((Disclaimer)) Bleach is (c) Kubo Tite. Naruto is (c) Masashi Kishimoto. I don't own EITHER, Ok?!

Greeting Death

Naruto felt as if he would burst from pride – he had finally mastered the Rasengan! It was a sort-lived feeling, though. He could instantly tell something was wrong, almost right after he had blasted Kabuto away.

His chest seemed to tighten painfully, as if iron bars were preventing him from breathing.

Slowly, he fell backward as his vision started fading.

xXxXxXx

Naruto barely felt himself hit the ground, and he certainly didn't see it through his closed eyelids. But he had only been laying there for a second before they fluttered open again.

"Ahh, man, I feel like I was just spun around with Rasengan," he moaned, rubbing one shoulder ruefully. Suddenly, he froze, eyes wide.

He was sitting up – at the same time as he was laying down.

"What the hell?!"

"What language from someone so young."

Naruto snapped his head to the side to find the source of the voice. He blinked rapidly several times, before reaching up to scrub his eyes with his fists.

Surely he wasn't really seeing what he thought he was seeing. Surely there wasn't a tiny, black-haired woman in a samurai outfit, complete with sword and all, standing there beside him?

"What, are you just going to gape like a fish out of water?" she asked, raising one delicate eyebrow.

"N-no way! Who the hell are you, anyway?!"

The woman's expression suddenly softened. "I am a Shinigami. I am here to escort you on to the Soul Society."

Naruto felt his mouth drop open again, but this time he didn't care. Soul Society?! Sounds like a place where dead people would…

Oh, no!

Naruto looked down at both of his bodies, and that was when he saw the chain.

It protruded from the middle of his chest, connecting the two Narutos together. But all along its length, the chain was quickly rusting and disintegrating. In some places it was only connected by a hairs breadth of metal.

"N-no! Wha-what?! NO!" Panicking, he tried to grab the chain, to hold it together, but quickly let go as if scalded.

"It's best if you don't touch the Chain of Fate – it tends to hurt," the woman – the Shinigami – advised, too late.

Naruto just glowered at her. He could see Lady Tsunade kneeling over him, hands hovering over his chest. But it was as if he was behind some unseen filter – he couldn't hear the words her mouth was forming, couldn't feel her gently tear his T-shirt away to examine him better. Couldn't feel her tears land on his stomach.

The Shinigami woman gently laid a hand on his shoulder – the one sitting up, tensed in horror. He wondered numbly how she didn't pass right through him. After all, he was dying.

"It's never an easy transition," she said softly.

"Oh, yeah? I never would have guessed," Naruto muttered sarcastically.

The Shinigami frowned. "A horrible attitude doesn't exactly help," she admonished.

Naruto couldn't contain himself. "In case you haven't noticed, I'm twelve! I have a whole life to live! I have things that I have to do! I WAS GOING TO BE HOKAGE!" He raged, slamming one ghostly fist on the ground.

He could feel his anger as if it were tangible, running through his whole body, hovering in the air around him.

The Shinigami woman stared, eyes wide with shock.

Red spirit energy – chakra, she believed it was called here – was crackling in the air around the boy Naruto, emanating from the center of his Chain of Fate. Which, by the second, was reconstructing itself, tying his soul to his body once again.

Naruto's eyes were hard and determined, alibi a little disbelieving, as he watched his Chain of Fate. He glanced up at the Shinigami at the same moment a perfect, shiny chain finished rebuilding itself.

"I don't think I need to go to this Soul Society place quite yet," he informed her, before he turned and slipped back into his body. Now there was only one Naruto.

The Shinigami shook her head, bewildered. She would definitely have to report this to Ukitake-taichou… but there didn't seem to be anything else she could do here.

Rukia turned and opened the gate to the Soul Society, glancing only briefly at the black Hell butterfly that fluttered past before stepping through.

Still musing on the strength of a human's will to live.

((Notes)) THIS STORY HAS BEEN EDITED. Above is the original one-shot, same as ever, but the gut-wrenchingly horrible, painfully short semi-chapters that followed have been deleted. Thanks so much anyway to you people who put up with them and added this story to alerts, favs, etc. I really do appreciate it, but I just couldn't handle trying to cough up another chapter in attempt to save the non-plot.

I like the original much better, anyway. Thanks, again.

decemberWriter