Chapter 3
The Little Nine-Tails
“Hey! Kabuto, you jerk!”
“Are you really going to abandon the people you’ve spent these years with?!”
Late at night, at the entrance of the orphanage, more than twenty orphans and the director, Nono Yakushi, watched as Kabuto walked toward several men dressed in black on the opposite side.
The one who shouted first was an orphan named Aqi. He was a few years older than Kabuto and possessed some talent in medical ninjutsu. He had accompanied the director to the front lines to treat Konoha’s injured ninja.
It was also during the Battle of Kikyo Mountain that Nono Yakushi had rescued an orphan and given him the name Kabuto.
After Kabuto displayed remarkable talent as a medical ninja, he accompanied Aqi and served as the director’s assistant, helping treat wounded ninja on the battlefield.
Because of this, Aqi and Kabuto had become very close.
Uzumaki Menma stood at the back of the crowd, watching Aqi shout and Kabuto leave.
Memories began surfacing in his mind.
He vaguely remembered that after the Fourth Great Ninja War ended, when Kabuto returned to the Konoha Orphanage as its director, the person standing beside him was this very Aqi.
“Kabuto, why?” Nono Yakushi clasped her hands together in prayer. She couldn’t understand why Kabuto had chosen to leave, and her eyes were filled with worry.
She knew better than anyone how filthy the Root organization was.
She didn’t want any of her children to be taken away by Danzo.
“I just want to become a ninja.”
Kabuto concealed his true thoughts and emotions.
When he reached Danzo and Orochimaru, he slightly turned around and gave one final look at his family from the orphanage.
Just as he seemed about to say something, he suddenly noticed a small figure squeezing through the crowd and stepping forward.
“Kabuto, remember our promise!” Menma shouted.
“Menma?”
Kabuto looked surprised.
Then he shook his head with a bitter smile.
“Did everyone forget the orphanage rules? It’s bedtime.”
After saying that, he turned and walked to Danzo’s side.
Dressed in a black robe, Orochimaru narrowed his eyes as he examined the children of the orphanage. His tongue flicked out as he sensed the chakra in the air.
Yet aside from Nono Yakushi and the boy who had shouted first, he could not detect chakra from any of the others.
Including the child who had just spoken about some promise with Kabuto.
Orochimaru felt disappointed.
It seemed that besides Kabuto, none of these orphans possessed any ninja talent.
Danzo looked at Kabuto and nodded in satisfaction.
Then he departed with Orochimaru and Ryoma Aburame.
Kabuto followed the three of them and gradually disappeared into the night.
The orphanage’s two caretakers began leading the children back inside.
Nono Yakushi remained standing where she was, staring in the direction Kabuto had gone, her hands pressed against her chest as she silently prayed for him.
“Director.”
Menma walked behind her and tugged gently on her sleeve with his small hand.
“Menma, go to bed.”
Nono lowered her head, trying her best to hide her sadness and pain as she spoke gently to him.
Unlike the other children, who all called her Mother, the unusually mature Menma often gave her headaches.
Not only because he didn’t fit in with the other orphans, but because he never called her Mother.
He always addressed her as Director.
“I’ll bring Kabuto back.”
Menma’s little face was filled with determination.
Nono simply assumed he couldn’t accept losing a family member.
In fact, she felt somewhat comforted.
It seemed Menma wasn’t as isolated as he appeared and actually had a close friend.
“It’s alright. Kabuto will come back.”
Nono crouched down and gently stroked Menma’s black hair.
Then she became slightly puzzled.
When she had first found him, she remembered his hair being blond.
How had it gradually turned black as he grew up?
Late at night.
After all the children had fallen asleep, Menma lay in bed with his eyes closed.
Listening to the breathing of the sleeping children around him, he continuously refined chakra inside his body.
Yet he felt as if there were a bottomless whirlpool around his stomach, greedily devouring all the chakra he produced.
Even with the vitality of an Uzumaki body, the chakra he refined was nowhere near enough to fill that vortex.
Drip.
The sound of a water droplet echoed.
Menma suddenly opened his eyes.
The orphanage ceiling was gone.
His bed and the sleeping children around him had disappeared as well.
Instead, he found himself in a dim and damp environment.
Moisture filled the air, along with an atmosphere of restlessness and unease.
Barefoot, Menma stood in shallow water and looked up at a massive iron gate covered with sealing formulas.
Behind the gate, a dark-red figure with nine tails slowly approached.
“Nine-Tails. Long time no see.”
Menma softly called out, as if greeting an old friend.
Only when the figure came closer did he see clearly.
Locked behind the gate was not the gigantic Nine-Tails.
It was a tiny little Nine-Tails about the same height as himself.
“Menma! Where is this place?!”
The little Nine-Tails grabbed two iron bars with her paws.
Her dark-red fur puffed up as if she were about to explode.
Yet her voice was completely different from Kurama’s rough tone.
There was a feminine warmth to it, and her voice sounded gentle.
“Heh. It really is you, Nine-Tails.”
Holding his forehead, Menma stared at the little dark-red fox.
His mind trembled.
Could that world really have been a parallel universe?
But if it was a real world, why was I rejected and expelled from it after being born there?
Menma was becoming unable to tell anymore.
But at least one thing was certain.
The Dark Nine-Tails standing before him had indeed been brought out from the “Limited Tsukuyomi World.”
And she was a girl.
Completely different from Kurama’s tsundere and shut-in personality.
The Dark Nine-Tails from the Limited Tsukuyomi World had a gentle personality and had always been very close to Menma.
During the final battle, Menma had controlled the Nine-Tails and faced an army of eighty thousand ninja, performing his own version of Madara’s famous:
“Would you like to dance too?”
“Menma! It’s so dark here! Hurry up and let me out!”
The little Nine-Tails pounded on the iron gate.
“If someone outside sees your Nine-Tails form, it’ll cause me a lot of trouble.”
Menma looked up at the seal on the gate.
Though honestly, he was only saying it casually.
He and the Dark Nine-Tails had been excellent partners in the Infinite Tsukuyomi world.
“You always have strange preferences.”
The little Nine-Tails complained.
At the same time, she began forming hand seals.
“Transformation Jutsu!”
Poof!
A cloud of smoke appeared.
When it dispersed, the little Nine-Tails had transformed into a tiny fox girl.
Barefoot, she wore a red-patterned kimono.
Two fox ears twitched atop her dark-red hair, while nine fluffy tails floated behind her.
“My chakra is still too low, so this is the best transformation I can manage. It’ll take at least three to five years to fully recover.”
The little fox girl looked down at herself unhappily before speaking to Menma.
“But from now on, I won’t need to absorb your chakra anymore. I can slowly recover on my own and even provide chakra to you.”
Looking at the eager little fox girl who couldn’t wait to support him with her chakra, Menma raised a thumbs-up.
He was already imagining the expressions Naruto and Kurama would have more than ten years later when they saw the Dark Nine-Tails.
The shock would definitely be priceless.
