Kyuubi sat in its cage, silently waiting.

For centuries, the Kyuubi had been a boogey man to the world. Appearing sporadically throughout history with no rhyme or reason, leaving not but destruction and fire in its wake. Men trembled when hearing its name, entire peoples fell before its presence, and the entirety of humanity were as ants to its eyes, as it should be.

It was the Kyuubi, incarnation of wrath and malice given form. With a flick of one of its mighty tails it could level a mountain or raise a tsunami. It was first among its brethren, it was indomitable and unstoppable, a force of nature like the sun. Yet, for over 80 years it had been repeatedly caged and trapped inside humans, a humiliating and debasing situation for one such as it.

For 80 years it had been chained and brought to heel like some common animal, and its hatred grew.

The Kyuubi, like all Bijuu, is merely a dark reflection of humanity. Each Bijuu represents some faucet of mankind and draws its mighty power from them. The Bijuu were a symptom of humanity's sickness. They are the darkness hidden in each man's heart given life and form, and the Kyuubi governed over man's hatred and rage. The raw power the Kyuubi had at its disposal before its imprisonment was fearsome. Contained in its body was enough energy to vaporize entire lands, its mere presence caused distortions in time and space, which may contribute to its sporadic appearances in history. And, as it waited in its cage, surrounded by darkness, its power grew as its anger did and its anger grew as time went on. The seal on Naruto's body, designed to trap and imprison even the Bijuu, was reaching its limit. More and more of the Kyuubi's power was allowed to leak out, as the seal desperately sought to release some of the pressure less it fracture fatally. Pure, unfiltered yoki flowed through Naruto's chakra channels continuously since his birth. By the time of Naruto's death he was no longer human, but neither was he a demon, he was something singularly new and unique. Not even a hanyou of legend, that rare and cursed creature, outcast of both societies. He was Naruto Uzumaki, and his time had yet to come.

When, suddenly, the darkness in its cage began to spread, and the blackness of death encroached on it, the Kyuubi knew what was coming, and resisted. Roaring its defiance to the gods and its captors, the Kyuubi brought its nigh immeasurable power to bear on the seal, focusing its continuously growing anger on that one small, fragile piece of paper locking it away. And, as the Kyuubi roared, the fabric of the world screamed. Space and time twisted inwards on itself, the raw energy of the Kyuubi in such a small space being far too powerful to resist, and, in one last desperate push, just before the Kyuubi destroyed itself and its cage in a last act of mutually assured destruction, reality fell apart and was torn asunder, and Naruto fell into the space between space. When the sudden influx of yoki repaired and reanimated him, completely and finally changing him on the most fundamental level, Naruto opened his eyes in a world not his own.

XXXXXXXX

Two days. It had been two days since her world had fell apart in her hands, since everyone she had ever known had betrayed her in fear and disgust, since every constant in her life had been ripped from her hands. She had wanted freedom, she had wanted change, and fate, it seemed, cruel as ever, had decided to deliver.

She was cursed, cursed to wander the Earth forever in the body of a child, a monster in the guise of innocence. She knew what she was, the screaming accusations thrown at her at her old home were impossible to ignore: Vampire, Cursed one, Forsaken of God, whispered fears from the east of unholy monsters that feed on the blood of man.

She knew what she was, what she did not know is why. Why had she become this cursed creature? Why was she a vampire? Why did the sunlight burn her pale skin? Why were her eyes a glowing red? Why? Why?

So many unanswered questions, but now was not the time for answers, now was the time for survival.

She had fled from her old home; she held no illusions of what would have happened had she stayed. She was a monster now; she deserved the fate of monsters. Death. She knew that, she knew she should have died, but she couldn't bring herself to accept that. Despite this curse, it was also a chance, a chance to live. She was desperate enough to grab onto that.

So she fled when night fell, when her kind rule.

But as she sprinted with unnatural swiftness across the darkened hills and fields of Ireland, she felt uncertainty. Despite her recent transformation, in mind she was still only a child, a lost and scared little girl, searching for comfort in a cruel uncaring world, trying to make sense of an incomprehensible turn of events. Even though she was a creature of the night, the darkness still terrified her. It was the small sounds that filled the air: the snapping of a branch, the rustling of the leaves, and the movement out of the corner of her eye. Her enhanced senses did not assuage her fears, merely amplified them.

There is a reason man fears to stray outside in the dark. A deep-seated fear that even centuries of domestication and civilization cannot breed out completely.

The reason is simple really; there are things that go bump in the night, despite how much we wish to believe otherwise. There are monsters under our bed, and demons lurking in the woods. They are inhuman creatures, simple beings of never-ending hunger and anger, animals and beasts. They are, however, only a small part of our fear. To be mauled and attacked by animals is one thing, terrifying if experienced, but understood easily: you are the food and they are the predator. Unsettling yes, but mysterious, no.

Animals and lower-level demons are simple, man, however, is not. Mankind is capable of greater cruelties than even demons. It is man who rages war against one another. It is man who rapes and pillages his own kind. It is man who man least understands and most fears. There are monsters that dwell in the forests and hide under our beds, but we need look no farther than our mirrors to discover who they are.

And so, when Evangeline accidently stumbled into a camp of waiting highwaymen across a path between towns at 11:07 P.M., she finally discovered the monsters that go bump in the night.

XXXXXXXX

For a moment, absolute silence reigned between them. On one side of the road, hidden in the shadows of the road was a scraggly bunch of men. There were six in total each one unsavory looking. Their clothes were coarse and dirty, most likely from a hard days travel. Their faces were covered with a few days worth of beard growth and covered in filth. They had what appeared to be several daggers and axes on their person, each one cheaply made and poorly maintained. It was understandable, though a main throughway for the villages; the path was not well traveled, especially at night. Pickings were most likely slim.

On the other side of the road, frozen like a startled deer, stood Evangeline. The two days of travel and terror had not been kind on her. Though her body was now far superior to that of a human's, two days of constant travel, no food, and little sleep did nothing to help her. Her once straight and glorious hair was not matted down and entangled with leaves, dirt, and branches. Her delicate clothing had long since been torn off her, leaving her in her undergarments, which were also in the process of being removed. But it was the eyes that most differed from her past appearance, those two glowing red eyes, the eyes of a monster.

But, just as suddenly as the silence came, it also went.

"Well," came a raspy, somewhat grating voice from a particularly large man, most likely the leader by his posture, "what do we have here gentlemen? A little runaway perhaps, hmm?"

He paused for a moment, taking in her appearance as he slowly walked towards the still frozen girl.

"But what to do? A little girl wandering alone in the woods, who knows what sort of unsavory animals she could run into?"

A chilling chorus of laughs filled the air, as the remaining men chuckled at their leaders attempt at humor.

"As gentlemen," the man continued, now steadily advancing on the girl, a somewhat disturbing gleam entering his eye, "we have to take care of a damsel in distress now don't we?"

Now standing fully in front of Evangeline, he towered over her by nearly two feet. The contrast was rather startling. As the unnamed man slowly reached out, and roughly grasped her thin, frail-looking arm, Evangeline was finally jarred out of her shock.

Now, Evangeline was already unused to physical contact. Before, in her previous life, she had precious little physical interaction with other humans save her attendants, who would never touch her unless necessary, which was infrequent. So, when a strange, dirty man grabbed her arm, combined with her rather thin nerves from two days on the run, her natural inclination was to strike out blindly at him. Generally this wouldn't accomplish much other than annoy or amuse her new captor, but Evangeline was no longer an average 10-year-old noble girl. She was a Shinso, and though newly born, her physical capabilities alone far exceed even the strongest and most well trained of men. Therefore, when her deceptively small fist of her free arm connected with the older man's midriff, a rather interesting reaction occur. It was crushed.

The force behind the blow was so great, that upon contact, the man's entire left side ribcage was shattered, causing small fragments of bone to radiate outwards puncturing his liver, pancreas, small intestine, stomach, lungs, and heart. His body immediately went into shock from the massive damage and pain his nerves were sending to his brain, before being lifted bodily off his feet, flying backwards several yards, and landing in a barely gasping heap. He would be dead within the minute.

Another moment of silence fell on the group, as everyone stared in disbelief at the scene before them.

"Wha . . . WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?" yelled the panicked voice of one the men, as the leader let out a final labored gasp before falling silent for the rest of time.

Evangeline merely looked, almost detachedly, at her innocuous fist. Only a small smear of blood on the knuckles betrayed the act of prodigious strength she had just achieved. Absentmindedly, her mind still mostly in shock at what had just happened, she slowly licked the blood off her fist, a small unconscious smile appearing on her face, as though she had just eaten a particularly delicious meal.

The men followed her actions with a growing sense of apprehension and fear. Evangeline slowly looked up, her eyes glowing a devilish red, before clouding over with hunger. She bared her new fangs at the ones that sought to capture her, before lunging at them, her mouth opened ravenously as two days of fasting caught up with her.

And so, amidst the screams of terror and pain that rose up in the night on a deserted crossroads in the middle of the forest, Evangeline learned she too was now a monster that went bump in the night. It was lesson she never forgot.

XXXXXXXXXX

Stumbling once more into the forests, Evangeline's mind was mostly in shock at the act she had just performed. Six men, she had just killed six men and drained them of their life's blood because she was hungry. And what's more, she had enjoyed it. She had liked the feeling of their hot, tangy blood flowing into her parched mouth, she was amused at how pathetically they struggled to remove her smaller body from them, their frantic efforts growing weaker and less coherent with each second, and she had enjoyed hunting down her prey as they tried to escape from her hunger. It was all so surreal, so . . . inhuman.

The thought hit her harder than any blow she had dealt tonight. Inhuman, vampire, monster.

"Yes, that's right," she murmured to the darkness around her, "I'm not human anymore."

She curled up on the dirt, grabbing hold of her legs and pulling them towards her chest. She was alone again, she realized. Whereas before she was alone in a cold household, now . . . now she was completely and utterly isolated. Before at least she still had parents and other nobles who would occasionally visit, and maids who looked after her and talked to her when she asked something of them. Now she had nothing, and no hope of having anything. She was a monster; she had no place among humans. The act she had performed not 5 minutes before was proof of that. For the first time since her change, Evangeline cried. She was alone, and it broke her heart.

It just so happened however, that at that exact moment, it became 11:32 P.M. on October 10th, 1343, and from then on Evangeline's life would change forever.

When it happened, there was no bright flash of light, or tremendous explosion of sound and power. None of the grass in the area was scorched, and no tree was damaged. There was no falling star or momentous astrological event that marked its passing, merely one moment Evangeline was alone, and the next she was not.

And when the small blood soaked boy gasped for breath, and opened his scarlet eyes, he found an identical pair gazing into his.

And so, Naruto Uzumaki met Evangeline A.K. McDowell for the first time.

A.N. I have no idea how I was able to produce this so quickly. But I will be busy for a week maybe a little longer; so don't expect a repeat performance.