Wandering Nirvana

by Sierra.BN312

He left his home in search of himself, only to find true happiness with this girl that enjoys death, and a conflict within the supernatural. Landing in the 1980's certainly gave him a new perspective in life. Who would've thought having to later mentor a strawberry-haired kid and his friends would make for a life he didn't expect to enjoy in the end?

2. Chapter 1 - The Girl That Sees Death

Hello everyone, it's been a damn long time since I have had the ability to get back to working on this, and that is partly due to real life being a drain on time and other personal issues I won't go into. I will admit that I caught and was mostly bedridden with the Kung Flu over the holidays, and needless to say, it SUCKED. I'm clear of it now, but that was not a pleasant couple of weeks, to say the least, and thus I return to you with the first actual chapter of Wandering Nirvana.

Since it seems that the majority of you already worked out who the romantic pairing is, in part due to me being silly and the original image for this story being of her, I can only comment that I'm hoping she mixes up the story in just the right way as her personality is going to be in stark contrast to Naruto's own. Well, anyway, this will be where Naruto's life takes another turn and into the deeper parts of the supernatural world within Bleach, seeing the human perspective of it.

Looking at the world of Bleach during the Substitute Arc, Kubo clearly intended to build up more of the world other than just the Soul Society, Hollows, Quincy, etc., but he never got around to doing so due to the Arrancar arc essentially railroading the plot post Soul Society, you can clearly see plot points and things that he wanted to develop but had to cast aside due to the way the story was told. There's a world that Kubo created, and it feels a lot like something that DxD has, but the surface was barely scratched, so here I'll be digging in a little deeper with the human aspect of the supernatural.

Speaking of my DxD fic, it's still going on, but I've had to go through the long process of a rewrite of the synopsis of the story's first arc, as it was a little too similar to another story. The prologue has been posted if you guys are interested in it.

Now, onto the reviews that I wasn't able to respond to properly or PM –

Guest, May 22nd – Thanx, if you have a guess, well then, you'll find out in this chapter ;)

Guest, May 22nd – Neither are very original, dude. I've grown tired of seeing said characters be a Zan spirit or something, especially when they were merely mentioned in passing in the original story.

Kurosaki Naruto – I didn't impose this story on the old one, the old one was simply flawed, and my own tastes in stories and writing skills have changed since I wrote that up. As for Shiki, she's not so much an OC as she is from a different anime, but I've rewritten her backstory to accommodate her history in Bleach, as she also brings in a different perspective than the other female characters have. To me, the women of Bleach have grown rather stale as far as pairings go, and some I feel just wouldn't do well with Naruto. My Beta disagrees, but it's just how I feel.

Guest, May 23rd – Glad to see that you ID'ed her, although I've never seen her used before now with a pairing for Naruto. As for Naruto being able to gather Reishi, you'll just have to wait and see in future chapters.

Guest, May 29th – Ah, yes, Enrakyoten. I know of that Zan, but there's no way possible for Naruto to even use or obtain it.

Guest, July 10th – You got it right my man, and glad to hear you've watched the first two parts of her story, though I assume by now you've seen them all, including Future Gospel.

StrkFreeGundam – Thanx, from what I can tell, this will likely be the first pairing with Shiki and Naruto on this site as I have yet to see it anywhere. As for the other characters from KnK, some will show up, while others will not, sad to say. One certainly will, and she'll play a significant role with the development of Naruto, Shiki, as well as Rukia herself, come time for the manga storyline to start up. As for which part of Shiki that Naruto ends up with, you'll be in for a surprise, as I expect everyone will be once their development begins to take a turn for the more romantic side. As for Shiki's abilities, you'll just have to wait and see how they're explained, but they have remained relatively the same from her canon set.

Guest, August 27th – Yes. Shiki is indeed scary when she wants to be. But other times, rare times mostly, she'll turn into a cinnamon roll if she's comfortable around certain people.

Anon, August 7th – No need to go that far, dude.

Now, on with the story in the first official chapter!

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Chapter 1 – The Girl that Sees Death

-Sendai, Early July; 1984-

'So, why exactly have you grown attached to this thing?'

"I dunno, I guess I felt something drawing me to it for some reason."

After a speedy trek through outlying prefectures, the ninja and fox duo had made it to Sendai thanks to the young girl's directions, Naruto found himself sightseeing around the city, taking in the juxtaposition between contemporary urbanization that dominated the heart of the city and the old-style mansions that were grouped together towards the outskirts. Moreover, he enjoyed seeing the cherry blossom trees that filled the fields on his way into town. He had made a mental note to spend some alone time reading up on Japan under the cherry trees; while he was more eager to learn about this world through travel and experience, Naruto would be a fool not to do some reading when he had the time.

Having gotten a room for the night, Naruto had ventured out to the forests near the city to practice with his new sword that he took from the so-called 'Shinigami'. At first, he was initially just going to toss it away or maybe even sell it if he could, after all, he had never been all that interested in Kenjutsu. The following day his interest in the seemingly banal strip of folded metal had taken a marked increase when he had noticed something odd. No one could see it. Not that they saw it and simply ignored why the young man was toting a deadly weapon around or even muttered assumptions that he was some kind of cosplayer, it was as if the near meter of steel simply didn't exist. He had been sitting at the scantly populated breakfast bar of the hotel early in the morning with the sheathed blade propped against his table while he wiped the sleep from his eyes when he had seen the waitress approach him. Initially assuming that she was about to tell him off for having a sword at the table, he was surprised when she simply leaned forwards, her hand passing through the black diamond-patterned hilt to refill his coffee.

Gawping openly at the bizarre occurrence that had unfolded before him, the blonde had been forced to sputter an excuse of drowsiness when the waitress had assumed that she had somehow offended him with her service. After resolving the issue, she had laughed to herself that he was suffering jet lag, confusing Naruto who had little concept of the condition. Alas, soon enough, he had made his way briskly to the forests outside of town to experiment, keeping the sword on full display to see if the waitress's inadvertent magic act had been a fluke. That was quashed quickly under the dawning realization that he had not encountered a single person in the walk to the forest that could see or even interact with the sword, a prospect that set his features in an excited grin.

Travelling deep into the forest until the tall maples had yielded to scores of dark green bamboo, Naruto had set about testing just what made the blade so odd despite its otherwise normal appearance. What Naruto had discovered was both exciting and confusing all at once; the sword was no heavier or lighter than any sword he had ever held. It could interact with the physical world, as evidenced by the litany of tall bamboo shafts he had felled in the hour since he had begun to experiment. It cast a shadow and even produced a smell, but all the same, it seemed that no human or animal he had encountered yet, other than the black-clad ne'er-do-well he had pinched it from, could see or touch it. In the days of yore, Naruto would have chalked this all up to some cosmic fluke and gone to Kakashi or Sakura for an explanation that he would find interesting but inevitably find no practical application for, but as he swung the sword in repeated movements of a rough kata, the blue-eyed Uzumaki could not deny that he felt a certain attraction to the prospect of keeping the blade and so in a spur of the moment decision he had chosen to keep it around. Naruto wasn't going to pass up on the possibility of a new skill, especially after recalling how the Shinigami said the sword was necessary for killing those creatures he called Hollows.

"Besides…" Naruto said as he brought down the sword in an overhead slash, "…it never hurts to expand one's arsenal of skills." He gritted his teeth, feeling the sword slip in his hands, its unfamiliar weight and weight worlds different from the thin and light Kunai he was used to.

'If I recall correctly, you initially refused to learn Kenjutsu.' One time, Jiraiya had brought the subject up on their training trip, but after thinking about it, 'You said you'd likely cut your own head off and just stuck to kunai and shuriken, instead.' It was entertaining to see how the blonde tried to hold a sword properly several times before tossing it away in frustration.

Naruto grumbled a bit before retrieving the sword and taking another swing to get used to it. Kurama was right, though; initially, he rejected learning how to use a sword, that had all changed upon his first encounter with Sasuke after the botched operation at Tenchi bridge, the way the avenging Uchiha had used the chokoto as an extension of himself had been an awe-inspiring prospect that none of them had been ready for. He had considered asking around to enquire about an instructor, but he had quickly become sidetracked with developing the Rasenshuriken and soon after the death of Jiraiya. Now though, faced with a world that was still very foreign to him with many differing agendas of different peoples, he would need to keep his edge up for whatever lay in the future.

There was also another thing that had been on his mind since he arrived though, "I get the feeling that my Sage Mode's been on semi-auto pilot since my first night here." Upon using his Senjutsu to find civilization after arriving here, Naruto knew that the nature of this world felt similar but different from his home. Still, after repeating the process on the second day, he concluded that there was something in the air that was just so… abstract. It was like an ambient diluted energy permeated everything from the mysterious sword to the individual molecules of oxygen that made up the air he was breathing. After dropping Sage Mode, Naruto was surprised that the heightened sensory state did not leave his senses, instead maintaining an awareness of the movements and concentrations of this odd energy as far away as a few kilometers from him. His attention had been shifted when a different, darker and more putrid form of that energy blipped on the edge of his senses, followed by a haunting, drawn-out roar that had echoed over Sendai. It hadn't taken Naruto long to realize it was another Hollow, and he had travelled towards it with all due haste, hopping across rooftops until finally laying his eyes on the white-masked and pill bug shaped beast menacing a group of pedestrians who ran around in confusion.

Naruto had jumped down from the roof of the four-story building he had been perched atop and buried the length of the sword into the Hollow's unsuspecting head in a messy but effective stab that sent it keeling over with nary a death wail. Naruto had watched in morbid interest as the thing had disintegrated before him, breaking down into black particles of that odd energy that visibly boiled away with a hiss. Until there was nothing there but a street full of half a dozen confused and panicked pedestrians grousing about a gas leak. To his surprise, it was readily apparent that while the effect of the Hollow had been an unavoidable occurrence, what with the craters in the walls and ground where it had stomped and thrashed before eventually falling in death, the people of this world could see the Hollows as well as they could see his sword, that is to say not at all. All of this information and experience spawned myriad questions in Naruto's waking mind, questions he was determined to find answers to, and if he expanded his skills in the process, then that was all the better.

As the hours ticked by into the afternoon and the spring sun began its waning descent towards the western horizon, Naruto concluded his experimentation with the sword. While he could hardly even call himself a beginner with the weapon, he was confident he could now swing it without it slipping from his hands and nailing some unsuspecting bamboo. Sheathing the sword and sealing it away, he dropped to his haunches and began to fall into Sage Mode, feeling his awareness of this world and its energies open up like the curtains on opening a play.

The strange energy washed over him like a cool stream of blueish white water, abject in that he recognized it for its difference to all that he knew, "Better see if I can use whatever this stuff is to my advantage." He could feel the native life in the forest, be they the tiniest of insects, the fish and salamanders that lived in the streams, and even the deer that roamed the land. They breathed as one, a hum of life that burbled above his five senses far into the kilometers of the forest ahead of him. He tuned out the overabundance of life from the city proper and chose instead to center himself in the comparatively quieter forest's life energy. As for the other power, Naruto began to get a feel for it, feeling more fluid and lighter than the treacle-esque consistency of natural energy. It was almost like pouring ice water into a body that had been overexerted from heat and cooling it down. Concentrating on this stream, he realized why he found it to be so uncanny compared to chakra; it was similar to a component. If chakra was 'green', then this energy felt 'blue', far removed from the former but still an undeniable element when mixed with another. "Wow, this is a—"

At the edges of his senses, a feeling of darkness and keening hunger pinged in forewarning when the cry of a Hollow echoed in the far distance, "Guess I need to go put down another one."

Standing quickly before leaping up into the tree line, Naruto darted through the forest as soon as he could in the direction of the Hollow's signature. The wind rushed through his ears, his jacket fluttering around him while he leapt between the tops of bamboo shoots and tree branches strong enough to support his weight, all but flying through the quickly thickening forest depths. The blonde's feet barely disturbed the treetops when bouncing from one to the other, each superhuman movement covering a hundred feet with no effort.

As Naruto grew closer to his target, he felt a new signature was close by, similar to the regular people that he had been feeling for since the blonde had arrived here. Only several orders of magnitude above the trace energies he picked up from Sendai's populace and fundamentally different in its makeup. It was darker and heavier than a regular person's energy but held none of the malice or negative emotion of the Hollow, which at this distance he realized was agitated, power flickering and fluctuating like a fire caught in a strong wind. By comparison, the interloper's power felt controlled, lashing out in precise and subtle strata of unseen preeminence that Naruto recognized as the calm collection of battle. By now, he was close enough that he could pick out the negative emotions of the Hollow quite clearly, anger, annoyance, hunger, greed, and arrogance were at the forefront of the invisible wave, but with steady progress, new emotions began to tinge the aura. Confusion, frustration, pain and above all, fear. Sharply contrasted by the beginnings of vicious excitement and boredom from the one who likely combatted the beast.

Unsure about this situation, Naruto decided to slow down a bit until he finally landed atop a tree branch overlooking a wide clearing in the forest, the vantage point gave Naruto the perfect view of the grassy verge ringed by bamboo, beams of golden afternoon sunshine casting long thin shadows that laid an umbral lattice over the vista. Two beings stood opposite one another, separated by a few meters. A teenage girl in a blue kimono and red leather jacket stood fearlessly before the gorilla-like Hollow with a knife in hand. Her breathing was slow and measured in contrast to the simian Hollow that panted in exhaustion, clutching the bloodied stump of an arm with its remaining hand while glaring balefully at the young woman.

Naruto was tempted to jump into the fray and help the young woman but reconsidered it after surveying the battlefield. She appeared to be the picture of health and vitality. Despite the displayed anger, Naruto could sense that the ape was terrified of her. She was almost certainly the one that had relieved it of its arm, the furry white limb Naruto spotted lying in quarters half a dozen meters behind the young woman. It didn't take a rocket scientist to see that given the combination of her energy that at this distance, Naruto realized to be suppressed, the state of the battlefield and condition of the monster that the girl was in no real trouble. It was more than that, though, Naruto realized, it was the way the young woman carried herself, legs slightly bent but stance still loose, a confidence that was not boasting and a palpable eagerness to do battle that any who had stepped foot on the battlefield would know.

Staring down the Hollow with a piercing stare, the knife-wielding young woman made no sign that she would be the one to initiate the attack, so with half bravado and bruised pride, the ape let out an angry roar before thumping its chest with its remaining arm. It bounded towards the young woman with animalistic fury, the underbrush torn asunder when the Hollow's lumbering limbs smashed into it as it crossed the distance to the static woman. There was only a meter's gap between them when with shocking swiftness, she moved! Dropping low, the young woman kicked off the ground and sailed past the Hollow when it raised its remaining arm to smash her skull in. Still in motion, she twisted, pirouetting along the horizontal plane like a corkscrew and leaving no less than twelve deep slashes in the Hollow's left side that gushed with blood. Her hand shot up from the spin and hooked the stump of the ape's arm, strengthening up and letting the momentum carry her up to loop around the stump as if it were a swing bar, her knife a streak of white light that circled the limb before it unceremoniously exploded off of the beast's body at the shoulder.

She wasn't done; her initial momentum had not been entirely arrested by the sudden change in orientation, turning in the air above the howling Hollow's head, the black-haired warrior landed on its broad muscled shoulders, her thighs locking securely around its elongated head. The knife twirled in her right hand, its brass pommel and guard glinting in the afternoon sun before she plunged it inwards into one of the two eyeholes of the mask the Hollow wore. The inhuman scream of pain, anger and fear that rent the air sent a flock of birds screeching into the air from the forest around Naruto, a geyser of blood splashed rained from the hole that the knife still stuck from, held there by a pale hand unflinchingly. The rivulets of sanguine liquid painted a bloody tear down the porcelain white mask, and Naruto briefly saw a flash in the girl's eyes when he saw her face for a moment, her features set in grim satisfaction.

The ape's garbled curse was unintelligible, lost amidst the tempest of pain from its new grievous injuries; it had the scantest sense to try to remove the cause, a meaty fist the size of a garbage can swung back towards the attacker. The woman didn't panic at the punch whirling towards her with a speed that would have caved a regular human's chest in, she swiftly ripped the knife out of the Hollow's now mutilated eye socket and flipped backwards off of the ape who hit nothing but air, howling in confused pain when a last-minute twist of the knife from the woman alleviated the simian's last remaining thumb at the second knuckle. Landing in a crouch, she swiftly backpedaled to avoid the falling body of the Hollow whose punch had knocked it off balance. She could have ended the fight there but didn't, instead waiting for the Hollow to flounder on the ground in impotent rage before its one remaining eye saw her again and it dragged itself to its feet.

Naruto watched on in morbid fascination of the battle and the young woman who continued to effortlessly cut the Hollow to ribbons. His observation let him in on a few revelations about both the girl and the way she fought, the first was that she had an absurd level of skill with her knife. While Naruto was no sword master, he was very good with Kunai and could say that she was up there with those he knew to be savants with an edged weapon in terms of pure technical skill. Secondly was that her style and the results it yielded were utterly bizarre, there was no sequences or kata, no specific moves or rehearsed school of fighting. It was a skill that was as fluid as a running river and only broke when she gave herself space to breath; it was like she was aiming for specific points on the ape, dexterously sliding from one point to another in search of something only her eyes could see, and when the young woman did hit whatever it was she was rewarded with squalls of gore and perfect cuts even a surgeon would feel jealous of.

'That knife is nowhere near big enough to take off limbs, and yet she's picking him apart like someone playing with their food…this is sport.' Naruto realized the young woman was deliberately forgoing obvious kill shots to extend the fight, and if the look of slowly rising boredom on her face was any indication that sport was about to reach its inevitable conclusion. Still, just what was she doing to yield such results, while that power roiled through her, it was suppressed to an incredible degree and was not going into the knife that flashed in hundreds of arcs and stabs per minute. 'Who are you?' he wondered.

The young woman sighed, the Hollow at this point had no arms and was missing a foot, her entertainment exhausted, she walked forwards purposefully and traced a small cut at the nape of the pain drunk Hollow's neck. It was silenced as its head came tumbling forwards to roll across the ground dead. Briefly looking down at the blood slicked instrument of death, she flicked it down to the ground as the blood was flung off by the act while the Hollow vanished into a series of white particles floating into the air.

"Woah…" Naruto had to admit that he was impressed by this girl and what she had just done. He noticed that there was a distinctive difference between the way the Hollow had died and what he had witnessed before from the other two. Initially, Naruto just flared his chakra to kill the first one that he encountered, and it dissipated slowly into a series of black and white particulates haphazardly, the second one he had stabbed with the sword had its black particles boiled away in a hiss, but the white particles the late ape had vanished into was something completely different.

'How did she do that? And so easily?' Naruto thought to himself. So far, he hadn't seen any sign of humans having the capacity to kill these Hollows, that much-maligned Shinigami had boasted that only his ilk could kill them. He had too many questions and too little information.

'Careful,' Kurama spoke in a cautious tone, 'I doubt you'll get answers if you provoke a fight. She's different from you, the Hollows and that Shinigami you met.' Something was off about this girl, that much he could tell.

'Other than being able to kill those bleach-faced suckers, how?'

'Intuition, there is something deeply wrong with this one.' Kurama advised, his words slow as if trying to find the right ones to describe the situation. 'No, not wrong. Just different, and I don't like not knowing what I'm looking at.'

For whatever reason, the girl's presence had Kurama on edge, yet Naruto couldn't see what had the fox's hackles up. Sure, it looked like she just put that thing in the ground, er… air…whatever, like a chef carving up a turkey, but he didn't feel anything truly threatening from her. The absence of malice in her actions was a change of pace from what he was used to, but there was that eagerness under the surface he knew from someone who wanted a good fight.

Naruto had to admit that he knew comparatively nothing about the Hollows and Shinigami and given how the young woman killed one as a formality rather than in surprise, it stood to reason that she may have the answers to his questions. In a spur of the moment decision, he allowed the built-up Senjutsu to leave his body, eyes shifting back to blue as the natural energy left him and his signature became untangled from nature's background aura.

The Senjutsu was barely halfway out of him when the girl sensed him, snapping around with the knife pointed directly at him, giving him a good view of her facial features. At first glance, her features lined up with the ideal Yamato Nadeshiko, yet her aura presented her as a cool beauty, undeterred by what came at her. Though it was those steely eyes, those strangely coloured eyes of hers that focused intently on him like a hawk watching prey. Her iris was a bright blue that began to change into a radiating violet as it reached the pupil before it appeared to almost seamlessly merge with the blackness, like a void swallowing in any light.

A chill ran up Naruto's back feeling those eyes on him, an all too human feeling that there was something huge surveilling him that he could not see, the scantest inklings of it peeking out from those strangely dead but frighteningly vivid eyes. Seeing that it was best to be friendly and not invite a conflict when it wasn't needed, Naruto stepped off of the tree branch and dropped twenty feet to introduce himself to the girl, "Hey, uh… how's it going?"

He could hear Kurama just sigh at the pitiful introduction.

The girl said nothing, the tip of her knife had tracked his fall with an unerring precision while her gaze stayed locked onto his.

Naruto held his hands up to give her a view that he wasn't armed, save for the kunai holster that strapped to his side, "Hey, so uhm, I'm not an enemy here, ya know?" He said to the girl placatingly, hoping she wouldn't drive that knife into him like that Hollow before. She didn't relax at his words, instead narrowing her eyes dangerously.

"What did you see?" She demanded frigidly. The air around her gained a chill while her body grew tense, preparing to make a move depending on Naruto's answer.

There it was again, the lack of killing intent that was so alien to Naruto, he tensed to take a step back in preparation, something she seemed to catch given her grip on the knife tightened, "Well, I saw you kill one of those Hollow things, and I got curious as to how you did it."

She didn't reply, continuing to regard him with calculating interest while the approaching evening wind rustled her black hair around her face.

Quixotic as it may be, he had hoped that maybe she could be a little forthcoming with some information about that, but it seemed to be a moot point when the girl shut her eyes and lowered her weapon entirely before she pocketed the knife and turned her back to him, "Piss off, and forget what you saw here." The girl said in annoyance. She turned on her heel sharply, a crackle of green energy manifested at her feet before she blurred away with a high pitched 'plop', disappearing into the tree line. The blonde's eyes widened at the sudden turn of speed, had he been an average human, then it would have seemed like she vanished, but he had been able to witness her accelerate to a shocking speed before leaving. It was like a Body Flicker, only more subtle and faster. Now that was interesting, the girl clearly was ready to attack him, yet she had instead opted to dismiss him before speeding off with some form of high-speed maneuvering technique he had never seen before.

Left alone in the clearing with his thoughts, Naruto contemplated his next action, it seemed like she was reluctant to part with her information, but so far, she was the most viable source of info that hadn't tried to swing a sword at him. Naruto was left with little choice.

'Gonna follow her, aren't you?' Kurama asked, trying hard to tamp down on the headache building at the back of his skull.

Folding his arms behind his head, Naruto grinned sheepishly, 'Yup. She's the only that I've met so far that probably knows what it is that I've been seeing and dealing with those Hollows, and then there's this….' Naruto glanced at the seal where his new sword was stored, '…this sword from that Shinigami. He claimed that only with that could Hollows be killed, yet I did it just by flaring my chakra and then she did it with a knife, but their deaths looked different from one another.' Naruto leapt up into the tree line as he allowed some distance to build between himself and the girl, she obviously had some form of sensory perception like him, so it was best to keep himself at a distance that he could sense her but not the other way around. 'There's just too many questions I've got, and I'm not about to go searching for another Shinigami. There are too many risks with that.'

Kurama sighed a bit at his partner's logic, seeing that he was right in it all, 'Just be careful. Those eyes of hers, they weren't natural. It was like a separate presence altogether.'

'A Doujutsu? Like the Rinnegan or Kaguya's third eye?'

'More the latter, and there's no telling if it's even Doujutsu. Could be something else entirely, new world, new rules. Just have a plan in place in case things go wrong.'

Kurama did bring up a point. He had been drawn to the presence of those eyes; it went beyond the concentration of energy of the eyes but the aura that pushed against his waking mind. She had been utterly unflapped by the fact that he had been able to get so close to her without noticing, and the confidence with which she had disregarded him wasn't hubris; it was an assurance that she felt if he did act up that she could kill him without a second thought. The intelligent and rational part of Naruto's mind wanted to discard that prospect out of hand, the memory of the Shinigami's sword bouncing off his chest was still fresh in his mind, but Naruto had to remind himself that much like how she didn't know the scope of his powers he did not know the particulars of hers. A curious conundrum for the killer young woman, her scowl seemed to come naturally to her despite her beauty.

Begging to hop between tree branches once again, Naruto asked himself, "Why do I always seem to gravitate towards women with sour attitudes?"

Kurama could only snort in amusement, 'Uncanny luck and a room temperature IQ.'

---

-Sometime Later; Elsewhere-

"It was just another Hollow on the outskirts of the city, I took care of it, though some guy happened to see it."

"There was a witness?"

"He was harmless, so I told him to forget what he saw. He was spiritually aware enough to see the Hollow, so no real harm."

After returning to her family's estate shortly after night had fallen, the girl had to deliver her nightly report to Akitaka Suzurigi, her 'butler' in a sense, to ensure records were kept of every Hollow they encountered in the region as per her duty. She lazed in a chair adjacent to Akitaka's desk that was filled with paperwork along with various pictures of the austere looking man in his youth surrounded by men dressed in similar black suits. His office was surprisingly large given the clutter of the desk; it backed onto a moderately sized walled garden on the southeastern tip of the compound. The Shoji slid open to let the spring night air into the office lit by warm globe lights. Akitaka's desk faced outwards towards the open garden while the girl kept her back to it, her red leather jacket gone.

Akitaka hummed in thought before he spoke up, "I'm sure you know what will happen to this man if the Shinigami apprehend him, Lady Shiki?" He did not come across as reprimanding, merely reminding his charge, Shiki Ryougi, of what her choices could bring down on them. He was in charge of ensuring she was prepared for her future role as the family head.

However, the girl scrunched her eyebrows in minor frustration as her gaze lingered down to her knees. Of course, she knew what would happen if the Shinigami found and took him in. A beating for information he didn't have and his memory scrubbed of anything useful. What she knew Akitaka was worried about was if she had left anything that would prompt the Shinigami to 'restore the balance', "I know well enough, Akitaka. But he didn't strike me as someone squeamish if he saw me kill a Hollow." As she raised her head to face her caretaker, she caught him looking past her with an analytical air, lips pressed into a thin line.

"Lady Shiki, this boy…." Akitaka said, Shiki's ears pricking up at the assumption she hadn't told him of the guy's age, "…would he happen to have blonde hair and… whiskers on his cheeks?"

She quirked a brow at that, nodding slowly, "Yes…."

"And was he wearing a black shirt, grey shorts and a pair of orange shoes?"

"Yes…" Shiki's face was bordering on incredulous at this point.

"And he had a large backpack slung over his shoulder?"

"Yes, where're you going with this?" Well, now she really wanted to know how in the hell Akitaka was able to describe him down to the details that she saw earlier, as far as she knew, Akitaka wasn't a clairvoyant. Oddly enough, Akitaka didn't say a word until he raised his right hand and pointed past her to the garden beyond the open Shoji doors. Turning around, Shiki was unprepared to see the very same blonde boy sitting in the tree right outside the wall waving at them lazily, eyes now yellow with bar pupils and…red eyeshadow?

"Yo."

Shiki was caught off guard entirely by the blonde following her back without her even sensing him, which was odd as she caught no trace of his Spirit Energy or Spiritual Pressure. Even the weakest spiritually aware people had a minute amount of either, yet she couldn't tell anything about him. It was like looking at one of those optical illusions in the morning paper, where something was wrong without being readily apparent. Immediately getting out of her seat, Shiki practically stomped onto the wooden veranda in irritation, "What do you want?!"

The blonde didn't flinch from her outburst as he just blinked before he spoke up, "Some answers would be nice." So, he still wanted to know how she killed the Hollow? Glaring at the blonde and his casual dismissal of her ire, Shiki could see that the blonde wouldn't leave her alone until he got what he wanted and seeing that he wasn't like other spiritually aware people such as herself or those that they knew of. She watched him silently as his eyes shifted back to blue, and she felt his aura again, giving her pause at how different it was to the few other Espers she had encountered.

God, just how long had it been since their organization had more than a handful of Espers? They were a dying breed with so few living long enough before getting blotted out. Killing Hollows on her own had become annoying because of how pathetically weak the ones here in Sendai were, but she wouldn't deny that she enjoyed killing them.

"Head to the front door like a proper person, idiot." Slamming the Shoji shut, Shiki left Akitaka's office, who promptly followed behind while casually pulling a Glock from the desk and stowing it in a shoulder holster under his suit jacket, he pulled a walkie talkie from his belt and messaged the other staff in the estate for their late-night arrival. He would have Shiki's father and mother notified as well, the man may have shifted most of his pursuits to the mundane, but he still needed to be informed of matters like this.

However, he made a mental note to hire a tree surgeon about cutting that tree branch down.

---

-Naruto-

"Well, this is nice." Having tracked the girl back to her home, or rather a large estate, he did not expect her to come from money, 'Gonna be honest, was kind of expecting a mountain shack. It would've taken me over four dozen S-rank missions to get the money to buy a place like this.' Although Naruto had to wonder if maybe the Ryo of his world was somehow something that he could try to invest in converting to the Yen of this world. He doubted it, but at least the coinage was made of metal, and if it was metal, then he could trade it as scrap. Strangely enough, according to a book he had read in his hotel's lobby, Japan once had a currency called Ryo just as his world did. In all seriousness, the estate was massive, with various houses surrounded by a high wall that reached six feet in height that went around a good portion of land. A large koi pond and a garden of various flora were arranged in a combination of Okibana and Zen stone gardens.

A few minutes after the girl had slammed the door on him, she and her butler had made their way to his tree and escorted him to the main entrance. Naruto had been led inside the rather elegant estate to a training room which he now sat in the center of, a few men in some rather nice suits sat on either side of the room eyeing him with businesslike interest, bulges at ankles and armpits told Naruto they were armed. No doubt they were guards hired on by her family, which wasn't unwarranted in this situation given his less than tactful entrance. Making himself comfortable on the Tatami mat, he soon heard the sliding of the door behind him open and close; he peered behind him to see that the girl had come before planting herself four feet from himself, "Can you give me your wallet?" She asked in a no-nonsense tone.

If she was asking for his wallet, then no doubt they were looking for some kind of ID, 'Fat chance of that happening.' Naruto thought to himself, although he saw no problem in giving his name since it didn't matter at all, although, "If I'm giving you my name, then it's only right that you give me yours." It was only fair and all since he simply wanted answers, and he didn't want to just call her 'Girl'; it didn't sound like the best way to build up confidence in him. Kurama resisted the urge to point out that Naruto was a hypocrite who had called the Six Paths 'Super Sage Gramps'.

"Hmm…" She regarded him with a small measure of decorum. Maybe she thought slightly more of him as a result? "…Shiki Ryougi. Now, your name?"

"Naruto Uzumaki, nice to meet you, Shiki." He would've held his hand out for her to take, but this wasn't one of those situations, nor did she strike Naruto as the kind of girl for such things under these circumstances. But hey, he had to at least try to be cordial to her as much as possible. As soon as he gave his name, he noticed one of the men made their way out of the room, most likely to find information on him, "So, how'd you kill that 'Hollow', exactly?"

Shiki chewed the inside of the cheek as she scrutinized him in silence, deciding if he was being earnest in his desire for information or if it was some kind of ploy.

Eventually, her right hand reached behind her and withdrew the knife she had used to kill the Hollow and held it up for Naruto to see. The knife was roughly the length of a carving knife but was much thicker in the blade, it was sharpened to a razor's edge and had a groove cut into it to allow it to easily slip in and out of the flesh that it rent. The handle was ergonomically designed and wrapped in dark red leather between a thick brass guard and pommel. "This knife is unique in that it was made from special materials and blessed to purify Hollows, rather than outright destroy them." She placed the knife back behind her into its sheath before Shiki took her turn to ask a question of her own, "You sound like you've never heard of Hollows until recently?"

"Well, I'm not exactly from around these parts." Naruto tried to think of a way to explain his origins without going into detail, "I'm from a village that was… pretty backwater, I wanted to travel the country to learn more and all, but these things are new to me." He crossed his arms as he sighed slightly, "I only know about Hollows and Shinigami from that one idiot in black," He failed to notice Shiki sit up straighter and the look of slight confusion on her face as he continued, "he didn't say much, other than how someone needed one of these 'Soul Cutters' to put the Hollows down." Naruto then moved to unseal the sword he took from the Shinigami dude and produced it before everyone. When the puff of smoke cleared, he was rewarded by the sight of all the men levelling pistols at him, eying him and the sheathed weapon wearily. "Huh, you guys can see it? I'm not sure what makes this thing so special bu—hey!" Shiki quickly snatched the Zanpakutō from Naruto's hands before she unsheathed it just enough to see the blade.

It was no fake, the spiritually synthesized steel was unmistakable. Somehow, someway, Naruto managed to steal an Asauchi from a Shinigami. "How did you get this?" Shiki asked with her eyes still glued to the blade, gently tracing her fingers along the edge to see that the material was, in fact, the real deal. Seeing the forms of her men with their guns still drawn reflected in the Zanpakutō, she waved them off, the entourage stiffly holstering their firearms.

Seeing that he had piqued her curiosity, Naruto concluded that mutual information wouldn't do too much harm. "Some idiot calling himself a Shinigami tried to take me in, but I smacked him around, took the sword, and then hung him up by a light post in the middle of the night before I got a room at a hotel." Naruto could see that Shiki was too enamored by the sword to respond immediately.

Even though this was no doubt from an unseated officer, the fact that Naruto still managed to take one astounded Shiki. Mainly through the sheer dumb luck of it all, from what Naruto told her, he knew almost nothing about the supernatural other than it was new to him. Gears began to whir in her mind coming up with ideas and potentialities of the implications of the blonde before her, her training to inherit the family head position had taught her to take advantage of potential business and tactical opportunities whenever they presented themselves, and if this wasn't an opportunity, then she was blind and deaf.

"Here," Sheathing the Asauchi, she handed it back to Naruto as he then performed that strange disappearing technique once more, and the sword was now placed back somewhere into the backpack he had, "since you obviously don't know much of anything, you'll need to know certain things."

It was phrased as a courtesy, but Shiki knew it wasn't, it was an offer. The Hollow Hunter Organization was one criminally lacking in fresh blood, the numbers of Espers it took into its ranks had been diminishing since the Taisho era. And right now, someone who could hide his signature, kill a hollow and was skilled enough to pinch a Zanpakutō from a Shinigami sat before her. She could not be sure of his level of skill beyond these facts, all she knew was that right now, she had something he needed in the form of information, which gave her leverage to get her way. If a potential addition to their ranks could be enticed at the cost of a simple explanation, then she would be an idiot not to oblige him.

And explain she did.

Shiki informed Naruto of the obvious, yes, the supernatural did exist. It may not line up exactly with what had seeped into popular culture over the last century, but there were enough cryptids and spectral oddities in Japan alone to fill a library's worth of books. A good chunk of those supernatural happenings revolving around the balance of Souls that transmigrated between the World of the Living, their world, and the Soul Society, the apparent afterlife of this world. The concept of a traversable afterlife was something that Naruto had a little trouble getting around at first, given Shiki's choice to it as both a spiritual realm and a physical place caused him to scratch his head in confusion. The explanation of the Shinigami was explained with much less flowery language, essentially souls that had a level of spiritual power drafted into a military police force which monitored and helped 'maintain the balance' a phrase that the black-haired young woman had all but spat with sarcasm thick distaste. The Shinigami's method of maintaining balance was to cut down Hollows with their Zanpakutō so their souls would either pass onto the Soul Society, which would then have a second life and then return to the World of the Living as a new soul after their time there was done, or they would be cast down into Hell for eternal punishment.

Hollows were human souls, sometimes called Pluses or Whole's, that had refused to move on and became twisted by their regrets, leaving a hole in their bodies and the need to continuously devour souls to ease the hunger brought on by the lack of a heart. It was pretty torturous in Naruto's mind, although he did have one question, "So, wait, then what does that make you exactly?" He asked in mild curiosity.

"I'm an Esper with a little extra kick," Shiki said as she shrugged in response, "Spiritually aware humans or human derivatives with a supernatural power that manifests from either spiritual, psychic or biological oddities. Like fortune tellers or people with the ability to move things with their minds. Others have different skills and abilities, but they aren't important anymore." The way she said it implied they weren't around these days.

Thinking back on the paradoxically clean bloodbath he had witnessed earlier, Naruto remembered her distinctly unnatural eyes when she first saw him, "And I'm guessing those eyes of yours is that 'extra kick' you mentioned?" He would never forget their gaze that seemed to pierce through his body when she turned her knife on him.

Shiki was hoping that he wouldn't bring that up, but it was her fault for not deactivating her eyes in the heat of the moment. Sighing at her negligence, Shiki felt it best to give him something to satisfy his curiosity, "Yes, they let me 'see' things most other spiritually aware people can't see. It's hereditary." She didn't want to go into full detail about her eyes and what they saw. However, depending on how he responded to her inevitable offer, she may have to give him more than the vaguest outlines of her family history. "Fair warning, Shinigami don't take well to Espers like me, or you."

Raising a brow in slight confusion, Naruto didn't understand her words, "What do you mean? What kind of problem do the Shinigami have with people like… 'us'?" He figured he might as well play along with Shiki's perception of him being like her, he didn't think the 'I'm from another worlds' gambit would end well.

"Espers are seen by Shinigami as anomalies in the balance," She began to explain, "Traditionally, the belief is that the only time mankind should become aware of the supernatural is the moment of their death, we fall outside that bracket. They have a history of hunting down groups of Espers when they try to take matters of Hollow suppression into their own hands, or simply just live their lives as they are." Shiki may have been the current only active member of the Ryougi family in the Hollow Hunter Organization, but she had been long schooled on why they had to keep beneath Shinigami notice. She could still remember the feeling of disgust that had coiled in her stomach upon hearing about the genocide of the Quincy nearly two hundred years earlier or that European coven of spiritual vampires that had been massacred in their homes. Harsh lessons learned by the survivors and other Espers like herself.

Now that caused Naruto's opinion of the black-clad swordsman to swing, his features souring at the thought, "Why would they do that? Don't they know people like yourself could actually be beneficial in the long run in dealing with the Hollows?" Having allies was a major advantage to have when against enemies that could vary in abilities, and if Shinigami just used only swords to combat them, they needed to be more than just a one-trick pony.

Shiki chuckled humorlessly at his words, "Naïve, but not wrong." She relaxed before clarifying, "Shinigami are arrogant in thinking they can patrol the entire world by themselves. That translates to them thinking that anything else stepping into that role is, therefore, wrong. Therefore, in their mind, others with power are threats to the balance, despite how much things would relatively stay the same." She could see how Naruto would ask how she knew this and stayed a step ahead of him. "Our family's had run-ins with Shinigami that talked too much for their own good. They were surprisingly informative with lectures on the supernatural and why we were cursed with knowledge and ability, so we've made sure to stay out of sight and out of mind from the Shinigami; any one of them that gets too close, we put down without hesitation."

She remembered the first Shinigami she had killed a little over six years ago, just a low-level recruit that got too full of himself before she slit his throat and dumped the corpse into a river.

As Naruto digested everything Shiki had told him, he began to mull over just how complicated this new world had become in such a short time. He planned on staying mobile for much of his life before he found a place to settle down, but now he was burdened with the knowledge of the supernatural forces of this world that most likely would come for him one day. Humming to himself, Naruto picked himself up from the floor as he spoke, "Well, thanks for the info, Shiki. I got the answers I was looking for, so I guess I—"

"You certainly lack tact when it comes to talking to a woman!" Shiki shouted in annoyance which surprised Naruto, he didn't think he was being rude to her, "My brother doesn't live in this lifestyle anymore, so he's no longer able to help keep the Hollows down like myself. And it's starting to get annoying being on my own on the job." So, she had a brother that didn't help hunt the Hollows? She didn't mention that before, but then again, he hardly expected her to vomit her entire life story on him after one meeting.

Though the way she worded her sentence had Naruto confused, "What do you mean, exactly?"

Shiki collected herself after her initial outburst before she spoke, "The Hollow Hunter Organization is criminally understaffed, while we draft as many spiritually aware members as we can, very few of them in the current age show anything nearing special enough to actually hunt hollows. This lot are mostly just in it for the money and to clean up after me." Despite being what many would consider a blatant insult, the assembled suits maintained a businesslike composure, a few of the younger ones winced in embarrassment or gritted their teeth but kept their mouth shut. They were all perfectly aware that Shiki could turn them all into pink mist if the inclination ever took her, luckily, she usually sated that urge on the Hollows of Sendai. "If you had pissed off like I told you to, then we wouldn't be talking; instead, you mask your presence, follow me home and reveal that you're essentially a hobo that managed to steal a Zanpakutō."

The blonde grinned cheekily in response, "Glad to know you value my skillset," he said, folding his arms as Shiki rolled her eyes.

"Don't patronize me." Shiki huffed, it was clear that while she was trying to talk business, she wasn't overly fond of it. "The way I see it, we are at an impasse; you could either A, piss off and have Akitaka drive you back into town, pretend you never saw this place and spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder for kimono-clad swordsman. Or me if you loosen your tongue about what you now know about us." Shiki spoke with a steely finality that told the Shinobi that this was no idle threat, it was instead a statement of irrefutable fact.

Naruto regarded her silently, taking the beautiful young woman's measure. He was sure she would try if such a thing did occur, despite all his power, he knew little of this world, and the shinobi wouldn't put it past one with such keen eyes to not pick up his trail if he talked. Not that he ever would, "I promise that I'd never do that, and not going back on promises is something I pride myself on, ya know?" he said lightheartedly, but his eyes were so much more than that, the pools of cool blue had a fire in them, an intangible force of will that was a challenge. "And option B?"

Shiki smirked knowingly, "We could hire you as a freelancer under the Ryougi, you'd have a way to earn cash, travel around and our protection if any Shinigami comes looking into you." Pouting as she rested her chin in the palm of her hand, she added, "Right now, you kinda tick me off, but if I let this opportunity pass us by, then my old man will probably chew me out about not seizing assets or whatever other lesson he has."

So that was it. Shiki wanted him to join her family's group in hunting down the Hollows. All things considered, it wasn't a lousy occupation, and if she really mentioned freelance, that meant they would pay him on a certain measure, most likely based on each Hollow killed. On the one hand, the job offer was something that would provide him more experience in dealing with the supernatural along with being able to explore this new land to his heart's content as his Godfather would have done before him. On the other hand, he was being used by others for his skills and power, it was a meritocracy that would endure so long as he was of use, and that day may well come if his antics outweighed his effectiveness. The critical difference between his time as a Konoha Shinobi boiled down to semantics; only before he had no real say in what jobs he was given. Shiki was hiring him to help take care of Hollows and ensure people could pass on to the afterlife, wherever it may be.

"Before I give my answer," Naruto spoke in a cautious tone, Shiki picking up on his deep thoughts, "What kind of restrictions would I have placed on me?" He knew that there was no such thing as a free lunch, his face perked up in surprise by what Shiki had to say.

"It doesn't matter really, so long as you send in a report once a month."

"That's oddly lenient; seems almost too good to be true." Well, this wasn't an opportunity he could turn down, and it was unlikely he'd get it ever again if he turned her down now, so, "Alright, Shiki. Consider me a freelance Hollow Hunter for you." Naruto held his hand out for her to take, with Shiki understanding, and they shook firmly. As Naruto took her hand, he noticed how bizarre it felt. It was warm yet carried a cold sensation along with it; it was rough from the wear of using weapons for a long time, most likely from all her years of practice, yet there was a tenderness to it that almost made her feel like the noble she seemed to be: elegant and graceful in the way she shook his hand.

Not forgetting that he was now technically working for her, he released her hand as he made to question her on a few more queries with his newly minted profession. "By the way, you wouldn't happen to know any apartments in the city that's affordable for chump change?"

Shiki snorted in response, "Didn't you say you wanted to travel the country?" There was the faint ghost of a smirk on her face that made her look mockingly haughty, though Naruto could see that it wasn't cruel or spiteful. She was simply poking fun at him, "So why bother getting an apartment here?"

Naruto sweat dropped subtly at her words, it was only after asking that he realized how it must have sounded, "Well, I did plan on that, but now that I've got a job, I wouldn't mind getting a place nearby when I want to visit a friend is all." Shiki glowered incredulously at the implication of her as a friend, grumbling under her breath that they barely met an hour ago, "That, and going by the calluses on your hands, I venture you're a competent sword user, so I gotta ask, can you stand teaching someone like me?" He threw his hands up as he continued, "I do better with knives and smaller weapons, but having sword skills could do me some good in the future."

Shiki clicked her teeth as she mulled over the ninja's question, seeing that he was genuinely asking her to teach him the ways of the sword. 'So, I meet a vagabond, hire him, and now he's calling me a friend and wants me to teach him how to use a sword? What the hell is today?' Well, he was able to make off with an Asauchi from a Shinigami, and if he planned on using it, then it would serve to make sure that he was adequately prepared for future encounters with Hollows and the occasional nosy Shinigami that might take notice, "I can teach you the forms, but there's only so much I can do." She knew all too well that her teaching would come to an end in time, "You strike me as the learn by doing sort. But eventually, the sword will start to teach you itself." If he did manage to imprint on it, then there was nothing much else she could teach him.

Naruto wasn't sure what Shiki meant by that last statement, "What does that mean, exactly?"

"You'll learn later on when you start to hear voices in your head," Shiki replied nonchalantly. She figured it best to make sure he was somewhat prepared for if the Asauchi become a full Zanpakutō, yet at the same time, she thought it would be amusing to see his reaction when he would see the spirit of the sword.

As for the ninja, he was somewhat relieved, yet at the same time dreading the news, "Well, I've got that goin' for me already…." Kurama's gruff realism was an annoyance sometimes, despite the pep talk they had at times.

'If any other voices crop up, they better stay the hell away from me.' Kurama had to deal with his siblings dropping by on occasion back home, and to learn that another voice could intrude at any moment due to a stupid sword was going to be irritating.

Shiki stared at Naruto curiously at what he said, "What?" He had officially graduated from annoying vagabond to annoying interest that now worked for her.

Seeing the expression on Shiki's face, he could see where this was going and quickly tried to diffuse the upcoming question, "Nothing, nothing! Just uh… I kind of find myself talking to myself sometimes when I'm trying to answer a question."

Shiki's exasperated deadpan told him that his hastily made excuse sounded as poor out loud as it had in his head.

Not believing what he said but dropping the subject, for now, Shiki just played along, "Sounds like you need some help up here then." Shiki made a slight jab with his little fib, tapping the side of her head, but got the feeling she'd find out in time. For now, though, it was best to let him believe he had her fooled.

Naruto looked annoyed by her suggestion, "Hey, I'm good as is." Seeing that he had nowhere to stay for the night, the ninja decided to head out to look for a hotel until he could get an apartment, "Well, I'm gonna head on out to look for a place to sleep tonight."

Though it seemed Shiki was having none of that, "We have a spare guest room in the worker's quarters of the grounds." There was no way in hell she was just gonna turn him loose before she had him vetted. Shiki wanted to keep an eye on him for anything out of the ordinary or something that she and her family would consider unusual in the supernatural. The door opened once more as the man who had left previously nodded to Shiki, "Akitaka will show you to your temporary quarters. You'll have an apartment by tomorrow; it might not be the prettiest, but at least you won't need to worry about finding one."

Shiki gestured behind Naruto as he turned to see the man with a set of papers step forward, "Akitaka Suzurigi. I'm Lady Shiki's attendant and the Ryougi family's aide with the supernatural." He held his hand out for Naruto to take, with the two sharing a brief but firm handshake, "Every report you make, you'll send to me. You'll be provided with the necessary equipment to fulfil your duties. Anything that comes across as suspicious report it in, even if it may be something minor." Even if an event didn't openly appear to be important, it could always hold something hidden within.

"Damn, you guys work fast!" Naruto said in surprise, his energy being sandbagged by Akitaka's deadpan. Recognizing his new position, Naruto sobered and nodded in acceptance, "I understand." As Naruto left with Akitaka along with the other men under her family's employment, Shiki knew that odds are her father already knew the situation, and she elected to not keep him waiting.

As she walked through the halls outside to the office building where her parents ran their business when not at the office, she looked off to the other side of the estate grounds where Akitaka was leading Naruto to the worker's quarters and stepped inside, but not before he turned just enough to catch her in his sights as he waved to her. She activated her eyes once more to see if she could see what she usually could on Hollows, only to catch the same lines as all things had, and yet she saw something else within the blonde. Something that flowed and circulated within him wasn't like the same Spiritual Energy as she and other beings had.

She shook her head. It was a question for another time after she had gotten a better feel for her new employee; she opted not to bring it up to her father. Heading inside, Shiki made her way through the building to where she now stood in front of the door to her father's office; knocking on the door, Shiki made her presence known, "Father."

"Come in, Shiki." The gruff voice of her father came through the other side.

Opening the door to step into the office, Shiki saw how her father was finishing up some paperwork on a portfolio, most likely as part of the land ownership they still had alongside managing and consulting potential partnerships with other companies in the country and overseas. This was on top of ensuring that they still held a firm grip on the criminal underworld along with maintaining ties with specific figures in authority to keep the supernatural a secret and keeping up with their fellow family allies in the Hollow Hunter Organization.

Not looking up from his work, Akihiro Ryougi continued to write as Shiki now stood in front of his desk, though he gestured for her to sit, "I trust you know what transpired in the meeting hall?"

Setting his pen down, Akihiro now directed his full attention towards his daughter and heir to their family, "I heard that you spoke with a young man that's spiritually aware and followed you home after he witnessed you killing a Hollow." There wasn't anything negative in his tone, he was merely stating facts though phrased in a disapproving way.

The young Ryougi girl nodded her head in clipt assurance, "I did, and after speaking with him, I offered him a job working for us as another Hollow Hunter since Kaname isn't involved with the business anymore. He accepted." Akihiro remained silent as a pensive look came across his face, "He asked me to teach him swordplay after he took an Asauchi from a Shinigami." Akihrio's eyes widened a fraction in his otherwise lined face, "Yes, I know. I confirmed it myself when he produced it, in a puff of smoke," Something she hadn't seen coming, yet it didn't deter her from continuing with business, "tonight he'll be staying in the spare room in the worker's quarters until we, I," she corrected, "ensure he has an apartment in the city." She could see how the gears in her father's head were turning, wondering why she chose this route when dealing with an outsider.

Akihiro was an old-fashioned man who didn't hesitate to resort to violence if the occasion called for it. Granted, she had never seen such things happen when she was forced to observe meetings with other businessmen, yakuza, and officials to be prepared for the role as the next family head. Though he wasn't really one of those men that would call anyone who didn't look Japanese a 'Gaijin' and discriminate simply because of that. That usually would wind up backfiring and crippling whoever took such things to heart, with no way of recovering whatever it is that they lost.

Shiki prepared herself for the lecture she knew Akahiro was likely frothing at the mouth to give her for acting rashly, however… "Ok," he said simply, clicking his pen and stowing it neatly in his stationary pot.

"Ok?"

Akihiro could see that his daughter was somewhat confused by the lack of an explanation, "I trust that you're making the right decision with this boy." Rising from his desk without warning, the man made his way over to a cabinet on the far wall that he unlocked before opening, revealing a black katana in a red sheath, "Shiki, you're on your way to being the family head, and as such, decisions like these will be what will either make you a good leader, or a fool." Shiki remained silent as her father caressed the lacquered redwood of the sheath, "I'm sure that whatever information Akitaka comes up with will reveal who the boy is, but if he can help us slay Hollows without complaint, then we will welcome him." Turning back to Shiki, his eyes softened, and for a moment, the caring father peered out from behind the jaded businessman, "Kanesada Kuji has been used to defend these lands for five centuries, passed from parent to child to protect the land. We protect it from Hollows, Humans and Shinigami alike. We kill Hollows to ensure that people can pass on and can live without the threat of eternal death. We make sure that humanity lives in ignorance of the supernatural so they can sleep at night. We ensure the Shinigami remain unaware of our organization, as well as safeguard those scions of humanity that do not fear what goes bump in the night."

It was all part of their family duty to keep these objectives in mind, yet to also ensure another thing, "But, we must also make sure that our family is just as human as the rest of the world. We are not so aloof to deny talent when we see it in an Esper, Quincy, Fullbringer or anything else who is cursed with power." Akihiro made his way over to his daughter as he placed his hands on her shoulders, "I have done all that I can to ensure you're prepared to take over my position one day when you're old enough. Our methods may have been cold, but your mother and I have also loved you like any parents would. Whatever may come from this boy, I trust your decision making and skills to see through the choices you make." Dropping his arms, Akihro made his way back to his desk as he sat down to continue on with his work, "So, now I'm going to step back from this bit of business and let you step up. Consider it part of your learning process when managing people in the future."

Shiki had remained silent throughout her father's speech, knowing all of what he entailed. Now it fell to her to make sure that Naruto fell under her purview, though she knew that she couldn't do it independently since she was still in high school, meaning she would need Akitaka's aid on occasion. "I understand, father. Naruto now works for our family, though mainly me since I made the offer, and he's my responsibility." She said with some annoyance in her tone, something that amused her father as he gave a brief chuckle before getting back to work, "Have a good night, father."

"Good night, Shiki," Akihiro said, listening to the padding footsteps of his daughter leaving; he snorted at something only he knew.

Leaving her father's office, Shiki went straight to her room, where she stripped her kimono off before neatly placing them where a maid would come for them for laundry tomorrow morning and threw her pajama's on to get some sleep.

And yet, as she tried to do so, that nagging feeling of the lack of Naruto's presence following her kept Shiki up for a while before she managed to close her eyes. Although, there was some part of her that was now all too intrigued by the whiskered blonde.

---

-Workers' Quarters-

Having been brought to one of the spare rooms in the workers' quarters, he had to compliment the amenities. "Wow, this is actually pretty nice for the hired help." It was a little bigger than his old apartment back in the Leaf Village, complete with a futon, furniture, a television, a small kitchenette, and even a bathroom that was clean and well-stocked, "They definitely take care of their employees, more than some of the nobles back home."

'You expected them to have the same standards as those in a completely different world?'

Hearing how his partner was slightly intrigued - or was it in disbelief - by his conclusion, Naruto shrugged. Sometimes it was hard to tell what the fox's tone was trying to convey, "Considering through sheer cosmic fluke it has the same language and writing style despite being separate worlds. A little, yeah, I suppose a bit." There were a great many things that his homeworld and Japan had in common: the language, religion, architecture, history, even certain aspects of culture. But it also advanced at a far faster rate than their own. This was possibly due to a combination of lack of inherent power and vastly superior population numbers. With so many more people not having access to the means of a higher yet baser form of war, they had been forced to advance through a sheer unending tide of smashing millions of heads against a problem to get a result that would work for all. Take guns, for example, back home they were considered to be archaic and pointless given most shinobi who reached Chunin had subsonic reactions and could throw a kunai far faster than a bullet, he had only ever seen a gun on a mission once, a bulky rifle behind a shopkeeper's desk in Wave. (1)

With this societal difference and the conspicuous absence of Espers in prominent roles, this world had been forced to take a different path and yield a result where the gun was the kunai of the common folk and the civilians numbered in the billions. Naruto chewed his lip as he turned down the futon, wondering if these Shinigami's need to maintain the balance had allowed or manipulated the advance of society to not explore the mysteries that sat beyond the doors to perception?

"Well, food for thought for another time." Setting his stuff on the nearby dresser, Naruto took a quick shower to get all the daytime grunge off before retiring for the evening and tried to get to sleep, yet his mind could not find rest at the night's events, for questions lingered on, "I wonder how the apartment's going to be?"

He hoped it was larger than his old one.

---

-Hueco Mundo, the palace of Las Noches-

In the realm of Hollows, there is no day nor sun. Merely the large moon perpetually in the opposite phase to its double in the World of the Living and the endless white sand covering the domain of these lost souls, hungering for their existence to be satiated. It did not conform to physics or the laws of man in its profane majesty; instead, it simply was. An observer could be forgiven for thinking that the sharp treelike spires that jutted from the sands were plant life or that there was no water in a desert. They were wrong, for scant dark clouds were picked out by the moon's pale light in the sky. It wasn't even a moon, not truly. There was, after all, no sun for it to illuminate its surface and breath light gently onto the quiet and lonely place. As to what the great crescent-shaped object was? It was a secret few knew, and even fewer would dare to utter aloud. (2) Only in the palace of Las Noches did those who held any semblance of sentience would gather under the roofless fortress that rivalled the Shinigami's Seireitei, but only to serve its king: Barragan Louisenbairn.

Sat resplendent in a morose yet majestic throne, his bastion of power was massive in scope and spartan in appearance, a black marble floor that stretched out for dozens of kilometers around the dais where his throne was placed. Las Noches looked like a ziggurat with its top sheared off, and skyscraper tall Corinthian pillars dotted equidistantly to cast long, thick shadows. Behind him rose a pole of pure obsidian just as high as the pillars but adorned with a single giant half bell that swayed gently in the desert breeze, a haunting chime ringing out for miles around.

He was a Vasto Lorde of immense power who clashed with many others over the title of King of the Hollows and had rightfully earned it. Unlike many of the Hollows that populated the realm and beyond, Barragan held no flesh to his being, merely being a skeleton that held his own power of Senescencia that roiled at the heart of his litch's form. His body was draped in a royal purple cloak, with a pitch-black tattered fur collar around his neck area and the fringes of his mantle, which gave him a macabre appearance strongly reminiscent of a litch. Several lengths of golden chain dangled out of his armbands. At the center of his chest near his neck, he wore an elegant pendant shaped like that of a bloody red eye with a viper's pupil, giving him his clear vision of what was before him. He wore white, pointed-toe boots for his feet and wore an extravagantly decorated, bejeweled crown, with a chain running downward on the left side.

What was most prominent, however, was the crack-like scar that ran down the right side of his skull, showing the only battle scar he had obtained throughout his time as a Hollow, yet it was not from his conquest to become the king, but an encounter with an absurdly powerful Adjucha, "I wonder, Hōraku Hakkei (3), has your existence become as boring as my own, or is it the other way around, eh?" He said to himself, tracing the scar with a long finger, Barragan was reminiscing about the past when he encountered the lone Hollow that was devouring his kingdom's inhabitants by the horde and battled him. The great salamander who reigned over the storm and had vaunted to tear down the sky to strike out at the limbless king, Barragan had laughed when he had first told him of his intent. After all, nothing mattered beyond his domain, so what was the point in conquering that ever distant king so far away. This had not changed the fact that despite being an Adjucha, the great salamander was with no hyperbole the most terrifying thing the King had ever seen.

Despite the few dozen Vasto Lorde that he'd bested and encountered to take the throne, none of them could compare to that monster of a Hollow. As such, he decided to make a pact with the being, that neither would interfere with one another's business and kept it civil. That was millennia ago, and not a word peeped about the gargantuan cannibal now all was quiet from where he once emerged from.

Despite having built Las Noches, created this grand army of Hollows, Barragan was now becoming… bored with his existence. He had become the King, no, perhaps it was better to call himself the God of Hueco Mundo, as no other Hollow had the gall to challenge him. The monarch was so very old now, he could no longer remember his own origin, but that did not mean he didn't know things that the vaunted Soul Society would wish he didn't, facts and secrets that would bring their little world tumbling down. That would be funny if he wasn't apathetic to the effort a war would cost. There was that one feminine shark-like Hollow that had her own small following, but that was mere days ago where he demanded her obedience, and she defied him. While usually this would have been a problem, she was but one Vasto Lorde, one who thought she needed to no longer cannibalize to continue gaining strength, "Feh, depending on others for strength? What utter nonsense. A God such as myself has no need but obedience from subjects to show my own strength. There are things about us Hollows that only I and the Great Salamander know."

It was absurd. Despite the fleeting enjoyment Barragan had gained from that day, it was gone like an ephemeral moment. Now he simply sat on his throne with what would've been a bored expression on his visage had he had flesh and his mask translucent. "Do I even have a mask anymore? there is no face beneath this visage, and the trinket at my head is a spoil of war." He looked down to his subjects, the generals of his army kneeling before him in clean rows on opposite sides, while an attendant came with a flagon of water, a commodity in this realm, to his side. 'And what would I gain from it? I have no lips to moisten, no tongue to taste or thirst to slake! Just time and boredom.'

Waving the attendant off, Barragan's boredom only increased, "I don't want any." Wondering what to do, all he could do was continue on with his thoughts aloud now, thinking such a thing would give him an idea, "…I'm bored. There's nothing as meaningless as an army that only awaits invasion. No enemy to go forth and conquer." Looking to his generals, Barragan wondered if any held even a modicum of decency to speak, as to not paint them all as dogs, "Don't you all think so?"

There was no answer. Barragan could only sigh at their lack of action, "…not sure why I even bothered to ask you all. No one would disagree with me here." He enjoyed having dominance yet having something to say in opposition to him would've proven somewhat entertaining enough to lift the boredom from his shoulders.

Barragan would have called for the court alchemist, thinking something of his doing could alleviate his boredom, but it would appear that there would be no need for such an action.

Out of nowhere, the hall's guardian, Gagamel, was suddenly split in half and killed, with a resounding explosion and accompanying rip of flesh being torn to bits.

One of the generals turned to see the carnage and could not properly respond, "What just happened?"

"Gagamel's been killed!" Another of the generals shouted in response to the sudden attack.

All who were in the hall turned to the source of their comrade's death to see three men in black kimono's wearing white Haori with black diamonds at the hem. Two of them, the tall, bespectacled man with messy brown hair and square-framed glasses and the dark-skinned gentleman wearing a wrap-around visor over his eyes, carried katana of green and orange respectively, while the third; a silver-haired man with his face set in a vulpine smirk, held a pale colored tanto.

The one with silver hair was the one that seemingly had killed Gagamel after flicking his tanto to remove the blood from it.

The one with glasses seemed to be their leader, he merely stared at Barragan in contemplation, while the other two who Barragan could only assume were watching the others, even if they didn't appear to be doing so.

"Identify yourselves!" Another general lunged in for the opening attack but found himself being split in half by the dark-skinned man's sword just as Gagamel had been. His body quickly dissipated, showcasing to the king that these men would kill all of his generals if they continued attacking so recklessly. They probably deserve it if they were so ignorant to not recognize Shinigami in the heart of the palace.

"Don't go overboard, Gin." The one in glasses identified the silver-haired man.

"Stand down," Barragan ordered, all movement ceasing. Perhaps these men could satiate his boredom? "This is just the thing I need to pass the time. Who are you, why have you strangers come here, may I ask?" Upon closer inspection, Barragan would've assumed they were Shinigami captains, but considering how long it had been since he had seen one, he could only assume that they have changed in the centuries since then.

The one with glasses continued peering at him before speaking in a calm and collected voice, "Very pleased to meet you, my name is Aizen. Sōsuke Aizen is my full name. We've never met before, and I can presume that you are Barragan, the King of Hueco Mundo?"

His mannerisms were polite and cold, yet there was no real hostility coming from his posture. It was all too relaxed and quaint, "Indeed I am." For now, Barragan supposed he could indulge whatever he was here for, "And what exactly are you? Since none of you are wearing masks, I can only assume that you're not Hollows. Are you humans, or perhaps more likely, Shinigami?" The questions were a formality. Shrugging off what answer Aizen would have given, Barragan continued on, "Well, I suppose it doesn't really matter what you are in the end. Truthfully, I've been growing weary in recent times. Had you not shown up, I would've ordered my army to split in half and kill each other off, if it could provide some small measure of entertainment." Leaning closer to the Shinigami from his throne, Barragan felt that perhaps he was being a bit rude by not introducing them to his palace, "Be that as it may, I suppose I should greet you cordially. Welcome to my palace, Las Noches."

"Heh, how amusing." The dark-skinned one snorted in wry amusement by the king's words, "You call this place a palace, despite there not being any walls or roof over your head?" Turning to one of the generals that still looked eager to pounce, the man made a snide remark without any sarcasm, "I guess the King of Hueco Mundo has his own sense of humor."

Shaking his head at the man's unabashed baiting, Barragan explained a bit of said 'humor', "I have no need for a roof. I am the king of this realm, and the very sky of Hueco Mundo is the roof of my palace. From the black clouds to that thing that hovers over us all."

"I see." The dark-skinned man didn't even contemplate his words before responding, "Well, I suppose that's one way of looking at it."

"That's quite enough, Kaname." Aizen interrupted, now identifying the dark-skinned man as Kaname, "There's no point in baiting him."

Indeed, there wasn't. Shinigami insects such as these men, men whose power he could only count as minute, weren't worth getting angry over something as trivial as the difference of one's roof. Aizen raised his voice slightly as he addressed Barragan directly, "Your majesty, I was hoping we might have a little chat."

Drawing his katana from the sheath, Aizen held it up for him to see in plain sight, "Could you take a look at my sword? It's called Kyōka Suigetsu."

The sword was pointed down towards the black marble stone flags, and in no shape or form appeared to be changing into anything. So, it was a Zanpakutō? Then why bother revealing its name and form to him? Nothing had changed from it, which brought the question to the forefront of Barragan's mind, "And why should I care? What are you up to?"

"I wish to ask you a simple question."

Color him intrigued by Aizen's response, "What is it?"

"Tell me…" Aizen began, "…are you satisfied with your existence as it stands in this moment."

"What?"

To Barragan, this was such a strange thing to ask, but for Aizen, it was confirmation of his own deductions of the type of personality that Barragan had and how he would need to ensure he could be subjugated.

Seeing that the king needed a better explanation behind what he offered, Aizen elaborated while Gin and Kaname did their work, as he had already done his part, "Have you ever looked around and felt your world was not the way it should be?" Gin had finished with one lot now, "Do you ever find yourself wishing you could achieve a higher greatness?" And now Kaname was done with his lot.

"Hmm, there are some things about this world that do not make sense, something amiss on such a grand scale that only those who have lived scores of millennia can see it. I am one such being, though what would I do with that knowledge and power?" Barragan seemed to contemplate the worlds he had given him, only now it laid on whether or not he would follow.

"I can help you; you just have to obey me."

No reaction to such a demand, and it appeared to Aizen that things were going smoothly, "If you do, I can give you greater power and show you the way to a greater world."

"Greater power? A greater world, you say?"

Once again, Barragan did not react openly, allowing Aizen to continue on, "That's right. My research into evolving the soul will soon be complete. I'm currently researching ways to grant Shinigami the power that Hollow's have, and to evolve the powers that Hollows have developed to imitate Shinigami." Barragan hummed at the prospect, "By removing the boundaries between the two opposing states, one such as yourself could achieve a higher greatness. You could truly lead the way to stepping forth into a newer, greater world."

Now it was time to see how Barragan would take this. Suffice to say that he expected what happened next was within his gauging of the Hollow king. Barragan stifled a chuckle before he could no longer contain his laughter, as it echoed throughout Las Noches.

How disappointing.

"What an amusing proposal!" Barragan gestured towards Aizen as he had to reign in his laughter, the thick golden bangles rattling around his skeletal wrists, "You actually have the nerve, the audacity and the bare-faced CHEEK to suggest that I can achieve even greater power and a greater world! More than what I already have!" Amusement then turned to anger, the shadows on the king's skull grew deeper, "Don't make me laugh! I am the King of Hueco Mundo, the king of all I survey! No one can surpass my power, least of all you foolish Shinigami!" Barragan declared in pride and righteous anger, rising from his throne as a cloud passed before the moon.

Well, it would seem that Aizen would have to drop the illusion soon, "No world exists that is beyond my control!"

Aizen tutted at the rebuttal he was given, "How unfortunate…."

Pointing his hand to the Shinigami, Barragan gave a shout of orders, "Attack them now, my generals! Let their hubris drag them to their doom!"

The Hollows converged on the dark trio of Shinigami, ready to devour them. One shot his fingers at Kaname, who deflected the attack with his katana, while Gin held back the fist of another with his own.

Barragan held out a hand and a large double-bladed black axe formed from black particles as he gestured for the Hollows around Aizen to stand back, "I will kill you myself." They backed away as Barragan directed his attention to Aizen, "You're about to be killed by the King of Hueco Mundo, consider this an honor."

Aizen shrugged at his words, "It seems awfully ironic, for the King of Hueco Mundo."

"Eh?"

"Think about it, my friend." Aizen pointed at the large black axe Barragan held in his boned grasp, "Even though you're a Hollow, the way you wield your weapon and your giant black form… remind me very much of a Shinigami."

"SILENCE!"

Barragan leapt from his throne and cleaved Aizen in half, with his power rotting the body away. He then turned his attention to Gin and Kaname and slashed them in half with the same results as others who dared oppose him, "Hmpf! What a fool! Even in the end, you couldn't even put up a proper fight." Sighing at how things transpired so quickly, Barragan hoped that his boredom could be satiated longer than this, "How pathetic." He said aloud once more to himself, "They were hardly worth any effort."

What occurred next caught him off guard completely. A sudden strike came for him as it nearly took his head, only to slice his crown in half instead. And had Barragan had eyes, they would be wide in shock and disbelief, as he saw the Shinigami standing before him without a scratch on them, as Aizen's sword was now pointing at him, "What is this? How can you still be alive?!"

Aizen wasted no time explaining it to the king, "My Zanpakutō, Kyōka Suigestu, has the power of complete hypnosis." It should've been a simple thing to be understood, yet for some, that did not appear to be the case.

"What are you talking about?" Perhaps it was the fact that Barragan was so caught off-guard by the ability that he hadn't had time to process it?

"In other words, the people you defeated before, were nothing more than illusions." The complete hypnosis granted Aizen the ability to control all five senses of his enemy, making them think and believe whatever it was that was around them. And what better way than to destroy the illusion that Barragan was in control this whole time was to show him the truth, "Shatter, Kyōka Suigestu."

The world around Barragan shattered like a mirror at Aizen's command. Instead of his generals all healthy and ready, instead, now their bloody remains were before Barragan's sight. Their bodies cut to pieces as blood smeared the floors and pillars of the hall, "Wha… what is happening?!"

Aizen kept his blade pointed at Barragan the entire time, "You speak of the oddities of this world you claim as yours, of a marriage only you can see. This is your world… stripped of all mirage."

This was what he meant by 'greater world'! Now it made sense about Aizen's words when he spoke to him about the world and his place in it, "You bastard!" Raising his axe high to attack, he found the blades of Gin and Kaname now pointed at his neckline, ready to sever his life.

"Don't do anything rash." Aizen said calmly, "It's pointless. You won't be able to kill me."

And it was true. Barragan could do nothing right now, and if he did, Aizen's cohorts would be ready to slice his head clean off in an instant. He attempted to unleash his Respira to mulch the entire castle but was blindsided when a bolt of hot pink light flashed out from the shadow of one of the pillars, striking Barragan in the back of the head and, much to his shock, temporarily sealing his irresistible power.

"Well, that was certainly worth the watch." A new voice had cut in from the shadow, "I felt you three approach and had a feeling you were up to something, but…." The source of the voice was revealed to be an Arrancar. "…I didn't think you'd have it in you to take Las Noches for yourselves."

He had shoulder-length, messy, pink hair with bangs on the right side of his forehead and amber eyes. The remains of his Hollow mask had taken the form of rectangular-framed glasses, giving him a scholarly appearance. Instead of a standard jacket, he wore a long shirt that covered his entire torso up to the top of his neck. As for what he wore had three stripes on his jacket, each starting at his collar with two running all three lines on his uniform dropped to his right hip and a pair of white gloves on his hands. All in all, he appeared to be a scientist like the Shinigami under Mayuri's direction, judging by how he wore a lab coat.

"And might I ask who you are?" Aizen was intrigued by the Arrancar if he was able to hide his presence before announcing himself, "You're obviously an Arrancar, yet your appearance doesn't demonstrate someone that fights."

"Oh, don't mistake my appearance for anything." The Arrancar stated as he adjusted his glasses, "While I have subordinates to fight for me, I'm not afraid to get my hands bloody if need be, like my colleagues here in the Espada."

More Arrancar like this one? Aizen was undoubtedly intrigued, "Tell me, are there more Arrancar like yourself? Naturally occurring Arrancar?" As far as his research had gone, Hollows weren't able to become high-level Arrancar outside of the Menos-class, and even then, they weren't much of anything to consider worth much.

The Arrancar bowed before introducing himself, "My name is Szayelapporo Grantz, Chief Alchemist of the," He glanced at the now powerless Barragan, "former king of Hueco Mundo."

"You bastard…"

"And Espada Number 0. As for your question, there are a few, though I'm sure your power will make them flock to your side."

Inspecting Szayelapporo closer, Aizen could see that he was someone that researched things not all that differently than himself, Urahara, or Mayuri. If perhaps maybe instead self-centered if he was any judge of character, staying in the shadows while watching what occurred before striking like an opportunistic viper. If he had done so, then it was doubtless that his Zanpakutō had already affected him, leaving him as one less to hypnotize, "Then I take it you heard my offer to Barragan?"

Szayelapporo gave the skeleton a glance as he smirked, "That I have, and as a scientist, more than an alchemist, I'm intrigued by your offer…." Playing things safe and smooth, the scientist bent a knee in submission, "…Lord Aizen."

And so began the Espada under Sōsuke Aizen.

---

-World of the Living; the Ryougi Estate, Workers' Quarters-

Seeing that today would be the start of his new life, Naruto got up early to get a decent workout before showering off the sweat and smell of the morning and readied himself for what was to come, "Ok, got my clothes packed? Check. Bath stuff? Check. Zan? Check, Tools? Check."

Having gathered and organized all of his stuff, Naruto started packing up until he heard a knock on the door, "Hey, you up yet?" asked a familiar disinterested woman's voice. Had Shiki come to see him? Guess she wanted to see how he was or confirm that last night hadn't been a fever dream.

Heading over to the doorway, Naruto opened to see Shiki in a yellow kimono with an envelope in hand before shoving it in his arms, "Your apartment's been set up, along with everything you'll need to report in every month on top of anything that seems suspicious. Learn how to use a Fax machine." Turning away from him, Shiki gestured for him to follow her, "Come on, I'll show you around a bit and where you'll be living."

That was certainly fast. Shiki's family must've had them do it overnight once he signed on with them, "Wow, talk about rapid service." Naruto quickly grabbed his stuff as he followed Shiki outside, where he saw several of the family's workers were tending to the garden, laundry and other various things outdoors. At the same time, it appeared that more of the family guards were present than last night.

"It's just a precaution from my caretaker."

Naruto turned his attention back to Shiki in front of him as she led on while giving him a glance over the shoulder, "You're still being checked out, so he's just making sure security is tight." Shiki turned back ahead of her as they made their way through the estate's main building and continued on, "that and they want to make sure that no one followed you last night."

Naruto shrugged that concern off, "I'm pretty sure I'd notice if I was being followed." With his Senjutsu basically being on autopilot, the possibility was unlikely, "If one of those Hollows or Shinigami came calling, they wouldn't've been able to keep up with me if they did, I would've given them the slip like it was nothing." He had trained with Jiraiya to hide himself from being detected by sensory types back on the trip, which was something that paid off well enough. Still, he rarely could use that knowledge since his enemies had been so damned dogmatic in tracking him down and being far more confrontational than the usual enemies he had gone up against.

Shiki hummed at his words, "Then I suppose we'll see how you'll do in the future." In truth, she didn't doubt his words, given how he made himself undetectable to her, and she knew well enough the different types of Spirit Energy that Hollows and Shinigami used and how their Spiritual Pressure's felt. Hiding it wasn't an easy feat at times, mainly for the Hollows that she encountered on a near daily basis, and the unseated Shinigami. But she had a feeling that more evolved, more experienced Hollows and Shinigami could hide their presence, but Shiki doubted that anything more than run of the mills would be what they encountered.

In the days to come, she would come to learn that Naruto Uzumaki was the personification of the phrase 'lightning does strike twice.'

Eventually, they made it outside to the curved driveway where a black van was parked with two men, one of them Akitaka already inside, "Time to show you around."

The pair got inside, where Naruto began looking over the envelope's contents, along with giving Naruto an ID, notes on his apartment, along with notes on Hollows and Shinigami, even a map of the city and major spots where the two beings would often be reported at. "Your apartment's situated not too far from here, though it's part of a small complex compared to the others in the prefecture. It has everything you'll need for the job, on top of the furniture that got moved in just after dawn." Shiki said as she looked out the window at the rolling city passing them by, "They probably aren't done with the utilities, so I think before we get there, we'll go see a movie. I've been wanting to see that Yankee film about the killer robot, The Terminator, I've got the time to spare but seeing a film alone is worthless."

So, Shiki wanted to spend time showing him around but was lethargic towards downtime? Well, he supposed that it wouldn't be a bad thing at all really, although, "That sounds nice, but uhm… what's The Terminator?"

Shiki's head snapped in his direction with eyes wide in amazement, "You're kidding, right? It's been previewing on all the tv channels, you can't tell me you've never heard of it by now since it's been out for a week already." She couldn't believe what she was hearing right now.

Naruto merely shrugged as he shook his head, "Never heard of it until now."

Shiki massaged her temples as she was coming to the realization just how much Naruto wasn't aware of what was in the modern cities and media, "Note to self, brick-level social skills. I can see we're going to have a lot of work to do today. After this, I'm going shopping for some new materials for my kimonos, but you're carrying all my stuff." She proclaimed as she pointed directly at Naruto, who now saw that he would become the bag boy for Shiki. Her accusatory finger gave off the image that this was his fault for mucking up her evening, and not even Kurama could follow that logic. Naruto's face scrunched in confusion, trying to connect the dots of how seeing a movie was a punishment.

He could've sworn he heard some stifled chuckles from Akitaka and the other guard, but they were stone-faced in not letting their unprofessionalism show, 'Guess who just became the pack mule today.' Kurama teased.

'Shut up!'

This would be the day that would establish Naruto and Shiki's relationship for the foreseeable future.

Employer and pack mule. Part-time Hollow Hunters.

-NEXT: QUINCY ARCHER IS PRETTY CHILL-

---

And done, there was a lot going on in my life and I apologize for not being able to get this chapter out sooner. Writer's block was hitting me hard as my synopsis didn't get this far, that being Naruto and Shiki heading into the city, though I felt that perhaps it would be best if I ended the chapter here and save for any more time spending between Naruto and Shiki for later chapters for their eventual development into a couple. Other stuff being FGO story and events, the release of a few games, which most notably being Halo: Infinite along with doing synopsis stuff for my other stories got to me.

Now for Sendai. It's a city that bears a resemblance in some ways to Mifune City where KnK took place in, and as such some of the KnK characters will make an appearance and what their roles are, along with some Fate characters in things as well, though I won't name names, rather you'll just have to wait and see who pops up and how things'll go. Although keep in mind that its 1984 so there will be some cultural changes here and there given that Showa era Japan was quite bizarre at times.

To answer the inevitable question, yes, I am taking information and adaptions of both SAFWY and CFYOW with regards to certain things we found out such as Szyleapparo being the original Espada 0.

Next chapter will be the introduction of another Bleach character that will help Naruto get another side of the story to the world of Bleach, but that's all I'm saying.

I've also managed to start back on my DxD fic, which was in major need of a revamp as the first arc was way too much like God of War IV, and it did not sit well with me. Since the Tsukihime Remake's release, I've delved a lot more into it for that story and characters as well, so expect it to have an influence on the story.

For my Fate story, I've got 5 long chapters ahead of me before I finish off the Camelot section of the story and move into the more Tsukihime, Mahoyo and Fate lore-oriented section of the story, and then finally Zero.

Anyways, please continue to read, review, favorite and follow this story, as well as the others on my profile. And please, when you review, do be sure to tell me your thoughts on the new chapter, including what you liked and/or disliked about the new chapter.

[1] So my beta smashed his head against this for some time, but he realized that the gun is pretty emblematic of how culture diversified between the worlds. In our world and thus the world of the living the gun developed as a continued idea of refining simplicity of combat, cutting out training in favor of instantaneous results. In the Naruto world the gun is only of use to civilians without the funds to hire Shinobi or Samurai who were the central focus of ability, this ability and the utility of a human unit being able to out speed a bullet meant that the entire development of the gun is limited in that world to game hunting and poor people. And to those who say there are no guns in the Naruto world I direct you to chapter 19 of Naruto where you see a rifle propped up behind a shopkeeper's desk.

[2] Have you guys ever stopped to consider just how weird Hueco Mundo is as a world? It has a moon but no sun for it to reflect, it expands infinitely but seemingly has no curvature and has clouds which implies water in the atmosphere.

[3] Barragan would know Ikomikidomoe by his real name because he doesn't know that old salamander boy got trapped in a sword and had his name erased by Ichibei. As an aside Barragan is low key the most interesting character in the series. Next to Icibei and Soul King he is the oldest character and is really atypical for a Hollow.

See you guys later!