Naruto: Corazon De Honor
(An alternate retelling of my Naruto/Bleach Xover story, Shinigami No Ken. What if Naruto was reborn as a hollow alongside Sasuke instead of being sent to Soul Society? Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach or any of it's characters but I kinda wish I did)
Chapter 1: Hollowfied
"You know this is all your fault Teme!!!"
"Oh shut up dobe! Who the hell asked for your concern anyways? I was doing fine on my own!"
"You call going AWOL on Konoha and going to that ero hebi doing fine?!?"
"I eventually killed him didn't I? And I also killed Itachi too so I must've done the right thing!"
In the vast expanse of Hueco Mundo's desert, two large hollows can be seen arguing with each other.
One resembled a bony humanoid dragon and the other one, a skeletal nine-tailed fox.
These two were the reincarnation of Uchiha Sasuke and Uzumaki Naruto. Former fierce rivals turned bitter enemies who had been shinobis in their former lives.
As individuals, the two couldn't have been more different. Sasuke was the strong and brooding child prodigy reknowned for his talents while Naruto was the loudmouth village delinquent who also had the infamous reputation of being the jinchuuriki of Kyubi No Kitsune.
They had started out on the same team with Haruno Sakura and even though their beginning had been rather rocky, they grew almost as close as brothers could be.
But everything changed when Sasuke was marked by the notorious missing nin and rogue sanin Orochimaru with the cursed seal and no matter how hard he and his friends tried, the survivor of the Uchiha Massacre was unable to resist it's temptation.
It was at this point where the paths of Uchiha Sasuke and Uzumaki Naruto began to diverge untill one day, lured by Orochimaru's offer of unlimited power, Sasuke left Konoha.
Naruto and his allies pursued him of course, and when the blonde jinchuuriki managed to catch up to Sasuke at the Valley Of The End, the two fought.
Their first life and death encounter had ended in a stalemate as they clashed with the signature attacks, the Chidori and Rasengan while being influenced by the cursed seal and Kyubi. Both Sasuke and Naruto found themselves unable to deliver the killing blow but it was Sasuke who still managed to walk away.
Over the years, Naruto and Sasuke encountered each other numerous times but were still unable to resolve their differences.
And then, twenty years after their initial conflict at the Valley Of The End, they met there again as bitter enemies intent on annahilating each other once and for all.
Naruto, in his capacity as the new Rokudaime Hokage, wanted revenge on the alliance of Sasuke and Akatsukit for their attack on Konoha which left many of his friends and citizans dead.
Sasuke wanted to kill Naruto because the blonde jinchuuriki was still intent on protecting the village which, in his eyes, had caused the death of his entire family as well as the virtual extinction of his clan.
The fight had been long and brutal with neither person getting the edge for very long until finally, in a virtual replay of their first fight, charged up their signature attacks and attacked one another. But unlike their first fight, each person's attack connects. Shinobis from Konoha and Akatsuki who came on the scene finds Sasuke and Naruto still standing with their hands plunged into each other's heart which effectively kills them both and ending their saga in the mortal plane.
But this was not the end of their destiny and what happens next was too strange and surreal for them.
Although the memory had been hazy, both Sasuke and Naruto could remember a great hunger welling in them which caused them to ravage and devour anything they came across just to survive. Another memory had been struggling to maintain their sanity amidst a countless voices fighting to take control over their body while still working on satisfying their hunger.
Their hunger had eventually subsided enough for them to regain cognitive control over themselves and the first thing they did was examine themselves to find the reason of their great hunger and discovering their new forms.
Talking to the more intelligent beings they met in the vicinity (more like threaten), they also discovered that the place they were in right now was called the Menos Forest which was a place in this world called Hueca Mundo and that they had been also been Menos themselves before evolving to their current form.
But for them to evolve even further, they would still need to feed on other hollows. Something which they were not entirely comfortable with but soon realizing that it was a necessity to survive.
So feed they did and each reigned over their own little area of the Menos Forest for a while.
And then, they met each other again.
It was an old impulse which allowed them to recognize each other despite their new appearance and that was all it took for them to start their conflict all over again.
Such was the ferocity of their fight that the other hollows in the Menos Forest hid in fear of getting caught in the middle. Even the normally mindless Menos Grande had enough sense to steer clear of the two powerful adjuchas when they were trying to tear each other to pieces.
Their fight eventually spilled out into the white sands of Hueca Mundo's desert where they battled for what seemed like an eternity untill both gave in to exhaustion. But neither was done by a long shot and since they were too tired to finish their conflict, they resorted to words.
And that's the situation we find the two in.
"And what about that teamup with Akatsuki? Do you have any idea how many of our friends you killed?" Naruto asks with venom in his voice.
"And do you have any idea what Konoha did to the Uchiha Clan? They had no right to exterminate my entire family for the sins one man!!" Sasuke shot back. "They made my life a living hell!"
"My life was a living hell from the very beginning and you don't see me bitching about it! And believe me when I tell you that I had a LOT to be upset about." Naruto shouts back. "At least you had a family! I had absolutely nothing!"
This had the desired effect on Sasuke who falls silent for a few moments before asking in a calmer tone of voice. "How do you do it? How do you not lose yourself in your hatred especially with that fox's voice rambling in your head all the time?"
"I think about the people I have to protect no matter how few they are and that keeps me going everytime. And if you came to any of us with your problem, we would've helped you." Naruto answers. "Hell, we would've watched Konoha burn with you if managed to convince us that the village deserved it."
When Sasuke doesn't respond to this, Naruto sighs and speaks again. "Look. I guess there's no use dwelling in the past now given our current situation. What we need to do is do what we can to survive out here if we wanna have a chance to see our love ones again. I won't accept this as our fate for eternity and if there is even just a slim chance I can break that chain, I will. So what say we team up again just like old times?"
Sasuke studies his old friend for a moment before chuckling. "You never change dobe. Always blurting out things without thinking them through. Fine, we'll team up again. But just in case you haven't noticed, we're monsters now." Sasuke said and moves his bat-like wings for emphasis. "So how do you propose we work around this particular problem?"
Naruto sat down on the sand. The hind leg of his beastly form reaches up and scratches his ear in a vaguely canine-like manner. "I've heard some of the adjuchas saying that every once in a while, some guy in a white suit goes to the Menos Forest to recruit a few of 'em. I dunno what for but I heard them say something like Arrancar."
If the current form Sasuke was in had any eyebrows, it would've shot up. "Arrancar you say?"
"Yeah. You know about 'em?" Naruto asks.
"Yeah." Sasuke confirmed with a nod of his massive head. "Arrancars are supposedly hollows who removes their masks and gains the powers of a shinigami."
"The powers of a shinigami? As in the shinigamis who is supposed to hunt hollows down in the first place?" Naruto asks. The older adjuchas had told them about the arch enemies of the hollows, the shinigamis. At first, Naruto and Sasuke had been confused since they knew that there was only one shinigami. But the older adjuchas had informed them about another race of spirits who supposedly lived only to hunt them down.
Of course, the two ex Konoha shinobis had thought that something about the story didn't add up but decided it couldn't hurt to avoid shinigamis for the meantime untill they could get the facts straight.
"The very same." Sasuke replies. "The adjuchas I've talked to says that the power of an arrancar is on a whole different level then those we can see at the Menos Forest."
"That sounds like our ticket outta this dump." Naruto said with a vulpine grin. "But I can't help but feel that there's a catch somewhere."
"That may be true." Sasuke said with a grimace. "But so long as it doesn't involve saddling us with a damned hickey or anything, it wouldn't hurt to find out for ourselves."
Naruto looked thoughtful for a moment before speaking. "Then if we're gonna do this then we should have some kinda' contingency just in case things don't work out in our favor."
"What sort of contigency?" Sasuke asks.
"I was thinking that we purposely hold back our true powers in case we're ever going to become arrancar." Naruto proposed. "There's a lot about this whole arrancar business that we don't know and this acquiring power deal smells like something Orochimaru might've come up with. If we hold back and slowly work our way up the ladder, we can watch 'em and find out what they're really up to. And if we don't like what we see, we split."
"Basic shinobi tactic. 'Deception is your best weapon'. Sounds like a plan." Sasuke said with a approving nod. "One problem though. From what you said about a guy recruiting adjuchas, it's very possible that they're getting something that breaks the hollow's mask artificially. That would probably be more efficient since it'll probably make us stronger then normal arrancar but we don't know what kind of side effects that may have."
"There's only one answer to that problem. We break these masks off ourselves." Naruto stated, tapping his skeletal, vulpine mask with a claw. "It'll also be dangerous but at least its better then being some sicko's labrat."
At this point, both can hear their stomachs growl loudly making Sasuke laugh out and say. "Yeah. But we can't do it on an empty stomach." The tone of his voice then turns serious. "And if we're supposed to impress them enough to recruit us, our current level of powers won't do it. As much as I hate to say it, we have to go back to Menos Forest to get stronger."
"Soooo..... Feeding frenzy?" Naruto asks, licking his lips expectantly.
"Feeding frenzy." Sasuke confirms with a toothy smile.
The two monstrous creatures gets up and starts their trek back to the Menos Forest.
(Several Months later)
A lone arrancar walks into Menos Forest and looks around.
Wearing the typical arrancar outfit of a white jacket, white hakama pants and sandals over white socks, he was a slenderly built individual with a perpetual frown on his melancholic expression, pale, almost albino-like complexion, short and messy black hair, green eyes with slit pupils dark teal lines that descend from his eyes which made it look like he was crying. The remainder of his hollow mask is the horned helmet on the left side of his head.
The arrancar seemed a little confused by the activity inside the forest. Normally when he came here to recruit adjuchas, it was teeming with hollows of all shapes and sizes. But now it was surprisingly quiet and even the adjuchas he came to recruit were nowhere to be seen. What hollows he could sense in the vicinty seemed to be hiding from something or someone. What could have terrified them this badly?
The arrancar's questions were answered when he spots two humanoid looking individuals wearing what seemed to be rags and furs walking towards him and carrying weapons in their hand.
The pale arrancar raises an eyebrow in interest. These two were arrancars who had removed their masks by themselves out here in the wild. And although their spiritual pressure seemed a little unstable, he could they tell they were quite powerful for arrancars. Only Arrancars made using the Hogokyu were supposedly stronger because it drew out more of their potential but it was clearly not the case with these two.
It would also explain why there were much less hollows here then before. And judging from the amount of scars these two had and the way the others hollows hid themselves when they appeared, they must've been feeding for quite a while now. If that was the case, then these two would make an excellent measuring stick as to how powerful a Hogokyu created arrancar could possibly be.
As the two drew closer, the pale arrancar took a better look at the new arrancars.
Both were males and seemed relatively well built and fit.
The one on the right had jet black hair while his companion was a blonde.
The black haired arrancar's hole was located on the left part of his chest while the blonde's hole was on his navel.
The remnants of both their masks hid their eyes and most of their faces except their mouths. The black haired arrancar's looked like the top half of a three horned dragon's skull while the blonde's looked like a fox with protrusions resembling whiskers and smiling eyes which reminded the pale arrancar of a certain white haired shinigami captain and ally.
Both carried their zanpaktous in their hands. The dark haired one had what appeared to be a sheathed chokuto while the blonde wielded a short spear with a three pronged blade (Author's Note: Think hiraishin kunai :P) on one end and an iron ball on the other. A weapon which Ulquiorra believed was called a rochin. The blonde also carried what seemed to be the remains of a rather large hollow's mask as a shield of sorts.
The two new arrancars stops in front of the pale arrancar and studies him.
"I assume you two are the reason why there are less hollows in this forest?" The pale arrancar asks.
"So what if we are?" The blonde in the fox mask asks curtly. "Who wants to know?"
"Forgive my manners. My name is Ulquiorra Schiffer and I am the Cuatra Espada in the Arrancar army. I come on behalf of my liege Aizen Sosuke and would like to offer you a spot in his army. You look quite powerful and we could always use new, formidable comrades." The Arrancar identified as Ulquiorra Schiffer stated.
"Hnn…. I don't know about this." The dark hair arrancar said. "We're doing alright on our own. What do you have to offer us that we don't already have?"
"A chance to strike back against those who have wronged you and the very beings who hunt us down…." Ulquiorra answers. "….As well as an opportunity to rule over everything there is alongside Lord Aizen."
The two arrancars looks at each other for a few moments before looking back at Ulquiorra.
"Rule everything there is eh? I kinda' like the sound of that. I'm" The blonde said.
"Revenge is a pretty good incentive for me. I guess I'm in too." The black haired Arrancar said.
"Very well then. I shall take you to Lord Aizen." Ulquiorra said. "May I know your names then?"
"Uzuki Sano." The black haired one who was Sasuke replies.
"Namejin Naoto's the name. Nice to meet 'ya Ulquiorra Schiffer." The blonde who was actually Naruto answered.
And so began the new lives of Uzumaki Naruto and Uchiha Sasuke as members of Aizen Sosuke's Arrancar army. What does the future hold for them.
Author's Notes: Here you are folks. I just couldn't get rid of this 'What If' scenario off my head so that's why I made this brand new story just for you. I haven't decided on the pairings yet though and I hope I haven't screwed up the timeline. In any case, R&R please.