AN: Hey after reading through my previous work I have decided, like most other do, that i can do better and this is my attempt, please if anyone has any constructive criticism or any ideas than they are more than welcome. While this is mostly done to prove to myself that I am, actual capable of writing something half decent I also hope the you readers enjoy yourself while you are doing so. Thank you for your time.
Dying the way he did was not exactly the way he imagined he'd go. He had imagined that when he died it would either be in the loving embrace of his dear Yugito as he passed on through old age, either that or the more likely idea of dying in a blaze of glory has he held back countless waves of foreign shinobi attacking the gates of his beloved home, Konoha.
However the last couple of years had been absolute hell for him, first his son Kisuke and his beloved wife Yugito had been murdered while he was out trying to terminate yet another uprising in Rice Field Country. After all after he had forcefully subjected it to Fire country control the entire country forgot about the living hell they were subjugated to during the rule of Orochimaru, and took Fire nation involvement as a "impingement upon their sovereign rights", no joke. So he, as the Hokage, was responsible for any problems that occurred there, and boy where there problems; uprisings, assassinations, civil disputes, fires and explosions. Man did that bastard Orochimaru know how to pick his people of course after he tired of constantly putting up with them he had simply gone out and massacred all opposition, not the most human approach perhaps but after the countless death due to terrorism and civil war designed to "free the land from foreign invaders" and failing to do anything but kill their own people. He had decided that it was more human to crush them once and for all and focus more on the rebuilding of the country into something usable. It was a lesson that he would take with him to the grave.
Throughout the years he learned that anything can be improved, no matter what it was, so if he can improve the Rasengan then why not improve the Hiraishin. So he created a technique that used the same theory of Hiraishin but crossed it with the Shunshin to increase the diversity of the jutsu. While the Hiraishin was one of the greatest feats of fuinjutsu the technique relied upon the fuin being laid beforehand and while this was great when you were able to place the fuin, it became not so useful if you couldn't, not to mention the chakra in the seals tended to degrade after a week or so and constantly relaying the fuin grew tiresome after a couple of months. Thus his masterpiece was born and only later did he realise that the technique was similar to Madara's Space-Time Migration technique though admittedly it was faster but lacked the intangibility effect with this technique no one saw you move, a most useful side effect in battle and one that tended to end them rather quickly. He never could get any name for the technique itself, so he let the rumours spread and let the people call it whatever they wished, but there was one he liked the most and it was called The Final Flash. Corny in its own right but it had the right idea, because once used, it tended to be the final thing you'll ever experience…..even if you don't see it.
On his way back hoping to see his loving wife and son he was greeted to a sight of a cackling Kabuto standing over their remains. Kabuto had been a thorn in his side since he had incorporated Orochimaru into himself, that and his disgusting tendency to pray upon the vulnerable and leech upon those stronger than him; alas he had been a thorn but not a real threat or concern….. And after his last big mistake he never was either. Tales of what had occurred to Kabuto during the week that he had him was circulated around the continent, and with it came a rather frightening reputation of brutality and outright depravity….. though it was something that no-one ever blamed him for. He had spent that week couped up with Ibiki and Anko and together devised possibly one of the most gruesome torture routines ever developed, the discovery of his healing factor just further increased this. Eventually he gotten fed up with his screaming and publically held an execution, to serve as a warning for those that would go against him. He then proceeded to erased him from existence, for lack of a better term with use of Kyuubi's chakra, in other words he had slowly and painfully burned him with the acidic chakra until nothing was left, not even ashes.
It had been close to 20 years since that day and he refused to look at another woman since. He had thrown himself into the village; turning Konoha and Fire Country into the greatest it had ever been, extending its borders all the way out to the Islands of Sea Country, virtually all of Water Country and most of of Earth Country were under his control. Beyond just mindlessly conquering counties he had setup laws, abolished all but the most ingrained slave and trafficking rings, crushed the drug trade and had brought about a lasting and fair peace to all those either allied with him or ruled by him. Sadly there were always those that wanted more and under the pretence of 'freedom fighting' decided to take up arms against his rule, these he had orders taken down with extreme prejudice, and when caught were made an example of. For a time this seemed to escalate the problem, and the 'freedom fighters' grew arrogant, believing that they couldn't be found and this proved to be their undoing, as one morning they found out when their main operations bases were assaulted and killed to a man….. after extracting all necessary information of course, the Yamanaka's proved themselves invaluable that day, the ability to enter a mind, extract the necessary information and then kill them was both quick and brutal as the method virtually destroyed all higher thinking.
But here he was an old man of 70 who had seen and done too much, all of his friends were dead leaving their legacies to continue on the Legendary Konoha 12. He had clashed with the likes of Madara Uchiha and his Akatsuki and came out on top. He had obliterated the infamous 'Bloody Mist' and had finished what his father had started the crippling and eventual downfall of Iwa; though the means weren't through war but through their economy. He had done this by publically proclaiming that if any person or country that was known to send missions, the life blood of any shinobi nation, than they would be considered an enemy of Konoha and the Land of Fire.
This was only put into place after Iwa was attributed to the complete destruction of a series of border towns in the occupied region of Kusa and Taki. Like always this was done under the banner of "freeing the people from the Tyranny of Konoha", A 'scorched earth' like campaign of the border regions really supported this message and the people rose up and demanded that Konoha do something, what followed painfully reminded Iwa of the days of the Fourth Hokage as entire platoons were slaughtered before they even knew what happened, the 'war', if you could call it that lasted only 2 months with the armies of the United Fire Nations or UFN steamrolling the Iwa lines and pushing them back to the mountains of Iwagakure itself. By that time, the virtually starved population was in full revolt and after only 2 days of siege did the populace open its gates to the UFN and present them the head of the Tsuchikage as a token of their surrender. They were promptly incorporated into the UFN, Naruto was only 27.
Throughout his endeavours he earned a title which had baffled even him, Dragon God. He was never able to make any sense of this, especially since he still used toads. Though when asked the answer's varied between: that he was territorial like a dragon, gaining land and making sure others bend to his laws and power or that he was as powerful as the mythical dragons but also held wisdom and intelligence in all realms of combat be it political, civil, or martial.
Yet here he was sprawled over his desk with multiple stab wounds and blood flowing down the mahogany desk painting it dark crimson. He was betrayed by the same Shinobi that had served under him. He knew it was coming, sooner or later people grew jealous of the power he gained and had claimed that he had became detached from his people and uncaring. His shinobi whispering that he had gone senile in his old age and that he no longer had the best wishes of his people in mind, or that he had become drunk on power and would continually seek it out until he consumed everything, ironic since he had not needed to conquer anything in over 50 years as those that weren't directly under his control were merely ruled by a proxy that was firmly controlled by him anyway. It was all lies of course but he was too old to bother and quite frankly just tired of the monotony of his life and dealing with the naïveté of the younger generation was, in the ever immortal worlds of his late friend Shikamaru Nara…. troublesome.
He had welcomed the attempt but that didn't mean he didn't go down fighting, killing 30 of his assassins would surely give his former subordinates a taste of the Dragon God. Through the years his body had become brittle and weak, once strong bones were now frail, while once strong muscles and tendons were not sore and achy. Old age did Naruto in but he didn't care, for once Naruto was at peace. He had lived a good life and was looking forward to seeing his wife and son again. And so it was that then the living legend, the Dragon God of Konoha, the Rokudaime Hokage, and leader of the UFN, passed on from the living world.
When news of Naruto Namikaze's death had reached the other side the Captain-Commander of the Gotei 13, Genryūsai Shigekuni Yamamoto himself made the trip to perform the Konso on Naruto personally. The look on his lieutenants face summed up the collective feeling of those in-the-know, what made this human so special that the strongest and most respected of them would personally guide him to the afterlife, it was the hottest topic of discussion for weeks. Yamamoto while preparing to leave thought back to the reason of all the commotion, Naruto Namikaze while a legend in his own right in the living world was also a legend in the top brass of the Shinigami as well. Through the Onmitsukidō the Captains were able to keep up to date on the coming's and going of the mortal world, focusing mainly on those that shaped and moulded the direction that the world would follow, this was the primary reason Onmitsukidō members were so cold, they had to be utterly indifferent to mortal matter to resist the temptation to interfere, and through this they were able to witness the birth of a technique that was similar and in some ways superior to their own Hohō skills. Yamamoto was sure that due to the Shinigami's inherent spiritual bodies, making them superior in terms of speed and strength then there were Shinigami faster than Naruto, but the fact that it would require a Lieutenant ranked Shinigami to do it was mind boggling and if Naruto were to become a Shinigami and join the ranks, well the possibilities for both him and the Gotei 13 were endless.
Many in the afterlife had said stories of him, claiming him to be some sort of super-powered human god and while most were farfetched and plain stupid they held some truth to his abilities. Able to manipulate elements themselves, to cloning hundreds of himself to overwhelm his enemies while preserving his own subordinate's strength, and most of all, his political prowess, the ability to control such a huge amount of land and not be taken over was something Yamamoto respected from one leader to another.
Yamamoto himself was no fool he knew that if he had sent anyone else they would have not been able to handle the pressure, except for a select few Captain's as he was sure was going to be there at the scene of his death. The Kyuubi while a chakra monster was also a spiritual being and overtime while connected to Naruto's soul had transferred most of its spiritual power to Naruto and the rest was sure to be absorbed by his spiritual body upon death, making true on the claims that a bijuu 'dies' if still sealed into its host upon death and is a reason why they are often extracted on the death beds of their former jinchūriki. But because it had almost never happened he was also going to make sure the Kyuubi was truly gone, that fox was a troublesome headache and he didn't need some seated officer or one of his Captains to face it alone. Yamamoto readied himself as he felt the Senkaimon doors open.
It's when he stepped out of the Senkaimon that he felt the pressure weighing down on him. It was uncontrolled and raging wildly.
"I should hurry this along before menos level Hollows start popping up" thought Yamamoto. While following the source of the pressure, an amusing thought came to him. It had been almost 1500 years since his last Konso(this is roughly 500 years before Bleach Canon), "I really need to get out more" he thought as he reached his destination, but he arrived to something he wasn't expecting.
As Yamamoto appeared at the sight of Naruto's death, there was an almost palpable stench of death and blood. As he investigated further what he saw shocked him to his core, here was a man, in his 20's standing over the bodies of over 7 hollows and amazingly enough a Menos, while any 3rd seat or over in power could accomplish the same it was stunning to see a Plus of all things do the same. He recognized the man immediately but was curious to see him with his eyes closed as if trying to find a solution to what was happening.
Naruto Namikaze sat still and to the world, well those that could see him, it would seem as if he was staring into space, but those that knew him, knew he was finding his centre. After all seeing the sight of your own dead body was definitely something that can shake a person to his core. Opening his eyes Naruto turned around to face Yamamoto and stared into his eyes.
"So you come for me finally, Shinigami, I must say that it has been a meeting long in the waiting and I find myself wondering, what will happen to me when I die? I have slaughter thousands in order to save thousands more. But I find myself curious do I deserve hell and damnation or heaven and peace" Stated Naruto after giving a small bow in respect to the being that will take him to the afterlife.
Yamamoto stood for a while wondering what to say, yet he simply walked forward and replied "It is not my place to say Naruto Namikaze let your own soul judge and move on. But I hope to see you in Soul Society one day"
"What happens now?" asked Naruto.
"I will perform a ritual called Konso. It will either send you to a place called Soul Society where all 'just' souls go or you will condemned to hell to suffer for your sins, if you do manage to get to Soul Society with your vast reserves of Reiryoku you will be almost guaranteed entrance into the Shinigami Academy." explaining Yamamoto as he held up his cane and show that it was an illusion to hide his sword. Taking the butt of the handle and was about to tap Naruto before stopping just millimetres away.
"Oh one more thing enjoy your new body and I hope you get used to it, judging by the amount of Reiryoku you have I'll say it'll take you're a few months or a year to get used to it. Goodbye Naruto Namikaze may we meet again under better circumstances." with that Yamamoto tapped Naruto on the forehead and sent him on his way.
Naruto felt himself disappearing and before he completely vanished he looked into the Captain Commander's eyes and said "Thanks old man, see you around one day." And with that Naruto Namikaze was sent to Soul Society.
Yamamoto just chuckled as he opened the Senkaimon to Soul Society.
"Naruto Namikaze I can tell you'll make Soul Society very interesting place to be live from now on. Until we meet again grow strong my boy." were the last thoughts of the Captain Commander of the Gotei 13 as he walked through the Senkaimon.