Menma knew it.
Fighting against enemies who likely knew everything about him—who were stronger, better armed, and more experienced—armed with only a kunai and his fists, was madness.
So he didn't hesitate.
The very moment his senses flared, warning him that the swordswoman—Julian—was preparing to strike, he slammed open the first two gates.
Gate of Opening. Gate of Healing.
Chakra exploded through his body like a river breaching a dam. Heat surged through his cells, and in seconds, his temperature climbed high enough to boil water. But it wasn't pain—it was liberation. His body had been ready, rested, coiled like a spring. Now it was flying.
He felt his muscles breathe, his blood sing.
Guy-sensei had told him once: when you unlock your body's limits, you don't break chains—you fly past them.
Right now, Menma wasn't chained.
He was free.
Part of him wanted to run, leap through mountains, scream joy into the wind.
But this wasn't the time.
Focus.
He locked his vision on Julian, reading her stance. Her twin swords were long, thin, and viciously sharp—worse still, they crackled with lightning chakra. One wrong move, and she could slice his kunai in two. Or his throat.
His brain accelerated.
She was mid-charge. Her arms raised in an X-shaped formation. Likely going for a crossing slash. He remembered a lesson from Phantom: When facing long weapons—especially twin blades—close the distance. Fast.
So, while everyone's eyes were still reading the scene, Menma made his move.
He threw his kunai.
Directly at her face.
And followed behind it like a bullet.
Julian instinctively blocked the kunai with one of her swords—her hand jarring from the unexpected force. She staggered slightly, her speed dipping.
That was enough.
Menma launched a flying kick, slamming into the flat of her sword and knocking her completely off balance.
She reeled back—off her line of attack.
In midair, Menma spun, caught the kunai, and dipped low just in time to duck under a sweeping blade aimed at his neck.
Too slow.
He dashed backward, avoiding another downward slash from Julian's second sword. A sharp whistle from behind warned him of danger—
Shinudarou.
A lunge.
A sword aimed right for his spine.
Menma vaulted into a backflip, flipping right over Shinudarou's head, and flicked the older man's forehead with a single finger as he passed.
Perfectly connected movements. Seamless. A deadly, fluid dance.
But it wasn't over.
Landing light as air, he slid to the side and snapped a kick toward Julian—just as she was recovering and charging in again. She blocked, barely, and was pushed back a second time.
He spun the kunai, deflected a downward slash from another attacker, and elbowed Shinudarou in the side, sending the older man staggering.
Then he escaped the trap.
He didn't wait.
Menma dashed forward. His senses caught movement in the distance—chakra flaring, ninjutsu forming.
Something bad was coming.
Simon, the sealing specialist—and the fastest of them—reacted first.
He performed a low-rank teleportation jutsu, blinked into Menma's path, and stabbed forward with a blade aimed dead center.
Menma didn't freeze.
His chakra sensors had already caught the flicker before Simon even appeared.
He twisted.
Jumped.
Spun.
The blade grazed the kunai, diverted just enough to miss—but it still caught the edge of Menma's shirt.
The one Yoruusagi had gifted him.
A shallow cut.
But even that stung more than the blade.
Menma's feet hit the ground, and he moved to push past—but Julian had already arrived again. Relentless. No time. No room.
Too close to dodge forward.
So he made the only call that worked.
He back dashed—pressing his back against Simon as the other ninja turned in confusion. And in one seamless, dancer's spin, Menma switched places with Simon, then pushed him forward into Julian's path.
A clash behind him.
Menma didn't turn to look.
He bolted straight into the path of Shinudarou and Jacob—coming from above and below. A pincer attack.
But by then, he was smiling.
With a flick of his fingers, he dropped a smoke bomb—lifted from Simon's pouch along with the entire pouch mid-spin.
A trick he'd learned from Raven.
The area exploded into smoke.
Chaos.
And in that blind moment, Menma leapt upward, vertical and clean.
Straight through the narrow space between their blades.
The two men missed—swords cleaving empty air.
Shinudarou and Jacob scrambled, bursting out of the smoke—but they were too slow.
Two shuriken flew at them.
They moved to intercept.
But then—
Clink!
Two kunai slammed into the airborne shuriken midflight, changing their angle.
One kunai and shuriken curved toward the men again.
But the other pair?
They veered sharply—
—toward Simon.
Simon had just barely survived Julian's redirected strike. He was still recovering.
The shuriken whistled in the air—he saw them too late.
He dodged one.
The other—
Tear!
Puff!
A flash of blood sprayed in the smoke.
The sound of a blade tearing flesh snapped across the field like a drumbeat.
Everyone froze for just a moment.
Even the wind held its breath.
Up in the sky, perched silently among the shadows, Obito narrowed his eye.
His gaze pierced the smoke, watching the madness unfold with a glint of something between awe and pride.
This boy.
This monster.
Less than half a year of formal taijutsu training—and yet he had performed better than most shinobi would in their lifetimes.
The child of Minato and Kushina...
But more than that.
He was something new.
Something terrifying.
Forget Kakashi. Forget Minato. Forget Itachi Uchiha.
Menma—was the genius.
A red devil rising from the dirt.
And even the heavens might tremble.
---
Inside the smoke, Menma moved with eerie calm. His breathing was steady, precise. He strapped the stolen pouch across his back, tightening the knots with mechanical ease. The storm inside him—his chakra, his muscles, his instincts—screamed for more. More motion. More speed. More destruction.
He could fight for a week like this if needed.
But the true threat wasn't the ones swinging blades—it was the four stationed around the battlefield, still untouched. He didn't know what they were doing. That was the problem.
"They're casting illusions—trying to confuse you mid-motion!"
Kurama's deep voice echoed from within the seal, his tone half-serious, half-entertained. Watching this battle was more engaging than the legendary clash between Hashirama and Madara.
Beside him, Minato—still hidden from Menma's notice—stared in astonishment at the display unfolding before him. This... is the baby I held only two years ago? The thought made his heart tremble. He and Kushina had created something even the sages might have called impossible.
"Illusions? But… I'm immune to genjutsu, aren't I?"
Menma asked, his voice skeptical as he adjusted his stance, scanning the field through the thick veil of smoke. "Are you sure, Teacher Fox?"
It didn't make sense. The enemy hadn't changed their behavior at all—they should have known illusions wouldn't work on him. And yet, here they were, weaving chakra like he was just another target.
Kurama's eye twitched.
"Tch. Idiot brat…" he muttered.
They don't know what's inside you. No one expects you to have three beings in one body. Not to mention that monster lurking in the back of your head who'd happily flatten the entire planet if unsealed.
Even the Sharingan would struggle to keep Menma under a simple genjutsu, let alone an average illusion. Someone needed to hammer a little more self-awareness into that reckless skull.
But there was no time for lectures.
Water and lightning crashed into the smoke a heartbeat later, shredding the battlefield.
Menma moved.
He burst out of the fog like a bullet from a loaded cannon—faster than lightning, blazing with momentum.
He tore through the veil of smoke and chakra like a missile, eyes locked forward.
Shinudarou and the others were caught a beat too slow, their vision scattered by their own jutsu. But not everyone had been obstructed.
From across the battlefield, Julian saw him.
She had been fooled twice. Humiliated. Almost skewered her own teammate.
Not again.
With a roar, she activated her Lightning Armor—an aura of crackling power enveloping her as she blurred into motion. She tore across the battlefield, thunder exploding under her feet, dirt flung in her wake as she chased him down.
Menma skidded to a halt.
He felt it.
The pressure behind him.
He readied himself—but the illusion ninjas struck first.
They activated the illusion.
The chakra pattern took hold mid-motion.
Just as Menma raised his hand to throw shuriken and kunai, his body froze for a fraction of a second.
His thoughts screamed: Too late.
Julian, laughing, slashed downward—aiming to sever both his arms.
But once again, just when victory was within her grasp—
He moved.
And not defensively.
He launched himself straight into her.
To her shock—he hugged her.
The impact knocked the wind from her, her blades locking at her sides. His face was buried against her armored chest.
She smirked.
"Gotcha."
Let the thunder chakra burn him from the inside out. Let it fry his nerves and slow his reflexes. Let him collapse, twitching and broken.
But then—
She looked down.
And what looked back at her was a smiling, unburned face.
Bright eyes. A smug, wicked grin.
"This time, I got you."
Tear. Puff. Splash.
Julian's eyes went wide.
Menma leapt back, landing clean, both of Julian's spare short swords now in his hands—both blades coated in blood.
She stood still.
Lightning flickered across her body in uneven pulses, the chakra armor failing to hold shape. She tried to breathe, but the pain in her back stole it from her like a thief in the dark.
Then she felt it.
Warm.
Wet.
Flowing down the back of her legs, soaking into the inside of her boots.
Her mind didn't register it as her own blood—not immediately. But as the numbness spread, and the crackling veil of her armor faded completely, her knees trembled.
Then buckled.
Her blades dropped from her hands with a dull, pathetic clang. She collapsed to her knees, her fingers pressing weakly into the mud as her head spun with disbelief.
She looked up, just in time to see Menma—his back turned, blades stolen from her own hands—rushing toward another target.
He didn't even glance back.
She stared at his retreating form, unable to move, unable to understand.
How?
How did I lose? To a child… just two years old…?
Blood spilled freely now, forming small rivers down her sides, soaking into the earth like rain. Her vision blurred.
Then, through the haze, came a memory.
A laugh. A small hand gripping her finger. The faint scent of lavender.
Her daughter's smile.
Julian blinked slowly, the image so vivid it broke through the pain.
She would never see that smile again.
Never help her put on that bright blue dress she loved.
Never walk her to the academy.
Never watch her grow, fall in love, marry.
Her mission had taken her from that future.
And now—this boy had ended it.
But there was no hate in her final thoughts.
No vengeance.
No rage.
Just... sadness.
A deep, unshakable ache in her heart.
Not for herself—but for the little girl she had left behind.
Her lips parted in a whisper, voice trembling as the light in her eyes dimmed.
"Please... grow up... big and healthy... full of love..."
Her body tilted sideways and slumped into the mud.
Lightning cracked once more overhead—silent now—mirroring the fall of a warrior, a mother, and a woman who had once been called unstoppable.
And then she was gone.
just like that. The elite jonin of the Hidden Cloud, one of the key players in the operation to capture the Jinchūriki, fell.
Forever.
---
By the time Simon, bleeding from his shoulder, caught up to the others, Menma was already standing over a second fallen ninja.
He bit one of Julian's swords, held the other in his right hand, and was calmly tying the newest pouch he'd collected across his back.
Shinudarou watched him, stunned.
This can't be real...
A two-year-old Jinchūriki.
Outnumbered.
Trapped.
Surrounded by four seasoned sword-users and an elite illusion team.
And yet—he had killed two.
Wounded another.
Crippled thirty percent of their force single-handedly.
No. He wasn't a boy.
He was a monster.
And now, under the glow of the half-moon, that blood-red eye of his glowed like the lantern of a demon. A name echoed in Shinudarou's mind, whispering with fear and awe.
A name that defied fate itself.
Menma Uzumaki.
The last heir of a shattered clan.
The boy who broke the prophecy.
The Red Devil.
The prince of vengeance.
The one who threatens the world with every breath he takes.
Shinudarou inhaled sharply, trying to calm the shake in his hands. Then he raised one hand and formed a seal.
"Change of plans," he growled. "Activate Plan B. Kill the Jinchūriki. Prepare for Plan C if we fail."
No one argued.
Julian was dead.
Simon was barely standing.
And Team Two—wasn't coming.
They were the sacrificial pieces.
Bait.
Tools in someone else's hand.
Even so... he'd do it.
Gladly.
He would finish what he came to do—even if Konoha had set them up.
Menma, standing just a few meters away, finished tying the second sword to his back. Two pouches. Two blades. Two kills.
He gripped two smoke bombs in one hand.
He was ready for another wave.
This was a cage fight—and he was ready to break out.
He didn't believe anyone would risk a full-scale bloodbath inside the village. The Kage wouldn't allow it. The elders wouldn't survive the politics. No one wanted open war between the shinobi elites.
So let them come.
He would cut them all down.
---