Prologue: Beginnings
"Kaa-san!" Bright blue eyes laughed, little feet bouncing in excitement. "Hind an' Seek!"
The mother turned, her rough kimono brushing her calves. Her hands were full of newly washed linen. "Not now Jyuu. Kaa-san is busy."
Little eyes dampened with tears. "Pleeease? Pretty please?"
She frowned at the cloth in her hands, considering- then dropped them back into the basket from whence they came. Smiled at her son. His whoop of happiness echoed through the forest. "You're it!"
The woman grinned, watching her little boy rush to get a head start. Ever since her husband had left for a bigger town to look for work, he had lost a little of his infectious smile and uncontainable excitement. It was good to see him with so much energy again. She began to follow, easily keeping an eye on the bright yellow of his shirt as he scouted for a good hiding place. It was almost between one instant and the next- the very middle of a blink- when he vanished.
"Jyuu?"
She leapt, unthinking, after him, and crashed into a glade where she found him unharmed, gazing in awe. "Mama, look! Pretty foxie!"
She whirled, ready to shoo off the creature- and froze.
The demon fox- for how could any animal that size be otherwise? - rose high above, the tip of its nose a handsbreadth higher than her head. A part of her mind was shrieking in alarm, yet she found herself transfixed. Its pelt was a swirl of azure- the sea as it stretched endless to the horizon, the infinity of the night sky, the swirl of blue on a painters palatte, the smooth reflection of lake water- all dusted with the sheen of the moon, the glitter of stars. Her gasp seemed to swallow all the air in the clearing, stirring the grass and drifting the fur of the great creature towards her, swirling it to reflect the unimaginable depths of the soul.
It was then that her body kicked in with a vengeance, and her shriek rebounded off the trees. She grasped her skirt with one hand, her son with the other- and froze again.
It was awake.
The eye was huge; easily half the length of her entire body, but that was not what held her rooted to the ground. She was looking into the eye of a God. Grays and blues and impossible purples swirled around the pit black pupil, drawing her in like a sea current, sweeping her out farther and farther- then the portal closed, and she was free.
She hauled Jyuu up over her shoulder and took off running, not looking back for fear of becoming trapped again. She didn't stop until she was in the village, didn't pause until she had told the headman, didn't rest until they reassured her a message had been sent to the leader of Leaf Country- the Yondaime Hokage.
Not all things are as they seem- take, for example, the attack on Konoha by a fabled beast, the Kyuubi. Save a precious few, all will tell you that it was a senseless assault by an evil animal, bent on the destruction of everything in this world. Few would ever see the Hokage's records, in which a report was filed a week before the incident that a frightening apparition in the shape of a fox had been seen. Nor would anyone notice that an advance team of the Hokage- called only for the most important missions, Jiraya- the master seal expert, and Hyuuga Hiashi- clan head and most adept at all things to do with chakra, had been sent out just two days before 'the slaughter of Konoha'. Even less would connect it to the birth of Hyuuga Hinata that very same day. Why should they? An Heiress and a demon could never meet. A day and a half later, the Kyuubi came, whipping fire with its nine burning tails, roaring incoherent demands. Perhaps disaster could have been avoided had anyone been able to communicate with the furious beast, but it was hopeless. Not a person among the Konoha village, shinobi or otherwise, could understand the language of a fox.