsed on the floor. Spike’s mouth was oddly puffed out, as if he had stuffed his face full of food. He didn’t seem to be in much pain or danger, just sick. The poor dragon had probably gone to one of Pinkie’s parties and eaten too much. The dragon raised his head weakly to Twilight and croaked out

“Don’t do it.”

Before Twilight could ask what exactly she shouldn’t do Pinkie Pie hopped inside, carrying a basket full of little wrapped candies on her head.

“C’mon Spike, could you try just one more, I think I’ve gotten the recipe just about right.”

It became pretty obvious at that point; Pinkie had gotten Spike to test some sort of new candy that she had made. Pinkie had always loved to party, parties always had party food. It was a logical conclusion that Pinkie would therefore try to make her own food for those parties. However, Pinkie was not exactly the most balanced of ponies, and that was also apparent with her “cooking” experiments.

Pinkie noticed her.

“Oh, Twilight you here. How would you like to try one of these candies I’m making? Spike seems to be a bit full at the moment.”

Twilight knew it would end badly, but she would do it. It was for her friendship, and for whatever kind of science cooking was. Twilight tried to probe the candy for what ingredients it contained using her magic but before she could even deduce if it was edible Pinkie had succeeded in shoving one into her mouth.

The inside of her mouth felt like an explosion had happened there, she could swear her tongue was literally on fire, but it didn’t hurt. Before it reached the point of pain she felt the candy drip a cold, sour liquid onto her tongue. It wasn’t exactly a pleasant sensation, but it felt good in contrast to the fiery wrath of the treat before. Once the sour liquid had finished seeping out of the candy, it actually wasn’t so bad. It was perhaps a tad too sweet, but overall it was quite nice, with a distinct strawberry flavor to it.

“What do you think of them Twilight? I call them Combo’s; the idea actually came to me with my Pinkie sense. Because sometimes it tells me good things are going to happen, but it can also be bad too.”

Twilight would be honest.

“There actually pretty good, but could you tone down the massive amount of heat with it, I don’t know how you managed to make something that spicy…” Twilight remembered the time they had visited the Rainbow factory in Cloudsdale. “You put rainbow’s into it didn’t you?”

“Yup!”

“Could you find something just a little less spicy for it?”

“Oh, you mean like only putting six of the colors in instead of the whole rainbow? Sure.”

Before Twilight could tell the party pony what she had actually meant, she had already bounded out of the house. Twilight felt sorry for the poor pony that would be the first to try a combo with 86% of a rainbow.

She turned to Spike to ask him to sweep up the library but upon seeing the poor state that the dragon was in, she decided to let him rest there. Moving him would probably just cause him to be sick, and personally she didn’t want to know what the previous incarnations of the Combo had looked like.

With that distraction out of the way Twilight could get around to reading through that book. Twilight decided that the basement would be quite a good place to read it. Star wouldn’t interrupt her reading when she came back, and there wouldn’t be any more distractions like Pinkie Pie for her. However, as she entered the basement, she found that it was clean. Not just clean as in free of dust, but clean of everything. The room was completely empty except for herself and the Death Note.

Twilight was going to have to ask Star where she had taken it later.

But for now, Twilight could read the Death Note, skipping past what she had already read, she continued through the page.

This note will not take effect unless the writer has the pony’s face in their mind when writing his/her name. Therefore, ponies sharing the same name will not be affected.

Had she had Star’s face in her mind when she wrote the name, had she had her own? Could this Death Note actually be real and the only reason she was still alive was because she hadn’t known this rule?

If the cause of death is written within the next 40 seconds of writing the pony’s name, it will happen.

If the cause of death is not specified, the pony will simply die of a heart attack.

After writing the cause of death, details of the death should be written in the next 6 minutes and 40 seconds.

This thing seemed far too detailed to be just some fake, nervous to see just how many way’s this thing could kill, she skimmed across the black pages at the start of the book until she came to the first white page, one of the pages on which she had written her and Star’s name.

As the force upon the book died down and gravity took its course she noticed one page, right at the end of the black pages, in the color of blood. Immediately intrigued by this page by some strange reason she couldn’t fathom, she turned it over and read the page. Unlike the black pages this one bore two scythe’s crossing over each other where the skull would have been, and immediately began its rules where the other’s had been entitled “Death Note: How to use it”.

The immediate owner of this Death Note is immune to the effects of both their Death Note and the Death Notes of others.

Should the Shinigami who originally possessed this Death Note die for any reason, the death's of those written in the Death Note’s will be undone, provided their original lifetime has not passed, and the powers of the Death Note’s rendered invalid.

What did this book mean? She had heard the word Shinigami before in some foreign tongue. If she recalled correctly, it had some relation to death, but it had also had some connotation of immortal. If only she could remember exactly what it meant.

As Twilight flipped through the pages of the book, she found one of the pages had been torn out quite forcibly, but not as if it was done in a rush, rather as if somepony, or some Shinigami hadn’t cared about the damage they dealt to the Death Note.

“Now I wonder who did that.”

The voice was that same as when she had first touched the book with her magic, except this time it came from a definite source; right behind her.

Twilight turned around to find herself staring at a dark black robe, whatever creature it was stood upright like a minotaur, and as she followed the orientation of the body upwards, the robe branched out. Straight above where the robe branched was a hood, the inside shrouded in darkness except for the evil glow of two red eyes. Both to the right and left of where the robe branched out it took a steep turn down at the end of it was an opening from which protruded on each side the skeleton of some strange creature; perhaps a relative of the Minotaur, though the skull resembled that of an ape. The rest of its body was something of a mix between the skeletons of an ape and a minotaur, their hands resembling more claws than anything else. In the right hand was a scythe, looking deadly sharp and could probably cut her head off in one swing if she wasn’t careful.

She had heard about this being in stories told to both explain the passing of a life and to scare foals away from committing bad deeds. She had never thought such a creature existed, yet here she stood looking up at the harbinger of destruction, the taker of souls.

She stared into the face of death himself.

Madness

Twilight ran.

No matter how impossible it seemed, if it she had actually seen death, then that could only mean one thing, the Death Note had worked. She was going to die.

For now, running was her only option. Though she had faced Hydra’s, Manticore’s and even Discord, she knew for a fact that there was nopony who could fight Death. Even without her studies she knew that.

Twilight bolted out the door, a quick glance behind her revealed that he had gained no ground upon Death, and he might have actually drawn closer to her. Trying to increase her pace she saw Pinkie Pie ahead, calmly bouncing about as if nothing was happening.

“Pinkie, run, quickly”

Pinkie gave no indication of the fear that Twilight was feeling, but fortunately chose to run. However, Pinkie chose to run in the same direction as Twilight.

“So why are we running Twilight?”

“Are you mad Pinkie, can’t you see what’s behind me?”

“A tree?”

Twilight turned around, Death still close behind her as she ran for her life. Why was it that Pinkie couldn’t see him? Had she really gone insane when she touched that book?

“You don’t have to keep running from me.”

“What do you mean?”

Twilight found herself slowing to a halt, but not because she wished to. Something was weighing down on her legs, making them feel heavy and unresponsive.

“I mean a tree silly, there’s a tree behind us.”

What was Pinkie Pie going on about this time?

“She cannot see or hear me, but she can hear you perfectly well.”

Twilight had stopped now, and Pinkie was staring at her with a rather perplexed look. Of course she was, the pink pony probably thought this was some game.

“So we’re running from a tree then?”

Twilight couldn’t help but sigh; she had forgotten how foalish Pinkie could be sometimes. It was a miracle that she had ever managed to run Sugarcube Corner for a day. Speaking of which…

“Pinkie, shouldn’t you be over at Sugarcube Corner, you know, serving the customers.”

“Don’t worry about that Twilight, I had the best idea ever, I put a jar where ponies can put their bits into when buying stuff.”

“Aren’t you worried about anypony stealing something while you’re gone?”

“Nope, because I made everypony Pinkie Pie promise that they wouldn’t steal anything, and nopony breaks a Pinkie Pie promise.”

Aside from the fact that there was more than enough proof that ponies had broken their Pinkie Pie promises in the past, there was also one very obvious fact she doubted even Pinkie could miss.

“You didn’t make me promise Pinkie.”

“Well of course I didn’t Twilight, you’re my friend, and I know my friends wouldn’t steal anything.”

“But haven’t you also said that Everypony in Ponyville was your friend?”

“Yup.”

How could a pony be this hard to get rid of? She needed to be alone so that she could talk to that creepy…whatever it was, without sounding like she’d gone insane. The fact that she was even thinking these thoughts was already proof enough of that. What pony in their right mind would want to be left alone with Death?

Then it occurred to her, a way to both check if she had in fact killed Star with that book and to get some revenge on her if she hadn’t.

“Hey Pinkie, Star left the library this morning, do you have any idea where she would have gone?”

“Not exactly, but I could probably find her.”

“Because I bet she would love to help you test out those Combo’s.”

“That’s a great idea Twilight; I’ll find her right away.”

And with the party pony was off, and Twilight no longer felt sorry for the next victim of the semi-explosive candy. Besides, she had more important things to worry about.

“So have you come to end my life then?”

“No Twilight, as I said, you don’t need to run from me. I have not come to hurt you nor kill you, but to ask you one simple question: will you relinquish ownership of the Death Note?”

“I never said that I owned the Death Note.”

“Yet as it stands you are now in possession of it, and, until you forsake that ownership, I shall possess you.”

“Possess me, like in those ghost stories?”

“Not an entirely inaccurate comparison, though it’s certainly not what I would define it as. No, consider it more as a haunting. I shall stay with you until either you die, give up the Death Note, or the Death Note is rendered incapable of use. Now that you know this, I shall ask you again: Please give up ownership of the Death Note.”

Twilight didn’t know what was more insane, the impossibility of the situation, the strange book that still lay in the basement, or her for what she said next.

“No.”

She had no idea what had compelled her to say it, but there was some nagging compulsion in the back of her mind telling her not to give up that book. The more rational part of her mind was telling her that with the Death Note gone, all her problems would likewise disappear. But for once that part of her mind was fighting the losing battle; whatever it was that told her to keep the Death Note was akin to that of what she had heard as addiction. There was no way to simply deny the voice in her head, regardless of how hard she tried to do so.

Twilight had expected outrage, vengeance, something, but instead all she received was a calm acceptance from Death.

“Very well then, if that is how it shall be, then we may as well get on with introductions. I am known by many names in your language alone, Death, The Grim Reaper, but those names are ancient, and invented by your kind to capture my essence in a name. Among the Shinigami I am known as The Old Man, and so I wish for you to refer to me.”

“Old Man?”

“Yes, that would be most preferable.”

It was a strange experience to be able to talk with Death without fear, yet alone to address him by such a strange title, one that carried such little power, so harmless a name for such a horrible being. To think that the harbinger of death would wish to be addressed so simply, it was inconceivable; and yet it was the easiest thing to believe about the whole encounter.

“In all the tales I have heard about Death Note’s dropping into this world, I have never heard of a pony writing their own name in the Death Note. You are quite fortunate that it was mine, otherwise you would most assuredly have perished shortly after having written those words.”

“What is it that makes yours so special?”

“The simple fact that it is mine is what makes it so special. It is my power that gives the Death Note’s their power. I was the very first Shinigami, in your language god of death or thereabouts. That Death Note which you possess was designed when I was the only Shinigami, I did not know at the time that more would come, so I had not planned that the Death Note’s would not work on Shinigami until I made the second Death Note.”

Twilight’s eyes almost literally sparked at the opportunity for this knowledge. Ponies had always questioned what there was after life, and now before her stood the original reaper of souls. How could she have let this go past her before?

“So what happens to ponies after they die?”

“For those who have not used the powers of the Death Note, they either go to heaven or hell, what decides where they go or what occurs there is none of my business. All I do is speed their passage. However, for those like you who have used the Death Note, there is neither heaven nor hell after death.”

Twilight abruptly decided she didn’t want to know anymore, what cruel fate it was that she would learn where ponies went in the afterlife, only once it was denied to her.

“So Star is..?”

“Who?”

“Star, the pony whose name I first wrote in the Death Note. You said that I had already used the Death Note.”

“No, the pony you call Star is not dead, though I feel I should tell you that your Death Note has already taken a victim.”

What did The Old Man mean? She had only written two names in the Death Note, hers and Star’s…unless, could there have been some pony with just the names Twilight or Sparkle, or maybe there was some other Star. No, that couldn’t be it; the book had said she needed to be thinking of the ponies face when she wrote the name.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean somepony is already dead obviously. Do I need to spell it out to you?”

“But who?”

“You’ll find out soon enough”

Twilight stamped off back to the library in a rage. What was even the point of trying to talk to the Shinigami, it wasn’t going to give her any useful information. Perhaps it even delighted in keeping her in the dark? Giving her just enough information to make her interested, or rather, worried, and then refusing to tell her a single word more.

Twilight threw open the door startling a sleeping Spike from his stunned sleep. The poor dragon was probably still recovering from Pinkie Pie’s Combo’s. Her assistant’s state quickly managed to soften her anger for a while, caring for a dragon was never considered an easy task, but it did give her an easy escape from the problems and annoyances of the rest of the world. After having gotten Spike into his proper bed to get some rest, Twilight felt her anger at both Star and The Old Man rising again.

Twilight entered the basement once again and levitated a quill over the page of the Death Note.

“So what was your name again?”

“The Old Man. Though you should know that writing my name in there isn’t going to work. Not only is there the fact that I have no distinguishable name, but it’s my own strength that powers the Death Note’s, you’re not going to be able to kill me with it, nor any other Shinigami.”

Twilight let the pen down.

“Very well.”

“So what is it you’re going to do then? You’re not going to use it, and you’re not going to give ownership back to me. So what will you do with it, what is the point of having it if you aren’t going to do anything.”

“My not doing anything with it IS the point. If I keep it with me, then I can prevent it from ever reaching the hooves of those who would use it. This may look like it’s a book, but it is definitely a weapon, and I’m not going to let anypony use the power of it.”

“You have got to be kidding me.”

With that The Old Man disappeared. There was no flash of teleportation magic, nor did he fade out like the effects of an invisibility spell would cause. He was simply there one second, and then he wasn’t.

“Don’t think I’ll be gone forever. Think on what I’ve said to you, what is the purpose of the notebook if you don’t use it?”

Twilight abruptly decided to spend the rest of the day outside. The decision was more out of fear than annoyance as, though she hated to admit it, she couldn’t help but agree with the Shinigami. She couldn’t shake from her the worry that she would give into the temptation of using the Death Note if she pondered on it much longer. It would be better if she spent some time away from the book, and she found herself rather eager to explore the changes that had happened to Ponyville while she was gone.

A quick look outside her door showed nothing new in the immediate area around the library, yet in the distance where the roads were newer, and the buildings towered as if reaching for the sky, lay the new Ponyville Twilight had found herself in when she first returned. That was where she began her exploration of the changes Ponyville had experienced.

The buildings were strangely reflective in the area, and the streets were quite a lot busier than they had been when she first arrived. When poking her head out over the crowded throng of heads she could see hundreds of ponies in any direction of the street she was on, with a multitude of café’s, shops, and the occasional casino on the sides of the streets.

Twilight had never seen so many ponies in one place; even Canterlot would be struggling to compete with a population this size. It reminded her of the news she had heard of Manehatten, though this place seemed to be all crammed into one space. The Ponyville she knew surpassed this area in terms of size and yet this place likely contained all the citizens in Ponyville ten times over. The shiny new buildings that had sprung up were very hard and solid, made of some material that felt like stone, yet the appearance of the material contradicted its feel.

After spending a bit of time being nudged about by the bustling ponies on the street, an occurrence that did few wonders for her mood, Twilight found herself starting to feel hungry, due to her unusually early breakfast. Twilight decided upon a café named Starswirl’s, appreciating the reference to the ancient unicorn. The actuality of the café she was quite less appreciative of.

Outside it was pleasant enough, a number of circular table’s where ponies were seated around enjoying whatever foods they had purchased there. Inside was an entirely different matter. As soon as she entered the room an overpowering stench hit her nose, the smell presumably coming from the smoke that seemed to be drifting from two stallions in a corner. The room felt as if they had just taken everything they could and jammed it into as small a space as possible. The pony behind the counter was a Pegasus mare with a maroon coat and a purple mane cut short at the front, but flowed down their back, stopping just short of reaching her hooves.

More importantly, the mare behind the counter seemed to show little interest in her job, and seemed overly unenthusiastic when taking Twilight’s order. As much as Twilight hated the scent and space of the inside, all of the outer tables had been taken so she was left with very little choice as to her seating arrangements.

And so she came back to the reason she had left the library in the first place. She must have really gotten up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, and at the wrong time. Everything seemed to be against her today, Star, that encounter with The Old Man, and now this place. There just didn’t seem to be any end to the problems she had to face today. Then again, thinking back on her previous time in Ponyville, things weren’t so different back then either. Sure, Ponyville hadn’t been quite like this, and she certainly hadn’t had to deal with any Shinigami’s back then either, but there had without a doubt been some pretty crazy things back then. The dragon migration, Nightmare Moon, Discord; so much had happened during her stay at Ponyville, was she really going to let the events of one day get her down?

“Hello there.”

A deep, almost husky voice reached her ears, though not undesirable, the voice sent shivers down her spine. The voice belonged to an earth pony stallion with a dirt brown coat, his black mane was streaked with white and gave him a rather dangerous look to him, though his bearing gave the impression that it was simply for looks.

“So what’s a pretty mare like yourself doing in a place like this?”

“Oh…”

Twilight could feel herself blushing, though she had no attraction to this colt in particular, it wasn’t often that anypony complimented her, let alone on her looks.

“Umm…thank you.”

Twilight cursed herself; she was acting just like Fluttershy. Then again, it had been years since she had properly interacted with anypony other than those in the palace.

“I guess I thought it would be err...nice here”

“And I guess it is, if you’re into the whole dark, smoky, smells like a donkey’s backside thing. Personally I don’t really visit here much, but when I saw as delightful a pony as you here I just HAD to know why.”

This pony was certainly very forthright about his feelings for this place, albeit rather crude with his expression of it. Before she could frame her thoughts into words though, the stallion had already spoken his mind.

“So I was thinking that this really isn’t the place for such a sweet mare like you to be. There’s a place further into the city which is much better, and certainly much larger than here.”

“Thanks for the offer, but I’ve already ordered my lunch here.”

“Ask for your bits back, I doubt they’ll have started making it yet, and trust me when I say that you really don’t want to try this place’s food. If you hated the smell of this place, then the taste of their food is three times worse, and six times worth what you should pay for it.”

She hadn’t really been paying much attention to the prices when she bought her lunch, Celestia had left her a thousand bits for her to get settled back into Ponyville so she had assumed that the prices of things had increased. Perhaps the pricing wasn’t as different from it had been before, and looking at the costs from that perspective, twenty bits was certainly too much for just lunch.

“Okay then, that place sounds nice, and nice is a heck of a lot better than this.”

The stallion gave a quick laugh.

“That’s the understatement of the century.”

Twilight trotted up to the bored mare behind the counter.

“I’m sorry but I have found the service here undesirable and would like a refund of my bits.”

The mare stared at her dejectedly.

“I’m sorry but did you have an order here?”

“Well of course I did, I asked for it about five minutes ago.”

“Never seen you before.”

Before Twilight could get further annoyed with the mare the stallion she had met stepped in for her.

“The lady said she wanted her bits back, and you’re going to bloody well give them back to her before I get mad.”

Twilight could tell that it was an act, yet the target of the act was quite unaware of this and quickly threw some bits across the counter to them, about twice as much as she had actually paid.

“Stupid, lazy, bitch.”

The stallion handed her the bits she had paid and pocketed the rest. Twilight was, in a way, impressed. Though the colt swore too much for her liking, she had to admit that he had been quite helpful, and she doubted that he was actually as aggressive a pony as he made himself out to be. Nopony would be like that.

“So where is this place you wanted to show me?”

“Follow me.”

The stallion took her outside of the café and down a number of dark alleys. Though she doubted the earth pony would have taken her this way unless it was the fastest route, she found it was taking a rather lengthy amount of time to get there.

“I just remembered, I haven’t even told you my name, I’m Twilight Sparkle, and you are?”

“Cogflay.”

“So, Cogflay, how much further is it to this place?”

Cogflay was silent until they turned into a darker alley deep into the city, hidden from the masses out on the street.

“We’re here.”

Twilight was confused; there wasn’t anything around here, just a couple of backdoors to places that somehow looked even worse than Starswirl’s.

“Oooh Bugeye, looks like Cog’s found us one pretty little mare.”

Twilight spun around to see two almost identical ponies, both had a black mane and coat with both mane’s similar to a Mohawk. Both we’re Pegasus stallions but the one who’d just been addressed as Bugeye had half of the feathers on their right wing clipped off.

“That they are Bruiser.”

“Cogflay, who are these ponies.”

The stallion who had led her here paused, as if they didn’t want to admit the obvious fact.

“They are some, associates of mine. All they want is to have a bit of fun, you see things around here are very boring, and I reckon that you would be a rather, how shall I put this, lively mare.”

Bruiser was only too willing to add his enthusiasm.

“Yeah, I’ve got a feeling my time with you is going to be very entertaining.”

A pony had never looked at her like these ones were, their eyes were fixated upon her, filled with what could only be seen as lust. Cogflay had walked into that café all so that he could bring her out here for this.

Twilight couldn’t take it anymore.

The horn on her head began to glow with a magical light as she prepared a teleportation spell to get her away from the horrid colts.

“No you don’t, you’re not going anywhere.”

Bruiser swung a hoof into Twilight’s face taking away her concentration and disrupting the spell before it could be cast. Realizing she wasn’t going to be able to escape like that, Twilight attempted to run, her horn sparking out to teleport herself away as soon as she was out of their reach.

Cogflay’s hoof quickly put a stop to that.

Twilight found herself reeling backwards, face bruised and some blood welling up in her mouth. She wasn’t sure that she could take many more hits like that before she went unconscious, and as long as they kept on beating her up she couldn’t escape. But a unicorn was harder to defeat than that, especially one who had trained under Celestia.

“Stop her from casting any of her magic Bruiser.”

“I’ve got it.”

Bruiser stepped forward to deliver another blow to Twilight, but just as he got in range of Twilight he started to struggle wildly, hooves stuck to the ground.

“What is this, I can’t move?”

As the other’s rushed forward to help him they too found themselves unable to move, Cogflay slamming his head into the ground when he tried to make a leap at her.

Cogflay started swearing profanities at a faster rate than she had ever thought possible.

“-you fucking bitch! What have you done?”

Twilight had used the residual traces of her magic that had fallen to the ground when her teleport had been interrupted. Once the colt’s moved close enough to her she used the traces of the magic to freeze their hooves, effectively preventing movement.

Of course Twilight didn’t tell them any of that, and teleported back to her home, making sure that there was plenty of excess magic to cause an explosion once she had disappeared.

Twilight reappeared back in the library, and promptly coughed up some blood on the floor. Much as she hated to compliment her attackers, she had to admit those stallions were strong. She felt like she’d just been hit by Rainbow Dash going full speed. She doubted those colts would be much better off though. Magical explosions weren’t exactly known for being mild, and she doubted either of those Pegasus would be able to fly after that.

Still, it worried her that there were colt’s like that in Ponyville, let alone that she had encountered one on only her second day back. If the reaction of that mare behind the counter was anything to go by, she hadn’t been the first victim of the colts either. She could only hope that those were the worst the new region of Ponyville had to offer.

A knock on the door interrupted her fears of the new area and brought to her attention how much of a wreck she must look. There was no way she would be able to look presentable, but she cleaned off her face with a nearby cloth and to at least stop whoever it was running from the sight of her.

However the sight that awaited her wasn’t one she would ever be prepared for. Star stood outside the house, tears streaming down her eyes, looking the most miserable sight she could imagine.

“What happened to you Star?”

“Today was my mother’s birthday; that was why I was out.”

“Why are you crying?”

“Because…”

Star sniffled and chocked on her words as she spoke them.

“…She’s dead.”

Realization

All Twilight could do was stand there, shocked.

“Star…”

“I don’t want to hear any of your lectures; I just want to be alone.”

Before Twilight could even react, Star had rushed past the door and locked herself in the bedroom. If it had been any other time Twilight would have likely been angry with Star, her bed was in there too, but she understood Star’s need for privacy at a time like this.

“Hey! What are you doing?”

Twilight forgot that she put Spike to sleep there, and it was with a rather large amount of enthusiasm that Star ejected him from the room. Spike’s landing would have been almost elegant had it not been so completely out of control that it caused him to land on his head. The bruised assistant looked to her with a questioning look.

“What was that about?”

Twilight mustn’t have looked as bad as she felt if Spike could look at her so casually.

“Her mother just died.”

“Oh…”

A silence fell over them, there wasn’t really much to be said. What was there she could say? If she just ignored it and continued on she would seem heartless. But what else was there that she could do? Lives came and lives went, a pony’s life could be measured in seconds or decades, but everything had to end sometime, and when it did you couldn’t get stuck on that point, you had to move on.

Twilight found herself thanking the books she had read for that lesson. Sure, today was a time for sadness, but the next day they would move on, that was how things would always be. As she had found out the hard way, one cannot change the past, or the future, depending on how she looked at it.

She would have to leave Star to her mourning for now, yet she couldn’t think of any way to continue the day. Too much had happened in too little time, and all the events still whirled around in her mind, unable to settle down to a definable point. It was, in a way, those events that drove her to her first kill.

She left Spike there, still stunned by the silence that had fallen upon them both. She felt it happen almost as if she were in a dream; as if she couldn’t control what she did, but simply performed the actions she had to do. Something in her mind told her that she couldn’t change the future, that she would have reached this point no matter what, that she had to do what she was about to do.

That something was in all probability what kept her sane as she wrote her victim’s names in the Death Note. Cogflay, Bruiser, Bugeye; those three would never hurt anypony again. She felt a giddy elation at the feeling of how right what she had done was.

And yet it was so wrong.

The strange happiness was still in her, the joy of a murderer, yet she now saw what she had done for what it was. She had killed, and this time there was no doubt about it. There could be no denying The Old Man’s words, and she knew that she had their faces in her mind when she wrote those names.

She had taken away the lives of three ponies; surely there were ponies that those colts were precious to, just like Star’s mother had been to Star. She had taken them away from their family, their friends, and the world…and yet she couldn’t have felt better about it.

What was wrong with her, how could she kill somepony and just feel glad about it? More than glad even, and for some reason she noticed she was stifling a laugh. This wasn’t her, she wasn’t a murder, she wouldn’t have killed them, yet no matter how hard she tried to deny it she had been their killer; and here she was struggling not to laugh.

Then it hit her as to why.

They had deserved to die, all three of them. That was the only way she could have killed them, if they had truly deserved to die. There had been no stopping it, their actions were wrong, they were wrong. But what if there were more of them?

What if there were more ponies like that, more ponies that were too wrong to live in this world, too evil to be allowed to breathe another breath. If there were ponies like that just lying about the streets of Ponyville, then how many more were there in the world?

Those ponies didn’t deserve to live, they would not be willing to see the light, and so the light would smite them, and she would be the guiding force of light’s will. She would bring down upon the shoulders of the wicked the wrath of justice, leading the world into a new era of peace.

A world of only those whom were pure, a world where peace and justice reigned over the wicked, and so wickedness would cease to be. It would be a perfect world, brought into existence through her selfless work to rid it of evil, despite what the cost to her.

It would be her world.

“So I see you’ve reconsidered how to handle the Death Note.”

The Shinigami’s appearance surprised her, but somehow it seemed that she had always known he was here. As if she had called for him.

“Perceptive as always, Old Man. Now tell me, where do I go from here?”

Before the Shinigami could recover from being addressed so casually she continued on.

“This world is a dark place, too much evil is here, and I’m the only one who can fix it. I stand by what I said earlier; the Death Note is a weapon, and it would be catastrophic if the wrong pony got their hooves on it, so it shall stay here with me. However, I now realize that I cannot simply stand by and watch the evil spread and corrupt this world, I have been given a weapon of the wicked, and against those wicked I shall turn it.”

Twilight turned to face The Old Man, and if her eyes didn’t deceive her, she could see him almost shaking where he stood.

“Equestria shall know judgment and justice; it shall know the will of light and the cleansing purity that I shall bring. If I am doomed to never ascend to the heavens, then I shall raise the world up to meet it. I shall usher in a new age, a new world, one chosen and shaped to be the pinnacle of perfection.”

Twilight paused, breathing heavily, she had never felt like this before, the small voice in her head had risen to a bellow, praising her and filling her with this strange desire. Feeding her thoughts that would have once seemed treasonous and outrageous, but were now both perfect and reasoned.

“And I will be the goddess of that new world.”

The Old Man’s shaking increased exponentially, seeming as if he were about to collapse, until a booming laughter drew forth from his throat. The sound was somewhere between a shriek and howl, yet to Twilight it seemed almost like music, the approval of the voice inside her growing to match the laughter.

“Ryuk was right, ponies can indeed be entertaining.”

Old Friends: New Problems

She sounded mad even to herself. When had these ambitions become hers, when had she been so hungry for power? She thought briefly on it and decided that it was not her being power-hungry, but rather that there was nopony else who would do it. What other pony would be willing to sacrifice their time, their lives, even their souls for the betterment of Equestria. Certainly not Celestia; where had she been when they had fought Nightmare Moon or Discord? It wasn’t as if Luna could take on the role either, when she wasn’t being socially awkward she was either locked up at Canterlot castle or struggling with her own inner demons.

No, only she could take up the role of goddess for this new world. But first she would have to eradicate those who would defile her perfect world. But how was she to do it, she could hardly wonder out into the new area of Ponyville and expect to get picked up by some sleazy colt. Not only was that unlikely to work, but it would be awful to go through such an experience again, and even the stupidest of them would begin to see a pattern.

“Old man, if you truly are the maker of the Death Note’s then surely it wouldn’t be out of your power to tell me the names of every criminal in this town.”

The old man smirked, though Twilight had no idea how it was physically possible for a bunch of bones to do that. Then again, The Old Man didn’t seem to have much of a care for the reality most ponies had come to realize. He was a living skeleton with a multitude of supernatural abilities that could be performed without any hint of magical use. On top of that he was a god of death, something used to frighten foals and generally considered a myth, yet here he was with a look that reminded her of a filly who knew something their parent’s didn’t.

“Certainly it wouldn’t be out of my power, it’s simply a matter of it being out of my interests.”

“You’re kidding me. Earlier today you were trying your hardest to convince me to use the Death Note, and now that I’m willingly asking you to help me use it, you’re just going to sit back and do nothing?”

“We’ll what does it serve me to tell you their names? You may not have noticed it but you are currently in possession of my Death Note, my only Death Note I’ll have you know. Personally I would quite like to have it back, but since you’ve shown me you’re not willing to relinquish it, I’ll simply have to make another for myself. It will take a rather large amount of souls passing from this world through natural means before I can fashion myself a new one, so I believe you’ll find no reason as to why I should help you. At least not until I have my new one.”

She had to admit, The Old Man had a way with words that really didn’t leave much room for argument.

“So let me get this straight, until you’ve gotten a new Death Note for yourself, you won’t willingly tell me the names of anypony?”

“That would be correct and, as you seem so quick to forget, you’d also need their face, otherwise it’s useless.”

The situation really did look rather hopeless. Here she was, a pony with the power to change the future for all of Equestria for the better, yet the rules of her own weapon stopped her.

Then it occurred to her, a way she could distribute justice without even leaving the house. The newspaper always had something about criminals and various other disasters. Her effect on the world would be slow and small, but soon they would realize that there was someone watching them.

The guilty would suffer for what they had done, and those who had committed smaller crimes would be deterred from that path. The paper would not only give her new victims to erase from the face of Equestria, but it would spread the news of their fates for her.

“Who were you talking to Twilight?”

Spike stood atop the stairs leading to the basement, looking very worried for her. She had no idea what connections the dragon would draw between her talking to herself and Star, and to tell the truth she didn’t really care. But it wouldn’t do her any good to have him worrying about her, and it was with an effort that she stopped herself hiding the Death Note behind her back. Doing so would have only drawn suspicion to it, and she wasn’t willing to entrust Spike with knowledge of the Death Note.

But she had to figure out a way to get him out of here, without seeming as if he was unwanted there. She hated herself for what she said next.

“Nopony, I was just thinking about us going to see our friends, with all the excitement that’s happened we haven’t seen any of them other than Pinkie.”

No! That was all wrong. What excitement? And why oh why had she suggested going to their friends? She had been trying to avoid that since they had gotten there, why had she even thought of it, let alone said it?

“I guess you’re right.” His face melted into a stupid smile “And it’ll be great to see Rarity again.”

Okay, this was fine, she could handle it. All she had to do was go along with it, she could hide the Death Note somewhere and wait till later to write in it. She would need to be patient if she wanted to avoid being found out.

“Come on then lover boy; let’s see how they’ve gotten on these past few years.”

As she trotted out through the door with Spike she made sure to levitate the book out behind her while Spike’s back was turned, putting it away in a book shelf, filed correctly away in its proper place, assuming that the original owner was its writer. It wouldn’t do to break the order she had so painstakingly achieved before she found the notebook; and if there was anything that made a book stand out, it was incorrect filing. Not that Star would be likely to notice either way. If only that pony cared for books even half as much as she did her mother than she might have been able to run the library satisfactorily while she was gone.

She felt sorry for the pony, the moment the Death Note was in place in the bookshelf she realized that she had only earlier tried to kill the mare, and her mother was dead too. She should have apologized to Star, or said something to comfort her, but she couldn’t do that without revealing what she had done, and the Death Note.

She abruptly decided that she would get something for Star. She had accumulated quite a lot of bits while at Canterlot, mainly through either of the princess giving her some funds for a night on the town which would never happen. As she thought about her time at Canterlot, she realized just how right Celestia had been to send her here. She had become almost as antisocial as she had been when she came to Ponyville for the first time.

Maybe it would do her some good to see her friends. Even if some of them were busy she was sure that she would be able to have a chat with them sometime. Memories came flooding back to her of the time she had spent together with them, almost bringing joyous tears to her eyes.

So what if she had been gone for three years? She was back in Ponyville now, back where she belonged, and she was going to make the most of it.

“Twilight, is something wrong?”

“It’s nothing Spike; let’s go see our friends.”

If Ponyville hadn’t changed so much she would have headed off for Fluttershy’s, she doubted the shy yellow Pegasus would ever be too busy not to see her friends. She might have to take care of some of her animal friends first, but that wouldn’t take too long, and it would at least prove some comfort to Spike if the others weren’t available.

However, as it stood, Ponyville had changed, and quite drastically; in particular in the direction of Sweet Apple Acres. It seemed nearly impossible to believe that the farm could still exist with so many of the new buildings around, and that would also have explained the lack of contact from Applejack. If something had happened to the apple family, if they had lost the farm somehow, then what would they do.

She both wanted to get there as soon as possible to see if the farm still stood, but at the same time hated the thought of what she might find. It was with those two thoughts waging in her mind that she reached the once wide plains of Sweet Apple Acres. It wasn’t gone, for which Twilight was grateful, but it was nothing compared to what it once was.

“Sweet Apple Acre” would have been a more appropriate name for it. She was sure that when she had been here all those years ago there had been a far greater crop, and that the barn hadn’t looked so run down. She could literally count the trees now, though they were at least near the hundreds.

She was just as torn about seeing Applejack as she had been about seeing the farm. There was really no way she could just ignore the state of the place and act as if everything was as usual. What would Applejack think about her lack of communication? Pinkie Pie had just shrugged it off and acted like she’d never left, but then again, that was Pinkie Pie.

Applejack was a different story, and so she decided that it would be better if she let Applejack talk about it if she so decided. She could only hope that Applejack had retained her lesson about pride better then she had remembered her friendship reports.

As she raised a hoof to knock on the door it swung open suddenly, and she wished Pinkie Pie had been there to warn her of it. A door to the face wasn’t really the best way to start a conversation between old friends, all things considered, but a mare had to do with what she had.

Standing in the doorway was Applejack, looking both rushed and slow at the same time. As if she knew she needed to be somewhere fast, but just couldn’t remember where. Despite her looks, she didn’t waste a moment in greeting Twilight back.

“Welcome back Twi, excuse the state of things round here, as you might have seen things haven’t been going well lately here.”

Twilight wasn’t really sure how to reply to such a casual greeting. She had really expected something a bit more worried, a bit more rushed, so she was grateful when Spike replied, albeit without any tact.

“What’s happened to the farm?”

Applejack sighed and motioned for the two of them to come inside. Looking around the house, she could see just how downhill things had gone for the Apple’s. There was little other than the essentials and a couple items of basic comfort. To an outsider it wouldn’t seem like much had changed, and initially that was what it seemed to Twilight, but as memories of the place came back to her, she noticed that the house had taken on a different feel. Before when she went here she got the feeling of choice simplicity, that the Apple’s chose to live simply and that was why the farm was that way. Now it seemed as if they had simply run out of any other options.

As they reached the dining room, Twilight noticed two simple stools placed at the table. Something seemed off about that to Twilight, but she couldn’t quite put her hoof on what it was. Applejack took a seat at one of them, before realizing there wasn’t enough for the both of them and getting back up. Feeling it would be wrong to take advantage of her friends’ small comforts in their current state, Twilight remained standing as Applejack told her story.

“This all started ‘bout a year ago, when a bunch of big wigs from Canterlot figured it would be a good idea to fancy up Ponyville. It was alright at first, when it was just a couple of high-end shops, but then they started to want to make houses like them too. The place just kept on getting more crowded and eventually they started expanding Ponyville, or at least the fancy part of it.

Speaking of the fancy part of Ponyville, they don’t seem to give a flying feather for anypony but themselves. When they started to expand they figured that the other ponies would just move to some other place, but we can’t do that Twi, we need the farm. It’s where we all grew up, and it’s all we’ve got, so we’re not gonna just let them take it.”

Spike then seemed to forget who the story was about.

“So why is the farm like it is now then?”

Twilight shot Spike a look, but Applejack didn’t seem to take any offence to it.

“Things started to get legal, the Canterlot ponies at the head of the development brought out some contracts to the land. Apparently, Granny Smith never made an official legal claim to the land, and doing so now would be completely useless, due to some fine print legality or somethin. It was all we could do to use the bits we had to buy up all that we could of our own farm. All the rest of it has been cleared for some of those new buildings. But that ain’t the worst of it, not by a long shot.”

Applejack’s eyes started to water as she continued on.

“Applebloom got her cutie mark while you were gone Twi, turns out she had a real talent for buildin’ stuff. We were all overjoyed when she got it, her especially so, but things got real bad when those Canterlot ponies came. They poured so many bits into the construction that everything else just stopped; she had to take a job building the same buildings that destroyed the rest of the farm. It must ‘ave been heartbreaking for the poor filly, but things just kept on getting worse for her an’ us.”

“With those new buildings in town came a bunch of new ponies, in particular one couple, a unicorn mare and earth pony stallion. When they saw Applebloom they claimed that she was there filly, that she had been stolen from them when she was just a foal. Then things started to get really technical, and a bunch of things to do with DNA or some kinda technological nonsense were brought out. They told this whole tale about how she had been taken from them right after birth and said that if anything could prove it, it was those technological gadgets. That if the tests proved positive there was no doubt that Applebloom was theirs.”

“I don’t know what they did to make it happen; I’d figure that something so confusing sounding would have to at least be able to be right at what it does. Twilight, they’ve taken Applebloom; The tests were positive, and according to a bunch of legal papers they waved in our faces, there’s no way we can get her back.”

Another Shinigami?

“I’m…so sorry Applejack.”

There weren’t really any words that she could say. Her best friend had lost their sister, and Twilight knew that there was no magic she could use to help Applejack. Unless…maybe no unicorn magic could help, but Shinigami magic was a different matter.

“Applejack, was there anything in those papers about what would happen in the case of her “Parents” death?”

Applejack gaped at her for a second before answering her.

“It really has been quite some time since we’ve seen each other. I never thought you would even think about killin’ somepony, never.” Applejack sighed before continuing “But even if you were to, it wouldn’t help one bit. The papers say that in the event of their death, the care of their children will fall to their oldest sibling on their mother’s side.”

“What if those papers were to change?”

Twilight had the feeling Applejack would have gaped again, had not she only just implied that she would kill somepony to get her sister back. But there really wasn’t any other way that she could think to get Applebloom back. If they actually believed that she was their little filly then there was no way that she could make them part with her willingly.

“Twi’ I don’t know when it happened, but you’ve changed. A lot. The Twilight I know wouldn’t be saying these things, she wouldn’t be wanting to kill.”

“I’m sorry Applejack, I wasn’t thinking. It’s just, coming back to find that you’ve lost your sister, and most of your farm…what wouldn’t you do to get them back?”

“I wouldn’t kill somepony.”

And that was the end of the conversation. Twilight went to leave the house, forcing Spike to relinquish the stool after he had just gotten comfortable. But before she had left the room Applejack called her.

“Twilight, I’m sorry ‘bout leavin’ you with all of these problems after you only just got back here. It’s just things have been hard on us since you’ve been gone, and none of the others have any way they can help either…though none of them suggested what you did.”

Twilight kept listening, letting the matter slide.

“Just so you know, things have gotten really busy for RD and Rarity, so don’t be surprised if they don’t have time to catch up with you.”

At this Spike’s mood almost visible grew grim.

“But don’t worry, all of us manage to make time to go to the Spa on Sunday mornings, we can all catch up with each other then. I bet you learnt a whole lot of new spells and stuff while studying with the Princess and it’ll be nice hearing how things have been with you after all this time.”

Twilight was relieved that there was that hurdle gone, even if it had come at the cost of a new problem for her. How was she going to force Appleblooms new parents to entrust legal care of the filly back to the apple family? She doubted that she would be able to just make them give Applebloom back, which meant that her only option was to kill them. But that wouldn’t work either unless she could get them to write something in their will to cause that.

“Bye Applejack.”

“See ya ‘round Twi.”

There was both an upside and a downside to the news that she could catch up with her friends. Obviously there was the upside that Spike would be able to talk to Rarity, and not be thrown into emotional turmoil, but she too had a chance to talk to her friends. A part of her that she hadn’t noticed in far too long leapt with joy at that thought. Of course the downside was that today was Friday…which left two days of pondering her own thoughts, if she included today.

Not that Twilight would normally have been worried about that. Normally she would have welcomed time to gather her mind, and manage it as neatly and perfectly as she could. But since she had encountered the Death Note, she wasn’t sure it was really possible to do that anymore.

She was aware of some presence in her mind, something that had definitely not been there before. She wasn’t exactly sure if it was something new that had come from being able to bring death to anypony she chose, or some strange psychotic part of herself that she had locked away from the world. Either way it was something that she didn’t want.

It was a strange feeling to be at war with her own mind. She had always known that there were different parts of her, different emotions that governed how she acted. There was the perfectly studious and organized part of her that had made her Celestia’s prized pupil in the first place. Then there was the irrational part of her that could take things too far and throw her mind into being a complete and utter mess…But there was something different about this part of her. It felt alien. Wrong.

This new part of her seemed just as rational as she normally was, just as calculated and organized, if not more; yet as if to contradict itself, this new part of her definitely held some insanity. After all, what else could have prompted her to declare herself as a Goddess? Even if it hadn’t been in public, the very thought was too ridiculous to frame in her mind. Maybe she should get some professional help? But then that would mean that she would have to tell them about the Death Note, and then what would happen?

Twilight was too busy lost in her thoughts to realize that they had already arrived back at the library until she slammed into the door. Today was not turning out to be a good day for her face.

“Are you sure we should be coming back now Twilight? Star still might be upset about her mother.”

Of course, it had completely slipped her mind. She had been planning to get some kind of a gift for the poor mare. She had forgotten entirely about it amidst her worries.

“It must have been hard for her, losing her mother, but she can’t just isolate herself from the rest of Equestria. If she won’t come out of it on her own, then I’m just going to have to help her.”

After all, sometimes the best gift could be the right words, and she had the feeling that Spike was viewing her with some kind of admiration in his eyes. It felt good to finally be back to her old self, and she was going to make sure that she made up for all of that time with the Princess. That and it would be good to finally have Star stop annoying her at every interval.

As they entered the house they found it strangely devoid of any noise, and on inspection of the place they found Star was nowhere to be seen.

“I guess she must have gotten over it then.”

It would have been nice to have at least been able to help her have gotten through that time. It was heartbreaking enough for her when she had needed to leave her brother, but what Star was going through was far worse. Twilight searched about the room for something to indicate where the unicorn had gone, perhaps a note or something to tell them not to worry about her. But it occurred to her that Star was not the kind of mare to give information to other ponies that easily. Even so, there was a letter that had not been there before, albeit one that was not addressed to her.

It had been torn to shreds, and had Twilight not had both the patience and organizational skills that she possessed, she doubted she would have been able to piece it back together.

“-Mirage Lulamoon

It’s so hard to believe that you’re another year older, as I could hardly tell by looking. Throughout my life you were always there to show me the way, to teach me your tricks, and to help with my own. Someday I’ll make you proud mom, until then, keep being one of the greatest mares in Equestria.

Your little Star”

The letter seemed very ordinary, other than a blatant disregard for the laws of writing good letters. Except for one small difference; the paper was ripped. Not ripped as if there had been something on the page that she had wanted to get rid of, but ripped as if it had been torn out of a book. Twilight sighed and shook her head as she thought of whatever poor book it was that Star had knowingly destroyed…Wait a second!

This page was entirely devoid of writing on it, other than that which Star had put in herself. Some books may have had extra pages for note-taking and the like in them, but she doubted that Star would have specifically looked for a book with pages like that. Even if she had, there wasn’t any book she knew that spaced out lines like this, and she doubted that Star would or could have done them herself. No book except for one.

Twilight rushed down into the basement, quickly drawing the Death Note out of its place in the shelf and slamming the door behind her. Just because she needed to confirm her suspicions didn’t mean she had to stop being cautious about knowledge of the Death Note getting out.

Twilight flipped through the pages quickly, hoping against hope that she wasn’t right.

She was.

There it lay open in front of here, obvious as day. The page of the Death Note that had been torn out, a perfect fit for the letter. Twilight wasn’t sure what it was that caused what happened next. Maybe it was having the Death Note back in her grasp again. Maybe it was the strain of the events of today causing her to snap.

She laughed.

It wasn’t a laughter she had ever expected to hear from herself. This was the laugh of a killer, someone who took pleasure in death and was clearly and undeniably insane. It wasn’t cold and heartless though, it was simply that she had never felt so happy before.

Star, the pony she had tried to kill. The pony she had thought about taking her own life away for that very same reason. Star was just like her. She had killed, she was a murderer too.

The laughter grew even more insane.

No, Star wasn’t just like her, Star was worse. All that she had done was brought justice down upon those too vile for her new world to stand. She had done what any good goddess should do, vanquishing the wicked and evil from her pure world. Star had killed her own mother, who by her own words was a perfectly innocent and kind mare, the kind that would have lived in peace in her new world.

But this brought up a problem; one that stopped her laughter abruptly.

How was Star still alive?

Star not only had her name written in the Death note once, but twice, yet the mare still lived. How could that unicorn live through writing her name? She didn’t own the Death Note, Twilight did. Didn’t she? Was that how Star had managed to survive?

“Old man?”

“Yes?”

The Old Man had appeared from inside the Death Note this time, his skull grinning stupidly up at her, while his torso stopped at the ground, his legs faded into the floor.

“Are there any other Death Note’s or Shinigami that would be able to give somepony protection from the Death Note?”

“That depends; do you want the short answer or the long answer?”

“The one that tells me how the hell Star is alive at this moment.”

“Now now, that wasn’t one of the options.”

Twilight slammed her hoof into the Shinigami’s face, but all that resulted in was him phasing back out of her plane of existence, causing her hoof to sharply make contact with the spine of the Death Note.

“The only way a being could live through the effect of the Death Note, other than yourself, is if they were a Shinigami.”

“…you’re telling me that Star is a Shinigami?”

“That’s for you to find out.”

And with that the old man disappeared as abruptly as he had appeared.

Tenshura, The Blood Stallion

How could Star be a Shingami? That just didn’t make any sense. Then again, since when did Shinigami’s make sense? What if Star knew that she had tried to kill her? How was she supposed to kill a Shinigami?

Twilight calmed herself down, before she could steer herself further into a panic. All she had to do was look at things rationally. For starters, the old man looked absolutely nothing like a pony, and though he did have a host of supernatural powers, among them didn’t seem to be shape-shifting. Looking at things from a probability perspective, there was an almost impossibly small chance that she would have encountered two Shinigami’s in such a small amount of time.

No, Twilight could cross Star being a Shinigami off of her worries for now, at least until some evidence arose to prove otherwise. It still left the question of how Star had survived the Death Note, but she had more important things to test, far more important.

Twilight released her magic’s hold on the Death Note and let it drop to the floor, her mind suddenly clearing as it fell open on the ground.

It was a bit too early to state that she had figured out the Death Note, but after a quick test it quickly became apparent that she was right. Twilight would stretch her magic out towards the death note, touching it with the thinnest thread of magic she could produce, before increasing the thickness of the thread by the smallest amounts. As she came into contact she would feel that new part of her grow inside her, almost as if it were alive. As she increased her hold on the book, so would the influence of that part of her increase.

As she began to have thoughts about how to kill Star, she cut off the link abruptly, scared to continue further. But she was aware that the influence of that new part of her hadn’t returned to normal, it was still there, and she could swear that it had become more a part of her by an infinitely small amount.

Twilight nearly jumped out of her skin as she heard an unfamiliar voice speak from right behind her.

“Old man, what are you doing here?”

Twilight quickly turned around expecting to see…well she wasn’t really too sure what she expected to see considering all that she had been through up till now. What she did see was a unicorn stallion, with a coat red and dark as blood. His mane and tail were a mix of white and gold that gave him the same sense of nobility that the Princesses carried with them. His Cutie Mark was a very strange one, a cross that would have been barely discernible from the rest of his coat, were it not outlined in the same gold of his mane.

The old man phased back into the mortal plane, this time he was actually standing on the ground, as opposed to the way he presented himself to her half the time. He seemed rather annoyed by the red unicorn, but also seemed to hold some strange kind of respect for the stallion.

“I’m here because this mare managed to find the Death Note before it’s time here expired. And you know what that means.”

The stallion poorly suppressed a laugh.

“Oh look at how far you’ve fallen old man. You thought you could do no wrong just because you were the only one capable of making Death Notes, yet here you are. Stuck on this plane with me for another….lessee…wow, looks like you’re going to be here quite some time, even if you can get her to make the eye deal.”

“Get to the point Tenshura.”

“Oh there isn’t any point; I just wanted to make sure you knew. Time seems to pass a lot slower down here than it does in the Shinigami realm, so it looks like you’re in for the long haul.”

The red unicorns horn began to glow with a magic she instantly recognized as teleport but, whether through her tone of voice, or simply by virtue of being present during the conversation, she managed to make him stop.

“Wait…what are you, who are you?

The red unicorn finally seemed to notice Twilights presence in the room, and turned to address her.

“Don’t they teach mares any manners these days? It’s always polite to introduce yourself first before asking the name of somepony.”

Twilight blushed, taken aback at both the insult to her manners, and at how casually this unicorn was speaking to her. If it hadn’t been for the unnaturalness that seemed to exude from him, she might have found the stallion attractive, a fact that only caused the blush to become even more apparent.

“I’m Twilight Sparkle”

“Pleased to meet you Miss Sparkle, my name is Tenshura, and as to what I am, well you should have guessed it now. I’m a Shinigami.”

The old man quickly cut in.

“Half-Shinigami.”

Tenshura conceded the point to the old man, but kept on talking to Twilight.

“Yes, technically I’m a half Shinigami. My mother was a mortal mare such as yourself, and my father was a Shinigami. Of course, since coupling with a mortal is disallowed by Shinigami law, he died, but thanks to him I’m now here.”

This Shinigami was curious, and made Twilight reconsider wether Star was in fact a Shinigami or not.

“So how does a Half-Shiniagmi differ from a regular one?”

“A good question. A Half-Shinigami is similar to a regular one in the way that we both receive our lifespans from the Death Note, however, half-Shinigami cannot be killed by any of the effects of the Death Note, or Shinigami law. Shinigami are invulnerable to the effects of the Death Note too, but if they break a single Shinigami law, they’re dead.”

“Are there any downsides to being a Half-Shinigami?”

“Just a few, but they are all relatively minor. The only major one is that a Half-Shinigami is stuck to this plane of existence, and can’t shift out of it, meaning we are actually mortal in the sense that we can be killed. However, we also have insanely strong magic, which helps to counter that.”

To demonstrate his point, Tenshura’s horn glowed a bright red, before materializing a blade of solid crimson light. Tenshura then proceeded to destroy the entire basement while humming a merry tune to himself, before casting yet another spell that somehow undid all the destruction he had caused in the blink of an eye.

“So in conclusion, us half-Shinigami are awesome.”

And before Twilight could even open her mouth to ask another question, he was gone.

Twilight and the old man each gave each other a look, and for once both of them were probably just as confused as each other. They moment she had regained her composure, all that Twilight could think to say was

“Well that was interesting.”

“Interesting dosen’t even cut it. As you just learned, that was Tenshura, otherwise known as the Blood Stallion. He’s probably the biggest freak of nature you will ever see in your life, and he couldn’t be prouder of it. He even managed to spread the filth of his kind into your nobility.”

Now it was just Twilight’s turn to be confused. Seeing the look on Twilights face, the old man gave Twilight the very first straight answer he had probably given anypony.

“Tenshura is the father of both Celestia and Luna.”

Secrets, or Lies?

Twilight would have felt surprised, but a part of her had come to acknowledge the strangeness of the Shinigami. But being the father of Celestia? That was beyond ridiculous. It had to be some sort of joke, maybe that’s what this whole thing was, some massive prank that her friends had put together for her return. Put deep inside she knew that this wasn’t the case. This was all too impossible to just be some prank, but at the same time it was too impossible to be real.

Why had Celestia never told her about this? Was it something that she had neglected to tell her because she dismissed it as irrelevant, or was it something more than that?

“Hang on, if he really is Celestia’s father, then that would make them…”

“Yes, both Celestia and her sister are in part Shinigami.”

This was not something she was just going to let slide. Celestia had kept this from her for how long? She was Celestia’s prized pupil. How could she have just left out something as important as that?

Twilight stormed out of the basement angrily, levitating the Death Note out with her and slamming it into her saddlebags. She shut the door to the basement with equal force, creating a resounding slam that would later make her worry if she had broken something. Not now though, now she was going to confront Celestia and Luna and make them finally tell her the truth.

“Spike!”

She yelled out for her assistant but there was no need, the dragon had already rushed down to her, drawn by the amount of noise she was making more than anything else.

“What’s the matter Twilight?”

“Send a letter to Celestia telling her that we’re coming to back to Canterlot for a short visit, and nothing she says is going to stop us. There’s something that she hasn’t been telling us, and I’m not going to rest until I’ve found out why.”

She didn’t need to give Spike the exact details of what to write in her letters anymore. Among other things, his time at Canterlot during her studies had resulted in a considerable increase in his vocabulary, and with it his writing abilities had soared. However, so had his need to know the reason behind those letters.

“What has Celestia been keeping from us exactly?”

“Secrets, lots of secrets.”

That was all the information he would give him for now, and Spike managed to recognize that and stopped asking his questions.

Twilight put on her saddlebag, before realizing that the Death Note had very little to conceal itself. Using her magic she shaped the material over the top of the book, making it seem as if it were just another part of the bag. At the same time, she began preparing a long-distance teleport to Canterlot, it wouldn’t do her any good if Celestia didn’t have time to read her letter. The longer Celestia spent worrying about when Twilight would arrive, and what to tell her, the better. Let her mind wander what it was that Twilight needed to talk to her about; it would serve her right for keeping such a secret from her.

Her spell went off with a flash, and she found herself with the odd feeling of not having any ground beneath her hooves. It was an unique sensation, one that she would doubted she would ever get used to, but such was the nature of a long-distance teleport.

Unlike a regular teleport, that allowed for a pony to materialize nearly instantly by a quick consumption of magical energies, the long-distance teleport took some time for the target to travel between areas. The advantage to the teleport was that it didn’t consume nearly as much energy as the regular one. If she had tried to teleport herself instantly to Canterlot, she would find herself unable to cast spells for days afterwards, as the toll that teleport took on the user increased exponentially with distance.

Celestia would tell her everything, she was sure of it…Though the more she thought it about it, the more she wondered just how much her teacher had actually told her. Were there other things that she had neglected to tell Twilight because she didn’t trust her? Or did Celestia feel that Twilight wouldn’t be able to deal with it. Had Celestia always doubted the security of her mind? Was she correct to? If anything her time in Ponyville lately had shown plenty to support that idea. Could that have been why Celestia sent her here? Had Celestia seen her as a threat? That at any moment her student would snap and attack her, so she had sent her back to her friends so that they could control her?

Control her…

How much of her life had been under her control? From the moment she had been able to talk she had wanted to go to Celestia’s school for gifted unicorns, but had that really been her desire, or her parents? Did she really want every moment of her life to be under control, every point in time scheduled in place? Had Celestia shaped her like that for a reason?

Now that she looked back on it, almost every aspect of her life had been controlled by the princess. Up until she had developed her obsession for keeping to schedules, Celestia had made sure that she was always perfectly on time, always finished with work, always abiding by every rule lain into place. Had it all been so that when Celestia couldn’t control her life directly, Celestia would control her through her own studious habits that she had developed?

What if-?

Twilights thoughts were cut short as she suddenly came out of the spell, managing to keep her balance despite the disorienting nature of having carpet under her hooves out of nowhere. Spike and her saddlebags had made it through fine too, though Spike had lost his balance and fallen when coming out of the teleport. Looking around her she realized that she had misjudged her spell slightly. While she had intended to appear in the throne room, instead she found herself in a lavishly decorated bedroom. Unless she had seriously misjudged her spell, she was in the castle, but she had never seen this room before.

The walls were strange to say the least, a rainbow of colors that shifted and changed as she moved around the room, certain parts of it seeming fixed in place only to move moments later. The bed was absolutely massive, larger than any she had seen for a pony in her life and it certainly didn’t seem to be lacking in comfort. In a corner of the room was a faded wooden shelf containing a small assortment of what seemed to be a collection of random objects. There didn’t seem to be any defining quality to them whatsoever, other than that they were all very old, yet in pristine condition.

There was no doubting it; she was in Celestia’s bedroom.

It was both exactly what she had expected, and somehow lacking. She had expected Celestia’s room to be somewhat older looking, perhaps cluttered with objects from when Celestia had been young. But the room looked new, and the walls alone made it seem as if it were a place that only the great could tread.

Twilight soon forgot it was she had come for, losing herself in the majestic simplicity of the place. She ran her eyes over the objects on the shelf, until they caught on a small orb that she had missed before. It was indented into the shelf, a white little thing that seemed to emit a small amount of light. As she gazed at it, an image sprung to the surface of the orb, showing her a glimpse of when she had graduated from Celestia’s school.

Had Celestia kept it her to remind herself of the power she held over her pupil? That she would belong to her forever?

Before her thoughts could continue any further in that direction, the door to Celestia’s chambers opened, and Twilight quickly turned to the cause of the noise, looking like a foal caught someplace that shouldn’t be. Spike might have reacted similarly had he not still been trying to stand.

“Celestia, I’m sorry I was just-” Twilight began to explain herself; before she recalled the reason she had been here in the first place “-about to ask you about your father.”

Celestia seemed to be caught off guard by her remark, or it could have simply been the shock of seeing Twilight in her bedroom. A slight blush came to her cheeks as she realized how this would have seemed to an outsider. Celestia seemed to be thinking similar thoughts as the faint red suffused her teacher’s cheeks.

“So did you want to talk to me here specifically? Or shall we go somewhere less…personal for it?”

Twilight would have wanted to go somewhere else under normal conditions. As inviting as the room was, it was Celestia’s private chambers, and after having been taught by Celestia for years on end, something just didn’t feel right about that.

However, there was too much doubt about her teacher in her mind, and she feared that should she leave the room, Celestia would attempt anything to dissuade her from what she had come for.

“Just here is fine thank you very much.”

“In front of Spike?”

Twilight glanced to the dragon, who had only just managed to recover from the effects of the teleport.

“He will be fine, and he deserves to know about this, just as I do.”

Celestia sighed, and went to lie on the bed, suddenly looking very tired and unkempt. She didn’t look to Twilight as she spoke, but her voice carried clearly across to her student.

“So what is it that you want to know about him?”

Twilight decided to start things off simply, if Celestia had simply seen her father as an unimportant fact, then she would tell Twilight everything, and she would have been proven wrong to doubt her. But if Celestia tried to dodge around it…

“What kind of a pony was he?”

Celestia paused before answering her question.

“He was a murderer. No. He was more than that. He was a monster. A vile being that didn’t have the right to be called a pony, yet alone to live amongst them. He had a book, one that gave him the power to decide who in this world was worthy of life. With it he slaughtered millions, not caring if they were pony, griffon, dragon, or otherwise, he killed indiscriminately.”

Celestia paused again, and a silence filled the gap.

“I’m sad to say that my and my sister weren’t much better for a long time.”

Twilight felt that her teacher had at least earned back her trust. Though she hadn’t gone into any details about the Death note, she had at least mentioned it, so she clearly wasn’t trying to dodge around the truth, of that she was sure. Twilight felt that she should have let her last remark go, but there was just too much left unsaid to do so.

“What do you mean by that?”

Twilight wasn’t sure when the tears had started, but when Celestia turned to address Twilight, her eyes were wet, watery trails streaming forming a small stream down her face.

“I’m a murderer Twilight. Or I once was. He had said we needed to do it to live. We didn’t think we had a choice in things. How could we have stood by for so long as we heartlessly killed everypony we knew?

Luna and I share the bloodline of some ancient race of deities, known as the Shinigami, or death god. Our mother was mortal, but our father was, in part, one of them. Our father told us that we needed to kill, or we would die. That the deaths we caused with the notebook were the measure of our lives. What else could we do?

Then came the night, the night I killed our mother. When we came of the age where we needed to start killing, our mother tried to stop us leaving. She didn’t want us to grow up to be like him. He decided the only thing to do was kill her, telling us that she would have died anyway. He decided to do it as a test for us, or an example. Something to show that this was who we were, and that we would always have to be like it.

He held my hoof as I wrote her name in the Death Note, the book of psychopaths and murderers, telling Luna that soon she would make her first kill too. Back then another pony had wielded the power of day and night, but it seemed as if the stars wept for us that night.

We became just like our father, killing relentlessly in order to extend our own lives. To stop ourselves from hating every moment of our existence, of what we had become; I am ashamed to admit it, but we, or at least I, started to enjoy it. It wasn’t until many years later that we saw what we had become. One young filly begged me to spare their parents; they looked a lot like you all things considered…I only wish I had seen the error of my ways sooner.

I killed them all, not just the parents, but the filly too, and everpony in the house. There is nothing I can do to pay for that, nothing I could have done then either. That day I vowed that I would never kill again. That I would aid Equestria in a path to a brighter future, one where no pony would ever need to kill. I have tried my hardest all these years, but fear I haven’t even come close to repenting for my mistakes.

So yes, I’ve kept this from you all of these years Twilight, I’m truly sorry. I just didn’t know how you would react. I didn’t want you to hate me, to think that I’m some kind of monster.”

Twilight could only gape as her teacher broke down in front of her, begging for her, the student, to forgive her. She didn’t know how to handle this, and a quick glance at Spike showed that he didn’t either.

For what was probably the first time in her life, Twilight stopped thinking, and just let the words flow from her heart.

“I could never hate you Celestia. You took me under your wing at your school, and became almost a second mother to me. You have never done anything wrong in my lifetime, and I doubt you ever will. If anything, you are the kindest pony it has ever been my fortune to meet. That is repentance enough for whatever you once were.”

Celestia began to calm down, sealing back into her mind the memories of those horrible times, and before long she had regained her composure, though her mane didn’t quite have the flow it normally retained.

“Thank you, my student. Now if that is all you had to ask, it would be wise that you returned to Ponyville.”

“There is one other thing Celestia.”

Celestia seemed reluctant to let the conversation continue, yet bade her proceed.

“Where is that book you talked about now?”

“It is in a place where nopony shall ever find it, stored away with Luna’s. No pony has the right to choose who lives and who dies, and where it is hidden they will never get the chance.”

They could both tell that the conversation had ended, yet they lingered a moment longer, before Celestia turned out of the room, what had likely been a brief respite from castle life ruined. Moments after the door closed behind her, the purple unicorn was nowhere to be seen, having already cast the spell to take her back.

Twilight thought over what Celestia had said, and decided that there was no reason for her to lie about any of what she had said. Her teacher was still trustworthy at least, if a little misguided. Thinking on it, her last remark hadn’t been entirely incorrect. No pony had the right to wield such power.

But what of she who would be a goddess?

Star of sadness

Twilight Sparkle appeared with a flash back in the library, her steps measured calmly as she paced around the library.

What had just happened? Celestia, her teacher, the once sole leader of Equestria, had asked her for forgiveness. It all seemed just a bit much. Could it have all been some elaborate lie to fool her, but then why would she have even mentioned the Death Note. Had Celestia already known about her discovery of the Death Note, but then why didn’t Celestia confront her directly. As her student she knew better than any pony that she wouldn’t be able to defeat the princess.

No, she couldn’t keep on thinking like this; Celestia had asked her for forgiveness because she honestly felt sorry for all that she had done. Because she didn’t want her student to hate her.

Her student…

That was right, Twilight still belonged to the princess. Celestia had thought that if she didn’t confess everything to Twilight that she would lose her hold on her student. That was it, but Twilight wasn’t going to let her continue, Celestia didn’t know that Twilight had a Death Note too. All that she needed to was write her name in the Death Note and she would be free from her prison, she would be free to ascend as a goddess…

But how could she kill Celestia?

Twilight shut out the murderous voice from her mind. Those ponies that had assaulted her had deserved it; other ponies like them deserved it too. But not the princess. Celestia had been like a second mother to her, she wasn’t going to kill her to free herself from some false cage that she had envisioned for herself. She could trust her teacher, as her teacher had trusted her. She would do it, before that horrid part of her returned.

“Spike, write a letter to Celestia. I need to tell her, and you, about that book.”

She waited for her assistant to question her as to what book she meant, or to complain about how they had only just been with the Celestia.

Silence…

Twilight searched around the library, where had her assistant gone? It couldn’t be, how could it have happened, she was always so organized, how could she have overlooked something so obvious.

She had left Spike at the palace

.

“No-no-no-no-no-no-no. This can’t be happening, I can’t have left Spike there. How could I have forgotten my number one assistant?”

But she had and she knew it, she had somehow managed to forget to teleport Spike back to the library with her amidst all the chaos that had been surrounding her life lately.

“Okay, everything’s going to be okay. Spike will know that I didn’t mean to leave him there, and then they’ll send him on the train back here, or maybe even the chariot. He’ll be fine.”

Twilight began to cradle herself, to at least hold her physical-self together, even if her mind was falling apart.

“But what if he isn’t. What if he’s gotten himself lost? But he’s in the palace, he’s been there for ages, he would know his way about the place perfectly, and even if he didn’t; Celestia would help him.”

But what about Luna? Luna may have found a veritable wealth of friends in Ponyville, but Canterlot and the palace had been a different matter. What if Luna had kept Spike with her so that they could have fun together, or worse, what if Luna was using Spike as her assistant?

“No, I’m being ridiculous.” Twilight knew that she was talking out loud to herself, she didn’t care. “Spike’s probably on his way back here right now. That’s it, I’m just worrying over nothing.”

A voice drifted over from the bedroom, that arrogant, irritating voice unmistakable for anypony else; Star.

“Oh would you just be quiet, it doesn’t matter what happens to that little pet of yours, and it’s your own fault for not taking better care of it.”

The sea green mare shut the door to the bedroom as she said the last words, walking up to Twilight to likely see just how far she could push the purple unicorn before she snapped. Twilight abruptly decided to hit that pony where it hurt.

“Would that ‘better care’ be the same kind your mother received from you?”

Twilight could see that her words had struck home, maybe Star had actually known what the book was and regretted her actions, or she was still feeling upset about the whole situation, but regardless of the source, tears burst into Stars eyes.

“You heartless bitch.”

Star swung a hoof straight at Twilights face, having expected more of a verbal quarrel, all Twilight was able to do was lean away from the attack. The solid thwack of the impact reverberated throughout the library, leaving Twilight to stagger back. Under normal circumstances Twilight would have stopped, apologized profusely, and dropped the topic entirely. But Star was not a normal pony, and the circumstances lately had been anything but normal.

“’It’s your own fault for not taking better care of it’, isn’t that right Star?” Imitating the green unicorn’s voice so well that it surprised even her. “Perhaps if you’d stopped thinking about how the world should revolve around you for two seconds you could have helped her. Instead she died, and you couldn’t help her one bit, you were just too wrapped up in yourself. I bet you didn’t even love her.”

Twilight wasn’t sure which of the two surprised her more, the fact that Star actually let her finish what she had been saying, or the fact that she had actually said all of that. It had all been hate-filled accusations designed specifically to hurt the pony. Twilight thought on why she had said all of that, and abruptly decided that she didn’t care, Star had deserved everything she had said.

Star’s downcast face looked straight at Twilight, her eyes filled with hurt and anger. Tears flowing freely from them as she took in the terrible words that Twilight had told her. Star’s right hoof made a small step forwards, shaking throughout the whole movement.

“Die…”

Star’s whispered words were only barely audible, but still managed to send a chill down Twilight’s spine. Star took another small step towards the purple unicorn, before stopping suddenly.

“Just DIE!!!”

Star lunged after Twilight, the unicorn prepared for the blow dodging successfully away, before using her magic to tie Star’s hooves together underneath her, causing the unicorn to fall to the ground from her momentum. It was rather pathetic really; all of that anger and this was all that Star could manage?

“When we met you seemed to know all about me Star. You should have known not to pick a fight with me too. But no, instead you decided to try and make my life a living hell from the moment I got here, so the question is: What can I do to repay you for it?”

Star writhed on the ground, horn glowing as she tried to escape from her bonds.

“It’s not going to be as easy as a simple teleport Star. Those bands are attached to your body entirely, any teleportation spell is just going to take them with you.”

However, Star seemed to have an entirely different plan, as with a puff of smoke, a large fiery orb burst into existence above the bound unicorn.

“Let me go or you’re precious books burn”

To maintain a spell of that strength would take quite a large amount of magical power, and would even put a strain on Twilight herself if she attempted to keep it up. Yet Star didn’t even seem to be exerting the slightest amount of effort to create the fire, or maintaining it. There was no way that anypony, except for maybe the Princesses’, could possess that amount of magical prowess.

“You really must think I’m an idiot. Your own arrogance has given you away Star, You’re spell is an illusion.”

Star smiled smugly at Twilight, clearly trying to psyche out the unicorn as the orb moved slowly closer to the books, but Twilight wasn’t going to be fooled. If Star had any brains in her head, she would make smoke appear as the fire touched the books, giving the impression that they were burning in order to make Twilight panic and release the mare. It wasn’t going to work.

“Have it your way then.” Star said as the fiery orb touched the first of the books, causing flames to slowly curl around the book, and the pages to curl up before becoming little more than black cinders.

Twilight was beginning to almost admire this unicorn for her determination. It really was a realistic looking spell, the way the flames danced and the smoke curled up, if it weren’t for the lack of strain on Star’s face she would have thought that it was all real.

However, Twilight’s admiration turned to panic as she began to actually smell the smoke, and felt the temperature of the room rising gradually. Regular illusions couldn’t cause another pony to smell or feel things that weren’t there, and even if Star were casting sensory spells, the combined effort would be nearly equal to just casting a spell of that scale in the first place.

Twilight panicked and quickly released the bonds around Star and began using her magic to eliminate the oxygen around the fires that had begun to build up. Snuffing out a decent amount of the fire, however, as she released Star, the fiery orb of destruction that had caused all this suddenly faded away.

Star left the library, Twilight still putting out what portions of the fire remained, but before she did so she paused at the door and called to the purple unicorn.

“I think now we both know who shouldn’t pick a fight with who, don’t we?”

And with that the source of all her frustrations left her alone to fix the destruction they had caused.

Twilight sat staring at the burnt mass of all the books that she had been too late to save; 151. There had been one hundred and fifty one books that had been lost in that moment; some of them would likely never grace her library again with their presence. Was it her fault? Could she have stopped Star if she had only let the unicorn go, or would the mare have done it regardless just to irritate Twilight?

Why had she provoked Star with those words? Yes, the unicorn had insulted both her and Spike at least a dozen times in the short time they had known each other, but she should have been better than that. It was with both a grateful sigh and worry that Twilight took out the Death Note from her saddlebags, and stared at where at the burnt shelf where it would have been placed otherwise. She had unfortunately lost her hiding place for it, but at least it was still intact. Twilight abruptly decided that she would keep the Death Note concealed in the hidden pocket of her saddlebags, just in case Star decided to attempt to burn down the library again.

Unfortunately, her encounter with Star had re-awakened Twilight’s concerns as to whether Star was in fact a Shinigami or not. Tenshura had said that a half-Shinigami was capable of incredible magical might, and Star’s demonstration was certainly nothing short of that. However, it seemed strange that a half-Shinigami would have little to do besides hanging around the library and irritating other ponies with their arrogance. So if Star wasn’t a Shinigami, what in Equestria was she?

The Disciple of Death

Twilight spent a moment longer staring at the ashes of her lost books, mourning the loss of their tales and treasures from the shelves of the library. What had Star been thinking, harming her books like that? Then again, Star didn’t really seem to care much for books, which did prompt the question as to why in Equestria Star had become a librarian.

There was just far too much missing information when it came to that pony. She would have to be the most powerful unicorn Twilight had encountered, likely being able to even hold her own against Celestia. What was she doing in Twilight’s library, why settle for so little, why the incompetence and ignorance of the job if they could have aimed so high?

It was in a way a good thing that Star had destroyed her treasures. Not because she had harmed the books, no, Twilight could never forgive that, but the task of fixing up the damage gave her time to set her thoughts in order.

Using her advanced magic’s she began repairing the shelves, purposely taking the time to make sure that every grain of the wood she created was in place. She could set her worries about Star into the back of her mind for now, that pony was an enigma and there was no use worrying about her when she wasn’t around. Tenshura and The Old Man could both pose problems for her, being as unpredictable as they were, but they could also prove to be valuable allies. Neither of them were particularly hostile to her, but there seemed to be a high amount of tension between the two of them.

She would try to make allies of them; Tenshura shouldn’t be too difficult, even if he was the tiniest bit insane. The Old Man was another story. Twilight had trouble figuring out his motives in all of this. He clearly wanted Twilight to use the Death Note, yet at the same time he refused to help Twilight to utilize its powers. He wanted Twilight to surrender the Death Note to him, so he refused to offer his help to her…Perhaps if she could strike some sort of deal with the Shinigami.

As Twilight finished repairing the last pieces of the shelving she looked upon the books that had suffered. Not all of them were lost, a couple still bearing enough on their pages to be recovered. The rest however, would need to be replaced.

She began fixing what books she could; whenever words were missing she would attempt to fill them in from her own memory of the text. Fortunately, all of the ones that had been caught in the fire were ones she had already read through at least once, so as long as she could revive the paper, the books could be saved.

Working on the essence of the books brought back memories of her time studying under Celestia, and she felt the task of restoring the books become a subconscious one as she let her mind drift back to those times.

“Now Twilight, before you begin to learn to cast life magic, you must learn the principles of it. You likely remember that when I started these lessons that I told you every kind of magic has different principles.”

Twilight let Celestia cover what she had been taught. Despite the fact that she remembered everything Celestia had told her perfectly, Celestia always taught in this fashion, and she had almost made a game out of it. She would listen to what Celestia was recapping, and from that try to figure out what she was going to say before she said it, attempting to finish Celestia’s sentence for her.

“Arcane magic is where a large part of our day to day magic comes from. Levitation, Teleporting, all of that belongs to the school of the arcane. You’ll remember that arcane magic stems from the unicorns own power, and is more of an act of branching out that magic to effect the world around them.”

Twilight could guess where Celestia was going and before she could stop herself, spoke her thoughts.

“However, arcane magic is the only kind of magic that works in this way, every magic possesses a different origin and method of casting, and therefore different principles.”

Celestia, was taken aback for a bit, but then a smile lit her face. Twilight had already turned this into enough of a habit that her teacher seemed to actually be fond of it.

“Right you are Twilight, every school of magic operates differently. Illusion magic operates by messing with another ponies mind, conjuration magic operates by using the elements in our world, but what I am about to teach you is different from every other school of magic. The special thing about life magic is that its principles are based, not around your own magic, but the dormant magic of creatures and objects in this world.”

Now she was getting to the good stuff. Twilight already had knowledge of the other schools of magic from her own studies. There were advanced magic’s in each of the schools, often only performable by those who had mastered magical conservation, a feat that Twilight had accomplished in her first three months of her tutelage under the princess. It took most unicorns three years to learn magical conservation, let alone master it. It was Twilight achieving this that had led Celestia to believe that she would be capable of learning life magic.

“Life magic differs from the other schools in another vital area. It is one of only three schools of magic that are comprised entirely of advanced spells. The other two schools, Death and Time magic, are completely off limits Twilight.”

Twilight noticed that Celestia was staring at her sternly, almost menacingly. It was no secret that Twilight had quite a thirst for knowledge, so it made sense that Celestia would warn her off those two magic’s.

“I promise I won’t attempt those magic’s without your permissi-”

“No.” Celestia cut her off. “Never mess with those magic’s ever, even if I give you permission to. It’s not that I don’t trust you Twilight, you are my favorite pupil and, though you may not see it that way, my best friend. It is because of this that I warn you away from those magic’s.”

Celestia sighed, remembering her past. “Death magic is a forbidden art, yet there are still ponies out there that practice it. Time magic is different. It is not forbidden like death magic, but it almost always carries consequences. That time when you travelled back in time to warn yourself not to worry for instance. That was a very fortunate occasion for Equestria. If you hadn’t travelled back in time like you had, and instead chose to forget about the ordeal, you could very well have destroyed half of Equestria, and who knows what else?”

Twilight gulped as she realized just how close she had come to bringing about the apocalypse without even realizing it.

“…I’m sorry.” It was all that she could really think to say. What else was there? She hadn’t intended to nearly kill everypony.

“It’s fine Twilight. As I said, you ended up saving us…even if it was from yourself. I’m not sure I would have been able to do the same in your situation, in fact, very few ponies would have. That is why I must warn you away from that school. Not that it’s likely you’ll ever be able to find somepony to teach you. That spell you found was one of the few time spells that are still on paper, and has been appropriately sealed away until it is decided whether to destroy in order to prevent such an even from happening again.”

“But I still messed up. Just because I didn’t mean to, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.”

Celestia approached her student as Twilight turned her head away, unable to bring herself to face her mentor after what she had done. Before Twilight could react Celestia embraced her in a comforting hug, Twilight blushed at the kindness her teacher continued to surround her with.

“It was my fault Twilight. I should have checked the library more thoroughly, or warned you away from those magic’s sooner. I should have known it would happen sooner or later with your appetite for knowledge. I’m just glad that you made it through okay, not many ponies could have cast a spell like that and remained conscious, let alone alive. You’re special Twilight, and I don’t want to lose you.”

Celestia had been so close to her then, and Twilight still kept the feeling of that closeness in her mind long after the lesson had finished. After what seemed far too short a time Celestia pulled away from her student, reminding the two of them of the distance between them, both in years and position.

“We must put the past in the past, so that we can look to the future. So we shall continue the lesson from where we left off. It should be obvious as to why Death magic is forbidden, so we will proceed onto the fundamentals of life magic. You have an immense amount of magical power Twilight, but I don’t want even you to attempt these without my supervision.”

Twilight nodded, she knew her own limitations well enough to know she could likely cast the more basic life magic’s without Celestia’s help, but she could wait for their lessons.

“Good, now the fundamental rule of life magic is that it does not need your own magic to be used. Which means it isn’t as likely to exhaust you. However, plenty of inanimate objects, such as books, do not have enough dormant magic in them to be ‘healed’. Healing is the primary function of life magic, and can also be achieved with either time or conjuration magic. Often healing is mistaken for conjuration, as using life magic to ‘heal’ often involves replicating parts of an object or creature in order to fix it. However, Conjuration is the creation of an entirely new object, and essentially just gets rid of the need to find materials, the correct knowledge of how to ‘heal’ the subject of the spell is still required. Whereas life magic directly fixes whatever injuries or otherwise the subject might have.”

Twilight suddenly snapped out of her reminiscing as she realized she had been trying to restore the last of the recoverable books twice. She would likely need to order in new books for the library, as she wasn’t comfortable that her own knowledge of the irreparable books would be enough to restore them to their original condition. Either way, conjuring the words had taken far more magic than she had expected it would.

Twilight yawned; everything had been so hectic since she had gotten back. Was this how things had always been in Ponyville? As she looked out the window she realized just how late it was, the sun setting behind the towering buildings of New Ponyville. It was strange having everything look so familiar and so different at the same time.

So much had changed since she had last been here. Everything seemed darker now, and not just because the sun was setting. There had been bad times for Twilight and her friends before, but they had all made it through them just fine, there had always been that light at the end of the tunnel. No matter how bad things had gotten there had always seemed a way through it, yet now Twilight couldn’t think of anything. All she could do was keep on living and hope that everything worked itself out.

Unless…

Twilight opened her saddlebag and pulled out the Death Note, a sinister grin on her face.

There was something that she could do about it. She had the Death Note, if she couldn’t bring an end to the darkness then nopony could.

“Old man!”

No response.

“OLD MAN!!! Come out here right now, it’s about giving up ownership of the Death Note.”

As if on cue the Old Man appeared, actually putting some effort into making his entrance look terrifying. Clouds of red smoke billowed out from the ground, forming skulls before they dispersed into nothing. With a flash of lightning the old man appeared in the middle of the clouds only without his cloak, leaving his skeleton body revealed. Crows flew in through the walls forming into black cloth the moment they touched him, until he was in his robes were fully formed. Another flash of lightning happened inside the room, this time the Old Man caught it, the crackling bolt taking the shape of his scythe.

Twilight regarded the whole spectacle with amusement.

“Impressive, Old Man.”

“Humph, you could have at least tried to look scared, I actually put some work into that.”

“Really? And here I was thinking you were preparing an entrance for Nightmare Night. Maybe with a bit more effort you might be able to beat Pipsqueak.”

Though it was impossible to tell due to the hollow sockets where his eyes would have been, Twilight could swear that the Old Man had just rolled his eyes at her.

“Anyway, you said you were going to give up ownership of the Death Note?”

“Not exactly…”

“Then we have nothing to talk about.”

“WAIT!!!”

Twilight almost screamed it out as she saw the Old Man begin to fade away, causing the Shinigami to pause and fade back into vision.

“What is it?”

“I’ve been thinking about it…Would it be possible for me to give up a portion of the Death Note?”

The Old Man sounded wary, but she also seemed to have caught his attention. “What do you mean?”

“Say, if I were to give up 10% of the Death Note, would you be willing to provide me with names and faces of the ponies that I need to kill?”

She had him hooked now, she could tell by the pause he left that there was no way the Shinigami was going to refuse her offer. All that was left was to negotiate just how much of the Death Note it would cost her.

“So what you’re saying is that you will relinquish parts of the Death Note in return for my help, and once you have given up 100% of the Death Note, It will be mine again?”

“Yes.”

“Very well then, we have a deal. However…”
Twilight knew this would happen. How much would the Shinigami want? 10% had seemed like a reasonable amount to her. Surely he wouldn’t ask for too much more.

“…I am unsure as to how I would provide you with their faces. I can easily provide you with their names, but their faces are an entirely different matter.”

He agreed to it. 10% of the Death Note for the power to destroy all the evil in the world, was it really that easy?

“It’s a deal then Old Man, as for how you can give me their faces, I have an idea.”

The idea had actually occurred to her while she had been repairing the books with her life magic. It was really quite a complex spell and she considered the idea quite a stroke of genius, even for her. By combining Life, Illusion, and Conjuration magic’s she could possibly create an entirely different spell. Even as she thought about it she began to contemplate what to call it. She was actually going to do it…she would create a spell all of her own. ‘Mind Canvas’, that sounded about right.

She began at the essentials of the spell, picking up a piece of paper with her magic and imbuing it with conjuration magic, causing the image of a book to appear on the paper.

The Old Man looked at the paper as Twilight wrought her new spell on it. “What are you doing?”

Twilight ignored him and focused all her attention on the paper. She should probably have slept and conserved her magic before attempting this. Creating a spell was hard enough, let alone being exhausted while she was doing it.

The image on the paper washed away, slowly fading into nothing as she consumed a substantial part of her own magic to increase the dormant magic in the paper. She stopped for a second to check that she hadn’t accidentally given the paper life. A quick check of the paper assuring her that it was most certainly still an inanimate object. The image however, was not. It moved about the paper, changing color and shape as it did so. One second it was a butterfly, the next a dragon, each one lifelike and detailed.

The spell was progressing better than she anticipated, but the hardest part was yet to come.

“Old Man, I’m going to need you to co-operate with me, focus on one image in your mind, make sure it isn’t anything personal.”

She had no time to ask whether he was doing as she had instructed or not as she plunged into the next stage of spell. She began weaving a complex on herself, weaving the image on the page through the Old Man’s thoughts. It was immensely difficult, since she needed to essentially reverse the illusion process, and she could swore that the more she thought about the image on the page, the closer she got to losing her mind.

With a great effort she finished the spell, an image of a piece of paper on the paper that she held. However, as she looked closer, she saw that there was actually a piece of paper on that piece of paper, the closer she looked the smaller the paper on each of the image’s got , until she was straining her eyes to see what must have been the 14th piece of paper on the image.

“What the buck is this Old Man?”

“How the hell am I supposed to know? You were the one casting the spell!”

“Yes; and the spell I cast was one that should allow me to an image on this page when you concentrate solely on it, so tell me what it is.”

“It’s a piece of paper.”

Twilight gave up in frustration, before actually staring at the piece of paper as a whole and seeing that he was right. All he had done was envisioned the piece of paper, but from there he had envisioned a piece of paper inside of that one, creating a never-ending tunnel of paper on the page.

Perfect, now it was time for the real test.

“Old Man, I want you to picture me in your mind, concentrate on it hard.”

Even as she told him that the picture on the page was rearranging itself, eventually resembling her perfectly. This was brilliant, as long as the Old Man could concentrate hard enough on the ponies face, she could use this to hunt down anypony she wanted, no matter where they were.

“This is perfect.”

The Old Man looked confused, though it confused Twilight even more when she tried to think about how she knew that.

“What do you mean it’s perfect? It’s a piece of paper. Did you somehow make it more papery? Do you want me to draw their faces for you? I’ve never had to draw so I highly doubt it would work.”

Understanding dawned on Twilight’s face. The spell was made as an illusion for her. It tricked her own mind into thinking that the blank page was what was on the Old Man’s mind. Nopony but her could see what was on it…of course that meant she would need to do one final test.

“Think about something else Old Man, anything else.”

“Okay…”

The Old Man was clearly getting irritated by being kept in the dark. How ironic, that she could keep him as ignorant as he had kept her so easily.

The image on the paper suddenly flared up, an image of Tenshura appeared on the page, the Old Man slashing the half-Shinigami to ribbons with his scythe. What amazed Twilight was that picture actually moved, showing the blood shooting out of the stallion quite vividly.

“Why was the first thing that came to your mind decapitating Tenshura?”

“What?”

The Old Man looked taken aback by her question…at least she thought he did, which probably meant that she had been right.

“Old Man, were you, or were you not just thinking about killing slicing up Tenshura with your scythe.”

For probably the first time since she had met the Shinigami, he was entirely straight with her.

“Yes. Is that what the paper does, it lets you see into my mind?” He sounded almost frightened by the prospect.

“Yes and no.” Twilight tried her best to sound unconvincing, before going into a full explanation of what she had done to the paper, which likely would have bored the Shinigami were he not so worried about the window into his mind. “…So in conclusion, it only allows me to see images that you concentrate hard on. Passing images and any other kinds of thoughts won’t trigger it.”

“I see…” The Shinigami chuckled to himself as the image on the paper changed again. This time showing a humiliated Twilight begging Star, looking as if she were in desperate need of-

“Cut that out Old Man. I would never even think of doing that with a mare, let alone Star of all ponies. That unicorn’s going to pay for that humiliation, and for what she did to the books.”

The paper wiped itself clean, as if it had never held such crude image’s on it. Perhaps the Mind Canvas was as much a nuisance as it was an aid. However, the image had triggered her hatred of Star, which in turn had given her an idea.

“Old Man, as a god of death, you would know all about Death Magic wouldn’t you?”

“Well…yes, but that’s more from experience with those who have actually used it than being a Shinigami.”

“Good, now how does 40% of the Death Note sound in order for you to teach it to me, and I mean all of it. In effect, once my training is complete, you will have a total of 50% of the Death Note, a good halfway to having it all to yourself again.”

It was too good an opportunity for him to pass up. The Old Man agreed to the terms Twilight set, the purple unicorn grinning menacingly as he agreed.

And so it was that Twilight became the disciple of death.

Her beginning

After Twilight had sealed the deal with the Old Man she had promptly fallen asleep. She hadn’t even had time to make it to her bed before the exhaustion overcame her, but considering the energy she had expended it wasn’t much of a surprise. After all, it wasn’t every day that she came up with an entire spell.

Though exhausted, she couldn’t have been happier about her new creation, maybe she could show her friends it, or perhaps even Celestia, the princess would be so pleased to see her student come so far.

No, she couldn’t show them. She certainly couldn’t show Celestia. What would happen if she thought her student was trying to surpass her? Would Celestia praise her for her achievements, or would she fear her for them? What efforts would Celestia go to in order to stop Twilight from becoming stronger than her; she had admitted herself that she had slaughtered hundreds to extend her own lifespan, so what would she do to extend her reign?

All another reason for her to learn Death Magic. She had to be ready to ascend to her position as goddess of the new world, and if Celestia was a half-Shinigami, then she would have to be stronger than her, stronger than Star, stronger than anypony.

Time magic could be left out of the equation. She doubted that there was anypony left in Equestria, let alone their whole world, that knew time magic thoroughly. She had done some study on time magic, and very ponies learnt beyond how to slow time in areas, as otherwise they risked damaging reality. Twilight highly doubted that Celestia would be willing to risk such destruction just to stop her student.

The odds would still not be in Twilight’s favor, even if she could master Death Magic, Celestia had hundreds of years of experience; Twilight had a bit over twenty. She would need followers, but they would need to understand the power she had, the true righteousness she wielded.

Twilight slept fitfully that night, dreams of Celestia banishing her from Equestria, being hunted down by Star, having her friends all turn on her. All seemed to be entirely unconnected except for one worrying similarity; everypony seemed to be out to get her.

The dreams seemed so vivid, as some dreams did, but these dreams were different, they felt and seemed far too real, yet there was a part of her mind telling her that they were not. Normally that wouldn’t be too different from her regular dreams, her mind rational even while she was asleep. But this time her mind did not tell her things were a dream, only that they were not real…yet.

She woke suddenly to see Star standing over her, the ball of fire from yesterday bearing down slowly upon Twilight. The next second Twilight blinked and it was gone, nothing but a phantom image from her dreams. Twilight breathed a sigh of relief. There was something distinctly wrong about that unicorn…something very wrong indeed.

After a large breakfast to accommodate for the amount of energy she had used yesterday, Twilight had spent the rest of the day locked in the basement with the Death Note. Deciding that she would be there for a while, she had conjured what would likely be described as an extremely comfortable beanbag. Just because it was a basement didn’t mean it needed to sacrifice comfort.

Before Twilight began writing in the notebook, she did a scan of the Death Note, checking for if it had a magical print of sorts. Whenever a unicorn used magic, an imprint of that spell was left on them and the object they cast it on for a few days. It wasn’t difficult to scan for the Magical Print of a spell, but only advanced unicorns could detect what spell had been cast.

It was rather strange, but the Death Note didn’t have a single trace of magic in it. Perhaps the workings of the Shinigami were undetectable to the scan, or maybe they didn’t even leave a Magical Print. Perhaps it wasn’t even a type of magic, though if that were the case Twilight had no idea what it was.

Scanning the Death Note had given her an idea. What spell was it that Star had used to destroy her library? She still had the ashes of the books that Star had destroyed, as she had been debating whether she should throw them away or give them a proper burial.

Twilight slid the Death Note underneath the conjured beanbag and unlocked the basement door, making sure to lock as she left. Even if she were leaving it only for a minute, it wouldn’t do to have anypony enter there.

The ashes were hidden within a small pouch underneath her pillow. It wasn’t that she wanted to keep them a secret from everypony else, though she doubted revealing that she kept the ashes of the destroyed books would be a good idea. It was rather that she didn’t want Star to find them. She didn’t know what that pony would do, but Twilight found herself fearing every minute that she was near that unicorn.

There was something strange about the ashes too, or rather their Magical Print. Namely the fact that there was none, or at least, there wasn’t any sort of magic that could cause it to turn it into its current state. There was a small trace of illusion magic on them, but it felt wrong, as if it were tainted with…something else.

Again those thoughts returned to her, could Star really be a Shinigami? All the facts seemed to point to it, her magic was almost undetectable, similar to the way the Death Note seemed to possess no magic. Not only that, but she was insanely powerful, and didn’t seem to be affected by the Death Note either.

So why couldn’t she accept it? Was it really that hard to believe that there was another Shinigami in her life? Celestia and Luna were part Shinigami, and likely Cadence and Blueblood too in that case. She had recently met The Old Man and Tenshura, at roughly the same time that she had met Star too. All things considered, was another Shinigami such a strange thought?

If Star truly was a Shinigami, then Twilight would need to become a lot stronger in order to defeat her. But she would also need to keep track of how much of the Death Note she had relinquished. If she lost control of the Death Note entirely then Star would be able to kill her off if they had their own Death Note.

She needed to be stronger, strong enough to kill Star. Once Star was dead she would be able to cleanse all the evil from her beautiful world. But until then Star was a threat. Star had made it clear from the beginning that she was an enemy, and she was a murderer as well now. There was no place in her world for criminals, none but the grave.

Twilight left her analysis of the ashes. Dissatisfied with the results, but determined to do what she must to cleanse the world of its impurities. Twilight went back into the basement, before she realized that she would need the Mind Canvas in order to perform her task. Using her magic she levitated the paper down to her, before firmly locking the basement door once again.

“Old Man?”

As the Old Man appeared right in front of her it occurred to Twilight how quickly she had grown accustomed to the Shinigami. It had only been yesterday that she had first encountered the creature and she already addressed him as if he were a regular acquaintance. A small smile spread across her face as she thought of how much the Death Note had changed her life, and how much it could still do for her.

“Yes my student.” The Old Man said it in an imitation of Celestia’s voice, before dropping it immediately in favor of his deeper, darker tone. “Or would you rather ‘my faithful student, Twilight Sparkle’, or perhaps-“

Twilight’s smile was dashed from her face and replaced with a scowl as she cut off the Shinigami before he could continue.

“The time has come to begin cleansing this world Old Man. You promised your aid in this for part of the Death Note, and so you shall give it.” Twilight paused for dramatic effect. “Unless…Do you no longer want the Death Note?”

The Old Man didn’t even seem phased in the slightest.

“Did I strike a nerve? Or is imitating one’s teacher taboo in this age, or perhaps she was more to you than that?”

Twilight outwardly let out a laugh at the Old Man’s accusation, but inside she was still torn between her feelings for Celestia. Was the princess an obstacle or a friend? Did Celestia love her, or had the alicorn simply needed to maintain control over her? It was almost as if she felt her heart wrenching itself in two. Celestia had confessed that both she and Luna were guilty of murder, but could she bring herself to kill them. Were Cadence and Blueblood murderer’s too? Could she kill her brother’s wife?
It would all have to wait for later, perhaps she would never need to confront them, and surely they had both repented for their crimes during their existence. All that mattered was if they stood in her way.

“If the time comes for it, then we will deal with Celestia. Until then we have a world to purify.”

The rest of the day passed in an expectable fashion. Twilight would request the names of criminals that were still alive, both pony and non-pony, along with their crimes. She requested them in differing orders as well. After about ten kills in alphabetical order, she would request the ones with most recent crimes, then after five kills she would change the order to something obscure such as the order in which the laws that were broken were created. It was a tedious process, but it was also the only way to avoid a pattern being discovered.

She needed the world to know that there was somepony purifying it, ridding the world of its evil, but it would not do to give away anything that might lead ponies to know that she was their savior; at least not yet. For the moment the killings would seem criminal, detectives would be called in, and an investigation would be conducted. But in time they would all see the light, which could only lead to a better world.

If there were an obvious pattern in the killings then it would become apparent that whoever was doing the killings was organized, and having organized the entirety of the Winter Wrap-up once, it would very quickly bring suspicion onto her. She couldn’t let that happen.

It was only once she felt her stomach rumbling that she let herself finish her work. Before she unlocked the basement she ran over the names one more time. She counted the criminals as she went; the hundreds of names listed all proof of her might. This was perfect.

The perfect world would some come to be, a world of order, a world of harmony, her world. Everypony would understand the sacrifices that had to be made to maintain that perfection, they would hail her as their goddess, the wielder of light and darkness, life and death. There would be obstacles until then, Star, Celestia, Luna; but once they were out of the way her world would be perfect…But what about the eyesore upon her perfect world that would help it come to be?

The Old Man was a Shinigami, it was his job to kill ponies, but in her perfect world there would be no more need for that. She would command life and death, so that left only one solution.

Once her perfect world was realized, The Old Man would have to die, all the Shinigami would have to die. Perhaps the royal family had earned their pardon, perhaps not, that would be decided in time, but Tenshura and the Old Man had to die.

Twilight put the book back into the hidden pocket of her saddlebag, deciding as an afterthought to enchant it to be better hidden, casting a spell to make it appear as though there wasn’t even a pocket. She trusted that she would be able to remember where the hidden pocket was, and even if she couldn’t and it took some time to find it, it would be better than it being able to be found at all.

Leaving the basement she found that nightfall had already arrived, the stars out in all their glory as Luna’s night settled across the sky. It was truly a beautiful sight to see, but as Twilight gazed upon it, she couldn’t help but think of how much better her own would look. What would she have for her first night as goddess? An aurora borealis sounded nice. A way to show the world the true beauty that she had created for them. Perhaps she could even get Rainbow Dash to perform a sonic rainboom that night, and let the stars catch its color as they twinkled in the sky.

The sky, the earth, and the sea; it would all be hers soon; her perfect world.

It was hard to tell how many ponies that mare had killed in that day alone. Normally he would have been able to keep track of all of them since it had originally been his Death Note. But he had never met an entity capable of writing so many names so quickly. Even he would have trouble keeping up if he restricted himself to the use of mortal methods.

The preposterousness of it all almost made him want to laugh. He, the Old Man, reduced to being the mentor and, for the most part, slave to some run-of-the-mill unicorn. All he could do was hope that Ryuk was suffering as much as he was…in fact, he could do more than that. Was he not the original Shinigami, creator of the Death Note’s? If he had to be bound to this world, then should not the other Shinigami be bound likewise?

Even though he hadn’t had to expend any real energy that day, it still took quite an effort to bring the Shinigami down. It wasn’t as though he could just bind the Death Note’s to the world, there were some Shinigami, such as Ryuk, that had no Death Note’s to bind. Those he had to forcibly commit to watching over somepony. By the time he had finished pulling down all the Shinigami to Equestria, he was trembling with the exhaustion that the feat had brought upon him, and he could swear he felt the effort had cost him a couple thousand years of his life, but it was done.

Now it was simply a matter of choosing when to torment Ryuk about it.

Unsaid

Twilight awoke groggily despite having slept soundly that night. She had actually made sure that she wasn’t plagued by the nightmares she had experienced the previous night by focusing on a single object in her mind. It was originally a trick that had been developed approximately 4800 years ago in order to combat illusion magic, but it worked just as well for keeping nightmares at bay. Of course, focusing on it meant she couldn’t really have good dreams, but a dream about the very book she had learnt the trick from wasn’t too bad.

Perhaps she could have given it a read sometime, had it not been one of the unrecoverable books destroyed in Star’s fire. Then again, she could remember most of the book from memory, or at least the parts relating to magic. The book had been published by a mare named Shadowveil, supposedly 23 years before the creation of Equestria, an unusual feat since Shadowveil had been a commoner amongst the unicorns during the time of publication. “Illusion Magic: Real or Reality?” had somehow managed to become a published book despite all the odds, and had been considered quite the controversial book at the time, as it would have given the other races knowledge of how to defend themselves from an entire school of magic.

There must have been fewer less than a hundred copies left worldwide, and now that was one less copy left thanks to Star. It was almost as if that unicorn spent her entire life dedicated to getting on Twilight’s nerves. The thought inevitably leading Twilight to wonder where Star was.

It was almost precisely at that moment that she heard the door burst open downstairs and Star announced joyfully “I’m back.” At which point Twilight wondered if there was anything precious to Star that was flammable.

It was incredibly irritating having to live with that pony, let alone acknowledge her existence. If the Death Note would only work on Star then the damned mare would be dead already, but as it happened, the most annoying obstacle in her way not only had to keep living, but had to keep living with Twilight. It was as if these last few days were a hastily written romance and the two would end up making up at the end after one of them had saved the other’s life or something stupid like that.

Fortunately Twilight had far more important things to do that day than to worry about Star. The day had finally arrived for her friends to meet up at the Spa where they could talk to each other; Spike still hadn’t gotten back yet though, so he would probably be unable to talk to Rarity that week like he had wanted. The last thought had happened only in passing, but it made Twilight stop and wonder why it was that Spike hadn’t gotten back yet. What could be keeping him? Perhaps Celestia or Luna had needed him to help them, but what was there that the princesses would need a young dragon for other than…

…Experimentation?

The word echoed around her mind. It would make sense, with Spike at the palace and Twilight not around they would be able to do anything they wanted to the poor dragon. The real question was whether they would or not.

Would…they?
Twilight was slightly disturbed about the thoughts in her mind. She had been questioning herself a lot lately about the princesses. Her entire mind seemed to be in turmoil over the subject; well, not her entire mind.

Kill…them…

There was at least some part of her mind that had committed itself to the murder of Luna and Celestia. Perhaps it would be so much easier to just have them dead and be done with it. They were partially Shinigami’s after all. They might question her right to rule over death in her world.

Our…perfect…world…

How could her world be perfect with such powerful remnants of the old world still around? How could she rise to her position as goddess unless those two were dead, crushed to nothing underneath her hooves.

Crush…them…

Then there was Star, and the rest of the Shinigami, they would all have to die; every last one of them. But to do that she would need to become stronger, more powerful than any unicorn before her. To create her perfect world, first she would need to be perfect.

Perfect…

The murderous part of her mind echoed the word.

We…will…be…perfect…

“What the hell was that about Old Man?”

The Old Man wasn’t sure he had ever seen Ryuk so annoyed. Generally the Shinigami was attempting to be sly or witty, but Ryuk was just plain pissed off at him now. It made sense really, Ryuk had a habit of having to come down to this world due to him ‘losing’ his Death Note. But this time he didn’t have anypony to mess with until they died.

“I wanted to tell you that you were right. Ponies can indeed by very entertaining.”

“Don’t screw with me Old Man, you dragged me down here, and it isn’t like you to do that for something as simple as revenge. So tell me, what’s your plan?”

If The Old Man had to admire something about Ryuk, it was his ability to understand both Shinigami and mortals. He quickly realized aspects of them, and generally knew what to do in order to get the reaction he wanted. Regardless, this time there was nothing Ryuk could do for things to go his way. That is, there was nothing Ryuk could do but comply with his wishes.

“I believe you asked me what I would do in order to get my own Death Note back Ryuk, Is that not correct?”

“Yes.”

“And then you threw it down to this world, binding me here until either the book was relinquished or its new owner died, and here I found my answer. To get my Death Note back I would drag down, not just you, but all the Shinigami.”

“And how does bringing me and the other Shinigami possibly help you get your Death Note back?”

The Old Man paused. How much of his position did Ryuk need to know? He was for all purposes enslaved to that unicorn, he couldn’t kill the unicorn himself without binding himself to their plane of existence…and if something were to happen to his Death Note while on their plane he would never be able to leave it.

The Old Man let out an aggravated sigh before he responded to the question.

“I’m going to need your help…”

The Old Man had been prepared for a speech mocking him, or at least something insulting. Though he had been able to demand respect back in the Shinigami realm, the fact that he had been brought down to this world was enough to be humiliating. That, and it was Ryuk, perhaps the most mocking and petty Shinigami to ever have existed.

Which was why it came as a surprise to The Old Man when Ryuk said nothing other than, “Why not?”

It was almost enough to throw The Old Man off, almost…

“Okay then, I’ll need you to find somepony, anypony, who might be able to kill this mare. See if you can find any of the other Shinigami, but make sure it’s the pony in possession of their Death Note that does the killing. The pony in possession of my Death Note is currently killing off so many ponies that there is no doubt that killing her directly would no doubt be considered as ‘Extending their life’.

That pony will need to kill her directly though, she has my Death Note, so the others aren’t going to work. So once you find the other Shinigami, tell them I will not let them leave until they have killed the unicorn living in the Ponyville library. If they go back to the Shinigami realm I will pull them back down. They are trapped here with me, unless they kill Twilight Sparkle.”

Twilight Sparkle was at that moment heading towards the Spa. Even if it her friends hadn’t been there she would probably have taken the chance to get away from Star. How could a pony be such a serious threat, yet so pettily annoying at the same time?

Twilight had decided that she would be outside for most of the day, yesterday having prepared for a pony to die from the Death note every ten minutes while she was out. It would serve to further divert suspicion from her if other ponies saw her at the time the killings occurred. It was unlikely that anypony would find out about the Death Note, but if there was anypony else out there who had a Death Note; they would know the true cause of the deaths.

Therefore, she would need to be seen in Ponyville, both old and new. All the while criminals would be dying, paying for their crimes against her world. To that purpose she had requested that Star give her some bits to pay for replacements for the books the unicorn had burnt. Twilight would be able to pay for most of the replacements herself, other than those books that were irreplaceable; but it was Star who had destroyed them and Star who should have to pay for them.

Twilight had been rather surprised when Star had just given her a sack of bits, throwing them quite violently at Twilight with her magic. Twilight had been right to be surprised though, as when she had checked the sack again minutes later there was not a single bit in the entire bag. Star had probably hoped Twilight would purchase something with them first, so as to incriminate Twilight.

Twilight had to set aside her anger against Star as she entered the Spa. It was her problem, and she wouldn’t bring it upon her friends, especially since it might lead her to let slip something about the Death Note. She couldn’t let anypony know about that…not until her perfect world was realized.

As she entered the reception she was greeted by a joyful chorus of “Twilight!!!” and a number of ponies pounced on her, causing her to fall backwards onto the ground. Fluttershy, Rainbowdash, and Pinkie Pie had all seemed to have the same idea of hugging Twilight, which unfortunately left her feeling rather crushed before the three gave her some space.

“Err…Sorry Twilight.” Rainbow Dash said while seemingly trying to forget the fact she had just been so emotional openly.

While Rainbow Dash tried to cover up her embarrassment, Fluttershy was threating over Twilight. “I’m so, so sorry Twilight. It’s just that we haven’t seen each other in so long, and, well, I just couldn’t stop myself. Are you hurt anywhere, is anything broken, are you ok?”

“I’m fine Fluttershy, just surprised.” Twilight assured her timid friend, before turning to Pinkie Pie. “Why in Equestria were you so enthusiastic though Pinkie?”

Pinkie Pie just shrugged and replied with “Felt like it.”

Applejack, which had been leaning against the wall, walked over to Twilight. “Sorry if I wasn’t as affectionate as everypony else Twi’. But I’m just as glad as anypony that you’re back, things haven’t been the same ‘round here without you.”

As Twilight looked upon her friends she noticed that they were all there…except for Rarity.

“Not that I’m not glad to see you girls. But where’s Rarity?”

Fluttershy quickly alleviated her of her fears, “She’s just helping Aloe and Lotus prepare for, they’re the two ponies that work here. None of us knew you were back until Applejack told us.”

Pinkie Pie chose that moment to shout out “I did, but Applejack said it first, and so I figured that you didn’t need me to say that I already knew, since you already knew that she already knew, so if I had said that I knew too, then all that would be new is that you would have known that I knew.”

Applejack stuffed her hoof over Pinkie’s mouth, where the pink pony kept on trying to talk despite her voice being muffled too much to make out any words. “But we’re all glad you’re back sugar cube. But if you don’t mind me asking, where’s Spike off to, he was with you earlier at the farm?”

Before Twilight could respond, Rarity entered the reception room. “Oh Twilight darling, it’s been so long since I’ve seen you. So how where your studies with Celestia?”

Why was everypony so interested in knowing about what had happened to her? She was the one who should have all the questions. Could it be that Celestia had told them to keep track of her? Maybe she had let slip something when she had asked Celestia about her father. Could Celestia suspect her of having the Death Note? Could that be why Spike hadn’t come back to her? Was Celestia even now torturing her assistant for answers?

“They went…well.” What was she supposed to say? That it would have been better if her teacher hadn’t been constantly limiting her potential? Then again, it was much better than having to talk about Spike’s whereabouts. She might accidentally tell them something about the Shinigami if the conversation kept going in that direction.

Fortunately Rarity chose not to push for more information, instead taking a quick look over the group and stating “Looks like everypony is here, shall we proceed ladies?”

The group filed into the Spa room, but Applejack paused before entering, and muttered below her breath. “Just ‘cause Twi’s back don’t mean you have to talk like those fancy ponies.”

“It’s hardly a fault if one likes to enunciate their words clearly.” Rarity stood alone talking to Applejack, the rest of their friends having gone into the Spa.

“Considerin’ who brought those ponies here I think it could be.” Applejack had already had this conversation with Rarity a hundred times over. Though it was debatable as to whether it really had been Rarity’s clothes that had brought all the upper class ponies to Ponyville, it had certainly played a large part in it.

“How many times have I had to say it Applejack? This could all be solved with a simple cash transaction. I could give you the money as a ‘charitable donation’ and you could get your farm back…along with your sister.” Rarity could easily spare the money after all. The inflow of the upper class had caused a massive increase in demand and prices for her outfits. She was arguably the richest pony in Ponyville, even including all of the new ponies that had moved there.

“Don’t you dare mention her like that. My sister ain’t some dress to be bought. She’s family, and I’m gonna prove it. I don’t give a damn what the test’s said, it’s just like you said, a little cash transaction could fix it. Just a bribe and I could have Applebloom, and a bigger bribe and they could get her again. If I’m going to prove that those tests are wrong, I have to do it the honest way.”

“What about keeping the farm going Applejack? I’ve seen the state of it and I know that there’s no way in Tartarus you’re keeping it up just off those apples. Now, I know it isn’t my business to intrude on another ponies private matters. But there’s a certain building for less…’fortunate’ stallions, that I might have heard a particular farmpony performed at.”

Rarity hadn’t been talking particularly loudly, but Applejack still hushed her and whispered violently into her ear.

“Don’t you dare tell anypony about that Rarity. Don’t you DARE!!! I won’t ask how you found out, but just promise me that nopony else hears a word of this. It doesn’t feel right having to do it Rarity, but I have to. I just can’t tell you why…Please Rarity, just forget about trying to help me.”

“What about keeping your secret?”

“Except for that. If I so much as suspect that you’ve told Twi’ or any of the others about it then you’ll be in for it. I don’t care how much money you have or how friendly you are with those fancy ponies, if word of that gets out, you’re a dead mare.”

As Applejack had been talking she had subconsciously been advancing on the unicorn, who had in turn been backed against a wall and even then was having to lean back to avoid contact with the earth pony. Despite her position, Rarity smirked.

“I’ll keep your secret Applejack, but if you can’t find a way out of your problems soon enough then I won’t be the dead mare of the two of us.”

Applejack backed away from Rarity with a scowl, the unicorn promptly turning to follow her friends into the Spa. As the unicorn disappeared from sight, Applejack let the tears well up in her eyes before blinking and dashing them away.

She spoke to herself; her words barely even a whisper.

“What have I become?”