Full Summary: Vampire slaves were condemned from the moment their bodies took shape in their mothers' womb. Forced into a life of servitude, and punished for sins that weren't their own, they were bound to their masters for eternity. Sasuke, Neji, Gaara, and the freed slave Naruto try to survive their masters and each other while discovering the power and capacity of the human heart.
Pairings: Sasuke-Sakura, Neji-Tenten, Shikamaru-Ino, Naruto-Hinata
Disclaimer: Naruto and Co. are owned by Masashi Kishimoto. All rights reserved.What you're called doesn't matter, it's what you answer to
A pale hand reached out and grabbed the book with the golden binding. So many books were crammed onto that specific shelf that she had to tug harder to get it out.
But it was no problem for her; she held amazing strength inside her five foot seven, heavily curved frame. And she knew it.
The dim over head light in the cool room blinked once, casting new shadows on the walls. It reminded her of a horror movie scenario but in any case...she was the monster. Maybe not a dangerous, homicidal monster but there was something in her that made people sweat.
Men especially.
She smirked to herself at the thought, running a tongue over her sharp teeth. She set the book on a small table in the center of the room and pulled out the chair.
Prince Altair's Book of Mythical Monsters and Their Slaves Vol. 12: it read in Gothic letters. The dust did nothing to hide the beauty of the old, worn book. She blew on it to clear it up a bit, not even sneezing when the particles swam into her nose.
Nothing could hurt her; she was beyond any physical pain. She opened the book to a certain page, the one with the red tassel book mark.
It read: "...although mermaids and merman are not the only ones the have subordinates...are a lot nicer to their slaves..."
Wrong page.
She turned her neck back to where she took the book from, the books that used to be around it slanted to the left. Prince Altair had written fifteen volumes of his monstrous encyclopedia but only five were found after his palace was burned down. He never wrote them in any order, alphabetically or by importance, so to find what one was looking for one had to be extremely patient. The man also wrote extremely small so perfect eye sight was needed.
After all, it was written for a vampire by a vampire.
The Slug Princess, as she was called, flipped through the pages at a relaxed rate. The entire room, shaped like a square, had book shelves from floor to ceiling and along every wall. And all of them were about a different species.
Animal, human or otherwise, it was all there. The old one called it the Hall of Overflowing Knowledge while everyone else said it was the "Cluttered ass book room". Both were true in a way.
Her perfect colored nails, sharp yet elegant, turned the page and found what she had been looking for.
The vampire and his slave.
"...but the undead have their own masters as well. These slaves are the most obedient, for they have the most to loose. While werewolves and night demons chain their human slaves, the undead take their own kind as slaves. While I was living in the Orient, I had a run in with a self proclaimed vampire slave. He catered to his Master's every whim and bared the pain of his disobedience..."
"...Madara Uchiha was the one I met after the slave. Although he was also marked by a Master, it infuriated him. He swore like an incompetent sailor and met with many ladies, though he never took one of his own. His Master, the Snake Charmer, was merciful in his requests. Lord Uchiha was high in society and many questioned why he seemed to disappear before dawn. I followed him...he visited his Master at the Castle of Ember and reported to him..."
"...I only saw once how it was that vampires disciplined their slaves. Lord Uchiha had refused a command and his Master was enraged. The Master had made eye contact with him, simple eye contact. I could not understand what would hurt about the Master's eyes until I looked at Lord Uchiha. His eyes were great deal lighter than I had remembered and a strange scarlet color. Black symbols swirled in them. 'You see', the Master said, 'Slaves that disobey become blinded. Slaves that talk back become blinded. Slaves that are not respectful become blinded. Sight is the slave's most precious sense, it would be a shame if my pet lost his'..."
"...he called this eye technique the Sharingan.."
"...their slaves are not vampire, not human. Somewhere in the middle and completely insane. They are like rabid dogs unless they are well educated like Lord Uchiha. If their minds are not filled with Latin phrases or geography or literature, their instincts take over..."
"...they have no fangs unless angered..."
"...no enchanting gaze unless weakened..."
"...vampire slaves. Slaves bound by invisible threads and threats...it was something I had to see. I was taken by the Snake Charmer's subordinate, the town doctor, to see the other slaves. They were all marked in some place visible for the Master to see...all had dark curved tear shaped, or blood drop shaped, marks on the backs of their necks. I was told that it controlled the slaves that couldn't be blinded like Lord Uchiha..."
"...it did not explain why Lord Uchiha still had the mark..."
"...the Master called it a Cursed Seal because of what it did to his slaves..."
"...trapping the mind and body in an eternal give and take..."
"...sometimes called it Cursed Seal of Heaven just to mess with his slaves' minds..."
"...I did not meet with Lord Uchiha for years..."
"...the next time he graced me with his presence, something was amiss about him..."
"...fangs were longer, hair was longer...and his eyes spoke of emerging darkness..."
"...he was fully turned..."
"...he was free from enslavement but it came with a price..."
"...all the future members of his new clan of vampires...were promised to his Master as slaves..."
"...he courted one woman and had many children with her...all of which were half vampire, half human..."
"...all half breeds were to be kept as slaves for their sires or masters until they were either set free or worn out..."
"...slaves have the same life span of humans...unless they are promoted from slave to servant..."
"...servants are the master vampire's closest friends...but they are still subordinates..."
They described him so accurately, She stopped reading and sighed to herself, the sound echoed in the lonely room. Prince Altair was human scholar before he was bitten by a young vampire. He accepted his new life and chose not to become tangled in the courts of the Vampire King. He spent the remainder to his life studying and writing his series about the monsters humans were too ignorant to see.
Or feel.
When humans are first turned, their blood stopped running and their heart slowed down. They go insane. They had the unmistakable urge to turn everyone around them into a monster so they wouldn't have to suffer alone. That's why when wise vampires turned humans they were placed in an empty room. The newly turned would come out angry, hurt and completely hungry for fresh blood.
She stood from the table, rubbed her tired eyes, pushed the chair in and turned off the light. The room was in the back part of the Konoha Valley Academy library and hidden because it couldn't be found from the outside. Students in the library, vampire or otherwise, never knew the room existed. Three book cases filled with nature and animal books occupied the space where a door should have been. But there was a small elevator leading from the library to the teacher's lounge, two floors straight down. It was the only way to get into room without blowing a hole through the wall.
There were no human teachers in the Academy but almost all the students were humans. There was no segregation against the two races, no favoritism either. The most popular students were the most beautiful ones, vampire or human. The teachers, however, were all descendants of powerful vampires. The Slug Princess herself along with the Snake Charmer and the Toad Hermit were some of the oldest of her kind. They were inferior only to the almost ancient Third Vampire King who, despite his age, feared no one and was not afraid to go toe-to-toe with the young ones. Even the vampires of different sects, like rock, water and wind, respected him because he could easily snap their neck in half without physically being near them. He was that powerful.
She stepped to the elevator, pressing the only button and walking in when it opened. There was an absence of light in the tight space but it didn't really matter to her. Her amber eyes could cut through any darkness.
The elevator opened a while later and light washed over her.
Someone was going to get slapped.
Vampires, especially those as old as she was were hesitant when it came to sunlight. They had adapted to garlic and crosses over time but sunlight was different. If a vampire stayed in the sun too long, they would go blind. And then it would hurt because every part of the eye would fry like eggs in a pan. Few vampires died that stupidly. What the Snake Charmer said was right, sight was one of the most precious senses for vampires.
Or slaves.
Her heels made a clicking sound when they touched the waxed floor of the teacher's lounge and came to a stop when she saw who was peeking out the window.
Jiraiya, known as the Toad Hermit to those of their own kind, was using his fingers to look between the blinds. To the Academy, he was the deputy head that patrolled the school with a black walkie talkie and heavy footfalls. His mountain of white hair also made it hard for him to blend in. If the head master was ever away on business, he would take over to school.
He was built like a wild stallion, with wide shoulders and deep muscles that he had perfected in the last one hundred years. Dressed in a black suit with a white collared shirt underneath he looked nothing like the pervert he was.
"Did you find anything interesting?" he asked, eyes glued to the outside world. Whenever he wasn't flirting with her, his voice always took on the serious tone that she liked. It made him sound intelligent and trustworthy.
"No," she walked over to the beige couch near the window, making sure to avoid the light, "Altair only wrote done what the Sharingan did, not how it worked."
"But he knew," Jiraiya let his hand fall away from the window, dimming the room, "Altair was practically Madara's servant, he knew everything." The emerged in a comfortable silence before the bell rang, signaling the end of the fourth period. Tsunade stood up and smoothed down her grey dress, running a hand through her blonde hair before looking over to Jiraiya who was staring at her.
"What?" she asked starting toward the door, "I have a class now, I need to go." He cut her off at the door and kissed her on the lips, ignoring the distance she always tried to make between them.
His lips were so soft and warm.
Damn you Jiraiya.
He let her go and disappeared into the semi empty hallway, his footsteps fading away into the distance. Tsunade was so angry and surprised she was almost late to her Health Ed. class.
Jiraiya hadn't kissed her in fifty years, why did he start doing it again?
They were lovers after they were turned but it didn't last long. He was too touchy-feely, to enamored with her, while she just liked him. He wanted to give her the world while she just wanted a star from the sky. It took years after their fall out for her to realize the kind of man he really was. Strong, determined, reliable...everything a good vampire should have been. But the worst part was that she secretly loved him but her pride stopped her from saying anything.
The pride of a vampire princess.
Somewhere on the third floor of the Konoha Academy library, an open book turned its page.
"...slaves are bound to their Master for life and beyond. It is the cursed bond that stops them from living life the way they see fit..."
"...The Fourth Vampire King, a legendary vampire in his time, was the lover of a loud mouthed mortal woman. I never met her, Madara and his Master despised him, but I have heard that she was a sight to see. The only mortal woman that acted like a hot blooded vampire. They had a son who was half human, half vampire, and as the Code of Fang says 'a complete slave'. The Vampire King did not want to have that much control over his own son so he drafted a document to set his son free. It had to be approved by all the undead of the Council of Fire, a small group of the oldest vampires of the race. The Slug Princess, Snake Charmer, Toad Hermit and the former Vampire King were the only members. Out of them all, the Snake Charmer was the only to have slaves and also the only one to reject the document. It would mean that he would have to set free all of his slaves and he did not want that. Neither did Madara..."
"...summoned, or so the legend went, a demon from Hell to attack the Vampire King. The attack caught the underworld cities of the vampires by surprised and took the life of the Vampire King's lover. Distraught and hurting, the Fourth scarified himself for the sake of his son and his race. In honor of his bravery his son was given the term "freed slave". He had no Master but could be controlled by the Vampire King in an emergency. Besides that, nothing hurts the strongest half vampire the world has ever known..."
Altair then goes to explain how slaves were treated and what their minds looked like.
"...most slaves had the names Uchiha, Hyuuga, and Sabaku..."
"...condemned from the moment their bodies took shape in their mothers' womb. Their seals were different but were visible to their intended Master. Hyuuga was the name for the higher class slaves that were clothed in the finest of silks and they were easily controlled. They practically licked their Master's boots. Uchiha and Sabaku were harder to control. Their blood was tainted by their demon forefathers, something Madara and the Third Wind Lord took pride in..."
"...they were as powerful and frail as a wild canine..."
Hyuuga, Uchiha, Sabaku, and Uzumaki...slaves that were famous in the vampire world.
Trapped between two worlds and considered dangerous in each.
But there was something Vampire Masters frequently overlooked. Over time their slaves had adapted and mimicked their Masters' abilities. They had the heightened senses, physical strength and mental capacity as any other vampire despite their small amount human blood. In looks, they rivaled their Masters with their intoxicating eyes and hypnotizing voices. In order to survive, their ancestors became exactly what they feared.
A basic instinct every animal had.
But Vampire Masters chose not to care.
In their eyes, if it could still be controlled...it was a slave.