Chapter 1: Valley of The End

Madara froze, stunned by the sudden coldness in his chest that spread like ice in his veins.

He weakly grasped at the blade that had run through his heart. So he still had enough chakra for a wood clone… Damned monster. As his vision began to dim, he gathered what little breath remained. "You have changed, Hashirama...You've got your priorities backwards," he gasped, falling to his knees. "It will someday lead the village to darkness."

Hashirama did not say another word. His face impassive, he held his sword until he felt the weight of Madara's limp torso resting fully upon it. He relaxed his grip on the hilt, sorrow carved into his features as he watched Madara's corpse collapse to his side.

The Uchiha's hands were still clasped futilely around the blade in his chest. His eyes, now absent the glowing red irises of his Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan, stared blankly into space; they remained wide open in defiance until the end.

Hashirama did not retrieve his blade. No, that sword had too many memories attached to it. The blood and dreams of countless victims throughout their decades-long civil war clung to it like a miasma.

The Hokage turned and slowly staggered back toward the village. His sword that had seen too much death and destruction would have its last resting place, buried in the heart of his best friend. Such a weapon had no place in the upcoming era of peace that he envisioned. He looked up and around him. All the fire and burning wood from their clash had torn an ugly scar into the land. As he began the trek back, thunderclaps and lightning streaked across the skies.

"Where...did it all go wrong, Madara?" He whispered into the night as rain began to fall.

His eyes stung, blurring as he refused to cry. He had to keep moving forward; the path to peace and prosperity could not begin with tears and mourning. He would celebrate Madara's life, not mourn his death. Perhaps this was Madara's way of giving him the closure to move on with Konoha?

With that thought, a genuine smile tugged at the corners of Hashirama's lips. Madara's sacrifice has finally made their shared dream a true possibility. This was the beginning of a new shinobi era.

Sometime Later

Madara woke in a haze. He made to get up, but realized he was already standing. It was raining, but he did not feel wet.

Frowning, he took a few steps forward, noting with concern that his feet did not sink into the wet mud beneath them. Strange, he thought, flexing his fingers and noticing how light and numb his body seemed to feel. And then it hit him. Hashirama! The bastard!

He scanned his immediate surroundings. It did not take long to notice a very familiar set of red and black armor half-buried in the mud. No. Not armor. A body. My body… So I activated Izanagi in time, after all. I don't remember activating the jutsu.

His eyes fell on Hashirama's sword embedded in the back of his armor.

As he made to reach for it, two things happened simultaneously that caused a sinking feeling to form in Madara's stomach. His hand passed through the hilt of Hashirama's sword, and, as he stepped forward to rebalance himself, he heard a sound of clinking chains coming from his torso.

He looked down, and sure enough, a short length of metal chain hung from his chest, seemingly bolted in place with a hexagonal plate.

My death should be re-written. My corpse should have dissipated when Izanagi was activated. What is going on here? Madara reached for the hilt again, and once more his hand passed through.

He suspected the truth now, but he didn't want to believe it. He reached for the chain attached to his hand and tugged at it. A jolt of pain wracked his body and he grunted at the sensation.

No… He thought. He yanked at it again more forcefully, bracing for the pain, except this time it was infinitely more visceral. It was unlike anything he had felt before - a searing agony that pierced his soul more deeply than even Hashirama's blade.

"No!" He roared. "I used Izanagi! I planned for this. I cannot be dead!" He closed his left eye and looked around. His vision was clear. He closed his right. Still clear. The Izanagi required the sacrifice of a Sharingan eye. If he could see clearly, then… Madara channeled his chakra and activated his Sharingan.

At that instant, he knew beyond any shadow of doubt that he had, in fact, died. He felt no chakra points flare, and he could detect no change in his vision.

The Sharingan's failure to activate was confirmed when, upon the reflection on the side of Hashirama's sword, his saw that his pupils remained white - their black irises quivering in anger. Indignation welled up from within him, and with a jolt, the chain on his chest sprouted teeth and started consuming itself.

The same searing pain from before overcame him again, doubling in intensity, and though he fought to stay lucid, Madara felt his consciousness slip away. A splash of white liquid erupted from his chest, wrapping around him as his body began to grow and mutate.

The last thing he remembered before his world faded to black were the echoes of his own screams, reverberating off the rocky cliffs around him.

Elsewhere, Takomi, an 11th seat shinigami from the 10th division, was patrolling the Elemental Nations. He perked up and narrowed his eyes as he sensed the unmistakable pressure of a hollow's reiatsu. It felt incredibly unstable - likely a newborn - but strong enough to warrant taking it seriously.

Hollows had become quite common in the last few decades here in the Elemental Nations, as the constant wars left many dead with lingering regret and attachments. Takomi was one of the shinigami in charge of patrolling and performing konso on pluses and purifying hollows in the Land of Fire.

He cautiously scoped out the hollow's reiatsu. He had honestly not been very diligent in his duties since he was assigned here. As one of a very exclusive group of lower-seated officers who had awakened a Shikai, Takomi felt that it was beneath him to actively hunt and purify regular hollows.

This one was different, however - it was much stronger than what he was accustomed to fighting. Plus, he would never hear the end of it from Captain Hitsugaya if he allowed such a hollow to go on a rampage under his watch.

He weighed the hollow's reiatsu against his own, and, reassuring himself that it was nothing his Shikai couldn't take care of, Takomi took off with a shunpo toward the source.

Madara opened his eyes again. This time, his body felt much more substantial. The feeling of weightlessness was gone, but his thoughts were consumed by ravenous hunger. He felt cold, wet mud on his skin, and noticed he was lying on the ground.

As he moved to push himself up, a muscular, clawed limb entered into view. He quickly jumped back to put some distance between himself and this new entity, tripping over backwards as he felt a strange weight behind him. As he fell, he experienced a sharp pain somewhere behind him, in a place he thought shouldn't have belonged to his body. He looked behind, dumbfounded as he beheld a thick, pasty white tail crumpled beneath him.

Remembering the limb from before, he looked to the spot he had jumped away from. Hashirama's sword was jutting out from his corpse; neither weapon nor body looked like they had been moved at all. Blinking, he made to rub his eyes. That's when Madara noticed his hands. The claws he had seen were his! He had a tail, and the chain at his chest was gone.

"What is going on here?" He muttered to himself, starting as he heard a stranger's voice coming from his throat. It was a high-pitched, double layered voice that bore no resemblance to his natural rumbling baritone.

Before he had time to gather his further analyze his situation, he heard a gust of wind from above him. A flash of steel caught his eye, and only instinct borne from decades of war saved his head from being cleaved from his shoulders. He dashed to the side, avoiding death but suffering a shallow cut to his right shoulder.

Standing where he was a moment ago was a young man dressed in a black garb. He held a large two-handed sword, which he briefly lowered before pointing two fingers at Madara and shouting, "Sai!"

Madara was caught completely off guard as he felt an invisible force snap his arms behind his back, holding them in place. With that, the newcomer raised his sword again and charged.

Madara could not move his arms. Scrambling to make sense of what was going on, he tried to jump back, but his alien body did not obey his will, and he tripped on his tail again. As he toppled backwards defenselessly, a dozen thoughts flooded through his mind; What is going on? Why do I have a tail? What is this new body? Am I in some kind of Genjutsu? Who is this man that is powerful enough to restrain me with two fingers? But as his would-be executioner was almost upon him again, Madara only had time for one word: "Cero."

The assailant's eyes widened, and held his sword lengthwise across his body to block a beam of red energy that had fired from Madara's eyes. The sword shattered, and the remaining energy from the blast knocked the man backward, until he tumbled to a stop at Madara's own dead body. He struggled to his hands and knees, heavily burned and bruised from the impact, but still breathing.

Madara clutched at his right eye, noting that his arms had been freed. He had meant to use amaterasu to burn his assailant but instinct took over and he said "Cero" instead. He needed to find out what was going on, and fast. Too many things were happening too quickly for his liking, especially now that he had confirmation that he was dead.

Madara closed his eyes, focusing his chakra, before shouting, "Release!"

He opened his eyes. His skin was still pasty white. His hands were still claws, and the black-garbed man who was struggling to his knees had collapsed again, holding some strange device and muttering into it.

So I'm not in a not a genjutsu. It never hurts to check, but of course nobody can place a genjutsu on me, Madara thought as he lumbered toward his attacker, picking him up by the front of his shirt with a clawed hand. Only then, looming over the black garbed assassin, did he realise that his new form must be at least triple the size of a regular man.

Before he could open his mouth to say a word, the wounded man spat in his face. Madara was stunned.

"Just kill me and be done with it. I've got nothing to say to a filthy hollow," the man wheezed. Some of his shattered ribs must have punctured a lung. Blood was flowing freely from his mouth, and Madara felt greatly disturbed by a compulsive craving to just take a bite out of the man.

He quelled his hunger for now, though, collected himself, and laughed. "Just saliva? No magma, slicing winds or rocks water blades? Of all the oral jutsu I've encountered throughout the years, you've got to do better than that if you want to faze me." Madara set the man down slowly, maintaining eye contact the entire way.

He lowered the man carefully, so as not to aggravate his wounds and kill him before he could get any useful information. A few moments passed as he remained quivering where he sat, yet refused to say a word.

Madara sighed; "How strong do you believe yourself to be, to dare attempt an ambush on Madara Uchiha?" Frowning, he looked closer at the man. "What clan are you from? I see no headband on your head."

"I don't know who you are," Takomi finally muttered, "and it doesn't matter because you've become a hollow."

As he saw the confused expression on the hollow before him, he took a steadying breath, before clarifying; "You're a newborn...A hollow is a monster formed from tormented souls. They are destructive beings that feed on souls high in spiritual energy. I'm a 'Shinigami', a soul reaper… My job is to aid the passage of souls into soul society and purify hollows like you in preparation for reincarnation." Even as he spoke, he felt his composure slowly returning.

This was textbook academy protocol; after all, it was his job to educate the recently deceased as to the proper order of things.

"A soul reaper? So I truly am dead. I suppose there is no getting around that fact, then," Madara pondered out loud. Then his brow hardened. Glaring down at the shinigami, he spoke again, voice low and menacing; "But do you really expect me to believe that you trying to cut my head off is going to aid in this so-called 'reincarnation?'"

Takomi was having trouble regulating his breathing though his injury, and his heart threatened to beat out of his chest. He had called in back-up and they should be arriving soon. In fact, he could already feel the spiritual energies of captain Hitsugaya and vice-captain Matsumoto exiting a senkaimon not far from here. They were closing in on them by the second.

His distress call had been in regards to a hollow with spiritual power rivaling that of a high seated officer, so he was glad that his captain himself had decided to come and deal with this 'Madara' hollow. Nevertheless, they were not here at this very moment, and he was alone.

He had to stall.

"A soul reaper's zanpakutou has specific properties that purify hollows when we slay them… I-I don't know the specifics but it is not a permanent death. You will be reincarnated as a new soul without any of your former memories to burden you in the soul society."

"You speak as if I have no choice in this matter," Madara stated.

The shinigami took some time to respond. "It is just the way things are. It's the way it's always been. You must feel it, don't you? A hunger for human souls. To protect those that were once dear to you, you must let yourself be purified," he reasoned.

At this, Madara burst out into a cackling laughter. "Those dear to me? Boy, do not presume to know me. There is nothing left that I hold dear. I-"

Madara was a weathered warrior. Decades of fighting experience from when he was but a child had honed his instincts to a razor's edge. He cut himself off before he could say any more, jumping back as the shinigami before him was whisked away by a blur of motion. Madara's eyes darted back and forth around him. Again? Where do these people keep coming from, and why can't I sense them until they're right on top of me?

In the man's place stood an auburn-haired woman with a freckle just below the right side of her mouth. A similar looking sword to what the injured shinigami had been using was unsheathed and raised toward him. Behind the woman, a white-haired boy wearing an equally white haori had the man in his arms. Something about the two new arrivals had Madara's instincts screaming at him to escape.

The woman before him disappeared into a flurry of strikes. Madara desperately tried to maneuver his way around them, but he was slowly losing ground as he had no weapon of his own. Unarmed combat was not his forte, and especially no in this clunky form.

The shinigami woman was also fast enough that he could only barely register her movements.

More and more cuts streaked across his forearms as he tried to block the woman's strikes. His mind was racing. I will not run. I am the strongest shinobi in the history of the Elemental Nations. I cannot be defeated again so quickly after losing to Hashirama's trickery! He thought as he lashed out at the shinigami woman.

However, that was the opening she needed, as she dodged the swipe of his claws before cutting into his right shoulder further, slicing through the tendons and disabling his arm. Madara hissed in pain.

Live. That was all that mattered to him. By the grace of whatever deity presided over this realm, he had been given a second chance. He could not afford to die again, not when he finally understood the Uchiha tablet.

Giving into his instincts again, he slashed at the air, somehow knowing that a portal was going to open. Ducking a horizontal slash from the shinigami, he rushed forward, grabbing his own corpse with his working arm, before diving into the garganta.

AN- So I got an idea for a Bleach/Naruto crossover fic where Madara is the main protagonist. It's going to be a bittersweet story, and there's a lot of action planned :P

This fic is going to span the Elemental Nations, Soul Society, Karakura Town, and even the Soul Palace itself. Some important characters are going to be: Madara, Hashirama, Aizen & top 6 espada, Ichigo, Orihime, and the Gotei 13.

Read and review if you find it interesting please!