Chapter One ~ Closed Eyes See Things

The man's eyes traced along the paper as he read yet another document proposing funding for the very first 'Global Positioning System' for shinobi and he rolled his eyes. He appreciated the advances in technology, but once it started clashing with his ideology for the village he couldn't allow it. Shinobi were meant to move in silence, while such a system would help them navigate their way through the continent, it could be used against them in the same breath, and that would ruin the whole 'hidden' part of a hidden village.

It was a no from the Hokage.

People only had a vague idea of where Konohagakure sat, and only knew how to get there through espionage or direct invitation. Giving the whole world the option to get exact coordinates for one of the most powerful villages in the elemental nations would be troublesome, and they had too many enemies to count already. The only true support they had was in the major villages, while the rest of the world was not only scared of the power they possessed, but would probably jump the gun if given the opportunity.

He worked tirelessly every day to make sure the village was protected, and almost to a fault; he put everything on the back burner to make sure his job was done correctly. The man barely got to spend time with his actual family, living vicariously through the relayed memories from his clones. It would never suffice for the real thing, but he took an oath to protect his hometown wholeheartedly until it was time to pass the hat to the next great leader, and he didn't plan on doing that any time soon.

His eyes drifted away from the papers, looking out the window of his office and staring at said village he was so proud to protect. Even as the rain poured down mercilessly, he knew the sun would shine through the next day like it never happened. A small smile graced his features, not even shuddering as lightning struck unusually close to the Hokage monument, where his face was expertly carved into the front of the mountain.

However, when the thunderstruck, his head forcefully snapped forward, and his eyes fell upon his desk where the papers were now covered in blood. The man touched at his chest, and his hands firmly wrapped around the blade of a katana that was currently sticking out after being stabbed through his back, but the person missed the vital point they were looking for, "To be able to get past ANBU and my ability to sense ill intent is trul-" The man spat out even more blood onto his desk when his assailant twisted his blade inside of his body.

"I'm surprised…. That you're not a clone…" The man wielding the sword, turned the blade on its side, as he started to drag it through his chest inch by inch and get dangerously close to the Hokage's heart. His presence was almost non-existent, but the sword protruding from his target's chest proved that he was at least a tangible being. "For what it's worth…. I'm sorry…"

The Hokage's face twisted in horror, being caught off guard in the worst way. He boasted some of the best sensing abilities on the planet, yet somehow he was caught from behind. His eyes shifted to the picture of his family sitting on his desk, but he couldn't see the faces because the entire image was overshadowed by his blue eyes staring into the vibrant reflection of his enemies purple, rippled patterned eyes. He clutched at his desk, his life slowly fading from his eyes, so he could only ask one thing before he died, "Why?"

"Uzumaki Naruto… you're the only one who can save us…"

XxX

Naruto shot up from where he was sleeping on the ground and wiped thick beads of sweat away from his forehead. This was the third time in a few months he had seen his own death, and each time it got more vivid. The first time, he was simply stabbed through the heart, the second time he could actually see the picture of his family, and from the dream he had just woken up from; he saw the eyes of his killer, as well as his own reflection. He didn't want to believe that it was true, but such an intense, recurring dream had to mean something.

He pushed himself off the ground and moved out from the patch of grass he was using to rest, leaving the thick of the forest and heading out to the river he used to wash up. Before he stripped down to cleanse his body of the dirt and grime from his previous day, he was caught staring at his reflection in the water. He had vibrant blonde hair, which had grown to his shoulder since he arrived in Rukongai. However, what troubled him this morning, unlike all the other mornings was when he looked at himself; something seemed off. The same blue eyes he thought were normal the day prior seemed odd today.

When he saw his reflection in the glass of his picture frame in the dream, he saw a seasoned veteran with a family, but right now he saw a boy that was wet behind the ears. There were no battle scars to prove his experience, chisel to show his growth as man, or hardened eyes to display his bravery. All he saw was a teenage kid, "Who the fuck am I?"

"That's a question I ask myself everyday, un," Another fellow blonde with his hair tied into a high ponytail came strolling out of the woods with a fishing rod over his shoulder. He had a bucket filled with bait in his other hand, and he set it down next to Naruto as he started to set up his small fishing operation while Naruto stared at him with a confused face, "You look like you want to say something fucker, so go ahead and say it."

Whoever this boy was he felt familiar, and Naruto couldn't ignore the sensation that was ringing in his brain, but he couldn't put a name to the face, or where he would even know him from. Naruto looked him over, taking note of his semi-ragged sleeveless shirt, which was navy in color, and the matching pants to go with it, as well as a pair of geta on his feet. He decided not to act on his feeling for now, and simply grinned, "I can't believe you're fishing out here, the fish from this river taste terrible."

"I'm not fishing for food, un," The blonde teenager hooked a piece of bait onto the end of his rod and was almost ready to begin his hunt. "Some asshole poisoned all of the Kuchiki clan's ponds in their garden, so all of their fish died, and there's only one person in all of Soul Society that can find the very rare nishikigoi they need and that's the almighty Deidara. Let's just say they paid well," He grinned back at Naruto and threw his reel into the river to begin fishing.

Something then clicked in Deidara's mind that nearly made him strangle Naruto, "You said that the fish tasted terrible, have you been eating the damn fish from these waters?" An innocent nod from Naruto made him want to lash out at the boy, but he didn't know any better. "God damn it kid, you've probably eaten half the population by now, un."

"You would think that the colorful ones would taste better, but nope," Naruto sighed remembering his awful tasting meals for the last few weeks. He jumped away from Deidara when his fellow blonde tried to smash the end of his fishing rod into his head. "Hey, there's nothing else to eat around here!"

Deidara grinded his teeth together and tried to calm down, looking at Naruto with a twitching brown eye. The boy was wearing a stained white t-shirt and a pair of dirt smudged black shorts, with no shoes to go along with it. From what the blonde haired fisherman could see; Naruto was broke as a joke, and had no choice but to eat fish, "I guess you're right, I can't expect someone from the West 62nd District to be as rich as me." He shamelessly boasted as he waited for an unlucky fish to bite his bait, "I'll let you in on a secret though."

Naruto's eyes were glistening, "Oooh, what?"

"Those colorful fish you were eating are worth a fortune," Deidara laughed when he saw that he had Naruto hanging on his every word, and his eyes finally lit up when he dropped the last bit of information. He started to reel in when he felt something bite, but he still held his conversation with Naruto. "You seem like a growing boy, so you've probably got a house worth of rich-asshole fish swimming in your stomach right now, un."

"Awesome!" Naruto jumped up off of the ground and looked at the water with hopeful eyes. He was getting tired of sleeping on the grass and cutting his feet on the coarse ground of the district he lived in, something about it didn't sit right with him, and he had finally found a way out. He pointed a challenging finger at Deidara, "If I out fish you, I can make more money and finally get the hell out of District 62. It's better than the district I started in, but I want shoes god damn it!"

The blonde fisherman rolled his eyes at Naruto, "There's no way you could out-fish me, you don't even have a ro-" Deidara's jaw dropped when a cloud of smoke kicked up, and when it dissipated there were at least twenty Naruto's present now. "How the hell did you do that?" He nearly yelped in surprise when half the Naruto's transformed into a fishing rod identical to his, and all grinned at him accordingly.

"You said I couldn't do what?" Naruto had a foxy grin on his face and all of his clones scattered about the length of the river to find the expensive fish they could sell to nobles. The real Naruto sat down with his legs crossed, turning his head to look at Deidara with an evil smile. The competition was real now, "I'll give you some of the money, since you taught me how to fish, sensei." He said mockingly and Deidara punched him in the head in return.

With his other hand he brought the hook out of the water and furrowed his brow when he saw a measly toad attached to it, "Did you get all of the good fish already, un!?" He grabbed the slimy toad, but it fell out of his hand before he could squish it in anger. "If you get them all, I will rip you a new asshole you blonde haired dirt-ball!"

XxX

"We should be protecting Yoruichi-sama," The girl said with her arms folded over one another, looking around the 62nd district in disgust. She didn't like being this far from her master, let alone the capital, but her partner seemed to be taking it all in stride. He hadn't even registered that she said something to him, "Uchiha, we're not all the way out here to sight see."

The boy with messy black haired blinked in response, and then offered a soft smile for his female counterpart, "You seem very concerned with Yoruichi-sama, yet she's the one who assigned us this mission." His eyes returned to the small town they were passing through, and he continued to scan his surroundings. He had never been this far from the capital before, "In a way, you're protecting her right now."

"You're right, Shisui," Sui-feng said with a reserved frown as they paced through the town. "The quicker we find the root of the problem, the quicker we can return to Yoruichi-sama's side."

There were reports of a massive rieatsu that was laced with all sorts of malicious energy passing through the districts and getting closer to the capital at an alarming rate and they were sent to investigate it. They had a standing order to either capture or kill the source, depending on what it was. Since their target could very well be a living, breathing being capable of sensing squads of shinigami honing in on its location, they had to move quietly, and that's how the two young guards were chosen by their captain.

They specialized in covert ops, so finding the problem without going unnoticed was child's play, and they happened to be two of the fastest their division had to offer.

The duo was simply scouting the town at this point, looking for leads. People from multiple towns said travelers from the farther away districts had experienced the energy first hand, and were shaken to the core. What it was stemming from was still a mystery, but the inhabitants of this town were telling Shisui that they felt the demonic energy lingering throughout the forest. Ever since it arrived in the forest, the whole 62nd district was out of whack.

All of the animals had ran away from the forest, all of the edible fish were scarce, and it was so terribly hot inside the forest that no normal person could hunt in those conditions. Shisui's eyes passed over a few denizens of the town, watching them walk by sweating profusely. They couldn't even get close to the river to get fresh water, so they had to travel to another district to bring refreshing h2o for their families.

"Do you think it's a hollow causing this?"

Shisui turned to look at Sui-feng upon her breaking his concentration, "No, it can't be." He stopped walking and took a look at the girl, seeing a small bead of sweat drip down the side of her face. "A hollow with this kind of power would have paved its way to this district in a path of destruction, and this town probably wouldn't exist anymore." He explained as he placed his finger on her face and wiped away the sweat for her.

Sui-feng raised her brow, "Then what?"

"I don't know," Shisui had no problem admitting as he gestured forward, and they continued walking through the civilian village. He scratched his broad nose, trying to come up with a reasonable explanation for this anomaly. While it was a described as a something of an evil energy, there were no linkable deaths to it, and it mainly passed through calmly. The only thing that was worrisome was the path it was moving on, "but it's our job to find out."

XxX

A rift in the very fabric of the 62nd district started to tear open, and a single masked creature poked its head through to see what was going on. Its yellow eyes shifted around wildly, looking behind itself cautiously, and then jumping out of the spatial distortion it had created. When it landed on the ground, a small imprint of its body was created from the impact.

The creature was at least sixteen feet tall, long black hair falling from its head, and a long, pointy noise protruding from its white mask. Its eyes continued to shift around crazily, before walking over to the cliff of the patch of land it was standing on. A wild grin appeared on its face when it looked down, seeing a river with twelve people fishing.

The energy exuding from the area excited the monster to no end, and it instantly launched itself over the cliff and tried to pounce on its prey from above.

XxX

Naruto scratched his ass while fishing, "Dude, do you feel that?"

Deidara sucked his teeth, "No, un, stop trying to distract me." He looked at Naruto and frowned when he saw the pile of koi fish he had collected. The blonde fisherman mumbled curses under his breath about the 'damn kid stealing all my fish, un.' and continued to try his luck in fishing for his own valuable koi. He'd be damned if a newbie like Naruto outclassed him in something he had just taught him less than a half an hour ago.

The blonde teenager decided to not think too much of his gut feelings now-a-days, and instead chose to revel in his newly acquired skill of fishing. If what Deidara said was true, he'd be able to eat, clothe himself, and find shelter in a better district in no time with the money he'd make, "If these fish are so rare, how come there are many in this river?"

The fisherman groaned out loud and dropped his rod onto the ground, "Hasn't anyone told you not to look a gift horse in the mouth?" He had listened to Naruto ramble the entire time they were fishing, questioning literally everything that he saw. For once he just wanted to reel in his precious fish in peace. "If I'm going to be your sensei, and you my kouhai, I think a life lesson is in or-"

From the woods, came someone who looked around the same age as Deidara, wearing a shihakushō and a sword strapped to his back. He offered a sincere smile to Deidara, who was admittedly staring at him like he had seen a ghost, which was true to a certain extent. Shisui raised his hands in a placating manner as he walked up to Naruto and Deidara, "I come in peace, I'm just looking for information."

Deidara got up from his seat alongside the river and threw his fishing rod away, "And why should I trust one of you slimy shinigami bastards!?"

"Because if I had a reason to cut you down, I would have already," Shisui tried to say without touching any soft spots of Deidara's, who seemed to have a gripe with shinigami. "The only reason I'm here, is because your kouhai is exuding a monstrous amount of energy that's dangerous to the public. I need him to come back with me to Seireitei," The messy-haired boy said to the duo, which made Naruto uncomfortable.

He didn't necessarily trust the oddly calm Shisui, and had also dropped his fishing rod just in case he needed to go on the defensive. For some reason Naruto felt the need to be ready to fight at all times, and the foreboding feeling of an exchange had been hanging over his head since he appeared in Rukongai, yet he didn't know why. In his mind, he was somewhat peaceful, but the feeling of dreading violence was always present, 'Who the fuck am I?'

It was a question he was constantly asking himself, since his mind that was harmless as a bird mere moments ago was analyzing the situation like a killer right now. His senses were starting to pick up subtleties as well, "I'm sorry, guy, but I'm with Deidara on this one. How can I trust you when you have someone else with you, waiting in the shadows?"

"She didn't agree with my method of direct approach," Shisui said loud enough for said partner to hear him. He knew if he tried to sneak up on them they would be found, "If I left it up to her, we would have killed you both and kept it moving, but you have potential, and I like to talk things about before I resort to violence."

Their first ever interaction was a lie, now he would always be wary of Shisui, "I can't go with you." Naruto stated flatly and got a frown from Shisui. It made him uneasy that one wrong move; Shisui would be at his throat. That wasn't a working relationship he wanted to be a part of, and what he and Deidara established seemed way more legitimate. "Deidara-sensei and I will pack up our stuff and leave."

Shisui sighed to himself, placing his hands upon the sheath of his katana. He couldn't just let Naruto roam free, "Don't say I didn't warn you, kid." It was a stupid decision on Naruto's part, since his orders were capture or kill, and he wasn't one to not follow orders. He would do his best not to do anything fatal, just disable him enough to drag him back to Seireitei.

Naruto's muscles tensed when he saw Shisui place a hand on the sheath of his blade, and there was still the unidentified teammate hiding in the forest. At least it would be a fair match with Deidara fighting by side, that way they could make a clean getaway.

No, wait, Deidara was haphazardly collecting the rare fish once he saw that shit was about to hit the fan so to speak. He placed all of the captured fish in his bucket, but before he could make a run for it; a hollow crashed into the river and sent water flying everywhere. He had no choice but to jump away, losing his grip on the handle of the bucket and the remains of he and Naruto's endeavors were flapping all across the ground.

All of Naruto's clones dissipated upon the hollow crashing down among them, sweeping its arm across the length of the river and sending them back to Naruto. The monster had a wild grin upon seeing Deidara, Naruto, and Shisui, "THIS IS GOING TO BE QUITE THE MEAL!"

"That thing can talk!?" Naruto had to roll out of the way from being smashed by its gigantic hand.

Shisui drew his sword and dashed in with great speed. He leapt into the air and tried to slash down on the hollow, but the monster blocked the slash with its forearm, and blood dripped down the length the blade. The messy-haired shinigami furrowed his brow, the hollow flailing its arm and throwing Shisui away with a great amount of force. It laughed as it watched Shisui tumble across the ground with a pained expression on his face.

The black-haired shinigami sprung back up, but watched in awe as Naruto had done something he didn't even know was possible from what was supposed to be a simple Rukongai resident. The boy swiftly avoided the attacks of the hollow, while Deidara was once again scrambling to get the fish, and ran across the water, up the length of stone face that lead to a higher part of the district.

He leapt off of the wall and tried to attack the hollow from the higher ground. The blonde instinctively reached for a pouch that resided on the back of his waist, but it was nothing there, and ended up getting smacked out the air like an insect. Naruto went from looking like an impressive fighter to delusional, reaching for a weapon he didn't even have.

Shisui on the other hand showed off his impressive speed, disappearing and leaving an after image in his wake, before reappearing in the face of the hollow that attacked them. His arms were at his side, prepping for a powerful slash, that he followed through on, but only ended up nicking at the monster's long nose. The hollow grabbed Shisui's katana, which he thought he would be too prideful to release, but the boy let go of his sword and flipped back down to the ground.

He grit his teeth and took a deep breath, 'Any time now, Sui-feng.' Shisui usually had support in these kind of things, yet he was stuck trading blows with a hollow in the company of a stranger. Naruto was surprisingly effective though, "Aim for the mask, kid." They might have been enemies before, but there was a common goal for right now.

"Huh?" Naruto was once again punched across the length of the river, distracted by Shisui's advice, which made the shinigami smack his own forehead with his palm. The disgruntled soul jumped back onto the surface of the water and groaned, "Deidara, a little help here would be nice!"

"Hell no! I've fought too many of these things, un!"

Great.

Naruto formed a cross with his fingers, and two clones of himself popped into existence. Shisui continued to be amazed by Naruto's abilities, "Just what are you?" He asked while watching all three Naruto's flank the hollow on all sides, and decided to use the boy as a decoy. The black-haired shinigami disappeared from sight once again, leaving Naruto to handle the hollow for now.

The hollow tried to smash the trio of Naruto's with his hands, but they moved far too quickly to be killed like that. One of them latched onto his leg and started climbing up the length of the hollow, and while it was distracted dealing with one clone, the other two Naruto's did the same on the other side, and started getting close to its mask.

The monster had no choice but to smack its own body to rid itself of one of the Naruto's but the other two were too wily to be caught. The original Naruto was found grabbing onto the long nose of hollow, pulling himself up to stand on the width of it. It was a closest thing to a trapeze act Naruto would ever do, but it was working, "Now to finish your sorry ass once and for all."

Naruto held three fingers up and wind started to spiral around his hand. The wind started to take the shape of a blade and he thrust his arm back, before running across the hollow's nose. Before he could stab his attack through the mask, someone had beaten him to the punch, or should he say stab? Lest he wanted to be maimed, he had to bend backward to avoid a katana piercing through the hollow from behind.

The creature screamed in horrid pain as it started to fade into nonexistence, the source of the killing strike was Shisui, and as they both started to fall back into the water; they readjusted themselves and landed on top of the surface of the water. Naruto looked around and saw no signs of Deidara, instantly frowning, "Any reason that you almost killed me, asshole?"

"I had to be the one to deliver the finishing strike in order for the soul of the hollow to purified," Shisui explained, looking at Naruto with a hint of curiosity in his onyx eyes. The blonde noticed that Shisui had yet to sheath his blade, "I tried to get you both in one strike, but you're a wily opponent . . . what did you say your name was?"

"Naruto," The blonde said proudly.

"Well, Naruto, since you refuse to come back to Seireitei with me, I'll have to take you by force."

I decided to catch up on the Bleach Manga, and ended up reading Boruto too. Naruto dies? Why wouldn't I want to play with that concept? But for now, the fight you didn't know that you wanted to see, Naruto v. Shisui! Next Chapter: Death Water