Don't own anything you recognize.
Pairings later…much later.
Chapter One: The Demon Makes a Decision
The say had started out well for little Uzumaki Naruto, resident of Konohagakure no Sato no Hi no Kuni. The now eight year old child had been visited by the Hokage, as he always was on his birthday, and had then barricaded himself into his tiny apartment, then into his apartment closet under camouflage cloth. He could hear the sounds of the merry-makers as they enjoyed the festival commemorating the defeat of the dread demon Kyuubi eight years prior. See, everyone in the village hated Naruto with a passion, though he only thought it was because he was born on the day of the Kyuubi's attack, and in a way he was correct. However, the complete truth of the matter was an S-ranked secret of Konoha, the penalty for discussing it or letting one of the uninitiated in on the secret was death. So every year Naruto huddled in his tiny closet (he had done so even at the orphanage before they had kicked him out three years before) and listen to the families enjoying themselves in merriment and cringe at the pounding on his door; at the drunken yelling, calling for the 'demon' to come out and play. This year however there were no ANBU watching him as there had been when he was in the orphanage; the council had taken them off duty claiming that the Hokage had requested it, since Naruto now had his own home. Also, because he was no longer on the street, there was little chance of the nins loyal to the Hokage coming across him. To make matters even worse, the villagers pounding away drunkenly at his door were not civilians, they were low-level nins, genin and chuunin, and the small boy knew in his heart that there was nothing that he could do to stop them from hurting, and perhaps killing him this time. When they finally did break through the door and into his apartment, then into his closet to haul him out by his throat all he wanted was to join his parents, whom the Old Man had told him died during the Kyuubi attack.
BREAK
Within the seal, caged behind golden bars in the sewer that made up the child's dismal landscape was the greatest demon to walk the Earth: the Kyuubi no Kitsune. The giant fox had never really had a beef with humans; never really even noticed them, to be honest. His 'attack' on Konoha had been a misunderstanding involving his heat cycle and an annoyance and…was really too embarrassing for the fox to think about any longer, so he struck it from his mind and began to pay closer attention to his vessel.
The kit was being beaten. Again.
This seemed to be a regular occurrence and the mighty demon was to the point of exasperation with the people of this village. To think that the tiny kit was actually him…it was ludicrous! Didn't these people have any faith in the Shinigami? There was no way that the God of Death himself would botch a seal such as the one that sealed the Kyuubi's cage. That the kit still had the willpower left in him to maintain the seal, despite the cruelty of the humans around him, frankly astonished the demon and made him strangely proud of his kit.
His kit, yes; that is what Naruto was now. The Kyuubi's kit.
Kyuubi would be damned to the deepest reaches of hell before he let his kit be hurt by these cretins anymore.
The giant fox began to gather his chakra around him, his voice starting low and gaining volume as he chanted in a language long since dead. The ritual he intoned, to take the child back, to a place that was desolate and dangerous, but a time where he vaguely remembered meeting a young woman and her child.
A child with vibrant blue eyes, unbelievably sunny hair and a small three tailed fox on his shoulder.