Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Author's note: This is my first story, so be nice! I don't think this story is all that great, but whatever, I needed to get this idea out of my system!

This story is sort of AU, so be patient. Also, the main characters of Naruto have yet to appear. Some of them come in chapter 2, although I mention Kurenai in chapter one.

Don't expect updates to come everyday. This is a hard story to write.

Ocean Eyes

In an age so long ago that it has faded from the memories of nearly all, the world was nearly perfect. Humans, beasts, and gods lived in peace, sharing the land and its benefits. Humans at this time were a proud race, but they were also wise. They knew of the power of the gods, and did nothing to anger them for fear that they might face their wrath. They were numerous in number, and soon spread all across the land. The beasts were also proud, but they were wiser the humans and kept their numbers low so they would not have to move. Some followed the humans, happy to co-exist with them. Others kept their distance, fearing that one day they would grow too bold. The gods were the fewest in number, but also the wisest. They also spread out, to teach the humans and the beasts the ways of nature, and to lend them their talents. For many centuries, there was peace.

Yet the hearts of men are easily turned from the path of good. As they grew and spread, they began to think thoughts that were treacherous to the gods. They had mastered the land, and even the beasts. The gods had also spread out far and wide, but they were so few in number. Eventually, their thoughts turned to anger, especially to the gods that taught them. They were not helpless children! Why did they need to be taught? They were the masters, not the gods!

Eventually, a man rallied all of the angry people. They chose to rise against the gods, especially the powerful ones who taught them. Their target was their teacher, the great tiger demon, who had taught them many things in the past. He was the wisest and most powerful of all the gods, being a sacred one. The humans caught him as he was giving a lesson to the children of the village. Because he was in the human world, he had been greatly weakened, and against the constant assault of so many humans he didn't stand a chance. He fought them right up until his very last breath, swearing that one day he would have his revenge, and the humans would be sorely sorry that they had ever done this. With that, the great cat died.

Having defeated the greatest of the gods, the men celebrated their victory over all things, and swore to make the world theirs. They spread out, recruiting others to their cause and declaring war upon the gods. The gods tried to fight back, but just like the Tiger god they had been severely weakened by the transition to the human world. They joined forces with some of the beasts who had chosen to stay away from the humans, as well as some who had stayed with them. The great wars lasted for 100,000 years, with the gods and their allies fighting bravely but loosing all the while. Each time one of them died, the group would make sure they died in the most painful way possible, beast and god alike. Eventually, the last of them was killed, and the humans rejoiced at the end of the wars. The remaining beasts either submitted to their will, or simply got out of their way. The few remaining gods never again came to their world.

But in the realm of the gods, hatred pain and sorrow were brewing. The angry souls of the gods and beasts who had died were growing stronger, wanting their revenge. The soul of the tiger demon was the angriest, wanting revenge upon his comrades. He grew in power with the horrid thoughts of the dead, and became the great demon whose only purpose was the destruction of man. His realm was a dead one, with nothing but fire and stone statues of his enemies all around. He had at last come to a point where he could take the revenge he so dearly wanted.

He gathered the angry thoughts and created nine others, nine that would be his closest companions and share his power. They became the great tailed demons of the world, each with the same hate and rage for humans. He knew that he would have to create creatures that would be numerous in number to counter the humans, so he created a special group of humans. No, they were not truly human. He gave them the special gift of being able to see life patterns and the energy that governed it. They could manipulate it, controlling life and being able to take it away and give it easily, as well as using it as a weapon. He could not create many of them, and because of this he gave them the angry souls the beasts who had been killed, who served them as summons. The beasts were only too happy to obey them, because they were the spawn of the demon that was going to get revenge. All of his creation took 100 years.

He sent his "humans" to the human world to fight, along with the tailed demons. Once they were there, they summoned him, using one of his daughters to become a portal between the demon realm and the human one. He wreaked havoc upon the world, and destroyed the land, making it his. Where he had been summoned became very much like the demon realm, bare and in flames. The humans were helpless against his children, and their summons. The tailed demons were even more destructive, and the Tiger lord was the ultimate evil. With one glance, he could sear the flesh away from his enemies, and turn the land into a barren wasteland. And that was only using a fraction of his power.

Wanting to be rid of the demons, the humans gathered and sought the help of many sages and priests. They came up with a plan to seal the demon away, knowing that the only way to make all of them go away was to defeat him. They knew they could not kill him, but they did know that they could at least make it so that he would never be able to enter the human world again.

The final battle was staged at the place where the Tiger demon had been summoned in the first place. All of the humans had joined forces, even the warring nations. The Tiger demon had brought his army, which despite careful planning was diminished. There was a desperate battle, as the demons fought not to be sealed by the millions of priests and sages. The tailed demons made a barrier around their creator, but eventually it failed. The priests surrounded the great Tiger demon, and barely managed to seal him into a fiery prison that was meant to contain the greatest of evils. Here he was alone, with no company and no way to get out. He would be able to see all that went on, but never be able to leave, and the flames from hell would cause him great pain every day.

Because the sealing had taken so much out of them, almost all of the sages and priests died. Only five were left alive, and just barely. They still had to take care of the children of the demon.

They sealed their powers inside of the people, making it so that they could never simply remove the life energy or give it. They didn't have enough power to completely take away their power, but what they did was enough. Because they had part of the life and death powers sealed inside of them, they would eventually turn on the people, killing them all. The priests set it for 100,000 years from then. They sealed the summons away, so they could only enter the world if called upon by their summoner. They could do no more, and they died of exhaustion, leaving the tailed beasts intact in the world.

Inside his fiery prison, the Tiger demon raged and fought his seal. But no matter how hard he tried, he could only reach his paw out. That was not enough to enter the world. But still, he sat and planned his return to power by using his created humans with whom he could still contact by mind…

All was quiet throughout most of the Hidden Waterfall village. It was midnight, and almost everyone and everything had settled down for the night. Even on such an unusually clear night, no one wanted to look at the stars so late at night.

Only one part of the village seemed wide awake. In a remote part of the village, across a bridge, there was what looked like a small town, except it had a symbol at the entrance, which signified that it was a clan compound. It was very pretty, with the starlight shining on the streams and koi ponds scattered all about. It gave the place a calm feeling. But the beings running about seemed anything but calm. Adults all wearing frantic expressions on their faces were running about, barking orders in a language not used in the rest of the village. Children huddled in the shadows and behind partially closed doors, clearly trying to keep out of the way. People who were standing about were talking to each other in low urgent voices, glancing around as if they were afraid of being caught.

After a few minutes, two people came running, pushing people aside and yelling at them to get out of the way. A small group of people came up the road, all of them old men and women. Some of them looked to be priests and priestesses, and others simply looked like leaders. They walked down the road at a surprisingly quick pace, heading towards a building near the center of the complex. As soon as they entered, everyone else crowded into the building after them.

Inside, there was a small gathering of people talking together. As soon as they saw the elderly people entering, they immediately split up and bowed to them as they passed. With a nod of acknowledgement, the elders passed the doctors and nurses and entered the main hallway, taking the stairs up to the second floor, which was marked "Maternity Ward".

In this hall, there was once again a small gathering of people around a door. They moved aside the second they saw the elders come up. The elders whisked straight into the room.

Inside was a fairly normal hospital room. On a bed in the middle of the room lay a woman with long dark brown hair and strange hazel eyes that had slight yellow streaks in them. She looked exhausted and close to falling into sleep, but her eyes were wide and she had a look of both shock and fear in them. In her arms she held a small bundle of blankets.

The doctors around her looked the same as she did: tired, shocked, and fearful. Unlike everyone else, they were not talking at all. There was one other man in the room that was not a doctor. He was standing next to the woman on the bed, and had lighter brown hair with steely gray eyes. He too looked concerned.

Where is she?" asked the elder who had entered the room first. He was very old with white hair and one blind eye, and he walked with a limp.

The woman looked down at the bundle in her arms and then turned it slightly so everyone in the room could see what was wrapped in it.

Unsurprisingly, it was a baby. It looked newborn, seeing as its eyes were closed, and the skin was still wrinkled from the birth. It had fuzzy black hair. Yet there was something about it that didn't seem totally normal. Normally a newborn infant would have red or purple skin that was slowly becoming pink or peachy in color. Yet this one had pale skin, so pale that it was almost transparent. The infant appeared to be asleep, as it was perfectly still and was breathing deep even breaths.

"Give her here," said the elder sitting on a chair so he could stretch out his arms without being in danger of falling over. The mother handed over her child without a word. The elder held the baby with care, inspecting it. After a moment, he looked up with a sigh.

"She appears to still be in the transition period," he said.

"When will she wake up?" asked the man by the bed.

"Who knows?" replied the elder. "According to records the last one took two hours to come out of it, and the one before that took two months and two weeks. It's completely up to her father how long he wants to keep her. Which brings up another topic." He looked at the mother. "Did you know this was going to happen?"

"No," she said in a tired voice. "I was trying to have another child anyway, so there was nothing suspicious when I was pregnant."

"Didn't he try to contact you in any way?" pressed the elder.

"Looking back, maybe he did," she said in a tired voice. "I vaguely remember a dream where there was nothing but blackness, and then there was a red gem or something in the middle. I couldn't remember it until now. Do you think that he erased my memories?"

"It's possible," said one of the other elders, an old woman with miraculously dark hair. "He's done that in the past. After all, we were created by him, and even though he's sealed away he does have some control over us."

"Well, he's not as sealed as he was now," said the elder who was holding the baby. He looked down at her, a trace of sadness in his eyes. "This child has nothing except pain, sadness, anger, and death ahead of her. Her father most definitely won't make her life any easier."

"Assuming she lives long enough to experience those things," muttered one of the elders in the back. A couple of the doctors and elders nodded slightly in agreement.

The elder who had been holding the baby gave her back. The mother took it without saying a word, only looking down at her child with an unreadable expression. The man by the bed also looked down at the child, with an almost sorrowful look.

"Takao-san, Setsuko-san," said the elder. The two jerked as if being awakened from a deep sleep, and slowly looked at the old man. "As tradition indicates, you two must raise this child as if she were your own. I know this will be hard as this is both a sacred and an accursed being. But you have no choice, as you well know from what happened in the past when we did not do this. Do you understand?"

Setsuko looked at the baby and nodded slightly. Takao took longer to respond, but eventually he said, "We understand, Ichiro-sama. Even though this child is not ours, we will treat her like our own."

Ichiro stood with some difficulty, and began to walk to the door. Then he paused as if he had remembered something, and turned back again.

"I will be back tomorrow to seal her, make the contract with the summons, and to give her the necklace. In the meantime, you two should name her." With that, he hobbled out of the room. The rest of the doctors and elders filed out after him. One of them stopped and said, "Don't forget, the name has to have something to do with red," and walked out.

The couple was left in silence, neither of them making eye contact. Eventually, Setsuko asked, "What should we name her?"

"I don't know, now that all the names we were going to use are useless now," said Takao. He slowly made his way to the chair that Ichiro had left and sat down, clearly thinking hard. Setsuko watched him, clearly not wanting to have to think about a name in her tired state.

"Kurenai?" Takao eventually asked.

Setsuko shook her head. "No, I have a friend named Kurenai from Konohagakure. I don't think she would want me to give anyone her name."

"Why not?" asked her husband.

She shrugged. "I don't know."

He sighed, and placed his head on his hands, thinking. "How about Akane?" he asked after a pause.

"Akane…" Setsuko said, tilting her head slightly as the sound of the name rolled off her tongue. After a few seconds, she smiled and nodded. "Yes, that's a nice name. How do you like that, little one?" The baby made no response.

Takao took the baby from his wife's arms and placed her in the basinet that was next to him. He then walked over to Setsuko and planted a kiss on her forehead. "I need to go home now and break the news to Keiko," he said. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"All right," she replied, and watched him walk out the door. After a moment, she turned her yellow-streaked eyes to the basinet and the sleeping child. The baby was totally still, save for the deep even breaths that made her little chest rise and fall.

"Welcome to this harsh world, Akane," Setsuko said, and closed her eyes, finally falling into sleep.

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