Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Bleach.
More details explaining the inner workings of the story at the end of the chapter to avoid spoilers.
A Shinigami among the Ninjas - Prologue
(Soul King Palace – Soul Society)
The Soul King rested on his throne inside his palace, his head propped lazily upon his right hand, his elbow on the arm of the throne.
The king did not have a particular form, he was a white figure composed completely of spiritual matter and its only duty was to control the flow of souls incoming and going out of his realm. A duty he was so accustomed to he didn't even pay attention to it anymore beside a little portion of his mind.
Truly, what he did day and night had become boring. Pluses, Shinigami, Hollows… silly little labels. His subjects didn't understand that a soul is in equal part Plus and Hollow, some individuals were able to use their Reiryoku to become Shinigami and others became Hollows, he was the only one to have a complete soul without the imperfection gifted by a mortal life. Those two opposites were useful to retain the balance of the world, just as Shinigami existed to control the amount of Hollows in existence, the latters have the innate desire to devour other soul as to balance the number of those going to Soul Society, even if every soul eventually does.
That nasty business he heard about not long ago about those hybrids made him shiver in anticipation. Someone had finally understood the true nature of souls? Yes, it was problematic for the Gotei 13 to have Shinigami Hollow hybrids in their hands, but it was a step forward from before anyway.
His musings were interrupted by a tug on his consciousness. He paused a moment to identify the nature of this disturbance and was deeply confused as apparently he was being summoned.
He, the Soul King!
With a frown, he detached a part of his consciousness to keep the balance of the flow of souls before he answered to the summon and vanished in a bright flash of light.
(Elemental Nations – Fire Country – Konoha's walls)
Namikaze Minato was desperate. Just a little over a year being the Hokage and all these problems in his hands.
The neverending paperwork –damn you Sarutobi!-, his wife nearing the date of his son's birth, the preparation to contain the seal keeping the Kyuubi at bay inside Kushina, that damnable masked man killing his Anbu guards, threatening his son and then ripping the Bijuu from his wife.
And now he was here dealing with a gigantic nine-tailed fox demon on a rampage inside his village.
Truly, he never got to enjoy his life.
He directed the various shinobi on the battlefield to stall the demon as long as possible as he prepared for a sealing. He flashed to the house where he left his son via a Hiraishin marker and then flashed again to Kushina, hoping her chains could help subdue the fox. Fortunately, the Uzumaki endurance seemed to be working, if barely. Not after an hour from giving birth and having a demon forcibly extracted from her, Kushina could still stand and help him.
He arrived on the ground and summoned Gamabunta in a huge plume of smoke.
The gigantic red toad took a look to his surroundings and groaned.
"Minato, what the hell have you summoned me for?!" He bellowed to the blond sitting on his head with his wife and a bundle in his arms.
"Bunta, I need you to stall the Kyuubi so we can seal it again!" He yelled at the boss summon.
"Easier said than done, you little-"
"Bunta, this is not the moment to argue!" Minato shouted again.
With a grumble, the toad hopped near the fox and slashed with his blade at the animal. Unfortunately, his size notwithstanding, the demon was very agile and dodged the slash before answering with one of his one with his claws. Meanwhile, the shinobi on the ground fought with more vigor, seeing their leader and his summon arriving to help the situation.
The battle continued on this line for a few minutes before the fox lost his patience and began to form a Bijuudama.
Minato panicked, he frantically looked around trying to find a solution to this new threat. He watched in anticipation as the fox swallowed the ball of chakra before spitting it out with a resounding roar. He placed one of his Hirashin kunai in front of him and tried to teleport it to one of his markers outside the village.
As the giant ball of destruction neared him, he poured a huge amount of energy in the technique and successfully teleported the Bijuudama, creating an explosion a few miles away.
"Bunta, I'm going to transport us outside the village walls to proceed with the sealing, hold on a bit more!" he pleaded.
He threw three pronged kunai at the fox, knowing that even if he couldn't pierce its hide, he would have at least enough time to use his technique to move himself and the monster away from the village.
As they landed in a vast forest, he had enough time to give Kushina his son before beginning the series of handseals for the summoning of the death God.
"Kushina, try to slow the Kyuubi with your chains until I finish the technique!" he bellowed to his wife.
He saw his wife nodding from the corner of his eye and then multiple purple chains of chakra erupted from her ensnaring the Bijuu and holding it to the ground despite its struggles to break free.
Kushina placed her son on a sealing altar that she summoned and stared sadly at her baby boy, tears flowing freely from her eyes.
"I'm sorry we're doing this to you Naruto, but we have no other choice, only a newborn of my clan's bloodline can contain the strongest of the Bijuu. I didn't wish for this to happen to you and I hope you will forgive us in the future.." her voiced cracked at the end. She knew, despite her strong constitution and bloodline, this were her final minutes, the last moments she could spend with her family before passing on to the afterlife.
Minato ended the handseals pouring all of his remaining chakra in the technique and yelled. "Fūinjutsu: Shiki Fūjin!"
A white portal seemed to open beside him and a being seemingly from nightmares emerged from it. It had the substance of a ghost, with bright purple skin, white hair and a knife in his mouth, he wore a white kimono which seemed to be made from dead souls. As soon as he fully stepped outside the portal, an immense pressure slammed on the shoulders of everyone in the distance. In the village, children fainted, adults collapsed to the ground and elders of too advanced age died of heart failure due to the pressure everyone felt. Even ninjas, accustomed to generally incredible feats, coped no better than civilians, only the Third Hokage seemed to be able to move and it was incredibly difficult. The Kyuubi began to tremble in fear of this being, not even his father, the Sage of the Six Paths had this amount of power.
Meanwhile, the Soul King was not pleased of this new turn of events.
First, he has being summoned to the living world. Then, his appearance changed without his input, probably to meet the expectations of those who dared to call him and finally, he was summoned to the chakra realm.
Unacceptable. To think mortals had the power to even try to call him to them, thinoking he would do as requested as a normal pet. Unexcusable. To further add insult to the injury, he found himself inside the parallel world he specifically ordered sealed to everyone beside himself after that failed attempt to create a new type of Gigai.
The Chakra Realm, as he dubbed it, was a parallel dimension –not unlike Soul Society and Hueco Mundo or the World of the Living- he created to house the failed experiment to create a Gigai capable of using Reiryoku back a thousand year ago. Apparently, the souls did not respond positively to the artificial bodies and somehow managed to awake the physical energies of the body, which normally was used to maintain the body functioning, and then mixed that energy with a mutation of Reiryoku caused by the faulted Gigai to create this abomination called chakra.
He couldn't kill all the people used in the experiment, so he created this dimension to house them and give them a normal life away from the world of Hollows and Shinigami, since, apparently, chakra was so different from Reiryoku that after death the souls immediately left to Soul Society without the need of a Konsō and without the risks of becoming Hollows. That solved a lot of problems.
Now he was there, in the middle of a forest with two humans and a newborn staring at him in fear with a gigantic nine-tailed fox chained to the ground. He was not pleased, at all.
"Why have you summoned me here mortal?" he questioned the blond human that he knew performed the summoning.
He watched as the blonde took a deep breath to steady himself before answering.
"Shinigami-sama, I summoned you here because I need your help to seal the Kyuubi no Kitsune inside my son, it is the only way for the village to survive." Minato answered bowing to the waist to the powerful being.
"You think that because you summoned me you can command me!? I am the Soul King, I do not bow to the whims of humans!" he roared.
Minato started to tremble, the pressure he felt earlier coming back with a vengeance upon him.
"Please, Shinigami-sama, I will give you my soul in return for this service, I do not know what else to do!" He pleaded in desperation. He could not fail this, his loved ones, his son and wife, his entire village counted on him.
He heard more than saw the death God chortle at him. He looked up in hope and found the face of the God mere inches from him and flinched from the near contact.
"Very well, human. I will do you this favor once and the price will be your soul, but be warned, I will not answer another time to the calls of your kind. I did it this once because of my curiosity, should any of you try it again I will claim all of the souls in your village in return" he answered.
Minato nodded, knowing that it was the least he could hope for. At least this way Konoha would be saved and no one knew the Shiki Fujin as he created it himself and the notes for it were destroyed at its completion.
The Soul King nodded in approval, it seemed this human at least knew he was doing this as an act of mercy and not because of ordered to. He turned to the fox and reached it grabbing with his spiritual energy before bringing it to the child. He was starting to seal it away before he stopped, frowning. The fox seemed oddly familiar… ah yes, a kind of Hollow but not at the same time, interesting. As for the boy, he could sense a powerful energy coming from him just a few hours after the birth, if only he was a Shinigami, he could bring a bit of fun in Soul Society… why not? After all, he was the Soul King, if he wanted he could make the boy spiritually aware and turned that chakra thing back to spiritual energy. Yes, that was the best course of action. To properly control the Kyuubi the boy would need the right kind of energy, not that thing these shinobi used and adding the fact the Kyuubi resembled a Hollow... he could turn it into a Zanpakuto! He could already see it, the chaos and not boring events in Soul Society with the presence of the boy. He felt almost giddy at the prospect, finally some entertainment aside the monotone flow of souls in his domain.
Now certain of the course of action, he focused his power on the newborn and with a bit of concentration changed his energies to Reiryoku, then sealed the Kyuubi inside his soul, giving the beast the basic knowledge of what he did and the world outside the dimension. He felt the shift of the boy's soul and grinned behind the hideous appearance his summoner gifted him. The wave length the soul gave off resembled deeply that of those Visards but with more balance, since he was the one to apply the changes. Yes, the boy would entertain him in the near future, a human soul with the ability to use Shinigami and Hollow powers, it was the most complete soul aside from himself in existence.
He straighted his back and turned to the human couple before him.
"It is done, I will take my leave and your soul will come to me in a few minutes after your death. Remember my warnings human." He called out before creating a portal to his throne room to continue with his job, exitedly waiting for the time the young boy's soul would come knocking at the doors of his realm.
Minato left out a sigh of relief before a spurt of blood dripped out of his mouth. He turned to his wife and child, blearily noting that Gamabunta had dispelled at some point and they were left on the ground. He approached his family and embraced his wife before placing a hand on his son's cheek.
"We did it Kushina, we saved the village… I-I-…I hope Naruto will grow up strong and noble, just like you, I love the both of you" he concluded, his voices barely a whisper before he collapsed on the ground.
Kushina wailed at the loss of her husband before he crouched beside him, tenderly holding the remaining family she had. A hand reached the mop of blond hair and caressed them lovingly, whispering words of comfort and love, before she too collapsed to the ground, barely holding on to her life.
(30 minutes earlier – outside of Konoha)
Yoruichi Shihoin could be seen speeding through the vast trees that populated Fire Country towards the village of Konoha. She was a slender, dark-skinned woman of average height, with golden-colored eyes and long purple hair tied up in a ponytail. She wore a black, backless, sleeveless undershirt with an orange over-shirt, black tight pants with brown shoes and a light beige sash around her waist.
She chose to come to the hidden dimension Kisuke discovered to relax a little and cast off her mind the various problems that came with deserting Soul Society a few decades back. There were still search parties randomly sent out in the World of the Living and the Chakra Realm was the only place where she and Urahara could relax and let go of their paranoia. Kisuke discovered this place during his time as a Captain and was sure to destroy all the research tied to this place, hence why they could come here as a hiding place or to simply rest for a time because they were the only two to know of its existence and how to enter it.
As she stepped over another tree she almost tripped as she felt an enormous amount of energy these people called chakra radiating with malice from the village. She stealthily made her way to the source of it and stared in dumbstruck surprise at the scene.
A tall nine-tailed demon fox was bringing chaos and destruction to the people and buildings nearby causing multiple deaths at every second that passed. She had to forcibly restrain herself from going to help. She knew that she couldn't expose her presence and the people would go to Soul Society anyway, so she controlled herself while she watched the conflict.
The sudden appearance of a blond man riding a three-stories tall toad was encouraging, since it seemed the battle was going in their favor. For a moment at least. The beast began charging a ball of concentrated energy that the could tell would level everything if someone didn't stop it.
She watched in fascination as the man teleported the ball away and then used the same technique to transport himself, a woman with a baby and the very fox in the distance. With a quick Shunpo she reached them and curiously watched from afar, then he came.
What the hell was the Soul King doing here of all places?!
She almost panicked, before she hurriedly repressed her Reiatsu as much as she could and hoped the King was too distracted to notice her presence, she didn't know what the consequences of entering this domain were, but by judging the spiritual pressure the sole presence of the King excluded, she did not want to know.
She stared at the evolving of events, the conversation between the King and the human, the sealing –here she picked up something changed within the child- and the departure of the Spirit King to his Palace.
She cautiously approached the couple, grimly noticing the man was already dead and the woman was on the brink of it. As she stepped beside her, she dimly realized the read-head had gripped her arm with surprising strength and looked into her violet eyes.
"P-Please… take… take care of my…*gurgle*… my son…N-Naruto… please.. I beg of y-you.." she finished as another spurt of blood dribbled out of her mouth, the light leaving her eyes.
Yoruichi sighed, she always got into trouble when Kisuke wasn't there to keep her in line. She thoughtfully stared at the child, who curiously watched her in return before letting out a happy gurgle in greeting. Yoruichi found herself smiling despite of herself and picked up the little blond.
"So, you're Naruto, uh? I guess I can't really avoid a woman's dying wish now can I?" she asked softly at the baby, who awarded her with a toothless smile waving his tiny fists at her before gripping a purple lock of hair.
She smiled at the baby before walking away as she sensed various energy signatures heading their way. She also realized with a start of surprise, that the boy was now emitting Reiryoku and not the strange energy of the others around her. Must have been the work of the Soul King… she thought.
"Well then, I guess I am your kaa-san now, eh? Naruto Shihoin, sounds good, ne? Why don't we go and say hello to Uncle Kisuke?" She finished and with a Shunpo she was gone, too far from the arriving ninjas to sense her presence.
In the clearing, the Third Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen, entered with a grim face at seeing his successor and his wife on the ground, lifeless. There wasn't a sign of the fox anywhere since that pressure let them breath again and he couldn't figure out what happened. He knew Minato was working on a sealing method for this eventuality but never questioned him and now he had no idea of the location of the Bijuu.
"Anbu, gather the corpses of the Yondaime and his wife, from what we can see they died to defeat the Kyuubi and for that they will be remembered and then go to the village and assess the situation." He ordered, already resigning himself to retake the position of Hokage. No one had the ability to lead the village in this time of crisis and the return of the familiar presence of the Sandaime should reassure the populace of Konoha, at least he hoped so.
"Hai, Hokage-sama!" A cat-masked Anbu operative answered before flickering out of existence with the two bodies and the others doing the same to observe the status of the village.
"I hope you find solace in the afterlife Minato…" he said softly, before walking away from the clearing.
A few feet away he stopped cold in his tracks, a chill ran down his spine as he began to shiver in his rage. H-he did this.. he did this to get rid of it! And now that I am back in office I have to… oh my Kami all of that paperwork…As he thought of this anime-tears ran down his wizened cheeks before he let out a roar of rage. "DAMN YOU MINATO!"
oOo
Author's note:
1. To explain the workings of the various energies as I have imagined them for this story.
In Bleach, the energy Shinigami and Hollows use is called Reiryoku and is the power of the soul, the energy that surrounds us is called Reishi, which is used by Quincy to create weapons and arrows. Reiatsu is instead the spiritual pressure of the Reiryoku. In more simple terms: Reiryoku is the power a soul has, Reiatsu is the force of one's Reiryoku. Better? If not, research it yourselves ;-P
In Naruto, chakra is the fusion of the energy of the soul and the energy of the body. The former comes from meditation and experience, the latter from physical workout and exercises. Combined together in equal proportion one gets chakra.
In this story, the existence of chakra came about because Soul Society made a faulty experiment with some Gigai, which led to a mutation of the Reiryoku (power of the soul) and the awakening of the physical energy of the body, which normally is not used because a soul does not have a body, hence hasn't a physical energy. To conclude, Reiryoku mutated and became the Yin energy we know about and then in those Gigai the souls were able to use Yang energy.
The Soul King refers to chakra as an abomination because it is not supposed to exist.
2. At the beginning I wrote about the integrity of a soul, in that case the Soul King's and in the end about Naruto's. I read in the manga that Shinigami and Hollow powers are just opposite powers that reside in a soul, the Hogyoku simply removes the barrier between these two powers, making Visards and Arrancars.
In the case of the Soul King, his soul is complete, there is no barrier and there are no distinctions between his powers because his soul simply is. He isn't a Shinigami, he isn't a Hollow because his soul has no barrier inside itself and his power is unique to him.
Naruto is a special case, the King used the soul of the Kyuubi to make a Zanpakuto and the power of the Bijuu to break the barrier in his soul giving him Hollow powers. So yes, expect Naruto to be able to use Hollowification during this story, maybe.
3. Naruto's powers. Naruto will be able to use the normal technique every Shinigami knows, Zanjutsu, Hakuda, Hohou and Kidou. Plus Hollowification.
The way I understood the workings of souls from the manga, every Plus has the ability to become a Shinigami, it's not like you must have a Shinigami parent, you just have to have a high amount of spiritual energy. Example, Rukia and Renji were simple Pluses in Rukongai but got accepted in the Shinigami academy because of their power level.
Naruto is like them, he has a huge amount of spiritual power and has to learn how to use thay power in the same way normal Shinigami do.
4. I do not know if there will be a pairing, because if you paid attention I mentioned that the "Visard Accident" happened a few decades prior to this story, while in canon Bleach happened 100 years or so prior to the events of canon, so there is the possibility of a sequel with the events of Bleach and I don't know how to let them work if Naruto gets a woman with a kid and then abandons them to go play with his sword in Soul Society with Ichigo and band.
5. If this story will continue, expect another "filler" chapter with his upbringing and discovery of his powers before Canon!Naruto starts during the Wave Arc.
I think that's all, consider this a one-shot to see the reaction of you readers, if you are interested I will continue the story unless it will be a one-shot for someone else to eventually continue on their own. Review!
Ja ne!