The Forbidden Scroll. Named such for the countless jutsu, seals, and various secrets hidden in the paper. One such secret was a map that lead to a location that every Hokage knew of, but was warned upon appointment to the position never to go to and to never, ever bleed within fifty yards of.

Inside was a fearsome monster, more terrifying and unpredictable than the Bijuu on a rampage. The fact this particular monster came with a second body which had been kept in another location for security reasons was of no difference.

Now what made this monster so terrifying was that it could pick and choose 'Masters' at a whim...and considering it had a terrifying Kekkei Genkai or genjutsu that would devastate any country they went to war with, they had to seal it and the smaller one away solely to keep the other hidden villages from declaring war just to wipe it out!

The big problem being that the creature itself fed on blood, so any attempts to kill it outright were met with open disaster. Easier to seal the damn thing and it's mate away instead of a pointless battle.

So the thing slumbered since the village's beginning, never once seeing the light of day.

Until now.

A young girl with bright yellow hair and crystal blue eyes was looking through documents she shouldn't while the old man was away. She knew it was a bad thing, but shinobi were supposed to be sneaky and the only one who had ever managed to catch her at this was the old man.

She had gotten very, very good at sneaking in here and reading the books...or copying them exactly even if she had trouble with the words.

Today she was almost finished copying the big scroll that was hidden behind sealed glass.

Fortunately, seals was one thing she was good at. She was better than that stuck up Uchiha jerk who was constantly reminding her she was an orphan.

So she was going to do something not even the Uchiha could do...and hopefully prove once and for all she was a better shinobi than he was.

However she was confused by the two very old-style maps at the very end of the scroll. It was likely the first thing ever written on it, so odds were the locations had already been compromised. If not by the various wars, then by the destruction of the demon fox that happened nearly twelve years ago.

Still, since she did recognize the locations (primarily because of mobs consisting of idiots) she decided to go have a look at them. If only to see if there was anything worth salvaging.

Once she finished (having made a mental note of the maps) she carefully replaced it...even going so far as to repaint the parts of the seal she had etched out in order to bypass the alarms.

Without a sound, she vanished, making it appear like she hadn't broken in at all.

"The kid's good. Can't believe she's at the bottom of her class with that kind of skill," said the ANBU who had been monitoring the room while the Hokage had been gone.

"Something doesn't add up. We know she isn't trained like one of us...too many slip ups...but how the hell is she the dead last when she can slip past the most advanced seals in our village, steal important secrets, and then sneak out like she hadn't been there?" agreed his partner.

"A pity we can't tell Hokage-sama...not without telling him we let her look at the scroll."

"Not like she'll wake up that old corpse, right?"

"Too true...wasn't that thing destroyed by the Kyuubi anyway?"

The Hokage hadn't bothered to check on the corpse...outside of confirming the damn thing was still intact after the attack.

Another year, another mob...

The Hokage had no idea she had broken into his office. The ANBU weren't exactly about to enlighten him, as it would raise uncomfortable (and possibly demotion worthy) questions about why they didn't stop her from getting that far.

So when faced with another mob, the girl purposely made her way towards the first location she had memorized. Because this happened every year, and she had made sure to be away from her usual hide out of the Hokage's tower and the ramen stand, the ANBU and the old man wouldn't think twice about her trying to find a new hiding spot until the ANBU collected all the instigators.

The girl ran deep, deep into the sewers of Konoha. They were less for sewage and more for passing civilians and academy students to the safe rooms littered around the village itself. Well, that and shinobi were all about doing things over the top. They were big enough for two grown men to walk side-by-side at least.

More than enough room for a rather small twelve-year-old girl to run like mad. Most of the mob avoided the sewers, mostly out of some perceived smell they believed to be inside.

In a civilian city this was true, but a shinobi one actually paid their ANBU to go down to make their own maps of the place as part of the standard exercises. It was one thing to have a map made by someone else...having them make their own was considered a rite of passage, and those were usually littered with the shinobi's own interpretations making them hard for enemies to decipher.

She had made a complete and thorough map of the entire sewer lay out by the time she was six, and had more often than not slept in the alcoves at each junction that were filled with the standard shinobi gear, first aid kits for a full ANBU unit (replaced and kept up-to-date every other month), at least ten bed rolls with pillows, a heater, and enough food and water to last a week.

She had commandeered one such alcove, and hidden it in a way that made it look like the thing had collapsed. It was a subtle seal, and the Hokage had told the ANBU to leave it be. Though he did make sure to keep the alcoves near the one she had claimed double stocked. The fact she occasionally raided those was not lost on him.

She made her way through the sewers immediately after the Academy, not bothering for her yearly free ramen bowl from Ichiraku. If she did this right she could get it tomorrow.

One of the locations happened to be deep in the sewers, in an area normally avoided because Orochimaru of the Sannin had claimed an area near it for one of his 'labs' on the shinobi public record.

Considering it had been trapped to the teeth, and the nature of the one who set them, no one had tried to go anywhere near the place after they found out what the other labs looked like.

She had broken in when she was ten, and aside from causing the area to be avoided for a few days because of a smell, it was rather boring. She wasn't exactly afraid of corpses, seeing as how she had seen more than her fair share of them in the sewers of foreign shinobi or the rare unlucky ANBU before it was cleaned up. Dead shinobi weren't a problem...it was the living she feared.

She wasn't even breathing hard when she broke through the decaying seals on the door. Whoever this guy was, he was damn persistent.

In the furthest corner was a corpse with so many seals on it that she had to wonder if it was really necessary. It was a corpse. It wasn't like all those cheap zombie novels were REAL.

"Fucking demon whore. Time to put an end to your reign once and for all..." sneered the shinobi.

She couldn't tell in this dim lighting, but the slurred voice sounded far too much like Mizuki-sensei from two years above her. Unlike Iruka, who taught their class, he taught the ones in the Advanced courses.

She tried to avoid the kunai, but it still went through her cheap clothing and caused her to bleed. Some of the blood landed near the corpse, not that she noticed. The wound healed over in seconds, but she sucked at close quarters combat.

The shinobi advanced on her, determined to kill her...when a sound made both of them stop cold.

It was the sound of something scraping on the stone. Almost like a tongue licking the stone clean...which was beyond weird.

She saw the shinobi stare at the corpse...which was moving. Though unlike the shinobi, she only saw this through the corner of her eye.

There was a low growl from the thing in the corner, and razor sharp fangs were seen clearly in it's mouth. Blood red eyes, hinged with barely contained madness were wide awake and staring at them both. There was a hint of bloodlust, but it had no direction. In that bloodlust was the clear feeling of hunger though for what she had no idea.

Once over his shock, the shinobi decided to kill the brat and run like hell.

It was the worst possible move he could make...it put him on the corpse's radar as prey, thinking he was attacking it and not the girl in front of him.

The thing lurched forward in a speed she had only ever seen of jounin level shinobi, fangs distended and red eyes filled with madness and hunger. This was no rational being...it was a monster who's only thought was to fill the void the hunger created.

She got the hell out of it's way as it descended onto the unlucky bastard who had tried to kill her...closer inspection revealed it was literally draining the blood out of the man's body, leaving nothing left. Not even a body...though he did leave the weapons and the clothes seeing as how he couldn't exactly eat that. It then turned it's gaze onto her, though the madness was now replaced with curiosity and still more hunger. But it could clearly think and the body itself had filled out enough that it just looked emaciated.

"Who are you?" she had to ask.

There was a deep throaty chuckle. One that would freak her out even more than she already was had it not been for one fact that kept her grounded.

This thing, whatever the hell it was, was not human. And considering most of her life she had been persecuted by humans, she was more inclined to give it the benefit of a doubt. Monsters should stick together, by her reasoning.

"My name...little girl...is Alucard..." it rasped. Almost like it hadn't talked in a really long time.

Considering what she had seen, this thing...no... Alucard...clearly fed on blood. Fortunately she knew a good way to get him back up to speed without having to deal with the ANBU asking questions.

"Are you still hungry?" she asked curiously, hoping like hell she was right.

"I've been asleep for so long..."

"Look, if I could direct you to a good source of blood, which I'm guessing is what you eat, then would that keep you from trying to come after me?" she asked flatly.

Alucard looked at her, almost as if he were seeking something in her blue eyes. He was surprised to find no fear, only natural wariness and appropriate levels of caution considering he was stronger and faster than she was.

Why would a child not even thirteen show no signs of fear towards something that could kill her and not even think twice about it?

Alucard slowly nodded, and the girl lead him straight to the sewer grate beneath the Konoha hospital. With stealth and more skill than most would have at her age, she lead him straight to where they kept the spare blood for the Kekkei Genkai users. Specifically where they stored the blood donations from people like the Hyuuga and what was left of the Uchiha.

She knew her village. Any theft of blood from this section was more likely to be considered a rival village than her feeding a monster that used it as it's food source.

Especially since she was going to replace those seals to make it look like the thing was still there. If she was right, then it would look like the shinobi he ate was the culprit, and no one would think twice about it. All she had to do was scratch out the hitai ate and leave it outside the village heading towards a random direction.

Alucard ate nearly thirty of the bags stored. While old blood wasn't as good as the fresh he had eaten, the last thing he wanted was to be caught so soon after waking. He approved of the girl's natural caution and cunning. He stole a few extra, making it look like someone had come in here specifically for the blood for nefarious purposes.

If he was right, the girl might lead him to his mate.

The two disappeared the same way they entered, making it look like someone had broken in through the sewer entrance. The girl broke 'into' another one just far enough to make the story believable.

By morning, no one would be aware that the creature which had slept since before Konoha was even a village had been woken up.

The Hokage had a rather rough night. Someone had managed to break into the hospital and make off with over half of their stock of blood from the kekkei genkai clans and then escape. And from the evidence the Inuzuka clan found, it was likely Mizuki. A chunin in charge of the advanced academy courses. His headband had been found leading towards the Valley of the End, slashed through the Leaf. The Inuzuka lost him at the waterfalls, where the scent was lost.

The problem being that he was in charge of several very notable clan members, including the Hyuuga. Add to that the complaints from the shinobi clans about how the curriculum was far below what it had been when the Fourth Hokage had been in power and he had a conundrum.

So when young Naruko Uzumaki disguised once again as a boy to protect herself came in, he put on a small smile and tried to hide his headache. One again, the girl proved more perceptive than half his forces.

"Another rough night Jiji?"

"I can never hide anything from you. How was last night?"

"You mean outside of that asshole Mizuki-sensei trying to kill me on the way out of the village with a weird scroll on his back? Same old, same old..." said Naruko. Hook, line and sinker, in her mind.

"You saw Mizuki leaving with a scroll?"

"Yeah, it was real weird though... his hitai ate had a long scratched line through it and the knot was almost undone. The jerk threw a few kunai at me before he went past me."

"Naruko, this is really important. Which direction did he go to?"

Naruko gave him the same gate that lead right where the Valley of the End was. He sagged into his chair. Finally, confirmation on the thief. Most people wouldn't have paid any mind to a shinobi of their village running on the roofs...especially when half of them were drunk from the festival the night before.

"But...I did make a new friend last night! He's the one who got me out of the way of the kunai!" said Naruko brightly.

Upon learning this...Alucard...could change his age on a whim, he turned close to her age.

The cover story they had come up with, which was pretty hard to refute, was that he was one of the many orphans that had been 'mysteriously' burned down until three years ago when they attacks stopped. He had been living on the streets and watching the shinobi for years, but had been too poor to attend the academy.

No one would question it too much because most orphans generally went to the civilian schools, unless they showed a particular aptitude towards the shinobi life, in which case they were sponsored by the village.

Naruko would have fallen into that category had the Hokage not been quick to tell her that her parents, whoever they had been, had already paid for her to attend. She just wished she could know who they were.

The Hokage puffed on his long pipe, before he asked "Do you think he would be interested in joining you at the Academy? He would have to catch up of course..."

"He's got better aim than I do, and at least at the Academy we all get one lunch if we don't have families to support us," deadpanned Naruko.

Odds were Alucard would give her the free bento, seeing as how he fed off blood and with how fast she healed she could easily give him hers until they took missions outside the village.

"I see no reason why he can't join your class...we do have an empty spot as I recall, and with Mizuki... don't be surprised if the books are reassigned before next semester. Until then, why don't you try to catch your friend up to the curriculum, which is the earliest he could enter?"

"Gotcha Jiji."

"In the meantime... I do believe you missed your yearly free bowl of birthday ramen? Tell Teuchi it's on me," he told the girl, who brightened up immediately. His bank account would take a hit, but it was a small price to pay for having it confirmed Mizuki had been the thief.