A/N: well, here we are again. I've got my writer's wind back, but I'm still rusty. This is going to be a multichaptered fiction that's mostly concentrated on the dynamic between Ciel and Sebastian, since I find it kind of irritating to have to make a new story every time I make a drabble.

This chapter is based upon The Beginning of Everything (with capitals!) when Ciel is ten years old. Spoilers for chapter 19. The raven is from the anime's first episode. Thanks to my friend Wyvern_elavie for beta'ing. :)

Disclaimer: Kuroshitsuji (Black Butler) doesn't belong to me. I make no monetary gain from this, and this is purely derived from my sick and deranged mind.

I dramatized it a bit. I'm sorry. Enjoy the chapter and please review after doing so. :)

The boy stood, cold, motionless, with his upper torso naked and awash with the color of smeared blood. He had no room for such privileges as mercy or empathy, or enough power to hold decency or pride.

The protests of Let me go! or Why are they doing this? or I want to go home! were lost a long time ago. It was pointless. They had no other use for him other than for their sick entertainment—for even he knew that what they were doing was morbid.

He swayed as the next whiplash fell across his back. A sob escaped him—too weak for pride—and he fell.

HATE...

He struggled to his feet again, maybe to run towards the door or to attack this man, his tormentor—

"Oh, you never tire me, my pet…"

Another whiplash on the leg and he fell again. He couldn't be put in that cage again, not again, not again; so he struggled and limped and crawled like the bug he was—too pathetic for decency—for the door.

"Now, we can't have you do that, now can we?" Raspy chuckling, and then he felt a sear of pain across his hunched back. He cried out, body shuddering with the added wound—stinging ferocious pain immobilizing him, so that he couldn't fight back against the drag of the chains around his feet towards that cage.

The cold tile slid against his body, and as he found the hazy world fogging around him, he sobbed painfully at the bloody trail he left behind.

Bars closed around him, and the door to the cage clicked shut.

Ciel Phantomhive's tears were bloody.

No one is coming for you.

Cruel laughter followed the thought, and he couldn't tell whether it was him or his tormentor.

Ciel had no idea how long it took him to heal, because time and time again, his owner would have a roughhousing with friends and he would be invaded and ridiculed. Weeks, maybe. There was no sense of time inside that windowless room.

However, quiet hours lived inside a cage allowed time for retrospection and his hate to build.

He knew enough that hate was what would get him through this. It was instinct, maybe. The instinct of a child whose parents had been brutally murdered, his home burnt down, and his aides attacked or killed.

It was pathetic.

And upon the realization that these things would not change, he also realized that there was no such thing as God. God would not help him through this, nor would such a deity for him to believe in help him to survive. "God" did not allow these things to happen.

So he cast aside God.

"Tonight, we have a special ritual prepared for you," his master smiled, a tint of insanity in his eyes.

Naturally, he felt that animalistic fear rise in the pit of his abdomen, crawling gruesomely through his stomach and settling there like some scorpion ready to inject his body with paralyzing terror.

Nevertheless, once the door opened, he crawled through it—an obedient pet—tending to the ferocious hate he had fostered through timeless days and nights and existence.

HATE.

The man led him to the large room where he always had spectators gather.

The scorpion pushed against his insides, and Ciel swallowed it down.

HATE.

The man put on a mask, a fake curvature of ornaments and jewels that glittered ominously at him when they entered the room.

A large crowd had gathered—full of his tormentors.

Like a fragile bird caught in the paws of an enthusiastic cat, Ciel was put upon an altar in the middle of glittery inscriptions. Tormentors chattered animatedly, interestedly, and laughed at his obedient and terrified canary-like helplessness.

HATE.

And, also like a bird, he was stripped of his wings first, plucked, and then stabbed straight through.

He screamed. It was a horrible, macabre sound—

DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE KILL...

And eyes opened, somewhere far away.

Oh. Well aren't you a very small master. The voice was low, amused. The room went silent.

He heard his blood drip onto to tile floor. Unseeing, he turned his head towards the voice.

You have summoned me, it remarked. This fact will not change for eternity. What has been sacrificed will never be returned.

—HATE—

Now… Choose.

"Kill them."

He found himself bandaged and in a bed in a room that wasn't familiar at all. Light poured into the room from real windows, and the furnishings resembled an inn.

And yet, the world had been cut in half, somewhere along the line.

You'll get used to it. The voice was familiar.

Ciel looked to the side, and found a raven delicately perched upon a knob of his bed.

Hello.

It was absurd, but Ciel replied, "Hello."

The raven chuckled. It seemed like the voice was in his head. But, that was enough of reveling in the fact that a demon was next to him.

Taking things into account, Ciel wearily assumed that the demon had killed his perpetrators and then took him here to be tended to. He remembered issuing some sort of order to do so, in any case. He doubted the thing would have done so, otherwise.

And suddenly, like one of those whiplashes, full of pain, he realized that he was free—

—If only to realize that he was chained to a demon. He found it bitterly ironic that he became free through becoming captive. Fitting for someone as pathetic as him.

"You will be my butler," Ciel said, voice hoarse and reminiscent of screams. His bones were heavy, and this role was suitable for the demon that would stay by his side in servitude until Ciel died. It was almost comforting, and residual terror faded in the background to be dealt with later.

The reply was instantaneous and amused. Very well.

And in an instant, the raven was no longer there. It took no elongating of bones or any gruesome changelike process—the raven-form was simply replaced by a naked man at the side of his bed, on his knees with distinctly chiseled features and fine black hair.

"Does this visage please you?" Ciel warily looked away. He had no interest in looking at a man's nude body. However, he noticed, the voice had changed—more distinct, more polite and dignified, as a butler should be.

"I have no interest in the visage. Dress yourself in proper clothing."

"Yes, young master." Ciel felt, rather than saw, the polite bow.

Somehow, within the space of a few seconds, the naked man he had undoubtedly seen was dressed in a suit and pants suitable of that of a butler. Nothing as high quality of Tanaka's suits, but that was to be expected.

Closing his eyes, he felt pain at the memory of Tanaka's wounds. It was a dull throb, right in his chest.

So I can still feel.

Ciel opened his eyes and looked at his newfound butler—a demon that would follow his orders like a well-trained dog.

Unbidden, a whimper escaped his mouth. "Sebastian."

The man cocked his head to the side, questioning—so human and reminiscent of his beloved playmate.

"That will be your name. Sebastian." The name felt odd; calling with the same voice, yet being answered by another—a reminder of his shortcomings and powerlessness. He looked up at "Sebastian." "This is an order. You shall never betray me. You shall never leave my side. No matter what." His voice didn't tremble, though he felt like giving out. He would not regret this.

A smirk crept its way up his butler's face. "Yes, my lord."

At that moment, Ciel realized he needed to sleep. Yet, the prospect of being alone again scared him witless, like that scorpion that had made its home within his mind. "Stay beside me as I sleep," he painfully whispered—still too weak for dignity.

"Of course."