His life has come to an end yet he continues on surpassing death itself. Taken in by a noble clan what destiny lies before him? Unknowing of his fate he continues on to a destined meeting. Naruto fate as a member of the Shihoin Clan hangs in the balance!

I don't own Naruto, this is for fun, not profit

"speaking"

"thinking"

"Kyuubi to Naruto"

Flicker

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Soul Society was a vast realm. No true effort had ever been taken to discover just how large since time and distance in spiritual realms, no matter how stable, were deceptive. The twelfth division estimated the surface area of available land in Soul Society to be roughly one and a half times the size of the mortal Earth, and growing.

This makes sense when one considers that the expansion of Soul society is related to number of spirits housed within. While most denizens of Soul Society eventually reincarnate, through natural or violent means. With a mortal population of billions and a death-span of one hundred years to several thousand years, depending on individual reiatsu levels, heaven would get very crowded if it couldn't let out its belt.

It was the sheer size of Soul Society that ensured that family separated in death would have virtually no chance at all of being reunited on the other side. When crossing-over naturally spirits may appear randomly in the living sectors based on their time of death and blind luck. Spirits released by soul konso or forcible purifications were even more erratic in nature.

This was what assured the status of the four great noble families. Their organization since the beginning of human memory by the Spirit King and their long history of service toward the maintenance of order within creation gave them a place of honor within heaven. The true-blood shinigami were assured to produce members possessing spiritual power of high quality and in the past, the precursor of the executive militia had actually served as Soul Society's main force in battling Hollows and guiding lost souls. Population growth, both mortal and Hollow had put an end to that.

Ironically the spread of humanity across the world and the success of their existence meant a change in the fortunes of the power of the noble families. The founding of the shinigami academy and the formal creation of the Gotei Thirteen had regulated and ensured that although the number of shinigami was vastly increased, the level of their skill was acceptable to the task of defending the mortal world from hollows and being the first line of defense for the Spirit King.

The power of the Noble Families lay in their influence as councilors of the central forty-six and their reputation for producing powerful shinigami. While many envied and resented their power, theirs was a life of privilege bound by iron rules. The members of the different noble lines fought as much in honor of the traditions of their ancestors as for the preservation of order. One could almost say that for the nobles the two principles were one and the same.

Kuchiki Byakuya meditated upon order and the ephemeral nature of life as he watched the sakura trees bloom in his family's courtyard. The pale pink flowers forming tenuous clouds of beauty as the branches sway in the wind. Their destiny, however; was to fall to earth and die, thus making way for new life. As previous generations of his family, he would enter into the service of the Gotei Thirteen and acquit himself as expected of a member of his clan, it could not be otherwise. Looking upon this heavenly view he swore to uphold the poise and honor of the Kuchiki House. The cherry blossoms rustled with renewed vigor as if the will of his deceased mother agreed.

In his mind a soft voice intoned a favored song, Sakura.

Cherry blossoms, cherry blossoms,

On Meadow-hills and dale,

As far as you can see.

Is it a mist, or clouds?

Fragrant in the morning sun.

Cherry blossoms, cherry blossoms,

Flowers in full bloom.

Cherry blossoms, cherry blossoms,

Across the Spring sky,

As far as you can see.

Is it a mist, or clouds?

Fragrant in the air.

Come now, come,

Let's look, at last!

Suddenly, the wind surged as two figures blurred across the air above the courtyard, seeming to cross the space in a single bound. Their figures were only barely discernable to his skilled eyes for a moment before vanishing from view. The disturbance of their passage caused all of the sakura trees to dump their laden flowers at once in a single breathtaking display leaving behind the barren branches of naked trees.

Dark eyes closed, serene and calmly poised even in the wake of mocking laughter and the amused female voice that wafted back to him.

"Heh, heh, too slow noodle-boy. You too Baby-Kuya, you'll get all feeble and wrinkly if you sit there like an old man!"

Calm and poised, calm and poised, a vein throbbed on the side of his jaw. He'd just made a promise about this sort of thing damn it.

"Noodle-boy?"

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Inner World

She stood upon a small pond behind the shrine. The ripples emanating from her feet did not disturb her reflected image in the water. Two scrolls bobbed in the water, their tails were unfurled, stretching around her and up into the sky in a sinuous double helix. Crimson eyes took in the symbols that only held meaning to her. Sensitive hears listened to the whisper of the wind as it muttered the secrets of the dead. One hand traced the information upon the scroll as the other possessively stroked a twitching tail.

Her oldest memories were unreliable. She seemed to recall great earth-shattering roars and gouts of fire and earth forming titanic mushroom clouds. Whenever possible she had directed these dreams to her former host and current master. Delicate-seeming hands tightened before abruptly relaxing.

"Partner."

At the time that she had truly become self-aware it seemed that she had always inhabited her demonic form. She had not been as concerned by the truth of her nature as with survival. The realm of her kind had lost its appeal to her and she had been increasingly interested in one of the mortal planes of existence. The various rituals and spiritual worship of the land's inhabitants had drawn up an enormous amount of spiritual energy from deep within the world. Furthermore something about this world's power had largely driven away the hungry spirits with which she had at times found herself having to fight off on occasion. The existence of the furless ones had not been of much concern.

She had lived in the world for several hundred years before human encroachment bothered her. They regarded her as a deity and she mostly just ignored them. Their presence was always at the edges of her senses however and she had kept an eye on them. One unforeseen circumstance of this was an increased interest in herself and her surroundings. Even after those first tribes had vanished into history she found herself observing the practices of these humans. She had answered the flattery of a shaman and had used her powers to heal. She had listened in disdain to the cruel and evil entreaties of a woman desiring vengeance. Good and evil she learned from experience and observation. With the coming of her ninth tail, five hundred years of constant study had seen the genesis of intellect.

Shortly after that, they pissed her off. It was a simple trap easy to see and easy to avoid. While aiding a shaman in exchange for being shown something amusing she had been bound. A new invention, seals, used to bend and control the workings of the natural world had been turned on her, using her own chakra.

It had been a crude and simple construct by the reckoning of modern ninja but it was robust enough to force her to do his bidding, for a while. At the moment that the man had declared himself chieftain of two square miles of mud huts, she had gathered enough power to regain control of her own body.

Her revenge was what had started it all. Until that time, the Bijuu were stunning god-like beings to be respected and avoided at all cost. The Three-tails decided that your house looked like a good urinal, simply move out of the way and let it relieve itself. Anyone sleeping at the time was just out of luck.

She had called down fire and lighting. Her tails had cleaved the earth and sea, burying not just the capital but destroying the entirety of a small nation. One would think that this would further encourage people not to mess with her. Instead, the thought that had stayed with people was the fact that she could be controlled, and the fear that something that powerful should be controlled.

The time following had been one of endless grief as she put the smack-down on nation after nation of increasingly competent seal-masters. When they failed, she killed them, their family, their friends, their friends' pets, everyone. Unfortunately this only served to ensure that only the best and most well prepared went after her. Her arrogance had not allowed her to admit that she was beginning to feel the heat until the coming of the Sage of Six Paths. Soon after that, she met the Uchiha Clan.

"Curses."

"Why am I learning this again?" The fox woman huffed in annoyance.

Her reflection hollowly replied, "The more that the king of this world learns about himself, the more powerful he will become."

Crimson eyebrows rose as she asked again, "Why am I learning this?" The reflection below her changed to the image of a monsoon cloud swirling about her feet. An echoing voice replied, "You must learn of your new powers in their entirety in order to best aid our king!"

The air about her shifted as a giant vortex of wind materialized before her carrying the scent of the coming rainstorm. Her body shifted form into that of a daikaijyu with ten silver-tipped tails.

"Bring it on, bitch!"

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"What did you call me?!" Yoruichi demanded.

Naruto looked at her blankly and replied, "I didn't say anything."

"I heard you! You called me a …"

"We're here" Haruka calmly intoned.

Naruto turned to see what she was talking about and gasped lightly. Where 'here' was, was a room at the bottom of a staircase below the Shihoin compound. They stood on top of a cliff overlooking a vast plain of giant, sandy, red rock spires. The size alone would have been startling but on each face of the giant cubical room there was a different environment. The wall behind them looked like a wide plain of chest-high grasses and contained a winding river with a sparkling horse-shoe lake.

His face was blank as he took it all in.

"Incredible."

Yoruichi looked on proudly, "This is the Fractured Room."

He was secretly impressed but knew that his blank look would annoy her. The purple haired girl seemed to be peeved by his lackluster response but ignored him in favor of her teacher. The woman had walked some way away from them and now stood at the far end of the clearing near the edge of the cliff where the ground dropped off to form the rocky desert. Her grey eyes looked out over the terrain before turning back to them.

"Yoruichi and I will have a little warm-up while you watch Naruto-kun."

Amber eyes crinkled in amusement as she took off her sandals, "A light warm-up?"

Haruka smiled benignly, "Yes, light."

Naruto watched the byplay between the two with a clueless expression. Yoruichi and Haruka began stretching and flexing their bodies, twisting first one way then another before hopping briskly in place for a few minutes. Naruto frowned, "That's it?"

Suddenly Yoruichi dashed forward releasing a blistering combination of open and closed fisted strikes at Haruka who either avoided them completely or deflected the blows with equal dexterity. Yoruichi seemed to sway backward, her body crouching and coiling up like a spring. In a single fluid movement she leapt at Haruka with a series of spinning kicks. The older woman avoided the first kick before covering the left side of her head, bracing her forearm with her right hand. Taking the blow with her braced arm, her right hand snaked out, catching a hold of the offending leg.

In a display of flexibility Yoruichi struck at her opponent with her other leg, jackknifing her body so that it folded in half. In that time, however; Haruka had completed a quick three-quarter turn to her left and released the purple-haired girl. Yoruichi was tossed off the cliff with enough force to make it almost all the way to the nearest rock formation. Turning her backward momentum into centripetal force, Yoruichi flipped acrobatically until she came into contact the side of the rock wall.

The world seemed to realign itself to match her perspective. Haruka seemed to fall toward her following an inverted ballistic arc. The girl dashed away, narrowly avoiding her mentor who created a crater in the side of the rock face when she crashed into it. Closely pursued, she raced around and up the rock before jumping high into the air.

Naruto's mouth widened fractionally when she stopped jumping up and began falling down, to the ceiling. The battle continued on with the two weaving between trees and throwing several throwing knives at each other. He squinted his eyes as he thought he saw Haruka trap her opponent in an arm lock and slam her bodily into a boulder, only for the girl's broken body to fade into nothingness.

From that point on the two women seemed to flicker about from place to place in a frenzied blur of arms and legs. At times they would hide from each other and toss assorted bladed weapons at midrange, before changing positions and going at it again. Naruto watched in interest as Yoruichi appeared upside-down behind Haruka already twisting in the air a blade came flashing toward the woman's neck. Haruka must have had experience with this move before, for if she had simply spun to face the presence behind her, she would have been decapitated.

Ducking to avoid the blow Haruka tried to sweep the feet that weren't on the ground. Taking in the situation in an instant, she dived out of the way of a powerful over-head kick and raced away with Yoruichi in pursuit.

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"What was your impression of him?"

Amber eyes set in an old and wizened face regarded her seriously. He had been the leader of the clan for close to one thousand years. The Captain of the Executive Militia and Demon Arts Brigade for five hundred years before retiring in favor of a trusted vice captain. Detecting deception was by now an involuntary reflex. A keen mind honed by centuries of hunting traitors and scouting in dangerous territory, dissected her every expression, every nuance of verbal inflection, reading her as easily now as when she was a younger student.

"Tell me, Haruka."

Shihoin Hanshou was a difficult man to deny, and absolutely dangerous to ignore. She steeled herself to give her report clearly and concisely as she had been taught growing up.

"He shows talent, especially in the fields of Hoho and possibly Hakuda as well."

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Earlier.

She honestly tried not to gape she really did, for someone at that age to show such promise in the shinigami arts was rare even within a noble family. From the very beginning she hadn't expected much from the child. It was simply his fortune, or misfortune to appear the way he did. She certainly did not hold that this child was a sign from their ancestors. She had expected to use the boy's presence as an opportunity to get her student to go over the basics. If he showed no promise as a potential shinigami he would be quickly regulated to a position as one of Yoruichi's minor servants and the issue would be forgotten.

Yet it wasn't just his easy grasp of the concept that had her stunned. It hadn't been a coincidence that the boy had moved out of Yoruichi's way.

"The little bugger tracked her movement?!"

Yoruichi really had talent for shunpo, she was already beginning to create her own techniques and in less than a decade Haruka was sure she wouldn't be able to keep up with her.

"You are a real true-blood shinigami Yoruich it will be an honor to serve you."

Haruka watched as Yoruichi challenged the boy to shunpo again and then flash-stepped ahead of him. The two began to play a lively game of tag, flickering about from place to place faster and faster until she lost sight of them. Hruka sighed at the evidence that Yoruichi had been holding back against her.

"That girl!"

Not just the girl, that boy as well. He was a diamond in the rough.

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At the Shihoin mansion,

Haruka finished her report, "I recommend an accelerated training course before enrolling him in the academy when his talents begin to mature, Naruto-kun definitely has talent."

Hanshou nodded, the nurse had indicated that the boy was in excellent physical shape and then he thought of Hikifune.

"Kirio-chan has reported that while the boy's chain link was in good shape his hakusui or soul sleep showed signs of re-composition, indicating a violent death."

Haruka nodded, "The life of a warrior, or at least a life of war."

Hanshou smiled grimly, "Then perhaps it is most fitting that Shihoin Naruto should appear before us."

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AN: The song Sakura that Byakuya's mother is singing in his memories is a Meiji era folk song. This one is slightly longer than the other chapters that I've written so far. The next few chapters will take some time as I'm going to do some research.