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"Hey! Kabuto, you jerk!"
"Are you going to abandon these years we spent together?!"
Late at night, at the entrance of the orphanage, over twenty orphans along with the Director, Nonō Yakushi, watched as Kabuto walked toward several men dressed in black.
The one who had just shouted was the orphan Urushi. He was a few years older than Kabuto and possessed a talent for medicine; he had previously accompanied the Director to the front lines to treat Konoha ninja. It was during the Battle of Kikyo Pass that Nonō Yakushi rescued an orphan and named him Kabuto. Once Kabuto displayed his talent as a medical ninja, he also accompanied Urushi as the Director's assistant to the front lines for field treatment. Consequently, Urushi and Kabuto shared a very close bond.
Menma Uzumaki stood at the back of the crowd, watching the shouting Urushi and the departing Kabuto. Memories began to surface; he vaguely recalled that after the Fourth Shinobi World War ended, when Kabuto Yakushi returned to the Konoha Orphanage to serve as the Director, the person by his side was this very Urushi.
"Kabuto, why?" Nonō Yakushi clasped her hands together in a prayer-like gesture. She couldn't understand Kabuto's voluntary departure, and her eyes were filled with worry. She knew all too well how filthy the Root organization was; she didn't want any of her children taken by Danzo.
"I just want to be a ninja, that's all." Kabuto Yakushi hid his true emotions and thoughts. As he walked toward Danzo and Orochimaru, he turned slightly to take one last look at his family at the orphanage.
Just as Kabuto wanted to say something else, he suddenly saw the smallest figure push through the crowd and step to the front.
"Kabuto, remember our promise!" Menma Uzumaki shouted at him.
"Menma?" Kabuto was somewhat surprised. He then gave a bitter smile and shook his head. "Has everyone forgotten the rules of the orphanage? It's time to sleep."
With that, Kabuto turned and walked to Danzo's side.
Orochimaru, dressed in black robes, squinted his eyes as he scrutinized the children of the orphanage, flicking his tongue to sense the chakra in the air. However, besides Nonō Yakushi and the first boy who had shouted, he couldn't sense the scent of chakra on anyone else—including the child who had just mentioned a promise to Kabuto.
This left Orochimaru somewhat disappointed. It seemed that aside from Kabuto, none of these orphans possessed any talent for being a ninja.
Danzo looked at Kabuto and nodded with satisfaction, then departed with Orochimaru and Ryōma Aburame. Kabuto Yakushi vanished into the night following the three of them.
The other two caretakers began to lead the children back. The Director, Nonō Yakushi, stood where she was, staring in the direction Kabuto had left, hands held to her chest as she prayed for him.
"Director." Menma walked up behind Nonō and gave the sleeve of his gentle foster mother a small tug.
"Menma, go to sleep quickly." Nonō Yakushi looked down, trying her best to hide her sadness and pain as she spoke gently to him. Compared to the other children who called her "Mother," this precocious child was a bit of a headache for her. Not only did he remain distant from the other orphans, but he also never called her "Mother," referring to her only as "Director."
"I will bring Kabuto back," Menma said, his small face filled with seriousness.
Nonō Yakushi simply assumed Menma couldn't accept the loss of a family member. She felt gratified; it seemed Menma wasn't as withdrawn as he appeared and actually had a close friend.
"It's alright, Kabuto will come back." Nonō knelt down and affectionately stroked Menma's black hair. She felt a bit puzzled—she remembered that when they first found this child, he seemed to have blonde hair. How did it turn black as he grew up?
---
Late at night, while all the other children were fast asleep.
Menma Uzumaki lay in bed with his eyes closed, listening to the breathing of the children around him while continuously refining chakra within his body. However, he felt as if there were a bottomless vortex near his stomach, greedily devouring the chakra in his body. Even with his physical constitution as an Uzumaki, the refined chakra couldn't fill this vortex.
Drip—
The sound of a water droplet echoed, and Menma Uzumaki snapped his eyes open.
What appeared before him was not the ceiling of the orphanage, and the bed and snoring children were gone. Instead, he was in a dark, damp environment where the air was thick with moisture and a restless aura.
Menma stepped barefoot into the shallow water and looked up at a massive iron gate held by a seal. Behind the gate, a dark red figure with nine tails gradually approached.
"Nine-Tails, long time no see." Menma called out the name softly, as if greeting an old acquaintance.
As it drew closer, Menma saw clearly that the being imprisoned behind the bars was a tiny Nine-Tails, roughly the same height as himself.
"Menma! Where on earth is this place!" The tiny Nine-Tails extended two paws, gripping the iron bars.
The dark red fox fur looked ready to bristle, yet the voice of the tiny Nine-Tails was vastly different from Kurama's coarse tone; it had a feminine warmth and a soft manner of speaking.
"Tsk tsk, it really is you, Nine-Tails." Menma rubbed his forehead, looking at the tiny dark red fox before him as his mind began to reel.
Is that world actually a real parallel universe? But if it were a real world, why was I, who was born there, rejected from it?
Menma felt confused again. But at the very least, one thing was certain: the Dark Nine-Tails appearing before him was something he had brought back from the "Limited Tsukuyomi World," and she was a girl. She was the polar opposite of Kurama's tsundere, shut-in personality. In the Limited Tsukuyomi world, the Dark Nine-Tails was not only gentle but also shared an extremely close bond with Menma.
"Menma! It's so dark here, hurry up and let me out!" The tiny Nine-Tails batted at the iron gate.
"If people outside saw your Nine-Tails form, it would bring me a lot of trouble." Menma looked up at the seal on the gate, though he was only speaking of trouble in passing. He and the Dark Nine-Tails were close partners in the Infinite Tsukuyomi world. In the final battle, Menma had controlled the Nine-Tails to face the Eighty Thousand Shinobi Allied Forces, performing a version of Madara Uchiha's "Do you also wish to dance?".
"You always have such strange quirks." The tiny Nine-Tails grumbled, but her paws began to weave signs.
"Transformation Jutsu!"
After a puff of smoke, the tiny Nine-Tails inside the gate transformed into a little fox girl. She stood barefoot in a kimono with a fiery red pattern; two fox ears twitched atop her long, dark red hair, and nine fox tails drifted in the air.
"My chakra is so low, I can only manage this transformation. It'll take at least three to five years to fully recover," the tiny Nine-Tails said to Menma, looking down at her transformed self with some dissatisfaction. "But I won't need to devour your chakra anymore. I can recover slowly and even provide chakra to you."
Looking at the little fox girl who was eager to provide him with chakra, Menma gave her a thumbs-up. He was already secretly imagining the shocked reactions of Naruto and Kurama when they encountered the Dark Nine-Tails ten years from now.
(End of Chapter)