Chapter 2
I Can’t Tell! I Really Can’t Tell!
Three years later.
At the Konoha Orphanage.
“Menma, this is your dinner for tonight. No picky eating, okay?” Yakushi Nono was handing out food to the children one by one. Several older children were helping beside her, including the bespectacled Yakushi Kabuto.
“Okay.”
Three-year-old Menma, dressed in clothes that didn’t fit him very well, accepted the tray expressionlessly.
“You child, remember to say thank you. You need to be polite!” Nono scolded him gently, though her voice remained warm.
“Thank you, Director.”
Menma sighed and gave Nono a small bow.
After all, she was his foster mother who provided him food and shelter. Though her care could be a bit nagging, it still warmed his heart.
Kabuto, who was helping nearby, smiled and said,
“Hurry and eat, Menma.”
Three years had passed, yet Uzumaki Menma still hadn’t fully adapted after coming out of the Infinite Tsukuyomi world. He was constantly afraid that this world might be fake too.
That lingering trauma continued to torment him.
Looking at Kabuto, who treated all the younger children in the orphanage with such kindness, Menma always felt he was completely different from the spy Kabuto in his memories.
I spent fifteen years in that Infinite Tsukuyomi world, and I’ve forgotten a lot of things. When exactly was Kabuto taken away by Danzo? When did Nono die?
To Menma, those fifteen years didn’t feel like a dream. They felt like fifteen real years of life.
The experience had left him somewhat paranoid.
Meanwhile, Kabuto felt uneasy under Menma’s stare. He had no idea what this usually quiet younger brother was thinking about.
Compared to the other orphans, Menma had always been unusually quiet. Even as a baby, he rarely cried. While other children were still wetting their beds, Menma was already helping take care of younger kids.
The only issue was his withdrawn personality.
He always looked at everyone with a strange gaze.
Carrying his tray, Menma casually found an empty table and sat down.
The other children nearby immediately shifted away a little.
It wasn’t that they were excluding him.
Being around Menma simply made them uncomfortable.
In the past, some children had tried to play with him, but he always refused. After enough rejections, nobody bothered inviting him anymore.
Menma had long since become accustomed to loneliness.
Even in the Infinite Tsukuyomi world, his instincts had caused him to keep his distance from his peers—and even from his parents.
Besides, he knew that Nono and Kabuto would soon be taken away by Root.
Danzo might even select some children from the orphanage to join Root, where they would undergo brutal training and perhaps even human experimentation.
So he needed to grow stronger as quickly as possible.
He had no intention of being chosen by that “Pot Shadow” Danzo.
“Menma.”
While he was lost in thought, a voice called out beside him.
Without turning around, Menma already knew it was Kabuto.
Carrying a tray, Kabuto sat beside him as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Acting like an older brother, he picked up a piece of meat from his own tray and placed it onto Menma’s.
“Hm?”
Menma looked over in surprise.
“I noticed you always finish all your food. Are you growing and getting hungry faster? Here, take some of mine.”
Wearing his glasses, Kabuto spoke gently, imitating Nono’s usual tone and manner.
Then he transferred half of his meat to Menma’s tray.
Looking at the extra pieces of meat, Menma felt strangely unreal.
In his previous life, when he watched Naruto, Kabuto had already become the cold, cunning, manipulative spy known for his deception.
Yet in the Infinite Tsukuyomi world, Menma had never found any trace of Kabuto or even heard Nono’s name.
If the Infinite Tsukuyomi world was truly a parallel world, as many fans in his previous life had theorized, they should have existed there too.
But there was another possibility.
Perhaps the Infinite Tsukuyomi world was created from the knowledge and perceptions of the caster and the victim.
If so, things beyond their awareness simply wouldn’t exist there.
That was precisely why Menma had nearly gone insane in that world.
He knew it was fake.
The warm family life with Kushina and Minato.
The reversed personalities of the Konoha Twelve.
Every one of his senses told him that world was real.
Yet there was no Madara Uchiha.
No Sage of Six Paths.
Which meant that world had no past and no future.
Menma couldn’t tell.
He really couldn’t tell.
“Why are you being so nice to me?”
Menma lowered his head, his voice trembling slightly.
He was terrified that this world was fake too.
In his memories, Kabuto was supposed to be a cold, scheming enemy skilled at deception.
Yet now he was acting like a caring older brother, concerned about Menma’s growth.
“We’re brothers, aren’t we? Isn’t helping each other normal?”
Kabuto’s childish voice was filled with confusion.
To him, everyone in the orphanage was family.
Helping one another was a value Director Nono had always taught them.
“If I had problems, you’d help me too, right?”
Kabuto squinted and smiled at Menma.
Influenced by Nono, Kabuto genuinely cared about every child in the orphanage.
Because this place was his home.
“A problem…”
Menma thought about the future that awaited Nono and Kabuto.
In this world, he had lost his family.
Obito had abandoned him at the orphanage.
Nono and the children here were now the closest thing he had to family.
For three years, nobody had come to investigate the extra orphan left behind after the Nine-Tails incident.
That suggested the Third Hokage probably didn’t even know Kushina had given birth to twins.
The reason Menma had remained distant all this time was because he didn’t want to alter the original storyline.
He was constantly afraid of causing a butterfly effect.
But Kabuto’s simple act of kindness finally loosened that mindset.
At worst, I’ll just treat this as another fake world.
Menma relaxed and looked seriously at Kabuto.
“I’ll help solve whatever problems you face.”
For the past three years, he had remained inside the orphanage and still didn’t know much about the outside world.
But for the kindness Nono had shown him all these years—and for this meal Kabuto shared—
Menma didn’t mind changing their futures.
Kabuto seemed caught off guard by Menma’s seriousness, but soon smiled again.
“Director, Lord Danzo is looking for you.”
A woman from the orphanage suddenly approached Nono, who had been watching the children eat.
The moment she heard that name, the warm smile on Nono’s face disappeared.
“Understood.”
After giving a few instructions, she continued,
“Watch the children. After dinner, make sure they go to sleep early.”
Then she turned and left the dining hall.
The dozens of children eating their meals noticed nothing unusual.
Only Kabuto and Menma sensed something was wrong.
Kabuto put down his tray and quietly followed after her.
Watching Kabuto’s small figure leave the dining hall, Menma picked up the pieces of meat and stuffed them into his mouth.
He was still growing.
To refine more chakra, he needed a huge amount of energy.
But for some reason, all his efforts over the years had produced little result.
It felt as though something was constantly draining away the chakra he refined.
Menma had a vague suspicion.
It seemed…
He had brought something back with him from the Infinite Tsukuyomi world.
