Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, Shaman King or anything else you recognize from other authors.
Have you ever wondered why ninjas, people of amazing power and cunning, don't rule the lands? Why in this war torn world where Might is often perceived as Right, where ninjas who have Godlike powers – powers that can change the landscape with a single technique, like Senju Hashirama from Hi no Kuni, Oonoki of Tsuchi no Kuni or even Yagura of Mizu no Kuni does not hold the leash of their respective countries? With their incredible power and the competence they show in running their respective villages, shouldn't they be the ones dictating the laws of the land?
Instead we have the daimyos of the different countries seating at the throne of power. These daimyos who look like porcelain dolls with their unblemished skin and wearing their expensive clothing, that looks so delicate that a simple gust of wind could topple them over and kill them. And yet despite their seemingly weak appearance, they command some of the greatest fighters, tacticians and assassins of the world - passing the right of rule from father to son, mother to daughter, and uncle to niece - Bloodlines that hold the power to rule the Elemental Nations unbroken since before the age of the Sage of the Six Paths.
The answer is quite simple but long. Thousands of years before the time of the Sage, there existed humans that could converse and harness the powers of the spirits be they human, animal or even the very spirits of nature. They call themselves as Shamans. Despite their unbelievable gifts, most of these shamans have been living with normal people peacefully and mostly unknown. But then a competition for the title of Shaman King has been announced – a competition held once every five hundred years - and all the shaman in the world has been invited to participate. A lot of shaman of different ages, race and gender came to participate and watch the competition. Who wouldn't? The Shaman King is the one who will be given the power to contact the Great Spirits - spirits of such immense power that they could reshape the world any way they wish – that some people have called them the spirits of Fate and Destiny.
And thus the competition was held with many powerful shamans fighting for the title of Shaman King. One such competitor is Asakura Yoh, who came from a prominent line of powerful shamans and the one who changed the world to the one we know.
During the Shaman Fight, Yoh encountered Asakura Hao – his unknown evil half, who possesses the Spirit of Fire, one of the Five Legendary Spirits that was in the care of the Asakura line. He is a strong shaman who wishes to eradicate humans and create a world for shamans. Hao dominated the Shaman fights and at the end of the shaman battles, the remaining teams consist of Yoh and his friends – Ryu, Tao Ren, Horohoro, Faust VIII, Lyserg Diethel, and Joco McDonnell – , the X-Laws and Hao's team. The remaining teams chose to forfeit the tournament, crowning Hao with the title of Shaman King. As Hao is led away, Yoh and his allies decided to attack Hao while he is merging with the Great Spirit, which is in a coma. To conquer Hao, Yoh and his friends had to defeat The Patch Tribe members who are obliged to serve under the new Shaman King.
After Yoh and his friends overcame the ten Patch Tribe members, Hao is awakened as the new Shaman King. He defeats Yoh and all his friends and absorbs their souls. Inside the Great Spirit, Yoh, Tao, Horohoro, Lyserg, and Chocolove battle against Hao and the five legendary spirits that controlled the primal forces of nature: the Spirit of Earth, the Spirit of Lightning, the Spirit of Water, the Spirit of Fire, and the Spirit of Wind.
Though Yoh and his friends won the battle against Hao, it was a little too late. For when Hao was battling them, the Great Spirits have begun reshaping the world to Hao's designs. The world was changed to be a much harsher place for normal humans, the earth was filled with too much furyoku that the people with no ability to access their furyoku are being overwhelmed by it and slowly dying because of the immense pressure their souls are being put through. When Yoh noticed this, he tried to reverse the change but it was too late. But Yoh didn't give up. Though he couldn't change the earth to what it once was, he willed the Great Spirits to give all the humans of earth a way to survive and thus the Great Spirits granted all of humanity the ability to access their spiritual energies, an act that will change the world in the distant future.
Yoh and his friends tired of the battles from the Shaman Fight decided to get back to their lives the way it was before. Yoh decided not to use the powers of the Great Spirits and let humanity decide their own fate. Years passed and slowly they went their separate ways and living their own lives, though they did exchange the occasional letters and visits. Yoh ended up marrying Anna and had a daughter Asakura Hana.
Life was peaceful for Yoh and his family, but one day when Yoh was away visiting Chocolove McDonnell, the Tao family attacked the Asakura household resulting in the death of Anna and Hana. Upon receiving news of his family's death, Yoh was devastated and blinded with rage. In his state Yoh used the powers of the Great Spirits to exact vengeance. Despite the powerful shamans of the Tao line, they could do nothing against the power of the Great Spirits and the Five Legendary Spirits. He started hunting down every man, woman and even every child of the Tao family regardless of their innocence or guilt. The Asakura family and his friends Ryu, Horohoro, Faust, Lyserg and Chocolove tried to stop him and wake him from his madness but even with their combined might they were powerless to stop him.
It was only when Ryu sacrificed his life to try and save the two year old son of Tao Ren that Yoh realized what he has done. He was horrified and disgusted with his self, with what he has become. He realized that even he who have overcome his evil half (Hao) can not be trusted with powers so mighty that they have become unstoppable. So he decided to relinquish his control of the Five Legendary Spirits, but realizing that he could not leave them all to a single person or family he separated them and gave them to the care of his friends and family: To the Asakura family he gave the care of The Spirit of Fire; to Horohoro, The Spirit of Water; to Faust, The Spirit of Lightning; to Lyserg, The Spirit of Wind; and to Chocolove, The Spirit of Earth. And as his final two acts as the Spirit King, he bound the Five Legendary Spirits to their bloodlines to serve as a Guide to the people of earth once they discover the use of their spiritual energies and his last act being to breakdown the Great Spirits into minor spirits of different aspects, such as the spirit of storms, trees, mountains, whirlpools and others. Even with the Great Spirits dispersed, Yoh was still considered the single most powerful Shaman in the world having been exposed to the powers of the Great Spirits. And so he lived his life as an unknown peace keeping philanthropist as he roamed the world trying to make up for his regrets and mistakes.
After his death, a peculiar tree sprouted on his grave that will continue to grow from the left over energy from his body for thousands of years and absorbing the blood from countless wars. In those years the bloodlines tied to the Five Legendary Spirits grew to prominence while the shaman ways were slowly forgotten. The minor spirits seeing the Five Legendary Spirits flourish despite the shaman ways dying out, also tied themselves to different bloodlines that they deem worthy and pass their own tests, while humans in their quest for prominence and some power fought and battled each other for the honor of being tied to and protected by the spirits. Thus it came to pass that every bloodline that was found worthy became a daimyo that ruled their own niches of land with the daimyos acting as mediums to the spirits not unlike but not exactly similar to how the shamans communicated with them during the prominence of Shamans.
With the active participation and guidance from the spirits the daimyos and their families flourished and the world for a while found balance. But humans, as if it is in their very nature can't be content in with what they have. Unrest started from the members of the different daimyos families, they wanted the power and prestige for themselves and so they fought with their armies of samurais.
The spirits growing tired and weary of what the humans are doing to each other because of their involvement decided to withdraw from humanity and they themselves made a pact of non-interference with each other. A pact from where they will no longer directly interact with their bonded bloodlines with but one strict exemption, and that is to safeguard the bloodline from dying out entirely but even then the guardian spirit would have to exhaust all other possible methods first before actively participating in human affairs once again.
And so time passed and the existence of spirits were forgotten, peace reigned in between wars were countless people died and the tree on Asakura Yoh's long forgotten grave continued to absorb the blood of all those dying mixing the physical energies from it to the spiritual energy from Yoh's long decomposed body undisturbed. That is until the tale of the Sage of Six Paths that begun with Kaguya Otsutsuki eating the fruit from the very same tree, and ended with the creation of the Nine Bijuu.
And so war begun anew more deadly than the previous with the introduction of chakra and the supernatural powers that it awakened in humans; With this five great nations rose to prominence in the world its daimyos protected by the Legendary Five Spirits: the Lands of Fire, Wind, Water, Earth and Lightning.
But this story isn't about the daimyos of these five nations or their conquests. It is about the life and adventures of one Namikaze Uzumaki Naruto, the number one unpredictable ninja of Konoha, the lost prince of the whirlpools.
AN: This is the first time I'm writing a story. I've tried to look for good, epic length stories of Naruto with a similar plotline but can't find any. So I decided to write it myself. Let's see how this kind of history will affect the Naruto universe.
Warning: This will have Yaoi scenes.
Constructive criticism is welcome.
IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT, DON'T READ!