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Disclaimer: Sasuke, Orochimaru, Kabuto or any of the other origonal Naruto characters, nor do I own the Naruto plot.

Claimer: I do own Tsukiyo, Keiji, the Forest Ruler, Daichi, and anything having to do with them.

Sasuke was jerked awake once again when the door to his cage clanged open. Glancing up, he saw Kabuto gazing down at him with a gloating expression on his face. "Hello Sasuke, you ready to go?" He picked up Sasuke's leash and gave it a rough jerk that left a substantial burn mark on Sasuke's neck. Sasuke climbed wearily to his feet. He swayed dizzily for a moment before shaking his head to clear it and following Kabuto out of the room.

Kabuto led him down the stairs and into a dark, gymnasium-like room where Sasuke had often trained with Orochimaru in the past. But Orochimaru was not here at the moment and Sasuke wondered why Kabuto was taking him here of all places. Sasuke shot Kabuto a confused look. Kabuto smirked. "I bet you're wondering what we're doing here, no?" Sasuke's eyes narrowed; he did not like the look in Kabuto's eyes. Though it was a look he had seen in his own eyes many times before. The look of someone who wants revenge!

Suddenly, a chuckle rang out from behind Sasuke; it sent shivers up and down the boy's spine. He spun around. "Who's there?"

Out of the shadows stepped several, dark, hooded figures. What's going on? Sasuke wondered. He looked over at Kabuto. The white haired boy's smirk had turned into a malicious grin. Sasuke turned back to the advancing figures.

The one in the lead threw back his hood, allowing Sasuke to see his face. "Keiji?" Sasuke breathed. "What are you doing?" Keiji was a sound nin and one of Kabuto's partners. Sasuke had been at odds with him several times in the past and, because he was Orochimaru's favorite, Sasuke had always won. This had caused an even greater tension between the two boys and Keiji had long harbored a bitter resentment and even hatred of the onyx-eyed Uchiha.

"Yo Sasuke Sama." Keiji sneered. "Oh, that's right, you're no longer a big shot are you? No, you're a slave to the new girl now aren't ya?" He smirked. "Well, I guess that makes me the master now eh? Funny isn't it how things flip around so that he who was once the master, now becomes the slave?"

There was a chuckle from the group. One by one they removed their hoods and Sasuke saw that they were all friends of Keiji and boys whom he had once been in charge of. They moved forward to surround him.

Sasuke grit his teeth. "What do you want Keiji?"

Keiji's smirk grew. "What do I want? Well, first of all, I want you to address me as Keiji Sama."

Sasuke emitted a low-throated growl. "In your dreams!" He snarled.

Keiji grinned and exchanged glances with Kabuto. "You know, I was kinda hoping you would refuse."

Sasuke shot him a wary look. "What do you mean?"

"Well…" Keiji took a menacing step towards Sasuke. "Because you refused me, it gives me a reason to punish you for being rebellious."

"Wha-" Sasuke's eyes widened as Keiji grabbed the collar of his shirt and slammed him hard against stonewall, pinning him there. "I'm gonna beat the crud out of you pretty boy!" He hissed.

Wham! Sasuke let out a grunt as Keiji's rock solid fist collided with his abdomen. Sasuke swore silently as he tasted blood in his mouth. Bam! Bang! He received a punch in the jaw and the chest.

Keiji released his viselike grip on Sasuke's shoulder, allowing him to drop to the floor. The familiar mixed emotions of determination and white-hot rage washed over Sasuke. He climbed to his feet and activated his sharingan. "You're a dead man!" He roared and lunged at Keiji only to have Keiji easily sidestep him. The sound nin hurled several shuriken at him. Sasuke's sharingan spotted the rotating blades instantly. Hah! Those will be a piece of cake to deflect! He got ready to dodge as the first shuriken hurtled at him. Ouch! Sasuke looked down in shock to see several of the shurken imbedded deeply in his flesh. The rest stuck out of the wall behind him. Sasuke's eyes windened incredulousely. "I was… too slow?" he whispered, stunned.

Kabuto let out a cackle that sounded strangely high to be coming from him. "Sasuke, when Orochimaru said that you had lost all of your chakura connected abilities, he meant all of them. And that includes your speed and agility." He delivered an unexpected and surprisingly powerful blow to Sasukes stomach. Sasuke gasped and doubled over in pain only to have Kabuto deliver several sharp kicks to his gut and ribs. Then Keiji took hold of Sasuke and forced him into a headlock as another boy threw punch after punch at him. The boys, Sasuke thought there were eleven or twelve in all, closed in to form a ring around Sasuke. Keiji released his prisoner from the headlock and flung him into the arms of another boy who delivered several blows before passing him on to the next boy. Sasuke did not know for how long the beatings lasted, but when he passed out, they were still thrashing him mercilessly and gave no sign that they had any intention whatsoever of slowing…

Tsukiyo stepped into the dark gymnasium. She had come to retrieve the obsidian dagger that she had left behind the day before. Glancing about, she saw it lying on a stone bench and quickly retrieved it. She was about to leave when something caught her eye. In the dim light, she was barely able to make out the figure of someone lying on the cement floor. "Hello?" Whoever it was did not respond. Tsukiyo stepped foreward and nudged the person with her foot, causing him to flip over on his back. She gasped in shock. "Uchiha?!" Sasuke lay, unconscious and covered in blood. "What on earth… What happened?" Tsukiyo whispered. The answer was obvious. He had been attacked! I'll bet Kabuto had something to do with this! She thought. She didn't particularly like Kabuto, in fact she found him rather repulsive, but he was on good terms with Orochimaru so she tolerated him. "That rat!" She growled. She had seen such treatment far too often in her lifetime. Anthros were constantly under attack for no reason except that they were different. "He'll not get away with this, I'll go tell Orochimaru!" She said. "Oh, of course, and with no proof what makes you think that Orochimaru will punish Kabuto? It will just be your word against his. All you'll be doing is giving Orochimaru a reason to consider you weak. What will he think if he finds out that you are sympathizing with the very boy who tried to deceive and kill him?" Tsukiyo bit her lip. You're right. I mustn't say anything. She gazed down at the unconscious slave before her. But I'm going to do my best to keep Kabuto away from him in the future!

Sasuke awoke again to see that he was back in Tsukiyo's tower room. But he was not in his cage. Instead, he was lying on the maroon colored sofa. Sasuke tried to sit up and gasped in pain as his ribs cried out in protest to his movements. Sasuke saw that his wounds had been washed and bandaged. He tried to get up but found himself thwarted by an iron shackled that attached his ankle to the sofa. I should have known that Tsukiyo would never give me the opportunity to get away. He thought bitterly.

Without warning, the door to the bedroom swung open and Tsukiyo stepped in. Their eyes locked but Sasuke quickly looked away. He despised this girl with a passion and getting into a staring contest with her would only increase that dislike as she was bound to win. He heard her light footsteps echoing as she approached him.

"So what happened to you after I left?" She asked suddenly.

Sasuke turned away. It's none of your business! He thought fiercely.

"I am your mistress and everything that happens to you is my concern so actually, it is my business." Tsukiyo informed him.

Sasuke's eyes widened. Did I say that out loud? He wondered.

"No." Tsukiyo said.

He glanced up. "Huh?"

"No, you did not say that out loud."

Sasuke gapped at her. "How did…?"

"I posses the ability to tune in to other people's thoughts when it so pleases me." she explained in an offhanded way.

Sasuke didn't know how to respond to this new piece of information. "Oh…" Was all he managed to come up with.

"Now answer me. What happened to you after I left?" She looked at him sharply.

Sasuke glared at her. "Why should I? What do you care what I do Cat freak?!"

Before he could blink, Tsukiyo's hand was around his throat cutting off the airway. Her voice was like a sharpened blade. "I told you already, don't call me that!" She slapped him hard. "And don't back talk me!" It made her furious that he would yell at her when she only wanted to know so that she could help him in the future.

"H-hai!" Sasuke rasped.

She released him and he fell back against the couch gasping. "Now tell me what happened that you ended up unconscious in the gymnasium." She demanded.

Sasuke took a deep breath and nodded. "Kabuto came and got me. He took me down to the gymnasium where he had a bunch of guys waiting. They ordered me to call them master and when I said no… well you can see what their answer was." he looked down at his hands. It was torture for him not to be able to defend himself and to have to submit to a girl who was shorter than him by six inches!

Tsukiyo was silent for several minutes. When she finally spoke she was surprisingly brusque. "I'm tired and it's getting late so I guess it's time I put you back in the cage and went to bed. Tomorrow you will attend me while I'm training. The last thing I need is to have to bandage you all over again! Come on."

She unlocked the shackle that attached him to the sofa and, taking hold of his leash, proceeded to lead him over to the cage and lock him inside.

"See ya in the morning Uchiha."

Tsukiyo stepped into her bedroom. If Sasuke had thought that the sitting room was dark, I don't know what he would have said about the bedroom. Everything— the walls, the carpeting, the furniture, the bed, the curtains and even the ceiling were black, indigo, or cobalt blue. The only light in the room came from a single candle that flickered on the ebony vanity that sat against the east wall of the room.

Tsukiyo picked up an ivory comb and began to run it through her glossy, purple locks. Glancing up, she caught sight of her reflection in the vanity mirror and paused to scrutinize herself. She sighed.

When she looked at herself, Tsukiyo could almost understand why the humans so hated and feared anthros. Tsukiyo's waist length, purple hair hung long and her visible cat eye glowed in the dark room. Her already pale complexion now appeared to be an almost deathly white against the dreary, black background. Her lips were naturally dark in color, almost a burgundy and her white, fanglike canines stood out starkly against them. She was slightly short for her age, but she exuded an intimidating air that canceled out any weakness that might have entailed. Her fingers were long and claw like, yet dainty and elegant, almost like what one might expect to see on a vampire. Her black nails were deceptively smooth in appearance but could be as sharp as a blade.

Tsukiyo's eyes drifted to the black, ribbon choker, which she wore about her neck, from the strip of dark satin dangled an onyx pendant set in gold in the shape of a heart. The pendant had been a gift to Tsukiyo from her grandfather, an anthro considered to be the greatest of his time. He had told her that the black heart had been passed down through her family through the generations. According to legend, the heart been given to the first anthro by the Forest Ruler, a winged creature with the head of a lion and the body of a gazelle. The Forest Ruler had foretold that the humans would rise up and destroy the animals of the forest. The animals were wise and kindhearted creatures; they could have attacked and wiped out the human race. But they longed to live in harmony with the to legged humans, and to find a way to resolve their differences without massive bloodshed. They chose to make the first anthro, in an attempt to find common ground with the humans on which they could collaborate peaceably.

Unfortunately, this plan went terribly awry, for when the humans learned of the existence of the anthro race, they hated them even more than they hated the creatures of the great forest. The humans had attempted several times through the past centuries to wipe them out. And this time they may have succeeded.

Only Tsukiyo knew that a small band of anthro's still existed deep within the southern part of the forest. The area was over grown with thick vines and briars bearing thorns nearly as long as the blade of a dagger and just as sharp.

Tsukiyo had been born and raised with the fugitive anthros and had become an exceptionally skilled fighter.

On his deathbed, Tsukiyo's grandfather had given her the pendant and made her promise him, not to allow the anthro race to become extinct. The creatures of the great forest had long since moved to other forests and their memories reduced to myths, with the exception of one. The child of the Forest ruler, a creature by the name of Daichi had remained and still lived on in the forest as its protector. However, none had seen it in over a century. (A/n: The forest creatures live several hundred years.) The forest protector would remain there for as long as the anthro race survived. Were he to leave, the great forest would perish. The forest needed the creatures to survive just as the creatures needed it. As long as the anthro race existed, the creatures and the forest still had a chance of surviving, and perhaps living in peace.

Tsukiyo fingered the pendant. The tale said that the pendant held special abilities, but very few could access them. Only one anthro was born in every century that could access the pendant's secret. Once accessed, the onyx heart would supposedly turn to a deep red color.

Tsukiyo bit her lip. "One in a century…" She whispered. "And grandfather believes that I am that one." And now, to make matters worse, there had been several attacks on humans recently and the blame placed on the anthro race, fueling the embers of hatred that still burned brightly. The hostility against the anthros was growing daily. It would not be long before it exploded!

Find a way to access the pendants secret, use its power to defend the anthro race and fight off those who are trying to destroy it, seek out the Forest Protector and see if he can tell you who it is that is continually stirring up problems between the human and anthro races, and finally, find a way to live with in peace the despised human race so that they will not harm the Great Forest or its creatures. This was the mission that she had been given by her grandfather; this was the reason she must not fail.

Hey peoples!

What did you think of this chapter? Reveiw and let me know. (Constructive critisism only please.)

Once again, if anyone has any ideas for the title of this story please let me know. I haven't come up with anything so for now it will remain "A Slave to the New Apprentice" but I don't really care for this title so if you have any suggestions please let me know.

Until next time,

~MidnightAnimeAngel