Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or Bleach. It is respectively the propriety of Kishimoto and Tite Kubo.

Hello everyone. I know I already have 3 stories in-progress but this plot wouldn't leave me alone until I put it on paper. So I present you my new story: Shinigami.

This story was inspired by KyuubiMan's story : Prove the Pervert Wrong. It is a really good story showing Naruto's progress without Jiraiya's help but it was never finished unfortunately. After reading it, I thought, what if Naruto was the same and gained his power by himself. This whole story is all about depending on oneself and doing what you think is right.

There will be several clashes of philosophy in this story. These clashes will revolve around the idea of justice but I can't say more. You will have to read for more.

This story is a semi crossover with Bleach as I take elements from bleach to use in Naruto. So if you are hoping to see Bleach characters, I am sorry but you got the wrong story.

Enjoy!

Chapter 1: Enter Shinigami

In a town far away from Konoha, a ninja was sitting on a tree. His feet were dangling in the air as he watched a white haired old man get pummelled by angry women. The ninja on the tree was wearing an orange jumpsuit with black strips in the middle and the sides of the cloth. Above his forehead was a metal headband with the leaf insignia on it, indicating his association with the ninjas of Konoha. Finally he wore a large red cloak with black flames adorning the bottom of the fabric.

This person was none other than Naruto Uzumaki and the old man being pummelled was his sensei Jiraiya of the Sannin. Four months had passed ever since Naruto departed from Konoha. Four long months since he started his training trip with Jiraiya in the hope of improving until he was able to deal with his pursuers. Indeed, Naruto was the target of a group of S-Rank criminals belonging to an organization. The name of the organization was Akatsuki or 'red dawn'.

Jiraiya, his sensei, was able to gather the objectives of this group using his considerable resources. While the organization had several goals, the main one was to capture every Bijuu, for what purpose? That remained to be seen. Naruto being a Jinchuuriki or a human holding in his body one of these Bijuu was one of their targets. To protect and prepare him to deal with the threat, the Hokage – Tsunade of the Sannin – and her advisors agreed to have Jiraiya train Naruto for the next two and a half years. Not to mention, it served as a way to hide Naruto's location from his pursuers.

Despite the smile on Naruto's face, as he looked at the comic scene below him, he couldn't help but be sad at how the training trip turned out to be. When he started this adventure, he considered Jiraiya his mentor, a perverted old man, yes, but his mentor nonetheless. Thus he had great respect for the man. Unfortunately, dealing with the Sannin for more than a few hours a day – as it was before leaving the village – turned out to be the wrong thing to do. He came to the conclusion that the man he knew back in the village was only an image, an illusion, a fake identity concocted to seem enticing to him.

But like they said, a leopard cannot change its spot.

It didn't take long for Naruto to understand that Jiraiya, like most powerful shinobi, was prideful, extremely so. He was set in his ways and didn't want to change, 'or maybe he was too old to change?' Naruto had wondered several times but never found an answer. If Jiraiya thought something couldn't be done in a certain way, he wouldn't accept that it was possible and thus was wrong. Coincidentally, Jiraiya never listened to Naruto's complaints, even if they were well founded.

Unfortunately, Naruto was stubborn and had a profound mistrust of authorities, having been led wrong in more than one occasion by one of them. The two personalities clashed and obviously it ended badly.

Flashback – 2 weeks after departing Konoha

Naruto and Jiraiya were walking among the trees. They were still in Fire country territory considering the green scenery around them. Whereas Jiraiya was giggling while writing on his notebook, Naruto was grumbling as he tried and failed miserably to use the Rasengan with one hand only.

"Grrr... It doesn't work Ero – sennin. Why are you making me learn this anyway? I have already mastered the Rasengan!" He yelled clearly frustrated by his incapacity to do the technique.

"You haven't mastered it yet, Gaki. You may be able to use it using your clones but it is a waste of time and chakra. It defeats the very purpose of this attack." Jiraiya answered nonchalantly.

"Purpose...?"

"Yes! Initially the attack was created to be used quickly and without notice to the target. By using a clone to form it, you tell your opponent exactly what you intend to do. Not counting the fact that you cannot create it instantly yet."

Naruto was forced to admit that the Sannin was right. But that didn't stop him from complaining though.

"I get that, but what does that have to do with everything else. I am tired of doing the same thing; I want to learn something else other than that. You said you would teach me but the only thing you have done so far is giving me the same excuse as Kakashi."

"And what excuse is that...?" Jiraiya inquired.

"That my chakra control is bad. I know that already, but why don't you give me an exercise to improve it?"

"I already explained to you the leaf concentration, tree climbing and water walking exercises. Master them and you will improve your control."

"But I already told you, it doesn't work for me. Don't ask me why, but even though I did the exercise, it did nothing to increase my control." Naruto yelled at Jiraiya, exasperated by the situation. For the last week, he had done nothing else but train his chakra control. He had long since mastered those exercises but they did nothing to improve his control over his chaotic chakra. He had no ideas why but it seemed the exercises he knew weren't tailed for him.

Of course he had shared his findings with his sensei but the latter never took him seriously.

"What about Jutsus? I know my control is poor but isn't there any jutsus that doesn't require excellent control?" He asked for the nth time but he got the same answer.

"I told you before, I won't teach you anything unless you agree to learn how to manipulate the Kyuubi chakra." And here we go again, Naruto thought as he looked at his sensei, clearly angered.

"And I told you I won't resort to using the fox to be strong. The last time I used it, I almost lost control and couldn't even devise a decent strategy."

"Then how are you going to become strong enough in such a short time?"

"I will train hard in every ninja arts and master them" He grinned as he said that, completely confident in his ability to succeed.

"While I admire your confidence, I cannot let you foolishly think you can reach a level the like of Itachi without using Kyuubi." Jiraiya dismissed him, angering Naruto even further.

"How can you say that?"

"Who is the experienced ninja here?" He asked Naruto who had nothing to answer to that. "Don't get me wrong, I definitely think you can reach my level given time, but that is something we don't have. So until you change your mind about learning to control the beast inside you, I won't teach you anything other than helping you master what you already know."

End Flashback

After that talk, their relationship had deteriorated even more, with Naruto stubbornly refusing to acknowledge Jiraiya's point of view and vice versa. While Jiraiya kept peeping in every women bathroom he found, Naruto desperately tried to learn something new. This was done using the little information he remembered from his time in the ninja academy. One thing was certain though, he would never rely on someone else's power, especially not the fox's.

What Jiraiya didn't know was that Naruto disliked depending on someone. His whole life, he lived alone, fending for himself. Even the allowance given to him by the Sandaime was slowly being refunded by the missions he did upon becoming a ninja. He disliked owing to someone and did his best to always return whatever was given to him. To him, it was a matter of freedom and pride. Pride for being able to fend for himself and freedom by not owing anything to anyone.

Of course there were exceptions like everything he learned in the academy and what his sensei taught him. In his mind, it was his sensei job to teach him something so he didn't owe his sensei anything beyond what he deemed acceptable. In this case, learning a jutsu from his sensei was at the latter's discretion. The fact that Jiraiya refused to teach him a new jutsu wasn't really what bothered him, it was the blackmailing part about using the Kyuubi chakra that really angered him. So he vowed to become strong by himself, so strong that he would rub it on everyone face, everyone that mocked him and his dream.

And when people would wonder how he became this strong, he would be able to proudly say 'by himself'.

With that in mind, the following week after his confrontation with Jiraiya, he tried his best to learn something from his memories. He used the three Chakra control exercises he knew and relentlessly worked on it, even combined them but his progresses were slow. Like he had found earlier on, it seemed he had so much chakra the exercises designed for normal ninja didn't work on him.

When that didn't work, he went back to learning the Rasengan using only one hand. Despite his best efforts, he didn't succeed. It came to a point where he started doubting himself, wondering if his comrades were right and he was an idiot. What he didn't know was that the reason he couldn't master the Rasengan with one hand stemmed from the seal on his stomach. Because the seal was designed to randomly mix his chakra with the fox's to further increase his reserves, he unconsciously had to take into account the constant shifting of his chakra supply not including everything else he had to do in order to generate an orb of chakra. Frankly speaking, if he were on the same conditions as Jiraiya, chakra-wise, the focus he was currently using to create the Rasengan in one hand would be enough to create a dozen orbs all over his body. That is just how much harder he had to work compared to other ninjas.

Stubborn as he was, he didn't give up. Even when Jiraiya sarcastically made some comments about his lack of progress, he didn't give up. Instead, he recalled a lesson given in the academy mentioning that all Hokage had special skills that set them apart from the common ninjas. The Shodaime had his wood style techniques, the Nidaime had his extreme control over water style techniques, the Sandaime had a mastery over every non-bloodline related techniques in Konoha, and finally the Yondaime had his teleportation technique.

With that in mind, and knowing he was going nowhere trying to follow the same path as countless other shinobis before him, he decided to find something that set him apart. But what? That was the next question he faced. In the end he decided to follow his instincts and do something completely out of character for him: he meditated.

Shocking indeed as he was never someone to sit idly like that. The goal of this exercise was to better understand himself in the hope of finding something about him that set him apart.

For one week straight, he just sat there, his eyes closed, focusing inward and ignoring everything happening around him. Of course he did it only when Jiraiya went out to peep as usual. By the end of the week, he finally reached his goal and succinctly made a discovery that would reshape the world, as it was known.

While meditating, he felt a sensation of falling deeper and deeper inside his mind. The descent lasted for a while. He didn't know how long it lasted but to him it felt like several days passed, as he felt deeper in the abyss of his mind. Finally he saw a bright light at the end of the tunnel. At first he panicked, wondering how he would survive a fall like that, but he quickly calmed himself when he felt himself slow down to a halt just above the ground.

As he looked around and observed his surrounding, he marvelled at the beauty of the place. In front of him, he could see two lakes. On his left was a lake larger than the right one. It was brown coloured and seemed viscous. On his right was another smaller grey lake. The liquid inside it seemed so fluid he had the distinct impression that it was almost gaseous. He had never seen such substance before and wondered what it was.

Still, he looked beyond the two lakes and found another one in front of the two. He flew until he stood above it and analysed it. This one seemed extremely larger and was a mix of the two lakes behind him. The liquid in it was blue this time.

As if it wasn't enough, he also saw what looked like a pipe that went up in the sky. He could see a red liquid randomly dropping in the lake and increasing its size. The sight of the red liquid was all he needed to understand what each of the lake represented.

'No way! The blue lake is my chakra formed by my physical and spiritual energy. The red liquid must be the Kyuubi chakra.' He had thought at the time.

Still following his instincts, he flew over the grey lake, which he knew represented his spiritual energy. As if possessed, he dived in the lake, completely submerging himself. He enjoyed the feeling of being covered by this liquid. It was calm and appeasing to him. He didn't know how to describe it. He only knew that he never wanted to be separated from this energy.

Days after days, he went back to that place and relished the feeling of being covered by the substance. It came to a point where he wanted to feel the energy even outside his body. To do so, he tried with all his might to unlock his spiritual energy in the real world. Obviously he didn't succeed on the first try but he never gave up.

It took him another week to finally grasps the newly discovered energy and learn how to call on it in the real world. That day he was so overjoyed with his success that he even dismissed his last argument with his sensei. With his newfound ability to use spiritual energy, his hopes went up again as he knew that the energy was not only unknown but was surely unique to him alone. Like every Hokage before him, he was drawing his own path to success with his own special skills, never mind his, as of yet, lack of understanding of the energy.

His discovery made, he went about analysing the spiritual energy and comparing it to his chakra. By the end of his study, he found out that spiritual energy was extremely more malleable then Chakra and thus he found himself easily controlling the energy. Not knowing how to train it, he used Chakra control exercises as a basis. That is how he discovered the first ability granted to him by spiritual energy: air walking.

Indeed, he discovered that he could easily create a platform under his feet to walk on air. This simple discovery only served to galvanize him into learning more about it. Of course he took great care in hiding his newfound ability from Jiraiya, always training in secret.

The training kept going like that until four months had passed since Naruto's departure from Konoha.

Naruto's musing was interrupted when he felt Jiraiya's spiritual energy materialize behind him. Lately he had been able to sense his surrounding by looking for any spiritual energy. The fact that no one – to his knowledge – knew how to manipulate spiritual energy, thus hide its presence allowed him to detect ninjas the like of Jiraiya even when the latter tried actively to hide himself.

Of course he never mentioned that to the toad Sannin, much to his ire.

"I see you received your beat down as always. When will you learn...?" Naruto asked to his sensei without turning around to look at him.

Jiraiya growled as he was once again detected despite hiding his chakra signature. "How the hell do you do that Gaki?"

"You are the experienced ninja, figure it yourself."

Jiraiya scowled as Naruto used his own words against him. Naruto's respect for him had diminished a lot ever since the start of this training trip and he didn't know what to do to fix things. Nonetheless, he reminded himself why he was looking for the blond in the first place and retrieved a scroll from his pocket.

"Tsunade has answered your request."

"Really?" Naruto's head made a complete turn so fast Jiraiya winced thinking the boy had broken his neck.

"Yeah. I don't know what you put in that letter of yours but apparently she agreed your request to complete missions. The scroll in my hand is your first solo C-Rank mission." Jiraiya explained to a grinning Naruto. "Why do you even need to do these missions? You should train instead."

"And how am I going to rise up the shinobi ranks? While I can't participate in a Chuunin exams for obvious reason, that doesn't mean I can't perform missions to get a field promotion."

"So that was your goal all along? You think you are up for ten C-Rank and one B-Rank mission to become a Chuunin?" Jiraiya smirked as he taunted his young charge, who surprisingly grinned back, his eyes closed and his face exuding his confidence.

"You will just have to wait and see, won't you?" Naruto stood on the branch before taking the scroll from Jiraiya's outstretched arm. "In any event, completing this missions will not only provide me the necessary experience but will go a long way to show how far I can go without your help!" The last part was said looking directly in Jiraiya's eyes. Naruto's challenging look was a reminder to Jiraiya that the boy was becoming more secretive as the days went by.

He tried but failed to spy on his pupil, trying to see what the boy was up to. After all, 4 months had passed since the start of the training trip and he couldn't afford to waste even more of it, he had to find a way to convince to boy. But so far, his endeavours were rebuffed quite vehemently.

While he was deep in thoughts, Naruto was going over the mission details. After finishing his reading, he grinned. His mission was to destroy a mercenary camp that harassed a village not far away. 'This is a chance to kick some ass!' Naruto thought as he looked back at his sensei.

"I am moving out to complete the mission Ero – sennin." Naruto yelled before tree hopping toward the area the scroll mentioned the mercenaries stayed at.

Behind him, Jiraiya shrugged as he went back to his hobby: peeping.

Naruto silently moved through the foliage for half an hour before he reached the spot indicated. The first thing he noticed was the camp below him that was positioned in a circular fashion. He could see several guards standing at several entry points. In the middle of the camp stood a large tent, larger than the others. This led him to conclude that it belonged to the leader of the group.

His observation done, he grinned. "They won't know what hit them!" He smiled predatorily as his fingers formed a cross shaped handseals. A muttered Kage Bunshin later and three clones appeared beside him.

"Ok everyone, I want you to attack the camp from each cardinal point. A surprise attack will work better than charging head on."

The original said as the clones nodded before departing. He waited until his clones were ready before charging the guards.

The two mercenaries standing in front of the camp never knew what hit them as they saw a blur before the first one was smashed on the ground. The other saw the blond with his hand still extended and ran at him to avenge his comrade when a finger was pointed in his direction.

"Hado 1: Sho." A kinetic force slammed on the guard stomach, before he was sent spiralling toward the foliage.

Naruto looked at his handiwork with a smile. "You gotta love Kido. First time I used it on someone ever since I created it."

His smile vanished though when he heard explosion coming from the other side of the encampment and focused back on his mission. As expected, mercenaries poured out of the tents after hearing the explosion. Upon seeing Naruto, they charged at him, swords held high in the air.

Taking out a kunai, Naruto met the charge head on, and weaved through the masses, ducking, sidestepping, and even jumping over a strike all the while incapacitating the mercenaries with a combination of well-aimed kicks and punches. Sometimes he used his kunai to slash his attackers' bodies but mostly he kept to beating the crap out of the bandits.

As he finished with the first group of mercenaries, another one charged at him. Not wanting to deal with all of them he pointed his palm toward the group.

"Bakudo 9: Geki." Suddenly, the group was covered in a red light and found themselves unable to move. Smirking at the effect of his spell, he quickly knocked out the group before continuing his attack. 'A good thing they are only mercenaries, I don't think it will have worked on a Chuunin' He thought as he ran in the camp, destroying the tents and its inhabitants left and right.

He could see his clones doing a good job too as they destroyed the tents in their path. Before long, he reached the main one at about the same time his clones arrived. Behind every Naruto was only chaos. Tents were on fire; mercenaries were on the ground either unconscious or moaning in pain.

As the original was about to do the same to the main tent, a voice coming from it yelled.

"Stop right where you are or I am going to kill all the hostages!"

Naruto froze as he heard that. To prove his point, the tent curtain was pushed to the side to give way to a gruesome sight. Beyond the curtains were several women completely naked. They were confined in a cage like vulgar cattle. Even from his position, he could smell the horrible odour coming from it. It reeked of sex. That much Naruto knew. Travelling with Jiraiya for so long, he had grown accustomed to the smell. But it wasn't the realization that the women were sex slave that shocked him almost to his breaking point. It was the eyes of the victims that shook him.

They looked so dead, like they gave up the idea of ever being rescued. Simply put, these women were broken beyond repairs.

"Now put your weapons away, nice and slow." A disgustingly gruff voice pulled Naruto out of his musing and he gazed at its owner. The man was plain looking, wearing a simple kimono with a belt holding the fabric closed. He could see the attack took the man by surprise.

Naruto's eyes widened though when a saw a young girl sprawled behind the man. The girl seemed to be around his age and considering she was out of the cage unlike the other captives, he guessed correctly that the man in front of him had been "using" her moment ago.

The man seeing Naruto's gaze on the girl behind him grinned. "As I am sure you have realized, these girls are mine. Now why the fuck did you attack my camp!" He scowled at Naruto who seemed stuck in his own world.

"Why...?" Naruto murmured.

"That is rich! You come to my camp, slaughter my men and have the gale to ask me why?"

Naruto ignored him as he repeated his question. "Why...? How could you do that to them?"

The disbelief in his voice was clear as water. He couldn't believe it. He couldn't wrap his mind to the reality he was presented with. The mercenaries' leader obviously couldn't see he was walking on a thin line, and further dug his grave.

"Why? Because I can, boy. If I learned one thing in my live, it is that power means everything down here. If you have power, you control everything." The man laughed insanely as he gave his explanation. Despite having lost his men, he felt confident in his survival as long as he had his hostages. He guessed correctly that the blond standing in front of him would do anything to save the hostages and he counted on it to save his life.

Unfortunately, his response triggered something that was deeply repressed in Naruto's psyche: acceptance. Ever since he was a kid, he had always thought that he could save everyone if he tried hard enough. The incident with Haku didn't count as, in his mind, the boy chose to sacrifice his live for his master Zabuza. But now looking at the broken women in front of him, he wondered if there was even something left to save.

The realization that saving them was beyond him was devastating. His mind desperately tried to find something that he could do to appease the women before him. In his search, his gaze lingered on the man that was responsible for this.

On that day, a being was born. A being that would avenge those that couldn't defend themselves, a being that would stop at nothing to eradicate the guilty. In time the being would be given a nickname that would send chill up the spines of the wicked souls.

Naruto looked at the man with nothing but unaltered hatred as he pointed his index at the man's forehead. Before the man could utter a word Naruto muttered with a voice so cold it would have frozen a lake.

"Hado 4: Byakurai."

Once the attack was announced, a concentrated and powerful bolt of lightning was fired from the pointed finger. Too fast for the man to follow, the bolt pierced his head and kept going an hundred meters behind him, never stopping and piercing anything in its path. The man never even registered his death as he collapsed on the ground.

His job done, Naruto absentmindedly rescued the hostages before escorting them to the closest village. Knowing that the villagers would at least take care of the abused women, he went back to the town he left his sensei.

No one ever knew it but on that day the being nicknamed Shinigami was born.

Author's Note:

I hope for a first chapter, it was to your liking. As you certainly noticed, I made it so Naruto would have a profound change that will give birth to the being nicknamed Shinigami. This part of the story was inspired by a character in the manga Kekkaishi for those that want to know.

Now if you liked this chapter, review please. It will increase my motivation to write the next chapter sooner and I will be able to answer your questions. For those that await an update for my other stories, fear not, it will come soon.

To be continued...