1Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of the other things that may or may not have appeared by means of a crossover.

Spoken

thoughts

Kyuubi

kyuubi thoughts

Thx to those that reviewed.

Sry if this chap was a bit short and crappy. I've had this down for a week already, but projects and homework kept getting in the way.

Then when I started to work on it again, I just couldn't and this is the result...

Chapter 4

The two chuunin guards standing on top of the village gates yawned in boredom.

"Oi", one of them called to his partner, "how'd we get stuck with this crappy job again?"

His partner grimaced in respond. "I already told you it was our turn. All chunnins are rotated so

that no one gets stuck with this shitty duty any more than they have to. Just deal with it alright. I

don't like this anymore than you, but if I have to do this, you better be quiet for the rest of the

day."

The 1st chuunin turned his attention back to the road, grumbling about how his partner was being harsh and how did he end up on guard duty. It was early morning, most of the village inhabitants were already out and about. It was a beautiful day. Letting out a sigh, he wondered if he should have ever become a chuunin in the first place.

'Man of all the gates, I had to get assigned to the east one. That damn sun is always in your eyes.'

He put his hand over his eyes to shield them from the sun. as he did so he saw that a dark cloud was moving over the sun and heading towards the village.

'Dammit, a storm is coming too? Does kami not exist?'

"Hey, looks like we're gonna have a storm" he called out to his partner.

Silence reigned as the 2nd chuunin observed the dark cloud.

"Something's wrong.", he said in a quiet voice.

"What do you mean?"

"The cloud, it's just blocking out the sun, but underneath it, there's no lightning. There's not even thunder or rain. It's also coming down the road really fast."

The 1st chuunin mumbled under his breath. 'What the hell is that thing then? Why does it have to be me standing guard?'

A few minutes later, he saw a figure approaching. It was hard to say, but he or she was carrying something in his/her hands. As the figure approached, everything fell under the oppressive cloud that seemed to follow the person.

"What's this feeling? It's like I feel as if I'm being slowly drowned." He was breathing and started to get nervous.

"I don't know, but be on guard"

The figure got closer and it was...

DEATH.

The two chuunins gasped in shock as they recognized the figure. The legendary reaper of souls.

It had a long flowing robe that billowed in the wind. The robe never touched the ground as it was hovering about 4 inches of the ground. Skeletal hands came out of the fold and carried a menacing and jagged scythe.

"W-w-what the fuck? H-h-how i-is this p-p-possible?"

Death had reached the gates and spoke out in a raspy voice that carried on the wind.

"Take me to your Hokage. I have come to reap souls for him."

"I-i-I'm so-so-sorry, b-but you can't e-e-enter without i-i-dentification."

"Then bring him to me. Give him the message that an old friend has come by to say hello to an old man"

The voice gave both guards chills. The 2nd chuunin spoke to his friend, "Okay, okay. I'm gonna go and get the Hokage and you just ..." he turned his head to face his partner, but all he saw was empty space.

Looking behind him, he saw that the other guard had already ran for it towards the Hokage's office. 'S.O.B'

Turning back to Death he called out in a shaky voice, "Um, my partner left to give the message."

Then even more quietly "Please don't kill me"

"What was that?" Death spoke out

Snapping to attention, fear passed through every molecule of his body. "N-n-nothing, I swear."

Death seemed to have let it go and the chuunin let out a breath. 'That bastard better hurry up.'

Meanwhile...

The guard had burst into the Hokage's office.

"Hokage-sama, Death has come to see you."

"...". The chunnins that were on guard duty for the Hokage snickered.

"What is the meaning of this? If this is a joke..."

"Waaaah?". The gate guard threw up his hands in front of him and waved them. "No. It's no joke. Death has really come and he says that he was an old friend and that he came by to say hello to an old man."

Looking up at him, the Hokage had only a single thought. 'Could it be? Has he really come back?'

"Where is he?"

"At the East gate, but I don't think..." The guard trailed off as he saw that the Hokage had left by the window.

'Shit, I'd better follow, but I don't want to dieeeeeeeeee.'

Back at the gate...

"I'm getting impatient mortal"

Death speaking nearly sent the guard into a mental breakdown. Even worse was Death was getting impatient. He didn't know what to do. Training never included what to do if an all-powerful killer was after you.

When the Hokage landed next to him, he fainted from the shock and fell over to the ground. The Hokage jumped down and caught him. He walked to the gate house.

"Take this guy off my hands and open the gate."

"Hai." The chuunin manning the gatehouse took the gate guard and dropped him on the floor of the gate house. Then he opened the gate.

The Hokage approached death and said, "Welcome to Konoha. I am the Hokage. I was told you wanted to see me?"

"Yes. I have come to enter into your service and reap souls on your behalf."

"Really? Then we have much to discuss. Please, follow me to my office."

The gate guard that went to inform the Hokage, arrived back on the scene to see the exchange that followed. It was like...they were friends.

All the villagers nearby were in shock and awe. Death----Death had come and said he wanted to work for the Hokage? As the Hokage and Death passed through, they all recoiled in fear and backed away to leave some space, but the Hokage showed no fear. He was...no, they were conversing politely.

"Before we reach the office, can I offer you any food or refreshment?"

"I only drink blood...". The villages screamed and ran for it. "..the blood of my enemies."

The Hokage chuckled. Never before had this kind of thing happened. It was funny, if you knew what was going on.

As they entered the Hokage tower, the numerous shinobi there instantly felt the oppressive gloom and slight killing intent. Upon seeing Death and the Hokage together, they sprang into action.

Two ninjas cried out, "Hokage-sama, hurry and get away from him! It's not safe!" They jumped forward, grabbed the Hokage by the arms and ran towards his office.

The other ninjas left all brought out kunai. Death didn't seem phased by the turn of events and just kept floating forwards in the direction the Hokage had been dragged off .

"Stop right there and tell us who you are before we kill you"

"You can't kill the undead." Death shot up his killing intent. The lower-level ninjas froze in fear as images of demonic spirts started to manifest from Death and started to attack them. The jounin snapped out of the trance relatively fast and some upper chuunin managed to throw it off by hurting themselves.

Kunais left the ninja's hands instantly and all headed for Death. The problem was, they all passed through him. Death had made it to the stairs and started the spiral staircase upward to the top floor. As Death disappeared around the turning of the staircase, the killing intent dissipated and the frozen ones broke out of their trance. Some instantly heaved up what they had for breakfast.

"Come on. We have to stop him!" The ninja that were not hurt or sick or traumatized took off towards the stairs.

'Damn, I just saw him get on the stairs a few seconds ago. How could he go this fast.' The ninja were running as fast as they could and as they reached the hallway of the top floor, Death was already halfway to the Hokage's office.

"Stop! Stop right there!" The shouts of the ninja had no effect, but it did bring the Hokage out. With him were the two ninja that had dragged him away. They looked a bit sheepish and had a few bumps on their heads.

"STOP! This person is my guest. I ask you all to not attack him. You are already showing a poor welcoming."

"But Hokage-sama, he could be an enemy spy or something."

"Do you think that I would lead someone dangerous into the village?"

"Um...We're sorry Hokage-sama."

The ninja bowed and left quickly, not wanting to push their luck with the Hokage.

"I'm terribly sorry about the hostility that my shinobi have shown you. Please come in."

They both entered the office. The second the door closed, the Hokage spoke.

"You can stop the illusion now Naruto."

He turned to face Death and now saw that the image was blurred and shaky. A moment later, in Death's place was a boy short for his age.

He had wild, blond hair that spiked in various directions. Part of his bangs were being held up by a strip of red cloth that was tied around his head as a headband with the extra length going down to his shoulders. He had bright blue eyes and three scars on his both sides of his face looking like whiskers. He was wearing a with a black short-sleeved shirt with a red spiral-like flame on the front, a pair of white pants that puffed out at the bottom and white slip on shoes. On his hands were green fingerless gloves, that had a metal plate with the kanji for wind on it. He was also carrying a black duffle bag over his shoulder.

"It's good to see you again Naruto." The Hokage moved to Naruto and gave him a hug.

"It's good to see you too, ji-san."

Braking the hug after a few moments, the Hokage moved around his desk to take a seat.

"So Naruto, what can you tell me you've been up to."

"Well, training mostly. It's a long story and if you want to hear it I'll tell you."

"I have some time, please, tell me where you've been in a summary."

Naruto could see that his absence had a big impact on the Hokage, so he complied.

"After we left the village, Jin took me to a secluded area, where he and a friend have a dojo. I've lived there for a while. Then he took me to some old woman's house so he could prepare for a tournament or something and said it was a good opportunity for me to learn something from her.

After that, Jin left for the tournament and told me to come back here."

'Looks like you've been busy Naruto. I wonder how far you've come.'

"Interesting story Naruto. I don't know how to phrase this and I don't want to offend you, but what was with the whole "Death" illusion when you came into the village?"

"Oh that. I just wanted to scare the village a little and make a lasting first impression on you."

The Hokage let out a small laugh. "Well, it was certainly entertaining."

Getting serious now, the Hokage had a worried look. "What about Kyuubi?"

"I don't know how to tell you this, but it's really weird and I don't understand how it works really. Because of the Kyuubi, I've been able to reach my mindscape much more easily than others. It's in my mindscape, that Kyuubi has been teaching me.

One day he gave me the summoning contract to the foxes and I tried it out in my mind. It worked for some reason. I think the reason was since the summoning plane was on a different plane that the real world or anyone's mindscape, they could theoretically be summoned anywhere.

So..."

"Wait a minute. How were you able to summon? That requires hand seals and I know you can't use them." The Hokage was really confused. Naruto could summon? Plus, what was the point of

talking about this?

"I had this theory after I learned how to make clones with out seals. My way was to bring out chakra and dump it all into a place next to me. I would then shape the chakra in to the shape of my likeness and using my blood, it some how came together into a clone.

That's how I did summoning. I formed chakra into the shape of a fox and using the blood necessary as the sacrifice for summoning, it came out.

Now the weird thing was that the foxes could be summoned into my mindscape and still leave. That gave me the idea, what if Kyuubi could leave his cage by means of the summoning plane. The seal that the Yondaime gave me only sealed Kyuubi into me as a way of keeping him out of the real world. So, I came formulated a plan with the foxes and the foxes used a summoning to bring Kyuubi out of me and into the summoning world.

The best part is that if I use summoning, than I could bypass the seal on me and summon Kyuubi if he is in the summoning plane. The think is, is that he's not fully in the summoning world. His soul is attached to mine, so he's always connected to me."

The Hokage was stunned. This boy in front of him was...he couldn't even come up with a word for it. He just undermined one of the strongest fuuin jutsu that ever existed.

Come to think of it, Naruto seemed a far throw from what he used to be. A sense of deadness lingered in his eyes. Sure, he seemed genuinely happy to see the Hokage, but being in the village again was maybe too much for him. No longer was he the loud, energetic ball of energy. He was calm ,collected and perhaps had a mischievous streak.

Naruto smirked a bit when he saw the slack-jawed look the Hokage had. Naruto reveled in the reaction he caused. When the Hokage snapped out of his stupor Naruto spoke.

"So, I came back just like you asked. Now, I want to be a ninja in your ranks."

Sarutobi was a bit stunned. Why would Naruto want to be a ninja in this village? He was abused in his early years in life and becoming a ninja meant becoming a tool for the village.

"Are you sure? If you become a ninja, you'll have to work for the people who...may dislike you." Sarutobi struggled with words to try not to drag up bad memories for Naruto.

"It's okay. Now matter what, I feel attached to this place, no matter how much I dislike the people. Plus, I feel this is the only way I can repay you for what you've done for me."

"That's not necessary Naruto. I should be trying to make thinks up to you. It was my fault that you had to leave this village." Sarutobi's head drooped a little in shame. Bad memories for him started to swirl back.

"Cheh. You know I don't blame you. You were like a grandfather to me and I'll always have respect for you."

"Thanks Naruto. Are you sure you want to be a shinobi?" Seeing a nod from the boy, he wrote down something and put it aside.

"Alright Naruto, since you came back at this moment, you'll have to join the academy. I believe you had around a week before it starts up again. Pass the class and graduate, then you'll be a genin of the leaf and work your way up."

Sarutobi stood up and headed for the door. "Now, if you'll follow me, I show you to the house I've prepared for you should you have ever returned."

Pls review and the vote is still on. I believe the lead goes to a team of Naruto, Hinata, and Shino with Kurenai as their sensei