Title: Beasts of Burdens

Author: Bleeding Star Goddess

Chapter: 0/?
Pairing: Sasuke/Naruto, Kyuubi/Naruto
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by Masashi Kishimoto. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Warnings: This story shall take place in an Alternate Universe and will completely disregard the timeline of the actual series, if any events relating in this story relate to eventual spoilers in the actual series, it is not intended. Similarly, this story will contain child abuse, CANNIBALISM, gore, and eventual strong sexual relationships of the homosexual nature. You have been warned.

Summary: The story, this time is different, the world is not what is known. Abandoned and left to die as a child, Konohagakure was never affected by Uzamaki Naruto, nor he them. But Uchiha Sasuke - the Great Traitor - has stumbled upon the Monster of the Forest, what is assumed the tortured spirit of the dead Kyuubi Vessel. And what he finds is certainly no spirit, but demon? Most definitely.

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Chapter 00: The Greatest Betrayal

The air was thick with the scent of blood and sacrifices. The child, so young, so innocent, sobbed as he knew what was occurring around him with that strange intelligence all children, even newborns, possessed.

He was meant to be a hero, he having made the greatest sacrifice of all, even when he still had a life to live. But oh, such a life it would be, no one could have foreseen the misery and woe the babe would know, would live, not even the great Oracles of old.

Within him was a core of evil, one that ignorant man always tried to grasp to understand and even control. Within the babe was evil that was old, timeless, and wise. A demon, the child had been cursed to be its vessel, its cage, its mortal prison.

The night was thick with blood and sacrifices. Blood spilt by the demon's powers, sacrifices made by those dying to protect their home, their family, and all things held dear. From Earth these men and women - these sacrifices - were made, to Earth they returned. But for all their sacrifices, none equaled that of the babe.

For can it compare? Can a well lived life that ended too soon compare to a life that would go on and know only hell both within and out?

A scream of the child filled the room and as the deal was done, the demon captured, slowly, the seal of the child's sacrifice became known upon his torso.

Lo, here is sealed the demon, and here lay its cage.

But man, man is as ignorant as he is cruel, a sad fact those who wish to see the good of everyone forget so readily, so willingly.

No one could have known, no one could have suspected.

It was law, no one speak to the young of the demon within the babe; it was law, no one harm the child. But man, man is a vengeful beast. Too many lost, too many pains, and sacrifices, too many shed tears. It was all too much too soon for man, a beast who can only accept one great change at a time.

The child, the boy, the great sacrifice, was stolen in the night by the very highest guards meant to protect him. And his guards, the elite creatures of the night, left the babe to die in the forest, their own pain too fresh, too unreal.

These men and women cannot be blamed for their mislaid hate. They are but mortals, they cannot understand, they are but short-sighted most of the time, and blind when hate and rage fills them. When they stole the child in the night, grateful for the emotionless masks they wore as the glided through the realm of shadows to cover their pain and misery and hatred, they did not truly see the babe. How could they? They saw only the demon, the cause of their loss. That it was a new body, a smaller one, one who could not and would never hurt them did not matter.

Perhaps it was a stroke of kindness, or of the utmost cruelty, that they did not kill the boy outright. No blade through his heart, no quick death. No, it was their humanity, whether kind or cruel, that they decided to leave the babe in the woods. Let a starving creature eat the boy; let him die of starvation, of sickness, or of the unyielding will of nature. But not by their own hand; even then, all agreed, blinded by hate and rage and pain and sacrifice. Those that stole him in the night agreed… no more blood this day.

And they left him there to die, the child that made the greatest sacrifice of all. And none could, nor would find him, not even the leader of these men.

But all creatures, mortal or god, wish to survive, wish to live.

The babe was not ignorant in his own way. When food and water never came with his cries, when warmth never surrounded him for his wails, he knew. He knew he would die with the cold realization a man at his execution is filled with. This would be his end, he who was so young, who knew so little of the cruel world, he would die in the darkness of this forest unless…

No, no he couldn't could he? Even as a babe he knew, he knew! But survival is a creature's greatest wish when he has nothing.

To survive the screaming babe had to undo all that had been done.

It would be men's folly, men's ignorance, and cruelty, and blindness that caused what happened next.

The crying boy, the great sacrifice, wished to live and so he broke the seal, and released the core of evil.

Within his scared innocent mind, mortal met eternity, innocence met evil. Blue eyes of a child met the harsh red flames of hell.

"We will survive," the demon soothed, wrapping around what was once his cage and was now his sanctuary. "I will not let us die…"

And soon, the child's wailing softened as warmth surrounded him, calmed the aches of his small body.

"You will want for nothing," the demon chuckled, wrapping itself in its entirety around his haven both without and within.

It is the cruelty of man and his ignorance to make quick decisions in pain and fear and sorrow and too much loss and too much blood.

Alone in the forest child and monster met and combined and merged and melded.

The air, so thick with blood and sacrifices now filled with a new, harsher scent… betrayal and a promise of survival.

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