Soft light was the last thing I saw.
My new surroundings were dark.
For the first time in history, the mortals had sealed me away into one of their own, ared-haired woman.
No sooner had I been sealed than when my jailer appeared before me.
I lunged forward, my claws out, ready to impale the insignificance.
I growled deeply as one of my claws painfully hit something with a loud clang. The mortal didn't even flinch, instead firmly staring at me, her eyes narrowing slightly when I tried to build up some of my chakra.
"If you use your power, only hatred will come from it," she said. "Stay tranquil deep inside me."
That was the first and last thing she ever said to me.
They were already fully grown by human standards by the time I had been sealed within them, married to the other human, who had defeated me in battle.
His words echoed through the dark area I was confined into.
"Regrettably, I cannot let you run loose," he had said.
What did he know of regret?
What did he know of anything?
He was young. He had not felt the pain of thousands of years.
Had he stopped to think of what he was doing?
No human ever did, they just lusted for power and they wished to control everything.
First, it was that man, with the blood red eyes and the sinister chakra. He seemed almost familiar, like an old acquaintance, but so had the human who wrestled me out of the red eyes man's control.
Time continued on, his words forever burning in my mind.
I spent years looking for an escape: any flaw in the seal that held me; any sudden shift in the human's mortal essence that allowed a burst of my own energy, tearing away at the seams of their being.
I never found any.
I never stopped looking and I found myself often with nothing to do.
There wasn't much else to see, so I watched my jailer's life unfold before me.
Humans were easy to read, their emotions glared through their features, much like other creatures.
Humans seemed to have be mostly oblivious of the glaring emotions that were present in their lives, unaware of the feelings expressed by others of their own kind, though they seemed to have an innate sense of the emotions of smaller creatures than themselves.
Anything bigger than them that had sentience was dealt with quickly.
Larger mammals were popular 'rugs': strange feet warmers that were made from the animals' furred skins.
Many things bothered me in the way humans lived their lives.
I considered myself to have been polite to my jailer, far more so than they had been to me, I'd be gracious and look away or do something else in more private moments, but I don't know why I ever bothered; the mortal would never know anyway.
Years passed aimlessly, I eventually gave up even on following this human's life.
The echo of my jailer's voice rang out through the darkness, followed by a wave of contained joy that never reached me.
"I'm pregnant!"
I had heard the term before, used by humans to describe when they were with child.
My attention was caught by this faint sound.
While a female bore children, their bodies use a large amount of their chakra energy to help develop the offspring.
This may be my chance to escape.
It was ten months before my jailer went began labour.
I tried my hardest, I pushed beyond my preset limits in the seal, I sent unreal amounts of my natural energy into the seal, but my attempts were futile.
The seal held and darkness engulfed me once more.
"We came here to be the vessels of the Nine-Tails," I heard my vessel say. "But before that, we must find love and fill the vessel with it."
My jailer was old for a human, long living being a trait that was apparently passed through their family's blood.
They were comforting a red-haired child that looked strikingly similar to my captor.
It became apparent that there were plans to seal me away in this new human – a very young one.
They seemed scared to become my vessel, but I really could not care much less.
Humans were weak.
They were soft and easily crushed.
Their emotions were like chakra: easily manipulated by those with any idea of what they were actually doing.
I paid no attention when they sealed me into my next 'host'.
I had minuscule chances of escape, all of which were dashed away when my jailer used golden chains molded from their own chakra to steady an already unbreajable seal.
The chains held me firmer than her gaze and I wondered how a human so near death could still wield such power.
My new vessel wasn't much different than the other.
They were definitely less mature, still developing, making and breaking bonds, and enjoying life.
I almost felt pity for them – becoming the host of a demon was bound to have negative repercussions in such a biased species – but they were still grown by human standards, so I held them in the same regard as other mortals. They could look after themselves.
Once more, my jailer came before me.
She spoke different words than her relative, but in the end, she said the same thing: stay put.
"..but I'm here to watch you."
That was all that I caught of what my new jailer said.
I ignored them.
They left.
I looked around.
This place was so similar to the space the previous woman kept me in. It was dark, shadowed with leafy green tones. I saw the metallic bars that held me within the uncomfortable cell.
It felt so cramped.
The seal keeping me in this human's body was quite obviously somehow better than the last.
I faced away from the open space beyond the cage, looking down at my claws.
My whole body slumped over and I took away to a nap, wanting to forget all the hatred in my heart.
"Kyūbi no Kitsune."
Nine-Tailed Fox.
A fitting title, since that was what I was, but it irked me slightly.
I didn't turn around, instead I sat up glaring at wall.
My jailer seated themself limply a few yards away from my cage, just out of reach of where my claws could reach from behind the bars.
I deepened my voice, my fur bristled, my eyes began to glow a dark red hue.
"Have you come to free me, or are you just as narrow sighted as the previous brats?" I asked.
She seemed taken aback, I can't see why.
She cleared her throat and I turned only my head to face her. She didn't show her fear, but her poker face was useless. The terror she felt was commendably low for a human facing someone as large as myself, though the emotion still rippled across the area in full force.
Something about this place seemed similar to my old 'host', though I do wish there was more light, at least then I might actually have something to do while I spent years in solitude in a cage too small for me.
"No," she said. I raised an eyebrow, No? That's it? Not even a full answer, pathetic.
"No, I can't set you free, but..." my jailer trailed off. At least she's actually answering me now.
"I just came here to talk," she said, lips in a firm line, eyes narrowed.
Once again, parallels between her and my old jailer drew closer. My old 'host' had this same hair, vibrant, akin to my own dark fur's shades.
She started rambling; it was something I'd gathered was a common trait in her lineage. I didn't understand half of what she was talking about – I'm still unsure what a peh-deh-cure is – and the other half, I simply tuned out.
"Neither of us have any sort of luck, do we?" she said, catching my attention. "You keep the world at bay...but I keep you at bay." I guess she right, in a way.
The only reason I was sealed into this worthless human was because I was powerful; these mortals needed a weapon, so they targeted unthreatened beings.
My siblings, if you could even call them that, had been sealed away as well, by the same man who defeated me. We were just power, simple tools of mass destruction, to these humans. Their lives were short, they strived for attention, they yearned love yet they were never satisfied.
It was soon after those insightful words that she left and I was left to curl up alone once more.
"I'm pregnant!"
The same echo I'd heard decades ago exploded through the chamber.
I, of course, already knew about the new life growing in my vessel. What type of prisoner would I be if I didn't know what was going on in my 'gracious' host's body?
I heard the exchange my vessel shared with her partner. Her verbal tic was almost contagious and her partner was in unwarranted disbelief, repeating the phrase, 'and I'm going to be a father' softly every time she would exclaim, 'I'm going to be a mother, ya know!'
It was strangely heart-warming, in the way that a person is hot when standing half in a bonfire.
I could feel the life as they grew within my host and there was something strange happening.
I should be right in thinking that human offspring had gendered organs, but there was distortion happening in those defining areas of the kit's body.
It seemed that the life wasn't developing right.
The 'doctors' that checked up on my host didn't notice the strange changes, but then again, humans aren't as smart as they lead themselves to believe. I knew this life was different, not just by the distortions of their construction, but with their chakra, their vital essence.
They were two people in one lifeform, and I feared that I was becoming one of them.