Prologue
Hiruzen Sarutobi gazed down at them, unmoving, unblinking, his face a blank slate.
There was a legion of others behind and around him, some with looks of fear, fascination and loathing, others with looks of sadness. There was a pair of bodies to the right. A young man with golden hair and bright eyes, a look of horror upon his face, his position frozen and his eyes frozen upon the form of the newborn crying on the ground a few feet away, and a long haired red head woman whose face betrayed nothing of how she might have been feeling.
It was perhaps this alone, that convinced the third Hokage that something…had gone terribly wrong.
And the other eight…
Grief and fear and helplessness were the feelings that came back to everyone whenever they gazed upon one of the crying children, at the nine infant forms innocently asking the world for help and comfort with their wails.
Nine…
What a terrible number and yet it only served to solidify any beliefs that the hokage might have been forming upon seeing the first child…
This number which would hold more significance than anything else ever said again within the walls of Konoha. Outsiders would never understand the ordeals they had went through involving that number.
And for the latest victims…it was only going to get worse.
Sarutobi looked down upon the nine children, ignoring the horrified faces of parents or friends or uncles, brothers, cousins, and felt his own bit of loathing and though he knew it was wrong to feel this way…He just couldn't help it.
For you see the kyuubi refused to lose completely, he refused to go down without one final blow to this human village. He refused to go out without having the last word.
And this was the result.
Nine children now lay before him, changed forever, altered beyond human recognition.
But that wasn't even the biggest issue. He still had to figure out what was he was going to do about these children?
He certainly couldn't kill them. It was bad enough already, who knows what would happen if he were to kill them, releasing the Kyuubi's essence back into the air…again in the same night?
Yeah no he certainly wasn't about to risk that.
He supposed he could send them back to their parents, the clans and the councilors who were related to these children would certainly make good homes…if said clans hadn't already rejected them. The Hokage while hurt and angered by some of the…choice words these people had to say about the children as they disowned them, could understand where they were coming from. He was banking on the fact that despair and fear were still fresh and that in time once things had settled down, the children would be accepted.
He utterly crushed any notion of sending them to Danzo. Yes these children, could grow into impossibly effective weapons, unbeatable tools forged by Konoha, shielding them against all threats, but Danzo's methods were…questionable, and he really didn't was to run the risk of that fool gaining soldiers like this.
"They will have to be locked away," he muttered suddenly, his mumble was heard by those closest to him and they widened their eyes in shock. He turned to the people, his resolve hardening by the second.
"These children will grow," he began. "They will become something only seen in fantasy books, uncontrollable and untamable if left alone. We cannot allow that to happen." He paused, actual regret forming on his face. "It will only be until we can be assured of their…controllability," he muttered, more to reassure himself than anything.
"It is the only way…"
He turned away.
The citizens of Konoha followed him.
No one disagreed with his motions, in fact most found the option favorable.
After all…
Hanyous are a perversion of nature that should be scourged from the world in the first place.
These brats should consider themselves lucky…
Sarutobi shook those negative thoughts from his brain and concentrated on something else. Unfortunately the very next images to assault his mind was of little Naruto. Wailing like any other child, crying out in a world already so cruel to him. His bright red eyes were filled with confusion and yearning. Even as his body glimmered and rippled with that…flame like golden chakra.
Fuck.
This just wouldn't do. He couldn't become attached to him. He wouldn't.
Not to any of them.
He turned to the left, eyeballing a seemingly empty space of air.
"You know where to take them," he muttered before he closed his eyes and gave a deep sigh.
"Do it."
"As you wish, Hokage-Sama."
Several blurs moved towards the children and snapped them up into the night, their cries vanishing as fast as they themselves had.
The third Hokage gave one final sigh before his entire demeanor hardened. "It's done," he muttered. "Forget about them… and assure the villagers of the Kyuubi's demise."
Konoha's biggest secret…
Would one day become its undoing.
For as the nine children of some of Konoha's most influential clans were locked away, they themselves were unwittingly embracing a dark destiny.
And for years, the unjust imprisonment…would only fuel it along.
Xxx
The years passed by. Sarutobi completely expunged all sympathy and caring about the hanyous from his mind in favor of running the village hidden in the leaves. The children were cared for in a sense. A completely hooded and masked figure, an ANBU whose job it was to keep the children in control, hidden and alive, would arrive three times during the day, to feed them.
And that was it. There were no words, no kind gestures. There weren't even any negative comments.
There was nothing. And for five years, the children knew…nothing.
Then they began to change.
The children suddenly began to speak, crisp and clear sentences, full of sarcastic malice and anger. They would shock the ANBU every time he or she would arrive by asking questions about things they should not have known.
They began to develop unique and frightening powers, each one more powerful than the last.
Numerous suppression seals, chakra drainers, memory blocks had to be implemented.
All of these were applied, over and over again over the course of eight years to keep the children under wraps…under control.
All but one power was suppressed.
It was the very same power that had allowed the children to begin to learn, to develop mentally on a scale that surpassed a human. They kept it hidden, for it was not a power that is easily spotted. And it was a power that was far too valuable.
Yamanaka Ino became the guiding light for the rest.
Her mental abilities were unique and powerful. Each year she developed a new more devastating ability, but none of them were more valuable than the very first ability she had developed.
She developed the ability to link her mind and the minds of others without the victim knowing she was doing it, siphoning off knowledge of the outside and passing it on to her brothers and sisters.
This is how they learned. This is how they cast off their ignorance.
They learned…so much. They learned everything.
They learned of family that cast them aside, they learned jutsus, and weapons styles and chakra control and politics.
They learned the history of the world, the value of money, the power of the seals that kept them suppressed. They even learned their names.
They learned of the Kyuubi, and what they were and why they were born in such an unfair existence.
And they learned of the one responsible.
But most of all, perhaps the most dangerous of all of the things they learned, was the belief that they only had each other. They learned to hate. They learned to yearn for vengeance. They learned to trust none of humanity.
They learned to yearn for their freedom.
And they would get it.
Even if they had to wait 100 years, they would get their freedom.
And they would immediately wreak havoc on the ones who dared to do this to them.
Yes, the nine children waited patiently deep underground, enveloped in shadows, away from the light of day their whole lives, for the day Konoha would do something foolish enough to weaken even one seal on any of their cells.
And they didn't mind.
They were half demons.
They had all the time…in the world.
Xxxxxxxxxxxxx
AN: How was that? A bit shorter than im used to writing but meh.
Tell me what ya thought