AN: This is the promised, long-awaited Naruto/Bleach crossover fic. I hope that you will enjoy it.
Samsara: from Buddhism, Samsara is the cycle of life: birth, death, and rebirth in which suffering beings are trapped.
Pairing: Naruto/Rangiku. There is a chance for Yoruichi to be included but it is not guaranteed. It depends on how the story will go. For now, think of it as Rangiku only.
Chapter 1 - Rukongai
A deer munched on the leaves of a bush on the outskirts of the forest while its big, round ears moved restlessly. Its sensitive sense of smell had not picked up the scent of any predators, but its instincts were telling it that someone or something was watching it. Nonetheless, it continued eating, not leaving its spot.
It turned out that the deer's instincts were not wrong: forty-five meters away from it, deeper into the forest, a human stood crouching behind the trunk of a thick tree. Having positioned himself in a place where the wind would not carry his scent to the deer, the human fiddled with a round pebble in his hand as he waited patiently for the perfect moment to strike.
The deer lowered its head to grab another mouthful of leaves when the man came out from behind the tree. A pebble split the air with a wooshing sound and also pierced through the trunks of any trees and branches in its way like a bullet before hitting the deer right in the head, killing it instantly.
The man walked to the collapsed deer, grabbed it from its legs, and hoisted it on his shoulders.
"This should keep me fed for about two weeks," he mused.
Walking out of the forest, a large village could be seen at the foot of the hill, spreading along a river, but the man did not head towards it. Instead, he took a turn and walked a few hundred meters until he arrived at a small cabin built on the riverbank.
It was his home; he lived outside the village. He was an outcast. It was not because he liked that, but it wasn't because the other people exiled him from the village either. His condition simply endangered those who lived in his proximity. His mere presence caused them to become ill or faint.
"Home sweet home," he muttered sardonically when his cabin came into view.
"Uzumaki-san!" two children called out his name at the same time, and, just like that, his expression of apathy vanished, giving way to a bright smile.
The children ran up to him with toothy grins on their faces.
"Kai! Rin! What brings you here?" he asked, his voice filled with joy.
"Did you forget what day it is today? It's Sunday!" Rin said, hands on her waist.
She was a girl, seemingly around 10 or 11 years old. Her black hair was long and tied in two mismatched tails, and her bright red eyes spoke of mischief.
"Already? Time sure flies when you get older, huh?" Naruto said, bewildered. "No matter, it's great you came. I just came back from the hunt!"
"Nii-san, when will you teach me how to hunt too? I want to bring some meat to my granny," said the boy while opening the door to the courtyard for Naruto to walk in with the deer.
"When you're a little older," he said as he hanged the deer from the pole by tying its hind legs with a rope. "Deer may look cute and dumb, but they can be dangerous too when pushed into a corner. What if you become the dinner instead of the deer?"
"He's trying to scare you, Kai, deer don't eat people! They eat grass!" said the girl with a harrumph.
"But they can kill you, and then the wolves or the boars will eat you," Naruto explained while he took a knife and slit the deer's throat to bleed it.
Despite their young age, it was not the first time the children saw a scene like that, so they weren't scared.
Normally, it took him several hours to butcher the deer and pack the meat, but now that the children came to visit him, he chose to postpone that until after they left.
Taking the kids in front of the cabin, Naruto went inside and came out with a bottle of lemonade and three glasses. Rin's and Kai's eyes sparkled at the sight of it.
People in Rukongai did not feel hunger, and they aged far slower than in the real world. That being said, although they did not need to eat, they could if they wanted to. Unfortunately, as was the case of the two kids as well, most people that Naruto had encountered in Rukongai until then lived in poverty. Some of them had never touched food in their entire lives, to say nothing of sweets like dango, cookies, chocolate, and so on.
He smiled as he poured the kids lemonade and watched them drink it with relish, closing their eyes and sipping one small gulp at a time as if to prolong that moment of bliss.
"There's more where this came from. So don't worry. Drink as much as you want," he said, patting their heads affectionately, almost like a big brother would.
Due to his high spiritual energy, Naruto had self-exiled himself, living away from other people so that he would not harm them. But, because of that, he felt lonely. The two siblings' weekly visit to his cabin was one of the very few things that brought colour into this stagnant, lonely life of his.
"Say, Nii-san, do you still have some of that soup that you gave us last week?"
"Kai!" his sister shouted at him. "How can you be so shameless?!"
The boy laughed awkwardly as he scratched the back of his hair.
Naruto smiled at them. Rin was always the more considerate one among them, while the boy was rather brash and wore his heart on his sleeve.
"Hmm. . . I don't know. . ." the blonde said, pretending as if he was faced with a hard choice. "This is my precious ramen, you know? It took so much effort to grow the crops, care for them, harvest them, and then make noodles out of them, to say nothing about the other ingredients too. . . I let you get a taste of it last time, but I can't just give it away every time for free. . ."
Kai looked down.
"Sorry," he muttered. "We don't have any money."
Kan was the currency used in Soul Society; they were grey, round coins with a circular hole in the middle.
"Then, let's make it like this. How about you visit me two times next week? Do that, and I will give you some of my treasured ramen."
Kai's head shot up. "Really?!"
"Have I ever gone back on my word?"
Twenty minutes later, the children slurped on hot noodles as though that was the first meal they had ever had in their lives.
Rin and Kai told him all sorts of things were happening in the village.
"You know Asakura, the one who got permission to enrol at the Shinigami Academy 5 years ago? He came back and he took his family with him! Now they're all living in Seireitei! Ahh, I'm so jealous!"
[...]
"Uncle Jin from across the street was injured two nights ago. Some burglars broke into his house and robbed everything he had."
[...]
"And, just like that, I lost. I just can't beat Shinji; his spinning top is too heavy. Nobody can beat him!"
"Spinning top championship?" asked Naruto in surprise. "What's that?"
Kai put his bowl of ramen down momentarily and took something out of his pocket. It was a wooden spinning top with the margins of its wheel carved in a jagged pattern.
"You grab it from here and then spin it, just like this," the boy said as she spun the little toy on the table. "We have a special place where we fight with these; because the bottom is curved, the spinning tops will clash against each other. Whoever's spinning top gets thrown out or stops spinning first loses." (1)
[...]
Eventually, the children finished their food, licking the last drop of it at the end. Both of them would have eaten 10 more bowls if they could but even Kai wasn't shameless enough to ask for seconds. For the people of Rukongai, food was a luxury that most could not afford, especially those who lived in their backwater district.
Two hours passed since their arrival when the boy winced and let out a small sound of discomfort.
"Ugh, my head is pounding," he said and rubbed his temples with his hands.
Naruto quickly stood up and ushered the two children outside. "It's time for you to go home."
"But I'm still fine! My head doesn't hurt!" Rin said, pouting.
"I can bear with it a bit longer too," Kai also said, smiling as if to show that he was fine.
The blonde didn't listen to their protests.
"You both know it's dangerous. Remember how sick Auntie Nobue got before I left the village? Do you want to become like her too?"
"No. . . but are you not lonely here all by yourself?"
"I'll be fine; don't you worry your pretty little head," Naruto said and patted their heads. "Wait a moment; I forgot to give you something."
He rushed inside the cabin and then went down the stairs into the cellar.
"Here, take this with you," said Naruto when he returned and handed the boy a package.
"Oh, it's heavy!"
"What's that?" asked Rin.
"It's for Uncle Jin. You said he's in a difficult spot right now. This is some boar meat. It's not much, but it should help him out a little. And no stealing!" he said, pointing his finger at them while narrowing his eyes. "Next time I come to the village I'll know if you did as I told you or not. You'll be in a world of trouble if you stole it!"
⁂
Naruto stood and watched the children as they left, waving at them every time they turned to look at him. He watched them until they went out of sight, their small silhouettes obscured by the shrubbery covering the hill.
He let out a sigh as he closed the gate of the courtyard and went to the back of the house. He began to skin the deer with dexterous movements, a sign that he had done that activity many times before.
It was as though his body entered autopilot as he busied himself with butchering the deer, his mind going to an entirely different place.
'I miss Konoha.'
He missed the bright and full-of-life city. He missed his old, little apartment and even the grumpy old woman who lived a level below and always yelled at him to be quiet in the evening.
'I miss my friends. I miss Iruka-sensei and Kakashi-sensei. Sakura-chan, Sasuke, Octopops, Kurama. . . '
Above all, he missed Tsunade. She had been like an auntie to him or like a grandmother.
'I wonder, did they manage to defeat the Rabbit Goddess in the end?'
Unknowingly, as he let his mind wander to his past, time flew and, in the blink of an eye, almost three hours passed. By now, he was almost done with butchering the deer.
'How long have I been in this world for?'
It felt like yesterday that he died at the hands of Kaguya, away from his friends, in a different dimension. Ripping Kurama out of him, the Rabbit Goddess left him for dead and disappeared through one of her portals. The next thing he knew, when he opened his eyes, he found himself in this new world.
'Must've been a few good years.'
He had lost track of time, but, going by how much he had matured in a place where people's ageing was slowed down to a crawl—he looked to be around 25 years old now—he assumed that he had been living in the Soul Society for a very long time.
⁂
"Hey, everyone! Naruto came to visit us!" yelled an old woman who was sitting on a bench by the side of the road, watching the children play.
At her shout, it was as if the entire village was energised, and dozens of people came out of their houses.
As for Naruto, he suddenly found himself surrounded by almost 30 children, all of them pulling at his clothes and talking to him at the same time. But the grownups were no different either. All of them were trying to talk to him at once too.
"Good to see you're doing better, Granny," he said, smiling happily at the old lady.
"Thanks for the boar meat, Naruto," a middle-aged man said.
"So those rascals really gave it to you after all!" the blonde laughed.
"Haha! I got a good buck for it. It covered some of my losses after those robbers broke in."
"Naruto-nii-san, come play with us!"
"Naruto!"
Despite the chaos and the noise, Naruto smiled as if it were his birthday. He could not come to the village too often because his spiritual energy was harmful to the regular people around him. Rin and Kai, the two siblings who had made a habit out of visiting him every Sunday, had stronger souls than most people, but even they couldn't stay around him for long periods of time.
Because of that, he visited the village only once every three or four weeks, but every time he did it was as if there was a festival in the village. Part of it was because Naruto never came down from the hill empty-handed; he always pulled a cart filled with all sorts of animals that he had hunted for them. It was much easier for him to hunt with his superhuman strength than it was for regular people.
Another reason why he was so popular with the villagers was that, before his spiritual energy grew to the point where people started becoming sick from being near him, Naruto had often defended the villagers against various groups of bandits and other hooligans.
It had to be said that life in Soul Society was not that much different from his previous world. Other than not needing food and people having longer lifespans, most things were the same. People could still get sick, bandits and other evildoers still existed, and people could still go to work, engage in commerce, get married, have children, and so on.
Unfortunately, the district this village was located in was one of the farthest from Seireitei. It was common knowledge among the denizens of Rukongai that the farther they were located from Seireitei, the poorer the living conditions and public security.
Nevertheless, Naruto's presence in that village had all but reduced most crimes to zero. Most groups of bandits and hooligans avoided that village like the plague. Incidents like Uncle Jin getting robbed were exceedingly rare nowadays.
After the chaos died down a bit, Naruto started sharing the goods he had brought in his cart with the rest of the villagers. Afraid that his presence would make them ill if he overstayed his welcome, after one hour and a half passed since his arrival, with a heavy heart, he bid them goodbye and returned to his lonely cabin by the river.
⁂
As weeks and months continued to pass, new thoughts began to emerge in Naruto's mind.
'Should I try enrolling in the Shinigami Academy?'
As far as he knew, there was only one sure-fire, established method of being allowed entry into the Seireitei: defeating one of the Shinigami who protected its four gates in order to prove his abilities.
There were other ways to get into Seireitei too, such as being born in a noble house, buying your way in with bribes, being connected to influential people who could give him a letter of recommendation, or managing to catch the eyes of a team of Shinigami on a patrol by showing them his high spiritual energy.
'But nobody ever comes to this remote district. I've never seen a Shinigami with my own eyes.'
His village was just too far from Seireitei.
'Should I try to defeat one of the four gatekeepers?'
Blue light gathered in the palm of his hand, and a sphere of spiritual energy came into existence. It had taken him many years to gain the ability to control spiritual energy and shape it into the form of a spiralling orb. But that was all he could do.
Spiritual energy wasn't like the chakra of his past life. The hand seals ninja used to manipulate chakra in order to cast jutsu had no effect on the spiritual energy of his current life. His physical abilities weren't as good as they used to be, and his healing factor was much weaker than when he had Kurama inside him.
'I wonder, how strong are the Shinigami? Where do I stand compared to them?'
He clenched his palm into a fist, making the blue orb of spiritual energy disappear into countless particles of light.
'No, it's not the time yet. I can't leave Rin and Kai behind.'
Those two siblings were far older than they looked, but he could not help thinking of them as children still.
'Those kids have higher spiritual energy than others, or they wouldn't be able to visit me every week without getting sick. Maybe if I wait a few more years, we could go to Seireitei together. This way we'll be together, and I'll be able to protect them.'
To his current self, Seireitei looked almost like heaven. Not because of the promises of wealth and luxurious lifestyle everyone was talking about but because it was a place where powerful people gathered. It was a place where his spiritual energy would not cause others to become ill. It was a place where he could lead a normal life, surrounded by people.
'Bear with it. Just a few more years. For the sake of Kai and Rin,' he told himself.
But now that his thoughts went to the two children again, a new question rose in mind:
'Speaking of, it's Sunday. . . why are they still not here?'
This time around, he had prepared sausages that he had made with his own two hands from deer intestines and boar meat. They were simply delicious! He was sure that after getting a taste of it, the two little gluttons would beg for seconds and thirds.
He chuckled a bit at that mental image.
Not wanting to wait for the children on the porch of his cabin without doing a thing, he went inside and grabbed his hatchet before heading to the back of the house to chop some wood. It was hard, arduous labour that would make most people sweat buckets, but, with his superhuman strength and stamina, chopping wood was nigh effortless.
⁂
It was well past noon when Naruto stopped chopping wood, and a worried expression surfaced on his face because he had been friends with those children for years and they had never missed out on their Sunday visits before.
'Did some bandits attack the village again?'
He had stopped living in the village a long time ago. Word of his departure could have long since reached their ears.
'I have a bad feeling about this.'
He went to the kitchen and grabbed the butcher knife. He also took the hatchet he had used to chop wood with him before leaving his cabin.
At first, he walked at a regular pace, but the closer he got to the village, the worse his bad feeling got, and he started running.
The trip from his cabin to the village would take at least half an hour by foot, but with his running speed, he got there in less than a minute.
Having sprinted at full speed, he was out of breath when the outermost houses of the village appeared in front of his eyes. That is when a loud cry and a gurgling sound like that of someone choking were heard.
It made him run into the village like a man possessed, but when he finally arrived there, he froze in stupefaction.
All sounds were drowned, and the world seemed to start spinning around when he saw a man wearing black robes running his katana through the chest of a little boy.
Something akin to the sound of tinnitus rang in Naruto's ears. Adrenaline rushed through his veins, and without any conscious thought, he charged at the black-clothed man like the wind.
A hatchet rose in the air before cleanly beheading the man, making a fountain of blood burst into the air from his headless, still-standing corpse.
But he did not revel in his deed. He looked around him shocked. He was surrounded by a mountain of dead bodies, all of them lying sprawled all over the street, soaking the gravel road with their blood.
As if through a haze of red, he looked at the black-robed men and women who formed a circle around him, their weapons drawn and aimed at him.
They were shouting something at him, but he couldn't hear them.
The only thing he could notice was that they were all wearing similar black robes and wielding swords.
Despite never having seen one, he knew what they were. They were Shinigami.
When he reached that conclusion, his voice returned to him and he screamed. It was a hoarse scream filled with rage and desperation.
A massive, overpowering reiatsu exploded from his body, and more than half of the dozens of black-robbed swordsmen around him were forced to their knees, their souls getting crushed by his spiritual pressure, barely holding onto their lives.
"Why did you kill them?!"
"WHY?!"
They were Shinigami. Everyone knew that Shinigami protected Soul Society! Shinigami were supposed to be their protectors, not their executioners!
Some of the still-standing Shinigami lunged at him with their swords, slashing with the clear intent to kill.
Filled with rage, wielding his wood-chopping hatchet in his right hand and the butcher knife in his left, Naruto threw himself at them, screaming.
He duked under a man's slash and swung his hatchet upwards, his monstrous strength making the blade of his axe cut through the shinigami's arms, chopping them both from the elbow.
A blood-curdling scream came from the man's throat, but that too was cut short when Naruto's next move was to shove his butcher knife through his temple, killing him on the spot.
A searing pain came from his back, and he saw the blade of a sword pierce through his stomach, but he turned around and swung his hatchet at his attacker's head, slicing his skull in half.
Blood and gore splattered all over his face, but he didn't even feel it.
"WHY?" he shouted, every word he spoke being marked by the death of a Shinigami. "WHY DID YOU KILL THEM!"
"Captain! There's one more here! It's a crazy one!" a woman in her late 20s shouted, but, a moment later, a gurgling sound came from her mouth as Naruto's butcher knife flew and stabbed itself deeply into her throat.
His spiritual pressure exploded when, after killing yet another Shinigami, his eyes happened to fall on the lifeless face of Uncle Jin.
One by one, the faces of the villagers he used to care for almost like a family became recognizable, and he started crying. Blood and tears fell from his bloodshot eyes.
Having watched almost 20 of their comrades being cut down so brutally, the other shinigami stepped back in horror. Bathed in the blood of shinigami, his blonde hair now crimson and his clothes soaked red, Naruto appeared like a demon from hell as he lunged at them screaming.
His killing spree, however, was brought to an end when, instead of cutting down yet another shinigami, a long katana stopped his hatchet, and a kick to the gut slammed him back violently.
His body went flying into a house and came out of it the other way. He didn't even have time to right himself and stop his momentum before a sword stabbed through his left shoulder, nailing him to the ground.
He screamed in agony as the wielder of the sword twisted their blade into his shoulder, the unspeakable pain making him drop the butcher knife from his hand.
Despite the sword stabbed into his shoulder pinning him into the ground, he risked injuring himself even further by throwing an upkick at his attacker.
Naruto's monstrous physical strength hurled his assailant away like a cannonball, back straight into the village, demolishing another house in the process.
A girly, crazed cackle was heard as someone jumped out from the wreckage of the house and flew at him.
Picking himself up from the ground as quickly as he could, Naruto gritted his teeth as he readied his hatchet and glared at the enemy that was charging at him.
It was a short and thin girl with long pink hair tied in twin tails and wearing a white haori over her black robes. Despite her cute and petite appearance, there was nothing endearing about her expression. A black eyepatch covered her left eye, and a mad, unhinged grin twisted her face as she flew at him with her sword above her head, cackling like a lunatic.
He swung his hatchet at her, and the pink-haired girl slashed her sword at him. The two weapons collided, but it only lasted for a moment before his hatchet broke into countless little pieces and the girl's long katana left a deep, bloody mark on his cheek.
Ignoring the burning pain coming from his face, Naruto tried to use his butcher knife next, only to realise, much to his horror, that he couldn't move his left arm at all and the knife was on the ground, not in his hand—the girl must have severed his nerves when she twisted the blade in his shoulder.
Unfortunately, that brief moment of shock was his undoing because he was suddenly picked up by the neck and choke-slammed, his head making a crater into the ground.
"Ahahaha!" the girl cackled like a maniac as she straddled his much taller body and pressed her sword deeply into the skin of his neck. "I haven't met someone as strong as you outside of Seireitei in a long time!"
Her face drew closer to him, and she dragged her tongue over his cheek, licking the blood gushing out of the wound she had carved into his face.
"Ah! Ohhh!" she let out a cry, almost like a moan, as she licked his blood, her body shivering strangely, almost obscenely above him.
When she slammed his head into the ground, Naruto almost got knocked out cold. However, her antics had bought him enough time to shake off the cobwebs and regain some of his lucidity.
"You are delicious!" she shouted, her body still shaking on top of him.
Naruto shivered in revulsion when she bent down to lick his bleeding face a second time, but a glowing sphere of blue light appeared in his right hand and, before the girl could react or even see it coming, he slammed it into her temple.
The girl was smashed to the side more violently than the previous time, her body rotating uncontrollably through the air for over 20 meters before she finally came to a stop, leaving a deep ravine in the ground.
Not wasting a second, Naruto grabbed his butcher knife from the ground, and his body seemed to become a blur as he charged at her.
The girl barely came to a stop after being sent crashing into the ground when Naruto landed with his knees on her back and plunged his butcher knife into the back of her neck.
A cry of shock, pain, and disbelief came from her when the blade of his knife pierced her throat and she felt her life slipping out.
It was supposed to be just a simple, recreational mission; they were supposed to massacre a bunch of nobodys in one of the most remote districts of Rukongai.
She wasn't supposed to die there!
She wasn't supposed to die against a nameless, worthless loser in some god-forsaken village in the boonies!
Despite the knife piercing her throat, she let out a choked scream and pushed with her hands against the ground as hard as she could, but she couldn't muster any strength.
"N-No!" she screamed with the last of her power.
She was the killer! She was the predator! She was the one doing the killing, not others!
She hadn't even used her shikai or bankai against her enemy! She hadn't had the chance to go all out!
But, just like she had done to him a few moments ago, Naruto also twisted the blade of his knife into her throat and dragged it sideways, cutting off her thin neck completely.
With a cracked skull, a gaping and bleeding wound in his torso, and an entire arm paralysed, Naruto stood up from the pink-haired girl's corpse, breathing with difficulty.
The massive loss of blood that he had suffered made his eyesight darken and his legs sluggish, but, still wielding his butcher knife in his right hand, Naruto started running back towards the village.
For Kai. For Rin. For the aunties and uncles in the village. For the people who had loved him and treated him as if he were one of their own. He was going to kill all the Shinigami. He was going to kill them all, to the last person.
Unfortunately, every step he took closer to the village was one step closer to death. Even with his willpower, rage, and thirst for vengeance pushing his body far beyond the capabilities of humans, there was a limit to it.
By the time he arrived back in the village, it was deserted. Having witnessed what happened to their captain, the rest of the Shinigami ran away in terror, fearing that they would be next.
He knelt on the blood-soaked street in despair. He sobbed.
"I couldn't protect anyone."
He couldn't protect the world from the Rabbit Goddess in his first life.
And now he hadn't been there to protect the village against these crazed murderers either. He couldn't even kill them all to at least avenge their souls.
He had lost everything.
He cried bitterly for a long time until darkness engulfed him and he knew no more.
AN: It's a tragic first chapter, one that will mark Naruto and influence his actions in the many years to come. Without spoiling too much, I will let you know that this isn't a "Naruto kills all Shinigami" type of fic. But I won't say more than that. You will see for yourself in the next chapter.
Also, in case you haven't figured it out yet, the pink-haired Captain with twin tails was one of the original Gotei 13 Captains, Saito Furofushi.
As for those of you who wish to support me, you can find 2 extra chapters ahead of schedule, on ptr eon, at /grumpywolf. By the way, you can read the current chapter, this one, chapter 1, on the same website too. I tend to post various pics and gifs in the chapters over there.
Lastly, if you're interested in joining my Discord server, you can do it at /x7xdd53WqE. It is a small server for now, but I am active there if you have any questions. I would also like to talk with other Bleach fans and clash ideas with them; for some reason, there aren't many big communities for Bleach fans out there.
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CHAPTER 2 comes out on the 3rd of February.
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In the meantime, check out my other Naruto fics and Naruto crossovers:
- [Hope in Ruination]: Naruto/League of Legends (Naruto/Ahri pairing)
- [Orcbane]: Naruto/World of Warcraft (Naruto/Sylvanas)
- [Eclipsed]: Naruto/Justice League (Naruto/Starfire/Supergirl throuple)
- [The Renegade]: Naruto/Konan fic. Complete.
- [The Fox and the Hare]: Naruto/My Hero Academia (Naruto/Mirko pairing). Complete.
PS: If you are also a fan of Harry Potter, I have quite a few other fics for you:
- [Living for Tomorrow]: AU, older Harry. Harry/Fleur pairing.
- [Emissary]: Harry Potter/Justice League (Power Girl pairing).
- [The Nexus]: Harry Potter/Nier Automata (it is a Sci-Fi, post-apocalyptic fic)
- [Ashwinder]: Harry Potter/Warframe (it is a Sci-Fi, post-apocalyptic fic)
- [Back? Not Really]: time+dimension travel Harry Potter fic, Harry/Fleur pairing. Complete.
Until next time!