Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Bleach, this is a work of pure fanfiction! Unfortunately...
Author Note: Yes, I know I need to update, but I am terrible at convincing myself to hold deadlines, and I have gotten a recent addiction to the world of Bleach, however, I could not leave Naruto behind, so i took him with me!
Naruto gritted his teeth as he and the remainder of the survivors from the force stayed behind cover as a group of undead shinobi fired salvoes of Fireballs towards their position.
"Move!" Naruto barked to his men when the fire stopped, and they sped from cover, slicing their way through the formerly dead shinobi that stood in their way.
"Shit! If we don't manage to get to Madara soon and eliminate him, the diversionary army is screwed, sixty percent in reserves or not," Naruto thought grimly as he sliced his katana through the body of a former Suna shinobi.
The initial plan had been that an army creates a diversion, Naruto and his assassination force eliminate Madara, and the reserves come in and finish the mop up of the enemy forces. However the entire plan was betting on the thought that if Madara died, the last of the Zetsu and the undead shinobi would fall and die without needing to be killed by conventional methods. Madara would have used the revived Juubi, but Naruto had managed to reseal the damn thing within the moon, and with the Akatsuki gone, Madara didn't have the strength necessary to revive it again. As such, it was down to a war of bloody attrition, and the shinobi were losing.
"Naruto!" Naruto's head snapped up to Shikamaru, who had called his name. "We'll hold them off, you go on ahead and take that son of a bitch out!" Naruto nodded, leaving Shikamaru and the remainder of his force to die on the battlefield, holding off hordes of undead shinobi.
Shikamaru was the last of his friends he had left, and now it was just him. Many had been taken out in the devastating shock attacks during the early parts of the war, and the remainder fell in battle buying time for others to complete the mission they had been assigned. In fact, of the old generations, there were only Naruto and Shikamaru, everyone having been replaced, and the two of them were regarded as more ancient beings of power rather than humans like the rest.
Naruto wiped his mind of the memories, charging up the hillside, dancing through all in his path and killing them quickly. He was climbing up towards the remnants of Madara's statue at the Valley of the End.
"Valley of the End indeed," Naruto thought bitterly. The valley itself had turned into one massive crater, and even now the diversionary army was stuck in the middle of it, taking a heavy amount of Jutsu fire from three sides. Naruto stopped for a moment as he caught his breath once more before he charged up the final summit, taking Madara's guards by surprise.
"My, my, if it isn't the little fox," Madara said as he watched Naruto slay his guards. "Well, someone has turned into a vicious fighter. You know, I am kind of impressed by the tenacity that you've shown in leading your forces," Madara said conversationally as he turned back to watch the destruction of the diversionary army.
"I will kill you Madara!" Naruto said, speeding towards the traitorous Uchiha with a Rasengan in hand.
"Shinra Tensai." Madara said in a bored tone, not even looking at the blonde. He didn't see the blonde that had flown at him turn into a puff of smoke.
Naruto crept up behind Madara; at the beginning of the final summit he had made a Shadow Clone and made it take his place. Meanwhile he had gone around the hillside and climbed up the remaining statue, staying behind Madara. Naruto had finally learned how to make sure that his chakra presence was constantly unnoticeable, although had had to use some Fuuinjutsu seals to do so. Madara also didn't have the advantage that Nagato had exploited; he didn't use the six paths in separate bodies, so he couldn't use them to watch out for his back.
"Wind Release: Rasengan!" Naruto spoke from right behind Madara before he plunged the Rasengan through Madara's back and into his heart. Naruto's heart soared: they had finally done it, Madara was dead and they had won. He missed Madara speaking quietly under his breath, and the next thing he knew there was a swirl of chakra and both Madara and Naruto were pulled into the center.
Naruto was sent spinning very fast before he felt a very hard impact all over the back of his body. He opened his eyes and saw blurred treetops above him before he blacked out.
Meanwhile, back on the battlefield, the hilltop that Naruto and Madara had formerly been on had undergone a mini-implosion. The massive battle that had been taking place in the valley below had come to halt; the undead shinobi had all disappeared, no longer bound to Madara. The White Zetsu, although still alive and killing, were leaderless and the reinforcements had quickly moved in and mopped up, killing the remainder. Shikamaru looked down upon the massive crater the was the former Valley of the End with his eight remaining men and sighed.
"Well Naruto, seems like you did the impossible once more, although it was your last. Perhaps now the last of our generation can finally be at peace from war and watch as we rebuild," Shikamaru thought, lighting a cigarette. The forty year old Nara turned and led his men back down the hillside slowly, lost in memories of dead friends.
"KIT! WAKE UP DAMMIT! GET THAT BLONDE HEAD OF YOURS INTO GEAR!" Naruto heard as he awoke to find himself in his mindscape.
"Can you be quiet Kurama? I just woke up," Naruto said before getting up and walking slowly over to the front of the cage where Kurama was contained.
"What do you want?" Naruto asked.
"It seems that our current situation is well out of our depth, Naruto. Madara did one of the worst possible things when you hit him with that Rasengan. He used Kamui to try and teleport out of the way, but by that time your technique had already hit him. The chakra of both techniques collided and melded, causing the hilltop to implode. However you, by some luck and me using my chakra to shield your body, seem to have broken the laws of reality and been sent to another dimension." Kurama said.
"What? How?" Naruto was, rather understandably, aghast at this.
"I do not know, but it seems that the melding of the chakra has done this. It would be almost impossible to recreate the effects and try and get back to our world. If you do not believe me, look up at the chakra above our heads." Kurama answered, flicking a tail to gesture up at the pipes above them.
Naruto looked up to see that the pipes were smaller then they had been, but not by much. The thing that caught his attention though was the fact that there was no longer any chakra filling them, but a different substance instead.
"I do not know what the substance is, but it feels similar to Yin chakra in the fact that it is spiritually based, but I do not know much else," Kurama remarked.
"Wait a second, if your chakra is gone to this substance, then how are you still here?" Naruto asked, looking at the bars of the cage, unable to see Kurama.
"I didn't disappear, per say, but I did change," Kurama said, before moving forward into Naruto visible sight. Kurama had shrunk, now only around twice Naruto's height, and the orange red fur had become black with streaks of silver. The red eyes had also changed to a deep forest green. The fox rapidly moved on, giving Naruto no time to remark on its new appearance.
"Anyway, we do not know what the outside is like nor how long it will be before you wake up, so you might want to spend your time in here training and experimenting with this new substance." Kurama said.
"Uh, I don't have any equipment to train with," Naruto said.
"It's your mindscape, idiot, you have control over how it looks and how you can use it," Kurama said before it began settling down to sleep. Naruto wondered why he hadn't thought of that before and set to work.
Naruto had quickly figured out that although he was still able to do Ninjutsu with the new energy substance, it seemed a little different from before, requiring different ways of molding it than before. He found that many of the hand signs he had learned as a shinobi molded it differently from what they had in his dimension. He decided that he was going to have to learn how to mold the energy through mental capacities, but found this easier in his mindscape as he was able to physically watch the shaping of the substance. He also changed the area outside of Kurama's cage into a training ground, having one part being an open, flat area stocked with weapons and the like and the rest being divided up into various areas with different training environments.
Naruto suddenly remembered the training ability of Kage Bunshin, and excitedly began to experiment with creating them using the new energy. This way he could also estimate just how much of this substance he had in him as well. Thankfully for Naruto, the fact that Kage Bunshin only required one hand seal allowed him to summon around fifty clones with the new substance, but it drained around two thirds of his current amount.
"Damn, either my reserve for this is vastly smaller than it used to be for chakra, or creating Kage Bunshin is a lot harder with this substance," Naruto gasped, as he collapsed to the floor.
"I presume it a little of both, as your reserve seems slightly smaller, but also add in the fact that this energy doesn't seem to have as much physical essence as chakra did," Kurama commented.
Naruto sent the clones off to do a various number of things: ten to do tree climbing, ten to water walking, ten to do Taijutsu Katas, ten to do Kenjutsu Katas and the final ten to continue with experimentation. He ordered them to dispel one from each group every half hour before he went to sleep, well, as much as he could with Kage Bunshin exercising in his mindscape.
Naruto woke up and saw that he was no longer in the mindscape but rather in the depths of a forest. Naruto looked at the treetops above his head before he moved his head slowly to either side, checking his surroundings. Naruto sat up slowly, the joints in his upper back cracking loudly due to misuse.
"Well, first priority, is to get something to eat while trying to find a nearby town or other to figure where I am. From there, I'll need to find out as much information as possible on this world," Naruto spoke out loud before he began trying to decide a direction to go in.
He looked up and saw a hint of smoke to his west, according to the sun, and so headed towards it. To him, it didn't really matter what it was, it could undoubtedly point him in the right direction. Naruto moved towards the house, while Kurama revealed something else that had happened during their little dimension jump.
"Ah, Naruto, I have two other things you might want to know," Kurama began.
"What is it Kurama?" Naruto asked as he jumped down some rocks.
"Well, first off, you seem to have been turned back into a twelve year old," Kurama said, causing Naruto to look down at his body.
"Holy Shit! How didn't I notice this earlier! Ugh, wait a minute that means I'm short again, dammit!" Naruto said loudly, before he calmed down enough to ask what the second thing was.
"Well, you know how the revived Orochimaru captured you for a few months before that Shikamaru kid came and rescued you and how during that time he put you through the experiments that Yamato guy had to go through as a child?"
"Yeah, but it failed, I gained Water and Earth as chakra natures alongside my original Wind, the experiment to get me to get Mokuton failed. The bastard had thought that since my dad was descended directly from Hashirama that if he ran the experiment on me I would gain the Mokuton." Naruto said, beginning to see where this was going.
"Well it seems that your new substance has the ability to control Wood; from what I can see in here, the substance has green and brown streaks running through it occasionally, signifying a chakra nature. It also feels like that of the Shodaime's: rather peaceful. However there is a problem; there seems to be some sort of lock on it, and I have no clue about how to unlock it." Kurama said, dozing off to sleep after he was done.
On the outside Naruto was shocked, he had Mokuton as an affinity. Naruto looked up amongst the wilderness, now beginning to slow down and take his time.
"Perhaps I can set up some sort of Hideout for me here in this forest, that'd be nice, but I should probably only do so when I am sure that there's no place for me in this town I am looking for…Dammit! If only I could remember Yamato's technique for building a house out of wood, and have the Mokuton free," Naruto thought as he walked through the forest.
Naruto soon came across the house he had been heading towards before he realized that the people of this land might not speak his language. As such Naruto decided to stay in hiding while he sent a Kage Bunshin forward to talk with the owners of the house in an attempt to receive directions.
When the Kage Bunshin dispersed, Naruto learned that he didn't know their language, and the man that had answered the door thought the Kage Bunshin was just messing around. Naruto sighed before he retreated into the forest a little and created six Kage Bunshin.
"Alright, we don't know where the nearest town is, but we do know that there is a road like path, and that must lead to somewhere. Therefore three will go down one way, and three down the other while I stay here and start setting up a habitable space in the forest. Okay, go," Naruto said, sending the Kage Bunshin off.
He then turned and began walking through the forest, eager to see what it contained.
Later that day Naruto had managed to erect a temporary shelter using planks of wood that he had cut from a tree using his Wind chakra. He had also managed to snag a rabbit for dinner as well, along with finding a fast flowing creek that ran nearby. If there was one definite thing that all learned during the war, it was how to live off the land, for teams would often have to be left stranded in enemy territory and have to make their way back to safety.
"Mind you, this would be a nice place to have a house or something, I can build it with Kage Bunshin and use Genjutsu to conceal it…Dammit, I need to find out if I can even use Genjutsu with this new substance thing," Naruto thought.
Naruto's brain immediately focused on the information transferred to him when he felt that one of the six Kage Bunshin dispel. He knew that the three Kage Bunshin heading the other way would turn and head to the destination that the other team had been at. The remaining two Kage Bunshin of the team that had found the town would immediately go into the town as far as they could and take note of the important landmarks.
"So…Karakura Town huh? And apparently there are ghosts," Naruto said out loud before he turned away to begin cooking the rabbit he had caught and skinned earlier.
