Disclaimer: HOLY CRAP, LOOK, ANOTHER CHAPTER! I know! I so excited! I so excited, and I just can't hide it!*dances* I'm going to try to crack out some long chapters quickly to get back on track before going to update The Raven once or twice, and at the moment, I'm just following the episodes with my own crap, so those shouldn't take too long.

I'd like to thanks those who reviewed Chapter 9, and an even BIGGER thanks to those who went and checked out The Raven for me! You know who you are!

And I'd like to give a SPECIAL thanks to Anake14 for telling me that Amo means 'Love', not 'Like'. I wish I could go and punch the faces of the people who put the translations on the website I go to…I'm trying to find a correct translation for Chapter 9, but thank you, Anake14, for telling me about the mis-translation!

And without further ado, Chapter 10(Which I hope has correct translation!)!

Chapter 10
Evanidus Canis

"Oh dear God, please tell me Naruto didn't bring home another stray." Urahara moaned, face-palming with a sigh. Naruto cocked his head, and looked between the blonde man and the raccoon-dog that trailed behind him, a sand-colored gourd strapped to its back, and the crimson kanji for 'love' above his left eye. The Vulpes-in-fox-form slowly looked back to Urahara, a scowl on his face.

"I've never brought a stray animal home before, Urahara, and why in all of Hell would I want to bring back an animal that isn't intelligent enough to have a good conversation? This Canis is a friend of mine from my homeland. He lived in a village in the middle of a desert by my forest." The raccoon-dog was silent, its bushy tail twitching in annoyance. Finally, he spoke in his cool tone.

"I am not a stray." He muttered.

"Holy crap, it talks!" Naruto leapt onto a chair as Urahara screamed, and flashed into human form, sitting upside down in the seat.

"I've been talking to you for the past few months, Urahara." The Vulpes Arrancar pointed out blandly, picking at his claws with a pocketknife. "What's so different if it's a dog?"

"It's a DOG! You're a fox!" Urahara turned back to look to the raccoon-like dog, but shrieked and fell backwards at the proximity of the new boy in the store, his aquamarine gaze glaring at Urahara from mere inches away.

"I. Am. Not. A. Stray." He ground out.

"We covered that." Naruto rolled his eyes. "Foxes and dogs are closely related. I thought someone as 'smart' as you would know that. I guess not." The Vulpes snorted. "Anyway, this is Sabaku no Gaara. He comes from a village called Sunagakure no Sato on the Everto Insula(1). He's…like me." Naruto shot Gaara a glance that was almost warning him not to talk, and the red-head nodded so stiffly, it was almost not noticed. Almost.

"So you didn't just bring home a stray, you brought home a demonic stray." Urahara called from his spot on the floor. Gaara glared and growled deep in his throat, his eyes slightly bleeding to a golden color with a four-pointed star of a pupil beginning to grow in the center of his iris. Naruto leapt off his chair, and placed a hand on Gaara's shoulder, whispering something to him in a hushed tone; the golden light and pupil vanished from Gaara's eyes, his face once more becoming blank.

"You might not want to call Gaara here a stray." Naruto warned. "He doesn't take it as a joke."

"So, what, Sunagakue no Sato is some village for demon dogs?" Ichigo asked, his arms crossed as he leaned back against a wall of Urahara Shoten.

"Uh, no. It's a human village. Gaara just lives there." Naruto muttered. "His siblings live there, and his father lives there."

"Lived." Gaara spoke, his voice actually reflecting emotion this time around. "He was killed three years ago by a bastard-snake." Naruto frowned softly.

"I'm sorry." Gaara snorted, as if offended.

"I'm not."

"Right…and your siblings are what? Demon cats? Demon turtles?" Ichigo asked.

"Turtles can't live in the middle of the desert, Ichigo." Naruto taunted, causing Ichigo to scowl harder at the Vulpes. "And no. They're human. Although, from what Gaara tells me, his brother wears something that could make him look like a demon cat with a horrible disguise."

"How is that possible? A demon brother with two human siblings?" The Soul Reaper questioned. Naruto shrugged.

"But that does raise a few questions." Naruto looked to Urahara and Ichigo, before grinning, and placing a hand on Gaara's shoulder. "Gaara and I are gonna go get some of that iced cream Ichigo showed me today." In a swirl of sand, the two vanished, leaving Urahara chuckling, and Ichigo swearing profusely.

"It's ICE CREAM!"

:::Dairy Queen(:3):::

"This stuff is weird." Gaara muttered, poking his ice cream with his plastic spoon. Naruto shrugged, gobbling down his third blizzard in the last fifteen minutes.

"Maybe, but it tastes good." Naruto released a sigh as he began to devour his fourth blizzard at a much slower pace. "So…how'd you find out I left the Everto Insula?"

"Cassius passed by Suna a few days ago." Gaara responded. "He was leading a small group of training Vulpes' through the desert to teach them about survival in the middle of a desert. I was on my own scouting mission when I ran into them. Asked about you, Cassius said you came to the normal continents."

"Well, that explains how you found out I was here…but why'd you actually come?"

"Diplomatic mission." The Suna boy sighed heavily. "Our land's Daimyo was supposed to be meeting with another Daimyo from some other country – why they picked the normal continents I'll never know – and we were part of his escort." Naruto blinked, raising an eyebrow.

"'We'?"

"Yeah. I'm a shinobi." Naruto scowled.

"Thanks for letting me know earlier. My Vulpes clan could have thrown you a part." Naruto smirked. "We throw some pretty awesome parties." Gaara rolled his eyes.

"Genin don't really have the freedom to just leave the village. With a team, people wanted to know where I was at more than when I was still in the Academy. I couldn't really slip away anymore. I tried to come find you during the Chunin exams since they were being held in the village near your forest, but apparently your clan had already moved."

"Yeah. Not a good idea for a clan of demons to stick around a village that's holding a tournament for ninjas where shinobi from all over the Everto Insula come to watch." Gaara nodded in agreement.

"Either way, my team and I decided to have one last mission together by escorting the Daimyo, and I slipped out of the escort as soon as I could to come find you." Gaara looked around the fast-food restaurant, his nose scrunching up. "This town absolutely reeks of you. And death." Naruto chuckled.

"Yeah, we have a lot of that here…"

"You reek of death." Gaara added. "And I swear to God, if you went and got yourself killed, I'm going to murder you." The Vulpes snorted.

"I didn't get myself killed." Naruto brought his blizzard to his mouth, looking anywhere but Gaara. "I ate something that was dead and half-died." Naruto muttered, before starting to shovel his blizzard into his mouth. Honestly, if it wasn't for his Nex Glacies, he would have gotten throat-freeze. Gaara reached into his pocket, and pulled out a shining, black kunai with a speck of blood on the end.

"I'm going to use that to kill you once I finish this stuff." Gaara growled, jabbing a full spoon of ice cream into his mouth.

"Oh come on!" Naruto whined. "It wasn't my fault! It was that bastard Everto's fault! The dead thing insulted my mother, and Everto's a lot more sensitive about our mother than I am! I mean, what human woman in their right mind would go and have a child with a demon? It's obviously not natural-"

"Naruto, shut up." Gaara hissed. Naruto snapped his mouth shut with a 'click'. "Everto? He got control?"

"For about two minutes, yeah." Naruto grumbled, crossing his arms with a pouting air. "It would have been only one minute or less, but did you know it's possible to trip in your mind?" Gaara just stared, before pinching the bridge of his nose with a sigh.

"How long ago was that?"

"Mmm…over a moon cycle. A little over a month, I think. And before you ask, no, Everto hasn't shown his ugly mug since then." Naruto would leave out the part when he asked Everto to help heal him when he was in Soul Society. Yeah…Gaara wouldn't like that.

"That's good I guess…but that brings up another question. What were those things you were fighting in the park, and why on earth couldn't you beat them?" Gaara demanded.

"Well, first off, they're Arrancars. They're…basically souls that have died, and were left to long in this world, and became a creature that devours souls called a Hollow. The way a Hollow becomes an Arrancar is to basically have part of its mask removed. Then they have a sword called a Zonpaktou that holds their powers, and they are a lot more powerful than any Hollow." Naruto explained, before smiling sheepishly. "Sorry, that's not a very good explanation."

"It's good enough. But you looked almost exactly like those…Arrancars. What's up with that? Why'd you have the collar of teeth, and where'd it go? Why did you have a hole in your chest?"

"Um…remember when I said I ate something that was dead?" Gaara nodded. "Well, I ate a Hollow, and that Hollow basically morphed my soul into that of a Hollow as well. That blonde man, Urahara, helped me become an Arrancar. The collar of teeth is what's left of my mask – the mask fragment varies for each Arrancar – and I had a hole in my chest because for a Hollow, the hole represents the Hollow's missing heart. Arrancars have one too." Naruto listed. "Anyway, the reason I couldn't beat Uliquiorra – the Arrancar I was fighting – was because A) I didn't know that Arrancars were that fast. Hollows are usually a lot slower and a lot weaker. I guess it took me by surprise. And B) I went on what you could call a 'mission' a while back with Ichigo, and I'm still kinda recovering from that." Naruto laughed weakly. "I kinda turned into a Blood Smoothie, and I'm still working on recovering from that."

"What was the mission about?" Gaara asked.

"Oh, it was to save-"

"NARUTO!" Ichigo burst into Dairy Queen, his eyes wide, his chest heaving, and his jaw working up and down, trying to form words, but with none coming out.

"Get out of my way, you big oaf!" Cried a familiar voice, before Ichigo was literally thrown right to the floor. Standing on his back, was none other than Rukia. Once her eyes fell on Naruto, she smiled cheerfully, and waved. "Hi Naruto! Oooo! Who's this?"

"-her." Naruto finished waving slowly.

"You went to save a hyperactive midget?" Gaara whispered.

"She's usually not this hyperactive." Naruto whispered back, refusing to let his gaze leave Rukia; she still wanted payback for the…present…Naruto had left her when he had left Soul Society. "Only when she's trying to blend in with humans."

"Uh…what?"

"She's a Soul Reaper. You know, like Shinigami?" Gaara blinked with wide eyes. "Ichigo's a Soul Reaper too. Their job is to usher souls from this world into the next, called Soul Society. Oh, hi Rukia!" Naruto said with fake cheerfulness as Rukia plopped down in the seat next to him, dragging Ichigo across the floor on his face, and letting him lay on the floor with a possible concussion.

"Hi." She smiled to Naruto, before leaning in. "Don't think I forgot about what you did. I'm going to kill you." She whispered.

"I'd like to see you try." Rukia's smile slowly morphed into that of the Devil himself.

"Oh, I will. And I'll succeed. And then I'll tell my brother where to find you." Naruto paled. To Kuchikis trying to kill him? He could handle Rukia, easy, but he didn't really want to fight another Captain. Not when he was still recovering.

"I'm guessing it won't help to say 'sorry'?"

"Nope." Rukia smiled, and turned to Gaara. "I'm Kuchiki Rukia. And who might you be?"

"Sabaku no Gaara." The red-head introduced, before looking to Naruto. "Do I want to know what you did to her and her brother?" Naruto laughed nervously.

"Uh, later?" Gaara just nodded. Naruto blinked slowly, as if just realizing something. "You said that you left your team on your mission, right?" Gaara nodded while Rukia just looked between the two, an eyebrow raised. "Isn't that illegal?"

"Yes. But I'd like to see the Council try anything. They're not that stupid."

"More like they're too afraid of you." Naruto snorted. Gaara nodded once.

"That too."

"Won't that mean that they'll come looking or you?"

"Definitely."

"And you're sitting here hanging around a demon."

"Yeah? And?" Naruto hung his head with a groan.

"They're gonna kill me." He muttered. Gaara pat his shoulder, rolling his eyes.

"Nice to know you, buddy." Gaara sarcastically remarked. Naruto suddenly looked up, his eyes locking with Rukia's.

"Now that I think about…why're you here, Rukia? I thought you were going to stay in Soul Society." Rukia slapped a hand over Naruto's mouth, looking to Gaara. Her gaze realigned with Naruto's, and she growled under her breath. Naruto pried her hand away, none to carefully. "He already knows! Jeeze! He's like me!" Naruto crossed his arms. "He knows all about life and death."

'See? One lie leads to the next, and now you already have two built up on the account of your friend!' Arashi called.

Yeah yeah, I'll deal with my conscience's overwhelming guilt later. Naruto sarcastically remarked, before slamming a mental hand down on the link to cut it off.

"Right…" Rukia said, eyeing Gaara suspiciously.

"Seriously!" Naruto bounced up and down in his seat. "He's a Raccoon Canis. A Raccoon Dog. A one-tailed raccoon-dog." Gaara shot a glare to Naruto, who shrugged so slightly, only Gaara caught it. The message was clear; 'well, it's kinda the truth!' Gaara rolled his eyes, shaking his head.

"…anyway, I'm here because of the call of Arrancars that was put in by my replacement in the town who is supposed to be fighting off any Hollows that come through here." Naruto leaned back, snorting.

"Yeah. He's doing a marvelous job."

"Did he even help at all?" Rukia groaned. Naruto raised an eyebrow.

"I had no idea Soul Society sent a replacement until you just told me. Does that answer your question?" Rukia just nodded. Gaara kept glancing at Ichigo, an eyebrow raised.

"If he going to be okay?" Gaara finally asked, lightly prodding Ichigo's shoulder with his foot.

"He'll be fine." Naruto responded with a wave of his hand, before returning his attention to Rukia. "You're all they sent to fight off an unknown amount of Arrancars?" Naruto questioned. "Forgive me if I don't believe you."

"I'm not the only one." Rukia crossed her arms with a huff of exasperation. "I'm just the first to be sent. After all, I'm the one that knows Karakura's residential spiritual beings the most." The midget smirked. She then frowned. "And Yamamoto-sotaicho is having problems getting others to volunteer."

"What? Why? Doesn't anybody care about what happens to Karakura?" Naruto growled out, slamming a fist into the table. He smiled sheepishly at the other families that looked his way, and only looked back to Rukia when they turned away.

"Of course they care about this town." Rukia lowered her voice. "If it wasn't for a certain demon fox that threatened them with a legion of demons attacking them if they made one wrong move, the captains, vice-captains, and seat-holding Reapers would be here already."

"Naruto…" Gaara sighed. "What is she talking about?"

"Hey, it's not my fault that I had to threaten them!" Naruto whined. "Those Soul Reapers are the idiots that went and threatened to wipe out of the Vulpes race."

"WHAT?" Now it was Gaara's turn to look at the families that looked towards him; but unlike Naruto and his uneasy smile, Gaara gave a piercing glare that sent shivers down anybody's spine. Once they looked away, he tried again, quieter this time. "What?"

"Well, I wasn't really paying attention until the 'we want to kill you and your kind' part, but I basically told them that they had no right to decide what happens to me – they wanted to decide if they should kill me, or let me live in captivity with them. Can you believe that? – and then I went on how the Soul Reapers are not the supreme beings in the universe, that demons and angels and Kami is way above them, and then the guy in charge of all the Soul Reapers wanted to take a vote if they should wipe out the Vulpes race since we were higher-up on the chain than them. For protection of the human race or something."

"That's ridiculous!" Gaara snorted.

"I know. So I told them that if they tried anything like that, the demons would work together to slaughter them all. Or something along those lines. The words were coming out of my mouth faster than I could think of them." Ichigo picked himself up off the floor with a groan, rubbing the side of his head, and sat down in the booth next to Gaara.

"Sometimes I think that's what always happens when you talk." Gaara rolled his eyes.

"You should see him when he finds a type of plant that you can only find back where we come from. It's called Foxnip, and when a Vulpes gets a good whiff of it – or, God help us, eats some of it – they go crazy. Naruto here-" He jabbed a thumb in the fox's direction, who just flashed a massive grin. "-will say anything and everything that's on his mind."

"I do not!"

"Do to. That's why you and a tree had a conversation for three weeks on the theory of what exactly turns some cheeses yellow and some white." Naruto scowled at the Suna shinobi.

"Whatever." Naruto grumbled. "So when should they be here?" Rukia shrugged. "Fantastic. And if any Arrancars come while they're not here?"

"Then we will probably be killed." Rukia sighed.

"Let me re-fraise my 'fantastic'. Fan-FREAKING-tastic!"

:::Urahara Shoten:::

"You're going to break my ceiling." Urahara called as he walked through the hall.

"And I'll fix it!" Naruto called from where he hung upside down from the rafters of the ceiling by the claws on his feet, his claws splitting the wood. "And do you mind? We're having a conversation here!" Urahara snorted from far off, but didn't speak once more. Naruto looked back to those gathered in the room; Ichigo, Rukia, Gaara, Renji, Toshiro, Rangiku, Ikkaku, and Yumichika. "So, I don't get it…why're you all in my room?" Ichigo sighed heavily.

"Because we're supposed to be finding out what we'll do if Arrancars show up again and WILL YOU GET OFF THE CEILING?" Naruto bent at the waist, clinging to the rafter with his hands and claws with a frown.

"It's my room, so I'll hang from what I want!" Naruto barked. "And, really, what is there to plan? Arrancars come, we kick ass, they get defeated or go home, repeat. What's so hard about that?" Without waiting for anybody to answer, as if Kami wanted to mock Naruto, the ground shook as if the moon itself had decided to get up close and personal with earth, the electricity flickering in and out, before dying completely. "Crap! What do we do?" Naruto cried, nearly hyperventilating as he dropped from the ceiling.

"And who was it that said we didn't need a plan?" Gaara rolled his eyes. Naruto clambered to his feet, glaring at the red-head, and dusting off his wrinkled t-shirt.

"I was being sarcastic." Naruto growled, baring his fangs. The shining incisors sent shivers down the spines of all Reapers present – except for Ichigo of course – but Gaara just stared.

"Wow. A demon knowing how to be sarcastic. That's new." Naruto scowled, but turned away, his ears laying flat against the top of his head. He walked to the door to his room, jamming his feet into his shoes while muttering.

"I swear to God, if it's just a Menos Grande, I'm going to be pissed." Ichigo threw himself to his feet, using his momentum to stumble forwards a little more.

"And if it is? What'll you do? Eat the thing?" Naruto chuckled darkly.

"It's a possibility." He swept out of the room. "I haven't had my before-dinner snack yet."

:::Streets of Karakura:::

"Well, you were right about one thing." Ichigo said. "There is a Menos Grande." Naruto dropped his head with a groan, making the other Soul Reapers look to him. "What? I thought you were going to eat it."

"I said it was a possibility! And do you know how horrible a Hollow tastes?" The rhetorical question remained true to its nature, and Naruto overlooked the horde of Hollows that were milling around on the streets below, like mindless demons attracted by one thing and one thing only. The smell of food. "I know I'm new to the entire 'Hollows in the Living World' thing, but isn't this many Hollows…I dunno, not natural?"

"Yeah…this isn't supposed to happen." Renji muttered, slowly unsheathing Zabimaru. Unlike Renji, Naruto didn't take his time in drawing his Zonpaktou; he ripped it off of his back, a feral grin spreading across his face.

"You guys might want to hurry, or I'll hog all the fun!" Naruto cackled as he dove head-first into the horde of Hollows. Within seconds, Naruto's white clothes were completely covered in grotesque, dark-blue and dark-green blood, his sword hacking and slashing through the masks of Hollows, his claws taking care of those that his Zonpaktou couldn't reach fast enough.

"Well? You heard the Vulpes!" Gaara cried, before rushing into the same horde as Naruto, sand materializing out of the gourd on his back to form around his hands and forearms to enlarge the size of his hands a few inches, and giving him curled claws that he used to slash through the bodies of Hollows left and right, Ichigo quickly following behind to purify the incapacitated monsters. Within seconds, Gaara and Ichigo had caught up to Naruto, who stood panting, wiping a thin line of blood that was trailing down his chin.

"What happened?" Gaara demanded, instantly circling Naruto to check for any obvious injuries. Naruto shoved Gaara away from before the red-headed shinobi started to poke him for broken bones.

"Stop being my mother!" Naruto sarcastically barked. "I told you, I'm still healing from blowing up my insides!"

"You aren't supposed to bleed from the mouth, Naruto." Gaara said, completely ignoring the mother comment.

"Yeah, well, when not in our bodies, Ichigo and I tend to do that a lot." (A/N: Has anybody but me noticed that they spit up blood A LOT more than they should? This not even noticing the blood that they lose from wounds! Ichigo has enough blood to fill a pool. But seriously, all that spitting of blood? They do it a lot! Punch in the chest? COUGH UP BLOOD! Kick to the stomach? COUGH UP BLOOD! Stubbed your toe? COUGH UP BLOOD!) "I'll be fine! But we do have one problem."

"Huh?" Ichigo asked, shifting Zangetsu to his shoulder, completely ignoring the drooling Hollows that had formed a ring around the trio.

"That." Naruto said, pointing straight up. The other two teens looked to where his finger was, drawing swears from Ichigo, and causing Gaara to release a sharp breath of air.

Standing in the air above the trio, watching the rampaging Hollows, slaughtering Soul Reapers, and any resulting carnage, were two Arrancars with multiple streaks of light branching off in different directions from them, at the head of each light a different Arrancar. The two that remained had a larger spiritual pressure; one that was more crushing than the others.

One of the Arrancars – a tall male – had short, bright blue hair, with eyes that were even brighter than his hair. On the outside edges of his eyes were bright blue marks – now that Naruto thought about it, all Arrancars but himself had strange marks on their facaes – and on his right jaw and cheek was the mask fragment of some animal, the teeth sharp and curved. His vest was open, revealing a muscled torso with a large hole going straight through his abdomen.

The other Arrancar was yet another tall male with shoulder-length, dark, wavy hair, blue-gray eyes, and a slight goatee. His mask fragment was strange; it was similar to Naruto's own, but instead of being a collar of teeth, it was more like the fanged, bottom jaw of a monster that sat around his neck like a necklace, his Hollow hole directly below the front center of the mask fragment.

The Arrancars slowly looked down to the trio, their eyes locking for a split second, before suddenly, the Arrancar with the bright blue hair vanished, rocketing towards Ichigo at speeds that a bullet would envy.

"UMPH!" Ichigo gagged as he was caught in the stomach by the shoulder of the Arrancar, being flung down the street himself in a series of back-flips. Naruto just watched over his shoulder, his eyes wide, innocent, and blinking as his friend was dragged out of his line of vision at over 100 miles per hour.

"I guess it's just us…" Naruto said, slow and uncertain, before pushing off the ground with a miniscule burst of spirit energy, gathering the spirit particles under his feet so he could stand on air. Gaara followed soon after, floating up on a cloud of sand. The two teens that hailed from the Everto Insula stared with intent eyes at the other Arrancar who just stared back, his eyes blank, and his face muscles slack. He looked like he'd rather be anywhere but the World of the Living, and looked like he'd rather be asleep even more. Naruto could agree with both. "You don't look to be enjoying your time here." Naruto called across the twenty feet that stood between him and the tired Arrancar.

"Neither do you." The man responded evenly with a hint of a snort carried in his tone. Naruto grinned slightly, reaching over his shoulder to draw Kitsuneryu no Arashi.

"Yeah. So how about we get this over with so I can go home and take a nap?"

"I agree…except you won't be the one going home." The man suddenly vanished a crackle of sound, putting Naruto on high alert. He crouched slightly, bringing his sword up in front of him with the shining blade nearly parallel with the ground dozens of feet below him.

"Gaara." Naruto muttered, gaining his friend's attention. "I need you to go around and take out all the Hollows, okay? Incapacitate them. Hollows eat souls and attack people to gain fresh souls. I saw those Arrancars earlier, and no-doubt they're here to fight the other Soul Reapers. With them occupied, there's nobody to take out the Hollows."

"…fine. Just don't get yourself killed." Gaara muttered, floating lazily back towards the ground.

"I can always try. And remember! Incapacitate! Don't-" Naruto never finished as the Arrancar suddenly materialized before him, his own Zonpaktou clashing with Naruto's in a shower of sparks. Naruto was shoved back a good thirty feet, before he finally decided on a course of action. He let the spirit particles under his feet disperse with a quiet breath of wind, and in a snap of clothing and the grinding of metal against metal, Naruto plummeted towards the ground, leaving the Arrancar to slide to a stop. But by then, Naruto was up behind him, his sword raised above his head, aiming to cleave his head off.

The Arrancar spun around with flourish, catching Naruto's downswing with the hand guard of his Zonpaktou. He tried to stab at Naruto, but the fox-eared boy took a page from the Arrancar's book, using his hand guard to halt the blade. The Arrancar showed his frustration with a simple blink as his blade got lodged in the claws that formed Kitsuneryu no Arashi's hand guard, the talons actually swiveling in their spots to clamp down on the blade. Naruto smirked, and jerked his arms backwards, aiming to disarm the Arrancar.

What happened was completely opposite. Instead of the Arrancar's Zonpaktou being ripped from his hands, Naruto's own blade slipped from his claws, making the orange-haired Arrancar blink with surprise. "You thought I'd let go of my weapon so easily? What do you think I am? A Soul Reaper?" The Arrancar quipped; without Naruto to direct the action of the claws on his Zonpaktou, they twisted back to their original positions, allowing the other Arrancar's sword to slip free, making Naruto's own Zonpaktou start to plummet. Before the large weapon could fall five feet, the man snatched it out of the air, inspecting the blade with a critical eye. "Hm. I guess your Zonpaktou is okay." He said to himself, before looking to Naruto as the Vulpes waited for him to strike. "Aren't you going to try and get it back?"

"And get impaled with it? Hell no." Naruto said, jerking his head from side to side twice to emphasize his answer.

"Your loss. You'll get impaled either way." The Arrancar shot forward, brandishing both weapons, one brought to each side. With a grunt, the Arrancar swung the swords towards one another, one a few inches above the other to cut Naruto in three. The Vulpes just grinned as he shoved his hands into his pockets. With only seconds the spare, he pulled his hands out of his pockets, and with a clang of metal on metal, the two Zonpaktou were stopped in their tracks.

In each of Naruto's hands, was a black kunai knife, reflecting the light of the crescent moon. "What're those?" The Arrancar asked, brow raised as he applied more pressure to the swords, hoping to get them to slip from the blades of the kunais and dig into Naruto's flesh. Seriously, how could something so small stop two swords?

"A gift from a friend." Naruto responded, ducking under the Zonpaktou and allowing them to slash through the air. He twisted the kunai in his right hand around, and brought his hand up to slash at the Arrancar. His target wasn't gashed in the chest like he had hoped, but the corners of his mouth still twitched upwards for a brief second when a decent-sized cut appeared on the Arrancar's cheek. "So who are you, anyway?" Naruto asked as he jumped backwards to avoid a slash from his own Zonpaktou.

"Starrk. One of Aizen-sama's Espada." Naruto scrunched up his nose, pausing briefly in his fight, before having to flip of the newly-named Starrk so he wouldn't get a sword through the eye.

"Aizen? I was hoping he was killed in Hueco Mundo when he retreated there. No such luck?"

"None." Starrk rolled his eyes, but blinked in appreciation as he managed to clip Naruto, creating a decent valley in Naruto's upper left arm. "And who're you?"

"You mean your precious 'Aizen-sama' sent you here without telling you who you may face?" Naruto snorted. "Some leader."

"I was sent to face you and you alone." Starrk responded, actually wincing when Naruto managed to stab him through the foot with a kunai; sadly, this caused Naruto to lose the weapon, which fell down and down before vanishing into the rolling masses of Hollows in the streets. "All I was told was that I was to come to the World of the Living and fight a demon fox that was also an Arrancar, yet was still alive."

"So you believed the demon fox thing?" The Vulpes asked, genuine surprise riding his words. His surprised expression was wiped away when a gash was torn into his left abdomen.

"Is that so surprising?"

"Yeah, but it would be to you too if you had to tell everybody nineteen times before they even began to think about believing you." Naruto paused, confusion written on his face as he cocked his head. "That's a weird place to put a piano…"

Starrk looked over his shoulder, his brow furrowing as he searched for the piano that Naruto spoke of. His attention was dragged back to the Vulpes Arrancar when he felt said Arrancar's Zonpaktou get yanked from his grasp. Starrk glowered at the younger – at least in looks – boy as Naruto burst out laughing.

"I can't believe you fell for that! We're over fifty feet in the air!" Naruto continued to cackle, before gagging as Starrk slammed his blade into Naruto's, pushing the Arrancar back two feet before Naruto found some traction. Starrk suddenly turned his attention from Naruto to the space behind him, an eyebrow raising.

"Piano." He warned blankly, taking a few steps away from Naruto. The Vulpes burst into laughter.

"I just pulled that, you idiot! Do you really think I'm going to fall for that after I just-URK!" With the sound of all the keys of a piano being smashed down at once, a giant black piano slammed into Naruto from behind, dragging him to the ground and into a street that wasn't filled with Hollows; 'into a street' literally meaning into a street.

It took Naruto nearly two full minutes to dig himself out from underneath the chunks of asphalt, shattered piano, and twelve feet of straight-down crater, finally jumping up onto the street above, a venomous scowl on his face. Naruto looked to the piano – or what was left of it – that had hit him, and didn't feel an ounce of remorse for the destroyed masterpiece. I never cared much for human music anyhow. Naruto thought, turning to face Starrk as the Arrancar lightly touched down on the street five feet in front of him, Zonpaktou sheathed. "What, are you surrendering?" Naruto asked with a grin, blood dripping down his chin once more, the blood falling onto his vest to mix with the blood that was flowing from the other lacerations he had received in his piano-caused fall.

"No. Our ride is just here." Starrk said with a sigh. Naruto frowned.

"'Our'?" He repeated, before suddenly, another thing slammed into his back. This time, though, it wasn't a musical instrument, but a small girl with a mask fragment that covered nearly her entire head, dressed in skimpy clothing, with a Hollow hole in her chest. "What the-!" Naruto proclaimed as the little girl wrapped her arms and legs around him from behind, pinning his arms to his sides as his Zonpaktou fell to the ground with a crash of metal.

"Hi Starrk!" The girl chirped happily while Starrk ran a hand through his hair.

"Hi Lilynette." Starrk answered in his ever-tired voice.

"Get your pet to let go of me before I break her limbs like toothpicks!" Naruto snarled through gritted fangs; it wasn't a complete bluff, but it wouldn't be as easy as snapping toothpicks. Normally it would, but this girl was strong. Before Naruto could move, someone grabbed the back of his neck, and slammed him face-first into the ground(Naruto swore he heard his nose crunch), the hand holding firmly, thumb and middle finger against two pressure points, even after Naruto had hit the ground with a thud.

He felt the girl, Lilynette move, but right as he was gathering his wits so he could jump up, grab his sword, and start lobbing heads, something heavy sat on his back. Not something that was too heavy for Naruto to move, far from it in fact, but his muscles had been prepared to move something that couldn't have weighed more than seventy pounds. So when he tried to move with muscles prepared for seventy pounds, the one-seventy weight that was suddenly on his back just shoved him right back into the asphalt, his nose crunching once more(Ow. Naruto thought blankly.). He growled in annoyance when he noticed that, once more, his arms were pinned, this time by rope.

Pft! Like rope can stop me! Naruto snorted in his thoughts, before jerking his arms to the side to snap the rope. Imagine his surprise when, instead of hearing the snap of rope, he heard the burning of flesh, and the tightening of rope. He yelped in pain as it felt like something akin to lava was poured straight into his veins from his wrists, his beating heart now not being what helped him, but what was defeating him, as it moved his blood along and spread the poison through his limbs. He felt a hand mocking pat his head, as if he was some obedient dog.

"We did our research." Said a new voice, a voice that Naruto instantly recognized as Ichimaru Gin's. "You demon-types don't like wolfsbane, I hear. Or do you know it as Aconitum?" Naruto swore loudly, the words only slightly muffled from his face being ground into the ground by Gin's sandal.

They made rope out of Aconitum? They must have really done their research – or, more likely, tortured some innocent infant demon – to learn about the effects Aconitum had on a demon. In human mythology, Aconitum, or wolfsbane, was said to be the natural repellent for the werewolf. What humans didn't know, was that the werewolves that they had been hunting or telling stories about for centuries were just dog demons that they had caught a brief glimpse of while they were most-likely morphing, or maybe when one was speaking while in dog-form. That was how Aconitum got the name wolfsbane; because of the legend that it repelled 'werewolves', when in reality, it was repelling demons. That's why Aconitum had a name that the demons were more familiar with.

Demon's Bane.

"Stop." A cool, annoyingly-familiar voice broke through the sound of Gin grinding Naruto's face into the ground. The Vulpes growled quietly to himself. It was Uliquiorra. He would have lashed out at the four by now, but the Demon's Bane was slowly but surely sapping his strength. Adding this to the fact that the Demon's Bane had cut through the bandages around his arms, and then into his flesh where it released a toxin into his blood…well, it was safe to say that Naruto was finding it harder and harder to move and form complete thoughts that actually made sense. "Aizen-sama wants his new attack-dog brought back in one piece."

"Awww…" Gin complained. "It's not like I would have broken his head off or something!" Naruto felt the world spinning around him as he was yanked to his feet. Already his feet couldn't support him, so he just slumped partially back to the ground, his arms bound at his sides by rope made of Demon's Bane, his ankles tied as well. Starrk kept a firm hold on Naruto's upper left arm, supporting him so he wouldn't fall to the ground, while Uliquiorra took up position on his right side, holding up the rest of Naruto's body.

As the two Arrancars dragged him across the ground, he mustered any and all strength that he could, and began to struggle with all the strength that he could. He felt the air around him grow cold, the atmospheric pressure shifting, and the ground beneath his feet completely vanish. As he felt the world close in around him, he took whatever energy he had left, threw his head back, and screamed.

:::With The Others:::

Ichigo finally located the other Soul Reapers and Gaara, all panting from their individual battles; the Reapers with the Arrancars, and Gaara with the hordes of Hollows that had never seemed to end. Ikkaku grinned as he looked at the torn-apart Hollows around him, some piles stretching ten feet into the air. "Keep this up and I may have to like you." Ikkaku said to Gaara, receiving a half-hearted nod from the red-head. Ichigo looked over the group, his brow slowly furrowing more and more.

"Hey…" He said, gaining the attention of all there. Before he could voice what he wanted, a loud, familiar scream shot through the air, the sound twisting into the roar of an animal. The group froze as the sound was abruptly cut off. Ichigo slowly turned to Gaara, his eyes wide and fearful. "Where's Naruto?"

Dun dun DUUUUN! Nah, not really. I bet at least a few of you saw this coming. Obviously, a lot of things have been thrown off with Naruto and Gaara(but mostly our favorite little Vulpes) being here. If you don't know what's going to happen next…I win. :3 I'd say more, but it's 3 in the morning, and since I went to bed at 7 in the morning this morning(technically, it was yesterday.), and I'm pretty sure I'm SIIIICK(GOD i feel like throwing up!), I'm going to make this not short and sweet. So…this is it. Ja ne.

CHAPTER 10 TRANSLATION: Evanidus Canis ~ Vanishing Dog

**1** Everto Insula – Demon Islands

~Kitsune-242