AN: Chapter 1 of the plunny collection thingy! Yay... I'm so busy right now, why am I doing this? Possible title "Don't Rush, Slow Down"- In which Harry chooses to remain dead, but Death won't allow it, and the only current opening between the worlds of the living and the dead is where one foolish ninja has summoned an incarnation of Death itself. So Death makes a deal...
-Battle of Hogwarts-
-The Train Platform-
"So I can go back?" Harry asked.
Dumbledore nodded pleasantly.
"But what if I don't want to?"
Dumbledore's eyes lost of bit of their twinkle. "I suppose... you could go on in that case. But, my boy-"
"I walked into the forest to die, Professor," Harry said quietly. He looked up at Dumbledore's silent face. "I went to Voldemort to die. I accepted it, do you really think I can just go back?"
"No, my boy," the professor said sadly, looking more like an old man in that moment than the day he had died. "I suppose you cannot."
Harry nodded and stood. "I wish I could do something for him," he said as he looked over to the weeping piece of Voldemort. "There's really nothing…?"
"No, Harry." Dumbledore stood as well. "The wounds on his soul can be healed by none other than himself. He is too far gone now to benefit from any kindness you might give him."
"Then, I guess there's nothing left for me here," Harry said, hesitant now that the moment was truly here. This was both easier and harder than walking into the forest had been. He turned to face Dumbledore. "Will I see you again?"
"Should you ever look for me, I am certain I will be there to be found," Dumbledore said with a sad smile.
Harry nodded. That was good enough for now. He turned to the train platform. Now that he felt more sure about his choice, he knew a train would be coming soon. It would be good to see his parents again, and Remus, and Sirius. Harry smiled. Especially Sirius.
-Chunnin Exam Invasion-
-Konohagakure-
Sarutobi gasped for breath around the blood filling his mouth. The Shinigami should have pulled the rest of Orochimaru's soul out by now. Why was it only hovering in place between his student's body and his own? He couldn't risk the jutsu failing now!
Orochimaru glared and hissed curses as he tried to call his sword further into his teacher's gut. Enma was doing his best to keep the blade from inching forward, but tied up as he was it was a losing battle. Just as Sarutobi thought he should send whatever reserves of chakra he had left into the jutsu, a cold voice spoke, breaking not only his own concentration, but that of the only other who could hear it as well.
"You have no chakra left."
Orochimaru glared over Sarutobi's head, a flash of terror covered quickly with a smirk. "It seems you're finished, Sarutobi-sensei."
Sarutobi coughed. "It's not… the end…" The Shinigami had hold of his student's soul! That should be enough to seal him, shouldn't it?
"Would you please die already, Sarutobi-sensei," Orochimaru mocked. Now that the Shinigami had revealed his teacher's weakness, his confidence was returning. But he still flinched when the Shinigami began speaking again.
"You ran out of chakra a while ago, Sarutobi Hiruzen."
Sarutobi was too exhausted to do more than pant and clutch Orochimaru's stiff shoulders, but the horror that swept through him when the being he thought was under his control revealed otherwise sent a shiver down his spine.
"Why then, do I remain here?"
Sarutobi risked a glance over a shoulder to find the Shinigami grinning widely.
"I have an offer for you, Sarutobi Hiruzen."
Sarutobi's eyes widened. An offer? This shouldn't be possible. Minato-kun's notes on the Shiki Fuujin said that the Shinigami was only brought to the mortal world temporarily to seal the target of the jutsu. The Shinigami should be bound so tightly by the will of the jutsu's caster that it would act only to carry out the jutsu's goal.
Except Sarutobi was all out of chakra to control the jutsu...
"You summoned me to seal three souls for the price of your own." The Shinigami's frigid voice rang out again, and Saurtobi was certain he could detect a tone of smugness beneath the harsh words. That only made listening to the being more terrifying. "Three souls are not equal to one."
Sarutobi felt a pain, greater than the Shinigami's icy arm passing through his chest, stab into his heart. He had risked this jutsu with it's desperate price so that Orochimaru might be eliminated or at least weakened, but now it sounded as though his efforts would be for nothing.
"Of course, one soul is not equal to one soul either," the Shinigami said flatly, "but I was willing to overlook that before."
Before? Sarutobi thought, That must be a reference to Minato using the Shiki Fuujin on the Kyuubi. The possibility of someone else who had managed to summon Death itself for a task was too troubling to consider.
"But now, not only do you trade the prices of souls, you do it without any power to hold me."
Sarutobi was certain he could hear the vicious grin at the end of that statement. His eyes fell closed while Orochimaru's lit up.
"However, I am still willing to take all three souls if you wish, but for a more adequate price."
"NO!" Orochimaru screamed and the hand he'd relaxed as he began to think the Shinigami would kill his teacher for him, twitched up. A trickle of chakra seeped out of his fingers to pull the blade in his teacher's stomach a little deeper.
Sarutobi blinked. "What price?" he coughed out, ignoring the pain of a blade sliding inside him.
"I will take the souls you wish, if you take a soul from me."
"A soul... from you?" Sarutobi choked as the edge of the blade scraped a rib. Enma grunted as he tried harder to keep the sword from moving.
"Accept it and keep it safe, and I will not claim your soul now."
Was the Shinigami really offering to let his soul go free? Could he trust a Shinigami to uphold such a deal? And what soul did it want him to take? What sort of soul would Death itself not want to keep? But he had no way to control the jutsu without chakra, so his only hope was the word of the Shinigami...
"Deal..." Sarutobi gasped. The last thing he saw was his prized student screaming at him in rage before darkness overtook everything.
-Konoha T&I prison-
Harry sputters in shock as icy wetness washes over him and blinks droplets of water out of his eyes to look blearily at the bright light above him. Had he been asleep?
"Awake now?" a harsh voice asks.
Harry's eyes widen and snap down to focus on the man before him. A frown stretches deep scars that run across his face, and cloth with a metal band is tied around the top of his head. His eyes are dark and unfriendly.
Who the bloody hell is this and what happened to the train?
The man watches him emotionlessly with his hands folded quietly on the table between them. Harry blinks again and looks around, more confused than ever.
He's in a small, bare room, seated at the table with the man. Or rather, Harry corrects as he pulls his shoulders against the scratchy rope, the man is seated at the table. Harry himself is tied to the chair in front of the table.
"What's going on?" Harry asks angrily. "Who are you?"
"That's not important here," the man says flatly. "What matters is who you are."
"I already know who I am," Harry snarls. "Who are you?!"
The man smiles, pulling the scars into harsh shadows. "That's good, you know who you are. It should make it easier for you to answer my questions. I hate getting prisoners who don't know anything."
Harry glares at him, thinking fast. Something had gone wrong. He doesn't know what happened exactly, but somehow he hadn't moved on as he thought. He must have come back to life.
Unfortunately, wherever he is, he is unwelcome. The only good thing Harry can see in the situation is that the people holding him have no idea who he is, meaning they couldn't possibly be Death Eaters or, really, anyone from the wizarding world. The rope around his arms and, Harry glances up at the light- a lightbulb, make him think perhaps these people are muggles.
"Oh, now don't go quiet on me this early," the man says and he stands to come around the table. "We have lots of ways to make you talk, and all the time in the world to wait for you to run out of things to say."
A shiver goes down Harry's spine as the scarred man leans over him with a grin. Well, that solidified Harry's desire to get out of here, now. He seems to be wearing the same torn and dirtied clothes from the Battle, and he can feel the cloak in its pocket inside his robe, so surely the wand would still be inside his sleeve.
A wand is indeed inside Harry's sleeve, coming to his hand the moment his fingers twitch for it, but it didn't feel like the wand he'd stolen from Draco, it was far too knobbly for that. Still, a wand was a wand, and a silent Stupefy directed through it is just as effective as any spell sent through a wand should be.
The man before him falls to the floor unconscious, and Harry is just twitching the wand to cut the rope away from him when a door he hadn't realized was behind him bursts open. Harry lunges away from the chair, under the table and spins to send two rapid Stupefy's! at whoever had entered the room.
A man in a white mask dives to the right, while another with bandages across half his face, covering his eyes, dives to the left. Knives fly from them both to clang and bounce off a hastily erected shield.
"Incarcerous! Impedimenta! Petrificus Totalus! Locomotor Mortis!" Harry sends as many non-lethal spells toward the two muggles trying to reach him as fast as he can draw breath. The masked man flips over and around the ropes of Harry's first curse, but lands right where his third was aimed and falls to the floor like a log. The bandaged man trips as the Impediment Curse flashes by his leg and a swiftly sent Stupefy has both him and the masked man safely unconscious.
Harry lets out a tired sigh at the sudden quiet and takes a moment to look over the wand he'd wielded. He gasps and stares at it in shock. This is Dumbledore's wand, the one Voldemort stole, this is the Elder wand!
Harry wonders how it could have ended up in his sleeve when his last memory of it was watching as a green light blazed from the tip right towards him. Unfortunately, soft echoes from the open door tell Harry there are still more muggles between him and freedom so his contemplation will have to wait. One quick tap over his head sends the cool waves of the Disillusionment charm over his body and the tops of his shoes vanish just as several more muggles, both masked and not, leap into the room throwing knives and spinning shards of metal.
Another silent wave of the Elder wand sends these arching around him to land all across the room and Harry waits a moment for the muggles to become distracted with their fallen comrades before carefully slipping past and out into the hall. One of the muggles races from the room around him to call out a prisoner escape to the rest of the building. Harry shrugs it off, adds a Notice-Me-Not charm on top of the Disillusion, and continues walking. He's bound to find an exit sooner or later.
AN: Well, here is one possible HP/Naruto idea I have. Comment if you want to see this continued... or if you want to see another HP/Naruto idea, because I have more. Dear god do I ever have more.. ;_; what is happening to my mind?