Naruto/Dark Souls Cross-Over (Working Title)

Prologue

In all things there is a cycle. Heat fades to cold, light fades to dark, and life fades to death. But for it to be truly a cycle, that which has faded must return once more.

On a dead world, the souls of all stripped bare, there was nothing but a colorless fog that spread through every land, and the grey Arch Trees that marked the passing of a great scourge. Existing in them were the eternal dragons, creatures that had no death, and therefore gave no thought to life.

But deep in the nothing that was, something changed, and a spark was born. And from that spark a great flame came forth. The hollow remnants of what remained also endured in that darkness, and in that flame they found their great Lord Souls.

But that light could not endure, for a flame consumes all it touches, and, like the life that sprung from it, it must consume and destroy in order to live.

Many kingdoms rose and fell on the flame, their existence inevitably tied to it. And even though the cycle happened again and again, never once was it the same. For life is chaos, and chaos abhors that which does not change. As each kingdom, each world, rose and fell, the proof of the existence of previous incarnations faded with the passage of time. A great kingdom, founded by gods, remembered only in the shadow of a great warrior. A pious city, founded around a slumbering dragon, wiped out by a terrible plague. A frozen, tenacious city, built to oppose the encroaching chaos, instead fallen to that very chaos.

Sometimes, these kingdoms remembered their pasts. But other times, the devastation was so great, that the past was forgotten.

One great kingdom arose, built around a great tree. And from that tree there grew a fruit. All knew that none should eat of it, but none knew why. Until one day, the princess of the land grew weary of constant war, and so she took the fruit. And from it, she gained great power. A power that passed to her sons, and their sons, until all the land a portion of her power. A power rooted in Darkness.

Little did the princess know that the power she took was not of the divine origin she believed it was. For that tree was all that remained of the great Arch Trees of an era long forgotten, and its roots ran deep.

Deep in the earth, beyond death and darkness, the life giving Flame had been Kindled once more, for those roots granted it a connection to the outside, and the great tree remembered how to gather those souls lost to war, as it had once before, even further in the past. And from those great wars the Flame burned and raged, fueled as it had not been in eons.

The fruit of the tree was the balance of that process. The tree gathered, and the fire consumed. And as it consumed it released that which it could not burn. That darkness, the experiences of the souls themselves, their Humanity, was of no use to the Flame. So the tree took them back, and bore a great fruit. And as the princess ate the fruit, she gained the power of all who had died, and the Darkness, so long splintered and forgotten, was unified within a true vessel once again. And it remembered itself.

In great quantities, Humanity is capable of feats that would make the gods jealous. Fire was mastered long ago, even if the arts were twisted and forgotten. And if fire could be bent, why not more? Lightning was no longer the power of gods alone, its divinity stripped away. Water opposed fire, and rose up as its equal and opposite. The earth was from which all came and all returned, and its strength was taken as well. Last was air, flowing and free, made to cut all that would stand in its path.

In this new era, the techniques and powers are no longer called "Sorceries" and "Miracles". "Hexes" and "Pyromancies" were things long forgotten. Now they were called jutsus, and utilized across many nations in combat.

Normally, events in this era would play out with none the wiser of their true history. Lives would rise and fall, and would continue to do so until the end of the era, when all things fade again. But Time does not flow smoothly around the Flame, and sometimes events that should have happened, do not. And other times events that could not happen, do.

This is one such time, when a past and its Darkness, so long forgotten, come to affect the world once more.

Chapter 1

Yugakure is only a tourist trap for two things: their hot springs and the women who tend them. However this was not only the case. The beauty of the women comes from their shinobi heritage, good looks and a great body being traits highly favored in a ninja village that specializes in seduction and information gathering. The hot springs, of course, gave the village its name. However, Yugakure faced a problem all small ninja villages face, the ever-looming presence of the five great villages: Konohagakure, Sunagakure, Kumogakure, Kirigakure, and Iwagakure.

Yugakure, unfortunately, was close enough to the Land of Lightning, and it's extremely militaristic Kumo, that the leadership of the village decided a slow de-militarization and transition into tourist attraction was safer and guaranteed and steady, if not as lucrative, source of income. Over several generations their ninja program was slowly sized down, and remaining water and earth specialists were used to locate, create or improve upon existing hot springs, the feature their village had been named after.

But all villages, even, or perhaps especially, the benign appearing Yugakure, have dark secrets. As a village specializing in infiltration and information gathering, few would be surprised, if they lived, to know that Yugakure had a third specialization: assassination.

The large villages can afford to throw away assassins. They have manpower to spare, not to mention the large forces gives others more downtime to train existing techniques or develop new ones. Small villages don't have that kind of time or power on their hands, and so they must find ways around them. In the Land of Snow, for example, they developed technology faster than the lands around them, and began fielding their shinobi forces with advanced chakra armors.

Yugakure, on the other hand, used their information gathering to find old relics. Items that no one else knew about and wouldn't notice if they went missing. And if someone did know about them, they were "encouraged" to move to Yugakure by their seduction specialists.

At one point in time, an ancient container was brought, along with its caretaker, to the village, and the caretaker willingly offered up his knowledge of its contents, as well as how to use its secrets. That man's name was Jashin, and he founded a philosophy of slaughter and ruin. And, as Yugakure specialized in assassination, he was more than happy to share his secrets. One day, as he realized his usefulness was coming to an end, and he feared his own death more than others, he placed protections on his ancient container, ensuring that he had to be kept alive, or else his secrets would die with him. Secrets of bloodshed and longevity.

Jashin lived an unnaturally long life, and his brand of longevity did not come with eternal youth. Instead, as his body grew weak, he began to train others in his arts. And as he trained them, he began to think, and reflect. No one knows why, but during the end of his days, as he spent more and more time with his ancient container, he began to regret his actions. He began to see all life as precious, and something to be protected. Foolishly, he shared these thoughts.

Once, he shared them with the woman that was his third wife, having out lived the previous two. And she, being in truth a kunoichi loyal to her village, reported this to her superiors. They quietly had him executed, and told his followers that he had vanished after using a new ritual unknown to them. However, in the ensuing struggle, he managed to obliterate his ancient container, along with whatever contents it held. His followers were told that he had sacrificed himself in the pursuit of developing new jutsus, and the backlash had destroyed the source of his power as well.

A young, eager follower of his, Hidan, asked for permission to study his master's body and discover what secrets he had been working on. The leader of the village, believing that any damage to the body had been explained, allowed this in the hope that more power could be gained from the ancient man's corpse. From here events should have played out as they should. Hidan would grow powerful and deranged, gain a form of immortality, and eventually join Akatsuki.

However, time altered itself, and events changed. Instead of his wife, Jashin spoke of his changing spirit with his most faithful disciple, Hidan. And Hidan, believing his master lost, struck him down not in anger, but in despair. Alone in their temple, Hidan quickly went to Jashin's ancient container, intending to open it and continue his master's true work. With little effort, along with insight from his master's teachings, Hidan quickly and quietly disarmed the traps on the small box, and opened it.

At first he was confused as to how a dead man's head in a wolf helm could have granted his master power. And then it spoke.

"Well, this is a pleasant surprise. Greetings, young one, I am Vengarl, of a land called Forossa. Who are you, and where is the fiend that keeps me locked away here?"