Title: Flesh and Bone
Chapter: 1
Words: 2980
Summery: AU. Spoilers for all seasons. Aizen is up to something in another realm and the leaders of Soul Society have sent Ichigo and a team to investigate. Things become even more complicated once plots are discovered and histories uncovered. The world as Naruto knows it has just gotten bigger. Bleach crossover.
Disclaimer: No own Bleach or Naruto. I know this is not an original idea, but I like to think I've done an original-like spin on the Bleach/Naruto crossover. I'm ridiculously bad at up dating so don't expect a timely schedule or anything.
Date: 7/4/2008
A/N: For those who have already read chapter one, yes this is a new one. I suggest going back through the chapters again. I've rearranged things and changed some parts so that the story flows better and makes more sense. Also, the quality towards the end may seem not so good, or rushed, and I admit, it is rushed. I was tired when I wrote it here it is weeks after I'd already finished everything else and still can't fix it. I think the chapter is as good as I can get it. If I try any harder I'm likely to make myself bored with the story all together. And that is never a good thing.

Mahou Senkai

Two Weeks Before

Aizen sat on his raised throne looking down on his followers. He was going there soon. He was going back to a place that he had helped create, where he would be sure to make his plans succeed. The fruits of their efforts would not be lost. He'd had an epiphany when Ulquiorra had told him about the girl. She would be essential to his plans now. Those in Soul Society wouldn't realize he'd even returned to the world before it was too late.

He stood and walked out of the room smirking. The gathered Arrancar followed.

Present Day (ep142 deviate)

The room was silent. Everyone had gathered at Orihime's apartment after discovering her disappearance. They had all waited impatiently for Hitsugaya to contact Soul Society only to hear that Orihime was with Aizen and now this. No one could believe what Yamamoto was saying. The members of Hitsugaya's advanced squad avoided looking up as none of them were willing to speak out against orders. It was to be understood that this was war and as in war there would be casualties. Yet they all felt the sting of betrayal. Orihime had left with the enemy on her own accord.

Ichigo refused to believe that. Inoue didn't have a choice. She wouldn't betray us. He was the first to break the silence.

"What are you saying?! That I'm suppose to just sit here and do NOTHING!" The others looked to him, his eyes blazing in rage. Rukia should have known he'd do something like this. "I'll tell you right now that I'm not doing that. I'm not someone you can order around, and if that means saving Orihime alone, then that's what I'll do." His voice held contempt and a finality that left no one believing he wouldn't do exactly as he said.

"Ichigo!" Rukia couldn't believe she was hearing this. He risked everything coming to Sereitei to save me from execution. It only figures he'd do the same for Inoue. Though she knew that in-spite of his amazing powers and abilities under pressure, Ichigo didn't have nearly the experience needed to fight against Aizen and the entire Espada.

The large screen of the video-conference device flickered as Yamamoto-sama was called away. He'd given them their orders and was assured he could leave the rest to Juushirou.

Ukitake was far more expressive than the General, being genuinely concerned since he'd had the pleasure to meet the sweet tempered, powerful young lady. He didn't like the notion of leaving Orihime in the clutches of Aizen any more than her friends did, but there was nothing more any of them could do at the moment. There was more to the betrayal than they could see. Of that he was certain.

"No one said you had to do that, baka. Let's hear what Ukitake-taichou has to say."

The man in question turned his head away from the screen as a coughing fit consumed him. It ended quickly, of which he was thankful for. He cleared his throat and continued with every-one's attention on himself. "As I was saying, the reports from the research labs say that from Earth they made use of a senkaimon through which an anomaly was used to reach the forbidden realm. Aizen forced his way through, breaching the outer wards. If too much spiritual pressure is forced through the protective barriers it would collapse, spelling devastation for the entire world.

"As of now, the plans have changed. You must find your way to the Continent and stop Aizen. It's imperative that you do this," he paused to make sure he still held a certain someone's attention. "Kurosaki-san, this is why you cannot rescue Inoue-san."

He was more serious than most of those present had ever heard him. There had been an undertone of panic in his voice and Rukia found herself concerned about the details they weren't being told. She watched Ichigo out the corner of her eyes. He was fuming, she could tell. His expression remained curiously blank, yet she knew he was upset with the news.

"What about Orihime?" He calmly asked. "I wont leave her with them."

"We're pretty certain she should be fine. She left under her own will," he continued, cutting Ichigo's objection off. "Rather or not she had a choice, the fact remains as is." He let a small smile show and for a moment, Rukia thought the 13th division taichou looked exhausted. "You have three days."

The screen went black.

"I don't like this." Rangiku muttered. Her arms were folded under her well endowed bussome in thought.

Toushirou snorted glancing back over his shoulder from his perch on the windowsill. "Chances are she'll be with Aizen. Find and stop him and you can save the girl." He directed his comments to Ichigo who'd been headed for the door.

"So what's this continent he was talking about?" The orange haired teen asked with his back to the other occupants.

"He doesn't mean the Americas, Asia or the sort." Ikkaku spoke tilting his head from side to side and stretching his arms out before him.

Yumchika resumed his place on the wall, eyes closed. "You wouldn't need a gate to get to those places."

"There's only one person here that I know could get us there."

They all knew who the short captain of the 10th division spoke of.

Urahara Kisuke.

A Few Days Later

Ichigo wakes up to the sound of his family having breakfast. Though he thinks the wake up call could have been from the birds outside his window. Or even the fact that sleep had been hard to come by, eluding him, in the last three days; even after training to exhaustion. Mostly, he knew it was because the day had finally arrived. He could finally do something other than sitting and waiting. He'd been told to rest while the others had returned to Seretei for special reasons. They shared less and less with him these days. Not that they were telling me much to begin with.

He sits up, arm rested on his knee as he looked out the window.

It was a beautiful day.

That is, until a mass of brown cotton attached itself to his face.

He could feel the muscles twitching as he closed his eyes in annoyance. "What the hell!" he said through clenched teeth.

"Ichigo-nii-san?" the mass ventured. Even with his head bowed the lion plushi could practically feel the snarl on Ichigo's lips.

He grabbed the stuffed animal by the back of it's head, tempted to tear it to shreds. Ichigo then proceeded to stalk from his room and down to the short hall. He opened another door and kept his gripping hold on the struggling toy.

"Kon, I've told you before, but it just never seems to get through all that cotton you call brains."

"Ichi--Ichi--Ichigo! Sumimasen. Gomen, gomen. Just stop already. I promise. I promise I wont violate the rules again. Just please don't leave me here!"

Kon's pleads fell on deaf ears. Ichigo smirked and walked out of the room, closing the door behind him. On his way down the stairs he could hear the screams of Kon, the lion plushi--strapped to the same shelf that held the rest of Yuuzu's toys and dressed as one of the dolls in a pink frilly dress and hair of red curls.

Ichigo made his way to the kitchen, deciding that he was hungry enough to join them for breakfast. Of course, Isshin being his normal self attacks at the first sight of his son --if one could call that normal --and Ichigo dodges only for his father to fall flat on his face hitting the last step of the stairs. Isshin then proceeds to act as obscenely as usual crying before the larger than life poster of his wife stating that their son was cruel and growing up.

Ichigo quickly finishes his breakfast and races up stairs to change and pack a small bag. He sighed, deciding that he would need Kon. Ichigo packed the struggling plush and raced back down the stairs.

Half way out the door Ichigo paused as Isshin called out to him.

"Yeah, dad?" Ichigo asked confused at the sudden serious look Isshin sported.

Isshin reached out with a hand placed on his son's shoulder and smiled. "I'm proud of you, son."

Ichigo, of course, was flabbergasted. He gave his dad a curious look before thinking nothing of it and continuing on his way. He's the last to reach Urahara's shop and joins everyone in the basement training room. Sado was standing near Uryuu not too far from Ururu, Jinta, and Tessai. Uryuu was dressed in his usual Quincy clothes, pushing up on his glasses with an air of superiority. Nothing new there. Sado was the same as ever; stoicly dressed in browns and red. Ikkaku and Yumichika were opposite them, standing next to Toushirou and Rangiku. As he approached Rukia, he noticed that everyone seemed to be relaxed in their own way, having been waiting on him.

"You better switch." Rukia orders. She had an air of determination that startled Ichigo just slightly.

"Uhn."

As soon as he unzips his bag, Kon pops out, still in the dress Ichigo had forced him into. "TEME!" The stuffed lion pinched Ichigo's cheeks before he could stop him. "Treating me like this."

Ichigo grabs him, squeezing harder than necessary and throws him to the ground. Before Kon could scramble away, Ichigo steps on him, grinding the lion into the dirt. "How do you like that, ya' bastard? Huh?"

Rukia would have been unnerved by the substitute shinigami's manic laughter and far too pleased smile had she not seen the display before. "Would you children knock it off!" She shouts, breaking them up by knocking Ichigo over the head.

"Itai--What the hell was that for!" he yells at her while rubbing at the back of his head.

"Ichigo no baka!" Kon yelled into Ichigo's face before the boy stuffed his hand into the plushi's mouth and pulled out the gikongan.

Yoruichi hopped on to Ichigo's head once in shinigami form. "Now, now, children. We don't have time for that." No matter how many times Ichigo was witness to it, Yoroichi's talking black-cat form freaked him out.

"So what's with the weird looking poles?" Ichigo asked instead, getting down to business.

Kisuke simply grinned, eyes disappearing under the shadow of his hat as he leaned forward on his cane. "I'm glad that you asked, Ichigo. This," he replied, pointing a hand behind him at the two very large poles that were nearly connected at the middle near the top. "is a slightly different version of a senkaimon. I like to call it a 'Rabbit Hole'. Instead of passing between the worlds, it will allow you to travel between. . . well, lets put it this way: Had you had the use of one of these, which this is the only one might I add, then your trip into the Soul Society would have been a lot easier."

Ishida stepped closer, his intellectual mind burning with curiosity. "So then this would allow one to pass through spiritual barriers?"

"It's more complicated than that. A lot more than you can imagine." Toushirou stated. Truth be told, he was interested in how the gate worked as well.

"How does it work?" Renji wondered.

Tessai appeared next to Urahara with his drawing pad. "Okay, as you should know, there's Sereitai and Earth and in between is the void-- where Orihime was taken." he explained pointing to the picture with two circles connected by a tunnel. "Now, for those in spiritual form, a normal senkaimon connects the two worlds directly." Tessai then flipped to a picture with two touching circle and a line between them. The Kanji for Senkaimon pointing to the line. "Where you're going you don't have to worry about traveling in between worlds. Not literally anyway. You'll still be on Earth, just slightly out of phase with the rest of us."

Ichigo was following so far, even without paying the ridiculous drawings any attention. He'd gotten enough with looking at Rukia's grotesque work whenever she tried to explain things to him. They never helped. "What's that suppose to mean?"

Kisuke sighed. The Continent was a complicated and sore subject. Two thousand years of history that ended two-hundred years ago. There was just no way he would be able to explain it all.

"The Continent, although made from a part of this world, is out of phase with it. No one can see it, no one knows exactly where it is. Not even us Shinigami. You could walk right over the exact location and never even know it was there. The Continent is like a world unto itself. Now, this little contraption," he said patting the side of one massive four-by-four. "with the help of one of these," Tessai held up a clear sphere with a single sakura flower in the center and handed it to Urahara. "a poroto-kii, or Alice as I like to call her, will allow you to not only shift out of phase, but transport to your destination. After that, you're on your own. There's no communication between phases."

"We've gotten permission to handle things however we see fit once we've evaluated the situation. There shouldn't be too much of a need to contact anyone on the outside." Toushirou announced.

"Well then," was Kisuke's only reply before he walked to the center of the space between the two pylongs and began to write something on the dirt with his cane. The symbol glowed white before spreading and leaving behind a black circular patch. "If you would all be so kind as to stand here." He looked up with a smile on his face.

Ichigo shivered. The crazy clogs-and-hat was getting some sort of sadistic pleasure out of this. He was sure of it.

Urahara watched as everyone except for Jinta, Ururu, and Tessai made their way to the indicated spot. He then handed the sphere to the short child-like captain with a benign smile. "You'll all need to make sure you're touching Alice in some way," he smirked as several people twitched at the innuendo. "You included, Yoruichi-neko." He took the few steps needed to be positioned on the outside of the gate as the black cat jumped onto the sphere--someone grunted at the added pressure.

"Are you sure you're ready to do this?" He asked seriously, catching the eye of those preparing to depart. No-one spoke. "There's no turning back once we start. I can't interrupt the process unless you're ready to have both your body and soul vaporized into dirt." The smile on his face had Ichigo scowling.

"Just get on with it already!" The substitute shinigami growled out.

"If you say so," was Kisuke's reply before placing his hand on the wood next to him. His hand glowed with reiki before the power seeped into the wood, lighting it up with glowing Kanji characters. The characters rapidly appeared from beneath his hand, traveling up the wood on both the legs of the senkaimon. Wind whipped around them as the power built and as the characters on the wood disappeared the same they originated, spiritual energy crackled between the gap of the bisected pieces of wood above them.

Ichigo looked up just as a pure beam of spiritual energy shot down through the sphere before growing to surround them--though not passing beyond the circumference of the black circle they stood on. He then noticed a slight tingling in the hand that was held to the sphere and watched as the sakura flower glowed pink before exploding to surround them in a opaque pink bubble.

They all looked to Kisuke as he started to speak again, one hand holding his hat to his head the spiritual power continue to make wind blow around them.

"One more thing!" He called over the force of the wind. "You'll have to wait for reinforcements before being able to come back." Everyone looked up with varying degrees of suspicion.

"And why the hell is that?" Ichigo cried.

"At the moment, you're on a one way trip. I haven't made the return key yet."

"And now you tell us!?"

Understandably, everyone was pissed. Yet before any of them could voice their displeasure, the sphere in their hand burned and pulsed before everything exploded. The last thing Ichigo remembered was pink before everything went black.

A/N: It's been ridiculous to write the ending of this chapter. But I had some fun with. I thought it would be like Urahara to explain by confusing and to give his creations odd names. Really, Rabbit Hole and Alice?

There's bound to be some mistakes since this isn't Beta read and isn't likely to ever be.

I haven't been keeping up with Naruto since Shippuden came out, but I'm fairly sure of some of the more important things and they'll find their way in. As for Bleach, well, I stopped watching after episode 142 (I think). I'm not too keen on the new characters.