Three years had passed.
Inside the Konoha Orphanage, Nonō Yakushi was busy distributing food to the children. A few older kids helped her, including a young boy with glasses named Kabuto.
"Menma, here is your dinner. No picking favorites, alright?" Nonō said gently.
"Okay," Menma replied.
The three-year-old boy, dressed in ill-fitting clothes, took the tray with a blank expression.
"You child! You should say 'thank you.' Where are your manners?" Nonō chided him. Her tone was firm, yet her eyes remained soft.
"Thank you, Matron," Menma sighed, giving a small bow.
Even though her care could be nagging at times, it warmed his heart. To him, she was the foster mother providing his only shelter.
Kabuto, who was helping nearby, flashed a smile.
"Go on and eat, Menma."
Three years had gone by, but Uzumaki Menma still felt out of place in this world after leaving the "Limited Tsukuyomi." A lingering dread tormented him—the constant fear that this world, too, might be a lie.
He stared at the young Kabuto, who was currently being so kind to the other orphans. It was a world apart from the cold, calculating spy he remembered.
'I spent fifteen years in that fake world... my memories have faded,' Menma thought.
'When exactly does Danzo take Kabuto? When does Nonō die?'
To Menma, those fifteen years didn't feel like a dream; they felt like a lifetime of lived experience. It had left him edge, his mind constantly questioning his surroundings.
Across from him, Kabuto felt a slight chill under Menma's gaze. He wondered what his usually silent younger brother was thinking.
Compared to the other orphans, Menma was unnervingly quiet. He hadn't cried as a baby, and while others were still wetting their beds, he was already helping around the house.
He was a loner, always watching everyone with those strange, distant eyes.
As Menma sat down at a random table, the other children instinctively shuffled away. It wasn't that they hated him; they just felt uneasy in his presence. He had rejected so many invitations to play that eventually, they simply stopped asking.
Menma was used to the solitude. In the Limited Tsukuyomi, his instinctual rejection of that world had created a rift between him and his "parents" and peers.
But now, he had a more pressing concern.
He knew that Nonō and Kabuto would soon be manipulated by the Root organization.
Danzo might even come to the orphanage to recruit children for his brutal experiments.
'I need to get stronger—and fast.'
'There is no way I'm letting that "Godfather of Darkness" drag me into the Root.'
"Menma."
A soft voice interrupted his thoughts.
Without looking, Menma knew it was Kabuto.
Kabuto sat beside him, acting every bit the protective older brother. He picked up a piece of meat from his own tray and placed it onto Menma's.
"Hmm?" Menma turned, surprised.
"I noticed you always finish your plate. You're growing fast, so you must be hungry," Kabuto said, mimicking the Matron's gentle tone. "Here, take some of mine."
Looking at the extra food, Menma felt a wave of unreality.
In his past life's memories, Kabuto was a master of disguise—cold, treacherous, and sinister.
In the "Limited Tsukuyomi," Kabuto hadn't even existed.
If that fake world was truly a parallel dimension, Kabuto should have been there.
But there was another theory: the Limited Tsukuyomi was constructed only from the knowledge of the caster and the victim. It couldn't create what they didn't know.
This was exactly what had caused Menma's mental breakdown.
The warmth of Minato and Kushina, the reversed personalities of the Konoha 11... every sense told him that world was real.
Yet, the absence of Madara and the Sage of the Six Paths meant that world had no past and no future.
He couldn't tell the difference. He really couldn't!
"Why are you being so nice to me?" Menma asked, his voice trembling slightly.
He was terrified. What if this world was just another layer of the illusion?
The "Kabuto" he knew was a villain.
The "Kabuto" before him was a brother worried about his growth.
"Because we're family," Kabuto replied, looking confused by the question. "Helping each other is just what we do."
To Kabuto, the orphanage was his home, and everyone in it was a relative. That was the ideology the Matron had always taught them.
"If I'm ever in trouble, I'm sure you'd help me too, right?" Kabuto added with a squinty-eyed smile.
'Trouble...' Menma thought of their tragic fates.
In this world, he had no biological family left. He had been discarded here by a man in a mask.
Nonō and these children were the only family he had now.
For three years, no one had come looking for him. It seemed the Third Hokage had no idea Kushina had given birth to twins.
He had tried to stay isolated to avoid causing a "butterfly effect" on the original timeline.
But under Kabuto's simple act of kindness, his resolve wavered.
'Fine. Even if this is just a second fake world, so be it.'
Menma looked up, his eyes serious.
"I will help you. I'll solve whatever trouble comes your way."
Uzumaki Menma wasn't sure about the state of the outside world yet.
But for the Matron's kindness and this single meal from Kabuto, he didn't mind changing their future.
Kabuto was taken aback by Menma's intense sincerity, but he quickly laughed it off.
"Matron, Lord Danzo is looking for you."
A woman from the staff suddenly approached Nonō.
The moment she heard that name, the gentle smile vanished from Nonō's face. Her expression turned pale.
"I see. Watch the children. Make sure they go to bed early after dinner," Nonō instructed before turning to leave the hall.
Most of the children noticed nothing. Only Kabuto and Menma sensed the shift in the air.
Kabuto put down his tray and quietly slipped out to follow her.
Menma watched Kabuto's small silhouette disappear. He picked up the meat with his chopsticks and began to eat ravenously.
He was growing, and the energy required to refine chakra was immense.
Lately, he felt as if something was draining the chakra he worked so hard to produce.
It was the reason his progress had been so slow.
Menma had a hidden suspicion.
It seemed he might have brought something back with him from the "Limited Tsukuyomi."